by Jamel Cato
I decided to take the unobstructed tunnel, reasoning that the trolleys in the other two would have been moved aside if their tracks led to anything worthwhile.
After walking about a klick, I began to pass the carcasses of dead animals. I thought they might have been goats, or perhaps sheep. It was hard to tell from the skeletons. But the further in I walked, the fresher the corpses became. They were definitely goats. And some still had flesh with bite marks. Big bite marks.
I drew my pistol and clicked off the safety.
I was studying the clean break in a curved goat horn when my Astral lamp started blinking. That’s what they did when the photons from the natural world collide with particles from the supernatural world. That made them an excellent early warning system. Something was coming.
I bent my lamp hand into an L shape and rested my firing hand on top of it to steady my aim, just like Jason had shown me.
A twelve-foot tall, barrel-chested minotaur walked into the dim light with a dead goat tucked under its right arm and its own lantern raised in its left. It wore a hunter green sleeveless vest and gray rucksack pants down to its knees. Four golden rings inlaid with onyx lettering were clamp to its horns.
I didn’t fire. “Are you the Guardian of the Way?”
The beast dropped the goat and reached around its back for a spiked mace. In a disturbingly deep voice, it said, “Speak the passphrase or die.”
I was about to find out if Maryellen could be trusted.
“Fear will not prevent change,” I said.
The minotaur scraped one hoof against the rock floor three times, then charged.
I fired four rounds in rapid succession, all of which struck flesh.
The monstrosity didn’t even slow down.
I turned and did my best impression of Usain Bolt.
But I only had the chance to take twelve strides before a goat carcass hit the back of my legs and made me cartwheel to the ground.
The minotaur was on me before I had the chance to get up and run again. It yanked me from the floor by the back of my shirt and slammed me against the rock wall. The thick Kevlar of the bulletproof vest I was wearing absorbed some of the impact and assuredly saved me from a broken back. But the wind was still knocked out of me. As I coughed and gasped for air, the beast dropped me to the ground and then kicked me ten feet down the tunnel like I was a brown soccer ball. I rolled to a stop on top of a pile of goat bones. Two bones on the rib cage sheared and cut my shoulder. I groaned.
The dust on the ground around me bounced into the air each time one of the creature’s hoofs hit the floor as it stomped toward me.
I desperately searched for something I could use as a weapon.
A strong hand clamped around my right ankle. Then I was being pulled backward.
I twisted and stabbed the hand in the soft flesh between the knuckles with the goat horn I had grabbed.
The minotaur yipped like it had been stung by an insect.
But it was enough to make it release my ankle. As my attacker inspected its knuckle, I crawled over to Art’s Astral lamp, which didn’t have a convenient flip-top cover like mine. I pulled off my shirt and wrapped it around my hand. Then I smashed the glass housing of the lamp against the floor. I cut my index finger on the edge of a glass shard as I quickly reached into the lamp’s broken housing to twist off its top. I shook the housing until the hellfire ember which made Astral lamp’s work fell into the cloth protecting my hand. The ember immediately burned through the first few layers of cotton. I spun and used my improvised glove to toss the ember at the beast, which was falling upon me again by that point.
The ember clipped the top of the monster’s shoulder. It roared in pain and stumbled backward.
I pulled out Maryellen’s Athens blade, which had been securely strapped to my ankle in a scabbard. Like Dragon Scale blades, it could penetrate any flesh, even minotaur hide. The problem was that the knife could only be used in close quarters.
I ran at my enemy, who still appeared to be in debilitating pain.
But it was a partial ruse. When I came within reach, it smacked my arms hard enough to send my body spinning one way and the blade flying in the opposite direction. It had obviously recognized the weapon.
I was down again.
But after fending off a Hellfire ember and an Athens blade, the beast approached more cautiously.
“Blackshire vermin,” he snarled. “I expected a better fight from a Knight of the Flame.”
“I’m not a Knight of the Flame,” I gasped. “I’m here with Queen Caroline’s blessing.”
“Lies!” it shouted as it swung its mace.
I rolled away in just enough time for the weapon to crack the ground instead of my bones.
“But I gave you the passphrase!”
“And I shall give you death!”
It feigned left, the lunged right. Then it kicked out a hoof that painfully pinned my right leg to the wall.
I yelled and raised my arms in front of my face as it raised its mace for a killing blow.
Then it lowered the weapon.
I peeked over my forearm in confusion and relief.
“You have the true mark of the Taurus,” it said.
It took me a moment to realize it was referring to one of the tattoos on the outside of my forearm. The row of glyphs which sometimes changed their shapes had been carved into my flesh by a mysterious tattoo artist in Virginia Beach. They were a gift from Darlene after I’d rescued her younger brother from a life-threatening situation. Working that case together is how we met.
I had no idea what the true mark of the Taurus looked like. All I knew was that it was my new best friend.
CHAPTER 38
I had my shirt back on a few minutes later. The Minotaur and I were riding an exposed metal elevator down to a deeper level of the mine. The door to the elevator shaft was hidden behind a disguised section of rock wall. Even with my gift, I would have never found it, or been able to open it, without the creature’s help.
