Magnus thumped his chair back down to the floor and rose, turning to follow Alasdair and Hayk slowly down the crowded aisle. The three tall Tarsians wound through the throngs of robed diplomats until they made it through the door and out into the buzzing hallway. “Hang on,” Magnus called out when he saw Yuri’s white crest a short distance away bobbing above the dark heads of the Meropean diplomats gathered around him.
Alasdair nodded, pointing to a spot at the side of the hall. “We’ll wait over there.”
“Like hell we will,” Hayk cut in. “We’re coming, too. Lead on, Mag.”
The moment the Maian captain caught sight of the Alcyoni officers making their way toward him, he extracted himself from the conversation and rushed toward Magnus, throwing his arms around him in a warm embrace.
“It’s good to see you!” he said with a piping laugh.
“You, too,” Magnus replied, beaming up at the Tori birdman who towered over him by half a head. “You’re such a hot-shot these days.”
Yuri grinned. “Looks like you’re pretty studly yourself, Captain. Are these your officers?”
Magnus nodded and stepped back, introducing Alasdair and Hayk who shook the Tori’s hand with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
“You just had to ruffle the chickens in there, didn’t you,” Magnus teased his old friend.
Yuri shrugged casually. “No use sugar coating it. They’ll find out soon enough for themselves how vile the reptilians can be.”
“Your fleet really seems to get around,” Hayk remarked. “Is it just the Tori or do the human populations in Maia share your dedication to fighting the Drahks?”
“It’s mostly the Tori, but our human minorities seem to feel just as strongly as we do that protecting our shrinking network of allies and trading partners is worth the risk. If someone needs our help and we have the stargate codes programmed into our transport gates, we’ll go.”
“Good for you,” Magnus nodded as he spotted Ulu’s green robes approaching from behind Yuri.
The Saharan councilor reached up and placed both hands on the birdman’s shoulders. “Are you up for a little adventure, Captain Stardancer?”
Yuri whirled around with a chirrup and grabbed Ulu into a bear hug. “As long as it doesn’t involve reptiles,” he laughed as he stepped back.
“Ah, but it does,” the Saharan replied with a cryptic smile. “And how about you, young bull?”
Magnus crossed his arms and let out a short sniff. “Well, I suppose, since these two were so eager to get rid of me earlier.”
“Good choice, Mag,” Alasdair declared brightly with a clap on the back. “We’ll head back to the shuttle for a little shut-eye. Have a good time and don’t hurry back!” the brown-haired Caledoni added in a pronounced brogue as he snatched Hayk’s sleeve and hurriedly pulled the pilot off down the hall.
Magnus glanced up at Yuri, his mouth twisting into a half-grin. “My brother-in-law,” he mumbled under his breath.
“You’re married?” Yuri squawked in surprise.
“Yup,” Magnus replied with a cocky flip of his head. “And we have a toddler, a sweet little boy.”
“Good for you. Me, too. We have twins.” Yuri’s eyes danced as his friend’s face instantly clouded over with an irritated frown.
“Ah, takes me right back to the first summer you two spent with us,” Ulu sighed, quickly stepping between the two younger men, lifting his arms to lay them across each of their shoulders. “Yuri, do you need to let your people know that I’m abducting you for a short time?”
“Yes, just a moment.” Turning his head, the Maian captain whistled a few short phrases to a tufted chartreuse officer who nodded and tweeted a reply before turning back to her conversation with several Meropean diplomats.
“Alright, let’s go have some fun,” Ulu said with relish. “We may not have this opportunity again for a long time.”
Magnus glanced over his shoulder at the dozen aides hovering a few feet behind the high councilor. “Are they coming, too?”
“Yes, some of them will. I’m afraid it goes with the job,” the Saharan leader whispered before moving his guests forward down the wide hall in the direction of the landing field adjacent to Fleet Headquarters. “I took the liberty of arranging for one of the fleet shuttles to take us out to the site a few miles northwest of the city.”
“Site?” Magnus echoed. “As in dirt and digging?”
