He’d earned this time with her. He’d done his bit in the fight against the Styx, and wanted to put all that behind him now. He felt so far away from his mother in the Colony, and his friend Chester. And as for Parry and Eddie, of course he wondered how they were faring in their search for the second Styx female. But he couldn’t help feeling all that wasn’t his battle any longer.
‘Hello! I was speaking to you!’ Elliott called, pulling Will from his thoughts. ‘You joining us today?’
‘Yeah, sorry … I was miles away,’ Will smiled, and hurried to catch up with her and Jürgen.
Still lugging the crates, they climbed up the side of the pyramid. They stopped short of going onto the flattened upper platform at the very top, instead following the ledge around on the tier just below, until Woody brought them to a halt.
‘Back here again,’ Will said, surveying the very place where he and Dr Burrows had tumbled in when the Styx had surrounded the pyramid in a bid to capture them. ‘There’s an entrance here,’ he added for Jürgen’s benefit.
‘Yes, we were aware of that,’ Jürgen replied, as they all put their crates down. ‘The invaders didn’t get very far, did they?’ Jürgen noted, as he began to inspect the damage inflicted by the Styx’s attempt to blow a way inside the pyramid using charges. ‘Interesting …’ he said, passing his hand over what remained of the stones with the carvings on them, and then the underlying masonry that had been exposed, which was considerably darker in colour. ‘Do you see the difference between the two materials?’
Although the outer facing stones had been blasted away, the supporting structure seemed to be completely unmarked.
‘Yes, it does look sort of … sort of new underneath,’ Will agreed. ‘And the Styx explosives took out what my dad called the moving stones, but there are still those to show where they were.’ He was pointing at a row of ten squares visible on the otherwise smooth surface.
Woody let out what might have been a curse in the Styx tongue, although much of their language sounded precisely like that.
‘Will, he wants you out of the way,’ Elliott translated.
‘Fine,’ Will said, peeved by the bushman’s brusqueness. Nevertheless he stepped aside for Woody, who went straight to the squares. Standing on tiptoe, he began to touch them one after another.
‘My dad and I thought there had to be a combination to get in. We spent ages pushing the blocks in and out in different sequences to try to crack it,’ Will said, watching as Woody continued to touch the squares at lightning speed. ‘But I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing?’
‘We tried different sequences, too,’ Jürgen said, as he watched the bushman with rapt attention. ‘But the tribesman isn’t doing anything that can affect a mechanical linkage. This must simply be some sort of ritual before opening the door.’
‘So you’ve never seen inside?’ Will asked him quickly.
Jürgen shook his head. ‘Never. And the bushmen were careful not to let us observe them doing this,’ he said,
Woody had obviously finished the lengthy sequence. As he hopped quickly out of the way, there was a grinding sound.
‘Get back!’ Will warned. He wasn’t about to be caught out again.
The wall below the squares and a section of the ledge just in front of where Will and the others were standing seemed to have simply vanished, revealing a flight of shallow stone stairs leading into the depths of the pyramid.
Jürgen was blinking with surprise. ‘I don’t understand. Did the masonry just retract somewhere?’ he asked,
‘If it did, I didn’t see it,’ Elliott said, equally bemused.
Everyone remained where they were except for Will, who had stepped to the edge of the opening and was peering down into it. ‘So that’s where we went … that day,’ he said quietly.
Woody uttered a few words and was suddenly off, racing down the dusty steps.
‘He said to follow him,’ Elliott translated.
‘Hold on!’ Jürgen shouted. ‘Tell him not to be so hasty, will you? If we blunder inside, we’ll be carrying the virus straight in with us.’
Elliott called to Woody, who held back for a moment on the steps as he replied quickly.
‘He’s saying what we want is further in,’ Elliott told them.
‘So we should take the gear with us and set up inside?’ Will proposed.
Jürgen considered the situation. ‘I suppose we don’t have a choice. We don’t know how close the other tribesmen are,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Once we locate them, we can put up the decontamination tent and attempt some basic sterilisation. And if that’s not practical, we’ll just have to administer the vaccine and hope for the best.’
