Chapter
1

Pressure.

The morning sun burst through the small cavern's recently excavated stained-glass window, casting reds, greens, blues, purples, and yellows against the carved back wall. Dust glinted as it moved lazily through beams of light, sparkling now and then. The room smelled of old books and forgotten knowledge.

Water moved nearby in an underground stream no wider than a meter, discovered half a kilometer from the first chamber.

Pressure, pressure, pressure. Jewlan Omi thrust her lower lip out in a small gesture of frustration as she stared at the beige pages of her notes. Every letter of every word placed together to form every sentence was perfectly drawn, painstakingly positioned in her grandmother's own style, which had been commended by the Board of Linguistic Anachronisms as being the finest in historic realism.

And how is any of this supposed to help me?

"Pffft," the sound came out as a pressing of air between her lower lip and the teeth of her upper jaw. There was no word on the page that closely resembled the sound—it was just something that Jewlan had done since childhood. A noise that irritated her father, whether he were in Beta or Alpha States. "This has to prove there are more than four laws, right?"

Her voice echoed against the walls, as no one answered her.

Not that Jewlan expected anyone to really hear, or care.

She sat alone in the First Chamber. The others in her group had returned to the city, forty kilometers west of this latest archaeological find on a planet her people claimed more than a century ago. Two artisans, two news tellers, the team's former expert in mechanical investigations, and the site's financial backer. Everyone used the mechanic's shift to Beta State as their reasoning for departure, proclaiming a new mechanic should be found, interviewed, and approved for work.

And no one in their right mind had declined an opportunity to return to the city to partake of the modern conveniences there.

No one except Jewlan, that is.

The painful truth was Jewlan failed to crack the symbols leading out of the Fourth Chamber. After six weeks, people were tired, dejected, and very grumpy.

The First Chamber had been an accidental find. Digging in the area had revealed a door covered in unfamiliar markings. There had been four distinct symbols, each framed in an equal-sided box. Jewlan, an instructor and professional in cryptography and linguistics, had been brought in from the local university to translate the symbols. Working with Doren Hazar, one of the capital city's brightest experts in cultural mechanics, had been easy. The two combined their skills in engineering and linguistics to decipher the first combination of symbols to open the first door.

It'd been simple once the base root letters had been identified. Jewlan found the key within the Four Laws of Life, discovered decades ago on tablets carved in the Temple of a site south of where they were now.

The First Laws were of Light, which she'd corresponded with the universal element of fire, or a common beginning of all things.

She took up the pages and moved through the bits of floating dust to the Second Chamber door. Inside, artificial lights illuminated a trickling fountain, fed by the underground stream and decorated with carved symbols representing the Second Laws of Water.

In the Third Chamber they'd found tables, chairs, beds—all manner of archaeological treasures to give Jewlan's people a better understanding of the race that had perhaps lived on the world of Asario before her people colonized it.

Jewlan had liked the books best—especially the ones written by hand—and had made formal requests to be involved in studying them once her task at opening all the doors had been complete.

That task had now come to an abrupt halt for two reasons.

Finding a fifth door was the first.

Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures.