Part 13 (1/2)

”Stop now,” she said, ”and you can share it with me.”

”Share what?”

”Everything. All the rides and any other ride you can imagine.”

”As your slave.”

”No, as my equal.”

I realized that she was not just holding me, I was holding her as well. Why? If I felt such fury and such revulsion at what she was, why did I hold her? Was it just her beauty that captivated me, or something more?

”This place has always been out of balance,” she said. ”It was all that I knew. Now I want to experience the balance you bring.”

Suddenly the slave rags I wore began to s.h.i.+mmer like gold. Jewels grew in the fabric, and I found myself clad in a robe of rubies, sapphires, and emeralds.

”You could be the G.o.d Osiris over a new, better Egypt,” she told me. ”You could build any world you desire, be its king or its subject; you could experience thrills or tranquility and move freely from one ride to another, just as I do.” She ran her hands down the length of my jewel-covered arms, then clasped my hands in hers. ”I am the park's soul. I want you to be its mind.”

Was she sincere, or was it just another trick? I'd become aware enough to see through her deceptions, and this offer felt real. I had brought her something she never had. I was the only one who ever had.

I tore myself away from her eyes long enough to look at Russ and Maggie, laboring across the chasm. ”What about them? What about my brother? Will you let them go?”

”I can't do that. But if you stay here, we'll create rides for each of them. They can have whatever they want, whatever they need, forever and ever.”

Could that be possible? Would she really put that kind of power in my hands? I imagined the rides I might design for my friends. For Maggie I'd build a palace of mirrors that told all the truths about herself that were worth telling. How she was kind, generous, compa.s.sionate, and, yes, beautiful. Maybe a log flume for Russ! Not a slow, dull one, but one where he could ride down the rapids of an endless river, camping every night at its bank. And for my brother, perhaps a parachute jump that air-dropped food to a starving people. It would open him up to the thrill found in giving, rather than taking.

”Think about it, Blake. This place could be different with you here.”

The more I thought about Ca.s.sandra's offer, the more appealing it got. I tried to weigh my alternatives against each other. If I took one more ride and survived it, I'd win my freedom. But if I ended my journey here, I'd win the park. A master of worlds . . . it was a dizzying thought. It wasn't the power, but the peace that appealed to me-the peace of truly being in control at last. She was right: The park would be different with me sharing the power. And she would be different if we weren't cast as enemies.

”The larger the park grows, the more real it becomes,” she said. ”In time your world will become the false one, and all these worlds will be real. Come build them with me.”

It was there that the bubble burst.

”Build them how? Build them on the spirits of others you'll trap here?”

She answered me with no shame or remorse. ”Nothing comes without a price, and no one comes who doesn't choose to be here.”

I looked around me once more. So many were trapped here-not just the ones in The Works, but those forced to playact in the worlds of each ride. All for her amus.e.m.e.nt. If I took my place with Ca.s.sandra here, it would be for my amus.e.m.e.nt as well. I suppose we can all be accused of using people in our lives, but I could never use people the way she did.

”I've given you your first real challenge,” I told her, ”and now you know what it means to be afraid. But there's something else you still need to experience.”

”And what's that?”

”You need to lose.”

I reached back, grasping firmly on to the largest wheel, which looked eerily like a giant Ferris wheel. As it turned it tore me out of her arms, lifting me up and up.

I heard her scream in anger, but in a moment her voice disappeared into the grinding of The Works, and she was hidden by the billowing plumes of steam.

As the wheel took me higher the jewels on my robe dropped away and disappeared into the gear-work. Would I have been a decent ”G.o.d”? Perhaps. At least I'd like to think so. But the cost of accepting the job was too great.

Now my clothes were just rags again as I rode the wheel to the uppermost level of The Works. There, the machinery gave way to a fissure, still streaming sand from Egypt up above. I jumped from the wheel to the jagged rocks, sliding and scrambling for a foothold, kicking rocks down into the depths, until I finally had a grip and stopped sliding. Then I shoved my fingertips and toes into cracks in the stone, pulling my way up. I wasn't much of a rock climber, but I was learning fast.

