Aynsefian

Salvation wheels up and strangely runs into me. I’m curious as to why he did that.

Then I have an idea. I’ll use his “find life” mode. I bend down and set it, and off he goes, towards a square hole in the distance, recessed into the platform. If I had to guess, I’d say this platform is two hundred metres across.

“Salvation seems to think there’s life here. I wouldn’t doubt him for a moment.” For once I feel as if I have something up on everyone else.

Suddenly the whole group is off and following him. I glance quickly at Zarasena. She seems impressed. Maybe I’m imagining it.

Salvation stops when he gets to the hole. It’s a series of steps. He’s not quite built to cope with steps. Taking the lead, I start carrying him down, leading the group as I do so. The steps move in a circular fashion, reaching an intermediate platform with an open doorway. I place Salvation down. He trundles to the next set of steps heading down. The life he’s found is not on this level.

“Wait,” says Anathusa.

We all stop and turn towards her.

“Are we sure we want to do this? What if what we find is not to our liking?”

Zarasena is quick to respond. “Now that is not the fearless, charging into unknown stargates Anathusa that I know. Who are you again?”

Anathusa stifles a laugh. She’s serious. “I mean, we have no defence on us if the life is hostile down there, wherever it is.”

“Jinekali does, doesn’t he?”

Jinekali just nods, patting his waistline. Anathusa clearly already knows this and is unconvinced.

“Look,” says Zarasena. “I totally trust these two friends of Axin’s, and they would have said something by now if there was danger, right Axin?”

I nod slowly, once again feeling useful.

So we continue. Seven more flights of stairs, and now I have no idea how deep we’ve gone. Are we at ground level yet? Does this structure go underground?

After the eleventh flight, there are no more stairs. After I put Salvation down and he heads through the last open doorway into a vast but vacant chamber, lit beautifully by crystals recessed into the roof. The chamber is completely empty of anything. No furniture, and no debris of any sort. The floor is constructed of flat bluestone, but is sandy, crunching lightly under my feet as I walk on it. This has been a familiar pattern for all buildings in Aynsefian so far. Down here it is even harder to understand how the sand got here than it is up on the surface.

The chamber has ornate but unfamiliar carvings on its walls. They resemble the ones that Arlyss and Cindlyss found back at the fissure in the cave wall where Salvation’s Creek originated, right near the cave entrance. I can still recall the sweet taste of water, finally quenching my thirst. It remains one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had in my short life.

The chamber slopes gently downwards towards its far wall. It takes a minute or so to get there, but Salvation wheels over to the right-hand side of this wall and stops in front of it.

There is nothing here.

I look around at my companions. No-one seems to have any idea what to do next. I raise an eyebrow at Zarasena. Could she ask the Purlinians? I nod in their direction.

She does. They don’t know either. This is most curious, but I trust Salvation entirely. We must try to figure this out.

I start looking at the symbols locally here on this wall where Salvation has stopped. They are subtly different from the much larger symbols on the far wall. We all stare at them for a few minutes, wondering what they might mean. Some whispered discussion between Zarasena and Jinekali, but I sense that they are as clueless as I am.

The symbols seem to have a progressing pattern, starting with simple lines and then growing more complex until they reach a mandala pattern of circles at the end.

I run my finger gently over the last few symbols. I’m not sure why I’m doing this. It just seems like something I should do. It doesn’t make any sense. As I reach the last symbol, there is a subtle shift in the stone just beyond it. It makes a clear grating sound.

“What did you do, Mr. Fernea?” exclaims Jinekali.

“I… let’s try that again.” I think I know what’s going on.

This time I take the same finger and run it across the symbols, starting from the far left and going all the way across. As I reach the end, the scraping sound of stone is far greater than before, and a previously undetectable door in this wall is slowly becoming visible as the stone slides back and then swings around to the right.

This time I really want to know what Zarasena thinks.

“How’s about that? It’s a hidden door!” I exclaim, looking directly at her.

“Not bad, Fernea. Not bad at all.” Her eyebrows are raised. She does seem genuinely impressed. I wish she’d use my first name though.

Salvation wheels straight into the room. We can’t follow him in there quick enough.

It’s darker in here. The only light is coming from the crystals on the outside, sending light indirectly into the room.

