“When Temlaa touched those gems in the Golden Mean order—the ara’dor—that wall over there opened up.” He pointed. “A slab came out with six desiccated protoss bodies on it. They were covered with wiring.”
He sent the memory at the speed of thought, and the protoss recoiled at the image. “Did Temlaa and Savassan ever learn why the bodies were there?” Alzadar asked.
Jake shook his head. “No. They assumed that since it was the xel’naga, they were trying to help the protoss. But … I gotta tell you, I’m not so sure about that.”
Rosemary fidgeted slightly. “Let’s keep moving,” she said. “The longer we stick around here, the greater the chance someone’ll find us.”
Jake nodded. She was right. But he was seized with a desire to tap in the ratio, one to one point six, and see what emerged if he did so. Reluctantly, he turned to follow Rosemary. She headed off into the next chamber, but paused for a moment. Catching Jake’s eye, she pointed to a smudge on the wall.
“Temlaa’s markings,” Jake said. Rosemary did not reply, merely regarded him with a grin that had only affection in it. Jake touched the charcoal; his finger came away blackened. He had, quite literally, touched the past.
On they went, with protoss going ahead of them and following behind, alert for any sign that might mean discovery. So far, they had been very lucky. Alzadar had told them this was a forbidden area for the Forged, and Jake dared to hope their luck would hold. The heartbeat sound increased as they went inward, following a trail of charcoal smudges and the memories of a preserver.
Jake wasn’t prepared for it when he turned a corner and suddenly—there it was. He stopped dead in his tracks at the entrance to the cavernous room.
“Wow,” said Rosemary softly, staring as raptly as the rest of them at the giant khaydarin crystal that hovered above them. All faces were turned up toward it, pro-toss and human features alike bathed in the soft glow. The crystal was a wondrous sight, and for a second it looked blurry to Jake. He blinked hard to clear his vision.
It is magnificent, Zamara agreed, and if we are fortunate, it will mean your life.
He smiled a little. Then it’s even more beautiful, if such a thing is possible.
Rosemary broke the reverent stillness. “Here’s your giant crystal, Prof. Now what?”
Now what indeed? Zamara wanted to get a piece of it, perhaps one of the smaller shards that he could see clustered around the base. But the crystal was a good twenty feet in the air.
“Uh … good question,” he murmured. “Any suggestions on how we get up there?”
“It is possible that there is a mechanism to raise and lower the crystal,” Ladranix said, shaking himself slightly. Like the rest of them, he was in awe of what they were seeing here.
Jake thought about what had happened to Savassan the first time the two protoss had experimented with the controls. The great mystic had almost had the very life essence sucked out of him, it had seemed to Temlaa. He grimaced. “Yeah, but I don’t want to be switching things off and on randomly. Not a good idea down here.”
“What is it you require?” Ladranix said. “Be specific, Jacob.”
Zamara’s impatience and sense of frustration washed through Jake. “She’s not sure. I’m afraid this part wasn’t in the script.” He pointed to the small shards clustered around the base. “I think we should start with one of those.”
Ladranix craned his neck, studying the crystal. “The distance is not too great for me to leap from the floor,” he offered. “The crystal does not appear to have any protective field around it.”
“Yeah, but your technology might not register something that advanced. No offense,” Rosemary said.
“None taken,” Ladranix replied.
Jake rubbed his temple, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his head. “I … think that may be the only way to get to it.”
Jacob, wait.
“Hang on a minute,” Jake said, extending a hand to physically stop Ladranix from stepping into the room. He saw what had given Zamara pause. “Those containers—they weren’t here when Temlaa and Khas were here. Those are new.”
Their gaze had first gone to the crystal, drawn by its beauty and magnificence, but now that Jake had pointed out the half dozen rectangular tanks, at least three meters square each, everyone stared at them. Jake thought they looked like giant fish tanks filled with ink. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but they looked sorely out of place here, their edges and unforgiving liquid darkness in disharmony with the blending of natural and artificial that surrounded them.
“This is no protoss construct. Nor do I think it is of the xel’naga,” Ladranix said.