Although it was no longer trying to murder me, being in a confined space with the huge beast made me fearful.
I guessed it sensed this. “I am called Kantu.”
“Call me Tree.”
“I attacked you because you have the scents of Maryellen, Ingron and Mallius upon you. I assumed you tortured the passphrase from her and then killed the two of them when you came through the waypoint with the Duchess.”
“What good is a passphrase that won’t be accepted?”
“The phrase is but one step of the entry process. The Queen always sends advanced notice of visitors. Maryellen is not aware of the other steps in the process nor what constitutes legitimate notice.”
“I thought Maryellen was part of the Queen’s Court?”
“Have you spent any time with her?”
“Point taken.”
“Has the battle started?”
“Not yet, but it looked like it was bound to start any minute.”
“I suppose I’ll smell the blood once it does.”
“It’s none of my business, and Queen Caroline clearly knows what she’s doing, but it seems like you would be more help up there than down here.”
“My duty is here. And your assessment will be rendered untrue if a Knight of the Flame makes his way into the mine.”
The elevator came to a smooth stop.
Kantu said, “I can see that you are not versed on the Mark of the Taurus. Fortunately for you, my people can do no harm to one who bears it. However, for future reference, to fully invoke its protection in the English language, you must reply with the phrase, ‘The might of the horn is the truth of the rush.’ Not every minotaur is as forgiving as me. I think I’ve been in America too long.”
“Thank you for making me aware of that, and for letting me pass despite my ignorance.”
“I let you pass because you also have Serenity’s scent upon you, and it’s not the kind you get from attending a campaign rally. I didn’t detect it u
ntil after my adrenaline rush subsided.”
We stepped out of the elevator car into a wide metal corridor that was half the length of a football field. There was a closed door at the other end. My sight showed me that it was protected by multiple layers of wards.
Kantu unlocked the doors by scanning his retina on a pad set too high in the wall for a normal size human and deactivated the wards through some method I couldn’t determine. He held the door open and said, “The tests beyond this point are for you only, Tree.”
I stepped through the doorway into another metal corridor lined with ten doors on each side. Maryellen said that Serenity’s lamp was in the last room on the right. As I walked down the corridor, I saw and felt odd energy waves in the Astral spectrum pass over and through me. Since I was still alive when I reached the door, I gathered I had passed. The door was protected by a soul lock, a mechanical system that allegedly used alchemy to determine a visitor’s intent. The lock would not open if one intended harm or foul doings.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the lock snapped open after a few tense seconds.
The room was empty save a small rectangular table. Upon the table sat three objects: A brass oil lamp made in the Persian style with an ornate handle and an elongated spout; a cushioned carrying case for the lamp; and, strangely, a hammer.
I approached the table and scrutinized the objects. They all seemed to be what they appeared. But why was there a hammer? Neither Serenity nor Maryellen had mentioned it. Who would make it this far and then destroy the vessel that Serenity needed to remain anchored in the physical world?
“You would,” an eerily familiar male voice said to my left.
I turned that way to see another version of myself. He looked exactly like me except his clothing and skin didn’t have any outward signs of fighting a minotaur. His outfit and demeanor suggested he might have been coming from, or headed to, a relaxing vacation.
“And when I say you, I mean the collective you than includes me.”
“Wait, what?”
“I got here about ten minutes ago,” Other Preston said. “Since then I’ve been thinking about the hammer. Who would get to this point and then destroy Serenity’s timeline anchor? The answer I came up with is that, given different information, or different circumstances, or both, I would use the hammer to destroy the lamp. Then you showed up looking like 12 Years a Slave plus one year of Hell. You obviously arrived here under very different circumstances, yet you walked up to the table and asked yourself the same question. By the way, that’s my favorite shirt. I don’t know why you would wear it to whatever it is you’ve got going on in your world.”
I looked down at the holes and scorch marks in my favorite shirt. “You would look like this too if you were just—”
“Don’t say it,” he said, holding up a hand with a tasteful swiss watch wrapped below it.
“Causality loops,” I said. “My bad. I know better.”
“Good. Because I was starting to wonder if you’re the short bus version of me.”
My stinging retort was interrupted by yet a third version of me entering the room. This version, who seemed to be in worse shape than me, immediately picked up the hammer and lofted it high with the intention of smashing the lamp.
Other Preston and I stopped him. “Whoa, Whoa,” we said in perfect unison while protectively stepping in front of the lamp.
Third Preston looked at me, then at Other Preston, then back at me. He flicked his head toward Other Preston. “What’s up with him? Did he just come from a massage appointment at the day spa?”
I said, “I was wondering the same thing, Bruh. Obviously, you and I work for a living.”
Third Preston and I examined each other’s haggardness. On him, our favorite shirt had been shredded by two long trails of claw marks. He had cuts and scrapes everywhere, one of which was bleeding over his left eye. And there was a four-inch dart sticking out of his right thigh.
