Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,95

He was more interested in what Weston had discovered about the language filling this chamber. He flipped through the pages, not reading the text, just looking for images. He stopped at a page where a symbol had been drawn. The following pages documented how Weston had found the symbols inside the tunnels, his subsequent discovery of the necropolis and then this room, which he called the Rosetta Chamber.

Skimming again, Knight marveled as, over the course of one hundred notebook pages, Weston slowly worked out the symbols’ meanings. After what had to have been years of work, the last ten pages of the notebook were filled with a translation of the stones, which told a story starting on the maze wall on the left side of the staircase and read all the way through the maze until it ended back at the same staircase on the right side. Knight read the first line of the translation:

This is the history of the Nguoi Rung—Note: I cannot say what the name truly is, but I believe it was a tribal designation of some kind. Note! Having read further on I have deduced the Nguoi Rungs’ ancestry! Neanderthals!!!

FORTY-FOUR

WATER GURGLED PAST the body that lay half on the sandy shore and half in the lazy river. It had been pulled almost a mile downstream by the current before catching on a fallen tree, spinning out into a surge of rapids where it was shoved onto the beach. Fish inspected the body and found that the legs and feet were clothed and inedible. But had they been able to taste the man’s flesh, they would have found it a replenishing food source; just as two rats on shore were helping themselves to a feast on the large open wound.

Despite the massive damage to his neck, Bishop lived. Though the near-fatal wound had slowed down his body’s unnatural ability to heal, it hadn’t stopped it. Rebuilding nerve bundles to a functional level took more time than rebuilding simple muscle. After several hours on the shore, the work on his spine was complete.

The muscles of Bishop’s neck grew quickly and stretched out, finding and connecting with the muscles and skin of his head. His jugular vein grew, spraying blood as it lengthened and reunited with its other half. The inside of his throat re-formed and had yet to finish when a new layer of skin grew over it.

The only remaining injury was on the side of his neck, where the two rats continued to munch on the regenerating meal.

Bishop sat up violently as his body expelled the water that filled his stomach and lungs. Three mighty heaves cleared the liquid from his system. He looked around. Eyes wide.

A breeze tickled his neck. He swatted at it.

A bubble popped on the river. He kicked at it.

One of the hungry rats, still thirsting for Bishop’s blood, bit his finger. The wound healed quickly, but the pain registered even faster. Bishop roared and reached out, snagging the rat by a hind leg. It squealed and scratched. Unable to free itself, the rat leaned up and buried its incisors into Bishop’s palm. Screaming, he brought the rat up and grabbed its chestnut-sized head. He yanked its head off his hand and then raised the body to his mouth like a corncob fresh off the grill. And he bit into it as if he could taste the dripping butter.

The rat squealed for just a moment before falling silent, before Bishop bit through its back, ribs, and spine, taking an apple-sized chunk out of its back. He devoured the flesh and bones, his insides healing quickly as the sharp ribs sliced his throat and stomach.

Movement caught his eye. Another rat. Rage filled him again and he discarded the dead rodent in his hands, giving chase to the second, pursuing it without cause, without thought, without hesitation—upstream.

FORTY-FIVE

KING HAD NEVER wanted to know what a piece of luggage felt like, but he knew now. He’d been carried recklessly through a network of tunnels, slammed into walls, dropped, picked back up, and sometimes dragged by a leg. But the humiliation of being so easily manhandled never found a firm grasp. The creatures, sights, and sounds he passed in the hallways were far too distracting.

The Nguoi Rung were everywhere, inhabiting the caves just below the mountain exterior. Some, like Lucy, were young women, performing what looked like ordinary household chores. But there were others. Happy children. Serious adults—young adults. The oldest, in human years, could only be as