Akiko in the Sprubly Islands by Mark Crilley Page A

of the road were gently rolling hills covered with miniature grasses and wildflowers. Off to one side in the distance I could see the Moonguzzit Sea. The sun had risen higher in the morning sky, and some of the haze had burned off. One or two clouds dotted the sky, but otherwise there was nothing but blue as far as the eye could see.
    “Will you
please
slow down?” Admiral Frutz shouted up at me, temporarily marching backward to glare at me from his position at the head of the procession. “My men’s legs are
much
shorter than yours!” I had begun to outpace everyone and the entire army was almost sprinting to keep up with me.
    “Sorry!” I said, going back to my baby steps. “Is Queen Pwip’s palace very much farther?”
    “Silence!” came Admiral Frutz’s reply.
    Eventually we began to pass evidence of people living nearby. There were tiny stone walls separating one property from another, and small plots of land with neat little rows of leafy vegetables. Then I spotted a miniature farmhouse, surrounded by a tiny wooden fence. The farther we walked, the more houses I saw, each surrounded by strips of farmland and pastures grazed by tiny barnyard animals. It was very weird being able to look down on it all from my point of view, kind of like walking and looking out an airplane window at the same time.

    Finally the farmland began to give way to little villages and towns. Gax clicked and whirred as he rotated his head left and right to take it all in. I think he was just as fascinated as I was. There were tiny cobblestone streets and open-air marketplaces, miniature chimneys spouting tiny puffs of smoke, and hundreds of little Sprublian men and women going about their tiny lives. Wherever we went people stopped and stared, pointing and whispering excitedly to one another. There were so many strange and wonderful sights, I wanted to stop and get a closer look at everything.
    Admiral Frutz kept us marching, though, and by the looks of things Queen Pwip’s palace wasn’t very far away. For one thing, we now found ourselves marching through the hustle and bustle of a much bigger city. The road we were on had widened considerably and was decorated on both sides by elaborate street lamps and ornate little statues. The buildings were larger and more stately (though even the biggest came no higher than my waist), and there were beautiful parks and gardens on all sides. The city people were not easily impressed, though. They glanced up at us from their newspapers, squinted, and went back to their business.
    Finally we came to the gates of the palace grounds. An enormous wall surrounded the complex, a beautifully detailed structure that stood about six feet high. There were elaborate turrets and guard towers, with domes that looked like they been plucked from an Arabian mosque. The entire surface of the wall was covered with polished yellow and turquoise stones that sparkled and shimmered in the morning sunlight. The road we were marching on led directly to a large gateway that was sealed by two ornate doors.
    “Halt!” Admiral Frutz shouted. There was a trumpet blast from the rear of the procession, followed by a series of deeper notes sounded by trumpets inside the palace. A minute or two of silence passed as we waited for the gates to be opened.
    Then slowly, almost without a noise, the doors parted. Before us, a series of wide stairways led up to a beautiful miniature palace. The whole thing was no more than seven or eight feet high, but it was just about the most amazing building I’d ever seen. It was made up of at least a dozen towers, each topped with an onion-shaped dome that glittered and sparkled like a piece of jewelry. There were elaborately decorated balconies, silvery-shuttered windows, and glistening urns overflowing with exotic plants and flowers. The building was surrounded by dozens of lanterns and incense burners, some embedded in the polished marble of the palace’s foundation, others perched atop