And then she detected a movement right at the limit of her peripheral vision. She spun around, startled and repulsed by the form that now stood before her.
It was very similar to the unpleasant twins that she had recently encountered with the same hard, translucent form, the same lipless mouth transversing most of the head. But it was taller, its head level with her bosom.
‘What – who are you?’ she demanded.
‘You know me,’ was the sibilant, high-pitched reply, ‘I am Zarka.’
She stared at the thing in stunned silence for a moment. Then: ‘Impossible. It was smaller than you. I have just left it. You are not Zarka.’
The thing moved toward her. She stood her ground.
‘Nevertheless, I am Zarka. Your beliefs are of no concern to me, only your abilities. Your strengths, your weaknesses. I must know if you are fit to be a warrior.’
Shana somehow knew what the ugly word meant although she had never encountered it before.
‘I am not a warrior. I just want to go back to the Land.’
‘There are two ways to leave this place. Neither involves you returning to the Land. That degenerate existence is over.’
Shana found that something was replacing the fear that had turned her limbs to mush. A determination to outface this creature.
‘What do you want?’
It moved closer still.
‘To play some games.’
Not this again! Shana groaned inwardly. She looked down into the repulsive eyes.
‘Get on with it.’
‘Of course.’ And then it hit her.
She tumbled backwards and hit the floor of the cavern, hard. Lights danced in front of her, pain coursed through her jaw where she had been hit. Her teeth felt suddenly loose.
She spat out blood and glared up at her tormentor.
‘What game is this?’
‘The most basic game of all – the game of struggle, the game to see who has supremacy.’
‘There is no reason to fight. No need to see who is supreme. Why should we not co-operate for the common good?’
No answer.
‘I don’t wish to play.’
‘If you do not play then I will know immediately that you are not worthy. Then I will kill you.’
She stood up, knowing that to back away, to run, to beg for mercy – all would be futile. She would have to play.
And play she did. She rushed at the creature and then, turning slightly, shot out a long leg so that her foot struck its chest, dead centre. It staggered, went down on one knee but did not fall.
‘Excellent,’ it said. ‘Exc...’
It did not finish the sentence as Shana, copying its earlier attack, brought her fist up under the point of the jaw, putting all of her not inconsiderable strength behind it. The substance of the creature, although crystalline in appearance, was more rubbery in texture and resilience. Already on one knee it crashed to the ground and lay there on its back.
‘That was good,’ it said, ‘you have some strength after all.’
But then it leapt to its feet. ‘But how much?’
Then it was moving all around her in a whirl of stabbing blows, blows that she did not see coming and could not defend against. Eventually she collapsed into black unconsciousness.
She awoke with the metallic sting of blood in her mouth. One eye was closed.
Roughly she was pulled to her feet and held so that her assailant’s face was almost against her breasts.
‘You have failed the test. But let’s try another. You are better at logic than physical effort it would appear.’
It dragged her across the floor to where stood three boxes. All were made of stone but of different colours: black, white and red.
It left her lying in front of the boxes and showed her what it held in one hand. The object had a short black handle from which protruded a gleaming blade of a substance that Shana did not recognise.
As if reading her thoughts, the creature (Zarka?) said, ‘This substance is what we call steel. It is fashioned into a blade. A very sharp blade.’
Shana knew what a blade was. Some of the plants in the Land had leaves that looked like that blade. But they were not made of steel.
It continued, ‘I have put another of these objects – which we term “dagger” by the way – in one of these boxes. Now read what is written on the boxes.’
Shana had never seen writing before but somehow she knew that she would be able to read whatever the inscriptions were. And she could. With her one good eye she saw on the black box: “The dagger is in this box”. On the white box she read: “The dagger is not in this box”. On the red box she read “The dagger is not in the black box.”
She knew her captor was behind her and heard it say: ‘At most one of these statements is true. Where is the dagger?’
Shana stared down at the boxes. But this time there was no despair. The solution came into her mind almost instantly.
She turned and stared down at that inhuman visage. ‘The problem is trivial. The black box statement and the red box statement are the opposite of each other. One must be true. As at most one of these statements is true then the statement on the white box is false. The dagger is in the white box.’
She whirled and flung up the lid of the white box. There lay the dagger which she snatched out and pointed at her inquisitor.
As usual, no emotion was shown.
‘As you demonstrated, you have solved this problem.’
‘And I will solve the next problem,’ the panting woman rasped, ‘maybe I will solve it with this dagger!’
‘That is good,’ the being replied, unmoved, ‘the desire for revenge, to kill – these are admirable motives.’
And with that, it turned away. A section of wall opened before it. It passed in and once again she was alone.
She awoke, realising that her tormented body had demanded rest. As before she felt cold and stiff and once again she saw that the light was changing in her prison, as before forcing her to retreat further into the hill.
She pondered her situation for a while. Should she just accept that it was hopeless and that she should just lay down and die?
No, she decided, perhaps there would be an end to these sadistic problems and she would win through to freedom. There was only one way to find out.
She accepted the gradual, intangible pressure of the changing light and moved away from the approaching darkness. Once again she found herself walking down a yellow-lit tunnel but this time with aching limbs and the memory of pain.
She came to a door; identical to the one she had passed through earlier. She hesitated for a short while, knowing that some kind of ordeal undoubtedly awaited her on the other side. But then she pulled it open and stepped through.
She was in a room, apparently unoccupied. She groaned aloud when she saw that on one side were two stone boxes, white and red. Another mind-twisting problem awaited her it seemed. But then she saw something new. There was a shelf jutting out from the wall and in the ochre and black shadows some objects were reflecting the lurid illumination of the room.
She picked up one of the three objects that were lying on the shelf. It was like the dagger that the Zarka-thing had shown her but much bigger with a long, straight blade. She carefully touched an edge. It was wickedly sharp. But what was it?
‘We call it a sword,’ came a hissing, high-pitched voice from behind her. ‘They are part of my personal collection of beloved treasures.’
Fleshless fingers tore the sword from her grasp and pulled her into the centre of the room. And there before her was another of the eldritch denizens of this subterranean purgatory. But once again it was similar but different. It had the same quasi-crystalline appearance, the same lipless gash of a mouth, the same weird, pellucid eyes which possessed that penetrating gaze. But it was taller, much taller.