---------
CHAPTER 17
Marcy picked herself up off the floor and shivered. “That was one of the worst things I’ve ever heard,” she muttered.
“Me too,” Alex agreed. He sat on the ground beside her, shaking his head as if to clear it. He must have run over here when that grinding noise began, Marcy noted. Wonder why?
Dust particles floated out of Alex’s hair as he ran his fingers through it. “Ugh, it’s like the sound is still in my brain,” he said disgustedly. He held out a hand. “Help me up?”
Grabbing his hand, Marcy pulled him up off the ground. “You’re heavy,” she exclaimed.
“Sorry,” Alex said, shrugging. He was still holding her hand.
Marcy looked at him. I’ve never seen anyone with eyes so greeny-blue. “Uh, can you let go?” she asked, trying to clear her head.
“Oh! Oh, sorry,” he apologized, quickly releasing her hand. They both looked away, blushing. Marcy realized everyone in the cavern was looking at them.
“What are you staring at?” Alex snapped.
“Nothing,” snickered Matt. “Just a very large amount of awkward. Enough of that, though. While you were all writhing on the ground, another chamber opened and I aim to find that Well before sundown so let’s get going.” He beckoned them over to a hole in the stone floor. “Down you go! I’ll keep the bonds off, but you’d better keep your hands to yourselves.”
One by one, Marcy watched the group disappear down the shaft behind Matt. Finally it was her turn. She gave a longing look around the chamber. I could make a run for it, right now, she thought. Matt couldn’t catch me. I could go home to Jenny, I could get her, we could fix this.
“Darling daughter, as your father and superior I command you to come down here right now and I do not advise escaping,” his voice rang out from somewhere below the stones. Marcy sighed. He’d probably kill me if I tried. Plus I can’t leave Alex here all alone.
The hole was seamless. There was no sign of a trapdoor--it appeared to have always been there. Stone steps led down a tight corridor lit by torches. Squinting, she could make out the forms of the company looking expectantly up at her. She sighed again.
They marched along the passage, guided by Matt. Every so often there was a torch. Marcy began to feel a terrible sense of deja vu. Grey stone hallway…there’s a stone in the wall that’s blacker than the rest…a torch, another torch on the opposite side…I’m in my dream! she panicked. Her breathing got faster, chest heaving. This is what I dreamed! How could I have dreamed about this when I’d never seen it? It’s the same pattern, over and over and over again, I’m trapped, I’ll never get out--
Her thoughts stopped short.
They had passed a room to the left side.
The wall facing the corridor was made of iron bars from top to bottom, like a cell, and inside was a cot.
A piercing scream resounded through the tight halls. It took a while for Marcy to realize that it came from her.
“Why must you be so terribly distracting?” Matt yelled from somewhere in front of her. “What, did you see a spider or something similarly pathetic?”
“No,” she whispered, then spoke up. “No, it was just…it was nothing. I’m sorry.”
She caught his sarcastic sigh even though he was ahead. “Carry on, then.”
They resumed their trek through the tunnel. Calm down, she told herself over and over again. Calm down. It must have been a…prophetic dream or something. I’m okay. It wasn’t my bed in the cell. That’s got to mean something. I’ll ask Jenny and Cyronix when I get home. They will explain it.
“Pst! Are you alright?” Alex whispered from before her. He sounded concerned.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Marcy deliberately slowed her breathing to a normal rate and felt herself calming down.
“Why did that scare you?” he asked.
“I…when I was at Jenny’s house on Earth, I had a dream…” She drifted off. Alex turned around and she saw that his eyes were wide.
“Quickly!” he urged her in a low voice. “Tell me all you remember!”
“Uh, well it doesn’t make much sense,” she stammered. “It felt really real, and I could manipulate it, too. Uh, I woke up in that cell, made the door disappear, and then walked out this way, the way we’re going. And I just kept walking and walking but I wasn’t going anywhere.” Marcy shivered. “I kept seeing things that I’d already seen. I freaked out and ran, and then, um…I sank through the stones. It was like they were quicksand. I came out in a forest, and there was a flame, and…” She hit her head with the palm of her hand. “Oh, it’s all fuzzy now!”
“Still, that could mean a lot,” Alex said.
“Wait!” she exclaimed. “There was…I touched the flame, and then there was a dark voice, it talked about blood and killing and…” She shivered again, recalling the voice. “It was terrible. But then I saw some light and it told me to do something that eventually made me end up in Matt’s space.”
