The Devourer

The ancient ruins-2

Althea took one last look at the four sides of the obelisk before her: the one directly on the cave wall was full of inscriptions which the archaeologist had quickly evaluated as an account of the orbits of the five main celestial bodies; the panel on the right was not very clear, but seemed to be dealing with strange invisible evil creatures that caused destruction — perhaps they were some metaphor for diseases caused by bacteria or viruses. On the other hand, the panel on the left mentioned creatures living in the depths of the earth, away from light, but much of the text needed more in-depth study to be translated. That was something she was going to do with due calm in the following days for sure. Finally, in the panel facing the door on the ground, there was what Althea had interpreted as the access key: at the top the two suns were represented, one next to the other, with Cianus twice the size of Aurus; the world was symbolized in the center, with a thin vertical slot in its center; the three moons — arranged according to their distance from the planet — were represented below: first Parvis, then Gigas, and finally Faros.

Abel, Trevan, and the Sergeant had silently followed Althea’s tour around the obelisk, anxiously waiting for her to follow one of her exceptional intuitions once again: she owed her great fame in the academic environment to such instinct.

The archeologist put the handle of her flashlight into her mouth and grabbed Abel’s dagger with both hands. Illuminating the center of the engraved world, she raised the knife and brought it closer to the gap in the center. She took a deep sigh and firmly inserted the dagger into the opening.

The circular symbols of the suns and moons suddenly snapped about three centimeters out of the surface of the panel, without any support to hold them up from behind: they were practically hovering. The three men behind her were startled. She smiled satisfied, thus risking dropping the torch in her mouth.

“Amazing!” Trevan whispered, surprised.

The archaeologist let go of the hilt of the dagger, took the torch with one hand, and asked loudly:

“Any particular signs from the door?”

Sergeant Sevanis shouted the answer:

“Madam, no, madam: no signal!”

Abel and Trevan were a little disappointed to hear such words, but Althea grinned and said in a loud voice:

“Keep watching, Sergeant!”

Then she put her free hand on the symbol of Parvis, grabbed it and moved it above Gigas’; next she took the symbol of Faros and brought it first to the side of Gigas’, subsequently she pushed it slightly towards the surface of the obelisk and finally placed it under Gigas’ large disk.

At that precise moment, Sergeant Sevanis shouted:

“The symbols of the three moons have lit up!”

Althea let out a satisfied “Yes!”, then grabbed the edges of the Cianus symbol with her fingers and tightened her grip slightly: to her relief, the circle representing the big blue sun began to shrink. When it reached the same size as the circle representing the yellow sun Aurus, she stopped and immediately Sergeant Sevanis shouted:

“The two suns have lit up too!”

Althea grabbed the hilt of the dagger again, turned it ninety degrees to her right, and withdrew the blade. The whole panel of the obelisk jerked inward, receding a couple of centimeters. Again, Sergeant Sevanis’ voice was heard, this time much more excited:

“The door is moving! Quick, come here!”

Hearing those words, Althea, Abel, Trevan, and Sergeant Devralis ran to him. When they reached him, the door was open and stairs going down into the darkness could be seen.

“Let’s go in!” Said Abel, as if it were something normal.

The two sergeants and Trevan hesitated, unable to feel the same desire as Abel to go into that even further underground place.

“Are you sure? All the other writings here warn against accessing what is kept below…”

He looked into his sister’s eyes and he shrewdly used arguments that he well knew would certainly dispel her objections:

“Why else did we come here? Do you want to go back right now that we’ve opened that door? Do you want to let some of your older colleagues take the honor and the glory of such a discovery?”

He succeeded in unleashing her pride, so she quickly approached the first step, turning the light beam of her torch towards the dark opening. She could not see anything except the first twenty steps.

Seeing her sudden determination, Trevan approached her and asked, unable to hide his own anxiety:

“Do you really want to go down there?”

Althea did not turn, but went on staring into the darkness beyond the threshold.

“We didn’t come here just to open the door for someone else.” She said firmly, thinking back to her brother’s words. “It’s up to us to find out what lies down there!”

Trevan sighed: he knew there was nothing he could do against her stubbornness. He had tried on other occasions and had lost. He turned back and saw her brother approaching: for a moment he hoped Abel would succeed in making her give up her idea, but he just said:

“Can you return my dagger to me?”

Althea turned to him, handing his dagger back.

“Treat it well. As you may have noticed, for some strange reason its blade never blunts out. If the person who put it in a crate in the warehouse of useless artifacts knew this, he would eat his hands up to his elbows for having missed the opportunity to discover a still working piece of lost technology!”

Abel turned his dagger in his hands, then asked:

“How did you know it would take you to open this door?”

