A Twist of the Sands

by P R Glazier

  Chapter 28. Plunged into Bitter Darkness

  With one swift movement, Amndo had the Dolan in his hand and then inserted into the receptacle in the wall. The door opened dutifully, but this time with a swift movement that defied the eye as it rose almost instantaneously up into the ceiling. On passing through the doorway they found themselves in a long chamber, presumably the same one that Nar’Allia had seen on the map back in the chamber of the Leviathan. They each sat down heavily on the floor trying to get their breath back. Through gasps of breath and a slight dizziness, Nar’Allia noticed with alarm that to either side many boxes or sarcophaguses as Nar’Allia thought of them, now empty, lined the walls of this chamber. They looked the same as those set into the containers that lowered from the Leviathan. These were laid out many high, up the walls either side each level having a walkway, accessed by a sloping walkway at either end from what she could see from where she sat. 

  “We have to get this door closed before the creatures overpower us,” gasped JDC, he walked back to the door through which they had entered the chamber. He ran out of the chamber, turned and removed the Dolan. The door slammed closed with the same remarkable speed as that which it opened, shutting JDC in the long corridor outside. The door had closed so quickly it didn’t allow time for JDC to return to the chamber and re-join his companions. He must have then replaced the Dolan, for the door flew open again and JDC stood just the other side. He un-shouldered his weapon and hefting it in both hands grasped the Dolan again.

  “What are you doing?” Asked Jonas.

  “The door mechanism, it only operates from the outside, this side. I suspect we require another Dolan of a differing type to operate the door differently.”

  Before anyone could say any more, JDC cried out, “I’ll catch you up, keep going.”

  Amndo was nearest the door he stood and made his way towards JDC, but the Pnook was too quick. JDC pulled the Dolan from its place in the door frame and the door slammed shut. The last they saw of their Pnook companion was a broad smile on his face turning to meet whatever came up the tunnel from the Leviathan chamber. The door had shut with a slam and they were separated with no way of operating the door from inside. Nar’Allia stood aghast. But then she heard a tinkling noise behind her. She turned and there rolling across the floor on the far side of the room rolled the Dolan. She sighed, JDC had obviously tossed it through into the room just in time before the door had closed tight. JDC had no way of operating the door from his side either. Nar’Allia cried out in despair.

  Amndo shook his head, “bah the little fool.”

  “Little fool or not,” said Jonas, “he has perhaps brought us precious time, let us not waste his sacrifice and let us all pray to the Maker that he will survive. There is hope yet; his ri’fal is a powerful weapon, one that I would certainly think twice about coming up against especially in practiced hands, he has after all proven himself an adversary to treat with great respect. He may yet catch us up as he said.”

  Amndo looked troubled, “do not worry Amndo, there is nothing we can do now, our paths have separated, all we can do is to face the path that lies before our feet. JDC I’m sure will face his own path now.” Nar’Allia patted him on the arm trying to reassure him, then she walked across to the far wall, bent down and picked up the Dolan from the floor, she smiled and gave it to Amndo who took it in his palm and stood there looking at it absently.

  Amndo looked at Nar’Allia, “it is JDC’s path that worries me Nar’Allia. He may be able to access the Leviathan chamber once again. If those creatures have been able to reopen the large door and if he manages to get through. What worries me is he may be able to access the Leviathan and take it. You saw yourself how he reacted to the possibility of possessing the machine, well he has the ability to do so now and without hindrance from others, there is nothing we can do about it. This time he is alone, he decide on the Leviathans use, or disposal without having to consult anyone else. This is what worries me Nar’Allia.”

  Nar’Allia thought for a while, perhaps Amndo did have a point. Certainly JDC did exhibit some greed and selfish opinions on the Leviathan. Would he go through with those selfish desires for wealth? He did make his living in that way, collecting and trading whatever he could find in the desert. Surely the Leviathan must be the ultimate prize. If he viewed it as a commercial product she was sure he could name any price for it. Would he even sell it to the T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran?

  Nar’Allia thought for a while and then looked into Amndo’s eyes, “I think master Amndo we have to trust him on this one. Anyway, there is nothing we can do now to change his course of action or his decisions. We now have our own decisions to make. All we can hope for is to find our way out of this place and hope that we may come across JDC again before he does anything against our wishes or against the agreement we made. If, I might add, if that is indeed what he is intending.”

  So it was they all turned and went to walk the long road, with heavy hearts. Nar’Allia found irony in the fact that JDC had spent so many years in the desert waiting for the opportunity to explore the city under the sands and when he finally was able to do so events prevented it. She couldn’t help feeling that maybe he had found his excuse to go back and steal the Leviathan as Amndo was suggesting after all, but she shrugged the feeling off, she would rather give JDC the benefit of the doubt and not judge him when she after all didn’t know all the circumstances and he was not present to defend his actions whatever they may be.

