“What do you think they look like?” Slate asked.
“That’s a good question. I really have no idea,” Mary said.
“They must be some iteration of the shadow form they portrayed themselves as,” I said.
After a brief pause, Slate said, “Not necessarily. Maybe they were using a form we would understand and recognize to put us at ease.”
A shiver ran through me again, but not a good one. A presence I’d noticed the first time I saw the shadow pour out of the cube we’d brought Sarlun; it gave way so fast that I hadn’t given it another thought until now. I pushed it away. It was just me being overly concerned with every detail.
“You could be right,” Mary said. “When they showed me the ship and the planet’s location, it was the same misty black figure speaking for them.”
“Either way, we’ll find out soon enough,” I said, feeling my heart begin to race in my chest.
Mary was looking back at us and followed my pointing finger to peer at the viewscreen. She and Slate saw what I’d noticed moments before them: a light blue crystal paradise.
Mary’s hands darted to the console, slowing the thrusters so we could coast toward our destination. “That’s it.” Her voice was nothing more than a tight breath.
I walked in front of the white bench and stood enough to the side to give the others a view. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Blue crystals merged together to form a pyramid-shaped mountain. It was so high, clouds lingered over the top of it. A massive lake sat on the ground to the left of it, reflecting spectacular colors as the star’s last beams of light coursed over the landscape.
“What is that?” I asked, once again pointing to the screen.
“Where?” Mary asked.
“There, just before the mountain.”
She tapped the controls, and the image zoomed.
“Right over there.” I jabbed a thumb in the air.
The screenshot moved at Mary’s control, and the shape I thought I’d spotted appeared to us.
“Holy crap,” Slate whispered. “That’s their symbol.”
It was the same shape we’d seen on the ice planet. The same shape from the end of the cube map we’d found there. It was the same shape of the space station we’d recently put together for one of the challenges. It was the symbol of the Theos. It looked to be carved out of the crystal ground, water sitting in pools to form the mark.
“Taking us down.” Mary zoomed back out and lowered us toward a flat spot close to the range, but not right at it. We didn’t know where we were supposed to go from there, but investigating the symbol first was probably a good start.
“You’re sure we can breathe the air?” I asked, even though Mary had assured me we’d be able to, countless times during the week-long trip.
She nodded, too distracted to waste words. The ship lurched slightly as it hit the ground. “Sorry about that. I’m just excited to get out there.”
Slate was already reaching for his pulse rifle. “Good call, Slate,” I said. We all slipped into our Theos-gifted EVAs, leaving the helmets off. The fabric felt tight against my skin after being in the flexible jumpsuit for the last week. It would keep us warm and protected out there.
Mary picked up her bow, and I took the other pulse rifle before we headed to the ship’s exit. Mary went first, her quick steps leading to Slate’s more tentative ones down the metallic grate steps. I followed them down and out, gingerly jumping down the last one to land on the hard blue crystalline ground.
The air was fresh. Considering I hadn’t seen any vegetation, I found it surprising.
“How deep down do you think the crystals go?” I asked.
“All the way to the core,” Mary said, standing apart from us, her gaze watching the gargantuan crystal protrusion a mile or so away.
“Where there’s water, there’s life.” Slate’s use of the old adage was an apt one. But was that life the Theos?
“Let’s go. It’s getting dark, and we don’t know what’s out there.” Mary passed us each puck-shaped lights that clipped on to our collars. She’d found them on the ship as we’d explored it during the week traveling on board. Mine flickered on as soon as I attached it, sending a widespread beam forward. Slate clipped his on and turned the front dial, adjusting the spread of his beam to a narrow one, giving him more focused lumens.
“All set.” Slate unslung his pulse rifle, and we looked down to the symbol and toward the mountain from atop a cliff. The ledge forced us in a single direction, and we let the slope funnel us lower. The crystal ground was solid and far less slippery than I imagined it would be. If it rained here, it would be a nightmare to walk on.
“Watch your steps,” Slate warned. “There are little pieces of the rock sticking out everywhere.”
It was going to get harder to see them all as night took hold over the dusky sky. I tried to keep myself from looking at the surroundings and focused on the ground before me.
Mary was the first to take a spill, but Slate was there to catch her before she hit the ground. He grunted as his large arm darted out to prevent her from smashing down.
“Thanks, Zeke.” Mary brushed herself off.
The declining slope tapered out, and soon we were at the bottom of the crystal mound.
“We should be able to get to the symbol in a few minutes.” Slate rested his hand on a gemstone wall. Something moved on the other side of it, showing up as a shadow through the thick light-blue substance. He pulled his hand back, and we aimed our light beams on it.
A dozen eyes looked back at us, all wide, each the size of a teacup saucer.
Twenty-Eight
Slate and I scrambled back, our rifles in our hands and ready to fire in a split second. Mary walked past us, around the three-foot-wide crystalline cluster. As she moved behind it, we could see her take up the entire surface of the wall. It acted as a magnifying glass and a circus mirror at the same time.
“It’s so cute,” she said.
I kept the rifle up and followed Slate to where Mary was cooing over a palm-sized creature. Its wide eyes were only the size of dimes, and it resembled a mix between a gecko and a kitten. The multi-faceted crystals had refracted the small animal in multiple directions on the other side.
