Law of Kanya
Episode 1: The Family Secret
By Josh Buckby

Chapter 3

Kelly careened over to the opening. Evan’s homemade bomb had clean knocked down the wall, but not caused a cave-in. Instead, it led into a small compartment, still adjoined to the house.
“Evan!” she gasped. “You…”
“Okay, I’m sorry.” he said. “I should’ve told you sooner, but I figured I could check it out first!”
“Evan… In what reality did you hope to blow a hole in the wall without us noticing?” Ricky scoffed.
“Ricky that’s… that’s another room in there!” Kelly said, eyes wide.
The discovery didn’t mellow Ricky’s temper, but they couldn’t deny it. Beyond the broken wall lay a gaping dark chamber. A secret room underneath their garage.
Ricky ran off, but quickly came back carrying a little keychain flashlight. He sputtered it to life before shining it over their surroundings. The three of them stepped forward, and were surprised to see a vast, spacious room stretching out before them, nearly as big as their living room. Despite the size it wasn’t much to be honest; as grey and dusty as a prison cell.
There was no bed, no crates or food or useful supplies of any kind. There were, however, lots of stacked up cabinets, their open drawers filled to the brim with brown, aged papers. The back half of the room was an entire wall of them.
At the centre of the cabinets were a couple of chairs and a wide timber desk, its edges peeling away. There were plenty more pamphlets and papers stacked up in shoddy piles there, and overflowing from a worn old cardboard box at the back. Eerily still, it looked as if not one molecule of fresh air had disturbed this place in years.
“Okay, I didn’t expect this!” Evan murmured, standing over the ‘entrance’. “I thought there might be a box or a chest in there! Didn’t think it was this big!”
“How long have you known about this?” Kelly asked.
“Just since yesterday,” Evan said, crossing his fingers. “Honest! I came down here to get some tools and accidentally figured out the wall was hollow.”
“Accidentally?” Kelly asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I lost my temper with an experiment and threw a hammer at it!” he confessed, scratching his head, and that did sound an awful lot like him. “Here, look.”
Evan took hold of a big chunk of what looked very convincingly like cement off the floor, but the evidence begged otherwise. “It’s just plaster. Not the same as the other walls. Somebody boxed this room up and hid it.”
Kelly ruminated on the obvious. “But it’s been like that since we moved in, hasn’t it? How did we not notice this?”
“Exactly.” Evan grinned, making Kelly feel uneasy. “You coming?”
Kelly and Ricky shot him distasteful glares. “Oh don’t look at me like that!” he protested. “You guys can’t tell me you’re not curious! This has been there our whole lives!”
Kelly would be lying if she said the thought didn’t worry her. “That’s beside the point.” she protested. “I don’t care what we found – you still put us in danger! What are we gonna tell mum and dad?”
“What are we gonna tell the police?!” Ricky added to the dilemma. “I bet they’re already on their way from the racket you caused! Can’t believe we slept through it!”
“I wasn’t that loud! Forget it, you guys are clawing for an excuse!”
He walked forward, turning his back on the both of them. “Evan, you’re not going in there.” Kelly ordered him.
“Yeah?” he snickered. “You gonna stop me?”
“Much as I relish the thought of stopping you by force…” Ricky started, cracking his knuckles and grinning. “…this is ridiculous. I say we just forget about this and search it tomorrow, when we can think clearer.”
“Listen, you two can sit out here and twiddle your thumbs. That’s fine by me! But I’ve been waiting every second of the last night to see what’s in here! I am not sitting round one more!”
“Evan…” Kelly whined.
“Adieu!”
Evan snatched the torch away from Ricky and stumbled through the opening. “Just you remember - if it turns out there’s something valuable in here, it all belongs to me!” he snickered. “It could be a gold stockpile! Or diamonds! Please lord on high, let it be diamonds! Ancient and huge and splendorous and expensive!”
“Yeah, keep dreaming.” Ricky chuckled.
Tip-toeing to his side, Kelly waited cautiously as her brother sussed out the room. “He’s going to get us killed someday.” Ricky added with a tilt of his head. “Yes there could be anything in there, including deadly spiders and snakes and…”
“That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” she replied. “It’s just an extra part of the basement, not the temple of doom!”
“Meh.”
“And this coming from you?” she added with a keen smile. “It’s not like you’d squash them given a chance, you big hippy! You won’t kill a fly!”
