by Deen Ferrell
“Are they holding the Captain?” Antonio asked softly.
Dropping her head, T.K, drew a hand across her eyes. “No. The Captain was among the first to be killed. I saw them throw the body overboard. I was hiding behind the anchor chains.” There was a long silence. Finally, in a shaky voice, she continued. “He was shot through the head and thrown to the sharks like all the rest. Only H.S.’s team was allowed to live. They killed indiscriminately—everyone. They would have killed me too if they could’ve found me.” Her voice had become scarcely discernible.
Antonio watched her wipe a tear from her cheek.
“I’m sorry.” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Save it,” T.K. said bitterly, shrugging the hand off.
No one spoke for a long moment. Finally, T.K. wiped her cheek again and pointed. “It’s time for us to go. James Arthur, stay in the main shaft heading that direction. Turn left at the next junction and stay to your right. I scratched an ‘X’ on the right side of the grate that we want. Feel the side of the vent and you’ll find it.” Antonio cocked his head slightly as if curious about why she had marked H.S.’s cabin. T.K. shrugged. “That’s a cabin that was of interest to me long before this mutiny.”
James Arthur sucked in a long breath, gave T.K. a soft pat on the shoulder, and started toward the ventilation shaft.
“Wait,” T.K. said. She pressed a small knife into his hand. “Just in case you need it,” she said. Dr. J took the knife, staring at it as if it were a foreign object. He hadn’t been in a fight since schoolyard days, and did not consider himself a violent man. Still, T.K. was right. He might need it. He gripped the knife handle tight and disappeared into the vent. T.K. motioned for Antonio to follow. Antonio shook his head.
“No. Please, you go next. I would like just a few more moments to focus my energy as James Arthur showed me. I will catch up and tap you on the ankle before you exit into the cabin.”
T.K. peered at him, hesitant, and then turned toward the vent. “I’ll wait for you at the grate. Don’t take too long.”
Antonio gave a quick nod and watched her disappear into the ventilation shaft. He took a deep breath. How had Dr. J worked his magic? He placed fingers behind his ears at the base of his neck and began to apply slow pressure. At the same time, he tried to focus and concentrate on the pressure points. He was somewhat familiar with the ancient Chinese healing arts, but something James Arthur did was different. He had felt energized after just a few minutes of Dr. J’s touch. Of course, he wouldn’t admit that to the good Doctor. Nor would he confess that his own attempts to repeat the exercise were not nearly so effective. Finally, with a sigh, he rolled over onto his knees and pushed into the vent.
Even in the short distance they had to H.S.’s cabin, James Arthur had to stop the group twice. Once, he heard yelling from somewhere up ahead. The second time, he heard a sharp smack—like the sound of steel hitting against steel. After long pauses, Dr. J moved quietly and cautiously forward. It was not long before he found the “X” T.K. had spoken of. He slowly, carefully removed the vent grate and pushed it to one side. He then slid out into the darkened room.
Barely any visible light streamed in from the hallway. Seeing no movement in the shadows, he closed his eyes and concentrated on listening. He heard nothing. The room seemed quiet and dead. A slight stream of reflected light came into the cabin through the open hall door. He surveyed the room. He could tell that the cabin had been thoroughly plundered. Every piece of furniture had been slashed, broken, or mutilated in some way. Contents of every drawer were dumped onto the floor. A mountain of shattered glass and splintered wood had been shoved toward the center of the cabin.
He allowed his eyes to sweep every inch of the room before he rose slowly to his feet and began to make his way toward the sliver of light shining in from the hall. He stepped carefully, running one hand along the wall while holding the knife with the other. If the hallway was clear, he could sneak back to his own cabin and grab his penlight. He kept it in an old gym bag. They could use it to more thoroughly search the room. He felt the far edge of H.S.’s walk-in closet and noted a different texture to the wall. It was smoother, and felt somehow colder. His eyes narrowed. This was definitely an area he would have to scrutinize more carefully. He pushed on to the closet door. It seemed heavy and thicker than a normal door. One tap told him why—the door was metal.
