Sky Key

by James Frey

  Only 7 meters.

  “I am sorry that you have had to endure so much so soon, Master al-Salt,” Vyctory sings, indicating Hilal’s wounds. “If things go well today, know that I can fix your appearance.”

  “That would be wonderful, lord.”

  Six meters.

  Five.

  This is it.

  Hilal moves his thumbs over the hoods of the snake-headed canes.

  It will be quick. It will be very quick.

  Vyctory smiles and smiles, his mouth growing grotesquely long, as if his face has the ability to stretch like a comic-strip superhero’s. His fingers stretch too, and he nods, and he puffs his chest.

  Come, his movements say. Come to me and bask.

  They are three meters apart. Two.

  But just as Hilal is about to bring the canes to life and let them attack, the Nethinim kick the canes out from the floor. He falls onto his knees. Each Nethinim claps a hand on one of Hilal’s shoulders and forces him down, while, with their free hands, they bend forward and grab the canes and twist them out of Hilal’s strong grip.

  Hilal’s fingers spread on the floor.

  The canes remain wooden as they splay over the marble. The snakes will not appear or attack.

  Subotic does nothing. She has betrayed him. Or perhaps, in order to maintain her cover indefinitely, she simply cannot help.

  Vyctory grabs Hilal under the chin and squeezes so hard that Hilal can’t talk. It is excruciating.

  “Did you really think that you could fool me? I taught men how to lie in the dark days of antiquity!”

  “Uhr,” Hilal manages through clenched teeth.

  “Quiet, Aksumite. I heard everything you said to Rima. I only allowed you in here so I could witness your patheticness firsthand, and so I could see this ‘prize’ you’ve brought to me.”

  Hilal says nothing.

  “I don’t know why, but I pity you.” Vyctory spits the words. “I will make your end quick, when the time comes. And it will come shortly.”

  Vyctory releases Hilal’s chin, and the Nethinim grasp his wrists and pull them up and back, torquing his arms unnaturally in their sockets. His torso pitches forward, and the side of his face slams into the floor so that in order to see any part of Vyctory besides his feet Hilal has to strain his neck and roll up his eyes.

  Vyctory: “Show me this prize of his, Rima.”

  Subotic tosses the ancient device through the air. It claps into Vyctory’s hand. He gives an impressed-sounding whistle. “My, my. This is an old piece of tech. I have one just like it somewhere. Do you know what this is, al-Salt? What its intended use was?”

  “Stuffing up your backsides?”

  “Hmph. I don’t appreciate the human inclination to vulgarity in times of duress, al-Salt.”

  “In truth, neither do I.”

  “Then shut up and tell me what you think it was for.”

  “It was for this, for finding you. Like an alarm housed in a glass box: break in case of emergency.”

  Vyctory shuffles his feet. “No. This is what Moses used to converse with my cousins on their ships before they all—or mostly all—abandoned this sorry corner of the galaxy. As you know, the ark was thought to be a kind of transmitter—the mercy seat, the cherubim, the gold-leafed box of shittah wood—but it was just for show. This was the real transmitter. It’s what they gave Moses, and it’s what he used during his forty days on top of Sinai to talk to his god.”

  Hilal would scoff at this blasphemy if he didn’t know the truth of the world.

  And this is the truth.

  “Were you able to converse with the one up there now?” Vyctory asks.

  Hilal’s shoulders burn; his knees are like pins pushing into the marble. He tries to reposition himself to get just a little more comfortable. The Nethinim tighten their grip and punish him for it.

  “No,” Hilal manages.

  “Do you know why you were not able to do this?”

  “No.”

  “Because you are not Moses, Aksumite. You are nothing but a Player.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m a Player who nearly got close enough to kill you, Master Ea.”

  “Kill me? What ancient books have you been diddling? The only one that tells the real truth is right over there, on that stand. It has all the knowledge of antiquity in it. All of it—plus your Makers’ rules for Endgame. The rules you’ll never see or know.”

  “Thank you for letting my eyes rest on it, then, master. If even for a moment.”

  “Bah, I am tired of you, but I am glad you brought me this. I will use it to talk to my cousins when their ships next visit this corner of the cosmos, which should be soon.” He looks at the Nethinim. “Kill him.”

