Win

  Oh, crap. . . .

  This latest rearrangement of the blocks serves as a precursor to chaos. The blocks begin to move as usual, grinding together and sliding apart. . . . But in that same moment, as we all try to keep our footing and hang on to our rations and equipment bags, cries and wild action breaks out overhead.

  Dozens of Contenders come leaping down from upper tier blocks, being pursued by others as they all run down the pyramid.

  At the same time, “Tha-las-sa! Tha-las-sa!” the audience roars.

  Apparently Team Irtiu is making an aggressive move to occupy the upper tiers of the pyramid and clear it of competition. . . . Those of us on lower levels are being forced downward by the oncoming mob.

  I nearly stumble as the slab of stone under me lurches and begins to separate further from the airborne field of pyramid stones, so that now there’s a five-foot gap between this block and the closest one. Brie and Chihar are forced to let go of the meal platforms in order to maintain their place. Good thing we all got our rations just in time.

  The others on our team scatter onto the nearest adjacent blocks to give us all room. Kokayi, Avaneh, and Tuar end up on a block that slowly rises from a lower position and is now above our heads. Meanwhile Kateb hops onto the block with Lolu and Zaap, and they end up sailing deeper into the interior of the pyramid as their block “trades places” with another.

  The wave of Contenders from above reaches us just then, and I watch in horrified fascination as people currently on various neighboring stones are being manually shoved and displaced by the newcomers. Some fall from the pyramid onto the sand below, while others hold their ground, fiercely fighting back.

  It occurs to me, the fact that our own block floated five feet out and away, is actually to our advantage. We’re no longer in a desirable location along an intuitive easy pathway for descent, and well out of the way of the downward-rushing human avalanche. Few will bother with displacing us from our outlier block. . . .

  But, looks like I’m wrong.

  From all directions, I hear singing. . . . Voice commands, to be precise.

  Numerous Contenders are voice-keying the hovering platforms that are now mostly empty of rations. The entire hovering meal delivery fleet is being usurped for battle. One after another, platforms are overturned, sending whatever remaining water goblets and food packs raining down on the ground. What a waste!

  The platforms are flipped sideways, then returned back to a flat orientation, and Contenders jump onto them like hoverboards. . . . Suddenly the air is full of enemy combatants.

  At the same time, there’s yelling and the clash of steel on the stone blocks all around us. At least a dozen Contenders descend onto the stones nearest us from the blocks above.

  “Get ready for incoming!” Brie exclaims, as we see a flood of Contenders hurtling down every stone, all the while others are hovering on platforms nearby—and eyeing our location for leverage. “Weapons ready, Lark!”

  “First, your equipment bag needs to hover, Brie!” I say, as I grab my pair of uas-uas club sticks from my bag. “It’ll keep you from falling!” And then I repeat loudly to all the teammates within hearing, “Everyone! Make your bags hover so you can hold on to them! Key them now!”

  Chihar had already followed my example and prudently keyed his bag hours ago, but the others hesitate momentarily, as they instead draw weapons and shields for combat. I can see, far behind us, Kateb, Lolu and Zaap are already fighting two Blues and a Green who challenged their stone. . . . Meanwhile Avaneh, Tuar and Kokayi are facing down several other Reds and Yellows.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I exclaim in frustration that no one appears to listen to me. And then I take a deep breath and start voice-keying all their bags myself. They can re-key them later, but for now at least they won’t easily fall.

  Next, I turn to the two platforms that held our rations, which are keyed already, and I set Aural Blocks on them so that no one else can take them over.

  I glance up, only to see a Yellow Artist and a White Vocalist atop a platform overhead, descending directly at us at a near-falling speed. Even before they touch down a foot over our heads, the woman Vocalist begins singing a keying command directed at my own bag, seeing it levitate at my side. . . . Smart move, since it distracts me enough to stop singing—just as the Artist leans over me and brings his bludgeon weapon down at me. . . .

  Brie yells a warning, but I react quickly on my own. I swing my uas-uas in a number 8 shaped blocking pattern.

