Sweiza looks up. She sees the clouds turn silver with a kaleidescope of pastel colors. She tries to shield her eyes from the brightness. Is it the Bifrost Bridge activating? She remembers she was out in the desert. Is it Strife?
“What is it that you desire?”
The voice rings out throughout the land. Afraid, but ready to meet her adversary—Sweiza pulls out her sword.
Demi appears before her.
“Demi, thank the Goddess; you’re alive!” Sweiza rushes up to him to hug him. He disappears the minute she goes to warp her arms around him.
His voice can be heard all around her.
“You are in great peril right now.”
Sweiza looks up, down, and all around; but she does not see him.
“Demi, where are you? Is this some kind of trick? I thought we were friends!”
Her voice shows her disdain for the dream spirit.
Demi’s voice is once again heard throughout the vicinity.
“You are currently sleepwalking. Something is guiding you around a structure with a great energy about it. I’m not certain what. But I feel as if there is some kind of artifact underneath the ground.”
Sweiza’s attention perks, but not before she quizzically tilts her head. “What kind of artifact?”
“It appears to be alive, but at the same time it isn’t. It isn’t of this world. I feel an odd energy about it.”
“Demi, quit talking in dumb riddles. You’re beginning to annoy me!” Sweiza’s arms cross.
The clouds around her reveal themselves to be a dense fog. The multi-colored pastels of the Bifrost Bridge encapsulate her and continue to circle. They suddenly disappear and the fog starts to dissipate.
“That creature just in the distance…”
Demi’s voice echoes, but fades in the distance. The world starts to dim. Sweiza knows she will be waking up soon. She rushes forward to see what it is. It is a small creature covered in hair; it has funny eyes and a horn growing out of its head. It’s body is a different mix of light blue, green and purple. Before she can investigate further, the world starts to dim. She calls out to Demi, but the world falls silence before everything turns black.
—
Sweiza lets out a groan. Her eyes open and almost falls over when she realizes she is standing. She jumps back and looks back and forth—she sees nothing but blackness around her. She summons her sword. She points it at anything in the darkness, but she sees nothing. She must be in the pyramid. How did she get here? Oh wait! Of course, sleepwalking! She remembers what she has to do based on experience in Maria during a new moon. Her sword disappears and she turns around. She puts her hands in front of her and begins walking forward very slowly. She continues to move her hands in front of her hoping to hear anything.
After some thirty paces she starts to hear water flowing—occasionally she hears it ripple. She stops dead in her tracks. She’s inside in a building with flowing water? There has to be some kind of channel holding it, or worse a reservoir. She summons the crossbow hoping she still has it armed. On instinct she cocks it straight ahead and tries to fire it. She hears the mechanism release, but the arrow reverberates and falls silence when it hits brick.
Sweiza cocks and eyebrow and her mouth opens into an ‘o’ in disgust. She can’t see herself if she tries to arm the bow again—she might risk injury. She waits some minutes hoping her vision adjusts. After a boring time she counts silently to herself for five more minutes. Nothing happens.
She mouths to herself, “What am I supposed to do?”
Suddenly, the boundary between the walls and the floor around her light up with a pale blue. She rushes up to them, but just shy of the dropoff. As expected, there is a canal between the floor of the room and the wall. In fact, there appear to be four canals around a square room. There are doors, but they are above the canal and embedded up in the walls—some two stories above the floor. She doesn’t know how anyone gets up there. Perhaps they fall into this room? Do they perish? Perhaps if they are carrying a torch, it becomes extinguished because of the water?
Then what purpose does this room serve?
With the water glowing and illuminating the channel, she holds up the crossbow and it disappears from her hand and into her being. She drops to her hands and knees and kneels in front off the water. It looks clean—but there is the mystery of why it glows that light blue color. She suddenly jumps back when a fish pops out of the water and stares up at her. She summons her courage and her head pops back over the canal at floor level.
The fish winks at her.
“What are you?”
It copies her words, “What are you?”
She eyes it once with disdain. “I am a human. How can you talk?”
“I am the keeper of this room and a riddle. Would you like to hear it?”
Sweiza looks down once. Riddles. This must be some kind of test by the creature Demi mentioned. There better be a good reward in it for her.
“Ask your silly game and then tell me how to get out of this ‘pit’!”
The fish doesn’t react, but glows blue when it asks. “I am called fine when made of sunshine; I can breed a new moon; when in doubt look up at high noon.
