Book 6 - Mystery of Shadow Mountain - Chapter 9: Glow and Glare

Chapter 9

Glow and Glare

         To cool off from our thrilling Dragon Basketball game, we decided to walk instead of ride our dragons.  After dismounting our dragons, all of our legs blatantly told us how long we had been in the saddle and how much work we had done.

         I call out and stretch my legs, “Ooo ah, I feel like a new born baby yak trying to stand for the first time.”

         Once I gave my legs a good stretch, I felt fine.  Everyone stretched as well and gave a similar remark.

         Going forward, I use the gem as a beacon and a compass to guide which direction we will take.  We walk across the middle parts of the island to try and find where this thing is leading us.

         Annabeth asks, “Do you even know that this thing is pointing to something on the island?”

         “I don’t know for sure,” I answer.  “Although, remember when we first got the gem, do any of you remembering it glowing at all?”

         Everyone thinks, but Annabeth responds, “Come to think of it, no I don’t.”

         I explain about what happened last night.

         “Good choice not going out like that,” Cazi commented.

         Annabeth eagerly replies, “Could we have less chatter and more mystery.”

         After about fifteen minutes of walking around, we could not tell anything different about the gem.  We increasingly got closer to the center of Mystery.  As we continue on past the center and to the south of the central mountain on the island, the gem’s glowing inside light jumped back and started pointing to a new direction.

         “Now we’re cookin’,” I declared.

         Changing our direction, we then go towards the center of the island.  Near the foot of the mountain the glow from inside the gem intensifies.

         Annabeth says, “looks like we need to go into the mountain.”

         Asvord asks, “Is there a cave nearby?”

         Cazi answers, “There is, but I have been in these caves before and I did not see anything mysterious looking, or else I would have brought it to Jarl’s attention.”

         “I bet,” Annabeth suggests.  “Jarl has something else in mind.”

         “yep,” I say.  “I wonder if there is a secret entrance along the foot of the mountain here.”

         “See,” Annabeth replies.  “Told you.”

         Dawn folds her arms, “Now where are we going to find the entrance to this, ‘secret cave’?  Is it going to just be right on top of us that all we have to do is just lean on the side of the mountain and-…”

         Dawn did in fact lean on the side of the mountain and then she nearly slipped as part of the rock face seeped into the mountain; grinding gears and shaking ground came because of it.  In front before us, a three-yard-wide be two-yard-tall boulder began to be opened in for us.

         Dawn quips, “I knew that was there the whole time.  I just wanted to see if you guys were paying attention.”

         Hannah nods her head like she “totally” believes her, “Sure,” Hannah remarks.

         The boulder moved into the mountain about two feet.  Squeezing in past it, I see that the boulder is too large and massive for even all of us to move at once.  Someone must stay behind and stay with the dragons.

         I began to open my mouth but Dawn’s voice came first, “I’ll stay with the dragons.  I got you guys this far, the rest is up to you.  I know you can solve this without me.”

         When Dawn starts to go back through to the outside, I quip, “Oh, it won’t be the same without you.”

         “Oh, I’m sure you’ll get over it,” Dawn spoke back.

         “Yeah,” I said.  “I’m over it.”

         I could just see Dawn shaking her head or something and then I thought I heard her say, “Idiot.”

         “What?” I ask back.

         “Nothing that you would be interested in,” Dawn replies.

         Annabeth then bolted back outside and was gone momentarily.  She came back with a few lit torches and hand them to Cazi and Asvord.  Even though the gem itself is giving off its own light somehow, it is not enough to tell where we are going.  Moving on, the rest of us then see where this mysterious tunnel will take us.  About ten feet later, we enter a kind of small rectangular room.

         Hannah comments disgusted, “Well this, stinks.  First big lead and we are greeted with a dead end.”

         “Well,” I say to counter.  “Sometimes what looks like a dead end, you have to search and make your own exit.”

         “Not to agree with my sister, Jarl,” Cazi adds.  “But what do you expect us to do?  Go through a wall?”

         “If it comes to that,” I answer.

         Cazi walks away to a wall, “Knew you were going to say that as soon as I asked it.  I assume you want us to study the walls for any clues.”

         “Yes,” I state.  “And the ceiling and floors.  Just be careful of any traps.”

         Abbie echoes, “Traps?  What makes you think there would be traps in here?”

         “Well,” I say.  “When you start to anticipate a mystery’s next turn, something you least expect will happen.  In this scenario, I would guess trap first before anything else.  We already had a secret door with a secret doorknob, for lack of a better term.”

         “Alright,” Abbie says hesitantly.

         For the next ten, fifteen minutes, we all study this room.  With thirteen vikings in a somewhat small room, it did not take long for us to realize, there is just not much here at all.

         To verbally summarize what we see, I talk to the group, “The biggest thing we see is just pictures and carvings on the walls, ceiling, and floor about vikings who once lived here.  From what we see, they were a simple people who relied on fish and the natural food selection here.  No signs of Speed Stingers in any of the pictures, so this must have been long before the flightless dragons arrived.

         “There is nothing in this room,” Cazi declared.

