Dusk (48 page)

Darius laughed and looked down at the floor.
The image paused for a moment, exhaled in way that seemed
ostentatious as it transmitted through the sound imager, and then
he met Cyrus’s eyes again with the same substance as before. “All
she wanted was you to be hers, like you had promised, but you
refused to belong to anyone.”

“Not
anyone
.”

Darius paused, and then nodded his
understanding. “Fair enough.”

Cyrus clasped his hands in his lap as he sat
forward in the chair again. “So where do we go from here?”

“Well, my suggestion is you go back outside,
train some more, and send Jang back in here so we can find a way to
crack the Echelon satellite system.”

Cyrus stood, moved to leave, and then
stopped. He met Darius’s eyes again and smiled. “Thank you.”

Darius himself stood and smiled in return.
“No, thank
you
.”

Cyrus realized the words had a strange
inflection. They had been spoken in Darius’s voice, but they rose
and fell differently. As if someone else had spoken through him.
“For what?” Cyrus asked, thrown off by the strange delivery.

“For allowing me to come as close as I possibly
could to feeling emotion. I thank you both.” The image bowed
theatrically, and as he stood, Cyrus swore he could see a glimmer
on his cheek. Then Cyrus turned, the iris opened, and he left,
hoping the guileless Ashan sun would clear away the glimmer on his
own cheek.

Cyrus rushed into the Forum sweaty, metal
staff in hand. He noticed the sweat seemed to evaporate instantly
as the iris closed behind him. “Toutopolus said you found
something,” he said to Jang and Darius as caught his breath.

Milliken was already inside, his broadsword
still in hand, intently moving his stylus with his right hand over
his datadeck as he, Jang, and Darius observed some hologram Cyrus
could not see. Cyrus moved over to them quickly so he could view it
himself. “What is this?” he asked as he stood next to the Darius
image and let one end of his staff rest against the floor.

“It is what it looks like.” Milliken’s answer
could have been perceived as snide, but tension often had that
effect on his voice.

“But where?” Cyrus asked, looking down on the
gold-topped white pyramid that spread across the floor at their
feet, each corner marked by an obelisk several meters from the
vertex, also white with a gilded pyramid at the top.

“Eight degrees and thirteen minutes north of
the equator,” Milliken added without looking up from the datadeck.
“The prime meridian runs bang through the center of it. The
position of the pyramid is so precise, I found an error in
our
calculations, which were only off by four
ten-thousandths of a second.”

“How did you…” before Cyrus could finish his
question Jang was already answering him.

“Darius and I were working on a shadow-sync
with the Ashan satellite system. On a test run, we found an odd
microwave power signal that led us to this thing,” Jang
informed.

“The Ashans built this?” Cyrus asked,
pivoting his staff around the point where hologram of the pyramid
touched the floor.

“I don’t think so, but I’m working on that
now. The satellite is being difficult, and Jang’s algorithm keeps
unsyncing,” Milliken snapped, dropping his sword with a clang.

“Well, would you rather get caught and taken
back to that hound’s cage we escaped from, or worse?” Jang snapped
back.

“Either way, it’s a pain in my ass,” Milliken
snapped again, furiously moving the stylus on his deck.

“Wait,” Cyrus stopped his staff in mid pivot,
“this thing was sending out a microwave signal?”

“No, it was
receiving
one,” Darius
turned and answered. “We think the top of the pyramid is the
rectenna and the base shape somehow helps diffuse or channel the
energy.”

“The other interesting thing is that the edge
of the Miasma rests inside the obelisks on the south side of the
pyramid.”

A sudden impulse moved Cyrus to the
holomonitor next to the main Xerxes unit, “Hmm,” he said more to
himself as he rested the staff against the computer, sat in the
chair, and began tapping frantically at the keypad. Darius walked
over to the holomonitor and looked over Cyrus’s shoulder, eliciting
a grimace from Milliken. “Asha’s precessional period is 16,392
Earth years. About 9,920 years have passed in the current period,
which means in the next 6,472 years, the Miasma’s edge should rest
here.” Cyrus emphatically hit a key and the light that was cast
over the image of the pyramid shifted. It looked as if someone had
moved the lamps in the room. There was no other clear difference
until Cyrus pressed another key, and a fluorescent red line spread
through the image, tracing a path directly through one of the
vertices of the pyramid, across its center, and through the
opposite vertex.

