Clive's unconscious body was lying peacefully on the ground, resting supinely without any danger. The poor boy had been scared so much by his own shadow that he had forced himself into an unwilling slumber, now dead to the world. Clive had glanced into the Looking Glass and found nothing but fear. He was lifted up from his spot on the ground and was gently shaken awake. Groaning once, he opened his eyes and blinked them wearily. He did not remember fainting at all, just that his older brother had pointed something out to him and then he saw deep blackness. The faint buzzing at the back of his head had risen a notch or two in pitch, almost painful, but just not quite. It was almost like very quiet static in his head.
"My head hurts." He said weakly, pushing himself up into a sitting position and then rubbing his eyes a little. Clive sighed and ran one hand through his longish hair, his head feeling heavier than usual. Something about the Looking Glass was causing him pain, very deeply inside his own mind. He thought it might have been the faintly pulsing stones, or him being underground for so long, or maybe it was just a coincidence. Clive looked up at Ravendor leaning over him and smiled forcedly, his blue eyes unfocussed. "I mean, it's like…"
"It is like a hundred different people are talking to you all at once, while at the same time, something poisonous is eating away at the back of your mind." Ravendor replied, leaning backwards and sitting down. "I have that right now. My head is killing me too."
"Well, it ain't that bad…" Clive said with a little laugh, scratching the back of his head, where the static seemed to be. He stood up, helping Ravendor up as well. "Is there something in this place that makes people sick?"
Ravendor dusted himself off, even though he was not dusty at all. "That is what I first thought." He told Clive carefully, looking down the corridor to where he thought Andrew had fled to. He gestured to Clive and the two of them started walking down that way, the younger boy keeping one hand on the blue crystal wall. "Except that Andrew and Horatio felt fine even while we were in here and working. Berlitz did seem to experience some mental discomfort, I could read it on his face, but that could have come from plenty of other reasons. He is an old man, after all. I've been guessing about what it might be, I even took down some notes. I'm not sure, though. Oh, and look at this…"
The dark-haired boy removed something small and circular from one of his pockets, resembling a pocket watch, but it was not hanging on a chain. It also only had one hand, and it was moving too quickly for it to a clock at all. It was actually a small hand-held compass, and the little red arrow that dictated the direct location of North was spinning about crazily, like it couldn't decide which way was which. "This little device here tells you where you are supposed to go. But look, it stopped working the moment I stepped into this ruin." Ravendor continued, looking at it with distrust.
"Does that mean that this here place is stopping things from workin' properly?" Clive asked as he kept in step, his eyes widening just a little. Ravendor nodded and Clive just looked impressed. They came to a crossroads and took the left-hand path, guessing that Andrew had run down there. If not, they could always backtrack and try out the other way later on. His hands in his pockets, Clive could feel the pulsing, near-invisible light of the crystal wall and had a very unsettling thought. "It stops things from working properly… like… like… like our own heads?"
"Could be. I'm not a scientist, I have no idea. But look at it this way. The compass works fine outside, it does not work fine inside. Our minds work fine outside, they hurt real bad inside. But some of us feel it and some of us don't. Why?"
"Because…" Clive said, coming to an understanding. "Because some of us are compasses and some of us aren't."
"Why's that?"
"I dunno."
"Then you are not as smart as you think you are, Clive." Ravendor concluded, satisfied.
"So are you!" Clive retaliated loudly, turning to the other boy. Ravendor just nodded, agreeing with him with a smug smile. The green-haired boy decided to give up on this train of thought and ask a different question, knowing that he would be led around in circles if he didn't. "… Where's the old man and that other guy?" Clive questioned Ravendor meekly, as they turned around another corner.
"Honestly, I would not have a clue." Came the answer, almost airily. Ravendor stopped walking, raised both his hands and accentuated his next statement with the middle and index fingers on both of his hands. "They mentioned something about 'Matters of deep importance' somewhere in the ruin, and they banded together and told us kids to stay near the entrance. I am beginning to believe that we were brought here for no more reason than to simply humor us. I nearly feel cheated from it. But still, as long as I get paid I suppose I do not care. Speaking of that," Ravendor fixed his eye on his younger brother and smirked, "What are you going to tell Professor Berlitz once he finds out that you disobeyed him?"
"Him? He can go and fuck himself." Clive said automatically, still hurt from Berlitz's apparent coldness. He still was a little upset that he had been left behind. The anger was subsiding, at least a little bit as time went by, but that still didn't mean that it didn't hurt.
"Dear me, where do you pick up those words?"
"You said the same thing last week."
"Yes, but I thought nobody was listening."
Both of them chuckled and continued on.
xxx
They found Andrew not long after, lost in the veritable maze of crystal networking. The poor boy had honestly thought that there was a giant in the ruin, and he had been in hiding. Of course, the only real giant there was Andrew himself, but the young lad was near panicking instead, and it took almost fifteen minutes to make him calm again. Ravendor had to explain exactly how shadows worked to him and what had made Clive's shadow grow, although his explanation was more along the lines of forty percent accurate information and sixty percent nonsense mixed with fantasy. Ravendor tended to make things up whenever he couldn't find out an answer for himself. As long as Andrew knew that there was no such thing as giants, then he would be fine.
In any case, they were all together now, despite being deeply embedded into the underground ruins. Without a working compass, they had forgotten which way North was, or even which way was the correct one to go back to the entrance. They were in a large corridor, it seemed to be a main one, but to Clive, who was trying to remember the way back, it just did not seem right.
The three of them were following the main corridor, the resounding clack of their shoes echoing off the crystalline blue walls. Clive figured that if they wanted to get back to Berlitz and Horatio as quickly as possible, then they should retrace their steps and go back the way they had came. This hallway was definitely close to where the excavation was and they had been here before, at least he hoped so, but because of their fouled-up sense of direction and the fact that Ravendor's compass no longer worked within those walls, they were walking down the opposite end of the hallway, heading deeper into the ruins.
Clive and Ravendor were walking side by side with Andrew just a step behind them, covering their backs. Faintly, as they kept on moving, they could begin to hear the quiet dripping of distant water, somewhere behind or beneath the crystal and glass. The air was cooling down too, it had been nice and warm at the entrance, but now it had dropped to the same temperature as it would be in the evening, although it was far too early in the day for something like that to happen. Clive stopped, sniffing the air. "We're lost." He said, turning and looking around Andrew's hulking form. "This ain't the right way to go."
