Master of Myth (The Antigone's Wrath Series Book 1) (31 page)

She hesitated, her hand hovering above the imprint. The last few inches felt like miles. Rachel shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and reached out.

Pain filled her in an instant and her eyes flew open. Whatever power lay in this door, it was sucking the life from her. The scream emanating from her mouth felt pulled from her toes. She grasped her wrist with her left hand, trying to pull free, but it held fast. As she watched, horrified, blood flowed from her fingertips and pulled up into the lines of the door’s pattern. Her body shuddered uncontrollably as the fluid left her. She leaned into the surface and sobbed, begging to be released. Every part of her burned with agony. As she sank to her knees, she pounded on the door. “Stop,” she moaned. “Please. I must see this through. I must stop them.”

A kind, welcoming sigh rushed through her. Her captive hand was released and she pulled it to her chest as she collapsed on the ground. Light burst through the paths her blood had taken, the largest line splitting up the center. Rachel pulled herself into a ball to shield herself from the blinding brightness. The ground shook as dust and rocks fell everywhere. Air, trapped for millennia, rushed out, dousing the lanterns. When Rachel looked up, Silas was pulling her to her feet. He nearly dragged her through the doorway as confusion and chaos distracted the small army of Brotherhood men.

“Rachel, you have to run!” he shouted over the rumbling of falling debris. “If you don’t…”

The unspoken threat jarred her. Weak though she was, with his help they might be able to find a hiding place amongst whatever lay beyond the widening doorway. What little light remained came from the blue glow of dying orbs hanging from the ceiling. All else was darkness, their appearance lost to the shadows.

Unable to see clearly, they stumbled through a great gallery of monoliths. Huge, towering shapes filled the endless space. They took a crooked route of diagonals and turns, fleeing as fast as their feet and silence would allow. She wanted to look down, to see if their steps left tracks in what should have been inches of dust, but the air was clean. Was this place so well preserved that even this most constant keeper of time had been shut out?

There was no time to ponder this further. For the moment, all she could do was run.

Danton looked as far as he could into the gaping maw of the cave. Light penetrated the first fifty feet, but the floor sloped away steeply after that, shrouding the rest in mystery. There was an intense feeling of foreboding here. Dread seeped into his pores and he shivered. This urge to flee was foreign to him. Something didn’t want them here, and he was tempted to oblige it.

“And she’s certain this is the way?” Danton looked back over his shoulder.

Iris nodded. “She said if we follow this, taking only left branches, we’ll reach a door to the sunken ruins.”

“But she doesn’t know anything past that,
oui
?” Danton frowned.

“Correct,” she said. “Her exact phrasing was difficult to understand, but I gathered it has something to do with a sealed door. Apparently, it’s deadly when one fails to open it. Mizushima-san lost her second son to curiosity.”

Danton considered this obstacle. “I suppose it’s a good thing we brought the dynamite then,
non
?”

As they allowed the joke to lighten the moment, the ground trembled and all levity ceased. A low reverberation issued from the cavern. With a look from Iris, Danton spurred the confused mass of men into action. They took up their rifles, swords, and other assorted weapons and gathered around the opening. Iris noted the nervous looks. It was a reasonable reaction given the sounds and vibrations still shaking the little island of Yonaguni. Jiao seemed unimpressed, however, and approached Iris impatiently.

“I wish to volunteer for scout duty.” Jiao crossed her arms in front of her chest. “There are a few amongst my fathers men suitable for the task. I will take them with me.”

Iris raised an eyebrow at this presumed reach of authority, but the girl had a valid point. After her demonstration at the monastery, not to mention being the reason for the number of men at Iris’s disposal, she consented. “Use them as runners to send updates back to the main group. And you are not to engage the enemy without the main body of forces. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Mistress,” Jiao answered.

“After you enter, take only left forks in the tunnels.
Only
lefts.”

Acknowledging the order with a tight nod, Jiao spun on her heel and motioned to a group waiting for her command. Five men in black gi snapped to attention, bowed, and set off into the cave. Giving Iris a mischievous smirk, Jiao followed after them.
 

