The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4)

by Zen, Raeden

  She squeezed his hands and saw nothing, for a hood covered his head. A man gave Zorian instructions. Isabelle didn’t sense fear within him as he moved, only excitement. When the hood lifted, she gasped. Men and women ate and laughed and drank and carried children in their arms. They sang and danced, as if over her grave. Her nostrils flared, and in this, Zorian’s surreal world of the Beimeni Polemon, the mythic Blackeye Cavern that had eluded her for so long, she felt anger rise within her like never before.

  Zorian’s hands thudded the table where she dropped them. The lace cloth lifted over the food with the wind. “How long have they been there?” she said. “How shallow have they gone? Don’t they realize what they risk? If Reassortment seeps—” She checked herself, lest her rage enable Zorian to gain access to her consciousness, the way his younger brother Hans had when she’d interrogated him in the Department of Peace. Damn these Selendias, damn them all to the Lower Level!

  A waiter bot came by to fix the tablecloth.

  “How the hell should I know?” Zorian said, his feet now crossed upon the table’s edge, his hands behind his head. “All that matters, my lady, is that they’re there now, right above your snout—”

  She grabbed the bot with her mind and threw it off the roof. There was a long quiet moment, followed by screams and a crash below. The Opeans dining around them froze midbite. Zorian put his feet on the ground.

  Isabelle stood and tore off her wig.

  “Not. For long.”

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Oriana Barão

  Alpinia City

  Marshlands, Underground East

  2,500 meters deep

  Oriana dreamed of the forest and pond near the Candidate Beach. Nathan and she had returned there often during free time. He took off her clothes and called her beautiful, like he had on the first day of classes. He dropped his bathing suit, and they slipped into the water. He squeezed her butt, lifted her, and kissed her. His mouth tasted like Dunamisian chocolate, the dessert he’d fed her before the first time they made love.

  Oriana moaned when she felt his fingers on her sex, then his manhood inside her. When she opened her eyes, she gasped.

  “My gods,” Oriana said. “Gaia?”

  Blood drenched Gaia’s curly hair, dripping down her cheeks and neck, over her breasts. “Stupid cunt.”

  Gaia looked down. Oriana did too. Rather than Nathan’s manhood, a carbyne sai cut deep into her. Gaia removed the sai and Oriana’s blood rushed into the pond.

  Oriana screamed.

  Gaia laughed and punched her with the blunt end of her sai.

  Oriana fell underwater.

  She blinked and coughed, coming to. Her neck was sore. She rolled it and found she was lying in water, her cheek against a stone. She felt her sex, then looked at her forefingers, relieved when she saw dripping water rather than blood. She sighed. Sitting up, she threw her soaked hair away from her face and protected her eyes. The river steamed in the terracotta Granville sun.

  A flock of ravens flew above an alloyed sculpture of a man’s head, submerged up to his nose, lichen around his ears. A crown crested his head with scythes that crossed over birds in flight, and his brow looked thick, the alloy darkened along the wrinkled creases of his cheeks. She heard noises. It sounded like crickets. She turned. The roots of the trees spread between the rocks, the trunks thick with moss and algae. The forest smell pleased her until something brushed against her leg. She started, pushing herself out of the water, then looked down. Her bodysuit had ripped along her left leg and up the side of her body. Her hands slipped off a stone, and she splashed in the warm water.

  Where am I? Oriana thought. Is this real?

  A fish jumped out of the water in front of the sculpture.

  Oriana extended her consciousness. She flipped through hundreds of riddles. A coin toss. A mathematical mystery. A magician. A bridge-crossing at night. She stopped there. What about a bridge?

  “Lady Parthenia,” Oriana said, “what is this?”

  No response.

  She trudged through the wet sand and seaweed and onto the shore.

  “Lord Thaddeus?”

  The only reply came from bullfrogs croaking in the weeds. She limped up the stones and to a ridge along the hill, surrounded by oak trees with trunks as thick as the domes in Halcyon Village. Was this the VR? Everything looked and felt so solid around her, and wounds never stung quite like this in the simulator.

  “Who goes there?” a man said, his voice deep and breathy, unfamiliar to Oriana.

