Page 62 of Return of the Nine

She blinked. “I don’t know what kind of company I would be. My brain tends to be locked onto the ancient sites on Gaia and the diaries of the first colonists.”

“It sounds fascinating. I was interested in the history of Underhill before I entered the service and ended up as the Council Representative for the Shadow Folk.” He continued to walk at her pace, but the ball was now in her court.

Teyha bit her lip. “Sure. Dinner would be nice, I mean, whenever you get back down here.”

She paused, not sure if she was overstepping her bounds. “I have come up with a reasonable excuse for why the teens ended up on the surface. Something close to the truth, but it does lay a bit of blame on Nosku. Nothing major, just a little bit of negligence on the part of an uncle. I will need to find out how they knew to come here though, in order to make the story more plausible.”

Ekinar was grim. “Nosku will cooperate. He will do what you ask and say what you tell him to.”

She smirked, “He doesn’t seem very cooperative to me.”

“He will be when I get through with him, but you have brought the matter up that I did not think of, how did the children learn the coordinates?”

They reached the great doors to the temple and passed through and into the past of the Shadow Folk. Teyha tugged at Ekinar to take her to the side of the huge entry hall so that she could get some sleep.

When he put the pack down, she grabbed the roll tucked under the carrying portion of the pack, flipped it flat and struck the corner to inflate it into a comfortable bed. A foil blanket would keep her body stable, and the water that she put next to her head would help her out when she woke.

All tucked in and exhausted beyond bearing, Teyha relaxed and left the Shadow Folk to their own devices.

Ekinar was torn between watching his soon-to-be mate and exploring something his folks knew of only through myth and legend.

Nosku skidded back into the anteroom and waved his arms with urgency. Unable to resist the normally taciturn Nosku’s sudden enthusiasm, Ekinar followed the man into the other room, promising to come back and check on the lightly snoring Gaian.

Teyha’s breathing was deep and even, so he felt better about walking into the huge audience hall with its five seats.

“It is actually here.” All his life he had been told about the Temple of Shadows and its importance to his people. The councils that they now used instead were pale imitations of the five grand seats spaced evenly around the room.

“Try one. They are inactive so it won’t harm anything.” Nosku walked across the room and took one of the two unoccupied seats.

The children were in the other three.

Shrugging, Ekinar took the final empty seat and sat back, rubbing his hands along the grooves in the throne that had been worn by generations of hands over time.

He relaxed into it, breathing deeply, imagining his ancestors sitting in this very chair.

He was caught by surprise when energy coursed through the chair, locking him and the other four in place, unable to even call for help. Their shadows burned off and they stared at each other in shock as the chairs cast judgement and found them wanting.

It was not enough sleep, but Teyha’s reflexes woke her anyway. She stumbled to her feet and followed her instincts through the entry hall and into the room beyond.

Teyha wanted to be surprised, but she couldn’t manage it. She looked from one lovely, pain-filled face to another and shook herhead. “Why am I not surprised?”

She read the glyphs on the floor as best she could, and while Ekinar’s face begged her to run, she wandered right to the centre of the room and then shifted a few inches to the left.

Power surged through her, perking her up considerably. “I would get out of those chairs now if I were you. I don’t have much more patience for this sort of thing. Once was an accident, twice is really bad judgement.”

They scrambled free of the large thrones, and as they left, the field she was disrupting dissipated.

Unable to do anything else, she sat where she was. “Okay, who wants to tell me what just happened? Why were you fiddling around in the Hall of Judgement?”

Ekinar was shaking, but his shadow was wrapped around him again. “We thought we were in the council hall.”

She scowled up at him. “Don’t any of you read the signs over the doors? This says Hall of Judgement. I am guessing that the chairs were making sure that the accused could see their judges. Was it painful?”

He frowned. “More uncomfortable than anything else, I am also intensely embarrassed.”

She held her hands up in a mute request. When he complied and helped her back to her feet, he stood next to her, rubbing the back of her knuckles with small motions.

“Perhaps you should wait until you know what you are doing or there is an expedition down here to explore this city of your past.”

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