Free Secret Of the Sighing Mountains (The Quest Trilogy) by Iram Dana Page A

“If I miss breakfast I’ll die!”
    Diego rolled his eyes at Sierra. “Stop being such a drama queen, stinky. Let’s go take a shower first.”
    “But it might make me miss breakfast.”
    “Come on … you don’t need half an hour to eat your breakfast. You inhale your food, in any case.”
    “Just half an hour!” exclaimed Sierra. With a sigh, Diego gave up and walked out of the room with his things. His mission accomplished, Sierra jumped down from his bunk with a big grin splitting his face and followed after Diego with his own towel and clothes bundled in his arms.
     
    *****
     
    The next day, the sequestors were all a mass of aches, pains and bruises. For Diego and Sierra, the first few days at Mt. Chimpu were spent adjusting to the new environment.
    Sierra didn’t waste a day in trying out his belt. The first item that he hid in it was a banana that he had nicked from the dinner table. That night in his room he fished around for it in his pocket and found, to his surprise, that it was intact and not smashed. Exhilarated that the belt really worked, he would regularly fleece things off of the dinner and lunch tables and stuff it all in his belt. Whenever he got the chance, he’d remove his stash and feast on the accumulated goodies. No matter how much he stuffed into the belt, it never seemed to get any heavier. He decided that next he would try to find out how long perishable goods could be kept. That experiment failed miserably when he found spoilt buns in his belt. After that he decided to eat whatever he managed to pilfer quickly, in order to prevent such a tragedy from re-occurring. The result was that, despite all the strenuous training, Sierra was a happy man.
    For his part, Diego managed to hold out on testing the ring for all of two weeks, waiting for its powers grow on him. But by the third week, he could wait no more. After an archery session he lingered behind, waiting for everyone to leave. Once the grounds were empty, he walked over to where the fruit trees were and proceeded to test his strength by punching a tree trunk several times. He left a fist sized impression in the trunk each time without feeling much impact in his body. Encouraged, he searched for something harder. He found a round, flat stone, slightly bigger than his hand and placed it on the ground. This would do. He aimed a carefully measured punch at it.
    Nothing happened to the stone.
    But nothing happened to his fist either. Diego bent down and hit the stone again, harder. Once. Twice. The third time there was an audible crack as fist met stone. He looked down at the stone, which now lay smashed into smithereens at his feet, and then at his fist, which had only gone slightly red. This was amazing. A broad grin began to stretch across his face. He swiped his fist through the air in a victory motion and then doubled over as searing pain shot from his fingers down the entire length of his right arm, making him cry out in agony.
    He ran straight to the in- house hospital, where he found the doctor sitting at his desk with a book in hand, looking thoughtfully out the window.
     
    “Doctor...I need help!” he panted, “please.”
    He extended his arm to show the doctor his rapidly swelling hand which was now turning blue at the knuckles.
    The doctor led him to a bed, asking him to calm down as he examined his hands gently.
    He gave a few instructions to one of the nurses who was hovering nearby and then turned to look at Diego through concerned blue eyes.
    “What is your name, young man?” he asked, drawing a chair next to the bed and sitting down on it.
    “Diego”
    “Okay, Diego. I’m Dr. Hope.” He said, smiling and taking Diego’s hand in order to examine it again. “You seem to have fractured your hand pretty badly. Can you straighten your fingers?”
    Diego tried, but pain ripped through his hand again and he stopped, gasping for breath.
    “Hmm… looks worse than I thought. Let’s take an X-ray to see the extent of