Paw-Prints Of The Gods

by Steph Bennion

  “Though it was quite illuminating,” added Yima, grinning at Xuthus. “Is it true?”

  “What?” retorted Xuthus. “I don’t know what you mean!”

  “And you said there was nothing of interest down here,” Fornax chided Philyra.

  * * *

  Govannon led Ravana, Quirinus and the greys down the final slope, towards where the rasping voices of the clones echoed eerily from the tunnels ahead. The descent had taken far longer than Ravana anticipated and the cloying darkness was alive with strange murmurings that teased her nerves to the edge. After a couple of sharp turns Govannon paused, glanced back with a finger to his lips, then carefully crept forward. The right-hand wall before them curved towards a source of light, from where faint human voices could now be discerned alongside the buzzing screeches of the clones. Govannon peered around the corner and with a wave of his hand beckoned to Ravana and Quirinus.

  “They’re in the chamber beyond,” he whispered. “Be careful.”

  Ravana quietly lowered the cricket bat and her slate to the ground, her father doing likewise with the plasma cannon. Together they cautiously poked their heads around the wall. The passage ended at a tall archway, beyond which lay a space bathed in the glare of mounted floodlights and an odd blue glow from the walls. Standing near a damaged section of wall was the other military android, as defiantly invisible to Ravana’s implant as the first. Although not turned their way, it was undoubtedly scrutinising them with an array of sensors.

  Seven figures stood in the chamber. Ravana’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the hooded monks, who stood with Kedesh, Lilith and Dagan; all of whom she bitterly realised had deceived her one way or another. As a cyberclone began to speak, Ravana reeled under a surge of jagged emotions as her implant homed in on the creature’s telepathic turmoil.

  “zz-oorphaaneed-chiild-oof-Sool-zz,” the figure rasped. “zz-kiing-byy-thee-greeaat-gaamee-zz! zz-yyoouu-muust-fuulfiill-yyoouur-deestiinyy-zz!”

  “But I don’t know what to do!” wailed a little boy’s voice.

  The manacled Artorius stood trembling in the shadows on the far side of the chamber. Next to him, a wavering Jizo took a swig from the bottle in her hand. They were half-hidden by the strange crumpled shape in the dark pool at the centre of the chamber, around which rose a circle of towering rods. Ravana felt a moment of panic when Jizo and Artorius glanced her way, then realised she was concealed behind the floodlight glare. She was relieved to find Artorius unharmed but a rescue seemed hopeless. Nana and Stripy pushed past her to look.

  “It’s a weird cocoon with legs,” said Govannon, speaking in a hushed voice.

  Ravana was puzzled. “What is?”

  “The thing in the middle of the chamber, see?” he whispered. “Although now it looks more like a broken egg. When I was here before the walls weren’t glowing like that and those rods were only so high. There’s what’s left of a dead giant spider as well.”

  “Thraak thraak!” cackled Nana.

  “I’m more worried about that battlebot,” muttered Quirinus. “How the hell did a bunch of crackpots like these get hold of military hardware?”

  The android turned its head and shuffled closer with a steely scrape of feet. Ravana gave Nana a curious stare. She was about to query what the grey had said when she heard footsteps in the tunnel behind. Several people approached in a very noisy fashion.

  “Looks like we were followed,” Quirinus murmured.

  “Who by?” Govannon said irritably. “A herd of elephants, is it?”

  A harsh buzzing filled the air. Ravana ducked as a small rotor-driven robot came from nowhere and whizzed over their heads with lights ablaze. She frowned when she saw intrepid reporters Philyra and Fornax were right behind and hurrying towards her.

  “What are you doing?” Ravana whispered. “You were told to stay on the ship!”

  “And miss the big story, kid?” scoffed Fornax. “Not likely.”

  “Keep your voices down!” hissed Govannon.

  Philyra joined Ravana crouching by the wall. Together they watched nervously as Fornax’s flying camera buzzed past the android and into the chamber. Hearing more noise from behind, Ravana turned and groaned. Another two figures appeared in the green-tinged gloom of the tunnel, this time wearing the grumpy countenances of Yima and Ininna.

  “Whoopee,” grumbled Quirinus. “The cavalry has arrived.”

