Well, it's been another long wait. I'm sorry for that - just after I last updated, I had to prepare for my annual holiday (shopping, packing, booking, etc), then I went on said holiday, and then for the last few weeks I've been incredibly busy trying to meet all my end-of-year deadlines at work. But, work is now done until January, all my objectives were met, and I look forward to a nice relaxing (and well deserved if I do say so myself) break. In which I hope to finish this story off.
Soundtrack: Torukia - Yoko Kanno
The Fall
Lara stopped a little way before the entrance to the room at the back of the cavern and surveyed the logosyllabics written above the door. "Light carries," she translated slowly, "dark wields."
"What do you think it means?" Kurtis asked, coming to stand beside her. She shrugged. "I'm sure it will become clear after the fact."
"You mean, we'll understand the warning once it's too late."
"Possibly." She walked through the door.
A square room about the size of an average lounge, the area's walls and ceiling were smooth, beige rock, chiselled flat and every inch covered in intricate engraved scenes of suffering and sacrifice, the carnage picked out in richly coloured paints daubed into the channels. An empty pedestal sat centred towards the back of the room, of the same polished white stone that had been used to create the slabs covering the even floor, and at regularly spaced intervals around the tops of the walls, small rectangular open shafts allowed air to circulate.
At least, Lara hoped that's what they were for, especially given that she recognised the room as being the rapidly flooding scene of her drowning in her visions. Kurtis, having the same wary idea, eyed them. "I don't like the look of those."
"So where's the dagger?" Ria asked indignantly, standing at the empty pedestal.
"I'm sure your people's work hasn't been wasted," Lara assured her. "It's unlikely robbers managed to get in here. It'll be here somewhere."
They wandered the space, staring around, looking for clues.
To one side was a second room, almost no more than a deep alcove. It was empty, but Ria went to take a look inside anyway, neither Kurtis nor Lara taking much notice.
A short high pitched tone, painful to the ears, began to sound once more, and for a short moment, Ria's gaze darted around the small chamber, looking for the source.
A deep, hollow bang sounded behind her, the area immediately becoming much darker, like a late dusk, and she spun to find the entrance now a solid, seamless wall. Flowing in silently from small holes all around the base of the room, water began to pool.
The sounds had been audible outside the room, too, and it took only a second for Lara and Kurtis to not only notice the new wall, but also their guide's absence.
"Ria?" Lara called anxiously, quickly crossing to the closed alcove. "Ria?"
She could hear no reply of any kind, but inside, Ria was slamming her palms against the rock and calling at the top of her voice. "Hey! Hey! It's flooding in here! Help me! Help!"
Kurtis shook his head. "She's gotta be in there."
"Did you see what it was? Did it lead anywhere, was there anything in there?"
Again, he shook his head, this time in answer to Lara's question. "No. Can't say I really looked."
"All right. Look for some way to open it." She immediately began to examine the murals for clues, run her hands over the walls in search of hidden switches. Kurtis, hesitantly testing his powers and finding them unsuppressed, attacked the wall.
"Help me!" Ria was still yelling, almost demanding. "Help!" Frantically, she looked down to the water swirling around her knees, rising impossibly fast. It was pouring in from vents that had opened up towards the ceiling now, decorated with rounded carvings in some sort of twisted reverence, the water falling noisily in miniature torrents.
"Please?"
She was lifted from her feet, floating, forced to tread water to remain upright, the freezing cold up around her chest. "Lara!" She spluttered as the rolling surface gave her a mouthful of crystal water. "Kurtis!"
Gasping through the frequent ingestion and her growing fear, she swam clumsily, splashing, submerging, clawing at the walls, all in the rapidly diminishing space between the relentless waves and the ceiling. "Help! Help me!"
Slowing quickly to a trickle before stopping altogether, the waterfalls ceased.
Eyes darting left and right in confusion and relief, Ria panicked for a moment and then regained control of herself, steadying herself with a hand on the wall, calming her movements along with the settling of the pool. Coughing a little, droplets on her lips and eyelashes, she shivered and held back tears.
And then, she became aware of being watched, and slowly, dreading what she might see, she pushed herself around to face the other way.
A frightening and hideous visage floated there with her, the skin a dark blue, the lips protruding and twisted in a menacing smile, the eyes small and squinting, the nose decorated with an ugly large ring.
Ria screamed long and loud.
In the main room, a faint growl, almost a purr, interrupted Lara and Kurtis, and they both looked up sharply.
Gasping quietly, reflexively drawing her pistols, Lara firmed up her stance as Kurtis drew his chirugai.
The jaguar kept its gaze firmly on the two as it padded silently around to crouch threateningly in front of them. Under the cover of the weapons, its eyes seemed almost daring.
