Brian Pratt - Trail of the Gods

“Just keep going,” says James. “I think there will be another stairway leading off the room at the end.”

“Now how do you know that?” Aleya asks.

James shrugs and says, “Just sounds reasonable. It’s how I would have done it.”

She shakes her head and continues following Jiron.

Sure enough, they pass two more right hand branching corridors and come to the fourth ‘anchor’ room. This one is completely bare. Across the room from where they enter lies the stairway James foretold.

Aleya looks back at him and he gives her a grin. “Always trust his instincts,” Jiron says.

“I can see that,” she says.

Moving across the room, Jiron takes the stairs and they wind up to the next level. When they reach the top, James says, “Wait!”

The others stop as they turn their attention to him. “Do you feel that?” he asks. He holds his hand out in front of him as a smile comes to his face.

“A breeze!” Jiron exclaims. “That means a way out!”

“Exactly,” agrees James, nodding his head.

The light from the orb shows the room to be just like the ‘anchor’ rooms from down below, only this one has but a single corridor running off to the right. Several faded and tattered tapestries adorn the walls.

Not taking the time to closely inspect them, they cross the room and enter the corridor. Jiron leads them down fifty feet before it branches, with passages going either to the right or continuing straight ahead. He pauses a moment until he determines the breeze is originating from the corridor to the right. Pointing to that passage, he glances back at the others and says, “It’s coming from this direction.”

James nods and says, “Lead on.”

Turning down the right corridor, he continues fifty feet or so before coming across an area of the corridor which has been blackened by fire. Three skeletons lie in the middle of the floor, all are wearing what at one time could have been an exact match to the robes found in the room below.

Coming to a stop, James examines them a moment and then takes a good look at the corridor itself. “It looks like fire killed them, but there’s nothing here to burn,” he says.

“Magic?” suggests Jiron.

“Maybe,” he says. “A temple such as this had to have made its share of enemies, I’m sure.”

“What, you think the priests were eradicated by someone?” asks Aleya.

“Possibly,” reasons James. “It’s the only explanation which seems to fit.” A glint from the midst of the three corpses catches his eye and he leans forward for a closer look.

“What are you doing?” asks Aleya nervously. Her nerves have been on edge ever since they first entered this place and being around the dead priests hasn’t calmed them down any.

Taking out his knife, he begins moving the rags and bones away, “There’s something here.”

“You shouldn’t disturb the dead,” she warns. “It isn’t good.”

James suddenly stands up with a chain dangling from the point of his knife. An amulet is attached to one end of it.

Coming closer to take a better look at what he found, Jiron suddenly gasps when the face of the medallion comes into the light. He glances to James.

“I thought so,” he says. Holding it up, they all see the three points with the lines running between them. “The sign of the warrior priests, or at least something to do with them.”

Taking it from his knife, he takes a closer look and says, “I once had an amulet exactly like this one that I bought from a merchant in Cardri.” Removing it from his knife, he places it within the pouch at his waist. “I’ll not lose this so readily this time,” he announces.

“Why take it?” asks Aleya.

“Never know if it’s going to come in handy or not,” he tells her. To Jiron he says, “Now, shall we continue?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Let’s get out of here!”

As they continue past the dead priests, Aleya says, “You know, if that is the sign of these priest, why didn’t everyone have them?”

“Maybe it was only given to a priest once they achieved a certain level of the temple hierarchy,” suggests James. “Simply having one may have afforded them some privilege or it could’ve been a sign of rank or trust as well. We may never find out conclusively.”

The tingling sensation of another doing magic suddenly comes to James. It isn’t very strong and it feels like it’s far off, probably the mage up on the surface hunting for them. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t mention it to the others, he can tell Aleya remains quite agitated about being in here. No sense giving her more to worry about when nothing can be done about it anyway.

They come to another junction of converging corridors branching off to the right and left, or they can continue on straight. Shining the light from the orb down the left corridor reveals another impassable cave-in. To the right the corridor extends further into the dark, as does the one continuing on straight.

A moment’s hesitation is all they need before feeling the breeze once again coming from straight ahead of them. Not worrying about the corridor to their right, they continue on down the corridor ahead of them.

From where Jiron leads, he suddenly says, “I think there’s light coming from up ahead.” Glancing back at James he adds, “Douse the orb.”

“Right,” agrees James as the orb disappears, plunging them into darkness. It takes their eyes a few moments to adjust before they can make out the faint light from up ahead that caught Jiron’s eye.

As they move closer, their excitement mounts as they realize it is in fact sunlight coming in from the outside. The corridor is blocked by a cave-in except for a small opening near the top.

Jiron climbs the rubble pile and looks through the opening. Turning back, he whispers excitedly, “I see trees out there!”

“Can you make the hole bigger?” asks Aleya, anxious to get out of the underground temple.

“I think so,” he replies. Soon rubble begins to cascade down from the top as he begins widening the opening.

“Jiron,” James suddenly says, interrupting his excavation.

Glancing back at him, Jiron pauses in his labor and asks, “What?”

“Maybe we should rest here until night and continue this once the sun goes down,” he suggests. “Then we could get out without anyone noticing.”

Aleya gets a panicked look in her eyes at the prospect of spending any more time in this old temple which is now more of a tomb.

James lays his hand on her shoulder as he says soothingly, “We’ll be okay. We’re right next to the opening.” He can tell she has a strong desire to simply get out of here, but her expression begins to soften as she realizes the logic of his suggestion.

Nodding, she says, “I guess we could all do with a rest before trying to reach Kern.”

“That’s the spirit,” he says, giving her a big smile.

As Jiron comes down from the top of the pile, he says, “If it hadn’t been for all we’ve already come through, I wouldn’t want to stay down here either.”

“You’ve seen worse?” she asks.

“Oh yeah,” he says, coming close and sitting down next to her. “I’ll tell you about it sometime when your imagination won’t run away with you.”

“That bad, huh?” she asks, unconsciously scooting slightly closer to Jiron.

“Oh man, yes,” he says with a laugh. “You get into interesting situations if you stay long enough with James.”

They sit down along the sides of the corridor and break out what little rations they have left. Most of what they had from last night is still on their horses. James sits along the wall on one side of the corridor while Jiron and Aleya sit on the other.

“I’ll take first watch,” offers Jiron after everyone’s done eating. “You two try to get some sleep.”