“Hm,” he pondered. “That’s interesting. I think that we might be getting into something big.”
“You don’t say.”
“No, like something bigger than this,” protested Alex. “It seems like there might be something even worse at stake. I think there’s an evil deeper in this, hence the scary voice talking of murder.” He tapped his chin with a pensive finger. “I’ve always wanted to get into dream reading. I wonder if the flame means something significant.”
“Watch out!” Marcy suddenly warned as the man in front of Alex abruptly stopped. They all halted, craning their necks to see what was wrong.
“Will! Will Dune! Come up here, you’re needed,” Matt yelled. Marcy winced. The guy with the red mohawk and funky earrings came forward, excusing himself left and right. “This door can only be opened by a witch,” she heard her father say. What? she thought excitedly. He’s a witch? He looks more wizard-y to me, but I guess there’s no qualifications to be a witch. So weird.
“Place your hand right here and repeat after me. Quinto mell lot ubiz hemobelityz.” She heard Will repeat the words, then heard the unmistakable hiss of a door sliding open. It sounded eerily like the doors on Unologe. “Thaaank you. Back to your place in line,” Matt ushered him away.
“But--that’s all I have to do?” Will asked, confused.
“Yep. That’s it. Run along now.”
“Oh.”
They walked on, passing through the doorframe. It was out of place--strangely futuristic in a tunnel of stone. It was solid metal and had a glass plate set on the wall beside it. I bet that’s a hand scanner, Marcy guessed.
Contrasting the hallway, the room they walked through matched the door completely. It was a solid metal chamber. The walls were silver and the lights fluorescent. Possibly the strangest thing about the room was that it was completely empty.
Matt rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Yes! Perfect! Just as it was described.”
“Described?” a woman questioned. “Described in what?”
Marcy glanced over to the source of the voice was quite surprised. The woman who had spoken was tall and completely covered in green scales. She looked like she had been melded with a lizard. She had no hair, but several raised bones on the top and sides of her head. A strange silver choker encircled her neck, and she wore a purple velvet cloak over an elaborate deep plum dress. The dress looks like it came out of a history book, Marcy thought, but she looks like she came out of…well, definitely not Earth.
“Described in the ancient tablet that I read,” Matt stated. He held his hands out in a gesture of apology and made a sarcastically apologetic face. “At least, before I burned it.”
“What?” the woman exploded.
“It had to be done, Aarsa,” he replied smugly. “Couldn’t let anyone get their hands on it.”
The lizard-woman looked like she wanted to say more, but wisely kept her mouth shut.
“Moving on.” Matt motioned to the room. “As you can see, this room is completely empty. At least, to you. They say seeing is believing, but that’s not true, as most of you know. With invisibility spells, you’ve got to know that what’s invisible is actually there. But since you don’t know what is here, I brought a special person--Mell. Please, step forward.”
Reluctantly, a young girl stepped forward. She looked normal, maybe in her early twenties, but half of her face was covered in black tattoos. If Ellah was here, she could tell me where all these people were from, Marcy thought. She felt a stabbing ache in her heart at the thought of her grandmother.
Thankfully Matt was completely oblivious to her inner thoughts and continued to talk. “Mell is a very young but very adept wizard who happens to be amazing at revealing spells. And for once, here’s something I don’t know how to work. So Mell is going to do a very powerful reveal spell for all of us and we will be able to see what’s concealed in this very room.”
Mell began to look worried and shook her head. She started to rapidly move her hands while facing Matt. She’s deaf! Marcy realized.
“Yes, you will do it. Stop putting up such a fight.” Matt seemed to understand every word she signed. Mell looked terrified and shook her head violently. “Do I have to force you?” he threatened.
She paled and shook her head one final time. Looking heavenward, she signed one more thing. It looked like a prayer. Slowly, she lowered herself down to the floor and sat cross-legged, placing her hands on her knees. Is she meditating?
Her eyes rolled back in her head. Time passed and nothing had happened. Marcy started to worry. “Is she okay?” she finally whispered.
“Sh! You’ll break her concentration!” her father whispered fiercely back. She decided to not say anything else.
Suddenly, she felt her skin prickling. Electric tingles ran up and down her arms. She looked at them in wonder as small blue currents traveled on her skin. Goosebumps popped up and she shivered.
And then they completely stopped.
At the same time, screens materialized all over the walls, covering every inch of metal. They appeared to be projected images, but she couldn’t find a projector. The screens showed nothing but a picture of a fairy tale wishing well.
