by D. N. Leo
One swing, and he could kill it. That was how he normally handled his fear, but this situation was a lot more difficult, Ciaran thought.
Gatekeeper, Ciaran contemplated. He would need the ticket or the key. Ciaran used the dagger on his right hand to pull up the sleeve on his left arm, revealing the golden crucifix tattoo. From this angle, it looked more like a key.
Ciaran thought the snake looked happy—if it was possible to deduce such emotion from a snake. It slid around in front of his left arm as if admiring the crucifix.
Then the snake opened its mouth wide and bit down on Ciaran’s arm.
A searing pain shocked Ciaran’s brain and made him almost pass out. He dropped the dagger in his left hand.
The snake pulled away. On his arm was not an ordinary snakebite mark with two fang holes. Instead, there was a round circle of holes around the crucifix. It looked as though the key was inserted into a lock.
Ciaran staggered back. His left arm immediately felt numb.
It was the venom. But Ciaran knew what to do. He swung the right hand dagger. He had to give up his left arm, or he would die.
Chapter 19
Madeline snarled, “Tadgh, which way is the right direction? Ciaran got the wrong one, and that path’s closed.” Fear clawed at her. Beads of sweat streamed down her face.
Tadgh whirled around and around, looking at the moving paths and walls.
“Stop spinning. You’re making me dizzy, Tadgh,” Zach said.
Madeline closed her eyes and tried to connect to Ciaran’s mind. She tried to trace his thoughts the way she had on Earth.
Nothing.
Her psychic ability didn’t work here.
Don’t panic, she said to herself. Just use your ordinary human sense of direction. She blocked all of the moving parts in front of her out of her mind and concentrated, tracing Ciaran’s physical steps.
Ciaran wanted to cut off his left arm. He had to stop the venom from spreading into his heart. But the snake swung up its tail quickly and grabbed Ciaran's right arm with it. It squeezed hard so that Ciaran dropped the dagger to the ground.
The snake spoke to him.
"Keep the venom. You'll need it."
Then the snake vanished. Ciaran slumped to the ground while the searing pain stabbed at his head. The wall slid open. Madeline, Tadgh, and Zach stormed in. Madeline grabbed Ciaran.
"Where does it hurt? Are you burned? Where?"
Ciaran pulled his sleeve down to cover the snake bite and stood up. "I'm fine. This is the wrong way."
"Yes, I'm sorry," Tadgh said.
"So where to now?" Ciaran said.
"You’re asking me again?"
"Who else should I ask? Madeline? Zach?"
Madeline and Zach shook their heads.
Tadgh literately recoiled from Ciaran’s gaze. Ciaran waited. Then Tadgh pointed. “All right. That way. I don't want to die in here."
They ran in the opposite direction this time.
The burning walls opened up.
"This looks more like it," Madeline said.
Ciaran shook his left arm to check that it was still attached to his body.
In front of them was a river of dark water flowing into an underground cave. A line of disks sailed over the water like a conveyor belt. All of the discs turned at the corner.
"It looks like the only way out," Tadgh said, pointing at the discs flying by at an incredibly fast speed.
"We don't want to get into that water,” Zach said, staring down at his worst nightmare.
"The fire is closing in behind us. We have to jump now,” Madeline said.
Ciaran assessed his trajectory and jumped onto a disk.
"It’s fine."
And then the disc swung around the corner.
Madeline jumped onto the next one.
Zach took a step back to get momentum and then jumped.
Tadgh looked at the discs. They were too fast for him. “Come on!” Zach’s voice echoed back. Tadgh wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t because he would miss the disc when he jumped. He clenched his teeth and jumped onto the next one.
Each disc could hold only one person. It was moving too fast for Tadgh. He was on all fours and gripping the edge of the disc.
In front of Tadgh, Zach's disc became unstable and flipped around.
Zach fell.
Tadgh grabbed him before he hit the water. The two of them hung on tightly to Tadgh's disc.
The disc turned the corner, and they immediately hit a waterfall. It was so sudden that both Tadgh and Zach were flushed off the disc.
