An Ancient Ruin by a Wayside
Town,
Five Hundred Gold?!?!
Children who grow up with an
overactive imagination have a predisposition for getting into trouble. Those
same children growing up near an ancient temple ruin are almost guaranteed to
trouble.
Zhiya was bored, having just escaped
her daily needlework lesson and slipped out to the green fields by the ruin.
The Gate was always open to her, but more often now, the voices were quiet,
those spirits who still somehow resided within the ruins silent. It made for
even more boring afternoons.
As she was sitting there on a smooth
rock, the merest spark of an idea came to her: what if she were to go into
the ruin and see why the voices had stopped? But… weren’t they ruins for a
reason? Something about the Mazoku and the Koma War? Suddenly it seemed all the
more interesting. The Elders wouldn’t talk much about it, maybe the ruin itself
held the secrets of history…
She slid down off of her perch and started
back into the town. She had some things to gather and pack first.
“Ano… I’m hungry!” The redheaded
sorceress whined at her blonde companion, hanging her head. They’d been walking
with their other two (sometimes three) companions for several days without
seeing so much as anything close to being called a town. They’d been living off
of the fish in the river that ran parallel to the road – until the river had
turned and the road had not. It had only been a few hours since they had left
the river behind, but Lina was already whining. She was good at it.
The little group came to a halt,
Lina looking around her with a disconsolate expression. “I’m hungry and there’s
nothing but woods!”
“Not exactly,” came Zelgadis’ reply.
Within moments of the group stopping, he had climbed a tree and was looking
forwards through the woods. “There is a town ahead, and not too far off from
the town is what appears to be a ruin of some age.”
Instantly Lina was a cheerful and
rapidly running figure along the road. “Town! Food! Ruins! Treasure!!”
Zelgadis swung out of the tree,
shaking his head at the vanishing sorceress. Some things never changed. Looking
after Lina (and now Gourry) for a moment more, he turned to Amelia. “We’d
better catch up. If we don’t, there will be no food left for us.”
Amelia nodded solemnly, then they
both started off at a dead run after the two who were leaving them behind.
The town was small, a moderate tavern on one side of
the main road, and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on the other. Fortunately, the
restaurant was open. There wasn’t much of a selection, but there was enough
food for the four hungry travelers.
As they were eating, a bell began to ring from
outside the restaurant.
“Mmph. Wonder what that is…” Lina mused with a mouth
full of food.
Amelia put down her drink and shrugged, looking out
the window. “I don’t know, Miss Lina, but there are a lot of people gathering
over there…”
The door to the restaurant flew open and a rather
overweight older gentleman came in, followed by a scrawny looking youth. He
seemed to focus on the little band of travelers immediately and hurried to
their table, the youth straggling behind, as if he didn’t want to be there.
“Are you for hire?” The elderly man said, looking at
the group. The redheaded girl didn’t look like much, but the blonde guy beside
her had a sword. The petite dark-haired girl looked up from her plate and
seemed to be considering, while the fourth individual at the table turned away,
as if uninterested, cloak drawn up over his head.
The redheaded girl swallowed and looked at the
arrivals with a blank curiosity on her face. “I’d say that it depends.”
“Depends?” The old man asked.
The redhead nodded. “Yeah. On what we have to do…
and how much it pays.”
The youth behind the older gentleman facefaulted and
turned, as if to go.
Reaching behind him to grab the youth and keep him
from leaving, the old man gritted his teeth. Both young ones needed a few
lessons, but he didn’t have the time. “The Princess Zhiya has gone missing.”
“Hold it right there,” the redhead said, putting up
a hand to silence him. “I’m not a babysitting service. I don’t go looking for
lost little girls in big spooky ruins. It’s not what I do.” And she turned back
to her plate of food.
The old man spluttered. “But she’s the Princess! And
the ruins are dangerous.” There was a pause. “And the reward is one hundred
gold pieces.”
