Wednesday, October 23, 2019

A Threshold To Destiny (Chapter 6)

As Zoic and the small group sailed to other end of the great ocean basin, they spied a small settlement beneath one of the edges of a massive bio-garden just close enough to the level of the water where the ground rose up steeply from below. They went to investigate. It was a small area of around a dozen or more dwellings for people. Bringing the water craft ashore, and walking the pathway to what was called Winnow, a somber name, they were greeted by several of the inhabitants and explained that Tuoce sent them with the aid of his water ship to look for a man. The people were amazed of the generosity of their Covan king but the crew sensed that the people of Winnow had some doubts about his offering. When Zoic introduced himself and his crew and spoke of the man they were seeking, if they knew of him and if so, where he may be found. They immediately answered in the positive.
"Be cheered, good folk of Fiod and Arca, the man you seek is right here in Winnow!" A Covan said. With being shown the way to where Rainier was, all they had to do now was walk right up to him.

Upon their approach they saw that Rainier was a younger being, only around 1500 cycles of the nearest sun. He was working on a piece of farming equipment when he noticed the crew. Standing up he reached out to greet them.
"Hua!" Rainier said in his native dialect. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" as he shook Zoic's hand and nodded at the others.
The others all looked around and at each other and felt they should just directly ask his name.
"Are you Rainier?" Zoic asked.
"Yes, I am he." Rainier answered.
With a slight grin, Zoic's eyes gleamed as he delivered his words with a smile.
"Would you be willing to come with us and seek a ship that's hidden somewhere here in Cova?"
Rainier stood in shock. Having heard such tales, he no longer remembered them fully.
"It's alright, we've been assembling a crew and looking for a ship that's here on Cova." Zoic told Rainier who suddenly felt as if a dream was coming true, but oddly his anticipation had waned over the years so he felt some doubt and fear. After so long under the rule of Tuoce, so many things were quieted within him.
"You will also be asked to come with us in the ship and set out on a mission." Kould said.
"What will the mission entail?" Rainier wondered.
"Not exactly sure at this point. Just that we are to use it to find out if the fleet of ships from our planets are still located at Arcan 748." Ackea informed him. "The ship that's said to be here, can transport other ships inside and purify them if there'd be any traces of the evil of Dokk from the days when he reigned terror on our worlds."
Rainier sat down for a moment to regain his composure. He knew of the Darkness of Dokk and knew how real it was. He began to tell his visitors that the tragedy wasn't isolated to just their worlds but that much grief and loss was suffered by all Covans. He spoke of their leader becoming more and more distant and being lead astray by a spirit that was dark and elusive. Zoic assured Rainier that he knew about the spirit in the water.
"It was never understood how he came to be so dependent on it because it wasn't solid, there was no way to assemble any kind of council to reveal what its purpose was." Rainier explained. "But Tuoce gave in to it. From my personal feeling or instincts, it was the very entity that caused the collapse of some of the great ocean basins long ago. It has been working some evil in the way the system of our world flows. I remember what was then, and it's nothing like it was before. It gets worse as time moves on." The others knew without speaking that this was all the evil work of Dokk.
"Were there ever any legions that named themselves as the servant soldiers of this water spirit?" Deba asked.
"Here and there, they would come up from further tunnel-ways through the basins. And it was that alone that I believe began to weaken the stems, the structures of the mounted basins." Rainier answered.
They talked for hours about what happened on Cova and how Tuoce was enabling this evil to continue as he thought it was natural. How death was being accepted although everyone still fought it as an enemy. The most natural instinct being against such a destructive opponent.
"So! Now tell me about this ship." Rainier's mood seemed to lighten and he was eager to discover what these wonderful visitors had in mind.
"There's a volcanic region that I feel we must survey, it was said that we shall need a fire element made of natural magnetic energy." Zoic said.
"I know what you're looking for!" Rainier exclaimed. "There are gems that form out from a constant flow of fire and melted stone. Rare they are everywhere else, except at Nispetry. They are abundant there." Rainier was starting to feel something that had escaped him for so long, a feeling of hope and that there may be a way to defeat what he had resigned to accept in the long run should his world face an ultimate finality.
Rainier set about packing what he could carry and gave instructions to the people of Winnow on what to do with the tasks he had overseen since settling there. He assured them he would be back but not certain when that might be.

