by Sophia Sharp
There, sitting on the windowsill, was a small wooden box. No larger than a regular jewel casket, really. And beside it was a yellowing piece of paper. Nora saw letters scribbled on it. A note?
Alexander picked both items up slowly. He looked at the paper for a second, then handed it to her. “It’s addressed to you,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
~The Archive~
Nora took the note and frowned. At the top, in relatively large, flowery letters, her name was written. And below it, a simple note:
This may help in your time of need.
Nora read it out loud, then looked to Alexander. “From Selaine?” he asked, and she nodded. “She must mean this box, then,” he said, handing it to her. Nora took it carefully.
“What could it be?” she wondered out loud. She looked at it, flipping it over. It was seamless, a solid block. It looked like it was made of wood, but felt varnished and slick. And a little bit…cold. Like stone.
“My time of need?” she asked, looking the box over, trying to figure out what it was. Maybe it could be opened? She shook it by her ear, and heard a dull tumbling noise from within. There was definitely something in there, but she had no idea how to get it out. She twisted the box over in her hands, examining every side and corner, but couldn’t figure out for the life of her how to get it open.
“Another trick?” Alexander asked.
Nora shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Although… I don’t see how it could possibly come open. You try.” She reached out, handing the box to Alexander, but he took a step back and shook his head.
“It’s yours,” he explained. “Besides, when I picked it up, I felt a sort of…vibrancy. And it felt dark. Kind of like this place.” He rolled his shoulders uneasily. “Whatever it is, I don’t like it. This whole building, the entire area, it doesn’t feel natural.”
“Really?” Nora didn’t notice anything particularly unnerving, aside from finding the building completely empty. Perhaps it was the poison returning, working somehow on Alexander’s mind? She shivered at the thought.
“We should go,” he said. “Take the box or leave it, it’s up to you, but we should be gone from this place.”
“I’ll take it,” Nora said. She had a suspicion it might yet help with Alexander’s condition. Somehow.
Alexander went down the stairs first, and Nora followed. Only when they were outside, and a good two blocks away from the building, did Alexander let out a relieved sigh. “It feels good to be away from there.”
“Maybe.” Nora was all too aware that leaving the shop behind meant not finding Selaine, and that did not bode well for Alexander’s condition. He seemed to be more concerned about getting away from the building, though. Which made little sense. “Now what?”
“Well, if we can’t find Selaine—”
“Wait a minute,” Nora interrupted, suddenly remembering. “You’re the one who told me to find the healing woman, and you’re the one who first said there was an antidote to the poison!”
“I did? Really?”
“Yes! Right after you took the arrow! You said that you knew the ingredient that would help stave it off.”
“Uh…” Alexander pressed his fingers to his forehead. “I’m…trying to remember. But it’s all spotty. When I try to think back…there are holes in my memory. Anything to do with taking the shoulder wound, just…can’t be reached. Dammit!” He slammed his fist against the side of a building, causing Nora to jump. “I’ve never felt like this! It’s like having a word on the tip of your tongue, but being unable to speak!”
“I’m sorry,” Nora said quietly. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to go through something like that. But believe me when I say, I will do everything I can to help you recover.”
“It’s not you,” Alexander said, shaking his head. He moved his hand away from the wall, and Nora saw a crack in the mortar that wasn’t there before. “It’s me. I’ve never felt so helpless before. And what you told me this morning, about the poison, and my health… I would have never imagined it when I got up.”
“We’ll find Selaine,” Nora said reassuringly. “And she’ll help get you healed.”
“I don’t know about that…” he began, but cut off as his eyes suddenly lit up. “Wait. I know! The archive!” Quickly, he started down the street. “I don’t remember what I told you about the antidote,” he said over his shoulder, “but if there’s any place we can find more about it, it’ll be in the archive. Follow me!” He increased his pace, and Nora had to run to follow. After a moment, though, she realized he was going the wrong way.
“Wait,” she said, confused. “Where are you going?”
“The archive. It’s not far from here. It’s in the basement of an ancient home. All the books and manuscripts we were originally looking for are in there.”
“Hold on,” Nora said, thinking. She had come to a stop. “You think that’s where the archive is?”
“It’s where it was last time I was here,” Alexander said. “It’s where it’s always been.”
“No,” Nora said, shaking her head. “It’s not a library. Is that what you think it is?”
“Of course. Unless you know something I do not…?”
“I think found the real archive,” Nora said slowly. “It’s underground, in the mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
~An Unknown Box~
“Wow,” Alexander breathed, as he looked upon the doors of the vault for the first time. Nora hurried down the pile of rocks and stood next to him. The stone vault was as imposing – and as impressive – as ever. The intricately carved patterns of the inside rings looked even more spectacular the second time. And the lettering along the outer edge still glowed in that pale fluorescent blue.
“This is as far as I got,” Nora said. “I think – no, I’m sure – we can get past it, but I don’t know how to open it.”
