The Essence of Darkness

by Thomas Clearlake

  Matthew checked their position on the map. His heart was pounding in his chest, but not due to effort. He felt a hyperactivity inside him—some kind of phenomenal power that increased his strength tenfold. He felt as if a force similar to his own were sucking his particles into this place. He had studied the book Ravenwood had translated throughout the entire flight from Rajpur. He had even felt an intuitive understanding of the source language. His Sentinel powers had matured. He had understood from the original writings that he and his father could only form one physical being. The particles that constituted them exchanged information. And the closer they came to each other, the more they would feel their fusion, until they were united in one body. He was now sure of it. He was shaking. The surge of emotions flowing through him was so intense and overwhelming that he could no longer define his feelings. There was fear: the fear of failure. Fear of dying was secondary. However, the risks were high. Over and above their lives, they carried the hope of the entire human race on their shoulders. They were prepared to sacrifice themselves.

  The group covered the last couple of miles in less than an hour. Soon, the massive outlines of the crypt appeared. The resistance fighters positioned themselves on a rocky ledge that overlooked part of the maze and took out their binoculars to study the area. Powerful spotlights, placed at regular intervals, illuminated the first megaliths. They rose about 160 feet above the frozen white ocean. Ice covered the black stone columns on the side facing the wind. It howled as it swept through the gloomy corridors. The structure’s dimensions were staggering.

  Lauren scanned the corridors with her binoculars. There wasn’t a single movement.

  Suddenly, the young Peruvian, Ernesto Ruis, exclaimed, “There they are! I see them!” He pointed at a protected walkway.

  “There are actually two of them,” Coyote confirmed.

  “Yes, I’ve got them too,” Lauren said, adjusting the focus of her binoculars.

  “I see two more over there,” said Coyote.

  “It looks like there are more than we expected,” Lauren observed.

  “So it seems,” Coyote responded.

  “I have two more up there,” said another resistance fighter, pointing at the top of a megalith.

  They all aimed their binoculars at the two Adept soldiers stationed above the maze.

  “They’ve stepped up their surveillance,” Coyote said, nervously chewing his gum. “Okay. We’re going to have to change our plans,” he continued. “Lauren, you’ll be part of the diversion group, replacing Ernesto, who’s coming with us for the infiltration. Any objections?”

  “Okay with me!” exclaimed Ernesto, delighted.

  “It’s not okay with me,” Lauren protested coldly.

  “I have orders, Lauren; I’m sorry, but it’s not up for discussion,” Coyote replied.

  “You have orders,” she spat out furiously. “And what about your promise to me?”

  “Lauren, you’re Matthew’s mother. The orders I received are to protect you. I’m following them. Don’t ask for the impossible.”

  Matthew looked at his mother and then at Coyote. He tried to accept the conflict rationally. But something didn’t make sense. He remained silent and didn’t take sides with either of them. Wisely, he returned to observing the crypt through his binoculars.

  When they had counted and located the guard rounds, the group split up. On one side was the team responsible for starting the fire in the guards’ quarters, including Lauren. Liam O’Leary and Fred Morse were two young men who had served in the Marines before the Dawn had recruited them. On the other team were Matthew, Coyote, Ernesto, Chris Perry, a former British officer in his forties, and Mo Redfield. The latter was a young African American man who had grown up on the Meadow Creek base and taken up arms after his father Stanley, a famous Dawn soldier, had died in action.

  “We have to be extremely careful,” said Coyote when they were all ready to head out. “Lauren, we’ll stay in constant radio contact.”

  “Constant radio contact,” she confirmed.

  “Let’s go,” he said, waving his arm in the direction of the crypt.

  Lauren signaled to her partners to follow her, and she headed south, leading the two young recruits.

