Ripped Apart: Quantum Twins – Adventures On Two Worlds by Geoffrey Arnold Read Free Book Online

click came from Mandara’s machine and the soft humming grew in intensity.
    The screen showed a large number
10
    ‘?’
    9
    They froze
    8
    thoughtshared:
We must go!!
    7
    leapt to their feet as
    6
    Tullia grabbed the lantern and helped
    5
    Qwelby stuff items back into the bag
    4
    as they stepped onto the base
    3
    standing on each other’s feet as they struggled to get all four
    feet inside the metallic edge
    2
    about to fall off, they grasped each other
    1
    teetered sideways
    0
    and fell.
    *
    Disoriented, their teeter turned into a painful fall onto a hard surface. They pulled themselves up into sitting positions and grabbed at one another as they gasped in dismay. They had landed on a narrow walkway that ran around a circular tower made of dark stone. Looking up there was a domed, black roof. Around the walkway were several small windows.
    Their eyes locked, each saw the other run a tongue around their lips. Slowly, they looked back up. Dozens of bats were hanging upside-down from the roof. The name ‘Belfry Bats’ slid into their minds. They gulped.
    Staying on hands and knees, each crawled to a separate window, grabbed hold of the stone sill and looked over. Far below all was peaceful. A wide expanse of grass that stretched away to a low range of hills.
    The twins had never been up a bell tower before. In fact they were sure there was no bell tower at Lungunu. They looked all around. No sight of the house.
    ‘Lungunu must be the other side of those hills,’ suggested Qwelby.
    ‘And the snow stopped over there,’ Tullia tried to sound as though she believed that.
    ‘Would fit,’ he agreed.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said, unconvinced.
    They could not see any obvious way down from the bell tower. No lift, no graviton descenders, no stairway waiting to be thoughtprompted into appearance. Thinking that around Lungunu it was always a sensible precaution to have non-quantum items in reserve, their peered over the edge. Not even any ladders or challenging handholds in the smooth walls to be seen.
    They looked at the ropes dangling from the bells and shook their heads.
    Feeling more unsettled than ever before, not daring to stand up on the narrow walkway they had landed on, they crawled to each other and sat down with their legs dangling over the edge. They merged auras and tried to restore contact with their friends.
    Darkness.
    With mounting panic they tried Dad, Gumma, Gallia and their mother.
    Thick, smelly Darkness.
    They looked into each other’s twirling eyes, purple shot with greys and browns and even yellows. Whatever was preventing them reaching outside, was not preventing them from sharing. They watched as each pair of eyes settled down and a soft purple colour returned, although still tinged with ochre.
    
    A massive wooden beam about the width of one of their feet extended from one side of the tower to the other. From it hung three bells. Attached to the top of each bell was a much smaller wooden beam sticking out horizontally. From the far end of that dangled a rope. Pulling the rope made the bell swing against the clapper. As the rope was released the bell swung back, the other side striking the clapper.
    The bells were a soft copper colour. The ropes were twirls of alternating red and white. The very prettiness making a contrast to the dark walls of the tower was reminiscent of a scene from a HWScary they had wrapped into, with a frightening, brightly coloured clown.
    They would have to crawl along the beam from opposite sides, reach out and jump or fall and catch a rope. Looking down the outside of the tower they had seen that it was a long way down to the ground. Looking down the inside, they saw it was just as far. Imagination was not working!
    
    Looking across and seeing the colours swirling through the other’s energy field, they knew this was not a competition. They needed to work together.
    ‘No time like the present,’ said Tullia.
    ‘I’d prefer tomorrow,’ quipped