The Obsidian Blade (17 page)

ON THE MORNING AFTER THE ESCAPE OF THE
P
URE
G
IRL
Lah Lia and the subsequent sacrifice of the intruder who had interrupted the ritual, Brother Mynka, acolyte to Master Gheen, was on his hands and knees atop the Cydonian Pyramid using a short-bristle brush to scrub clean the stone surface of the frustum. He was rubbing out a particularly stubborn bloodstain when he was startled by a sharp popping sound.

Brother Mynka thought one of the torchères had fallen over, but when he looked up, he discovered a pinprick of orange luminescence dancing just above the surface of the altar stone. As he watched, the orange spark swelled into a fist-size sphere, then stretched itself horizontally to become a fat halo.

Brother Mynka dropped his brush and backed away until he reached the edge of the frustum. The halo-shaped light continued to expand, even as it appeared to be falling into itself. Brother Mynka gasped as understanding blossomed. He had been taught that such things existed, but he never imagined he would confront one in real life.

Only one creature grew larger as it consumed itself.

A
maggot.

Brother Mynka watched the halo change color from orange to rose, shifting shape and growing until it became a bright pink segmented grub the size of an enormous hog. Definitely a maggot.

Both the maggot and Brother Mynka remained motionless for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, the maggot raised one end of its body. It had no visible eyes, but Brother Mynka detected a small orifice that might have been its mouth. It moved its head — if it was a head — in a slow, questing circle, pausing as it faced each of the Gates surrounding the frustum.

Brother Mynka willed himself to run, but his legs, paralyzed by a combination of fascination and terror, refused to obey.

The maggot paused facing Aleph, the most beneficent of the Gates. Its orifice expanded until it grew large enough to swallow a man. But the orifice was not a hole. It was a flat disk of swirling gray — a Gate.

The maggot’s body slowly elongated, stretching from the altar stone across the frustum toward Aleph. By the time it reached Aleph, the maggot’s orifice had expanded to match the Gate in size. It now looked like a long pink funnel, its small end anchored impossibly to the altar stone, its wide end suspended in midair. Aleph and the Gate within the maggot’s orifice faced each other, separated by only the width of a hand. The space between them shimmered with orange light and emitted a low-pitched hum. Brother Mynka could feel the vibrations in his chest. The humming abruptly ceased and was followed by a sound like a dog slurping water.

The thing retracted slowly, returning to its original maggoty shape.

Brother Mynka gaped at the empty space, his heart beating wildly. Aleph, the Healing Gate, was gone.

Even through the terror of the moment, Brother Mynka fervently hoped that he would not be held responsible for losing Aleph. When things went wrong, Master Gheen was notorious for automatically punishing the nearest available acolyte.

Brother Mynka also hoped to avoid being devoured by the maggot. If only he could make his legs move. The maggot pulsed, a ripple ran along its body from tail to head, and Brother Mynka heard something that sounded like a belch.

The sound moved Brother Mynka beyond shock and fear; he regained control of his legs, stepped over the edge of the frustum, and bounded down the steep ledges at a speed just short of falling. He hit the zocalo at top speed and seconds later burst through the doors of the temple, shouting about giant, belching, Gate-eating worms. By the time Master Gheen strode forth from his study, Brother Mynka was surrounded by acolytes, all trying to make sense of his frightened babbling.

Master Gheen, admired and feared for his ability to make instantaneous and irrevocable decisions, stepped through the crowd of excited acolytes and delivered a slap to Brother Mynka’s left cheek.

It worked. Brother Mynka and the others fell instantly silent.

“Speak slowly,” said Master Gheen.

Brother Mynka swallowed, staring into the harsh eyes of the head priest, and told them what he had witnessed.

Master Gheen’s face became darker as he absorbed Brother Mynka’s story. At the point when Brother Mynka was describing the maggot swallowing Aleph, Master Gheen turned abruptly and ran from the temple. Brother Mynka and the others followed. Master Gheen raced across the zocalo, his yellow robe flapping, then ascended the steep side of the pyramid at a speed that belied his years. Brother Mynka hesitated, then followed his master up the steps of the pyramid.

By the time Mynka reached the frustum, the maggot had swallowed Heid and was extending itself toward Gammel. Master Gheen was beating it furiously on the neck with his baton. The baton spouted an electrical charge with each blow but had no effect on the maggot. Brother Mynka, casting aside his fear, hammered with his fists at the thing’s base. It was like hitting a solid block of oiled rubber.

Moments later, Gammel was gone.

Master Gheen stepped back and watched as the thing reformed itself into a plump maggot atop the altar stone and belched.

“It will rest, then eat again,” said Brother Mynka.

Master Gheen gave him a venomous look, then ran to the edge of the frustum and shouted one word at the acolytes gathered at the base of the pyramid.

“Arma!”

Several of the acolytes ran off to the temple. Master Gheen turned his attention to Brother Mynka. “How did you cause this to happen?” he asked.

Brother Mynka shook his head helplessly, gesturing at his abandoned brush and the bucket of water. Master Gheen’s face contorted; he drew back his charged baton and swung it against the side of Brother Mynka’s neck. The acolyte collapsed on the frustum, muscles slack, eyes open, fully aware but unable to move. The Master struck him several more times with the baton, sending an agonizing jolt through his body with each blow. He then turned away and once again expended his fury on the maggot — which was beginning another elongation, this time in the direction of the Gate known as Dal — beating at it with such unrelenting fury that his baton began to smoke.

