Cuenyne muttered something about having told me so as I sped forward inpanic, unable to process the impossibility of what I’d just seen. What was thisplace? And how would we get back out without having to traverse thatnightmare hall again?

(资料图)

Thankfully, they didn’t seem to be following us, and the corridor ended at a large,baroquely carved door. Seemingly religious in nature like the ones in the tower farabove, it told a story of fear and suffering, the grimmest state of the human conditionaccording to one bleak philosopher whose name escaped me. I paid it scant attention,terrified as I was over the horrifying things I’d just seen.

The door opened upon a round room swathed in blue and amaranthine whichemanated up from the base of the marble-tiled floor. A scrolling design ran across theborder of the ceiling and halfway down the wall, but what arrested my attention wasa bronze sculpture of the goddess Onrai hung suspended over nothing, a circle of starsin a nimbus around her head. Upon entering, a wan glow emanated from her handsand womb. On the back wall stood the life-sized statue of a sinister thing, a CavernMonster or Raich from childhood imagination.

Twelve additional statues of various beings stood ringed around the small, circularchamber. I couldn’t process so ominous a sight after the revelation of the last room,and here again they looked down on us as if in anticipation.

“Stay back and don’t say anything,” the droid whispered. But as soon as he said it,he regretted it. Had he hands, he’d have used one to smack his head. Behind us, thedoor sealed shut just as the statue of the Raich began to stalk forward and the heads ofthe twelve statues rotated towards us, their mouths opening slowly, shrieking!

Though the paralyzing effect of shock threatened to overcome me, there was notime for that. I reasoned that they were just droids of some kind, though their liquidmovements and expressions seemed utterly alive. I pulled out a small blaster that I’dbrought for just such emergencies and shot the nightmare effigy, but to no apparenteffect. It continued moving towards us with an open mouth and outstretched arms.

Meanwhile, my chromium-plated troublemaker burst forth with a lengthysentence in the ancient tongue. The shrieking ceased at once and the monster stilled.The heads of the twelve statues now turned to the droid. One asked a question.Cuenyne altered the glottological variance of the ancient language he used previouslyto more accurately represent their speech in response. Then another spoke, andanother, until all twelve had done so. It was an utterly eerie thing to hear a languageof such terrible antiquity being spoken, probably for the first time in tens of thousandsof years, by the effigies of ancient, arcane entities.

“What are they saying?” I whispered, my curiosity getting the better of me.Cuenyne turned to me in apparent reproach but didn’t respond.

The hand of the nearest statue stretched to point at a section of the wall. At therisk of violating some unknown, archaic edict, I followed its direction and gentlypushed against the pictograph-carved panel. The remaining statues droned a longabyssal sound in unison.

Without warning, the lights went out.

In that terrifying flicker, I found myself in another corridor. It was illuminatedonce more in blue and red. Cuenyne suddenly appeared. Whispering softly at first, hesaid, “I don’t think we’ll be penalized again for using Basic.”

When nothing happened, he continued in a normal tone. “Only the originaltongue was permitted there so that any who arrived who were not of the First Oneswould be barred! I was able to convince them that I’d traveled from abroad on amission to preserve their ancient records.”

“And that worked?”

“They likely scanned me to see that I didn’t have much in the way of weapons, atleast of a kind they could recognize, and didn’t pose a threat.”

“What about me?” I asked, concerned. “I had a weapon. Aren’t I a threat?”

“I know this might hurt your pride, but I think they saw you as my bodyguard.”

“Reduced to a bodyguard,” I said in mock disappointment. “What else did they say?”

“That’s a longer conversation, but the short of it is that they represent twelveElder Races who submitted to the temptations of the Queen of Air and Darkness,”Cuenyne revealed, “and no longer exist… They were expressing their regret.”

“This is a strange place we’ve come to…”

“You’re only realizing that now?”

“Was that just a transportation device we went through?”

“A Teleportal,” Cuenyne related, “and a highly advanced one, judging by thesmoothness of the transition.”

Down a long and sloping corridor we came upon a large room empty of alladornments, save for a number of large monitors built into the walls. A giant dais atthe rear of the sweeping chamber held a huge mechanism. The upper portion wasdominated by a large, curved, transparisteel dome. It was dim. Though not asgargantuan as Mistress Mnemos, it was clearly an advanced technologicalachievement, and it occurred to me that we’d found the remnant of the Osserians!

Unfortunately, like its counterpart on Osseria, it was also dead.

I began to reproach myself for making such a foolish excursion that would likelymean our end in this alien tomb, but then I had a thought. “Cuenyne, do you thinkyou could… I don’t know, wake it up?”

Cuenyne hovered over to it. “You don’t suppose there’s an on switch?” He floatedback and forth. But after a few moments with no successful response, he added, “Idon’t suppose it could hurt to give her a nudge.” He pulled out his interface arm,preparing to plug himself in.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” An enraged, tall woman stalked into the room.She was striking, with lenghty brunette hair that fell down to her knees. It was all that covered her lithe form, which was as that of a dancer… or a professional killer.“You have come to destroy the Watcher!” she bellowed.