Danton rejoined her as Jiao disappeared into the darkness. “Was that a good idea?”

Iris shrugged. “That remains to be seen. She’s capable of the required stealth, of that I’m sure. Let’s hope she can contain her bloodlust until we have need of it. Is everything ready?”

“As ready as it can be.” Danton shrugged. “Shall we?”

Her eyes didn’t take long to adjust to the darkness. Despite being underground, an eerie, ambient luster from the walls of rock showed the way well enough that lanterns weren’t necessary. It was unnerving, but Jiao refused to falter in her resolve. Her fingers ached to wrap around the hilt of her katana and charge into waiting combatants. Instead, she did as she was told, sending runners back at every branch to report the all clear. As she took the sixth branch, voices carried to her position. She slowed her pace to a crawl, unsure of the source.

Abruptly, Jiao came face to face with a wall of solid rock. Had she taken a wrong turn? That was impossible. A surge of panic welled up in her throat, but she against fought it. Hysteria clouded rational thought. Logic was the only way she’d get out of here. Turning to her left, she followed the obstacle, fingers tracing the strangely smooth stone. When she thought she was close to where the wall should be, she reached out with her left hand to keep her from running into the cavern sides.

Her right hand lost the feel of the stone, and she stopped. Jiao found herself perfectly positioned in a small gap at the corner, revealing the back of the cave to be only a partial wall concealing the rest of the tunnel. The space was no wider than three feet across. She smiled to herself and turned back to the next in line of three remaining men. “Stay here,” she whispered. “Show the others how to get through.”

He didn’t respond, instead allowing the sound of his feet planting in place to show he followed her orders.

When she rounded the partial wall, she was surprised to see dim light ahead. A straight corridor sloped downwards into another tunnel. Or rather, a hallway. A small amount of orange torchlight filtered through the other end. The walls here were most definitely man-made, carved and polished smooth, and the floor still held traces of broken tiles. As she progressed down the empty corridor, the voices became more pronounced, and were almost intelligible. The lit hallway ran at a ninety-degree angle to this one, and she pressed herself to the right wall to keep out of sight, her companions following suit.

“What do you mean, you can’t find them?” A man’s voice carried over the others. “They can’t have gotten far in the dark!”

Jiao smiled. It was a voice she recognized from the temple. Danton told her about the Brotherhood, and that person in particular. It was tempting to go after the man responsible for the death of the monks and her Rinpoche on her own, but there was no telling how many men waited in the next room. Pushing back her hatred, Jiao centered herself and inched her head around the corner, enough to catch a glimpse of what waited on the other side.

Not expecting to see someone so close, she nearly gasped at the cloaked figure immediately around the bend. It was impossible to see anything around the mass of black fabric. In her head, she cursed. Casting a glance to the men to her left, she urged them back up the hallway. Keenly aware of how well sound traveled here, she used hand signals to instruct one man to report the sighting. When he was gone, she and her remaining runner crept back towards the light. Jiao reasoned that the enemy scouted this corridor and deemed it safe, not seeing the gap leading to the tunnels. Lucky for her, careless of them.

Something was happening. The sounds of many feet running drew her back to the corner for another attempt at spying. This time, the cloaked man was gone, as were any others who might have been there moments before. The next room was more of a recess from a much, much larger space. Possibly twenty feet stretched between her corner and the opening. A small group of men remained, three in cloaks, two others in the same attire of those she’d killed at the monastery. One of the latter was nearly shaking with anger. His mustache twitched furiously as he spoke. This must be the Brother Mortimer Cross that Danton described. She knew his voice immediately.

“Do not worry, Highest One,” he assured one of the cloaked men. “We will find her and the inventor. And when I have them—”

He was interrupted, but she couldn’t hear what was said.

“Yes, Highest One.” Brother Cross bowed low and backed away. “I will see she is unharmed.”

He scuttled off, taking the other bowler hat with him. The cloaked figures discussed something further before moving off in the same direction. Jiao grinned. Captain Sterling had escaped again.

