-1The house was beginning to feel like a prison.

After Jessica’s body had been discovered, Dad had ordered the dig site to be completely locked down while he wrote to the authorities, and to the university. Those scientists who were staying at the hotel were to return to their rooms until further notice, and those scientists who were staying on site were ordered to stay in the farmhouse. Absolutely no one was allowed in or out until the premises was completely secure.

Telling Dad that Farley had wandered off had been a most terrible idea. He got flustered and stressed out, and began writing letters asking all of the on-site interpreters to get in touch with anyone from the trade camps to see if they had seen Farley. I tried to explain to him that she was at the dig, as I was sure that was what she had meant by “Hidden City,” but my father insisted that the dig had been completely quarantined until further notice, and that she wouldn’t have been able to get in without being noticed.

Dad had been furiously scribbling even more letters in his meticulous handwriting to one person or another when I had asked him if there was anything I could do to help him, and he told me to just stay in my room with Alex. His tone was condescending, it made me feel like I was eight years old again, but I listened to him anyway.

Alex was beginning to get bored. I had tried giving him his Clifford books to read while we waited for things to settle down, but reading did not last very long. I even tried reading to him, although it did not take me very long to realize that he was barely paying attention to the words. Instead, he took to watching the window and the door that lead to the roof. I wondered if he was watching Altaïr, or if he really just wanted to go outside. After fifteen minutes of trying unsuccessfully to read a story together, I gave him his little die-cast eagle and just told him to play quietly while I finished my book.

Half an hour into the next chapter, I noticed Alex had gotten very quiet. Suspicious, I put my book away and found him sitting on the roof, peering out at the fields in the distance. Altaïr was sitting next to him. They both had their knees drawn. Alex’s arms were wrapped around his legs, while Altaïr’s arms were propped lazily on his knees. They were talking quietly with one another. From their tones, I could tell Altaïr was telling a story.

“Was she pretty?” Alex asked in the middle of one of Altaïr’s sentences, “Like my mom?” Altaïr didn’t seem to notice the interruption. If he had, he did a very good job of masking any amount of annoyance.

Without skipping a beat, Altaïr nodded, “She was beautiful. Very beautiful.”

They went silent, staring out at the fields in the distance. Alex noticed me first and smiled as he waved at me.

“Hi, Mom!” he chirped. Altaïr looked up at me, his face hidden under his hood. I smiled at Alex, and gave Altaïr a short, curt nod.

“What are you doing up here?”

“The house is too stuffy,” he answered, crinkling his nose up as though he had just smelled something bad.

I nodded in agreement, “Definitely too stuffy.”

Without asking, I came and sat next to them, looking out at the distant shapes of the tents and scaffolding of the dig. I sighed.

“Your Aunt Farley is out there…” I began as Alex leaned against me. I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him gently, “I want to go get her, but your grandfather is making that difficult.”

Damn that Bryer pride.

Alex pointed at Altaïr, “Avalar can help find her!” he said, “grandad doesn’t talk to him, and he saved Princess Seri once, so he can save Aunt Farley!”

I cast a quick glance at Altaïr, who was looking down at his hands as though they were suddenly very interesting. I cleared my throat and he looked up. The sun was shining directly into his hood, enhancing the sharp features on his face. His eyes were watching me cautiously.

“Could you do that?” I asked after a long moment.

He cast a look over the mountains, and then looked back at me.

“I could, but I am not sure if we would find her…” his voice trailed off before he could finish his sentence, but I was rather sure it ended with not finding Farley alive.

“What do you mean?”

He sighed, “Narmein is a labyrinth. Even those who had been born there had a tendency to get lost and starve to death.”

The words weighed heavily on my mind. Why would anyone create a city designed to lose its own citizens and leave them to starvation?

But I wanted to look for Farley. I had to look for her, she was my sister.

“But we won’t get lost,” Alex said proudly, nodding up at Altaïr as though asking for reassurance that this was true. He was so sure of himself.

Altaïr, as it was evident by the expression on his face, was not as confident. I could detect a hint of weariness in his face. Nevertheless, he smiled at Alex—an act which nearly made my body melt—and he chuckled lightly. The small bit of laughter made a whistling sound through his nose.

