The purple robed monk took charge of what seemed to be a request—a polite request—for them to stay and see something of great importance. Donnie saw Captain Banks struggle to contain a growing frustration but he allowed the squad, the professor, and Donnie to be led back into the center of the room. One of the monks took charge of the camel again, keeping it quiet near the door while the purple-robed monk gathered them around the well.
Half a dozen monks arrived, each carrying a pottery vase. The pots looked to be uniform in size, terracotta clay in an oval shape around a foot high, their lids sealed with wax, each trailing a metallic cord. The monks arranged the pots equidistant around the outer edge of the well and spliced the cords together so that the pots were linked in a chain.
The purple-robed monk took a wooden pail of water from alongside one of the walls, returned to the well, and with a flourish poured the whole contents down into the dark.
The monks went still, their posture telling Donnie that they expected something to happen but for several seconds, there was only more of the heavy silence. Donnie looked to Banks and saw an irritated expression cross the captain’s face. Then the hairs on the back of Donnie’s hands rose upright as did those at the nape of his neck and he felt his fingertips tingle.
Something crackled and sparked down in the depths of the well and blue flashes lit up the wall like strobe lights. The crackles got louder, the lights flashed faster. The chain that linked the vases glowed, faintly at first then ever brighter, a soft, almost golden glow in counterpoint to the blue lightning flashes coming up the well. A humming vibration—Donnie thought it was coming from the now golden chain—filled the room, setting his teeth tingling, rising through him from feet to skull.
One particularly bright flash caused Donnie to close his eyes against the flare and when he opened them again, he looked into the well to see that it was filling up, not with darkness but with a writhing mass of what looked at first glance to be giant earthworms.
Blue static charge sparked and flashed around the squirming bodies that were far thicker in the body than garden worms, barrel-shaped and ridged, varying in size from a foot long to monsters of at least six feet. Their skins were moist and blood-red, almost crimson. When a large one opened its mouth, Donnie realized his comparison to earthworms wouldn’t hold up. These things were fanged, their circular mouths full of twin rows of ivory-white, pencil-thin teeth.
The creatures seethed and roiled in the well, filling it to the brim but not advancing past the golden glow from the chain of vases. The blue flashing continued to spark and clash around the chamber but only seemed to intensify the yellow glow from the vases, the gold battling the blue as the humming vibration set the walls to thrumming in sympathetic vibration.
The worms tossed themselves against the rim of the well but each time were repelled by whatever thing it was that the circle of vases had created. The gold was winning. The surging, squirming mass of worms slowly subsided back into the deep, the gold glow filled the room in one final flare then it too faded away as slowly as an autumn sunset. The hum receded, lost in some far distance, and the temple fell as quiet as it had been before the performance.
The purple-robed monk clapped his hands once and gave them a wide smile.
This time when Captain Banks decided to go, the monks made no move to prevent their departure. Using just hand gestures, Banks got them all moving, having to wait only for the monks to open the doors. The purple-robed monk accompanied them down the alley of dark houses, out of the gateway, and off the outcrop as far as the point where it met the desert floor. He bowed, smiled, and somehow managed to convey the fact that he wished them a safe journey. He also had one more thing to show them. He jumped up and down on a rock and pointed at the squad. Then he jumped down onto a piece of softer sand and jumped again before speaking the only words they would hear him say. He pointed at the sand to emphasize it.
“Olgoi-khorkhoi.”
He wasn’t smiling now and with that he turned away and scuttled back up the pathway, as if in a hurry.
“What the hell was that all about?” Wiggins said, lighting up a cigarette.
Banks said what Donnie was thinking.
“I think it was a public service announcement of a kind,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’ve seen a demonstration and a warning for strangers to the area.”
“What, stay on the path, keep off the moors kind of thing?” Wiggins replied.
“Exactly,” Banks replied. “And I think we know now what happened to the poor camel.”
- 5 -
Banks took the lead as they headed north away from the monastery and, heeding the monks’ advice, attempted to keep where possible to rockier ground. Hynd came forward to join him, offering him a smoke.
“You really think it was a warning, Cap?” the sergeant said.
“I can’t see how it could be anything else, do you?” Banks replied. “It was a fine piece of showmanship, I’ll give them that.”
“But big electric worms? In the desert? It’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? The spice must flow and all that crap?”
Banks laughed.
“You mean like big bugs in the arctic, giant snakes in the Amazon, big fucking spiders in Syria… that kind of far-fetched?”
Hynd laughed.
“Fair point. So the water—the rain—is bringing them up to the surface?”
“Aye, at least I think that’s what they wanted to tell us. That and keep to rocky ground. Keep an eye on yon camel, will you, Sarge? It seems to ken when there’s trouble about.”
“There’s one other thing, Cap,” Hynd said. “Young Wilkins is struggling. He’ll not admit it but that bad leg is giving him gip—you can see it in his face and his limp’s getting worse.”
Banks looked across the plain to where another outcrop sat squat on the horizon.
“Two more hours, then it’ll be getting dark anyway and we’ll camp down over there for the night. Keep an eye on the lad and if it looks to be getting too bad, we’ll get him up on the camel.”
The afternoon passed uneventfully. The professor fell asleep on the camel, Wiggins kept Davies and the young doctor Reid amused with stories, some taller than others, of the squad’s previous missions. Banks kept an eye on both the camel and young private Wilkins, who was sweating profusely and now had a distinctly pronounced limp.
“I’m okay for a few more miles yet, Cap,” he said when Banks dropped back to check on him.
“Good man,” Banks replied. “But don’t overdo it and that’s a bloody order, do you hear me?”
Banks knew that the lad, like any member of the squad, was trained to suck up discomfort and work through it but this wasn’t a combat situation. If it came to it, he’d do as he said, cut the lad some slack and allow him a rest on the camel, but it looked like they were going to reach the outcrop before any such respite would be needed.
As they approached their goal, Banks saw that this latest lump of rock was just that—there was no sign of any habitation although as they got closer still, he saw there were remnants of campfires on some of the lower ledges, which he took as a good sign.