Alight

  Was this what the Grownups wanted? A world of murder and human sacrifice?

  We are all horrified. All, except Aramovsky.

  —

  We reach the twenty-fifth plateau. The tall statue is there, still looking up toward the ziggurat peak. Even this close I can’t make out if it’s a man or a woman, not with so many vines hanging all over it.

  We need a rest. I tell everyone to sit in the statue’s shade.

  My legs tremble. They moved past simple pain three or four levels back. Now they are numb. I can only imagine how badly they will ache tomorrow. O’Malley, Spingate and I are drained to the point I’m not sure we can make it the last five levels. Visca and Bishop look tired, but can clearly keep going. Where does their strength and endurance come from?

  Spingate and I rest with our backs against the base of the statue. O’Malley lies flat on his stomach. Aramovsky, somehow, is still moving, looking at carvings with wonder. Bishop and Visca sit on the steps, staring out across the city. They don’t want to see any more of the horrors.

  These top layers are just as thick as those on the bottom—a hundred steps each—but are increasingly smaller in width. It would have taken us hours to walk all the way around the base. We could walk around the twenty-fifth layer’s thin plateau in only a couple of minutes.

  Everyone is still except for Aramovsky. He’s just as exhausted as I am, I’m sure of it, but you’d never know by his expression. Every new image makes his face blaze with reverence. He’s running his hands over a carving that shows two red-robed people—a man and a woman—using stone blades to scrape the skin off a little girl. The child’s agonized, terrified face is so real I can almost hear her screams.

  For a moment I think, I shouldn’t have brought him. But we probably can’t get inside without him. I had no choice.

  I notice that Spingate is watching him. She’s getting angry. She stands, walks over to him.

  “You like that?” she says.

  I hear the threat in her voice. Aramovsky doesn’t. He answers without turning around.

  “It’s beautiful. This had to be carved by hand. And how did the artists make the rock different colors?”

  “Artists,” Spin says, spitting the word out like it’s made of poison. “There’s something wrong with you, Aramovsky. I always knew there was, but this proves it.”

  He turns to face her. If he didn’t hear her tone, he can see her body language—fists clenched at her sides, shoulders forward. I’m behind her, I can’t see her eyes, but I know they are narrowed to slits.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me,” he says. “I don’t know why you’d say that.”

  She points at the image of the girl, at the girl’s forehead. “That’s a tooth-girl being butchered. Is that why you like it? Or because the two people skinning her are double-rings, like you?”

  I glance at the forehead symbols of the carved people, see that she’s right.

  Spingate takes a step toward him. I see Bishop and Visca rise, watching carefully.

  O’Malley lifts up on one elbow.

  “Give it a rest, Spin,” he says. “Aramovsky didn’t make this place.”

  She takes another step closer. Aramovsky takes a step away, unsure of what’s happening. A second step away puts his back up against the very carving he so admires.

  Spingate closes the distance.

  I realize all at once that she’s going to hit him. He could crush her if he wanted to, but that doesn’t matter—a fight could easily result in someone tumbling down the steps or, worse, rolling off the edge to the hard stone below.

  I scramble to my feet and run to them.

  “Spin, take it easy,” I say. “Like O’Malley said, Aramovsky had nothing to do with making these carvings.”

  She whirls, fists clenched, eyes blazing with hatred. She hoped this building might bring answers, but it is nothing more than a temple of nightmares.

  “He’ll do the same to us,” she says. “Mark my words, Em, Aramovsky will…”

  She glances above me as her voice trails off. Then she looks at me again. The expression on her face, it’s like a dagger through my heart—she’s terrified.

  I reach out for her. She flinches. I let my hand drop to my side.

  “Spin, what’s wrong? You don’t think I’d let Aramovsky do something to you, do you? I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”

  Aramovsky starts to laugh. The deep sound makes my skin crawl. He slowly claps his hands, absolutely delighted.

  “Some things you let happen, Em,” he says. “Some things you can’t stop, because they are your destiny.”

