by J. R. Rain
Monique prays like crazy that he, in fact, won’t find anything. She is suddenly getting a very bad feeling. And her mum always says to trust her feelings. The chamber is littered with crates, boxes, some old church stuff. Cliff now moves aside some brass sculptures and focuses his attention on the smooth, curved wall. He runs his free hand over it, his torch held high. Her American cousin… so brave… so stupid.
Since she has no choice but to wait, Monique begins to follow suit, brushing her hands over the curved wall, as well. The sooner Clifton’s curiosity is satisfied, the sooner they can go back. And a small part of her—a part that makes her nervous—is starting to catch her cousin’s sense of adventure. Damn Clifton and his infectious curiosity!
Suddenly, he makes a sound. “Look, Mon, there’s a door here. I can feel it.”
She moves over to his side, picking her way around the junk. He holds the torch aloft. Yes, she can see it now, too: an arched opening. Except, of course, directly behind the opening is more stone wall.
“Unless you can walk through that, I think we’d better go back—”
“Look for a lever. Something that will open the door.”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“I’m not. This is exactly the type of thing that was in ‘The Mummy’s Tomb.’ The archaeologists found a lever of some sort.”
“Well, there’s no lever here.”
“Just help me look, will ya?”
She sighs and scans the room again. The light in here is better, thanks to the mysterious torches that crackle on the curved walls, casting their flickering light everywhere.
Well, not quite everywhere. There’s a hole in the wall. A hole not far from her. She steps over to it. The hole isn’t very big. About as wide as her forearm. Or, as wide as…
“Give me the torch, Clifton.”
“Why?”
“Just give it to me!”
He hands her the torch and Monique promptly holds it over the hole, sizing it up. Indeed, it’s just as she thought: the metallic tip of the torch would fit inside perfectly. Which is exactly how she places it, nearly burning herself in the process.
“Okay, what now, hot shot?” he asks, although he sounds impressed.
Monique, of course, felt something that Clifton hadn’t: the torch clicking into place. Into what place, she doesn’t know, but she is beginning to think that this hole isn’t just a hole, and this torch isn’t just a torch.
It is a lever.
With a growing excitement, knowing she might be doing something she will regret later—she grins and says, “Watch.”
She grips the wooden torch about halfway down, well away from the snapping flame, and pulls down.
Hard.
Heart hammering, she hears Clifton gasp next to her. She waits, sure that something amazing is about to happen. But it doesn’t. Nothing. She exhales. Perhaps it is better that nothing had.
“Looks like I was wrong. Now maybe we can go—”
They hear it together. A low rumble, coming from seemingly everywhere. And then…
The floor begins to rotate.
In the sanctuary above, the older, dark-haired boy continues to examine the altar, running his hands over the cool stone… until he finds the same hidden panel.
Smiling, he pushes it. Nothing. He pushes harder, grunting, until it suddenly gives way.
The dark-haired boy looks up and sees that he’s all alone. He also sees a nearby box of matches near a row of votive candles. He grabs the box and, at the secret entrance into the altar, pauses only briefly before ducking down and crawling in.
The cousins steady themselves as the floor and surrounding, circular wall rotates slowly. The tunnel entrance into the room disappears.
Now, they are trapped, and it’s all Monique’s fault.
Such an idiot I am!
Just as she thinks that, something amazing happens: another doorway opens, revealed behind Clifton’s arch. Beyond, is a dark opening, with an unearthly glow emanating from within.
Clifton takes her hand… and also takes hold of the torch, pulling it free from the hole in the wall. Together, they step into the dark room.
The room is cavernous and gloomy.
It is also filled with many ancient artifacts. No, not just artifacts, weapons. Hanging from the walls are medieval swords, maces, lances.
“What is this place?” asks Clifton, his voice filled with awe.
It should be filled with fear, thinks Monique glumly. They are, after all, trapped in this room, and it is all her fault.
They move deeper in, staying close together. Clifton holds the torch before him, but it soon becomes evident that it wouldn’t be needed. A ring of flickering candles surrounds a stone sarcophagus inlaid with mysterious markings. It sits in the middle of the room, and Clifton makes right for it. He holds the torch over the lid, careful of the candles.
“I wonder who lit these things,” says Clifton.
“Probably whoever lit those torches.”
“Makes sense. Hey, do you know what these markings say?”
She sighs and, despite feeling sick with worry, steps over. “It’s Latin, although I’m not sure what these other etchings are,” she reports.
“Please tell me you know Latin.”
“Of course, Father taught it to me. He is a professor of paleo-linguistics.” She leans in for a closer look, and after a few false starts, translates, “It says: ‘Here lies the great wizard’.”
“The great wizard, as in… Merlin?”
“Who?”
“You know, King Arthur? Lancelot? Excalibur?”
“Oh, Merlin,” she pronounces with a French lilt. “Do you think it’s really him?”
Clifton shrugs. “Dunno.”
Monique next examines the candles, her curiosity once again getting the better of her. “How long do you suppose they have been burning?”
“A long time, would be my guess. Like I said, maybe they’re magic.”
