too, not a muscle moving on her terrified face.
A second whip crack cut into the creature's smooth, grey neck. With a squeal of pain, it swivelled around snapping Celeste's branch as its front legs dropped to the ground with an earth-shaking jolt.
As the branch beneath her feet vanished and Celeste began to fall, Lyla stretched out her spear. Celeste grabbed it and swung her legs around a lower branch. `Thanks,' she mouthed.
With faces as white as the silver-circled moon that had suddenly emerged from a bank of dark grey cloud, the children watched and waited until they could no longer see the creature or hear its footfalls. Then shrugging her stiff shoulders Lyla turned to Swift. `How did you know it was coming?'
`The tree told me. When I touched it, it talked to me in my head the way the wolves talked to Lem.'
Chad nodded. `It talked to me too.'
`Can you hear it talking now?'
Chad rested his cheek against his branch. `It says there are six more creatures like that one in the forest.'
`I think talking to trees is our magic gift,' grinned Swift, patting the tree's trunk.
`Talking about gifts,' said Celeste climbing onto Lem's branch. `Could you have talked to that creature, Lem?'
`No. It isn't real.'
`It looked real.'
Swift wrinkled his nose up in disgust. `It stunk real too.'
`Well it isn't. Splash says it wasn't born from an egg or a mother. That it was becamed by magic.'
Celeste held up her snake and stared into its tiny, emerald green eyes. `What about its rider, Splash? Is he real?'
Lem answered for the snake. `No. He was becamed too.'
3
Bats in the Palace
The stork's nest was large enough for them to curl up in and soon all but Lem, who was on guard, were asleep. Two hours later it was Celeste's turn and then Chad's. During his watch the tree warned him the other six purple-tongued creatures were coming, so he woke the others.
With their hair full of stork's feathers and their eyes full of sleep, they climbed higher than their original perches to balance on branches so thin that they feared they might break at any sudden movement.
The dawn sky was the colour of raspberry juice and the pink moon was sliding beneath the horizon when they sighted the first long-necked creature. Behind it plodded five others, one behind the other. On their high backs sat their harsh-voiced, whip-whirling riders. These riders had removed their metal masks and the children could see their hairy faces and bulging eyes. Lem whispered that they were the ugliest of beings, and by the way they whipped their mounts, they were also the cruellest.
`It's not that I like the smelly blind creatures,' he breathed as they watched two of them rear up and bite each other after being fiercely whipped. `It's just not right to hurt them for no reason.'
`Perhaps the reason is that they haven't found us,' whispered Celeste.
Her words silenced them all but they each quietly drew their weapons, ready to fight for their lives. The creatures moving closer and closer to the twain nut tree, but again they were lucky, not just because they were higher but because it seemed as if the creatures were taking less care.
`Why are they looking for us, Cel?' whispered Swift, as the last of the grey monsters thudded out of sight.
`I think it's the same reason the High Enchanter, or the Sender of Storms, sent the storms,' answered Celeste thoughtfully. `To stop us from finding out what was in the moon dial. Now he's sending his creatures to stop us from finding out what the three moons' song means.'
`What does it mean?' yawned Chad, as they climbed back down to the nest.
`That's what we are going to find out,' said Lyla covering him with her cape. `And don't get settled Swift. It's your turn to sit guard.'
They hadn't meant to sleep late but the rocking of the branches lulled them so it was past middle day when they woke. Beside them slept Swift with his arms wrapped around the tree.
`I couldn't keep my eyes open and the tree said it would wake me if the creatures returned,' he argued, after Lyla chastised him for being a bad guard.
`You can't be sure about that!'
`Yes he can,' said Chad, who always stuck up for Swift.
With half the day gone they climbed down to the muddy path and continued following the river, travelling faster this time, because of the blind-headed creatures behind them. Foraging as they went they breakfasted on twain nuts that had to be broken with rocks, sour-berries that made their cheeks suck in, and water licked from the leaves of bushes, as the river no longer looked safe to drink from.
By evening they had left the over-flow and the forest was thinning out when they heard a roaring noise coming from up ahead.
`That reminds me,' said Lyla, pushing her dark curls behind her ears so she could hear the noise better. `I had another dream last night. That noise has just reminded me of it.'
Lem and Celeste moved closer. Behind them Chad and Swift continued to drag their feet while arguing over who had the largest hunger pain.
`I was flying over hills of sand until I reached a vast sea,' continued Lyla.
`What's a vast sea?' asked Celeste.
`Water that goes on forever. I flew along its edge until I reached the same white palace I dreamt of before.
This time its gardens and fountains were brightly lit and its lakes were full of beautiful swan-shaped boats being rowed by laughing people holding red lanterns. I was swooping down for a closer look when Chad woke me to warn me about the creatures coming. But that noise up ahead sounds a lot like the vast sea in my dream.'
`Does the vast sea have trees nearby to sleep in?'
Lyla shook her head.
`Does it have anything to eat in it?' demanded Swift clinging to Lyla's arm.
Lyla tried to shake him free. `Fish. If you can catch them.'
Swift was tired. His bag hurt his shoulders. The seeds, berries and nuts had not filled him, and now they were leaving the Forest to trudge over boot-clinging sand. He clung on tightly and whinged. `I'm hungry.'
`I'm hungry too,' echoed Chad, bumping purposefully into Lem. `I wish Lem hadn't given the wolves our smoked meat.'
Lem bumped back. `Would you rather have been eaten by them?'
`Of course he wouldn't,' said Celeste putting a protective arm around her brother's shoulders. `Stop it both of you. We're all hungry.'
`And thirsty,' complained Swift, pulling on Lyla again.
With a sigh of frustration she took his bag and told him and Chad to scout up ahead. `But don't go too far in case we have to race back to
