Chapter Twenty One
OuroborosChapter Twenty One
The final glimpses and glimmers of sunlight pierced through the tiny cracks and holes in the roof and rock barely illuminating the portion of the corridor as dust flitted in the still air. Ahead of them everything was cast into darkness and shadow. The sound of flint and stone striking echoed in the chamber and far beyond the darkness that they could see.
“Got it?”
A small pinch of dry hay and straw smouldered for a second as a hunched figure gently blew onto the smoke, eventually producing a tiny flame. “Got it. Hand me the lamps.”
Quickly picking the oil doused wick and placing it over the weak flame, the string caught fire and was placed into its holder in the clay oil lamp. With the lamp lit the little patch of burning hay could be smothered before two other lamps with oiled wicks were lit. Three figures now stood at the final dark entrance of the corridor with their lamps alight.
“Alright let’s go.”
“So go first.”
“You scared Jushur?”
“Me? I’m scared of nothing, but as the eldest you should do the honours.”
“Really now?”
“Aish, you two let’s just go.”
“Oy, Wurmah don’t walk so fast it can be slippery and dangerous.”
“Well then, Shulme and Jushur, want to follow me together so we can be cautious?”
The two bickering figures of Shulme and Jushur stood for second in silence before nodding cautiously at Wurmah who stood ahead in the dark corridor and followed her in with careful steps.
The corridor sloped down very gently at first, the rough walls of a natural cave having turned into a purposely carved passage that bore through the rock. There was some evidence of this having at some point been a tiny natural cave opening that had been carved and expanded for better access, suggesting that well before it was excavated it was already being used by people.
What was particularly interesting and curious about these corridors and caves was the fact they had been submerged underwater for as long as the locals had remembered them for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until a decade ago that one of the local villagers had come to visit the natural cistern which they held sacred, that he had noticed that the water level had decreased by a huge amount and appeared to be disappearing even more; their offerings and gifts to this holy water hole that were once invisible at the bottom of the cistern had now been glinting and visible through the water in broad daylight.
Once the water had completely drained from the cistern it revealed accessible caves that had carvings and structures in them, each leading to another structure through more passageways and underground cave tunnels. These tunnels were the access route to the carved entrance that Shulme, Wurmah, and Jushur were walking in. The series of caves they had used to access their current location had once been a series of lava tubes that were smoothed out over thousands of years of flowing water, water that had mysteriously drained out from the caves.
As the locals held these caves sacred they didn’t explore or venture far into them and were forbidden by the elders to do so. A few adventurous people that had ventured in were found dead in the caves, most likely by a nasty fall or accident. However, these fatalities had been enough for the locals to assume that walking in these caves was defiling the sacred site and a death curse had befallen those who had explored the caves without proper reverence.
For the three it only meant that nobody would disturb their search and they could take their time to explore. It also meant that nobody would come to look for them here if they never came out. At most one of their Sisters maybe could end up here eventually following their soul essence, but that would be weeks if not months away. They had to be careful now to make sure they would return safely out so they could meet up with all the rest.
“These walls, they’ve once had text and pictures, can you see?” Wurmah said as they walked further down in. She brushed her fingers gently against the corridor that showed signs of carving, signs that had all but vanished with the flowing water eroding its surface smooth.
“Yeah, it’s impossible to tell what was there,” Shulme sighed, following closely behind Wurmah as they stepped even further into the corridor that gently wound to the left and right like a snake, occasionally dipping suddenly down in an angle before levelling out to a more manageable one.
“Hopefully there are chambers further in that weren’t so affected by the water,” Jushur piped up as the last person in line. She kept looking behind her once in a while, even more once she saw the light from the front of the entrance fade behind a corner, their entrance now hidden from view.
A moment passed with the only sound being the careful steps of the three through the carved corridor. Their tiny oil lamps lit just enough to see a few metres ahead before completely scattering in the darkness.
Suddenly a slip, a crash and shatter, a tumble, and a yell of surprise.
“Watch out!” Shulme lunged forward managing to grab Wurmah by the scruff of her shirt before she fell further in as Jushur reacted equally quickly and wrapped her right arm around Shulme to hold her steady and prevent her from sliding.
