Anne-Christine was just about to pour out the tea when the train halted so suddenly that she landed on Govert Gosseling's lap with her teapot in her hand.
"What manners are these?" Lisabeth asked furiously. "This is no way to treat a Czarina. If the driver does this just once more, I'll have him beheaded on the spot!"
She turned down the window and stuck her head out. She soon saw what was the matter. The train was halted by a giant army which had travelled towards them. The leader, a little fat general, dismounted from his horse and walked to Lisabeth's window.
"His Majesty's Second Army is prepared to assist Your Highness against the cowardly attack on Your Serene Highness' Castle."
It was some time before Lisabeth understood that he was talking to her.
"We are unspeakably touched in thankfulness that our Husband sends us an entire army to defend us", she improvised, while wiping away an imaginary tear. "You are most wanted here and I'll order the driver to return as soon as possible."
"No, Lisa!" Anne-Christine cried in despair. "What are you doing now? Just when we're on our way!"
Lisabeth could hardly hide her laughter.
"And what's more", she continued seriously, "I'll take over the command of the Imperial Troops, as soon as we've returned to the Crystal Castle."
"At your service, Your Highness!" the general shouted. He saluted and Lisabeth found it hard not to burst into laughter before she closed the window.
"That little man!" she cried as soon as it was safe to do so. "That can't possibly be a general! What a farce! What an operetta costume!"
She wiped away the tears from her face with her sheets.
"I can't laugh about it at all!" Anne-Christine said. "You go your own way, Lisabeth, without consulting either Govert or me for a second".
"That's true", Lisabeth had to admit. "But it all went so fast. And that little man!" She burst into laughter again. "That little man who calls himself a general. At your service, Your Highness!"
"Lisabeth, wouldn't it be better to calm down a bit?" Govert Gosseling asked prudently.
"Yeah, perhaps that would be better". She tried to calm herself at last. "I'll tell you then. There's a purpose in our return."
"What a relief", Govert Gosseling replied. "I thought you had gone crazy for nothing".
"Oh no, not quite", Lisabeth said, unceremoniously wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "So many soldiers at once, I won't let that slip through my fingers."
"You have only one thing on your mind!" Anne-Christine reproached her. "And we all have to suffer because of that".
Lisabeth started. "Oh no, if it's about the men, then you can go ahead and help yourself. But I intended something completely different. I meant to say that the Glasswork is the only thing on my mind."
"You'll have all these men look for the pieces of glass!" Anne-Christine said, with sparkling eyes.
"Exactly", Lisabeth confirmed. "For such a work you need thousands of men and to me this seems an ideal job for the Second Czarian Army."
"Very clever", Govert Gosseling stated. "But what exactly do you want with all this? You have already said that you are certain that the Glassware is aboard the Stormy, so why do you want to search for it here?"
"To show you that it's really gone", Lisabeth said. "I know that you won't believe me at all, but I predict that not a single broken piece of the Muscovite Crystal will appear from that pile of smithereens. Mark my words".
"I find it unnecessary", Anne-Christine declared. "We'd better go to Weezebeecke right away. The Glasswork is gone, all in pieces in the Crimea."
"Well, I'm in favour of Lisabeth's proposal", Govert objected hesitantly. "You never know what you'll find in that rubbish. My equipment is still there and I spent a lot of time on it. Don't forget that. Maybe we could save some pieces."
"All right", Anne-Christine said, reconciling herself to the inevitable. "Then we'll go back. Lisabeth, please whistle on your fingers for the driver."
The Csarina opened the window, gave the requested signal and then the train started rolling back to the Crimea.
"Your story doesn't make any sense, Lisabeth", Anne- Christine said somewhat later. "Who has to recognise those pieces? The amount of glass will be much too vast and the Wine Set is so small".
"Yes, that's true", Lisabeth admitted. "But every piece of the Castle will be flat and every piece of the Glasswork will be round shaped".
"There will be over a million small pieces and impossible to know if they once were round or flat", Govert pointed out. "Did you think of that?"
