The mist was like a pale, slowly drifting
river of water with the moonlight caught in its ripples of vapor. Lancaster James and Little Jack looked as
though they were swimming through it as they pressed forward in the thinning jungle
toward the crest of the hill. Little
Jack was leading, utilizing his large, frosted over glasses that covered almost
half his face. He could see more than
visible light in them, and even had additional functions that aided him whether
he was in a gun fight, flying a ship, or just trying to get around. Right now he had the coordinates Lancaster
had provided to lead them to their destination atop the hill.
Arriving at the crest, Lancaster lifted
his hat momentarily to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and to brush some of
his hair back which had dropped into his eyes.
He caught his breath and looked around.
It would make sense that this was the location written about at another
Cerritac ruin. Though the area was
wooded, the trees on this hill had mostly given way to underbrush, and the
jungle valley below opened up before him like a rumpled carpet in the bluish
light of night.
Just as reported also, giant boulders of
varying shapes and sizes stretched out from the trees’ canopies like fingers
pointing skywards. Everything was as it
had been described, but there was supposed to be a marking where he was
standing. Lancaster had not expected a
full building to be intact, but he assumed he’d find some sort of stone
monument. Lancaster stuck his foot below
some vines and felt around. His boot
bumped something, though it could be just more underbrush. He leaned over and started to pull at the
greenery. Little Jack saw what he was
doing and helped. The two men pulled
back one layer, then Lancaster pulled back another. He could see now at the bottom there was a
solid surface of something other than dirt.
He pulled back one more overland system of roots to reveal the cement flooring
at the bottom covered in soil; the monument he was hoping for. And it had a carved symbol in it.
“Hold this,” Lancaster said absently to
Little Jack as he handed over the vines he was grasping. Little Jack’s eyebrows rose in alarm, but Lancaster
let go of the vines, so Little Jack had no choice but to hold on tight, despite
the plants trying to yank back down to the ground. Lancaster didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on the symbol as he
brushed the dirt off and scraped mud from its pores. He stuck a flashlight in his mouth and
pointed it toward his target to get a better look at what he was doing. He then pulled his notebook out of one of the
many pockets of his beige jacket. A few
dozen tabs that only he understood marked specific pages. His finger ran down them until he found the
one he wanted, and he flipped open the page.
Little Jack was beginning to sweat as the
muscles in his clenched hands tightened by the time Lancaster found the drawn
image for which he was searching. It was
symbol for a language never created by humans; alien in nature, and it matched
the symbol on the ground. Lancaster
tapped the page a couple times, as though thanking it, then closed the book and
put it back in his pocket. He was
standing again before he noticed the way Little Jack was gritting his teeth and
suffering under the strain of holding up the greenery.
“You can let that go now,” Lancaster said,
as though unsure why Little Jack was still holding the pile of vines. Little Jack dropped it all, and the tangled
mass thudded loudly onto the cement ground.
Lancaster stepped atop the dropped pile
and looked out at the valley before them.
Where in the valley he was supposed to go would be the important part,
as somewhere out there was supposed to be the Tomb of Dumacha. It was, of course, not the original name. Xeno-linguistics was a tricky field
considering that alien voices and even their means of speech varied widely
based on their anatomy. Some words were
impossible for humans to say. Others
were impossible to figure out. The Cerritac
language and anatomy was not so far from humans that it could not be distinguished. They even had a letter system, much like the
predominant human language did. But many
anthropologists, like Lancaster, chose close approximations, or words that related
to some other nearby discovery. The
aliens could correct them if they were ever found. The only sign of them so far was these ruins
and the relics they left behind inside them.
It was one artifact in particular
Lancaster was searching for.
Archaeologists, such as Lancaster’s ex-wife Mika, called it the Idol of
Ekani. Its presence on this planet would
prove the Ekani Dynasty had stretched to this sector of the galaxy. They wanted it back at Sabureaux University
so they could study the metallic compounds which could uncover the century of
its manufacture, and its planet of origin.
Such answers would unlock a number of secrets about the Cerritac.