Wurmah shuffled backwards as quickly as possible with the assistance of Shulme and Jushur as she stared forward into the dark nothingness ahead, unable to see that which she had just been saved from. After a moment of heavy breathing from them all Shulme passed her oil lamp to Wurmah who had dropped and shattered her own one in the fall.
The corridor had all of a sudden stopped and what had once been three sets of stairs that went straight ahead of them and two to the sides was now reduced to one set on the right, heavily eroded. The set of stairs to the left and the wide steps straight forward from the corridor were completely smoothed out or cracked from years of erosion.
“I think we have come to the end of the corridor,” Wurmah sighed looking up at Jushur and Shulme.
“That would have been a horrible fall you know. With how smooth the steps are you would have picked up so much speed.”
“And probably come to an abrupt stop at the end,” Jushur continued staring over the shoulders of her Sisters.
“You have the rope right?” Wurmah looked over her shoulder at Jushur. She nodded, undoing it from her sack. “I think we better tie ourselves together before we head down there. It looks barely traversable.”
They slung the rope around each of their waist linking them all together as their slow careful descent down the eroded steps to their right started. These steps, as well as the completely eroded inaccessible ones, had been carved into the stone and rock. Treading down carefully the slightest shuffle of their feet echoed in the space, hinting at the size of it. There were a few portions where they had to sit down and carefully slide down the steps as the footholds had completely washed away with time, but with their cautious and steadfast approach they reached the bottom.
“One hundred and twenty.”
“What’s that?”
“Steps, that’s how many there were,” Jushur said as they untied themselves from the rope before rolling it up into a bundle to hand it back to Jushur for safekeeping.
“And they were pretty steep, so we are a long ways down,” Shulme sighed.
“What would you say, about five rods in length?” Wurmah asked looking back up into the darkness from which they had descended.
“Easily. Definitely over half a cord.”
“How much was a cord again?” Jushur asked, having grown up as a poor peasant and never getting the elite education that Wurmah and Shulme had been blessed with. “I know a cubit is a forearms length.”
“A cord is one hundred and twenty cubits, so half a cord is…” Wurmah replied. Jushur was always so unlucky to live a life of poverty every single time. She felt sorry for her Sister.
“Sixty cubits, got it. Damn that is high indeed.”
“Hey, ladies have a look at this!”
Jushur and Wurmah turned to look at Shulme who had walked a little further in and they could see her standing by a massive column, easily as thick as a human was tall. They quickly caught up with her and looked further in the light of their two remaining oil lamps.
The hall was massive, their lamp light unable to reach the full ceiling height. Huge pillars carved out of the stone rose up to the ceiling hidden in the dark. Signs of erosion by water were evident here as well, however close to the top edge of the visibility of their lamp light they could see where the water edge had sat and little water erosion had occurred. If there were any carvings up at the top they were possibly unaffected, however impossible to reach.
Still cautious from Wurmah’s close call of the void, the three moved as a group side by side, making sure to have a good look at their feet to see that there were no holes to fall into. Shulme guided them further to the right, trying to find the edge of the cavern they were in. The pillars that were carved of stone were pretty far apart, you could easily line up a hundred men in between them, and after three of these pillars they finally reached the edge of the hall. Here they found holes in the wall, holes that eerily looked like doors and window frames albeit rounded out, collapsed, or cracked.
“Was this a city?” Shulme asked as she peeked into the first room-like structure they came across. It didn’t go deep, and the way the hole that looked like a window frame was shaped with a little table like structure behind it, she imagined this had been a shop or stall of sorts.
“Maybe, but these rooms don’t look like they were lived in,” Jushur said as she peeked into the next one.
“Hey, you two don’t go off on your own, I don’t have a lamp!” Wurmah cried out, her voice echoing through the massive hall and back again multiple times.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jushur hurried back, linking her arm around her elder Sister's arm. “We’ll go together.”
