Shadow of the Blue Ring

by Jerome Kelly

  “Yes, I’ve seen maps that show the layout of this city before,” Kalmar replied, “there is a large highway just a few hundred or so meters across from our position, it passes in a straight line from pretty much one side of the city to the other. It runs right past the hangar bays.”

  “Good, lets get moving then.”

  James followed Kalmar’s lead as he pointed the group in the direction of the main highway. Isha was making no attempt to make eye contact as they went, she continued to stay in her own little world alongside Melina who was also staying very quiet around him. Fortunately, he was too distracted to worry about his personal problems for now, he was too busy taking in the scenery of the magnificent Jaiytid city around them. He would get seldom few chances to see anything like this again in his lifetime.

  “This place looks to have been evacuated in a hurry,” James noted, seeing that many of the buildings in the city had doors and windows open and vehicles had just left at the side of or in the middle of the road. It was as if the entire population of the city had just got up one day and left.

  “No record exists of what happened here,” said Kalmar, “we can only guess as to why the city is deserted like this. It could have been the loss of oxygen from the atmosphere, it could have been an evacuation in the face of the Xerion war, there could be any number of reasons.”

  “If it was Xerions, I think the city would be little more than rubble,” said Saavoy, “they destroyed pretty much everything in their way during the war.”

  “Maybe the fact that the city was deserted is what saved it,” said Morelli, “the Xerion conquest was basically a genocide against the other three races. If there were no Jaiytids here, they may have had no reason to attack.”

  “Thats very possible,” said Ansare, “or maybe it was the Xerions that damaged the planet’s protective layer to burn off the oxygen and force them to evacuate. They may have had a reason for not bombing the city like all the others. Remember, Tolassa also survived the war”

  “There are no galactic archives here though,” said James, “I think maybe the Xerions must have known of something valuable hidden within the city… something like the Shadow Bringer.”

  “If the Xerions had wanted it, they would have got it,” said Ansare, “they won the war, they could have done whatever they wanted after that point.”

  “Well they chose to leave and never show themselves again,” said James, “personally I’m quite glad they did, the Vulians on their own were bad enough. It would have made sense though, if the Xerions were that hell-bent on wiping out the Jaiytids, a weapon of mass destruction would have done nicely for them. For all we know, they could have been here and not found anything.”

  Whatever events had left the city abandoned, they had clearly been non-violent, there was not a single sign that any type of fight had taken place within the city. James noticed one or two hovertanks at the sides of the road as they continued their walk towards the underground hangar. Perhaps the city had been ready for battle but the Xerions had found another way to remove them without having to fire a shot.

  “Captain Kalmar, have your people considered colonising this city?” Saavoy asked the Adean captain, “I mean, apart from the atmosphere, you pretty much have a city perfect for setting and the technological advances you could gain from a place like this would be amazing.”

  “If not for the our troubles with the Hunters, I’m sure we would have done,” said Kalmar, “the Jaiytids had some pretty impressive terraforming technology and if we could recover it and make use of it, I’m sure we could repair the planet’s atmosphere. We aren’t pressed for either space or resources on our home planet though so we can afford the time.”

  James had never imagined a Jaiytid city as having shopping centres, leisure complexes, schools and large residential areas but it was all there in front of him. This would have been a thriving colony once, home to probably as many as seven million Jaiytids in just this city alone.

  “I haven’t noticed any industrial areas in the city,” James noted as he continued to observe the city scenery, “where does this place get it’s power from?”

  “The city is connected to a massive series of solar panels on the light side of the planet,” said Kalmar, “power was generated there and carried here via a series of underground wires. The panels have been damaged though and the city no longer has it’s main power source. We think that when the planet heated up on its light side, the heat became too much and the generators stopped working. There is a backup source within the city itself but its running on a bare minimum.”

  “So we can still get to where we need to go?”

  “Yes, the place we’re going still has reserves of power, we don’t know how long they’ll last but we should be Ok for now. Its impressive to think that they can keep the place running five hundred years after it was abandoned.”

  It was just like on Raylia, the facility there still had power after five centuries too, whatever was powering the Jaiytid facilities was a source of energy they could sorely use on Earth. Even with the use of several renewable energy sources provided by the other alliance races, Humans were still getting through too many non-renewable sources of energy.

  The main highway took the group to a large open space near the centre of the city. There were clear signs of what looked like hangar doors on the ground but there was no sign of any way to open them or for them to get down to the lower levels.

  “How do we get down then?”

  “The Jaiytids destroyed the old control room,” said Kalmar, “must have been to stop Xerions or any other scavengers from finding their way down there. There is a back way in though, and its quite ingenious, I’ll show you.”

  Heading down and away from the main roads, Kalmar lead the group to a small and very unassuming building on one of the lower underpasses. It was one part of the majestic city that actually had a slight run-down look to it. If there was a hidden way into the hangars from here, it was certainly in a place no one would think to look for it. On first look, it seemed like a dead end, it was just a dark room without a single noticeable feature to it.

