Primeval Origins : Paths of Anguish - Award Winning, New Epic Fantasy / Science Fiction (The Primeval Origins Saga Book 1)

by Brett Vonsik

  “What about Dr. Anders?” Nikki asked.

  “He’ll catch up,” Jimmy declared. “Besides, it sounds like the doc will still beat us down into the cavern, no matter how much of a head start we have.”

  They carefully made their way into the bowels of the cavern, descending the steep slope into the dimly lit depths. Nikki led and helped Jimmy traverse uneven rocks and large stony outcrops as they went. The going grew increasingly difficult the deeper they ventured. Nikki wondered how Miguel could have seen anything this deep into the cavern. She heard rocks falling down the slope behind them and saw Anders all but running down the incline, with Ramirez right on his heels. At least they carried flashlights. Nikki was amazed by Anders’ agility. She never thought of him as athletic, and her impression of him was confirmed when he and Ramirez caught up with them. Anders gasped while choking on the dust they kicked up. In another time and place, Nikki would have found the scene funny, but not today.

  “Lead...on.” Anders managed to force out his words in between gasps. Neither Anders nor Ramirez appeared concerned for either Nikki’s or Jimmy’s condition. They excitedly peered into the darkness beyond Nikki as if she wasn’t there, and appeared impatient enough to run her over if she didn’t get moving. Nikki took the flashlight from Anders then turned to lead the group. She stopped abruptly after only five steps. In the lit circle of her flashlight, Miguel stood looking at them with his hands over his eyes. Nikki thought she caught a glimpse of blue behind him, but dismissed it as seeing what she wanted to see. She continued to lead the group to Miguel. The big man stepped to the side without speaking a word, to reveal two blue-tinted metallic obelisks about a foot wide on each of what looked to be four sides at one end, and flaring out to a greater width at their other ends. Each of the blue metal pillars was about eight feet in length and lay almost horizontal to the eyes staring at them. They were separated some eight to ten feet, as best Nikki could determine, and both obelisks were partially buried in rock, though a blue metal brace spanned the space between the two where the obelisks were widest. Nikki surmised the structure was on its side. She was immediately drawn to symbols and inscriptions on the obelisks, and reached out to touch one of the pillars to run her fingers over them.

  “Be careful!” Anders warned forcefully. He, Ramirez, and Jimmy moved to within several feet of one of the obelisks. “Look at the symbols. They look similar to those on the sword.”

  “Yes, Shawn,” Ramirez agreed after examining the closest obelisk with his light only inches from the thing. His gaze was fixed on the obelisks and Nikki believed a herd of bulls would not be able pull him away from this extraordinary find. “No. They are not identical to the sword, but the similarities are not to be ignored.”

  The symbols covered the visible sides of each obelisk in a straight-line pattern along their lengths, starting about two feet from the smaller of the two ends. The blue metal appeared to have been placed here yesterday. It showed no signs of rust or decay. Ramirez touched the metal surface of the closest obelisk. “It’s warm.”

  “How can that be?” Anders sounded incredulous. “I can make the case that the sun heated the sword blade and that the blue metal has superior thermal absorption qualities, but how can that be, down here in the darkness?”

  “Maybe the metal generates heat internally?” Ramirez speculated without removing his gaze from the obelisk. “Ricks, would you please come here and hold the light above this spot so I can examine this?”

  Nikki tried to hold her flashlight high enough over Ramirez so it cast sufficient light where he had directed. No matter how Nikki attempted to angle the flashlight, it would not satisfy Ramirez. He appeared to be getting annoyed with Nikki. “Ricks, stand over here and shine the light down without reaching over me.”

  Angry at his tone, Nikki reluctantly climbed on the rocks between the obelisks and positioned herself opposite Ramirez. She held the light on the spot he directed, bathing the area with enough light for him to examine the symbols in detail. Anders and Jimmy were on either side of Ramirez, with their heads so closely together that Nikki thought the three of them might kiss.

  “Look at this symbol,” Anders directed. “It’s the same symbol as that on the sword blade. And this one. And this one. It’s got to be an alphabet.”

  “Careful, Shawn,” Ramirez cautioned. “I’ve never seen you so excited. I agree the symbols look alike, but I can’t say they’re an alphabet. At least not yet.”