They walked to the water craft, and with Rainier as a guide, they would soon find their way to Nispetry. A fog had begun to descend in a thickness of soft white and blue as was the nature of Cova's atmosphere. They sailed along the lip-line shores of the basin sea between Winnow and Nispetry. Upon the horizon as they drew closer to their destination, a glow was present of glistening colors. Reddish and purple light seemed to slowly flash back on the clouded air around them. Rainier was awestruck for a moment because he knew the rare elements were close.
Disembarking from their vessel they followed the shoreline until it began to lead on to very solid and hard ground. The ground was that of rock and a rugged crystal exposed to thousands of turns of the sometimes harsh environment of Cova's exposed seas.
"This is a sign that we are extremely close." Rainier said as he picked up the pace. The others followed with the same footing. After an hour, the peak of the volcanic mountain could be seen.
"It's closer than it looks." Rainier said, pointing out the optical illusion of depth where the crystal grounds held in sparse light to appear as a black and deep ocean.

At first they traveled at a slow pace. Watching for any signs of cave-ins or glowing rock that would indicate a weak crust where magma would flow underneath. The trail was forged long before their journey. Lined with small statuesque rock formations that bore single gems resting atop each one. Zoic pulled out a mapping device he had of the old scrolls of his planet. They were mainly space courses from planet to planet, but he searched for the topography of Cova's landmass. The volcanic region would be the largest landmass of Cova and that's where the fabled ship is said to be.

The slopes gave a steady rise toward a cavern entrance not too far from the base of the mountain that lay before them. Within an hour they reached the entrance. Nothing remarkable could be seen in or around it. It was almost dreary in appearance. Rainier repeated a tale in part of the mysterious cave door and how the crystals would open the side of the mountain if adjusted in the right way. But his memory of the tale was hazy. Zoic looked out at the grounds below and the sparkle of the gems that lay scattered all around. Deep in thought he went over anything relating to this place in his own memories. He drew nothing that could be used as a means to open this ancient hidden ship.

"Could it be a certain time when the doorway might be shown? A direction to follow?" Ackea asked. Zoic stirred from his thoughts and looked around again. "I don't think there's a time, but there is a property of the gemstones here that might answer that." The group went about and carefully picked up only a few gems from nearby locations, and only the gems that lay on the ground. Zoic and Rainier piled them up on the ground just inside the cave mouth. They began to glow with intensity. But the only effect they had was to light up the walls within the cave itself. It wasn't a deep cave and they could see to the sheer stone face of the mountain inside. There were no other paths further in. But as the light on the walls danced, there were, subtle at first, markings that seemed natural. After long moments, as the beauty of the gems glowing inside the darkness enchanted them, a sound began to emit as if an echo were being rang inside. Faint it was. Barely audible. But the tones were familiar to Rainier. He had heard this before in old tales.

"The gems, they have properties of the suns. Bismuth and iridium, remnants of the sea of fire inside the fabled sun that died millennia ago." Rainer noted to the others. Zoic looked over his charts and specifically detailed the placement of the dead star in relation to the suns' planets, and their position to each other. Nackendara noticed the markings in the rock to be a vague map-like carving. "The gems have to line up with what the elements of each sun mostly comprised of." She said. Zoic confirmed that hypothesis and they set the gems to the chart of the wall rather than what Zoic's charts had detailed.

"Could also mean we must wait until a particular conjunction of the suns." Rainier mused. But as they smiled in a halfway attempt to remain hopeful, the sound became even more distinct. A tonic ringing had all but pierced the air and a slight rumble was felt. The rock walls slid downward as if melted into an unseen lava pit. The group began to make way toward the path they had come, and flee the area. Not knowing if it was a volcanic effect or indeed the opening of the passageway that would lead to the ancient space ship they hoped to find. The ground shook a bit more violently this time. Rainier looked all around and his face seemed aglow with a realization and looking over at Zoic, he saw the smile of knowing.

"Do you know what this means?" Rainier shouted. "The gems align with the suns, and carry the elements of the suns!" He laughed aloud as he tried to keep his balance. "A ship capable of reaching past the planet system and possibly break through the plasma and thermal barriers." Zoic replied. "An ancient ship that was constructed from a point in time before our worlds were crafted."

The ground steadily began to cease its trembling and the group cautiously walked back toward the cave entrance. Upon stepping close to the opening they found that the floor of the cave had a new feature. A smooth and almost transparent platform about twenty feet in diameter hovering about a foot from the cave floor. Beyond that, in the shadowy point beyond the now melted away rock wall, lay the ancient ship they came to claim.

The edges could be seen fairly well in the darkness of the mountain. But the size was hard to determine. The darkness would be hard to navigate safely to find a way into the ship itself save for the gems that still lit the walls from beneath the platform. They took their lights and beamed light into the area where the ship now appeared clearly to be docked above an even larger platform far below. "It's magnetic." Deba stated. Their lights bounced off of the ship as they searched for a way in. But as they looked, the mass of the ship was surprising to them. They hadn't expected it to be so immense. The lone symbol on the side was a number within an icon of twelve suns. The number was 773.

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