  “One of our people discovered this place completely by accident,” Kalmar continued, “I’ll need everyone to stand in the centre of the room while I start up the scanner.”

  “Scanner?” Said James, “what do you mean? What is this place?”

  “Just bear with me,” said Kalmar, opening up a small panel on the far wall, “keep standing where you are and let it do what it needs to do.”

  James was confused as to what Kalmar was doing but he didn’t question him, he watched as a small blue beam of light emitted from the panel and scanned each of James’s crew in person. After about twenty seconds, it stopped and after a brief pause, a section of the wall began to move to one side, revealing a way into the hangars.

  “It’s Jaiytid specific,” said Kalmar, “well… Jaiytid descendant specific anyway. It has a DNA scanner that ensures that no other race other than ones descended from themselves can ever find their way into this hangar. They did a pretty good job of hiding what’s down here.”

  “The one on Raylia was pretty well hidden too,” said Ansare, “you have to wonder how many of these they have hidden around the galaxy and what secrets they might have been keeping in them.”

  “This is the only one we’ve found so far and we’ve done our fair share of exploring in this region,” said Kalmar, “I’m sure they have plenty of secrets hidden around the place though and we’ll be sure to find them once this war is over. This is the only one we need to worry about for now though.”

  Kalmar lead the group into the underground tunnel and down a set of stairs, the group turning on their flashlights to light up the pitch black that was surrounding them. It was like deja vu, the layout of the place was exactly same as the one they had visited six years ago during the revolution. The corridor eventually lead out i
nto a large, and very familiar-looking, underground hangar. The hangar was full of sleek, silver Tach’ika fighters, the lights on the ceiling dim and flickering though, as if the power source within the facility was close to failing. James made his way over to the main computer console at the side of the room where the facility’s artificial intelligence would have been based. He was almost hoping it would burst to life as it had done last time but here, the machine stayed silent, dead.

  “I’m afraid it died just a few hours after we touched down here,” said Kalmar, “it retained just enough power to tell us what we needed to know but after that it shut down and it has showed no signs of life ever since. It did, however, show us how to reach the piece of the Shadow Bringer that is stored here. My superior officer was part of the team that originally found this place, he said there was some kind of trigger mechanism behind the AI console that opens up the doorway.”

  Kalmar made his way to the console and began fiddling around the back, trying to feel for whatever trigger opened the hidden door. After a few seconds searching, he found it, unlocking the mechanism and backing away, allowing the console to sink into the ground and the wall behind it open up into yet another pitch black corridor.

  “Another dark, scary tunnel… wonderful,” Isha huffed, “couldn’t the Jaiytids store there secrets somewhere nice for once.”

  “There’s nothing to be frightened of, it’s an abandoned city,” said James, “come on, lets find this thing and get it out of here.”

  The group cautiously made their way down this latest flight of stairs, no longer within the silver walls of the hangar, they were now in a rocky cave underneath the city, the walls a light brownish-grey colour, the lighting along the walls incredibly dim, casting shadows across the group and across the walls. Finally, the stairs levelled out and they reached an underground room containing what looked like an old lift mechanism surrounded by several small consoles. The walls were a light grey metal and they seemed to be covered in all sorts of images and writings, the language of which James could not read. It was what was in the centre of the room, on top of the lift, that had everyone’s attention though.

  “Thats it?” Morelli looked unimpressed at the greyish object in sat there in the middle of the room, “this is the piece of the fabled Shadow Bringer? It looks like a piece of junk.”

  It was little more than a flat, rectangular device, dark grey in colour and surrounded by a metal framework. It was only about three meters in length, much smaller than James had expected for a device that the Adeans feared for it’s capability to wipe out a planet.

  “Trust me, when combined with the other three pieces, it will be a fearsome thing,” said Kalmar, “we think this is some kind of power cell, it probably combines with whatever destructive matter is stored within the main piece to create some kind of explosion. We could be wrong, it could function in some way we don’t know of but that would be our best guess as to how it works.”

  “Well I guess we should get it moving then,” said James, “I’m assuming this lift goes up to the surface?”

  “Yes, it leads up to another of those alcoves like the one we came in through,” said Kalmar, “we should be able to take it up there and then get it back to the flyer easily enough.”

  “What’s all this stuff on the wall?” Melina said as she observed the strange markings all around them, “what does it… ?”

  No sooner had she touched one of the metal walls, a flash of light burst through the room, lighting up the walls and projecting images up in front of them. It all looked like a nonsense to James, he couldn’t make any kind of sense of what it was all about, none of them seemed to understand it.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about all of this,” said Kalmar, “we think it’s some kind of recording left by the Jaiytids who used to live here but it’s all messed up. None of my people could make any sense of it and none of us could read the Jaiytid language properly back then either.”

  “Lucky for you that I’m here then,” said Kosare, “let me have a look.”

  Kosare observed the many inscriptions and drawings on the wall around them. There were images of what looked like a young girl flashing up on one of the projectors, a badly injured girl, but the meaning of it all was still a mystery to James. Kosare meanwhile seemed excited and had her recorder out, documenting all the images and writings.