  He points up at the statue.

  I turn and look up, raising a hand to block the sun.

  And then I see why Spingate is so afraid.

  There are only a few vines hanging from the statue’s head. I can see the face—a face that is unmistakable.

  Because it is mine.

  I stare until my eyes water.

  It’s me. Me.

  No, it’s Matilda, or it would be if she took over my body. All the horror that decorates this monstrosity of a building, all the promises of death and carnage and hearts ripped from chests and tossed down steep stone steps…the statue means all of this was her doing.

  Being the leader wasn’t enough for Matilda.

  She wanted to be worshipped.

  Aramovsky is at my side.

  “Our two Grownups were together when we found them.” His voice is smooth, calm and low, the hiss of a smiling snake. “The circles and the double-rings working together. You and I, working together. This was meant to be. Remember how I told you I wanted to help you lead? This is a sign, Em—a sign that can’t be ignored.”

  He doesn’t even know the proper terms. He means Spirit and Service working together. Did my progenitor and his cooperate to create this nightmare?

  I feel ill. Aramovsky makes me sick. This place makes me sick. This entire planet makes me sick. We woke up in coffins and fought our way off an orbiting tomb only to inherit a city of death.

  O’Malley approaches. “Get away from her, Aramovsky. She doesn’t need your whispered lies.”

  The tall boy grins. “Because whispering in her ear is your job?”

  O’Malley’s right hand flexes, fingers opening and curling. Like a crawling animal, the hand drifts toward the jeweled handle of his knife.

  Bishop moves in, his steps noisy only because he wants us to hear him coming.

  “The sun will set soon,” he says. “We should continue on—I don’t like the idea of being on these steps at night.”

  Neither do I, but should we continue? This place is evil, and we’re not even inside yet. O’Malley is ready to attack Aramovsky. Aramovsky suddenly thinks he and I are destined to rule together. And the look on Spingate’s face—she’s scared of me, scared and disgusted.

  I stare at her until she looks away.

  Arrogant tooth-girl. I wonder what she thinks of “stupid empties” now? Special girl, rich girl. I remember people like her laughing at me. One of her kind owned me. I remember being afraid to say anything, knowing that my owner could punish me, beat me if she wanted to, that I had no rights. Girls like Spingate liked having power. Now the power has changed hands—of course she’s scared. She should be.

  My thoughts pause. A moment of blankness, of floundering confusion. What am I thinking? Am I taking joy in Spin’s fear? Hatred of her and her kind bubbles and boils, but that hatred isn’t mine—it’s Matilda’s. Spingate has done nothing to me.

  Those things she said to me in the lab…is she suffering the same turmoil as I am? Is her sudden prejudice against my kind actually from her progenitor? If I have legacy memories, then Spingate probably does, too.

  These emotions aren’t ours.

  “Spin, that statue isn’t me. It will never be me.”

  She sniffs. I can tell she wants to believe me, but it must be hard while seeing these images of her kind being tortured, skinned, slaughtered, and with my oh
-so-heroic face lording down from above.

  “In a way, it is you,” she says. “Matilda was your age once. You have her mind.” Spingate points to the statue. “Like it or not, that’s what you could become. This search isn’t just about food or the mold, not anymore. If this building can tell us about our past, help us understand how Matilda turned into a monster that sacrifices gears and halves, that’s information we need.”

  Alone, she starts up the thin steps.

  Five more steep flights to go.

  We follow her up.

  —

  At the twenty-seventh plateau, the lush vines start to thin. By the twenty-eighth, they don’t grow at all, leaving the orange-brown stone exposed. It’s colder up here. The wind whips at us. I see heavy clouds coming in from the north, but for now the skies above remain clear.

  The lack of vines means we see all the images. We can’t even look away, because many are carved into the flat fronts of the stairs themselves.

  We wobble and shudder as we finish the climb. I think I make it up the final steps on willpower alone, because my body gave up on me about three layers ago.

