The initial sailor broke the silence. “It seems the folk who lived here long ago, left in a hurry and never returned.”
“Why do you say that?” Tariq asked.
“We found no trace of them. No skeletons and most accruements are gone as well or dissolved by the jungle air.”
“Maybe the bones too then?” offered Tariq.
The sailor shrugged uneasily. “Well, there is no one here now but us. Perhaps they thought the volcano was going to explode so they fled?”
“Perhaps,” answered the shrewd captain.
Beyond the stonework itself, Gathelaus saw nothing he could use to free himself, and the little he could examine of the ruins as they passed would do him no good. There was nary a place to hide if he did suddenly bolt away. The chambers of these empty homes were square and spartan. Few enough even led to other rooms or levels. It was as if the populace was incredibly austere or even slaves? And small, he decided too, since the T-shaped doorways were very short. A revolt might explain things. But if there had been a revolt and escape, wouldn’t they have sacked the palace of its wealth before fleeing?
The city was narrow as it wound its way into the great fissure at the foot of the mountain. Steep cliffs and ridges alongside the city would be a huge obstacle for anyone if they did try to assault this place. And for Gathelaus, it was a trap, there would be no way to reasonably scale those crags without getting a spear or arrow in the back for his efforts. He had to find another way.
The serpentine twist of the street finally ended in a crescent-moon shaped courtyard before the palace or temple. It appeared that it could have been used for either one. Broad steps led up to the palace which had no doors, either. Flanking the doorway were twin pillars the width of a longboat and atop them were great blocks of black stone that had been carved into the likeness of perhaps multi-limbed toads or bears? It was hard to tell which from the weathering.
“Where are they?” grated Tariq.
“I don’t know captain. Muza!” he cried. “Muza! Show yourself. I have brought Captain Tariq.”
There was no answer.
Tariq grabbed the sailor by his collar, shaking the small man. “Do you play games with me? Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” blubbered the sailor. “They were here.”
“Inside,” ordered Tariq. He glowered at Gathelaus. “You too, you’ll still be carrying whatever is inside to pay your keep.”
Pay his keep? Gathelaus determined Tariq and the rest would pay in blood when the moment came. He wasn’t one to forgive such treatment, not by a long shot.
But there was blood here. A splash of deep crimson pooled on the cobbles at the top of the steps before the open doorway. A bloody footprint beside it showed perhaps that someone had been cut and another had stepped in the gore in pursuit? In flight? Had it possibly been the victim himself?
“What do you make of that?” asked the first sailor.
“If those fools fought over the spoils, I’ll have them skinned alive.” Tariq seemed to expect a rational greedy answer at the root of the mystery, but the rest of his men clutched their hilts and looked about anxious as superstitious children.
“What if this place is cursed? Just like old Yar Ali said,” asked one of the men.
Tariq snorted. “All the dwellings of men have tasted death time and again, why should one be any different than another?”
“Some have malevolent spirits about them,” offered the nervous sailor. “Djinn even.”
“Bah!” snapped Tariq.
“Look, the bloody footprints lead into the temple,” proclaimed one of the sailors.
Gathelaus looked at the temple again, measuring his own wariness and spirit about what it might hold inside. There was a stronger energy within the black edifice, the multi-angled stones shined as if they had been polished. A terrible toad-like statue with far too many limbs stood over the open doorway, while sharp spires reached skyward like dark icicles pointing the wrong way.
“Was the treasure in there?” asked Tariq.
The sailor gulped and nodded.
“Then you and the barbarian go in first,” said Tariq, with a cruel smile spreading over his face.
Temple of the Toad
Mist shrouded the mountain behind them and cast an eerie scene as fading sunlight painted red scabs over the grey clouds. Jungle birds squawked far in the distance and the men trembled for a moment, glancing about at supposed phantoms behind.
“It’s nothing but birds, you craven dogs,” growled Tariq, though he too had started at the sound. “Get going barbarian!” he shouted as he prodded Gathelaus forward.
