“Wait! You have talismans? Let me see them,” demanded Urtish.
“Not until you two resolve your differences,” insisted Stavius. He saw this as an opportunity to get the two of them talking, which was essential, given their identities on Earth. Neither knew who the other was back home. They would find out soon, and Stavius was terrified of what would happen if they were still arguing here when they did.
“OK, but why don’t we have Miss Perfect start with her version,” grouched Urtish as he pulled up a box as a chair.
“Fine,” answered Terra as she took a deep breath and began sharing her version of the story. It was a tale she had undoubtedly replayed in her mind many times over the years.
Forty years ago, Terra, Urtish, and two other heroes set off on their attempt to fulfill The Prophecy. They were well prepared and chose to acquire the Crown of Helios from the Aubornis family first. This was the most heavily-guarded talisman and would be impossible to steal if security was tightened. Urtish maintained that the families would most certainly increase their vigilance once any of the talismans were stolen. This made it essential to take the crown first. Terra and the others agreed, and Terra offered them another advantage.
Terra’s host’s name was Tessop. Tessop’s younger sister, Claricha, had been fascinated by the Crown of Helios all her life. Their mother often asked Tessop to babysit Claricha, and Tessop soon discovered a way to entertain her sister. Claricha would happily draw and study the crown for hours on end. Tessop, who had little interest in the talisman, spent her time wandering around the temple room and chatting with the guards. This meant that Terra had detailed information about the temple layout, guards, and shift changes.
The plan was for Terra to illude herself as her younger sister so she could enter the temple to contemplate the talisman without raising suspicion. The others would create a disturbance during the guards’ shift change, at which time she would grab the crown and sneak out of the temple room. Terra would then dash down a seldom-used alleyway and crawl through the unlocked window of a nearby bakery.
Their biggest challenge was creating a disturbance significant enough to draw out the guards for Terra’s escape. Their escape plan involved all three remaining heroes racing in different directions before converging at a dead-end alley. The three of them could work together to scale the high wall at the end of the lane but would only have a matter of seconds before the guards arrived. Everything had to run like clockwork.
There had been a robbery at Aubornis castle the previous night, and security was tightened. The thieves stole something valuable from the Aubornis treasury, and Terra argued they should wait a few days until the security scare quieted down. However, Urtish insisted that they keep to the timetable since the robbery did not involve the talismans. The team took a vote, and Terra lost.
An extra roving guard was protecting the castle on the day of the robbery. Terra again argued delaying the heist but admitted that it would not affect her part of the plan, and her concern was overruled. The others created a commotion in the market, which drew the guards away. Terra stole the crown and ran out of the temple room. That was when everything went sideways.
She rounded the corner to head down her secret alleyway and saw guards chasing two of the heroes toward her. They should not have been anywhere near here, and they were now blocking her escape. Worse than that, the temple was rigged to explode if the crown was removed. Terra had delayed the trigger, but there were only a few seconds left before it went off, and she had nowhere to run. She dove behind a large trash bin just as the explosion occurred. Terra’s next memory was being pulled from the rubble several hours later, completely disoriented, and unable to hear or speak. She was carried past the bodies of her two friends and knew her team’s chances of fulfilling The Prophecy were over.
The crown was never recovered, and it would be years before Terra returned to the cave valley. Tessop’s family, who had been searching for their daughter for months, recognized her and brought her home. Life regained some sort of normalcy, and Tessop never spoke of the name Terra, The Prophecy, or talismans again.
“Wait, that doesn’t sound plausible,” complained Nariana. “No Septumcolan would ever have anything to do with someone abducted by a Soul Reaper. It just wouldn’t happen.”
“That is true,” agreed Terra, “but no one knew I was taken by the Soul Reapers. I had a big argument with my parents on my thirteenth birthday and ran away. I was simply intending to hide in the woods for a few hours when the Soul Reapers grabbed me. Everyone thought I was a runaway, and I let them believe that story. My parents were so happy to have me home that they didn’t press me for more information. I think they were afraid that I’d run off again.
“I blamed Urtish for our friends dying and always believed that they were forced to change their escape route because he wasn’t there to help them over the wall. My anger at him grew over the years until I finally decided to make a pilgrimage to the valley six years later to learn the truth about what had happened. Urtish wasn’t currently in the valley, but I was informed that he was the only member of our team to return. He never told anyone what had happened, which they interpreted as an admission of guilt and embarrassment.
“Their assessment matched my own belief, so I left the valley and never returned. I’ve never forgotten what you did to us, though, Urtish, and I will never forgive you.”
Terra’s voice rose as she finished. She spoke with such passion that Stavius appreciated the magnitude of her contempt for Urtish. Urtish just sat there listening to her with a shocked expression on his face. Stavius began to believe that Urtish and Terra’s differences were insurmountable.
“That is what you thought happened?” Urtish asked in a hushed whisper. “No wonder you hated me. You think I put my friends in danger and abandoned them. How could you think I’d do that to them? How could you possibly think I’d abandon you? I loved you, Terra. Surely you knew that. We had a dangerous task, but I would never put you in unnecessary risk.”
