Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) (12 page)

His touch opened a window of light
through the darkness. ["We'll get out of this
together."]

["I know."] With him, anything was
possible.

["But I'd like to know what
this monolith says…It's here.
We're
here."]

Tell me you're
kidding.
She just wanted to go home. She
didn't want to be anywhere near that thing. The stone monolith had
triggered a reaction from the Starfire entities, which had exploded
inside her head as a severe headache. She didn't want to go through
that again, but she was curious.
She
didn't have to be close to it, though. She could
leave that to Elis.

"Be careful of the stone." She didn't
want to see him harmed.

To her relief, he avoided touching the
red stone, stepping around to trace the etched script with his
fingers instead.

For a long while, Elis studied it,
pausing only to eat when the Risaal guards set trays of food and
bottles of water inside the door for them. That answered the
question of how desperate the aliens were for answers about the
stone; they were willing to keep their hated Inari captives alive,
until they had what they wanted.

The Risaal watched from behind the
glass and probably listened to them talking. Hah! If they couldn't
read Inari, it was a safe bet the Risaal couldn't translate what
she and Elis said.

While Elis continued his work on the
monolith, she took the time to examine the layout of the chamber.
If it was a missile silo, it must have opened up on the top. That
would explain the seam overhead—sliding doors. How could they open
it? Even flying up there, they'd have no way to find leverage to
pry them open, nor the strength for that matter. They'd need access
to the controls to make that happen.

Fat chance in hell. There were too
many Risaal walking the complex. For all they knew, the Risaal
numbered in the hundreds or thousands, although she doubted the
complex was big enough for more than a dozen or two. This wasn't
television, and the military wouldn't want to make it obvious in a
remote prairie area.

There had to be a way to
escape.
Think!

["Raea."]

Huh? She joined Elis, her eyes
following his fingers over a section of the stone.

["There's something here. The stone is
a covering something else."]

["What?"]

["Metal."]

Then she hadn't imagined it. In one of
the deeper grooves beneath his fingers glinted the smooth line of
polished metal.

["What does it mean?"]

He shrugged. ["I don’t know, but
humans were still in the Stone Age twelve thousand years
ago."]

["Then it's more than just a stone.
Some sort of ancient Inari device?"]

["Maybe."] The look he gave to the
watchers behind the glass above hinted of doubts. ["I don't know
who made it, but the Inari covered it in stone. The tests done on
it should have revealed more, unless...."] He trailed off into
silence.

Unless what? Why couldn't he finish
the statement?

Her imagination exploded with
possibilities while he traced the figures in the stone.

["It could be shielded from
scans."]

So there could be more to it than what
they saw. ["Why? What would they want hidden?"]

He shook his head. ["I don't
know."]

Something started to fit together in
her head, but the picture was still incomplete. Raea closed her
eyes and recalled the memory of the Starfire from when her mother
had seen the artifact in the museum in Minneapolis.

Humans believed the
monolith to be a remnant of the lost civilization of Atlantis.
Possible. It fit all the descriptions. An advanced civilization
superior to humans in many ways, perhaps they even helped humans
organize communities and taught them advancements in culture and
technology. Weren't there some vanished ancient Earth civilizations
considered far too advanced in their knowledge at the time of their
pinnacle? Perhaps that was because extra terrestrials
had
visited Earth long
ago.

The Miru must have known about Earth
to have brought the Inari there to save them. Who knew how often
the Miru had been to Earth before or since? For that matter,
perhaps they had influenced humans in some way. Maybe there was
another reason humans and Inari were so similar.

Too many insinuations and
possibilities.

Raea shook the thoughts away. Now
wasn't the time for such deep explorations on the similarities
between humans and Inari. They had to focus on the monolith. Maybe
there was something more they weren't seeing, something the Risaal
knew but not with any certainty.

What would they want with a twelve
thousand year old remnant of Inari history?

Twelve thousand years. That
was the connection. She glanced up at the Risaal in the
window.
Kan Rikku
Nakor Surik had said the Inari had the crystal for twelve
thousand years…Earth years? What had happened in between the gift
to the emissary and the "discovery" of the Starfire? It couldn't
have disappeared for six thousand of those years. What was the
connection to the monolith?

And why hadn't the Risaal done
something about it sooner?

Some pieces were still missing, but
the Starfire entities shared nothing with her.

Elis fingered a groove of one of the
etched characters. ["I've never heard of the Risaal before. I don't
understand this."]

["What's on the inner tracks? You
couldn't make those out in the picture."]

Elis's fingers slid over
the characters closest to the red stone. Her heart beat faster;
he'd better not touch it. ["It doesn't make sense. The rest of it
describes the story of the families brought by the Miru to the
world they called
Ouretsi
, meaning life-bearer or
life-sustaining. It's just the story of the Lady Mikael Atia and
her son, Lord Mikael Lantis."]

["Atia and Lantis? At-Lantis."] It
fit, and it meant Atlantis really had existed and this stone was an
artifact of it.

The twisted smile on Elis's face was
cute, but it fell into a frown in the next breath. ["Sometime after
Lantis reached manhood, Atia was stricken into a coma and never
awakened. The rest makes little sense."]

["Interesting. What would the Risaal
expect it to tell them?"]

["Good question."] Elis mumbled the
words while still tracing the characters close to the red stone. If
he didn't put some distance from it, she'd pull him away. Honestly,
if she didn't know better, she'd swear he did it just to scare
her.

