Chapter 20

Room of a Thousand Candles

- When time first began its relentless march, we knew of it and were afraid -

Something red had flickered?

His eyes searched the ceiling of the massive room desperately and at the far distant corner of the hall, he finally found what he was looking for.

There tucked away in the utmost corner of the great hall hovered five identical candles, in what seemed like a ring, each burning with a red flame. Thon leapt to his feet, his heart pounding excitedly. But how am I to get up there?

The cavernous room had a number of huge stone pillars supporting it. He also noticed the ceiling of the room was made up of a crisscross of intersecting stone and wooden beams. This was an important architectural feature. If he could get up to the wooden beams, he could maneuver his way to the red-flamed candles. But the problem remained. He was he to get up. The pillars were smoothly rounded and had little or no depressions that could act as footholds for Thon to climb up. The room was empty, save for the table and the large golden candelabrum.

Then, an idea occurred to him.

Walking to the table upon which the candelabrum stood, he first placed the candelabrum upon the floor and dragged the table towards the nearest pillar. As he had expected, the table was very heavy, but with much effort he managed to drag it to the nearest pillar. He climbed atop the table and reached upwards. It was still too short.

Returning to the ground, he decided to flip the table on its breadth, the shorter side, so that the length of the table, the longer side of the table, leaned against the pillar, allowing Thon to gain more height.

With great grunts of effort, Thon managed to flip the table from its standing position, onto its length at first, then slowly lifting it from the corner onto its breadth. The table was now leaning against the stone pillar with its legs pointing towards Thon.

He climbed the bottom legs of the table and reached out for the top two legs of the table. He got hold of one of the top table legs and grasping it with both hands, swung towards the other leg, using his own legs to hook the other table leg, pulling his body up in between both table legs. Upon climbing atop the two table legs, Thon stood up straight. He reached up and smiled, for he just about managed to clasp hold of a wooden roofbeam.

Doing a quick pull-up, Thon easily found himself atop the wooden roofbeam. He stood up, observing the surrounding. Throwing out his arms to maintain balance, Thon peered down and saw the table he had climbed leaning against the stone pillar below. Glancing up, the five candles with red flames still seemed quite a way up. There was still the matrix of interlocking and interceding beams of wood and stone that he had to climb to reach the top of the ceiling. Best get moving, he told himself.

He ran the length of the wooden beam, dodging hovering candles, and found himself before another vertical stone pillar. He saw that connected to the pillar, was another wooden beam, though at a higher level. To reach that higher beam, he needed to move back, accelerate with speed and jump. If he did it just right, he would make the jump, and his hands would just manage to pull him up atop the beam.

Thon took a deep breath, and moved a number of steps back before breaking into a run. Upon reaching the end of the wooden beam, he leapt forward and high into the air, legs pushing hard against the wooden beam, taking off powerfully. Below, the floor of the temple waited for him to fall. But not this time, he thought.

Even as he took off, he knew he would make the jump. His body sailed through the air silently and to as he flew upwards, Thon threw his hands into the air, ready to catch hold of the high wooden beam. His body collided with a few candles and Thon almost panicked at the thought of his clothes catching fire. But he held his form as his fingers made contact with the wooden beam.

He caught the wooden beam, his body flying forwards, swinging with the momentum of the powerful jump. And with a grunt of effort, he pulled himself up atop the wooden beam. He was now on a higher wooden high beam. And there, just another level above, were the five candles each burning with a red flame.

Thon scouted for his next means of moving to the next level and decided to use the beam that was overhead him. The beam overhead ran precisely parallel to the one upon which he stood. If he jumped directly upwards, he could just manage to get his fingers onto the corners of the wooden beam.

Thon took a step back and jumped upwards. However, he missed and his fingers clasped thin air. For one heart-stopping moment, he braced himself for the long fall to the floor but fortunate for him, his feet landed shakily onto the wooden beam he had launched himself off.

No more mistakes, he told himself. Mistakes might kill you.

Looking down, past the hovering candles, he could see the ground, and a fall from this height would surely injure him. Taking another deep breath, he positioned himself in a squatting position and launched off, frog-like. His fingers clasped the edges of the wooden beam above, on both sides, and gripped them firmly, afraid to let go. Then quickly, he shifted both hands to gripping the edge of one side. His pulse was racing. He did another quick pull-up and there he was, upon the highest beam in the room. At the end of the beam, were the five candles. He moved toward them, exultant. Sweat dripped from his chin. Pushing away the other hovering candles, he crossed the beam, reaching the end and slowly reached out for a red-flamed candle. He plucked it from its hovering position in the air. The candle-flame was a strong one for it barely flickered. He was cautious now and placed his finger through the flame to get a sense of how hot the red flame really was.

However, the flame felt cold. Biting cold. Swiftly taking his finger from the flame, he saw that the skin around his finger had turned slightly blue from the cold. Quickly dismissing this bizarre observation, Thon proceeded to gather the other four candles. However, as he tried to pluck each candle from the air in the same way that he had with the first candle, to his frustration he found that they would not budge. It could only mean one thing. He had to place the candles one by one into the giant golden candelabrum, and that meant a few trips back and forth. Curse McMillian, he thought grimly. He must have surely designed this.

As he cursed the man himself inwardly, the world beneath him almost gave way as a deafening toll sound of an ancient bell resounded throughout the temple room, deep and resonant. So great was the sound that the building shook and Thon had to fight to maintain balance atop the room beam. The sound swept across the room in waves, like a giant soundwave, reverberating and echoing. Thon’s ears were numb and ringing from the awesome vibrations and he almost dropped the candle to cover both ears.

