Chapter 3

The double doors swung open into the temple. There was an awed silence, until Lloyd broke it by running into the middle of the room. The others soon followed, touching the walls preserved by dust and looking at the strange carvings that decorated the echoing halls. No-one could but wonder if they were the first to touch these ancient walls in hundreds of years. The ancient temple of Martel was overflowing with a golden, pulsating light that flickered through the corridors of old and bathed them in its invigorating glow.

That colour was the same as Collette's hair.

As they entered the temple, in front of them was another door, covered with a blue plasmatic substance, at odds with the beautiful gold light. They walked up to it, and Lloyd lost himself in the swirling lines and patterns in the door. Dreamily, he reached forward a hand… and Kratos knocked it away sharply.

"Do not touch something you do not understand!"

Kratos touched a discarded torch gently, and pulled it from its rusted cradle. With one hand he held the torch, and then touched the torch to the plasma. There was a flash of blue light which caused everyone to turn away, and then as the glare faded from their eyes, Kratos held up the torch, the end melted away. The group stood for a minute, as comprehension of what had almost befallen them dawned. Kratos turned from the door and walked away, saying "There is nothing that can be done, without a powerful artefact such as the horn of a unicorn, or a sorcerers ring." The rest of the party trailed after, Lloyd glancing back at that which may have claimed his hand.

Kratos sighed as he though how close he had been to loosing Lloyd, for what he did not show was that anything living that touched the sorcerer's fire was instantly consumed. He berated himself, thinking how he had only seen what was happening almost too late. There would be no turning back from this temple, but whatever the cost, he would have to try and make Lloyd stay in Iselia, and not come on the Journey of Regeneration. He was not a strong enough swordsman, too curious and knew too little of the world to come on such an important journey. Also, he had an uncanny habit. Sometimes he would turn and look at something that was not there, and then smile…

She was watching again. Lloyd had turned his head, and there was the girl. She drifted behind them, looking curiously at the surroundings, but her feet never touched the ground. He saw her looking at him, and turned his head back, a secret smile on his face. He did not know why he did so, but there was no stopping the smile that crept out at the thought of a silent, ghostly girl.

Lloyd though of how much of that girl he had seen since they had left Iselia. She trailed behind them, looking at each of them. When enemies came, she stood back and watched the fight, not moving. After this had happened, Lloyd was worried that she had been scared, and that if the monsters saw her, they may attack her, but she faded away and reappeared behind him, a puzzled look on her face, as if she doubted what he had just done. He took the message and concentrated on the monsters rather than the girl in future battles.

The girl was still watching, he could feel her gentle eyes on the back of his head, and a faint happiness that surrounded him whenever she was near. He could not but think and guess at where she had come from, and why she was there, but the main thing that piqued his curiosity was the fact that none of the others seemed to acknowledge her existence. In the silence of this cool tomb, he pondered.

They walked into a room that burned like fire, the heat pushing up against their faces with the ferocity of the desert. Heat waves twisted in front of them, and beyond there, shapes of fire burnt into their mind, their flaming swords raised and their beady eyes looking around, ready to fight. Many times the group dodged around these marauders and other creatures that patrolled those ancient halls. Eventually they came to a room with lava below, and holes in the floor to the area below. The group sat down to rest.

Collette walked across the incomplete floor, until she reached a large rock. She gently glanced her fingers across the stone… and recoiled as she felt a pulse of heat and life shudder through the rock, which rose up and advanced on her. She stumbled backwards and fell, and Lloyd and the others interceded between her and the rock monster.

The monster was dispatched quickly, but it remained in the same form as it had been before Collette touched it. It was heavy, but movable, as Collette found by falling over onto the rock, pushing it into a nearby hole. It fell down and slotted into a gap in the pathways below. The monster reappeared, and Kratos called the others over to fight it again. Lloyd thought that this was pointless, as there was no use for indiscriminately killing monsters, but as the party dispatched the monster, and Kratos pushed it into another hole, he realised that what they were doing was completing the pathways below.

They ran down the steps near the rock monster, and ran along a newly found pathway. At the end of it was a couple of fire birds, warriors and a treasure chest. Lloyd walked over to the chest and flipped the lid open, then reverently pulling out the twin katanas that lay within. They were iron, encrusted with rust but the edges were still sharp. He picked up his old wooden blades and picked up the iron, trying a few cuts through the air with them. They fit his hand like a glove, but when they hit the walls, Kratos winced from the sound of decade's old rust. He sighed when he realised that Lloyd would not know how to sharpen these metal blades, and quietly motioned for the group to rest, as he taught Lloyd the basics of sword cleaning. The wooden ones lay discarded in the corner, until a chance flame caught them up, and they burned into ash, scattering over the floor.

They followed some steps that mounted up and in front of them lay a pedestal, upon it lying a small nondescript ring, lines and colours flashing round its plain exterior. There was a magical glow surrounding it, the impossibly red flames that burned throughout the ring, and the pulsating light from the podium, that matched Collette's hair in its milky honey shade. Lloyd crossed the room and stood over the ring. He glanced at Kratos, but the mercenary was crouching in front of the artefact.

"This is the ring of the great hero, Mithos. This must have been placed here a long time ago to help any who followed in his path. It is weakened through time, but it should be enough for our purposes."

Lloyd gaped, thinking about the hero who he had always looked up to, the hero that had stopped the great Kharlan war. He may have been the last one who had touched the ring. He looked to Kratos who nodded and said, "Take the ring, it will not hurt you."

He took the ring, its form still flaming and held it in his hand. The ring was not on fire, but it was slightly warm to touch. He placed it on his finger, and held his hand out.

No one, except Kratos, was expecting the fireball that was emitted from the ring. It rushed through the party and exploded into the wall, leaving a large smudge of ash.

"H..hey," Genis said, "watch where you point that thing!"

Lloyd apologised to his friend, and then a sly smile slid across his face.

"I bet I can have a lot of fun with this!"

Sighing, Raine ushered them towards the exit, to go back to the mysterious door that they had come across earlier. They now had the sorcerers ring, but they still needed to find the oracle, before the end of the day. If they did not… the results did not bear thinking about.

At last they stood before the door to the inner sanctuary that led to the oracle and the fate that awaited the Chosen when she got there. Would they find the truth about Collette? There was no way of knowing, until they went in.

A fireball smothered the blue pulsations, covered the blue fire till they and the red fire were one. They merged together and died down, the light gone and the entrance open.

Bearing their resolve, the friends strode into the darkness, and to whatever fate dealt them…