The girl simply picked up her goblet and started to
drink. No one else at the table moved.
“Fine. Two hundred gold pieces,” the old man said.
The redhead put down the goblet. The blonde man
looked at her, but didn’t say anything.
“Five hundred gold pieces if you rescue my sister!”
The youth blurted out.
Everyone turned and stared, even the cloaked figure
had turned to set chilling blue eyes on the pair.
The old man wanted to kill the Prince. This was what
he had to train to be a man. Careless with appearance, even more careless with
money… but the offer had been spoken.
“Well… I’m sure that she’s scared, and since you
seem to care so much about your sister… and an old ruin shouldn’t go ignored,
eh Zel?” The redhead glanced across the table, then turned to the pair again.
“We’ll take it. Which way to the ruins, and where can we get supplies?”
The old man sighed. Such groups always wanted
extras, even after extortionist fees. “Go to the side door of the weapons shop
and tell them that Augerty sent you. The ruin is past the East Gate of the
town. You can’t miss it.” His eyes settled on the petite dark-haired girl with
the amulet. “Watch yourself. They say that those who use magic can hear the
voices of the mages who died in battles there. My own daughter was very near
your age when the voices drove her to the water.”
Amelia opened her mouth, but the old man turned,
forcing the youth in front of him. “Find her quickly, if you would. The
Princess is not accustomed to nights that are chilled.”
With that, the pair left.
Lina rose from the table and settled her sword at
her hip. “So. Let’s go.”
As the group headed off towards the East Gate, they
considered that the old man had told them.
“Voices. What kind of voices do you think they are,
Miss Lina?” Amelia asked, looking towards the East Gate.
Lina shrugged. “I don’t know, Amelia. I’ve never
heard voices that weren’t explainable one way or the other. I mean, half the
mysterious voices I’ve heard are either some local prankster or on odd occasion
a true spirit. In any case, I’m sure that any voices we may hear will end up
being the same… if there are even any voices at all.”
Amelia nodded thoughtfully, offering nothing more.
When they got to the Gate, they discovered that it
was a truly massive stone archway with a heavily wrought iron gate. Not
surprisingly, it was closed, but they didn’t expect it to have a singularly
imposing inscription worked into the iron, written in a language older than
they were.
Lina puzzled over the words for a moment, shaking
her head. “I have no idea what this says.” She pushed at the Gate, but it
didn’t budge.
Gourry, for once, didn’t even bother to look at the
words, but busied himself trying to climb the stone wall. Each time he hit the
ground, he got up and tried again. Ignoring him, Amelia peered at the words,
and shook her head as well. “I don’t understand it either, Miss Lina.”
“Know this: Beyond this Gate lies the way to
Kuroryu.”
Lina, Amelia, and Gourry (once he picked himself off
of the ground yet again) all turned to look at Zelgadis – who had been silent
up until now.
“Keep going, Zel.” Lina said quietly.
The chimera stepped forward to read the rest of the
script. “By this Gate you may pass only by way of invitation. Then you will
know.”
Zelgadis paused. “That’s all it says.”
“Only by invitation. Okay then…levitation!” Flying into the air, Lina
approached the Gate, but was held back by a force that she had not encountered
before. Landing, she frowned. “That’s a magic barrier…” Aiming a finger, she
cast a fireball towards the Gate.
The smoke cleared – the Gate was still there,
closed.
“I don’t get it! Why isn’t the Gate opening? We were
invited, after all.” Lina said.
“Were we?” Zelgadis asked. “I seem to recall us
being told to go there, Lina.”
“The only way to get through the Gate is to be
invited by someone on the other side of it.”
“Yeah, well how do we get anyone on the other side
of the Gate to invite us in?” Lina asked, then looked at her companions as they
stared at her.
“Um… Miss Lina? Who were you talking to?” Amelia
asked cautiously.
Lina’s eyes shifted from one member of the group to
the other. “You mean… you didn’t hear that? None of you heard that?”
