The Butterfly Effect

Once again Melai nudged them all awake. But, really, that wasn’t what got Lydia up so quickly; it was the realization that she didn’t hear any of the other phoenixes and it was a lot brighter than it usually was. They all had a brief moment of panic when they saw that the other phoenixes had left, though Melai didn’t seem worried and soon explained why.

“It is alright,” Melai assured them thoughtfully. “There is no reason to be concerned. The rest of my kin have moved on to try to finish their migration. I have decided to stay behind to guide you, as the treasure is close.” It began to walk away, before Tavin got in front of it, bent down, and put his hands in front of it.

“You’re about to burn out,” he said. “Since you can’t fly well, you can sit on my shoulder. You can’t burn me when the only fire you have is the one that’s going to devour you soon.”

Hesitantly, it nodded and let him guide it to his shoulder. “I suppose, then, we are technically following Tavin.” It gestured in front of them with its wing. “The treasure is over there.”

Melai continued to give directions as they went, at first seeing nothing different than the average scenery of the Plains. There was grass, occasionally a bush, and even more rarely a tree; then there was a hill that stuck out a little more than the rest. What looked like it was just a rock at first turned out to have a hole in it and looked like it could be moved.

“Bring me down there,” Melai instructed. Once Tavin bent down, it continued to explain, “I once helped the other adventurer to get in by using this hole. Unfortunately, he never stepped any further and I burned out as well. I was never able to tell him what I sought in return for my help… that he would carry my ashes along with him through the rest of his journey. May I ask you to do what he could not?”

“You have our word,” Lydia promised. “You’ll be right beside us the whole way through. It’s really the least we can do to thank you.”

With the closest thing to a smile a bird could give, it went down from Tavin’s shoulder and squeezed itself into the hole. It only took a moment for the rock to move and, while they all entered, Melai wandered over to the center of the room.

The light hardly reached far into the room, though that didn’t stop them. Tim excitedly pulled out something from his bag—an artifact that he’d tinkered with to get to produce light without a fire. It lit the rest of the cave up, though observing it all was second on the list.

“I hope to see you once again once you have completed this trip,” Melai mused. Then what little remained of its fire grew and devoured it, leaving nothing left but ashes. Only a phoenix would approach death with such a solemn yet peaceful expression, having already accepted that this would not be its last cycle.

Lydia pulled out a small container from her satchel and began collecting the ashes. The boys took to occupying themselves in other ways. Tavin went to observe the writing on the wall, Henry went to pick through the worn bag in the corner (likely belonging to the skeleton that laid close beside it), and Tim went to look at the treasure.

“Hey, there’s actually stuff in here!” Henry proclaimed after he’d moved on to the bag to the coat. “An old journal and a bunch of scribbled drawings. Doesn’t look like there’s much else, though.”

“Should you really be digging through a dead person’s belongings?” Tavin questioned, even if most of his attention was still on the writing on the wall.

Henry shrugged. “Probably not, but getting cursed by some ancient spirit is just another rite of passage. Mom’s done it tons of times and she’s not dead yet. Besides, didn’t we already decide this guy was—” He must’ve noticed something while he leafed through the pages. “From that side of the family.”

That caught Lydia’s attention just as she put the container of ashes back in her satchel. “We’ll burn it when we make camp for the night. We don’t need the help of those bastards.”

Henry and Tim gave mutual grumbles of agreement and disgust, but Tavin didn’t quite seem to get it. He wouldn’t have, unfortunately; he still spent at least half his time in the castle and away from the horror stories about those-they-will-not-name.

Instead, he brought their attention to something else. “It’s more text like the one where all the phoenixes gathered. This one’s a bit messier but I’m still able to piece together most of it.” He waited until they all seemed to be listening before continuing to read it aloud. “Here, Earth walked through the earth to create the Ley Lines. Their pulsing magic rings through these caverns in an attempt to provide the world with its power. But even so, there are places where the light will not reach; where those wishes will never be seen by the Creator, a river they will never touch. This is where your path will continue if you hope to find more.”

“A river that wishes would never touch,” Tim repeated. “It’s got to be talking about the Lantern Festival, right? That’s the closest time to when wishes would ever touch rivers, at least in a somewhat literal sense.”

“Are you sure that’s what it says?” Lydia asked. “I’ve never seen a map that had a river that never somehow connected to the Lake.”

“I’m certain of that part,” Tavin replied confidently. “But there’s a good reason why it wouldn’t be on any of the maps—it’s practically pointless. Maybe if we could find some local maps…”

“But where?” Tim questioned. “Unless those writings mention somewhere more specific, it could be anywhere in Seothia.”

Henry glanced back over the skeleton and pulled something out of its coat pocket. “Hey, Mom, does it count as helping if Mr. Skeleton over here has a map that might help..?”

“They probably stole it from someone else anyway,” she decided. “That’s all they ever do. Where is it?”

“In Palus, between two of the mountains on the northern side of the territory… It’s hard to tell any of the specifics, the map’s not in good shape.”

“Of course it isn’t, those guys never cared and who knows how long it’s been. Here—mark the spot down and we’ll figure out just how accurate it is.” She turned to Tim, who had since gotten past his distraction and continued to look through the treasure. “Anything interesting in there?”

“There’s some gold coins we can’t use anymore.”

“Add ‘em to Dad’s collection.”

“A couple pieces of jewelry.”

“Gifts for Mom and Ellie, probably. I’m definitely not letting Samone see them and Ellie’ll appreciate them, at least.”

“And this weird bone sword..?”

“You, uh, probably shouldn’t touch that. We were supposed to look for something like that but we never found it. It’s supposed to be pretty dangerous—let me try first.” Lydia walked over and picked it up. “Okay, not inherently cursed… but better safe than sorry. I’ll get Witless to figure out if it’s what we’ve been trying to find before I 'll let you mess around with it, just in case.”

His disappointed sigh could not have been longer. “Okay…”

She looked over the rest of the stuff. “Henry, you’ve got extra space in your bag, right? Can you help carry all of that?” He nodded, tucked the map away, and gathered the treasure up with Tim. Then, to all of them, she said, “Even though we need to go to Palus, we’re still going to go back home for now. We can offload everything we got here and make sure we have everything we might need there.”