by Peach, Hanna
“That’s one weighing,” said the iron lady. “One more to go.”
Alyx picked up the gems on the left and placed them with the other two gems on the board, to make a pile of rejected gems. She picked up the three gems in the right-hand scale-plate and placed them one, two, three in front of the scales. The heavier gem was in this group.
She smiled at the iron lady, whose scowl just deepened.
Alyx took the first gem and placed it in the left of the scale. She took the second gem and placed it in the right. The third gem remained on the table. She watched as the scales swayed then slowed to a stop. Both sides were equal. Which meant that the heaviest gem was the third gem left on the table.
Alyx picked up the gem off the table and held it out to the statuette. “This is the heaviest.”
For a moment, it seemed the whole arena held its breath. The iron lady froze staring at the gem in Alyx’s hand. Then she roared and shook, her scales swinging wildly off of her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have been able to figure that out. My game is hard. You should have failed.”
Alyx smiled and she dropped the gem on the board, ignoring the iron lady’s tantrum. She turned to Argyll. “We won. We’d like our prize now.”
Argyll nodded his head and reached under the counter. He pulled out a wooden box, decorated with different colored woods inlaid into geometric patterns across the whole box.
“This should help you reach the end of your journey through the arena,” he said as he held it out. “Perhaps when you get to the end of this, you will realize that you had won more than you thought in each arena.” He winked at her. What did he mean by that?
Alyx took the box while Jordan looked on over her shoulder. She turned the box over in her hands. There was no lid, no hinge, no lock. She shook it. Something rattled inside.
“Argyll, how do we open it?”
He smiled. “That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Oh, look, time to go.”
“We can figure this out later,” Jordan said.
He took the wooden box from her hands and strapped it to his belt. He held out his hand and she took it. They stepped towards the doorway. Alyx turned to say goodbye to Argyll, but he and the games from his counter had already disappeared.
Jordan entered first into the blackness and pulled her along after him.
Chapter 25
Alyx’s feet touched the ground as he stepped through to the other side of the doorway, never letting go of Jordan’s hand. She was surprised to find her footing sunk slightly underneath her. Sand.
She glanced around, confused. There had to be some mistake… she took in the vast plains of sand reaching out towards the horizon all the way round to the base of the blue-domed sky above. Had they gone backwards? Was this the same place as the place they had arrived when they first entered the Second Chance Game?
Jordan was turning around and around in confusion as well.
Was that a noise that she could hear over the sound of their boots crunching on the sand? Alyx stopped moving. Then she grabbed Jordan and placed a finger to her lips to stop him from making any more noise.
It was some kind of rushing noise, like water moving through a stream. But there wasn’t any water here… It was getting louder and louder. Jordan stared at her, a terse confused look on his face. Of course, he couldn’t hear it. But she could. She definitely could.
Alyx frowned. It sounded like… yes, it was voices. The noise was now an audible mumble. The voices sounded like they were coming from the air itself. Alyx frowned in concentration as she began to make out the words.
“…are lost without being stolen…”
The whispers grew louder and louder, seeming to be repeating the same sentence, over and over again…
“…at night they appear without being called… by day they are lost without being stolen…”
Another riddle.
“It’s some kind of riddle,” she mumbled. “At night they appear without being called, by day they are lost without being stolen.”
Alyx chewed her lip as her mind turned over this riddle. What could it be?
Jordan frowned at her. “What is it, Alyx? What do you hear?”
Alyx glanced around her looking for some kind of inspiration. How could she communicate this riddle to him without speaking? She gripped her sword handle in frustration. There was nothing here but sand, sand and more sand.
Sand. Of course.
Alyx unsheathed her sword and began to write the riddle in the sand with the tip of her blade. Jordan watched her movements carefully and followed her as she wrote out the words in a long sentence across the desert ground.
When she finished, she stared back at the words in the sand that she had just made, searching for inspiration.
At night they appear without being called, by day they are lost without being stolen.
Could it be some sort of nocturnal animal? An owl? A bat? But what kind of animal becomes lost during the day?
“That’s easy,” Jordan said. “The answer is ‘stars’.”
At once the whispers dropped into nothing. Alyx stared at Jordan and felt a small measure of pride.
Then suddenly the sky began to darken as if turning to twilight. The ground began to shake. The sand began to suck away from under her. Alyx lost her footing. She tried to hold herself up in the air but she had forgotten she couldn’t fly. She fell with the sand as it collapsed under her feet into a chasm. She felt the unfamiliar and terrifying tug of gravity pulling her down, down…
A hand grabbed her forearm and she jerked up into the air. Jordan had grabbed her before she was sucked away into the draining sand. He pulled her up to him with one hand and grabbed her around the waist in a more secure hold. She felt suddenly so small in his hold.
“Thank you,” she mouthed to him.
“I’ll be your wings when you can’t fly.” He smiled and pulled her closer so that her racing heart was pressed against him. “Just like you are my song when I can’t hear.”
