A Twist of the Sands

by P R Glazier

  Chapter 27. The Lair of the Leviathan

  They made to leave the room, but as they turned to face the doorway Nar’Allia noticed hanging upon the wall a tube, shaped object inside of which seemed to be what looked like the flights of arrows protruding from one end. Intrigued, she walked across to where this hung upon the wall and lifted it down. Sure enough a wide mouthed metallic quiver hung there and inside where numerous silver-shafted arrows. She drew one out of the quiver. It was long, longer than a normal T’Iea arrow; its flights were not of feather, but of some other translucent material unknown to her. But it was the arrow head that she found most curious. Where she expected to find a sharp lethal looking barbed blade, there was a rather unattractive bulbous blunted end, it reminded her or a small pear hanging on a pear tree. She removed other arrows, but all it seemed had the same blunt ends. She decided she would take the quiver of arrows with her anyway. So she removed it from the wall and clasped it to her belt where her own quiver once hung, that quiver with its arrows was now riding across the desert on the otherwise empty back of Quinak the Duagnuats. Luckily when they parted she had the black bow across her back, and the empty quiver that belonged to Serinae already on her belt. She felt a little better for at least now she had some arrows for the black bow to shoot.

  JDC she noticed was also looking at the wall, he lifted down a long tubular looking device that reminded Nar’Allia of the weapons that Alicshea and her clan had wielded. He had a smile on his face as he gave the thing to Jonas and then took another off the wall for himself.

  “Ri’fals,” he muttered under his breath. “These are weapons of great force, here take one,” he tried to hand one to Amndo.

  But the keeper held up his hands and said, “I am not a warrior master Pnook, my weapon is here in my mind.” He tapped the side of his head with one finger.

  So JDC turned and offered the weapon to Jonas. But as if to confirm Amndo’s reticence, Jonas also after scrutinising the Ri’fal, gave the weapon back to JDC saying, “I will stick with what I know Master Pnook,” at this he reached over his shoulder and tapped the hilt of his great sword where it hung in its scabbard across his back.

  JDC shrugged and loosening a leather strap on the Ri’fal he shouldered the weapon, he also indicated the quiver that Nar’Allia had just clipped to her belt and said, “ye’d best be careful with those to milady, they are not just any arrows that you carry if I’m not mistaken.”

  “What do they do then? Who made them?” Nar’Allia asked.

  “Ye’ell see if we get the chance to lose some, for they may be invaluable to us. As to who made them, well I can’t rightly say, but I have seen similar weapons designed and used by my own people.”

  “Are you saying there is a link, a connection with the Pnook here JDC?”

  JDC frowned, “there are certain things I recognise yes, but the designs are ancient, some I have never seen before and I would have to investigate them further to understand them better. But if you were to ask, I would have to agree that my people have been here at the building of this place or their designs were used by others. It is most curious.”

  They left the room and wandered all the way back down the cavern to where they had entered through the door onto the top of the staircase. Thankfully it had remained open. As they left Amndo removed the Dolan from the receptacle in which it sat. The great lights that had illuminated the cavern all turned off, the door clanked and started to close again. Amndo just remembered to reignite the light from his staff once more as the vast door closed with a thud and the vast space would have again been plunged into total darkness. Nar’Allia found this most eerie, for it almost seemed that someone watched their passing. She stared at the door that had just thudded closed and then looked nervously around the circular chamber, noting the other massive doors set into the wall at regular intervals. What would they find beyond?

  JDC thought for a while then said, “ok, so let us see, if we go clockwise, then from my recollection of the map we should have one other empty room, then a room that is malfunctioning in some way, then the green indicated room.”

