by Amy Marie
Beyond the winding stream is an open area that looks like it may have once been a meadow of beautiful vegetation. The dark field now holds only decay and the shell of what was once a towering tree perched up on a small knoll. A soft glow behind the tree frames its silhouette. Small white quartz stones are strewn about the hill, circling the tree, and larger dark granite stone markers are scattered around them.
I’ve never experienced a setting so ethereal, it’s difficult to put together words to describe. Whatever it is, I know this cavern holds ancient energy.
“Do you feel that?” Tara whispers.
“Yes,” Joe replies, comforting me to know I’m not the only one.
“It’s like…” Dylan begins.
“There’s something here,” Dansé finishes.
“It’s part of us,” I say. It makes no sense, but the elements seem to understand.
“What is this place?” asks Rafe, stricken with a wonder-filled face of a child.
“It looks like it could’ve been another Stonehenge or Garden of Eden,” says Char, voice quiet in respectful reverence.
She couldn’t be more spot on. It’s a place of sacrifice and origin, all at the same time. Mystic and miraculous, supernatural yet holy.
“This is the cavern of creation. The birthplace of Ra. Look, there!” Akar has become fanatical. “The primordial mound that rose from the Nun. That is where it all began!”
“Don’t get carried away,” Rafe reasons. “Next you’ll be claiming that rotting stump was once the Tree of Life.”
What if it was?
What if each origin story held partial truths to what really happened? What if this is where it all began? Down here I feel like anything’s possible. Though the flowing water’s echo is a stark reminder of the emptiness of this once vibrant space. If this was the birthplace of life, it’s now become a hollow cavity.
“Well, if this is where it all began, we have to make sure this isn’t where it all ends,” says Dylan. “Where should we start?”
I’ve been waiting so long to get to this point, I realize I have no idea what to do. I know we need to set a trap for Darcy and Lilly, but I have no idea how. My mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out.
“Why don’t we check out the mound?” suggests Rafe, bailing me out.
I’m the first to take a step further into the cavern. We’ll have to cross the stream of water to get to the small hill.
“Does anyone else feel that?” Joe asks as he jumps over a narrow part of the stream. “Somehow there’s air movement down here.” He points to some hollow lava tubes in the far corner.
“The waterfall and stream make me feel right at home!” says Dylan, helping Dansé across the water.
“It’s should feel cold and damp, but the lava pit really warms the space,” Dansé remarks.
“I think at one point, this might have been a botanical garden,” observes Tara. “But it’s been quite a long time since the sun has shined here. All the plants are long gone.” She points to the shell of the hollow tree.
“What do you think the stones are for?” asks Char.
“There are four of the big ones,” Rafe says, counting around the field. As he approaches the nearest granite stone, he climbs up to get a better look. “It looks like there’s a bowl carved into the top of this one.”
“This one too,” Inigo shouts from the next stone. Joe and Tara venture over to check on the other granite slabs.
“There are seven total around the tree, if you count the smaller white ones,” reports Dansé. “The white ones are flat like platforms, but there’s a triangle carved into the top of each.”
From far away the stones looked like they formed a circle around the tree. Now that I have a better view, the black granite stones make more of a square while the white quartz stones create a triangle inside. All together they still surround the tree in an uneven circle. “This must be the circle from the drawings,” I say. “Looks like this is where we’re supposed to make our stand.”
“Then what exactly is that?” Char points behind the base of the tree.
A small circular pool sits behind the tree, bordered by carved stones of granite on one side and quartz on the other. Except the pool isn’t filled with water. The substance inside almost looks like a mix between water, gas, and a murky liquid that reminds me of mercury. Even though the substance is obscure, it’s emitting a bright glow that helps illuminate the cavern. The only way I can think to describe it is like a darkness that shines. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
“Do you think it’s the fountain of youth?” asks Char, taking a step toward the pool.
Rafe stops her faster than he can get the words out. “I don’t think so. Let’s just stay away from it for now.”
The hum of the necklace and dagger is nothing compared to the sacred song emitting from the pool’s depths. The melody is captivating. I’m both fascinated and afraid at the same time. I find myself wishing to get lost in the profound mysteries that lie within…
“Nora.” Rafe’s hand closes around my wrist, pulling me back from the draw of the pool.
Snapping back to reality, I gulp down my fear.
What was that?
“Rafe’s right. The pool’s dangerous until we figure out what it is.” I find myself glancing up at the cavern entrance. I’m sure the sun has set by now. It’s only a matter of time before Lilly and Darcy find us. “Okay guys, let’s check out the stones. Maybe we can set up a safeguard of some sort.”
“This place practically has a natural safeguard,” Dylan points out, as we spread out to check the haphazard circle of stones. “There’s a stream of water, the lava tubes are blowing air, the churning lava—”
“But there’s no plant life,” Tara calls. “Not without sunlight.”
“There’s something here, carved at the base of the stones. I need a little light,” Inigo calls us to gather around one of the stones he’s been inspecting. Dansé lights her palm to serve as human torch to light the inscription. I set my bag down as I bend down to get a better look.
“It looks like a version of cuneiform. I think it says, ‘sacrifice’.”
