by A. K. DuBoff
“You know, Elle,” Kaiden began, “I think you may be onto something with that idea about the aliens conquering another civilization. This looks suspiciously like a temple.”
“Do you think the people were… worshiping them?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but if I saw evidence of a higher-dimensional being, I could see how it might seem to be a deity.”
After we’d spiraled fully around the central column, the ornate carvings on the walls and ceiling transitioned to a single vine and star pattern along the outer wall. It continued in that manner as we progressed down three more stories, where the corridor opened into what appeared to be a natural cavern.
“Wow.” I sucked in a breath, taking it in. The ceiling was at least three stories overhead, covered in shimmering crystal.
“All right, so I’m beginning to understand how your pendants might be resonating with this entire planet,” Toran said.
Kaiden couldn’t take his gaze off the ceiling. “What is this place?”
“Clearly somewhere important to these people, considering the effort it must have taken to carve out that entry,” I said.
“It’s strange that so many of the images includes stars, yet their sacred place is underground,” Maris observed.
“These crystals might be more to them than pretty decoration,” Kaiden countered. “Maybe they understood that the crystalline network connects the planets.”
“Do you think the vines represent those connections?” I pondered.
“Could be.” He shrugged. “We may never know.”
“Let’s see what else is in here,” I suggested, continuing into the cavern. However, I was only able to go a short ways before I encountered a four-meter-tall wall spanning the width of the cavern. A single archway to my right allowed passage through it.
“That’s strange.” Kaiden stopped behind me. “Why would they build a wall here?”
Toran approached the archway and looked inside. “Not a wall. I think this might be a labyrinth.”
I frowned. “That makes even less sense.”
Kaiden’s face contorted. “Why in the stars would they build something like this?”
“Ancient culture, different philosophies,” Toran said.
“Not that ancient, based on the state of the ruins,” Kaiden pointed out.
“This labyrinth may have been down here for a long time before that construction,” Maris point out.
“True. Labyrinths have been used throughout history for many things. Perhaps it’s symbolic,” Toran suggested. “Some ancient religions viewed mazes like this as a meditative exercise, or to represent a journey toward the inner self.”
“Find peace and serenity with your evil alien overlords!” Maris jested.
“I’ll pass.” I kept my voice low, not liking how it reverberated in the chamber.
“How complicated do you think this maze is?” Kaiden wondered aloud.
“Depending on the value of what lies at its terminus, it could be anything from a simple exercise or a trap we may never escape,” Toran replied.
“Not a great argument for going inside,” Maris muttered.
“Agreed.” Toran nodded. “This isn’t what I expected to find in here. I suggest we look elsewhere.”
“Come on! This is even more intriguing than what I thought might be down here,” I countered. “This is way too promising a lead for us to turn back now.”
“I really can’t imagine us coming across a structure that might give better clues about what happened to this world,” Kaiden seconded.
Maris shook her head. “I don’t know…”
“Look, it’s not like we can actually get trapped,” I reminded them. “The top of the maze is open, right? We can just climb up and walk along the top—we’ll see the path all the way to the end.”
Toran considered the proposition. “I hadn’t thought about approaching it that way. It could work.”
“Might anger the evil overlords to outsmart them,” Kaiden quipped.
Maris tsked. “Don’t joke about that!”
“Relax, everyone. Let’s just get to the end of this thing and figure out what it is.” I searched in my pack for a coil of rope.
“I hope you’re right.” Toran took a steadying breath and then retrieved his own rope. He tied one end to my pack to use it as a weight, then hurled it over the top of the stone wall near the entrance.
I cautiously ventured through the arch to secure the rope. As I rounded the corner through the archway, I caught a glimpse of movement in the shadows deeper inside the labyrinth. “Is someone there?” I called out.
“Everything okay, Elle?” Kaiden peeked through the archway after me.
“Not sure. I thought I saw something.”
“All the more reason for us to walk on top of the walls. Good thinking,” he replied, coming to join me.
“Yeah.” I went to where my bag had dropped and anchored it to the wall using the climbing gear in my pack.
Kaiden stayed with me while I finished, to my relief. Once the rope was secured, I grabbed my pack, and we ran back to the other side of the wall where Maris and Toran were waiting.
“All set?” Toran asked me.
“Yep.”
“I’ll go first,” he said. “If it can hold me, the rest of you will be no problem.”
I stood back to give him room.
Despite his proportions, Toran nimbly scaled the rope, bracing his feet on the wall. He hoisted himself over the top lip and looked around.
“The walls are nearly a meter wide, and the maze isn’t too large,” he reported. “I think we’ll be able to find a way across, though it’s difficult to see. I believe the maze terminates at the end of this chamber.”
“And on to another cavern?” questioned Kaiden.
“Perhaps. I suppose we’ll find out when we get there.”
Since it was my idea, I climbed up next. True to Toran’s assessment, there was no obvious break in the maze before us. I could barely make out the tops of the stones at the furthest edges of the chamber with my flashlight. “I’m not sure how well we’ll be able to chart a path through here,” I said. “We need something brighter.
