The Battle for Sanctuary: The Titan's Legacy: Vol: 2 (Volume 2)

The
Battle for Sanctuary

by
J. J. Thompson

Text
Copyright
©
2013 J. J. Thompson

All
Rights Reserved

For
Mom and Dad

Always
Remembered

Table
of Contents

Justin McLeod stood in the middle of
a gloomy, damp room that stretched out into the surrounding darkness.
Around him lay seven other teens all trying to get some sleep on the
uneven, rubble-strewn ground.

The air was still and cold; cold
enough to pinch his nostrils when he breathed. He was thankful that
their Titan physiology allowed the group to find the temperature
bearable.

For two days, or two sleeps anyway,
he had led the little group through the very bottom level of
Sanctuary. It seemed endless, filled with empty rooms, long, rambling
corridors and paths that led nowhere. They were lucky that some of
the light sources, created by rune-inscribed glowing stones, were
still functioning.

Fortunately, several hours after they had arrived,
bruised and scared from their run-in with the renegade Titans, and
with Justin's hand still leaking blood, they had found a brackish
pool of water. It had been filled over the years from a sluggish
trickle oozing from the high ceiling above. So they at least had
water to drink, although there were several complaints about the
mineral taste. When or if they would ever find food was another
question.

Justin had been told by Mrs. Mallon
that the ability to Gate to other areas had been shut down somehow,
but he had decided to try to do it anyway. All that had happened was
that he had ended up standing in the middle of the pool, soaked and
feeling foolish. Only Dominic had made a snide remark and he had been
quickly shut down by Aaron and Maria.

But now, standing here in the dark
and looking at the others who were counting on him to get them
through this journey to safety, he was filled with doubt.

He wondered what his mother would say
if she could see him now. He had studiously avoided thinking about
her since they had arrived, because every time he did, a wave of
sorrow and despair threatened to overwhelm him. But now, Justin
thought about her and what she would do in his place.

Don't be an idiot, Justin, he
thought. You know exactly what she would do. Despite her MS, his
mother had been the strongest person he had ever known. She would
have taken charge, asked everyone's opinion, come up with the best
options and led by example. That's what a leader did.

But he was not a leader! He was just
a fourteen year old kid. He had no idea what he was doing or where he
was going and the stupid mark on his hand was no help at all.

Justin glanced down at his palm. The
mark of Cronus shone a dull silver under the skin. The bleeding had
finally stopped and most of the scab had fallen off. At least he was
healing faster than the last time he'd split it open. He winced at
the memory of the pain.

Maybe they should try following
Maria. She was the real leader of the other teens that Aaron and he
had rescued from the library basement. Justin sighed, but as he
stared out into the darkness, the faces of Norm and Gerry, Mrs.
Mallon, Mr. Fitzgerald and the others he'd known in Sanctuary
appeared suddenly in his mind's eye. How could he abandon them? He
and the other teens might be the only ones who could rescue them.
Sure, it sounded crazy. It probably was! But could he turn his back
on them? Give up? He shook his head wearily. No, he could not.

They were camped in the large chamber
that seemed to be central to the level and about the same size at the
Courtyard on the first level. It even had a fountain in the middle,
although this one was dry, and tilted to one side, bits of it broken
off and piled on the floor around its edges.

Justin looked over at the fountain.
He was just able to make out the vague shape through the gloom. They
had been wary of staying too close to the structure in case it fell
over while they were asleep. And this area of the room had less
rubble strewn around. He looked up at the rotting ceiling but could
not see anything but a dark mass a long way over their heads.

Maybe there simply was no exit from
this floor, Justin thought, not for the first time. If the Gates were
used to travel from level to level, they may never had needed to
create stairs or a tunnel or whatever. In that case, they were doomed
to a long, slow death. He remembered reading that a person could live
for weeks without food, as long as they had water. He sighed and
shook his head in resignation.

After a glance at the other teens, Justin wandered off
from the group. He walked slowly and aimlessly around the room, lost
in thought. His rambling path finally led him to the old fountain and
he sat down on the ground and looked up at the towering, tilting
structure.

His nostril's pinched in
the dry, dusty air. The smell of old stone dust was pervasive. It was
like being inside some old tomb, buried alive.

He gazed upward, randomly
looking over the many levels of basins that became smaller the higher
they rose toward the ceiling. How long, he thought, does it take for
something made of stone to become this wrecked? The edges of the
bottom basin were covered with dust and grime but Justin could still
see rich engravings and complicated swirls of decorations traveling
around it. He tilted his head and squinted at the carvings. Was there
a slight gleam of metal peeking through the dirt covering some of
them?

