Yay, here's chapter 2! I've been ultra eager to get this posted because I love the end scene so much.
Odd Little Turtle - Oooh, first review! Yep, cliffhangers make the world go round! Sorry if I confused you - hopefully things are a little clearer now. If I'm being too confusing at any time just yell at me and I'll explain it - sometimes I forget that you can't see what's going on in my head.
Linzi - Hello again! So good to have you back, and thankyou! I'm glad you like the title - I'm v. proud of it.
Morph - Ooooh new reviewer. Thanks:-)
NFI - Yep, the Ritual of Anubis. I'm as bad at names as Bryce is! LOL. And, you're the reviewer, you're meant to interfere!Thanks for putting me on your faves.
Lady Lara Croft - Ahh, another regular returns. :-) Thankyou for your kind words. I liked the text messaging part too - very funny in my head.
SilverDragon - Hi! Yep, I really enjoyed writing Bryce and Hillary's trip too. Hee Hee. Whether they'll be any more mischief from those two in this story remains to be seen.
Since a few of you have expressed likeyness for the title (yes - I said 'likeyness'!), I'll tell you that it was chosen to represent more than one facet of this story (boy, do I feel clever and smug LOL) and anybody familiar with British geography has probably figured out one of them already. The other will be pretty obvious after this chapter.
Searching For The Hidden
"The Ritual of Anubis," Kurtis repeated, thoughtfully. He pretended to think hard and then said brightly, "No, sorry, can't say that rings any bells."
"Nothing? You have no idea what I'm talking about?" the humorous man asked, incredulously.
"None whatsoever," Kurtis smiled, doing his best to be infuriatingly cheerful.
His interrogator sighed and then dragged a chair quickly over from a corner of the room, sitting down in front of Kurtis and leaning back comfortably. "I feel we may have started on the wrong foot," he said, and Kurtis pegged him as a private school rich kid. He had that slightly superior, well-spoken air about him that spoke of a privileged upbringing and a belief in the wealth class system. Kurtis hadn't been born into poverty by any means, but he hadn't been taught to look down on people either. As if he needed any more persuading, Kurtis decided he didn't like the man.
"My name is Vincent Harding, and I'm here to make sure that we both get as much out of our time together as we can."
"Really. That's fascinating."
"Now, now, Mr Trent – "
"Oh, call me Kurtis, please," Kurtis interrupted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Alright. Kurtis," Harding reiterated, his voice more forceful, "Let's start again, shall we? The Ritual of Anubis."
"Don't know what you're talking about. Sorry."
"Oh, I think you do."
"No, I don't," Kurtis said, sounding irritated. He glared at Harding, fed up of the whole situation already.
"The Ritual of Anubis." Vincent stood, his voice getting uncontrollably louder as Kurtis began to irk him. He clearly had a short temper. "A Lux Veritatis ritual."
"Lux Veritatis?" Kurtis asked, playing dumb.
Vincent sighed, aggravated, and nodded shortly at one of the guards. In response the guard stepped forward and slapped Kurtis sharply across his cheek. His head snapped to the side in reaction, and he slowly returned it to its original position, his tongue snaking out to taste for the blood that he suspected was seeping from his lip.
Vincent leant down menacingly, hands on the arms of Kurtis' chair.
"The Ritual of Anubis, Kurtis. Tell me what you know."
"Bryce has definitely improved on his research," Lara said to Hillary as he brewed coffee and she sat reading the file at the kitchen table. "Time was I could barely get a summary of archaeological publications, now he practically gives me directions through the tombs."
"What is the latest adventure, anyway? Bryce was telling me but I must admit, I was only half listening. You know how it is – Bryce starts talking, I suddenly have some washing up to do…"
Lara quirked a smile, still reading. "Bryce has found the Helmet of Hades."
"I'm sorry?" Hillary asked, interest piqued.
"According to this paper, a theologist specialising in Ancient Greece believes he has evidence that the mythological River Styx was actually a real river, with the legends built around it originally starting as fables before being exaggerated."
"And this means…?"
"That if you've found the River Styx, you've found the entrance to Hades, and if you've found Hades – "
Bryce interrupted her, finishing the sentence from where he had appeared in the doorway. "You've found the mythological helmet of invisibility." He smiled proudly, bouncing on his toes. "To the library?" he asked nonchalantly, grinning to Lara.
"I don't know any Ritual of Anubis," Kurtis sighed, conceding knowledge of his Order and deciding that he had found Vincent's limit and would stay within it from now on.
Harding sat down again, fixing his prisoner with a hard gaze. "You're lying," he said simply.
"No, really," Trent said, sounding honest, "I don't. Look, I wasn't the best of pupils when I was in the Order, ok? I left before I could graduate, I could never manage anything they tried to teach me, I didn't want to try – I was probably skipping class when they covered that particular ceremony."