Monique takes a step back. “I don’t like this. I think we should leave. In fact, we need to leave now. I’m getting really, really scared.”
“And face the wrath of Uncle Gerard? No thank you. I would rather be down here in this stuffy old crypt.”
Something suddenly occurs to her, and she heads back to the sarcophagus lid, motioning for Clifton to give her some light. He does so, and she examines the markings more closely.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“I just realized what these other markings are. They’re runes.”
“What’re those?”
“Ancient Celtic writing.”
“Let me guess: you can read those, too?”
“Good guess.”
“So what do they say?”
She frowns. “I can’t read all of it.”
“Well, what does some of it say?”
Monique runs her now-dirty forefinger over the engravings. “It’s some type of spell.”
“A spell? Like a magic spell?”
“Yeah.” She stands back. “This isn’t a crypt, Clifton.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a prison.”
The dark-haired boy makes his way cautiously down the narrow flight of stairs, holding a single wooden match before him. After a God-awful length of time—and many more matches—he finally reaches the bottom. He peers cautiously into the long hallway, wondering what lies ahead. Wondering, too, where the two younger kids have gone. The match burns his fingers, and he yelps. All goes black. He feels around in the box… and produces his last match. He swallows hard, lights it, and follows the tunnel…
“An eternal prison,” Monique whispers, reading the runes. She looks up. “But I don’t understand.”
“I do,” says Clifton. “Merlin can’t die. He’s immortal. Like a vampire or something. He lives forever. And all of these candles, and the spells, and the hidden tomb… all of this is to keep him in his coffin.”
“But I thought was a good wiza
rd?”
“Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. No one really knows.”
“Okay, now you’re really scaring me.”
“I’m scaring myself, too.”
As Monique backs away, her foot knocks over one of the candles. It falls to the stone floor… and winks out.
“That can’t be good,” says Clifton.
Indeed, in rapid succession, all candles begin going out, leaving only a hissing trail of black smoke. If not for Clifton’s torch, they would have found themselves in utter darkness.
“Light them again,” urges Monique. “With the torch. Hurry!”
Just as Clifton picks up a candle, hands fumbling, a strange noise jars him from his task.
“What was that?” asks Monique. The color has drained from her face.
“I don’t know.” Here it comes again. Scraping… from within the sarcophagus.
Clifton nearly drops his torch. “Holy crap!”
“Merde!”
And that’s when the lid to the sarcophagus shifts.
No, not shifts, Monique realizes to her horror. It’s beginning to open.
The final match has long since gone out.
The dark-haired boy continues along in complete darkness, running his hand along the smooth stone wall, feeling his way. The two kids have gone on before him, he’s certain of it. Indeed, this is the only way they could have gone. If they can do it, so can he.
He takes in a breath of cool air, then forges on into the inky blackness.
As they stare, dumbstruck, a dried-out, bony finger emerges from beneath the sarcophagus lid. It’s followed by three more… and a husk of a thumb. All curled out, gripping the heavy stone.
That’s when Monique screams. She screams and screams and screams. In fact, she can’t stop screaming.
Clifton grabs her hand, pulls her, unresisting, to the exit. And just as they reach the arched opening—an opening that leads back into the circular room, now a dead end—something heavy crashes to the stone floor.
It is the sarcophagus lid.
Whatever was inside is now free.
Both kids pause, and gasping and hyperventilating, turn to watch a white-haired man sit up.
Not a man, thinks Clifton. A mummy!
The dark-haired boy hears the heavy crash, and picks up his pace as much as he dares, stumbling in the darkness.
And there, far ahead of him, is his saving grace: a faint glow in the depths of the tunnel.
“Danke!” he whispers, and sprints forward.
The thing that sits up is not human.
At least, not anymore. It has bleached-white skin, long gray hair, and, remarkably, an elegant purple robe. As it sits up, it pauses briefly, and Monique thinks: It’s confused. It doesn’t know where it is.
Then she sees something else, something that terrifies her well nigh into incoherence.
Its eyes glow red.
It’s a demon, she thinks. We are alone with a demon!Clifton tugs at her hard. Thank God for Clifton. Without him, she would have been incapable of moving. She stumbles and trips, falling to her knees. But her cousin holds her tight, never letting go.
Bless him.
She finds her feet, and soon they are racing back toward the archway, which leads into the circular room… their only escape, temporary as it may be.
No, not temporary, thinks Clifton. We can pull the handle again!
And just as they reach the doorway, the floor beneath them begins to rumble and shake. It is a familiar sound to the cousins. It means, of course, that the circular room is rotating.
Indeed, the arched opening before them disappears as the room within spins. Where there was an opening, a wall shifts into being.
The cousins pick up their speed… but not before the opening disappears completely, trapping them within.
The dark-haired boy reaches the end of the hallway and steps out of the darkness and into a circular room, which is lit, amazingly, by torches ensconced along the curved wall.
What in the world is this?More muffled screaming comes from behind the wall. Where, exactly, from, he doesn’t know… but he’s going to find out.
