Dark Time: Mortal Path (24 page)

She intended to cover forty miles in a long day, spend the night at her destination, and return to camp before the sunset the next day. It was a challenge, but she hadn’t wanted to leave the others behind and head off on a camel. She sped over the trackless sand as lightly as she could, like a lizard skittering, barely touching its feet to the hot surface. Hours of sameness passed: run, rest, drink, use the sextant, run again.

A few hours out, she knew she was far enough from camp and from other sources of help that if anything went wrong, she would die. Break a leg, and she wouldn’t be able to heal fast enough, before her water ran out. Spill some of the water, and there wouldn’t be enough to fuel a return trip.

It was frightening, but also exhilarating.

She saw no other living creature. There were no scrublands in the area she was passing through to support birds, snakes, and rats; there were only lizards and insects, and they were nocturnal. The sand shielded them from the worst of the daytime heat, and they would come out at night to kill or be killed or to carry on their species. Maliha’s thoughts attuned to her body, narrowing down to the next placement of a foot, the angle of a swinging arm, or a slow, deep inhalation.

Every now and then, she felt a faint touch against her mind and wondered if it was Yanmeng, using his remote vision. More likely, it was fatigue.

The sun traversed the sky as if on a chariot pulled by horses with flames at their heels.

Near sunset, she spotted her destination, a mountainous projection of rock that rose above the dunes.

Sandstorms had filed its sharp edges away, so that it looked almost melted. The north side, which faced the prevailing wind, was riddled with small caves dug into the rock by the wind. She found what she was looking for about three hundred feet above the highest dune that broke against its side, a cave entrance so small she had to crawl in on knees and elbows, distinguished from a hundred other caves by the moist scent within.

The passage widened until she could walk hunched over, and it led downward. Her flashlight at first revealed bare rock sides, but as she went further, there was a pale growth on the side of the tunnel, like fungus. She was sure she’d gone down below the level of the sand outside. It was at once a secure and claustrophobic feeling. Secure because the sand outside wrapped the space like a heavy coat with the collar pulled up. Claustrophobic because tons of sand were pressing the sides of the mountain, and she had one small way out, an insignificant straw of a tunnel holding back sand that was eager to rush in and entomb her.

There was air movement in the passage, a gentle push against her face. Her flashlight picked up something quick and flexible scurrying on the walls. She was astounded to hear the sound of running water ahead of her, and quickened her pace. The air carried a clean scent, unexpected in a place that had never seen the light of day.

The tunnel expanded into a cavern whose ceiling rose ten feet above her head. At her feet was an underground stream, water from spring thaws in the mountains that tumbled into the desert basin. The water reached the edge of the sand and filtered down through it in hundreds of places, poured into cracks in the bedrock below, and traveled for miles, sheltered from evaporation by the sun. The Uygurs called 80 z 138

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them ghost rivers. The water was cool and fresh, unlike the salt-laden puddles that sometimes formed on the surface in the channels of dry rivers.

Maliha tucked her flashlight back in her pack and touched a button on her belt. Small, powerful lights came on, creating a bright sphere of light around her for hands-free working. The lights drew a lot of battery power but they were nice while they lasted. She squatted next to the stream, cupped water in her hands, drank deeply, and cleaned the dust of travel from her face. She waded across, holding her belt and pack over her head, but the water never reached higher than her thighs. On the opposite bank was a room off to the side, and as soon as she stepped into it, she knew she’d reached the end of her journey.

The walls of the cave were smooth and vertical, as if they’d been sliced with a knife. Her belt lights revealed torches on the wall, so she lit them and switched off her lights to conserve the batteries.

Torchlight flickered on the walls and reflected in the water at her feet. On the wall opposite the entrance, thirty feet away from her, was a thin tablet embedded in the rock. It was a foot high and eight inches wide, smaller than she’d expected. At the top was a large carving of a star, Anu’s symbol. The rest she was too far away to make out.

