“That’s what they look like without those suits?” Willow asked. “Such white skin. They look frail, but somehow, I suspect they’re not.”
“There,” Alex pointed, though the screen was black at the time. “That phrase he said right there sounded so familiar.”
“Yes, I know,” grinned William. “I was shocked when I realized I could understand them.”
“That doesn’t shock me at all,” Lacey shrugged. “If anyone could parse an alien language, it’s you, Dad. Don’t keep us in suspense; how did you figure it out?”
“They’re speaking in Sumerian.”
“What? You’re kidding!” Alex boggled. He explained to the others in the room. “That’s an ancient language from Earth, in our dimension. It hasn’t been used for thousands of years. William, are you sure?”
“I’m certain it’s Sumerian… or at least it started as Sumerian at one point. Look there.” He paused the video and zoomed in on one of the computer monitors. “Even their written language is based on early cuneiform.”
Alex studied the picture closely for a minute. “I think you’re right! You’re much more of an expert in Middle Eastern language forms than me, but I can recognize the style.”
“It sounds a bit different, and there were words I couldn’t even guess at, but I could follow enough of the conversations. No vital information, though. They talked primarily about the injured alien and about the work being done at the mine.”
Isa spoke up. “So much I don’t understand here. If the language hasn’t been used in thousands of years, how do you know it? Uh… sir,” she added, realizing how impolite she sounded.
“I’m a professor in linguistics,” William answered. “Old, dead languages are my specialty. I actually learned Sumerian as a dare while I was getting my master’s degree.”
“That’s right!” Lacey interjected. “You said something to the aliens just before we jumped away!”
“Since they already saw us, I wanted to test my theory and see if they understood. It certainly looked like they did.”
“What did you say?” Alex asked.
William blushed sheepishly. “It’s been a while since I used the language, and I didn’t have much time to think. I just said, ‘Hello! You’re a doctor.’ Simple, but true.”
Ric brightened. “This means we can communicate with them. Maybe we can stop a violent conflict before it starts.”
“I doubt it,” Ravi countered. “They may not realize they are hurting us, but I think it’s more likely that they don’t care. I admire that you are reluctant to engage in armed conflict. We can certainly try. But I’m afraid that we won’t have a choice this time..”
The group discussed options and strategies for a while longer. Before they retired, they decided to try to communicate with the aliens while the soldiers prepared. If negotiations failed, their small army should be ready to attack within three days.
“I wish we could do more to help the Voice more quickly,” Moira commented as they all exited the dining area. “Her visions are accurate, if cryptic, and I miss her wheezy laugh. I wouldn’t mind if she jumped in to use my body without warning. Well… I wouldn’t mind much,” she grinned. They all shared a laugh and wished each other goodnight.
Lacey and William were given a chamber together. When he had shut the door, William took a deep, overwhelmed breath and smiled, running his fingers through his hair. “Well! That was… that was certainly a day, wasn’t it?”
Lacey raised her eyebrows at him as she tossed her backpack onto her bed. “That was a carefully worded statement. Do you regret coming?” She giggled at her own thought before voicing it. “To the ‘not as dark as before, but now the darkness is metaphorical’ dimension?”
He laughed. “Not at all!” As he sat on his own bed, he contemplated his next words. “I am glad to be here for several reasons, actually. For you, firstly…”
“Obviously,” she interjected teasingly.”
“Obviously,” he agreed. “But also… well, it’s been several months since your mom passed, and I… I kind of put my emotions on hold, right?”
Lacey sat down next to her father and took his hand, not saying anything while he spoke.
“I mean, I’ve grieved while no one else was looking and I’ve felt like I was only half a person, all the stuff people usually say happens. You just keep going, you know? Keep doing the same stuff as before, hoping that eventually, you’ll remember how to care about what you’re doing, how to not feel worthless. Today, as bizarre and sometimes scary as it was, I felt like I actually mattered. Now, I know you’ll say I always matter to you; I get that. Today was… something new, something wholly apart from my existence with your mother, and I still managed to be important.”
“Important is an understatement!” Lacey agreed. “No one here could have schmoozed those sorceresses like you did. In addition, we would have had no clue that the aliens were speaking Sumerian, much less could we try and speak to them. That’s all you, Dad.”
He smiled gratefully. “So you understand what I mean? I’m not crazy for feeling like that?”
“Of course not!” she hugged her dad tightly. “I think I had the same sort of experience when I came here the first time. I get it. You don’t want anyone to be in danger, but it makes you realize you still have a purpose.”
“Well, good. As long as I am not being weird… well, weirder than normal, anyway,” he grinned. They both unpacked their bags and started getting ready for bed.
When the lights were out, there were a few settling noises, then silence for a full minute, before Lacey broke it. Somehow asking this question in the dark seemed safer.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
She asked slowly, wanting and not wanting to hear the answer. “How is it that aliens in this dimension speak a language from the ancient history of our own dimension?”
