But the Ruinands as “diehard refusniks” in the death-defying stakes, denied death its blood. They got out and dusted themselves. They were too late to catch up, but unbeknownst to Katerina and Aristo they had inside information on their movements from the traitor in their midst.
Katerina’s and Aristo’s taxi only just avoided the near crash scene by the skin of its teeth, their heart on tender-hooks, until they were out of the near carnage. The hair-raising experience over, they fell behind Vasilis’ taxi at a safe distance.
Vasilis and Lara had seen the incident and thought they were out of the woods, but their relief did not last long as they saw what they suspected could be another enemy taxi, but which they hoped was an innocent one still behind them.
About half an hour after the crash incident, Vasilis’ taxi came to a stop near a shed at the foot of Mount Zalakas. The taxi carrying Katerina and Aristo stopped behind them and they got out.
Vasilis and Lara had taken a fighting stance, but let their guard down and relaxed when they recognised Katerina and Aristo coming towards them.
Vasilis’ jaw dropped when he saw Katerina and Aristo. ‘What are you two doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing. To help you, if you let us. You thought we were chasing you as well, didn’t you?’ Aristo hugged his brother.
‘Well, yes, I couldn’t see inside your taxi, now could I? So I told the driver to go faster and faster.’
‘Yes, I suspected as much. No wonder we could not catch up.’ Aristo looked at Lara. ‘Hi, Lara. It’s good to see you again. It could have been under better circumstances, though.’
‘It’s always some crisis or other that brings us together, isn’t it?’ Lara laughed and looked to Katerina. ‘Katerina, it’s good to see you.’
‘You too.’
Vasilis had had enough of this civil idle chitchat. He decided to cut in. ‘Enough with the pleasantries. We need to get a move on.’ Vasilis turned to Lara. ‘Lara, what’s the best way to get inside?’
‘We’ll use the tunnel we’ve discovered. We’ve supported a large part of it, but it goes deep inside the mountain and we have not explored its full length yet. We’ll have to be careful. It could be dangerous. We can use the cables carrying the cable car to get up near the top of the mountain and then descend from there.’
‘And how do you propose we do that?’ Vasilis’ words had only a subtle hint of irony, just enough to tease, but not so much as to offend. He put down a challenge for Lara. He could not resist teasing her, testing her for his amusement, taking advantage of her short fuse and non-existent sense of humour in tense moments.
‘I’ve thought about it already. Why do you think I was maddeningly texting in the taxi? Someone is expecting us there.’
But the man they met, Raul, was not the one Lara was talking to, although he looked like him and talked like him. The Ruinands had caught up with the real Raul and with them somehow.
A small pod, powered by a self-generating energy motor, big enough to carry four people, had already been connected to the cables and was waiting for them. All four of them got into the pod, hooked up to the cable for extra safety, and the pod launched into the dark moonless sky.
They had not gone very far when suddenly they stopped suspended in mid-air. After a few harrowing seconds, with the only sound the near slow splitting of one of the cables, it ended up being a false alarm and they started off again.
Just as they were approaching the top of the mountain and the end of the first part of their journey, the cables started to strain from the combined weight of four people. The cables snapped just as the last of the four, Aristo gripped the edge of the landing platform jutting out of the mountain and began to slide down before they pulled him up and saved his life.
They looked down in horror as their erstwhile transport fell, slicing through the humid air and crashing to the ground a few hundred metres below, a distance that seemed like light years from where they now stood.
Raul and the Ruinands, who had by now joined him at the ground-level end of the cable route, heard the almighty crash at the bottom of the ravine and were pleased with their handiwork believing that they had succeeded in eliminating all four of their targets.
They stood there for a while with pricked ears looking at the mountain, probing the stillness of the night, observing like hawks for any movement, but nothing stirred. The translucent glow from the lights of the village was quite far off in the distance and did not reach the mountain.
The pitch black made their work easier. If only the moon could throw enough light on the mountain to help them make out any shadows of movement. But as it was they saw nothing, not even the slightest flicker of a torchlight.
They made to leave. But then a member of the team thought he had seen something. It was only for a moment, but he was sure it was there, a flash of light on the side of the mountain near the top framed in the night sky.
He stopped and turned. He focused on the area of the mountain near the spot where he thought he saw that suspicious flash of light. He called to his ‘friends’, gesturing with his head in the direction of the mountain.
‘We have to get up there. They’re still alive. Or at least some of them are. Come on.’
CHAPTER 60
Cyprus
Present day
Up on the mountain, Katerina, Vasilis, Lara and Aristo were carefully descending following a steep path that barely clung to the edge of the cliff with gritted teeth.
They reached the entrance to the tunnel and went inside. Only then did they dare to switch on their torches. After a few minutes in the tunnel, feeling mercilessly being suffocated with the earthen walls threatening to consume them, they emerged in a large cavern.
They were relieved to be free of the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel. Lara set off a couple of flares to light up the cavern. There was a generator, but she didn’t dare turn it on for fear of the noise betraying them.
