by Don McQuinn
The music rang in Sylah’s head, as full of rapture as ever. She hated it. She raised her hands to her ears. Lanta leapt to her, solicitous. Sylah smiled gratitude. Her voice, however, belied renewed concern. “Have we come this far to fail? Why has my Abbess deserted me now, on the last step before success?”
“A test. The most difficult. Not just for you. For those you enlisted to help you, too. We all succeed, or we all fail.”
“And quickly.” It was Nalatan again. “Time’s short, Sylah. Your Abbess sets hard rules.”
Conway and Tate loaded their weapons, the metallic clatter jarring in the ancient stone silence of the canyon. The noise emphasized the infuriating music. Sylah continued to Lanta. “A tune keeps dominating my thinking. I can’t concentrate. It won’t stop. It’s destroying me. I should be hearing instructions.”
…no man will know the music that will sing the glory of Church forevermore.
Lanta said, “Music? You hear music?”
“No. A simple tune. Notes. Dum, dee, dah.”
Wide-eyed, afraid, Lanta held up three fingers. Mute, she pointed at the trident in Sylah’s hand.
Sylah looked at Lanta, then through her, taut with growing comprehension. Suddenly, Sylah’s pealing joy echoed up and down the valley. The sound triggered surreptitious movement and strange, hard glints of light completely inappropriate to the dusty, baked terrain. Conway and Tate exchanged nervous glances. Nalatan saw the things happening on the hillside. Hand on his sword, he stepped in front of Tate.
Confident, free-striding, Sylah advanced toward the invisible point of danger. She raised the key. “The key opens the Door, the way to the discovery of the Door.” She struck the three prongs with a convenient stone. Separate tones braided themselves into a chord. In the bright sunlight, the vibration of each tine became a glittering dazzle.
The sinister glints and shinings on the hillsides stopped. Sylah marched forward, exorcising.
The others exchanged uncomfortable looks. Nalatan gestured at their back trail. “There’s little choice. Many horses, many men come. We better follow her.”
Lanta was more direct. “We will follow her because we’re her companions. Because we must. She’s the Flower.”
Conway whistled up the dogs. Everyone grabbed the reins of a horse. Conway took Copper, as well. Single file, shoulders hunched, heads down, with Conway and Nalatan as distant rear guard, they trailed the exultant Sylah.
“Fulfilled,” Tate said watching her.
Lanta looked back. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. Thinking out loud.” Tate berated herself for not thinking how that word of all words, would cut Lanta.
Lanta said, “I heard ‘Fulfilled.’ You meant Sylah. Of course.” Lanta glanced back at the men. “I was thinking of you and me. The Door is here. We’ll have its secret. Somehow, we’ll escape the nomads.”
Behind them, at the valley entrance, a shrill, triumphant war cry announced the arrival of Windband.
Chapter 28
Nomads poured through the valley’s narrow entryway. Conway’s heart sank. Blizzardmen. Windband’s best—to his shame. The savage death masks had never looked so menacing before.
Conway handed off Stormracer’s and Copper’s reins to Nalatan. Two boop rounds broke the charge, sent the survivors scrambling for cover.
Ineffectively aimed arrows flew up at the slowly moving group. Sylah continued to lead. An arrow plunged into the ground beside her. She kicked it away. Ahead, the ground angled up sharply. Left and right, the slope was the same. There was nothing that remotely suggested a door.
Conway’s wipe blasted. A man cried out. The number of arrows fell off dramatically.
Fear shivered across Sylah’s back. Without turning, she knew from the increased noise that more nomads were making their way into the inescapable valley. What was a haven, a goal, moments before was quickly becoming a trap.
Tate shouted. Sylah was knocked aside, staggered. An arrow hissed malevolently, passed through the air where she’d stood. It hummed where it stuck in the earth. Tate said, “Find that Door. It’s getting nasty.”
Shots from both wipes quieted things again.
Remembering the crèche that had held him for centuries, Conway shouted up to Nalatan and Sylah. “Look for a rock that doesn’t look exactly right. It’ll be hidden.”
