Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li: The Morcyth Saga Book Three (10 page)

Glancing at the other two, he shakes his
head then leaves the building. He then makes his way the short
distance over to the next one. It’s a two story building, half of
it having collapsed, leaving a section still standing. He goes up
to the opening where a door once stood, though is now long gone,
and looks inside.

The floor is choked with rubble, but off to
one side, he sees the remnant of the stairway leading up to the
second floor. It’s not in the best of condition, but he figures
it’ll hold his weight. Making his way through the room over to
stairs, he begins climbing to the second floor. Two small sections
of the stairs are missing and he has to stretch across them in
order to continue.

When he finally reaches the top of the
stairs, he comes to a hallway. The entire right side has fallen
away leaving only a foot and a half span still attached to the left
wall. A room lies further down, and the only way to get there is by
walking upon the broken section of the hallway.

He looks down to see Jiron and Miko there
looking up at him. “Be careful!” Miko hollers.

Waving back in response, he steps out
gingerly upon the narrow section of hallway still usable.
Cautiously setting his weight upon it, the board creaks but he
finds that it will hold up under his weight. One step at a time, he
slowly makes his way across.

He begins to think that maybe he shouldn’t
be doing this, what with his leg in the shape it’s in and all. But
he’s only a dozen feet away from where the collapsed section ends
and the hallway once more is whole.

Taking it slowly, he makes it to the other
side. Pausing a moment as he glances briefly down to the others
waiting below, Miko gives them a smile and a thumbs up. Turning his
attention back to the hallway, he quickly moves down to the only
room left intact on the second floor.

He comes to the doorway and enters the room.
Over upon one wall is a large bronze plaque. Crossing the room to
where it hangs on the wall, he realizes that it’s engraved with a
picture of the five small pyramids along the outer perimeter and
the larger one with the buildings next to it.

There are lines coming from the smaller ones
leading directly to the larger one in the courtyard outside.
Must be showing a power grid or some such
, he reasons.

He looks around further, but doesn’t find
anything else of interest. Casting another glance at the bronze
plaque, he leaves the room and comes back to the broken section of
hallway. This time he steps out upon the broken section with more
confidence.

When he’s almost across, a section of the
floor cracks and falls away beneath him. Crying out as he falls, he
reaches out and manages to catch hold of a section of the broken
floor. Hanging there, he tries to keep his hands from slipping and
dropping him down to the floor below.

“Hang on!” he hears Jiron yell as he bolts
up the stairs, easily jumping the missing sections as he comes to
his aid. Coming to where he’s hanging precariously, Jiron kneels
down and holds out his hand. “Take it!” he says as he stretches his
hand further toward him.

Afraid to lose his grip with the other hand,
James shakes his head and says, “I can’t!”

“Yes you can,” Jiron assures him as he tries
to stretch his hand even further toward him.

James tries letting go and grab Jiron’s hand
but in so doing, causes his other hand to slip. With a cry, he
plummets ten feet down to the rubble below. Landing awkwardly on
the broken stone, his side is punctured by a sharp rock and
severely cuts open his side. Crying out with pain, he grabs the
wound as he tries to stop the blood from flowing.

Jiron gets up and rushes down the stairs to
his side, but Miko is the first to reach him. “James!” he exclaims
when he sees the blood oozing from under the hand he has clinched
to his side. Not knowing what to do, Miko stands there in
indecision.

He lies there, holding his side as best he
can until Jiron approaches. Looking to him he says, “I knew I
couldn’t hold on with one hand.”

“Sorry,” Jiron says as he kneels next to
him. “Let me look at it.” Lifting his shirt, he sees scrapes going
from just under his armpit to his waist. One cut looks deeper than
the rest and is oozing blood, but it is already beginning to
stop.

Putting the shirt back down, he says, “I
don’t thing you’re going to bleed to death, but it’s going to hurt
for a while.”

“Feels that way,” James says as he puts his
hand back on the wound, continuing to apply pressure.

