Ta da! New chapter. Took longer to get up than usual for me, but I was so busy writing what happens after this, I didn't actually get around to writing this. It was tough, so I left it. ;-) Feedback on my how my writing style fits the action scenes would be appreciated, since I don't do action too well. hint hint
Onto a pilgrimage...
Lara and Kurtis reached the end of the drainage pipe and looked out. It opened out into a large naturally formed cavern of sandstone, stalactites and stalagmites growing from the floor and ceiling, some having met in the middle to form uneven, rough pillars. The wastewater fell in a waterfall of sludge down for about four feet, pooling on the floor at the bottom. Rains in the area had been sparse for a few days, giving the water time to soak into the porous rock, leaving only a centimetre or so of brown, dirty water. The air was cool, crisp.
Lara vaulted down to the ground and splashed in the pool at the bottom, straightening up even as she took in the area around her. The silence was broken only by the slow trickle of water from the pipe above, and a few louder drips echoing around from an unknown source. Kurtis splashed down beside her. "This might seem like a stupid question, but where's all the light coming from?"
Lara had to admit, she hadn't even realised that it should have been dark. In her years of tombraiding, it just seemed natural for mysterious, unvisited places like that to be lit. "I don't know," she said wonderingly.
They moved forward, looking for a way out. "Over here," called Lara, running her hand along the edge of a small jagged hole in the side of the cave. It was about two feet in diameter and led into a short tunnel that rounded out of sight, also dimly lit from an unknown source. Kurtis came over to her and poked his head through the hole. "Seems to be man-made," said Lara, "but it's very rough, as if it's been chiselled or hacked rather than built properly. I doubt the tunnel engineers did this."
"I think we just found our entrance into the Periapt Complex," said Kurtis, ducking back out to look at Lara. Smiling triumphantly, he climbed in and began crawling along.
"HELLO!!!" On the dance floor with Hillary and Bryce, Rob caught sight of a group of people that he obviously knew, and launched himself into their midst, instigating a massive group hug and rousing 'hello's and 'Rob!'s from the crowd. Extricating himself from them, he turned and gestured to the two. "This is Bryce and Hillary."
There was silence as the group stared at Lara's employees, not quite knowing what to make of them.
"They're straight," Rob explained.
"HELLO!!!" came the greeting in unison from the larger group, engulfing Bryce and Hillary in another group hug and bouncing around like long lost friends.
Inside the tunnel, Kurtis crawled slowly along in the cramped space, closely followed by Lara.
"At least this makes our plan easier. Nobody to stop us from taking the shard and running now."
"Don't say that, Kurtis. I don't know what's got them, but I'm sure shooting them with tranquillisers and leaving them to explain to Cheney how they let us get away is far preferable to what's happened to them."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Lara. Cheney is not someone you wanna let down."
"And yet you're willing to try your hand at deceiving him? Run off with the shard and hope he doesn't find you?"
"I'm trying not to think about what will happen if he does find me. Getting tortured and killed is not high up on my list of ambitions right now."
Lara stopped. "Tortured and killed? You could have told me that before you talked me into this."
"Hey." Kurtis stopped and shifted onto his side so that he could look back to Lara. "You were going to steal it yourself, remember?"
"Then you should have warned me what I was up against, shouldn't you?"
"And would you have agreed to help me?"
"No."
"Exactly." He got back on all fours and carried on, Lara also continuing.
"So let's recap," said Lara. "The Company, a not-for profit organisation run by a megalomaniac with a penchant for out of proportion punishments, with offices in hotel rooms, alley ways and undisclosed location office buildings, wants the fourth Periapt Shard to kill a cult leader. You, Kurtis Trent, a loner mercenary, orchestrated my kidnapping and subsequent sale to The Company in order to buy your way into their ranks and procure my assistance in helping you steal said Periapt Shard, so that you may redeem yourself in the eyes of the now extinct Lux Veritatis."
Kurtis stopped again and looked back over his shoulder to Lara, both of them showing clear humour in their eyes. "I never told you that."
"I'm very perceptive."
"I'll say."
The silence returned, cracked rather than broken by the rustling and scuffling of the two as they crawled along the tunnel and the regular dripping of clean, naturally filtered water leaking out from above, landing on their heads and backs and creating tiny pools of cold, crystal liquid in the uneven floor that felt cool and cleansing against their dirty, scraped hands and knees.
