The Temple of the Blind (The Temple of the Blind #3)

by Brian Harmon

  Albert wiped absently at his arms as he approached the archway and examined it. The carvings were of people, thousands of people, piled together as if in a sea of human flesh. He could see heads and legs and arms, feet and hands, breasts, bellies, buttocks and backs. They were not simply a pile of body parts, like the result of some mass slaughtering, but the bodies of living people, all entwined together. Some appeared to be in the throes of orgasmic bliss, others in the midst of a furious rage. Some were lost in their own misery and others seemed terrified beyond their own imaginations. Some of the faces were even familiar. Albert recognized them as statues from the sex room. Perhaps these were all the statues from all of the rooms, all of them intricately carved here in this eternal sea of human beings. There even seemed to be emotions depicted that they had not faced in any of the emotion rooms. Avarice. Sorrow. Jealousy. Joy.

  “Wow,” Nicole said, gazing at the carvings. It seemed to instill a little of each of the emotions it depicted, probably because it did contain faces from the different rooms, but the overall feeling was not like the chaotic tangle that met the eyes. It was something else, something much more peaceful, a medley of feelings that summarized the entire human heart.

  Albert nodded. Wow indeed. “I think this is it,” he said, staring through the archway at the wide corridor beyond. He turned his head and looked at Nicole. She was smeared with mud from her face to her feet, her hair matted with it.

  Brandy stepped up beside her, also gazing at the carvings. Her light blonde hair was now black from the crown of her head down.

  Looking at the two of them, Albert thought that there was something erotic about the sight, even though the stuff that clung to their skin was vile and rank. Their flesh was now partially hidden, their bodies concealed from his view except for the pale, pink streaks where they had wiped it away with their hands. He could still see their shapes and he had an urge to turn and wipe it away from Brandy’s body, if only for the excuse to touch her gorgeous skin.

  “Come on,” Albert urged, forcing his thoughts back to the task at hand. It wasn’t hard. The cold and the stench and the simple awfulness of the mud were more than adequate for keeping him focused.

  The four of them passed through the archway and started forward. The tunnel beyond was different from the others. It was made of the same gray stone, was filled with the same cold darkness, yet it seemed warmer somehow, more inviting. About twenty yards into the tunnel, wide steps descended down a short distance. It was at the foot of these that he paused and listened. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Brandy asked.

  Albert shook his head. “I don’t know.” It was too faint to hear clearly, and now it seemed to be gone. He moved on, not wanting to waste any time.

  The tunnel continued this way, traveling straight for about twenty yards to a set of steps that led down perhaps half a story and then repeating. As they approached the third set of steps, Albert paused again and listened. This time he knew he heard something. “Do you hear it now?”

  Brandy, Nicole and Wayne exchanged a curious look. They heard nothing at all. Not a sound.

  “It’s very soft…I think it’s…” He shook his head. He couldn’t place it, but he could hear it. He started moving again and the others followed. Shortly after descending the next staircase, Brandy paused and listened. “Do you hear it?” he asked.

  Brandy shook her head. “I thought I did…but I guess not.”

  Albert looked up into the darkness ahead, a little confused. Surely he wasn’t imagining it.

  They went on.

  Nicole turned as they walked and looked back the way they’d come. “I hope no one gets mad at us for not wiping our feet,” she said, almost absently.

  Albert grinned. “If it bothers them, they should’ve put a mat in front of their mud hole.”

  Brandy stopped. Now she did hear something. “Singing,” she said.

  “What?” Nicole was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “I hear singing,” she explained. She was staring up into the tunnel.

  Albert nodded. That was exactly what he heard. Singing.

  “Maybe I’ve got mud in my ears,” Nicole guessed. She could hear nothing.

  They walked a little farther through the tunnel, toward this mysterious singing, and soon another archway appeared in front of them, seemingly identical to the last. Something else was there too, hunched in the darkness beyond it, waiting for them. It stood up as they approached, and they saw at once that it was the blind man who’d taken their clothes.

  “You succeeded!” he said, sounding not just pleased but ecstatic. He moved toward them a few steps, and they saw that he was limping a little, nearly staggering. “Come!”

  As they approached the archway, which was indeed identical to the last, they became aware of a vast space looming ahead of them, larger than any chamber they’d witnessed so far.

  “Come! Come!” the blind man called to them as they approached, motioning them into the darkness behind him.

  They stepped past him, through the archway, and marveled at what they saw.

  “Welcome!”

  Albert stared, astonished. It surpassed his wildest imaginations. It was more than he’d ever dreamed possible.

  “What is it?” Brandy asked.

  Albert had no way of knowing, no way of even dreaming, but he had named the Temple of the Blind, and so he named this place as well. “City of the Blind,” he replied. “It’s a City of the Blind.”

  Chapter 19

  There had been several chambers that were impossible to see across with merely their flashlights, but beyond the final archway was a chamber that was far more immense than any before it. The very feel of the air was different here, as if they had just stepped out beneath an open night sky.

