by Sever Bronny
“Can’t find the stairs anywhere,” Augum muttered as they reached the end of the first floor.
“Let’s just climb down through a hole,” Leera said.
“Are you crazy?” Bridget countered, face smeared with soot. “How would we get back up?”
Leera snickered. “You look like a barbarian. Every time you push your hair aside, you add to it.”
“What?”
“Check your fingers, they’re black.”
“Oh … darn.”
“One of these days I’m going to teach you how to curse properly.”
Bridget snorted before breaking into a cough. “Let’s find the stairs,” and she stumbled off.
“Leave her alone, she’s trying to blend in,” Augum whispered. The two of them suppressed laughter.
Suddenly there was a wooden groaning sound, a shriek, and Leera was gone.
Augum dropped to his knees by the hole while Bridget raced over, but Leera was already laughing.
Bridget scowled. “What’s so funny—you almost died!”
“I know, and now I’m stuck!” Leera said between snorts of laughter, jammed to the waist in the floor. “Since my feet are dangling, we can definitely say it keeps going down though!”
Leera finally hauled herself up.
“Wait there, we’re going to look for some stairs—” Bridget said in a firm voice, and the two of them went to search for the stairs, locating them under a pile of rubble. When they finally caught up to Leera, she was readying to jump down through yet another hole.
“Why not just use the stairs—?” Bridget asked.
“Because it wouldn’t be as exciting,” Augum answered on her behalf. Leera pointed at him without looking up. “Exactly, listen to the wise Augum, who thrives on adventure and seeks it at every turn, as do I. You spent too long lying on that table!”
Bridget rolled her eyes. “Spare me. I’m taking the stairs. Aug—?”
He looked between the girls, each with their own expectant look, and shrugged. “Guess I’ll take the hole.” When Bridget scowled, he added, “What? Someone’s got to keep an eye on her, otherwise she might break her neck.”
“Fine. You’re taking foolish risks, the both of you.” Bridget marched off.
He slipped down to where Leera was. She was already hanging from the edge of the hole, dangling like a monkey.
“Ugh, she needs to loosen up,” she said before letting go.
He followed, landing with a thud onto clay ground, indicating it was likely the lowest floor. He began searching the area with his lit palm. Suddenly there was a girlish shriek and the sound of something collapsing. They bolted towards Bridget, finding her entombed in a pile of burnt timber—the remains of the stairs. Two white eyes blinked from a soot-black face.
“Don’t you dare say anything—” she hissed through gritted teeth as they each offered her a hand. “I can stand up on my own, thank you very much.” She calmly used Telekinesis to push aside the charred planks, trying to keep what was left of her dignity.
He and Leera didn’t even exchange glances, knowing that if they did, both of them would break out in laughter.
They moved on with their search, navigating a plethora of charred obstacles. Augum saw a small hole behind some debris. Following his intuition, he shoved the largest piece of timber out of the way, revealing a spacious cavity in the wall.
“There’s another room here!”
The girls fought their way over as he shone his light inside, observing a curious set of cubbyholes against all the walls, most filled with sheaves of charred parchment.
“This must be it.” Leera shoved aside another charred plank. “Look—scrolls! Or what’s left of them anyway.” She picked up one burned husk and it disintegrated in her hands.
They began searching the cubbyholes. Finally, Leera stuck her arm in one all the way up to her shoulder, carefully extruding an unburned scroll. “Got one!” She immediately began unrolling the parchment.
“Great, another one of these,” Augum muttered, eyeing the contents. The script, as with the Group Teleport scroll, was small, detailed and wordy.
Bridget tapped the heading. “Slow Time. Might come in handy.”
“We’d have to practice reading it.” He recalled how difficult the pronunciation was with Group Teleport. If it hadn’t been for Centarro …
Leera pointed to a particular passage. “It only affects one person though. That means careful planning.”
After everyone had a good look, she rolled it back up and they finished searching, finding nothing else.
“Wait a moment, let’s all try Unconceal,” Bridget said.
“I’ll keep my light on.” He wished he knew how to chronocast. It’d be awesome to cast Unconceal while keeping Shine going at the same time. Mrs. Stone knew how to do it. He wondered if it was even possible to learn at his degree.
The girls fell silent with concentration while he looked on, unconsciously dimming his light a little.
Bridget glanced up. “Did you just do that—?”
“Do what? I was just standing here.”
Leera also stared at him. “I noticed it too—you dimmed your light like Mrs. Stone. How did you do that?”
“Oh, that.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just … did it.”
Leera gave him a wry look. “Teach it to us.”
Like toddlers finding a shinier object to play with, they forgot about the Unconceal spell and immediately began practicing dimming Shine instead.
As a testament to their adeptness, they were soon dimming and brightening their palms with ease.
“Thanks for that little lesson, Mr. Stone,” Bridget said. “Where were we?”
“Unconceal,” he replied.
“Right.” She closed her eyes for a bit. “Un vun deo.”
He lit the way for her, Leera resting and watching from the sidelines. Bridget delicately held her hand before her, fingers spread wide, feeling for the slightest hint of intent to hide something. For a while, she only stood there.
