The Cydonian Pyramid

by Pete Hautman

  “I still say we are too few,” Jonis said.

  “We have no more. Inge and her people are occupied setting up ambushes on the roads,” Song said. She was carrying the arma she had taken from the deacon in the convent along with a slingshot at her belt. Lia had a baton. Oro and Argent had knives, and Oro carried a steel bar with a chisel-shaped end. Jonis was lugging an ancient double-barreled shotgun. She had wanted to bring her satchel of books, but Song had made her leave it behind.

  “I want both of your hands on that gun,” Song said.

  Jonis snorted. “The shells in this beastly weapon are older than my great-grandmother’s great-grandmother. It may not fire at all.”

  “Our goal is to free the girls,” said Song. “If all goes according to plan, you may not need to test it.”

  Beetha, at the rear, was bent beneath the weight of a canvas backpack. Lia was not sure what was inside, but Beetha had lifted it onto her back with great delicacy.

  They reached an intersection in the passageway. Jonis took a map from her pocket and examined it with the aid of a hand torch. “We turn here.” They took the left-hand passage, which ended in a ceiling-to-floor pile of rubble. A dim yellow glow was visible coming through an opening at the top. Song climbed onto the rubble and peered through. She climbed back down and addressed Oro and Argent.

  “Time to put those fine shoulders to work,” she said to Oro.

  Oro attacked the rubble pile with his steel bar, working the broken stones out a chunk at a time. Lia stood by, trying to make sense of all that was happening. Only that morning, she had arrived in this nightmare version of Romelas, and now she was a member of some sort of platoon made up of Yars and farmers, working to overthrow the priests. Events were moving too quickly for contemplation. For good or ill, she was a part of it.

  Oro announced that he had an opening large enough to crawl through.

  “Wait here,” Song said. She climbed back up the rubble and shined her lamp through the gap, then crawled through to the other side. A few seconds later, they heard her voice telling them it was safe.

  Lia followed Song through the opening. The tunnel on the other side was illuminated by wall sconces every few yards, indicating its regular use. The smell of mold and hot wax took Lia back to her blood moon, when the priests had led her through this same passageway, her thoughts muddled by poppy tea.

  Beetha’s sons came through next. Beetha passed her pack through to Argent, cautioning him to treat it like “the last egg of the last chicken.” She wriggled through the gap and was followed by Jonis, whose ample buttocks presented a problem. Oro and Argent each grabbed an arm and pulled. Jonis popped through like a cork from a bottle.

  “You could have cleared away a few more stones,” Jonis said resentfully, brushing dust from her hips.

  “Or you could have enjoyed fewer empanadas,” said Beetha. Jonis glared at her.

  “Bicker later,” Song said over her shoulder as she strode off down the passageway. Moments later, they reached a chamber and the base of the coiled iron stairway that led straight up through the ceiling and eventually to the top of the pyramid. The last time Lia had climbed those stairs, she had been drugged.

  “Here?” Beetha asked.

  “Here,” said Song.

  Beetha opened her pack and began to arrange its contents on the chamber floor — cylindrical objects with colored wires attached. At first, Lia did not understand what she was seeing, but she saw how carefully Beetha was handling the cylinders. They looked like giant versions of the firecrackers Tucker and his friends had played with at Hardy Lake. Beetha concealed the cylinders beneath the bottom step, then attached the wires to the iron stairs.

  “Are those fireworks?” Lia asked.

  “It is called dynamite,” Beetha said. “It is very old, but we have tested it, and it works. There is enough here to completely destroy the staircase.”

  “So the priests will not be able to ascend . . . but won’t they just climb up from the outside?”

  “They won’t know until it’s too late.”

  Lia realized then what Beetha was saying. The staircase would not be the only thing destroyed in the explosion — their intent was to kill anyone who was on it as well.

  “What about the girls?” she asked.

  “We will get them out first,” said Song. “Are you ready, Beetha?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Song started up the stairs, followed by Oro and Argent.

  “Don’t you have to set fire to them?” Lia asked Beetha, thinking of the boys with their matches.

