Zara release Jara's cage so it came tumbling to the floor. Jara used her magic to slow her descent down so she fell to the ground as lightly as a feather, but she still couldn't release herself. Zara still glared at that. Jara was getting more powerful by the second, yet compared to a blackmagic user for centuries... it's nothing!
Don't worry, I'll help when I can, you've got your knowledge and mine with you. Jara thought
Thanks, I replied. I find myself, for that first time today, lucky. Because of our legend about the Rose Queen people love riddles. Sure the believe the Rose Queen was legend, but if you know for usre you were related to her... you tend to read up all the riddles you can, trying to solve them yourself, without help. It's become a sport at Hojitsu, yet who knew riddles could end up saving your very life!
"You have three riddles to answer to have an inkling of a chance of getting free." Zara warned.
She came down, her shape now flickering, old women and men, children, teens, knights, princesses, and the most haunting of all, her half-sister, the one who cast her in this prison. Her image showed up the most, flickering the most. When Zara spoke it was of many voices, the voices of all whom she had consumed.
"I have many tongues but cannot taste, by me, most things are turned to waste. I crack and snap, yet I stay whole. I may take the largest toll. I assisted all of the first men and I will pay them back again. Around me, people snuggle and sleep yet run when I am released from my keep. I jump around and leap and bound. The cold man wishes I, he had found." The voices overlap. While Zara is ensuring her looks are like her half-sister, shadows encircle us, constantly changing, attempting to distract me.
Araj! Focus! Only you can answer! Jara's voice breaks me free of the trancelike state I was entering
I thought and thought and the answer came to me, quickly. How many times had I watched it grow, keeping me warm, helping me at the forest? The answer was easy!
"Fire!" I cry
"Correct." the voices hiss. I see a shadow different from the rest, an animal of sorts, a tiger? a Lion? Whatever it is, it purrs softly apparently.. pleased I got the right answer?
"It's more powerful than God. It's more evil than the Devil. The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it you will die. " the voices swirl around me threatening to confuse me.
Araj! Focus! Jara calls. Right. More powerful than God? More Evil than the Devil? The Poor have it? The Rich need it? Eating it means your death? The voices swirl around my head, succeeding in their mission.
A little help here! I ask Jara. Without her strength where would I be! Thanks to her presence I'm able to concentrate.
Think Araj. What's more powerful than God?
Nothing... duh!
Exactly She says and fades out, her strength starting to wane. A love for her, more powerful than ever fills me.
"NOTHING!" I cry.
"Correct again, nephew." she hisses.
"As destructive as life, As healing as death; An institutioner of strife, Just as prone to bless. It is all that is good, Yet with an evil trend; As it was the beginning of things, It can also be the end."
What? I have never heard this riddle before. I try to think, to focus but I can't. The voices keep on going, repeating the riddle over and over. Driving me to the point of madness. I can't answer and Zara knows it.
"Fire? Death? Heaven" I try in vain.
"Wrong!" she cackles, and swoops down onto the ground. Gradually, Zara advances on us, and I prepare myself for my death.
YOU ARE READING
The Forbidden Castle - Short Story
Fantasy"You honestly didn't know?" she laughs maliciously, "When you came here. I thought you would have been wanting to die! Or, at least be prepared to die" Die? No not die. Watch my sister die, then die myself. Know I couldn't protect her from this cre...
