Hope in Ruins Book III: The Fountain and the City of Salt

Chapter 28: The Eternal Mother and the General Eternal

ANDA

Ben opened the massive, dark doors. Anda thought they seemed mournful somehow. The hinges silently swung the towering doors wide, revealing a dark and cavernous room. They entered, and Anda caught her breath. The ceiling sloped impossibly high above them in bright and pale stone edged with dark pink borders. Intricate designs soared over them. Before her, at the far end, two ornate chairs like thrones. To her left and right, wide marble stairs descended to darkness. She'd seen those stairs before. In her vision, she'd seen Ben and Mica dead on those stairs.

Before them, at the end of the stone room, high above them, under an arch, stood two golden statues of women holding bright glowing lights. The Aldermans slowly walked into the massive stone room, and their footsteps echoed softly. Anda turned her eyes from the grand ceiling and searched for Loraine and Rufus. There, at the far end of the room, she saw light and movement. As she drew near, she saw kilns. Four kilns stretched out on the marble floor.

Two of the kilns held bodies, pale and shaved and still. One of the others held Loraine and her dark braid coiled over her body like a sleeping snake.

The last held Rufus. His head smooth and bright.

Suddenly light pulsed from the kilns, brighter than Anda had ever seen. The light quickened and strobed into a solid blue-green glow. Anda shielded her eyes and looked away. Movement in the darkness behind her.

Eli.

"Dad!" she cried and ran towards him.

But as he turned to her, she stopped. His face was ruined and sliced and bloodied.

"I'm so... I'm so sorry," he said quietly.

Anda saw that he was at a computer terminal. "What are... what are you doing?" she asked.

Ben and Mica joined her, standing back from Eli. They watched intently, their eyes darting from him to the kilns to the computer terminal.

"They... they found her." Eli hung his head, and his eyes darted to the far corner. Another kiln, dark and cold and still.

Anda approached and saw a woman lying beneath the glass. Years without sunlight had turned her pale. Too long without movement had shriveled her limbs and had eaten away her muscles, leaving her thin and bony. Her cheeks were sunken and hollow. Her paper skin hung on her bones and followed the curve and lines of her face, but Anda knew her. Esther, her mother.

"They were going to kill her. And I had just found her. It had been so long—so many years since I had seen her—and I couldn't let them. I just... I'm not that strong."

"What are you doing to them?" Ben asked and inched closer to the glowing kilns. "Can we destroy them now? While they're in these things? How do you shut them off?" He leaned towards the glowing kilns to find the control panel, shielding his eyes from the bright and glow.

"Or a gun? Anyone have a gun?" Mica asked, looking around wildly.

But the kilns fell dark, leaving flashing afterimages on Anda's eyelids.

The kilns hissed and opened. Ben jumped back, and Mica froze. Steam escaped the dark kilns and filled the air around them, shrouding them in a white-hot cloud. The kilns opened.

"I'm so... I'm so sorry," Eli said again and fell to his knees, hiding his mangled face in his hands.

Mica screamed, and her eyes glowed deep purple-pink like wine, and she flung her hands out. A chair from beside the computer terminals flew through the air towards the kilns. But a white hand shot up from the kiln, tense and fingers bent, and the chair stopped midair. It hovered and spun gently just above the kiln before streaking through the air and smashing into the wall.