Page 50 of Spectral Seas (Spectral Worlds #2)

T HE VIRIDIANS WERE momentarily stunned, but realizing that they had revealed themselves, pointed their battle trident staves toward Abby and his cohorts.

Uhggwa and his guard stepped away from Sss’kallion and the priests, and with a series of short, depressurized bursts, removed their helmets.

“Apparently,” Abby said aloud, “the Viridians can breathe fine in the Indicus plane.”

Free of the helmet’s confinement, the arms and tentacles bearding Uhggwa’s face wriggled and stretched. “How did you know?” his voice synthesizer bellowed.

“The statues back at the monastery,” said Abby.

Leta added, “The Viridian statues, here on the embattlements and back at the abbey. They aren’t wearing helmets.”

“It is true,” said Uhggwa. He sucked in a deep breath then released it. “We can breathe as freely in the Indicus plane as our own. But by that alone you deduced our partnership? ”

“I had a hunch you’d been working together,” said Abby. “I just wasn’t sure until now. It’s about the Ancient Ones, isn’t it?”

“You are correct, Benediximus. We have been working with the Indici to bring back the Ancient Ones.”

“My only question is why. Your family, the entirety of the Ggwa have profited under the relationship with the Alpha Plane.”

“Why? To serve the Ancient Ones was our birthright—our purpose. In robbing us of our heritage, the syndicates have made my family soft. Now if you will,” he raised his gloved hand toward them. “Please step back.”

With that, the leather armored reptoid warriors beside Sss’kallion double timed into a half circle formation around Abby and the others while the closest of the Viridian commandos on the perimeter tightened the circle from behind.

Sss’kallion turned back to the sphere and again raised his arms. The high priest’s throat morphed, stretched wide and taut, hooding his head in the fashion of a rearing cobra. His smoothed throat began to undulate, generating a series of loud primal rhythmic clicks and squeaks.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The five lesser priests spaced themselves equally around the base of the sphere. They too raised their arms, spread their reptilian hoods as Sss’kallion had done, and joined him in the pattern call.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The ancient machine immediately responded, its five glittering rings spinning faster upon each other.

Soren threw his hands to his ears. “What is it they’re doing?” he yelled. “It’s deafening. ”

“I don’t know,” yelled Abby. He too was wincing. “I can read ancient Indici, but I don’t speak it. My bet is that it’s an incantation.”

“They’re recssiting the ancient ssscript,” said Sss’kyrone. “The cuh-all to the Ancient Ones.”

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

An eerie stillness permeated the plateau, the air tasted stale, hair rose on Abby’s arm and neck, and a quiver shot down his prosthetic spine.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The burning eyes of Sss’kallion and his five priests grew brighter.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

And brighter. Escalating in intensity.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The headdresses the priests wore ignited into halos of white fire.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The white flames licked, spread, and encircled their cobra hoods, ultimately engulfing their reptilian heads in blinding white veils.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

A streamer of white lightning burst from Sss’kallion’s flaming head, connecting him to the priest to his right. It was followed by another arc connecting him to a second priest, then another and another and another so that Sss’kallion was connected to all five. In turn multiple streamers of white lightning burst from each of the five priests’ flaming heads connecting them to each other with a web of electric blue arcing bolts between them.

Abby had never witnessed anything like it. He searched his mind for a mnemonic or hint of such a connection, but with no access to the Archive, he came up short .

The arcing web built upon itself, forming a mesh of lightning that rose from the ring of priests to surround then engulf the outer rings of the sphere in an electrical mayhem. The charged rings rotation accelerated—faster, faster, and faster. In near collisions, the great glistening bands spun, blurring rotations so fast that the rings became indistinguishable from each other and transformed the sphere into a massive, seemingly solid ball of glowing, white-blue fire.

“Another eye?” asked Leta.

“Seems so,” chipped Abby. He gazed over at her, the brilliant reflection of the fiery blue ball filled the solid midnight black of her own eyes. “But something more.” Abby looked back toward the six singing priests, then back to the sphere. He focused his ocular implants on the spectrum wavelength of the giant burning orb then shifted his attention to one of the Indici in front of him and measured the spectrum wavelength of the orbs burning in its skull. “They’re the same,” he chipped.

“What’s the same?” asked Leta.

“The sphere and priests, it’s the same spectrum wavelength. The sphere is the manifested magnitude of the priests’ own burning eyes . It’s their power they’re compounding.”

From the fiery sphere, he detected a faint, high-pitched ring. It rapidly rose to a skull crushing intensity. “Its gonna blow!” Abby yelled as he and Leta threw their arms up to shield themselves. Soren, already with his head in his hands, bent forward to block the menacing tone. It peaked, then ceased. In a micro-instant, a cataclysmic wave of psionic energy blasted from the orb, an explosive pulse that forced the Viridians and the three from the Alpha Plane to stagger back as it rushed through them.

A second pulse followed, then another, and another .

The air reeked heavy of ozone; Leta and Soren’s faces contorted as they fought to shift spectrum down out of the range of the psionic bursts, while a thousand tiny invisible psionic daggers skewered the front of Abby’s skull.

Thunder rumbled and roared as the mist surrounding the mountain billowed rapidly up to the heavens in a thick cyclone column to form a dense, dark cloud high above the plateau. Long limbed branches of white lightning tickled and backlit the storm cloud blackened, indigo sky. With a deafening roar, a mighty bolt shot across the entirety of the skyscape…and hung there. A great jagged arc, bright against the blackened sky, held frozen and suspended—a crack in the heavens.

Sss’kallion and the priests, conduits in the ancient eldritch scheme, continued their chant.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

Clook, clook, clook. Eee-al, eee-al.

The thin bolt of white light creasing the dark sky above thickened.

“They’ve opened a rift!” yelled Soren. “We have to stop them.” But the pulses were a constant ocean current of psionic energy, and when the tall, weakened Umbra fought to step forward against it, he was forced to drop to his knees.

~*~