Beneath the Eye of God (The Commodore Ardcasl Space Adventures Book 1) (7 page)

Ohan sat completely befuddled by the tale, unable even to formulate an intelligent question about it.

"And it never occurred to you," said one of the twins from inside his bedroll, "that this god of yours might actually have been nothing more than a down-on-his-luck mythologist caging a few free drinks?"

"Certainly. That's why I looked him up at the first library I got to. Did I mention the fact that he only had one good eye?"

"No," said a twin. "You always save that for last. I suppose you had to force him to accept the money for his space fare."

"As a matter of fact I did. He was very reluctant to take it but even gods have to eat. Besides, I had just concluded a rather profitable deal with some businessmen there, recovered some people they had carried off by mistake. I gave the little old fellow a couple of credits."

He turned to Ohan. "Remember, lad, it never hurts to be nice to gods, no matter how shriveled up they are. Even half a thunderbolt might come in handy someday."

Ohan dreamed that night of little one-eyed gods riding horseback through the forest.

Chapter 6

The overgrown road brought them to the lost city. They had investigated a number of ruins along the way but these turned out to be mainly small isolated complexes, connected with the road and the traffic that once passed over it. Only two of the mounds had been associated with others farther off in the forest. In both these cases, closer examination revealed a small cluster of mounds centered on a much larger one which the scanners found to be a stepped pyramid, flat-topped and crowned by an ornate temple. A laser burn showed both pyramids to be nearly twice the age of the road, 1,200 years for one and 1,400 years old for the other. Each had been built and rebuilt several times with the oldest structures used as a foundation for the newer ones raised on top of them. At the very core of the pyramid they found only a simple raised platform of mud-brick coated with a thin layer of plaster and topped by a wood or thatch building little different from those in which the early people lived. That simple temple had long since turned to dust and been replaced by the stone temples that, layer upon layer, entombed it.

"When your neighbor sets his hut up on a platform higher than yours, watch out," the Commodore said as they watched the computer print a portrait of the long-buried structure. "Next thing you know, your descendents will be spending the next thousand years bowing down to a bunch of kings or gods."

Elor sat before the console, his long fingers playing skillfully across the keyboard guiding the scanners' invisible probes. "Without those kings and gods, there would be none of the pretty artifacts we have come so far to find," he said.

"Oh, I appreciate the multi-headed idols with their jeweled eyes, the crowns, the books of ancient wisdom and all that. I'm just not convinced that any of it did much good for the poor slob who had to haul all these stones up to the top of this pyramid."

"He must get something out of it," Elor replied evenly, "or he wouldn't keep doing it, eon after eon on planet after planet from one end of the galaxy to the other."

"Well, until you college types get all his motives figured out, I'll continue to think that anything beyond a cold beer and a hot wench is beside the point."

Erol had been repositioning a scanner on top of the mound. Now he climbed down and perched on a tree branch above their heads. "If that were the case, you'd still be living with those triplets on Kalnat IV."

"Ah, the triplets." The Commodore's eyes glazed over and his hand stopped in mid-swing, allowing an insect on the tip of his ear to complete its busy probing and fly away with a full load of blood. "And the beer was the coldest," he said as he rubbed the spot where the intruder had attacked.

"Ohan, my boy, if anyone ever offers you a lift to the Kalnat system . . . " He paused and looked at Ohan who began to fidget under his scrutiny. "Ah, well, perhaps you need a bit more seasoning, a little more time under my expert tutelage.

"But what was my point? I'm sure it wasn't the triplets. Confound you, Erol. How is the boy to learn anything if you keep sidetracking every philosophical discussion we . . . Ha! It
was
the triplets. Take ninety-nine percent of these poor dull savages and transport them to Kalnat IV, and they'd be content. All the kings and gods in all the galaxies in all the universe couldn't give any of these poor drudges half the bliss that the triplets could.

"So why did I leave? That was your question, wasn't it, Erol? Because I'm not your ninety-nine percent. Warm triplets and cold beer indeed! I've seen the common man's heaven and passed it by. I've gambled away the treasures that dynasties of kings have plundered empires to possess. And you ask why?" He glared at Ohan who, startled, shook his head no, then yes, unsure of which question he had been asked.

