Placing the silver glasses into his right pants pocket, he tried on a pair of black pince-nez with thick lenses and no earpieces at all, balancing them on his plum of a nose. “Not right either,” he said. Over the next few minutes he tried a pair of tinted bifocals, a monocle, a magnifying glass, several different pairs of spectacles, and even his own fingers closed into two circles. Finally, he put the last pair into his hat, settled it crookedly on his head, and looked at Marcus and Kyja with no glasses on at all.
“That’s the trick,” he said. “Why, I say, you aren’t land elementals at all, are you?”
“No,” Kyja said.
“I’m afraid I’ll need to take the key then.” As Kyja reluctantly handed it back to him, he turned to Marcus. “It wouldn’t have worked for you anyway, you know. The Augur Well, that is. In fact, it could have proved quite dangerous had you gone in unprepared.”
“I’d be willing to take my chances.” Marcus rubbed his hip fiercely.
“Yes.” The little man nodded. “I see that. Quite the chance-taker this one. Probably gotten you into trouble more than once, hasn’t he?”
“So?” Marcus said with a grimace.
“You, on the other hand,” said the man, turning to Kyja. “You have to be pushed out of your normal routine. I’ll bet you didn’t head into this adventure of your own will.” When she started to disagree, he held out a hand. “But once you get started, there’s no turning you back. Stubborn to the marrow of your bones, you are.”
“I’m not stubborn,” Kyja said. “But we will get to the Augur Well.”
“I don’t imagine I could convince you to turn back, could I?” he said, looking from Marcus to Kyja.
Both of them shook their heads.
“Even if I said your path would force you to face things worse than you’ve ever imagined? Even if I said your chances of a messy death are far greater than your chances of success? Even if I told you the Augur Well is a far less accurate oracle than most would have you believe?”
“No,” Marcus said.
“We have to go,” Kyja answered.
“Very well.” The man put back on his original oversized, gold glasses. “Go out the hall to your right, second door on your left. Or is it the first? Well, if you suddenly find your elbows locked in place and your backsides swelling uncontrollably, you’ve taken the wrong door. Not that it will do you any good at that point.”
Chapter 27
The Lagoon
Guy was a total nut job,” Marcus said as they closed the door behind them. They were standing in a narrow hallway lit only by a flickering candle on a small wooden table. The hallway had a dank smell to it, like wet stone.
“Something about him didn’t add up,” Kyja said.
“Are you kidding? Nothing about him added up. I once had a history teacher who ran around the room flapping his arms and shouting, ‘That’s something to crow about,’ whenever one of us aced a test. Blake the Flake was crazy, but this guy is even crazier.”
“It’s not just that. He claimed he’d seen land elementals. But according to the knowledge illuminator, no land elementals have been seen in over three thousand years.”
“Well, that explains him—I’d be bonkers too if I sat locked up in that room for thousands of years with only a couple of snails to keep me company. Someone should buy him a deck of cards or something. At least he could play solitaire.”
“Maybe,” Kyja said. “But I think there was more to him than he was showing.”
“He told us to turn right.” Marcus stared into the dark tunnel. It was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. “Hope they don’t mind if we borrow their candle.” He reached for the metal candleholder on the table, but as soon as he picked it up, the flame went out, plunging the hallway into total darkness.
“What did you do?” Kyja’s voice asked from his left.
“Nothing. I just picked up the candle and it went—” As he set the candlestick back on the table, it relit. “Okay,” he sighed. “That’s one way to discourage people from borrowing.”
“We’ll have to feel for the doors,” Kyja said. She took Marcus’s hand in hers and began to run her other one along the left wall as they walked forward. “I hope Riph Raph’s all right.”
“Guess animals can’t come after all,” Marcus said, tapping his staff on the stone floor in front of them and trying to ignore the pounding in his head. “He’s probably already trying to get that knowledge illuminator to find him some fish.”
“Here’s the first door.” Kyja paused.
“Don’t open it,” Marcus said, remembering the man’s warning. The guy was probably loony tunes, but that didn’t mean Marcus wanted to take a chance on having his rear blow up like a balloon.
“That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense,” Kyja said as they began walking forward again. “I was the only one who opened the door. Why did we both end up here?”
“Who knows? Maybe they figured you couldn’t do it by yourself. Or maybe they needed someone devastatingly handsome.”
“Maybe your ego was so big it got caught in the draft and pulled you in with it.” Kyja stopped walking. In the darkness came a faint clunk as she knocked on the wall. “The second door.”
“Open it,” he said, reaching in the darkness.
“Wait.” Kyja’s hand went to his arm. “I’m not sure about this. Let’s not go rushing in.”
“What’s to think about? The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can move on to the next test.”
“Maybe we should come up with a plan,” Kyja said. “Maybe one of us should wait outside the door, just in case.”
“Maybe we should stop talking and go in.” Marcus was tired of plans. He was tired of feeling like everything he did was controlled by everyone else. He wanted to get to the Augur Well—whatever it was—find a land elemental, and get back to Earth. He limped to the door, felt for the rough, wooden surface with the palm of his hand, and pushed.