The sound eventually passed. And there was total silence. Thon felt uneasy. Something did not feel right. Something stirred in his memory concerning the toll of the bell sound. Then he remembered the mosaic painting and the words that were written on it.

‘And coming up the temple steps and into the chamber lit by a thousand candles, he looked up and saw a peculiar sight. There were five red flames burning amidst the gold. But he was unable to find them, so that he could place them into the five-figured candelabrum before the bell resounded and the flames went out and the darkness awoke.’

Before the bell resounded, thought Thon to himself.

If that was the bell, then it meant…

Thon peered down from where he was standing and looked out across the room. A gust of cold wind swept through the temple hall. Dread filled his heart as he saw, the light from a single candle nearest to the doorway suddenly black out. Then another. Followed by another. And as the light from each candle extinguished without a sound, the surrounding area that was illuminated by light from the golden flame, grew dark, eventually blacking out completely, as if there was nothing there to begin with. As he watched, Thon saw the darkness creep forward, swiftly swallowing a number of candles, snuffing out their golden flames, before they too faded out of existence.

A sense of urgency seized him, and placing the candle sideways, in his mouth, Thon proceeded to make his way down from the wooden beam. The wax of the candle was bitter tasting and Thon felt queasy. But his arms were free and so he climbed down slowly, lowering himself down onto the middle wooden beam and jumping back onto the lower wooden beam. Then he slid down the rounded pillar, finding the legs of the table and then hopping down to the floor. It felt good to feel the solid ground beneath him. All that time in the air had made him slightly dizzy. He ran to the candelabrum and placed the first candle into a holder.

He looked back expecting to see the temple doorway, and saw to his dismay, the emptiness of a black void instead. And the darkness continued to creep forward, swallowing candles, extinguishing flames, rapidly spreading across the walls of the room and toward the ceiling. Fear gripped his heart. He was running out of time.

He ran back to the table, climbed atop the legs and jumped, pulling himself atop the first wooden beam. He accelerated and ran the length of the middle beam and made the jump to the next, pulling himself up and then jumping upwards yet again to reach the third and highest pillar. He then pushed aside the hundreds of candles and made his way to the remaining four candles. To his delight, he plucked another candle from the air. Yet, as much as he tried, the other three would not budge. Cursing again, he placed the candle in his mouth and made his way down.

Upon placing the fourth candle into the candelabrum, the golden piece began to glow with a golden glow and a pulsating aura. Thon stared at it, his face haggard. He was weary and tired. His clothes were drenched with sweat. But still one more candle remained. The thought of all the physical exertion in climbing up once more filled him with despair. He was exhausted.

Seconds ticked by and already almost half the temple had been voided out of existence. From where he stood above, Thon saw the dark void creeping toward him and for a moment he wondered what lay beyond its edge. Thon watched, fascinated, as the darkness climbed a nearby stone pillar, wrapping tendrils of black around the stone, reaching out and darkening parts of the connecting wooden beam.

"I need to rest", he whispered to himself. And he was shocked to hear his voice, which was barely above a croak.

There is no time to rest.

Looking up, he saw the last candle, hovering up in the air and his heart sank. His strength was fading rapidly. The edge of the void was close now and approached the table upon which he had climbed.

With a roar, Thon surged to his feet and walked quickly toward the leaning table. Energy flowed through his body. He climbed and he jumped. Then he pulled himself up and he ran, and then, he jumped yet again. Forcing his body on, he eventually made it atop the third wooden beam again and proceeded to pluck the final candle out of the air. At last, with the fifth candle in his mouth, he made his way down.

But the table was wrapped in tendrils of black and as if some sort of magic was taking place, Thon saw the colour of the table totally drain out, becoming black as night. Then the table disappeared as the darkness voided it into inexistence. The darkness crept up, spreading all around as candle flames extinguished silently in the gathering gloom of the temple. Thon was still on the middle beam but knew he could not go down the way he had come up. Thon made his choice. He jumped from the middle beam, and fell toward the ground.

He landed upon the ground, legs first in a squatting position. Then he rolled forwards headfirst and onto his back. There was much pain and Thon could not feel his legs. Dragging himself up, he half-walked towards the candelabrum. Looking back, he saw the darkness creeping closer, swiftly spreading over where he had previously fallen and was fast catching up to where he was. I am not going to make it, he thought, despair setting in.

But to come so far for nothing!

With a final lunge, he made it to the candelabrum. Something cold and biting struck his leg and he saw to his horror, a dark tendril wrap around his shoe. He kicked his shoe off and hugged his feet to him. Then with a cry he placed the last red-flamed candle into the candelabrum. Then he turned to face the darkness, bracing himself for the biting cold.

Only there was no darkness.

The room was gone and he found himself sitting in a courtyard.

It was bright and it was daytime. The enormous and imposing twin moons overhanging in the sky above were gone but Thon stared up in wonder at a sky filled with crisscrossing rainbows and pink and purple clouds. Pink and purple clouds, he thought grimly. The sun was up with flames of bright yellow and orange fire flaring out in brilliant displays of heat and light. Every time the sun flared, Thon felt a wave of heat wash over his face.

Thon struggled to his feet and he felt the ground beneath him soften. He then realized that he was standing on grass. Surrounding the courtyard were tall trees, hanging inwards, providing an environment that was shadowed and shaded from the heat of the sun’s flare.

But in the middle of the courtyard was a huge fountain. Water spouted from within, creating patterns in the air with the continuous jets and spouts of water.

And standing before the base of the fountain was a creature.

Even from where Thon was standing, he could make out glints of sunlight reflected from bared teeth. It seemed as though the creature was smiling at him. Though the smile seemed strangely familiar.