Free Riddle in Stone (The Riddle in Stone Series - Book One) by Robert Evert Page A

don’t they end up in stories? I don’t know, I suppose it’s all in the telling. The eye of the behold—”
    Startled, he stopped, staring at the cavern wall a few feet ahead of them.
    “Take a look at this,” he said, lifting his lantern, its ruddy light shining off the bluish grey stone.
    Words were scrawled across the wet rock—not just written with charcoal or paint, but actually slashed into the smooth surface as if somebody had taken a sharp knife to soft wood.
    “It’s written in Dunael,” Edmund said, feeling the deep gashes of the foot-tall letters. “Fortunately for you, I know it fl, fl, fluently.”
    He waited for the echoes of his voice to recede.
    “Loosely translated, it says: ‘The salvation of humanity can be found in buildings of wise men, doubly so in optimism of the learned, and in knowledge that is written on a daily basis.’ ”
    “It’s true enough, I suppose,” he said as Thorax shook off the water that had accumulated on her muddy fur. “Strange thing to write way down here, don’t you think? And why didn’t they use a proper chisel when carving it?”
    Edmund felt the jagged indentations of the letters again.
    “Whoever wrote it must have been a novice. He incorrectly capitalized ‘knowledge,’ ‘buildings,’ and ‘optimism,’ and several articles are missing. For example, it should be ‘the optimism of the learned.’ Then again, that doesn’t sound very good. The whole thing is a bit off. Good writing should flow effortlessly from the t-t-tongue.”
    Edmund snapped his fingers.
    “Maybe Isa wrote it! He was merely a boy at the time he fled the tower.”
    He shook his head as more drops of water pelted his damp hair.
    “No. That wouldn’t make much sense. After all, why would he spend time carving this when he was trying to escape with the diary?”
    Puzzled, he studied the wall a moment longer as if he were missing something important.
    How could somebody have sliced this so deeply into the stone?
    Maybe the stone is softer than it looks. Maybe being wet for centuries has made it brittle.
    He rapped his knuckles against the cavern wall.
    It seems as hard as any rock.
    It doesn’t matter.
    But it’s curious . . .
    Think about it later. Remember the Star?
    He sighed.
    “At any rate, it’s of no concern to us, now is it, mighty Thorax?”
    Constantly pelted by drops of water, Thorax scurried around him, trying to find shelter.
    He motioned to the waterfall ahead of them.
    “See there, that opening? We need to push through the waterfall and go into that crevasse. There’s going to be a stairway that will spiral up though the mountain and into a secret room of the tower where the knights held their last stand. We’ll start searching for the Star and Iliandor’s other belongings there. After we find the Star, we’ll just have to stroll down to Eryn Mas and complete our first mission! Of course, b-b-before that, I’m going to sleep the sleep of the dead. I’m exhausted to my marrow.”
    Thorax watched the roaring sheets of water pound the ledge as Edmund regarded the words in the stone one last time. Seeing her concern, he left the wall.
    “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be fine. There’s plenty of room. But be careful. After all, I wouldn’t want you to fall in the water. Strange half-blind creatures with long tentacles always live in subterranean lakes such as this; at least they do in the stories I’ve read.”
    Thorax eyed the pool.
    “Ready? One . . . two . . . three.”
    Shielding the lantern with his body, Edmund jumped though the ribbons of white water. Seconds later, Thorax followed.
    “See,” Edmund said, brushing off of the top of his backpack. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
    Thorax shook herself, sending dirty spray in all directions.
    Before them in the glittering stone was a deep cleft barely wide enough for Edmund to slip through sideways. Just inside, carved into the rock, was an uneven step. Beyond the step was another and then another