  My legs feel like boiling goo. They burn, they sting. O’Malley is grunting and wheezing—I wonder if he’s going to throw up. Aramovsky is worse off: he looks like he might keel over and die at any moment, but that horrid glow remains in his eyes. Even Bishop and Visca are tired, trails of sweat cutting skin-toned streaks through the plant juice on their faces. They have made this climb twice in two days—too much for anyone, even a tireless circle-star.

  Up here we are no longer sheltered from the wind. It whips us, snaps at our black coveralls. The sun is already heading down to the horizon—the climb took us longer than we had hoped. The fabric that kept us cool now keeps us warm, but our hands and faces feel the wind’s biting chill.

  The last layer is the smallest one, of course. We stand upon a plateau, a square as long as ten of us lying head to feet. In the center is a stone slab, and, rising up from it, a tall, smooth stone pillar. On it, the six gold symbols, each taller than Bishop. From top to bottom: circle, circle-star, double-ring, circle-cross, half-circle and gear.

  Inside the empty space of the gear, a plaque with a red handprint. In the palm, a golden double-ring.

  All around us, the city seems tiny. Insignificant. At ten layers up, the tops of the tallest pyramids were at eye level. At twenty, everything looked small and we could see a long, long way. Here at the top, thirty layers above the streets, the city below no longer looks real. The Observatory is more like a mountain than a building.

  I can see well past the city walls. Trees, vines and the ruins of six-sided buildings blend together, a broken yellow jungle that stretches out and out and out. To the west, far off, mountains rise up. To the north, a sparkling lake with steep cliffs all around. To the northeast is a wide clearing, crescent-shaped like a quarter moon. Maybe someday soon that clearing will be farmland for us, giving us a place to grow crops where we don’t have to clear the jungle.

  The same wind that whips at us is driving those dark clouds toward us. Hidden flashes of lightning flicker within. I hope it doesn’t rain.

  Aramovsky fights away his fatigue, stands to his full height. Atop the city’s tallest building, our tallest boy looks important…regal.

  “The gods have called to us,” he says, almost yelling so that we can hear him over the wind. “They paint a picture of what has been, and what is to come. They will—”

  “Hold on,” O’Malley says. He’s at the layer’s edge, looking down at his feet. “What do you all make of this?”

  He’s standing on a black line, so faded none of us noticed it. It’s a curve. We all glance around the plateau and see it: the curve is a circle that goes all the way around, touching the edges of the square plateau. And inside it, a second circle.

  At first I think it’s Aramovsky’s double-ring, but then I see a dot on the outer circle. The dot is also black. There are four of them. If I were to draw lines from plateau corner to plateau corner, the dots are where those lines would intersect the outer circle.

  And on the middle ring, there are two dots, one on either side of the stone pillar.

  Two rings: four dots on the outer ring, two on the inner.

  I look at Aramovsky. “Do you know what it means?”

  He walks around, staring down. “This entire building has to be a religious place, some kind of temple, so this symbol is clearly related to mine.”

  He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, and failing at it. He has no idea.

  The wind bites into me.

  “Try the handprint,” I say to him. “I want to get out of here.”

  He walks to the pillar, but doesn’t press the handprint. Instead, he tilts his head back and raises his arms to the sky.

  “Oh gods, you have chosen for us to be here in this divine place, so that we may live out your plans and—”

  Bishop grabs Aramovsky and shakes him.

  “Just press the damn thing already!”

  Aramovsky’s grand moment is ruined. He’s far more worried about his safety than his speech. He presses his hand against the plaque.

  Nothing happens.

  A wave of relief washes through me. This entrance, if that’s what it is, is broken, or Aramovsky is the wrong kind of person. Whatever the reason, we can’t get in. I don’t have to learn what horrors Matilda planned on committing once she took over my body.

  A grinding sound. It stops and starts. Silence. We listen for more, but hear only the wind’s lonely howl.

