“Operative Br—k, we can confirm that the smaller stru—s contain a form of ingress to a subterra— passageway. Inside, each building seems … mod— after a location. Rit—stic, or otherwise important in a way we ca— be certain of. But all visual —cators seem to imply artistic intent, and no immediately —vious function—ty. Wong—wat, over.”
Bryluen nodded to herself. “We have found a network of passages below the main tower. They are likely connected—it’s a catacomb system. We’re advancing toward what we currently believe may be a central nexus. Our feeds will be relayed upon arrival. Branok out.”
The team followed the smooth incline downward for roughly one hundred twenty meters before they found the nexus point of the catacombs they would later learn spread through a square kilometer area of the plateau. During the last sixty meters, decorative touches began to grace the walls. At first they appeared to be only flourishes, but slowly gathered and materialized down the slope into larger images of flowing color and graceful detail. Surprisingly the images were easily understood, as if the importance of what they represented caused the creator to simplify their art-form to something any being could understand. The images gradually became more complex and detailed, as if clarifying the story of the previous pictures.
Primarily the art was scenes of carnage, depicted in a harrowing fashion which varied between chaotic slaughter and some form of ritual sacrifice. There were clearly layers of symbolism to the representations of events: the seeming protagonists were faceless, luminous beings leading hosts of smaller creatures of various description against their enemy. With a resigned sigh Bryluen confirmed the enemies depicted were undeniably The Dreaded, unaltered from their present appearance. Their familiar forms were depicted in a rainbow-like procession of colors, contrasted with the pure white-and-gold of the glowing ’Gods’ and their servants.
Kirby whispered in the dark silence. “Vort, you said The Dreaded aren’t dark to you. This anywhere like you meant?”
“It is much more like this, yes. Each of them flashes and shines like they are struggling to contain a burst of color inside of themselves.”
Thousands of ruthlessly detailed figures, enough to occupy archaeological teams for decades, stretched across each battle scene. Various weapons and technologies were pitted against endless masses of vicious monsters, all eventually failing. While all of the familiar forms of Dreaded were depicted, numerous others were present as well. Rolling tentacled things sprayed jets of acid, flying serpentine creatures spat projectiles, and massive brutes turned over alien tanks and walkers.
The entire spectacle was both objectively a work of immense craftsmanship, and a chilling look into the mind of an ancient culture forced to confront its own violent death. Bryluen gazed upon hundreds of beings whose physiology and natures she could scarcely comprehend—but still, how fearful and meticulously detailed were their faces that she swore she could still hear them screaming.
Further down the corridor, the scene transitioned to massive space battles. Bizarre alien craft in their hundreds dueled with Sjorthursars as entire planets burned. The displays of devastation dragged on for what felt like an eternity as increasingly large slaughters were rendered in monolithic detail along the catacomb walls. For all the restraint and simplicity of the rest of the complex, the scale of the tragedy displayed was so great that even the most simplistic rendition of its occurrence seemed an excessive and prolonged cruelty.
Minutes dragged on in silence until Bel’Wa began to mutter. Quietly, she began to slowly utter a poem she had once read. Its origin was of a culture whose remains had been found devastated. Bel’Wa had been present for the discovery that their destruction had been self-inflicted in a heinous and hateful fashion possessed of such a degree of organization and coldly efficient methodology that the very thought still sent a chill through her soul. The words she spoke were found etched into the notebook of a corpse, clutched tightly in its hand among ten thousand like it. She knew she would never forget those words, but had not uttered them aloud in decades. In the funereal silence around them, she could think of no other fitting words.
“’Round and ’round they fell, by dozens, and dozens, and dozens yet more.
Wails and cries, screams and pleas; downward, downward into pitiless dark.
’Round and ’round they fell, by hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds yet more.
Gluttonous silence raved and slavered; such bounty sent plummeting into its maw.
’Round and ’round they fell, by thousands, and thousands, and thousands yet more ...”
