A Warrior's Return

by Guy Stanton III

  Talaric nodded his head seeming to accept what she was saying, “Even if all this is as you say, how are we going to get through the ice, short of a nuclear explosion, in order to get to the shield?”

  “I think I can help you with that one, “Sparky said almost sounding smug.

  He turned a laptop screen towards Talaric. It was a satellite image of most probably someplace in Antarctica. It looked typical of what you would see. A cold looking barren wasteland covered in snow and ice broken up here and there by a few craggy mountain peaks.

  Talaric looked as if he’d reached the same conclusion as me, that there wasn’t anything to be seen other than what one would expect.

  “Look closely at the mountains, here’s a better view.”

  The second view made it much more apparent what was different. One of the mountain peaks was completely bare of snow and ice. It didn’t have a peak like the others did, it actually looked a little like a…

  “Volcano.” Sparky said finishing our collective thought.

  “We believe the volcano is slightly active. The location of the bar-Seth is right next to it. It would seem that there is a way to go down after all through the ice.”

  Talaric looked at the screen and then glanced over at Eleanor who saluted, “Find me a plane Sir and I’ll fly the blinking thing down the old rim. Reporting for duty for my first Vernian adventure to the middle of the Earth Sir!”

  Talaric smiled beginning to look more relaxed than I had seen him in days.

  “Already picked out Eleanor. We just need to go pick it up so to speak. All right everyone pack up were leaving. Tonight!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Big Ouch!

  Ever since I had met Talaric my life had been a nonstop adventure. I’d been on two continents already and I was about to add a third.

  The landing went surprisingly easy, almost as if we’d touched down on a paved runway, because the ice was so hard and flat. People sometime in the past had been worried about the poles melting, with the first blast of arctic air that came rushing through the open side door of the plane I could have assured them that nothing was in danger of melting around here.

  There wasn’t much light to see by. It was sort of a faint twilight glow, but that was all. It felt odd, because it was the middle of the afternoon.

  I was so bundled up I couldn’t feel how cold it was, except for my poor face. Rafael was beside me so swaddled up that he looked like a little sausage. Holding each other’s hand was made awkward by the heavy gloves we both wore. Soon it was time for us to climb down out of the vanishing warmth of the plane.

  It was hard to climb down into the darkness of the strange cold barren land. It felt like I had already left Earth and was on a strange new world. The knowledge that if everything went right, I would be on a new world soon enough, completely left me twisted up inside in self-doubt, as to my reasoning that had brought me to this point. Was I doing the right thing?

  Was this the best thing for Rafael?

  Yes it was dangerous, but then every path in life was. This was the right choice, it had to be. It had better be!

  I stepped foot onto my third continent ready to make the change. It would be a big change. Titus picked up Rafael and held him securely against him for which I was extremely grateful. Titus and I were together in our misery of the cold.

  “We wasn’t made for this Miss Eva! No sir! This is terrible! They needs some fire down here!”

  A special rope was passed along that we were each snapped to and then with a jerk I was yanked forward to walk out over the crunchy terrain in near darkness. Even with the goggles over my eyes, it felt like my eyeballs were going to freeze. I shut them allowing myself to be directed forward by the pull of the rope at my waist.

  We marched through the crunchy darkness for over an hour and I felt my feet start to lose feeling. I feared that if I wasn’t careful on my numb feet I’d trip and break something easily. I opened my eyes to see the darker blackness of the volcano rising up before us and then we started to climb. The effort of doing that helped to warm me up a bit, plus we had a little shelter from the wind that seemed to pierce through all the layers of clothing I wore.

  I was really beginning to question Talaric’s leadership. We’d been climbing the volcano for over an hour and I felt wiped out. None of this made any sense. What were we going to do when we reached the top of the volcano, jump in?

  I was risking Rafael’s life out here and I felt that there should be a better plan of action other than apparently no plan at all!

  My foot slipped and I didn’t even have time to cry out before I plummeted over a drop off I hadn’t seen. The rope caught me up with a jerk, as Titus next in line behind me grabbed and held against the rope. I had almost dragged one of Roric’s men over with me that had been just ahead of me.

  The momentum of my fall had me swinging back and forth on the rope and I swung in under a ledge and connected hard with a wall of stone. I tried to catch myself with my hands to avoid crashing into it, but I still hit hard. Dazed from the hard impact I hung on to the rope idly swinging in the air.

  A flashlight shined down on me and I blinked my eyes against the harsh glare.

  “Eva are you okay?”

  It was Talaric’s voice and my already bad mood had only been made worse by this incident, ‘Do I look okay!’

  That was what I wanted to yell back at him, but I refrained from doing so at the last moment.

  There were so many lights on me now that I couldn’t even look up for the glare. I moved my arm in a wave, but I stopped the motion of my arm, when I caught sight of something. I looked at my hands and then down at myself at where I had bounced off the wall.

  I called up excited, “I’m wet!”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  From the sound of Talaric’s voice I could tell that he was about to come down over the edge.

  “No, no! I’m wet with water!”

  I fumbled for my own light and switched it on.

  “There is a cave of sorts down here! You can let me down. I’m only a few feet above the floor.”