  “I have attached an ignition apparatus to the explosives.” Beetha held out an object that looked like a cell phone. “This Boggsian device activates the explosives. I just flip back the cover and press this button. The metal staircase will act as an antenna, transmitting the signal from the frustum down to here. Bang.”

  Beetha slung the empty pack over her shoulder and started up the winding staircase.

  Lia looked to Jonis for explanation. The plump librarian shrugged and joined the others on the stairs. Lia followed uneasily. The sound of multiple feet on the iron steps took her back to the first time she had been there — and to the same sense of helplessness and doom.

  From above, she heard the grinding of the altar sliding back from the opening.

  “Stay low,” Song said as she helped Lia out of the stairwell and onto the frustum. The stone on top was moist — it had rained, but the sky was clearing. The moon was a black hole in a field of stars, cupped by a faint paring of white. A light breeze carried with it the smell of wood smoke and wet ash.

  Bitte, the only remaining Gate, hummed and buzzed at the edge of the platform.

  Song shifted a lever at the base of the altar, and the stone slid back into place. Lia followed her to the edge of the platform opposite the temple. The others were waiting on the tier just below the frustum.

  “What now?” Lia asked.

  “Now we wait.”

  Below them, the zocalo was dark, deserted, and spotted with puddles.

  “It looks so peaceful,” Lia said.

  “The peace of the dead,” said Beetha, fondling the detonator. She turned to Song and said, “I do not know the range of this device. There’s a lot of stone between here and there. The signal may not be strong enough. I may have to get close to the staircase.”

  “Then that is what you must do,” Song said. “The priests will herd the girls up the stairwell to the top. They may send a few of the deacons first, but the priests themselves will come last. They will not risk exposing themselves any longer than necessary — it is their nature. Once the girls are out, we act while the priests are yet inside. If all goes well, we will have to deal only with a few deacons.”

  If all goes well. When had all ever gone well? Lia stared across the deserted zocalo. She could see the unlit convent, and the colonnade leading to the Palace of the Pure Girls. The priest’s temple, on the opposite side of the zocalo, was not visible. It occurred to her that she might die here. She had cheated death on the frustum once. Perhaps fate would favor her again.

  Argent, sitting next to her, smelling of man sweat, whispered to Lia, “Is it true that the mad Yar eats bugs?”

  Lia nodded. “And worse,” she whispered back. “But Song listens to her.”

  “My mother says the bugs give her visions.”

  “I think she is mad even without the bugs,” Lia said.

  Time passed slowly. Argent began humming quietly to calm himself. Oro told him to shut up. Argent laughed but stopped humming. Beetha shifted the detonator nervously from hand to hand. Song had seated herself in the hero pose, hands resting lightly on her thighs, her arma balanced across her shoulders. The wind died. Silence settled like fog over the zocalo.

  Lia felt a slight vibration an instant before she heard the click and grinding of the altar mechanism. The altar slid back, and they heard the sound of voices echoing up from the stairwell.

  “BE QUICK
ABOUT IT!” A MAN’S GRUFF VOICE. MORE footsteps, feet shuffling on rough stone. The men were on the frustum. “Come on! Pull them up!” This was followed by a girl’s cry of pain.

  Song risked a quick look, then ducked back down below the edge of the frustum. She held up all the fingers of one hand, minus her thumb, indicating the number of men on the frustum.

  That is not too many, Lia thought.

  After more cries, muttering, and shouted orders, Song looked again. This time, she signaled that another man had joined the first few. She loaded a stone into her slingshot. Lia raised her head and peeked over the edge, gripping her baton so hard, her fingers hurt. The deacons, wearing yellow-belted gray robes, were pulling girls up onto the frustum one by one. A frightened-looking acolyte was gathering the girls behind the altar. The girls looked confused and unsteady. Lia wondered if they had been given poppy tea.