  “Who is the girl?” Saavoy asked, “she looks oddly familiar.”

  “The girl is Tolassa.”

  “Huh?” James was even more confused now, “Tolassa? As in the capital city of Tolis?”

  “It’s Jaiytid mythology,” said Kosare, “are you telling me none of you have ever read any of the books?”

  “I don’t think this is common knowledge Jaiden,” said James, “and I’m not sure I understand what you mean, are we talking about mythology like ancient gods and the likes?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” said Kosare, “it’s from way back when the Jaiytids were still primitive, living in stone houses and fighting with swords.”

  “Some of us do still fight with swords you know,” Saavoy interjected.

  “You know what I mean,” Kosare huffed, “anyway, the Jaiytid people had all these beliefs, they were quite a religious people back then. They had a lot of legends that the elders of their ancient villages made as bedtime stories for their children. It’s similar to some of the myths and legends of Earth actually, kind of like ancient Greek.”

  “Oh? And since when did you become an expert on Earth mythology?” James asked, “I didn’t think your people had too much of an interest in our culture.”

  “Not at all,” said Kosare, “Earth is the only planet in the alliance with a recorded history of more than five hundred years, it is of interest to all of us actually. Anyway, I read a couple of papers by Alen Raviera, turns out he had a fascination with your history back in his days at Maranaya. He wrote a fantastic piece on Greek and Roman history and mythology a while back, he even won a major award for it too. Basically, the ancient Jaiytids believed that there was a higher realm in the sky, lead by a being called Caedius who was basically the lord of all creation. His many sons and daughters each took up charge of one of his aspects of creation and ruled over one of the outside realms bordering the central realm which was Caedius’s castle. That castle was protected by a special gatekeeper, the greatest of his sons, Tolis.”

  “Wait, that makes sense now,” said James, “when I was on Raylia, Iyacs told me that the planets of the Jaiytid empire were named for ancient deities, is this what it meant?”

  “Yeah, Tolis, the guardian of the gate, he was the greatest of Caedius’s sons,” said Kosare, “there was also Juyoa, god of the sea, Voronia, the god of war, Anduria, the goddess of love… and then you had Vulia…”

  “Don’t tell me, the god of betrayal?”

  “. . . Actually, Vulia was the goddess of peace. Yeah, I know, what were the chances of that? So yeah, all the planets of the Jaiytid empire were named for characters in Jaiytid mythology.”

  “So what was the Jaiytid homeworld named then?” Ansare asked, “was it Caedius?”

  “No, their homeworld was called Alatennia, named after the life giving fountain at the heart of his castle,” said Kosare, “the first Jaiytid colony established after they achieved space travel was named after Caedius, unfortunately it’s only a dead rock now, it was wiped out completely during the Xerion war.”

  “This is all very well…” Saavoy interjected once more, “. . . but how exactly does all of this go with the piece of the Shadow Bringer? What do all these images mean?”

  “Well it seems to be focused on Tolassa for some reason,” said Kosare, “in mythology, Tolassa was the daughter of the gatekeeper Tolis. When Caedius became angry with the first Jaiytid people for their sins, he threatened to consume their world in a ball of fire and summoned one of the two suns to…”

  “. . . Two suns? I
don’t get it, doesn’t Alatennia only have one sun?”

  “. . . Please stop interrupting me!” Kosare exclaimed, “the world was believed to have two suns when it first began, two suns that circled the planet opposite one another so that the entire world was lit and it was one continuous day. The story goes that Caedius grew angry with the Jaiytid people that he had created on his world below his own realm and he summoned one of the suns to consume the planet. Tolassa, seeing the potential good within the Jaiytids, left the realm and descended to their world and after summoning up all of her strength, she sacrificed herself in order to swallow up the energy of the sun before it could swallow up Alatennia. This brought about the day and night cycle of the world and apparently calmed down the wrath of Caedius and restored balance to both realms. There is supposed to be a lot more to the story but thats about all we’ve managed to translate so far. I don’t know how it ties in with the Shadow Bringer though.”

  “They must have left it here for a reason,” said James, “if the scanner at the entrance was Jaiytid specific, maybe this is also designed for Jaiytid eyes only too?”

  “But the Xerions were also Jaiytid descendants,” said Ansare, “surely if they had got in here, they would be able to understand it just as we have.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” said Kosare, “remember, the Jaiytids and the Xerions split from each other over ten thousand years ago. We’ve found files suggesting that the initial split between them may have been down to differences in religion. The Jaiytids firmly believed in a higher power that controlled and regulated the universe, they were spiritual, but the Xerions were totally atheistic and rejected this notion completely. They believed that everything existed for them to rule over. I honestly have no idea how they managed to remain allies for nine and a half thousand years with all the differences that they had.”

  “Make sure you get everything down,” said James, “I have a feeling we’ll need to know all of this later on. I think we should try and get this thing out of here now though, no sense waiting around. Kalmar, how do we get it moving?”