Forge of Stones

by Vasileios Kalampakas

Memory and desire

  Amonas had been watching Hilderich for what seemed to be the better part of an hour now. He had shocked Amonas with what he believed they were looking at in the sky, but Amonas had seen it himself when he knew what to look for. They were indeed standing on another world, and not on their own. Because the suns were not simply wrong; there was only one sun. Hilderich had noticed the lack of a second ring around the sun, and the regularity of ths sun’s shape and size, unlike their own two suns that seemed to come together and slightly draw themselves apart again every once in a while.

  That was something Hilderich had come up with while intently studying the surface they were standing on, as well as the bases of the horns themselves. Amonas now saw him as he kept clutching the keystone, scratching it with a finger at times. He seemed to be quite absorbed in thought. Amonas had felt he could not contribute at this time, and did not bother Hilderich with questions or other small talk. He saw no way out of their situation and certainly no way to ‘ride the flames’ as Hilderich had put it with enthusiasm.

  As Amonas replayed in his mind what Hilderich had tried to explain to him, the idea seemed extravagantly far-fetched; more like a Curator’s wild fantasy than anything that seemed to hold any ties with the realm of reality.

  Hilderich insisted that the keystone was what would enable them to realize ‘the plan’. The plan was to signal the flaming sphere, bullet, missile or ‘train’, whatever one might call it, to stop and pick them up. Amonas thought that first and foremost, it was preposterous to consider that thing that rushed over their heads could be tamed, indeed made to stop. It sounded as if a man would command a falling star to cushion its fall, to peacefully glide to a stop so he could touch it. Accordingly, the idea that one could actually even board such a thing defied any kind of logic Amonas could summon. Hilderich was either totally insane or on the brink of an ingenious discovery that could dwarf everything Amonas had ever known, including the things that had been revealed to him when he had stepped into the damnable pillar of light in the first place.

  He truly hoped the latter case would hold true. In the meantime, while Hilderich seemed to be muttering to himself, pacing about the flat, matte black floor of the summit, Amonas’ thoughts turned to Celia. Had she given birth to their child? Were they safe? Had the uprising began?

  He was afraid he would not be able to keep his promises to Celia. It all rested with Hilderich. It was a liberating emotion, in a sense, to have someone else hold the keys to your future. Someone else to blame; someone else’s success or failure was in essence, what would gain him a trip back home or a slow, harrowing death filled with guilt, remorse and memories that would haunt him for whatever life would remain in him. But was everything really hanging on Hilderich’s efforts? Was there nothing he could do or think of? Had he given up on them already?

  This damnable place afforded him no real rest; it toyed with his fears, his doubts, and his ignorance. He threw a fist to the black floor which remained unyielding, unmarred and unbroken. The pain that swept up from his hand jogged him back into his more usual mindset.

  Even if he didn’t have the slightest idea about this place and the flaming sphere, Hilderich seemed to have at least some estimation; something to follow through, something that, however improbable, might work. If it failed they’d find something else, move on and think of a different idea. Perhaps study the bullhorns in depth, find out their purpose. The land could support them, so they would keep on trying to get home.

  They would endure. All they had to do was endure and there would be a way. ‘There must be a way,’ his mind echoed with that thought. He’d do his best to help Hilderich, even if that meant he’d have to trust him with his life. They’d get back, that’s all that really mattered. He would get back home to Celia, and their child. He promised to himself he’d get back even if he’d have to limp back.

  The clutches of reality were inescapable though and he snapped back to it when the sweat running down his forehead had turned into a small, steady trickle. The heat even under the shadows was uncomfortable. They did not have much in the way of water left, only a couple of the hard-skinned fruit.

  He was wary of leaving Hilderich alone while he went back down to collect some more of the fruit, perhaps locate some source of running water as well. The fruit were watery enough, but their sweet taste would soon feel sickly if they kept consuming them all the time. He’d have to breach the subject sooner or later, but he decided to give Hilderich some more time with his musings first.

  They did not know when the next flaming sphere would appear and that only served to increase Amonas’ uneasiness. He believed it would be much more accommodating if they went down to the base of the bullhorns where they could find shelter from the sun. He also thought that they could forage while going around the base of the bull-horned structure, which Hilderich was now calling a ‘horned pyramid’.

  Amonas thought that his was a much more sound, safe, and logical plan. Hilderich had argued against it, saying that there should be enough time between passes for them to figure out how to use the flaming vehicle, and they should not wander away when they could be so close to escaping this place. Amonas had resisted the idea in more depth by pointing out that even if that were so, they had not heard or seen the passing of such a thing ever since they arrived here, which would imply that whatever that thing was, it did not make frequent overpasses.

  Hilderich counter-argued that, as was the case with wagons and carriages, arrivals and departures did not have to be evenly spaced and sometimes schedules changed without notice, because of necessity. Amonas had left it at that but they at least agreed to go down once their water supply had run out to rest and re-supply; at the same time they could search around the base of the horned pyramids for a possible way in.

  Hilderich seemed to be lost in an inner circle of conjectures and theories that did not seem to produce any tangible practical benefits. At times he would stop and ask if Amonas had noticed anything new about the structure, especially the floor and the horns; Amonas would quietly and calmly insist that if anything to that effect did happen, he would surely notify him immediately. Hilderich would then nod and go back to his series of calculations.

  He had already paced around the edges of the floor and had even walked over the shadows of the horns, seemingly measuring their length for reasons Amonas could not even hope to infer. It seemed like charlatanism; a madman in the wilderness trying to make sense of something bewilderingly distant like the suns or the stars, the color of the sky, and so on. But he would have to be patient and see for himself where it would lead.

  They’d soon have to go down to the base of the pyramid for water mostly, Amonas thought, believing Hilderich should be feeling dry as sand, definitely having developed a sunburn by that time as well.

  The keystone in Hilderich’s hand felt more like a sigil or a charm to him, something he had to connect himself with. He kept touching it, running his fingers around it, but he had yet to use it as the device he had said he believed it to be. It was a greenish stone that gave off blue, near turquoise reflections. It seemed to have a certain depth, and a curious reflective quality about it.

  It could be a raw gem, or something similar. Perhaps a glass, Amonas couldn’t have been sure of its nature, and he certainly knew he was no expert. It was just that it had a very strange appearance, one that could not be easily compared to the usual cuts of stone or gem. Amonas thought that if nothing else at all, the keystone was a very rare thing indeed.

  Rare enough for someone to keep collecting them, and rare enough to seal Olom’s fate. He’d certainly miss him. Celia had never known, perhaps it was for the best. Now that he’s really gone beyond.. Amonas felt it was a bit unfair on her. He felt guilty for not telling her the truth about her father, but it was a promise he would never break, and so had not. Perhaps in time, he could find it in his heart to tell her. On second thought he felt he was obligated to do so, actually. Just as soon as they got back, at a time
that seemed to him quite indeterminable at that point.

  With his thoughts on the matter concluded, Amonas decided he had stayed quiet for long enough and asked Hilderich who was standing near one far end of the summit, peering downwards over the edge:

  “Any progress?”

