The Journey

A crow croaked in the early hours of the dawn. In a dark patch between broken street lights, a single light cut through the darkness. The light came from the attic of a two story house.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the cluttered attic as a man, carrying a 3 foot tall stone statue of a cat, lumbered around a stack of boxes. “Where did you even get an Egyptian cat statue?” he asked, placing it on the floor next to an overflowing curio cabinet. Standing up straight his dark brown hair looks oily in the light. His dark red shirt showed signs of sweat around his neck and armpits. Clearly he’s been at this for a while.

He looked over at the other half of the room. “Is that a suit of armor?” he asked no one in particular. Behind a Victorian dresser was a light reflecting off a metal helmet. “You were a librarian, grandma. How and where did you buy all this?”

He looked around at the cluttered room to see various artifacts, all coming from different countries and time periods. Some appeared to have dirt still clinging to them as if they had just been ripped from the ground. Others seemed as if they belonged in a museum.

Before he could think on it any further he was startled by the jarring sound of the doorbell. It rang throughout the quiet house. Shaking his head of the thoughts he quickly headed to the first floor. The moment he entered the living room his eyes were drawn to the blue and gold urn resting on top of the mantle.

In bold black letters were written, ‘Sophia Hale/1940-2020’. A look of sadness passed over the man’s face. It looked like he wanted to just sit down but the doorbell rang again, bringing him to the front door.

Wondering who could be here when it’s dark out, and unlike all the idiots in horror movies, he looked through the peephole. On the other side was a lightly tan man, kind of sickly thin, in a dark gray business suit. He was holding an average looking black briefcase. The watch he was looking at looked more expensive than the rest of his wardrobe. The teal hospital mask was the only spot of color on his entire person. Not recalling a horror movie where the murderer was a businessman, normally those are the first victims, the man opened the door.

“Who are you and why are you at my house at...4 in the morning?” His face fell when he saw the clock by the door. He palmed himself while muttering, “I worked through the night again.” He looked back at the man who was searching through his pockets.

“My name is Ryan Harrell. I’m the attorney in charge of Sophia Hale’s estate.” The man said handing over a business card he had rummaged out of the front pocket of his suit jacket. Ryan Harrell was written in black letters and under it Harrell & Burks in small gold letters.

“May I come in...um?” Ryan asked, looking at the man in the door. “Oh, yeah, come in. I’m Tyler Hale, Sophia’s grandson.” “Good,” the man said, walking past Tyler, “You are the person I came to meet.” He walked down the hallway and instead of going into the open living room he went into the small study. It was like he had been to this house before.

After closing the door Tyler followed Ryan and saw that he was sitting in one of the arm chairs, his briefcase open and on the desk. “If you’re my grandmother’s lawyer why didn’t you come last week?” Tyler asked, taking the seat across from the man. “To be frank I was on vacation and everyone was too busy to tell me. I got back yesterday and here I am now.”

Ryan pulled a small stack of papers from his briefcase, a perfectly folded piece of paper which looked more like parchment than paper, and a little leather bound pitch black book. Tyler got the feeling he'd seen that" book before. “Now let's start with the main thing she wants you to have.”

“I already got the house, what else could there be?” asked Tyler. “Twenty thousand dollars,” Ryan answered, making Tyler choke on his spit. After half a minute or so of choking Tyler asked, “What? My grandmother was a librarian. Where did she get that type of cash?” The look on Tyler’s face was a mixture of shock and disbelief. “From what I understand this money was frozen until her death. I'm just going to tell you that it's strange to have money frozen for decades. I've never seen anything like it in all my years. Anyway, moving on. The next thing she wanted me to give you is this black book.” He reached down and handed the black book over. Flipping through it Tyler could easily tell it was written in a strange language. The letters looked more like they were carved then written. “And the final thing is this note.”

Ryan picked up the note and handed it to Tyler. ‘My dear grandson, I am sorry for leaving you all alone. But, my time has come. So I must leave my duty to you. I thought I could do it before my death came but I could not do enough in time. So you must do what I could not. Use the money for traveling and lodging as you follow the clues in the black book that will lead to many places. At place you must do what I could not and make wrong what I’ve made right.’

Tyler read the note in his head many times trying to understand its content. “What’s with this note? And why does she ha-” “I don’t know." Ryan interrupted. "Your grandmother was the most secretive client I had. That’s why I'm here before the sun is up, at her request. So if you will sign here...here… and here.” Ryan pointed out three lines on three different pages.

After signing Ryan said that was all. He told Tyler that the money would be transferred to his bank account by 8 am and then he left. Tyler was left all alone with the mysterious black book. He looked through the book again. The writing was oddly familiar. Yes, he has seen this before. When he was five, he had come to live with his grandmother after his parents had passed away. She had told him that though she had lived in what is now Germany, she was actually Prussian. Or rather her parents had been before WWI. But though he could make out words, there was something off about the structure. "A code!" Tyler exclaimed. "Grandmother, you always had some sort of puzzle you would work on continuously. But seriously, why now? Why with this?" Deciding that the only way he was going to figure out what was going on, was to do what the note asked. But first, to translate the writing.

Heading back to the attic all he saw was a mess. There were dozens of places for a codex to be hidden. Dressers, chests, hidden compartments. “Where do I begin,” he muttered. Looking around he shrugged and headed for the cat statue. Grabbing it’s head, he twisted it, and popped the top half right off. Showing an empty hollowed bottom half.

“One down, 50 or so more places to look.” As he surveyed the mess ,his shoulders slumped and a sigh escaped his lips. He once again saw the suit of armor. “Our ancestors were knights who guarded manuscripts and books for kings and queens,” he said repeating what his grandmother always told him.

Pushing the Victorian dresser out of the way, Tyler got a much clearer view of the armor. It looked like an average medieval suit of armor standing up on a polished block of wood. "Wood?" he wondered. "Why wood?"

Feeling around the base, he found a small patch of wood that was out of place on the back side bottom left corner.

Pressing it he heard a click, then a drawer in the left side popped out. In the hidden drawer were dozens of sheets of paper strung together. Picking them up Tyler found that it was written in Old Prussian. “So this is why you forced me to learn that language,” he said grabbing the stack.

The writing translated into that strange writing in the black book. The first page of the book read, “When the black moon appears in an empty sky, in the deepest part of Wikatata, the Gates for the Erased Sanctuary will open. The sword must be destroyed for the darkness to consume.”

Tyler reread the last line trying to figure out what it meant. He was stopped by a light blinding his right eye. Standing up he saw that the light was coming from the rising sun. Dawn was upon him. “What do you want, grandmother?” he asked, slamming the black book shut and grabbing the papers.

Marching down the stairs he said to himself, “The only way I'm going to learn the truth now is by doing what she asked.” So he packed a suitcase and a bag. Grabbing anything he could think of that he would need. And before he left into the light of noon, he looked back. He looked at the house he grew up in, the only home he ever knew. With no more words left to say he turned forward and began his journey that he would regret and welcome with equal measure.

The End