  Amndo walked with JDC to the next door in the clockwise direction and placing the Dolan in the receptacle watched as the door rose slowly up into the ceiling. JDC took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. As before there was the clunking noise as the lights illuminated the inside of the cavern, but this time some spluttered and died as they were switched on. Some of these cascading a shower of sparks down onto the floor far below as they blew out. But it was immediately obvious that yes, in fact this cavern was empty as well. So again in a clockwise direction they move on to the next door. Amndo had recovered the Dolan from the previous door which had dutifully shut. He tried the Dolan in this doors receptacle. This time the door opened, but only to about a metre or so, for a loud grinding noise was heard and the door stopped, but then its mechanism tried to move again with a loud clunk, then again stopped. This clunking carried on as the door mechanism tried to open the door repeatedly but failed each time.

  JDC after watching the door for a few minutes decided to duck under the partially open door. “Can we have some light in here please master keeper.”

  Amndo bent down and placing his head and shoulder beneath the clunking door thrust his staff through. The rest of the party ducked down and looked beneath the door. Nar’Allia could quite plainly see that the room was full of debris, rock had fallen everywhere obscuring much of the interior of the room from view.

  JDC came back out followed by Amndo. “Hmmm obviously the ceiling had caved in, the cavern is full of fallen rock, nothing can be seen beyond the rock fall, so I would say conclusively that the cavern has malfunctioned yes?”

  Nar’Allia shrugged in response.

  Amndo again recovered the Dolan and now they stood in front of the door to the cavern that showed a green light on the map. They stood there for a while; each felt a strong sensation of foreboding, none of the party wanted to suggest they open the door.

  Amndo took a deep breath and said, “bah, Leviathan monsters. I have never heard of such a beast, it is just a tale to frighten children, a yarn for old men who should know better, a story for warriors to enhance their awe upon others.” He dutifully placed the Dolan in the door lock and stood back.

  The door slid effortlessly up, clanging and banging as it went, the sounds reverberating around the vast chamber in which they stood. The darkness of the cavern entrance showed like a black hole inviting them to enter and be swallowed whole. Nar’Allia felt a movement of warm air flow from the black void, she stepped backwards, she imagined some enormous head would appear before them, hot moist air from enormous nostrils blowing over them whilst she looked into the malevolent eyes of some fantastic beast.

  JDC went through with a deep intake of breath and the familiar clunking noise of the lights illuminating could be heard. They all walked through into the cavern. They gapped with wide open mouths at the sight that befell them within. Something enormous filled the cavern, it took up most of the width of the place, and Nar’Allia guessed it also would take up a good deal of the length. They stared at it for a while, almost waiting perhaps for it to acknowledge their presence but this did not happen. The monstrous thing was bright silver in colour and obviously fitted the space they were in snuggly, if that was the correct word to describe something so big, for it towered above them so that they could only really see its featureless underside.

  “Well my friends meet the Leviathan I assume,” Said JDC holding up both his arms as if he wished to embrace the vast shape.

  They remained quiet as they walked slowly forward. There was enough space to walk beneath the thing for it hung in the air; whatever supported it was out of view to them. Nar’Allia reached up and found she could just touch the silver monster at its lowest point if she stood on her toes. As her fingers neared the beasts silvery skin she hesitated, wondering if she would awaken the thing if she touched it. But she noticed that Amndo was already running his han
ds along the smooth surface so she also touched it with her fingertips. Immediately she felt a tickling vibrating sensation that made her take her hand away quickly. She looked at her fingertips but could see nothing, so she touched the beast again. As before she experienced the tingle of it. It felt alive somehow, but dormant, as if it slept the sleep of a millennia.

  JDC was skipping around in great excitement; he was like a child awaiting a birthday treat. He managed to stammer out the words. “Perhaps we should find the control room like we did in the first hall,” This said he was hurrying off down the length of the beast.

  They moved over to one side of the cavern and looking up they could see past the side of the monstrous shape and view the ceiling above curving round until it disappeared beyond the bulk of the Leviathan and presumably over it and down the other side. They could also see a similar bridge type structure protruding out in a similar place to the first hall they had entered. This time the bridge seemed to span the gap between the side of the chamber and it seemed to touch the side of the Leviathan, although from where they stood they could not see where or how the two joined. They could also see a similar spiral metal stair case going up to a similar trap door in the floor of the bridge structure. As they walked along the length of the chamber Nar’Allia could see nothing supporting the great beast, it just seemed to hang there in the air.

