"Atmospheric composition is planetary normal," Jace said.
"With the big hole in the wall, I'm not surprised," Donny said.
"Ground composition is not. Outside of the contaminants, spectrographic analysis shows a composition more consistent with Earth surface." He pointed the device on his arm at the smooth wall of the cavern. A dot of light appeared where he pointed, then vanished. "The rock face, however, is consistent. with the composition of the stone in the mine."
"Does this wall look too smooth to anyone else?" I asked, playing my light up the wall and along the curve of the roof. There was no seam, it looked like a perfect dome.
"Now that you mention it," Ixa said. "Yes."
"Stay together," Omegaburn said. "We're going to make a survey sweep of the site before jumping to any conclusions."
It was clear that the buildings were laid out in a haphazard, organic manner, as if this were a lived-in settlement and not a planned community. The idea of a 'road' was not incorporated into the layout, but we found a space where the buildings were slightly further apart. It might have once been a cart path, if it didn't end abruptly in a sheer rock face. We followed it away from the rock face, towards the center of the chamber.
At the center of the chamber was the center of the town, an open span cluttered with corpses. The gray, desiccated remains were almost enough to pave the commons. They were dressed in coarse fabrics and leathers. A disordered mob looked like they'd fallen while pressing in on a disciplined ring around the middle structure of the space. They had been held back by a wall of figures with spears and broad wooden shields, now fallen. Beyond them, eight figures knelt around the edifice that had taken root at the heart of the town. Resting atop a stepped mound, sat a frosty crystalline structure about the size of two vans if they'd been welded side-to-side. Its milky depths reflected our lights in a million directions, casting an ambient glow about the scene.
"These were definitely humans," Wolfjack said.
"Confirmed," Jace said. "Unable to estimate time since death. Radioisotope analysis recommended."
"The people around the central crystal look to me like they're in a ritual formation," Ixa said.
"Religious?" Kevan asked.
"Magical."
"And this mob wanted to stop them," Omegaburn said.
"It is quite possibly what caused them to end up here," Ixa said. "It would explain the smooth walls and abrupt end of paths. I'd wager the area of effect was perfectly spherical, but we cannot see the lower half of the sphere."
"But... why?" Kevan asked. "What would be the point to teleporting their whole town to Mars?"
"We'd have to ask them," Omegaburn said, he gaze turning to Donny.
"Look, without an atmosphere, we're not going to hear their answers," Donny said. "Add to that the fact that they would answer in their own language, and we've got a bit of a communications problem."
Jace had approached the center of the commons, focusing the device on his wrist on the crystal. "It is largely silicon oxide. Possibly quartz, though its vibrational frequency is... abnormal."
"It's vibrating?" Donny asked.
"Yes at a frequency of... at a variable frequency," Jace said. "The frequencies in question are within the audible range for human hearing."
"What," Kevan asked, "This thing is making a noise?"
"In an Earth atmosphere, it would be a very loud noise," Jace said. He fiddled with the device on his wrist. "I am piping a muted version into the communication channel." A wailing, distraught cry echoed from my earpiece. Discordant sadness reverberated through my skull as the tones tugged my heartstrings towards the vast gulf of depression.
"Cut the feed," Omegaburn barked. Jace did so. I hadn't realized I'd sunk to my knees, but I stood up anyway.
"I'd have launched myself to Mars to shut that thing up too," Kevan said.
A motion at the corner of my eye caught my attention. It wasn't one of us. I turned to look as one of the spearmen dragged himself to his feet. "Baron," I said, "Please tell me you're just playing around."
"It's not me," Donny said as another stood on the other side of him.
"Your species has a remarkable tendency for post-necrotic ambulation," Jace said as two more spearmen rose to their feet.
"Fall back, now," Omegaburn said.
One of the mob snagged my ankle as I tried to run. I kicked it free, but the dead were rising in droves. I rammed past them before they could turn to face me. Quick slams of the forearm or rifle body detached those who did get their dry fingers about some part of me or my gear.
"I am in a disadvantageous position," Jace said. He still stood by the crystal, looking about for a route through the dead. One opened for him as Donny shoved the shriveled remains aside. His distaste for using his powers on something that had once been human was writ across the visible part of his face in a grimace. Jace ran as fast as his tripedal form would carry him through the opening. Donny all but collapsed once he released his hold on the bodies. I propped him up and guided him towards Omegaburn.
"What's Fund policy on shooting the undead?" Kevan asked.
"Depends on sentience," I said.
"Are these things sentient?"
"I don't know."
The silent, shambling swarm of stiffs moved in our direction. Their inelegant, jerking motions fought their desiccated joints for control.