  “Look here!” Jimmy’s voice was filled with excitement. He was examining a part of the obelisk closest to the small end, approximately a foot from the end. When Nikki looked at the spot Jimmy’s flashlight was illuminating, she blinked several times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. A triangular shape glowed from within the obelisk. The glowing triangle was about an inch long on each side, emitting a pale blue light. “It’s perfectly flush with the metal, but inside. There’s a circular structure all the way around the triangle. The structure is almost imperceptible. The engineering required to create this is fantastic.”

  “The glowing shape looks similar to the gem in the sword,” Ramirez commented. He held his hand close to the triangle, but was careful not to touch it. “The temperature is colder the nearer I place my hand to it.”

  “Say what?” Anders blurted in surprise. “If it wasn’t glowing, I’d swear I was looking at a gem shaped into a triangle.” Anders pointed to the center of the glowing triangle then looked at his friend, who was wearing a smile as wide as his face. He positioned his finger just above the surface of the triangle. “See the internal facets and the...aaaggghhhh!”

  Anders’ finger brushed against the glowing surface, causing it to brightly flare. Then it settled back to a dull blue glow, but brighter than before. Nikki felt a vibration under her feet and looked down to see the rock she was standing on disintegrating before her eyes. Before she could react and jump from her perch, the space between the two obelisks was filled with a brilliant bright blue sheet of light that rippled where her boots touched it. Nikki felt herself falling, again.

  Nikki’s fall stopped an instant later. She felt suspended in a cool pool of water, weightless and adrift and shivering. A wave of nausea swept over her, then went away. She opened her eyes...slowly, afraid of what she would see. Blackness. She blinked her eyes several times to make sure she had opened them. Blackness, still. Where am I? Her heart pounded fast, threatening to burst from her chest, and her head felt about to explode. She darted glances everywhere in the darkness. Nothing. She was alone in a sea of nothing. She felt abandoned, small, alone. She screamed, but could not hear her own voice. It was as if the blackness consumed her desperate pleas for help without a bit of mercy. She screamed again and again. Nothing. A sense of doom and despair washed over her.

  A faint whisper teased Nikki’s sense of hearing. No, not her hearing…somewhere in her head. “It’s just my imagination,” Nikki said to herself. Again, the whisper teased her. Desperate, Nikki called out. Nothing. A second whisper joined the first, both teasing her. She wasn’t able to make out what the voices said. It frustrated her, but hope surged within her. She was not alone. A third voice added to the chorus, also teasing her. Nikki called out repeatedly to the voices. Nothing. No response. Only the black void. She felt panic within swell up again, but fought to keep it under control. She struggled to win the battle raging within, somewhere between panic and insanity. The voices grew louder. Nikki could make out individual sounds, then syllables, then what she took for words. She didn’t understand the meaning of the words. It was a language she was unfamiliar with. Louder the voices grew. They became normal volume, then started to boom in her head…hurting her. So painful. Pain. The voices she so desperately wanted to hear a moment ago now made her want silence. Too painful. She didn’t understand what they were saying to her. Then....

  “How long...?” asked one of the voices in soft, melodic tones.

  “Who are you? Nikki asked, hopeful the voice would be friendly.

&n
bsp; “Me,” the soft voice answered, then asked sharply, “Who are you?”

  A long silence fell. Nikki feared speaking. Nothing. The silence continued for a time until Nikki could not stand it, and she spoke. “I’m Nikki. Who are you?”

  Silence. No response.

  “Please, where am I?” Nikki pleaded, desperately afraid to ask the question. “Am I...am I dead?”

  “No,” replied a deep voice.

  “Who are you?” Nikki asked of the new voice.

  “Answer! How long?” The soft voice asked again, less sharp than before.

  “How long for what?” Nikki asked. She felt tears welling up. “I don’t understand. How long for what?”

  “How many Rodenars have passed?” the soft voice asked, controlled, measured.

  “Rodenars? What’s that?” Nikki replied, her voiced filled with fear, frustration, and confusion.

  “Enough!” a sneering voice demanded. “A waste of my time.”

  “No!” The deep voice growled defiantly. “She is innocent.”

  “Do not harm her.” The soft voice spoke defiantly, with a tone so threatening it caused shivers to rack Nikki’s spine. “She is not part of it.”

  “She is now,” the sneering voice replied flatly.

