by Jim Stein
“Are those doors?” Quinn whistled.
Rectangular openings dotted each tower at regular intervals. Spiral steps carved into the exterior connected many of the entrances, while others opened onto thin air or balconies with no railings. The massive place had the feel of Old Philadelphia, a deserted ruin.
“This place is old.” I looked to the Ants.
The tall slender mass of dirt and grime standing at the front of the cart turned to face me. White-rimmed eyes glared from within a face brown with caked dust.
“It is one of the abandoned places from before the purge.” The white rag Dawa pulled from his pouch turned muddy brown as he wiped the mess away.
“More like a city,” Pete said as he walked over. “What’s your stick say to do now?”
I slipped the staff from my belt. The pull and glow was strongest ahead, to the left, and…down? I swept the device around several times, but always with the same result. An archway stood at the base of the cliff city, but it outlined a rock wall instead of a door.
“Looks like there’s going to be a basement or something under that arch.”
“No time like the present.” Pete moved to get on his ride when a whistling hum drew our attention skyward.
“Is that a bird?” Quinn shielded her eyes and tracked the dark object coming in from our right.
It flew high and straight, not very bird-like at all. Though distant, the object looked more like an elongated disk than an animal. It flew along the upper third of the towers and disappeared into the opening behind a balcony far above.
“You’re sure about the abandoned part?” I asked Dawa.
“Strange things do occur.” There was something odd about the Ant, as if he knew more than he was willing to say.
27. Writing on the Walls
W
E RODE to the massive archway, trundling across the open stonework into the shadow of the cliffs like insects scurrying from the sunlight. Though more primitive, the towering city ringing the open ground rivaled those back home—mirroring the decades of neglect and decay.
Many lower balconies had crumbled or broken off, and spiral stairs ended abruptly between floors. All the glass and doors—if there had ever been any—were missing. Four more objects flew in and settled into entrances just fifty feet overhead. The flat, bold-colored boards ranged from nearly round to an elongated teardrop and definitely were not birds.
“That’s impressive,” Pete said as we stopped and dismounted.
The archway towered three stories high and was constructed of rough-hewn blocks that managed to fit tightly together. The keystone hanging high above was a smooth-sided exception with a round divot in its face where a crest or other decoration was missing. The wall it inscribed had a vertical seam running down the middle.
“Definitely a door,” I said.
“No handles, no keyhole,” Quinn said.
We spent way too much time prying at the door, looking for hidden levers, and even scouring the smooth tan stonework for secret entrances.
“I’ve got it!” Pete pointed off to the left and spoke with his finger jumping, twirling, and looping to follow the complicated route he’d worked out. “Take those stairs, spiral up to where they break off, jump to that ledge, shimmy across the top of the arch, pick up that next staircase, and take it up to that window.”
“Just following those directions winded me,” Quinn said. “Who the hell is in that good of shape? You’d need a bloody gymnast.”
“I can do it, no problem.” Dwain sounded more matter of fact than boastful. “But then what?”
“Well.” Pete shrugged. “You work your way back down and open the door.”
I eyed the massive doors and the three-foot sprite. “There might be a little leverage problem.”
“Don’t you have some…you know”–Pete made a few rapid explosions with his hands by throwing his fingers wide—“magic C-4 charges to blow ‘em open?”
“Not my kind of spell,” Dwain said.
“I could just throw him,” Manny said.
“Throw Dwain?” Quinn looked incredulous. “What are you, twelve?”
“Seriously, like one of your footballs. I’ve got good aim. Hell, for that matter ant-man here could do it.”
“Just stop with the name calling!” Vance’s face turned beet-red.
“No one’s throwing anyone.” I knew Manny was strong, but I wouldn’t have guessed that strong. “We’ll stick with Pete’s route. It’s tricky, but if Dwain thinks he can handle it, that’s our best shot.”
It really didn’t look possible. Some of those gaps had to be fifteen feet wide, and he’d be landing on crumbling stone. I’d seen Dwain take huge falls without getting hurt, but nothing so far indicated sprites could leap like lemurs.
“I can’t let the sprite do this,” Dawa said as Dwain sized up the route.
“He’s got a name,” Vance practically wailed.
“It’ll be fun.” Dwain’s expression drooped at Dawa’s stern look.
“It would be deadly. Traps will activate within if the door is not opened properly. It’s an ancient line of defense. I will not risk Dwain. He still has much work to do with our injured.”
“Pleeeeeaaaase let me try,” Dwain begged, giving the impression he’d rather die in the attempt than slave away patching up sick Ants.
Dawa pulled a baseball-sized rock from his largest pouch and whispered to it. Power trickled into the ball. His magic was different from my elemental forces and didn’t have the green edge of the sprites or the hard pulsing of Manny’s power. His was a quiet, ancient energy.
“When the cities fell, our gods entrusted us with a key to the ruins. Let us hope what you seek indeed lies within. I do not use this power lightly.”