As the slope evened out and the tunnel shrunk back down to match the entry door, one final image was depicted: A ruined horizon, lorded over by a massive orb of many-colored flames. The single-minded intensity of the symbol after its many nuanced and detailed predecessors was deeply disturbing, and resonated with dark providence. With this stark image in mind, the corridor gave way to a massive chamber whose height was only made apparent by the rings of bio-luminescent material illuminating its cavernous interior.
A ring of two dozen tall pillars ringed the center of the chamber. Each pillar appeared like some kind of totem shaped in the forms of various faces—though detailed, the nature of the beings depicted was unknown to all present. Five other entrances led from other legs of the catacomb tunnels. In the center of the chamber lay the ’harbinger of fate’ spoken of by the catacomb inscription. As Bryluen suspected was the case, the harbinger was yet another Stone. The newest example of the strange mineral sat on a glowing, circular plinth that cast it in a sickly yellow light.
The presence of a Stone was unsurprising. What struck the team silent, however, was the size. The sinister object measured roughly five meters across, and stood over half as high. The sickening feelings of disdain and disgust invoked by the smaller Stones was magnified in proportion to its scale. So strong was the sensation that Bryluen found it difficult to even gaze upon the Stone. The nightmarish black surface seemed to absorb the light around it, leaving the slab a lightless mass haloed in the pallid yellow light generated by the plinth. Bryluen pushed the visceral reaction in her gut to the back of her mind, instead immediately beginning to both relay her visual feed to the Rangers and alert the Marine commanders of the Stone’s presence.
Bel’Wa, similarly used to a command position, alerted the Sentinels of what Dread Naught had found. The Marines had already begun landing and Sentinel Lancers were securing the complex’s perimeter. The rest of Dread Naught stood in silence, gazing at the ominous black object.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit. That … yeah, they’re gonna want this real fuckin’ bad. We’ve gotta get this to a base with a hell of a lotta guns.” Kirby finished her thought by blowing out a long breath.
“I ... you can f-feel that, ri-ight?” Runner put his hands on the sides of his helmet as if he were going to run his hands through his hair. “It’s awf-ful, like we shouldn’t be he-ere, shouldn’t be around-d this thing.”
Nicadzim spoke with an aggressive finality Dread Naught had never heard from him. “None of you will touch it. Not even with gloves, for any reason. It ... would be anathema to us.”
The group fell quiet again as Bryluen and Bel’Wa finished appraising the gathering military force of the situation. Bryluen took a deep breath before speaking once more.
“Understood, Nico. Well, we’ve seen why The Dreaded want to come here, and we know someone else seems to have been wiped out by them a long time ago, starting a long ways away. That said, knowing that isn’t saying much, and is certainly nothing specific enough yet to be particularly helpful.”
She stood with her arms crossed before the team as they continued casting dark looks toward the Stone. Her own thoughts were nowhere near as quiescent as she made it appear, but one of the many reasons she was the CSOE’s most lauded Operative was her ability to constantly project confidence and surety regardless of what she felt—as only the foolish and the soon to die believe themselves above doubts.
“I’ll have some equipment brought down to secure the Stone without any hands being involved. This hasn’t been the type of enlightening experience we may have hoped for, but if there’s any useful information here the top of the tower is where it would be. Let’s get this place surveyed and over with.
“I know this is easier said than done, but don’t let all this get to you, apocalyptic or otherwise. We’ve witnessed the panicked last memories of a dying civilization, and the weight of that is going to reach you. But for now put it aside, and compartmentalize it all for a time when we aren’t standing near a giant bull’s eye. Stay frosty, keep breathing.”
Bryluen waited a short moment, and then motioned for the team to go back up the ramp. Bel’Wa reached out and squeezed her hand as they turned about, the her red gauntlet intertwining with Bryluen’s bronze-clad digits for a moment. Bryluen squeezed back—though she could not see her wife’s face beneath her menacing helm, she knew it bore a concerned expression. The team followed Bryluen’s lead back up the long incline, this time at a jog—they had all seen quite enough of the catacombs and the agonized images that decorated them.