“I don’t think you’ll need a weapon.” Mary gestured toward my rifle, which was pointing at the small animal.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said, not lowering it.
“You think it’s here to hurt us?” Mary asked. She crouched down and talked quietly to the creature, who regarded her with confusion. It didn’t have the common sense to be afraid.
“Maybe it’s a Theos,” Slate said, chuckling to himself.
“As much as I doubt that, how do we know?” I leaned down to it. “Are you a Theos?” I asked it in the same baby-talk voice Mary was using.
Mary gave me a light elbow to the gut that sent the creature scattering away from us.
“Look, you scared it away,” Slate said.
“Let’s follow it.” Mary was already chasing after the little thing, which walked on four nimble legs. It didn’t seem to have fur or scales. Its skin reminded me more of an armadillo’s gray hide.
“Mary, wait. Why are we wasting our time chasing this thing?” I asked, running after her.
“Because it might lead us to them. I saw the spark of intelligence in the little guy’s eyes.”
It was heading in the same direction as we were, regardless, so I kept my opinion to myself. It was hard running and keeping firm footing on the sloping and uneven crystal ground. We stopped just before the Theos symbol, which was much larger than I’d originally thought. The small creature was also perched at the water’s edge. It looked down at its own reflection, then back to us, before scurrying around the linear ledge and toward the blue crystal mountain beyond.
I knelt at the water, rubbing a gloved hand along the clean-cut border of the Theos symbol. It was smooth, and I was curious how deep the water went.
“I don’t think this is where we need to go,” I said. With a nod of my head, I gestured at the crystal peaks a mile or so away. “That is.” The whole thing reminded me of my favorite childhood superhero’s fortress. Before I could reference it to the other two, they were already running, once again chasing after the small animal toward our new destination.
While I was thankful for staying in good shape over the last year or two, a few minutes in, I was feeling the burn in my thighs. Maneuvering over the undulating hard surface took more strength and skill than I’d needed while running laps back on the acreage with Mary in the mornings. Maggie would follow along, chasing us, barking at clouds in the sky.
Slate was moving with ease, but Mary was slowing down. I caught up with her just as the landscape began to change. It was dark now, our small lights not giving us enough brightness to safely keep running. As if it sensed this, our pint-sized new friend slowed too. It peered over its shoulder from twenty yards ahead.
Slate’s focused light beam reflected off the animal’s eyes, which glowed green in return. “Look,” he said, moving his beam upward. We were at the foothills of the natural crystal pyramid. Clusters of the gemstone grew from the ground like a forest of flawed stone trees. Our lights cast strange shadows all around the landscape, making me uneasy the thicker the clusters got, and the closer we came to the mountainous wall.
“Do we have to find a way inside?” Slate asked, knowing we wouldn’t have the answer.
“It’s waiting for us,” Mary said, a tinge of awe in her voice. She was right. The creature stood on all fours, its wide eyes beckoning us to follow it. We obliged, and in a couple of minutes, we were at the wall of the pyramid. I leaned against it, noticing the intricate cuts and faces of the humongous crystal stones rising upward from the ground symmetrically. When one terminated, another grew closer to the center, taking its place, ever upward, creating an angled mountainside too sloped to climb with ease.
The air changed in an instant. I noticed for the first time that the whole world had a sort of hum to it, like the stones were alive, moving molecules in a rhythmic internal dance. My body hummed along with it as clouds rolled in above, so quickly I couldn’t imagine it being a natural occurrence.
“Anyone else feel that?” I asked. We were all staring up at the sky, our light beams falling well short of showing us anything but a dark blanket of night and clouds.
“They know we’re here,” Mary whispered.
Wind blew in, a chill against my cheek. At first, I thought it would slow again, but it picked up, sending water droplets down with it.
“It’s raining. Great.” Slate mopped his face with a glove. “We should get inside.”
“They’re forcing us to keep moving. We’re wasting time out here,” I said, sure of my words. Mary was still looking up, rain hitting her face, dripping down her neck and onto her EVA.
“Mary.” I touched her arm softly, and she broke her stand-off with the sky, looking me in the eyes with excitement.
“Dean, we’re here. It’s real.” She squealed and raced ahead of us, toward the animal patiently waiting for us to follow it along the pyramid walls.
A brilliant flash of lightning erupted from the sky above us, illuminating the whole valley for a split second. Moments later, it was followed by a colossal boom of thunder. I covered my ears with my palms, and Slate did the same.
“That was close. Let’s go,” I said, rushing toward Mary as her form vanished from my puck-light beam.
“After you, boss,” Slate said, holding his rifle up and spinning around for one last look as another shot of lightning forked down from the sky. This time, I spotted something above us.
“A ship!” I called over the lightning.
Mary looked up and saw it too. “It’s the same kind from the space station challenge. What do they want, and how did they find us?” she asked. She was right. It was small, hornet-shaped, with tendrils identifying it as belonging to the insectoid race.
“It’s too late. We have to keep going,” I said. Slate looked anxious to shoot them down, but he wouldn’t be able to hit them from this distance. Even if he could, I doubted his pulse rifle would do any damage.
