“We have any idea where we are going once we reach that pile?” he asked Djed.
The archer shook his head. “My captain had instructions from the ancient scrolls. I believe he knew what he had to do, but I’m not sure. It was his task alone, he said.”
“Fortunately, we can follow his tracks.” Mark pointed to where the seaweed had been trampled or disturbed.
When he reached the pile of ruins, Mark waved to the watching party on shore, and then he and Djed scrambled into the tumbled blocks of what had once been a massive building. He proceeded with caution, reminding his companion to do the same. “Must have been some hellacious earthquake to raise parts of the harbor and sink others—the land here moved a good thirty feet in spots.” He pointed at the broken escarpments and heard Djed gasp at his estimate of the earth’s raw power. “Here are Rothan’s footprints, going down these stairs.”
The two men descended what had been a broad stairway in the distant past, now choked with huge pieces of masonry and broken statues. Barely enough clearance existed for a man to pass between some of the chunks of debris. At the bottom, Mark faced the dark entrance to a corridor extending under the building. When he shone his handlamp into the cavernous opening, he realized the tunnel descended at a gradual slope.
“I’m not crazy about this.” Mark cupped his hand beside his mouth, leaned into the corridor, and yelled, “Rothan!”
He received no reply, only the odd and distant echo of his voice. Mark’s instincts pushed him to find Rothan in the shortest possible amount of time.The tunnel remained in passable condition, although the walls were covered with seaweed, barnacles, and slime. The ceiling dripped, and there were numerous puddles. “Must flood to the top at high tide.” He aimed his light at the tiled ceiling. “We have to be out of here well before then.”
“Indeed,” Djed said with a nervous glance at his surroundings.
After a few moments of walking, Mark came to a spot where the walls had fallen in somewhat. He poked his light through the narrow opening. “Gets better ahead but not much. I’ll go first, and then you can hand me the torch and follow.”
The tunnel was quiet, only the constant plink plink of dripping water and the sound of their own footsteps. The two men passed more piles of rubble. The passageway kept going downward, the angle of descent becoming steeper.
“We’ll be in the Underworld at this rate.” Djed clutched at his amulet of brown and green beads.
“Whoever the builders were, they understood how to construct for the ages. This place endured pretty well over the centuries. Hello, what’s this?”
He stood at the top of a flight of stairs leading into the depths of the ruins.
“Rothan rigged a rope for a handrail.” Mark grabbed at the strand and tugged. “One good sign.”
Djed swallowed hard and began his descent on Mark’s heels.
About halfway down, Mark paused, raising a hand to signal Djed to stop. “Did you hear something? There it is again!”
A faint yell repeated from the inky dark below. The two men exchanged glances. Mark drew his blaster and moved out, taking extra care on the slimy steps. The stairs ended with no warning, leaving him balanced on the narrow edge of a glowing azure pool. There was no way to gauge how deep the water might be. Mark raised his torch and peered across the obstacle while both men called out for their missing comrade.
“Over here,” came the reply, a weak voice from the right.
Mark swung the lamp in the proper direction. Rothan sat on a ledge about a yard above the water level, sword balanced across his knees, left leg bleeding sluggishly. An odd slash cut across his left cheek.
“What the hell happened?” Mark said.
“There’s some creature in the depths,” Rothan answered in a low voice. “Extinguish the torches, quick. The hell spawn is drawn to light.”
Too late.
A large aquatic creature came from the bottom of the pool in a sudden surge of cold water. Mark and Djed went reeling as a wave broke around them. The beast flailed with heavy black tentacles, knocking the already off-balance archer into the water. Cursing, Mark blasted the two sinewy, suckered arms coming at him. A third tentacle wrapped around his ankle, tugged him off the ledge and into the water. He lost the lamp, which flew from his grasp as his elbow struck the step with bone-bruising force, but he kept a death grip on the blaster as he was submerged. The creature dragged him deep before releasing its grip momentarily, only to clutch Mark again, suckers sliding off the impenetrable fabric of his offworld fatigue pants. While the beast was stymied by his clothing, Mark managed to fight to the surface for one huge, desperate breath. As the animal hauled him under for the second time, he fired a tight pattern of blasts into the water where he hoped the main body was located. The tentacles tightened unbearably for a second before the creature convulsed. Tentacles drifted aimlessly now, the beast sinking into the murk. Mark kicked completely loose of one lingering ropy fragment curled around his ankle and shot to the surface, floating there for a second, gasping for air.
