The Beacon, page 5
Arke was right. They would learn the truth soon enough, but he wished he knew more going into this.
When they arrived at the entrance to the pyramid, which couldn’t have been the main entrance as this was a wide triangular opening on the side with a Malvali-made ramp leading from it to the webbed streets, they were met by two Arachnoid guards. They were huge, not quite as large as the two workers they’d seen earlier, but nonetheless imposing. Black bodies with white speckles on the sides and legs. They each held long staves in their front arms, and the poles, made of some golden metal, crackled with energy. They wore no armor, but Malvali flesh was said to be armor-like and incredibly durable.
With a bow, he addressed the guards. “Greetings. We are Sentinels in need of an audience with the magistrate. The customs office said they would call ahead for us.”
The guards looked at each other. One had black eyes and the other’s had a yellow tinge to them. The left had six eyes; the right had four.
They muttered to each other in a tone that he couldn’t make out, then one of them checked a thin device on the side of their head. Melias guessed it was a comm device, though he wasn’t sure. A moment later, a look of agreement passed between the two, and they stepped aside, moving their staves and letting them through.
“His Holiness is up the main stairs. Very top, then to the antechamber at end of the hall.”
Melias bowed again. “Thank you.”
They continued inside. He released a breath. “Okay, obstacle number two accomplished.”
“Let’s not rest on our victory yet,” Niath said.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The inside of the temple was much the same as he’d encountered before. Long halls, high ceilings, dark stone, strange lights. Through the first hall from the entrance, they came to a large antechamber that took up almost the entire floor, though he saw smaller doors heading to dark corridors beyond. It was an open space, with several seating areas and prayer nooks. Unlike the ruins he’d been in before, this one was not empty. Arachnoids and Othalli streamed about. The Malvali came in different sizes, but they moved with purpose and were adorned in bits of metal and bare scraps of cloth. Temple priests, if he had to guess. The Othalli wore simple vestments. Priests too, perhaps, or workers in the employ of the temple. He wasn’t sure if Othalli were allowed to be priests or not.
They gave the Sentinels a bit of notice, but no one stopped them.
At first, Melias was worried that they might get lost, but the guard’s directions were not meant for deceit or confusion in any way. At the end of the room, beyond a raised dais with some sort of altar, was a stairwell wide enough for even the largest Malvali to ascend comfortably.
They took the stairs quickly but not recklessly. There were still plenty of priests and workers taking the stairs as well, though there were fewer and fewer the higher they got to the top. Once there, they were alone. It was quiet. The ambiance was serene, holy. Melias didn’t believe in any sort of religion, but he had to admit there was something about this place.
The top of the stairs ended in a small receiving room with some webbed seating areas along the walls. Melias had a sense that there was still more to the pyramid above them, because this space was too large to be the top. The ceiling angled to a point at the center of the room, but it was too shallow to be the true top of the temple.
He had expected there to be some guards present or some priests or attendants to the magistrate, but it was empty. Maybe that was why they were allowed to see the magistrate, as they had no duties to see to at the moment.
The short hall to the magistrate’s room was shorter than some from below and only wide enough for three of them to walk side by side, so he was sure it was a bit snug for the Arachnoids. There were a few alcoves built into each wall, the familiarity of a place where a construct should have been, but they were no longer there. He wondered if they had removed them manually or if they had woken the rogue defensive units long ago.
He stopped before the single stone door, sighed, and looked back at the others. “Next obstacle. Fingers crossed this goes well.”
His crew nodded.
With a stabilizing breath, he knocked on the door. There was a pause before the door slowly swung open. Its weight and age were evident, but he had a feeling that it could shut with a speed and power that would have crushed him. They stepped through the threshold.
The room was sparse. In the center was what looked to be a desk made of stone. Full shelves lined two walls, and there was a fount of gray liquid that looked too shiny to be any sort of liquid that a human like him could drink. The focal point was the nest of webbing, looser and more stylized than what they’d seen so far. In the center of it was the magistrate.
The magistrate was not a particularly large Arachnoid. Not as big as the average of their people, but still large. They had a body of gold a similar color to the storm clouds above, though theirs had dark blue spots along their thorax. They had a thin, jutting torso that rose from their main body and two stubby arms separate from the eight legs, and bangles of precious metals adorned them. From what he’d seen, most Malvali didn’t wear many clothes, as they did not have a purity or modesty culture and didn’t view bodies in a sexual sense. Some did wear headdresses or jewelry such as this, but he was sure it was strictly for their own enjoyment. Some people just liked shiny things.
The magistrate did not appear to be asleep, or if they were, they awoke as soon as Melias and company entered their chamber. They stirred from their nest and scampered down to the floor to greet them, their legs clacking against the stone floor.
“You must be the mercenaries,” they said. Their voice was raspy, with a faint, almost wet sound to the words. They didn’t speak Galactic Common, so it took Melias’s translator a second to adjust.