Tadgh's body hit a hanging rock. He fell, unconscious, dropping down into the dark water of the river below. Zach was left hanging onto a rock. He saw Tadgh fall.
“Oh, come on!” Zach moaned. Zach let go of his rock and dove into the dark water.
It was dark and quiet below the surface of the water. His fear was not important right now. A life was on the line. He dove deeper. And there, he found Tadgh, sinking like a stone.
Chapter 20
Ciaran grabbed the rocky edge of a wall. Madeline was swimming toward him. He reached his hand out and grabbed her. He swung her up on the rock and looked back to the far dark corner.
There was no sign of Tadgh and Zach.
Zach grabbed Tadgh and pushed him up to the surface. Tadgh was breathing. Zach supported his head, keeping it above the water, and swam along with the current. They were in a dark cave.
Mysterious hanging rocks were illuminated by a spooky dim light, and it looked like a thousand beady eyes were staring at him. They acted like torches. Otherwise, Zach wouldn’t be able to see anything.
In the distance, Zach saw a small strip of rocks. Ciaran and Madeline were standing on top. He swam toward them.
Ciaran and Madeline helped pulled Tadgh up onto the rock.
"He hit a rock when we fell. He's all right,” Zach said.
Tadgh coughed up some water, then he opened his eyes and rolled over to sit up. He rubbed his head.
"Are you okay now?" Ciaran asked.
Tadgh nodded. "Hey, thanks for grabbing me,” he said to Zach.
"Not a problem. Same goes. I hitched a ride on your disc. If you were by yourself, you wouldn’t have fallen,” Zach said.
"Ciaran found a way out,” Madeline said.
"Oh yeah!" Zach narrowed his eyes. “Not under the water again?"
Ciaran smiled and nodded. He pointed ahead. "Around that corner is the mouth of the cave, where the river flows out to an opening. However, the mouth of the cave is closed by a gate."
"You mean a manmade gate?" Tadgh asked. "If it's manmade, exactly what is being locked in here?"
"It's not going to be anything friendly, so I’d try not to think about it if I were you,” Madeline said.
"The handle to lift the gate is underwater. By my gauge, it might take all four of us to turn it," Ciaran said. His voice shook a bit, and his teeth started to chatter with the cold.
"Okay, let's go and get it done then," Zach said.
Ciaran leaned on the rock wall, gesturing that he needed a moment. He sat down.
Madeline put her arm around him. "What’s wrong, Ciaran?"
"Nothing."
His lips turned purple. Ciaran knew the snake poison had spread throughout his body. He was surprised it hadn’t killed him already.
Madeline looked at Ciaran's face. "Tell me, Ciaran."
Ciaran pulled up his sleeve to show the snake bite. The wound had turned black now as well as the area around it. “The snake left me a souvenir,” Ciaran said.
"Oh, Jesus Christ!” Madeline cried out.
Tadgh grabbed his dagger.
Ciaran gestured Tadgh to stop. "I could have done it myself. But the snake said I'd need it."
"It meant you needed the poison?" Tadgh said.
Ciaran found it hard to talk now. He was too cold. "We have to get out of here,” he said. He got into the water and started swimming toward the gate’s handle.
The metal bars of the gate stared at them in challenge. There was only a foot between the water’s surface and the ceiling of the cave. The water was not too deep. It was more of a tunnel than a cave.
The wheel to open the gate had four handles. They all dove under the water, grabbed a handle, and turned.
The door shifted up an inch. They came up for air and dove down for another round. Each time, they managed to shift the gate up only an inch.
Suddenly, they felt a strange movement in the currents. In the dim light, they could see a pair of beady eyes deep inside the tunnel.
They surfaced. There was nowhere for them to go. They couldn’t go back inside to the rocks.
"What is it, Ciaran?" Madeline asked.
"I think it's some kind of sea monster,” Ciaran responded.
"Like a seahorse?" Tadgh asked.
"But this isn’t the ocean," Zach said.
