Lisabeth was shaken roughly when the train coach jerked into motion. It forced her wide awake and the first thing she saw from her small window was her Crystal Castle, with one wing badly damaged, as Govert and Anne-Christine had already told her. This view saddened her and so she didn't try to raise her head as, after a few minutes, the Castle started to move out of her sight.
"Are you comfortable?" Anne-Christine asked, wanting to know if her patient was all right.
"Yes, I am", said Lisabeth. "Where are we heading?"
"Vladivostoc", Anne-Christine reassured her. "But in fact it won't do you much good, for your situation isn't very stable yet. But to Govert and me, it seemed even less reasonable to go against your wishes. So we didn't let the train, which had come to fetch us, return empty.
"Very sensible," Lisabeth answered. "Very sensible".
"Please do tell us something about the things you dream of", Anne said, sitting down on the side of her bed.
"Why aren't you dead?" Lisabeth started.
"Do we have to?" Anne asked, laughing in a crystal-clear voice. "We just preferred to wait a little while longer and to escape from the Castle right in time."
"Did you perhaps stand for some time at the edge of a bomb crater, while you were looking at the Crystal Castle?" Lisabeth wanted to know.
"Lisabeth", Anne-Christine said, grabbing Lisabeth's hand. "At the end the whole landscape around the Castle was littered with bomb craters. You couldn't avoid standing at the edge of a bomb crater. It looked as if a drunken man had kept on firing an uncontrollable canon".
"It was a drunken woman", Lisabeth corrected her.
"So you dream of Mary O'Lein?" Anne-Christine asked.
"Or perhaps I dream of you?", Lisabeth re-directed her question. "I don't know yet. I still haven't figured it all out."
"But this is all real!" Anne-Christine said, shaken. "Just take a look. I'm real, this train is real and you are also real!"
Lisabeth interrupted her: "But Mary is real too!"
"That can't be true", Anne-Christine replied. "Only one of those two worlds can be real and I'm most convinced that I'm real, as Govert is, who is somewhere else in this train".
"And as Alexej is, who is somewhere aboard the Stormy. Anne, I just don't know yet, and I even don't mind. I'm not going to make my head spin by thinking what is real and what isn't. You may try and find that out, if it does you any good."
Lisabeth fell back to her pillows.
"I'm so sorry", Anne-Christine said. "I shouldn't annoy you, but it's so strange to us, Lisabeth. We are so happy that you are still alive. I'm glad that Govert found you and we're trying hard to have the old Lisabeth back again."
"I know", Lisabeth said. "You both think that I'm just dreaming, but Anne, your Crystal is there on the Stormy. I know it and I want it to disappear once and for all in the right way. Then this whole affair will be over at last."
"Yes", said Anne sombrely. "You certainly will be telling your truth, but I only see a Lisabeth who was on the brink of drowning and who was dragged from the water in a half-frozen state after a great fall from the cliffs. I don't know what happens to you when you dream or when you are awake. Govert thinks you want to make yourself more interesting because you were wrong in your gamble about the Crystal Castle. All the images from the projector came true in the end. You just refuse to admit that we foresaw the right cause of events and that we predicted rightly the destruction of your Castle and my Crystal by the images from the Wine Set!"
"Nonsense!" said Lisabeth. "Mary said that there were light signals coming from the Castle. The Castle itself asked for its auto-destruction by bombardment, which Mary has done without any delay. She loves this kind of distraction. At that moment, Govert handled the only light source of the Castle, the projector, which shone its light right through the Castle's glass walls. He must have initiated this catastrophe deliberately or by accident".
"Didn't you dream that?" Anne-Christine asked, but corrected herself immediately. "Oh no, you can say anything you like about dreaming or not! Lisa, how complicated this all is!"
"It certainly is", Lisabeth confirmed, "But we'll manage to find our way out!"
"I hope so," Anne-Christine replied with a sigh.
"That must be a sigh of relief", Govert joked, while stepping inside through a small wobbly cabin door. "And our patient, is she in a better shape, I hope?"
"She chats endlessly," Anne-Christine said, laughing. "But I don't know what to think of it".
