by Mark Jeffrey
“So this is why everyone was screaming, I remember thinking, and then I remember being surprised by the sound of my own howling.
“As they led me away again, I looked down at the back of my hand—there was my shiny new Sunbolt tattoo, still smoking. Someone told me that it meant I was now a slave of the house of Jadeth.”
Sasha looked down at the ground, while Casey stared at the tattoo on her hand.
“I never felt so scared in my entire life,” Sasha said.
Casey nodded. “And what about now?”
Sasha shrugged. “I’m scared. But it’s different somehow. I mean, I lived through something terrifying, and back then I didn’t know whether it was possible to come out of it okay. And now I do.”
Casey searched Sasha’s face for any sign that she was lying. There was none.
Nevertheless, Casey still couldn’t bring herself to believe that Sasha was truly on their side.
Chapter 21
The Pyramid of the Arches
Cloudrider sped across the glassy expanse of Loch Sheil. The lake was a deep gash in the flesh of the earth. Dark water filled it, welling up like the blood of the world. This highland pool was surrounded by a black wilderness of craggy mountains.
Without warning, the Sky Chamber emitted a sound like a trumpet call. The air shimmered. The lake rippled, leaving a visible wake as they passed.
Max blinked.
Had Time started up again?
Without warning, the craft dove into the waters, knifing neatly below the surface without a splash.
“Ian!” Max growled in surprise.
“Don’t worry,” Ian replied. “I only created a small bubble of flowing Time around us. Just so we can actually go underwater. Nothing to worry about.”
The Sky Chamber descended through the black water for half an hour. Before long, it was deeper than any point on the ocean floor. There was no continental shelf, no oceanic rift, or deep-sea chasm that ran deeper.
Legend had always been that the Loch was bottomless. No probe or submarine dive had ever found one despite repeated attempts.
And for this reason, Enki had chosen to hide the Pendant there. No craft known to humans could descend to this depth without being crushed. Only a Sky Chamber, a vessel of Nibiru, armed with the reality-bending jewels of the Dreamtime, could hope to withstand the pressure on its hull.
The Pendant was hidden perfectly.
But what did that mean, exactly? Everything had to be somewhere. So given enough time, anything could be found.
Right?
Max shook his head. From what he knew of Mr. E, the list of possible answers was infinite.
At last, a great dark triangular structure appeared in the murky depths. As they approached, Max was astonished at just how large it was.
“An underground pyramid?” Max asked.
“An underwater pyramid,” Ian countered.
The Sky Chamber continued to descend past where Max would have guessed the base was. And then abruptly, Cloudrider shifted direction—they had apparently reached an opening in the bottom. The Sky Chamber entered. Ian slowed their speed and turned up the outside lighting. They were in a roughly hewn underwater tunnel. The craft weaved along, avoiding spikes of stone.
Casey held her breath as though she were underwater herself.
And then, the craft rose.
After another few minutes, they all gasped in surprise as Cloudrider broke the surface.
Through the viewing jewel, they saw that they were in a vast cavern. An air pocket held the inky water at bay.
“This is it,” Ian said, finally looking up from his gears. “This is where he hid it.”
Max nodded briskly and exhaled. “Well. Let’s get it over with, then.”
“There’s a portal on the top of the ship. We can get out that way,” Ian said.
“So we’re actually inside the pyramid right now?” Max asked as his pupils adjusted. The foursome stood on the hull of the Sky Chamber.
Ian nodded. “There,” he replied, swinging his flashlight. A tall, narrow doorway greeted them. Max, Ian, Casey, and Sasha went through.
“The Pendant’s in there?” Max asked.
Ian nodded again.
On the other side was a narrow corridor. The walls leaned in at a slight angle. They were covered with sparkling gold hieroglyphs and ornate pictograms, perfectly preserved as though they had just been painted yesterday.
But there was nothing else inside. Not a single thing. Casey and Sasha quickly explored the floor with their flashlight: nothing. And there were no passageways other than the way they had just come.