“Indeed, Magnus. It seems one of my wife’s protégés stumbled upon something rather extraordinary.”
“New ruins?” Yuri asked, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“Even better than that, my young friend—bones.”
“Yessssss!” the birdman hissed, pulling both fists up next to his chest excitedly.
Ulu hurried them down the main corridor toward the front entrance where a young airman held open one of the heavy bronze doors. Out on the pavement a few dozen paces away a pair of Meropean pilots stood next to a sleek craft that was idling, waiting for the high councilor’s party to arrive.
“Wow, red carpet,” Magnus mumbled as he climbed aboard and moved toward one of the forward seats.
“Would you prefer a dusty lorry and hours of rough ground travel?” Ulu’s voice teased behind him.
“No, this will do just fine.” The captain grinned as Yuri took the seat next to him while several of Ulu’s aides piled into the remaining seats behind the councilor. The two pilots jumped aboard and sealed off the door before stalking down the aisle to the cockpit. Within minutes, the small craft was airborne, scuttling smoothly over the rooftops of Fleet Headquarters to rise in an arc above the sprawling capital city of Pemba.
“So where’s the site?” Magnus called out as he watched the city fall away beneath the shuttle.
“On the plateau below the Tonga Range just northwest of the outermost settlements.”
“I’m surprised it’s so close,” Yuri remarked. “I would have thought anything worth excavating in the area would have been discovered by now or inadvertently destroyed through human activity.”
“We often miss the remarkable in familiar surroundings,” the Saharan replied. “The rarest treasure can remain hidden right under our noses if we’re not looking for something special.”
“So how did they find this one?”
“It took the eyes of an exceptional young man with the vision to see it and the determination to make people listen.”
The outskirts of the city thinned and petered out across land that rose in soft, grassy undulations. A narrow river snaked its way through the arid landscape at the base of steep bluffs sprinkled with gorse and scrub.
As the shuttle skimmed over the sparse hills rolling across the plateau, Magnus scoured the ground, searching for the first signs of an archeological dig. A narrow dirt road meandered across the dry expanse and ended abruptly at the base of a large conical hill where several dozen parked vehicles sparkled under the midday sun.
“Where is everybody?” he asked as the shuttle was brought down in an open area next to the collection of dusty rovers and lorries.
“Inside,” the councilor answered with a sly grin as he got up and followed one of the pilots to the exit to disembark.
Magnus threw a quizzical look to Yuri who shrugged and walked ahead of him toward the door. As they climbed out of the shuttle, Ulu stood waiting and waved a hand toward a stand of wind-battered trees at the foot of the hill, indicating that they should walk on in that direction ahead of him.
As they neared the copse, Magnus’s eyes caught sight of the unmistakable lines of dressed stonework surrounding the shadowy entrance to a tunnel. A quietly humming generator had been set up next to a pile of cleared rock and debris to one side, and a string of small lights extended into the arched tunnel, giving it a soft, unearthly glow.
Yuri flew past the entrance and started to run, the thud of his boots disappearing quickly down the dimly lit tunnel leading straight into the heart of the hill. Magnus stepped up to the wall to
his right and reached a hand out to run his fingers along the clean joint between two of the rough-hewn blocks of stone.
“By the Prime,” he muttered, “no mortar.”
“That’s right,” Ulu confirmed behind him. “With all our space-faring technology, we don’t have the skills to cut and fit stone like this.”
“No, we don’t. So who did?”
“We haven’t a clue,” the Saharan laughed amiably. “Come, the mysteries get even deeper.”
Magnus broke his gaze away from the enigmatic wall and walked beside his friend, squinting until his eyes adjusted to the low level of light. The tunnel was wide enough for perhaps three men to walk shoulder to shoulder and the ceiling rose into a rounded arch at least three feet above their heads. Up ahead he could see from the change of light that the tunnel opened up into some kind of open space at the end.
“Are there other tunnels or entrances leading into to the chamber up there?”
“No, this is the only one.”