“Well,” he answered with the same hesitancy, “there are a few possibilities, and a few layers to those possibilities. How much do you want your mind blown before you try to sleep?”
Lacey chuckled softly. “Eh, I guess I already ruined our sleep just by asking. Go for it.”
“Atta girl.” She could hear his grin in the dark. “Okay. The alien conspiracy theorists we see on television would say that the aliens came to Earth thousands of years ago. They either enhanced existing civilizations or, according to some theories, they created humans. Sumerian was one of the earliest written languages; therefore, an alien language and writing system could have been passed down directly from the aliens. A lot of post-Sumerian texts were recorded on large stone cylinders, which reminds me of our strangely shaped friends up at the mine.”
“Okaaaay,” Lacey elongated, leading her dad to his next idea.
“I suppose the exact opposite is possible, but not as likely,” he mused in the dark. “It could be that the ancient Sumerians were far more advanced than we know and they left Earth on spaceships themselves, bringing their language along with them. These aliens could have evolved from humans, their bodies changing due to gravity, temperature, and other environmental factors. I think we have too much data on the evolution of humans on Earth to think that the Sumerians started out looking like that.”
“I guess that’s comforting,” she commented. “Either way, what are aliens that were on Earth three thousand years ago doing here now?”
“Well, that’s another layer of possibilities, isn’t it?” William asked, shifting uncomfortably. “These could be the ancestors of those aliens. No telling how many thousands of years they existed before they came to Earth. On the other hand, these could be the very same aliens that visited Earth and they can move through time and space at will. Then again, this dimension could exist at a different linear time than our own. That would mean that when we traveled in space from our dimension to this one, we also traveled back in time as well.”
“Oooh, I don’t like that layer,” she remarked.
“Not fond of it myse
lf.”
“You didn’t really talk about the worst part, though.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
Lacey took a slow breath. “If these guys can cross the dimensions, it’s possible that they could come back to Earth, in our own time.” That thought bloomed in the dark silence for several moments before she added, “If beryllium is what they want, we have lots of it.”
“And that’s why neither of us is going to sleep much tonight,” he said, resignedly getting out of bed. “Shall I make us some tea?”
Chapter Four
“You ready, Dad?”
“Let’s do this before my brain realizes how crazy this is and stops me,” William smiled nervously.”
The three were back in the trees on the hillside above the spaceship. This time, Matt was there with the grimoire, so he and his father could cast two spells at once.
Below, the mining was proceeding as before, but the aliens had set a watch this time. Around the perimeter of the ship and the mine, black-suited figures stood watching the surrounding countryside. They each carried a silver triangular object whose purpose was unknown. Still, it was likely some sort of a weapon, or perhaps a communication device. Only one of the ramps was open, providing fewer opportunities for infiltration. Apparently, William’s brief appearance had made an impression.
The four on the hill shared nods. Matt raised the grimoire while Alex read his spell from a writing tablet. As the power grew in the riviere, Lacey imagined her dad’s voice carried into the air and amplified downward onto the whole field. Hopefully, changing the direction of his voice would keep the four of them safe if negotiations didn’t go well.
Though Alex and Matt would continue to chant their spells in a continuing loop of mumbling words, William could feel in his throat when the magic was ready. Raising the tablet where he had written his speech, he cleared his throat to begin. The noise was like an explosion in the air above the field and they all jumped. So did every alien they could see and a few came running down the ramps from inside the ship. William turned and mouthed “Sorry!” to the other three before beginning in earnest.
“Silimma hemeen! Ngae dingirmen hursag!” he said, continuing in Sumerian. “Greetings! I am the Mountain God! You violate sacred ground. Stop your labors and return to the sky or hot death will rain down upon you!” They had discussed whether to make their message cruel or kind and William advised using a commanding tone. If the aliens had a mindset similar to the ancient Sumerians, brute strength would be respected before diplomacy.
As William continued his proclamation, the aliens below looked to the sky, as much as their tubular suits would allow. The mineworkers lumbered out of the cave mouth with their enhanced hockey sticks, ready to use their tools as weapons. More appeared out of the cave and out of the main ship, and they stood in small groups, listening. When William ended his speech, they began chattering excitedly to each other, waving their rounded arms.
Those with the silver triangles held the devices in front of their eyeholes like cell phones and then moved to communicate to others nearby. In a few minutes, all of the black-suited figures at the mine headed back to the main ship. The industrial vehicle retracted its drilling head and rolled swiftly on its spherical wheels across the field and back up the ramp. Within a surprisingly short time, the open ramp lifted and folded into its proper shapes, sealing itself seamlessly into the adjoining walls of the ship.
“It can’t be that easy,” breathed Lacey.
Suddenly a sharp hiss emitted from the top of the ship and a circular portal opened. In sci-fi movies, Lacey thought, the open portal would have emitted a glow of light. However, only the vapor of cold air marked the opening.