“Ian, I thought you said it was here?” Max said.
“According to Enki, it is here,” Ian muttered. “And be careful. The writing on the wall could be Word-magic. It doesn’t have to be inside a Book to work, so don’t look at it!”
Casey didn’t have to be told that twice. They all averted their eyes and thought of what to do next.
“Ian,” Max snapped. “Are you sure this is the only room in the pyramid?”
Ian nodded. “Yeah. There aren’t any other chambers or tunnels. The rest of the pyramid is solid rock.”
Casey looked around, confused. “Well, I don’t see any Arches in here. And I certainly don’t see any Pendant.”
“This is ridiculous. Somebody has to look at the writing,” Max said. “Or else we came all this way just to stare at our feet.”
“Well, Mr. E sent us,” Ian reasoned. “And he knew this writing was here. So it must be safe. Right?”
“I don’t know,” Casey replied thoughtfully. “He did make the Pendant, after all. What kind of person makes an awful thing like that?”
Max exchanged incredulous glances with Ian. “You heard his story, Casey. He didn’t really have a choice.” Then he took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Okay. I’m going to look at the wall. Just get ready to help me if something bad happens.”
Ian and Sasha nodded.
Max gritted his teeth—and looked up.
The first thing that jumped out at him was that the pictographs illustrated the history of the Pendant itself.
The first one showed a dazzling, starlike white jewel on a chain, held up by a figure clearly meant to be a young Enki. Lines of force radiated from the Pendant in all directions. This particular drawing was oversized compared to the rest, implying, Max guessed, that it was the overarching theme.
The next group of pictographs showed two men bowing to an old man on a throne. Anu, Max thought. And Enlil and Enki. Two brothers, before their father, receiving orders to come to Earth.
Next came scenes that mirrored Enki’s tale almost exactly: the arrival on Earth, the construction of the city of Eridu, the commencement of the mining operation. Then came the revolt of the miners. Enki proposing the domestication of the Wild Men. And finally, the presentation of Adapa to Enlil.
“Okay. I think it’s all right. You can open your eyes now,” Max said. The other three began looking around.
“Wow,” Ian said breathlessly. His gaze drank in the grandeur of the ancient artistry. Sasha was enchanted as well.
As they stared in rapt attention, Casey impatiently skipped ahead to the far end of the gallery and cast a casual glance at the last several frames.
What she saw startled her to the core.
She gave a bloodcurdling scream, thick with true horror, like that of the deepest, most hopeless nightmare.
“What is it?” Max demanded, running to her side.
Mutely, Casey pointed at the last several pictographs.
Max saw a series of all-too-familiar events represented in the pictographic scenes. There was the eclipse. The Pocket. The whoosh-chase with the Serpents and Mermaids. There was Max and Casey struggling to rescue Ian from the wolves. Then there was Max, Casey, Ian, and Sasha, at the Isle of the Dreamtime, talking with Mr. E. Next came the foursome, standing on the hull of the Sky Chamber, just as they were moments ago.
But next to t
his was a scene that hadn’t happened yet.
It showed Max, holding the Pendant.
Max’s heart leaped in his chest: He would be successful!
The Pendant itself was a white, glowing stone on a delicate chain. Max held it in his fist, with the jewel dangling free. Lines of force had been drawn radiating from it in all directions.
But here was where things turned absolutely horrifying.
The next pictograph clearly showed Max handing the Pendant to Jadeth.
She wore a wicked grin as she closed her fingers around it like a claw.
The last hieroglyph, the most horrifying of all, showed Jadeth triumphant, with the Pendant around her neck. People of all races and nations were shown bowing to her will, all subject to the crushing power of the Pendant. Legions of Sky Chambers departed behind her, presumably on their way to conquer Nibiru itself.
Here, the wall ended. There were no more pictures, as though hope itself had suddenly run dry.