She thought, for a moment, that all of the action was over, when one last group plodded by. Four men, each holding a pole, carried a crate between them. It wasn’t an overly large box, perhaps big enough for a man to sit in. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. Nothing these men possessed resulted in anything good.

Not long after, one of her runners rejoined her. Through hand signals, Jiao determined the main forces would arrive in less than five minutes. They were losing precious time. For all they knew, that crate was a bomb set to explode in four minutes. She weighed her options.

If someone saw her, it was possible they would mistake her for a local. Most Europeans couldn’t tell a Chinese from a Siamese, claiming all of them looked the same. She sniffed indignantly. She would put their ignorance to good use.

Motioning for her men to stay put, and despite their frantic arguments, Jiao looked around the corner, saw no one, and stepped out into the next room. Remaining close to the wall, she tread as silently as she could. The men with lanterns were gone, but their torches remained in brackets in the empty hall beyond the recess. There was enough light to tell no guards were posted across from her. She reached the end of the wall and pressed herself to it before checking around the next corner. A quick scan revealed no one behind her position on either side of the hall.

Looking up towards the front, Jiao gaped at the two massive doors standing wide open. Some of the torchlight spilled into the next room, but it wasn’t bright enough to see more than a short way inside. Tiptoeing to the other side of the recess, she continued her surveillance. Why hadn’t the Brotherhood left a lookout posted? She thought perhaps the interior was too large to guard, and they opted not to spread out their forces. There were merits to the strategy, though leaving the entrance unguarded seemed foolish.

Satisfied she was alone, Jiao entered the main cavern. Smeared, wet piles of clothing scattered about left her unsettled. She disregarded them and pushed on. Upon reaching the next room, her jaw went slack. Suspended from the dark ceiling, giant blue orbs cast everything in a dim, cerulean glow. It wasn’t enough light to see in great detail, but the strange luminescence highlighted the major angles and curves of behemoth sculptures before her. Impossible to discern if they were animal or human shapes, her eyes traveled down the monoliths. Each five-story figure sat atop a square pedestal roughly ten feet high. What little light there was showed an unending procession of these structures continuing through the room. If they were meant to intimidate visitors, they successfully accomplished their goal with her.

She realized her vulnerable position out in the open and skittered to the leftmost wall. Concealed by the shadow of a giant pillar that climbed to the ceiling, she was in a better position to see any unfriendly visitors. She listened intently. Wherever the men disappeared to, they did so quickly. She gauged the distance to the first pedestal to be about ten yards. With one last check, she darted out from her hiding place, stopping safely against the base of the nearest one. Looking up, she imagined giant eyes watching her, concealed in the dark. After a brief shudder, she made another visual sweep. Still empty. Still silent. On to the next pedestal.

Iris did not have the patience for this sort of thing. When she arrived where Jiao was supposed to be waiting, a small army trickling in behind her, she was met with five nervous runners, all wringing their hands worriedly. She clenched and unclenched her fists in an effort to channel her frustration. It wasn’t working. The men didn’t need to explain. Iris knew Jiao had gone ahead. Alone.

Some part of her suspected this might happen. The girl was too headstrong for her own good. Doubtless she could take care of herself in a fight, but against who-knew-how-many men? Her recklessness showed her age.

The runners informed her that the hall around the corner was empty, and Jiao disappeared through the already open entrance. “At least the lock won’t be an issue,” Iris muttered to herself.

“The way is clear,” Danton reassured her. “All Brotherhood men have gone into the ruins. No guards posted. Their forces might not be as large as we feared if they couldn’t spare a man for watch. This is good news. Perhaps we’ll catch them up before they reach their destination.”

“Do you think they built the machine?” Eddie asked, a bit louder than he should have. Iris glared at him for the mistake. In truth, she forgot he was there. He was unusually quiet.

“It’s probably a safe assumption,” Danton answered, and then turned to Iris. “One of Jiao’s runners mentioned hearing of an escape. Perhaps the captain and Monsieur Jensen are still alive?”