Magnus looked back over his shoulder toward the entrance and stopped walking for a moment, his eyes narrowed in speculation. “East—it faces east.”
“Quite precisely—very good, Azizi,” Ulu beamed, using the Saharan nickname he had given Magnus years ago as a teen.
The sounds of a muted discussion echoing off of stone walls floated down the tunnel. A mellow feminine voice rose above the others, calling out for some kind of instrument.
“Ah, my lovely wife.” The councilor quickened his pace and moved on ahead, his long robes billowing around him in a green swirl as they caught the light from the lanterns in front of him.
Magnus took his time walking the length of the tunnel and when he stepped into the central chamber, he pulled in a startled breath. The circular room was perhaps a hundred paces in diameter with unadorned walls that stood at least twice his height. The cavernous space swallowed up the light from the scattered lanterns on the floor, but it was enough to be able to discern that there were no seams or joints whatsoever in the wide expanse of cut stone rising in an arch far above his head. It was simply astonishing. There was nothing like this on Tarsus or anywhere else in Alcyone that he was aware of.
Pulling his eyes back down to the floor, Magnus swept his gaze over the thirty-some archeologists standing or bent over their work at the center of the space. At the far end, Yuri crouched on one knee, deep in discussion with one of the scientists, his white head glowing in the lamplight as he nodded and pointed at something between them in the packed dirt.
Magnus started across the floor and was several paces away from Ulu when a shout rang out in the chamber. A short figure tore around the councilor’s robes, streaking toward the tunnel entrance with his arm and hand clutched tightly to his body. Magnus reached out quickly and snatched the small boy up into the air, bringing a shriek and squeal of surprised laughter from his diminutive captive.
“You must be Obi,” he said as he swung the boy around and settled him on his hip, holding him firmly to keep him from squirming down and running off again. “I’m Magnus. The last time I saw you, you were a tiny little guy.”
The boy’s dark eyes widened. “You know me?”
“Yep, I know your mom and dad, your brother Jengo, and your sister Makena.” Ulu’s youngest son stared up at him and blinked, trying to digest that bit of information. “I’ve got a tiny little guy at home myself,” he went on as the boy began to relax in his arms.
“You do?” Obi chirped. “What’s his name?”
“Kahl, and he’s about half your size right now.”
“Can you bring him to play?”
Magnus grinned. “I’ll try, but I can’t promise when. For now, show me what you’ve got in your hand.”
The boy frowned doubtfully, pulling his small fist up against his chest.
“It’s ok,” Magnus soothed, “you’re not in trouble, at least not with me.”
“They never let me touch anything,” Obi complained softly.
“Your mom never wanted me to either. She thought I’d break something,” he said, clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes to the ceiling, bringing a giggle from the small boy. “But after a while, I showed her I could be careful and then it was ok.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Magnus lifted his right hand and held it open in front of the little boy. Obi’s eyes locked onto his and he lowered his arm, his small fingers opening to reveal what looked like a finger bone several inches long laying across his palm.
Obi sucked in a loud breath as he stared at Magnus, his eyes widening with sudden shock as if he were looking up at something terrifying. Confused, Magnus furrowed his brow. “Obi, what is it?”
The boy quickly dropped the bone into Magnus’s palm and laid his small hand down over it again. “You look,” he hissed insistently.
Magnus studied Obi’s youthful features and abruptly an enormous pair of luminous amber eyes was staring him down out of a huge, spiky brown head. The energy boring into him was enough to make him take a step back in order to keep his balance in the face of such direct and unexpected scrutiny. As he rallied his internal equilibrium, he realized in a flash of relief that whatever—or whoever—this was did not intend any harm but was simply curious. He relaxed instantly and felt Obi’s small frame lose its tension as the child followed his lead.
For several heartbeats, the amber eyes watched him without moving or blinking. Magnus felt strangely compelled to reach out and touch the pebbled snout he was seeing, but as soon as the thought formed in his mind, the vivid image faded. He found himself staring into Obi’s dark eyes which reflected the same puzzlement that he knew was written plainly across his own features.