  Vyctory spins on his heel. One of the Nethinim moves his hand from Hilal’s shoulder to his nape.

  An unexpected calmness washes over Hilal. One way or another, it is all about to end. This is his last chance. “Don’t you want to know how I was going to kill you?” he asks.

  Vyctory stops. The Nethinim pause.

  “I was going to get close enough to drive one of my ancient canes—handed down from before the days of D’mt and Ezana and Na’od and even Menelik, held by each Aksumite Player’s hands—I was going to drive one through your mouth and throat and gut. And with the other I was going to impale you through your chest. I was going to make the sign of the cross inside you, and burn your Maker essence out, and cast it away forever and ever. That was how I was going to kill you, Ea. That was how.”

  Lies. But with the threat of imminent death giving him strength, Hilal makes them sound completely truthful.

  Vyctory laughs through his nose. He spins back to Hilal. “The sign of the cross? Has your line learned nothing over the millennia? Signs only have meaning because meaning is ascribed to them. It is all falsehood, Aksumite!” Hilal can practically hear Vyctory shaking his head. “I am glad Endgame is finally here and all of these lines will be wiped out. Yours especially. There is nothing worse than someone who is initiated but who still clings to some shred of belief.”

  “Perhaps. But I was at least going to try to kill you. That is more than any others of my line have done since the year 1200.”

  “And the same thing will happen to you that happened to her. You will try and you will fail. Canes, Rima! Can you understand it?”

  “No, master. I cannot,” Subotic says hollowly.

  “Nor I. Show them to me, Jael,” Vyctory says, finally naming the other Nethinim.

  Yes, Hilal thinks.

  He closes his eyes and says a silent prayer.

  Yes.

  His heart slows. His breath evens out.

  Jael lets go of Hilal and picks up the canes, and Hilal is able to relax a little. He sees Ea reach out for the rods of Aaron and Moses, a scowl on his face.

  Yes.

  As soon as Ea graces them, they change and the snakes surge forward. The device drops to the floor and slides away. Jael reaches after the serpents, but the snake that was the Rod of Moses is too fast. It dives straight into Vyctory’s gaping mouth and disappears in a fraction of a second, going down and in. The other, the one that was the Rod of Aaron, wraps three times around Vyctory’s neck and squeezes, its hood flared, its fangs dripping and stabbing in lightning strikes at Vyctory’s face. Vyctory raises his hands to his neck, trying to work his fingers into the snake’s coil. Jael tries to do this too, but it is simply too strong.

  Kaneem, equally shocked, loosens his grip just enough for Hilal to shift his weight under his body, flop onto his back, and sweep the guard’s feet from under him. He drops to the floor, right next to Hilal, who raises his elbow and strikes at Kaneem’s Adam’s apple.

  But he is fast, and he catches Hilal’s arm before his throat is crushed. Hilal jabs Kaneem with his other hand and breaks three ribs. Hilal can hear Vyctory gasp and squeal as the Moses snake wends its way through his innards.

  Hilal jabs Kaneem again and again and again, breaking more ribs, and Kaneem lets g
o of Hilal’s elbow and Hilal raises it and brings it down into the Nethinim’s throat and everything inside his neck breaks and Kaneem is dead.

  Hilal hears the pad of Subotic’s shoes rushing toward the fray. He hears the slide of a pistol charging a round. He rolls. A shot rings out and glances off the marble and into one of the windows, causing it to spiderweb, but not break.

  She is shooting at Jael and at Vyctory.

  She did not betray him.

  Hilal vaults toward Jael and Vyctory as Subotic fires three quick shots, one striking Jael in the thigh. Hilal wishes she would stop and let the snakes do their job. He slides past Jael, snagging the machete marked LOVE, but he is not fast enough to corral the other one as well.

  Hilal comes to a stop and scurries around the back of a couch. He will let the snakes finish before confronting Jael.

  But as he listens to the struggle and to Vyctory gurgling and choking, he hears the words “Kill them both!”

  Hilal peeks over the top of the couch as Jael releases Vyctory and twirls around the glass tree. Subotic shoots again, and it breaks into a million shards of rainbowed colors.