"Well,... to be honest,.... It all went very quickly, so I haven't worked out all the details yet.." Lisabeth had to confess.
"You're much too self-willed", Anne-Christine said. "And we'll have to wait to see what will come next. But mind you, you're the only one who never saw any images in the Crystal, so without us, you will be nowhere."
"That's true, but I did see wonderful colours!" Lisabeth said. "More beautiful than in any other crystal before".
"Well, we're on our way back anyway, so we'll see what will happen next", Govert Gosseling remarked. "And I still haven't seen any tea yet".
The journey back took the same time as the journey there and is was already dark when the train arrived at the Black Sea once more.
"I'm going to sleep!" Lisabeth said. "We'll see tomorrow, when the Second Army arrives".
"Lisabeth! Wake up. Hurry!" Mary O'Lein cried. "Something terrible happened! Govert Gosseling is dead!" The Captain heavily shook Lisabeth to waken her from her intoxication.
"Not at all!" Lisabeth finally said in a croaking voice, hardly able to open her eyes. "Not at all. Govert is with me in the Crimea".
"That's false!" Mary O'Lein shouted. "You were there when he was killed by Alexej. He was the stowaway!"
"That was just a simple experiment", Lisabeth said drowsily. The unusual amount of rum hadn't been good for her and the daylight hurt her eyes. "And I ended the experiment when everything went bad".
"Well, well", Mary O'Lein answered slightly sarcastic. "And it was probably also you who brought him back to the Crimea."
"Why aren't you more grateful?" Lisabeth asked, trying to stand upright. "It's just because I deflected the dagger to Govert, for if not, you would be dead and gone. It was you who Alexej had in mind as a victim".
"You still stick to your weird stories", Mary answered. "But that's exactely why I love you more and more. Come on, I'll put you back on your two legs. You aren't able to do so yourself, it seems". Mary reached out her hand, which Lisabeth took, and before she knew she was standing upright.
"Where is Govert now?" Lisabeth asked in surprise.
"Alexej gave him a seaman's grave", the Captain declared. "He didn't waste a second in doing so".
"I hope it doesn't matter too much", Lisabeth said with a frown. "But I suppose it doesn't. Away is away, isn't it?" Now it was Mary O'Lein's turn to frown.
"Here", she said, holding out an empty rum bottle. "You emptied it all alone. It is your first one, so you must keep it as a souvenir."
"I'll defend it with my life", Lisabeth joked.
"That's the right answer", Mary O'Lein replied very seriously.
"Lisabeth", Mary O'Lein began, once seated at the desk. "I've been thinking".
"Me, too. I hardly do anything else", Lisabeth answered.
"Good", Mary approved. "Perhaps we'll find our way out together".
"I know the exit for myself", Lisabeth said. "This world aboard is like a mirror of my normal or past life. And there are no problems as long as I don't want to figure out which world is real."
"That's also good", Mary O'Lein approved once more. "And that will prevent damage being done to my mizzen."
"I'm sorry", Lisabeth said. "I was quite confused, you know".
"I don't mind", Mary O'Lein said soothingly. "I shall not have it erected again. We'll reach Vladivostoc without it."
"Fine", Lisabeth whispered. "I have already tried to delay things in the Crimea, for that went much too fast. I have the entire Second Czarian Army combing through the remains of the Crystal Castle for pieces of the Muscovite Crystal".
"That's a good one!" Mary O'Lein said in admiration. "Where did you get that idea?"
"It's just a question of fast reflexes", Lisabeth said proudly. "One must take advantage of the chances one gets and now I can also find out if the Glasswork really disappeared". Mary O'Lein was shaken.
"That isn't possible, Lisabeth", she said resolutely. "You won't leave this place by looking for certainties! The exit is quite somewhere else!"
"That's very easy to say when you have the Glassware nicely locked up in the drawer of your desk", Lisabeth said, not letting herself be taken out of her depth.
"One of Alexej's fairy tales!" Mary O'Lein shouted angrily. "Lisabeth, you've been tricked like a little child by that distant relative of Attila the Hun. When will you ever learn that you have to handle them with determination?"
