18- THE LOST PROPHECY
"There's got to be something somewhere," Kurtis snarled, out of himself.
Lara shook her head again, her gaze lost in the written notes she and Kurtis had taken and which overlapped and intermingled in a nameless mess on the paper she was holding. She sighed loudly, and put the papers down beside her. She needed a break, before her brain was going to explode from reading the same symbols over and over again. The young man stood up and took a few steps to stretch his legs, running in circles before her.
They had been stuck there for several hours now, both of them sitted on the floor and taking notes and desperately looking for a solution. The arena's floor was covered with thousands of symbols carved in stone. Logically, Lara had first thought this was a code to be deciphered, or perhaps clues to the next step to be taken. At first optimistic and confident, they had spent a long time transcribing some of the symbols, and trying to make combinations. But there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, whose meaning completely escaped the young woman. Their meaning was completely unknown to her. Not to mention the fact that, potentially, there were thousands of possibilities and possible combinations. They would probably spend several more hours trying to decipher this code, if that was what it was. But Lara's instincts seemed to be on high alert, she clearly felt they were on the wrong track.
She didn't understand. She didn't understand how this was possible. It didn't make sense to her at all. Why put them through so many trials if they were to end up trapped in the sanctuary? What was the purpose of all this? Was this a trap by the monks and Azarias as she had feared at first? Had they missed something?
"We surely have," Kurtis insisted, as he heard her thoughts.
Lara could not stand still any longer either. She suddenly stood up and walked around the arena again, unable to control the frustration she felt. She scrutinized every slab, every wall, her fingertips brushing over every surface, every irregularity that might have given them a clue as to what they were supposed to do next. Her brain was thinking at full speed, studying all the possibilities. But no logical explanation came to her mind. She slowly made her way back to the centre to join Kurtis back. The young man knew from the look she gave him that she had found nothing more.
They had been going in circles for hours. They had even looked for clues on the still warm body of Minotaur, which lay a few feet from them. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. The labyrinth was still and seemed to have frozen in time.
Lara put her hands on her hips and sighed loudly again. Her lost gaze stared at the darkness above their heads, and at the huge ceiling. Kurtis reached into the large carcass of the Minotaur to extract the periapt shard that had been left stuck in it. He carefully cleaned the blade on a piece of his trousers before putting it away.
The adventuress watched him in silence. They were at an impasse and she hated that feeling. She hated feeling so helpless and being unable to act or think. She massaged her tired face and then her neck. She felt pain in her back, and she suddenly remembered the Monster's paw and claws. She winced, but this could wait for now. She watched as Kurtis undid a piece of his shirt to make a tourniquet around his injured arm. The wound was not especially deep, but relatively long and large. Drops of blood were beading and falling in small quantities on the ground.
It was then that the young woman noticed something. At first she thought it was her imagination, or perhaps it was only the fatigue after all those hours of studying their paper notes. But when she squinted and leaned forward to take a closer look, she realized it was no hallucination.
Right at the mercenary's feet, a faint light had suddenly appeared in the stone. Her heart leapt in her chest. Kurtis saw the adventuress move and kneel down, her gaze fixed on something at his feet.
"What's wrong?"
But she silenced him with a wave of her hand. Surprised, the mercenary bent down too, and that's when he understood.
He noticed the ground had suddenly changed under his feet. The stone, black and smooth until then, suddenly seemed to have lit up in places around them. Some of the symbols engraved on the slabs seemed to glow with a dim light. Lara suddenly looked up at the mercenary and their eyes met. He knelt down.
"What started this?"
But Lara shook her head, unable to give him an answer. She was thinking fast once more. Then suddenly her gaze fell on the hole dug in the centre of the labyrinth, the one that was supposed to hold a key. Kurtis followed her gaze.
"D'you think we need the medallion?", he asked as he began to understand the point.
Lara bit her lip. She felt a twinge of guilt as she realized once again that they were undoubtedly going in the wrong way. The hole was obviously not suitable for the locket. And anyway, if they did need the medallion to open another room in the shrine, then it was too late to think about it. They had no way of retrieving it, as it had been left on the sanctuary's door, under the waterfall. She tried to reassure herself that, in any case, the same medallion rarely opened more than one door in the same shrine. She had experienced this often enough in her previous missions to know that. But she couldn't feeling deeply frustrated. She shook her head and bit her lip harder.