  She lost her balance and dropped to her knee, her hand upon the rough limestone ground.

  A pair of men stood before her in the dark uniforms and silver belts of the Marshlands Citadel Guard. The one on the left had a beak of a nose. He pointed a scanner at her, and a neon blue grid spread over her. It focused on her eyes.

  “Oriana Barão?” said the guard.

  She blinked and nodded.

  The guards exchanged a look.

  “The minister seeks your presence.”

  The guard on the right injected her with uficilin. She threw her head back and lost her balance, the relief spreading from her head to her toes. The guard caught her and cuffed her.

  “What’re you doing?” Oriana said.

  The guard didn’t answer her. He led her onto a carbyne boat large enough to fit six transhumans. Its engine purred, and they broke through the calm stream that weaved through the forest and cliffs, down the waterway until the city opened before Oriana. It looked ethereal, with white pillars, white buildings, white skywalks, white sculptures of the Twin Gods of the Cosmos, a nude man and woman intertwined. They neared the white marble buildings, several topped by polished domes. They passed a massive white gargoyle with wings extended, water flowing from its open mouth into the stream. Upon their approach to the largest of the domed buildings, two white lions stared at her, their tails wrapped around their bodies, their teeth bared, their manes shards of minerals upon their necks.

  They neared a gate. Oriana’s captor stroked his beard and spoke to the guardsman at the gate in a language Oriana didn’t understand. The guard unlocked a mechanism that stirred the water, and the bars submerged. “We have the renegade candidate,” the bearded guardsman said in Beimenian.

  Renegade candidate? Oriana extended her consciousness again and flipped through her schedule: training with Pasha in a Cretaceous jungle, cardiovascular fitness upon the Earth’s moon of a thousand years ago, earth science and history of four billion years, molecular, biological, and mechanical engineering, Beimeni history, and Trimester Trek. Trimester Trek, she thought, and the visions swept over her like the waterfalls beneath the archways of Alpinia City Citadel. A transport whizzed along a nearby maglev track. A group of scientists in white bodysuits and transparent lab coats laughed as they ambled over a skywalk. Oriana turned here and there. Alpinia City. Trimester Trek. Nathan Storm. Oh no, no, no. Where’s Nathan? Where’s Pasha? She tried to connect to them through Marstone but couldn’t.

  Her mouth felt so dry, her head so light, her body so lethargic. “What day is it?” she asked.

  The guardsmen ignored her and led her up the steps to the citadel, where morning rush hour brought workers in droves. Inside, the sunlight broke through skylights. Rubies glistened along the walls. They reached a landing, from which the golden steps continued up, strewn with white rose petals. At the top, beneath a chiseled stone sign that read GALLERY OF THE MINISTER, Noria Furongielle sat cross-legged upon a golden pad embroidered with vines and flowers, a white tiger on either side. Two shirtless members of her guard, as well sculpted as the lions at the entrance, loomed beside the tigers.

  The minister stood. Oriana struggled to keep her mouth from falling open. White rose petals layered Noria Furongielle’s body from the waist up, spiraling around her neck, over her perfect breasts, and down her back, melding into the design of a prim white chiffon skirt that dangled to her bare feet. A ruby hung from a silver chain around her neck.

  “Let me
look at you,” the minister said.

  The guardsmen forced Oriana closer.

  Noria reached toward her. Oriana twitched. She had never seen a woman so regal and as beautiful as Minister Furongielle, and she wanted nothing more than to run back home to House Summerset.

  “You have nothing to fear here, child.” Noria touched Oriana’s hair. “Oh my, you look just like him …”

  “Why … pardon, my lady, but why did your guardsmen bring me here? They said you wanted to see me?”

  “Do you not remember your dive off the side of the Seaborne Bridge?”

  Oriana remembered Urelayura Hall and Lady Isabelle and nearly one hundred riddles, but she didn’t remember … a bridge. “Where’s my brother …”

  “Pasha.”

  Oriana stepped back. “And Nathan and Desaray and …” She found she couldn’t say Duccio’s name aloud, which was odd. “My team, where’s my team?” She accessed the ZPF and attempted to call Pasha and Nathan through Marstone again. Again, no response. “I can’t reach them.” She stepped forward. “Please, Minister, will you let them know where I am?”

