CHRONICLES OF THE LOST ORACLE: BOOK ONE - SHADOWS

chapter two

The cave was filled with the most amazing treasures imaginable. Chests and piles of silver and gold stood everywhere the eye could see. Four torches to the furthest reaches of the walls and one dead center- lit up the place.

To the left the wall was lined with stone tablets engraved with some ancient language neither I nor my brother recognized. To the right old scrolls and books that must hold millions of ancient secrets were piled on the floor. And all along the back wall stood statues that must have seen over ten thousand lifetimes.

As we walked into the chamber, Artimeus and I went over to get a closer look at the tablets and Arami had gone over to examine the scrolls.

Artimeus was still busy trying to decipher the language on the tablets when something over by the statues caught my eye. It was a small golden amulet around the neck of the statue standing in the middle - a little to the front of all the other statues along the wall.

The amulet was rectangular with a crimson red ruby imbedded into the gold plate. I was drawn to it - closer and closer - like a moth to a flame. I reached out to take it but just as I enclosed my fist around it there was a blinding flash of light...

"I said, leave me alone, Arami. I don't want to talk about it." I stormed through the back door into the kitchen where - to my bad luck - my father sat waiting for us. The journey home had taken far longer than planned and it was all ready way past curfew when we finally got home.

"Just one moment young lady." My dad was a tall, masculine man whom few ever dared to mess with. "Where have you three been." He asked in a tone that only meant we were in big trouble. There was no excuse for missing curfew by as much as we had tonight except maybe the truth which at this moment was a forbidden subject.

"Not now dad. Please, forgive tonight, yell and punish tomorrow." I said and without so much as looking at him, rushed upstairs and into my room. I slammed the door shut, threw my backpack on the floor in front of the closet and fell on the bed.

A day in Hell would have been like an afternoon at a spa compared the day I'd had. I lay there on my bed thinking about the day's events and drifted of into the darkness of sleep - or so I thought. However I soon realized that I was back in the same place I was this morning before I had entered into my brother's mind. I wondered who's mind I was going to go into now - sins unlike this morning I didn't have any enquiry about someone else's doings - and decided I wasn't in the mood for it. Willing myself back to my own thoughts and reality I heard someone knock on my door.

"Artimira it's me. Please let me in." It was Artimeus.

"It's open. Come in if you want." I said in despair.

He opened the door with care and a little of the light from the hall filled into my room. I could see the worry in his eyes for just a moment before he stepped into my room and closed the door again and we were surrounded by darkness once again.

"What's going on Ami?" he asked. His voice was soft and gentle but burning with anxiety and concern.

"Do you believe we were all born with a purpose? A kind of destiny?" I asked him sitting up with my legs crossed in front of me and fidgeting with something between my fingers.

"Of coarse I do. If deciphering all these old codes have taught me anything, it's that. Why, what brought this on?"

"Arty, if I told you something will you promise me it will stay just between us no matter what happens?"

"Artimira, what are you up to?"

"What makes you think I'm up to something." I said innocently playful.