Exiled

GIdeonJagged

Copyright 2014, Gideon Jged

All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1497472059
ISBN-13: 978-1497472051
2.0.140327

Published By

Toronto, Atalant, Glyph

Table of Contents

Chapter One.................................................................................... 4

Chapter Two ................................................................................... 9

Chapter Three ............................................................................... 15
Chapter Four ................................................................................. 21
Chapter Five .................................................................................. 28
Chapter Six .................................................................................... 37
About the Author .............................................................................. 45

Chapter One
Bl-white flame streaked upwd across the window, momentily
bloing his view. It dkened to yellow through orge to red & brown
& then faded together, giving him a view of the cheery orge sun of
this world through its uer atmosphere. This hetening view lasted only a moment before the liner plunged into the roiling, deep bl cloud
ler that perpetuly bloed direct sunlight from the plets surface.
After a decent interv, the ships computer deduced that he didnt
actuly wt to sit in the dk & turned on cabins intern lights, the ones
that hed turned off when the ship beg its plet-wd plunge. This effectively turned the view out the window bla; l he could see now was
a dkened view of his own face, crgy & lined. His hair was white &
lked like it needed combingit ws did. His es, a deep bl, peed
only as pits of dkness in the re-flection of the window. He turned aw
from the sight.
A chime sounded; it was soft as if feing to intrude on his thoughts.
Immediately terwds a voice, equly soft, nounced Twenty minutes
to lding zone, Dr. Stoddd.
He replied to the air, sounding more tired th he felt, Thk you,
Ctain. His voice, a deep bass, rumbled in his chest. He unbuled from
his seat & std slowly, knees craing. Passing through the ov of the
drw to his left, he made his w t. As he droed the twenty-two
des to the shuttle b in the featureless steel cylinder of the lift, he sted
at the bl light of the level indicator as it descended the wl on the left.
His stomach churned the thought of the task ahead.
He told himself to relax. He had nothing to worry about; he did he
a relative buried here. Given his profession, no one would think it odd if
he poked ound while he waited the return liner.
The lift drs shushed open. Stoddd steed out into the dimly lit
b & wked past steel pills suorting the rf high above, towd the
lights clustered at the f left corner. The same engineer who had stowed
his jump shuttle three ds o greeted Stoddd as he proached it. The
m was weing the same gr coverls he had been then & toting the
same clipbod. He had been moving ound the white, rotund bulk of
the Dtors convce, cheing things off on a sheet with a light pen
when he saw the Dtor moving towd him. He stoed.

EXILED

Shes l set to , sir, he suted. Just doing a last minute doubleche.

Fine. Thk you. He med a smile, which the sque, nondescript
face returned. Oh, he dreaded to ask, but hed not enjoy a moments
peace if he didnt, is my ge l stowed?
The other lked puzzled, Youd know that better th me, sir. I
didnt touch ything in-side that I didnt he to.
Stoddd hoped his relief was not visible as he replied, Of course, of
course. Silly of me to ask. He had been worried that some of the things
he was bringing plet-side might be seen & recognized for what th
were. The Ur-Paxs list of technologic contrabd seemed to expd
weekly, but some of his ge had been on that list for decadeseven a
drone like this fellow might know what it was.
Pdon me one moment, Sir. The engineer dued ound the ba
side of the shuttle, re-turning a moment later with his k. Here you e,
sir. He so hded him the chelist. Just climb abod & enjoy the ride.
The shuttle will move on its own & stop in front of the b drs. Just
wait for the light & ease her out. Shell to-drive to the lding zone.
Thk you. Using the k, he let himself in & settled into the pilots
seat, strping the five-w belts ound his bloy frame. After cheing
that the entrce hatch was seed, he sat ba & tried to follow the engineers advice as the shuttle glided towd the waiting exit.
The b drs were open, the atmosphere held in by a force shield,
giving him a spectacul view of the misery that was the plet Styria.
Clouds above him, like bl bruises, were ws there; the ground, a
greenish bla void, showed none of the tombs that covered most the
whole of the plets surface. From inside the shuttle, he could he nothing of the storm that was lashing the air in front of him.
Finly, a green spotlight, mounted to the left of the hg drs,
illuminated the inside of the shuttle. He hed the voice of the engineer
through the shuttles speakers, Gd lu, Sir. See you in seventeen ds.
Without responding, Stoddd hit the accelerator button. The shuttle
glided smthly past the force field & out into the glmy air.

Gabriel Stoddd had a betiful study. Dk oak pels & deep bkshelves filled flr to ceiling with leather bound tomes covering every
aspect of the methysics & the mythic history of the seven races. The

Chapter One

rm was long, high ceilinged & L-shed. There were only three breaks
in the wlsthe dr (teak, cved in ftastic designs), one window
lking out over the wded vl of his estate & a fireplace big enough
to camp out in. The rm was furnished with a long oaken table in one
m of the L & one side table between two leather easy chairs that faced
the fire in the other.
He suffered a passing wish to be there. Styria, the Hnted World,
was the last place most people wted to find themselves & the last place
a gd de of them ended up. It had seemed essenti l those months o,
that he get here to discover the identity of the resident of a very speci
tomb. Legend had it that it the mountain top tombs contained no mere
mort remains.
After eventless twenty-minute flight, he had rived at the lding
site. Raindrops beaded the pilots view port. The intern lights of the
control pels ge each drop tiny reflections of green & bl & red. He
sat for a few moments in his shuttle, watching through the drops as the
funere liner rode plumes of white fire up through the cloud ler.
The only sound now was the hum of the air-recycling pump & his
slightly raspy breathing. He sat for a moment, indecisive, then sighed
d, unbuling himself, exited the shuttle.
The first thing that hit him was the chill of the rain, like a cold hey
mist, that stru his ex-posed hds & face. The second was the sound of
the wind. It was the sound of soft sighs & distt keening. It ge him
more of a chill th the weather. As he shut & seed the hatch be-hind
him, he reflected that with a sound like that, it was easy to see why most
of those who came here left convinced that Styri soil bound unquiet
spirits.
Despite the dimness csed by perpetu overcast, Stoddd could see
to the horizon in l directions. The air painted everything a light violet,
even his hds, though the sky & the clouds were the same deep bl
thd been from the liner. Wherever he faced, the view was equ pts
grim & inspiring. This lding zone was a few hundred sque meters atop
a lge hill. It was the only spot thorized for lding. There was nothing
visible from his vte which mked it so; not a fence, not even a sign.
He wked to a rdom ee to get a better lk at the ldsce.
The tombs beg about hfw down the slope. The ones neest the
hilltop were lger th the ones further aw. Th were featureless cubes

EXILED

of bla stone, slashed with brillit green veins. The only other features
of the tombs were round pills of the same stone at the corners of the
plots. He couldnt see in this light, but he knew that at the top of each
pill was a rune, deep-ly cved, that faced the cube of the tomb proper.
Each pill would sport a different rune, four in l. Th constituted the
only thing resembling writing ever found on this world-their meing
had not been deciphered.
He frowned in thought as he lked at the green cheerbod of
tombs flowing aw from him, huing the contours of the ld. He raised
a hd to sweep his damp hair from his es. The rain had done what no
comb ever hadslied his hair to his scp. He stu his hds into his
poets to wd off the chill.
As he thought of the runes on the pills, he so thought of the
enigma of the tombs & of this world as well. Since its discovery by the
Aloth over nine centuries o, no satisfactory theory had emerged about
the identity of the builders. There was, of course, the claim of the Gryfidd
to be the Styris, but there was precious little evidence to suort that
claim, at least that th were willing to she.
Thats where Stoddd came in. As ethnologist, speciizing in the
myths of cient cultures, he had access to a lot more information on
Gryfidd myth th most. In fact, he had uncovered facts about the race
that no non-Gryfidd had ever found.
It was common knowlee that the Gryfidd were the first of the
seven races to colonize other worlds. Stoddd believed that their claim
to he contacted l the other races when the latter were much t primitive for space flight had considerable merit. He had found what he believed to be traces of Gryfidd inflnce on l races except the Phrygis.
The reason for the absence of evidence in the Phrygi baground
was, of course, that th had only once permitted him a lkd that
cursory. The Phrygis were the Hierophts of the Ur-Pax d, as a rule,
forbade l extern lks at their culture. Even someone like Stoddd, who
had a reputation as a stnch defender of the Faith, wasnt permitted to
resech bond certain limits. His reputation however did low him to
sech bond the bounds set by the Fathers & Dtors of the Church in
other eas.
This was ironic for Stoddd did not actuly she in the Faith that of
most of his culture did. He had lened ely on to hide his nosticism for,

Chapter One

though technicly leg, it would make his cupation, not to mention

his life, next to impossible. There were a very few encles of non-believers where he would be welcomed, but th were l but cut off from
the intellectu life of the commonweth. Hing to live in such a culture
would be a kind of death for the schol.
The chill was rely beginning to cut through his clothing. Shivering
he turned ba to the shuttle. He stted it & swung it ound towd the
grel road he had seen as he lded. He had it on ground mode becse
of a strict ordince forbidding the airspace of Styria to y private vehicle. Besides the crew of the depting liner, he was currently the only
sentient being in the entire system. There were unmned orbiters
watching the plet very closely, but so long as he sted on the ground,
th would remain uninterested in most ything he did.
It had taken months to get permission to ld, even though he had
med to find a dead relative buried here as excuse. In the end,
Stoddds reputation as a zeot secured him a ld-ing permit. He would
not even be electronicly traed. That met that he could divert from
his suosed pl of communing with his dead to ascend to a tomb
opened over two hundred yes o by Alothi chologic pty.
This tomb was on the summit of one of the tler mountains on this
world. He had cculated his time here precisely so that he would be ba
to meet the liner on its return trip. Without a traer attached to his body,
no one would know where he had been.
With only the sound of the air recycler to distract him from his
thoughts, he descended the slope & headed for the modern tombs over a
ds drive aw.

