Marked (30 page)

Kayti was dying.

“Help her, Hartz!” Komir could do nothing more than to helplessly call out to his friend just moments before losing consciousness.

Hartz grabbed the flask of water the priest was holding and ran toward the monster. “Here! Look here, demon!” he screamed, trying to get the guard’s attention.

But it lunged at the defenseless Kayti, ready to finish her off.

“Leave her alone!” Hartz screamed in desperation.

Running full out, the great Norriel opened the flask and, squeezing it as hard as he could, sent a jet of water splashing over the macabre guard.

It emitted a chilling howl, but the water seemed to have no effect. It turned and took off after Hartz, leaving Kayti lying on the floor, her life ebbing away.

“I think I’m right! The guard reacts to the four elements!” cried the priest.

A distraught Hartz, who was running from the infuriated specter, shot a glance at the priest. “Reacts? But it doesn’t hurt it—or at least water and fire don’t.” He turned to face the guard and sprayed another jet of water over it.

The monster howled again, but immediately resumed its chase after the Norriel.

“You’re right—it doesn’t... But, why doesn’t it? Water puts out fire, fire consumes air, air can move earth...”

“Come on, Father, think of something fast! I’m getting tired and it’s going to catch me!”

The priest clenched his jaw, concentrating deeply, trying to solve the mystery as Hartz ran in circles for his life.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he finally exclaimed excitedly. “It reacts to the elements because it is actually made of one of them—the fifth element: Ether!”

“I don’t understand a single word of what you’re saying! Just tell me how we kill it!” gasped Hartz.

“Kill it? Uh, well... it’s Ether, so it dominates the other elements. They can’t affect it. . . nothing affects it.”

“That doesn’t help me at all!” bellowed Hartz, who was barely escaping the clutches of the Ether guard whose lethal reach was now inches from his back.

“I know!” the priest nervously exclaimed. “Let me think... What affects Ether? Nothing, except for Ether itself—That’s it! That’s it! We have to stop the Ether!”

“And how the hell do we do that? Think of something fast—it almost got me!”

The priest looked around... and then he saw it.

The fog!

It completely surrounded them; it was the key. He had to stop the fog! It was feeding the guard. Without thinking twice, he ran toward the first of the three enormous urns flooding the room with the fog. Laying the torch on the floor he shoved the massive urn with all his might; it tipped over and, after breaking into a thousand small pieces, stopped emitting the ethereal substance.

“Hartz, break the three urns on the other wall! I’ll break the rest on this side!”

“Break them? Gladly!” responded the exhausted Norriel, his enthusiasm renewed. He quickly dodged to elude the spectral guard just as it was about to graze him. Then, sword in hand, he headed straight for the three urns.

The priest strained to tip over the second urn. Meanwhile, Hartz destroyed the three vessels against the wall on the opposite side of the room with three powerful strikes of his sword.

The priest was elated to see that the fog was beginning to dissipate. He ran to the third urn and, with every ounce of strength he had left, smashed it against the floor. Just as he was about to jump for joy, he saw Hartz fall, overcome by the specter.

“Nooooooo, Hartz!”

The Ether guard glared at him with that hellish nightmarish face. Emitting another terrifying howl, it headed straight for him.

The priest ran for his life toward one of the corners, but there was no way out. Filled with fear, he turned to face the specter. It was moving through the center of the room, coming ever closer to him.

“May the protective Light shelter me from harm in this, my hour of dire need!” prayed the priest, his body trembling with the certainty his end was near.

He closed his eyes, waiting for the touch of death.

But it never came.

The guard howled in rage.

The priest opened his eyes and watched in astonishment as the guard stumbled toward the middle of the room, drawn back by the ethereal fog which had disappeared completely from around the priest. The guard could not reach him. He ran to pick up his torch from the floor, watching the guard weakening by the moment. As the fog dissipated, the fearsome guard was beginning to become solid again. After a few moments, the fog had completely vanished from the room. And with one last horrifying howl, the guard was once again a translucent statue.

“Praise be!” The priest celebrated, lifting his outstretched palms to the Light.

He ran toward Kayti and shook her vigorously.

Her eyes opened wide. The look of terror on her face was an outward sign of the nightmare from which she’d just awakened.

“Are you all right?”

“Where am I? What happened?”

“Take it easy, everything is fine. We defeated the Ether guard.”

“Oh, that’s right; I remember now. It was horrible... its touch almost killed me. I thought my time had come...”

“It was indeed a close call, but you’re safe now. Can you sit up?”

The brave warrior tried but did not have the strength. “I need to rest, Father. I am totally drained.”

“All right, you rest. I’m going to see how the Norriel are doing.”

After a few minutes, the priest came back to Kayti, accompanied by the two warriors, their exhausted faces marked by suffering. They knelt down next to her.

“It looks like we survived,” the priest nervously announced.

“By a hair,” affirmed Komir, his voice faltering.

“He’s still there.” Hartz pointed in the direction of the hooded mage in the middle of the platform.

They all looked up at it, still engulfed in apprehension.

“Let’s let it be for the moment. We have nothing left but our souls to fight with; we need to recover and rest before we try anything. But let’s not take our eyes off it, just in case,” said Komir.

And rest they did. A tense period of recuperation during which the hooded figure stood in the center of the room, watching over their battered bodies without so much as a sound or the tiniest of movements. Komir never took his eyes off it, but would have been too tired and weak to defend himself if anything had happened. All he could hope for was that the mage would not conjure up some other wicked creature to fight them.

