The Traveller's Stone

by S J Howland

  Rafe ignited his orb and it surged into a dazzling light. Xander gasped and heard similar intakes of breath all around him. They stood in a massive chamber, easily as large as the Nexus, the ceiling so high that it was lost in shadows. The fractal shapes of soaring crystal spires, like mountain peaks, glittered in the orb-light and filled the enormous space. For a moment, they all stood stunned and then Hob dived past them, almost knocking Ollie over in his haste and exclaiming rapidly in his own language. He stopped in front of the nearest spire, his expression reverent as he laid both hands on it and then pressed his cheek against the crystal, his eyes squeezed shut. Reeve had also taken a few steps forward, his face alight with wonder, but he paused to watch the hobgoblin. There were a few moments of silence when all Xander could hear was the sound of his own breathing. Hob lifted his head and turned to them.

  ‘This is ancient beyond our imaginings. It is almost gone, but I sense a faint spark still in it.’ He looked stunned, his eyes wide as they rested on Xander. ‘You – you did it,’ he said in a wondering voice. ‘You found what we did not know we had lost, our ancient Core.’

  His voice trailed off, as if he couldn’t find the words and he turned to gaze around in awe. The next moment, and without a backwards glance, he was off and running in a swift, purposeful jog into the chamber. Reeve dashed after him and, after a startled pause, everyone else followed, their footsteps echoing in the stone and crystal maze.

  Xander could see that the hobgoblin was trailing his fingers along the crystal as he hurried along, guiding them unerringly through the pathways. Rafe leaned over to Xander as they raced behind. ‘Be wary and stay close,’ he said quietly, his voice rough. ‘There is something here that makes me uneasy.’ Xander followed Rafe’s sidelong glance at Suze, who was moving alongside them with tense ears and lips curling up, showing her white teeth. He nodded to Rafe to show that he had heard, but did not reply as Hob slowed and then stopped before a tall, delicate spire.

  ‘Look,’ he said, his harsh voice sounding choked with emotion. ‘It is here.’

  Xander looked up and saw the glimmer of a faint light, deep within the spire. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat, and small shimmers of light radiated through the crystal in response to each beat. It was breath-taking, but somehow sorrowful, as if they were witnessing the last, laboured breaths of a wounded creature.

  ‘This is incredible,’ breathed Reeve. He held his glowstone high to illuminate as much as possible. ‘The complexity of this is beyond anything I have ever seen. The power running through here when it was operational must have been immense.’

  ‘Is this the place which powered the Travellers’ Stones and the border that protected Haven?’ asked Ollie. ‘Are they failing because the power here is almost gone?’

  ‘This is the heart of it all,’ came the harsh voice of the hobgoblin, although he didn’t look up from where he crouched on the floor, examining the base of the structure. ‘How could we have abandoned it? How could we have forgotten?’ The deep bitterness in his voice left an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘Is the better question not ‘how’ but ‘why’?’ Alf’s rumble broke in. He looked at the floor awkwardly when everyone turned to look at him. ‘With apologies, my friend, but hobs are not known for deserting their creations. Even when the whole structure was collapsing, the hobs did not want to leave their Core. They were shielding the ruins from the Council’s people and their snooping. Why would you have left all of this?’

  Hob scowled up at him.

  ‘I don’t know. We would protect a place such as this with our lives.’

  ‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Xander slowly, thinking out loud. ‘It was protected. Protected from people who might try to harm it, protected from exactly what has happened to your old Core. If no-one knew about it, then they couldn’t destroy it.’

  ‘That would make sense if the hobs had just kept the secret from everyone else, but what would be the point of forgetting it themselves?’ Ollie demanded. ‘This would have needed maintenance, wouldn’t it?’ He appealed to Reeve, who was staring at his feet, thinking hard. Reeve glanced up.