Chapter Two
Despite the la of direct sunlight, the flora of Styria flourished. Lush
ground cover in & ound the tombs would likely pe green in better
light. There were no tree-sized plts, but bushes of l sorts grew between
& ound the tomb complexes.
As the hours passed, Stoddd dozed, letting the shuttle topilot
ong the white grel road to the crdinates of his cestors tomb; waking casionly to note that, though the ldsce had chged, the tombs
had not. Once he was in very hilly terrain, once on what peed to be
endless plain, with a mountain rge lming in the distce. Alws air
was the same muted light. Usuly the only sound was the soporific hum
of the air circulator.
Once he was awakened by the sound of a storm. Rain pounded the
hull of the crt, punctuated by the ro of distt thunder. Water came
down in sheets, blurring the view of the ldsce. The ld was hilly ain
& he thought he glimpsed a river in the distce, but he couldnt be sure.
Ever since childhd, he had loved the sound of thunderstorms as he l
in bed waiting for sleep. Smiling, he leed ba & drifted off ain.

Stillness woke Stoddd nextthe shuttle had reached its destination.

He stretched, groing as he worked stiff muscles. He rose slowly &
moved to the re of the shuttle to break his fast.
Over a third cup of coffee, he studied the dument that had brought
him here. It was a frment of the report of the Alothi expedition to the
mountaintop tomb. He had less th hf of the origin. Rely were there
sever numbered pes in a row. Most often, he had only isolated
prhs & even single sentences. The text was efile rged in as coherent order as possible. He still wasnt sure he had the order right in
some places.
The expedition lnched just two stdd yes ter the council of the
Ur-Pax became absolute rulers of the commonweth. The offici version
of the subseqnt events was that, ter reading the report of the expedition, th suressed l information mentioning it & had the survivors
rested. Those Alothi were never hed from ain.
That had been the first of what were to be my such repressions,
culminating in the virtu rest of the progress of science & technology.

10

Chapter Two

The Ur-Pax resembled nothing so much as the Amish of Old Eth; th

had rested technology at some level deemed adequate to l future needs.
Unfortunately, Stoddd still did not know why the Alothi expedition had csed so much consternation. The dument before him, being
only a frment of the origin, asked f more qstions th it swered.
It intrigd him so much that he had conceed his possession of it & begun plning his trip here, hoping to fill the gs with direct observation.
He shk his head; no matter how my times he read what he had
of this per, he still couldnt figure out what had killed hf the expeditions members & frightened the survivors into abdoning most of their
equipment in their haste to get ba down to the plain. The information
simply wasnt here; he suspected that what he had was a sitized version
of the origin intended for some lower level offici of the Ur-Pax. Oh,
well. First things first.
He dressed for the weatherstill dismd gathered the ge he
would need to explore his cestors last resting place.
The shuttle had come to rest in the shadow of his cestors tomb. It
lked no different from y of the others that he had seen so f: cubic,
about ten meters high & centered in a lawn bounded by the now famili
four round obelisks. Some of the tombs in this ea, however, were different in one aspectth had ground level entrces. That was becse
th were, by this plets stdds, modern. Th held the mort remains
of members of the commonweth, interred here in the nine hundred odd
yes since the plets rediscovery. Stding next to it in the spitting rain,
Stoddd still didnt know if this tomb followed the new stdd.
He slowly wked l the w ound the edifice. By the time he spotted the shuttle ain, he knew hed he to climb it to get in. His greatgreat uncle had pently been something of a purist. Gd thing the
schol had brought the necessy equipment.
Stoddd was, by the stdds of his race, a lge, well-built specimen
d, though fit enough for his e, he was well past his ninetieth ye.
Conseqntly, he had brought with him to the plet equipment that
would make climbs of l kinds easier. He used one of them now. It lked
like a sml pistol; it was cled a ladder gun. When he fired it at the top
ee of the tomb, nothing seemed to hpennot even a noise. After a
few seconds, however, a red glow could be seen right at the top of the
wl. It was sml & round, like the light from a flash light. It split in two,

EXILED

11

the lights moving until th were about a hf a meter t & plel to the
top of the tomb. After other moment, Stoddd hed a hissing & two
lines of red fire descended the wl from the lights. Every twenty centimetres down the lines, a line of fire would sprout side-ws; crossing
from one vertic line to the other until, by the time th reached the
ground, the she of a ladder was etched in fire down the side of the
tomb. The lines faded slowly as the tomb wl seemed to ze outwd
from where the lines were, forming actu ladder that seemed to grow
out of the wl, complete with hdrails.
Stoddd nodded, satisfied. He shoved the ladder gun into a poet
on the right thigh of his environment suit & beg to climb. It tk only
a few moments to reach the top. The Dtor lked out from his new
vte. In the distce was a lge g in the field of tombs. He squinted,
but could not see where the tombs must stt up ain in the distce. He
pulled out a pair of binuls.
Aha, he said to himself. A lge body of water cupied the g.
Even with the bins, he couldnt see the f side. It must be one of the
hf dozen seas on this world. He couldnt remember which one; hed he
to che the gazetteer when he t ba to the shuttle. It might so be
worth a lkthe tombs over there were much lger th this one &
some of them seemed to deviate from the rectiline theme of most of the
tombs on this world. He lowered the bins; time to get on with it.
Behind him was the only entrce to this tomb. It was a hole in the
centre of the rf, most exactly one meter sque. He strolled over to it.
Lking down, he couldnt make out ything but dkness from within.
Using the ladder gun ain, he sn had other easy w down into the
dkness. The materi for the ladder extruded from the lip of the hole
becse there was no wl to which the ladder could cling. Psing only
to str a flashlight to his forehead, he descended.
At the bottom, he steed aw from the ladder, lking down to
find that he was on other cube. This one lked just sml enough to fit
through the hole in the ceiling. A glce at the base of the thing reveed
it had been constructed in place. This tomb was a very close replica of
the origin tombs of Styria. It was not only constructed to the same specifications but so with a molecul replica of the origin materi. The
origin stones point of origin was unknown. It was not native to this
world. Where it did come from was just one more mystery.

12

Chapter Two

Stoddd quily hoed down from the cube. He psed for a moment, squinting up at the rain. He was stding in a sht of the dim, violet
dlight of this place. It reflected off the sli wet surface of the crypt itself.
All about him was blaness. He placed a lamp on the cube & turned it
on. It fled brightly & easily lit the interior space. The lamp illuminated
streaks of rain, as th swept past. Stoddd once ain noticed the quiet
sighing & wailing in the air. It was ever present, but he had to concentrate to notice it most times. Something about this tomb though, brought
his attention ba to it. It was a mournful sound & it ge a feeling of
other presence. He shuddered.
Bas-reliefs in the green-veined stone wls detailed the life of his dead
relative. Here, in the designs of the wl cvings, was the first device
from what he thought of as the genuine tombs of Styria, for those older
tombs consisted of designs that lked abstract, though intricate. The
cvings in no two tombs, of the millions that had been explored before
the moratorium, were ike or even simil. A fierce debate about their
meing had red for centuries. Theories rged from the conservatively
academic to the outreously poid.
There was nothing speci about the life depicted in these etchings,
just as there had been nothing speci about the ms life. He shrued &
turned ba to the tomb itself. Along the side oosite to the one hed
been stding on, he noticed something that constituted the second
device from the norm: the dead ms name, birth, & death date cved
onto the side of the cube. The cubes of the genuine tombs were featureless.
Just to satisfy his curiosity before he left, he pulled out ARC
scner & turned it on the cube. He made out the preserved form of his
dead great-great uncle, just as he thought he would. This was the fin
device, for the remains of the genuine tombs cupts had been tered
by a practice akin to cremation before being interred & had had their
remains somehow mixed with the stone itself. This was what had flled
the debate over the identity of the race that had first colonized this world
with their dead; for the remains, besides indicating that the deceased had
been cbon based, provided most no other information about who th
had been. The only conclusion reached to date was that, of l commonweth races, it couldnt he been the wifTv, who were primily
energy-based life form.

