Dark Destiny

Chapter 15 - Captured

CHAPTER 15--CAPTURED

Jeremiah can feel the cold barrel of the shotgun against his back as he is led into an ornately-decorated tent. It is by far the largest tent in the encampment, its off-white color contrasting with the dark mountains in the distance. Around the edges of the tent's entrance, a pattern of thorns runs along the sides of the doorway, both horizontally and vertically, with single gold pedals at even intervals. The other tents, by comparison, are drab and colorless, having the standard tan hue.

His feet crunch, falling against withered thistles lying on the cold, hard ground, as he makes his way towards the "door" of the tent. Two large guards, dressed in ancient Mesopotamian garb, pull away from the tent entrance, allowing Jeremiah and Althea to enter the covering without any further incident, each one pulling back the long spears that they had crossed against the entrance door mere moments prior to Jeremiah's arrival.

When Jeremiah and Althea have entered the tent, the guards immediately resume their places in front of the tent entrance, preventing Ace, Sammy, and Tommy from likewise going through the tent entrance, and into the tent.

"Hey, what's going on?!" Ace asks defensively. "Don't tell me we came all this way only to be shunned by the lunatic-in-chief around here?!" He looks over at Sammy, shrugging his shoulders. "I guess we just aren't important enough to go in there, Sammy. I hope Jeremiah takes pictures for us."

"I'm sure he'll do everything he can to make it memorable for us," Sammy replies, stooping down behind Ace, appearing to brush dirt from the knees of his pants, even as he drops a small round object, letting it roll away from the tent, coming to rest about twenty feet away. He smiles back at Ace. "We'll try to do the same out here."

"There can be no doubt," Tom comments, looking at his equipment, as a status bar rises to the top, a red light flashing amid the green and yellow flickering lights in the row beneath. "The tablets are here. This is the epicenter of the phenomena that we've been chasing since this all started."

"I don't know about you, Sammy," Ace comments, with a mocking smile, as the guards occasionally look his way, keeping their ground, "but I'm looking forward to a return to civilization. It's kind of dull out here in the wilderness."

"Oh, I suspect things will pick up pretty soon," Sammy responds, getting to his feet once again.

"These are the prisoners that Emperor Fahd requested," the guard behind Jeremiah explains, walking through the tent entrance, where he is greeted immediately by two large guards, dressed in ancient Mesopotamian warrior garb. They are wearing metal helmets, but otherwise have shawls and mid-shin-high strapped sandals. The two large guards merely nod in understanding, holding onto their respective spears, which have at their base ceremonial bull heads made from fine ivory. The spears are long. Held up straight, they reach over the heads of these men, who each stand over six feet in height. They utter no verbal response. "The emperor is eager to meet them."

Jeremiah pulls aside the flap of the entrance doorway, stooping down slightly to enter the large tent. As he does so, he sees other etchings on the outer canvas of the tent, including ancient Mesopotamian writing and other symbols of authority from that long-forgotten language. As he enters the doorway, he resumes his normal posture on the other side, even as the guard stays behind him, with his gun still trained against his back. Once inside the tent, Jeremiah immediately takes in his surroundings. He is greeted by the site of a number of idols, most of which are elevated, located on a raised bar-like surface midway through the tent, lined up. These idols, of different Mesopotamian gods, are carved mostly of wood; but there are also two stone carvings on either side, creating a bookend of sorts for the other idols. The center idol, the largest of the carved wooden idols, is an image of Baal.