Zeus 25 - Praxis

13 - The SsKar

Praxis could barely stand, suddenly feeling weaker than he ever had in his life.

The circular domed room of the House of Sea and Stars was gone, but he was pretty sure they were not in Shambhala either.

Eudora and Spyro crowded him, grabbing his arms to keep from sinking to the rock floor. They seemed to be in an underground chamber formed of rough-hewn rock lit by globes twenty times brighter than Hot Blocks, but without a flame or visible fuel.

This chamber was half the size of the one they'd left, but also contained inscribed black circles in the floor with center pedestals crowned with small black cups. The blue Homing Orb in his hand was now red, but he didn't remember seeing it change. Before anything else happened, he opened the buckle on his belt of power to stow the red Orb and found that Spyro's two Orbs of Strength were gone. Without puzzling over their disappearance, he put the red Orb of Travel away.

Izador had said using the Word of Law on the red Orb of Travel would return them to the House of Sea and Stars. Doubtful now that Izador had been caught in a different lie—they hadn't traveled to a mountain hillside in Shambhala.

Praxis wondered what other misinformation he'd been fed. Shambhala had never been described as a cavern of rock. The far wall in front of him was smooth but contained a massive door and a long horizontal window filled with steady impossible light similar to the globes.

Praxis noted that underneath the strip of window there were several tables supporting bizarre, boxy, metal objects that contained tiny blinking lights in orderly rows on their sides.

Eudora screamed and drew her bow.

"Praxis," Spyro yelled.

A leather-clad eight-foot lizardman with a tool-belt strode into the cavern, his clawed hand pointing a device toward them.

Praxis hadn't even started the Word of Law when he felt a sharp pain in his chest and was enveloped in convulsing lightning. Was an Orb of Pain triggered? But no one had uttered the Word of Law, he thought and passed out.

#

Praxis awoke alone in a different rock chamber with a single barred door, a room easily identifiable as a prison cell. He tried the door—locked. The bars were hard as iron, but shiny on the surface like an Orb of Pain and had been finished to a beautiful uniform smoothness.

No one seemed to be in the empty room beyond the door, but Praxis called out anyway, "Hey! Eudora? Spyro?"

No one answered.

Then Praxis heard another door open and close with a clank, and the lizardman stepped before his door. The monster's black scales held a hint of green iridescence, and its eyes seemed dangerously intelligent.

Praxis dropped his hand to his belt buckle before he remembered the Orbs of Strength were gone. The lizardman opened his cell, and Praxis backed up against the rock wall behind him.

The creature spoke. The sound was a mixture of hissing and clicking, "PsssKiz." At the same time another voice came from a silvery diamond-shaped amulet imbedded in the lizard's scaly head above its eyes. This second voice said, "Praxis," as clearly as Spyro would have pronounce it. More hissing and clicking followed, then the diamond voice said, "Orbs in your belt of power have self-destructed."

"Why were they destroyed?" Praxis demanded.

"They weren't destroyed," the lizardman told him through the amulet. "They unmade themselves. All Orbs except Travel and Homing are created in reference to a single gravity well. When you leave that well, the reference is gone, and they're unmade."