But which hole of the hundreds did it belong in?
K'lrsa ran her fingers over another carving, this one of a quarter moon, trying to take deep enough breaths to get air into her lungs. "Do you understand it? Can we solve it?"
She closed her eyes, fighting back an intense urge to claw her way free of the tiny space.
When she opened her eyes again, the walls seemed to be wavering before her. "Do you see that? Are the walls moving?"
"No." Badru put his hand on the wall next to her. "See? Not moving."
She shivered, waiting for the wall to shift under his hand.
"Are you okay?" He took her shoulders in his, trying to meet her eyes.
She shook her head. She needed to get out of there. Now.
"K'lrsa?" His brow furrowed in concern.
She took great, big panting breaths trying to draw more air into her lungs.
She swayed slightly, struggling to stay upright. The walls were moving.
"K'lrsa." Badru shook her gently. "Look at me."
She struggled to focus on his bright blue eyes, but she couldn't. Her eyes rolled around trying to see everything at once.
"K'lrsa. I want you to close your eyes and listen to my voice." He spoke strongly, his thumbs rubbing small little circles against her skin.
She closed her eyes and focused on the movement of his thumbs, letting their steady motion bring her back to herself.
"The walls…" she whispered.
"They're not moving." He took her hand and placed it against his chest. "I want you to breathe when I do, okay?"
She nodded.
He took a deep breath in and she did, too, but when he didn't let it out right away, she shook her head and tried to pull away. He held her hand to his chest, making soft noises to calm her.
"Center your breathing, K'lrsa. Find the Core. You know how to do this."
She almost smiled. He'd remembered about the Core.
She took one deep shuddering breath and then another.
And another.
Slowly, she matched her breathing to his until finally her pulse slowed and she could hear Vedhe and Lodie's arguing instead of the blood pounding in her ears.
She started to open her eyes, but Badru whispered, "No. Not yet. Keep them closed. Keep breathing. In…and out….and in….and out."
She let her body be guided by the rhythm of his voice, slowly relaxing and letting go of her fear.
Lodie shoved past them. "No, no, no. Not like that. That's all wrong."
K'lrsa opened her eyes. Badru's fingers tightened on her shoulders, but she shook her head slightly. "It's okay. I'm…I'm okay."
Vedhe answered Lodie from somewhere behind her. "But sun, see?"
Badru held K'lrsa's gaze. "Are you sure?"
She nodded.
And she was. Whatever had scared her had passed. The walls were no longer moving. And she could see that they never would.
She turned to where Lodie and Vedhe were arguing, pointing at different spots in the wall, talking about the sun and moon and stars and phases and cycles. She didn't understand a word of it, so she turned to Badru. "Do you know what they're talking about?"
He shook his head. "I just hope they do. Or else we'll be stuck here until the end of time."
"Or until we run out of air." Her breathing quickened at the thought.
"Now, now. Don't do that." Badru grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. "Calm, deep breaths, remember?"
Right.
She licked her lips. Why were they so dry all of a sudden?
He held her gaze. "Breathe with me. In….out…."
K'lrsa fought the urge to run around the room screaming as she matched her breaths to his and reminded herself she just had to keep calm until Vedhe or Lodie figured out the puzzle.
That's all.
She just hoped they managed it before they all really did run out of air.
Or food.
Or water.
Or patience.
Chapter 72
In the same way that light filled the cave even though there were no windows or torches, air seemed to be replaced as well, which eventually allowed K'lrsa to calm down enough to sit on the stone pedestal and watch the others work.
She earned a few dark glares for fiddling with the colored rods, but most of the time the others were too absorbed in trying to decipher the challenge.
After they'd been there what felt like forever, the pedestal K'lrsa was sitting on became so hot she had to jump off. As soon as she did, food appeared. It was simple fare like in the caves, but food nonetheless, and plenty of it. Dried meat, sour greens, and small biscuits made of seeds, berries and fat.
As they ate, the others paced the room. They'd tried everything they could think of, but nothing had worked. There was no meaning to the number seventeen that any of them knew. Nor to the combination of the numbers seven, six, three and one which were the numbers of red, orange, yellow and green rods, respectively.
"What about the symbols? They have to mean something." Badru pointed to a sun, a quarter moon, and what seemed to be a cloud.
Vedhe brought the three yellow rods and placed them into the holes. Nothing happened. Just like with every other attempt they'd made.
"Maybe all seventeen have to be in place before it will work?" Badru asked.
Lodie snorted. "Let's hope not or we're never going to leave this place."
"What are you trying to do?" K'lrsa asked.
Badru pointed to the holes. "I was thinking maybe the yellow rods represent Father Sun, the Lady Moon, and the Trickster."
Lodie rolled her neck, wincing in pain as it made a loud pop. "But then what would the others represent? And how would that be a real challenge? It would just be a test of memorization that any could pass once they'd been told the answer. No. There has to be something more to it."
K'lrsa paced the room, studying all the little symbols. She traced the outline of one in the shape of a hand held out as if to stop someone.
She stepped back, studying the rest of the symbols on the wall. There were two more symbols just like the hand one.