  Song said, “Now.” She stood up and fired her slingshot. A deacon fell. Argent and Oro launched themselves onto the frustum and charged, Oro swinging his steel bar like a broadsword. Song brought her arma to bear, but she couldn’t fire it because the girls were right behind the deacons. Oro hit one of them with his bar while Argent grabbed another and flung him over the edge. Lia, reacting late, followed them into the melee and jammed her baton into the midsection of the acolyte. The last deacon fell to another stone from Song’s slingshot. Within the space of a few heartbeats, the deacons were all down.

  Song gestured for Oro and Argent to continue helping girls up from the staircase as Jonis directed the other girls over the edge of the pyramid. The frightened girls descended the giant steps in a ragged stream. Finally, Yar Yeanu appeared at the top of the staircase. Her eyes widened as she saw Song and the others waiting. She opened her mouth to shout a warning but was instantly consumed by an eye-searing jet of blue flame.

  Oro screamed and staggered back from the opening, his shirt ablaze, and crashed into Song, knocking the arma from her hands and sending her sprawling.

  Argent ran to his brother and attempted to smother the flames as more deacons emerged from the staircase onto the frustum. Lia stunned one of them with her baton while Song, back on her feet, dodged the baton thrusts of the other.

  Another deacon climbed from the opening. Lia grabbed the arma that Song had dropped and pointed it at him, but she couldn’t figure out how to trigger the weapon. Jonis, pointing her ancient shotgun, pulled the trigger. The gun misfired with a muffled pop; beads of shot rattled ineffectually off the deacon’s robe. The deacon was followed by a priest, and another deacon, and yet another priest.

  Beetha, crouching at the edge of the frustum, fumbled with the detonator. Priests and deacons were popping out of the hole like wasps from a shaken hive. One of them charged at Beetha and shoved her over the edge. She dropped the detonator and fell with a scream.

  Lia swung the arma back and forth wildly — she couldn’t figure out how to fire it, but it made a fine club. Argent had left his smoldering brother to grapple with another deacon. They kept coming. There were too many. Lia’s fingers found a stud on the handle of the arma. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a deacon swinging a baton at Argent. She pointed the arma and pressed the stud.

  The deacon’s head exploded. She felt a sickening moment of satisfaction, then turned and found herself facing Master Gheen. His dark eyes seemed to suck the strength from her arms, and in that instant of hesitation, he knocked the arma aside and swung at her with his other hand. She saw a glitter of something black in his hand and jerked back. The knife sliced through her tunic and rattled across her ribs. Lia kicked out as she dodged a second thrust, but her foot just brushed Gheen’s robe.

  All around her was chaos. An old, white-bearded man climbed from the staircase and gaped uncomprehendingly at the mayhem surrounding him. He was shoved aside by more emerging deacons. A pair of them had Yar Song backed up to the edge of the frustum, while Jonis swung her ineffectual shotgun at a baton-wielding priest. Gheen, knife in hand, was moving in on Lia again. She looked frantically for the arma she had dropped but couldn’t see it. Gheen lunged. Lia sidestepped his thrust but tripped over a fallen deacon. Gheen was on her in an instant, slashing.

  Hot blood splashed across her eyes. She kicked out blindly. Her foot hit something, and she heard Gheen shout in pain. Lia leaped to her feet and dragged her sleeve across her eyes to clear the blood. Argent and Jonis had fallen. Song had retreated over the edge of the frustum.

  Gheen was coming at her again. Lia twisted to avoid his blade and drove her elbow into his mouth. She heard the wet snap of breaking teeth. Gheen gasped and fell. Lia was the only Yar still standing. She ran to where Beetha had dropped the detonator. It was balanced on the edge of the frustum. Lia scooped it up, flipped open the cover, and jammed her finger down on the button.

  Nothing happened.

  Gheen was back on his feet, spitting blood. He still had the blade in his hand. Another deacon, moving toward her from the opposite side, suddenly shouted and pointed over the edge. An arrow sprouted from his chest, and he fell back. More arrows filled the air. The steps of the pyramid were a chaos of Pure Girls descending, Yars and farmers climbing up. Gheen ducked low and backed away from the edge. Lia stood, undecided, for a moment, then ran for the center of the frustum. She held the detonator over the staircase opening and pressed the button.

  Her world exploded.

  DREAMS.

