Greek Tomb or Treasury 2011 by Mylissa @ Captive Eye, on Flickr

This week, Chuck Wendig gave us the title and nothing else.

Grace inhaled sharply as her booted foot caught on a loose rock on the floor of the cavern. The four of them had been keeping relatively quiet as they made their way through the darkness. The only one who seemed to notice was her professor, Dr. Murphy, who looked over his shoulder at her. The light of their torches reflected in his monocle.

“Grace, are you all right?”

“Perfectly. Just need to watch my step.”

The other man, a dour gent Grace knew only as Mister Stephens, brushed rock dust from his coal-black hair and sideburns as he walked.

“I’m still not certain bringing the ladies was the best of ideas, Professor.”

“Nonsense, old chap! Grace is one of the finest students I’ve ever had the pleasure of training, and Violet is an invaluable research assistant. I couldn’t imagine embarking upon this expedition without them!”

Grace glanced at Violet and fought down a surge of anger. Violet was picking her way carefully through obstacles in shoes completely unsuited for such an endeavor. She also had one hand occupied with keeping her skirts lifted as the other held her torch. The bag she carried, full of books, scrolls, and writing implements, kept slipping down her arm as she picked her way through the rocks.

You would have thought she was going to a lecture at university, not plumbing ancient Greek tombs.

What they were after, Grace knew, was not in fact a tomb. It was an ancient temple, one written about by Ptolemy in one of his lesser-known works. It was said to mark the place Prometheus descended from Mount Olympus with the fire of the gods. Their guide, Christos, was far behind them, having stayed at the entrance to the cavern. The fear in the man’s eyes as they’d lit their torches stayed with Grace as they closed in on their destination.

“Still, I’m concerned for their safety.”

“You weren’t so concerned when we were looking for the secret vault of Suleiman, Mister Stephens.”

“That’s true, Grace, but we were under Constantinople at the time. A touch more civilized than a cave in the middle of nowhere.”

“The legends say this temple was so remote so it would discourage – ow – all but the most determined of pilgrims.” Violet was still struggling to keep up.

“Nonsense. It was remote to keep the common man away from the finest treasures.”

“Why, Mister Stephens! Surely you don’t believe there’s no power in myth whatsoever?”

“It’s 1926, Professor. The twentieth century has no place for invisible men doling out judgement from some remote location.”

Grace shook her head. “But you can’t deny that those who do believe will do things like build a temple far from their city-state.”

“It’s superstitious nonsense to placate the idiot masses.”

“She does have a point, Mister Stephens.”

“Professor, you are a man of letters and learning. You shouldn’t let a woman’s opinion sway you from the facts.”

Grace wanted nothing more than to set Stephens’ coattails on fire. But she bit her lip and kept pace with the men. When they had, in fact, found Suleiman’s hidden vault, she’d been the one to disarm his traps to allow them entry. Many mementos of his wives and children, little of real value, had been discovered, but they were now on display at the British Museum, minus a few pieces Stephens kept for himself as partial recompense for funding their discoveries.

There was something about Stephens that had always bothered her. He claimed to be in the newspaper business, which explained his overall worldliness. But there was a distance in his eyes, dark green flecked with gold, she’d never been able to categorize. At least her Professor and Violet were easy to figure out; Grace still wished the Professor had left his “research assistant” in their rooms at the hotel in Corinth.

At last, the cavern opened around them. Their torches reflected off of the faces of the gods carved into the rock. The wall before them was unnaturally flat and smooth. The stone door was flanked by Corinthian columns, each topped with a representation of a large eagle, and various inscriptions. They unnerved Grace even as Doctor Murphy surged forward.

“This is astounding! I never thought the entryway to a back door would be so finely detailed!”

“Are we sure this is a back door? It could be the entire temple was underground to begin with.”

“None of my research suggests that.” Violet walked up to stand next to Murphy. “It did speak of a locking mechanism, though. Something advanced.”

“Ah, yes! There’s a globe, here, in the middle of the door. Now…”

Grace raised her torch, looking across the ancient letters. They began to form words, and as she translated them, the words became a warning.

“‘A Titan stole fire from the gods, and an eagle eats his liver every day. If a mortal…'”

“Read to yourself, please.” Stephens was watching the pair at the door. “The Professor is working.”

Grace almost didn’t hear him. Her blue eyes went wide as she took in the words.

“Get away from the door!”

The Professor and Violet glanced back at her. Both were touching the globe in the middle of the door. Their hands slipped and the cavern echoed with an unearthly mechanical sound. The globe slid open, revealing a glowing amber crystal.

