by Bryan Davis
Watching her own shadow on the tunnel wall, she pictured the humanoid plants attempting to walk on their spindly green legs, tired and wobbly as they exercised to the beat of a slave-driving drummer. But when she tried to imagine a face on the shadowy mirage, she could only see Yereq’s, sad and thin as he toiled in silence.
As she slid down into her dugout, a tear formed in each eye. Yereq still came to mind every day, especially the hate-filled look in his eyes when Morgan finally sent him to the mobility room for good. What was he doing now? Could he be a fully formed giant? He had enough time to grow that much. But he had never shown up as a slave driver in the magnetite trenches or taken a shift as the lift operator. What might his job be?
Sapphira set the lantern on the floor, illuminating the two stone bunks. Paili sat in hers, her tiny feet brushing the floor as they swung back and forth. She formed her words slowly and carefully. “The lantern is very bright.”
Sapphira waved her hand over the flame. “Sorry.” The lantern slowly dimmed.
“If Morgan catches you doing that. . you will be. .” Paili rolled her eyes upward, apparently in search of a word.
“In big trouble?” Sapphira offered.
Paili nodded.
Sapphira wiggled her fingers at the lantern, and the flame waved its pointy head back at her. “I think she’s already suspicious about my power, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid of her anymore.”
“You should be afraid. If she. . catches you trying to break into. .” Paili glanced upward again, but this time, she just shook her head and sighed. “Too many words.”
“Take your time.” Sapphira stroked Paili’s hair. She was still an eight-year-old in body, and perhaps even younger in mind, even after over a thousand years of training. “You’ve come a long way, Paili. Don’t get discouraged.”
Paili forced out her words as though each one tortured her throat. “I was. . doing better. Something. . is wrong.”
“Yes, I know. I’m still trying to figure out what’s holding you back.” She sat on the floor next to Paili’s bed, using her toes to pinch a stale morsel of bread near the “mouse” hole. A dozen or so other morsels lay strewn around the opening.
Sapphira tickled Paili’s foot. “How’s our food supply?”
Paili just sighed and pulled her leg up to her bed.
Sapphira winced. “Oh. Sorry. Yes or no questions.” She kicked one of the morsels toward her hand and swept it into her fingers. “Do we have enough dried fruits and vegetables for another week?”
“No.”
“Another day?”
“Yes.”
“Is Naamah still bringing fruit from the bad tree for you to cook?”
“Yes.”
“Has she said anything about when Morgan might come back?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
Sapphira pulled her knees up to her chest. “That means tonight’s my last chance to search her castle. Whenever I’m anywhere near the portal, she doesn’t let me out of her sight.”
Paili grabbed Sapphira’s arm and pulled. “No! Don’t!”
“Paili!” Sapphira jerked her arm away. “I have to find Elam.”
“He is dead!” Paili moaned.
“Maybe not. Just because we don’t need bricks anymore doesn’t mean they killed him.”
Paili spread out three fingers. “Taalah is dead. Qadar is dead. . Elam is dead.”
“No!” Sapphira said, wrapping her hand around Paili’s fingers. “We didn’t see Elam get hauled off to the chasm like all the girls.”
Paili scowled. “You. . never see Elam.”
Sapphira drooped her head and sighed. “I know.” With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the bread back at the hole. Then, reaching under Paili’s bunk, she withdrew a blossom and caressed one of its seven petals, as white and supple as the day she found her living gift centuries ago. “Elam’s not an underborn,” she said, laying the blossom on her bed, “so he probably died of old age a long time ago.”
“Yes. So you. . stay here tonight.”
“No.” Sapphira rose to her feet and smacked her palm with her fist. “I haven’t looked everywhere, and I can’t ignore the feeling that someone’s being held prisoner in Morgan’s house. Even if it’s not him, I have to keep looking.”
Paili grabbed her forearm. “No!” she cried, squeezing tightly. “If you die. . I am alone.”
Sapphira jerked free. “I won’t die!”