This was Lancaster’s job; and it was also
his duty. He owed it to his ex-wife to
recover a number of relics after an earlier foible cost her university a number
of priceless artworks and artifacts. He
had promised to refill the school’s shelves and display cases with new
treasures that could be researched and studied.
To help him accomplish this, the school financed his expeditions. Mika also sent him the results of their
studies which helped solve the mystery as to what happened to alien life in the
cosmos; a question that plagued Lancaster’s mind every day.
The present expedition was launched off of
previous information the school had had.
They had been aware of this idol’s existence, but had not dared search
for it themselves due to the possible dangers in the tomb, and the surrounding
jungle; which was not only populated by potentially dangerous animals, but also
the Ocanuate, a semi-sentient species of ancient tribesmen who lived in the
valley around the tomb. Rumors claimed
that they guarded its secrets. Lancaster
knew they did, and he knew why also. The
Ocanuate had been the pets of the Cerritac when they lived on the planet
millions of years ago. Whatever killed
the Cerritac did not kill the animals, and so their pets evolved into sentient
beings. Something deep in their
subconscious must have remembered their masters, and Lancaster theorized they
worshipped them like gods. They would
try to hide their secrets at all costs.
Lancaster would be unable to explain to them that his grave robbing
would be helping them as well; for whatever killed the Cerritac may very well
come back to kill them as well someday.
The sooner he could figure out who that was, the sooner humanity might
be able to stop them. That is, if they
could stop building profit machines long enough to save themselves from
extinction.
Even this planet would soon be a target
for their short sightedness. Though it
had thus far gone unnoticed by corporations, the minerals on the planet were
sought after by most companies, and their scout vessels were getting
closer. Once they got here, the trees
would be leveled, and all past signs of previous civilizations would be
destroyed in favor of refineries, offices, housing, or whatever else could make
them more money. Even the local life,
including the Ocanuate, would be displaced at best, or at worst, exterminated,
which was the more likely result.
In order to discover the location of the
tomb, he had follow the clue, which the university had gathered from another
Cerritac location. When the moon reached
a specific height, he was to “follow the arched claw to the final resting place
of the Idol of Ekani.” Researchers at
the university had figured out when exactly the moon would be in that location
again, adjusting for the moon’s displacement over the millions of years since
the Cerritac lived on the planet, and came up with the time that was soon
approaching. Lancaster was none too
excited that it had to be at night, but the Cerritac were nocturnal, so it only
made sense that their riddles and directions also took place at night.
Lancaster began to wonder if the
researchers had gotten the time wrong.
The moon currently hovered near the horizon, half covered by a range of thin,
mountainous boulders. But then he
noticed a long shadow from one of them; the tallest, standing in the center of
the others. The shadow trailed out over
the trees of the forest until it came to a point. The tip of the rock was sharp, and its shadow
pointed distinctly at one location. It
was so distinct, it seemed to even be singling out an individual tree.
Lancaster pulled out his Universalis Sextant
from his utility belt and aimed it at the location. He held it there at arm’s length for a
moment, remaining still for it to get the reading. After a quick beep, Lancaster looked at the
readings. It provided coordinates for
the location, and marked it for directions and distance. He was approximately two kilometers away, but
it would involve a climb down the steep side of a hill, and may be tricky. ‘But,’ he thought, ‘nothing I can’t
handle.’ “You ready to fly cover for
me?” Lancaster asked Little Jack.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Little Jack
responded. He far preferred the
temperature control of Odin’s Revenge to the humidity of this planet, or the
weather of any of the planets they explored, really. “Will you find your way?”
“I’ve got my Illuminaor and the sextant,”
Lancaster said, holding up both devices.
The Illuminator did much of what Little Jack’s glasses did, except that
it shot out beams of light to help him see.
He would be exposed to any animal or the Ocanuates if they saw him.
“You have the gun I gave you?” Little Jack
asked.
Lancaster was used to Little Jack handling
that. He did not prefer to use a weapon,
and had gotten overly reliant on Little Jack’s backup. “Yes,” he said, feeling around his jacket
pockets. “I’ve got it… Right…”
“You need to be able to pull it…”
Lancaster pulled it from the holster
Little Jack had provided him with a grin on his face. Little Jack met the grin with a serious
scowl. “It won’t be funny if they’re
throwing spears into you and you can’t shoot back.”