“The Xava’kai,” Alzadar said quietly. “This must be their doing.”
“Then we’d better find out what they’ve been up to,” said Rosemary with her customary practicality.
Rosemary is correct. I … have dreadful misgivings. But we must obtain a shard of that crystal, or all is for naught.
Jake stepped forward, both fiercely curious and deeply worried. I’m not going to like what I’m going to see, am I?
I … do not believe you will.
Rosemary was already stepping forward cautiously. Jake and the protoss followed. Jake’s gaze was fixed on the nearest container. Curiosity burned in him, of course. How could it not? But he was also well aware that anything that so unsettled Zamara was something he needed to have a healthy caution about so he—
Jake cried out, as did the protoss around them. Rosemary whirled, her weapon at the ready. “What is it?”
Jake had fallen to his knees and for an instant thought he would pass out at the sickening psionic buffeting he was receiving. Zamara quickly erected a barrier and he started breathing again. He looked up at the other protoss—they’d felt it too.
“The containers,” Ladranix said. “It emanates from them.”
All the protoss were shaken by what they had felt, but they were in control again. Jake took a deep breath. He did not want to go anywhere near those tanks.
“What do you think’s in them?” asked Rosemary.
“I don’t know and I sure don’t want to find out,” Jake said in voice that shook.
“Agreed,” said Ladranix. Jake glanced at Alzadar. The former templar was highly distressed. Jake sent him a private, focused thought.
Those tanks weren’t in here before, and whatever’s in them is certainly not wholesome. You sense it too.
A single word, laced with pain and confusion and stubborn refusal to believe: Xava’tor … ?
“Let’s get what we came for and get out of here,” Rosemary said. “Those tanks even give me the creeps.”
“That … might not be as easy as we’d like,” Jake said. He pointed wordlessly. The giant crystal they had come in search of was hovering directly over one of the vats.
Rosemary swore. Jake silently echoed her sentiment. “Does the crystal have anything to do with the, uh … whatever’s in the tanks?” she asked.
“Zamara doesn’t know,” Jake replied.
“So if we touch the crystal, or the vats, we could be tripping some kind of alarm. Hell, we could even be waking up whatever’s in there.”
Jake paled at the thought. He looked from the vat to the crystal and then to Rosemary, and shrugged helplessly. “Entirely possible. But what are we supposed to do? Zamara needs a piece of the crystal. We’ve come this far, we can’t leave without it.”
Rosemary nodded, resigned. “Well, we’ll just have to be ready for anything then. Ladranix, you still think you can reach it?”
Jake realized that none of them had budged. It took almost a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other until they were standing below the crystal—right beside one of the tanks. Jake edged closer to the open container and looked down. The blackness of the sludgy liquid was impenetrable. Faint wisps of chemically created smoke floated lazily off the surface, and he coughed.
The water rippled. Jake jumped back about a foot, staring,
his heart racing. Something brushed against the side of the tank, something soft and sinuous and unspeakably wrong. The barrier Zamara had erected protected him from any psionic disturbance, but he didn’t need that to be sickened and scared to death by the partially glimpsed thing.
He was not alone; everyone had taken a step back. For a moment there was silence. Then Ladranix spoke, a trained warrior, no trace of fear or worry in his thoughts.
“I can reach the crystal, although it is more challenging with the open container below me. There is no margin for error. I must leap cleanly and not fall.”
“And hope you don’t wake up everything in the place,” Rosemary added. She, too, spoke calmly, though Jake knew she was as rattled as the rest of them. “Good luck.”
Ladranix nodded. With a final squeeze to Alzadar’s shoulder, he stepped forward and analyzed the task in front of him. He crouched for a moment, settling himself, and again Jake was reminded of the lethality of Ladranix’s ancestors as they ran through the jungles of ancient Aiur. Ladranix sprung higher than Jake anticipated, easily reaching the hovering crystal and clinging as expertly as Little Hands the primate might.
The surface of the tank did not move.