Following along the right edge of the hall it eventually began to curve inwards and the room outcrops on the side stopped, a shear wall rising in front of them. Their lamps barely showed the height the wall ended; it didn’t reach the ceiling. Continuing further along this wall eventually their lights caught a glimpse of a doorway further ahead. What must have once been an impressive archway leading to a wide set of stairs had now collapsed and eroded, partially covering the way forward.
They all climbed over the fallen archway stones onto the smoothed out steps that welcomed them into a door twice their height, carved out into the stone. On either side of the door were what looked like remains of statues long crumbled and worn. A wide platform ran to either side of the door reaching the edge of the wall they had been walking along.
“Once more unto the breach?” Wurmah asked, Jushur linking her arm tighter around hers.
Shulme took the first steps in and they were once again caroused into a corridor that was rather tight. It continued inwards straight for a moment before opening up to a small room with alcoves on each wall. Next to these alcoves there were more tunnels leading further in, but straight ahead there was a larger doorway with a large sign above it; a sign completely worn by time.
“Well, that looks the most promising,” Shulme said looking at the sign.
The complete silence of their underground existence was suddenly broken with a faint whisper like sound. Jushur wrapped her arm even tighter than before around Wurmah risking blood circulation. “What was that?!” She whispered in a shout.
“Shhh,” Wurmah said as Shulme walked over to the other two and they all put their backs against each other to see in all directions and listen. Jushur un-holstered her shearing knife as Shulme pulled her club out silently from her sling bag.
Another sound, like a puff of smoke and sizzling from their right. It was followed by a sound much like gurgling or water boiling.
“Jushur , let me see this just a sec,” Wurmah borrowed Jushur’s lamp from her and stepped into the side room.
“Be careful.”
Wurmah took anxious steps towards the corridor on the right, with Shulme and Jushur following her a few steps behind. The sound repeated itself once again, now a little louder as the three snuck closer and closer to the source as silently as they could. Again, this time the sizzling and boiling like water sound was clear. Inching further in, little by little it grew and grew before the smell hit their noses. Sulphur.
Then their light caught the faint whiff of smoke floating in the air and then another sizzling sound. Wurmah peered just a little further in and then saw the massive cracks down the corridors floor, cracks that were wide open gashes and wounds in the rock the farther she looked.
“I guess we know where all the water has gone,” Wurmah said, backing away from the steam and sulphuric smell. It was risky even here, you could never tell when a particularly strong steam vent would burst out and rush at them through the narrow corridor. It was best to leave as soon as possible. “Let’s get out of here.”
Wurmah backed up and they were walking down back towards the hallway when Jushur tripped, smacking her shoulder hard onto the side of the corridor which instantly gave out and she disappeared in the darkness.
“Jushur!” Shulme cried out, quickly making her way over to where Jushur had disappeared, Wurmah hot on her tail.
Dust filled the air and Shulme found Jushur on her back on the ground, spitting sand and dust from and lips and wiping some from her face and eyes.
“What did we say about being careful!” Shulme berated her Sister as she reached down to help her up.
“I know, I’m sorry, I just tripped on something.”
“Hey, check this out,” Wurmah said as she passed Shulme and Jushur further into the little alcove that Jushur had fallen into. There were etchings and indents all across the wall and alcove, and these were surprisingly well preserved. Something had kept the water from moving around in this area and eroding it completely.
Helping Jushur up, Shulme walked over next to Wurmah and stared at the indents, looking at the smooth surface and its etches, rubbing her fingers across it as Wurmah’s and Jushur’s lamps flickered behind her.
“This seems so familiar…”
“It really does,” Wurmah replied as she ran her fingers through them too. Then a memory hit her. “We’ve definitely seen something like this before,” Wurmah said, an expression of pain and horror flashing in her face with the lamp light casting her eyes into shadow. “Mother had something like this.”
“That’s right!” Jushur shouted, her voice echoing in the dark damp chamber into eternity, along the long cramped hallways and rooms that they had crossed through to get to this dead end.
Shulme turned around to look at her two Sisters deep in thought. “Right, she had them in her prayer room that she kept locked, she would bring them in there I could see. There was that time, a little before our death that we saw, remember Wurmah, we saw inside.”