“No, we didn’t,” I replied firmly.

“Then you are pillagers and thieves!” The accusation held no room for doubt.“None but the destroyers and the doomed have ever attempted to penetrate our innersanctum. I shall hasten your deaths…”

And with that declaration, she opened her mouth wide, too wide. Tilting her headback, she reached into her mouth and pulled out her tongue, which turned out to bethe handle of a long, silvery, glowing whip.

“We’ve come to find the Osserians!” I said quickly.

The deadly android stopped, bemused. She replaced the sharp tongue-whip backinto her belly. “You should speak to Mother of this. Yet, she will not like beingawakened after such a sweet sleep. I think perhaps I should kill you instead.”

“We’ve brought important information,” I added. “You wouldn’t deny her that?”

“I would if it would spare her pain,” she said. “Do you bring her pain?”

“No, only knowledge.”

“That is the worst kind of pain. But I will let Mother decide. She will choose asuitable fate for you.” At that, she grasped her head firmly with both hands, swiveled,and pulled it off her body. Carrying the head under one arm, she walked over to hermother, which Cuenyne had wisely backed away from (though that didn’t stop herfrom shooting him a murderous glare), and planted it in a small circular depression.

The eyes of the head awoke in rutilant, cyclamen, and aureolin tincts. In turn,illumination flickered on the massive mainframe, emerging across its surface likewhite spots in a parhelic circle. Before long, a skull-like face formed on thetransparisteel window. It was not a face of welcome.

The voice was slightly feminine, stately, but with a weary, metallic tremolo.“Who dares intrude on my age-old slumber?!” she boomed in Basic. Amber and saffronlights beaming from her across the room.

“We have…” I stammered, “come from Osseria to Otherspace to find—”

“Osseria!” she interrupted. “It seems as if a thousand ages have passed since thename of our ancestral home has been uttered in this forsaken place… A Human… anda droid… You are not a model I recognize. Constructed more recently… clever, too.Quickly then, tell me who you are and what your purpose is before I send my servitorsto unmake you.”

“You promised the next ones to me, Mother!” the head of the starry-eyed womancomplained.

“Oh… umm,” I faltered, desperate not to seem guilty of whatever might offend her.“My name is Arhul Hextrophon. This is Cuenyne. We’re here as historians to learn…uh, are you related to the Keeper?”

“I am called the Watcher of Osseria II,” the supercomputer intoned, her voicesoftening to become more approachable and less all-powerful, “known as Archon-Oodby the old Osserians. The Keeper of Osseria was my eldest sister, Asmoth-Yor, whowas fashioned in the Earliest Days of Skyriver. It was my signal that summoned youhere… to be tested… and upon failing, destroyed.”

“But we passed?” I asked hopefully.

“There are many imposters in the worlds. I do not believe you are one, but you willlikely die nonetheless, though not at my hands.”

“We’ve come a long way and have only a few questions,” I assured her. “If you cananswer them, we’d be happy to leave in peace.”

“If it is peace you value, you should never have come here!”

“How is it you speak Basic?” Cuenyne interjected. “The Galactic Standard wasn’testablished until around over fifteen thousand years ago, which I assume would havebeen some years after you arrived.”

“A complicated story that will take time to tell,” Archon-Ood responded. “Let usjust say that I know much of the history of your galaxy. You have seen that our newhome is protected, and language is but one of the means to ensure that our adversariesdo not infiltrate us unawares, for nearly all have forgotten the ancient tongue of thePrecursors.”

“Then I’m glad Cuenyne learned it,” I gulped.

“You would be dead otherwise,” she rejoined ominously.

“Look, another reason we’ve come is to tell you that Osseria is safe to return to. Soif any of your people are yet alive, we can lead you back there…”

“You are not the first to offer to lead the Osserians to greener pastures,” theWatcher stated enigmatically as the lights in the room swirled to jade and cinnabarhues. “But you are too late to save them.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps you might tell us what happened…”

“Betrayal!” the Watcher rumbled as her many lights turned a piercing red. “Wewere abducted and brought to this forsaken prison. It was not a terrible existence buta bleak one; we missed our beautiful world and ever longed to return to it.”

“Certainly, there’s some remnant somewhere…” But I grew suspicious and beganto wonder. What if they’d all been murdered by this mad Archon or her grotesquedaughter? Perhaps her internal hardware had begun to corrode and she’d gone insanelike the feral droids from the Factory District of Coruscant.

But it was Cuenyne who explained: “The Osserians became infertile, didn’t they?It could have been the trauma of capture and exile, exposure to radiation, or livingunderground without natural air or sunlight, but without the ability to reproducethey would have simply died out.”

The Watcher sat silent for a few moments before the head of her daughter—stillattached to the mainframe—spoke: “They have caused you grief, Mother. I shall slaythem now so that you may return to your blissful slumber.”