"Not too much, for the time being", Lisabeth said, embracing Govert, who bent towards her. "Govert", she then asked, "Couldn't you join me on my way to the Stormy?"
"That's just what I was afraid of", he said even before standing up straight again. "But I hadn't thought that you would ask it so soon".
"There is still some time left", Lisabeth said, feeling guilty. "I haven't even thanked you for all the care you gave me and you too, Anne."
She looked from the scientist to Anne-Christine, but neither of them had an answer for her.
Govert dragged a small seat near the bed, sat down and slowly began to reveal his thoughts, while trying not to be thrown off his seat in the heaving train.
"Lisabeth, you want me to join you on a concentration journey to the ship which appears in your dreams?" he asked.
"That's almost right", Lisabeth confessed. "For it isn't a dream, you know. It is just as real as it is here".
"Are you serious?" Gosseling asked, looking deep into Lisabeth's eyes. "Aren't you just pretending, to compensate your loss. After all, you were quite wrong that nothing was going to happen the moment the Wine Set entered the Castle."
"You think that I may try to find an explanation during my absence? That I try to be right after all in my dreams, by inventing Mary O'Lein?"
"Perhaps", Govert said. "It would be a possibility, wouldn't it?"
"It would be but it isn't", Lisabeth murmured resolutely. "There it is as real as it is here. Just a bit less funny. Mary is quite nice, although she destroyed my Castle. She rather likes me, as I like her. She is a bit hot-headed, that's all. But being on a ship like that... that will never be my choice. Anything can happen there and you can influence what happens with your own thoughts".
"What?" Govert cried out in surprise. "What are you saying?"
"Yes, that's possible over there!" Lisabeth said. "I've tried it several times. I can create a storm whenever I want. I can make daggers land on their points in the wood and a lot more".
"And still it isn't a dream?" the scientist asked in disbelief.
"No, it isn't a dream and neither is it a nightmare", Lisabeth ended her description.
"I don't know, Lisabeth", Govert Gosseling said thoughtfully. "Why should I go to the Stormy in the first place?"
"To fetch the Muscovite Glasswork", Lisabeth explained. "It's aboard that ship and it isn't safe there. Alexej has conquered it but doesn't know what to do with it and Mary is also there, ready to snatch it away. We would be better off having it in this coach. After all, Mongolia is on our route to Vladivostoc, so we can get rid of it easily."
"So with us it would be safer?" Gosseling asked in surprise.
"It certainly will be", Lisabeth answered. "There is something rotten at the Stormy. Too many inexplicable events happen. I would prefer to leave as soon as possible, but then I'd have to leave the Glasswork behind and who knows what would happen then?"
"You ask much", Gosseling said after a short break. "You want me to go to a ship, of which the existence hasn't been proved yet. And I have to search for a Glasswork that has to be somewhere aboard. Do you even know where it is?"
"No", Lisabeth answered honestly. "But Alexej is there. He certainly will give it to you?"
"I doubt it", Govert estimated. "If he cheats me and shoots at me, then I can't count on him to hand it over to me as a present, even if I'm a hundred times his father."
"Wasn't there a conspiracy between you two?" Anne- Christine asked.
"Anne, don't you know by now how the Glasswork is organized? Each treaty is useless the very moment someone knows he can lay his hand on the entire set of Crystal. I can confess it, for now you already seem to know it: Indeed I had a kind of treaty with Alexej to steal the Glasswork together. We had a nice plan: I should give a signal so he could open fire upon the Castle. It had to be a minor bombing, just enough to scare you. In the meantime I was to escape with the Glasswork right after the first shells had struck. And then we could run away all together. I hadn't expected Anne to stay in the Castle longer than I dared to. She took the risk to get rid of the Glasswork and I gave up instead and fled when the ground became too hot under my feet."
"I also fled from the Castle, leaving my Crystal behind, because I was convinced that it would disappear there, just as the images had shown us." Anne-Christine said.
"And when it became dark after the shelling, Alexej fetched it without telling you anything", Lisabeth said.
Gosseling's gave his opinion: "You can't be certain of it. The wing in which Anne left it behind has been mostly destroyed. It might as well lie among all the other broken pieces."