Althea pointed to the base of the blade: on one side there were two small circles, one a bit larger than the other, while on the other side the circles were three, of different sizes. He looked amazed, as if it were the first time he had noticed them.

“When I found it in the warehouse crate, I had not understood the meaning of the symbols of the suns and moons engraved on it, but I liked them — in any case I thought the dagger to be a perfect gift for your thirtieth birthday, considering you serve in the army. When I saw the symbols on the door, arranged exactly as they are on your dagger, I realized it was no accident that the two of us were here together: for once the Astrals have assisted us!”

“There’s no such thing as Astrals.” Abel commented skeptically, while putting his knife back in his belt pouch.

“Astrals, fate, luck, god — whoever it was or whatever you wish to call it…”

“Coincidence,” he replied calmly.

Althea snorted and shook her head. “Such matters cannot be discussed with you: you really are the classic disbelieving soldier!”

In order to calm things down, Trevan tried to change the subject by pointing out a detail that had apparently eluded everyone:

“Excuse me, Althea, but if the door was opened by the obelisk, why does it feature a handle and a lock?”

The archaeologist thought the question rather intelligent, and this reminded her once again why she liked him so much. She turned to him and replied:

“I’d like to answer that I know for sure, but I can only make assumptions.” She was silent for a few seconds, making her mind out, then went on: “It could be an alternative way to open the door if you possess the right key for the lock — or it could be a trap for those who are not familiar with the place: seeing the lock, someone ignoring about the obelisk might think that it opens the door and this is how a trap is triggered, perhaps, causing the cave to collapse, burying everything once and for all.”

“I don’t like this second hypothesis at all.” Trevan said with a shiver, remembering that Abel had said he had tried to open the door by turning its handle. He was about to go on, but was interrupted abruptly by the officer himself:

“Enough talking: we have already wasted too much time! Let’s go in and see what’s kept down there, that’s so important to be protected by all these ancient mechanisms and traps!”

“As a matter of fact, I’m really curious about what’s down there” Althea said excitedly.

“On the other hand, I would gladly do without it,” Trevan complained, but then approached her and put his hand on her shoulder adding “however, I would never let you go alone!”

She turned to him and smiled, resting her hand on his.

“Let’s go,” she said softly.

He nodded and walked beside her as they descended the first step together into the darkness. Abel glanced quickly at the two soldiers and motioned for them to follow him. They nodded as he went after his sister.

The underground environment was completely immersed in silence and darkness. The light from their torches seemed less intense and illuminated with difficulty beyond ten meters, making it impossible to see what was at the bottom of the stairs.

After five minutes of a slow and seemingly endless descent into darkness, Trevan whispered:

“Are you sure you changed batteries before entering the cave?”

“Batteries have nothing to do with it” Abel answered in a low voice. “There must be something down here that dampens the power of some technological devices.”

“It could be” Althea agreed, also whispering. “Maybe we’ll find an answer at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Provided there is a bottom…” muttered Trevan, somewhat demoralized.

“Don’t be the usual pessimist,” she said, still focused on looking at the edge of the beam. “There can’t be a building without a solid foundation, you should know that: you’re an engineer, aren’t you?”

He sighed and added softly with some irony:

“If you were wrong just for once, I would like to have time enough to say: ‘I told you so’!”

Althea stifled a laugh and the beam of light from the torch in her hand trembled vertically. As the light shone below the stairs, something in the darkness glistened.

The archaeologist stopped at once and said in a serious voice:

“This might be it!”

They resumed their descent and, after seven more steps, everyone finally began to see the floor of that dark and gloomy underground level. Trevan and the two sergeants welcomed that sight with a sigh of relief, but at the bottom of the stairs, a strange feeling of uneasiness struck everybody when they noticed that the whole floor was shining in the light of their torches.

“What the heck…?” Trevan cursed in amazement.

“What are we going to do?” Asked Sergeant Sevanis, without addressing anyone in particular.

Overtaken by curiosity, Althea crouched on the bottom step. She moved her flashlight in various angles on the floor and watched as the reflection of the light on it changed. After a few tests, she realized that the soil stone was permeated by something similar to a very thin layer of dew. She turned the torch around her to check whether there was a spring or a stream of water nearby that could explain all that humidity, but she saw nothing, as she already expected, since she had not heard any gurgling.

“What is it?” Asked Trevan, who had crouched beside her.

“It looks like water” said Althea, though not entirely convinced. “But it is strange that it is everywhere, without any visible source…”

“Clearly water flows under here and no longer on the surface desert.” Abel said with some confidence. “But we can’t let ourselves be stopped by such nonsense just a few steps away from a great discovery!” He passed Althea and went down the last step, touching the damp ground.

The usual careless! She thought, shaking her head.

Since nothing had happened to him, his four companions let out a sigh of relief and followed him, while Trevan was commenting: