C. J. Barry - Unearthed 01, page 24
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he rasped.
Tess didn’t answer, her head lifted high. In fact, she didn’t move.
Cohl frowned in concern. “Tess?”
“I think I know where the amulet is,” she whispered.
Cohl’s head shot up as he followed her line of sight to the cliff face. The sun had just broken the plane of the cliff edge, shining down and across the unusual slope. He saw it, too.
At any other time of the day, the rough carvings would have disappeared with the others in the rock face. The sun’s angle and the viewer’s vantage point had to be perfect to see the crude circle with spokes extending in all directionsan exact replica of the amulet.
Cohl squinted against the glare of the sun off the water. The bottom spoke looked darker than the others and deepera slender rift in the rock.
That would be the entrance.
* * *
Chapter Eighteen
Tess peered into the narrow fissure in the cliff. Dark. Very, very dark with danger written all over it.
“There’s no way Pitz would be with you on this one.”
Standing next to her with his hands on his hips, Cohl scanned the entrance from top to bottom.
“You’re right about that,” he concurred, clearly distracted. “We’ll have to travel light to squeeze through.”
He turned his head and his golden eyes met hers. For a steamy moment, she knew precisely what he was thinking. No more than thirty minutes ago, they had mated in the water like howling beasts. The aftershocks still skittered through her nerve endings. He’d ravished her completely, possessing her down to her very soul. God help her when this was all over. She would never feel this alive again.
Cohl broke the brief, charged connection and dropped to his knees next to his pack. Out came anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, leaving only the bare tools of his trade and a few other essentials like water. She noted the medical kit also stayed. He took her pack and did the same, handing it back considerably lighter. Then he produced the two familiar little lightballs and tossed them up into flight.
Tess smiled as hers zipped over to her. “Hi, Tink. Nice to see you again.”
Cohl stood and laughed. The laugh died and he just stared at her intently with those golden eyes that she loved so much.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. For a split second, she thought he was going to say something. Instead, he shook his head as if to clear it and said, “Follow me.”
Dragging the pack behind him, he slipped through the narrow fissure. Tess went next, dragging her pack. The brilliant morning light outside disappeared into a jagged sliver behind her while Tink shone a beam of light into the terminal darkness ahead.
Once through the fissure, Tess stepped out into a rudimentary tunnel hand-hewed from solid rock, the chip marks and gouges prominent. She took a deep breath. The air was fresh, clean, cool. Not what she expected. They donned their packs and Cohl went first. Moving slowly with his laser pistol leading, he stooped in deference to the low ceilings.
Tess couldn’t help grinning as she walked tall. “The Demisians must have been a little on the short side.”
He threw her a quick smile. “Luckily, I’m partial to short people these days.”
Rounding a corner, she slowed when she heard the howl of the wind. It grew louder and more intense with every step until the tunnel ended where a narrow cavern cut across their path. On the other side of the ten-foot-wide cavern stood a massive solid stone wall rising straight up into the darkness. The space between the end of their tunnel and the sheer face of the wall raged and wailed with a horizontal wind of a terrifying magnitude.
Tess covered her ears with her hands but the vibration and roar were still unbearable.
Over the din, she yelled, “Did they build this?”
Cohl shook his head. “Probably a natural formation in the cliff.”
He snagged his lightball, manually pointing the beam straight ahead and up the rock face to a roughly cut doorway five stories above them.
Tess pointed to the opening and shouted, “We have to go up there?”
Cohl nodded and from his pack pulled out a white square package that she had seen before in the VirtuWav. He tossed it out the end of their tunnel and into the wind. It disappeared out of sight so fast that Tess could only gape. They’d be pummeled to death in that wind. She turned to Cohl, who was looking up the length of the wall and frowning.
“How are we going to do this?” she yelled.
Cohl was silent for a long time, scrutinizing the wall with his lightball. Finally he reached into the pack and withdrew a stubby metal cannon, a foot in length and downright nasty looking. Then he retrieved two body harnesses from the pack, handed one to Tess, and donned his own.
While Tess snapped into her harness, Cohl picked up the short cannon, checked the settings, and hefted it onto his shoulder. A laser beam shot out the end and bore into the base of the wall on the opposite side, carving a perfect hole. He slowly raised the beam in a straight line toward the doorway high above. The laser continued to eat a two-foot-wide, two-foot-deep swath through the stone as if it were butter.
Within minutes, he was done. Tess looked over his shoulder at the vertical ditch he’d just cut into the rock, straight up to the doorway. He smiled at her and reached into the bag.
This time he retrieved a pistol with a grapple hook on the end. He aimed it into the wind and to the left of the new ditch and pulled the trigger. The grapple sang out, caught in the wind, and struck the ditch dead center directly in front of them. The cable sagged hard but Cohl held the pistol handle firmly.
“Nice shot,” Tess whispered.
Cohl clipped their two harnesses together and then to the attachment on the end of the pistol. Then he snagged the two lightballs and stuffed them into his pack. In the pitch-dark, he shouted, “Hold on to me.”
“May the Force be with us,” she mumbled as she closed her eyes and gripped him tightly around the waist.