"I don't think it’s here by choice. It's locked in here with us,” Ciaran said.
"What are we supposed to do now?" Madeline asked.
They felt the water being sucked into the cave, rushing from the river outside, gushing through the bars and flowing toward the monster. They grabbed the bars of the gate. The suction was incredibly strong. The water brought with it whatever was in the river.
“It’s feeding time. Great,” Ciaran muttered.
Chapter 21
Ciaran ducked his head under the water to take a look at the animal. Then he came up again.
"It's going to feed now. It will open its mouth and create a strong current to suck everything in. We have to open the gate and get out as quickly as we can. But I don't think we can handle the gate and the current at the same time. So Madeline, Tadgh, and I will open the gate, and Zach, you have to distract it with your sound wave."
"How?"
"I don't know—that's your job,” Ciaran said and dove down to the handle. Tadgh and Madeline did the same.
Zach dove under the water along with them. He looked at the sea monster. He had never seen a fish that ugly in all his life—the mouth of a whale, alligator eyes, and a scaled body.
It stared at Zach. He stared back. Then, looking bored, the sea monster turned and opened its mouth as wide as the tunnel.
The current started to flow in.
Zach concentrated and shot out a sound wave that he thought the monster would hate. Nothing happened. The current grew stronger.
The gate lifted one more inch.
Ciaran, Madeline, and Tadgh were not coming up for more air. They kept turning the handle.
One more inch.
Zach shot again. It hit something. The monster startled and shook. It looked angry.
Shit. If I make it angry, it might eat more. Suck everyone into that ugly mouth, Zach thought. He sent out another sound.
The gate lifted one more inch.
The monster grew angrier. They heard a high-pitched sound, followed by a low rumbling sound, and then felt a gigantic rush of current.
They couldn’t keep turning the gate now. They hung onto the bars as tightly as they could. The current drew in fish, rocks, logs, and many other things from the river.
Zach couldn’t send any more sounds. He hung onto the gate, too. They didn’t know how long they could hold on.
Ciaran had only one functional arm now. The other had been numb with the pain and the snake poison.
The current grew stronger by the second. Ciaran knew the first person it swept away would be Madeline. She couldn’t possibly have as strong a grip as the men. He had to do something about it.
Ciaran let go of the gate. The current drew him toward the monster’s mouth.
Ciaran pulled out his dagger and cut his left arm. The black poison released quickly into the water and flowed into the monster's mouth. Before Ciaran's body hit the mouth of the monster, it clamped its jaws shut.
The current stopped.
The monster did not move. It looked as if it had passed out.
Ciaran surfaced and drew in a breath. “Bon appétit!” he said and quickly swam back to the handle. The four of them dove again and turned the handle.
One more inch. And one more. Finally, they created a gap just large enough for their bodies to slide under.
Suddenly, the monster rumbled. It roared and charged at the gate.
Tadgh was the last person to slide through the gap. As soon as he slid through, the monster’s teeth snapped at the steel bars.
They kicked to the surface of the river just before dusk.
Ciaran was as white as a sheet. He didn’t know how long he would last. Madeline grabbed him and kicked toward the bank of the river. It was growing cold quickly. A few feet from the bank, they saw movement in a bush.
A red human-sized lizard stood up on two legs and ambled toward them.
Tadgh, Zach, and Madeline drew their weapons.
"No, it's a salamander,” Ciaran said. “We’ve passed the black stage.”
He walked toward the lizard. He tried his best not to reel although his knees wanted to buckle. "Is that correct?" Ciaran did not know why he expected the lizard talk to him. It just stared. There was something in its eyes that he recognized. He didn’t know what it was. But those weren’t a reptile’s eyes.
Ciaran pulled his sleeve up. His left arm had now turned black. He revealed the crucifix and the bite mark.
"Is this what you're after?"
The salamander looked at the wound. It stuck out its reptile tongue and licked at the wound. Then it stood up and looked Ciaran in the eyes.
"Have we passed the black stage?” Ciaran asked.
