by Randy Nargi
The little girl was almost upon Mariel. Justin could see the expression on the child’s face. It was completely emotionless. Like a mannequin.
“Mariel!” Pari screamed. She held her hands up and Justin could see that she was trying to cast a spell, but it wasn’t working.
“How do we get out?” Justin yelled.
“Circles,” Mariel said in a quiet voice.
The little girl silently climbed into Mariel’s lap and hugged her.
“The circles are the key…”
Mariel began shiver and tremble. The little girl hugged her tighter, but that only seemed to make Mariel convulse more.
“I’m trying to heal her!” Pari cried out.
“Don’t look,” Klothar said.
He put his arms around Justin and Pari and steered them away. Justin chanced one more look back and saw Mariel slumped on to the ground and the little girl standing over her. The girl now had her face pressed to the glass and was looking right at them.
They retreated back into the spiral staircase and sat down.
“That was messed up,” Pari said.
“Yeah. What the hell was up with that little girl?”
“She is a wight,” Klothar said. “That’s my guess.”
“So now there are kiddie versions of monsters?”
They didn’t say anything for a long time. When Justin looked out into the room, there was no sign of the little girl.
“We need to get out of here,” Pari said. “If this really is the Temple of Xyurn, it’s really bad.”
Justin stood up. “I don’t think we’re in the temple any more. This place looks totally different. Remember, the temple was all black stone everything. This is wood.”
A flicker of recognition played across Pari’s face. “Wood,” she mumbled, then dug into her bag and pulled out the square plaque she had showed them earlier.
“Circles,” Pari said. “They are the key. That’s what Mariel said.”
“Yes!” Justin said. “She also said something about the ‘gap.’ She thought it was south, but it wasn’t.” He tapped the carving. “Circles. Gaps. That must be it.”
Pari’s face brightened. “You’re right!” She turned the plaque over and read aloud what was engraved there. “Worlds within worlds will show you the way.”
“All the places down here… these have all been worlds?” Justin asked.
“That makes no sense,” Klothar said. “They’ve been different chambers, halls, passages. Not worlds.”
“Not literally worlds,” Pari said. “But what about this?” She pointed to the pillar in the center of the staircase and the painting of Tomira on it. “This is the world, right? That’s what you said.”
Justin nodded. “These places we’ve been could be worlds symbolically.” He gestured at the carving. “And they have been getting smaller. We started out in the market square. That was huge, right?”
“Yes!” Pari said excitedly. “Then the big ore processing warehouse.”
“Then the temple and then this place. You’re right, they have been getting smaller.”
“Those chalk marks,” Klothar mused. “Most of them were U-shaped were they not?”
Justin closed his eyes and tried to picture the various blue chalk marks they had seen on the different doorways and passages. This is where his eidetics skill was really handy.
“The first mark was actually a backward C,” he said. “It was on the door into the ore place.”
“Right!”
“Then a U-shaped mark. That was on the secret door, remember? Right before Klothar got ganked by that ape thing.”
“I did not get ganked,” Klothar said testily. “Whatever that means.”
“And then there was another U-shaped mark in the temple—inside that pit,” Justin said.
Pari nodded slowly. “I remember.”
“Was that it?” asked Klothar. “Just three marks?”
Justin thought back and, one more time, reviewed every place they had been. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” He began counting on his fingers. “Backwards C to the ore place, U to the secret door, and another U in the pit of the temple place.”
“Well, obviously they correspond to these outer three rings,” Pari said. “Look.” She pointed to the carving. “One, two, three.”
Klothar moved closer. “The gap on the outer ring is to the west. The next two are to the north.”
“I don’t remember any of the directions the marked passages led,” Pari said. “Do you?”
“No,” Klothar admitted. “Except the first door. That led west, I am quite sure.”
“How do we know which way is north—on the plaque, I mean?” Justin asked.
“Good point,” Pari said. “I’m just going by the writing on the back. North is up.”
“This is an exceedingly clever key,” Klothar said, scratching his chin. “The circles serve as both markers and arrows of a sort. The backwards C points west, the U shapes point north.”
“That means the next ring in points southeast,” Justin said.
“What are we waiting for?” Pari asked.
They gathered their stuff and walked over to the southeast glass wall. There was an inset frame in the center of it, just like all the other walls had. The frame was the size and shape of a door, but without handles.
Klothar moved in for a closer look at the frame. “Let us examine this carefully. If we choose wrong, we’ll be at the mercy of that wight.”
“It looks like this frame is made of the same material as the wall,” Justin said. Without thinking, he knocked on it.
“NOOOOOOOO!” Pari screamed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“You asshole!”
“I’m sorry. It was just—I wasn’t thinking—”
“Hush!” Klothar said. “Your bickering will attract the wight!”
They had all been teleported through the wall and now were in a shadowy maze on the other side of the glass. This place, whatever it was, felt cold and very damp.
