Warlord (2 page)
Sara screamed, dropping her hand as if she had been burned and threw herself backwards in the dark. A skeleton. She had just tried to wake up a skeleton.
CHAPTER 2 Alone . . . Not Quite
Shit
.
Shit
.
Shit
. Now what? Sara stopped screaming as soon as she realized no one seemed to be able to hear her. Nothing else had moved, nothing came out of the darkness, she seemed entirely and completely alone. Well, except for a dead person dressed as if he was a few centuries off.
Now, she was really worried. Why
was
it so dark in here? She had out gone to dinner tonight without bringing much of anything with her. She had removed her watch because she decided it detracted from her outfit. Had she worn it, she could have used its small green light for illumination. She had stopped carrying her cell phone the first week in Tajikistan since the service was almost nonexistent. But at least it would have had some light. As it was, she had nothing with her that would help her see.
She took a deep breath. She could either wait for morning to come or explore more of the room now, in the dark. But what if morning never came? What if it was perpetually dark in here? She chided herself. What kind of place would be perpetually dark? Then a chill flooded her spine. She could be underground. If so, it truly would never become light in the chamber. She could starve to death, ending up reclined against a wall like the knight for the rest of eternity.
The jazi seemed to have worn off and she felt wide awake. All right. She would explore now. It was a bit creepy knowing a dead person lay next to her, but she had to do it. Her heart suddenly pounded in her chest with a frightening thought. What if there were other dead people in here?
She got to her feet, backed to the wall again, and moved away from the knight, circling the room in the opposite direction. This time she counted her paces, at least the paces measured by her sideways, shuffling steps, as she nervously edged around the chamber.
She counted to thirty and had almost started to relax, when her left arm brushed something.
She stopped, her pulse racing and turned toward it, carefully reaching over until she felt a thick, rough cloak. Following it down she thought it was actually more like a set of robes. This person was standing up, no, leaning rather, against the wall. He was taller and broader than she was and she assumed, another man.
“Um . . . hello?” Sara asked, thinking it somehow not right to assume the man was dead.
She cleared her throat. Still nothing. Steeling herself, she moved in front of the figure and reached around it, feeling its robes more thoroughly.
Her right hand closed around a pole and she slid her hand up its shaft. She gasped as she bumped up against something wrapped around the pole that felt smooth and wooden.
She felt the area slowly with her fingers. It was a bony hand, a skeletal hand, gripping the staff. That answered the question of dead or alive. No need for conversation with this one.
Gingerly, she reached up and felt around the man’s head. He was quite tall and she had to stand on her tiptoes to feel that he had some sort of hood draped over his empty face.
As she stepped back, her foot accidentally entwined in his long robes and she stumbled, pulling on the fabric. The figure lurched forward from its stance on the wall, its heavy weight, even with only bones, crushing Sara to the floor. She screamed as she heard some of the bones shattering and the heavy staff fell painfully against her cheek. She scrambled out from under the cloaked skeleton as quickly as she could, noticing that it seemed to be not entirely intact now, more like in several pieces. Ugh.
When she finally collected herself, she backed to the wall again and continued counting paces. After fifteen shuffling movements, she bumped into something soft with the toe of her sandal. Taking a deep breath, Sara knelt and felt a smaller figure which she thought was a woman. This time she easily felt thin bones emerging from hard leather objects which seemed like arm guards. The figure also wore something on its torso which felt like a breastplate that jutted out a bit at the top. It had on a short dress of some kind, perhaps a skirt. Sara found a small sheathed dagger in a belt at the woman’s waist and a small round shield loose on the floor. The woman’s hand was wrapped around a hard metal pole about eighteen inches long attached to a metal chain. Sara followed the cold links of the chain until she came to a very heavy round object with sharp, metal spikes. It must be a flail.
Sara shuddered and hastily withdrew her hand. At least she hadn’t knocked over that skeleton. Now that would have hurt. She continued fifteen more paces until she reached the knight again. She made some quick mental calculations. The chamber was sixty small paces around. The knight, cloaked man, and woman seemed to be evenly spaced at intervals along the wall, with an empty place across from the woman where Sara had awoken. Each skeleton appeared to be armed. Recalling the echoing of her screams, she judged the chamber wasn’t very far across. Still, she needed to find out how what, if anything, was in the middle.
She took another breath and walked forward, holding her arms outstretched for balance.
After a few steps, she brushed against something solid with both sandals. Wincing a bit at the contact, she bent forward and felt with her hands. There was a low, circular barrier fashioned from rough-cut stone blocks, like the outer walls but on a smaller scale. It stood about two feet high and she could just barely reach the other side.
She straightened and stood staring down where she envisioned it to be, although she could not discern its opening in the pitch blackness. What was it? Some kind of well?
Hmmm. She wondered if it had a bottom.
She knelt next to it and extended her arm into the middle of the opening. Her hand seemed to reach below the level of the floor of the chamber. She bent forward farther so that her arm went in past her shoulder and waved it around a bit. She felt no bottom or any resistance inside. Frowning, she withdrew her arm.
Then the room began to rumble slightly and the faintest of lights seemed to glow from within the depths of the well-like enclosure. The shaking increased and Sara glanced around the chamber, hoping it was built solidly. If the rocks crumbled, it would be a quick death without question.
The quaking finally stopped. The light had increased in intensity and she could now see around her. She had been right about the chamber, except for one detail. Three skeletons lay evenly spaced against the walls, one empty place behind her. The knight lay at her right, the blade of his sword barely glinting in the emerging light. Ahead of her, the skeleton of the woman lay against the wall, her skull tilted down, chin resting on her collarbone, garbed in light armor, clutching a flail. And on Sara’s left, face down, the remnants of a cloaked skeleton, the hood folded over emptiness, its bony hand still wrapped around the staff, various parts of bones scattered around the floor. Its skull had broken free and rolled to within inches of Sara’s foot. She started. Then she looked up.
