by Hanna Peach
Sight. The last risk was sight. Jordan lifted his chin and reached out a hand to touch the last box.
A sense of panic filled Alyx. No. What if Jordan lost his hearing and his sight? He would be completely helpless. No. She couldn’t let him risk it.
Alyx knocked his hand away and touched the last box, calling, “I’m playing and I risk my sight.” The box began to disintegrate.
Alyx found herself being snatched from the ground by two strong hands clasping her arms. Jordan’s hand. He was livid, so much so that he was shaking her.
“Why the hell did you do that?” he yelled, his lack of hearing obviously making it hard for him to gauge how loud he was being.
Alyx cringed at the violence of his voice. He saw her reaction and it seemed to bring him to his senses – at least the ones that were left. The anger fell out of him and his shoulders collapsed. He lowered her to the ground.
“Oh my God, Alyx.” His voice was softer now. He brushed hair out of her eyes and cupped the sides of her face gently as he leaned his forehead on hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, I just…dammit, why would you take that risk for me?”
She didn’t say anything. Whatever she said, he wouldn’t hear it anyway. She just reached around to clasp his neck with her hands and closed her eyes.
“When you’ve quite finished.” A stern female voice from beside her snapped her back to the task at hand. The last game.
Alyx pulled away from Jordan and looked to the counter where the last game had been revealed. On a board lay eight sparkling sapphire gems, all identical. Behind it was an iron statuette of a slim, elegant lady in a matching sapphire dress that draped in creases across the board like roots of a tree. Across her neck was a metal arm, the ends upon which two curved plates hung by a set of chains. This lady was a set of weighing scales.
The statuette tilted her head and gave Alyx a scathing look. “Oh no, don’t mind me. Some of us have nothing better to do than to just hang around all day.”
Alyx ignored her sarcasm. “What do I need to do?”
The statuette cleared her throat, took a deep breath and began to sing:
“Pick the odd one out,
And ye shall win the game.
There’s one that is heavier,
Tho these gems may look the same.
Pick the odd one out,
Using only my scales
You only get two weighings.
So pray that ye don’t fail.”
The lady ended her morose tune. Then set her cold eyes upon Alyx’s face. “Any questions?”
Only two weighings. Eight gems. But that was impossible. Perhaps if she had another two or three goes at the weighing scales…
“Is there a time limit for this game?” asked Alyx, realizing that she couldn’t see a timer.
“No time limit. But you only get two goes to weigh. And once you’ve started you can’t take the weighing back, so…think about this carefully.”
Alyx took a deep breath to try and relax herself. She had to remain calm if she were to figure this one out. She blocked out everything she could except for the board.
Eight gems. Two goes at the scales…
Think logically, Alyx. Okay, so she needed to separate them into groups. If she weighed four gems against four gems, then she would narrow the heaviest gem down to one of four…but then it would take two more weighings to determine the heaviest out of two versus two, then one versus one. And she only had two weighings… If only she had three weighings it would work…or only six gems…
Think, Alyx. There is a way.
Wait…the beginning of an idea began to stir in her mind. What if she weighed three against three…and left two gems on the table? If the gems on the scales matched, then the heavier one would be one of the two on the table and a second weighing would determine the heavier of the two. If the heavier one was on the scale, then she could take that group of three gems and weigh two against the other. Yes!
She couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her face. She glanced at Jordan. His face was creased with concern, but when he saw her expression, his face pulled into a smile.
Argyll spoke, “You look like you’re onto something.”
Alyx held her tongue. She would rather show this sneaky salesman than gloat before she had succeeded. She picked up three gems and placed them on one side of the scales. She picked up another three and placed them on the other. The scales swung up and down against the weight until it eased into its equilibrium. The scales on the right hand side were lower than the left side.
“That’s one weighing,” said the iron lady. “One more to go.”
Alyx picked up the gems on the left and placed them with the other two gems on the board to make a pile of rejected gems. She picked up the three gems in the right-hand scale plate and placed them one, two, three in front of the scales. The heavier gem was in this group.
She smiled at the iron lady, whose scowl just deepened.
Alyx took the first gem and placed it in the left of the scale. She took the second gem and placed it in the right. The third gem remained on the table. She watched as the scales swayed then slowed to a stop. Both sides were equal. Which meant that the heaviest gem was the third gem left on the table.
Alyx picked up the gem off the table and held it out to the statuette. “This is the heaviest.”
For a moment, it seemed the whole arena held its breath. The iron lady froze, staring at the gem in Alyx’s hand. Then she roared and shook, her scales swinging wildly off of her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have been able to figure that out. My game is hard. You should have failed.”
Alyx smiled and she dropped the gem on the board, ignoring the iron lady’s tantrum. She turned to Argyll. “We won. We’d like our prize now.”
Argyll nodded his head and reached under the counter. He pulled out a wooden box, decorated with different colored woods inlaid into geometric patterns across the whole box.
“This should help you reach the end of your journey through the arena,” he said as he held it out. “Perhaps when you get to the end of this, you will realize that you had won more than you thought in each arena.” He winked at her. What did he mean by that?