“I’m going to need the two of you to get in position and stay that way,” Klothar said sharply. “Don’t take a single step unless I command you to. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Pari said quietly.
She was obviously messed up by what had happened to her ex-guildie.
All around them were dark walls and passages and archways. It looked exactly the same as where Mariel had been. Justin’s heart sunk as he realized that they had screwed up.
“We need to stay on this path,” Klothar said. He pointed down to the ground. There was a purple tinge to the floor that led into the darkness, like someone had painted a three-foot-wide purple stripe down the center of the floor and then washed it almost completely clean.
Far off in the distance, they heard the distinct giggle of a little girl.
Justin’s heart hammered in his chest. “I am not going to let that little freak drain me. How do you kill a wight?”
“You don’t,” Klothar said. “They are already dead.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Lad, I told you once: keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
“Yes, sarge.”
The purple path wound its way around corners and through doorways. It really was a maze, but Justin had no idea if it connected to the section where Mariel had been trapped.
All of a sudden Klothar froze. “The wight!” he whispered.
Right in front of him, not ten feet away, was the little girl. As she stood there staring at them, Klothar notched an arrow.
“Don’t!” Pari said. “She might charge.”
“What?” Justin gripped his staff tightly. This was getting sicker and sicker.
“Wights can move super quickly,” Pari said. “At least the big ones I’ve seen.”
They continued to inch forward until they were just out of the little girl’s reach. She tilted her head as if she was curious.
Klothar said, “We have to strike first. I’ll shoot her head and if that doesn’t
kill her, the two of you attack with your staves. Just don’t let her touch you, whatever you do.”
“Wait a second,” Pari said. “What if we just keep going?”
“Are you addled, good lady? We saw what this creature did to that poor woman.”
“Yes, but Mariel went in the wrong door. We went in the right door. We must have.”
“How can you say that?” Justin asked. “We’re in the same place as her.”
“I didn’t see a purple path where she was. Did you?”
Justin tried to remember. He couldn’t recall any purple on the ground near Mariel.
“Let me go first,” Pari said. “If it touches me, plug it. I’ll cast healing shield on myself.”
“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Justin said.
“Tough. I’m the leader.”
Klothar raised an eyebrow. “I thought that I was the leader.”
Pari ignored him and stepped around the ranger. She took a deep breath and started walking slowly and deliberately.
The little girl turned to face Pari. Pari kept going, one step after another, but the girl made no move to attack.
From the far end of the path Pari smiled.
Next, Justin went. The same deal. Slow, steady steps.
As he passed the little girl, he chanced a quick look. Her eyes were completely dead. It was chilling. Like looking into the eyes of a serial killer.
“Move along, lad.” Klothar’s voice shook him from his reverie.
The ranger lowered his bow and softly stepped along the path, joining Justin and Pari.
Although the little girl hadn’t moved from her spot, she did turn to stare at them, fixing them with her dead-eyed gaze.
This was intense.
“Well done, my lady,” Klothar whispered. “Let us proceed. Pari, you lead, then Justin, and I shall keep my bow trained on the wight in case it changes its mind about us.”
Luckily, the baby wight remained where it was, and they all continued around a corner and down a sloping hallway which ended in a wooden door. The door was wood and had the same purplish tint as the floor.
Suddenly a child’s voice echoed throughout the hall. “Beware! Those who surrender the dreaming are lost.”
“Um, okay… super creepy,” Pari said.
“What does that mean—‘surrender the dreaming?’ It’s so weird.”
“’Tis likely just the mad raving of the wight, trying to frighten us,” Klothar said. “Pay it no mind.”
He listened at the door and examined it for traps. Then he cracked the door open and immediately they were all hit with a warm, almost fetid, blast of air.
Ugh.
“What is that?” Pari wrinkled her nose. “It smells like a swamp.”
Cautiously, Klothar made his way through the doorway and after a few moments, motioned for Justin and Pari to follow.
They stood on a balcony connected to a narrow stone bridge. The bridge led to a blocky one-story stone building on a little rocky island, and everything was lit by some sort of glowing fog.
“This is different,” Justin said.
Twenty feet below them a swamp bubbled. That was the source of the stench. It had to be.
“Let us be cautious on the bridge,” Klothar said. “While it looks solid enough, I wouldn’t want a trap to dump us in that morass below.”
So they carefully checked every yard in front of them before proceeding, but eventually they made it to the little island and a set of wooden double doors on the western side of the building.
Pari removed the plaque from her bag and examined it. “If this thing is right, we’re only two circles from the end.”
“Let’s do it,” Justin said.
Klothar checked the double doors. “Unlocked. That’s either a good sign or a very bad one.”
They opened the doors and entered the building, which, on the inside, looked to be a barracks or a hospital ward or something. It was a large space, maybe fifty feet by fifty feet filled with rows of beds. There must have been at least two dozen in all, each with lumpy burlap sacks as mattresses but no pillows or blankets.
