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outofgloom · 4 months

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[This story is the last in my previously-posted anthology of Bionicle short fiction, to which it lends its name]

AIKURU

We arrived at the site before sunrise. It was in a place north of the ridge called Sakerra in the language of our Skrall guides. The discovery had been made only five days ago, and as we made our way down from the wind-worn crags, there were no apparent signs of raiding.

A structure was there in the valley, just as the flyover had reported. It was of the same gray, stonelike material from which all Their architecture is made—so old now that it no longer gleams in the light, but somehow still smooth to the touch.

As soon as we reached the lower steppes, our rangers set about the task of making provision for departure. Four days were allotted to us, and then the existence of the site would be announced to the Quadrate at large. After that, the System Adherents would claim their rights, and the site would be swallowed up in pilgrimage.

The structure was immediately familiar to me as we approached: a broad circle, rounded at the edges, raised from the ground by perhaps two spans to form a low column or stage. Half of the structure was covered beneath a berm of sediment, probably deposited by one flash-flood and then partly washed away by another. We immediately began the process of excavation, except for Neisa, who took up a position on the west side of the structure with her tools for assessing angles and spans, ready to note the position at which the red dawnlight would fall. It was a typical measurement, given the theory that such shrines were oriented in a significant way.

First with shovels and then with small brushes of fine wire, we cleared away the dust and caked mud until the entire circumference was revealed. As I had suspected, the entryway was already opened, and it too was filled with earth. Most of the first day was spent this way: in turns, we sifted through each layer, revealing step by narrow step the spiraling staircase that characterized shrines of this type. They were an original icon: the prototype for the modern chapels of the System Adherents.

I was halfway down the second bend of the staircase, carefully cleaning dirt from the lip of the next step, when Osphos summoned me from above. I emerged with my bucket and saw that he was crouched over the shrine’s far edge. I stepped across the rolls of harak-cloth that had been laid down for the protection of the exterior and made my way over.

“Lytus!” he said, seeing me approach. “Look here.” He pointed at the stone surface before him.

We had already noted the usual markings on top of the shrine: the eighteen-fold division of the broad circle, the components of which descended into a staircase when the shrine was opened. That was nothing new, but here there was something else. Small symbols were carved around the outer edge of the circle; very worn, but still visible.

“They showed up once we cleared off enough sediment,” Osphos said.

“Are they makoki-symbols?”

“Herem’s Eye, that’s the word I was thinking of! Makoki-symbols, yes,” Osphos said. “Ever seen them on a structure like this?”

“No, never. Are we sure they’re original?” I crouched, put an eye close to the surface. “There’s graffiti sometimes, bone-hunter codes, the Matan inscriptions on the eastern sites... These are new to me.”

“Any guess as to what they might signify?”

“Well...” I sat back on my heels, rubbed my eyes. “Makokori are early period, and we don’t find them past Second or Third Myriad—not in the tablets or kini-ruins. Prior to that, they’re inscribed on doorways, and some of the Machines. There are theories that they signify keystones, or some kind of locking mechanism.”

“Fortunate that this shrine is already unlocked for us, then.”

“Yeah... I suppose these symbols might help date the shrine. If they’re original, this might be one of the earliest sites we’ve found. We should do an analysis of the sediment back at Naqua.”

“Already collected some samples. I’ll take a rubbing as well,” Osphos said. “How’s progress on the interior?”

I brushed off my hands. “We’re close. Another turn and we should be at the bottom. I could use more help.”

Osphos snapped his fingers to the other workers who were combing the field-grid for artifacts.

“Double-time on the stairs for the next few hours,” he called. “I want to see the bottom before Solis is down. Let’s move it!”

* * *

We did not reach the bottom. Normally, shrines of this kind exhibit two or three turns of stairs and then level out in a circular chamber. Not this one. Solis had set an hour ago, and still we were digging, our work illuminated only by pale quartz-lanterns. Stair after stair we exhumed, always expecting the next to be the last. But after six turns, descending fully twelve thori—or about six of Their bio—into the earth, still there was no end.

Osphos finally gave the command to stop, frustrating though it was, and we began to pack up the tools. I was at the bottom of the excavation at that point. The air was thick, and my back hurt from crouching for so long. I began to gather the various shovels and brushes that had accumulated around me, handing them up to Neisa on the stair above me.

“Can you handle the rest?” Neisa nodded to the remaining implements.

“Right behind you.” I stood and stretched my limbs in the cramped space, then reached for my tool-bundle and bucket.

Something caught my eye—a glint in the quartzlight, a fragment of something sticking out of the mass of earth before me. I rubbed my tired eyes, blinked away the settling dust. It was still there.

Wordlessly, I snatched up a brush and began to sweep away more dirt. It was metallic—a shaped metal object. There was a corner and a round sweep and...

“Lytus?” Osphos’s voice filtered down from above. He was annoyed. “Pack it in. We’ll get back to it first thing in the—”

“I’ve found something!” I called back. “It’s an object. I’m not sure...”

Eyeholes. A facelike shape. My heart thudded.

“It’s a mask,” I said excitedly. “One of Theirs.”

