“Everything the Early Ones created was about seeking control,” I explain, leading us around the room, relying on the muscle memory of a hundred trips in here. “The philosophy behind Ghosts was to reduce a human down to something you could control. Electricity, to controlwhen you could have light. Trains, to control a massive machine that could take you where you wanted to go.”
I finally stop before a series of small objects in three separate glass cases.
“I guess the question is what the Early Ones wanted to control with those artifacts,” Jeran murmurs.
I look down at the objects. All three are identical, and all three look exactly like miniature versions of the cylinders that I’d seen dug up in Mara. The rush of familiarity comes back to me. No wonder I watched those things loaded onto the train cars and thought I’d seen them somewhere before. They were here, all along.
“‘Purpose unknown,’” Jeran reads from the placards alongside them. “It’s all that’s written about them.”
I shake my head, then bend closer to the objects. “These look like models of those artifacts, except these have their ends opened up.” I point to the insides of each miniature cylinder, which was loaded with thinner rods structured around a hollow center.
“Now, come take a look at this.”
I gesture for Jeran to follow me to the other side of the room, then point at several engravings on display against the wall. “Maybe there’s a reason they buried those artifacts so deep underground.”
“Energy source?” Jeran asks.
“Maybe,” I reply, nodding up at the engravings. “But to power what?”
It’s a series of paintings long faded by time, but the grooves are deep enough to reveal what must once have been on the wood panels. “A depiction of life as it unraveled during the end of the Early Ones’ reign,” I say.
The images show the massive height of the walls being built around various cities. Down below, an image depicts a cross section showing layers of earth beneath the walls, where bodies of people deemed infectedwere buried deep, deeper than any body should need to go. As if the survivors were terrified of them.
“It’s believed that whatever they created and unleashed upon themselves had something to do with lengthening their lives,” I tell Jeran.
He nods. “Infinite Destiny,” he murmurs. “Their words engraved on ruins in Mara. They would live as long as the stars.”
“Now, do you see this?” I lean closer to the wood panels and point out some of the items installed on the tops of the walls.
Jeran frowns. The engraving is rough and hard to make out. But when I look closely enough at it, I can see the subtle signs of an image once there, with blocks of text below. The image appears to depict a small crowd of people gathered in a loose circle around something. As a boy, I’d get as close to this engraving as I could, attempting to make out the faces of the Early Ones, marveling at their strange clothes, wondering if they acted like us as much as they looked like us.
“This is a wood print of some old papers written by the Early Ones,” I explain in a low voice, nodding at the accompanying placard. “They used to release regular, written reports of events happening in their society to their people. This one discusses an accidental explosion that consumed one of their towns.”
Jeran and I stare for a moment at the engraved image. The loose crowd of people seems to be standing around crumpled, rodlike canisters strewn across the ground.
“What if those artifacts aren’t an energy source, but a weapon that failed?” I whisper, looking at Jeran.
“A weapon they couldn’t control?” Jeran adds.
I nod. “What if those cylinders were made in an attempt to create a weapon, then buried because they realized how dangerous they were?”
Jeran looks at me. “Then they should never have been dug back out.”
“Look at what they’ve done to the workers that rode the train with them.”
“What if they’re unstable in the open air?”
“Bombs?”
If those artifacts are sitting out and are truly unstable, then we have even less time than we thought. Surely the Karensans don’t realize what they’ve gotten their hands on. They think it’s an object that has the potential to power their cities. But it may be the most dangerous thing that’s ever been brought back to Cardinia, an object that, once exposed aboveground, could unleash destruction on the entire city. Could kill us all at any moment.
You don’t know what it might do. And it’s this unknown that chills you straight to your core.
“Do you think Constantine suspects the danger of those artifacts?” Jeran asks.
I frown. “Yes. But he has always been willing to overlook the danger of something if it can offer what he considers to be worthy rewards.”
“What’s the worthy reward in this case?” Jeran says. “Why does he want it so badly?”
