The Seventh Mountain (34 page)

“I know it’s cold and dark and no one is
supposed to have ever gotten out of here.” Mark tried to sit up and
couldn’t, it hurt too much, but he still wanted to face his
jailer.

“Mark, you can do better than that. Let me
give you a hint. Each of the other six mountains is built over one,
very much like this one.”

Mark rolled over, grimacing at the pain and
tried again to sit up. His arms were useless. “Oh, what does it
matter what you call it. If no one can get out, then it’s just a
prison, ‘til I die.”

“Humans can’t die in here.”

Humans can’t die in here. That doesn’t
make any sense.
“Well then, I guess that makes this a living
nightmare.”

“Close… it’s the entrance to the door to
Sheol or Hades or Erebus or the Abyss or the Underworld or whatever
you want to call it. And it is my pleasure to inform you that you
will experience every pain ever known to man in here, some of which
you are experiencing now. Enjoy, you are going to be here for a
very long time.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Let’s see now, there are three hundred and
sixty seven souls trapped in here, right now, before this
particular gate. Most have been here for hundreds of years, some
even thousands. None have made it out. Do you think that you are
better than they are? Do you think that you can find a way
out?”

“There has to be a way out.”

“Oh, there is. All you have to do is swear
allegiance to me.”

“You won’t get the staff that easily.”

An intense deep rumbling laugh filled Mark’s
mind. “I have no interest in that tooth pick. I have what I want of
you. You are here.” The laughter continued. After a few moments, it
faded and finally left. Mark realized that the voice had been in
his mind and thought that it might have been a hallucination.

He felt a deep sense of foreboding and
hopelessness settling over him. He tried to fight those feelings,
but the pains in his arms, chest and head were unrelenting.
Something in him kept trying to make him feel like he should just
give up. He didn’t want to give up, he knew he couldn’t give up, he
had to fight it.

 
* *
* 

As soon as Mark fell through the opening,
Jamal, Nick and Chenoa ran up to look.

“Where is he? I don’t see him.” Jamal was
straining to see into the void.

Chenoa grabbed Ralph by the collar. “What
have you done? You are one sick puppy.”

“I didn’t do anything. Somebody pushed me.”
Ralph put his arm up to block Chenoa from hitting him.

“Who pushed you?”

“I don’t know.”

Slone Voif stepped out of the crowd. “I
pushed him. I was just horsing around.”

“You stupid idiot! Do you realize what you
have done?”

“Yes… but what’s done is done.” Slone had a
slight smirk and stood with his arms folded across his chest.

“I’m going to get Mr. Diefenderfer.”

“You do that.” Slone turned and walked back
into the crowd of students.

Chenoa ran into Mr. McGraw’s office.

Mr. Diefenderfer was speaking. “That means…
if it was found… right after the battle… in this very museum… that
Benrah… left it for a reason. We must… get everyone… out of here…
as soon as possible.”

“Sir, it’s too late. Mark has been knocked
into the labyrinth!”

“Surely you jest, young lady.” Mr. McGraw
turned to face her.

“No sir. It’s true.”

“We must notify… the Council of Elders… at
once. There is no hope… for any rescue… until tomorrow… when the
doorway reopens.”

 
* *
* 

In the labyrinth, Mark tried to sit up. His
arms were no help. It hurt to move them, but he could move them,
barely. He rolled over, fumbled into Aaron’s Grasp. The penlight
was there. The narrow beam didn’t provide enough light to see much;
he couldn’t hold it well. The pain was excruciating. The beam
reflected off something on the floor. It was dark and glossy. Mark
examined it as best as he could. It was a wide and thick puddle of
congealed blood. He realized that he must be bleeding.

He forced his arm up and felt his hair. It
was matted and sticky. He looked at his hand with the light. A deep
red slime covered his palm. He felt his head again. There was no
indication of a wound. He checked the rest of his body as well as
he could and didn’t find any wounds.
I healed that fast?