  After a moment I was lowered and then one by one the rest joined me. The last to come down was Talaric, who enveloped me in a tight bear hug and I forgot my earlier aggravation with him, as I hugged him back. Stepping back he glanced at the cave in the light of his headlamp.

  The steamy mist coming out of the cave entrance before us was the picture of foreboding mystery. I quivered involuntarily at the sight of it and whatever lay beyond.

  “It seems safe enough to breathe. I think we’ve come too far to go back now.” Sparky said, looking as if he wanted a better option than what was available.

  Eleanor patted him on the back, as she slipped by him into the cloudy mist with a limp, “Wouldn’t matter anyway old soul. The old deathtrap son of a sorry sea cook wouldn’t fire back up in this cold anyway. It’s a one-way trip mates and I for one, want to see what’s inside. Dibs on who gets to fire the saucer up first.”

  None of us had really been going to contest her on that one and reluctantly we followed her one by one into the darkness beyond, which was surprisingly warm.

  The channel of the cave led steadily downward and twisted and turned like a snake.

  “Must be an old lava tube. Here’s one to jot down in the old book of firsts.” Eleanor said in excitement.

  I didn’t share her enthusiasm. I was grateful for the warmth, but I didn’t like the thought of this tube becoming active again anytime soon. The troubling thing was if this dormant volcano was still active enough to be putting off heat like this then what was the true classification of something being dormant?

  We walked for hours downward into the volcano, stripping off layers of clothing as we went. Up ahead of us a red glow had begun to appear. Titus wiped the sweat off his forehead with his massive forearm.

  “You is a dang fool Titus for asking the good Lord for fire! He done sure enough give it to you! Lord have mercy this can�
��t be healthy for you. Freezing your bone marrow one moment and sweating it out the next!”

  Katie’s steps ahead of me were getting slower and slower, as we approached the red glow. I started to pass her, as I held onto Rafael’s hand, but Rafael reached out and took Katie’s hand with his other.

  Katie looked at him in surprise and he said, “I’m scared too!”

  Katie smiled slightly and quickened her pace a little, as she held onto his hand, while I suffered through a moment of both pride for Rafael’s action and reproof of myself as a person for not reaching out to Katie myself.

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid like she was, because I was! But the farther Katie legged behind the farther I got away from Talaric at the front. In many ways he was my source of security. It helped me to be brave myself if I could be near him.

  The cave ended on a terrace above what we had all feared, a slow moving river of lava that lay another hundred feet or so below us. We were all staring at it in a mixture of morbid fascination, when I heard Eleanor cry out to us.

  I looked toward her voice and saw she had moved on out along the terrace and was gesturing to something. We broke away from our view and moved towards her. She stood in front of a bluish flickering wall of sorts. It was like glass in that you could see what was on the other side of it.

  “I wonder what this is?” Eleanor asked her eyes wide with curiosity.

  “Don’t!” Cried out Ellanara and Sparky together, but it was too late.

  Zat!

  Eleanor jolted back away from the wall of glass her hair frizzed up, as she shook her hand violently and fought to hold back an entire litany of curses to express the pain that she was feeling.

  Rafael stood in front of her, his eyes as big as dinner plates and said, “Ouch!”

  Eleanor still looking very much in pain said, “Yes that’s the word I’m looking for! Big ouch!”

  Eleanor glanced up at the big glowing wall of blue glass and said, “What a way to kill the cat! They ought to have a sign or something! Don’t touch or hand will fall off followed by whiskers!”

  Roric stepped up to the bluish wall of energy and reached out a hand toward it.

  “Are you daft man! That’s gonna…..hurt.” She said trailing off as the wall parted around his finger like water with no corresponding shock.

  “What’s this! You shock me, but not him?” Eleanor said addressing the wall looking mad enough to slug it, but thinking better of it she held back and glared balefully at it instead.

  “DNA coding. Tadias was here!” Ellanara said softly.

  Roric nodded, “Come over and stand on the other side of me son.”

  Talaric and Roric both stepped into the watery blue veil and after joining hands above their heads and touching their feet together a clear space appeared between them.

  “Alright step through quickly now.”

  We did just that one by one until we were all through, except for Titus who stood staring stony eyed off to the side.

  “Well Captain I guess dis is where we part ways. It’s been good knowing you.”

  “Oh don’t be ridiculous Titus! I’m sorry I didn’t think of it before.” Ellanara said, as she got down onto the floor of the cave and connected with her father’s and brother’s feet to form a wider shaped structure, as both men moved back farther.

  Titus’s face instantly brightened. Beaming a wide pearly smile he stooped to step through the wider opening.

  “God bless you Miss Ellie! You’re alright in my book!”

  She smiled up from the floor, “Glad you think so Titus, but please don’t step on me.”

  Titus just chuckled, as he finished stepping through the wider gap and then he helped Ellanara up to her feet. The level of excitement was high, as everyone began to feel that we were almost to the end of our journey.

  The terrace turned back into a cave and I noticed that it wasn’t so hot anymore, but rather just about right, temperature wise. We came to the end of the tunnel and stopped to stare in awe at the breathtaking space that opened up before us.

