Chapter 18: Alliance and treachery
"Glad you came back to save me, stranger," Lara said, still training her pistol on the man's head.
"Name's Kurtis." He reached out a hand to shake hers, but Lara instantly grabbed his wrist and thrust him up against the wall.
"Lara," she introduced herself and started searching him. "And this is business."
"I owe you one," Kurtis said.
"You owe me a painting," Lara corrected him.
"Sorry. That went AWOL at the Louvre."
"What brings you here from Paris?" Lara noticed the strange, frisbee-like weapon hanging from Kurtis' waistband at his right hip. 'Chirugai Lamina' was inscribed on the bronze disk. Lara recalled that 'Lamina' was the Latin word for 'blade'. She pulled off the Chirugai blade and tossed it away.
"Eckhardt," Kurtis said. "We have business that only one of us will walk away from. You?"
Lara grabbed the man's shoulder and turned him around to face her. "Personal reasons."
"Eckhardt plans to use all five Obscura paintings to revive an ancient evil called the Sleeper and rebreed the Nephilim race," Kurtis explained. "To do that, he collects alchemically transmuted elements from his murder victims' bodies."
"I've seen him at work as the Monstrum, with that glove." Lara shuddered at the memory of Luddick's demise.
"Eckhardt is the original Black Alchemist, and now he's very close to finding the last painting."
The Chirugai disk started to glow yellow and rose from the floor. It flew through the airlock, encircling Lara and Kurtis as if protecting them.
"Does he know where it is?"
Kurtis nodded gravely. "Yes. It's hidden in a Lux Veritatis vault beneath the Strahov. That painting must be destroyed, and to do that, I need the shard you picked up at the Louvre."
Lara felt a strange heat rushing past the back of her neck, as the Chirugai flew around her and Kurtis in hypnotic circles. She glanced down at the shard in her left hand. "There should be three Periapt shards."
Kurtis pulled out his own shard. "Eckhardt has the last one. If all three shards are united, they can destroy him permanently, so he keeps it safe."
"Tell me about the shards."
"They're ancient weapons of the Lux Veritatis. Two of them were entrusted to my father." Kurtis' eyes narrowed with hatred. "Eckhardt murdered him to stop them passing into my hands. He failed." The Chirugai swept around him even faster, constantly slicing through the air, longing to attack real flesh.
"So Eckhardt went after your father, and you want revenge?" Lara deduced.
"Justice!" Kurtis reached up and caught the Chirugai. The disk instantly stopped to rest on his fingers, its fiery glow fading once more.
"We should work together," Lara said, holstering her pistol.
"You're trusting me?"
"Here," Lara tossed him the Periapt shard. "How can they be used to kill Eckhardt?"
"He must be stabbed with all three shards."
"We can divide the forces against us if we split up," Lara stated. "You need the third Periapt shard, so you should go after that. I'll find the last painting and destroy it."
Kurtis nodded. "Eckhardt guards the shard in his old alchemy lab in the lower regions. I can find my way there."
Lara produced the engraving from Vasiley's place. "The engraving shows the painting hidden in something called the Vault of Trophies." She pointed to the Vault on the map. "Here. The entrance is underwater – no problem."
Lara pocketed the engraving and walked out of the airlock, down the corridor. Kurtis left through the opposite exit.
Muller had left the surveillance room ten minutes ago to find a radio and inform Gunderson of the Proto-Nephilim's death. Meanwhile, Eckhardt and Karel had been watching the two intruders' conversation on the security monitors. Karel was surprised at how easily Croft had allied herself with Kurtis and designed their strategy to stop the Cabal. "How did she get the engraving and the map?"
"It doesn't matter," the alchemist said. "We have lost too many men trying to open that damned Vault. Perhaps her special talents will help us get what we need." He glanced up at Trent on the monitor screens. "The male will be coming this way soon. Make the preparations."
"There's no danger she can destroy the last painting?" Karel asked.
"We won't allow her the opportunity. The fifth Obscura painting is mine already. And then …" A smile of anticipation broadened on Eckhardt's pale face.
Lara swam through the maze of tunnels under the aquatic research center. Fortunately, she had found some excellent scuba gear there, including an aqua-lung filled with oxygen. The light blue wetsuit clung to her body and thighs, as she fought currents and dove down the hallways. Shoals of little fish twirled and billowed around her like a silvery mist. The walls were filled with Latin inscriptions and medieval reliefs.
