The Buried Cities

by James Frey

  As I walk outside and toward the room where our gear is, I’m startled by someone coming out of the door. For a moment, my flashlight shines on the face of a boy. I have just enough time to see that there is a thick scar running across it, and that his right eye is missing. Then he turns and takes off at a run.

  “Hey!” I call out. He ignores me, disappearing into the darkness.

  I run after him, shining my flashlight in a sweeping motion to try and catch a glimpse of him. But he’s vanished, as if he’s a ghost and not a flesh-and-blood boy. There are dozens of doorways into which he could have slipped, and I know it’s useless to keep looking for him, so I return to the room to see how much damage he’s caused.

  First I check to make sure he hasn’t taken any of the weapon pieces. Fortunately, it appears that he’s only taken food. A couple of the sacks have been emptied onto the floor, but the boy has really just made a mess. Still, I’m now worried. We’re too far from any inhabited villages for this to be an accident. The boy must have either followed us or been sent by someone. Either way, he now knows we’re here, and that could be a problem. We need to get what we came for and get out.

  I put the scattered items back into the packs, then carry them two at a time to the second fairy tower, where I stow them just inside the door. It’s not a whole lot better than leaving them unattended in the old location, especially if the boy is out there watching me, but it’s better than nothing. I don’t have time to go get Ari and the others, and I can’t carry six packs with me, so it’s going to have to do for the moment.

  I shoulder my own pack, which contains rope and other things I might need, and I make the trek back to the room where Ari and the others are waiting for me.

  “What took so long?” Ari asks when I appear.

  I laugh as I slip my pack off. Of course, being a Player, she would know exactly how long it should have taken me, enough to worry that I wasn’t back in time.

  “We had a visitor,” I tell her. I describe the boy. When I mention the scar and the missing eye, Yildiz starts to chatter, grabbing Kelebek’s arm.

  “You know who it is?” I ask the girl.

  “I know,” she says. “His name is Bilal. He plays here sometimes.”

  “With you and the others?”

  She shakes her head. “The others make fun of him, because of his eye and his scar. I do not. I tell them to leave him alone.”

  “Did he take anything?” Ari asks me.

  “Just some food,” I tell her. “I don’t think he’s anything to worry about. Even if he goes back to town and tells someone about us, it will take him hours to get there. Hopefully, we’ll be done by then and on our way.”

  I turn my attention to getting Ott out of the pit. First I take a length of rope from my pack. Then I fashion a kind of harness out of some blankets, just something for him to put under his arms so the rope doesn’t hurt him too much. When it’s done, I push open the stone covering the trapdoor to the pit and call out, “Incoming!” as I drop the harness down to Ott.

  He puts the rolled-up blankets under his arms and threads the rope beneath them, crossing it in the back and looping it around his chest a couple of times. When it’s secured, I tell him to sit with his back to the wall. Then Ari and Brecht help me pull him up, a little at a time. He yelps a couple of times as his injured leg is jostled, but eventually his head appears in the opening. Ari and Brecht hold the rope, and I pull Ott the rest of the way out. He lies on the floor, groaning, as I inspect his leg.

  “Is it broken?” he asks as I run my hands along it.

  “Nothing feels broken,” I say. “I don’t think we’ll have to amputate it.” He doesn’t find my joke funny. I get him to stand, but when he tries to put pressure on his foot, he stumbles and cries out. I can tell there’s no way he’s going to be able to walk. I help him sit again, and he leans against the wall. I motion for Ari to come with me into the hallway.

  “He won’t be able to come with us,” I tell her. “And we can’t leave him by himself. I don’t trust him.”

  “You think he did go after Kelebek.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “To be honest, I don’t trust her, either. But it doesn’t really matter. We need her, at least until we get through this door we’re looking for. And now that we’ve had company, I think we need to do that as soon as we can. That boy might just be here by accident, but I don’t want to risk waiting until morning now. Which means that—”

  “One of us will have to babysit Ott,” Ari says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Want to flip for it?”