  A huge domed cavern rose up before us. The top and two sides reflected a crystalline blue, which probably meant ice. The other two sides however were red-hot and glowed red.

  Dimly I realized that it was actual magma flowing up against the shield of the dome, which was the force field we had just walked through.

  What kind of power requirement there must be to hold back so much magma and sheer weight of ice!

  The rest of the domed enclosure was barren and devoid of anything, except for the bar-Seth. The bar-Seth rested proudly in the center of the large cavern created by the force field dome.

  Big wasn’t the word and massive could hardly describe it. I didn’t know much about world history and a lot of what I did know I had gleaned from reading the Bible.

  The enormity of being here in this place and looking at the creation of something that dated back from before the great flood, when hardly anything else did was mind numbingly awesome!

  Sparky looked around, “What are we waiting for? Let’s get down there!”

  We started out stumbling down the dry bank towards the bar-Seth.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Awakened

  It wasn’t what I had expected. While it was huge it looked more like a large oblong smooth river stone, then it did a spaceship.

  The outer hull of the ship was smooth and had a glossy dark patina to it. I could see the intricate grooves of geometric looking patterns sprawled out across the great expanse of the hull, as I got closer to it.

  I could see calligraphic engraving embossed all over the ship’s sides in a harmonious pairing with the geometric patterns that decorated the outer panels of the ship. This ship was a work of art!

  The comparison that came to mind, as we came to a stop in the dry sand before it was that of an ant looking up at a boulder. There appeared to be no entrance or portal into the smooth hulled ship that rested in the sand of the dome floor.

  There was such a quiet stillness to this place, like walking through an abandoned cathedral or a forest of tall trees. The magma boiled and seethed against the far wall of the dome, as it cast its angry red light over the ship before us. Then I saw something that had me blinking to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

  The sunken engraved lines of the ship’s hull had started to glow an iridescent light blue, which got brighter and brighter until the engraved lines glowed in sharp contrast against the darkened metal patina of the ship. It was beautiful!

  The light was such an intensity of blue flame that it lit up the cavern all around us, as if hinting at the presence of some rare jewel hidden within the heart of the ship. Fog began to peel off of the traced outlines like blue smoke. Tendrils of the blue smoke began to encircle us. I hoped it wasn’t dangerous.

  “Father it’s just like your sword!” Talaric exclaimed in the same hushed wonder that we all felt.

  Roric nodded and stepped up to the side of the bar-Seth. Reaching out he laid his hand full against the side of the hull.

  Immediately an intense gold color lit up where he had touched the ship. The gold color fractured outward away from his hand along the smooth surface of the ship. The embossed calligraphic lettering lit up, as if backlit by pure gold and added its color to the scene of the bar-Seth coming to life after its long sleep. Roric stepped backward toward us, as the bar-Seth started to change.

  The metal of the hull seemed to flow like liquid, as the ship began to metamorphosis out of its hibernation, into something else. The pebble like appearance of the bar-Seth disappeared as it re-shifted its mass into something else, like some giant robot reassembling itself.

  “Stasis mode for an entire ship!” Ellanara breathed out.

  “Oh she’s so pretty!” Eleanor said, as she practically vibrated with the intensity of the desire to fly it.

  “He Eleanor. He.” Sparky rejoined abstractly, as he never took his eyes off the great ship unfolding itself from its cocoon.

&
nbsp; “Oh right, well he’s a handsome boy he is!” Eleanor said just as distractedly as Sparky had.

  Now this was a spaceship!

  The metamorphosis seemed to be complete and the glowing lights blinked off for a second and then returned as the ship began to purr with sound that echoed within the enclosure of the dome.

  The hum of the ship got louder and louder and seemed to reach a peak, as the ship floated up off the ground to hover in the air above us. Colors of blue and gold swirled along its glossy black sides in a kaleidoscope of color.

  ‘Was it leaving without us?’ I thought, suddenly concerned.

  It came too hover directly over top of us. Was it going to fall and crush us?

  The blue smoke seemed to gather and thicken. It turned into a whirlwind of fast-moving color beneath the ship that reminded me of a tornado that had been electrically charged. The column of swirling color suddenly split into multiple columns that shot down towards us and swirled around each of us individually and then like smoke retreated from the ground faster than one could blink and in the next moment we found ourselves standing within the ship itself looking at each other and our surroundings in a state of awed appreciation for what we were experiencing.

  The inside of the bar-Seth was a rich experience to behold and offered a glimpse into what the far past had been like. The early people of Earth had not been shy decorators.

  Colors of every hue in the rainbow were twisted and weaved into the fabric of the hall we stood in. Beautiful murals of bygone scenes of nature and life swept up and down the hall to either side of us.

  There was no lack of light. Light seemed to illuminate the space from a thousand sources all at once. There were even exotic looking plants here and there. Sparky reached forward and pulled a leaf off of one only to see that it was fully real.

  “How’s this possible?” He asked in awe.

  “Everything has been in stasis. I would never have imagined that such a scale of stasis could be achieved though!” Ellanara said looking as happy as a kid in a candy shop.