The moment Ladranix’s fingers touched the smooth surface, Jake felt his reaction. They all did. Ladranix’s joy poured over them like warm honey, filled with a sense of connection, of unity, and Jake gasped with it. A heartbeat later, Zamara had erected a barrier.
You are not protoss, although in spirit you are our kin, Jacob, she said sadly. This place—you cannot come here. Your mind cannot handle it. It would kill you.
Jake realized that he had been close—perilously, gloriously close—to entering the Khala. The crystal had facilitated the mental journey to a degree that even Ladranix had never experienced, and Jake was fiercely envious of the protoss. He would never know such union; the closest he would ever come was that moment, seemingly so long ago now, when he had brought the human minds together for that one brief moment.
“Looks like our luck is holding,” Rosemary said, providing a much-needed distraction. All she had seen, had felt, was Ladranix’s successful leap to the crystal. “I guess the xel’naga never expected anyone would get here who wasn’t supposed to be here. So there was no need to protect the crystal. And it looks like it has nothing to do with the creature. We caught a break.”
Jake got control of himself with an effort. “Yeah,” he said.
Ladranix had recovered from his surprise and now moved quickly down the length of the radiant stone toward the small cluster of smaller crystals at its base.
“This may be difficult,” he said. “Jacob—I can sever a small crystal easily enough, but I will need the usage of at least one hand to hold on to the main crystal. You will have to catch it and make sure it does not fall into the vat.”
Jake’s stomach clenched. I will catch the crystal, Jacob. Do not fear.
“Okay,” Jake said. “I’ll try to be better at catching than I was as a kid.” He stepped closer to the vat, although every instinct urged him to put as much distance between it and himself as possible.
“Careful,” Rosemary warned. “Don’t touch the sides at all.”
He froze and realized he was only a few centimeters away from the side of the container. The sickly mist floated upward. The surface of the liquid was flat now, and he tried not to think about the thing that lurked beneath it. He swallowed hard.
“Right,” he managed. He stepped back and let Zamara, with her millennia of knowledge on how to move with grace and assuredness, have control of his body.
“You may proceed, Ladranix,” Zamara said. “We are ready.”
Ladranix nodded, shifting his position for the best possible grip, taking his time. Jake felt him readying himself. The protoss held on with one hand and both legs, extended an arm, and closed his eyes. The golden armor around his wrist glowed softly, and suddenly the bright psi-blade flashed into existence. Ladranix bent and brought his arm down in a sure stroke. The glowing blade of focused mental energy sliced through a small shard at the base of the crystal like a knife through cheese. The severed crystal dropped, turning slowly end over end through the air, falling toward the vat.
Without his realizing it, Zamara extended Jake’s arm, moving as smoothly and as easily as the protoss had, and caught the crystal in his outstretched palm.
Most immediate was the sensation of the crystal in his hand. The feelings that washed through him were startling. Shivers chased each other down his spine. Warmth flowed over him, soft as water, strong as stone. At first it was pleasant, but then the sensation grew more and more intense and Jake pulled out his shirttail to hold the crystal. He glanced at Ladranix, who had dropped down in near-silence beside him.
This is … extremely powerful, Zamara said, and Jake realized that she still had her shield up. The crystal had managed to penetrate it to a degree. I hope it will be sufficient. Come, Jacob. Now we must retreat.
“Is that gonna work?” Rosemary asked.
“She hopes so,” Jake replied, tearing off a piece of his shirt and wrapping the crystal in it. He started to place the shard in one of the many pockets of his jacket, but something was already there. He took it out and stared at one of the fossilized shells from Nemaka. He’d put it in there that fateful night when he’d figured out the code, the universal ratio, that had led him to Zamara and this moment.
Jacob …
Jake shook his head and replaced the fossil. Hell, he might want it someday, if he made it through this alive. It would be a great souvenir. Sticking the shard in another pocket, he said, “Okay, time to get out of here.”
He almost couldn’t believe how lucky they had been. Those things in the vats—he shuddered, not wanting to think about them anymore. But he couldn’t help it. He hadn’t seen much, but even as it horrified him he found he was curious. What were they? And were they, as he suspected, Ulrezaj’s doing?