Kaiden climbed up next to me. “I can fix that.”
“Magic may draw unwanted attention,” I reminded him.
“It’s that or we waste time backtracking because we couldn’t see well.”
“All right, up to you,” I conceded.
He conjured a light orb and released it into the center of the chamber. It hovered near the ceiling, illuminating the tops of the stone walls.
“Thanks.” I flashed a smile at him and then turned my attention to scouting a path. “Okay, we should be able to follow along there and then take a left.”
“Looks good,” Toran agreed.
Leading the way, I took the proposed course at a quick but cautious pace. The wall was less than a meter wide, and while sufficient to provide adequate footing, it felt like a long way up to be walking on a narrow path. Despite my past jumps into the canyon on Erusan, I’d never liked heights. I especially didn’t relish the prospect of falling here, not knowing what may be lurking in the shadows.
Occasionally, I shined my light downward to see if I could catch another glimpse of whatever I may have seen near the entrance. I sensed something nearby, though that may have been nerves getting to me again. Even though I tried to stay focused on my footing and following the path along the wall, my gaze kept wandering toward the shadows below. We were cheating by walking along the top like this. It’s not how it was supposed to be.
“Elle, watch out!” Kaiden’s strong arms pulled me back from the edge.
A section of wall had begun to crumble beneath my feet, throwing me off balance. Kaiden kept a tight hold of me, and Toran pulled us both backward away from the damaged section.
“That was close.” Maris let out a shaky breath.
Kaiden released m
e, turning his attention to the path ahead. “It’s not much further. Stick to the middle of the wall.”
“I was, I—”
“You almost walked off the edge, Elle,” he stated.
“I did?” I stared into the shadows. “There’s something down there. I can feel it.”
“Now that you mention it…” Maris wrapped her arms around herself.
“We need to stay focused,” Kaiden said, though the words sounded forced.
Only Toran remained his usual, calm demeanor. “One foot in front of the other. We’ll be back on the ground soon.”
I still didn’t want to be on the ground. All the same, I continued forward, watching my footing. We only had one more switchback of the wall to traverse before we’d reach the end of the cavern.
“Almost—” The wall gave way underfoot. I was falling, and the shadows were jumping up to greet me.
4
My back slammed into something hard, and I rolled over into a soft, sticky mass. Stunned, I lay motionless. It wasn’t until I sensed tendrils coiling around my legs that I tried to react.
To my horror, my attempt to get up revealed that my arms were already wrapped in tendrils, as well. “Help!” I gasped, not sure where I was or if anyone could hear me.
“Close your eyes!” Kaiden shouted in the distance.
I squeezed my eyes shut moments before bright orange flames erupted around me. The tendrils loosened, and I jumped to my feet. “What the…?”
I was standing in a mass of writhing vines, similar to those I’d seen on planets infected by the Darkness. The vines were temporarily stunned, but I saw them slowly unfurling, preparing to lash out at me again.
A rope dropped down next to me. “Grab hold!” Toran shouted.
The end of the rope was tied into a loop, and I slipped my foot into it while holding on above with my hands. Toran pulled me up just in time to avoid another assault from the vines.
Their presence here made no sense, especially since we hadn’t seen any other vegetation on the planet, and we were several stories underground. I’d always thought that the vines were a warped version of existing plant life, not… whatever was going on here.
“Stars! I don’t know what happened.” My heart pounded in my ears and my breath was labored.
Kaiden helped me up at the top of the wall. “I told you to be careful.” His face was drawn with worry, seeming exhausted.
“I thought I was.” I shook my head. “There’s something about this planet—this entire system. It doesn’t feel right.”
“I know, I sense it, too.” Kaiden took an unsteady breath.
“We need to get to the next cavern,” Maris urged. “Learn what we can and then get out of here.”
“It was a mistake to venture inside,” Toran murmured.
“Too late now—” Kaiden cut off as the wall beneath us began to tremble. Dust rose into the air as chunks of stone tumbled down to the ground. “Shit, it’s collapsing!” he shouted.
We dashed along the top of the wall, planting our feet anywhere that seemed remotely stable. Gaps opened in our path, and we leaped over the collapsing sections in our desperate race to safety.
Only six meters to go. The wall began to cave toward the opposite direction of the interior cavern. I grabbed Kaiden’s hand, and we leaped together in the direction of the exit.
When I hit the stone floor, I bent my knees and rolled to the side, releasing Kaiden’s hand. He popped up next to me, wincing, but otherwise appeared unharmed.
Maris and Toran were still running along the upper ledge four meters above us. A purple bubble appeared around them, and then Toran scooped Maris into his arms. He leaped down to where I’d landed, taking the full impact of the jump with only a slight knee bend. The moment he was on the ground, he set Maris down and resumed running toward the arch.
“Hurry! It’s all collapsing,” he shouted.
I couldn’t see beyond the immediate cloud of debris, but I had no interest in waiting around to assess the destruction. Racing after Toran and Maris, I glanced behind me to see the vines lashing out after us.