The sky above them continued to darken as the sun set completely and the stars came out. Leaning her head against his chest, Alyx watched as the sand below drained away revealing twelve stone pillars set out in a circle. A stone doorway in the center was the thirteenth object to be revealed. But there was no black nothing in this doorway, the sand spilling through the arches.
Jordan flew them both down to the center of the circle and set her down. She stepped towards the doorway and ran her hand along the inside of the stone arches. It was cool to the touch and definitely not activated.
She turned and saw that Jordan was already inspecting one of the pillars. She walked to the base of the pillar next to him. They were tall, made of a granite rock and she had to crane her neck to see the top. They were at least twelve feet tall. She walked around the base. They were perfectly circular, about six or so feet wide.
Alyx watched with a pang of jealousy as Jordan flew up the pillar to inspect the top. When he reached the top he gave out a small cry.
“The top of this pillar has a flat, circular head,” he called down to her. “It has a section like a slice of pie cut away.” He waved his hand over part of the pillar and looked up. “Look!” And he waved his hand over the pillar again.
Alyx squinted at the sky. There, running across the part of the sky, was a black void in the shape of a hand. Somehow Jordan’s hand was causing part of the stars to be blocked out.
“I thought that the night sky looked strange,” he continued. “It looks like the ‘stars’ aren’t actually stars. There’s light shining through these small holes, which are creating what looks like the night sky. And…” Jordan stopped talking and began to run his hands along the outside of the top of the pillar.
And what?
Alyx fought a small wave of frustration that washed through her as she remained stuck on the ground with no way of communicating to a temporarily deaf Jordan. All she could do was watch as he ran his hands around the circumference of the pillar. Something rumble
d like stone on stone.
He let out a small cry of triumph. “It moves. Part of the top section spins.” He touched the sides of the pillar again and the noise sounded again. “Look, it changes the stars.”
Alyx stared up to the “night sky” and was surprised to see that indeed, the stars moved and changed as Jordan turned the wheel around the pillar.
This must be some sort of puzzle. But what did they have to do? She stared at the pillar closest to her to see whether she had missed anything. A plaque with instructions… symbols… another riddle maybe?
But the cold pillar stood mute. She stared at the pillar, growing more and more despondent. How was she supposed to solve a puzzle that she didn’t even understand?
She looked up at Jordan. He was staring up at the night sky, spinning his section slowly, a frown on his face. Suddenly he let out a cry.
“What? What is it?” Alyx felt a sliver of excitement growing in her.
Jordan didn’t answer. He didn’t hear her. He flew to the next pillar and started spinning the moveable section. Alyx watched the stars move in the sky above him. The stars stopped turning and Jordan let out another cry.
Alyx waved at him to try and get his attention. She frowned, tilted her head and raised her hands up her sides in what she hoped conveyed, Tell me what you think you’ve found or I’ll hit you.
Jordan flew down to her, grinning. “I think the aim of this puzzle is to spin the twelve pillars until you get the right spot.”
And? She stared at him expectantly. How did he know where to stop spinning each pillar?
“Have you not noticed anything about the pillars?”
Alyx frowned and she mouthed, “That they’re made of stone.” She knocked on the pillar next to her as she spoke.
“And?”
Alyx let out a huff and rolled her eyes as if to say, Come on Jordan, we don’t have time to play.
He ignored this. “Have you noticed how many of them there are?”
She nodded. She held up one finger, then two fingers to indicate the number 12.
“And where do you find twelve of anything in relation to stars?”
Alyx was about to retort when Jordan’s question began to tickle something in her mind. Twelve pillars, twelve sections of the night sky…
“Give up?” Jordan grinned. “The zodiac signs. Each zodiac sign actually relates to a constellation of stars. We just have to spin these pillars until the constellation shines through. The first pillar that I spun has the constellation of Cancer, the crab. This one is Leo, the lion.”
He pointed up to the sky and leaned his head down near hers so she could better follow where he was pointing. “That bright star there is the head, called Regulus, then follow it down to the neck, then running down to the front of the legs and back to Denebola, which actually means ‘the lion’s tail’—”
“Show off,” muttered Alyx as she rolled her eyes.
“Hey! I mightn’t be able to hear you but I can read your lips. Anyway, if you look at the rest of the stars on this pillar they are actually just random points of light, except for the section which shows the Leo constellation. I bet if we spin the next one in the circle we shall find the Virgo constellation.” Jordan flew to the next pillar. Alyx watched as he spun the pillar and let out a cry of triumph. Jordan looked at her.
Alyx felt the excitement returning to her body. She waved her hands in a “hurry up” motion as if to say, Well don’t just stand there. Go do the rest of them.
Minutes later Jordan was spinning the last pillar. Gemini, he had said. The twins. He had no sooner spun the pillar into place than the stars in their constellations began to glow bright blue.
It was working.
Blue lines appeared in the black space joining the star up in their constellations. Then, appearing in blue misty light, were the bodies of each zodiac sign − the ram, the bull, the twins, the crab, the lion, the virgin, the scorpion, the archer, the water bearer, the goat, and the fishes. They seemed to take on a fullness as if they were popping out of the sky. Everything became brighter and brighter and brighter.