“I’ve read about this,” Alexander said. He sounded absolutely awestruck. “In the library, there were manuscripts that mentioned ‘The Glowing Doors’. I had no idea they would be so close…” He walked up to the circular stone and brushed his fingers over the surface. “You were right. This must be the real archive. The one Rafael spoke of.” His hand continued along the stone, tracing the delicate patterns inside. “Do you feel that, too? A sort of pulsating…resonance?”
“Yes,” Nora said. “I felt it the first time as well.”
“It’s coming from behind the doors, I think.” He took a few steps back to take in the entire stone.
“There’s a crack along the middle,” Nora offered. “It’s difficult to pick up unless you’re looking for it, but I think that’s where the stone doors can open.”
“A crack? Hmm…” Alexander stepped close again, right to the middle of the vault, and brought his eye close. “Yes…right here, right?” His hand stopped along the thin crack that ran vertically along the stone face.
“Yes. I think the doors are made of two perfect semicircles.”
“I believe you’re right.”
“Do you recognize any of the lettering? Or the symbols, maybe?”
“Oh?” Alexander seemed surprised at the question. He nodded. “Yes, I think I do. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen them…” He stepped back again and took in the whole stone. “Courir maltarra souinte.”
“What?”
“Courir maltarra souinte,” he repeated, “…necrolla courir avi’anhd.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The outer rim,” he explained. “That’s what it says.”
“You can read it?” Nora was shocked.
“Only some. And it’s not reading, per se. Rather, I remember seeing a translation of these symbols, once.” He pointed to a small selection to the right.
“So,” Nora said, “what do they mean?”
“I think it’s a riddle.”
“A riddle?”
“Yes. A puzzle, to open the doors. Courira maltarra s
ouinte. ‘The Glowing Doors will come open.’ Necrolla courir avi’anhd. ‘By that which is the same.’”
“By that which is the same? What does that mean?”
“I think…it speaks of the resonance.” He motioned idly to a symbol carved near the middle of the stone. “There’s another item, a key of sorts, that counters the resonance and…forces it aside. Then, maybe the doors will come open.”
“Like pushing the same ends of a magnet together?”
“Exactly. But the trouble is, I don’t know what the item might be, or where we might find it.”
“Hmm,” Nora said thoughtfully. She stepped closer to look again at that crack in the middle – and was surprised to realize that the box she carried – the one from Selaine – had started vibrating, ever so slightly. She brought it out in front of her and took another step to the door. The vibrations increased.
“Hey, look at this,” she exclaimed excitedly, holding the box out in front of her. Alexander turned and looked. She took another step forward, and the vibrations grew much stronger. And their rhythm felt like it was the opposite of the resonance she felt from the doors.
“That box,” Alexander said wonderingly. “Something must be inside!” By now, Nora had to grip the edges tightly to prevent the box from falling out of her hands. Alexander rushed to her. “What do you feel?”
“I feel like I can barely hold it,” Nora said, through gritted teeth. She took another step forward, and the box burst out of her hands. She had to step aside quickly to avoid being hit as flew backward and slammed against the rocks.
Alexander ran up to it and grabbed it off the ground. He held it gingerly, as if half-expecting it to explode. And he stepped forward, slowly.
“Nothing’s happening,” he said.
“It only started when I came closer,” Nora explained. “Come halfway to me and you should feel it.” Alexander walked forward, step by step, looking as if he were holding a live rattlesnake. And when he crossed the point Nora mentioned, he nodded. “I can feel it now.”
“What do you think it is?”
“That note Selaine left – what did it say again?”
“Uh…that the box could help. In a time of need.”
“And what need is greater than getting through that door?”
Nora raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying…”
“Yes. I think the key to opening the door lies inside this box.”
“That,” Nora breathed, “would be pretty amazing.”
“Yes,” Alexander nodded. “I would very much like to meet this Selaine, if that turns out to be the case.”
“But how do we use it?”
“First,” Alexander said, “we need to open it.” He motioned Nora back to him. “We should do it as far away from the doors as we can.”
“Good point.” Nora walked back to Alexander as he sat down on the rocks. He handed her the wooden box to look at first.
Nora flipped it over in her hands, looking at it again. It was unmarred, despite flying from her hands and hitting the angled rocks. And it still looked like a seamless piece of wood. She brought it up to one ear, and gently shook it. As before, she could make out the muffled sounds of something tumbling against the inside walls. Which meant it was hollow. But try as she could, no matter how many times she flipped it over, or tried pulling it open, or twisting its sides, it wouldn’t budge.
Finally, out of frustration, she said, “Why don’t we just smash it open?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Alexander answered slowly. “I have a feeling…that the outside container may function as a type of buffer against whatever is inside. Smashing it open – if that would even work – would allow it to break free of the buffer almost instantaneously. And we don’t know if it’s volatile, or not. Besides, we don’t know how fragile the item inside is. We might break it.”
“Right,” Nora admitted. “But I can’t open it. You want to try?”
Without a word, Alexander extended his hand. Nora placed the box in his palm and watched as he inspected it. He looked carefully at every single edge and corner, every plane and vertex. Eventually, he sat back, stumped. “It’s one piece,” he said glumly.
