Fires of Man Read online

  “Oshikawa!”

  The driver clicked his mouth shut.

  “I’m not a spy,” Nyne said.

  “Ah,” Oshikawa said. He sounded disappointed.

  “But I have information I can’t share. All I can say is I need you to follow Shi . . .”

  “Shimoyama Shunsuke.”

  “Right.” He was utterly lost with Kaitanese naming conventions. He would have to ask Oshikawa for an explanation at some point.

  Several minutes later they were back in Oshikawa’s livery car, parked outside the rear service door to the restaurant, with the headlights off. Oshikawa was nervous and far too chatty, going on and on about different things to do in Kyodai, and how he had gotten a job as a driver and so on. Nyne liked Oshikawa, wanted to humor the man even, but he couldn’t keep himself focused on the man’s words.

  What was a psion doing waiting tables? The way the young man had dodged that chair showed skill, training, a familiarity with his powers. Yet if this . . . Shunsuke had been taught by the Kaitanese military, Nyne doubted they would have let him work at the family restaurant. It made no sense to him. He needed more information. At the very least he had to find out where Shunsuke lived so he could keep an eye on him. Maybe if OI gave the go-ahead, Nyne could even approach the young man.

  “There,” said Oshikawa, interrupting Nyne’s line of thought. “There.”

  Shunsuke had come out into the alley behind the restaurant, dressed in a leather jacket. He untied a bicycle from a bike rack and headed off in the opposite direction from which Nyne and Oshikawa had come.

  “Go slowly,” Nyne said. “Don’t let him know we’re following.”

  For ten minutes they wound their way through quaint, unevenly paved neighborhood streets, sometimes with back alleys of cobbled stone. Shunsuke was not exactly the safest bike rider; he cut through red lights and ignored what had to be stop signs. Oshikawa nearly lost him several times.

  At last Shunsuke stopped at a large, ramshackle building penned in by a thick wooden fence. He dismounted his bike, inched the gate open, and proceeded inside.

  “What now?” Oshikawa asked. “This place . . . when little, think haunt. Ghosts.”

  Nyne was not listening. He could feel activity inside the building from four, five . . . at least six psions! What was going on here?

  He got out of the car.

  One way or another, he had to get to the bottom of this.

  19

  FAITH

  Within moments of entering the pyramid, Faith felt a palpable increase in heat. Streams of warm air drifted up from interminable depths.

  The entrance led into a long, narrow corridor. Faith was amazed at the near perfection of the granite blocks that lined the interior—the artisanal manner in which they’d been cut and fitted together in an era long before machinery.

  She also noticed small copper sconces on the walls; curiously, there were no scorch marks around them, no telltale signs of flame that would indicate torches or candles. Daylight couldn’t penetrate any significant distance into the structure, so if the ancients hadn’t used fire for light, how had they been able to see? Perhaps they’d carried whatever they used to light the way. But that still would have left an indicator.

  And in that case, what were the sconces for?

  She paused to document the mystery of the copper emplacements. Durban grumbled something about the time and pointless busywork. Faith knew his attitude was for show; he was well aware even the smallest bits of information could be significant in surprising ways. He was simply being ornery. Of course, he wouldn’t hesitate to take credit if he was the one to deduce the sconces’ purpose.

  As for her, she did not care who solved the riddle, so long as she had something to show Cha’a’ni . . .

  Her stomach sank.

  The old man was strong, tough as old leather to survive in the Zenithian cold. He would live, she thought. He would!

  Briefly, Faith considered the man who had done the deed. He was no doubt naked and dying in the snow by now. With her anger diffused, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Who was she to play judge, jury, and executioner?

  No, she told herself firmly, the Galuak would have done it no matter what I said. She could have had security round them all up, but she was certain they would have found some way to exact justice. She sighed. There was more than enough time for self-recrimination later.

  After a number of the sconces had been photographed and samples had been taken so they could test for chemical residue, they moved on. Along the way, Durban managed to creep up so close to her that he followed right on her heels. Faith made a point of ignoring him.

  Durban’s behavior reminded her of one of her first digs, at an ancient tomb buried in the sands of Aygos, half a world away. She had been fresh out of college then, but still smarter and sharper than most of the stuffy, insipid old buzzards who had called themselves archaeologists. Professor Schilding, who had fancied himself the leader of the excavation, made sweeping claims that he had located a second crypt not far from the primary site. He had demanded a reallocation of resources so he could head up an additional team to investigate. Never mind that such an effort would have put the main dig sorely behind schedule and dashed any hopes of seeing the original tomb’s interior. Schilding wanted credit for a discovery of his own.