Sylah wondered how he could be so sure. Off to her right, at the base of a sheer wall, she saw a patch that looked discolored. She pointed it out to Nalatan. Unimpressed, he merely grunted and moved in that direction. He’d gone only a few feet when he turned to her, smiling. “I see a line. It’s a cover, Sylah.” He yelled the news to the others. They dodged uphill.
The nomads realized something was happening. The archers increased their efforts. Slingers appeared. Fist-sized missiles soon buzzed and smashed around Sylah’s group. Conway ordered the dogs to the best cover available. It was miserably sparse.
Nalatan examined the line marking the cover. Meticulously made, the object followed the most minute contours of the rock surface behind it. Straining, prying, Nalatan forced the tip of his sword into the gap. Little by little, he widened the opening. Suddenly, with a loud snap, the cover flew off.
The Door was revealed.
A ragged cheer went up from the group. Tate, Lanta, and Conway rushed to join Sylah and Nalatan.
Stainless steel, satin-finished, it gleamed in the sun. There was no knob or handle. The only mar on the immaculate slab was a series of holes. Three lines of three.
Sylah held up the key, striking it absently, distractedly. She measured it against the holes. It would fit vertically, horizontally, diagonally. Conway muttered grimly, took cover behind a rock, sent a boop into the nomads at the bottom of the hill.
Nalatan pointed. A group of men pushing a wagon ahead of them as protection advanced up the entry to the valley. They dragged something behind them. Conway swore. “We’ve got a problem, Donnacee. I can see what they’re bringing. That’s a catapult. This one’s a big bow and arrow. It’ll reach us easy. Sylah! Try the key. Get us out of here.”
Continuing to ring the tines, she said, “I fear. I believe there’s only one way the key works. I believe a mistake is dangerous.”
“Conway!” The call filled the valley. The repeated name rolled through echoes. “Conway! Moonpriest would speak to you.”
A white banner on a long pole poked above the wagon. Resplendent in polished fish-scale armor and shining steel high-crowned helmet, the warrior carrying it stepped out. Conway made a face. “Fox. Bad news.”
Moonpriest stalked into view, gleaming in his all-white garb. Fox bent to the ground, lifted the abandoned medicine bag. Moonpriest examined it. A warrior called their attention to the skeleton. Moonpriest’s head swung in a slow, contemplative arc, examining the looming walls of the funnel.
Conway groaned, drawing a questioning expression from Tate. He said, “Jones is crazy, but he’s not stupid. He’s adding it up, figuring out there’s a laser working here, and somehow we got up the hill.”
As if reading Conway’s thoughts, Moonpriest shouted up to him. “Conway. I’ve got something for you.” A man raced out from behind the wagon, loaded the emplaced catapult. The weapon made a loud, snapping noise. The arrow crashed to earth a few yards away from Conway.
Moonpriest gloated. “A taste of my power. Church Home is mine. Surrender. Join me. We can forget the past.”
“I have to talk to my friends.”
Conway called softly to Tate. “You heard.”
Tate asked, “How’re we doing for ammo, buddy?”
“Short. You?”
“Same. Save the boop flechettes for last. And the sniper rifle; those heavy slugs’ll go through two, three people. And no prisoners, understand?” Tate’s expression made it clear exactly what she meant. He nodded, saying. “Understood. Win or die.”
Lanta called out excitedly. “Sylah, look. At the bottom edge of the Door. Tiny words.”
Crowding
next to her, Sylah said, “I can barely see it.” She traced the words with a finger. “‘The way of discovery is yours. You face but one more challenge.
“‘If you would know what is beyond the Door, welcome; be direct, use whatever you can, and know.
“‘If you would learn what is beyond the Door, welcome, be direct, use what you have, and learn.
“‘Whoever you are, come in the name of the One Who Is Two, denied to woman, born of woman.’”
Both women rocked back on their haunches. Sylah was thoughtful. “There’s danger in this. Someone warns. No—threatens.”
The small woman agreed. “The key offers choices. There can only be one right one.”
More active threat rang in Moonpriest’s sharper tones. “Don’t stall, Conway. An answer. Now.”