Gathelaus grinned, guessing he might escape if he could play upon their fears a little stronger, but he was cautious too. Something had caused the other sailors to vanish and it must be some unknown danger waiting within that grim temple.
Stepping forward, he dragged his chains, then turned and asked Tariq, “Do you expect me to walk in and be tread upon by whatever doom lies there? Or will you give me a fighting chance?”
Tariq regarded him and shrugged.
“I can’t very well carry anything with these chains and I’ll surely be cut down by savages hiding within who have slain your men, let me loose and have at them with a spear or club, keep your own men trained on me with their bows, if you like. Not like I can go anywhere.”
Tariq grudgingly felt within his robes and produced a key. “But the shackles on your feet remain.” He tossed it to the flagstones at Gathelaus’s feet. The clang upon the grey stones was louder in the stillness than it should have been. The men all scanned the lurking shadows that fled about the courtyard. Was there movement? There was no sound but the light breeze rustling through the lonely city.
“And a weapon?” pressed Gathelaus.
“Give him a club,” ordered Tariq.
One of the men tossed a cudgel to Gathelaus after he unlocked the manacles about his wrists. He let them drop to the dark flagstones. He gave a scowl to the sailors, enjoying the clang the sound made upon the stones and the sudden start of the sailors once again within that dark hollow. He pocketed the key, since Tariq had not yet demanded its return. The captain and his men still looked about the courtyard at the sudden sound of bird cries echoing father up the fissure.
The sailors argued for a moment which one should have to accompany Gathelaus inside the temple.
Tariq broke the argument by ordering the youngest man there to go with him. He was young too, nary a wisp of a beard grew upon his chin. He held a short sword out cautiously and stayed a foot or two behind Gathelaus as he climbed the steps.
They reached the open doorway and considered the shadowy realm within. Some dim light entered the doorway with them, but most was from skylights high overhead. It remained a dark and gloomy place and the setting sun did not help. Piles of gold and jewels sat not far away, but any greed or excitement at that was stifled by the bloody drag marks across the threshold at their feet.
Gathelaus ventured inside and moved slowly to the side, keeping his back to the wall. He knew he was out of sight of Tariq and the others there. The young sailor gingerly followed with his blade outstretched in poor fashion. He followed Gathelaus, and kept to the rear as well.
“Do you see anything?” called Tariq.
“Yes,” answered the young sailor with a high pitched voice. “The piled gold and jewels.”
“And the men?”
“Just blood,” he squeaked.
The young sailor looked to Gathelaus for reassurance, but instead, the barbarian king took the short sword from the youth’s hand and plunged it through his throat.
Gathelaus caught the youth’s suddenly limp body and let him down easy. He removed the shackles from his feet, all the while keeping a third eye out for whomever else might remain in the dark.
“Anything,” asked Tariq again.
Silence.
“Ahmed? What do you see?”
Silence.
“Ahmed?”
“Son of whore! Get in there!”
“In there?” mimicked a sailor, dripping with fear.
Gathelaus glanced about the thick darkness, knowing he would have an advantage of placement over the sailors that would soon enter. He considered standing beside the door and cutting men down as they entered, but the doorway was wide enough that more than one man could enter and they could soon flank him. That, and the short sword was not his preferred weapon, he had little confidence in holding off a score of men with what was little better than a knife, and some of them were armed with crossbows too.
He decided to slink back into the dark shadows behind the treasure room and see if there might be another exit, besides, the narrow looking hallway would provide him a better defense than the open chamber.
His enemies were still reluctant to enter and, as he passed by the heaps of treasure, he was tempted to take a handful. The warning of the old man entered his mind, He always said he thought he was allowed to escape because he had not touched any of that cursed treasure.”
Retreating to the end of the chamber, he could find no door or latch. It was a curious place, as if a long rectangular section of stone had simply been removed from the mountain. He would have to find another avenue… but it was too late. Shadows entered the chamber.
