Chapter Two

There were no sounds other than what they made themselves, their breathing, of hyperventilating and exhaustion. Katalene could hear Rooven spitting up sand beside her. Meanwhile, she sat on her knees, looking off into the dark before her. The sound of winds was gone, they were well into the ground, and more telling than that, it was cold.

She couldn’t help but rejoice, at least some, in that fact. Moments elapsed, and lots of them, most of them, were doing nothing more than looking off into the emptiness ahead. But, all the same, Katalene wasn’t thinking about what was ahead. But instead, she thought of what had transpired.

A dragon. The tail, the size, and all, but like nothing she had ever imagined before. She did not recall seeing any wings, but in her mind, she could visualize small lumps on its back for where ones might grow.

She heard her brother moving about from behind her, but paid it no attention, her thoughts occupied by other matters. Was it a baby? A small one? Was THAT small? Were there more inside the Whispey Deserts? And had no others found one prior? Morgis had never told stories about dragons!

Light shined on from behind her, a slight illumination into the blackness. She turned around to see her brother had found a stick.

His face remained bent and disfigured by a state of shock, she half-wondered whether it’d be stuck like that forever or not.

In his hands, it looked to be a pine-stick, drenched in white phosphorous. It was a trick that many from their village used. She started to wonder how he came in possession of one, but before delving too deeply, he shrugged his shoulders and stepped aside, showing a barrel filled with them. Wherever they were, it held something important.

Katalene let out a sigh, which Roo reciprocated with a sigh of his own. She fought back to her feet and failed until her brother was kind enough to offer his assistance, letting her use his shoulder to lean on. Her ribs ached, but she would be able to cope with it for the time being.

“That was fun,” Katalene remarked, holding her side while she spoke. Her comment sounded emotionless, which is the exact opposite of how she felt. What swam inside her was more comparable to a cycle that exhausted itself and reset to the beginning, a cup that filled up and tipped but still had liquid being poured into it.

“Ah, yes, hell of a ride,” Rooven countered, a small smirk on his face. “That about the adventure you were looking for?”

“It’s a start, but my adventure ends with us becoming rich.”

“I don’t even think there’s a way out of here besides the way we came, Kat. Our adventure might end a tad premature.”

“But it was worth it, wasn’t it? Seeing something other than the same field, the same dirt, and same people?” Kat continued, still holding her side, and honestly, she found herself completely assured it was worth it.

“I suppose,” Roo answered. “But I’d like it very much if we came out of this alive.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Kat said, lighting one of the pine-sticks herself, “But there’s only one way we can go now, unless you want to try your luck with the Dragon?”

Roo let out a weak sigh to express his fatigue, walking forward into the unknown, “I think I’ll pass, and besides, whatever the Dragon was guarding, it is in here.”

Kat smiled at the thought, and it was a fair one, it couldn’t be left to coincidence The Dragon Creature fell asleep directly beneath the entrance to an underground cave.

They both led way through the cave’s unknown, and it soon became clear the amount of detail established within the décor. The stairs behind them had been wooden, and much more resilient than simple planks, but at a second-take, they discovered the amount of scribing on each step, though chose not to investigate them. The walls were hard, most likely granite, and drawn on them with something more durable than chalk, they discovered strange depictions. The look of a dragon is the one that popped out to Katalene first. Whoever made it had been a skilled artist, doubtfully the one buried in the tomb. Assuming it was a tomb, that is. But it did mean whoever was buried in the Tomb was important enough to have artists to honor him.

Katalene grazed her fingers over the stone, cold as well, the touch of it sent chills up her spine.

The Dragon was depicted as strong and large, and beside it, a man stood to emphasize its sheer size. The Dragon had wings, however, in the chalk-drawn portrait. Ones which looked mighty and strong, and in its eyes were dark-green jewels. Katalene couldn’t help but attempt dislodging the gems from out the wall.

She failed.

Rooven’s eyes seemed taken, not by the Dragon, however, but by the Man. “He isn’t afraid of it,” he said, realizing it in unison to the words escaping him. “They aren’t enemies. The Dragon hasn’t ripped him in two, like they’re friends or something, like it’s friendly.”

“Sure seemed friendly,” Katalene replied.

“You just make bad first impressions,” Roo jested. His fingers skimming over the drawing, holding his pine-stick close for a better look.

The man wore a chain-mail tunic that hugged his body. Katalene could see the depiction of a sheath attached to his pants, but saw no sword in his hands or anywhere else around him. His face looked like stone; mirthless.

