by Robert Bevan
Julian glared at Cooper.
Cooper groaned but put on his friendship necklace. “Thank you so much,” he said like he was reading it from a teleprompter. “I'll cherish this gift forever.”
Tim rubbed his hands together like he was eager to start a brand new day. “Now what?”
“That's a good question,” said Julian. “How do we find the Cave of Secrets?”
To his left, he heard a tiny bell ringing.
“What was that?” asked Tim, his eyes wide and his voice a little shaky.
“It must be the pixies.” Julian called out in the direction he heard the bell. “Yes?”
The bell rang again.
“Maybe we're supposed to follow the sound?” suggested Dave.
Julian called out, “Are we supposed to follow the bell?”
The bell rang a little louder.
“Come on.” Julian started walking toward the bell, and the others followed. “You talked to us yesterday. We could save some time if you'd just talk to us again instead of this bell-ringing nonsense.”
Dave, usually the slowest one in the group, was walking beside Julian. Cooper and Tim were lagging behind, Cooper three knuckles deep into his left nostril, and Tim stalking through the tall grass like a kitten, but with a crossbow.
“They're just messing with us some more,” said Dave. “There's no reason for them not to talk to us. The bell thing is just a bit of theatrics. Makes it more mysterious and scary for us.”
The ringing bell eventually led them into the forest.
“How long of a walk is this?” asked Julian. “Should we have brought torches? How big is the Fairyfire Gem?” He hoped that, by asking enough questions, he might be able to annoy the pixies to reveal themselves and offer something in the way of a straight explanation.
Eventually, the bell stopped ringing altogether, and Julian feared he might have pissed off Cricket again.
“Look!” said Tim, running ahead. He crouched next to a long slender leaf resting in the forks of a sapling. There were words on the leaf, written in what looked like glitter glue.
“Cave... of... Secrets,” Tim read the sign aloud. “What is this?” He ran his pinky finger along the leaf.
“Tim!” said Dave. “No!” But not soon enough.
Tim had already touched his fingertip to his tongue. “Something's coming back to me. I think it's a memory.”
“Have you ever blown a pixie?” asked Cooper.
“It's so close,” said Tim. “On the tip of my tongue.”
Julian heard faint giggling high above his head. He looked up. “I can hear you, you know!”
Tim shut his eyes and frowned in thought. “It's almost there.”
“Maybe it's best to just let this one stay buried,” said Cooper. “I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure that's pixie splooge.”
Tim snapped his fingers. “Cinnabon!”
Cooper nodded. “That's in line with what their piss tastes like.”
“Do you remember anything else?” asked Julian. It would be nice and ironic if their semen triggered an avalanche of memory, and they could just go back to the city now instead of looking for the Fairyfire Gem.
Tim shook his head. “Just Cinnabon.”
Dave sighed. “The pointy end of the leaf is pointing that way, but I don't see any cave.”
Julian noticed two trees unlike any other in the forest. They were thick and gnarled like oaks, but their bark was grey and the leaves were all a deep autumnal red. Every other tree in the forest had healthy green summer leaves. They were also in the same general direction as where the sign was pointing.
The little bell rang again, this time farther away, and from the other side of those strange trees.
“Guys!” said Dave. “This way!” He waddle-ran between the two red-leafed trees, then fell through solid ground. “Fuuuuuck!”
Though he'd disappeared into the ground, Dave's voice was clearly audible as it continued to grunt and swear, and his armor banged repeatedly on stone. He sounded like he was falling down a flight of stairs.
Julian followed the route Dave had taken between the trees, but he stepped more carefully when he got close to where Dave disappeared. “Dave?”
“I'm down here,” Dave called back. “The opening is about a foot and a half in front of you.”
Julian inched forward, looking for some kind of clue, or a seam between the real and illusory ground. Just ahead of him, he saw an ant disappear and guessed that the fake ground began there.
“A little more,” said Dave. “Almost there.”
Feeling more confident, Julian took a larger step. Just as he'd suspected it would, his foot went through the ground and touched solid stone six inches lower. Knowing the illusion was there, he could now see through it, all the way down to Dave at the bottom of the stairs.