"Here we are," whispered Kurtis, reaching the end of the tunnel just around the corner. He stopped, tipped over on one hip and swung his legs around in the confined space so they dangled out of the exit hole. He pushed himself forward and slid out of the tunnel, landing with a reverberating bang on polished stone floor a few feet below.
Lara chose the more stylish method of exit, and went into a forward roll in the mouth of the passage, flipping out and landing expertly on her feet with a much cleaner tap sound. "Show-off," Kurtis muttered, and he was answered with a smug grin.
The polished grey floor stretched across a huge hallway intricately carved into the rock, tall, majestic and cold. Where there were no carvings, the walls were rough and uneven, creating a wonderful union of nature and man. Again, no light sources were visible, but the hallway was awash with a light, flowing orange illumination that created no shadows and no reflections.
"Must be Knights Templar magic," remarked Kurtis, squinting around to the farthest reaches of the space to look for the origin of the mysterious glow.
In reply, Lara only drew her gun and cocked it. "If this place looks like it hasn't been touched since the day it was built, where are all the sub-terraneans?"
"Up in the subway. They attacked us."
"No." Lara shook her head. "They wouldn't live up there. There are too many people and not enough abandoned line."
"Well, maybe we'll find them."
"Or maybe, they'll find us." Lara cocked an eyebrow mischievously at her partner and then set out across the hallway to the other end, inset with two massive oak doors, also lovingly carved, and flanked with two statues.
Lara and Kurtis each went to one, examining them carefully for clues, warnings and information.
"It's God," said Lara, staring up at the figure looming above her, glistening white in limestone
"The Devil," echoed Kurtis, staring up at his own figure, jet and polished to the purest black obtainable.
Lara crossed to the doors and ran her hand over them, feeling the smooth sanded surface as she looked to the carvings, but they were only patterns and offered no clues. "These doors are far too heavy to be pushed open. Those statues must be our way in."
In answer, Kurtis leapt up onto the demon statue and began to negotiate the slippery black surface up to the top to search for clues or devices. Taking any foothold he could find, he braced one foot on the outstretched left arm of the figure. It swung slowly downwards under his weight, causing him to slip and fall as a loud vibration that was more felt than heard took up throughout the hallway. He landed heavily on the shaking ground at the feet of Satan, clutching his arm where it had broken his fall. Long, thick cracks began to radiate out from underneath him that splintered and showed white like fractures in the grey plane.
Lara gasped, darting a glance up at the statue as it began to tilt, sinking unevenly into the collapsing floor as it shattered and broke, revealing through the gaps a huge, black chasm below. She dived away from the door, rolled over the rapidly caving floor, and grabbed Kurtis' arm, breaking him out of his initial shock and pulling him to his feet. They had barely leapt out of the way when the floor gave, the statue dropping down into the black below followed by huge shards of thin rock that once they had been standing on, leaving a gaping, jagged hole in the corner of the hallway.
Lying on the floor that was still standing, only feet from the edge, Lara and Kurtis stared at the destruction, panting. It was Lara who first came to her senses, standing and regaining her usual calm, casual exterior.
"No, silly. When dealing with a Christian Order, never present yourself as one on the left hand of the Devil." She turned and marched over to the statue of God, still standing firmly. Kurtis, still on the floor with a look of utter disbelief on his face, stared after her.
"What?! Are you crazy? I nearly died doing the wrong thing and you're acting as if nothing just happened?"
"Everyone makes mistakes." Lara positioned herself below the right hand of the surviving statue, jumped up nimbly, and caught hold of its fingers, allowing her weight to pull it down with a satisfying stony grind. The huge double doors swung slowly open, presenting beyond them another hallway that ended without visible exit, its cream and red chequered floor stretching evenly out towards blindingly white walls that rose in geometrically grooved smooth limestone to a ceiling concealed in darkness and shadows.
"On we go." Lara strode smartly forward.
"Is your arm ok?" Lara asked distractedly as they stepped slowly into the next room. Kurtis nodded, too distracted himself to do anything other than gaze up at the massive construction around them.
Staring up and around to the shadows above, they turned in amazed circles as they stumbled blindly forward towards the centre of the room, where a circle of small stones laid on the floor was the only object in the room.
"I cannot believe that this has been under London all this time and no-one knew about it."
"Well, someone knew about it." To illustrate her point, Lara reached into one of her pockets and produced the map of the caverns given to her by The Company, sheathed in plastic and attached to her flak jacket by cord. Unfolding it, she oriented it in what she guessed to be the correct direction. "Looks like the map began in the room we've just come from – 'The Hall of Affiliation', or thereabouts. My translations are rather flimsy."