“Yeah, don’t rub it in.” Ricky blushed. “I got a reputation to uphold. So…”
He awkwardly gave the room a glance-over. He’d never really bothered to come and look down here in detail. “Never figured your family for hoarders.”
“Yeah, I know.” Kelly mumbled. “Funny thing is: dad is huge on garage sales, and yet we’ve still got all this junk! Nearly always come down here to clean out and find something worth keeping like… like that! Oh wow!”
She let out a bewildered gasp, holding her hands up to her mouth. Her eyes had trailed to one of the boxes stacked up in their basement. Creeping over slowly, Kelly took hold a long fuzzy ear sticking out from the rest of the contents and pulled it free.
“What, what is it?”
“Benjamin!” she beamed.
Nostalgia took over as Kelly recognized her childhood toy and pressed it softly to her face. It was quite dusty and covered in webs, but the puppy’s cute expression and cartoonish blue fur hadn’t diminished in all these years.
“Oh you little scamp!” she smiled. “I thought my dad sold you, the fat liar!”
Ricky bit his lip. “Kelly?”
Kelly had barely a care in the world as she glanced back. “Hmmm? Oh, it’s uh… an old toy of mine… Oh who am kidding? It was my favourite!” She hugged it again caressingly. “I’ve missed you, Benji!”
Kelly pressed it against her chest as she studied the other boxes. “Gee, if you’re the tip of the iceberg, I wonder what else could be down here? Well, at least I’m not losing you again. You’re the only dog I ever got on with, after all!”
Her comment startled Ricky. “Wait, what’s that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me you don’t like dogs?!”
“They don’t like me.” Kelly reluctantly revealed. “Cept yours truly.” She nuzzled against the toy in a way that made Ricky blush.
“Really?” he added, rather disbelievingly. “Cats do it too?”
“No, every other pet’s fine.” she calmed him. “But it’s like I’ve got some bad mojo that only dogs can see. They usually don’t come within ten feet of me!”
“Okay, what about that big shaggy stray that’s always tearing into our bins?” Ricky shrugged. “He trusts everyone!”
Kelly frowned, and summoned a dreary voice. “He nearly took my hand off. I thought you’d noticed this by now! Why are you asking?”
“Well, we don’t have much of a yard, but I always considered somewhere down the line…”
The request came with a pleading look on par with the animal in question. She grated her teeth before he’d finished. “Oh no! We are not getting a dog! Not while you’re living with me! They hate me!”
“Who’s being a little harsh now? They make great pets!”
“I know you Ricky.” she pouted. “You wouldn’t want some yappy terrier – you’d want some big rough guard dog material Alsatian! Forget losing my fingers – that thing would take my whole arm off!”
“Kelly please?” he pleaded.
“If I want a pet, I’ll stick to what I know likes me! I’ll get myself another rat.”
Her answer, to some amazement, left her boyfriend white as a sheet. “You’ve had a pet rat!?”
She crossed her arms again and snickered. “Well, would you look at yourself! You wouldn’t squash a spider, but you cringe when I mention a rat?”
“Just clarify for a minute here… a rat?”
She giggled. “Yeah. A little guy named Toby. He used to hang onto my shoulder wherever I went! He was so cute and smart! I was really young too - practically a toddler!”
Ricky shivered. “I thought all girls were like elephants round rodents!”
Kelly smiled and wrapped an arm around him. Ricky blushed at her spontaneous intimacy. “And since when have I ever been like all other girls?” she whispered, running her fingers against his hair. “Would you be with me now if I’d been just another prissy cheerleader?”
“Well no, I guess not.”
“Hey, lovebirds! Think you can tear yourself away for a minute?”
Evan grinned out from a now brightly illuminated room, its every nook and cranny exposed to the world after lord only knew how many years locked away. The two bashfully sighed and pushed away from each other. “Sure, Evan!” Kelly shouted sarcastically. “It’s not like we had anything better to be doing!”
She looked around for somewhere to put Benjamin before hesitating, humming to herself.
“You’re… not letting go of that thing, are you?” Ricky pointed.
“Sorry,” she smiled sheepishly. “I know he’s just a toy but, I don’t think I have the heart after all this time!”
“And I don’t have all day!” Evan grumbled loudly as the two wandered into the secret room, but he too hushed when he noticed the toy. “Wait, is that Benja…”
“I know!” Kelly squealed, allowing herself a little jump for joy. “Isn’t it great?!”
“Oh boy, you’re in trouble now Ricky!” he laughed. “She never let go of that thing as a kid!”
