Part 5
Kole looked up at the mountainous
terrain ahead of him.
The movie now came back to him in scenes. At first, it had been difficult
for him to take in the information as it appeared, but he soon adapted
and could appreciate why "movies" had such mythic status
in the Old Earth writings.
The story involved a man travelling into a hostile war-torn jungle
to assassinate a rogue leader. The main character had the same cold
objectivity that Kole now carried within himself.
Damir must have known all those months ago that Kole would now be
wrestling with the same issues as the assassin in the movie. Who was
the target of the assassination? Who was he, really? The character
in the movie had documents that detailed the target's behaviors and
conversations. This knowledge helped him enter the target's world,
fully educated and prepared for the task at hand.
Kole stopped and reached for the bonesword. The consciousness of Jhebon
Mettit smoothly formed in place on the periphery of Kole's mind.
"Give me all you know about Klalech."
"Kole..."
"Spare me the speech about distractions - I need to know everything
there is to know about him, if I'm going to get the 'spore."
Another brief pause from the bonesword - Kole thought that this pause
was simply Jhebon inserting a bit of pride - it would have been uncharacteristic
for the bonesword to comply too quickly. Then the stories began to
stream forward...
This world is the color of mustard. Dingy and blown by acrid winds.
Rock formations resembled a microscopic view of cork - tunnels and
caverns carved away by sharp powerful winds laced with acidic air
and biting shards of sand. It is difficult to get a sense of scale
from these mountains, but they are enormous. Immense and older than
Earth.
Caverns reach deep into the bowels of the land. This must have been
where life originally emerged from this world - the caves and tunnels
are dark and moist. Life clings to the cave walls, anchored deep into
the porous surfaces, strange organisms - half fungi and half crustacean,
hold the moisture in their crisp skins. They crawl slowly and surely
along the walls in their quest for smaller life, secured against the
quick and violent winds that unexpectedly tear through every corner
of this world.
Deep inside the world, it is not as dark as one would expect. Forms
of plants emit light here, perhaps to attract food. The wind sears
through the tunnel, causing ripples of light across the lichen-covered
surface, and a deafening howl erupts. This is a world of eternal howls
and moans. Each tunnel is a pipe - each pipe, a different pitch. The
air is suffused with dissonance and chaos.
The tunnels lead to a cavern - a cavern large enough to contain clouds
trapped at its highest point - and a city.
Spires and delicate details have long worn away. All that is left
of this place are the rounded edges of a once proud and ornamented
civilization. Specks of color can still be found in the deepest
carved places. Reds and golds. Some green. Now, this kingdom is
mostly the color of sand, and the shape of a sandcastle that had
been rained upon, then dried just enough to begin to blow away at
the sharpest places.
The most prominent building sits atop a hill. Wide roads lead to
openings in a thick wall that surrounds what appears to be a palace.
The wall is a relatively recent addition, with sharp offensive thorns
the size of a man growing from its outer lip. The openings in the
wall appear to have been melted, with edges rippled and organic.
Armored man-like creatures stand at sporadic intervals along the
top of the wall.
The roads lead to the front gate of the palace. More thorns peer
out here from the walls and ceiling - retracted into position and
ready to thrust into the flesh of intruders. Tracks have been worn
into the stone ground.
The palace courtyard smells of iron shavings and dust mixed slightly
with the nauseating tang of overripe meat. Mounted on the pale-gray
walls are small black iron cages - their contents glow dirty yellow-green.
Patches of the walls are covered with lichen that also glow, but
much less brightly. A wave of color shudders across the lichen...
The throneroom was empty. Bas relief sculptures lined the walls
- swells and ripples of organic shapes with no recognizable meaning.
The shapes rearranged themselves slowly, so that each moment the
shapes would be different from the next - an expensive feature that
was added to the palace during a time when the kingdom was more
prosperous. The howls grew outside.
Down the right corridor, lined with more of the same sculptures,
voices came. Two guards spoke to another soldier draped with a green
cloth across his chest.