Kyja’s fingers tightened on his shoulder as the door swung open. Nothing leaped out at them. Nothing happened at all. “Come on,” he said, limping through the doorway.
“That was really dumb,” Kyja said. “You can’t just go running into things blindly.”
“And you can’t spend all your time worrying about what might happen.”
Both of them stopped arguing as they stepped from the wooden floor and splashed into knee-deep mud.
“Where are we?” Kyja asked, rubbing her eyes at unexpected sunlight that nearly blinded them both.
Marcus squinted at stunted trees, high grass, and swaying reeds around them. “We’re back in the swamp,” he said. “Forget the Augur Well. Let’s jump to Earth.”
“I don’t think this is the swamp. Listen.”
Marcus tilted his head. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. I spent two days looking for you in the swamp. There were always buzzing insects and birds singing and frogs ribbeting. It was never quiet.” She sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell like the swamp either. It’s not stinky enough. I don’t think we’re really above ground at all. I think it’s an illusion, like the stars in the cavern.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Marcus said. “But now what are we supposed to do?”
Kyja studied the dense foliage around them. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to something glittering in the afternoon sun. She splashed through the mud to a knobby tree. Marcus limped slowly behind her, trying to catch his breath. When he got there, he saw a small golden sign embedded in the bark.
“‘The gem of wisdom is obtained through the procurement of knowledge and the willingness to use it,’” Kyja read.
“Sounds like something out of a fortune cookie.” Behind the sign, a small path led out of the swamp and up a grassy hill. “Oh, great,” Marcus said, not looking forward to the climb.
“At least it’s dry,” Kyja said.
With Marcus leaning on her shoulder for support, they slowly made their way up t
he rise. As they reached the crest, a dark lagoon came into view. The lake was not much more than a stone’s throw across, and it was roughly circular, bordered by large, square stones with symbols carved into them.
Wooden rafts floated on the water, aligned so they formed six circles, one inside the other—a little like a Trill Stone board or a target. Painted on each of the rafts in red, blue, green, or yellow were the same symbols carved into the stones.
“Is it some kind of game?” Kyja asked.
“I think it’s a puzzle,” Marcus said. “See how the raft at the center has six walkways coming out from it? And the rafts on the next row each have six walkways too. All of the rafts are connected.”
As they started toward the lake, Kyja pointed to a brilliant, fist-sized green stone on the raft floating at the center of the circles. “The sign talked about the gem of wisdom. I’ll bet that’s it. That’s what we’re supposed to get.”
“Makes sense,” Marcus said. “You have to go from the outside rafts to the inside one. See, the symbols are a pattern.”
He started toward the nearest raft, but Kyja stepped in front of him, arms folded across her chest. “Don’t you remember what Mr. Z said? You take too many chances, and it’s gotten you into trouble.”
“Was that before or after he told us to call him ‘Her Majesty the Queen’? Forgive me if I don’t pay much attention to the opinion of someone whose idea of excitement is watching snails joust. Besides, he said you have to be pushed into everything. So how about we get this puzzle figured out already?” Marcus was anxious to get started. He’d always been good at puzzles, and this one didn’t look too complicated.
Kyja gave a dubious look toward the dark water and walked to the edge of the pool. “What’s this for?” she asked, picking up a coil of rope.
“Who cares?” Marcus said. Eyeing the rafts, he was pretty sure he had the puzzle figured out already. All you had to do was stay on the same symbols. Start with one, find the same symbol on another raft, and keep going until you made it to the center. If he started with the symbol that looked like one triangle on top of another, a path could get him there in only seven moves.
“At least tie this around your waist first,” Kyja said, holding out a loop of rope to him as he headed for the rafts.
“What for?”
“In case you fall in. Can you even swim?”
“A little,” he said, not wanting to admit he was a pretty lousy swimmer. One summer at the city pool, he’d managed to climb to the top of the high dive and nearly drowned after cannon-balling into the deep end. “What does it matter? Haven’t you noticed? There are like a million rafts out there. I’m not going to fall. But even if I do, I’ll just climb back onto another raft.”
Kyja glared at him and held out the rope.
“Fine,” he said, as she pulled it around his waist and knotted it tightly. “Just make sure you give me plenty of slack. I don’t want to get pulled off balance.”
“Be careful,” Kyja said, letting out rope behind him.
“I won’t need to,” he said. “I’ll be there and back before you even know I’m gone.” This was going to be a piece of cake.
Despite his confidence, he gave the first raft a firm poke with his staff before stepping onto it. Just because the puzzle was fairly simple, it didn’t mean there couldn’t be hidden traps of some kind. When the raft felt solid, he cautiously stepped out onto it.
“So far so good!” he called, waving back at Kyja. Holding the rope with both hands, she wouldn’t even wave. Her problem was over-thinking everything. If being disabled had taught him one thing, it was that life was full of dangers. You either accepted that fact and got on with living, or you ended up alone in your room, afraid to try anything that seemed the least bit hard.
From the raft he was standing on, there were three choices: left, right, and straight ahead. Since the only raft that matched the symbol he was standing on was straight ahead, that was the obvious choice. Again, using his staff first to check for traps, he stepped out onto the wooden walkway that connected the rafts. It wobbled under his weight, and for a moment he nearly lost his balance.