"Oh, they taught you," Harding said, conviction in his voice. "And if they didn't, you're going to wish they had, because we're not going to stop until you tell me what I need to know."
"I can't tell you something I don't know!"
"Well," Harding said, his voice returning to that same threatening tone of the moment before, "let's make absolutely certain that you don't know before we give up, hmm?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kurtis repeated, shaking his head. "I'm telling you, I don't know."
"Maybe," Harding said, movinghis chair away and stepping back to leave plenty of room around Kurtis, "or maybe you're just lying."
"This," said Bryce, referring to the folder he snatched out of Lara's hands and then threw onto a nearby reading chair in the library, "this is just a summary. An abstract, if you will, serving only to whet your adventurous appetite. The real research is all up here." He tapped his head and then turned to a projector hooked up to a dormant laptop, waking up the machine and powering up the projector before centring the display onto a large portable whiteboard kept in the library for research purposes.
Hillary surreptitiously opened the folder and peeked inside at the dozens of papers. "That's just a summary?" he mouthed to Lara. She laughed quietly in return, turning back to Bryce as he moved to stand next to the board, projector remote control in hand ready to start his presentation.
"The River Styx," he said, showing the first slide with a number of bullet points that he proceeded to expand on. "The legendary river of the Ancient Greek myths that lay on the border between Earth and the Underworld. It was the main river of the Underworld and the most important – even the Gods were forced to keep oaths sworn by it or otherwise drink from its waters and lose their voices for nine years. Some sources say it bubbled with fire, others say that to touch its waters swept away your mortality. It's pretty much agreed that there were four other rivers of the Underworld, rivers of woe, lamentation, forgetfulness and fire. The Styx was the river of hate.
"The Underworld is often known as Hades, but that was actually the name of the god that ruled the place. Hades himself was a pitiless but fair god that everyone feared. Not a nice guy. He did, however, have something very nice – the Helmet of Hades. This was made for him by the Cyclops and made whoever wore it completely invisible. It was borrowed or stolen numerous times, usually by heroes off to slay monsters, but it could always be found back with Hades.
"You find the River Styx, you find Hades, you find Hades, you find the helmet."
"That's wonderful," said Lara, standing and listening to Bryce's lecture, "but that's no more than what you put in the folder. I'm assuming that you do have more than that?"
"Just making sure our dear readers are up to speed," Bryce quipped, and then flicked on to the next slide and continued.
"Now, when this scientist's theory popped up, it got laughed at by the rest of the academic world and with good reason. He's wrong. He states that - "
"How so?" Lara interrupted, not wanting Bryce to get too deep into lecturer mode.
"Alright," Bryce sighed, dropping the remote and moving to the desk where a book was lying ready, a modern atlas opened to Europe. He tapped his finger upon Ukraine.
"Ukraine," he announced. "As you can see, two main rivers, flowing into the Black Sea – the Dnipro and the Dnister. This guy reckons it's the Dnipro. But, do some deeper digging using sources that are more mythic and less credible – and let's face it, mythic was never a problem for us before – and you come up with a number of pointers that are – well, I'll just skip to the end shall I?
He pulled a large, ancient, leather bound book from the side of the desk and opened it to a page showing Eastern Europe, though marked with the names and terminology of the 17th century, and jabbed his finger down upon the Dnister where it flowed out into the Black Sea, adjacent to a carefully drawn three headed dog-like sea monster. "Here," he said proudly, "be monsters."
The chair clattered as it and Kurtis tipped over from the force of the punch, both connecting bluntly with the concrete floor. Kurtis cried out as his weight drove the side of the chair-back hard against his arm where it was still wrapped and tied around the back, digging deeply and taking the pain right down to the bone.
He lay there for a moment, breathing heavily and blinking through the small trail of blood just reaching the corner of his eye as gravity pulled it down from where it began on his temple, a souvenir of an earlier blow.
"Up we get," Harding exerted as he took a firm hold of the chair leg and back and righted his prisoner. "That little fall knock any memories to the front of your mind?"
Kurtis only glared and swallowed, looking determined but disadvantaged through his mussed hair, cut face and slight sweat.
Harding, worryingly ready to accept the defiance, nodded towards Trent's tormentor and in response another blow just like before was delivered to the other side of Kurtis' face, sending him crashing to the ground in the other direction and crying out once again as his other arm was abused in the same way.
This time he was left on the ground, panting like before until a sharp kick from Harding's stylish and expensive pointed boot was landed against his ribs, winding him and leaving him coughing, trying to curl up protectively against the bonds securing him tightly in the sitting position.