  Coyote’s group moved slowly. They crawled a good three hundred feet to reach a slope where they hid. From there, they had a bird’s-eye view of the door at the foot of a colossal megalith. It must have been at least seventy feet high. Complex geometric figures intertwined like strange, finely carved arabesques upon the dark ore. These covered the doorjambs in a strip about three feet wide. In the inner part of the door was an engraved fresco probably meant for viewing from beneath. It depicted what seemed to be the tombs in which the Elders lay. Higher up, you could see the appearance of man and animal life forms. Clouds rose from the depths and spread over the Earth. Higher up, it depicted man becoming civilized; then the first Sentinel appeared, followed by others throughout the millennia. The crypts opened one by one. Man received knowledge; it was a time of understanding, spirituality, and wars, until it reached the point of contemporary decline. The top of the fresco ended with an engraving of the door, that door, opening and unleashing armies of creatures. They sowed death in an ultimate war from which Hominum primus emerged victorious to rule over the Earth forever. They knew the future because they actually planned it, Matthew thought. There were symbols in the source language arranged around the engravings. He adjusted the sharpness of his binoculars to try to read them.

  “Coyote, Matthew, do you read me?” His mother’s voice drew him out of the deep uneasiness he felt as he interpreted the symbols.

  “Loud and clear, Lauren,” Coyote replied.

  Lauren reported her group had arrived at their target.

  “Is everything all right with you guys?” Coyote asked.

  “Everything’s fine. We placed the incendiary device. It’ll go off in exactly ten minutes. We’re returning to your position.”

  “Perfect. We’re waiting for the beginning of the fire to adjust our approach based on their reaction.”

  “Got it.”

  Coyote’s attention shifted back and forth from the countdown on his watch to his binoculars, which focused on the door and the guards coming and going in the vicinity. These were the longest minutes of his life.

  They’ve almost doubled their manpower.

  This thought hadn’t faded. But it was too late to postpone the operation. When the time had run out, he saw an orange glow light up the sky in the distance. A siren sounded from that direction almost immediately afterward. Through his binoculars, Coyote could see the guards stirring, running toward one another, swarming from all sides. Soon, all the surveillance teams assembled at the bottom of the door. Coyote counted forty-two men. One of the guards broke away from the group and spoke, but at that distance, it was impossible for them to hear his words. Less than a minute later, the guards all climbed into two huge DT-30 Vityaz vehicles. The machines disappeared into the windswept snow dunes a few seconds later. Coyote and the other resistance fighters searched the corridors of the maze for other guards who might have remained there. The place was deserted except for two malamute dogs about twelve hundred feet from the door. They had started barking when they saw their masters’ agitation. The animals were firmly leashed.

  “Coyote, this is Lauren, do you read me?”

  “I hear you, Lauren.”

  “The fire is raging in the guards’ quarters. We have eyes on the door.”

  Coyote and the others glanced behind them for the group. The three resistance fighters eventually appeared, emerging one by one from the whirling curtain of snowflakes.

  Lauren came over to position herself between Coyote and her son. Matthew hugged her. She stroked his head and held him tight against her, as she would have with a young child. That was what he was to her, except that he was now over six feet tall.

  Coyote stood up and addressed his group.

  “Let’s go. We have under thirt
y minutes to get into this cesspool,” he pointed contemptuously to the crypt, “and blow it to pieces!”

  The others jumped up.

  Coyote grabbed Lauren’s hand.

  “Stay here and cover us. And if any enemies show up, shoot them on sight. We’ll stay in radio contact.”

  “Okay,” Lauren responded.

  She watched them walk away toward the door. Matthew turned to look back at her one last time.

  When they arrived at the foot of the door, Matthew pulled out the book and opened it without hesitation. Coyote and the others stepped back when he started reciting the incantations.

  Hidden in the gloom of the maze stood five tall silhouettes, shadows in the shadows. They watched the humans’ every move, especially those of the Sentinel, who was reading and reciting the work of the lineage.

  “You see, Kaar, I was not mistaken,” Vaka said.

  “Yes. It is the Sentinel we seek,” said Kaar.

  “The other Sentinel,” Vaka clarified.

