‘What are you doing?!’ Trish said, standing.
Sarah reached Riley’s body, grasped his climbing harness and dragged him towards the nearest alcove. ‘I can bring him back.’
‘What?’
‘I can bring him back!’
Jason tried to stop her, but she pushed him away, her look ferocious.
‘Help me!’ Sarah said to Trish.
Her friend looked at her, uncomprehending, and Sarah continued to drag Riley’s corpse across the ground.
Reaching the alcove, she heaved his body inside its icy mist and waited for something to happen.
‘Sarah, he’s gone,’ Trish said. ‘You have to let him go.’
‘NO! I can heal him.’ She crouched down and touched his face. ‘I can heal you.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
Sarah kissed Riley’s cold lips and turned away from the alcove to look for Goodwin.
‘Sarah,’ Jason said, grasping her shoulders, ‘Riley’s dead, you can’t heal him.’ The distant roar of a Pharos echoed through the sphinx. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Sarah pushed Jason aside and joined Goodwin, who stood facing the strange glow that permeated the misty air a hundred feet away. She made to move towards it, but Goodwin grasped her arm.
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘something’s not right.’
A faint light spread through the mist-shrouded ground and a strange vibration rippled up through their feet. They retreated, but seconds later the sensation ceased and the illumination faded. The vapour that covered the ground cleared to reveal a massive, circular crater, two hundred feet across and twenty feet deep. Whether this feature was newly formed or had been concealed by the mist all along, Sarah didn’t know, but the concave depression bridged the gap between one iced wall and the other; both of which pulsed with the faintest light. Her visor fuzzed and adjusted to the changing range to reveal a massive, metallic pentagram resting at the bottom of the crater. In its centre, steps led up to a raised, circular dais on which stood the altar, and standing next to this was the small figure of Susan. The woman was looking straight at them with bloodshot eyes. It was as if she was waiting for them to approach. Sarah zoomed in her visor to see she held the pendant clutched in one hand.
Something moved in the dark and Sarah’s eyes grew wide as Dresden Locke appeared through the mist and grabbed Susan from behind. A second later he’d wrested the pendant from her and sent her tumbling down the steps.
‘You’re too late, Morgan,’ Locke said, holding up the pendant, ‘you’re never getting back to the surface!’
Rage swamped Sarah’s senses like nothing she’d ever felt before, and she went to jump down into the crater, but Jason hauled her back.
‘Get off me!’ she said, writhing in his grasp.
‘Sarah, no,’ Trish said, ‘look!’
A dark liquid gushed up from the bottom of the depression to cover the giant metal pentagram, which lurched into a clockwise rotation. Locke saw his escape route disappearing before his eyes, while Susan had already made it to the far side and scrambled up the slope to safety.
Locke jumped down onto the moving pentagram, intending to follow her, but seconds later he was wading waist deep in viscous oil. He looked around him as the level reached his chest, then cried out and clutched his head in pain. Unable to make it out, he staggered back to the steps and up towards the altar, his face contorted in agony. By then he was covered in black ooze and he fell to his knees to writhe in torment. With a sudden screech, he reared up and dug his fingers into his face, tearing into his flesh with his nails. He screamed and screamed again before gouging his knife into his cheek and down into his neck.
Trish gasped and averted her gaze as the blood flowed. The oil surged higher, and in a moment of lucidity Locke managed to drag his grappling gun clear and fire it towards them. The bolt whistled past their heads and punched into the glowing wall, but the discharge from the device ignited the oil. Flames licked up his arm and over his body. An instant later Locke had turned into a human torch as the fires raged and spread. With a final bloodcurdling shriek of terror, the SED facility commander plunged the blade into his own chest, once – twice – three times. The knife fell from his grasp and Dresden Locke slumped onto the steps and slid down into the black fluid to vanish beneath its burning surface.
Sarah stared in shock at the fiery lake that now encircled the central platform. Locke was gone, and with him her chance to save Riley.
‘My God,’ Jason said, ‘what is that stuff?’