  Faith had disproved his theory with low frequency radio imaging, demonstrating that the “second tomb” was no more than a sand pit. Schilding had then spent the rest of the dig crawling up her ass, looming, waiting for her to make a mistake so he could discredit her. Compared to that, Paul Durban was small potatoes. Briefly, she thought of the diminutive Durban side-by-side with towering Schilding and laughed aloud.

  “Something funny?” Durban asked.

  “Hilarious,” Faith said. She looked over her shoulder and grinned at him.

  Durban scowled, trying to look menacing.

  She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing again.

  The hallway opened into a wide, circular chamber, with six columns, arranged in two sets of three, framing the center of the room. The columns didn’t touch the ceiling of the chamber; they appeared to be purely ornamental, with fluted shafts topped by curling scrollwork. On closer inspection, Faith discovered fine seams in the granite, indicating the ornate stone was an expertly fitted sheath over another sort of material. She found more of the copper sconces atop the columns, larger than the ones along the walls.

  On the floor, centered amid the columns, was a painted mural. It was the first of its kind Faith had seen on this site. All other artwork had been carved directly into rock. Most of the mural’s color had flaked away, but here and there Faith could still make out vague outlines of shapes and figures.

  “Take a look at this,” she said.

  After the expected whistles of amazement and appreciation, Faith and her team settled in around the mural, snapping photos. Vassey hunkered down on hands and knees and used her brush to clear away some of the dust. “It’s pretty faded,” she said. “Judging by the contours, I think we’re looking at the outline of a male figure in profile here. This circle he’s holding, could be anything. The sun, the earth, the moon, a simple disc . . . who knows?”

  “On the sides here,” Assande said, “it looks like there are other figures. More primitive than the one in the center. Not in age or skill, I mean, but by design. Less effort was made to illustrate them individually. There’s quite an assembly of them . . . kneeling? Praying, perhaps?”

  “Over here,” Dabakian said, “the opposite end. See here. More of these tiny people, yes? But these swirls . . . waves, I think. They are washed away by waves. A flood myth, I will guess. Even here, these tales of flood. All the world over, the same stories; but this, by far the oldest recorded story, yes? Maybe we find valuable insight into origin of these myths.”

  Durban snorted. “They could just be swirls, designs, for all we know. We can’t go jumping to conclusions.”

  “N
o, no, look here,” Dabakian said. He rummaged in his pack until he found photos of the friezes from the walls of the ziggurat. “A moment . . . yes, here.” He singled out one of the large photos. “This symbol, again. But associated with pictogram of fish. We all agree this is fish, yes? Yes. Well . . .” The man chattered away animatedly. Faith only half-listened.

  She took out a small battery-powered spotlight and positioned it on the ground so it illuminated the mural. Then she took a magnifying lens from her toolbelt and leaned in, being eminently careful not to touch the mural itself. The image of the male figure was at the center of the pictorial, clearly of greatest import. What was the orb he held aloft?

  The most likely suspect was the sun; in ancient cultures, sun worship was exceedingly prevalent. It would be fascinating to find a sun cult here, so far removed from better known solar worshippers, such as the pharaonic dynasties of Aygos, or the Priest-Kings of Mepomastoni.

  On further examination, however, Faith began to doubt her initial theory. Virtually every primeval representation of the sun possessed a depiction of solar rays emanating from the circular body. Here, there was nothing. Could this circle represent something else entirely?

  In Graecos, there was a myth of a giant who stood in the waters of space, holding the world aloft on his shoulders. The more she looked, the more she became convinced this mysterious orb had to represent the world. With the help of the magnifying glass, she could see the faint outlines of objects within the circle’s circumference . . . objects that looked startlingly similar to the continents!

  She drew back in surprise, inhaling sharply. Proof that this venerable culture had not only known the world was round, but had possessed a map of the entire earth’s geography . . .

  It was inconceivable. Impossible, really.

  Yet here the image was, flouting conventional knowledge.

  “Find something?” Vassey asked.

  “Maybe. Hard to say,” Faith replied. “Once we get the whole thing photographed, I’ll have to take a closer look.”

  “Clue us in, at least?”

  Faith shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant fashion. “Can’t say I’m even sure myself.” Her theory was so out there—so insane!—that she resolved to tell no one until she had more concrete evidence than vague shapes observed in low light.

  They continued to analyze and document the mural for another hour. They determined there were five sections to it: the man holding the disc in the center; people praying on the right-hand side; people being washed away on the left; some kind of mountain or structure on the bottom that could represent the Zenithian ziggurat, among a million other things; and a bit along the top that looked like the sky and sun imagery Faith had been searching for. There was a familiar sort of All-Seeing Eye pictogram contained within the sun, which fanned down wavy lines of light onto the images below it.

  No one really knew what to make of the thing. There were similarities to known cultures, everyone agreed, though many of them on different continents. And there were other aspects to the mural that were completely unique.