         I shake my head, “There has to be something here.”

         This time I feel my way across the walls, starting on the right side.  When I get to the far wall, opposite the tunnel we came through, I sudden feel an indentation in the wall.

         “Strange,” I declare.

         “Found something?” asks Annabeth.

         “Yes,” I said.  “There is an indentation here on the wall.  If you step back, you would not know that there is anything on the wall.  It blends well with the rest of the markings on the wall.”

         “Well,” Cazi speaks up.  “What’s it for?”

         I think for a moment, but before I could answer that, I noticed something from the gem.  The inside is the brightest I have seen it.  Moving away from the wall, I take note that the gem’s inside lessens in intensity.  When come back to the indentation, the gem becomes bright again.

         “I believe I just figured it out,” I answer.

         I proceed to take the gem and slam it on the ground.  Not expecting that, all the girls give a yelp or a small scream at me breaking the gem on the floor.  The gem shatters like glass revealing a small glowing pellet.

         Hannah then demands an explanation, “Why in a yak’s brain did you decide to do that?!  I thought that gem is… or was… valuable?”

         “It was, or is valuable, just not in the way you’d think,” I respond and pick up the pellet.  “For a gem that light to be valuable, something seemed screwy to me.  Case and point, if that was a real gem worth a high price in any market, it would not just shatter that easily.”

         Garth notes, “Unless you hit it in the spot that caused it to shatter,” Garth takes a knee to look at the shatter pieces of the gem.  Standing back up, he says, “But I do agree, that so-called gem was no gem at all.  Just a cheap copy of one.”

         “So, it was designed to hold the pellet inside but also to be broken when whatever this is we found was found,” Hannah finished.

         “Exactly,” I point at her briefly.

         As I turn to face the wall, Annabeth suggests, “Next time, warn us you are going to do that.  I am glad no one’s foot was there.”

         Cazi quips, “Snotlout’s not even here.”

         Abbie questioned, “Who?”

         “Exactly,” Cazi answers.  “But if roles were reversed and Hiccup and the gang were here, I could just see Tuffnut ‘accidentally’ breaking the gem over Snotlout’s foot.”

         Cazi chuckles as Asvord replies, “Then Snotlout rages about shards being stuck in his foot.”

         I laugh too, “Ready to get back to the mystery at hand?”

         Annabeth smiles, “Would this not be the mystery at Mystery?”

         Rolling my eyes, I reply, “Very punny.”  Annabeth then rolls her eyes, I continue, “There will be plenty of time for puns, but let’s get down to business.”

         Angie asks, “Are you going to fit that pellet in the indentation?”

         “All puns aside,” I say.  “Yes.”

         Freezing for a moment to take a breath, I then reach the pellet and start to put it into the hole.  It is a tight fit.  I take my hand away to adjust my fingers to push it in, but in taking my hand away, the pellet then jerkingly sinks into the wall.

         “What the yaknog?” I exclaim.  “Ah, magnets.”

         We all wait for something to happen.  Yet, nothing happens.

         Cazi then says something, “Is another wall supposed to start opening up for us or something?”

         Just as she said that, the wall in front of us pushes back into itself, creating a suction type sound.

         “I stand corrected,” Cazi says.

         The wall did not do anything more than what it just did.

         “I guess we have to push it out of our way,” I declared.

         With hesitation, everyone steps over to help, putting their shoulder into the wall, we push.  At first the wall does not move, but with all of us pushing in unison, the wall a few seconds later starts to move.  Once we got the wall moving, it is a synch to keep it moving.  But we have to keep pushing, or else it will stop.

         A minute later after pushing it, Cazi calls out, “How long do we have to push this thing?!”

         “I don’t know,” I respond.  “Keep… pushing.”

         Another minute later, I feel a cool draft of rushing air around the sides of the wall.  Pushing it another couple of feet, we see we are in a new room.  Small room, ten feet by teen feet and quite high, maybe thirty or forty feet high.  There seems to be quite a bit of light coming in from somewhere up near the top.

         Hannah puts her hands on her hips as she says in disgust, “We go from what looked like a dead end to an even smaller room and an even bigger dead in.  The only thing that is in here are a punch of square blocks of stone.”

         “Key words there being ‘…what looked like a dead end…’,” said Annabeth.  “We can’t give up now.”

         As soon as I caught my breath, I spoke up, “It has been a puzzle to this point, can’t expect anything less.  Move back.”

         “Where?” Hannah questioned, but she did step back anyway.

         “You guys wanted a warning,” I said as I spider jumped up the side of the wall and the stone blocks.

         Going up this way for about ten feet, I pull myself on top of the stone block.  Looking around I see stone blocks jutting out from the walls now.  There is one right across from me.  I jump on it and stand up.  Above my head there is another stone block but closer to the wall.  In front of me, there is a pillar of jutting out stone blocks going upward.  Getting an idea, I go back to the edge of the wall, run out, and wall jump to reverse direction and climb onto the stone block that was behind me.

         “Halfway there,” I declare.

