Crossing the Gates

Chapter 11: The Eye

Taylin gasped at the mention of being recruited, "You don't mean us? We're just kids..." She said.

Qaleya smiled, and though her face was partially hidden by her collar, the smile looked unnatural on her grey face. It was more than unsettling. "I do. I was a kid when I was recruited. Younger minds are easier to shape. You're part of this now, anyways."

I gave Taylin a look, and both of us shared a most horrified expression. What did Qaleya intend to do with us?

"Relax, you two. I'm not in the business of snatching up children. That isn't how this works. I do think I will need to discuss it with your parents though. We need to exchange information. This quest isn't one I can complete on my own, and it sounds like the two of them have been looking into this for as long as I have." Qaleya replied coolly, the smile had disappeared from her face.

Taylin must have felt reassured that we weren't about to be kidnapped, she asked "So then what's our next step? We don't know anything about this dagger and haven't found anything solid to go on."

Qaleya reached into another pouch inside the breast pocket of her tight leather vest and produced a dusty-looking piece of parchment. She stood, unrolling it on the table in front of us. There was an old-looking script written all over it, as well as a sketched image of the dagger we had found.

"Can any of you read this?" Qaleya asked, but she had to have known that we couldn't.

Taylin and I stood, screwing up our eyes and squinting at the ancient text on the parchment. "Of course we can't. It's Dwarvish isn't it?" I asked, never taking my eyes off the detailed diagram of the dagger. I wanted to ask Qaleya where she got this, but I just assumed she had found it somewhere inside these very ruins.

"It is. Very few people can read this. I can't either, but I know someone who can. Perhaps one of the only people we might be able to trust." She asked, her fingers and eyes tracing the image of the dagger, as though the answer might leap off the page and solve the mystery for us.

"Who?" Taylin asked, cocking her head curiously.

"The Chief Ascendant," Qaleya replied, gauging our response with a watchful eye.

My jaw hung open, "Really? The Jade Gate? I think my father has been there in his travels. We can ask him to take us." The reality of this mission was exciting to me, the pursuit of mystery and further travel was everything I had hoped for when I left my temple and now the prospect of visiting one of the most interesting places in the world was giving my heart a good reason to pound against my chest.

Taylin gave me a look, she must have been surprised at how readily I was going along with this and how eager I seemed to take up the quest alongside Qaleya. "Idian... we..."

Qaleya interrupted Taylin's protestations, "That's correct. The Chief of the Ascendant people is very old and is perhaps one of the few people who can still translate old Dwarven script like this. I've met them on a few occasions, I am sure that the Chief would assist us."

 "Great! If we need to bargain with them I can offer my services as a healer too!" I  said excitedly, ignoring the look of disbelief in my sister's eyes.

"Idian! Sorry Qaleya, we can't just go running off on some adventure. We made a mistake following you down here, and should probably go back to our parents and..." Taylin began.

She was silenced when Qaleya raised a hand into the air, calling for silence. "Shh. Listen."

All of us fell quiet, watching Qaleya focus on something down a distant corridor. The ruins were supposed to be empty, long dead, but all of us could hear it. A soft humming sound and mechanical clicking in the distance, faint but just audible enough.