If I am full of bad weather, bad moods abound. A cloudy or murky day, but I can help the weather get around. A hail storm in the summer and dreary snow in the winter; I can cast lightning and push wind the same. I can be responsible for a drought, and in the worst of times a tornado; now you tell me what is this all about?”
The fish eyes her with those unnerving black eyes.
She points her finger in the sky, “A cloud in the sky, or the weather.”
The fish disappears into the water. She leans over closer. “Did I get it?”
The fish soon appears back above the surface. He spits water in her face. “Wrong. The answer is the sky.”
“I just said that!”
“You said cloud in the sky!”
Sweiza stammers. She is not amused. As the fish flips up into the air, the girl summons the crossbow and an arrow. Seems to notice and drops to the water and then raises his tail to splash her. A sharp pain hits him as one of the hooks of her grappling hook impales him. She pulls on the rope and hoists him out of the water. He dangles as the rope of the hook spins; she holds him up to eye level. Her eyes narrow.
“Now I have a riddle for you! What makes me very angry, what will become my dinner and what will I fillet very slowly if you don’t tell me how to get out of this room.”
The fish’s mouth drops and it’s mouth and eyes look up at one of the doors in the wall. Sweiza brings the fish close to her.
“Thanks!”
She does something new, she doesn’t know if it will work. She attempts to bring the grappling hook into her being, but does not include the fish. It works. The hook disappears and the fish drops to the ground. It flops around with an open wound. Sweiza raises her hand and the blue illumination of the river glints off of her machete. She finishes the deed and promptly dresses the fish and puts it in a bag for later. No sense in letting good food go to waste.
She moves to one of the corners of the room and summons her grappling hook. Swinging it in a circle and hard, she finally releases and it flies up to the doorway. She pulls it tight and it catches.
She’s getting out of here!
—
The room is dark. She looks back out the doorway she came. It is dark again. She doesn’t have time for this. She summons her firestarter stick and squats down. She scrapes it on the ground. It emites sparks. She summons one of the torches she bought in Muspell Harbor. She drags it just behind her fire starter. It takes some frustrating minutes, but eventually one of the sparks catch and it catches fire. She holds it up and checks the room out. It looks like another square room. She’s back in the corridor at the entrance to the pyramid. She tilts her head and wonders. One of the doors suddenly glows blue. She gets the idea. She walks forward and it opens.
Inside the room she takes one step forward and freezes when the doors behind her slide shut. How did stone like that move by itself? Some kind of security mechanism? It doesn’t matter.
She stamps her foot.
“If this is some kind of game, I’m not impressed! Show yourself!”
She jumps back when a gold and radiant lion appears in front of her. It lets out a roar. She drops the torch. She scrambles to scoop it up and runs. She feels something tangle between her feet. She falls to the ground and drops the torch. She turns around to see a very large—much larger than life—lion staring down at her. She can hear it slowly growling.
“What do you want?” She says it in a defiant, but shaky voice.
The lion’s eyes glow yellow. “I am bright and radiant like the midday sun; I smell of earth and then some. I erupt from the clouds and some call me fun. I am multicolored and a gift of the gods. What am I?”
Sweiza stands up. “Another riddle? Hah! The answer is a rainbow after a thunderstorm.”
The lion leans down towards her. Its head is the size of her body.
“Incorrect. The answer is the Bifrost Bridge.”
The lion turns around and starts to fade as it walks away from the girl. Sweiza holds up the crossbow, she summons a silver arrow and points it at the lion. It turns around when it hears the click and release of the device. It nails it straight in the nose. Sweiza flinches at her bad marksmanship; perhaps because she is nervous.
The lion howls in pain. It attempts to paw at the arrow. Sweiza arms another one and points it at the lion. She points it straight at its head.
“Show me to the next room, or you’ll suffer the same fate as the fish.”
The lion growls at her in distate, “I cannot be killed. The next room awaits you.”
A sound rumbles behind her. It is the door. She however doesn’t take her eyes off the lion. She says nothing and lets loose the arrow. It flies at the lion, but it passes through him as he fades. The arrow that was in his nose drops to the ground.
“Oh, whatever!”
With the lion gone, the room is less visible and she scrambles for the torch. She collects the two arrows and walks out of the room and finds herself back in the main corridor.
She looks at all of the doors. They are all closed. She hears a rumble and then the crash of the door behind her. She gives it no attention. She sees one door is open. It is next to the room she was in with the fish.