  ‘It would and this must have been a massive work over the centuries, but don’t forget that goblin-kind were decimated by sickness a hundred years ago, as well as more recently. Perhaps this was a closely held secret among the Elders; they were the most susceptible to the epidemic, the first to fall. The secret could have been lost without the hobs who survived even realising that it ever existed. The only thing that remained was the traditional control of the Pavilion Gate leading here, but with no memory of why they controlled it in the first place.’

  There was a profound silence.

  ‘Secrets,’ said Rafe quietly, shaking his head.

  ‘Indeed,’ rumbled Alf. ‘It is always the way. So much knowledge lost rather than shared. We all lose. I wonder whether we will ever regain all that we have lost.’

  ‘Very philosophical,’ Hob growled. ‘Some secrets are kept for a reason and some knowledge is too dangerous to be freed. We remember that, even if we have forgotten much else.’

  Alf looked concerned, but before he could continue the argument Len broke in.

  ‘Seriously? Is everyone just going to stand about wittering on?’ she demanded. ‘Can’t we do whatever it is we’re supposed to do here, like turn it back on again? This place is making me itch.’ She scratched her arm ostentatiously.

  ‘Just turn it on again?’ snapped Hob. ‘I don’t have time for this ignorant rubbish.’

  Len looked offended but the hobgoblin ignored her, turning his back and pressing his hands against the crystal, his forehead resting against the spire. Clearly his awe at the discovery of the great core had not overtaken his usual sour disposition. He paid no further attention to them, seemingly in a trance.

  Rafe turned to Xander. ‘Did those clues of yours indicate what you were supposed to do, once you got here? If the failure of this core is affecting the Stones and the border, then we need to do something about it.’

  Xander glanced at Ollie and Len, and then shrugged helplessly.

  ‘They weren’t exactly clear instructions,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe we should fan out,’ Rafe said. ‘See if we’re missing something. Ollie, you go with Alf, Len with Reeve and Xander, you come with me.’ He glanced over at the hobgoblin, but he remained oblivious and Rafe shrugged. ‘We’ll leave him here, see what he can come up with. Don’t go far and give a shout if you find anything, otherwise we’ll meet back here.’

  It was a strange and eerie experience, walking through the opaque, twisting crystal as Suze padded at Rafe’s heel, radiating alertness. Their footsteps rang hollowly and an air of desertion hung over the place, but Xander was beginning to feel uneasy. He kept seeing sparkling inclusions in the crystal out of the corner of his eyes, but whenever he looked directly at the spot, the crystal was lifeless and opaque. He tried to persuade himself that he was only glimpsing reflections from Rafe’s orb-light but it wasn’t convincing. His shoulders felt tight with tension and his stomach knotted.

  When the shout came from their left, Xander flinched. Rafe eyed him thoughtfully but said nothing, just turning to move towards the call.

  ‘Over here.’

  It came again and this time Xander recognised Reeve’s voice. A moment later he and Rafe were standing in a wide-open area, between the peaks of crystal and a bare stone wall. One section of the wall, where Reeve and Len were standing, was quite different.

  A large, roughly oval section was not the same plain grey stone as the rest of the wall; instead it was woven through with the same crystal as the matrix. It glimmered softly, illuminating several veins of crystal set into the floor, joining the strange structure with the core behind them. Xander realised that he was standing on one of the veins and quickly moved his feet as a faint pulse of light passed through it.

  ‘What is that?’ demanded Ollie, in a hushed voice. He and Alf had also joined the group from the other side, and he stared bl
ankly at the wall and then at the floor under him. He shifted his feet. ‘It feels weird.’

  Reeve shook his head in wonderment, tracing the veins on the floor with his eyes. ‘I have no idea,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’

  ‘Why not ask him?’ asked Len, furiously itching her hand.

  They all turned to look where she was gesturing. Moving slowly, like a bloodhound on the track, Hob was making his way towards them, bent over with his eyes closed and his fingers trailing just above one of the crystal veins. His eyes sprang open at Len’s loud question, and he glowered at her before his eyes widened on seeing the wall behind her. He hurried forward, astonishment clear on his face, and stopped in front of the great tapestry of crystal filaments.