‘Let’s go then,’ Will said, and Jürgen tugged a flashlight from his pocket and switched it on so they had at least some idea where they were putting their feet. Then the three of them picked up their crates and began down the steps, into the murky darkness.
‘This is where Dad and me ended up,’ Will said, as they came to the bottom of the steps and found themselves on a level surface, their footfalls echoing around the enclosed space. He couldn’t help but recall the roller coaster of emotions he had experienced the last time that he’d tumbled into this very same chamber with his father. Will’s terror at being chased by the Limiters had been transformed into elation as he realised that by some miracle he and Dr Burrows were suddenly out of their reach, even if that elation was short-lived as they were surrounded by less-than-friendly bushmen.
Then Will remembered what Dr Burrows had discovered there. ‘Take a look at the floor,’ he said to the others. Jürgen shone his flashlight where Will was indicating.
‘A mural,’ Elliott said. ‘Or is that what it’s called when it’s painted on the wall?’
Will smiled. ‘Maybe it’s a flooral then?’ He turned to Jürgen. ‘Actually it’s carved into the flagstones, then painted. My dad reckoned that the people responsible for building the pyramids – the Ancients, as he called them – had trade routes through to all the continents. That’s how they were able to put together this map.’
Jürgen edged carefully around the carved outlines of the continents on the stone floor, as if he was worried that he might damage them by treading on them. ‘Yes, but this must be from several millennia ago … and it’s all in perfect proportion. So how could they possibly have the means to compile a map with this level of detail or accuracy?’ he asked.
As Woody suddenly reappeared with a burning torch, the chamber was filled with light.
‘And you’ve got to see this,’ Will said, now the flames were illuminating the rest of the space. He took Elliott and Jürgen to where the procession of large figures had been painted on the wall, the king and queen in their finery and decked with golden jewellery like something an Egyptian ruler might wear. ‘Dad thought this was amazing,’ Will said, as he remembered how Dr Burrows had lit match after match as he studied all the figures.
‘There’s that symbol from Tam’s pendant again,’ Elliott said, as she spotted the three converging lines on the king’s crown, and then on a warrior’s breastplate. ‘It’s all over the place.’
Will was about to answer when Woody began to jabber rapidly in Styx.
‘He wants us to go with him,’ Elliott said.
Taking the crates with them, they followed the bushman to the end of the chamber and out onto a landing where they were presented with more stairs.
‘I expected the other tribesmen to be further down inside the pyramid, not up here,’ Jürgen mumbled as Woody led them up flight after flight.
‘Last time, that’s where they took us,’ Will remarked. ‘Right down into the guts of the pyramid.’
As they came to yet another landing, Woody ushered them away from the stairs and into a low-ceilinged, circular chamber, approximately thirty feet in diameter. He was gesticulating at a point on the curved wall directly opposite the entrance. As there didn’t seem to be another way in or out of the chamber, they left the crates
by the doorway.
‘If the rest of the tribesmen are through there, this would be an ideal location for decontamination,’ Jürgen said. Undoing the top of one of the crates, he began to take out several of the green canisters of sterilising agent. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, I’ve got some syringes of vaccine ready in here,’ he said, as he lifted out a small attaché case.
Woody was chatting away ten to the dozen, desperately trying to attract their attention. ‘What’s he want us to see over there?’ Will asked, as light from the bushman’s torch fell on something in front of him.
As they came nearer, they found that a small shelf projected from the wall at waist height. Angled at forty-five degrees there was a black panel set into it, which Will began to touch. ‘What on earth is this for?’ he asked.
‘Talk to me. What are you looking at?’ Jürgen asked, as he hastily emptied the contents of another of the crates out onto the floor and began to arrange them ready for construction of a decontamination tent.
