The Many Deaths of Ms. Croft

Lara thought that the four-meter-high statue standing atop the pedastal in front of her was intended to represent Kali, the goddess of destruction, but she wasn't sure--time, even in this still place, had worn the many inscriptions on its base to mere impressions. The base must have been half a millennia old, though the statue itself was obviously younger by orders of magnitude; the gold rings piercing the nipples of the decidedly feminine statue's breasts had not stained the surrounding stone with corrosion, and the statue itself was crisp and detailed. Its face was beautiful, prominent cheekbones leading down past full lips into a tapered chin, eyes lidded beneath heavy lashes--the detail was incredible. Atop its head was a strangely-shaped crown; six arms spread from its girlish shoulders, each bearing a curved steel sword with handguarade ade from human skulls--some stacked two or three high, razor-sharp blade punched through the bone, others sporting only a single trophy.ugh ugh its face bore no expression, the statue's hips were canted in a manner that could be either inviting or defiant, though Lara couldn't imagine a creature with enough chutzpah to accept the invitation or test the defiance. Its vagina was idealized, bare and perfect, and slightly swollen--as if something about the viewer enticed the statue, despite its resolve; its legs were slightly spread, and it balanced on the balls of its unshod feet, as if it were about to leap down and... who knows? Kill, make love, dance, anything. That barely-repressed energy, the obvious sexual tension, the promise of death in its massive blades, the utter serenity of its face--the artist, whoever he or she had been, was a master to rival Michealangelo.

Too bad I can't show it to Burke and have him compare, Lara sighed, thinking of an art critic she sometimes worked with. Occasionally, during her adventures, Lara would dig around in her pack and come up with an old, durable Nikon camera, and snap a picture of something particularly interesting; but for the most part, the most anyone would know of the secret places she'd seen were what they read in her deliberately vauge memoirs. Such sites--such sights--were to be reserved, she felt, for those who had risked the dangers inherent in reaching them; otherwise, Lara herself would be nothing but a glorified tour guide.

It must be Kali, Lara mused, reaching up to stroke a slow finger across the smoothly-toned belly. Its navel, tear drop-shaped, bore a tiny gold stud tipped with emerald. Looking closely, Lara marveled to see that the stone 'skin' of the statue actually bunched against the piercing; the hands, each wrapped around a leather-strapped hilt, were carved with tiny wrinkles creasing the knuckles; the ears were deliberately shaped and folded--such detail must have taken decades to complete. So much time and attention dedicated to a goddess of destruction indicated that she'd found a temple built by some sort of death cult--not a violent sect, probably, given the fact that they'd numbered at least one gifted artist in their ranks. The common religion didn't view Kali as a force of evil; she was merely a counterpoint for the forces of creation, somewhat reminiscent of the yang described by Chino-Korean dualist philosophy. In the tunnels and rooms below, she'd probably find burial and preparation chambers, as well as the usual living and worship areas.

"I'll never find out if I don't get on with it," she murmured to herself, tearing her eyes away from the beautiful idol. The room that contained it was circular, built of rough-hewn stone which supported a variety of plant life--mainly various types of vines, though the floor sported tufts of thick, dry grass that grew knee-high. A Roman arch guarded the steps that led outside, to the mountaintop in northeastern India that had concealed this temple for countless centuries. Thousands of miles away, on the opposite side of the jungle-threaded country, lay the complex where, almost a year ago, Lara had discovered the first of the meteor fragments. Her current venture was exploration for its own sake; contrary to her media portrayal, she did not constantly hare off on wild quests involving powerful artifacts. Certainly, there were forces at work in the world that modern man knew nothing of and that ancient man had occasionally attempted to harness; but, more often than not, ancient man had failed miserably, and the clever traps and guardians he left behind usually protected naught but pretty, harmless baubles. Hopefully, she'd find such a bauble on this trip worthy of her collection; but more likely, she'd leave with nothing more--and nothing less--than journal entries and memories.