  She sighed and walked off down the chamber, she felt an eerie feeling being in this vast emptiness, lined as it was with many open tombs as she imagined them to be. She looked around her, there must have been many hundreds of the soldiers housed here before it emptied and they had all marched down the tunnel they had just come along and into the Leviathan. This hall was long; the light from Amndo’s staff did not penetrate to the far end wall until they were almost upon it. But as they got nearer an exit from this chamber became apparent. On reaching the door, Amndo mechanically looked for the place to position the Dolan, but there was none. In fact as they approached the door opened with a rush and hiss. Just as with the previous door this one shot up into the wall above them they didn’t even look before stepping through and the door. They all looked at each other; they all felt the irony in that the Dolan may not be needed any longer now that they found themselves deeper within the city. Nar’Allia felt the deep irony that JDC’s heroics may have amounted to nothing for they may have not been necessary after all. They all stepped through.

  “Curiously the same level of security does not seem to exist this far into the tunnel system. I wonder why?” It was Amndo who spoke. He looked at the door and ran his finger around the edge of the slot that the door slid within. “Yet there is a tight hermetic seal. This door is designed to keep everything out, ….. or within.” They stepped away from the door and it closed once again so fast it looked like it just re-appeared out of thin air. Amndo added, “the speed at which it operates is also probably designed to minimise the time that it is open. Less security but tighter environmental controls.”

  They now found themselves in a corridor which led off in both directions into the semi darkness. This corridor was illuminated with a dull light from globes set into the walls. Amndo extinguished the staff and they found they could see sufficiently without it. Also this corridor was much smaller than any so far encountered, it was obviously made for pedestrian passage only and human sized pedestrians at that. In the glow of the dim globes used to light the place they could see other doors leading off, Nar’Allia presumed to other chambers perhaps in which the dormant Startmektoken waited in their long sleep for another battle, perhaps another war. She shuddered at the thought.

  “Which way do we go?” Asked Nar’Allia.

  “I don’t recall this corridor on the map back in the control room, I don’t know,” was all Amndo could say.

  Something then caused Nar’Allia to listen intently, her T’Iea hearing had picked up some
noise, it sounded like a sort of chattering, incessant and from more than one source for sometimes multiple noises could be heard at the same time.

  “Something is coming down the corridor towards us,” she pointed in the direction she heard the noises. The level of the noise was now high enough for all of them to hear.

  Jonas with a metallic swish drew his broadsword from where it hung across his back and taking a defensive stance looked into the gloom. Nar’Allia stifled a scream as several of the hairy creatures they had seen before in the Leviathan chamber came into view. These creatures obviously did not expect to come across the fugitives for they strode along in what looked like a very casual manner; the chattering noise was obviously the sound they used to communicate between them. The companions looked on with a degree of anxiety for they had not been noticed yet as the creatures strode their way. They daren’t move for being discovered and there was no door near enough for them to slip inside unnoticed. Inevitably, it was not long before the level of the chattering noise rose as the creatures saw the three companions blocking their way. They stopped dead. The light from the globes set into the wall reflected in their eyes making them look like large silvery red disks bobbing about. The creature in the front of the group waived a heavy looking club as it screamed a high pitched wail and ran towards where the three of them stood. It jumped using all four of its hairy limbs, but never landed on them for the broadsword that Jones wielded, came down cutting clean through the raised club and continuing on to cleave the head and half the body of the creature in two. Nar’Allia flinched at so much blood erupting from the stricken form now lying prostrate upon the floor of the corridor. Nar’Allia retched bile as Jonas placed his foot upon the corpse to give him enough purchase to free his blade. This delay also seemed to encourage the other creatures, for they began their chattering calls once more and moved to advance forward.

  “Back, back. Down the corridor, quickly,” Jonas called out and they started to move along the corridor in the opposite direction to their pursuing attackers.

  A dart bounced off the wall to Nar’Allia’s left, Jonas managed to shield against another with the blade of his sword. Nar’Allia had the black bow in hand and one of the lightning arrows notched. She drew on the string and sighted down the arrow, the creatures chattered in an agitated manner and stopped in their tracks, even backing up a little in anticipation of the arrow firing. She concentrated on the forehead of the leading creature, but the bow wanted to fire to the left, she struggled against the bow, she wanted to fire at the target, it wanted to miss. The creatures saw this as hesitation and resumed their forward movement. Eventually Nar’Allia won over the bow and loosed an arrow. The creatures turned to run and the arrow struck the nearest on the back of the head, the creature dropped to the ground. But there was no flash of the lightning power from the arrow as before. Nar’Allia gasped, all her arrow had done was to stun the beast it had hit, nothing more.

