Journey into the Deep

  The Celestia’s Prize was a dot on the horizon, with any hope of catching her gone as she began to be cloaked by the permanent fog bank that lay offshore. The two whalers heaved to and re-anchored in defeat.

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  The water of the shoreline broke and then sheeted off the form of a man who slogged the rest of the way through the tide pool to reach dry land. Once on the beach the man looked back at the harbor in disarray and laughed throwing his head back to the clouds to let his laughter echo out of his empty soul as he held up the central crystal of the Orlanis Star triumphantly.

  He began to chant out in an old language best left forgotten and the runes carved into the metal surrounding the crystal began to glow.

  Chapter Ten

  Darkness Resisted

  I shook my head trying to clear away the cloudiness even as I tried to get a handle on why I seemed to be swinging. My wrists hurt.

  I glanced up and saw that they were tied to a pole and then glancing down I saw that my ankles were tied to the same poll, hence the swinging motion. The image of a pig being roasted over a fire in this manner came to mind and grimly I acknowledged it as a possibility.

  I think I would’ve preferred being eaten by a sea monster rather than be a sacrificial slaying to some demon inspired deity.

  As I swung back and forth I saw the others being brought along after me in similar fashion. Where were we anyway?

  All the men walking to either side had torches in their hands. The torches weren’t lit yet.

  I suffered through a hard jolt as my carriers started up a series of steps. I craned my head around and saw that we were at the base of a mountain. Make that a volcano on second thought.

  There was a doorway leading into the volcano itself just ahead. It was a very large doorway and it looked to have been purposely built that way.

  Maybe everything hadn’t been destroyed after all. I swallowed hard at the possibilities that could represent. This was bad!

  We were inside and the torches flared up and I saw a glimpse into the grandeur of the past as it lay all around me covered in dust. Sculptures engraved into the basaltic walls of the volcano loomed out at me as my bearers hauled me up yet more stairs.

  The sculptures were of gigantic proportion and I feared they had been modeled off like sized individuals in the distant past thus validating the theory that Atlantis had been a kingdom of giants. Giants endowed with advanced knowledge from their angelic fathers.

  Forbidden knowledge that was not to have been shared with mankind and which had helped lead to the corruption of mankind and creation itself.

  “Oh God help me destroy this place!” I said.

  I heard the laughter again and I glanced to the side to see our former guide keeping pace with me grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

  “There is no God in this place as we reject His authority even as we become like gods ourselves!” He said all smiles.

  “And just how do you plan to become a god?” I asked skeptically giving the man a once over.

  He wasn’t put down by my sarcastic perusal of him, “We will unlock the hidden knowledge and become mighty as man once was before. All we needed was the key, which you have unwittingly supplied us with!” He said on a gleeful note, as he held up the central crystal of the Orlanis Star.

  Something inside of me despaired and he laughed uproariously with relish as we were jerked upward through a scene of man’s past, which would have been better off destroyed and never re-found by anyone.

  A central cavern opened up that was lined with the sculptures of the handiwork of fallen stars, who had wrought evil with mankind.

  I was dumped to the floor and abruptly kicked in the stomach several times. The ropes binding me were cut and I was roughly hauled to my feet and dragged over to a wall, which I was tied to before I’d had much of a chance to resist.

  Regaining my breath I glanced to the side and saw Matt and Jim likewise trussed up further down the wall from me. Where was Christina?

  I looked around wildly in search for her only to see her being dragged kicking and screaming toward a central stone pillar that dominated the cavern. I jerked away from the wall, but I was held back by my restraints.

  I turned my head to the other side to see my chuckling tormentor with the cursed piece of crystal that had somehow followed us here and harshly I said, “If you sacrifice her I swear I’ll kill you!”

  He laughed again, “I have no intention of sacrificing her! That’s what children and useless people like you are for!”

  “What are you going to do with her?” I asked in dread.

  He stepped closer and tapped a finger to my head before glancing at Matt and Jim and saying, “You three are worthless of value, as you have limited yourselves by yoking yourselves to the great dictator of the universe, instead of embracing freedom as we are about to. She however is still free to choose, an open vessel if you will. When we’re done transforming her the first meal she’ll have will be you!”

  He dissolved into insane laughter again and walked away into a group of about a hundred individuals who began to rhythmically dance as they chanted something in a language I did not know and that I wished to never have heard for the dark quality that it lent to the air was a chill to the soul. The dancers twisted and cavorted on the floor of the cavern against each other as they cried out making awful sounds some of which didn’t even sound like a human.

  I did not want to be here in this place to see such incarnate evil of a magnitude that I had never before encountered!

  The place was heavy with darkness as the people before us cried out for more of the oppressive quality that pervaded the space with every passing moment. It even seemed that it was almost hard to get a breath because of a forming dimensional pressure. I felt completely overwhelmed.

  In that moment I prayed to be gifted with the strength of Samson so that I would be able to pull this place down on top of us, but my wrists remained bound to the wall to either side of my head. I saw our chief tormentor press up against Christina where she was tied off to the central pillar.