We ran along the base of the mountain for a minute or two before the rain really started coming down, causing each footstep on the smooth surface to become a rolled ankle threat, or worse. I looked up from watching my feet to see Mary standing to the side, looking toward the wall. I slid on the ground, splashing water, and narrowly avoided knocking her over.
“It went in there,” she said, pointing to a hole just large enough for a human to squeeze through.
I opened my mouth to reply, and a gust of wind shot a torrent of rain at my face. I spit out acrid water and moved to the entrance. “We should be able to fit. I’ll go first.” I didn’t know what I was about to find, but the way Mary was going forward with reckless abandon, I didn’t want her getting inside first. She didn’t argue with me as I stuck my left leg into the opening, which was a square hole three feet off the ground. I twisted my body, ducking into it and bringing my right leg through as my other was planted.
Once inside, I held my pulse rifle up, moving it along with my light to see if there was a threat nearby. I was in a crystal corridor, my beam reflecting and bouncing down the hall, igniting a path of light. “Come in,” I said to the others. It was dry inside, and water pooled off me onto the otherwise spotless floor.
Mary’s lithe figure slid into the opening, followed by Slate, who struggled to fit. He stuck a hand out, and I helped pull him through.
“Good thing I’m wet. I might not have made it through if it wasn’t raining.” Slate wiped his face again and took a look around, checking both of the corridor’s directions before letting his rifle relax beside him.
“Where’s our leader?” Mary asked, scanning for the animal we’d followed inside.
“It went that way.” I pointed to our left, the direction I’d seen it running when I first entered. Slate shone his light down there, and we saw the animal’s green eyes looking back at us. Inside, our lights gave us better visibility than they had in the night sky, and we easily followed the trail of the small-legged creature, who was either guiding us somewhere or running away from us.
Change the universe. Kareem’s dying words looped through my mind as we wound our way through the crystal caverns. Energy vibrated throughout my body, over my soul. I’d had the feeling I was being placed in certain situations a few times since the Event had transpired, and this was no different. I was meant to be here, now.
The crystal clusters were smaller inside, beneath the pieces of solid stone layering over one another to create the pyramid. Here they acted as walls, some rising from the ground, others lowering from above; sparkling stalagmites and stalactites. As we went deeper, moving into the heart of the mountain, we had to be careful not to hit them or get jabbed by any sharp edges. Everything was a brilliant blue, like the color of a Midwestern summer’s afternoon sky.
“Are we going to ignore the fact that the insectoids are here?” I asked Mary, who was slowing as the animal changed from a flurry of motion to a walk.
“They want to find the Theos first. I don’t know how they got the intel to find this world, but they can’t be the ones. We don’t know them and can’t trust them. Sarlun told us he didn’t know much about them, other than the fact that they’re extremely religious.” Mary was right. We didn’t know much. They had attacked us only a couple of days ago, and we’d been forced to kill some of them. I didn’t think they’d be forgiving of that fact.
“They won’t find the Theos first,” Slate said, his voice somber, the last two words echoing a few times.
“What makes you say that?” I asked. He didn’t reply.
He was ahead of us, and when we caught up to him, the corridor gave way to a wide room with a vaulted crystal ceiling. The blue stone glowed softly; every square inch of the hall was lit up.
Mary reached her hand out, taking my arm. I
felt her weight push on me, and I held her up firmly. We were in the presence of an ancient race. My knees weakened as well, the whole floor vibrating enough here to be noticeable to all of us.
“It’s them,” Mary said, releasing her grip on my arm. The floor in the center of the room recessed; long thin stairs were cut into the crystal, leading us down. On closer inspection, it appeared the steps had been formed that way. I wondered if any of this world was natural, or if it was created with the interference of a powerful race of beings.
“Where are they?” I asked. I stepped onto the floor level of what I immediately thought of as the throne room. A seat grew out of the crystal twenty yards away, but it was empty. The whole place was empty.
The little wide-eyed animal stood still before darting away, past our legs and back the way we’d come. It appeared its job was fulfilled.
Mary walked away from me and stood directly in the center of the room, in the space the animal had just occupied. She spun around, looking for a sign of something, anything.
“It’s empty. Son of a bitch! It’s empty!” she screamed. She thrust clenched fists in the air above her head in frustration. “We’ve come so far! Too far!”
I was oddly calm, and somewhat relieved by their absence. I wanted nothing more than to go home, without any more talk of the Theos. I didn’t want to think about another challenge, or the Event, or the damned portals. I was ready to toss my Gatekeeper title into the trash and start a family with Mary. It was time. We were owed at least that much.
Slate looked exhausted, his face stoic and unreadable.
I moved to be with Mary, and as I reached her, she slid to the ground, tears streaming down her pink cheeks. “They’re not here.”
I knelt on the ground beside her and kissed the top of her head, which was wet from the rain. “It’s okay. We knew there was a chance that their messages were too old, that they might be gone for good.”
“I didn’t believe that. I really thought they’d be here,” Mary said, sounding more composed with each passing second.
The Ancients (The Survivors Book Four) Page 20