“Did you find anything?” asks Miko.

“There was a bronze plaque in the room up
there,” he says, gesturing to the room. Grimacing from the pain, he
gingerly puts his arm back down. “On it was a diagram showing the
five pyramids and how they’re linked to the main one here.”

“And?” Jiron asks, urging him to
continue.

“And, there may be another plaque,
hopefully, that may tell us something else,” he explains to
them.

“You’re in no shape to be searching for some
plaque that may not even exist,” Miko says.

“No,” agrees Jiron, “but I am.” Getting up,
he looks to James and asks, “Just what am I looking for?”

Shrugging, James says, “I don’t know, but
you’ll probably know it when you find it.”

“Alright,” he says. Then to Miko, “Stay here
and keep an eye on him until I get back.” When he sees him nod, he
turns and hurries from the room.

James starts to get up and says, “Help me
up, will you?” He reaches a hand to Miko who grabs his arm and
helps him to his feet. Grimacing with pain as his side is stretched
and pulled with the effort to stand, he finally gets to his feet.
Then, as he stands there, he has Miko go over and retrieve his
walking stick for him.

He takes the stick and begins to carefully
move through the rubble choked room to the doorway leading outside
the collapsed building. “Let’s move outside while we wait for his
return,” he says.

Miko helps him along and once they’ve left
the building, they find a block of fallen stone to sit on.

They’re not waiting long before Jiron
returns in a hurry. The look on his face indicating he may have
found something.

“You find it?” James asks.

“I think so,” he replies. “In a building
over there,” he says as he points back the way he’d come. “I found
a bronze plaque similar to the one you described.”

“What was on it?” James asks.

“I couldn’t really make it out,” he
explains. “There were lots of lines and boxes, I’m not sure just
what it was trying to show.”

Leaning heavily upon the staff, he gets up
off the stone and says, “You better take me there.”

“Is it on the ground floor?” Miko asks,
worried about James having to climb unstable stairs again.

Nodding, he says, “Yeah, it is.”

“Good!” Lending James a hand, Miko helps him
as they follow Jiron over to where he’d found the plaque.

The building wherein it lies looks to have
been but a single floored structure and still to be in fairly
decent shape. Jiron leads them up three stairs to the entrance of
the building where they enter through the doorway.

“It’s over here,” he says as he takes them
through another doorway into an adjacent room.

When James enters the room, he immediately
sees what Jiron was trying to describe. Having designed many
dungeons for his role playing games, he instantly recognizes what
he’s seeing. It’s a layered map of different levels.

“This is showing the layout of an
underground complex,” he explains to them, as he steps up closer to
the plaque. “Here,” James says, pointing to a set of squiggly
lines, “this looks like it could be stairs leading down.”

“Does it show what’s in there?” Jiron asks,
not able to see it for what it is.

Shaking his head, James says, “No, this is
just a map of the layout, nothing more.” He turns his head to look
at Jiron and says, “We’re going to need to get in there.”

“How?” he asks. “I found no entrance to a
lower level during my search.”

“Hmmm…” James says as he turns back to study
the plaque some more. He points to a section and says, “This here
looks to be where the entrance lies.” He points to a pyramid shaped
symbol and continues, “And I bet this is the main pyramid over
there in the courtyard.”

He studies it some more as Jiron and Miko
watch him. Suddenly he turns to Jiron and asks, “Did you find what
looked like an empty pool or possibly a fountain while you were
searching?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s over there a ways,”
he explains as he points to where it lies.

“That is the entrance,” he states.

“You sure?” he asks, not really believing
him. “How can you tell?”

“Practically one hundred percent,” James
replies. “Here, look,” he says as he points to a circular formation
near where he said the entrance is.

“I see,” Jiron says, still not
convinced.

James turns from the plaque and says, “Show
me where it is.”

With Miko helping James along, Jiron leads
them out of the building and over to where the dried up pool
is.