Wurmah nodded in agreement as her earlier expression of resentment deepened further. “She was doing something to them to damage or alter them, defiling them.”
“It was so specific though, there was a reason we don’t know. Was there a pattern?”
“Maybe we should keep our eyes out for more of these everywhere we go. If it was something Mother was doing prior to her Ascension and our demise then it’s a clue and information worth investigating,” Jushur piped up, not really remembering much of what Wurmah and Shulme were talking about being younger than them back then and less interested in such stuff. She had barely understood just how terrible her Mother was because Shulme and Wurmah had been very good at keeping their younger siblings safe and happy, away from the depravities they were learning about their Mother at the time.
“Yeah,” Shulme sighed letting her fingers run through the etchings one more time before turning to look at the gleaming dark figure of Wurmah flickering in the shadows.
Wurmah walked over and grabbed onto Shulme’s shoulder giving it a light shove. “Hey, wakeup.”
Shulme blinked a couple times and stared at her Sister’s face as the shadow cast outline of her frame began to fade and go out of focus.
“Excuse me, miss? Hey, miss, we are at the terminal. Wake up.”
Seulgi’s eyes flashed open and she stared out ahead for a second before focusing in on the sound of the bus driver leaning over.
“We have arrived at the terminal,” he repeated with a smile.
“Oh, right thank you for waking me up,” Seulgi straightened herself in her seat before looking around. She had dreamt of a very distant past, of the time when they had first discovered a clue of some entity, religion or cult that their Mother had been either a part of or investigating. A time and moment that had happened thousands of years ago, but now she was back in Korea sitting in a bus.
Picking up her stuff from the chair next to hers as the bus driver walked off and out of the bus, Seulgi followed him out and thanked him one more time before leaving the terminal. Stepping out of the bust terminal building she wasn’t far from her destination; her next rental apartment. She had moved once more having felt that she had stayed at her previous place long enough considering all the data mining she had been doing while attempting to access the Cult’s databases. If they hadn’t already managed to get a bead on her snooping by now they would have discovered her soon and it would have been dangerous to stay there.
This move however presented her with another great opportunity. She had a few days ago discovered a location for the Cult that was used for recruitment, training, and storage of information and materials. She wanted to set up shop close by and observe this location. It was risky of course to be so close to a known Cult affiliated place, but at the same time as long as she was careful she should be able to get by undetected, considering her multiple lifetimes of experience of which some included prior espionage work. Besides, Seulgi would be cooped up in her apartment most of the time anyway.
Coincidentally there was a Goshiwon apartment complex that was just a few blocks away from the Cult hideout, and her apartment was on the eighth floor and the window faced the direction of the hideout. She would be able to observe it from her room without issue and in relative safety with little reason to go outside to find a place to stalk. Just like any other Goshiwon, the rooms were miniscule with barely enough room to even breathe and all other essentials besides sleeping were communal, however the rent was extremely cheap and the owner happily took cash and did no background checks; Seulgi had made sure to have a peek at his files beforehand to see how well he operated the business.
Wearing a Doosan Bears cap, a slack red hoodie, and wide sunglasses Seulgi walked the kilometre or so from the terminal towards her apartment. The deposit had been paid and leases signed, she could show up and receive her key to the room and get a tour of the facilities. With the sun kissing her cheeks, her mind wandered to think about her dream in the bus.
The dream had jogged an ancient memory of hers, something so deep in the past annals of history she wasn’t sure that the memory even existed anymore. The threads tied to that thought that she believed to have been severed were now reconnected by the dream, or they had found an alternate route to those memories. They had discovered an ancient temple-like structure deep under the mountainous region of the Fertile Crescent together with her Sister’s Jannah and Wera, but why the sudden recollection? There was something nagging her about this vision, a feeling that her subconscious had dug this event from her ancient past back into the light of the living for a reason.
The symbols they had uncovered at the location had been ones that her and Wera had clearly seen their Mother tampering with, and since then they had spotted these symbols a few times after at various locations. Neither of them could understand nor read the meaning of them; they would have to try and translate them somehow, impossible unless they could find a Rosetta’s Stone of sorts to aid them. Once she was again in contact with Wera and Jannah she would ask them about this memory she had, maybe they had more insight into it.