‘It’s a neurotoxin,’ Goodwin said, ‘or a hallucinogen, or both. It’s everywhere down here. I had to swim through it to get here the first time. It nearly killed me. I think it’s used as some kind of test.’
‘Test?’ Jason said.
Goodwin looked past him to Sarah. ‘A test of faith.’
Sarah held his gaze for a moment before looking back to the central dais through the waves of heat and noticed something glinting in the oil near the altar’s base. She zoomed in her visor to see the edge of something metallic. It was the pendant.
She looked at Goodwin. ‘What did you just say?’
‘It’s a test of faith.’
‘No, before that; you said you swam through it?’
He nodded. ‘I used this.’ He indicated his helmet and baggy decontamination suit. ‘It doubles as a diving suit.’
Sarah looked down at her own suit and back to the pendant, then reached up to remove her Deep Reach helmet, which she held out to Goodwin.
He considered her for a moment and a sense of shared understanding passed between them. They would each do anything for the ones they loved. Goodwin twisted his transparent helmet from its locked position and they swapped headgear.
Trish grasped her arm. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to get the pendant.’ Sarah secured her suit’s breathing mask over her face, then pulled on Goodwin’s helmet, locked it in place against her collar’s mechanism, and switched on its head-up-display.
‘It’s gone,’ Jason said, ‘we’re done.’
‘No, it’s there, I can see it.’ Sarah pointed in its direction and Jason turned to look.
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s there or not,’ Trish said, ‘you just saw what happened to Locke.’
‘And you heard what Goodwin told us,’ Sarah said, ‘it’s a test and without the pendant we can’t activate the Anakim tech and we’ll be stuck down here forever.’
‘I worked the megalith without your pendant,’ Goodwin said, ‘you just need the blue crystals.’
Trish gestured to him. ‘See, we might not need it!’
‘Although,’ – Goodwin looked at the frozen form of Rebecca – ‘it controlled me more than I did it … and someone died.’
Sarah stared into the burning oil that flowed round in a spiral from the crater’s centre out, its speed increasing into a slow, hypnotic whirlpool of flame.
‘I’m not sure if the suit will withstand the heat,’ Goodwin said, following her gaze. ‘The longer it burns, the hotter it’ll get.’
The roar of a Pharos echoed through the sphinx, sounding closer than before, and Sarah pulled up the zipper on her suit. ‘Then I better get moving.’
‘No.’ Trish moved in front of her. ‘It could kill you!’
Sarah glanced back at Riley’s alcove through the clearing mists. The vivid memory of his look of shock as the knife pierced his heart replayed over and over in her mind. ‘I have to try. I have to try and bring him back.’
The speed of the fiery whirlpool increased and the flames grew higher.
‘You can’t go in there,’ Jason said, as they backed away from the heat, ‘it’s too dangerous.’
‘I have no choice.’ Sarah hugged him. ‘Find the transportation device; if I don’t make it, you may still be able to get to the surface with Goodwin’s help.’
Goodwin shook her hand. ‘Call me Richard.’
She gave him a tired smile. ‘With Richard’s help.’
>
Goodwin stepped in to check her breathing apparatus. ‘The oil will enter the helmet,’ he said, ‘and as soon as it touches your skin the hallucinations will start. You’ll need to focus your mind, or you won’t come back.’
‘If I can get the altar to work,’ she said, ‘I’ll do my best to free your friends.’
Goodwin gave her a grim nod. ‘Good luck.’
‘Sarah,’ Jason said, ‘please don’t do this.’
She touched his cheek before Trish dragged her into a fierce embrace.
Sarah held her friend tight, the agony of separation unbearable. She made to pull away, but Trish wouldn’t let go.
‘I have to go,’ Sarah said.
Trish shook her head and mouthed ‘no’ as a tear ran down her face.
