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*CHAPTER THREE*
Conor opened his eyes again. He couldn’t remember how many times he had opened his eyes in this place. He lost count somewhere past the fifteen thousandth time, and that was so long ago he couldn’t count the days. He kept blinking his eyes, hoping to see a source of light from somewhere inside his cell. He had lived in complete darkness for so long he wondered if his eyes would be able to stand the light of day again. But he kept opening them whenever he found himself awake. He would lie there in the black, soulless cell, opening and closing his eyes. He played a game with himself, trying to convince his mind that the next time he opened them he would see something other than darkness. It worked for quite some time, but now Conor blinked his eyes merely to keep from going out of his mind.
He had lived in the bizarre cell for well over a year as far as he could tell. He knew the dimensions of the box precisely, sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and ten feet high. Having marked it off many times just to keep busy, he felt certain of his calculations. The walls of the cell were a complete mystery to Conor even after living inside them for so long. He could press his arm almost all the way through any of them. There was no solidity at all. If he tried to walk through one of them, however, the darkness collapsed all over him, forming an impenetrable barrier. It looked almost as if an army of shadows gathered around him any time he attempted to escape. After trying this a few times, Conor watched the other walls react as he tried to walk through one of them. The shadows from the other walls zoomed around the area of the cell, fortifying the place where Conor hoped to push through. It was either an incredibly sophisticated piece of equipment, or it was a living being. Knowing the crossworlds as Conor did, he guessed the latter. If organic, then it served its masters well. It never tired, never needed to replenish itself, and it understood its function perfectly.
After many attempts at the walls of his cell, Conor once tried to dig his way out. The floor of his cell, after all, remained as it had been all along, a loose collection of dirt and rock from the mesa. Clawing his hands bloody, Conor managed to dig the beginnings of a crude but serviceable tunnel under one of the corners of his cell. As he leaned back to rest, he could see the reinforcements sliding along the walls in his peripheral vision. The shadows raced over to the corner from every direction, forming a tightly packed wedge directly underneath his tunnel. He didn’t even attempt to dig around it. He just stood up, nodded his head in admiration, and walked to the other side of the cell.
Quite a few times he attempted to trick the shadows into making a mistake. Using a rock he found while digging one day, he carved out a tunnel in one corner of the cell. As he expected, the shadows flowed over to his position, concentrating their energies and blocking his path. At the instant he saw the shadows blending together, Conor jumped up and ran toward the opposite wall. He figured the shadows had depleted themselves in order to cover the tunnel, and he might be able to get through one of the thinner walls. He felt as though he actually might have made it a couple of times. The wall definitely thinned and as he pushed his way out he sensed a minute membrane of light. The shadows quickly recovered, however. He felt them collecting around his body, reinforcing the wall, and slowly pulling him back into the cell. He marveled at the organic quality of the cell structure. He actually felt the shadows gripping his arms and legs while they gathered together to reclaim him. The cell worked logically and patiently, and even as a prisoner Conor had to admire it.
Not only did the cell of shadows keep Conor as its prisoner, it also kept him alive for months on end. In all the time he had resided within the shadowy walls, Conor had never seen a bite of food or a sip of water inside of his cell. Yet, aside from the normal growth of a teenage boy, he had never lost or gained a pound during his long stay. By some form of organic magic, the Circle of Evil had designed this cell with recuperative powers. Since he felt nothing while awake, Conor deduced that the cell fueled his body while he rested. Something in the structure of the cell walls must have been infusing his body with every nutrient needed for human survival.
Another surprising facet of his bodily functions lay in the fact that there didn’t seem to be any. Conor had not relieved himself, nor had he felt the need to do so ever since he awoke in this bizarre cage. Apparently the Circle of Evil had taken complete control of his biological functions. Having studied humans for eons, they must have determined exactly how to keep a young man prisoner indefinitely. He couldn’t even remember producing a drop of sweat even while exercising or attempting to escape. Astounding as it appeared, Conor always asked himself the same question. Why would they keep him alive? He had fought with the creators and crossworlds champions and destroyed many of their most valuable warriors. He had pledged his life against their forces and worked diligently toward their ultimate ruin. Even so, they had successfully imprisoned him without injury or torture. If they had kept him locked within these walls for this many months, then certainly they planned to keep him indefinitely. But why keep him alive? Why continue to nourish him? Why not destroy him and finish the creators? They must have the five keys since they had captured Janine.
