by Sean Ellis
There was nothing spiritual about the climb up the ramparts and staircases. Although their “rebirth” at the chorten had mitigated the high-altitude effects somewhat, the exhaustion Mira felt upon reaching the entrance to palace complex was all too real. Yet, despite her fatigue, Mira felt an electric energy surging in her veins; whatever the matrix they sought was, it lay directly ahead and was eager for them to arrive.
“Are we there yet?” Booker asked, stepping onto the landing beside her. He didn’t seem nearly as out of breath as Mira.
“Just about. We have to get to the top of that tower.” She pointed to a massive central structure, capped with a pagoda-style roof.
“Let me guess. The elevator’s busted. We should have gone back to that first shrine and grabbed some snacks.” He glanced back the way they’d come, but the base of the ascent had been swallowed up by the darkness. “I suppose we’ll be leaving the same way?”
“I think getting out is going to be a lot easier than getting in, especially if we have the Trinity segment.” She turned back to the courtyard, marking the location of the next stairwell they needed to reach. “Not much farther now.”
They trudged on in silence, the familiarity of the place quashing any urge to stop and sightsee or share observations about the hidden city. What’s that old saying? Familiarity breeds contempt? She wondered if the Egyptians living in the shadow of the pyramids felt similarly about the “Wonder of the Ancient World” that dominated their horizon every day. Yet, as they continued climbing, she began to feel something else, something more like dread.
Her thoughts kept coming back to Collier’s conversation with the president, and the reasons behind this little jaunt. She did not doubt the veracity of his claim that the Trinity’s ability to suppress the latent psychic powers of ordinary people was failing, nor did she question his assessment of what might happen if it did. For better or worse, humanity had evolved to its current state in an environment where psychic throwbacks like herself were rare. She could not stand idly by and let the world descend into chaos. So why was she starting to feel like restoring the Trinity might be a bad thing?
Too late to worry about that now, she told herself, but despite her best efforts, the questions and doubts continued to grow, and by the time they reached the entrance to the tower where she knew they would find the tomb of Sham’b’Alla and the matrix Collier had told them about, the urge to simply turn around and leave was almost greater than the tingling desire to press on. She wondered if it was another defense mechanism, the city trying to dissuade intruders, or if perhaps the warning was something more basic, an instinct for survival written into the genetic code she had inherited from the Ascendant Ones.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” she said, breaking the long silence.
She could tell by the way he cocked his head sideways, and the slightly irritated frown on his lips, that he was not experiencing similar reservations about their mission. “You heard what the skipper said. It has to be done. Why?”
“I just…what do we really know about the Trinity? You and me and Collier, we know more than anyone, but how do we know that we’ve been told the truth?” When he did not answer, she tried again to articulate her thoughts. “Collier seems to think that God is telling him what to do. We know that ‘God,’ in this case at least, is actually the Wise Father, and that this is all part of some ancient plan. But what is the plan?”
Booker considered her question for several seconds. “Look, I’m not exactly a religious guy. I don’t know if the Wise Father is the same guy in the Bible or the Quran or any of those other books. But, in all those stories, the one thing that’s always true is that God is all-powerful. And the thing about being all powerful is that you don’t need anything from anyone, anymore. We’re like little kids. Sometimes, a dad tells his kids to do something they don’t really want to do. Maybe they don’t see the reason for it, but usually it’s for their own good.”
“There are a lot of bad parents out there.”
“Sure, but those are people who want something. They’re screwed up somehow. But what does the Wise Father need from us? What can we give him that he doesn’t already have? Nada. So maybe the simplest explanation is the best; he’s doing it all for us.” He took a deep breath and then went on. “The world is going to be a very different place when this is all said and done. All those people fighting about what they think God wants—what’s the right way to worship him, are we supposed to torture and kill the unbelievers—all that is going to stop. So, do I think this is a good idea? Yeah, I think it might be the best idea anyone’s ever had.”
Mira had hoped to find comfort in his certitude, but instead felt her dread only increasing. The Wise Father was all-powerful, or so very near to it that she couldn’t conceive of a way to resist him. And what she had told Booker was painfully true; there were bad parents in the world.
He didn’t wait for her to reply, but stepped through the vaulted entry arch into the tower.
They had managed to navigate through the city with only starlight and memories to illuminate their way, but the interior of the tower was shrouded in darkness. Booker dug out his phone and in its light, Mira saw the staircase that spiraled up the interior walls of the tower, its terminus too high up to see. Yet, it was what lay directly ahead—or more precisely what did not—that commanded her attention.
Just a few feet beyond where they stood, the floor ended. The edge was rough and irregular, as if the rest had broken away, but there was no damage to the surrounding structure that might have indicated a geological event—an earthquake or rockslide. It was as if the section of floor framed by the tower walls had simply been subtracted from the universe. Beyond that edge, there was only impenetrable emptiness, a seemingly bottomless chasm.