  Before long they were at the spiral stair and as before they all climbed up, the trapdoor that led out onto the bridge was already open and after passing through with much caution, they stood upon the bridge. All looked as it did in the first cavern, the only difference of course being that this cavern still housed the great Leviathan beast it was designed for. This time instead of the bridge just overhanging, with a drop back to the floor of the cavern, this bridge ended at the metal monsters hull. A close inspection suggested that a tight fitting door or maybe two doors were set into the side of the hull at this point.

  Nar’Allia gasped, lying along the hull of the machine was a great serpent, it looked to have been painted on. It was set in various hues of green and yellow, metallic looking scales covered the entire length of its body. She stood back as far as she could go and viewed as much of the length of the beast as she could. The serpent’s body writhed sinuously along the length of the hull. At the rear end it tapered down to a fine point, obviously a tail. At the other end after thickening to a neck she saw a head, an eye, malevolently staring at her, an orange coloured vertical slit for an iris set within a red surround. A mouth gaping, full of dagger like teeth out of which was depicted hot flames spewing forth surrounding its forked tongue lolling out to one side between cruel looking fangs. Nar’Allia gasped in awe as she thought a Y’Lien’A, a fire drake in the words of the common tongue. The creature had rear legs with cruel looking clawed feet, also forelegs similarly equipped. But one of its forelegs was extended and upturned so that the scaly palm lay flat and upper most. Nar’Allia stared, for standing to attention upon this hand was a figure, heavy set and covered in armour from head to toe. The helmet upon the figures head had the slit eyes and slit mouth of the face depicted on the Dolan and now they also knew to be a representation of the massive metal warriors they had found in the previous hall. Nar’Allia began to wonder just what they had stumbled upon here in this place.

  Nar’Allia turned as her name was called and she saw that the rest of the party had walked back down the bridge. She joined them. The bridge led to a walkway either side of which were two intact doors this time obviously leading to the two control rooms as before. Nar’Allia also could see the main switch at the end of the corridor, the one that she suspected would power on the cavern, but something held her back from walking up to it and switching it on even though she knew this is what they would have to do before long. She looked at her companions.

  Jonas shrugged.

  Amndo looked at her questioningly.

  When she looked at JDC he just said excitedly, “come, we just delay. Flip the switch, what are you waiting for!” he strode across the space to where the switch was mounted on the wall, he pointed at the protective grill. He was too short to reach and neither Jonas’s or Amndo’s arms would fit through the grill. Nar’Allia realised they waited upon her. So she reached through the grill as she had done once before up and made the contact.

  The rooms to either side hummed into life, JDC ran to one of the doors, he touched a small pad on the wall and the door opened. He laughed like a kid with a new toy as he went through. Inside  the control desks had lit up with a myriad of lights, more than they had seen previously in the first hall, but then this cavern seemed to be fully functional, unlike that first hall that had been partially destroyed. JDC was used to this kind of exploration, he had survived many years doing this, made a tidy living from it, his enthusiasm was unquenchable. They followed him into the room; he was already scanning all the control desks, trying to understand what function they performed. He muttered to himself in his own language as he went, he was so taken up with what he was doing at that Nar’Allia decided to go across the hall to the other room. She touched a small pad on the wall similar to the one she had seen JDC touch on the other door. This door opened with a hiss of air rushing in or out of the room beyond and then moved to one side. Once she was within the room she looked around. Again there weren’t so many controls in this room, the same weapon rack stood to one side, she toyed with the idea of taking more of those peculiar looking arrows, but she had enough she believed. She now stood in front of the map of the wheel again. It was in darkness but she could just make out its features, it looked to her to be the same map, for it showed the same configuration of coloured lights as had the map in the first hall. Only this time the orientation of the map had turned in relation to this room’s position on the spoked wheel.