The Commodore gave him an indulgent pat. "Because I'm an adventurer, lad. If I were a king, I'd be stuck with the same old empire, day after day. If I were a priest I'd have to shine up to the same old gods. Even Kalnat IV and the triplets eventually becomes the same old Kalnat IV, though it would take a long time to exhaust the possibilities."

His eyes took on their far-away look again. Then he snapped back. "But an adventurer, lad, is the fellow who'll throw away heaven so he can take a look at hell. And the point is," he glared up at Erol, "that all the poor saps who gave their lives to build this dirt-covered rockpile would have been just as well-off living in a tree with their old lady, having kids."

With that, he ripped the printout from the computer, folded it with a flourish and stuffed it into Elor's map case.

"But the question remains," Erol said from his tree branch, "why then does he continue, from one end of the galaxy to the other, to leave the trees and build these pyramids?"

The Commodore smiled and spread his hands wide apart. "Hope, of course. Look at me. I left the triplets in the hope that I might find quintuplets next door." He turned to Ohan. "Remind me to have you write that down next time we stop. Hope. It's said to spring eternal."

***

Though he never thought it would happen, Ohan had become so accustomed to riding, he had taken to half-dozing in the saddle as they plodded along. He and his horse had reached an agreement. As long as the animal delivered Ohan to the same place everyone else arrived at by day's end, Ohan didn't argue about the route the horse took in getting there. That was why Ohan, jarred into consciousness by his steed's sudden lack of motion, looked down to see it nibbling at a bush by the side of the road. He was alone.

He turned in panic to look behind him and found his companions stopped in the middle of the road, staring up at an arch. They had reined up on the far side while Ohan's mount, in charge during its rider's absence, had spied some of its favorite forage on the other side and ambled through to browse. After considerable coaxing, and after his horse had its fill of leaves, Ohan managed to return to the group.

As he passed beneath the arch, he could see that the two large pillars that supported it were intact and in relatively good condition but part of the arch itself had fallen and the rest was held in place only by the intertwined branches of the trees around it. Even in disarray it was an imposing structure, unlike any he had seen before.

"Rushed ahead to claim this lost city by right of possession, did you, lad?" Ohan sensed an unfamiliar note in the Commodore's voice. He was speaking more quietly than usual. That, more than the arch itself, sent a shiver down Ohan's spine. "That would make you its vicar, lad. For, since all roads lead here, this is surely Rome."

The twins had dismounted and were examining the pillars. The Commodore's good humor quickly returned. "I suggest we camp here outside the gates, pilgrims, and enter on the morrow. Unless my eyes deceive me, there is writing on these stones to copy."

They set up camp in the middle of the road in the shadow of the arch. Ohan and Leahn went cautiously into the forest to hunt and found a young ground bird and a large patch of edible roots. Twice Ohan thought he saw something—a suggestion of light just beyond the edge of his vision. But when he turned to look, there was nothing there. He put it down to imagination and didn't mention it to Leahn. As they were returning, Ohan bent down to pick some water grass for the horses and Leahn, intent on something behind her, walked into him. She rolled over his back and sat down hard in the middle of the grass patch he was harvesting.

She stared up at him in surprise, then grinned. "Don't mind me. This is my first visit to the big city."

He knelt beside her and they both began to pick the fat blades of grass. "Me too. And it's making me nervous. I guess I'm really a country boy at heart."

"Did you know it was here?"

"I didn't even know the roads were roads. I've heard stories about the giants' cities but I've never seen one."

"Of course, we still haven't seen one. Just that arch. But that was spooky enough."

"Maybe it will be less spooky on a full stomach," Ohan said hopefully.

"I doubt it but I'm willing to try."

The crackling fire guided them back to camp. The twins had used the sonic insect repeller to clean the moss and dirt from the base of one of the pillars. The odd carved figures they found there cast dancing shadows in the firelight.