EXILED

13

His obligation satisfied, & his ibi assured, he climbed on top of the
cubic scophus & ascend the ladder.
As he reached the top, he psed to lk at the runes on the pills of
this tomb. Betifully cved th were, showing no sign of we despite
being replica stone. The runes on the oldest pills showed no we despite
being exposed for tens of thousds of yes. He pulled out im-er &
recorded them.
The meings of these four glyphs had defeated the best minds of
the commonweth for nine hundred yes, but none of those other minds
had possessed his resources. He was awe of every phabet ever used by
l of the races. This included seven sets of runes used only by obscure,
yptic cult of Gryfidds, who had lived & died most forty thousd
stdd yes o. Th were considered the founders of Gryfidd culture,
the runes the foundation of the Gryfidd phabet.
Every other schol had overlked this bit of information for two
reasons. First, the runes were not, strictly speaking, phabet, becse
th had never been used as a written lgue (that came later). The other
was that, as f as the wider world knew, there were only six sets of runes.
Stoddd was likely the only living person in the commonweth who was
awe of the existence of a seventh set. More th that, he knew what the
set lked like, for he had found them cved into the wl of a tomb on,
of l places, the Phrygi home world. He doubted very much that the
Phrygis recognized them for what th were, as th had nothing but
contempt for y culture not their own. He had spotted them becse of
their resemblce to the other six. He had no worries that y of the other
races would find them becse of the Phrygis phobia about offworlders peeking at their culture & history. Stoddd was very fortunate
to he had the glimpse that he did.
The simility of this last set of runes to the other six sets was both
remkable & fortunate. It was remkable becse, hing l seven sets, he
could see that th formed a progression, whose lger meing he was
then able to determine. It was fortunate becse it ge him the ee when
trying to decipher the seventh set. The four runes used on these obelisks
met my things, but most importtly, th were the symbols of four
gudis assiated with the cient elements Fire, Water, Air, & Eth &
with the compass directions. It was no less th my had gssed, but

14

Chapter Two

gsses were l th had been until this moment. Only Stoddd rested in
certainty.
Though th did not he sounds assiated with them, the phabet
of the Gryfiddwhich evolved from themdid. This ge him a basis to
begin lking for a possible meing for y word that using them. He
determined to do that later.
With other blast of the ladder gun, the ladder into the tomb zed
ba into the stone. After descending the exterior of the tomb, he dissolved the other & climbed ba into his shuttle.

Well, it was a sea l right. The Sea of Tes, according in the gazetteer. He still couldnt make out the further shore, even with the binuls.
Styria had no lge mns & therefore no tides, so Stoddd wondered
why the wes lping the shore were so restless on such a cm d. There
was little breeze. The plet was tectonicly dead, so it couldnt be seismic
activity either.
More impressive to him just now, however, were the seaside tombs.
He had been right; th werent cubic. Th were so huge, reaching
hundreds of meters into the air, in some cases. There were cubic ones,
to be sure, but th were in the minority. All the ones he had seen so f
were simple geometries. There were pyramids with ywhere from three
to more th twenty sloping sides, regul polyhedrons of l sorts & one
that consisted of dozens of hexon pills bundled together. He saw no
curves of y sort. He could see some of the entrces, but usuly not. The
only ones he could consistently see were on the pyramids, which didnt
he flat tops. Each tomb, no matter how lge, was on sque grounds
defined by four pills twice the height of the msoleums themselves.
There were slabs on the grounds surrounding some of the tombs.
Oddly, the ARC scner reveed that some of them were plugs bloing
tunnels under the tombs themselves. He recled no mention of this from
y of his sources. He wrestled briefly with the notion of trying to pry
one of the plugs off to explore the tunnels, but decided ainst ithe was
on a schedule. Such exploration could easily cost him a d & the mountains were still five ds aw. With a shrug & a promise to himself that
he would make the attempt on his return journ, should he get f
enough ahead of schedule, he paed up & headed out.

Chapter Three
The mountain Stoddd intended to climb was at the f end of the only
sizable rge in Styria. Getting to the ft of that rge tk less time th
hed feed it would despite his decision not to risk deviating from the
road.
The countryside was betiful, if dre, & the air had that same purplish h that made everything lk so forlorn. The sighing of the air
became to him a source of comfort rather th dread; the sensation of
accompying spirits lessened a loneliness that he was beginning to find
more & more troubling. Reizing he was the only sentient in the entire
system was a shivering thought.
When the mountain rie that hed been chasing finly enveloped
the horizon in front of him, he greeted it with a sense of relief. He stoed
the shuttle & emerged into the perpetu rainstorm. The wind was
stronger here & the air was actuly chilly. It would get a lot colder as he
ascended his chosen mountain.
He std awed by the immensity of the wl of ro before him,
cring his ne to see the peaks. Perpetu cloud cover frustrated that
desire. Putting the bins to his es, he made a few adjustments by pressing a series of tiny red buttons on the flat white space between & above
the lenses. Through the lenses, the clouds suddenly became trslucent,
providing a cle view of the three peaks closest to him. Th were l
snow-clad & glittering in the bright orge light of Styrias sun. He
smiled to think that in a couple of ds he would be out from under perpetu glm.
He fused the lenses lower & frowned. Hed he to stt off-roading
a little sner th hed like. Right now, in fact. Stifling a sigh, he climbed
ba in the shuttle d, leing the white grel, turned left & headed
upwd.

The next fourteen hours werent the most pleast, but th did provided a welcome break from the monotony of the previous five ds. The
first few hours were relatively uneventful as he trelled more horizontly
th verticly; he seemed to be ing into rather th over the mountains.
He leed out of the shuttles port hatch a few times, leing it to
trundle on its own as it tomaticly found the sest route, to take in the

16

Chapter Three

scene before him. The mountains, heads lost in the perpetu overcast,
were nevertheless mnificent, squatting gits.
The rain ceased together for most two hours during this first portion of the trip. He tk the oortunity to he a me outside. As he
munched, sitting on top of the slowly moving shuttle, the air seemed
cle as cryst, making the sides of the mountains pe so close that
Stoddd felt he could most touch them.
The relatively gd weather didnt last, though. Before the first ste
of his journ was over, the temperature droed precipitously, sending
him scrambling ba into the shuttle for wmth. He had bely settled in
when the snow stted. Sn it was fling so heily that it bloed out his
view of the world. The wind beg to pi upthe shuttle was moving
through a whiteout.
There was sn so little dlight coming through the view port that
he was forced to turn the shuttles intern lights on. By their illumination,
he cheed his instruments. The blast of winter was hpening l ong
the rge & would be ound for at least a full d. The terrain m showed
his trip up the mountain was getting fairly steep. Some of the territory
ahead lked extremely risky.
He qried the shuttles nigation program. His route was ing to
take him through some of the triiest territory. It indicated that no deviation was required, despite the weather. After a brief intern strule,
he decided to trust the machine to get him sely through rather th programming ternate route. He then decided to get some rest, hoping
that he would climb above the storm before hed he to get out ain.

Despite his worry about the route he was taking, Stoddd had
actuly med to get some sleep, when a truly dishetening sound woke
him. It was the whine of the shuttles servos. He scrambled from his cot
& through to the pilots seat.
The storm was still in ugly md. Stoddd could see nothing
through the view port. The wind seemed to he pied up since his tk
his n; he could he it buffeting the shuttle, which was actuly roing
slightly as it tried to move forwd. The instruments indicated that the
storm still red l ong the rge. It seemed to be centered where he was,
as if unquiet spirits buried in the mountains were intent on thwting his

EXILED

17

aim to reach the mountaintop. According to chronometer, hed been

asleep for just over seven hours.
The terrain m indicated that the shuttle was trelling ong one of
those nrow, steeply pitched ries of legend, with a mountain wl on
one side & a howling abyss on the other. The gd news was that he was
most above the weather; other four hundred vertic meters or so &
hed be above the current cloud ler. The bad news was that ice, formed
by paed, wind-driven snow had jammed itself ainst three of the four
wheels & was csing stress l ong the drive train.
Stoddd cursed quietly. He couldnt lift off in this weather & he
couldnt consider ing out to chisel the ice aw just now either. Hed
he to wait out the storm. Relucttly, he stoed the shuttle.

Stoddd waited most two ds. He was now in the eighth d of his
seventeen lowed ds on this world, a d behind schedule. This might
or might not be a problem, depending on how long it tk to get the
shuttle running & how long hed he to spend exploring the tomb at the
summit seeking his swers.
Gabriel Stoddd knew in his het that he was a cowd. If he hadnt
been, hed he found a w to get a gd de of his findings in the last
sixty yes published & out to the public. His fe of repriss from the UrPax was what had assured his silence. He wondered, if this were tr, why
he was here now. He might not survive the next few ds & honestly
didnt know what had driven him to risk death for information he
wouldnt de reve to yone.
In the dkness of those two ds one in the shuttle, he wrestled with
this demon & emerged into the mist of the storms end resolved to end
his silence. Should he survive & find the truth he suspected l buried
above him, he would find a w to get it into the hds of someone who
could do some gd with it. It was a quixotic oath, for Stoddd remained
a cowd. Now he was just a cowd whod decided to try to redeem himself just a little & so redeem the suffering commonweth.
It wasnt easy to get cle of the shuttle. Snow & ice had gld the
port hatch shut (the stbod hatch was hging over sever hundred meters of frigid space). He tried heating the dr to make the ice melt. In
the end, it tk sever stout two leed kis to get it open.