‘Well, it resembles glass … black glass … or some type of highly polished mineral. It’s got the Ancients’ symbol cut into it, but the edges are rough, like gouges,’ Will said, exploring the three prongs of the trident symbol with his fingers. ‘If this is the same as the squares outside and opens a way through, Woody needs to show us how to activate it.’
‘Who’s Woody?’ Jürgen asked, although he was preoccupied with his efforts to erect the tent. By now the bushman had begun to pace impatiently up and down beside the wall, still speaking rapidly. ‘So have we definitely got a way in?’ Jürgen called across, just as Elliott, avoiding Woody as he tore past her, lost her balance. She stuck a hand out against the side of the chamber to steady herself.
Pulses of cool blue light coursed for several metres around where she’d made contact with the wall, revealing an intricate network of lines and circles.
‘Whoa!’ Will cried out.
They were all too startled to speak, the only sound in the chamber Woody’s flaming torch as it crackled away.
‘Tell me I didn’t just imagine that,’ Will whispered, hardly daring to breathe.
Dropping the aluminium tent pole he’d just slotted together, Jürgen hurried over and shone his flashlight along the wall beside Elliott. ‘No, I saw it too,’ he confirmed, then he slowly stretched his hand out to touch the wall.
Will was already tapping one of the large blocks of masonry where he was. ‘Whatever it was, it’s gone. And I really don’t get it. This is just stone!’
‘Where did those lights come from, then?’ Elliott asked, still thoroughly confused.
‘They were more like sparks,’ Jürgen said, as he stooped to examine the wall at its base. ‘And I agree with you, Will. No question that it’s stone.’ He took his hand away and rubbed the dust between his fingers. ‘Even if the phenomenon we just witnessed could be explained by some sort of electrostatic discharge, how did the masonry conduct it like that? I saw … shapes … designs.’
Will stepped closer to the small ledge. ‘Maybe this has something to do with it.’ He was pushing on the panel to see if he could make it move in any direction, when Woody began to speak excitedly.
‘What’s he prattling on about?’ Will asked Elliott.
‘I can’t understand him. He’s speaking too quickly,’ Elliott replied. She held her hand over the shiny panel. ‘Show me how this works. Does it open a door?’ she said to the bushman in Styx.
For the first time, Woody looked her straight in the eye.
Before she knew what was happening, he’d grabbed hold of her wrist. He forced her hand down onto the panel, ramming her fingers into the three-pronged symbol.
There was a flash as intense as that from an arc welder’s torch. Elliott was thrown backwards onto the floor of the chamber as if she’d received an electric shock.
‘No!’ Will shouted, rushing to Elliott’s side and helping her to sit up. ‘Are you okay?’
She closed her fingers into a fist and then splayed them open again. ‘I’m fine. Doesn’t hurt at all,’ she replied with some surprise. ‘But that was really weird.’
Will was angry now. ‘You’re saying!’ He swung round to the bushman. ‘What the h—?’
The floor of the chamber shook.
Jürgen went into a crouch, thinking there was more to come. ‘Earthquake,’ he said. ‘They’re quite common in this part of …’
But it wasn’t an earthquake, and he knew it as he trailed off.
With the howl of displaced air, the ceiling above them disappeared and they were drenched in sunlight. Shielding his eyes from the glare, Will had an uninterrupted view of the clear sky. ‘What?’ he gasped.
Before any of them knew it, the walls either side of the panel disintegrated. The oddest thing was that the only sound was the rush of wind all around them. Their eyes hadn’t had time to fully adjust to the light, but from what they could see there was some kind of giant wave moving away from them, away from the pyramid, and at a rate of knots. A wave of stone and dust sweeping through the giant trees of the jungle.
With Karl carefully holding a case filled with additional syringes of newly prepared vaccine on his lap, Werner had been driving the small Kübelwagen along the jungle track.
But as Karl pointed urgently at something, Werner began to apply the brakes.