—
Sweiza walks around the room a bit. It is about the same size as the other rooms. She only has a few moments to gain her bearings when she feels something clamp around her. The torch in her hands drops. She struggles and lets out a whimper when she feels herself being hoisted off the ground. The figure illuminates. She sees two stalk eyes attached to a body. There are many legs. She follows the arm attached to the body. She is caught in a pincer claw!
She struggles to free herself, but it is no use. The crab pulls her closer to one of its eyes. It speaks.
“Name the moons of the planet Avalan.”
It’s voice sounds weird and raspy and it comes out almost as a weird reverberating click. She is disgusted at its weird mouth.
She stops struggling. “Hayduria, Mardin, Lokul and Mylaka!”
The girl smiles at her own genius, but it quicker turns into a frown when the claw holding her slackens and sets her on the ground.
“You forgot Mek and Mecer!”
Sweiza’s eyes widen and then glare at the giant crab, “Those moons no longer exist! A giant dragon ate them!”
The crab’s stalk eyes blink once and the figure starts to disappear. The room disappears. Sweiza quickly grabs her torch and hoists it up. She shakes her head in disgust and leaves the room. The doors close shut behind her. She enters the next room.
—
Sweiza stops just shy of the room, this time expecting some kind of trick. She hears the ‘baa’ of a sheep to her left and next to her torch hand. She looks over. It is a ram.
“Walk with me for a time young one, for my time is short.”
Sweiza shrugs at the funny looking thing, but follows it. They walk along the perimeter of the room.
“I do not like the others, they do not like me; they ask childish riddles and end in giggles of of folly. If I was a giant I would look down upon them and step over them. My arrogance overrides my senses and a pensive attitude…”
Sweiza flinches at the word ‘pensive’.
“…but I am lost in a sea of wonder like statues surrounding me. Everywhere I look, there is a curiosity, but cut out like stone. If I were a child, I would be looked down on by an adult; but if I were an adult I would be looked down on by a child. Both be confusion, perhaps until I become old age?”
Sweiza hears the door behind her slide shut. She looks behind her and then in front. She is back in the main corridor. She looks down at the ram. It stamps its foot on the ground. It stares back at her and begins to fade.
“Wait, I don’t understand!”
It stamps its foot one more and continues to fade as it speaks, “It was merely a question with no answer. The key to enlightenment is to never stop yourself short of your questions, or your answers.”
Sweiza cocks her eyebrows up and her ears shoot back. “Absolute bullsh… I mean ramshit.”
She much likes that new word. She is startled when she hears the ram speak one last time.
“Your next test awaits you.”
—
The next room has her completely taken by surprise. It is quite illuminated with a strange dome structure in the center of the room. More importantly, but strangely still—the floor of the room is covered with wheat. She notices the walls are also covered with glowing figures of Futhark. She approaches the woman—although in the back of her mind, she keeps the option of summoning the crossbow or her sword.
The woman is holding a small bowl and a small spoon. As Sweiza approaches, she realizes she is wrong at what she first saw. Instead she realizes it is a mortar and pestle set (medicine bowl and crusher). She assumes the woman is crushing wheat. Approaching closer, she realizes she is right. The footsteps of her boots get the woman’s attention. She looks up at Sweiza and smiles; she sets the pestle back down into the mortar.
“Hi.”
Now Sweiza is really taken aback.
The woman places her hands in her lap. “You seem to be the shy type.”
Sweiza is stupefied at the statement.
Sweiza stammers. The woman lets out a laugh and a giggle. She realizes her mistake and covers her mouth; she stifles one more laugh before resuming a pleasant face and demeanor towards Sweiza.
“How far have you come to get here?”
One of Sweiza’s eyes narrow at the question. “If that’s another one of those stupid riddles, you can forget it! I’ve failed every last one of them!”
The woman laughs again. “Not at all. I merely wish to talk for a spell or two.”
Sweiza’s eyes narrow. “I see. I come some sixty miles distance. I wasn’t aware there was a pyramid here.”
The woman’s eyes widen in surprise. “You are from one of the villages?”
“There is a large harbor nearby you know.” Sweiza says it unimpressed. Just what is this woman’s game anyway?
“There is?” The woman looks at her in confusion.
“Nevermind. Whatever. I give up!”
“Are you from Maria Village?”
Sweiza’s eyes widen, “What? Wait! How did you know?!”
“I thought it was obvious?” She tilts her head and smiles at the girl.
If a question mark could appear above Sweiza, everyone in the room (or lack thereof) could see it. There is silence when Sweiza doesn’t answer the woman.
The woman smiles again.
