by Ben Johnston
“I shouldn’t have friends. They get hurt.”
Tom took a step towards Anniya. “There's a lot of things that shouldn’t be. The Vectans shouldn’t be as powerful as they are. You shouldn’t be here on this planet, away from your old home. And, I don’t know, sure. Maybe you shouldn’t have friends. But you do have friends.” Tom smiled at Anniya, then at Spirit. “Right, Spirit?”
The fox tilted his head at Tom, eyes glowing.
Tom blinked at the lightfox. “OK. So, no support from him. But believe me. You have friends.”
Anniya stared levelly at Tom. “So I have friends even though I shouldn’t? So everything is as it shouldn’t be? So what am I supposed to do when things are like that?”
Tom blinked quickly. “Well, when the wrong people are powerful, you fight.”
Anniya frowned. “I don’t want to fight.”
Tom looked downwards. “When you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, you just make do.”
Anniya raised her chin. “I don’t make do. I make light.”
He looked up at Anniya. “And when you have friends, you just be a friend.”
Her eyes dropped down to land on Tom. “I don’t want friends.” She looked away. “I don’t even know how to be a friend.”
Tom grinned. “Being a friend is as easy as having a friend. Being a good friend is as simple as helping a friend.”
Anniya’s nostrils flared. “Helping a friend. Very subtle. Seriously, Spark. You want me to abandon my new house.” She waved around at the roofless, viney area, light rain starting to fall, and took a step away from Tom. “And go back to that arrogant School.”
Tom took another step towards Anniya. “I know how it is to just want to stay home. To just want to go home. But then, after I had left, now that I’m finally back home, after I went back to my apartment, it didn’t feel the same as before I left. I guess when you leave home, you never really return.”
Anniya looked around the incomplete, half-grown treehouse, rainwater starting to trickle down her face.
Tom leaned towards her. “Do it as a favor. Even though you don’t want to.” He smiled, rain dripping off his curls. “Do it for a friend. Even though you don’t want a friend.” He looked up at the falling rain, still smiling. “And, you know, maybe do it for the trillions of people in all the free galaxies of the Union.” He looked down from the falling rain, giving her a wink.
Anniya rolled her eyes, letting out an involuntary laugh. “Tom. Do you know how long it took me to find this place? There’s almost no forests on this dim planet that don’t have a fracted house every hundred steps. And when I finally did find this ruinous park, it has people wandering around everywhere. There’s pathways everywhere.”
“It’s a national park, Anniya. People come here to hike and relax. If you keep trapping campers and park rangers, they’re going to find you eventually. You can’t hide forever.”
Anniya folded her soggy arms. “Watch me.”
Tom laughed. “You can’t just sit here. You’re the golden champion. You could become the Golden Hero. Or, what did they used to call you. The Shadow! We could call you the Golden Shadow!”
The rain was falling hard, yet Anniya had to fight back a smile. “Golden Shadow? That doesn’t even make sense, Sparky.” She looked up to the gray sky, then back to Tom. “OK, you little light-head. I’ll come back to the School and help you guys figure out that faded goldenlight sunstone. But just for a bit.” Anniya stood, a wry smile on her wet face. “Just as a favor for a friend.”
Chapter 40
Christopher and Anniya walked down a stark, white hallway. They stopped and Christopher motioned to the sheer white wall. “Welcome to SP Labs.”
Anniya furrowed her eyebrows looking at the featureless wall. She turned back to Christopher. “It’s a wall, Doc.”
With a smug grin, Christopher placed his hand on the wall. The wall vanished, revealing a large room bustling with activity. All around the big place, people stood or sat on stools along glass tables arranged in rows, all scattered with assorted devices.
Christopher held out his hand to the room. “And now the wall is a lab! Come on in.”
Anniya blinked.
They walked into the lab together, the wall reappearing behind them, and after passing by the rows of tables, devices, and chattering researchers, went through a door with guards standing on each side to enter a room which had an additional guard. They approached a table in the center of the room on which the goldenlight sunstone sat surrounded by a transparent shield.
