Return to the Lost Level, page 16
“Kasheena,” I called, hand cupped alongside my mouth, “if you can hear me, hold on!”
There was no response from the darkness.
A great rumbling boomed across the valley and the stones shook beneath our feet as one of the towers collapsed. A cloud of dust and debris mushroomed into the streets and barreled across the city. Taking advantage of this new distraction, I stowed my laser pistol, wrapped my legs around the rope, and began to lower myself with my free hand. It was difficult to hold on. My palms were already raw from our climb down from the pterodactyl nest. I thought about dropping my sword and retrieving it once I’d reached the bottom, but if Kasheena was still alive down there, I couldn’t risk it striking her.
“Can you do it?” Patamoose asked, peering down at me in concern.
“Yes,” I grunted. “Just hurry up.”
Patamoose hitched up his loincloth, secured the knife and stick within his waistband, and followed along after me. We inched down the rope, sunlight dwindling with every moment, until we were surrounded in darkness. I kept going, not looking down, listening to my breathing echo back to me, hearing my companion grunt above me. The void seemed to press against us. Soon, I couldn’t even see the rope. When I looked up, Patamoose was just a gray smudge amid the blackness, and the sun seemed like a small copper coin. The air grew cooler, drying my sweat, and despite the heat baking off the landscape above, I shivered. The drafts grew stronger, bringing with them an odor. It reminded me of the Anunnaki—that cloying reptile house stench familiar to anyone who has ever visited a zoo. Grimacing, I opted to breathe through my mouth, but that just made it worse. I could taste the foulness at the back of my throat. The stench grew stronger the farther we descended. How far that was, I do not know. The darkness was complete now. I had no sense of movement, no idea how close we were to the bottom—if indeed there was a bottom. It occurred to me that this must be what it felt like to be an astronaut adrift in space. That, in turn, led me to think about Colonel MacKinnon and the revelations in his journal—a secret space program stretching all the way back to World War Two. He had mentioned the Nazi Bell. Kasheena, Bloop, and I had found a Nazi Bell shortly after my arrival in the Lost Level. Could there be a connection?
My arm began to ache, and then tremble. My legs felt like limp strands of spaghetti. The wound in my side still bled, and I began to wonder if I’d judged it incorrectly. Maybe it was more than a scratch. Maybe the Anunnaki had coated his blade with some sort of anticoagulant. That lizard stench grew stronger. The sword hung from my free hand, seeming as heavy as an anvil. Panting, I stopped my descent and dangled there, suspended over the void.
“Patamoose,” I groaned, “stop for a moment.”
“Are you in trouble?” His voice sounded so close, yet I couldn’t see him.
Straining to hold on to the rope, I looked down into the darkness. “Kasheena? It’s Aaron. If you are down there, stand against the wall!”
There was no answer, save my own echoes.
“Aaron,” Patamoose asked, “what is the matter?”
“I need to lose my sword. If I don’t, the weight is going to kill me.”
I counted to ten, listening to my voice echo back up to me. Then I let go of the sword and grasped the rope with my other hand. Some of my trembling subsided, but I still felt weak and exhausted. The sword plummeted into the darkness, and although I waited, I did not hear it hit bottom.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “My arms are turning numb.”
My descent was made easier now that I had the full usage of both arms, but I still couldn’t see where we were. Disoriented, I began to wonder if the pit was indeed bottomless? Perhaps Patamoose had been wrong about the monstrous serpent supposedly lurking in its depths. I glanced up again, hoping to see the sun, but now there was just a small sliver of light, no bigger than a firefly.
Suddenly, the rope began to vibrate and twist.
“Hey,” I called. “Is that you, Patamoose? What are you doing?”
“It is not me,” he replied. “I see figures above. I fear that the Anunnaki—”
The taught rope suddenly went slack in my hands. Someone had cut it far above us.
Then, a second later, I was falling into darkness again.
Chapter 13
The Thing in the Pit
When I opened my eyes, there was light, orange and flickering, but surrounded by darkness on all sides. Just beneath it was Kasheena’s face, never more beautiful, smiling down at me, her brown eyes wide and expressive.
