Free Galactic Mage 4: Alien Arrivals by John Daulton Page A

and a dead one. Whatever worked within those crystals had been snuffed out with everything else. And that didn’t bode well for Orli’s plan.
    “Hmmm,” he muttered. “Maybe this isn’t it after all.” Orli thought he sounded like he was trying to sell that to himself.
    “Why not?”
    “It’s not taking in the light. Liquefying Stone eats light.”
    “I noticed. And I think that is how the Hostile worlds find each other. Like they can sniff each other off the rays of the host sun. Or at least, it’s how males find females,” Orli said. “It has something to do with how Red Fire found the Liquefying Stone that High Priestess Maul had when she went with Conduit Huzzledorf to find Earth. I got that much from Blue Fire in my dream the day Red Fire attacked her like he did.”
    “Well, nobody is going to find these,” he said, pointing down at the formations, and then pointing around in a wider arc. “It’s not doing it.”
    Orli suppressed an urge to swear. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment while she considered it. “Well, why should it?” she said after beaming her light around the chamber a second time. “If you think about it, it’s to be expected. Yellow Fire is dead or dormant right now.”
    “Yes, but there’s a big difference. If these stones are dead because everything’s dead up there too, well, then that seems to portend disappointment.” He pointed through the unseen ceiling, the ceiling they both assumed must be above somewhere. “But it should still work if the heart is alive, shouldn’t it?”
    Orli shrugged. “Ask Blue Fire. I only got what I got from her in a dream, remember? But if my bulb hypothesis is correct, perhaps it’s all working as it should. Think about it: daffodils don’t bloom while they are dormant. So, perhaps Hostiles don’t either, in their way.”
    His brow wrinkled and he hummed low, almost too low for the helmet microphone to pick up. “I suppose.” He didn’t look convinced.
    “Just ask her,” Orli said again.
    “I kind of hate asking her anything,” he said. “It’s so brutally sad to talk to her these days. I have a hard time recovering afterward. A conversation with her is like finding out everyone you’ve ever known and loved is dead. Again. And for the first time. It is like the rediscovery of the most awful tragedy. Every single time.” It was his turn to shudder. “I’d rather not quite understand if I don’t need to.”
    “Well, if you don’t, how will we know we’re in the right place?”
    “We are. I think. We just have to find the heart chamber, like we set out to do.”
    “Well, then we’re back to our original problem. Where is it?”
    “It should be over there somewhere,” he said, tilting his head to the left. “Let’s go.”
    She knew he was guessing, but she followed anyway. She understood that Altin’s way of communicating with the distant world of Blue Fire was deeper than her contact with the creature in dreams. Altin shared Blue Fire’s mind when he talked to her. Felt her feelings. Great, planet-sized feelings that were overwhelming and strong. He felt those emotions as if they were his own, and amplified. She didn’t blame him for wanting to avoid such an experience if possible.
    They made their way along the floor of the cavern. In places the going was easy enough, and the hard soles of spacesuit boots prevented injury or discomfort caused by the points of the crystals they trod upon. But in other places, the crystal formations were very large, and squeezing through short forests of them that grew inexplicably large became arduous and risky to the integrity of the spacesuits. Twice they had to teleport to the other side of formations of that kind—also risky to the suits, though less so, perhaps. Fortunately, neither instance caused any problems with the spacesuit controls and only cost them the time it took for Altin to cast a seeing spell to find the other side.
    Progress was slow, but at length they