Katalene brought her pine-stick to the left of the man and noticed the many figures surrounding them. Ones of men and women with spears, with heavy armor, all around them. She watched Roo on her right, his flame enlightening her on the rest of the artwork, which was more soldiers. They surrounded The Man and The Dragon Creature. Something else in-particular also stood out that couldn’t be ignored.

All the soldiers were dead.

Burnt to a crisp, in-fact. All of them looked to be comprised of ash, held together by the sheer romanticizing of the artist. They were black as charcoal; the only thing distinguishably intricate about any of them was their armor. “Can the Dragon breathe fire? Why didn’t that one set us ablaze?” Rooven asked, looking over at Katalene.

“Maybe it tried,” Katalene supposed.

The rest of the illustrations were mostly symbols and designs that Katalene found herself unable to decipher, ones that seemed more for the look of them than any sort of purpose. Then again, it surely would’ve meant more to the artists. The illustration of a man with a confident smirk, in one hand, he held a small fire in his hand, it rested, blazing on. His other-hand dripped blood from a finger, the only finger on his hand that wore a ring. The artist had made certain the ring stood out.

They began their walk forward into the blackness. The sound of water droplets hitting the ground was evident, but Katalene couldn’t trace their whereabouts.

The whole thing struck her more as an underground cave than it did a tomb. The sound of locusts could be heard as well, a small, but distinctive sound that Katalene couldn’t forget. It only picked up after a few feet beyond the stairs. Being for her village’s dependance on agriculture, it was a sound that signified death.

“Hope there aren’t any traps in here,” Katalene said, looking down at the ground beneath her feet, searching for tripwires or impressions on the floor. She found none, of course. “With everything obscured like it is, we’re sitting ducks for it.”

“You don’t think they’d actually leave traps, do you? I mean, wasn’t the Dragon enough?” Rooven walked onward, deeper into the unknown, and not even a second after, ran into a wall. Quite literally, a wall. A wall that stood in-front of them. A dead-end, almost, but the way around it seemed obvious upon inspection.

What stood before them was a fence made from wire with crevices and holes made off the design, which had swirls and symbols leaving decipherment to the imagination.

Katalene brought her fire near the fence and saw some of what lurked beyond it. It wasn’t much. The top of the fence appeared to lead to a platform flooring, though, she knew, once more, not what secrets or meaning it held.

“Here, take this,” Rooven said, handing over his flaming pine-stick.

With a small grin on his face, the first look Kat had seen on Roo other than fear since escaping the Dragon, he walked nearer to the fence and strummed his fingers over it.

“What are you doing?” Kat asked, her eyes looking down at both the flaming sticks in her hand.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Roo said, offering no further explanation to his actions, he began ascending the fence. His hands dug into the grooves and for that, he didn’t seem to have very much trouble. But he struggled at first with finding ridges to use as a platform for his feet.

“And why are you doing that?”

“Because you can’t? You’re free to try if you want, but I figured I better do the heavy-lifting for a while,” Rooven said, still smirking.

His progress was fast at first, but his ascension slowed when Katalene could no longer provide him light. The fence wasn’t too tall though, albeit still tall, it only went about up fifteen or so feet.

As Rooven made it up higher, he called down below, “It’s like a cage,” he yelled, before leaving out from Katalene’s sight. “It looks like the passage out of here is down there, but I,” Rooven stopped for a moment.

Kat could hear the distinctive sound of his jumping up and down and couldn’t help but ponder why he thought jumping on things would bring good fortune. Had he learned nothing from The Dragon, she thought to herself quietly but opted not to say aloud.

The sound of his shoes hitting the iron could clearly be heard, he wouldn’t be able to break it open.

Katalene soon saw a flicker of light at the top of the cage, Rooven with a spare pine-stick. Convenient.

With the small light on him, Katalene could see him laying flat on his stomach, his arm jutted out through one of the holes at the top. Still, nothing of its contents were visible. It could have been a door or more stairs, or the sleeping den for all the locusts they’d been hearing, but nothing was visible.

“Drop it.” Katalene called out to Rooven, who took not even a second to oblige. Katalene watched the pine-stick descend downward into the cage, and at last:

Kaplunk.

The pine-stick splashed down into a small body of water, and like that, went out, beyond the fence’s end at ground-level, the descend must have went for another few feet.

“Wouldn’t mind a dip in there,” Roo admitted, lighting another pine-stick.

“How many of those do you have?” Kat asked; amused.

“A lot. What with you having me waste them, I figured I’d snatch a batch.”

“Fair enough,” Kat said.

Katalene backed away from the fence, cage, or whichever it could be described as with most accurately, her eyes looking over the intricate designs a final time until turning herself from them and her brother.