Sarah prised herself away and moved towards the flames, but her friend held onto her hand. Sarah gave Trish a fond smile and squeezed her fingers in a final farewell before turning to face the sinister crater, her expression hardening into determination.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Alone and bereft, Sarah approached the inferno, which swirled past with ever-increasing speed. She double-checked that her helmet was sealed and dropped into a crouch. She could just make out the metal pentagram at the crater’s centre as the oil was thrown out from its rotation. The metallic structure spun faster around the dais, which remained static, and Sarah fought back her fear of the terrifying flames.
The heat built and she knew she couldn’t afford to wait any longer. She rocked back on her heels, took a deep breath and leapt into the swirling cauldron.
Fire roared around her before she plunged into the oil and darkness swallowed her like the blackest night. Swept sideways, she sank to the bottom, where the oil cooled and thickened. A flash of terror tore through her mind and she gasped in shock as horrific thoughts and images bombarded her like the strobe from hell. Fighting back a scream, she bowed her head and crawled forward against the flow. Sparks of electricity flashed before her eyes as the oil poured into her helmet. The internal display flickered dead and the hot, viscous liquid crept higher.
Blinded, Sarah felt the oil seep into her mask and she coughed and choked as noxious fumes made her eyes water and throat burn. Strange, ethereal lights flickered around her and the visions intensified. Panic swelled as pain seared her body and oil flowed into her mouth and up her nose.
Swept up by the whirlpool, she floated in semi-conscious freefall along the bottom of the crater. Her helmet clonked and scraped across its surface before shattering into pieces. Oil flooded into her lungs and Sarah spun into the pitch-black, out of control … and out of time.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Sarah groaned and opened her eyes. A strange object moved in front of her. It flickered with a dull orange light and spun on its axis like a giant spinning top. Pain filled her chest and she coughed and retched as she choked for air. Rolling onto her front, she vomited up a gallon of black oil and sucked in a shuddering breath. The shock of reality returned and she saw the thing she’d been looking at wasn’t moving at all, she was. I’m on the pentagram, she thought. The steps of the dais that led up to the altar were thirty feet away and it was that which she’d seen moving round and round.
She glanced back to see a wall of black oil forced out by the pentagram’s speeding rotation. Five feet above, on the surface, the fires still raged and she clung on as the centrifugal force tried to cast her back into the seething flow. The metal pentagram must have risen ten feet, she realised, and the faster it spins, the higher it gets. As if on cue, the pentagram’s speed increased again and the structure inched higher, while buffeting winds caused her oil-damp hair to flutter in its wake.
Sarah shuffled forward on all fours, but almost slipped from the pentagram’s edge and into one of its voids. Flinging out a hand, she halted her momentum at the point of no return. She stared down into a darkness that rippled like liquid metal. Through this strange effect she could see another pentagram spinning beneath the first, although every now and then she glimpsed something different, something that enticed her into its depths – an incomplete image of somewhere … else.
Black oil still coated her from head to toe and before she could make sense of what she was seeing, chilling sounds attacked her senses. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled and a sense of fear washed over her like a plague. The assault on her mind returned with a vengeance and she grasped her head in agony. A familiar voice echoed through the ether. Why do you fear me? … you fear me … fear me? Her gaze was drawn to the void and its dull flicker of light. Am I not what you desire? … you desire … desire?
Sarah felt an overwhelming compulsion to let herself be dragged into the shimmering surface – to let it take her into its dark embrace. She toppled towards the void as the suction pulled her down, down into its depths. Something glinted in the shadows’ light … something gold. Sarah reached out shaky fingers and grasped her cross that hung down on its chain. The air continued to rush past as she stared, entranced, into the abyss. The wind howled and ghost-like fingers brushed her skin. She shut her eyes against the horror that consumed her and grasped the cross tighter. A vision of fire and smoke billowed into being. She felt her lungs choke and skin burn. Pain seared through her body and her hand clenched into a fist. Blood welled as the cross bit into flesh. A flash of light broke the dark and she willed herself back to safer ground.