Then an alien rose into view on a circular platform that fitted itself perfectly into the portal opening; the alien was not wearing a black suit, but instead wrapped himself in one of the blue coolant-striped blankets like a cloak. His high gold helmet was covered generously with broad blue coolant stripes. The whole effect seemed formal, even royal, and the vapor rising from the chilled coolant gave the image a mysterious, mystical feeling. It was as if they had seen an ancient Sumerian king rise from the ship.
In front of the alien, a double circle stood on a stalk attached to the platform. When regularly spaced, cylindrical portals opened across the top edge of the craft, and short, wide cones emerged, they understood this was a speaker system. Alex and Matt stopped chanting, and the four defenders of Alinn listened as the alien began to speak. His tone was old and gruff, but confident and imposing.
“Greetings to the god of the mountain,” William translated at his own volume, struggling only occasionally. “We are the rulers of the endless night, the riders of the Great Tail of Tiamat… that’s the Milky Way,” he interjected. “We fear no mountain gods that can… that can reach no further than his own sky. The… what? Oh. Your fire is dead, and we harvest your flesh to feed the sky beasts.”
The alien paused, and William urged, “Do the spell, quick!” They chanted rapidly, and William’s Sumerian boomed out again across the field. “Foolish and weak are the words of the infidel. Your sky beast bleeds and its blood will sicken you. Mount the sky and ride the dark winds, or the children of Enki will pierce your sides.”
The alien tilted its head at the last sentence and then emitted a one-syllable laugh. William translated, “Your children of Enki are a… wow, abominations that crawl across the ground like maggots. We will crush them as we crush your… something. The rulers of the endless night bring forth their power to… subdue the mountain god. Watch and fear.”
Abruptly, the platform began to lower. Lacey had seen that the alien’s skin was starting to flush, so she wasn’t surprised that he kept his remarks short. As he disappeared from view, the alien raised a crescent hand to gesture toward the mine. Then it disappeared from sight, and the portal sealed itself.
The mouth of the mine exploded with a boom that knocked the four of them off their feet. Dirt and stone rocketed into the air and rained down in all directions, covering the field, the ship, and the four friends hiding in the trees. With no time to scramble away, they curled together and covered their heads, the two fathers shielding their children as much as they could from the pelting rocks and choking dust.
It seemed to take forever for the onslaught to cease, but finally, the shower of earth slowed, and the echo of the explosion quieted. The four stood, brushed themselves off, and checked for injuries, finding only a few sore places that might bruise. The ship was covered in a layer of dust and clods of dirt but was unharmed. However, the damage to the cave opening was significant. The lip of earth that had kept the drill vehicles from entering the mine had blown away so violently that there was little debris near the cave mouth to clear away. With one small show of power, the aliens had cleared an easy path down into the heart of the mountain.
“That went well,” William quipped, but without humor. “I sure put the fear of the gods into those guys, didn’t I?”
Chapter Five
There was no other choice but to fight. Ravi and Ric made final preparations and managed to gather about a hundred healthy soldiers, including quite a few women. Since their primary objective was to pierce the aliens’ suits, the fighters would all begin with pistols, rifles, even bows and arrows. If closer combat was required, they would continue with pikes, swords, shields, and daggers. Lacey thought the mix of modern and historic weapons was quite odd, but she would be fine with hurling stones if it gave them an advantage.
Rather than force the still-healing fighters to weary themselves with a day’s walk, Lacey and Alex would work the spell to transport the entire army up to the mountain. While they were there before, they had spied an open area above the main ship that was hidden by a line of trees. With the army packed together tightly, locking elbows, it would be an ample enough space for the army to gather safely.
Matt had reversed the sleep spell on all the sickened villagers to recruit any healthy enough to fight. Willow, Mo
ira, and Isa would stay behind to direct the care of those still too weak to care for themselves. With the medicines and supplies that Lacey, William, and Alex had brought, they were much more prepared to care for such a large group.
The afternoon before the army left for battle, the leaders of Alinn and their visitors from Toronto met with the two sorceresses. Bel and Suul were a little stronger but far from mended. Willow suggested they meet in the conservatory to give the recuperating sisters some easy exercise and fresh scenery while remaining safely indoors. With input from the whole group, the nine brought Bel and Suul up to speed on everything. William showed them his video footage and shared his translation of the interchange between him and the alien leader.
“You realize,” said Suul, leaning on William’s arm for support, “that if these beings are vulnerable to heat, my sister and I possess spells that could readily destroy them.”
“Believe me, it’s crossed my mind,” said Ravi. “It may yet come to that. I hope that if it does, you will consent to fight for us, as soon as you’ve recovered your strength.”
Bell huffed disdainfully. “You mean you would release us? You wouldn’t just torture us until we wrote down the spells so you could use them?”
Battle Lost Page 3