‘It is terrible, Gregory, absolutely terrible. I have never known such a feeling of… of dread,’ his mother said on the comm. ‘And that horrible murder at Port Gagarin last night – God knows I remember how bad it was before the Winter Coup but it was nothing like this, not at all. At least that was just us fighting among ourselves, but this? – did you see that battleship on the news?… The size of it…’
‘Aye, Mum, I did,’ he said. ‘So much for all the Hegemony talk of peace and cooperation.’
He was standing in the large stone window in the north face of Giant’s Shoulder. Behind him the passage ran straight through the rock to the icy room of pillars, beyond which was the warpwell, as Chel had called it. Chel and Listener Weynl were there now, according to a message he’d got earlier that morning while reassigning the sector surveys. Most of his Uvovo field researchers were involved with this Artificer business, but luckily the Rus and Norj teams had agreed to take up the slack. Vaguely irritated by Chel’s message, Greg had been on his way to the winch-lowering spot at the wall – now covered by a gazebo – when he got a call from his brother Ian asking him to call their mother and say something to ease her worries. Once he was down in the passageway he had done so, only to find himself agreeing with her bleak outlook. He had seen a news summary that morning and all of it, from the slaughter at Port Gagarin to the Brolturan troops fortifying the Hegemony embassy, was grim.
‘Surely the Sendrukans and the Brolturans and the Earthsphere people won’t let this get worse,’ Greg said. ‘Sanity has to prevail.’
To his surprise, she laughed. ‘Only if sanity is backed by heavy weapons, my dear. Do you remember your father’s elder brother, Piers?’
‘Uncle Piers? Vaguely – bit of a black sheep, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, you could say that – he was on Ingram’s side during the Winter Coup, helping organise support in the trapper towns and further out, but his heavy-handed methods backfired on him and he supposedly met a grisly end away in the north. Anyway, he had a favourite saying – “Screw negotiations, break out the ammo” – which I suspect these Brolturans would identify heavily with.’ She was silent a moment. ‘I worry about the three of you so much, because I fear that it will all get much worse before it gets better. Ian is a soldier and Ned is a doctor, so danger will come searching for one of them…’
‘Mum, you shouldna worry so much, and especially not about me – all I do is rattle about with my stone carvings and dusty potsherds.’ Aye, and a mysterious, underground chamber built by a vanished race, probably Forerunner. ‘But we’ll also be looking out for each other, and Uncle Theo.’
‘Ah, I spoke to him this morning – he said that he was on the trail of those who killed the Brolturan ambassador but he was too late to stop it. He’s so angry, at himself too. Oh look, I’ve talked long enough. I should let you get on with your work… oh, I meant to ask if your friend Ms Macreadie is still working at your site.’
‘No, she’s away back up to Nivyesta, Mum. She really only was here for that official visit a couple of days ago.’
‘Right, of course. Well, goodbye, dear.’
After their farewells, Greg put his comm away and headed along the passage, burdened by guilt, knowing he should be in touch with his mother more often, actually making the call rather than leaving it to her or, in this case, Ian.
Perhaps I’m just not a very good son, he thought gloomily as he walked down into the room of pillars.
Chel and Listener Weynl were out on the chamber’s patterned floor, at roughly the spot where Greg had lost his boots the day before. Barefooted, they were crouching down in the cold golden light of a lamp sitting on the boundary wall, a short strap anchoring it to a shoulder pack. Warily, Greg approached the gap and sat on the wall, legs kept safely away from the floor patterns.
Chel glanced up and smiled. ‘Friend Gregori, good to see you.’ He was wearing the headband over his new eyes and seemed more relaxed and rested than last time.
Then Weynl straightened and gave him a measured look.
‘May I address you as “Scholar”, Mr Cameron?’ the Listener said. ‘It feels far more appropriate considering all that you have done for the Uvovo, all the clues you have found, culminating in this amazing discovery.’
‘I would be honoured to accept the title, Listener,’ he said. ‘Is there a ceremony involved?’
‘Yes – it consists of a day and a half of meditation in a vodrun, followed by individual visits to your family and friends to sing the Song of New Leaves. However, there is no vodrun within easy travel and the pressure of events allows little enough time for even the most vital of tasks.’