Holding the golden keepsake before her like a shield, Sarah crawled forward, her hand bleeding, her mind a sea of pain. Time slowed and terrifying noises and wraith-like shrieks made her flinch in fear. Ghostly apparitions flew at her through the dark, their hideous forms tearing at her mind with raking claws. Terror seized tight and she gasped for air as her throat constricted before she saw something crawling under the skin of her hand. Her whole body rippled with parasites. She felt like her flesh was being eaten from the inside. The desire to tear them out, to rid her body of its torment, to stop the excruciating pain, was unbearable! She screamed and squeezed her eyes tight and the cross tighter still. Her body contorted in seizure before the flicker of fire fought back the dark and she saw the dais within reach.
Panic-stricken, she relinquished her blood-soaked grip on the cross to lurch onto stone steps. Thrust sideways by the mismatch in motion, Sarah found herself tumbling back towards the spinning pentagram. She scrabbled for purchase as she fell and halted her slide into oblivion by a hair’s breadth. The metal pentagram whooshed past below and she collapsed back onto the circular stairway in exhaustion.
Time continued to pass before she recalled her mission. Mustering an inner reserve, she got to her hands and knees and hauled herself up towards the altar.
The whirlpool of flame beyond the pentagram made the darkness flicker and writhe, and with no helmet display by which to see, Sarah reached out to search for the Anakim pendant with her hands.
Something rough, like fingers, skittered from her touch.
She stifled a scream and snatched back her hand.
‘It’s all in your head,’ she whispered, ‘it’s not real; it’s all in your head.’
She continued searching for the artefact, terrified by the thought of what she might encounter next.
Seconds of dread ticked by before she felt the cold of metal. Relieved, she coiled her fingers around her pendant and staggered to her feet, holding onto the altar. Her mind slowly cleared after its ordeal and she clipped the pentagonal disc to her chain.
She glanced up to see the distorted forms of her friends watching her through the flames and to their left, she could just make out Riley’s alcove and his mist-wreathed form within.
Sarah looked back down at the metallic altar and its deep runic carvings. All she had to do now was to figure out how to turn it on.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Sarah stared at the five-sided altar, trying to find something that looked familiar. There was no circular indent, but she knew this didn’t mean it couldn’t be activated. She ran her hands over its
surface and around its rim, before pressing them down in its centre. An icy chill permeated her skin, but nothing happened. She noticed a circle of symbols arranged around the altar’s edge. One in particular caught her eye, the constellation of Libra. She touched it. Again nothing happened, but she noticed the faintest flicker of light where she’d placed her hands before. She leaned down to inspect it, but it had disappeared. Wondering if her mind was still playing tricks on her, she saw the imprint of fingers on the surface – an imprint in blood.
She held up her hand, the palm stained red where the cross had cut into her skin, and then remembered part of the vision induced by the orb: a bloodstained altar amidst a sea of black, and flanked by strange, glowing walls.
She looked beyond her friends to the faint light pulsing inside the crystalline structure and realised the orb had been showing her where to go. Has it been trying to help me save Riley? Her eyes drifted to the alcove where she’d laid him to rest. Has it been telling me more than just the destination? What if it has given me the key to the altar’s activation itself?
There was only one way to find out.
Sarah put her hand back to her cross and squeezed hard. Blood dripped down through her fingers and onto the altar. She leaned in to see tiny tendrils of electricity crackling over its surface.
Her blood was the key!
She held out her other hand and cried out in pain as she reopened the wound given her by Locke’s knife. More blood flowed and she placed her hands back on the altar and the pendant grew warm.
♦
Goodwin held his breath as the spinning pentagram rose higher and a faint glow of light from the altar penetrated through the flames. He glanced at the crystal wall where its glow intensified, before the sound of stone grinding on stone made him look up.
High above, a crack of light appeared in the ceiling. Second by second the opening grew wider and longer, stretching down the sphinx’s entire length as the roof retracted to reveal the flickering storm clouds in the chamber beyond. Thunder rumbled and a cold wind swept down into the hall like the hand of Zeus. The roaring flames bent and fluttered and the pervasive mists curled into a swirling mix.
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 23