Booker joined her at the precipice for just a moment, peering into the void, then turned and headed for the stairs. Mira jogged to catch up, but as they climbed her gaze kept wandering back to the abyss.
There was something down there. Something…alive? She couldn’t be sure of that. Something dangerous? Definitely.
“Come on,” Booker urged. “We’re almost there.”
His eagerness only served to magnify her growing unease, but he was right about how close they were to the end. Just finish it, she told herself. Then you can get back to whatever it is you call a life.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the landing where the tomb of Sham’b’Alla lay. Booker approached the entrance and shone his light on the unadorned slab of stone that blocked their way.
“Should I knock?”
Mira sensed no immediate danger, no booby traps or Trinity-powered automata waiting inside. Yet her dread remained.
Booker pressed his hands flat against the stone and pushed. Nothing. He lowered his stance, braced his shoulder against it and tried again. There was a faint cracking sound and a puff of dust, but the slab refused to yield.
“We should have brought dynamite,” Booker grunted as he continued to strain against the barrier.
Mira was about to tell him that high explosives were probably not a very good idea given the tower’s age and condition, but before she could put the thought into words, the world came apart.
37.
It took more than one phone call, but with each successive link in the chain of command, Xu’s urgent plea became more succinct, as did his ability to enumerate the many reasons why it was not merely an act of desperation, but an idea that’s time had come. His ability to read the ministers and party elders was somewhat diminished by the medium of telephone communication, but he knew these men well enough to know what arguments would persuade them.
When the green light was finally given, he turned at last to Kiong. “Where are they now?”
She pointed to the palace, as he knew she would. “They are in an ancient place. A place that is of this world, but not in this world.”
The cryptic response irritated Xu, but he knew he would get nothing more from her. If wh
at Atlas had told him was accurate, Mira and Booker had found a gateway to a parallel universe that occupied the same space as Potala Palace. Kiong could not discern the exact location of the gate, and Atlas had intimated that finding it was more complicated than following a set of instructions. The foreigner had promised to guide him into the city, but he would not arrive for at least three more hours, by which time it might be too late, to prevent the Americans from accomplishing their task. The only option left to him was to prevent them from leaving.
He ushered Kiong back to his car and told the driver to take them a safe distance away, but somewhere with a view of the palace. If by some miracle, the Americans did find their way back through the gate, his best chance of locating them was to rely on Kiong’s sight.
Fifteen minutes later, he received word that the operation was commencing. He got out of the car and trained a pair of binoculars on the brightly illuminated red and white structure that towered above Lhasa. He did not have to wait long.
The attack came without any warning. The flight of Qiang-5A multi-role fighters were running dark and the roar of their Liming Wopen-6A turbojet engines was just so much noise in the cacophony of cars and factories. Even though he knew what was coming, Xu was startled when the first bomb detonated.
In the space of just a few seconds, the mountaintop palace was transformed into a pillar of fire. Xu lost count of the flashes. There were at least five before the first boom reached his ears, and several more thereafter.
In the pause that followed, Xu could see flames lighting up the columns of smoke that ascended into the thin air. From his vantage point, he could also see the city grinding to a halt as people took note of the destruction. Their confusion and alarm was almost audible.
In his head. Xu began composing the statement his department would release, explaining this unprecedented internal military action. Tibetan rebels, emboldened by Western recognition of the Dalai Lama as a legitimate religious and political figure, had seized Potala Palace, intending to use it as a base from which to launch a terrorist campaign against the People’s Republic.
Oh, there would be outrage and demands for the United Nations to censure China. What of it? What right did these Westerners have to interfere with the internal affairs of the Chinese people? Xu would counter their bluster by pointing out a single salient fact; the nations of the West were to blame for this. It was their support—their cheap encouragement of the Dalai Lama and the Free Tibet movement—that had created the crisis in the first place.
No one would ever suspect the real reason for the destruction of the palace.
The mountain erupted again as the planes made a second run at the target. The outer walls were still standing, or rather parts of them, funneling the smoke and fire heavenward like a chimney. Anyone inside the palace had almost certainly died with the first wave, but Xu was not concerned with their fate. He was interested only in the two people who were beyond the reach of the bombs.
Since he could not destroy the Americans who had passed though the gateway between worlds, he would have to settle for destroying the gate and trapping Mira Raiden and her companion on another plane of existence.
∞
The bombs did more than simply collapse the gate between worlds.
Although the ten thousand year old city existed a few microseconds apart from the palace that echoed its existence, the foundation upon which both rested—Marpo Ri, the Red Mountain—was a constant. It was a part of the earth itself, and what happened to the earth, happened across all worlds.
The bomb blasts did not touch the walls of Shambala, nor did the flames consume timbers which had long ago become as dry and brittle as matchwood. The damage went much deeper than that.
