“At least, there’s no danger whatsoever in it,” Nolton tried to cheer him up.
“That we have not come across someone or something dangerous on our path in no way indicates that there is no danger farther ahead…” said Archi doubtfully.
Suddenly, Lumi stopped and started to shake the flashlight.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Barti was immediately worried.
“Something’s wrong with the flashlight,” said Lumi and continued to shake it. Looking suspiciously at Lumi, Nolton was about to object.
“Really? I don’t remem…” the flashlight instantly went out and everyone was swallowed by the darkness.
“What’s this? Where’s everybody?” Barti started shouting and tried to fumble for his buddies, almost poking out Nolton’s eye.
There was a commotion. And unexpectedly, especially for Barti, Lumi again switched on the flashlight, illuminating his face and saying: Boo! No one of those present was particularly impressed by this. They only turned with serious faces in the direction of the inappropriate joker. Except for Barti, who out of fright lost his balance. Realising that the idea was not that good, Lumi was about to continue on his way, but after taking one single step, he was caught on a wire. At that very moment, the floor under the Sharmuziks sharply tilted and everybody began to slide off. First, down a stone block, and then they fell into water, and they were carried away somewhere by a rapid current. Lumi and Renchi were shouting loudly, with their arms in the air. Barti was just shouting, with has hands covering his face. Nolton was trying to hold his hat, while Archi and Professor Wisen were floating somewhere behind, lagging behind the others.
At the end of this short way, the Sharmuziks, one after the other, ended up in something that looked like a small pool. With surprisingly warm water for an underground location.
“And you said there’s no danger?” said Archi jokingly as he came out of the pool.
The band found itself in a new puzzling room. It was illuminated by four strange chandeliers in the form of balls hanging in the air right under the ceiling. In any case, this was how it seemed at first glance, as the Sharmuziks might have simply not noticed what they were actually suspended by. There was some kind of an unclear structure in the centre of the room. It looked like two stone compasses, one on top of the other. The needles pointed to different parts of the world and were of two different colours. North was blue, south red, west green and east yellow. In addition to the strange structure in front of the needle that was pointing north, there were three identical doors. Wind was depicted above the first one, fire above the second and a drop of water above the third one. For a while, the Sharmuziks simply walked around the room in silence, carefully examining every corner, while Professor Wisen sat down across from the two compasses and was lost in thought, trying to figure out their meaning.
“What’s all of this?” finally asked Archi, not understanding anything of what he had seen.
“It’s a riddle,” explained Professor Wisen, without moving a muscle.
“A riddle?” asked Archi, as if hearing the word for the first time.
“Yes. We need to solve it. Only then will we be able to get out of this room.”
“Look! There’s also some kind of an inscription here!” said Nolton, noticing a few letters on the circle in the centre of the needles. Wiping off a layer of dust, he was able to make out the inscription, similar to the one that was above the arch at the entrance to the tunnel. With golden letters as well, there were additional inscriptions arranged in a circle, one under the other.
Eternal winter suddenly replaced with warmth,
The sun’s rays have already reached the earth,
Shoots and leaves, bushes and trees,
All in the next moment fell into silence,
The wind dispelled all the remaining ashes,
The desert replaced with green meadows.
“And what is this supposed to mean? Does anybody have an idea?” asked Archi, for whom the contents of the verses remained a mystery.
“That’s one complicated riddle,” muttered Barti and leaned on the needle pointing north. Suddenly it began to move slowly clockwise, simultaneously with the other, which began to move in the opposite direction. From the circle that was in the centre, some metal cylinder began to slide out, stopping midway.
“It seems Barti was able to solve the principle of this mechanism after all,” said Lumi in astonishment.
Carefully re-reading the inscription and looking at the mechanism one more time, Professor Wisen drew the following conclusion: “I think I got it. North replaced with south. It’s in the inscription. “Eternal winter suddenly replaced with warmth!” Now we have to solve the direction in which to push the other two needles.”
“Yes, it looks like you’ve got it! Let’s just push them until they get to the right position!” suggested Archi and was about to go ahead with his idea.
“Stop! What if we push them in the wrong direction?” Nolton stopped his friend, who immediately stepped aside.
Professor Wisen, after wiping his glasses, re-read the passage.
“The end of the inscription reads: “The desert replaced with green meadows.” The sand in the desert is yellow, and green meadows are…”
“Probably green,” interrupted Lumi.
“So we need to turn the yellow needle to the green side?” asked Renchi, as if trying to make sure that he got everything right.
“That’s too easy… we have to read the inscription one more time,” said Nolton suspiciously.
“If we don’t try, we’ll never know,” said Archi and pushed the yellow needle.
“Well… All we have to do now is wait and hope that we’ve done everything right,” said Nolton sarcastically, realizing that there was no turning back now.
As soon as the needle occupied a new place, the metal cylinder came out completely to the surface. The Sharmuziks decided to get closer to the cylinder to better understand its purpose, and at that same instant, one of its walls flew off abruptly and knocked off Nolton’s hat. There was a coin inside the cylinder. Nolton got it out of the cylinder and examined it carefully. The coin was silver in colour and was of average size, like a small pebble. It had no special engravings or images and looked more like a flat piece of metal.
“And what do we do with it?” asked Archi from over Nolton’s shoulder, trying to have a look at the coin.
“It’s best to just throw it away. This piece of metal won’t be of any use to us,” muttered Lumi, leaning against the wall.
Suddenly, the wall began to move forward. At first, Lumi, baffled, was looking at the others and slowly moved forward. When he realized that it was not him who was moving but rather the wall behind him, he wanted to get away. But the wall seemed as if it did not want to let go of Lumi and at the same time grabbed him by the sweater with an almost unnoticeable nail, and began shifting upwards, stopping a metre above the ground. Lumi tried to unhook himself on his own, twitching in the air. Meanwhile all the others were huddled around the coin, trying to understand what it was for. Lumi realized that no one had even noticed what had happened to him and cleared his throat loudly. Everybody looked back in surprise. However, after seeing what had emerged in the place from where the wall had come out, their attention was immediately captured by something else. While Renchi and Archi tried to bring down their buddy, the others were examining the strange device. It was the size of a Sharmuzik, had three holes and a lever on the side. There was an inscription above the holes: Life. And opposite each of them were the words: Gives, Sustains, Ends.
“I wonder why it’s here,” said Nolton, as he went around the device, carefully examining it.
Not responding with anything to Nolton’s question, Professor Wisen looked closely at each of the holes