  Hilderich did not turn around, did not even stir or notion somehow. It seemed he was rather absorbed in thought. Amonas disliked shouting in principle, so he sighed and walked over to Hilderich. He noticed the man was standing at the lip of the summit, a step before falling over to the steps below. His arms were in front of him with the keystone in one hand, fingers opening and closing in quick succession. It looked as if he was counting something. Amonas cleared his throat audibly, as a way to attract Hilderich’s attention and perhaps guard him from a surprise that could set him off balance in a most precarious fashion.

  Hilderich paused in his counting momentarily and looked distracted for a moment, hastily checking his left and right with a small motion of his head; he then resumed counting, fingers on both hands moving like he was playing the harp. Amonas closed his eyes in a show of mild exasperation, and said in his usual husky voice:

  “Hilderich. I’m right here behind you. Hilderich..”

  Hilderich paused and turned about slowly with a frown of surprise on his face. As he did so, he instinctively made a backwards motion with his head, tipping his upper torso slightly aft. That was enough to jerk him off his feet, throwing him towards the slope of steps he was surveying. His one arm flailed wildly in a vain effort to steady himself while clutching the keystone hard and stretching out his free hand as a desperate last ditch attempt to reach Amonas who was no more than two steps away.

  Amonas reacted instinctively with cat-like speed and lunged forward making a single step and bending his body slightly towards the ground in a kneeling motion that brought his center of mass lower; he stretched out both of his hands, one reaching for Hilderich’s free arm and one for the shirt about his waist.

  A still moment passed when Hilderich seemed doomed to fall and tumble down like a rag doll to a most certain grievous injury or even death with Amonas failing to do anything other than watch, his grasp failing by a hair’s breadth. His mind was faster than his body so the terrible thought had time enough to coalesce with feelings of guilt and failure, curses and a repetitive voice that seemed to echo from afar; it was a simple form of denial, yet so piercing that it lanced right through his head, even before he could think he had uttered it:

  “No!”

  Amonas stood there kneeling, his body tense, almost rigid. He was transfixed, wide-eyed and out of breath, his last one cut suddenly short. He gasped for air, and only then did he realize he was holding onto Hilderich’s shirt and palm. Not very tightly though, but he could feel some of Hilderich’s body weight pulling at him. He came to his senses and pulled back, edging Hilderich closer. He grabbed tighter with one hand and pulled harder, bringing Hilderich right back on his feet, safely on the summit’s surface.

  Hilderich looked surprised, the frown on his face even narrower than before. He had certainly began to show signs of sunburn. ‘Perhaps he was stricken from the sun and the light, and got dizzy all of a sudden when I called out to him,’ Amonas thought.

  Hilderich was looking about the floor, his hands going through his pockets. Something seemed amiss to Amonas. Hilderich cried out suddenly:

  “The keystone! It must have fell off! I need to go get it! The keystone!”

  Amonas took him by his arms and spoke to him calmly and steadily with a hint of assurance in his voice:

  “We are going to get the keystone. We were running out of water anyway. Perhaps you were out on the sun for too long. Don’t worry, no one’s going to steal it from you. There’s only us around here. I’m sure it’s somewhere down there.”

  “What if it’s broken? What if it’s damaged, chipped, marred? What if it broke? What if I broke it?”

  “Control yourself! I’m sure it will be fine, it’s a mere inconvenience, that’s all! Now please! Calm yourself.”

  Amonas was forcing Hilderich to look him in the eyes in order to convey to him a sense of safety, security and calm. It was as if Hilderich was going through the shock of battle. Was the keystone so vital to him? To their survival? Was the keystone that sensitive, prone to damage? Had their chance to return home tumbled down into oblivion by the slip of a foot? ‘Everything in its own time,’ Amonas thought as he cast these worrisome thoughts aside if only for a while.

  Hilderich turned around to look at the steps below searching for the keystone, this time with a healthier distance from the summit’s precipice. He put a hand up to offer his eyes some shade, but still he squinted as he tried to make out such a small thing from such a distance. He was obviously disgruntled with what had happened, and after searching in vain some more, he turned around to Amonas and told him:

  “We have to go down now, Amonas. It could be coming any time now, the keystone is crucial. Please, I’ll explain to you on the way down. I think I know how it works. Please, we need to go find it now.”

  “Alright, alright, don’t fret so much about it. We were going down anyhow.”

  Amonas jogged briskly to pick up his sack that was lying under the shadow of a horn and as he came back to Hilderich, he produced one of their last two ’brown ones’ from the sack. He chopped of one end and gave it to Hilderich, then got out the last and did the same. They both drank greedily and as they went about the lip ready to start their descend, Amonas told Hilderich:

  “Remember, once we find the keystone, we continue down to the base. We need water, and you’ll feel it yourself in a pretty bad way before long. The suns here are scorching hot, we’ll need shadow, water and sleep once we get down. Then we search around the base. Like we agreed. Is that alright Hilderich?”

  Hilderich was hesitant, almost reticent to answer but at length he must have thought about it in a more sensible way; he nodded and started climbing down carefully but briskly. Hilderich was making good speed having noticed that going down was much easier because one could easily slide across the surface of the steps with his bottom and then dangle his feet before making a little jump onto the step below, and so on. It might have even been a fun, merry activity, especially if they were children and if the sun wasn’t trying to boil them alive. Amonas found out Hilderich’s unorthodox way of descending the steps to be quite efficient and fast, so he copied it and they were both making good progress, rapidly going down the steps. At each step Hilderich would peer left and right quickly but certain enough that not a glimmer of the keystone had caught his eye. Amonas had advised him to stop talking and breath through his nose; he could tell him all about what he had come up with when they got down. It was supposedly a good way to conserve one’s water, but Hilderich at one point couldn’t resist to tell Amonas:

  “If we miss it on the way down, we’re walking from corner to corner of the pyramid each step up the way.”

  “I doubt we can do that with no shadow to protect us from the heat. We were exhausted when we climbed up the shadowy face. We’d be sunburnt to death if we tried to walk every inch of this side.”

  “No keystone, no ride Amonas. We’ll have to if we don’t find it.”

  Amonas did not reply and instead carried on climbing down placing himself in the lead. At length, while Amonas had already climbed down half the steps, Hilderich cried out:

  “There! Over there! I’ve found it!”

  Amonas stopped to look as Hilderich ran across the step towards the keystone. He knelt down and seemed to examine it closely from every side, look for signs of damage or any chipping he might hope to collect. Instead he found a perfectly shaped keystone, and what appeared to be a small dent on the steps.

  It appeared quite strange to him that the keystone could actually do that, if the stone was indeed the cause for the dent. It perplexed him at a time when he thought he had most things figured out. It didn’t seem that important, but it was too strange to comp
letely disregard under the circumstances. He let the thought go for the moment and when he stood upright again he was smiling, waving his hand with the keystone tightly gripped in it, crying out to Amonas:

  “It is fine! Impeccable as ever! Not a scratch!”

  “Glad to hear it. Now come, let’s make haste.”

