“Speak woman, are you a loyalist or a rebel?” An equestrian bellowed.
The priestess was shocked at the sight of the horsemen, she thought for a moment.
“Well, do you serve the King and his noble son, the Prince?” The commander of the cavalry troop asked impatiently. A refusal to answer implied guilt.
“I do not know who the King is these days---”
“No riddles woman, yes or no.”
“No, I suppose.”
“No, hmm. She’s a rebel then, an ally of Erik Von Red and his pagan hordes. Arrest this woman, men.” The equestrian ordered, the dismounted men-at-arms following the horsemen eagerly rushed towards the woman and groped at her as they slipped bonds on her hands.
“No, you are making a mistake.” She billowed.
The Prince, a youthful man adorned in black armor and riding on a black steed rode up to the troop and joined in on the inquisition.


“I think that the mistake was yours in taking sides against us. Is this true, is this woman truly a rebel?”
“She admitted it herself, Lord, under direct questioning.”
“Good sir, they fed me words and have condemned me without fair trial. I can’t possibly know enough about your ways to take sides against your King. I am innocent of these charges.”
“We shall see, we may be willing to admonish you of the charges and grant amnesty to all of your priestess sisters for the proper price. We can easily ride around these ruins on our way to our battlefield, but an army needs provisions and goods to march on. What can you spare?”


By now other priestesses were spilling out of the temple to investigate the loud shouts of the horsemen and their trial of the Prince and his host. The sound of their sister screaming in her own defense had alerted them and brought them out in numbers. Some darted away, back to the temple, or to hiding holes for safety from persecution. Others bravely approached the horsemen and would have challenged them where they stood, on their ground.
“You there, woman, who do you call master here?” The Prince asked, asking a random priestess.
“None here master another, we are students some and teachers others.” The priestess under accusation professed. The Prince rolled his eyes.
“I care for none of your circular speaking, girl, who is in charge here, tell me now.”
“I am.” A mature woman yelled and walked up to the Prince. Other priestesses seemed to encircle her closely.
“Who are you?”
“I am the High Priestess.”


“Ah, then you will be placed in charge of distributing the goods and divulging all the knowledge contained in the books in your temples. Save us from the insolubility of philosophies and the proclivities of the divinities, we care only for knowledge that will aid us and enhance our art in battle.”
“Noble, sir, we have no goods to spare except for the knowledge we possess, and it will take a lifetime for someone to teach it all, let alone for someone to learn.”
“Bah, surely one of your spell books can conjure up a tempest or two to scatter my enemy’s banners, perhaps summon a demon to haunt them or call on a giant to stamp their ranks into the dirt.” The Prince taunted.
“We do not practice magic, Prince, we are students of an older art.”
“Fine then, make me a student, teach me a trifle so that I may wholly dominate my enemies.”
“There are ceremonies by which students are formally inducted.” The Prince laughed.


“Would you have me dress in white silken robes and light incense and candles? I care nothing for your rituals, woman, give me strength, now; or else what does all of your studying and chanting gain for you? What profit’s a woman who wasted her years in temple; to crush a man’s skull in one’s hand and watch their troop skulk in fear at your very visage, ah, that is worth committing oneself to.”
“If you say so, Prince.”
“Well woman, where do you keep your forgotten lore, do you have anything we can use as an enchanted weapon? Surely you have a sacrificial dagger or two hidden in these ruins.”
“We have nothing of that sort here, we offer no sacrifices here.”
“What? No sacrifices, you heedless fools, it’s a wonder that the gods haven’t stamped you all off the Earth yet. What’s that there, I see an altar.”


“It was not built by our hands, it is far older than the temple, and has not been used since its discovery.”
The Prince brought his horse to the altar and examined the stone slab, he was not very impressed by the dimensions or the primitive craftsmanship. He noticed a wooden hatch covering the ground near the altar and his interest was spurred. He wondered what lay hidden beneath the altar, a secret catacomb, a tomb of some ancient King?
“What lies below?” The Prince asked pointing at the wooden door.
“I must warn you Prince, once you have descended the stone steps and seen what our ancestors have seen you will have a weird on you for all your years, until the day that you die, for you will not be able to fathom or forget what you see.”
“What is down there?”
“If I said, would you believe me?”
“Speak, woman!”


“A spirit that never sleeps dwells there, her ghostly form hovers hither and speaks in an odd tongue. She speaks of strange things, things stranger than the reckoning of any wise man, for she is from an age older than record and wholly unknown to any chronicler who has ever lived. Too there is an unholy temple, or hall, it was not built by men, perhaps by the gods. Their titanic dimensions are betrayed by the scale of their structures, this land was once home to a race of giants. Such strange and wonderful things you will see all around, but your head will ache in an attempt to take it all in or explain it. It is the mystery that our order has pondered ever since its discovery long ago, and there is no one alive who can explain it, no one. Again, I warn you, turn around and leave the ruins and forget that ever you came here.”
“Nonsense, woman, how can you shamelessly pander that drivel? Out of my way then, I would like to have a peek.”


The troop commander rode near.
“My Lord, we can no more understand the oddities of the sorceress than a sorceress can fathom the arts of men-at-arms. Your pursuits may end in frustration or confusion.”
“Nonsense, there are no haunting ghosts below, that was just a tale designed to frighten me off. If I were to believe that stupidity I would be no better than our primitive ancestors hiding in caves at the strange sound of thunder and hounds howling in the night. She is hiding something, and I must see for myself what it is.”
“Bodyguards, Prince?”
“Nay, remain here with the women, I shall return before long.”