Alyx took the box while Jordan looked on over her shoulder. She turned the box over in her hands. There was no lid, no hinge, no lock. She shook it. Something rattled inside.
“Argyll, how do we open it?”
He smiled. “That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Oh, look, time to go.”
“We can figure this out later,” Jordan said.
He took the wooden box from her hands and strapped it to his belt. He held out his hand and she took it. They stepped towards the doorway. Alyx turned to say goodbye to Argyll, but he and the games from his counter had already disappeared.
Jordan entered first into the blackness and pulled her along after him.
Chapter 25
Alyx’s feet touched the ground as she stepped through to the other side of the doorway, never letting go of Jordan’s hand. She was surprised to find her footing sank slightly underneath her. Sand.
She glanced around, confused. There had to be some mistake…she took in the vast plains of sand reaching out towards the horizon all the way around to the base of the blue-domed sky above. Had they gone backwards? Was this the same place as the place they had arrived when they first entered the Second Chance Game?
Jordan was turning around and around in confusion as well.
Was that a noise that she heard over the sound of their boots crunching on the sand? Alyx stopped moving. Then she grabbed Jordan and placed a finger to her lips to stop him from making any more noise.
It was some kind of rushing sound, like water moving through a stream. But there wasn’t any water here… It was getting louder and louder. Jordan stared at her, a terse, confused look on his face. Of course, he couldn’t hear it. But she could. She definitely could.
Alyx frowned. It sounded like…yes, it was voices. The noise was now an audible
mumble. The voices sounded like they were coming from the air itself. Alyx frowned in concentration as she began to make out the words.
“…are lost without being stolen…”
The whispers grew louder and louder, seeming to be repeating the same sentence, over and over again…
“…at night they appear without being called…by day they are lost without being stolen…”
Another riddle.
“It’s some kind of riddle,” she mumbled. “At night they appear without being called, by day they are lost without being stolen.”
Alyx chewed her lip as her mind turned over this riddle. What could it be?
Jordan frowned at her. “What is it? What do you hear?”
How could she communicate this riddle to him without speaking? Alyx glanced around her looking for some kind of inspiration. She gripped her sword handle in frustration. There was nothing here but sand, sand and more sand.
Sand. Of course.
Alyx unsheathed her sword and began to write the riddle in the sand with the tip of her blade. Jordan watched her movements carefully and followed her as she wrote out the words in a long sentence across the desert ground.
When she finished, she stared back at the words in the sand that she had just made, searching for inspiration.
At night they appear without being called, by day they are lost without being stolen.
Could it be some sort of nocturnal animal? An owl? A bat? But what kind of animal becomes lost during the day?
“That’s easy,” Jordan said. “The answer is ‘stars’.”
At once the whispers dropped into nothing. Alyx stared at Jordan and felt a small measure of pride.
Then suddenly the sky began to darken as if turning to twilight. The ground began to shake. The sand began to suck away from under her. Alyx lost her footing. She tried to hold herself up in the air but she had forgotten she couldn’t fly. She fell with the sand as it collapsed under her feet into a chasm. She felt the unfamiliar and terrifying tug of gravity pulling her down, down…
A hand grabbed her forearm and she jerked up into the air. Jordan had grabbed her before she was sucked away into the draining sand. He pulled her up to him with one hand and grabbed her around the waist in a more secure hold. She suddenly felt so small in his hold.
“Thank you,” she mouthed to him.
“I’ll be your wings when you can’t fly.” He smiled and pulled her closer so that her racing heart was pressed against him. “Just like you are my song when I can’t hear.”
The sky above them continued to darken as the sun set completely and the stars came out. Leaning her head against his chest, Alyx watched as the sand below drained away revealing twelve stone pillars set out in a circle. A stone doorway in the center was the thirteenth object to be revealed. But there was no black nothingness in this doorway, and the sand spilled through the arches.
Jordan flew them both down to the center of the circle and set her down. She stepped towards the doorway and ran her hand along the inside of the stone arches. It was cool to the touch and definitely not activated.
She turned and saw that Jordan was already inspecting one of the pillars. She walked to the base of the pillar next to him. They were tall, made of a granite rock and she had to crane her neck to see the top. They were at least twelve feet tall. She walked around the base. They were perfectly circular, about six feet wide or so.
Alyx watched with a pang of jealousy as Jordan flew up the pillar to inspect the top. When he reached the top he gave out a small cry.
“The top of this pillar has a flat, circular head,” he called down to her. “It has a section like a slice of pie cut away.” He waved his hand over part of the pillar and looked up. “Look!” And he waved his hand over the pillar again.
Alyx squinted at the sky. There, running across the part of the sky, was a black void in the shape of a hand. Somehow Jordan’s hand was causing part of the stars to be blocked out.
“I thought that the night sky looked strange,” he continued. “It looks like the ‘stars’ aren’t actually stars. There’s light shining through these small holes, which are creating what looks like the night sky. And…” Jordan stopped talking and began to run his hands along the outside of the top of the pillar.
And what?