He stowed his weapon, took a deep breath, and dove, trying to locate Djed, who hadn’t surfaced. Cloth brushed past his fingertips, and he surfaced with a mighty effort, dragging the dead weight of the archer with him. Mark managed to get himself and Djed onto the lowest stair. Rolling the unconscious man onto his back, Mark worked to resuscitate him. The hand torch had come to rest against the stair and provided light for the effort.
Sputtering, Djed convulsed, retching copious quantities of water. After the spasms stopped, he wiped his mouth and clutched at his legs, nearly toppling into the water. “I can’t feel my left leg!”
Mark played the torch over Djed’s extremities, finding an even pattern of oozing gashes running the entire length of his leg from ankle to hip. “Creature must have claws mixed in with the suckers.”
“The numbness goes away,” Rothan said. “I was ensnared in the same fashion as I swam across the pool. I stabbed it in the eye with my dagger, and it released me. I got to this ledge but couldn’t go forward or retreat to find an alternate route. The creature lurked in the water. It couldn’t find me with the torch extinguished.”
“Is there only one?” While he talked, Mark made quick work of bandaging the archer’s leg with rags torn from his borrowed Mikkonite robes. He tried to shield the light with his body, preventing stray beams from falling on the tide pool beside him.
“I only saw one. I heard you coming and tried to warn you.”
“Don’t worry, I believe you. The echoes are funny in here.” Mark tied off the bandages with a quick knot and clapped Djed on the shoulder. “Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’m sending you to report.” Mark held up a hand to forestall the archer’s immediate protest. “You can’t swim, remember? I can tow you across this pool, but like as not, we aren’t going to get out of this pile of rubble here before the tide turns. I can’t take a chance with a total nonswimmer. Also, I want Tia and the others to have some status. They need to know we’re in one piece. You can tell them Rothan and I are moving onward. I don’t want anyone else coming in here, risking their necks. I’ll get him off the ledge, and we’ll get to the other side of this damn sinkhole.”
Djed argued for a moment against being ordered to retreat from the action. He finally admitted there was no way for him to continue, between his injury and the undeniable need for swimming skills. Mark watched his hobbling progress on the first few stairs, then pivoted to scan the depths of the tide pool for any signs of life. Finding none, he raised the torch. “Room for two of us over there?”
Before Rothan could answer, the creature surfaced, remaining arms thrashing the air. Waves of water washed over the step.
Mark fell back, retreating three risers, swearing, yanking his blaster out with one hand, playing the torch over the animal, trying to find a vulnerable spot. He realized another, even larger animal had the first one in its grasp, and the two were fighting to the death.
“This is our chance! We can get across while the beasts distract each other,” he yelled to Rothan. “Can you move?”
“With help. My leg remains somewhat numb.”
Stowing blaster and handlamp on his belt, Mark made a shallow dive into the menacing pool, keeping to the edges, trying to avoid the two thrashing beasts. A few quick strokes brought him to the ledge. He hung on while Rothan slid gingerly into the water, Mark bracing him so he wouldn’t go under, and then Mark struck out for the far edge of the pool. The two men crawled onto the broken stairs while the combat to the death continued behind them, playing out in eerie silence, as the marine creatures appeared to be mute.
“We need to get away from this water and those animals.” Mark slicked his hair away from his face and shook the water off. “There might be more of them. I’ll check your wounds when we get to the top of the stairs.”
Rothan shook his head, already staggering to the next stair. “My wounds can wait, nothing life-threatening. We have to find the vault, get the crown and scepter, and escape before high tide.”
