James moves to the entrance and looks through. “There’s another corridor extending away,” he says, “exactly as the diagram shows.” Brother Willim and Miko move to follow him as he steps just within the new passage.
“Nice going,” Jiron praises James. Then to Scar and Potbelly he says, “Bring those two dead guards into the secret passage with you.”
“Right,” Scar says. Then he and Potbelly each take one and begin dragging them toward the new opening in the wall.
“Hurry it up,” Jiron says to them. “We don’t know how long it’s going to stay open.”
“Then give us a hand,” Potbelly says.
Crossing the room to them, Jiron grabs hold of each of the dead bodies and helps to drag them into the secret passage. They no sooner have them inside then the secret door begins to close. When it finally settles once more to the ground, they are plunged into pitch darkness. The chanting which had been present ever since they first entered the temple is no longer audible. The chanters must be in some other part of the main temple not connected with this secret area.
In the darkness they see a glow coming from Miko. It’s the glow of the Star of Morcyth from where it resides in his belt pouch. “I think it senses the presence of Dmon-Li’s priests,” he says.
“More likely the dark rites they’re performing,” suggests Brother Willim.
“Will they be able to detect it if we do magic?” James asks him.
“I don’t think so,” he replies. “With what they are doing, it’s going to drown out anything we do, unless you’re planning on something big?”
“Hardly,” James says. Then his orb blossoms to life on the palm of his hand. To Jiron he says, “Lead on.”
Moving down the corridor, James follows after Jiron and takes another look at the diagram. He sees that the corridor they’re heading down turns to the left sharply just ahead, then just after that, turns back to the right. From there it moves forward less than ten feet until coming to an end. Then on the right side is a long, narrow room with another set of annotations.
They continue down the corridor, and true to the diagram, they follow the route until they reach the final turn where it goes back to the right. “Hold up Jiron,” James says.
Coming to a stop, Jiron glances back to him.
James points to the door on the right at the end of the hallway. “Beyond that door is a long narrow room,” he explains. Holding up the diagram, he adds, “And there’s another set of annotations across it.”
“What do you suggest?” he asks.
“Just be careful,” he replies.
Giving him a nod, Jiron then moves toward the door. Placing his ear against it, he listens for any noise coming from the other side. Turning his head back to the others, he whispers, “It’s quiet.” Placing his hand upon the handle, he pushes and the door moves inward an inch then stops.
“If there’s anyone inside,” he says to James. “Your orb will give us away.”
James cancels the orb and plunges them into darkness. “Good thinking,” he says.
The only reply he hears is the all but silent creaking of the door as Jiron pushes it open. When no light comes through from the other side, Jiron says, “Alright James, give us some light.”
When the orb appears and dispels the darkness, the light reveals the room before them to be another plain room. The walls are simply the same stone blocks that make up the rest of the temple’s walls and floors. No pedestal this time. Nothing but a long, plain room. Pushing the door open all the way, he looks in while remaining in the corridor.
“Hand me the orb,” he says. “Want to get a better look inside before we enter.” James hands him the orb and then he extends his arm past the doorway allowing the light from the orb to illuminate most of the room. Peering around the doorway, he sees that the room extends further away than the light from the orb can reach.
“It’s empty,” he says after a moment’s scrutiny.
“Maybe the annotations don’t mean anything here,” suggests Scar.
“Willing to bet your life on it?” Jiron asks as he turns his gaze on him.
“Not really, no,” Scar replies.
James moves forward and takes a look. “What do you think?” Jiron asks him.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Looks pretty normal.”
“I know,” he replies. “That’s what bothers me.” He starts to step into the room when James places a hand on his shoulder.
“I may need to lead here,” he says. A barrier envelopes him after he removes his hand from Jiron’s shoulder. Something about this room has a very Indiana Jones feel to it. If it weren’t for the annotations on the diagram, he probably wouldn’t be feeling nearly so nervous. But they have to mean something.
Jiron steps back and makes room for him to enter. “Hope they don’t sense that,” he says indicating the barrier.
“So do I,” replies James. Creating a second orb on his palm, he begins moving forward into the room. At first he moves cautiously. Every step he takes, expecting something to happen. But after the fourth step, the room remains quiet. At the sixth step, he gains confidence and begins moving a bit quicker.
Then it happens. He must have stepped on a pressure plate or something for a four foot iron spear shoots up out of the floor beneath him. It strikes the underside of the barrier and launches the barrier with him in it upward.
“James!” Miko exclaims from where he’s watching in the doorway.
As he and the barrier come to land back down on the floor with jarring impact, another trigger is activated. Directly beneath him, a spear shoots up out of the floor. Again he and the barrier are catapulted upward, this time James is thrown on his side within the barrier. “Ahhh!” James hollers as he’s thrown further into the room.
Then every time he lands, another spear shoots upward and propels him further down the long narrow room. Head over heels, he’s propelled as spear after spear launches him and his barrier further along until it finally hitting the wall at the end of the room and coming to rest.