“Yeah, I think she’s holding it more affectionately than she does me!” Ricky added.
“Oh you goof!” Kelly laughed back. “I’m not about to replace you with a toy. Your shagginess is totally unique.”
“That’s… appreciated, I guess. So what now, Evan? You found a light, I see?”
Evan had switched on a ceiling light; it was the kind of bulb that had an open cylindrical cover and Kelly was amazed it worked, since she hadn’t seen one like that in several years. “I take it back.” she added, glancing around. “This doesn’t look like it’s part of the basement. How old you think it is?”
“Probably as old as the house.” Evan answered. “Forty, fifty years old maybe.”
“You think mom and dad knew about it?”
“Someone did.”
Evan chuckled sinisterly, and beckoned for Kelly to step up to the old table. He snatched up one piece of paper from it and tapped against it loudly with his finger. “This jogged my memory.” he grinned. “Dad insisted on renovating and sussing the place out before we all moved in, remember? Guess who was fresh out of school and helped him do most of the work?”
He grinned at Kelly as she stepped forward. She took a glance at the paper, closer and more carefully, but it didn’t take much effort to draw her attention to the black marker signature. She gasped, and stepped away angrily.
The signature was her brother’s. This place and everything in it, it would appear, had belonged to Sam.
‘No, not him.’ Kelly thought. ‘Not here.’
Any semblance of confidence vanished, and she rushed into Ricky’s arms. It was taking every ounce of her strength to stop herself crying. Her brother was still beside himself in enjoyment, the sight of which sent Ricky’s blood pumping.
“It’s okay babe.” he whispered softly into her ear. She continued hiding her face in his shirt.
“Just what is going on here, Evan?” Ricky asked.
Evan glowed with delight. “She has to admit to something, don’t you Kelly?” he asked. “She has to admit I was right. This proves it! I told you he was hiding something from us when we were younger! He was always so crafty and conniving when he was…”
“SHUT UP!” Kelly shouted with all her might. She once more wanted to throw a punch at her sibling. “You don’t know anything!”
“Quite the opposite this time, sis!”
“I’m on her side, Evan!” Ricky growled, but his bravado was largely stunted by his bewilderment. “Take that smile off your face right now!”
Evan was on the back foot after that, his face red, holding in his own temper. Something which, Kelly had to admit, her brother had a much better talent for than herself or her boyfriend. “You want to defend her, that’s fine. But she can’t pretend like we did as kids anymore!”
“Pretend what, exactly?” Ricky demanded.
“We all knew Sam differently, Ricky.” Evan started. “Our mom and dad were barely partial to him after he moved out! They only liked him as much as they did because he stuck to Kelly like glue!”
“That’s pretty cold, Evan.”
“It’s also the truth!” he frowned. “And of course Kelly adored him up until…”
He grew reluctant to speak up upon looking at his sister’s latest, bereft reaction. There was only so far Evan could push this subject before backing out.
“But he always acted so guile round me!” he added. He leant forward on the old, rickety chair, and it creaked so loudly that for a moment it looked as if it’d snap, and send him toppling chin first to the floor. Maybe the jolt would do him some good, Kelly imagined to herself.
“It was like he had some big grand secret he didn’t want me to know about. Like he was teasing me! Everyone said I was paranoid, but look!” Evan waved his arms around. “I found his big secret!”
Ricky loosened Kelly’s grip around his body, taking hold of her hands and glancing into her bright blue eyes, which although puffy, were yet to shed a single tear. She was so strong when she wanted to be.
“Hey, it’s fine, really.” he assured her. “Relax. I’m sure there’s a reason for this.”
He released her and approached the tables. “And what exactly is this big secret?” he asked gruffly. “You might want to check before you go all balls to the wall and… and tell me…”
His voice trailed off as he took one of the practically crumbling papers in his hand. He seemed to have finally realised that the majority of the writing on the paper wasn’t English. Not unusual, except that he recognized the language.
It simply didn’t belong there.
“This isn’t possible!” he snapped at Evan. “Not unless… Look! What’s in that box?”
“This one?” Evan muttered back, giving it a tap. He dipped his hand in and leafed through. “Uh… Papers… More papers… Oh here’s a shock! Papers! Our brother could write, who knew?”
