"Have I time to go and find a sledgehammer before she depetrifies?" Yarna
asked, contemplating resorting to desperate measures. But just as she
spoke, the glow began to subside, and within a few seconds it had
vanished altogether.
Seeing that Astra looked no different from before, Yarna breathed a sigh of relief. "You had me worried there," she told Belboz. But she had spoken too soon. There was a screeching sound as Astra's stone head slowly turned in the direction of Yarna's voice. "Who are you?" she asked, not recognising her sister, thirty years older than when she had seen her last. "This looks like the palace throne room. How did I get here? Where's that rat Pronklezilch? I feel so strange, so stiff and heavy. What did he do to me?" The situation was so bizarre that Yarna and Belboz were too stunned to interrupt her. It was almost as though they had been petrified themselves. Not the least strange thing was Astra's voice, which was deep and rumbling and totally non-human in its quality. "Look down at yourself," Belboz said, having found his tongue. "That will answer one of your questions. I am Belboz, by the way, a wizard of whom you may have heard." "Not another wizard!" Astra grumbled. But she laboriously bent her neck to look down at herself, producing another grating noise in the process. "I'm made of stone!" she gasped. "How is that possible?" "Pronklezilch turned you into a statue thirty years ago," Belboz explained. "Your sister Yarna here discovered you only very recently and had you brought here with your equally petrified companion." "Naturally I asked Belboz to try to restore you to flesh and blood," Yarna put in. "But he has been only partially successful, restoring you to life but leaving you made of stone." "Thank you for the attempt," Astra said, not suspecting her sister of duplicity. "I am very grateful to you. Knowing what our family is like, there must have been a temptation for you to keep me as a statue." "Of course not. Um, I'm afraid that Mother died some years ago. Naturally we all presumed that you must be dead, so many years having passed. So I was crowned Queen."
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6/23/2009 12:32:39 PM
Extending Enabled
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