Before he had a chance to move any further, he heard a sound from the hallway. He froze, listening intently. From a couple of doors down, he heard loud curses and harsh laugher echo as two men closed a door and hurried away in the opposite direction. James Arthur waited until their voices had completely faded, then began to inch forward again. As he cleared the closet opening, he heard the metal door creak further open behind him. He spun around, brandishing the knife. A dark shape, barely visible in the dimness, sprang out of the closet. The shape was holding something pointed at Dr. J.
“How does it work?” the form’s raspy voice croaked.
James Arthur took a step back, eyeing what he guessed to be a gun. “What are you talking about?” he whispered, breathlessly. The shape took another step forward, confirming his fear. It was a man, the man with the steel cane, and he had a large gun, aimed expertly at Dr. J’s heart. “I don’t like repeating myself,” the man said. Strangely, he also seemed to be attempting to keep his voice low. “Move—this way, so I can see your face.” The man slowly circled around. James Arthur turned, but did not lower the knife.
“I’ll give you one last chance,” the man whispered. “Show me how the gateway works, and I may let you live. You have 30 seconds.”
James Arthur’s mind was racing. He felt sweat dripping down his face and from his hand. What was the man’s name? Belzar, or something like that? Was he a killer?” At that very moment, there was a slight rustle of sound at the ducting near the back of the cabin. “James Arthur?” T.K. whispered with concern in her voice. The noise was just enough to distract Belzar for a split second. Dr. J pounced, knocking the man’s steel cane away and pushing him backward over a low pile of rubble. The man fell, firing his gun wildly. One bullet barely missed Dr. J’s ear before he ducked quickly behind the metal of the closet door. Another bullet pinged off of the metal.
“Get back!” Dr. J hissed toward the back of the dark room. The man named Belzar was swearing now, already climbing to his feet.
“You know it’s a losing battle,” the man croaked breathlessly. “You can’t escape. I’ve got men all over these halls. You hurt me, and you’re dead.” The man paused, seeming to rummage for his cane. Dr. J couldn’t hear anything else from the back of the cabin. Hopefully, T.K. had figured out that there was trouble and slipped away, back into the ventilation shaft. The man seemed to find what he was looking for and moved closer. “Your one chance—the one chance for you and your friends—is to trust—”
James Arthur did the only thing he could think to do. He slammed the closet door shut. He immediately heard a cry of rage as the man outside pounded his steel cane against the walls of the closet. From the metallic ring of steel hitting steel, he knew the walls were metal as well as the door. He recalled the sound of steel hitting steel that he had heard earlier. Could it have been Willoughby and the others escaping? If this was the doorway, how did it work?
He gripped the knob of the metal door tight. There was a clicking and whirring sound that came from the inside of the door itself. Bolts locked into place. He stared down and saw that the doorknob in his hand was glowing. He turned the knob cautiously. It spun easily. This was it, then! This was the gateway! But where would it take him? The knob must be the key. It probably had coded destinations. He heard a click. The man called Belzar screamed again in anger, lashing out at the wall in his fury. With all the banging, could this man damage the door? James Arthur thought. The knob glowed brighter. The interior of the closet began to feel cold, like the inside of a refrigerator.
>
Panic rose in James Arthur’s mind. He wasn’t sure what to do. The cold seemed to be flowing out from the metal door. He reached his hand up to touch the door’s humming surface. It pulled softly at his fingertips. The inside walls vibrated quietly around him. What started as a slow pull became a sudden jerk, and the pressure of the tug ripped him off his feet with such force that it felt as if he had been shattered into a million pieces. The sensation was much different from his first trip through a time hole. He felt disconnected, numb—as if he were an immense, floating shape, spread across eons of time. A cracking pain yanked his body back together. It winded him. He fell, gasping. Eventually, he crashed into what appeared to be a stack of woven furniture or containers of some kind. He sucked in a desperate breath. His brain fought to orient itself. Finally, he could sit up, breathing heavily. He looked toward a soft, flickering light. Was it a candle? Where was he? He felt around, getting a sudden bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. The containers he had crashed onto were large and putrid smelling. They appeared to be baskets, woven out of a stiff, prickly reed. They had cushioned his fall, for which he was grateful, but the smell they unleashed made his eyes water. He rolled off the baskets and pushed to his knees, realizing that he still had the knife clutched tightly in his hand. Well, that was one good thing—he had, at least, some protection.