“It’s beautiful…” Violet reached to to touch it.

Grace dove behind a stalagmite. The next moment, a flash of blinding light and incredible heat filled the cavern. As she sat squeezing her eyes shut, she felt a presence, a towering being close by that looked down at her. It spoke, and her head translated the words.

“LEAVE THIS PLACE.”

The light and heat were gone. She took a moment to catch her breath before standing and raising her torch.

Two burnt human skeletons lay before the door, still smoking. The globe in the center of the door was still open, but the crystal was gone.

And so was Stephens.

Chuck’s “The Business End”, from Flickr

Chuck Wendig chose my words – Beast, cape, dinosaur, finger, gate, insult, justice, paradise, research, university.

They were three by the time the reached the gate. Two of Johnson’s partners had backed out of the actual trip, saying they’d be satisfied with evidence. Daniels was the only one crazy enough to volunteer to leave the lab after all the calculations and research were finished. And Peters had always been something of a lone wolf, ever since the disaster at Cape of Good Hope. It couldn’t have been easy, seeing one’s entire squad wiped out due to bad intelligence and the resulting political backlash driving him out of the service.

“I still think you two should be carrying more than just pistols,” Peters said as they stood in front of the gate.

“We’ll be fine. The target isn’t dangerous unless you get very close.” Daniels was calibrating his equipment. Peters shook his head.

“You draw down on something back there with just that 10-mil, you might as well hurl insults. Those might be more effective.”

“Gentlemen, please.” Johnson approached, sporting khaki shorts and sturdy boots as he slipped into a utility vest. Predictions were for a hot, tropical environment with uneven terrain. “It is not as if we are planning to stay there. We are as prepared as we will ever be, and further dawdling may cause us to lose our window.”

Peters shrugged. “I just don’t want to have to drag you two back through, screaming for your mothers.”

Daniels rolled his eyes, finishing the final calibrations at the gate. He checked his watch and synchronized it with the one in the lab. “We’re set. We have three hours, twenty-one minutes. After that another alignment won’t happen for seventy-four hours, sixteen minutes.”

“I don’t want to be stuck there three days. Let’s do this.” Peters cocked his rhino gun. “After you, Professor.”

“I never went to a university doctorate program, but I appreciate the sentiment!” Daniels turned to the gate, which was now filled with a cloying darkness. He took a deep breath and stepped into it.

There was a feeling of vertigo, one similar to the feeling he’d had during the zero-gravity training they’d had. He’d been prepared for the nausea, but not the sudden and complete disorientation. It passed almost immediately, replaced by oppressive humidity and a cacophony of noises made by the sorts of insects and beasts that dwelt in dense jungle areas, but it took the scientist a moment to regather his senses and keep his breakfast down.

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Johnson was the oldest member of the trio by at least two decades, but he’d also served in the military and had been keeping himself in shape. It was the only reason Peters had allowed him to join in. Daniels’ citations of Johnson’s monetary contributions, and those of the other moguls, meant little to Peters. His mind was entirely practical and procedural. Daniels often wondered what it was like to live with such an apparent dearth of imagination, but when Peters stepped through the distorted space in the narrow space between trees, Daniels was glad he was there.

“Exhilarating.” Johnson took a deep breath and patted his chest, his mustache crinkling with an earnest smile. “Makes one feel good to be alive, eh?”

“Yeah. Great.” Peters had the butt of his weapon to his shoulder, aiming down the sights as he turned slowly in place. “Daniels, track down the target. I’ll plant our marker.”

Daniels nodded, reaching into his satchel for the thermohemogauge he’d created for this trip. While the directional sensor was a touch crude for his tastes, he was more than a little proud of a ten-meter temperature sensor that could pick up variations in air that indicated when a warm-blooded creature was occupying nearby space. He turned in place for a few moments as Peters activated their low-frequency location beacon and shoved it into the ground near the distortion that indicated their way home.

“Found one.” Daniels looks up and pointed. “That way, about eight meters through this thicket. The ambient temperature’s a bit high for a precise read on what it is, but there’s too much localized differential for it to be anything smaller than…”

“Okay, we get it.” Peters stepped into the brush. “I’m on point. Daniels, you’re behind me. Mister Johnson, watch our tails.”

“I shall. Do be careful not to disturb the surroundings overmuch, gentlemen. We are, after all, serpents in paradise.”

“What do you mean?” Daniels was adjusting the knobs on his device, not looking up as he walked between the other men.