"The light was triggered by something else," she muttered, thinking out loud. "The stones lit up without us needing the medallion, it was something else that triggered it."
"The Minotaur's death?"
"Maybe..."
She leaned forward, stroking the stone with her fingertips. In the hole, she felt something wet under her skin. When she pulled her hand away and looked at it, there were some traces on it: traces of blood. She rubbed the liquid on her fingers. She frowned in surprise before turning her gaze to the mythological monster's carcass not far away. The blood of the dead beast had indeed spilled onto the floor, but had reached this part of the arena by no means. Lara then turned her head and her gaze returned to the small drops of blood that stained the ground. Slowly her eyes moved from the hole and tried to trace the source of the blood. Her gaze rose and fell on the mercenary, who was wiping his bloody hand.
Lara looked up sharply at him.
"This is not the Minotaur's blood."
She felt the adrenaline rush through her veins as an idea occurred to her.
"I need your blood," she said suddenly to the American as she stood up quickly.
Kurtis turned to her and couldn't help but look at her with big round eyes, both eyebrows raised exaggeratedly.
"Excuse me?"
Lara pointed to the hole at their feet.
"You were doing your bandage when the stones lit up. You lost blood, and it was when it fell into the hole that the light came on."
Kurtis stood dumbfounded, his hand resting on his arm, frozen in his movement.
"You're kidding, right?", asked the young man in a cynical voice.
"I'm dead serious," replied the young woman.
"What, my blood opens the next room? Or anything else, for that matter?"
"I don't know, all I saw was the symbols had lit up since the blood drops fell to the floor."
There was a moment of total silence, during which the two adventurers glared at each other.
"So what, you're telling me I gotta be sacrificed on the mystic altar to unlock the mysterious sanctuary's secret?"
"Maybe just a few drops will do it."
"Are you fucking serious?"
"These are my speciality, right?"
They exchanged another look, Kurtis looked completely stunned. As he thought of it, he had never heard anything so stupid in his life. But he had to be honest, in the time he had known Lara, few things seemed abnormal to him after all.
"Given the situation we're in, it's worth trying anyway," the young woman said firmly.
The mercenary shook his head gently.
"And how do we do that?"
Lara held out her hand to invite him to give his. Kurtis watched it carefully. Yet reluctantly, he finally placed his hand on hers. After a last glance at the young man for approval, she took a small knife from her pocket and brought it to his palm. But the American recoiled when he felt the blade on his skin.
"I'd rather do it myself, if you don't mind."
Lara gave him a questioning look.
"I know you're kinda good with your hands, but I'd rather butcher my hand myself."
Ignoring the implication he had just made, the young woman let go of his hand and finally handed him the knife. Kurtis grasped it delicately, and without thinking, slashed the inside of his hand. A grimace formed on his face as the dark red liquid began to drip from his skin. He knelt down and waited for the blood to fall into the hole. To his surprise, as soon as the liquid hit the ground, the symbols all lit up one by one around them. He looked at Lara with both surprise and dismay.
It had worked. The symbols were all litting up one by one as the blood flowed into the central hole. However, their enthusiasm was short-lived. After a few moments they realized that only part of the floor was lit, some symbols remained completely unlit.
"There's still something missing...", Lara suddenly said, unable to hold back.
Kurtis took a look around them. Many of the symbols had lit up, but it was obvious that his blood alone would not be enough to light it all up.
His eyes suddenly returned to the adventuress, who he saw seething with rage. And against all odds, he was seized with a revelation.
"Give me your hand," he said suddenly.
The young woman jumped in surprise. She turned around and looked Kurtis up and down, one eyebrow slightly raised in questioning.
"It's not the blood itself that activates the symbols."
The expression on Lara's face changed as she suddenly understood his point.
"It is what's inside," she murmured.
Without waiting, she held out her hand to the mercenary who gently grasped it. With a controlled gesture and as softly as possible, he made a cut in the palm of her hand. Lara let the blood run down her fingers and fall into the hole above which they were standing.