"So where are we now?"
"It's not named. But according to this there should be an exit at the far end. A note states that, 'To those who will purify themselves for God, the path to His power awaits.'"
"Yeah, well I don't see any exits or Holy Water." Kurtis walked to the walls, as highly polished as the floor in the last room, and ran his fingers along them, feeling the stepped structure that went in and out like tiny alcoves. They both jumped as the massive doors behind them swung shut, swishing through the still air and meeting together with a resounding crash. No sooner had the silence returned then the 'woomph' of a fire coming to life made them snap their heads towards the stone ring at Lara's feet, now surrounding a flickering mass of flames.
"That's weird," Kurtis remarked. Lara returned to examining the map and, engrossed in her work, didn't notice her partner stiffen as he got the unmistakable feeling of being watched, or raise his head up slowly, dreading what he'd see. She jumped, reflexively drawing and aiming her gun as he yelped and leapt backwards, drawing his own weapon and opening fire on a straggly haired creature that launched itself down on him from the shadows above.
It was hit immediately, and fell under the stream of bullets, screaming out in an inhuman voice and collapsing to the floor, a small stream of blood flowing from underneath and pooling at Kurtis' feet.
"What the fuck...?" Kurtis bent down to examine his attacker. Almost humanoid, it held itself as though it had walked on all fours. Thick, tangled brown hair fell from all over its body, but it was patchy and thinly spread, revealing an almost white skin underneath. Tipping the head, it became clear that the thing had least once been human. The distinctly human features were altered slightly by centuries in the dark – the eyes appeared grey, unhealthy, as though rarely used, and the nose and ears were enlarged. Its protruding teeth were long with pronounced canines, and its finger and toe nails were long but chipped and broken.
"A sub-terranean," Lara stated.
"Yeah." Kurtis let the creature's head drop and stood, checking his weapon.
The eerie silence was broken by an unearthly cacophony of squeaks, taps, squeals and snarls as a thousand sub-terraneans descended, crawling down the polished walls with their nails scraping and clicking and their voices declaring war for their dead brother.
They swept towards the two intruders like an unstoppable wave, not even hesitating under the onslaught of weapons fire rained down on them.
Sub-terraneans fell, their comrades seething over them as though they were nothing. Lara and Kurtis, back to back, sprayed bullets left and right, dropping the enemy like flies, but they were still never-ending, and the crest of the wave drew ever closer.
"We have to get out of here!" screamed Kurtis over his shoulder.
And then the animals were on them, scratching, biting and clawing, drawing blood and cowing their victims under their teeth and claws.
"The fire!" Lara screamed, ducked under arms and shooting blindly. "Fire is purifying!"
"What?!" Kurtis cried back over the din of gunfire and surging sub-terraneans.
"Jump into the fire!" Lara turned and wrapped her arms around Kurtis' waist, pulling him with her as she put all her strength into her legs and pushed off against the ground, sending them flying sideways through the air and straight into the fire.
Just as the flames licked at their arms in that first moment of heat, a sound like steel being sharpened against stone filled their ears over the sound of the attack, and the air around them ripped open to a barely visible doorway that sucked them in and immediately closed behind them.
They fell to the ground, half expecting to burn, but instead felt the cold, hard impact of rocky sand barely covering a hard rock face beneath them as they landed in a heap, the wind knocked out of them and their bodies bashed and bruised.
Kurtis' eyes slid shut in pain. "Ow."
"What do you have to complain about," Lara got out between deep breaths after her exertion, "you're the one that landed on my arm."
"Sorry," he grunted, picking himself up and reaching down to help up Lara. He grabbed her by her forearms and pulled her bodily up as her legs almost gave way beneath her. "You ok?"
"I'll be fine. Just winded." She continued breathing heavily, finding her legs and pulling away from Kurtis, but he only let go once he had searched her eyes for signs of deception and found none.
"Where the hell are we now?" They looked around. The floor, as they had felt, was hard rock covered in a smattering of sand with sharp stones scattered across randomly. The walls were shrouded almost completely in shadow, this area lit instead by flickering burning torches that threw out dancing shades of orange and yellow flitting across the cracked, naked, red rock.
Lara checked the map. "Assuming the doorway we just took was the one marked as the exit on the map – 'Pergatory'.
"Pergatory?" Kurtis repeated, looking at Lara with a look of utter distaste, "That cannot be good."