The salamander nodded.
Ciaran slumped and passed out cold on the ground.
Madeline darted toward him. The salamander hissed at her. It whirled back and forth and sucked at the cut on Ciaran's arm. Soon, his arm returned to its normal color.
The salamander sauntered away and disappeared into the bush.
Madeline hugged Ciaran, who was shivering as the temperature continued to drop.
"Can you two make a fire?" Madeline said.
"Like a campfire?" Zach asked, looking hopeless. “We don’t have a lighter.”
"I can do it," Tadgh said and started gathering dry branches.
"Didn’t Ciaran say this was the just the first stage?" Zach asked.
Madeline nodded at the rhetorical question and smiled.
Tadgh shook his head and concentrated on making the fire.
Chapter 22
The dawn came suddenly, casting light onto a reflective surface of ice. Ciaran opened his eyes to find himself lying next to Madeline, her arms still wrapped around him. They were no longer on the river bank. Instead, in front of them was a magnificent and endless snowfield.
Everything was white, including the sky.
Ciaran reached over and kissed Madeline. She woke and responded to his warm kiss.
Tadgh and Zach awoke nearby.
"Holy cow,” Tadgh gasped when he saw the snowfield.
"Just like in a hologame, isn't it, Ciaran?" Zach asked.
"Except it's not a game,” Ciaran said in response. He looked out at the snowfield and up to the white sky. Ciaran continued, "This is the White stage, everyone. While the Black stage focused on physical aspects, this stage is more of a mental test."
"Will it be more difficult than the last one?" Tadgh asked.
"It reflects personal experiences. I'd say it's more difficult for some and easier for others. Just in case we get separated, you need to know that this stage uses air and earth elements, and it’s prone to catastrophic effects. It doesn't mean we’re dealing with an apocalypse. It means, mentally, it will test our capability to make significant decisions. Those that change your life and the lives of others."
Ciaran looked at everyone. The lack of responses worried him.
"Am I understood?"
"Yep, sure,” Zach said.
"Yes, Ciaran. Why do you seem more worried about this stage than the last?" Madeline as
ked.
"In alchemy, there are two small steps in this stage—separation and conjunction. In the Black stage, everything is burned so that only the essence remains. In the White stage, we have to focus on separating the good parts and the bad parts, and then joining the good parts together. For me, it’s more difficult because there is no clear boundary between good and bad."
"Just stick together. We’ll combine our brain power, I guess," Tadgh said, although he had absolutely no idea how he would go about choosing between good and bad. This was more Ciaran's kind of game than his.
"What's the sign for us passing this stage, Ciaran?" Zach asked.
"We may see a rainbow or a peacock's tail," Ciaran said.
Tadgh shook his head.
They headed deeper into the snowfield. They didn’t have to walk for long before they found an ice castle located imposingly in the middle of the snowfield. The wide entrance to the castle was open and inviting. It was quiet. There was no sign of anyone—no guards, no soldiers, no people.
"Is that sleeping beauty’s castle?" Zach asked jokingly.
"I think we're about to see Snow White,” Tadgh said.
"I don't have a fairytale feeling at all. I think it’s a white pyramid, and we’re about to be chased by snow mummies,” Madeline said.
"I'm afraid Madeline is right. Not sure about the mummies. But this is a test—or a trap, to be precise. Still, we have to go in,” Ciaran said.
"That sucks. Knowing it's a trap and still having to go in," said Zach.
They crossed a small, snow-covered bridge to enter the castle. It was like any other picturesque castle that Madeline had seen in England. Except that everything here was icy.
They walked into the main hall. The magnificent round hall was decorated by ice pillars and white roses. A couple of white swans swam in a small pond in the middle of the hall.
Two doormen in white uniforms pushed open a gate opposite them to reveal a long corridor inside. The doormen smiled at them when they strolled past.
People here were eerily friendly, Madeline thought. Ciaran didn’t look around much. He strode straight in as if he knew what to expect. The door closed behind them after they entered the hall.