Lara dove on into the lower corridors of the labyrinth. Black iron spikes began to shoot out of the walls. Lara narrowly dodged them and continued to the end of the maze. The last tunnel looked like a dead end, but as Lara kicked the wall, the bricks collapsed and revealed a round opening to the Vault itself.
The huge dome ceiling and circular wall were built with the same grand precision of the tomb beneath the Louvre. Eight statues of Lux Veritatis warriors lined the wall. They wore knights' armour and held long, rusty swords out, as if ready to attack. Their names were inscribed on the bases of their statues – most of them were apparently from western Europe, just like the members of the Cabal. Lara swam along the wall and read the monks' names: 'Montsegur', 'Guilhelm', 'Lineoux', 'Bogomil', 'DeCombel', 'Aicard', 'Occitan' and 'Vasiley'.
"Vasiley! So Mathias Vasiley was a Lux Veritatis monk, or at least related to one," Lara figured. "That would explain why Eckhardt killed him off."
A large plaque at the wall was carved with an image of two knights crossing swords in a gesture of alliance. The caption read 'Fratribus Collates Ianuae Patent.' Lara translated it to: 'Brothers reunited see the gates thrown open.'
Two letters were carved next to the knights – a L and a V. "An abbreviation for Lux Veritatis? Or maybe … Linoux and Vasiley?"
There was a narrow alcove behind each knight, and a long, vertical chain was stretched out inside each of the niches. Lara swam into Linoux' alcove and pulled the chain. The statue immediately moved to the middle of the room, transported by some hidden machinery under the floor. Lara swam across the hall and tugged at the chain behind Vasiley, whose statue was also pulled to the center.
The statues of Lineoux and Vasiley stood motionless, crossing swords like their relief twins on the plaque. Then, a bright blue glow radiated from the weapons' blades and rose through the water. It grew and shimmered like an oversize, luminous jellyfish. The weird light soon reached the top of the vault and spread its tendrils over the dome. With a muffled boom, the stone surface exploded and collapsed. Rubble sank through the water.
Lara swam up to the new opening, broke through the water surface and pulled up into a large, warm cavern. The tunnel before her led downwards to more hellish traps and hidden artifacts. She changed to her dry clothes, tore the aqua-lung off her face and blissfully inhaled the stale, dusty air of the underground tomb. "Just like old times."
Steel walls reflected Kurtis' stealthy movements as he crept down the hallway. He had reached an area north of the Sanitarium, beneath the bio-research facilities. Eckhardt's lab had to be somewhere nearby.
The doors at the end of the corridor were shut tight, and Kurtis didn't know the code for the number keypad. He lowered his pistol and closed his eyes, concentrating his telekinetic energy on the locked exit. But the doors refused to budge a single centimetre.
A scornful voice seeped in from the other side: "Open sesame."
The doors instantly burst open, smacking into Kurtis' bowed head. The man flew backwards and landed on the unforgiving floor. Pain exploded inside his skull. The Boran X fell from his hand and clattered across the hallway.
"Kurtis Trent, old boy! Words cannot describe how glad I am to see you again," said a familiar voice. A tall, strongly built figure marched up to Kurtis and shot him a glare that was anything but friendly.
The Chirugai flew up, blades spinning around furiously, but its target's reflexes were too quick and his grip too strong. Before the disk could decapitate him, Gunderson caught it in his right hand, cutting his palm on the blades. Blood dripped from the black glove. Kurtis grinned.
Gunderson's booted foot connected with the man's stomach. Kurtis' triumphant smile vanished, and he doubled up on the cold floor, gasping for air. Gunderson glowered at the Chirugai, which seemed eager to fly off his fingers.
Kurtis tried to kick his assailant, but Gunderson grabbed the man's foot and flung him around, through the doorway. The warrior tumbled onto a platform in the middle of an immense hall. The ceiling was curved up in an awe-inspiring dome, and the bottom was covered in sand, like the arena of a colosseum. Muller and Eckhardt stood on the platform.