Three heads shook in negation. Only Zelgadis didn’t
look too surprised that Lina should be the one to hear voices.
“They can’t hear me, no. But I shall invite you into
the ruins, Lina Inverse.”
Lina folded her arms, turned away from the Gate, and
again addressed the unknown. “Sorry, I’m a package deal. Where I go, they go.”
“Then all of you are invited. Come…”
The lock on the Gate twitched, then fell open,
allowing exit of the town and approach to the ruins.
“It’s open.” Zelgadis said, pointing.
Lina didn’t need to be told twice. She was through
the Gate in a moment, turning to hold it open lest the spirit or whatever it
was change its mind. But the others followed so quickly that it really wasn’t
an issue.
“I sure hope that we can get back to the town. It
doesn’t look like there’s much to eat along the way.” Gourry said.
“You didn’t have to remind me,” Lina muttered,
narrowing her eyes as she set her gaze to the ruins.
“We’d better get moving. The sooner we find the
Princess…” Zelgadis began.
“The sooner we’re back in the town,” Lina finished.
That was all it took to get the little group moving
towards the ruins.
Zhiya wandered the crumbling halls, looking with
blank curiosity at the images on the walls. She understood that the images were
of the Koma War, but the writing was totally lost to her.
“I don’t understand. The pictures are so vivid… but
without the words… I know that I’m looking at something important in our
history. But I want to understand the meaning behind it.”
Stony silence was the only reply that she got.
She sighed. “That’s right. I’m here to prove myself.
And I suppose that means learning the language.”
A vague sort of approval filtered through her mind,
and she walked over to the wall with the most writing and sat with a smirk.
Drawing out a tablet and stylus, she opened to a blank page and began to copy
down symbols.
“You realize, of course, that I have nothing to
relate this to. The oldest writing I know is only a few hundred years old.
Nothing from the Koma War is in my town. It isn’t allowed” She commented to no-one
and everyone.
She knew that she wasn’t talking to
herself. There were others there, but she was being tested. The others weren’t
allowed to help her out. She had to figure it out on her own.
Her hand drifted up to the locket on
her necklace. Often when she thought hard, she tugged at her necklace, as if
trying to draw something from the family crest and the aged photo of her
mother.
Unconsciously, she opened the locket
and stared at the photo within. A glimmer of something caught her attention,
and she turned her focus to the family crest. The words encircling it were the
same as on the walls. The words that she knew so well…
“Proud Stands God’s Warriors.”
It was a start. But what symbols
meant what? She shook her head and sighed. “Mama… I wish that you could have
taught me…”
There was a swirling of magic, and
she saw the words on the locket shimmer and seem to lift off the gold and join
with their counterparts on the wall. Slowly, the other words began to glow as
well, and she began to make sense of the words.
As she began reading the words and
starting to understand the story, more and more words began to glow. So lost in
the magic of working the translation was Zhiya that she completely lost track
of time.
She sat back, looking at the wall.
It was starting to come clear to her, but she was so very, very tired. Yawning,
she tilted her head and considered her travel pack. /Not much food left – hope
this test doesn’t last much longer./
Pulling out a small loaf of bread,
she leaned against the wall and chewed thoughtfully. “So… this is related to
Court Royal Speech. Too bad I haven’t been able to learn it. But there’s
something odd about it. It’s like a different dialect of Court Kuroryu. Or… is
Court Kuroryu a dialect of this? Is that it? I mean, I know that we’re named
for the Ruins… but was it originally named for those who lived here?”
There was a vague sense of
affirmation.
“So who were they…? Or will this
tell me in the end?” Her eyelids started to slowly close. Sleep was taking over
and she spent a moment to realize that she hadn’t slept since the day she snuck
out to the ruins.
Then the moment was gone, and so was
she.
The guardian who had been watching
her drew the soft blanket of warmth around the Daughter of Kuroryu and settled
in to watch her sleep and keep her safe.