Seeds of Earth (28 page)

He had never heard of any Uvovo being born with extra eyes, yet here they were before him, which suggested that they had to be part of Uvovo DNA. Which also begged the question, were these characteristics the result of survival adaptation or of genetic engineering?

'Chel, have you looked at any Uvovo carvings or symbols with the outer pair?'

'A few times,' Chel said.

'Did any appear unusual?' he said, adding, 'but in a rational way?' in Tapiola there are several ground dwellings and the one where I recuperated is decorated with a number of meditation pieces, wooden figurines and tablets. One bore the symbol
hmul,
meaning "release of burdens", but when I opened these eyes it became a word
elishum,
meaning "work of calmness".'

Greg nodded, his smile growing as facts fitted together.

'Chel, my friend, I think you might be able to help me solve a little problem.' Then he told the Uvovo about his encounter with the
Heracles's
xeno-specialist, Lavelle, and took him over to his hut to show him the scan printouts of Giant's Shoulder. As Chel stared at the images by the light of a desk lamp, Greg went on to tell of his midnight expedition, the strange passage and the pillar traps blocking the way. The pictures he took down there had turned out slightly distorted or blurred but he showed them to Chel anyway. Chel studied the pictures closely then shook his head. i cannot make out these symbols, Gregori.'

Greg grinned. 'Would you like to go and look at the real thing? Now?'

Chel needed little persuading. Half an hour later, with the help once more of the Uvovo scholars Teso and Kolum, they were lowered down the south face of Giant's Shoulder, first Greg then Chel, entering this time through the creeper-curtained opening. Equipped with a torch each, they ventured into the cold, dark passage. Chel stared about him at the eye-motif carvings on the walls but made no comment, just nodded thoughtfully. Greg slowed as they approached the pillars.

'Be ready for when the symbols appear,' he said. 'When that countdown starts it goes by very quickly.'

'Very well, Gregori, as you wish,' Chel said, removing the headband and opening those strange eyes. Then he walked the final few paces, bringing him right next to the row of square pillars. He looked them over carefully while Greg watched, tense and edgy, and they both waited. Five minutes went by without incident then five more. Chel looked questioningly at Greg, who shrugged.

'Friend Gregori, did you not say that you touched the pillar while examining it?'

'Well, when I touched ... I suppose you could say it was a bit of a shove ...'

Chel nodded and gave the nearest pillar a firm push. There was no give to it but almost immediately four familiar, glowing symbols appeared on the middle pillar. Chel saw them, gasped and staggered back a step and shook his head, as if dizzy.

'Are you okay?' Greg said.

Chel glanced at him with his ordinary eyes while keeping the new ones focused on the pillar. 'No cause for alarm, friend Gregori. Every time I need to adjust a little ... ah now ...'

Leaning closer, the Uvovo examined the four intricate symbols, just as a column of glowing triangles appeared on the adjacent pillar.

'And that right there is your countdown, Chel,' he said but the Uvovo waved him into silence, his stance almost that of someone who was listening intently. After a moment or two of standing stock-still he suddenly straightened, his small, neat features creased by a smile, then he sang a sequence of syllables in a clear, loud voice. There was a grinding sound, deep vibrations from above, and trickles of fine dust fell as the double row of pillars ascended into the ceiling. Beyond it, Greg could see by torchlight the previous ones and another three sets after that also rising.

'That,' he said, 'was well done.'

Chel was gazing up at the pillar ends, resting flush against the plain, unadorned stone ceiling. 'At first I thought the
celfs
- the symbols - were showing me words but when I looked deeper at each one I heard musical notes which I sang in the order of the words and ...' He gestured at the now-open corridor. if only Cat was here to see this,' Greg said, laughing. 'Right, let's see what's along there.'

'Tread carefully, Gregori,' said Chel. 'There may be other tests.'

Twenty paces on, the passageway turned a corner and steps went down to a chamber where four columns stood in a group before three stone doors in a curved wall. The room was icy-cold - it was like walking into a storage freezer. Greg shivered, his breath pluming like silver fog in the torchlight as he went up to the door on the left. Before he could get near it, though, Chel said:

'Gregori, wait, don't touch it! There is danger in this room, another test to overcome. These columns .. .' The Uvovo reached out to one, grazed it with his fingertips and snatched them back. 'Very cold, sharp as talons, and something else . . .'