“But . . . that’s impossible!” Max yelled. “I would never give the Pendant to her! Never! Not in a million years! Not for any reason! I swear!”
“We’re going to fail,” Ian whispered, stunned. “Oh, no. She wins in the end.”
Max sputtered, “Or—wait. Maybe . . . maybe it’s like what happened with you, Ian. With the wolves. Maybe it happens, but it just doesn’t happen the way it looks.”
“No,” Casey said, voice full of hollow hopelessness. “This drawing is pretty clear. That’s us. You can see our faces. And you can also see Jadeth’s face. That’s definitely her.”
A deep depression gripped Casey.
“The tyranny of the page is absolute,” Ian said grimly.
For a moment, they all stood in shock, trying to think of some reason why the writing on the wall might not be what it appeared.
“Well, Max, maybe you wouldn’t give the Pendant to Jadeth,” Ian finally said, his voice shaking. “The Max Quick we know wouldn’t. But maybe you were right back at the farmhouse. Maybe you really are a sleeper agent of some kind. Maybe the alien personality inside you, the real you, takes over right after you get the Pendant.”
“No, that can’t be true . . . ,” Max said, numb.
“Maybe that’s the secret you keep locking away,” Sasha added. “That’s why you always hate to remember . . .”
“This,” Ian said quietly, pointing at the writing, “this changes everything. We have to consider the double agent theory now.”
“We should leave,” Sasha said. “We should just turn around right now and go. That way, this will never—”
“It wouldn’t work,” said Ian glumly. “Somehow, we won’t be able to. Something will prevent us.”
“Like what?” asked Sasha.
Ian shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is, if it’s written, it always happens. We can’t get out of it.”
“And this is what I meant earlier about Enki being bad,” Casey said. “Mr. E knew this writing was here. He’d seen it before. So he already knew that Max will give the Pendant to Jadeth back when we were at the Isle of the Dreamtime! And yet, he sent us here anyway. Who thinks Enki is a good guy now?”
Casey had a point. Why had Mr. E sent them here—when he knew things ended up going wrong? Even Max was starting to wonder.
“No . . . ,” Max said, backing away in horror from the pictograph showing him handing the Pendant to a grinning Jadeth. “It can’t be true . . . it can’t be!”
There is free will, yes. But it is simultaneously true that your destiny is already written in the Book . . .
These pictures said it was his destiny to destroy the world of humans.
This is not a contradiction.
It was his destiny to put Jadeth on the throne of Nibiru.
. . . already written . . .
He was a slave of Jadeth. Mafdet had been right.
. . . the tyranny of the page . . .
He would fail the whole world. Everyone would be enslaved.
Because of him. Because of Max Quick.
Chapter 22
The Pendant
After a moment of sickening horror, Max pulled himself out of his inner gyre. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet. Tyranny of the page or not.
“Mr. E sent us here. I can’t imagine it was just so I could hand the Pendant over to Jadeth. And besides, I’m not going to give it to her.”
Ian nodded numbly. Sasha did also.
But Casey didn’t look so sure.
Suddenly, Max saw the moon hovering at the other end of the tall, narrow hallway, throwing silvery light down the gallery like an enchantment.
The moon?
“What is that?” Max asked, pointing at the hallway.
“Whoa. That wasn’t here just a minute ago,” Ian said.
“It was a solid stone wall,” Casey agreed.
“Well, there’s a passageway there now,” Sasha said.
“But—that’s impossible . . . ,” Ian said. “The Sky Chamber showed—”
“Well, obviously it was wrong,” Max said. “Come on. Let’s go look.”
Ian eyed the chamber suspiciously. Something was different now . . . something had changed. But what? Obviously, there was now a doorway where one did not exist before, but there was something about the quality or coloring of the light that had changed, too. Ian couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
As they went through this new doorway, they found themselves in a very large and very odd chamber.