“This is land untouched by human hands, my boy. No pollution, no war, no diseases spread with malicious or underhanded intent.”

“Oh.”

“Some of my colleagues would surely like to exploit what resources they can from here, but I simply wanted to see this place for myself. Such purity seems like something from a dream…”

“Quiet.” Peters held up a fist. Both Daniels and Johnson kept quiet as Peters watched the underbrush. He raised two fingers and indicated the others should back up. As they did, a large trunklike leg descended and hit the ground. The noise that followed was a splintering and tearing as the long neck of the dinosaur reached up to allow it access to tastier leaves.

Peters raised his weapon. Daniels touched the shotgun lightly.

“It’s a herbivore, Peters.” The scientist’s voice was barely above a whisper. “No threat to us as long as we don’t get underfoot.”

“We came here to shoot a dinosaur, though. Didn’t we?”

“That we did, my man.” Johnson’s words were filled with awe. “But I do noflcit know if we can do this great creature justice.”

“Only one way to find out.” Daniels swapped his temperature device for another, ensuring it was loaded. He checked his aim, readied his finger, and took a deep breath.

“Nobody make a sound.”

For a moment, it was almost as if the jungle itself was holding its breath along with the three interloping humans.

Then Daniels took the photograph.

For the Terribleminds Song Shuffle Part II, Winamp suggested a song by Nigel Godrich from the score to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Sweat had suctioned the cloth of his underclothes to his skin. The plates and rings of metal that composed his armor felt especially heavy. He leaned on his sword, shield dangling from the strap around his forearm, trying to catch his breath. He lifted his eyes and then, after a moment, the visor of his helm.

The field was covered in bodies. Rivers of red ran between them into the ground between the rises where the armies had gathered. Banners still whipped in the wind at the end of pikes here and there, but lines and order had long been forgotten. Once the melee had begun, there had been no more questions on why they were here or what they were fighting for. There was only blood and terror and survival.

He looked down at his shield. The heraldry of his family was clear despite the spatters of gore and the massive dent. He had ridden in with the cavalry, heavy horse meant to cut off retreats and trample down the enemy numbers. It was butcher’s work, his axe rising and falling until it stuck in some pikeman’s head. The warhammer that unsaddled him belonged to an old rival, a large man whose beard extended beyond the helm he wore. The challenge required no words. The rival had waited, hammer at the ready, until the knight was on his feet with sword in hand.

Are you satisfied now? Is honor satisfied? What place did our arguments have in this field of death?

He moved his eyes from his shield to his sword. It was still in the chest of his rival, a long gash left through tabard, hauberk, skin, and muscle. He didn’t need to remove the man’s helmet to know he was dead. He was already laying in his own piss and shit. The quivering had stopped. Questions of the knight’s worthiness, his honor, no longer mattered, with this tongue at the end of his blade stilled forever.

Around him, compatriots picked their way through the corpses, looking for comrades, looting enemies, and putting the mortally wounded out of their misery. The stink of it made him want to gag. He tore his eyes from the carnage to find his horse, not far away, stepping carefully between bodies as she made her way back to him. The mare had seen battle before and was unruffled by the sight of so much death. He couldn’t have asked for a more loyal companion.

He grunted as he pulled his sword free of his rival’s chest. He had no desire for the man’s money or possessions. Besides, the honorable thing would be to allow his body to be carried back home in as complete a state as possible so the family could give it a proper burial.

The knight wiped the blade of his sword on the blood-stained end of his own tabard and sheathed it, quietly scoffing at the notion of honor. It made for good tales and songs, to be sure, but when the battle actually began you never really thought about it. You prayed your sword-arm would be true and that you wouldn’t miss anything, because one moment’s hesitation or a blow you didn’t expect could end it all in an instant.

The knight wondered, as he swung up into his saddle, if they’d sing songs of his rivalry. Would they paint his foe as some snarling villain, thirsty for blood? Could compelling verse be made of how he got unhorsed at the start of it all? Did any bard possess the wherewithal to realize how scared the knight had been?

He lowered his visor to try and abate the stink. His heels tapped the flanks of his steed. The fight was over, and he would not need a cart to get home. He had to wonder, though, if the woman whose hand he sought would still be with him. He had, after all, just killed her brother.

For the Terribleminds challenge, “Making a Sandwich.”

It was 2 a.m., and the rest of the nation was sleeping. The light from the large fridge bathed him in garish, cold light as he dug out the fixings. He placed the containers on the wide steel counter, closed the fridge door and tightened the cinch of his robe. The kitchen staff seemed to have moved the bread, though, and he was looking for it when a familiar face entered.

