Lost but Now Found

Chapter 3

Malone walked into a small building, presumably the old woman's home, and found her sitting in a big chair in front of a roaring fire. She was still smiling warmly at Malone. She pointed to the seat across from her and told him to have a seat. Malone hesitantly sat down and decided he was going to get some answers.

The old woman beat him to it. "My name is Ilaya and I truly can help you, it is obvious that you need it" she said with a light chuckle. "I apologize for the secrecy but the streets are no place to discuss what I am about to disclose to you."

The old woman seemed truly sincere in wanting to help Malone so he relaxed and let her continue with her story. Just then, he heard a loud, relentless pounding on Ilaya's door. As he was about to speak, the old woman sprang to her feet with agility that he thought not possible for someone of her age, and clamped a hand over his mouth. "Not a word! Quick, under the carpet, there's a latch that goes to the cellar. Go down there and don't come out until I say so" she whispered. Malone quickly got up and lifted the carpet, and sure enough, he found and a latch. He ducked into the cellar, it was a tight fit, but it kept him safe. From what, he didn't know yet.

The room was dark and Malone couldn't even see his own fingers in front of his face so he had to rely on his other senses. He could tell that Ilaya used the cellar for food storage because the air had a sweet smell to it, not musty and damp like his family's basement. He shuddered as he thought about that basement; he used to be scared to go down there as a child.

Through the carpet he found he could hear the muffled pounding and shouting continuing up top. "Ilaya! Ilaya! Come on, old woman! Open this door! Now!" He heard a man shouting and then heard a rattling and squeak, which he assumed was the front door opening. Then he heard Ilaya conversing with the guards in a very cheeky manner. Malone winced and prayed for the old woman's safety.

"What do you want Gressan? You should know better than to pound on an old woman's door like that! Where are your manners?" The old woman looked at the large captain of the guard and saw that she was aggravating him, but she wasn't afraid of him. "Well, do you have a reason for disturbing me, or do you like raising a ruckus and disturbing old women for your amusement?"

Gressan was already enraged that the man he was hunting managed to elude him and his guards for so long and now he was being mocked. He abstained from lashing out only by remembering his duty. "We are looking for the outsider, have you seen him?"

Ilaya looked up at Gressan with her sweetest smile and replied, "Outsider? What outsider? You know I hardly ever leave my humble abode, Gressan."

Gressan looked suspiciously at Ilaya. "Look old woman, if I find out you had ANYTHING to do with this, NOTHING will save you from me!" Gressan gathered the rest of his men and walked off to carry off their continuing search.

Ilaya closed the door and let Malone out of the cellar. "You're safe for now, they won't be coming back this way for quite some time."

Malone decided he had been through enough and deserved an explanation. "Look, I want some answers! What the hell is going on here! Why am I running for my life!" Usually when Malone's life was in danger, he knew why, and in this case, he was completely in the dark.

Ilaya once again took her seat by the fire and Malone did the same. She tried to resume her earlier explanation. "I understand your anger and fear, they are not misplaced. I was about to explain before we were interrupted by Gressan. As you probably heard, he is not a very pleasant person," she said dryly. "He is the captain of the city's guard and is also in Syko's payroll. Syko is the so-called 'leader' of this city."

Ilaya looked over at Malone and chuckled. "I'm guessing by that blank look on your face, you have no idea where you are or who I'm talking about." Malone sheepishly nodded and Ilaya shook her head. "You would be wise to be more aware of your surroundings in the future young man, or you're likely to find trouble. Much like the situation you have landed yourself into now" Ilaya chided, sounding much like the tree house's resident hunter.

"Well, as I said before, my name is Ilaya and you have wandered into the City of the Old. We are relatively prosperous as you can see, but in the last ten years, our city has been slowly declining due to the fault of Syko, our beloved leader" Malone picked up on the obvious sarcasm.

"Nothing has ever been proven, but all of our city's people know the truth. His rise to power was not willed to be. He took matters into his own hands. Several years ago our great king Amenmon, heavens preserve him, mysteriously died. Many suspected that his food had been poisoned but we were never able to find out for sure. Syko had an older brother Philan, but he also died shortly after gaining the crown. He and his brother supposedly went hunting one day, but only Syko returned. He claimed they were attacked by a neighboring village which we have been at odds with for generations. Once he took control of the throne, he plunged our city into war.

As a leader, he is not completely incompetent or our city would have burned to the ground long ago and we would not have sat back and watched quietly. His faults lie in his greed. He sends our city's soldiers, many of which who are still boys, to die needlessly so he can gain the spoils and treasures of other villages and keep them for himself. The only good thing that comes out of the constant wars is we gain another trading partner. Right now they are dependent on us for supplies because they are weak, but soon they will all grow strong and fight back. We have many enemies and I fear many more will die for Syko's greed."