  Directly ahead of them, two stone towers rose up into the darkness. They were each at least sixty feet across, perfectly cylindrical, with hundreds of small, square holes that looked to Albert like windows in a skyscraper. These same square holes were cut into the wall behind them as far as they could see, all of them perfectly spaced in a vast grid.

  “Unbelievable,” sighed Brandy as she gazed up into the open darkness. Albert had called this place a city of the blind, and she had no doubt that he was right. But it wasn’t a city that came to mind when she stared at those huge towers. “It looks like…a hive.”

  Nicole cocked her head and listened. Now she heard something, a faint sound that might have been the singing Brandy mentioned.

  Wayne heard it too, very soft, very distant. He could not tell which direction it was coming from.

  The blind man limped past them and began hobbling into the darkness that waited ahead of them. He moved with brilliant excitement, almost ecstasy, but also with obvious pain, like an old man whose best years were far behind him. It was almost sad to watch. Could this really be the same man who leapt to the ceiling with their clothes and scurried away like a blind and naked Spiderman? “Hurry!” he told them, and they followed, curious to see where he would lead them.

  As they approached the two stone towers, three more came into view deeper into the city.

  “It’s enormous,” Albert marveled. “It just keeps going.”

  Something else appeared out of the darkness then. It was not another tower, but rather the opposite. The blind man had been veering toward one of the two towers, rather than passing directly between them, and Albert now saw why. There was a hole in the ground, its diameter as wide as the towers that surrounded it. It plunged into an unimaginable darkness far below, and as they walked around it, Albert saw that the same square openings lined the walls as far down as he could see. It looked exactly like the towering columns that surrounded it, but inverted.

  He looked up into the vast darkness overhead, wondering. The ceiling was not visible, but he felt certain that if he could see it, he’d find more of those holes above them. Brandy had been right. It was like a hive, complex and multi-chambered.

>   “Where are we going?” Wayne asked.

  The blind man did not answer. Instead, he raised one hand and pointed into the darkness ahead.

  For several minutes they walked, their pace quick, almost jogging to keep up with the ecstatic old man who navigated the darkness without eyes. But as they passed close by one of the stone towers, Albert paused long enough to gaze into one of the square openings, probing it with his flashlight. At first, they had looked like windows, but why would a place like this, a place so utterly removed from the light, have windows? Peering inside, he found a very small and empty room. The opening was the only way in or out. Were these sleeping chambers? Were these tiny spaces all homes for the inhabitants of this city? And if so, where were all of these inhabitants? Nothing stirred for as far as he could see. No faces peered out at them. The city, in all its massiveness, seemed to be as dead as Wendell Gilbert. But surely this old man was not its sole inhabitant, not when there was room for so very many.

  More towers and holes appeared from the darkness and Albert began to wonder how many levels a place like this might have. How many hundreds of thousands of eyeless men and women could live in a place like this? He looked up at the towers and remembered the way the blind man had scurried across the ceiling like a spider. For people capable of doing that, this city could stretch for miles up and down through the darkness, level after level. It would be perfect for them. There was no need for stairs or elevators. The city could climb higher and higher into the darkness, or plunge into the very bowels of the earth with only the simplest of architecture.

  The singing continued. Albert and Brandy could hear it well, although they could not detect its origin. It seemed to be all around them, yet it definitely grew louder as they followed the blind man.

  “I think I can make it out,” said Wayne, listening. “But I can’t understand it.”

  “I don’t think there are any words,” said Albert.

  “It’s strange,” Brandy said, trying to hear the notes. “Pretty.”

  Yes. It was pretty. Albert was finally beginning to recognize it as the voice of a woman, soft, gentle, voluptuous. Lovely. It was a soothing sound, like a wonderful lullaby.

  Ahead of them, the blind man had slowed. They could hear his labored breathing. Finally, he stopped and knelt upon the stone floor. “Go,” he told them, the word released in a puff of exhausted breath. He lifted one hand and pointed straight ahead. “That way. Go to her.”

  Her?

  “Do you need help?” Albert asked him.

  “Go,” the blind man said again.

  They went, asking no more questions, and left the blind man in the darkness.

  More towers appeared from the gloom as those behind them disappeared back into the darkness. They circled around another hole in the floor, careful not to step too close to the edge. The singing grew louder as they walked, yet they still could not tell precisely where it was coming from.

  They pushed forward, ever deeper into the city, closer and closer to its heart, where something new awaited them. Albert squinted into the darkness as something appeared, a pale form rising from the floor. It was now that he began to hear another sound, one separate from the faint singing that had been growing in volume. It was the sound of splashing water. The mysterious figure descended from sight and he realized that the trickling sound was coming from the same place.

  “What is that?” Wayne asked. “A swimming pool?”

  The form rose again and Albert squinted into the darkness, trying to see this figure in the weak reach of their flashlights. Before he could get a better look, however, the figure dived down beneath the surface again and vanished.

  The singing, however, never stopped.

  “Another blind man?” Brandy asked.