She went back over to the image of The Dragon, and The Man it befriended. Katalene extinguished one of the two pine-sticks with a soft-blow from her lungs, freeing one of her hands. She rested her left against the illustration, half-expecting the chalk to rub off into her hands, though, it didn’t.

Uncle Morgis had told them tall tales and stories about some of tombs he’d visited. Most of them were overtly extravagant, having him accomplish feats he couldn’t possibly have able to do, especially at his age. Morgis wasn’t athletic, but was well-versed in bullshit. That’s how her and Roo’s parents always described him.

But, at the same time, he had a way with words. And, because of that, many from their village flocked to him, especially those with youthful ambition. He was unlikeable, for the most part, rude and entitled, but the way he spoke of adventure with such heightened enthusiasm offered hope to those feeling the monotony of mundane life in Wilson.

The walls were cold to Katalene’s touch, although, everything felt cold. It was enough to make her shiver, but not, even for a second, did she yearn for the heat of the Deserts.

As her heart-rate slowed down, certain aches and cringes became more easily noticed. The blisters beneath her feet bothered her even more than her broken ribs, mostly because her feet couldn’t be ignored the same way.

She remembered one story Morgis had told them about a tomb: “After killing an oryx with a makeshift battle-ax I had made from a cactuc and the skeleton of a jackal I had found, I lugged it off and started a fire. Deserts are very cold during night-time, so I was only trying to keep warm. But, for some reason, no reason at all, perhaps, maybe, the Gods deciding to offer me a helping hand, I looked to my left and I saw the Tomb of Elizabeth.”

His stories always seemed to ramble on and on, and it was oftentimes easy to distinguish when he was telling something he had rehearsed or telling something he was making up as he went: “An embroidered dome, shaped like an egg, half-buried. It was enormous! With dazzling emeralds and ruby’s layering it. A dark-gold, it looked like the whole thing might have been solid-gold. And, for size alone, it was bigger than all of Wilson!” His hands spread themselves out wide to emphasize the spectacle.

Katalene brushed her hand off on the wall some more, her thoughts were elsewhere, hoping to discover, in her archive of thoughts and memories, something to help them out of their situation.

Then, … she felt her hand glaze over something by the wall. She felt a jolt of panic sweep over her at first, believing it to be a locust or that she had accidentally triggered a trap by mistake. But instead, it was a rope, dangling off from the ceiling.

The significance wasn’t known to Katalene, but she knew the significance of it couldn’t be denied. The simple fact that it was there, in a cave that seemed so peculiar. But, she tugged at it. Wondering if it could be used to climb up to … wherever it led. It had some give.

The tug brought it down some, but then, as she released, the rope returned to its original state. “This looks promising,” Katalene said, evidently loud enough for Rooven to hear her.

“Find anything?” Roo hollered back.

“A rope!”

“Yes, I can see that. Does it mean anything to us?”

“The rope comes down some, but I don’t know if it actually does anything,” Katalene answered.

She walked the rope closer to where Rooven was standing, as he leaned off from the cage and reached for it.

“Careful,” she said, and off the light from his pine-stick, she saw him roll his eyes at her. Bastard, Katalene thought in her head, but couldn’t help but let out a small, but audible groan to herself, for which, Rooven either didn’t hear or ignored.

Roo grasped the rope with one-hand, feeling at the air for some time before getting ahold of it. The pine-stick in his right-hand, the rope in his left. Roo tugged at it with his hand, but like Katalene, he couldn’t cause anything to happen.

“Dammit, it’s so fucking dark in here!” He yelled out, wishing he had both hands at his disposal.

“You love it,” Katalene replied, flashing a happy go-lucky smile up to her big, foul-mouthed brother.

“I fucking love it,” Roo said; stone-faced.

“You FUCKING love it,” Katalene corrected.

Roo didn’t seem in the joking mood. Not in the same way as Katalene. But after all that had happened, she couldn’t blame him.

Then again, he hadn’t been swatted at like a fly by a giant dragon either.

She walked her flame to the other-side of the room, realizing the massive amount of the area that went without being explored. Some ways opposite the dragon and man depictions, her fire illuminated her way enough to see a pillar that stood erect from the bottom and top of the room. Likely for support. However, she noticed a small hole, and above that hole, some three feet, was another crevice of the same shape and size.

Katalene walked over to it. The pillar was made of granite like the rest of the tomb. She further inspected the pillar’s peculiarities. The hole led from one side of the pillar to the other, but in-between, and within the pillar, was a black rope, about as thick as the one in her brother’s hands.

