Chapter 19
Zsekhet
I always felt a sense of awe when I entered the gateroom. My natural urge was to talk, to make merry with those I was with, but not in here. It felt disrespectful to speak more than necessary, so I held my tongue as I watched Cosima gaze around the room.
Two long rows of tables sat at the center of the room, marching like long straight lines toward the gate at the end.
Now that we no longer knew how to turn it on, it hung there like a giant black mirror, shimmering and reflecting the light of my lantern back to us.
I could see the small, delicate shape of my mate in those black depths, and my own golden coils.
“Huh, this looks like a boardroom,” Cosima said next to me, “I didn’t expect that.
” She smiled at me but didn’t explain what a ‘boardroom’ was.
So I curled my arm around her shoulders and urged her forward, marching us between the lines of the tables to the gate.
I had only been inside this room twice in my life, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do now.
We were supposed to simply offer up a prayer to our ancestors, asking for a blessing.
When the Queen could still bring the gate to life, she’d accompany a couple to do so and interpret the images.
Now that the gate was silent, it had become a private affair for the couple.
We only asked her permission to visit, but that was it.
I was kind of relieved that Alshara wasn’t here, I’d seen the hint of jealousy in her eyes.
She still coveted what could not be, something I had accepted long ago.
I held a palm up to the shimmering black surface, which was framed in a giant rectangle made of a dark wood.
It had cracked and aged, but the Queen would come here to oil the surface to prevent it from further damage.
“Ancestors, I bring you my mate, and I’d ask that you bless us with a long and happy life.
” I glanced away from the surface to look at the flaming crown of Cosima’s wild hair.
She tilted her freckled face up to mine to smile, “Ah I see. We make vows. I, Cosima, ask Zsekhet’s ancestors to bless our union.
I swear to be by his side through hardship and happiness.
I will love him with all that my heart has to offer.
” Her gray-eyed gaze turned soft and luminous, “Like he pulled me from the dark, I will promise to do the same for him.”
Heart tight with emotion, surprised by her fervent, passionate words, I pulled her in my arms for a wild hug. “That was beautiful! I promise the same, my sweet, beautiful mate. I will always rescue, always love you, and always make you smile.”
We kissed, our mouths pressing eagerly together, our tongues tangling.
If not for where we were, I would have picked her up and pinned her to that nearby table.
I wondered if the ancestors would be offended if I made love to my sexy mate right in front of them.
The gate was dark and empty, maybe they couldn’t see.
Still, it felt too much like being watched and I pulled back to gaze into her eyes.
“I love you, Cosima. My world shifted when I laid eyes on you, you know that? I knew you were meant to be my mate that day I arrived, when I glanced up and you stood there, all alone at the entrance to Ahoshaga.”
Something dark and forlorn briefly flitted across her face, so I pulled her more tightly into my coils, quietly offering support.
“I was in a really bad place then, I can’t believe you wanted me even then…
Thank you. You’ve been so patient with me, and it means a lot.
” I nuzzled the crown of her head, silently telling her that, of course, I’d wait for her as long as she needed me.
I was very grateful that it hadn’t taken long at all.
“You went through a lot, I know what it’s like to lose loved ones.
You deserved all the time in the world to heal and to grieve.
” I didn’t have many memories from when my parents lived, and Merish had been even younger when they died.
But I still vividly remembered how empty and sad I felt, knowing that they’d never come back to me.
It was a good thing my sister was one of the survivors, and that Arakash had been there to take us in.
Pushing away from my chest, her serious expression morphed into a wide smile.
“Enough sadness, today is like our mating day, we should celebrate.” She turned her head to gaze at the large gate we stood in front of, her eyes lingering on the carved little knobs at the bottom, and then darting to the nearest table where a panel with more of those square or round little knobs sat.
“Did this screen ever work?” she wondered out loud. “Is that why you say knowledge was lost? Your Queen wasn’t taught how to work this screen so it shows images?” I nodded, trying to wrap my head around the strange, foreign word she’d used to indicate the gate.