Janine. Conor balled his fists in frustration again. His girlfriend could be anywhere. She could be undergoing the most painful torture imaginable. She could be gone already, disposed of after their quest for the secret to the keys had concluded. How could he have not held onto her more tightly? How did he allow both of them to be fooled so completely?
Janine. She had no part in this except as an unwitting accomplice. She had been selected as the keeper of the keys and for that she paid the ultimate price. She fought bravely by Conor’s side during their journeys together. She never complained once even though she had plenty of reason to do so. Even while witnessing sights no person should ever see, she continually walked forward to their next objective. He wondered if he could have collected the five keys without her assistance.
Janine. He would gladly remain here in the cell of shadows forever if it meant that she had safely made her way back home. Thinking of her safety had helped him come back from the brink in the early days of his imprisonment. He cried himself hoarse for a week worrying about her. For another month he admonished himself time and again. He couldn’t rid himself of the terrible guilt he felt. Every time he closed his eyes the image of the hideous, bony hand resurfaced in his mind. He felt it slither past his body in search of its goal. When he sensed it grasping Janine’s waist and ripping her from his arms, he would snap awake, screaming for his girlfriend while swinging his arms wildly in an attempt to locate her.
After months of imprisonment, he realized that the magic of the five keys of the creators was the main reason they kept him and Janine alive. They must not have found the source of the Lady of the Light’s spell on the keys. Even after all this time, they frustrated themselves with their unsuccessful attempts to break the spell of her impenetrable magic. Since they could not remove the keys from her possession, they would keep her locked away until they discovered the secret. When they did finally resolve the riddle, however, Conor closed his eyes and cringed at the thought. They would make him suffer by forcing her to an excruciating demise.
And what of the champions of the crossworlds, thought Conor? Had his blunder sealed the locks on the cage of fire forever? They had almost escaped as he and Janine collected the five keys. How frustrating it must have been to smell your freedom and then have it snatched away at the last second. He remembered the sorrowful despair he saw on Eha’s face as he lay within the bars of the cage. To a cat, they had all looked defeated. Purugama, with his mighty wingspan, suffered the entrapment more acutely than the others. Forced to keep his wings folded around his body, he endured the worst of the cage’s energy when he could no longer hold them to his sides. Standing at the extreme edge of the bars, he would unfold one wing, gingerly stretching it out to the limits of the cage. Invariably, the tip or one of the ribs would brush against the barrier, sending a surge of fiery energy toward the offender. Even worse, the cage of fire sent bolts of punishment at different intervals, so at times the great cougar received a mildly painful sting. On other occasions, however, the pulse of energy blasted through his body so forcefully it nearly caused him to pass out.
They had been imprisoned in the cage of fire for roughly the same amount of time that Conor had lived in the cell of shadows. He wondered if the cage kept the champions alive in the same way this cell nurtured Conor. Or if not, had the creators found a way to provide them with food and water? He thought of Maya, the wise Lord and Leader of the champions. What must he be thinking while locked in a cage with his brothers for so long? Knowing him as he did, Conor supposed that Maya simply spent his time trying to communicate with the Lady of the Light and trying to figure a way to defeat the cage’s elements. Still, cats are passionate and curious creatures, and Maya must at times have felt tremendous frustration. Surely Ajur and Surmitang had roared their aggravation for weeks. He couldn’t imagine Surmitang, the proud Sumatran tiger, held inside a cage with no hope of escape. The shame of his situation must have bled away his strength by the day. And Ajur, Conor could see him now, crouching in a corner of the cage, pecking away at different components, testing it for weaknesses. Ajur, the strong bull-headed plodder, he would try to find away to escape the cage of fire long after the crossworlds had slipped into oblivion. At times he would feel overwhelmed and defeated, but he would shake those feelings off and continue his work faithfully. The only champion left was Therion, and Conor hadn’t a notion of where the gigantic lion might presently live. The creators had given him life, but a life lived alone for all time. Even though the majestic beast had tried to destroy him, Conor whispered a short appeal to the Lady for his health and happiness.
