cosmicshifts (18 page)

He nodded.

“Okay.
Great.
So I think we should go, don
’
t you?”

He glanced at
Alika
and Phillip.

“I know. She
’
s not all that well. I
’
m sure you did everything you could for now to get her up and walking the same way that you did for me. But we need to get moving. We can
’
t stay here. If those guards come down here, they
’
ll
see my footprints and it’ll lead them right to me.” She waved the
luma
stone over the floor and showed him the footprints in the layer of dust on the floor.

He growled something. It appeared he
hadn
’
t thought of that. “There
’
s something else I have to show you. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it.”

Herman shook his head and pointed at another tunnel and then back to the main one she had entered the temple from.

“I know there
isn
’
t a lot of time, but it
’
s important. Come.”
Elarna
grabbed his arm and wrenched him down to the mural. “
Look, i
t shows who you are and why you can change. This ship is almost like mine. If I were to guess, my people came here ages ago, and we joined with your people. Children must have been born. We have healers among our people whose lines go back generations. One of your ancestors was probably one of those children who could switch shapes. What you have is not a curse. I don
’
t know what happened over the years, but once upon a time you were revered as a god. I suspect this temple was built, this whole city was built to house those like me and those who were born. Think about it. Somewhere down the line your people turned it into something bad. It also means that you should be able to control your shift the way that I and
Alika
can.”

He ran his fingers over the wall.
Elarna
wanted to know exactly what he was thinking. He walked down the length of the fresco, stopped at the end, and studied the painting. She walked down to him and placed her hand on his furry arm, twining her fingers through his pelt and loving how soft it was. She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his muzzle. Herman slipped his hand around her head and cupped it gently in his large hands before returning the kiss with a hungry one of his own. It was a little awkward because of his snout and his tongue was thicker than when he was human. He was just as attractive when he was like this than when he was a man. He pulled her into him and held her. She felt the hair recede from his body as his shape shifted, and he was the male with his dark skin and white hair.

“Thank you,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers.

“You don
’
t have to thank me. I wanted you to see that you don
’
t have to be ashamed of what you are. That
’
s all. Why
didn
’
t you ever come down here?”

He trailed his fingers down her cheek.
“Because I was afraid.
My father always told me demons lived within the bowels of this temple. I
’
ve
never seen this. My father never talked about it and the past has been forgotten. They would never accept the fact that our people mixed with other aliens. How is that even possible? We
’
re completely different species.”

Elarna
shrugged. She had only taken the basic genetics classes in school. All she had been told was that females were capable of mating with many different species and sometimes the genetics crossed over. It depended on the species and they weren’t going after
insectoid
males. Those were not suitable matches, although they were an interesting species to sleep with. “It
’
s possible. Apparently our inherent makeup is amiable to many other different species of alien and we bond well with others. I don
’
t know the exact reason why.”

“It
’
s good to know. We really have to get out of here. If the soldiers decide to come down here, we won’t have a chance to escape. I hope you meant what you said regarding me going with you.”

“Of course I did. I just don
’
t know how we
’
re going to get off this ball of ice. Sorry. I know it
’
s your home, but it
’s cold. I don’
t like the cold.”

He held out the tablet and pressed a few places on the metal. It lit up. The technology surprised her. She had always thought
Yetans
were not so scientifically advanced. Seeing that made her realize there was a lot she
didn
’
t know about them.

“What is that?”

“It
’
s a map my mother gave me. It points the way to our escape. I can
’
t sustain this form much longer. Healing
Alika
drained me, and she is not completely well. There was much damage done to her.”

“What
’
s at the end of the road?”

“A ship.”

Chapter Eight

Herman processed the information
Elarna
had given him and what he had seen on the mural. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting her unique sweetness and wondered why she had such an effect on him. He
didn
’
t want to let her go and knew she
couldn
’
t stay. He had to get her to the ship. He
wouldn
’
t see her hurt. But the thought of losing her tore his heart to slivers. He had no idea if the ship would fly. It was the only hope they had of escaping. If not, they would all be captured, and he had no idea what the guards would do to him.

He trailed his finger down
Elarna
’
s cheek, enjoying the softness of it. If he lost her then he would be set adrift. He had never thought he would find the one for him, but after the idea of not seeing her again and seeing how Phillip was so attached to
Alika
he understood what it meant for someone to love someone else. His parents had never truly loved one another. His mother had been given to his father to cement an alliance to the lands of the east where they needed to trade. His father never let his mother forget it, reminding her that he could always send her back no matter what. Seeing his mother pregnant saddened him because so late in life she could die from the birth if she didn’t have a good healer there. What would happen if he and
Elarna
had a child together? What would it look like? Was the mural correct?

