The Altar Chamber


We climbed upwards into the next chamber, which was vast, proceeding up beyond the sweep of our lights. The ceiling rose fifty feet or more, and the floor was slippery with the slime of algae. The room was dominated by a large altar, behind which we had just emerged, and the walls were lined with hideous winged statues exactly like the one I had seen in one of Stroeker's crates. The altar itself was difficult to look at. Its obscene geometry made little sense to the human eye and staring at it made me feel a little dizzy. It was obvious that fires had been lit upon the altar, recently. Ten feet in front and uphill from the altar was a pit in the floor. To the sides of the chamber were two small doors.

Laughlin turned to me and mumbled, "I am going to make a guess that we don't want to see what is in the pit. Perhaps we should carefully check behind these doors to make sure that we are alone here?"

I looked away from the alter and stared at the wall for a moment, willing my head to stop spinning. My gaze focused on the statues again. "Damn, I should have known that bastard was tied up in this, somehow." I looked back at Laughlin and pointed at the winged statues. "Remember those statues I tried to draw for you? The ones I saw in that creep's bungalow? One of them looked exactly like those."

"I hope he hadn't found a collector that actually likes those things."

"It wouldn't be the strangest collection that I've heard of. I think you're right about those doors, though. They bear investigating. The last thing I want to do is get surprised by someone here." Especially since the only way out so far was back through the cave.

I stood back and off to one side, covering Laughlin with my spear gun as he went to the door on the right and listened carefully. Then he flashed me a toothy smile and pushed open the door. Careful not to let the door slam into the wall, he ducked and stepped into the room, spear gun at the ready, his back now to the wall to the left of the doorway.

The door opened to reveal a storeroom of sorts. Inside were a multitude of jars and pots filled with various smelly greases, roots, oils, pigments, and less identifiable substances. A ceremonial mask made of a horrid skull decorated with seashells sat on a table, along with a variety of forks and knives. There were also flutes, and a pair of huge native drums.

Laughlin looked around the room quickly, then headed over to the other door and repeated the same entrance procedure there. This door revealed a line of cells. Only one was occupied, by a beaten and unconscious Tongan man. The keys hung by the door. My stomach turned a bit as I looked at the poor man. Had he been like us, and simply strayed too close to the island? If so, why were they holding him prisoner rather than killing him as they'd tried to do to us? I glanced back in the direction of the altar and suspected I knew what they were keeping him alive for. It was a disquieting thought. It was one thing to read about long dead cultures performing human sacrifices. It was quite another to be face to face with the possibility of one.

"This doesn't make any sense so me," Laughlin said. "There doesn't seem to be any way out of here other than through the water. Let's see if this poor man knows anything."

Laughlin moved towards the keys, while I began studying the far end of the chamber more carefully. "Perhaps there's another entrance that we're not seeing," I noted.

Laughlin paused at that, and wandered over towards the altar again...having realized the futility of questioning an unconscious man, no doubt. As I advanced a bit towards the far end of the slippery hall, I could make out the far wall, and a large opening in the middle. I also began to make out voices outside and above. Tongan voices.

As I hurried back towards Laughlin to warn him that we had company, I saw him suddenly fall to the ground and begin sliding across the slippery floor towards that pit. Without stopping to think, I leapt forward and managed to seize both Laughlin's wrist and a crack in the slimy pavement. We stopped short of the pit and Laughlin carefully got to his feet again.

"Whew, thanks for the save. This altar really screws with your brain. Have you figured out if they are coming down here?" he whispered.

So he had heard the voices as well. I responded equally quietly, "I'm not sure yet, but I suggest we retreat back the way we came in, just in case. We can stay near the entrance and listen from there."

Laughlin nodded and started walking back towards the water, still looking a little shaky from his brush with the pit. I walked close enough beside him that I could catch him if he lost his balance again. Could the altar really have caused that? I remembered my own dizziness when I looked at it, and wondered how many previous visitors had wound up in that pit. I didn't think I wanted to know.

The voices receded to an indistinct babble as we retreated towards the water, but did not come closer. In fact, they became rhythmic, as if performing some sort of dance or chant. I looked at Laughlin and whispered, "They seem to have stopped moving. Do you want to head back towards the chamber, to see if we can make out what they're saying? Although if they're chanting in Tongan, I'm not going to be of much help."

Laughlin seemed to ponder this for a second, and then replied, "We might as well, I don't think we are going to learn anything hiding out here. I doubt my Tongan is any better than yours, so I don't think we will be able to learn anything that way."

