The Butterfly Effect

They’d gone back to the Archives. Lydia made sure they were all aware of what they weren’t supposed to do before they went their separate ways.

She wandered back to the room where they found the trinket, observing what was left there. It wasn’t much; a couple of bigger items that they couldn’t take with them before. Only when she thought she was done looking around did she notice something written on the wall.

‘Dull at the start, bright at its peak, then set alight by its own flame, the House of the Phoenix met its end at Kevabel.’

Henry poked his head inside. “Mom, we think we might’ve found something.”

With a glance at the writing, she nodded. “Just give me a minute.” She wrote down what it said before joining him in the other room and following him to where the other two were.

Tim was looking at several older maps and diagrams of some sort while Tavin was bent over books; they both looked up from what they were doing. Tim showed what he’d found first.

“These maps are ancient. There aren’t even house and territory names. This one—which we decided but have been from around the same time—has Qizar in it, too, and it goes by the names of places in legends.” After she took it from him to look at it herself, he darted for another one and showed it to her. “And isn’t this one cool? Some of these have places that no one’s ever recorded before in Seothia and Qizar.”

“We’re looking for something that can actually help us, though,” Henry pointed out. “I doubt that's what we’re supposed to be looking for.”

“I think it’s worth holding on to,” Lydia remarked. Tim beamed at the comment.

“All of these books are pretty old, too,” Tavin said after a little while. He didn’t move from his spot, though. “The text is ancient, the book itself is practically falling apart, and it mentions something from the Commandments like it had happened somewhat recently.”

“What does it mention?”

That was the part that seemed to confuse him the most. “Orestis’s creation of the world—around the time humans split up between Seothians and the children of Fleyw Bresh, but before magical talent was used to distinguish them. It still sounds like it was a couple hundred years ago, but it doesn’t mention any other important event.”

“Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it?” Henry asked with a shrug. “I mean, no one really knows how long it was between the creation of the world and the Fall of Eldrianna.”

“All we know for sure is that, by the time the angels were created, they’d already formed basic civilizations,” Tim agreed.

“What do you think it has to do with the clue?” Lydia prompted gently.

Tavin must’ve considered showing the page before realizing it was an older version of the Old Tongue that she wouldn’t be able to understand. “It keeps mentioning a place—Kevabel. I can’t tell where it’s from, though, or if it’s even anything special…”

She pulled out the note that she had written earlier. “You might be right about something. This mentioned that and the House of the Phoenix, so there has to be some kind of connection.” She sat down and started sorting through the maps. “If we can figure out where it is, we might be able to find out where we’re supposed to be going. Nothing we need should be in Qizar, so just put those aside. If you’re not sure then I’ll look at it.” She didn’t have thirty years in the adventure business for nothing.

The boys nodded and they began their search for a map. Henry almost immediately got up to get some more, Tim and Tavin started sorting, and Lydia was quickly given whatever they didn’t recognize. Occasionally Tim would hand one to her for Tavin to take back; he’d honestly been in Qizar more than any of them, so distinguishing it wasn’t as hard.

From there, it was only a matter of time before they were sorting through regional Seothian maps, trying to find something old enough that might have that ancient place marked. Surprisingly it wasn’t the oldest map that had it, but one of the newer ones; one that nearly matched Lydia’s if it weren’t for the marked spot of Kevabel.

“We’ve found our stop,” she announced, setting it down for them to all see it. “We’re heading to Xannon territory.”

…

They made the trip straight there instead of stopping by the Stone Estate again; Mathieu was more than willing to give them what they would need for the trip. When they got there, they stayed at an inn in a nearby town for the night before heading to Kevabel first thing in the morning.

With the way the stories of the House of the Phoenix went, it was little wonder that something had happened to the town. Except, there was nothing to really show that anything had happened at all. It looked like it had simply been abandoned. Or, at the very least, nothing remained to make it clear that there was a reason.

“Why does nothing else mention this place..?” Henry mumbled, running his hand along an ancient building’s wall.

“Maybe it’s like Idale,” Tim offered. “Whatever happened, it just… faded from existence, without a true explanation as to why.”

“It wouldn’t be odd for anyone who experienced it to keep it secret,” Tavin agreed. “Depending on what had happened, it might be easier to forget about it than to make sure the memory of those lost stayed alive.”

“Minne taught us that much,” Lydia sighed. “Sometimes things really are just better left forgotten.”

“But that says nothing about why this place needs to be forgotten,” Henry remarked. “Tavin, did anything you read say anything about that?”

Tavin shook his head. “It might have something to do with the third projection we watched in Palus. There wasn’t any direct mention of Dree but there were descriptions of two people similar to her and the person who set this all up.”

“Eldrianna could have done something,” Tim mumbled. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Whatever would’ve happened, it would’ve been before her Fall,” Lydia pointed out. “From the sounds of it, there wouldn’t be any records about it if it had been after.”

Tavin wandered to one of the old buildings and traced some scribbles on it. “Perhaps we’re going to learn the truth behind her banishment from the Gods’ Sanctuary. This could be where it happened, one of the few things no scholar of myth can ever agree on…”

“Not like they’ll believe Seothians—but none of us are doing this for the attention of a couple of old dudes anyway.” Henry gave a careful look at their surroundings before prompting, “So, what’s our plan?”

“Look around but don’t mess with anything,” Lydia decided after a moment of consideration. “A lot of this stuff looks like it can fall down at any moment, so we need to be careful. We also don’t want to activate anything by accident. Remember that we don’t know anything about this place. Tim and Henry, if you’ll look over there, Tavin and I can see if there’s anything interesting here. We’ll meet at the center in a little while to figure out what we found.”

They all nodded. The twins left in the direction she’d gestured to and she and Tavin went to another spot.

Nothing was said between them for a little while, until he finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Mom, what’s going on?”

Without too much thought about it, she grinned and ruffled his hair. “We’re looking for clues about what happened to Kevabel.”

“That’s not what I meant. You know that, don’t you?”

Somehow she was able to make her words and attitude match, though she did take the opportunity to move a bit out of eyeshot. It was always easier to pretend when she didn’t need to make eye contact. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is this real?”

“Of course it is. What else would this all be if it wasn’t?”

“Hardly any of this feels right and I know I’m not the only one who thinks that way. Something felt wrong with our entire time with Aunt Clare. It didn’t make sense. It felt like one minute we were getting ready to leave and when I blink we’re there.”

“Time flies when you’re with family, doesn’t it?”

“It wasn’t just that. There were… gaps, almost, between certain moments. Like the world needed to think about something or there was something else distracting it from paying attention to us.”

“Now that just sounds like you got dizzy or something. I doubt it’s anything serious.”

“Except I’m not the only one. I talked with Aunt Ellie and Uncle Lewis. They felt the same way; like this isn’t how things are supposed to be. I tried asking Tim and Henry but they just seemed confused… they brushed it off but not in the way you do. Honestly, Mom, you do a terrible job at making it look like you don’t know anything.”

“So let’s say that you’re right,” she began, “and there is something going on. What do you think it is?”

Such tactics had, before, gotten others to stop; when they realized they couldn’t come up with an answer, they usually silently gave up and stopped mentioning it. Unfortunately that wasn’t how he responded.

“I think it’s someone who isn’t ready to say goodbye, creating an illusion so she never has to.”

How close to the truth it was made her shiver, though luckily she found a way to avert his attention. “There’s nothing here, so let’s check out another place. Something’s got to be hiding here somewhere.”