Gentle warmth suffused the ball, like sunshine on a summer day, until it erupted into a blazing rainbow. The ball rose from Dawa’s palm, drifted up to the keystone, and nestled into the empty recess. The keystone absorbed the energy, and a glowing line traced down the seam in the doors below. When the power reached bottom, the doors swung inward.
“I’ll be damned.” I was certain Muuyaw would never have allowed this.
At the Ant’s nod, we walked into a round chamber under a domed roof. The room was a hundred feet across with no doors and smelled of dust and age. Max paced at the entry, unwilling to cross the line where stone floor gave way to tightly packed mosaic tile. A simple blue pattern swirled toward a black circle in the center of the room, and I found studying it too closely gave me vertigo. The soaring ceiling was painted sky-blue with the apex a good thirty feet overhead.
“Watch our rides, boy. We’ll be back soon.” Dogs understand way more than people give them credit for.
Six gleaming columns set around the perimeter were made of modern alloys, while the walls looked to be hewn rock. The pattern on the floor shifted as we approached the center—so not simple tile. There was no hint of magic; something like an LED display decorated the floor.
The blue swirl spiraled into the dark center, which left us standing on off-white flooring. Movement in the dark eye sent starburst lines shooting outward in a radial pattern. The design froze with twenty-one turquoise spokes radiating from the center to the outer wall.
“Which way?” Quinn asked.
The staff in my right hand burned bright no matter the direction. But when I lowered the rod to the floor, the designs took on a red hue and thrummed with eagerness.
“Straight down.” I shrugged at her raised eyebrows. “Maybe there’re stairs.”
“Pictures!” Pete waved to the walls.
An image appeared on the wall at the end of each blue path. One path shone deeper blue than the rest.
“The starting point.” Dawa waved us forward.
We must have been a funny sight, stepping up to the picture wall like tourists watching a movie—an image that was reinforced when I looked down to find Ralph quietly munched on a handful of the gooey honey treats.
The first
panel showed an idyllic scene with people, Ants, and other beings scattered into the distance tending fields. Other small groups gathered around simple huts to smoke meat and mend clothes.
“Our world began with simple principles.” Dawa stepped forward to explain the story behind the image. “All peoples were one with the land, followed the ways of respect, and took only what was needed. We were in balance with the world. These were hard lessons brought forth from the destruction of the second world. The people resolved not to let gluttony and greed infect the third.”
We walked clockwise to the next section of wall. Here the scene showed perhaps a hundred people gathered at a simple wooden platform. Ants, humans, demons, and more formed the attentive crowd watching two men with hands raised skyward.
“Ah, this early ceremony praised the twin gods.” Though unrehearsed, Dawa’s narration flowed easily as he picked out aspects of the scene. “Notice how the workers bearing tribute come from all races. Cooperation led to shared prosperity as all honored the land and contributed what they could.”
We continued around the perimeter, witnessing the rise of civilization on the decorative panels. Homes became grand multi-tiered structures, building materials were mined and smelted, and cities rose along the cliffs. The aerial view on one section showed the third world held many mountain regions.
On Earth, population centers and industry tended to crop up along rivers and other major arteries supporting trade and transportation. It was curious for the people of this land to isolate those centers of prosperity in hard to reach areas.
“All too soon, the need for ‘more’ outweighed respect for the land. Our world tipped out of balance.” With a sad shake of his head, Dawa laid the pads of his right hand against a human woman who threshed grain alongside several Ants. The mountain in the distance belched smoke, and black dots—perhaps flocks of ravens—circled the upper parapets. “The people divided. Those of the way continued to tend to fields and streams, while greed spread like a cancer through the others.
“We thought the avarice would burn itself out and those others would regain balance. But it was not to be. Like snow gathers and clings to itself on a thin bough, the weight of their greed built. They collected more than any could possibly use. When nothing remained to increase their hoards, the bough broke—there was war.
“Men forged machines and weapons to take what others had. No longer did the races coexist. The Ants withdrew to our underground caves. Others retreated to their own domains to build walls and defenses. The first city fell without warning. No one understood how such a thing could happen. Soon enough the war shields were revealed.”
We’d worked three-quarters of the way around the room. Rather than showing another action scene, the next panel held drawings similar to schematics. The top row of images showed hand-crafted artifacts. Tanned hide stretched between a frame of branches. Hand-painted designs or pictographs decorated the stretched material—a bird here, bovines similar in shape to the buffalo there, geometric designs, and a red hand print. All were in bright colors. Dangling feathers and ribbons trimmed most, although fur and a dried animal paw hung from a couple.
“The making of shields was a personal and sacred art. Shields for medicine and healing balanced with those of war. Not even war shields were crafted simply for destruction; both types offered spiritual protection aligned with their method of construction.” He stabbed a hand at the lower half of the display where a row of uniform black shields with stark red designs stood on end like small surfboards—or soldiers. “These were produced for the sole purpose of making war and taking from others. They are aberrations of power, devoid of spiritual protection but combining magic and the so-called technology of these cities.”
