Chapter 25: Enlightenment

I go directly to the pussy den where Seamus is waiting for me to relieve him.

“Several of our regulars are no longer in heat,” says Seamus. “It’s too early to know whether they are pregnant. You might be in for a quiet session.”

“Surely there must be other Elf Maidens who have just come into heat?” I muse.

“Yes, but they won’t be in the same frantic rush as those we have been fucking. The new ones will have the full length of their cycle to become pregnant, so they aren’t going to be in the same rush. And not all Elf Maidens are reluctant to bond, so sex rather reproduction is their motivation for coming here.”

“You are probably right,” I say. “Ihapera reckoned that she had only four days left in her cycle when we arrived here.”

I’m disappointed, but not surprised, when Ihapera fails to make her usual visit to the pussy den during my first session on duty. She warned me that she was approaching the end of her cycle, and I’m grateful that she was still in heat yesterday evening. It will be a few weeks before the Elf Maidens we’ve fucked to date can confirm whether or not they are pregnant. In any case, given the number of times we’ve fucked them, I doubt there is anything more Seamus, Drew and I could do in that respect.

As Seamus predicted, my three sessions in the pussy den are relatively quiet after the demands of the previous week. That evening I return to our cabin to find Cassandra studying her notebook and the scroll of symbols I made. She’s humming to herself again, which I take to be a sign of progress.

“Nyree, Ikaroa and I have checked all the symbols the elves thought they understood,” says Cassandra. “We’ve agreed on a slightly different interpretation for several symbols, and a few were completely wrong. Thanks to the symbols we saw inside the tower, I’ve also been able to suggest a translation for another five symbols the elves didn’t know.”

“Has that helped you understand the murals?” I ask.

“Not all of them, but enough to get a general idea of what the first few murals depict.”

“And...?”

“The elves have misinterpreted the scene they thought was showing our ancestors arriving in Atene. We need to explore the lower areas of the tower to be certain, but I think the metal tower is some form of prison that held our forebears captive. How they escaped isn’t clear from what we’ve translated so far. Nor do we know whether there are similar prisons elsewhere. The murals show beings from at least three different races. We haven’t found any evidence to support Kahu’s claim that the murals depict five races. Some of the variances in the beings may simply be gender differences.”

Cassandra and I meet with the elves at the Halls of Ancestors early the following morning. To my surprise, Ikaroa arrives with her bonded mate, Mikaere. Like most male elves, Mikaere has, until now, avoided any contact with us since we arrived.

“Mikaere won’t allow me to explore the depths of the tower unless he accompanies us,” says Ikaroa nervously.

While I have no objection to additional members joining our exploration party, I’m concerned that Ikaroa is nervous, and that she has fresh bruises on her arms. Both Cassandra and Ihapera have mentioned that Mikaere is aggressive by nature, and Ikaroa seems to be a recent victim at his hands.

“If Mikaere wishes to join us, then he may do so,” I reply, more to ease Ikaroa’s nervousness than any belief in his value to our work.

Mikaere seems disappointed that he isn’t going to have an argument with me. Drew made the mistake of disagreeing with a male elf the other day. The seemingly trivial issue ended in a fight which could have had tragic consequences had one of the male elves of the Rangatira not intervened.

We reenter the inner tower’s corridor and are promptly greeted by Dioxippe. Mikaere refuses to speak to the unseen voice, and Ikaroa must respond on his behalf. We decide to explore through the door that the elves can open. Cassandra has had more success at deciphering the symbols on the landing of the elven staircase than the symbols on the others.

Nyree has come prepared with a lantern. Our previous visit indicated that some of the magic lights that illuminate the staircase aren’t working. Mikaere insists on going down the stairs first. I learn later that his eagerness to do so is to ensure that he receives the credit for making whatever discovery awaits us below. He marches ahead of us while Nyree follows immediately behind him, carrying the lantern. Cassandra and Ikaroa follow behind her, while I bring up the rear.

Fortunately there are only a few of the magic lights not working along the shaft. Mikaere sets a fast pace, and Nyree and the lantern are far enough ahead of me to leave me with minimal light in the broken sections. Finally we reach the bottom of the stairs.

“Two hundred and fifty six steps down,” says Ikaroa, making me feel foolish for not thinking to count them myself.

“Roughly forty to forty five metres,” I say after assessing the depth of each tread of the stairs.

The hexagonal area around the bottom of the stairs is about five metres across. Three circular doors similar in size to the ones at the entrance to the inner tower are located on alternate walls. However, these doors have no handles or other obvious means of opening them. Fortunately, one of the doors is open and Mikaere promptly steps into the area beyond. As soon as he does, a set of lights come on. The rest of us follow.

“I was right,” says Cassandra, who is examining the narrow passage leading away from the door. “This place was a prison. There must have been over fifty people kept in all these containers.”

Either side of the passage, is a long line of horizontal containers, each large enough to hold one person lying down. The ceiling is high enough to accommodate three containers resting on top of each other along each side.

“And there could be more,” adds Cassandra a few moments later when she reaches the end of the passage. “There’s a door here which may lead to yet more of them.”

“I can’t see how anyone could survive for very long in such confined conditions,” I reply. “And what about all these tubes and machines inside each container.”

“The long sleep,” says Nyree, joining us. “Our legends speak of the time of the long sleep. Perhaps this is where our ancestors slept.”

“Hmm. That might be what the second mural is depicting,” says Cassandra. “Our ancestors awakening from a long sleep. But why would they sleep this far underground?”

“I think we need to explore whatever is at the bottom of the shaft that Cassandra opened yesterday,” suggests Ikaroa. “If that shows something similar to what we see here, then I agree that these containers somehow kept our ancestors safe during the long sleep.”

I’ve never heard of the ‘long sleep’ mentioned in Thurnian histories, but that means nothing. Clearly the elven legends can refer to historical events, even though the legends are only passed down by word of mouth. We return to the surface and pause for a few minutes to regain our breath after a lengthy climb. Cassandra opens the door to what we presume is the Thurnian chamber and Mikaere leads us down the spiral stairs.