The ball disappeared, and she again found herself in the battle hall, which now looked intact, as before.
The only thing Super Queen-Mother had time to notice was the restored field of the stadium. She was at once thrown to the ocean bottom.
The judges remembered the beginning of the battle very well. Now they did not want to leave Super Queen-Mother unattended even for a minute.
The earthly women appeared to be unpredictable, and they got a special woman – Super Queen-Mother.
Super Queen-Mother quickly took stock of the situation.
She was in front of the entrance to a big dark cave. A sandy bottom with rare stones was barely seen there, like in the dusk; long, green algae were growing on them. Fish and mussels were moving on the sand, looking for some food.
Super Queen-Mother did not notice any big sea animals. There was no danger nearby. She did not hurry – the time was on her side.
Suddenly, a waterspout began to swirl her and then carried to the cave at lightning speed.
Super Queen-Mother set herself free of the obtrusive hugs, having destroyed it by a small energy outbreak.
It was very dark in the cave. She released small but powerful bundles of energy. The balls brightly illuminated the flooded cave.
Super Queen-Mother was in a big hall, decorated with numerous hanging stalactites. Tall outgrowths of stalagmites were directly under them. Some of them joined with the former, forming stalagnates. Motionless stone «waterfall» was «flowing down» from the left corner of the hall.
Super Queen-Mother thought that this cave had been on the planet surface for a long time, because all these stone outgrowths could be formed only in the air, and then, after the continental platform had lowered, appeared under the water.
There were some passages from this general hall into the depths of the rock. As soon as she swam to the main passage, the central entrance into the cave collapsed, and the water pushed her on her back.
Super Queen-Mother glanced back and saw as a lot of strange creatures were being formed in the water. They were long and transparent.
«It looks like a nesting of water snakes», she thought.
Super Queen-Mother threw one of the balls down the cave, but did not burst it, remembering that water did not compress. Instead, she discharged it gradually.
The water in the hall boiled.
In front of the entrance to her cave Super Queen-Mother put the second ball.
Water reptiles rushed to other passages. The water killed those who did not succeed to run away.
The energy not only killed all live creatures, which could be in it; it lifted the dead bodies to the cave ceiling.
Their transparent bodies could be seen now – the boiled reptiles became white. Now Super Queen-Mother could look them over.
They were snakes a hundred feet long, with small legs but sharp claws. Their tails, strong for such bodies, were wide in their upper and narrow in their lower part, like in fish; it assumed a good speed. They had two caudal fins. The head was like that of an ordinary snake, but with a small beard, which caught vibrations and smells coming from a prey.
Super Queen-Mother noticed all that with a corner of her eye and swam inward the cave. Bright balls – her light and vanguard weapons – led Super Queen-Mother to another hall, even larger.
It was a strange hall.
She swam to the middle of it and felt that her hand was hanging in the air. Super Queen-Mother pulled her hand closer to her body and cautiously swam a bit more. Her head and hands hung over a water precipice.
It was the simplest trap, and Super Queen-Mother discerned it in time. She looked the hall over and did not see anything dangerous.
Super Queen-Mother sank in the water in full and reached the bottom. She made some steps on the cave bottom and… came out into the air.
Super Queen-Mother turned back and saw a water column in front of her, hanging in the air without any support. The water’s edge was not smooth. It reminded her of the wall of a gorge, cut out by a mountain stream in the limestone.
This interested her, and she shoved her hand into the water. There were no obstacles to it; her hand freely went into the water and out of it. There were not any special holding devices either above or beneath.
It was not clear what was holding the water. She knew – one had to beware of odd things.
Super Queen-Mother looked over the place.
The farther entrance noisily opened and closed all the time. A piece of the rock worked as a door. It was not just dark, but very dark behind it; it was absolute darkness. When the entrance opened, dry, frosty air came out, forming a tongue of the white hoarfrost, which did not thaw.
Next to it was one more entrance, and it was a model of elegance and beauty. Super Queen-Mother came up closer to it. The entrance led toward the rock.
The floor, enchased with large, polished, colored and transparent gemstones and lit from beneath, was displaying the changing images of her thoughts.