Ricky pushed him aside and dug through the box himself. “There’s got to be something else here! Something like a…”
After tearing through mounds of styrofoam, his eyes brightened as he found exactly what he sought. Ricky was the one who gave Evan the triumphant gaze now. He was clutching an old worn out tablet, a stone slab a little bigger than his hand and nearly two inches thick. Like everything else in the room, it was old and crumbling at the edges, but Ricky knew it was at least a thousand or more years older than anything else in the room.
He hovered over it in delight, but Evan pouted. “Just my luck. I wish for diamonds and I get a rusty old stone.”
“Evan this is why God put me here: To find this instead of you! This could make diamonds look like chump change!”
The tablet was covered and adorned in rows of unusual symbols. Ricky had already confirmed most of them matched the ones he’d seen in the notes, which was exactly what his heart had desired.
“Clear mentions to Irien!” Ricky stammered, wildly pointing at random symbols. “Ursarian too! I know those words! This has gotta be authentic!”
“An authentic piece of what?” Evan asked.
“This is all Kanyan writing!” Ricky gleamed.
“Kenyan? Well that’s hardly worth celebrating…”
“Kanyan, you twit!” Ricky grilled him. “Kan – Yin!”
“Fine, Kanyan, I got it! Who or what’s a Kanyan?”
“People, Evan!” Ricky explained in a huff. “They were a race of people that existed thousands of years ago. What did you think they were, having their own language?”
“Oh, it’s a history thing!” Evan said drearily, his eyes rolling in disappointment. “Our teachers didn’t exactly pump our brains with this when I and Kelly were in school.”
“Really? I can remember at least three of mine knowing about it. I’ll never forget the professor I met in fourth grade…” Ricky hung his head low and chuckled. "You really learn to appreciate school when the teachers come drunk!”
Evan froze. “Um… I know San Francisco has different standards, but ain’t that illegal everywhere in our great land?”
Ricky looked directly at the ceiling and sighed. “No, Evan, he got a special grant from the government to fund a very sophisticated method of teaching that involved imbibing and… of course it was illegal, Evan! And it was so hilarious!”
Ricky grinned heartily. “Nearly every week professor O’Rourke got totally wasted, and he used to go on and on and on about this stuff! You know, say what you want, but I’m proof it does effectively sink in that way!”
It took Evan a while to wrap his head around that before glancing back at the stone. “I can’t exactly see my brother and a professor sharing beers! So what’s Sam doing with this crap?”
Ricky shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. He really shouldn’t have any of it, least of all this tablet!”
“Well, I didn’t give him enough credit.” Evan sighed, throwing his hands up. “I’d never have guessed! This is archaeology and he was a contract builder! That’s like a chef looking for Atlantis!”
“Why a chef?” Ricky asked puzzled.
“Cause there’s no logical connection! Now a plumber - that would be different!”
Now Ricky was quite certain he knew how Evan had felt moments before at his odd remarks. Ricky did his best to block that odd thought pattern out and go back to searching. It didn’t take long before he confirmed that the mountains of notes Sam appeared to have taken far outweighed the little stone tablet in depth. However, he noticed a pattern: most of them were only half constructed, with scribbles failed or stopped before completion.
“This writing’s different.” he realised, taking up a handful of notes. “None of this is on the tablet. Sam must’ve been trying to use this thing to translate the language - the whole language, bit by bit!”
“And?”
“What do you think? As if he would get far. Most professors haven’t gotten much further.”
Leaning on the edge of the table, Evan took a good look at the markings on the stone slab. “Yeah, this one little stone? It’s not a lot to go on.”
“Kanyan stuff is hard to come by.” Ricky smiled. “Plus, there’s a theory they might have abandoned their own language or created a new one. Lots of stuff point to that.”
“Lotsta stuff? How does a race forget its own language?”
“Not really sure.” Ricky said, drifting away in thought. “I think the theory when I was in school was occupation by another race. You know, like what happened with Columbus or Cortez? At any rate, what Sam has translated is a lot. A lot! Oh no… No way!”
“What?” Evan asked. “What is it?”
Ricky had one of the strewn papers clutched firmly in hand now, pushing the others off the table like garbage. He pressed his finger to a set of symbols printed in the middle of the paper. Under them, in English, the word ‘Zotal Cerus Novalea’ had been scribbled in pen multiple times, with bold letters putting forced emphasis, as if its discoverer had triple checked.
“Is that the translation?! But how’d he work that out unless…”
He darted his gaze back and forth from paper to stone until he finally settled on it. “It is! Holy cow it is!”
The same symbols ran along one edge of the tablet.
“What is it? Evan asked again. “What’s Novalea?”