Kaiden sent a blue fireball flying, enough to buy us the seconds needed to escape. The stone walls continued to fall, burying the dark vines in debris.
I dashed the final steps through the archway into the next chamber. The moment we passed through the archway, the vines stilled. The last remnants of the maze walls collapsed behind us, and then the chaos was over—a cloud of dust was the only indication that something had just happened.
Maris coughed. “I really hate this place.”
I wiped dust off my face using my coat sleeve. “Was that a trap, or were the walls just old and ready to come down?”
Toran shook his head. “I could see it going either way.”
Maris looked back at the destruction in the cavern. “Are we trapped in here?”
I evaluated the piles of rubble. “No, we can get over it.” I waggled my fingers. “Besides, I have that fancy telekinesis magic.”
“Too bad you couldn’t have levitated us all the way here,” Maris said.
“I don’t trust my abilities enough yet to risk hurting you,” I replied. “Besides, I don’t think I can levitate myself.”
“Have you tried?” she asked.
“No, but—”
“Elle, you might want to take a look at this,” Kaiden interrupted.
I turned in the direction Kaiden was facing. He’d released a light orb into the center of the chamber, illuminating details I’d missed when I ran in. The chamber was easily the size of the previous cavern, but it was wide open space. Strikingly, the entire floor was glittering.
“What is that?” I stepped closer and crouched down. The sparkling sand appeared to be crystal fragments like we’d seen on Crystallis. “Are these?”
Kaiden squatted next to me, the glow in his pendant intensifying. “I think so, but these still have a charge to them.”
I looked up at the ceiling; it was similar to the one in the first cavern and appeared to be intact. Wherever these crushed crystals had come from, it wasn’t because they fell from the ceiling. “Could this civilization have been connected to Crystallis?”
“Or they pissed off the same group of hyperdimensional aliens and got wiped out.” Kaiden stood up.
“Why shatter these and not scrape everything off of the ceiling, too?” Maris questioned.
“Not all crystals are the same,” Toran reminded her.
“Well, this doesn’t bode well for us finding a crystal to use as a dimensional transition point,” I said. “Seems like whoever came through here had a grudge against the very thing we’re looking for.”
“That, or…” Kaiden trailed off.
“Hmm?”
He shook his head. “I was just thinking back to when we first came across the crushed crystals on Crystallis. At the time, we’d wondered if maybe there had been a war.”
“Right.” I nodded.
“Well, in war, a lot of strategy comes down to the territory you control, and access points. If there were battles being fought that spanned multiple dimensional planes, and if certain trans-dimensional interface points made it easier to move within the overall framework, it would make sense to restrict the number of those access points.”
“Hmm, that’s an interesting way to look at it,” I said.
“I agree with that logic,” Toran said. “And, if that’s the case, perhaps there is a still a trans-dimensional interface access point somewhere down here.”
“Hey, we’ve gotta have a shorthand term for that,” Maris chimed in. “How about TDI?”
“Yes, much better,” I agreed.
“That might explain where those vines came from,” Kaiden said. “It’s in here, too.” He motioned toward the dark corners of the room. The black vines were barely distinguishable in the shadows, but they clearly recoiled from the light orb.
“Ugh, I hadn’t thoug
ht of that.” My heart sank. “That means that if we use a crystal as a TDI to the higher dimension, we’ll be going through a gateway infected by the Darkness.”
“Considering we’re on the planet we think is the aliens’ homeworld, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if the TDI was connected to the Darkness,” Toran pointed out.
“Doesn’t make it any less disturbing,” I replied.
“No, it does not.” Maris looked around the chamber with distaste. Something caught her eye, however, and she perked up. “What’s that?”
She jogged over to a low mound a few meters away, which was even shinier than the surrounding crystal powder. “Ooooo!”
We ran over to where she was standing over the object. Partially buried under the crystalline gravel was a jewel-encrusted shield half a meter in diameter. The rainbow of stones was breathtaking, creating the image of a cosmic scene with a yellow star, blue and green planets, and purple-black starscape backdrop.
“This is totally mine,” Maris declared, bending to pick it up.
I stopped her. “It might be a trap.”
Kaiden looked around. “Yeah, this is literally the only object in this room that isn’t a part of a structure.”
“But it’s so shiny!” She glared at us. “It’s not fair—you all get special artifacts, and I have nothing.”
“Three artifacts for three disciplines,” I said.
“Doesn’t mean there were only three,” she pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “Wanting the thing doesn’t change the fact this is a super-fancy item in a destroyed, infected cavern under a ruined city. There is no way that isn’t super-suspicious any way you look at it.”
“It doesn’t feel evil,” she said.
“Maris, this is almost certainly a trap, come on,” Toran urged, trying to motion her away.
“Or, it’s a special thing that’s been waiting for someone with special abilities to come along and find it,” she countered.
“If you want to kill yourself, fine,” I said flippantly, backing away with the hope she’d drop the matter.
Instead, she gave me a challenging look. “Fine.”