Super Queen-Mother thought about her home, and it appeared on the colored mosaic floor; one could discern even the bay in the sea in the far part of the passage. Color discrepancies looked very original.
The walls, made of the whole mountain crystal, were displaying the most attractive pictures of the surrounding landscape, which only nature could create.
The pictures were brightly shining in her vicinity and became darker farther in the passage, or shone in fragments. Darkened parts shone with soft opalescent colors.
The ceiling was decorated with large diamonds, and it displayed bright and contrasting images. It showed morning dawn, slipping into dusk, and different parts of the universe, which seemed to be illuminated from beneath by a powerful light source. Then the dawn came again, and everything went around.
Super Queen-Mother thought:
«It’s a very strange entrance. And what if it is replaying my life, year after year, at such a speed? Each dawn adds a year of my life. Nobody will go to the end of such an entrance without growing older, till the day of his or her death.»
As if in response to her thoughts, melodious, plaintive sounds came from the depths of the entrance, and an invisible cloud of a divine fragrance covered her.
«It’s time to leave from here, and the quicker the better», Super Queen-Mother decided and walked through the wide tunnel deep into the cave.
A deep stream, flowing down, took up half of the passage. Its waters fell down from a height of about four feet.
From aside, the stream looked like a long live aquarium, though it did not have glass walls, keeping the water. Some fish was seen, swimming inside the stream, closer to its edges. The water was cloudy, with some mud in it. Sometimes, some shadows were flickering here and there. They moved very quickly, and it was difficult to make them out.
A small white fish jumped out of the stream, thrashed on the dry floor of the cave for some time, then jumped back into the stream and swam out of sight. It looked like the fish often carried out such tricks.
An interesting thought came into Super-Queen-Mother’s mind. She waited for a fish, falling out of the stream, caught it and came back to the beautiful passage. Super Queen-Mother threw the fish inside it and started watching.
Very soon the fish stopped thrashing, became stock still and then began to decay. Super Queen-Mother smiled ironically – her guess was right.
She returned to the stream. Suddenly, the picture became yellowish-waxen. Super Queen-Mother moved away from the stream to the wall, but then changed her mind and took up a position in the middle – between the stream and the wall.
A huge medusa jumped out of the stream at a great speed. Its jelly-like body was of different bright acid colors – dark-purple, dark-red, and dark-green.
At the same time, a yellow cloud of steam came out of the opposite wall of the cave. The yellow-waxen color of the surroundings became more intense, and Super Queen-Mother left the dangerous spot.
She watched the medusa slowly, like in slow-motion pictures, coming into the cloud of concentrated poisonous steam. Its jelly-like shell and feelers were dissolving as it was flying through the deathly cloud and it fell down on the floor in the form of colorful pieces and drops. Its core – a dense, bright, emerald green ball with thorns, which remained intact – hit against the wall of the cave.
The sound of cracking stone was heard, and knocked-out pieces of the rock flew every which way from the spot where the ball had fallen. The stone rain continued, followed by the noise, but the ball was not seen – it got inside the rock. The noise it was producing also went to the depths of the rock.
A stifled, continuous death cry came out of the rock, and pieces of torn flesh began to fly out of the hole, followed by a strong blood jet.
«What a bad creature», Super Queen-Mother thought and went farther along the tunnel. She could not even imagine what animal had lived inside the rock.
The passage appeared to be very dangerous. Super Queen-Mother restored the yellowish-waxen picture and went on with great care, ready to meet any lightning attack.
The stream of water ran down into a pit in the corner of a small hall. There was a small whirlpool at the spot where it fell. The noise of the falling water was not heard, because the running water took up the whole pit.
Super Queen-Mother stooped and walked under the stone, hanging above the passage. She found herself in a big hall.
At the very top numerous creatures were swinging like enormous chandeliers, holding on to the ceiling with their strong claws.
The «chandeliers» had a lot of small mirrors instead of lamps, and a lot of small wings located on the mirror pads.
Their flask-shaped heads were provided with telescopic eyes, turning round. The eyes, not used at the moment, sagged in their holes on their heads.