  “Oh God help her!” I said, as my heart cried out for mercy from this nightmare we had been thrown into.

  Christina screamed and swung away as far as her chain would allow and our former guide continued on across the cavern. He lifted the crystal piece up above his head triumphantly and was greeted by a raucous uproar of those gathered within the cavern as if he was a rock star.

  He mounted the stairs at the other end of the room to a raised dais and reaching out he placed the crystal into a slot that looked like it had been made for it. The walls of the room came alive as runes were highlighted in patterned sequences everywhere the eyes strayed.

  The gathered people screamed out jubilantly, as if a great thing had been revealed, but all I saw was more darkness of thought. I hadn’t known this level of depraved evil even existed, but now I was neck deep in it and I felt powerless to be rid of it.

  There seemed to be no way to redeem the current situation. It felt like hell itself was opening up and spilling its foulness into the lives of those eagerly seeking its influence and control over them.

  The crowd before us began to twist in circles as they moaned and groaned in what sounded like pain and yet to look at their faces as their eyes rolled back into their heads you would’ve thought they were experiencing the greatest pleasure of their lives.

  “This is bad! So bad Eli!”

  Matt’s voice barely registered above the awful din of all the ecstatic screaming going on in the place.

  I turned my head to him and screamed out in impotent fury, “Do you think you have to tell me that? I’ve got eyes!”

  Matt just shook his head, “No, you don’t understand how much worse this is! Remember the message I deciphered on the device that was from Nimrod the first emperor of the world after the flood?”

  “Yes?” I said impatiently.

  “Well when it talks about him it says tha
t he “began to be” mighty before God. The word for it is the same Hebrew word used to describe Goliath and giants in general and the contextual wording of the verse implies immoral sexual rights having been performed according to some Jewish scholars.”

  “You’re saying Nimrod was a giant!” I exclaimed.

  “It’s worse than that. Yes, I believe the Holy Scripture accurately shows that he was a giant, but he started out as a man.”

  I stared at Matt utterly horrified at the possibilities that were leaping to mind. Were all these worshipers of darkness going to become giants?

  Despair filled me as never before and I saw a matching look mirrored in Matt’s eyes.

  “Both of you shut up and listen to me!”

  Somewhat shocked Matt and I looked over to Jim, who was in the most furious bout of anger I’d ever seen him in before.

  “Look at you two! You have the truth of righteousness even now within you and yet all I see is despair and dread in the face of darkness that has already been defeated because of what my Savior did on a cross by offering Himself as a sinless sacrifice for all mankind! This is nothing for our God to overcome! Is not our God the Creator of both man and angel alike? Does He not have power and authority over all life? Where’s your faith in this moment of trial? It is time to do mightily against the enemies of our God who enables us to through His Holy Spirit! It is time to believe and have faith! We have been given the power from on high to bind things on earth and even heaven itself, wherever two or three of us are gathered together in prayer. So let us pray and put fear behind us even as we find out how God will intervene on behalf of us for He is faithful to keep all His promises!”

  I was shaken by how overcome I had allowed myself to become by the parlor show of darkness that was spiraling around me in full action. I knew the truth, but I had allowed myself to be blinded by what I saw and fear had consumed me, when rather I should’ve remembered and had faith as a redeemed child of God should.

  “God is faithful.” I said and Matt said much the same as we accepted the reproof of one more steady in his faith in a time of affliction than we had been in ours.

  I then began to pray in unity of thought and need alongside Matt and Jim. We may be bound and helpless in the physical, but our God was strong and mighty to intercede for us for we had faith, in our Maker.

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  Christina twisted away from the cloying touches that she felt from those pressed around her even as something darker and more invisible assaulted her in an endless barrage of temptation, half-truths, and veiled threats of pain and loss.

  She couldn’t bear it and fell as far as her wrists tied above her head would allow her to as she cried brokenly. She was without hope in this moment that seemed endless. Surely this must be hell!

  A place of no hope and only torment that increased steadily in fervor against her until she felt like she was being roasted alive in hellfire itself. She didn’t want any part of this!

  “Oh Jesus I don’t want this! Please!”

  There was no peace at her words as those around her touched her as they chanted dark things even as they frothed at the mouth losing all the glory of their created form in exchange for a twisted manifestation of the seed of Satan. When had she ever known peace?

  She remembered Jim reading to her. She remembered the Captain’s words. She remembered the unshakable faith of her Aunt. If there was an answer to peace it lay in the faith of the most influential people in her life.

  At the top of her lungs Christina screamed, “Jesus I need you now! I need you! Oh God don’t forsake me, because I believe! I believe!”

  Silence fell over the place as all there turned to snarl as crazed animals at the weeping girl experiencing peace and freely given salvation that swept through her dispelling all darkness’s hold over her body and spirit.

  A roar of rage horrible to hear rent the place with its dark sound as the lead tormentor began to explode upward in height. He rose above the floor until he stood nakedly majestic above all those in the room. He was easily three times the height of the tallest man in the room.

