Erec held the crystal out, ignoring its pull back to where he had come from. After walking awhile he felt a new tug. Soon, before them opened another small stone tunnel.

When they were all safely inside the passageway, they rested against its stone walls. "That was terrible," Melody said. "I think that was the worst of all."

"I'm not sure," Jam said. "The Awen of Knowledge put us in just 263.

as much danger. The only difference is that we were not aware of it at the time." He drummed his fingers, thinking ahead as always. "We're going to need some rope when we go back there. A lot of rope, I think."

"What's next?" Jack sounded uncertain, still shaken by all the avalanches. "I can't wait to hear."

"The Awen of Sight," Jam said. "At the Great Wall of China."

"I've always wanted to see the Great Wall of China," Bethany said, excited. "Even though the last Awen was terrible, the fjords were amazing."

"I'm not sure you'll get to see the Great Wall," Erec said. "Considering the Awen of Sight is there. I can imagine we won't see much."

"Maybe it's just our insight that will be damaged. Or our foresight," Melody said.

"We'll just have to see," Jam said. "But I say we take out the Serving Tray and have some lunch before going on."

They passed the tray around, sharing what amounted to a feast, then put it back into Erec's backpack. After crawling through the tunnel, they stepped out into a dense fog. Mists whirled around them. They unzipped their parkas, feeling too warm. Erec took his off, but the wind quickly chilled him and he put it back on again. It seemed to be under fifty degrees, but much warmer than Norway had been.

A lone ginkgo tree towered over them, but beyond that, all was blurred. Erec took his singing crystal out and let it tug him forward. "Follow me," he called.

The group wound in a tight trail down a grassy hill. Soon, a huge dark shadow hovered before them. Erec wasn't sure if it was the Great Wall of China itself or some castle or fortress. It might have been a giant storm cloud that reached down to the ground. Hearing 264.

chattering voices, he steered closer and could make out human forms walking through the mist.

He called out to them, "Hello? We're visitors here. Is the Great Wall of China here?"

There was no response. As Erec walked closer to them, the mists closed around him, making it harder to see. Only when he was practically on top of them could he make out who they were.

Three hunched old figures walked slowly, batting long canes against the ground in front of them. Two were women and one was a man who had short gray hair poking from under his cap. They were toothless and wrinkled, and they stood still, peering back and forth in the fog with closed eyes.

One of the women started to speak in hushed tones. Erec could not understand a word of the language she spoke, but he had the feeling she was wondering about the noise he made.

"Hello?" he said quietly, standing at her side.

She jumped back in terror, eyes still shut.

"Do you, by chance, have some rope, modom?" Jam asked her.

The woman gaped around her, eyes shut, confused.

"She's blind," Bethany said. "They all are."

"And they can't understand English, it seems," Jam said. "I think we best leave them alone. We're frightening them."

Erec let his crystal pull him toward the towering shadow, and his friends followed. "I hope when we get this Awen out of here, they'll be able to see again."

"I wonder why we can see here and they can't," Jack said.

"Maybe we'd become like that too, after a while." Erec said. The singing crystal pulled him farther until the darkness morphed into a humongous stone wall. Wedges of earth and mortar cemented the stones in place. It towered over twenty feet tall, but more impressive, it blended as far as they could see into the mist around them.

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"This must be it." The crystal pulled him to a crack in a stone. Erec tugged at it, and a rock came out in his hand. A beautiful chord rang from his singing crystal. Under the rock rested another dodecahedron, a few inches in diameter like the others. This one seemed to glow an eerie blue, though Erec could not be sure. When he looked at it, his vision fuzzed.

He placed the rock back and let the crystal pull him farther. "Stay with me," he called. Each of them held the shirt of the person who walked in front of them. Erec took the lead. Soon they reached the small entrance of a rocky tunnel cut into the side of a grassy hill.

After a brief rest in the tunnel, they climbed out onto a perch in the mountains. It was hot, so they all dropped their coats by the tunnel entrance. Bethany pointed out that it was summer in the southern hemisphere now. Erec was glad to be able to see what was happening around him again.

"Where are we, Jam?"

"The Andes Mountains in Peru."

Something seemed odd, although Erec could not put a finger on it at first. He knew that Bile, the powerful old druid who had invented the Awen, had designed the Path of Wonder to pass through his favorite places. But something about this place did not seem as majestic as the others.