  “Calm your nerves, child. Your team, less your twin, left the city long ago. They reported you missing.”

  “Did they win?”

  “Afraid not, child, but that shouldn’t concern you—”

  “I’m in trouble for this, aren’t I?”

  “You’re lucky you’re alive. Two meters to your left and you might’ve crashed into a boulder. Uficilin heals, athanasia reverses age, but neither can breathe life into the dead.”

  Noria spoke to her half-nude guardsmen in that unfamiliar language. They bowed and slipped behind a row of heavy curtains. A warm breeze wafted behind them, carrying delicious sweet and savory aromas. Oriana’s stomach growled.

  “I don’t remember diving off a bridge.”

  “Do you remember your plan to break into my citadel’s archive?”

  Oriana felt the blood drain from her face. “No … I wouldn’t—”

  “You would, and now you will take my hand and follow me into my garden.”

  The tigers sniffed Oriana and purred, then hopped on top of their feather beds. Noria’s fingers felt as soft as cashmere. She led Oriana outside, through a tunnel made of waterfalls, into a large garden cove. White petals adorned the walkway, and pink ferns with dark stems dotted the grounds. Pink trees and leaves grew upside down from the ceiling, drawn to ultraviolet plating hanging from chains. Steam rose up from the waterfalls and spread throughout the cove. Noria pulled one of the leaves down to Oriana. “Feel this.”

  Oriana slid the fern between her thumb and forefinger. It was slippery and hard, like the rocks she’d climbed over when she’d awakened near the sculpture in the stream.

  “They’re prehistoric plants, brought back to life by your mother, a gift to … her sister.”

  Oriana put her hand to her mouth. “Sister …” She wanted to cry.

  “Sister-in-development, but a sister by any Beimeni standard … and a good friend.” Noria brushed Oriana’s cheeks with the back of her hand and felt her hair. “She’d be proud of you, the transhuman woman you’ve grown into, so graceful, brilliant, and strong.” Oriana felt as if Noria’s gaze penetrated her consciousness.

  Noria handed her one of the reddish-pink fern leaves. “It must be difficult, knowing you’ll never meet your mother. The Harpoons are pressure enough without such stresses. On the bridge, I hope you didn’t try to …”

  “Kill myself?” Oriana gasped. “Gods, no—”

  “Then you did seek to swim here, to my citadel, to break into my archive.”

  “No, that wasn’t my plan. I would—”

  “Win the Trek first? Sneak past my guard?” Noria chuckled. “Sweet child, you wouldn’t have gotten past the first level.”

  Oriana turned as red as a Halcyon sunrise and looked to the pink plants as if she could hide among them.

  “Your developers have already arrived and wait with your brother in our guest suite.”

  Oriana held back her tears. “I’ve ruined our chances, haven’t I?”

  “No, no, the Trek is a bit of fun, not at all what you’ll experience the day of the Harpoons.”

  “We lost because of me!” Oriana swiped her damp hair away from her face. “Because of me …” She squeezed the fern leaf in her palm.

  Marstone hears all through the zeropoint field, she thought, and Lady Isabelle hears all through Marstone. “What did Lady Isabelle tell you?”

  “She’s worried about you.”

  “She’s wrong—”

  “She, like I, wonder why on this phantom Earth you would break into an archive in a citadel.”

  Oriana didn’t hedge her words. “The Summersets hate me! They won’t tell me what happened to my parents—”

  “Did they tell you that your mother and I were developed under the same dome as you and your blood brother?” Oriana’s mouth opened wide, but neither words nor air escaped. “Come, sweet child,” Noria held Oriana’s hand and patted it tenderly as they walked, “let me tell you all about your mother.”

  The guest suite entrance cleared with a snap, and on the other side stood the Summersets, Lady Parthenia in a golden gown with a lace scarf, Lord Thaddeus in a gray fur-lined cape tied with leather straps over his broad belly. Pasha played holographic chess with one of the lord’s keeper bots. He stirred when he saw Oriana, but Lady Parthenia ran to her first and hugged her.

