The Ancients by Nathan Hystad

Author:Nathan Hystad [Hystad, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Woodbridge Press
Published: 2018-08-06T22:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

“Right smack dab in the nest.” I sat in the darkness of our hosts’ underground tunnels. We’d followed the Raanna, as the translator told us they were called. It could be a bad translation, but it was good to be able to think of their species as something other than “spider-monster.”

“We need to get out there and find Slate,” Mary said, echoing my thoughts.

“What are they waiting for?” I asked, for the fourth or fifth time. Dozens of the Raanna scurried around through the pitch-black corridors, and we watched them pass by the doorway to the large hall we were in.

Mary held my hand, an act that felt out of place in our current situation, but comforting at the same time. We were both nearly sick to our stomach at the loss of Slate, but the Raanna assured us they could help.

“I’m getting tired of sitting here.” I got up and called to the creatures as they passed the doorway. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” My translator spit out their words, and a couple stopped, looked in the room but kept moving. Back against the wall, I slid back down to the ground beside Mary and waited.

It was only a few minutes later that a group of six Raanna entered the room and beckoned us. They must have understood we had goggles on that allowed us to see in the dark. Did they think our eyes really looked like that? Round bulbous goggles? Maybe they thought of us as being insectoid like themselves. Maybe that was why they were helping us. I’d been so preoccupied with the oddness of the whole adventure that I hadn’t seen it on their eyes. They were also wearing protection on their faces.

“Your eyes. Do the covers allow you to see?” I asked.

“See in dark. Once live above,” one of them said. This one had a large scar across his face that ran down to his chest. I got a good look at them now, trying to understand the biology of the aliens. Their six legs were hairy and thin like a spider’s, but their top halves were very much humanoid. Two thicker arms jutted out at their shoulders, and the scarred one was missing his left hand.

“Did it do that?” I nodded to his arm.

“Yes. We fight. Never win.”

“Do you know where it took our friend?” Mary asked, the complex noises echoing from her translator.

“Yes. Nest. Volcano.”

“The volcano is the nest?” I asked. “What if he lives there, causing the eruptions, creating the ash cloud, constantly putting the world, or at least their region, under a dark cover?”

I’d been talking to Mary, but they heard me and chittered away. “Yes. Yes. Once radiant. Now death. Only dark.”

“Is that why you live down here?” Mary and I stood, looking up at the slightly taller creatures.

“Hide. It kill. Drawn to light. If light, it find. Kill.”

Their language, even translated, seemed fairly stunted, but their point was easy to get across.

“So it creates a dark world, and if anyone here uses light, it finds them and kills them.

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