  The whole thing was covered in a layer of dust. She wiped her hand across the surface of the wheel to clean it, immediately it sprang into life lighting up almost obediently to her touch. She withdrew her hand, stood back and looked at the wheel presented before her. Each little light was a raised bump, she extended her hand and stoked them beneath her fingertips. She reached up and touched the green light that represented the hall they were in. She felt the little shining button give beneath her finger and felt a little click, she withdrew her finger immediately. At first nothing seemed to happen and she sighed in relief, but then other lights started to illuminate across the map, some flashing, some came on and stayed illuminated. One in red seemed to be emitting repetitive buzzing noise, it grated on her ears, she walked across to it and touched the red light and for a moment its red colour turned to orange, the buzzing stopped. But then the red light returned, this time it flashed on and off, but thankfully that annoying buzzing noise did not return. Afraid she may have upset something she turned to walk back out to join her companions, but something on the far wall of the room caught her attention, she walked over and there on the wall was a flashing light within a receptacle that looked like it would take the Dolan for it was similar to those they had seen and used to open the various doors in this place. She called for Amndo. He walked into the room a questioning look upon his face, but he saw where Nar’Allia was pointing. He immediately left the room and retraced his steps back along the hall. Returning to where the great door was still open. He retrieved the Dolan from the doorway through which they had entered into the chamber. To his surprise the door did not shut and the lights did not go out. So he took the Dolan back to the control room where Nar’Allia waited. He smiled at her and set it into the receptacle. Immediately paths of light shot out from where the Dolan was inserted and the wall behind them where the wheel map shone lit up even more. They gasped as more and more of the map started to illuminate, they didn’t know until now that the first map they had seen with the wheel, was only a small portion of what they now looked at.

  Nar’Allia looked at Amndo and said, “by the Maker this place is vast?”

  They stood in awe at what lay before them, paths of light in
different colours shone all over the wall. No longer was the map confined to just the spoked wheel, now many more lines and what they supposed where other chambers had illuminated. The map was now far larger than the original illuminated spoked wheel.

  Amndo shouted over his shoulder in a rather nervous tone, “err, JDC, hey JDC, you’d better come and take a look at this.”

  JDC came in and the first words he spoke where, “what have you touched?”

  Nar’Allia explained what they had done, JDC on looking at the vast array of lights, seemed to relax a little and started scrutinising the wall which was now completely covered in the map. Nar’Allia looked, the map was so much bigger now than the wheel, in fact the wheel was just a small part of the overall map, she thought how insignificant the wheel looked and how vast this place must be in actuality. She walked slowly along the wall tracing different colours with her finger. In one section of the map there were several depictions of what she assumed must be long rooms about twice the length of the diameter of the wheel part of the map, one spoke of which was where they stood right now. There in a different colour another path of lights led from one of these long rooms and joined to the spoke where they were. This path crossed beneath other paths of light and came to an end at the far end of the chamber in which the great leviathan stood outside this room, the opposite end to where they had entered. As she traced this second path back she wiped more dust from the surface. As her finger brushed against one section she accidentally pushed on the first light set at the end of the long chamber. To her horror it changed colour to green, lights set into the depiction of the long chamber lit up consecutively in green and when the last one became illuminated, they all started to flash, she jumped back holding the offending finger close to her chest. She called for the others and pointed at the green flashing lights of the long chamber.

  “I, err, I ummm, I didn’t mean to push, it just happened.”

  JDC looked at the green flashing lights of the chamber and all of a sudden the lights stopped flashing and remained green, then the lights forming the route back to the chamber in which they stood started progressively to change colour to green. They watched as each light illuminated in turn as if something was now moving towards them along this second path.

  “Oh no, by the Maker what have I done? Something is coming, coming here to where we are.”