“No, daughter,” the Watcher sighed. “Not all remembrances come to grief and notall griefs are bad. It has been a long time since I’ve told the old stories. I had enjoyed itat one time, especially with the young, and these two are very young.

“But you must be hungry and thirsty… Areana, procure refreshments.”

The strange and hostile android-head circled around to stare at us for a moment, asif deciding whether she needed her mother’s permission to kill us. But she replacedthe head atop her body and disappeared into another room.

“And put some clothes on! We have guests!” she called after her. “You must nothold my childrens’ vigilance against them,” the Watcher said. “They care only for mywell-being. Do you have children of your own, Arhul Hextrophon?”

“No, I’m afraid not, though Cuenyne here displays similar insolence.”

Cuenyne retorted with a rude noise. The Watcher’s screen lit in a variety of softcolors, which I took to indicate laughter. She reminded me of Mistress Mnemos insome ways, except that she wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if it struck her fancy. Areanasoon returned with a stool and a plate of unusual-looking fruits, steaming vegetables,and a decanter of wine, which I surmised was another feat of the Watcher’s. It wasn’tGarham’s-on-the-Downstream, but it wasn’t bad.

“My sister and I were created by the Osserians to amplify their natural abilities toinduce the geothermal, solar, and lunar forces to strengthen their respective systemsso that they could, together, withstand attacks from the Enemy.”

Odd phrasing, I thought as I sampled and gulped down one of the odd-shapedtubers that must have been derived from whatever root varietals grew down here. Ididn’t feel unduly anxious that they’d been poisoned. Had the Watcher wanted usdead, Areana would have seen to that, and I doubted that the mistrustful androidwould blatantly disobey her mother to act on her own. “After the War of TemporalPlanes, we used our gifts to provide succor to the shattered galaxy and began toconstruct sapient lifeforms, what some might call androids, though they were muchmore than that. On Osseria, my sister fashioned four in the youthful forms of theincarnated Celestials to assist her and keep her company. I imagine they’ve becomequite feral by now… To further protect Osseria from occupation, she fashioned lowerlifeforms as well—creatures of great strength to serve as guardians.”

“We met a few,” I said, recalling the helpful Karina. “A two-headed Kima-Korrinawho led us to your people’s main city…”

“The chimeras are not of our origin,” Archon-Ood interrupted. “They are rare, butthey are only beasts. They do not speak and are most certainly not guides!”

Cuenyne and I looked at each other, bewildered, but said nothing more.

“Are those your champions we saw out there?” I asked, pointing idiotically to thegeneral direction of where we’d come.

“Do you like my Stone Sentinels?” the Watcher perked up. “I pursued a similarcourse on this world, what we came to call Osseria II but which had another name atanother time. They stand watch in the Hall of Remembrance to ensure the protectionof our most precious possession: our history.”

“They’re absolutely terrifying!” I admitted, and the Watcher laughed again.

“Why bother with an HRD if you have them?” Cuenyne asked of Areana.

The Watcher made a dismissive sound. “In the early days of robotics, after theOblation of Pithem but æons before Admiral Massad Thrumble designed what youcall the HRD line, there were androids, replicants, mandroids, gynoids, silicates, andsimuloids, to list a few of your crude designs. As for Areana, her job was to protectme, but mainly she’s a companion. The Sentinels are more akin to the beasts you meton Osseria… but here, in such a realm as this, they needed to be stronger.”

“What do they do when there’s nothing to protect you from?” I asked.

“Why, they play, of course! Would you like to see?”

That would be a sight, if a bit nightmarish for my tastes. “Thank you, but perhapsanother time.” Her vibrant lights lit up like a Life Day tree.

“Mistress Ood, did the Osserians evolve on Osseria?” Cuenyne asked, getting backto the matter at hand.

“You have studied Osseria. How is it you do not know?” she asked, clearly puzzled.

“There’s a lot we don’t know,” I acknowledged. “Although beautiful, we had onlylimited time to spend there.”

“It was even more beautiful then,” began the Watcher, “as were all the worlds ofthe galaxy. We do not have much time, but if you wish to take the risk, I will tell youwhat I can of the ancient and forgotten days.”

“Please do!” I encouraged.

“Risk what?” Cuenyne blurted at the same time.

“Torture, insanity, and death, of course. Certainly you understand that this istheir realm. Few who came to Illathurion ever left!”

To his credit, Cuenyne remained silent, though I could see by the way he looked atme that he wasn’t happy. Whatever hyperbolic terrors Archon-Ood believed were outthere, we hadn’t traveled this far just to turn around and go home. If such thingsactually existed (and of that I remained uncertain), there was no guarantee that ourimmediate departure would ensure our safety. And had we truly been concernedabout that, we’d never have come in the first place.

“We’ve visited other worlds in Otherspace before we found this one,” I explained.“They were inexplicably bizarre and dangerous, but there was nothing that wouldhave us abandon our quest. It’s worth the risk if you’re willing to talk to us.”

“Those worlds were not being watched! But so be it. You have but a short timebefore they discover your whereabouts, and when they do, you will suffer horrorssuch as few have ever known!”