  He strode forward towards the solitary pillar his steps shaking the room. Reaching it his fist snaked out and pulverized the pillar to broken rock. Reaching down then his hand engulfed Christina and he brought her up to eye level.

  The massive mouth set on a face of grotesqueness fell open to reveal double rows of teeth as a demon’s spirit spoke having been given bodily form by a foolish man who had squandered away his priceless soul for a taste of power only to find out it had all been a lie.

  “Foolish girl to deny us inhabitation! Do you not see what I can do to you? It is in my power to crush you! Revoke your vow and join us or I eat you now!”

  The words were terrible to hear in both sound and quality of meaning, but Christina looking mature beyond her years gazed back into the glaring visage before her without fear and said, “if I perish I perish. Do your worst for I have life beyond any power of yours to ever take from me.”

  The giant roared and looked for a moment as if he was about to bite her head off, but instead he pulled his arm back and threw Christina towards the far wall of the cavern as one would chuck a river pebble to see how far out it would land in the pond.

  Christina screamed midflight, but before she made impact with the wall of stone a body stepped between her and the wall.

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  I watched as Jim was hurled back against the wall with the force of catching Christina, as I finished cutting Matt free. Somehow Jim had muscled his way through his bindings grabbed one of my hidden knives sliced my restraints before running over to act as a cushion for Christina as she was lobbed by the giant at the rock wall.

  Matt was free and I ran for the crumpled up pair on the floor of the cavern. Christina was unconscious but alive. I slung her over one shoulder as I tugged upward on a groaning Jim, who looked to be both in pain and out of breath.

  Matt yanked on his other arm and together we had him on his feet. I left him for Matt to help as I turned for the stairway taking them two at a time in my dissent downwards.

  It appeared as if I was abandoning my friends and in a way I was, but I knew they understood my reasoning for doing so. Matt, Jim, and I were all in our early forties. We had lived and experienced life. We’d had our tragedies and our good times, but Christina had only had sixteen years in which to experience life and that by all accounts hadn’t been that good.

  It was more important that Christina live to celebrate her seventeenth birthday than for any of us has-beens to have another year added to our lives. Christina needed to meet a boy, fall in love and have children of her own yet.

  I’d only known her for less than two weeks and yet like Jim I had adopted her as a daughter and I would gladly die if it meant she’d go on living. I was pretty sure Matt felt the same way about things.

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  The group of worshipful hopefuls screamed out in rage at the escape of their prey and made to chase after them when the voice of the giant boomed out over all of them.

  “Leave them! Finish the rite of inhabitation so that you can become strong and mighty even as you see that I am. When we are fully realized in greatness then we shall go out and reclaim Atlantis and feast on the flesh of mankind! Now sing and dance and welcome my brethren into your hearts so that you may be transformed and understand the secret knowledge, with its bountiful pleasures that we have in store for all of you who seek to be gods of and in yourself.”

  The gathered worshipers listened and all those within the room threw themselves into abandon in their desire to achieve what the giant had promised.

  The giant tilted his head back and laughed. The laugh echoed up through channels and cracks until it radiated out loudly from the mouth of the dried up volcano itself. The sound was heard for miles and people everywhere on the island glanced toward the volcano rising above the forest with dread as the sound o
f an ancient predator chilled the marrow of their bones.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Children

  I had a plan. A wild hope, that is, at least.

  I’d had a backup plan prearranged with Flynn. Instead of running back through the forest I dodged down through the ruins toward the beach that was nearby. I thanked God as I saw the small craft bobbing offshore under anchor.

  If we hadn’t come back to the dock in time Flynn was to leave the Celestia’s Prize’s life rafts stationed off of the North, East, West sides of the island. The Celestia’s Prize had two air boats and one six foot dinghy. It was the dinghy I saw offshore bobbing as its white paint gleamed in the orange glow.

  How was I going to reach it with Christina unconscious?

  I was a strong swimmer, but I wasn’t that strong. I heard noise and I turned prepared to defend Christina or risk the swim if need be.

  I relaxed as I saw it was Jim and Matt. Jim didn’t look so good, but he was still moving. Matt looked completely drained of energy in his efforts to help the big Samoan along. I looked beyond them and saw no visible signs of pursuit, which was odd.

  “Aren’t they following you?” I exclaimed out in question.

  Matt shook his head negatively as he was still too out of breath to speak, but Jim mumbled out “I think they’ll want to finish the rite first.”

  He was probably right. I helped steady him as he looked about to fall and Matt helped him to sit down on the sand and then I laid Christina down so that her head was resting on his lap.

  “You guys stay here. I’ll swim out and bring the boat in close.”

  I left running into the surf, until I had to swim for it. It had been one never-ending adventure ever since we’d landed in this inner world and I was tired, but the prospect of my friends being eaten on the beach by giants had me swimming for the dinghy in record fashion.

  Reaching it I barely had the energy to pull myself up and over its high side. I fell into the boat cracking my head painfully off the bottom.