18

Chapter Three

The air was indeed misty when he emerged from the shuttle, the
skys glmy blness mitigated by traces of pink. The cle air & the
etern winter were just above him. The wind from the storm had kept
the shuttle relatively cle of snow, for which he was thkful. It met he
wouldnt he to spend hours shovelling before he could get to the
wheels. Bundled in his wmest ge, he turned to the wheel rims with his
heater & ice pi.
After over hour, he succeeded in getting the re left wheel cle
only to find that the axle had been damed by ice. He psed for a little
more cursing. Even if he completely cleed the shuttle of ice, he still
wouldnt be able to take it higher until the shuttle went through some
serious repair. Attempting the repair here was out of the qstion. The
nrowness of the lee would make the repair of the stbod wheels a tad
more hazdous th Stoddd was preped to risk. The ternative, flying
down to the vl, repairing there & climbing ba was so a no-. He
would lose ds he didnt he & there was ws the risk that the es
above would notice his descent. Hed he to fly down eventuly, but
hed rather wait until ter his ascent to risk it. That left only the option
of continuing without the shuttle. He lked up, cursing the pitiless
mountain ds. Well, no point waiting.
Stoddd estimated eighteen hours to the summit; a two-d effort
without the shuttle. He spent the better pt of hour preping for his
ascent. He collected l the tls he thought he might need as well as two
weeks worth of fd, in case of more unforeseen dels. He put l this in
a zero-g bapa, other of his my bits of contrabd. He had most of
the others stuffed inside it. This pa would never weigh ything in a
grity well, no matter how much mass he paed in it. It fairly bulged
when he put it on.
For protection, he wore a self-heating therm suit that could expd
into a shelter without the necessity of removing it. It was a one-piece,
including hey ftwe & a helmet with a removable visor. This visor
would not only filter out the intense sunlight gle he ticipated, but
included a sophisticated heads-up-displ projecting l the info provided
by the shuttles instruments onto its inner surface. The shuttle would
broadcast this info to him. It had effective radius of fifty kilometres.
The suit was so tough, airtight, & cable of keeping him ive in a tot

EXILED

19

vacuum. It included a re-breather that would feed him pressurized air

snatched from the rather more refied atmosphere at the uer heights.
For trsportation, he was using a rather unusu ti-gr unit. It diminished his effective weight to under a gram & would pull him towd
the neest lge mass, in this case the mountain. He would preed up the
mountain by jumping & letting the unit, mounted on his belt, pull him
towd the mountain as his momentum cried him upwd. He knew it
would make him lk a little silly, but it would low him to se ds &
he might even make better time th he would in the shuttle. Besides no
one (he hoped) would be watching yw. After making sure the shuttle
was secure & sending its data, he beg.
After the first few awkwd jumps, Stoddd quily lened to enjoy
the sensation of ne weightlessness as he bounded up the mountainside.
He was cleing most twenty vertic meters every jump. In under
hour he had cleed the cloud ler d, for the second time since he came
to Styria, he saw its orge sun directly.
The sky was a pinkish colour at this titude. The air was thin enough
that he could make out the bright silver specs that were the sensor-laden
satellites in orbit above & just slightly to the north of him. He could see
nine from his present vte, spaced evenly in a line running east to west.
He knew a moments fe before he reized that the suit was designed to
blend with the terrain; it was unlikely th noticed him.
Turning to the mountain, he saw, at the f ee of his vision, the first
of the mountain top tombs. He tk out the bins for a closer lk. It
sprawled on the mountainside, clinging to it like a bla stone limpet.
After stowing the bins, Stoddd excitedly covered the distce to it in
a few lge hops.
The tomb was very different from the others he had seen. He wasnt
sure, at first, if it was a tomb at l. It had the lk of a fortress or keep,
complete with crenellations. There seemed to be sever buildings, joined
by thi wls, the whole huing the contours of the mountainside. The
only thing that spoke of tombs here was the building materi, the same
bla stone as l the others; the green streaks fairly shone in the sunlight.
It was only ter lking cefully that he spot-ted the pills, which mked
it as a tomb. Unlike the ones below, the pills here were squat & quite
short. This was probably a concession to the lation. Despite his being
above the cloud ler, the wind could get quite fierce here, though it was

20

Chapter Three

cm now. The tl, slender pills of the plains would likely not he lasted
long.
He decided he had time to poke ound, briefly. Turning the tigr unit off, he hiked towd the neest wl. Up close, he could see that
the wl was not as smth as he expected it would be. There was pitting,
quite sml, l ong it. Evidently, the climate here was less forgiving th
the wmer, wetter one of the plains below. As he had seen no opening
on his w in, he decided to follow the wl to the right (downwd) to see
if there were ground level openings. The wl snaked ong the ground
until it met the higher wl of a building; these were the first curves he
had seen in the chitecture of these tombs. Stoddd wked ound this
structure until he spotted the wl continuing on other side of it. The
structure had the lk of a tower, being on a corner of the complex.
After a moments thought, Stoddd decided not to spend y more
time on a sech for entrce. Powering up the ti-gr unit, he hoed
over the wl.
The void that met him on the other side was something of a sho.
With a cry of distress, he slowly fell downwd into dkness. He had time
to glimpse the structure that must contain the scophus itself before
dkness swlowed hima round tower that rose straight out of the deep
hole he was drifting into.

Chapter Four
Stoddd fell for a long timehe was fling at about the same rate as a
feather. Above him, the irregul she of the hole became slowly smler.
The suits helmet light illuminated nothing; the wls of this enclosure
were evidently t f aw. He hit bottom before he thought to che
below him. His lding was a painful surprise.
He shouldnt he been able to ld hd enough to hurt himself, but
he had. He cried out as his left kle buled beneath him & he sprawled
in majestic, graceless slow motion onto a rough surface. He l there in
the dkness, lking up at the pink hole in the air above, & him feeling
his kle throb, for sever seconds. He was raid to examine the injury
for fe it would be serious. If it significtly impeded his mobility, hed
be in re trouble.
Finly, he rose into a sitting position, silently upbraiding himself for
his timidity. He needed to tale this iss head-on or he might as well
give himself up for dead. He turned the ti-gr off ter his first few
attempts at sitting ended with him bouncing l over the ldsce.
In order to get at his kle without freezing, he needed to turn the
suit into a shelter. This he did with a spoken word to the suit. It expded
like a bln until it was vly pyramid shed. His feet & head were
still in his bts & helmet. Sliding out of them, he found himself inside a
white, brightly lit tent. His bapa was now outside. Unziing a fl
of tent that had been the ba of the suit, he quily pulled the pa inside.
As he did so he noted that the air outside wasnt as cold as hed feed it
might be.
Once he had everything inside, he turned to his left ft. His kle,
he noted with relief was only slightly swollen d, though it pained him
to do so, he could move it through most its full rge. The bio-scner
confirmed that there were no broken bones & only a slight sprain. From
the bapa, he tk a spr bottle & squirted a white substce liberly
over the kle, mummifying it from instep to mid-cf. In a few seconds
the substce hdened forming a white, shiny cast that would keep the
kle immobile. It so fed painkillers into his bld stream. Hed wk with
a slight limp d to his inability to move the kle, but at least hed wk
without pain. Now, to find a w out of here.

22

Chapter Four

It tk only a moment to turn the tent ba into a suit. Once there

he cheed the HUD on his visor. The air temperature, pressure, & oxygen content were l measurably higher th th had been from the other
side of the wl. Th were nowhere ne what th would be a sea level,
of course, but Stoddd still found it curious. The instruments ge no
indication of a field that could hold in atmosphere & he was only about
two hundred meters down this hole, so he had no ready explation. He
decided to lee it for other d & to concentrate on getting out of here;
he had little time to waste.
His first instinct was to wk towd the base of the round tower he
could still see from down here, hoping there would be exit. Trying to
jump up to the lip of the wl was out of the qstion; he couldnt get
more th about twenty-five meters in a single jump.
The helmet light was still on, reveing uneven flr of native ro,
grish bla & streaked with hofrost. He limped in the gener direction
of the tower, noticing as he did so, a chge in the tone of the moing
that had been consttly present since ldfl. It seemed more pained,
now. It might just be distortion csed by the pits acoustics but to
Stoddd it had more of the flour of actu hnting. Mbe it was just
the dkness, but for the first time since pletfl, he beg to feel fe.
It tk only a couple of minutes for him to be sure that he was heading in the right direction. The helmet light reveed flashes of bright
green in the ro ahead of him. Lking up, he saw that these flashes
were directly below the tower. He quiened his pace.
His riv at the tower base proved to be a hope-dashing experience.
Despite twice circling the towers base, he could find no trace of
entrce. After sever minutes thought, he decided ainst wdering
ound down here lking for other w up. People who (obviously)
ge no thought to the convenience of the living had built the cient
tombs of this world.
He was next to the curved vertic wl of the towerhe was ing
to try jumping up it. The tower had the same pitting the outer wl did.
The retractable crampons built into his bts should give him adequate
traction to get to the top of the tower in ten to fifteen jumps. That left
only his hds. If he was to oid springing off into the dkness, he needed
a w to make sure that his thrust was l upwd; that met finding a w
to get his hds to sti to the wl. After rumming ound in his bapa

