Traversing the small maze that had been made with the different cells that led to different dead ends for confusion, Ruby snapped her fingers. “I’m so stupid. Pearly, give me the map again.”

  “Uh, okay.” She handed Ruby the flimsy cloth. “We are lost in this pce with the other stuff just smiling at us from the other side.” Pearly pulled on a cell door. “We might as well already be locked in here.”

  Ruby reached for the map and then squeezed Pearly on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. The map has everything we need. The front had the road and path to take to get here, but the back…” She held up the map so Pearly could see what she was talking about. “...the back has the inside path to take. It’s just written in gibberish to most anyone.”

  “Looks like gibberish to me.” Pearly handed the map back to Ruby. “Care to expin while we walk? I want to get out of here before Gerald ‘the ass’ Jaques catches up with us.”

  “Turn points leading us into the basement and right to your basilisk eye.” Ruby followed the little code and pointed to what each meant. “Look here R3C20L5H. Right at three of clubs, twenty paces then left at five of hearts.” Ruby reached the stairs leading down. “You’ll notice that we never got close to the big statues.”

  “Yeah so?” Pearly replied confused. “We can go back to them after we get the damned gem.”

  Laughing, Ruby patted her friend’s hand. “No, that is an illusion. A never-ending path,you could walk in that circle forever. The statues aren’t real.” She half-turned and peered into Pearly’s eye. “You haven’t done anything like this?” It was the soft shake and shocked look on Pearly’s face that told Ruby all she needed to know. “Ava, Nerice and I find pces like this all the time. I even got a gold egg from a Minotaur.”

  “Whatever.” Pearly ughed and walked down the long staircase. “Frogs and Minotaur's. You have a very wild imagination, Ruby.”

  Given their current location, Ruby lightly chuckled and retook the lead. “This coming from a pirate who wants the ‘eye of the basilisk’. I think you have a little more superstition than you are letting on, dy…” Ruby felt a shift in the air and the basin lighting flickered out.

  “What are we going to do now? I can’t see a thing.” Pearly excimed with frustration.

  Immediately snapping her eye shut, Ruby repyed what little she did see before darkness overtook the two pirates. “First, close your eye regardless.” Ruby waited until she heard Pearly’s agitated grunt affirmed that the older pirate had closed her single eye as well. “You know the path out, just go up the stairs and wait there for me.”

  “Where you go, I go. This is a team effort Ruby.” Pearly defiantly offered, “Besides this is my task. Where is the gem?”

  Repying the small scene she remembered in the fsh, Ruby slowly continued. “There are no fewer than six other statues in the room, all of them…” She paused, dropping the stairwell into silence. “Shh, listen closely.”

  Moments passed and Pearly accidentally stepped on Ruby’s foot.

  “Ow, damnit!” Ruby growled. “I didn’t say move, I said listen. Now my damned foot is throbbing. I told you I wanted to change you annoying…”

  “Would you shut up, it was an accident.” Pearly stomped her boot heel again. “You act like your foot is going to fall off. Anyway…” Pearly took a breath, “What was I supposed to hear?”

  With a hint of frustrating pain, Ruby answered. “A low set of whines. Like you’d hear from someone suffering or a dog from a long distance missing its master.”

  “Nope, didn’t hear anything except the blood in my ears, Ruby.” Pearly replied and sighed, “I assume you know what that was?”

  Years of tales in various tap houses and te-night bed confessions about dreams of riches and glory swirled in Ruby’s mind and formed a horrific solution. “I have lots of stories. You know what a basilisk is right, Pearly?”

  “Barely.” Pearly reached out and found Ruby’s shoulders and held onto the younger pirate. “I am a sailor, dear.”

  Deciding on the short answer, Ruby stayed right where she was to give Pearly a bit of comfort in the darkness. Given her connection to Nerice’s ck of sight, Ruby didn’t think much about dark pces or the inability to see clearly. “It’s a lizard beast thing that turns people to stone with its eyes. Rumor has it that the eyes maintain potency even after the creature’s death. It takes looking at the eye to turn someone to stone. We were thrown into darkness because there is magic protecting us from seeing the gem.” She sighed, “The statues are making sorrowful noises, they are the people trapped here by the eye. Aware but in prison.”

  “Awful.” Pearly shivered. “Perhaps we should leave the gem where it is, if it is really an eye…I don’t want it. I just wanted a fist-sized ruby.”

  “Nonsense.” Ruby quipped and wiggled free of Pearly’s hands. “Be quiet and let me get this thing. Hand me one of your coin pouches.” With a brief sound of coins, Ruby felt a fair-sized leather pouch pressed into her hand. “Alright. Let’s see if I can do this.” Recalling the technique that Nerice used to figure out where she was and in conjunction with what was known about the room, Ruby clicked her tongue over and over until she’d made her way through the maze of statues. With a little birdlike tweet, Ruby felt the different reverberations of the stone versus the one gem she could sense. “Truly amazing. It was like I read her mind.” Ruby ughed and reached for where she sensed the gem should be and plucked it from the wall. “Gotcha.” Ruby kept her eye closed and committed the smooth round ruby to her mind through her fingers and then jammed it into the pouch. “Let’s get out of here, Pearly.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Pearly offered with a little fear in her voice. “I am going upstairs where I can see, this is making me nervous.”

  A few steps ter Ruby emerged from the room and took Pearly’s hand. “I am all over this. Come on.” Ruby hastily bounded up the stairs and through the camoufge alcove and into the bright room. “There was only one gem and I think there are other items of interest down there that I can get with the torchlight now.” Ruby handed over the gem. “Just know if that room is empty then we share the spoils of that rock. I did all the work after all. Call it seventy-thirty my favor, should the room have nothing else of value.” Ruby grinned wide enough to fsh her gem-studded teeth. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Ruby…” Pearly reached for Ruby’s hand before the younger pirate could dash down the steps. When Ruby turned to look at the elder pirate, Pearly opened her hand and blew a heavy powder mixed with sand right into Ruby’s face. Pearly watched as Ruby slowly fell asleep and fell into Pearly’s tight grip. “Sorry, Ruby. This gem has another use, my dear.” She dragged the drugged pirate to a comfortable pce within the vault and kissed Ruby’s scarred cheek. “No honor among thieves, right? We’ll call us completely square. You shouldn’t be here long, dear…”