“No, but it’s funny now,” Lancaster
quipped, returning the pistol to its holster.
Little Jack was not amused.
“Besides,” Lancaster said, “the sun will be up soon and I’ll have the
advantage.”
“When it does, you replace the Illuminator
with the gun.”
“Roger,” Lancaster said.
“Keep your talki on,” Little Jack
said. “I want to hear you say I told you
so when you get skewered by a spear.”
“I think the Ocanuates mostly use bows.”
“I’ll keep eyes in the sky,” Little Jack
said, disappearing into the darkness of the woods behind Lancaster using the
path they had forged on their way to the hill.
In front of Lancaster lay the valley, the gateway of which was through
an archway of trees into pitch blackness.
Lancaster stepped cautiously into the
jungle, the light of his Illuminator set to a dim, reddish setting. He saw less, but he also hoped he’d be less
of a target as a result. He also
understood the Cerritac had been weaker in seeing the red spectrum of light,
and he hoped that, if true, it had passed to their pets.
It was a long journey through darkness
surrounded by sounds of insects and animals.
Most were going about their business, but some seemed disturbed by his
presence, chattering loudly as they made way.
He wanted to shush them to avoid alerting the Ocanuates, or larger
hunters. He sometimes heard the sounds
of movement in the trees or across the ground; sometimes the rustling of
bushes, or the scattering of leaves. When
these noises were accompanied by more animal sounds, Lancaster was unconcerned,
but he was most disturbed when the movement was alone. Only someone creeping should be making such a
sound.
All along the Universalis Sextant counted
down, the arrow occasionally shifting directions to adjust Lancaster’s
trajectory. The numbers moved achingly
slow. He dropped it about halfway to the
destination when he heard a loud cracking noise to his right. He spun toward the source of the sound as he
ducked, pointing the light toward it and increasing its intensity. He yanked at the pistol, but it would not
come loose. His cramped position had put
it at an awkward angle and made it hard to pull. Luckily, he did not need it. He saw a furry animal with a bushy tail
scurry away. It had evidently broken a
limb along its path as a freshly broken one lay half against the tree.
Then Lancaster noticed another, very thin
branch sticking unnaturally out of the same tree. It was broken at one end and stuck directly
outward. He approached it, the light never
leaving the thin stick. When he got to
the branch, it became clear why it looked so unnatural. It was an arrow which had shot into the tree
trunk. It had evidently gotten something
with small feathers as a tuft of skin with a couple black feathers was pinned
to the tree. The back half of the arrow
was snapped off and lay on the ground.
He was definitely in Ocanuate territory.
Suddenly a booming voice interrupted the
still darkness, “Come in, Lancaster. I’m
in the air. What’s your 60?”
Lancaster stumbled with the talki,
juggling it out of his utility belt. He
twisted the volume down as quickly as he could, scanned the area around him
with the Illuminator in both light spectrum and infrared, then answered back. “Sending my beacon now,” he said, pressing a
button that revealed his coordinates to the receiver. “And you can use your indoor voice.”
“Already using it. I’m indoors,” Little Jack said. “I’m heading over you now.”
“See how close I am to the nearest Ocanuate
camp.”
There was a long pause now while Lancaster
retrieved his Universalis Sextant. He
needed more than two hands to do everything he needed to do now, and he cursed
the nighttime. At last Little Jack
called, “They’re about a tick to the east.
I’m detecting only that one camp.
But they’re awake.”
“They’ll be awake until about sunup,”
Lancaster said, still keeping his voice down.
“Keep an eye on them.”
By the time he at last reached the
destination, the shadow of the “arched claw” had subsided. The moon that had created the umbra was high
in the sky throwing the shadows of slowly dancing palm leaves on his
torso. He trusted that the sextant was
correct and looked around for a passageway, or another clue as to where it
was. Nothing. No amount of light from his Illuminator
revealed a thing. He turned it off and
looked around in hopes there was something to be found that could only be seen
in the darkness. Still nothing.