The young man sat at the far end of his cell, watching the shadows follow him every step of the way. He had built a mound of dirt at this end of his cell, sort of a crude cot for sleeping and resting. He had even built a small riser at the head of his bed, which served as a rigid but serviceable pillow. He lay back, interlocking his fingers and placing the backs of his hands against his eyes. He let the eyelids fall while trying to visualize the day he would walk out of his prison. He focused on the image of light, any source of light at all that helped diminish the darkness he existed in every day. He thought of the Lady, about how pure and intense the light around her always burned. He thought of the sun, a star he hadn’t seen in so long it almost couldn’t appear in his mind. He thought of the lights in his room, of flashlights, of headlights on cars, and of candles. He thought of every source of light he could imagine, trying desperately to ignore the stone darkness that existed beyond his closed eyes. In this way, he played his game again, the game that always ended the same way, with him opening his eyes to the black of night. He lay there with his eyes closed for the longest time, in no hurry to open them again.
On the wall farthest from where Conor lay, a pinprick of light silently pierced through the infinite darkness of the cell of shadows. It receded, leaving no trace of its penetration behind. A few feet from the first incision, another minute beam of light bored through the cell wall. It too, backed out of its path, blinking out as it exited the cell. One inch above the sandy floor, another penetration appeared, this time a flat beam of light roughly four inches across. As quickly as it appeared it dissolved into the cell wall.
Conor sensed the impression of light somewhere in his mind. He didn’t open his eyes immediately, because he had imagined this very thing so many times before. He lay there on his sandy bed, his hands covering his eyes, swearing to himself that a source of light had entered the cell. Instead of succumbing to his desires, however, he held his position. If a light had appeared in his cell, he didn’t want to rush to a sorrowful outcome. He wanted desperately to open his eyes, but at the same time he wanted to wait as long as possible. He wanted to imagine his freedom for as long as he could stand it. Finally lifting his hands from his forehead, he lifted his legs over the side of the sandy mound, placing them squarely on the ground. He opened his eyes and looked at every inch of the cell of shadows. Nothing. No light at all. He had really fooled himself this time.
He swore he saw something. He felt his mind might be playing tricks on him again, but as he crawled across the cell he saw it clearly. A tiny sliver of light running up the side of the cell wall. It seemed to be measuring the height of the structure as it passed up one side, disappeared, and then took a different slice, moving down another section of the wall. Conor backed away as he heard a familiar humming whine coming from the other side of the cell wall. He watched as his last minutes in the cell of shadows finally ticked away.
A blinding flash of light scarred the far wall of the cell. It lashed in a precise line, from floor to ceiling, across the top, and then down again to the floor, a sizzling path of light snaking its way through the cell of shadows. With the tracking completed, a blazing corridor of brilliant energy beamed in front of Conor. The intensity of the corridor wall fluctuated briefly, and then held its power perfectly. The framework of the portal, once a separate line cut into the wall, now joined together with the main corridor. Flashing brightly one final time, the doorway to Conor’s freedom stood no more than a dozen feet from where he sat.
The shadows in the immediate area had been obliterated by the appearance of the corridor, but the remainder of the cell would not give up its prisoner so easily. As quickly as the light appeared, the shadows from the other three walls and the ceiling collapsed onto the corridor’s location. It looked to Conor like millions of shadowy tiles racing across the walls, hoping to overcome the light by sheer numbers. The corridor flared, holding the brighter focus of its power in order to repel the attack. The boundless energies of radiance and darkness converged on each other in an explosion of light and sound. Conor shut his eyes and covered his ears to protect them from the intense battle. Thousands of shadow tiles sped toward the bright corridor, only to be blasted into oblivion by the power of the creators. The corridor gained a manic strength as the battle wore on, determined to defeat any force in the struggle for Conor’s safety. After what seemed to Conor like an eternity, the cell of shadows finally depleted itself. Every few seconds, a tile or two zoomed across the ceiling or along one of the walls, disintegrating into the beaming corridor. The portal burned stronger than ever, prompting Conor to lift his eyelids and look upon his savior. He fully expected the Lady of the Light to emerge from the corridor. When he saw who entered what remained of the cell of shadows, he stood straight up with his mouth wide open.
“Well, Mr. Jameson,” said the harmless looking man standing in front of Conor. “We’ve gotten ourselves into quite a predicament, haven’t we?”
“Mr. Hikkins!” gasped Conor.
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