Julian stayed where he was and motioned for Cooper and Tim to follow. He guided them through the illusory patch of ground and safely into the underground tunnel.
“This is the Cave of Secrets?” said Cooper. “It smells like the Cave of Ass.”
It required a pretty offensive odor for Cooper to rightfully complain, but he was not exaggerating. This cave was clearly no secret to every animal in the forest who'd ever needed to take a dump. Looking around, Julian couldn't see any shit smeared over the rough granite walls, or turds lying in their path on the smoother granite floor, but the stench was overpowering.
Barring any magically-hidden doors or secret passages, there was only one way to go, so they followed the cave straight forward.
“I'm scared,” Tim whispered to Julian.
Julian was scared too, but he put on a brave face for Tim. “Here, hold up your crossbow.” When Tim did so, Julian touched the bolt loaded in it. “Light.” The bolt glowed, bathing the cave walls in a soft white light.
“Whoa!” said Tim. “That's wicked awesome! Is this a magical weapon now?”
“Only insofar as it glows. It won't do any more damage than a regular bolt, but it could be useful if we need to get a look at something really far away.”
Cooper and Dave were about fifty feet ahead of them now since they could both see just fine in complete darkness. When Julian and Tim caught up, they found Dave and Cooper staring at a polished section of wall. It was so smooth that Julian could almost make out his reflection, except for two places. Near the ceiling, a three-foot-wide pair of rough granite lips protruded out, as if the rest of the wall had been chiseled and polished six inches back solely for this effect. And two feet off the ground, a simple mitten-shaped symbol had been carved into the otherwise smooth wall.
The floor of the tunnel beyond them was covered in square tiles, each a foot across, and engraved with a single capital letter. Ten tiles across and ten deep, the letters seemed to have been placed arbitrarily.
“What does it say?” asked Cooper. Illiteracy was a Barbarian class trait.
“It doesn't say anything,” said Julian, studying the layout of the letters. He searched for words horizontal, vertical, or diagonal. He didn't see anything except for the occasional inconsequential two letter word like IF, AS, or BE. He looked down at Tim. “Do you see anything?”
Tim shook his head and shrugged. Memory or no memory, he still had the highest Intelligence score in the group. If he couldn't spot anything, they were in trouble.
“What about this stuff on the wall?” asked Dave. He looked up at the granite lips. “Hello?”
“Get back,” said Cooper, reaching under his loincloth. “I'm gonna take a whiz in the mouth.”
“No you're not,” said Julian. “Put that away!”
Dave placed his hand inside the mitten-shaped symbol.
The lips started moving and spoke in a deep booming voice.
“IF YOU DESIRE TO CONTINUE, IT SHALL REQUIRE THE KNOWLEDGE WITHIN YOU.”
Julian cringed. That was some terrible rhyming.
“HE WHO HAND-SHAPED SYMBOL PRESSED, MUST ALONE COMPLETE THE TEST.”
Som
ehow, it managed to get even worse.
“PLACE YOUR FEET UPON THE SQUARES, AND SPELL THE NAME OF THE GOD OF BEARS.”
“The god of bears?” said Dave. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Are bears religious in this world?” asked Tim.
Julian shook his head. “They're just normal animals, except for dire bears, which are just bigger.
“Werebears might be religious,” said Dave. “At least some of them.”
“But do they have a particular god that they worship?”
Dave shrugged.
“Let's work backwards,” said Julian. “We'll take the gods we know, and see if we can find any possible connection to bears. Dave, you're the cleric. Name off some gods.”
“Um...” Dave's failure to know the name of a single god was less than encouraging.
“Guys!” said Tim, his gaze darting among the letters on the floor. “I think I've got it!”
“Bullshit,” said Dave. “You don't even know your own name. How would you know the name for some possibly non-existent fantasy world bear god?”
“Hear me out.”
“I'm listening, but you'd better have something good. I'm the one whose ass is on the line for this.”