  An intense tingling enveloped Nikki, then pain. The hairs all over her body stood on end as her skin crawled as if the entire kingdom of insects covered her, biting her. She withered and contorted as wave after wave of pain racked her. Then an intense sharp pain struck her, threatening to split her head open as a rush of images and sounds bombarded her mind: images of fantastic landscapes, high-walled grand stone cities, and glowing gems used for many sorts of things by people not quite human, all filled her head. Many kinds of animals crawled, swam, walked, ran, and flew -- mostly in the wilderness, though some in the great cities. Swimming death…crocodiles…snapjaws, turtles…sheller, lizards…runners, frogs…hoppers, rodents…growlers, and insects…biters, bloodsuckers and crawlers, everywhere. Birds…featherwings of all kinds in enormous flocks flew above the lands. Other creatures soared high above the birds, creatures not unlike a bat with translucent wings, but sleeker, larger, much larger, flying reptiles…pterosaurs…leatherwings. These were not just images. Nikki felt the breeze on her face and the smell of life in her nose.

  “No.” Nikki realized with a shock she was looking at pterosaurs, but she didn’t want to believe. And not just a few, but hundreds of them, flying in flocks. Then she saw grand beasts emerging from primeval forests, with spiky defenses and the size of elephants, though more brightly colored than she expected. This can’t be. Nodosaurs? Then there were others, equally brilliant in color and of all shapes: armor-plated sauropods, strangely crested hadrosaurs and a ceratopsian, feathered-covered dromaeosaurs ranging from the tiny to the terrifyingly massive, and then there were carnosaurs, large of claw and tooth and devastatingly vicious in their merciless pursuit of prey. She saw those people riding some of the beasts and others in battle with sword, axe, bow, and with strange devices of horrific power -- people of races she did not recognize as human, all strangely dressed, together fighting for their very existence against creatures of nightmares, man-like and armed with weapons and tails tipped in venom. How she saw all of this, she didn’t know, but she knew it all as if she lived it. These were her experiences. No! How could this be? Other strange and gruesome creatures armored with glistening scales walked the world, commanding armies before them. And then there were more creatures, still more frightening. Then their images were gone.

  Nikki felt relieved for a moment. In another instant, she was in a place of darkness. Shivers of fear shot down her spine and racked her very core. An immense black tower of rock appeared before her, carved from mountains, and the foreboding lands surrounding it spanning as far as the eye could see. A brilliant rainbow-colored light filled the sky and blinded her momentarily. She was now in yet another place. She became dizzy with the swirl. Metallic walls and waist-high angled tables glowed with symbols she did not recognize…yet they seemed familiar. One of the walls was filled with a large rectangular window of the constellations. It dominated the room. In the bottom left corner of the window she saw a portion of a sphere she recognized as earth, but the continents were wrong. North America’s central region was flooded partially; Central America appeared as a broken island chain; South America was smaller than she thought it should be, with a long, wide bay stretching from the northern coast southward along the western edge of the continent and east of a diminutive mountain range; and a smaller hook-shaped continent she did not recognize sat off the western shores of what she thought was South America of the past.

  Images swirled again. Now she viewed faces of beings wielding great power. She instinctively feared them and their powers. A gemstone of vibrant colors filled her thoughts. No, not a gem…something else...something of enormous potential and wondrous terrors. Something very dangerous in the hands of the unkind, and just a little less dangerous in those some might consider the right hands. More faces and names to those faces filled her mind. So many...she feared she couldn’t suffer their memories. Nikki closed her eyes, wishing for this torment to stop. Still more images and sounds came: enslavement, revolt, battles, carnage, death…so much death, intense friendships, principled alliances, tragic betrayal, lost loves, and a shattered civilization. Terrible pain she felt for the lost ones. Their voices...somehow she knew their names. Nikki didn’t know how, but she knew them, their lives, their fears, their desires as well as she knew her own. Many were steadfast in their defiance of tyranny; others grew exhausted in their war of eternity. All wanted to be free of their masters. Nikki’s mind swirled and tumbled. She felt as if she flew, again, then fell. She smashed painfully with a teeth-jarring thud on a dirt and rock surface. She sucked in a gulp of air, and her lungs burned; the smell of sulfur filled her nose.