If that's the way he wanted
it, she
would
pull
him away. ["Can you please not do that?"]

Dropping his hands was a good start.
Now to keep him from touching it. ["What do we tell the
Risaal?"]

His eyes lifted over her to the
window, the muscles of his cheeks tensing. ["We have nothing to
tell them…nothing they want to hear."]

That left only one problem, and it
grew in pressure. "Where's a bathroom?" Three Risaal faces watched
from behind the glass. "Hello? Gotta pee down here. Bathroom? Can
you hear me?"

Nothing but dumb stares.

Good grief. "Hey! I. Need. The.
Bathroom!"

This was so embarrassing, not that
Elis had never been around when she had to go, but she'd never gone
in front of him or had to make a big deal out of it. Worse was
having her hands cuffed.

Her hands. This might be their chance
to escape, if she could convince the Risaal to release her hands.
She wouldn't go without Elis, though.

"Don't you have to go too?" He'd drunk
the full bottle of water offered to him.

"Yes."

How did he stay so calm?

An idea struck. No bathroom in the
main area where they were. They'd have to take them outside. Of
course! ["This could be our chance."] After she used the
restroom.

["I know."] The corner of
his mouth crooked up. Aha! So he
was
thinking the same thing.

["I hate it when you do
that."]

["I know."]

"Elis…" She growled but couldn't
resist laughing at the old joke. ["All right. So…What?"]

["Don't be afraid to kill. It's not
easy…"]

["I know."] How she knew! Pallin had
died at her hands—literally—when the Starfire took over that night
almost two months ago and he tried to take her back with him. She'd
hated herself for the longest time. And she had to fire on other
Shirukan to escape Naviketan three weeks ago. It left a sickening
feeling in her gut, but if she had to do it again, she would, this
time with the intent to kill.

["Can you do it?"] Elis
asked.

["I think so…I don't have much of a
choice."] If it was the only way to escape the Risaal and ensure
they would never return, she'd do it.

["No,"] he said soberly.

["Do you know how to get
out?"]

["No. But we'll find a
way."]

She had no doubts they would. The
Risaal must have brought them in somewhere.

The door clicked and scraped open.
Four guards marched in, weapons in their dark green hands. Man,
they were ugly in their natural form.

Here went everything. "Ah…We need a
bathroom break." Now that she said it, she had to go even worse.
Escape would have to wait.

The two Risaal in front exchanged
looks and stepped aside. The two behind them stepped aside also.
"This way."

Good. They understood her
request.

She assumed they'd be taken separately
or to different restrooms, although she had no idea of the layout
or even if the Risaal had any comprehension of human etiquette.
This was better than she expected.

With Elis beside her, Raea stepped
through the guards and the wide door of the chamber. Given any
luck, they wouldn't be back, but they knew where to find the
monolith and whatever secrets it might wield.

She entered a dim concrete corridor
with individual lights glowing from overhead too few and too far
between for her tastes, and the human-looking man who had been with
Nakor Surik when she was first brought into the chamber stepped in
front of her. Nakor Surik called him Kalas, but for all she knew,
this was a different Risaal in the same human appearance. Stupid
doppelgangers. She couldn't even trust who they were.

"Follow me," he said.

No problem there, as long as he showed
her the restroom ASAP.

He did, thank goodness. Only one
problem left. Raea held out her wrists. "I need my hands
free."

The Risaal could make her
uncomfortable with a look, human or otherwise. She shuddered, but
she really did have to go.

"Unless you want to send someone to
help me." The thought disgusted her, but maybe the idea would
sicken them the same way.

Bingo! Kalas touched the flat section
of metal between her wrists.

The moment she was free, Raea rushed
into the bathroom and flicked the light on. Her heart sank. Didn't
the Risaal know about toilet paper and towels? Did the water even
run?

Then again, why should she expect them
to even know how to use human commodes? They probably took care of
things differently, like with some high-tech fancy space stuff.
Inari utilities were similar to those she knew, but Risaal were a
strange species.

Oh, well. It was the best she had. It
couldn't be over fast enough, but she managed.

Now for the hard part.

Time to rock and
roll.
Raea took a deep breath to calm her
nerves and found the resonance. Her hands glowed and the energy
warmed through her. Five Risaal awaited execution.
You can do this. It's them or you.

She pulled open the heavy door as two
guards brought their weapons up. Elis met her eyes and whirled on
the two behind him.

A couple seconds later, one Risaal
stood between Elis and the wall, the spikes along his face breaking
apart to reveal the true form beneath the human mask.

Elis held up his hands. "Code
please."

The Risaal moved slowly.

"Now!" Anxiety filled her voice.
Dammit! Any second, more Risaal would be coming down the corridor.
If he didn't hurry to release Elis, this would all be for nothing,
but that was probably his plan.

"Thank you."

Done already?

Elis removed the smoking gloves burned
through from the Starburst blast he'd let out. "Leave or end up
like them," he said.

The Risaal slid away and ran down the
hall.

To alert others. Oh, hell. "That was
stupid."

His lip twitched. "Let's go. They'll
be after us anyway."

True. He had spared the Risaal's life
because he cared. Keepers didn't kill unless it was necessary. Elis
deserved to be a Crystal Keeper when they found the Eye. He was
more worthy than she was.