  JDC said, “we don’t know what it is yet, it may be nothing, but he rushed back outside the room onto the bridge that joined to the side of the leviathan. The others joined him, they all looked down the length of the chamber to where they expected that second path on the map, the one that was steadily going green to end and join this chamber. There was a loud bang and a slow grinding noise coming from that end of the chamber, they squinted into the distance but at first could see nothing. The metal monster obscured their view. JDC turned and ran as fast as he could down the spiral stair to the floor below; again he was joined shortly after by the rest of them.

  “It looks although a great door is opening up, I can’t see that well but the end of the chamber looks like it is blacker now as if we are looking down into a large cavern.”

  As they looked the grinding noise stopped. Then suddenly with a loud hiss as if air was escaping somewhere, a long crack appeared in the belly of the great metal beast. A lengthy section appeared to be dropping down from the hull of the Leviathan. Through the widening gap they could see the interior was illuminated, a bright white light shone forth from the aperture now opening up in the belly of the Leviathan machine. As they watched in awe a number of similar sections did the same. Also to their surprise the Leviathan rose by itself until Nar’Allia could no longer reach the underside of the hull. Light continued to shine brightly from out of the interior of the Leviathan as these apertures opened and slowly descended to the floor. Nar’Allia had a brief glimpse of the interior of the machine, she looked into a vast chamber, lights flashed, panels illuminated, pipes and cables hung everywhere, most of them joined with the panels that were now dropped down clear of the machine.

  The four had to move, for now one of these sections was dropping down directly above their heads and it became apparent from the earlier sections to open that this section would come down to almost ground level and would unlikely stop when it touched the tops of their heads. In all twenty sections all the same size had dropped open and now rested near to the ground. Probably at least seventy percent of the underside of the machine had now opened in this way. Nar’Allia walked over to where the nearest panel had dropped and looked inside. There were many tall thin boxes shaped roughly like a very large man, a place for the head, widening at the shoulders and tapering slightly to the hips. Then narrowing to accommodate a pair of legs. There were many such boxes in total all together, it was difficult to see exactly how many from their position beneath the hull of the beast.

  She looked up, she could see inside the belly of the beast, a vast chamber could be seen. Walkways and gantries crisscrossed the chamber high above her, racks upon racks of the man shaped chambers were stacked above the ones that could be seen hanging down at ground level. She glimpsed other similar structures inside and above all the other portions of the hull that had extended downwards.

  Then they heard it. The unmistakable tramp of many feet, coming from the far end of the hall where the green path had slowly been illuminated within the map in the room above. JDC ran back up the spiral stair case the others hot on his heels. They went back into the map room. The second path shone all in green now, whatever it was had reached the chamber of the Leviathan. They rushed back outside and strained their eyes to see into the distance to the far end of the chamber. The light levels in the chamber were higher now as the lowered sections of the Leviathans hull emitted quite high levels of light. The tramp was now louder and obviously coming their way. Then they saw them, marching towards them were columns of heavily armoured soldiers, they each had the slant eyes and mouths depicted on the Dolan that Amndo carried, but was now actually inserted into the wall of the map room. Nar’Allia noted that these soldiers were the same ones as they had seen lying dead and mutilated on the bridge in the first chamber by the side of the T’Iea skeletons. The same ones as the image depicted standing upon the open palm of the hand of the serpentine fire drake painted upon the hull of the Leviathan machine. These were the metal soldiers, but this time they were alive and fully functional.

  Each of the soldiers had his weapon shouldered, either they were not aware of the presence of the four companions, or they paid them no heed for the first of the column of soldiers had past beneath them and was heading towards the front end of the Leviathan. It took about half an hour for the whole of the floor space below them to almost entirely fill with these metal soldiers. Many more waited patiently beyond the doorway through which they had entered the chamber.

  JDC muttered to himself, “they are mechanical, not flesh and blood, they are machines, fighting machines obviously.” Then with a hint of wonder in his voice he added, “they must be a truly powerful army, unstoppable I should think. They must have been part of the technological advancements made by whoever built this place.”