But the pitch black gave him a
thought. He began to wonder how much the
Cerritac saw since their vision was along a shorter wavelength than
humans. Some scientists had speculated
their vision dipped into the ultraviolet.
He therefore set his Illuminator to an ultraviolet setting and did
another sweep. Soon, he saw something
different. Something reflected off one
of the trees a little in the distance.
He weaved through the foliage to get to what he saw and focused the
Illuminator on the trunk. It now shone
bright blue with a slight sparkle. A
clear Cerritac symbol. It was not a
letter or a word, but an image Lancaster recognized as one that honored the
dead. He didn’t know precisely why it
was here, but he knew the temple was close.
He pointed the Illuminator past the tree
with the ultraviolet carving and searched the woods beyond. A few seconds later he found another blue
symbol on another tree. He hurried to it
and looked it over. It was the same
symbol, though this time he recognized it at having a flourish that was
prominent during the Ekani Dynasty. He
felt it briefly with his fingers, smiled slightly, then turned the Illuminator
on further trees. He found one symbol
after another on trees that led him along a path in the woods. They were in a nearly straight line, clearly
going somewhere specific. He was moving
so fast now that he didn’t notice that the underbrush beneath him was trampled
before he reached it. This was a
regularly traveled path.
At last he came upon a mound of earth, the
front of which was covered over by the roots of a tree which stood at the
top. He didn’t believe the trail
continued. He was certain it ended
here. He pulled back the roots and found
at first they did not move. Upon further
examination, he realized that the first roots he pulled were too large and
firmly in place to be budged. But there
were smaller ones underneath and to the side.
He ducked under the first roots and pulled at the others. These gave way, and opened up to reveal a
stone door with the Ekani Dynasty symbol carved on the front. He had located the tomb.
After informing Little Jack, Lancaster
studied the door to figure out how to get inside. He found a latch on the right side about the
height of his head. This made sense as
the Cerritac were taller than humans. It
also pulled upward, the way most of their latches did. But at the same time he found this, he also
discovered something was not right about the cobwebs strung between the door
and the roots and vines surrounding it.
They were too orderly, too perfectly placed. He ran the Illuminator over them in several
spectrums and found nothing unusual about them.
But then he found where they stretched over the top of the door. They clung tightly to several thick vines
with long thorns on them. On closer
examination, these thorns did not appear to be naturally a part of the vines,
but attached. He examined them further
with an electronic swab which he used to get a sample. Sure enough, they were poisonous.
He kept the sample safe in a sealed pouch
of his jacket and stepped back. Looking
around to make sure no one was around, he pulled out another device he used for
just such incidents. He pointed it at
the cobwebs and fired. A static charge
emerged and broke them apart. The vines
sliced downward from all sides, enveloping the door like a closing mouth, the
thorns slamming against the cement door.
Lancaster stepped up to it again and
studied the vines and the doorway one more time to make sure that was the
entirety of the trap. When he accepted
the coast was clear, he reached past them and pulled up the latch. The door gave way and swung slowly
inward. Lancaster pushed past the vines,
stuck forward his Illuminator, and crept into the tomb.
The chamber which met him was a long
corridor which arced slowly to the left.
The walls were smoothly carved, but scarred with dozens of small holes. The roof had occasional roots which tangled
through, and the floor was cluttered with occasional greenery growing through
cracks in the cement. Each footfall
echoed all the way down the hall, bouncing across both sides like a pebble
dropped down a well. He tried to make
his footfalls gentler to avoid the noise, both for caution and out of
respect. Moving his feet slower didn’t
have much of an effect, so he turned his light to the floor to see if he might
be able to find patches of moss on which he could step.
He saw splotches of moss all over the
floor which would be convenient for stepping over. However, they seemed too convenient. There was a pattern about these patches of
greenery, and each one was about the same size.
The fact that they were within easy reach of one another made them even
more suspicious. He knelt down to one of
the patches and looked closely at it. He
then pulled out from one of his many jacket pockets a small, one inch long rod. Pressing a button at the bottom, the rod
stretched out to 18 inches with small claws on the end. He reached down and pulled gently on the
moss, peeling a small section of it back.
