Chapter 19
Under the Temple
The next morning I woke and did my normal routine, grabbing some meat from the forest, picking fresh herbs and spices and cooking up a nice stew for the next few days.
It had taken me just until the first bite of stew for me to realize that something was on the table. It was a key, bigger than the ones I had previously, but only slightly, and it was gold. I picked it up, it was heavier than I thought, like the relic of good fortune.
There was an letter beneath it with just a few words scribbled on it.
For the Huntress,
For saving Xenobia.
,Ares
I pocketed the key and smiled at the letter. Thank you Ares.
The excitement got to me as I tried to fill my empty stomach, realizing that it’s been nearly a week since I had a substantial meal, and another week before that as well. But I managed a few more bites before taking the key to the third door.
My hands trembled as I took the key out, not helping that is was twice as heavy as the other two, and I put it in the lock. It wouldn’t turn. I turned it left, right, tried again. It wouldn’t open.
I took a step back to make sure I was at the right door. I realized, maybe I wasn’t. I looked to my left and down the flight of stairs, eyes locked on the door at the bottom of the stairs. The one of my dreams. The one that was always open, but never could I get inside.
Slowly I walked down the stairs. This could be my dream come true. I could hear the tinkering of machines quietly ticking and pumping gasses.
This time my hands were steady, I knew it was the right thing, everything pointed to this door. Ares wouldn’t let me down.
I put the key in, turned it and pushed the heavy door open.
I looked down to pocket they key, knowing I couldn’t lose this one, and as I looked up I saw what looked like the same hangar the King had, but bigger, and empty, but, the ship sitting in the middle of the room was polished, scratchless and jet black. The room was immensely vast, tools and machines covered the walls, along with more suits, weapons, guns, knives, swords and more. Similar to what was in the previous rooms. I was soon lost is the largeness of it all. So much, I’m assuming it’s all for my use.
What did Ares want me to find? Was it all of this or something specific?
I walked around and look at the machines and weapons, stores of ammo and materials until I thought I had covered it all. I went back into my room to find the relic of good fortune that I’m supposed to open.
How long has it been in the hands of the Feline? Maybe a few years since it’s was given to Xeres, then Prince Dacoit took it and then I took it back to its rightful owner. Now all I have to do is find out how to open it. I don’t even know if Xeres tried or the myth only arose recently and I happen to be the luckily one to figure this puzzle out.
So I went back into the hangar and set the relic down on an open table. There were tools and other machines around me, I studied them, not knowing which one did what.
“We may be able to put it into the analyzer and densitometer to find any secret openings,” someone said behind me.
I was so startled I jumped. Looking behind me I found a machine talking to me. He was very animated but his face was staring at me monotonously. I blinked a few times. “Who are you?”
“I am Clyde. I am the Huntress’ personal assistant. If there is anything you need that I can help you with let me know. My specialties are most things mechanical, fixing and repairing broken or damaged suits, tools, weapons, vehicles…” He seemed to have been able to go on for sometime telling me his capabilities, but I stopped him there.
“Can you repair my suit?” I ordered, more than asked. And stripped it off and handed it to him.
He took it with pleasure and wobbled over to a garment fixture on a wall. As he approached, the door automatically swung open and a suit presented itself.
“As I can see this is the impact suit, would you like the same one?” He asked as he came back to hand it to me.
“Yes please. It came in pretty handy the last few weeks.”
“Very glad to hear that. I’ve fabricated them myself, so I am pleased to hear that your life has already been saved by my assistance.”
I put the new one on and it hugged my fur as I zipped it up. “Thank you.” I said, admiring the little robot for his skill. I wonder what else he has done. “How long have you been working for the Huntress?” I asked him.
“Ten-thousand four-hundred ninety-two years. Since Ares and Xeres hired me.”
“Where did you come from.”
“Beings like me coming from the Andromeda system, our planet is large, green and luscious, even more than this jungle, at times. We have been reproduced and created to suit the humid environments, while being able to operate in nearly any climate, which most machines here can’t, and we have the most stunning creations to find in all the galaxy. Nothing compares to home.” He would have smiled, obviously reminiscing about his home. At least that’s what I took his pause to mean.
“You lived in a forest like this? And you’re a machine. I would have thought your planet would be a big city like Xenobia with everything electronic.”
