A Twist of the Sands

by P R Glazier

  Chapter 26. City Beneath the Sands

  The tunnel went on for two kilometres or so and then they found themselves in a vast open area, circular in shape and perhaps a good five or six hundred metres across, about the same diameter in fact as the cistern that led up to the surface. On one far wall a metal stair ascended into the gloom above. Nar’Allia found herself cowering involuntarily; it felt like the vast openness of this space was pushing down upon her shoulders, she wondered if perhaps they stood now at the bottom of another cistern. But no sunlight filtered down from above. She wished for a small room with walls she could reach out and touch comfortably. But the decision was made for them, so they travelled across the open space to the spiral staircase and started to ascend. Finally, after about half an hour of climbing they came across a large landing that curved completely around the wall of the vast open area they had just climbed up. At regular intervals a door exited, each of these doors was immense in size but not as large as the entrance from the cistern they had so hastily passed through, but even so a similar shape.

  Amndo quickly noticed that each of the door frames had a receptacle that again he could fit the Donal into. He chose the nearest to him and to his relief and with a loud report and mechanical noise, the doorway opened up, rising into the frame at the top. They stepped through and their attention was taken elsewhere, for almost immediately loud banging noises started going off, bright lights switched on with each report, they got quieter and quieter the farther away the lights were. Each light was in fact a bank of several lights set into the ceiling high above them within this new chamber. 

  “Well if anyone is in here to welcome us, we have certainly announced our presence,” remarked Amndo as he touched the staff and turned out its light, no longer needed.

  But it was the sheer size of the chamber that astounded them. It appeared to be at least a kilometre in length but this may have been a distortion of the eye for the ceiling although being at least two hundred metres above them at its highest point seemed low in comparison to the length of the vast semi-circular tunnelled space.

  Jonas, perhaps trying to lighten the mood said, “well whoever built this place had a real penchant for scale eh?”

  They walked out onto the floor of this chamber, the walls and floor were of rock but not a natural geology, it looked to have been mixed and poured onto the floor and then set hard for it had little ripples in its surface. About halfway down the vast room there was set into the sloping ceiling several windows, the light in the rooms beyond these windows shone out over the space they were in. Several large tube like things hung from the walls and at two places, distant but visible, a bridge like structure stuck out from the wall below these windows, Nar’Allia was reminded of a jetty where ships could be moored, but clearly these were high above the ground, but it did occur to her that with all the water outside in the cistern, this chamber could be conceivably filled, or half filled. Yet the walls around them had no giveaway signs of ever having been submerged in water for any length of time, no green algae or water line marks could be seen anywhere.

  They slowly made their way down the length of the room walking along the centre line. Occasionally JDC would veer off to one side or another to inspect something of interest, as they walked he gained in confidence and began running around looking at everything he could find. About halfway along the chamber they came across a spiral staircase winding upwards to a trap door set beneath one of the bridge structures. Each bridge had a set of hand rails either side. They decided to go up. Jonas was at the fore so when he reached the trap door he placed his back and shoulders against it and pushed, the trap door moved on rusted hinges and with a bit more heaving and grunting it did open and they were able to climb out upon the flat bridge.

  When Nar’Allia had climbed through and stood, she noticed Jonas looking at several large objects spilled upon the metal floor. She gasped as she realised a number of tall armoured bodies littered the floor here. Walking across to the nearest she knelt down and said, “you’d better take a look at this.” There staring at her was the slant-eyed face that appeared on the Dolan that Amndo had left back in the entrance to ensure that the door did not reclose on them. She touched the face, it was hard and cold and so heavy she could hardly move it from where it lay. The body onto which this head must have sat upon must be enormous even under the armour that the figure most probably wore, she wondered at what kind of being had worn such armour, she immediately thought of the Ognods in Minervar’s stories.

  “Look here, look at this,” It was JDC that spoke, he was kneeling down beside another of the figures, but this one had suffered a leg being hacked from its body. They all walked across to where JDC knelt, he was holding something. Nar’Allia almost cried out in anguish for she saw that JDC held the lower leg of the fallen warrior. But where she had expected to see the stump of bone protruding, she could only see many metal parts and wires hung loose from the severed end.

  “These aren’t flesh and blood warriors, these are mechanical warriors,” said JDC.

  “But look over here,” called Jonas, “these are not mechanical warriors.”

  They walked over to where Jonas stood; there on the ground were two skeletons, too short to be human, too tall for either a Pnook or Grûndén. Nar’Allia covered her mouth with her hand and turning to Jonas she said, “these are T’Iea, or were.”

  “I wonder how they came to be here, why they died with these mechanical soldiers?”

  “Or fought against them,” said Amndo.

  Something was dawning in Nar’Allia mind, she was putting things together. “These are T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran, Dark Elves to you Jonas, by the Maker they must be. Remember I talked with Daffid’s brother in the Mecharmy camp, he told me that teachers had come and stayed with them, but they argued and fought, the teachers sort refuge in the place of Jethrent. The nomads didn’t ever see them again but it was just before the Leviathan flew out from this place and attacked the nomads camped about. Don’t you see the T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran, they were here, they were the teachers! They must have also found their way down here, perhaps they looked for something here, perhaps the mechanical warriors were protecting something and they fought.”

  Another thought resurfaced in her mind, “the same T’Iea that entered here, they must have entered via the same means, they must have had this Dolan, or another like it? That must have been how Tezrin got it, it must have been he who placed the Dolan in Solin’s house. He may have even been here.”

