by Noah Layton
Another flurry of arrows hurtled past us. Evelina descended sharply towards the spears, diving hard in pursuit of Ariadne.
Behind, shouts of terror exploded from the lungs of the drakes. They became quieter the lower we dropped, down into the sharp, infernal darkness and into the abyss of the island’s centre.
Darkness enshrouded us as we lost our pursuers. The sound of the waves against the shores of Raktun quickly quietened, and in the almost pitch-blackness of the cave we had landed in Evelina and I ground to a sharp halt. We touched down hard, she crying out again in pain as she released me. We both fell hard to the rough ground.
‘Shit…’ I muttered through the darkness… ‘Guys… Where are we?’
‘Hang on,’ Ariadne responded quickly, fumbling about in the darkness before pulling the Harpy Core from her satchel and setting it down on the ground, lighting up the cave. The cavern was entirely secluded, a hollow space with a rock ceiling ten yards overhead, the only way in or out being the tiny hole high above through which we had entered. The night sky was still visible, steadily becoming tinged with orange as the sun rose on the horizon.
Within the cavern was a rock pool much more nomadic than the one in the bath chamber, but as I looked about I saw signs of life – boxes and crates, remnants of a fire lit years ago, several books destroyed by damp and the elements slipping through the entrance above.
‘Where the hell are we?’ I repeated, looking about in the blue light of the Harpy Core.
‘An old hiding spot from before the war,’ Ariadne said, ‘There are few people still alive that know about this place… Oh, shit, Evelina…!’
I cursed myself over the fact that I had forgotten about Evelina even for a second. Ariadne hurried to her and in the blue light we both saw the arrow sticking out from her left wing, the blood soaking the whiteness of the feathers around it.
Evelina had sat up, groaning in pain, but staggered back against the ground as Ariadne hurried over to her.
‘I’m all right…’ She groaned, taking deep breaths. ‘How bad is it?’
‘Not as bad as it looks,’ Ariadne said. ‘But we need to get it out. Kit, bandages in my satchel, and a small vial filled with clear liquid. Kit!’
I shook my head back into the moment, running over to the satchel by the Harpy Core and rooting through it before finding the roll of cloth and the vial in question, stoppered with a cork. I crossed to the girls and set them down.
‘Okay, we’re gonna need to work together on this,’ she said, tearing off a small piece of bandage and rolling it up before slipping it between Evelina’s teeth, who gladly took it and sank her teeth into it lightly. ‘Kit, you’re gonna need to hold her. A harpy’s wings are sensitive, and this will hurt.’
I did as I was told, kneeling behind her and wrapping my arms under her own and over her shoulders in a half-assed full nelson, my forearms pressing against the softness of her white wings.
It should have felt strange holding the heir to the throne like this, but I had to remind myself of two things; firstly, that out here we were all soldiers, and second, that I had already been much closer with Evelina than this.
But this was a whole different kettle of fish.
‘Okay…’ Ariadne started, ‘One… T-’
I was waiting for three, but not even two came – she wrenched the arrow out, Evelina releasing a crushed scream through her teeth as she bit down hard against the cloth. Evelina’s wings had felt soft at the touch, but the moment the pain hit they tensed hard and pushed against my forearms with unbelievable strength. It felt as though my arms would snap, but I recalled the strength I possessed and pushed back hard against her.
‘That’s not even the hardest part,’ Ariadne said, laughing lightly and quickly taking up the vial of clear liquid. She unstopped it and poured the contents on the wound, resulting in an even harsher scream of quelled pain. ‘And we’re done,’ she finished, unravelling the bandage and wrapped it over her wing to secure it in place. In moments the process was done; Evelina spat the cloth from her mouth and breathed deeply, pulling herself over to a nearby rock and leaning against it as she panted heavily.
‘You don’t think it was poisoned, do you?’ I asked, looking between the harpies.
‘After going through that?’ Evelina said, ‘I hope not.’
‘It’s unlikely,’ Ariadne said, ‘Snake’s Breath is too risky to handle, never mind using as an actual poison.’
‘And who were those guys?’ I asked. ‘How did they know we were there?’
‘Patrollers. They’re expanding their reach… In the meantime, we need to figure out why the Harpy Core didn’t work.’
I was so caught up with making sure Evelina was all right that I had completely forgotten about the reason for our journey in the first place.
The sky had begun to glimmer with purple and orange that was slightly visible through the hole in the ceiling as the sun crept higher, out of sight within our secret cave, but our main source of light was still the Core. It sat on a bundle of cloths a few yards away with the satchels, glowing unassumingly.
I approached it slowly, suddenly terrified by this foreign item. Back on Earth I had been entirely ignorant of its powers. Here I had been informed of its true nature, and according to the harpies I could handle it.
So why had nothing happened this time when I picked it up?
I knelt by the core, bringing my hands to its edges. It was only now that I noticed the total lack of any heat emanating from it.
Fuck it.
I pressed the palm of my hand slowly against the surface of the core again. There was no warmth, no change in the swirling mist that lurked inside – just a clammy, glassy feeling.