Chapter 28
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” asks Dylan.
“It’s calling for a sacrifice,” says Dansé.
“So, we’re just supposed to off ourselves?” Dylan asks, incredulous.
“Human sacrifice isn’t the only way to sacrifice,” I say, thinking back to my Catholic school upbringing.
“These bowls at the top, they’re for an offering,” says Char, using her advantage of the same traditional upbringing.
“Many religions used offering bowls to present sacrificial gifts to the gods,” Rafe says, running his hand along the cavity of the bowl. “Now that you mention it, there is a coincidence. There’s a Buddhist tradition where it calls for seven offering bowls and a candle to represent light,” he says. “I think they call it the auspicious offering.”
“What went in the bowls?” asks Inigo.
“I’m not sure I remember them all, but I know the first was water,” he reports.
Naturally, all eyes fall on Dylan. With a smile, he jogs over to the flowing stream and fills his hands with water. When he returns to the stone, he tips his hands to pour the water into the bowl carved at the top.
As the water flows, the stone pulses with a blue glow. My breath catches in wonder at the enchantment, but when the last drop falls from Dylan’s hand, the stone’s glow fades back to dull black granite.
“Why did it stop?” asks Besim.
“I’m not sure,” Dylan says, jogging back to the stream to try again. For the second time, the stone pulses with a blue glow, but dies out when the pour is complete.
“Something’s not right,” he says. “It’s only working when I pour the water.”
In reaction to his words, Char squeaks, “That’s it!” She smacks the stone. “It’s the same as the safeguard. The water has to flow. Air has
to blow. Fire has to burn, and the earth has to grow. There are only four of the granite stones. One for each element. You need to use your elemental powers at each of the stones!”
“The mother of my baby is a genius!” Rafe circles his arms around Char from behind. “What are we waiting for? Let’s split up!”
Rafe follows Tara to her stone while Inigo and Joe dart to the stone that sits opposite. Char races across the field with Dansé to the stone farthest from us. Besim stays by my side at Dylan’s stone.
In the rush of excitement, I don’t notice Akar slip away until it’s too late.
“Fools!” the cult leader cries as he approaches the sacred pool, my bag in his grasp.
Dylan, Besim, and I make a dash for the tree before the others realize what’s happening. The idiot leader opens my bag and holds up the necklace and dagger in each of his hands screaming, “By the power of Ra’s eye and heart, I will be transformed and reborn as a god in the primordial waters!”
Besim and Dylan block my view of Akar, saving both him from me, and me from committing murder by disintegration.
“Stop!” Dansé screams from her stone with a blazing hand raised, but her line of fire is blocked by my sister.
Seeing us close in, Akar kneels at the pool’s edge hovering the necklace over the substance. “Eye of Ra, look favorably upon me!”
Oh God, no!
Dylan is the first to reach him. He charges the frenzied leader and throws him to the ground away from the pool, but it’s too late. The ancient necklace sinks into the substance, creating a golden glow as it melts away.
“Noooooooo!” the scream that escapes me comes from deep within, guttural and inhuman. My insides tear in half, and the earth itself seems to tilt on axis as if gravity is pulling me inside out. The cult leader just destroyed my only chance to save Darcy.
Akar scrambles back to his feet wielding the dagger in his hand. “Stay back!” he cries, slashing Besim’s arm when he steps too close.
“He’s gonna throw it in!” Dylan yells from my right.
“No. With the dagger of Ra, I will become immortal!” Akar shrieks.
All in the same instant, the man turns the dagger on himself, Dylan lunges for the weapon, and I aim my glowing hand at the crazed leader. Just as the point of the blade is about to pierce the man’s chest, a jet of light bursts from my core, launching the man backward from his spot into the pool of primordial water. Dylan wraps his fingers around the dagger’s hilt just in time to pull it back from the falling man’s grasp.
There’s no splash, not even a scream, to give us any idea of the man’s fate after he disappears into the pool. The silence of his fall sends chills down my spine.
“What happened to him?” Joe asks, out of breath as he reaches us.
Inigo arrives only a second behind him.
“Where’d he go?” Rafe steps close after shielding Tara from the struggle.
“I-I don’t know,” I say, my entire body trembling.
“The primordial waters consumed him,” Inigo says in a low voice.
“Is he dead?” asks Char as she and Dansé join us.
“He’s gone,” says Besim, bent over and gripping his bleeding arm. “Nora did what she had to do. She saved us from that maniac.”
Dylan stands rooted in place next to the pool with a strange distant expression on his face. I glance down to notice he still has the dagger in his glowing grasp, having saved it from the same fate as the necklace.
“I d-didn’t mean to…” I can barely get my words out. The other voices fade away and all I can hear is Talbot’s taunt from my dream: “There will be a call for more blood. Just you wait.”
As I fall to my knees shaking at the horror of what I’ve done, the cavern is filled with Lilly’s wicked cackle.
They’re here.
Chapter 29
We’ve run out of time. All of us scramble in panic at the arrival of our enemies.
“Elementals get to the stones!” one of the guys yells.
