Islands in the Sky

by Michel Savage

  However, that was time that we did not have, as Mica had informed us before we left our vessel. The dark brooding shadow of global war arose like serpent of death across several rival nations in the midst of the civil unrest and political turmoil which had matured during the past several years. Many governments had become militarized to protect their personal agendas and individual interests. It was a dangerous time for everyone in the world as the threat of thermonuclear war was ever present in our lives.

  It made me wonder if this culture hadn't met a similar fate by their own hand. Logan's personal theory was based on decades of study he gathered about similar lost civilizations from the annals of antiquity. There were certainly wars of massive scales between tribes and nations in earths recent past; which were usually primed by differences between casts or lower class and their ruling nobility. I would like to say that our modern world had grown beyond such pettiness; but it would be a lie.

  A narrow staircase led into the building directly beside the enormous effigy. We entered the building which was lit internally by rows of amber lights embedded within the walls. However, we found the passage within to be cramped in areas which led off into several antechambers; as were the shortened height of the doorways. It became obvious that the previous inhabitants were much smaller in stature than average; as was confirmed by the scattered cadavers we had seen earlier.

  We also crossed several stairways that were exceptionally steep and narrow, making them a challenge to ascend. It wasn't until we got to the upper levels that we found anything interesting, which is where Logan and Alex began contemplating the purpose of their eerie find. Stacked three high atop one another were endless rows of corpses held in miniature open coffins; their skeletons facing the hall as if they were some part of a grisly display.

  "Well, that's not creepy," I half joked as we entered the vast hall. The three scholars where used to dealing with the bones of the dead on archeological digs, but the sight this was downright chilling. The bodies were situated in little tombs with their bodies embedded in some type of solidified substance, like an insect caught in amber.

  "Allen, can I borrow your knife?" Mica inquired as I gave her a sideways glance.

  "What for?" I answered her question with a question; though knowing full well what she was going to do with it.

  "I have to get a sample of this material these bodies were set in," Mica noted as she tapped on the hardened extract.

  "Do you think that is some sort of preservative?" I noted as I handed her Tom's old boot knife.

  "Maybe, maybe not; I'll know when I'm able to test a skin sample," she answered promptly.

  "Do you think this is some sort of weird crypt?" I asked trying not to ask the obvious, but failing horribly, "I mean, why would they put their dead out like this?

  "It could be some type of ancestral catacomb; a place where their dead relatives or warriors where left to be honored or preserved for the afterlife," Mica suggested, "you should try asking the Professor what he thinks," she offered as if to bait my curiosity, so I strode over to Logan and Alex as they were inspecting the intricacies of the design work in the architecture and for any runes or scripted text that might reveal the purpose behind this ghoulish exhibit.

  "Did you two find anything?" I inquired to them both as they were closely inspecting one particular crypt with a flashlight.

  "Ah, Allen, glad that you're taking an academic interest," the professor grinned as he turned to me, "you see here, what this person..."

  "The Dwarve," I interrupted a little rudely.

  "...Yes, the Dwarve, per se;" he acknowledged, "and what this device is he ...or she, is wearing about their neck?" he noted.

  I peered closely into the dried amber in which the corpse was embedded and could make an outline of a brassy neckband adorned with gemstones.

  "Ah, it's jewelry. Do you think they plastered them in there like that to keep treasure hunters from snatching their valuables?" I suggested to the two scientists. Alex just gave me a quirky smile, as if I had said something childish. Logan though, offered to correct me.

  "We're not grave robbers, my boy," the professor coached me on archival educate, "there is something about the basic design of it that makes us believe it is more than just a mere trinket," he answered as he moved the beam of the flashlight to each of the surrounding cadavers. Sure enough, each one of the crinkled bodies wore a similar necklace bound around their necks. It appeared the only difference between them were what type of precious stones they were set with.

  "We think they might be either some sort of control device, or maybe even the token badge of a servant class," Alexander explained.

  "You mean like a slave collar?" I asked, noting how the choker could resemble one, though their inclusion of gemstones made little sense to me; unless they were servants to some sort of royalty.

  "We were hoping to get one out so we can take a better look at it," Alex offered; but turning to see Logan's assistant jabbing at the solidified material for a sample and not having much luck in her task. Mica finally gave up and had to satisfy herself with a small chip of the amber which eventually cracked loose.

  "Eh, well that might be a problem," I noted, hoping that Mica hadn't bent the tip of the knife during her wild antics while chipping away at the cadaver.

  "Yes, so it seems," Logan concurred as he realized they weren't having much progress from their effort, "so I suggest that we try exploring these vaults, for they might contain preparation chambers where the dead are encased; and hopefully find what we might need therein."

  "Like directions out of this place." I stated.

  "Exactly," Logan agreed as Alex turned with him while motioning for Mica to join us.

  The length of this ancient mausoleum seemed endless. The Passages encircled the full length of the outer walls surrounding the mineral field below. We eventually came upon a thin stairwell which led into a large gallery. There we found what Logan had been looking for.