“James!” Jiron hollers. “Are you okay?”
Sitting there in the barrier, he wonders the same thing himself. Doing a quick self check he finds nothing broken, just a few bruises from where he hit the ground hard a couple times. “Yeah!” he hollers back, “I’m fine.”
Glancing to the wall at the end of the room, he discovers another door. Between where he sits and the doorway Jiron and the others are standing at is a patchwork of iron spears sticking upright out of the floor. “There’s a door down here,” he hollers to the others. “Make your way down. Step as closely to the spears sticking out of the floor as you can and you should be okay.”
He dispels his barrier and gets to his feet as the others begin moving into the room. Following the same route the spears sped him along the first time, the others cross the room. He can hear Jiron say, “Step where I step”, as he leads the others from one spear to the next.
No further spears erupt from the floor and they finally join him at the far end of the room. “Secret door, now deadly spears,” comments Potbelly. “Can’t wait to see what we’ll discover when we reach the next set of annotations.”
“Probably a demon or something,” guesses Scar.
James produces the diagram and sees that another corridor extends from the other side of the door they’re standing next to. At the end it looks like a spiral staircase goes either up or down then another long corridor before they reach a round room with a circle drawn in the middle. In the corridor just before the round room is where the next set of annotations is noted.
As Jiron listens at the door for any sound coming from the other side, James cancels the second orb, leaving just the orb Jiron is carrying. Not hearing anything, Jiron opens the door and they begin working their way down the hallway.
Halfway down the corridor, something causes Miko to glance backward. His heart skips a beat when he sees light now coming from the room with the spikes they had just left.
“James!” he says as he points back they way they came.
The tone of his voice brings the others to a halt and they turn to see what he’s pointing at. “Oh no,” Brother Willim says as he sees the light within the room growing brighter.
Then all of a sudden temple guards emerge from the doorway. When they see them there, they draw their weapons and charge. There’s at least a dozen or more of them coming through the doorway.
Scar pulls forth his swords and says over his shoulder, “Keep going.” As Potbelly draws his sword and knife he adds, “We’ll hold them off.” When it looks like the others are hesitating, Scar yells, “Go!”
Then he and Potbelly move forward to engage the oncoming guards. “First one to Coryntia’s realm buys,” Potbelly says.
“You’re on,” Scar replies then the battle is upon them.
Jiron sees James beginning to pull a slug out of his slug belt. He places a hand on his arm and says, “No magic. If they think we’re just thieves, they’ll send guards. If you start throwing magic around, the priests will come.”
“He’s right,” Brother Willim says.
“But they’ll never survive,” James says. More guards are piling up behind the ones engaging Scar and Potbelly.
“They know that,” Jiron says. “We have to get to the dais!” He turns James toward him and looks him in the eyes. “Don’t let their sacrifice be in vain!”
James glances back at the pair holding the corridor against what now must be over three dozen guards. Fortunately the width of the corridor prevents more than two or three coming at them at any one time. Nodding, he turns his back on them and follows Jiron as he runs down the corridor toward the stairwell. Brother Willim and Miko follow close behind.
When they reach the stairwell, they glance once more at the pair fighting in the corridor, then rush down to the lower level. The stairs wind around four times before coming out at another corridor. “It’s in the room at the end,” James tells the others. “But be careful when you reach the end of the corridor, that’s where the final set of annotations lay.”
As they head down the corridor, the sound of the fighting going on above them gradually diminishes until they are no longer able to hear it. Moving down quickly, they soon see the end of the corridor ahead of them. To their surprise, the corridor ends at a solid stone wall. Slowing down they approach the wall cautiously.
“Another secret door?” asks Miko.
“Maybe,” replies James. Could the final set of annotations tell them how to get through here? He hopes that’s what it could mean. When he sees Jiron move to approach the wall he says, “Be wary of traps.”
“After that room upstairs,” he replies, “you can believe I will be.”
James joins him as he goes to the wall. “Looks fairly normal,” Jiron says. They both begin running their hands over the wall in an attempt to find something that will allow them to gain access to the room containing the dais.
Miko and Brother Willim stand back about ten feet from the end of the corridor. Miko can feel the deaths of the guards as they fight Scar and Potbelly above them. He’s pretty sure neither one of their friends has fallen yet. Elsewhere in the temple, the untimely death of slaves rips through him every so often as the priests of Dmon-Li continue their dark ritual.
His eyes wander and finally settle on a minor imperfection in the stone of the wall next to him. Not sure why it caught his eye, he moves closer for a better look. “I think I found it,” he announces to the others as he runs his finger across an indentation similar in size to the medallion James has been carrying ever since finding it in the underground temple near Kern.
James immediately rushes over with his orb to see. “That’s it!” he exclaims. Pulling out the medallion bearing the warrior priest’s insignia, he places it against the indentation. Not exactly a perfect match, but it works.