After a few seconds during which nothing happened at first, everything around them changed all of a sudden. The stones all lit up one after the other, light spread around them and into the dark arena. Soon, the ground was illuminated with thousands of tiny sparkles, as if they had been fireflies glowing in the night. The two adventurers could not contain their surprise at such a beautiful and surprising sight. Lara could not help but take a few steps forward to observe what was happening, her eyes turned in all directions. It was then that she noticed the ceiling above their heads had also lit up.
"Look, there's something over there too!", she told the mercenary.
There was something written above them, but the light of the chirugai hovering above them prevented her from discerning anything accurately. As if it had heard her thought, the flying disc moved closer to the ceiling of the cave, but the lights and words she thought she had discerned disappeared. The ceiling was smooth, there was nothing left on it.
Lara and Kurtis exchanged a puzzled look, but he too had seen letters and words on the ceiling just seconds before. Then an idea came to him.
"Even in the darkest hours, the sky lights up," the mercenary whispered.
Lara shook her head.
"Turn off your lamp," he ordered the young woman.
She complied. The young man then reached out and drew his flying weapon, which came down towards him with a hiss. The blades of the disc retracted as his master reached up and carefully grabbed it, and its soft golden light went out. They found themselves completely immersed in darkness, lost in the middle of the huge, almost empty arena. When they finally looked up at the ceiling of the labyrinth, they discovered it was glowing with thousands of sparkles. For a moment the two adventurers felt as if they were under a sky shining with thousands of stars, and felt as if they had passed into another world.
Letters and words had appeared in the darkness of the sanctuary. A huge text, which covered the whole ceiling with its letters elegantly traced in the stone. Without even thinking about it, the two adventurers both began to read aloud in the same voice.
—
"In the beginning was only Darkness and Nothingness,
Chaos and Disorder, Desolation and infinite Emptiness,
The deepest silence among the Stars and Night.
When the Lights all came together and mingled,
Their shinning glow divided the Universe in two distinct Forces,
And established a perfect balance between the world of Shadows, the Chaos,
And the world of Heavens, the Light.
Chaos was hidden in the depths of Earth,
And into the Heavens the Light was sent.
And the Light shone upon the Universe,
And Life came and grew from the Emptiness.
Thus the Sky was born, and with Stars was endowed,
Facing the Underground and its burning flames.
Light was divided from Darkness,
Day was divided from Night,
From the Darkness Earth appeared,
And from the sand the first living Beings were made.
A Man, and a Woman.
Immortality they were given,
And this life they would live in the Garden of Heavens,
And its most important Jewel they would protect,
The Sacred fruit of the Universe,
The Jewel of all Knowledge and Power,
The initial Spark of Life and Hope.
A brand new World the Man and the Woman discovered,
A World of Peace and Sharing,
A world of Life and Pure Light,
And the Light they were to spread and protect on Earth.
But in the remote Darkness of the Lost Lands,
A perfidious Force was watching.
The Demon and the Envy, the Being of all Sins and Rage,
Was waiting for a new World of Shadows to emerge.
As the Gates of Heaven He could not reach,
And as the two Humans He could not join,
A way to destroy the Sanctuary of Light,
And a way to destroy the World and its equilibrium He would find.
Curious and naive were the Man and the Woman,
And so to the Forbidden Fruit the Tempter led them.
Blinded by their weakness, the Fruit of Light they plucked and ate.
Terrible was the Wrath of the Heavens, and the winds and the storms rose,
And banished from the Kingdom of Light were the Man and the Woman.
Expelled from Eden and Heaven,
The two Humans now alone and mortal, on Earth were to survive.
In the Desert Land they wandered for days,
And a place of Peace and Repentance they found.
In this new land of promises, they created a new civilization,
The Underworld of Men.
The Heavens watched over them from the Skies,
And Their Angels watched over the World,
For They knew the weakness of Humanity and its fragility.
Thus They helped Men through the Shadow, and protected them.
But fragile was the Kingdom of Light,
And in the deepest Darkness of Earth,
The Evil threat was rumbling again.
In silence the Serpent was watching,
Waiting for His time to come.