‘Anything?’ Evelina asked.
‘No… I don’t know why this isn’t working.’
This was the only thing standing between us and saving Queen Athina, and now it was deciding that it didn’t want to function just like every other Core apparently did.
Talk about flashbacks to prom night… If I had even had a date, that was.
I ran my hand across the surface, feeling it beneath the skin of my palm like a witch with a crystal ball, and still nothing happened. But there was something off about it beyond the fact that it wasn’t working.
There was a ridge running through it, a long, consistent crack.
I placed my hands on both edges, thinking back to a stupid toy that I had won from a machine at an arcade years ago, where you twist both sides in opposite directions to reveal the prize within.
Why not?
I forced both sides in different directions, expecting nothing – but lo and behold, it worked.
The core twisted – then it began to tick.
Shit.
I set the core down quickly on the blankets.
‘What’s that noise?’ Ariadne asked, she and Evelina both looking in my direction.
‘It sounds like a bomb,’ I said, quickly walking backwards. The ticking increased in tempo sharply, and even if I wanted to duck for cover I didn’t have anywhere near enough time. The Core, or whatever this thing was, cracked open, and revealed an object within.
I returned, separating the two sides whose blue lights had now extinguished, and lifted the prize.
It was composed of wood and metal, and looked like a prehistoric Rubik’s cube with twice as many moving parts. Small wooden blocks were set into the exterior, which could be spun endlessly to reveal symbols – sword, shields, wings, spears, a glowing sun, a castle, a tree…
Beneath where it had sat, inside one half of the casing, was a seemingly ancient piece of parchment. I tried to read it, but the symbols were those of
I took it up and returned to the girls, holding one of the objects in each hand.
‘What the fuck is this?’
‘Did you actually break the Core?’ Evelina asked from her spot against the rock. ‘That’s a first…’
‘I don’t think is the Core,’ Ariadne said, taking the objects fr
om me. We all sat together by Evelina’s rock, she examining the paper while Ariadne spun the object in her hands.
They both stayed silent before Evelina began to murmur, reading the harpy language back to herself.
‘This is written in Harcian,’ she said without looking up. ‘It’s an archaic dialect of our old language but I can still figure it out. It’s a riddle.’ She read it back slowly. ‘Here be the time to rattle your mind, here be the time to face a test, here be the time for tempers to rise, to find a warrior’s touch may serve you best.’
‘This isn’t the Core,’ Ariadne said, holding up the puzzle and looking back at the two sides of the casing a few yards away. ‘It never was. The Core might have been there at some point, but somebody’s clearly moved it.’
‘Moved it?’ I repeated. ‘Who? And why?’
‘Someone looking to keep it hidden,’ Evelina said irritably, not because of her bandaged wound but because of the hole that we had suddenly found ourselves in – both figuratively and literally. ‘The sun’s rising… If we go back out there now we’re dead. We’re too far into enemy territory. We need to wait until night falls. I can’t believe this… I thought we had it. We could have made a break for it back Aries… Now we have twelve hours before we can do anything, and we need to solve this thing.’
‘I just don’t understand who would move it,’ I said.
‘One of the Ancients,’ Evelina said casually. I looked at her in bafflement.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Because… Look, I know this is the world that you have grown up in and it’s the one you know, but in my world… There are a lot of people who don’t believe in God. Or several gods, in your case.’
‘There’s no such thing as belief for us,’ Ariadne said, still examining the puzzle and taking up the parchment, looking between the two. ‘The Harpy Cores are enough evidence of their existence. We do not believe; we know.’
‘Right…’ I nodded, trying to wrap my head around the idea but deciding not to pursue it any further. They were committed to the notion of their gods, and me questioning them would get me nowhere. Maybe I had experienced things I would deem no less than supernatural over the last few days, and maybe I could handle them to some extent, but there was no way that I was going to start questioning them about this.
‘So why do you think one of the gods- I mean, one of the Ancients moved it?’
‘Whoever else moved it would have no reason to do so. Why not just take the power for themselves? Or this is just a challenge devised by the gods to make it more difficult to find.’
‘A warrior’s touch…’ Ariadne suddenly said, turning to me. ‘You need to solve it.’
‘Me?’ I exclaimed. ‘I do the crossword in the local paper sometimes but there’s no way that I can decode something like that.’
Ariadne and Evelina shared a look, before Evelina shook her head and returned to look at me.
‘I’ll be honest, I don’t have any idea what you just said, what a crossword or a… What was it, a local paper is? Yes, I don’t know what those are, but it needs to be you.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s part of the riddle. A warrior’s touch.’
‘So I’m the one who needs to move it… At least you two can still help.’
We had, quite literally, all day to solve the puzzle – so that was what we did.
For the next few hours we sat around, drinking from our canteens and snacking on our provisions while studying the puzzle in the light from the gap overhead as the sun steadily worked towards its peak. There had been no sign of the drakes, but every so often we fell silent at the sound of animal shrieks in the distance or yelling that roared across the waters that surrounded us.
