An excerpt from the book “The Mystery of the Enchanted Land”
An excerpt from the book “The Mystery of the Enchanted Land”
In the morning, the weather turned bad. The sky covered with gray clouds, prickly powder snow fell down unceasingly. Thick fog coated the saddle of the pass. The Kodar Mountains* didn’t want to open their secrets. Polina and Anders walked forward, getting over a slope after a slope. The gray wall of fog parted suddenly, and the piercing bottomless azure with background of shining snow-white mountain peaks appeared in the breaks of the clouds. The wayfarers stood in silent admiration of the riot of the stone energies. It seems the stone sea lifted its enormous waves with white crests during a wild storm, and the ridge of the stone waves, punctuated by deep canyons, continued as far as you can see.
“That’s the destination of our journey,” Polina gestured at the gigantic peak similar to an enormous tooth.
They stood listening attentively to the ringing silence. Nature froze in anticipation. The power that lied dormant for thousands of years, awakened from its deep sleep. She, who dared to wake it, stood near the precipice that separated the mountain top from the saddle of the pass.
“Polina,” Anders stretched his hand toward her, hoping to prevent the future.
“Too late,” she whispered with dry lips.
He stepped to the side, knowing she is right. The air rang with tension. It was terrible to imagine what a hurricane that was ready now to break away from the mountains can do.
Polina waited for the music she had heard in her dream. The wind which lives in our world since its creation brought to her ears the first sounds of the melody. The wind filled his symphony with all the best such as a song of a lark in the immense spring sky and an alarming drumbeat calling for a battle, a gentle whisper of the leaves in the sunset twilight and a triumphant roar of thunder during a summer storm, a rustle of icicles freezing along the river banks in early winter and a ringing song of icicles melting on roofs and trees in March.
Picking up the marvelous melody, Polina sang in the ancient language, enchanting the nature. Her voice intertwined with the pattern of the music. Submissive to magic of her words, long transparent threads stretched in the air; piecing together they weaved the lace of the openwork bridge that stretched over the precipice from the foot of the pass to the peak of the mountain. The bridge, created by the magic, has been lighter than air and stronger than steel.
Polina stepped on her miraculous creation and went over the stone sea. She was overflowing with delight in front of the power she has conquered. The element of air has become subservient to her.
* The Kodar Mountains are a mountain range in the Transbaikal region of Siberia in Russia.
About the author:
Galina Belomestnova is a novelist and short story writer, a member of the Russian Union of Writers and of the International Union of Writers. She was born March 15, 1955 in the town of Baley in the Zabaikalsky Region. She graduated as a health care worker, and began to write fiction only in 2005. Galina Belomestnova published two short story books, “Kamariya” and “Amanita mushrooms as the best cure for the blues.” Then, in 2015, she published a fantasy novel “The Mystery of the Enchanted Land”. She was awarded the diploma for the winning in the category “Legends, epics, and tales” of the 2011 All-Russian Literary Contest “The Galactic Season”.
