I am not making any money with this. I do not own Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
etc.
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================
Chapter 6
A few moments later, Lara found herself running across the Siem Reap fountain area in the calm silence of the jungle. The atmosphere was intense at nights in tropical countries. As daylight birds stopped singing and went to bed, numerous other creatures revealed themselves and started threading their paths.
Lara continued her run, but was forced to stop after a few minutes. Someone was walking down the road. The only road to Angkor Wat. They had to be some kind of guards.
Approximately three men, probably armed. And probably khmers. Weighing her options, Lara spotted a climbable tree nearby. She grabbed a branch after she had trapped the crossbow safely to her back, left all her other gear in a bush, and started climbing. Hauling herself up, from branch to branch, she followed the men silently. When she got high enough, she unstrapped her crossbow and loaded three arrows in.
Extra arrows or missed shots were not her cup of tea. Aiming carefully between the branches, she fired. One man fell - and the others stopped at their heels, clueless of their new enemy's location.
Another arrow whistled. Another man fell.
Third arrow.
Route secure.
Covering her torch with her free hand, Lara sneaked around the last corner behind the statue. No-one. The temple of Angkor Wat was allegedly empty. She tip-toed to the statue and entered the hidden doorway. With no difficulty she rediscovered the stone door. Without hesitating, she stuck the golden skulls on the wholes of the door.
A faint shudder in the floor. Then the massive door opened. Remembering the oh-so many timed doors she had come across on her travels, Lara quickly went through the door.
And stopped.
Garden of the five towers - just like it had been when she had last visited Cambodia, at the age of sixteen.
Over twenty singhas, guardian lions stood quietly, with fires burning in their mouths. A somehow ghostly, but inviting place at night. Inviting - for an archaeologist.
'What archaeologist? No ordinary one. For an explorer,' Lara corrected herself, and walked up the stairs, slightly amused as she remembered the explanation for the lions' unlikeness to their living models. The poor Cambodians had never seen a lion, just heard stories of this magnificent beast, and their artists had laid guesses on what it might look like.
Just like she had guessed - the other door was now open upstairs. Coughing, she walked up the low steps and stood in the doorway for a second.
Closed was the virtuous route.
Open was the path of the heretical.
So heretical it would be. Lara entered the door, knowing time was of the essence. Darkness was going to hide her of anything lurking in the shadows.
Inexplicably, torches had been lit in the inner chambers, too. Some kind of a mechanism?
Eight miles down the road, in Siem Reap, Jean lit his ceiling lamp and sneaked to the corridor.
He knocked on Lara's door. No answer.
He knocked again. No answer. He had seen from his room that Lara's window was open and the curtains were flying freely in the night wind.
Jean tried the door handle. Unlocked.
He stepped in. The closet where Lara kept her weapons was empty. Her boots had disappeared from the rack.
She had left for the temple. Inspecting Lara's bed, Jean noticed two blood drops on her pillow. Somehow knowing that everything did not fit the picture, Jean ran to his room. Turning over his bag, he found a pair of hiking boots. Tying the laces, he made a silent promise not to let anything happen to Lara.
After a similar rope swing to the one Lara had cleared as a teenager, she opened a familiar door to a dark downwards-curving hallway. She jumped in - and ended up coming out of a statue's massive head.
'So there indeed was another way in,' she thought as she approached the doorway on the other side of the open yard.
Saying a quick goodbye to the starry sky, she entered the Path of the Heretical.
The first chamber was a series of jumping tricks - the sharp spikes on the deep pits would have made anyone's skin crawl when leaping over the pits, but Lara concentrated enough not to make any mistakes. Her timing was perfect, but her reflexes almost betrayed her a couple of times. Every jump felt like the last one she would make.
After a series of different chambers, three furious porcupines, climbable walls, and an underground river, Lara stopped under a tree growing in a chamber. Trying to calm her flaming lungs, she assured herself the goal was nearly at hand. It had to be. It just had to.
Because she was starting to acknowledge the fact that if this kept going for a long time, the fever was going to stop her from getting out of the temple. She was too tired.
Avoiding the word 'weak', in her mind, Lara slowly got up, bit her teeth together, and continued running through the next chambers.
Hoping her pounding heart and feverish brain would agree to co-operate for one more time, Lara stopped on her heels when she saw a pit in the floor in front of her. It was huge.
The spikes way down were bloody, and Lara could spot bones between them. Bracing herself once again - almost not even capable of thinking clearly, she unstarpped her crossbow, attached a rope to an arrow, and shot it over. It hit a vine on the other side.
Not a very good place, but with some luck she could probably.
'I make my own luck.'
She secured the rope to a rock and started shimmying.
A lonely flashlight casted shadows on the corridor walls. Jean-Yves ran deeper to the temple cellar, and found the door with the golden skulls open.
Finally - the fallen pillars of the central chamber. Lara stepped out of the shadows hiding the ancient wall engravings, and wiped off what almost felt like liters of sweat from her forehead. She rested her hand on her face for a moment, feeling the skin burning with an exhausting warmth. She coughed dryly, walked nearer the pillars, almost literally feeling her body burning with excitement, boosted up with fever. She remembered vaguely how she had ran and almost got crushed by the largest one of the huge stone pillars supporting the temple.