Scattered around them were remnants of the excavation, tools of the trade, dug-up remains and objects and holes in the ground behind cordoned off areas, and openings, just visible, smattering some of the outer walls of the cave, leading only God knew where.
Lara lost no time. ‘Hey, here, this way, quickly. There’s no time to lose. Hurry. There is still a possibility that we may have been followed. We cannot underestimate the Ruinands.’
She led them through one of the gaping openings into a short tunnel and then another cave, smaller than the one before. Now here there were no more openings or gaps on the outer walls. They were stuck. Lara turned to Vasilis.
‘This is the end of the road. This is as far as we can go, unless you want to start hitting your head on the walls with the hope that one of them will give up and disgorge its secret and allow you to break through.’
‘How about not underestimating me either?’
As if an invisible hand was guiding him, at that moment not in control of his own actions, Vasilis closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. He could not resist a proper challenge. He did, at times, have a penchant for tackling the seemingly impossible.
But perhaps it was not that impossible in this case. The effort he would have to exert would cause him pain as well as exhaustion. He closed his eyes and focused all his senses in an attempt to open up a channel and connect at a deep level with the rock formation obstructing his way.
He began to suppress his subconscious resistance to the side effects of his act. He gave in slowly, and he felt that he was succeeding and breaking through, even though elements of resistance were always there in the background, hibernating, strengthening, biding their time.
He knew that the resistance and doubt were part of his strength, part of the process and not an obstacle, a familiar feeling that had become part of him by now.
A bright sunlight-like object appeared on the ceiling of the cavern and started to expand and to turn night into day. The torches were redundant. A single ray travelled above t
heir heads and partly through their bodies and their minds, and they saw it act not just as pure energy, but as if it was an individual being, some kind of out-worldly form of life.
The ray connected with the wall and at that spot the rock melted, as if shot through with the deadliest heat of a laser. The ray developed eyes that turned to Vasilis and back at the wall, and a hand came out of the ray and drew Vasilis by the hand and led him to the wall. It pulled his hand to bring it to touch the wall and an entrance opened, revealing, behind a light cloud of some dusty substance, a cavern even bigger than the first one they passed.
The ray coming from the adjoining room bounced off the walls and exploded, sending sparks in all directions, sparks that hit them, but did not harm them, and instead gave them a strange sensation of being pampered and massaged at a spa, totally relaxed. They felt at least ten years younger.
They saw around the cavern niche after niche filled with statues attired in Byzantine dress. All the statues had their right arms raised and indicating at a point in the distance. The four intruders into this rarefied space of the sentinels suspended in a time of their own tried to follow the direction of the extended arms to the point where they intersected.
At the meeting point of the imaginary lines created by the extended arms the ground opened up and a platform rose on which stood a transparent figure, alive, but with no internal organs, as they could see through the figure to the opposite side of the cavern. The figure had a voice.
‘Hello, friends. Please come aboard.’
Vasilis, Lara, Katerina and Aristo obeyed reluctantly. As soon as they were on board, the platform started a dizzying descent, a hell of a rollercoaster ride. Only they did not feel dizzy, but increasingly warmer and warmer, in a cosy sort of way, as they descended to where they didn’t know, couldn’t imagine and couldn’t wait to see.
When the platform stopped they were led to a small hall that seemed to be floating in space, a rotunda, surrounded and supported by an exquisite combination of Corinthian columns interwoven with all sorts of exotic flowers and figures, magnifying the effect of the Corinthian rhythm.
The rotunda was surrounded by water and it seemed to be floating and bobbing along. They walked across the water, as if it was not there at all, as if it was a solid surface, as if they were walking through an enveloping mist that gave them no feeling at all of warm or cold and which did not in the least obscure their line of vision to the centre of the rotunda where a man was standing waiting for them.
He looked like a young last Byzantine Emperor. Had he found the secret of life and eternal youth or was he some kind of apparition or ghost? Then he spoke.
‘I want us to play a game.’
No welcome, no greeting, no introduction, no explanation, nothing. How rude, the four visitors thought at the same time independently of each other. They came close to expressing it, but, at the last second, common sense kicked in and they, wisely, held back and waited, speechless.
‘Once you’ve cured the tragedy that you will find further down your path, you will be free to go with a gift to boot.’ Said the last Emperor look-alike.
A strange noise behind them made them turn, but they saw nothing. However, they kept hearing something like footsteps and a banging, as if someone or something, some machine or device, was trying to break through tightly-packed earth.
It couldn’t be the Ruinands, could it? They surely must have thought them dead after the crash of the pod on the mountain and they wouldn’t have followed. The Ruinands couldn’t have seen anything.
Vasilis and the others had been careful to switch on the torches only when they were well inside the tunnel and far from its entrance. Was it that someone had switched on a torch too close to the mouth of the tunnel? It was a waste of time to speculate. Vasilis and the others dismissed the thought.