The problem was getting there. In front of her was a wall-to-wall pool with a glassy surface, and a few inches below the surface was sand. She had a bad feeling about that sand. Pulling a rock-climbing stake she hadn’t needed from her pack, she tossed it gently into the water. It settled on the sand, and she waited. The stake sank with a powerful sucking noise. She tried it with another stake, this time counting the time until it sank.

Two seconds.

She squatted and pushed a stake into the water. She couldn’t penetrate the sand, exerting as much force as she could. But after two seconds, the surface softened and the suction began. She also noticed that the surface of the water radiated heat. Holding the stake in place, her hand grew hotter than the desert sand outside. This was no cool cave pool, as its smooth surface had led her to believe.

Maliha turned over plans in her mind. She could use a burst of speed to cross the pool before she sank, but she was going to have to stand at the other wall and chip the tablet out of the surrounding stone, and that would take more than long enough for the sand to switch from solid to treacherous and suck her under. She needed something to stand on above the water’s surface.

Digging into the pack again, she came up with a set of five throwing spikes. She threw the first one across the pool and was dismayed to see that it bounced off the rock wall and sank into the sand. She tried again, closing her eyes to concentrate. She imagined the motion in her mind, feeling the cool familiarity of a spike in her hand, seeing it traveling through the air, the tip sliding into the rock. Then, eyes still closed, she took a deep breath, held it, and fired off the remaining four spikes.

When she opened her eyes, the spikes were as she’d envisioned them, stuck firmly into the rock wall in a horizontal line, neatly spaced with enough length sticking out of the wall that she could balance on them. She took from her pack a small steel hammer and some chisels she’d brought for just this moment and secured them on her belt. Slipping off her shoes—she could grip the spikes better with her toes—she planned her moves and launched herself into the pool.

At the first touch of her foot to the water’s surface, she realized the water wasn’t just hot, it was more than scalding hot, unnaturally superheated. She couldn’t let the shock slow her down. As soon as she felt the firm sand under her foot, she surged forward.

One second.

Two.

She threw herself at the wall, hoping she wouldn’t bounce off like her first spike. Her feet settled onto the embedded spikes, and the tablet was right in front of her. Up close, the writing on the stone was blurred to her eyes, and parts of it shifted and crawled into new positions constantly. The constant motion was dizzying to watch, so she stopped examining it.

Balancing on the spikes, ignoring the pain from her burned feet, she chiseled around the edges of the tablet. It didn’t take much effort; the thing threw itself into her hands. She dropped the hammer and chisel into the water, since she no longer needed them, and heard them being sucked under, beneath her feet.

Then it dawned on her that she was facing the wall with no room to maneuver, especially clasping the tablet. She could think of a way to get both herself and the tablet out, but it was risky. Then she laughed aloud at the thought.

This is a fine time to think about risk, when you’re setting out to kill seven demons. Go for it!

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She raised her arms, flinging the tablet over her head and backward toward the safe edge of the pool, hoping it wasn’t fragile. Pushing down hard on the spikes under her feet, she flipped into a powerful backward handspring away from the wall, and her hands entered the heated pool. The water roiled in contact with her skin.

One second.

She completed the handspring, this time coming down facing the door of the cave, both feet in the water. She bunched her legs underneath her and leaped for the water’s edge. If she didn’t make it now, she never would. The sand would soften under her feet and claim her.

Two.

She landed there solidly. But the tablet was still in the water, about three feet from the edge. She dropped flat and stretched out over the water for it. She got the fingers of one hand on the tablet as it was about to disappear under the sand. Grabbing with the other hand, the water searing her hands and arms, she strained against the powerful pull of the sand that wanted to claim her prize. Her muscles quivering with the effort, she inched the tablet toward her, then out onto the rock floor of the cave.