They had a smaller pair of mandibles, not quite so sharp. Three large orange eyes—deep, mesmerizing, and without a pupil—blinked at him.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice, Your Holiness,” Melias said with a respectful bow. “We appreciate this.”
“An honor, sir,” Aaron said, but then Melias punched his arm. “Ow, what?”
The Malvali didn’t view gender as other species did. Though they had male and female sexes and produced in much the typical way that you would imagine, they also could spontaneously change sexes if the need arose. They tended to view themselves in a non-binary way, preferring to be called by their name or with “they.” This didn’t encompass one hundred percent of their race, but the vast majority to be sure. Arke explained as much to him.
When she was finished, he looked pale and sickly. He bowed deeply in apology. “I am so sorry if I have offended you, Magistrate.”
“Do not worry yourself. Many off-worlders did not know this about us, but I appreciate that your fellow crewmen do. And I appreciate your respectability and manners.”
The magistrate scuttled over to a small bar filled with brightly colored glasses that almost seemed to glow. They pulled one out that had an orange glow, pulled off the stopper, and drank a few gulps.
“I would offer you some spirits, but I don’t suppose you want your insides to burn and bleed.”
“That is something we would like to avoid, Your Holiness,” Arke said.
They chuckled, or what Mel guessed was a chuckle. More of a clicking. The magistrate took another drink and placed the bottle back with its brethren. Once the bar was secured, they turned back to their guests, bangles clanging as their arms moved with them. They bowed too.
“I am Magistrate Cargeco, a humble servant of this temple.”
Humble or sarcastic? Melias wondered but didn’t dare to ask. He introduced himself, and his crewmates did the same. Once they were all properly acquainted, it was time to get down to business at last.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Though many of my people have a fear and distrust of your organization, and rightfully so, I have always admired the good general sense of you, how you want to go around and help where you can. Even if it is for monetary reasons and not solely out of the goodness of your own hearts, you do not take salaries, and everyone must eat, so I do not put too much blame or shame on you.”
“Thank you for the kind words, Your Holiness,” Niath said.
“Indeed,” they said. “Now, how may I serve you?”
Now was time for the main obstacle of their visit. He needed to be delicate about this. He couldn’t demand or condescend. So, Melias cleared his throat, stood firm, and began.
“To be blunt, Magistrate, there is something that you possess, or might possess, that is quite dangerous. We need to ascertain if it is here, and if so, if we could take it under our care.”
Their mandibles chittered and scraped together, which Melias interpreted as them being interested. “Well, pray tell, what do you seek?” they asked.
Melias shared a glance with the others, seeing if there was any aid from them, if they would help in his explanation. He knew they had his back, but he was the captain and he had to smooth this situation over. It was on him. He didn’t want to give the magistrate the whole story, because it was too long and he didn’t want to risk them siding with the Lightbringers, but giving no context would do no good either, so he told as much as he could.
“There…was a device, an Octopoid device, that was recently discovered. It has the power to turn sentient beings into mindless monsters with enhanced strength, stamina, speed, and pain endurance. They attack people indiscriminately, tearing them apart gruesomely. We have found three of them and have reason to believe that a fourth one is on this planet—or once was.”
He didn’t know how the magistrate would react. There was a loud part of his mind that was worried, chastising him for revealing too much, but there was no way to get through this without divulging some secrets. The magistrate padded away, their front arms folded behind their back. They climbed into their web in a way that told him they were pondering the things they’d just been told. Understandable.
Finally, they unfurled their arms and came back down, eyes glowing as they took in the four Sentinels.
“What you have told me is quite troubling, but just as troubling are the looks you give me, like you think I might acquiesce to the more fanatical sides of religion and keep the device and perhaps even use it. That is troubling. We revere our great progenitors but know that they are not without flaws, as no living life is without flaws.”
Melias almost dropped to his knees to apologize. He was shot through the heart with guilt, and the silence that followed was heavy and awkward, but he knew he had offended the magistrate and needed to make it right.
“I’m sorry, Magistrate. I did not mean to imply… We didn't presume to suggest that your people would use the weapon for your own designs.”
“It is quite alright, I assure you. You are right to have that skepticism, even if it pains me to admit it. The majority of my people across our nests would be of a mind with you and I, but there are some, a vocal minority, that hate the galactic community, and maybe for good reason, but they might wish to take such a weapon and use it in nefarious ways. So, I am in accord with you and your people. If this device is here, then I shall help you find it.”
That was about as relieving a sentence as any that Melias had ever heard. He was prepared for an argument, even if would have been a mild one. This was much better. Perhaps too easy, but he decided to be optimistic and not think too much about it. As with most people in the galaxy, the majority of Malvali were just regular citizens that wished to live their lives in peace and had no more or less hate than the average of other species. They didn’t want conflict or death.
“Thank you, Magistrate,” he said with a grateful smile. “Your cooperation is very welcome.”
They nodded too. “What does this device look like?”