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“You’re accent sounds a mix between Muspellian and Midgardian…”
Sweiza blinks once; this doesn’t sound too far fetched, but she herself doesn’t know. Do bordering countries have a mix of accents? She thought dialects change over time; wouldn’t hers be different from people in this time period?
“…but something about it sounds a little different…”
That answers Sweiza’s question.
“…you are quick to dismiss things. People that come here from Maria act like that. They keep to their own affairs rather than wondering about this and that.”
“I suppose so.” Sweiza’s words come out embarassed and stifled. She has been found out. She could try lying, but she has a feeling this woman will find her out—one way or the other.
“…so do you intend to travel far?” There is a strange, but pleasant pitch to the woman’s voice. She’s digging for something, Sweiza can feel it. She chooses to play along.
“There is something in this pyramid we are looking for.”
“Pyramid? Oh! You mean this place. Did the guide not tell you the name?” The woman’s hands leave her lap as she supports herself, still sitting.
“I was told to come to this pyramid.”
“It’s called the Muspell Museum of History.” The woman’s hands are once again in her lap. She still maintains the pleasant demeanor.
“Museum? I didn’t know there was a museum out this way! I thought it was at Muspell Harbor?” Sweiza flinches, she realizes she just gave away something she shouldn’t.
“Muspell Harbor? Has there been one established around here? The coast isn’t for another thirty miles or so. It would be rather out of the way.”
“Maybe I’m mistaken then. We came by a harbor to get here.”
The woman’s head tilts just ever so slightly in curiosity. She says nothing.
Silence and time passes between them for a few seconds. It is awkward.
Sweiza is surprised when the woman finally stands. She approaches Sweiza. There is still silence. Curious of intent washes over the girl. It is not obvious to the woman. The woman finally is a few feet from Sweiza. The woman pulls out something from her hair and gives it to the girl.
“I think it would look rather good on you. Please take it.”
Sweiza’s hand passes over the woman’s. She holds up the object at eye level. It is a hairclip in the shape of the head of a wheat plant. Sweiza blinks once at the gift and looks strangely at the woman.
“You don’t like it?” The woman’s tone changes to something a bit more depressed.
Maria Village custom takes over and Sweiza bows. “No, not at all. I’ll wear it right away. See?”
The woman smiles when Sweiza inserts the clip into her hair. Sweiza isn’t sure about it; but it will probably look better with feathers—seagull maybe—but that is something to worry about later.
“Very well then. Do you have a name?”
“My name is…” Sweiza trails off. She doesn’t like telling people in this time period her name—ah! She has another one that will work! “I’m called Vera.”
“I see. You are a strange, but curious delight. It was very nice to have met you Vera. Thank you for speaking with me!” There is absolute delight in the woman’s voice. “I so rarely get to speak to people anymore. Please take this as a token of my appreciation; it will help you in the next room.”
Sweiza is curious what the woman is going to give her now. She sees nothing about her. Would it be the mortar and pestle?
The woman stoops down on her knees (rather gracefully), and pulls up several wheat plants by the stalks—a good ten of them. She hands them to Sweiza.
Sweiza takes them. The woman and the field around them start to disappear.
“Wait! I didn’t get your name!” Sweiza forces it out. This woman is way to pleasant to not have given her name.
The woman’s voice sweeps throughout the room. “Virgo.”
“Virgo?”
Sweiza looks around as everything in the room has disappeared. It is now just an empty and dark chamber.
“Oh shit!” She thinks to herself. She rushes over to the torch sitting at the door. She must have dropped it! The fire is still burning and there is nothing else to have caught fire thankfully!
She scoops up the torch and heads out to the corridor. She runs the name ‘Virgo’ in her mind. She’s heard that name before, but where?”
The doors behind her slide shut with a familiar clap like all the other doors before. This time she doesn’t flinch. She heads for the next door in line.
—
In the next room, Sweiza finds herself in a field. It is odd. The door to the corridor is just behind her, but everything else looks like it is out in the middle of nowhere. Yet she…
…wait! Something in the distance! A dust cloud? The cloud slowly gets closer. The girl waits their patiently trying to figure out how the picked ‘wheat’ will help her. The dust cloud continues to amble towards her. After some boring (in her mind) five minutes, she can see some kind of animal running straight at her.
Horns.
“A bull? What?!” She is stuck staring at it for a few seconds more before she snaps herself out of it and turns herself around to run back out the door. She must not have noticed it before, but the door closed while she was busy gawking. She makes a mental note not to let her attention get the better of her and pull her away from her senses. She tries to pull the door open, but it is sealed tight. She can hear hooves beating the ground in the distance. She turns around and attempts to run. However, when she tries to run past the door, she hits an invisible wall and hard. She falls backwards and catches herself with her hands. The impact hurts.