  Amonas was indeed glad to hear such news but he was not sharing Hilderich’s enthusiasm. He had yet to understand the importance of the stone. The only thing that stood to reason and supported some of Hilderich’s claims was that someone, most probably the Castigator’s people, had been collecting keystones in every way. It had even cost Olom his life, and perhaps other lives had been lost in a similar manner as well. Perhaps, the keystones were parts of an ancient technology that had yet to be made to work again. Perhaps not all keystones were as important, and some were quite different, unique. Perhaps they were all unique in some unfathomable way. He couldn’t know, and he couldn’t imagine what it was that Hilderich had come up with. It would all remain a mystery until they could get back. He reminded himself that first and foremost, he had to get back. ‘And right now,’ he thought, ‘I have to keep myself from drying out’. They continued their descent with a bit more speed, now that Hilderich had secured the keystone.

  The sun had taken its toll on them; they were sweating profusely, their bodies glimmering with perspiration. By now, they had both been sun-burnt, their skins bordering the color of the flesh underneath it. Hilderich seemed to be in a much sorrier state than Amonas, his every movement by now painfully evident on his face. Each thrust of pain from his limbs made him flinch in reflex and aggravate his pain, the skin of his face wrinkled and coarse.

  Amonas came to his side and tried to help him a bit, lending some of his strength for Hilderich to go down the stairs. At first he seemed glad to be offered some relief, but then he cried in pain and nodded imperceptibly to Amonas to leave him be. Before he resumed his painful descent, he told him:

  “It hurts, everywhere you might touch me, it hurts. I have to do this alone. I ache all over. Even speaking hurts.”

  Amonas nodded his acknowledgement and looked sympathetic, understanding. He replied kindly:

  “Alright, Hilderich. You can see the trees now, can’t you? We’re not that far off, just a few more dozens of steps. And then..”

  Amonas was cut in mid-sentence when Hilderich collapsed from what must have been a deadly mixture of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and searing pain. He lunged forward head over heels, his hands gnawing at the air for an instant as if trying to catch some invisible ropes, and then they fell limp together with the rest of his body. Amonas did not have time to react like before and this time Hilderich went tumbling down the steps in a state of unconsciousness with no control over his fall. He fell badly on the first step with his chest thudding on impact, and then his body swivelled slightly to one side before he rolled down two, maybe three steps until he came to a stop, his limbs sprawled at nearly impossible angles. Amonas feared the worst and came rushing down the steps as fast as he could without challenging a similar fate. The way Hilderich had fallen, Amonas thought he might have broken almost every bone in his body. He hoped his head was as intact as it seemed and that he would be able to move him. When he got there, Hilderich was not communicating. He tried crying out to him, but he could not rouse him. He was definitely unconscious, probably the reason why he had collapsed.

  He did not know which bones on Hilderich’s body were broken but nothing seemed to jut out gruesomely, meaning that if something was broken it was not visibly so. He tried to feel Hilderich’s arms and legs as well as his ribs, but he was not an expert man of medicine and he could not make any serious assessment. He believed his arms and legs were fine, but some of his ribs felt funny and might be broken. He would be in pain when he woke up, but he could still probably walk, Amonas thought. Under the circumstances, he felt he should be counting Hilderich’s blessings.

  With strenuous effort he managed to lift Hilderich’s waist on his right shoulder, his body laid out so as to least burden his probably broken ribs. Amonas’ movements became difficult and strained; Hilderich’s limp body seemingly protested at every move with his feet and legs getting in the way, uncomfortably sliding along the steps.

  Amonas felt very close to collapsing himself under the strain and the heat but he pushed on heedlessly nevertheless, trying to make it to the tree-line which was only a few dozen feet away. He was going down the last steps when Hilderich started coming around, moaning deeply from the numbing pain. He managed to croak a whisper while wheezing, the trouble with his breathing more than evident:

  “What.. happened..”

  Amonas shushed him and answered with strain in his voice, its gruff tone exaggeratedly harsh. He sounded literally dried out:

  “You fainted and fell down the steps. You’ve broken some ribs. Don’t talk.”

  Hilderich was silent again. Amonas thought he might have fainted again, but that was not his principle care. They had to make it to the tree-line and the little shadow it offered.

  He was walking over the canal-like indentation on the ground, nothing but tall grass around him. Amonas was dragging his feet with admirable effort and determination. His face was contorted from the pain of his aching muscles and the extra weight they had had to carry for these last few minutes. ‘A little while longer,’ Amonas kept thinking to himself, ‘a little while longer into the shadow, and I can rest’. He closed his eyes and kept on walking with the same pace, Hilderich slung over his shoulder like game; Amonas was gritting his teeth, his breaths coming in short and hard gasps.

  When at last he reached the relative shadow of the trees he could still feel the heat, but the scorching rays of the sun were gone as if kept at bay by the forest. With one last bit of effort, he knelt down to the ground and offloaded Hilderich as carefully as he could. Hilderich came to for a moment, moaned deeply and grimaced with pain, and then he was out cold again. His breathing was shallow, as if his body knew anything more would hurt him like stabs of red hot iron in his lungs. Amonas then braced Hilderich from under his armpits with both arms trying not to cause him any more pain, and dragged him over to the large trunk of a tree propping him up against it so he could breathe without fear of drowning in his own blood. He felt he could do nothing more for Hilderich for the time being, so he crawled a bit farther away under the shadow of a tree with a bark as wide as the wall of a mountain cabin. He closed his eyes and just slept without dreaming a single thing.

  He opened his eyes to the sight of the green canopy: a labyrinth of shades of green, large and small branches criss-crossing it like a net cast out onto a sea of leaves. His mouth was parched and he felt his head heavy; a headache was pounding on his mind like a hammer on an anvil. He was thirsty, he needed water. Hilderich was still unconscious just laying where Amonas had left him, his breathing laborious; it was a raspy, unhealthy sound. He needed a doctor. They needed to get back to civilization, back home, more than ever. Amonas judged Hilderich was in no shape to walk around the base of the pyramid. Their most immediate need was water though.

  He stood up with a lot of effort. He felt disoriented, his senses failing him; his vision was slightly blurry and unfocused. He misjudged the location and distance of things around him. The dehydration must have been more severe than he had felt, and the heat was only making things worse. He slowly paced himself through an opening in the vegetation, a path that offered less thick greenery and easier terrain. He was looking for the usual tree with the brown nut-fruit, the one with all the watery juice inside, but couldn’t see any. The trees looked a bit different, as if this was another part of the forest: they were not as thick, with more space in between them. Fewer but larger trees, wider openings and more space overhead. It looked almost like a vast hall, supported on wooden pillars of green and brown hues.

  But no fruit. Or something else familiar to eat and most importantly, no water. He could still make out the clearing in front of the base of the pyra
mid where Hilderich lay. He had not gotten very far though he already felt tired, worn out. The dehydration was severe now. He paused and sat by the exposed root of a tree. He thought it was too dangerous to venture farther away from the pyramid and Hilderich. He was looking up: a vast net-like congregation of saplings extended from one tree to the other, like ropes meant to build a bridge. They could be carrying water or some juice but he could not reach them: they were too high up. He’d need to try and climb up a tree like a mad cat and he was certainly in no condition to do so.

