The Stair Of Time (Book 2) (17 page)

Puzzle Door

Eli
had been sitting in front of the puzzle door for at least two hours now, and was still no closer to an answer.  Each tile had a picture on it, and beneath each tile was either a number or a letter.  There was no pattern that he could discern, just a bunch of random nonsense apparently designed to drive him insane.

Sarilla probably put this here for her own amusement,
he reasoned.
  In order to discourage unwanted visitors.  Confusticate and be damned the woman!  There probably isn’t even an answer to be had.  Why, I’ll wager she’s watching me right now, having a good laugh at my expense.

Feeling his ire beginning to rise,
Eli glared up at the wooden eye.  He heard a sharp click.  Was that the sound of the lid snapping shut?  Surely not.  He shook his head and, with a low curse, got to his feet, relishing the feel of his lower limbs tingling back to life.

Having decided to knock the
infernal puzzle door down with his biggest sledgehammer, the one with the extra-long handle and twenty pound head, he turned and began walking back to the wagon.  Halfway there, Mandie sat bolt upright.

Eli
stopped in mid-stride.

Without opening her eyes, Mandie’s mouth began to move.  At first no sound came out.  Then, very softly, she began to speak.  “The
alphabet has twenty-six letters, you know.  A is for apple, but C is for crunchy.  A knight is brave.  Frogs likes to leap.  Flowers are pretty.  Rainbows are colorful, and a tower is a tower.” 

“Mandie, honey,”
Eli called. “Can you hear me?”

S
he cocked her head to the side as though listening, but not to him, rather to some distant voice that she was straining to understand.  “Time draws short,” she went on.  “Sometimes it is better to be swift than to be right.  And sometimes it is better to be clever than to be swift.  But it is always better to be wise.  Hurry father.  The water is rising and the heavens continue to weep.  Few can be lucky and brave
and
smart, but you must be all three and more to stem the tide.  Hurry!”

By the time he reached
her, she had lain back down, and was once again breathing like one who is fast asleep.  Eli wiped tears from his ruddy, wind-burned cheeks and, feeling like an ogre in the presence of a princess, wrapped Mandie in his arms, comforted by the feel of her chest rising and falling, and by the steady beating of her heart.

He was so
astonished by what had just occurred that he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.  He felt like dancing a jig and collapsing into a heap on the ground all at the same time.  Admittedly, what she’d said was a bit on the…troubling side, but she’d said it to
him
and that’s all that seemed to matter right now.  Indeed, she could scream curses at him all day and call him a ham-fisted fool without the sense the Almighty gave a mule and he would still be elated.

She actually spoke to me!
he thought. 
For the first time since this all started!  Not to Andaris, not to Gaven, or to any other made-up person for that matter—me!

H
e might have stayed by her side like that for hours, in the hopes that she would speak again.  In fact, if time wasn’t of the essence, that’s precisely what he would have done.  But she had told him to hurry, so hurry he would.  Anything for his Mandie. He released her with a brief sob, kissed her forehead, and wrapped her up in her blankets, warm and snug, a woolen cocoon from which she would one day emerge, far more beautiful than any mere butterfly.

When he was once again
master of his emotions, he returned to the door, replaying part of what Mandie had said in his mind: ‘
The alphabet has twenty-six letters, you know.’  Why say that,
he wondered?
  Could she be trying to tell me something about the puzzle?  Twenty-six letters.  Twenty-six.  Why does that seem so
—

And then he had it.  Unless he had miscounted, there were twenty-six tiles, as well. 
Eli kneeled before the door, looking like a man preparing to pay homage to The Watcher, and began to count. 
Yep, no doubt about it, there are twenty-six of ‘em.  Which means…what?  Come on, Eli.  You big dullard.  Think!
 

Understanding, as
ofttimes was the case with him, came in a trickle rather than a torrent.  Following his initial epiphany in regards to the number twenty-six, it took him an embarrassingly long time to even begin to suspect that Mandie might have been referring to the pictures on the tiles when she’d said things like: ‘A is for apple, but C is for crunchy.’  He reached up and ran a grimy finger across the surface of the tile with the engraved apple on it.  He felt a wave of relief, followed by self-reproach. 