Greg hesitated, not expecting the seriousness in Weynl’s words and his demeanour. Even Chel’s smile was sombre.
‘By events, do you mean this diplomatic row with the Brolturans? Once we catch those murdering maniacs, we’ll get back to negotiations and it’ll all blow over. And anyway, what bearing does that have on our work here?’
‘Do you remember what I told you yesterday about this place, Gregori?’ Chel said.
‘You said that it was built a hundred millennia ago by a race, no, an alliance of races called the Great Ancients. And I said, well now, that sounds similar to these Forerunners I’ve been hearing about in the news and on the vee, who were supposedly wiped out in a cataclysmic war about a hundred thousand years ago.’ Greg smiled. ‘And I said, so what did this big chamber actually do, what was it for, and you said that you’d get Listener Weynl to explain it to me… and here we all are. I assume that it has something to do with my dazzling experience yesterday.’
Weynl nodded. ‘A defence – the well has a vigilant Sentinel, watching tirelessly, guarding against anything that might be considered a threat.’
‘Like my boots?’
‘The Sentinel is very wary of unnatural or processed materials,’ Weynl said. ‘You’ll notice that our feet are bare. If you take off your footwear you can join us – it’s quite safe.’
Greg held up his hands. ‘Once was plenty, thank you. So, what are you doing, and how does it relate to what this place is for?’
Chel looked up from the pattern grooves, which were gleaming where he had touched them, although Greg noticed that the radiance faded when he lifted his fingers away.
‘We’re trying to rouse the Sentinel,’ Chel said. ‘Then hopefully speak with it.’
‘Speak with it and warn it,’ added Weynl. ‘The Great Ancients built this place and others like it on a hundred other planets, wells of power to counter the terrible might of the Enemy; numberless in their vast hordes, they sought to smother and strangle all who opposed them, but the wells could reach out into the starry blackness, drag them down and swallow them, sending them down into the darkness below the darkness, the emptiness within the emptiness.’
Greg stared at the older Listener, not knowing what to say, feeling oddly embarrassed, but he knew that he could not dissemble.
‘Listener Weynl, I’ve heard the Saga of the Ancient Roots and I’ve read the transcript – I’m sorry but it’s a legend, a myth. All societies and cultures have stories like this in the bedrock of their prehistory…’
But Weynl was smiling at him, not quite in pity, more like tolerant amusement.
‘Friend Gregori,’ said Chel. ‘This is not a matter of faith for the Uvovo – we know it to be true, as true as the War of the Long Night.’
‘Chel, you’ve seen our work…’
‘Gregori, you saw what happened here yesterday – you were blinded for several minutes by the forces that came up out of the pattern.’
‘I’ll concede that this is a technological artefact from some vanished civilisation,’ he said. ‘But there’s not a shred of evidence to connect this place to the Uvovo myths.’
‘Scholar Cameron,’ said Weynl. ‘I tell you in all honesty that this chamber is the reason why the Hegemony is so interested in Umara. They know of this place and they want it – its powers would make them invincible.’
It was an amazing statement and lent a growing sense of unreality to an already bizarre situation. But Weynl said it with such steady conviction that Greg took a mental step backwards – could it be true, he wondered. It explained several coincidences, yet for all that it was a tantalising conjecture his ingrained scepticism demanded empirical evidence.
‘How may we convince you, friend Gregori?’ said Chel.
‘Proof,’ he said. ‘Show me undeniable proof that it’s all connected – Segrana, this chamber, the Forerunner Catastrophe, the Uvovo – and I’ll… well, I’ll know better.’
‘If we can persuade the Sentinel to speak,’ Weynl said, ‘would that suffice?’
‘That would certainly get my attention, aye.’
Smiling, the Listener looked at Chel, who nodded. As Greg watched, the Uvovo crouched down, examining the incised stone, muttering to each other as they ran fingertips along the lines of the patterns. Silver threads shone in their wake and he noticed that each Uvovo was delineating a cluster of lines, symbols and curves distinct and separate while just a few feet apart. After working on them for a few minutes, first Weynl then Chel rose and took three paces out towards the middle of the floor, crouched down and again scribed out glowing patterns on the stone. Their squatting forms appeared dim and shadowy a few yards from the lamp, but the patterns gleamed like mercury.