"I don't know", Lisabeth said guiltily. "I suppose that I made a wrong start. I think Govert is really very likeable".
"Men are never likeable", Mary O'Lein snorted in disgust. "And the Crystal isn't aboard, but it is in our company nevertheless."
"And Alexej then?" Lisabeth asked. "I mean.... he's still a real man".
"You're even smarter than I already thought you were", the Captain said, smiling again. "Lisabeth, you'll find your way out without doubt if you'll keep on trying as hard as you do now. The only problem is that you are looking in the wrong direction. The Crystal hasn't been here for a long time. It's just its dream which is still in our company and you'll have to free yourself from it."
"You're that dream", Lisabeth offered.
"Or a nightmare", Mary O'Lein said. "But you'll get rid of me, if you bury it all in the giant Muscovite Labyrinth".
"And where can I find that Labyrinth then?" Lisabeth asked eagerly.
"That answer you'll find in the rainbows from the spray water, as I told you many times before", Mary O'Line answered standing up and moving to the door, singing.
For a moment, Lisabeth was surprised but she was aware that she possessed the chance for which she had long waited. She quickly stepped to the other side of the desk, inspected its contents and then joined the Capain.
"Yet another small step forward", Lisabeth thought when she awoke in the train carriage, several hours later. She peeped outside and saw that the Second Czarian Army had arrived.
"It's a pity that the desk was empty, but I've got used to the fact that all advances are made in small steps. But look at this. This is quite impressive", she said to herself as she gazed open-mouthed at her entire Army.
"Here's something we have to organise thoroughly", she decided. "For they may not step on one tiny piece of glass with their heavy boots". She remained under her blankets for another while.
"How do you tackle anything like this?" she wondered. "I want to have inspected every piece, for knowledge about that pile of broken pieces is knowledge about the Glasswork itself. I bet that Anne and Govert would never have thought of me as the one who should solve the entire problem in the end."
She comfortably turned over once more.
"But do I really know the answer at present?" she wondered, trying to put all the possibilities in the right order. "If the Glassware is really under that pile of glass, what will that mean? Then,... then I'll never be really certain, because I'm the one who never saw the images! In that case I must depend on Govert and Anne, who can make me believe anything they want. And what if the Glasswork isn't there any more because it has been taken away by Alexey? And what if this all is nothing but a dream, what will happen then?"
Angrily she jumped out of bed.
"Even with the assistance of the entire Second Czarian Army, I can't escape from this silly merry-go-round! It's all Anne's fault. She just had to play with that stupid Glasswork of hers".She spoke so loudly that Govert came from the other coach to see what was the matter.
"And you too", she shouted at him, "With that cute little son of yours. Why did you all have to make it so difficult for me?"
"Did you have a bad dream?" Govert inquired prudently.
"Oh, you!" Lisabeth said. "You,..". There her sentence stuck. She went to him and kissed him on his unshaven cheek. "And still I love you", she said.
A few hours later, the Army received Lisabeth's detailed instructions on how to inspect the rubble of the bombed Castle on tiny fragments of round glass. For that occasion, she had divided the hump into squares, by means of stretched wires, attached to poles driven into the ground outside the place where the Crystal Castle once stood. The biggest pieces could be taken away on stretchers, smaller pieces in buckets, while the smallest fragments had to be evacuated in drinking glasses, if necessary including the soil.
"It's most important that not even the tiniest piece escapes our attention," she had said to her troops. "Rather ten humps of clay too many than one missing small piece of glass!"
And, after these inspiring words, the whole Army started its disciplined labour, under the command of a little fat general.
The investigation first took days and then weeks. The most progress was made durings the first days. The largest pieces could be removed easily, but the lower layers consisted of miniscule fragments, each of which had to be examined carefully with a magnifying glass.
Lisabeth had figured out a system in which she had to be concerned only with the extreme doubtful cases. All the clear, flat pieces could be removed immediately. The other pieces were examined by the Czarian officers, who decided whether the destiny was so unclaer that Lisabeth had to take the decision herself or not.
