***
Kevan let her eyes take time to study the cavern they had just landed in. The walls had enough crystals to keep her busy for numerous lifetimes, some of them phosphorescent, and beginning to glow under the torch power. The cavern was warm, but oddly, not muggy. The grimoire hung suspended within a field of energy, protected on the island.
“Neither the light of day, nor the dark of night, surrounded by water and fire ...” Kevan whispered in awe. Looking at the others, who were just as transfixed as she was, she asked, “Do you think?”
“Oh yeah,” Kaitlyn laughed. “If it’s not, then I’ll eat my shorts.”
Marcus snorted. “Now that is something that I would pay to see,” he drawled, making Kaitlyn stick out her tongue.
“It’s beautiful,” Leila sighed with wonder, transfixed by the entity that she was compelled to protect, and scared witless at the same time by the extreme good and bad that made up the grimoire.
Kevan looked over at Leila, surprised to see the tears streaming down her face. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” she assured Kevan, her voice husky with emotion. “Don’t mind me; I’m just feeling very emotional, right at the moment.”
“Understandable, I guess.” Kevan shrugged.
“You don’t know, I don’t understand it myself, it’s like finding a piece that I didn’t know was missing.” She wiped the tears streaming down her face. “Wow, if this is my reaction to finding a piece of the repository, I’ll be a basket case when we find the rest of it.” Kevan leaned over, wrapping her arm around Leila’s shoulders.
“We’ll be right there beside you, wiping up the tears,” she teased.
“Thanks.”
For a few minutes, everyone got quiet, feeling the draw to covet the book. The greedy side of nature ruled for a few seconds, and then Kevan spoke, breaking the mini spell. “Leila?”
“Yeah, I can feel it Kevan,” Leila admitted.
“Are you going to be okay?” Kevan needed to know.
Leila blinked, surprised at her concern. “Leila?”
“Yeah, I’m going to be alright,” Leila said, not entirely sure that it was true.
“Okay,” Kaitlyn asked, as she interrupted them. “Tell me, are we swimming again?”
“Well, what did Tatiana’s clue say?” Leila wondered, her eyes ever drawn back with longing to the grimoire.
START AT THE END AND WORK YOUR WAY BACK, WHAT YOU SEEK SITS IN A PLACE OF PROTECTION, THAT SEES NEITHER THE LIGHT OF DAY,
NOR THE DARK OF NIGHT, SURROUNDED BY WATER AND FIRE, IT AWAITS ITS RELEASE,
BY THE TRUTH SEEKER, THE ALL SEEING,
THE TALKER,
AND THE WARRIOR,
SURROUNDED BY THE PROTECTORS, THEY ALL MUST WORK TOGETHER,
TO SHINE THE WAY THROUGH THE DARKNESS, DON’T BELIEVE THE FALSEHOODS,
TRUST IN THE TRUTH, KNOW THAT THEY CAN DO,
WHAT HAD BEEN SET IN FRONT OF THEM, THE MOST UNLIKELY OF ALL,
WILL DO WHAT SEEMS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR,
AS YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU SEEK.
They all stared at Kaitlyn, who had just rattled off the entire thing. Kevan shook her head; she was never ceased to be amazed by her sister and her photographic memory.
“Would you all stop staring?” Kaitlyn ordered, as she shifted under their gaze.
“Okay, we got the first part, but it awaits its release by the truth seeker ... shit,” Kevan swore, as she looked up. “I think we may have really messed this up.”
“What, how?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Eve isn’t here. It says that we need the truth seeker, that’s Eve, oh my gods, I can’t believe that I never even thought about Tatiana’s clue.” Kevan felt sick with disgust over her own stupidity. She plopped down, holding her head in her hands; they had come so far, then to stop, just when they were about to get what they come for, made her want to cry.
“Kevan, it’s going to be okay,” Kaitlyn assured her. “We got in once, we can do it again.”
“But all that work, all that time,” Kevan wailed with frustration.
“Can you tell me what it says again, please?” Wren asked.
