Pieces of Eight

Chapter 1

It was nearly impossible to see anything in the forest, but Phoebe pressed on anyway. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, her feet throbbed, her throat screamed, but still, she ran. The chill of winter's night stung her eyes, making them water as she furiously squinted through the half-light trickling down through the bare trees from the moon. That same frigid air snapped at her cheeks and flayed her nose and mouth and throat raw. The girl gasped as her numb toe in her sodden boot caught another protruding tree root; this one sent her tumbling down to skin another inch of her palms as she threw her hands out to catch herself. Scrambling, trembling, Phoebe threw her black hair back from her heart-shaped face, grit her teeth, and swiped at the tears streaming from her honey-gold eyes. A deep breath, and then the plunge: she soldiered on.

She had to be close by now, she thought to herself as she pelted through more of the seemingly-endless forest. Towards the moon, her father had told her: always towards the moon, and you will find it. All she had now were his words, and the trust that they would not lead her astray. Many times over her thirteen years, her father had described the massive temple of Asfic Higj to her, and just as many times, she had asked to see it. Now she would, but without her father.

The hopelessness was just beginning to set in when she finally got her first breath of optimism. The moon was dipping down low now, implying that the night was near an end. But as Phoebe ran, slower now as her heart and lungs and muscles refused to continue their frantic, adrenaline-fueled flight now that the adrenaline had worn off, she noticed that she could see the moon more clearly through the trees. Though it was lower, it looked larger, and strangely misshapen. That was when she realized that the trees were in fact thinning, and that she could see the silhouette of the moon now tucking behind an enormous building.

It appeared as a castle would as she abruptly and unexpectedly broke the treeline and skittered to a stop only a pace or two past it. Jaw dropping, she panted with exertion but still found herself utterly lost in the enormity of the structure in front of her. It was huge. Big enough for four kings and their families, surely! She'd never seen such a magnificent building! Cylindrical in shape, studded with turrets and towers and windows that looked tiny but must have been floor-to-ceiling if they were visible at all, Asfic Higj, the temple of mages and magicians and sorcerers and witches, rose like a defiant spectre in the night. If she had any left, it would have taken her breath away.

After a long pause, Phoebe at last found it in herself to take a step forward. Almost immediately, she winced, paused, and screwed up her fair face as she sucked in a quick, painful breath. Oh, she would be plenty more painful tomorrow, she thought ruefully: her boots, though comfortable for walking, were thin-soled and suited more for cobblestone streets and dirt roads, not for muddy runs through the late-night woods. Her feet were positively throbbing, and her muscles were protesting their overuse as well. Phoebe had hunted long and often in the woods with her father, but at the end of the day, they lived on a farm and had horses to ride and were just on the outskirts of town. This midnight sprint was out of the norm, even if she was used to being up and moving.

The trek from the edge of the forest up the hill to the temple was, by far, the longest leg of the journey that Phoebe had taken that evening. Out of immediate danger but still not safe, her mind turned unhelpfully to her father as she mounted the first of two flights of steps up to the front doors. Like the windows, they looked small in comparison to the rest of the building...but she knew that, by the second flight of stairs, they would look massive, and when she reached them, she would wonder how they could even be moved for their size. Her father had told her of this entranceway, many times, but nothing could have prepared her for the sheer, overwhelming size of it all.

Sure enough, reaching the doors, Phoebe wondered how on earth anyone would hear her if she knocked. But she couldn't think of anything else to do, so she raised a hand and rapped her knuckles against the wood as hard as she dared. The sound still shattered the crisp night air like a dropped plate against the floor, so complete was the silence; but Phoebe still wondered how anyone could possibly hear her given the size of this place. The doors were carved in four quadrants, one for each of the major elements: she had knocked on a particularly-large patch of flame, adjacent to a swirl of wind and beneath a towering tree, leaving a splash of water diagonally and above it. Stepping back, Phoebe swallowed and found her throat still dry and scratchy from her sprint. She eyed the splash of water on the door with new longing in her eyes.