He drew the most docile of Angels and Guardians to Him,
And against their Master He sent them.
Blinded by their anger and sin, enchanted by the manipulative Serpent,
The rebellious Angels rose, and the Word and Power of Heavens they defied.
Led by the Perfidious Serpent, they went against Their Light,
And threatened the World's fragile equilibrium.
Immense were the Heavens' anger and grief,
For They had never known such treachery.
As a punishment, from the Heavenly Heavens the perverted Angels were banished,
And those fallen from the Skies were now to wander on Earth among Men.
But the Old Serpent, the Master of all rebellious Angels, in the Chaos lurked.
He brought and led the Fallen Angels to Earth,
And gathered them into the Shadows.
An army He created,
But abdicate the Heavens would not.
So an army of faithful Angels They constituted to fight,
And to the War They prepared.
All the elements were unleashed on Earth,
And into the fiercest battles Humanity was led.
Michael the Wisest, the most faithful servant of Heaven, stood.
The battle against the Treacherous Serpent He would lead,
And the One who was to overturn the balance of the World He would defeat.
Mad with rage, the cleverest, most perfidious of the corrupt Angels,
The Old Serpent, the Origin of Evil, turned into a mystic Dragon,
And there was War in Heaven.
Michael and His Angels fought against the Dragon.
And the Dragon and His Angels fought,
But they were not the strongest,
And their place was not found in Heaven.
And the Great Dragon, the Old Serpent, was cast down to the Earth,
And His Angels were cast down with Him,
Far in the Desert Land of Ancient Gods they hid,
Fearing the Divine Light and Wrath.
Thus the Serpent and His Watchers stayed prisoners of Earth.
In the Shadows they hid,
But those new lands they were to explore and discover.
An unknown, compliant World was offered to them.
Sent by the Devil, the Greatest Perfidy, the Fallen Angels went and walked,
For the Devil had a plan.
If He could not join the Kingdom of Heaven,
Then His Own Kingdom He would create, here in the Underworld.
This World He would plunge into the Shadows and submit to His powers.
Naïve and docile were the Men,
But in the darkest recess of every human soul slumbers the shadow of Evil.
Expelled from Heaven, the Watchers walked amongst men,
And upon the Earth bred a curse, an abomination of shadow.
With Men the Fallen Angels mingled,
And to a new generation of Beings they gave birth.
A new generation of Humans with the Darkest blood,
And the Darkest Heart.
Days turned into Night,
Stars turned into burning flames.
On Earth the Light of the Apocalypse spread again.
But above them the Powers of Light were watching.
And so the Angels, the Protectors were sent down on Earth,
For the Shadow World they had now to fight.
And there was War again.
A terrible fight roared in the Shadows,
Cries of rage and agony poured over the World in torrents and storms,
The World trembled and the Shadows threatened.
Dreadful was the fight,
And only the Darkness could be seen.
One after the other the Demons fell,
And one after the other the Angels fell,
Under the weight of this endless War.
Spears, axes and swords in the Garden of Eden,
On the green grass of the plains blood dripped,
On the edge of the reign of Evil and Hate.
And so the Fallen Angels and the Angels of Light fought,
And for centuries they fought,
And with bravery and more fierceness they fought.
When down and destroyed they were all,
When the last sword fell to the ground,
When silence fell on the Heavens and the World,
From corpses, blood and ashes,
Two Beings rose.
Two survivors, now orphan of their own clan,
Into the Light rose and came face to face.
The only two Beings left alive they were,
For the only ones who had survived this Dark War they were.
A Demonic Man, and a Divine Woman stood.
But kill each other they could not,
As the balance of the World in their hands lay.
One Being of Chaos, one Being of Light,
Two complementary beings and survivors of the Ancient World,
The new World equilibrium,
A perfect balance between the Darkest and Purest Forces.
From the blood they had risen,
And by the blood they were linked.
And by their union, and by the union of their Forces and Powers,
The most powerful link between the Good and Evil they would create.
A new World would emerge,
A World they could make as their own, and preserve.
A World of Strength and Light,
And the Light they would be carrying.
But in the Shadows the Perfid Serpent was waiting.
