20 RT DoP chatper 20

Chapter 20: Hunter's Sonata

El, Lacerti, and Ashley drag Trash along with them, rushing through the labyrinth. Sometime into the escapade of attempting to re-raise her blood pressure, Trash's appearance begins returning to normal. Shortly up the hall, Snake, Larry, and Spooky come into sight, as well as an unknown entity that dematerializes upon their arrival. Snake has his revolver to his brother's forehead. Larry is on his knees, and Spooky lies on his side, facing away from the party. Spooky having yet to awaken from his nightmare.

The Cow places a hand on Snake whispering in his ear. "There is one thing you must know. Cravixs has summoned his general, Job the endless, if you see a white skinned angel, run." With that The minitour returns to the darkness, she has reached out to a human without her mask of illusions on, this is a crim and she will be punished. But she has felt something from Snake, a strong humanity, somehow, this pirate, this hunter, seems almost as noble as a minitour. Maybe if there where a way to escape Cravixs, she could find a life in the human world.

Slowly Snake lowers the hammer on his revolver. He drops his arm to one side and shakes his head. I'm a monster, he thinks, but not that kind of monster. "Larry, get up." Snake offers up one hand. "You're fine, I'm fine. We'll find a dermatologist to look at that when we get out of here; it's probably just a rash. We're all cool, OK?"

Larry stands and dries his eyes. He examines himself. "I don't know, this looks kinda bad," he mutters.

"You made the right choice," El explains as he approaches. "If life is still an option, you never accept death, unless living means betraying your country or disgracing your flag." El stops before him. "Death only before dishonor."

Larry pushes himself away from his brother, examining an engraving on the wall alongside him beneath a brazier. Snake looks down at him. "What the hell are you doing now?"

Larry runs his hand over the engraving, a three dimensional plate with the letter T carved into it sideways. He whispers, "There is writing down here." He snaps and points. "Snake, hand me that torch over there." Snake lifts a torch from its place on the wall, and a passageway opens in the wall behind them. Snake looks between his brother and the passage.

"Ah …" Snake stutters, "La-La-Larry?"

"Damn it, Snake, give me some light," Larry says without noticing the change.

"Larry, I think you should come over here." The majority of the party follows Snake into the new corridor.

Larry fumbles around in his coat for a scrap of paper and a pen, mumbling to himself. "T left, one plus two plus one, absolute value of four …" A gleam of recognition strikes Larry as he seams to understand the alien writings on the walls in some small part. "Snake, can I borrow your phone? … Snake?" Larry comes to notice everyone has moved on. "I know, I know these symbols somehow."

The next passage is made of sandstone and lime. The party marvels at a diagram covering one side of it. "What the hell is this, now?" Snake asks, half-rhetorically.

"A time-space matrix feed with algorithm conversion. It's like a map," El answers.

Snake looks to El in shock and envy as the old soldier's eyes fly across the map.

"Can you read it?"

El ponders the long list of geometric shapes and attempts to understand the correspondences. He bites the side of his lip, exhaling heavily as the solution evades him. "No," he responds, disappointed. "I understand what it is, but I can't read it without the cipher."

"What do you mean, cipher?" Snake asks.

"The cipher is the key that allows one to read a map. It's a means by which to decode the symbols." El points to beneath the symbols. "It would help to know what language that is, also."

Larry rushes after the group. He looks as if he is going to speak, but he becomes distracted by the images on the wall.

"Well, I'm pretty damn confident it's not a map of the bar. There are like two hundred rooms on this wall, so it probably doesn't, matter right?" Snake rambles.

"No, it's the same room twenty-one times, divided into twelve groups with four variations each," El speculates, analyzing.

Larry writes on his scratch paper, "Q = 2×2, (v = 4), L = 2×2×1, (v = 4+1) I = 1x4 (4 again?) T = 1×2×1." Larry scratches his head. "I know those numbers," he says as he crumples the paper, shoving it back in his breast pocket.

El stars at Larry waiting for him to speak, but it seems Larry lacks focus.

The party, now only missing two members continues on their way.

***

Only a short distance ahead, Pistol and Jacob make their way onward as well. "Come on, old timer. We're getting the hell out of here, or we're gonna die trying" Pistol takes Jacob by the arm. "Ah … chased by monsters, running through a labyrinth, this will be a great story for our kids when we get home, won't it?" He looks at Jacob, whose face has turned cold again. "Sorry," he says, realizing that one of the older man's kids won't need to hear the story from their dad, and the other is still painfully unaccounted for.

"Do you have a family, Charlie?" Jacob asks.

"Kinda …" Jacob looks queryingly at this answer. Pistol goes on. "I have a son, haven't seen him in ten years, never been married. My girlfriend ran off to California shortly after he was born and got married to some banker. Never told me why."

"Were you abusive in any way?" Jacob inquires.

"Do I look like that kind of person?" Pistol pauses. "Don't answer that."

"Well," Jacob begins, "all things considered, that might have been for the best."

