They turned back to the previous hall and took a different route. Soon, the passages became narrower, the ceilings lower. The interior slowly changed, too. Golden symbols and images decorating the walls disappeared, leaving bare stones to stare at. Leir had no clue where they were going, he had lost his way around a long time ago. All he knew was that the air in this part of the temple was even hotter and stuffier. The fomoire felt as drops of sweat were running down his back, making his t-shirt repulsively stick to his skin.

You can't give up, Leir told to himself. Charna was right, he was Kraine's father. And he promised to come back home with The Book of Fates. Or not to come back at all.

The fomoires and Alexander entered a hallway endlessly stretching into the darkness. The only light was coming from the crystal in Leir's hand, and his figure cast a long eerie shadow crawling along the wall.

"Sinister," Nagal said, cocking his head to look through one of the doorways. "I feel like I'm starring in a horror movie here. And have you noticed? There are no cracks or rifts in any of the walls–not including the ones we've caused ourselves, of course. It looks like this place was abandoned just yesterday. Yet, there is no furniture or personal stuff. Could the locals take everything alone with them as they left?"

"If the locals didn't sleep on iron pillows—and I highly doubt that—all the furniture must have rotted away by now." Leir replied, shaking the crystal in his hand in order to prevent it from dying out too soon. "But if you're interested in personal stuff, Nag... Well, you should have looked closer. I've seen a few golden coins and a broken vase somewhere."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Tane exclaimed behind Leir's back and roguishly rubbed his palms together as though getting ready for a mischief. "We're not a charity organization, and that ancient junk is worth a fortune on the black market!"

"Tane, you're one of the best solders of Pateal," Charna said, deliberately ignoring Leir. "And you live in the Palace Square. Why would you need money?"

"Because! Because you can't get chicken nuggets for free, poking a dagger around on Earth."

"I bet you can."

Tane narrowed his eye and glanced at the fomorian in suspicion. "I bet you've tried."

As an answer, Charna shrugged vaguely.

"Gee," Tane mischievously chuckled. "We should do it once together, you and me, we'd—"

"Can you be serious just for a moment?" Nagal roughly pushed Tane aside and strode forward without looking back. Leir pursed his lips, struggling not to laugh at the sight of envious glow in Nagal's eyes. How dared Tane to have fun talking to someone else, right?

"What's the point of being serious?" Tane shouted after Nagal. "Until there's nothing threatening my life at least?"

Finally, they all got to the end of the hallway and found themselves in a tremendous chamber, which crowns of the columns were lost in the blackness. Leir shook the crystal once again, and gasped in astonishment. The walls in here were covered with shelves, where countless gold bars were shining. Reflecting the crystal's light, the bars filled the chamber with warm brightness as if the sun was illuminating the place.

A ringing sound suddenly came from the opposite corner, something made of metal hit the floor.

"What the—" The instincts made Leir reach out for his thigh, where his sword always was hanging. He realized their human guide was nowhere to be found. "Alexander!"

A giant golden goblet rolled over the floor to Leir's feet.

"That'd be enough for the nuggets," Anya's father emerged from behind the column, a heavy gold bar of the size of a tray in his hands.

"What the hell is this?" Nagal asked, his lips curled contemptuously.

"This," said the man, without taking his eyes off his treasure, "is a history of the lost civilization. Look around you, we are in a library! I can bet my life the knowledge contained here will change the world!"

Approaching the shelves, Leir traced his finger along one the bars to rub off the dust. A few gold plates tied together, unknown writing on the cover–that could be called a book of some ancient sort. "But why would Paititi people leave them behind?" he wondered.

"I think they wanted the truth to be revealed one day," Alexander shrugged. "Oh god, I can't wait to read all this! It would be a sensation! The greatest one since the city of Troy was discovered! And university professors used to say my researches were a waste of time, hah!.."

Leir let out a ragged lungful of air and dropped his head in his hands. "We will spend an eternity looking for The Book of Fates here... We're doomed."

"Uh, the book is not here," Anya's father made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "It's in the main hall. Now, listen to these words! Ucu patcha... This world also leaves for another world... Incredible!"

Happiness and amazement and curiosity were written all across Alexander's face. Standing next to Leir, Nagal snorted and rolled his eyes from the man who looked like a person seized with a gold fever. "He's a maniac," he whispered to Leir.

"Alexander, we don't have time for sorting out the books," Leir spoke as calm as he could. They were at war here, and this man actually wanted to flip through memoirs?! "You can come back later if you wish."

"But this knowledge can rewrite the whole human history!" Yes, Alexander really seemed feverish. Was his daughter also so obsessive?.. "We're possibly standing on a threshold of a new era!"

Leir gritted his teeth. "I'm sorry for lack of sympathy for humankind's ignorance from my side, but it'll have to wait."

"But—"

"I recall your wish was to find your wife. Not history rewriting."

"But it can help."

Nagal chuckled. "Help how?"

"Fine, maybe it can't." Alexander sighed and gave up, the spark in his eyes faded.

"Good. Let's keep going then?" Leir glanced around, looking for the others. No surprise Tane was stuffing his pockets with jewelries he found among some books. And Charna was simply roaming around the room, still pretending Leir didn't exist.

When Alexander put as many gold bars in his bag as he could carry, he and the fomoires continued their way through the temple.