Behind them, Merlin’s mummy rises unnaturally from the sarcophagus—as if his head and shoulders are being lifted by invisible, winged creatures.
And now the ancient wizard steps down. As he does so, Monique is certain she is going to die of fright, if her hammering heart is any indication. In fact, she would rather die of fright, than face this… thing coming toward them.
Merlin—or whatever it is—is hideous. The thing of nightmares. His skin is tattered and hangs off of actual bones. Even his face is partially a skull, the white bone gleaming through.
This isn’t happening, thinks Monique, squeezing her eyes shut. I’m in bed, back in our country home. I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. Please God let me be dreaming.
Clifton never wanted this.
Yes, he had wanted adventure… but he’d never wanted this. He never wanted to be in any real danger. And he especially didn’t want to put his cousin in any danger. Except that’s exactly what he has done.
We are so busted. But first things first.
And first up was, of course, dealing with Merlin—and Clifton is certain that the thing ambling toward them is, indeed, the once-great magician, judging by the dead guy’s tricks and old wizard robe.
“Relax,” he says. “We’re the ones who set him free, right? Why would he hurt us?”
That line of reasoning seems to calm Monique down—and him, too, for that matter.
That is, until Merlin raises his emaciated hands… and hurls a shaft of bright blue light at the two kids, knocking them off their feet, and slamming them back against the wall.
“Geez,” grunts Clifton, picking himself up. “Now that’s gratitude for you.” He turns in time to see another shaft of blue light fly forth from the reincarnated—and clearly pissed off—wizard. This time, the light is directed solely at Monique. Rather than blasting her, it envelopes her completely.
“Cliff!”
“Hang on, Mon!”
He reaches for her, but the light is scalding to his touch. He recoils, gasping.
Meanwhile, the wizard raises both hands… and still surrounded by the blue light, Monique rises with them.
“Cliff! Help!”
The boy is momentarily at a loss. He gasps, looking for anything that can stop the old wizard—whose horrid, dried-out hide begins to flesh out before his very eyes, while Monique’s soft, young skin begins to crack.
No, no, no! thinks Clifton. This isn’t happening!
He desperately scans the room. There, on the wall opposite him, hang all sorts of medieval weaponry. He dashes across the room and, gasping and stumbling, pulls a battle ax free. But it’s far too heavy for him. He ditches it and next grabs a nearby sword. It is almost too heavy, but he uses both hands to control it.
With Merlin’s attention solely on Monique, who now rotates slowly in mid-air, her skin drying out at an alarming rate, Clifton rushes the wizard… and plunges the sword deep into the magician’s back.
The dark-haired boy frantically searches the circular room.
Finally, his wildly scanning eyes fall upon the same hole that Monique had found earlier. A quick examination reveals fresh ash and silt around the opening. Next, his eyes next settle on one of the many torches embedded in the wall. He immediately grabs one, and brings it over. Black smoke trails behind it.
Just then, a hideous shriek erupts from behind the wall.
The dark-haired boy gasps, then jams the torch inside the opening.
Merlin shrieks.
The mummified wizard drops to his knees, grabbing at the protruding sword. His connection to Monique broken, she falls to the hard stone floor, landing hard. Immediately, Clifton is at her side.
“Mon! Are you okay?”
But she can’t speak, her withered face more like that of an old woman. Or a mummy.
Oh God! “Monique!”
A frantic Clifton turns in time to watch Merlin reach back and yank the sword free.
“Oh shit!” he looks back at his cousin. “C’mon, Mon!”
And just as he’s about to pick her up, Merlin the Great appears before him. The once-great wizard appears younger, fresher. And why shouldn’t he? He’s consumed Monqiue’s life force.
More disturbing is the blood dripping from the sword wound. Clifton is certain that this old bag of bones hadn’t bled in a long, long time. That, in fact, the blood belongs to none other than his cousin.
It’s about at then that the very same sword Clifton had plunged into the wizard’s back appears suddenly, slashing through the air like a silver, one-winged hawk. The sword controlled by none other than this very wizard.
Unfortunately, the sword is also hurling straight at Clifton, who dives just in time to avoid being impaled by it. Instead, the sword point buries itself deeply into the stone floor next to him, its handle wobbling like an arrow in a bull’s-eye. As the boy scrambles to his feet, the sword slides free on its own volition.
“Not good,” Clifton says.
The sword slashes again—and Clifton rolls across the dusty floor. He scrambles to his feet and sprints to the far wall, where he grabs another, similar sword.
Just in time, too. The magically compelled sword scuds straight for him, point first. A blow meant for Clifton’s heart. Except Clifton had spent a lifetime playing swords with his older brothers and friends. Hell, Clifton had always always wanted to be a pirate or a knight.
Using both hands, Clifton times his swing just as the flying sword appears before him. He heaves as hard as he can… and sparks fly. And so does Clifton. The force of the enemy sword is enough to knock him off his feet. But, at least, he’s alive. For now.
He barely has time to find his feet before the sword is back, flashing and striking and cutting. It is all Clifton can do to defend himself. But the magic behind the sword is too strong. The blows are too powerful. Each one sends him reeling and stumbling…