The Missing Mage (26 page)

They were halfway across the room when they heard a loud snapping sound. The floor collapsed beneath them and they fell down into a dark pit. Nathan instinctively grabbed Ava as they fell. When he hit the ground he pulled her on top of him, diminishing the effects of the hard fall on her body. Unfortunately, his own fall was not softened. Nathan felt the air squeezed out of him as he was sandwiched between the hard ground and Ava.

“Ooof, that hurt. Are you okay?” asked Ava.

Once he regained his breath, Nathan moaned softly. “I’m not sure. I either twisted or broke my ankle during the fall, and my back is a little messed up.”

Nathan looked around him. The pit floor was covered in old bones and a skull. He didn’t want to think about why. “Okay, going to get off me soon?” he asked her.

Ava crawled off him. “Well, if you hadn’t pulled me on top of you, your fall wouldn’t have been so hard,” she said as she started rummaging through her satchel of medical supplies.

“You landing on top of me wasn’t so bad. It was your big bag of rocks landing on me that really hurt. Next time we make you magical weapons, let’s make something that doesn’t weigh so much; maybe something soft.”

“Don’t be such a baby. You’ll live, and my rocks have been very helpful, thank you. Here, chew this,” Ava said as she handed him a strange-looking chunk of root.

Nathan examined the root before putting it in his mouth. “What is it?” asked Nathan as he bit into it.

“Qualp root, it will help with the pain,” replied Ava. She then took Nathan’s boot off and examined his ankle. “Swollen but not broken, it’s an easy fix,” she said before placing her hand over the wounded ankle and healing it with her magic.

Between the magical healing and the qualp root, which tasted a lot like cinnamon, Nathan felt much better. He started to get up, when Ava pushed him back down.

“Hold on tiger. Let me finish inspecting your wounds, before you get up,” said Ava. She then ran her hand along Nathan’s back. Using her magic, she could tell that he had some minor bruising but nothing more severe. Again, she used her magic to reduce the swelling. She then ran her hand lower and gave his butt a quick squeeze.

Nathan gave her a funny look. “That part of your medical examination?”

Ava gave him a small wink. “I was just checking for bruises. Now you can get up. We need to figure a way out of this pit.”

Nathan looked up, the floor of the room they had just fell from was over 20 feet high from where they stood. Getting back up there would prove problematic. Nathan looked around the pit and spied a small opening in one wall. A small tunnel led out of the pit. “Well, I guess we follow that tunnel. Trying to get up these walls could take forever.”

“Lead the way, fearless leader, son of the great and mighty northern warrior, Soron,” replied Ava.

Nathan shook his head. “Who have you been talking to?” he asked.

“Cyrnic told me all about your father. How he saved your grandfather’s clan, then fled the north and ended up rescuing a princess. A very brave and heroic man your father, what happened to you?”

“Hey, that princess is my mother, and I can be brave and heroic. I eat your cooking, that should get me a metal for bravery,” retorted Nathan.

“Oh shut up and get in the dark scary tunnel,” demanded Ava with a smile.

“Yes, my queen,” said Nathan as he started to crawl into the tunnel.

Ava gave his butt a smack as he scurried into the tunnel. She chuckled. “Nice butt, indeed.”

They crawled through the tunnel until it deposited them into a larger cavern. Nathan gave Ava a hand up, and then started looking around to see if there was another tunnel.

Before Nathan could finish his examination of the cavern, he hear a loud thump and Ava screamed. Nathan turned to see what had happened, only to find than an enormous spider the size of a man had Ava pinned to the ground. Nathan quickly drew his sword and attacked the beast. He thrust his sword into the monstrous spider’s body, killing it and then pushing it off of Ava. From her position on the ground, Ava pointed up. “More coming,” she yelled as she scrambled up to her feet.

Nathan looked up. The ceiling of the large cavern was a collection of spider webs. Several of the oversized arachnoids were coming down towards them.

“That explains the bones,” quipped Nathan as he sheathed his sword and grabbed his bow. As quickly as he could, he started firing arrows up into the spiders.