“What?!” Neisa had come back down the staircase. Light from her lantern spilled into the space. “What condition?”

“Intact, I think.”

She knelt down beside me with a brush of her own. Together we worked to carefully expose the surface of the mask. The sediment here was dry and loose, spilling away in small showers of particulate. All at once, the object came free, along with a mass of unpacked earth. Out of instinct, I put out a hand to catch it.

“Watch it,” Neisa said. “Careful not to—”

I was standing on the stairs, alone. Light was coming from somewhere—not quartzlight, from somewhere below me. Coming up out of the stone itself. I was descending... or had I been ascending? My mind was kuru, and... What? Dark. Foggy. My mind was foggy. What was happening? Where was—

Suddenly the ground lurched, and there was a roaring noise above. I staggered against the smooth poha... no, stone. Against the stone, and the avo flickered below me. The light flickered, rather. Then another tremor knocked me sideways, and stars broke out in my aku as my head struck the poha hard. The avo went out, and the roaring was all around, and it was kuru, ai kuru, ai kuru ai—

“...touch it,” Neisa finished. The metal of the mask was cold against my fingers. The stairs spun, and I felt sick for a moment. Then it was over. I quickly transferred the mask to a strip of harak-cloth, handling it gingerly.

“What was... What did you say?” I shook my head. “Don’t touch it?”

“Yeah... uh, you alright? You look pale.”

I grinned. “I’m fine. Could use some fresh air though. You feeling superstitious or something?”

She scoffed. “I don’t know why I said that. It was silly.”

“You know they say these masks trap the souls of their wearers...”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Neisa bent down to examine the artifact. “Amazing. I’ve only seen them behind glass, or in the sterile rooms at Naqua.”

“Yeah, this is... It’s a find,” I said. The mask felt heavy and solid in my hands.

There was a murmur on the stairs, and I could hear Osphos’s grumbling voice descending toward us. He turned the corner.

“What now?” he said. “Tell me you’ve found something to make this worthwhile.”

“Think so,” I said, holding up the mask.

“What’s that?”

“Are you blind?” Neisa laughed. “It’s a Kanochus Mat—”

“No,” Osphos said, pointing past us. “That.”

There was a cavity in the wall of earth before us. It must have opened up when we removed the mask.

“The bottom!” Neisa said excitedly. She moved forward, shining her light through the gap.

She stopped. It wasn’t the bottom. I could already see. My heart was still thudding. It was dark. It was roaring in my ears. There was a smell, strangely metallic... and another shape sticking out of the dirt. Not a mask.

Fingers. A hand. An arm.

A face. Flat, blank eyes. A circular, wedge-like mouth. Open.

One of Them.

* * *

We stood around the examination table with its harak-draped contents—Osphos, Neisa, and myself. It was afternoon, and Solis was already falling toward the horizon, casting red shadows through the fabric of the tent.

Osphos broke the silence: “I don’t need to impress upon either of you how significant a find this is. Maybe the most significant I’ve overseen.”

“That’s for sure,” Neisa said. “The protobiologists back at the Institute would lose it if they knew...”

“They would, and hopefully they still will.”

We had worked to remove the body from the shrine over the course of the day—Osphos, Neisa, and myself, in shifts. It had been difficult work, but uneventful. Bit by bit we’d brushed away the packed earth and ancient sediment, revealing more and more of the remains. Now extricated from its tomb, the body lay on the large table before us, still wrapped, ready to be examined.

Before today, I’d only ever seen bits and pieces, partial casts of exoskeletons, mock-ups of skull-like faces... But this was different. It was completely intact, as far as we could tell: head, torso, limbs. A monumental find. The first complete specimen of what we called Matorus Matans.

“Before we start, there’s the matter of our timetable,” Osphos continued. “We obviously weren’t expecting a development like this, and that means priorities have changed.” He looked at me: “We might not get back to the shrine. I’m sorry, Lytus.”

My heart sank. “You’re sure? The shrine is pretty significant on its own, and we still haven’t reached the base layer.”

“It’s not going anywhere. The Adherents can have their Node if they want, and we’ll work something out via the Institute later if necessary. These... remains... have to be our focus now. I want them cataloged and prepared for transport offsite.”

“Offsite?” Neisa raised her eyebrows. “That’s pretty drastic.”

“There’s good reason,” Osphos said. “The Adherents have some odd notions when it comes to remains of this kind.”

“I mean, they’ll want them interred I suppose, but...”

“Maybe. It’s complicated—”

The tent-flap opened, and someone else entered carrying a bundle of implements. It was one of the junior researchers—Cyrcia.

“Yes?” Osphos said flatly.

“I told her that she could observe,” I said, beckoning her in. “Neisa and I thought we could use an extra set of hands.”

“You’ve done catalog before?” Osphos asked.

“Yes, I have,” Cyrcia replied. Her eyes passed over the table and its contents, then back up. “It’s a real honor, I’ve gotta say—”

“I’m sure it is. Grab a tablet, and get ready to make notes.” Osphos turned to the table, cracked his knuckles.

