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The Sacred Stones

A young woman and her associate find themselves in a magical and war-stricken land. Will they be able to return home or will they be forced to fight alongside those who wished them dead?

By K’Lee P.Published 2 years ago 10 min read
Runner-Up in The Fantasy Prologue
7
The Sacred Stones
Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” I translated the words carved in moss-covered stone.

“Can you make out the rest?” Elijah asked as he scribbled in his notepad.

A wave of goosebumps washed over me as I ran my fingers over the weathered rock. The slate-gray stone wore patches of lichen and roots. The letters, etched hundreds of years ago, had been battered and stolen by time. “I don’t think so. I’ll send a picture to Kacey. Maybe she can clean it up.” As I waited for the call to connect, I sent her the image. “Kacey, this is Layla, team Charlie, quadrant two.”

The sound of indistinguishable chatter and a choir of computer noises garbled her voice as she said, “Hey, girl. How’s the team?”

“We’re alright. It’s just myself and E.J. Mark went to help at quadrant four.” I paced under the archway that adorned the inscription as I spoke. “I sent a picture of a pretty rough carving. Can you work your magic?”

I heard the click of her keyboard on the other end of the line. After a moment, she said, “Hm, I’m a little backed up right now. I got translation requests coming non-stop from the rest of the teams, but I’ll get it to you as soon as possible.”

Curiosity gnawed at my mind, but I bit back the urge to beg. “No problem. While I have you, do you have eyes on the engineers?”

Kacey replied, “They are all at quadrant four. It’s a complete cluster. They’re trying to extract Jared right now without making the whole burial site collapse. Why? What do you have?”

The dark abyss consumed the beam from my flashlight. “We found a cave or a tunnel, but don’t know how structurally sound it is. Is there an ETA for an engineer?”

She sighed and vigorously typed, “Girl, I’d mark it and head back to base, or hike to quadrant seven and look around there. Engineers will be with team Bravo until at least nightfall to secure their dig.”

Elijah shrugged his shoulders and pulled out his navigation system.

“Alright. Thanks, Kacey.” I hung up and returned my satellite phone to my bag. I tried to turn away, but the tunnel had a gravity of its own that latched onto me, or perhaps it was my own curiosity that forced me through the threshold.

“Woah! Layla, what are you doing?” Elijah’s voice bounced throughout the chasm.

The small ray of my flashlight lit up a cobblestone walkway. My words carried down the never-ending tunnel as I spoke. “I just want to take a quick look.”

“Seriously? We still have miles of the Scottish Highlands to cover.”

I swatted his words out of the air. “Yeah, but this site is exactly what I need for my dissertation.” As I looked around, the memories of my past failed digs caused a knot to fill my throat. This discovery was what I needed to prove that I could do it, that I could be a successful archaeologist. I took another step into the darkness.

Desperation caused Elijah’s voice to raise an octave. “Are you crazy? We are the only team who hasn’t had to be extracted on this project, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

A smile crept across my face as I noticed columns of symbols etched on the walls. “Fine. Stay out there, but you’re missing out.”

His sigh filled the damp air around me. “What did you find?” He finally asked.

“Some symbols that I think a certain semiotician would find very fascinating.” My camera's flash was blinding as I documented the mosaic of familiar and foreign icons.

The clap of Elijah’s cautious footsteps entered the cave, but he didn’t say a word. His occasional gasp, followed by the sound of a pencil against his notebook, made me giggle. We worked in silence, diligently documenting every symbol and shard of pottery. Ornate metal pieces, most likely for torches, dotted the walls. As I continued further, the jagged and raw tunnel transitioned into a man-made hallway of ledge stonework that reminded me of the castle in Edinburgh.

“Layla,” Elijah whispered as if he feared his volume would cause the roof to collapse, “Come on. We can return with the engineers tomorrow.”

The whisper of a woman’s voice radiated from deep in the tunnel. She hissed in Gaelic, “Lean a Cailleach.” Follow Cailleach.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what? The wind?”

The air rushed past me and caused whips of my hair to escape my up-do. Invisible hands from the gust shoved me deeper into the darkness until the mouth of the cave was nothing but a small semicircle of light. A trance-like state overcame me as I took another step.

“Layla!” Urgency filled Elijah’s hushed voice.

Layla… Follow Cailleach.

The corridor turned to the right, revealing perfectly preserved cave paintings of creatures. A three-headed dragon, a serpent, a kelpie, and more. Etched in large letters to my left was a language I didn’t recognize. The symbols flowed together like cursive, unlike any ancient text I had ever seen or studied.

The patter of footsteps grew louder until Elijah stood inches from my face. “What has gotten into you? You’re gonna get us both killed!”

Layla… Follow Cailleach.

I stepped around him without a word and continued deeper and deeper. The wind was so strong that the air howled like a wounded dog. High pitched and desperate. The hallway diverted once more, but as I turned the corner, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The narrow tunnel opened into a gigantic cavern. Chandeliers of stalactites hung above a pool of water that seemed to radiate from an unknown light source. Large columns of stones circled the pond. The rock closest to the entrance had a carving of a triskele, the symbol associated with the Druids.

I didn’t realize that Elijah stood by my side until he said, “Holy hell.”