  Jael hurls the other machete in that instant, the air full of glass, and Subotic barely reacts before the blade slices violently across her hip and stomach. The gun falls free, and both she and the blade crash to the floor. Her face drains of what little color it had.

  Hilal looks to Vyctory. Jael should confront Hilal now, but instead he turns his back and returns to Vyctory, his beloved master, who is in the final throes. Hilal sees the desperation in Jael’s actions as he fruitlessly tries to yank the snake free of Vyctory, but it is too strong.

  Hilal stands and stalks toward the pair. Vyctory sees Hilal approaching, and fire lights in his eyes, but Jael doesn’t catch it. When Hilal is less than a meter from Jael’s back, he raises his machete and makes two quick strikes across Jael’s shoulders, severing both arms. The blood flows, and Jael falls, and Hilal kicks him to the side with his feet.

  Hilal stands over Vyctory for several seconds. He is on his knees, his eyes full of fear. Hilal doesn’t smile, he doesn’t gloat, he doesn’t lick his lips in triumph.

  He just watches.

  Hilal places his machete’s curved end on Wayland Vyctory’s chest. The man grabs it with both hands, his face swollen with venom and purple with asphyxiation, little dots from the fangs on his face like bleeding freckles. He grips the blade tightly. Dark blood wells between his fingers. Hilal snaps his wrist 90 degrees, and Vyctory’s grip is loosened, the insides of his fingers skinned.

  Hilal pushes the man with his blade’s tip, and he falls back against the couch.

  Hilal lets the machete fall to his side. He feels suddenly exhausted.

  After five seconds the victim seizes and shudders and the legs go straight and Wayland Vyctory dies.

  His head falls back on the couch, the mouth open and motionless.

  The snake of Aaron comes free of the neck and sits on Vyctory’s chest. His Adam’s apple moves up and down and the mouth opens and the blue tongue spits out and the dark snake emerges. It rises four inches out of Vyctory’s mouth and looks around. When it sees the other snake’s tail, it takes it in its jaws and swallows it and then slithers all the way out of the dead man’s lips, sheened with blood and bile and mucus.

  “You have it?” Hilal asks eagerly.

  But for all its power, this ancient creature can’t answer. It is only a snake.

  Still, Hilal knows that it does have it. It has swallowed the alien seed that is Ea.

  As the snake of Moses gobbles up the other’s tail, the snake of Aaron looks around for the tail of its counterpart. When it finds it, it takes it in its mouth and swallows as well, forming a living, writhing, flopping, serpentine circuit that falls across Vyctory’s motionless chest.

  The pair works in unison to each consume the other, and to keep their prey contained.

  “The living ouroboros,” Hilal says quietly.

  When each snake reaches the midpoint of the other, they stop and become utterly still and rigid and slide down Vyctory’s chest and stomach and across his silk-covered thigh and to the floor with a clatter.

  They are wood again. They form a ring. The line on their inside a perfect circle, 20.955 centimeters in diameter.

  A circle.

  Like the clue that kepler 22b gave him.

  An end.

  A beginning.

  An orbit.

  A planet.

  A sun.

  A circle.

  A beginning.

  An end.

  The death prison of the thing called Ea.

  Never to be opened.

  Hilal slides the machete into the belt under his loose pants. Picks up the ring of snakes.

  It vibrates in his grip. Gently, pleasingly.

  He has done it.

  He has done it and he has lived.

  He inspects the object. It is simple, beautiful. The scales are perfectly rendered, the black eyes flecked with gold, the weight ideal. He slips it over his hand, and as soon as he does, the ring shrinks. He moves it to the center of his forearm, and the thing gets smaller and smaller until it presses comfortably into his skin.

  He will wear it. Guard it. Keep it.

  He slides it up his arm; it adjusts its girth. Over his elbow, his bicep, and to the muscular depression between his upper arm and his shoulder. The whole time it changes so that it fits exactly.

  He will wear it.

  Guard it.

  Keep it.

  Hilal turns from Vyctory’s vanquished body. Takes the device from the ark. Takes the brass elevator key from Kaneem. Walks toward the exit and stops by Rima Subotic. He assumed she was dead, but now he sees that she still breathes ever so slightly. Her eyes are vacant, and her arm is extended. Her lips quaver and move. Hilal kneels next to her. Takes her hand. Pushes sweaty hair out of her face. “Thank you, sister.”