“The light’s a bit better now. Neisa, will you do the honors?”

Neisa began to carefully pull back the cloth that covered the body while I unrolled a bundle of fine tools. The limbs and lower torso were still encrusted with sediment. I’d start with that while Neisa took her measurements. We each began to call out observations in turn for Cyrcia to transcribe. We moved quickly, notating and tagging the legs and the squared-off feet, then the lower torso with its segments, then the upper torso.

“One and a half thori across the chest,” Neisa called out, “and we’ll say ten sub-thori for the arms...”

“Primary exoskeleton is of common morphology,” Osphos said. “Similar format to those recovered from the Galian Sea. Connective tissues are mostly decayed...”

“Some surface corrosion around the joining plates,” I added. “Centerline and upper shoulders. Only 1-2 ditori of penetration. Make note for dating purposes, mark upper-left buckle for cross-sectioning...”

“Twelve sub-thori across the lower mid-section. Five sub-thori for each of the radial pistons...”

“Tissue residue along the clavicle struts. Mark for lab-sampling. Limbs and neck will need to be secured for transport...”

Finally, we reached the head. I tugged the cloth upward and pulled it off. Cyrcia gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

“First time?” Neisa said, smiling.

“Yes, but... shouldn’t it be... shouldn’t it stay covered?”

“It’s a corpse,” Osphos said. “Just a body, like yours or mine. Several ten-myriads older, but nothing to be afraid of, despite all the superstitions.”

“Right... sorry.”

“Can you handle it?”

“I can.”

“Good. Let’s keep going then. And remember—no souvenirs. We’re not bone hunters here.”

Neisa rolled her eyes. The practice of fashioning talismans from Their relics and remains had fortunately been curbed in recent centuries, though you could still find them in the odd back-alley market.

We finished primary cataloging, and Osphos stepped to one of the crates, removing a bundle he had stored there. He moved back to the table and unwrapped it. Smooth metal glinted in the tent. Two eyeholes stared up at the tent-roof. Cyrcia’s eyes goggled at the ancient mask.

“Shall we do a match-up?” Neisa asked, nodding to the exposed face. “This would have been the specimen’s personal Kanochus. It must have been separated during whatever flood or mudslide buried the shrine.”

There was a noise in my ears. Roaring noise, and a memory of a dark place... I shook it off as Osphos moved to the head of the table after double-checking the mask’s interior. He lowered the mask gingerly over the face, lining up the mouth-apertures. There was a faint click. Neisa leaned over to see how it fit over the side-vents—

Dark eyes glowed, and a light winked on in the center of the chest. Pistons hissed. Joints creaked. The body sat up suddenly in a shower of dust, limbs convulsing, fingers clenching and unclenching. I stumbled backward in shock, tripping over the low crates that lined the tent-wall. The masked face swiveled mechanically in my direction, and there was a noise. Not a noise—a voice. The rounded wedge-mouth was grinding out syllables at me. Alien sounds. Alien words. I put up my hands to ward it off, and—

Everyone was standing still. The eyes were dark. The body had not moved. I was sitting on a crate, my ears ringing. Neisa was looking down at me with a concerned expression.

“You okay, Lytus?”

“I... I got dizzy,” I lied.

“How much sleep did you get last night?” Osphos asked. He had removed the mask and was wrapping it up again.

“A few hours at least. I’m fine, really.” I stood up, looking at the motionless body warily, trying to compose myself. No one else had seen what I had seen. It hadn’t really happened. Neisa was still looking at me.

“Are you sure? You look a little unsettled. First in the shrine, and then this. Maybe you should see a medic.”

Before I could reply, the tent-flap opened and another worker poked his head in. He was out of breath.

“Sorry, to bother you, boss, but there’s, uh... Someone’s here to talk to you.”

“Someone?” Osphos frowned.

“There was an airship, not two minutes ago. It landed beyond the ridge, and someone’s approaching from the trail.”

“Herem’s Eye,” Osphos swore.

* * *

The rangers escorted the strangers—there were two of them, actually—down to the edge of the camp.

One was tall—clearly an Athori—and as he approached, it was plain that he was fully armored; head to toe, like the Glatorian of old. The other was much shorter, bent over, leaning on a staff. It was a Skrall—an ancient one, by the head-crest.

Both of them wore metal masks. Only their eyes were visible.

The tall one planted himself just ahead, his squared-off, armored feet crunching in the gravel. The Skrall settled himself on a low metal stool beside him.

Osphos stepped forward. “Welcome,” he said politely. “I am Osphos, the overseer of this excavation. And you are?”

“My designation is Tasius,” the tall one said. His voice rang harsh behind the mask. “I am a Toa of the Adherency, of the Ackarian line. This...” he gestured to the Skrall, “...is Tura Shozu, elder of the Adherent Node at New Tellu. We have been sent to make claim upon this site.

“You’ve lost no time, it seems,” Osphos said dryly. “I wasn’t aware the Quadrate had opened the site at this time.”

“The site and its contents must be turned over at once. We—” Tasius stopped suddenly. The Skrall had raised a wizened hand.

