Fools of us All - Chapter 40

We found ourselves in a large room in the basement. The air was musty and a chill permeated everything we could see. The light was dim, leaving shadows to rule the corners. I shivered under my heavy robe, moaning as my arm throbbed with pain. I was not doing well.

Heavy footfalls sounded nearby and we dove into the darkness, hiding behind a stone pillar. Two guards ran into the room, pausing for a moment before running out again. Once their steps had receded we continued forward to the only source of light in the room. A large book was sitting on a stand underneath a single light. The book was large and looked to be quite ancient. The leatherbound cover had indecipherable phrases etched into it.

We had found it.

Neither one of us wanted to be the first to touch it. It seemed to loom before us, weighing us down with the expectations we had for it. This was the book that had driven Caz’s life, and the book that had plucked me from my own time to a future I should never have seen. We did not speak. We could not speak.

Working up my courage, I stepped forward, a sudden feeling of nausea hitting me. The room spun for a second and I reached out, grabbing the stand to steady myself. When the room had settled down, I took a deep breath, running my fingers across the cover of the book. “The truth lies within, for those willing to seek,” I muttered, feeling the rough cut of the characters and the leather.

“What was that?” asked Caz, whispering, her voice swallowed by the vastness of the room.

“Nothing,” I responded. Cautiously, I turned the cover, half-expecting lightning to strike or for something to come leaping out, but besides it obvious ancient age, it was like any other book I had read. Except it was not in any language I could understand.

I flipped a few more pages, but it was all in the same script, undecipherable. I wondered if it was a language I had seen before because it somehow seemed familiar, but I was not sure why. I glanced over at Caz, expecting her to be reading, but instead she was staring at me.

“Do you know what it says?” she asked.

“No. Do you?”

She shook her head.

Simultaneously, we turned our heads and looked back at the book. “Now what?” she asked, her voice full of pain.

The question became moot when a heavy hand landed on our shoulders. “Now you have some explaining to do,” came a voice from behind us. I glanced at Caz, half expecting to see her tensing for a fight, but instead there was nothing but resignation on her face. And I could not blame her.

We were defeated.