by Platt, Sean
“Come with me,” Jabari said, breaking the mood that threatened to freeze them in place as the city burned. “We thought this might be coming.” She waved at Piper, Lila, and both Meyers. “Come on. All of you.”
“But Clara!” Lila said.
“She’s safer than we are, Lila,” Piper said.
Lila felt her arm yanked hard as they went back on the move, now running with Jabari leading in her long, formal viceroy gown. Through the windows, Lila could see groups of people swarming past, fires burning, Reptars on patrol, shuttles flying by like in the early days of Heaven’s Veil. And what Piper and Kindred had said was true, now that Lila tuned in to her own heavy-handed intuition: She could hear the others out there; she could sense the mood; she did feel that heavy sense of a judgment gone wrong. Not as deeply as Piper seemed to, but the feeling was there. And below it all, she feared for her daughter. Not as a logical being but as a mother. No matter how you sliced it, Clara had been taken from her, and nobody knew where she’d gone.
They moved into an unknown hallway, through an unmarked door. The room was filled with screens and computers. It was like a tiny version of Peers’s Den, only in a room instead of a cave, using human technology instead of Astral.
Jabari was about to close the door when she paused, hand on the knob. Then, with the door still open, she walked slowly back into the hallway as if she’d spotted something and wanted to get a closer look. Across from the unmarked door was a gallery of windows. Outside, beyond a lush expanse of grass, Lila could see nothing but an outer wall and open sky beyond. There was nothing of the city from this vista. Were it not for the sounds all around and the murmurings in her head, this might be just another peaceful night in the Capital of Capitals.
Beyond, Lila could see something moving.
“Ms. Jabari?” Lila said, approaching her.
But Jabari was shaking her head.
“It’s too late,” she said.
Chapter Fifty-Six
A teen boy of about fourteen stood in front of Peers. It took a while to realize he was staring at himself.
There was a grating, a grumbling from somewhere behind him. A sort of shifting sound, nothing to worry about. Peers remembered it well, from when he’d been the boy in this vision. One of the big doors closing, or possibly opening. Judging by where they (both adult and boy) were standing, Peers was sure he remembered the day, and why the doors might be moving, though some typically stayed open and others closed, all seldom moved. Today the Mullah was rallying defenses, aware of an intrusion. The adults were scurrying about the tunnels like busy bees rallying to rise and sting.
And in so doing, they’d left the temple unguarded.
Well, mostly unguarded. Sabah, one of the elders, had remained at his station when the others ran off. Peers had watched him for a while, hidden, and only recently, as Adult Peers understood the timeline, had he taken a short break to relieve his bladder.
Watching now as full-grown Peers, he remembered his thoughts on that long-ago day, now around two decades behind him. He hadn’t meant to do anything, not really. But he’d been curious, as he’d always been, and you usually couldn’t even approach the temple, let alone enter. There were all sorts of pain-in-the ass adults milling about and telling nosy kids to get away, to mind their parents and whatever dumb tasks they were supposed to be doing. The kids had many chores. Peers had spoken to children from the outside world, who didn’t live in caves and holes in the ground, worshipping old scrolls and performing ancient rituals. He knew enough about the world beyond these stone walls to know that Peers was dealing with slavery, no more or less. Screw the adults and especially the elders. The soldier ants had to do all the grunt work, while those in the know held their secrets and chanted in circles, probably, laughing about how they ran things and could make others — most particularly Peers and his friends — do whatever they wanted.
All for the stupid temple. All for whatever was inside it. All because of the Horsemen — who, despite lots of rather over-the-top indoctrination, sounded like boogeymen. The kids were told that if they didn’t do their chores or listen to their parents, they’d be taken away when the Horsemen returned.
It was all such crap.