“Oh, goddamn it …” I sighed. “I’m dreaming again.”
“Aaron?”
“Hi, baby.” I tasted blood in my mouth, turned my head, and spat. Then I looked into her eyes. “It’s good to see you. I just wish you were real.”
Kasheena’s brow furrowed. “I am no dream, and it is good to see you, too, my love. Now, unless you want this reunion to be short-lived, quit being lazy and get on your feet.”
I blinked my eyes. “Kasheena? Is it really you?”
“Yes, Aaron. It is really me. Did you hit your head when you fell?”
I tried to move. My body ached, and the wound in my side felt like it was burning, but nothing seemed broken. Frowning, Kasheena stretched out one hand and I took it. A brief static shock passed between us. Then she helped me to my feet. We stared at each other for a moment. Then we fell together in a crushing embrace.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“I missed you, too. I thought … I was afraid that …”
“It is okay,” Kasheena murmured. Her fingertips stroked the back of my scalp. “I have saved you. It is okay, now.”
“Saved me? I was on my way to save you.”
“And how did that work out for you?”
I interrupted her giggle by pressing my lips to hers. When we broke our kiss, Kasheena took a step back. I realized that the light was from a sputtering torch that she held in her other hand. Oily black smoke curled from it, drifting up toward the surface. I glanced behind me at the spot where I had landed and saw a pile of white and gray powder. Mixed in among the dust were various bones and skulls—animal, dinosaur, Anunnaki, human, and other types I couldn’t identify. After staring at it for a moment, I realized that the powder was actually all that was left of what must have been an even bigger pile of bones at some earlier point in time. I looked for Patamoose amidst the debris, but saw no sign of him. Nor did I see the sword I’d dropped. The only thing I spotted, other than the bone dust, was the length of rope we’d been climbing down. I snatched it up and examined the end, confirming it had been cut. I checked myself over again, making sure I wasn’t seriously hurt. My mouth was still bleeding. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek during the fall, but otherwise, I seemed okay.
The darkness here at the bottom of the pit was disconcerting. Far above, I saw a small circle of light, much like seeing the moon above. I knew that was the Lost Level’s sun, but its light did not penetrate here.
I turned back to Kasheena. “There was someone with me.”
She nodded. “Patamoose, yes. He is here.”
“I fell on top of you.” His voice echoed in the blackness beyond the torch. “You make a fine pillow, Aaron Pace.”
A shadow, lighter than the darkness surrounding it, moved into the light. Patamoose smiled and nodded. He seemed uninjured, save for a shallow cut along his forehead. I clasped his hand and grinned.
“I am glad you’re alive.”
“And I am glad we found your beloved,” he answered. “I found something, else, as well.”
“Oh? What?”
He held up the sword and handed it to me. The torchlight glinted off the blade.
“Where’s your stick?” I asked.
Patamoose sighed. “It did not survive the fall. It is broken into three useless pieces. But I still have the magical knife you gave me.”
“It’s not magical, Patamoose.”
“It is to me, Aaron.”
“Fair enough.” I turned back to Kasheena and hugged her again. “How long have you been here? Are you okay? And where did you find that torch?”
She nodded. “I am fine. The torch was there. Amidst the bone dust. I do not know how long it has been down here, but it burns well.”
“How did you manage to light it?”
Eyes glinting in the glow of the flame, Kasheena swept her arm to the side, extending the torch. Firelight flickered off a nearby stone wall that ringed the circumference of the pit. It stretched up into the darkness and was built from strange-colored rocks—gray and silver shot through with brick-red speckles. Each stone was roughly the size of a baseball. I recognized them right away. These rocks produced fire when ground together. Not a few singular sparks, like that produced from a piece of flint, but a flame like an arc-welder. I had first learned about them during my travels with Kasheena and Bloop, shortly after witnessing a battle between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a giant weaponized robot. Our tribe held their value in high esteem, and they were incredibly difficult to find. Now, we were staring at hundreds of thousands of them. The pit’s floor was just a smooth limestone slab, but the walls? The walls were an engineering marvel.