At the sight of the latter, Kurtis scrambled to his feet and used his telekinetic powers to pull the pistol closer, up to his outstretched hand. He trained it on Eckhardt and was one splitsecond from pulling the trigger, when Eckhardt merely reached out his right hand and let a wave of electric energy stream from his gloved fingers. Kurtis staggered back and collapsed on the edge of the walkway, coughing blood up. The pistol flew off the edge and landed on the arena below.
Eckhardt approached the fallen warrior, grabbed him by the throat, dragged him up and let him dangle above the arena. "In revenge for 500 years of pain, I swore an oath of malice against my Lux Veritatis jailors," the alchemist informed. "Over the decades, I hunted them down. None escaped. And all tasted the agony I had endured in the Pit. Now, the son of Konstantin has come to avenge his father. The reckless child actually thinks he can kill me, Pieter Van Eckhardt, the Great Alchemist who made a pact with the Nephilim 600 years ago. They gave me the greatest of all gifts - immortality. And you thought you could actually kill me!"
Kurtis couldn't even retort. He managed to rip the Chirugai out of Gunderson's grip, but Eckhardt easily caught the weapon, not even wincing when it came rushing towards his head. The alchemist kept his grip on Kurtis' neck tight enough to cause pain, yet loose enough to let him breathe.
"Well, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you," Eckhardt said. "You will never have your revenge, and you will not even survive this foolish attempt to exact it. Your journey ends in here."
Black spots danced across Kurtis' field of vision, and he realized that he was losing consciousness. He kicked and lashed out, but Eckhardt relentlessly squeezed his throat.
"Ex hostium vi mea vis maior, Trent. Do not struggle. After all, I would never kill you." Eckhardt smiled. "Unlike your far more worthy father, you do not deserve to die at the hand of a great alchemist such as myself. A more fitting demise awaits you. And I can still use you for a little trade, when Croft returns from the Vault."
In the last seconds before he drifted into complete darkness, Kurtis heard Eckhardt close his soliloquy with five horribly plausible words: "Besides, you are already dead."
Gunderson felt satisfied. Satisfied by what he had done to Trent, satisfied by the more effective torment Eckhardt had administered, and satisfied by the complete failure the intruder's mission had ended in. Trent deserved it all. He had once worked for the Agency, and now he was fighting against them. Gunderson despised that. The deceit. The treachery. In Gunderson's opinion, the worst thing a man could do was to betray his master. Pick a side, any side, as long as you remember to stay on that side.
"Shall we let Boaz dispose of him and Croft, Master Eckhardt?" he asked.
"Yes." Eckhardt attached the Chirugai back at Kurtis' right waistband. "And he can have his blade back; I don't care for pathetic Lux Veritatis tricks."
Lara had reached the library at the end of the underground complex. The hall was approximately 25 metres long and five metres wide, bookcases filled with ancient tomes lining the stone walls. Lit chandeliers, torches and a fireplace illuminated the Gothic architecture. Tapestries, knights' armour, axes and other weapons hung on the walls. Lara walked up to a worktable with cups, candles and dusty manuscripts scattered across it. A sceleton wearing a crimson robe was seated in a throne-like chair at the table. Through empty eyesockets, he stared lifelessly at the open book before him. Lara studied the monk's writing.
'HISTORY OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE BLACK ALCHEMIST BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE LUX VERITATIS - YEAR OF SALVATION 1461.
Eckhardt was to use his devilish arts to awaken the Sleeper. For this, he created the Sanglyph, forged of five metallic symbols. Eckhardt was brought low when he tried to betray his unholy Nephilim masters. Good Lux Veritatis brothers now guard the accursed alchemist in the Pit. Only the three Periapt Shards restrain him.'
Lara heard a strange grunt behind her and spun around, raising her Rigg 09. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened at the sight of two Lux Veritatis warriors. They should obviously have died centuries ago, but their powers and the instinct to guard the Obscura painting had somehow lived on. Their bodies were nothing more than fragile sceletons in armour, but they were strong enough to wield swords and shields.
The undead knights raised their swords, and Lara jumped backwards to dodge the blunt, heavy weapons. She landed on the worktable as the blades slammed onto the floor. Furious at having missed the tomb raider, the knights snarled and ran towards the table. Lara aimed her pistol and fired twice before jumping sideways. A bullet pierced one of the knights' arms at the elbow, and the forearm bones fell to the ground, still clutching the sword handle. The other knight swung his sword at the table, cleaving the wooden surface Lara had just been standing on.