As he suspected, a foot pedal trap was embedded in the floor. He turned his Illuminator to the wall and
concluded that most of the small holes had darts inside which would fire on
anyone who triggered them by stepping on the lichen. He was certain now that these traps were not
set by the Cerritac, but rather by the Ocanuate. The former pets likely worshipped them like
gods, and determined to keep their resting place hidden from prying eyes such
as his. Maybe it was even to keep some
of their own out.
Though the traps were crude, they were
fresh; and the one outside proved that they worked, so Lancaster continued with
extra precaution, stepping one foot forward at a time after he scanned the
floor thoroughly to make sure he wasn’t stepping on anything other than flat
stone.
When he was clear of the patches of moss,
he made it a few more yards around the corner before he slowed again. Something wasn’t right. It was perhaps Lancaster’s greatest gift; his
intuition that acted on all the information that came to him through his
peripheral vision. It was a subconscious
thing, and he rarely knew what the problem was immediately; but as long as he
stopped and took a closer look, he found what his mind was trying to tell him.
Presently, it was the roots peeking
through the ceiling. Rather than
branching outward, they reached toward one another, like a hand making a
fist. Inside this grasp were boulders, some
of them large enough to crush Lancaster instantly. Wrapped around each root was another cobweb
which led down to a hole in the wall, then re-emerged through another hole and
stretched across the corridor about waist high.
One was only a foot or so ahead of him.
He ducked below the wires and stepped under them, watching carefully for
more cobwebs as he inched forward.
When he found he had bypassed the roots
holding the boulders, he checked one more time for wires, and seeing none, he
stood up. The corridor had now
straightened out. It looked like a
different building altogether. The
walls, floor, and ceiling were smooth with no cracks or holes; nothing earthen
sticking through. They were adorned with
precious metals, especially golds, sun-silvers, and Eurichite. The spot of light from his Illuminator
increased to a bright glow from the multitude of reflections. Despite the millions of years that passed,
little of this area had been covered in dust, a near miracle in and of itself.
There were six open passageways on each
side, and one at the end. All were
shrouded in blackness; his own source of light unable to penetrate into them. Beside each doorway, two masterfully carved
busts hung on either side. One was a
creature of the jungle, (each door had a separate one,) and the other was a
Cerritac head, no doubt of the individual buried inside. They had rectangular heads which stretched
back behind their faces, as though pulled toward their backs. Their eyes began at the front and ran the
length of the sides of their heads, ending halfway back up their heads. Their mouths were just above their noses,
which were at the base of their chins.
The busts ended at their necks where their shell-like ears rested.
Judging from their appearance, and where
he was, these were the last royal family of the Ekani Dynasty. Lancaster peeked into the first chamber,
lowering the intensity of his Illuminator, and confirmed this fact. The room included a sarcophagus with the
carving of a Cerritac on the top. Its
two long arms and two small arms carved over the top. Its elongated head draped over one end. And its long legs bent at the two points
where it had joints. Along the rim of
the ceiling, thin, jewel encrusted eyes watched over the grave. A true grave robber could make a lot of money
cleaning this place out. But there was
likely some curse on them, and Lancaster did not dare take even one, no matter
how desperate for money he might ever become.
He checked out the other six rooms, and
all were the same with slight variations the represented the individual’s place
in the family and personality. Only the
second to last one in which he looked was any different. Here, a piece of the ceiling had fallen at
some point and cracked open the sarcophagus.
He could see the long foot of the creature inside. It was, strangely enough, perfectly
preserved. The mummification, or perhaps
the preservatives they had put in this Cerritac’s body had kept it from
decaying, and it looked almost perfectly preserved. He would have to come back another time with
a physiologist to study these bodies.
But for now, he had a specific mission, and he didn’t intend to let Mika
down.