Inspecting the tablet, she saw that it was unharmed by its immersion in the water. She stretched out and let waves of pain sweep through her, giving herself over to it now that she was safe and the tablet was hers. She had the sickening feeling if she’d spent any longer in the superheated water—or whatever it was—flesh might have fallen off her bones.

She went to the underground stream, pulled off her clothing, and immersed herself in the cool water.

Relief was a long time coming. She couldn’t stay in the 60-degree water for too long, for fear of having her body temperature dip too low and becoming lethargic. Finally she dragged herself back onto the bank, wrapped up in her clothes, and huddled on the stone, drinking from the cool stream to replace fluid loss from her burned skin. Hours passed and she slept fitfully.

The Tablet of the Overlord went into a padded bag slung across her back. Making her way out through the tunnel, she emerged into a desert night.

Which night? How long have I spent here?

She began her run back to camp with raw, blistered feet crammed into her shoes and her hands wound with cloth. The sun rose and her burned arms felt the harsh weight of sunlight through the fabric of her clothing. She appeared at the camp just ahead of nightfall and the gathering dust of a storm. She collapsed into Yanmeng’s arms, needing recovery time.

Crammed inside one larger tent with several others as the wind shrieked and drove sand into every narrow crevice of the tent’s flaps, she let the camel drivers rub their pungent salves on her burns, and she downed the thick, snow-white fermented camel’s milk she was offered from a leather skin bag. When the storm passed, she retreated to the tent she shared with Yanmeng to wait out the rest of the day and the cold night following.

Yanmeng described everything she’d done, even chiding her for bouncing a spike off the rock wall.

She challenged him to do better under the circumstances.

He’d been traveling in the astral plane, seeing her and her surroundings as though hovering above her. It was fascinating to think that the distance between them meant nothing.

Fascinating and disconcerting. How was she to know if she had privacy? He reminded her that she would notice a light touch, the brush of a feather, as he reached down and dipped into the reality of her situation. When she thought back on her trip, she had felt such a thing, several times.

She dozed through a day and night, and then was healed enough to attempt travel, but their guide insisted on waiting another day, since their food and water were adequate.

Mounting her camel, she felt an odd tug, as though this desert wasn’t done with her yet.

W
hen the storm outside the Andean plane wreckage brightened into a uniform grayness, it was morning.

It was snowing hard, and the wreckage of the plane looked like snow-covered boulders strewn across the 82 z 138

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mountain. She knew there would come a time for hard decisions, such as stay or try to hike out, starve as long as possible or eat the frozen, preserved flesh of the bald man, but she wasn’t there yet. For now, she was just happy that she’d made it through the night and that her leg was feeling better.

She tugged the suitcase toward her, unzipped it, and smashed the lock on Manco’s case with the handle of a knife. She opened the lid of the case without giving herself time to think better of it.

The pot was in pieces, some of them small, but not ground into dust. The dirt packed inside the pot had supported it somewhat. The writing was visible, and with patience and a big bottle of glue, she could fit the pieces together and make the rollout.

She began removing the larger pieces, thinking that she could lay them out in front of her and get started deciphering the clue. Her fingers touched something hard and slick, like glass. She carefully pried pieces loose from the dirt that had filled the pot until the slickness was exposed.

Then she had in her hands a diamond, the first of the seven pieces of the lens that Anu shattered.

She cleaned it with snow. It was beautiful. It had perfect clarity and a surface like highly polished glass. Below that glossy surface were thousands of faceted cuts—it was a gem carved throughout its interior. She didn’t understand how that could be done, but marveled at the fact of it. The weight in the palm of her hand seemed too great for the size, which was about three and a half inches long and a quarter of an inch thick. She’d pictured the shards as equal wedges of a pie, but her first discovery made it clear that wasn’t so. The shard had an irregular shape. Assembling the lens was going to be more like fitting puzzle pieces into a whole rather than putting the neatly cut pie back together. The completed shape could be up to seven inches in diameter: an incredible, unworldly platter of a diamond.