The Cydonian Pyramid (22 page)

Time passed slowly. Argent began humming quietly to calm himself. Oro told him to shut up. Argent laughed but stopped humming. Beetha shifted the detonator nervously from hand to hand. Song had seated herself in the hero pose, hands resting lightly on her thighs, her
arma
balanced across her shoulders. The wind died. Silence settled like fog over the zocalo.

Lia felt a slight vibration an instant before she heard the click and grinding of the altar mechanism. The altar slid back, and they heard the sound of voices echoing up from the stairwell.

“B
E QUICK ABOUT IT!
” A
MAN
’
S GRUFF VOICE
. M
ORE
footsteps, feet shuffling on rough stone. The men were on the frustum. “Come on! Pull them up!” This was followed by a girl’s cry of pain.

Song risked a quick look, then ducked back down below the edge of the frustum. She held up all the fingers of one hand, minus her thumb, indicating the number of men on the frustum.

That is not too many,
Lia thought.

After more cries, muttering, and shouted orders, Song looked again. This time, she signaled that another man had joined the first few. She loaded a stone into her slingshot. Lia raised her head and peeked over the edge, gripping her baton so hard, her fingers hurt. The deacons, wearing yellow-belted gray robes, were pulling girls up onto the frustum one by one. A frightened-looking acolyte was gathering the girls behind the altar. The girls looked confused and unsteady. Lia wondered if they had been given poppy tea.

Song said, “Now.” She stood up and fired her slingshot. A deacon fell. Argent and Oro launched themselves onto the frustum and charged, Oro swinging his steel bar like a broadsword. Song brought her
arma
to bear, but she couldn’t fire it because the girls were right behind the deacons. Oro hit one of them with his bar while Argent grabbed another and flung him over the edge. Lia, reacting late, followed them into the melee and jammed her baton into the midsection of the acolyte. The last deacon fell to another stone from Song’s slingshot. Within the space of a few heartbeats, the deacons were all down.

Song gestured for Oro and Argent to continue helping girls up from the staircase as Jonis directed the other girls over the edge of the pyramid. The frightened girls descended the giant steps in a ragged stream. Finally, Yar Yeanu appeared at the top of the staircase. Her eyes widened as she saw Song and the others waiting. She opened her mouth to shout a warning but was instantly consumed by an eye-searing jet of blue flame.

Oro screamed and staggered back from the opening, his shirt ablaze, and crashed into Song, knocking the
arma
from her hands and sending her sprawling.

Argent ran to his brother and attempted to smother the flames as more deacons emerged from the staircase onto the frustum. Lia stunned one of them with her baton while Song, back on her feet, dodged the baton thrusts of the other.

Another deacon climbed from the opening. Lia grabbed the
arma
that Song had dropped and pointed it at him, but she couldn’t figure out how to trigger the weapon. Jonis, pointing her ancient shotgun, pulled the trigger. The gun misfired with a muffled pop; beads of shot rattled ineffectually off the deacon’s robe. The deacon was followed by a priest, and another deacon, and yet another priest.

Beetha, crouching at the edge of the frustum, fumbled with the detonator. Priests and deacons were popping out of the hole like wasps from a shaken hive. One of them charged at Beetha and shoved her over the edge. She dropped the detonator and fell with a scream.

Lia swung the
arma
back and forth wildly — she couldn’t figure out how to fire it, but it made a fine club. Argent had left his smoldering brother to grapple with another deacon. They kept coming. There were too many. Lia’s fingers found a stud on the handle of the
arma.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a deacon swinging a baton at Argent. She pointed the
arma
and pressed the stud.

The deacon’s head exploded. She felt a sickening moment of satisfaction, then turned and found herself facing Master Gheen. His dark eyes seemed to suck the strength from her arms, and in that instant of hesitation, he knocked the
arma
aside and swung at her with his other hand. She saw a glitter of something black in his hand and jerked back. The knife sliced through her tunic and rattled across her ribs. Lia kicked out as she dodged a second thrust, but her foot just brushed Gheen’s robe.

All around her was chaos. An old, white-bearded man climbed from the staircase and gaped uncomprehendingly at the mayhem surrounding him. He was shoved aside by more emerging deacons. A pair of them had Yar Song backed up to the edge of the frustum, while Jonis swung her ineffectual shotgun at a baton-wielding priest. Gheen, knife in hand, was moving in on Lia again. She looked frantically for the
arma
she had dropped but couldn’t see it. Gheen lunged. Lia sidestepped his thrust but tripped over a fallen deacon. Gheen was on her in an instant, slashing.

Hot blood splashed across her eyes. She kicked out blindly. Her foot hit something, and she heard Gheen shout in pain. Lia leaped to her feet and dragged her sleeve across her eyes to clear the blood. Argent and Jonis had fallen. Song had retreated over the edge of the frustum.

Gheen was coming at her again. Lia twisted to avoid his blade and drove her elbow into his mouth. She heard the wet snap of breaking teeth. Gheen gasped and fell. Lia was the only Yar still standing. She ran to where Beetha had dropped the detonator. It was balanced on the edge of the frustum. Lia scooped it up, flipped open the cover, and jammed her finger down on the button.

Nothing happened.

