lights: sweeping sheets of white, yellow, green and red hovering in the sky.
At several points during the last stretch of the flight, Trevor wondered if they actually moved at all. The ocean of pure white below seemed unchanging, as if they stared at the same vision for hour after hour. Only the occasional rattle from a wind gust and the hum of the churning engines gave any clue of momentum.
Still, he felt fortunate to see that stretch of white. Had they arrived a few weeks prior, they would have traveled in perpetual darkness or, at best, twilight. When Jon Brewer followed this same path a world away during late summer, he benefited from the ‘midnight sun’. The opposite would have held true during the heart of winter; nothing but night for weeks on end.
Finally, the navigator turned in his seat and spoke directly to Fromm who stood, drew his eyes taut, and stared at his human prisoners.
All-of-a-sudden Trevor felt like an alien again.
The human slave translated the Chaktaw leader's words.
'We have arrived. There is nothing here.'
– The Chaktaw infantry still wore their ponchos, albeit slightly heavier versions with thicker undergarments. Trevor and Nina wrapped blankets around their battle suits, yet still shivered in sub-zero temperatures.
A half-dozen Golems moved in mechanical strides along the perimeter of the landing party. They wore streaks of white and yellow as to proclaim their new masters, Chaktaw soldiers plugged in to virtual reality consoles high above the target zone in the captured battleship.
If the weather bothered the Behemoths it did not show. The nasty-looking creatures trotted along the crusty snow cover with seemingly no concern for the dry, bitter wind or the dead freeze permeating the Ring of Ice.
With Behemoths and soldiers and Chaktaw-operated Golems surrounding him, Trevor stared forward at the big plain of nothingness where he expected to find the obelisk containing the runes. He checked and re-checked the coordinates he remembered with the maps Fromm provided, allowing for all manner of incorrect translations between Chaktaw and human topography. No matter how many times he ran it, he reached the same conclusion. The city-sized structure should be directly in front of him.
'I don’t understand!' Trevor called out as much to the Gods as to the people and creatures around him. 'It’s supposed to be here! It has to be here!'
Major Forest said for about the third time, 'Could it be buried underground?'
Each time she asked, her voice grew shakier.
Through his translator, Fromm answered for the third time, 'We have used the battleship's sonar to scan this entire area. The scanners would have found any structure hidden beneath the surface.'
Each time he answered, his voice grew angrier. However, this time he continued to speak.
'I warned you about deception. Did you think I jest?'
Trevor, still staring at the empty plain of snow shouted, 'No! I told the truth! They should be here!'
Behind him, he heard Fromm mutter an order followed by a soft vibration in the ground that grew more pronounced as the Jaw-Wolf eased into position behind Trevor, its massive grin filling the world behind him.
'…they should…they must be here…'
He felt Fromm’s eyes on his back. He sensed the reluctance of the Chaktaw leader to give the order. Sometimes, Trevor knew, orders were hard to give even when you were certain they had to be given.
I’m sorry, Jorgie.
The ground exploded and a ripple of earth-a wave of white and black-carried toward them casting snow and ice into the air like a geyser. Trevor, Fromm, Nina, the soldiers, the Jaw-Wolves, and the Golems were thrown up and came crashing back down as if tossed from a bucking bronco.
Ahead of them, the ice cap splintered with cracks reaching out from some massive epicenter. The landing party retreated in a sprint. Trevor had to grab the stunned Major by her arm to yank her out of the way of dropping ice slabs that had been thrown into the air.
A black wall rose from the ground. No, a black building the size of a small city. Round and darker than a moonless night. It loomed above the puny humans and Chaktaw below and towered over the Earth- all of the Earths-a symbol of powers beyond comprehension.
Higher and higher into the sky. The wind whipped like madness across the barren white wilderness; the sound of its arrival came in such a powerful roar that it threatened to shake the battleship from the sky.
Finally the ascension ceased; the gargantuan obelisk had grown to full height.
An eerie silence replaced the chaos and roar of the enigma’s arrival. For several long moments no sounds came, not from the wind, not from the air ship, not from the people or beasts on the ground.
Then the great puzzle began to turn. Each of the obelisk’s many layers rotated in different directions, creating a sound of stone grinding on stone.
Trevor did not have a clever line to speak or a comical crack to offer. He was not even so much relieved at the sight of the gigantic structure as he was afraid. It was one thing to hear the descriptions and see the digital photographs; it was another to be dwarfed by the object itself, an object that spoke of entities capable of controlling time and space.
Fromm finally found his voice. He had to repeat his words twice because his human translator still struggled to regain her concentration, the most sign of humanity behind those beaten eyes Trevor had yet seen.
'What do we do now, Trevor Stone?'
Trevor licked his lips as he tried to remember what Jon had told him.
'It's like a puzzle box,' Trevor said. 'It's solving itself. I don't know how long that will take.'
'Again, what do we do now?'
Trevor turned to Fromm and could not help the smug expression he threw at the Chaktaw leader. He wanted to shout 'see, I told you' but instead just said, 'We wait.'
– Indeed they waited. They waited for hours as the layers of the structure rotated and turned at varying speeds and intervals. They waited as morning turned to early afternoon and a hazy sun drove temperatures above zero.
Trevor studied Fromm as they watched, first from the surface, then again from the warmer bridge when they returned to the airship. He saw that the Chaktaw leader tried to understand the rhythm of the turning enigma; his lips moving as if performing calculations in his mind.
Whether Fromm ever grasped the equation buried in the rotating layers, Trevor did not know but the enigma did finally stop. The constant grinding noise ended and all eyes-even some that were barely awake-turned to the structure and saw one large black hole of an entrance beckoning.
Through the slave, Fromm told the two humans, 'You will remain here.'
Trevor repeated a warning based on Jon Brewer's experiences, 'Remember what I told you. It's chaos in there; a giant machine with gears and parts that could crush you without even taking notice. Plus, my team encountered several guardians that were indigenous to the obelisk.'
'I understand,' Fromm replied. 'If I am not successful, Jaff will take a second team inside. You two are not allowed to enter the obelisk until the hands of a Chaktaw have possessed the runes. If you try, you will be killed.'
'Of course.'
Then Fromm was off, leaving Jaff in the Captain’s chair.
Trevor and Nina stood on the bridge watching through the main windows while the crew monitored readings, checked systems, and otherwise kept busy.
A soft vibration shook the gondola as the landing module separated from the undercarriage and sped to the ground. It wobbled and shook on its spring-loaded landing gear until, after several seconds, it stabilized and the long door fell open. Fromm, a pack of Behemoths, and several squads of infantry exited. They rendezvoused with a patrol of six Golems standing watch below the airship.
Then it happened.
Trevor and the people of his Empire had lived with the mystery for years, yet none actually saw it occur. Scientists advanced theory after theory but the process and the substance and the meaning eluded understanding although, interestingly enough, when Trevor mentioned the phenomena of 'riding the ark' to Fromm, the Chaktaw knew nothing of it.
As Trevor saw it happen, he moved no closer to knowing. But as he witnessed the event, he realized Voggoth had broken yet another rule.