"Don't be silly." Ravendor replied, having put on his glasses so he could properly read the spinning compass in his hand. Its little red point was rotating like crazy, unable to make up its mind. Clive looked back at the dark-haired boy. Ravendor's expression was serious, and in the dim light of the ruin and with his reading glasses on, he looked like a thin and pale little owl. "I know where we are." He continued, beginning to walk away again. "I have instincts, you know, and they tell me to keep on going."
"You're just sayin' that 'cause you dun' wanna be proven wrong…" Clive retorted with a sigh and followed him, knowing in his gut that they were not going the correct way. Andrew was just tagging along like a dumb animal now, a goofy grin on his face. He didn't seem to want to argue at all, content at being led. Ravendor let out a short clipped laugh at Clive's statement, putting his useless compass away and cramming his hands in both his pockets, like he was completely in control. The younger green-haired boy walked more slowly than the other two and glimpsed around his immediate environment carefully, wondering where they were heading to.
The others were just walking straight ahead, not paying any attention to the world around them. If they had, as Clive was just beginning to, they would have seen a few branching corridors appearing down the sides of the great long hall, some of them ending at blue crystal doors, complete with an intricate decorative design. Most of the remaining routes were more lengthy hallways, creeping away into the darkness. Why were they taking the main pathway, the wrong pathway, when the entire point of them being there was to find treasure?
In Clive's mind, thinking that seemed to put his thoughts into a much better perspective than before. He stopped walking, regarding one particular doorway with a hushed awe. For all he knew, there could be a cadre of treasure chests on the other side, just waiting to be opened. They could be filled to the brim with gold and jewels, enough gella to keep him happy for the rest of his entire life. He was just supposed to walk past something like that? No, Clive may have been young and stupid, but he wasn't that stupid, not at all. Andrew and Ravendor were still walking ahead without realizing that Clive was no longer following them, quietly discussing something that Clive was too far away to hear. Just standing there, feeling an odd tugging feeling in his gut as he watched them go away, Clive looked back at the doorway again and felt it reinforce his frame of mind. "I'm the boss, an' I'm going in." He said, doing so.
He had to stand on tip-toes a little to reach the blue crystal ring used to pull the door open, and when his tiny hands found their mark, the ring was heavy and stiff, he could barely lift it up enough to have the hand space in order to pull it towards him. Clive tried as best as he could to lift it and then threw all his weight into pulling it towards him, digging his sliding heels against the polished and perfected crystal floor. He only held firm for about five seconds before friction failed him and he slipped onto his behind, grunting a little at the painful impact. Clive's hands touched the floor. It just held no traction, with no traction could he muster up the force needed to open the door. Of course, he did not think in such complex terms, but his young little mind came to similar conclusions as he crawled back onto his feet and said a word that a little six year old should never say.
Wiping the dust from his grubby face, Clive glared at the door way and then back down the hallway that the others had gone through. He could no longer see them. That was fine, if they found treasure then they deserved that treasure, but if Clive found treasure here, than it was completely out of his own noble efforts. No one else would be able to take credit. What I gotta do is find somethin' that'll open the door for me, or make me stronger for it. Let me see… What will pull something heavy away?
Clive briefly thought of the well in their hideout's courtyard, which would pull up a full and heavy bucket of water faithfully in all seasons(Although it did tend to get brown and murky during summertime) without rest. Usually only Andrew would be able to lift up a filled bucket with both hands, and even then it was a little draining for him, but with that rope and wheel doohickey even Ravendor or Manna could crank up enough water every morning to service them without breaking a sweat. What exactly did that, made them stronger? The rope? The wheel? Were they magic?
It's not a matter of them bein' stronger, His own inner voice told him, It's a matter of the force of the rope makin' the bucket seem lighter. It's like vanishing weight at a magic show, it is. Jus' like that.
The boy had been carrying with him a lightweight rope wrapped around his tiny little belt, thinking that they might need it if somebody fell down a hole, despite knowing that the old man would probably bring with him enough rope anyway. Clive liked to be prepared, it kept his mind at ease. Now it would come in handy. He unraveled the badly-made cheap roll of cord and stood on tip toes again, looping the rope once through the inner hole of the door's pull ring. It was hanging limply now, like a dead snake being supported by its middle. Clive took both ends of the rope snake, turned around and held both his hands near the right hand side of his collarbone, the rope pressing into his right shoulder. Okay, so his shoulder would be the wheel, the rope would do the pulling, and Clive's feet would work as the crank. "Hope this works." He said to himself. Enough thought had gone into it, so he had better get something out of it, he reckoned.
If Clive had had both the literacy or inclination to read the bible, he might have been reminded of the slaves in the Book of Moses who were forced to pull the giant stone blocks in order to make giant pyramids, complete backbreaking pulling labor. The little boy grunted and heaved as he slowly began to walk away from the door, putting as much pressure on the balls of his feet to keep on moving, the rope attached to the door biting down into his shoulder. His hands were clenched around the rope tightly, almost painfully. At first, there was no difference he could sense apart from himself acting like a total idiot, but then he heard a faint squeaking and scraping noise, high pitched and terrible, like nails on a blackboard.
It's working! It's working! Keep it up!
The sound was easy enough to ignore, it was practically drowned out anyway by the rushing thud of the blood near his eardrums, the extra strain making it louder and more pronounced that ever. The edge of the door was making a white scratch mark on the floor when it was pulled open about a foot, and by then Clive's hands and brow were sweating from the work, but he still didn't stop. He wanted to see how much more he could get it open before he couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to test the limits of his hastily put together rope wheel and crank technique.
When he got the door about three feet open, the slight difference in the level of the crystal floor changed and the was no more opposing force left between the bottom of the door and the floor. The result, force and resistance became grossly unequal and the door was flung fully open, taking Clive with it, the boy slamming into the wall harder than he deemed quite necessary. His chest took up most of the pressure and he avoided bloodying his nose, but all the breath was knocked out of his lungs with a childlike grunt and he then sat there in a slightly sprawled position, a little dazed. The rope somehow hadn't broken, but that side of the door was pushed up again the wall now, and he'd have to pull it back to where it was to retrieve it, an impossible task seeing that both the door pull ring and the rope were out of his reach. Whoever had lived there must have been very big. And strong.