  “The female with whom Eliott Cooper fornicated produced it. How could we have missed that?”

  “Everything will be fine now,” Vaka hissed with a satisfied grin. “All we have to do now is wait for this Sentinel to open the door.”

  “Yes, that is perfect, Vaka.”

  “We will kill them as soon as they enter the crypt.”

  Matthew soon went into a trance, and his eyes saw the unimaginable: the inside of the crypt, with huge corridors stretching for dozens of miles, where millions of tombs lay waiting to be opened. His body seemed to disintegrate as the stream of vile words flowed through his throat. He no longer controlled his actions. And when he raised the cup of human blood to his mouth, it was no longer he who acted but the original force trapped in the black stone since the dawn of time. He slowly drank half of the cup and felt—not without a guilty delight—the blood flowing down his throat. He then slowly poured the other half of the cup’s contents onto the black slab engraved with symbols.

  There was a muffled rumble, the scraping of stone against stone. The gigantic door opened, shaking the ground under their feet. A stench emanated from the gaping entrance plunged in darkness.

  “Let’s go!” Coyote yelled.

  The group stormed into the corridor.

  Five shadows followed them, as silent as they were invisible.

  The resistance fighters were now moving along a high tunnel whose icy walls glittered in their flashlights’ glow. The walls were engraved with writings and mystical symbols. The team arrived in a circular room so large that their lights couldn’t fully illuminate it. The well was in the center. They approached the edge and began to fix the cables in preparation for the ascent.

  “We’ve reached the well, Lauren,” said Coyote into his mic. “We’re going to jump. How’s it going outside?”

  “Everything is quiet. No movement at all.”

  “Perfect. I’ll get back in touch when we’re at the bottom.”

  “Copy.”

  Coyote got up. Young Ernesto was having trouble securing his cable. As Coyote was going over to help him, there was a movement in the air just behind him. He spun around and narrowly dodged a huge blade that whistled past his face. He immediately aimed his weapon in the direction of the thing in front of him, but his flashlight only emitted a faint glow. He fired two shots blindly. The light went out completely. He sprinted toward the others; their headlamps were also fading.

  “Somebody’s here!” he shouted.

  Before his team could react, two Hominum primus charged at them. Ernesto sustained a knife wound that sliced down through his head vertically. His body dropped to its knees at the edge of the well before collapsing to the ground.

  “Jump!” Coyote shouted, “Jump!”

  Matthew tried to spot the creatures in the complete darkness. He blocked the path between his team and the direction from which he thought the creatures were coming. The other three ran and jumped into the well. Matthew then picked up speed and jumped into the bottomless pit.

  After a thirty seconds free fall, the four resistance fighters landed at the bottom of the well. They immediately put on their night-vision goggles.

  “Coyote, Matthew! Do you read me?”

  “Lauren, it’s Coyote! We just reached the bottom. They attacked us by the well before we jumped! There were three or four of them. Do you see anything outside?”

  “My God, Coyote! They’re everywhere! Human soldiers and a lot of Elders. They’re rushing the door!”

  “Fall back, Lauren! Get back to the snowmobiles and leave the area!” Coyote shouted.

  “Matthew!” she pleaded.

  “Listen to me, Lauren,” said Coyote, controlling himself, “you have to get out of the area. Don’t try anything. Pull back. That’s an order, Lauren.”

  “I want to talk to him, Coyote. I want to talk to my son.” It sounded like she was in tears but was forcing herself to keep it together.

  Coyote waved Matthew over. He passed him his microphone.

  “Mom . . .”

  “My boy. I—”

  He interrupted her. “Don’t worry. I know I’m going to survive.”

  His tone was so peaceful, so free of uncertainty. He felt that when she heard his words, she was sure he would make it.

  Coyote took back the microphone. “Lauren, we’ll place the charges and blow the place up as planned. Do you understand me?”

  “I understand, yes.” She sounded disturbed. “The creatures are hurtling through the door to the crypt, escorted by just as many Adept soldiers. And others are arriving in tracked vehicles.”