"We can outrun them," Omegaburn said. "Get back to the exit."
We ran. The undead mob stumbled along, groping at the air in a futile gesture. Soon, they were left behind, ambling slowly in our wake.
"Analysis?" Omegaburn asked.
"It is likely that death was not instantaneous after transport," Ixa said. "This was probably a trap set by the casters to prevent intrusion."
"Again we're back to the why," Kevan said.
"That crystal has got to have something to do with it," I said. "Has anyone seen anything like it, even through a secondhand reference?"
"No," Ixa said.
"Yes," Jace said. "But only as a legend from the heathen age."
"Are you willing to share the legend?" Omegaburn asked as we paused near the mining robot. The wind ripping past the opening was more heavily laden with sand, and I couldn't even see the bucket wheel through the ruddy storm.
"It was a vague tale about a crystalline race known as the Myriad, who were supposedly able to command the minds of whole colonies. The details of the tales were often contradictory, save for their overall form and mental influence."
"That's a great working theory," Donny said, "But the zombies are still coming this way."
"Given the state of their remains, they're actually closer to mummies," Ixa said.
"Save the semantics, what are the chances these things are sentient?" Omegaburn asked.
"I'm not an expert on Necromancy," Ixa said. "But intelligent undead tend to have enough willpower to not simply lay where they had fallen."
"So in your opinion, these are probably mindless?"
Ixa hesitated, but eventually said, "Yes."
"Unless they do something to show different, we defend ourselves with all force available," Omegaburn said.
The shambling mass had worked the worst of the stiffness from their key joints, but their motions were far from fluid as they emerged from the gaps between buildings. My first shot burned a neat little hole in the head of the lead figure. It completely failed to notice and continued shambling forward. The rest of the team fired. Their shots landed at different spots on their targets, but had no more effect. With no vitals, the undead moving towards us were not terribly bothered by the small holes the lasers made. Their motive force wasn't being delivered through muscle and sinew, nor were the commands coming from their nervous system. The shell of dried human flesh was no more than
an affectation for the energies animating them.
"I guess this is going to be an old-fashioned brawl," Omegaburn said.
"Before you do that," Jace said, "Please stand back." I glanced towards Jace. He stood knee-deep in dust next to the mining robot. The glow within its particle cannons was all the encouragement I needed to hurry out of its path. The twin beams sliced through the shambling mob like a scythe through wheat. The blinding streams toppled the dry husks in a single stroke. Seared in half, whatever animus had been within their frames faded and the pieces lay still.
"Huh," Donny said.
"So, I was wondering something," Wolfjack said. "What happened to the chunk of Mars that was here before the town popped in?"
"It's probably on Earth," Ixa said. "But centuries of weathering will have rendered it indistinguishable from any other rocky outcrop."
"This place is going to take forever to study, isn't it?" I asked.
"But not by us," Omegaburn said. "With the emergency passed, they'll find experts to go over it."
Epilogue
Simm's was a mid-scale restaurant, or upscale for people without a terribly large budget. It was East of MacAdams Park, but a row of buildings blocked any view of the greenery. The space might at one time have been an old factory, but it had been so heavily remodeled that it wasn't apparent. Brick pillars held up a vaulted roof. Shiny brass rails and darkly-stained pine marked most of the decor. The seating was still vinyl, but it was in shades you might find in actual leather. We had a large booth in the back corner, with the bench wrapped around three quarters of the table.
Bianca looked taller than I remembered, but since her height was normally variable, I couldn't say that surprised me. Her dark hair came to her shoulders, and she wore a warm smile. Without her mask, she looked to be somewhere in her thirties. Part of my brain said 'too old for me, too young for dad'. I chastised that part of me. Dad was what, forty-five? There wasn't exactly a generational difference between them, even if Dad looked older than he was. The twins didn't endear themselves to me with the way they stared at my eyepatch. They had honey-colored hair and pale skin. According to Bianca, they were Bertram and Phoebe, though Bertram insisted he was Mark. I guessed his full name was something like Bertram Mark Finley. With their similar faces and baggy clothes, the only way I could tell them apart was that Mark had short hair while Phoebe's flowed over her shoulders.
There was a distinct dividing line through the booth between Colfax and Finley, It was invisible, but almost tangible. I was in a shirt and tie. Really, it was most of a Leyden Academy uniform. I'd left the jacket home because of the rather warm, muggy evening we were having. The only ties Donny owned were the break-away bow ties he wore with his Baron Mortis ensemble. He had, however, scrounged up a button-down shirt and wore it with the collar open. Dad was dressed a lot like I was, and looked more than a little like an accountant. Bianca had on a short-sleeved shirt that I guess you could say was mauve. It looked kind of pink or purple to me. I still didn't know how the twins weren't sweating in the charcoal-gray hoodies they had on. Thankfully, they'd put the hoods down.
