There was only one rune on the gravestone. It was clearly the same language as the one on the entrance to the cave of The Terrible, but softer and gentler. There were less jagged edges, less spear-like lines and angry pointed dots. The rune looked like a circle with more circles, and some lines and dots inside the larger circle. I didn’t know what it meant. I also didn’t know what mechanism I was supposed to use to contact the Bandari tribe.

I brushed my hand over the rune but nothing happened. I looked around the gravestone, pulling back leaves, lifting small stones; nothing happened. I picked up the gravestone but there was nothing underneath. I cursed my luck and began digging up the grave. My hands touched something solid, and I carefully pulled out some bones. It was incredibly creepy, but I still didn’t find a way to contact the Bandari tribe. Maybe I was going about this wrong?

If there was a secret method hidden on the grave itself, the Oracle or her allies might find it. I put back the bones and covered up the grave as best I could. I prayed the Mad King’s ghost wouldn’t haunt me or something. I got up and began searching the area, looking for anything that looked out of place.

There were no markings on the trees. No hidden devices or runes under stones or logs. I kept looking but by now, I was sure our only hope was to rely on the Immortal of Desire again. It was getting late. I wondered if I should pick a direction and run. Maybe I’d run into the Bandari tribesmen if I was lucky? No, that wasn’t a smart plan.

I went back to the barrier. I walked around its edge, looking for anything strange. The barrier was a perfect circle. It even ran through trees and rocks. The wind blew a few puffs of pollen loose, and it drifted right through the barrier. It seemed the barrier really was meant to stop the Jora tribesmen, and no one else. It had one job and if the elders could get through it, it couldn’t even do that properly.

How did the elders get through the barrier, anyway? The Oracle wouldn’t have overlooked something as simple as adoption or marriage, right? Yet, I was adopted by the Jora, and I could get in pretty easily. I furrowed my brows. Was that just because I was an outsider?

I saw an insect walking across a tree branch that followed the edge of the barrier. The insect walked with half of its body on either side of the barrier. I felt something strange in my gut. I approached the edge of the barrier, and put one foot through. I kept the other foot on one side, and tried to circle the barrier this way.

I shimmied up trees, stepped over rocks, and even had to jump over an insect’s nest. I began thinking, if the Jora tribesmen couldn’t cross the barrier, but the Bandari could, would the Oracle expect them to try to meet around this forbidden area, rather than picking a random place in the middle of the forest? No, of course not. That meant this was the perfect place for a secret meeting place.

As I circled the whole barrier, I thought I had been wrong, but right as I completed the circle, I saw something strange. The insect that had been walking on a branch along either side of the barrier was still there. It went back and forth on the same branch but never turned around.

The insect was a yellow beetle with a black head. It was colored like a sunflower from my Earth, but it’s head was strange and alien. I grabbed a leaf and used it to carefully pick up the beetle. It was brightly colored, so I was worried it would be poisonous, but I still wanted to get a good look at it. I tried turning the beetle but felt a strange resistance. It felt kind of like I was playing with a magnet. There was a force pulling the beetle in the same direction, and when I made it point another way, it tried to pull my hand back again. I grabbed the beetle, pointed it in the same direction, and walked back to the grave of the Mad King. The beetle seemed to be pointing to the same thing. I circled around and it still pointed in the same direction.

I ran out of the barrier with the beetle in my hand. I was sure this beetle was part of whatever method the Jora tribe’s elders used to communicate with the Bandari, and that they would show up if I waited at the grave, but there was no time. I ran in the direction the beetle was pointing. It didn’t take long before I was out of the Forest of Three and on the Plains of Serenity again. The night grew darker. The moon was nowhere to be seen. Even the red star was gone. Alien stars stared at me as I raced across the plains.

---

I ran into a couple of elves as I was following the beetle. They had a similar looking beetle in their hand. These elves looked as old as the elders of our clan, which meant they looked like they were in their early thirties but were probably hundreds of years old.