Lara sprinted to the wall and climbed the bookshelves. The injured knight picked up his arm and flung it at her. The sword whizzed through the dusty air and plunged into one of the book spines, a few inches from Lara's head. The disembodied forearm still hung from the handle.
Lara pulled up to the top of the bookcase and climbed the rough wall. The knights below snarled and threw weapons at her, but they seemed to give up once Lara had reached the shadowy ceiling. The tomb raider pulled up to a wooden ledge and turned around. Beams made of metal grating led to the center of the hall. Lara traversed out and down the middle beam. At the end of the narrow path, she jumped onto a chandelier. The chain suspending it fell slightly, lowering the chandelier and triggering a mechanism below.
The flames in the fireplace were immediately quenched, and one of the bookcases slid aside, revealing a compartment behind it. A small, rectangular object rested inside. "The last Obscura painting!" Lara lowered herself from the chandelier and dropped to the floor. Before the knights could stop her, she rushed to the compartment and snatched the painting.
Lara noticed a corridor behind the now empty fireplace. She crawled through the opening and stood on the other side. The knights roared in the library behind her.
Lara walked down the secret hallway and examined the painting. Just like the fourth painting beneath the Louvre, it was painted on a thick wooden base with faded colours and a religious motif. This one seemed to depict the angel telling the shepherds of Jesus' birth.
Lara tucked the painting into her backpack before dropping through a pool opening at the end of the hallway. The water felt colder than ice after the warmth of the library. Lara swam through the flooded tunnels. At the bottom of the labyrinth, she found an opening to a round basin with smooth, brown walls – definitely part of the Strahov facilities. And whether Lara wanted to or not, she had to surface here before her lungs ran out of oxygen.
The moment her head broke the middle of the basin surface, a hoarse voice echoed from the platform above: "Congratulations, Miss Croft." Eckhardt slowly clapped his hands with a complete lack of enthusiasm. Muller and Gunderson stood on either side of him.
The waters of the huge basin sunk around the woman, while a round, grey floor rose under her. She had soon ascended from the water, as the new floor reached the same level as the rest of the hall. Red marble pillars and lit torches lined the steel walls. Lara saw Kurtis standing on the edge of the platform. Or rather, he was sitting limply on his knees. The only thing that kept him from slumping to the floor was Eckhardt's hand clutching his neck.
"You are positively Amazonian," Eckhardt told the woman in the arena below. "That Vault has defeated us for months."
"What do you want, Eckhardt?"
"I'm not interested in you or your friend, Miss Croft. Give me the painting, and you may both leave."
"What choice do I have?" Lara flung the painting up to Eckhardt. The alchemist caught it in his gloved hand and dropped his hostage. Kurtis landed on the platform. Gunderson rolled him off the edge with his booted foot. The unconscious man fell to the bottom of the hall. Lara reached out a hand to pull him up, but Kurtis refused to let her help and shakily stood on his own. He picked up his Boran X from the sandy floor.
Eckhardt's voice reverberated from the platform above: "Gunderson, release Boaz."
Gunderson walked up to a control panel and pulled a lever. A huge, thick gate in the wall of the arena rose, revealing a shadowy opening. Lara thought she could make out a monstrous shape in the darkness – about the size of a full-grown elephant, but thinner, insect-like. A chalkwhite face glared out with yellowish eyes. "This old colleague of mine was once a human, before she displeased me," Eckhardt explained.
Lara frowned and tightened her grip on her pistol. "That bastard said we could leave!"
Eckhardt and Gunderson started to walk away. Muller followed, but Eckhardt spun around and yelled: "Not you, Muller, you useless piece of dross! You failed me, too!" He pushed the corpulent man back.
A plethora of feelings filled Muller's mind. Shock. Anger. Regret. And finally, the moment he fell off the platform, pure dread.
Lara and Kurtis watched as Muller landed before them in the arena. He scrambled to his feet and saw the weapons in the two intruders' hands. Assuming that they might shoot him, Muller ran away from the duo and towards the dark opening. This, however, turned out to be a grave mistake on Muller's part.
Boaz came out.
A/N: (cue the cool battle theme) And we all know whose oh-so-tragic deaths are coming up in the next chapter …