"Alexej thought that he could have it all his own", Lisabeth spoke softly. "He has brought it aboard the Stormy, without anyone noticing it. He would have run away in the very first harbour, having it all for himself."
"What do you think, Govert? Would it be wise to fetch it? We could have it here, the three of us together, and we could have it disappear in a way we all agree on".
"That's all right", the scientist said. "I also want to get rid of it, but it is that concentration journey to the Stormy which bothers me".
"Perhaps you don't know what the Stormy looks like? For I can tell you".
"That's one point", Gosseling answered deep in thought. "But what will happen to me if the Stormy doesn't exist, if it were just your imagination, as I fear? After all, we haven't the slightest idea what happens to you these days. You tell us that you are in two places at the same time, here and on a ship. To say the least, that's rather unusual, isn't it?"
"Who cares?" Lisabeth retorted. "You also claim to be able to displace yourself, don't you? You just transpose yourself to the very ship which shelled the Castle to smithereens and there you'll see further. Most probably, you'll find me asleep in one of the cabins, so you won't be hindered by me".
"That makes some sense", the scientist agreed. "I still can remember what that ship looked like".
"All right then", Lisabeth said. "And after your return to this rolling coach, you can't possibly escape, so the Glasswork will stay here amid the three of us.
"You've got it all figured out neatly", Gosseling said and he gently pinched Lisabeth's cheek.
"You won't be leaving right away, Govert?" Anne-Christine asked in a caring mood.
"In fact I will be, within an hour or so, then I'll be back, if everything turns out fine", he said and he placed his seat in one of the corners of the coach, turning his back to the girls. He put his head between his hands and Anne- Christine and Lisabeth saw his body stiffen.
"He's already gone", Anne-Christine said. "I know that for I can travel by concentration too".
"You don't have to tell me, because you look the same way, when you are in trance", Lisabeth said softly, in order not to disturb the scientist.
"Don't you want to take a nap?" Anne asked after a time, in which nothing really had happened. Gosseling was still there motionless on his chair in the corner of the coach, and until that moment neither girl had spoken a word.
"No I don't, for Govert may return any moment and I want to know if he has been able to fetch the Glasswork or not", Lisabeth said. "I prefer being well informed, you know."
"You still don't trust us!" Anne-Christine exclaimed angrily. "You send that poor old Govert into an unknown danger and yet you suspect that he will take advantage of the first opportunity to run away with my Glasswork".
"What.... Your Glasswork? At this moment it's Alexej's! And in a moment perhaps it wil belong to the three of us", Lisabeth said, before sliding deep into her pillows.
"We would be better off, not quarrelling. Maybe you want to sleep after all?" Anne-Christine proposed. "Come on, I'll shake your pillow once more".
"Oh well, why not anyway?" Lisabeth thought silently while Anne-Christine made her comfortable. "I can hardly keep my eyes open and this way I can see what Govert is doing over there. By the time he leaves, I'll simply join him. So, now you can lie down like a princess", Anne-Christine said. "You'll see, you will be asleep in a moment".
"Wake up!" Mary O'Lein shouted at Lisabeth who had been sound asleep. "There is work to do. My men have seen a stowaway and you bet that we're going to get him. Once we've got him, we'll keelhaul him and then we'll hang him at the highest yard! No, we'll triple keelhaul him and hang him twice at the highest yard!"
"Save your breath!" Lisabeth said, wiping the sleep from her eyes. "He's my guest and he'll be gone before you've had the opportunity to keelhaul him once."
"We'll have to see that first!" Mary O'Lein said militantly, giving herself more courage by drinking a long gulp from her bottle of rum.
"I am really in the mood today, for chasing stowaways is my favourite pastime", she yelled and she wept away the blankets from Lisabeth's berth with the point of her sword. Lisabeth became angry.
The Stormy made such a roll that Mary O'Lein fell next to Lisabeth on the mattress.
"Just take it easy, will ya captain?" she said. "I'll put that stowaway within your reach even before you've been able to breath three times. Mark my words".