Tim pointed at a tile in the row nearest them. “U.” Then he pointed to a tile on the next row, two columns to the right. “R.” The third-row tile was five columns to the left, which would be a tricky jump for Dave. “S.” The fourth tile was directly behind the third. “A.”
Dave stroked his beard. “Ursa?”
“That's right,” said Tim. “Then you skip a row and hop over to that M on the sixth row.” He quickly pointed out the rest of the path. “A, J, O, R.”
“Ursa Major,” said Dave, nodding slowly.
“Who the fuck is Ursa Major?” asked Cooper.
“It's Latin for “Big Bear,” said Tim. “It's a constellation, also commonly known as the Big Dipper.”
Cooper snorted. “I thought that was Dave's mom's favorite –” A severe look from Tim shut him up.
Tim held up a flower on his necklace. “What are these?”
“Flowers?”
Tim narrowed his eyes. “Cooper?”
“Friendship necklaces.”
“And how do friends treat friends?”
Cooper pursed his lips, searching for the answer Tim wanted. “With respect?”
Tim nodded. “Very good. Do you have anything you'd like to say to Dave?”
Cooper sighed. “Sorry, Dave.”
“Very good.” Tim turned to Dave. “Now, what do you think about Ursa Major?”
“I have to agree with you. It's a giant celestial bear, right? What else could it be?” Dave smiled at Tim. “Good work, buddy.”
Tim gave him a grin and a thumbs up.
Dave took a few deep breaths, rubbed his hands together, and stepped on the tile engraved with the letter U. His foot went straight through it.
“Fuck!” cried Dave as he fell forward. His whole body once again disappeared through an illusory floor. This time, however, he landed with a splat. Whatever he'd landed on, at least it sounded soft and not too deep.
“WRONG!” bellowed the mouth on the wall. As the echo died down, a loud buzzing sound filled the foul cave air.
“Ow!” said Cooper. “What the –”
“BEES!” cried Tim.
They were everywhere. Half an inch long, yellow, and angry as hell. While Julian, Tim, and Cooper slapped each other, Dave rose out of the floor. His entire front side, from his face to where his breastplate met the fake tiled floor, was slathered in shit.
“What the hell are you guys – OW!” He slapped the back of his neck. “Shit! Bees!” He dropped back into the floor.
It was difficult to say what caused more damage, the bees or the slapping. But by the time they were done, they were all covered in welts and bruises. More than a hundred dead bees lay at their feet.
Dave's shit-caked face poked up out of the floor again. “Are they gone?”
“Yeah,” said Julian. “I think we got most of them.”
Dave climbed out the other side of the pit. “It was a trick question. We were right the first time. There is no god of bears. The whole floor is an illusion. Whatever letter you step on, you just fall into a big shit pit.”
“And attacked by bees.” Tim shined his crossbow light around. “Where did they come from?” There didn't appear to be any cracks or holes in the wall.
Cooper tossed Tim to the other side of the pit, where he landed gracefully on his feet. Then he hopped down into the pit and carried Julian across.
Still unsure what perils they might have to face further into the Cave of Secrets, Dave used his healing magic sparingly, giving the others a Zero-Level healing spell. It was enough to take the edge off all the bee stings.
They walked deeper into the cave for about fifteen minutes before reaching another polished section of wall, complete with the lips up top and the mitten symbol down low. Just beyond it stood three clay jugs, each about half as tall and twice as wide as Tim, and each with a different shape painted on the side. The first, a blue triangle. The second, a red square. The third, a yellow circle.
Beyond the jugs was a closed wooden door with five shapes painted on it. A purple oval, an orange five-pointed star, a green hexagon, a blue diamond, and a blue triangle.
“This looks like another puzzle,” said Tim. He looked up at Julian. “You seem really smart. You should probably be the one to activate the mouth.”
Julian smiled. “That's very nice of you, but you're the smartest one here, according to our Intelligence scores.”
“But I screwed up the last one.”
“It was still a lot better than anything any of us came up with.”
Tim sighed and put his hand in the mitten shape. “I'll do my best.”