Feeling Kyja’s eyes on the back of his head, he caught himself with his staff and shouted, “I’m fine!” The last thing he needed was her thinking he was in trouble and tugging on the rope. The key was to take smaller steps to keep from bouncing the walkway. Once he was within stepping distance of the second raft, he nudged it with his staff. He stepped onto the next raft—thinking how easy this was going to be—when all the rafts and walkways disappeared at once, plunging him into the lagoon.
“Gawp,” he sputtered, swallowing a mouthful of water. He’d expected the lagoon to be as warm as the outside air, but the black liquid was so icy cold, it instantly numbed his body.
“Want me to pull you back?” Kyja called with a smirk, “or would you rather swim?”
With no warning, the lagoon began to bubble and churn all around Marcus. Something closed around his leg. Something else grabbed onto his wrist. Dozens of small, gray creatures looking like a mix between monkeys and frogs leaped out of the water, chirping and giggling wildly. One of them wrapped its arms around his neck. A second tried to pry the staff out of his hands. A third jumped on his back, grabbed his hair, and began shoving his head under the water.
“Help!” he screamed, choking and coughing. “Pull me back. Pull me b-a-a-c-k!”
Chapter 28
Mind over Matter
What were those things?” Marcus asked, rubbing his head. “It feels like they yanked out half my hair.”
“They would have done a lot worse than that if it weren’t for the rope.”
“Thanks for pulling me to shore,” Marcus said, grudgingly. “But if you’re looking for an apology, you’re not going to get it. If it were up to you, we’d still be standing outside the door trying to come up with a quote-unquote-plan.”
“I’m not looking for an apology,” Kyja said, feeling like she was babysitting Timton Goodnuff again. “What I’m looking for is for you to admit that acting without thinking isn’t such a good idea. If you remember, I’m the one who figured out how to get you past the harbingers. So yes, I did come up with a plan—one that worked.”
“Fine.” Marcus squeezed the bottom half of his robe, wringing out at least a gallon of water. “What’s your new plan?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Kyja said. “While you were busy playing with your friends in the water, I was thinking about the rafts. You tried to stay on the same symbol. But what if the puzzle isn’t about the symbols at all? What if it’s the colors that matter?” As soon as Marcus had reached land, the rafts reappeared, and the creatures left to wherever it was they came from. She pointed to a raft about a third of the way around the pond. “If you start over there on that red symbol, you can go forward one, left two, forward one, right one, then straight in to the middle without leaving red.”
Marcus visually followed the path she described. “Okay,” he said, nodding slowly. “I can see that. Colors. I’m impressed.”
Kyja shrugged, trying not to look too proud of herself. Let Marcus see that he wasn’t the only one who could figure out puzzles.
“Go ahead,” he said, waving his hand toward the water. “Show me how it’s done.”
“Well . . .” Kyja bit her lip.
“Oh, no.” Marcus shook his head vigorously. “It’s your plan. You try it. I’m not falling into the water with those swamp-monkeys again.”
“But you’re already wet. Plus, I’m not sure you could pull me out if I fell in.”
“So you get to come up with the ideas. But I have to test them.” He pushed himself to his feet and began limping around the lagoon to the raft with the red symbol. “I should have stayed with the kook to see which snail got to become knight or whatever.”
“I think this will work,” Kyja said. But did she? Or was she just trying to prove that her ideas were the best?
“Keep the rope tight,” Marcus s
aid, mumbling under his breath as he stepped out onto the raft.
“How does it feel?” Kyja asked.
“Like a raft.” He gave her a baleful glare.
“I’ve got the rope,” she called with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.
“Here goes nothing.” Taking small, sliding steps, he made his way along the bobbing walkway and stopped just in front of the next raft. “Sure you don’t want to come out and try it yourself?”
Kyja shook her head.
An inch at a time, he moved his foot above the raft. With a sigh even Kyja could hear, he lowered his foot to the next wooden surface. Please, Kyja whispered to herself. Please let this work.
Then Marcus was in the water again, and Kyja was pulling the rope as fast as she could while he screamed and jabbed at the monkeys with his staff.
“Okay. So it’s not colors,” Kyja said once Marcus had recovered from his latest “swim.”
“Brilliant reasoning,” Marcus said, his teeth chattering as he lay on the grass, trying to get warm. “I’m sure those creatures are impressed with your incredible intelligence.” He rubbed his calf. “I think one of them bit me.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, Kyja studied the rafts. If the solution wasn’t symbols or colors, then what else could it be? “There has to be a pattern.”
“Of course there’s a pattern,” Marcus said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know what it is.”
“I guess we could just keep trying until we figure it out,” she mused.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Marcus ran his fingers through his wet hair. “If you want to use trial and error, you be the guinea pig. You can see what it’s like getting your head shoved under the water by those sea-chipmunks. I’m sure I could get you out eventually.”
Kyja sighed. Trial and error didn’t make any sense. There were too many possible variations, and they couldn’t try them all—Marcus didn’t have that much time.
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