Agarik led her into an office with a broken barricade of chairs, bookcases, cabinets, and a desk cramping the area near the door. At first, she did not see the bodies, but they were there, in the middle, around an odd black object, that appeared half box, half table with an utterly foreign set of symbols glowing red in the air above it. A pipe rose from one side, and six slender legs attached the construct to the floor. The dead were strewn about it. Blood stained everything, even the ceiling. For the first time since they arrived, she was thankful for the freezing temperatures. In her climate, the decomposition, the smell, would have been overpowering.
Following Agarik, Tikaya shuffled through the clutter. He obviously wanted her to examine the box, but she could not get there without stepping over bodies. Cuts and punctures desecrated them, far more than would have been needed to kill. A dagger protruded from one man’s burst eyeball. The whole macabre scene seemed too messy for the neat and efficient marines.
“ I didn’t touch it,” Agarik said as she came even with the object. “I don’t have any idea what it is.”
Symbols formed neat rows on one side of the black box, and giddiness replaced the nausea in her stomach. They were familiar in style, probably from the same language as the glyphs on the rubbings, but arranged individually instead of in groupings. Each symbol marked an indention. In the center of the box top, a red light smaller than her pinkie nail glowed, projecting a set of symbols above.
Tikaya eased around for a better look, but her boot bumped a wood stick. Not a stick, the shaft of a shovel. It and a pickaxe lay on the floor near smashed tiles. The subfloor was torn up, with exposed dirt beneath. With a jolt, she realized the contraption’s ‘legs’ stuck through the floor and into the earth.
“ How the…”
“ Looks like these men were trying to dig it out,” Agarik said. “Probably wanted to get rid of it.”
“ Yes, but how would its legs have plunged through the floor and anchored down there to start with?”
His parka rustled as he removed his cap and rubbed a hand through his short hair. “I don’t know. Magic?”
Tikaya turned her attention to the symbols again. She poked one, indenting it; it glowed red and a larger version appeared in the air with a ball spinning around it. The originally displayed image disappeared in favor of the new one. “Er.” She had best be careful; this had probably all started with some idiot pressing buttons.
She glanced at Agarik, afraid he would chastise her for touching things, but he nodded encouragingly. Dear Akahe, he thought she could figure it out and fix things.
Underneath the box, she found a couple groupings of the more traditional symbols engraved in the cool black surface. She recognized a few from the rubbings. So, this might be writing. Directions? For operating the device?
In the air above, the symbol she had pressed faded and the original diagram returned. She poked the button again, then stabbed a couple others. They all appeared in the air. Something reminiscent of an equals sign formed between two while others dangled individually. Waiting. When she did not touch anything for a moment, the symbols faded, replaced again by the original.
“ Numbers?” Tikaya wondered, though some two hundred symbols were there. She knew of one ancient language that had used a base forty math system instead of the nearly ubiquitous base ten most of the modern world preferred, but nobody had two hundred different numbers. “Numbers and mathematical symbols?”
“ Eh?” Agarik asked.
“ If that’s what these are, then maybe operating the device involves punching in different combinations to create… I don’t know. Equations for something?” Tikaya rubbed her jaw. “But how would that relate to whatever this device is doing to negatively affect the town? I don’t know. Maybe I’m all wrong here. What do you think?”
“ Uhm.” Agarik’s eyes were so blank he appeared hypnotized.
“ Agarik, I don’t mean to insult you, but can you see if Rias is here yet and bring him?”
Relief flashed across his face, but he hesitated. “I shouldn’t leave you alone.”
“ I’ve got your rifle. I’ll be fine.”
“ My orders are-”
“ I know, Agarik, but I need to stay here, and figure this out, and if it’s math-related, Rias could help. Please find him.”
After another long hesitation, he sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Though she had told him to go, she felt uneasy once she was alone. At least her irritability had disappeared. Agarik’s had, too, she realized. Despite his lack of understanding, he had been calm and patient while she mulled over the strange artifact. Maybe the device was the thing responsible for people acting oddly, and maybe, in her random symbol touching, she had cut off whatever it was doing or emitting. She snorted self-deprecatingly. If it had been that simple the dead men on the floor would have figured it out before the end. Besides, thinking back, she had felt that return to normalcy before she started touching things, perhaps even out in the hallway.
She stretched and walked to the window, intending to open it and let some air in. Maybe she should have asked Agarik to drag the bodies out before leaving. Someone had nailed a couple boards across the window. So much for fresh air. Maybe she could still open it a bit.
A scream echoed from the building next door. Tikaya froze, her hand on the window lock. She drew back. Maybe she would leave it shut after all.
She dug a chalkboard out from behind a toppled filing cabinet. It was hard not to look at the bodies, but she could not remove the device to study elsewhere. The men had apparently tried to do that and failed.
Tikaya copied the writing from the bottom of the device and circled spots where the lone symbols on the side of the box appeared in the groupings. If they were numbers… No, she better not assume that yet. Just because something reminded her of an equals sign in her language did not mean anything.
Time bled past, the chalk clacking on the board the only sound in the building. Infrequently, gunshots in the distance interrupted. She found herself squinting at the chalkboard and realized twilight had come. The glowing symbols gave off some light, and she worried it would be visible through the windows.
A crunch sounded in the snow outside. She halted her work, chalk poised in the air. More crunches. Footsteps on her side of the building.
Tikaya eased past the bodies and grabbed Agarik’s rifle. She wished he had left powder and balls too. One shot was all she had if someone attacked her, one shot with a weapon she had never used before.
She cracked the door. Deep shadows lurked in the hall, and she barely made out the dead wolf. At one end, the door thumped and banged in the breeze.
Shots fired beyond that door, and she jumped. “Stop-what-” someone cried. Then screams of pain and aggressive yells followed. A lot of them. Her mind conjured the imagine of a wolf pack chasing after its wounded prey. Not Agarik, she prayed.
“ Where’s the woman?” someone yelled.
Tikaya swallowed and closed the door. The voices still penetrated the walls.
“ Find the woman!”
Someone cackled, and graphic descriptions of what could be done with ‘the woman’ followed.
Tikaya forced herself to return to the device. The same set of symbols glowed crimson in the air, taunting her.
There was an answer here; she just had to figure it out before time ran out.
CHAPTER 9
A boom rattled windows, shook the earth, and knocked Tikaya’s chalkboard on the floor. Rias’s group must have arrived, though she could not imagine him flinging blasting sticks wantonly.
Chalk still in hand, she ran to the window to peer between the sloppily nailed boards and through the frosted panes. Darkness had fallen, but flames burned in a building down the hill. Two figures with rifles ran through the light before turning down an alley.