"Is Nora coming?" Donny asked.
"She turned her phone off," Dad said. "I don't think she'll show."
"Why didn't we think of that?" Mark asked Phoebe.
"Hush," Bianca said. "Try to be nice."
"Is this the part where we sit around in awkward silence, or are we saving that for when the food gets here?" Phoebe asked.
Donny gave one of his broad, stupid grins. "Don't be like that, I'm sure there's plenty to talk about." Phoebe waved dismissively. I fiddled with a folded sheaf of papers under the table. It was the city's formal offer for the hideout. I hadn't signed it or anything, but Dad's considered opinion had been that fighting the eminent domain order would be to expend a great deal of effort for no return whatsoever. With the way the law was written, he had a point, but it didn't make me seethe any less.
Across the table, Mark slumped back and started playing on his phone. Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and almost visibly suppressed a sigh. Pronounced apathy was neither the best nor worst case scenario. Donny tried to engage in small talk, but he could talk to a potted plant. Phoebe's cynical pronouncement set the tone for the remainder of the evening.
Dead Men Talking
Donny looked at the geometric lines he'd drawn on the floor, the amber beeswax candles burning along the rim, and the mask in the middle. The yellowed ivory mask was carved into the face of a skull from mandible to crown, and was not in the best of shape. A few ominous cracks had started to open up where the various plaques of ivory had been fitted together. He looked back at the leaf of notepaper in his hand and carefully repeated the seemingly-unintelligible syllables written along the bottom. His breath caused the candle flames to flicker. Dressed in jeans and a plain gray pocket T-shirt, the brown-haired youth sat cross-legged before the assemblage. The room was lit by nothing beyond the candle flames.
"I feel silly," Donny said.
"Well, if you hadn't botched the pronunciation so many times, it would have worked sooner."
Donny's eyes snapped to the source of the voice. Above the ring of candles was a spectral image that looked no more substantial than a beam of light cutting through smoke. Being clad mostly in black, it blended into the gloom. His pale features, white gloves, and the visible slice of his white tab-collar shirt stood in sharp contrast. He wore the very same mask that sat on the floor below him.
"It worked?"
"Just barely. We have until the candles burn down to talk."
"Are you going to stop haunting my dreams now?" Donny asked.
"Well, that depends on you."
"Okay..."
"Perhaps we should start over," the spectral image said. "I am the Fifth Baron Mortis."
"Shouldn't that be you were?"
"I AM." He gave a polite cough and regained his composure. "It's rude to argue with a dead man over the tense in which to refer to him. Anyway, I made the mistake of making it a habit to consult with my predecessors on cases. They did not care for being yanked back to this world so often. As such, they conspired to lay a curse upon me such that upon death I would be forced to haunt the skull mask until I had aided four future Barons Mortis. And then they had to pass the skull mask to a boy so blind to matters spiritual that I had to shout at his dreams to get him to hear me."
"You don't need to be so insulting," Donny said. "If I hadn't taken up the mask, the legacy would have come to an end. There would have been no more Barons Mortis and you'd have been stuck there forever."
"Quite," the Fifth Baron said. "I think we should discuss what we can do to satisfy the requirements of my curse with regards to you. I'm already behind one Baron on resolving the matter. Number Six and I had issues. Made worse by the fact that I'd just discovered my curse."
"What sort of issues?"
"He found me before I died, knifed in the back and bleeding in that alleyway. Do you know what he did? He stole my mask and my wallet. He didn't even try to prevent me from bleeding out or help find the thug who stabbed me. Do you know what he said when I confronted him?"
"What?" Donny asked, not sure if he actually wanted to know.
"What do I care about a dead white man," the Fifth Baron said. "Sure, he took up hero work, but he had to be cajoled into getting a license and doing it right. It infuriates me every time I have to hear someone praise him like he was Gandhi reincarnate."
"Perhaps we should discuss something else," Donny said, uncomfortable at the track the rant had gone down.
"Quite right. Six is dead. Seven is retired. All that matters at the moment is what to do about you. As I said, I'm obligated to lend aid if I want to get free from my circumstance. I would prefer a method which did not involve ending up in a drawer for thirty years. I've spent enough time in storage contai
ners, and it gets boring."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well, your innate talents are not that well-suited to calling me up, though you did manage the very basic invocation to do so. In theory you could be taught some magic. You will probably not reach my level of mastery, but I do not believe you are hopeless."
"Gee, thanks. I love the vote of confidence."
"There's no point in lying to you. I'm providing my honest assessment."
Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus) Page 105