“No, we will not get lost, Alexander.”

Alex looked ecstatic, “Let’s find Aunt Farley!”

A few minutes later, I told Alex to stay in our room to discuss our escape plan with Altaïr while I prepared for our grand escape. I crept down into the kitchen, listening to the various sounds of the other archaeologists in the house. One was listening to the radio, while another was chattering furiously to someone on a telephone in a thick Australian accent. Dad was still in the kitchen, chain-smoking, and he was talking to someone on his cell phone. I assumed it was someone from the university.

I packed four peanut butter sandwiches, four miniature bags of potato chips, two bottles of juice, and two bottles of Deer Park water into one of my bags. It was the baby blue bag that Farley had knit for me a few Christmases ago. While Dad’s back was turned, I also snagged two flashlights and an extra first-aid kit that they used at the dig.

When I returned to my room, Altaïr and Alex were sitting at the window.

“Avalar is going to go out the window, and we’re going to follow him.”

I supposed this method of escape was more foolproof than just trying to sneak out passed Dad, like I was going to suggest. The second floor of the farmhouse was not entirely high off of the ground, and it would be easy to jump down. I agreed with their plan as I watched Alex and Altaïr open the window. Altaïr effortlessly threw himself over and dropped down, holding his arms out.

“Jump, Alexander,” I heard him call from outside.

Alex walked toward the window and perched himself on the sill. It took all I had to not grab him and pull him back to me. I was terrified that he was going to hurt himself.

“Alex, be careful,” I warned. He flashed a knowing smile at me before dropping down. I felt my hear leap into my throat.

“It’s okay, Mom!” he called a moment later. I sighed in relief and followed suit. “Avalar’s gonna catch!”

I have never been afraid of heights, and so sliding from the opened window into Altaïr’s outstretched arms was no trouble for me. He caught me effortlessly, straining very little when I dropped into his arms. His body felt impossibly warm.

I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold, I told myself.

He flashed me the briefest of smiles—it resembled more of a flicker of movement in the corner of his lips than an actual smile—before putting me on my feet.

At first, we thought to take the horses to Narmein, but then we remembered that heading to the barn would mean walking across the windows, and we would be seen. Instead, we decided to get there by foot with Altaïr in the lead, and Alex at his heels.

..xoxoxoxox..

I leaned on Altaïr’s shoulder as we peered into the dark tunnel, taking in the faint smell of leather that lingered around him. The darkness inside the tunnel was thick, engulfing. I just knew there was something lurking around inside, ready to eat us.

“If Farley went down there, she’s braver than me,” I said.

“Hello!” Alex shouted, laughing as he listened to his voice echo off the walls. He went to step down into the tunnel and I snagged the back of his shirt in my hand, stopping him in place. He shot me an annoyed look, which I ignored. I nodded in Altaïr’s direction, who got the message and stepped down first.

I could make out the faint glow of torch light at the end of the tunnel, and for a moment felt a great sense of relief; my sister had not gone far into the labyrinth. There was a human-shaped void along the tunnel walls, and I grinned. Farley knew I would come after her, and she was coming back to greet me. I wouldn’t have to venture far into the labyrinth, after all.

But my relief was short-lived when I realized that the void I saw on the walls had crept further into the tunnel and disappeared.

Next to me, I could hear Altaïr grind his teeth and murmur something under his breath. His voice was so low that I couldn’t really hear him, but the tone in his voice was so venomous that I was afraid to ask him to repeat himself. I was unsure if I really wanted to know. He began forward, gesturing for Alex to stay behind him.

In a way, I was relieved; it would be Altaïr wandering around the pitch-darkness, and not me. In another way, it frightened me even more. I did not want Alex and I to be left alone.

Alex did not seemed phased by the darkness at all. He confidently walked in front of me and behind Altaïr, using a stick that I had picked up outside the caverns as a walking-cane. He had wanted to walk in front of Altaïr as he lit torches, but Altaïr firmly disagreed and told him to stay behind him. Much to my surprise, Alex obeyed and remained between Altaïr and I, proudly telling us which tunnel he wanted to take, and which ones he thought were booby-trapped. Only once had Altaïr refused to take a certain tunnel, and somehow I knew it was because that certain tunnel had been a faux tunnel, and did have booby traps.