It’s so simple, and I didn’t see it
!

Marnie used to say that his head was made for bashing stones, not for thinking. 
Said that she’d leave the stone-bashing to him if he’d leave the thinking to her.  How he wished he could. 

So, all I have to do is put the apple tile on the A.  The rainbow tile on the R.  The flower tile on the F.  The faerie tile on the….
  But that can’t be right!  Can’t put two tiles in the same spot.
 

Eli
’s heart sank.  For a moment there, he actually thought he’d figured it out.  But of course, many of the letters repeated.  F for frog, faerie,
and
flower.  R for ring and rainbow.  S for star and sword.  Not
all
repeated, like T for tower, but enough to make his head hurt. 

And what about the numbers?  How do they fit in?

He
again thought back to what Mandie had said, going over each letter with a fine-toothed comb.  ‘
A is for apple, but C is for crunchy.  A knight is brave.  Frogs like to leap.  Flowers are pretty.  Rainbows are colorful, and a tower is a tower.’
  If anyone had been walking past, they would have wondered why the man kneeling before the door looked like he’d just been clonked over the head with the business end of a shovel.

So….
when it comes to the tiles that don’t repeat, I put them on their letter.  Like tower on T.  But when it comes to the tiles that do repeat, maybe I should try putting the ones whose descriptive word starts with a letter that comes before the others in the alphabet on their letter and the rest on the first letter of their descriptive words.

This was ridiculous!
  He’d never had such an unbearably complicated thought in his life, and never wanted to again.  He felt like his poor brain was being sucked through a straw.  Eli was a simple farmer.  His mind wasn’t meant for these acrobatics.  If he weren’t careful, he would pull something.  Unfortunately for him, there was far too much at stake to just give up, so he had no choice but to keep plodding forward.

Descriptive
.  Descriptive…..  A is for apple and anchor,
he thought.
  An apple is crunchy and an anchor drops.  C comes before D, so I put apple on A and anchor on D, D for drops, because crunchy comes before drops in the dictionary. 
He shook his head.
  But even if I’m figurin’ true, it’s all for naught if I can’t come up with the right words.  An anchor is also heavy.  Course, in that case, it would still work since H comes after C, same as D.

Deciding to take a break,
Eli went to the wagon and, from his leather pack, withdrew a flask of self-distilled cinnamon whiskey.  He took only a single swallow to clear his head, intimately aware that, when it came to whiskey, especially spirits crafted in the Johansen still with recipes passed down from his great-great-grandfather, the line between focused and foggy was dangerously thin.  When he was once again seated before the puzzle door, he scratched his head, sighed, and got back to work.

Hours later,
Eli found that his brain had turned entirely to pudding, or perhaps to jelly, or mayhap even mush, and not a high quality mush, mind you—the extra mushy mush that is served in peasant shacks across the land.  In essence, he was spent, and had been for a while now, moving the tiles around and around and around—where they stopped no one knows—searching for a way to make them fit where they were supposed to. The problem was, sliding one over its correct letter invariably slid another off, each mistake leaving him more disheartened than the last.

There had to be a way to make it work.  It was just a matter of trying all the
various combinations until he found the right one.  Every time he failed, he put the tiles back into their original positions and tried again.  Fortunately, besides cinnamon whiskey, he had packed some charcoal briquettes, enabling him to write down his mistakes.  Soon his fingers were black.  He would have preferred ink, but one makes do with what one has. 

He prayed his initial reasoning was correct, for if not, the house he was attempting to build, no matter how grand, was going to fall to ruin atop its faulty foundation.  He had caught the wooden eye peeking at him more than once, mocking his efforts to gain entry.  Not that he blamed it
, mind you.  He knew he was taking twice as long as either Mandie or Marnie would have—at the least.  They would have gotten in hours ago, and probably wouldn’t have even needed the charcoal.  He hung his head in shame.  Here he was, completely spent, and still the puzzle door remained barred to him. 