"Look Ilaya, this is very interesting, but what has this got to do with me?" Malone, on any another day, would have been more than willing to hear the history of the city, but today he had no desire at all.

"My goodness! Youth is wasted on the young! Always in a rush! Very well, young man, I'll indulge you this time."

"Please, Malone or Ned," Malone was quickly growing tired of "young man."

"As you wish, Malone. The reason you are in this predicament is because you tried to steal this city's only relic of the Protector and—"

"But I didn't try to steal it!" Malone jumped during his plea of innocence.

"Sit down, Malone. I know you didn't try to steal it. Why do you think I'm helping you?" Ilaya chuckled as he sat back down. "Right, now where was I…? Oh yes, the Protector."

"Ok, stop right there. I know for a fact that the woman in the picture is my friend's mother. She's been looking for her parents for over eleven years. Why do you keep calling her a protector? What exactly does she protect?"

Ilaya's jaw dropped at Malone's question. "You do not know of the Protector?" Malone shook his head. "The Protector has been protecting the plateau since the beginning—"

"Since the beginning….?" Malone interrupted.

"What do you think? Since it's creation, of course!"

"But Abigail is a normal woman, she can't possibly be that old. And how can one woman protect the entire plateau? I can barely protect myself half the time!" Malone was beginning to think that the old woman had lost her mind.

Ironically, Ilaya was thinking the same about Malone. "It is obvious you know nothing, so instead of asking these foolish questions, maybe you should sit quietly and let me do the talking young man."

"But—" Malone interrupted again.

"No buts! We have no time for this! Keep your questions to yourself. Time is running out for you. Unless you want to die or leave here without knowing what you desperately need, I suggest you shut your mouth and open your ears!"

Malone was being treated like a child, but in this instance, it was probably necessary. His inquisitive nature would cause too many interruptions. He apologized and let her continue.

"Now that that's settled, let's get on with the rest. To answer your question, it is true, the Protector is a normal woman. There has always been a Protector since the beginning. When the time of one ends, the next in line takes her place. The picture you saw is of the current Protector. If your friend is truly her child, then she is next in line.

"I know you are curious about everything, but in all honesty, I do not have many of the answers myself. The Protector does not protect this plateau on her own. There is another, a Chosen One. Unfortunately the time of this generation's Chosen One has ended, but soon the time will come for these two to be reunited in power once again.

"Unfortunately, I do not know more than this, no one does. I only know this from the old stories that have been passed down to me. It has been so long that everyone has forgotten. You see, this place is called the City of Old, because this used to be the palace of the Two. But when this area grew and neighboring villages starting attacking, the Two and the palace were moved to a new location, a place called Avalon. Sadly, no one knows where it is."

Malone decided to take his chances and ask a question. "How can no one not know where it is? Surely, with a significant event like this, someone has to know where it is."

The old woman looked thoughtful and then sighed. "Actually, the location was written in the old texts but that language is lost to us. There is no one here who speaks or reads it anymore. It has been many generations and the language has just faded away."

Malone looked around Ilaya's home and saw many symbols on the walls and was surprised that he hadn't noticed them earlier. Many he recognized as being the same as the ones that were in Veronica's parent's journal, the journal he found in the Hollow Earth. He stood up to get a closer look. "Are these symbols part of your lost language?"

Ilaya also got up and stood next to Malone. "Yes, they are all over the city, but no one knows what they mean. They are simply ignored nowadays."

"I've seen some of these symbols before." At this statement, Ilaya looked up at Malone in surprise. "You see, a couple months ago, my friends and I accidentally landed in a remarkable world beneath the Earth's surface." He looked at Ilaya and noticed that she did not seem shocked at this piece of information. "We needed a certain type of rock to make our balloon fl—"

"Balloon? You have a balloon?" Ilaya asked.

"Well not anymore. When we got back home, the man who helped us repair it, betrayed us by trying to steal it. In the process it got damaged and, Veronica, the girl I told you about earlier, was trapped in it and was caught in the updrafts. When I left, she still hadn't found her way back. Hopefully, she has by now."

"And this Veronica, you say is the Protector's daughter?" Ilaya asked again.

"No, I said she is the daughter of the woman in the photograph. Abigail and her husband Tom Layton." Malone kept talking oblivious to Ilaya's expression.