She crawled under the same pillar to the chamber. A sudden chill surprised her, she shook her head as if to sheak off the headache she has been nursing for the past five days, and scanned her surroundings.
She felt tired. Almost reluctant to proceed further.
Lara walked past some fallen stones to a familiar wooden lever, still in unbelievably good shape. She pulled it and the exertion knocked her off her feet along with the fever. But she received what she had been looking for: a flower-shaped sanctuary rose from the depths of the chamber floor, and a walkway appeared, as if guiding whoever decides to enter the chamber to the altar itself.
Lara rose to her full height and left the lever, bracing herself - assuring herself that in less than on hour, she would be lying in a soft bed, her prize in a secure place. She was sweating liters of salty water, too hesitant to drink.
'Fatigue can not be fatal. Not now.'
She walked across the chamber and stepped carefully on the walkway, testing its endurance. Satisfied with the results, she walked to the sanctum itself. Coughing hard and ignoring the visible blood droplets on her hand used to wipe her mouth, she took three shaky steps to her destination.
On a low jade pillar stood the Angkorean Iris.
Jean-Yves' route was cut off. There was no chance that he would have been able to clear out such pitfalls, dive into such underwater rivers, or escape porcupines. After the Garden of The Five Towers had changed into the Path of the Heretical, he had to admit Lara had won. Cursing silently, he took this last glance to a deep spike pit separating him from the resting place of the Iris, he turned back and started retracing his steps.
All he could now do was to wait on the temple yard. He had tried his best. Or had he? Was there something he could do?
Just like five years before, as Lara raised the artifact from its pillar, the sanctuary started pulling back down, and an earthquake shattered the sanctuary. The walkway collapsed.
The sanctum of the Iris was pulling down - threatening to take Lara with it. And there was nothing she could do.
Out, on the dawn of the temple yard, Jean-Yves felt the tremors of the temple pillars. Digging his fingernails in his palm, enraged, he swore that if she got out alive, he would keep her alive until getting home. At whatever cost.
Jean-Yves believed in telepathy - or at least he started believing in it as he realized he somehow knew this was all his fault, in a way.
Maybe.
Perhaps.
Or maybe not. One way or the other, the truth was worthless if it costed Lara's life.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi
Only to be archived at Fanfiction.net and 'Lara Croft's Tales of Beauty and Power'. All other sites email me first to gain permission.
========================================================= The Last Revelation Part III: Garden of The Five Towers by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6@surfeu.fi) =========================================================
Chapter 6
A few moments later, Lara found herself running across the Siem Reap fountain area in the calm silence of the jungle. The atmosphere was intense at nights in tropical countries. As daylight birds stopped singing and went to bed, numerous other creatures revealed themselves and started threading their paths.
Lara continued her run, but was forced to stop after a few minutes. Someone was walking down the road. The only road to Angkor Wat. They had to be some kind of guards.
Approximately three men, probably armed. And probably khmers. Weighing her options, Lara spotted a climbable tree nearby. She grabbed a branch after she had trapped the crossbow safely to her back, left all her other gear in a bush, and started climbing. Hauling herself up, from branch to branch, she followed the men silently. When she got high enough, she unstrapped her crossbow and loaded three arrows in.
Extra arrows or missed shots were not her cup of tea. Aiming carefully between the branches, she fired. One man fell - and the others stopped at their heels, clueless of their new enemy's location.
Another arrow whistled. Another man fell.
Third arrow.
Route secure.
Covering her torch with her free hand, Lara sneaked around the last corner behind the statue. No-one. The temple of Angkor Wat was allegedly empty. She tip-toed to the statue and entered the hidden doorway. With no difficulty she rediscovered the stone door. Without hesitating, she stuck the golden skulls on the wholes of the door.
A faint shudder in the floor. Then the massive door opened. Remembering the oh-so many timed doors she had come across on her travels, Lara quickly went through the door.
And stopped.
Garden of the five towers - just like it had been when she had last visited Cambodia, at the age of sixteen.
Over twenty singhas, guardian lions stood quietly, with fires burning in their mouths. A somehow ghostly, but inviting place at night. Inviting - for an archaeologist.
'What archaeologist? No ordinary one. For an explorer,' Lara corrected herself, and walked up the stairs, slightly amused as she remembered the explanation for the lions' unlikeness to their living models. The poor Cambodians had never seen a lion, just heard stories of this magnificent beast, and their artists had laid guesses on what it might look like.
Just like she had guessed - the other door was now open upstairs. Coughing, she walked up the low steps and stood in the doorway for a second.
Closed was the virtuous route.
Open was the path of the heretical.
So heretical it would be. Lara entered the door, knowing time was of the essence. Darkness was going to hide her of anything lurking in the shadows.
Inexplicably, torches had been lit in the inner chambers, too. Some kind of a mechanism?
Eight miles down the road, in Siem Reap, Jean lit his ceiling lamp and sneaked to the corridor.
