Wow… if what I'm thinking is true, then… wow… I should see if there's anything on the third floor that confirms my theory.
Su tucked the two scrolls under her arm and headed for the stairs.
"Mr. Di Tan, I'm going up to the third floor." Su called over to the goose. "I wanna see if there's anything useful up there."
"Alright. That's nice." Di Tan mumbled as he continued to stare at the recipe scrolls in fascination. Su figured that he wasn't really paying attention, rolled her eyes and made her way up the stairs. Being nervous around heights, Su had to close her eyes and grip the rail tightly as she ascended, but fortunately she was able to reach the top in one piece.
She spent an hour and a half reading through the scrolls and books, the contents of which consisted of subjects related to science and alchemy. One of the alchemy scrolls felt a little heavier than the others, but considering the amount of paper she paid it no mind.
In the end, while she learned more about science than she had ever imagined, Su didn't find anything of use. Disappointed, she put the last astronomy scroll back in place and headed back for the stairs… and stopped dead when she spotted the metal spherical device sitting on the library's single but wide balcony.
It wasn't a solid object, like the Jade Orb of Infinite Power. It looked more like a metal skeleton, consisting of thin silver rings circling a single golden orb set in the center of the object. Each ring had a smaller orb embedded in it.
Su stared at the device in fascination before realizing that one of the astronomy scrolls had described a device much like this one. She rushed back to the shelf, grabbed the scroll and reread it.
Of course! It was an astrolabe. Scientists used it to predict the position of the stars and planets. The astrolabe it described looked more flat. This one looked far more sophisticated. The scroll also said that the astrolabe was used farther west, in places like Greece and Islam. So what was one doing here in the Himalayas?
That didn't matter now. She had never seen an astrolabe before, and right now, she was dying to give it a go.
Su stepped out onto the balcony and walked up to the astrolabe. It looked even more awesome up close. Now how to get it to work…
Su spied a row of levers at the base of the astrolabe, above them a series of numbers. Su peered at the numbers… and frowned.
The numbers said 12-8-228 AD
That was more than fifteen years ago.
"That's weird…" Su whispered. She took out a blank scroll she had brought with her, and wrote down the date. She never knew, the grown ups may find this important in future.
Now that she had the date recorded, she decided to play around with the levers. She soon found that she had to rotate rather than pull them, and when she did, one of the rings slowly rotated with it, so that the orb embedded in it was in a different position within the astrolabe.
"Wow, it still works!" Su's cheeks turned pink with glee. What would the astrolabe look like when she arranged the rings and its orbs in a certain manner?
She looked back down at the levers and realized that the number had changed slightly. It now read 14-2-243 AD.
"That must be the date that the planets are in that particular alignment." Su said. "This must be how they determine time. But I don't think the normal astrolabes work like this one does."
What would the alignment be if I set the date to 23-1-243 AD? The date today?
Su fingered the levers. This was going to be tricky.
It looks like the numbers change according to the position of the 'planets'. I'll need to do this slowly.
Carefully, she rotated the lever that controlled a large orb that had a red circle painted on its lower half. The numbers changed to 5-5-232 AD.
Hmmm… this really is hard to work out. Oh well, I do like puzzles.
"Po, go to the library and bring Su and Di Tan back to the guest rooms. It's time both of them got some sleep."
"Okay, Master Shifu."
Po made his way through the fortress, at one point passing a soot-covered Eagle Jr. and a group of soldiers, and entered the library to find Di Tan sitting amongst a mess of scrolls in the far corner.
"Hey, Di Tan!"
Di Tan looked up, startled.
"Dragon Warrior! Goodness, I didn't hear you come in!"
"Sorry." Po replied. "Where's Su?"
Di Tan turned his head from side to side.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? You were supposed to be watching her!"
"She's probably on one of the upper floors."
"Alright, you head back to bed, I'll get her."
"Very well. Good night, Dragon Warrior."
Di Tan stood up and began gathering the scrolls scattered around the floor. Meanwhile, Po made his way to the foot of the circular staircase. He paused and looked up at the stairs. They looked even taller up close.
"Stairs…" he muttered. "I hate stairs…"
Su had gotten the hang of it now. If her predictions were correct, she just needed a half turn clockwise of the lever controlling the 'moon', a quarter turn anti-clockwise for the orb that had a tiny flat ring surrounding it, and a full turn for the smallest orb that was the farthest from the massive gold orb in the center.
Half turn…
The numbers changed again.
Quarter turn…
Su decided to turn the last lever clockwise…
Full turn…
Click.
Su froze. The sound had come the other side of the astrolabe's base.
The girl gulped. Maybe playing with the astrolabe hadn't been a good idea.
Nervously, she crept around the base, and what she found made her dark blue eyes widen in amazement.
A small compartment had opened up in the side of the base, and in the darkened hole she could see a long narrow object. After a moment's hesitation she pulled it out. Whatever it was, it was hard and wrapped in a silky black cloth. It didn't feel alive or sharp, so Su took a chance and unwrapped the cloth.
"A spyglass?" Su muttered. In her paws was a shiny metal spyglass the length of a grown up's forearm. It looked like the one Shifu had, but when she looked through it she could see much, much farther, especially when she turned the tiny levers her fingers found on the spyglass's cylindrical surface.