She can hear it closer now. Suddenly the footsteps stop.
She turns around in fear. The bull is staring down at her. It has to be three times the size of a normal bull. It has muscle all over its body. In fact, it is the most clean cut and attractive bull she has ever seen. She resists the urge to pull out the crossbow; at this range (and at that size) she is likely just to piss it off and get skewered by its horns.
The bull does nothing. She does notice it’s nostrils are moving. It finally lets out a snort and leans in on her. It begins smelling her. It’s looking for something? She remembers! She holds up the wheat stalks with some inappropriate giddiness towards her predicament—and possibly a dangerous one at that.
The bull’s eyes widen. It reaches down with it’s mouth and pulls them out of her hand. It turns around with its tail sticking straight up and trots off.
Sweiza stares at its hindquarters curiously. She thought bulls couldn’t stick their tail straight up like that.
She hears the slow sliding of the stone doors behind her opening.
She stands up and quickly dusts herself off; she stamps her foot on the ground and regains her dignity. This one she has clearly won.
Another strange ordeal. The rooms keep getting weirder and weirder.
—
Another blank room. She walks the rooms for a few minutes—checking the perimeter. She sees more Futhark adorning the walls. It must be an older script—she can’t read them—she wishes she could read them. If only there was a way to memorize what was on the wall.
After pacing around for some ten minutes—eying the closed door on occasion—she finally speaks. “This is some kind of cruel joke, isn’t it?”
Several Futhark symbols start to glow. They start to move; hundreds of them. They flow all around her and take up position. She looks up, down—all around; the symbols dim and start to resemble stars. She doesn’t know how she is standing in the makeshift sky, but she assumes it is an other illusion. Just then she hears the soft hooves of something galloping up to her. It sounds like a horse. She turns around to see a peculiar sight. It is definitely the body of a horse, but it has a naked man—at least the top half of a man—at the front of the horse. His arms cross as one of his front legs claps the ground.
“Excuse me. The others tell me you have a crossbow. Perhaps we can help each other out.”
Sweiza cocks an eyebrow up as she frowns; she is not impressed. “Really?”
“Can you hit a moving target?”
Now both eyebrows are up.
“To some degree, but I’ve always used a compact bow and only on rodents.”
The horseman lets out a laugh. “Good for practice then; you’ll be moving while you hit that target.”
“What?” Sweiza eyes his back—he can’t possibly mean that…
—
The goat lets out a warning call as yet another one of Sweiza’s arrows miss. This is perhaps the seventy-first arrow that she has shot at it. Riding bareback on a horse is something she never got accustomed to—the traveling circus (once a year) is the only time she ever got to ride horse, and she was never good at it. But to do such a thing on a horseman and while trying to steady herself, and shoot a crossbow? This is not a very good skill to learn; let alone master. But she gets the feeling she isn’t getting out of this ‘trial’ until she learns to do it properly.
It wouldn’t be so bad, but the goat keeps dodging. It’s almost as if it knows where she is going to hit. She winces and shakes her head and finally does something different—she aims in one direction and takes a random shot just offset from her original aim. The goat lets out a warning call in surprise and bolts in the other direction.
The centaur looks back, “You seem to be improving!”
Sweiza looks up at the stars (and nothing but stars!) in disbelief. She has an idea.
She uses the fake out technique to herd the goat around. She has a feeling the room is still there—despite the starscape all around her—and she can herd the goat into a corner.
Her plan doesn’t work. The goat seems to run straight at them in some instances, and then dodges or bolts in others. She does note several of her arrows appear to seemingly embed themselves into something midair; they remain motionless and suspended. That must be the wall. The centaur seems to know where the walls are as he never gets to close to them. The goat will run right alongside them; in a few instances she swears the goat actually hits the wall. She gets a better idea—how the men of the village hunt larger quarry.
“What? That’s a brilliant idea! But you have to do it while moving!”
The centaur has no objections with Sweiza’s plan.
She braces herself for the aftermath—this will probably take a couple hundred arrows.
—
Over the next hour the goat’s speed starts to slow down. Rather than laying a killing shot, Sweiza continues to use the fake out technique—often rapid times in succession to keep the poor goat on its toes. Eventually it starts to shake and sway. Her plan is working. After a time its shaky legs give out and it drops to the side. The centaur looks behind him at her.
“It’s supposed to be while the target is moving.”
