The Time Stone (43 page)

“
What happened to them?”
Asked Mercedes.

“
They just ceased but
foresaw their return in one chosen to carry their infinite power
and wisdom onward towards the future, the legendary holder of
stones, one of great power and ability who will... Hmm…!” Drax
said.

“
What?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
The rest of the text is
blackened.” He held the beacon to it but the wall with the rest of
the writing and pictures was dark and illegible. “The rest is lost
to time, I am afraid.” He said.

“
Broad Staffnight called
me the holder” said James shocked.

“
You do have incredible
powers” said Mercedes.

“
I know. James is the
holder of stones. With the rest of the writing erased, we cannot
tell his ultimate purpose and destiny and must wait to find out.”
Said Drax.

“
Hmm, it’s scary” said
James.

“
When the time comes, I
trust that you will have no fear of what needs to be done” said
Drax.

“
Oh my goodness” yelled
Tina seeing her cohorts. “I thought that was you. I thought that I
would never see you guys again” she ran over to them from the other
side of the cavern.

“
Tina” yelled James as
they embraced.

Mercedes joined in. “It’s good to see
you.”

“
We thought you were a
goner back there” said Drax.

“
You can’t keep me down”
she replied.

“
We missed you” said
Mercedes.

“
Thanks, same here. It’s
good to be back with my buddies. It was so dark here for a while
all alone but what is this place?”

“
Welcome to the cavern of
lights!” Said Mercedes patting her arms up and down.

“
Not much” said
James.

Then suddenly they heard a loud roar
from the far end of the cave like thunder.

“
What the hell was that?”
Screamed Tina.

“
Let’s find out” Drax
edged forward leading his entourage into the dark abyss of the
cavern of lights.
The noise became louder and louder as the quartet approached the
end of the cavern and found a wall.

“
Dead end” said
Drax.

“
Damn” said
James.

“
What now?” Asked
Tina.

“
There is nothing, not
even more writing on the wall” said Mercedes.

“
So what do we do now?”
Asked Tina as she leaned up against a part of the rock wall in the
far end of the cavern that pressed inward forming a crevice in the
rock face that caused her to tumble and fall onto the sandy floor
below. "Whoa” she yelled as she landed on the sand and crawled
around. Drax leaned over to help her up but felt he drop slowly
into the ground.

“
I got that sinking
feeling” said Drax.

“
Me too, it’s
quicksand!!!” Screamed Tina as she crawled around and was pulled
down on all fours her face closing into the sand.

“
Keep your head up” said
James as he reached for her and pulled her head out of the sand but
stumbled onto his knees as he fell into the sinking sand crawling
around as well.

“
Oh no not you too” said
Mercedes as she wandered around wobbling and waving her
hands.

“
We need to grab hold of
something” screamed Drax.

“
There is nothing” said
James.

“
Stay calm, panicking only
makes it worse” said Mercedes.

Tina’s face fell into the
sand.

“
We’re goners” screamed
James sinking deeper into the sand.

“
Wait, look…” said
Mercedes pointing upward as she remained calm while still sinking
slowly. Drax looked up to where she was pointing and saw a series
of blinking lights, red, yellow, purple, green blue, orange,
indigo, each light from a diode embedded in the rock face above
them. “I don’t get it” said Mercedes.

“
Uh, it looks like Morse
code or something like it” said Drax dropping down as the sand
sucked him around his waist.

“
Can you interpret them?”
Asked Mercedes squinting on them.

“
I can barely see…” said
Drax as he felt his face being submerged into the quicksand.
Mercedes squinted up to them as she sank down to her
waist.

“
I don’t get it.” She
cried as she sank down to her face and felt it submerge slowly. The
foursome was then completely subsumed by the quicksand in the small
rock tunnel and quarry leaving a surface of running sands on the
empty cave floor.

Then in a flash of yellowish hazy
light emanating in the rock face above, the temporal wormhole
appeared and fizzled above the sand. Another Milton Drax stuck his
head and body out of the event horizon partially submerged as a
light ball covering the bottom half of his body as he wore a
uniform that was partially red and partially blue with a golden
insignia on his right breast side. He was older with slight
wrinkles around his eyes and dark grey tones in his hairline. He
reached out to the blinking lights and pressed the red one then the
purple one then the blue one and suddenly the quicksand ceased
moving and the floor was solid again with the foursome resting
sprawled across and laying on the sandy rock floor. With that the
second Drax in the temporal wormhole looked down at them and then
looked at the rock quarry with the crevice having vanished as the
rock face pulled itself back into place leaving it the way it was.
He pointed his wrist device, aiming a new silvery device on top of
it that he did not have before, at the cave wall above the hidden
button and pressed a trigger mechanism on the device with his other
hand. A single white thin projectile of hot white light emanated
from the silvery device and struck the rock face causing a small
explosion and a hole was created above the hidden button on the
rock face. The explosion caused debris to fall onto the floor below
and he noticed the foursome started to move around waking. With
that he retracted and vanished back from where he exited and the
light portal vanished.

“
Huh?” Said Tina rising
up. “What just happened?”

“
I don’t know” said James
rising up and helping Tina up.

“
I think we died. Is this
heaven?” Asked Mercedes rising up.

“
I don’t think we left the
cave” said James.

“
Look” said Drax coughing
and getting up as he pointed to the cave wall above them as the
rubble and debris cleared. They all stared at a new hole created in
the rock face and as the smoke cleared, they saw a pictograph in
ancient Egyptian form with several men standing and balls of light
and animals around them.