“No, we use organisms as our tools. Just like you use machines as your tools. We were the first to be skilled in bioengineering, having all of our work organic rather than mechanic, bioengineering is our work.”
I must have looked slightly horrified or betrayed. Imagining him using me like a tool.
“Don’t worry. You’re not a tool or just a piece of work,” he explained. “We use mono cells and colonies of organic material, or very low orders of organisms like inferior insects for our work. Of course one of us could build something like you in a matter of months or years. And one smart man or Xeno might be able to make something like me as well. But the cell is our tool as the screwdriver is yours. And I am not a screwdriver. Obviously.”
I seemed to be understanding it now.
“But how did you come to work for us. And how have you lived so long?”
“Magic,” he said, and laughed a bit. “It’s a long story, but just as a human might think a machine would be able to work forever, we are able to make organisms live for ever as well. I’ve only traded my secrets for another’s and seemed to beat the life expectancy by about ten thousand percent.”
I looked in awe. Amazing what life will do to survive. “I’m pleased to meet you.” I told him and started to introduce myself. “I’m Dawn, I’ve lived in the temple for a couple of years…”
He cut me off. “I know, I might have know you before you were already born. Like the Maiden of Truth, I know most everything about the Felines and many others. But that is why I am here. I’m tied with you, but not a prisoner. It is enjoyable and one gets used to virtual immorality after a while. It’s the mortals that seem to awe me. How they can manage to only live for so little and die so young, and think it odd to never die and live forever.”
He paused again and I was starting to get over the initial shock of such information.
“What is this?” He asked, gabbing my head and peering over my shoulder. “This necklace. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a boy. Where did you get this one?”
“Drus, the grandfather of the Dryads in the east.” I said.
“Wow.” He repeated over and over, feeling the shape it had started to grow around my neck, until he finally asked, “Is it uncomfortable.”
“No, I hardly notice it.”
“Malleable wood, in harmony with the life it serves.” He cooed. “It’s solid, but seems to breath and move with you.” He said as he turned my head back and forth like an instrument. “This is priceless, I haven’t known anyone but…” he stuttered for a moment. “No, no one. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these. They’re myths.”
Wow, I thought. “It was a very special gift that Drus gave me. He gave it to me when I came to kill the Ancients disrupting his forest.”
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“I know. Or at least explains why you had been seemingly talking to yourself. I thought you were going crazy from the concussion. Not to mention the over activity and the all too fortunate appearance and killing of Stheno.”
“How do you know where I was? And how could you have heard me?”
“The suit, Huntress, you’re wearing my suit, and it comes with lots of features, you know one of the feature, I know them all.”
I looked at the suit and felt the seamless fabric. I would have never thought there was anything more to this.
“I trust you enjoy the claws as well.”
“Ungu? Yeah, she’s gotten me out of a few tight spots.”
“You’re welcome.” Clyde said.
I squinted curiously.
“Of course it was me controlling ‘her’ in those tight spots. There’s a slight neuro-transmitter inside that allows me to do some things.” He paused again and Ungu opened up to my surprise.
“Sorry.” He said. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Shall we get down to business?” He asked, indicating the relic I had left on the table.
“As I said before. We should try the densitometer first and find any openings.”
He picked it up walked over to another box and set it inside as the door opened before him.
I noticed how lively he actually was. Not old, his movements were fluent and very smooth, like life, not like a robot.
The door opened after a few seconds and he started reeling off numbers about the density of the gold and what else was inside. But there seemed to have only been some paint and dust besides the solid gold.
“The gold is also very dense, but the scanner can’t read past the first inch. So there might be something inside, but I can’t tell.”
He put it inside again. “I’ll adjust the settings, it might take some time, but I’m looking for some hairline cracks that might be a clue.”
“Are you sure there must be something inside?” I asked, skeptical already.
“Of course. It’s the relic of good fortune, Xeres had it and died after it was stolen. Dacoit, you killed, and with all the drama in between, including you killing him, Dakur had crowned himself and you’ve awoken the Ancients. You also nearly died falling out of that ship, and though I do know that the suit I made was good, you probably did die. You just used another one of your nine lives.”
“There’s not much luck in that statement.” I said.
“The point is, the luck only started coming back the further away you were from the relic.”