Then they began to move across the sky − legs galloping, tails flicking, fins flapping − slowly at first. Then they sped up until they became a whirl of color, like a blue snake chasing its tail around the sky. It made Alyx’s head spin just to watch it. What the hell was happening?
Suddenly the blue swirl peeled away and headed straight for them like a fiery comet. There wasn’t even time to run. Alyx dove behind a pillar just as the comet slammed into the ground with a rumble. Alyx braced for the spray of sand and roll of earth that would surely come after an impact like that. But there was nothing. Just an eerie silence.
Jordan landed next to her and she peered around the pillar. The light appeared to have hit the doorway. It now gleamed with the same blue light around the edges – the doorway was now black and activated. They had passed this arena.
But the brightest light shone from the symbol that had appeared at the keystone.
Another symbol, Alyx thought.
Jordan took her hand and they walked towards the doorway to the third arena.
Chapter 26
As soon as Alyx stepped through the doorway she was overwhelmed by the stench of sweat and the oppressing din of voices and dull footfalls. Alyx blinked at the madness around them. Blood red tents, made dull by a coat of dust and muck, were set up haphazardly around them. The muddy ground showed small patches of grass, evidence that this had been a field of some sort before the camp had been set up. And there were boots everywhere. Boots caked with mud on the ends of the legs of men, dirt and blood-streaked, who rushed around the place and in and out of tent flaps.
Alyx noticed that each man was armed. She clutched her sword handle. Good lord. Were they meant to fight a whole camp of mortal men? Impossible. No two warriors, no matter how savant at fighting, would last against these numbers. How long would they remain unnoticed? Not long if they stayed here. Alyx grabbed Jordan by the arm and pulled him into the nearest tent, praying it would be unoccupied.
Thankfully, it was. It was a small space created by the musty smelling canvas held up by a single pole at the center. A rolled out rug empty of persons, and a single pair of worn boots was almost all that was in here.
“Thank God,” a voice from behind her called out. Alyx spun around, drawing her sword, her actions causing Jordan to do the same.
A man wearing a smart black jacket, double-breasted with red buttons, stood at the tent flap where they had just entered. His intelligent-looking face was finely featured and cleanly shaved. He seemed curiously unperturbed at the two blade points that were pointed at his chest.
“Your most esteemed eminents, you both need to come with me,” he said.
“Why?” Alyx demanded. “Who are you? Where are we?”
The man laughed. “Oh, your most royal of highnesses, this isn’t time for games. To the war room at once.”
With this he turned with the grace of a dancer and disappeared out of the tent flap. Alyx breathed in a deep breath. War room. Did he say war room? She didn’t have a good feeling about this.
“At least they seem to be on our side,” Alyx mumbled to herself.
The flap moved aside as the man stuck his head in again. “I implore you, my noblest of the noble, you absolutely must come at once,” he pleaded. “They could attack any minute.”
The “war room” was an open-aired platform made of weaved wood. It floated high up on the air, defying all laws of gravity, tied to the ground with a single golden cord. It swayed gently and pulled and released against the cord as if it was a ship amongst the clouds. The sloping gold and red roof of the war room was tiered and matching dragon statues skittered along the ridges and edges like playful woodland creatures.
Alyx didn’t even fuss when Jordan swept her up in his arms and lifted her up off the ground towards this peculiar war room while the man who had identified himself as General Brody climbed up a rope ladder. Alyx felt
a rush of relief as they left the crush of bodies and tents and mess below.
Once in the war room, Jordan stood next to Alyx who stood next to Brody and, at Alyx’s request, a young boy who was playing the role of scribe stood next to Jordan. He held a chalkboard tucked in one arm and chalk in the other, writing down what was being said so that Jordan could “hear” as well.
“What are we looking at here, Brodster?” Jordan asked him.
“That’s General Brody,” he emphasized, mouthing the word clearly to him and wagging his finger to his name being chalked out on the board.
Jordan grinned. “I know. I think Brodster suits you better.”
Alyx hid a smile as Brody fought to remain unflustered. He handed Alyx and Jordan a telescopic lens each, brass and hand-hammered into shape, delicately folding around a circular lens-piece. She held the telescopic lens to her right eye and surveyed the scene before her.
Below them lay the camp that Alyx and Jordan had walked into, a sprawling ant’s nest of tent poles and canvas. Thin lines of smoke rose across the camp from small open fires where the men were cooking their food. She could smell the smoke and cooking meat, and her mouth watered.
Along one side of the camp was a river stretching across the horizon from a set of mountains that fringed the camp to the East. The mountain looked as it were holding the river taut over its shoulder. The river was wide enough that arrows and catapults would fall short across it.
Beyond that lay another camp, similar in its sprawl but taking up a larger area. In her lens she found a group of men in the fore. No. Not men. Not Darkened. But demons. Through her lens she watched as two creatures, both green skinned and thick limbed, fought over a bloody stick of meat. She hoped to God it was animal meat. She drew back a breath and snatched the lens from her eye as if the image burned her.
She turned to Brody. “Who is camped across the river?”
“You know who they are,” Brody said simply.