The boy had spotted that the sky above the trees was suddenly full of birds, as if they’d all taken flight at the same the time. Great flocks of them were wheeling and intermixing at some speed. And as he’d been watching them, these flocks dispersed to make way for something else; these weren’t birds, but a variety of differently sized projectiles with hard, irregular outlines. Because Karl had been so quick to notice something extraordinary was happening, Werner wasn’t caught completely by surprise as a sizeable piece of masonry spiralled down and crashed onto the bonnet, making the whole vehicle bounce on its springs.
He’d just brought the Kübelwagen to a complete stop when a length of tree root struck the windscreen, shattering it. As the bombardment continued like a freak hailstorm, Werner shouted at Karl to get out. Then he protected the boy with his body as they both hunkered down against the side of the vehicle.
Without any of them uttering a word, Will, Elliott and Jürgen together began to shuffle forward, beyond where the wall of the chamber had originally stood.
‘What is this? One second we were inside, the next we’re out here,’ Will said finally, still reeling at the sudden development.
‘Unbelievable,’ Jürgen was repeating over and over, as they stepped to the edge to the pyramid and peered down at the tiers below.
‘It looks completely different. All the stones with carvings have gone,’ Will observed. ‘It’s as though it was hidden by a layer of stone.’ He was right; the pyramid’s appearance had been transformed in only a few seconds, and the darker substructure was now fully visible.
‘Unbelievable,’ Jürgen said once again, his voice oddly flat.
They were all feeling rather numb as they struggled to find an explanation for what they’d just experienced.
‘But how come we’re still here … and alive?’ Elliott burst out. ‘Why didn’t we get swept off the pyramid too?’
Neither Will nor Jürgen answered her, their eyesight still adjusting to the sunlight and allowing them the first glimpse of something else that confounded them. As the veil of dust retreated into the distance, they could see that the jungle had been stripped away, as if a plague of locusts had devoured everything in their wake. But there weren’t even any uprooted trees – simply acre upon acre of bare earth, with the occasional piece of vegetation strewn across it.
‘The jungle’s just disappeared,’ Will said. He shielded his eyes, straining to peer further into the distance. ‘Do you see? There’s nothing but empty ground right over to the other pyramids.’
Elliott gave an odd laugh as she drew Will’s attention to the area below them, to the churned-up soil around the base of the pyramid.
‘That’s where our camp was.’
Jürgen was shaking his head. ‘None of this makes the slightest bit of sense. It was as though there was an explosion here. But why didn’t we feel or hear anyth—?’ He fell silent as his walkie-talkie crackled and his brother’s worried voice came over it. Jürgen listened for a moment, muttering, ‘Oh, thank God.’ He looked quickly over at Will and Elliott to tell them what he’d just heard. ‘Karl and Werner were pelted by debris in their vehicle, but they’re both safe.’ He spoke into the radio again. ‘Werner, as far as we can tell it seems to have originated from here, but …’
The radio crackled and Werner was saying, ‘Hello, hello, are you there?’, but Jürgen was holding it away from his ear.
Just as Will and Elliott were doing, he was staring into the distance, at the intersecting point between the three pyramids.
Where something was causing the soil and the crust to be thrown skywards in a huge spout.
There was a low rumble as, all of a sudden, an enormous needle-like structure erupted from the ground itself, thrusting up higher and higher.
‘Just when I thought this couldn’t get any weirder,’ Will said under his breath.
Soil and rocks were spilling from the top of the structure as it reached its full height, several times that of the pyramid they were on.
‘A tower?’ Elliott murmured.
‘Werner, er … let me get back to you,’ Jürgen muttered into the radio. ‘No, I’ll call you. You and Karl stay exactly where you are until I do.’ Werner’s anxious voice could still be heard over the radio as Jürgen simply switched it off.
‘Where’s the bushman?’ Elliott asked, as she noticed he wasn’t with them.
‘There he goes,’ Will said, spotting the lone figure making its way purposefully over the bare earth in the direction of the tower. ‘I reckon we need to get after our friend Woody and make him give us some answers.’ Squinting at the tower in the distance, Will chuckled. ‘Besides, we need to take a closer look at that!’