HavenGuarde

Chapter 19 - Quickly

Chapter 19

Quickly

- And Time began to shake the world -

He eyes flared open. Something red had flickered? His eyes searched the ceiling of the massive room desperately and at the far distant corner of the hall, he finally found what he was looking for.

There tucked away in the utmost corner of the great hall hovered five identical candles, in what seemed like a ring, each burning with a red flame. Thonavar leapt to his feet, his heart pounding excitedly. But how am I to get up there?

The cavernous room had a number of huge stone pillars supporting it. He also noticed the ceiling of the room was made up of a criss-cross of intersecting stone and wooden beams. This was an important architectural feature. If he could get up to the wooden beams, he could maneuver his way to the red-flamed candles. But the problem remained. He was he to get up. The pillars were smoothly rounded and had little or no depressions that could act as footholds for Thonavar to climb up. The room was empty, save for the table and the large golden candelabrum.

Then, an idea occurred to him.

Walking to the table upon which the candelabrum stood, he first placed the candelabrum upon the floor and dragged the table towards the nearest pillar. As he had expected, the table was very heavy, but with much effort he managed to drag it to the nearest pillar. He climbed atop the table and reached upwards. It was still too short.

Returning to the ground, he decided to flip the table on its breadth, the shorter side, so that the length of the table, the longer side of the table, leaned against the pillar, allowing Thonavar to gain more height.

With great grunts of effort, Thonavar managed to flip the table from its standing position, onto its length at first, then slowly lifting it from the corner onto its breadth. The table was now leaning against the stone pillar with its legs pointing towards Thonavar.

He climbed the bottom legs of the table and reached out for the top two legs of the table. He got hold of one of the top table legs and grasping it with both hands, swung towards the other leg, using his own legs to hook the other table leg, pulling his body up in between both table legs. Upon climbing atop the two table legs, Thonavar stood up straight. He reached up and smiled, for he just about managed to clasp hold of a wooden roofbeam.

Doing a quick pull-up, Thonavar easily found himself atop the wooden roofbeam. He stood up, observing the surrounding. Throwing out his arms to maintain balance, Thonavar peered down and saw the table he had climbed leaning against the stone pillar below. Glancing up, the five candles with red flames still seemed quite a way up. There was still the matrix of interlocking and interceding beams of wood and stone that he had to climb to reach the top of the ceiling. Best get moving, he told himself.

He ran the length of the wooden beam, dodging hovering candles, and found himself before another vertical stone pillar. He saw that connected to the pillar, was another wooden beam, though at a higher level. To reach that higher beam, he needed to move back, accelerate with speed and jump. If he did it just right, he would make the jump, and his hands would just manage to pull him up atop the beam.

Thonavar took a deep breath, and moved a number of steps back before breaking into a run. Upon reaching the end of the wooden beam, he leapt forward and high into the air, legs pushing hard against the wooden beam, taking off powerfully. Below, the floor of the temple waited for him to fall. But not this time, he thought.

Even as he took off, he knew he would make the jump. His body sailed through the air silently and to as he flew upwards, Thonavar threw his hands into the air, ready to catch hold of the high wooden beam. His body collided with a few candles and Thonavar almost panicked at the thought of his clothes catching fire. But he held his form as his fingers made contact with the wooden beam.