Tears were beginning to form in Urtish’s eyes, and Terra was holding her breath. She finally breathed out, “You say you loved me, Urtish? And you think that would make me swoon and say everything is OK? Our friends died, and you were to blame!”
Urtish insisted, “Yes, I loved you, and I still do. I’ve never loved anyone else. The only thing I’ve found pleasurable since you left has been food, and it has been quite a love affair.”
He patted his rotund belly and nervously laughed, but his expression quickly became pained. He turned to Stavius and explained, “I was the strongest, fastest, and best fighter of our group, although you’d never know it now. I viewed myself as our protector, but I failed that day.”
Urtish returned his attention to Terra and attempted to take her hands in his as he shared his memory of that fateful day. Terra quickly crossed her arms and stepped back.
Urtish’s shoulders slumped as he began.
“Everything you described was accurate up to the point of the disturbance. Yes, there were a few extra guards, but they didn’t impact our plan at all. We stole some produce in the market square and knocked over a few stalls in our noisy escape. The guards left their posts and began chasing us just as we planned. However, I saw someone who wasn’t supposed to be there just as we began our real escape. I saw Janus being held by one of the guards.”
Terra interrupted, “But Janus wasn’t part of the plan. He was supposed to be back here at the cave.”
“I know,” groaned Urtish, “but there he was. Janus, like all Keys, thought rules didn’t apply to him. He must have snuck out and followed us.
“We had a backup plan, so I instructed the others to use the secondary escape route while I went to rescue the fool. They headed off, and I struck up a conversation with the guard holding Janus. Well, it would be more accurate to say that I struck the guard. I knocked him out cold and ran off with that troublesome boy.
“Three more guards appeared in front of us, so we double
d back, and that was when the temple room exploded. I was thrown into a nearby market stall, but Janus was crushed by a falling wall.
“It took two days for them to dig me out of the rubble and another week before I regained consciousness. I searched for you, but no unidentified girls had been found, and I gave up after seeing the bodies of our dead friends in the morgue. I was mad at Janus for not following the plan, mad at myself for not being able to save him, and angry at the gods for taking you away from me.
“The cave valley was my last hope of finding you. I raced back here as soon as I was sufficiently recovered and discovered that no one else had returned. You have no idea how people look at you when you are the only survivor of a failed mission. I know they all blamed me. Why not? I blamed myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to explain what happened. I sat alone and ate. I felt guilt, embarrassment, and, above all else, the most oppressive sadness imaginable.
“I’ve been struggling with that guilt for the past forty years. I’ve always wondered whether I made the right decision and if we could’ve succeeded with a better backup plan. The only way I was able to cope with this loss was to make a pledge to ensure that this type of tragedy would never occur again. I decided to dedicate my life to training future heroes and to do everything in my power to force them to follow The Prophecy and their plans to the letter. I would never again let so many innocent, young lives be lost because someone decided to improvise.”
The cave was silent for several minutes, except for an occasional sniffle from the two adults. Stavius didn’t know what to say and probably wouldn’t have said anything even if he did.
Terra finally broke the silence by whispering, “You loved me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was waiting until after we succeeded. We didn’t, and I never had the chance after our failure,” answered Urtish.
Terra fell against him, and they hugged for several minutes. She laughed, “Gods, I wish you weren’t so fat.”
Urtish laughed and replied, “I think I can work on that, now that you’re back.”
Stavius sighed and added, “Well, at least you aren’t fat back on Earth.”
They both looked at him, and Terra said, “Wait, you know who both of us are back on Earth?”
Stavius replied, “Yeah, we all do. You’re married to each other.”
Stavius had never seen two more shocked expressions in his life and was concerned that Urtish might be having a heart attack. Four dragons blasted into the cave before anything else was said, though. The three girls dismounted to high-five each other, and Bor climbed down from Juice’s neck to exclaim, “Sons of Mars, that ride was the most amazing experience of my life!”
Nariana walked over to Saiph, who had unrolled herself after her fright from the Soul Reapers. The child dragons wrestled at the cave entrance, and Juice bounded up to Stavius, Urtish, and Terra to say, “We need to leave.”
Stavius started to complain that he was hungry, it was cold outside, and they had just arrived. Then a terrified and sweating Janus ran into the room, proclaiming, “Guys, we need to leave now.”
✽✽✽
Janus had not been prepared for what he saw in the hidden room. He was in a cave, deep underground, and expected to enter another dark, rocky alcove. Instead, he found himself in a warm, airy office. It smelled like an old library with the unmistakable aroma of leather-bound books and polished wood. He also detected a fragrance that somehow reminded him of his grandfather’s workshop.
There were extensive, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves running along one wall. Drawers and curio cabinets lined the other. And there was a second door in the center of the curio cabinet wall. The room also contained a small conference table with two chairs, a tall writing desk with a stool, and illusions of small, flaming sconces. The most striking feature of the room, however, was the oversized window in the far wall behind the desk.