  He then turned to the thick root he was sitting up against. It looked healthy and vital, not gnarled like most that he had seen so far. A young root, a young tree. There should be some water flowing through it, he thought. He brought out his knife and tried to put a stab to the root, deep enough to go through its skin to the veins of the tree. Hopefully some water would pour out, at least enough for him to drink now and make him able to go on.

  He stabbed as hard as he could and then worked his knife inside, twisting and bending it as if trying to cut out the tree’s heart. At length, pieces of the root came out with a strong, pungent smell and something like oil glistened on the knife’s blade. Amonas ran a finger on it and sampled it, the taste woody and bitter. It felt indeed more like oil rather than water.

  With some more effort and his head now feeling like a ministry bell tolling incessantly, he dug deeper into the root trying to get past its meaty part into its core, where water coursed. He dug with his knife and his hands, feeling the oil giving way to moist, soft wood matter. Another jab of his blade and he saw a trickle coursing down, dripping on the ground.

  With sudden greed, he put his mouth on the wound he had inflicted on the root and sucked like a newborn child does from its mother’s tit: it was water after all. He wet his lips and his mouth thoroughly, letting the cool liquid refresh his mouth and then spitting it out. He then let the trickle fill the two flasks he was carrying drop by drop, waiting patiently.

  All the while he sat more comfortably leaning against the trunk of the tree, almost as if he were ready to take a nap. He swallowed small portions of the water in his mouth, savoring it. He had been dehydrated before, and knew it was a lot worse if a man that had been denied of water for too long just dived straight in a lake or drank to his heart’s content. He had seen men die of it, for reasons he could not know. He thought it was a sick way of nature to make men pay for their greed as well as their lack of respect.

  His mind did not wander or drift as it had done so in the days before. Necessity and his instincts drove him. He took in things as they were, his mind enjoying a numbness while both it and his body recuperated slowly, the effects of dehydration slowly withering away and vigor reappearing in his face with his head throbbing gently instead of being about to explode.

  Once the flasks were filled to the brim, he had drank a couple more mouthfuls. He was feeling markedly better, and he believed he could find a similar root if he wandered some more; with no way to carry more water though, it would be in vain. So he decided to get back to Hilderich and tend to him: he would rouse him and offer him some badly needed water.

  When he got back to where Hilderich was sitting he tried speaking to him and gently shook his head, but to no avail. He then used some of the water letting it run down on Hilderich head, face, and back, dousing him carefully so as not to waste a lot of it. The cool water had more effect. Hilderich fluttered his eyes momentarily and then gasped; a sting of a pain immediately ran through him, the bones in his ribs stabbing him without warning. Amonas offered him the flask of water and told him in a soothing, reassuring manner:

  “Breathe lightly, or it’ll hurt like death each time. You have broken some ribs, that much is certain. You are dehydrated, your head must spin and hurt like someone hit it with a mallet. I am dehydrated as well, only I just drank some water and feel good enough to stand on my two feet. Now, you just sip some of this very slowly and carefully. Don’t gulp down on it, it might kill you; I’m serious. I’m not known for my humorist streaks. Now flex your arms and legs a bit if you can, you’ve been lying there for hours: your muscles will go dead stiff if you don’t. We’ll wait it out, you’ll drink till you feel a bit better and then perhaps I can make you a splint out of some wood I might rummage. How does all that sound?”

  Hilderich managed to lift his head and look at Amonas briefly. He was evidently in a lot of pain, and in a pretty poor state. He needed genuine rest and this was not the place for it. He nodded silently in acknowledgement, and Amonas smiled encouragingly before adding:

  “If you agree then, let’s keep to that plan.”

  Hilderich seemed then to be trying to flex and move his arms and legs. He put one hand on Amonas arm who was kneeling down beside him, and then rasped in a low whisper:

  “The.. keystone. Is it safe?”

  “It’s safe and sound. Don’t worry about it now.”

  Hilderich nodded once more wearily, his head moving imperceptibly. He managed to say something else after he had sipped on some water:

  “Perhaps, you were right. We need to be here.”

  “Where do you mean?”

  “The base. The pyramid. I’ll tell you. I hope.. we have time.”

  “We have all the time in the world, Hilderich. Now, drink. Don’t talk, and rest.”

  Hilderich was insisting that Amonas listened to what he had to say, tugging his cloak with a grip that belied his feebleness and injuries. He spoke with a rasp, his throat still too dry for comfort:

  “The keystone. The wall. They’re like water, and sand.”

  Amonas furrowed his brow intensely, puzzled at what seemed a very vague half-statement especially when coming from Hilderich. He motioned Hilderich to shush himself, putting a finger to his mouth but Hilderich went on, after coughing what appeared to be blood in his sputum:

  “I know it doesn’t make sense. The stone can be absorbed, into the wall. It is a keystone. The wall is a door. It should work. Please, try it.”

  Amonas nodded condescendingly and said:

  “You can try all you want to when you get better.”

  Hilderich gave off another cough and a splutter of bloody saliva forced him to look away from Amonas. He then turned his face again to look into Amonas eyes and wheezed while breathing harshly. Hilderich insisted with what seemed to be aggravation in his voice, even annoyance:

  “You need to listen to me! Use the key, force it into the pyramid’s wall. Let it be drawn into the pyramid.”

  “You must be delirious, running a fever surely. Please, stop exerting your self and drink some water. Here.”

  Hilderich’s face was suddenly contorted, wildly disfigured from anger and despair at the same time. With a jerk of his hand he threw the open flask Amonas had proffered away, spewing its precious water content along its flight. He was now talking fast with anger in his voice, pain underlining every word and gasping for air between every phrase:

  “You’re not listening! You think I’m seeing things! I saw the keystone had left a dent on the stone, a bump that wasn’t there before. There is some affinity with the pyramid stones. What is there to lose if you try? Your vaunted pride? If you don’t do it now, there’s every chance we are going to miss the next fireball and that might be our last! Do you want to die here? Use the keystone! Find a way in!”

  Amonas made a backwards step, like being physically pushed and had to re-balance himself. His face wore an expression of disbelief showing hints of feeling awkward and hurt. He felt like he had been lied upon, whereas he had trusted Hilderich almost unflinchingly:

  “But you said it was like hitching a wagon, that there’s a schedule and so on!”

  Hilderich coughed once more, his lips now red with his blood:

  “Haven’t you heard of wishful thinking before?”

  Amonas stood up while staring down at Hilderich with accusation in the tone of his voice and a finger pointing at him waveringly, as if he wasn’t sure whether this man was to be blamed or
not:

  “You.. You’re injured, you’re seeing things, that’s all I can know for sure.”

  Hilderich rasped once more this time with more volume in his voice, making it sound rather unfittingly exasperated:

  “You wouldn’t know your head from your arse. Now use the damned keystone! Just push it through the wall!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hilderich looked at Amonas with fiery eyes that stung and looked as if embers were burning inside. He told him slowly and painfully, with fear and real anger showing on his face and voice:

  “Just push it through the wall! Like driving a nail! Gods dammit!”

  He coughed once more with blood spewing forth, running down his lips and chin. Amonas thought he could perhaps indulge him and his effort alone might bring some sense into him. He nodded without genuine assent, stoop upright and walked to where the flask had landed. He picked it up, exchanged strenuous looks with Hilderich and carried on to meet the wall of the pyramid.