Anniya narrowed her sparkling, glittering eyes, squinting at the goldenlight sunstone that sat behind the small dome shield. Christopher leaned against the wall, watching her. After some time had passed, he leaned in. “Are you OK doing your sparkly eye thing for this long?”
She nodded slowly, her eyes still sparkling, still focused on the inert goldenlight sunstone. “Sure, Doc. I can do this all day. I’ve almost got a picture of something. There’s something there. Just need to look for a little longer.”
Christopher shrugged and sat back.
Shortly thereafter, Anniya let out a quick breath. “It’s a glyph.” She nodded. “It’s an image of the Twelve Towers. However, there is another Tower.”
Christopher frowned. “A thirteenth Tower?”
Anniya shrugged. “It’s upside-down. And there’s actual writing calling this tower the ‘Pillar’.”
Christopher blinked. “Are they talking about the Pillar? The School has a pillar artifact and it’s actually infused with goldenlight, just like the Towers themselves. They built the School Library around it. But the Pillar is just a little thing. It’s not a Tower. And it’s not upside down. It’s just a regular pillar in the center of a little plaza in the middle of the Library. It just happens to be infused with goldenlight.”
She looked away from the goldenlight sunstone to Christopher, her sparkling eyes fading back to their normal hazel. “Nobody is ever going to unravel the goldenlight from this stone. Chris, they’re never going to open up and get the light out of this thing. This goldenlight sunstone isn’t the answer. It’s not a lock. It’s a key.”
Christopher blinked under a low brow. “A key? A what are you talking about?”
Anniya sighed, looking at the goldenlight sunstone sitting there behind the shield. “I think we need to take the goldenlight sunstone to the Pillar.” She glanced at the SP soldier standing guard by the door.
Christopher laughed. “Take it? Yeah, no. That’s not happening. That goldenlight sunstone is now a top-level SP artifact. It’s never leaving this place. Special Projects has the sunstone top-order classified.”
Anniya narrowed her eyes. “If I could just get my hands on the stone. I bet I could get it out of here…”
Christopher rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Good luck with that. You wouldn’t get out that door if you grabbed the stone. And besides, before you could even get your hands on the blinding thing, you would need to remove the shield, and that would take an act of…”
Christopher paused. “Hey. Goldie.”
Anniya looked at the Archeologist.
Christopher grinned. “Come with me.”
Returning a short while later, Christopher handed the SP guard watching the sunstone a transparency with the authorization sigil of Director Jonathan Weaver.
“As you can see, my good soldier, we are authorized to directly view the stone.”
The guard reviewed the sheet, eyed Christopher and Anniya, each in turn, then deactivated the shield around the goldenlight sunstone.
Anniya glanced at Christopher, then stepped forward to the table in the middle of the room, reached out, and took the sunstone. She lifted it to her face, staring at the inert stone with apparent interest. Christopher reached down to tie his shoe and set a small device on the ground by the leg of the table on which the goldenlight sunstone had been set. He then stood, moving his boot to conceal the little device.
Anniya and Christopher both turned to
the guard, smiled, then moved apart to reveal the goldenlight sunstone sitting safely back in place on the table. As Christopher and Anniya sauntered away, Christopher patted the guard on the shoulder. “Oh well. She didn’t see anything. You can go ahead and reactivate the shield.”
The dome shield reappeared around the goldenlight sunstone on the table.
Anniya and Christopher exited the room.
Taking a swift platform gliding down bleached-white paths over the rivers and through the central valley forest they proceeded to where there stood amid the trees the great Library of the School. They made their way through the populated, but silent halls and between shelves like sheer cliffs, individuals riding escalating ladders up and down as they searched for and found books, slates, and transparencies. Moving through the quiet masses, to the very heart of the grand building, and once there, Anniya ran to the middle of some sparsely-inhabited, concentric circles of long shelves where, in the center, surrounded by comfortable-looking seatting, stood the Pillar.
