As I continued, I concentrated on simply putting one foot in front of the other while keeping an eye and ear out for any sign of danger. Just when I thought the circular pattern of the passageway was becoming compact enough to be nearing the end, it straightened out again. This time, though, at the end of a very long, straight section of the hallway, the source of the light, bright to eyes now, revealed itself. As I grew closer to it, I could see that the light took up the entire length and breadth of the corridor. My heart sank as my fear of its being another dead end seemed confirmed. However, as I grew closer still, I now saw that there were other colors to the light, even an object, perhaps, and my hope returned. Maybe it was a door of some kind. Closer and closer I came to it and the objects in the light became clearer, more distinct. It seemed to be a brightly lit machine of some kind with an object in its center. As I approached still nearer to it, the object revealed itself to be a man. I picked up my pace until I was close enough to recognize him. It was Edmond! I began to run, excitement coursing through me. I had found him at last! I had actually passed Arrosha’s nightmarish trials and now I would be able to free him and he would know how to get us out of this hellish place and we would both be free and safe at last! That this is where she might finally kill me was yet another thought I did not allow myself to think.
I was trembling wildly as I slowed my pace and walked the final few steps up to the machine in which Edmond was trapped. The minute I saw it up close, I recognized it as a stasis chamber from the visions that Edmond had shown me in the dream and Arrosha had confirmed in the tower room. I remembered that in my last dream at the apartment, Edmond had told me to throw the necklace toward him when I was close to him, that the two pieces, when placed in a near enough proximity to each other, would recognize each other, set him free and put an end to Arrosha. But there he was, only a few feet away from me, seemingly asleep, clutching the cane with the crystalline dragon headpiece and nothing was happening. Did it not work unless I threw the amulet at him? Did the velocity of my throwing the amulet have anything to do with its ability to penetrate the stasis chamber? No, I thought, that didn’t feel right. I fingered the necklace as I pondered this, searching for a signal from it as to what I should do. Instead of giving me a sign that it was nearing time for it to be removed, again the little dragon began burrowing its wings painlessly into my flesh, trying to hide itself within me, its tail flicking about like an angry cat’s. No this isn’t it, I decided, this is not the time. So again I looked for another way to release Edmond from the stasis chamber, but there seemed to be no latch, no opening device. I reached out to feel for one, thinking that perhaps touch would reveal something that sight had not. I was shocked at what I found. While to the eye, what lay before me looked three-dimensional, it was nothing more than a flat, smooth surface, as cold to the touch as the walls of the corridor had been. This had been just another one of Arrosha’s tricks. I stepped back, my newfound hope gone, even more at a loss as to what to do next than I had been before.
With nothing else to do now, I studied Edmond’s face very carefully for the first time. It really was Edmond, the man in the portrait, the man of my dreams, but he looked older now, about thirty-five years of age perhaps, and unlike in my dreams, he was unkempt. His hair was disheveled, in need of a cut or a trim, his fingernails were far too long, beginning to curve inward. While he was still wearing his expensive, old-fashioned suit and looked clean, he was sporting the scraggly, ungroomed facial hair one would expect from a man living on the streets, a man unable to avail himself of either razor or scissors. His eyes were closed and at first glance, except for the sad expression on his face, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully. When I looked closer, he was lying too still. There was no gentle movement of his chest to indicate breathing. While the stasis chamber itself, or at least its image, was undulating slightly as if it were alive, Edmond himself was as quiet and still as if he were a wax figure or, worse still, a corpse laid out for viewing at a funeral home. I was suddenly grateful for Arrosha’s history lesson; because of it I could recognize the suspended animation that looked so very much like death. I continued to stare at him, my heart pouring out to him, this poor, poor man, trapped in his prison for over one hundred and seventy-five years.
Even though this was only a projection, I was seeing him for the first time in my waking life. This wasn’t like looking at the portrait which, no matter how well executed, was still only a painting, completed so long ago, before he was entrapped. The projection that I now looked at was so life-like, so three-dimensional, that I felt a sense of immediacy about it. I was viewing a projection of him as he was now, at this very moment. How I knew that, despite my concerns about the tunnel, he was nearby, I could only ascribe to the amulet, since he was not able to communicate with me psychically in this otherworldly dimension that was Arrosha’s domain.
As I gazed at him in this projection, my heart recognized him in a way it had not in Arrosha’s phony scenario. There were none of the feelings of lust or eroticism, of course, for in his pitiable, coma-like state, how could there be? But I felt that I knew this man, that I had known him all my life, as if we had grown up together, as if we had been childhood friends. I couldn’t explain these feelings of having a lifelong familiarity when, in fact, no real-life connection had ever even existed, but these feelings were here and they were real. I loved him. Purely and simply, in a way that both embraced and transcended sheer romanticism, I loved him.
I continued to study Edmond’s face for a little while longer until I realized it was becoming less and less clear. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the projection in front of me faded until there was nothing to look at but a blank wall, identical to the one at the other end of the tunnel. Before the full implications of my immediate worst fear coming true, of being trapped in this tunnel without a way out, had a chance to sink in completely, the wall itself then began to dissolve until it, too, disappeared entirely.
