And then the stars rushed by, filled her view and she hurtled through space, across the millions of miles to another glowing rock, familiar sphere. The Moon’s lunar surface suspended over the green, blue and white hues of Earth.
See, came a command from somewhere close. Her consciousness rushed over the bright cratered surface, over to the wall of darkness, to the opposite side, the shrouded hemispheres, toward a crater with a flashing light, a strobe of some kind.
A beacon.
See…
And then a flash of blue, and everything faded.
A hand on her forehead, gently pushing her back. Back. Her feet moving on her own.
Her eyes blinking furiously, each involuntary motion elicited a vision and formed a montage. The tomb in Belize. The fall, the wheelchair… The laboratory and the unraveled Herculaneum scrolls… the vault door under the Pharos opening at her command… running on the hill with Alexander, her legs healed… the descent into the Khan’s mausoleum… reaching for Orlando, kissing his lips for the first time…
And then…
A frozen wilderness guarded by enormous ice-capped mountains, with a dazzling aurora overhead.
“You have a great destiny ahead of you, Phoebe Crowe. Much work to do, much sacrifice, but equal joy.” The pressure released from her forehead.
“But—”
“Go now.”
Phoebe blinked. “Wait!” She stood in an alcove with three exits—and what looked so out of place she didn’t realize what it was at first—a door. A plain white door with a brass handle. The city was gone, the chasm, the hollowed-out valley. If it ever existed. “Was it real? Shamballa? What you showed me?”
The man, backing away toward the shadows in the central exiting tunnel, merely smiled. “I showed you nothing. I only freed your mind for a minute, long enough for your questions to seek some answers. You saw what you needed to see.”
“But who are you? Can’t you help us?”
He sadly shook his head. “On the contrary, it is you who must help us. You who are still blissfully ignorant, only you can end our suffering.”
“What suffering?”
“Existence without amnesia.”
“Huh?”
“Go now, that door will save your friends. It is all I can do. Go, and remember this one thing. The Custodians are not what they seem.”
Phoebe approached the door. Pulled the old ornate brass handle, glancing behind as she did so. The old man was gone, and she stood in an enclosed cavern, her light dancing across the low-hanging ceiling formations, the rugged walls and rocky floor. One exit at the back.
Suddenly the door flew open, releasing a flood of rocks and debris. And then she heard scrambling. Muffled voices. She shined her flashlight through the door and saw arms and legs, a head. A man pushing through the cave-in.
Temple coughed up a mouthful of sandstone. Staring at the surrounding cavern, weakly shining his flashlight in the direction of the exit. “Just in time. How did you find us?”
“Not now,” Phoebe said. “Get your men out, and come find me.”
Temple started frantically digging. “Did you see-?”
Phoebe’s eyes blinked and her focus shifted. “I can see her. The Hummingbird. She’s released her shield. I have to go. Now.” And then she was off, leaving the commander to double his efforts and free his men, hoping she knew what she was doing.
Orlando moved on ahead, feeling like a human shield. Wrists tied behind his back, he found it harder to walk the rough stones and navigate the dark caverns than he had imagined, especially without using his hands for balance. And the lights from his back were jolting, shifting back and forth, bouncing off the walls, then disappearing, making him feel like he was suffering a seizure, with light and dark spots alternating in his brain. The air was stifling, the oxygen thinning.
Video games never captured this part of dungeon trekking, he thought, coughing and choking on dust that seemed to just resettle in his lungs and esophagus. Something jabbed him in the lower back and he stumbled ahead.
He glanced back into the jumble of lights, the two turban-headed fighters directly behind him, and at the rear—the taller one with the patch. Gathering his balance and his courage, Orlando tried to smile. “So, are we there yet?”
“Shut up,” the Eye snapped. “It’s just around the corner. Farrakh, you go first.”
A hand pulled Orlando back, slowed him down, and then the other man squeezed past. He turned the corner, descended a small, slick trail, and then Orlando could see a light ahead. A dim glow from an opening, a wider aperture. But then the man’s back was in the way.
Orlando closed his eyes for a second and willed a glimpse of the next chamber. And it came at once:
A cage, like for a dog. Metal bars, a bowl in the corner. But it was empty. The door open. Farrakh rushes in, shouting and slips on something slick coating the floor…
He opened his eyes and was about to call out, but instead, he dug in his feet and stopped moving forward. Someone crunched into him and drove him into the wall with a curse, but then the fighter kept running by. There was a shout, a slick, wet sound and a grunt.
Twisting, Orlando turned and inched backward—right into the glowering form of The Eye—who caught his throat in his huge hand. “You saw something?”
But just then a burst of light from the cave, a rush of heat—and a pair of bloodcurdling screams. The Eye swore a local curse, shoved Orlando back, then ran headlong toward the fire. Two flaming, lurching men in robes flailed out into the hallway, and the Eye burst through them, knocking each aside like bowling pins as he leapt over the pool of ignited oil.
Brian Greenmeyer had improvised the best he could, the best anyone could have, having only been able to crawl. But as he was setting up a tripwire made of shoelaces and a coating of oil on the ground below, the young woman appeared.
She was alone, which was surprising. Greenmeyer kept looking past her down the cavern hallway, expecting and hoping to see his old friend, Temple. But the woman stepped by, went right to the cage and knelt in front of Aria.
Their hands touched. “I’m Phoebe,” she said, reaching through the bars and stroking Aria’s hair, gingerly touching her face.
“I’ve seen you,” Aria whispered, eyes wide. “But hurry, he’s coming. The key…”
“I know,” Phoebe said, scrambling to her feet and reaching up to the top of the cage, way out of Greenmeyer’s reach. She found it, dropped back down and unlocked the padlock.
Aria burst out, scrambled to her father and threw her arms around him. “You can come with us.”
But he shook his head. “No time.” He looked back at the corridor. “I hear them, hurry.”
“No,” Phoebe said, glancing around the cul-de-sac, her eyes settling on a blanket and a collection of bags and boxes near the shadowy reaches in the back. “I have a better idea.”
Once everything and everyone was in its place, Greenmeyer scuttled back, holding the sole lamp, cranking its flame inside the glass as high as it would go. It still had a half-full canister of oil, more than enough to ignite and scatter to burn the coating he spilled on the floor.
He heard the footfalls. Then the rushing feet. One of the guards he remembered as Farrakh tripped over the lace and skidded face-first on the oil. He got to his feet, slick and bloody, yelling that the cage door was open, then he turned and saw Greenmeyer just as the lamp was flung to the floor.