The sailors came inside cautious as cats, with glittering swords and cocked crossbows at the ready. But since they could not see Gathelaus in the rearward shadows they gasped in awe of the treasure heaped before them instead.
“Piled high as a dung hill,” cackled Tariq.
“Didn’t know you was ever a farmer,” chided one of the sailors.
“Shut up.”
Another sailor cried out in alarm, “Captain, Ahmed lies there. His throat has been cut.”
Tariq risked a glance from the treasure to the body of the youth. “More for us, I’d say.”
Each man of them came and stuck his hands into the scintillating wealth, forgetting their fear and apprehension from just a moment ago.
Gathelaus watched, waiting for an opening to attack or escape. He caught sight of a massive black screen against the far wall. Was it movement? No, it couldn’t have been, that was just a wall. At first, he had thought it was only another shadow filled passage, but a dark reflection made him aware of its substance, however tangible. Then it rippled.
Gathelaus stepped back, eyes fixed to the congealing horror.
A great flabby foot pierced the blackness. Though it passed through illusory walls, the wet slap of its great tramp upon the basalt floor sounded real enough.
This caught the looting sailors’ attention. They whipped their heads toward the sound as the horror cascaded forward.
Tentacles shot from the inky darkness and took six of the sailors in blinding succession. They plunged back through the ebony curtain, their cries suddenly muffled as if swallowed by the very gloom.
Gathelaus stared hard at that rippling blank slate and thought he saw stars—no, not stars—unblinking eyes. A full constellation of orbs that gently swayed as an immense maw fed on the struggling men.
Madness swooned over them and fear either paralyzed the men or reduced them to shrieking babes. The amorphous black shape stepped from beyond the void. Suction-cupped limbs lashed out and took hold of men in quick curling gesticulations, then quickly fed them to a wide, lipless mouth filled with dagger-like teeth. The glowing yellow eyes, at least a full dozen of them, protruded from the great monster’s head on thin stalks as long as a man’s arm They probed greedily into every corner of the grand chamber. They missed nothing, and Gathelaus was sure that at least one of the stalks bore into him.
Like a cat playing with mice, at times the tentacles struck too hard, sending a man sprawling against the flagstones, only to be scooped up again. On at least two occasions, tentacles played tug of war with a body, tearing it in half. That explained the bizarre blood pooling on the outside dais minus any sign of a body.
Gathelaus had faced terrible monsters before, albeit nothing quite so alien as this. Though fear welled up in him, he would not let it paralyze him. The monster had fully emerged from the black curtain that was its otherworldly home and finished devouring the last of the sailors. He knew his time was running out like a broken hourglass, but there would be no dodging past such a swift thing and escaping out the open doorway.
Above him, several skylights loomed with the final vestiges of twilight offered from a bruised sky. If he could wedge himself between some of the bizarre pillars and statues, he might be able to climb up to those and get to the top of the spires outside. Once there he imagined that the monster could not fit anything more than a tentacle out the skylights and he could flee out and across the jagged volcanic landscape. It was risky but seemed the only option available to him.
Pressing his feet into a statue he inched up and up while the final screams of Tariq and his men echoed in the vaulted chamber.
He was more than a dozen feet off the ground, with perhaps another six to go when the brutal silence of the scene revealed itself. The monster had finished all the others and now shuffled along the ground. Its eye stalks peered this way and that and suddenly all of them swung in Gathelaus’s direction and centered on him.
He pushed up with all his speed and strength, reaching for that open skylight.
Fingers caught the edge and he pulled himself up, just as a hideously mottled tentacle writhed up and took hold of his foot. Gathelaus clung to the rim of stone and pulled with all his titanic strength to free himself. His boot sheared off and a burning touch scalded his exposed skin. But he was free. Racing along the rooftop of the ethereal temple, he searched for where he could ascend to the volcanic mount, but each direction was far too high and steep.