He stalled at the entrance to the last
room. It was the largest, and most
well-adorned. The floor was a slick,
solid gold. The walls sparkled with star
silver and bronze lining. The ceiling
was made of the most precious metals of the Cerritac. Colorful jewels watched in the corners, and
when the light from Lancaster’s Illuminator passed them, they shot beams toward
the four mighty sarcophagi resting on the far end of the room. The leaders’ visages were carved onto the
tops of these in silver, as they were also embodied in silver statues in a
square at the center of the room. The
eyes of these statues were crystals all staring down at a small gold statue on
a shrine in the very center. The shrine
had Cerritac writing on it, and the statue was the idol for which he had
come. It was a curled up snake wrapped
tightly upward as though forming a pyramid with its head at the top. Wings drooped over the sides as though folded
in, but with the tips spread outward.
They looked like they would be good finger-holds, though Lancaster
wasn’t sure that was the purpose of the wings.
He then worked his way through the writing
on the altar. He had time, so he
compared each symbol to Cerritac letters he had written in his notebook. Slowly, the words took shape to something
like, “Lift up your sleeping form and rise oh doppelgangers.” It was not unusual for the Cerritac to speak
in metaphors or riddles. They had not so
much been hiding information from someone, as it was a general part of their
culture to say things in a roundabout way.
Lancaster considered what it might mean.
He had not done a lot of work with the Cerritac,
and the his last encounter with their ruins, which also happened to be in a
necropolis, though a less royal one, had ended with a young lady being killed
and turned into a monster utilizing one of their devices. In trying to create eternal life, they had
built a machine that instead took it and replaced it with a beast.
Lancaster had been cautious to avoid any
traps which might do the same to him; but so far there seemed to be none. He used a handheld scanner to check the
statues, the altar, even the eyes to make sure no such device was hidden inside
them. Nothing he could detect. The idol, too, seemed to just be an
idol. Despite spending several minutes
walking around it, Lancaster could find nothing unusual about it past its form
of exactly what Mika wanted. ‘Perhaps
this was why the Ocanuates set traps of their own,’ Lancaster thought. ‘Because there were none already in place.’
He approached it slowly, carefully, his
knees bent, ready to run or jump away.
He looked again at the altar, closer now, trying to find any holes or
slits through which sawblades, lasers, gases, or spears could emerge. Nothing.
So he leaned forward, his arm outstretched as far as it would go. He held his breath, then swiped the statue
all at once with one hand.
It came off easily, though it was a bit
heavy in his hand. He glanced around the
shrine in surprise, waiting for some shoe to drop, or at least a failed trap to
reveal itself. Nothing. So he shifted the bag out from under his
jacket, opened it up, and tossed the statue inside. One treasure down in his count to repay Mika.
Then he heard a distant sound. It was long and slow, deep and
deliberate. The resultant echoes rattled
even lower than the source. It was like
a metallic moan trailed by a chorus. Then
more voices added to the baleful sound, their reverberations almost drowning
out the original noises, and he could not identify them.
Then he heard the noise behind him. Closer now, he could identify the sound more
clearly: metal scraping metal, an almost grinding sound. As it had outside, the abrasive noise was
repeated by another, then another, then another. Four sources of the same sound all roaring
together. He turned to see, though his
body protested, causing him to move slowly, as in a dream, or underwater. The Illuminator shed light on the back half
of the room, and he saw immediately what was causing the hair raising
noise. The lids to the coffins were
sliding off.
He had several theories as to how this was
happening. The most likely involved
these “corpses” actually being the beasts he saw at the other necropolis. Perhaps they never died, as he has assumed,
but rather went into a state of torpor until something reactivated them. But he didn’t stop to consider these
options. He just started running… out
through the doorway into the passage without even looking. He led with the Illuminator, its spotlight
shaking with his running body. It flung
left and right, searching for the sources of the sounds, which were now loud
clangs as the lids fell to the ground.
“Lift up your sleeping form…”
That’s what the altar had read.
The lids were laying forms of the Cerritacs inside. “…and rise oh doppelgangers.” It even said what they were. Lancaster was kicking himself for being so
stupid.
But he could not stop to do that now. By the time he was running past the first
pair of doors he could hear the soft thuds of feet landing on the cement
floors. He could not see them past the
hollow blackness of the doorways, but he knew they were in there. When he passed the second pair, tall, shadowy
shapes were emerging. The light only
passed one of them briefly. Its long,
gangly arms bulged away from its thin form.
