.
“We are just about there,” Rogan told them. “You two had both best call in your specters. Just a couple hundred feet to go.”
“A couple hundred feet… up,” Jack guessed.
Rogan chuckled, “Oh, aye.”
They turned into one of the towers in the fading sunlight, walking toward an archway engraved with huge alien characters. Jack passed under them, wondering if the words proclaimed profound things or simply, ‘Exit.’
Or, he thought with grim humor, ‘Abandon all hope…’
They was about to leave this world that was one step from Earth in his mind, to some unknown place. According to his companions, the path that made it only ‘one step’ was gone, and the only path they knew to be safe went through several other worlds. But in his heart, he was moving farther away.
He could see no point in hesitating. He had no power of his own to pull off the trick Rogan knew. The only other connection to his world that he knew about on this world was a girl who kept trying to kill him on sight. His only hope of getting home lay in these two ‘Hunters’.
The base of the wall they were passing through was over a hundred yards deep, and the tunnel through it received little of the fading sunlight after the first ten yards. Nam held up her hand, and a surprisingly bright light appeared above her fingertips, illuminating enough of the surroundings to walk safely. Not a ball of flame like he had managed the previous night, but a steady glow like an LED light. A steady breeze blew at their backs as they passed down the shadowed hall and into the cathedral-like open space at the center.
The hollow interior of the tower, quite narrow compared to the outside diameter, tapered outward as it rose, although not as much as the outer surface of the tower slanted inward. It opened to the sky like a titanic industrial chimney. A steep spiral staircase wrapped around the interior, continuing all the way to the top. The stairs led downward as well, but the well was full of water not far below ground level.
Higher up, where the walls became thinner, occasional openings let sunlight in, but the space near ground level was barely brighter than the tunnel. Nam kept her light going so that they could see the steps.
The towers of Aum, skyscrapers constructed with barely iron-age technology, dwarfed the size he had guessed for them when he first saw them from back in the hills, but amazing structures had risen from that technology on Earth, too. The sheer feeling of scale reminded him of the Hagia Sophia, or the Pantheon. The difference was, those were single buildings in the middle of a city. This iron-age wonder was merely one of a couple hundred similar structures.
The Chaldans may not have been a technological people, but they were affluent and powerful. It made him wonder about the war that had destroyed them. That, in turn, made him wonder about the enemy. The people on the other side had been as mighty as his companions and their magic.
After they had ascended several stories above the ground level, Jack began to gripe. “You would think with all this power your people had, they could have come up with a better way to get up and down this thing.”
Rogan nodded. “They did. A system of elevators once moved up and down the central space. The wide platforms we come to, every quarter turn, were their stops. They’re long gone, just like the pumps that are supposed to pump ground water out of the subterranean levels. These stairs were meant only for maintenance and emergencies.”
They began passing occasional archways, tunnel-like rooms dug into the walls, which Rogan passed without comment. They stayed silent for many steps further. Distant booming sounds echoed through the tower from time to time, but his new senses told him the battle was largely over. The enemy had fled for high ground to the west. The booms were being generated by something else.
“Exactly how high…” Jack started, but Rogan cut him off.
“It’s just ahead.”
As promised, in only a few more steps they arrived at an archway room, which Rogan entered. The walls and barrel-vault ceiling were plain stone, but a heavy bar and a mallet hung from the ceiling at the far end of the room.
Rogan strode across the floor, and grabbed the mallet. “Mind your ears.”
The bar rang deep and indescribably powerful. Jack and Nam both pressed their hands to their ears as a grinning Rogan walked back up to them.
“What was that?!” Jack demanded.
Rogan faced away, scanning the wall for something, but answered as he searched. “Warning chime for our destination. It resonates with a companion gong on Trin. Ah…”
He placed his hand on the wall in a spot colored differently than the rest of the wall. In the fading twilight, it was nearly impossible to see. He looked back at Jack.
“I do not wish to be shot by the soldiers who guard the platform so kindly keep your weapon holstered when we arrive.”
The world shifted into a double exposure of both the room they stood in and a completely new location which began to take over and solidify. They stood in a gazebo-like open stone structure, made of archways, of identical dimensions to the room but lacking a roof. It crouched in the middle of a wide stone platform jutting up out of a forest. They were still above ground level, but much closer than they had been a moment ago.
The platform stood high enough to clear the treetops in the flood-plain of a huge river visible in the distance, a waterway wider than the Mississippi as it came through St. Louis. A long, straight causeway led from the platform toward the west, away from the river.
Streetlights that looked like the gaslight predecessors of their Earthly equivalents had already come on in the twilight, lining the length of the bridge and ringing the platform. A dozen or so soldiers manning tripod-mounted automatic weapons faced them from three positions on the platform. Their uniforms were distinctly military, nothing like his companions’ clothing.
The few small buildings near the bridge end of the platform were barracks for the soldiers, he recognized. Parked next to them, he saw what looked a bit like a WWII Jeep or an old Land Rover.
Rogan stepped forward, holding up an opened folder, revealing an ornate medallion. He addressed the soldiers. “Sir Rogan, Lord mac Brath, of the Civil Security Ministry, and party. Please be at ease, gentlemen.”
“Welcome to Trin and the Dominion of Parha, Jack,” Nam stated in a low voice.
End Volume One: The Guardsman
SWORD OF THE KING continues in Volume Two: People Of The Blood
