“Without life systems they’ll have suffocated,” Saarg said.
He wanted to say he’d seen worse, but he hadn’t.
“Here.” Saarg knelt at the side of the row, by a fallen filing cabinet. She picked up some papers. “Names, and locations: by row and column.”
Information! Some blessed understanding at last.
Reeben stumbled toward her, over severed bodies, and grabbed at the nearest papers. Each paper had neat handwriting. He couldn’t read clearly because a black, flaking handprint obscured the papers. Dried blood.
“A survivor,” he said.
Saarg gasped.
“Saarg, there was at least one survivor who checked this cabinet when they got out of their sack.” He swung his head. “Saarg?”
She was motionless.
He examined the papers more closely. “Gods,” he said. “They’ve listed everyone. Their profession, age and the date they were ‘acquired’.”
“Here,” Saarg said, pointing at one paper. “The column and row the thing stopped at…”
“The missing Brogen Quarter guardsmen,” he said. “So, they didn’t all desert.”
Months earlier, the curious story of the Brogen guards had dominated the news for weeks. Forty of the miserable wretches on patrol around an abandoned village on the other side of the Polis had utterly vanished. To have brought forty men so far without witnesses was quite an accomplishment.
A grinding rumble echoed through the cavern. The ceiling cracked, dusting them with debris.
“That was the Roar,” Saarg shouted above the quietening aftershocks. “We don’t have long.”
Reeben took a deep breath, careful to let it out slowly so none would notice. The Roar. Harbinger of the divine, foreshock of the Swallowing.
Polis Armer’s arrival.
These walls wouldn’t last. They’d shrink, trapping and suffocating them, leaving him stuck down here with all this evil death. He had to run for the surface. To daylight. Seekers with shockpoles weren’t enough. He needed light, not a world rendered in shades of gray. Gods, he needed to get out of here.
Tummil stepped in from the staircase and recoiled at the carnage. Reeben clasped his shoulder. “Just look for anything… you think I should see.” He’d almost said ‘unusual’.
“That Sumadan box upstairs was probably a generator, sir.”
“Yes, I know, Tummil.”
“A Seeker energy-scanned it.”
“And?”
“Nothing. No traces of electricity, no vibrations, no chaos. Or currency or suppression. I looked over his shoulder. Dry as a bone, sir.”
How could the Seekers not scent anything?
Reeben pushed a hand through his hair, scanning the chamber for some clue, some hint. No energetic traces? Nothing removed energies; they simply faded over time. Every device, mechanism, artifact and golem used energy. His vent used electricity, and his lenses used vibration energy.
What if…?
He removed his lenses, resting them on his forehead. The underground cavern should have been pitch darkness, but Gods help him, there was light.
“Mother of Polis,” he whispered. He staggered, his old injury. “On the wall, Saarg. Turn off your lenses!”
Following him, Saarg’s helmet clicked, and she coughed.
Bright-blue runes over ten feet high glowed on the stark wall, near the fallen cabinet with the scattered papers. Their soaring, intricate design was so beautiful a calligrapher would weep at the sight. Five vertical lines of ancient symbols flickered, bathing Reeben in blue light. If he hadn’t removed his lenses, he would’ve missed them.
“We don’t have time to send for a scholar,” Tummil whispered.
Saarg approached the runes and stroked the wall. “I studied the Founders’ tongue. It rhymes in Founders’, but not in Common.” She cleared her throat:
The divine link
Comes from nature
To purify and power
In His name.
I can say only this much.
“That last line, though.” She paused. “It doesn’t rhyme. Someone added it.”
“That’s not the problem, Saarg. Who wrote it? What wrote it?”
“Something from Polis Sumad,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I studied religions and language when I entered the Seekers. It’s from Polis Sumad’s holy book.” Saarg sounded baffled. “But… why kill hundreds, then write scripture on the wall?”
Reeben wanted to hit something. He peered about the massive room, searching for… anything.
There.
Something was different about those sacks. “Saarg, look. Four sacks with open access flaps, and the attachment cords are tied off at the top.” Reeben strode over and punched the nearest of the four bags, still filled with the preservative. The sack flopped limply under his fist. “No body. Four guards were pulled out with care, not ripped apart. Four survivors.”
Kneeling, Saarg traced the row and column of the four sacks on the papers they’d found, then copied the four corresponding names. She cursed furiously under her breath. Her graphite stylus broke on the paper of her small yellow pad.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
The Roar came again.
Burned-out glowbulbs fell from the ceiling and smashed. Dust and chunks of clay fell from the walls as a hairline crack appeared, widening into a fissure.
Reeben wilted beneath his Polis’s fury, feeling His presence for the first time. An overwhelming heaviness pressed on his mind. Damulen Reeben was nothing compared to Polis Armer. Reeben’s heart lurched. The priests’ declarations that a Polis’s anger could kill was no metaphor.
Abrasive, guttural rumbles rolled across the chamber. The ground tilted and Reeben sprawled among the carnage, his hip betraying him. Seekers and Investigators stumbled and fell.
When the Roar subsided, a siren erupted inside Saarg’s pack.
“Swallowing in under ten minutes!” she called at the top of her lungs, flicking a switch on the pack. The siren stopped mid-howl. “Quicker than I thought.”
Everyone ran for the stairs, leaving the dead for Polis Armer. Their footsteps struck the dented metal steps. Reeben, papers still in hand, forced himself to be the last out of the chamber, so his bad leg wouldn’t slow anyone.
Gods, he was glad to escape this hell, the strange runes and rotting bodies. He pushed on the wall at every other step, panting and swearing, the stairs vibrating under his feet. “Burn it, Polis, just wait. I’m leaving!”
Polis was moving fast, clearly upset over what He’d seen. Could they escape?
Reeben emerged on the second level, distant figures disappearing from sight as they ran to the final staircase. The Roar grew louder in his head. He reached the stairs
