The Devourer

The ancient ruins-3

“In fact, had the water been acidic, there would have been signs of corrosion on the stone…”

Althea preferred to keep to herself all the hypotheses that had come to her mind about what that liquid’s nature: how would the others have reacted on hearing that maybe it was poisoned or, worse, crossed by electricity, considering that place seemed to absorb power from their torch batteries? The archaeologist pushed such macabre thoughts away from her and hurried after her brother.

They were walking along what looked like a corridor carved into the rock, about five meters wide and tall, but, as they progressed, they realized that its width was slowly decreasing.

After about ten minutes, when the corridor had narrowed a couple of meters, Althea exclaimed:

“Hey, look: there seems to be a light over there!”

Everyone peered at the bottom of the narrowing tunnel; they actually saw a faint blue luminescence, very different from the white light of their torches.

“What can generate light in the depths of a desert, a light of that color, moreover?” She wondered, fascinated. “It can be nothing but a still working artifact of lost technology! We will be famous!”

In a somewhat mournful voice, Trevan added:

“As long as we manage to make it back to the surface…”

Althea snorted:

“Don’t be the usual defeatist, Trevan! By dint of averting the two sergeants will now have sprained their fingers!”

In hearing themselves mentioned that way, the two soldiers could not hold back a hint of laughter, which was enough to somewhat cheer the whole group up.

They advanced ten more meters and everyone clearly saw that the corridor was interrupted by a much larger and, above all, incredibly illuminated hall.

“We have finally found it!” Althea murmured dreamily, as she crossed the threshold.

The cave they entered did not look like a natural cave at all. It featured a very wide and tall pentagonal plan; its bare walls were made by a strange smooth and shiny stone that reflected and intensified the blue light diffused by a strange icosahedral crystal floating above a cubic structure of black and shiny stone, similar to obsidian. That sight left everyone breathless with wonder and amazement.

They all turned their torches off and attached them to the hook on their belts; then, for a long minute, they turned around to look at everything. This way, they could see that the reflective effect was largely due to the thin layer of water unceasingly flowing on the surface of the walls. Finally, everyone turned to the bright crystal and Trevan asked, almost reverentially:

“What is that? It’s wonderful!”

Althea and Abel went up to one step away from the black stone cubic structure, while the two sergeants positioned themselves near the entrance; Trevan joined the archaeologist after some hesitation.

The cube side was three meters long and the crystal — its diameter ten centimeters — hovered thirty centimeters above the center of the upper face. Although its blue light was rather intense, staring at it did not bother the eyes, and its twenty triangular faces were clearly visible.

Abel and Trevan were intent on observing the crystal, as if they had been hypnotized by its light, while Althea’s curiosity had been drawn to one of the faces of the black cube, featuring several inscriptions in an ancient language. She concentrated on those text lines, following the part she was reading with her right index finger. Then, she blurted out a surprise exclamation:

“This is a tomb!”

The four men were startled by her loud voice and, while Trevan and the two soldiers were crossing their fingers on their hearts as an exorcism, Abel asked her:

“Are you sure?”

“There are some parts that are unclear and I will need more time to study them, but these writings refer to an important nobleman, who was buried here five hundred and fourteen years ago… but not as a honor… It looks more like he was put here to remove him from the rest of the world… But this makes little sense: what could a posthumous exile be for?”

“Maybe he was sick and very contagious…” guessed Trevan, but Althea immediately interrupted him:

“Even if he had been, why spend time and money to build such a prison structure? If he had really posed a danger to people’s health, they would have burned him, thus eliminating any kind of contamination… Moreover, what use would this luminous crystal have been to a dead person?”

“Do those inscriptions say anything about it?” Abel asked unusually curious.

Althea took a quick look at the writing on the side before her, then went on examining the one on her right. Thirty seconds later, she replied:

“There is something written here about a staircase… no, a door high, in the sky… Or rather, something, a word that I do not know, leading up into the sky… Then there are some sentences that I don’t understand… I need the notes I left at the camp…” She passed to the other side on the right, the one opposite her brother, and after about ten seconds she said: “Here, it says that the light keeps away what is hidden in the shadow…”

The silence was suddenly broken by three strong dry shots, three small but intense explosions.

Althea screamed in fright and instinctively covered her ears with her hands. With her heart beating madly, she turned to her right and the sight hit her like a punch in her stomach. The two sergeants near the entrance were lying on the ground, their heads dripping blood that was slowly being dragged away by the current of the layer of water over the floor.

“Trevan? Abel?” She called in a trembling voice, moving aside to see what had happened to her boyfriend and to her brother.

Trevan’s head emerged from the edge of the cube: it was turned towards her, his eyes wide open locked in a last expression of surprise and a bleeding hole in the center of his forehead.

Althea screamed and ran to him. She knelt by his side, with tears in her eyes, and placed a trembling hand on her beloved’s chest.

Soon after, she heard a metallic click behind her.

Althea turned slowly and saw her brother with his g*n pointed at her. His amber eyes were devoid of any emotion.

“Why?” She asked with a desperate cry.

“Coincidence” Abel simply said, with no intonation whatsoever, then pulled the trigger.

Althea felt a sharp pain in her chest, right at her heart, and collapsed to the ground on her side.

While her breathing was growing heavier, she saw her brother climb over her and turn his torch on. Then, out of the corner of her eye, Althea saw something in her brother’s hand that seemed to stretch until it reached the luminescent crystal. A moment later the room plunged into darkness, except for the beam of light generated by his torch.

Finally, darkness enveloped her in a cold embrace.

CHAPTER TWO