“Kora?” Mereau exclaimed, looking around. A young woman emerged from the pyramid landing. Her head and tunic were bloodied as well. As she descended the steps, she spoke to Mereau in Munuorian: “Halas, Fraendi.” Hello, Uncle.
Speechless, Mereau stared as Kora, his niece, Muran’s daughter, passed by. Mereau had been told the girl had died in the Munirvo revolt, along with Muran’s other daughter, Alaera. He asked, “How is this possible?”
“Bestill your wonder, Mereau. She is not the Kora you knew, the one who died at Malinyah’s command,” Muran said
“Malinyah’s command? You used your children as shields, Muran. They died because you put them in your front lines, daring Malinyah to attack while you snuck off to take Omereau!” Mereau responded angrily.
“Lies!” Muran sneered, as Kora arrived by her side. “Now, where is my sister? And where is Omereau?”
“They are not here,” Mereau said.
“As I expected. Another trick. Just like the lyktyl. I knew you were behind it, Mereau. These pathetic worms wouldn’t dare try it on their own,” Muran said. “Hello, worm.”
Her greeting was directed at Anlon, who had emerged from the courtyard and now stood shoulder to shoulder with Mereau, Dreylaeks in his hands. She asked, “How is your drooling friend?”
“What have you done to her?” Anlon questioned.
“She has transferred her mind to a Sinethal. The one taken from the bank, I presume,” Mereau said.
Muran smiled and nodded. As she spoke, she stared at Mereau. “And she will stay there forever. You will never find it on your own. I will tell you where it is, once you deliver Malinyah and Omereau…and the real lyktyl. Yes, now you see, don’t you, Mereau? The trapper is trapped. Now, call off your minions and fetch me my Sinethals.”
“I told you, they are not here,” Mereau calmly said.
“Should I look for the case, my Queen? The one Cully was carrying?” Kora asked.
“There is no point. The Tyls in the case are forgeries,” Mereau said.
Chetumal International Airport
“They’re standing together, I have a clear shot,” Dylan said.
“Steady, Dylan. Looks like they’re talking,” Antonio said. “Where’s the damn case? It’s not with either red bogey.”
“I don’t know. If neither of them have it, there are only two other possibilities. Either we destroyed it with the last shot, or it went over the side. There’s too much stone in the way for me to tell if it fell into the jungle. If you want, I can take the drone over to the right and have a closer look along that side of the pyramid. Targets are locked, they’re not going anywhere.”
“Okay, do it. Careful, though. We don’t want to attract any attention.”
Structure II, Calakmul Mayan Complex
Anlon maintained a level glare at Muran and Kora, trying to suppress his anger. Muran had them beat, despite Mereau’s bluff. The smile on Muran’s face showed she knew it, too. She said, “I will be in touch, then. And, next time, sister-husband, you will crawl to me on your knees.”
Below Muran and Kora, Anlon saw Jennifer perched on the staircase. She aimed a pistol at Muran. Anlon heard a click to his right. He looked over and saw Li’s head and arm poking over the side of the staircase. She held a gun on Muran, too. Somewhere above, Anlon knew, was Hell’s Angel. In the distance, Anlon heard the thumps of an approaching helicopter. Muran was absolutely trapped…and she would walk away free.
Muran slowly circled and laughed at the four of them. “Weaklings! Cowards! Idiots! You think me a fool? Come, Kora. They will not attack. They will not risk the girl’s mind.”
As they started down the steps, Mereau raised up the Breylofte and said, “Go no further, Muran.”
“Or you’ll what? Shoot me down? How do you feel about that, Cully? Your woman’s mind inside a Stone for eternity,” Muran said, continuing down the stairs. They were within ten feet of Jennifer.
“The Sinethal is not where you left it, Muran…and I have destroyed your Taellin,” Mereau said.
Muran stopped in her tracks and wheeled to face Mereau. Anlon saw uncertainty cross her face, then fear. She looked to Kora, who shared the same terrified expression. And then Muran did the unthinkable. She grabbed hold of Kora and threw her down the stairs at Jennifer.