A short stretch of tunnel, now exposed, lay before me, bathed in a blue light that came from a room at its now open end. I hoped that, unlike the projection of Edmond, the room would turn out to be real. I walked the remaining length of the corridor until I reached the chamber and cautiously peeked into it. It was enormous, at least as massive as the Great Room in Arrosha’s mansion, although all resemblance ended there. From my vantage point, it appeared to be completely round in shape, both in circumference and in height. I was standing at the doorway of what was, essentially, the inside of an enormous dome. Everything, the walls, the floors, matched the metal of the corridor out of which I had just walked. The support beams, which here still suggested bone structures, were rib-like, jutting out like buttresses, long and thick at the bottom, tapering in length and width and becoming more delicate at the apex. At the dome’s top they met, joining and crossing over each other seamlessly.
Within the floor itself, a few feet from the entryway in which I stood, a circular stream about seven feet wide was cut into the metal and appeared to run all the way around the room. It was filled with what seemed to be some kind of glowing, incandescent liquid which, as it flowed, continually changed color from electric blue to cold cyan green. At floor level, the metallic ribs of the room ran in depth from the wall to the edge of this man-made stream, barring anyone from travelling from one section of the wall to the next. The only way to get across the stream was by way of a small foot bridge that existed on my particular section alone.
No sooner had I stepped out of the doorway and walked into the room proper than the walls between the beams came alive, bursting with arteries and veins that pumped and throbbed with a fluid the same colors as the circular stream, as if these walls were the room’s living vascular system. I turned around and the doorway through which I had just passed was no longer there, replaced now with yet another wall containing pulsating blue and cold green veins. Arrosha really took her one-way doors seriously, so there was only one direction in which to go and that was forward. Looking ahead, I could n
ow see what lay before me at the center of this great, strange room. How did I miss it before? It must have been cloaked, the same trick she sometimes used at the mansion. A raised, circular platform, with steps leading up at all sides, stood in the center of the room. At the top of the platform was yet another half sphere, a small metallic dome. A globe hovered above it, glowing and pulsing in the same cool light as the walls and the stream. I didn’t want to walk up to it, but Arrosha had a way of leaving me no choice but to go down the paths she chose.
With caution, I approached the foot bridge. No sooner had I stepped on it than the fluid in the stream below me turned to blood red and began to steam and bubble. The walls followed suit, as did the globe floating above the central platform. As the entire room was bathed in a sickly throbbing red light, I realized that I’d triggered some kind of an alarm. Even though there would have been nowhere for me to go, I wanted to turn back and run, but no sooner had this thought entered my mind than the bridge began to disappear behind me, leaving me no choice but to continue forward. I quickened my forward pace now, afraid that if I didn’t, the bridge would disappear under my feet rather than simply behind me and I’d be thrown into the stream of what now looked like boiling blood. Arrosha had determined beyond a doubt that there would be no way out for me, no turning back.
I finally reached the other side and my feet touched the solid floor. As soon as I did, the stream, the veins and the glowing, floating orb returned to the same cool, fluorescent blues and cyans that they had been before I started to cross.
I walked around the central circular platform, but each section looked exactly like every other section. I was standing on what was now a metallic island of sorts, cut off from everything else. The little circular man-made stream would have been small enough to swim across easily had it been filled with water, but I wasn’t about to test the liquid it contained. After my fall from the tower, I had no doubt in my mind that Arrosha could kill me easily despite the necklace; she just couldn’t do it from up close.
So I stood there, on this little metallic island with no escape, wondering what to do next. However, my experiences with Arrosha had now taught me that I wouldn’t have to wait here long. She was not the type to leave a person stranded alone to die of thirst. It lacked drama and was far too mundane for her tastes. So I waited for the next thing to show up to scare me out of my wits. I was amazed at my own calm. The necklace amulet was kicking into high gear, doing its job ever more efficiently.
I was as ready for this game to be over as Arrosha was. If it weren’t for Edmond’s sake and the amulet, I’d be tired and numb, emotionally exhausted to the point of not caring any more whether I lived or died. Even if death meant that my afterlife would be one of helper, of joining Virginia, Marcus and Zachary in aiding those caught up in the same quest in which I was currently trapped, it seemed preferable now to the actuality of continuing to play this infernal pursuit that had gone on for what was soon approaching its two hundred year mark. Maybe someone stronger, smarter, more clever, more deserving than myself would get sucked into this nightmarish burden and would finally be able to best Arrosha at her own game.
As I suspected, I didn’t have to wait long for something to happen. I heard the very faint sound of something sliding, so faint that if I hadn’t been for my essence-enhanced senses coupled with the deathly quiet, I never would have perceived it. I looked up. The center of the dome on the platform, the side to which I was facing, was now open and dark, the floating globe above it now pulsing between gold and white. From its dark interior emerged a regal throne gliding out soundlessly. Upon it sat none other than Arrosha herself, once again making her grand entrance.