In the Darkness He hid,
Waiting for the moment he could regain his strength,
And take revenge on those who had cast the Powers of Light on Him.
His Walkers He called,
And the Devil forces went after the two Beings of Light,
For His own Guardians of Night and Darkness He hoped making them,
And the Devil's reign He hoped settling on the World.
And so the Man and the Woman were chased,
But surrender they would not,
And the fight against the Darkness they would lead.
In the most terrible Shadow War of all,
The Demon and His Walkers, and the Man and the Woman fought.
But in His anger and haste,
The Serpent mortally wounded the Angel Woman,
And a part of her He destroyed.
But the two Beings of Light were not weak,
So against the darkest Forces they kept fighting,
Against the Devil and His doomed souls they fought and stood.
Through the Light and the Shadows,
And through the Day and through the Night,
For days and months they fought.
But doomed and condemned to her fate was the Woman.
In the vast Plains of Sand they found their enemies,
Into the flames of the Dark World they were drawn,
On the border of the Two Worlds they fought.
Powerful was the Devil, and terrific were His power,
The lights of the Apocalypse were near,
Choking the World with their dark light.
Hard the Beings of Light fought,
And near was the end,
But the Demon and the Darkness they would not let rule the World.
The dying Woman thus threw herself into the depths of the Earth,
Taking the Shadows and the powerful Demon with her.
Into the burning flames of the Underworld they fell,
And into the Darkest Lights they disappeared.
Thus ended the first Shadow War.
The Old Serpent was gone,
And so were part of the Dark Forces.
But with the Angel Woman,
Part of the World's balance disappeared.
Broken was the Order of the World,
No more was the Equilibrium between Evil and Good.
All alone stood the Demon Man,
In this chaotic World he wandered,
Feared by Men, threatened by the Devil.
A part of him had died,
For One could not survive without the Other,
And could not exist without the Other.
The Darkest Being needed the Purest One,
Like Light needs Darkness,
Like Life needs Death,
Like Love needs Hate.
With the Heavens and Their Angels he fought,
And Peace on Earth they maintained.
Days after days, months after months,
Years after years,
He fought and pushed back the darkest Forces of this World,
But his strength was no more,
And weaker his powers became.
Far into the Lost Lands he went,
And the place where his Loved One was once lost he found.
On the cold sand he lay down,
And an ocean of salt his tears formed.
And when his last tear was shed,
His Light and Soul reached the Heavens,
And forever left Earth.
The Light of the Guardians disappeared.
With his death the Human World's balance was restored,
But the Forces of Evil still threaten,
And still lurk into the Shadows.
For centuries the Angels of Heavens have been watching over the World of Men,
And its balance they have been keeping,
And the Darkest Forces they have been fighting,
Until the return of the Two Guardians on Earth.
The Darkest Being and the Purest One,
The beings of Light and Darkness,
Those who will stand against the Devil's Forces,
Those who will prevent the Darkness to return and to spread on Earth again.
Cast from Darkness and formed of Night Fears,
The Horror approaches.
But no fear we have of the Lights of the Apocalypse,
For in the Light of the Guardians we stand.
Fallen from Light, reborn in Shadow.
Haunted by Memories, confronted by Evil."
—
Their voices fell silent at the same time, and suddenly there was silence in the arena and the labyrinth. For a moment, the only sound they could hear was each other's gasping breaths. The adventuress' eyes remained implacably fixed upwards, as if the letters that appeared in all clarity on the vaulted stone ceiling had suddenly become blurred.
Beside her, she felt Kurtis close by, also silent and somehow stunned. His shoulder brushed hers, and she could easily make out the rapid, jerky movements that lifted his chest.
"Tell me this is a joke," she whispered softly.
But just as Lara looked down and met Kurtis's eyes under the thousands of symbols' light, they heard a loud bang. The two adventurers were suddenly jostled by a powerful rush of air, as if they had just been blown up by a bomb. There was nothing they could do. Lara just had time to see the walls of the labyrinth falling down around them like dominos, and felt the mercenary's hand grabbing hers. Their feet lifted off the ground. The light coming from all the symbols suddenly intensified, until it blinded them completely. Everything went white.