The Valley of the Lost

As soon as they were alone, Jasmine ran to the glass door and stared through it once more. “There is another door in there!” she whispered. “A door that leads to the outside. See? In the corner.”

“And so? What is your plan?” asked Barda warily.

Jasmine’s eyes were sparkling fiercely. “It is simple. We will tell the Guardian that we will play his stupid game. Then, when he is asleep, we will find a way of breaking into this room. We can steal the gem, leave by the other door, and be out of this valley before he wakes.”

“No!” Lief exclaimed impulsively.

Jasmine glanced at him in annoyance. “Are you afraid?” she demanded. “Afraid of his magic?”

Lief hesitated. It was not quite that. It was something else. That niggling memory at the corner of his mind. A warning. Something about the diamond …

“We would be foolish not to be afraid, Jasmine,” said Barda. “The man’s powers are great, and he is plainly mad. Whoever he once was, the Shadow Lord has possessed him body and soul.”

He was bending over the low table, sorting quickly through the books that lay there. Lief realized that Barda, practical as ever, was checking to see if the Guardian’s name, or part of it, was scribbled in the front of one of the volumes. He moved to help him.

“You will never find out his name that way!” Jasmine hissed furiously. “If it were that simple those poor souls outside the windows would have —”

Lief’s gasp of surprise interrupted her. At the bottom of one of the piles of books he had seen something familiar. A small, faded blue volume. He snatched it up and opened it.

As he had half-hoped, half-feared, it was The Belt of Deltora. The book he had so often studied, at home in Del. The book he had last seen in the dungeon where his father lay chained and helpless.

And now it was here. Here, in the Valley of the Lost! His heart pounding, he held up the book for Barda and Jasmine to see. Barda frowned.

“That the Guardian has a copy of this book means nothing,” he said. “For surely there were many copies made, not just one. They must lie in many forgotten places, all over the kingdom.”

“The Guardian is a servant of the Shadow Lord — that much is certain, from what he told us,” argued Lief. “And if he has been studying this book, it is because the Shadow Lord has told him to do so. The Guardian pretends to think that we are ordinary strangers, seeking the diamond out of simple greed. But perhaps he has known all along that we are not.”

“Then why bother with all this talk of a game?” Jasmine muttered. “He could kill us whenever he chose!”

Lief shuddered. “Perhaps he is just entertaining himself. Playing with us, as a cat plays with a mouse.”

“Perhaps,” said Barda. “But perhaps not. He did not know when we would come. And if he has been warned of a boy, a man, and a girl with a black bird, he may not realize that we are the ones. Kree is not with us, Jasmine is dressed as a boy, and we came here with Neridah.”

“At least, then, she was of some use,” Jasmine sniffed.

Lief was frantically flicking through the little book. On every page were well-remembered words and phrases, but he was looking for just one thing. The passage about the powers of the diamond.

At last, he found it.

† The diamond is the symbol of innocence, purity, and strength. Diamonds gained nobly, and with a pure heart, are a powerful force for good. They give courage and strength, protect from pestilence, and help the cause of true love. But take heed of this warning: Diamonds gained by treachery or violence, or desired out of envy or greed, are ill omens, and bring bad fortune. Great evil comes upon those who gain them without honor.

“This — this is what I was trying to remember,” said Lief rapidly, showing the passage to his companions. “This is why we cannot steal the diamond!”

His friends looked at the book, then at one another. “This warning is not for us!” Jasmine protested. “Why, we do not want the gem out of greed or envy. We would be stealing it for a good reason. We would be rescuing it from the hands of evil and restoring it to its rightful place!”

Lief shook his head. “The words are clear,” he insisted. “The diamond must be gained without force or trickery. Otherwise it will bring us nothing but ill — as it has brought the Guardian!”

“And so …?” muttered Barda.

Lief sighed, closing the book and pushing it back into its place on the table. “The Guardian must give it to us freely. And there is only one way we can make him do that. His pride is his weakness, and this game of his is important to that pride. I believe if we can win it, he will be forced to —”

At that moment, they heard the sound of footsteps. The Guardian was returning. He swept into the room, his pets lumbering behind him.

“Well?” he demanded. “Have you made your decision?”

Lief and Barda looked quickly at Jasmine. She paused, then grimaced and gave a slight nod. Barda stepped forward.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “We will play.”

The monsters whined and pulled at their leads in excitement. The Guardian’s eyes burned.

“Excellent!” he hissed. He pointed at a tall, unlit candle that stood on the table below the mirror. A flickering yellow flame appeared.

“The life of this candle will be the time you have to open the door into the casket room,” he said. “If the door remains unopened when the candle dies, you will admit defeat and become mine. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” The companions said the word together, without flinching.

The Guardian again rubbed his hands. “I wish you good night, then,” he smiled. “Explore as you wish. The first clue is in this room, as I told you. In one way it is hidden. In another, it is as plain as the nose on your face.”

He walked to the door, but before going on he turned once more. “A word of advice. You have one chance to open the door, and one chance only. Do not waste your chance on a guess.”

He smiled thinly. “I will see you in the morning. To claim my victory.”

With that, he swept from the room, with his creatures following him. But as soon as he was out of their sight, his triumphant, cackling laughter began. It echoed around the glass walls of his palace like a hundred voices, fading slowly into the distance, as he went to his rest.

For an hour the companions searched the room, seeking anything, anything at all, that would give them a clue to the Guardian’s name.

The books on the shelves were of no use. They crumbled to dust as Barda pulled them from their places. The papers in the drawers of the cabinets were yellowed and brittle. They, too, cracked and crumbled at a touch. The pictures revealed no clue. There was nothing behind the curtains but glass and mist.

“He thinks he has everything — but he has nothing!” exclaimed Jasmine. “His wonderful food is ashes. His beautiful books are dust. His companions are disgusting, drooling beasts. His kingdom is a place of misery. How can he be so blind?”

“It is we who are blind,” Barda said through gritted teeth, his eyes on the slowly dripping candle. “He said there was a clue in this room, and I am sure he was telling the truth. But what clue? Where?”

“He said there was a clue hidden in this room!” Lief buried his face in his hands, trying to concentrate. “We have looked under everything, behind everything, inside everything. So that means it is hidden in another way.”

“Hidden by magic!” Jasmine looked around the room in desperation. “And that would make sense of the other thing he said — that in one way it was hidden, and in another it was as plain as the nose on your face.”

“The nose on your face! Why, of course!” thundered Barda, leaping to his feet. As his companions watched, astonished, he strode across the room and looked into the mirror. For a moment the others saw his face, strangely softened and youthful, reflected in the glass. Then the image disappeared and words appeared, shining white in the flickering light of the candle.

“But it makes no sense!” cried Jasmine in dismay. “No sense at all!”

“It does,” said Barda. “I have seen things like it before. It is a puzzle.”

“The rhyme tells us how many letters are in the Guardian’s name,” said Lief slowly. “It tells us how to find out what the letters are. But it is more difficult by far than any puzzle I have ever solved.”

He gripped the Belt of Deltora, wishing with all his heart that the topaz was at its full strength. Often before it had cleared and sharpened his mind. But its power increased as the moon grew full, and lessened as the moon waned. Tonight there was no moon at all.

If he and his companions were to solve this puzzle, they would have to solve it alone.