A gentle hand landed on Magnus’s shoulder and he turned his head to look down into the knowing brown eyes of Desta Malawi.
“What did you see, Azizi?”
“It was … I—” he stammered, still dazed from the startling encounter.
Desta laughed softly. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you at a loss for words.”
“A face,” he spit out. “Glowing eyes, in some kind of reptilian face. I’ve never see anything like it.”
“Intelligent?”
Magnus nodded. “Yes, incredibly.”
The archeologist’s eyes narrowed as she cocked her head thoughtfully to one side. “I always had a feeling you possessed the ability to see. I wonder how you’ll use such a gift.”
“You mean I can do that at will?”
“Most likely, yes. Perhaps this extraordinary room triggered your experience just now, but with focus and training—sky’s the limit, my friend. And you,” she stated emphatically, turning her gaze to her youngest child. Obi squirmed in Magnus’s grasp and tipped his head down, bracing himself for a reprimand.
“I should scold you for running off with one of the bones,” she began firmly, “but I’m sure whatever you saw was much more daunting than I’ll ever be.” The boy’s mouth turned up with a small, sheepish grin.
“Now that I know you have this special talent as well, young bandit,” Desta went on in an indulgent tone, “ask me if you can hold something and I will make the time to help you. Agreed?”
Obi nodded and laughed, grabbing the bone off of Magnus’s palm so he could drop it into his mother’s outstretched hand. Scrambling out of the big man’s arms, he jumped to the floor and ran off again around his father’s green robes.
Desta closed her fist around the finger bone and smiled up at Magnus. “Thank you,” she whispered gratefully. Behind her, Ulu stood with his arms crossed and a broad smile covering his face having witnessed the entire bone-snatching escapade.
“Oh, it’s sooo good to see you,” Desta declared warmly, slipping her hands up around Magnus’s broad back to pull him down into a hug.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he replied. “And these digs. So show me what you’ve found this time.”
Sliding one arm around his waist, the slim archaeologist pulled him forward
toward the lights and the crowd of people kneeling or squatting over the findings in the floor. “Well, you may have just gotten a better glimpse of the creature than we’ll ever see. Take a look.”
Stepping carefully between two women hunched over with brushes and measuring devices, Magnus drew in a deep breath as he scanned over the array of bones spread out in both directions. The spine of the creature lay in a long sinewy curve through the middle of the scattered skeleton and had to measure at least sixty feet from the head end to the tip of its tail. Four distinct hip or shoulder joints could easily be made out in the fragments that were visible as well as a collection of large, curved rib bones near the center.
“It looks like it was laying on its belly when it died,” Magnus marveled aloud. “But the weirdest part of all this is the room—it’s like a burial mound.”
“Yes,” Desta agreed, “but take a look again at the tunnel.”
The Tarsian flipped his head around to glance over his shoulder at the sole entry point to the chamber. “There’s no way the creature could have fit through that passage.”
“That’s right. We’re completely stumped.”
“Any human remains or artifacts?”
“Not so far. Most of the people you see here are paleontologists, but this doesn’t fit into anything they’re familiar with either. Come, let me introduce you to the man who stumbled into all this.” Grabbing Magnus by the hand, Desta led him back out beyond the perimeter of working figures and walked down to the end of the skeleton around Yuri’s kneeling form. The man across from the Maian captain looked up and stood when he saw Desta and Magnus approach.
“Adisa Mungári, this is Magnus Talrésian, another one of my former students,” the Saharan professor explained, smiling down into Yuri’s bright eyes before lifting her gaze back to Magnus.
“Pleased to meet you, Captain,” the soft-spoken young man said in a rush, glancing at Magnus’s uniform as he reached out to shake the Alcyoni officer’s hand.
The moment Magnus touched Adisa’s palm, he froze as a bright flash of the reptile’s face reappeared in front of him once again. This time he could have sworn the amber eyes raked over his entire length before they vaporized like smoke.
Descent of the Maw Page 2