  ‘Incredible, incredible,’ he said, awe gentling even his harsh voice. ‘We had theorised that it was possible but that it actually exists –’

  His words trailed away as he gazed upwards, his eyes wide with wonder.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Rafe.

  The hobgoblin hesitated, clearly wrestling with the desire to keep the information to himself, and then his eyes flicked to Alf.

  ‘It’s a cloaked link,’ he said. ‘A remote interface, if you will. It connects our former Core to this original, to act as a protection and a disguise, while all along it was here that the real power was generated to secure Haven.’

  Reeve frowned, as a thought occurred to him. ‘Is this what the Council’s crew were looking for then, when they were so desperate to search your ruined Core?’ he asked.

  Hob spun about to stare at him, his expression twisting in sudden comprehension.

  ‘Simm,’ he spat. ‘Breaking into our places and poking through the remnants. They were searching for this link.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ said Xander, certainty filling his voice. ‘They had to get the hobs out of their Core otherwise they knew they would never get in there. I don’t think the damage and the failure were an accident.’ He could almost see Gage’s face as he spoke, wearing a twisted smirk as he slipped back towards the hobs’ Core.

  ‘But why?’ demanded Reeve. ‘Why risk so much destruction?’

  ‘That’s obvious. Thorne wants to control all the power,’ said Len immediately. ‘He’s greedy and wants his technology to take over everything. The hobs were in his way, so he got rid of their Core and then he realised that there had to be something else providing power, and he wants to find it so he can take it out as well.’

  ‘Len’s right,’ said Xander. ‘He probably paid off Simm to find the hidden core for him.’

  ‘You know what Simm is like,’ added Ollie. ‘He’d do anything to crawl up to people like Larcius and Melville. They’re both related to Thorne and it would give them control on the Council.’

  Rafe and Reeve exchanged quick glances.

  ‘Look,’ said Rafe. ‘You’ll get no argument from me that Perrin Thorne is a nasty piece of work and certainly he’s greedy, but I just can’t see him actively sabotaging the hobs’ Core.’

  ‘A lot of the difficulties with the Core result from them losing population so tragically,’ agreed Reeve. ‘Thorne isn’t responsible for the epidemics; he lost his first wife in the last one.’ He glanced apologetically at Rafe, who remained expressionless.

  ‘But Xander saw that man who worked for Simm hanging around the hobs’ Core,’ argued Len. ‘He was even there the day of the explosion.’

  Reeve shook his head. ‘The man that apparently only Xander has ever seen,’ he said quietly. ‘Sorry guys, but you’ll need more evidence than this if you’re planning to blame Thorne. You can’t prove that he knew that there was an additional, hidden core – not even the hobs who built it remembered that.’

  ‘Then why were Simm, Latchet and their people so obsessed with getting into the ruined Core and poking around?’ demanded Len. ‘I don’t know how they knew, but they must have. You said yourself that they were looking for something and being secretive about it.’

  Reeve frowned, but before he could answer Hob hissed at them.

  ‘Be quiet,’ he snapped. ‘I am sensing something but I cannot hear myself think with all of your incessant yammering.’ They all quieted under the ferocity of his glare, although Len rolled her eyes and muttered ‘drama queen’.

  ‘There’s some kind of feedback,’ he said, hunching down toward the crystal wall. Reeve hurried over to him, pulling equipment out of his backpack and settling on the floor; one device immediately began beeping, and the panel on another was flashing with rapidly changing numbers. There was a tense silence while the hob and the human worked side by side.

  ‘I’m picking it up too,’ said Reeve. He glanced sideways at Hob. ‘Could it be some kind of back-wash from what’s left of the Core or is someone interfering?’

  Xander was looking away, still frowning in annoyance at the summary dismissal of their case against Thorne, so he was the first to see Suze go from quietly alert to tense aggression, her lips rippling in a furious snarl.

  ‘Get back,’ yelled Rafe, grabbing Reeve and yanking him backwards. His orb flared and the hob shot back across the floor, away from the wall. He was almost fast enough.