  Voices echoed in Nikki’s ears. She recognized the voices: Jimmy and Anders and Ramirez. They were cursing excitedly about something. Nikki was unsure what they spoke of, and she didn’t care. She was free of the hell, and she hurt all over. She was alive, even if her throat and lungs burned. Nikki coughed and coughed more, trying to catch her breath, but it eluded her as she rolled over and opened her eyes, frantically looking around, hoping for help. All three of her colleagues crouched over her with shocked and concerned looks on their faces. The cavern spun and became dim and colorless as Nikki lost some of her peripheral vision. She wanted to retch.

  “Nikki! Don’t move,” Anders instructed. Was that compassion in his voice? “You look like crap. Where in the hell did you go?” No compassion. “You were swallowed into that bluish...something…and were completely gone, then came hurling back out an instant later.”

  A piercing sound echoed throughout the cavern. The three men whirled around toward the obelisk as Jimmy’s voice cracked with fear. “What’s happening?”

  Nikki’s blurred vision allowed her only a hazy view of things. She felt herself slipping into darkness, but fought to remain conscious. She knew she was losing the battle. Through blurred vision, Nikki saw three strangely dressed people tossed from what appeared to be a blue field of energy between the two obelisks. They landed hard near her feet, one on top of the other. She couldn’t focus her eyes to see the details of their faces or their clothes, just their general forms and some colors. The three lethargically moved, trying to untangle themselves as they bitched at each other like children. Nikki thought even the others should be able to tell they weren’t friends by the way they poked and jabbed at one another, especially the one dressed in red. He was particularly vicious with his strikes. Everyone stared in stunned silence, except Miguel, who was closest and tried to help the stranger in red stand. Nikki had a vague recognition of the red-dressed man. Her blood nearly froze at the sight of him. She opened her mouth to warn Miguel away from the danger he was about to aid. She knew, somehow, that his kindness would be repaid with death.

  She was too late. In a flash of blu
e metal, Nikki heard the thwop of a blade cutting through flesh and bone, and she realized Miguel’s body no longer had a head. A dull, hollow thud echoed throughout the cavern as his head hit the ground and rolled. Yelling and panic filled the cavern. The other two that were spat from the void -- one average in height and lean, and one tall yet stocky -- tried to get up, but both collapsed and remained unmoving. Jimmy no longer kneeled motionless near Nikki. He launched himself with a growl at the red-garbed man, driving them both toward the far wall, but they fell short in a heap on the debris-cluttered cavern floor. Nikki’s vision dimmed further; darkness was taking her. She struggled to stay conscious…she was losing. A flash of bluish-green light filled the cavern and Jimmy tumbled through the air, landing awkwardly on the rocks.

  Nikki struggled on the cliff between reality and darkness. The man in red slowly rose from the place where Jimmy had knocked him down. Nikki instinctively knew the dangers of the man. She knew he was not bound by any moral code she approved. Nikki hoped the two lying on the cavern floor would rise and do battle with this danger, as they had done so in another time. Anders and Ramirez stood motionless with gawking gazes. Nikki feared for them. She tried to scream for them all to run, but she couldn’t summon the strength. A reddish glow grew in the red-garbed man’s hands, lighting up the cavern. Nikki lost all hope, and waited for the inevitable. The man hurled the light at them as he collapsed. She didn’t have to see the bright flash of crimson...she knew what it would do to her friends before it struck. Then darkness took her.

  Chapter 1

  Wants and Wishes

  Rogaan brooded hotly over his father’s stubbornness, denying him what was his. Frustrated and angry, he sat staring across the morning meal table at dim wavering shadows on the wall. Yellow light cast by several mirrored floor lamps illuminated the moderately sized room well enough, driving back the pre-dawn gloom and filling the air with a light scent of wild flowers -- his mother’s favorite. Rogaan’s long-awaited day was upon him and his father’s decree unwanted, though not unexpected. He had worked hard for his father in the smithy this year to earn the right to use his shunir’ra...today. Yet, he was denied for reasons unknown except for the ridiculous “tradition” of the Coming of Age given to him. Sitting in a sulk, with his short-bearded chin shoved into his palms, Rogaan looked at the half-empty bowl of mill in front of him. Strangely, he did not remember eating. Only his desperate search for words and argument that would change his father’s decree mattered to him, though in truth, Rogaan thought it might be easier to reason with a rock than with his father.