Erec checked off a list in his mind. Craggy brown mountains reaching for the sky? Yes. Bright blue overhead with fluffy white clouds? Yup. Wooded hillsides, a condor swooping in the sky, snowcapped ridges above, and tropical forests in valleys below? Uh-huh. Well, then, what was wrong?

A bright orange bird perched on a rock, staring at them, its head tilted. Something was also wrong with this parrot, or whatever it was. It just looked...

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Ugly. The bird looked hideous. The whole setting was somehow plain and disappointing. "I don't get it," Erec said. "I thought the Andes mountains were supposed to be beautiful."

"I'm sure they are," Jam said. "Just not in this spot. The Awen of Beauty is close by. It wouldn't affect the whole mountain range."

When Erec looked farther in the distance, he could see that the mountains were, indeed, beautiful. But everything close by looked unappealing. Well, he thought, if this was the only problem they would have with this Awen, he could handle that. This one must be the easiest to deal with.

Erec let his singing crystal lead him along a path carved into the mountainside. It felt good walking on solid ground without worrying about crashing into fjords a mile underfoot. He looked back to make sure everyone was okay, then tripped and stumbled when he caught sight of them. His friends looked terrible. Erec stopped and swung around, concerned.

"Are you all okay?" It didn't seem so. Bethany's cheeks and forehead swelled with blotchy red marks and sores. Her hair hung oddly, the left half drooping into her face. Jam looked sick, his skin pallid. Dark circles ringed his sunken eyes. Jack looked red and shiny. His skin seemed drawn tightly over his face, and his lips bulged like sausages. Melody's skin was covered with strange growths, and her features had changed so that she looked like a male wrestler.

What was happening to them? Erec wondered. Were they allergic to something?

A horrified expression bloomed on Bethany's distorted face. She squealed, "What is wrong with you? You look awful. Are you sick?"

Erec touched his face. It felt normal. "You all look pretty bad too." They all looked at one another, screeching and jumping. "Hey, guys." Erec was glad at least his voice sounded normal. "Let's try to keep our eyes on the path so we don't have to see each other too 267.

much. It's just the Awen of Beauty. No big deal." He turned around, glad to be facing forward with everyone else behind him.

Soon they approached a village. Small circular homes with round stone walls were topped with thatched roofs of dried grasses. People spinning wool, husking beans, chewing on sugarcane, and tethering unkempt llamas outside their homes stopped what they were doing. Crowding around Erec and his friends, they pointed, laughing, but Erec could not understand their language.

Erec was sure they were giggling at how awful he and his friends looked. But then he got a better view of the villagers. Most of them were shorter than he was. The men wore colorful ponchos with bright geometric designs, and the women wore bright loose skirts and blouses. Beads and pendants hung around their necks. Yet they were so badly put together they were difficult to look at. Their skin seemed to hang off their frames at odd angles. Noses bulged sideways, black teeth jutted forward, scars and warts covered most visible skin. Each was so unpleasant to look at that Erec had to keep shifting his gaze from one to the next.

"Hi," he announced. "We're traveling through, on a quest for something hidden near here. Have you heard of the Awen?" He wondered if the villagers had any idea why they all looked the way that they did.

The villagers seemed not to understand, but they crowded around Erec and his friends, reaching out craggy hands and touching them. Erec began to feel uncomfortable in the crowd and stepped away, pushing a few hands aside.

Some of the villagers pulled a man from one of the houses and shoved him forward toward Erec. The man looked just as awful as the others in the village.

He shook Erec's hand. "I Hakan. I Englis." It took some thought for Erec to decipher from his heavy accent that he was saying he 268.

spoke English. "I from Ollantaytambo, near Urubamba. We talk Quechua. I know English from tourist in Ollantaytambo."

Erec was fairly sure that this village would not get many tourists. Tour guides would probably want people to come away thinking how beautiful the Andes were. Not only were the people here difficult to look at, but the village was stark and unappealing.

Hakan nodded his head a few times. "You eat?"

"Um, okay." Erec wasn't looking forward to whatever food they produced, but he did not want to be rude.

Shouts in Quechua resulted in people running in different directions, excited. Soon Erec and his friends were presented with steaming bowls of quinoa laden with potatoes, beans, and corn. It looked terrible, but it actually tasted delicious. Erec found that if he closed his eyes when he was eating, it was a truly wonderful experience.

Hakan explained that this village had a curse. They had offended Pachamama, the Earth Mother spirit, and she had taken their beauty away from them. Hakan said that he once looked nice, but after spending time with the villagers here, he too had been affected. He still managed to fall in love and settle down. "Love deeper than looks." He pointed at Erec and said it again.

