Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter 9.

“When
we came to this world, we became part of it.” An elder was speaking, standing
above four still bodies, covered in shrouds.  I sat on a stone floor. “We
learned to build with fallen trees, we plant and gather rather than hunt, and
so we return to the world, part of it—”

It was
a eulogy.

“But
why?”  It was another voice somewhere in the darkness, filled with undefined
passion.

“Why?”
The elder stopped.

“Why
do we live like this? They tell us that the ancient teachers keep Charons of
the old times, memories of tools and technologies. They tell of technologies
that could help us control the floods and the storms, to bring water in
drought. Things that could have saved-” The voice broke off in a low and
sorrowful wail.

“Why
indeed,” the elder spoke. “There is no evil in an honest end. These four souls
lived on top of the dust and under the sun, and their Charons passed into the
sky in peace. Anything that you wield as a tool may just as easily bring harm
as it will help. Your desire to control the things you do not understand is
noble, but ill placed.  Seek to control your own body and mind. That is the way
to answer the pains you feel.”

Several
others in the darkness tapped their fingers in approval.

We
reached the top of the ridge to the east of the cave just as the sun began to
slip behind the mountains in the west. I found that, despite the difficulty of
navigating the overgrown and difficult path, I enjoyed the rugged contrast of
the mountains. On the rocky crags we were able to look out over the hills in
all directions, the air was sharp and fragrant. It felt good to be away from
the same familiar peaks, and the ghosts of my memories that haunted me in the
Downs. All the while, Ju-lin talked and answered my questions. She told me
about the Earth, where humanity had begun. Though she had never been there, she
tried to recall all she knew. As we walked she pointed out which of the trees
and plants around us were adapted from ancient samples from humanity’s native
Earth.

“I’d like
to see it someday,” I said.

“Even if
you have the chance,” she responded. “It’s not like the stories. Not anymore.
My father was born there and refuses to go back. He says it’s a used-up rock.
Cities have been built upon cities. The current residents live within the bones
of civilizations that have long since passed. Though they have worked to clean
it, the air’s still close to poison and the skies are dark from millennia of
waste and soot.”

“Still,”
I said, imagining the ancient history of the world. “I would like to see it.”

“Shh,”
suddenly, Ju-lin pulled me down next to her, and dropped her voice to a
whisper. “If this thing is right, then the site is about forty meters ahead,
somewhere in those rocks. Keep low.”

She
gestured for me to hold still while she stepped behind me and reached into my backpack.
As she rummaged through the pack, I looked where she was pointing, down the
slope below to a group of rocky outcroppings. There was a broad clearing; in
the center was a towering stand of chalk-white stones sticking up out of the
ground like jagged teeth. The slope down to the rocks looked easy going, but it
was open and exposed.

Crouching
beside me, she held up the digital monocular that she had retrieved from the
backpack and studied the area.

“No heat
signatures, no signs of tech,” she said. “That’s good. But don’t trust it.
Something could still be out there. The scanner won’t be able to pick up much
with all that
Tevarite
.”

“Tevarite?”
I asked.

“The
white stones,” she responded. “It’s pretty uncommon, and puts off a low level,
but inconsistent, electromagnetic field. It’s interesting, but from what I hear
the field is so weak that it’s generally worthless. No real technological
applications, it just sits around and messes with scanners.”

“It’s
quiet,” I commented uneasily.

“That’s
just because we’re up on this ridge,” she said dismissively. “You got used to
hearing the trees rustling and the birds singing. Don’t get jumpy.”

She was
right, of course. For most of the hike we had been in the trees or undergrowth.
I tried unsuccessfully to shrug off my uneasiness.

“Well,”
she slipped the monocular back in the backpack and pulled out two flashlights.
“Let’s find this thing, take some pictures, and get the hell out of here.”

She stood
up, but then froze stiff.

“Something
wrong?” I asked.

She cocked
her head to the side listening a moment, then shrugged.

“No,
just-eh, yeah. It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

I stood
up and caught up with her in a few strides. Her forced confidence didn’t make
me feel any better, but I wasn’t about to be left behind.

Dusk was
settling in as we stepped into the shadow of the first stone. What had looked
jagged and forbidding from a distance was downright terrifying up close. The
rocks surged up from the ground at all angles. With dusk fully upon us, the
shadows cast by the stones had a deep and abyssal darkness to them.

“Ah
hell,” Ju-lin said as she flipped on her flashlight. “I let your nerves get to
me.”

I turned
my light on as well. The shadows began to twist and turn as we swung our lights
from side to side. I wasn’t sure which was more frightening, the stillness of
the dark or the shapeless and twisting shadows.

“From the
report, it sounded as if the cave entrance was in the middle here, under a
large white stone,” Ju-lin was speaking louder than necessary.

“Right,”
I said as I followed her, slowly sweeping my light from left to right. In the
shadows I thought I saw flashes of shapes: hooded forms walking slowly between
the stones. But when I turned my light toward them, they were gone.

“Well I
give Growd some credit,” Ju-lin commented.  “He may have found the creepiest
place in this side of the galaxy. I wonder what they expected to find.”

She
reached out and slapped one of the stones as she passed.

“Don’t
touch the stones,” the words slipped through my lips before I knew they were
coming.

“What?”
Ju-lin spun and flashed her light in my eyes. “Why not?”

“I—I
don’t know,” I stammered. “I just mean that we don’t want to leave any traces
that we were here. You never know what all they will scan for.”

“Hm,
right,” she lowered her flashlight for a moment and then swung it back up at my
face, blinding me.