Clive suddenly felt a little afraid.
That shadow we saw earlier it wasn't an illusion it was a giant a big giant a big one with teeth and bloody breath he'll grind my bones to make his bread just like in the story big brother told me oh god oh god oh god I wanna go back home-
Although his mind and heart were racing each other hysterically, the words that the little boy spoke during those jumbled thought was a lot more composed and logical. "Jack went up the beanstalk to find him some purdy treasure. There ain't never was gonna be no treasure unless the giant hoarded it up. So treasure'll only be where the giant was. I'll never find my treasure hidin' and being spooked by big giant doors all day. C'mon Missanga, let's go." He obeyed his own orders and shuffled back onto his feet, rubbing at his right shoulder. He had a little feeling that there'd be a red mark on it by the time he went home.
"Swanks and Mongo are prolly goin' round and round in great big circles right now." He told himself and he walked up to the long edge of the door, placing one hand on it's cold blue surface. Most doors he had seen were made of hard and rough wood, but this was smooth and opaque crystal, with only a very, very slight translucent quality to it. Its thickness was equal to the length of Clive's index finger when he touched it. He smiled at an amusing thought. "Swanky won't admit he's wrong 'til the cows come home, or 'til they get scared an' run around like chickens with their heads cut off back to the pigeon man. Maybe they found monsters. Maybe they found treasure. Ah, who knows?"
He did indeed look a bit like little Jack when he infiltrated the giant's lair, leaning around the edge of the door and peering into the next room within. He was dwarfed by the size of the door, and the room behind it lived up to the door's expectations perfectly. The room was practically empty, but boy, it was big. He reckoned they could have fit an entire standard-sized house inside the room, which wasn't too mind boggling by itself, but the ceiling was nearly non-existent, he definitely couldn't see it, it was too far away. The room was like a perfect box, a rectangular empty box with an odd carving on one of the walls and a statue in one of the corners. That was all. No treasure chests, just an empty room.
Oh yes, and a spiked pillbug near the entrance, hissing at the door, and therefore, at Clive.
It was probably one of the weakest creatures available on the world of Filgaia, and a moderately advanced drifter, hell, even a beginner greenhorn drifter would never have been afraid of something so measly and laughable. But those drifters weren't six years old and already a little afraid of the giants that weren't there in the hallways, which made the pillbug a formidable opponent and enemy. It was a scuttling creature at heart, with many pointed quills and spines all over its scaly body. It didn't have a properly defined head, but at the front of it's body somewhere were it's eyes, beady and black and calculating. It began to move towards Clive, hissing and spitting and rattling its dried out body.
Clive swallowed a scream, all the muscles in his body going tense. The pillbug spat something out of it's mouth which broke upon the floor, making a gooey stain. The mandibles of the monster were small, but still scary. The little boy pried himself off the edge of the door and stood his ground, balling both his hands into tiny fists. It was spiky, and a weapon like his switchblade wouldn't be able to pierce the tough hide of that giant insect, let alone get past its ugly spikes. Still, it was advancing for him on prickly legs, it's mouth snapping open and closed quite hungrily. Clive did the only thing that he could think of. When it reached him, he jerked one leg out and punted the creature across the room, crying out at the same time. He was immensely thankful that he had gotten himself some new shoes, or else his foot would have been nothing more than a painful pincushion, spiked to perfection.
Screeching, the pillbug landed on its back a short distance away and struggled like an overturned tortoise to right itself again, legs waving wildly in the air. It was hissing like mad now, furious. Clive looked down, a small quill had broken off and was lodged in the toe of his shoe. He had little feet, and it had missed spearing his toes by only a centimeter or so. Without taking the time to pull it out, Clive grabbed onto the edge of the door and tried to pull it closed again, a truly impossible venture. He cursed in his mind when he made absolutely no real progress, seeing out of the corner of his eye that the pillbug had gotten onto its feet again and was getting ready for round two. Clear blood or maybe remnants of its last meal were dripping from its mandibles like drool, the hissing finally reaching a peak of frenzy. Giving up on getting the door closed, Clive just decided to run away.
Something darted by at high speeds near Clive's side and the pillbug howled out in shrieking pain, finally getting the idea and running past Clive, getting away from the boy and from that room. It had a piece of metal sticking out of one beady little eye, causing it to ooze even more runny blood. Only one hit was enough to scare it away. Clive sighed, relived. But who had-
The little green-haired boy was dealt a sharp smack to the back of the head, not enough to really hurt but enough to make it sting and get his immediate attention. Ravendor grabbed him and spun him around suddenly, grabbing onto the boy's shoulders. "God dammit! Don't ever go anywhere in this ruin unless I'm with you, alright?! There are monsters! You could have been killed, Clive!" He yelled at him worriedly, though at the same time relieved. When Andrew had mentioned that Clive was no longer with them, Ravendor had feared that the boy might have fallen down a hole or something similarly bad. He and Andrew had doubled back when they had heard the scraping horrible sounds of the door being yanked open, mistaking it for something bad, but now he had thanked God that Clive was just being his usual nosy self.
"'Was just lookin' for treasure." Clive answered sulkily. "'Was just doin' my job. 'Sides, it was only a pillbug, and I found this room all by myself, see?" He gestured to the room with the flick of a hand, pulling himself away from Ravendor's grasp. "I opened the big doors too, aren't y'all proud 'o me? I reckon there might be treasure in this here place, even if we can't see it right now. That's why I wandered off, okay?"
Ravendor lowered his hands. "That is besides the point…" He mumbled, giving up. He had wasted a perfectly good shuriken arrowhead dart on a measly pillbug, and those things weren't cheap to replace either. Ravendor considered himself lucky that he had taken his reading glasses off, or he wouldn't have been able to throw straight enough to hit the monster. There had actually been more of a chance that he could have hit Clive by mistake. In any case, that part was over now, and he admitted to himself that yes, he had gotten them all lost, but he wouldn't in a million years tell that to the other two boys in his party.