  The uas-uas stick that’s in motion whooshes back and forth through the air above my head, rotating around the cord axis, while I hold and swing the connected stick, blocking the direct strike enough to lessen the impact and entangle the Artist’s long club. His bludgeon still hits my left shoulder, but not enough to cause major damage, and gets deflected, while my uas-uas jerks the Artist’s arm, strong enough to make him lose his balance on his platform and fall onto his hands and knees.

  Meanwhile the Vocalist has re-keyed and called my bag to her, and now it’s pulling at me in the direction of the precipice, keeping me stupidly off balance as I resist it, at the same time as I continue to swing my uas-uas defensively. Now the Artist regains his footing and goes at me again with his club. . . .

  Fortunately, Brie throws a short knife which hits him in the arm. At the same time, I return my attention to my bag and sing the command to override the hostile keying, and then set an Aural Block on it. At once my bag hovers evenly at my side once again, while the Vocalist gives up and tries to key one of our platforms instead.

  But the platform’s secured with an Aural Block, and she can’t override it no matter how hard she tries—removing Aural Blocks can be done, but it’s an advanced skill, even for Atlanteans. Instead now I’m furious, and I strike back at the Vocalist.

  I sing to re-key the platform on which she and the Artist hover, and then I voice-command it to tip sideways, forcing them to slide then hang on with both hands as they grab the ends and hold on for dear life. At the same time, I set an Aural Block on it, and then send the vertically-hovering platform off in the direction of the cliffs and away from the pyramid and the Game Zone. . . .

  “You okay?” Brie says, as I rub my shoulder that really smarts after the bludgeon strike.

  I nod.

  “Nice job,” Chihar says, nodding in the direction of the pair hanging on desperately to the retreating platform. Right now they’re sailing over the transparent wall boundary that marks the Game Zone, on their way to guaranteed disqualification. . . . Do I get AG points for that?

  But we get only a few seconds of respite.

  “We’re badly situated,” I say, seeing the overwhelming number of approaching Contenders atop hovering platforms. “Too out in the open. We need to return to the interior.”

  “All right, let’s get the hell off this block.” And Brie yells to our closest teammates who happen to be Kokayi, Tuar, and Avaneh, on a stone slightly above us, but a good five feet away. “Hey, Coco! Can you make room for us?”

  Kokayi thankfully chooses to ignore Brie’s jibe and simply calls out to us, “Come up!”

  “Yes,” Chihar says. “But the jump is too far.”

  “Not if you use the bag!” I remind him.

  The Scientist hesitates only for a moment, then wraps his arms around the equipment bag tightly, and calmly sings the rise command. He begins to sail upward slowly.

  I stare at Brie. “Now, you.”

  Brie mumbles something, then sings her own command—first to re-key the bag to herself, then to rise. Her singing voice is a confident, clear soprano that I’m hearing for the first time, at least that I can remember. As her bag starts upward, she holds on by the straps, treating it as a reverse parachute.

  I start to follow suit, and get a good grip around my own bag before attempting to launch myself upward.

  Our three teammates watch from above, ready to pull us in.

  In that moment I hear a very strange vocal sound coming f
rom somewhere near the top of the pyramid.

  It’s a single voice keying command . . . but it’s being sung by a chorus.

  Oh no! It’s Plural Voice!

  Desperately I try to remember everything that Aeson taught me during our voice lessons about this very advanced vocal technique, used rarely, and very difficult to get a handle on. In a nutshell, two or more individuals sing the same command in unison, directed at the same subject.

  It’s not ordinary monophony. It requires great focus and precision to join multiple voices into one objective. The scariest part is, Plural Voice reinforces the strength of any voice commands to such a degree that they are practically unbreakable by anyone.

  I’ve never heard it done live, only a few recorded samples that Aeson played for me. And when I asked him if we could try practicing it together, he told me that two Logos voices such as ours singing commands together, even casually, is best to be avoided. . . . I tried to insist, but Aeson smiled and cleverly changed the subject. . . . However, at least I have a basic idea of what Plural Voice can do—and it’s certainly not anything we expected to hear in the Games!