We shared a look of giddy disbelief. He jumped up and down and erupted into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. I felt compelled to get closer to the water, and it took all my strength to keep my legs steady as I studied the room. There was something familiar about the strange place and it hummed with an energy I couldn’t quite explain.

Elijah shouted over the roaring wind, “Layla, do you know what this means? This is going to be the new Stonehenge. Screw that. It’s gonna be bigger than Stonehenge. We’re talking: magazines, journals, speaking tours…”

He continued to ramble as I succumbed to the desire to go to the water’s edge. The pool was the color of green sea glass and framed by black sand. Despite the battering air, the surface was eerily calm. I knelt to the ground and sat on my heels, and my hands dragged through the coarse silt that smelt of salt and sulfur. As the tip of my finger touched the glowing pond, a single ripple slithered across the surface. I watched in disbelief as it seemed to bounce off the opposite side and grew in size as it made its way back toward me. The swell turned into a tower of water two stories tall that flowed like a waterfall in reverse. My body felt cemented in place, my knees glued to the sand beneath me as the water roared inches in front of my face. I glanced at Elijah over my shoulder. He looked at me with wide eyes, his lips parted, and his eyebrows furrowed. The wind had become so strong that it sucked the air from my lungs as I tried to call out for help. The liquid monolith reached toward the ceiling and then leaned forward as if it could crash into us at any moment. Elijah grabbed onto me, wrapping his arms around my torso as if I were a life raft. This is it. We’re going to die. We cowered at the base of the water and waited for the end. I closed my eyes and focused on the warmth of Elijah’s embrace against my back. Then, the weight of the water smacked against the top of my head and shoulders.

Suddenly… an abyss of emptiness. There was only the familiar sensation of being inside a landing plane. The whine of white noise filled my ears, the pull of gravity yanked on my insides. I couldn’t tell if I was falling forward or backward, up or down. It lasted for a fraction of a second, or maybe a lifetime. Uncertainty permeated every cell of my body. I knew I was no longer on earth, but where was I? Was I dead?

In an instant, frigid water filled my nose, and a current hurled me into a dance of somersaults and twists. I didn’t have time to comprehend where I was as the rush of water threw me against something sharp, bruising my ribs. Sun rays guided me to the surface as I battled to avoid stones and tree limbs. My boot lodged itself in between two boulders, but no matter how hard I kicked or writhed, I couldn’t free myself. Panic tightened my throat and my chest burned from lack of oxygen. The blur of a silhouette rushed toward me and struck the side of my knee and thigh. The pain from my bone splitting reverberated throughout my person. I cried out in pain and engulfed a mouthful of foul water. The force dislodged my foot, allowing me to claw my way to the surface and dragged myself onto the riverbank. My drenched hair clung to my face, covering my eyes and nose. A coughing fit overwhelmed me as I expelled the soil-ridden liquid from my lungs.

Elijah’s unconscious form laid a few feet from me. Crap. I crawled on my side over gritty sand and tufts of grass with my broken leg resting on top of my good one, so I could shake him by the shoulder. The faintest groan escaped his lips. His eyelashes fluttered as he squirmed.

“What happened?” He moaned.

“I’m not sure. But I need your help.” I tried to remain calm as I examined his injuries, but my pain was disorienting. His eyes opened to small slits. I gave him a fake reassuring smile. “Um, Elijah, my leg is broken.” I swallowed the knot in my throat that threatened to make me cry.

He shot up as if his own body wasn’t riddled with bruises and lacerations. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Layla, that looks pretty bad.” His hand covered his mouth, his olive face became as pale as porcelain, and I feared he would vomit.

I looked down at my lower leg. A white chunk of bone protruded from my skin and pants. Blood, the color of red wine, soaked my clothes and the surrounding sand. The pain intensified as my resolve weakened. I dug my fingers into the soft earth and tried to focus on my breath. My heart rattled inside my chest. “I need you to splint it and try to stop the bleeding.”

He shook his head. “There’s too much. There’s too much blood. Oh my… Layla, your bone is sticking out!”

In any other circumstance, I found his tendency to panic comical, but I feared I would lose consciousness at any moment. “Elijah,” I mustered the sternest voice I could, “Pull it together.”

He nodded and looked at me with childlike eyes.

I continued, “You need to go find two straight branches and make sure they are at least three-quarters of an inch thick. And we need to find someplace to dry off.” The chill from my damp clothes was setting in and Elijah’s teeth chattered.

As I attempted to pull myself farther from the riverbank, my leg shifted and I felt the bone slip under my skin. A guttural scream erupted from the bottom of my core. My body shivered from the agony. Nausea knotted my guts, and the world around me spun. My pain dissipated as the earth turned faster and faster. I looked up and watched a large bird fly overhead. Was that a bird? The wings.. the wings looked… different.

AdventureFantasyYoung Adult
7

About the Creator

K’Lee P.

K'Lee has a love for storytelling, psychology, and adventure.

Reader insights

Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

Top insight

  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

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Comments (2)

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  • Nessy Writerabout a year ago

    Loved your story! Great work

  • Brian DeLeonard2 years ago

    I enjoyed this story. It was well paced and well written, although I wish you hadn't given it away in your subtitle.

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