The Shattered Stair
Chapter 1
A Simple Quest
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Rowan dragged herself up the last stretch of the trail with a relieved sigh. She was nearly at the top now though
she was not so sure that was a good thing. Only the thought of finally putting her huge pack down and not picking it up
again for days kept her moving. No matter how much she prettied it up or tried to get excited about the history of the
place, it was still a god forsaken plateau in the middle of no where. The little winding track leading to the ancient site was
exactly what she hated most about research—at least her research. Other people could wax poetic about the
countryside stretching below and the harsh beauty of the land, but they were nuts; she wasn’t.
Rubbing a shaking hand over her rebelling stomach, Rowan forced herself to concentrate upon the path instead of
the deadly drop off the side of the path. The tiny goat trail was not shrinking before her, really; it was only her phobia
acting up. She was not about to fall off the leering edge; it was really a nice, wide trail as good as any garden path. It
was most definitely not grinning at her, trails couldn’t do that and it wasn’t daring her to fall either. If only those rocks
didn’t look like teeth everything would be perfect.
Her head shook at the absurdity of her own thoughts. There were times Rowan wondered if insanity ran in her
father’s family. It would certainly explain a lot. Right now her presence in Greece in the middle of summer was not exactly
sane for anyone but a lizard. It felt like she was a half a step away from heat stroke and instead of being on the beach,
where was she? Slogging up a goat path with a pack on her back that weighed almost much as she did! That was
probably proof of insanity right there.
As her swimming gaze focused on the trail once more, she snorted in disbelief that anyone traveled up to the
plateau with any regularity. Only a goat or donkey could love the treacherously steep path. Surely the crumbling trail
had not been wide enough for any sane human even when it was new? Trying to come up with a new motivational
image, she pictured Gerard Butler jogging up the path in front of her in all his skimpy 300 finery with that cute blonde
guy beside him.
It didn’t work; she just kept picturing the blonde guy falling off the trail. Rowan’s mouth quirked with self-mockery,
her fear of heights was unreasonable and she knew it. Unfortunately knowing it in her head did nothing to slow her
racing heart. If she hadn’t inherited her grandmother’s stubbornness, she would’ve never been able to do fieldwork at
all. Even though she was able to force herself up a trail, Rowan was not about to be one of those touristy gawkers at the
edge of an overlook. Who knew when a nasty wind would come up, or a crazy goat would decide to go on a rampage or
something? It was better to be safe than sorry.
Rowan was puffing more from fear than effort by the time she crested the trail to the nearly-leveled mountaintop.
New energy poured into her body as she saw all that wondrous space so very far away from a treacherous edge.
Abandoning all pretense of dignity, she dashed for the center of the plateau and collapsed in a grateful heap on top of
her pack. The fear-triggered adrenalin rush eased, as she slowly sipped her lukewarm water from her canteen. All she
wanted to do was guzzle it and pour about another gallon on her head. Unfortunately Rowan knew she had to conserve
her water; she was going to be up here for days and the fewer times she had to go down for supplies, the better.
Just the thought of facing the trail again made her feel sick. Even though she was the furthest away from all the edges
that she could manage it didn’t matter; the terror was not gone. It would not go away until she was at the bottom of this
monstrosity, but at least this far from the edges it was more manageable. The wide spaces of the mountaintop would
allow her to effectively lie to herself so she could go about her work.
When her heartbeat finally quieted, she was able to start evaluating her surroundings. She was on the last dregs of
her savings, so she had been forced to gamble everything on this one mountaintop. Fortunately, it looked really
promising now that she was able to see it in person. The sea stretched broadly over the horizon and crashed steadily
against the far walls of the mountain’s base, lending the hint of salt to the air and a touch of coolness to the breeze. The
distant thunder gave her a momentary qualm as her phobia raised its head again; surely the waves had to have
weakened the mountain’s roots?
She snorted at her own fancy. It was time to practice some of that denial her family was so famous for. That was not
a sea cliff a hundred or so yards away, it was just a lovely painting. It gave good atmosphere to this marvelous historical
site; isn’t it wonderful? OK, it was lame; but it worked—sort of.
Finally, she was able to turn her attention to the half buried ruins. At least the steepness of the trail had kept
looting and marble salvaging to a minimum. It also helped that the stone was covered in bird crap at least a foot thick.
The sea birds in the area were apparently really well fed because everything was crusted in white film. Seagulls didn’t
carry bird flu did they? She couldn’t remember. When she got down from the mountain Rowan promised herself a nice
long bath in Lysol, or maybe bleach because it was just gross to think of what she would be sleeping on tonight. Forcing
squeamishness aside, Rowan forced herself to focus on the ruins.