It spoke, the voice disembodied and yet somehow, strangely, obviously connected to the unmoving animal.
"You seek the dagger."
"What are you?" Lara demanded, unphased. "And where's Ria?"
The jaguar continued to regard them, the stand off remaining. "I am the Shamen who watches this prison."
"Ria?" Kurtis pressed, finding his voice.
"She has given her life in sacrifice. In return I offer you your ward." The creature's eyes flicked to the pedestal and, risking a peek himself, Kurtis saw what the jaguar meant – the dagger now lay visible and unprotected. "She's dead?"
"She didn't give anything," Lara accused. "You've murdered her."
"Our ways are rather different to yours."
"Don't give me that. There's no way that girl would have subscribed to the idea of sacrificing herself to gods. It's outdated."
"And yet you stand here debating with me."
"Lara," Kurtis cut in, "if this is anything like the last one, bullets aren't going to help much."
The jaguar purred softly in its throat. "You've passed our tests, we have taken our payment, take the dagger and leave. But know this, no matter how noble your cause, darkness lives in you all and Buluc-Chabtan will seek to manipulate that. If you let him, he will control you, and he will be free."
"Manipulate?" Lara repeated, but before she could ask anything further, the jaguar turned to trot towards the doorway, then broke into a run, leapt, and vanished in mid-air as if diving into an invisible hole, bolts of crackling blue lightning streaming over its body in its last moment.
Kurtis let his weapon fall to his side and he stared at the spot it had disappeared.
Lara swallowed. "I don't like it here – we should leave." She turned, her face veiled with composure, and picked up the dagger, examining it.
"That's it?" Kurtis asked, lunging towards and forcing himself into her line of sight. "Ria!"
"Is dead," Lara finished. "I don't like it any more than you do, but it can't be helped. I don't see any reason why that Shamen would have lied. Taking her as a sacrifice makes sense."
"And you're not even going to try and find her?"
"Find her? We know where she is, she's behind that wall! How do you propose we get her out? And what on earth do we do with the body? Give her back to her family and just expect them to let us walk away? We'd be incriminated for sure." With that last point she almost pouted, and went back to staring at the ornate burnished gold dagger in her hands, its blade a blacker metal, the handle almost like globules in a design more ceremonial than practical.
"Well I don't know about you, but we soldiers don't like leaving people behind."
"And I say again, just how do you want to get at her, and what do you want to do with her?"
They stared at each other for a moment, neither backing down. Lara called it off. "We leave," she ordered. She spun and began to march towards the doorway but paused as a light trembling took up in the floor beneath her feet. Looking down, her face written with a cross between confusion and knowing apprehension, she moved her gaze up to Kurtis and said, "Quickly."
The tiles beneath her front foot collapsed, leaving her jumping back with a gasp, and, as if they had set off a chain reaction like dominoes, further tiles dropped away one after the other, opening a wide channel all the way to the entrance. The rumbling got louder, the shaking got violent, and, faster than the first channel, a further two were formed cutting across from left to right, leaving the floor intact in just two corners and the rectangle across the back of the room upon which Lara, Kurtis and the pedestal stood.
They could see cold, churning water below, the remnants of the flooring sunk out of sight. Leaving the pedestal leaning for a moment, sunk at one corner before disappearing into the water completely with a splash, the first gap extended itself backwards, separating Lara and Kurtis. Water began to gush in from the vents underneath the ceiling, splashing across what little floor remained.
They were about to regain their senses and run when a great torrent of water crashed in from the right, knocking Kurtis off his feet in its rush and sending Lara jumping backwards in surprise.
The wall that had trapped Ria had disappeared and she lay there now, swept out, coughing and spluttering, drenched to the skin, her bag washed down into the waves below.
"Ria!" Kurtis cried, scrambling towards her, but she backed up quickly with something akin to fear, shoving him away, her eyes wide.
"You were going to leave me!"
"Ria, are you all right? We have to get out of here, now!" Lara called over the din.
"You were going to leave me! He showed me! You didn't care! At all! I saw it all, I heard everything!" She was practically hysterical, oblivious to the destruction around her.
"Ria," Kurtis shouted again, ordering her to listen to him this time, grabbing her arm roughly and refusing to be shaken off. "Ria, look around you, we've got to escape."
She wasn't listening, however, still caught up in her accusations. "He doesn't need to manipulate you," she screamed at Lara, raging. "You're already evil! I was drowning! Screaming! You ignored me in favour of that – that dagger!"
Confusion was written across Kurtis' face but Lara's was slowly clearing as everything fell into place.
"Oh," she said. "Kurtis…"
The floor beneath her feet dropped, and she fell.