  Ininna replied with a withering stare, but whatever cutting retort she planned was lost in the din of yet more new arrivals. Govannon looked close to despair at the sight of Xuthus, Urania and Hestia trotting through the ancient alien tunnel with no more urgency than they showed on their way to lectures. Ravana’s cat leapt from Hestia to Stripy and was greeted by a tentative stroke of fur. The crowded passage was suddenly awash with urgent whispers.

  “That capsule is a time machine,” Hestia was saying. “You’ll see!”

  “It’s from the USS Constellation,” retorted Xuthus. “Well, maybe.”

  “This is crazy!” Govannon hissed. “Go back to the dome, the lot of you!”

  “I take it all back,” Philyra whispered to Ravana, casting a doubtful eye over Nana and Stripy. “Your aliens are real. But that boy! I know him! It’s Artorius of Avalon!”

  Ravana frowned, confused by both Philyra’s recognition of Artorius and the talk of time machines and capsules. The android guard moved again with another clank.

  “What are they doing in there?” whispered Yima, peering into the chamber.

  “Some weird space-alien ritual, no doubt,” muttered Ininna.

  “What do you know about Artorius?” Ravana asked Philyra.

  “The boy who came from nowhere to be king! Don’t you watch Gods of Avalon?”

  “Keep out of sight!” Quirinus urged. “Do you want to give us away?”

  “They can’t see us,” Philyra retorted. A shadow fell upon her. “Whoops.”

  Ravana lunged for the plasma cannon but it was too late. Philyra stepped from their hiding place, her hands held high as the android loomed closer, its rifle aimed at her chest. Lilith and Dagan, brandishing the agents’ confiscated pistols and looking very unimpressed by the intrusion, stood nearby. With a sigh of resignation, Ravana put down the cannon.

  Philyra gave an apologetic grin. “I think we’ve been spotted.”

  * * *

  Ravana watched fearfully as Dagan directed the robot to the far side of the arch to stop anyone leaving. A scowling Lilith led herself, her father and the greys into the chamber.

  The heart of the labyrinth, cast into sharp relief by the powerful floodlights, was an awe-inspiring sight. The star-shaped floor and angular alcoves made Ravana picture the alien construction as a giant machine, where she was but a grain of dust drifting past silent cogs poised to whirr into action in the blink of an eye. The pale blue luminescence of the walls revealed the labyrinth’s true scale; looking up, the soaring alcoves and rods made her dizzy and not a little fearful at how far below ground they were. More unnerving was the way the ground trembled with every step she took. The floor was pockmarked by tiny craters in the manner of a volcanic mud pool froze solid, one nevertheless ready to erupt once more.

  The tableau at the centre of the chamber was harder to define. Doctor Jones called it a cocoon, but the brown decaying ruin looked like the remains of a hollow tree after a storm. Beyond the inky pool Ravana spied a glint of white, then shivered as her gaze fell upon the tangled giant spider, embedded in the ground. Her headache was getting worse.

  “Weird,” muttered Quirinus.

  Jizo made as if to hit him with the bottle in her hand, then instead threw it towards the arch. There was a shriek of pain as the last of the Pinot Noir hit Yima’s bandaged arm.

  “Silence!” she snapped. Her other hand wielded a slate.

  Ravana shot Kedesh a fierce glare, but the woman refused to meet her gaze. Artorius managed a weak smile, despite cheeks streaked with silent tears. Ravana glanced around the chamber and saw
for the first time the sad mound of rubble near the wall. The realisation that Professor Cadmus had died at this very spot brought forth an involuntary shudder.

  “You said the girl was dead,” Lilith remarked coolly.

  “I lied,” said Kedesh. “But I don’t take kindly to people stealing my clothes.”

  Ravana gave the woman her best withering look. “Do your feet still hurt?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Good!”

  “zz-siileencee-zz!” screeched one of the monks. Ravana winced as her implant sent a bolt of pain through her skull. The speaker wore the sash patterned with silver lions that belonged to Brother Simha. “zz-wee-haavee-muuch-woork-too-doo-zz.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Ininna called fiercely from the arch. “Threatening officers of the law is a serious offence! We have a team on the way and by the mighty Allah all hell will break loose when they get here and find out what you’ve done!”

  “No one is coming for you,” retorted Dagan, waggling the gun in his hand. He had stayed at the arch to guard those huddled in the short length of passage beyond.

  “It’s still all on holovid,” said Quirinus, glancing up at Fornax’s buzzing cambot.