A feeble voice spoke to Mark’s mind.
“
There’s no way out. You might as well give up now and start
your crossing
.” It was much different than Benrah’s voice; this
one was puny and whiney sounding.

Mark spoke aloud. “The Council of Elders
will find a way.”

“You’re wrong. It’s all been tried
before.”

“Oh yeah! You don’t know.”

“Okay, let me tell you what’s going to
happen. You’re thinking that you’ll wait for the door to open
again. Only, you’ll wait three or four weeks before that happens.
Time is different in here. You’ll get so hungry that you’ll think
about eating yourself, maybe a piece of your arm or leg or
something. I’ve seen it before. If you manage to stick it out until
the door opens, they’ll toss in some food and maybe some clothes.
The food won’t be enough. You’ll eat that in two or three days.
Then you’ll be right back where you were. The only way to get
something else to eat is to travel through the other rooms. When
you get thirsty enough, you might think that you can always drink
your own urine. Only, you won’t have any. Your body can’t make any
because you haven’t drunk anything. Your body needs what little
fluid you have left now to replace the blood you lost. When you get
hungry enough, you’ll go into the next room, believe me, you’ll go.
You can bypass all that pain and go now.”

“Why should I believe you? Go away; you’re
just a hallucination or something.”

“I’m no hallucination, but whether or not
to believe me, that’s your choice. My job is to get you going. The
sooner you complete your crossing, the sooner I can get back to
what I was doing. You’re going to go, eventually
.”

 
* *
* 

Back in the museum, Mr. Diefenderfer
approached the group near the wall. The door was closed now.

Jamal looked at him and said, “I can hear
him, sort of. At least I think it’s him. Everything is speeded up.
He’s hurt. His arms are broken and he has blood in his hair. He’s
wondering if he can hold out until the door opens again. He thinks
it will be almost a month before it does.”

Mr. Diefenderfer bowed his head. After a
moment he said, “Yes… I believe it is him… I would estimate… that
time is passing… twenty… or twenty-five… times faster… in there… If
that is true… one hour… out here… is equivalent to… one day… in
there… approximately.”

Nick said, “That means that it could be a
month, for him, before the door opens again.”

“We must… act quickly. You three… stand
vigil here… I will… set planning… in motion.” He turned to look at
the rest of the class. “Everyone else… leave the museum… at once…
We must… make room… for the rescue team.”

 
* *
* 

Several hours had passed for Mark in the
labyrinth. He started to look around in the first cavern. He was
beginning to get more and more use of his arms back. They didn’t
hurt as much as they did when he had come to. The walls were smooth
and cold, just like the floor. He couldn’t see the ceiling with the
diminutive beam from the penlight. He walked along the walls and
estimated that this first room was about the size of a football
field. He felt cold and the first urges of hunger were starting to
take hold.

He remembered what Tim had told him, during
the Festival of Tents, about keeping some munchies around. “You
never know who might show up hungry, including me.” He had taken
that advice to heart. He remembered the candies and jerky that he
had in his pockets.
I wish I had remembered to put some warm
clothes into Aaron’s Grasp.
He reasoned, that food was enough
to keep him from wanting to eat himself while he waited for the
door to open again. It certainly wasn’t enough to keep him from
being hungry.

He didn’t have any books with him or
anything else to pass the time. He decided to lie down and try to
go to sleep.

“You can’t sleep in here.”
The impish
voice was back.
“Sleep just doesn’t happen. My master wants
everybody to be fully aware of what’s happening to them when it
happens. There’s no escape from here, not even in sleep or insanity
or old age. No one gets any older in here, no one sleeps, and no
one dies.”

“Yeah, right.” Mark lay back on the floor.
He tried for more than an hour to fall asleep, but that wonderful
place eluded him. He decided to sit up and meditate, a practice
taught in communications class.

 
* *
* 

In the museum, preparations for a rescue
were being mounted. Mr. Diefenderfer returned with the Council of
Elders, a few instructors, and a few counselors. Tim and Gerod were
among them, with Tim leading The General by his reins.