We stepped through the lit corridor and into another room, which Altaïr was ever-so-diligently lighting, like some kind of angel of light or something. When Altaïr had finished lighting a few torches, Alex began exploring as much of the chamber as he could, looking at the painted pictures on the walls and asking what things were.

I could hear Altaïr quietly murmuring to him answers for each of his questions, but could not quite discern what exactly he was saying. I shined my flashlight on a small statue sitting on a nook carved into the wall several feet above the floor. It was in the shape of a slinky Siamese cat, and had been completely carved out of the blackest obsidian I had ever seen. It took me a moment to realize that the statue was missing a leg.

I was startled when I stepped on something that crunched beneath my foot and grimaced, hoping that it had been a large spider and that it was dead. I did not want to look at it to be sure, however, and tried to shake the remnants of whatever it was off my shoe. To my dismay, I couldn’t get whatever it was off my shoe, and I could still feel it crunch ever so slightly with each step I took.

I had to jog to catch up to Alex and Altaïr, as they had completely crossed the chamber. They were looking along the walls. Altaïr had already lit all of the torches, and was very quietly murmuring to himself as he ran his hands along the stone. I assumed that he was looking for a switch to open the next door. Alex was mimicking him. I’m not sure if Alex knew exactly what Altaïr was doing, or if he was just trying to look like a leader as he tried to find a switch with Altaïr. In an ironic way, it reminded me of the brave way he slid the panels of that marble casket beneath our house into place, ultimately releasing Altaïr.

“No more doors,” Alex said as I approached. I couldn’t tell if he had been talking to Altaïr, or to me, as he had not looked at either one of us. I heard Altaïr mutter an agreement, and I leaned against a wall.

A dash of white in the dim torchlight caught my eye, and I shined my flashlight onto the wall on the opposite side of the chamber. There were two tall statues there, both jackals sitting upright like very obedient housedogs. Between them, there was another nook carved into the wall several feet off the floor. This nook did not have a statue in it. In fact, I could just barely tell that there was no back to the nook at all. It was just a square carved into the wall. It looked like some sort an air vent. An arrow had been drawn in chalk on the wall above the nook, pointing down toward it. It was definitely Farley’s, I could tell by a little smiley-face drawn next to the arrow. Farley must have gone through there.

“She went out that way. And there’s no way the three of us could squeeze through there,” I pointed at the nook.

“I can fit!” Alex chirped.

“You’re most certainly not going there without me, and there’s no way I can fit through there; so no.”

The three of us stood for a moment, neither one of us looking at the other one. I heard Altaïr whispering to himself, still running his four-fingered hand along the wall.

“Do you know where to go?” I asked him.

Altaïr didn’t answer me, just kept running his hand along the stone. I sighed in frustration at both Farley for wandering off on her own, and at Altaïr for not answering my question, and fell back against the wall. My shoulder clipped the muzzle on one of the stone jackals, causing a dull pain to race through my shoulder. I yelped and jumped back, watching as the statue began to move. The obedient-looking stone dogs stood upright on their back legs, and their front legs coming up to their chests. They both came to hold a stone staff that seemed to sprout from their hands.

When they were done moving, they came to resemble men from the neck-down, their heads still in the shape of jackals. I had half-expected them to step down from their posts and chase after us, but instead, the stone jackal-men just slid into place in a tall nook in the wall behind them.

“Cool!” Alex laughed, clapping. I just took a deep breath and tried to push my heart back down my throat.

Dust fell from a sharp crevice in the wall, creating a rectangular shape, and a door lurched open and spun sideways, allowing us a double-door access into the next chamber.

“You did it, Mom!” Alex chirped as I crept toward him. I watched Altaïr as he slid into the next room, almost wincing at the intensity of his stride. Alex took my hand and led me along.

The door had led us not to a chamber, but down a long, narrow corridor. There weren’t any torches here. If there were, Altaïr had not lit them. It was so dark. I could not see anything in front of me, not even my hand when I held it up to my face. I could tell Alex was having a hard time with it too, as his grip on my hand had tightened immensely.