Tentacles probed up all four visible skylights. Gathelaus realized they were no longer hunting him but finding purchase. The monster was forcing itself up and through one of the openings despite it being infinitely smaller than its body, which was the size of a small house. He remembered he had once seen an octopus squeeze through a fist sized hole in a ship despite being as large as a man. This thing was doing the same—all to come after him!
He chopped at one of the tentacles with the short sword and green ichor splashed and burned him. The creature could be cut and wounded true, but not at a price he could pay—not to mention his attempts resembled a toothpick versus a whale. What else? The courtyard below was too far a drop to jump.
He was pinned between black volcanic cliffs, the basalt roof, and seven spires darker than the coming night.
Looking closer, he saw that the spires, although almost twelve feet tall, were but carved stones balanced atop pillars themselves. No mortar, just finely balanced and crafted stone.
He launched himself against the center pillar and the spire rocked atop its perch. It wasn’t much, but it gave him courage and hope, something all men standing at the precipice of doom need. He pushed and heaved, prayed and cursed until the spire wobbled on the edge of the esoterically carved pillar.
Eye stalks emerged from the aperture, blinking against the dying of the light. They glanced in every direction, even after focusing their malevolent gaze upon their target.
Gathelaus cast a fist-sized stone and the eyes dodged aside. He wondered for a moment if he was safe there, then a section of the dark bulbous body ballooned up, growing larger every second like a dead and bloated body filling with noxious gas. Just as it seemed about to pop, a mouth like a cavern of teeth ripped open. Bile and a deafening roar slammed into him like a sudden storm. Immense hate flowed from the aura of this demon.
Gathelaus gave one final push and the dark spire of basalt tipped. The long sharp point fell and pierced the monster’s bodily protuberance. Green acidic blood splashed against the stone, pitting it with harsh smoke that seemed to scorch the very air. The monster screamed unintelligible pain and
wrath. It flailed on the chamber floor below, constricting upon itself in spasms, rocking the entire of the temple and causing the roof to crack and break. Sections beside Gathelaus fell inward, further crushing the alien monstrosity. A piece of roof slanted down to the courtyard below, taking Gathelaus with it as an unwilling passenger.
Amidst the great tumult, dust launched into the sky, but Gathelaus survived, relatively unhurt. Somewhere beneath the jumble of immense stone blocks, the monster groaned, but it sounded like bitter dying defeat, not the coming wrath, to Gathelaus.
The cursed treasure was buried under tons of stone, but seeing the devastation that the creature’s blood did to stone, he had to wonder if any of the gold or jewels could survive the acidic baptism of gore.
The first stars of evening winked to life and yet there was something darker lurking in the gloom of the ruinous temple. A curious black triangle remained above the toppled colossus of stone. It was no larger than a man’s body, but the cold, exact triangle edge of the thing was odd.
Gathelaus approached gingerly, realizing once he was a few paces from it, that it was the corner of the dark rippling screen which the monster had emerged from. Whatever destruction had been heaped upon the monster and the trap of a temple itself, this dark doorway remained unharmed.
Stepping closer, he watched, waiting to see if anything else might emerge from that ebony doorway. Going behind the screen, he was amazed to see that there was nothing visible behind it and that he could only perceive the gate, as he now considered it, when directly in front of it.
“Damned sorcery,” he muttered.
He probed the edge of it with his sword and pulling back and seeing that no taint remained on the blade, he touched his hand to it. He felt little, less than a cool breeze, but it was atmospherically different than the warm tropic he stood in. Daring to look inside, a foul reek pervaded his nostrils, though there was breathable air the same as outside. There was no discernable light, but a faint purple glow existed farther into the spacious cavity. He could think of no good reason to explore this further, but he wanted to be sure no creature could follow after him. So, he piled a jumble of stone to mask the entrance.
FIERCE: A Heroic Fantasy Adventure (BRUTAL TRILOGY Book 2) Page 8