  “Flip for it?”

  I fish in my pocket and pull out a coin. A 25-kuruş piece. I hold it up. “Heads or tails?” I ask Ari as I toss the coin into the air. It flips over several times; Ari says, “Tails,” just before I catch it again. I slap the coin onto the back of my other hand and hold it up for her to see. “Have fun with the baby,” Ari says, grinning.

  I look at the coin and groan. I’m stuck with Ott.

  “Don’t let him stay up too late,” Ari teases. “And no sweets before bedtime.”

  We return to the room where the others are waiting to see what we’ve been discussing. Ott looks miserable, Kelebek looks defiant, and Brecht looks hopeful.

  “Ott and I will stay here,” I announce. “It’s probably best if Yildiz stays as well. Ari will go with Kelebek and Brecht to try and open the door.” “And once it’s open?” Ott asks.

  “One thing at a time,” I tell him. “Now let’s get going. Well, you three get going. The sooner you find the door and see if that key works, the sooner we can all get out of here.”

  Yildiz speaks in a low voice to Kelebek, who seems reluctant to go without her. But then Ari says to her, “You’ll have to lead the way. Can you do that?”

  Kelebek nods, but I can tell that she’s pleased to be the most important person in the room, at least for now. She walks out, and Brecht follows. As Ari passes by me, I stop her. “The packs are at the top of the stairs. Good luck.” I want to kiss her, but I settle for giving her a wink.

  “See you soon,” she says, and winks back.

  When they’re gone, I sit next to Ott on the floor. “Did the girl really steal the key?” I ask him.

  “Does it matter?” he says. “I don’t think you’ll believe me either way.”

  I laugh. “Probably not,” I agree.

  He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Do you know what the problem with Americans is?”

  “No,” I say. “But I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “The problem with Americans,” he says, “is that you don’t know what it is to lose. And when you’ve never lost, you never know what it’s like to be pushed to the point where you will do anything to win.”

  I think about what he’s said. Maybe he’s right. Maybe never losing a battle makes you forget what it’s like to have nothing left to lose. But I’m not just American. I’m also Cahokian. And a Player. For me, losing isn’t an option.

  I wish I was with Ari, instead of here with this man I don’t trust and don’t like. I look over at Yildiz. She has tucked herself into a corner of the room, where she now appears to be sleeping. I wish I could do the same thing.

  For some reason, the scarred face of the boy flashes across my thoughts. I wonder if I should be more worried about him showing up here. Where did he go? Why was he here in the first place? I want to think he’s just curious, or was here for another reason. Whatever it is, there’s nothing I can do about him at the moment. I have to stay here and remain alert for any signs of trouble.

  I just wish I could shake the feeling that it might show up sooner than I would like.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ariadne

  The trapdoor in the well room is only the first of many obstacles hidden in the underground city. After getting our packs, Kelebek leads me and Brecht down twisting corridors and through room after room, she points out many more. The people who built the city wanted very much to protect i
t, and themselves. But what were they protecting themselves from? Brecht mentioned that the cities were designed to guard the occupants from Christian invaders, and that is probably true in some instances. This one, however, seems designed to do more than that. It’s built to make penetrating the inner rooms a deadly undertaking.

  “How did you discover all these traps without setting them off?” I ask the girl as she points out yet another pitfall.

  “We did set some of them off,” she answers. “Bilal lost his eye to one when he peered through a hole and a sharpened stick came out. Another had her leg crushed by a stone. My friend Nesim went through a doorway in one of the towers and never came out again.”

  Brecht also provides information. “Those holes in the ceiling,” he says as we pass beneath a stretch of corridor. “Heated oil would be poured from somewhere up above, drenching the unlucky invaders trying to come this way. I imagine there are also arrow slits in the stairwells. And that stick that took your friend’s eye,” he adds, speaking to Kelebek, “it might have been tipped with poison. Probably ineffective after all these years. He’s fortunate; it might have killed him.”

