*Why are we going back to the Basik’s lair?*
In answer an image flickered in his mind, a small aircraft flying in the cold calm air of the late afternoon, suddenly smoke trailing from it and the prop stuttering to a stop. A desperate call by the man at the controls as he tried to make sure his wife and children were buckled in, and search for some kind of safe landing ground at the same time. There was a strange shifting uncertainty to the rocks and trees below as he tried to find and line up for a glide into a relatively flat spot. Then nothing.
That discontinuity was below them when Elgin’s Iffrit body turned, both physically, and otherwise. Then the sky was faintly green the moon huge and distinctly green. Below them was a deep dark rift valley with steep, almost cliff like, sides and something like a city built into those steep rock slopes. Deep in the rift a river roared and sprayed from pool to pool. Strangely there was more light in the rift than in the sky above, and in that light Elgin could see the neat white cruciform shape of a light plane sitting on a ledge about halfway down the cliff.
The Iffrit banked into a steep descending spiral, wings fully extended and angled so that they were in something between a glide and a controlled plummet. Elgin would have screamed in mixed fear and exhilaration if he’d had a throat and mouth to do so. Then the wings snapped out to their full and beat down and forward as the muscular torso reared up and the massive clawed rear feet touched down with almost dainty precision, the forebody settled down onto the forelegs and the great wings furled.
A roar of challenge thundered from the Iffrit’s throat, filling the misty green tinted rift with a booming call for attention and obedience. Other than the distant dumb rumble of water tumbling rocks there was no reply as eyes twisted, searching, with uncanny speed and precision, everything flowing into the great beasts memories and nothing being forgotten.
Still scanning the Iffrit stalked towards to the little plane, it smelt hot and smoky, greasy, but there were no breathing, or dead, humans in it. There were signs of struggle, the door torn off its hinges, a seat torn from its anchor and tossed a dozen feet away, spots of blood. The scent of the humans, a man, woman, a boy and a girl, were there, along with the much less distinct musk of several Basik warrior cast who had taken the humans.
The Iffrit walked toward the massive opening carved into the mountain side, surrounded by complex carving in a style reminiscent of the Inca or Aztec empires.
Elgin was getting used to not being in control of his body or his senses, particularly since ‘his memory’ was good enough to replay things like a sporting event. As he looked around he got a feeling of vast age and somehow of isolation. There was also a sense of abandonment, and unfinishedness, as well as decrepit old age all at once. Some of the carvings were unfinished but were covered with moss and degraded by the weather as if they had been unfinished for thousands of years, other areas had obviously been worked on again and again, till what might nave been a impressive piece had been nibbled to near nothing.
“That’s pretty troubling.” Elgin ‘muttered’ to himself.
Cutter grunted and then continued, *The Basik have never recovered from the shock of their arrival. They came from some distant star with the intention of recreating the Earth as a new hunting preserve. They had not anticipated Oldest’s presence. Most of their ships were destroyed before they landed and the survivors were strewn across most of this continent. Oldest and one of the previous avatars hunted them like the vermin they are. It was only the last few, the smartest, and least violent, who accepted imprisonment here. Their species is effectively insane by most people’s measures. But Oldest is prohibited from destroying that which is in his remit to make safe and save. So the Basik have been trapped in this rift in space for something more than twenty thousand years.*
A cold stern voice rolled into Elgin’s mind, *They are not what they were, whether better or worse is a judgment I am not allowed to make, but they are more tractable, less insanely aggressive, insensately hungry for more of everything, which was the intention. The young one should not have tried to attack you in the cave, it had been instructed otherwise, but lost control. I find it even more troubling that they were able to draw that man and his family into their trap. Obviously the queen has forgotten her promises.*
They entered the great chamber behind the over and un-finished entrance. The cavern inside was a circular chamber with a domed ceiling, with thousands of pinpoint lights providing a clear and normal seeming light. The floor was polished white veined blue stone. The walls intricately carved, though again with the bizarre mix of over done and unfinished work intermixed in random fashion.
There was a flash of something like purple light for a moment a spinning hemisphere of light and then three figures. They might have been triplet red headed bombshells in skin tight suits but Elgin knew that behind those pretty pursed mouths with their cute pink tongues were rows of jagged teeth. The three each carried a cylinder which they were pointing at Elgin, or rather the Iffrit. They stood feet spread, what were obviously weapons pointed unwaveringly at the winged creature.
“Go away old bat, you were never welcome here, now you are banished.” The leader spoke, her voice clear and unaccented, a bit like a TV news reporter’s in fact.
“You know the result of killing me expendable, you are old enough to understand that the Queen cannot really intend my death. You are simply the price of my entrance, her entertainment, what was it that you did that upset your brood mother, that she would have me roast and eat you who have lived for hundreds, if not thousands of slow rift years?”
The Basik didn’t answer, she just triggered her weapon, some kind of laser that fired a beam of violet light at the Iffrit’s head. The other two fired an instant later, at the Ifritt’s chest, and throat. The room blazed with light and rocked with the concussions, as the three Basik almost women were blown to smoking shreds when their weapons exploded.