  Priests.

  Armas and arrows.

  Thunder in her ears.

  Her legs and arms were lead. She could not move.

  Voices.

  Someone pressing a cloth to her face.

  Pain.

  Blackness.

  Lia woke up, but the nightmare did not end. She couldn’t move. She tried to open her eyes; only the right one responded. She could not feel any part of her body, and there was a constant roaring in her ears. The face of an unsmiling woman with a short cap of silver hair was suspended above her.

  “Do not move,” the woman said.

  Do not move? How could she move? She was paralyzed.

  The woman’s face shifted away, leaving Lia staring up at a cream-colored plaster ceiling. The room smelled of cold stone, lamp oil, and the faint, acrid odor of disinfectant.

  Where am I? Lia willed herself to speak, but there was no movement of her lips, no sound.

  The woman’s face came back into view. “You have been injured. Do you understand? Blink once.”

  Lia blinked.

  “I have applied a nerve jammer. I will deactivate it.” The woman put her hand behind Lia’s neck. “You may experience some discomfort, but try to remain still.” Lia heard a click. The left side of her face instantly became hot and tingly. Feeling flowed into her arms and legs — not all of it good. Her ribs were a throbbing cage of pain. She reached up carefully to touch her face with her hand. The entire left side was covered with something cool and smooth.

  The woman took her hand and pushed it back down. “You must avoid touching the dressing or straining your facial musculature for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Lia glared at her. The woman’s accent, flat expression, and abrupt manner reminded her of the Medicants. And she used numbers.

  The woman said, “You may speak, but do not contort your lips unnecessarily.”

  “Where —?” Her voice was a rasp. She cleared her throat. It hurt. “Where am I?”

  “You are in Romelas, in the convent of the Yars.”

  “What’s that sound?”

  “What do you hear?”

  “It’s like a waterfall.”

  “Your ears may have sustained some damage. Are you thirsty?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman produced a gourd with a long neck. “I do not want you to sit up yet.” She held the neck of the gourd to Lia’s lips and trickled its contents into her mouth. Lia swallowed. The liquid was soothing and cool. It tasted of melon.

  “Are you in pain?” the woman asked.

  Lia considered the
question. Her face felt heavy and hot and prickly, the top of her skull felt as if it had been hammered, and her ribs radiated sharp pains with every heartbeat.

  “My face tingles,” Lia said. She did not want to admit how much she really hurt. Better to be in agony than with no sensation at all.

  “You are healing.” The woman sat in the chair beside the bed and placed a flat handheld device about the size of a small book on Lia’s chest, just below her collarbone. She held it there for a moment, then lifted it away and examined the display on the device. “Vital signs normal, white blood-cell count five-three-four-four per CCM, hormone levels within late adolescent norms. How old are you?”

  “My blood moon has come and gone,” Lia said in response to the woman’s rude question.

  “You were what they call a Pure Girl?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman made a notation on her device. “Pure Girls are typically late with their menarche due to certain maturation-suppressing drugs added to their diets. Have you experienced a growth spurt since you left the palace?”

  In fact, she had grown noticeably during her year in Hopewell.

  “The Sisters fed us drugs?” She thought about the last time she had seen Sister Tah. “Why? Did the priests make them?”

  “It was not the Sisters or the priests; it was the Yars, who delivered the food. They believed that delaying menses increased the Pure Girls’ odds of surviving their ordeal. You may be sixteen, or even seventeen.”

  The woman was speaking numbers. Lia knew the small numbers — it had been impossible to avoid them in Hopewell — and the numbers the woman had spoken were the teen numbers. Tucker Feye had been a teen. Apparently, so was she. In any case, she didn’t see why it mattered. She found this woman and her numbers to be intensely irritating.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Exit Tech Severs Two-Nine-Four. You may call me Severs.”

  “What is that device?”

  The woman looked at the thing in her hand. “It is a twelve thirty-nine medical analytic scanner. We call it a tricorder.” A twitch of the lips — was that a smile? “You suffered a severe concussion. I am providing medical care for you and three others who were injured ten days ago. I — are you in pain?”