“We need time.” Conway rose to argue, just in time to see the catapult launch. He dropped behind his rock, yelling at Sylah and Lanta. The arrow struck the stone face several feet above the Door. There was a loud crack. Stone chips hummed away, along with jagged splinters of wood.
Sylah screamed, lurched to her feet. A piece of wood as long as her arm spired up from her back at a near-vertical angle. She clawed at it with both hands.
Moonpriest exulted, “Moondance conquers! Moondance!”
Nomads took up the cry, charged toward the group. Coolly, methodically, Tate fired. Two rounds dropped two men. The others came on, shouting, undeterred.
Until the visible death swept the slopes. From hidden ports on every face of the valley’s walls, lasers seared anything that moved.
The splinter in Sylah’s back was suddenly only half as long. The charred tip of what was left burned smokily.
Nalatan pushed her to the ground, simultaneously scooping up the key, rapping it sharply against the door. Over the blistering noise of the lasers and the screams of dying men, the incongruousIy melodic chord sang through the valley with surprising strength.
The Door’s weapons resumed their ancient silence.
Sylah’s friends rushed to her. Lanta wrapped the skirt of her robe around the burning end of the splinter, ground out the flame. Gripping Lanta’s wrist, Sylah said, “Get it out. Pull it.”
Lanta hesitated, then set her jaw, yanked.
Sylah smothered outcry deep in her chest, prayed this wasn’t the wound to end her quest.
Suddenly, she knew the answer to the final challenge.
The way of discovery was clear.
Lanta saw the changes in Sylah’s expression, her manner. At this last one, her own trepidation disappeared, and she filled with intuitive excitement. “You see something? The key?”
Nalatan still held it. Features bathed in the fearful sweat of the unknown, he struck its chiming chord with determined regularity.
Sylah took it from him. “Sunrise to east, sunrise to left. The path of the One Who Is Two,” she said. She inserted the key, the prongs angled from upper right to lower left. Something scraped, the vaguely sinuous noise of polished metal rubbing polished metal. Sylah pushed.
The Door opened.
For one frozen instant, they stared.
A catapult arrow smashed into the wall, showering splinters and rock chips. The rush inside was unhesitating. As was the attack of Windband.
Conway and Nalatan brought up the rear, after hurrying to the horses and stripping off weapons and supplies. With the dogs, they dove through the narrowing gap seconds before the first nomads arrived. There was no time to wonder at the failure of the lasers to react. Swords clanged on the steel door as Conway and Nalatan threw themselves into the job of pushing it shut. Yells and footsteps warned of reinforcements on the other side. The women joined the men. They gained an inch. Two.
Then they lost all they’d achieved, and more.
Sylah looked over her shoulder, away from the losing contest, searching for help.
They were in a small room, perfectly square, save for an exit to her left. A table stretched along the wall at that side of the room. Sylah realized she could use it to block the door. Calling to Lanta, she ran to it. When they looked down the passageway that opened into the heart of the mountain, they both gaped, incredulous. It was full of light, light that came from pure white jewels set into the walls. They glowed clean, smokeless, steady as the sun. The wonder of them subordinated even the danger clamoring at the door for a moment.
The table was another marvel, made entirely of steel. In unison, they chanted the prayer against witchcraft as they dragged it toward the straining, slipping trio.
The door was too open; there was no way to wedge the table in place.
Conway leapt free, signaled Tate and Nalatan. They stepped back, let the door swing.
The boom of the boop in the enclosed room was deafening. The havoc of the flechette-loaded rounds was monstrous. Nomads were flung backward, torn, blasted.
Nalatan helped Conway shove bodies out. Tate’s covering fire protected them until the door got in her way. The yells of a new attack surged toward them as the trio pushed against the door once again.
A sword blade fell between the door and its frame. Sylah and Lanta wedged the table between the not-quite-closed door and the wall. Nalatan, Tate, and Conway stepped back. The nomads were closed out.
Retreating to the hall leading into the mountain, the group gathered itself. At the door, swords poked through the narrow gap, slashing at the air. War cries and shouts threatened. The steel table held firm.
Tate said, “Why don’t the lasers cut them down?”
Conway said, “It looks like the defenses don’t work when the door’s unlocked.”