Greg stood back from the stone door, and moved his torch beam up the heavy frame and across the lintel and the wall above, illuminating panels of relief carvings of forest imagery alive with creatures of every kind, including Uvovo. Then he noticed something in the wider cone of torchlight, a circular, seemingly blank panel amid the carven foliage, and when he turned the torch rightwards he saw others.

'Chel - look.'

The Uvovo turned to see, adding his own torch beam to Greg's as he examined the discs, standing motionless with only his strange eyes staring. After several moments he let out a long sigh, bowed his head and muttered something in the Uvovo tongue. When he looked up again his original eyes were open as well and full of a dark, relentless concentration. The light from his torch trembled on the wall and Greg didn't know whether to speak or keep silent. Then Chel drew in a shuddering breath as he turned away, all eyes closed, shining torch dangling from his waist. it says, "Choose Your Path To Death".'

'How cheery,' Greg said.

'But in the Iterants of the Eternal it says that all paths lead to death and all deaths lead to the Eternal ... so why three doors?' The new eyes were closed but his own glinted in the torchlight. 'And why four pillars?' He approached the nearest, aiming his torch at it as he placed his empty hand against it.

'Careful, Chel,' said Greg. 'Frostbite.' i can resist it for a short while, Gregori. There is something strange about these pillars . . . could you shine your torch here a moment - thank you.' Under the combined light, Greg could see that the column had a slightly slick, dull sheen. Chel shook his head. 'This is not stone. Like the ones out in the corridor it signifies something but I cannot
see
it. . . with these or these.' He indicated his normal eyes then the new outer pair.

'What about the other ones?' Greg said.

Still looking at the pillar, the Uvovo said, 'Are you asking me to risk my sanity, Gregori?' i could never do that, Chel,' he said, if the risk for you is too great, then we'll go back up top and see if there's another way to solve this - your call.'

CheL smiled. 'There is risk, certainly, but as I now have a responsibility to the Artificer Uvovo I must investigate this mystery with all of my abilities. Otherwise I would not be worthy of Segrana's gifts and purpose.'

He closed all his eyes and stood there for a moment, head slightly bowed. Then he straightened suddenly and on his brow the centre pair of eyes snapped open, glanced very briefly at Greg, then stared at the pillar before him. Greg looked on, trying not to think about the cold, pitiless volition he glimpsed in those eyes for an instant.

Chel's gaze seemed to bore into that column. Occasionally he flinched, a slight twitch of the head, and his lips began to move soundlessly. Then without warning he stepped away and went over to the next pillar, his features fixed in a wide-eyed grimace. After some moments he proceeded to the next and finally to the last. When he retreated from it his eyes were all tightly closed and his face was a mask of pain. As he fell to his knees, Greg lunged forward to slow his fall, helping him to rest on his side; the hand he had used to touch the pillars was cradled by the other, and when Greg reached out to the wrist he felt shockingly stonecold flesh.

Guilt washed over him.
God, what have I done}

'The test demands . . . demands the correct path to death,' Chel said hoarsely. 'Each pillar is a meditation focus that fills the meditator with a particular creed of thought, an overriding set of beliefs and instincts.' Levered up into a seated position, he pointed with his good hand at the pillars one by one. 'Fear, escaping from enemies; dominance, destroying or preying on the weak; arrogance, reaching out for godhood; serenity, changeless and creating no change.' The Uvovo gave an unsteady smile, if I had been a fully husked Listener, or had approached with all these new senses open, and chosen the wrong pillar, I would have been overwhelmed by it and, soon after, dead from whatever trap the doors conceal.'

'We'll be calling you "lucky Chel" next,' Greg said. i would wear the title gladly,' the Uvovo said, getting to his feet. 'Once we are through safely. Now I must open myself to the pillar of serenity . . .'

'And that's the correct one, is it?'

'So the Iterants of the Eternal say.'

'How much will it affect you?' said Greg. 'Will you be safe?' it is only a temporary veil over the mind and fades soon after.'

