The Archangel Chronicles Part Six: A Hymn to the Devourer

The Archangel Chronicles 1.6 - A Hymn to the Devourer

Siouean leaned against Daniel as they made their way deeper into the Stone’s core, pulling him down, slowing them. Many times he thought to pick her up and carry her -make faster progress that way-but she protested that she could walk on her own. She could walk. Looking at her, Daniel did not know how long she could continue. The Golems that defended the Stone had ripped bloody gashes through her chest, down her arms, her torso, her legs. She limped along, one arm thrown around Daniel’s shoulders, and drained blood onto the corridor’s clay floor.

A Golem led them. Smooth browed, with a gait that suggested the spinning of a potter’s wheel, it did not look back but seemed to trust them to follow. That, or it did not care, which Daniel suspected to be closer to the truth. He grimaced at the thought. He didn’t know what these Golems were, but doubted if they counted the same as people. They were some type of automaton, devoid of minds, personalities, souls.

Dull red lights lit as they passed. The ship watched them, now wanted them to go forward. It was hard to imagine that the mind behind these eyes now was that of Marin Orivan.

They passed down, beyond the place they’d stopped before, when they’d realized the Golems meant to kill them to stop their progress. The body of Jaeioun Rauntor lay there still. The Golem stepped over his outstretched arm as if it had not realized it was there. Lights grew out from the walls, pulsing. Daniel guessed it to be some kind of directional marker. The Corridor narrowed here, but at the same time grew taller, defying all laws of physics and architecture.

The Golem stopped in front of a half-oval doorway. Daniel drug Siouean through it. Marin stood in the center of the round chamber, framed by dark blue light. As Daniel set Siouean down to half-sit, half-recline against a hardened clay embankment filled with water, he realized that the screens were a series of astronavigation maps. Hovering above the stone reservoir, the Archangel spun wildly, welded to the crushed forward section of a Reaver Snark.

"Marin!" Daniel exclaimed. "What happened to the ship?" Siouean moaned as if to answer, but Daniel ignored her. Marin stood in the center of the chamber-as near to the center as he could get without immersing himself in the water, which it looked as if he’d already done-standing at a bank of stone instrument panels. He leaned against it for support, but his palms pressed against two squares of a dark blue surface that looked like fused glass. His lips moved, but he uttered no words.

"Marin!" Daniel shouted again as he took the old man by the shoulders and shook him.

"Do not . . ." his reply came back in a measured whisper. ". . . break my connection. I almost have it."

Sweat drained from Marin’s brow to join with the water that soaked his clothing, and glistened on the surface of his E.V.A. suit. His lips continued to move, and Daniel tried to read them. "One. Two. Level Deep. Skip-Skip. Forward. There!"

Marin opened his eyes to look at Daniel. "I have it now, but . . ."

"But what, Marin? What is going on?"

"Ulysses no longer controls the Archangel, and the ship is confused. It senses the power, the part of it that is Ghiril does, and it is afraid."

"Afraid of what? Marin, you’re making no sense."

Marin gave him an exasperated sigh. "Of course you don’t understand. You have not drunk of the water from the Grail."

"I don’t think I should. One of us has to think clearly."

"Of course. You are not meant for that water. But it makes things difficult."