Rituals, Regrets, and Really Dumb People

Chapter 13: Ash, Part 1

We loaded into the rafts and rode them across the waters to the pale beaches. I left five cultists and five knights with Jo, Dimitri, and Keith on the ship. We'd need it ready for when we made it back off the island. We didn't know exactly what was going to happen there, be it good or bad. If I had to run with the kid, we'd definitely need a means of hurried escape.

We left on four rafts, ten of us on three of them, and a little under that on the fourth. The Kin were spread out on each boat, equal parts cultist and knight and Penitent, and each one of my crew took lead; Lilly and I were on one boat, Corbin on another, Geraldine on the third, and Thimble on the fourth. Jason took to swimming, much too large to ride the rafts with us, but he was good about keeping speed and pace.

We arrived around ten minutes from when we dropped off the yacht-sized ship. Jason made it about five minutes after that. We all grouped together, checked our mix of arms; blunt weapons, blades, guns, and other various implements. I assured them that force would be necessary here. I had not wanted my traitor cultists to die, but most of what was left was the undead and Typhous and Ishmael. We could not take a chance with them as they would not be so courteous to us. As for Meredith, I wanted her captured.

"And of Meredith?" Lilly asked me. She didn't carry any weapons; she relied on her brute strength and guile as she often did. "What do we do with her?"

I looked at my morning star and thought it over for all of a nanosecond. "Capture her; we'll seek punishment for her when we get back to the island. As for Typhous and Ishmael—don't provoke them. Take out the undead but run from those two."

"Run?" Corbin said. "That's not very inspiring."

"I'll handle Ishmael and Typhous." It was my duty to do so. "I don't want any more dying to them."

All of us turned to look out on the whole of the island, of the ashes scattered around. I took lead and we walked right towards the center. The island's name was apt; the ash had long been undisturbed, scattered about everywhere to make a single white layer. When I reached down to feel it, it was fine like silt, rolling off my fingers and barely leaving a residual dust. It was much like true ash, except it didn't stain.

Deeper in the island, we found the undisturbed cremated corpses that had been in the pictures. Thirty or so years since those pictures, yet the corpses had not crumbled. I noticed that there was little wind on the island, and there was sun shining for miles. What of rain and weather? How did the trees survive without constant rain? Always weird was the world, yet I had no time for philosophical debate or scientific inquiry. I only got one attempt at placating my curiosity, and that was to touch the ashen corpse.

It crumbled into nothingness, into a pile at my feet. There weren't even bone fragments; it was all white ash.

"Master Mathias," Thimble said, interrupting my study of the pile of ash. "Isn't that the building you saw in the pictures?"

The building was to the right of me, to the north I think it was. It stood as a one-story, one door little shack, almost blending in with the ash that covered the non-tropical trees and ground. I wandered over towards it, far enough ahead that it required some walking through brush to get to.

When we all got to it, we found the doors were left wide open; the machinery that worked the doors—ones that slid—were jammed. The facility looked both brand new in its material, yet it was deceptively out of order. The door's gears were grinding together, loud enough to make a humming in the ears. It all felt deceptive; the room was clean and 'in place' on a superficial level.

"This is probably what they were looking for," I said to my forty-or-so soldiers and Kin.

"Should—should I play us battle music?" John Wesley asked. He was so hopeful, holding his brass instrument in anticipation.

"No." I wanted to grab my face and squeeze it so hard it would implode. "No. Let's—not alert them to our presence until we actually get there and fight them. Then you can play your music."

"Oh, okay."

"Follow me."

I stepped in past the doors and looked around the small, single room. In front of me was a set of large doors, three, lining the back wall of the empty lobby. They looked like elevators; was this some sort of facility? Well, we'd soon find out.

"Let's see," I mumbled.

"Is it safe?" Corbin asked, looking around the clean, sleek room of creams and bright lights. It looked like an office's lobby, barring a desk or any sort of chair. "I mean, if this place was made by the Ancients—"

"We don't know that," I replied. "And it looks like the only way is inside." I walked over to the center door and pressed the only button on the wall. As the doors opened and the elevator revealed itself, I found myself staring past its glass walls into the milky white elevator shaft. Why have glass when you couldn't see a thing in here? "Let's go. Line up and get inside."

"Which floor?" Corbin asked, taking the right elevator as Thimble's group took to the left. These elevators were big enough to hold around eight or nine people at a time. "Shouldn't we discuss this before we go?"

I peeked inside and looked at the buttons on the panel. "Don't think we need to; there's only two buttons, and only one is lit up. Going down."

Jason was the last one in make it inside the room, having to essentially crawl inside, and he'd also be the last one on the elevators. He would, at least, have room then. The elevators were quite large, and I could only assume that they were made for groups of people and medium-sized cargo to be brought down.

"I'll see you all at the bottom. Stay grouped, wait for everyone," I told them. "Jason, take the elevator last."

"Are you sure I can make it down there? What if the ceiling is low?" he asked.

"Well, we'll see. If it is, we'll keep you as look out. Think you can punch a few and keep the elevators safe?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't wanna steal all the thunder from you guys."

I gave him a wink and a thumb's up before me, Lil, two cultists, two Kin, a Penitent, and a knight stepped inside. I pressed the button and the elevator doors slowly closed. A light, generic music began humming through the speakers on the lift and finally a voice poured through as we descended downwards.

"Testing, testing," it said at first. It was some nasally, city-sounding woman. Funny that the Ancients had those too. "Is this thing on?" Felt like déjà vu. "Hello, yes, welcome. I hope your trip to the testing facility was a safe and luxurious one."

"Testing facility?" Lilly asked. "Is that what this is?"

"Ah, you know, technical jargon to make something old and barbaric seem grander. They probably thought a set of sacrificial alters was an advanced clinic during those days."

"I—uh—don't think so, Mathias. Look."

I did look. The wall that shielded our sight eventually went away for us to see what they called a facility; it was a whole underground city of sorts. We were heading right down to it.

I went to the back of the elevator and peered out at the vast, lit cavern, of the office buildings and warehouses below. In the center was a grand building, two or three stories tall, marked with luminous obelisks. There were even rockets in the background; some were decayed and ancient while others appeared brand new, right out of a pulp fiction sci-fi novel or magazine. By the Darkness, they really were antique astronauts.

"Welcome to your new home!" the speakers yelled out in a staticky, buzzing cacophony. "Welcome to the future! Testing sight BX-204 is renown for its work in both genetics and astrosciences. Your new life here will be to help ascribe the future for the planet—and beyond! Ond. Ond. Ond."

"What the hell is astroscience?" I asked.

"You know—astro—science. Space stuff," Lilly said.

"Wait—did she say genetics too?"

"Yeah."

That was weird. Did Ishmael need the genetic labs here or did he need the astroscience—thing—stuff. I don't know, we'd find out when we got there. For now, we were heading right down to the 'city of the future.' I guess Jason needn't worry about banging his head on a ceiling now.