The rope was completely black, like charcoal, but she could still see parts of the onyx rope that hadn’t been scorched. Scorched, she said again to herself, and like that. Without thinking of the consequences. She lit the black rope and brought them out from the darkness.

The fire ascended all the way up the black rope and, as it did, light from the flame began to peek out from each of the holes in the pillar. The light didn’t bring them completely out from the darkness that harbored the room as hostage, but it invited various figures to sight.

In the room, the flaming pillar acted as a centerpiece, behind it, of course, were the stairs that brought them there. Both sides of their containment had drawings and illustrations, all with marvelous skill and kinsman to the wall’s canvas.

“I’ve made light!” Katalene announced to Rooven as she began walking over to him again.

“Oh, well, that’s very nice of them to add that in there like that,” Rooven said, he had since taken a seated position on the cage, his feet dangling freely down from it. A lot of his body was covered in dirt and soot, a rustic color on his leggings that looked to come off from the iron fence was also very apparent. Katalene looked and saw her hands were covered with the rust as well.

She thought again of Morgis’ story, as it continued in her head, “I slid my hands across the walls of the dome, and it was covered with this yellowish powder, much softer than the sand beneath my feet, like soil. It took what felt like ages, but I found the door to the Tomb. The entrance was immaculate, with a door centuries ahead of its time. The classic pens lock that anyone who applied themselves more than ten minutes could master. Kind-of like the ones all of you have at your houses, … Ha! Kidding kids!” Uncle Morgis belched out with an obnoxious grin.

None of the children laughed, however. Not even Roo or Kat, who had been paid off by their Uncle to make him seem “neat” to the other kids. That ended up as a tad too much a feat, but the siblings did find themselves hanging on his every word of the story. The adventure. “

“With my cunning skills, the door unlatched, and walah, I was in there, but I kept my wits about me. I kept my wits about me and went deeper into the tomb, but, in not even a second, I triggered the first trap. A beginner’s mistake on my part, I must admit, one of the most predictable traps you ever see in the Whispy Deserts are pressure-steps. By walking on one of the floor steps, slightly uproot from the others, I triggered the trap, and an arrow shot out right at me. The thing about these though is that they’re warning shots, arrows are never fatal. They’re meant to scare you and make you leave, but they barely even draw blood or leave a mark.”

Katalene looked at the large-cage like she was only now seeing it for the first time, which, in a way, she was. The pillar’s fires bled out enough light to see the whole of the fixture. Like a large iron-box, there was no entrance or doorway or anything else that might break it open. Katalene looked through the gate, down into the water, which was still only vaguely visible in the light. But it looked black and murky, no transparency at all, whether there was something more to it, she knew not. She watched Rooven wedge his pine-stick into one of the crevices on the cage above, then, his attention went back over to the rope. He clenched it inside the fingers of both his hands, the rope was thick, and he was only barely able to make a fist. His eyes went up. As did Kat’s. She didn’t see anything, the light from the pillars led up all the way to the ceiling.

She saw Rooven point his finger, directing her over to the opposite side of the room, where the door to the exit was, and soon after, she did see something. A small ledge about ten feet or so away from the cage and on that ledge appeared to be a wooden crank, perhaps even a lever.

“That’s convenient,” Katalene admitted, slightly amused.

“Something right out of the story-books, like you wanted. An adventure,” Rooven said, making a small tug at the rope.

“Yes, but I was hoping for at least a little more originality than that.”

“I’d love to see you make something like this, this whole tomb likely took decades to perfect!”

Rooven held the rope with both hands once more, and soon after, walked off from the cage, holding onto the rope. To his fortune, the rope was able to support his weight without snapping and sending him down to what could have been his death.

The rope didn’t break, but soon started descending itself down, same as it had when Katalene tugged at it. Rooven’s body weight on it was enough to trigger something else as well. The sound of rotating cogs was loud, a loud spectacle that seemed more for the celebration of itself than it did serving a genuine purpose.

A large bar lowered off from the ceiling, suspended in the air by metal and very rusty chains.

The connotation behind it was obvious – leap from the cage to the bar, swing, and then, leap over to the ledge. Exactly like something from out of the story-books, Katalene couldn’t help herself but be excited by that. Like reality romanticized. This is what she wanted. Purpose. Extravagance. A delightful story to tell. And something worth living for.

Rooven swung back over to the cage and climbed up again. Back to his feet, he turned around and something to his dismay occurred. The metal bar began ascending back up to the ceiling! He grabbed the rope fast to keep it from ascending too far and felt relief he was able to use the rope and descend the bar back down again.