"Hey look, somebody left their rope here, and it looks just like Missanga's!" Andrew exclaimed to the other two as he approached, Clive's rope in his hands. The strong boy had shifted the door enough by himself to remove the piece of cheap rope. He was holding it in his arms like it was a deceased animal, grinning at the same time.
The three boys all entered the room now, curious to as what was inside. Clive had already gotten them there, so they may as well take the time to make a thorough search for any hidden treasure. The pillbug had left a small tricking smear of its blood on the floor when it had run away, but there was also another tiny puddle of clear liquid a small way away from that, next to a bushy and shrubby thing, out of place in the cold and angular room. There were flakes of white stuff in the clear ooze. Andrew knelt in front of it and turned the bushy thing over. "It's a bird's nest." He said to the others, putting the nest down. There were two broken eggs inside, and the third one was splattered on the ground, accounting for the liquid smear. The pillbug must have been eating the eggs before Clive had barged in.
Clive and Ravendor crouched down on opposite sides of the large boy. Clive ran his index finger through the runny egg yolk and then tasted it on his finger, looking thoughtful. Ravendor pulled a face. "That's gross, Clive." He said distastefully.
The little boy paused for a few seconds to process the taste, then he contorted his features and stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Yeah, tastes like rotten eggs alright." He agreed, shaking his head a little, as if he could dislodge the bad taste that way. The nest was of that of a flight-capable bird, so Clive looked up to see if there was a ledge that it could have fallen from, seeing only blackness. The ledge must have been beyond his line of vision and it was almost a miracle that the eggs inside had remained intact after it had fallen and before the pillbug had came.
Not too far away from that Ravendor found a bird skeleton. Its bones had been picked clean by a scavenger, most likely that same pillbug again, but the way the bones were so white and pure suggested that it had died quite recently. There were a few discarded black feathers scattered around the corpse, and Ravendor warily nudged it with a boot. "This must have been the baby bird's mother." He observed quietly, continuing to nudge it very disrespectfully. "I guess she never got a chance to see her babies."
"Hold on, look at this!" Andrew called, waving them back towards the birds nest. He hadn't seen it under the downy feathers that had been woven into the nest to keep it insulated, but there was still one egg inside the nest, caught and held by two out-of-place twigs. The twigs must have acted like a restraint when the nest had fallen, and the feathers had kept it hidden from the murdering pillbug. Andrew snapped the twigs and removed the egg. It was still slightly warm, and intact. He showed it to the other two. "Our first treasure for the day?" He asked.
It would have been beyond cruel to leave a little egg all alone to rot in a scary ruin near the dead body of its mother, so Ravendor took it from Andrew and wrapped it up in his spare handkerchief, then stowed it away in the space in his medical bag where he kept the cotton balls and bandages. It would be safe and protected in there. They might be able to eat it or something once they got back home. Clive scratched his head in a vaguely absent-minded fashion. All they had found was dead things and a tiny little egg. Berlitz wouldn't have any interest in that, would he? "Not really, Mongo." Clive answered, looking at something a little out of the ordinary on the wall that had caught his eye. "But we're gettin' there."
It had only been a slight difference in the glimmer on the wall that had attracted him, but now that he focussed upon it and noticed, he couldn't possibly ignore it. Part of the crystal wall near the middle of the room was thicker than the rest of it, and curved upwards to make an old-fashioned bell shape, the edges decorated with an ice-crystal lacing frill. The flat bell was about twice Clive's height, and in the center, was a piece of text that was written with a light gothic flair. Inside the writing the crystal was a little darker, and that was the thing that had caught Clive's attention the most. It was also a perfect mirror, a tiny double of Clive standing there and staring at him with wide blue eyes.
Clive waved his left hand. The Clive in the mirror copied him perfectly, except that he had waved his right hand instead. Clive crossed his eyes, then stuck out his tongue, then hopped from foot to foot for awhile, looking like a silly monkey while doing it. He had never really seen his reflection so clearly before, only in a grubby little pocket mirror that Manna had and in the reflections off a few puddles of water. "Swanky! Do I really look like that?" He called across the room, gesturing to Ravendor until the older boy succumbed to Clive's wishes and walked over to him. He had a handful of dead bird bones in one hand.
"I see a little flea-bitten mongrel doing stupid things in front of a mirror." Ravendor said with a smile. "So yes, it is you." He opened the flap of his medicine bag and stuffed the bird bones carefully inside. Clive saw what Ravendor was doing and also noticed that the bird skeleton was no longer where it was supposed to be. He put two and two together and guessed that it was now inside Ravendor's carry bag. The dark-haired boy sighed at Clive's look. "I want to bury it outside, alright? I do not feel right leaving a corpse in here when it might attract monsters or get chewed up. This place is not a mausoleum."
Clive had no idea what a mausoleum was anyway. He did want to know what those words meant, however, but he didn't understand a lick of written english; he had never gone to school or been taught enough of it to know a single word besides his own name. Andrew was in the same position Clive was at, maybe even worse than that. He did tend to spell 'Andrew' with a H these days, Clive recalled. Mongo was much easier for him to spell. "Swanky, what do those words say?" He asked of his older brother, putting his little hand on his chin and furrowing his brow, as if he could discern the answer all by himself.
Ravendor stared at it for awhile. It was stanza with four lines, that he could already tell. The text was small, though deeply carved, thin enough so that he could barely wedge the nail of his index finger into the letter's carving. He took out his glasses again, but instead of putting them on, he held them out in front of his eyes at the correct length so that they would work properly. He didn't like to wear them, it felt like he had been struck with a handicap because of it. The inscription, it was a rhyming poem that didn't make much sense to him and he stumbled a little on some of the more unfamiliar words. When he thought he had figured out what it meant, he read it out loud before moving his hand away.
"I look into the mirror and what do I think I see?
The face of an angel standing next to me.
The face of an angel, come from above,
You are my sweet angel, the one that I love."
