Fourteen
Teirkar
The gold medallion shone proudly against casual black robes so similar to Teikar's in style which caught the light as Lantash strode quickly down from the platform. He was taking everything in, on guard, he felt he was being spied upon.
The hall, once again sentinelled, was now filled with the light from a high chandelier so bright that everything stood out clean and sharp. Nothing was obscured by shadow and there was nowhere to hide. None of them made a move to stop him as they stood relaxed.
The fort has been reclaimed. This is a good sign. There may still be answers for us here.
Behind him the gate shut down but immediately fired up again and when it opened a group of diplomatic couriers passed him on either side, letters in their hands, into the chamber ahead to join a group chatting calmly there, which as he came closer could be seen were standing around a desk where an officer was noting them into a traffic ledger.
Decision time.
At the end, before that next chamber, stood two guards by a passage. They turned to look at him strangely for a very long moment… then they nodded respectfully and continued their conversation disregarding him almost completely.
Lets take that passage.
You're an idiot.
He walked straight past them into the passage not looking back.
If we make it to the next turn alive, I'll kill you.
'When', Lantash corrected.
As he walked there was a barely audible scape close behind, separate from the noise of the crowd. He almost swung around, it was incredibly difficult to continue at a casual pace. He waited until he was close to the turn and focussed on the reflection in the dark polished wall ahead. He saw only his clear silhouette cut out against an empty passage.
This was the long passage he had come though to the gate room before so he knew where he was to some degree the rest of the fort remained a mystery he wasn't sure he'd get a chance to unravel. It just didn't feel right. Something was going to go wrong and Martouf wondered why he'd felt coming back was so necessary.
We're in too deep now. It we don't find out what happened to you this will all have been for nothing. All of it.
Lantash continued, we came to Teirkar to find out what's going on and this time we will.
He headed up a narrow black spiralling staircase having previously decided to start searching the upper, most closely guarded levels first. Lantash took quick light steps two at a time, wary an alert would would be sounded soon.
The worst possible thing awaited him at the top.
On the last step it came into view. A grand hallway indented with countless identical, closed doors which seemed to stretch forever in each direction.
Lantash silently swore their head off to the tune of, Of all the… evil… those… bastards… annoying… just BRILLIANT!…
I don't remember this, Martouf thought quietly.
Well whatever we're looking for must be here, I cant think of anything more fitting.
Martouf searched his tired memory exhaustively and ultimately in vain then stepped up the first door and pressed the lock pad next to its frame which was a DNA identifier. It glowed red. He went to the next one. Again the lock glowed rejection. And the next and the next.
They're all locked.
Lets try the second and third last one.
Hey lets even try the last one. Wouldn't that be ironic.
That's a long way to walk.
It didn't turn out to be so far after all. the passage wound around after every twenty or so doors and he soon found himself back where he'd started. He'd touched every pad while walking backwards to watch the red lights pulse on. Back at the stairs the first lights had gone out and he stood for a moment unsure before returning down to the passages below.
Disoriented for a moment at the base of the stairs, he considered the problem of the locked doors from a mathematical and architectural perspective and soon found himself wandering distractedly through yet another unfamiliar passage.
Hearing the scrape of a boot he rushed into a storage room and for a moment saw himself, in his minds eye, walking at a deliberately slowed pace to a rectangle of light cutting across the gloom.
He clamped his hand over his mouth to muffle the cries of pain as the wound in his head swelled and he was leaning, almost falling forward and crouched down placing his palms flat onto the floor to brace himself as Lantash withdrew into a healing trance.
Martouf felt a hand fall onto his shoulder…