Quinn saw me the second I came up through the mist. He must have been waiting there all this time. He never lost hope in me. He reached down and helped me out.

”I thought it was over,” he said. ”I thought you were gone for sure!”

”And miss the next ride?” I looked toward the top of the Great Pyramid where the ride symbol glowed. It reminded me that I hadn't kept my soul, not yet. Refusing Ca.s.sandra's deal bought me nothing if I didn't get to the next ride, and getting there wouldn't be easy. The pyramid stones we had to climb were like six-foot-high steps, and there were dozens of them.

”We'll help each other up each step,” I told Quinn. ”First you, then me.” I gave Quinn a boost up to the next ledge.

We climbed one immense stone after another. Above us the blue sky melted away. Below us the voices of the crowd that had gathered to cheer us became fainter and more distant. Finally we reached the illuminatus, the golden tip of the pyramid. The ride symbol glowed a searing white, matching the glowing brand on the backs of our hands. The spiral of the symbol spanned ten feet, and in the very center of the symbol, where the wave intersected the spiral, was a b.u.t.ton about the size of my hand. I slammed my palm down on the b.u.t.ton, forcing it in until a mechanism clicked. Somewhere deep down in The Works, a new gear engaged.

Nothing happened at first. Everything seemed to hang in silence, waiting. Then something began to move. I heard the sc.r.a.ping of stone against stone, and just beneath the golden tip of the pyramid a row of panels fell away. Thick iron spokes extended outward just below us, and the entire tip of the pyramid began to rotate.

”Hold on!” I yelled to Quinn. There wasn't much to hold on to, but we clung to the face of the golden illuminatus as it gained speed, rotating faster and faster.

Eight iron spokes had grown from beneath the pyramid tip, like the eight legs of a spider. From the end of each spoke a pair of pods appeared that revolved around each other. It was the Tilt-A-Whirl I'd seen when I first entered the park. The little pairs of pods spun and dipped, weaving in and out of one another like the blades of an eggbeater.

”We have to get into one of those pods!” I shouted over the thrumming of the ride.

”They're too far away!” Quinn shouted back. ”We'll never make it!”

”Who hung fifty feet over Six Flags to get his stupid hat? Come on!” I pulled him off the golden face of the pyramid tip, and we dropped onto a black iron arm of the spinning ride.

We had to get to the end of the arm and drop into one of the spinning pods. But as we s.h.i.+mmied farther out on the stem, centrifugal force threatened to hurl us off. I turned around and eased my way toward the end of the spoke feet first, hugging the cold metal as tightly as I could. Quinn did the same, and we inched our way out, the world spinning madly around us. The desert was a blur below us. There was nothing else in the world now but me, Quinn, and the ride.

I felt the pulses of wind from the two spinning pods at the end of the spoke and heard the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh as they beat past, sounding like the blades of a propeller. They chased each other in circles, hanging beneath the arm to which we clung.

Now the ride wasn't just spinning, it was wobbling as well, like an off-balance top, making me feel drunk and giddy.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

The only way to make it into one of the pods below was to jump. If we jumped a second too late, we'd fall to our deaths. If we jumped a second too soon, we'd be hit by a pod and squashed like bugs on a winds.h.i.+eld.

Timing was everything. I tried to match my breathing to the spinning of the pods, locking my vision in one place, ignoring the vertigo, and concentrating on the jump.

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.

”We're gonna die!” wailed Quinn. ”Oh, G.o.d, we're gonna die!”

”Shut up! You sound like me!”

Even as I overcame my fears, terror had attacked Quinn with a vengeance. It was so foreign to him that he didn't know how to control it. It practically paralyzed him. I knew I'd have to jump first, then talk him down. I took one more moment to estimate the length of the fall. I'd only get one shot at this.

I jumped and instantly panicked. I was falling too far. I had missed. . . . But then my view of the pyramid base below was eclipsed by the pod, and I landed inside.