The lantern’s dim light reflected in Paili’s tears, two long streams running down her cheeks. Sapphira sighed and sat next to her, stroking her hair again. “Paili, everything will be okay. Elohim hasn’t brought me this far to let me die now. Why would he give me my power if he just wanted me to die down here?”
Paili pulled in her bottom lip and frowned.
“This will be the last time. I promise.” Sapphira picked up her lantern and headed for the hovel’s exit, whispering to the flame. “A bit lower, please.”
As the lantern’s glow diminished, she checked for the Ovulum in her pocket and climbed out into the corridor, tiptoeing in front of her own stalking silhouette. So far, so good. Morgan lurked somewhere in the overworld, Naamah was probably sleeping by now, but where might Mardon be? Since he never wanted her to leave the hovel at night, it seemed that he was hiding some terrible secret. Who could tell how late he might be working in the control room. . or watching from the surrounding shadows?
As she approached the control room, the door swung open, and Mardon bustled out, studying a page of parchment as he strode toward her. She flattened herself against a wall and snuffed her flame with a quick wave. As he passed by, the light from Mardon’s lantern brushed across her eyes, but he never looked up from his work. She waited a few seconds, then continued on, not bothering to summon her fire again. After several centuries, the winding, upward path was all too familiar, even in total darkness.
After hurrying through the old green portal chamber, she felt for the entry to the next corridor and crept through, helped by the glow in the distance from the guard’s lantern and the swirling eddies emanating from the newer portal’s blue column. As she neared the chamber, she tiptoed and called out her usual warning, having learned that it’s never wise to startle a guardian giant. “Anak? It’s Sapphira.”
Just as she stepped into the chamber, the giant’s deep voice echoed off the distant walls and ceiling. “More night reading, daughter of the earth?”
Sapphira cringed. No matter how many times he taunted her with that name, it never failed to sting. Firming her chin, she strode into the towering giant’s shadow and crossed her arms over her chest. “At least I can read, son of putrefaction.”
Anak roared with laughter, making his muscular torso quiver. “A new insult from the queen of glib tongues.” He reached down and patted her on the head. “Morgan must keep you around for entertainment. I would have fed your carcass to the birds by now.”
Sapphira kept a stony face under the giant’s condescending hand. “She keeps me around, because I was smart enough not to teach Mardon everything I learned while he was gone. Without me, her garden of giants would produce nothing but fools like Anak and his sons.” She moved her hands to her hips. “If I remember the story Morgan told me, one of your sons lost his head at the hands of a shepherd boy.”
“Acid-tongued wench!” Anak wrapped his huge, six-fingered hand around her face and shoved her backwards, making her flop down on her buttocks. “David and his sons rot in their tombs while I live on.”
Sapphira climbed slowly to her feet and pulled out her coif. “Only by Morgan’s black arts.” As she spoke, she crept nearer, tying on her covering and keeping her eyes locked on Anak’s. “What would happen if you passed through the portal back to the land of the living?” She began tucking her hair into her coif, slowly making a circle around the portal. Anak’s gaze followed her, his body turning with his head. “If you went there, you would be a rotting corpse, because you died in that dimension, just like Mardon, a
nd you’re stuck here because Morgan uses her arts to keep you from passing on to your eternal reward.”
Anak glared at her. “What do you know about eternal rewards? You’re stuck in this hellhole with me.”
With slow, furtive steps, she passed by him and eased closer to the swirling column of pale blue light. “I can’t argue with that. But at least I have hope. I have never died.” She withdrew the Ovulum from her pocket and laid it in her palm, pausing for a moment to make sure the giant moved his gaze to the egg’s mirror-like surface as it reflected the portal’s dancing light.
The moment he looked down, Sapphira leaped for the portal, but with a lightning fast sweep of his arm, Anak snatched her right out of the air and threw her to the ground. She tumbled head over heels and slid to a stop, scraping her elbow.
Anak extended his long arm and pointed at her. “Devious vixen! Get your scrolls and be gone!”