"... but an operator is expensive. Maybe we should just try
to fix them ourselves," offered the first guard.
The green soldier, Captain Geff, eyed the guard and said, "Do
you know how to fix stasis chambers?"
"Well, my father used to be the operator here. I learned a
lot from him before he... died."
The other guard looked at his companion with surprise. The captain
considered his position carefully.
"Take a look at them, but don't make any adjustments. If you
are sure that you know how to repair the units, come to me
before you do so..." The captain stepped closer to the guards.
"...but if you have ANY doubts, do NOT touch a thing. We can
barter for an operator from Kabis City, but we have to be sure that
we need it."
The two guards nodded and turned to leave. One of them muttered
something about selling their armor to buy food. The captain stared
at the slowly roiling sculpture in the hallway as if looking for
an answer to his dilemma. The kingdom was in ruin. The only remaining
soldiers were slaves to Klalech or mercenaries that Klalech paid
from his own secret means. With the Warpriest gone to Earth along
with Klalech, the Kingdom was left to Captain Geff to run. It was
a sinking ship, and everyone knew it.
Something shifted in his mind and the Captain marched off down the
corridor. The sculpture continued to curl and fold upon itself.
The two guards had opened the thick door with the two keys that
they had both been unceremoniously given. They both knew that the
last two keepers of the keys had been killed when a hungry mob of
soldiers decided that they wanted to raid the contents of the secured
chamber. Inside, all was dark except for some faintly glowing amber
tiles. The tiles were lined along both walls and descended downward,
deep into the rock corridor. The tiles blinked off then on again
as the two guards made their way down the aisle. The small amber
squares were the only lights on in the three-mile long tomb. A tomb
of silent soldiers.
"Was your father really the operator here?"
"Yeah. He designed a special chamber for Klalech - after he
did it, Big K had him killed so he wouldn't tell any secrets..."
The guard stopped, then whispered to his companion, "... but
he told me everything. If this Earth gateway deal falls flat, Klalech's
gonna seal himself and all of us away so he can escape from Chobo."
"Aren't you afraid that the Captain will tell him that you
were the operator's son? Klalech will kill you too!"
"Do you think Geff wants Klalech to know that he didn't keep
things rolling smoothly here? These mummies are Klalech's big investment!
He's counting on that new Earth gateway so he can get their souls
back into these bodies. Geff is having trouble keeping this place
going - there is nothing more to sell to pay for an operator. I'm
his golden ticket. He won't say a word."
About one mile into the chamber, the rest of the squares were glowing
the wrong color. All of the other squares deviated slightly from
the pure amber color, but these were more bright red than golden
brown. They flickered slightly.
"They're all probably already dead."
"No, these lights are for the system itself, not the bodies."
The guard-operator reached up and clicked a panel in the ceiling.
It opened to a mass of coiled white thin intestinal pipes. "Their
lifelevels are so low, any change in the stasis field would take
a long time to affect the bodies." A faint yellow glow pulsed
down the length of the pipes. He casually examined them and said,
"There's a clot in the flooseway."
"Can you fix it?" The other guard asked.
"It just needs a little massage, and the clot will dissolve...
we have to watch for the cause of the clot, though. It might happen
again."
The one guard boosted the other into the overhead compartment. Just
as he was crawling into the cramped space, he noticed movement at
the opening of the stasis tomb. He turned to look. A silhouetted
orb floated towards them. The guard on the ground lost his grip
and the other dropped back to the floor. The orb got closer.
"Kole, we need to leave now." The voice of Jhebon Mettit
startled Kole from the scene he was observing. Jhebon offered, "We
will visit deeper into the past."
The scene receded to a small point before him. "What was that
thing that came toward us?" asked Kole. A distorted pattern
of sand and shadows stretched away into his periphery. "Mephil.
Mephil are dimensional guardians. Very expensive. Klalech must have
hired it to protect his palace from just what we were doing. They
have very caustic poisons that can cross dimensions."
End Part 5
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