  The companions moved back down the spiral stair and stood there gaping at the soldiers that filled the available floor space. Nar’Allia was about to say something when she was silenced by another loud noise. The soldiers were on the move again, but they were moving slowly to stand each one in front of one of the man shaped boxes that formed racks many long in each of the platforms that had lowered down and had appeared from out of the lower part of the Leviathan. As each soldier stepped backwards into his box a clamp device swung out in front of his chest and another around his knees effectively restraining him in place and he remained still. All the soldiers were doing this and as each section became full of its cargo, the great Leviathan machine drew the now filled rack back up into its belly once more. As the rack was drawn up another empty one took its place and the process was repeated.

  Eventually Nar’
Allia said what was on her mind. She was looking at Amndo as if awaiting his conformation on what she said. “I think they are called Startmektoken. I believe they are the beings that Minervar talked about in her tales. But the dark T’Iea had not perfected their manufacture, these are pure machine, “she then shook as if a chill had blown across her, “almost pure machine. The ones that Minervar spoke of where abominations, a mixture of machine and flesh. Perhaps it was such as these that the dark T’Iea sort in coming here, perhaps they were successful for the Leviathan in the first hall was gone, perhaps they managed to get an army such as this on board before they escaped with the machine.”

  Amndo nodded his head slowly. “I am afraid you are correct Nar’Allia, we have awoken something terrible here. We may have put something into motion that we may deeply regret. I feel that no good can come of this. I wish we had never found this place, we bring a doom back into the world, one that should have remained at rest.” Amndo looked despondent. Nar’Allia had never seen such concern etched across his brow.

  As they watched some of the now full sections that had dropped down started to rise back up inside the machine. No more soldiers entered into the hall through the door at the far end and eventually the final section of the Leviathan locked back in place and the chamber again fell silent. JDC said, “well now all we have to do is find out how to power up the Leviathan and fly it from here.”

  Jonas turned to him and asked, “Fly? How do you know this monster can fly?”

  JDC rang his hands together, “it must. Don’t you see? This chamber ends in the great doors at the end. The machine will easily pass through and down the long hall into the cistern and from there rise up and out into the open air. Just like the nomads described.”

  “But why would we want to do this. We would release a great threat into the world” said Amndo simply.

  “Why? Why?” JDC stood staring at Amndo a look of disbelief, almost of confusion upon his face. “Is it not obvious? Master Amndo do you not understand? Firstly, it would be a great way to get out of here back to the desert and to anywhere else we wanted to go, and secondly can you imagine the wealth we could obtain through selling this technology to the highest bidder? There would be no shortage of customers clambering at our door to gain such.”

  Amndo frowned at JDC, Nar’Allia also looked at him in disbelief. Amndo said, “master Pnook, this technology is not something that we would want to set loose on our world again. This is far too powerful a thing to have discovered, no good will come of releasing it once more into the world. Who would have it? The one race that possessed such power would be viewed by all others as a great threat. Worse the race that possessed it may see themselves as invulnerable, an invincible force and therefore above all others. In any scenario, only immense trouble and suffering would result, of this I am sure. We cannot release this thing back into the world. I would rather we destroy it.”

  JDC looked at Amndo his features locked in turmoil. “Destroy it? Are you mad? The value is immense, beyond anything else I have ever come across!”

  “Quiet you two.” It was Nar’Allia who spoke. “As much as I agree with Amndo in that what we have discovered bodes ill for the world, I fear we cannot destroy this thing. At least not yet” She looked towards JDC and continued. “Alas we will need to find a way of flying the Leviathan out from here, but not I may add, for the reasons proposed by master JDC.”

  JDC smiled and nodded at Nar’Allia, “ah someone at least understands the potential.”

  “NO,” it was Nar’Allia again, “please listen carefully to what I have to say. Firstly, I’m sorry JDC, I must agree in part with Amndo; this is too powerful a thing to release upon our world. I am beginning to think that Solin suspected that the Dolan gave access to something of immeasurable power. She wanted someone or a group she could trust to find this machine; she feared that if an evil force should discover it they would misuse it.”