  The scientist is enjoying this, as he should. Exploring places like this is his life’s work. He examines every new discovery with the excitement of a child opening a gift. I, meanwhile, am wondering if our flashlight batteries will hold out long enough to complete our task. I have noticed simple straw-and-pitch torches spaced here and there along the corridors, and what look like clay oil lamps in some of the rooms, but I would prefer not to use them, if they are even still in working order after all these years.

  “We are almost there,” Kelebek informs us as we descend more stairs. I have been counting, and we are now nine levels underground. I feel like one of the figures from the myths, on a katabasis into the underworld in search of something precious. It’s unbelievable how large the city is. What is seen on the surface is beautiful and awe-inspiring, but it only begins to hint at what lies beneath. Corridor after corridor, room after room, has been carved from the earth. This is a fortress buried underground, massive and well defended, as if a giant opened its mouth and swallowed it whole.

  Ahead of me, Kelebek suddenly seems to disappear, passing through a solid wall. For a moment I think she’s tricked us somehow. Then I reach the spot where I last saw her, and discover that it’s an illusion. The corridor does indeed seem to end, but there is a narrow opening on either side, just wide enough to slip through. Hearing voices, I pass through the one on the right, and step into a chamber. Kelebek is there. Brecht steps in after me.

  “Had you gone to the left, you would have had your head smashed in by a log on a pendulum,” Kelebek says, smiling. “We tried that way first. Luckily, Nildag was not tall enough to be hit by the log.”

  “It’s a good thing I went to the right, then,” I say. She smiles again, and I wonder if she’s making a joke, or if she was hoping I would choose incorrectly.

  I focus on the wall she is standing in front of. The other walls are the same ordinary brown rock that the entire city is carved from. This one is different. Inlaid all across it are small rocks of some kind, arranged in seemingly random patterns. Scattered among them are empty holes. I walk over and touch one.

  “Thieves must have prized some of them out,” I remark.

  “No,” Kelebek corrects me. “Those are, I think, the keyholes.”

  I look at her, surprised.

  “Look here,” she says, and shines her light on the wall. Now I can see that the stones are set within a large circle, the edges of which at first seem to be carved into the rock. Upon closer inspection, I see that the circle is actually a separate piece of rock entirely, set into the larger wall. It’s about three meters across.

  “I think it must be a door of some kind,” Kelebek says.

  Brecht, who is examining the wall himself, laughs. “Clever child,” he says. “I believe you’re correct. And I suppose all we have to do is insert the key into the correct keyhole to open it.”

  “It can’t be that simple,” I say.

  “Of course it isn’t,” Brecht agrees. “My guess is that if we choose the wrong hole, something decidedly unpleasant will come of it.”

  “Then how do we choose the right one? And what are these stones?”

  “Opals, I think,” Brecht says, tapping one with his finger. “They’re not uncommon in this part of the world, although these are unusually large ones.”

  “And what is their purpose? They must have some meaning.”

  Kelebek is standing by the wall opposite the door. She reaches her hand up and does something. A moment later, there is a grinding, and a slab of rock begins to turn beside the opening we passed through, shutting it. I rush to it, but there is no way to stop the massive stone from sealing us in.

  “It is all right,” Kelebek says when I turn on her angrily. “Look.” She nods at the wall of stones.

  When I turn back, the wall is glowing. Actually, it is the stones that are glowing. Something is lighting them up from within, filling them with a pale luminescence.

  “I didn’t know if it would work at night,” Kelebek says. She sounds pleased.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve only seen it work when the sun is out,” she explains. “That is why I said we should wait to come here during the day. We thought the light came from sunlight reflected in mirrors from above somehow. It seems we were wrong.”

  I look at Brecht. “I have heard of something like that before,” he says. “A temple in the Amazon jungle had a map that could only be read when the sun shone through an opening in the wall and was reflected off a series of mirrors. I suppose the same could be done to bring light down here.”