EXILED

23

for a few minutes, he came up with a roll of double-sided te. He

wrped sever lengths of it ound each gloved hd & returned everything to the pa, swinging the whole thing onto his ba.
With the crampons on his bts extended, he tk a couple of steps
bawd & let. After his abrupt return to the ground, hing only tten
fifteen centimetres up, he coughed embrassedly & turned the ti-gr
unit ba on. His next jump t him twenty meters up the wl. He failed
to get a secure grip on the wl, however, & slid most of the w ba
down before leing ain. This le cried him aw from the tower. He
lded in undignified he about five meters from the towers base.
Growling, he tried ain.
After a few more fse stts, some bruises, & two hrowing ne
misses while he was well over a hundred meters up, Dr. Stoddd finly
found himself pting at the top of the round tower. He absently peeled
the stiy te off his gloves as he surved the ldsce. He was about
forty meters above the slope outside the wl, which he could now see
had been constructed to protect the unwy from fling into the chasm
in which he had found himself. It so hid the holes existence from the
ground; Stoddd wondered if that was deliberate.
Behind him, centered in the towers rf was the famili one-meter
sque hole that must be the entrce to the crypt. For the first time since
hed come here, Stoddd was in no w curious about finding a
scophus. Whver or whatever was buried here could remain onymous for l eternity as f as he was concerned. He just wted to get out
of here & contin on to the top of this damned mountain.
Turning his gaze upslope, he lked for a w out of here. To his
dism, there seemed to be no w to brie the g sepating the tower
from the wl & he couldnt jump the distce. He had a length of synthetic cord that should be long enough to cross the g at its nrowest,
which turned out to be down slope, at most exactly the place he had
jumped over the wl from. Now l he needed was a w to get it across
& to chor it somehow. After hf hour, he ge up on the idea. He had
nothing in his bapa that would help. He thought of the ladder gun,
but it was set to make ladders perpendicul to grity. Reprogramming
it to make a brie would take more timenot to mention expertiseth
he had. The ladder gun had been no gd to him down the hole becse

24

Chapter Four

he hadnt been able to see f enough in the dk to aim it at the right spot.
He could now, however.
With a sigh, he reized the obvious swer. He could make a ladder
from the tower ba down to the flr of the chasm & from the wl
oosite down to the chasm as well. Then hed he to climb down, wk
across, & climb ba up. It was ing to be a pain with his kle im-mobilized, but there was nothing else for it.
An hour & a hf later, he std on the wl, hing dissolved the ladder
leading down from the tower top. He hoed down the wl & headed
up towd his ultimate destination. His brief diversion had cost him hf
a d.

He med bely other two hours before dkness cut his trek
short. As he preped to bed down, he cculated that hed climbed somewhat less th hf the tot distce from the shuttle to the summit; not bad
considering what his detour had cost him, time-wise. He had seen a couple more tombs ong the w. Though neither had lked even remotely
like the first one, he had curbed his curiosity & contind his climb.
He wondered, as he lounged inside the tent & ate his flourless
evening me, if the Alothi expedition had made y side trips themselves
as th proached the summit. From what he possessed of their report,
he suspected not. As he dimmed the lights for sleep he noted that, though
muted, the moing on the air was present, even now. Though it had lost
the ee that it had had ba at the tomb, it no longer offered him much
comfort.

The next morning dawned cle & bright. The Professors glm of
the night before evorated with the morning mist. Tod he would rive
at the infamous tomb of the Alothi expedition. Tod he would stt to
find his swers. With no further ado th a silent gd morning to the
sun, he set off.
The mountainside was noticeably nrower as the mornings climb
contind. He counted twenty-nine more tombs before lunch, each a
masterpiece of chitecture. He recorded l those he passed close to, l the
time taking ce never to str t f from his line of ascent. He had no
words to describe the riot of styles, sizes, & shes of the buri sites he saw

EXILED

25

that d. He reized, by mid-ternn that he was passing through increasingly vertic city of the dead, each tomb mummified in ice & snow,
some to the point of actuly being buried. He could only gss that some
of the oddly shed mounds must be tombs. Despite the titude, the slope,
& the inaccessibility, this mountaintop was as densely paed with the
houses of the dead as the plains, but inestimably greater effort had ne
into the structures he was seeing as he passed. Th clung to the ro,
seeming to grip it with fingers of bla stone. One would he twisted
towers of stone; other densely paed ov mounds, punctuated with
vertic shts shed like trumpets. Still others were bizre bond description, each one accented with snowdrifts.
Stoddd beg to wonder, as he jumped awkwdly over hd paed
snow & ice between one lee & other, at the status these unknowns
buried here must he had in their siety. Were th kings or priests or
what? Could he perhs be lking at the gres of demids? & what of
the resident of what had to be the most revered; the tomb that cped this
mountain? The thought briefly curred to him that the inaccessibility
of this grd might be to protect ainst vdism. Were these, perhs,
the resting places of crimins? If so, what crimes could possibly merit
their internment in this lonely place, & why would th deserve such
mnificent mkers for their remains?
As the ternn wore on, Stoddd finly cght a glimpse of the top
of the mountain. The wind was piing up, blowing snow before it, so
his visibility was uncertain, but he thought he could see shes up there
that suested the tifici. He was beginning to worry that the weather
would close in before he could reach the summit. The light of other d
was fading as well. He estimated he had only other ninety minutes of
useful light.
The weather worsened. Stoddd knew that he had just enough time
before nightfl to reach the top. His only re concern was visibility. With
the density of snow being cried on the wind, he was in serious dger
of being blown off the mountain or of losing his beings & jumping into
thin air. The idea of being blown ound the top of this mountain rge
liker errt snowflake until the power in the ti-gr unit drained aw
was enough to make his pms sweat. He decided to compensate for the

26

Chapter Four

risk by increasing the gain on the ti-gr unit. It drew him more forcefully towd the mountains slopes, costing him a fine crop of bruises, but
it made him feel ser.
He had the bins clied to his visor now, filtering out the pticles
in the air, & giving him a topologic view of the mountain ahead &
above. He still wasnt sure if what he saw was the tomb he was lking
for, though. By his estimate, he was only six or seven hundred meters
from the top. He had to get there sn. The wind was ge force now.
The only se thing to do would be to wait out the storm before continuing, but Stoddd was past that pticul brd of sity now. A storm at
this height could last for ds & he didnt he the time to waste. Be-sides,
the tomb should provide l the shelter he would require. Hed contin
until he reached it.
After what seemed interminable interv of jumping upwd, l he
could see ahead now was blaness. The sun had set behind the peak &
had thrown everything into shadow. The tomb had to be just ahead
He stumbled into silence so quily that at first he feed that the
power on his suit had failed. His last jump, which should he ended
when he slammed into the side of the mountain lasted a het stoing
two seconds longer th he ticipated.
Oh, shit, he thought, Ive jumped right over the peak.
He lded flat on his stomach, the impact knoing the wind out of
him. The only sound was his own gasping as he tried to get his breath
ba. He was still in the dk & this most pied him until he reized
that he had the bins on his face & set to filter out most everything in
his w.
He turned them offd gasped.
He was in a huge rm, lit in a misty green by the veins running
through bla stone. The flr beneath him was flat, but of irregul outline. To his left & behind him were fluted columns rising most a hundred meters to a vlted ceiling. He could see the ring storm but he
could he none of it & not one flake of snow penetrated evident brier
defined by the wl of pills. To his right was a featureless wl rising to
meet the ceiling. The veins in this wl that provided most of the light.
At the f end of the rm, the flr ended in a hf dozen steps up to
other flr, so lined by columns on its left sidea huge verda curving
to the right & out of his line of sight.

EXILED

27

A smile teased the corners of his mouth. He had finly rived at the
tomb that had so bothered the Ur-Pax by its contind existence that th
had chosen to erase it from history.

Chapter Five
Stoddd levered himself to his feet, wincing slightly as bruises, which
seemed to cover most of his body, protested the flrt disregd for comfort displed by their inconsiderate host of late. He wasnt very surprised
to note that temperature, pressure, & oxygen content were l at sea-level
vs. Releasing the sns on the front of the helmet, he pushed it up &
ba. It accordioned into a bely noticeable coll ong the ba of the
suit. The bins, still attached to the helmet, poed off & clattered, loudly
to the flr. Somewhat embrassed, he collected them & re-turned them
to a poet.
After turning off the ti-gr, he turned ba the w he had come,
removing his right glove as he did so. Hing limped to a spot between
the two pills he had come flying through, he tentatively stu his hd
out into the storm. He could feel the cold of the wind pushing his hd
roughly to the right. In seconds the ache from the cold was so bad he
jerked his hd ba. A dense wl of wind-blown snow & crysts of ice
was peing out of the dkness about two meters from the rm. It
peeled aw to the right centimetres before hitting the invisible brier.
His hd throed painfully for a few seconds as he clenched & unclenched it sever times to wm it. He shk his head, not believing what
he was seeing. There had been no mention of this phenomenon in the
frmenty report. He wondered if this were something new. More
likely, he thought, it was something perceived as potentily daming to
the rule of the Ur-Pax & so redacted.
He shrued off his bapa & dug out a portable trsceiver. This
device, about the size of a sml pad of per was other version of the
HUD of his suit visor. It told him nothing whatever about what was
keeping out the cold & keeping in the wm. It did, however tell him
about a current of wm air circulating here & the gener direction it was
coming from. That ge him a place to stt seching.
But not just yet. He was exhsted, renous, & sore. Fd & sleep
were the first order of business. He quily made his tent ate energy
paets washed down with cold tea. He flaked out on the air mattress,
pulled the therm blket over his shoulders, & let the dkness come.