This new room was visually confusing. Max felt his eyes cross as he tried to make perceptual sense of it. It was pure geometric chaos—triangular, dodecahedral, octagonal, and tetrahedral shapes jutted in every direction. There was no clear floor or ceiling, just interlocking planes, slanted at all kinds of angles and intersections.
It was like reality had been folded or collapsed in on itself: an interdimensional origami.
Added to this were tall stone Arches. They were everywhere. Each held scenes of different places, like portals to other worlds, and the Arch opposite the passageway held a moon of polished ivory.
Another showed a deep green forest valley over a mountain shoulder. In another, a sunny beach sizzled with bright, crisp colors above a deep azure sea. Still another showed a dark, blizzard-ridden ice cap. Another showed a drab, drizzly city.
“I think we found our Arches,” Ian said breathlessly.
“And that means the Pendant is here,” Casey said, shadows soaking her gaze. Her despair stabbed at Max. But he chewed his anger silently.
He simply was not going to give the Pendant to Jadeth.
No matter what.
He would even die if he had to.
Ian stepped across one plane to another and was surprised to feel gravity shift to accommodate him. A few more steps and he was standing sideways compared to his companions. “Whoa. This place is wicked.”
At that moment, the foursome was startled to hear a train whistle. Ian pointed: it had come from a scene in a nearby Arch. A plume of smoke billowed into a sharp, cold sky of winking starlight. Then the train itself swung into view.
Ian realized something. “That . . . looks like a very old train,” he said.
“Ocean Park in Starland has a train like that,” Casey replied. “It’s not that old.”
“No,” Ian said quietly. “I don’t think it’s merely a replica of an old train, like at an amusement park. I think that it’s actually an old train. I think the Arches are portals to different times.”
“Really?” Max said.
Ian nodded. “I think that train is from the 1800s. Over there, that beach could be any place, any time. And that snowstorm—that’s in the Ice Age, I think.”
Then Max noticed a shopping cart lying sideways on the ground nearby.
What was a shopping cart doing here?
There was a piece of plastic affixed to the cart to identify where it belonged. It read:
FOOD UNIVERSE
Food Universe?!? That was the grocery store in Starl
and.
The cart seemed to have rolled out of an Arch set into what was presently the ceiling. This particular Arch showed the Starland Food Universe parking lot.
Max stepped up to get a better look, expecting this plane to “gravity-shift” for him like the others had done for Ian. But to his surprise, it didn’t happen. He merely slipped off the tilted plane and back onto the floor.
There was no way to get up there. They could only watch as people milled around the Food Universe parking lot. Casey looked wistfully up at the scene.
“There’s no telling when that is,” Ian said. “It could be last year or 1980 for all we know. But it can’t be the present. The Pocket is the present. We’re looking at some time in the past.”
The past . . .
Max’s brain zinged with intuition. The shopping cart at his feet had rolled through that Starland Arch from some time in the past. Which meant it had skipped over the time in between then and now.
And during that intervening time, it had not existed anywhere.
What if Enki had done something similar with the Pendant . . . ?
“That is brilliant!” Max blurted out. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up.
“Ian. Casey. Sasha. Listen: I know where the Pendant is. I know how Enki hid it.”
Ian’s eyes popped wide. “You do?” He loved a good puzzle.
Max nodded. “It’s here. Just like you said, Ian. Only—it’s not here yet. But it’s going to be, any moment now.”
“What?” Ian said. His face crinkled in confusion.
“That’s how Enki hid it perfectly! That’s why it’s impossible to find until the right moment! Because right now, this second, the Pendant doesn’t actually exist.”
Ian was still mystified. So were Casey and Sasha.
“He hid the Pendant in Time! The Pendant is just going to skip over the thousands of years in between then and now and Enki is going to hand it to me through one of these Arches. That’s the whole point of the Pyramid of the Arches!”
Ian made a sound of amazement as he followed Max’s train of thought. “That is unbelievably brilliant! Even if Johnny Siren were here right now, he couldn’t get it!”
