Part Two (Meet QUARK!)
Continuation
“What do you think, Astrid?” Raccoon Sam asked, leaning against a massive metal table covered with a map in the middle of the large room. The room served as a meeting chamber for the highest-ranking commanders of the Resistance Forces.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No!” the hedgehog replied confidently, holding a medium-sized piece of metal in her hands. “I’ve never seen or even heard of anything like it. It’s definitely metal, but there’s something strange about it. It’s incredibly light, yet damn tough. Yesterday, we ruined a whole bunch of drill bits and cutters in the lab before we managed to separate a piece.”
“Exactly, exactly!” Brommi the mole nodded, lounging in a chair by the table and puffing on his cigar. “I ruined two drill bits myself, and they even had a Dust coating! They literally fell apart right before my eyes.”
“Could you at least not smoke in here?” Liam the hamster grumbled. “There’s no air to breathe!”
“Sorry, but no, I couldn’t...” the mole replied mockingly and blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke.
“General Drevus, perhaps you encountered something like this when you served in the Steam Empire’s army?” Astrid asked.
The robot shook his head.
“No, I’ve never seen anything like it. The Empire’s laboratories conduct countless experiments with metals, Flur, and Dust every day, but I can say for certain that this is not an invention of Argo’s mech scientists.”
“Of course it isn’t,” Brommi snorted. “Do you have any idea what godforsaken place we dragged this thing out of? More than three days through old adits. Down, down, and down the whole way... And there’s absolutely nothing down there except creatures that’ll happily devour animals and robots alike. There definitely aren’t any Imperial laboratories down there either.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Drevus began, but Sam interrupted him.
“Friends, this isn’t the time to argue. We need to understand whether this thing is dangerous, completely useless, or perhaps useful after all.”
“Muskrat Mick spent the entire night running experiments on the fragment we managed to separate from the main piece of metal,” Astrid said.
“He said the metal emits the same kind of radiation as Flur, only in smaller amounts.”
“And what does that mean?” Drevus asked.
“It means that this metal is either related to Flur or has the ability to absorb Flur radiation when it comes into contact with it. But I can’t say for certain. It’s extremely difficult to study and almost impossible to work with... It’s quite possible we won’t find a use for it anytime soon...”
The door opened, and Mambo, the old shaman, entered the room.
“Greetings, friends,” he said. “Lucy told me that she and Brommi found a strange metal in the side passages of an old human mine.”
“Yes, they did,” Sam replied. “But we don’t know exactly what it is. None of us has ever encountered anything like it before.”
“May I take a look at it?” Mambo asked.
“Of course,” the raccoon said, gesturing toward the table.
The shaman leaned over the table and stared intently at the piece of metal lying in the middle. After a long pause, Mambo closed his eyes, placed one hand on the metal, and began making strange movements in the air with the other while chanting a monotonous song. Blood pounded in his temples, and large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
“Spirits of the elements! Guardians of the depths of the earth! Masters of the waters! Lords of wind and fire! I do not command you, but ask you — answer me!”
“You know much, you have seen much, you feel much... Give me an answer, I beg you!”
The pounding in his temples grew stronger and stronger... Mambo staggered but did not fall. None of his companions dared to support him. They all knew that when the shaman entered a trance to commune with the spirits of the elements or the spirits of his ancestors, he must never be touched. Doing so could not only break the ritual, but also anger the spirits surrounding Mambo at that moment.
“O great spirits...” Mambo did not finish the phrase before the pain in his head exploded into thousands of burning sparks... He let out a long groan, and blood poured from his nose.
Astrid rushed toward him, but Sam grabbed her arm.
“Don’t, Astrid,” he whispered.
“But he’s going to...” the hedgehog almost moaned.
“Don’t,” Sam repeated. “You’ll only make it worse.”
A fine tremor began to run through Mambo’s body, but he refused to give up, calling out to the spirits again and again.
And suddenly, a thunderous voice rang inside his head, as though hundreds of stones had come crashing down a mountainside...
The hall, the table, his companions around him — everything disappeared.
The shaman stood in the middle of an enormous cavern filled with thousands of brilliant lights shining from Flur crystals. He had never seen crystals of such size or such rich color. Even here, in the spirit world, within his astral body, he could feel the power radiating from them.
“You called, old shaman?” the voice thundered. “The Lord of the Depths has answered your call.”
Mambo turned and froze.
He had often communed with elemental spirits. Sometimes he asked them for help and drew strength from their energy. At other times, the spirits themselves asked him for aid. He knew much and understood much, but he had never seen a being like this.
Even the power of Flur gathered within this cavern, clearly perceptible even in the astral realm, no longer seemed so overwhelming compared with the power and majesty emanating from this creature.
The enormous golem looked as though it had been carved from granite. Hundreds of crystals crowned its entire body. Brilliant bluish crystal veins ran across its mighty arms resting on the armrests of a simple stone throne. White fire burned in its eyes, and instead of a single pupil, each eye held three glowing red embers.
The creature leaned forward on its throne and fixed all six pupils on Mambo.
“Why are you silent, shaman?” the golem rumbled. “Lost your tongue?”
“O mighty one...” Mambo managed to say. “Forgive me, but I do not know your name.”
“I have many names, shaman, but none of them would mean anything to you. So let us get straight to the point, mortal. I have no patience for idle chatter.”