The window was just a magical illusion, but it was the most realistic illusion effect Janus had ever seen. He appeared to be looking out a glass window set in a stone wall high above the ground, as though he was on the top floor of a tall castle tower. He saw fields and forests in the distance and could even make out farmers, shepherds, and their flocks in the pastures. It was a serene and pastoral scene that filled the room with what seemed like natural light.
Janus turned away from the window and surveyed the room again. He finally decided that the best way to describe it would be: If King Arthur had a lawyer, this would be his office. The bookshelves were filled with nearly-identical, leather-bound tomes, carefully numbered and ordered. He took one off the shelf and was surprised to see it filled with neat, handwritten text, which matched the numbering on the spine. He shuddered when he realized it was written in Latin. Latin was a requirement in school, but it was not one of his better subjects. He would never be able to translate the hundreds of books filling the shelves, which were cryptically numbered from 481 through 1,114.
Janus returned the book and looked at the pile of scrolls and clay tablets haphazardly lying on the shelves. They seemed so ancient that he didn’t dare touch them, so he turned his attention to the desk. There was a single sheet of paper on top.
Janus picked up the letter, sighing with relief when he saw that it was written in English but groaning at the beautiful, script handwriting. He hated writing, and his handwriting was barely legible, even to himself. He was unhappy that documentation appeared to be one of The Key’s responsibilities.
February 10, 1955
Dear Janus,
The Soul Reapers have made you a member of the Order of The Key because your heroes have retrieved at least one talisman. You can now enter this room any time and may invite anyone you choose by merely holding the stone curtain open for them.
Be selective with whom you share this secret. This room contains thousands of years of writings and artifacts from your predecessors, which you will not have time to peruse. You and your friends are in grave danger and must immediately leave.
The seven families are aware of this cave, and it will be the first place they search for their property. They will be relentless and have methods to track their talismans anywhere in the world. Your only hope is to travel as far away as possible quickly. You must stay ahead of their hunters.
Our talisman and my friends were taken long ago, and I have spent many years deciphering this room’s contents. I have left my findings under an important stone artifact on the workbench. They should help you once you have all seven talismans. Now, however, depart immediately, and never stop running! Godspeed to all of you.
Louis Janus
Janus’ heart was racing because the room suddenly felt like a trap. He dropped the note and dashed toward the curtain. He resisted the temptation to look in the drawers and cabinets on his way out of the room. He did, however, gave one quick tug on the single closed door along the wall. It was locked! Who would secure a chamber in a secret room only accessible to invitees of the Soul Reapers?
There was no time to look for a key, though, so Janus parted the curtain and left the room. He was relieved that he had found clues on how to fulfill his role in The Prophecy but terrified of Louis Janus’ dire warning.
✽✽✽
Janus had no sooner shouted his warning when Juice complained, “Dude, I just said that!”
Janus ignored the dragon and explained, “I just read this letter written by a Key nearly a hundred years ago warning that the Septumcolans are on their way!”
“Whoa, that is freaky,” exclaimed Juice. “We just saw a whole mess of soldiers marching this way while we were flying around!”
“Yeah, see, he was right. They not only know about the valley; they can also track the talismans!” continued Janus.
“I get that, but how did this dude know they were coming, like a hundred years ago?” asked Juice. “I mean, that is so incredible. That guy was a genius!”
“I think the old Janus was simply warning us that they would come. I don’t think he was makin
g a specific prediction,” groaned Nariana.
Juice wouldn’t drop his thought and started to say, “Still, it’s a pretty sweet prediction. I wonder what else…”
Everyone in the room screamed, “JUICE!”
Versera said, “They haven’t even reached the river yet, so I don’t think they’ll arrive until late tomorrow or the day after.”
Nariana added, “Still, we should leave first thing in the morning. We’ll need all the head start we can get if they really can track the talismans.”
“I’m sure they can,” Terra glumly said. “The talismans contain embellishments with magical energy links which can be traced. However, their signatures will be faint from a distance as long as the talismans remain as tattoos.”
“Where can we go?” asked Elisa.
“Ya know, I was thinking…” began Juice.
“What if we headed south?” asked Terra. I know some villages down there.
“We could, but it will add a lot of journey time for our return to get the other talismans in the spring,” noted Versera.
“We could always…”, Juice attempted again.
“How about staying with the Lachians?” asked Janus.
“But the Septumcolans will still find us,” grumbled Stavius.
There was a contemplative lull in the conversation, so Juice quickly said, “Why don’t we go stay with my mom for a few months? It would take a long time for those troops to march there, but we could fly there in a day. Plus, they wouldn’t dare attack a den with dozens of dragons.”
“Your mother!?” screeched Saiph.
“Dozens of dragons?” marveled Elisa.
“Yeah, it’s a big cave with plenty of room for all of us. Besides, it’ll be fun. It’s the holidays, and a lot of our clan converges on Mom’s place to celebrate.” Juice clarified.
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