Rabbit quick, Muran leapt over the side of the staircase into the darkness. A mighty vibration shook the trees. Mereau pressed the Breylofte to his lips, took a running start and sharply hummed with the bowl pointed at the stone stairs. Up into the air he went, following Muran into the darkness.
The sound of a scuffle drew Anlon’s attention back to the staircase. He turned to see Kora and Jennifer rolling down the steps. The gun Jennifer had gripped skittered down behind them. When they came to a stop, Kora was up first. As she resumed her descent, Anlon dropped the Dreylaeks, shoved his hand into his pocket and pressed the button on the drone beacon. Two white bolts crackled through the night air, one shooting over the pyramid courtyard, the other piercing Kora midchest. She tumbled down the rest of the pyramid, a smoke trail marking her path. Anlon released his hold on the button and side-stepped down the stairs to reach Jennifer.
Hidden by the shadows on the left side of the pyramid, Muran blew on her Breylofte to soften her landing onto one of the pyramid’s lower tiers. Once there, she looked up and saw Mereau descending through the air toward her. Before he touched down, she blew again on the Stone to shoot her body up, past the falling Mereau, to reach the next tier. Mereau followed suit after landing on the lower tier. With the Munuorian captain trailing close behind, Muran hummed sharply on the Stone and the resulting sound waves vaulted her over the courtyard atop the pyramid’s front peak. As she descended into the black chasm beyond, a white bolt clipped one of the courtyard’s stone blocks near her head, peppering her face and torso with stone shards. Using the Breylofte’s sound waves to again soften her landing, Muran tumbled onto the ledge separating the twin peaks of the pyramid. She jumped up, hummed on the Stone and propelled herself to the steps leading to the second peak.
Bloodied and enraged, she scampered up the steps. Mouthing obscenities, she snapped her head around to see Mereau again soaring through the air in pursuit. The torchlights of the courtyard behind him obscured all but his falling shape. As such, Muran did not notice he had cast away his Breylofte, and by the time she noticed the glowing Stones in his hands, it was too late.
She rolled on her back and raised her Breylofte, but before she could attack, Mereau sliced through her with a blast from the Dreylaeks pulsing in his hands. As the beam swept across her body, it shattered her Breylofte. The pieces of the Stone rattled harmlessly down the stairs as Mereau crashed against the jagged steps next to Muran. His leg bones snapped, and he screamed in pain. Muran howled and desperately tried to crawl away, her midsection on fire.
Mereau reached out and grabbed her leg, the sizzling Dreylaek in his hand boring into her calf. She wailed and tried to pull away. Mereau let go of her leg and propped his torso on the steps. Muran’s eyes narrowed as Mereau started to scrape the Stones together again. The Betrayer spewed more obscenities, and with each Munuorian epithet, blood gushed from her mouth, spattering her face. When the Stones were red hot, Mereau pulled them apart and said, “For Alynioria.”
When Anlon heard screams echo from behind the courtyard, he took off around the walkway he’d seen from the summit. Following close behind was Jennifer. As they came around the side of the ancient structure’s front peak, they saw a fiery jolt cut through the darkness ahead. Another scream, a woman’s scream, reverberated between the two peaks. When the bolt dissipated, they could see a small fire in the distance. They raced forward until they came upon Mereau and the burning, and quite dead, Muran.
Grimacing in pain, Mereau looked up and said, “Alynioria is avenged.”
“Where is the Sinethal? Where is Pebbles?” Anlon frantically asked.
Mereau collapsed before he could answer.
Chapter 22 - R
eunification
Structure II, Calakmul Mayan Complex
Reserva de la Biósfera de Calakmul, Mexico
October 1
Once the host of local and federal police arrived, the hunt for Pebbles’ Sinethal commenced. With the unconscious Mereau on his way to Chetumal via helicopter, Anlon, Jennifer and the police were left with the daunting task of searching the one-hundred-eighty-foot, double-peaked pyramid with no clues as to where Mereau had stashed the Stone.
Major Robles, who had been discovered alive near the battered steel case in the jungle beside the pyramid, coordinated the search plan from a stretcher at the base of the ancient structure. He was assisted by Agent Li, who had been patched up and now sat in the open doorway of an ambulance beside Robles.