CHAPTER 61
Cyprus
Present day
The rotunda disappeared and Vasilis, Lara, Katerina and Aristo found themselves standing on a hill looking down at the realm of the people of the cliffs, the bougainvillea-clad cliff-clinging and cave-entrance hanging dwelling-cities protected by an invisible very potent force-field that shielded them from the outside world.
They descended almost to the bottom of the valley before they could take the path climbing up the city. They could see no activity, no movement.
What hit them most, though, was the silence. Was there nobody there? The dwellings did not look deserted, but in quite a good condition at least from that distance.
Once inside, though, it seemed that all was not well. The settlements looked semi-deserted and a palpable sadness hung in the air, acquiring a physical presence, solidifying and becoming crystals; the taste and smell of it was, to put it mildly, unpleasant. Vasilis, Lara, Katerina and Aristo began to feel sick and about to throw up.
They saw an old man sitting on a rock with a child playing at his feet. The two of them gave the impression of being of human form, but with the twist of flashing in and out of consciousness, out from physical form to energy and invisibility and then back again.
One moment the two of them were behaving naturally and actively, and chatting and having fun, and the next, it all stopped, as if the music ceased playing, and they stayed holding the poses they occupied the moment the music stopped. Perhaps time stopped and forgot how to move on, and they became immovable objects, as if sculpted in stone.
Vasilis, Lara, Katerina and Aristo watched bemused. They had to know what was going on. They approached slowly, exhausted by the experience of overwhelming sadness and the difficulty in breathing the sour air. The next time the old man and the child were conscious, Katerina took the opportunity and rushed to greet them.
‘Hello. I am Katerina. Is there anybody else here or is it just the two of you?’
No response was forthcoming. Man and child stared right through the four visitors, an odd empty look in their eyes, their face a picture of incomprehension and utter bemusement, as if they had a vegetable for a head and mash for a brain.
Katerina persisted in a gentle manner, as if speaking to a child. ‘Where are the others?’ Still nothing.
‘Are you the only ones left?’
Still the same expression that gradually changed to an ugly transfigured grimace.
Katerina persevered. Her patience knew no bounds. ‘Are there any others?’
Lara made signs with her hands to indicate people, but her gestures resembled a bad attempt at charades that fell flat on its face.
Since the four visitors arrived the old man had been giving the worst or best performance of his life, going in and out of consciousness, in his last incarnation a ragged doll, listless and lifeless, not even breathing, with no movement visible in the lung area, no lifting of the chest to indicate some, even the smallest sign of life; and despite all their efforts to rouse him and get through to him, he was ignoring them, continuing the same upsetting routine.
At some point Katerina and the others realised the change from consciousness to unconsciousness occurred at regular intervals; the duration of each condition lasting the best part of two minutes.
Katerina’s gaze held the eyes of Vasilis, Lara and Aristo in turn. ‘We need to time it properly and be quick. Time is running out.’
Lara gently touched Katerina’s arm. ‘Maybe he does not seem to understand our language, but I cannot think of any other way to get through to him.’
The child had until now been busy playing, engrossed by an ant crossing the barren soil at his feet. Suddenly he looked up, his face locked into a smile that was expanding, until it was about to consume his whole face. Then his face began to expand, struggling to fit in the smile.
Katerina took it as an invitation, as acceptance of them. She began to feel hopeful. She was at long last beginning to get through.
They all stared at the child who seemed to be going through a transformation. The child’s body started to grow as if a seed had received a huge boost from a magic concoction, the most
amazing unpatented fertiliser.
At the end of the show, what stood in front of them was a curious creature not before seen in this world, in fiction, in myths, in the whole literature that had been falling like copious rain on Earth. Part energy, part flesh, it kept changing forms, with the mouth and the eyes the only features remaining constant.
He had in his arsenal a multitude of expressions, from most horrific to gentlest and most reassuring. Every facial expression speared through Katerina and the others’ emotional chords making them pulsate to the different emotions the child triggered.
The child spoke only to Katerina in a language that for some reason only she understood. The other three stared at her confused, waiting for the translation.
‘I was in disguise until I could sense that I could trust you. I do not know about the others, yet.’
The old man finally stirred, his face animated.
‘We know who you are. We know why you are here. We are honoured to have you here. Please accept our hospitality.’ The two minutes were up. The old man went back to his by now familiar stasis.
The four visitors wondered. Hospitality? With what tools? With what goods? With what energy that seemed to be lacking in their self-appointed hosts when they seemed not to be capable of remaining conscious for more than two minutes? Perhaps that was an act for the benefit of intruders that had to be scared away from this strange and creepy place.
The man seemed to be speaking to the four visitors in stops and starts, in two-minute intervals, perfectly capable in picking up the thread of his story after every two-minute gap, every single time without fail. But Katerina and the others had to try hard to remember every time where he left off, what came before.
At the same time that the old man was speaking, unbeknownst to them, he was probing their minds, reading their thoughts. Katerina could wait no longer. She wanted answers.
The Emperor Awakes Page 44