  Amndo was standing on the bridge at its far edge, he was looking up and down the length of the great cavern in which they stood, “perhaps they found what they sort and took it.”

  “Nar’Allia whispered under her breath, The Leviathan, yes perhaps it lived in this great cavern.”

  “Lived yes, but then perhaps not exactly alive?” said Amndo.

  “What do you mean,” asked Jonas.

  But Amndo started to walk back along the length of the bridge; he walked past the dead warriors and on into the gloom of a tunnel that they had not really noticed previously. He adjusted the glow from his staff and they then saw illuminated a sort of entrance hall with a large metal door either side. The two doors even though they looked very heavy and armoured were both knocked off their hinges and lay upon the floor before the opening that had been made.

  Amndo had bent down and was running his hand across one of the doors. His eyes were closed in concentration. “There is a faint residue, a faint hint at the use of arcane power, a lot of arcane power for the residue still remains after all this time, it has not yet fully decayed.”

  He stood and stepped through one entrance, the rest of the party followed. They stood in a room, one of the rooms that was quite obviously the other side of the windows that they had seen before from outside. The room had many seats and benches within and below the window was a bank of desks with sloping surfaces; the slope was too great to place anything upon the desks. Nar’Allia approached the desks, she placed
her hand on the back of one of the chairs it creaked and swivelled around, she gasped as there sitting upon the chair was another of the T’Iea skeletons, this one’s skull around the eye socket was badly burnt and blackened, a similar blackened hole could be seen at the back of the skull. She gathered herself and walked forward, she could see many little pads set into each of the benches and slightly domed glass areas roughly square in shape. Some of these glass areas had been smashed and looking through the broken glass she could see many odd looking devices and much coloured wire.

  JDC said with some wonder in his voice, “these are control kiosks, I don’t know what they controlled but it must have been complex because of the number of kiosks here in this place. That is not all.” He fingered some of the control nobs and dials in front of him, he brushed some dirt and dust away to reveal little characters, signs set into some of the dials. He sounded shocked. “These characters, you see, the markings on this desk, they are Pnook in origin.” Suddenly he swung round looking about him, then he stood and started to walk about the room. “I wonder if there is sufficient power to switch what is left on. If there is then we may get a clue to what went on here.” He continued to look around the room, searching for something. “Help me look all of you, somewhere there must be a lever, or a switch, an isolator or something that will power on these kiosks.”

  Nar’Allia looked but could see nothing, then full of curiosity she went back outside the room to look there. Sure enough on the back wall of the entrance hall there was a metal grill and through this grill she could see a large red coloured lever. She tried to move the grill but it seemed to be stuck. However, the gaps in the grill were quite large and she found that with careful manipulation she could actually get her hand and arm through to the grasp the lever. She pulled, at first it would not move, she tried again, this time however it did move, but it would not pull down, rather it seemed to rotate. So changing her grip slightly she rotated the lever, it squeaked a little but slowly gave in to her strength. Suddenly it moved quickly as if giving in to her demands and a loud clunk was heard. This was quickly followed by a low humming noise that increased in intensity as the seconds passed. There was a series of crackling noises and a shout from JDC who quickly ran from the room and looking around spied Nar’Allia.

  “Ach, milady you almost electrocuted me, you should have called before doing anything.”

  “I’m sorry JDC; I just thought this is what you sort.”

  There was an explosion and the other two ran from the room they were in, Amndo was muttering something about fire and sparks he was brushing something off his robes. But the humming noise had settled down to a constant pitch so they looked back into the room from which they had just come, the room was still in darkness. But behind them lights flickered on similar to the big lights that now illuminated the main cavern. The room on the other side of them was bathed in a soft glow, so they walked across the corridor and entered the other room. This room was different in its layout. It had a few desks around but nothing like the control centre as JDC referred to the first room. But on the wall of this second room was illuminated a big wheel like device, a circle of light with several spokes radiating from a central hub. In the centre of the hub there was depicted what looked like a staircase. Nar’Allia looked at the spokes of the wheel. One, two, three, four had little red lights glowing in them. One, two had no lights at all although Nar’Allia could see a little indentation where a light should, or perhaps could have shone. The last one, number seven, had a green light shining. “What in the Makers name is this?”

  “It’s a map,” said JDC excitedly. “Look there in the centre, if that is the staircase where we ascended to the circular landing, then maybe the hub of this wheel is that landing. Do you remember how many doors were on the landing before we entered into this cavern?”

  “Yes, there were seven in total.”

  “Yes, exactly. So if we look at the orientation of the stairs depicted there on the map, then maybe if this shows all seven doors then we are …...” JDC slowly moved his finger around the map until he rested it and pointed at one of the spokes depicted in the map, one where a red light showed. “My guess is we are here,” tapping his finger on the map right where the red light shone.

  “So there may be six other caverns similar to this one then according to the map?”

  “Yes, yes exactly. If we are in one with a red indicator, then I suspect that they are also empty.” He traced his finger around the map. “So here and here where there is no indicator, I suspect there is some kind of malfunction perhaps.” He moved his finger again until it rested over the green light. He tapped the map with the end of one finger. “But here, aha, just maybe this cavern still contains something of interest?”

  Jonas stood back from the map, “only one way to find out, let’s go take a look eh? Perhaps we will come face to face with one of the monsters the nomads talked of.” He smirked.

  But Nar’Allia felt a large ache deep in her stomach, a feeling of great foreboding filled her and for the first time she thought how nice it would have been if both Minervar and her had just stayed at home, never made that trip to Amentura.