As soon as his chest stopped heaving and the dizziness subsided, he crawled away from the pile of baskets. When he was several yards away, he turned back to a sitting position to dust himself off. He checked to make sure he was not injured.
Glancing around, he found that he was in some kind of low chamber. He could see the baskets where he had fallen, smashed now in front of a low wall that was carved into the shape of something. He couldn’t quite make out the shape because the candlelight was too dim and was low, along the foot of the back wall behind the baskets. Weird entrance to an observation facility, he thought to himself. He again thought of the blue-eyed maniac, Belzar, banging on the walls of the gateway. He thought of how he had spun the doorknob. His gut tightened. Maybe this wasn’t an observation facility at all! Maybe he had free-fallen through time! He scanned the rest of the chamber. There was a small, rounded opening opposite the wall with the baskets. The ground beneath was cool, covered in fine sand. He heard voices approaching, and a flicker of torchlight played upon one of the sides of the rounded opening. James Arthur quickly pushed back into a corner, out of sight of the opening. He eased tightly against the wall and tried to slow his breathing. There were two voices—men shouting at each other in a language he did not recognize. It sounded like Arabic.
He wondered, briefly, if he would have been better off hiding behind the smashed baskets when a reptilian hiss issued from behind one of the taller baskets that he did not smash. He froze, glimpsing something dark slither up over the lid of the basket. He pushed even further back into the corner, his hand brushed against a pile of decaying rags. The light from the torch had become brighter as the voices stopped outside the chamber. Something hard was sticking into his back, but he dared not move. He shifted his weight very slowly and very carefully. He glanced down at what he had pushed up against. The light from outside the chamber added a little more illumination, enough for him to at least get an idea of his dim corner. To his horror, he discovered that the decaying rags he had brushed against hung limply from a crusted skeleton. Feeling with his hand, he found that the frame’s broken forearm was poking him in the back—the room was a tomb of some sort!
Shadowy forms bent down and a man holding a torch stuck his head through the door to the chamber, just far enough that Dr. J could see the folds of his turban. He tensed, as stiff as the skeleton to his side. He felt his hand tighten around the knife in his fist.
Light from the torch spilled across the room, illuminating it clearly. The room was rectangular, carved with smooth, exacting angles and lines. Painted across the walls and ceiling were what looked like mathematic equations. Just over the stacks of reed baskets, the image of an enormous king cobra was chiseled into the wall, its hood flaring. From the general disarray of the clay pots and baskets, it was obvious that James Arthur wasn’t the first person to disturb the tomb. Footprints and drag marks led out through the opening, as if someone had already dragged out a share of the room’s contents.
Closer to the entrance, arranged on either side of the narrow chamber, were heaps of bones, dressed in scraps of armor and tattered clothes, with swords and shields beside them, half buried in the sand. Possibly half a dozen complete skeletons lay on their backs or leaned up against the rock wall. Was he in a pirates den? James Arthur slowed his breathing as the man looking in pointed excitedly at the hiss from atop the tall basket near the back wall. A huge black cobra bobbed its head up again, its hood flaring, its eyes glowing in the torch light. There was a nervous laugh as the turbaned head pulled back and the men hurried away quickly.
Odd reaction, James Arthur thought. Then he heard the hiss again, and thought that the two grave robbers, or pirates, or whatever, had the right idea. Dr. J waited a moment, until he could no longer hear the voices moving away, and then slipped quietly out after them. He had no desire to stay in a narrow chamber with cobras and dead men.
