“What do you think?” he asked his dragon.
There was no clear reply. He brought the sphere up again and turned the sphere, examining the glyphs more closely. He put his finger over a glyph with wavy lines that reminded him of a river. Dread filled him as soon as he moved to actually touch the glyph. He jerked his hands away, and the feeling faded with the sphere.
He brought the sphere back and tried a broken triangle glyph. It brought out the same sense of foreboding, so he moved to the next. Every one he tried was the same. Either it served a dangerous purpose in itself, or maybe his dragon thought it too dangerous to use.
He was starting to think he’d need to move on when he tried a glyph that might have been a starburst, or maybe a flower. He moved to touch it, bracing for the expected dread. He felt nothing. He moved so close he could feel the warmth radiating from the glowing sigil. His dragon was silent.
He clenched his teeth and mentally crossed his fingers, then pushed the button.
Nothing happened. He drifted to the back of the chamber to peer through the doors. Two led to empty rooms. The third opened on a staircase to the second floor. He didn’t see anything unusual. When he looked out the front, everything was the same as his last excursion to the Astral Plane.
That was disappointing. Perhaps his dragon hadn’t cared about this sigil because he knew nothing would happen. Coraolis returned to his body and opened his eyes to a chamber bathed in a soft white light. Cool air rose from the floor, easing the sticky heat. Summers and the rest of the team surrounded him, talking animatedly. Jack was the first to notice that Cor was back.
“Coraolis, what did you do?”
“I pushed a button.”
Jack stared at him, trying to decide if Coraolis was kidding or not. He took Cor by the arm and led him to the doorway. The sky was dark. The last of the sunset was fading to the west. Night had fallen, but the city was ablaze with light.
“Did you do this?” Jack asked.
“I suppose I did.” It was hard to do anything but stare. The faces of the buildings themselves glowed. Their stone carvings danced across their surfaces. The little dragons flapped their wings, the hieroglyphs moved and changed.
Summers joined them. “I can’t complain about the visibility, but it’s going to be hard to hide our presence. I’m assigning shifts to keep watch.”
“Should I try to turn it off?” Coraolis asked.
“I think the benefit outweighs the risk. I just want you to stay close to the group and get some rest. I want you ready in case we need your magic.”
“It isn’t really magic...” Coraolis started, but Summers cut him off.
“Whatever you call it, I want you at full charge.”
“Do you suppose I turned anything else on?” Coraolis asked after the lieutenant was gone.
Jack looked out into the city again, shifting nervously. “What did you do?”
Coraolis did his best to describe what he’d seen and done, from the swimming dragons to the sphere with all the buttons.
“You took a hell of a chance, Cor,” Jack said when he was done.
“I trusted my dragon. But, yes. I know.” He stepped outside into the damp night air. “It seemed safe.”
“Please don’t do it again. I don’t want to be the one to tell Julia you didn’t come home because you made a rookie gamer mistake.”
“I won’t. Or at least, I’ll check in with you before I do anything foolish,” Coraolis promised.
“I guess I’ll settle for that.”
***
They camped in a chamber on the upper floor while crewmen stood guard in shifts. Between the hard floor and the well-lit room, sleep did not come easily to Coraolis. Jack took off his shirt and draped it over his face. He began to snore almost immediately.
Coraolis draped his arm over his eyes and tried to relax. He was almost there when the first yowls shattered the night. He jerked upright and listened. Jack slept on, still snoring softly. The crewmen sharing their room were sitting up as well, blinking.
The creature cried out again. This time, the sound was fainter. He rolled onto his side and told himself he was safe. They were under guard, and he’d hear if there was trouble. He forced himself to take long slow breaths, using novice exercises to get his body to a restful state without popping into the Astral Plane.
He heard the yowler a few more times, but each time it was more distant. With his body relaxed, his mind followed its example, and he drifted off to sleep.