“Wait a minute,” Nora exclaimed, noticing something for the first time. The vague pattern she noticed before on the symbols on the outer rim of the vault…there seemed to be something to them, and it tickled the back of her mind. What if…?
She cleared the dirt beneath her feet, and used the edge of a small rock to draw the symbols out. When they were twisting around the edge of the circular stone, it was hard to recognize the pattern, but what if they were all laid out straight…? Her hand was good – she always had a bit of an artistic flair – and soon she had replicated the symbols perfectly on the ground. Alexander watched it all without saying a word.
Nora studied the drawn symbols thoughtfully. The pattern was still there, and it still seemed to…call to her. But she couldn’t identify it immediately. Thinking, she closed her eyes, and let the fluorescent glow of the symbols imprint themselves into her mind. In a moment of surprising clarity and inspiration, she began rearranging the shapes in her mind, so that the pattern became even more apparent.
The symbols divided into two categories, she realized, one with smooth, flowing edges, and the others with hard, angular lines. And only the straight symbols contributed to the pattern. What if she got rid of the flowing ones…? She opened her eyes, and scrubbed out the smooth symbols with one foot.
Immediately, the pattern became much clearer. Oh! She realized that the symbols formed a series, but it didn’t flow left to right, as she had been looking at it before. There was a progression there, though. Picking up the rock again, she traced the symbols out beneath the top row, but laid them out backwards. She frowned thoughtfully. It was coming together. She scrubbed a few of them out, redrawing them at different angles. It looked more and more coherent. She did it some more, scrubbing, redrawing, changing the size of some of the lines, adjusting the lengths, until they became legible hieroglyphs. And all of a sudden, they all made sense to Nora. They were instructions. Directions.
“Give me the box,” she said to Alexander. He handed it to her. Without looking, she started to feel the edges. Her fingers ran over the entire face of the box, sensitive to every tiny imperfection, every microscopic dent and flaw. And if she held it a certain way…there. Her fingers found miniscule dents and…locked into them. Her fingers fit into a series of small, nearly imperceptible gouges along the sides. She applied pressure against them – and a mechanism shifted inside. She looked at the symbols in front of her, at the directions at her feet. Down, left, then up. She pushed down, feeling another shift, pulled left, felt a second shift, and pulled back up. Immediately, the box expanded slightly outward, as if a spring mechanism had been let loose inside.
She looked down at the box and saw that a new edge had appeared, slashed diagonally across the long side. Gripping her fingers against it, she pulled slightly. Nothing happened. She frowned. Again, she tried pulling it open, and again nothing happened. Feeling it in her hands, she closed her eyes, and imagined the symbols again – and let them guide her. She realized then she wasn’t supposed to pull – she had to push. She pushed down, twisting at the same time, and heard a distinctive clicking noise. She looked down – and saw that she was now holding two halves of the wooden box.
“That was…unbelievable,” Alexander said.
Without answering, Nora carefully laid the box down and pulled aside the two halves. They slid open easily, and inside was something wrapped in a dark velvet cloth. She reached down to pick it up, carefully unwrapping the cloth. It felt like a metal figure, and it was unusually heavy. More heavy than the box had been with it inside, if that were possible. When the final edge of cloth came off, she gasped, shocked to realize she had seen the item before.
It was the lion Selaine had pushed into Nora’s hands when she first met her. But its eyes were now aglow with a fierce inten
sity that was…the same fluorescent color as the script on the outside of the vault.
“I’ve seen this before,” Nora said. “In Selaine’s shop. She – gave it to me, when I first met her. Placed it in my hands. Offered to sell it to me.”
Alexander whistled. “Whoever she is, I would very much like to meet her one of these days.” He got up. “Come on, I think I know the rest.”
He walked up to the stone vault and traced his fingers over a shape near the middle. “There’s a small gap here,” he explained, “where, I think, the head of that figure fits.”
Nora got up and took a step forward. Immediately, the lion in her hands began vibrating with an urgency she hadn’t felt before. As she stepped closer, the vibrations grew exponentially stronger. Before she was even halfway to the door – around the same distance as she’d felt the vibrations start the first time, when the lion was still in the box – the vibrations became so strong she had to fight against them with all her strength. She knew if she stepped closer she wouldn’t be able to hold on anymore.
“It’s too strong,” she said. “I can’t – I can’t get any closer.”
Alexander immediately came over, putting his hands over hers. With him there, the vibrations…didn’t subside, exactly, but they were constrained a bit more. Then he moved beside her, keeping his hands over hers in front of them. Together, they started to inch forward, bit by bit. As they moved closer, the vibrations only continued to increase. Nora felt the strain in Alexander’s hands, and she knew he was trying just as hard as she was.
The lion figurine seemed to take on a life of its own, wildly shaking and gyrating, desperately resisting their efforts to get it closer to the vault. Nora gritted her teeth and kept her hands out in front of her, holding the lion for all she was worth. They pushed against the metal shape, fighting the resistance. They were getting closer. Step by step, inch by agonizing inch, they made their way forward until they were mere centimeters away from the vault doors.