“What does it matter,” Kevan told her, as her whole body sagged with defeat. “Without Eve, we can’t do anything.”
“Humor me, alright?” Wren insisted. “What did this clue thing say?”
“START AT THE END AND WORK ...”
“Not the whole thing, the part that you believe applies to Eve,” Wren clarified.
“Fine,” Kaitlyn started again. “It awaits its release by the truth seeker, Eve, the all-seeing, Kevan, the talker, Leila and the warrior, Kira.” Kaitlyn crossed her arms, and waited for Wren to say that she was sorry.
“So, you’re saying the all seeing is Kevan, because she can see things the rest of us can’t. Leila’s the talker, because she talks to these books.” Wren looked to them for confirmation of what she was saying, and both Kevan and Kaitlyn nodded in agreement. “So, Kira is the warrior?” her voice held a tone of disbelief. “I thought it applied to Marcus, or Ronan.”
“I am a guardian Fay, a very skilled warrior,” Kira chirped, as she popped off Kevan’s shoulder.
“Yes, never under estimate a guardian Fay, they may be small, but they can be very deadly,” Marcus told her.
“Sorry, Kira,” Wren nodded to her, before she carried on. “So you’re saying that Eve is the truth seeker?”
“Yes, Eve can detect things, and sense falsehoods,” Kaitlyn explained.
“That makes a lot of sense,” Wren nodded in agreement. “But let me ask you a question. Do you know what they call a lawyer here in Elden?”
“What does that have to with anything?” Kaitlyn asked her. “It doesn’t change the facts.”
“Boy, you don’t like it when someone disagrees with you, do you?” Wren laughed.
“I’m seldom wrong, so it doesn’t come up much,” Kaitlyn admitted with a shrug of arrogance.
“Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but you are wrong this time.”
“What are you talking about, Wren?” Kevan asked, jumping to her feet.
Wren asked again, “Do you know what they call lawyers in Elden?”
“What?” Kevan demanded. “Please, just tell us.”
“Funnily enough, they happen to call them truth seekers.”
“So?” Kaitlyn cautiously remarked.
“Well, it just so happens, that before I became a member of the rebel squad, before I came through the portal, I was a lawyer, or at least I had my degree, and was just waiting to take the bar.” Wren said with pride.
Kevan felt odd. “You’re telling us that Eve wasn’t meant to be the truth seeker, that it’s you?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know this Tatiana person. I’m just passing on information to you,” Wren informed her.
“How could she have known?” Kevan whispered, as she looked to her silent sister, who was staring at Wren.
“Remind me never to go against anything Tatiana ever says again,” Kevan joked. “She’s scary.”
“Really scary,” Kaitlyn admitted.
“What I would like to know is how did she know that we would meet? How long have you known her?” Wren pried.
“Oh gods, long story, for a much different time,” Kevan told her. “Right now, we need to concentrate on the clues that we have.” Kevan closed her eyes, going over the lines that Tatiana had given her. “So if Wren, Kira, Leila and I are the whatever, that would make Marcus, Joseph and Ronan the protectors. Okay, that makes sense,” she told herself. “So we have to work together to shine the way through the darkness ...” She asked Marcus, “What does that mean?”
“That’s simple,” Marcus stated.
“How is that simple?” Kaitlyn questioned. Marcus shook his head, and pointed to the holders lining the shoreline.
“We place the to
rches into the holders, and the light will shine through the darkness,” he simply stated.
“Oh my gods, you are brilliant,” Kevan cried with joy, as she looked around, spotted the torches on the far wall.
Within a few minutes, with the help of Joseph starting fires with his magic, they had a dozen torches sitting in the holders, burning away the darkness.
“Look!” Kevan shouted, as excitement took hold of her. She jumped up and down, pointing out the now illuminated edges of the island, exposing to their view a small, narrow stone bridge, which spanned the water from the shore to the island.
“She is scary, really, really scary,” Kaitlyn whispered, as they all stared at the bridge. “Okay, now what?”
Kevan paused to think for a moment, before she turned to Leila.
“Well, I would say that the next move must be Leila’s,” Kevan smiled. “She is the claviger and the grimoire is technically her responsibility.”