Ava soon joined Nathan by throwing her rocks at the hideous creatures. A huge splatting sound could be hear whenever she hit one. But for every spider they killed another seemed to appear. Nathan looked around in desperation, if they didn’t do something quick, they would be in real trouble. He spotted another tunnel on the far wall. “Quick, let’s try another tunnel,” he said before running towards the wall.

Ava ran behind him. “Great, another tunnel. Please be no more spiders!” said Ava as she slid into the tunnel behind Nathan.

…

Quinton, Cyrnic, and Sharon made their way through the other corridor. This one had a large set of stone stairs that they followed. At the bottom, they found a long hallway with doors running down both sides.

“I’ll bet these are the sleeping quarters,” said Cyrnic.

Quinton opened one of the doors and looked inside. Sure enough, the room had a bed and a small desk on the opposite wall. “Yep, bedrooms,” confirmed Quinton.

“We should inspect every room,” said Cyrnic. “There could be valuable clues about the Red Order.”

Sharon wasn’t totally excited about the idea of rummaging through dead mages’ living quarters, but the sooner they found something useful, the sooner they could get back out of this creepy old underground building. “I’ll take the doors on the right,” she said.

The first room Sharon inspected had nothing of note in it, a closet with musty old robes and some crumbling parchment on the desk. The second had nothing as well. The third room seemed empty until she accidently bumped the desk on her way to leave. A thumping sound grabbed her attention. Pulling out the drawer once more, she still found nothing. Her curiosity peaked, she looked closer at the drawer. It was shallow compared to the size of the desk. She carefully reached behind the drawer. Her fingers touched cold metal. Sharon could feel the sharp edge of a blade. Some sort of weapon was hidden in the desk. Pulling the drawer completely out, she looked inside, she couldn’t see much inside the dark room, so instead she lifted the back of the desk, making the weapon slide out the front. When the weapon dropped to the floor, she lowered the desk and inspected the weapon. It was a sword. The sword had an interesting design. It had a comfortable metal and leather grip and a double-edged blade with an inscription running down the length of the blade. Sharon wiped of some of the dust from the blade until she could read the inscription, Protector.
I could use some protecting,
Sharon thought to herself. She decided to take the small sword with her.

After inspecting the rest of the rooms, the three gathered in the hallway.

“Find anything useful?” asked Quinton.

“I found this sword hidden in a desk. Other than that, nothing,” replied Sharon.

Cyrnic lifted his hand to show them a book. “I found this. One of the Red Order member’s diary.” Cyrnic practically beamed as he spoke.

“That’s a good thing?” asked Sharon.

“It could be an amazing thing. Who knows what secrets it holds. I cannot wait to sit down and read it,” said Cyrnic as he put the book into his satchel. “Now all we need is the tomes, and this mission will be a smashing success.” Cyrnic turned and led them to the door at the end of the bedroom hallway. The door opened into a large open space. It was another empty corridor, but this one had two large bronze doors on the other end. Cyrnic smiled, and turned to Quinton and Sharon. “I think this might be it.”

As Sharon started to step into the new room, Cyrnic put his arm in front of her, blocking the way. “Wait, take a closer look at the floor,” said Cyrnic.

Sharon looked down. The floor was large stone tiles, through the dust, Sharon could make out that each tile seemed to have a glyph carved into in. The entire floor was a combination of different glyphs. Kneeling down, Sharon blew the dust off the tile in front of her. The glyph was a picture of a fire carved into the large square stone. Curious, she moved over three feet and blew the dust off the next stone. The glyph was the sun. Sharon turned to Cyrnic. “What do they mean?”

“This is a puzzle room, the entire floor is one large puzzle. Follow the correct tiles, and we can walk unabated across the room. Step on the wrong tile…” said Cyrnic.

Sharon looked up at Cyrnic. “Step on the wrong tile and what?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t know, to tell you the truth. But, you can be sure it will be something bad.”

“That is comforting,” said Quinton. “How do we figure out which tiles to step on?”

“Good question, good question. Give me a minute to think, maybe something I have read about the order will guide us on our way,” said Cyrnic. Closing his eyes, Cyrnic thought back on all he knew about the Red Order.

Cyrnic’s eyes popped open. “Carefully dust of all the tiles in the first row. What are they?”

Quinton and Sharon finished blowing dust off the remaining tiles.