  "Ah, this might provide some answers," Logan exclaimed as we approached a wide panoramic mural deeply etched in metal which encompassed the entire room.

  The style of artwork was notably blocky in points, but made up for it in finely etched details. It displayed a story of their past, showing a great transition of their peoples plight.

  "Ah, little do people know that it is usually the work of artisans that last throughout the ages which tells us about our past" Logan smiled as he began viewing the figures in the images.

  "What do you mean?" I asked innocently, not comprehending his statement.

  "Well, let's say that our modern world is destroyed either by fire, plague, or some other disaster," Mica explained, "and imagine for a moment what items that might survive such a calamity if they were left to rot or ended up buried for thousands or millions of years. What could archeologists from some future civilization derive from what they found if they did not know our spoken language or anything about us if our entire history was lost."

  "Well, there are countless movies and libraries and videos and..." I began to blabber until Mica cut me off.

  "But those are items of a particular technology that would have vanished, if the paper in our books decays into dust, and anything recorded on digital media is unreadable," she explained, "the only thing left after all those lost centuries would be made of preserved metal or carved into stone, such as shown by the Egyptians, the Mayans or the Aztecs, the Olmecs or Babylonians..." she began to count off several ancient cultures whose mysterious histories had also been lost to the tides of time.

  "We learned cuneiform from the Sumerians which was left on fragile clay tablets," Alex added into our conversation.

  "Let's say, what little use this flashlight would be half a million years from now," Logan entered the fray, while holding up his light, "long after the batteries had decayed and all that was left was some bits of metal or rotted plastic; there would be no clue as to what it was used for or how it worked. Duplicating these mysteries from the t
iniest clues is what draws archeologist to discover our lost past; to make an account of all the lives before us and to learn of them, and from their mistakes."

  Logan's analogy made sense. Even if something from our era was perfectly preserved, there would be no way use them, like listening to music from a radio if there were no broadcast towers, or audio recordings if there were no devices to play them, or even the right type of power source to operate them. It made me start to think just how very finite and temporary the things we used in our daily lives actually were. The simplest of tools made much more sense to utilize; but we were a culture who was wasteful beyond any of our predecessors before us.

  Would some future humanity misinterpret our entire culture based on scant clues if there were no spoken or written language left to decipher; leaving the true history of our society to be nothing more than a guessing game? I felt a touch embarrassed among the three of them for never having thought about the world around me in that context. Where they saw the past, present and future as one; people like me only conceived the here and now; not really caring about tomorrow, or the legacy we left for future generations.

  I felt a twinge of guilt, but I couldn't quite place why. Maybe it was because I had lived most of my life in blissful ignorance of the scope of the world around me; which made me wonder what it was that I would leave behind for others to know what I had done to make my mark; be it for better or for worse. I started to feel like a real prick for not caring about it before; and wondering what it was I was really doing with my life? Here we were in the middle of the most incredible discovery of our time; yet I still felt detached from what Logan and his team were trying to achieve. They weren't here for money or glory, but for something much more meaningful.

  The mural was organized in a strange fashion, as Logan pointed out it began on both sides of the entrance going from left to right and right to left on either side of the chamber; meeting a conjuncture in the middle.

  "I've never seen a layout of this fashion," Logan admitted, "It appears to comprise of two separate eras which conjoin at the middle to meet a same closure of the saga expressed towards those viewing it," he noted as he took the left mural while Alex took the right. I tried to get a good look at the images portrayed within the carving, but they made little sense to me.

  "It appears that there was a group of six tribes which had experienced fierce internal struggles across their borders with one another until they managed to attain some treaty or alliance together," Alex called out from his side of the chamber.

  "Here it shows there were only three great kingdoms of seafarer's that shared a sliver of joined islands; who sought conquest beyond a great wall of mountains," Logan announced from the opposite side of the room.

  "The six tribes, or empires of these people on this section collaborated to defend themselves from a great invader, depicted here as to what looks like a triad." Alex announced.

  "Ah, a trinity of foes, that would very well correspond the three dynasties depicted over here!" Logan affirmed, "From what I'm seeing here there appears to have been a feud among the three companions where one of their group chose to separated from their allies, leaving the two other dynasties to battle against a great army of six tribes."

  "It's hard to tell here, but I would presume that these images depict the toppling of a great wall or mountain to resist the invaders," Alex added.

  "It's staring to make sense now. Here it displays that after the trinity was broken they created a great magic that could shake or cleave the great walls to invade the lands of their enemy," Logan continued as he advanced along the mural.

  "I see," Alexander intervened, while we listened as Mica approached the central figure where the two sides met, "...here the six tribes combined into one force and captured what appears to be a great prismatic orb, and used it against the invaders from whom they stole it from," Alex stated as both he and the professor began to close in on Mica who stood at the center of the elaborate scene.

