Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 12 of 22

Elaria crossed the chamber in steady steps, the orb's light steady on her chest. The doorway at the far wall grew clear as she came near. It was not plain stone after all. A jagged arch of pale crystal stood set into the wall, its edges sharp as broken glass. White chalk lines ran across its face in tight rows of symbols she did not know. Beyond the arch, the corridor split into three dark mouths. She stopped a pace short and read what she could. The marks were a cipher. Without the key, stepping through meant choosing one of three paths she could not undo. She checked the orb. The light had thinned a finger's width inside the glass. Maybe forty minutes left. She set the chain down and walked the chamber's edge, looking for anything the chalk-writer might have left behind. Near the side wall she found it. A block of clear ice sat on a low shelf, its surface scored with hard charcoal strokes. The strokes matched the shapes on the arch. She turned the block in her hands. One face held a column of symbols paired with simple marks she recognized — arrows, a circle, a cross. A key, cut by whoever had marked the door. Elaria carried the block to the arch and crouched. She began to work the cipher line by line. The light was poor for it. Her fingers cramped on the cold ice. She matched a symbol, found its plain mark, wrote it in her head, moved on. She had read four lines when Lia stirred against her chest and pushed out of the cradle. The sprite drifted to the side wall and pressed herself flat against a tall stone column Elaria had not seen in the dim. Frost bloomed where Lia touched. Deep-carved symbols rose under the bloom, the same shapes as the arch. "Stay there," Elaria said. She brought the orb close. The column held the cipher in full, carved deep and clean, with its key cut beside it. The ice block had been a copy. The column was the source. She read fast, lips moving, matching the arch's lines against the carved key. The message was a warning and a count. Left mouth: false floor. Center mouth: long climb, safe. Right mouth: collapse. She read it twice to be sure. Then she stood and faced the arch. The orb dimmed another notch. Elaria fixed the center mouth in her mind, picked up the chain, and lifted Lia back into the cradle. She stepped through the crystal arch into the center passage. Behind her, the chamber light held a few minutes more, then went out. She did not look back. The path ahead climbed in the dark, and she began to count her paces again.