Leo entered a corridor large enough to have two carts pass each other by their sides. He entered a cave after opening a heavy metal door, and scene on the other side astonished him.
He saw a cave that seemed, to Leo, to stretch for miles. It stretched for a mile and a half. Inside of the cave was a pile of bones that reached to the top of the ceiling. Leo collapsed on his knees. He wondered what was happening. He wondered what in the world he was seeing. And when he thought of Elizabeth and the children, he vomited on the cold cave floor.
The stench of the cave overpowered the stench of his vomit. Leo was tired. He wondered why this was happening. He wondered what was happening. He saw demons in the distance crawling close to his position. He saw them stop and hunch their red backs over the pile of bones and suck in what seemed to be a stream of energy.
'Life energy?' Leo thought, 'But how?'
He didn't stay long enough to sense the true nature of their actions, but he decided he would run back from where he had come. Up the stairs and to the city.
He huffed and panted and paid no attention to the murals on the walls. He decided to run as fast as he could and leave this wretched place, this cursed place, where the bones of thousands lay inside a cave--their final resting ground.
Leo came out of the large tomb, out of the corridor, out of the long staircase, out from beneath Ahab's palace.
He decided to run and keep running all the way back to Raynark's inn.
'They didn't see me...' Leo thought, 'Right?'
He walked through the door to Raynark's inn and collapsed against a wall. The inn seemed illusory to Leo.
'Is this really an inn?' he thought, 'Where's Raynark?'
Leo was beginning to doubt that he was in reality. He wondered if he was still sleeping back at little vicious village, in a coma. Maybe he never had met Solomon? He might have never woken from his slumber. Maybe he had never even been in little vicious village? He might have never been pulled out of the river. He might be dead. He may just be in the afterlife.
"Am I... Dead!?" Leo said to himself.
The sky had started to darken. Leo didn't know how long he had been gone today, but it felt like the whole day had been used up.
"You're not dead," Raynark said, "Not yet anyway."
Leo turned his head and saw Raynark standing on the stairs with a look of weariness upon his face. His wrinkles looked strained. They were strained not by his face muscles... They were strained by the atmosphere around the old man. He seemed a tad older.
Raynark said, "In two days, on the second day from now, this city will be destroyed."
"Why?" Leo said.
"Sit down," Raynar sat down at the table in the center of room, "And let me tell you everything... everything about the story of Ahab and Solomon."