He turned with the others and hurried back the way they had come. But as they passed through the first chamber they had entered, he slowed and stopped.
“Jake, what is it?” Rosemary asked, alert.
What was it indeed? There was something about this room … he looked around, comparing what he saw before him to what Temlaa had seen when he entered.
“There’s something wrong,” Jake said slowly. And then he knew. “The platforms. When Temlaa and Savassan were here, the platform was extended. It’s not now. Someone’s retracted it since then.”
Jake looked at Alzadar, who still looked very uncomfortable. “I know how to open the alcoves.”
Rosemary frowned slightly. “We just got very lucky back there, Jake. I don’t like the idea of wasting time and taking chances opening cupboards around here.”
Jake ignored her; ignored Zamara, who was echoing the human woman’s words. His thoughts were for Alzadar.
You know what Temlaa saw, he said to Alzadar, his words for the templar alone. Those ancient bodies could still be there. Or there could be nothing there.
Alzadar’s worry, fear, and guilt washed over Jake. I know what you suspect … and I do as well. Do it. I must know. What was in the tanks could have a reasonable explanation, but …
I think—I know what we’re going to see there.
Gods help me, so do I.
“Jake? You listening? I said I don’t think opening those things is a good idea.”
“Me neither. But I think I have to.”
Jake moved to the console. He looked at the rectangle of small, glowing gems, and as Temlaa had done before him, tapped out the ara’dor. The soft, sweet humming issued forth, and the crystals pulsed as each was touched in turn. When he touched the last one in the pattern, the gems all lit up, then their radiance faded.
Jake turned to the wall. Everyone mimicked him, watching intently. A glowing line appeared on the wall and moved slowly to form a rectangle of the same perfect proportions as the giant one that hid the chambers from careless eyes. Jake’s heart w
as racing. The platform’s probably empty, he told himself.
It was not.
But what he saw, despite its gruesomeness, filled him with relief. Six ancient bodies lay there. They looked exactly like the ones Temlaa had found. Jake exhaled and opened his mouth to say something when Alzadar’s mental cry pierced him to the bone.”
“Rukashal! Tervoris … Azramith … !”
The bodies weren’t ancient after all. They were protoss that Alzadar and the others had known.
“The Xava’kai …” breathed Rosemary. “Guess this is what Ulrezaj was doing with his loyal followers when he took them away.”
Alzadar rushed forward to the desiccated corpse of what had once been a friend, as if it wasn’t already too late and somehow he could be rescued. Quick as a thought, Ladranix raced after him. He seized his fellow templar and shoved him away from the platform.
“Let me help him!” Alzadar cried. He struggled in Ladranix’s grasp and to Jake’s shock twisted free. Maddened with grief and outrage, his hand closed on one of the bodies.
An eerie, otherworldly wailing shattered Jake’s ears. Alzadar had rung the dinner bell.
“Damn it!” Rosemary yelped, shooting the protoss an angry glance. “Let’s get out of here!”
Ladranix bodily lifted Alzadar. Alzadar shook his head, recovering himself, and with one heartbroken glance back at the corpses of his murdered friends, rushed to flee with the others. As they raced toward safety, not too far now, Alzadar cried, “They are coming! The Xava’kai—they are coming. Do not shoot them, I beg you!”
No chance, then. Jake could hear them now, running swiftly and almost, but not quite, silently down the corridors. He expected Rosemary to ignore Alzadar’s plea. To his surprise, she scowled, and while she did not drop her weapon, neither did she fire. Ladranix and the other Shel’na Kryhas closed in around the two humans, forming a protective ring with their bodies.
The whispering sound of running protoss increased, and suddenly there they were, moving with shocking speed, their lambent eyes fixed fiercely on Jake. Seconds later they were surrounded. There were many of them, true, but not nearly as many as Jake had expected. The thought chilled him as he realized that although the Forged had once had far greater numbers than Those Who Endure, the very being they called the Benefactor had been slowly, stealthily decreasing their numbers, faster even than the zerg would have.
Shadow Hunters Page 19