There. Hidden beneath a mass of vines, Lara found a protruding shaft of carved stone, capped with gold tracery that formed a symbol she'd seen carved on ancient stones in the nameless village at the base of the mountain. When she'd asked about the meaning oe sye symbol, the rural folk had muttered the usual mumbo-jumbo about ancient secrets and terrible curses. Her laptop had provided a more specific answer: the symbol represented life, in a peculiar context--the connotation was that life was something that is to be given freely but never taken; is ins intended, apparently, as a sort of scripture. A legend associated with the symbol related the tale of a man who begged an enemy to spare his life, then refused that enemy the same mercy some time later. So incensed were the gods at this man's lack of compassion that they slew him immediately, and reincarnated him as a worm to be ground under foot.

Probably, Lara decided, the cap was merely decoration. The shaft itself was fitted carefully into the wall, and was obviously meant to be either pushed or pulled. Now that she knew where to look, Lara quickly discovered the outline of a door concealed by the mortarless seams of the room's construction. Testing the shaft mechanism gingerly, she found it could be pushed or pulled; one direction would open the door, and the other would likely trigger some sort of trap. But which was which? The temple's builders would know, of course; this sort of two-way setup was fairly common in hidden constructions of this sort--those who were authorized to enter could do so, and those who were not would die a grisly death, and were often left as a warning to any that followed. A quick dig through her knapsack netted a small flashlight, which she used to carefully search the room for the usual suspects: floors which suddenly dropped into pits, spikes optional; spears flung by mechanical means from ports hidden in the wall; collapsing ceilings; swinging blades--the list went on, but there was a commonality in the variety, certain telltales that gave away the existence of a trap no matter what culture birthed the trapmaker.

To no avail. If this room were trapped, it was in some subtle manner that Lara had never encountered. She began to consider the possibility that the mechanism wasn't trapped at all; the Indian peninsula'd had its share of wild-eyed killer cults through the ages, but few enough of those had the necessary patience or intelligence to build a room such as this, much less trap it. In the end, there was really only one way to find out. Lara glanced back; the statue still watched impassively over her, reflected sunlight blanching its nude form. Shrugging, she gripped the trigger shaft and flipped a mental coin.

It's a riddle, she realized a moment later. The symbol--give life, but do not take it. It's a riddle; the symbol means life, and you can either give it--by pushing it--or take it, by pulling. In horror, she stared at the shaft that she pulled just before inspiration struck.

Stone ground against stone behind her; Lara whirled, hands dipping instinctively toward the Heckler & Kock pistols snapped into her thigh holsters. Part of the sound emmenated from the entrance doorway, beneath which a slab of floor was rising quickly--far too quickly for her to be able to escape through it. At her quickest, she might have made it halfway out--and then been crushed against the capstone as the slab closed off the exit. Light still trickled through vine-clogged vents in the ceiling; it was dimmer now than it had been, but there was still easily enough light to catch the details of the idol as its stone head turned to regard Lara.

"Oh, bugger," she whispered.

And then the statue surged forward, six blades singing in the still air. Lara yanked her triggers as she threw herself flat on her back and rolled away from the first two swords; the shots were sloppy, but her target was close enough that it didn't matter. Lara preferred hollowpoint rounds almost exclusively, since her targets were normally flesh and blood--or had been, at one time. Steel-jacketed rounds were likely to punch all the way through a target, leaving it wounded and possibly dying--but not quickly enough to save Lara herself. The soft-tipped hollowpoints tore gaping holes in living targets, knocking them down and keeping them there with massive internal damage.

Except that this time, her target's body was made of hand-carved granite. Lead splashed, knocking thumb-sized divots of stone from the statue but not even slowing it down as it spun to follow Lara, bringing its next pair of blades to bear even as it recovered from the strike made with the first two. With no room to maneuver in the small chamber, Lara dove forward between the idol's legs. Landing flat would have been painful and embarassing, so she twisted in mid-air to take the impact on her shoulder; curling herself sideways, she came to her feet behind the statue and raised her pistols.