Torches flickered on every wall and on two rows of intricately carved wooden pillars running down the center. The ceiling was tall—twenty feet over their heads at least.
Down the center of the room, between all the beds, was a line of long wooden tables placed end-to-end. The tables were bare and there were no chairs.
Both the north and south walls had short stone staircases leading up to landings with a gate set into the wall.
“I’d like to know who lit these torches,” Justin said.
“Me too,” Pari said.
Klothar did an initial check of the room and then they spent the next half hour or so examining everything more carefully—especially the gates at the top of the stairs on each end of the chamber as well as the wooden pillars.
The pillars were square and about two feet wide and had a repeating design carved on to each face: a dragon or some kind of sea monster swimming in the ocean. On the creature’s back was a mountain covered with forests and waterfalls and teeming with all kinds of animals and birds. Hovering over the mountain was a sun and seven stars. It was very intricate and very beautiful.
“This seems familiar,” Pari said. “Like something I’ve seen in a museum or something.”
“I know, it does seem familiar. I wish I had paid more attention in my art history classes.”
“That leviathan is certainly a fearsome beast,” Klothar said. “I wouldn’t want to encounter it in the open water.”
Next, they turned their attention to the gates on either side of the chamber. Justin was the first one to examine each gate and he discovered that they weren’t quite identical. The southern gate was made of white ivory or even bone while the northern gate was made of what looked like polished deer antlers.
“An odd choice of materials,” Justin said.
“We know we need to go through the north gate,” Pari said. “What are we waiting for?”
“The lady has a point.”
“Yeah, I’m all for that,” Justin said. “Except that they’re both totally locked.”
“What? You tried them?” Pari’s eyes narrowed.
“Lad, how many times to we have to tell you—you must not touch doors.”
“I know, I know. Sorry. It’s just that I’m kind of wiped and I’m not thinking straight.”
“Me too,” Pari said. “We could camp for a while. Nap.”
“Oh, yeah. Nothing will crawl out of those gates and kill us while we sleep or anything.”
“I’ll keep the first watch,” Klothar offered.
They dragged a few tables up to block each of the gates and then pulled other tables to bar the door. Then they drank some water and the ate last of their food.
With a full stomach and feeling even more dead to the world, Justin was about to collapse into the nearest bed, when Pari stopped him. She pulled her knife out and began to randomly stab the burlap mattress.
“Just checking. I’ve seen situations where there are zombies hiding in sacks of straw like this, and it’s not pretty.”
His stomach turned a bit at the thought. “Uh, thanks.”
Within a minute of hitting the sack—literally—Justin was asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“When?” Margolin asked.
“Within the last 60 minutes,” Qadri said.
“Does Basato know?”
“Of course he does. They had their own medical personnel there as well.”
“What do you think it means?” Margolin had his own ideas, but he wanted to hear what Qadri had to say.
The older man leaned back in his chair. “It means we have to get on top of this, once and for all, Jon. Even though Basato and Noon are on board that doesn’t mean squat. There are plenty of other flattops who could shit all over this. And then all our work for the past seventeen years is for nothing.”
“I know.” Margol
in kneaded his shoulder. The pain was definitely back. “But how do we figure out what its motives were? I mean, it did finally release them.”
“But on its own schedule. It shouldn’t have taken 24 hours. You know that as well as I do.”
“No, you’re right. But the thing we don’t know is how much of this so-called aberrant behavior is just the controller doing its job.”
“I know that’s your working theory, but we can’t know for sure until we go through the log files. With human eyes. That’s going to take a long time. Weeks, months, I don’t know.”
“And we need the controller offline,” Margolin said.
Qadri nodded.
Margolin rubbed his shoulder again. “That’s going to kill our schedule.”
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Maybe we don’t.” Margolin stood up. He didn’t like any of this. But there weren’t any other options. They would have to just be damn sure that none of the players were affected.
“Where are we with the shut down?”
“Debarcation’s already started. I think it runs another six hours. Then 24 hours of observation and debriefs.”
“Debriefs plural? How many are there?”
“Marketing gets their own, remember?”
Margolin made a disgusted sound.
“And James wants to do a FBW scan.”
“Five thousand people? That’s going to take forever.”
Qadri shrugged. “He’s concerned about some sort of payload.”
“So when will they be released to Bend? I hope someone is talking with the account team. The families are going to be on the warpath.”
“We’re thinking Wednesday morning,” Qadri said. “All except Mr. Reese, who gets extra time with Marketing and then gets whisked off to do press with Sabel.”
“Okay, speak to Basato about raising the security level to four. Once the players are out of our hair, I want a complete audit. Everyone who’s here, stays here. No one goes in or out until those logs are crunched.”
“Well, that’s going to piss Trudy off.”
“Why?”
“She’s got vacation starting on Friday. Her big Greece trip.”
“That sucks for her. I need her here. All hands on deck.”