“You are aware,” the elder said in a thin voice, “that the Adherency is granted right of access to all sites attributed to the System of Mata, are you not?”

“Well aware, yes. That is what we aim to determine: the provenance of the site, and the proper methods of its excavation and preservation, according to our charter.”

“Preservation or contamination?” The Skrall’s glance flicked to the tents behind us. “Our intelligence has indicated that this site is of particular significance to the Adherency.”

“You can follow the proper channels to make your claims, like everyone else.”

The Skrall continued undeterred:

“We have been made aware of certain... remains... left at this site. What is their nature, and how have they been contained?”

I could see the muscles in Osphos’s jaw flexing.

“Our excavation is less than two days old. May I ask the source of your ‘intelligence’?”

“The System is knowledge. Through Unity, knowledge is shared.”

“Fascinating,” Osphos said. “Well, regardless of your sources, I can’t give you access to the site at this time. By charter, the Quadrate has—”

“Animal remains, yes? Within the structure. I was led to believe that it was a beast.”

“I’m not at liberty to make that assessment.”

“May I see the remains?”

“All materials found at this site will be made publicly available.”

“I demand to see the remains.”

“No.”

The Skrall smiled. “Thank you for your candor. We have a truth-saying, amongst the Nodes: ‘The people of the world are of one nature or the other: Look into their hearts, and you will see that they are either Builders or Destroyers.”

“With respect, I believe it may be more complicated than that.”

“Then I have looked into your heart.”

“Uh…thank you. Is that all, Tura? We have a lot of work still to do.”

“I shall take word of our conversation to the Node Hierarchy and return later.”

“Fine by me.”

The Skrall put out a crooked hand and closed it into a fist in the manner of the Adherents. He inclined his head, waiting. After a moment, Osphos stepped forward and pressed his own fist against the elder’s. Then it was over. The Athori helped the Skrall to stand, and the two of them departed back up the slope, accompanied by the rangers. Osphos stood and watched, tapping his foot. He spoke quietly, keeping his face fixed in a smile.

“So much for offsite transport,” he growled after a few minutes. “They’ll have eyes on the camp now. By Angon, if we’d been just a bit quicker...” He swore again. Then, satisfied that the rangers had escorted the Toa far enough, he turned back to the camp.

“Nothing for it now. Let’s clean up and get things packed away. Oh, and Lytus—”

“Yeah?”

“Get some sleep—for real this time. I can’t have you falling over again during sensitive work.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

* * *

I didn’t sleep well that night after all. Instead, I dreamed.

Long, complicated dreams. Dreams that didn’t make any sense. I was in the stairwell of the shrine again. I was on a bright, open plain. I was speaking words and sentences that meant nothing to me. I was running from a dark, crashing wave that rolled over me and pressed on my face, on my mouth.

I was walking on the open plain again, and two suns were shining down on me. My face was still covered though, somehow. I reached up to claw at whatever was there. It came away in my hands.

It was my face, staring up at me.

I was lying in my cot, and the tent was dark. The desert night was cold outside. I shivered and turned over. There was a noise at the tent-flap, something scraping in the dirt. The dull ring of metal on poha... on stone.

The flaps shook. It was trying to get in. It was grinding, grinding words and syllables at me, words that meant nothing. It was roaring, roaring noise and darkness, darker than the night. It was kuru, ai kuru, roaring over the camp, crashing through the walls of my tent in a wave and sweeping me down into dark, into kuru, ai kuru, ai kuru ai—

“Lytus?” Neisa’s voice brought me fully awake. It was morning. My bleary eyes focused, and I could see her silhouette through the side of the tent. “Lytus, you awake?”

“I’m up, sorry. What’s going on?”

“The emissary from the Adherents is back. Osphos is speaking with them.”

“Oh. What should we do?”

“Osphos said to stay put. Probably wouldn’t look good to have everyone out at the shrine right now.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yeah I’m heading over to one of the storage tents to help with tagging. Want to help?”

“Sure, I’ll follow you over in a bit.”

After a few minutes, I stepped outside into the pale red sunlight. I could see Osphos and a couple of the rangers on the far side of the circle of tents. The Athori and the Skrall were there as well. Their voices echoed faintly in the morning air, and I found myself walking closer. I stepped behind one of the taller tents nearby.

“...does not accord with our canons,” the Skrall was saying.

“I confess, Shozu—can I call you Shozu?”

“The correct title is ‘Tura’,” another voice said brusquely—the armored Athori.

“Sorry... Tura,” Osphos continued. “I’m not as familiar with the canons of Adherency as I should be, but I can assure you—”

“It is of utmost importance that we examine the site. The Kanohi in particular must be handed over.”

They knew about the mask somehow. Had they been spying on the camp?

“As I’ve said, that is something to take up with the Quadrate.”

“It is already in process, but the matter is urgent.”

“I must adhere to my charter and await further orders. Until then, we’ll continue our work.”

“We must be allowed to supervise. My companion here is trained in the handling of such objects. They must be treated with utmost care.”

“Yes, and—”

“And these remains—they must be verified. Some hapless bone hunter or a beast, I’m sure.”