Knowing time was running out, Mark didn’t argue. Shining his handlamp on the staircase in front of Rothan, he said, “Lead on, let’s get this done.”
At the top of the stairs, he found himself in another corridor, facing a door cut from a single slab of black rock, resembling the metal city gates. “Now what?”
“Legend states there were three ways to open the door. There was a key”—Rothan gestured at an ornate golden lock—“which I don’t have.”
Mark eyed the door. The lock had a shape similar to Sandy’s key from the oasis. Not having brought his key, there was nothing he could offer. “And the second method of getting this open?”
“A spell.”
“Let me guess, you don’t know it?”
Rothan rubbed his forehead. “The scrolls Djed and I found in the palace library were ancient beyond time, crumbling as I tried to read them, eaten away by insects in other places. Parts were missing. No, the words of the spell were obliterated.”
“So no key, no voice lock, what was the third way in?”
“Khunarum and his direct descendants could prove their right to open the door. I’ll have to try. My mother is the daughter of the last king. And the blood of the kings of Nakhtiaar traces to Khunarum in an unbroken line.” Rothan laughed. “Or so the legends state. We’ll have to hope none of the ancient queens played their husbands false.”
“I can try blasting it open.” Mark drew his service weapon.
“Acting as tomb robbers will be my last resort.” Rothan’s voice held distaste.
“Is this the guy’s tomb?”
“No, I don’t think so. But it’s the same principle. He didn’t mean the crown and scepter to be removed for any but a dire need, which ancient prophecies said might arise long after his time. Well, the two items were purposefully left here after the destruction of the entire city after all.”
“Good point. How does this third method work, then?”
Rothan ran his hand over the door’s surface, searching for something. “Legend states Khunarum left a sign for his descendants—ah, here! See, it is the imprint of his open hand.”
Mark leaned over, directing his handlamp where Rothan pointed at a spot beside the keyhole. The shallow indentation was the silhouette of a man’s open hand, surrounded by symbols. A similar concavity next to it was a more feminine shape. Mark admired the way the ancients had provided for either a man or a woman to make their claim for the artifacts. Showed a lot of forethought.
Rothan took a deep breath and set his right hand into the center of the larger carved handprint. For a second, nothing happened. Then he grunted and yanked his hand free, staring at his thumb, where a large teardrop of blood quivered. No blood could be seen anywhere on the door, as if the stone had absorbed the droplet.
“Shh, hear that?” Blaster at the ready, Mark backed up a step.
A quiet hum came from the door itself.
A voice boomed in the corridor, uttering six short syllables. None of Mark’s hypno-implanted languages offered even a partial or suggested translation. Although he was obviously listening intently, Rothan seemed just as perplexed, the words apparently meaningless to him as well. The door rose. A rush of perfumed, intoxicating air came rushing out with a noticeable hiss. Dizzy, Mark held his breath after one surprised inhalation while he and Rothan retreated.
“DNA testing?” Mark theorized out loud. “Primitive DNA testing to open the door when all else failed? This Khunarum had a lot of help from someone more advanced than his own civilization.”
“Your words are gibberish.” Rothan sneezed.
The door stopped its leisurely ascent, then jerked into life again for another few inches. Progress stopped with a harsh grinding noise that was painful against Mark’s eardrums. When nothing else happened, he said, “Guess it’s done all it’s going to do. We’d better crawl under if we want to get in.” He dropped to his knees on the slimy floor, peering under the slab into the room beyond
Rothan went first. Mark crawled under the huge door slab hot on his heels. He refused to think about how much the stone must weigh as he passed over the lintel and rolled clear.
“Lords of Space!” Mark came to his feet and half drew his blaster, fearing a living being faced him in the gloom. After one horrified moment, he realized it was a statue painted with incredible realism, detailed even to the lashes on the open eyes. Mark decided to forgive himself for being fooled in the gloom. “Khunarum?” he asked as Rothan got to his feet.