  When he reached it, he felt the sun blazing hot upon him but took some time to study it. He could not hope to really understand to what purpose it had been made, the fiery bolt that ran through the horns only adding to the puzzle. The black matte stones were strange: glass-like to the touch, but hard, not brittle. Not much of all that had transpired made any sense though, either. So he just did as Hilderich told him: he took the keystone and placed its longest side flat on the stone that stood right in front of him that formed the first step.

  Nothing happened, as it was expected of something that the delusional mind of a seriously injured man had come up with. For the sake of doing a friend a favor and carrying out the idea to the letter, he pushed the keystone down with one hand; something that made him feel quite unwarrantably stupid. As he pressed down momentarily he somehow felt the stone below give way. He let go, and then used his index finger to press ever so lightly.

  Nothing that his senses could grasp ensued and kept on pressing slightly harder and harder, when after a certain threshold the keystone indeed seemed to bury itself gradually inside the black stone. To his untold surprise, once he had indeed pressed it halfway deep into the black stone, the green keystone lit up with a rainbow of colors cast from an inner light that could not have been a reflection of the pale bluish suns. It was as if somehow the stone had come alive. Unable to contain his surprise and sudden enthusiasm, Amonas started yelling back towards Hilderich:

  “You were right! It’s doing something alright!”

  The flaring lights suddenly stopped and the keystone remained inert, half way there into the black surface of the pyramid’s blocky stone step. Amonas did not know what to do next. An instinctive fear raced through his mind, preventing him from even moving or thinking. He stood there almost impassively, fearing the unknowns that he had been hunting down. It was ironic that now that he was able to actually progress past theory, thought and conjecture into something that seemed to work, he had frozen still from his basic, human fear of the unknown. He knew he had to focus his mind and force himself past such notions. With his indecision hidden away, he touched the half-buried keystone one more time with his palm, and then it was gone, like it had been swallowed up by the blackness of the stones alone.

  Then the most amazing thing he had seen, only comparable with the fireball from before, unraveled before his eyes with astonishing speed and breathtaking complexity. The stones in front of him became somewhat transparent, letting only some of the light through. Their smooth surface became crystallized and faceted; rough, but not coarse or random. It looked rather like wrinkled paper that had been carefully folded a thousand, a million times and then laid out again, perfectly patterned.

  The stones started to part and dissolve, each little facet absorbed by the facets next to it, as if the stones were eating themselves away. The sight reminded him of a half-frozen lake being shattered and the ice sinking down instead of floating, though in a very fast and methodical way.

  This transfiguration, this certain proof of the otherworldliness of the place, was over before Amonas could even blink twice. And what was left in the place of the stones was a perfect oval corridor, wide enough and tall enough for a man of Amonas size to walk in. He was stunned, unable to fully comprehend what it was that he had witnessed.

  With some effort he gathered his wits and cast aside the protests of his mind to see, hear, touch and wonder wide-eyed at this inexplicable, majestic building that challenged reason at every opportunity. He focused on the harsh reality and its necessities, and peered over the half-lit entrance that had not been there moments before. He could see no lights coming from within, no other sort of emplacements or provisions for torches or the like. It was pitch black in there, but the important thing was that it was now open.

  Instinctively, he thought about the newly built entrance closing suddenly in a manner similar to how it had been opened and trapping him inside or, even worse, trapping half of him inside. He made two quick steps back as if he had been warned in advance, but nothing happened. He shook his head in disbelief and disapproval. There was a way in and Hilderich was right. They had to move inside now, and that meant moving Hilderich as well. That would be troublesome, Amonas thought as he made quite a few steps backwards before turning to run to Hilderich, almost unable to let the sight of the wondrous entrance depart from his eyes.

  Hilderich was still propped up against the trunk of the tree, wheezing as he drew breath with painstaking effort. Amonas noticed he was grinning now though, and his spirits flared high anew. With a broad smile he knelt next to Hilderich and said:

  “It worked, you were right. Once the keystone went in, an entrance opened up as if by magic: it was a wondrous affair. Filled me with awe and that rarely, if ever, happens. You should be proud of yourself, Hilderich.”

  Hilderich flinched painfully as he repositioned himself in a more upright position using his hands and replied, gritting his teeth through some of the words:

  “I shouldn’t be in this.. mess. Then.. I could be proud. The.. keystone? Do you have it?”

  Amonas face turned into ash and froze at that question. In the tumult, amidst all the surprise and awe he had forgotten all about the keystone that had just disappeared into the stone. That made him uneasy. He licked his lips with his tongue, and tasted his sour sweat. He had no answer that might quieten Hilderich’s fear, so he simply told him:

  “No. It went into the stone, the entrance into the pyramid opened, and that was all. The keystone did not reappear. I’m sorry. I think it has served its purpose.”

  Hilderich’s face lit up somewhat and then he burst into a painful mix of choked laughter and blood-sputtering coughing. He tensed up and restrained himself, the pain from his broken ribs becoming unbearable while he laughed. He grimaced while the waves of pain coursing through him settled down. He took a shallow breath and replied to Amonas who was now sitting down with his legs woven together, looking quite perplexed because of Hilderich’s strange reaction:

  “You talk as if.. it were alive. Could be, for all I know. That’s alright.. I guess.. We’ll find it, further inside.. I believe. Made me.. laugh. The way you seemed so.. pensive. Almost mourning. The keystone’s fine, you’ll see.”

  Amonas face relaxed and he seemed to accept Hilderich’s thoughts as if they made sense. In any other context he would have believed the man was still making up things in his mind, but he now felt indeed compelled to take Hilderich’s every word seriously. He couldn’t know why, but he had been right so far.

  “Alright, Hilderich. Now we have to figure a way to get you inside as well. It only fits one man about my size. That means I won’t be able to carry you through on my shoulder like I did back then. How are you feeling? Have you had any more water to drink? If there’s no water left I can always go back and hack at some root, fill up the flasks. Hope you don’t throw half of it away though this time.”

  “I feel horrible. I think.. it’s understandable, under the circumstances.”

  A
monas shook his head briskly in acknowledgement, but insisted:

  “I can see that Hilderich, but I need to know if you can move on your own now. I guess that would be as you’ve put it, wishful thinking. You also need water. Here, have mine for now. I’ll fill both later, somehow.”

  Hilderich grinned and replied:

  “My head is still buzzing.. I feel weaker than an ant, but.. I think I’m doing somewhat better. But walking would be.. quite wishful. Perhaps.. You could fix a stretcher of sorts. Something to.. to drag me with. Sorry about the flask..”

  Amonas waved Hilderich’s last remark away with one hand and looked him up and down, thoughtfully as if measuring him. Then he looked around him, trying to identify something around him within sight that he could put to good use. After taking some time to think, he asked Hilderich with a certain degree of hesitation:

  “Will a sort of harness do? Something I could wrap under your armpits, around your shoulders too perhaps? It should hurt anyway I go about it, but I think it’s the most practical thing I could manage in a reasonable amount of time.”

  Hilderich looked at his feet sprawled as they were, his vision evidently out of focus. He seemed lost in thought but then he coughed with traces of blood in his saliva and replied to Amonas:

  “Whatever makes sense to you. I’m pretty.. useless at these crafts, so I’ll make do.. I guess.”

