Chapter 37 - The Immortal Circle of Immortal Fire
The long and towering hall had now opened up into a great circular temple room. A small island of blackened rock jutted wickedly from the very center, a path leading from it to where Alex and Lara now stood. Surrounding the entirety of the structure was a great roiling river of molten lava, bubbling and boiling in great red-hot drifts. The air was stagnant and hot and smelled of death and fire. There was no exit and no other entrance besides the one they had come in by. The altar room circled perfectly for what had to be a mile, turning in on itself at a fissure in the rock where the lava poured freely from some unknown fault hidden in the earth. The heat shimmered intensely and smoke billowed about like a fog. The roar of the molten river filled the immense chamber like the bellow of some beast. The lava churned like strange glowing oil beneath them, and Lara realized they were perched precariously on a natural bridge, not 30 meters above the flow. For a moment all she could think of was the heat. It seemed to suck the air out of her lungs before she could fully breathe. Alex was coughing violently beside her, his eyes squinted against the glare. Lara watched in horror as Mason advanced across the slim walkway bordering the crag-like altar in the center of the chamber and the land bridge they were now on. He looked small and black against the glistening heat waves, yet he leapt nimbly as though he were a young man in a cool cavern. He hopped from foothold to foothold, his head faced forward. Lara looked, and her eyes were taken. There, on the rock altar reaching out of the lava like some deformed claw, the Amulet of Immortality hovered in some unseen force field. It glowed a terrible blood red, and the light from the churning river of fire caught in its rubies and diamonds. It shimmered and called to her. It beckoned to her in the disembodied voice of a man, demented and lost in pain and greed. For a moment everything else was lost, and all she could see was its beauty. But suddenly, something deep inside of her awoke, and she knew it had to be destroyed. Treasure or not, it was bathed in evil and the blood of innocents. A blackness surrounded it now like a shadow, and she steeled herself, running after Mason. She had to stop him, no matter what the cost. This was not like other treasures she had sought. Throughout her many adventures, she had always hunted things that could be controlled, understood, studied, and in a sense taken prisoner. The Amulet of Immortality was a curse upon all mankind. It could not be understood or studied or imprisoned by man, for man was weak and ready to advance himself at the cost of his soul. She ran after him, vaguely aware that Alex was calling after her, and that he and the others - who had finally managed to catch up - were now running behind her. She leapt precariously atop the jutting rocks that allowed for a path of sorts through the fiery river. Mason reached out his hand as she came to the rock altar, and touched a finger to the glowing amulet. Lara shouted out to him, but he heard nothing. The amulet came to life with something like a human scream. The sound wrenched through Lara's head, and she doubled over in pain. She fell to her knees as the sound began to turn into something like a laugh. She grimaced, looking up. Mason hovered in front of her, his skin slowly turning a black, oil-like shade. His eyes grew large and bright, and suddenly they were nothing but pocks of evil white light glowing from sunken sockets. He sneered, and his teeth began to elongate and recede. His lips seemed to almost disappear. Lara tried to pull herself up, but something was holding her down. She could feel the force of it crushing the space between her shoulders. Mason began to levitate, and no longer resembled anything human. He was black and shapeless and moved as though made of liquid. His sneer turned to a grimace full of razor-sharp fangs where once his teeth had been. Blood ran from his eyes, which were now white and without form. He floated above Lara like an evil genie from the tales of old. He gazed down at her with the foulest of looks, and she resisted the urge to avert her eyes.
"And now, Lara Croft..." came Mason's voice, graveled and broken yet somehow seductive and deep. It was as though he had not so much spoken as growled it deep in his chest, spitting it out like flames from a dragon. Some belch of foul speech. "Now you shall see the true power of the Amulet of Immortality. Now you shall bear witness to the end. The end of this disgusting planet. And your own end. Here at the edge of the world and reality as we know it. I will destroy you and take up black arms against all. I will reign supreme, and the great war that I will birth will destroy all light. Hathor will live again in me, for I am Xavier... emperor of the abyss. Fear me and despair!" A great red cloud of fire exploded forth from the shapeless form that had once been Edmond Mason. The demon was wrapped in it as though it were a womb. It clawed at itself as it took the form of a man, and the sound was terrible. It raised one foul and formless claw into the air, and began to speak in the black tongue of the damned. Hellspeak, the language of Lucifer and all fallen angels. Lara found she could move, and she pulled herself up as if from a deep sleep. A heaviness was upon her, and she tried desperately not to listen to the foul language, for she knew it had the power to corrupt. She heard the shouts of Alex, Bradshaw, and his team behind her. She looked back. Alex and Bradshaw were at the forefront, the other four members of his team running behind them with some difficulty. Bryce was at the entrance to the chamber, standing stolidly, his mouth gaping as he watched events unfold themselves. Lara looked back, standing as tall as she had strength to as the demon finished his terrible transformation.