“Perfect.” Matt rubbed his hands together eagerly. “This is perfect. Now, there should be a power button around here somewhere…” He searched the walls, running his hands over them. He must have found the button because the picture of the wishing well disappeared. In its place were several lines of a language similar to Chinese.
“Mell, get up,” said Matt. When she didn’t respond, he nudged her with his foot. “I said get up!”
She looked up dreamily, then shook her head as if to clear it.
“If you don’t move, the next kick will be harder,” he warned. Mell rose hastily and joined the rest of the group, her back against the wall. She looked very frightened. Marcy didn’t blame her.
Matt stood in front of the company, his arms crossed. “In these chambers, many of you will have very small roles to play,” he said, his voice taking on the sound of a tour guide. “Long ago, when this place was made, the creators made it so that it could only be entered by a group of magic users with specific strong points. This would discourage people with…unsavory intentions from getting in. You’d have to have either all these talents or have friends with those talents. They didn’t bank on someone like me bringing in cooperative hostages, hm?” He smiled.
Marcy took a deep breath. Yeah, cooperative because you’ll kill anyone who acts otherwise, she fumed inwardly. Just like you killed Ellah. You won’t get away with that. Not if I can help it.
“Yin Soke, you’ll need to read this. I’ve mastered many languages, but not this one because it’s only used in the most remote parts of your space. Please translate it into English.”
So he’s not from China or somewhere on Earth, then, Marcy thought. Yin Soke began to speak, hesitantly, as if trying to find the right words. “It says…‘Good job, you have gotten this far, but can you solve this riddle?’”
“Is that it?”
“That is all there is.”
“There’s no riddle?”
“None visible.”
Matt scratched his head. “Interesting…Mell, did you complete the revealing spell?” She nodded, then shook her head. He rolled his eyes. “You should have done it right the first time.”
Mell began to whimper. He’s hurting her, Marcy realized with a start. Her whimpers grew to a scream. She clutched her head and fell to the floor, flailing around.
Marcy couldn’t take it any more. She opened her mouth to tell Matt to stop, when Mell’s screams became whimpers again. Glancing at him, she saw his mouth contorted in pleasure at the pain he had caused. He is so messed up! Why is he doing this?
“Don’t disappoint me again, Mell,” he said casually. “The next time, it won’t be needles just in your head.”
Mell stood up shakily and nodded very slowly. She put a hand to her head and closed her eyes. Marcy watched her anxiously, afraid she would fall over any moment.
Another long string of the Chinese-looking words appeared on the screens and Mell sat down with a bump. Rushing over to her, Leloni helped her up and ushered her over to the side of the room. Marcy saw her wrap Mell in her arms and noticed the tears on both of their faces. She almost cried as well. He likes to hurt people--that’s messed up. That’s completely and terribly messed up. It makes me want to go kick something, to go kick him. Ugh!
Matt gazed at the group of wizards and smiled. “I know what you’re thinking and I honestly don’t care what you think about me. You all know that I will do what I want to get what I want. What I do is completely up to me, and you are all powerless to stop me.”
Several people broke out in what Marcy realized were curses in other languages. Patiently, her father crossed his arms and waited for them to finish. When at last the final word was released, he smiled again. “I know--I’m terrible. Yin Soke, translate the riddle, if you will.”
The Asian man cleared his throat. “It will be hard to translate, there are many words I do not know how to say.”
Matt offered no encouragement.
Yin Soke began to speak again. “Found in seen but not never, appears in enter and in exit, and circle…information…drawing,” he stumbled. “Subtract one and you will get imperfect and evil.”
“Is that the complete riddle?” Matt asked, looking thoughtful and concerned.
“That is all. I believe I have translated it correctly.”
Marcy’s father tapped his chin and leaned against the wall, staring into space. “Interesting. I’ll need to solve this riddle now, so please everyone be completely silent and take a seat. This won’t take long.”
Things:
Will is Josh Dun in disguise xD
Aarsa is Vastra from Doctor Who
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE WHOLE DREAM THING AND OH MY WORD I WAS WRITING AND I WAS LIKE HMM OH WAIT I CAN ADD THIS THING WHAT ARE YOUR THEORIES FOR WHY THAT HAPPENED
Can you solve the riddle? Comment if you solve it!
~~Zoë Wingfeather (sO PUMPED LOL)
No comments:
Post a Comment