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We walked into a town full of old-world charm. It had been several days since we’d left that strange secret society, and while I was still steaming at their charity, I had to admit we were doing better when we weren’t starving or injured. There was also less arguing. Why did the stalker, of all people, have to help us? I wanted to be angry at him.
The town was a quiet, sleepy place with rustic homes laid out neatly. I checked the map, and I thought we were somewhere near the spot marked ‘Ruins of Fabella’. I hoped that could be ‘the place that is never new’ mentioned on the scroll.
Fera and I nosed around the town, I talking politely with people and Fera being, well . . . Fera. So rather pushy. I asked a shopkeeper what town this was, and he laughed at me. “Which name do you want?”
I blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry?”
“This town is old, and we’ve had many names. Now we’re called Marrep, before that Corwith, preceded by Laydron, and before that we were Elvera. Though that was never really the name. The temple was called Elvera, and the town Fabella grew up around it. The temple compounds lasted a lot better than the first town, mind you. ‘Course scholars like treating Elvera as part of Fabella, rather than the other way around, so Fabella is the name that stuck. Sorry, probably not too interesting to you girls.”
Fera and I shared a glance and I thanked the man for his information. We hurried away, whispering excitedly to each other. This was the place we needed, now we just had to find the ruins. I’m not normally the religious type, but I sent up a silent plea for good luck. If the place we wanted had been old a thousand years ago, how old did that make it now? Nonexistent?
Searching the outskirts of the old town, I spotted some crumbling, oddly shaped rocks around the north-east end. We found a buckled road and stopped dead. Fera gave a low whistle as I gasped, “Oh my . . .”
Spreading out before us were the stone remains of columns and walls and statues. They were all worn and encrusted with mosses and leafy creeping ivy. There were old stone tiles poking out at sharp angles from beneath the dirt. Time and nature were slowly overtaking a place that had once been breathtaking, and still was.
“This must be the site of Elvera,” I breathed, “the temple spot for Fabella.”
Fera looked around with eyes wide like saucers. “If this place was old at the end of the Ancient Times, how old is it really?”
“Probably from around the Dark Days, from before elementalists,” I glanced at Fera. “Okay, we’re dating archeological sites experts don’t know the age of. Anything wrong with this picture?”
She tilted her head. “We’re brilliant?”
I rolled my eyes at that. Slinging my bag off, I pulled out the scroll, reading the instructions out loud for what felt like the hundredth time. “Now we just have to find the statue.”
I walked cautiously into the site and looked around, too worried about breaking something to investigate thoroughly. Everything looked very fragile.
“Hey,” Fera said, “how long ago were there dragons?”
Seriously? I sighed. “Fera, just because we’re looking for a dragon statue doesn’t mean it’s the time to answer questions from your obsession with them.”
“What!” I could feel her glaring at me. “I’m just asking ‘cause this looks like a really weird dragon, but if they’re super old then I guess they could change in appearance . . .”
I spun around. Fera was looking up at an odd pillar near the front. I marched over to her and looked up, trying to see things from my sister’s perspective. It did look like an archaic style dragon.
“Fera . . . I think you did something right!” I was stunned; Fera wasn’t the most observant person.
“Why thank you,” she said. “Wait . . .” I’d already turned and stepped away, out of the immediate burn zone. I faced north and started counting out my strides. Fera stormed after me. “Hey! Get back h –”
“Shush.” I held up my hand to silence her. “It’s thirty lengths north, I need to count my steps.”
She folded her arms. “I could just burn the numbers into the grass to keep track better. And – before you argue – I won’t do it where any stones are.”
I paused and looked at her. “Why are you suddenly . . . not being like you?”
“Mira, I’m gonna toast you if you don’t shut up.”
“I could soak you.”
“I could dry myself and burn you.”
“And we’re not battling on a historic site. Just burn the distances numbers in – only when I say so and only where I say so.”
She pouted. “Fine.” After a heartbeat she added, “point Fera!” I glared at her and continued heading north with my meticulous distance counting.
***
“. . . AND HERE.” I STOPPED walking and Fera burnt the number thirty into the grass at my feet. The temple site was a lot more rundown out here – practically nonexistent. It had remained strong in a northeast direction but the scroll had wanted us to keep going north. I took a deep breath and turned to my right. “Twelve steps east.”
Fera and I counted out the long steps, widening our stride in hopes to match it to whoever had set this whole thing up. We crossed over the grassy ground and passed under an archway. “Now,” I said turning about, “three southwest . . . and . . . here.” I looked up at the statue in front of us. “’Give the girl idol your thanks’,” I quoted.
I looked critically at the statue. It was hard to tell if it was of Gaile or Chion. Both goddesses were very similar in that they were portrayed as very feminine and very proud. The statue was so marred over time I could only see the basic figure. Once she would have been very pretty.
“Now what?” Fera asked.
I bent over. “How do you ‘give thanks’ to a god?” I brushed aside loose dirt and plant life until I revealed the smooth paving stones below. Carefully I knelt down, putting my knees on the stones. I waited, breath held and heart pounding for something happen. Fera looked around nervously.
For a minute nothing happened. Then there was a sound like running sand and grating stone. I turned towards the sound. Where there had been only a grassy tussock, a hole was opening up and leading to a cave beneath. As the hole widened, I could hear a hissing sound. The hole stopped growing and I crawled over to it.