***
The morning sun was dim when Coraolis woke. He felt like he’d hardly slept. He looked beside him, but Jack was gone. The others were as well.
That meant no more time for sleep. He sat up, grimacing as his back protested. He wasn’t twenty anymore, and it felt like the stone floor had pummeled him in his sleep. He tried to stretch the feeling away as he stood and ambled to the open window.
A wall of fog greeted him. He could make out the shape of nearby buildings, but only because of the lights. The sun was about as bright as an actor’s spotlight, barely able to break through the thick clouds.
He rubbed his eyes. They weren’t deceiving him. The city was shrouded in fog as far as he could see. He put a hand out the window. The air was cold and damp. Moisture clung to his skin when he stepped back.
When he got downstairs, Summers and Jack were at the front door. Coraolis joined them with a jaw-cracking yawn. Jack covered his mouth and yawned too. Both men had dark circles under their eyes, and Cor would be surprised if his weren’t the same.
“Push any more buttons, Cor?” Jack smiled to show he was kidding, but there was an edge to his voice.
He shook his head. “If you’re talking about this fog, it wasn’t me.”
“Something is freaky here,” Summers said. He showed Coraolis his datapad. It was a pixelated mess. Hundreds of different squares of color covered the screen. Summers touched it, and the screen went white until he stopped.
Coraolis pulled out his own datapad. It looked fine until he touched the screen. Then all the icons and words broke into thousands of pieces.
“Mine’s the same,” Jack told him. “I went in the Astral Plane to see if that device could fix this, but my dragon wouldn’t let me touch it.”
“So…what do we do?”
Summers sighed. “I was going to ask you that. We need to get out of here, but as you see my GPS is toast.”
“Follow the arrows back?”
“That’s a problem too. Come see.”
Coraolis followed the lieutenant to the square. The fog’s dew clung to their skin, covering them in a sweat-like sheen. They walked to the place where Summers had made his mark. There was no sign the ground had been tampered with, and the scraped arrow was gone.
Coraolis turned, searching nearby for the lieutenant’s mark. They were in the right place, he was sure of it.
“I had my team scour the square. Every mark is gone. I sent scouts back to the last mark, and they couldn’t find it either. They came back after an hour, swearing they got lost when all they did was go in a straight line. Got turned around, they said.”
Coraolis shivered, wiping the damp from his face. Summers did the same, then started back toward their shelter.
“The way I see it, we have three options. We could stay here and wait out the weather, but we don’t know this planet. It could be days, and we don’t have the supplies for that.”
“True enough,” Coraolis said.
“We could try to find a way out, but I was marking our path for a reason. This place is a maze. We’re just as likely to get lost going back as forward,” Summers went on, “so I’m leaving it to you two. We’re not staying here. Do you want to go on or try to find our way out?”
“Can you reach the shuttle?”
The lieutenant made an impatient noise. “That was the first thing I tried. We’re cut off. Your partner said he wants to go on, but he won’t decide without you.”
Coraolis nodded. The smart thing
to do was to get to the shuttle. Logically, there was no need for them to risk themselves further. If it was up to him, he’d choose that option for the sake of the team.
But he wasn’t the only one weighing in. His dragon was making his opinion known, nudging Coraolis toward the heart of the city. He’d made a pact to work with his dragon. If they weren’t in immediate danger, he had to honor their pact.
“We go on.”
Summers bit back a sigh, then nodded. “I figured you’d say that. We’re ready to roll when you are.”
***
They kept to the middle of the streets where the fog seemed thinnest. Every member of the team in sight of at least two others. Summers cycled from the front of the group to the back, then to the front again, making sure no one lagged behind.
Coraolis felt hemmed in, both by E.F. crewmen and the thick fog banks. They were all damp and exhausted. He thought longingly of his bunk on the Charon.
“After this, I want to revisit the terms we have with the dragons,” Jack grumbled.