Its second, smaller pair of arms were unfolding. Its large hands were the size of its head,
and the fingers were like full claws.
Lancaster could hear a constant gurgling emanating from them, the sound
one would make when choking, under the gasps and spurts of his own panic. He remembered the beast the last time around,
and it was faster and stronger than he.
A single one of them had almost killed him and he had escaped only by
sheer luck and Little Jack’s skills with a gun.
The gun!
He drew the pistol Little Jack had provided him just as the last pair of
beasts emerged from the last two rooms in front of him. He chose the one on his right and fired
repeatedly into its face, trying to hit the eyes. As otherworldly as it might be, it still
needed some way to see. The concept
worked, and the creature fell back against the corner of the doorway. Lancaster slammed into it, knocking it back
into its chamber while Lancaster bounced off and staggered down the hallway.
The remaining beasts roared a deafening
barrage, a sound much like a lion’s but with a bass strong enough to shake the
stone walls, and started after Lancaster.
Their long feet propelled them so each step was a virtual leap. This put one of them on Lancaster’s tail
almost immediately. His saving grace was
the fact that the corridor curved, and he seemed to be able to take the corners
better than these running zombie beasts.
And the fact that he was drawing energy to run from reserves he didn’t
know existed. His entire body burned. The very air he was breathing felt like it
was on fire. His chest was tight and he
did not even fight the panic. This was
the most frightened he had ever been.
Lancaster could feel the breath of the
creature directly behind him on his neck by the time he reached the straight
away. It needed only to swipe its hand
to knock him down, or to grab him, and little did he know, it was raising its
arm to do just that. He dove onto the
ground, his momentum rolling him head over heels, side over side, underneath
the wires set by the Ocanuates.
The beast, though it could see much better
in the dark, had no mind to watch for traps, and it ran directly into the fixed
“cobwebs.” The roots opened and the
large rocks dropped on top of it. The
first couple, though they would have cracked open the head of any other animal,
simply made the creature reel. But the
pile that followed pinned it down to the ground.
The next pair simply ran up and over the
rock pile and continued on, setting off the next trap. One was taken down, but the other continued
forward, setting off a third, and then a fourth tripwire. The multitude of rocks pummeled the beast’s
body, making it stagger with every hit, but at last it was taken down and
buried, a pair of limbs sticking out the only evidence of its existence.
Though three were down, Lancaster knew he
had plenty more coming. He could hear
them. Their grunting and snarling was
peppered with their roars of disapproval.
He heard their footfalls as they scrambled effortlessly over the rocky
mounds. He had bought some time,
however, which he used to look for the patches of moss. Locating them, he set the Illuminator to scan
the floor in front of him, and he did his best to avoid the mossy chunks while
still maintaining a fast forward momentum.
The beasts were on his heels in no time,
and within seconds they would overtake him.
But, as before, they did not watch where they were going, and the traps
were sprung. Much to Lancaster’s
surprise, they were not mere darts or arrows, but entire spears which launched
at lightning speed. The sheer mass of
them knocked over one beast, then another.
A third tripped over the body of the one in front of him and the tangle
of spears around it. A fourth made it
most of the way through the obstacles through a sheer force of mass. This was one of the mighty rulers whose
sarcophagus had been in the final “throne” room, as it were. Spears pierced it from both sides, but it
kept moving. Its unnatural strength gave
it the energy to stumble forward, oblivious to all pain in pursuit of its
prey. It could not resist the sheer
weight, and it was soon dragging its feet along the ground, setting off each
foot pedal as it went by, adding spears into its body as it went. At last, with a multitude of poles sticking
out of its legs that caught on every rough piece of ground, with the sheer
weight dragging it to the ground, and with other poles sagging out his front
hitting the ground, he at last tripped himself up and fell into such a heap, it
would have taken a mastermind to untangle him.