“Mereau was on one of the upper tiers with me, on the left,” Li said, pointing up the steep edifice. “He jumped off the tier, heading toward the second peak.”
“Did you see him come back to the main staircase?” Anlon asked. He sat on the pyramid’s bottom step. Pebbles’ body lay on a gurney next to him. “I was with Pebbles inside the courtyard. Did he come around the left or right side of the courtyard?”
“Honestly, I didn’t notice him until he spoke up. I have no idea where he came from,” Li said.
“Me, either,” Jennifer said, while an EMT administered an ice pack to a new knot on her forehead. “I can’t imagine him tossing it over the side, though. I’m sure it’s up top somewhere.”
“Well, we have plenty of men here, now. We’ll find it,” Robles said.
Aided by police officers toting flashlights, Anlon and Jennifer set off to comb the stone monument, starting with the temple atop the pyramid’s rear peak. As they mounted the temple steps, Anlon realized it wasn’t a temple after all. He’d been fooled by the light cast by torchlights set around the courtyard on the pyramid’s forward peak. From the courtyard, the rear peak had looked to Anlon like a completely enclosed structure. Now that he was up close, he realized the tiered precipice he’d observed was really just a platform upon which a temple had one time been erected.
The contingent of police officers divided up and fanned out around the left and right sides of the platform’s base tier. A call went up, and an officer waived his illuminated flashlight to Anlon and Jennifer. They followed the officer around the right side, stepping gingerly along the tier’s narrow ledge with flashlights trained on the crumbling walkway. When they reached the back side, two officers pointed their flashlights down at a platform that jutted out from a vertical cut in the sloped pyramid wall. Ten feet below were two large, olive-colored backpacks sporting aluminum frames, propped against the platform wall. The light also revealed stone shards littering the platform. Anlon recognized a pile of greenish bits as the remains of a Tuliskaera, further evidenced by the sparkle of the Tyl’s diamonds amid the debris. The pile was surrounded by larger, curved chunks. Mereau had been true to his word, Anlon thought. He had obliterated Muran’s Taellin. Even if she had managed to escape, she would once again have been left without a Sinethal, Tuliskaera and Taellin. How Mereau had found Muran’s gear, including her Tyls, was a story Anlon would have to wait to hear.
While there were stairs leading down the back side of the pyramid that the group could have used to reach the platform, they were severely decayed. In broad daylight, it would have been a daredevil feat. In the darkness, it was insanity. So, the group backtracked to the front of the temple steps and descended to a lower tier with a walkway that would allow them to reach the platform across a narrow strip of the decayed steps.
Once there, Jennifer and two police officers emptied the backpacks and discovered several more Tyls, including a Naetir, but found no Sinethal. Beyond the Stones, the packs were stuffed with clothes and wilderness survival gear. Holding up a GPS tracking device, she said to Anlon, “Looks like they definitely planned to hike their way out.”
The search went on for another hour before the Sinethal was finally discovered. Anlon was examining crevices in the stone blocks surrounding the courtyard on the pyramid’s front peak when he heard an excited voice call out. He quickly exited the courtyard and looked around. At first, he had a hard time picking out where the voice came from, but then he spotted a waving flashlight well below the pyramid summit, and the man called out again.
As much as Anlon desired to dash down the main staircase, the steep slope and precarious footing led to a slow, methodical descent. When he reached the officer, Jennifer was already there. Together, he led them again around the back side of the pyramid. To Anlon’s surprise, the officer guided him to the entrance of a tunnel that penetrated beneath the pyramid’s rear peak.
The tunnel had not been visible from above because it was cut directly beneath yet another platform well below the one where the backpacks had been stashed. The tunnel was guarded by a steel door, presumably placed there to discourage tourists and looters. The door was open, however, and Anlon noticed a singed hole where the lock had once been. The officer led Anlon and Jennifer down the tunnel’s long corridor until it reached a T-branched hallway adorned with Mayan stone sculptures. The Sinethal rested against the base of one of the sculptures.