“I don’t think they’d push us this hard if it wasn’t important.” Coraolis tried stretching again. A knot over his shoulder blades refused to release. “Think about it. We’re the first human beings on this planet. This is the first lost alien civilization discovered by mankind. We’re privileged to be here.”
“Unless you can see through fog, none of us are seeing any of it,” Jack scoffed, then softened. “Sorry, Cor, I’m not trying to take this out on you.”
“No worries. I know how you feel. This place is connected directly to the Astral Plane. It’s different from anything we’ve ever seen before.”
Summers called a halt; they were in another square, this one paved in stone. That felt like a good sign; it meant they hadn’t gone in a circle. Summers brought them close and did a headcount. Everyone was accounted for, but he seemed uneasy all the same.
“Am I seeing things, or is that an animal?” he asked, pointing.
A long, low silhouette stood in the heart of the fog. If he squinted, Coraolis could make out four legs and what might be a snout. Then it shifted and faded into the mist. It looked exactly like the shape of a wolf, but that was impossible. Still, he found himself calling it a shadow wolf in his mind, just to put a label on it.
A flicker moved to his right. Coraolis turned his head in time to get an impression of something loping, but it vanished before his eyes could focus.
He called on his power, willing a ball of lightning into his palm. If they were attacked, he wanted to do his part to defend them. He could feel the energy waiting for him to shape it, but when he reached for it, it danced out of his reach. He grasped for it again, and it slid through his fingers.
“Cor…I can’t use my power,” Jack murmured. “I thought I’d try hiding us from whatever that is.”
“Same here. The power is there, I just can’t touch it.”
Summers had seen enough. He gathered everyone into formation, then got them quick-marching down the street. The crewmen had their weapons ready, scanning for threats. Coraolis wished he had one of his own, but he wouldn’t know how to handle it.
The shadow wolves darted in and out of sight, keeping to the thickest patches of fog. Whenever one appeared, a dozen firearms pointed at it, only for it to fade before another appeared at their backs. They tried going into a building, but the fog was inside, too, with more shadows poised to attack.
They returned to the street, with Coraolis in the lead. He knew where they were going and wanted to get there before their hunters did more than threaten. Summers ordered the crew to hold fire unless they were attacked. Coraolis could see discipline wearing thin though. When they hit a dead-end, they let out a collective groan.
Then he realized it wasn’t a dead-end. A step was visible at the very edge of the thickest part of the fog. He stepped onto it, then felt for the next one. “Follow me,” he directed.
Jack kept close behind, Summers and company following after.
The steps led to a barrier at least five meters tall. It was forged of metal, its surface completely blank. There was no visible sign that it was anything but a metal section of wall, but Coraolis still knew it for what it was.
He pressed his hands to its smooth surface. He felt energy within waiting to be unlocked, yet he couldn’t quite reach it. Jack moved next to him, placing his hands next to Cor’s. Something clicked.
“Tell me you’re doing something,” Summers said.
“We’re doing something,” Cor promised, and a metal door swung inward.
There wasn’t so much as a scrap of fog inside. Summers ushered the last of his team through the doorway before he went in. Coraolis and Jack followed, urged by their dragons.
CHAPTER NINE
Faceless humanoid statues dominated the corridor, their heads brushing a ceiling at least thirty feet high. Their crystal spearpoints shimmered, casting a flickering light over the area. Their draconic wings flared out on either side, just touching the next statue’s wingtip.
The ivory carvings stood in stark contrast against the black pearlescent walls. The dark sheen broke apart into shades of indigo and violet where light struck them, the colors rippling like pools of oil.
“Do you suppose the statues move too?” Jack murmured.
“I certainly hope not. If they were going to, they would have by now, don’t you think?” Coraolis took a few cautious steps forward, waiting for a reaction from the sentinels. When nothing happened, he allowed himself to breathe.
“What do you suppose this place is?”