After a bit of respite, the three companions looked at each other indecisively. The experience had taken its toll on them; they looked as pathetic as they felt physically, and had very little strength left—if any. And they were still in danger.

Komir stared at the hooded figure, still standing stock-still in the middle of the room. The priest passed one of his torches to Kayti as Hartz rebandaged the sutured cuts on his right arm and thigh. He walked over to Komir without taking his eyes off the dauntless enemy.

“He must be the Temple Guard; a priest or a guardian mage in charge of defending it from thieves and defilers,” proposed the cleric.

“Do you think they left him here—buried alive?” asked Kayti. “I’d bet they did, so he could defend his master. It’s an ancient custom in certain civilizations, long before our time. There are texts about those kinds of traditions in the great Library of Loranium. Do you realize what this means? We are in the presence of one them—a member of the Lost Civilization, a civilization we believed had been wiped out. This is an incredibly important discovery!”

“If you say so... but all I want is answers. So that hooded man—guardian or not, millenarian or not—had better give them to me if he doesn’t want to lose his head,” growled Komir.

“No, please! I beg of you—don’t kill him! There are so many things we need to know, so many mysteries to solve, so much we could learn from him...”

Komir took a few steps toward the hooded figure. As if reacting to the threat the young man posed, it raised its staff above its head again and chanted something unintelligible. In the same moment, a golden light appeared in the doorway of the room behind them. Taken by surprise, Komir stopped in his tracks, expecting another attack from yet another monster, specter, or some other evil minion.

The sinister figure convulsed, then collapsed.

“What... in the world...?” muttered the priest who stood just a few steps behind Komir, staring at him with seeds of doubt in his eyes.

“I swear, I didn’t touch it!” insisted Komir, defending himself against the priest’s accusing gaze.

Approaching the fallen figure, they saw that its eyes were no longer glowing with the golden light. Komir opening its tunic; inside was a being that appeared to be human—completely mummified. Dried up, shriveled, as if time had absorbed every last drop of fluid from its body without decomposing it.

They checked to see if it was... living.

It was dead. Not a shred of life remained within it.

“Fascinating! Really incredible! I think that golden liquid these beings are filled with is some kind of magic fluid that can perhaps even prolong their lives!” The priest exclaimed, carried away by his enthusiasm. “So unfortunate that he died; a real shame. Who knows how old he must have been! Maybe even more than a thousand years old!”

They picked up the guard’s staff and book and examined them inquisitively. As tall as a person of average height, the staff was made of a strange wood none of them recognized. Halfway up the crook, the wood was adorned with enigmatic inscriptions. The book, though not terribly large, immediately captivated the priest’s attention. It was written in some indecipherable language. Its cover looked to be made of gold, though they really couldn’t be sure of that.

“This book must be a grimoire! A compendium of knowledge about the arcane arts of the Lost Civilization and the basis for the spells used by the guardian mage... I’ll need some time to study this important relic in detail—and to study the mummy.” The priest could barely contain his excitement.

“Let’s have a look in the next room,” Komir suggested to the priest. “You two wait here. Regain some strength. If we need you, I’ll give you a shout.”

“Don’t worry, my friend. We’ll be like new in no time,” replied Hartz. He sat back down on the floor, his face marked by fatigue.

Cautiously, Komir and the priest went through the doorway and into the sumptuous room, designed in the shape of a cathedral nave. A series of high arches rose from the floor to the intricate vaulted ceiling, all the way down the length of the nave-like structure.

“Unbelievable... It looks like a grand basilica, the size of the Cathedral of the Light in Rilentor... amazing!” exclaimed the priest, awestruck. “The work it would have taken to build this temple... the symmetry and perfection of this architectural marvel...
years
of construction...” His mouth was agape as he admired the arches and vaults.

Komir warily advanced, followed by the spellbound priest. When they came to the end of the room, they found a rectangular altar and a host of mysterious runes. On the platform was an enormous translucent sarcophagus, engraved with golden inscriptions. The tomb appeared to be the reason for the entire subterranean temple’s existence, the eternal resting place of someone of extreme importance. A large, golden circle completely surrounded the burial chamber.

“Let me guess—if we cross over the golden ring, something bad will happen,” ventured Komir.

“I would bet my well-worn cassock you’re right,” smiled the priest. “I believe that guard may have used up his last reserve of life force to activate this protection.”

“Fantastic...”

Komir moved closer to the edge of the golden circle and looked inside it. The floor was made of square flagstones with five different kinds of engravings carved into them. Outside the golden circle the floor was smooth, with no etchings of any kind.

“If we want to get to the altar we’ll have to walk on those etched stones, but I don’t like the looks of them.”

“Try to press on one of them with your sword to see what happens.”

Komir chose a stone with an intricate design and pushed on it with his sword. A spear instantaneously shot out of the stone toward the ceiling. Startled, Komir instinctively jumped back and landed on his rear end on the floor.

“They’re not making it easy for us, are they?” said the priest, stifling a chuckle.

This time Komir tried a stone with a different etching. The result was the same. This was not his lucky day.

“Try the stone with the simplest engraving,” suggested the priest.

Komir chose one that had just a square drawn in its center. Nothing happened. He pressed on it several times with his sword. Still nothing.

“I think this could be the right one,” said Komir, “this one with the symbol in the shape of a square. But I don’t trust these traps. Would you bring me one of the metal shields hanging on the wall in the other room?”

The priest was back in a few minutes with a small shield.

“Perfect. Just the right size,” said Komir.

As carefully as he could, he placed the shield on one of the stones with a square symbol. He looked at the priest, took a deep breath to calm his nerves and quickly stepped onto the shield.