The corridor was silent, too. So silent, that I could almost make out Altaïr’s whispers in front of me. Alex was breathing very quickly, he must have felt suffocated in the corridor. Once, he bumped into me, reprimanding me for going to slow and telling me I needed to walk faster as he sent me into Altaïr. I was overcome with the scent of sandalwood as my cheek brushed against his back, the linen of his robes strangely soft against my skin.

He’s warm, again…

Altaïr seemed rather annoyed by being bumped into, I could tell by the exasperated whistle that came out his nose when he took a deep breath, but he did not say much aside from telling me very calmly that I needed to slow down before I fell over.

For a moment, I was glad that it was dark; he wouldn’t be able to see me blush.

He’s an assassin. He killed for a living.

The corridor eventually opened up into a large chamber lit with odd colored crystals that had been set into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Altaïr was standing in the centre of the room, his hands hanging listlessly at his sides. His fingers were clenching and unclenching as he looked around.

“The first time I saw you, it was here,” he said quietly. His voice had taken on a strange tone. It was uncharacteristically soft, almost nostalgic. He did not say who ‘you’ was, but I knew he had been talking about Seri.

I watched him as he stared around the room. After a moment, he turned toward me, and pointed at another air vent in the ceiling. This one had no arrow. “I had been sent on a mission, but I had been arrogant and hasty, and did not do a proper investigation,” his voice was suddenly normal again, aloof and toneless, “I obtained a faux map of Narmein, and crawled into that alcove there. That is where I first saw her.”

I glanced around the room, feeling goosebumps race up my spine as the room quickly fell cold. I could hear Alex asking if Altaïr was talking about Princess Seri, but his voice was far away.

The room began to shimmer. I could still see everything in colour, and the air wasn’t rippling, so I knew I was not about to be visited by Hanan’s ghost. I felt something pass through me, and turned to see transparent people walking into the corridor from which we came. Along the wall, I noticed Hanan and Seri standing together, laughing and joking as though they were school children. The crystals shimmered again, and the girls faded into nothingness. For a brief moment the room was empty, until two women in crocodile armour marched in, a wagon between them. On that wagon was a huge marble slab. They were talking to one another in a language I couldn’t understand.

I felt someone tug on my arm. The two woman vanished.

“Mom, come on. We found a way into the next room,” Alex pulled me behind him, the crystals shimmering and fading as we left.

..xoxoxoxox..

“Oh wow! Look at this, Avalar! This is so cool!!”

“Alex put that down!” I shouted as he attempted to pick up a deadly-looking dagger lying on a stone table lining the wall of the second chamber we stepped into. I made to pick him up to pull him away from the table, but Altaïr got to him faster, taking his hand and leading him back to us. I could hear him quietly reprimanding Alex under his breath. At least, that’s what it sounded like; I could distinctly hear him mutter something about thinking before leaping. I took a moment to look around.

This must have been an armoury of sorts, perhaps a torture chamber. The entire room was lined with weapons that hadn’t been used in ages. cobwebs hung between the blades and shimmered in our dim torch light, they looked silvery, reaching over to touch one I stumbled on a gap in the floor and took a tumble into the side of a rack of swords. Several fell and sparked as they struck the floor. As I was recovering my footing, I noticed that some of the sparks had lit up some oil that filled a long, thin trough in front of us, effectively lighting up the entire room.

How my sister could explore such a dark place, I’ll never know.

“I’m hungry...” Alex said looking at me. Sighing, I took out one of the sandwiches that I had packed.

After Alex was satisfied, we walked down a corridor that had many more hallways leading away from it. Alex had decided to count the doors out loud. The had gone down two side channels and lit this area as well. Altair had vanished from my sight after we left the weaponry room.

Alex stopped walking, making me stop as I was holding his hand he was looking over at one of the doors. I got an overwhelming sense of despair as we walked over to it. “Alex can you stay put until I come back?” I said looking down at him. He nodded and went to sit down on some fallen rubble.

The ceiling lit itself when I walked into the next room. There were so many crystals lining the ceiling that it seemed to have a daylight look to it.