  “We’re going to get out of here. Now fall back and get to the helicopter! That’s an order, Lauren.”

  “Copy. We’re retreating.”

  “Okay, boys,” said Coyote, “Ernesto is no longer with us. And those fuckers are probably on their way down here.”

  “For sure,” said Mo Redfield.

  “Good thing they don’t have parachutes like us,” Perry added, “or else they’d already be here!”

  “We don’t have a second to lose,” Coyote declared.

  He pointed to tunnels around them that led to the inside of the well.

  “Mo, you take this corridor,” he ordered. “Perry, you take that one. Set your charges, and we’ll meet back here. No time to lose. Let’s go!”

  “Wait a second, Coyote,” Redfield exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “We place the goddamn charges, okay. But then how do we get out of this fucking rat hole?”

  “Redfield, listen up. By accepting this mission, you took over for your father, who died a hero for the Dawn cause.”

  “Yeah, so what?” replied the young African American as he eyed him scornfully.

  Coyote held his ground. “So you’re going to honor your father’s memory without punking out; is that clear?”

  The two men stared at each other for a brief second, forehead to forehead.

  Redfield finally backed down. “Okay. We don’t have a choice. Let’s blow up this shithole and get the hell out of here.”

  “That’s better,” Coyote told him.

  Perry and Redfield each went their own way in the tunnels. Coyote and Matthew followed the main corridor that led to the central hall. There were rectangular cavities carved into the rock all along the way. Each one held a tomb. Soon they entered the gigantic necropolis. Their night-vision goggles didn’t let them see the entire area, but they guessed the layers of tombs lined up to the surface of the crypt. Their altimeter indicated that they were now at a depth of eighteen thousand feet. They climbed the stairs to a kind of altar in the center of the necropolis. Because of the frigid cold, a thick fog floated on the ground, winding between the stone columns and niches. The niches stored huge, sharp weapons covered by a whitish layer of rime.

  Matthew squatted down and set down the backpack he’d been carrying since the mission began. He planted the charge under a stone slab. The 136-pound bomb contained a mixture
of nitroglycerin combined with four thermonuclear warheads. He repeated this gesture dozens of times. It took him a minute to connect and set up the device.

  “The charge is ready,” Matthew announced. “Detonation is in forty minutes.”

  “Okay, we’re going back up,” Coyote replied.

  They raced to the well. Matthew felt more comfortable without the weight of the bomb on his back.

  “Redfield, Perry, how are you doing?” Coyote asked into his microphone.

  “Charge set and activated. I’m on my way back,” Perry announced.

  “Me too,” Redfield responded.

  All four arrived at the well at the same time. But when they approached the wall where they had attached the cables, they could see them scattered on the ground.

  “They cut the cables!” yelled Perry in a panic.

  “We should have expected that!” said Coyote.

  “We’re screwed!” Redfield yelled in despair.

  “Wait. Look at the map,” Matthew said. “There are stairs here. We can try, but we’d better get moving.”

  “Guys, there’s no point! We’ll never have time to climb all of that on foot,” Redfield declared. “We might as well stay here and protect the charges for as long as we can.”

  “They can’t deactivate mercury detonators. They won’t have any way to stop the countdown,” Matthew said.

  Coyote looked at his watch. “We have exactly thirty minutes left to get out of here and away from the explosion’s epicenter. Let’s go!”

  They started racing toward the stairs on their map.

  “Twenty goddamn megatons!” Redfield screamed as he ran. “Do you know what that does when it blows, Coyote?”

  “All I know is we need to be at least five miles from the crypt when it blows up.”

  They took the huge stairs two by two and then hurtled down corridors to take other stairs. They still had 12,500 feet to climb before reaching the surface. Their race was desperate because they knew deep down that they couldn’t make it in such a short time.

  Matthew suddenly stopped in his tracks. “I hear them,” he whispered.