  The other creatures must have also realised this and as one they turned back, took one last look down at their floored companion and the arrow lying by his side. They looked at each other, and Nar’Allia distinctly got the impression they were smiling, for they all screamed and ran as one towards the companions. Nar’Allia had another arrow notched, but all of a sudden a blinding light shone forth, Nar’Allia instinctively closed her eyes and lowered the bow releasing the tension as she did so. The creatures screamed in what sounded like agony, she felt someone grab her arm and drag her along; she turned and started to run. 

  It was Amndo who had hold of her, he said through gasping breath, “it suddenly occurred to me, those creatures, their eyes so large, they must be used to seeing in very dim light, so I commanded the staff to generate its brightest light and fortunately the creatures were blinded.”

  They ran on down the corridor. The creatures must have remained confused for none followed them, at least not yet. But they suspected that before long they would recover from their temporary blindness and soon follow. After turning several bends, they came across a stairway leading up. The stairwell was well lit, much brighter than the corridor along which they had approached it, so Amndo extinguished the staff. They stood looking up into the stairwell. But sure enough before long the chattering of the creatures could be heard again getting nearer. But they stopped advancing when they approached the stairwell, Nar’Allia could just see their glowing eyes in the gloom, but they would not come any further into the light. Instead they seemed to chatter and gesture wildly at them from a distance.

  “I think that confirms your suspicions master Amndo”, said Jonas, “they will come no further into this well-lit area.”

  But that did not stop several of the creatures from raising long tubes to their lips. A number of darts flew rapidly towards Nar’Allia and the others, with shock Nar’Allia realised that they weren’t going to dodge them all, one or more of the companions was bound to get hit. Nar’Allia was mesmerised by one of the darts coming right for her, she shut her eyes waiting for the impact and sharp pain. But this did not come. She opened her eyes, the dart hung in mid-air less than a few centimetres away from her forehead. In fact as she watched it with fascinated horror she saw that in fact it was moving very slowly still coming towards her but at such a slow pace it would take hours before it reached her. She stepped back; Amndo was calling her, his voice seemed strange, in fact everything seemed strange. The creatures down the corridor looked strange, they were all moving extremely slowly, the hair on the heads was splayed out as if they had swung their heads about, yet the hair was stationary as if the wind had blown it there into that position and now it was frozen. They looked like they were running, or jumping, one of the creatures indeed had both feet off the ground, it hung there in mid-air unmoving. She felt a tug on her arm, it was Amndo, he was smiling and encouraging her to move away and to approach the stair behind her.

  “We best get moving,” said Amndo, we cannot dodge their darts forever.”

  So the three ran up the first flight of stairs and turning a corner faced the second flight, by this time they were out of sight of the creatures and slowed to a walk as they continued to climb.

  When they were several flights up and sufficiently out of range of the creatures they paused. Nar’Allia felt a strange sensation. It was as if all her senses switched back on again after being dormant, she even felt a slight jerk on her muscles as if they clicked back into place once more. Then once again they could hear the angered chattering of the creatures now distant and below them.

  Jonas took Amndo by the arm and said, “so Master Keeper, that was a neat trick, how was it done?”

  Amndo smiled at them both and said, “it is something my people can do, adapt time through the stretching or indeed compression of distance. We can extend dimensional space almost infinitely. In normal space and time the darts would fly at a certain speed and after a period of time would hit their target. But we can adjust dimensional space. Lengthen it, stretch it if you will so that the darts even though they stay moving at a constant speed in theory and obey the laws that govern their flight, will never reach their target because I have stretched that distance to the target infinitely. Think about it this way, the dart flying towards its target, well the closer it gets the less the distance it has remaining to travel to the target. I can infinitely extend the remaining distance so that even though the dart is still getting closer, it never actually contacts the target. I can also do the opposite, compress distance so that anything moving can reach the target faster. The actual physics is far more complex in reality, but it would take forever to explain it unless you have always been party to the knowledge.” Amndo smiled at them and shrugged.

  Nar’Allia frowned still trying to grasp the concept that had just been explained. 

  Jonas said, “well like I said a neat trick.”

  “Thank you,” said Amndo. 

  Nar’Allia was amazed, she asked, “but why did it not affect us master Amndo?”

  Amndo said that it was
possible to be selective over which objects or physical regions were affected and which were not.

  Nar’Allia nodded trying to look knowledgeable as she followed the two men up the stairs once more.