Lazarus Rising

1.27 The Dreaming Warriors

After a day's hike the group sat on a ledge high upon a sheer cliff. Below them they could see the cracks that marked the fissures in the labyrinthe streaking out over the desert floor like the writhing snakes on a Medusa's head. On the far horizon, starkly reflective in the midday sun the old Martian wreck which marked their journeys start, shone in the sun's reflective glory, a mirrored colossus radiating a shifting fractural pattern of rays across the sky in a pulsating display of coloured light. Under this watchful solar eye, the desert surface drifted in a mirage of shifting sands, whipped across the wasteland by the impatient, acrid winds.

Jamek wiped the perspiration from his brow with his sleeve and tugged irritatingly at the tentacles of the creature that clung to his face. They'd spent three hours scaling the cliff, exhausting for Jamek, but less so for Charisa who, even with Cheyenne in her arms had raced ahead him with Runf and the others. A number of times Lazarus had dropped back to help him. "You need one of these!" he'd shouted above the wind, pounding his chest indicating the energy cell within and throwing out a welcome hand to haul Jamek over a rock or crevice.

At the entrance to the cavern behind him, Runf was checking Cheyenne. She sat propped up in Charisa's arms, head rolled back, eyes half open, breathing shallow gasps that Jamek found painful to watch.

"We'll make it –just." muttered Runf. "We need to go now though. Sorry not much time to recover Jamek, how are you feeling?"

"I'm OK," Jamek unlocked his aching limbs, kneaded his upper thighs with the balls of his hands and rolled on to his feet.

"There, do you see?" Runf pointed to a marker high up on the cave wall. "You can make it out despite that fact it was carved there aeons ago." Like a runic inscription the elegant Martian script etched into the rock just inside the cave had become visible to them now they sat in its entrance. "It's is a marker to the entrance to the City. You can see why it's been lost for so long. The Noctus Labyrinthus has a reputation for containing an old evil, possibly due to the ancient Martian catacombs down there. That stops missionaries exploring this region and has kept the city shrouded from prying eyes. Come let's go, it will still take us time to get to the temple."

Runf drew a battered glo-globe from under his robe and shook it into life, as he entered the mouth of the cave he tossed it in his hands and it broke into an intense light. They fell in behind him into the tunnel and quickly the light from the entrance dimmed and disappeared.

They walked in silence, Runf at their lead followed by Charisa, Lazarus and Jamek. The other two of Runf's men walked behind Jamek, put there, Jamek suspected to make sure he did not drop behind and fall prey to the deathly darkness.

Soon the rough surface of the wall began to change. They smoothed and flattened, a horizontal roof and flat vertical walls appeared, obviously signs of the rock having been worked on. A few pillars revealed themselves to the light, topped with lintels carved out of the rock itself. More appeared, with increasing intricacy in their designs, woven with plant stems and topped with images of the sun and the stars.

Suddenly they came upon a series of grotesque mask carvings, exquisitely detailed, as tall as Runf, cut into the cave walls. Their searching eyes, filled with radiant jewels, caught the inflection of the glo-globe's light, the pupils eerily growing and shrinking as they passed. Were they caricatures of the race that had lived here? "Is that them?" Jamek shuddered.

"Not the faces of the Martians," Runf's soft tones echoed back to him. "More like tribal masks, you'll get a better idea when we get inside."

Under the gaze of a thousand eyes they continued their interminable trudge down a gentle incline, until suddenly the tunnel opened up and they broke free and walked out into the warmth of the sun.