Broken Vision

by J. A. Clarke

  The painted earth and rock gave up no clues.

  Back at the entrance, she faced the circle of columns. As she focused on it, the panic she had so far held at bay became muscle-weakening terror. Here lay a trigger to her distress, yet she could see nothing other than the peculiar squat columns. She knew they were inanimate objects. They couldn't hurt her. Why did they appear so menacing?

  She had to examine the circle more closely. Against her instincts, which screamed at her to run, she approached the columns, the tallest of which was no higher than her shoulder. Their diameters appeared to be uniform.

  Every cell in her body resisted, so it was with a sense of disbelief that she saw her own hand touch the smooth surface of the short column closest to her. An image from a starpit nightmare sprang into her mind. A giant of a man lay stretched across the column's flat surface. He was nude. His arms and legs, spread wide, didn't quite reach the edges. His body, streaked with crimson, strained against invisible bonds. His mouth gaped open in a scream she couldn't hear. She didn't know him, yet he was familiar.

  She snatched her hand back. The image vanished.

  The mottled red material of the columns was like nothing she had ever felt before. The surface was soft, smooth, yielding to her fingers, yet beneath the softness was a hardness that vibrated, and shook her to her bones. Unlike the walls of the cavern, no heat radiated from them, yet her fingers stung as if they had been burned.

  The interior of the circle, within the ring of columns, was as large as a small room. The floor was the same gel substance as the rest of the temple.

  She took a deep breath. Fighting the mind-numbing terror, she clenched her fists, and stepped between two columns. The floor shuddered beneath her feet. Silence hammered at her ears. Sweat oozed from her pores, trickled down her sides and stung her wound.

  Like the earth and the rock, the columns yielded no obvious exits from the chamber.

  She forced herself to explore the ring's interior and visually examine each mottled red column. She couldn't bring herself to touch them again. More and more, they looked like they were bleeding. The image of the man stretched in agony across one wavered into shape in her head again and wouldn't leave. Her imagination? Perhaps. That this temple might host human sacrifices wasn't such a leap. Nargune was fully capable of such unthinkable, barbarous acts.

  As she approached the short column again that had inspired the horrendous image, her breath suddenly escaped her lungs in a long whoosh. She felt as if someone had punched her. She stumbled and would have dropped to her knees, except that every cell in her body clamored at her to stay upright. She had to get out of the ring. A palpable sense of threat, dense and smothering, pressed down on her and threatened to crush her will. She managed one step, and another.

  Once outside the columns, the pressure immediately lifted. The image in her head of the tortured man vanished again. Instead, she felt a growing sense of urgency. Time was running out. For Alerik and for Morgon.

  For them all.

  She didn't want to, but she knew she had to go back into the circle. With unshakeable certainty, she knew the columns held the key to finding the men. As she wove in and out, column after column, fear shadowed her every step; a nightmare lurked around every turn. She kept going. Even when she saw the red mottling seep and bleed and spread until the columns became a solid, glowing crimson, she kept going.

  A sudden soft beep split the silence. A deep, almost subsonic grating sounded.

  Shocked as she was by the noise, she at first didn't notice the movement. Her foot slipped on the gel floor. As she regained her balance, she saw the space between two columns narrow. She whirled.

  All the columns were moving. They slid across the gel floor to the escalating sound of grating. Beneath her feet, the floor undulated in waves that seemed to be increasing in size. As she struggled to maintain her footing, she realized she was about to be trapped in the circle. She had to get out. She tried to run and couldn't. Her brain commanded her feet, but they seemed stuck in place. All around her, the weeping red columns moved, slid closer, until, with a tormented shriek, they slammed together in a small, tight circle. A circle which had no exit. In the sudden, intense silence, she forced herself to be still, to breathe deeply, to listen.

  A searing white light speared down from the temple's ceiling to illuminate the flat top of each pillar. The columns, seeming like a single structure now, began to move. She didn't know which way it was moving, only that it was in motion. Light blinded her. Movement dizzied her. She dropped to her knees, weak and trembling.