Melias described the devices as well as he could. There were similarities but also key differences, probably because they were all different pieces of a singular weapon that would be fit together.
The magistrate brought one of their forehands to their mouth and harumphed.
“That doesn’t sound familiar. Do you know where it might have been located? This is a very large temple, after all.”
“Yes, I do,” Arke said. “I have some ancient texts that were gifted to me from my uncle, the Master Pathfinder of the Royal Conservatory, and I was able to decipher the readings and pinpoint where the device should be. I was correct the first time when we went to a previously undiscovered site on Bo’kole.”
That interested the magistrate. “You can read the old texts? Fascinating, few in these vast stars can. Now, where does it say the weapon is housed?”
“The one on Bo’kole was in a large antechamber deep in the heart of the temple. We went through a long maze of corridors and fought many constructs to get there, and when we finally arrived, there was a large door with a puzzle that I had to solve. When I did, more constructs arrived, but we eventually defeated them all and claimed the device. Here, though, the text mentioned something different. ‘The treasure in the peak of the mind lies in the point of the third receptor.’ It’s a bit of a riddle but I think it means behind the third eye, at the top of the pyramid, so the very top.”
“Is there another chamber above us?” Melias asked.
Their host answered by mounting the webs again and climbing to the very peak of the room. There were a few webs at the crown of the ceiling, but it didn’t seem to bother them. The many millions of tiny prongs in their legs let them grip many surfaces. The lesser gravity had to help as well.
They hung there, upside-down, their back pointed to the ground. They looked at the point in the center. Melias could imagine that they were trying to peer through the stone at the space beyond, right above their heads.
“We came to this world ninety-three years ago. In that time, we discovered a secret chamber above this one, only accessible by a small door too small for any Malvali to get through aside from a youngling. The chamber itself is too small for most adults to get to, rendering it hard for us to work at the door, the intricate locking puzzle. And we will not desecrate this holy site with explosives or invasive drilling, so we saw fit to leave the door alone.”
They crawled back down and joined the Sentinels on the ground. Their eyes found Arke’s. “We still try to study it, and we’ve had scholars from other species come to try and figure it out, but to no avail, including one of your people about two decades ago. I know we have had our differences, but on that day, we worked in tandem but failed to figure it out. If that is where you believe the device is, and you believe you can open it, then I would be happy to assist you.”
Melias noticed Arke’s hands trembling. Squeezing into fists. He wondered about that. Her face didn’t have a look of anger. Perhaps it was anticipation, excitement, eagerness to follow in the footsteps of her father. She was trying her best to suppress these emptions and remain professional.
With a heavy swallow and a somewhat subdued smile, she inclined her head, chin dipping, hair bobbing. “It would be an honor, Your Holiness. Thank you.”
With that settled, His Holiness looked at the rest of them and then started to the other end of the room. They went to the far wall. Melias was about to ask, but then they pressed a small divot in the stone, which clicked and recessed into the wall. That wall, which was bare, then sank into the floor. Just beyond was a narrow hallway of steep, winding stairs. The initial space looked like the magistrate could fit, but Melias could tell from the angle of the turns that they would not be able to go much further.
“The door is at the top of those stairs. I am afraid I will be unable to join you, but I wish you the best. If you succeed in opening it, then please leave it open so our scholars may study it when you are through.”
“I sure will,” Arke said with a genuine smile.
Melias moved to join his navigator as she moved past the magistrate and through the doorway. He paused before the opening and looked back at the others.
“You two stay here. It’ll get crowded in there, so best not to have us all bunch together. Niath, contact Captain Tonvash and give her a status update.”
“Aye, Captain.”
His face was grim for just a moment. “And pray that opening this door doesn’t trigger any latent defenses that the Malvali might have missed.”
With a gasp and a string of words that had no translation, but he was sure were probably curses and oaths, the magistrate looked at him with worry. “I hope not, but given that we don’t desecrate the ruins as best we can, I cannot promise that there won’t be dangers.”
Mel feared that, but he had to hope nothing would come of it. Perhaps the Prime Ones thought the location and the small door were security enough.
“Let’s pray and stay ready.”
Then he ducked inside and joined Arke.
5
The stairway wasn’t that narrow. As a human, he was able to move comfortably. Even if he put his arms out wide, he wouldn’t touch either wall, but for the Malvali, it would be a bit tight for most and impassable for the largest.
It narrowed as he and Arke ascended. Still not enough to make them uncomfortable, but he felt the height of this place, felt the walls pressing in.
Arke, on the other hand, was giddy. She took the steps almost two at a time, even though they were slick and steep.
“We really dodged a bullet so far,” she said without looking back. “Could have been so much worse.”
“Well, let’s not jinx it, Arke. The door isn’t open and who knows what might happen when it does. You will be able to open it, right?”
She paused and turned to look back at him, a look of hurt and mock offense on her face. “Do you doubt my skills, Captain Volery?”
He grinned. “I would never dream of doubting you.”