'You hope.' 'Exactly so.'

Greg stood over to one side as Chel approached one of the rearmost pillars, facing it with all three pairs of eyes now open, hands clasped across his chest. In the frozen stillness Greg resisted the urge to stamp his chill-bitten toes, instead rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, keeping the circulation going. Then, before he knew it, Chel was heading towards the middle door of the three, arm half-extended, hand raised palm-outwards. He moved with a swift, gliding gait and reached the door before Greg was even halfway there. At his touch the carven stone block swung inwards and the Uvovo continued on through without breaking step.

Just as Greg reached the doorway there was a swelling pulse of pale green light and fearing the worst he stopped at the threshold, peering in. But at the other end of a short passage he saw Chel standing a few paces onward, swinging his torch beam around and above him, gazing into the pitch-darkness.

'The way is open, Gregori,' said the Uvovo in a dreamlike voice. 'Join me.'

Nevertheless he felt a prickling sweat as he hurried through to the other side.

'Such power waits here, Gregori, a vast slumbering might.' Chel's voice was measured yet slightly drowsy. 'The legacy of the Great Ancients.'

For a moment or two Greg didn't respond as he looked about him, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.They seemed to be in the huge circular chamber shown in the deepscan images, standing near the sheer wall which rose perhaps 30 metres to a level ceiling. There was a second waist-high wall, 4 metres in and made of rough blocks, which ran round the chamber. By torchlight he saw no decoration on the walls or ceiling, but when he looked over the low wall he was amazed to see patterns incised into the dark, polished stone, strange interlocking, semi-geometrical designs, symbols and characters quite unlike the glyphs and ideograms of the Uvovo language, completely covering the circular floor as far as he could see by his torch's beam. From the scan printouts he had guessed the chamber to be roughly 250 metres across, which made this vast, ceremonial decoration a staggering find, not to say a mysterious one.

Following the low wall, he considered climbing over for a closer look, but then further along, just visible by his torch, was a gap. As he drew nearer he saw that there was a wide platform set into the main wall at about head-height with steps leading up to it. He glanced back at Chel, thinking to draw his attention to it, but the Uvovo was seated cross-legged on the stone floor, eyes closed, his torch lying beside him, throwing a fan-shaped shaft of light across the stone.

He'll see it all when he comes out of that trance,
he thought and climbed the steps two at a time. The steps split halfway up into two stairways flanking a curved shelf which jutted from the platform like a pulpit. The platform itself was about 2 metres deep and empty but on the jutting shelf was a square plinth with an odd pyramidal depression in its flat top. Standing there he could almost feel the ancient darkness congeal about him. The air was cold and still, yet it didn't seem in the least bit stale.

Was this an altar}
he wondered. Or a vantage point, since the great circular floor was the undoubted focus of this immense chamber?

Greg descended the stairs. The gap in the low wall lay directly before him and without pause he walked out onto the fabulously inscribed floor.

A sudden, fleeting sensation passed over him and he could feel hairs prickle on his scalp and the backs of his hands. It didn't feel any colder out there yet there was an instinctive uneasiness quivering in him. Frowning, he crouched down with his torch to get a good look at the patterns. The lines were smooth and precise and had been incised in the stone with a fine, sharp implement, yet the edges of every groove were rounded and worn while the untouched stone surfaces looked pitted and eroded. He reached down and touched the stone, which turned out to be slightly warm. Then with a fingertip he traced one of the pattern lines, a long curve with several small loops, feeling the rounded edges and the rougher stone on either side ...

Next thing he knew a bright gleam appeared in the groove beneath his finger and began to race along it in both directions. He snatched his hand away but it kept spreading like a silver thread dividing and coiling and entwining and surrounding. Seized by dread he stood, intending to head for the gap in the low wall .. . and was stopped by an invisible barrier. Fearful, he turned, took a step and came up against another one. It was solid and entirely transparent: shining his torch at it caused a faint ripple effect that quickly faded. Trying not to panic, he turned, pointing his torch, and saw an open area but before he could take a step he heard Chel speak urgently nearby: 'Gregori, as you value your life stay exactly where you are - don't move!'