Ravendor looked over the riddle once more, a little puzzled from the ancient inscription. Reaching out with a finger, he traced a few of the words in the first line of the text, it had been chiseled straight into the bluish glass wall perfectly, as neatly written as if they had been placed there by the flourish of a pen, straight and completely immaculate. "It looks like a poem, but why would they place a poem here for no real reason? I do not understand…" He admitted to the others, straightening. Clive and Andrew looked back at him with just as much perplexity. It might have had no purpose, or it could have meant something far more rewarding. Ravendor then had a thought. "…Have you ever read Alice in Wonderland?" He said suddenly, from out of the blue.
"You know that's a dumb question, Swanky." Clive answered with an ironic smile. "None 'o us can read, remember? Jus' you."
The older boy grinned and scratched the back of his neck lightly. "Oh yes, dear me, I seemed to have forgotten. Sorry." Not dropping the smile, he tapped the piece of glass with the writing on it with a nail, making a quiet ringing sound. It appeared to be as solid as a rock. "It's just… I can recall several times in that book all the puzzles that Alice was faced with, and it reminds me a little of this poem we have here. Maybe this is not a mere poem and it is a riddle instead, with a viable solution somewhere in this room, or in our minds? I heard that drifters had to solve riddles like these on their travels and-"
"You're thinkin' of crazy ol' Tom Gallagher at the Rusty Spur, Swanky." Clive replied knowingly, remembering the drunken old coot who didn't do much except drink like a fish and rave about the great adventures of his youth. The man was nuttier than a granola bar, but he did have a few really interesting things to say at times, as long as somebody worthwhile was listening. He was sometimes a source of entertainment on the more boring days of their lives, and kind of like a role model to them, albeit a stinky and beer swilling role model, no less.
"He did say something about riddle solving, as I recall. In fact, on that day he did not shut up about it." Ravendor agreed with a nod, looking back to the inscription. "So, what can we glean from the text? I will repeat myself." He put his glasses back on just long enough to re-read the riddle out loud, slowly so that the other two could memorize the contents. "It mentions a mirror." He said, patting the smooth piece of polished blue crystal, as if it had done something virtuous. "We look into the mirror, and what do we see?"
"This entire room's a mirror." Clive observed with his neck bent backwards, the boy looking at the dark ceiling, then down to the walls, and then the floor. They all reflected a dull image of his small form, though it was blurred and not as sharp as the other reflections of himself that he had seen near the entrance to the ruin. The pieces of tempered glass had not faced as much heat as its other counterparts, and therefore did not have so great a quality. But the big chunk of crystal in front of them, the one shaped like a filled-in arch or a bell and pierced with its mysterious text, that was the only one where Clive's reflection was the clearest, and the easiest to see. Clive pointed to it readily. "That's the mirror in the poem, I bet. That one right there."
"Very well." Ravendor said, "So this is the mirror, and we look into it. And we see…" All three of them did, focussing their attention on the glass in front of their faces. Andrew started to chuckle, for some reason he found his full-length reflection to be incredibly funny. They only saw each other, nothing more.
"I don't see no angels." Andrew said blandly, in a tone that irritated the other two boy's nerves.
"…It is not working." The dark-haired boy sighed, stating the obvious. He had so expected that the words meant something, but…
"Look at the floor." It was Clive's voice. The little boy was staring at his feet with a curious expression on his face. Andrew and Ravendor looked down as ordered, a new piece of the puzzle emerging. The small space of floor they were standing on was darker than the rest, the crystal was denser and did not reflect as much light, creating an inner permanent shadow. The shadow formed a box shape around the three children's feet, each side about two feet long. It was a little crooked, though, and one of the points faced the text, making it look like a symmetrical diamond. All three of them took note of this at the same time, and all three jumped out of the square like it was on fire, thinking it was some kind of a trap.
The dark diamond on the floor offered them no hostility, as they all soon found out through the passage of time. Clive was embarrassed for feeling fear for no real reason and blushed a little, his shame mixed with a little anger. Ravendor got to his knees and ran his finger around the diamond's outline while Andrew wandered away, chewing on his thumbnail again. "I just don't get this." Clive muttered as he scratched at a small scab on his elbow. "If there's treasure here why ain't there a treasure chest nearby? What's the point of confusing us like this?"
"If the ancients were so obvious as to where they hid their priceless artifacts, Clive, then any old person could just take a walk through this ruin and take whatever they wanted. If they wished for their treasures to last, then they had to hide them as carefully as possible." Ravendor answered, extending his hand towards Clive without turning his head to look at him. "Lend me your switchblade. I want to see if I can scratch this darker crystal with it." The small weapon was pressed into his palm and Ravendor extended the blade on the weapon tracing the diamond again about an inch within its boundaries, pressing it down with all the strength he had without compromising on the force of his hand when it moved.
The switchblade screeched as it was dragged across the floor, like a dying bird, completely unable to make the slightest mark on the dark blue surface. Clive was watching over Ravendor's shoulder as he did this, well aware that he had managed to make a goodly mark on the floor near the door after pulling it open, the lighter crystal more susceptible to a substance with a higher density. It was obvious now that the door had been made of the same darker crystal that this diamond was, or else it wouldn't have been able to scratch the floor at all. The boy smiled, although it wasn't the real mystery solved, it was one small victory, at least. Ravendor retracted the blade and felt along the path he had made with his finger. He couldn't sense any imperfection from the futile scratching at all. He'd definitely have to tell this to Berlitz later.
"Hey guys!" It was Andrew's voice. "Get over here! I found the angel! Come look!"
He had been speaking the truth. The angel was in the corner of the room furthest from the bell mirror, all tucked away and practically hidden because she was made from the exact same material as the walls around her. Her face was to the wall, so only her pale blue wings and toga were visible to them. Andrew had discovered her when he had wandered over to one of the corners to rest and let the other two brothers figure things out for themselves, besides, he wasn't that smart anyway and Clive and Ravendor were the brains of the operation. He leant back and had ended up smacking his head against the rear end of the angel, making him see stars for a few seconds as payment for committing such a blasphemous act. Andrew had pulled it away from the wall after that for a better inspection, it was surprisingly light to move.