It was very beautifully decorated. An enormous, moth-eaten tapestry hung across one wall, its picture depicting a city with a flock of birds flying above it. In the far corner of the room, there was a very old canopy bed. There had once been a curtain here, but it had long been ripped away, leaving nothing but a few scraps of dilapidated silk dangling in the corners. There was a stone table adorned in jewels sitting next to the bed, in which a stack of gold bracelets sitting in the centre, all coated in layers of thick dust. I had never been here before, but the room seemed so familiar to me; it felt like home, like my room in Pennsylvania. I felt like I knew every inch, every nook and cranny. I felt like I knew where everything was, and why it was there.

But this room wasn’t mine, it was hers.

“Seri…”

The whisper had come from behind me. I looked up to see Altaïr as he brushed passed me into the room. He sat on the bed. His motions were careful, delicate, like he was a child tip-toeing around the room in which his mother was sleeping in. He looked at the table for a moment before reaching onto the table and plucking something small from it. I had to squint to see exactly what it was.

A ring.

He held it in the palm of his hand and let out the smallest of sighs. I wished his hood wasn’t up so that I could properly look at his face. I made to walk over and sit beside him when I heard Alex scream.

“Alex…”

In a fraction of an instant, Altaïr went from sitting on the bed to rushing through the door, his robes billowing behind him. I ran after him, desperately trying to follow Alex’s screams. We found him in another corridor, his back pressed against the wall.

“Mom! What is it?” He cried, pointing down the corridor.

I looked down and yelped, grabbing Alex and pulling him closer to me.

“This is why I tell you to stay where I tell you!” I reprimanded as I reached for anything I could use as a weapon, which happened to be a rock from the ground.

“You,” I heard Altaïr growl softly. His voice was fierce, menacing.

It looked like a large dog, a Doberman or Jackal, perhaps, but it had sharper claws, and had no hair. The top half of its head was just a skull, its eyes sockets two empty voids. It had no lips, however if it had, they would have been curled back in a fierce snarl, exposing its wickedly-sharp teeth. It was like a creature from a nightmare.

A strange mist swirled in the air around it, and I could he it tapping its sharp claws on the floor, as though impatient with waiting.

I heard the sound of metal sliding against metal, and, to my horror, I saw a long, sharp blade shoot cleanly out from the bracer around Altaïr’s wrist. It protruded from the empty space where his missing finger should have been.

“Keep going,” Altaïr said to me, not taking his eyes off of the hideous creature.

“Excuse me?” I sputtered.

If he answered me, I didn’t hear it. The creature let out a wicked cackle that seemed to drown out all the sound. In a chilling way, the cackling sounded familiar, like I had heard it before, but I couldn’t quite tell from where. I heard Altaïr shout something beneath its laughter, but I could not discern his words. The monster’s cackling quickly began to fade as it stared at Alex and I, turning its head so that it was staring at us with one empty eye socket. As soon as the echo of its eerie laughter had died away, and before Altaïr could make a move to kill it, the creature faded into the shadows and the mist that had once swirled around it was quickly dissipating.

..xoxoxox..

“This place is amazing,” I murmured as we stepped out into an enormous cavern. There was a large number of stone bridges stretching across the cavern in all directions, most seemed to criss-cross over each other and run under others. I could not quite figure out how anyone could have built this; it was so beautiful and intricate. I carried my flash light in front of me, careful to keep Alex behind me to prevent him from running ahead. There was absolutely no light here, it was completely dark. my flash light flicked every now and again signaling that the batteries were going to die soon.

Altaïr led us to an impossibly narrow bridge that had no rails and was cracking and crumbling in several places. He crossed the bridge effortlessly, crouching low and perfectly balanced, and turned around at the other side of the cavern. He wordlessly signaled us over. I allowed Alex to go first, as he weighed a lot less than me.

“Alex, be careful,” I whispered to him as he began crossing the bridge, crouching low with his arms spread out from his sides, balancing just as effortlessly as Altaïr had been. He was half-way across the bridge when I stepped on. At first, I was going to crouch low just like the two of them had, if my five-year-old son could cross without a problem it should not have been hard for me, but I quickly changed my mind when I found it difficult to keep from looking into the darkness below.