Upon realizing that the numbers represented letters
of the alphabet, 3 for C, and so on, he was ecstatic.  If the letters and numbers had been in order, he would have figured it out sooner.  But they weren’t.  The 3, for instance, was between M and J.  The flash of inspiration had come to him after taking another small swig of cinnamon spirits.  Thinking maybe he wasn’t so daft after all, he threw himself into solving the puzzle with renewed resolve.  When he felt his mental prowess beginning to slip, he took a third swig, and then, unfortunately, a fourth.

One swig too many,
he thought, rubbing the back of his neck. 
Hmm, maybe I should rest a while.  Come back to it when I’m fresh.  No,
he eventually decided. 
Mandie said to hurry, so I’ve gotta keep at it as long as I can.  She wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t important.

Not long after, despite his fuzzy head,
or perhaps because of it, Eli realized that the pictures on the tiles, when in their final positions, would come together to form a single
larger
picture. 
It’s a face!
he thought, sliding the boat tile, which was actually part of a winking eye, into place.  A woman’s face, probably the witch, judging by the merry, condescending eyes.  He shook his head and grumbled, “Numbers, letters, and pictures within a picture.  What’s next, Sarilla?”

As much as it irritated him, being able to use the face as a
reference, made his work much easier.  Soon, all that was left was the mouth.  One tile—a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.  Eli hesitated, wary of what might happen when he slid this last piece of the puzzle into place.

He went to go check on Mandie first
, just in case something…unpleasant was about to happen.  After feeding her and changing her, he went back to the door and gave Sarilla her mouth, something he suspected he might later regret.  The surface of the door glowed blue.  The air tingled.  Eli took a step back as the eye above began to open, peering down at him, blue light shining through the crack.  The mouth began moving up and down, the space between the first and second circle forming lips.

“Enter at your peril
, Eli Johansen!  Much to my surprise, and I’m sure to yours, you have finally solved my puzzle, and thus earned entry.  But I warn you, do not take anything while you are inside!  Not so much as a piece of lint.  Very little is as it seems.  What you pilfer, no matter how innocent, may have the power to turn into something that will consume you body, mind, and soul.  There is much beyond this threshold that is beyond your comprehension, much that could bring harm to the ignorant or unwary.  You are both.”

“Can you help my Mandie?”
Eli asked, a lump rising in his throat.  “Please, there must be something you can do for her.”

Rather than answering, the mouth snapped shut, followed by the eye, the expression on the face becoming one of deep concentration.  The tingling in the air grew more pronounced as the
door’s blue aura brightened.  The earth began to tremble beneath his feet, and then, at long last, the door swung wide.

The Voices

Andaris was on step number one hundred and fifteen when he began to hear the voices.  At first he couldn’t make out what they were saying—aware only that it was the vague, distant whispering of three, or perhaps four, people.

By the time he
reached step number two hundred and thirty-six, the whispering had grown louder and more…insistent, taking on a needful, forlorn quality that chilled his bones, surrounding him, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. 

Now, rather than three or four, it was a chorus, hundreds upon hundreds of
wretched voices whispering in time:
Andaris.  Andaris.  Andaris! 
He did his best to ignore them, sure that they must, whatever
they
were, eventually grow tired of tormenting him.  Somehow he knew that as long as he didn’t respond, he would be okay.  But that if he answered, if he acknowledged the uproar in any way, it would be like throwing oil onto a fire.

Hoping to avoid
this phonetic conflagration, he concentrated on simply putting one foot in front of the other, spiraling ever downward, closing his mind to all else.  When he reached step number three hundred and twelve, the chorus had swelled to near deafening proportions.  Andaris had stuffed bits of cotton into his ears to block out the clamor.  Even so, at the rate things were escalating, he feared it would soon prove inadequate.

When
he reached step number three hundred and forty-six, his restraint shattered.  Coming to a stop, he raised his hands over his ears and cried, “What do you want of me!?  Whatever it is, I will do!  Just please, for the love of Rodan, be silent!”