“As I’ve told you, it is clearly a specimen of Matorus Matans, good Tura. There’s no mistaking it.”

“And as I have said, this is not in accord with our canons. Such things only lead to greater kuru.”

“Pardon?”

“Greater obscurity—my apologies. The Children of Mata are not some extinct automaton race. We ourselves are the heirs to the Great System Hierarchy. You must understand—”

“Your beliefs are your own.”

“...The Kanohi are precious. They connect us to the spirit of Mata, and to the spirits of those from the Before Time...”

My mind was racing, an avalanche of thoughts, fragments of dreams. A roaring noise, and dark, and kuru... What was happening to me? The Kanohi are precious... They connect us to the spirit of Mata...

What if...?

“Only then can we hope to repair the Shattering,” the elder was saying.

“With respect,” Osphos replied, “the Shattering is ancient history. It was repaired, at least five myriads ago.”

“A common myth, but it is a great untruth.”

I could tell Osphos was short on patience by now: “I can literally point it out to you in the strata. You see that ridge there? The Sakerran Ridge? It’s the tail end of a subduction zone where the Botan and Baran plates met—”

The Skrall laughed dryly: “A fantastical narrative, I admit, that a planet could be broken in pieces. But the reality is much more abstract. We ourselves live within the Shattering, my friend: the decay of the Great System Hierarchy of the Great Beings, which they called Mata Nui...”

“I do not—”

“We the Matoran,” the Skrall continued, ignoring him, “the Children of Mata, work now to rebuild and restore the Great System, in accordance with our canon. To connect all things together, till the scattered elements are made whole. Only then will the Great Beings return and truly heal this world.”

A long moment passed. The air was thick with tension.

“Ahem... I do not believe this conversation is productive,” Osphos said at last. “I’m not granting you access to the site at this time—no matter what your canons say. You’ll just have to wait for your request to be approved by the Quadrate, and that’s that, by Angon.”

Something happened. There was a scuffling noise, and the clank of armor.

“Hold it! That’s enough, you—”

I peeked over the top of the tent. The Athori—the one who had called himself a ‘Toa’—was standing between Osphos and the Skrall now, fists clenched. For a moment, I thought... I thought the air around him was shimmering with heat, like high noon on the desert. Then it was gone. There were rangers standing all around, and I noticed that they had weapons at the ready. One of them swung a bolas lazily.

“Control your guard, Shozu,” Osphos spat. “My reports go directly to the Quadrate. They’ll hear of this.”

“Take not the names of the Great Beings in vain!” the Skrall said indignantly, pointing a crooked finger from his stool. “The canon shall not be denied, nor shall it be mocked.”

“I’ve said all I have to say, by Angon.” He emphasized the expletive. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Tura, I’m on a timetable—”

“Such things lead only to kuru and ukuru worse! We must strive for clarity...!”

I had heard enough. Quietly I crept away between the tents, back toward the other side of the camp. The Skrall’s words spun in my mind as I walked. Kuru and ukuru worse. Something was wrong—ever since I had touched that mask... was that when it started? What did the Skrall know? I wanted to tell someone, but who would believe it? I was tired, that was all. It had been a long few days, full of strangeness and excitement. That must be it. I hoped so...

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. We didn’t get much work done—mostly tagging and storing various artifacts found around the site. I was itching to get back to the shrine, but Osphos was wary. He had sent couriers south to apprise our Quadrate contacts of the situation, but they wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. Until then, we were stuck.

In the evening, Osphos sought me out. He had a bundle under one arm.

“Here, Lytus. I’d like you to keep this in your tent.”

It was the mask. My mouth was suddenly very dry.

“Is that, uh, necessary?”

“Maybe not, but I’m taking no chances. The Adherents aren’t getting any more patient. Neisa’s keeping some other artifacts, and I think I’ll sleep in the examination tent tonight, just in case.”

“You mean... with the body?”

“Don’t make it sound creepier than it is.”

“Sorry.”

He offered the mask. I took it. My fingers felt numb.

“Tell you what, we’ll take another pass at excavating the shrine in the morning, try to get to the bottom.”

“That’s great! I’ll have my gear ready.”

“Only one day left to go, so what have we got to lose, right?”

The mask felt heavier than I remembered.

* * *

I had the dream again that night, or something like it. A stairwell, a bright plain with two suns. A dark roaring... Then... Then something else. A dim enclosure. Fabric walls. A tent? I was lying on my back, and my limbs were bound tight. My face was covered, but not with heavy suffocating darkness like before. It was lightweight, like cloth. I struggled, I yelled. My words were meaningless again.

The tent-flap shook, like last time. I could hear it, the scraping, the grinding. It was trying to get in, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything. The entrance parted, and there was darkness outside. Darkness on the ground, and in the darkness... now there was a crawling thing. Crawling, dragging itself through the dust, right up to the place where I lay. I could feel it. See it, even though my face was covered. Its flat eyes glowed, and its mouth was open. Grasping hands rose up toward me and searched, reached, searched—

I was standing in front of myself, seeing myself. I was stretched out beneath the covering, on the table. I was walking under stars, and my hands were full of something. I looked down and saw that I was holding my face. It looked up at me, up at the stars. I tried to put it back on, but it wasn’t my face anymore. It was glowing eyes and grasping hands, and a mouth grinding syllables and words. It was a shape under fabric, stretched out on a table in the dark, and I stood before it, holding its face... my face.