“I thought you said that we had to get going,”
Elarna
said to him.

He nodded. The longer they lingered the likelier it was for the guards to catch up with them or for them to find the entrance to the cavern. One of the reasons he had set himself up in this
cave
was because his father had shown it to him. As a child, he had said it was important to their history and brought him down into the mouth of the great temple, but he
didn
’
t tell him about the painting. When Herman was dealing with his transformations, he had found the other entrance to the caves by the palace and navigated his way through the underground tunnels. The map his mother had given him had shown him more of an extensive underground system. It appeared that this had once been the entrance to a great underground city as
Elarna
had suggested. The past
wasn
’
t something that he was taught. He only dealt with the past few hundred years and how the tribes had all been warring until there had been a pact and how their line became royalty.

He touched her shoulder and led her back to the others. Phillip held
Alika
in the crook of his arm and it made him yearn for that closeness. It was something that he would love to have with
Elarna
. That
wasn
’
t going to happen if they were caught.
Alika
noticed him and smiled. His body reacted to her injuries as the warmth inside of him rose. He had done what he could to be able to make her walk again until they could settle down and he could heal her properly. In the time they had spent in the cavern, he had cleared the toxin from her system, but he was unable to save the child. Phillip worried about that, but they had decided not to tell
Alika
about it until she was well again. He prayed that would be soon.

He walked over to Phillip and pointed at the tablet. He nodded and seemed to communicate to
Alika
what was occurring. It had to be some other form of communication, maybe telepathy. Phillip picked her up, and she pressed her face into his fur. A pang of sadness struck his heart.
Elarna
was by his side, but he couldn’t dwell on what might be. He had to get them out of there. He studied the tablet and thought about the way the statue was turned. He looked at it carefully and read the tablet again. There was something written about the statue and the way that it was pointing. It reminded him of the very last painting of the
Yetan
he had seen on the wall and it was pointing upward. None of the fingers were pointing that way. Something looked off about it. He touched the fingers on the statue and realized they could move. He repositioned all of them except the fourth finger on the right hand remained upward. Just like the
Yetan
in the mural. A click echoed in the chamber.

Elarna
gasped.

The ground cracked around them as they slowly sunk downward at an angle. The
luma
stones lit up the passageway as they did. As they ventured down the tunnel, the heat in the environment rose. At the very end he could see an orange glow and the track they were on dumped them out into a lake of molten rock. They floated for a few minutes. The hot rock sloshed over the edges of the platform they stood on. It bobbed along with the tides of lava until it came to the over side of the pool. From there he heard more mechanics whirring underneath him. The stone rose slowly and the
luma
stones embedded in the walls reminded him of the night sky. They were the same configuration of stars he had seen in the painting. Whoever had painted the cave and constructed the tablet and the mechanism they were riding on
were
from a different time. They no longer had this kind of technology or maybe it had been lost. He had never seen anything like it.
Yetan
knowledge was advanced, but they
wouldn
’
t be able to build a spacecraft. This was their only hope in order for them to escape, and it seemed unlocking some part of the past was going to lead him to the future. They continued to the rise until they stopped at the top of a large shelf. Herman stepped off the elevator and looked around, listening for anything, but he heard nothing.

He gestured for the others to follow. Once they were off the platform, it slowly worked its way back down. He found a
luma
stone and pulled it from the wall. He swept it across the floor; no footprints marred the blanket of dust. Herman thought back to what his mother had said about the tablet being ancient and coming down from her line. If that was the case, then somewhere in his past her people had been connected to this place. That meant he was tied to it in more ways than he could possibly understand. As they walked down the hall, he saw symbols carved into the metal on the walls, but he could not read them. He stopped and motioned over
Elarna
, hoping she might be able to comprehend the language. He focused and moved back into his hairless form so he could speak with her.

“You know what these say?”
Elarna
glanced back at him and ran her fingers over the walls.

“Yes.”

“It
’
s an old
Rovian
dialect. I
’
m not sure about all of it, but from what I can make out, it tells how one of the leaders of our world came here. At first your people thought them to be gods. They taught the people here technology, building, etc. in exchange for males who were willing to go with them or mate with them here. Males from all over were sent here. They lived in harmony for several hundred years until a plague hit the
Yetans
. Unrest had been brewing for a while, and there was a revolt. The city was abandoned. Many were killed who could switch their shapes like the women who had come, but a few were spared because they could heal.”