“What does it mean?” Jang asked, ruffling his
coat.

“It means that this thing was most likely
built 9,920 years ago, or some multiple of 16,392 years ago, well,
that and plus 9,920 years.”

“Thirty-six!” Milliken belted jubilantly, the
tension now gone from his voice.

“What?” everyone, including Darius, said in
unison.

“Thirty-six precessional periods. The gold on
the top, according to these readings, was laid approximately six
hundred thousand and thirty-two years ago.”

“Which matches the dating of the underground
city,” Darius added again.

There was a cold quiet in the room. It was a
silence that caused the vibrations generated by the holoprojectors
to thicken the air. “I don’t know about you guys, but this shit is
scary as hell to me,” Milliken said, wiping his brow despite the
chill.

“The microwave signal, where is it coming
from?” Cyrus asked, turning in his chair to face the image.

“The source is shadowed, even on the
restricted band, but we’ve run across five similarly shadowed
signals, and they have all been what we think are Echelon bases or
orbitals,” Darius added.

“We need to get Paeryl and Tanner in here,
stat,” Cyrus said, standing from the seat and retrieving his
staff.

“I think Paeryl’s holding a special evensong.
He said not to disturb him.” Jang scratched at his forehead as
Cyrus passed.

“I don’t care if he’s giving birth, he needs to see
this. And we need Tanner’s brain. I’ll get Paeryl, you get Tanner.”
Cyrus took his staff and left through the lab entrance.

Cyrus walked out of the compound with his
staff, and began scanning the crater for Paeryl.

“I see you came prepared,” he heard to his
right as the iris closed behind him. He turned to find a polished
spear tip, glinting with orange light, the tip at his right
eye.

“I don’t have time for games,” Cyrus said
stepping away, but the spear tip followed him. He felt the anger
filling his joints, expanding his muscles. The weapon pointed at
him was across the line. He stepped in the direction he had been
moving again and flipped his staff to his right, knocking the
spearhead down. There was a crowd forming around them, but Cyrus
barely saw it. Cyrus could only see the tip of the spear and the
eyes of Six, who, if he didn’t stand down his weapon, would soon
become Cyrus’s adversary.

Cyrus held the tip of the spear down with his
staff, but the other end of the spear came around again and pointed
at his eye. “Step off or step into the round. I don’t have time for
games.” Cyrus snapped, the fury in his voice unmistakable, yet
Six’s eyes seemed relaxed. He was either overconfident, unable to
discern Cyrus’s rancor from his grace, or he didn’t care.

“I thought you would never ask,” he smiled and
stayed his own weapon, but it did nothing to abate the incense
swirling around in Cyrus’s head. Cyrus stayed calm as the
spectators began to form around them, because he knew once he
stepped into the round, rage would be of no use to him against this
man.

Whether Six knew it or not, there was more at
stake than a ceramic cup. These people, as relaxed and demure as
they seemed in their little crater, were a warrior people. Inside
this hole they called home, they were afforded some pause, but to
the Eurydicians, they were outcasts, true apostates. They were mere
animals trapped in a constricting corner, and they fought as such.
There was no mistake that Paeryl had become their de facto leader.
He was loud, he was melodramatic, but he also possessed a command
over the spirit oft neglected by those with less naturally salient
power.

Which meant in order for Cyrus to accomplish
his already sketchy plan, he needed to win this fight.

The problem was Six was fast, too fast, and
he was stronger than the other Ashans. His attacks were sharp,
precise, his defense seemed impregnable, but he was cocky and
aloof—which meant his precision in battle did not necessarily
translate well in armistice. When the fight was over, he was
uncouth and brazen just like any other Apostate, but unlike the
others, when the swords were on the ground, he was also sloppy.