I clawed at the covering, trying to pull it off, but the noise was approaching again. The roaring, rolling noise, and my face... its face... my face was grinding alien sounds and alien words, and it was so dark in the stairwell, in the cold, heavy earth. So dark under the cloying wrap of fabric, so kuru it was, and ukuru worse, ai kuru, ai ukuru—

I awakened in a cold sweat and rolled over. My hands slid in sand, and a stinging thornbush brought me fully awake. I wasn’t in my cot. Wasn’t in my tent. How...? It was still nighttime, but there were lights in the encampment, and the sound of people running. I could hear voices. What was happening? I stumbled up, brushing dust from my face, and realized that I was in the space next to my own tent. I went to the entrance and looked inside. No one there. Then I looked out toward the center of the camp, trying to get my bearings.

A figure came out of the darkness, and I flinched as it grabbed my arm. It was Osphos. He was out of breath.

“Where is it, Lytus?” he hissed. “The body—it’s gone!”

“What, from the examination tent?”

“Yes that body, by Angon. Did you do something? I didn’t even hear...”

“N-no, of course not!”

“What about Neisa? Have you seen her?”

“I haven’t.”

“Have you seen anyone?!”

“No, I just woke up!”

“Adherents...” He ground his teeth. “Ah, the Quadrate will hear of this...”

“Wait—Are you sure?”

“Who else? It’s gone from the tent, but nothing else has been taken. I came right here once I realized. Where’s the mask? Has anyone been in your tent?” He pushed past me, through the entrance.

A crawling thing, a thing with glowing eyes, reaching out... but that wasn’t my tent, was it?

“N-no, no one,” I stammered.

“Where did you put it? I have to be sure.”

I moved to the back of the tent and opened my personal crate. The hinges creaked. “It’s right here, see?”

The mask was gone, wrapping and all. Osphos saw.

“Acta!” he cursed, and then let fly a string of imprecations, invoking the dream-eater and the death-mind, among others. “What, were you drugged or something?!”

“I don’t know... Osphos, I—” I tried to get it out. “I had a dream, or I thought it was a dream. I keep seeing things...”

“Spare me.” He stormed out of the tent, and I followed, feeling absolutely bewildered. There was too much happening, too fast.

“Go find Neisa,” Osphos ordered. “I’m heading back to the examination tent. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, boss.”

I snatched up a quartz-lantern and made my way across the encampment toward Neisa’s tent. Hers was the last tent on the outer ring of the camp. My lantern cast a pale glow over the ground as I went, and I could see that there were lights in the hills now, figures moving up and down the steppe. The rangers were likely combing the perimeter. I stopped for a moment to watch, then realized that I had stupidly lost track of which tent was which. Was Neisa on the east or the west side?

I backtracked. The tents all looked the same in the quartzlight. I took a different turn... and now found myself standing on the path that led out to the open part of the valley. Out toward the shrine.

There were footprints in the dirt. Very fresh. Hard-edged, square toe. Where had I seen that before? I looked up the path, raising the lantern. There was something else. I stepped forward to investigate. It was a heap of cloth, harak-cloth, in small strips. Further up the path, there was another bundle cast to the side.

I kept walking, quickening my pace. More bits of cloth here and there. More footprints. Soon, the edge of the shrine loomed ahead. I moved toward it, stepping gingerly through the rope-grids that were stretched over the ground. I made a circuit of the shrine, then I climbed up on top. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. I shed quartzlight all around, then I stooped to look into the stairwell. The dust on the stairs had recently been disturbed—

“Get down from there,” a voice said, and I whirled to see the towering figure of the Athori Tasius standing on the trail.

“You—” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I have every right,” the Athori said, stepping forward. “Remove yourself from the sacred Amaja!”

I put up my hands appeasingly and complied, climbing back down to the ground and taking a few steps toward him.

“I saw footprints on the trail up here,” I said. “Were they yours?”

“On the trail? No. I came from the hills. I have been charged to keep watch over the Amaja, to make sure no one further contaminates the site.”

“Did you see anyone come here ahead of me?”

“No.”

“There’s been a theft in the camp,” I said. “Do you have anything to do with that?” I immediately regretted asking so directly.

“Theft?” The Athori’s eyes widened. “Theft of what?” He took another step toward me.

“Uh...”

“Tell me!”

“The mask! The... the Kanohi, you call it. Someone took it tonight.”

“What else?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

The Athori said a word that was foreign to me. Probably a curse. He looked back toward the camp. His hands were clenched.

“Listen,” I said, “it looks like someone has entered the shrine. It wasn’t you, was it?”

“I am forbidden, without the Tura,” he said.

“Well, I’ll need to check inside.” I took a step back toward the shrine. “It will only take a second. If you’ll just wait here—”

A heavy, armored grip fell on my shoulder and I was forcefully turned back around. The Athori was fast, and very strong.