26. Dissolution and Discovery
The Astral Marine contingents of the Destroyer class vessels Passchendaele and Huángdì’s Decree were deploying to the surface, their drop craft guided in by secondary sensory systems in much the same way Kirby had piloted the Atet. Captain Wongsawat reported to Lieutenant Colonel Kitoko, the ranking Marine officer on Gru’Thiall. She was a tall and stern woman, with a spine as straight and unbending as a steel rod.
Upon emerging from her drop craft, she promptly marched off to find the ranking Sentinel in order to coordinate a defense. Though Bel’Wa technically had superiority, due to her obligations to Dread Naught the command of the Sentinels on Gru’Thiall fell to Cyoni’o, whose rank among the Sentinels was Wake-Maker. The Wake-Maker was as strongly built a man as a Sentinel could hope to be. The Qixing averaged broader proportions than Humans, and therefore their men were almost unanimously broad-shouldered and square jawed.
The pair rapidly devised a defensive plan that left the complex well-defended from all directions. The main gate and wall were overlooked by overlapping weapon emplacements among which modular metal barriers, Qixing force projectors, and communication relays were established for the soldiers atop the wall. Secondary gun positions were established atop the buildings within the wall, and the Marine walkers present took up patrols within the perimeter. The armored vehicles the Qixing deployed were arrayed in hull-down firing positions, and Lancer units had begun surveillance sweeps of the surrounding jungle to compensate for the lack of remote sensory capability.
Captain Wongsawat’s Rangers were deployed to map out the catacombs, with combat engineers following behind to secure the Stone for transport. The Gru’Thiall tomb was as safe as it could reasonably be, given the lack of pre-constructed defensive positions. The orbiting craft remained circling over the relevant planetary hemisphere, ready to strike at any Sjorthursars that may appear.
Dread Naught emerged from the catacombs back into the main tower, and advanced toward the spiraling ramp. The softly glowing incline swept smoothly upward in a dizzying spin to the top of the tower.
Bel’Wa sighed. “This isn’t going to be fun, is it?”
Kirby tested the structural integrity of the thin ramp with one foot, and found it entirely unaffected by her weight. She took a step up the ramp and was about to complain about such an advanced species refusing to leave an elevator behind, when she realized she was further up the ramp than she had recalled a moment prior.
She took a step back down, and found herself once more on the floor of the tower despite a distance of several paces having been between her and the base of the ramp a moment earlier. “... You saw that shit, right? Did I just … teleport?”
“Not precisely,” Bryluen intoned. “Difficult to describe, but it was just as if, somehow, all of our perspectives were off. That the distance was just vastly shorter than it seemed. No blinking, no sliding, you just went further than you should have. This is much better than an elevator, Furcotte: the scenic route, without the trouble.”
Nicadzim smiled. “The climb would not be so unpleasant after all?”
Dread Naught soon began to advance up the ramp, finding themselves dozens of meters in the air in an impossibly short amount of time. The light from the open door at the base of the tower quickly receded, leaving them all enshrouded in only a dim yellow glow. After only a minute or so, they spotted a warm aura of light above them—undoubtedly whatever was kept at the top of the tower.
Runner broke the silence by clearing his throat. “Well, uh, w-we haven’t found exactly where the whole sign-n-nal dampening thing is coming from? Maybe th-h-hat’s above us?”
Bel’Wa rolled her neck. “Hopefully, Runner. And we’ve yet to find what ʻspark’ is left of these ʻgods’. They seem fans of drama, so presumably the top of a massive tower would be a fine place to put the last piece of yourselves.”
“... whattaya think we’d leave behind? Humans, I mean?” The jockey’s hulking, mechanized aspect contrasted her introspective tone.
“You aren’t nearly the first one to ask that question, Kirby.” Bryluen squeezed the edge of one of Bel’Wa’s broad shoulder pads as she accelerated her pace to walk side-by-side with the exosuit. “Ever heard of the CCP? Cultural Continuity Project. They've established vaults filled with historical data, copies of important works of art, videos, and forms of entertainment in dozens of planetary systems in case anything happens. After discovering more than a few dead civilizations, we realized that surviving your home world doesn't keep you from being wiped off the map later. So, to answer your question: we’d leave behind everything we could. All our lessons, our failings. Every effort to prove that we existed.”