The third and bottom-most pair of blades snaked around as the statue crossed its lower arms in front of itself and punched the swords up through Lara's shoulders. Lara screamed in horror and pain, pistols dropping from nerveless fingers as the statue executed a complicated maneuver that let it turn around in place whil stile grasping the swords impaling the tresspasser. Lifting her up in the air, the goddess regarded Lara with stone eyes, tracing the tips of its four unoccupied swords along Lara's face and body as it studied her.

"Oh, bloody hell," Lara sobbed; the skulls guarding the swords' pommels crushed against her painfully, and the blades from which most of her weight hung grated against bone and muscle as she was turned from side to side. Her feet kicked weakly, try to gain purchase against the statue's body. "Please," Lara begged, though her agony-riddled mind wasn't sure whom she might be begging, or for what. Mercy, or perhaps a quick death. "Please--no! Please! Don't!" she groaned as the statue extended its limbs to hold her at arm's length, arching her back as the impaling blades assumed a flatter angle.

Kali granted Lara nothing. The tip of one blade stabed suddenly into her groin, drawing a throat-tearing scream. Lara kicked out, legs pumping convulsively as the statue drew the third blade up through her belly with deliberate care, stoppiust ust below her breastbone. She choked, clenching her fingers helplessly as her body emptied itself of viscera, meters of slopping flesh splattering against the floor through the gash splitting her body. When she found her voice again, she shrieked wordlessly; her hands tried to reach forward and scoop her guts back into herself, but her shoulders were too ruined to allow her to do more than flop her arms.

"Huhh," she panted, struggling to raise her head. The statue of Kali met her pleading gaze impassively, watching her with the same flat expression it had held for generation upon generation of solitude. Lara's breath came in pained grunts; she whined at the back of her throat as the idol shifted its weight, sending new waves of agony through her as her body swung gently. Blood loss was cooling her quickly; she shook uncontrollably as Kali slowly brought up another blade, holding the gory handguard before Lara's face. Lara understood, and sobs racked her; the skulls were of those who had come before, and failed the test. "Nuhhh," she protested, too bleary to speak. The blade swung away, and Lara wriggled in panic, desperate to avoid fate--anything, anything but that!

The blade sang in the air for an eternity; Lara felt herself frozen in tearing pain and blind terror. Her view suddenly swung wildly with a sickening thunk; the rocky floor smacked against the back of her head, and her vision rolled once before coming to a stop, cheek resting against something warm and wet. Her own body hung above her, stiff and shaking as nerve endings panicked and sent conflicting signals. The slop of intestines dragged against her cheek again; eyes wide in shock and horror, Lara's mouth shrieked and gabbled silently. Her eyes tracked with horrible clarity as Kali used its third blade to scrape her quivering corpse off the first two, letting it collapse wetly to the floor. Lips drawn in a wordless rictus, Lara wept and worked her throat in half-sobs; the idol bent over and grasped the base of her ponytail. The fading world swung again, until she was looking once more at Kali's perfectly-formed body. Something poked at her throat; she thought of home, and her father. Her jaws clenched as metal sliced against the base of her tongue, then scraped on the very back of her nose. Lara opened her mouth to scream, still trying to draw air from lungs that were no longer connected to her body. The metal punched upward, spiking her with the most intense pain she'd ever imagined.

The statue of Kali looked on with the same somber expression, watching the muscles of Lara's face twitch as its sword pierced her brainpan. The top of her skull offered little resistance to the preternaturally sharp blade; the idol forced Lara's head down along the sword until the bleeding flesh below her jaw pressed against the skull that already topped the pommel. For a time, Kali held the weapon in front of it, watching the last tics work themselves out of Lara's dead muscles. Then, it turned and resumed its spot atop the pedastal. In time, the flesh and hair would rot away from the new skull, leaving only a grisly, empty, silent scream to warn any that followed.