As soon as Vincent saw the shape of the arch with its familiar platform in front of it, his blood went cold in his veins. He experienced a scary feeling deep inside. For a reason that he couldn't explain, he knew that they were soon going to learn much more about Valdo, the supposed crazy brother of Brumelle. Of course he already knew that Brumelle was only a futuristic computer program that was able to create a lifelike holographic representation of a beautiful woman that used to live eons ago on this world. But he had very little information about Valdo and he couldn't really predict who or what he could be.
The vast room in which they were led was sumptuously decorated with a multitude of statues and paintings on its walls - paintings that had certainly not been created by the people that were holding them prisoner. The floor seemed to be made of a hard synthetic material with intricate patterns. It was immaculately clean. Both, the wall to his left and the one to his right had a soft whitish glow that gave the room an exotic appearance. Both walls were also lined with life-size statues of men.
With the artificial light seeming to come from the ceiling as well as from the walls, all parts of the large room were illuminated with the same intensity and no shadow was visible anywhere. As they were slowly brought closer to the arch, he paid more attention to the facial features of each statue, he realized that they represented the same man - the same man, but in different poses. As they walked deeper into the large room it occurred to him that all the statues were either plated with gold or made of solid gold.
The trio of prisoners was brought toward the very middle of the room and they were made to stop there. Half of the crowd - mostly men, but there were a few women also - that had captured them had now scattered in such a way so as to form three concentric circles around the trio. The rest remained in a tight formation of three half-circles that blocked the large exit at the back of the room.
Soon, a man who had his face painted with intricate designs and his body covered with a black and white pelt, came forward from the front of the room. As he approached he broke each circle with his passage as he slowly walked toward the spot where Vincent and his two women were. Once there, he stood quietly in front of the three captives. All of a sudden all the chattering stopped completely in the enormous room. For long seconds the man stood there looking at each of the prisoners one after the other. After what seemed to Vincent to be long minutes, he began to talk in the universal language of the planet. He proceeded to explain what was to become of them.
"You have been brought here by order of Valdo. He has been searching for you for a long time now and he has given orders that you be sent to him at once. You will remove all the garments from your body so that you will appear naked before Valdo."
Even though Vincent was half expecting this, upon hearing the name of Valdo he experienced goose bumps at the back of his neck. He became very nervous in anticipation of what was going to happen to them.
If what this man was saying was true, then it meant that this whole island was under the control of Valdo. This probably explained why the island did not appear on his map. It had intentionally been omitted by the maker of the map to keep unwanted visitors away from the island.
As soon as they were completely naked, - even Vincent's boots had to be removed - the man who Vincent supposed was the highest authority on the island continued to speak slowly while he now looked mostly at Vincent.
"You will soon be standing in front of Valdo and whether you live or die will depend on him. Do you have anything to say before you meet the one that protects and guides us all?"
"Do we have to meet him? Suppose we are not interested in talking to him? Do we have any choice in the matter?"
"No. Valdo will decide what will become of you all. His decision is the law. Now come."
Of course Vincent knew that he and his two women had no choice since there was absolutely no way for them to escape from this room. Besides, in the back of his mind Vincent was eager to meet at last the one that he had been sent to destroy. He was now well aware also that soon all three of them would either be dead or Valdo would no longer be a menace to this world. The latter was far less probable of course.
On a signal from their leader, the first circle of men lowered their spears and pointed them toward the prisoners. They began to close in on their prisoners and the two outer circles opened until the trio was forced to walk toward the low platform in front of the arch near the other end of the enormous room.
They were then pressed even more until they were right in front of the platform, the now tight crowd of men extended their spears forward to force the trio to step onto the disk of the arch. Vincent could tell that none of the warriors wanted to get too close to the arch. That was why they held their spears at arm's length thus keeping their bodies as far away as possible from the arch.
"Very well," said Vincent to the two women, "let us step together onto the disc. That way we will be sure to be transported all at the same time."
Saying this he took one hand of each woman and they stepped onto the disc at the same time.
By now they were familiar with the sensation of dizziness that always seemed to accompany the use of the arch. What did surprise them a few seconds later when they arrived at their destination, was to find themselves in a room with transparent walls. They could see water everywhere they looked on the other sides of the walls.
They were now standing on the floor of a circular room surrounded by a circular wall of transparent plastic or glass. Over their heads was a huge transparent dome. They could see bright lights that illuminated the water around the dome, but they couldn't see any sunlight coming from the surface of the water. Vincent soon deduced that they were at the bottom of a very large mass of water. Large fish and other creatures could be seen on the other side of the circular room. Judging by the way that they remained near the transparent wall and nudged at the glass-like surface it was evident that these creatures could see them also.
Before they had time to study their surroundings much longer, a trap opened in the floor and a stairway appeared leading down. A voice that seemed to come out of nowhere then told them to go down the stairs and walk to the very end of the corridor. Once there they would get further instructions.
"I don't like this at all," said Nika.
"Well we have very little choice about accepting or refusing to obey. Either we do as we are told or we stay here until we die of thirst or hunger. So we may as well go and see where this will take us."
Vincent was the first to proceed down the stairs. The staircase took them to a level that was at least fifty feet lower and they found themselves in a wide corridor that seemed to stretch to infinity.
