The Final Secret

Relvendian knew what could happen to him. He didn’t care.

The entire building was empty, moss growing over the debris that littered the dirt floor. They’d dug up the very floor, every tile in the entire twenty store building. Hundreds of rooms, every single one ransacked, leaving nothing but a vague impression of what it once had been. Relvendian was about a hundred years late to the party, but then again, he was feeling lucky. As he walked past what used to be a large wooden desk, now smelling of rot and damp, he saw a light shine through the window to his left, starting on the wall and moving towards him. He hit the ground, crawling frantically underneath the desk, hiding from that penetrating light. He looked pathetic in his attempt to hide, but anyone who claimed to care about their pride when a Sentinial was involved was either a liar, insane, or both.

The light eventually drifted by, the sound of the noisy fan that made the Sentinials airborne quieted, as it moved on to check for other prey. It was no small offense to be out after curfew in this city. Not anymore. Relvendian crawled out from underneath the table, dusting off his pants and looking around the large atrium that comprised the main landing for the building. He glanced up at the chandelier, practically made out of lichen and airborne spores that clung to the metal chains. The bulbs had long shattered. He wasn’t feeling any luck in this room, had bad dirt. You could tell a lot about a place by the dirt.

He walked on deeper into the building, farther into the blackness, the sounds of dripping water and the scurrying of small clawed feet echoing around him. Pulling out his flashlight, he moved it around, checking the walls for anything that might give him a clue as to where the prize he sought might be. He walked down the long hall, running his hand along it, feeling the deep gouges in the brick, though he didn’t know what had caused them. Strange things had happened here after a hundred years of people tearing this place apart, searching for the secret that might lay hidden within.

Relvendian’s parents had been Chasers as well, though their obsessive pursuit ultimately took their lives when he was just a boy. Since then, he’d been on his own, stealing here, working there, and vowing that he would find that which his parents had sought. The thing that they and so many others had given their lives in pursuit of.

Yes, this building was the one, he was sure of it. It was merely one of hundreds of sites that were rumored to contain the treasure, and all had been equally pillaged, devoured by Chasers and Rayzers, with no one finding success. This particular site that Relvendian found himself in, was known as The Pinnacle, and was popular about five decades ago, though his parents had never really thought it was worth their time. They had spent their energy at The Bowl mostly, and a smattering of other sites, like The Roost and The Chasm. This was the first time Relvendian had been here.

As he rounded a corner in the hallway, something smashed through the ceiling, ripping Relvendian from his thoughts, and landing in front of him in a pile of wood and dust. He froze, tense as he waited for the dust to settle, flash light trained on the lump amidst the wreckage. Eventually, all was still. Silence. Relvendian stepped into the lingering cloud of dust and ash, coming face to face with an arm chair. He shook his head and stepped over the wreckage that had startled him out of his wits. He continued on. When living in Forgetown, one learned to be wary, and he was jumpy as a result.

He was getting close now, he could feel it. He’d read every single text he could find on "The Prize," as it was fondly called, and he knew every recorded fact about every site that Chasers searched. He’d memorized it all, the type of soil that dominated the sites, the plant life, the layout, what the buildings were made of, when they were made and why. The few that knew him well enough to know that he had this knowledge were dumbfounded. Like Lyndallam who practically couldn’t shut up about how incredible it was, bless his heart. Having a photographic memory made such a feat pretty easy, so Relvendian had never felt all that impressed with himself. It just came naturally.

Yes, the strata on the walls in the stairwell he had entered matched the lore, and the spores in the air looked to be about the right size and specimen. The dirt felt good too, always a good sign. He was getting excited now, what would he do if he finally found it? How would the world, and his place in it, change? It was a frightening thought when truly considered, but that didn’t bother him. If you wanted to achieve something great like saving the world, you had to be single minded. Leave the worrying to the normal folk.

The stairs Relvendian descended were steel, and judging from the sound of the rock he dropped, they went down about five stories. He stepped slowly, feeling each stair step beneath his bare feet, watching the walls and the air, analyzing the composition of each. Every chaser knew the Key by heart, the only information given as to the whereabouts of the prize.

Down beneath, but up above, the path you tread, please tread with love. For every spec of dust and rust, no matter age, no matter what. Will lead you true, if bare of foot, and then you’ll find the thing that reads: to save mankind, this you will need.

