“Anything, Dr. Vance?” called a voice from above. It was Mateo, her grad student, his silhouette a dark blot against the grey sky.
By the time he scrambled down the rope ladder, she had uncovered the idol’s torso. It was a full statuette, six inches tall, sitting cross-legged. The hum was now a whisper in her skull: take me up, take me up, take me up. the idol part 1
Then the lanterns flared back to life. Mateo was on his knees, nose bleeding. “What… what was that?” “Anything, Dr
It was a face. No larger than her palm, carved from a single piece of jade so dark it seemed to swallow the lantern light. The features were alien: a high, sloping brow, eyes that were simple slits, and a mouth frozen in a smirk that was neither kind nor cruel—merely knowing. Around its head, a halo of carved tentacles or perhaps roots. Elara had never seen anything like it. By the time he scrambled down the rope
“It’s older,” Elara breathed. “Much older.”