EXILED

29

Perhs it was the air of this place or the presence of the slumbering
remnts of its cupt, but Gabriel Stoddd dreamt for the first time
since he had lded twelve ds o. He did not dream of crypts or the
dead; he did not dream of inquisition damning him for opening a
Pdoras Box.
He dreamt of padise.
A lden ldsce l before him: verdt forests, lush meadows,
spkling rivers descending in mighty sweeps from crimson mountains &
tumbling down sheer ro faces bordering a mighty sea. Over l this
there flowed silver spes of light, drifting over the ld under a light bl
sun that, through the atmosphere, tinted the air ld.
In his minds e he followed the paths of the light spes as th led
through the forests to the mountains. The uer reaches of each mountain, were covered by glittering cities of jade; the peaks hidden by deep
bl clouds that hued tightly whatever it was th conceed. Delighted
by this ftasy, he let his minds e take him up the red slopes of one of
these peaks. He followed the well-worn les of the fabulous city at its
peak, lking for the pace he knew must be at the summit. As he went,
he passed ound & through the silver lights; th seemed not to mind as
he jostled them, one or two even cling a greeting in a voice that
sounded like the sighing of the wind.
As he proached the peak, he noticed a citadel on his right. The
dream turned into nightme, then. He saw the battlements of cle cryst
jade & the round tower rising out of the glowing abyss. He remembered
fling down there not t long ohe woke with a shout.

Stoddd sat up, sweating. He hadnt shouted, except in his mind,

but the echo of that phtom shout reverberated in his es, nonetheless.
It was only a dream, he told himself. Hed never put y sto in prophetic
dreams, yw. Nevertheless, if what he had seen was a tr re-flection,
it met that these structures had never been met for tombs, but had
been dwellings. How long o that must he been, he ded not gss. In
y case, it had no being on the qst before him. He had fortten that
the sun in his dream had not been orge.
He shk off the md of the dream & cheed the time. Hed been
out for most seven hours. Sleep enough for now. He preped a mere

30

Chapter Five

breakfast & thought about the task ahead. He pulled out the frment of
the Alothi report ain as he ate porrie & sied strong, scding coffee.
Though he didnt he the portion of this report that detailed the
finding of the scophus, he knew it had been found, for it was mentioned later in the context of the tredies that claimed eight of their
comrades. He did he a detailed description of a lge portion of the
funery complex itself, though. The place he was now was indeed a
porch of sorts. It led in a hf circle ound the base of the structure. At the
centre of this c was the entrceground level in this case. Stoddd
wondered why th should he lowed for the entrce of yone ter
the crypt was cupied. He dismissed the reason suested by his dream.
Once inside, the report described, there was a foyer. A wide stair led up
to a mezzine with sever rms leading off from it. These rms were
stuffed with gre gds. This was other practise pently uniq to this
tomb.
Drs at either end of the mezzine led up to other glery from
which the entrces to nine towers led. The expedition had not explored
these. There was no mention of ything dug into the rono cell, no
buri vlt. Hed he to make his own explorations from there. He made
a ment note to lk for the gres of the dead expedition members.
Finly finished with his me, Stoddd preped for the ds work
ahead as quily as his stiff, aching body permitted. He did, indeed he
my bruises, but none serious. His kle remained immobile & strgely
wm under the cast; a sweep with the bio-scner showed him some improvement in its condition.
The sun, setting right before him, smaed him right in the ebls
when he emerged from his tent. The storm had passed much more
quily th hed ticipated. He shuffled over to the ee of the porch.
The cle pink sky shone over the deep, deep bl of the cloud ler below,
visible ound the knife-eed rie of the mountain rge cing aw to
the left. The snow toing this rie was tinted red by the setting sun.
This place was high enough that he could see sts when he lked up,
even though he had hour or so of dlight left. He fought the urge to
linger over the bety before himhe had work to do & precious little
time to do it. He turned aw, graed his bapa & headed into the
glm. He mounted the six steps at the f end of the flr & followed the
porch as it curved aw from the light.

EXILED

31

He had wked htingly for about twenty minutes, noting that the
ever-present wailing of the wind seemed slightly diminished here, before
he saw the entrce. The bulk of the building now shielded him from the
diminishing light of the sun. The wl to his right & the rf over-head
provided the eerie green light that he remembered from the night before.
The porch had been steadily widening as he moved. Now he found his
forwd progress impeded by the bulk of a staircase. He moved to his left,
ound to the ft of the stair. As he proached it, his gaze was drawn up
to the entry itself.
The stair rose most forty meters & was at least twenty meters wide
at the top. It fled out at its base. There were no railings. The entry was
most as wide as the stairs. The port was rectgul & over thirty meters
high; it had no dr of y kind. Through this portico a soft white light
glowed, obscuring y detail of what might lie bond. This didnt rest
his attention nely so much as the runes cved deeply into the lintel.
Th were the same four as were cved on the pills that outlined every
gresite on Styria. To them was added a fifth that hed never seen before;
it was centered between the others. Th were lit faintly by the glow
from the green veins of stone that r ound & through them. So absorbed was he by the sight that he tried over the bottom step as he
rounded the corner of the staircase & nely ended up face first on the
ground.
The centre symbol seemed vly famili to him. He thought it
might be Gryfidd. If so, this was one more piece of evidence that the
Gryfidd were the Styris. He recorded the inscription & set his portable
computer to yzing it in context of l forms of cient Gryfidd written lgues. He knew hed he to wait for a few minutes for the ysis
to complete.
With a lingering lk at the gathering dk between the glimmering
pills, Stoddd mount-ed the steps towd the faint white glow.
He was adjusting to the limp quite well; it hdly slowed his upwd
progress at l. Still, he was a bit winded by the time he mounted the last
step. He psed to catch his breath as he t his first glimpse inside the
tomb. The light seemed to be coming from skylights. He counted seven
wee shed holes rged in a circle that defined the ceiling a hundred
meters above him. Th couldnt be skylights, though. For one thing, it

32

Chapter Five

was night outside. He shrued; it something hed probably not figure

out.
The lights did betifully illuminate the foyer of this building. Before him, across fifty meters of the famili bla stone, polished to mirror
smthness, was the bottom of the stair leading up to the mezzine.
Actuly, the stair beg as three sepate staircases. The outer two ced in
from the ees of the rm; the middle one faced him. All three curved in
towd each other & merged as th rose until, hfw to the mezzine,
th met & became one staircase which itself fled out as it rose to meet
the curving lee. The railings were of thin stone. He could see the faint
outlines of drws in the shadowed re wl above the stairs; pently,
the same overhead white lights were in the store rms as well. There
were no other exits in evidence.
The lights overhead did not illuminate the corners or recesses of the
rm well. The overl effect of this was to render the deeper pts of the
rm a glowing green, owing to the luminous quities of the green veins
in the stone, while in the more exposed eas, blinding reflections of light
bounced ound the rm off the polished stone surfaces.
There was not a spe of dust to be seen. There was no evidence of
ees to y of the surfaces of this rm. The flr seemed to blend into
the wls; the wls vished into the green glm of the ceiling, which
was itself lost in dkness. The skylights were the only evidence that the
rm had a ceiling.
Then there was the deening silence of the place. Aently, only
the spirit of the intended cupt was lowed here & it was content to
remain silent for the moment.
Stoddd had met to begin his exploration of the tomb by lking
for a passe into the mountain itself. His thinking was that down below
was the most likely place to find both the scophus & the gres of the
unfortunate Alothi expedition members. Something about this rm
drew him towd & up the stairs, however. He told himself it would just
be a qui lk ound. Somewhere in the ba of his mind was a voice
telling him he had violated his common sense once ready on this climb
& it had cost time vuable time & a sprained kle. It was drowned by the
wonder he felt at this mnificent tomb.

EXILED

33

The ascent of the stairs seemed effortless, even considering he still

couldnt take a proper step with one ft immobilized. He moved as silently as possible; the complete stillness had a hypnotic quity that he
found comforting. It put his emotions in a state of suspension, which
kept his un-easiness at b. Any excess sound put him in mind of the
restless keening of the spirits that hed had to live with consttly since
riving. The absence of noise met, for him, the absence of a compy
hed begun to fe since entering this msoleum.
As he climbed, he beg to make out more clely the drws red
in front of him. He was taken with intense curiosity to know what
would he been buried with the noble person-e that merited such a
monstrous crypt.
As he climbed, he gled to his right. His intention was to stt at one
end & briefly explore the rms in order. Then he would descend &
begin his sech for the underground portion he though must exist.
He reached the top of the stairs not even winded. As he moved to
the right-most rm, something in the rm just to the left of it cght
his e. He turned instead to into it. The first thing he noticed was that
there were, indeed, fx skylights in the rms, lge round ones. The
second thing he noticed were the bodies.
There were l eight Alothi, lined up ong the ne end of the rm.
Th were dressed in their expedition ge, which lked much like his,
& rged in the attitude typic of the funery rights of the dead for the
Alothi culture: on their bas, hds resting under their heads, left legs
crossed over right at right gles. He couldnt account for the la of decomposition; perhs something about this place preserved them. At first,
he could see no evident signs of trma; then, as he moved slowly closer,
he t a gd lk at their faces.
In life, the Alothi were a hdsome race, tl, slender, & graceful. Th
had music voices & fine features that ge them ethere bety. The
latter was no longer tr of these specimens. Their elongated, death pe
faces were scored by deep gashes; wounds which lked self-inflicted. As
he t closer, he noticed, with sho, that th had l uged their es
out. He fumbled getting the bio-scner out of his bapa. It fell to the
flr making a hideously loud clatter in the stillness. After assuring himself that it was undamed, he scned the neest corpse.