"Lodie, what do you think this symbol means? I understand the sun and the moon, but what about this one with the hand held out?"
Lodie shrugged. "I'm not sure it means anything. It might just be there to make finding the moon and sun symbols harder."
"But what if it does have meaning? What if they all do?"
Badru walked along the wall nearest him, running his finger over different marks with a frown. He paused on a drawing of a long-legged bird. "I've seen something like this before. In my grandfather's study, after he died. There were drawings that used some of these symbols. But they were combined together, not separate."
Lodie nodded as she came to join him. "Yes. Right. That makes sense."
"What does?" K'lrsa asked as she looked over Lodie's shoulder.
"It's possible these are from the old style of writing. If so, then each symbol stands for a sound. You combine the sounds to form words." She touched another example of the outstretched hand symbol. "If so, this one could be stop, which means it stands for the sound 'st'."
K'lrsa touched a small circular mark with an x through it, wondering what sound it represented. "If that's true, then maybe we're supposed to create a word with the rods."
Badru shook his head. "No. There are too many rods for that."
"Then maybe four words, one for each color."
"But what four words?"
K'lrsa glared at him, wishing he would be just a little more enthusiastic about her idea.
Vedhe held up the three yellow rods. "Knowledge. Na-ley-je." She gestured with each rod in turn.
Badru frowned. "But that's only one word. What are the other three?"
K'lrsa glared at him.
Lodie stepped between them. "Why don't we start with that and see what we find? We'll worry about the other words after."
K'lrsa turned back to the wall. "Okay. So what ar
e the symbols to spell knowledge?"
"How should I know?" Badru asked.
But even as K'lrsa turned to glare at him once more, Lodie walked the nearest wall, trailing her fingers along each symbol. Her tongue stuck out slightly as she paused on different ones, studying them with narrowed eyes.
She paused for a long time on a drawing of a triangle inside a circle, but eventually moved on.
Finally, she pointed to one that looked like a squat, fat bird. "This one. I think it's the na-na bird, which makes it the first symbol."
"Great!" K'lrsa glanced at the wall next to her, expecting to see more drawings of the bird, but didn't. It was okay. That just meant it would be easier to find the whole word. "So what's the second symbol?"
Lodie continued on until she came to a small drawing of three wavy lines. She tapped it with her long fingernail. "This one. Leven is a type of flood that comes only once every hundred years."
Badru peered at it. "And you're sure that's what the symbol represents?"
"It's as good a guess as any."
"And the third symbol?" he asked.
Vedhe shook her head. "Find when find others together." She moved to the opposite wall and started looking for the two symbols together, muttering when she found one or the other but not both.
K'lrsa took the wall to her left. Lodie the one to her right and Badru the one opposite.
They searched in silence, the frustration mounting each time they found one of the symbols but not the other. At last, Vedhe cried out, almost dancing in excitement.
Lodie joined her, but after studying the third symbol, she shook her head. "No. I don't think that's it."
They continued their search, slower this time.
Badru found the next pair, but it wasn't right either.
Still they pushed on, searching, squinting at the symbols, hoping to find a combination that made sense.
K'lrsa was halfway across her wall when she finally found the two symbols next to each other in the very top row. "Lodie?" she called softly, her voice thrumming with excitement.
She didn't want to get her hopes up, but she was sure this was it.
Lodie traced the markings of the next symbol. Her tongue moved along her gums with a soft squelch as she studied it. Finally, she nodded. "Yes. I think that could be it."
K'lrsa laughed. "Ha! We did it. Where are the yellow rods?"
Vedhe handed Lodie the yellow rods. She placed them in the holes—she was the only one tall enough to do it—her hands shaking so badly it took her three tries to place the last one.
They gathered together and waited.
But nothing happened.
Lodie pulled the rods from the wall and threw them on the pedestal with the others. "Keep looking," she growled and stalked back to her wall to resume the search.
But K'lrsa didn't move.
Lodie was wrong.
Those were the three symbols. She knew it.
Badru came to stand next to her. "What is it?"
"Those are the symbols. I know they are."
"Maybe they occur together somewhere else on the wall, too."
K'lrsa shook her head. "No. These are them."
He turned to the pedestal where the rods lay, now arranged by color. One green, seven red. Six orange, three yellow.
He shook his head.
"What is it?" K'lrsa asked.
"I think we were wrong about the colors."
Lodie turned to listen. So did Vedhe.
He pointed at the red rods. "If we use one color per word that means there has to be a word that's seven symbols long and another that's six long. That isn't going to happen. Think about it. Knowledge was only three."
Lodie nodded.
They all stared at the rods for a while, Badru moving them around, trying to make shapes with them, but none knew what to do next.
Lodie gave a small gasp and stepped forward, eagerly rearranging the rods to form groups with one of each color. There were seven piles when she was done, the smallest with only a red rod in it, the biggest with one each of yellow, red, orange, and green.
She pointed to the lone red rod. "A small word." And then to the largest pile. "A larger word."
Badru laughed. "Of course. We're just missing blue." He rearranged each pile so that red was first followed by orange then yellow then green. "See?"
