The Time Stone (18 page)

Tina followed him out. “Time? What
kind of riddle was that?” She gasped.

“
It worked, didn’t it?”
Said James.

“
Yeah, just barely.”
Replied Tina.

“
You do know multiple
languages, even old ones.” Commented James.

“
I studied a lot like I
told you. I guess I was good at remembering something after all.”
Replied Tina.

“
You got photographic
memory or something. Good thing for us.” James Said.

Tina discusses at James curiosity as
they walk down the long entrenchment of the cavern how she seems
like a female Indiana Jones.

“
I had a very good teacher
sort of a mentor who taught me a lot.” Said Tina.

“
Dr. Schiester?”
Questioned James.

“
And I envisioned a full
college career to the doctorate level but stuff happens you know
and it wasn’t meant to be. Knowing Dr. Schiester, a skilled
multi-doctorate holder and world-renowned archeologist, I felt I
studied the knowledge of those ten degrees myself but didn’t have
the paper to back it up.” Tina smirked.

“
I can only imagine” said
James.

“
I already told you how he
was, the true nature of his dark side and that whole story.” Said
Tina.

“
I remember” said
James.

“
That bad prick, that’s
it. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. I will probably
never see him again and that is just fine with me.” Tina
uttered.

They look at one another and walk into
the second cave, James holding the torch lit by his lighter and
Tina following with the sack. They walked several meters in when
they saw a large cliff overlooking a pit and a chamber that rose up
as they entered forming a circular enclosure with a solid metal
door sealing tightly behind them. James noted the strange five orbs
on that door as well.

“
Well, this is
interesting. We have nowhere to go.” James whispered.

“
Story of our lives, huh?”
Said Tina.

In the main chamber they currently
occupied, there was a suddenly loud flapping noise and winds
blowing greatly, and something descended through the wall before
them, its face first was seen as a large scaly snout, long pointy
eyes, horns as long as scimitars and just as sharp, and a long body
covered with scales, razor sharp talons on its hands and feet, and
a pair of wings like a large bat. The face of this large dragon
beast was surprising on one horned head but to the surprise of the
duo, a second horned head emerged from the opening as the body and
wings fully submerged through the wall liquefying like the floor
that nearly sunk the duo earlier. The large dragon before them
spoke in a dark and cursed tongue, crinkly and loud like multiple
voices speaking at the same exact time, “We are the
Protector!”

“
What is it you protect?”
Said James trying to be fearless for Tina’s sake but she saw
through his delusion and nearly collapse but stood shaking in the
presence of the giant flying reptile.

“
Return from whence you
came or die!!!” Said the Protector.

The duo remains and starts to wander
around the room looking up at the dragon and trying to find another
way out.

“
What do we do, James?”
Cried Tina.

“
Try to find…look”, James
pointed to the metal door opening again.

“
Let’s go, James.” She
starts to go but James stops her.

“
We came all this way and
survived so much. I don’t think we can turn back…” Said
James.

“
But we could die, James.”
Tina shivered.

“
I won’t let anything bad
happen to you. I promise. But for me, I kind of known there is no
turning back.” James proudly spoke to her.

Tina smiled and brushed it off. “We
fight together, always. I’m with you to fight by your side proudly
and die if necessary. I promised you that before.” She
nodded.

Then they recognized that connection
in one another and knew what they had to do. They turned to face
the beast and James proudly proclaimed, “We’re not going
anywhere.”

“
Then die!” The Protector
shouted. It began to unleash a barrage of attacks maneuvering in an
assault pose to strike at them and lunging down in a swoop, one
after another, while the duo ducked and evaded pursuit barely
missing each one, sweltering in the heat of the chamber so close to
the main center. The Protector roared ferociously unleashing a
breath of fire from both of its heads and then cocking the
Protector’s two heads back further and blowing even more fire at
them. The duo scatters.

“
Use your powers,” yelled
Tina.

And James lifts his right hand and as
the flames approach he holds the flames back with his powers. The
flames stop in mid-air as if striking an invisible barrier. James
then he tries to strike the dragon with his powers using his free
hand but nothing happens.

“
It won’t work on living
things.” He whispered.

The flames from both mouths continued
and the duo was growing tired of the evasion.

“
We can’t keep this up
much longer.” Yelled Tina.

“
I know,” replied
James.

CHAPTER 40

In the main chamber of the mountain,
the two-headed dragon identified as the Protector was unlike any
beast ever seen by either James or Tina. The Protector flapped its
two wings and begins to fly above to its perch high above the
chamber, and James and Tina look at one another and both jump as
high as they could just as James grabbed the toe talons of the
Protector and hitch a ride with it, Tina grabbing a hold of James’
legs and screamed as she was being lifted up with him. The
Protector sees them and tries to shake them off but they hold on
tight and persevere. The Protector lands on its perch and James and
Tina disembark onto the wooden log that represented the Protector’s
perch and then jump off of the perch and help one another up onto a
cliff nearby overlooking the impressive flow of hot molten lava
below in the center of the mountain’s active and violent volcano.
The Protector then flew back down. Smoke and sulfur burned away
rise up causing James and Tina to cough and gag.

“
We got to get out of here
or we’ll suffocate.” Cried Tina coughing and covering her
mouth.