“Hold on,” Katalene said, “Maybe I can find something heavy, like a rock or something, we can tie to the rope and weigh it down.”

Rooven nodded, but it didn’t look like he was listening. His eyes looked over at the metal bar, the rope held tightly in his hands in a death-grip.

“I brushed the arrow off and went further in the tomb,” Morgis said. “I brought with me, a sack filled only with the essentials. Through the tomb, the rooms were riddled a gold-color, that kind-of dulled yellow that doesn’t suggest its own worth, vases and other priceless artifacts all over it, but it was the skeletons that drew my eyes. Badly preserved, coated in cobwebs and spiders, some of them just laid lifeless, … well, obviously, … but sitting down, like they died that way, like they were staring at me. Leaned up against the walls; depleted of all and everything. Eerie, but I didn’t let it bother me,” Morgis winked at Katalene in an obnoxious way, like he expected her to be terrified by the mere thought of a corpse or skeleton. Katalene was not.

“I walked forward, forward, forward. I could see gold coin, scribed with symbols I had never rested my eyes on before. Forward, forward, again, some more,” Morgis stammered with his words, and it became increasingly obvious he was not recalling a memory but making something up off his head. “Ah, yes, and a door came next, a wooden door, not very decorative, not made of gold or anything else. A plain door, above it though, on the ceiling, I noticed something, almost like a grid or an axis. I was befuddled. I was on alert. This isn’t my first go-around, I’ll have you know, and I had seen everything there is to see in these tombs. But I didn’t expect what was behind the door.” His eyes widened, for effect and theatric more than actual, genuine intensity.

“Once I touched the doorknob, the door fell off from its hinges, and throwing me forward was what looked like a giant’s double-bladed ax.” Morgis sounded excited with his own words. Even if they were most obviously fictional. “I could have died, and most honestly, I SHOULD have died at that very moment. But I clutched my hands on both sides of the door, holding for life as the wicked thing flew me off into the air. Myself, still latched on the door, I fell harshly down against the ground. For a moment, I thought my back had broke off the impact, but my bag, thankfully, broke my fall by absorbing some of the impact. I slid on the ground, backward, backward, and backward again, I felt my body slam against one of the vases!!” Mr. Morgis continued, with his strange fixation on repeating certain phrases in increments of three.

Morgis jumped up from off the hollow tree trunk he was sitting on, looking at all the children with bugged-out eyes, himself absolutely thrilled, “There were snakes in the vases!” He exclaimed.

Katalene chuckled to herself. Uncle Morgis never struck her as anything other than a crazed, overtly energetic old-man when it came to his personality, but he was a damn good storyteller, able to make up such happenings off the top of his head.

She brushed her long black hair away from her eyes. The shock had worn off and it appears little nuisances were back to bothering her. Around her, there didn’t seem to be any boulders or rocks, or anything else. A pity. She had her heart set on a piece of granite broken off from the walls she could use, but, alas ’twas not meant to be.

The barrel filled with pine-sticks and white phosphorous wouldn’t be heavy enough by itself. She toyed with the idea of making a swing out of the barrel for her to sit on. That would be heavy enough.

But before any of these ideas could come to fruition, she heard Rooven’s boots slapping down onto the iron cage. “Oh,” she said and turned around.

With momentum he had built up, Rooven, with his hands gripped tightly around the rope, ran off from the cage. A wall-run that would let him keep the rope pulled down and allow him to take a leap off the wall over to the bar. Would.

That is, had Rooven realized the unevenness of the tomb’s moorings. Instead, Rooven tripped over a shard of granite jutted out from the rest and struggled to regain himself. The rope swung forward, as did he, and for a moment, it looked like it would have been easier to simply try and swing toward the ledge. Soon, however, it was made apparent how worn the rope was, as was its fragility, and it snapped from the exertion.

As the rope fell, so did Roo, who still hadn’t fully regained his composure. He fell hard. But the fall wouldn’t be fatal. It would hurt though.

If the fall would cause a threat, and had Kat had a chance to react, she would have ignored her ribs and broke his fall. But since it wouldn’t be, and she hadn’t a chance, she simply bit her lip and tried to keep from laughing at her brother’s display of ignorance.

Her amusement faded though, once she realized the metal bar above them had ascending back to the ceiling, and that their only other way out the tomb was being protected by a Dragon.

She walked over to her brother, who, after slamming down against the hard-ground, laid dormant like he had killed over. If he dies, he best be aware I will not be able to carry him back home, Katalene thought to herself.