It didn’t help that Peers’s father had been an envoy to Cairo, to Jerusalem, to Damascus. It didn’t help that Father was an infiltrator, occasionally placed in high positions, meant to pull invisible strings for the Mullah. Father, when he was home, brought back stories. Said insidious, even blasphemous things that came to him from the world beyond the caves. Peers absorbed it all. He began to see the Mullah’s way of life in terms of Haves and Have-Nots, the way Father sometimes spoke when he thought the children couldn’t hear. And Peers, always curious, resented the fact that if he had to slave his days away, he couldn’t even truly know what he was slaving for.
Horsemen. Horsemen, indeed.
So he’d gone to the temple entrance, just to see it. Just to be there without being bothered. And when Sabah stood and tottered his way off toward the latrine chamber, Young Peers had gone to the door. Touched it. Seen the way the stone had been perfectly milled so that door met jamb with no gap in between. Could you suffocate someone by locking them in the temple? Probably. But that was fine because as far as Father said, nobody ever went into the temple. Almost never. Once in a great while, one of the elders would go in to “consult the Horsemen.” Peers had his own thoughts.
Seeing as the whole Horsemen thing smelled like bullshit, that had to be where the best stuff was kept. All the games the children weren’t allowed to have. All the money for use in traveling and acquiring things, perhaps. All the forbidden material, which the elders kept for themselves. Maybe there were loose women inside, kept alive by air holes. And the elders entered to screw them.
Peers watched his young self creep forward, looking around for Sabah’s return. Despite knowing the outcome, Adult Peers couldn’t help a flutter of nerves. Sabah had stayed away long enough. Peers had got away with all of it — at least, for a while.
The boy pushed on the rock. Glanced back, pushed again. He’d even smelled at the gap, as if the good stuff in the temple might be sweets he could sniff from a distance. Eventually, the boy decided he’d seen enough, that the temple’s guts had never been the goal and that the door and foyer themselves were boring. So he’d turned to go, then half tripped and smacked his back against the wall near the door.
Peers watched it happen. Beside the boy, the door slid sideways. Not open like on a hinge but into the wall. It shouldn’t have been possible with stone.
The boy looked at the door, deeply puzzled and slightly afraid. The door’s movement had been too quiet for stone on stone, and that meant he probably wouldn’t be discovered by sound. But on the other hand, here he was, on the threshold, the door wide open. He’d be beaten if caught. Maybe expelled.
The boy looked at the open door, with nothing but darkness inside.
Maybe killed, for all Young Peers knew.
The boy turned, now noticing a small circular keyhole with a pattern that matched those rings worn by the elders. Then he looked at his belt, where he’d leaned against the wall. He’d tucked a cleaning pad into his waistband when the commotion started, when the outsiders had arrived and the Mullah stirred to find them, then either kill or force them to leave. He’d been scouring one of the tables using the pad, which was a big wad of twisted metal threads.
Watching now, it was obvious to Adult Peers what had happened. Just as he’d done when he’d retrieved the sphere from its original home in the closet, the metal on the pad had pressed into the key indentations. You didn’t need a special key after all. You had to touch the points with something, maybe metal.
Adult Peers felt his heart skip, mentally urging the boy back. But of course, this had happened. This was history, already written.
He walked forward.
The temple was small. Far too small to be called a temple, not much larger than a walk-in closet at the viceroy
mansion. If this were real, it would have been a tight fit for two people. But in reality he’d been the boy in this place, looking at the temple’s sole feature: a blue disc on the far wall about the size of a large dinner plate, glowing in the dark, swirling like liquid.
Peers touched the disc and found it semi-permeable. It gave a bit when he pressed it, like taffy.
A voice in his head (just in the boy’s head at the time, but now also echoed in Adult Peers’s head) said, Who are you?
Peers remembered how unsure he’d been about how to answer — or, really, whether he should even try. He wasn’t supposed to be near the temple. He definitely wasn’t supposed to be in the temple. And holy of all holies, he really, really wasn’t supposed to be in front of this disc thing, touching it, talking to who knew whom. Or what.
But the answer rose in Young Peers’s mind, now echoed in Adult Peers’s thoughts, without effort. A lie.
I’m an elder of the Mullah.
You seem young. Even for a human.