James felt the same way as tears fell
down their cheeks and the sweat dripped from his brow. James took a
breath sighing heavily as he saw another cave entrance above them
one level and yelled out, “that’s our way out” but then he saw the
Protector preparing for another attack on them and swooped back up
to their level and breathed a heavy breath of fire cocking its
heads back and forth blowing it at them. James grabs Tina and rolls
over on the ground away from the flames. James notices as the
Protector got close that it had a strange symbol on its underbelly,
a giant gold breastplate, big enough for the Protector, with the
familiar five orbs glowing as brightly as the hot fire below and
etched on the breastplate and the same symbol was etched on the
cavern behind them glowing suddenly like red hot lava behind it,
gilded and shining in the light of the flaming environment about
them previously hidden but now visible as the Protector flies above
them. They realize the Protector is coming about for a final
assault and as it cocks its heads back and forth again growing
frustrated over its previous failures and wanting to make the kill
this time, it readies its talons to land on them and crush them
with its massive weight. James holds out his right hand and uses
his powers on the gold breastplate on the underbelly of the
Protector and ends up turning it like a dial clockwise and then
grabs Tina and yells “jump on my back and hold on tight” and she
does holding on tightly for dear life as the Protector zooms down
pulled by the weight from James’ powers tugging on the beast’s
breastplate and curves about missing them because of James turning
its breast plate with his powers forming an invisible shield
surrounding the duo. As the Protector’s flames fly off from its
breath towards James and Tina, the flames strike the invisible
energy barrier and are scattered away from the duo. James jumps
atop the Protector’s back with Tina on his own back just as the
Protector was leveled with them and in an awesome jump, James and
Tina jump up to the higher level keeping an eye on the prize and
grabbing the ledge, watching down as the momentum of the
Protector’s downfall with their combined weight on him for a moment
causes the Protector to drop like a stone and a deep, deep pit is
revealed as the Protector realized it was too late to escape its
fate and plunged as it then began sinking into the abyss of flames
and lava below.

A loud cry echoed through the entire
chamber with a massive fury of an eruption as the heads of the
mighty Protector were completely enveloped.

“
Yes!” Tina yelled. And
James hanging like a thread from the upper level cliff with Tina on
his back used all of his strength and grunted crawling up onto the
level as the flames of lave erupted and James rolled onto the level
with Tina in tuck under him barely missing being fried by the wave
of fire and lava.

James and Tina ran out of the
chamber’s entrance and remained staring into the deep darkness
below from a distance. They turned and walked through the new
corridor before them and knew it was not over for them yet. The
corridor reached another dead end but there was another gold
etching on the cave wall before them. They found a small orb like
device in the center of the five orbs symbol on the gold etching.
James tried using his powers to lure it to them but nothing
happened. He tried to grab it but it would not budge.

They wanted to happily retreat to the
exit and leave but they could not, as the door had locked behind
them. Then Tina noticed something odd as the sack she still held,
burned with soot and ash and the supplies within it that were left
over were completely destroyed but the one thing that was not was
the object given to James by the Chief, which was suddenly glowing
very, very fiercely and brightly. They stood in shock.

“
What is making it do
that?” Tina asked.

“
I thought you were the
expert here?” James inquired jokingly. He held the object to the
gold etching and orb like device and there came a bright flash of
hot white light from the object and the gold etching and orb became
a temple door made of metal like the others they saw with the five
orbs symbol on it in gold writing. James maintained the object to
the door and the door opened to the object. The duo passed through
and to their shock they saw a raised up circular platform, silvery
in color and about three feet in diameter with lights and diodes
all around it like some sort of advanced technology they have never
seen. It was connected to a series of poles that circled it and
when they approached, the poles started moving in all directions
and finally curved up and formed an image of a person about the
height of James and Tina and opened up as if allowing for passage
onto the platform and the lights and diodes turned bright red.
Nothing else was present in the small enclosure. James went forward
and Tina held him back.

“
Wait, we don’t know what
that thing does.” Tina uttered.

“
Well, we came this far.
Do you want to turn back?” Asked James.

“
We came this far and this
might be the only way out. The back way is locked out.” Reasoned
Tina.

“
Come on, let’s do it
together, it looks like it can fit both of us.” James added
reaching out his hand and Tina turned reluctant but she accepted it
trusting her friend.

“
Let’s do it” said Tina.
They held hands and then embraced stepping into the pod together,
James still holding the object. Within nanoseconds after stepping
onto the platform, the poles closed around them and the lights
turned from red to green and they vanished in a swirl of bluish
light.

James and Tina felt the sensation of
strange insects crawling on their bodies and within seconds found
themselves in a room standing on a platform.

“
Nothing happened” said
Tina.

“
No” said James. “Look
around,” he pointed to the room being similar but it was not a cave
wall but stone masonry, brickwork, grayish in color, and hard as
cement. “We are definitely someplace else but where?”

“
It felt weird, like
insects crawling on me. What was that thing?” Yelled
Tina.

“
Some kind of
transportation device,” replied James, “we’re in another
place.”

“
Just like when…we somehow
appeared on the plane?” Tina added.

“
Exactly like that, only
different, kind of.” He looked at her and remembered their
conversation on the plane and stood at one another blankly
again.

“
What do we do now?” Tina
said.

“
I don’t know but we need
to find out more. I have a feeling we are getting close and that
this object is the key.” James held out the object that the Chief
gave him, “the key.”

“
James, look.” Tina
pointed to a glowing insertion point in the wall behind the
platform. “This looks like the inside of an ancient temple, maybe
Olmec?” Tina said. It was glowing bright green as the key was.
“Looks like we know what it wants, James.” Tina said.