The Hall of Heroes

5. - Darkness of the tomb

"So it's really here." Tereza said out loud, although more to herself than to her companions. "In any case there is some ruin up here."

Honza's face copied hers, staring at this unknown and mind-boggling structure. Fanda just gaped in admiration. Alois, having noticed that they all stared in awe at a dark blot in the distance, recognized that they had finally come to the end of their journey and put on a complacent smile.

"This thing has to come from some long forgotten age." Fanda said when they arrived at the giant gate of the structure. "It escapes me how someone could even build this. You know, so much stone. And so polished, and at this altitude! I can't believe it!"

"Well, have you ever heard the tales of the ancient peoples? They sure are quite outlandish. I suppose they could have had technologies that we can only dream about." Honza noted.

The large stone gate was partially broken, possibly from weathering or some settling of the ground that could have happened here long ages ago. Whatever the cause, there was now a passage into the pitch-black interior of the structure.

They lit a torch that Alois didn't forget to bring with him and one by one, they went in.

The first thing they noticed upon entering were the giant pillars. They were in two straight lines going as far into the darkness as the travelers could see and though ancient and worn, they were magnificently crafted. Fanda, being the only aspiring craftsman of the group, could imagine spending an eternity chiseling a wooden pillar out of a single tall tree to look this beautifully ornate, but for the life of him he could not imagine how one could do the same with these gigantic pieces of rock.

As they walked on, spellbound by the awesome pillars, their eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness and they could see the interior in all its glory. For the first time, they noticed the walls and realized this hall wasn't more than fifty meters wide with only two lines of pillars running along it.

They also noticed the stone reliefs carved into the walls. The only crafted images the had ever seen before were simple woven patterns on clothes and some more expensive pictures on the walls of mayor Karel's house. None of them had ever even come close to artwork this elaborate and they all lost interest in anything else around them examining these reliefs. Except of course, for Alois, who had to go very near those carvings to be able to even see they were there.

The carvings depicted various heroic deeds. There were armor-clad knights, magic-wielding sorcerers and other kinds of heroes, some of them not even human, depicted in their moments of triumph. Some winning over armies of foul creatures, some standing victorious over a giant dead monster, some wielding items that seemed to shine.

At the far end of the hall, the wall was fully covered with a single large carving depicting a distressed woman holding a child in one arm and in the palm of her other hand, there was what seemed to be a heart. Though her vestments were obviously from a very different time period, they could tell she was meant to be a poor woman. Behind the woman, there was a scene of hellish chaos - monsters flying in the burning sky and dread armies marching across burned fields. In the very front of the picture, a skeleton was rising up from the soil, reforming and coming to life.

"Look at that!" Alois said. His voice echoed in the darkness overhead. "Now I'm sure we're at the right place! Everything's burning, that girl needs help and that skeleton is coming to help her. So that's how it's gonna work! We'll revive some dead skeleton and it will go get that monster."

"Plain and simple." Tereza said sarcastically. "What about that heart in her hand?"

"A sacrifice?" Fanda whispered ominously.

But as their attention was centered on the carving, the villagers lost all their caution and didn't even notice the large white webs that were hidden in the shadows overhead, right below the ceiling of the hall. Nor did they notice the gaze of a large beast that had found the opening into this hall long years before and had decided to make the abandoned tomb its own lair.

What happened next was so fast that few of them could even realize what was happening. They heard Honza scream and when they looked back at him, they only saw his form disappearing into the darkness of the ceiling. And for the first time, they noticed the webs and the long legs of some creature that had caught Honza by the chest and pulled him up. They didn't see the creature clearly, but they had a pretty good idea of what the large white webs could mean.

The three remaining villagers screamed out loud and looked towards the exit of the tomb. But the pillar upon which the monstrous thing was lurking was right in their way even if they passed it, they would still have to cover quite some distance in the open space between the pillars, unprotected from attacks from above.

Alois looked around him.

"This way!" he shouted and went into a mad dash in the opposite direction from the large gate that they had entered. In a panic and scared out of their wits, Fanda and Tereza followed the only light they had, held in Alois's hand.

They didn't even hear Honza anymore. He stopped screaming only a while after they lost sight of him in the darkness of the ceiling and all they heard now were their own loud footsteps clapping on the stone floor, and the wheezing of their heavy breaths.

After a short run, they saw that the hall in front of them ended and there was nothing but more carvings and old, crumpled stone. They turned back, thinking they were completely lost. Even Alois had lost all of his bravado and started darting his eyes to and fro in sheer panic.

Then, Tereza noticed something further down the wall.

"Over there!" she shouted and ran towards what she thought was a corridor of some kind. Alois and Fanda followed and as the light of their torch got stronger, they saw there was an opening in the wall that led deeper into the structure.

They ran in and as they did, Fanda noticed two large slabs of stone that could work as a door, on both sides of the opening.

"Hey! We can close it! Come on!" he shouted at the other two.

Alois turned to look at the slabs. "This? How?!"

"It's a door! It has to close somehow! Look for a mechanism!"

So they did, but they could not find anything that would seem to operate the door in a way that they would know. All the while the creepy quiet screeching noises coming from the large hall made them more and more on edge.

"Just find something to block it up with!" Alois shouted after a while.

"No! I think I've got it!" Fanda shouted back, trying to turn some slab of rock protruding from the wall.

"It's no use! Let's find some tables or something!" Alois answered.

Fanda didn't respond and clung to the rock even more, trying to turn it. Then they all heard a low rumble coming from the large stone slabs as if they just slid along the floor a bit.

Alois stood in the middle of the doorway with his torch, holding a battle position. He peered into the darkness, put his torch up in front of him and listened for any screeching that would seem to be coming closer. Tereza ran to Fanda trying to help him turn the stone slab.

After a while, they heard more rumbling and the slabs started moving. They slid closer and closer until they were inches apart. At that moment, Alois put his hand on Fanda's shoulder. "Leave it like this. That creature is far too large to fit through and we don't want it completely closed. This is our way out."