Sapphira rose slowly and brushed herself off, taking a second to examine the trickle of blood oozing down her forearm. It stung pretty badly, but at least she had managed to cling to her Ovulum. She slid it carefully back into her pocket and headed toward the tower, making a wide circle around the scowling Anak. As she passed through the broken doors, she clenched her fists. She had gotten so close! Just a few more inches, and she would have been on her way back to the upper realms, to the land of the living!
Keeping well away from the tree in the center and its twelve saluting statues, Sapphira shuffled to the outer wall and grasped the sides of one of the tall ladders that lined the stacks of shelves. Putting one foot on the first step, she paused and looked back at the portal’s bluish glow. What if she had made it into the column? Would it really have led to the upper world? Morgan had expressed her doubts long ago, and she was usually right about things like that. Still, it might be worth exploring if she could ever get past Anak, but would she be able to find her way home? And if she got lost in another dimension, what would Morgan do to Paili?
Sapphira slapped the side of the ladder and whispered to herself, “You should have thought of that earlier.” She began climbing the ladder, skipping over the familiar weakened rungs as she scurried upward. At least with this journey, having tried it before, she knew where she was going and how to find her way back, and so far no one else seemed to know about the museum’s exit at the very top.
Sitting on a hearth near a crackling fire, Morgan laid a sword on her knees. “It’s time to put Chereb back into service. My dragon slayer is ready to begin his work.”
Naamah, kneeling in the warmth of the greenish flames, caressed the ornate hilt. “How will you get it to him?”
“Chereb is not for my slayer.” Morgan set the blade next to the hearth and rose to her feet. “It is for the king.”
“Arthur?” Naamah asked, rising with her. “Why?”
Morgan kissed Naamah’s cheek and whispered into her ear. “It’s all part of the grand scheme Lucifer and I have been cooking up for centuries, and it’s finally time to let you in on it.”
Naamah set her hands on her hips. “Because you need me to do your dirty work, right?”
“Don’t worry. You’re perfectly suited for your part in the plan.” Morgan gestured with her head toward the room’s exit. “Follow me.”
Morgan strode across the marble floor of the high-ceilinged room, Naamah trailing close behind. “I have experimented with this sword for centuries,” Morgan said. “Even with the blood covering, it wouldn’t work for Ham or his son Cush. Yet, it flashed its sacred fire for Nimrod.” She paused at the entrance to a dark corridor. “Tell me, Naamah, how was Nimrod different from his ancestors?”
“He was a king.”
“Yes. It seems that kings and leaders of clans, like Noah, are able to summon the sword’s power.” Morgan entered the corridor, walking more slowly now as she passed by a series of heavy wooden doors, each with thick metal bars in their solitary windows. “Nimrod lost his kingdom,” she continued, “because he didn’t bother to renew the blood on his hands before the battle at the tower. The fool relied on the candlestone to defeat the dragons. Arthur, however, won’t need blood. He is a follower of the enemy.”
A low moan emanated from one of the windows. Naamah longed to see the suffering of the prisoners, but even on tiptoes, she couldn’t peek inside. “So, only a king can use Chereb?” she asked.
Morgan stopped at the last door in the hallway and lifted a key ring from a hook on the wall. “I don’t think so. An old prophecy I once read implies that any king’s heir or anyone he designates can use it as well.” She slid the long, slender keys around the ring, eyeing each one. “I wanted Mardon to test the sword to prove my theory, but since he is merely a dead spirit in our caverns, my experiments were probably useless. That’s why I will give it to Arthur. When he gets the sword, he will show it to Merlin, who will certainly know all about its secrets. If Merlin can use Chereb, then I will be certain about the designation theory, and my dragon slayer will make sure I get it back at the proper time.”
“But when you get it back, we won’t have a king or any innocent blood to cover his hands.”
“I have a plan to install a new king.” Morgan pinched a key, letting the rest of the ring dangle. “And we have sources for innocent blood.”
“Sapphira and Paili?” Naamah raised her eyebrows. “Would you dare kill one of them?”