  The beams of light vanished. The columns moved silently apart.

  Crouched on the floor, she saw she was no longer in the earth and rock temple. This room was smaller, less cavernous, and had pristine white walls, similar to the corridors above the temple. As her eyes adjusted to the softer light, she noticed large alcoves built into the walls at regular intervals. With slow care, she rose to her feet on a solid floor that didn't undulate. Icy air eddied around her.

  A flash of color caught her peripheral vision.

  "Maegan. How delightful. I'm surprised it took you this long to find him."

  * * * *

  Alerik dreamed.

  He wanted to wake up, was desperate to wake up. He had to break free, escape from this strange fantasy world in which he found himself.

  He ran through a forest, a place he didn't recognize. Unlike any forest he had ever seen, the sapling-thin trees bore enormous canopies that dripped trailing vines. The vines writhed in the heated air and hissed as he passed. His feet stirred up an odor of rotting vegetation.

  Someone trailed him in the forest. Friend or foe, he couldn't determine. An aching dread warred with a deep, affectionate warmth inside of him. Every time he stopped to catch his breath, he saw only shadows. A flicker of movement.

  He was searching for someone, but he didn't know who. He just knew it was imperative he find them.

  So he ran. On and on. And as he ran, the vines reached out for him. Their hisses became whispers of fear, then screams of despair, as a black cloud oozed from the soil, spread its creeping tendrils across roots and debris. It circled the trees and obscured their shapes. Muffled the vines until a thick silence blanketed the forest.

  Suddenly the blackness was all around him and inside him and smothering his heart.

  * * * *

  "Where is he?" Maegan faced Nargune. "Where are they?"

  Nargune was cloaked to match the blood red and orange of the temple walls. Only the lower half of her face was visible. She stood without moving between two slender pillars that reached only partway to the ceiling.

  Maegan was trapped in this white chamber with its ghastly columns. Trapped with a woman who craved power above all else, and wouldn't hesitate to destroy to get it. She knew she should feel fear, loathing, hatred...

  At the moment, all she wanted was assurance that Alerik was unharmed.

  "Here. They're both here." Nargune made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire room. and folded her arms again. "We've been waiting for you."

  Maegan turned her head just enough to examine what she could of the room without losing sight of Nargune. Nothing. No Mariltar males. Nobody but her and the sha-priestess. Nor did she sense another presence in the room. Surely she would know if Alerik were close. Instinct had led her here. Wouldn't instinct identify the presence of her mate? She wanted to turn and look behind, but didn't. "You left me imprisoned in the guest room."

  "No. You only thought that for a while. You escaped, didn't you? I knew the bond between you and your mate was strong, and that you'd come looking for him, but I needed some time with him first."

  "What have you done to him?"

  Nargune stirred. Her long, lean body swayed. Her bright robes swirled around her feet. For a nanonan only, Maegan thought she saw wisps of black smoke spewing from the fabric at the robe's hem. When she looked again, there was nothing there. "He's well enough."

  An evasiv
e answer, if she'd ever heard one. Icy tendrils of fear crept through her veins. She forced a deep breath and stiffened her knees and her resolve. "What do you want from me?"

  Nargune's laughter echoed around the chamber. In it, Maegan detected something forced and unnatural. As if the sha-priestess was not completely in control.

  "Maegan, you are my biggest challenge, just as Alerik Mariltar's mother was my father's. But I've learned from his failure. I know now what I must do. You're strong, but I'm stronger."

  She reached to touch the pillar to her right. The chamber plunged into complete and utter darkness. The eddies of air became a full-blown icy wind that caused Maegan widen her stance to brace herself.

  "You're wrong, Nargune."

  Alerik's mother and Nargune's father? Alerik had never said a word. Did he even know? Something about that had to be a critical key in all this. She just didn't know what and she couldn't think about it now.

  She began to back slowly away as she waited for her eyes to adjust. She wanted distance between herself and the sha-priestess. The darkness wasn't as complete as she had first thought. Shadows writhed above her head. "I'm the stronger one. You didn't get what you wanted when you had me before, did you? Because you couldn't. And you'll fail again."