“Yes, the Queen holds the knowledge to work the gate and show us images from the ancestors. But Alshara was too young to learn when the last Queen died.” When Cosima stepped out of my arms to study the knobs at the bottom of the gate I watched her curiously.
She seemed fearless when she flicked each of them, depressing the knobs one at a time.
Nothing happened, which I could have told her.
Once Alshara had been old enough to venture here, she’d tried everything she could think of to try to work the gate.
She’d lamented endlessly about her failed attempts to me, so I knew she’d left no stone unturned.
“Mmm these buttons don’t work,” my mate said, and she reached for the ones on the panel on the table next.
With each flick of a knob she glanced up at the gate but it had no effect.
“Maybe it’s voice-activated?” she ventured.
I wasn’t sure what that meant but I thought it was cute when she stepped in front of the gate with her hands on her hips, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Computer, turn on,” she demanded, “Activate!” She rattled off several more words before she slapped her palm to her forehead, “Duh, it doesn’t work for me because I’m speaking English, here you try. Say power on, or computer turn on, try it!”
Eh… Computer? Those foreign words weren’t making much sense to me, but I ventured “Turn on?” And then more firmly “Activate!” when she insisted I try that one.
Nothing happened, and Cosima sighed in disappointment.
“It’s alright sweetheart, we’ve accepted that the gate is never working again. Come, we’ll go explore the ruins.”
She let me lead her from the gateroom, her brow still pensively furrowed, but that line disappeared when she spotted stairs in the hallway.
“Come on! Let’s see what’s up there!” She raced ahead on the spiraling steps and I followed behind her, letting her explore rooms on the next level, most at least partially filled with sand that had blown in through open or damaged windows.
As we checked out several rooms, she’d point at features and talk about how things were built or what they were called, often those were foreign words to me that did not translate.
It didn’t matter, her excitement for the building was infectious and I enjoyed seeing it through her eyes.
Then we went up a final set of stairs and I shouldered open a door for her that led to the sand-covered roof.
“Woah, that is an amazing view!” she exclaimed, and she pointed out over the ruins that stretched beyond the one we were on.
They slowly faded into dunes, though sometimes, after a sandstorm blew through, a new section would be uncovered for a while.
She trudged across the roof and then stumbled when her foot caught on something beneath the buried sand.
I caught her with my tail, curling a coil around her middle just before she could fall face first in the sand.
“Zsekhet! There’s something under here, help me.
” She sank to her knees and started pushing sand aside to uncover what had made her stumble.
A ledge, shimmering dark blue like fired and glazed pottery.
I picked her up and set her aside, rolling my tail across the surface with a shimmy to clear a bigger area.
“Zsekhet!” she exclaimed at the sight of more of that shiny dark blue surface.
“Those are solar panels! I’m sure of it!
” I peered down at the panel we’d uncovered and realized the edge of the next one was sticking out from under the sand right next to it.
“I think the whole roof might be covered with them. Zsekhet! Maybe this is the answer. If we clear the solar panels, that screen, the ‘gate’, might have power again! We might be able to get it to work!”
I peered dubiously back at the strange shiny surface.
Most of the roofs of the ruins here were covered with these panels, only the remains of buildings like what she called greenhouses were not.
Once upon a time, we’d clear the roofs too, but it was too much work for too few people, we’d shifted our focus to keeping paths and doorways clear but that was all.
“Power?” I asked, curling my tail in a flex as I contemplated this.
What did power have to do with anything?
But Cosima was certain this could be the answer and it did not hurt to try.
I shrugged and then moved to the edge of the roof to whistle down at Sesethul sleeping on the steps of the gatehouse.
He lifted his head to regale me with a narrow glare, but that glare cleared when Cosima joined me at the edge to peer down and wave enthusiastically.
He lumbered to his feet, curling his spine in a long stretch that shivered down his long tail.
Then he rose on his hind legs and stuck his head over the edge of the roof.
“Climb on,” I said to Cosima, and I helped her climb along Ses’ neck so we could take a seat at the base of his neck.