Vincent bent down, grabbing a handful of his victim's hair and pulling his head round so that they could make challenging, defiant eye contact. "I'd heard the Lux Veritatis were a tough breed," he said with a touch of contempt, "but I didn't realise they were so stupid that they'd resist coercion without even knowing what it is they're resisting against."
"Well if you're so sure that I'd be impressed with your motives," Kurtis spat back, "why don't you tell me what they are instead of beating first and pitching later? Not very good at this whole persuasion gig, are you?"
He was sure that that barb was going to earn him another kick, but none came. Vincent only laughed. "You impress me, Mr Trent, you really do. But, I was referring more to the fact that you hadn't asked, rather than what might happen if you did know. It's like you've been so brainwashed by your Order that you'll blindly protect it without even thinking whether that's the right move. Anyway, no matter, the top and bottom of it is, you wouldn't like it if you did know, so you're probably right to resist, and inconvenient though it is for us all, this 'persuasion' as you put it, is necessary." He let Kurtis' head drop and stood back up. "Sorry," he shrugged insincerely, and then turned and walked out.
"That's Cerberus," Lara smiled, pointing to the sea monster inhabiting the Black Sea. "The three headed dog that guards the gates of Hades."
Bryce nodded, smiling. "The Dnister is the Styx."
"I'm assuming," said Hillary, speaking for the first time, "that the gateway isn't that easy to find? What with it remaining undetected all these years?"
Bryce grinned, clearly ready for that one. "The Dnister is a river. The Styx is a metaphysical concept. To turn one into the other, you need a little bit of mojo..." He began to move back to the whiteboard, to launch into another lecture, but Lara turned to leave. Her movements stopped him in his tracks and stared after her as she swept out.
"Print it! I'll read it on the plane!" she called over her shoulder to him, "Right now, we have to pack."
Hillary and Bryce shared a knowing smile at Lara's enthusiasm.
"One printout on the Ritual of Anubis coming up!" Bryce yelled back, hitting 'print' on the computer.
Kurtis' chair was righted once again and he waited for the next rain of blows, but instead he was surprised to find himself being untied and pulled to his feet. He wasn't so badly beaten that he couldn't walk, so, only wincing and breathing heavier than normal, he moved under his own power as he was led, one thug on each arm, out of the room and down a corridor.
Worn out though he was he knew that recon was vital, and so he was careful to take in his surroundings on the journey. The corridor was bare, with only a noticeboard covered in papers that he didn't get time to examine, but his location quickly became clear when the door ahead was opened and he was led out into the business side of a bar, an empty and dormant dance floor surrounded by booths and tables in front of him.
'Well, I'll be,' he thought to himself, surprised, 'I'm in a nightclub.' Judging by the hour it must have been, the club had already completed its business for the night. He was led across the dance floor, his eyes allowed to roam freely taking in his surroundings and filing it away in case escape became possible. Another unmarked door lay ahead of them and through it they went, taking him down into the basement, dark, cold and dirty. Shadows of stored objects loomed out at him in the blue darkness but he wasn't yet able to see any detail.
A small alcove to the side had been caged off with rusty bars for the secure storage of expensive spirits, but it was empty and had now become a prison cell as its door was opened and Kurtis was thrown inside. He staggered, nearly falling, and the door clanged shut behind him.
He turned and silenty watched as they locked him in and walked away, back up the steps and out into the lit ground floor.
He shivered.
Slowly his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom and the darkness became almost a comfortable one. It was the darkness of a quiet night sitting alone pondering, or lying in bed comfortably resting but not tired enough to sleep, just tucked up under the covers enjoying the solitude and the escape from the hassle of everyday life. He considered it strange that he should feel so at ease down here. Maybe the darkness blinded him as much to his predicament as it did to his surroundings.
"Who are you?"
He started, eyes darting in the direction of the question. The voice was instantly recognisable and for a moment he was filled with horror as he considered that they might have her too.
"Lara?" he asked, searching the darkness for her.
She stepped forwards, emerging from the shadows in the far corner of the room and standing in the meagre light some distance from his cell, her hands clasped loosely at her front and her features indiscernible. "What do you want?" she said.
"Lara!" Kurtis whispered, stepping forwards and grasping onto the bars, straining to see her properly. "Are you ok? Did they get you too? Get me out of here!"
She didn't speak, nor did she move. Though he couldn't see her, he got the impression that she was staring at him curiously.
"Lara! It's me, Kurtis!"
The sound of a car engine drawing up outside attracted his attention and he looked up to find a small window on the far side of the room towards the ceiling, looking out onto street level. Headlights, dispersed by raindrops and fog on the glass, filtered through as the car drew up at the window and blinded him momentarily, but then the engine died and the lights went out, and when he looked back to Lara, she had gone.