A Chapter from The Golden Staff Sata: The Pillar of Light
To my right I could see what looked like a small door in the rock. Instinctively I walked over to it. There was the same writing on it that was on the carpet in El-Kawn’s house. The symbols were beautifully etched in the stone, with the curve of every letter done with professional detail. I ran my finger over the beautiful writing. The stone was cool and I could feel every intricate detail. For some reason the foreign writing made me feel at ease, almost safe, even though I was on a mission to save this world and definitely not safe at all. I couldn’t help but stand there staring at the door, lost in my own thoughts.
“Basically it means ‘stay out.’” I jumped as El-Kahn spoke. I wasn’t expecting him to follow me. “Like I said, the Mystonians are a race that keeps to themselves, and they believe that anyone who comes to their home is out to steal from them.”
Suddenly I got this eerie feeling, as if someone was watching me. Looking around I only saw my friends, and they weren’t even looking in my direction. There was no one else around.
“Are you two coming?” came the impatient voice of El-Stev. I looked at the door once more before turning back to the others. El-Stev, John, and Chris had already begun taking the narrow pathway up the mountain.
Good, I thought to myself, there is a pathway that should make things easier. El-Kahn made me walk in front of him up the mountain. I guess he thought I would fall or something. The pathway was so narrow that when there were rocks jutting out from the mountain wall we had to duck to go under them as we walked along, but things were going well. We didn’t have much trouble until there was a rock jutting out across the path that was too low to duck under. El-Stev was like a rock monkey, grabbing small stones that stuck out and climbing over the larger rocks that were in our way.
“El-Stev,” said El-Kahn, impatiently giving his friend a disapproving glance.
“Oh, all right.” He reached down and grabbed his friend’s arm to help him over the rock, but El-Kahn pulled away.
“You know what I want.”
“Fine,” he grumpily replied.
I couldn’t see El-Stev on the other side of the rock in our way, but I could hear him talking or chanting in his native language. The mountain began to shake, and the rock in our path got sucked back into the mountain. John, Chris, and I just stood there staring at where the large rock had been.
“Thank you,” El-Khan said to his friend with a smile across his face. The three of us looked at each other before walking as quickly as possible to catch up without falling.
“El-Stev, did you do that?” I asked.
“Just keep moving. We need to get to a good campsite before dark,” he spit.
“Yes, El-Stev has the power of Earth,” I heard a quiet voice beside me. “I will explain more at a later time. Now we must concentrate on safely getting over this mountain.”
The higher up we got, the more serious Chris and John became. Neither one wanted to fall. We had finally reached a flat rock where we could all rest. Tossing my bag to the ground, I sat down exhausted. John and Chris followed my lead, only they took out their canteens and drank some water. El-Stev, on the other hand, set his bag down but then walked around the rock looking down over the edge and up at the mountain.