They thanked the people and talked about moving on. Erec would be glad to take the Awen of Beauty away from this place. Soon they might experience life differently, see the mountains around them as they were meant to be seen.

Jam paused. "Do you kind people have some rope we might take with us?"

Erec was glad that Jam had remembered to ask. He was sure that some rope would come in handy when they were back in Norway with the Awen of Creation. It was strange, here in the summer heat in Peru, to think that he had just been in freezing Norway.

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Hakan spoke in Quechua to the villagers. Soon they were shouting, giggling, and slapping each other on the backs. Hakan turned to Erec with a grin. "We have rope. You can have. But trade. Rope for you."

"Rope for me?" Erec repeated, shaking his head to show he did not understand.

Hakan pointed at a girl who stood under a thatched roof of one of the nearby homes. "That Chinpukilla. She like you lot. She need marry now. Want you marry."

Erec choked. Never mind the fact that Chinpukilla looked like a cross between Godzilla and a slimy giant slug. Never mind that he would sooner kiss Tina, his many-eyed Hydra friend, than this human. Regardless of all that, Erec was not in the market to get married. He was a bit young. And staying here, or carting his new wife around with him, was not an option.

"I...don't think so." He put his hands up in front of him. "I mean, no offense, but--"

"Chinpukilla love Rec. She never see so beautiful man ever."

Bethany made a gagging sound near Erec.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bethany," he said.

"Not like any of us look good now," she said.

It was true. Erec knew he must look terrible. But compared to these people, living near the Awen of Beauty for their whole lives, he probably looked like a movie star.

A man walked forward with a stern look, calling out something in Quechua. Hakan said, "This Qhawana. He Chinpukilla father. You new father."

"Not so fast," Erec said. "I can't get married. I'm sorry."

Hakan spoke to Qhawana and then said to Erec, "We give you rope, three llama, and new house. Okay?"

"No!"

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Hakan and Qhawana had a quiet conversation. Erec was glad he could not understand them. Then Hakan said, "Rope, four llama, house, and corn patch. Final offer."

"Think hard, Erec," Bethany said.

Jack laughed. "Drive a harder bargain, dude. Maybe you can get them to throw in a little money, too. Hey, that's an idea. Maybe we could trade you for the rope, some money, and some more of that great stew. Sounds like a fair trade to me."

"Shut up."

Hakan looked like he was considering Jack's words. Erec said, "I'm not getting married. Sorry. Could you give us the rope anyway? We're trying to take this Awen away and help you out."

"Awen?" Hakan looked confused. "No marry, no rope."

Jam bowed to Hakan. "Sir, we will think about your kind offer. We must go now on our errand. When we come back we will discuss it."

After they left, Jam said, "They have rope. Now we just need a plan to get it from them."

"But first, the Awen of Beauty," Erec said. They followed the singing crystal around the mountainside into an area that looked even uglier than what they had just seen. "It must be this way."

271.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Awen of Creation.NASTY STEEL-GRAY ROCK jutted up on either side of the barren path. Erec tried not to look at his friends; their features were becoming coarser and more disturbing. He knew he must look awful as well, but at least he felt fine.

The singing crystal's pull grew stronger, leading him to a small hole in a rocky ledge under an orchid tree. The tree was in bloom, but its flowers looked like droopy red welts. Erec felt sick looking at it.

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Right inside the hole sat a shining green dodecahedron. Black symbols gleamed from its twelve faces. Although the chord ringing from his singing crystal sounded clear and beautiful, the Awen itself looked nasty.

Fear gripped Erec for a moment. He had yet to touch one of the Awen. Would it permanently affect him? Well, there wasn't much choice, and he'd come a long way. He reached in and grabbed it, but it would not move from its spot.

Erec remembered that Lugh had said removing the Awen was almost impossible without the singing crystal. He had called the crystal the master of the Awen. So Erec touched his crystal to the Awen of Beauty. That did the trick. The green twelve-sided object rose from its crevice, lifted by the tip of the crystal into the air, and then dropped into Erec's hand.

Erec felt a rush of satisfaction. He had done it! This quest was possible after all. Soon all of these cursed places would be fixed again.

He spun around with a grin. Melody looked at him and screamed, and Bethany gagged and fainted. Jack, after one glance at Erec, retched several times into the grass. All of them looked even worse than before, so Erec figured he must too.

Jam turned away, a hand out as if to ward off the sight of Erec. His voice shook. "Are you okay, young sir?"