Part 22 (1/2)

”What?” Lilly asked. It was too dark for her to see where I was pointing. I got out of the craft and climbed back up the stairs. I was stepping lightly, trying not to make any sound. I had this feeling that something was down here. Something that we might awaken if we weren't careful.

The siren seemed smaller, flickering along the wall, and then she disappeared as I arrived. I ran my hands over the stone and found a narrow gap, impossible to see in the shadows. It was barely wide enough to fit through. I had to turn sideways.

”You sure this is a good idea?” Lilly asked, behind me.

”No,” I said, but I also knew at this point, I was going as far as I could. The magnet pull was undeniable now. I slid into the narrow pa.s.sage. My shoulder almost immediately hit stone. A flash of blue to my right. I struggled to turn myself and found that the pa.s.sage continued that way. I slid until I hit another wall. The pa.s.sage turned again, and again. I smelled the damp, cool stone against my bare skin. My wet shorts caught on the rough surface. The s.p.a.ce was tight, I could barely inflate my lungs. I twisted around again, squeezing and sliding in pitch-black, and finally I slipped free into another chamber. This one was small with round walls bathed in brilliant white light.

”Owen?”

I turned back to the narrow, twisting hall. ”I'm through. Come on.”

I waited, hearing Lilly's arms and shoulders sliding along the rock. I stared into the black of the narrow entryway, waiting for her, and also not wanting to turn around and face what was behind me.

Lilly appeared. The white light washed over her face.

”Whoa,” she said, squinting to look over my shoulder. ”That's it, isn't it?”

I already knew that it was. I turned around, holding a hand up against the blinding brightness. In the center of this small circular chamber was another pedestal.

On it was the skull.

It gleamed in pure crystal-white, the light seeming to come from inside it, just like in the vision. We walked over to it. I could feel it humming, or myself humming, it was hard to tell, but I felt like this was the source of the magnetic pull, or maybe we both were, and we were being drawn together. I stood over it, looking down into the clear crystal, its sparkles and fractures refracting its own light, making little rainbows. My bones and its stone seemed to be vibrating at the same frequency.

And I knew what to do.

I put my palms on the smooth crystal. It was warm.

”Owen, you're glowing... ,” Lilly said.

But her voice was already distant. I was leaving. Into the white.

Chapter 17

”h.e.l.lO.”

There is no time inside the skull. There is before, and there will be after, but within the crystal electric medium there is only a sense of now and that all things are and have been and will be.

And I feel that this sense is called something. But I don't yet know the word. Or it feels more like I don't remember it yet.

Above are dark clouds. I sit on a stone floor, outside. Tan pyramid peaks and carved spires of the stone city are just visible over a low wall. Soft white, heatless light glows from globes on metal stands around us, on nearby balconies, and in window recesses. The air is flecked with that gray snowfall.

I look down to find myself in a plain white fabric s.h.i.+rt and pants. My feet are bare. As flakes of the dark snow hit my clothes they make soft smudges, and though the flakes are cool, they are not wet.

”It's ash.”

Across from me is the boy from the vision, Luk. Between us, the skull glows softly in the twilight, illuminating our faces.

”It's midday, actually,” says Luk, hearing my thoughts. ”It never gets brighter than this, anymore.”

He has a face similar to the siren's-I think, Primitive Primitive, but that is wrong. That implies less intelligence, and I can feel the intelligence radiating from him like heat from a fire. My dad has photos of fifth-great grandparents from back at the dawn of photography, and even just that many steps back in time you can see how things have changed, like head shapes, nose curves, shoulder slants.

For Luk, the word I am looking for is ancient ancient.

And yet he is so familiar that the first thing I ask is, ”Are you... me? Or, am I...”

”No,” Luk replies. ”You are you, and I am me. But we are related.”

”How are we speaking?” I ask. ”I mean, you-You probably don't speak English.”

”We are communicating beneath language,” says Luk, ”through the harmony of the Qi-An.”

”The what?”

”There have been many names for it before us, and no doubt there have been many since, names that describe the energy that binds the cosmos....” He closes his eyes and in the silence I feel a strange presence in my head, like fingers flipping through pages. ”A term for it in your mind is yin-yang. We referred to it as the Qi-An.”

”Energy,” I say. ”You mean like gravity.”

”Gravity is one face of the Qi-An. There are many more. The Qi-An gave birth to the living presence in the cosmos. It is called, let me see”-I feel that sensation again, like a breeze over my thoughts-”what you might call the Gaia. We called it the Terra.”

”And you're... dead.”

Luk smiles. He glances over his shoulder. I follow his gaze and see the three pedestals where the skulls were, in the vision. ”Yes,” he says. ”Not in here, though.”

I look around. ”Where's here?” For a moment, I think to ask if this is heaven or something like that.

”There would be truth to that,” says Luk. ”But I think, technically, rather than getting into talk of metaphysics and harmonic energy transfer for now, the easiest way to put it is to say that we are inside the skull.”

”How is that possible?”

”You are still standing in the temple, obviously, but the skull has”-Luk squints as he checks my mind again-”uploaded,” he says. ”Your consciousness has uploaded to the skull, where mine is.”

”So,” I say, ”you died, and they put you in here?”

Luk's forehead creases as he thinks. ”Close enough.”

A flake of ash falls on my eyelashes. I look around. ”And where is this?”

Luk stands. ”Come see.”

We get up and he leads me to the wall. We lean over the edge. He is shorter than me by almost a foot.

The city fills the center of a steep-walled mountain valley. Snow-capped peaks soar on either side. To our left, twisting veins of light trace roads that lead farther up into the valley's tail, where a glacier looms. To our right, the city ends at a ma.s.sive wall. On the other side is a rough and frothing sea. Huge waves roll into a winding fjord and pound against ma.s.sive stone docks in explosions of white spray. There are boats tied there, enormous boats with giant sails, their edges and masts gleaming with copper plating and bolts.

”This is our last city,” says Luk. ”The rest are lost, and soon this one will be, too.”

”Who are-Who were were you people?” I ask. you people?” I ask.