I nodded, having figured that the odds of him knowing Tongan were pretty slim. "At least we may be able to determine if they've entered the chamber or not."

We began quietly making our way back towards the altar chamber, pausing at the entrance to peer in and listen. It was still empty, and the sounds still came from beyond. We slowly started to cross the hall towards the end where I had noticed the opening. Laughlin's light soon picked it up, and, upon moving closer, we were able to hear the distant chanting more clearly, though being in Tongan, it was just as unintelligible. It sounded like many male voices.

When we arrived at the great doorway, we could see another set of slime-ridden stairs rising sharply towards the next chamber. The voices seemed to be from even farther away, beyond the next chamber. The stairs appeared to have been steep to begin with, and with the tilt of the entire temple, they would be difficult to climb even without the slime.

"Any ideas, Jillian?" Laughlin asked. "I am at something of a loss for trying anything other than climbing up through the slime."

I whispered, "They must manage it somehow, given how recent those ashes looked on the altar. Check the walls for anything that could be used as handholds."

Alas, no handholds were in evidence. Still, it looked as though the stairs could be climbed with care, just not while moving at speed.

"Shall we give it the old college try?" Laughlin asked. "I think one at a time, so there will be someone intact to try to fix up the other one in the event of a spill."

I nodded. "Are you feeling any residual dizziness from your earlier fall?"

Laughlin shook his head and began his ascent, with me following once he had reached the top. The algae was thick and stuck to everything, so that both of us were covered in it by the time we accomplished the short climb. We emerged into a long room, coming out of the mouth of a huge and repulsive bust of an octopoid monster with massive, sharp teeth that dominated the entire room. The very image turned my stomach, and the pitch of the room made me feel as if I was about to be swallowed up again by the thing. Which was the intention, I was sure. The other end of the room had an opening and more stairs, down which filtered a small shaft of daylight. The chanting outside was rising to a fever pitch.

"My dizziness seems to have totally passed," Laughlin confirmed. "Should we try to figure out what is going on up there? It sounds like they are almost done, so if we get there soon they probably won't notice us."

I gave him an incredulous look. "You think that if we come walking out of the entrance to this...place, they'll somehow not see us? Neither of us is Tongan. We'll stand out like a sore thumb."

Laughlin got a patient look and replied, "No, if we are reasonably sneaky, there is less of a chance of us getting noticed when they are in the middle of a ceremony, than the time right after they are done. Plus, if they are summoning one of the Great Old ones, it might be in our best interests to stop them."

"Assuming they aren't chanting while facing the opening. And what, exactly, is a 'Great Old One?'"

"Well, we can be a little subtle about how we check to see where they are. If we stay in the shadows when it is light out there, they are unlikely to be able to see us. Hopefully a great old one is a figment on someone's imagination," he added.

"Why do I get the feeling that I don't want to know? All right, let's see if we can reconnoiter the opening without getting tagged."

We quietly climbed up the last flight of steps, which were carved with ancient writings. The entrance to the temple was shrouded in wet foliage, through which we watched as gangs of Tongan men, natives from Utelei from the looks of it, chanted while dragging heavy modern crates up the beach from tiny canoes. With a bit of a start, I recognized these as Stroeker's crates. There were ten men at work, but neither Stroeker nor any non-Tongan was in view. The sky above was menacingly dark, and I realized abruptly that I had completely forgotten about the storm.

Looking around, it quickly became apparent that while there was enough foliage to shield us in the temple entrance itself, the area in front of and around the entrance was a clearing, dominated by a single block of basalt. No cover. So much for Laughlin's idea of slipping away unnoticed. The men appeared to have six or seven of the largest crates left to haul up from the beach. At the rate they were going, I estimated it would take them two hours or so - just enough time to get back to Avua'tutu before the storm hit.

I motioned for Laughlin to follow me, then carefully descended the stairs and moved far enough away from the entrance to safely converse without having to shout over the chanting, or worry about being overheard.

"What do you think?" Laughlin asked as he joined me.

"I think that whatever's going on out there, I don't like it," I noted grimly. "We need more information. And right now, the only person I can think of who might give it to us is the prisoner we found. If we can wake him up. He seemed to be in pretty bad shape."

It was a long shot, at best, but all I could think of, at the moment. We couldn't get out via the entrance we'd just discovered until the Tongans left, and I still wasn't all that eager to try swimming out the way we'd come. Neither, apparently, was Laughlin. "Sounds like a plan to me," he said. "Let's go."


Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
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All text on this page is © 2000 by Kris Fazzari.

Last modified on May 19, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.