Justin got up and walked
over to the fountain. He crouched down and wiped at the hidden
carvings with his sleeve. He was right. Inlaid along the edge of the
basin were Titanian words. Damn, I wish I'd paid more attention in
class, he thought. He had relied on the Knowledge rune that their
teacher had let them use to read Titanian.

He glanced down at the
bracelet on his left wrist. Except for the runes that spelled out his
name in Titanian, it was bare and smooth. The only reason he knew the
etching on the metal actually spelled out Justin, more or less, was
because he had read it while holding the Knowledge rune etched on a
stone. He could actually speak the language a bit now, and he and
Aaron used it around the others when they didn't want their comments
overheard. He wasn't very good at it though and it made the others
nervous and suspicious when they spoke in Titanian, so they had
stopped doing it.

Justin wiped away all of
the dirt that covered the writing, slapping the grime off of his
sleeve as well as he could. By the time he was done, he was standing
in a fog of dust. He tried sounding out the words like he had been
taught in class, coughing occasionally as the grit settled around
him.

“
Fall...falling...fallen?”
he muttered to himself as he struggled to read the Titanian.
“Fallen...gate, gates? Fallen gates can never be.” He
stared at the dim, brass-colored writing until his head began to
ache. I'm no good at this, he thought. Maybe Aaron could do better.

Justin made his way back
to the group of sleeping teens. Aaron was lying on his back with his
jacket rolled up as a pillow under his head. His long blonde hair
covered most of his face and his t shirt was half in and half out of
his pants. Justin looked at him fondly for a moment then shook him
gently, trying not to wake up the others.

“
Mmf,
what?” Aaron opened his eyes, pushed back his hair and stared
blearily up at Justin. “Just? What is it? What's going on?”

Justin held up a finger
to his lips, then motioned for Aaron to follow him away from the
sleeping group. Aaron grabbed his jacket and stumbled along, still
trying to wake up as Justin led him over to the fountain.

“
So
what's up?” Aaron asked, a bit more clear-headed. Justin
pointed at the engravings on the basin.

“
How's
your Titanian, bud?” he asked.

Aaron looked at the
markings, squinting a bit in the gloom. “Well, not great. But I
think I can read this.” He scanned through the writing, lips
moving silently as he sounded out each word. Justin watched
anxiously.

“
Well,
what does it say?” Justin asked.

“
Hang
on, hang on,” Aaron replied shortly. “Give me a second.
I'm trying to make sense of this thing.” He looked at Justin.
“What's the big deal anyway? It's just some old writing on a
rotting piece of rock after all.”

“
I'm
not sure, Aaron. But when I figured out it said 'gates', I just
wondered if it could help us now; you know, with the Gates being
turned off and all.”

“
Huh.
Grasping at straws, Just?” Aaron grinned at him.

Justin sighed and nodded.
“The others are hungry and impatient, bud. They're only
following us because they think we know what we're doing. Personally,
I haven't got a clue.”

Aaron's expression turned
serious. “Yeah, I know. That Dominic guy is seriously becoming
a pain in the butt.”

“
I
don't really blame him. We're supposed to know this place, know what
we're doing. And here we are wandering in circles, as lost as any of
them would be.”

“
Well,
I'm not sure that this old fountain will help much.” Aaron
concentrated on the writing again. “Okay, it says:

'Fallen gates will never
be,

A reason for us to
despair.

Titans rose above the
sea,

And water leads us if we
dare.'”

Justin stared at the
fountain, his eyes wandering over the Titanian writing. He went over
the quote in his mind. A quick glance showed him that Aaron was
apparently doing the same.

“
Rose
above the sea? Water leads us.” He repeated out loud. Something
clicked in his mind and his head snapped back as he looked up at the
top of the fountain, lost in the darkness far over their heads.

Aaron noticed his
reaction and looked up as well. Then he looked back at Justin in
disbelief. “No way, Just! You don't really think...” and
he pointed upward.

Justin nodded mutely. He
wondered how high the fountain actually was. And he wondered if his
answer to the puzzle was just wishful thinking. “Heck of a
place to put an emergency exit, if there's actually one there,”
he mused aloud.

“
Man,
that's just crazy. There's no way that anyone sane would do that,
Justin.”