The bridge was so high up that I could not even see the bottom. Step by step, I slowly tip-toed across the bridge like a tight rope walker, my heart pounding when I began to wobble.

Just don’t look down, Rio, and you’ll be fine, I said to myself as I kept my eyes locked on Alex, who was now being plucked off the end of the bridge by Altaïr.

I got half-way across the bridge when I heard it: the loud, crumbling noise of the bridge beginning to cave in. I felt the level of the bridge shift as it began to fall away. Forgetting my pounding heart, I rushed forwards.

“Mom!” Alex called frantically. I saw Altaïr’s robes billow around him as he turned around and began back across the bridge, his hand outstretched toward me.

“Alex!” I called back. There was no chance of me running across the rest of the way before the bridge completely fell apart. I have to jump, I told myself, stretching my arm out in a vain hope that Altair would pull me to safety. I braced myself, trying to push off from the bridge, but the stone would not quite let me. I felt it crumble beneath me and lost my footing. In an instant, I was falling backwards.

Time seems to slow to an impossible pace when one feels like he or she is about to die. The roaring wind in my ears that I heard and felt at first as I began to fall quickly died to a whisper, and Alex’s shouts and screams became morphed and distorted. I saw his head peek over the edge of the sturdy part of the bridge, Altaïr was crouched beside him with his arm held, as though he still thought he had a chance of reaching for me.

“Alex,” I whispered to myself as their faces began to fade into the darkness, “Alex, I love you.”

..xoxoxoxox..

The sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon, casting in a golden glow that sent long, dark shadows across the land. I was standing on a very high ledge, looking down. Below me was a flat platform, the one with the crudely cut stairs. Only, it wasn’t eroded anymore. It was beautiful. Jade green moss covered the entire platform, giving it a healthy green glow. A tiny, gnarled tree stood in the centre of the platform, its leaves littered with tiny pink blossoms. I wondered how a tree so beautiful could survive in the arid weather. Perhaps it was alchemy.

There were two people standing under the blossoming branches. One, the taller of the two, wore pure white robes and long leather boots. His pointed hood was drawn.

Altaïr.

The shorter of the two was wearing a simple, white linen dress, a hood also drawn around her face. Locks of very long, wavy dark hair were spilling from the hood, almost hiding the parts of her face that the hood could not.

She was standing directly in front of him, her back against his chest. They were staring at the sunset, both looking completely at ease.

“A son?” he asked quietly. His hands took a hold of her elbow, and he made to pull her closer to him.

“A son,” she answered, following his lead and leaning against him.

There were shadows behind them. They had been inconspicuous at first, but I noticed them, now. The shadows started moving, morphing, as several people stepped out into the dying sunlight. They were women, all wearing lion skulls and carrying deadly, sharp-looking weapons. The Matriarch stood amongst them, and Hanan was beside her, her jackal-skull mask sitting atop her head so her face could be seen. She was smiling, but it wasn’t a nice smile; it was cruel, sadistic.

“Watch out!” I shouted, even though I knew they couldn’t hear me. I felt helpless as I watched them, standing so peacefully together, completely unaware of the silent warriors approaching from behind them. Hanan pulled Seri roughly away from Altaïr as another woman in a lion skull pushed him aside. Seri let out a muffled cry.

Though I could still hear her cries, the world began to blur and shift. Suddenly, I was no longer on the ledge anymore, but on the platform. I watched as Seri was flung to the ground a few feet in front of me. She was shouting and screaming while Altaïr wrenched himself from his captive’s grasp and dived toward her. He reached behind his back and unsheathed a beautiful, glimmering sword.

Feet scuffed the mossy ground and sparks flew as metal hit metal. It was almost like a complicated dance, watching Altaïr fight the warriors; like watching a fight scene in a movie where the choreography isn’t so rehearsed. He was calm, almost listless in his actions, like an eagle on a breeze. The women in the lion masks fought with a strange cat-like grace.

“You betrayed my trust, Hanan! I thought I could trust you with a secret like this!” Seri screamed venomously at her sister. Hanan gazed at her with a sarcastic look.