  JDC muttered under his breath and flung his arms upward in a gesture of despairing.

  Nar’Allia continued, “however, there is one aspect of all this that we are forgetting. There is a strong probability that the Dark Brethren, have already gained one of these machines. The evidence we have seen within this place points to that fact and we cannot ignore it. I suspect that Solin new this, or at least suspected it. She once shared her house with Serinae, but not only her, there was one other. Tezrin the thief and traitor was there also. I would like to make a proposition. We do have an opportunity here to also gain one of these machines. I cannot think of a more direct deterrent. If the Dark Brethren plan to use their machine against the world, and I have no doubt that is what they plan, then perhaps they will think twice if they know we also have a similar machine at our command and we are able to use it against them. To counter their threat.”

  JDC brightened a little, “so you at least acknowledge that we should take this out of here and fly it somewhere safe?”

  Nar’Allia sighed, she looked at Amndo and then lowered her eyes before she responded, “unfortunately and against my better judgement, I do, yes. But I also think we should restore it back here, or destroy it once its use has been spent and we require it no longer. Amndo is right, I believe none of the races will be happy in the knowledge that any other race has such a weapon in their possession. The longer we keep it, the greater our risk of alienating all of the races. We are somewhat lucky in that we have a number of races represented here, so no one can complain that any one single race has procured the machine for selfish uses. So I ask each of you now, will you take on the responsibility of this machine in the name of your race, to make unanimous agreement with all who stand here before you, prior to any use being made of the Leviathan machine?”

  JDC of course gave his agreement immediately.

  Jonas nodded his agreement. “I will”.

  Amndo, looking a little reticent also agreed, but warned that he would like to formalise an agreement as to the machines use and its eventual disposal.

  Everyone looked satisfied with the agreement made, so they looked towards JDC who said, “well let’s at least try to get on board and see what we can do.” He climbed back up the spiral stairs and walked back to the control room.

  A movement caught Nar’Allia’s eye. Something had darted across her field of vision from the chamber wall and disappeared beneath the belly of the great metal beast. She placed both her hands on the safety rail of the spiral stair and looked down. Jonas asked her what she had seen.

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure something ran across the floor down there.”

  Just then they heard something small strike the metal of the hand rail. Nar’Allia instinctively drew her hand back, Jonas bent down to pick something off the floor, he held it up. Nar’Allia looked closely and she saw he was holding some kind of little dart. It had a vicious looking point and wrapped around the back end was a plume of some material; it looked like a man-made fibre of some sort. At the other end, the point was dripping some kind of black noxious looking fluid which was covering the tip.

  Jonas threw it out of his grasp, a look of disgust upon his face, “poison dart.” He looked at Nar’Allia and said, “quick, all of you, back to the control room.” They didn’t wait around any longer but ran back up the spiral stair and back into the control room shutting the door behind them.

  “We are under attack,” Jonas said as he rushed over to the windows to try and look down upon the floor of the chamber. As he placed his face close to the glazed panel several small darts bounced off the glass on the other side and then a crack was heard as a long spear like object also bounced back from the glass. His reflexes made him jerk his head away even though it seemed that the glass panel was strong enough to resist this attack. He turned and said, “there are a number of strange looking creatures down there, they must have followed the Startmektoken into the chamber for they were certainly not here before. They look like men, but they are covered in long hair and their eyes are as large as saucers.”

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nbsp; “We will be stuck in here like rats in a trap if we do not try to escape now. They will easily be able to keep us holed up in this room; there is only one way in and one way out.” Said Amndo.

  “Quickly then we must try and get to the floor of the chamber and perhaps attempt to escape through the way that the Startmektoken and these creatures entered, perhaps we can shut them up in here.”

  Jonas ran and opened the door, he looked out and then said, “the way is clear, at least for the moment, but I can hear noises, I think they are climbing the spiral stair.”

  JDC said, “quickly Nar’Allia, un-shoulder your bow and notch one of those arrows.”

