The Stair Of Time (Book 2) (6 page)

He couldn’t
read the writing or the symbols, yet the illustrations seemed clear enough.  Each page represented a different level of a city, the entirety of which had been built underground.  Each level was joined by a flight of stairs.  Andaris felt an internal click when his eyes fell upon the last page, the bottom page.  His vision blurred, the writing and symbols swimming before his eyes, the page becoming fluid and dark.  Feeling faint, he looked away. 

When he looked back, he
found he was able to read the title of the page, the one that appeared atop every page beside the same embossed symbol—a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.  Atop every page and on the box, too.

“
Laotswend,” he whispered, feeling his blood surge with something akin to prophetic memory.  “The symbol is a seal.  Laotswend’s seal.”  Once more, the letters began to swim.  He watched as long as he could, and then closed his eyes against a sudden wave of nausea. 

When he opened them
again, the words were as illegible as before, each comprised of strange, alien characters.  An image began to form in his mind, an image of a race of people whose lives were defined by endless contradiction.  They stood before him, enigmatic and proud, defiant eyes daring him to understand.  It all seemed so familiar, yet remained utterly incomprehensible, hidden behind a veil of time too thick to pierce.  A part of him recognized it, some deep hidden part, but it was nothing that he could grasp—at least not now.  He’d felt the same while staring at the symbol above that archway.

“
Laotswend,” he whispered again, his voice sounding lonely and lost, calling from the shadows of a distant past, a fragment of memory infused with new life.  Though his face now glistened with a sheen of sweat, he shivered, feeling a sense of the inevitable, of the profound, Fei raging through him, wild and free, carrying him along the chosen path to a great gray sea of providence.

Must show this to Gaven,
he thought. 
He’ll know what to do.

By the time Andaris exited the mirror, all
recollection of the argument with Ashel—the uncharacteristic part when he lost control of himself—was gone, so seamlessly removed that he didn’t even know it was missing.  Everything else, including the wondrous things he had seen through the window, remained intact.

Furtive Conversation

Gaven and Andaris sat in front of the hearth on a thrice divided divan,
the ungainly frame of which had been assembled just that afternoon, hammer and nails abandoned for pegs pounded smartly into holes.  Judging by how things were progressing, Gaven intended to incorporate every means of construction known to man before he was through, and perhaps a few that weren’t—not strictly endorsed by man anyhow.

The divan groaned ominously as
the big man stood and tossed another log onto the fire, his prodigious girth more impressive than ever.  Sparks took flight with a pop and a hiss, twirling through the air in a brief unchoreographed dance before winking out on the stone floor.

Night had fallen as they talked, cloaking the cabin
in ever-deepening shadow, lending their quiet conversation an air of mystery that it might have otherwise lacked.  They spoke in low tones, mindful of the precipice atop which they now stood, feeling a growing reverence for what lay beyond: the great sprawling unknown, too wonderful and terrible to ignore, too tantalizing to resist.

“Let me see th
at last page again,” Gaven said, the firelight from the hearth playing across his broad face.

Andaris opened the box
for the third time since his arrival.  After his unsettling experience in the tower, he thought it best to limit his exposure.  So far, however, there seemed no need.  He’d not felt even the slightest bit out of sorts.  No dizzy spells or nausea.  Nothing.

A part of him
wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing, a thought which he ultimately dismissed as paranoia.  In general, when there’s no definitive evidence to the contrary, one may as well presume that one is not hallucinating.

Gaven’s wide fingers moved with
their customary dexterity across the page.  “This is definitely the same symbol from that archway,” he said, voice brooding and gravelly.  “And I’m pretty sure I remember seeing some of these words somewhere, maybe in Ashel’s writings, or in what I guess we can now assume is The Lost City of Laotswend.”

“It could be related to the Lenoy without being the main city,” Andaris pointed out.

“True,” admitted Gaven. “But look here, where the tunnel leads from the outside into this room.”

Andaris
followed the big man’s calloused finger with his eyes, feeling strangely detached.  “Yeah…so?” he heard himself ask, words coming to him as if from a great distance—from across a thick, languid expanse, their meaning all but lost in the vague, mercurial mists of unreality.