“You know nothing of trust, you stupid wench. Do you not remember how I trusted you not to tell Mother about Malik? Hold your tongue before speaking of such hypocrisies.” Hanan seethed. One of the women grabbed Altaïr and threw him down, giving Hanan ample room to kick Seri, who curled in a protective ball around her belly.

“Hanan, that was a year ago!” Seri managed.

“It still feels like yesterday!”

Hanan placed her mask over her face and danced over to Altaïr, the way she moved wasn’t as graceful as the lioness warriors but it was fast and she looked like she wanted the kill, and didn’t need help to get it.

Altair had picked himself back up and made another dive toward Seri. This time, Hanan would not have it. She grabbed his arm and yanked him away from Seri, throwing him face-first into a rock. He stumbled, dazed, but regained his composer quickly.

He was fighting them off as well as he could, but they attacked as a team; much like a lioness’s hunting party. I watched as Hanan reached into a little pouch attached to her hip, and pulled something out of it. There was a bright flash, and a loud crack, as she brought her fist down upon Altaïr. I realized it had been one of the pellets my father’s team had uncovered from a jar in a trench. Once the light faded several multi-colored serpents coiled tightly around Altaïr’s arms, pinning them against his body. He struggled furiously and grit his teeth; the snakes were tightening their grip on him.

“Take him back to the city. I must have a talk with Seri,” the Matriarch rasped as she walked toward Seri. The women in lion skulls nodded, and silently carried Altaïr away.

“Look at me, Seri,” the Matriarch said as she removed her headdress. She looked wise with age, and spoke as though she had lived a thousand years. She had a kind face, which I had not expected.

“Why?” Seri whispered, glaring at the older woman.

“This is for your own good.”

“No. You do not care about me.”

Everything faded into black.

..xoxoxox..

There was something cold and wet against my face. I tried to swipe at it at first, but the feeling would not go away. Somewhere in the far distance, I could hear the sound of water lapping against an embankment. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

I was lying on the shore of an underground lake. Quite interestingly, the shore was not made out of sand as one would have expected, but instead, it was made out of stone. Even more bizarre was the strange, springy moss that clung to the stone. It felt unusually soft to the touch, even for moss, and it glowed faintly in the dim light.

I sat up slowly, trying to blink away the feeling of the beginning of a headache, and looked around. The underground lake that I was sitting by was in a large cavern dimly lit by large glowing crystals that twisted up from the ground like strange lampposts.

In the dim light, I could see forgotten statues of gods and goddesses from various religions, though most appeared Egyptian in origin. There were a few still standing, though most were laying flat on the ground where they had fallen down years ago.

There was a rustling noise from above me, and I looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern. A number of stone pillars were randomly scattered throughout the lake, protruding from the water like tall, skinny stone monsters. At first, I thought they had gone all the way to the ceiling of the cavern, a sort of way to guarantee the support of the cavern ceiling. However, I noticed they were actually a sort of stepping-stone bridge.

The noise that I had heard was Malik gracefully jumping form pillar to pillar, for a cat with only three legs he was moving with ease, Farley was following close behind him.

“Farley!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping she would hear me. She didn’t. Instead, she kept jumping from pillar to pillar behind Malik, seemingly oblivious to my presence below her.

She thinks she’s Lara Croft, I thought to myself, What is she doing? Where does she think she’s going?

“Farley!” I called again, even louder. Again, she did not turn her head. I sighed and leapt to my feet, cupping my hands around my mouth, “FARLEY!”

She disappeared through a nook in the wall at the end of the pillar-bridge. I could just barely make out the far-away hum of her headphones. Of course she hadn’t heard me; she had her music turned up too loud.

“I have got to get to her…” I muttered to myself, scanning the wall for a tunnel or a door. I spotted a tunnel behind one of the goddess statues. Its mouth was carved into the shapes of animals which were veiled in twisted vines freckled with strange, tiny pink flowers.

Slowly, I climbed to my feet, hearing my body pop with the movement, like I had not moved in ages. How long had I been out? Nothing felt broken, however, and I slowly made my way along the bank toward the tunnel.