What she had failed to notice, she could not have seen in the dark. Above her, thick, ropy cords crisscrossed the ceiling, long, gray and silvery. She saw flashes of movement which she quickly discerned were rather large, black spiders scuttling through webs, their beady, red eyes peering down at her through the filaments as they moved. She guessed they weighed ten to twenty pounds each.
Repulsed, Sara looked back at the low, circular enclosure in the center of the room. The light from within abruptly grew brighter and she stepped back, shading her eyes. An indefinite, filmy shape slowly emerged from the brightness, flashed, and then seemed to suck the light into itself. She lowered her hand. The shape undulated before Sara, gold-black, like low torchlight.
Sara blinked rapidly. Maybe she really did have too much jazi. She made a mental note never, ever to have any again.
The image addressed her. “Sara Aster. You have been brought here to be tested. If you succeed, you shall be trained. If you fail, you shall die.”
Sara swallowed. She could think of nothing to say in response, her mind uncharacteristically blank.
The filmy shape spoke again. “If you wish to live, you shall first gaze into the Metus Lacus. In it, will appear your worst fear. You may choose what you may to face it.
Weapons, armor, anything you imagine shall be yours, save one. No living being may assist you – you must face your enemy alone. If you are overcome, you shall immediately die and your body returned to this chamber to remain here forever.”
Sara stared, her wits beginning to return. Metus Lacus? She tried to recall her Latin.
Oh, yes. Pool of Fear. That did not sound comforting at all.
The mist writhed before her, shimmering ephemerally and then continued. “If you conquer your enemy – your fear – you must then look upon the Desiderium Lacus. In its reflection, your greatest desire shall appear. You must resist what you see. If you give in to want, you shall die and remain in this chamber eternally.”
The figure swirled, some of the mist remaining in the well, as if it was connected to something below. It grew fainter and then brightened, speaking again. “The visions will seem as real as your very existence. They are difficult tasks, difficult trials. It is not likely you will succeed.”
It seemed to give her a measuring look. “If you are successful for some reason, you will be returned here alive. But you must still face a final challenge. To escape from this chamber, you must use what you have acquired on your journeys through the pools.”
The figure began to fade slightly.
“Wait,” called Sara, trying to think of something to ask it, certain she did not have enough information to complete the tasks. “Why is this necessary? Why are you doing this?” she blurted.
The figure looked at her consideringly. It was neither man nor woman, neither earthly nor spirit. It appeared to hesitate as it took in the cloaked skeleton splayed out on the floor, its gaze almost curious.
Then, it seemed to come to a decision and answered her. “Every two hundred years, we choose a mortal to be tested. Most are unworthy. I expect you to be no different. As you can see,” the shape waved at the wall behind her, “your place already awaits.”
Sara noticed that when the figure spoke, a face materialized for the purpose of words and as it gestured, fingers or a limb appeared. When it fell silent, these figments faded back into the filmy light.
“But why me? Why choose me?”
The figure swirled, almost contemplatively. “You are but one of many candidates that have been chosen throughout time. There are many such chambers, each with places for four candidates. At the death of the fourth, each chamber seals and may never be opened again. There have been many such candidates and many such chambers.” The mist drew indistinct hands together, giving the impression of fingers steepling. “This time, we have chosen seven mortals to be tested.”
Sara swallowed. We?
“But you are mine,” it continued, a bit possessively. ”I will train you if you succeed, I will bring your death if you do not.”
“Train me? For what?”
The specter darkened and for a moment, Sara thought she had displeased it. Then it spoke again. “There is no need for you to know unless you survive.”
The figure paled, the vapor thinning slightly. Sara could now make out the opposite wall of the chamber through it. Her mind raced. She should think of something else to ask it, something else that might help. Why was her brain so sluggish and uncooperative when it normally ran at an almost supersonic speed?
Suddenly, the image winked out. A residual signature glow lit the room dimly. Then she heard the figure’s voice again, coming from nowhere, but everywhere, at the same time.
“With unquenchable fire, comes unquenchable thirst.”
The afterglow disappeared and it was pitch black again. Sara’s heart began to pound.
Then a soft radiance began to shine from within the circular stone basin into which the figure had vanished. Sara now knew what it was. The Metus Lacus – the Pool of Fear.
She knelt down and touched the loose skull by her feet, purposefully running her fingers around its vacant eye sockets. Yes, it was real enough. She didn’t think she was dreaming . . . yet. But it appeared she was about to enter a dream, a dream from which she might easily wake up dead, like the others in the room. She shuddered. What had they each faced? And why had they all failed?
She closed her eyes, took a deep cleansing breath, stepped to the well and looked inside.
* * * * *
The mist had viewed plenty of exciting scenarios – mortals facing serpents, lions, dragons, warlords, even gods. One mortal, a long time ago, had conjured up in his fear a tidal wave of enormous proportions. The situation looked to be rather appealing until the man stood paralyzed and let the wave simply swallow him and wash him out to sea.
Disappointing indeed.
Those few who made it to the Desiderium Lacus usually provided a bit more amusement.
The most common settings involved gold, jewels, power and occasionally other mortals, the latter being the most entertaining and generally proving the most difficult to resist.
Giving in to temptation on any particular desire resulted in a very painful, drawn-out death.
If the mist had the ability to sigh, it would have. None of its mortals had ever made it past the Desiderium Lacus to the final challenge of exiting the chamber. However gratifying these scenarios were and however enjoyable the deaths, it longed for someone to succeed, for someone to train. It wasn’t fair that the other mists ended up occasionally with a successful mortal to train, even if it was the newest mist.