  The laughter came again, higher and more piercing. "You've convinced yourself of that, have you? I'm too close to having everything I want. You are one very insignificant barrier. You cannot stop me."

  Maegan bumped up against the wall at the same time she came to the astounding realization that Nargune might have no knowledge of anything that had occurred outside of the temple. Beneath her fingers, the wall's surface was smooth and cool, and bore a hint of dampness.

  How could she use the knowledge of the destruction outside the temple to her advantage? She didn't know if she could get out of this chamber the same way she'd entered. Nor could she leave without Alerik and Morgon. Nargune had said they were here, but what reason did she have to trust anything Nargune said? What should she do now?

  "Maegan." Nargune sounded close.

  Too close. Maegan still couldn't see anything.

  "You are safe here." The whisper came from her right.

  "You cannot escape." A harsher whisper, this time from directly above her, as if her tormentor hung from the ceiling.

  Her head was beginning to ache and a strange dizziness was sapping her alertness.

  "Do you see the pretty light?" The voice was right at her shoulder this time. She should block it out. It tugged at her, pulling her toward a place she didn't want to go. But resisting its pull was hard. So very hard.

  A small green flame bloomed in mid-air. An arm's length away. Or was it on the other side of the chamber? She felt no heat from it, and saw no shadows cast by it. That single flare of pretty, mesmerizing light beckoned her. There was a reason she shouldn't trust it, just like she shouldn't trust the voice. She couldn't remember why.

  The light danced, flared more brightly, and prodded a memory. The memory struggled to surface. She sensed it was one of her most cherished, and just that knowledge obliterated the siren call of the light. A full memory bloomed of The Lichs, the day when Alerik had taken her there. Though her emotions had been raw and ugly, the peaceful, primitive beauty of the place had imprinted on her mind forever. It calmed her now like nothing else could, and it refocused her.

  The dizziness faded.

  The voice was silent. She had no sense of Nargune's location, but now the green flame pushed back the darkness enough she knew that the sha-priestess wasn't nearby. On the other side of the chamber, beyond the green flame, she thought she saw a flicker of movement.

  She began to move, with no particular plan in mind. She had to find Alex and Morgon. The only logical place for them to be was in the large alcoves. The ones she had seen before Nargune had plunged the chamber into darkness had been empty.

  Her fingers slid across the walls, gathering a peculiar sticky dampness.

  An odd pulse disturbed the air. There was no sound, just a push of angry air, a concussion as if from a massive explosion. And then nothing again.

  Her searching hand encountered open space. An alcove. Pulse racing, she felt around. The alcove was empty. So was the next. She squashed her disappointment and rising panic and moved on. The green light still danced, sometimes close, sometimes at a distance, but she no longer felt its pull. Nargune remained silent.

  Her fingers slipped and sank into a soft membrane. She pulled them back, until they again rested on solid wall surface. With more caution, she moved her hand forward again and encountered the same soft membrane. When she pushed, it dissolved under pressure. Her hand thrust through empty air. For a nanonan, she thought she had found another empty alcove, then her hand connected with smooth fabric and underneath it warmth.

  Blazing starpits! Adrenaline and excitement raced through her. She used both hands to explore. The shape under the fabric was a body, definitely alive, standing upright without restraints as far as she could tell, but unresponsive to her touch. She felt a chin, bristly with new beard growth, traced the outline of the lips, then the nose. Morgon.

  Wary of making any sound, she poked him hard.

  No response.

  She reached up and grabbed his head with both hands and gently shook it from side to side.

  No reaction.

  She could hear him breathing, could feel the soft expulsions of air on her own face.

  She again felt an angry air-pulse in the chamber. It reminded her that Nargune was still at large, still a deadly danger. She had to find Alerik.

  Leaving Morgon for now, and using the wall to guide her again, she continued around the chamber's perimeter. The next alcove had no membrane seal and was empty. So was the next one, and the next. Panic was curdling her stomach again when she encountered the edge of the fourth alcove. She felt inside and almost screamed with frustration. Also empty. Urgency clawed at her. She had no idea where Nargune was or why she had gone silent.

