“A shadow.” The First Scholar sighed. “Let me save you the trouble. Wind, time, self, light, youth, fire. Shall I continue?”
The sphinx stared at him, mute.
A few seconds passed.
“How?” the sphinx managed finally.
“You’re obviously going through Bartran’s Guide to the Questions of an Inquisitive Mind and the Nature of Existence.” The First Scholar turned to his students and waved the stick. “Note this moment.”
The koo-ko pulled scrolls from the holders on their belts and produced styluses.
“Those of you who idly wonder why you should read the classics and when you would ever have the opportunity to use the fundamental knowledge contained within, take heed, for you never know when you may encounter a sphinx on the crossroads of life. This sphinx,” the Scholar pointed at the towering creature with his stick, “is but an allegory. He and his kind are forbidden here, so you would be forgiven for thinking your mind is safe, yet here he is, ready to devour the unprepared. Such is the existence of a scholar, forever seeking knowledge and defending one’s right to obtain and share it while perils await at every turn. It is a noble pursuit.”
The First Scholar’s voice quivered with emotion. The koo-ko students dutifully recorded every word.
“Always remember, knowledge is a product of labor. It is to be shared but never taken. For if you set out to rip knowledge away from others and hoard it like a jealous merchant hoards their wealth, you too will be shunned like this sphinx and banished from the circle of your peers.”
No doubt, this would become one of the koo-ko philosopher legends.
The First Scholar turned to the sphinx and waved his stick at him. “And you, you are not supposed to be here. More, you have come here unprepared. Bartran provides the first building block to one’s understanding of existence, but he, by design, shows you the mere tip of the iceberg, just enough to demonstrate that the enormous underwater mountain is there and to prompt you to dive into the frigid waters to seek your own understanding. You have decades of study ahead of you before venturing forth again. Answer the question of my dear human friend and then return humbly to your teacher, who is, without a doubt, deeply disappointed in your conduct.”
Sometimes when Olasard persisted in his feline entitlement, I gently booped him on the nose with my finger. The gray Maine Coon always looked stunned, as if I had committed an outrage so great, he simply couldn’t come to terms with it. The sphinx looked just like that.
The First Scholar banged the butt of his stick on the ground. The tassel danced. “Answer!”
“Where did the portal lead?” Sean asked.
“To Karron,” the sphinx said.
Wilmos was doomed.
5
Foolish sphinx. He was no match for First Scholar Thek, Recipient of the Starlight Quill, Sage of the Great Tree, the most erudite of philosopher space chickens!
But what is it about Karron that dooms Wilmos so? Read on to find out.
We were in the War Room, a round chamber where a root of the inn emerged in a round platform, allowing for a tighter connection to Gertrude Hunt. Innkeepers and our inns existed in symbiosis, always aware of each other but distinct and separate. Linking with the root merged us into one.
Screens lined the walls, some physical, some holographic projections. The one to my left was wrapped in thin tendrils of wood. They pulsed with pale light at regular intervals as the inn untangled the feed from Wilmos’ shop, crunching through the encryption. I asked Sean if Wilmos usually encrypted his surveillance footage, and he said yes. Apparently, the old werewolf was touchy about random people knowing his business. It was taking so long that I formed a couple of chairs for us. I sat in mine, but Sean stalked around the room, his steps measured, his face unreadable.
In front of us, on a huge screen, Karron hung like the ominous orb of some cosmic magician.
A large planet, almost twice the size of Earth, Karron floated in an envelope of green atmosphere. It wasn’t a cheerful grass green that hinted at plant growth or the blueish green of shallow oceans and life-giving water. No, it was a deep, sickly shade of green, the kind of color one could find associated with undeath in a video game. Beneath the green, the outlines of rust-colored continents curved around the planet interrupted at the poles by vast placid seas.
“Tell me again,” Sean asked.
“It’s a cold hell made of methane and dust. Methane liquifies at -260 F. Those polar seas are -300 F. There is no oxygen or phosphorus. The atmosphere is soup, dense and nitrogen-rich. The snow is made up of hydrocarbon particles.”
I zoomed in on one of the continents near the equator and the uniform rust broke into individual swirls and ridges as if some enormous being had left a fingerprint on the planet’s surface.
“The dunes of Karron are born of electrified sand and methane winds. The wind blows east, but the dunes point to the west. That’s because the electricity makes the hydrocarbon particles of the sand stick together. At the equator the dunes are over 100 yards deep. A craft attempting to land there will be swallowed whole. The static charge of the sand will fry circuitry and wiring, and most of the typical ship drives will stop functioning.”
“Buried alive, blind, deaf, and unable to move,” he said.
“Yes. Even if the craft hovers in the atmosphere without landing, it would be like flying through a sandstorm except that the sand is sticky and would immediately clump to the hull. Within minutes, the craft would become a ball of sand with a hefty charge. If the weight didn’t bring it down, the havoc that the dust would play with all the systems would.”
“What about the oceans?”
“The file on Karron,” I told the inn.
The screen blinked. A dark ocean spread in front of us, a deep olive green. Something rippled under the surface. The liquid bulged, and a mass of flesh emerged, formless but solid, like a microscopic organism somehow enlarged to a gargantuan size. The pallid flesh slid and slithered, pulsating, twisting, a Lovecraftian nightmare, and vanished into the frigid depths.
“I thought you said no oxygen or phosphorus,” Sean said, his face grim.
“It’s cyanide-based life. Vinyl cyanide membranes instead of lipid ones. That’s about all we know about the Karr. They live in the oceans, they destroy anything that tries to intrude into their domain, they do not trade, and they do not communicate. They never leave the planet.”
“What do they eat?” Sean wondered.
I spread my arms. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Sean’s eyes were dark. I knew exactly what he was thinking. There was no way in. We would never make it to the surface, let alone land safely.
A tendril brushed my arm. Gertrude Hunt had sensed my anxiety. I patted the tendril gently.
A soft pulse of magic told us the recording was ready. Sean waved it onto the central screen.
The shop lay empty except for Gorvar dozing on a padded pillow on the floor. I fast forwarded. Hours flashed by in minutes. Occasionally Gorvar rose to stretch or drink some water.
More footage.
Finally, the door slid open and Wilmos strode into the shop, carrying a huge bag with odd bulges that looked suspiciously like weapon barrels stretching the fabric from the inside. Gorvar jumped up and bounded over like an overgrown puppy. Every time I saw Gorvar, he was either menacing or aloof and indifferent. Now he was spinning around in circles at Wilmos’ feet. If I wasn’t watching it, I wouldn’t have believed it in a million years.
Wilmos put the bag down and crouched. Gorvar licked his face. The grizzled werewolf hugged his pet. “This was a long one, wasn’t it? I’m getting too old for this shit. Hang on, I brought you something.”