Belly of the beast it was, it reminded Ed very much of the time Gluttony swallowed them. They had dismounted and gone to the edge of the cliff and peered over. It was dangerously steep and there seemed to be no logical way down for an alchemist.
A normal alchemist at any rate.
Ed looked down once more before turning to Roy. "You've got it easy. All you have to do is clap and create steps. No need to keep creating them. But only do a few steps at a time."
Roy touched his palms together and planted them on the valley side. Steps suddenly descended and Ed, holding the horse's reins, descended after Roy. Every couple of feet Roy would create steps and so they worked their way down the mountainside in this way. Ed was quite cheerful about this whole thing. Roy had rather thought Ed would have sunk into a depression because he was now unable to perform the alchemy that had once been inherent to him.
They reached the bottom after a few hours, but they were exhausted, especially Roy who had used up so much of his energy creating the steps to get them down. They were struggling to stifle their yawns and finally Roy made a decision.
"Edward, stop."
Ed frowned. "We can't rest!"
"Yes, we can. Otherwise we'll be too exhausted to continue. Look, it's only four o'clock, let's sleep for two hours and by then the moon will be fully up. I don't think I can go on much longer, that alchemy really sapped my strength."
Ed gave a fierce scowl and Roy responded with, "We don't all have as much alchemical energy as some people, so don't give me that look, Ed. I know you know better. I also know you had better stamina for performing alchemy. I have never used it that extensively in a long while."
"You're out of practice," Ed told him a bit sulkily, but he was curling up on a blanket he had placed on the ground. "Two hours Mustang," Ed ground out, "then we move on."
Ed tossed him an alarm clock he had apparently stolen from the inn. "Set it and we'll certainly be able to wake up in time."
Roy wondered where Ed got all this gall from.
It was sudden and fierce and it brought them both out of the deep sleep they had fallen into. Ed tapped the ground searching for the offensive object but Roy got to it before him and their hands brushed briefly against each other.
Ed didn't pull his hand back, but he sighed as he looked up into the sky at the stars and the moon. "Now is as good a time as any, isn't it?"
Roy nodded and they both rose and remounted their horses. The valley was long and stretched in both directions. Ed took them south as they followed the winding valley from the one end to the other.
Eyes searched the sides looking for hints of a door, of anything, that might lead them to their goal. Edward found it particularly onerous, and he commented as such.
Roy had given him that look and Ed had become quiet. It was about one in the morning when Ed's horse tripped over it. Ed grunted as he was woken from his half doze and he looked down blearily to see something glinting in the moonlight. His sleepiness began to fade as he realized what he was looking at.
He dismounted and took a closer look at it. It was about that time Roy noticed Ed wasn't following him and turned back to question him. He found Ed following a trail of something. Ed's whole body posture spoke of triumph. He held up one sparkling piece of gold. "I think," he drawled. "We're in the right place."
Roy moved his horse forward to stand beside Ed. He took one of the gold pieces Ed held and turned them over and over in his hands nodding. "This looks like real gold to me."
The older man dismounted from his horse and the two began to scavenge at the earth closely, looking for any clues as to where an entrance might be found.
Ed shook his head, "It's possible that these simply got kicked this way. Let's walk on further and see if anything turns up."
A few more pieces of gold did turn up and Ed was delighted his theory was holding. "They were leading away from the darker part, so somebody left with it but they dropped pieces as they left. It's curious though, that nobody has ever desired to really try and come down here."
"You saw all the writings on this place though. It was shrouded in so much mystery and 'darkness' that people were entirely scared of it. Plus, it's not a widely known story either. It's a local story, it wouldn't have travelled far. And by this time it was simply a local legend and nothing more."
Edward frowned as he tossed a gold piece in the air. "Well, better for us then, I suppose."
He ducked around a corner and turned to the left and came face to face with a solid stone wall. He blinked in surprise and took a step back, bumping into Roy. Roy was leaning around Ed and feeling the wall up and down, most likely looking for a switch to activate the door.
Roy's fingers finally pressed into an indent in the rock and the rock began to swivel. They slipped through to the other side.
Both men stood and stared with shock at the city spread out below them. It was gold and there was absolute beauty everywhere. Ed descended to one of the lower levels and strolled about for a few minutes.
He let his hands run along the walls for a few moments before dropping them and staring with a bit of horror on his face. Not a bad horror, but a horror that spoke of something that wasn't as expected.
"Roy," he breathed. "Roy," he whispered again. "It wasn't true."
"What do you mean?" Roy asked as he too began to inspect the walls. He also felt what Ed was talking about.
"The gold…it's all fake. Pyrite and other substances to look like gold…but not actually gold."
Ed gave a little laugh. "All this trouble…and it ended up being fake!"