Fiona approached the edge and shone her light into the darkness below. Something glinted up at her, like a single star twinkling in the night sky. Pierce and Gallo joined her, and two more stars appeared — their headlamps reflecting from the still surface of a pool.
“That’s where we have to go,” she told them. “It’s down there.”
“What’s down there?” Pierce pressed, but she had no answer for him.
The balcony — more of a ramp — corkscrewed around three more times before disappearing beneath the surface of the pool. Pierce stopped at the water’s edge, gazing into it, but the mirror-like surface revealed nothing of what lay beneath. He turned away and shone his light on the wall to their left. “It looks like the water level fluctuates quite a bit. Probably with the seasons. Could have been the city’s water reservoir.”
“No.” Fiona shook her head. “I mean, it might have been that, but it’s something else, too.” She turned so that she was facing the center of the pool. “That’s where I have to be. This whole place revolves around it like an axis.”
“Looks pretty deep,” Gallo said. She nodded to Pierce. “I don’t suppose there’s an inflatable raft in that pack.”
“We’ll have to put that on the list for next time.” George gave a nod to Fiona. “But we don’t need one.”
Fiona smiled and lifted a victorious finger. “Now this I can handle.” Then she focused on the water and whispered, “Emet.”
It was the Hebrew word for ‘truth,’ but like many other words in that language, it had deep roots in the Mother Tongue. Emet was part of the longer phrase versatu elid vas re’eish clom, emet, which, when combined with a focused intention, could bring golems to life, though emet was usually enough to do the trick, if her head was clear.
The perfect mirror-like surface of the pool was shattered by dozens of ripples, which intensified into a churning froth. Pierce took a step back as water splashed onto the walkway. “You’d think I would get used to this, but every time I see it, I’m impressed all over again.”
Fiona smiled, but tried to ignore him as she held the Golem’s image in her mind’s eye. Pieces of rock — some as big as monster truck tires, some mere grains of sand — came together to animate the inanimate.
A colossal man-shape erupted from the water, soaking the three figures on the walkway. Most of the golem was submerged, everything below the middle of its massive chest. The top of its head was more than twenty feet above the surface, suggesting the pool itself was at least twice as deep. An arm rose out of the water, a massive hand made of irregular stones cemented together with thick sediment. It reached out for Fiona.
She didn’t flinch. It wouldn’t hurt her; it couldn’t hurt her. Despite its monstrous proportions, the hand, along with the rest of the golem, was an extension of her own consciousness.
The hand came down in front of her, palm up, as if extending an invitation. She stepped onto it, then turned to Pierce and Gallo. “Coming?”
The two exchanged a look, a silent dare perhaps, then joined her on the golem’s open palm. Fiona barely had to think it, and the golem was moving, twisting its body and bearing them out to the center of the chamber, right where Fiona knew they needed to be.
“What the hell is that?” Pierce whispered.
A metallic sphere the size of a softball hovered just a few inches above the surface. Despite the disturbance caused by the golem’s emergence from the pool, there was no trace of moisture on the object.
“I think it’s what we came here for,” Fiona said, reaching out for it.
Pierce caught her wrist. “Slow down. We don’t know what that thing is.”
“It’s safe.” She couldn’t explain how she knew it, she just did. “Trust me.”
“You know I do.” Pierce let go. “I also know your father will throttle me if I let anything happen to you.”
“That’s probably true,” she said with a grin. As she started to reach for it again, something broke the surface beside the object. It was brown and shiny, segmented like a serving platter-sized cockroach. Pierce pulled her hand back, and this time, she didn’t protest. The creature disappeared with a faint splash.
“Okay. Gross. What was that?” Fiona pointed where the creature had submerged.
“Some kind of subterranean crayfish,” Pierce said. “Probably harmless, but let’s not tempt fate.” He reached out for the orb. “I’ll just grab the thing and you can—”
Behind them, Gallo let out a yelp. Fiona glanced back just in time to see her punt a large arthropod, which had climbed out of the pool and onto the golem’s hand. The kick sent it flying, but even as it sailed away, Fiona spotted three more of them crawling up the stone colossus’s forearm.
They were much bigger than she’d first thought, with three-foot-long segmented bodies connected to the eighteen inch-wide carapaces. Dozens of six-inch long legs protruded from the bodies — they reminded Fiona of Freddy Krueger’s knife-blade glove both in appearance and the way they moved. The creatures looked like a cross between a pre-Cambrian trilobite and a giant centipede.
Only bigger. Much bigger.
Two more of the creatures appeared on the golem’s fingertips.
“Fi,” George said. “Can the big guy lend us an assist?”
Fiona nodded and a simple thought command, practically a reflex, caused the golem to raise its other hand out of the water. It began sweeping the creatures off itself the way she might brush lint from a sweater. Unfortunately, the crawling things were on that arm as well, and dozens more of them swarmed across the golem’s shoulders.
“Crap,” she muttered. “I thought that would work.”
“Fi!” Pierce kicked at another of the creatures racing toward her, but after sliding just a few inches, the thing dug its claws in the golem and held on.
Fiona sent another mental command to the golem, shifting the hand on which they stood closer to the hovering orb, so close that the hand bumped against it.
The sphere didn’t move. Despite the fact that there was nothing visibly supporting the strange metal ball, it was as immovable as Fort Knox. She tried again, willing the golem’s hand to slide underneath the object, but instead of moving the sphere, the hand was forced under the surface. Cold water sloshed over her feet, and with it came several more of the giant arthropods. She commanded the golem to raise its hand, but as soon as it encountered the sphere, it was stopped cold.
“This could be a problem.” She knelt down and put her hands on the sphere — it wasn’t solid, more like a woven wire mesh — and even though she knew it would be futile, she tried to lift it.
Nope. The sphere was as unyielding as a mountain.
The answer hit her like a slap. This was the center. The axis.
As Gallo and George kicked the creatures back, she recited the same chant she had used to open the passage above.
For a fleeting instant, she felt the orb change, becoming light and pliable. Her fingers dimpled the surface, crushing it, as if it was no more substantial than a paper lantern.
Then darkness rushed up out of it and swallowed her whole.
SEVEN
For a long time after the floor stopped moving, Lazarus remained still. There was a chance that his team would find the means to activate the mechanism controlling the ancient elevator. In fact, he knew they would exhaust every effort to do so, and if and when they succeeded, he knew he would have to be ready to move. After five silent minutes, however, he began considering his options.