Alyx fought a small wave of frustration that washed through her as she remained stuck on the ground with no way of communicating to a temporarily deaf Jordan. All she could do was watch as he ran his hands around the circumference of the pillar. Something rumbled like stone on stone.
He let out a small cry of triumph. “It moves. Part of the top section spins.” He touched the sides of the pillar again and the noise sounded again. “Look, it changes the stars.”
Alyx stared up to the “night sky” and was surprised to see that indeed, the stars moved and changed as Jordan turned the wheel around the pillar.
This must be some sort of puzzle. But what did they have to do? She stared at the pillar closest to her to see whether she had missed anything. A plaque with instructions…symbols…another riddle maybe?
But the cold pillar stood mute. She stared at the pillar, growing more and more despondent. How was she supposed to solve a puzzle that she didn’t even understand?
She looked up at Jordan. He was staring up at the night sky, spinning his section slowly, a frown on his face. Suddenly he let out a cry.
“What? What is it?” Alyx felt a sliver of excitement growing in her.
Jordan didn’t answer. He didn’t hear her. He flew to the next pillar and started spinning the moveable section. Alyx watched the stars move in the sky above him. The stars stopped turning and Jordan let out another cry.
Alyx waved at him to try to get his attention. She frowned, tilted her head and raised her hands up her sides in what she hoped conveyed, Tell me what you think you’ve found or I’ll hit you.
Jordan flew down to her, grinning. “I think the aim of this puzzle is to spin the twelve pillars until you get the right spot.”
And? She stared at him expectantly. How did he know where to stop spinning each pillar?
“Have you not noticed anything about the pillars?”
Alyx frowned and she mouthed, “That they’re made of stone.” She knocked on the pillar next to her as she spoke.
“And?”
Alyx let out a huff and rolled her eyes as if to say, Come on Jordan, we don’t have time to play.
He ignored this. “Have you noticed how many of them there are?”
She nodded. She held up one finger, then two fingers to indicate the number 12.
“And where do you find twelve of anything in relation to stars?”
Alyx was about to retort when Jordan’s question began to tickle something in her mind. Twelve pillars, twelve sections of the night sky…
“Give up?” Jordan grinned. “The zodiac signs. Each zodiac sign actually relates to a constellation of stars. We just have to spin these pillars until the constellation shines through. The first pillar that I spun has the constellation of Cancer, the crab. This one is Leo, the lion.”
He pointed up to the sky and leaned his head down near hers so she could better follow where he was pointing. “That bright star there is the head, called Regulus, then follow it down to the neck, then running down to the front of the legs and back to Denebola, which actually means ‘the lion’s tail’—”
“Show off,” muttered Alyx as she rolled her eyes.
“Hey! I mightn’t be able to hear you but I can read your lips. Anyway, if you look at the rest of the stars on this pillar they are actually just random points of light, except for the section which shows the Leo constellation. I bet if we spin the next one in the circle we shall find the Virgo constellation.” Jordan flew to the next pillar. Alyx watched as he spun the pillar and let out a cry of triumph. Jordan looked at her.
Alyx felt the excitement returning to her body. She waved her hands in a “hurry up” motion as if to say, Well don’t just stand
there. Go do the rest of them.
Minutes later Jordan was spinning the last pillar. Gemini, he had said. The twins. He had no sooner spun the pillar into place than the stars in their constellations began to glow bright blue.
It was working.
Blue lines appeared in the black space joining the stars up in their constellations. Then, appearing in blue misty light, were the bodies of each zodiac sign − the ram, the bull, the twins, the crab, the lion, the virgin, the scorpion, the archer, the water bearer, the goat, and the fishes. They seemed to take on a fullness as if they were popping out of the sky. Everything became brighter and brighter and brighter.
Then they began to move across the sky − legs galloping, tails flicking, fins flapping − slowly at first. Then they sped up until they became a whirl of color, like a blue snake chasing its tail around the sky. It made Alyx’s head spin just to watch it. What the hell was happening?
Suddenly the blue swirl peeled away and headed straight for them like a fiery comet. There wasn’t even time to run. Alyx dove behind a pillar just as the comet slammed into the ground with a rumble. Alyx braced for the spray of sand and roll of earth that would surely come after an impact like that. But there was nothing. Just an eerie silence.
Jordan landed next to her and she peered around the pillar. The light appeared to have hit the doorway. It now gleamed with the same blue light around the edges – the doorway was now black and activated. They had passed this arena.
But the brightest light shone from the symbol that had appeared at the keystone.
Another symbol, Alyx thought.
Jordan took her hand and they walked towards the doorway to the third arena.
Chapter 26
As soon as Alyx stepped through the doorway she was overwhelmed by the stench of sweat and the oppressing din of voices and dull footfalls. Alyx blinked at the madness around them. Blood-red tents, made dull by a coat of dust and muck, were set up haphazardly around them. The muddy ground showed small patches of grass, evidence that this had been a field of some sort before the camp had been set up. And there were boots everywhere. Boots caked with mud on the ends of the legs of men, dirt and blood-streaked, who rushed around the place and in and out of tent flaps.