"Glyphs, children," the Commodore explained as they drew cautiously nearer. "The words of great kings forever emblazoned here to remind lesser mortals of their bold deeds. Only there's nobody left who knows how to read them. Let's eat."

That night Ohan laid his bedroll facing the half-fallen arch that rose silent and dark against the roof of leaves behind it. He tried to imagine the crowds of people who once passed along the road beneath it, some outward bound on business far away, others entering this great portal of a busy city under the watchful eye of the guards who manned watchtowers on either side. Ohan listened in the sighing stillness for their long dead footsteps but heard nothing. He searched with his mind for their faded images but saw only the warm darkness of the forest and a single strange intruder—the dark form of a half-fallen arch.

Leahn too, watched the arch and tried to sleep. This night spent on the threshold of a lost forest city reminded her somehow of nights long ago before feast days when the dawn promised great wonders if only she could endure the endless night. She drifted off to dreams of warm beds tucked in by loving hands, where in familiar shadows a child listened to mysterious rustling noises downstairs mingled in the cold pine air with the sweet smell of good things being baked and the laughter of people now long dead. In her dream the child began to cry.

***

In the morning the twins cleaned the other pillar, recorded them both and then carefully covered them up again. Elor explained that they were probably looking at stylized portraits of gods and animals, each representing a letter, a sound or a phrase in some ancient language.

"Then there's no way you can decipher it?" asked Leahn.

"On the contrary, my dear," the Commodore said. "It clearly welcomes us to the great city, what's-its-name, built to the everlasting glory of whichever god by the mighty king, whoever-he-was, may his name be blessed forever. That's what they all say, with minor variations. We just don't know whether to read it right side up, upside down or backwards. If we find more glyphs, we might be able to start filling in some of the blanks."

"But you gave the place a name yesterday," Ohan said.

"Did I?"

"You called it Rome," Leahn added. "You said all the roads led here."

The Commodore nodded. "And so they do. We saw that from our aerial survey. We stand at the gates of one of the great cities of antiquity, a builder of roads, a seat of empire and a far-flung commerce. But it's not Rome. That was another empire on another world. And how all the roads could have led to that far-off Rome, I don't know. I looked it up once. It was on a little narrow peninsula."

He climbed aboard his horse, turned it toward the arch and urged it forward. "The important thing is that these people, whoever they were, could write. If they wrote in books, we may make a profit on this dustball after all."

They rode for some time without seeing any more mounds, though the twins, riding off in opposite directions a short distance from the road, reported that the ground was more uneven than usual. The Commodore muttered something about "suburbs" as they continued on.

Toward midday the road seemed to open out into a large, relatively flat area still overgrown with trees, though they seemed smaller and more widely spaced. It was as if the river they had been following had suddenly flowed into a broad green lake, a forest of trees rising from its still surface.

The twins dismounted, Erol to examine the ground, Elor to unfold the radar map from his case. "Interesting," the Commodore said.

"What?" asked Leahn and Ohan together.

"The trees make our aerial map somewhat unclear but we can see that several roads meet here and that there are large structures nearby. A large temple or pyramid here would confirm the religious nature of this whole set-up. But instead of a temple we find this. What is it, Erol? Parking lot, soccer field . . . ?"

Erol climbed back aboard his horse. "It's raised and covered with crushed rock just like the road. My guess is that we've come to the public market square. It was probably covered with rows of wood and thatch stalls for vendors. Whatever else happened in this city, commerce appears to have played a significant role."

The Commodore turned to Elor who had replaced the map in his case. "Which way now, navigator?" Elor led them off to the right where they found the edge of the great raised platform and traced it around until they came to the place where another road joined it. This brought them to a range of low hills. As the horses picked their way carefully up the slope, Ohan saw blocks of cut stone, some with patterns on them, among the undergrowth.

The lead rider, one of the twins, stopped at the top of the hill as did the others following behind. Ohan, whose horse often preferred to bring up the rear, was admiring the sight of them in a row along the crest when he became aware of a large dark shape rising up beyond them.