E.C. EDWARDS - The Mighty Antimagic Spell

The first train ride was a more than incredible experience for Elizabeth. Along with Professor Knudlac, Johnny and Alexander with whom she spent the journey in that train compartment, she learned many things and stories.

Out of the window, they could see the sand caves of touareg wizards. Those magic caves crossed by the train, which they left behind, were dwellings of those touaregs that changed size and shape according to their inhabitants’ will.

The sand moulded with those nomads’ wands formed mansions, castles or magnificent palaces, as never seen before.

And their interior ... could take any shape. Pyramidal, spherical or even in the form of an icosahedron - a geometric body that has no more or less than twenty corners.

At that window, when they came to the surface, they could see the magic river and the imposing magic waterfall, both of them bearing the same name, Bighaar, which was different from any other waterfall because the water flowed upward. And for this reason, all the rainbows formed by this waterfall were upside down.

The kids saw many things and heard many stories in their trip, adventures recalled by Professor Knudlac, during the journey that led them to the second event ... in the depths of the Purple Oasis.

…

Elizabeth’s dance looked like a melody in the depths of Purple Oasis waters; she had the grace of a mermaid. One would say she always had that tail covered with silver scales instead of feet, considering her ease when she found her way in the water.

She swam so delicately following spiral patterns big or small and advanced through the water with the swiftness of a dolphin and the grace of a swan that seemed to dance to master Tchaikovsky's music, as if she were born that way.

Alexander was next to her, with the same fish-specific tail. But he lacked the desire to swim that characterized Elizabeth.

The two swam very easily in those waters, except that Alexander was a little ... clumsier in his movements. Nor did he take such pleasure in swimming in the crystalline waters, as the girl did.

Elizabeth smiled, while Alexander was clearly disturbed by the fact that the girl had fun, instead of looking for the Purple Parchment with him.

“Please, stop that nonsense and help me look for that parchment. Because we have less than an hour before the effect of the potion fades away.”

Elizabeth didn't say anything, but her smile disappeared when she saw how serious the boy was, so she approached him.

Thanks to the magic potion Syrennum Vitalis, for which they also needed those famous poplar roots, they could now breathe and swim freely in the waters of the Purple Oasis.

The two could even talk in the water, but only they could understand each other, for all their other words echoed like dolphins’ sounds. To understand them it was necessary to drink from the Syrennum Vitalis potion.

Lots of fish, big and small, less or more colourful and strange, some were rainbow-coloured, other phosphorescent red, other, egg-shaped or having a scales mane like a lion’s.

But the two didn't have time to admire all those marine creatures. At least not Alexander, who studied a map that was given to them. This event tested their logic and thinking. There were no ice golems or other sea creatures more dangerous than them in this event, or other creatures to endanger their lives. Instead, they had to use their wisdom and find the second parchment.

“We could talk with the other competitors ...,” said the girl, watching at another mermaid, one of Professor Hikkaido's boys, passed quickly by her.

“We have different maps,” Alexander quickly discouraged her hope to be helped. “Each team has another hiding place for the parchment ...”

The boy held in his hand a magic map, waterproof, which changed from time to time the records on it.

“I noticed that at one point, the map showed the area where we were”, said Alexander, but it seemed he talked to himself.

“Yes ... but at one point it showed a room. Where can you find a room in the middle of these waters? Maybe this is the wrong map,” Elizabeth tried to seem interested.

But a group of dolphins passing by them, again distracted the girl's attention, who couldn’t ignore the moment when one of the dolphins approached her and touched her with its fine muzzle right on her delicate cheek.

The girl looked at Alexander smiling, but when she saw again that he only thought of deciphering the map, she waved goodbye to the dolphins for the next time, and approached the boy again.

"Maybe that room is on a sunken ship or a cave," the girl said as she tried to touch some brightly coloured fish that passed by her.

Alexander didn't say anything, but he used the girl's observation.

"We may have to get to this cave," Alexander said, touching the map at one point.

And without waiting for the girl's approval, he began to swim to that point on the map, comparing the drawings on the map with what he saw in reality. Elizabeth followed him.

The body of a dragon on the map could be easily assimilated to a deep gorge in the purple oasis and the grids drawn on that map were those huge algae stretching from the bottom of the purple oasis almost near the surface of the water, between which you could only slip through because they were somewhat sticky. And that Cyclops’s head was a huge, round rock whose eye was the entrance to that cave Alexander saw.

The two eventually entered the cave. Its floor was smoother and more polished than any marble. They didn’t have the honour to see such beauty, not even in emirs’ palaces. The marble was illuminated in all colours as they advanced, as if walking on every colour of a rainbow.

The walls of that cave, however, were full of irregular rock structures, irregular in different shapes. Those stalactites and stalagmites formed from the limestone dripped in millions of years were in contrast to that floor that illuminated the two children’s path.

And behold, as they entered that cave, the first map vanished. They could see only the image with some corridors and the directions where they had to go, as well as the plan of the room where they had to enter.

At the same time, those mermaid tails disappeared too. They had legs again, so necessary to walk in a cave.

Following the directions on the map, the two went along some corridors beautifully illuminated by those magic floors. As they read the map incorrectly, the children came to a dead end at one point, but after looking more carefully at the indications on it, they managed to find a beautifully carved, large and heavy door, locked and protected by a kind of a magic field. Perhaps it was the door leading to the last room on the map, because the part of the map with corridors disappeared too.

“Behold, we found it,” the girl said, gladly.

“The trouble is just beginning. We have to open the door,” Alexander managed to get her smile fade away with his low voice.