"Do you want us to help?" Govert and Anne-Christine asked, time after time but Lisabeth always refused.
"I want to do it all alone", she said. "You have to amuse yourself for the time being. I have no time for you anyway."
"This way you will keep it all for yourself", Anne- Christine said. "I don't regret that, you know. I know already that the Glasswork is gone!"
"That's exactly the reason why I prefer doing it alone", Lisabeth said. "You already say that you know what happened to the Crystal, but I also want to know and I've got my own way to find out. They may be a bit cumbersome, but I don't want to hear for the rest of my life that I was wrong, in bringing together the Muscovite Glasswork and the Crystal Castle."
"You were!" Anne-Christine said firmly. "The Muscovite Glaswork is buried here. You'll know it is when your soldiers hit the right layer in a couple of weeks". Angrily she turned around and left Lisabeth at her field table, peeping through her magnifying glass.
Time went by but neither on the Stormy nor in the Crimea did anything noteworthy happen until the day when Lisabeth, for the first time, saw a piece of crystal which, she felt, must be part of the Muscovite Glasswork.
"I'll inspect this piece later on", she said light- heartedly and, against her own conviction, paid her attention to fragments whose origin was much less clear. The same event was repeated the next day, soon followed by a vast flow of fragments of Muscovite Crystal.Lisabeth kept them all in a soldier's bottle with a good lid. She limited herself to the pieces which didn't confuse her.
"I met quite a number of pieces for which it is unclear if they once were flat or round but, even with a prism, I didn't see any strange colours in them", she told Anne-Christine and Govert, but she forgot to mention her soldier's bottle which meanwhile had been filled to the brim with uninspected fragments.
"If Your Majesty would permit, I could cast a glance on them as well", Anne-Chritine proposed.
Lisabeth silently handed over her prism and left her seat.
"Ordinary glass", Anne-Christine decided from a distance. "There's no Muscovite Crystal here whatsoever."
"Exactly my opinion", Lisabeth declared, seeming relieved, and she gave orders to clean the hump from her table.
"Is there much left?" Anne-Chritine asked. "To dig, I mean."
"It's finished now and we didn't find a single tiny fragment of Muscovite Crystal!" Lisabeth said, not feeling too certain about it.
"Then they must have searched with their noses, and all the work was in vain!" Anne-Christine said. "Don't fool yourself, Lisabeth. The Wine Set is broken, as it predicted itself. You bet!"
"But then we should have found at least something", Lisabeth answered as calmly as she could. "And we didn't find anything, so tomorrow we'll go to Vladivostoc after all to wait for Mary O'Lein, for it's either she or Alexej who's got the Muscovite Crystal, without any doubt."
Lisabeth couldn't wait for the day to come for her to examine the last remaining portion of uninspected Crystal. As soon as Anne-Christine and Govert were absent, she carefully emptied her bottle onto her table, and the warm glow radiated by the Crystal proved, even without a prism, that she was dealing with real and unforged Muscovite Crystal.
"The sun is rather low now and that's why it casts its rays somewhat differently from the last hump", she said, taking courage. "They must be the same pieces, just like all the others."
With trembling fingers, she took her prisma and let the low sunbeams shine on the small pile through the glass triangle. Immediately, the rainbows were projected towards her and she felt sucked into a maelstrom of images flowing beside her.
After a long and incoherent journey, she at last landed in her berth at the Stormy. The ship was sailing quietly and the first rays of the sun were decomposed into an infinite number of colours by the many drops of water which sprayed along her bull's-eye window, as they had done every day.
This morning was different. She saw in this mist how the sun created the same Muscovite colours, which had accompanied her on her stange colour journey less than a minute ago. These colours seemed to have settled in the spray water. This revelation made her very quiet.
"The Glassware is gone, but its dream still exists", she said. "That was what Mary O'Lein had told her, wasn't it? Now I must make the dream disappear. But I have to catch it first". She grabbed the empty rum bottle, which Mary O'Lein had given her as a souvenir. She then opened her window and caught the spray water in her bottle, which she sealed when it filled to the rim.