  Nar’Allia did so, they all crept out onto the corridor between the control room and the map room.

  “Now Nar’Allia if you will fire an arrow at the hand rail of the spiral stair.”

  Nar’Allia looked at JDC in disbelief; she did not want to waste an arrow.

  “Please my lady, do as I ask. Trust me.”

  She lifted the black bow and drew on the bow; she felt the familiar movement of the bow as it sort to aim at whatever Nar’Allia concentrated on. When she was happy with the aim she loosed the arrow, it sped away and struck the hand rail right where she was looking. Immediately the handrail and the arrow exploded into orange light, long tendrils of power flowed from the arrow and onto the hand rail connected to the platform below. It looked like lightning in a storm had struck the hand rail and was running down the length of the metal. They heard several thuds that seemed to originate from far below.

  JDC ran forward and carefully looked over the edge and down the spiral stair, being careful not to touch it. He looked back and said, “come, the coast is clear.”

  They ran forward, but Amndo stopped and returned to the map room, only to appear moments later grasping the Dolan. He also held several more of the bulbous arrows which he gave to Nar’Allia to place within her quiver. To their dismay they heard the massive door at the end of the hall start to close again. But they were running down the spiral stair which had now become benign to the touch again, the power from the arrow spent. At the bottom of the stair lay several bodies, one or two were still smouldering. Nar’Allia could see the hair, or fur on their bodies had been singed badly and smelt terrible especially around the hands where they had obviously been holding the hand rail. Bizarrely it reminded her of the burnt hair of a boar on a spit roasting over an open fire.

  They all reached the bottom of the stair and looking around could see many of these beings assembled about fifty metres away towards the front of the vessel. The large group, maybe fifty or so strong, stood there looking towards them; nothing could be read from their attitude, for they emitted no sound or made any kind of gesture. Nar’Allia thought that the creatures may not as yet have seen them. Thankfully the way to the rear and to the doors at the end of the chamber was free of such creatures so the companions began to run in that direction. But they had been seen for the strange creatures all seemed to notice them at once and gave chase. They ran and ran, but the end of the chamber did not seem to be getting any closer. Nar’Allia felt something pull on her arm, looking down she could see the flights of one of the darts sticking out from the leather of her sleeve; she pulled it out quickly and threw it away. Thank fully it had not touched her skin. Then JDC stopped and turned, he had his ri’fal in his hands and he crouched upon one knee and took aim. He aimed well right of the creatures and fired. The explosion of the ri’fal going off echoed around the chamber then another explosion marked the point on the wall of the chamber where his projectile had hit. Much smoke, flame and masonry flew out from the wall, a fair amount of the masonry smashed into small sharp shards, moving at great speed these tore into a number of the creatures, tearing flesh and bone alike and many dropped to the ground either dead or stunned. More of the shards smashed into the hull of the machine, but they just bounced off or exploded into many pieces, as far as they could see the Leviathan machine suffered no damage at all. Other creatures tripped over or fell against their partners as they ran over the bodies and masonry that had settled onto the floor. They all soon stopped and waved their weapons at the fleeing company.

  “That should make them a little more cautious of getting too close,” panted JDC as he turned and resumed his run towards the now rapidly closing door.

  They ran on and then found themselves beneath the large door at the end of the chamber it was more than half closed as they all ran through, they didn’t stop and carried on up the tunnel beyond the door, the same tunnel down which the Startmektoken had marched a little time before. Nar’Allia looked back, she didn’t see any of the creatures follow them through the door. They turned a bend and the door was lost to their sight. However, she was sure that the door wasn’t going to finish closing nearly fast enough to stop at least some of the creatures following them into this tunnel. They ran on. They followed the tunnel for a distance, it wound around bends and then ran straight, Nar’Allia could picture the map in her mind. They rounded another bend and sure enough as Nar’Allia expected they came to the end of the tunnel where it joined the vast oblong room that she had seen on the map. Her heart fell, for a closed door barred their way.