“Oh please, I shot at it several times. It was fighting the inevitable.”
Sweiza comes up with an idea, rather she lies. “Besides, you can’t tell me you didn’t have fun chasing that thing around. You and your friends seem to be lonely.”
The centaur knows exactly what she is on about. “Indeed. But little girls shouldn’t be lieing.”
Sweiza shudders; she’s been found out. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
The centaur makes a motion for her to step down and the starscape starts to fade and the doors open.
“So was that a pass?” She is left to ponder it as she exits the room.
—
In the next room the scenery changes to an arid desert.
“Real original.” She scoffs at the next ‘challenge’.
She sees mountains appear in the distance; and then a large figure in front of them. She doesn’t know what she is supposed to do—should she approach the statue? Wouldn’t she run into a wall? Are these tests meant to test intelligence?
She doesn’t have time to figure it out when it starts to rain. She looks up and curses her luck. This of all things. Then a clap of thunder. She jumps and there is no further hesitation as she runs towards the statue. She runs out of breath after about half a mile. Another clap of thunder further motivates her and she jobs along—stopping every so often to get a gulp of air.
It feels like forever, but is closer to seven miles before she gets to the statue. It is larger than she thought—the distance made it look extremely small. She see the statue is holding something. It is an urn. There appears to be water coming out of it. From the rain?
She looks up. She can’t tell what color the woman’s hair is supposed to be, but it is long. There is rain streaming down the statue. Upon further inspection, the woman is wearing loose clothing, but made of animal hide with some of the fur still on it. The shoes of the woman are the same. She has several braids and laced jewelry on her neck and arms. There is a single fur cloth wrapped around one of her legs.
A clap of thunder has Sweiza’s eyes on the sky again. Mama always told her not to look up at the sky in a thunderstorm—it was a good way for misbehaved children to get hit by lightning. She of course knows that was just a scare tactic to keep her from playing outdoors in a thunderstorm. Still, she tries to obey her mother’s words of advice and huddles underneath the statue’s legs. The rain doesn’t let up. An hour passes. Sweiza knows the test has something to do with the statue, but what? The urn?
She stands out from under the statue again and looks up. No water is coming out of the urn. Shouldn’t part of the stone statue have that? She wonders. She looks up at the face of the thing. It wasn’t remarkable before—but wait! Didn’t Salmira say something about a statue crying? Wasn’t that in Myrkvellir—or perhaps she (Salmira) knew about these trials? Hmm! She looks up at the statue’s face. Indeed—it is crying!
“You’re almost a sad a sight as I am.” She mutters it more to herself than the statue.
The eyes of the statue flicker a light blue before fading.
“It’s so lonely here—there are so few visitors now. It has been forever.”
Sweiza feels her hairs stand on end when she hears the voice. The voice is not to be unexpected with the way the experience in the rooms are—she calms down after a point.
“What do you mean it has been forever?” Sweiza’s arms cross. She assumes some kind of trick.
“There was one like you that came this way a few years ago. She milder than you.”
Sweiza’s eyes narrow. “So?”
“You are a mean one.”
Sweia cocks her head at the statue. “You would be if you grew up like I did.”
“Such a backwater girl.”
Sweiza is not impressed. “Why does the water come from your eyes and not the urn?”
The statue’s eyes flicker a light blue one last time and the rain suddenly stops. The storm quickly dissipate. The wind picks up suddenly. Sweiza is left to look in the direction of the howling wind. The remaining clouds start to spin. She knows what comes next. She dives behind one of the legs of the statue. Surely the tornado of this trial will not hit the statue.
She is dead wrong.
She lets out a scream at the tornado that forms; it heads straight in her direction and fast!
She has to huddle down and hold onto the statue’s leg. She has no experience with a tornado before; they are pretty rare in the Dawez Province.
The tornado’s base suddenly lifts from the round for a few hundred feet and then drops again. It repeats this steady motion of jumping and landing several times as it approaches the statue.
As the wind around her picks up and throws her off her feet, she is left to look in terror as the tornado jumps up and lunges at the statue. She shields her face and lets out a shriek. When she hears the wind suddenly stop, she chances looking up. The tornado is being sucked into the urn.
“What in Muspell?”
The scene fades and a single small urn is left in front of Sweiza. She cocks an eyebrow up at it while she frowns. She hears a single voice, “A gift; use it wisely.”
She lifts it up and tilts her head at it. It has Futhark written all over it. There are multiple drawings of women in robes pouring water out of it; there is also a picture of a tornado.
“Whatever.”
