The Elderine Stone by Alan Lawson Page A

angry with him. He considered that having Emily angry with him may actually be worse than facing the Dark Lady. He had meant the whole thing as a joke, but maybe humour was different here.
    “Emily, you know I was only joking back there, don’t you? I’m sorry if I hurt you or annoyed you.”
    She smiled prettily.
    “ It’s ok Jason, I knew you were only joking, I was just playing along. Besides I wouldn’t have let you walk all over me like that, you should know me better, by now.”
    Emily grinned.
    “ You’re right. Anyways, I’m still sorry, and I’m glad we’re still friends.”
    Emily gave him a look which he couldn’t quite interpret, and he felt his face start to grow warm.
    “Well! Let’s get going… We’re heading to that big blue dome over there, then?” he said, trying to cover his embarrassment by changing the subject.
    “ Yes,” she replied, looking away. “It shouldn’t take us too long to get there. Soon we should know a bit more about the Order of Elderine, and their stone.”
    Once again the three set off down the cobbled road, heading towards the blue dome. As they walked, they passed more strange looking buildings, homes, shops and craft workshops each looking as dangerously close to collapsing as the next, but each very surprisingly constructed securely. They soon reached the end of the road which then split.
    “Which way is it now?” Jason asked
    “I’m not too sure” Emily looked left and right, each direction looking completely the same “lets try this way” Emily pointed as she started to walk along the road to the right, closely followed by boy and imp.
    The direction of the road, and the shops on either side, meant that they couldn’t see the blue dome at all, and so they weren’t actually too sure if they were heading the right way or not. By the time they had walked half way along it, they were quite sure they weren’t heading in the right direction at all.
    Finally, after walking a little further, with a few more comments from Emily about this road not looking right, and a few more encouragements from Sherbit that “maybe there was a turn between those shops, right ahead”, they decided to turn back and try the other way.
    They returned to the fork and went left, happily reassuring each other that it couldn’t be too far now, and trying to take a bearing on where the dome was before losing sight of it again. Whilst walking however, they soon felt they were getting further and further from the blue dome. Once again, Emily started to mention that the road ‘looked wrong.’ A few grumbles later, Sherbit bounced off.
    “I wonder what he’s up to” Emily said.
    “ I don’t know, but we shouldn’t let him get too far” Jason replied as he watched Sherbit run round the side of a house and out of their line of sight.
    Emily and Jason walked over to the building that Sherbit had disappeared behind to find a small dark looking alley. Thinking that all the other roads seemed to lead away from the library they decided to take their chance and see where the alley led. It couldn’t be much worse than walking what seemed like an endless road that led to no where in particular. Sherbit was sitting waiting for them.
    “Maybe the library is this way” Sherbit said as he pointed down the alley, His large grin showing as he pointed.
    “It’s worth a try” Jason said, though he grimaced at some of the smells that were drifting out towards them.
    As they walked along the small cobbled alley which lay in-between two rows of houses, they noticed that every so often another alley would join onto the one which they were walking along.
    After a while Jason stopped.
    “Maybe we should try one of these side alleys’ this one doesn’t seem to be going anywhere at all”
    “ You’re right. We’ll take this one.” Emily said, and moved towards an alleyway pointing over to a dark passage, which really didn’t look too inviting at all. Why Emily hadn’t picked a brighter,