Half an hour they all walked in silence. Alexander looked sad and disappointed, and probably, in his mind, he was planning of returning here or dreaming of creating a furor in his professional circles.

The man's face made Leir think–the desire to find the wife, was it Alexander's greatest desire? Or after so many years of pointless searches, it became just an excuse for his real passion–learning world's greatest mysteries? What if a tragedy led Alexander to his true path? Showed him the right way? And then, what if everything Leir had suffered himself was just a part of a master plan? All Leir needed to do was just to put the pieces of the puzzle together?..

"In here," Anya's father broke the chain of Leir's theories.

They stepped through the arch and found themselves in a large vestibule that for some reason reminded Leir of an entrance hall of a law court. There were no passages or other arches leading from here, there were no columns or interior decorations either–just a wide hall with massive doors on at the end of it. Leir swallowed hard. The doors were almost whispering to him: justice is being done behind us.

"We've reached our destination," Leir brought himself to say. He shook the crystal in his hand, and it blacked out, leaving everyone in the utter darkness.

The world turned to nothingness for a few moments, but then the adjusted eyes saw a narrow line of sunlight coming from between the doors.

"What's that smell?" Tane sniffed the air dramatically. "Is it the air of freedom from the stone prison?" He confidently jogged toward the doors, but before he could cover a yard, the travel sack on his back quivered unnaturally and started lifting up in the air. Tane glanced over his shoulder and then at his friends, eyes caught with fear. "What's going on?"

An instant later, Leir felt an unusual lightness in his legs. He looked down and realized his feet were floating a few inches above the floor. "Here we go, the daitish technologies at last," he sighed.

"Son of a—" Nagal made an angry noise. He had the heaviest bag with everyone's weapons, so he got pinned to the ceiling in seconds. "Tane, who the hell asked you to rush forward?!"

"Don't blame me!" Tane snapped, his hands brushing the air like the ones of a marionette. "That earthling brought us here! He is the one to blame!"

"I did what you asked me to do," Alexander's tired voice replied. "Be thankful that you haven't been burned alive or smashed with moving walls on the way to here." Drifting through the hall, he turned his head to Leir. "So, daitish expert, what do we do?"

Meanwhile, Leir's gaze was already scanning the walls. "There must be a crystal that generates an anti-gravity field." Yet, he saw nothing. "Ideally, a control panel, a touchscreen or a stone. Anything of that kind."

"There," Charna said and waved her hand toward the doors. What a surprise, she was suddenly speaking to Leir again. "I think it's a golden plate or something. Lianas block the view."

Peering his eyes into what Charna had spotted, Leir actually saw a metal leaf faintly glowing like gold. It was on the wall, close to the floor, and concealed from the view with green lianas stretching around the doorway.

Leir pushed from the opposite wall, putting all of his remaining strength in this move, and slowly sailed across the room, toward the doors. As he got to the goldish plate, he grabbed the lianas and yanked them away easily. But the plate was stuck.

"Ugh... Damn it! It won't open." Leir hissed, struggling, his nails hopelessly scratching the surface of the yellow metal. "And my knife fell out when this amusement park went rough."

"Here, take this," Alexander tossed him the blue stone dagger that once belonged to Michael.

Leir looked at the dagger flying over the room in slow motion and then at the man, his eyebrows shot up. "Trusting me all of a sudden?"

Alexander chortled darkly. "Do I have a choice?"

"Good point."

Leir snatched the blade and picked at the edge of the plate as though truing to pop a sardine can open. It creaked and blew off its hinges, revealing pale blood-red stone pulsing with hot light. Without thinking, Leir hit the stone hard with the handle of the dagger. The stone shattered and the irresistible force holding Leir in the air disappeared. Tinkling of weapons and dull sounds of bodies falling on the ground followed.

"They left the most cunning trap for dessert," Tane groaned as Leir collapsed on the floor next to him, almost breaking friend's neck.

Though, the fomoires and Alexander barely had time to gather their things and rub their bruises as the heavy doors started opening inwards. This time, nobody hurried to walk in.

Leir drew out his sword and moved forward in a steady pace, ready to block a strike of whatever enemy there might be waiting beyond the doors. Others went close behind.

"What happened here?" Charna's voice faltered and broke off at the sight of what they all witnessed.

A great round hall, ruins of columns scattered all over it, walls fractured like they'd experienced multitude bomb explosions. Through a crack in the ceiling, thick tree branches were visible and rays of the morning sun shining upon the ruins, illuminating the chaos.

"According to the legends," Alexander spoke, his voice as stunned as the other's, "The people of Paititi disappeared without leaving a trace when Spanish conquistadors arrived. Apparently, here is the place of the last battle."

"And where would they disappear?" Nagal asked incredulously.

"There," Leir pointed his chin at the wall hidden in a shadow. A giant arch made of yellow crystals was decorating it. "Through a dimensional door."

"But not all of them," Tane walked to a pile of rocks in the center of the hall. There, among the stone pieces, two skeletons were lying–one smashed with the collapsed column, one with a rusty arrow sticking out of his chest. "Poor guys."

Leir shifted his gaze up, and his jaw dropped. At last. They'd made it. Tired and sweaty, in worn-out dirty clothes sucked with the ancient air of the temple, dying from exhaustion and despair, they found it. The Book of Fates. The volume which mysterious silvery cover was glittering in the light. The artefact was lying on the pedestal in the middle of the chaos. "Not so poor after all."