“Oh, it’s brilliant!” Ricky glistened. “We hit the mother-load! Kelly, do you know what this…”
A great chunk of the enthusiasm left him as he turned to Kelly, who’d been hanging, though not as merrily as Ricky, on every single word. He’d yapped on and on like a total nerd while she lay practically distraught on one of the old chairs. This was not the best of news to deliver to her.
“I am such an idiot…”
Ricky plonked the stone on the table, where it was quickly snatched up by Evan with a greedy look in his eye. Ricky had forgotten all about what Kelly must be going through. He pulled up on the chair beside her.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” he blushed. “I just didn’t think.”
She looked over sadly. “Funny how you two so rarely do when it’s about him.”
Her hold on her plush toy was firmer then ever now. It was a strange coincidence she had Benjamin close by for this revelation. It softened the blow a little.
“Until you said Kanyan I couldn’t be sure. Ricky… He knew. Sam told me about them!”
“When? Wait a second… You don’t mean those werewolves in your story? He called them Kanyans?”
“Yeah but that’s beside the point!” she huffed. “It was just a story. They could’ve been dragons for all I care. He got the name from this stuff, didn’t he? He really was down here… hiding all this.”
Kelly buried her face in her hands. “He… I was seven! He didn’t tell me anything about his job, or his personal life. Why something like this? Why was it so important?”
“Well…” Ricky began, wondering how to break it to her in a way that wouldn’t sound hurtful. “I think he wanted to give this to you!”
“Me?” she huffed.
“HER?” Evan gasped.
“Both of you!” Ricky corrected them. “Your whole family! These translations are really valuable! They would’ve been worth triple as much ten years ago!”
“Money?” Evan gleamed, now looming over them expectantly.
Ricky gasped through gritted teeth at the sight of Evan clumsily waving the tablet around like a toy. Before another word, he leapt to his feet and frantically snatched it away, cursing letting him have it even for that short time.
“But translations don’t compare to this.” he smiled, sighing in relief to have it back. “There’s a genuine mention on this tablet to Novalea! That’s a Kanyan city they’re trying to prove existed, and we’ve got a reference to it on a possible Kanyan artefact. To say that’s valuable isn’t even scratching the surface!”
Evan immediately rejoiced, laughing out loud and leaping a foot off the floor. He pried the stone away from Ricky once more. “Oh Kelly, I think I can suddenly let bygones be bygones! Our brother made us rich! Rich as pigs in mud, haha!”
“You’re wrong!” Kelly shouted sharply, bringing his celebration to an abrupt end. She hated to be a stick in the mud, but Kelly didn’t have any matching charm to give them in return.
“He would’ve just shown us all when we were younger.” she deduced, jumping to her feet and propping Benjamin up on the table. “Besides, we’ve got money! Mum and dad aren’t exactly swimming, but they gave us anything we needed.”
“But that’s all it could be.” Ricky shrugged. “What else?”
Kelly just shook her head in return. “He must’ve been working down here for months. And then he just boarded it up and left it behind. He wouldn’t do that!”
This was one thing she was certain of. Kelly could remember her brothers’ methods clearly, and he wasn’t the kind to dump his work. It was an unintentional trait he’d picked up from being a contracted builder. He always finished every chore, always ate everything on the plate, and always repaid a debt. In short, Sam finished what he started.
Then there was this: just one time he’d seen fit to abandon a project he was so engaged with. Thinking back, Kelly put her hand on her head. She already had a theory, but she couldn’t believe it was crossing her mind.
“Ricky, you just told me this is worth a lot. Millions…”
After seeing this, after so many years alone, she was starting to wonder about Sam in a light she hadn’t before. “What if someone wanted what he was working on? What if he was… murdered for this?”
Evan reacted first, dropping the tablet with such a resounding clang that Ricky swarmed him like an angry wasp. Kelly watched their next scuffle, surprisingly calmer now that she’d let it out. This was the first time they’d spoken about Sam this confidently since they were children, and she could tell Evan couldn’t be more pleased.
“And I thought I underestimated Sam!” he stammered after fighting back Ricky. “You really think that, Kelly? After all these years you actually think someone… killed Sam?”
“Kelly you can’t be serious!” Ricky gasped. “He died in an accident! This stuff is just coincidental!”
Ricky wanted to stop as subtly as he could what he thought was a delusion; Kelly’s paranoia and Evan’s goading getting the better of her nerves. However Kelly showed no signs of backing down. “Ricky, I don’t believe that. I don’t think he ever intended for us to find this.”
