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He pointed with one wing towards two o’clock.
“It is also considerably easier to fly if one maintains low altitude,” he added. “This cloud layer aspires to be stars with its weight.”
Auryn swung his attention to Keon. “If it’s like the Atlantis prison, how is it functioning? The prison used scales set in stone. That’s how it’s always done, isn’t it? There aren’t any scales up there.”
Keon tried to speak, started to cough, and shook his head.
I looked up at the clouds. “I sensed something awful while ripping through them. What if… do you think… it’s ground-up scales?”
We all looked down at the dust drifting over our claws.
Akoni shuddered, his scales making an audible metallic sound, and lifted one claw, then set it down with care.
Auryn extended his wings. “We need samples. I’m the strongest flyer. I will collect some samples of the upper level air. We’ll take it back to Lemuria to analyze.”
He shifted forms and dug around in human form, drawing out several small test kits before launching himself back into the air towards the clouds. The clouds glowed with the reflection of his light while the edges around the perimeter of the light got darker and stormier. After a brief time, he headed towards the hole I had punched through the cloud layer.
“If even he can’t muscle through it…” I said, then I shut up.
“Samples,” Akoni directed. “We don’t have infinite time until the Gate runs out of energy, yes?”
I dipped my head in a nod. “We have a few hours more, I think. Perhaps longer.”
“This is going to take longer than anticipated. My magic is unwieldy.” Akoni dug at the clay with his claws. “Let’s get started.”
We set about gathering stone and soil samples. There were some dead-looking trees, so we gathered bark off those. There were also large mats of some sort of prickly, equally-dead-looking ground cover type plant that eerily turned its thorns towards us when approached.
“Okay,thatis alive,” I told Akoni as he bent his snout to get a better look and the entire mat twisted itself towards him like a sunflower turning to the sun. Except much faster. And much thornier.
I, not being as affected by the weight of the clouds, left collecting the remainder of the samples to Keon and Akoni, and flew a grid pattern back and forth under the clouds to try to find evidence of civilization. There were more trees and thorny shrubs and mats, and even a copse of trees covered in tiny white jasmine-like blossoms. The delicate petals clung to the stem despite the constant wind.
I landed but didn’t get too close for fear of damaging it with my entropy-aura. It looked similar to the other trees we’d seen, which meant the other trees might have been alive (just dormant, or not in season yet),andit meant there was a supply of water the roots had tapped into. No evidence of surface water except for an ancient, empty lakebed. There did seem to be patterns and indents in the clay that may have been wheel ruts, perhaps. Or a geological formation unique to the planet.
I explored the area around the flowering tree for more clues, flapping as high as I dared to get to the clouds. Another tree, not yet flowering. And another… and another… another that had also flowered…
Chirp chirp!
The trees, miles from the temple complex, formed a pattern.
A concentric pattern of increasingly small nonagons, each nonagon rotated nine degrees relative to its neighbors. From the ground, they’d just look like trees. From the sky? Nonagon, and my money said that there were nine of them, even though I only spotted two. Just like my money said if I flapped in the other direction, I’d find the other trees.
Who had done it? Why? Some of the trees were flowering, while others were not, but the ones that weren’t did seem to have tiny buds starting to form.
As towhen?
That was the part that made my scales tingle:
The trees weren’t the same age.
Thirty-Six
With plenty of O2in the homeworld atmosphere, and my being more or less unaffected by the smothering clouds, I extended my wings and got to try out afterburner mode, or using my wings as quantum sails to improve speed.
WHEEEEEEEE!
Or…
CHIRRRRPPPP!!!!!!!!
