In the Ruins

Twilight enveloped the taiga plains like a mother forced to hold a child she never loved. The low red light stretched long, sharp shadows across the frozen grass, both too long, too sharp for such a smooth landscape.

Elena Praxova let her binoculars fall to her chest, as she gestured up ahead.

“Five kilometers North,” she confirmed to the team of four behind her.

A square, in a circle, in a pentagon, in a triangle, on an oval mount of dirt. That was the best way to describe the uneven mudbrick structure they were hiking towards.

Up close, it looked older than the Cold War, older than the Tsars perhaps, even. Fourth or fifth century, if their sponsor who’d only ever been referred to by his nationality was to be believed.

Concentric walls pressed close together, like copies stacked within copies, within copies; too close to be a settlement but still navigable. It had the footprint of a school yard, but none of the individual structures would have held more than two people comfortably.

Elena took the back letting the other hired guide scale the walls to throw ropes and help the other cross.

“This is incredible, look at how intact this slab is,” The Frenchman eagerly yapped after dropping to the centre of the square structure. “These radial engravings match perfectly with the layline orientation-”

Elena leaned onto the last wall, arms crossed, and hand on the trigger of her rifle which she readied.

Her grandpa had been well-insistent that this place was cursed, so she readied herself to shoot at whatever man or animal came their way.

The archaeologist, the Englishwoman, reached the centre of those engravings and dropped to her knees. She freed her right forearm, and stabbed it with a pocket knife. She put her palm in the centre of the slab, and let a heavy droplet run down its side.

Everyone who wasn't armed held their breath.

As the blood finally hit the runes, a howl, stronger than that of the wildest storm broke loose from within the slab. It shattered the stone from under it, projecting all four expedition members against the walls, which grew tall before they could topple over them.

Elena took a step back, following the mud bricks that appeared out of thin air with her rifle. The bricks rose over a meter over her head, before encompassing her, and the room in front, under a ceiling.

A man's scream came from within.

It was followed by a woman's, and then two more. They dragged out, pained and desperate.

They gave Elena enough adrenaline to start patting down the walls behind her for any hint of an exit. Her heart raced, as she realised she was entombed, in the dark, and likely about to imminently find out what killed the others.

“That's impossible, I must be hallucinating,” she tried to steady her breathing and her hands.

“Good evening,” a warm male voice said, as the wall before her suddenly shifted aside.

“Let me go!” Elena raised her rifle at the man.

Even without a bright glowing aura coming from behind him, and fully drowning out the edges of the cubic room behind him, he would have looked unnerving.

He was tall and lean, with straight elegant features becoming of a Duke. It was impossible to tell if he was 20 or 40 years old. His black hair fell over his head in uneven locks, and his attire was a combination of five or so traditional gowns of various slavic regions and time periods. His hands rested on a rich woven belt, exposing his heavily tattooed muscular forearms. The tattoos were of various sigils and blazons, all black, and ran up and over his face. His right pupil was tattooed in to fill a large rune that went over his cheek and forehead. The only symbol from that patchwork of ink that Elena recognised was a swastika over his left brow.

“Good evening,” the man insisted.

“Yes, good evening,” Elena tried not to let her nerves through. “Can you please let me out of here?”

Saying that ‘please’ hurt almost as much as when she'd gotten shot in the leg by the police a few years back. But she wasn’t stupid.

“I can. But I won't.” The man shrugged. “You did summon me, awake me from my decade-long slumber, so the least you can do is entertain me now.”

Elena leveled her rifle, and pulled the trigger. She wasn’t that surprised when no bullet or noise came. The man rolled his eyes at her. She glanced at the weapon in her hands, only to see that it had rusted over.

“How about a glass of Porto, Elena Viktorovna Praxova?” The man asked.

Elena still had her pistol, but she was smart enough to leave it where it was.

“I don't have any Porto on me,” she said instead.

“Yes, the centuries of your kind bringing me offerings has alas long passed.” The man sighed. “Tell me, do you still recall how to play dice?”

Elena shook her head.

“Domino's?”

Elena took a second too long to nod.

“Chess it is,” the man sighed again. “Come on in then. If you win, I won't show you what I showed your friends.”

—

“Best of 3!” the woman begged after the first match.

“Best of 5 would only be fair,” she bartered, glass of wine in hand.

“Best of 20.”

“Best of 100.”

The adrenaline had long since worn off, but Elena wasn't feeling tired. Or hungry, or tipsy. Time had stopped in this tiny cubic room.

It was lit by light coming from behind the black-haired man, and an irregular-shaped knee-high malachite table had emerged from the ground to support their game.

“Ah, well you're persistent, I'll give you that,” the man smiled twirling his glass in his hand. “You've won 6 times, and giving enough of your fleeting years, you'll beat me. But you don't have enough years left to give I’m afraid.”

“What-”

The man reached into the folds of his belt and slammed a palm sized coin onto the table.

“I'm going back to rest, take this as your reward.”

“Can I leave now?”

Elena asked, tentatively grabbing the coin and slowly getting up.

The man looked her up and down, before asking:

“Do you know who I am?”

“A god?”

He was either that, or someone very good with drugs.

He chuckled softly.

“Do you know what your ancestors called me?”

Elena shook her head.

“Well, you best ought to learn.”

He turned his head, and the small cubic room got filled with unbearably bright light.

Elena sheltered her eyes and dropped to the floor, reaching for her pistol.

But the floor dropped from under her.