The doors to the room open. She absorbs the urn into her being and continues on her way.
—
The next door has a picture of a goat on it. It doesn’t open. Sweiza is left to ponder why. The checks out the previous doors. Each of them has a drawing on them. A ram, a bull, a fish, a woman with an urn, a horseman—these all look familiar to her. She can’t quite place it—something to do with a story when she was a child.
As she crosses her arms to reflect deep in thought, she is startled by the next door opening. She dismisses it and heads inside that room.
—
The doors inside the room shut behind her. The room is already illuminated. There is a massive scorpion inside. However, it appears to have already been killed as it’s legs are curled up and it’s main body is on the floor. One of it’s claws has been cut off. It’s tail and stinger are embedded in its head.
Sweiza doesn’t inch closer to it.
“What, did someone already kill it?”
She hears a rumble in the room once and the doors open again. She knows that is her que to leave; she doesn’t want an incident like with the statue. That ‘thing’ is also giving her the creeps. She turns around and rushes out.
—
She holds her torch up to the next door. A double-pan balance (scale) is on it. It looks very familiar to her, but she can’t quite place her finger on it. She decides to put her finger on it (the door). It opens. She enters.
—
When the room illuminates, Sweiza suddenly feels her weight being shifted around. She feels as if she is falling. She is on top of something gold. She looks around. It is a saucer. It is part of some kind of tower. She tries to avoid screaming as she continues to drop. She finally feels the weight shifting stop. She looks up. There is another tower in the distance and another yet. She can see stars twinkling. She looks down. There is some kind of platform behind the second tower. Wait; the third tower has a platform like the one she is on. She is on a weight?
“You can’t be serious!”
She hears something in the distance and turns in that direction. The moon is there. She already knows what this test is.
She starts summoning some of the ‘junk’ she acquired from Torry Enders in the Harbor Magistrate’s personal vault. Some of it curios, statues and the like—most of it she was told to sell in Muspell Harbor. She had forgotten about it; but that isn’t necessary from the money Strife left her.
She puts down a sizable sum that she feels is her weight.
She walks to the edge of the platform and grabs one of the tower wires. They are infact a type of ladder. She summons her courage and starts climbing. She is thankful for all of her outdoor running and climbing in trees. This will be easy; but it will take time.
This will be dangerous if she drops. She knows not to look down—the same advice they gave her on the “Sterling Blue” when climbing the rigging to get to the crow’s nest. Once at the top, she finally does look down—a mistake. She realizes she is up in the air some one hundred feet. The circus that visited Maria Village had a tightrope for people to walk; but it was only some five feet in the air and it had a net beneath it. She takes a gulp of air and holds her hands out. The long skyplatform and causeway is thankfully a foot wide. She can take her time if she is careful.
However, she looks down too many times. She finally drops to her belly and lets her arms and legs hang over the thing. The platform aims up, so it will be much easier to belly crawl to the other side.
She reaches the middle. It has a pedestal in front of it. She wonders about putting the urn there, but things better of it; she might need it for later. She braces her arms around the pedestal (it looks like an altar to her) and slowly pulls herself to the otherside of it. She lets herself down in a squat and then drops to her belly with both arms and legs cradling the platform again. She starts to belly crawl her way up. She swears she can see the landscape moving, but thinks nothing of it. About one quarter of the way to the end of the platform she realizes her mistake. The balance is going to move. She doesn’t know how much, but it will move back and forth like a seesaw.
A half minute later and she realizes that indeed, her intuition is correct. It starts to teeter a bit. She’s come this far and isn’t about to be deterred. She continues to belly crawl, but does so at a slower pace. Eventually the arm (platform in her case), starts to drop slowly. She hugs the platform as tightly as possible and continues the belly crawl—she stops for a bit when the arm starts to bob up and down. She miscalculated and badly. She feels sick. She keeps pushing herself—she knows if she gets this overwith she’ll be able to touch the ground again (hopefully). She finally makes it to the end of the arm; by now it isn’t moving as much. She waits for what feels like an eternity (two full minutes) before it stops moving. She finally brings herself to a sitting position and looks down at the giant round platform that serves as half of the scale. She wastes no time and brings herself down one of the three ‘towers’ that acts as a ladder. A short time later she is down on the pendulum and sits square in the center of it. She sees the sun sitting in the sky. Looking over she sees the moon. They are not lined up perfectly. She stands up and curses her luck.
She thinks about it for a second. She has an idea, but it requires getting back to the other side of the scale.
