When War Calls(75)

More darkness.

There were others that were loose now, and he pushed several more until he was able to put his head through the opening. He had thought he had seen a light inside, but he couldn’t have been sure without a better view. Now he had confirmed what he had thought. With new inspiration, he started to push as many of the stones out as possible. Each crashed down heavily onto more stones on the floor. He had seen a corridor that must have been made by humans. Nothing else could have explained it.

Jaden jumped through the opening he had made with new excited anticipation. It was too dark to see where he was, but the light ahead was strong, almost seeming as if the sun shone on this very place deep inside the mountain. He raced forward, symbols engraved on the wall ahead catching his attention. He knew those symbols. He had seen them before. But they were forgotten as he rounded the final corner, where he stood in awe of what greeted him.

The mountain was hollow inside and circular in shape. It harboured perfectly groomed gardens all about, stone shrines high on the slopes that water flowed between and around, and a giant temple at the very end. All was lit by a bright caged sphere in the centre of the cavern’s roof, as brilliant as the sun as it burned noiselessly above against a rounded metal plate. The light did not harm his eyes as he continued to look around. To his left was a grand stone stairway coming from two doors up at the top and leading all the way down to the courtyard below, where the water met with a small pool and a fountain threw the water high into the air.

Jaden walked to the grand stairway and followed it down. The stones were polished completely smooth, allowing him to see his blurred reflection in their gray surface. All of the stone had been polished in this way, including the great temple at the very end. It was like a pyramid in design, made of four different sections with a wide base and a small top. There was a stairway up to the second level leading to two doors made of thick steel. Each door had the same engraved symbols as he had seen on the walls, and above them, on the centre of the third level, was a large symbol that looked like two snakes facing the right, their tails entwining together twice at the end to the left. Two thin, black, crystal obelisks flanked the symbol, twenty yards to each side, rising above even the fourth level, where there existed little more than the flat top made of stone.

Jaden thought hard about the symbols; he was sure he knew them, yet he had only seen them minutes ago. He brought the loh-korah up to his eyes, scanning over the many symbols that were there. They matched, all except the symbol of the two snakes. Was this the place his grandfather had meant for him to find? He had to find the water that was good, so that he could heal. He walked down to the fountain below, where a curtain of water sprang out from ten feet above and arced over in perfect sheets, hiding what was within a little with a slightly transparent shield. As he neared the edge, he could see two figures inside. They were human, statues of a man and a woman with their hands on each other’s necks and their foreheads pressed together. They looked strangely familiar, but he could not place them. He then looked at the water underneath them. It sparkled in the light as its many ripples spread out toward him. It was beautiful, too beautiful to bathe in, he thought. He was still covered in the mud of the tunnel and did not want to ruin the water in case the caretaker was still here. He could not see anyone, though. The place seemed deserted.

Perhaps they would not mind if he took a little drink to help heal his sickness.

After rinsing his hand a little by splashing water out of the pool, Jaden took a mouthful. It tasted pure, smooth and without any grit or chemicals. He took another mouthful, and then two more, feeling now just how thirsty he had become. It relieved the irritation in his throat a little, but he still had the urge to cough. The water was not what would heal him, he decided, and stood to go and explore the temple.

He had walked up no more than ten of the twenty steps when he stopped. He felt tired all of a sudden, nauseated and with an overwhelming need to rest. He fell to one knee, but forced himself to go on, climbing another five steps before coughing violently. His throat felt as if it had become completely dry. His muscles ached as if they were being crushed in a vice and his head spun uncontrollably. The sickness was taking control of him.

The water, he thought. What had it done to him?

He pushed on, climbing another two steps where he was able to lay his head down. He could feel the pain then, gripping his entire body as the strange spears began to fly around him. He wanted to fight it, wanted to be free, but the sickness combined with the water was too strong, and he was too weak, unable to fend off the virus any longer.