Young Peers stepped back. All the way to the doorway. Intellectually, he should be terrified. But curiosity was the stronger emotion. He’d never be here again. If he left now, too many questions would plague him. What was this thing? Who was the voice in his head? And how did this all work, anyway? He knew the voice wasn’t really speaking his language. It was an instantaneous translation of both words and concepts, happening mind to mind.
This was too much. He had to leave.
But instead, Peers watched his stupid younger self step forward again.
We were not expecting contact, said the voice.
Yeah, well.
There seemed to be a pause as if the voice was waiting for something. Then it said, The archive has been disturbed.
And Peers, having no idea what that meant, said, Okay.
He saw a mental image, of a large gilt box in a cave. There was a cerebral relaxation, and he somehow knew that what the voice proposed — the thing he’d just agreed with — wasn’t actually true. Peers intuited this as good; the archive, whatever it was, hadn’t been touched. It was something else — related but different — that this little mind-meld felt was off.
The the voice seemed to decide what that thing was. The key. It has found a bearer.
Sure.
Is this why you’ve broken the silence?
I thought someone should know. About the archive and the key, I mean.
Why has this happened?
Peers recalled one of the expressions his father had brought back from the outside world. It wasn’t appropriate, but seeing as this was a mental thing, he was unable to keep it from slipping out.
Shit happens.
Is it time?
Um, I don’t know.
It has been millennia since the last epoch. Your kind has rebuilt. You know the rules. We will not decide. Only you can decide.
Now Peers was uneasy. Both Peerses were uneasy: Young Peers because he’d trespassed enough and was ready to leave, curiosity or no curiosity, and Adult Peers because a slow creeping was summiting his spine.
Epoch.
Rebuilt.
Only you can decide.
And on the heels of those thoughts, he recalled Ravi’s words, before he’d run off terrified: You opened a lock in the temple? Beyond the elders?
Because that definitely wasn’t supposed to be possible, not without a key, not even if you had steel wool on your belt. But then again, the way had always parted for Peers almost as if he had a role to play in destiny.
And Ravi’s parting whisper, before he’d run: The Fool.
Aloud, even though he was inside a memory, Adult Peers said, “Oh, shit.”
The key has found its bearer, said the voice. The portal has been activated.
But the boy was becoming worried. Worried about what this place was, whom exactly he was talking to, and most pressingly, when the elder guard would return. He’d been here far too long, and was in too deep. But the voice held his attention like a clenched fist.
Are you ready?
Young Peers didn’t answer. He backed away. The voice held him, freezing his muscles. It wasn’t going to let him go. He’d be held here forever. They’d find him here, tethered. He’d die in this place, his mind held prisoner.
Are you ready? the voice repeated, its tone calm and rational.
Yes! Yes, just let me go!
And then, it did. Young Peers reeled backward, his momentum strong enough to propel his memory body back through Adult Peers’s own insubstantial presence. The boy emerged on his backside then stumbled out into the light. Clumsily, he pushed the steel wool pad against the lock, and of course the door closed. Peers remembered how easily it had shut, cutting the boy off from that strange, horrible blue disc and its resident voice. He’d been so relieved. For two weeks afterward, he was sure he’d gotten away with it. Only later had a kid named Fahim finked on him, reporting out of pious guilt that Peers Basara had gone to the area outside the temple door. He hadn’t even seen Peers enter; just going to the temple and touching its closed door was enough to earn his exile.
Peers, shut in the dark chamber when the door closed, stepped through the wall and found his child self walking backward, afraid to move his eyes from the door. He remembered how terrified he’d been. How much he’d felt on the edge of a near-miss, almost having been caught, maybe trapped. But cogitation had been cut short when the floor trembled, its point of origin far in the other direction, where the intruders were being dealt with.
The room changed like a jump cut in a film. Suddenly Adult Peers — alone now — found himself back in his room in the Ember Flats viceroy’s mansion. The room was still shaking, but now it wasn’t from the rocks shifting in what the Mullah called the Key Room. It wasn’t the sign of coming that he now realized it had always been. Now it was the sign of something else.