With a few clicks and some well-placed urging of my coils, Ses understood what I wanted, flapping his huge wings to blow all the sand from the roof.
I shielded Cosima’s eyes with my hand since she had no protective extra eyelids.
Once the dust settled, Ses leaned his front paws back against the edge of the flat roof and the two of us stared at what he’d uncovered for us.
“Yes,” Cosima breathed, reaching past me she stroked Ses along his neck. “Thank you! I’m right! Those are solar panels. Let’s go back inside and try again!” Sesethul dropped us off at ground level when he lowered himself and with a thank you for his help, the two of us hurried back inside.
The change was instant and we froze in place inside the hallway just to stare at the magnificent ceiling above us.
The mosaic, the crystals, they all glowed with light, shimmering like rainbows down onto the marble floors.
“Oh, damn! It worked,” I breathed, in awe with the beautiful sight.
It was exactly like I’d heard Arakash describe it once, before the attack from the outcasts had turned everything dark.
When we entered the gateroom, the surface of the gate still shimmered black like always, a mirror but not a gate.
I felt deflated but Cosima raced ahead to try once more with the knobs, I didn’t think that would work until I saw that they too glowed like the crystals in the ceiling.
Then the gate came to life and took my breath away.
“Images,” Cosima said in a hushed voice, unaware of the awe and shock shivering through me.
She stared, wide-eyed as she pulled forth one image after another on the gate’s surface.
The city at Serqethos as it once was, teaming with life, swarming with Naga in all colors of the rainbow, dragons and strange sky-ships racing through the sky.
There were more images of other places too, other large cities I had never seen or heard of.
An image that startled us both as it looked remarkably like the interior of the Hearth Caves that were home to Bitter Storm.
Underground buildings, buildings high above in spires or up on mountain flanks, and always the evidence of our ability to cooperate with all the Clans. Naga of all colors mingling together.
“This is amazing…” Cosima breathed, “These buildings are fantastic! It’s all so beautiful…
” Ah, she’d been admiring the architecture once again, I wasn’t surprised, it always drove her passion.
I’d been watching the Naga, staring at what history proved, that we were once a cohesive species, working together instead of fighting and distrusting.
If anything, this made me more excited to be part of what was happening at Outcast Haven, where Zathar and Vera were proving the past could be the future once more.
Then the image shifted one more time, showing us the inside of a large chamber with many tubes and strange lights.
At first, I struggled to make any kind of sense at all of what I was seeing but then cold washed over me.
Those were coffins, filled with the dead of the past. Endless rows upon rows of coffins with a glass lid, a Naga body inside.
The image was dark and gloomy, with shadows everywhere and odd gleaming blue and sickly green lights. It made my stomach turn to look at it.
“I think this is a live feed,” Cosima said, and she turned a wide-eyed stare to me.
“Zsekhet, look, their chests are rising and falling. They aren’t dead.
They’re in stasis.” She must have seen the utter confusion on my face because she started explaining in a rush, something about images being taken in the here and now and sent to us to watch.
She was telling me that the Naga in those coffins might not be dead, and sleeping somewhere, unaware of the world, right this moment.
“Turn the image off,” I said, suddenly feeling like we’d trespassed.
There was a reason only our Queens controlled the gate and interpreted the images for us.
Because of darkness like this. It felt wrong to be looking at it, and I hoped it wasn’t true, that some of my ancestors weren’t actually stuck in such limbo, asleep and dreaming with no chance of ever waking.
“Okay, I will. It’s okay Zsekhet, they don’t know, they aren’t in any pain or distress.
I promise.” Cosima gently touched the knobs and the image made way for a new one, schematic drawings of some kind.
These were equally as confusing to me but Cosima studied them with great concentration, flicking through one to another until the images returned of the cities. Only then did she turn off the gate.
“We need to talk with the Queen, Zsekhet. This is important, okay?” I nodded, of course. We had to teach Alshara how to operate the gate so that she could resume that role for Serqethos once more. We needed to tell her that the key was the ‘solar panels’ on the roof.