What he saw when he exited the chamber, however, took his breath away. The narrow chamber led out into an enormous cavern of some kind. He stared in amazement, looking down onto the remains of a massive underground arena. The narrow chamber he had just exited was not alone. In the fading glow of a dozen or so torches spread throughout the arena, he glimpsed dozens, maybe even hundreds of other low, rectangular doorways, identical to the one he had just exited. The arena terraced down in wide increments, each slab roughly ten feet high and about twenty feet wide, curving around the sides of the arena in a semi-circle. It reminded him of the tiers of a Roman amphitheater. The stage at the very bottom of the arena was in the shape of a perfect circle. It was lit by twelve carved cobra statues, each burning with an odd blue flame. In the center of the circle, a checkered floor sparkled like glass. Inlaid across the checkered glass was a symbol, etched in pure gold. James Arthur made out the lines of a symbol—it was the same symbol H.S. had shown them when they had met in the chart room!
He backed slowly away from the edge of the top tier. He had to get out of here! This was no observation facility, or ingenious escape route. He had jumped out of a frying pan and landed smack-dab into the middle of a fire! A faint swish echoed from the shadows behind and above him. He spun, thinking he heard a sudden footfall, when a raised shovel floated down out of the darkness above his head. It slammed into the side of his skull and the world went black.
25
The Cave of Horrors
T.K. had waited until she was sure that Antonio was okay and able to follow before she cautiously set out down the narrower shaft after James Arthur. When they turned the corner and caught sight of the still-open grate to H.S.’s cabin, they heard scuffling. T.K. motioned Antonio back. She called out to Dr. J. Someone fell. A shot rang out and James Arthur yelled something unintelligible. A door slammed. A raspy voice snarled angrily. “Come out of there!” Something solid slammed against a far wall. A sound of heavy breathing punctuated short grunts of anger and disgust. T.K. eased to the edge of the open vent. She could barely make out a dark form on the far side of the room, inspecting what appeared to be a closet door. It was the man with the cane. He had his back to her as he tapped his cane on the door and walls around it. She pulled swiftly and quietly out of the shaft, crouching behind a stack of broken furniture.
“Well, well…” the raspy voice mumbled. “Pray tell, for what purpose would one build a metal closet?” The voice was quiet for a moment and then the figure turned. “If you don’t want to play, I guess I’ll just have to find your friend!” The stooped silhouette peered toward the back of the room. T.K. had already begun to work her way quietly around the heaps of furniture, pulling a long knife from a sheath just under her ankle-leng
th dungarees. The man started to edge toward the back of the room. He stopped suddenly, cocking his head and listening as a metallic whirr sounded and the closet door clicked open. He chuckled to himself, turning back to the closet. He approached it cautiously.
“So, you do want to play,” he said.
There was no answer. He reached the closet. “Come out!” he yelled. No answer. He pulled the door slowly open, running his fingers over its inside and twisting the knob. This was the chance T.K. had waited for. She crept closer, seeing that the man had taken a short step into the closet, his cane at the ready. He banked it against the walls.
“Hello,” the man rasped. “Why, there’s no-one here.”
He stepped back out of the closet, again inspecting the knob.
T.K. had quietly risen to her feet and closed the distance. The man spun just as she sprang at him, swinging his cane wildly. Ducking under the swing, T.K. pivoted to his blind side, grabbing a fist-full of hair and pointing her knife at his throat in one fluid movement.
“To the light,” she hissed, kneeing the man forward.
The man called Belzar let himself be pushed toward the open cabin door. He spit out a retort through gritted teeth. “Our missing ‘cabin girl’ I presume? So that’s how the others got free. You’re not a simple crewman. Who are you—a trained bodyguard?” T.K. didn’t answer, just continued to push. “Don’t want to speak? I don’t know what you think you can accomplish. All I have to do is bark one order, and there will be twenty men here with machine guns to cut you down before you get five yards away.”
“It’s hard to call out through a slit in your throat,” T.K. whispered just as harshly. “Shut up, or I’ll stop showing patience.” She pushed him into the dim light from the corridor, yanking his hair so that his face twisted. She could now see his eyes. They were deep, vibrant blue. She jerked him back into the shadows, the knife pinching his skin. “It is you!” she spat. “Why would Habus’ spineless stooge be attacking his ship?”