“The Amaja will not be touched again,” his voice said, deadly serious. I could feel hot breath through the mouth-piece of his mask. “You and your people have brought rahi upon this place, but no more. Now, I—”

He stopped suddenly, and I felt his fingers seize. He was looking past me, up at the shrine. I turned slowly.

Glowing eyes. An ancient mask. A small figure stood upon the top of the shrine, unmoving. I could see it. The Athori could see it. It was no hallucination this time. Not a dream.

“M-manas!” the Athori croaked. “Get back!”

He shoved me to the side before I could say a word.

And then he burst into flame.

Real flame, like the elementals of old who had been devoured by the Great Beings’ wrath. I didn’t even have time to register shock or surprise before the heat washed over me. Instinctively I threw up my arms to protect myself.

“Stop!” I shouted, scrambling away. “You’ll damage the site! Stop it!”

The fire whirled up and resolved into a glowing nimbus around the Athori’s hands and head. He drew a strange tool from a slot in his armor, and aimed it at the figure atop the shrine.

“No!”

Something flew out of the dark—a whirling rope-like thing—and wrapped itself around Tasius’s burning face and neck. The ends of the bolas whirled for a split second before they snapped tight, and the loud clack of the weights meeting their target made my teeth hurt. The fire went out suddenly, and the scene plunged into darkness. I heard the tramp of feet on the path, and voices shouting. Quartzlight bobbed in the distance.

I was already up and over the top of the shrine before I knew what I was doing. The figure was gone. The opening of the stairwell yawned before me—cool dark after the furnace heat—and I was scrambling down the stairs, two at a time.

“Wait!” I shouted, but my voice was blunted on the stone. “Come back!”

Turn after turn I went. I wasn’t thinking straight. It was pitch-black. I should have grabbed my lantern, but I had dropped it. I realized my hands were burned. They stung when I touched the wall, feeling my way along. I stumbled, picked myself up, and then felt earth against my fingers. The wall of earth where we had stopped excavating. No one was here... Had I been mistaken? Had the figure not gone back into the shrine? Maybe it had run off...

There was light, I realized. It wasn’t pitch-black here. My eyes adjusted, and I saw with a shock that the earth wall wasn’t a wall anymore. It had been dug through, shoveled back and shored up into the walls of a narrow tunnel. When had the others done this? Why hadn’t they notified me? There were handprints in the dust, I noticed. Squared-off palm, five fingers.

Heedless, I push on, squeezing through the tunnel, wriggling on my chest. For a moment I thought I was stuck, and panic surged, but then I was through, and there was no more earth. No more dirt or sediment. The stairs on the other side were clear, pristine. We had been so close, after all.

The light was stronger here, filtering up from somewhere below me. Coming up out of the stone itself. I had been here before, hadn’t I? No, not possible. I had just come through the tunnel... and I was descending... or had I been ascending? My mind was... my mind was kuru, and... foggy... What was I doing here again? I was waiting for something, wasn’t I? Waiting for a roaring sound... a darkness to come and cover me. I had been here many times, in my dreams.

No, that had been before, long ago. This time it was different. I was descending, and the light was getting stronger. Another bend of the stairs, and then the stairs ended.

It was a round, level, circular room—just like the many others I had seen before. The first thing I noticed was the Pedestal. In shrines of this kind, there was usually a square pedestal at one end, surmounted by a face-like image. In later types, the image was the skull of an animal, usually a Spikit or an Ironwolf.

On this one, there was a mask. It was the mask. It was glowing, and the light was coming out of every surface. My heart was thudding.

I was not alone. The body lay in a heap on the ground before the pedestal. I could see scorch marks on its back and upper arms. I came closer and saw that it was moving slightly. Slow breaths. The eyes glowed faintly.

I touched it, gently, almost reverently. It was strange how my mind resisted the idea that this was no longer... remains... It was living, somehow. After all these eons, it was alive. The dim eyes shifted, fixed on me. The mouth moved, and the wedge-like shapes ground out their halting syllables and words, but I still could not understand.

How had it gotten the mask?

A crawling thing, with glowing eyes, searching, reaching.

A shape under fabric, stretched out on a table in the dark.

What was happening to me?

I was walking under stars. I was crawling, dragging through the dust. I was standing in front of myself, looking down at myself. I was holding my face in my hands. I was touching an ancient mask in a small, cramped space, and sparks were leaping into me. Its metal was cold against my fingers. The Kanohi are precious, I remembered. They connect us to the spirit of Mata...

It was dark all around. It was roaring. It was kuru, ai kuru, ai kuru ai—

A metal hand touched me weakly and brought me back to reality. The finger pointed up at the glowing mask atop the pedestal, and I understood. It needed the mask—its personal Kanochus.The mask had activated the shrine, but the circuit was incomplete. It needed the mask back, in order to accomplish whatever purpose it intended. Whatever purpose it had been kept from all those eons ago.

There was a noise on the stairs. Voices murmuring. The thud of metal on stone. How much time had passed? I had lost track. They would be looking for me. Hopefully the rangers had done their work.