“I know what you want,” the master of the cavern rumbled, pointing a thick stone finger at the shaman. “I will give you the answer to your question.”
“The sky iron you hold in your hand troubles you, does it not?” The golem raised one enormous stone eyebrow covered in moss.
“Sky iron?” the shaman asked, puzzled.
“Yes! That very thing,” the Lord of the Depths thundered again.
“Eons ago, when our world was young, as was I, and the breath of the Creator could still be felt in every corner of it, when neither humans nor animals yet existed and the mountains themselves were only beginning to harden, a fiery vortex tore open the sky...
“A blazing streak flashed across the heavens, and a mass of fire plunged from the opening above. I saw it through layers of earth, through impenetrable vaults of stone. The impact was truly colossal. The earth trembled and groaned in pain. A great mountain was reduced to dust, and the lakes surrounding it turned to steam.
“The celestial metal pierced the armor of our world like a colossal spear and plunged deep into the flesh of the earth. But even it could not withstand the impact and shattered into countless fragments, large and small.
“Millions of years have passed since then. Rivers changed their courses, mountains wore away beneath rain and wind, civilizations were born and died. And the celestial metal, which my brethren and I called ‘Quark,’ sank ever deeper into the flesh of our world.
“At first, neither I nor the lesser spirits charged with guarding the depths of the earth paid much attention to it. But over time, we noticed that Quark seemed to drink the strength of the earth, consuming it and leaving no chance for anything living nearby. We tried to stop it, to find some way to contain it, but everything was in vain. Even the lesser elemental spirits gradually weakened and lost their physical forms when they remained near it for too long.
“And so we tried to seal the wound in the world. At the place where it fell, a massive scar of stone appeared — a great mountain that we raised with tremendous effort.
“And quite recently, by our reckoning, of course,” the golem chuckled, “humans established a mine inside that mountain, at the site where the celestial metal had fallen. They mined gold there. Then came the Catastrophe, and a new force entered our world — Flur!”
The golem pronounced the name of the crystal with such longing that Mambo could have sworn he licked his lips.
“Flurrrr!” the Lord of the Depths rumbled once more. “It appeared as if from nowhere. Yet it contains such strength and power that very little can withstand it.
“The celestial metal seemed to sense this and began rising higher and higher toward the surface, toward the newly formed veins of Flur. But the metal could not consume the crystal’s power. Instead, it became saturated with it and, like a stone worm that had eaten its fill, fell asleep, preserving that energy within itself.
“But at the same time, the crystals growing near the celestial iron seem to fade and change color. And I do not like that at all!”
The golem fell silent and once again fixed his gaze on the shaman.
“Ahem...” Mambo cleared his throat.
“Thank you, my lord, for your story!” The shaman bowed his head. “And thank you for your invaluable time...”
“Enough, shaman!” the golem interrupted him. “I have no need for your gratitude or praise, just as a mountain has no need for the praise of a river pebble.
“I am not wasting my time without reason. I want you and your kind to rid my depths of Quark! And the sooner you begin, the better it will be for everyone.”
“But how, my lord?” Mambo exclaimed in astonishment.
“It took us enormous effort just to extract a single piece from the rock. And what are we supposed to do with it? If, as you say, it leaves living creatures no chance and drains all their strength, how can ordinary mortals like us possibly deal with it?”
“Do not rush, shaman,” the Lord of the Depths rumbled calmly. “Over the past two centuries that Quark has spent near the Flur veins, it has absorbed their power and fallen into ‘slumber.’ So to you, it is no more dangerous than Flur crystals. But it can be extremely useful.”
“How could it be useful to us?” the shaman asked in surprise.
“You really are a foolish mortal!” the giant snapped irritably.
“Though I do not interfere in the affairs of surface dwellers, I know what happens above.
“I have eyes in every mountain, every stone, every handful of sand.
“I know that you have long been fighting the ‘Living Iron’ for your place in this world. And although I care little for the squabbles of insects, you are still flesh of this world. The true Creator breathed the spark of life into you.
“The same cannot be said of your enemies — the robots of the Steam Empire. They are alien to this world, unnatural, and they plunder the depths of the earth without thought! They tear out metals and coal...
“So, shaman, you must extract all the Quark and put it to your own use, so that you may stand against the Living Iron!”
“And I will tell you how,” the golem concluded calmly. “Only Flur and its power can help you work Quark. Yes, you will have to expend more energy, consume a great deal of Dust, create new cutters and drill bits, and learn how to smelt Quark. But once you put it to use, you will gain tremendous power! Remember that, shaman!”
“Bring more water! Quickly! He’s burning up!”
Those were the first words Mambo heard as he struggled to open his eyes.
A frightened Lucy was leaning over him, continuously moving her magical lotus above his head. The rest of his friends stood around him as well, bending over him with fear on their faces.
Only Drevus’s iron face showed no emotion. He was a robot, after all...
“Yes, communing with beings of such power does not come easily,” Mambo thought. “And I never even imagined that something like that could exist in our world.”
“He’s coming around!” Astrid exclaimed. “Look, his eyes are open!”
“Mambo! You scared us! We thought that was it, that we’d lost you,” Liam blurted out.
“Help me up,” the shaman said hoarsely. “And give me some water. My throat is dry.”
His friends helped Mambo into a chair and handed him a glass of water, which he immediately drained.
“So, my friends,” the shaman said, looking around at them all. “Meet ‘QUARK’!”
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