Relvendian hummed the familiar riddle to himself as he slowly descended the stairs. Everyone tried to make the part of the Key about being, “bare of foot” into something more than it was, into something spiritual, as if you needed to become one with the earth before having a chance to find anything. Relvendian just figured it was literal, and never wore shoes again. He continued to walk slowly, watching for patterns in the strata or spores in the air, thinking about how far the world had fallen. It had descended into chaos many years ago, and those who had the technology to enforce order rose to power. It was claimed every rule that was put in place was made to keep people safe from each other, yet that meant killing you if you put one toe out of line. It didn’t make much sense to Relvendian, but he made sure he knew the rules, since he preferred being alive.

The Catchers and Rayzers had pretty much all died out by the time Relvendian took up the mantle, and the cruel law enforcement allowed people to still visit the sites, confident that they wouldn’t find anything or harm anyone.

There. Light shone through an opening twenty plus stories up, all the way to the bottom of the depths of the building. revealing the end of the stairs. At first, Relvendian was eager to sprint down the steps to the place on which the light so poetically shone, but a lifetime of discipline kept him from it.

Instead, he analyzed the light beam itself. He nearly missed it, years and years of work thrown away in a single moment. But he did see it. The air and the dust that floated in the beam, revealed by the telling light, wasn't moving. It was stagnant, unchanging, as if frozen in time. He followed the beam upwards with his eyes, and saw that it began swirling in the air as normal, but down lower, it remained frozen. He needed to hurry, before the light vanished. He quickly marked the step he had been standing on, and jogged farther down the steps, stopping at the next landing. He followed the beam, and the spores and dust within it remained stagnant, so he descended farther, looking to find the endpoint of this strange section of frozen time.

He found it, the line that divided frozen time and moving time. He touched it, though nothing happened. He racked his brain, knowing time was short. He stared through the beam from every angle he could, perhaps it would line up with something behind it, like a pointer, but no, nothing seemed to stand out. He was about to run back up to where he’d started, but stopped, a thought hitting him. Good dirt could tell you a lot - where people have been, how hard they worked, and what crops can grow. Maybe even where the secret to saving the world was.

Relvendian turned back around, facing the beam of light. He then brushed the dirt off of his foot into his hand, and threw it at the light. Immediately, the dust and air began to swirl, no longer frozen in place, as if released by the energy of earth. It shifted in a frenzy before suddenly shooting back up the stairs. Relvendian raced to follow it, bolting through an emergency door on the next landing and down a hall. It was moving quickly, and his old legs had trouble keeping up with it.

The dust cloud turned into a room at the end of the hall, and Relvendian burst through the doorway. The room was filled with broken furniture and pieces of abstract art, moonlight shone through the window and ceiling tiles dangled like bats. The walls were filled with holes where people searched for secret safes, and the tile flooring had been ripped up to reveal a wooden subfloor that also had several holes in it. The cloud of dust descended, settling on the floor in the center of the room where no holes had been made, though several peppered the floor around the area.

Relvendian approached the dust cloud reverently, crouching down, his old knees cracking. As he did, the cloud dissipated, leaving nothing but him, and the floor. He took his multitool out, and began to saw a small opening into the floor, his hands sweaty and shaking. Could this be it? My life’s pursuit? The very thing my parents died seeking, the thing that could save us all. Have I found it? His mind raced. Nearly through the floor.

He finished cutting the small hole, and with great care, removed the wood, revealing a small cubby in the floor beneath. There it sat. A small, black book. Relvendian began to cry as he reached into the cubby, grabbed the book, and held it close. At long last, I’ve done it.

Wiping the tears from his eyes so he could see, he held the book aloft before him, and opened it. A bunch of green paper fell out, which he recognized as the currency most the world had used centuries ago, a fact he had come across while studying. It looked like it was about 20,000 dollars, though he had no idea what that would be worth now, or what it was worth then. It was strange, but either way, he didn’t care.

He turned the book completely upside down to empty the rest of the bank notes out, and then finally began to read what was inside. The first couple pages listed the author - a man named Artellius - who began by writing that he'd had an idea, that while it may not matter now, would one day save the world. Tears streaming down Relvendian's face, he turned the page, and-

They were missing. Every page torn out of the center of the small black book that so many believed was supposed to save the planet. Relvendian wept, no longer for joy, his tears staining the black cover that had once hid salvation. The search continued.