Arriving at the apartment she called the landlord who after a few minutes appeared from a side door looking groggy and as if he had just woken up from a nap. He offered the rooms keys and gave a short succinct tour of all the facilities; a communal kitchen, toilets, showers, and a tiny balcony for smoking. With no further questions to ask, which the landlord was thankful of, the two went their separate ways and Seulgi settled into her tiny room. An uncomfortable bed on the left, desk bolted to the wall on the right and half a meter of space to walk to the back end of the room where she had a single cupboard for clothes as well as a small window looking out into an alley. A few blocks out she could see the building and courtyard in question, the Cultist hideout.
She took out a plastic sheet and taped it over the window. This sheet worked as a one-way mirror that reflected and distorted the view of her room to anyone looking from the outside, preventing any peeping toms and more importantly the Cult from noticing that their facilities were being spied on with a telescope. This was the next thing she took out, a cheap telescope that was good enough for this distance of surveillance, and she set it up and focused it on to the building and yard for a first glance.
A few men were smoking outside the yard and a scooter rolled in, a person looking like a delivery driver rushing in through the front. There were a few doors to the right edge of the yard that looked rundown and rusty, and she wondered if they were largely unused, something that could work for their advantage if they wanted to sneak in.
Leaving the spyglass for now she next set her laptop up and hooked it up to the internet, beginning her careful logging and collection of the data she had managed to gather. She had cut off all possible connections to anything she had been doing at her last apartment trying to mask her location. Even the rental of this Goshiwon room had been done from a public PC-shop as not to give the Cult any chance of finding this information from her searches on her laptop and IP, if they ever were successful in identifying her breach and retracing her steps. She finally felt relatively safe and secure for the first time since her reawakening.
Now that she had time to slow down and rest, Seulgi realized just how little time had actually passed since their old souls were reignited. This meant that this Cycle would for certain have a lot more time left before they would reach any critical point. It meant that the Convergence was still miles away and they should have time to gather.
The Convergence; the location in which the veil between this world and their Mother’s ethereal dungeon was the weakest and the location where Adhabu would attempt to open it up, or if the Eternal Ladies could reach it first a place where they could Lock the point of Convergence and reset the Cycle. The location changed from Cycle to Cycle, always opening up somewhere in the general area of where their old souls were reawakened.
Considering she was a Korean in this life it meant that the Convergence would most likely happen within this portion of the globe; anywhere from China, eastern Russia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan or somewhere in the middle of the East China Sea, Sea of Japan or Philippines Sea. If they were extremely unlucky it could be out in the Pacific Ocean, although she felt this was unlikely.
Seulgi leaned back on her creaky foldable chair of her room. Usually it had been closer to a year or a few before the location of the Convergence was revealed and they would have to prevent Adhabu from opening the path for their Mother to return. This Cycle everything had happened so fast that she hadn’t had the time to sit back and think of their situation.
Seulgi smiled, they still had time.
Her preliminary data indicated that the Cult was no closer to finding the point of Convergence than they were. It was still very early to their awakening anyway so even if all of the Eternal Ladies gathered, meditated, and did their rituals it would be impossible for even them to find its location. Only time would tell as the Cycle rolled on towards the breaking point where the final showdown would be.
What she did discover however was that the sensory net that the Cult had spread out to detect these signals of Convergence was wide. She had no idea if the equipment the Cult was using was even effective in detecting it, but even if it wasn’t it showcased that they had a suspected area for the appearance of the Convergence. Tracking this data, Seulgi could use it to help the Eternal Ladies to also focus their efforts once they had gathered.
All she hoped for was that they could get a few months time to continue their research from the last Cycle, to search out all the leads they could find and gather everything necessary. Maybe, just maybe, they could finally find a way to break it, to break the Cycle. They were close, Seulgi was certain of it.
Something popped up on her laptop screen and Seulgi straightened herself up on her chair and refocused on the pop up. It was a video call from an unknown identity. Seulgi’s eyes lit up and she was almost in tears before wiping her eyes and straightening her hair. This call could only be from one location.
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