The Light Bringer's Way

by C. F. Fruzzetti

  “OK. That is NOT a good sign. Whitney, we picked the wrong knocker. You’ve got to try the other one,” Patrick pleaded. “Maybe there is still time to fix it. We are all going to suffocate or starve in here. We don’t even have the backpack. I guess we will die of thirst before we starve, right? That’s how it works?” Patrick was sweating profusely and starting to hyperventilate.

  Blair blocked his view of the sealed entrance and shook him by the shoulders. “Patrick. Calm down. You are going to have to have some faith in Whitney or you will get us all killed.”

  I was grateful Blair took on Patrick so I could work to control my claustrophobia. The final boulder and Patrick’s comments made my clothes feel too tight. Reid let go of my shoulder with a look of concern. I slowed my breathing and talked myself through claustrophobia’s suffocating grip of panic. As field commander, I would not make a choice based on doubt or fear. We would maintain our position and hold it, for better or worse. “Stay on the platform. Do not touch anything else,” I said as I focused on a button on my shirt and blocked the punches of fear that we would not have enough air to breathe.

  Several more seconds trudged by in silence until there was a click from deep inside the stone door. Blair pressed down on the latch and the door opened. Inside, I could see a tight corridor chiseled through the rock. Grateful for progress, I ignored the stifling proportions of the space and filed behind Patrick and Blair. It was a brief antechamber connection to an incredible and soaring cavern.

  Inside, the enormous space had walls of gleaming ruby-red cinnabar with a wide band of gold that wrapped around the lower half of the dome engraved with the Latin words Tempus Ad Lucem Ducit Veritatem. A phrase I knew well since it was the one on the Wallace family sundial and a phrase I kept muttering when I would pass out from my syncope.

  “Awesome. This is incredible! Reid, what does that say?” Blair pointed to the engraving with her finger. In front of us was a lake of liquid mercury and at its center was an island of jagged rock. The Spear of Light stood in the middle of the island, and tethered by a golden thread to the spear was an ivory boat carved like a crane. The light from Patrick’s hand reflected on the lake of liquid mercury like an endless mirror, the small flame managing to illuminate the entire space. I looked up and saw the dome roof with constellations designed across the top.

  Reid’s eyes were wide with an expression of wonder as he followed Blair’s finger and answered, “It says, ‘Time brings truth to light,’ and is inscribed on a sundial that has been in the possession of a member of our family for centuries. It is part of a prophecy that says that old alliances will be repaired at the dawning of a new age.”

  I had no idea the sundial was so old or that there was any significance to where Dr. West hid the computer disk. The sundial had called to me and I had acted on instinct.

  Reid continued to turn around as if he did not believe the domed space was real. I drifted into his mind and saw this was not the first time Reid had been here. How was that possible? I gave him a perplexed look and he explained. “Sorry, I’m beyond astounded the Cloccan cinnabar grotto actually exists. This was my favorite story as a child. It is exactly how I pictured it. I originally thought that was the reason my grandfather had given me the sundial for my sixteenth birthday, because he knew how much I loved the story. That’s why I was so interested when you walked right to it the first time you came to my house and where you went the night you found the computer disk.”

  “Someone told you a story about this place?” I asked, hoping maybe he knew where the exit was hidden or a Cloccan version of “Open sesame.”

  “Yeah. My mom told me stories about the Cloccan cinnabar grotto and the silver lake all the time. She changed it around but there was always a girl who could dance across the lake and rescue the treasure. When I was a kid, she used to hide a treasure on the deserted island in the middle of the Potomac for me when I would go for my long swims to work out my excess energy. It was something I looked forward to, to break up the distance. I was going to show you the old treasure chest she used the time we anchored off its banks to see if you recognized it. Instead, I ended up being deserted as you swam back to the boat.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. That was not exactly how I remembered the day. “Why would I have recognized an old chest of your mom’s?”

  “Because inside the chest there was a drawing of you in it. That’s how I recognized you immediately when Admiral Bennett showed me your file. When you were joking about finding the treasure on the island, I thought you were wondering if I knew I was carrying the treasure on my back at the time.” Reid was telling me the truth. His honesty rang as clear as the bell we had heard in the passage.