  “What do you want with Artorius?” asked Ravana. “He’s just a little boy.”

  “And you’re just a girl,” sneered Jizo. “We don’t answer to you.”

  “zz-thee-booyy-iis-aall-thaat-maatteers-zz,” buzzed the second cyberclone, who wore the archers motif of Brother Dhanus. “zz-hee-muust-doo-oouur-biiddiing-zz.”

  “zz-oorphaaneed-chiild-oof-Sool-zz,” rasped Simha. The clone grabbed Artorius by the shoulder and turned him towards the towering circle of rods, causing the boy to release a trembling cry. “zz-iin-yyoouur-heeaad-bee-iit-zz!”

  The creatures’ shrieks clawed at Ravana’s thoughts. Jizo sidled to the dead spider, broke off a chunk of dried flesh and popped a piece in her mouth, all whilst idly scrutinising the slate in her hands. Simha released Artorius’ manacles and led him onto the narrow circle of ground between the rods and the dark pool. With a sniff, the boy nervously looked around the chamber, ran a hand across a snotty nose and started to cry.

  “Help me,” he wailed quietly. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Brother Cadmus was meant to help,” muttered Lilith. “The boy knows nothing.”

  “Professor Cadmus?” exclaimed Ravana. A chorus of surprised gasps echoed from Govannon and his student archaeologists in the archway. “He was a Dhusarian?”

  The clones stood unmoving behind Artorius. A hush fell upon the scene, broken only by an uneasy cough and shuffle of feet from Dagan and the buzzing of the cambot high above their heads. Ravana felt Nana take her hand. A cat-shaped blur loped from the shadows and she guessed her electric pet had escaped Stripy’s clutches. It was then she heard a plaintive meow and saw her cat still clutched firmly in the grey’s embrace.

  “What...?” she murmured.

  “A fascinating situation, don’t you think?” purred a voice in her ear.

  Ravana slowly turned her head. Standing there was Athene, resplendent as ever in her floor-length silver and black fur coat. The watcher smiled, stepped up to Lilith and playfully waved a hand before the woman’s scowl to demonstrate that the nurse and everyone else were oblivious to her presence. Ravana thought about their meeting on Hursag Asag and how the mysterious stranger had apparently frozen time, but on this occasion she could hear nervous murmurs from the captives awaiting the Dhusarians’ next move. Then she saw Kedesh’s wide-eyed stare across the room and realised Athene was visible to at least one other.

  “zz-thee-booyy-muust-fuulfiil-hiis-deestiinyy-zz!” demanded Dhanus.

  “zz-maasteers-aand-slaavees-uuniitee-aas-oonee-zz!” screeched Simha.

  “I am the ghost in the machine,” Athene said gaily. “Invisible to all but my two star players. Have you done your homework?”

  “The Dhusarians trained Artorius to communicate with the greys,” Ravana whispered cautiously, hoping her reply would not raise suspicions. Kedesh’s unsubtle attempt to attract her attention by waving was not helping. “They think the prophecy brought him here to unite all believers. Plus something about slaves and masters.”

  “Prophecies!” scoffed Quirinus. “Sounds like that stupid Gods of Avalon show.”

  “But who are the slaves?” Athene teased. “Who are the masters?”

  Ravana shook her head irritably. Her headache was worse than ever. Her implant startled her with an alert in her mind’s eye, which turned out to be Kedesh trying to reach her via a headcom call. She came close to refusing it, but there was such a look of anguish in the woman’s woeful expression that she relented and with a mental jab opened the channel.

  “Ravana, I’m so sorry,” whispered Kedesh. She barely moved her lips, but in the girl’s head the words came loud and clear. She shot a frosty glance at Athene. “I caught you on the back foot and bowled a googly, but I’m not the rogue player here.”

  “You handed Artorius to Jizo and put me to sleep!” Ravana hissed angrily. She had yet to fathom how to use the headcom in a voiceless fashion. Both her father and Lilith were giving her some very odd looks. “You told them I was dead!”

  “That was to stop them coming after you,” Kedesh countered.

  The cyberclones turned to one another and released a barrage of muted high-pitched shrieks. Athene sprang lightly across the pool to the broken cocoon, picked up a limb and comically waved it in Jizo’s face. Unaware of the watcher’s performance, the nurse growled, threw away her half-eaten spider cutlet and grabbed Artorius by the shoulders.