Leila swallowed the sudden knot in her throat. She stepped onto it and paused, waiting to see if something would happen. When nothing happened, she released her held breath, and took another step. Slowly, she made her way across the pile of stones, watching that she wasn’t going to step onto anything icky, or fall into the water; she was tired of being wet. About half way across, her next step forward slammed her into an invisible wall.
Leila felt the barrier pulse with life, and firm up, when she tried to push through. She hustled off the bridge, and said, “It’s an invisible wall, and I have no idea how to get through it.”
“I knew it couldn’t be as simple as walking over a bridge to grab it; now we have to deal with an invisible wall.”
“Oh, stop your bitching, Kaitlyn. We’ve figured everything else out, we’ll figure this out, too,” Kevan hissed. “The clue said it awaits its release by the truth seeker, all seeing, the talker, and the warrior, surrounded by the protectors. They must work together to shine the way through the darkness.” Kevan mulled it over in her head, “Could it be that simple?” she wondered aloud.
“Could what be that simple?” Kaitlyn demanded impatiently.
“We all have to go,” Kevan told them. “We all have to work together to get through the wall with some torches.” She ran over and grabbed a torch, and then she moved to the ones that they had already lit, touched hers to one of them, and watched it flare into life. She stood on the shore, looking at the bridge, thinking she was forgetting something. “Okay, what am I forgetting?” Then it popped into her head. “We have to be surrounded by the protectors.” Kevan thought she had landed in some stupid book, again; especially with the oversimplified solutions.
They all gathered at the bridge entrance, studying it, trying to figure out how they would be able to get on the bridge ringed by the guys.
“This is nuts, it won’t work,” Kaitlyn complained. “No matter what, all of us will not fit on the bridge, it’s just not big enough; hell, we have to go single file.”
“Then what are we missing?” Kevan asked.
“What if we are thinking too literally?” Kaitlyn asked, as something came to her.
“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.
“Well, it does say surrounded; what if we go in single file: protector, us, protector, us, etcetera?”
“Alright, that makes sense, except for the fact that there are three protectors, and four of us,” Kevan pointed out.
“Don’t forget about me,” Kira piped up. “I’m five.”
“I’m very sorry, Kira, I never forget about you,” Kevan told her.
“So we go. Ronan ...” Wren stopped Kaitlyn.
“You’re forgetting something,” she told them.
“What?” Kevan asked.
“It tells us the order in which we must go across the bridge,” Wren pointed out.
“Where do you get that?” Kaitlyn questioned.
“It’s in the clue: the Truth Seeker, All Seeing, Talker and Warrior, surrounded by the Protectors.”
“We know what it says,” Kaitlyn mouthed off.
“You really have quite the mouth, don’t you?” Wren told her, making Kaitlyn smile.
“I know,” she admitted, as she wrinkled her nose. “Drives most people crazy; how am I doing?”
Wren shook her head when she saw how pleased with herself Kaitlyn was.
“The order that we have to go across the bridge is this: Ronan, me, Kevan, Joseph, Leila, Kira, and finally Marcus.”
“Ah,” Kaitlyn spoke up, waving her hand in Wren’s face. “You forgot about me.”
“No, I didn’t,” Wren told her.
“Yes, you did,” Kaitlyn told her.
“No, I didn’t forget about you. I just didn’t add you in,” Wren informed her.
Kaitlyn scowled, “Well then, we have a problem.”
“No we don’t. I said exactly as the directions instructed, and you, my dear, are not in the instructions, so you don’t get to go.”
“Gods, I think you might be right!” Kevan exclaimed.
“No, she’s not,” Kaitlyn complained.
“Another brilliant mind!” Kevan did a little jig, as she gave Wren a quick hug.
“She is not brilliant,” Kaitlyn muttered to herself.
“Oh, would you quit pouting,” Kevan whispered in Kaitlyn’s ear.
“No!” Kaitlyn declared. “It’s my party, and I’ll pout if I want to.”
Marcus just shook his head, and rolled his eyes.