  "The great walls were risen and the stars spun above them as their lush green lands withered and died from frost, and the white shadow of death swept upon them," Mica announced as the two scientists came to stand beside her at either side as they traced their stories to the midpoint of the great mural.

  "What the hell does that all mean?" I asked bluntly as the three of them stood staring the central image, carved larger than the rest as its dazzling centerpiece; where it shown the moon and the sun changing places in the sky.

  "Three kingdoms against six, separated by a great wall; which I would presume are the vast mountain range that separates East and West Antarctica," Mica proposed to the agreeing nods of her comrades beside her, "West Antarctica has a great peninsula that reaches out from the south Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, which had actually once connected a land path to South America when the ocean levels were lower eons ago."

  "That would account for the seafaring kingdoms seen here if the sea levels rose and such a passage became a string of islands," Logan suggested in kind.

  "With six empires spread across the far larger eastern side of Antarctica!" Alex proclaimed.

  "So, if I got this straight, six rival clans joined to fight off a group of three invaders at this mountain range, and stole their prize weapon and used it against them?" I shrugged as I tried to fit the story together.

  "Exactly Allen," Logan replied, "but something went drastically wrong when the stars in the heavens fled; which might very well mean they experienced a massive tectonic shift, or some other cataclysm significantly worse."

  "Do you think this flashy orb thing they used might have caused that?" I offered as I inspected the area were Alexander had pointed out the carved circle.

  "I surmise that was the electrified sphere we discovered," Logan interjected, while I gave him a look of surprise, "which was some massive power source that harnessed the natural harmonics of the earth. However, they were experiencing a polar shift at this epic time in their history, and I would dare to suggest that the device they used only managed to amplify the destruction."

  "Which likely spun the earth into a new axis," Mica added while pretending to hold a ball in her hands and twisting it sideways.

  "As the Earth's equator realigned, tropical and temperate climates suddenly shifted into a new place on the map, where they transformed into respective arid or polar regions," Alex explained.

  "In their eyes, the stars swayed above them and the solar bodies fell away, while across the world jungles turned into deserts as forest ranges were turned into mountains of ice ...or the white shadow of death as they portrayed it," Logan tutored as he pointed towards the central image.

  It was a cataclysm so enormous that I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. The magnet field of the earth swapped placed, but not in perfect opposition or alignment; which sent the angle of the earth askew. I had remembered reading an article many years ago that claimed the Arabian deserts were once as a tropical region covered with vast jungles in our ancient past; but was now nothing but a vast ocean of dunes and hot sand. We had no technology in our modern world to stop a tragedy of this nature, and if a catastrophe of that magnitude happened today our world would be annihilated.

  "In all respects, we would be drawn back into the dark ages, or beyond," Logan advised as I queried the basic concept they were constructing.

  "As Logan mentioned, we have been tipping towards a similar shift of our magnetic poles over these past several decades; which is predicted to be due by the end of this year," Mica reminded me.

  "And how long does one of these magnetic shifts, last?" I shot back.

  "Nobody knows," Alexander responded, "it could be as short as a few weeks, or as long as months or years for such a cycle to complete. Hopefully we will be able to find a clue to that question if we can translate these scripts."

  "Do you think that giant electrical ball thing might be able to control or even stop it somehow?" I asked with a measure of hope; for I had several nice beaches in mi
nd I wanted to retire on, but that dream was being dashed to pieces with every world they spoke about this calamity.

  "I can imagine that would be doubtful, Allen," Logan answered, "for I believe that device was only able to harness or transform energy, and wasn't employed at the scale that would be needed for such an enormous task. For the moment, I believe these people were the victims of a vast climate shift that overcame them so rapidly they were unable to adapt."

  "Except for the single ally of the triad which fled," Mica corrected as Logan considered her summary.

  "By Jove, that's it!" the professor exclaimed, "Eight domains circling a ninth. The surviving ancestry of modern man could very well have been the one dynasty which fled the fight and retreated across the straight to the Americas."

  "And those survivors of the seafaring domains could have sailed the oceans to find other lands to settle. So why didn't these folks do the same?" Alexander inquired.

  "Perhaps they were landlocked, or were a subservient race that which had no ability to escape their bondage," I suggested to their raised brows.

  It made sense to me that a race of giants could easily bully a smaller pygmy race into servitude. Unfortunately slavery had been around on our planet for a long time; it was one of those unique curses of mankind which separated us from other beasts; and cast us in a bad light. Subjugation was even present in our modern world, which went neglected and overlooked by first world countries.

  The social ethics and principles of our species was in a horrid mess; and our governments didn't like facing them. In fact governmental bodies were usually the prime culprits of such moral lapses, and did a lousy job of presenting themselves as symbols of virtue and morality in the public eye. It seemed like everyone in authority or power around the world was either crooked or corrupt on one level or another behind the vast political facade which protected them. It made me wonder if most of humanity was as blind as I had been to the blatant exploitation and abuse of office by our officials on a daily basis.