He activated the controls on the pistol and they were sucked at once into the torrential wind. Tess screamed as the wind hurled them against the far wall. She heard Cohl’s painful grunt when his back struck the rock wall hard and her body slammed into his. The cable snapped tight. She buried her head into his chest against the pounding wind. Several moments passed before she realized they were being dragged slowly, steadily back toward the newly cut ditch.
After what seemed like eternity, Cohl drew her into the recessed ditch with him. He wrapped his arms around her and told her, “All clear.”
Tess’s eyes snapped open. The space around them was illuminated once again by the pair of lightballs. Enough for her to see that Cohl’s head was back and his eyes were closed.
“Cohl?” she shouted over the wind roaring behind her.
His eyes opened slowly. “I’m all right. Just need a minute to get my breath back.” He was already looking up. Tess followed his gaze to the ceiling above the doorway.
He grinned at her. “Now comes the easy part.”
“You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that,” she said.
Cohl withdrew the grapple hook from the rock and aimed it at the ceiling. It hit and stuck with a solid thwap. He clipped their harnesses to the pistol and they shot into the air with a jolt.
Tess winced every time his shoulder struck the ditch as he shielded her. Seconds later, they were above the wind inside the safety of another tunnel.
Cohl released them from the grapple and stuffed the pistol in the pack. “Leave your harness on. We might use them again.”
When he turned toward the corridor, Tess saw the bloody and battered skin on his shoulder.
“Cohl,” she gasped.
He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “It’s fine. Nothing serious.”
Tess squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about the next time he does this. When she opened her eyes, he had already disappeared into the tunnel. She tagged along behind him, silent and worried, knowing he would never give this up before it killed him.
She nearly bumped into his still body. The grinding noise got her attention next. She peered around his big frame and saw why he had halted. The corridor had turned into a round, stone tunnel at least thirty feet in length and spinning at an ungodly rate.
Cohl tossed another square packet into the tunnel. It dropped to the bottom, then was sucked against the tunnel wall, becoming no more than a blur of a line.
“Good Lord,” she gasped.
“Ah, this one is too easy,” Cohl commented. He took from his pack the double grapple device she had seen before in the VirtuWav. Cohl extended the body and positioned the device so that one end pointed down the spinning tunnel and the other was aimed at the wall behind them. In a flash, the grapple hooks shot out. The first one stuck to the wall behind them. The other one hurtled down the tunnel. Tess heard the smack as it hit something solid on the other side.
The cable snapped tight. Cohl peered down the length of the cable to the far end. “Perfect.” He grinned. “I’ll go first, then send the unit back to you.”
Cohl attached his harness to the grapple device and swung beneath it. “Just like in the VirtuWav, Tess.”
He disappeared into the tunnel. She watched him slide through the center and emerge from the other end. He detached and shoved the club back toward her. It whirred back through the tunnel until she caught it in her hands.
“Come on, Tess. You can do it.” Cohl’s shout came through the grinding tunnel.
She muttered a few choice words about her present state of mind as she hooked up to the unit and let her weight drop below it. With her legs wrapped tight around the club, she activated the motor. It jerked her at breakneck speed. Her scream echoed inside the tunnel as it spun crazily around her. Tink zipped along happily behind her.
Cohl caught her in his arms. Her hair flew everywhere. She tried to make some order with it and finally gave up. Adventuring wasn’t for wimps.
“Trap number two down, right?” she asked.
He nodded, looking down the tunnel. “Number three is the narrow path through the mist of beasts.”
Tess grimaced. Beasts. Maybe they’d get lucky and run into Tribbles or something equally benign.
“What kind of beasts?”
Cohl shook his head. “No idea. Doesn’t matter. I’m sure they aren’t going to be friendly.” His eyes met hers. “Just so you don’t say I didn’t tell you.”
“So much for the Tribbles theory,” she muttered as he started down the dark corridor in front of her. It seemed longer this time and Tess was beginning to think there might be a mistake when she heard them. Not the growls she expected but something else, like nails on a chalkboard.
The tunnel opened to a cavernous chamber with a dropped floor of swirling, white mist. The mist parted in waves as some thing moved beneath it. The beasts.
A single, narrow beam forged of stone spanned the forty-plus feet to a small landing on the other side. The walls were sheer, slick with condensation, and scarred with deep gouges. Tess’s lightball illuminated a single, sicklelike claw as it emerged and left a new mark in the stone.
Tiny squeaks emanated from the ceiling and, with great dread, Tess looked upward at little eel-like creatures clinging and moving along it. One of them dropped into the mist below. Tess screamed as the beasts below roared and the mist boiled where the doomed creature had landed.
“Damn,” Cohl muttered. “That’s not good.”
He retrieved a sacrificial packet and carefully tossed it on top of the foot-wide beam that ran the length of the chamber. At first, nothing happened. Then claws began rising out of the mist and the packet disappeared with them.
Tess stared at the place where the packet had been. “I certainly hope you have a plan here.”
Cohl adjusted his pack, his expression grim. “Sure do. We run as fast as we can to the other side.”