Christopher approached the Pillar skeptically. “Here’s the Pillar. It’s imbued with goldenlight, like the Towers. It’s indestructible.” He held out his hands, palms up. “But other than that, it’s pretty boring.” He dropped his hands. “It just sits here in the center of the library. People sit on the seats around here and read quietly. About the only exciting thing is the ancient Union credo engraved on it.” He glanced at Anniya. “It’s from the first age. Pretty dark for the School. Here, flash on this. I’ll read it to you.”
With a mildly wild grin, the archeologist in his long jacket turned to read from the engraving on the Pillar. Then he suddenly paused, blinking at a concave depression just below the engraved Union credo. “That’s funny. Wait.”
His eyes shot open as he slapped his forehead. “Suns blind me!” Christopher turned his wide eyes to Anniya. “Look right below the engraving. The deep impression of the seal of the School.”
Anniya leaned in for a closer look. Below the engraving, the impression was exactly the same size and shape as the goldenlight sunstone. Her eyes went wide. “Doc. That looks like the spot for the stone.”
Anniya reached into her pocket and withdrew the goldenlight sunstone. She blinked at the inert object in her hand. “How long do you think before SP realizes we swapped the stone?”
Chrisopher shrugged. “They probably already have.”
With clenched teeth, Anniya fixed her eyes on the space below the engraving on the pillar. “I guess this is it, then.” She looked at the stone. “So, what do we do? Do we just place the sunstone in there?”
Chrisopher nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.” He then stopped nodding and shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know. It sure looks like you just put the goldenlight sunstone right there, but before you try that we should probably…”
As Christopher was speaking, Anniya’s hand shot forward, pressing the sunstone into the depression below the engraving on the Pillar.
Too late, Christopher lunged forward. “No! Wait!”
Chapter 41
The shelves, the long cushioned seats, the wall slates, the few people sitting and reading quietly vanished as Christopher and Anniya found themselves suddenly drowned in complete darkness. Christopher produced a torch from his pocket and activated the lamp. Seeing that Anniya was looking up, he followed her gaze. Directly above them a circle of light shrank rapidly to a point before vanishing.
Christopher looked down at the floor beneath his feet. It appeared to be flat gray, not the white marble floor of the library. He shined the torch a few feet away. The flat gray floor ended, turning into darkness. “Anniya, I think we’re on a platform.” He looked upwards. “And I think it’s taking us down.”
Anniya glanced around them at the surrounding darkness. “I can see that.”
All was dark. There was no sense of movement, no breeze, no sound, there was just a dome of a force field around them, glimmering faintly.
Then, with no sound or any indication, the glimmer of the forcefield vanished like breath in cold air. Anniya gazed out at the utter darkness. “I think we’ve reached the floor.” She turned to Christopher. “I can see ground out there”
She turned slowly around. “This place is the size of a Tower.” She tilted her head back, looking upwards. “But it doesn’t have a ceiling.” She craned her neck. “There’s no floors above us. This place just has this one floor.” She blinked, gazing upwards. “Fracted Ruin. It goes on forever. Are we underground or something?”
Taking a step closer to Anniya, Christopher dimmed his torch lamp and joined her in staring straight up into nothing. “How, in the ages of the legendary School, did nobody ever find a blinding upside-down Tower in the middle of the other Towers.” He looked down at the floor, shining his light over the flat-gray surface. “Nonetheless, here we are.”
Looking up from the gray floor, he peered out straight ahead, squinting. “Hey. Do you see that?” He dimmed his torch. “Is that a light?.”
Anniya stepped up beside the archeologist staring at the darkness. “I see it, Doc.” She turned her eyes to Christopher. “It’s a pedestal.”
After first turning up the brightness on his torch, Christopher then let the light go to float in the air next to him. He then pulled open his long jacket and, from a pocket within a pocket, withdrew a palm-sized device. He pointed the small device at the ground. On top of the device, a small, squarish clear panel phased-in, showing a dim, ocean-blue enhancement of the floor.