She gazed down at me and said, “Good lord, woman, what do I have to do to get rid of you?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Her cold, icy stare bored through me as she stood up from her throne and began a slow, graceful decent down the stairs of the platform. However, instead of the regal picture she tried so hard to present, her appearance was, instead, horrific. She was skeletal, far past the point of anorexia. She looked more like the pitiful victim of a famine, dressed in a healthy rich person’s finery than a goddess or a queen. Her skeleton showed prominently, her skin stretched over it without fat or muscle, a taut covering trying to hide the bones beneath. Her posture was still perfect, though, and her gait, while weary, still held more life than her form suggested.
Once she had descended the last step, she walked over and stood as close as the dragon amulet would allow. Then she stopped and stared, studying me. Her intense eyes were now merely two dark orbs that were far too large for her sunken, skull-like mask of a face. Her head now looked too big for the flesh-covered skeleton it crowned. Her too-tight skin was no longer beautifully fair, but was instead unnaturally white and very translucent, the little blue veins that ran beneath it far too visible. The only things that hadn’t changed about her was her beautiful black hair, eyebrows and eyelashes and these now, instead of enhancing her looks, were garishly out of place and only added to the harshness of her appearance.
“Am I so shocking to you?” she asked. The expression on my face must have been transparent.
“Now you can see for yourself why,” she continued, “despite the extreme importance of that necklace with its amulet to me, I choose to eliminate those that Edmond calls as his champions as quickly as possible rather than pursue this game. It takes a lot out of me, too much as you can see. It would never kill me, of course, but it is painful and wearisome, very, very wearisome.”
The exhaustion was apparent in her bulging eyes as well as in the voice that came from her thin, blue-tinged lips.
“I never thought you’d be so much trouble. I’ve easily eliminated so very many that were far stronger and much more intelligent and worthy than yourself. You were really nothing but a burn-out case when Edmond called you, weren’t you? I’m surprised that he chose you. I mean, you’re not nearly beautiful enough to be with him and when you started out on this quest, before the essence and the water, you weren’t young anymore and had already lost your figure. Those are all things that, personally, I rely upon quite heavily in my dealings with men. It surprised me more than a little bit to think that Edmond’s link to you would be the strongest, most romantic one he’s had a long, long while.
“But that link that you have with him is impressive, isn’t it? There’s no denying that. I haven’t seen anything like it in centuries. And then, when I put you in my realm where he can’t reach you, just plain dumb, blind luck takes over to protect you. Lots of interesting coincidences begin to happen. Geoffrey decides to screw up royally at a crucial time. And then, when I decide you’re no longer of any use to me whatsoever, Ben saves you from a fall you could never have survived. I realize now that I never should have turned him into a winged creature. I wouldn’t have actually let you die, of course. I wanted you hurt, not dead. I was going to slow your fall considerably before you hit land. But you wouldn’t be in as good shape as you’re in right now, that’s for sure. I’d have let you get injured a bit. Just a bit, though, maybe a broken bone or two, but nothing serious, because the fun hasn’t even started for me yet.
“Why does dumb luck always come to your rescue without fail? Tell me, woman, how come is it you never went further in life considering how much good fortune is yours?”
“Frankly,” I said, finding my voice, “I’ve never been a very lucky person. As a matter of fact, I’ve always thought of myself as being more than a little unlucky.”
“How interesting,” Arrosha responded. “That makes your link with Edmond even stronger than I suspected. You see, Edmond, before he decided to tangle with me, that is, was a very, very lucky man from birth. Born into a wealthy, privileged family, he had what others very commonly call a ‘Midas Touch’. Everything he set his aim toward succeeded brilliantly. Even his finding out a limited truth about me seemed lucky at the time, although in fact it turned out to be the most unlucky day of his life. Through the
link you two have, he must have transferred whatever good luck is still left in him to you. That’s never happened before. I would not have thought it possible. I wonder, was it deliberate on his part? Or is your link just so strong that it happened on its own? No matter, though, in the end it won’t help either of you. You’re in the heart of my domain now and he can’t help you anymore. Of course, I’ll do my best to ensure that whatever luck you have left will be very bad indeed.” She pondered this point for a few moments before then looking up at me again.
“Would you like to see him,” she said, “see Edmond? Not just a projection, but the actual man?”
“He’s here?” I asked, surprised by this offer. My heart jumped and excitement coursed through me, my emotions overriding my sense of doom of their own accord. My brain reminded me that I had no reason to be excited, for Edmond had already told me that Arrosha would bring me to him in the end for the sole purpose of letting him watch me die.
“Of course he’s here, you stupid woman,” she said, getting annoyed, “do you want to see him or not?”
“Yes. Of course I want to see him. Where is he?”
“Follow me, then. I’ll show him to you. Perhaps it will change your mind about giving me the amulet. I have several other things that I would like to show you as well.”
My short-lived sense of elation died at the sight of her cold, smug, self-satisfied smile. I knew that other than Edmond, I really did not want to see any of the things that she wanted to show me.
She floated toward the platform silently. I needed to follow her, but my feet had other plans.
The Nightmare Game Page 66