01 Taxilas Children

TAXILA'S CHILDREN
"This isn't the only room in this building, there are others where travellers rest."
"Your ancients must have expected a lot of visitors."
He didn't answer, instead he gestured to the door leading back into the building and led the
way along a bland corridor of smooth grey-blue stone. There were two other openings, one to
the outside, through which they had originally come and another which widened out into a
kind of anteroom. It reminded Steve of a bureaucrat's waiting room, back in New Earth.
There were a few hard looking benches, a central table and little else. At intervals around the
walls, there were a number of doors. Steve changed his mind about what it reminded him of,
it was more like the waiting room at a brothel. He was jerked out of his reverie by Danyk's
sardonic thought in his mind.
"Don't tell me you have queues for that sort of thing."
"The Ladies of the Guild are in high demand - New Earth is short of women."
They entered a room beyond one of the doors, Steve was more than a little relieved to find
it furnished quite comfortably.
"If your people left this place so long ago, how is it that this furniture looks new?"
"It is the original - our ancestors made sure that it would not deteriorate."
"How in hell's name did they do that?"
"You may be right, maybe it was an invocation to Hella - they believed in the old gods in
those days. I can't answer you - I don't know."
The subject was closed, Danyk didn't feel easy in the ancient place, it seemed full of the
ghosts of those who had long since gone and perhaps the lingering influence of the mental
strife that had driven them back into the woods and pastures. He left Steve and found a room
for himself. It was time to think out the implications of Zayez's pronouncement.
Danyk sat cross legged on the floor and relaxed his aching muscles, willing emptiness into
his mind, allowing it to flow and wash away the tension - it was one of the elementary
techniques, but it always worked for him. Soon he found the mental peace and detachment he
needed and then he began the long, measured processes of evaluating the sequence of events
which had started with his dream of a blue-eyed man who walked with him among the stars.
The memory of his previous dream evoked another, but this time, he was not sleeping. He
arose from his physical form and looked down at himself. He sat cross legged, with his toes
drawn into his groin. His face was upturned and his eyes closed in the depth of his
meditation. Part of the technique was shallow breathing. He looked like a statue.
He turned away to look at what he had been drawn from his physical form to see. Steve
Holt walked confidently in the centre of a group of onlookers. Danyk could feel the heat
pulsing up from the purple sand by the black ocean. He moved forward to join Steve and at
the same time, another man approached on the other side. There was no mistaking the stiff
arrogance of his features - or the hatred with which he viewed Steve. He carried no weapons.
All those in the tableau were unclothed, the lurid red light of a massive star bronzed their
flesh.
He reached Steve at the same time as the other man, who assessed him critically. Nothing
was said and then the trio turned to face a massive arch, beyond which they could see the
sullen surge of the black ocean. They walked forward until they were almost at its entrance
and the intensity of inner power increased in his mind. Danyk knew it would take only one
more step and the power would burst upon them and devour them away. He stopped and his
two companions did likewise. A voice came from a great distance on the hot breeze which
whipped up the purple sand. It said:
"It is not yet the time."
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