Augum exchanged an unsurprised look with Leera.
Suddenly Bridget began moving towards a burnt bookshelf. “There’s something behind here.” They immediately pushed the bookshelf out of the way, revealing a small iron door.
“I don’t believe it,” Leera said. “A secret door …”
Bridget kneeled down and pulled on its inset handle. The door creaked open and they leaned in. “It’s another scroll.” The parchment was cracked and yellow. She carefully unfurled it and started reading.
Thus leans this wickedest stone
So shall grant the oldest crone
One wish speaketh without fear
Be warned it shall becometh real
So shall ye giveth tooth or bone
Of ancient wings and death reborn
And warned ye be it would be best
If ye followed one Lord of Death
Find thy mark three pointed star
Shout with Shine your wish bizarre
Crush the object against the stone
And prepare to meet the ancient crone
When she finished, they exchanged ominous glances.
“Sounds like a vile curse or something,” Leera whispered. “Like necromancy …”
Augum squinted. “There’s something else written in the margin.”
Bridget twisted the scroll, struggling to read the tiny script aloud. “ ‘Beware thy wish be true and plain, for in exchange thy soul she’ll drain’.
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t screw up the wording,” Leera replied. “Or she’ll swoop in and suck out our guts.”
“It has to mean she’ll drain our arcane stamina,” Bridget said. “So it’s particularly important to get the wording right, because otherwise we’ll be left defenseless.” She traced over the words with her finger. “So what I’m getting from this is—and sorry for the rhymes, but—if you crush a tooth or bone … against a sto
ne … you’d be visited by some old crone … who’d then grant you a wish.”
Leera made a sour face. “Sounds like bad poetry.”
“So what do you think it means by ‘three pointed star’?” he asked.
Bridget bit her lip. “Maybe you have to do this at night, pointing at a particular formation of stars. It’s probably some sort of pillar or something. And I think you have to cast Shine while you shout your wish, because it says ‘Shout with Shine your wish bizarre’ …”
“And obviously you have to be a follower of the Lord of Death,” Leera said.
“Well, it just says ‘it would be best’.” Bridget read the scroll again to herself, lips moving silently. Suddenly she glanced to Augum’s chest.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Bridget met his gaze. “ ‘So shall ye giveth tooth or bone of ancient wings and death reborn’…”
Suddenly it dawned on him what she was talking about. He reached down his robe and pulled out the black tooth amulet One Eye had given him, fingering its course edge. “But … this is a bear’s tooth. It has to be.”
“And what if it isn’t?”
For a moment, they just stared at it.
“Well, if it really is a dragon’s tooth, this is our chance to find Mrs. Stone,” Leera said, voicing aloud what Augum was thinking. “Now all we have to do is find the stone to smash it against.”
“Wait, I know what we can try—” he said. “Let’s cast Centarro and concentrate on the verses. Maybe something will come to mind.”
Bridget glanced about. “This isn’t exactly an ideal place to suffer the side effects of that spell.”
Leera shrugged. “Maybe just one of us should cast it.”
The girls looked at him.
“All right, I’ll be the dummy.”
“Just be sure to think of what you’re going to do when it wears off,” Bridget said, smoothing the ancient parchment at his feet. The girls took up sentry at the exit of the little cave-like room, keeping their palms lit so he could read.
He made himself comfortable. “All right, here goes.” He drew in a series of long breaths and stilled his mind. Then, as per his great-grandfather’s instructions, he took a few moments to note the details of his surroundings—the fine penmanship on the ancient parchment, the creases marring its surface, the darker soot lines in the palm of his hands …
“Centeratoraye xao xen.”
The world sharpened and magnified. Everything became a poem, every concept simple. Time seemed to slow. The parchment shone with clarity, sunshine awaiting shadow, but he was in no rush to begin. He locked eyes with Leera. She was a visual song, the freckles on her cheeks dancing with joy. The soot that covered her. She was night in the form of a girl. He smiled confidently and she smiled back—a strangely sensitive, embarrassed smile. Her cheeks brightened ever so subtly. He knew he was the only one to see that.
Bridget’s face expressed concern, which he resolved with a smile. Her hazel eyes communicated compassion and hope for a better future.
He felt a wave of gratitude sweep over him, for their friendship, their companionship, and their belief in him. He let the energies settle and dissipate in the great forever of the moment, before visualizing himself lying down as soon as the effects of the spell wore off, watching the ceiling calmly. The trick was for him not to be disturbed, so he said, “I’m going to lie down after, don’t let me see you.” Bridget and Leera exchanged perplexed looks, but he knew it was the right thing to say. He smiled harmoniously and turned to the scroll, feeling every beat of his heart and hearing every subtle sound, from the scraping of his boots on the charred ground to their rhythmic breathing.
He read the poem again, first focusing on the three-pointed star. Memories of anything to do with the number three flooded his mind—three shovels propped against the Penderson farmhouse; a three door ironwood wardrobe in Castle Arinthian; three dark ovens, mouths forever gaping; three knights mingling before a bloody room, silhouetted by torchlight and talking in low voices; his great-grandfather speaking of the three kinds of undead; a withered Leyan woman with milky eyes and a faded emblem on her cloak—a triangle with a black dot at the end of each point, a three pointed star …
“I know what it is,” he whispered as his mind began to fog. Now to complete the plan. He lay back on the ground, watching the ceiling with its greenish-blue light, lit from a nearby source, a source he knew to be friendly, though he could not remember exactly who or what was casting that light.