“Can’t believe I’m agreeing with her!” Evan said, wide eyed. “Hey, just saying that this is all a little too coincidental! And anyway, the promise of millions makes a person do strange things!”
“Yeah, like blow up their basement, for starters.” Ricky growled. “Can’t you see your nonsense is doing more harm then good? Kelly, don’t stress this. I say we get out of this room and come back down tomorrow when our heads are clear. Maybe then… Kelly? Kelly are you listening?”
“Sis?”
She didn’t mean to be rude, but she had stopped listening to both of them the same moment they started. Kelly was sure she’d felt something brush against her back. A warm sensation against her skin, as if someone had placed their hand there.
She instinctively panicked and jumped, fully expecting to see a fourth person who had somehow broken into their house. The quick turn did nothing but leave her even more startled. They remained alone.
“Kelly, you’re starting to scare me…” Ricky whispered.
“I’m scaring you? Ricky didn’t you just…”
No, there was no mistaking that. Kelly very clearly felt her hair and shirt flicker. It was as if they’d passed through a sudden gust of wind, only the air felt warm and conditioned. At least the boys seemed to have noticed it this time, because they simultaneously glanced at the table to confirm it.
Sure enough some of the papers had swept off. They hadn’t imagined it. A breeze… in a closed off basement?
“What the hell?” Kelly gasped, keeping her eyes firmly on the room’s entrance.
“I’ll say.” Ricky added. “It didn’t come from there.” The two had the very distinct feeling they were being watched.
“Evan, you did see that, right?” she gulped.
“Um guys?” Evan called out, a whimper in the back of his throat. “Remember how I said I’d never heard of the Kanyans before? How I’d never seen any of this until today?”
They looked to see him clutching the tablet cautiously out in front of him. “Yeah.” Ricky said slowly. “What is it? You lied?”
“No” he answered. “No, I didn’t lie… I can read this!”
“WHAT?!”
Evan’s eyes were transfixed on the worn out stone engravings. Ricky forgot all about the strange breeze and stormed over to him. “Tell me this is a joke!”
Evan rattled his knuckles against the stone, totally perplexed. “I’m telling you, I can read this as clearly as English!”
Kelly crept closer as Evan stepped under the light, letting Ricky read impatiently over his shoulder. “That says something about humanity closing a road, and keeping people away from some place. Like it’s bad to go there – against the law or something.”
Ricky was hugely sceptical. “You’re making this up!” he huffed, in a half stern, half terrified state.
“Oh, as if I’d make this up!” Evan shouted. He did genuinely seem the most bothered of them all. “And this part here?”
Kelly saw him pointing at a part of the tablet with a row of bold, unusual symbols on it. “It says this is a password to something.” he explained. “Actually, to be real precise it calls them ‘activation words’! I can read them too!”
“Those symbols have never been translated!” Ricky shouted, his paranoia growing. “No-one on earth can read them!”
“Methun pen Terra, remas sa suro lia Kanya!” Evan blurted out fiercely.
Ricky was stunned, and far from sceptical now. “You… you know how to pronounce it, too?” he gulped.
“Pronounce?” Evan froze, and his eyes drifted away, staring off into space. “Oh…”
“Oh?!” Ricky asked, shaking his head. He soon got his answer for the stunned reaction.
“I… thought I said it in English!” Evan whimpered.
“What did that mean, Evan?” Ricky demanded.
Evan still seemed distant, but he answered willingly. “Exactly… At the will of Terra, Open the way to Kanya. Simple stuff, huh? Oh, and this final little part here? It says you will restore us, whatever that means. I take it you believe me now?”
“Um…” Ricky paused. “What final little part? The rest of the stone is blank.”
“No it isn’t!” Evan assured him, pointing to the bottom. “Right here, standing out from the rest. You will restore us, clear as crystal.”
As he confirmed it, both Ricky and Kelly gave each-other a grim look. Neither one of them wanted to break the news to him, but Kelly was the first to nervously open her mouth.
“Evan… there’s nothing there.”
Evan looked over his shoulder, Kelly and Ricky shrugging and stripped for an explanation. His hands now shaking, he glanced at the stone one more time. It was becoming hot to the touch.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Kelly and Ricky stepped away as a pale white light shimmered across their faces, reflecting in their eyes. Strange words burned themselves into the stone. They could all see it.
And they could all read it.
You will restore us.