  I stop singing my own voice command and look up, straining to see the source of the Plural Voice.

  And then I see them.

  Very near the pyramid summit, Team Irtiu’s Vocalist, a large man with golden hair and river red clay skin, has joined forces with two other Contenders, a Green and a Yellow, to sing a Plural Voice keying command. Its purpose—to commandeer every single platform and airborne object in range, not counting the pyramid itself.

  The Plural Voice chorus sings, and suddenly everything in the air stops. All the platforms, including those that are empty, and those with Contenders riding them, glide to a halt, and remain hovering.

  Brie Walton curses loudly, because her equipment bag stops too, halfway between two stones.

  And so does Chihar and his bag, just out of reach of our other teammates who are waiting on that upper block to pull us in.

  My own bag grows unyielding in my grasp.

  And our two platforms that I’d keyed earlier and locked with Aural Blocks, also appear to stiffen as they change programming.

  Oh, crap, I think. This is bad. . . . This is really bad.

  “Um . . . Lark?” Brie says, hanging by the bag strap. “Do something!”

  What can I do?

  Feverishly I go over in my mind again all that I can remember, all that Aeson explained. . . . It comes down to one thing—I need to be pitch-perfect and in razor-sharp focus in order to attempt to override the effects of Plural Voice. And even then, it may or may not work. . . .

  And now, there’s no more time to hesitate, because the powerful trio of voices sing the next command and it’s an Aural Block.

  Wow. . . .

  They just super-locked everything with a Plural Voice Aural Block.

  Oh no! Just, no!

  My pulse races wildly. Everywhere along the pyramid slope, I hear other Contenders react in alarm and frustration at the vocal attack. Angry yells and Atlanteo curses fill the void around me. . . . Those Contenders currently occupying the hovering platforms are especially in trouble—they’re stuck in one place in the air, entirely at the mercy of the Plural Voice trio from Team Irtiu. A few people attempt their own singing commands to regain control, but to no effect.

  And now, the cliffs ring with screaming audience approval and applause. . . . The Games spectators generate a slow-building roar of excitement, until the shoreline thunders with echoes of human mob madness.

  The audience is in love, and a new chant fills the cliffs.

  “Faw-zi Bo-to! Faw-zi Bo-to!”

  I’m assuming that’s the name of the Team Irtiu Vocalist, because the large man with the gilded hair raises his hand in a victor’s wave, and nods at the Games audience on the cliffs.

  The audience reacts with even more noise, and now the “Tha-las-sa!” chants are interspersed with his name. The huge stadium screens fill with the close-up faces of the trio.

  Fawzi Boto, the Vocalist, basks in it. The Green and Yellow who sang with him, also wave for the audience and the nano-cameras. Thalassa herself, with her long blue hair whipping in the wind, stands on an even higher block right near the top of the pyramid, and watches in triumph. The rest of Team Irtiu pump their fists in the air.

  But they’re not done. Now that they’ve taken control of the hovering field of platforms, the Plural Voice chorus sings the command to tip everything sideways.

  Platforms with Contenders riding them rotate upright, 90 degrees, and people start to slide off.

  Contenders do their best to hang on, but many fall, screaming. Every few seconds, new bodies strike the ground of the sandy beach below. . . .

  Meanwhile, our equipment bags also rotate sideways, in bizarre obedience to the Plural Voice command, and Chihar and Brie hang on to them. They are slightly better off than those who are on platforms.

  Everything seems to be in slow motion, as I watch Contenders fall and die . . . just so that Team Irtiu can rack up easy AG kill points.

  “Hey! I’ll throw you a line,” Avaneh calls out from above.

  Even as I’m still considering what to do, I watch the tattooed female Warrior throw one end of a long cord to Chihar. When he fails to catch it, she lassoes him in with a skillful cord loop.

  Next, Avaneh ropes in Brie, who catches the length easily, and climbs up herself, dragging her resisting bag after her, with the help of the others.