“I need to destroy the lamp,” Third Preston said.
Other Preston retrieved an Alpine white handkerchief from the lapel pocket of his blazer and handed it to Third Preston. “Let’s talk about this.”
Third Preston held it against the wound above his eye. “I don’t have time for tea. They’ll be here any minute.”
“I’m on a tight schedule too,” I said.
“I get it,” Other Preston said. “But we need to handle this the right way, or your Mission Impossible routines will be a waste of time.”
“Piss or get off the pot,” Third Preston said.
“It shouldn’t violate causality for each of us to state the intention we had when we entered this room.” He pointed to Third Preston. “Yours is obvious, so we can save time there. My intention was to bring the lamp to a safe place, which is what I did a few minutes ago.”
They both turned to me.
I said, “I came to remove the lamp from this room because I need it to save—”
“That’s enough,” Other Preston warned. “I’ve heard everything I need in order to determine that our intentional planes intersect instead of overlap. We’re all good here.” He nodded at me. “You can take the lamp, Bruh.”
“Explain that,” Third Preston said. “In a fast way.”
“I carried out my intention by bringing the lamp here. He’s going to carry out his by removing it. From your perspective, his removal of the lamp will achieve the same end as destroying it with a hammer. From my perspective, his removal of the lamp will achieve my objective of keeping it safe from dangers in my world. It’s the only possible outcome that’s causality neutral. Therefore, it must be the geometric right angle where our paths intersect under General Relativity.”
I’m far from an intellectual neophyte, but I had to concede that Other Preston might be a smarter version of me.
Third Preston shrugged at me. “I guess you get the prize.”
I pointed at the wedding band on his blood-stained ring finger. “No, I think it went to you.”
I stepped into the corridor carrying a case with the lamp inside of it.
I had taken four steps toward the exit when a male voice that definitely was not mine called out, “Do not leave us here to die. Please.”
The voice had come from one of the other rooms.
I paused. On my way in, I had glimpsed shadows moving under the frames of several of the other doors. It had been easy to mentally push them aside so I could focus my attention on obtaining the lamp. But now they were a moral roadblock on a one-way street. I had the lamp and I still had time. All I had to do was keep walking. I could come back for the shadows after I saved the people I cared about.
“We have human rights,” a female voice said from behind a different door.
I sighed.
I unlocked the soul lock on the first door with an icy stare. This time my special sight saw the energy leap from the lock to my head. Judging from the frequency bands, the mechanism must work like an EMF Brain Scan.
I pulled open the door and found the black man whom Ashley had once dated and the “colored” friend whom Cleetus had once had. It was Daniel Msakayeya, the person whom Thul claimed had been the true target of the Baboon abductions in South Africa all those years ago.
Two of the other rooms were occupied by people. One was an Asian woman in her forties and the other was a Latino man in his thirties.
I gathered the three of them in the corridor, where I showed them my forearm tattoos and the tip of the Athens blade.
When we entered the external hall leading to the elevator, Kantu blocked our path.
“Tree may pass, but the others must remain.”
I nodded at the group.
The other three held up their forearms so the Minotaur could see the symbols I had just carved into their skin.
“You all have the true mark of the Taurus,” he said suspiciously.
“The might of the horn is the truth of the rush,” they replied together.
“Follow me,” the gargantuan cr
eature said, turning toward the elevator.
A figure dropped through the air of the elevator shaft and landed in a crouch on the roof of the elevator car. He rose and kicked away a section of the grated metal wall before him. Then he drew a broadsword with a molten orange blade.
It was a Knight of the Flame.
“Deliver the vessel unto me and you shall be granted the mercy of swift deaths,” the Knight proclaimed with confidence.
He was about six feet tall, broad shouldered and covered in gleaming black plate armor from neck to boot. The Crest of Blackshire shone brightly in his breastplate. If not for his inhumanly black eyes and the dark veins spidering the skin beneath his helm, he might have been considered gallant.
Kantu flexed his grip on his battle mace. “The only one who shall die swiftly is you, Blackshire scum.”
I stepped up beside Kantu with my blade tilted forward to reinforce his claim.
The knight smiled, like he had been hoping someone would say that. He leapt off the elevator car and charged down the corridor toward us.
Kantu rushed forward to meet him, shaking the floor and walls with each fall of his huffs. His long strides promptly left me behind.
When they were five strides away from one another, the knight and the minotaur launched their bodies into the air, each seeking an optimal swing angle. A visible white light flashed when their weapons collided. When the light receded, I saw that half the ball of Kantu’s mace had been sheared away.
The knight deftly rotated in midflight and kicked Kantu in the snout before gracefully landing.
Kantu sailed to the ground and then dented the wall when he rolled to a stop against it. The minotaur quickly got to its feet again and ran toward the knight.
I jabbed my blade at the knight’s face, but he effortlessly parried the blow. With blinding speed, he grabbed my shoulders and tossed me down the hall like a ragdoll. I crashed into Kantu’s legs, sending us both toppling to the floor.
We were pinned together in a heap.