For many years to come, Anlon would recall sitting on the temple steps, Pebbles’ Sinethal and a Naetir in his hands, as the sun broke over the horizon. The temple faced northeast and afforded an unobstructed view of the daily ritual from one hundred eighty feet above the jungle floor. With Jennifer seated beside him, they watched the gray sky turn pink, then orange, as the rising sun reflected off the broken clouds. Below the skyline, the jungle’s green canopy extended to the limits of the horizon in every direction.
Anlon’s hands trembled as he looked down at the Stones. Jennifer laced her arm through his and leaned against his shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m really nervous,” he said.
“I know, it will be weird to be inside Pebbles’ memories.”
“Yeah, but in a good way,” Anlon said. “I just hope Muran didn’t lie. I’m worried the Stone will be empty.”
“Positive thoughts, Anlon,” Jennifer said, nudging him with her elbow.
“Right,” he said, nodding. “Positive thoughts.”
He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, guiding the Naetir toward the Sinethal…
When the vision began, Anlon heard children loudly talking and laughing. As had been the case in visions with Malinyah, he could not see anything at first. But unlike his previous visits with the ancient Munuorian, the blank vista before him now was dark, instead of bright.
His ears detected the chirps of crickets and the croaks of frogs. From the banter going back and forth between the children, Anlon could tell they were playing a game of hide-and-seek. As his vision came into focus, he understood the reason for the dark vista. It was nighttime. The children ran about the edge of a forest, hiding behind trees while fireflies sparkled all around them.
Anlon found himself standing on a small rise of dewy grass, observing the children from across a field. Near the rise was a picnic table, where a group of adults chatted amiably, their faces illuminated by a campfire near the table. Pebbles was not among them.
He scanned the field and woods for a sign of Pebbles. For a moment, his heart fell. Were these someone else’s memories? Then, a woman at the picnic table stood and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Eleanor Marie McCarver, you get down from that tree, right now!”
Lifting his head to follow the woman’s gaze, Anlon saw a girl, no more than ten years old, balancing precariously on a thin branch. A boy emerged from the woods and pointed up at the branch. “Hey! No fair. You’re it, now!”
“Mother!” the girl yelled back. “You gave me away!”
“I don’t care. Tonight’s not a good night for the emergency room,” the woman replied.
As the girl climbed down from the tree, a man stood up and wrapped his arm around the woman. “All right, you wood elves, marshmallow time! Find a stick and get over here.”
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br /> The four adults rose from the table as a half dozen children sprinted across the field, sticks in hand. A moment later, the children plopped down around the campfire as marshmallows were doled out. Anlon saw the girl from the tree adorn three marshmallows on separate twigs of her stick. The children laughed and teased one another as they hovered their branches over the fire.
A voice next to Anlon whispered, “What’s going on? What did I miss?”
He turned to Jennifer and said, “It’s a childhood memory of hers. She’s the one on the far side of the campfire sticking her tongue out at the blond boy.”
They watched the interplay between the two children. The boy levied a challenging taunt, leading the girl to respond by flexing her biceps. Anlon and Jennifer laughed. She said, “Oh, my God! That’s definitely her!”
Motion from the woods caught Anlon’s attention. He looked up and saw Pebbles approaching the campfire. She wore an oversized sweater and leggings. On her face, a soft smile could be seen in the glow of the fire. When she reached the girl jawing with the blond boy, Pebbles sat behind the girl and curled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. Resting her chin on her knees, she watched the banter with twinkling eyes and the occasional giggle.
The woman from the table came around and sat down next to the girl. The girl climbed onto her lap. Once she had settled in, the woman kissed her on the cheek and wrapped her arms around the girl’s waist. Anlon felt a warmth flow through his body. It was a familiar sensation — the kind of warmth one feels when all is right with the world.
“Come on,” Anlon said, reaching for Jennifer’s hand. “Let’s see if they’ve got any extra marshmallows.”
They were within fifteen feet of the fire when Pebbles spotted them. She uncoiled her arms and stood. A hand covered her mouth as Anlon and Jennifer smiled and waved. Chills raced through Anlon’s body. The same happened to Jennifer, for he felt her shiver. Pebbles slowly walked toward them, her eyes blinking rapidly. Her voice cracked as she said, “Is this real? Are you really here?”
Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3) Page 35