  “No, I don’t know anything about the chest,” I mumbled. It was a lot to take in because it did not fit with my impression and experience at the time, but I had to figure it out later. Mrs. Wallace was not precognitive and I had a feeling she did not know about the drawing, so someone else must have put it there.

  “Your mom’s stories sound a lot like Mr. Parks’ tale of Princess Magu. She lived in a cinnabar cloud grotto and he said she could walk upon water in special dancing slippers,” Blair said with a smile. When we were much younger, Mr. Parks’ stories at the end of our practices were Blair’s favorite part. “Remember, Whit?”

  I nodded, and remembered that Magu was a child of the Way who was fated to be special. Her right to immortality had to be won through a series of trials that tested her character because trust by the immortals was earned, not given. In the end, it was her selflessness that proved she was worthy to pass from this world into an eternal one.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “She was called Magu, the Liberator. She could not stand suffering because she had died a cruel death and she freed people from darkness with a fantastic light. It does sound similar to Reid’s story since she lived in a cinnabar grotto and used shoes to cross the silver-tipped waves.” The story had made an impression on me because it was one of the few Mr. Parks had told us with a heroine. A HER story, I corrected myself, and then realized I had repeated the words he had used to describe the light she used for freedom. He specifically called it a “fantastic light” and the waves were “silver-tipped.” Mr. Parks’ choices were never accidental. I started to think about what else Mr. Parks had done to prepare me for this moment when Patrick held up his hand and spotlighted a pair of dangling shoes.

  Upon closer inspection, I saw the gold slippers were embroidered with white cranes and hung by a short gold thread from the wall. I had seen them before—in Mr. Parks’ mind. They were the shoes Chen Parks wore as she and Mr. Parks danced their last dance before she died. These slippers were a message from him that they were meant for me. Patrick tried to pull the slippers down from the golden thread but they wouldn’t budge. He pulled harder to no avail. The thread was thin but strong.

  “Patrick, that is Cloccan thread and it the same kind that was used to make the golden ladders. Each strand is as strong as steel and will never rust. Only a Cloccan blade can cut it, nothing else. Our backpack is gone and with it my Cloccan Swiss Army Knife. Not that I put a lot of stock in fairy tales anyway, but we will have to find another way across,” Reid said as he walked toward the edge of the lake. There was relief in his face. He was content the shoes could not be used but I did not know what else he thought was waiting for us. There were no boulders or sticks on the glossy red shore and the smooth polish of the cinnabar walls meant we could not get any purchase to break it. Reid was looking for a tool that was not there.

  The dagger I had taken from Lucie’s mouth was in my wool sock and I quickly pulled it out to cut the thread. The slippers floated lightly into my hands; they were as soft as feathers. Wordlessly, I sat down and started to undo my hiking boots.

  “Dy-no-mite. I totally forgot you had that,” Patrick muttered as he held his glowing hand over my feet. My hands worked fast to pull the red laces loose as I suddenly felt I was running out of time. I didn’t know why but I had to
get to the spear by noon. It was tied to our window of opportunity to escape and everything was riding on it.

  “Good thing I didn’t,” I answered Patrick, and gave him a sarcastic grin. The small knife fit neatly against my leg and the handle was easy to hold. I had grown attached to it and I tucked it into my pocket. “Thanks for the extra light. The faster I can get these on the better.” I hefted off my hiking boots and peeled off my wool socks. The slippers were warm and smooth around my feet. It almost felt like they were not there at all. I stood up and could not resist the urge to spin around.

  My spin caught Reid’s attention. He rapidly shook his head in disapproval from the shore of the lake and marched back toward Patrick and me.

  “NO WAY, Whitney. It’s too dangerous. That is liquid mercury—not water. If you are wrong, it’s over,” Reid stormed. His eyes flashed and I knew he was ready for the battle. A crane does not start a fight, a crane only finishes them, I thought to myself, and he was prepared to win. As a panther, I would need a different strategy and do the unexpected. A fight was not the way. He was my guardian and afraid for me to go alone. I could combat this by taking him with me.