Andrew and Ravendor turned the statue around so it was facing the center of the room, grunting and swearing just a little bit. Sure, it was almost magically light for a something built out of solid crystal, but it was still heavy as hell for a pair of nine year olds to handle. Clive just watched them, looking at the angel as she was slowly revealed to him. Clive giggled, making such an innocent observation that only a child could do. "Her clothes are coming off." He said, pointing at the carved airy trimmings of her toga that revealed far too much skin. The angel had a beautiful face too, despite her expression and eyes being somewhat blank.
"Right. So we found the mirror, an' we found the angel. Now what? Didn't the poem say something about seein' her in the mirror?" Andrew thought out loud, having trouble putting two and two together. Realization suddenly dawned upon him. "Oh, I get it now! We… put her in front of the mirror, right?" He looked towards Ravendor as he said this, like a student telling a teacher the answer while hoping that it was the correct one.
The dark-haired boy dropped down and measured the statue's base by using his hands, roughly estimating its perimeter. It was about two feet long on each side, and the base was perfectly square-shaped. A match to the diamond near the mirror. Finally the puzzle was beginning to make sense! "We will have to move her across the room. This may take awhile…" He said a little reluctantly, trying to hide his eagerness to complete the riddle. Truth to tell, he was just as excited as Clive was to see if there was any treasure in this room.
Ravendor was more or less correct. The statue was a bitch to move across long distances such as the large crystal room, so they worked out a feasible method of pulling and stuck to it, committing themselves to the work. Andrew had wrapped the thin length of the rope he had found around the angel's back and held onto the ends himself, using a similar system to Clive's door method in order to pull the angel along. Ravendor was at the angel's back, between her wings and pushing from behind, also making sure that he kept their path straight and unhindered by any errors in Andrew's direction. Clive was watching them bemusedly, not helping them at all. He was their leader, and far too young to be of any real use. He clapped his hands together each time Ravendor pushed and Andrew pulled, crying out in a brief happy yell; "Heave!"
He had done this nine or ten times before the other two older boys had stopped pushing and pulling and were looking at him tiredly, unamused. They had already gotten nearly halfway across the room now and both their faces were red with exertion despite the coolness of the area. "We will 'heave' this over your foot if you do not be silent." Ravendor warned, summing up what he and Andrew wanted to say. "If you are not going to help then stop slave driving us like that."
"Sorry." Clive replied with an embarrassed grin. "I was just tryin' to help."
He still didn't consign himself over to menial labor, but now Clive was decidedly more quiet and allowed the other two to do their job undisturbed. He watched them haul the angel over towards the mirror and then they took a brief break after that, the base of the statue resting only a few inches away from where it was supposed to be. Clive passed Andrew and Ravendor his water bottle and they all had a deep drink from it, the water cool and refreshing to their tired little bodies. It was probably lunchtime on the outside and where the Professor and Horatio were, but the three boys hadn't brought any food with them and had to do without. Andrew's stomach began to growl like an angry dog and they all laughed.
"We look into the mirror an' what do we see? Time to see if we ain't wasted our time after all." Clive said a short while later as he looked upon the statue, rubbing his hands together eagerly. This time he did help the other two with the pushing, because it was only one more big push to go, anyway. They all grabbed onto any part of the angel that they could reach and heaved as hard as they can, the quiet friction-filled sound ceasing when the statue was popped into place. There, it was done. Clive, Ravendor and Andrew cheered.
Nothing happened.
They waited for a whole minute before the joy of the success began to fade rapidly away. The angel was there, in front of the mirror with all three of them looking into it, just as the poem dictated, and yet nothing significantly important happened. Andrew coughed. "It's not working." He observed out loud, painfully obvious. He wrapped his arms around the statue and tried to adjust its position with the diamond mark on the floor, making sure they were perfectly aligned. It didn't need any adjustment because it was already fine, but Andrew continued to fiddle with it anyway.
"Oh, and we worked so hard…" Ravendor sighed disappointedly, standing behind the angel and on her pedestal with her, looking over the side. "I could have sworn that this would have yielded something interesting… Perhaps I am misreading the poem?"
Clive was suddenly jolted with an idea coupled with some kind of divine revelation. He didn't know where it had come from, but it had hit his little mind with the force of a bullet. He whirled around to face the other two, a shocked yet happy expression on his face. "Mongo! Swanky! I get it now! Look! Look into the mirror!" He pointed to the bell mirror with a shaking finger.
"I see us and the angel. That's all. So what?" Ravendor observed confusedly and a little fed up with this whole ruin exploration. He really should have just stayed at home, it would have been easier for him and for Berlitz, who wouldn't have to put up with dumb little kids like themselves anymore.
Clive shook his head knowingly, grinning in his trademark I-know-something-and-you-don't sort of way. "Yeah, there's me, there's you, and there's Andrew and the angel. But look at the angel! Look at her!" He jabbed his finger at the angel's reflection a few more times. "We look into the mirror and what do we see? The face of an angel looking back at we! Her body is facing the mirror but her neck is tilted, see? She's not lookin' into it like we are!"
And he was, indeed, correct. The other two older boys had not seen it but Clive had, and it made him feel very proud inside. The statue's head was pointed to the right, looking away from what was directly ahead of her. Ravendor felt a little embarrassed that he had not been able to figure it out for himself, but nevertheless helped Andrew to turn the angel's body left at a right angle, so she'd be able to look into her own mirror and solve the puzzle. This time Clive helped as well, too busy being on a pride high to notice how the heavy weight of the statue was making his arms ache somewhat. It took them a few minutes to move her, but when they were done they all stood in front of her this time, looking into the mirror at their reflection and waiting to see what would happen next.
They heard a quiet noise that closely resembled the sound of a lock being unlocked. It was mechanical and out of place in such an ancient ruin, but it was heard anyway. It happen slowly and gradually, but some kind of change was happening to the blue crystal of the angel statue, staring from its base and working all the way up the angel's cold hard body. The deep blue crystal was losing its colour and density in tiny searching tendrils that crept up with a snake-like quality, turning what was deep crystal into pure, near transparent glass. The dark crystal danced inside the angel's body like it was a trail of ink weaving its way in a glass of cold water before the colour diffused and became nothing, the statue now delicate and fragile like a glass masterpiece.