“These people will be so much more advanced than us, yet all we will find is this?” Nicadzim motioned around him. “Then again, we were far away from their home: maybe more had been laid about in their home stars.”
“This is supposedly their last spark, so I’m not sure. Even if you go around making vaults, sometimes no preparation is enough. This may be all that’s left; after all, this was no natural disaster.” Bryluen’s last words ended the conversation for the rest of their climb.
As they reached the top of the tower, they entered a rounded, sizable chamber glowing with golden light. The contrast was shocking after the darkness of the catacombs and the dim ascent from the entryway. The back wall of the tall chamber bore a series of complex, abstract images. The ’pictures’ were imprinted along the rear wall, each shining and swimming in colors that were difficult to name.
Unlike the moving decorations of the doors and spires, these images seemed to possess depth. Colors and vague shapes flowed within them, though they each stayed within a solid border. On the floor by the top of the ramp, a series of characters were etched in such a way their slanted proportions would appear straight to an observer roughly three times the height of a human. Though the floor was entirely flat, the edges of the characters were clearly visible and as undisturbed by time as the rest of the complex.
The most notable part of the high chamber was the large object perched in the center, which was responsible for the warmth and light that filled the chamber. A golden spheroid slightly taller than the Marduk dominated the room, it’s rich color and tangible warmth a startling contrast to the rest of the cold and quiet tower. It was made of an indeterminate material best described as some sort of matte metal. Golden bands ringed the device at even intervals, culminating in a rounded cap atop the object. Otherwise, no meaningful details or indicators of functionality were present on its surface.
Again cursory armor scans revealed nothing, but Bryluen saw a HUD warning indicating her communications equipment was entirely non-functional—they had clearly found the source of the sensor disturbance as Runner had posited might be the case.
She pointed to the characters on the floor without le
tting her eyes leave the glowing object. "Nico, would you please?"
Nicadzim read the symbols aloud, his voice again transforming.
YOU STAND WITHIN THE HALL OF DISSOLUTION. WITNESS THE FAILURE OF THE GODS, AND THE COMING OF THE BOUNDLESS TERROR.
BEFORE YOU STANDS THE LAST EMBER, ITS SLUMBER UNDISTURBED UNTIL IT FALLS BENEATH THE WORLD-ENCIRCLER’S SHADOW.
Bryluen put her hands on her hips. “’World-encircler’? You’re sure? That exact wording?”
“Yes ma’am, I was certain. Will that be a concern?”
Runner interjected. “Yeah, it’s w-w-weird as hell. The ancient Nor-rse used ʻWo-o-orld Encirc-cler’ as an, uh, epithet for Jörmungandr. Big-ass sea serpent that wrap-pped around the whole world.”
Runner saw Kirby raise an inquiring eyebrow at him through her visor. “W-when you’re raised by the public librar-ry system, you learn thin-ngs.”
“The likelihood of that exact epithet, given that we gave a Norse designation to the space-faring forms of Dreaded is too specific to be a coincidence.” Bryluen wagged a finger toward Nicadzim, still staring at the spheroid. “Nicadzim, is there any thought in your mind that this language … well, maybe depends somewhat on whoever reads it? Perhaps it pulls analogues from your memory to help you understand the message? There are theories about that kind of technology, a form of neural prediction that would make live translation ridiculously simple. To have it work on a species you’ve never even met, in a flat carving left to sit around for unknown ages, however ...”
“I ... believe that will be plausible,” Nicadzim confirmed. “Given, I won’t be able to read the words as much as I could interpret them.”
“If it relies on Nico’s memories and therefore chose to use this … ’Norse’ term, then logically it would be using ’World-Encircler’ to refer to another form of space-borne Dreaded. Presumably something much bigger.” Vort passed through several orange shades as he unfolded his thought.
The Shadow Among The Stars: Book One of the Dread Naught Trilogy Page 29