He knocked on Lara's door. No answer.
He knocked again. No answer. He had seen from his room that Lara's window was open and the curtains were flying freely in the night wind.
Jean tried the door handle. Unlocked.
He stepped in. The closet where Lara kept her weapons was empty. Her boots had disappeared from the rack.
She had left for the temple. Inspecting Lara's bed, Jean noticed two blood drops on her pillow. Somehow knowing that everything did not fit the picture, Jean ran to his room. Turning over his bag, he found a pair of hiking boots. Tying the laces, he made a silent promise not to let anything happen to Lara.
After a similar rope swing to the one Lara had cleared as a teenager, she opened a familiar door to a dark downwards-curving hallway. She jumped in - and ended up coming out of a statue's massive head.
'So there indeed was another way in,' she thought as she approached the doorway on the other side of the open yard.
Saying a quick goodbye to the starry sky, she entered the Path of the Heretical.
The first chamber was a series of jumping tricks - the sharp spikes on the deep pits would have made anyone's skin crawl when leaping over the pits, but Lara concentrated enough not to make any mistakes. Her timing was perfect, but her reflexes almost betrayed her a couple of times. Every jump felt like the last one she would make.
After a series of different chambers, three furious porcupines, climbable walls, and an underground river, Lara stopped under a tree growing in a chamber. Trying to calm her flaming lungs, she assured herself the goal was nearly at hand. It had to be. It just had to.
Because she was starting to acknowledge the fact that if this kept going for a long time, the fever was going to stop her from getting out of the temple. She was too tired.
Avoiding the word 'weak', in her mind, Lara slowly got up, bit her teeth together, and continued running through the next chambers.
Hoping her pounding heart and feverish brain would agree to co-operate for one more time, Lara stopped on her heels when she saw a pit in the floor in front of her. It was huge.
The spikes way down were bloody, and Lara could spot bones between them. Bracing herself once again - almost not even capable of thinking clearly, she unstarpped her crossbow, attached a rope to an arrow, and shot it over. It hit a vine on the other side.
Not a very good place, but with some luck she could probably.
'I make my own luck.'
She secured the rope to a rock and started shimmying.
A lonely flashlight casted shadows on the corridor walls. Jean-Yves ran deeper to the temple cellar, and found the door with the golden skulls open.
Finally - the fallen pillars of the central chamber. Lara stepped out of the shadows hiding the ancient wall engravings, and wiped off what almost felt like liters of sweat from her forehead. She rested her hand on her face for a moment, feeling the skin burning with an exhausting warmth. She coughed dryly, walked nearer the pillars, almost literally feeling her body burning with excitement, boosted up with fever. She remembered vaguely how she had ran and almost got crushed by the largest one of the huge stone pillars supporting the temple.
She crawled under the same pillar to the chamber. A sudden chill surprised her, she shook her head as if to sheak off the headache she has been nursing for the past five days, and scanned her surroundings.
She felt tired. Almost reluctant to proceed further.
Lara walked past some fallen stones to a familiar wooden lever, still in unbelievably good shape. She pulled it and the exertion knocked her off her feet along with the fever. But she received what she had been looking for: a flower-shaped sanctuary rose from the depths of the chamber floor, and a walkway appeared, as if guiding whoever decides to enter the chamber to the altar itself.
Lara rose to her full height and left the lever, bracing herself - assuring herself that in less than on hour, she would be lying in a soft bed, her prize in a secure place. She was sweating liters of salty water, too hesitant to drink.
'Fatigue can not be fatal. Not now.'
She walked across the chamber and stepped carefully on the walkway, testing its endurance. Satisfied with the results, she walked to the sanctum itself. Coughing hard and ignoring the visible blood droplets on her hand used to wipe her mouth, she took three shaky steps to her destination.
On a low jade pillar stood the Angkorean Iris.
Jean-Yves' route was cut off. There was no chance that he would have been able to clear out such pitfalls, dive into such underwater rivers, or escape porcupines. After the Garden of The Five Towers had changed into the Path of the Heretical, he had to admit Lara had won. Cursing silently, he took this last glance to a deep spike pit separating him from the resting place of the Iris, he turned back and started retracing his steps.
All he could now do was to wait on the temple yard. He had tried his best. Or had he? Was there something he could do?
Just like five years before, as Lara raised the artifact from its pillar, the sanctuary started pulling back down, and an earthquake shattered the sanctuary. The walkway collapsed.
The sanctum of the Iris was pulling down - threatening to take Lara with it. And there was nothing she could do.
Out, on the dawn of the temple yard, Jean-Yves felt the tremors of the temple pillars. Digging his fingernails in his palm, enraged, he swore that if she got out alive, he would keep her alive until getting home. At whatever cost.
Jean-Yves believed in telepathy - or at least he started believing in it as he realized he somehow knew this was all his fault, in a way.
Maybe.
Perhaps.
Or maybe not. One way or the other, the truth was worthless if it costed Lara's life.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
As always, comments and reviews would be much appreciated - they're the fuel that feeds this creative furnace.
siirma6@surfeu.fi