In this room there is at least something to see.

There is no movement, and therefore no people or creatures, but there are some wooden crates against the far wall. Quite a few of them.

“We should check these out?” It’s a dumb question. I am looking at Arlyss and Cindlyss, to see if they might sense any danger. Maybe not such a dumb question. They nod at me. Salvation has stopped at one of the crates in the centre of them all.

“Jinekali… bud… over here please,” says Zarasena.

He comes over from the first crate on the left, to this one in front of Salvation. Out from his waist pocket he draws an unfamiliar looking weapon, resembling a gun. I have no idea what it does but I assume it’s deadly. It makes me feel uneasy. I don’t like weapons.

I step back, leaving the whole situation in Zarasena and Jinekali’s hands. I hope this doesn’t turn nasty.

They open the crate quite easily. It is simply latched on one side, with a hinge.

Nothing immediately jumps out. Zarasena says: “There’s a bunch of different things in here. I’m just going to take them all out.”

I’m still nervous. Zarasena reaches in and pulls out a small box. She places it off to the side.

Salvation immediately wheels over to the box.

I walk over to him. “You’re confusing all of us, buddy. We don’t know what you’re seeing.”

I decide I’ll be brave and open the box. It simply has a lid. Zarasena has shuffled over next to me. I look up at her, our eyes meeting for a moment. She has a strange, faraway look that I can’t understand. It’s not dissimilar to the ones that I saw on Arlyss and Cindlyss a week ago when the IR84U captured us and started this whole crazy chain of events.

Zarasena is human, though, and not Purlinian.

Still, I have to wonder what is in this box. I’ll be brave and open it.

Inside are about seven or eight flat, squarish metallic objects. No animals or creatures. I put the box to my left side, and the objects down on the stone floor to my right. I’m giving Salvation a further choice.

He chooses the objects. I reach over and turn his “find life” mode off, giving him a small pat.

Perhaps he’s finally malfunctioned this time. Nonetheless, he’s found something curious. The objects have symbols etched into them. They also seem to have interlinking joints. I glance at Zarasena, who is sitting so close that’s she’s almost touching me. The faraway look has gone, and now she’s as puzzled as I am. I once again relish her closeness.

I’m going to see if I can fit these pieces together. I look up. The Purlinians and the rest of Zarasena’s crew are hovering, watching us closely. Jinekali has put away his weapon. That’s good.

“Zarasena, can you help me put this together? There seems to be a logical progression of linkages here. Look, this piece goes with this one, then this one…”

I shuffle through the pieces. I still don’t know why I’m doing this. I guess I feel bad for Salvation being wrong. Maybe this is something similar to the symbols outside on the wall. If we put it together it might help us understand something.

It takes a little while, but we figure out which is the third piece, then the fourth. The pieces don’t snap together cleanly, and thus must be held and supported so that they don’t disconnect from each other as we move them around.

“Zarasena, can you steady the whole construction for me, so that the pieces stay together?” I ask.

“Sure”. I like that I’m taking the lead with this. I feel better about myself.

The eighth piece snaps into place and now they are all assembled. It forms a strip of symbols of ever-increasing complexity. Nothing is immediately apparent after I put the last piece in place.

“Look, Axin. That last piece. Do you think it connects with the first one?” She’s pointing to the hook on the right side eight piece, which seems like it fits into the groove on the left side of the first piece.

“It looks like it does. Let’s try forming a circle by standing all of the pieces up. Can you help me?”

She holds the first piece up, then I add the second. We continue in this way, carefully repositioning each piece so that they stay connected. I pick up the eighth piece. Zarasena is holding the opposite side of the circle.

I connect piece eight to piece one and then begin to immediately feel a strange buzzing in my forehead, just between my eyes. The room shimmers and glows around me as the walls, my companions and the rest of the room gets hazier and hazier. Zarasena remains solid in front of me, as does the circle of pieces, which I am still holding and can’t seem to let go of, no matter how much I try. In fact, I can’t move any part of my body whatsoever. Zarasena isn’t moving either. Her whole expression is frozen. The room continues to shimmer and vibrate with increasing frequency. It’s making me giddier with each passing moment.

The last thought that goes through my mind before I lose consciousness is that this can’t be happening again. Not here.

Then, there is only blackness.