James Axler – Demons of Eden

Chapter Thirty-One

Their path took them along the edge of a jagged rock wall on their right, but on their left was an unplumbed darkness dropping to inconceivable depths.

J.B. peered into the abyss, muttering, “Kind of makes you want to spit, doesn’t it?” Then he stiffened. “I can see some kind of light down there.”

Ryan and others moved cautiously to the edge and gazed into the dark void. A faint greenish glow filtered from far beneath, flickering in a rapid, almost hypnotic rhythm.

“That must be the source of the light,” Mildred said.

“Light in here is blue,” Jak argued. “That green.”

She shrugged. “See that strobing pattern? Any light source pulsing at a high speed is red-shifted on the electromagnetic spectrum. Blue becomes green, yellow becomes orange, green becomes yellow.”

J.B. looked at her blankly. “So?”

“So nothing,” she said impatiently. “Let’s go.”

The path wound downward, slanting steeply. The throbbing green glow shone far in the distance. The tunnel debouched to the right, shrinking to only a dozen feet wide. Almost immediately it opened up again into a hollow chamber. Sisoka, still in the lead, came to a jarring halt and cried out something in her language.

The chamber was a catacomb, or a vast crypt.

Around them were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of animal and human remains. Most were skeletons; others appeared to be completely fossilized.

Other skeletons appeared more recent, scattered close to the entranceway. Dozens of skulls bore back-sloping foreheads with barred ridges jutting out over empty eye sockets. All of the skeletons were bare, the flesh that once covered them long ago disintegrated.

“Fireblast,” Ryan breathed.

“Gaia,” Krysty muttered. “This is a cemetery.”

“Or a charnel house,” Mildred whispered.

Ryan turned to Sisoka. “What is this place?”

“Where the First People worshiped the Grandmother and made their sacrifices to Her. Where they came to die.”

J.B. stepped forward, and his foot struck something that rolled noisily. He gazed down at the yellowed human skull that had fallen to pieces at his feet. The teeth grated under his boot.

“We cannot go back,” Doc said. “As disrespectful as it sounds, we must pass across the remains of the departed.”

“Not bother me,” Jak said.

The party moved through the catacomb, trying not to step on bones but finding it almost impossible. The crunch and clatter beneath their feet sounded unnaturally loud.

The farther they walked, the fewer skeletal remains they encountered. The chamber opened up into a vast cavern, a city of stalagmites and stalactites. Towers of multicolored stone disappeared into the darkness above, where flying buttresses and graceful arches of rock stretched overhead.

There were the marks of pick work in the walls, and the light reflected dull yellow gleams. With every step, the floor became more level, as though by design. The green light grew brighter, until it was at the level of twilight on an overcast day. They could see easily now, their vision no longer obscured by the phosphorescent mist. Here and there they saw cavities gaping in the wall and floor and a scattering of crystal shards. They saw petroglyphs painted on the walls, ancient word-pictures in the form of incomprehensible murals.

The sound of their footfalls rebounded and reechoed like the irregular beating of a gargantuan heart. The level floor ended abruptly in a series of stairlike steps, chiseled out of the rock, leading downward through a round orifice. The green glow pulsed from its other side, like brilliant, cool moonlight. Sisoka hesitated, exchanging a quick look with Ryan, then she carefully walked down the steps. Blood-sniffer whined and followed at her heels.

The stairs ended in an enormous chamber, so vast they could only see part of it at one time. It was shaped like an upside-down bowl, with smooth, curving walls. The party stood on a narrow stone walkway encircling the entire circumference of the cavern. They jolted to an unsteady stop, blinking and shaking their heads, trying to absorb the unreality of what they were seeing.

The walls were patterned with thick, sinuous veins of gold and silver. The floor was scattered with heaps of rough nuggets, smoothly finished ingots, as well as bracelets and artfully fashioned figurines. There was a quartz-crystal cluster the size of a child’s head sitting atop a pile of golden pebbles.