  Her lips move. No sound.

  “I am sorry I could not save you.”

  Her lips move. No sound.

  “What is it?”

  “B . . . buh . . . buh . . .”

  Her eyes widen and Hilal spins and he sees it.

  The book.

  Hilal understands. “I will take it, sister. I will take it to Stella. Ea is dead. The Ancient Truth lives. Your death is noble, sister. So noble. Thanks be unto you.”

  A smile creases her lips. Her eyes close. Hilal bends and kisses her forehead. She dies. He picks up the other machete from the floor, the one marked HATE. He rises and takes the book from the stand. Pauses one last time by the body of Rima Subotic. Shakes his head.

  Rest, sister.

  He walks out of the room. Down the hall. Into the elevator. Turns the key. Goes down. Into the lobby. Nods at the clerk, Cindy. Out of the lobby. Walks north and east. A young injured man with a book and a million untold secrets.

  A proud, young, injured man.

  Who, in his way, is still Playing.

  He walks north and east.

  To Stella.

  MACCABEE ADLAI, BAITSAKHAN

  Calle Ucayali, Juliaca, Peru

  Maccabee and Baitsakhan sit in a Ford Escort taxi they bought right at the Juliaca airport with a single one-ounce piece of gold. Since the announcement of Abaddon, the price of precious metals has soared.

  Last they checked, gold was selling for $4,843.83 an ounce.

  Maybe a bit much for a beat-up Escort, but since it’s a local cab, and therefore completely inconspicuous, worth every single gram of the soft yellow metal.

  Maccabee is behind the wheel, Baitsakhan in the passenger seat. The sun has just dipped below the horizon, but both wear sunglasses: Maccabee a fine pair by Dolce & Gabbana, Baitsakhan a cheap pair of light-blue Wayfarer knockoffs that were in the Escort’s glove box.

  Maccabee looks like his face was run over by a motorcycle. It’s been several days since his thrashing by the Koori, and he’s definitely on the other side of the healing process, the side
that is less about pain and more about trying to feel normal again, but she really messed him up. If anyone ever thinks he’s handsome again, it will be because they like tough-looking dudes who’ve clearly been through a wringer.

  Which is just fine by Maccabee.

  Wedged between the dashboard and the top of the steering wheel is the orb, their Maker-tech tracker. Glowing faintly on its surface is the sign for the Olmec, the sign for the Cahokian.

  Maccabee and Baitsakhan are close.

  But they cannot go to their adversaries.

  Because it would be too dangerous.

  Both Players stare down a long road, brick buildings lining the street. Several blocks away is a cordon of black military vehicles, red talons painted on their hoods. The men are in black uniforms, some of them with their faces covered by balaclavas. All are heavily armed. They check everyone who tries to pass.

  They don’t let many pass.

  Both Players know what’s up that road.

  Jago Tlaloc.

  Sarah Alopay.

  Earth Key.

  Baitsakhan shakes a pill from a small plastic bottle and pops it in his mouth. Crunches it into a bitter powder, swallows it. Holds the bottle out to Maccabee.

  “Want one?”

  Maccabee takes a pill and swallows without chewing.

  They’ve been pounding antibiotics since leaving the flat in East Berlin. With Baitsakhan’s surgery and Maccabee’s wounds they can’t risk infection. Baitsakhan rests his feet on the dashboard. Taps his toes. Holds his bionic hand in front of his face, fans his fingers, closes them into a fist. He smiles. He thinks of the Koori, of how her muscle and bone gave way so effortlessly. Thinks of how her blood flowed over his digits. He loves his new, death-blessed hand.

  “How much longer?” Baitsakhan asks.

  “Don’t know.”

  “They can’t stay up there forever.”

  “We haven’t even been staking them out for two days, Baits.” On account of his wounds, Maccabee has to speak out of the right side of his mouth. His nasal passages are still inflamed. His voice is garbled and twangy.

  Baitsakhan punches an imaginary adversary in the air. “So?”

  Maccabee shakes his head. “They’ll come down. They have to. Even if they bring a small army with them, they’ll move. They’re going for the keys. They’re Playing.” Maccabee coughs. Winces. It hurts. “They’ll move,” he repeats.