The three boys were holding their breath when the base of the angel was clear enough to look inside. A faint golden light traced its way around the diamond of blue crystal planted into the floor, creating a small square. Another, more silvery light followed the base of the angel statue like a pen being guided by a ruler, making a sharp looking square of its own. Together, with the two lights combined and the general tilt of the statue's base in comparison to the blue diamond, the two squares connected as one and formed the shape of an eight pointed star.
And the angel opened her eyes.
The mirror shattered like it had been stuck with a hefty sledgehammer, instantly, not even giving itself enough time to develop any cracks before its time was up. It degraded into a hundred dangerous shards of thin crystalline glass and pattered down onto the floor with a cacophony of tinkling sound, almost musical but just not quite. Some shards bounced on the ground and came dangerously close to the three boys watching the destruction, and Ravendor pulled Clive out of the way so he wouldn't have a chance of being cut. Andrew had already moved to a safer distance away. The angel's eyes had been like the eyes of a gorgon, glowing with that eerie golden silvery light before they closed again and became as they were, cold and blank. The light faded and that was that.
"Whoa…" Said Clive with wide-eyed awe, shrugging Ravendor's hands off his shoulders. "Them ancients sure know how to put on a great show! Now lets look for our treasure!" Andrew and Ravendor just nodded silently in reply, agreeing.
Brushing aside all the fragments of glass that had fallen away from the broken mirror, being extra careful not to brush their unprotected fingers against the sharp and jagged sides, the three boys spied a small hollow behind the broken mirror that had been concealed by the glass, about the height and width of a shoebox with a much greater depth. Andrew was about to stick his large hands in, but Clive brushed him aside, taking out his switchblade and holding the point near the base of the small teeth-like edges of the opening. Wrapping one small hand around the lower handle of the blade, he let his other hand, palm open, hover above the knife, and then he brought it down hard on its cast iron butt, his palm smacking against his curled thumb and index finger and pushing down on the switchblade itself, using the weapon like a crude chisel.
"No sense in cuttin' our own fingers off, right Mongo?" Clive said as he slowly worked around the edges of the hidden opening, removing all the parts of the mirror that had refused to break away. The glass made a slightly musical sound when it cracked and fell into the pile gathering at the front of Clive's knees, and when his task was all done, Clive, having the smallest hands of them all, stuck them inside the opening to see what he'd find, hoping that it wouldn't be more broken glass. He smiled. "It looks like we've found a treasure hollow, you guys! I mean, why else would a hole be all hidden like this?"
"I do not think that the ancients would have made such an elaborate concealment just to store their worthless items." Ravendor replied, giving them his own opinion. "It must be treasure, a prize to whomever can solve the puzzle. So, what is it? Found anything yet?" Clive's questing fingers were meeting nothing but the cool smooth floor, and to reach his arm in further inside, Clive withdrew his other one and slid down onto his stomach, pushing his right arm further inside. The hollow was small, yet quite deep. If there really was something inside, then it must be at the very back, he reckoned.
Clive let out a small yelp when his pinky finger grazed the edge of a broken piece of glass and gashed itself open a little, but he quickly shifted his focus to something else when the glass pushed away a little and he felt something with a different texture to the glass, slightly rougher and with more imperfection, but thin and angular, like a slab of something heavy. Ignoring the burn of the cut on his hand, Clive wriggled his fingers up enough to grab onto the odd item inside and drag it out, Andrew and Ravendor helping him back onto his knees again. Looking at his hand, Clive could see that an inch long red mark had risen along the edge of his smallest finger, and it was oozing droplets of red blood. There was a sliver of glass inside, pressing against his flesh and his skin, making it hurt. Badly. To a six year old, it could easily mean the end of the world. Clive's eyes watered up, and he started to cry.
He dropped the handful of whatever it was that he had been holding, and they all clattered to the floor, scattering like dropped playing cards. Hooking his fingers like he was waiting to catch something that would fall out the sky, the small amount of blood was tricking down his hand and wetting his wrist lightly, and the burning refused to stop. His long drawn-out cries became words eventually, as Andrew was gathering up the procured artifacts in his hands. "…B-big… Big Brother… it huuuuuurts…" Clive bawled, trying to dig the thin piece of glass out of his hand with his nail, wincing when all it did was cut his hand open further and push the glass deeper inside. "I'm gonna bleed to death!" He announced at last, looking with horror at the constant stream of his blood leaking away.
"Here, let me see." Ravendor said, taking Clive's injured hand and inspecting it. It was trembling under Clive's crying fit, but the older boy noticed the origin of the bleeding easily. He pulled the piece of glass out deftly and opened up the medical bag slung against his side, searching for a bandage. "Stop being such a baby, Clive. It is only a cut. I have some iodine based Acroflavin in here, somewhere. That should stop any infection." Pulling out a small roll of bandage, a flask and some cotton balls, Clive instinctively stiffened when he recognised the label on the bottle. It was the stingy burny stuff that he hated, the stuff that Manna and Ravendor forced him to use whenever he fell down or hurt himself in any way. He didn't stop whimpering and sniffling until the wound had been cleaned, disinfected and bandaged, and even then, his eyes were still a little bit blurry with tears. "Better?" Ravendor asked.
"Y-yeah…" Clive answered, looking at his bandaged hand. The wrapping had been wound up just enough to allow circulation, but it still felt a little too tight for his liking. Moreover, he could already see a slightly red stain appearing on the pristine fabric, marring its appearance. Holding it closer to his face, Clive sniffed it, and it smelt like icky disinfectant now, horrible and stingy. Letting out a sigh, he finally relaxed, aware that although he had been the one to warn the others about cut fingers, he had been the one to feel the sting. It wasn't fair. "Thanks Swanky," He added, "It feels a lot better now."
Andrew reached out and picked up one of the fallen objects. It was surprisingly light, though it felt like it was made of stone, but its surface was clean and white, like ivory. "What the heck are these things?" He wondered aloud, as Clive was wiping at his eyes and Ravendor was packing their medical supplies away. It was small, thin and fit into the palm of his large hand easily, like a playing card of an unknown composition. Shrugging and raising the item to his mouth, he bit the corner of the card softly as if he was biting into a gold coin, to check if it was pure gold or not. It was like biting into a piece of metal, and when he let go, no teeth marks were left behind. It was like no kind of stone he had ever seen before. Giving up on figuring it out, he passed it to Ravendor, to see if the other boy could derive any kind of information from it.