I was trying to wrap my head around this one. “That doesn’t sound like any good fortune to me.”
“Of course! It just means we were using it wrong. The worst only comes when the best is on the horizon.” He said like an old philosopher. But he saw I was still confused. “Toying around with fate, good, and evil isn’t very healthy. The closer one is to such luck the worse things get. Up to the point you catch it, what can go wrong will go wrong, and will to the ratio of good in the end. One could say this goes either way, like a snake eating it’s tail. The more good the more bad; the more bad, the more good.”
“So, by your logic, the most luck will be inside this.”
I wasn’t against him. But I can only believe. Plus, Ares knows there is something inside, so there must be.
The densitometer opened again and Clyde squinted his eyes, seeming to look at something in the distance. “There is an opening at the bottom. The molecules aren’t bonded, allowing the existence of a cylinder of something not gold.
“Would there be a trigger to open it?”
“Very smart! There only must be. The trick is to find out what it would be, and where.”
He and I labored at the puzzle for the rest of the day, trying everything from scratching the gold, finding the mineral composition and guessing where it came from, to just pulling the plug out from the bottom manually. All we found out was that it wouldn’t budge, and that it was solid gold, straight from the mines of the Talpas in southern central Xenobia.
“I’ve thought about this one for a few years already, but it seems to have stumped me.” Clyde said.
“Let’s sleep on it.” I said. “At least we now know what doesn’t open it.”
———
I found myself back on the Island of Dakur. I was sitting in the throne room, Dakur sitting profoundly on the throne, gold necklaces and rings covered his chest and fingers, while an elaborate crown sat on his head.
Around me, sat half a dozen Ancients. We filled the long table as most of them were more than triple my size, besides one. I hadn’t recognized any but Dakur himself and his messenger, the flying horse of death, posed at attention beside him.
Dakur had stopped his speech just I had appeared on the scene. He sniffed the air and looked around the room accusatively, his eyes piercing into the corners and empty spaces of the hall. “There seems to be a guest in our midsts. If it is found, the small beast who has most fiendishly murdered our brethren, two of which are sisters, is found. Bring her to me.” He waved a paw and ordered them to leave and search the castle. “Up! Find the Feline!” He yelled, grabbing the arms of his throne.
I stayed seated in the overlarge chair and waited for them all to leave. “Dakur!” I yelled.
His eyes came close to mine, but never settling on my position.
“I have come, as you asked, to negotiate terms.”
He chuckled and sat down again. “I’m glad the little one has got some sense in herself.”
“More than you,” I said. “But there seems to be some problem.”
“Which is what? I thought it was clear, the top of the food chain doesn’t stop at the contemptible creatures Xenobia was named after. There are bigger mouths to feeds.”
“My point exactly.”
He still couldn’t put his eyes on me, and once he did, I started walking around the room, my footsteps inaudible as always.
“There are always bigger mouths to feed,” I said. “Yet size isn’t the key here. And even your numbers are few, you’re growing smaller every time I meet your clan.”
“Then don’t bother with them, meet me face to face and we shall compare our bite.”
“No need, you can hear me plainly, I can see you clearly.”
“I will eat you! I’ll devour you and the rest of your Felines.”
I stalked around the room, laughing to myself as he was yelling violently to the walls. Another beast came in the room. He had the legs of an elk, a furry back and two stringy arms with finger tapering down to long pointed nails crusted with blood and dirt. His head was that of an elk but two rows of pointed teeth lined his gums and a forked tongue, too long for his mouth, flopped clumsily in and out as he spoke, then flicked out into the air casually.
I didn’t take time for dialogue and I quickly stood behind the elk abomination. Dakur was giving more orders to this creature and told him to stay in this room and listen. I jumped up and dug my claws into his forehead, supposedly skinning his head, Ungu jabbed into his back, trying to sever a few ribs. But as I jumped off there was no blood, just agonizing pain. He was holding his head, writhing on the floor now and screaming in the most agonized voice of a paining animal.
Other ancients came in as they heard the yelling.
Dakur yelled for one by name. “Dyzo! Find the Feline!”
A decorated beast looking like a fat meditating rodent came threw the door, he wore necklaces of wood and bones threaded together. Ancient patterned tattoos lined his blonde, sparsely haired body. He seemed to float and his legs lifted midair, twisting into the lotus position. His eyes closed, but a more brilliant set of eyes glowed on his eyelids. He turned his head straight at me, teleporting right in front of me and getting ready to strangle me.