In an instant, the cavern is cloaked in darkness as I sense Darcy’s dark power. Everyone screams at the sensation of being blind.
“Nora! We need light!” It’s Char’s cry that brings me to my senses.
Digging deep within me, I rub my hands together, forming an orb of light between my palms. The darkness around me poses as an everlasting void, so I launch my orb of light in the air and it settles just high enough above the tree to cast illumination within the circle of stones.
I duck just in time as a stream of dark magic hurls over my head, blasting chunks of the tree away. The cavern is filled with the echoes of destruction. It sounds as if the world above is falling apart.
With the field now lit, Char clambers to grab a broken piece of the tree and follows Dansé to her stone. With a lighter and her power, Dansé lights the hardened wood into a celestial torch in the bowl of now red-glowing granite stone.
One stone down!
Dylan rushes past me with a flash of blue hands. He presses the dagger into my grasp and whispers, “You’ll need this,” as he rushes past me to his stone. Lifting his glowing hands, he’s redirects some of the stream’s water to flow into the stone’s bowl. The bowl overflows as the stream of flowing water trickles down the stone, but the blue shimmer remains unwavering.
Joe manages to do the same with the air from the lava tubes, as his stone shines with a constant yellow hue.
All three of their hands glow bright with elemental power as they hold their stones’ sacrifice steady.
That’s three! One more!
I glance toward the last stone. Tara is planting several seeds from her pocket into the soil she’s gathered inside the bowl. With my light to shine, and Tara’s earthly power to nurture the growth, green leaves sprout instantly from the stone and move like wildfire throughout space to rejuvenate the garden. With the green radiance of her stone, Tara completes the outer circle shielding us from Lilly’s dark powers.
But not from Darcy.
My dark soul mate steps into the light of the stone circle, just as I place a healing hand on Besim’s bleeding arm.
“My, how far we have all come,” he says lifting his arms to gesture around us. “But you are too late. The world above is being destroyed, and your circle is incomplete.”
All the elements are in place. What does he mean?
“The white stones!” Rafe yells, pointing to the three flat stones. “The triangles. We need some sort of trinity!”
How am I supposed to place a trinity on the stones?
I scramble, thinking back to my religious upbringing and the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then I remember a conversation long ago, when I first met the man bleeding beneath my hand: “No, my lady. What you’re speaking of is religious. The true divine trilogy transcends all religion. It consists of Love, Faith, and Hope.” I glance up into the deep brown eyes of Professor Besim, the man who’s been a pillar to me after the loss of Uncle Mike, always chiding me not to lose faith. I look over to Inigo, who refuses to let me abandon hope. And finally, my gaze travels to my sister, who accepted me into her family, showing me the true bonds of love.
“It’s you!” I whisper to Besim. “Your names! Faith, hope, and love. You three are my trinity! I’ll distract Darcy, get Inigo and Char to the white stones!”
Besim nods in understanding, scrambling around the tree as more dark forces of power are hurled our way.
I have to dodge another attack before I can turn to face my other half.
“We were wondering what’s been taking you guys so long. But I guess Lilly’s not invited to the party?” I send a taunt into the dark void where I know she waits.
“Do you remember this place, little light? It’s been ages, has it not?” Lilly jeers from the darkness. “Of course, I was kicked out long before your time here.”
“I’m sure there was good reason,” I say, keeping my eyes on Darcy, but sensing the others taking their place on the white stones.
“Our e
xistence was a trap, free will was the snare. No one can live an eternity without giving into the bait of temptation. It’s easy to get caught when someone constantly has their eye on you. But my goodness, speaking of eyes. It seems you’ve lost an important one,” Lilly hisses from all sides of the darkness. “And then that show of power… tell me Nora, was that the first time you’ve taken a life?”
“Don’t listen to her, Nora!” Char yells from my side as she steps up on to one of the white stones. The trinity is in place.
I take a look around the circle. The elements are in place on the granite stones. The trinity stands on the white stones. Darcy and I are in the middle. We’ve done everything the Statera and hieroglyphs have instructed.
What else can we do?
“Your circle is still not complete, sunshine, and it never will be,” Darcy says with scorn. He takes a few menacing steps in my direction.
Wait. Where’s Rafe?
I hold the dagger up in defense along with my other glowing hand. “Stay back!” I shout at him. “Guys, where’s Rafe?” I yell to the others.
“Ahhh, allow me to lift the veil,” Darcy makes an elaborate bow, and moves his hands to dispel the cloak of darkness.
Outside the circle, Lilly holds Rafe by the neck. Threatening to cut his throat with her own gold dagger. “What’s the matter?” she sniggers. “Cat got your tongue?”
Then I remember… the guardian must battle the snake!
“Rafe!” I scream, hoping he realizes what he must do.
I take a few steps back. Knowing the pool is near, I chance a quick glance behind me. Darcy takes the opportunity and lunges in attack. I duck under him and roll away, almost sending him plunging into the pool.
At the same moment, Rafe catches Lilly off guard, breaking free from her hold with an elbow to her gut. He pulls out the golden ankh dagger he picked up from the cult leader. The two begin a dance of daggers, thrusting and parrying outside the ancient circle of stones.