Gheen was back on his feet, spitting blood. He still had the blade in his hand. Another deacon, moving toward her from the opposite side, suddenly shouted and pointed over the edge. An arrow sprouted from his chest, and he fell back. More arrows filled the air. The steps of the pyramid were a chaos of Pure Girls descending, Yars and farmers climbing up. Gheen ducked low and backed away from the edge. Lia stood, undecided, for a moment, then ran for the center of the frustum. She held the detonator over the staircase opening and pressed the button.

Her world exploded.

D
REAMS
.

Priests.

Armas
and arrows.

Thunder in her ears.

Her legs and arms were lead. She could not move.

Voices.

Someone pressing a cloth to her face.

Pain.

Blackness.

Lia woke up, but the nightmare did not end. She couldn’t move. She tried to open her eyes; only the right one responded. She could not feel any part of her body, and there was a constant roaring in her ears. The face of an unsmiling woman with a short cap of silver hair was suspended above her.

“Do not move,” the woman said.

Do not
move
? How could she
move
? She was paralyzed.

The woman’s face shifted away, leaving Lia staring up at a cream-colored plaster ceiling. The room smelled of cold stone, lamp oil, and the faint, acrid odor of disinfectant.

Where am I?
Lia willed herself to speak, but there was no movement of her lips, no sound.

The woman’s face came back into view. “You have been injured. Do you understand? Blink once.”

Lia blinked.

“I have applied a nerve jammer. I will deactivate it.” The woman put her hand behind Lia’s neck. “You may experience some discomfort, but try to remain still.” Lia heard a click. The left side of her face instantly became hot and tingly. Feeling flowed into her arms and legs — not all of it good. Her ribs were a throbbing cage of pain. She reached up carefully to touch her face with her hand. The entire left side was covered with something cool and smooth.

The woman took her hand and pushed it back down. “You must avoid touching the dressing or straining your facial musculature for the next twenty-four hours.”

Lia glared at her. The woman’s accent, flat expression, and abrupt manner reminded her of the Medicants. And she used numbers.

The woman said, “You may speak, but do not contort your lips unnecessarily.”

“Where —?” Her voice was a rasp. She cleared her throat. It hurt. “Where am I?”

“You are in Romelas, in the convent of the Yars.”

“What’s that sound?”

“What do you hear?”

“It’s like a waterfall.”

“Your ears may have sustained some damage. Are you thirsty?”

“Yes.”

The woman produced a gourd with a long neck. “I do not want you to sit up yet.” She held the neck of the gourd to Lia’s lips and trickled its contents into her mouth. Lia swallowed. The liquid was soothing and cool. It tasted of melon.

“Are you in pain?” the woman asked.

Lia considered the question. Her face felt heavy and hot and prickly, the top of her skull felt as if it had been hammered, and her ribs radiated sharp pains with every heartbeat.

“My face tingles,” Lia said. She did not want to admit how much she really hurt. Better to be in agony than with no sensation at all.

“You are healing.” The woman sat in the chair beside the bed and placed a flat handheld device about the size of a small book on Lia’s chest, just below her collarbone. She held it there for a moment, then lifted it away and examined the display on the device. “Vital signs normal, white blood-cell count five-three-four-four per CCM, hormone levels within late adolescent norms. How old are you?”

“My blood moon has come and gone,” Lia said in response to the woman’s rude question.

“You were what they call a Pure Girl?”

“Yes.”

The woman made a notation on her device. “Pure Girls are typically late with their menarche due to certain maturation-suppressing drugs added to their diets. Have you experienced a growth spurt since you left the palace?”

In fact, she had grown noticeably during her year in Hopewell.

“The Sisters fed us drugs?” She thought about the last time she had seen Sister Tah. “Why? Did the priests make them?”

“It was not the Sisters or the priests; it was the Yars, who delivered the food. They believed that delaying menses increased the Pure Girls’ odds of surviving their ordeal. You may be sixteen, or even seventeen.”

The woman was speaking numbers. Lia knew the small numbers — it had been impossible to avoid them in Hopewell — and the numbers the woman had spoken were the teen numbers. Tucker Feye had been a teen. Apparently, so was she. In any case, she didn’t see why it mattered. She found this woman and her numbers to be intensely irritating.

“Who are you?”

“I am Exit Tech Severs Two-Nine-Four. You may call me Severs.”

“What is that device?”

The woman looked at the thing in her hand. “It is a twelve thirty-nine medical analytic scanner. We call it a tricorder.” A twitch of the lips — was that a smile? “You suffered a severe concussion. I am providing medical care for you and three others who were injured ten days ago. I — are you in pain?”

“Ten
days
?” Ten was the number of fingers on her hands.

“You have been unconscious.”

“You said there were others who were injured. Who are they?”

“The ones called Beetha, Oro, and Argent. The Yar called Jonis was here with a broken ankle, but I have discharged her.”

“And everyone else was okay?”

“Several people died, I have been told. The priests have fled the city.”

“What of Yar Song?”

“Which is she?”

“One of her eyelids is tattooed.”

“Oh. That one. She lives.” Severs consulted her device. “That is enough talking. You must rest.” She reached behind Lia’s neck and activated the nerve jammer. All sensation went away. Severs extinguished the lamp.

The next time she awakened, Lia could see a bar of sunlight slipping in past the edges of a shuttered window. She tried to call out. Her lungs were working, but she could only make a wheezy, hissing sound, barely audible over the constant roar in her ears. She watched a beetle, oblivious of gravity, making its way across the plaster ceiling. She watched the beetle for a very long time.