Letting her breath out slowly, she carefully pushed the terrors of the last few hours into a dark cubbyhole at the
back of her mind. She had indulged in neurotic fits long enough; it was time to get to work. Against the advice of her
professor, Rowan had taken a six month break from her doctoral studies to follow her passion. She had always loved the
history of science as much as the science itself. The ingenuity of the ancients never ceased to amaze her even though
her family had never quite gotten what she found so thrilling. They would have probably tried to force her to drop her
private studies if they had not led her to also studying chemistry.
As a child she had always been fascinated by fireworks. It was not just the cool explosions, though who could not
love those, but it was the history behind them that had captured her imagination. After she got over trying to blow things
up using ancient methods; something the local authorities had finally stepped in to monitor, she began to wonder how
people had come up with them in the first place. Rowan became fascinated by their use in war and healing: the many
things fireworks were used for before they became entertainment.
There were times she wondered why her parents hadn’t locked her up to try and keep her away from the
chemicals, but then it had not been their garage she accidentally blew up. Master Yu had always been almost
unnaturally understanding of her experiments, or maybe he was afraid what would happen if she started hiding her
experiments.
After she mastered blowing things up with a ‘few household chemicals in their proper proportions’, one of her all
time favorite quotes, she had started looking up what other cool things the ancients had come up with. Greek Fire had
immediately caught her attention. The idea that there had been ancient napalm was just too interesting not to try and
figure out. It evolved into a quest to discover the truth behind the fantastic accounts. Eventually it led to the study of
chemistry.
Her parents had been relieved when she started studying something that wouldn’t put her on the ATF’s watch list.
For a time they must have been convinced she was going to grow up into a criminal of some sort. They were probably
nearly transported with joy when they realized she could actually make money with her major.
Even though she had graduated with honors in both Chemistry and Classical Studies, neither one of her parents
bothered to attend the ceremony. Rowan would have skipped it too if she had not been slated to speak. She supposed
when a university awarded you a hundred thousand dollar graduate scholarship they were owed something. Although
she had leapt at the chance to be on her own, her quest to discover exactly how the ancients manufactured Greek Fire
was never forgotten.
Every summer, she took the money she scrimped and saved from the small stipend the University paid her and
went on a working vacation. For years she had tromped over every ancient site she could find that had the potential to
be a production site. She stayed at youth hostels when she was in Europe and camped when she couldn’t. It was not
that she was a big fan of the outdoors or the cramped little rooms of cheap hotels, but she had to be practical and
American money didn’t go as far as it used to.
Sometimes she caught herself dreaming of fresh fruit and meals that were not freeze-dried, highly processed and
sold for the bargain price of fourteen cents a pop. The thought of soaking in a Jacuzzi was enough to have her moaning
piteously in her sleep.
It was all made worse by the knowledge that if she just swallowed her pride, she could have everything she dreamt
of and more. It was a simple matter of tapping into the trust fund her mother and father decided to give her when she
lived up to their ‘expectations’, but it felt too much like selling her soul.
They hadn’t wanted her as a child, dumping Rowan with her grandmother within a week of her birth; it was a little
late in her book to pretend to care now. Her lips twitched; besides, she was not nearly so cheap as they thought her
apparently. A quarter of a million dollars couldn’t make up for the hollow feeling of rejection she had known throughout
her childhood.
Her mind went back to the first time she had really understood how little they cared for her. Even though the martial
arts lesson had been over for more than an hour, her father’s driver still had not come to pick her up. The sensei,
Master Yu noticed her sitting on the bench as he came out the door, an older looking boy clinging to his broad hand. He
came over to her and stooped to one knee so he could look her in the eye, the frown on his face not marring the sparkle
of his deep green eyes.
“Where is your mother, little lamb?” The hint of a brogue had thickened to an almost impenetrable accent.
She shook her head and guessed at the words she had not understood, “Mommy dropped me off on her way to Paris . It’
s Daddy’s turn to send Henry for me.”
Something sad moved in the older man’s eyes. “I see,” He gave the boy with almost impossibly dark red hair a
veiled glance. “How about we leave a note and you come home with us. I’m sure Brian’s just about bursting to show
someone his new toys.”
The boy’s midnight black eyes narrowed, but at one glance from his father he swallowed and nodded invitingly.
“Yeah you should come. Besides, mom always likes when we have a new friend over.”
She’d bit her lip, trying to balance her grandmother’s prohibition against trusting near strangers with sitting on the
bench, perhaps for the whole night. It wasn’t the first time she had been forgotten after all.
As if he could read her mind, Master Yu smiled invitingly, “I know I am not your class’s instructor, but I am your
sensei. It is my responsibility to make sure you stay safe after all.”
Well that she could understand, her dad complained about how much of a responsibility she was all the time.
“Okay,” She agreed hesitantly as she shrugged into her heavy pack. “But if my dad is at a ‘function’,” She stumbled over
the adult word. “He might not remember me until morning.” For the first time since the sensei had crouched down in
front of her, Rowan was suddenly afraid. A very ugly look had come to his eyes but his hand was gentle as he guided
her beside his son. A moment later he had finished scribbling a note on the door and they were walking down the
sidewalk. Little did she know her whole life had changed.