“Fera, some light?” She crouched down next to me and lit a flame in her hand. It was a large cave roughly hewn out of the stone, with oddly coloured sand. Curling about in the sand were a couple of massive snakes with intricate diamond patterns on their back in flashy colours. They were as thick as my arm, and probably twice my height if they uncoiled.
It’s not like I was squeamish around snakes, but I wasn’t exactly a fan. They were creepy, slimy beasts that were usually . . . “Oh damnit.”
Fera gave me a look. “Okay. A snake couple moved in. Big deal.”
I sighed. “Fera, these aren’t ordinary snakes. The scroll mentions them. You know how some tortoises live for a couple hundred years? Abbersian snakes, which were thought to be an extinct species, used to be known for living at least five hundred. Maybe even a thousand. I’m pretty sure that’s an Abbersian snakeskin pattern. They were hunted to extinction for being pretty. I’m willing to bet these are the original ones placed down here and trained to guard whatever we have to get. So now we have to dig beneath them, hope we don’t unearth what we don’t want and not get attacked.”
“Oh.” Fera tilted her head and stared at the snakes. “How many ways can they kill?”
Lovely moral boosting question. “Several; poison, strangulation, probably swallowing us whole . . .” Fera shut me up with a look.
“You want me to do this one?”
I rolled my eyes. “Can you even read what’s on the wall?”
“There’s something on the wall?”
“Just give me some more light.” Taking a deep breath, I swung my legs into the cave and slid down. Fera performed the trick where she sent a fireball to float in the corners of the cave. The snakes lifted their heads to stare at the flames, mesmerized.
My heart pounded loudly as I dug my fingers into the sand and started to search for anything. I felt something cold and hard and hurriedly pulled the sand away. A snake flicked its head towards me. I went back to searching in the sand and slowly found four more items.
They looked identical, save for the fact they were made of different metals. The snakes had yet to attack, but with each piece they’d paid me more and more attention. The items were strangely carved, looping in a confusing fashion with two small pegs sticking out on one side.
Dig beneath the silver earth. Done that. Take what is not worth. Not so easy a thing. What was worthless? I couldn’t tell the types of metals like an earth elementalist, and maybe the value of things had changed since the pieces had been buried. Something that was worthless now could’ve been priceless way back when.
I looked around the cave for clues and found none. There were no hints as to what to take. “Just grab the gold and get out of there!” Fera called down.
“How is that not valuable?” I asked, keeping my voice low because Fera’s holler had agitated the snakes. “In other scenarios something else might be more valuable . . . plus there’s no gold.” They were just a bunch of funny shades; silver, clear, blue, red, and green. Gemstone?
Worst part was, I knew if I grabbed one of the four wrong ones, I’d be attacked. And somehow fighting off giant snakes did not seem like a doable task.
I pulled nervously on the end of my braid and bit my lip. What was I supposed to do? This was impossible! I wanted to cry.
Running my hands over each piece lightly, I watched the snakes for any reaction. It was all in the eyes; beady little eyes focused on me intensely. What was worthless?
Then it hit me. This was a riddle. Another riddle. The colours corresponded to the elements – they’d even remembered the fifth. Silver for aether, clear for air, blue for water, red for fire, and green for earth. And this was set up by water elementalists, meaning our opposite was useless.
I reached out and picked up the red piece. The snakes reared their heads, bearing fangs and hissing. I screamed and threw my arms up. Immediately there was a whirl of heat. “Mira!” I spun and grabbed Fera’s outstretched hand and she yanked me out.
I scrambled onto the grass, pulling myself clear and looking back to see the snakes still in the pit, ready to strike. They didn’t come out or move. “You okay?” Fera asked.
I nodded shakily. “Yeah. Nothing happened, I just panicked. If they’d wanted to attack, I’d already be dead. Sorry.” I held up the piece. “I got it.”
Fera grinned as I put it away with its twin. “Great. Now what.”
“Let me write down what they wrote on the wall.” The ink was still quite vibrant, probably due to being underground for so long, which made it easy to read and write down. It was a little weird to think that most people would only see it as nonsense.
I handed it to Fera when I was done. She read it under her breath, but I could still hear it.
“Here is the key you need,
it’d be horrible if you now bleed,
So head further east,
And rest the least,
Until you find the marker,
On eve, the side that’s darker,
Find the clue within,
The road marker at Allivin.”
She looked at me even as I already pulled the map out. “Found it,” I said quickly, just looking east of Fabella. “Allivin is a huge city. The marker must be some, like, crossroads thing. Lots of big roads intersect there.”
Fera nodded at me and stood up as I put the map away. She grabbed some loose pieces of stone and set it over the hole to sort of cover it and tossed a few plants over it.
I got up. “Well, those snakes will be escaping. I think we should move on before an extinct species is rediscovered.”
“Don’t want to be famous?”
“We’re probably being chased by the Wind Tribe, isn’t that famous enough?” I started heading back to town, Fera coming after me. “Now, onwards to Allivin.” We smiled at each other and walked on. My backpack felt heavier than before. We now had the entire key to the shard. If we found the vault, there was nothing to hold us back.