The mountain vibrated with each detonation, and as the energy reverberated through the underlying rock, it multiplied into a destructive tremor that shook Shambala to its roots.
38.
Booker fell into the slab, striking his head against the stone so hard that for a moment, all he could see was a bright flash of blue. He staggered back, believing for a moment that his disorientation was merely the result of the blow, but when he took a knee, lowering his head to wait for the sensation to pass, he realized the truth. The entire tower was moving; Shambala was shaking itself apart.
He spotted Mira, stumbling toward him, trying to reach the relative stability of the crypt entrance. Debris was falling all around her. Smooth stones were breaking free from the ceiling. Wooden beams were snapping apart, hurling splinters with near-ballistic force. The landing was rippling like a sheet in the wind, planks bowing under immense pressure and then splitting apart with a noise like a rifle shot.
He threw a hand out to her, felt her fingers brush against his, but before he could grip her, the landing cracked apart between them. For a moment, it seemed she was simply drifting away, as if standing on a boat that had come unmoored. Then the platform tilted and she disappeared.
“Mira!”
She’ll be okay, he told himself, even though he knew it was a lie. I’ll find her when this over.
“Mira!”
The growing tumult drowned out his desperate cries. The fissure which opened between them was not limited to the destruction of the landing. Huge sections of the stairway they had ascended were breaking loose and plummeting into the void. The entire tower was splitting apart, like a tree sliced in two by a lightning bolt.
He felt the shift in his center of gravity as the platform began to tilt away, the cloven tower now toppling and crumbling beneath him, all at the same time.
There was nowhere to go.
Is this how I will die?
He had long ago come to terms with the very real possibility of being killed in action; shot or blown up by insurgents in some overheated desert, pulverized in a helicopter crash. He had even convinced himself that it was a far better fate than the ravages of old age: senile, toothless, forgotten and slowly wasting away in a nursing home. If this was the day that death had come for him, then so be it. But while he still drew breath, death was going to have to work for it.
He glanced back at the entrance to the crypt and was astonished to see that the stone slab was gone.
Great. Now it opens.
He wondered if his attempt to force his way into the tomb had somehow triggered the collapse, but it was a fleeting thought; this was no Indiana Jones booby trap. The whole damn mountain was shaking.
He threw himself into the chamber beyond the door. The floor was tilted at a crazy angle, the slope increasing with each passing second. Yet, in the instant that he crossed the threshold, all thoughts of trying to ride out the wave of destruction slipped from Booker’s mind.
My God. That’s it.
When Collier had told them about the matrix, Booker had taken it to mean some kind of machine; an alien 3-D printer or some kind of Star Trek-style replicator. This was nothing like that.
Whatever the matrix was, and Booker couldn’t begin to speculate on that, it was indescribable. The tumult had thrown the room into chaos, likely destroying whatever receptacle had once held the matrix, scattering its essence into the air. That essence, shadow and light, danced together, energy and matter swirling in a gyre. This was a genie, summoned forth from the lamp to grant him one wish. He knew that he would only need to reach out and the missing Trinity segment would be his.
And then he would be crushed under the ruins of the city.
No. I need to live.
Booker understood, in the broadest possible terms, how the Trinity had both restored Eric Collier to life and saved him from the collapse of the building where he had, if ever so briefly, died. There had been no need to ask for more explicit details. Where the Trinity was concerned, there was no need; it simply made things happen.
I need to live.
Shambala could not give him the Trinity, not now, not in the short span of time that remained. He would have to look elsewhere for that, Lemuria or Atlantis. All that this ancient city could give him now
was his life, and that was enough.
The darkness closed around him and then he hit the ground. Hard.
For a moment, he thought perhaps he had been wrong about what he had glimpsed in the crypt. But no, he was alive and that was miracle enough. The impact with the ground had knocked the wind out of him, but when he was finally able to draw breath, he smelled smoke. As the miasma began to sting his eyes and throat, he became aware of the ruddy glow of flames rising into the night sky. He struggled to his feet. The ruins of the city jutted up around him, backlit by the fires like the carved teeth of a jack-o-lantern. The city was burning, but mixed with the smell of wood smoke was an acrid chemical odor.
Explosives. Someone had bombed Shambala.
How was that even possible?
Beyond the curtain of smoke however, he could see the skyline of a modern city, and the truth was revealed; this wasn’t Shambala, but Potala Palace. The bombs that had destroyed the tower, taken Mira and very nearly killed him as well, had detonated a universe away.
That realization didn’t explain very much, but it was a place to start. Bombs meant hostile action, and hostile action meant he was still in danger from an unseen enemy. He crouched low and moved in the direction of the skyline. The flames and wreckage provided adequate concealment, but as he drew closer to the outer edge of the city, he could see movement at the base of the mountain. Military vehicles and infantrymen were moving around, evidently trying to establish a secure perimeter around the smoldering ruins.