Six attacked first, as Cyrus had expected,
but he had not expected the attack to come with such force. Cyrus
could see how sharp the tip of Six’s dual-ended spear was as their
weapons clanged together. Cyrus rebounded from blocking the attack
and swung a counterattack, but Six had already brought his own
weapon into the path of Cyrus’s swing and had moved the opposite
spearhead around. Cyrus side-stepped, ducked under the attack, and
moved his staff toward Six’s midsection. Six planted the tip of his
spear into the ground and hopped over Cyrus’s attack, using the
leverage to lift his body as he spun over Cyrus’s staff and swung
his legs at Cyrus’s head. Cyrus ducked under Six’s airborne body to
a gasp of the crowd. As Cyrus passed beneath Six, he brought the
back end of his staff into the bottom of Six’s spear. The spear
dislodged from the ground and Six lost his leverage, but he managed
to get his feet beneath him and thrust his spear toward Cyrus.
Cyrus moved and parried, but the other end of the spear came around
in a blinding flurry of stabs. Cyrus was amazed he managed to block
the attacks as he backpedaled away from the assault.

Then, Six spun the opposite end of the spear
toward the outside of Cyrus’s leg. Cyrus had anticipated the
attack, but it was still too fast for him to dodge completely. He
stepped his left foot over the attack and stopped it with the
bottom of his right shoe. He brought his right leg around,
swiveling his body and, clasping the shaft of the spear between his
legs, he spun his own staff around at Six’s head. Six ducked just
as Cyrus had expected. The crowd gasped again as Cyrus spun his own
staff behind his back and then thrust it out at Six’s ribs, forcing
him to let go of his spear as he hopped clear of the attack.

Cyrus followed the lunge with a sweep his
staff, but Six, with the poise of a feral cat, flipped backward,
over Cyrus’s attack, and in mid-air, grabbed his own spear with
both hands, and wrenched Cyrus from the ground with the momentum
from the flip. Cyrus had seen the whole move play out and still
could do nothing to maintain his footing as the momentum of his own
swing had shifted his weight just before Six’s unorthodox attack.
Cyrus breathed out as he fell, avoiding the shock of his lungs
contracting, but his head still smacked against the ground. A dark
static spread from the inside of his vision outward as the impact
shock passed through his head, but Cyrus instinctively rolled
backward to avoid any attack that may have followed. The momentum
of the roll, however, wrenched his own staff from his hands.
Expecting to use the staff as leverage to get to his feet, Cyrus
did not quite get his legs beneath him, and, as the dark haze over
his vision faded, it revealed Six, standing on Cyrus’s staff,
lunging the spear point toward Cyrus’s chest.

But Cyrus continued to roll onto his
shoulders, kicking the spear attack skyward with the flat of his
left foot. He flipped his hands behind his head and hopped from his
shoulders onto his feet beneath Six’s spear. The ease of the kip-up
convinced him that his own cartwheel over his staff could work. As
his body moved forward, he let his legs move over his head as he
grabbed the staff with both hands and snatched it from beneath
Six’s feet. Six must have side-stepped as the staff came from
beneath him, because as Cyrus came to his feet and whipped his
staff around, Six was no longer where he had been standing, and his
own spear was coming around at Cyrus’s leg again.

This time Cyrus was able to jump over the
attack, and as he rose, he pulled his staff around to his side. He
had expected Six to parry, but Six moved toward the attack. He
lifted his own spear over Cyrus’s staff, and spinning toward Cyrus,
knocked the staff from Cyrus’s hands and sent it spinning into the
crowd. Before Cyrus could react, there was a foot in his ribs.
Cyrus heaved, managing to absorb the shock without losing his
breath, but stumbled backward. He pedaled his feet behind him to
gain footing, but he saw Six’s spear closer than it should have
been. And then he realized the spear was airborne. Cyrus pedaled
his feet back faster, but there was a sudden flash in Cyrus’s
consciousness, as if his own mind was trying to spare him the
horror of his own impalement. When the flash cleared, he was
falling, and all he could see was the irrationally short shaft of
the spear glinting in the sunlight as something caught under foot
and sent him to the ground.

And then he realized it was the spear stuck
in the ground behind him that had taken his legs from under him. He
had not been impaled. His senses had not censored his injury. It
had been the glint of light, reflected just perfectly into his own
eyes that had blinded him. His coccyx hit the ground hard, sending
a peal of pain up his spine as he looked up the shaft of the spear
to see Six barreling toward him.