The Sceptre of Samnos

The Emerald Oracle - Part 4

      "How do we get up there?" asked Shaun. "I did a bit of rock climbing at home, but nothing like that! Not even a professional mountaineer could climb that!"

      Thomas nodded. "Let's walk around it, see if we find anything," Nobody could think of anything better to do, so they set off clockwise around the island.

      At first they saw nothing but seaweed and driftwood lying along the high tide mark, which was only a few feet from the boulders lying against the base of the cliff. One large piece of wood had the word ‘Seaspray' carved on it, obviously the name of a ship that had been wrecked on the rocks, and Diana said a prayer for its crew before they passed on.

      When they had gone nearly halfway around the island they heard the sound of falling water, and about fifty yards further on they saw the cause of it. A steady stream of water was running from the top of the cliff, down a channel it had eroded for itself. About fifty feet up it splashed across an overhang where it turned into a waterfall that fell into a pool about ten yards across, from which it flowed in a small stream into the sea. The wind was whipping the falling water into a spray that splashed the cliff face, creating a vertical carpet of moss and ferns, plants that could only survive in fresh water.

      Thomas walked over to the pool, getting thoroughly drenched in the process, and knelt down, cupping his hands and taking a sip of the water. "Perfectly drinkable," he shouted to the others. He washed some of the salt off his face and started getting up, but then stopped, staring at something in the pool, and they saw his face turning green with sick horror. He got up and ran back to the others, wiping his mouth with his hands and spitting as if to rid himself of a disgusting taste. "There's a skeleton in that pool!" he said. "All smashed to pieces and with bits of armour scattered around it. Some poor wretch must have been swept over the cliff by the water. Gods, and I drank that water! Who knows what I might catch..."

      "Poor man," said Diana, ignoring the wizard's distress. She went to the pool, also getting soaked, and said a prayer over the skeleton before returning. On the way back she found something that Thomas had missed. A rotting leather purse almost buried in the moss and containing twenty tarnished copper coins. She threw it into the pool.

      "Why’d you do that?" asked Matthew. "We could have used that money!"

      "We do not rob the dead," said Diana firmly, strands of wet hair clinging to her face. She pulled it out of her eyes and smoothed it back over her scalp. "The Gods will provide us with any money we need."

      "They just did and you threw it away!" said Matthew. Diana gave him a cold stare and he shut up.

      "Can you die, drinking water that's had a corpse in it?" asked Thomas anxiously.

      "That water's been replaced millions of times since that poor soul became bare bones," said Lirenna, moving to stand under the waterfall to wash the salt out of her silky dark hair. She turned her face up to let the water fall on her face and grinned in delight. "It's just pure, sweet rain water."

      "You go have a drink, then," suggested Thomas, but the demi shae just gave him a look.

      "Where does all that water come from?" wondered Jerry. "To erode a pool like that, it must have been falling for years, and look, at the top of the cliff you can see where it's eroded a gully for itself. Where does it all come from?"

      "No doubt we'll find out when we get up there," said Shaun. "If we ever get up there. Come on."

      They left the pool behind, crossing over the small stream running away from it and continuing on around the island. They had almost come back to where they'd started when they found what they were looking for. A door in the cliff made of heavy wood and with a brass doorknob halfway up it on the left. It looked so incongruous there, so totally out of place, that Thomas and Jerry burst out laughing at the sight of it, and the others had to smile as well.