  Amonas nodded with a slightly comforting smile and hurried away, headed to a cluster of trees and bush that Hilderich could not clearly make out.

  Hilderich’s body was constantly assaulted from the heat and moisture that had only been bearable under the shadow of the bullhorn pyramid. With his ribs now broken, his skin sun-burnt and his body dehydrated he felt like someone had left out his mind to dry over white hot sand and stone. Every breath felt like he had been dismantled and put back somehow wrong, the bones in his ribs turned into blades set against his insides, stabbing him at every chance they got.

  His throat felt like a dusty canyon and what little saliva was left in him was bloody and thick. He needed more water, that was true. But more than anything else he needed to get in there. Get in the pyramid. See for himself. After all, he thought, Amonas could not make it without him, he’d have no chance to understand what surrounded him. In his sorry state, they both needed each other, more badly than ever before. He decided to wait for Amonas and in doing so, slowly, and despite the constantly painful and irritating coughing, he fell asleep.

  Amonas woke him up, gently shaking his leg. He woke up without really wanting to and saw Amonas had indeed prepared a sort of harness, a piece of paraphernalia that must have been tacked together while he was asleep. It was made out of thick strands of some kind of vine that seemed to be abundant, a somewhat flat branch of sappy wood, and a quite large, thick deep green monster of a leave, shaped like a flattened arrow’s nose. Amonas was grinning, as if he had intended for this appurtenance of sorts to look like an exotic mule’s rein and was certain that the irony would not go wasted on Hilderich.

  Hilderich indeed looked at what Amonas had fashioned, and though still in a sort of after-sleep haze he managed to point at it and snigger, as opposed to laughing outright which was rather painful. Amonas came closer and holding the various parts together told Hilderich:

  “Now, I know what you’re thinking since you’re in such a good mood, but any similarity with a donkey’s strap and rein is purely unintentional and simply a product of the same basic design principles that define both pieces of gear. I’m sure you would agree in the end, but let’s try and get on with this, shall we?”

  Hilderich nodded in agonizing agreement and Amonas grabbed him by the arms and lifted him upwards, propping him upright against the trunk of the tree. Hilderich let out a cry of pain as his ribs jarred his insides once more. Amonas tried to be quick about it since he saw Hilderich was barely able to stand, much less walk. He placed the branch of wood as a backplate, a support to keep his torso, chest and ribs stiff and unbent to prevent further aggravating his wounds inside, as well as keeping the bones in place if they were to build a proper splint once they went back and found a doctor. The prospect seemed ever closer now, and filled Amonas with ardor. He completed fastening the gear on Hilderich, binding the ropes and setting the large leaf across Hilderich’s back, as a sort of cushioning to ease the friction without which he believed he’d be unable to move him more than a foot.

  Once he was finished he lowered Hilderich down to the ground again, and then passed the other end of the rope around his waist belt and tightened it. He said to Hilderich who was evidently uncomfortable, his arms sticking out in a weird fashion:

  “Ready when you are.”

  Hilderich nodded in a disgruntled fashion and Amonas then started to move at first rather sluggish, but soon he was able to walk slowly with Hilderich in tow. They reached the large ditch which proved somewhat of a pain because of the angled sides. Hilderich almost slipped down and Amonas barely avoided being dragged with him and falling head first into the ditch. In a similar fashion heading up the ditch put some evident strain on Amonas, who reached the entrance with Hilderich in tow, sweating and out of breath. He stopped a few steps behind the actual entrance and gestured at it with one hand:

  “This is it. You were right. It just sprouted open in a most perplexing way. The stones acted on their own, remoulding themselves somehow.”

  Hilderich was still attached to Amonas via the makeshift harness, and was craning his neck in an effort to somehow see better inside the passageway that led deeper inside the pyramid. He told Amonas:

  “Let’s go in.”

  Amonas nodded in agreement and started to walk inside. As he reached the foot of the entrance, he noticed the passageway in front of him starting to flicker and shine. It was doing it again, the stones in the structure rearranging themselves like before. Hilderich let out a gasp of surprise and enthusiasm and asked Amonas instantly:

  “Is that what it did before? That’s wondrous! It makes way for us! The passage is wider now! Look!”

  From what it looked like, the corridor was widened to more easily accommodate Hilderich as well. Amonas was surprised as well, but he wasn’t feeling mesmerized this time around. He believed though that it would take him a while to greet such things as normal. Without further ado, he took a few steps more and they were soon both inside the pyramid proper. The sunlight could not reach them here and a cool fresh air greeted them. They were following a corridor that seemed to glow faintly from within its walls, strangely illuminating their way as they walked, throwing a spot of soft light between the harsh darkness. As it was they could not see very far into the pyramid, the radius of light comfortable enough to simply follow them, not extending beyond a few feet. Amonas stopped then, and asked Hilderich:

  “Are you sure we should be going inside like this?”

  Hilderich was looking with amazement around the walls and the ceiling, the black matte stone having turned into a semi-transparent glass, the light casting hues and specks reminiscent of an artisan’s glass-work, or a gemstone. It took Hilderich a while to respond to Amonas’ question, but he did so in a gleeful voice despite the condition he was in:

  “More than ever! It’s a wonder in itself, this material!”

  Hilderich coughed then and spat some more saliva with blood. Amonas trudged onwards bearing Hilderich in tow and simply said:

  “Just be patient, Hilderich. We’re getting somewhere. The draught is getting stronger somehow.”

  It was indeed a matter of a few more minutes spent in silence and awe, before they reached a sullen, gloomy opening with a single column of light shattering the darkness. It illuminated a blocky metal or stone artifact, its surface a mirror with a bronze-like sheen. Amonas was astounded to see his image reflected on that surface, even while there was still a wide gap of shadow between them and the artifact. Hilderich noticed Amonas had paused and asked him in what seemed to be a worrisome voice:

  “Why did you stop? Is something th
e matter? What do you see? I only see blackness.”

  Amonas replied while still measuring their distance and looking at the block of stone, a monolith of sorts. His voice was a low whisper, like a man fearful of awakening something terrible:

  “There’s this block made of something like stone, metal, or glass. Something like the rest of what this place is built from, but not quite so. It can.. See me. Through the darkness. My reflection is right there.”

  Hilderich went silent with thought after Amonas’ answer. Amonas waited for Hilderich to make a remark or perhaps give him some advice, but he said nothing. Amonas said then, with some reticence:

  “I’ll just walk over there. If it was dangerous it wouldn’t have let us in, would it?”

  Hilderich answered with some uncertainty trailing his words:

  “That would be quite illogical, so I’d have to agree with your.. assessment.”

  Hilderich coughed right before the last word, pain traveling up his throat. It felt as if it was about to choke him, his lungs burning. He was almost used to the pain now, but that did not make things any easier for him.

  Amonas did not reply but simply headed for the bright area where the monolith stood, the reflection of him on its surface beginning to look somewhat strange. He noticed it did not reflect the harness or the bulk of Hilderich that should have been visible. The reflection did not seem to grow larger the closer he came to the stone. It seemed to be the same size as Amonas all along, from when he noticed it first. He thought to himself he should be feeling wary by now, but all he felt was puzzlement and a keen sense of interest. Fear had not crossed his mind, which was either a good sign, or extremely stupid of him. If they were in danger, he had no such notion.