  Albert didn’t know. He kept his eyes fixed on the pool. He could now see that there was a short set of steps rising up from the floor. Perhaps the pool was actually a fountain. He wondered absently if it was the city’s water source. It made sense that it would need one, after all. As strange as the eyeless man was, he doubted if he could live without water.

  As the four of them climbed the steps to the pool, the singing abruptly stopped. The silence that followed was as thick as the stone from which the city had been built. Then a voice came out of the silence: Welcome. It was the lovely voice of a woman, the same voice that had been singing just moments before. I’m so pleased to finally meet you.

  The voice was unlike that of the blind man. His was hoarse and forced, as though he rarely used it. This voice was soft, elegant, gentle, like a soothing storyteller.

  They turned and looked around, searching the shadows with their flashlights. There was no one in sight and the voice seemed to have no origin at all.

  “Who are you?” Albert asked loudly. His heart was pounding in his chest with the excitement of being in this city and the uneasiness of being in the presence of this unseen woman. A moment later, his voice came back to him, echoing back from some distant wall.

  He looked down into the pool and saw the pale form lying motionless at the bottom. How long could this person—or whatever it was—remain down there?

  Though they had no way of knowing this, each of them felt that the woman had just smiled. I have no name, she said at last, and that pale form stirred at the bottom of the pool. Albert’s eyes followed it, as did the others’. The man who led you to me has no name, either. No one here has ever had a name. Even this place has no name.

  Albert stood silently, listening. He wanted to ask how that was possible, how any civilization could exist without names and titles. These were the very foundations of language, but he felt somehow that the answers would come. The others stood around him, equally silent, as he stared at the pale shape in the pool.

  But you’ve given my city a name, the voice said. The City of the Blind, just as someone else once gave our guardian beasts their name.

  “The hounds?” Albert asked, although he found he didn’t need an answer.

  Yes.

  The water in the pool was moving, he saw, softly rippling. A hole in the rock a few inches below the surface, nearly large enough for a person to swim through, was allowing fresh water to flow into the pool. It was as though the temple had been designed with its own kind of indoor plumbing. Perhaps it was an irrigation system of some kind, channeling the water from an underground river. He looked out at the gleaming water beyond, wondering where the outflow was. It had to go somewhere or it would overflow.

  You may give me a name, too, the woman said, speaking to Albert. The figure beneath the water moved toward them, and he forgot about the mechanics of the pool. For a moment it became still again, crouched beneath the water, and then it rose and broke through the surface with a soft splash that was surprisingly loud in the silence that surrounded them.

  The woman climbed from the water and then stood dripping before them. Her body was long and lean, unnaturally so. Albert saw that he did have a name for her. As soon as he saw her, he knew exactly who she was, who she must be. For you, my dear Albert, I am The Sentinel Queen.

  She stepped toward them. Her entire body was elongated, stretched, well over seven feet tall with arms that reached nearly to her knees. She was naked and hairless, completely bald from head to foot. Her breasts were turned upward, her nipples nearly an inch long and fully erect, pointing not out, as Brandy’s and Nicole’s did, but at the ceiling. The undersides of her breasts were round swells of firm flesh. As she stepped closer, Albert noticed that her genitals were likewise elongated, her vulva actually dangling between her skinny thighs. She did have a face, unlike the sentinel statues in the temple, but it was a very faint face. She had no eyes, not even the shallow sockets the blind man had. Her brow was smooth and featureless, like the statues, but there was a slight impression of a nose, a small rise in the center of her face, with no nostrils to be seen. Her mouth was a small crease below this, visible, but apparently useless. When she spoke, her lips neither moved nor opened, and it became
clear that however she was communicating with them, it was not in the same manner that they spoke to her.

  They stared at her, not believing what they were seeing. She was horrendous, a ghastly mockery of nature. Almost everything about her was wrong and yet…

  You are aroused by me, she said, sounding almost amused.

  The four of them exchanged an uneasy look.

  All of you, she explained. You find me ugly, yet you are aroused by me.

  It was true. Although they each found her repulsive, they could not stop staring at her, as though there were some unthinkable beauty about her. It did make them feel strangely aroused to look upon her. Even Brandy and Nicole felt it.

  We must hurry. Time is running out. I will explain what I can to you, but you will have to leave soon. She turned and began to walk away from them, around the enormous pool, down the steps and deeper into the darkness. Follow me.

  Albert, Brandy, Wayne and Nicole followed after her, strangely fascinated by the Sentinel Queen. There was a certain aura about her that was very pleasant, very lovely, as though she were the beautiful goddess Aphrodite, and yet she was…well, she was a sentinel.

  Albert had never considered that the sentinels were real. He’d assumed that they were merely metaphors of some sort, or at the very least some sort of interpretation of a god or angel. But here he stood, staring at the back of what was undoubtedly an unnaturally tall, naked human with no face.

  This place, explained the Sentinel Queen, is an ancient place. It has been here for ages untold. It was through here that humanity first made its way to the world you call your home. But humanity has always been meant to find its way back.

  “Back to where?” asked Brandy.

  Back to where you all came from, Brandy. As if that explained everything, the Sentinel Queen fell silent.