ready, Jiron turns to Shorty and Stig. “Thank you for doing this for me.”
“You can pay us back by buying a round at the Squawking Goose,” Shorty tells him.
Jiron pats him on the shoulder, “I don’t know if I’ll have that much money.”
They laugh, a nervous, sad laugh.
“Come on,” he says and heads for the door. Just before he leaves he glances back one more time to his betrothed lying on the bed. “This really is for the best,” he says to himself. Then he leaves the room.
James follows right on his heels with Brother Willim and Miko coming next. After them follows Scar, Potbelly and Shorty. The rest remain within the room.
Down in the darkened street, James glances up to where the dark moon must be rising. The hackles on the back of his neck rise as a shiver runs through him. With Jiron in the lead, they make their way across town until the temple complex comes into sight. Earlier he located a deserted building where they could hide until the time came to make their play.
Once they’ve all entered the building and the door is closed, he moves to the window giving the best view of the entrance to the temple grounds that he plans for them to take. “How are we to know when the rite begins?” he asks.
“Those of us who can sense magic will know,” Brother Willim states.
“I hope so,” he says. “I don’t want to cut this too close.”
“We won’t,” James assures him. “As soon as it begins, we go.”
Jiron nods and continues looking toward the complex. He sees the guard pass whose path takes him by the entrance every ten minutes. According to the way the other guard’s routes lay, two minutes after this guard passes by the entrance is the best time in which to go.
Four times the guard passes by the entrance before James begins to feel an increase in the prickling sensation which comes when magic is being worked nearby. He glances to Brother Willim and sees him nods. “It’s time Jiron,” he tells his friend.
“Okay,” he says from the window. “The guard will pass by again in a couple minutes, then we can move out.” They crowd around the window and look toward the entrance in the outer wall of the temple complex. A few minutes later, the guard appears. “Let’s go,” Jiron says once the guard has passed by the entrance.
“Good luck,” Shorty says before they head out.
Jiron turns to him and pats him on the shoulder. “You too,” he replies. “See you back at The Ranch.” Moving out, he leads them quickly toward the entrance to the temple grounds. This area is deserted, not even animals are present this evening. Almost as if they know something is about to happen.
Upon reaching the opening in the wall, Jiron brings them to a halt while he moves forward and enters the opening. On the far side he sees the back of the guard that had recently passed in front of the opening on his way over to between two of the smaller auxiliary buildings. Once the guard has moved between them, he waves for the others to follow and runs across the grounds. There’s only about a five or six second window before another guard makes his appearance. If they haven’t reached the side of the building directly across from the entrance by the time he does, they’ll be spotted.
No sooner does Miko, who’s the last to reach the building, presses himself against its side than the expected guard makes his appearance further to their right. Emerging from between two of the smaller buildings, he turns and walks along the face of the one to his right. Then he disappears a few seconds later as he rounds the corner and begins working his way back.
Run and wait. Once it’s clear, they run again. Step by step they make it closer to the temple’s entrance. They possibly could have done this without the diagram, but they would have left a wake of dead guards behind them. And with that many gone, it would have been almost impossible for someone not to notice.
Once they’ve made it to the corner of the building directly across from the double doors which are the temple’s entrance, Jiron gathers them close. “A guard will appear in one minute from around the left side,” he explains. “He’ll move across the front of the temple toward the left then turn and go around to the back. Once he disappears around the corner, we have less than a minute to get to those doors and through before two other guards will appear from there,” he says as he points to the building on their right, “and there,” he concludes, pointing behind them.
Waiting there for the guard to appear, James feels the prickling sensation continue to gradually increase. Whatever they are doing entails quite a bit of magic.
Finally the guard makes his appearance. Six pairs of eyes watch him as he turns and crosses in front of the temple. Then, when he reaches the corner and turns to follow the other side of the temple, Jiron says, “Now.”
Even before the guard completely disappears from sight, they are racing across to the doors. Taking the steps two at a time, Jiron reaches the top and pauses before the doors. He turns back and scans the temple grounds. Not seeing anyone else moving about, he takes the handle of the right door. Giving it a slight shove, he begins pushing the door open.
From within the murmur of voices comes to them. It sounds as if many men are chanting. Peering inside, he finds a large room with a vaulted ceiling. Lit torches line the walls at ten foot intervals giving off plenty of light. Besides the way they came in, there are four other exits leading from the room. Two are doors, both of which stand closed. The other two are the beginnings of hallways that extend further into the temple.
Not seeing anyone, they move inside quickly and close the doors.
James begins to pull out the diagram of the temple given to them by the Slavemaster but Jiron shakes his head. “I have it memorized,” he asserts.
“You sure?” asks James.
“Definitely,” replies Jiron. “We take the hallway to the right.” He points to the hallway off to their right that runs along the inside of the outer temple wall.
Glancing to the diagram, James sees that Jiron is indeed correct. “Okay, let’s go,” he says. Moving along the side of the hall, they make for the opening of the hallway. James refers back to the diagram again and sees that the first of the areas with annotations is the room at the end of this hallway.
He shows the diagram and the annotations to Jiron as they reach the hallway. Jiron nods then scans the hallway. The right side has no openings as it’s the temple’s outer wall. The left wall has two openings before they reach the end. At that point the hallway opens up onto the room with the annotations. Just what the annotations mean they have yet to decipher.
Jiron has the others move just within the hallway then wait there while he hurries forward to check the two openings on the left. He moves down to the first one and finds another corridor branching off. Fortunately it’s currently empty. At the second opening he finds a dark room, just an alcove really. Like the corridor before it, it’s empty as well. He then returns back to the branching corridor and makes sure it’s clear before signaling the others to hurry past and join him.
Then with the others following close, he moves down to the end of the hallway. The chanting they heard upon first entering the temple pervades the corridors. It doesn’t sound very close, in fact it’s hard to tell just where it is coming from. One thing’s for sure, it isn’t coming from the room ahead of them.
The room they’re approaching is well lit and they can easily see within it long before they reach it. From their vantage point within the corridor, the room looks deserted. He has the others wait while he moves to the end of the corridor. Peering into the room, he finds it empty.
It’s a room that stretches about forty feet away from the corridor and is close to thirty feet wide. The walls are plain and unadorned. Another corridor exits the room through the wall to their left. In the middle of the room sits a pedestal, roughly four foot high. Sitting upon the top of it is a statue of a bent and gnarled humanoid form. The statue stands two feet in height and its back is to Jiron so he’s unable to get a good look at the face of it from his vantage point.
Other than the corridor wherein he’s standing, the only exit from the room is the corridor to his left. There’s something about this room that bothers him, then realization hits him. He waves for the others to come forward and when they join him he points to the other corridor on the left and says, “I don’t think we are supposed to go that way.”
James brings forth the diagram and looks at it. “You’re right,” he says. “According to this there should be another way directly across from where we’re standing.” He shows the diagram to the others.
“Then that means we know what those annotations on the diagram mean now,” Miko observes. When the others look to him he clarifies, “They probably tell us how to locate and activate a secret door.”