The outer edge of the pool stands two feet
high and about six inches thick. The interior is bare, just the
flat stone of the bottom showing.

James slowly walks around the pool as he
examines it. “Here, look,” he says as he points out five triangles
evenly spaced on the top of the outer edge. “I’d bet anything that
these are the five small pyramids.”

Excited, Miko cries out, “And look in the
center, that must be the main one.” They look to where he’s
pointing, and sure enough, there lies a pyramid that’s
proportionally larger to the ones on the outer wall of the pool, as
the main pyramid is to the ones on the perimeter.

“But what do we do now?” Jiron asks.

“Not sure,” he replies. He begins to closely
inspect the designs, pushing and pulling at them but nothing
happens. Then suddenly, the plaque he’d seen in the upper room
flashes to mind. What if it wasn’t showing the skull pyramids at
all? What if it was in fact showing the designs on the edge of the
pool?

What did it show exactly?
he asks
himself, as he pauses a moment to recall the details. A power grid,
that’s what it reminded me of. Maybe it’s a lock only a mage can
open.

He turns to the others and says, “I think I
may know how to gain access to it, but you both better step back,
just in case.”

“What are you going to do?” Jiron asks.

“Not sure,” he says, “just watch.”

After they’ve moved back, he turns again to
face the pool and begins to concentrate. In his mind he pictures a
sphere of magic hovering above each of the outer triangles. He
opens his eyes when he hears Miko gasp behind him.

Five red, pulsating spheres are hovering
above the five triangles. Nodding in satisfaction, he again closes
his eyes in deep concentration. He needs to get this just right and
when he’s ready, he completes the spell.

Opening his eyes, he sees a thread of energy
shoot out of each of the spheres and connects simultaneously above
the triangle in the center of the pool. When they connect, the
combined beam seems to be drawn down to the larger triangle
engraved in the bottom of the pool. The ground begins to shake
slightly as the pool slowly begins to rotate.

Maintaining the spell, he watches as it
continues to turn and is startled when a bottom section of the pool
drops down into the ground. At regular intervals, more sections
drop down into the ground as it continues to turn. After turning
halfway around again, the pool stops. Where the bottom of the pool
had been, now lies a spiral staircase descending down into the
complex beneath the ground.

James releases the spell, halfway expecting
the pool to begin closing again, but is relieved when it remains
still.

He creates his glowing orb and steps over
the edge of the pool. “Shall we, gentlemen?” he asks over his
shoulder as he begins to descend the stairs. Miko and Jiron come
over and follow him closely as he descends the stairs down into the
darkness below.

Nervous, he continues down until he reaches
the bottom where a corridor extends away from them. The air is
stale, as if it has been bottled up here for a millennium. The
light from the glowing orb reveals carvings upon the walls, people
going about unknown tasks.

The first room they come to is on the right
and a brief glance within shows it to be empty, the walls having
the same designs as the corridor had.

“What was this place?” Jiron whispers,
nervous about disturbing the silence.

“I don’t know,” replies James as he
continues further down the corridor. “But we better be careful.
Whoever set that trap that ensnared us might have others down here
as well.”

Miko looks around nervously as he continues
following James closely.

At the end of the corridor they’re
following, they find another one running perpendicular to the one
they’re in. James shines the light to the left and right but only
sees more corridor going in either direction.

He turns to the right and makes his way
slowly down it. After twenty feet, the corridor makes a ninety
degree turn to the right and after another five feet, opens up into
a room.

This room holds a large table that’s in
remarkably good condition for its age. Six chairs sit around it.
The walls of this room are plain stone, no image marring their
surface. A doorway in the wall opposite where they entered is the
only other exit from the room.

“Looks like a meeting room,” guesses James
as he enters and comes over to the table.

“Or a war room,” suggests Jiron.

James nods his head and says, “Maybe.”

Miko stays close to James as he walks around
the room, looking at everything. “What are you looking for?” he
asks.