“Is the entire pit lined with these?” I asked.
Kasheena nodded. “Incredible, is it not? It must have taken generations to build.”
“If we could figure out a way to pry them all loose and transport them, we’d be the richest people in the Lost Level. Did you find anything besides the torch in the pile of debris?”
“A few coins, some pieces of moldering cloth. Nothing else of value. Why?”
“I was thinking maybe we should search through the powder. Maybe we can find some more weapons or armor.”
“We have more important concerns,” Patamoose said. “Can you not smell it?”
I paused, and realized that I could. The bottom of the pit was dank and acrid, like the inside of a reptile house at a zoo. It stank of viscous intestinal matter and urine, and the cloying musk of a snake’s cloacal glands. I cocked my head, listening, but the only sound was the three of us breathing, and the distant plink of water dripping somewhere.
“There’s a snake,” I whispered. “A big one. Kasheena, have you seen it?”
“No. After hearing the stories of this pit, I expected the serpent to set upon me as soon as I reached the bottom. But there has been no sign, other than that stench.”
“We need to find a way out of here.”
Kasheena laughed softly. “Oh, my love. I missed your gift for stating things that are obvious to all.”
Patamoose chuckled quietly, hiding his mouth with his hands. His shoulders jostled up and down.
“I’ve got half a mind to leave you both here,” I muttered.
“Then I would have to come rescue you again,” Kasheena teased.
“Touché.”
She frowned. “What does that mean—touché?”
“On my world, it’s an acknowledgment that your opponent has scored a hit or a point.”
“In my tribe,” Patamoose said, “we have a similar word. Tooshy. It means the balls of shit that get caught in the fur around an animal’s hindquarters.”
“We call those dingle berries.”
Kasheena’s frown turned to disgust. “Berries? Your people eat them, Aaron? You should have told me this before all those times I kissed you.”
“We don’t eat them! It’s a slang term.” Seeing that she had no weapon, I held out my sword. “Here, you might need this.”
“You keep it, Aaron. I have fire.”
I shrugged. “Patamoose?”
“The knife will serve me well, Aaron.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Let’s find a way out of here.”
We crept forward, sticking close to the wall. Kasheena took the lead, careful to keep her torch away from the stones. The last thing we needed was to accidentally catch the pit on fire and be roasted alive in the bottom of a massive underground oven. I was hesitant to use my laser pistol, should we need it, for the same reason. I followed a few paces behind Kasheena, clutching the sword in both hands. Patamoose brought up the rear. We could only see a few feet beyond the torch’s glare. Everything else was enshrouded in darkness. The air was damp and still—no underground breezes or drafts of wind. Curiously, despite the lack of sunlight, the moisture, and our depth, the pit remained warm. I wondered what was heating it.
At one point, we came across a giant, waist-high mound of snake shit. Gagging, we were forced to leave the wall and head out into the blackness until we’d made our way around it again. A little further on, we encountered a massive, papery husk that filled all three of us with dread. It was the fragments of a shredded snakeskin, big enough to have been draped over a parade float. I had just knelt to examine it when we heard a monstrous hissing sound from somewhere on the other side of the pit. It was the same noise I’d heard during my descent down the mountainside, but much louder now. Indeed, the noise seemed to fill the pit, reverberating off the walls.
“It is coming.” The confidence and bravery had vanished from Patamoose’s tone. “What do we do?”
“Keep going,” I urged. “Find a way out before it finds us!”
“But there is nothing,” Patamoose gasped. “Just this endless circling wall!”
“Come on!”
We moved quickly, sacrificing stealth and silence for speed. I was pretty sure that between the torch and our own body heat, the serpent could track us anyway, no matter how quietly we moved. It was tempting to tell Kasheena to snuff out our light, but the thought of fumbling our way through that darkness with a giant predator hunting us was too much to bear. The hissing drew closer. Something moved in the darkness behind us. I heard a tremendous rustling sound—hide being dragged across the limestone floor. The snake smell grew stronger.