  Hilderich was mysteriously silent, but then again his injuries made it that difficult to speak his mind. As Amonas would’ve thought, he should have been talking constantly since they had entered the pyramid, especially now with this intriguing artifact laid out before them. Hilderich then took him by surprise when he said:

  “Tell me. What do you see on the stone?”

  Light was shining down on them, bright and white, but not hurtful to the eyes. As if it poured from around them; not from the ceiling of this chamber or cavern the size of which they could not properly assess. They had noticed no echoes whatsoever, and their eyes could not see beyond the illuminated area around the monolith. They could be anywhere. Amonas responded, offering a simple description to Hilderich:

  “It’s about twice my height, and about three feet. It looks black, but that’s not exactly right. It gives off the feeling of glass, and has a bronze sheen. I can see my reflection on it imperfectly, like what it would look like through a thick sheet of cheap glass. I look somewhat deformed, a honey-like hue on my image.”

  Hilderich took a few moments to digest that information, and asked Amonas again:

  “Do you see me in that reflection? Shouldn’t you be seeing me?”

  “I don’t. I think not even the harness is visible. But I can see myself talking, waving an arm and such. It’s uncanny, I’ll admit. Like someone is standing there. Mocking me.”

  Hilderich shuffled where he lay, and said to Amonas:

  “Please, help me stand. I need to have a good look.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We’re only wasting time. If I need to make some observations, I need to do them myself. Please.”

  Amonas then lowered Hilderich carefully and undid the ropes. He unclasped the wood on Hilderich’s back, and offered Hilderich his hands. They embraced, and Amonas gave him a questioning nod. Hilderich nodded in acknowledgement, and Amonas pulled him upwards hard and fast so as to minimize the after-effects of splintered bone against Hilderich’s raw flesh. It didn’t work all that well and while Hilderich was gripping Amonas’ shoulders for support, he almost fainted from the stabbing pain; his cry seemed to split the silence inside the chamber in two, but still there was no echo. He shook his head as if trying to shake the pain away, and after a few more moments of shallow breathing he managed to stand on his own two feet. Slowly he turned around to look at the monolith himself, Amonas supporting him by his side.

  “You are right, it only reflects you. It’s as if I am non-existent, indifferent. Like it doesn’t recognize me. Like it.. only knows you.”

  “You are saying this thing could be thinking?”

  “I don’t know if that’s true but it, whatever it is, seems to be able to recognize, identify. Perhaps that’s all it does, its chief function. Like a guard, or a gatekeeper.”

  Hilderich coughed somewhat hard, and flinched before spitting out a blob of bloodied sputum. To his amazement he saw it reach the floor and then seep through it, like it had been absorbed. A mere moment later Hilderich’s reflection appeared on the slab’s surface, as if it had always been there and simply no one had noticed. Amonas pointed and said:

  “How can that be? Suddenly it.. Why?”

  Hilderich’s gaze was locked were he had spat.

  “My blood. It tasted my blood. It knows me now as well.”

  “And how did it get to ‘know’ me as you put it? I did not bleed.”

  “How did you open the entrance?”

  “I used the keystone. I pressed it and it went inside the stone half-way. Then I just touched it and it was gone, like the stone had sucked it inside.”

  “It seems it did. You touched the stone, and then this place knew you. I certainly do not know how and it does sound like magic or what most people would call ‘divine powers’, but it must be some kind of elaborate ancient technology. I knew it wasn’t just a myth, but I had never imagined it would still be around; certainly not in working condition. And not at this scale.”

  Amonas glanced upwards frowning and then spent a few moments surveying the darkness, the light, and the monolith before saying:

  “But where is this place? Where have we been for the last few days? If it is ancient technology, what is it doing here? Where is here, Hilderich?”

  “Do you really wish to know, Amonas? We could stay and find out. Investigate. It would be a singular chance in man’s history.”

  Hilderich’s voice hinted at genuine passion and untold possibilities, real enthusiasm in his voice. Amonas looked him in the eyes sternly and dispassionately, almost coldly:

  “No. We are going back. You can stay if you want but you won’t get far like that.”

  Hilderich nodded painfully with a grin and said:

  “I was only thinking out loud. I want to go back Amonas. I have a job to do, I haven’t forgotten about that.”

  “Well then, focus at going back. What now? Any ideas?”

  Hilderich spared a few moments of thought and then with some reluctance in his voice asked Amonas:

  “Could you perhaps, touch it?”

  “What should I expect if I do?”

  “Nothing awful has happened so far, I’d think that nothing awful will. Of course, there’s always the possibility something really awful happens eventually.”

  “So, I just touch it and see?”

  “Well, yes. Like with the keystone.”

  “Alright.”

  Amonas touched the monolith without letting go of Hilderich and they vanished in an instant, their shapes horribly deformed and twisted right before a final flash of light made them disappear. Not an echo of them remained in the silent, dark chamber.

  They were comfortably seated in a white nondescript couch, in what would more or less pass as a commoner’s room with a small table, also white in color. The predominant color of their surroundings was in fact, white, and all around them, an emptiness seemed to stretch. It was impossible to discern between sky or ceiling and the ground, since everything around was white.

  There was no visible source of light but everything was softly lit, the white objects around them like the couch and the small low table casting the faintest of shadows. The effect was strangely enough, not disconcerting or disorienting. It all felt quite normal to them, ev
en soothing. Part of their minds screeched in horror for it could not comprehend how they had ended up in this friendly but evidently inconceivable place.

  The better part of their minds though, decided to just feel comfortable for a change and perhaps worry about such things and details later. Hilderich was feeling much better, being able to move his arms and torso without feeling any pain. No bloody coughs either, no sunburns, and no dehydration. He was actually feeling quite fit, fitter than ever. He felt he could run a hundred miles without breaking a sweat.

  Amonas, who was sitting beside him was similarly in the best of shapes, feeling well beyond normalcy. He turned around to look at Hilderich who was still checking their surroundings and making sure with his hands that his ribs were in place just as he felt they were. Amonas took notice of Hilderich’s much improved state, and simply said:

  “You look better. I look better. This place is, great. I have a nagging sensation though this is extremely strange.”

  “I have that feeling too. I actually think I can hear my voice in my head screaming loudly in protestation that we shouldn’t be here.”

  A voice from nowhere interjected suddenly, vibrant and warm, but somewhat stilted:

  “I should be fixing that. Strong residual harmonics in the transitional field transmogrification phase. The effect should diminish soon enough.”

  Amonas reaction was immediate:

  “Who is this? Show yourself! Where are we?”