         Seeing now that I am within reach of the top, I aim my grappling hook to the center of the ceiling and fire.  Less than a couple seconds, the hook lodges into the ceiling.  Seeing how it would be a bad idea to fall at this height with the obstacles in the way, I will use the grappling hook as a little insurance that if the worst-case scenario does come, I am prepared.

         Scanning the stone blocks around me, I see the only way up another level is to jump back to the other side.  However, doing what I did before is out of my reach.  But on the other hand, if I use two side stones, one jutting out from the wall, one hanging down from the ceiling, I could hop step and jump from each to land on the far block.  Executing just that, I find myself within ten feet of the top tower.  From here, I can see that the top is literally on ground level some distance up the mountain and there are vents of some kind that allow quite a bit of sunlight to shine in.

         Now things get tricky.  The only way up to the top is via stone block columns hanging down from the ceiling.  Because I have my grappling hook already in place, it is not so daunting to do what I am about to do.  My plan is to grab on to the pillars and wall jump to each pillar, grab them, and then spot the next one.  Taking a second to plan a little more, I see that there are actually hand holds on the side of the columns.

         I say under my breath, “I guess whoever built this wanted it to be possible that someone find whatever it is that is hiding here.”

         The hand holds make my job so much easier now, that I complete the trek up to the top of the ceiling and sit on the ledge of another block from the side of the tower.  There is one more row of blocks, but these make an “X” or a “+” depending on how you look at it, and connect to all four of the walls.  Jumping up to grab the edge of the final stone row, I again pull myself back up.

         In bright sunlight from a two foot by three foot vent, I see in the center of the “X” a glow and a glare.

         I call out to my friends down below, “Guess what I found?”

         Without skipping a beat, Annabeth replied, “Another gem with a glowing pellet inside.”

         “Yep,” I acknowledge.  “Meet me outside on top of wherever this tower leads.  There are vents I can crawl through.”

         “Alright,” answered Annabeth.

         Grabbing the second gem out of a hole, I then crawl my way over to the vent behind me.  Not just because I have to crawl to fit through the vent, but I also have to crawl because I cannot stand up or even be on my knees and fit between the stone X and the ceiling.  Obviously, before I leave, I dislodge my grappling hook, rewind the chain, and reset the mechanism.

         By the time I get out of the underground tower, I see that the rest had found where it let out.

         Asvord declares, “So that is what that text meant.”

         I question her while I stand up, dusting myself off, “What text?”

         “I have been up through this path a couple of times and always passed this text on the side of the mountain here,” Asvord points to the mountain.  We walk over to investigate, Asvord proceeds to read out loud what the inscription says, “‘Here lies the second light.  If you wish to continue your quest, go where the light is as warm as melted yak butter in the spring.’”

         Cazi folds her arms, “That’s a first.”

         Hannah curiously asks, “What’s a first?”

         Cazi responds, “A clue with a sense of humor.  Not a great sense of humor, but at least it is something new.  It changes it up, makes clue finding fresh.”

         Hannah nods her head in agreement while Annabeth asks me, “So, where do you think this is clue is talking about?”

         Taking a minute to read the clue over again a few times, I deduce the meaning behind it; or at least the one I think it is meaning, “For starters, ‘second light’ to me means that we are just starting on our quest to find what lies at the end of this mystery.  Second, taking the clue literally, you find where we need to go.  What is our yak butter like in the spring?”

         Surprised they have to answer a question, Dawn answers after a moment to realize I wanted them to figure it out too, “Even though you obviously already know the answer to this question… Why even ask it?  But, our yak butter is not as melty as the clue lets on to be.”

         “Right,” Annabeth chimes in.  “It is telling us to go to a place where yak butter is melted in a season that is not traditionally that warm or rather hot to actually melt yak butter for Berk.  But who says we have to stay in this area?  Other mysteries we have solved, we have gone to all different parts of the archipelago.  What direction would we have to go to find a temperature warmer and hot enough to melt yak butter in the open air?”

         Dawn shakes her head, “Not you too?”

         “Me too what?” Annabeth grins.

         “You know what,” Dawn replies.  “Jarl asks a question after the clue Asvord read insinuates an answer to a question.  Then you go ask your own question.”

         “Well,” Annabeth calls out Dawn.  “Do you know the answer or not?”

         “Of course, I do,” Dawn said.  “Simply go south to a warmer climate.”

         “Exactly,” I award Dawn with a pat on the back with my right hand.  When I try to pat a second time, Dawn grabs my hand with her first finger and thumb and takes it away like she was picking up a stinky sock.

         “Mr., I-Solve-Mysteries-Via-Making-My-Friends-Solve-A-Mystery-Within-A-Mystery-Just-To-Answer-A-Question,” Dawn jokingly mocked.  “Where do you suppose this place is at?  The archipelago is a large span of many different islands, lands, and vikings.  Where do you suppose we start?”

         “We start by heading south,” I simply state.

         Dawn raised her right hand to say something.  She opens her mouth to speak, but instead waves me off and just says, “Forget it.  I’m not going to win that battle with you yet about your logic.”  Dawn turns back around and addresses the group as she mounts Fire Song, “Let’s get going shall we?