“So,” Gaven answered, seemi
ng oblivious to his dazed state, I think it’s the same room.  Here’s an archway, and then if you turn here, and here, you end up in this hall.  Remember, we went this way for a while and…sort of lost track of things, and then eventually ended up next to that pool where we met Marla.  This circle with the squiggly lines could be that pool.  I can’t be sure, of course.  I don’t remember well enough.  But it seems right, doesn’t it?”

Andaris nodded slowly, his sense of
detachment growing.  “That place was definitely a lot bigger than the part we explored.  Certainly bigger than the part shown on this map.  There were a lot of halls and rooms we didn’t go into, some that stretched as far as we could see.  You know, I just realized what’s been bothering me.  When I first looked at this in the tower, the scale was different.  It showed things from more of a bird’s eye view.  There was a lot more on the page, but the markers, like that pool, were too small for me to make out.  Hmm.  I wonder if there’s a legend somewhere.”

Gaven frowned, holding the
map at arm’s length, eyeing it with sudden distrust.  “Supposin’ it changed on account of what we were talkin’ about before you opened the box,” he said in a coarse whisper.  “Mayhap it
heard
us.”

“Do you think Ashel could have—”

Gaven shook his head with surprising vehemence.  “No.  I know he’s been acting strange lately, but he wouldn’t do something like this.  Not even after all you told me can I believe that.  No, it’s gotta be somethin’ else.”

“Like?”

“Well, for starters, how ‘bout the magic of the Lenoy and of that place?  Can’t you feel it, Andaris?  It’s coming off these pages in waves, touching everything around it—including us.”

 
Andaris nodded.  He could feel it all right, a kind of buzzing sensation that made his arms break out in gooseflesh and the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end.

“
If the map really is responding to what we say,” Gaven continued,
“answering
us in its way, then maybe we can just talk to it and tell it what we want to see.”

“So
, what are you suggesting?  You think it’s…alive?”

“
No.  Not like you and me, anyhow.  It’s just doing what it was made to do, leftover from olden times by the same folk who made Laotswend.”  The big man cocked his big woolly head and crossed his arms.  “You know, maybe when it’s ready, it’ll show us the whole mess at once.  Mayhap, while we’re down there, it’ll change as we walk, keeping track of where we are in relationship to where we’re goin’.”

Andaris smiled.  Gaven’s thinking was
often methodical, a trait which some mistook for slow.  Occasionally, however, he would surprise you with a flash of inspiration, saying something that seemed almost prescient.  Either way, be it inspiration or intuition, what he’d just said rang true—straight to the marrow it did.

“While
we’re
down there?” Andaris asked, smile curving into a grin.  “So, I take that to mean
we’re
going?”

Gaven returned his grin and patted him on the
back.  “Course we’re goin’.”  He put the pages in the box and closed the lid, face a caricature of bewilderment.  “You know, given your obvious intelligence, you really can be thick sometimes.”

“
Can’t argue with you there,” Andaris agreed with a laugh, more relieved than he could express. 

Not one to
squander a chance at merriment, regardless how fleeting, Gaven joined in, his hearty guffaws turning Andaris’ quiet amusement into full-fledged laughter, the sort that cleanses the spirit and brings tears to the eyes.

“Thank you, my friend,” Andaris said after the fit had passed.  “Really.  The thought of going by myself was a bit...overwhelming.”

The big man cleared his throat.  “
Wouldn’t have it any other way.  You know that.”

Andaris nodded meaningfully
.  “There’s a lot I have to do before we can leave.  Someone has to take care of Mandie while we’re gone.  She isn’t even conscious for short periods anymore.  She just sleeps and…occasionally mumbles.”

“What does she say?
” Gaven asked, his darkening expression suggesting he dreaded the answer.

“Just
random stuff that doesn’t make any sense.  Do you know that I have to mash up her food and put it into her mouth now?  At least she swallows it.  I suppose we should be grateful for that much.  I’m still waiting to hear back from Trilla.  And I’ve made such a mess in the archives.  I know it probably doesn’t matter to anyone else.  It’s so disorganized down there, but—”

“I’ll help you figure it out, Andaris. 
Tomorrow.
  For now, I think we need to catch some shuteye.  Sort it out in the mornin’ when our heads are clear.  After that, we can begin making preparations.  We’ve had enough to chew on for one night, don’t ya think?”