“Why do you have that beetle, child?” asked one of the elders.

“My name is Caspian,” I said. “Caspian Jora. I apologize for meeting you this way, elders, but I had no choice. The Oracle has taken the entire Jora tribe hostage!”

The elders’ eyes widened. They asked me why the Oracle would do something so drastic, and which other tribes were involved. I told them we should start running back to their tribe and that I would try to fill them in on the way back.

I told them everything they needed to know. The Terrible was a five star monster controlled by the God of Evil, who was also the Oracle’s master. The Oracle had been controlling the elves of the plains by sending sacrifices into the cave of The Terrible, although we didn’t know why her master wanted those sacrifices. I told them that after learning magic from the Immortal of Desire, who was the God of Evil’s enemy, my friend Noel and I were able to destroy The Terrible, since the Immortal told us about the monster’s weakness.

By this point we were at the Bandari tribe’s camp. The elders were skeptical of what I had been saying, but using Noel’s name earned me some favor. I told them the Oracle was using strange magic to control the greatest hunter, Sharun, and that she may have been involved in the death of Noel’s father.

“Please,” I said, now speaking to the entire Bandari tribe. “You have to help us!”

The elders looked at me. One of them, a woman they called Ore, stepped forward. “It is difficult to believe you, adopted son of Jora.” This elder had the same silver hair and eyes that Noel did, but her stern eyes and rough cheeks made a face that was very different from Noel’s kind, innocent one. “But tell me, where is my granddaughter.”

Granddaughter? “Are you perhaps…” I began.

Elder Ore nodded. “I am Noel’s grandmother. If you are truly Noel’s friend and tribesmen, tell me where she is, right now. Even if you are lying, I am willing to come with you if Noel has been captured.”

“Noel helped me kill The Terrible,” I said. The elves whispered among themselves. They still didn’t believe The Terrible was dead. “We split up to look for help against the Oracle. I came here to look for you, while Noel has gone to ask the Immortal of Desire for help.”

“Didn’t this immortal help you against The Terrible,” she asked. “Why not ask it for help again? Surely it would be of more use than our tribe. We could not hope to match the Que, let alone the Hon or the Oracle herself.”

“We aren’t sure if the immortal will be able to help us,” I said. “The immortal didn’t help us in person, they only gave us the information we needed to defeat The Terrible. The Immortal might know the Oracle’s weakness, and finding that out would be useful, but we need more help to defeat the Hon and Que hunters.”

“And I just told you, we are not strong enough to defeat those tribes,” said the elder.

“Yes,” I said. “You alone won’t be enough, but if we gather the other tribes that are independent of the Oracle’s influence, we can get rid of her, once and for all!”

The elder furrowed her brows. “There won’t be time to gather all the independent tribes. Judging by your story, the Oracle is waiting for you and Noel to return to the Jora camp after defeating The Terrible. She might accept waiting until the morning, since you could have decided to rest for the night after such a difficult battle, but she won’t wait for too long. I am afraid she get impatient and do something… irreversible.”

I bit my lips. The thought had crossed my mind. “Then what should we do?”

The elder thought for a bit, then she gestured to the other elder. He was a tall, muscular elf who looked to buff to be an elder. “You should take a group of foragers and contact the Kisi and Vevey tribes. I will take most of the hunters and follow young Caspian to the Jora tribe’s camp. We will pick up hunters from the Hus tribe on the way.”

The muscular elder nodded and picked out a group of elves. Elder Ore gathered some strong looking elders, put a hand on my shoulders, and said: “My little Noel is too young to get married.”

Wait, what? Why was she saying that? When did I ever say I was going to marry Noel? I tried to ask the elder what she meant but she ran ahead of me, followed by a bunch of hunters. They were all well rested and uninjured, so I spent all my energy trying to keep up.

Don’t run so fast, you cheeky granny!