“From the left wall to the right the tiles are: mountain, stars, hour glass, fire, sun, and a rose,” said Quinton.

Cyrnic smiled. “That is it. The hourglass is the first tile.”

Sharon looked at the tile with the hourglass, it didn’t look any different than the other tiles. She turned to Cyrnic. “How can you tell?”

“There is an old poem that was popular among the order. It was a motto of sorts for some of its members.” Cyrnic recited the poem to them.

On the sands of time we walk

Gathering knowledge as we go forth

The path is forked, twisted and full of fear

When darkest hour falls

Follow the stars, for there illumination will light the way

If only you let your eye adjust to the light

When your sand begins to fall into the abyss and your time on the path has almost ended

Fret not, look back on the path, cherish your choices, then look to the sky

Become the star that guides the next

To walk on the sands of time

“Okay, sands of time is the hourglass right? What would the next one be?” asked Sharon.

“Well I would guess book but, since there are only three tiles in front of the first one that we can reach, let’s step onto the first tile and find out what the next three glyphs are,” said Cyrnic.

Quinton stepped out onto the first tile. Nothing happened, he smiled before looking down to read the next three tiles. “The moon, a sunrise, and a book,” said Quinton. “It is the book, right?”

Cyrnic nodded. “That seems logical, and the next should be a forked path or something twisted.”

Quinton stepped onto the book tile, and repeated the process. “Forked path, fire, moon. That is an easy one,” said Quinton as he stepped on the next tile.

“The next line ‘
darkest hour falls
’ will likely be a blank tile, representing that it is too dark to see,” explained Cyrnic.

Quinton examined the next three tiles. “Okay that works, but we have a problem.”

Cyrnic frowned. “What is it?”

“Two of the next three tiles are blank,” said Quinton. “They’re either supposed to be blank or are worn and so dusty that I can’t read them. I can make out the glyph from the next row of tiles, and I can see the tile with stars. But it is between the two blank ones. Either tile could be the correct one.”

“Well that is problematic,” replied Cyrnic. “Pick the one that looks like it is supposed to be blank and then quickly move to the star tile. Maybe we will get lucky.”

Quinton nodded, he couldn’t think of a better idea, so he swiftly stepped onto the left tile and then the star tile. Right away, the others followed.

Nothing happened.

Cyrnic smiled, “I believe we may have been lucky.”

“I think you spoke too soon. Look at the walls,” she said, pointing.

Coming out of the recessed spots between columns were skeletons. Some of the skeletons were armed with swords and others with axes.

“This is an interesting turn of events. I had not expected reanimated corpses, I thought perhaps we would be roasted in fire or dropped into a spiked pit,” said Cyrnic.

“It that supposed to be comforting?” asked Sharon.

“Oh no, merely an observation. Now might I offer a suggestion?” replied Cyrnic.

“Please do,” replied Quinton.

“Don’t die,” said Cyrnic as a skeleton rushed to towards him. Cyrnic, having been healed by Ava, was now fully capable of using his magic. As the skeleton came within striking distance, Cyrnic thrust his hand out towards it. A giant flaming hand appeared and grabbed the skeleton. The hand squeezed the skeleton until it burst into flames and the ashes fluttered to the ground.

Sharon was almost decapitated as she watched Cyrnic’s magical display. An ax-wielding skeleton had come up behind her and took a swing.

Quinton, while fighting off a skeleton noticed the sneak attack and called out to her. “Sharon, duck!”

Sharon dropped at Quinton’s warning. The ax missed her head by mere fractions of an inch. Sharon struck out with her new sword, hitting the skeleton in the leg. To her surprise the skeleton froze. The sword was magical, and had instantly covered the skeleton in a sheath of frost and ice. Sharon took another swing at the skeleton this time striking it in the torso. The ice and the skeleton inside shattered into thousands of pieces.

Between Cyrnic’s flaming hand and Sharon’s new magical sword, they made short work of the skeletons. Ash and ice soon covered the floor.

Quinton looked around the room. No more skeletons appeared. “Okay let’s get going before more skeletons show up.”

…

As they continued down the corridor, a movement caught their attention. There, half way up the wall, were Nathan and Ava. They were coming out of a hole in the wall. Seeing the others, Ava jumped down to the floor and joined them.