Others had noticed what he was doing and they tried dog piling me, crashing down at my feet, Dyzo directed the commotion. But I dodged efficiently. Until Dyzo waved his hand and I lifted off the ground. My feet whirred in the air, unable to move. He moved me in front of Dakur.
“Ahh. I can see you now,” He said, now proud of himself and assured nothing could go wrong now.
He looked to Dyzo and back at me. His mouth opened and slowly my head entered his raunchy smelling mouth. He bit and my neck burst into agonizing pain.
I woke up.
Dyzo had seemed to try to follow me, but I sped out of sight. Faster than he could follow.
I could just hear him gasping as I disappeared and Dakur looking confused. But I opened my eyes to find it was still night.
I sat up, my neck felt broken. Feeling around with my fingers, it was fine, but broken was what it felt like internally. My hands reached up to feel the tender spots and I rubber the pain away, not by a lot but just manageable.
I sat up but felt woozy, and went back to sleep to get some good rest while feeling like I had just been run over by a Bovine.
———
In the afternoon I made my way to the kitchen and had a few bites of stew before heading back to the hangar. It amazed me how big this space was, I had no idea it was there, the whole mountain wasn’t just a mountain. It was filled with secrets not even I knew about. I made a note to go explore the other rooms that led off from the hangar into other parts of the mountain. Which reminded me, I still have the third door to open, but I’m sure that whatever is in that room is also in here, knowing how Clyde can produce anything I already have.
I found Clyde just where we had parted, I figured he was working on it early in the morning, since I hadn’t woken up early at all.
“Good afternoon Huntress I hope you got some good sleep. Your readings shown that you might have had some bad dreams.”
“Something like that.” I said, attention darting to my still painful neck. “Any headway on opening the relic?”
“I have some more possibilities. Maybe submerging it in water, fire, earth, vacuum tests. You know, put it through the works.”
His ideas sounded good as I had no bright ideas on where to start. So we tried putting it in a tank of water and pressurized it. Nothing happened.
The next idea, fire. He put it in a furnace and let it get to well over 450°F but still, nothing happened, we just had to let it cool for an hour. He suggested dropping it in water. It would probably crack with such a temperature change, but we both had the idea that it shouldn’t be broken, such an heirloom would be nice to keep as an artifact and not just a vessel that one throws away after reaping it’s content. He even suggested drilling into it, but even there we might break whatever is inside and destroy the relic forever. Breaking it open wasn’t an option.
The next was simple, we went outside and dug a hole and covered it, waited for a minute and digging it back up. As I expected, nothing happened.
After washing the dirt off, I found Clyde had been preparing the vacuum box. He let me set it down inside and he turned the vacuum on and we watched it sit there. The gold cat did nothing but sit there, same smile and everything.
Clyde started letting the air back in, trying different speeds in case a sudden change in pressure did anything.
“We might as well think its just a solid piece of gold,” Clyde said.
“It is, but something is inside,” I answered. “All my recent luck doesn’t come from nowhere,” I said with a sarcastic tone. “I still think there’s something inside. Lets try putting it in the analyzer once more.”
I picked it up and walked over the machine. I had to open it manually. Everything opened instantly for Clyde, not me. I then asked Clyde to start it up.
He started reading me analytic data from what it seemed to give him telepathically.
“Can you let me look at it?” I asked. “It doesn’t help not being able to see the readout at all.”
“Sorry,” he said, and turned on a screen on the table. It showed a blueish rendition of the cat. I studied it, trying to find some hint in the design, something that only a Feline would know.
“Did you read any of the fairytales about this thing?” I asked Clyde.
“I have, but nothing mentioned opening it. The only mentions are: Relic of good fortune, given to Xeres as a present from Winston the Wizard, gold mined from Xenobia by the Talpa, stolen by Dacoit, (verified in his own writings, by himself,) Quote Dacoit: ‘They don’t work, none of these magic pieces do. Trust me, I’ve tried them all.’ So if these clues point to anything, it’s that there is nothing inside, its just a gimmick, something to create the illusion of hope.”
My hope wasn’t lost, I still have ways to find out.
It was getting dark again. The perfect time to find out.