I understood now the problem with going out during the day. Even if the war that had ended the reign of the Harpies over half of the archipelago had ended years ago, skirmishes and small battles were still taking place. The kingdom had become so divided that everybody was at war.
No wonder it was so dangerous to leave your lands during the day, never mind at night, or to even fly at any time beyond the borders of your own island.
My mind buzzed with what I had learned so far as we studied the puzzle and its sides over the ensuing hours, and during the process… We got absolutely, precisely nowhere.
The heat of the archipelago and its islands was enough to warrant little clothing, but in the cave hidden amongst our enemies, things were becoming even hotter – and not in a good way. The girls had stripped unashamedly down to their underwear without a second’s thought, and I couldn’t help but follow. The girls had both seen me naked, but neither one nor the other knew. Even if they were open in their sexuality, I still felt weird about the whole situation.
But that wasn’t the source of the undercurrent of frustration amongst us at all. With the heavy heat we all became more and more irritable, making zero progress in attempting to decode the puzzle. There was a quiet understanding that the thing would open up somehow once the correct sequence of blocks had been placed in the correct order, but the object gave no sign of budging in the slightest, no matter what we tried or how it related to the riddle, until-
‘Why the fuck can’t I figure this out?’ Evelina said.
‘Well, there’s one thing you can’t do,’ Ariadne muttered lightly, shaking her head.
‘What did you just say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, what did you say?’
‘I said… There’s one thing that you can’t do.’
‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment or some backhanded insult?’
‘You can take it however you want!’ Ariadne shouted back. ‘I said it. It’s open to interpretation.’
‘I don’t need to fucking interpret it. You know what you meant it, so say it to me.’
‘Girls,’ I said, cutting in, ‘I’m frustrated as much as you are, but can we just get on with this?’
‘No,’ Ariadne said, ‘The princess gave an order, and now it needs to be responded to correctly.’
‘Oh, by the gods…’ Evelina scoffed, rolling her eyes and laughing, ‘So that’s how you’re going to be?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew it. It’s true, isn’t it, what the girls say? You’ve hated me ever since I was assigned as the heir.’
‘I don’t hate you, Evelina. I could never hate you, I just… Don’t particularly like you.’
Ariadne said it so flatly that it was almost funny – all I could do was stare between them in shock.
‘You don’t like me?’
‘My priority is my people,’ Ariadne said firmly. ‘It has been since I was brought into this world. Since I learned to fight. Since I learned how to fly properly. My responsibility above everything is to ensure that the harpies continue to thrive. Our numbers have been dwindling for years, and that’s under the rule of a queen as strong as Athina. Now we’re facing the very real possibility that somebody may need to take over. Even if she is saved by the Core, somebody else may need to make the decisions. You’re my friend, Evelina. Even if we’ve drifted apart, you’re still my friend. But are you prepared to do this?’
Evelina pushed herself up, and the two stood across from each other, I between them.
‘You’re my friend?’ Evelina said. ‘That’s what you call yourself? Well, a friend wouldn’t say that they have no faith in me.’
With that final word she took into the depths of the cave and out of sight, disappearing in the darkness.
I turned to Ariadne, about to say something – I didn’t know what, just something – but she shook her head, tears in her eyes, and took off in another direction, out of sight.
I knew that Ariadne had reservations about Evelina, I just expected some professionalism from the two of them, even considering the fact that we were in a dank cave on a rock in the ocean, surrounded by enemies – and considering the stakes of our mission.
But that was when I realised – even if I had seen the harpies as some kind of mythical race since I had arrived, they were still people. They weren’t spartan warriors or stoic masterminds. Soldiers, maybe, but they still had breaking points, and they still had problems.
Queen Athina’s life was at risk and we had risked our own lives countless times in our journey so far to save it, but we had hit a wall. This wasn’t apathy; it was exhaustion.
I took up the puzzle and lightly bounced it in my hand, looking up to the small entrance to the cave in the ceiling where the sun had peaked, peering in to our hiding place. It would be eight or nine hours till it fell again. Eight or nine hours to figure this thing out.
I crossed to the pool of water in the centre of the cave, sitting on a nearby rock and lowering my legs into the water. The temperature was just right, a stark contrast to the searing heat of the baths in the palace, but nowhere near freezing. It offered some relief against the punishing heat that had been dominating us for hours.
One thing that had still been bugging me. The first Core that I had taken on had given me a clear power – a surge of energy in battle that would make me a formidable, fierce fighter. On the other hand, I had no idea what this new Core we were searching for could actually do.
Savour’s Blessing. It would heal the queen in some way, but how exactly? Would it turn me into some kind of godlike healer who could cure any ailment that I was presented with? The idea seemed ridiculous… But a lot of ridiculous things had happened to me over the last few days.
I returned to the puzzle, spinning the symbols on their rungs in a seemingly endless fashion until my head grew too heavy to cope any longer. I stretched out on a patch of sand nearby, drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Beneath a Setting Sun
The light splashing of water awoke me. The light spilling in had dimmed a little; I had been out for at least a couple of hours. Remembering quickly where I was as I shifted against the soft sand that pressed against my back, I raised my head and looked down towards the pool.