Past knowledge stitched with the understanding gained since. All the things he’d studied, both on his own and in concert with data sent from Benjamin Bannister’s group, from other groups around the world, both before and after the Astrals’ arrival. Mullah legends meeting science, myth, and findings from sites across the globe. And all of a sudden, everything seemed to fit.
Are you ready?
The Astrals viewed time differently than humans did. Even neglecting physics Peers knew nothing about, decades and even centuries simply didn’t mean much to beings who lived nearer to eternity. From their distant home, mentally accessible only through the portal, it would take them forever to reach Earth. Hell, it might take more than a decade.
They’d arrive on their dark, spherical horses. En masse, to weigh humanity and lay judgment — but only once we were ready. That’s what the Mullah were for. They were the keepers. Those who mediated the way. Kept Pandora’s box closed until it was time to open it, when circumstances were finally right, and we’d had time to become what the keepers felt had a fair chance of succeeding.
And again, Peers heard, Are you ready?
And his own answer, blurted in childish fear: Yes!
He backed away from the Astral sphere. He looked up, toward the invisible sky, hidden behind the palace roof.
He’d done this.
He’d called them.
It was Peers, all those years ago, who’d brought the Astrals to Earth far, far too early, as only a Fool could do. He’d gone where he wasn’t supposed to go. Touched what he oughtn’t have touched. Transgressed where nobody was supposed to transgress. And eleven years later, the Horsemen had arrived.
Had the Mullah known? Peers wasn’t sure. They’d exiled him without ceremony, not bothering to detail what damage, if any, he’d caused. But Peers thought they might not have known at the time, though they surely figured it out later. When Peers had been exiled, the concern had been all about the incursion into the Key Room: the key finding its bearer; Cameron Bannister finding his place in destiny, dooming himself to finish off the choice that Peers, too young to know any better, had triggered the process of ch
oosing.
Coincidence? There was no such thing in the blessed, cursed life of Peers Basara, Fool of legend.
He remembered the desert. The shove from his own uncles and cousins and mother, telling him to never return. The Mullah’s was a sacred duty, and Peers had threatened it. If only they’d known how badly.
Sabah had said, When the day comes that the Horsemen arrive, may the Dark Rider himself take your soul.
The Dark Rider.
In the old legends, the Dark Rider rode at the rear of the Horsemen’s pack. Lagging back, lying in wait. And given the way modern technological society had crumbled in the years since the occupation, that wouldn’t be hard. If there was a Dark Rider, he could hang back, just out of obvious sight. There were no strong telescopes anymore. No telemetry, no radar, no satellite feeds out of Astral hands, and even those pointed only at the ground.
He had to find the tunnels. He had to get away.
Peers zipped the pack, slung it over his back, and rushed for the door, Nocturne at his heels.
They both stopped when the door opened. In his fugue, Peers seemed to have missed a major event at the palace: one that had ripped the house wide open, leaving his room door opening into open yard, chaos, and rubble.
But he barely saw the rubble, or the chaos beyond.
An all-black ship, its bulk spanning to the edge of each visible horizon, was sliding into place above Ember Flats.
Shit from brains…
Johnny told me I had to write this Author’s Note.
I said, “But you always write the Author’s Notes — I haven’t written one since Unicorn Western!”
And he said, “DUDE. I ALWAYS write the Author’s Notes! YOU haven’t written one since Unicorn Western.”
It’s true, I haven’t. Because it seems natural for Johnny to spill his guts after finishing the first draft, then it’s my job to go in and mop it all up. But when he added, “And besides, I think our readers would really like hearing from you,” I think he’s at least partially right. I mean, it’s all math. Many readers don’t even get to the Author’s Notes, and then at least some of you reading this now are thinking, “DAMMIT! I CAME HERE FOR JOHNNY.” But there are probably at least a few of you who might be genuinely happy to hear from me. Sorry to everyone else — Johnny will be back for Extinction. Probably.