We moved on. Ralph and Dwain pushed to the front and stared with wide eyes as they shared a handful of chocolate candies and hung on the Ant leader’s words. The battle depicted in stark, gruesome detail on the next section could have come out of our own history books. Explosions rocked the high walls of a citadel city, while projectiles and energy beams tore the defenders apart. They fought back valiantly, but couldn’t match the maneuverability and firepower of the black and red shields that flew in from all directions. Some of the shields were empty teardrops, streaking in to decimate a heavily defended wall. Very human-looking people rode others. In addition to the destructive energies flowing from their war shields, the men and women riding them brandished spears and wide barreled guns that dealt death in equal measure.
It would be easy to feel sorry for the defenders. But hidden in the smoke behind the battle were row upon row of manufactured war shields burning in what must have been a surprise attack.
“They were out of control,” Quinn said.
“Indeed.” Dawa took us to the final series of images. “The great god Sotuknang saw how corruption and greed spread across the land. With a heavy heart he came to the Spider Woman. ‘Take those still with songs in their heart to the river and seal them into hollow reeds. You will save them when the waters destroy this world.’
“He next went to the twin gods who watched over the poles and bade Pöqanghoya of the North Pole to work with his brother Palöngawhoya at the South Pole saying, ‘When Spider Woman has done her work, you must again shake the world from its axis and destroy all that remain with a great flood.’
“We helped Spider Woman save those who still held balance and nature in their hearts. It was a pitifully small fraction of the population consisting mainly of the few humans who still tended fields and fished alongside my people.”
Ants worked feverishly with a long line of dejected farmers. Some had bags and modest possessions tucked under their arms—a rake and shovel here, a bundle of clothes there. One little girl with a dirty blond ponytail carried a simple wood dollhouse, her doll dangling from one hand as she struggled to hold its home. But all these had to be cast aside.
The line split into four as the farmers approached the Ants. Not everyone got their own “reed.” There were only four of the tall segmented stems sprouting from the ground along a river bank. If they were indeed plants, someone had been fertilizing the hell out of them because each was three feet wide. An Ant would open a seal along the front of the reed, help the next person in line step backward into the cylinder, then reseal the plant.
They had to be transport pods because successive pictures showed the Ants loading now empty reeds with the next person in line. Maybe the farmers shot up along the stems that disappeared overhead, or perhaps these were teleporters—a la Star Trek.
“At last, none remained who were fit to leave, and the reeds grew quiet.”
“What about the Ants?” Vance asked. “Your people were farmers too. You helped the others. Surely your ancestors followed the way and deserved to live just like ours.”
“Sadly, no.” It was the first time Dawa gave the impression of being old. “We knew our place and returned to our tunnels.”
“Not fair!” Vance was a bulldog despite the fact we were hearing ancient history. “They couldn’t have been that much better than you. We can all see it, so why couldn’t this bigwig god?”
Silly as it was, I found myself nodding along with the others. Something in the gesture made Dawa smile and he again seemed ageless.
“Our twin gods thought as you do. When the floods came, we’d sealed the tunnel entrances. Although my people were resigned to their fate, they had no interest in dying quickly. Ants had survived the prior worlds with such a technique, and it could do no harm to try.”
We stepped up to the final two scenes. A pair of Ants in the first knelt at matching altars of alabaster stone. A moon had been carved in bas-relief on the face of one stone and a sun on the other. A sublime glow surrounded the Ants as they petitioned their gods.
“The twins saw what was good of my people and took pity on us. They ordained the first two leaders and stopped the waters short of our tunnels. Much of the third world and the greed were destroyed, but other races had been spared
to keep the floods from reaching the Ants.
“Our twin gods charged my people with regaining balance. In our gratitude and relief, we promised to lead those who remained back to the way. Even after all we had witnessed, we were hopelessly naive.”
All of us stepped to the final panel. The Ants again worked the fields, fished the river, and worshipped their gods. The cities stood abandoned and silent. But those other races squabbled and bickered. Trolls, sand demons, and the like huddled in clusters around the edges, demanding food from the farmers while refusing to contribute.
We’d arrived back at the bright blue path, the story complete. Everyone jumped when the pattern on the floor shifted. Even Dawa looked surprised as the path widened and split. A new walkway branched from that final scene to an alcove that somehow grew between the last panel and that original pastoral scene.
A new image materialized on the blank surface within. A swirling green tornado rose in the distance as Ant People gathered themselves. Brown fields of failed crops lined the road leading over the river and away from the Ant village where we’d been held prisoner. Dawa himself and his brother stood amidst their misshapen people, calling upon their gods.
“This is oddly recent.” Dawa examined the walls as we stepped into the small room.
Unlike the other scenes, images surrounded us. Even the ceiling was decorated with clouds, a setting sun, and an early rising moon. The armies sent by the North Pole god were a constant stream through the vortex. Armies might be an exaggeration, but hundreds if not thousands of the creatures lined up to invade our world.
“What do you make of this one?” I asked with an edge of bitterness.
“With crops dying and the people unwell, the gods prepared a new land for us.” He paused, unwilling to continue.
“More like stole ours,” Pete said under his breath.