“Don’t you ever sleep, Phil?”

The man in the suit shrugged. “I could ask you the same question, sir.”

“I can’t seem to find the rye bread. Any ideas where it might be?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. I do have something important we need to talk about, though.”

The man in the robe rolled his eyes. “Can’t even enjoy a snack in peace… Ah! Here it is.” He pulled the loaf of rye bread out of the cabinet. “You want one? There’s plenty of fixings.”

Phil thought about it for a moment. “Sure. But no pickles, please.”

“More for me. So, what’s on your mind?”

Phil laid his tablet down next to the cutting board. “They made their move, sir. There’s been another bombing. Twenty-seven people killed. Twelve of them were Americans.”

For a moment, the butterknife stopped spreading mustard across the bread. Green eyes framed by smile lines swept over the report on the tablet. A heavy sigh broke the silence, and he resumed making his sandwich.

“Sir?”

“Philip, I am not going to make this decision on an empty stomach. I hate to say it, but my fellow Americans, God rest their souls, will be just as dead after I eat as they are now.”

“For a man who campaigned on a platform of compassion and…”

“Really?” The President set down the butterknife and looked evenly at his Chief of Staff. “Can we not have yet another conversation about how I’m deviating so much from my campaign platform and focus on the task at hand? What do we know about the bomb?”

“Early forensics indicate it was a vehicle bomb. Probably some sort of van or truck parked next to the restaurant.”

“Anybody taking credit for it?”

“Not as yet, but…”

“Let me tell you what we’re NOT going to do, Phil.” The President jabbed the mustard-covered knife at the other man. “We’re not going to mobilize a single ship, plane or soldier until intelligence corroborates the claim when it inevitably comes in. We do this smart. We don’t go off half-cocked and invade the wrong country. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me be honest with you, Phil. It’s the least I can do after a decade of my shenanigans.” He counted out three slices of meat for each slice of bread, dropped a slice of cheese on each and put the assembled sandwich in the toaster oven. “Yes, I ran on a platform of compassion and goodwill. And it’s that goodwill that should let us get other countries involved in the investigation behind what happened tonight. But whomever is responsible, it’s a declaration of war. And in war, casualties are inevitable. I hate the fact that it was civilians, and I’m going to give the families of the victims every concession and courtesy I can. But in my ten years in public office, I’ve never really had to go to war. Not like this. And I’d rather not have you second guessing my every move while I get this country ready for it. I’m going to get enough of that from the press.”

“Yes, sir.” Phil paused. “Dave… I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting this.”

“I think I did, at least on some level, as soon as I took office. Sooner or later, someone was going to try and push this country again. We consume too much, and give back too little. We scream too loudly about religion and freedom, but say next to nothing about hunger and oppression in other countries.” The toaster oven dinged, and Dave carefully pulled the sandwich out of it. “Here you go, Phil.”

“Thanks. It does smell delicious.”

Smiling, Dave handed Phil the plate. “I knew you couldn’t resist ham and swiss.” Dave started making another sandwich for himself. “So we find out who did this, who’s hiding them and who’s ultimately responsible. We go at this like a surgeon, not a butcher. If we must take this country to war, let’s do it as quickly and precisely as possible. Agreed?”

Phil had to move a bite of his sandwich into his cheek to respond. “One hundred percent.”

“Good. I knew I could count on you.” Dave put a little extra mustard on his sandwich, and opened the jar of sliced pickles. “So, there have got to be at least half a dozen countries whose intelligence agencies will have interests in helping us out. We’ll need to speak to their directors. And I want the Prime Minister on the phone as soon as possible. I want him to know I don’t hold him personally responsible for this. His people were killed, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dave began toasting his sandwich. “And, just to be safe, we should talk to the Joint Chiefs. We’ll need plans ready to put in action as soon as we have the intelligence we’re after. I don’t want this to be a strictly in-house operation, either. So prepare presentations for allied powers and include their potential forces in our plans.”

“That makes sense.”

The President rubbed his eyes, and then slightly smiled. “I knew something was keeping me up tonight other than indigestion. But shouldn’t you be at home, Phil?”

“I was up late playing poker with some of the staff. We were about to call you when Secret Service said you were down here.”

“Oh, they can be such busybodies.” Dave shook his head. “I better put the coffee on, too. It’s going to be a long day for all of us, I think.”

The toaster dinged.

“Let me do that, sir.” Phil smiled. “You enjoy your sandwich.”