  “Reid, there is no OTHER way. You know I would not pick dancing for the fun of it. I’m certainly not that good at it! That’s why we have to dance across the lake together. You know, the whole ‘together we are better’ thing? It is what Mr. Parks has been training us to do. Dancing in rhythm is how we trip the light fantastic,” I said matter-of-factly. I would try to reason with him through logic. He was definitely not expecting that from me.

  “The light fantastic? You think that is what Mr. Parks meant by Magu’s fantastic light?” Blair asked. She knotted the laces of my hiking boots together and put them on her shoulder.

  “Exactly. He used it with this story and then when Reid and I were dancing he said we had tripped the light fantastic. It is such an unusual saying that it stuck in my mind. I know I am not wrong about this,” I hurriedly explained. I looked at Reid’s watch and saw we had eight minutes until noon.

  “Whitney. There are things that you don’t know. The girl who dances across the lake from my mom’s stories is a ghost but she does not know it. And in the prophecy of the sundial, it says time moves through her and her ghost never fades. Fortunately, you are very much alive and I want to keep it that way. I think we should try to find another answer,” Reid pushed back. Something about what he said made the opening synthesizer of one of my favorite songs start to play in my mind. Some of the words from the prophecy were in the song “The Ghost in You.” How could that be? Were The Psychedelic Furs Cloccan? That was ridiculous, but the ticking of the music was getting louder and louder in my head.

  “Well, according to Tiembo, we are all ghosts already and we will be soon enough if we do nothing. What you just said—could part of this prophecy be in a song? The Psychedelic Furs have a song and they sing about a ghost in you and time moving. Never mind. You don’t know what I’m talking about.” I could hardly talk, the music was playing so loud in my head. It was a strange coincidence. Maybe there was a clue in the song.

  Reid wore a smug expression and retorted, “Can’t say that I do and I can’t dance to a song when I don’t know how it goes.”

  Blair walked up and interjected, “Whit, ‘The Ghost in You’ is such a cool love song. I can’t believe you don’t know it, Reid. That’s what happens when you listen to classic rock—you can’t stay current. He can hear it in your mind. Why don’t you try that?”

  “Excellent point, Blair. It is such a cool love song. I’m surprised John Hughes hasn’t snapped it up for one of his film soundtracks,” I agreed. We looked at each other as if we shared a secret and Reid was missing out. Blair started to sing a few bars and I said, “Yeah, doesn’t the middle of the song sound a lot like what Reid said a moment ago? Isn’t that weird? Maybe they heard the same Cloccan story and set it to music,” I baited. Reid gave me a curious look and Blair saw it.

  “Reid, you have nothing to lose. The guy leads. If you don’t fly in these magic slippers then you won’t go over the lake,” Blair said with a shrug. “Did I miss the helicopter with rocket launchers to blast through the dome roof? We don’t have much else going for us.”

  I walked a step closer to Reid and felt the pull strengthen between us. “When I dance with you, it is like I am flying…but better. My trouble is coming back down and controlling the direction. That’s why I need you to help me. Listen to the song in my mind. If it works, it works.” I felt like my heart was exposed by telling him how much I needed him, and it was even harder for me to hold out my hand and hope he would not leave me hanging there, but I did it.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him. “I can tell when I am outnumbered,” he sighed and he easily crossed into my mind into the music that was playing. Reid moved us through the sound and I let go of everything except the sensation of colors morphing together and climbing higher into the space of the sound.

  After a minute or two, my eyes opened as my feet touched something hard and jagged through the thin slippers. We had made it to the rocky island in the center of the lake. It was bright on the island and I looked up to see the roof of the dome had an oculus that had started to open while we were dancing. From the island, the architectural elements of the room and the noon hour came together like pieces of a puzzle. It was a giant sundial.