She went on deck, still wearing her nightgown, and cried as loudly as she could: "Govert, it's me, Lisabeth. They know you're here!"
She didn't have to repeat the message, because within a few seconds Govert stuck his head out of a vent pipe of the powder hold.
Two sailors helped him come out and took him to Mary O'Lein who had joined Lisabeth in the meantime.
"Well well! If that isn't one of the great warrior Attila's distant relatives!" she exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello Lisabeth", Govert said, as if he hadn't heard Mary O'Lein's words.
"Hello Govert", Lisabeth replied. "This is Mary O'Lein, or perhaps you know one another already?"
"I've seen her strolling around, but we haven't made acquaintance yet", he said, trying to wipe the dust from his clothes and knotting his tie again.
"Your spectacles are quite misty, old man", Mary O'Lein said. "You'd better remove the dust, so then perhaps you can take a first glance at me."
"At first she appears to be a bit impudent, but you'll get used to it very soon", Lisabeth soothed, taking both Mary O'Lein's and Govert's hands and putting them together.
"It's an infinite pleasure to meet you," Gosseling said, but Mary O'Lein had quite another opinion.
"What made you dive on my ship all of a sudden, you piece of a chamber scientist?" she asked, withdrawing her hand.
"No no, my dear lady", Govert said. "I'm already aboard since the Crimean. It was Alexej who smuggled me aboard."
"That's not true. I invited him", Lisabeth said. "That's why he is here so suddenly. In fact, we're in a rolling train coach somewhere between the Crimean Peninsula and Mongolia, but most probably closer to Crimea than to Mongolia, for we are only just on our way and...."
"Nonsense talk!" Mary O'Lein interrupted her. "You come with me, you little man", she said, pointing her sword between his ribs, forcing Gosseling to precede her.
Lisabeth followed close behind but was disappointed when the Captain's cabin door was slammed in her face.
"You'll never manage to do it", she heard. She recognised Alexej's sniggering voice, who must be right behind her. Without showing any emotion, she turned around and passed the First Mate who never neglected an opportunity to tell her that all her efforts were in vain.
She went back to her cabin and settled into bed intending to return to Anne-Christine in the shaking train coach as soon as possible, to inform her about what she had seen. But that was easier said than done.
"I'm too awake here and too asleep there", she thought tossing and turning and hoping to fall asleep soon.
"I doubt if it was wise to ask Govert to join me here", was the thought which kept her awake. "But why must he lie about it? Why did he tell her that he already boarded the ship in the Crimean?"
She turned over again and pulled her blankets so high that her feet became bare.
"Oh, my blankets were lying in the wrong direction" she noticed. "I'm not that tall!" She stepped out of her berth and gave the blankets a quarter turn, while the answer to her question sprang into her mind.
"I should have thought of that before!" she blamed herself. "It just may not be illogical! Gosseling may not drop out of the deep blue sky, for strange things may happen here, but they are never so strange that they become impossible! Even for my presence they have found an acceptable explanation: I was carried aboard unconsciously. That must be the condition on which those two worlds can co- exist side by side. This all makes me wonder which of those worlds is real and which is dreamed."
"But what is Govert thinking at this moment? Does he think that he came here by his concentration travel and is he a bold lier or does he really think that he was already on the Stormy since the Crimean? Is his story real or just Govert's trick to fool Mary O'Lein about his concentration travelling? Anyway, all this doesn't develop as I intended it to. I have to return to Anne. Perhaps she knows what to do next."
She was convinced that she wouldn't be able sleep, at least for the hours to come, so she jumped out of bed and rushed on deck, where she took by the hand the first sailor she saw. With gentle pressure she pushed him into her cabin. Once inside, she led him to her berth and invitingly held the blankets open for him. With disbelief, the sailor gazed at her, but suddenly realized that she was serious. He stepped inside and Lisabeth didn't hesitate another second but followed him. A couple of minutes later, Lisabeth opened her eyes in de the rolling coach. She looked around in dismay. Anne was gone but Govert was still there on his little seat, immobile as ever, but she could hear him laugh softly. "I really made a mess out of this", she thought, before returning to the sailor's arms.