Roo let out a groan of dismay, for which Kat was fast to respond to, “It’s your own fault.”

“You’re not wrong,” Roo replied weakly, adjusting himself to a seated position, leaned against the wall; depleted of all and everything. He stared at Katalene.

“Looks like you’ve went ahead and made getting through this Tomb a lot harder than it needed to be.”

Roo stared blankly at her for a second, like he was oblivious to what she was talking about. Then, Katalene walked over to the detached rope and held it in her hands. Roo feigned a horrified look.

Katalene no longer shared his amusement in the situation, but did offer him a hand up and back to his feet. Roo showed his gratitude with a small smile, stretching his arms out, reaching like he was trying to touch the ceiling. He then cringed, holding his back.

“You won’t even be able to climb anymore now, by the looks of it.”

“Least I didn’t go and break all my ribs like you.” Roo commented dryly, then added: “I’ll be fine.”

Roo tried to rub off some of the rust from his chest, but after a couple of swipes, he came to terms with it and walked back toward the stairs. “You don’t suppose the Tomb People were kind enough to leave us an alternative way to the ledge, do you?” Roo asked.

He walked up the stairs, feeling the walls like he was in search of a way he’d be able to climb up the ledge instead. “If not, I don’t know what else we’ll be able to do. Maybe enough time’s past and the Dragon wandered somewhere else? But I don’t really want to take my chances with that.”

“Neither do I,” Katalene admitted. She followed Roo forward, the detached rope dangling over her shoulder. “Let’s try something else then,” She countered.

The lever wasn’t entirely visible from where she was standing, but she knew the basics of it, that much was obvious. The ledge, however, was a hefty fourteen or fifteen feet overhead. Unfortunately, Rooven’s climbing skills weren’t exactly as tactful and skilled as he liked to believe.

The rope felt heavy on Katalene’s shoulder, but she felt as though she’d still have enough strength to throw it. And so, Kat did the only thing she could think to do. She gathered the rope, wadded it up into a ball, and tossed it aimless in the air. Hoping for it to not only land on the ledge but wrap itself around the lever.

It did not, however. It failed. In-fact, it went forward into the air. Unraveled. And slowly came back down. Not coming anywhere close to where she was aiming.

Katalene watched stone-faced as the rope slapped back down to the ground. She looked at it with irritation. Then, looked back up to her older brother Roo, who looked at her with a small smirk on his face that she hated. She feigned holding her ribs. Using it as an excuse.

“That was embarrassing,” Roo said.

“Not as embarrassing as watching you fall on your ass!” Kat quipped fast, sounding a tad on the defensive side.

Roo caught wind of that fact and laughed, knowing he had gotten to her. After that, he gathered the rope in his arms and turned his back to Katalene, who noticed the large bruise forming around the lower section of his back.

Piling up the rope around his arm, he dropped to one knee and began unfastening his left shoe. Katalene watched on without comment.

Halfway barefoot, he crudely tied the rope around his shoe, making it just tight enough that it wouldn’t dislodge itself from the loop. He climbed back to his feet with the boot in his hand and a thoughtful glint in his eyes.

His boot was worn and looked about ready to fall apart, Katalene didn’t have to look down to know hers were about as worn or even worse.

He juggled the boot a little bit in his hands, making for certain it wouldn’t come free from its entanglement. He angled himself to his own specifics, looking up at the ledge for his adjustments. A step back, then a step forward, Roo threw his boot upward toward the lever, the rope following it like a tail.

The boot went over the ledge and scurried back off to the floor. With the rope behind the lever, Roo stopped the remainder of the rope from following down.

This left Roo with the beginning and end of the rope both in his hands. Katalene had a moment of insecurity and disappointment in herself, but it vanished the moment she remembered he was the one that broke the rope, and she was the one with the idea that fixed it.

He clutched both pieces in his hands and pulled. It took some tinkering and adjustment, but, at last, he managed to pull the lever down.

The sound of turning cogs came after, once more like a whole lot of fuss over very little immediate result. The thought made Katalene wondered if the tombs were created in overtly complicated means to do trivial tasks or if it was meant as an intimidation tactic through its added complexities. Kat and Roo both looked around the room, wondering what exactly was about to change.

“I felt the back of my head hit the vase. It was by heaven’s mercy I didn’t lose consciousness. But then, the snakes poured out of the cracks and crevices. It was then I knew the Devil was also involved. I first felt one creep over my chest, and then, another by my arm. I didn’t panic, maybe I was gutsy enough, or maybe it’s just that I was in a daze. A lot of the events remain blurry to me, but I shot up. Back to my feet, swiping away at the damned things. Constrictors, my guess, they weren’t none of them going for a bite. I scrubbed at my arms and legs because I thought they were stuck to me, then I went down the stairs and out of the tomb. My bones felt like they were rattling in their shell. Rattling. An unfortunate word. I needed a breather. A second to regain myself, to gather supplies and go back with the gift of hindsight.”