  Sickly green light, writhing like snakes, flickered through the tapestry of crystal channels for just an instant, before the wall blew outwards in a soundless explosion. The force of the blast lifted the hob off the floor and he flew back into Len and Ollie, sending all three tumbling far across the floor. Alf, moving with unexpected speed, grabbed Rafe and Reeve and twisted around to use his broad back to protect them from the shattered crystal which splintered outwards in tiny shards.

  All of this Xander seemed to see in slow motion, as once again his arm rose without conscious thought, his orb flaring out a protective shield before himself and Suze. Crystal splinters rebounded from his ward, falling to the floor with a faint tinkling sound. The pressure of the explosion beating in his eardrums, Xander stood before the huge cavity in the wall watching as Simm, followed by Latchet and Gage, picked their way over the debris. He heard the low rumble of Suze’s growl and realised that her pale eyes were fixed, not on the three walking into the chamber, but on the darkness which followed them. It seethed and hissed menacingly, and Xander felt the terror of it swelling in the back of his throat, sharp and suffocating.

  Simm held up his glowstone and Xander got a clear view of his face. His pale, bulging eyes were shining with a mad intensity, and he was staring around with a strange mixture of triumph and fear.

  ‘Knew it was there, didn’t I? Knew they hid it there all along. Hobs lie, don’t they, Latchet? Sneaking around, keeping it to themselves, keeping it hidden. But I knew, I knew we would find it. Can’t hide it from me.’ His muttering voice broke off as his gaze fell on Xander, standing frozen with shock. His face twisted in sudden fury. ‘It’s the boy, isn’t it, Latchet? That spying boy, always creeping around with the deceitful hobs, always where he’s not supposed to be. Grab the sneaking boy, Latchet. The Council will hear about this. Grab him!’

  His voice rose into a shriek and Xander backed away, with a worried look at Latchet who stood several steps behind Simm, his face completely vacant. There was clearly something very wrong with both of them. The silent figure of Gage stood behind them, a faint smirk twisting his lips. Latchet began to walk forward, his eyes fixed on Xander, but a light suddenly flared and Rafe’s calm voice rang out.

  ‘No-one is grabbing the boy,’ he called. ‘Step back and we can sort this out.’

  Simm shrieked again, a shocking sound that echoed off the crystal spires around them, as the orb-light illuminated all the people in the chamber. ‘Fools, all of you,’ he hissed, and Xander could see flecks of spit bursting out with every word. ‘Sort it out? You can do nothing to stop it. We claim this place and the darkness will take it and the roaring lion will devour it. You will never leave here.’ His voice dropped to a menacing snarl. ‘You will be entombed in here forever.’

  ‘He’s completely bar
king,’ said Reeve quietly to Rafe. He glanced back at Alf. ‘We’ll have to contain both of them, and get them out of here before they hurt themselves or someone else.’

  Horrified, Xander realised that, yet again, no-one else appeared able to see Gage standing in plain sight. He could see Gage’s lips moving continually and soundlessly, and felt a pang of fear. Then, with appalling suddenness, Simm threw himself at Rafe, clawing at his face. At the same moment, Xander saw Gage gesture with one hand and the darkness swelling behind him grew liquid, flowing across the floor and then congealing into the rearing shapes of multiple shades. Latchet charged straight at Xander but Reeve dived forward to intercept him, throwing Xander out of the way. As he fell, Xander got a glimpse of Ollie over by the far wall, his orb flaring frantically as he tried to protect himself and Len, who was bent over the hob lying limp on the floor.

  As if all this chaos and fear was not enough, there was a sharp cracking sound and a large facet of the nearest crystal spire began to shear off, right over the top of Reeve and Latchet. Alf shouted a warning and clambered up towards the fracturing matrix, bracing his shoulders against it in a desperate attempt to stop it falling.

  Xander lay sprawled on the ground, stunned amid this pandemonium, with his orb still glowing enough to illuminate his panicky breaths in the rapidly chilling air. Mist was rising from the floor and rolling off the walls, as the shades gathered to strike.