Nalatan looked down the passageway, frowning. “The dragons—the ones you call lasers—live in here. If Windband can’t get in, neither can we get out. We need another door.”
Lanta said, “Sylah’s wound needs tending.”
The noise outside stopped suddenly. Moonpriest’s voice slipped into the room, cold and venomous. “We’re bringing up a battering ram. I’m giving you one last chance. Come out now. I promise you no one will harm you.”
Conway forced laughter. “You can’t sit out there forever. Your ram won’t break steel.”
Moonpriest’s words pitched higher, tighter. Conway heard the madness, like a tear in fine cloth. “We have water. Food. The witch Sylah is hurt, sure to die. What of your Seer? How can she claim to see the future, and be trapped in that hole with you? Be intelligent. Come to me. You served me well, once. Let me be your friend, let me save you.”
“I’d rather be friends with your snakes, Moonpriest. I’m going to power up these lasers. Ask yourself how much time you’ve got.”
Pale, pained, Sylah moved to stand beside Conway. Moonpriest spoke again. Eerily, he addressed Sylah. “I appeal to you, Flower. Your friends are too loyal to leave you. Would you have them die? I am the future. My mother, the moon, is the faith. We bring peace. My men lie dying here, horribly wounded in your name. They beg for help.”
Sylah turned agonized eyes up at Conway. “Blood. Always. Even now, after so many generations, blood demeans the Teachers. It’s so terribly, terribly wrong. Is it worth so much?”
He tried to answer. She reached to touch his lips. Turning away, she spoke to Moonpriest.
“I am one with the Teachers. I feel their presence. My life is a brief thing of no importance. But I will spend it in defense of those good women. Accept Church. Come in peace, or come to die. The choice is yours.”
Moonpriest’s scream was a paean of hate.
The hollow booming of the ram raised a contorted, a veinlike wrinkle in the steel desktop.
Chapter 29
Open doors yawned at the group as they made their way down the long hall. The rooms were universally bare.
The receding thud of the ram made Sylah think of a heartbeat in the stone. She knew this place lived. She ached with its weary age, trembled at the hope impregnating its secret caverns.
Tate stuck her head through a doorway, called excitedly. Rushing to her, Sylah
gasped at Tate’s discovery, her wounded back forgotten. The room glowed, shining metal spangled with jewels even more marvelous than the ones in the hall. Unimaginably, many winked; alive with incredible intensity one instant, the next they were lifeless. Only to glow again.
Green, yellow, red. Uncountable numbers. Noisy. The room throbbed with a beehive’s steady, warning buzz. Sylah’s head swam.
Conway walked toward a wall with myriad gems. When he reached for it, Lanta, Nalatan, and Sylah all closed together. Lovingly, Conway stroked the surface. There was clear glass there. Perfectly round, covering black needle things that moved. Square glass. Unbroken.
“Treasure.” Nalatan breathed the word. “No one ever saw such things.”
Tate spoke to Conway. “A generator room. No nuke symbols. What else could power this place for so long?”
Conway said, “I read about a solar technology before the crèche. Worked on temperature differential. I suspect the ‘rocks’ on the ridge line are receptors. As I remember, solar heat generated electricity. Almost no moving parts.”
“Anything would wear out, Matt. Anything.”
“Not if it was ‘on-demand’ power, loaded into high-retention capacitors. There’d be no need for anything to move for months, maybe years. A little juice to replace leakage, and the system’s up to speed.”
“The lights, then; no bulb burns for centuries.”
Conway nodded. “That stumps me, too.”
Sylah came to them. “The Teachers didn’t die to protect magical jewels and glass. And the sound of the ram has changed. Listen.”
Conway nodded. “She’s right. We better move on.”
The hall ended at wide stairs. The group descended into a cavernous auditorium-shaped space. Ghostly rows of desks, each surmounted by a blank video screen, stretched in precise curves, their stepped ranks from wall to wall. Worshipfully, the desks faced a huge, dead white screen at the narrow base of the room. Several open doors led off into dimly lit passageways. Tate grabbed Conway’s arm, pointing. “There. Directly opposite us. Light, coming out from under that closed double door.”