The acolyte Brother Koan arrived atop the frustum with the
arma,
a bright silver cylindrical device the same size as a baton. Brother Mynka had never seen an
arma
employed, but it was said to possess terrible power. Master Gheen grabbed the cylinder and shook it. The
arma
telescoped out to become a tapered tube the length of his arm.

The maggot’s maw met Dal. Master Gheen aimed the silvery tube at the thing’s midsection; a lance of eye-searing blue fire shot from its tip and sliced through the maggot. The mouth end of the beast instantly contracted and fell to the frustum with a splat. The tail end, still attached to the altar stone, shriveled into a knot of pink, smoldering meat.

The maggot had been destroyed, but too late. Dal had been swallowed. Only Bitte remained.

Master Gheen used the
arma
to obliterate the smoking remains of the maggot. He then pointed the tube at Brother Mynka.

“Prepare yourself,” he said.

Brother Mynka closed his eyes for the last time.

T
HE PATHS THROUGH THE WOODS FADED IN AND OUT
like deer trails. Tucker passed several of the strange disks before he realized that he had been walking in a circle. He slowed, watching the path more carefully. The moon was setting; the first light of dawn had turned the eastern sky a soft blue. Tucker came to a fork in the path he had not noticed before. He followed it to the left, up a steep hillside, and along a ridge, passing two more disks.

The path led down the right side of the ridge and onto an open, grassy meadow. At the far end of the meadow was a small cabin made of rough-hewn wooden planks. A yellow light shone from one of two windows.

Tucker hesitated at the edge of the forest, considering his choices. He could walk up to the cabin and knock on the door and see who answered. He could return to the disk that led to the hospital roof. Or he could enter one of the other disks and end up . . . somewhere.

What would his father do? What had his father
done
? Tucker knew his dad had survived the episode on the pyramid, because he had managed to return home, with Lahlia. Both of them must have also been to the hospital place, because they had been wearing those blue foot coverings when they arrived in Hopewell.

Tucker now thought he understood why his dad had taken his mom through the disk. He had gone to find a cure for her illness at that futuristic hospital. But that meant they would have to go back to the pyramid . . . or did it? Lahlia had told him there was a second “gate” in Hopewell. Or maybe each time you used them, the disks went to different places, or different times, the way the disk on the World Trade Center had returned him and Kosh to the same barn, but ten years apart.

Tucker sat on a fallen tree trunk and stared across the meadow. He didn’t know enough to know what to do. The sky slowly brightened, bringing out the green and gold colors of the tall grasses. He could see no movement within the cabin, but after a time, a curl of smoke issued from the stone chimney.

He imagined knocking on the cabin door. The door would open and it would be . . . his mom! Smiling, sane, with a full head of red hair. “We’ve been waiting for you!” she would say. “Are you hungry?”

The fantasy produced a wave of warmth and hope; Tucker let himself enjoy it for a few seconds, then brought himself back to reality. He
was
hungry. The last time he remembered eating was in Hopewell. A peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich. He remembered the tube in his abdomen and guessed that it had carried food to his stomach. He swallowed. The thought of real food was making him salivate. Whoever was in the cabin might be able to feed him.

The chittering and tweeting of birds and other small creatures, hardly noticed by him before, increased tenfold as the first rays of sunlight flicked through the trees. Decisions impossible at night are more easily made at sunrise. Tucker walked through meadow grasses toward the cabin. He smelled wood smoke, then the aroma of something cooking. He did not have to knock. The door opened before he reached the porch. An old woman stepped out — the same ancient but vigorous woman who had carried him through the forest and sent him to the hospital. She was wearing a sleeveless calf-length shift the color and texture of wet sand. Her feet were bare.

“You’re back,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

“My name is Awn,” said the old woman as she ladled what looked like oatmeal from a heavy iron pot into his bowl. “The people who sent you here are known as the Medicants.”

“Medicants?”

“That is what they call themselves. A people driven by digital technologies and constrained by their societal ethic. It makes them resentful, particularly when the injured and the dead are thrust upon them.”

“What is a societal ethic?” Tucker asked.

Awn served herself a ladle of the hot cereal and sat across from him at the trestle table.

“They have a mandate to cure the sick and injured.”

“Could they cure autism?”

Awn stared into space for a few seconds, then said, “Autism. The naturalistic form of Plague.” She shook her head. “The Medicants would not attempt to undo a condition they regard as optimal. However, they might implant digital sensory filters and enhancement devices such as they use upon themselves.”

“Are you saying the Medicants are autistic?”

“In a sense. They carry Plague.”

“But they can’t cure themselves?”

“They choose to remain who they are. In any case, they would have to remove and regrow large portions of the brain. The result would be uncertain, and the cost would be steep. The Medicants are nothing if not miserly. How did you pay them for your own treatment?”

Tucker tasted his cereal. It wasn’t oatmeal, but it tasted good.

“They didn’t charge me,” he said.

Awn looked at him. With her ash-colored hair and translucent, finely wrinkled skin she could have been a hundred years old, but her voice was strong and her eyes missed nothing.