  Her own breathing sounded loud and harsh to her ears. She forced herself to take some deep breaths and moved on to the fifth alcove. The membrane that covered the opening wrapped around her searching hands, but she knew with a soaring elation she had found her mate.

  He was as unresponsive as Morgon. But he was alive! For a few nanonans, she allowed herself to rest against his chest, delighting in the beat of his heart, in the warmth of his skin, in the caress of his breath against her upturned cheek, all proof of life.

  What now? She had to find a way to rouse him. And Morgon. Shadows still danced on the chamber's ceiling. The green flame still burned, but the lure of it was gone.

  Beyond the bright flame, the darkness hid anything and everything. She saw no one, had no sense of movement, of anyone else, except for her acute awareness of Morgon and Alerik. If Nargune was still present, she was invisible.

  A third pulse, stronger than before, rocked the air of the chamber, as if a massive, soundless blast had occurred. The entire room seemed to tilt before settling back to normal. A shriek of rage raised the hair on Maegan's nape.

  "What have you done?" Nargune's voice cut through the darkness. "What have you brought here? This is sanctuary. Nothing disturbs it. Nothing disturbs me!"

  If Nargune didn't know what was causing the odd pulses, then it had to be a rescue team. She sincerely hoped they were close. Nargune could decide to destroy them all in a nanonan. Maegan didn't doubt her power to do so.

  "Your sanctuary doesn't exist anymore," Maegan called, her voice sounding faint and insubstantial. Perhaps it was unwise to reveal anything to Nargune, but the distraction might buy her some time. "The world you've created doesn't exist. It's all gone."

  This time the sound that echoed around the chamber was the harsh false laughter from Maegan's nightmares. "You imbeciles have no concept of my abilities or of what I've created here. The Coalition Council is weak, so easy to influence, and even easier to infiltrate."

  Nargune's vindictive voice soun
ded at a distance again, but Maegan wasn't about to trust anything in this place. The sha-priestess could be right beside her. She forced that thought to the back of her mind while she continued to prod at Alerik, hoping for any reaction.

  "I have four of their own and soon will have more."

  This time, Maegan jumped and had to clamp down on a scream. The voice had been close, too close. She froze and listened intently, but heard nothing but Alerik's soft breathing. Blazing starpits! What was Nargune talking about? Four? There were others like Alerik and Morgon?

  The Council was infiltrated?

  She drew several deep breaths to calm her pounding heart. If she listened to the rantings of a power-hungry crazy woman, she'd be sucked into her fantasies. She had to focus on how to get out of this place with no obvious exits with two unresponsive men.

  "If you can hear me at all," she muttered softly to Alerik, "just cooperate. We need to move."

  She lifted his arm over her shoulder and slid her own around his waist. With a pull and a tug, she took a step forward. To her utter amazement, he moved easily with her. Another step, then another. She moved him along the wall, past the empty alcoves to where Morgon stood.

  The membrane had reattached itself, but yielded easily under her fingers. With her free arm, she urged Morgon from the alcove, then sought the green flame. It was possible they could leave this place the same way she had arrived, through the circle of columns. She would have to leave Alerik and Morgon within the circle, while she tried to set off the trigger mechanism. Her biggest fear was the circle held the odd green flame. She had no idea what, if any, danger it posed to them.

  She maneuvered her docile charges between two columns. The space between seemed tighter than she remembered. The larger bodies of the two men barely fit.

  A sudden eerie glow filled the chamber as the flame flared higher. Beneath its light, in the center of the ring of columns, the sha-priestess stood clearly revealed. Arms spread wide, she faced them. All around them the columns moved, crowded together. There was no escape.

  Nargune threw back her head and seemed to grow. Maegan's chest ached as air was sucked from her lungs. A pulse, stronger than any before, rocked the air. No sound accompanied it, but an excruciating pain stabbed through her head. She staggered, lost her grip on Morgon.