“Aaron! Kasheena! We have to stand and fight.”
Patamoose stopped, turning to face the still unseen predator. A shadow loomed over top of us, momentarily blotting out the circle of light far above. It swayed back and forth, and the walls vibrated with the sounds it made.
Screaming, Kasheena clenched my arm. I glanced at her and then shrieked, as well. A second giant snake slithered toward us from her side.
“There’s two of them,” I shouted.
Instead of chiding me again for stating the obvious, Kasheena planted her feet firmly, shoulder-width apart, and waved the fiery torch at the second predator. The snake hesitated, nostril slits flared, eyes dilating as it followed the flame. I glanced back at Patamoose. The other snake paid no attention to the fire. It was focused on the warrior. The snake had probably meant to swallow him from above, before he could react. Now, it was unexpectedly faced with a foe who showed every indication of fighting back. Patamoose gripped the combat knife in his left hand, waiting for a strike. The snake glared at the weapon, and at its wielder.
“Aaron,” Kasheena muttered, “I think I will use the sword after all.”
I handed it to her, and drew my laser pistol from its makeshift holster, deciding it was better to risk a fire than to be swallowed alive by this abomination. Kasheena gripped the sword in one hand and continued to wave the torch back and forth with her other. Behind, us, I heard Patamoose breathe deeply.
“It’s getting ready to—”
He grunted, pushing me backward and springing aside just as a snake head the size of a school bus darted downward. I caught a glimpse of a neck like a subway train. Then the slavering jaws closed on empty space. Patamoose rolled three times, positioning himself on his back just beneath the creature’s neck, and stabbed upward with both hands. The blade parted scale and skin, sinking into the meat as easy as butter. I smelled rather than saw the blood. The snake reacted, spitting and hissing. It jerked its head skyward, thrashing in pain. Patamoose clung to the hilt with both hands, widening the gash before the knife slipped free of the wound. He tumbled back to the ground, and sprang to his feet.
Kasheena continued making long sweeping motions with the torch. The other snake remained focused on the flame, almost hypnotized. Slowly, Kasheena inched forward. She hefted the sword, and I saw what she intended to do. It took all my resolve not to cry out in alarm, but I refrained, not wanting to break the spell she had cast over the creature.
She tossed the torch to the side, toward the center of the pit. The fire arced through the air, leaving after-trails of light. The snake’s eyes flicked to it, watching it go. Kasheena took advantage of the distraction and charged, leaping into the air with the sword hilt in both hands. She meant to drive the blade into the beast’s head, just between its eyes.
The torch hit the ground, sputtered, and then went out, plunging us into darkness.
I summed up the situation with, “Shit.”
Our foes could still see us, but we couldn’t see them.
I sensed movement above us again, and felt a slight breeze ruffle my hair. The snake was there, lunging for a strike. I heard Patamoose breathing at my side, and knew he was clear. I raised the laser pistol and squeezed the trigger. The snake hissed, recoiling. I continued firing into the dark, making sure to aim above us.
“Stay down,” I warned Patamoose.
A moment later, the wall sparked and glowed. One of my shots had struck it, igniting the fire stones. Flames sprang from rock to rock, blazing, filling the pit with light. The second snake reared back in surprise or fright. Patamoose cheered, raising his knife. I turned back to Kasheena and saw her riding atop the other snake’s head, clinging to it like a rodeo rider on a bucking steer. Her legs were straddled across its broad skull, and she squeezed her knees tightly against it, trying to avoid being thrown off as it jerked and thrashed, whipping its head in a frenzy. The blade of the sword was buried in its skull, right between the eyes, but had only penetrated a few inches. Patamoose and I stood there gaping, watching with amazement as she pushed the sword deeper, inch by inch, straining with all her might. The snake let out one final, terrible hiss, and then it collapsed, tongue protruding from open jaws.
The other snake shuddered violently, and then began to thrash around. In its frenzied state, it smashed into the flaming wall, knocking loose several stones. The blazing debris tumbled to the floor, sending up a shower of sparks.