Below it was poorly lit, the flicker of a flame from torches, tended no doubt hourly, and well spaced out, allowed the Prince to step without a stumble. He shook off the haunting feeling of fear, fear was a foe to be mastered, lest it make cattle of men. His father, the King, had taught him long ago to master it, master one’s fears, and the world would be his. And so, assuming full command of his faculties which were unhindered by his primitive emotions, he boldly took another step, and another, taking him deeper through the snaking passageways. They seemed to go on forever, and just when the Prince was wondering how far it would go, it abruptly ended. The light from the torches which were now behind him, seemed distant and dim, he stood alone in the darkness for mere minutes which seemed to drag on for epochs. Dark shapes seemed to swim before him, his imagination at play, and yet, how he wanted to turn his back on the peerless abyss and run back for the surface. His eyes adjusted to the dark, slowly at first but then, very quickly it seemed, he began to make out the shape of the cave and registered a faint bluish glow just beyond. Squinting, somehow afraid that if he took another step he would fall off the edge of eternity and fall into the underworld, he tip toed pensively, going closer and closer to the source of the glow. Massive pillars seemed to sprout all around him and he wondered at how he failed to notice them before. They were mammoth, needing the labor of many slaves and beasts of burdens to erect the monoliths. He stood close to one and touched it almost as if to test its reality. It was cold and made of some kind of odd metal, its surface was smooth and his hand seemed to slip free of it as though it were a sheet of ice.


There came a soft sound, a hum, a sound as slight as wind blowing through leaves, and yet it echoed in the great hall as if it were a brass horn. A light flickered instantly, a blue light, from a blue flame, a sure sign of the arcane. Worriedly the prince made quick cautious steps to and fro, turning about on all sides in fear that someone or something would strike at him from his unprotected flank. This sense of danger was protracted and both exhausting physically as well as emotionally draining. The source of the flame and the sound he could not tell, it filled the whole chamber, slowly filling the hall with the brightness of a hundred torches.
A ghost burst in front of the Prince, he dropped his sword. It rang out on the smooth and solid floor, echoed in the hall with a piercing metal clang. His mouth was rent asunder and unable to close as he gasped at the awesome terror before him. The blue shape swayed and rolled like a wave caught in a tempest, then steadied, taking shape. A head and limbs formed, it became a body, in true size but in that awful heretic hue of blue. It was clear then, a lady phantom stood before him. It failed to notice him, or else ignored him completely, its gaze was fixed to some point above and beyond him. It stared at a horizon that did not exist below.
She spoke.


“---expressed my concerns to the rest of the staff. We’ve already used up far more Deuterium than I would have liked and our approach delta vee is going to be a little greater than we had planned on. I’m not too quick to blame the engineers for this, as my technicians are apt to do, from what I understand the Bussard collectors are losing efficiency. There’s no reason to panic yet, of course, we still have reserve tanks, and as long as we have enough fuel to keep the lights running and to brake for orbit when we get to our new home we should be fine. In the meantime I’m keeping the crew busy with constant drills to maintain their alertness. The science teams are working around the clock with our observation instruments and are learning something new about these planets every day, I should know, they give me detailed reports---”


“---we’re in the process of reviving the entire staff and crew from suspended animation, including our colonists, hardy pioneering type folk. I hear they’re getting antsy down in the habitation rings, I can imagine how horrible a wait it must be for them with nothing to do. They want to help, God bless them, but there‘s no way I’ll have some country bumpkin running around on my command deck or pushing buttons down in the power plant decks. We already have enough to worry about without them complaining about being left out of the great adventure. I’ve recommended that they remain in their quarters, the recreation decks, and nonessential areas. The less I see them the better, as much as I hate to say it, and I don‘t like the idea of them wandering anywhere on the ship with some much as a porthole unless a member of the crew is there to keep them from doing something idiotic, like ejecting themselves into vaccum! I’m sure that they’re fine people, and the Colonial program director has been planning a luncheon for all of my command staff and his head secretaries. I must say I look forward to seeing some new faces and having something to talk about besides the consistency of deep space quark emissions. It will only be a matter of time before we start landing the first wave of colonists on this alien world, and then in the generations to come children will be born and raised on this planet, children who will never know or remember the planet Earth. I can only imagine what their futures will be like---”


The Prince slowly trundled up the stone staircase, tripping over his own feet as they sought purchase, an escape from the strange metal dungeon below. His eyes burned with the electric images and his ears ached from the artificial sound of the hologram’s voice. Had he witnessed something that was not meant to be witnessed? Had he peered into the secret veil of gods?
The High Priestess considered the Prince as he threw open the hatch and leapt up to smell the natural air, his nostrils flared with relief. He shut his eyes as the twin yellow suns poured light onto his pleased forehead, he bathed in the light, washed away any evidence of where he had been. He fisted his feet as he treaded the Earth and felt its soft blades of grass tickle his feet, and he was happy, for a moment.


“You have seen.” The High Priestess said.
“Aye.”
“Then now you know, now you understand.”
“I understand nothing.”
She bowed slowly and smiled a slight smile, not a mocking one, a knowing one.
“Yes, that is a curse that we shall both share, if we should go blind we would still see the ghost lurking in that hell, of all the fears that you shall wince from, the fear of that which you cannot understand is the greatest.”
“Aye.”
“Get back on your horse Prince, ride for the horizon, take your men-at-arms with you, and never look back or return. Pray, pray that the day will come when you forget what you saw and heard here today, and remember that you are a witness to the truth that reality is stranger than our most fantastic imaginings.”
“Aye.” The Prince walked dizzily for his horse, he reached out to touch its mane, and felt the bristly hair brush against his hand, knowing and thankful that it was not an intangible apparition.
“Release the prisoners.”
“But sir---”
“Release the prisoners.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Ride.”