It was lit by the same kind of crystals that lit the underground lake, only they were smaller and had been molded into the walls and ceiling, and it was more narrow than I had expected. With each step I took, the more narrow it seemed to get until I was practically walking sideways. Lucky for me, the tunnel was not very long, and it quickly opened up into a large, well lit chamber.

The first thing I saw was the glinting of dim light off of many gold coins scattered across the floor that spread from large piles that could easily had been taller than myself. Along the walls, there were long, marble tables decorated with strange artifacts. One in particular caught my eye; it was a large dragon carved from black marble. Its glaring eyes were actually two bright red rubies, and a tiny plume of smoke coiled out into the air from its open mouth. Between its claws, it held a glass orb. I didn’t need to touch it in order to know it was made from glass. I had touched it a long, long time ago…

My mind flashed before I could have the moment to realize what was going on.

In the distance, I could see the large, open archway of the Treasury at the end of a long corridor. Almost there, almost there. The night guards were approaching their positions as the day guards left to return to their quarters. The exchange would take a little time, and it would be the perfect time for me to get in and out unnoticed. At least, I hoped it would take a little time. If I was caught outside of the living quarters, I would be in deepest trouble, no doubt I would receive the harshest beating of my life.

I tip-toed through the narrow corridor along the shadows as quietly as possible, watching as the guards changed their positions. They exchanged a few words as the day guards handed their scythes to the night guards and saluted them in farewell. During the exchanged, I slipped safely inside and looked around.

I needed to use the Scrying Orb. We rarely ever used it, as it did not tell us anything that alchemy or divination could not tell us already, but we used it for a few things, some of which those of lower ranks in the Sisterhood were forbidden from knowing. I was going to it for one of those things: I needed to know whether I was carrying a son, or a daughter.

If it was a daughter, I would have no problem. Daughters were welcomed with open arms and smiling faces, here. They were considered a great blessing. But if I were carrying a son…

My stomach churned sickeningly at the though. Most sons, with the exception of a very few, were executed immediately. A disgrace, sons were. All they did was grow into men; men who looted, stole, killed, men who lived as womanisers and pimps.

Very few male babies were spared, as we needed them for reproduction, but it was highly doubtful that my child, should it be a boy, would be one of the exceptions.

From what I had seen in the past, all I had to do is touch the Scrying Orb, and it would tell me what I needed to know. I saw it in the farthest corner of the Treasury, nestled on a velvet blanket that had been thrown haphazardly onto a podium. I walked over to it, and gently laid my palm against it. It felt smooth and flawless under my touch.

At first, nothing happened. And then suddenly, a murky smoke began churning inside of it. It churned and churned, before settling on an angry red colour. The orb burned beneath my hand, and I quickly yanked my hand back.

Male. There was nothing else that the Scrying Orb’s hateful burning could have meant.

I felt as though the world had crumbled around me. I was having a son, and I was more than likely going to lose him, to lose this little life inside of me. I bit down hard on my lip, trying desperately to not burst into tears. I had a son, and I was not even going to see him smile!

Perhaps I could arrange to leave him with someone. I could hide the growing child inside me, and then leave the city on a “mission” and have him in Damascus. Perhaps I could leave him with...

There was a scuffling noise behind me, and I turned around to see Hanan stepping out of the shadows. She was watching me intently, almost lazily

“What are you doing, Seri? With the Scrying Orb, no less?”

I turned to face her, silently thanking God that she was alone. I needed to tell someone, and she was the one person I could trust completely. I had more trust in her than in anyone else. I cleared my throat. She stepped closer, one of her brows arched.

“What do you need the Scrying Orb for?” she asked.

The orb felt impossibly smooth beneath my fingers. I shook my head, blinking away Hanan’s maniacal little face. Seri’s memories were becoming more commonplace, each one more detailed than the last. What are you trying to tell me, Seri? I wondered.

There was a rustling sound, the sound of stone grinding against stone, from the far corner of the room. A door had opened, a dim light flickering in the new corridor. There were very clean, crisp stairs carved into the stone floor leading up.

You want me to go that way?

I watched the staircase carefully, half-expecting that demon dog to come charging down. When nothing happened after a few seconds, I sighed and squared my shoulders.

Here goes nothing.