“No. Paili’s presence keeps Sapphira in the lower realms, right where I want her.” Morgan inserted the key into the lock, pausing as she gazed through the bars in the window. “And I cannot take Sapphira’s blood. She is too dangerous, though she has no idea how powerful she is. Every person who spills her blood meets an untimely demise.”
“Yes,” Naamah said, shivering. “I know. We could really use Nimrod right now.”
Morgan nodded. “In any case, Sapphira is unable to thwart my ultimate plan without her twin oracle, and Acacia is long dead, so I don’t mind keeping her around. Her abilities in the control room are quite valuable.”
“I follow your plan so far, but what’s your source for innocent blood?”
Morgan turned the key and slid a heavy bolt to one side. “My prisoner will provide it.”
“Are you sure he’s innocent?”
“Since he was born before the enemy’s visitation, I’m not sure.” Morgan swung open the door. Naamah peeked inside, but all she could see was a tiny, empty room with an open trapdoor in the middle of the stone flooring. Morgan walked in and knelt at the trapdoor’s opening. “Shem dedicated him to God at his birth, and we captured him before the normal age of corruption. He has aged but a little, and since his only companion has been strife, I suspect he qualifies. But with the plan I have in mind, I won’t need his blood.”
“What? I thought you said ”
“Confused?” Morgan laughed. “After we talk to him, you’ll figure it out.”
“So,” Naamah said, spreading out her hands. “Where is he?”
Morgan pointed into the dark shaft. “Exactly where I expected him to flee. The sixth circle. That’s why I moved him to this cell after the Messiah cleared his followers out of the underworld.”
Naamah peered into the blackness. A downward draft pulled on her hair and clothes as it swept into a chasm of apparent nothingness. “Is the village of the dead down there?”
“Yes. What’s left of it.”
“So he’s alone?”
“Come. I’ll show you.” Morgan stood, and her body shrank, quickly transforming into a raven. Naamah spread out her arms. They flattened into leathery wings, and her hands molded into wrinkled claws. Within seconds, she began circling the room in the form of a bat.
Morgan jumped into the hole. Naamah dove headfirst in pursuit, plunging into the cold, black downdraft. Within seconds, the air warmed, getting brighter as they plummeted. Morgan spread out her wings and began to glide in a wide circle. Naamah followed her path, though her fluttering, jerky motions weren’t as graceful.
They landed in a v
illage that looked like a deserted copy of Nimrod’s Shinar, not the marble-coated center of town, but rather the poorer outskirts. Hoofprints marred the muddy streets, and long rows of quaint stone huts stood in disrepair. A gust of wind lifted a broken piece of roof thatching and blew it across the street to a vacant marketplace, scattering straw among the empty carts of the missing vendors.
Morgan and Naamah returned to their human forms. Naamah pulled her hair back, staring into the crisp breeze. “Hades is a lonely place since the Messiah’s visit.”
“Yes,” Morgan said, smoothing out her dress, “but the sixth circle is perfect for keeping prisoners. Elam doesn’t ever seem to need food, so I can’t use hunger to break his will. Yet, this circle will soon be home to spirits that will drive him mad, and Elam will finally do what I ask.”
“Spirits? What kind of spirits?”
“Lucifer’s spies have told me that Elohim has created an abode identical to this one, a parallel home for the spirits of dead dragons. It seems that the two dimensions will intermingle in very interesting ways.” Morgan pointed toward a stack of boxes at the side of the market. “I saw him.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Elam. I saw you. There’s no use hiding back there.”
Elam stood up behind the boxes, revealing his tall, boyish frame. He walked straight toward Morgan, a club in his hand and fire in his eyes. “I was only hiding so I could crack your head open.” With the club ready to strike, he leaped at her.
Morgan raised her hands and thrust them outward. A wall of darkness threw Elam backwards, making him fly to the market. He slammed against the boxes, crushing them under his body. Slowly rising from the heap, he tightened his grip on the club and glared at Morgan. “I will get out of here. Just you wait and see. I’ll make you pay for what you did to Raphah.”
Naamah took a step closer to Morgan. “He still looks like a teenager,” she whispered, “and he’s really rather dashing.”