This is so cool! How sophisticated is this place? I've gotta show this to the others!
Su gripped the spyglass tightly and left the balcony, making a beeline for the stairs- and gasped when a large black arm shakily shot up out of nowhere and gripped the top of the stairs. A second later Po's head emerged, dripping with sweat and gasping with exhaustion. As Su stared, the rest of the larger panda's body followed and lay heaving on the floor before her.
"Hate…" He gasped.
"Po?" Su asked.
"Hate… hate… stairs…" Po turned his head and saw Su. "Hey, Su… Shifu says… it's time to go… to bed…"
"Okay." Su said. "Are you okay?"
"Never… say never…" Po slowly sat up. "Wait, that's not right."
"Did you mean 'never been better?" Su asked.
"Yeah." Po said. "Come on, let's get to bed."
Su smiled as she tried not to laugh.
"Po, you'll never guess what I've found!"
"I give up. What did you find?"
In answer, Su brought the spyglass up to her eye. Through it, everything was so blurred it was all one greyish color, but with a quick turn of one of the little switches Su could suddenly see the dark green speckles of Po's left iris.
"Where did you get that, that looks awesome!" Po got up to his feet, by now recovered from his journey up the stairs.
"I found it while I was playing with the astrolabe?" Su replied as she lowered the spyglass.
"Astrowhat?"
"An astrolabe!" Di Tan gasped. Po yelped at the goose's sudden appearance. "My goodness, I never thought I'd ever get to see such a remarkable invention!"
"It's right over there on the balcony." Su said. "Just turn the levers and you can change the position of the planets."
"Goodness, I must try it out!" Di Tan waddled off in the direction of the balcony.
"Hang on a sec, Shifu sent me to get you guys back to the guestrooms!" Po exclaimed. "If I don't get you two in your beds he'll kill me!"
"Oh very well." Di Tan turned back and returned to the others. "Where exactly did you find that spyglass, Su?"
When Su explained, Po said;
"That's weird, why would something hide a spyglass in an acetate?"
Su giggled.
"It's astrolabe." She said. "And I dunno. It's not doing any harm. Should we show it to Master Shifu?"
"Why don't we do that tomorrow?" Po asked, a second later letting out a massive yawn. "It's way past your bedtime."
"Okay." Su tucked the spyglass into her belt along with her coin. "Just let me put these two scrolls back."
"What were those for?" Po asked.
"Just a little theory I'm working on." Su replied innocently. "I need to take these back to the ground floor. Come on!"
With careful fingers, the Yeti pulled the gold lining from the pieces of armor and helmets he had collected over the last few weeks and dropped the bits into a small vat. Then he broke off the wooden staffs of the spears so only the sharp metal heads remained. He tossed them into the bigger vat in the corner of the massive crumbling room, along with the damaged armor and other metal weapons. He was about to light the furnace until a shaft of moonlight caught his eye. Looking up through a crack in the ceiling, he saw the moon shining brightly down from the starless sky, a silvery white eye in the darkness. The Yeti hesitated. It was late, and he hadn't rested since early dawn. Perhaps he should retire for the night and begin the forging process in the morning.
The Yeti doused the match and left the foundry.
A minute later he emerged back into the cave that served as the 'back door' to the city. The main entrance had been buried in a landslide that occurred twenty five or so years ago, and a good thing too; the main entrance was situated a mere quarter mile from the fortress.
The Yeti stepped outside onto the rocky outcropping. In the distance it saw the barely visible outline of the fortress, still standing strong after all those years. Those decades. The Yeti felt a small sadness at the thought of what was to come. How much of the building would be left after all this is over?
It didn't matter that much. His mistress had never cared for material needs. In fact the only reason she had ever taken up residence in that fortress was because of the great love and effort that went into the building of that architecture. He doubted that she would mind a little damage here and there. Then again, the library was one of a kind, filled with knowledge from all four corners of the world. He remembered the many times he had curiously played with the astrolabe, how each prediction was spot on. The second library, full of languages it had heard only from the tongues of foreigners. When the time came, he would have to take care to keep the action away from that place, to make sure that none of the scrolls and books came to harm…
The Yeti stopped reminiscing as he gazed at the blackened horizon, his brows creased in concern.
A storm was coming.
No, it wasn't using a metaphor. A blizzard was on the way, and it was a powerful one, and by powerful it meant sixty mile gale winds lasting two or three days. If the Yeti had to make a guess, he would say that it would be about a day and a half before the storm came upon them. That meant he had the rest of the night to rest and the entire next day to do a little more outdoor work. Once the blizzard arrived he would spent the entirety of it indoors, completing his work in the foundry. By the time the storm passed everything should be ready.
The Yeti turned and headed back inside. He sat down on a large black chair situated in one corner of the cave.
After a while, the Yeti closed his eyes. He thought of the night he had blown up the storage building. Why did she want the panda's life spared? He wondered. It was most unlike his mistress to appear out of the blue to order him to let their enemy live. When she would next speak to him, he would ask her. But for now, he would rest.
A few minutes later, the Yeti was asleep, his bottom half bathed in the moonlight shining through the mouth of the cave.