Mark could transmit his thoughts and
feelings in a coherent manner to people, but he didn’t receive
coherent thoughts from people. Animals could read his thoughts and
feelings, and he could read theirs. From most animals he only
received thoughts of senses, emotion or intent. There had been two
notable exceptions to this. First, the lioness had transmitted
articulate thought, mental pictures and senses; second, The General
had transmitted mental pictures and senses, specifically what he
could see, taste and smell. The lioness was too dangerous to try
and use to communicate with Mark. The General was the next best
choice for that purpose. Anyone could read Mark’s thoughts, if they
were close enough and he wasn’t trying to prevent it. Mark could
see what The General was seeing if he was close enough.

“I don’t know… if this… will work… We are
going… to try… to communicate… with Mark… through… The General… We
need… to get… The General… to think about Mark… Would one of you
three… mind mounting…?”

Before Mr. Diefenderfer could finish, Chenoa
was on The General’s bare back. He reared and she slid off.

Gerod and Mrs. Shadowitz sat up a large
paper tablet on an easel. Mrs. Shadowitz wrote on the paper:

We are here.

We can hear your thoughts.

We understand the time difference.

Hang on.

We have plenty of food for you.

Do you have broken arms?

Mark watched the events unfold in very slow
motion. It wasn’t as slow as the thralls had been moving on
Christmas Day, but it was slow, none-the-less. He knew that he was
seeing through The General’s eyes. From the time that he had first
started seeing the images until he could read the message in full,
nearly half an hour had passed.

Mark thought about how cold he was and how
weak his flashlight was. He brought his thoughts and feelings to
the front of his mind so that anyone could sense them. He worked
his arms to let them know that he was all right now. A half an hour
later he could see the new message on the tablet through The
General’s eye:

Warm clothes,

Better light.

You are all right.

Anything else?

Mark realized that Divine intervention might
be his only hope. He got to his knees and started praying. A short
time later, he saw in his mind’s eye, that everyone that The
General could see was praying, too.

At least three weeks had passed for Mark. He
ate what little food he had, sparingly. There was nothing that he
could do but sit and wait. He saw through The Generals eyes how the
glass cases in the museum had been moved. A very long ladder was
lying on the floor. It was obvious that they were planning to shove
the ladder in the door as soon as it opened.

The voice that had started out small and
feeble in Mark’s mind had grown stronger over the last three weeks.
It was now a very forceful voice that Mark couldn’t shut out.

“That’s been tried many times in the past.
Won’t work. You can climb up, but you can’t get out. Although, I
must say, you are the first one that has been able to communicate
outside. It’s not going to do you any good, though.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.
They understand the time difference and they’re sending in plenty
of food and clothes. You said that wouldn’t happen.”

“Yeah, well, no one has been able to
communicate outside before, either. Just because you got this far,
doesn’t mean you’re going to get out
.”

“We’ll see.”

There was a new message on the tablet.

Stand clear when the door opens.

We’re sending in clothes and food first.

Then we’ll put the ladder in.

The ladder is self-supporting,

Stay clear until the legs lock in place.

 
* *
* 

About three days later the door opened. Half
a dozen duffel bags fell from the opening. Sometime later, the
ladder dropped down and locked into place.

Mark climbed. At the top, he pushed against
the opening. It was like pushing on a stone wall. He couldn’t get
out. He could see the people outside moving very slowly. He tried
again and again to find some weak point in the opening. Nothing
budged. The door finally closed.

Back on the floor, Mark looked through the
duffel bags. There was more than enough food to last for thirty
days. He savored every bite of a beef-stew meal pack and downed two
bottles of lemonade. He found fresh clothes to put on. The warm
socks and boots were a welcome relief from the sandals that he had
been wearing. He tucked the jeans pant-legs into the boots before
tying them up. That was something that he had been taught to do by
his parents for when it was cold. He tucked the sweatshirt in
before cinching his belt. He stuffed the pockets of the cloak full
of meal packs and he put some into Aaron’s Grasp. He was taking
Tim’s advice again, just in case.