  Hilderich remained silent. The voice was heard once more:

  “The question is odd, but I am required to answer, indeed inclined to indulge your questioning nature. So, to answer in the same order: ’I’ am part of a vast network of hyper-dimensional computational self-aware matrices that effectively keep this whole world running. You could call me avatar, or thing, if you like, but that would only make this conversation even less intelligent. I do not have anything to show to you as ’myself’, since what you could call my genuine physical form is a hyper-dense cloud of matter in an amorphous plasma state. If I did, you could possibly distinguish a small prickle of light the size of a hairpin. I like to dispense with physical form whenever possible, I find it serves no purpose other than easing the fears of fairly primitive cerebral cortices like yours. And to answer your third question, you could be said to exist inside the buffer matrix of the conveyance sub-system of Support.”

  Amonas looked at Hilderich frowning intensely, as if he had understood almost nothing of what he had been told while Hilderich was somehow able to make sense of everything. Hilderich returned him a wide-eyed look that brought down Amonas’ hopes crashing.

  “I can see you are perplexed. More like dumbfounded, actually. I can explain some things if you like, others I literally cannot. Some will prove unfathomable to you even if I do explain in length. I believe we do have some time available until the next conveyance.”

  Hilderich looked upwards as if addressing God when he spoke next:

  “The next conveyance? Could it be that you are talking about the fiery ball that overpasses the pyramid?”

  “Your choice of words is surprisingly pertinent, though very crude indeed. Yes, I am talking about the conveyance of a highly energized, large mass, extra-dimensional inner space self-contained plasma-propelled atmospheric ballast vehicle.”

  Hilderich looked as if he wanted to learn everything at once, his face almost split from the effort of containing his thoughts and questions. He managed to ask once more, while Amonas walked around the small white space that surrounded them:

  “So it is a vehicle? I had been right all along! Amonas, we’re going home!”

  Amonas turned and grinned, and was about to say something when the voice chimed in:

  “Well, I happen to know the centron is devoid of human habitations, so I can safely conclude that you are mistaken. You will not be going home.”

  Amonas looked at Hilderich with shock and indignation and then shouted vaguely outward, at the unseen entity that had been talking to them for the past few minutes:

  “We will be prisoners no more! We demand to return to our home! You, with your ancient technology will certainly be able to accommodate such a want. We will pay in whatever acceptable currency you demand, if that is necessary. If you are in league with the Patriarch, we will buy back our lives if needs be.”

  The voice sounded as if it sniggered, and it then added:

  “Pay? Currency? Primitive indeed. You are not prisoners of any kind, you are merely being conveyed. All conveyance is to the centron, there is no other destination. If you will, it is a design limitation. It is not within my powers to alter that. You are going to the centron, that is why you entered the Pylon. Or maybe not. Well, you had the pass, so I had to comply. Really, you had no idea what you were doing? Fascinating. Hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  Hilderich looked like he was suddenly drawn by something the voice had said. He asked with some degree of meticulousness, carefully, slowly:

  “By pass, you must mean the keystone. What happened to it?”

  “Oh, the pass will re-materialize integrally when you do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it is quite uncommon to walk around with a physical form of the pass. I understand it could be stolen, lost, even destroyed under certain circumstance. So, as is the usual case, I took the liberty of reintegrating it in your helix inside your bodies, at the cellular level. Much more practical that way.”

  Amonas hands went to his heart and stomach instinctively, as he was indeed looking like he was searching for the keystone to jut out from some awkward place. He shouted in anger:

  “You put it inside us? What kind of devilry is this? Why not kill us outright and be done with us!”

  Hilderich grabbed him by the arm and looked him in the eye, feeling his rush and white hot anger pouring out of his eyes. He tried to calm him:

  “Amonas, it’s alright. I think. It’s not there as the keystone itself. I think he means that it is now part of us. We are the keystone. We are a keystone each, I believe.”

  Amonas looked at Hilderich wide-eyed, in a further show of disbelief. He gasped but could not speak a word. The voice continued:

  “You really come from a primitive civilization. I rarely keep account of events on the outer shell but I was certain that at some point there was some quite advanced civilization active. No matter, millenia pass along so quickly when there’s not much to do.”

  Hilderich asked then, his mind trying to focus on what he should be asking next, the unknowns branching off each other like a mystic tree, the questions gnawing at him vying to be voiced first:

  “You said we exist in a buffer matrix, a system, something like that. What did you mean?”

  “Right. It will be difficult for you to follow, perhaps you’ll think I’ve stolen your souls. Your friend will surely do. Well this place with the white furniture and all that light, it doesn’t look very realistic now, does it?”

  Both Hilderich and Amonas nodded, though Amonas face was slowly building up creases of anger and perhaps even wrath. He very much disliked being indirectly referenced and not spoken to, especially when he was present. The voice went on:

  “Well it’s not real. It is an energy grid field-inducing construct. Think of it as a temporary room for your minds. All this is in your mind: like a waking dream, for the sake of understanding. Your bodies are right now, non-existent. You have been disintegrated into a complete series of information. You have been thoroughly, digitally and quantically, deconstructed in order to be reconstructed at the place of your destination, which is the centron. The ballast vehicle will provide the actual transportation of the total information via quantum entanglement on board. Somehow ineffective, I know, but I did not design this system: I have to insist on that.”

  Hilderich was puzzled. Amonas was beyond puzzled and the total sum of unknown and impossible to believe or comprehend things had already overcome his tolerances. Instead of boiling in anger, he simply gave
up and let Hilderich do the talking since at least he seemed to understand some of what they were being told. He lay down on the couch and closed his eyes, as if he were about to sleep.

  “So you are telling us we have no bodies? That we have become something like ghosts? Or angels? Beings of pure energy and light?”

  “Ghosts and angels is definitely the wrong picture here: quaint, but wrong. Pure energy and light is kind of superfluous, so let’s just say light. Yes, right now you are made of light. Kind of.”

  “Is that somehow similar to how the pillar of light that brought us here in the first place works like?”

  There was a small pause, as if the voice took a while to gestate what it had been asked, like it found the answer difficult or somehow restricted.

  “I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  Hilderich swung around to look at Amonas, who had now opened his eyes and was looking back at Hilderich, exchanging glances of disapproval and disbelief.

  Hilderich insisted:

  “The white pillar of light that brought us to this world of yours? Somewhere in the opposite direction of the sun? A small crest overlooking the forests?”

  “Perhaps you are confused. What world of mine are you talking about? Ah, perhaps you are referring to the service matter transference beams. I can see that could be interpreted as such, yes. Yes, it does work quite the same way. Though these service beams do not have a buffer matrix. You simply pop in, and pop out the other way. Instant. While in here time is a.. ooh, will you look at the time. Well, enough talking. Pleasure to be of assistance, though I’d have hoped for a brighter conversation.”

  The voice stopped, and suddenly the scenery around them became dark. Amonas was no longer lying down on a couch and he felt he was floating in mid-air, the darkness around him all-consuming. He called out to Hilderich, but no answer came. In an instant he saw a flashing bright well of swaths of light passing by him in horrific speeds. He could not see his hands; indeed he felt disembodied, unable to move. The well shot past him and now he was looking at a little bright pin prickle of blue light, like a lonely star at night. Before he could clearly see what it was, it came rushing at him and filled his entire field of vision, shards of ice piercing his every sense. A blue-white hot light engulfed him then, as if it was ready to devour him whole. He tried to shield himself, turning his back around and running. But he was more than unable. He had no body to flee with, and that was the last thought he could remember.