Mericolt's Secret

"Where are we?" Mericolt asked Pentil. "Is this Earth?" Thick vegetation surrounded them and everything smelled so very green. Could the Pearls of Wisdom be in such a remote place? He fingered his space-cutting knife, a tool his mother gave him before she disappeared. She told him the knife would be the greatest secret he'd ever have - to be used only in an emergency. Then she demonstrated how to cut a doorway. Not an ordinary doorway, but a doorway that connected to a tunnel in space - a tunnel with an opening to another constellation or another world. Or to where the Pearls of Wisdom were hiding. Would he need to use his knife? Wasn't this an emergency?