Tess gaped at him. “You are kidding, right? Didn’t you see what happened to that poor little packet?”
“I noticed. I also noticed that it took those beasts a while to locate it. So we don’t want to stand in one place too long.”
Tess took a step back, shaking her head. “I can’t do it, Cohl. What if they get me? What if they drag me down there?” She pointed into the mist.
Cohl’s expression turned serious. “Then I’ll go in and get you out.”
For a long minute, they just looked at each other. She knew he meant every word. He would follow her in.
“You don’t have to do that for me,” she finally managed.
“I got you into this,” he said firmly. “I’ll make damn sure you live through it.”
Tess gazed over the mist to the other side of the chamber and took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”
Cohl withdrew a small palm-sized disk out of the pack.
Tess frowned. “What is that?”
“Low-level concussion charge.” He smiled at her confused expression. “I’m going to knock down all that bait up there.” He pointed to the ceiling.
“Bait?”
Cohl handed her a laser pistol and a set of earplugs. “Sorry but yes. That should keep a few of these beasts busy. You go first. Shoot anything that gets in your way but try not to take out our bridge. I’ll be right behind you. Just run as fast as you can and watch your footing.”
Tess turned to face the narrow beam and closed her eyes. Sharp claws scratched the stone around her.
“Ready?” Cohl whispered in her ear. She nodded.
“Start running when you hear the bang,” he said.
She opened her eyes and raised her pistol. The disk flew over her head and dropped into the mist, and the entire chamber shook violently. Even with the protection of the earplugs, her ears rang. Thousands of creatures screamed and rained from the ceiling as she took off across the beam on a dead run. Tiny eels littered the beam in front of her and snagged in her hair. The mist began to boil and hideous shrieks echoed throughout the chamber.
Tess saw a claw rise above the mist ahead of her and fired. There was a shrill scream and liquid squirted from the claw as it snapped back. She could feel Cohl running behind her and see his laser shots light up grotesque shadows below them.
She reached the other side and spun around to cover Cohl. He was about ten feet away when a claw caught his ankle, nearly knocking him down. Tess raised her weapon and poured a stream of laserfire into the claw and the beast attached to it. Cohl stumbled, recovered, and leaped the remaining distance until he collapsed on the safety of the landing next to her.
He rolled onto his back with a long hiss. Tess dropped to her knees and checked his ankle. The skin was sliced neatly and bleeding profusely.
“Bastards,” he growled and withdrew a palm-sized bandage from the pack. He slapped it over the wound, stopping the bleeding and starting the healing process.
Tess just stared while he stood up, adjusted his pack, and hobbled down the tunnel as if nothing happened. Realizing she wasn’t following him, he turned to face her. “Coming?”
Tess nodded numbly and got to her feet. His life, his choice. She just could not bear it. But she knew she would relive today. Every day of every year for the rest of her life, she would think about him in these caves and caverns. Wonder when it would happen. That final miscalculation.
Cohl limped back for her as she stood, stuck in her thoughts and unable to move forward. He wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face in his shirt.
“One more to go, Earth girl.”
She nodded. “I’m all right. Tell me about the last one.”
“Guardians stand watch to lead astray,” he recited.
She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him. “What the heck does that mean?”
Cohl shrugged and gave her a little smile. “I have no idea. We’ll find out when we get there.” He linked their fingers and drew her behind him.
They walked for quite a distance and then the tunnel abruptly ended at a set of stone steps that led up to a dark opening above them. Cohl slowed as they approached the steps.
“I’ll go first. Come up when I whistle.”
He scanned the steps over carefully and then with his weapon high, made his way slowly up into the unknown space above. Tess brushed the hair from her face and a tiny eel dropped out. She quickly checked for more. Cohl’s whistle was a welcome sound and she raced up the steps. This couldn’t get much worse.
That’s what she thought until she looked around to find an army staring back at her. It was another chamber, this one massive and filled with thousands upon thousands of robed stone figures, lined up in close formation and facing in one direction.
“Guardians?” Tess asked in awe.
“Apparently,” Cohl replied as he opened his pack.
Tess stepped to his side. “They look harmless enough.”
“Yes, they do. That’s what worries me.”
Tess had a terrible thought. “They aren’t going to come to life or anything, are they?”
Cohl replied, “I sure as hell hope not. We’re outnumbered about a thousand to two.”
Surveying the statues, near and far, lit only by the two lightballs, she suddenly felt trapped. The statues were so tall and the room so large that it was like standing in a cornfield on a moonless night.
She licked her dry lips. “So, where to?”
Cohl answered, “According to the file, the amulet is housed in a room somewhere off this chamber. We need to locate that room.”
She looked up at the towering statues and the blackness that surrounded them.
“How?”
“With technology.”
Tess blinked at the bleep, bleep sound of the SAMA.
Cohl began scanning the massive chamber. “I’m not picking up anything unusual.”
“Relatively speaking,” Tess muttered.
Cohl chuckled. “Let me be more specific. No chemical compounds that can kill us. Nothing alive. No movement. The room is roughly circular. I’m scanning for a deviation.”
He stopped the SAMA in one direction. “Found it. That way. Just stick close to me.”