Chel stood and came back over to the nearer pair, crouched and began tracing a line from one pattern cluster to the other, while Weynl did the same at his end. When the links were made, the pattern pairs brightened suddenly then faded – the Uvovo grinned at each other and nodded. Then Weynl bent down and began to scribe a bright thread from his patterns back to Chel’s. Just before the end he paused, smiled up at Chel and Greg, then closed the gap.
All four pattern clusters brightened significantly and the wall at the opposite side was now just visible. Like the last time Greg felt a change in the air, which became neither warmer nor cooler, with no change in humidity or odour or even pressure. It was as if abruptly something was present in the chamber, something impassive…
TUUL-RAAN-SHAYH
Greg jumped as a massive voice spoke. It came from all around, and while it was not overly loud there was a deep, resonant timbre to it which made the hairs on his arms tingle.
Chel and Weynl looked stunned and uncertain. The Listener started calling out greetings in the Uvovo tongue while Chel whispered suggestions. Greg however felt sure that those three words were not from the Uvovo language.
SHUUL-TANN-RAYH
‘Do you know what that means?’ Greg said.
The two Uvovo glanced at each other before Weynl spoke.
‘I cannot be sure, Scholar Cameron. At first I thought it was an ancient dialect of our tongue, or even a high idiom used by senior Listeners, yet there is no recognisable sense to these… sounds…’
‘But did you notice with the second announcement that the initial consonants shifted?’ Greg said, a nasty suspicion forming in his thoughts. ‘If it shifts again…’
RUUL-SHAAN-TAYH
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think we should get out of here, actually…’
‘But why, friend Gregori?’ said Chel.
‘Remember the tests you and I went through?’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘Remember what happened to my boots?’
Chel smiled. ‘I really don’t think that we’re in danger, Gregori.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I have been using my new senses to study the well and what lies beneath it, and I can tell you that the flow of powers is very different from before.’
‘Hmm, either you’re very trusting,’ Greg said, moving in the direction of the entrance, ‘or very optimistic.’
SHUUL-RAAN TAYH
‘I think that sometimes I am a distrustful optimist,’ Chel said, while Listener Weynl continued calling out greetings in a variety of Uvovo dialects.
‘Well I’m an orthodox sceptic,’ Greg said. ‘So I’ll be waiting back at the corridor while you see what happens…’
Chel grinned and waved and Greg left the chamber. He was near the head of the stairway when the comm in his jacket beeped, alerting him to a message. He took it out, thumbed the keys, saw it was from Catriona and began to read while walking along the entry corridor.
‘Hi Greg,’ it began. ‘I tried calling you but the node hub said you were out of range so I’m sending a com-note instead. Just to let you know that I’m going to try something different in my hunt for the Pathmasters – a Listener I know suggested I spend a few hours in a vodrun chamber, contemplating the mysteries of Segrana in the hope that she might see fit to let me in on a few Pathmaster secrets. Anyway, by the time you read this I’ll probably be in the vodrun, especially given the signal lag between here and Darien. I guess you’re back down there in that chamber – wish I was there too. Bye.’
The comnote had been sent nearly half an hour ago but had only reached him when he left the chamber and came to the corridor. Suddenly anxious, he began keying for a return call but before he could put it through, that deep, reverberant voice spoke again from below…
HORON
Reflexively, Greg turned to the stone wall, clamping his hands over his eyes. For telescoping moments all was dark and silent, no remorseless, hammering light pouring into his optic nerves, turning the world into white fog. Cautiously, he peered from behind his fingers, then lowered his hands – all seemed fine, but just to be sure he hurried back to the stairs, pausing halfway down.
‘Chel, are you both okay?’ he shouted.
‘All is well, Gregori,’ came the faint reply. ‘No need for concern.’
‘Great!’ he yelled back, then retraced his steps, waiting till he reached the window, where the body harnesses hung, before making the call to Catriona.