It did indeed have writing on the front, along with a diagram that looked like it had come from an astrological textbook, written with calligraphic flair and style. There was a star, a moon, and a sun design, along with what looked to be a flash of lightning at the bottom. The rest, to the children, looked to be nothing more than gibberish. Ravendor turned it upside down, then on its side, then flipped it over to check the back. It was blank. "Gee… You expect me to know what this is? I have not a clue, I'm afraid." He admitted defeatedly, passing it over to Clive so he could take a look. "It must be an ancient language, because it certainly does not look like english, that I am sure of."
"Then it must be treasure!" Clive concluded at once, clutching the card like it was worth a million gella. "And it's just the kinda thing that the pigeon man's lookin' for! I wonder how much this thing is worth? D'ya think it's more than what we're bein' paid for being here?" Looking down upon it, Clive tried to picture himself as somebody who would really want these kind of things, and as that person, how much would he pay for it? His mind drew a blank, unable to picture it properly. He then decided to just sweep that idea under the rug instead, picking up the other cards and putting them back into an odd little deck. "I wonder…" Clive murmured with awe, "Did the ancients like to play with cards? Is that where cards came from?"
"As I understand it, there are fifty two cards in a real life playing deck, but here, we have only nine cards. Maybe there are not like cards at all and are more like pictures, or pages of a book? Or the other cards themselves could have been lost?" Ravendor offered helpfully.
"But then why are they made of stone?" Andrew asked confusedly, blinking a little while his brain tried to work. "I guess… stone wouldn't rot away like cardboard does, but I still don't have a doggoned idea why these ancient guys would wanna make things like this, unless they knew that we was gonna find 'em in the future? An' that must mean… they'se can see us." This was an unsettling thought, and then three boys looked at each other uneasily for a second, hoping that they were not being watched. "…Sanga?" Andrew whimpered, a tad scared, even with his great size and formidable power.
"U-um, well, let's not think about stuff like that…" Clive advised the others a little shakily and handed their small treasure to Ravendor, who tucked the cards safely away in his medical bag. They all got to their feet with caution. "If this place's as old as Mr. Pigeon and the other guy says it is, then they can't still be alive… can they?" Andrew and Ravendor shook their heads, convincing themselves that they were indeed alone. Clive looked down at his hand again, he could faintly smell his own drying blood. Clive had been told once, by an older kid who enjoyed weaving frightful tales by a burning fire, that back in the old days there had existed a secluded order of ancient magicians who drank human blood. If there really was such a thing, and if this was the place where they had lived, then there could be a chance, by some bizarre magic, that they could be alive and smelling his blood.
Ravendor had a similar thought, as he had heard the scary stories himself, being there with Clive at the time. This ruin had reminded him of the blood-drinking mages too, but his subconscious had managed to push that idea back into a hidden part of his mind. It was freed, now. He took a step closer towards Andrew, as if he had hoped that the larger boy would protect him from anything dangerous. "I think you may be jumping to conclusions, Mongo. Let's go and find Berlitz and Horatio now." He said with a slight quaver in his tone. "They must be looking for us. Um… which way was the exit?" Ravendor turned around, away from the broken mirror and the direction of the glass angel, and then he went as white as a ghost, freezing on the spot.
"What's wrong, Swanky?" Clive asked, noting the odd expression on the older boy's face.
"M-monsters…" Andrew stammered, answering before Ravendor could, seeing what the other boy was seeing and taking a shaky step back.
"Why… on Filgaia… wasn't anybody… watching the exit?" Ravendor said softly through a forced smile and clenched teeth. It looked like he had been frozen by some kind of spell, and when Clive followed his line of vision, he went similarly stiff as well, biting his lip hard.
Three large orcs were loitering around the exit, sniffing at the ground. The fat piggish beasts had probably followed them through the ruins via their scent trails left behind them, and it was probably true that Clive's recently spilt blood had been like a homing beacon to them, leading them to their quarry. What the hell? Didn't Berlitz say that there weren't any monsters here in the ruins? Clive guessed that the old man must have been wrong. One orc fixed its black beady eye on Andrew and its snout trembled a little as it snorted up the air, glistening with a thick layer of transparent mucous. It had tusks too, and they were yellowed and covered in rivulets of runny plaque. It squealed and raised itself onto its hind legs, the other two listening and doing the same.
Slowly, Clive's hand crept under his poncho and withdrew his small switchblade from its slotted position in his little belt. Pressing the button at the bottom, the blade popped out in his hand. It was cold steel and gleaming, a perfectly polished blade. It reminded Clive a little of the shards of glass on the floor. "Monsters…" Clive muttered, unconsciously reaching out and grabbing at Ravendor's shirtsleeve. "We gonna fight them?"
"Don't ask me, it is your call." Ravendor replied, still locked in a staring match between the middle orc and himself. "And… I do not wish to alarm you… but I did not bring Peacemaker with me today…"
"What?!" The boy nearly yelled, his heart dropping like a stone.
"Well, Berlitz did say that there were no monsters here, despite what we see in front of us now, and besides, I did not want to risk losing an expensive piece of equipment like that. I was only thinking logically."
Clive let go of him and understood. They all thought that they wouldn't have to fight today, and Clive had been the only one who had come armed. Uninvited, but armed. It was just as well. He was their leader, it was indeed his call. And they were just kids too, with no grown ups to help them out of a fix.
But since when had a grown up ever helped him out of a fix before?
The old pigeon man…That professor…Berlitz…
No, that did not count. "My call, huh?" Clive said with a calmness that came from absolutely nowhere. "Well, let's get ourselves some stuck pig, then!" He smiled, risking a glance at Andrew. The boy's hands were now in their large, sledgehammer-like fists. He could seriously hurt another child with those hands, but on monsters, he wasn't too sure. Ravendor was carefully and slowly searching his pockets for anything that could be used as a weapon, his other hand over the empty holster at his waist. Knowing Ravendor, he probably had a few tricks hidden up his sleeve, ARM or no ARM. And he, he had his switchblade.
The one thing in the world he knew he could trust.