“What
gives?” I held up my hand to shield it.

“Something
about your voice,” she lowered her light again and turned back forward. “It was
like you knew something about this place. Do you?”

“No,” I
thought I saw the glint of a pair of purplish eyes to my right, I flipped my
flashlight to the spot. Nothing but a clean white stone. “Only that I want to
get out of here.”

“Well, I
won’t disagree there,” Ju-lin responded. “Look, there, one of the
Tevarite
stones.”

I
followed her light. The stone was distinct, where the others were leaning at
angles, the pure white stone stood perfectly straight up from the ground,
towering eight to ten meters above us and was at least four meters across. As I
looked up toward the pinnacle I saw the sky had changed, thick cloud cover was
moving in. I followed Ju-lin as we circled the stone. On the far side we found
the entrance to the cave nestled into its base. The entrance looked tall enough
for us to walk into, but the path was steep.

We paused
and both took a deep breath. Ju-lin shifted her weight from one foot to the
other.

“Well,
why not?” Ju-lin flashed a forced smile as she took a few steps into the cave
and started lowering herself into the passage.

For a
moment, I was left alone at the mouth of the cave. I flipped off my light and
looked up at the stars. The air was clear, and aside from a small breeze, the
night was calm and still. There was something familiar about this place. I was
certain of that. And the familiarity made me uneasy.

“Get a
move on Berry-boy,” Ju-lin jeered from below.

I ended
up sliding more than climbing into the cave. Looking back up, I saw that the
entrance was steep, but scalable. The dirt was dry, and there were plenty of good
handholds, so at least getting out wouldn’t be too much of a chore. I looked
around. The cavern was broad, much larger than I had expected. It was about ten
meters wide with plenty of room to stand. The path inside was obscured by the
sloped surfaces of the stone.

“Looks
like those surface rocks go deep,” Ju-lin commented. “Still, as far as caves
go, it could be worse. At least it’s dry. There are footprints here, leading
deeper into the cave there. This is the spot.”

“Looks
like quite few of them,” I said noting several different shapes and sizes of
prints on the dusty floor.

“Still,
it’s odd,” her voice was quiet. “It’s peaceful in here. I wouldn’t think that,
especially how it was up there with those damned stones. Almost like a church.”

“Or a crypt,”
I responded.

Ju-lin
shook her head, “you know, Eli, I’m beginning to think you are trying to make
this as creepy as possible. I mean really, I was fine until you started getting
spooked by the stones, and now you’re afraid of ghosts. Hm, yeah, Eli.” She
glanced at me. “That’s better than Eli
cio
. Elicio sounds so formal.
Maybe if you loosen up a bit we can get that nickname to stick. Everyone’s got
a nickname back on the colony. The
Governor
,
Missy-T
,
Jager
,
it’s like nobody even has a real name anymore.”

“And
‘Ju-lin’ isn’t?” I was pretty sure she was talking just to fill the silence,
but I didn’t see any harm in it. “I notice nobody gives you a nickname.”

“Ju-lin
is my nickname,” she responded.

“It is?”

“Yeah, my
full name is Juliette Linnaea McCullough, and if you ever use it I will burn
you down.”

“Juliett-”

She spun
around, flashlight in one hand, and plasma torch in the other. “Burn. You.
Down. Not another syllable!”

“Not a
word,” I couldn’t help but smile.

“God, why
did I even say anything?” She turned back forward and kept walking. “Clearly
that you’re so damnably pitiful, you got me feeling bad for the village
outcast. I’m such a sucker sometimes.”

Or
maybe you have more in common with the village outcast than you want to admit
, I thought to myself.

“Ho-now,”
she jogged a few paces forward and stopped. “What do we have here? Oh hell,
look at that. That’s no fossil. Growd may be onto something, look at those-”

As I approached, she
pulled a pair of thumb-sized bulbs out of her pockets. She twisted them both,
as she did, the little orbs began to glow brightly. She tossed them both to the
rocky ceiling above us, they stuck to the stone, casting light all around us
and illuminating the cavern.

With the
lights I could see that the cave had opened up into a large room, the walls,
for the most part, were the same dark stone as the rest of the cavern, but the
far wall was sheer and white like the stones on the surface.

“More
Tevarite
, but look at it, it’s flawless.”
Ju-lin was right. Though the stones on the surface were cracked and worn, this
one was as smooth and flat as steel with a clean shine on the surface. “There,
see in the middle, that must be it. I’ve never seen writing like that.”

I stood
next to Ju-lin, looking at the shapes etched onto the center of the Tevarite.
There were two of them about a meter apart. The core of each of the shapes was
a perfect circle, with a series of bisecting lines and small twisted shapes
throughout. There were common shapes between them, but they were individually distinct
and I did not see a pattern. Where one had blank space, the other had a
patchwork of jagged lines, where the first had two parallel lines that twisted
like snakes, and the other had a rough patchwork of chaotic shapes.

“Does it
make any sense to you?” I had expected her tone to be teasing, but instead it
seemed hopeful.

“No,” I
paused. “Maybe it’s not even writing. It’s hard to tell, but they look too
intricate to be pictures of something, maybe it’s a diagram, or a schematic?”

“A
schematic of what?” she asked glibly. “Maybe a super weapon? Or maybe it’s
instructions on how to bake a cake.”

“Or maybe
they are stories,” I said absently.

“A
story?” Ju-lin questioned, looking at the pictures. “I don’t see how you would
get that. Unless each is somehow telling a scene-”

“They are
both different from the other, maybe the message somehow tied to what is
missing between the two rather than what they have in common,” I offered.