  The plateau trembles beneath us. We are so high up. If the Observatory collapses…

  The pillar shudders. The rectangular slab beneath it rises up, each corner supported by a golden column that reflects the red sun’s final light. The bottom of the slab reaches eye level, then shudders to a stop.

  At our feet, in the space below where the slab was, an intricate metal staircase spirals down into the darkness.

  —

  If I never see steps again, it will be too soon.

  As we descend, the dark stone walls start to glow. Dimly, but enough that we don’t need our flashlights. The sound of the wind fades away. Soon we hear only our breathing and our boots stepping on metal stairs.

  At least there’s no “art” on these walls.

  Down and down we go. Bishop first, then Visca, then me, Spingate, Aramovsky and finally O’Malley. We hold our weapons at the ready. I don’t know how long we descend. Long enough that I’m sure the sun has set, that the Observatory’s long shadow has once again engulfed the shuttle.

  Finally, the stairs end at a small room with a stone floor. In one wall, a door made of vertical metal bars. Some kind of metallic mesh hangs behind the bars. Next to the door is a plaque with a red handprint: a gold double-ring marks the palm.

  This place has a stale odor. It smells like my coffin room did when I first woke up.

  I point to the plaque. “Aramovsky, open it.”

  He glances at Bishop, then quickly presses his hand to the print.

  We again hear that sound of struggling machinery, then the bars and mesh rattle, kicking off a brief cascade of rust as they slide to the right, revealing a small room.

  “It’s an elevator,” O’Malley says.

  I remember those. My heart pounds at the sight of it. I don’t want to be sealed up in that tiny space, but what choice do I have? We came here to find answers. If that means getting into a cramped elevator, I have to do it.

  “Everyone, inside,” I say.

  It’s a tight fit. Bishop keeps his axe close to his chest so as not to accidentally cut anyone. Visca stands his sledgehammer in the corner. Aramovsky and Spingate are armed only with the knives strapped to their thighs, although they have to adjust their black bags to make room. My spear is a bit too tall for the low ceiling; I have to hold it at an angle.

  O’Malley slides the bars back into place, shutting us in. No plaque in here. No controls that I can see.


  Without warning, the cage drops. We grab each other out of fear. We’re dropping fast. I shut my eyes tight, stifle a scream. My insides feel like they’re floating, rising up.

  We’re going to smash into the ground. I should have never got in here, never, we’re going to die I’m going to die trapped in this tiny box.

  Spingate’s fingers intertwine with mine, clasp tight.

  “Breathe, Em,” she says softly. “We’re fine.”

  I suddenly feel heavier.

  “We’re slowing down,” she says.

  Heavier still…

  The cage bounces slightly. It has stopped.

  Spingate all but collapses on me, hangs on me, laughing. I don’t know how to react—a little while ago she thought I might kill her because of her symbol.

  She shakes her head, then kisses me on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Em. I said awful things in the lab. I barely even know where to start with the red mold, and there just isn’t enough time. And then all the horrible pictures and carvings on the way up here…it made me so upset. So many images of people killing my kind.”

  I nod. I understand, and also, I don’t. I’ve used the phrase my kind, too, so I can’t hold that against her, but aren’t we all the same kind?

  She kisses my cheek again, hugs me tight. “I know that statue isn’t you. You’re not like Matilda. You would never do anything like that.”

  The elevator door slides open to darkness.

  As one, we reach into our bags for our flashlights.

  Bishop and Visca go first, as always, axe and hammer at the ready, flashlight beams probing the darkness. The rest of us follow. Our lights play off a curved ceiling made of large stone blocks. Carvings cover the stone walls. These images we’ve seen before: ziggurats, cartoonish people, jaguars, suns.

  Not that far from the elevator, our flashlights light up the soft gleam of dusty metal—golden coffins. Four of them, on golden risers so their closed lids are waist high. Laid out side by side, their surfaces are richly detailed with gemstones and the same images we see on the walls. The dust here is thin, not like the thick stuff that coated everything back on the Xolotl.

  These coffins have no nameplates.