"But that's not the point I was trying to make," Malone continued. "When we were in the Hollow Earth, I managed to come across one of the Layton's journals. Apparently, their balloon was damaged and they ended up there. They gave them the journal as a gift for helping them fix their balloon.

"But you see, this journal, on the last couple pages, it was nothing but these symbols. Marguerite said they were some type of Celtic runes but that she couldn't read them."

"Marguerite?" Ilaya asked.

"Marguerite? Oh, she's one of my friends that I came to the plateau with. She can read almost any language. Maybe if I can copy some of these, who knows? She might be able to make some sense of them." Malone got out his journal, which he only used sparingly seeing as how he had a limited supply of paper, and started copying the symbols down.

Ilaya sat back down and seemed deep in thought. Once Malone finished with the symbols, he turned back to Ilaya. "Ilaya, you never finished telling me everything. How did that man get Abigail's picture? Even if she is the Protector, that doesn't explain what a piece of modern technology is doing here. That had to mean that Abigail was here herself at one point." The look on Ilaya's face confirmed it. "She was? What? When? How? Ilaya, you must tell me! Veronica's been searching for her parents for half her life! Please, you have to tell me what you know!" Malone pleaded.

Ilaya frowned and then sighed. "I do not know how much help what I can offer you will be, but you shall have it. About twelve or thirteen seasons of harvest ago, back when our king was still the great Amenmon, two strangers entered our city. Instantly, we knew by her manner of dress, that the woman was the Protector. We were perplexed that she was so far away from Avalon and was only being guarded by one man. After our initial conversation, we found out that the man was her mate, not protector."

"Tom was with her?" Ilaya nodded. "Well what happened next?"

"It seems they were on a long journey home to see their daughter, who I assume is Veronica, when their balloon was damaged in a storm. They managed to get temporary repairs in a strange land which is the Hollow Earth you spoke of earlier. They needed to get the balloon fixed for the longer journey home and they stayed with us while the people repaired it for them." Ilaya frowned again.

"What's the matter?" Malone asked.

"Well, after we fixed their balloon, they wanted to leave immediately to see their daughter. We begged them to stay a little while longer or at least come back again. She said it was not possible because as soon as they had Veronica, they were planning on going back to Avalon. She left us the photograph so we would have something to remember her by and for our help fixing their balloon. She was most gracious," Ilaya said with a smile.

"I don't understand though, what's troubling you?"

"Well, from what you have told me, Veronica's parents never made it to her. Something obviously must have happened to them. I hope the Protector is all right, this plateau cannot survive without her" Ilaya looked deeply troubled at the thought.

"Well, maybe something did happen. If they were on their way home, they wouldn't just abandon Veronica. Maybe they had to turn back and go to Avalon? Otherwise, they would have found a way to have gotten to Veronica by now. I've got to find out where it is, for Veronica's sake!"

"But I told you, the location is not known! The only answer is in a language no one can read!"

"I have faith in Marguerite, she'll figure something out. I've got to get my hands on those texts!"

"But you can't! They're in Syko's palace, and even if you were not being hunted for your life, he still would not relinquish them. If he finds out that you want them, he will keep them for himself just to spite you and he will see if he can find a way to make a profit for himself. He is an evil man with no respect for the old ways! He cannot be trusted!"

"Well, I'll just have to borrow them, won't I?" Malone asked with a wicked smile.

"Are you mad! The whole city is searching for you! How are you going to get to the palace? How are you going to get into the palace if you even get there? How are you going to find the texts? You don't even know where to look! There are several things you are not considering! You will surely die if you continue with this foolish thinking! Why are you willing to risk your life so foolishly? Are you so willing to throw away your life for a woman who you do not even know survived that storm?"

Malone grew tired of being lectured to and have his feelings mocked. "I know she's alive! She is! She has to be! I would know if she was dead, I would feel it! Don't you understand? I love her! All of these months apart from her have only made my love for her even stronger. I would be willing to give up my life a thousand times over to give her happiness. She deserves it. She has been alone for far too long and if I could do anything to ease her pain, I would gladly do it. Please Ilaya, you have to help me, please."

When faced with the pleas of a doomed and desperate man in love, Ilaya did not have the heart to turn him down. She gave in and told him whatever details he needed to know so he at least had a slight chance to succeed in getting the books out of the palace. She also gave him some food and a place to rest before he set out for the palace that night.

As Malone laid down in the old, yet comfortable cot Ilaya provided for him, he stayed awake and could not sleep. How could a man rest knowing that in a couple hours he had a very good chance of losing his life. Even though he was frightened, he wasn't going to change his mind or back down. He was going to follow through with his plan. For him, and for Veronica.

TBC