She repeats her climb and crawl—a bit braver and quicker this time. When on the other side she takes more ‘junk’ curios out of her being and sets them down on the scale. This surely would weight much more than her.
She repeats the crawl—hopefully one last time; at the end of her journey she stands in the center of the other platform. The sun and moon are not lined up. However, this is where her plan comes into play. She starts summoning things from her being—more curios. Eventually she does get the sun and moon to line up. She hears some kind of odd chime and the sun and moon both set in unison. The pendulum begins to fade and she finds herself in a room. The stuff she set down next to her and then the other curios on the other platform are on the other edge of the room. She assumes she got the puzzle right as the door to the room opens.
She reabsorbs the items into her being and leaves; a smile on her face that she is triumphant. She’s beginning to wonder what the prize is.
—
At the last door she sees two figures with long hair; they are dressed in a white robe with gold trim. It looks unique to her—she is not familiar with the type. Their sandals are equally weird with parts of them missing; but they have less around the lower part of their leg. Are they supposed to be goddesses?
She waits in front of the door, but nothing happens. Her arms cross. She grows impatient. She finally stamps her foot in frustration—the doors open.
—
Once inside she sees a dense fog; it is clearly night, but the room by itself is illuminated by starlight. She looks up and around and sees the moons of Avalan. She hears the familiar sound of the doors behind her closing. She heeds them no attention as she knows she is in for another trial.
The fog parts. She sees… what the?
An obsidian tower? Like the one in Myrkvellir? She is puzzled why there is one here. Suddenly, she sees a figure appear in front of it. She walks up to it slowly with her sword drawn.
“Who are you?” The figure asks in a familiar voice.
Sweiza recognizes the voice almost immediately. “Lumia?”
The figure walks forward. It is Lumia, but her younger self. She disappears as she approaches Sweiza. Sweiza turns around as Lumia appears in front of her.
“How did you know I would do that?” The girl seems a bit surprised.
“You kept dumping me into different scenarios in Myrkvellir.” Sweiza smiles. “How did you get here when the tower doesn’t have enough power?”
The girl tilts her head at Sweiza. “There are many like me out and about. What do you mean the tower doesn’t have any power?”
Sweiza acts cheerful and motions with her hand, “This is a joke right?”
Lumia shakes her head. “There are multiple twin guardians stationed at each of the towers.”
“Do you communicate with the others?” Sweiza seems intrigued by this. There are twin siblings and multiple sets around the world? That is so cool!
“No, we… we’ve been cut off for some time. There was some kind of accident or uh, I don’t know. We just can’t. We used to be able to.”
“I see. Would something like this help?” Sweiza holds up the obsidian amulet.”
Lumia suddenly walks up and eyes it. She looks up at Sweiza. Her brother Lumina appears next to her.
Lumina holds out his hand, “If you would let us borrow that artifact for a moment.”
Sweiza holds it up for him. He gently pulls it from her hands and holds it lower so Lumia can reach it. Both Lumia and Lumina hold hands together as they face each other—their eyes close. There is a sudden purple light that jumps from the obsidian amulet; it surrounds them in a light blue light; suddenly the area around them turns white. The entire area is suddenly filled with fog; Sweiza can no longer see Lumia or Lumina. She instinctively looks up—she sees the familiar pastel colors. Everything fades to white as she feels herself disappear.
—
Sweiza feels her arms tighten and a yawn escape her lips. She wakes up—looking straight at the moon of Mardin. She looks around once. Sprite is on top of Surt’s tail; Sweiza is nestled behind his wing. The dragon himself hasn’t moved an inch. She can’t believe it; it was a dream? She summons the obsidian amulet; it appears in her hand. She shakes it on instinct, but nothing happens. She shakes her head once and dismisses it—that isn’t how the device is used and it works just fine; she’s not going to wake Sprite or Surt over her little follies. She thinks about it once—if the worst she (and possibly ‘they’) will encounter are a ghost testing her (and possibly ‘their’) wits in the dreamworld, then so be it. As near as she can tell they are safe. The better question is though, why were these challenges present?
And it suddenly dawns on her; the constellations. The tests featured the different constellations of the Zodiac. However, she remembers the inside of the pyramid being baren, stripped and some of the doors she saw in her dream, were otherwise blown off their hinges. Perhaps for that reason, the spirit (or spirits) in the pyramid need to communicate via dreams?
This is starting to get exciting!
Sweiza thinks about it for a second—she’ll wait until morning. She lets out a yawn and curls back up. Sleep soon takes her.
As if an omen, a shooting star streaks across the night sky.