Her father had not remembered his daughter until well into the next day, by the time he’d showed up, Momma Yu
had her elbow deep in flour and Master Yu was pacing all six and a half feet of him vibrating in outrage. She had moved
in with them that night.
Rowan sometimes wondered if her father, now a successful congressman, had ever regretted his behavior, but
most of the time she was able to admit that all he’d probably felt was relief at finally getting rid of her. Some perhaps
more honest or jaded than she was would have thought her trust fund was an attempt at a bribe or silent money. Brian
certainly did and urged her to at least take their money if she wasn’t going to go to the press, but she placed her self-
worth at a higher level than that. She wanted as little to do with the congressman as he had wanted with her.
Master Yu had done more than give her a home and family the night he took her home like a stray kitten, he had agreed
to take her on as a student and he was a very good sensei, one of the best. By the time she was a teenager; she was
competing on a national scale and drawing media attention. It was nice to know that some people thought she was
special, even though Brian outshined her performance in every way.
Her mouth quirked into a smile when she remembered the moment they had truly become a family. After she had
moved in to ostensibly further her training, it had only taken a few days to discover that Brian was not exactly popular in
school. She had a feeling that if he had not been on his way to being a black belt already, the bullies would have closed
on him like wolves. Her brother’s looks had made him stand out painfully from the rest of the children like an exotic
orchid among daisies. His Irish blood had gifted him with blood red hair while his Scots heritage made him all gangly
bones and height. It coupled oddly with his Japanese and Chinese grandparents coloring and eyes.
As they walked to the dojo from school, Brian regaled her with some of his family history. “My great grandpa Wang
was a translator attached to the Flying Tigers. He was really old when he fell in love with my grandmom, he saved her
from a Japanese camp at the end of the war. By that time he was afraid because a lot of people in China were going
hungry, so he brought her over to the US .”
“Is that how your mom and dad met?” She was really curious about such things, whenever she asked her parents
about how they met her mother would mutter something about tequila and her father would blush. It was fascinating to
really hear how grown ups figured out such things.
“No, my dad was born during the Korean war. He never new his dad, he died in the fighting, but his father’s family
found out about him a few years later and brought him to Scotland for visits with his Clan during school breaks. They
tried to get his mom to let him move there, but she didn’t want to let him go.”
Rowan would have had a hard time understanding that kind of a mother until she had met Momma Yu, now she just
nodded, “Is that why your dad talks a little funny?” She had never met anyone that sounded quite like him.
Brian nodded, “Yeah, they met when my mom was ‘touring Europe,' whatever that means. Apparently her mom had
some family that came from there, though I haven’t met them.”
“I hear you,” She knew all about having family that were never interested in meeting you. “I don’t know a lot of my
family too.” With Brian she didn’t have to pretend that it didn’t bother her.
A brotherly arm was thrown around Rowan’s shoulder as she sniffled a little in self-pity. “Well, they can’t have you
back now. You’re one of us now.” A finger tapped her nose. “But don’t cry too much, it freaks my dad out. He says it’s
bad for the image.”
He only groaned a little as she threw he arms around him with a squeal of delight. “You mean it?”
Brian nodded solemnly, “I think mom likes having a girl around. Dad says they got it right the first time so they can’t have
any more kids even though it made mom sad. Since you’ve been here she’s been doing all sorts of girly stuff.” He
scrubbed his neck a little. “Just don’t go all frilly on me, okay?”
She’d thought immediately of her mom and shuddered, “I promise, no fru fru stuff.”
A sad smile tugged Rowan's lips as she pushed aside a tangle of filthy, dusty hair. She’d certainly kept that
promise, but it was time to quit woolgathering. This was her last shot to try and prove her theory. It was time to settle
down and get a good job. Besides, she couldn’t leave her brother Brian alone to pay all of Master Yu’s medical bills. It
was time to start paying back some of her debt to the Yu’s even if there was only Brian left now.
It would have all been so much easier if he had let her sign over her trust fund to him, but the one time she had
tried, he hadn’t spoken to her for a week so she was going to have to do it the hard way. This was the final trip to
indulge her childhood dreams, the final shot at her quest.
Rolling her aching shoulders, Rowan forced her mind to other things. She needed to complete her on-site
experiments with this trip. If sufficient samples could be gathered and enough product made, she would be able to
conduct further experiments when she was back at the university. She just needed enough of the proper materials from
the traditional sites to test her formula.
This place was the key to it all though it had been written up as a relatively unimportant site. The long-dead
explorers that had first described the ruins had hypothesized that the mountain had been involved in manufacturing a
product for trade, but they had little evidence one way or another.
It was time to find out if they were right.