“I’m here!” I shouted up. The voices continued. The hand gripped my arm again. The mouth ground out more words.

“I know,” I said.

I stood and pulled the mask off the pedestal. It sparked in my hands, and I felt a charge go through me... or maybe that feeling had already been there, ever since I touched the mask, days ago. Something had been clinging to me. I felt it now. Something intangible, something in my thoughts and my dreams. I had joked about trapped souls to Neisa, but now I wasn’t so sure...

The light increased. I bent toward the body... not just a body—toward the Matoran... and—

A wave of heat rushed down the stairwell, and a burning smell filled the chamber. I froze, and fear surged in my chest as I turned my head to look.

It was the old Skrall. He was standing on the stairs, leaning on his staff. His eyes were sharp behind his mask, and somewhere in the back of my mind it clicked, that although the masks of the Adherents were clearly forged like the one I now held, they were subtly different, like a picture whose original reference had been lost. A copy of a copy of a copy...

“Hold a moment,” the Skrall said urgently. “You stand on sacred ground. Disturb not the machines of the Great Beings.”

“I don’t know what that means.” I stood up and turned around slowly. The Skrall’s eyes widened as he saw what I was holding... and what was slumped behind me.

“That Kanohi...” he hissed, descending another step. “It is meant for the Children of Mata alone. You must give it to me—it is not for you to touch!”

“I’ve already touched it. It has... shown me things. Things I don’t understand.”

The Skrall’s breath hissed in his mask.

“Give it to me, and all shall be restored to unity.”

“It’s not yours. It belongs to... to this one.” I pointed at the Matoran. The dim eyes looked at the wizened elder, but the Skrall averted his gaze.

“This is not in accord with our canons,” he intoned.

“I don’t—”

“Such things only lead to greater kuru.”

I was on a stairway. I was on a great open plain, beneath two suns. My face was covered, but it was not my face. Not anymore. It belonged to someone else.

“You’re wrong.” I held the mask close.

“The canon shall not be denied, nor shall it be mocked. Give me the mask.”

The Skrall was not alone now. Another figure moved into the stairwell behind him. A cracked and broken mask, a bruised and bloodied face. More heat poured into the chamber as the Athori Tasius descended, eyes still glowing with fire.

I shrank back to the pedestal, and the lights of the shrine brightened further. The Matoran moved pitifully. We were trapped. The pedestal was humming. Waiting.

Waiting.

The Athori was moving, hindered by the small opening. His armored hand reached out at me, white-hot.

But I had already placed the mask on the Matoran’s face, and the charge that I had felt in my body went out of me... back into the mask, into the Matoran.

And the shrine was blazing white with light, and the pedestal was retracting into the wall. And the Skrall was staggering back onto the stairs, eyes raving. And the Athori was still moving forward, overbalanced, tipping forward into suddenly empty space.

The walls were pulled back and then were gone as the bottom of the shrine became a circular platform and dropped down, down into pitch-black. The stairwell shrank into the distance above us, and I saw the Athori hang for a moment, glowing with heat. Then he fell, whirling like a fiery meteor, right past the edge of the descending platform and away into the greater dark.

Gone.

A few moments passed, maybe longer. I sank down on the platform, exhausted and spent. The Matoran was sitting next to me. It reached out and gripped my shoulder with its metal hand. Its eyes were glowing bright again, and the light in its chest blinked steadily, despite the corrosion and scorch-marks that covered the rest of its body. It looked at me, and its mouth shifted into a different configuration.

I think it was smiling.

Cold air rushed past us as we fell onward, onward into unknown. I don’t know how long we spent in that smooth descent. I looked up and saw nothing above, and nothing on either side. I wondered if I would ever see the surface again, if I would ever have a chance to tell someone. I wondered what was happened or had happened in the camp. I wondered if anyone else but the two Adherents knew what had happened to me, to the mask, to the Matoran...

Except for the light of the platform beneath us, it was dark all around. Featureless, unbroken dark.

“Kuru,” I said aloud, unbidden, remembering the word.

“Ha te ai kuru,” my companion replied, nodding.

I shivered and rubbed my arms.

“Ukuru,” I said.

“Ru,” it replied, standing up. “Ru te aikuru. Akuya.”

The Matoran went to the edge of the platform—too close for my comfort—and pointed out into the surrounding dark.

“Akuya,” it said, and gestured at my... my eyes. My aku. Look. It beckoned me and pointed again. And hesitating, shivering, I rose and went to where it stood, and looked out. And I saw:

Rising up over us, ascending as we descended into the depths of Spherus Magna... Deeper than any excavation could reach, deeper than the catacombs of lost Atero, or the mass tombs of the Glatori hosts, farther and deeper than the silo-vaults of the Great Beings, or the maze-labyrinths of Old Skralla, or the vast mutated seabeds of Old Spherus... Far beyond the reach of Quadrates or Adherencies, of charters or canons...

Past the unknown dark, the aikuru...

There were stars, and two suns rising.

#bionicle #art #writing #fanfiction #works #outofgloom #spherus magna

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