The cogs turned and turned, both loud and abrasive, until, at last, if only for a moment, the whole area was silent, except the constant sound of the locusts, of course. The next noise the siblings heard was the sound of the roof of the caged area, not far off in the distance, retracting into the wall.

Roo smiled with satisfaction, feeling redeemed for his previous failed attempt. Little did he know Katalene had no attentions of letting him hear the end of it. Katalene smiled back, she was glad to see them making headway into the tomb’s confines. Beyond this would most certainly be treasure of some form or another.

“What this tomb holds, it’s more important than anything Morgis has ever laid eyes on.” Roo remarked.

“After this elaborate trap, and the dragon that came before, I’d certainly hope so,” Kat confessed. “Though, we don’t know that we’re at the end.”

With the rope over his shoulders, Roo walked toward the cage and began his ascension. From there, he tossed one end of the rope down to Katalene, whose battered body kept her from climbing the cage other-wise.

Kat shot him an indignant glare without really meaning to. It wasn’t his fault she had her ribs broken by the dragon, but that didn’t stop from wishing it was him having to be pulled up the cage. She held onto the rope, and with the might of an exhausted boy weighing somewhere between zero and one hundred and fifty pounds, Roo pulled her up the cage. She helped, as much as she could, using her feet to help move things along a little faster.

Once they were both at the top of the cage, they made eye contact, and both looked down at the mucky water beneath them. The light from the pillar only illuminated so much of its confines. The fall into the water would be more than a few feet, but it seemed very clear it was where they needed to go next.

Up above with the Whispey Desert sands, Katalene remembered when all she wanted was a swim, but now, with the coldness in the air, she yearned for the exact opposite.

Roo showed no hesitation. He dove into the water with no regard to what might have waited at the bottom. Even worse, he dove head first like a fool. The sound of a loud splash came and Roo bobbed his head up and out from over the water.

“Come … uhhh-on, the water’s not too …. cold,” Roo shouted out, but the shivering inflection Kat heard in his voice suggested something different.

“It isn’t as much about it being cold as it is about the water being black as the night, have you no fear of that stuff bleeding into your throat?” Katalene did her best to illustrate her disgust, but it might have sounded more squeaky and whiny than she’d hoped.

Roo looked up at her with a large grin, one that showed off his teeth. Then, dunking his chin underwater and taking a big gulp into his mouth, he leaped forward and sprayed the black stuff out from his lips like a stream.

Katalene mimed wiping the liquid away in disgust, even though there was no chance it could reach her. She looked back down and could faintly see Roo’s face go from joyous laughter to a sour-faced frown.

“Maybe that was a mistake,” He calmly admitted.

Kat took amusement in her brother’s misfortune, then, with some caution, leaped off from the cage and down into the water. She went feet-first and fell in with the absolute minimal of commotion caused. Like she anticipated, the water was cold, but as Roo had said, it wasn’t quite as freezing as she was expecting it to be. The water also felt much thicker than she expected. She had to force herself beneath the water, fighting the whole way down, and if she relented for even a second, she rose back up to the surface.

The feel of her fingers over her hair was revolting, like it was covered in tar, and even after she rung the black water out, its presence was still felt.

She looked at Roo. “I can’t believe you had some of this shit in your mouth,” she said, splashing a wave of water over to him, which he shielded himself from with his hand.

“A mistake in judgment,” He agreed, sticking his tongue out in dismay. Katalene took solace in the fact his tongue hadn’t went black.

Katalene and Rooven both swam about the water for a times, their eyes searching about the walls within the caged concealment. No dragons or illustrations, the walls looked more like mud or old food that had molded, like they had gone into the Dragon’s toilet bowl and not a tomb.

Above them, some, four or five feet, the cage was barely within reach of either of them. It was a scary thought believing there might not be a way out from the cage.

She forced herself down beneath the water with all her might, in-search of an ulterior exit-way for them to continue deeper into the tomb’s confines. Unfortunately, the aching agony of her ribs wasn’t yet forgotten. She did her best to work through it, but as she tried to open her eyes, a burning sensation overcame her that forced retreat to the surface.

“Trouble in paradise?” Rooven asked.

Katalene couldn’t bring herself to force a response, digging at her eyes like buried treasure lied beneath.