  “Taranis said you are the one,” she slurred, shaking him angrily. She shoved the screen of her slate into his face. “What does this mean? You have to know!”

  “Hey!” Kedesh pulled Jizo away. “Leave him alone, you drunk!”

  “Better drunk than ugly,” Jizo retorted and pushed Kedesh aside. “In the morning I’ll be sober, but you’ll still have the face of a bearded goat.”

  Ravana gave Kedesh a disdainful look. “It’s a bit late to show concern.”

  “I’m sorry I had to field Artorius,” she replied, her voice once again a headcom-amplified murmur. “You were supposed to stay away! I knocked you for six for your own good. I had an escape all planned until you blundered in with a gift of hostages.”

  “You had a plan?” asked Ravana, frowning.

  “Actually, no. I’m making it up as I go along.”

  Ravana scowled and silenced her headcom. Lilith sighed, stepped into the circle, wrestled the slate from Jizo’s grip and studied the screen. After a pause, she led Artorius to the nearest rod and placed his hands upon a series of faint indentations just visible at shoulder height. The arc of six ovals, delineated in blue against grey, was a pattern Ravana recognised from a sketch made by Taranis in his notes. Athene’s playful grin became a perturbed frown.

  Artorius looked distraught. “I don’t know what you want me to do!”

  “These marks are important,” said Lilith. “Perhaps the greys can guide you.”

  “Those pitiful creatures?” sneered Jizo. “Don’t make me laugh!”

  “Fwack fwack,” muttered Stripy, sounding deeply offended.

  “Thraak.” Nana tugged Ravana’s arm. “Thraak thraak.”

  Quirinus gave his daughter a quizzical look. “What did they say?”

  “The rods open something,” she said. The translator images were far from clear. Athene’s baleful yellow stare narrowed, seemingly in disapproval of the greys’ contribution. “Something big and swirly that could be a door. Or not,” she added hastily.

  “Rubbish!” retorted Athene. “You haven’t a clue.”

  “Think hard!” Lilith urged Artorius. “We haven’t got Cadmus to help us now.”

  Jizo stomped up, snatched the agent’s gun from Lilith and fired a shot into the air. Startled shrieks echoed from the archway, followed by a sudden hush and then a crunch as Fornax’s camera fell
from the air and smashed to the ground. With an angry snarl, Jizo tossed the gun back to Lilith, wrapped her sausage-like digits around Artorius’ own left hand and twisted hard. There was a muffled snap and he screamed.

  “I have run out of patience, Mister Arty-Farty!” Jizo screamed. “Do your duty!”

  “My finger!” Artorius wailed. “You broke my finger!”

  “You shot my cambot!” Fornax shouted angrily from the archway.

  A cloud of dust drifted from the ceiling. Quirinus lunged at Jizo as if to grab her, but was brought up short by the gun in Lilith’s hand, now pointing his way.

  “You twisted evil freak!” Ravana shrieked to Jizo. “How could you?”

  “That’s just not cricket,” Kedesh murmured, looking perturbed.

  Ravana dashed across to comfort the weeping and wounded Artorius, who clung to the rod like a stormed-wracked sailor at the mast of his boat. Nurse Jizo, the macabre joker from the fake clinic had gone; the version of Jizo now before them was clearly insane. Alarmed by the commotion, Dagan left his prisoners and came closer. Ravana glanced towards the arch and wondered if anyone was ready to grab the cannon. She caught a glint of reflected light, then groaned in despair at the sight of Xuthus and Urania calmly recording the scene on their wristpads. Her cat, having wriggled free from Stripy’s grip, was busily chewing the pieces of Fornax’s fallen cambot.

  Jizo looked at Artorius in disgust. “Be thankful it was just a finger.”

  “Don’t you dare touch him again!” yelled Ravana.

  “Then cooperate!” growled Jizo. “Or I’ll break the rest, one by one.”

  Ravana’s gaze flew desperately about the chamber. Her mind whirled with what she had seen in Taranis’ notes and all that the greys had tried to tell her. When she first entered the chamber she had imagined it as a machine; what struck her now was the resemblance between the soaring triangular alcoves and the grooves of a rifle barrel. The similarity made her think of how it was aligned, perpendicular to the solid rock of Falsafah below.

  “Shooting into a gravity well,” she murmured, suddenly inspired. “And beyond.”