  I’m the only one left. I stand alone on the ancient stone slab, next to my hovering disloyal bag, surrounded by a precipice on all sides. For an instant, my old fear of heights awakens, also in slow motion. . . .

  “Hey! You coming?” Avaneh and Brie look down at me. Avaneh flings the cord five feet out toward me.

  I take the end of the cord. . . . And I let it slip absently from my fingers, because just then I see a woman Contender lose her desperate grip on an upright platform.

  She’s only a few feet away from me, but out of reach . . . and she is slim and muscular, but panting with exertion because of how impossible her finger hold is—there’s no good way to maintain a proper grip in the position in which she grasps the edge of the upright board. A heartbeat later, I see her turn her head and look at me. I see her frightened eyes, wild and intense, just as she lets go.

  She screams briefly, falling.

  Just before she goes silent, I close my eyes, unable to watch.

  And then I take a deep breath of crisp midday wind, as something primal and overflowing fills my lungs with oxygen and power.

  I visualize every airborne platform in my mind, then open my eyes to see them precisely as they are, like standing dominos, scattered in the air before the slope of the pyramid.

  I focus and hold my diaphragm, my lungs . . . and then I sing.

  Chapter 60

  My voice comes full force, rich and strong, a mezzo soprano blade cutting the air.

  Its vibrations are tangible along my own skin, but I pay no heed. Everything is single-minded focus.

  My voice rises above the din of the Contenders and any other voices raised in vocal commands, over the sound of the surf, and the distant roar of the Games audience crowds up on the cliffs.

  I sing the complex command to break the Aural Block on every object in the vicinity. And from the distance I can somehow feel the quantum-level instability that the sound of my voice evokes in the orichalcum, which is a part of the makeup of the platforms.

  My voice calls to them, changes them, binds them again—to me.

  I set a new Aural Block, with all the strength and intensity of my Logos voice.

  In a few breaths, the audience on the cliffs grows silent. The Contenders—those who are able—also pay attention.

  Next, I sing the command to call the platforms toward the pyramid. The boards come floating in slowly, like a returning fleet of boats being pulled to shore. I don’t dare rotate them back into their horizontal positions because of the
people clinging to them, not until they have the chance to jump back to the pyramid stones.

  I watch as dozens of Contenders gratefully let go, and leap onto the closest stone blocks, where in some cases other Contenders make room for them, almost in surprise.

  It’s a bizarre moment of cooperation, where people forget they’re supposed to be killing each other, and quite a few hands reach out to pull strangers in. . . .

  It doesn’t last, of course, but even that one moment is enough.

  “Lark! Holy crap! What in the world was that? What did you do?” Brie calls down to me.

  “Just a sec,” I say calmly. Then I sing the rise command and wrap my arms around my equipment bag.

  My own teammates look down at me in amazement as I sail across the five-foot divide and rise to their level. I am pulled in by many hands.

  Chihar appears stunned into silence, and Kokayi forgets to let go of my arm, as he frowns, deep in thought. Tuar the Athlete stares at me.

  Only Avaneh the Warrior seems calm and nonplussed. “What kind of voice is that?” she says, examining me with her unblinking dark blue eyes.

  I am saved from having to answer, because now apparently the Games audience has decided that I am more interesting than their previous favorites.

  “Gwen Lark! Gwen Lark!” they scream my name.

  I glance up, and see the Plural Voice trio staring hard at me, as they stand motionless and momentarily forgotten.

  And next to them, Thalassa and the rest of her team are watching me also.

  Suddenly I feel a new chill down my back, because their attention and new awareness of me is terrifying.

  “. . . And in an unprecedented display of Vocalist skills, the Imperial Bride Gwen Lark has just done the impossible!” a Games announcer babbles. “She has broken through the unbelievably difficult Aural Block set by the Plural Voice power trio of Fawzi Boto and two others from Team Irtiu, and now has control of the field! I repeat, Gwen Lark has control of the field—”