Andaris nodded
, stifling a yawn that had apparently been summoned by Gaven’s words.

“
Tell you what, you go get the cots and blankets and I’ll move the furniture so we can sleep next to the hearth.”

Recognizing wisdom when he heard it, Andaris stood and headed
for the storeroom door.

Despair

Eli Johansen sat beside his daughter’s sickbed, broad shoulders slumped with worry.  The past few weeks he’d been having thoughts unlike any he’d had before, thoughts which made him doubt both the existence and benevolence of The Watcher.  He’d always been a devoutly religious man.  That’s how he’d been raised, how his wife had been raised, and how they in turn had raised their children.  Twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays, they’d gone to church to pay homage to the creator, to thank Him for both His worldly and otherworldly gifts.

Eli
had prayed for hours on end when Mandie had first taken ill, begging The Watcher not to steal his little girl from him.  But his prayers had gone unanswered and Mandie had slipped further from his grasp until, eventually, he’d stopped praying altogether.  Soon after, a deep bitterness had taken root in his heart and begun to grow.

The trouble
started last August when Eli lost his wife of seventeen years.  Without warning, Marnie had died in her sleep.  There had been no sickness to blame.  From all appearances, she’d simply stopped breathing.

It was a balmy summer night
, stifling if not for the breeze drifting through the half-open window.  Eli awoke bathed in the cheerful rays of dawn to a morning that was bright and clear and full of promise—only to discover that his wife was dead.

Marnie
had just turned thirty-six.  She’d always been small, considered frail by some, but so strong in spirit that most did not see her as such.  She was rarely ill, or at least rarely complained of being ill.  And now she lay curled in his arms, delicate as a bird, pale and lovely in death, the warm air keeping the chill from her skin. 

Eli
was a big man, towering over his wife by at least a foot, his body as stocky as hers was slim.  Running a farm was hard work.  It made for hard people, and he was no exception.  Why, some years it was his hard work and determination alone what kept a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.  But he didn’t mind, because even when times got tough, they were happy.  They were together, and that’s all that mattered, and their love for one another was deep.

Mandie, who’d never seen her father
shed so much as a single tear, found him that morning clinging to her mother like an infant, sobbing, head on her still chest, muscular arms wrapped around her like a vice. 

She
had been concerned when she’d awakened on her own well past nine o’clock.  And for good reason, too.  They always called her and her younger brother, Erick, to breakfast at six on Sundays—a special breakfast on the most special day of the week, consisting of eggs, bacon, hot cakes, fried potatoes, and peach preserves that had been canned, they never failed to remind them, with love by their grandmother.

Church started at eight-
thirty, which meant they were already late, and it was a twenty-minute wagon ride over rough terrain to get there. Her father usually got up at five in order to, as he put it, “Start the day before it gets away.”  There were chores to be done, chickens to be fed, cows to be milked, eggs to be gathered, and about a hundred other things to do. 

And here it was
half past nine and the three-room cottage was still as a tomb, with a somber, dreamlike feel to the air.  She walked from her bed to her parents’ door with her heart full of trepidation, bare feet cold against the wooden planks.  She knocked several times, the feeling of wrongness growing more distinct, muffled sobbing issuing from the other side.

Eli
wouldn’t have had the strength to go on if not for his children, sixteen-year-old Mandie and eleven-year-old Erick.  After the death of their mother, they needed him more than ever.  And he them.  Things weren’t the same, of course, and never would be again, but they pulled together and kept going.

It was impossible to escape the memories, even if they’d wanted to.  She was everywhere
: singing cheerfully to herself in the kitchen, riding beside them in the wagon, sitting in front of the hearth in her high-backed rocking chair, knitting socks for her beloved husband who, as she put it, “Can wear out new clothes nearly as fast as he can wear out my patience!” 

Their two sheep dogs, Graybeard and Blue, seeming to sense
Eli’s profound loneliness, took to sleeping at his feet, breaking a rule that had been in place since they were pups.  If Marnie were alive, she would not have stood for it, swatting them off the bed with a broom and a curse.  As things were, however, he doubted she’d mind.

Mandie took o
n many of the womanly duties, this on top of her already full schedule, cleaning, cooking, and even nagging—something for which she found she possessed a particular talent.  No, things were not the same, and never would be again, but they
kept going,
going through the motions of life, hoping that one day the sharp edge of their grief would dull.