  “But moonlight?”

  “That is less likely,” he admits.

  “Besides, the moon is barely past the first quarter,” I say. “And the night is cloudy. This is something else.”

  “Perhaps the ones who made the weapon left more than that behind,” Brecht says.

  I look at the wall in wonder. Could it really be that this is Maker technology? Despite all my Endgame training, I’ve never seen anything like it before. The glowing lights seem so out of place in this ancient, primitive place, and I can’t imagine what is powering them. Whatever it is, it’s both beautiful and mystifying. I step back and look at the placement of the opals in the wall. Something about it seems familiar, like a pattern, almost, but I can’t place what it is. I stare at it a bit longer. Then it comes to me. “It’s a map of the night sky. Part of it, at any rate.”

  I walk to the wall and touch a series of glowing opals. “That’s the constellation Cygnus,” I say. “And here is Delphinus.”

  “Ah!” says Brecht. “I see now. And there are Hercules and Vulpecula.” He laughs excitedly. “How wonderful this is!”

  “And each constellation has one missing star,” I continue. “See? There is a hole in Cygnus where Deneb should be.”

  “So there is,” Brecht says. “Instead of a stone, it’s a keyhole.”

  I notice that Kelebek has come to stand beside me. She is gazing at the map of the constellations, a look of awe on her face. “Which one opens the door, then?”

  “That’s the question,” I say. “What do you think?”

  She studies the map, her brow wrinkled in concentration. “Perhaps the one in Hercules? He was the strongest man. He could move a stone this large.”

  It’s a good guess. I take the key from my pocket. It’s a simple shape, a cylinder about 10 centimeters long, with several notches along the sides and indentations on one end. I hold it up to the hole where the star cluster called Rasalgethi in Hercules should be. It’s the same diameter as the hole.

  “Let’s see if he can move this one,” I say, and push the key into the hole.

  At first, nothing happens. Then a grinding sound fills the air. For a moment I think that the door Kelebek shut is opening. Then I turn around, and realize that the back wall is advancing toward u
s, pushed forward by an unseen mechanism. The room is closing in.

  “That doesn’t seem to be the correct keyhole,” Brecht remarks.

  I pull the key from the hole. The wall does not stop advancing.

  Brecht looks at the wall, then at the size of the room. “I estimate we have approximately thirty seconds before we become a good deal thinner,” he says.

  I look at the remaining constellations. “Any ideas?” I ask.

  “Perhaps it’s Aquila, the eagle,” Brecht suggests. “He carried the thunderbolts of Zeus. Maybe the lock needs a bolt from a god to open it.”

  It makes as much sense as anything. However, I fear that if I choose incorrectly again, something even worse than the advancing wall will be the result. Although if I choose nothing, it won’t matter anyway.

  As the grinding sound reminds me that time is rapidly running out, I keep studying the map and thinking.

  Then I have a thought. “If the thing hidden behind the door is a weapon, then perhaps you need a weapon to open the door.”

  “Sagitta?” Brecht says. “The arrow? It’s one of the least visible of the constellations. Only four stars.”

  “All the better,” I say. “Easily overlooked in favor of the more familiar constellations.”

  I consider it some more. It’s as good a line of reasoning as any. The fact is, this is all a guessing game. How would the people who built this door and its locking mechanism think? What kind of riddle would they use to protect their secret? There’s really no way of knowing.

  “What happens if you’re wrong again?” Brecht says.

  “Let’s hope I’m not,” I say.

  Again I insert the key. It slides in with only a slight bit of hesitation. I feel the end connect with something and stop. I let go and wait. Then all the lights wink out. For a brief, horrible moment, I think I have chosen incorrectly again. But, very slowly, the circular door sinks into the floor, until finally the top edge of the stone disappears and we are looking into the opening of yet another corridor. This one is circular, and the entire surface is studded with glowing opals.