Clasping the device to his wrist with an attached strap, Christopher then reached into the other side of his long jacket and withdrew a cylindrical object. This device glowed from its end like a torch lamp, but instead of emitting a bright, steady light, this torch was the color of hot iron. Its glowing tip threw a weak speckle of angry red glints out across the ground immediately in front of the archeologist.
Finally, Christopher reached up and snatched his actual torch lamp from out of the air where it had been floating, then turned it off. Except for the cool light from the device wrapped on his wrist and the prickly speckles of red glinting off the floor, Anniya and the archeologist were drowned in utter darkness. Step by step, the bearded man began to walk forward, his eyes locked to the device on his wrist, watching the cyan display as he swept the red torch out before him. One step at a time, he crept forward like this.
Anniya followed, patiently, at first. “So, Doc. Those are, what. Trap-detectors or something?”
Christopher, still concentrating on the screen on his wrist, nodded. “Yeah. Something like that.” They continued to step forward. Christopher, still staring at the device, lowered his eyebrows. “Hey, why do you have to ask? Can’t you just grok my devices, or whatever it is you do.?”
Anniya gave her head a tilt. “Sure, I could. But I would have to break them.”
Christopher’s eyebrows jumped. “Oh. OK. Well then, thanks for asking.”
After a few more creeping footsteps, Anniya let out a huge sigh then ran around in front of Christopher, facing him, walking backwards.
“Hey, Doc. Do you mind if I run ahead?”
Christopher stopped and stood up straight, his face lit dim green and sparkling red from beneath by the weak light of his devices. The screen on the wrist device displayed her footprints clearly. “Goldie, the smartest thing for us to do would be to stay together. I know this place looks boring, which makes it seem safe. But trust me, I learned my lesson long ago about truly ancient places. I’m blinding careful.”
Anniya tapped her foot. “You’re blinding slow.”
“I’m also a blinding School archeologist.” He began to walk forward again, passing by Anniya. “You need to use a little patience.”
“A little is all I have. And I just used it.”
With a flash of faint cranberry light and a hair-rustling wind, Anniya shot past Christopher. Her voice faded as she bounded away. “There’s no traps or anything! I’d be able to see them! You know that I can see in the dark, right...”
> Christopher stood and watched Anniya’s periodic dim flashes. The flashes grew fainter and fainter and smaller and smaller as she moved away into the darkness. Finally Christopher saw the flashes stop in the distance at exactly the place where the tiny light lay.
Unhurriedly, Christopher unwrapped the device from his wrist as the sparking red torch in his hand fizzled-out. He then placed both objects back into his long jacket. Activating his torch lamp, the archeologist put his head down, then began to jog towards the light in the distance.
Arriving some time later, sweating profusely and gasping for air, Christopher found Anniya studying the glowing pedestal.
She looked up to the archeologist, her face lit from beneath by the light from the swirled lines that covered the pedestal. “This is where we place the sunstone. Right here on top, in the middle.”
She looked down at the pedestal roughly the size of a big tree stump, chest-high. The small, sunstone-sized depression in the center of its top surface. “Funny. It reminds me of my old house’s…” She blinked.
Christopher moved closer to the pedestal, his eyes studying the intricate patterns of brightly-glowing lines that covered its surface. He drew in a deep breath, nodding. “That’s where you place the stone, right there.” He let the breath out, wiping sweat from his brow. “That concave depression is the same size and shape as the impression on the Pillar.”
Anniya, her face beaming with excitement, ignoring the winded archeologist, reached out to place the sunstone into the concave depression.
Christopher’s eyes whipped wide open as he shot out his hand to cover the slot. “Stop doing that!” He glared at Anniya. “Do you know how important an event this is? We are required by Central Bureaucracy and Union law to get a record. An official record.” He stood up straight, then dropped his head, drawing in a long, deep breath. “Just as soon as I catch my breath.”
Anniya scowled. “Why do you Union people always need a record?”
Christopher sighed, holding up his hand placatingly. “I know, I know. The School auditors can be overzealous with their documents and documentation. But they have a saying I pretty much agree with. ‘you don’t know if you need a record or not until after you’ve made it’.” He shrugged.