K'lrsa shook her head. "No. What is it?"
"It's the order of a rainbow. And the colors of the Daliphate. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue. With purple reserved for the gods. But there's no blue because there are no words that long."
Smiling, he took a pile with one red, one orange, and one yellow rod and placed them into the holes they'd tried before.
There was a flash of silver light and the rods disappeared, replaced with the three symbols now joined together to form a larger symbol.
Vedhe clapped like a child and K'lrsa laughed.
"Don't get too excited," Lodie muttered. "We still have fourteen of these things left."
K'lrsa refused to feel defeated. Not when they were so close. "We're getting there. So what phrase includes the word knowledge?"
Lodie pursed her lips. "That phrase on the arch outside the labyrinth."
"Of course! It had the word overcome in it. So what's the symbol for 'ov'? Lodie?"
Lodie scanned the row, her mouth working silently as she moved from symbol to symbol. Six symbols later, she stopped. "Here. Give me a red rod."
K'lrsa handed her a red rod, as well as an orange and a yellow.
"One more. Give me the green one, too."
K'lrsa handed her the green one and Lodie shoved all four into place. As she stood back there was another small flash of light and the rods were once more replaced with the symbols joined into one.
Badru grabbed a red and an orange rod and placed them into the symbols to the left of knowledge. They merged to form a word.
"Seek," he said as he stepped back so the rest of them could study the wall.
K'lrsa took two more rods and put them on the other side of knowledge.
"Must," she told the others as they, too, merged together.
There were only six rods left, but no one moved to place them.
Finally, Vedhe stepped forward with just a red rod in her hand. She put it on the left side of "seek" and stepped back.
They all held their breath, scared what might happen if she was wrong, but once more there was a light and the rod was replaced with the symbol.
K'lrsa glanced at the five remaining rods. "So we have a word with two in it and a word with three in it."
Lodie grabbed a red, an orange, and a yellow and shoved them into place after the symbols for the word "must".
Badru made as if to stop her, but she shrugged. "It was the only choice once Vedhe did the one-rod word."
So it was. That left the two rods to either go at the start or the end. K'lrsa grabbed them and put them at the beginning. "Whatever the exact words were I know it ended with overcome, because I remember thinking how stupid it was that it didn't say what we had to overcome."
The last rods glowed silver and were replaced by their symbols. All the other holes and symbols in the wall disappeared, replaced by a new arch wide enough for all four of them to pass through together.
They'd done it!
K'lrsa held out her hands. "I'm ready to be done with this room. How about you?"
Vedhe took her right hand and Badru her left. Lodie grabbed Vedhe's hand and they stepped through, ready for the next challenge.
Chapter 73
K'lrsa wasn't sure what to expect on the other side of the arch, but what they found certainly wasn't it.
They stepped into a small clearing in the midst of lush, green plants and trees that towered high above them. Ahead, a narrow white-tiled path disappeared into the greenery. To the right was a green-tiled path and to the left a red-tiled path. Turning, K'lrsa saw a yellow-tiled path and a blue-tiled one as well.
They were inside. A roof
above sheltered them from the sun that shone through windows high along each wall. A breeze cooled her skin. Water flowed somewhere nearby, gently cascading down a series of rocks. Birds, hidden in the foliage, trilled in happiness.
"Ama!" A little girl ran towards them from the red path, barefoot, her long brown hair streaming out behind her. She must've been four or five summers old and wore a baru-hide dress that barely reached her chubby little ankles.
Lodie fell to her knees, crying, arms flung wide.
"Lodie? Are you okay?"
"Ama. Come." The little girl tugged on Lodie's hand, leading her away down the path.
"Lodie, wait."
But Lodie didn't even pause.
"We should follow her."
But before they could, a tall young man with skin and hair as pale as Vedhe's stepped off the green-tiled path. Vedhe squealed in excitement and ran towards him.
He laughed as she tackled him with a hug, tears pouring down her cheeks, babbling excitedly in her own language. He enveloped her in a hug and led her away, their heads pressed close together as they too disappeared.
"Badru? What is this? What's happening?" She gripped his hand, scared that someone would come to lead him away next.
"K'lrsa," a voice called softly from behind her.
She shivered as she recognized the voice.
Her father? But how was that possible?
She turned, slowly, letting go of Badru's hand, not daring to breathe lest she shatter the illusion.
But it was him. It was really him standing there, smiling at her, his eyes crinkled in joy.
"Dad?" she whispered.
"Of course. Didn't anyone tell you what this place was?"
"No."
"It’s the crossroads between the land of the living and the land of the dead. It's where both can meet."
She didn't want to believe it. But she'd missed him so much…
"But, the labyrinth. We were…"
"You made it through to the center, K'lrsa. I'm here to guide you to a place where you can rest before you receive the wisdom of this place."
She held herself back for another long moment until she couldn't stand it any longer and then flung herself into her father's arms. It was him, it really was. Exactly like she remembered.
Rider's Rescue (The Rider's Revenge Trilogy Book 2) Page 22