Six months later,
Erick died, mauled by a pack of wolves while out tending the sheep. Erick crawled home on hands and knees that had been torn to ribbons.  Graybeard and Blue had killed three of the wolves trying to save him, but the pack was too large.  Too vicious.  They never had a chance.  They could have gotten away while the wolves were busy with Erick.  But they stood their ground, defending him to the end, offering their flesh to the maker so that he might live.

One of the wolves got its head bashed in by
Erick’s walking stick, a heavy ironwood staff carved by his father, eagle’s head on top, steel cap on bottom. Erick was born with one leg shorter than the other, and so had walked with a slight limp.  Thus, the staff had become a constant companion.  The eagle’s feathers were now drenched in wolf’s blood, soaked deep into the grain of the wood, an ugly stain to mark Erick’s passage from this life to the next, marring that which had once been beautiful. 

To be sure, he’d been a strapping lad for eleven, and as such had managed to hang on for days after the attack, finally surrendering late one afternoon to the fever that had raged through his body like fire through a
dry forest.

He was buried with his staff, dressed in his Sunday finest.  It
had rained that day.  At the time, Eli thought The Watcher was crying for their loss.  Now he knew the truth.  If there was a god, his benevolence did not extend to people like him.

“If you don’t have
the time for me and mine,” he had said a few days after the burial, shaking his fist at the heavens, “then I don’t have time for you!  So be it!”

The wolves had never attacked a person before, not this far south anyway.  Folks began to discuss what such an attack might portend.  Perhaps the Johansen family was cursed
.  I mean, first the mother and now this.  They were to be pitied, The Watcher help them.  But from a distance—just in case.  After all, one never knew when a curse might choose to latch on to someone else. 

People at school, and then even church, began to give Mandie and her father a wide b
erth.  Almost everyone sent a letter to say how sorry they were, and yet apparently no one was sorry enough to speak to them, much less call on them.  They treated the remaining members of the Johansen family as if they had plague, averting their eyes if they happened to pass them on the street, hearts full of fear, pity, and shame.

And now that Mandie had slipped into this trance, or coma, or whatever in the name of whoever it was, muttering incoherencies about people and places that didn’t even exist,
Eli had begun to wonder if they weren’t right.  Perhaps he and his family were cursed.  He was a simple man.  What did he know of such things? 

Tomorrow, he would call on Sarilla, the witch woman up Hooktooth Hill who, according to her own frequent declarations, was the greatest soothsayer to
ever have lived.  Normally, he wouldn’t consider such a thing.  But these were not normal times, and he was desperate.  Mayhap there was a potion or elixir of some sort that could help.  At this point, he would try anything.  He needn’t go under cover of darkness or in disguise as Marnie, and sometimes Mandie, had done when they had made the trip to procure preparations for stiff joints, bad dreams, and the like.

Come to think of it, he ought to take Mandie with him in the wagon, bundle her up tight in
some blankets and pillows.  Might as well shout his intentions from the rooftops.  It wasn’t like the gossip could get any worse.  He’d tried Old Man Waverly, the town doctor, to little or no avail.  He might as well try the witch.  If they were cursed, as everyone in Fairhaven already believed, a witch woman might be just the thing—a doctor for the flu, a witch for a curse. If it wasn’t a saying, it oughta be. 

Mandie’s condition had deteriorated to the point that, in order to get her to eat, he now had to mash up her food. 
At least she swallows it,
he thought. 
I suppose I should be grateful for that much.
  He just wished she’d come back to him, and stop speaking in riddles, mumbling about someone named Andaris and someplace called Rogar. 

If she die
d, he’d have nothing left.  The vegetables were rotting in the fields, the sheep were two weeks past shearing time, and for once he didn’t care.  Indeed, beyond the seventeen-year-old girl lying before him, he didn’t care much about anything anymore.  He fed her, combed her hair, washed her face, and changed her clothes, all while scarcely sleeping or eating himself.  He was ever by her side, knowing that he couldn’t bear it if she died, especially if it was because of something he didn’t do. 

“Come back to me,” he whisper
ed, tears streaming down cheeks that had recently gone from flushed with health to sunken and gray.  “Please, Mandie.  If you can hear me…come back.”