Lara's Liberation

The day was hot and so was I. I’d been in this bloody country for months, but I still couldn’t understand a word they said. “Kahb yu?” they’d ask. “Haz tu a dee ross?” How the hell was I supposed to know?

I pushed my way through the crowd of people, muttering curses at them under my breath. It was midday and everyone seemed to be out doing their shopping in the souk. The noise, the heat, the stink of dung and sweat and goats, it was all too much for me. I needed some air, some peace and quiet. I found myself at the far end of the market square where a couple of old men were sitting on benches outside a cafe. They sat there drinking mint tea from little glasses, chattering away to each other in that strange language of theirs.

I brushed past them and walked down the dusty street that led away from the market place towards some low-rise buildings at the end of town. There were no signs or names on any of them, but I knew where one led. Mr Percival had drawn it on a map for me when he sent me off on this damn mission in the first place. Not that he cared whether I lived or died as long as he got what he wanted back in his hands again. But then again, he would have sent me straight back home if he didn’t need me to get his precious grail back from that crazy bastard who’d stolen it in the first place. That man could have just asked nicely like everyone else!

I came to a stop outside a low doorway with rough stone steps leading down into darkness. The sun beat down on my shoulders as I stared into that dark passageway with its thick smell of earth and sweat wafting out of it like damp breath from a huge underground monster with rotting teeth and bad breath. I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed deeply before taking out my torch and flicking it on. Then I began to carefully pick my way down those stone steps into what felt like another world entirely.

The air grew cooler as I went further down into that deep place beneath the ground until finally there was no more light from above and only an even denser gloom around me as though it had suddenly grown thicker with age itself until it had settled here like dust trapped in amber. Finally, I came to rest at last on stony ground covered with dust and bits of rock and dirt scattered across its surface.

Then I shone my torch around until finally I found what I was looking for: a large wooden door standing open just enough for me to squeeze through without brushing against its sharp edges and hurting myself as I did so. Beyond it lay a huge room filled with heavy shadows cast by piles of dusty crates everywhere which seemed to tower up into darkness behind them like great black waves frozen forever in crashing ebb and flow above a shipwrecked vessel that has lain long forgotten on the ocean floor since time began itself until now when someone has returned to discover its secrets once more after all these years...