The Legacy's Truth (#3)

Down is an Option

Tavros was rotating his shoulder blades as we sat down next to where we tied the boat to. "I'm sorry." I told him. "You're stuck with me and I'm not being very helpful."

He looked at me in shock. What I said may not have been something that a potential Queen would say, but I was another passenger of the sea like him. Why should I get special treatment? "Oh I don't mind it, Your Majesty. You are of a lovely company."

"I loved our journey. It has been a nice one."

The minotaur opened the sack where we kept the supply of food and handed me an apple. "We need to get energy for the rest of the trip." He reminded me.

"But there is something curious about this place." I expressed as I took the apple from him. "Like, why is there a dam in the middle of nowhere?"

"We must have travelled a long way and it doesn't make sense."

"Yes, and, why is it broken? If it is a dam, there should be land nearby. And why is the dam near an ocean?"

"It doesn't have the right bricks." He pointed out.

"You're right!" I exclaimed as I traced the walls with my hand. "Something is off about this place."

"I've never seen it before or heard about this place and I've sailed almost all the seas, even this one."

"Are you telling me that you've been in these parts of the ocean before?"

"Why yes, Your Majesty!" He nodded as he moved onto his next apple.

I couldn't eat mine but I did spin it around within my palms as I walked around the dam and looked for something that could tell us what the structure exactly was. "There is a small cave behind." I shouted as I headed down further.

"Be careful, Your Majesty." He shouted back.

I knew that the minotaur was very tired and so, I asked him not to follow me down. I could take care of myself. I had my sword at ready in case the island was inhabited despite what we thought. There were steps that led down to another water body. It looked like an inland ocean.

Right as I was going to take the final step, I heard a scream. "Tavros?" I shouted as I climbed back to where I started from. "What happened?" I asked him as he sat on the floor, looking as though he had encountered a ghost.

"I- I tried to....."

"Are you okay?" I asked but he kept pointing to the structure of the dam.

"What is it?"

"I went to investigate it and...."

"Okay. I'm going to go close to it...." Tavros was going to tell me not to do that. "But I'll be cautious."

He was breathing heavily and wasn't able to talk properly. Something had definitely spooked him. I walked closer to the structure from where we were. There were steps that lead to the entrance of the dam but as I climbed it, I felt the air getting thinner.

"Odd." I breathed out and before I could take the final step, I saw a shimmer move in front of me. "Woah!" I shouted as I brought my hand forward to touch it and just as I did, the whole structure enlightened. "Oh my-" I started climbing back down in shock.

"It pushed me down." He was calming down. "That was why I got a little tensed up."

"I get it now." I spoke, my eyes still looking at where the structure glowed green.

There was a huge emerald-coloured force field barrier that prevented us from moving any further from where we were. "We can't get in." He breathed out.

I spent the next thirty minutes climbing up and down the stairs and pacing the boundaries of the shore. "There has to be a way to do this." I kept mumbling to myself.

"Why don't we take some rest and think about it tomorrow? The sun is setting down."

And so, we spent the night there. Tavros kept asking me if I was okay with keeping the first watch and tried to tell me that he was fine to do it but I ordered him to go to sleep. I lay awake and played with a few stones and kept thinking of a way to get inside the dam. If there was an enchantment around it, the Witch had to be inside. 

Once Tavros got up and looked a little better, I went to sleep. I woke up very early in the morning because the curiosity was eating me up from the inside. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you need to sleep, Your Majesty."

"A curious mind never sleeps." I quoted. "I'll sleep once Narnia is safe."

"Well, would you like the swim down and eat then?"

That sentence made all the difference. "What did you just say?" I asked him.

"Well, it is another phrase that Narnians use when we eat fish." Tavros started. "We say 'swim down' instead of 'sit down', although not everyone uses it."

"Tavros, you're a genius!" I shouted as I hugged him.

"I am?" He asked, trying to remember what he had said that made me react the way that I did.

I rushed to the sea-cave that I came across the previous day and climbed down the steps. "I knew that there was a way." I stomped my foot on the ground.

"Is everything okay, Your Majesty?"

"Is it now, General Tavros. You might have just saved Narnia."

"I have? What did I say?"

"The merpeople told us that the journey to reach the destination would take a day." He nodded. "And the map pointed us here. If my navigation skills were right, which I am guessing that they were, and if there is an enchantment over the main entrance to the inner structure, that would be the first place we will look to."

"Are you suggesting what I think that you are suggesting?" He asked as we stood staring at the sea-cave between the walls.

"This is a small water body in between two walls." I stated what we already knew. "This is like a sea-cave. Which means that below it, is the deep wide ocean. If we can't go up," I said, looking at the water. "Down is the only option."