“Yeah, I noticed that when I went under the first time too,” Roo admitted.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Didn’t come up,” Roo innocently replied.

“Fuck-head.”

Katalene went for a hard splash, but Roo dunked himself beneath the water to evade it. Seconds later, perhaps even a little longer than seconds, Roo came back out from the water, his hair wild and scattered on his head.

“Hey, there’s,” Roo began, but that was as far as he got before Kat threw a few waves his way.

Roo did his best to keep a straight-face while the water splashed him in the face, then, continued: “Hey, there’s a large hole on the side, right here,” Roo said, motioning toward the side of the wall furthest from the stairs where they came. “Wherever it leads, I assume that’s where we’re supposed to head next in this little adventure of yours.”

“Ours,” Katalene corrected. “Any idea where it leads, or how far it is?”

Roo shook his head.

“If it’s too far, I can’t say whether I’ll be able to swim it,” Kat cautioned.

“Those broken ribs of yours are really beginning to put a damper on things.”

“I can break your ribs and show you what it feels like, maybe then, you’ll be a little more empathetic.”

“Yes, but then nothing would get done.” Roo said, being deliberately argumentative. But after, his caring side started to kick in a moment, and he smiled to make it more playful.

Then, he leaped out of the water and began an ascension upward. His feet dug into the mud at first until reaching the cage, making his climb a lot easier. Katalene could see the black water dripping off his back, slow and in long strands.

He disappeared off and away from Katalene down below until eventually, after a rather extended minute, jumping back down without looking to where he’d land. Katalene was sure to run to the corner of the hole to avoid a collision. The fall back down made a peculiar splash, like a rock thrown into wet-sand. With him, her brother had the old, dirty rope over his shoulders.

“There,” He said. “If I tie one end of this to my waist and one end to yours, I’ll be able to help you pull through.”

“Tying that around my waist doesn’t sound too relieving,” Kat remarked, far from impressed with her brother’s brainstorming.

“Tie it to your arm for all I care, but I don’t see you coming up with any big ideas,” Roo said, acting indignant.

“Let’s try it,” Kat replied, trying to sound more supportive than how she felt, biting her lip about how it was her “big idea” to pull the lever back.

Her mind was telling her to lighten up and be nicer to her brother, even if there was a strong chance he’d be the death of her, from the looks of it, through drowning. The other part of her wanted to melt into the black water like ice above the boiling sun. On the bright-side, that black water was starting to feel nice, once she became used to it and more accepting of the nastiness and filth, that is.

Roo tied the rope around his waist, even with the length wasted for the knots, the rope was long enough for them to have more than enough wiggle-room. Katalene opted against tying it around her waist and instead, merely wrapped it around her wrist, tangling it up in a way where she could keep a grip, but also come free if she desired.

At once, they dove their heads beneath the waters, their eyes clamped shut. The view might as well have been like when they first visited the cave. She could feel the ache of her ribs, but could also feel Roo tug at the rope. For her benefit, he was guiding her.

Kat followed. The water thus far not anything she couldn’t handle. Her agony was subtle and lessened, not unbearable. With her one available hand, she felt around the floor, some eight or nine feet deep into the water. It felt slimy and slippery, what she had imagined the walls to feel like. She opted against touching it any while longer.

As her foot touched the side of a wall, she knew she was entering the small alcove. It was indeed small. With her feet barely spread, she was able to touch both sides of the tunnel.

She did her best not to feel enclosed, the murky sludge felt thick, like she was swimming through quick-sand. The movement required more effort, and with that, came anxiousness, a claustrophobia of being stuck, unable to go back or continue.

A tug came from her brother, who must have been moving along faster than she was. Katalene further exerted herself, a sharp pain in her stomach as she did. She cringed. And, in that moment, something else happened, … she realized her own desperate need for air. A feeling of panic swept over her.

Her brother pulling her ever-so slowly along the way, she thought about releasing the rope and swimming back. Then, she wondered about whether or not she’d even be capable. Given the wall’s confinement and the movement restrictions. That worried her. She wondered if it was a trap. If they’d swim deeper and deeper until meeting a dead-end and their own demise. That worried her more.

Those were only distractions though, because her desperation for air was setting in, and she found herself flailing her arms about. Frantic.

She tried to climb the rope and bring herself forward, and for a moment or two, she even succeeded. But then, at last, her body felt light, and even though she could feel the water flowing into her lungs, she’d never felt emptier.

She didn’t even notice the bad taste in her mouth. She simply let the rope, which had become much too heavy, fall from out of her hands, and felt herself drift.