The Chronicles of Ki
Book 1: In The Beginning
© Copyright 2024 Frank Walters Clark ~ All Rights Reserved
In the far-off province of Ligee, among the green-sloped foothills outside the small town of Birk, lies a deep ravine whose walls are infused with thick veins of iron ores. Wider and more treacherous than any other of its kind, the ravine has footpaths hand-tooled into its sides. Its ledges have meter-length steel rods drilled into the rock along their edges, providing support for long links of chain stretching the entire length of the path and trailing to its deepest regions.
At the bottom of the ravine, running under a huge jutting overhang, a wild river crashes between huge boulders and steep glass-like inclines.
A wide-mouthed cavern stands mere inches from water’s edge. Dark and forbidding, its recesses echo in deep response.
The high iron content of the surrounding rock denies any gravity-dependent device the ability to fly over or down into the ravine or enter the cavern. The only access is on foot, and a millennia of winter storms and summer rains has taken its toll on the chain links leading down to its bottom.
Leaving a decision to make the dangerous trek one of dire necessity or wanton greed.
Lord Dalu is here for both.
Alone and carrying only a large pack slung across his back, he stands at the mouth of the cave shining a flashlight around, searching for a small shiny metallic panel. Behind the panel is a metallic keyboard for which only two men have been given the code: the king, and himself, as heir. And the king, with old age creeping in, has likely already forgotten the numbers.
Sweeping the beam back and forth, up and down, Lord Dalu barely catches a glint off at one side, beneath a rock outcropping roughly eight feet—his own height, toe to top—up on the wall. Stepping and slipping and shuffling, he makes his way precariously to the rock abutment, and shines the light up at a panel mostly hidden by the dark green slime on its face.
As a young heir apparent, Lord Dalu was given royal instructions about the import of the panel and its mechanical keyboard by the Ancient Sect of Shem high philosopher, Curator of Ecid. He remembers he has only three chances to enter the correct code; one incorrect code will lock the keyboard for one hour.
Three wrong, four-digit code entries will lock the keyboard for all time. But he recalls another unusual feature about the keyboard: once activated, it can’t be deactivated; there is no way to re-secure the packages it protects, no way to prevent illegal use of the packages’ contents.
Holding the flashlight high above his head, Lord Dalu stretches to examine the heavy panel, resting several inches above his normal line of sight. Its awkward location will make the keyboard entries even more difficult for him: He will need to stand on his toes to reach the panel, then once it is opened, stretch even more to reach the small metal keyboard inside, to make entries by touch rather than sight.
Lord Dalu takes a deep breath and holds it for a few seconds, trying to stop his hands from quivering. Dark or light, the outcome will be the same. Putting the flashlight in his pack, he stands up on his toes, reaches up and claws the heavy panel open by its small handle. The small chamber depressurizes with a loud hiss.
From memory of a sketch the Curator of Ecid shared with him showing the nine-finger keyboard configuration, he delicately places his splayed fingers around the metal console hosting the keys. Barely touching them, Lord Dalu passes his fingers over the keys, imagining their individual rows in his mind.
He begins, pausing after each entry, then waits for the ominous three-strike bell at the last—and it sounds. He is locked out for an hour. Dropping back down, he sighs, and resigns himself to sightseeing among a barren vista of rock walls and raging waters outside the cavern.
* * *
Back inside, he shakes his hands to limber them, then holds both up with palms out and stretches once more on his toes up to the panel.
Reaching in, he slowly enters the four-finger code, and hears—no bell—but an audible click!
Dancing in place, Lord Dalu shouts, the sound echoing around the cavern.
“I knew it, Abwoon! Thank you, Abwoon!”
One meter to the side of the panel, one meter below it, a thick, one by one meter-slab of stone opens on silent hinges. Inside at the bottom are two, four inch-thick, heavily shielded square containers leaning at an angle on their edges.
Sliding one of the containers out, Lord Dalu hefts it, judging its weight with his hands. It is heavy, and he will have to carry both out, slung on his back, if he is to make use of their valuable and most dangerous contents.
The word ancient could not even begin to describe the history behind these two containers, much less encompass the nature of their power. Their contents are the stuff of legends and the reason for nightmares, and they have been hidden in this place for over a thousand sars.
For Lord Dalu the packages mean the beginning of the end for the royals, instant death for the king and his pawns. For him, it will be the end of one beginning and the start of a new. Free to rule, high and supreme.
He climbs out, steady and strong and resting along the way. His mocking laughs echo off the ravine’s walls. Confident in knowing he carries on his back enough core ingredients for two nuclear weapons.