A vibration comes to them as the end of the corridor begins to drop down in sections. When the rumbling ceases, the light of the orb reveals that the end of the corridor has dropped and created a set of steps leading down.
“Yes!” exclaims Jiron. Moving forward, he leads them down to the bottom where a short corridor connects the stairs with a room. The light from the orb shines through the doorway into the room and they see the dais sitting there before them.
Moving forward, they enter the room and find that it’s round just as the diagram had depicted. “There it is,” James says as they move to the dais.
“It seems odd that the room containing this dais was only reachable by going though two secret doors and a room full of spikes,” comments Jiron. When James glances to him he adds, “The dais in the underground temple was right where anyone could get to it.”
James shrugs. “Maybe they were built in different times,” he says. “The one in the underground temple could have been constructed when they didn’t feel the need to protect it.”
“Could be,” agrees Brother Willim. Turning to James he says, “Now what?”
“Now we get on the dais and let it take us to the High Temple,” he says.
“Sounds easy enough,” Miko states.
“Seeing as how I hold the medallion, it might be best if you three were to get on first,” James suggests. “It wouldn’t be a good idea for me to get on first and have it activate before the rest of you have a chance to join me.”
“May have a point there,” Jiron says. Moving forward, he hops onto the dais.
Lending Brother Willim a hand, Jiron helps him up then is followed by Miko. “What’s going to happen when you get on?” Miko asks.
“If it works as I think it will,” he replies, “we’ll appear at the High Temple of Dmon-Li.”
“Then things will get interesting,” Jiron says with a grim grin.
James sighs and says, “You could say that.”
“Come on,” Jiron prompts when he sees him hesitating. Holding out his hand, he offers to help him up.
Taking the hand, James steps up onto the dais. A second later, they’re gone.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Tinok’s stomach grumbles. The time when they should have received their third meal of the day has come and gone. Still within the cell, the ever present fear remains with them. He and Esix sit against the back wall side by side. They talk of their times together, family and friends whom they’re sure they’ll never again see, all the while trying to banish the fear that has become an ever present, unwelcome guest.
How long they’ve been down here now isn’t clear. The ever pervasive darkness outside their cell prevents the possibility to accurately judge the passing of time. During a time when Tinok was listening to Esix talk of an experience with a neighbor’s daughter that turned into a bad situation with the girl’s father, his eyes begin to detect a growing red glow some distance away from their cell.
“Look!” he says as he rises to his feet.
Esix stops talking and turns his attention toward the red glow. He, as well as the others in the cell with him, get to their feet. The red glow continuously brightens and the light coming from it casts eerie shadows about the cavern. For as the light brightens, they see that they are in fact in an underground cavern.
The ceiling vaults into darkness high above them, a few stalagmites dot the outer edge of the cavern floor. As the glow brightens still further, they come to realize that it comes from an object seeming to float in mid air two feet off the floor.
Beneath the glowing object, the floor of the cavern has been smoothed. The smoothed area encompasses a good portion of the cavern floor. It’s rather hard to make out, but it appears there are six similar patterns marked out upon the floor spaced evenly in a circle around the glowing object. Each of the patterns is ringed itself by many symbols, symbols that hurt the eyes if you stare at them too long. A lone circular pattern, larger than the others, is situated not too far outside the ring of six. Twice the number of intricate symbols encompasses that one than the ones in the ring of six.
“What is going o
n?” Esix asks.
“Man I don’t know,” replies Tinok.
Then his eye catches a movement and he turns his gaze toward a shadow. But the shadow is not remaining motionless as a shadow should. Rather, it is moving across the floor and through the light the way a shadow shouldn’t be able to. The sight renews the terror that Tinok had been working to banish to the back of his mind.
“There’s another one!” exclaims Esix, the fear making him speak more earnestly than is his want. More than a couple of the shadows are seen moving about out there. At last they now know the source of their fear. All the while the red glow of the object continues to intensify and deepen in color.
One of the other prisoners cries out and faints when a figure appears at the bottom of the stairway. The figure walks slowly yet steadily toward the larger circle of symbols outside the ring of six. Little more than a shadow itself, the figure seems to almost suck the light from the cavern as it moves into it.
Behind the figure marches six men in armor, all can only be warrior priests. Tinok recognizes the armor of the one who had led them here through the Mists. Then come a dozen of the cowled figures.
When the dark figure that is leading them reaches the larger circle, he comes to a stop. The six warrior priests fan out behind him, and the dozen cowled figures do the same behind them.
Raising arms that can only be called skeletal, the figure begins speaking. Each syllable sends fear through the prisoners, their heads throb painfully as the words seem to cut into their minds. Tinok finds that he’s put his hands over his ears in an attempt to keep the sound out, but it does no good.
At last, the figure stops speaking. Breathing a sigh of relief as the pain stops, Tinok then is filled with fear the likes of which he has never felt before, primal fear that threatens to take his very sanity. For from the darkness of the deepest part of the cavern come six monstrous monstrosities, more terrifying than anything his imagination could ever hope to match.
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