“ON THE FLOOR THREE JARS YOU SEE. CHOOSE THE ONE WHICH HAS THE KEY.”
That wasn't too bad.
“COMPLETE THE PATTERN ON THE DOOR. IF YOU FAIL, YOU'LL LIVE NO MORE.”
Julian shook his head. He'd given credit too soon.
“BEYOND THE DOOR LIES WHAT YOU SEEK. OPEN IT, YOU MUST, TO TAKE A PEEK.”
“Enough already,” said Julian. “That last line was not only terrible, but it added absolutely nothing.”
Dave stared hard at the shapes painted on the door. “I'm not seeing much of a pattern at all. The shapes are all different, and all but the last two are different colors.”
“That's it!” cried Tim. “The pattern is a movement from chaos to order. Like primitive life forming in the oceans. These first three symbols represent eons of nothing happening. But once those first protein strings or amino acids or whatever got going, as represented by these last two symbols in a shift toward order, the progress was exponential. The jar with the key is obviously the one with the blue triangle.”
Cooper picked up the jar with the blue triangle and jiggled it. “I didn't understand any of that shit you just said, but I don't hear any keys in here.”
Tim grinned. “They probably attached it to the stopper or something. They wouldn't let you solve the puzzle by shaking the jugs.”
“Knock yourself out.” Cooper handed the jug down to Tim, who then pulled out the wooden stopper.
“AAAAAHHHHHH!” cried Tim as a million angry bees exploded out through the mouth of the jug, which fell out of his hands and shattered on the floor.
“More bees?” said Dave, waving his arms around ineffectively as several bees got themselves stuck in the shit in his beard.
“They're everywhere!” Tim's bare feet crushed broken shards of pottery from the jug he'd just dropped. “Find the key! Open another jug!”
“Which one?” asked Cooper.
“Either one! When we get through the door we can close the bees behind us.”
Cooper grabbed the jug with the yellow circle, then pulled out the stopper.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried as a torrent of bees flew out.
&nb
sp; Julian pulled his serape around tightly to keep Ravenus protected. “Cooper! Put the stopper back in the –”
“Fuck you, bees!” shouted Cooper as he hurled the jug at the wall, doubling the density of bees in the air.
He grabbed the jug with the red square, the last one, and pulled out the stopper. He really shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when a bunch of bees flew out.
“What the fuck is with all the goddamn bees?” He flung the jug at the door. But this time, instead of shattering, it simply vanished.
Half a second later, Julian heard the expected shatter beyond the door.
“It's an illusion!” he said, charging through the swarm, then through the false door.
Tim followed, then Cooper, then finally Dave. The only bees which followed were the ones stuck in Dave's beard, but that was at least two dozen.
This part of the cave was also swarming with bees, thanks to the shattered jug that Cooper had accidentally thrown through the door, but it wasn't nearly as dense as the other side.
Tim's magically illuminated crossbow wasn't necessary here. They had reached the end of the Cave of Secrets. At the far end of the cave, beyond four marble steps, the Fairyfire Gem glowed bright pink and orange from the top of a white marble dais.
Of course, between them and the gem, there was another polished section of wall with a set of lips and a mitten print.
Once they'd swatted or been stung by most of the bees that were flying around, Dave cast a proper Cure Light Wounds spell on everyone. The pain subsided, but the welts still itched.
Dave scratched his arm and neck. “Nothing I can do about the itching. The spell just brings up our Hit Points. It doesn't do anything about the bee venom in our bodies.”
Julian looked at his own arms. They looked like he had shingles, and they itched something terrible. “Let's just get this over with. Who wants to do the honors?”
After a few seconds of nobody volunteering, he sighed. “Fine, I'll do it.” He walked over to the wall and put his hand in the mitten shape.
“CONGRATULATIONS ARE NOW DUE. YOU'VE PASSED THE TESTS, SO GOOD FOR YOU.”
Julian closed his eyes and shook his head.
“WE HOPE THAT YOU'VE ENJOYED THE JOURNEY. PERHAPS, SOMEDAY, YOU WILL RETURNY.”