“I would imagine so.” Eyes wide, the other man stared at the statue. He made a gesture with his right hand, as if in respect or worship.
Mark played his light over the contents of the apparently water-tight chamber. Khunarum sat in the middle. Baskets, bins, and crates were stacked to the ceiling. Some were sealed, others held tightly rolled scrolls, fabric, jewelry. A set of shelves on the far wall was crammed with statues, vases, and small boxes. Many of these had toppled over, fallen to the floor, and broken, probably during earthquakes over the centuries. Mark ran the torchlight over the floor. He stood on a woven carpet, its rich colors undimmed by time. To his left on the floor lay a small wreath of flowers and a scarf or veil, gossamer thin, half covering a child’s clay pull toy in the shape of a lion. The walls of the vault were covered with stylized paintings—garden scenes, hunting scenes, a river expedition—Mark couldn’t take it all in, and the decorations had no special meaning for him. Ancient weapons had been hung with great care on one wall—swords, shields, a massive bow and quiver of arrows.
The disarray and quantity of goods reminded Mark of the way “their” house had been, elsewhere in the city. An unfathomable mass of items. “All his worldly goods?” he asked.
Rothan shook his head. “Khunarum and his city were rich beyond the understanding of man, according to legend. These items stored here under the watchful eye of his statue would have been his most prized possessions but by no means all he owned. What I would give to speak to him across time and ask his advice about defeating Farahna and her schemes.”
Mark directed his torch at the statue again. The king was depicted sitting on a carved version of a simple woven chair, flanked by a lion on the left and some kind of aquatic animal on the other. The sculpted beasts appeared to be life-size and gazed with a daunting stare at whomever walked through the door. The king’s portrayal was larger-than-life. Studying the man’s clean-shaven features, Mark detected a familial resemblance between this person and Rothan. The hair was long and caught in a single braid. His lips were parted, as if to speak and grant Rothan’s fervent wish for ancient wisdom. On his carved brow sat the crown they’d come to find, a golden circlet set with a dozen unfaceted green gems that glistened as Mark’s light played over them. A golden sun disk was the crown’s centerpiece, encircled by a snake that reared above the disk with bared fangs and a flared hood. Khunarum’s left hand rested on his lap, holding a rolled papyrus. Mark tried to imag
ine what kind of significant information had been preserved on the scroll. The statue’s raised right arm extended toward them, as if in invitation. The hand bore the carving of an elaborate signet ring. The statue’s fingers were curled, presumably to hold the scepter. Khunarum was missing the tip of one finger, lost in combat perhaps. The bare chest of the figure bore some serious scars, testifying to the fact that the legendary king had lived in perilous times.
The scepter itself was nowhere in sight.
Mark searched the floor, passing behind the statue and re-emerging. “No scepter. If you want the crown, you’d better take it. The tide’s coming in outside, and we have to make our escape.”
Rothan put his hand to his temple as if rousing himself from a dream. “Standing here at last, I find myself reluctant to take what we sought. The crown should stay here, where it belongs.” He gave Mark a sideways glance. “Do you understand? Even though we fought so hard to get here?”
“I get it. We can leave the crown, you know.” Mark had no desire to touch anything in the room. Nerves tingling, he felt an urgent impulse to leave, and a headache pounded behind his eyes. Bad air maybe. “No sign of the scepter. If it’s in one of those boxes in the stacks to the side, we probably don’t have time to search for it.”
“No.” Rothan’s voice sounded regretful as he answered the comment about leaving the diadem. “I must take the crown. I must have it to save my people from Farahna and the Maiskhan. When Hutenen is shown to be the rightful ruler, when he appears wearing this crown, all doubt and indecision will be erased. The people, the priests, and the army will rally to him and realize the utter folly of aligning with her and her foreign allies.”
“I get the power of symbols to move men to action,” Mark said. “Whatever you’ve decided, we need to do it and get out of here, is all I’m saying.”
Lady of the Star Wind Page 14