  Mr. Parks always told me timing was everything, and I realized there were a few precious minutes before the heat of the sun would melt all of the cinnabar shore of the quicksilver lake. That was the face of the sundial—a silver circle that would act as an enormous mirror. The mirror was a tool to use just like in the sparring match Mr. Parks had set up with Reid, and I needed to use it to our advantage. Everything around us was a tool to get out of here.

  I pulled out the dagger from my pocket and used it to cut the thread to the boat. Reid had to get into the boat and get to Blair and Patrick before the shoreline melted and the lake rose to the gold band that would encircle the sundial. “Patrick, use your hands to generate static electricity!” I yelled across the lake. “Reid, you and Patrick can form an electromagnet like the one that attracted you in Chernobyl. Get in the boat and let the electromagnetic pull drag you quickly cross the lake. It’s the only way to get to them in time,” I directed. I was turning the boat toward Patrick and Blair, who were waiting on the polished red shore of stone.

  “I’m not leaving you, Whitney. You know that,” Reid said. His eyes were intense and unyielding.

  “I am not telling you to leave me. I am ordering you as your field leader to rescue our friends,” I said with rigid authority. This was another battle I did not have time to fight or lose so I looked to win it another way. I grabbed onto the shaft of the spear and it held firmly in place, cemented into the rock. “The Spear of Light will always find and protect its rightful owner—that’s the prophecy, isn’t it? Nothing can happen to me while I’ve got the spear in my hand. GO.”

  Reid had heard that part of the prophecy and he did not argue. He climbed into the beautiful boat of delicately carved ivory. The bow was the fragile head of a crane and the sides of the boat were its wings in flight. I shoved the boat toward Patrick and Blair and it sped across the water.

  The oculus widened further and the sunlight became more intense. The lake of liquid mercury began bubbling from the heat and the volume of the liquid increased more and more with each second. Reid reached Blair and Patrick, and they climbed into the boat as the shore dissolved. The liquid mercury level would soon be underneath the gold band that said “Time brings truth to light.” The dial face was almost in place.

  The boat bobbed through the bubbling waters. The wide wings of the crane protected Blair, Patrick, and Reid from getting sprayed by the boiling metal. A staircase and a small pier materialized out of the wall and the boat automatically docked itself into the slip. It was the obvious escape out of the cinnabar grotto and I questioned if I had made the right choice remaining behi
nd.

  Reid, Blair, and Patrick stood on the pier trying to free the boat stuck in the slip. It would not budge. “GO!” I yelled and pointed to the stairs. I was directly across from them on the island and holding onto the spear. Together, the spear and I made the gnomon, the upright part of the sundial that casts the shadow to reveal the time. I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I accepted it. Reid, Blair, and Patrick needed to get out of the cavern before noon.

  Reid burst into my mind and I showed him the only option left. They had to get out through the oculus and find a way to send a rope down to me before the dome closed again. He sprinted up the stairs with Blair and Patrick behind him. The oculus opened further and the entire top of the dome retracted. It was noon. Suddenly, the spear wiggled in the rock and I pulled it free.

  The spear was not as big as I expected. Holding it next to me, it only came up to my shoulder. Its wooden shaft was smooth except for spiral markings designed to help its grip. I brought the blade close and read the words, “From Darkness, Light.”

  Mr. Parks said Magu destroyed an evil curse by launching a fantastic light into the sky and ending an ancient curse that set thousands of unseen people free. At the time, I thought Mr. Parks meant to say people who did not exist but he had shown me his word choice was deliberate. I recognized “zeru,” albino, and even the ghost in the song in my head were real people who did not fade because they were alive. He wanted me to repeat the actions of Magu, to fly across the lake and create a bright light to free the spear and the albino people from the curse of persecution. Mr. Parks had shaped the story of Magu the Liberator to use as a tool. Her selfless acts had granted her immortality because she ended suffering. In Reid’s version of the story, she had already died but in my story, HER story, she could live forever through her choices and actions.

  The sun’s rays reflected off the mercurial lake below and turned everything to a fantastic and brilliant white light. It was so bright, the light shone through my closed eyelids. From somewhere on the rim of the oculus, Reid shouted my name. I had been blind and looking for him before and when I went into his mind I was unprepared to be so amazed.