What followed took no more than twenty breaths, but for Nua, it seemed to go on forever. She ran to the door at a breakneck pace, her muscles burning, ether filling her body like an infusion of pepper sauce. Behind her, she heard the stones hit the ground. Then, a muffled cry. Lykomedes, she realized. The glass was crunching under her feet.
Finally, she reached the door. Her vision swam. She let her hands rest on her knees and took a deep breath. Then, she forced herself to look back.
The mercenaries were closing in. Oswald half-carried Lykomedes, the Mycean warrior’s left arm hanging limp at his side. Others made it without larger injuries. In the back, the chamber was in the process of folding like a house of cards; a stone apocalypse in the making. The tremors carried. If the floor was unstable, they didn’t have much time to get away from their source. At the most, a quarter of an hourglass before the ceiling gives up.
Nua looked ahead. She could not see much, since no etheric lamps were active nearby. It was too far from the other side even for her sensitive eyes.
“Anki, talk to me. We need to get out of here. You said that the floor is unstable, but I can’t see a thing.”
“Look here,” the king’s ethereal shape hung at her eyes’ level. “There is an emergency light circuit you could power, and one of the switches is right above your head.”
Nua nodded. She did not care if anyone sees her using sorcery anymore. Maybe she could chalk it out to the medallion’s power later, but right now it was not something to be concerned with; survival came first. Following Anki’s guidance, she found a small, oblong shape surrounded by metallic inscriptions, and she reached for the ether.
In the next moment, the whole corridor came alight with an array of reddish magic lamps. Nua heard a few surprised curses.
“I, uh, I found something.” Her words were drowning in the noise of falling boulders, but with the whole party huddled in one spot, she was heard.
“Desert demons, kid!” Zaina shouted. “That was profoundly stupid! What if it was a trap? I have a proper oil lamp to use.”
“We’ll argue later,” Raya brushed her off. She squinted at the lights as if trying to analyze them. “Right now have another problem at hand.”
She gestured to the chamber.
“So, what was that about the ropes?”
Nua took in the surroundings.
Earlier, she had noticed that this door was different from the others they’d passed. Instead of retracting into the ceiling, it had two leaves that seemed to open in both directions, judging from the angles they were blocked at. Each leaf had a wide horizontal handle and a glass window, now broken. The corridor also varied from the others. It was much wider, and there was a railing along the floor, probably designed for carts of some sort.
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She could see a similar door on the other side. It was also apparent that the stone floor was cracked, crumbled, and half collapsed. In the middle, it seemed to hang on the railing; both sides have fallen in. Nua was relieved that she was correct and that the rope would be enough to cross the whole section.
The walls trembled again, and she held back an impulse to run and leave the party behind her.
“Tie two of them to the door, it seems stable enough,” she said. “And I’ll fix them at the other side.”
Zaina shook her head.
“I should be the one to do that. I don’t even know if you can tie proper knots.”
Another boulder exploded behind them. The floor shook. Nua looked at the stones detaching from the railing, then back at her companions. Then she swallowed.
“I’m the lightest. I’m the only one that can cross. I’ll do my best; you go right after me and correct my work.”
She didn’t even finish talking before the thin, firm silken rope landed in her hands.
“Fix that to your belt,” Oswald said. “Raya, get the harness, yours, and the spare one. Quintus, you pull Raya; I’ll transport Lykomedes. Everyone’s gotta do what they gotta do.”
“Do you want me to send the Muses?” Quintus hung his shield on his back and now he was fastening the cord that kept it from moving. Nua noticed that his calf was still bleeding.
“Save the ether,” the warrior grumbled. “You might need it for later.”
“Actually…” Quintus started, pointedly looking at Nua, but then he waved his hand. “Never mind. We’ll talk after we go through it. How is Lykomedes?”
The warrior, who was sitting propped against the door, said something but his voice was too faint to discern the words. Except for him, everyone was almost shouting.
“He’ll manage,” translated Quintus. “Nua, go!”
She nodded, her whole body suddenly heavy as if made of lead. “I am doing it again,” she thought. “I am putting myself in danger, scouting in an ancient temple, so the others can survive. But this time, it’s my choice.”
She took a deep breath, filled her limbs with power, and then started running forward. Golden-red light glowing all around her, she channeled the jumping Technique. She felt the chilly air on her skin as she followed the complex pattern remembered by the ether, and her feet found stable stones as if on their own. Faintly, she registered pebbles falling and the metallic railing creaking, but in a few jumps, she was at the other side, facing an identical door. When it came to tying the ropes, she had plenty of choices; the railing on the floor was less damaged, and there was also more metal scaffolding; some sort of a ladder, several handles, and a large metal box fixed to the wall.
Not too long after, the party traversed the chasm using an improvised bridge, transporting Lykomedes and Raya secured in a harness. The last one to cross was Oswald. According to Anki, the room ahead was empty, used only as a stop for the medical carts, so Nua just went through the door, then plopped on the cold stone floor. The party stumbled in.
In the chamber they came from, the apocalypse unfolded, and slight trembling, like distant thunder, permeated the walls.
She could feel her companions’ cautious gazes. No one was talking just yet. After the mercenaries fled certain death by stoning, they needed to unwind. There were injured to be taken care of, especially Lykomedes, who was pale as a sheet of parchment and barely conscious.
Questions would inevitably follow. And Nua had her own set to direct at Anki. If the secrets had to be revealed – at least partially - his was endangering them the most. She had a suspicion about his true goal underground. The idea was faint and barely formulated, but once it surfaced, Nua could not help but notice that everything so far fit the picture.
If she was right, they were very, very close.