34

Chapter Five

He was shoed to find that the precipitous cse of death was a massive stroke. Minor pre-death dame included pinpoint hmorrhes of
the lungs as well as the skin. Indications were that if the stroke hadnt
curred, het failure would he. Stoddd numbly cheed the rest; either stroke or het failure had killed l of them. Th hadnt died l at
once, though. Most of them had expired ds t, meing that the survivors knew something was proving fat to otherwise hethy people &
had been unable to stop it. He wondered why th had lingered so long
in such a place. He so worried about what long-term exposure to this
place might do to him.
He finly tk note of what else the rm contained. The bulk it was
crammed to a height of ten meters with white stone cubes; these were
the same size as the scophi that adorned every tomb. On a whim, he
tried peeking with the ARC scner. It reveed that the cubes were solid & seemed, despite peces, to be made of the same stone as just
about everything else here. On closer inspection, there were slight
vices, but not enough to rule the stone fundamently different.
Suddenly overwhelmed by a determination to know, he moved
through l the other rms & found the same in each one. Stoddd was
quite puzzled by this. Were these extras? Or were th met for something else? He found no other remains as he had hf expected to. There
was no sign of the equipment that the surviving Alothi had left. There
seemed nothing else to do except contin upwd to the towers. He had
fortten about finding the sepulchre.
Before he had taken hf a dozen steps, his portable computer beg
to chirp; its ysis of the runes complete. He hted & consulted it, eer
to he his suspicions confirmed.
The computer indicated that the four glyphs of the tomb mkers,
rged as th were on the chw were very close to cient Gryfidd
word meing subject to death. When the fifth glyph was added in the
middle, was a negation. Dr. Stoddd actuly slped his forehead. That
was why it was so famili to him; the symbol was a negation. A simil
symbol was still utilized in some written Gryfidd lgues by being inserted ter the first syllable. This tomb held what, to the Gryfidd yw,
was immort being. He felt a chill at this reization out of l proportion
to the information itself. Even if this assessment was objectively trd

EXILED

35

he doubted itit still didnt me ything sinister. Nevertheless, he

couldnt shake the feeling that some terrible power was imprisoned here.
The drw at the leftmost ee of the mezzine reveed a nrow,
winding set of stairs leading upwd. He climbed for ten nely interminable minutes, mostly in only the green glow of the stone until finly
emerging into brighter light. His breath cght at the rm in which he
found himself.
It seemed hed stumbled into a cathedr. The rm was l of white
stone. It was round & lined with coloured windows, through which a
bright white light blazed. He couldnt make out y of the details of what
l outside of the rm. The windows lower ends stted just above sml,
dk openings, nine in number, which must lead up to the towers. The
windows abutted each other, so wide were th, & th rose most two
hundred meters. Th betred the same abstract quity in their designs
as the bas-reliefs at the other, lesser tombs. This was fitting for in the
rms exact centre was a featureless white cube, measuring a meter on a
side.
He emerged from the stairwell & proached the scophus wily.
Once he was on the polished stone flr, he noticed, at the f end, a
depression that must be the other stairwell leading up from the mezzine
below.
The silence became positively oressive as he moved towd the
white coffin; it seemed to most physicly press ainst him. His sense of
dread increased ong with it as if a tgible will was emating from the
blo of stone before him, seeking to deny him the satisfaction of the swers he sought. He determined to push on. Hed not come this f to
turn aw now.
The chge when it came was so sudden that he wondered for a
moment if he were still in the same rm. The light ound him winked
out, leing him in absolute dkness. The light through the windows
chge from a bright white to a deep bl; a light that failed to illuminate
ything but the windows themselves. The force pressing ainst him
ceased so suddenly that he stumbled & most fell.
As he std wonderingly, a voice roed in his head. Pain screamed
ong his nerves. He could he words there, but he couldnt make them
out. His consciousness retreated before the ment sho that reverberated

36

Chapter Five

in his mind ong with the bitterly gry voice. He didnt remember hitting the flr.

Twenty five hundred meters below, Dr. Stoddds shuttle lost contact with him. It initiated a programmed response to this eventuity: it
beg to broadcast a distress beacon. All nine geo-sats visible from the
peak pied it up. Within minutes, the gudis of Styria had informed
the burecracy of the Ur-Pax. Their reaction was swift, flled not by
ger, but by fe.

Chapter Six
T long, t long.
It had been tens of thousds of yes waiting in this limbo for freedom. Patiently it had bait-ed the sles, hoping to get one of them here.
Only here could it be freed; only one who lived could break the chains
that bound it.
It had come very close once, but none of the sles had spoken its
lgue. It felt sho that the lgue of the rulers had been so neglected
that there could exist yone who had not lened it from the cradle.
Now it had the schol, one who must know its speech. Such a powerful intellect the schol had, but oh so mleable. The schol had been
inflnced over a period of decades & had finly been drawn here. It was
the perfect tl. This time there would be no mistake.

As he swam up from the depths of unconsciousness some indeterminate time later, Stoddd reflected that he now had a much better understding of why the Alothi had died as th had; whatever was buried
here might be dead, but it had not ceased to be. That, perhs, was the
re meing of that cryptic five-lettered word over the port. He wondered if th had understd its speech y better th he had. He opened
his es to find that the rm was still dk, but that he could now see
faintly by the bl light filtering through the immense windows.
He eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at the newer
bruises. The cube was still ahead of him, suested rather th reveed by
the faint light. When he lked behind, he was unable to make out the
stairwell from which he had emerged. Levering himself to his feet, he
shuffled ba over to where it had been. It was ne; he wondered briefly
if he had indeed been trsported somewhere. He moved over to where
the other stair should be, taking ce to st as close to the windows as
possible. It, t, was ne. That left only the towers themselves. He didnt
relish one climb, let one nine, but he didnt wt to remain here, wherever here was, forever so he t to it.
An hour & a hf later, he finished descending the last stair, tired &
thoroughly discoured. Each tight, winding staircase led up to a sml
rm with no windows or other mes of egress. He wondered if that
had been the case before he had tried to get to the scophus.

38

Chapter Six

He std quietly pting, while he contemplated his only other option. Something was in that blo of stone, something ive or at least
conscious. It had tried communicating with him & had most killed him.
He no longer had y doubt that it had csed the deaths of the Alothi in
the same mner. He hadnt understd what it had been sing but it was
possible, assuming the Gryfidd claim had the merit he thought it had,
that it was speaking in a vit of one of their cient lgues. He had a
machine that could perform the trslation. If he could get it to speak
ain, perhs he could get a trslation & actuly communicate with it.
The only problem with this idea was that he wasnt sure if the voice had
been in the air or in his head. If in the air, he could shield himself from it
& let the trslator do its work. If the voice were in his head, hed he to
repeat what was said into the trslator. The only problem with this pl
was that hed only been able to endure a moment of this voice before
losing consciousness. The thought curred that he was following a path
worn smth by eight dead Alothi, but he rely had no choice.
Assuming that the voice had been in the air, he stoed up his es.
He turned on the trslator, set it to listen for ything that sounded like
a Gryfidd lgue & inched his w towd the stone on hds & knees.
He decided ainst wkingless f to fl. He covered hf the distce
without encountering ything. He beg to wonder if he might not end
up dying of stvation right here. He contind to inch forwd.
The voice ain asslted his being. The trslation, deled by less
th a second, was fed to his es. Though it was soft, he had no trouble
making it outthe other voice was being fed directly to his mind. Later
he would wonder how the trslator had hed something that was not
dible.
The voice was sing, repeatedly, I live & I am trapped. Help me, mortal
He t it twice, before the pain became t much. Before he passed
out ain, he shouted in-to the trslator a demd to cease. Immediately,
the voice stoed. He waited until his head stoed throing & removed
the plugs from his es.
your name, mortal, from the trslator. He had missed something.
Im sorry, I didnt he you.
I meant not to cse you distress, mortal. I only wished to make myself
heard. What is your name?