That left two still on the chase. They lost some ground having to get around
their fallen comrades and the maze of sticks and poles, but they made it and
lunged forward. Again, their feet flew
forward with every step. The space
between them and Lancaster was shrinking rapidly.
But Lancaster found the door. He shoved his heels into the ground to stop
very suddenly, remembering the vines just outside. Though the growling noises were nearing in
the dark hallway, he had to take a moment to check for a gap through which to
escape. He found the break in the
natural curtain, and slipped out.
The two beasts did not slow. The one slightly in front slammed directly
into the vine. Its thin body impaled on
the oversized thorn. The poison was lost
on the creature, but that wouldn’t matter.
It was stuck. Its arms flailed
desperately to find its prey. It even
found the gap and made it outside, but it found nothing. The one behind smashed into the first,
crushing it further into the thorn.
Neither, however, had the brainpower to figure out how to exit this
chamber.
And so Lancaster found himself safely out
of the tomb, panting heavily on a tree stump.
His lungs and legs burned with pain.
He felt like they would have lit on fire if he had been in there any longer. Regardless of his present safety, however, he
did not wish to stay. He pulled up the
talki to his mouth and said, “Little Jack, I’m ready for a pickup.”
“What’s your 60?”
“I’m at the mouth of the tomb. I even got out with my hat.”
“Didn’t you hear my message?”
“No, I was underground. Probably didn’t get th…”
“Get out of there! The chinchin buggers are…”
Just then an arrow took off his hat. Lancaster didn’t look for the source. He knew what it was. He pushed past the searing pain coursing
through his muscles and ran. He didn’t
know where he was running, he just weaved around trees as fast as he
could. The first glimmers of dawn were
beginning to peek through the trees, so Lancaster did not need to illuminate
the way artificially. Instead, he raised
his Illuminator to the sky and set it to beacon mode.
“You reading my signal?” He shouted into
his talki.
“Is that you bravely running from danger?”
“Helping or hurting, Little Jack!”
Lancaster panted, the pain in his side now affecting his breathing. He caught a glimpse of some of the Ocanuates
beginning to flank him. They were much
like leopards, but with a multitude of bright colors and spots. They alternated between using two legs and
four, whichever was more efficient at the moment. Some hurried through trees while others
chased on the ground. All wielded
ancient weapons such as spears and bows.
Some slowed to take shots while others continued the chase. Lancaster, at a disadvantage both physically
and in terms of knowledge of the jungle, kept pumping his legs and raising his
beacon, which blinked a colored light into the sky.
“Turn twenty degrees left,” Little Jack
said calmly.
Lancaster turned, still running. He had shortened the distance to some of the
pursuers, but he hoped it would get him to safety. “Is that twenty degrees?” he asked.
“More 25, but it’ll do.”
“I’m running out of time!” Lancaster
shouted. The Ocanuates were crowding in
on all angles. Some with spears were
lifting them, preparing to throw.
Lancaster bought some time by diving over some bushes which led to a
small ravine. He rolled down into a
small creek valley before gaining his feet again. But when he did, he found the opposite bank
was too steep to climb quickly. He
looked back in horror to see the Ocanuates lining up as though in a firing
line. He was trapped!
Suddenly a bright spotlight shone from
above directly into the eyes of the sensitive Ocanuate pupils. They withdrew in fear and pain. A few chucked their spears which clanged off
the hull.
Lancaster pulled out his grappling pistol
and shot at the ship, just above the hatchway entrance. He reeled himself upward, swinging onto the
doorway which opened for him, and he collapsed inside.
“Inside, Jack,” he shouted in a muffled
voice, his lips half stuck to the floor.
“Did you lose your hat again?” Little Jack
nagged from the cockpit, watching Lancaster through a screen as he remotely
closed the hatchway. “How do you do
that?”
“We can go now,” Lancaster said, his mouth
still half buried.
The Ocanuate watched as the alien vessel
backed away from them, turned, and flew off into the rising sun. They would have tales to tell their children
of how they had taken on an iron light-beast and had scared it away, just as
they had frightened away the heretic who had defiled their temple and angered
their gods. But for now, the cursed sun
was rising, and it was time to burrow themselves from the day.
The End
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