“What do they mean father?”
They had descended together into the enormous cut in the ground, first by walking downward around a winding gravel track, then by riding one of the hundreds of excavators around the spiraling road that ringed the dig. Gradually they had descended through layer upon layer of sand that had been packed carefully into the walls and covered with a clear sealant to hold it in place. An hour after their journey had begun they had arrived at the flat bedrock where the sand finally came to an end. Looking up from the base of the dig Jon could see a near-perfect square of pale-blue sky, as if he were standing at the bottom of an inverse pyramid. The flat floor of the dig was a flurry of activity with excavators pulling sand from one side of the dig and transporting it to the other where it was dumped into molds, sprayed with sealant, and set out in the harsh light of Ra’s two suns to dry. Later, Jon knew, they would be used to continue building the walls of the dig itself.
His father had rushed straight to the newly excavated section of ruins where a central clear square had been unearthed. At the center of this square, embedded in the rock so that only it’s straight angular lines gave any indication of its presence, was the door. It was the same dark brown color as the surrounding rock, yet its outline was unmistakable. It was a hexagon, with two of it’s parallel sides running much longer than the others to form a doorway eight feet tall and four feet wide.
“A gate? Here? That’s impossible.” Professor Emerit, who had worked with his father since the beginning of the dig on Ra had exclaimed.
“And yet here it is, this is unmistakably a Founder artifact.” His father had replied.
“What do they mean father?” Jon asked, pointing to the odd markings that surrounded the door in all directions, spiraling into the unexcavated sand nearby.
“Most of these are clan markings. . .old clan markings.” His father whispered breathlessly as he hunched over the etched figures. “But these here, the ones that spiral out from the gate, these are Founder characters.”
“Gates are always found in space, orbiting stars or planets, and never this small!” Emerit continued, unable to tear his gaze away from the stone door.
“If the Founders could build a gate in space the size of a small moon they could certainly build one the size of a man.” His father replied.
“Can you open it?” Jon asked, his young eyes growing wide with excitement.
“No. . .no one here has an effect strong enough to open a gate that’s been locked, we’ve sent word to Arra and they are sending. . .someone.”
“A prince?”
“The youngest, he is about your age I. . .” His father’s words breathlessly stopped and, as Jon watched, his expression changed suddenly from excitement to incomprehension to terror.
“Jon.” He whispered. Following his gaze Jon slowly looked down at where his hand was resting on a flat rock next to the door’s frame. From beneath the dawdling sand a tiny blue light was blinking silently. His father lunged toward him just as he heard Emerit yell,
“Torian, the door!”
He felt the rock shift beneath him as the door opened, hurtling him into the darkness. A million points of light burst into view, sharpened, and raced by in a blur. Jon felt head his real as his brain desperately tried to make sense of what was happening; he felt a burning cold tear at his skin while feeling first weightless and then nearly crushed, flashes of intense heat blasted through the cold only to retreat just as violent a suddenness. Without pretense a dim light rushed towards him until it encompassed everything he could see. He wasn’t aware of the complete silence of his transit until sounds foreign and familiar began to assault his burning ears as he was flung through the door onto a cold floor.
Jon breathed rapidly, trying to catch his breath. The air felt damp and acrid and was nothing at all like the dry desert air of Ra. Cool beads of sweat formed quickly in the humid air and pooled on the stone floor where the same spiraling characters worked their way out from the center of the room. His eyes felt hot and his vision was blurry but looking around he knew he was in a room, there were walls, strange flickering torches, pillars and statues of strange creatures frozen in the midst of some kind of battle. Jon rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on them; the statues were enormous, standing several feet higher than himself, and depicted long-necked reptilian creatures with brilliantly painted multi-faceted eyes. The statues wore a strange kind of armor, and by it’s color and design Jon immediately distinguished two distinct groups. He tried to move forward to get a better look but his legs crumbled and he collapsed onto the floor with a shout, he reached out to catch himself and grasped a slender scaled arm. Opening his eyes Jon looked into the reptilian face of a statue that, Jon realized, was not a statue at all. All around him he saw the creatures he had originally took to be inanimate move from where they had frozen when he had first burst through the door. Bending their long scaled legs they formed a half-circle around him in an unmistakably familiar gesture; they knelt.
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