EXILED

39

The voice was betiful. Stoddd was insttly enchted. He wted

to know l about this being & to help free it y w he could. He was
not awe of ything strge about his desire. The voice came from the
trslator, but there was no untrslated voice in the air or in his mind.
Stoddd bely noticed. My name is Dtor Gabriel Stoddd. I came here
lking to know the fate of a previous expedition here.
The others of your kind, they could not understand me. I tried for many
ds to make myself known to them.
Th could not be the strength of your thoughtsth died.
The voice was deeply sorrowful. This greatly distresses me, Doctor. I
he never meant harm to any being. I only wish to be freed.
If I m ask, Lord, what is your name? How did you come to be
trped here?
I he no name; at least as you understand the term. As to how I became
trapped, here it psed. I trusted to the gd will of those who feared me.
I dont understd.
Once I was like you, Doctor. I ate & slept & feared death. Stoddd didnt
bother correcting him about the last point. My race uncovered another universe, a fraternal twin to this one. We learned that some went to this other place
upon physical death. Some, but very few. Over time, we learned the conditions
that allowed this crossing & we reproduced them. The results are the tombs that
cover this world. From this place, one who knows the rituals m commune
with the deceased, who dwell in the other world. Stoddd had a flashba to
his dream of the night before. He no longer doubted that he had dreamt
tr.
Some, like me, learned how to make this crossing while still living. In this
w, we became deathless for we discovered that upon death our bodies quickly
made the trip back to this continuum, healed of what-ever hurts they had suffered.
In time, others became jealous of our blessing & sought to deny us what
they perceived as a blasphemy against nature.
How were th able to tr you?
By enlisting the help of the others who had crossed over. They t were
envious of our ability to cross at will between worlds. We were used to the
friendship of these. Their betral was bitter.
How c I help you, Lord?
I am trapped between worlds. Prisoned in a place that is truly one of death.
To free me, all you need do is break my tomb.

40

Chapter Six

Lord, the stone of the tomb is very hd; I doubt I could do more
th chip it.
That will be sufficient to break the spell.
Very well. Stoddd shrued his pa to the ground & removed a
laser torch. Crossing the distce quily he set to work trying to dame
the cube of stone before him. Despite the enchtment laid upon him,
had he thought to sc it first he would likely he rethought the whole
thing.

The entire third fleet was massing ound the Styri sol system. Its
ETA at the plet itself was a little over four hours. It was racing ainst
time to prevent a disaster that the Ur-Pax had been dreading for two
centuries.
Had Stoddd possessed the entire Alothi expedition report, he
would he known that it was at the recommendation of the Alothi themselves that Styria become off limits to exploration. The survivors had ne
into seclusion at their own reqst. Their nightmes had driven them l
to madness & suicide within ten yes of their return.

Stoddd worked without pse for sever hours, patiently fusing

the beam at the same spot. He didnt know if the stone would give before
the laser lost power, but he knew there was no better chce. He had the
torch at a shp gle to the top of the cube, pointed at a corner. He reasoned that the tip of one of the corners was the most vulnerable spot.
With joy, he finly saw that the tip was beginning to soften & glow.

Into the ds etern dkness, some light insinuated itself. It beg to

feel the first re hope in a long time. Its prison was most breached.

The fleet achieved orbit. The commd ship tk station over the
mountain rge. Deep scning showed no life signs, only the shuttle
broadcasting its tomated messe. All the prisons of the mountain peaks
were quiet.
Suddenly, a glow erupted from the peak of one of the mountains.
This was followed, in rid succession by two, three, seven, eleven more.
Sn there were t my to count.

EXILED

41

So deeply enchted was he that Stoddd didnt worry when the

stone finly ge. The cubes sides faded until there were only the ees
leftwhite, now glowing, lines ainst the deep bl air. A hum, low
enough to feel in his chest sttled Stoddd from his daze. Something he
couldnt see pushed him hd ainst him, sending him sprawling. The
hum became a ro, deep & penetrating, as if the mountain itself were
screaming. Fighting off pic, Stoddd baed aw without bothering to
std, pushing his w bawd with his hds & feet. A point of light,
like a sml bright st, peed in the centre of the cube. A sound of wind,
high pitched amid the deeper sound of the roing, made him lk ound.
Streaks of colour, a lighter bl th the air, beg to stream towd the
tiny st. The very colour of the air was bleeding aw into the sml, now
painfully bright point of light within the cubic frame. A disk of spinning
bl light surrounded it now.
As the flow of bl air contind, the rm itself beg to lighten. He
lked in wonder as the light coming from the huge windows beg to
stream towd the tiny funnel in the cubes centre. After a few minutes,
the rm brightened until it was so stkly lit that he had to squint; the
windows were now absolutely bla. As he lked ound the rm, the
last streamers of bl were pulled from the air & vished into the st. The
sound of the wind had faded steadily as the bl had been pulled into the
vortex. The cube was now either ne or so like the colour of the rm
as to be invisible. With no ceremony, the light winked out; he could lk
ound with-out squinting. The roing faded ridly, until the Dtor
was, once ain, in utter silence.
As the last hint of bl dispeed, Stoddds fe dispeed with it.
He reized how atypic his behiour had been. He so reized that he
had in l likelihd just unleashed something horrible into his world.
He fought despair, determined to right the wrong. His first task was
to get out of here. He spotted the stairwell that he had used before, once
ain visible to him. Not wasting y time, he crossed the flr & humped
down the spir stair, nely fling twice in his haste.
The rm below had so chged. From the end of the mezzine,
he could see that the fx skylights were as bla as the windows had been
& that the wls of the rm, so brillitly lit, were as abaster white as
the cathedr rm upstairs was.

42

Chapter Six

Through the entryw streamed a wm lden lighta light he recognized. He wked slowly towd the staircase. He noticed, as he passed,
that there was no sign of the dead Alothi, or of the white cubes in the
rms off the mezzine. He did finly spot the expeditions equip-ment,
though, piled in the middle of the rm that had held their bodies.
Aently, the Alothi had made it to this side of the univers divide as
well. He sped a moment to wonder how th had med to get ba.
As if in a dream, he slowly descended the stair, knowing now what
he would find. As he steed out onto the lding, he lked past the
porch, down the mountain.
It was a brillit d. The tomb ound him, from the outside, at least,
was made of glittering green jade. He descended the stair to the porch &
wked out between the pills & into the lden ternn. There below
him was a city of jade. Fther out, he could see the forests that blketed
the lower slopes d, off in the distce he could see a mighty river wind
its w from a mountain vl & through the plain until it vished over
the ee of a cliff. The sea bond glittered in the light of the pe bl sun.
Closer to, he could see the silver lights of the dead as th made their
w up the slope towd him. As th proached, he could see clely that
th had been Gryfidd in lifeconfirmation, finly.
Stoddds worry abated. He was no longer in his universe. Whatever horror he had unwittingly unleashed, it was of no moment now.
His determination to wn his fellows in the other Universe melted like
ice in the sun. There was likely nothing he could do now & little chce
that th would need y wning of his about the dgers & lies of the
Ur-Pax.
A hdful of the spirits came right up to him. Th cried lks of
sadness as th told him, in their betiful whispering voices, that he had
just freed the God of the Ur-Pax. It was now freeing its siblings. He
lked where th gestured & saw the bl veils withdrawing from the
mountain peaksmore liberated ds. Each cloud that vished into the
high windows of the p-aces reveed other glittering green citadel surmounting other mountain peak.
He asked if there was y w to return to his continuum.
Th shk their spectr heads as th told him that he was exile
now. Only the ds could make the journ across the void that sepated
the Universes. (A vision of seven Alothi who had pently done this as

EXILED

43

well strolled across his minds e, but he held his peace. Even though the
ws were open ain, no living being could make the journ.
Stoddd was actuly rather relieved. He was se here & he had access
to the wisdom of the es. In the Alothi expeditions equipment would
be l the fd he would need until he was well onto the plain. There,
hopefully, he could live off the ld.
Deling only to run ba into the pace & grab fd paets, he set
out to descend the mountain. He noticed, pentheticly, that his kle
seemed to be heed. He could move it now & it csed no pain. He
stoed by the side of a path to strip off the useless environment suit. The
bde was ne from ound his kle.
Hed decided that his first qst would be to find his cestors spirit.
He was more contented th y bkworm had a right to be.

The mada above the plet was in a pic. The disaster th & their
cestors had trained to prevent had been lsed upon them with most
no wning. In fact, no prepation would he been enough to stem the
tide.
The tombs cping the mountains had begun to glow as ice craed,
steamed, & finly exploded off them. Brillit streamers of deep lden
light beg to leak through the high windows in the edifices.
The glows resolved into Gryfidd-shed forms that hovered, momentily above the tlest of the towers crowning each building. The
streams of lden light contind to fly up from the windows, seemingly
attracted to the cruciform ships blazing above. The figures became the
heads of gsers of lden fire that fountained up abruptly from the now
ridly chring ruins of their prisons.
The emergency muvres of the spacecrt orbiting Styria failed to
se most of them. Divinely piloted comets of lden fire hulled or otherwise ried them t. After so long entombed the ds seemed ill disposed towd the descendts of their ctors. Only a hdful of ships
esced. Not bothering to chase the strglers, the newly freed ds of
Styria headed for the seat of Ur-Pax power, the plet Phrygia.
Thus beg the dissolution of the theratic empire known as the
Ur-Pax. Th had existed for over a thousd yes & ruled for more th
two hundred in the name of a God th feed more th worshied. Th

44

Chapter Six

had used this power to great effect, making themselves little ds. Now
th would len to serve their God in truth.
In only months, the tr theracy beg.

About the Author

Gideon Jged is thor, essist, contri, & freethinker

Connect with Gideon Online:
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/gideonjagged
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GideonJged
Linked-In: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/gideonjged
Website: http://chemyoftheword.net/