Coraolis shook his head. He didn’t know any more than Jack. He took out his datapad and was glad to see its screen had returned to normal. He took a few pictures of the statues, moving to capture different angles.
“I don’t know any more than you, Jack, but it looks important. It could have been a state building, maybe, or some kind of temple.”
“You mean like a palace? It’s a nice place for alien princes to live, assuming there’s some furniture somewhere,” Jack quipped.
“Sure it is, especially if it can keep the fog out.”
“All right, everybody listen up!” Summers made a sweeping gesture to bring everyone in. “We’re inside, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. We’re going to find another exit, then we’re going to get out of this city.”
“Wait a minute,” Jack said.
“I know I said I’d follow your lead, Mike, but something isn’t right. I’m not risking my men on your whim. Santiago, you’ve got point. Davis, you cover our rear. You know the drill.”
“Sir!” Santiago snapped off a salute, then set off down the hallway.
“So much for following our dragons,” Jack muttered. “Not that I can argue. It was insane out there.”
The team set off in a fast march.
Coraolis frowned, realizing he hadn’t felt a single nudge from his dragon since they got inside. He thought about leaving without doing whatever his dragon wanted him to do. He thought about returning to Earth and never coming back. No matter how he focused on those ideas as if they were the stone truth, he couldn’t get a rise.
“I’m not getting anything from my dragon,” he said.
Jack frowned, deep lines appearing between his eyebrows. “Me neither, now that you mention it. We must be on the right track.”
“Keep an eye out for whatever it is we’re supposed to do. I don’t think the lieutenant will want to stop anymore.” Cor adjusted the straps on his backpack as he tried to get into the groove of their doubled pace.
The corridor split in two, then split again. Soon it became clear they were in a maze rivaling the streets outside. Summers’s expression turned grim as they searched for a way out. They passed through rooms with the furniture Jack had wished for. There were elaborately carved benches and wall hangings with patterns that changed as he looked at them. They were lovely, if sparse, and he wondered what had driven the people from such a fantastic city.
Summers called for a
break in one such room. A circle of benches surrounded a shallow pit. Two crewmen stood guard at each door, while the rest of the group sat on the benches and ate a portion of their rations.
Coraolis’s feet ached, but he didn’t complain. Jack seemed fine, but he also ran two miles with Julia every morning. Cor wasn’t so well trained and thought maybe he should do something about that.
“Sir?”
Davis was at the door. His unusually high-pitched voice drew everyone’s attention, and Cor saw why. A tendril of gray fog was creeping into the room from the hallway, groping blindly along its path.
Cor’s rations turned to sawdust in his mouth. He was on his feet before Summers said the word. They were all on the move, hurrying to the door on the far side of the room and down the next corridor before the chamber could fill with fog. Hurry as they might, the hall was soon filled, and Coraolis could hardly see the back of the man in front of him.
***
Khiann stalked the humans through the ancient temple, making no more noise than her shadow on the wall. Her sharp ears zeroing in on every word the humans spoke, every footstep that echoed through the maze of corridors. Her earpiece fed what she heard to Night Thorn in real time, and the computer fed the translation back to her.
They feared the mind fog, and the fear shadows she raised within it. They wanted to leave the city now, and that was exactly what she wanted. But every step carried them further into the sacred site. Everything they touched would need to be sanctified. They had to be removed before they did irreparable damage.
She came upon their rear guard. He was glancing fearfully to either side, flinching at the sight of the shadows and fog. He was too distracted by phantasms to notice her sweep in.
Each alien species had differences in their physiologies, but all had one thing in common. They required oxygen, and the fastest way to incapacitate them was to deny them of it. She caught the human’s throat in the crook of her elbow and squeezed as she yanked him off his feet.
He went off balance. When he fell, his weight pulled his throat more heavily into her arm. He clawed at her armor, kicking and fighting. She admired his tenacity. Soon, he went limp, and she dumped him in the center of the floor, unconscious but not dead.
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