He did remember garbled thoughts of burnt wood and black soot faces; a gigantic gaping hole in the floor and someone falling … The thoughts twisted into a vile face, staring at him from the abyss. The face loomed larger and larger, until he was but a speck in comparison, terrified of being swallowed, a miniscule fly in an eternal cave.
He heard himself whimper and the light upon the ceiling wavered, like flames coming to life. Suddenly a great raven appeared, ready to peck out his eyes. He called out, covering his face with his hands, pleading for it not to take his sight. He could feel the soot walls creep in on him, making it difficult to breathe. He felt himself expelling air quickly and inhaling more, quicker and quicker and quicker …
***
Augum suddenly sat up in a cold sweat, head pounding as if being kicked. His stomach felt inside out and his hands vibrated with weakness.
“You all right?” Bridget asked, worried eyes reflecting the greenish light of her palm.
“I … I think it was my fault,” Leera said, giving him a sudden hug. He coughed involuntarily and she let go. “I stepped forward when you called out. I didn’t mean to, but it was too late, you already saw me … I’m so sorry.”
“You were the raven,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing, it just … it turned into a nightmare.” He shook out his arms, dispelling that lingering feeling of dread. They gave him a few moments to recuperate.
Bridget brushed the soot off his back. “At the end you said, ‘I know what it is’.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” He had to work to concentrate through the fog in his mind. Suddenly the memory came flooding back, vivid as a bright cloudless morning—the triangle, each point accented with a sharp black dot.
“Remember Magua from Ley? The one with milky eyes?”
Leera smirked. “How could we forget?”
Bridget’s eyes narrowed as her memory jogged. Her face lit up. “The triangle-thingy, with the three dots—it was on her cloak!”
“Yes, I see it now,” Leera said, “but what does she have to do with all this?”
They took a bit of time, thinking things over, but no answers came forth.
“We still need to find out what stone it refers to, and where it is,” he said at last, choosing to change the subject. Perhaps the significance of the triangle will come to them later.
“The verse could refer to a leaning pillar, or maybe a tower,” Bridget said.
Leera cracked her knuckles as if preparing for a fight. “That’s it, I’m trying Centarro.” Upon seeing the look on Bridget’s face, she added, “Don’t worry so much, Bridge, I promise I won’t run off to play in the snow like last time. Anyway, I need the practice.” She flashed a cheeky smile.
Augum and Bridget stood back. He lit up his palm, dimming the light just enough so it wouldn’t distract Leera. She sat down on her knees before the scroll and read silently, lips moving. She then closed her eyes and took a series of deep breaths.
“Centeratoraye xao xen.”
Time passed as she only sat there. “Shine the light in my face when I slide,” she finally said, before opening her eyes and focusing on the scroll.
Augum thought he understood what she wanted—to be distracted by their shining palms when the side effects kicked in.
She stared straight ahead. “ ‘Thus leans this wickedest stone, so shall grant the oldest crone, one wish speaketh without fear, be warned it shall becometh real … Thus leans thi
s wickedest stone … thus leans …” Recognition dawned on her face. “Hangman’s Rock.”
He looked to Bridget—of course, the answer should have been obvious. The Rock leaned.
When Leera’s eyes began glazing over, they shone their palm-light in her face. Leera gazed into the light with a dreamy look.
Eventually she winced, touching her temple. “That was … intense. Head hurts.”
Bridget helped her stand. “We should have seen it right away—‘leans the wickedest stone’—Aug, remember the claw against the tent?”
He nodded, the memory as fresh as if it had happened the day before. He pictured that black tilted rock, remembering the stories about it. “So now that we know what symbol to look for, where to find it, and what to use—” He held up One Eye’s amulet. “All that’s left is coming up with a wish.”
“And wording it right,” Bridget said.
“And getting past the Legion,” Leera threw in.
They stood silent a moment pondering the enormity of the challenge.
Leera snorted. “Anyone else think it’s suicide?”
“Me—” he said.
“Definitely suicide—” Bridget said at the same time, nodding.
They looked at each other.
“So we’re going to do it?” Bridget asked.
“Definitely,” he and Leera chorused.
Bridget sighed. “I think I’d like to see my parents now.”
“Want us to come with you?” Leera asked.
She only shook her head.
Revelations
“Goodness, goodness me—” Mr. Goss said upon laying eyes on Augum and Leera. “You two look as if you have been mining coal—”
“Mr. Goss, we think we found a way to get to Mrs. Stone,” Leera said.
“That is all fine and well but we simply must have you wash up. And where is Bridget?”
“Visiting her parent’s graves.”
Mr. Goss gave a pained smile. “Such things are always best experienced alone.” He sighed. “I will fetch the washbasin and warm you up some water.” He handed them a cloth for the meantime.