“That would explain a lot,”
Alika
said; her voice was soft in the darkness, still filled with some pain. Her damaged eye was healed.

“What do you mean?” Hearing the history of his people it made some sense why there was a great distrust of him. People might not know now where it had originated, but it had lingered in the people
’
s memory. This tale had been written by one of his ancestors. He wanted to know more about what had happened to the ones who had left and escaped the carnage.

“There are some on our planet that can heal with a touch. They don
’
t know why because it
isn
’
t an inherent ability. It’s valued, because sometimes the healers find stuff that the computers can’t heal.”

“Herman had asked me why they could mate with us, meaning why
were our genetics
suitable for one another, when we are entirely dissimilar species from different worlds. I
wasn
’
t really sure how to answer him.”
Elarna
explained to
Alika
.

Alika sighed.
“I
’
m at a loss on that one to. I just know that we
’
re compatible with all the males that we have on the acceptable list that we
’
re given as procurers. If we happen to find another planet that we haven
’
t been to before, we try to gather a DNA sample to bring back and make note of the planet
’
s position. If we are compatible with the population, then we can go back and introduce ourselves. Although I
’
ve
never come across a planet that I haven
’
t see in the database.
Even Earth where I found Phillip.
It
’
s at the edge of our sweeps, backwater as it is, and we can mate with the males there.”

Herman nodded. “Thank you for the explanation. I
’
m sure there’s more to it than what you’ve said, but that is all we are going to learn here. Who drove them away?”

“It
’
s too faded to tell. There is something, but I can
’
t make out the writing.”
Elarna
pointed it out.

Herman brought up the
luma
stone and ran his fingers over it, clearing away the dust. When he did, he gasped and backed away. The design was crude, but it was one he was familiar with. It was sewn into everything he had ever worn. It was on his mother
’
s clothes and carved into the palace floor right at the main entrance. It was his family crest. Three chevrons at a diagonal all, their bottom points coming together. “I did this. My family was the one who was elected and drove the rest away.”

“It was before your time. You didn’t do this. Come on. Let
’
s go see what
’
s down at the end of this tunnel.”

As
Elarna
led him away, he tried to fathom what his ancestors had done. He forced his body to stay in its hairless form and walked to the end of the passageway. A large door blocked their way. There was nothing on the tablet indicating how to open the door.
Elarna
studied the smooth surface and when she touched it, a purple hand print was left behind. However, the door
didn
’
t open.

“Try yours. I think
it’s
DNA encoded,”
Alika
suggested. “We have them on our ships.”

Herman placed his hand on the metal. It was warm underneath his palm, and when he pulled it away, a yellow handprint was left behind. It took a moment. The door shook, showering dust all around them. When it opened, the entire room lit up. The dust on the floor and the stale air told him no one had been in this room for a long time. Once his gaze got to the object in the center of the room, he gasped.

“Oh my!”

In the center of the cavern was a large spaceship. If it
didn
’
t hold the four of them then there would be a problem. So many times he had thought about being among the stars. Anything to get away from his loneliness and the seclusion he had been forced into. Sometimes he saw lights moving in the sky. He had always wondered if those lights were intelligent. He grew up knowing the guard would examine anything that fell from the sky, but he had never really seen an alien until
Elarna
. He approached the ship slowly, feeling the fear building in him. He had never thought he would be scared of the prospects ahead of him.

“This is amazing,” he heard Phillip say next to him.

“Yes, it is,”
Elarna replied.

“I haven
’
t seen one of these since that field trip to the archives. This has to be at least five hundred years old.”
Alika
walked around it. Phillip was by her side to be sure that nothing happened to her.

“Are you sure it
’
s one of yours?” Herman asked.

Elarna nodded.
“It is. It
’s
just
ancient
.
”

“At least it proves that it was your people who were the ones who were here and not some other race. The writing could have been a coincidence.”

“
True
.
”
Elarna
walked around it in awe.

“Do you think it will still fly?” Herman asked. “Can you fly it? I
— ”

“Over here,”
Alika
yelled, cutting him short.

They walked around the ship to the other side. Lying on the floor were several skeletons that appeared to have been racing to the ship, but they
hadn
’
t made it. Instead, something had happened to them. He bent down and upon closer examination some of the bones had been burned. He didn’t know any kind of technology that would do this. They weren’t the bulky skeletons of his people and they didn’t have seven toes. Herman assumed they were female.
Elarna
knelt down next to
Alika
. Tears streamed down her violet face and darkened her skin. Seeing those falling ice crystals around her cheeks was something that never should mar her perfection. He brushed them away and held her close.