Demonic Fire

Jasmine shivered, despite the sultry heat still floating on the orchid scented evening air.

"Did you hear a voice? A young girl singing?" Jasmine spoke softly so as to not disturb the faint chirping of the night birds. "It's in a very old language and I didn't understand what she was saying."

The men in black looked at each other in silence.

Anh Hai waved his hands, breaking through the confusion.

"We are going to go down into that city, but not in the direction that you were just heading. There is a path on this side that winds down at a slope so that we don't break our necks on this sheer cliff. Come."

Rubbing her left cheek where Anh Hai had just struck her, Jasmine stumbled and slid down the mountain path along with the men. Her mind was in a jumble, not sure what had just happened.

It was getting gloomy in the purple dusk and she was frightened of the ruins. The vibrations of ancient spirits oozed out from between the cracks of the derelict structures made her shiver with unease.

From the altitude where she was standing, Jasmine could see several groupings of these aged temples. Some were still standing in resolute defiance, others in weary obsequity.

Among these standing monoliths were the structures that were so damaged that they were nothing more than collapsed rubble, and others that were mere square bases that marked their once glorious positions.

Their tall pyramid-shaped domed roofs were overgrown with weeds and poisonous vines, their dark entrances, maws of inky blackness, beckoning the wary visitor inside to an uncertain fate.

There was immense power within. Jasmine could feel it with every step she took and every breath she inhaled of the jungle air.

The area surrounding the ruins was so thick with trees, it was barely negotiable, but within and directly around the monuments, there were only skinny saplings, barely surviving, as if some force was draining away its ability to proliferate.

The barren grounds in between the structures were covered with a fuzz-like grass which looked well-kept and mowed, as opposed to the surrounding hills which sported tall scrub grass and dense shrubs.

A quick look around showed a handful of goats grazing nearby, which explained the well-groomed grass around the temple area.

As their group got closer and closer to the ruins, Jasmine's apprehension grew stronger and stronger.

The mountains, which surrounded them like a fortress, seemed to be closing in on her senses and the vaguely human shapes of the erect stone pillars and epitaphs seemed to be waiting in tense anticipation of their arrival.

The overwhelming sensation that she had of the place was that it had been longing for her to return after so many ages of lying in wait.

The structures, though in various stages of dying and decaying, seemed to be holding on to its physical configuration as long as possible so that it could survive until the day that she returned.

The ruins were not waiting alone.

There was a flickering of lights on the ground. It was to this flickering light that Anh Hai led the way. Behind one of the larger towers was a large crackling bonfire.

At first, Jasmine was relieved that here, at least there were living breathing humans other than the five men who had entered the decayed Holy City with her, but then her relief changed to shocked disbelief, and finally to horror.

Beyond the dark expanse, within the courtyard formed by the aged structures, where the fire was dancing, there was a platform raised five feet above the ground.

Black robed figures with hooded heads walked around the platform where a solitary figure sat, unmoving and barely alive.

The sight had been hidden from view by the tall temples, but now, absence of sunlight had revealed the dancing shadows created by the fire. Past the first monolith, the platform was in plain sight.

"Oh my God," Jasmine muttered, unable to move a single step further. Horrifying images of devil-worshiping adherents flashed across her eyes, echoing what she was seeing in front of her.

"Don't be afraid, Jasmine. These priests will not harm you." Anh Hai said as he took hold of her hand.

Facing the dark robed figures, he called out to them.

"Greetings, High Priests. We are finally here."

A hooded figure broke from the circle and made his way to the group. As he got closer, Jasmine had a deja vu feeling that she had been here before and had seen this man previously.

He stopped short of the group, three yards a way and held out his hands in welcome. Then he reached up with both hands and slipped off his hood revealing his face to the group.

In the glow of the lamplight held by one of Anh Hai's men, Jasmine saw a sight so terrible that she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out.

The face was that of a wrinkled old man with a shock of wavy white hair and droopy eyes with pupils that had whitened and clouded over.

The man was physically blind, but he followed the movements of the group as though he could see them all very clearly.

"Welcome," the old man made a motion for them to join the group around the fire.

"Good evening, Honorable Tong Li." Anh Hai gave a curt bow and followed the old man towards the group.

The group of black-hooded men ceased their chanting and paused around the fire pit waiting for the old man to resume his place.

Anh Hai's six black-clad men were then given robes of the same type as the hooded figures, and upon doing their garments, took their places around the circle. They had been a part of this all along.

The old man then rejoined the group circle around the bonfire and resumed the group chanting.

He threw a pale powder into the fire.

With an unholy hiss, it rose twice its height, throwing out an intense bright green color. It radiated outward, passing through the group and almost scorching their faces and exposed skin.

Then it ebbed back into an ordinary fire, dancing and throwing shadows along the ancient yellow brick walls of the ruins around them.

The old man chanted awhile longer and then he threw off his cloak. Underneath, he wore only a sarong and a necklace with the long canine tooth of a wild beast.

Blinded as he was, he vaulted up the platform with surprising alacrity and jumped around on the dais, spry as a young boy.

Dancing around the perimeter of the platform with utter disregard for his blindness, the man chanted utterances in a strange tongue, and then stood in front of the seated figure who looked to be dressed in a royal outfit.

He lowered himself until he was sitting cross-legged in front of the man and then, with no warning, slipped an arrow from his waist and pierced it through the man's jaw, pulling it halfway out through the other side of his cheek.

Jasmine was close enough to see this, and to verify to herself that the seated figure did not bleed as a normal human should. In fact, there was no discernible reaction from the man other than the fact that he opened his eyes.

"What do you wish to be revealed?" Tong Li asked, still facing the seated figure.

"Where are her crowned jewels and the golden scepter of the King?" Anh Hai asked in a booming voice.

Tong Li said something to the seated figure who began to shake and make jerking motions as if he had just been electrocuted.

Then, he mumbled something which Jasmine could barely recognize as human speech. It was difficult for him to speak, impeded as he was with the arrow through his cheek.

Tong Li nodded a few times and then got up. He began again to dance and wave his arms about as the group of hooded figures around the fire pit chanted along with him.

He leaped back down to the ground and once again, his body sagged as that of a blind old man, fumbling around, looking for the group.

He turned unseeing eyes towards the direction where Anh Hai stood.

"So, High Priest. Have you received my answers?" Anh Hai asked.