  “I’m so glad you’re safe.” To the minister, Parthenia said, “We thank you for your hospitality, and for finding our sweet Oriana. May we have a moment with our daughter-in-development?”

  “As you wish, madam,” Noria said coldly. She rubbed the ruby on her chest. “Lady Isabelle expects you will have the twins back in their house of development by nightfall.”

  “We shall.”

  When the opaque entrance closed behind Noria, Lady Parthenia dropped Oriana’s hands and slapped her. “Are you out of your mind?” The lady’s face twisted with rage.

  Oriana breathed deep and felt the sting in her raw cheeks. “I hate you,” she said quietly.

  “We’ve done all we can for you since the day of your birth,” Parthenia said, hands on hips. “This is how you repay us? Breaking into a citadel? Has underground living cracked you?”

  “Leave her alone,” Pasha said.

  “We’ll get to you soon enough,” Lord Thaddeus said. “Now keep your mouth shut and listen for once.”

  Oriana turned away from Parthenia. “I won’t go back with you.”

  “Do you know who contacted us today?”

  “I know it wasn’t my parents—”

  “Your parents asked us to develop you.”

  Oriana clenched her fists. “And did they tell you to strike us and yell at us and lie to us!” Oriana knew she took this too far. The pain was evident in Lady Parthenia’s eyes.

  Good, she thought. Let her hurt. Let her cry.

  “Noria told me all the things I’ve been asking you for so long!” Oriana gripped her elbows against her chest.

  “Did she?” Thaddeus said.

  Oriana glared at him. “And she told me you lied to her about her potential and that she didn’t perform in the Harpoons as well as Mother because you held her back—”

  “Noria was jealous of your mother from the first day of development,” Parthenia said.

  “She told me you’d say that.”

  “You can’t believe a word she says,” Thaddeus said.

  “She told me you’d say that.”

  “What did she tell you about Mother?” Pasha said.

  “Oh no,” the lady said, “you two are in enough trouble as it is, and it’ll be all we can do to save you—”

  “We’re not developing with you any longer,” Oriana said.

  “You cannot switch once you’ve been assigned,” the lord said, “but since you’re so eager to leave the house, let’s talk about what happened near the Redstone Dragon.” Pasha covered his
mouth. “Let’s talk about your attack on the Janzers—”

  “Why don’t we talk about my parents instead,” Oriana said, “about the Bicentennial and the Dream Forest, about how my mother broke my father’s heart and how her lover killed her—”

  “Your mother weeps with the gods,” Parthenia said, her eyes welling up. “You know not what you say.”

  “Your mother would never condone your actions,” Thaddeus added. He looked to Pasha. “Or your tone or your disrespect of the developers who seek to help you more than you could possibly imagine. We who swore to protect you and guide you and see you to success in the all-important Harpoon Exams.”

  Oriana couldn’t stand the sight or sound of them any longer. She ran to the entrance, but it would not clear, it would not open.

  She pounded on the door. “Let me out!”

  Pasha approached her. “Oriana, calm down.”

  “I can’t! I won’t! You don’t know. Our father was a Harpoon Champion, a supreme scientist. Mother ruined him!”

  Pasha grabbed her and hugged her to him. Oriana cried into his chest.

  “Look here.” Lady Parthenia held a z-disk in her hand, whose contents she telepathically transferred to the Granville panel upon the wall. “Your behavior has led to scrutiny from the Office of the Chancellor.”

  Green neon words formed against a black background:

  ATTENTION: HOUSE SUMMERSET

  THE TREACHERY OF CANDIDATES UNDER YOUR TUTELAGE HAS BEEN NOTED BY MARSTONE AND BY THE OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR.

  THE HOUSE AND ITS CANDIDATES ARE HEREBY WARNED.

  TERMS OF THE WARNING:

  AN ADDITIONAL HUNDRED HOURS OF PREPARATION.

  A FOCUS ON ETHICS, RULES, AND REGULATIONS.

  SPECIAL SCRUTINY SHALL BE CAST UNTO CANDIDATES ORIANA BARÃO AND PASHA BARÃO.