“
How did this happen?”
Asked Mercedes.

“
I wish I knew” said Drax.
“But it’s a riddle.”

“
What does it say?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
Well, it doesn’t
translate well into English but loosely…’Two sides of old at odds
now one, an ancient story boldly, a cosmic dream, a crisis doom,
both history and destiny convert upon, you must fight great odds
but the end result, change …something otherworldly.” He sighed
finishing.

“
That rhymed well but I
think it finishes… great conflict” commented Tina.

“
Well I try but you are
skilled too” said Drax.

“
She’s brilliant” said
James. Tina blushed.

“
What does it mean?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
Well… it obviously means
something about a great conflict” said Drax.

“
Like the one Alana told
us about” said Mercedes.

“
Maybe” said Drax, “I am
worried about this whole thing. How did we survive that
quicksand?”

“
Maybe we have a guardian
angel” said Tina.

“
Humph… we should get
moving.” Drax said.

“
Where?” Asked James,
“there is no way to go but back way down the cliff in your
hooped-up souped-up scorpion mobile.”

“
This riddle may hold the
answer,” said Drax, “two sides at odds meaning conflict… ancient
meaning possible eternal… history and destiny … change to something
otherworldly, meaning perhaps a symbol of some godly
regimen.”

“
Eternal conflict, good
vs. evil, darkness vs. light…” started Mercedes.

“
A ying yang!” yelled Tina
excitedly.

Then suddenly the panel of inscribed
rock before them vanished in a glow of white light. They shielded
their eyes as the intensity blinded them and surrounded the entire
part of the cavern. A strange humming sound emanated from the wall
as the light intensified. After a few seconds, the light and sound
ceased and they opened their eyes and unshielded them.

“
Where are we?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
At least we know now why
they call this the cavern of lights.” Said Tina.

“
Wow” said James as they
looked about and were now standing in a precipice in an underground
cavern, the rock walls spanning miles around glistened with purple
lights, and smaller lights representing the various colors of the
rainbow spectrum, a series of small cave inlets and openings
surrounded the cavern culminating in a large central opening above
with some light coming down from the intense light from the bright
hot lava flow at the core of the mountain. A narrow suspension
bridge made of a metal-reinforced wooden framework stretched across
to the other side and a pedestal rested their on a narrow rock
platform. Something lit up brightly on the platform.

“
What is that?” Asked
Drax.

“
I can barely make it out”
said James.

“
Let’s go check it out”
remarked Tina.

CHAPTER 72

They followed the bridge in single
file with Drax valiantly taking the lead.

“
How deep do you think
this is?” Asked Tina looking down at the seemingly endless black
void below.

“
Got to be at least a
million miles” said James.

“
There is no telling based
on geological findings about how deep the Earth central core is. It
is simply a very long way down so best to keep your eyes straight
and think of something else” said Drax nervously brave.

“
Anyway, what do you think
all this is for?” Asked Tina.

“
It seems like an advanced
society once occupied Chronix Bay but also other parts of the world
as their amazing abilities are evidenced all throughout history. We
seem to find a lot of them.” Said Mercedes.

“
That makes sense,” said
Drax. “The mysterious lights in the sky over Brazil, Egypt, and now
here with these ‘vocal oriented transportation links’.”

“
Funny” said
Tina.

“
We are almost there” said
Drax.

“
Any idea what those
mysterious creatures were in the dark forest?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
They looked like
vampires” said Tina.

“
They were obviously
beasts from the other place but highly evolved ones being in this
point in the future” said Drax.

“
Other place?” Asked
James.

“
Long story, kid. We’ll
discuss it another time. Let’s just say we were part of an
experiment that didn’t go very well.” Drax said.

“
The Machination?” Asked
Mercedes.

“
Yeah, look we’re here.”
Drax pointed out as he stepped off onto the platform followed by
his cohorts.

“
What is it?” Asked
Mercedes. They looked at the center of the pedestal and saw the
glowing light reflecting red and the various colors of the rainbow
to a lesser degree. James reached down to grab it.

Drax yelled “stop! We don’t know what
will happen?” James then retracted his arm slowly. “Hmm” Drax pulls
out his handheld scanner and holds it over the light. “It’s
radioactive” he said.

“
Oh no” said
Tina.

“
Don’t worry; the level of
exposure is too minimal to be harmful to us.” Drax scanned and
spoke what he read.

“
Thank God” said
Tina.

“
However it does have a
large amount of power but I think it has diminished somewhat
overtime. It was a lot greater many thousand years before, I say
about a billion times more powerful than the sun at one point
judging by the rate of radioactive decay and the half-life of the …
whatever it is.”

“
That can kill someone
right?” Asked Mercedes.

“
Oh yeah, were lucky we
found it now instead of when it was in its prime. I reckon it’s
some kind of battery source device.” Drax said.

“
The alter looks familiar”
said James looking at the marble like form and symbol etched into
it.

“
The pregivers” said
Tina.

“
Yes it seems they are
behind most of the archaic items we come across” said
Drax.

“
It is and it is all mine”
yelled a crinkled voice in the distance.

The foursome looked up and saw a form
running across the bridge towards them, a beast with the body and
composure of a man but with the face of a lion whose main rode down
to the base of his spine in a tightly braided knot, a long gilded
adorned coat, a long curved dagger in his right hand, and a belt
buckle with a familiar symbol. They saw the symbol and stood in
shock.