And to his immense
surprise and relief, his request was granted.  Andaris stood stock-still, ears ringing, skeleton vibrating.  The sudden and absolute silence was almost overwhelming, more deafening in its way than the chorus of whispers.  He let out his held breath and peered around.  There was nothing but mist, mist, and more mist in every direction, thick enough to prevent him from seeing his hand should he choose to hold it out at arm’s length. 

“Hello?” he called, listening with no small measure of discomfort to his voice echoing
uncertainly into the distance.  There was no reply.  He hadn’t really expected one, and was
very
glad that he was right. 
Alone again,
he thought, deciding that his own company was imminently preferable to the ceaseless whispering.  Now there was just him and the orange mist, tingling and damp against his skin, and a cool finger of breeze occasionally caressing his face.  He found the breeze curiously relaxing.  It brought to mind lazy Sunday afternoons spent napping beneath his favorite oak tree back home, of fine feather pillows awaiting his head, of peace, of quiet…of comfort.

Strange to be so
on edge one moment and so relaxed the next,
he thought.

How nice it would be to lie down on these steps and take a nap—just a short rest to refresh his beleaguered senses, to calm his frazzled nerves.
  He deserved such a rest.  No harm would come of it.  The mist would be here when he awoke, of that he was sure, as would the stairs.  They had always been here, hadn’t they?  And always would. Upon awakening, he would continue his descent, reinvigorated and ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead, or rather below.  Yes.  Then he would locate Gaven, and they would be on their way again.

A part of Andaris’ mind
found it distressing that when he reached up to fluff his pillow, he instead felt the hard edge of a step.  But it was a very small part, a distant, barely audible part that deserved no more attention than it got.  Such things were not worth listening to.  Might as well perk one’s ears to the buzzing of gnats, or skittering of cockroaches.  So what if he didn’t remember actually lying down and drifting off?  What of it?  Everything was as it should be.  And now he was safe, and warm, and comfortable, a bear curling up in its cave for a long winter’s sleep.

***

Andaris walked hand in hand with Mandie.  Rolling green hills all around.  Blue sky above.  A hint of wood smoke on the crisp, late afternoon breeze.  Smiling and laughing at something he had said, they came to the top of the foremost rise, its grassy head adorned by a crown of wildflowers, primrose and poppies predominant amongst a playful scattering of daffodils.  It was lovely, vibrant enough to bring a twinkle, no matter how fleeting, to the most cynical of eyes.

Mandie undid the blue satin bow in her hair, auburn curls
falling about sun kissed shoulders.  The wicker basket she held would soon be filled with wildflowers, gathered for her beloved mother, whose birthday party was now only hours away. 

As Mandie picked and danced her way across the crown of the hill, she began to sing:

A fairy lands on fairy tails,

And fairyland is filled with wails,

Trolls and ogres laugh with glee,

To see a fairy thrown to sea.

A firefly cries and burns no more,

As fairy dust floats to shore,

A pixie sticks her nose up high,

As trolls and ogres try to fly.

A dragonfly
with broken wings,

A voiceless angel gently sings,

Yesterday will come at last,

All
those present gone to past.

Unicorns have lost their horns,

Magic dies
as yet unborn,

Dancing, laughing, out to see,

A ship of mist sails with thee.

The sky is filled with rainbows,

The ponies all have mane bows,

The trumpet on the wind blows,

While Mandie sleeps so fast….

While Mandie sleeps so fast….

While Mandie sleeps so fast….

***

Andaris awoke with a start, knocking his head against the edge of one of the
steps, a thread of spittle dangling from his lower lip.  The mist had changed back to its original bluish-green hue.  He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, or why he’d so easily succumbed.  All he knew was that he wanted out.  Anywhere would be preferable to here.  He’d had enough of being lost in visually challenging locales to last him a lifetime.

Still groggy, Andaris shook his head and drank
several long swallows of water, going so far as to splash some onto his face.  Wishing he could clear the mist from his path as easily as he’d cleared the cobwebs from between his ears, he stood and continued his descent, picking up where he’d left off. 
Three hundred and forty-seven, three hundred and forty-eight, three hundred and forty-nine….