They come to a stairwell. As they walk down it, a strange echo engulfs them from all sides, a thunder beneath their feet. Whispers wrap around them. Pistol and Jacob look between each other and simultaneously suggest, "Run."

Inches outside the stairwell, a voice comes from behind, calling, "Hey!" Pistol and Jacob freeze in place. Jacob looks back to see Snake standing at the bottom step.

"Did you to just come from up there?" Snake looks baffled as he attempts to understand the physics of the trial of nightmares. "why didn't we pass each other on the way, you were less than 100' from us this whole time?"

As if walking through a veil of smoke, the others all appear, as well. The world clears slightly, revealing a huge Dark age–like forge and armory with weapons lining the walls... The group, all members reunited, circle around each other. Snake observes his companions and how many of them are injured. "Jacob, I think we need your magic again."

Ashley finds her way into Jacob's arms, and Trash into Pistol's. Jacob turns to Pistol. "I'll need your help, Charlie."

"What can I do, Lances?" Pistol asks.

Jacob hands his Book of Rituals to Pistol and begins teaching him prayers. It is an old book with leather pages, it has a bronze clasp on it that holds the book shut, the writing is in a forgotten tongue that no one but Lances can hope to read, this is the book of Enock, one of the oldest books known to man, and not a replica, not a reproduction, Lances has the original, hand crafted tome. Nearly a dozen times the men round the group, casting spells of strength, purity, and healing.

"That's unbelievable," El whispers to Lacerti as the two work. Nearly an hour is spent as Jacob lays blessings with Pistol's aid. Slowly the fellowship is healed of all injuries, and they are restored to full power. As they make more prayers, Jacob seems to weaken, yet grow strong. His hair loses color, turning from gray to white, and his stomach tightens until he nearly looks as a new man transformed by the power of God burning within him.

Spooky sits up. "Holy shit," he states, rubbing himself up and down. "I dematerialized. Am I still here?" Pistol approaches him and slaps him on the arm. Spooky questions, "By any chance did you have the same nightmare as I did, old man?"

Pistol chuckles. "I think you're OK." He comfortingly rubs his companion's arm. "What happened to you two?" he asks, looking to Trash and Spooky.

Trash, with her strength returned, speaks in a hustle. "Pistol there are vampires down here, I fought with one—"

Snake interrupts, "They're not vampires, they're aliens. I spoke to one—"

"Bullshit," Larry hops into the discussion, "I think they're demons."

"How would you know!" the brothers start to yell amongst themselves.

Spooky starts again, "I heard voices—"

Trash speaks simultaneously, "I caught one fucking around with Ashley—"

Voices clash and turn from sound to noise, completely unrecognizable as speaking. Pistol struggles to try to hear but fails.

"Shut up!" Jacob shouts in a mighty voice. Everyone complies, turning their attention on the old cleric. "All of you, look at yourselves, and look at the men and women with you. What do you see? Ten men lost and afraid? I don't. I see destiny, not happenstance. Vampires, demons, aliens—it shouldn't matter. We have a purpose, and we have power. Who are we? A witch, A warlock, and a cleric," Jacob points at Trash, Pistol, and himself. "A white knight and a giant," he points to El and Lacerti. "A martial arts master, and two rogues," he points out Spooky and the Gekks brothers. "There is but one monster down here, and it is no man, it is a philosophy—the philosophy of hate and greed and lust. It poisons our hearts and our minds with its filth, killing us from the inside out. But we are the divine, we are chosen, to consecrate this place, this idea, this evil."

Ashley looks up at her father as he speaks; his voice is filled with fiery rage, his heart thundering with indignation. Envy fills the child, as thoughts and feelings of heavenly wrath fill the men. Never has Jacob been so powerful as in this moment.

Jacob grabs a torch from the wall and raises it over his head, shouting in a strange tongue, "Primus que aqua exilis incendere!" He spins the torch overhead. "First I baptize you with water, now fire! Come now men, bring weapons—knives, axes, swords, and hammers and come forth unto me. We shall slash and burn our way to victory, sanctifying all things with this!" He punches the air with his torch-bearing arm. "We shall leave the foul thing no place to hide!"

The men fall into ranks, accepting Jacob as their leader. They fan out, gathering from around the floor melee weapons to fortify themselves. with tools to meet their desires and presents them to Jacob in search of approval, Jacob grins with almost a malicious glee at what is yet to come.

Lances Jacob rallies his party, "Gentlemen, to glory!"

***

Crow grins evilly as he observes the actions of his playthings. He opens a psychic

channel to speak with his subjects in the pyramid. "Ladies and gentlemen, it has come time to leave the relative safety of this place and enter the human world. Send your children away through the bottom floor gate if that is your wish, for today I destroy the dimensional door so no one may return home from this location any longer. Our home has been invaded, and your guardians decimated. Should any of you wish reparations, seek out humans, and take their flesh and blood as your reward and justice!"

The temple trembles as hundreds of angry Anthro-morphs howl vengefully.