  Already they had spent more than two hours inside the pyramid. Faith wanted to ensure they reached one more chamber before they broke for lunch. First, however, they needed to cover the rest of the current room. Faith decided to snap pictures of the columns, while she assigned Durban, Vassey, and Assande to go over the rest of the area with a fine-toothed comb. She asked Dabakian to peek into the next passage and then report back.

  Minutes later Dabakian returned, his face ebullient. “You must come. Come see!”

  For the better part of a decade that Faith had known Dabakian, she had never seen him excited over anything. She hated to move on with the work half done, but if something had Dabakian this riled up, it had to be significant. The others appeared to have reached a similar conclusion because they began packing away their cameras and tools and flashlights.

  “We’re not done here,” Faith said. “I want this place gone over from top to bottom as soon as we get back.” She strode to Dabakian. “Let’s go.”

  The group followed Dabakian down the passage, flanked again by the strange copper sconces. As they advanced, the temperature grew warmer still. It felt to Faith like a balmy summer day, the kind from back in Lancada where the moment you stepped outside it was as if a blanket of muggy heat had been tossed over your head. It had been many years since she had visited Lancada to see her grandparents and other relatives. Now her tolerance for heat had fallen so much that she was pouring sweat. A shower was definitely in order tonight, after she sat down with Cha’a’ni. Only after.

  Up ahead, there was a faint gleam in the darkness. Something metallic.

  Faith’s breath caught in her throat.

  A golden door blocked their path. It was nine feet tall, and worked with the same mural as the floor of the previous chamber. Hundreds of tiny gemstones—emeralds, sapphires, opals, and more—punctuated the scenes, arranged in accordance with the rays of the sun, with the clouds and waves.

  It was almost too much to take in.

  Faith’s attention, however, went directly to the disc held by the man in the middle. She saw the outlines of the six continents, arranged in a fashion so they fit on the face of the circle.

  The others did not notice; they were too captivated by the door itself.

  “We’re going to be famous,” Durban murmured.

  “Probably,” Assande agreed.

  “Wait till I show Jan the pictures,” Vassey said. “She’s gonna flip.”

  “How do we remove it?” Durban asked.

  That caught Faith’s attention. “Excuse me?”

  Durban coughed. “It belongs in a museum. Where the world can appreciate it. Not stuck here where no one will ever see it but us. Besides, how else would we get the chance to study it? We need to be able to . . .”

  “Enough,” Faith said. “No hasty decisions. The last thing we want is to risk damage to the artifact or the site.”

  Dabakian grunted his agreement. “We had best not rush this, yes? In many cases, time is not a luxury we can afford. But here we have time. Let us use it wisely.”

  Faith brushed Dabakian’s hand in thanks. He nodded his head and shuffled his feet, but said nothing.

  She cleared her throat. “Standard procedure, guys. I know this is exciting, but we can’t let ourselves get carried away. Document first, touch later.” All she wanted was to push past the door and see what was on the other side, but her restraint was part of what made her a good leader. A leader had to stay in control, not run around squealing like a kid at Fiesta Nacional. Still, she became acutely aware of each passing minute. It was true there was plenty of time to continue working on the site, but how much time did the old chieftain have?

  She was about to start snapping photos when Durban put his hand on the door.

  It swung inward on a hinge. Durban stumbled into blackness.

  “Idiot,” Faith choked out. She grabbed for him and caught his shirttail. The momentum carried her along with him. They went tumbling into the room beyond. Just as Faith looked up to see the aghast faces of her team, the door swung shut with a resounding force.

  There was an ominous click.

  Immediately, alarmed shouting echoed from the other side. A tide of dread rose in Faith.

  “Can you get it open?” she shouted.

  Assande’s voice drifted back to her. “It’s stuck.”

  “Dammit,” she said. She heard Durban groan. She rounded on him. “Paul, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “It was an accident,” he said, unapologetically. He adjusted his glasses and dusted himself off, refusing to even look at her.

  The arrogance. The sheer pigheaded arrogance!

  She could have strangled him right there, but she knew she’d probably need him to help find a way out. That required maintaining civility. She tried for a calm, measured tone, though when the words emerged they sounded like icy fury. “Did you notice any mechanism on the door
when you touched it? Anything that could help us open it again?”

  Durban had the gall to laugh. Oh, how she wanted to bash his weaselly face in!

  “Mechanism,” he repeated, as if speaking the word for the first time in his life. “You’re not serious. We’re talking about primitives here.”

  Faith reined in her temper as best she could. “Look around you. You really think this place was built by—”

  “Savages,” he interjected. “I do. Did they have electricity? No. Flight? No. What about gunpowder, or, for that matter, nuclear power? They were savages, Santia. Just like your friends in the tents outside. Savages. So no, I didn’t notice any mechanism.”

  She wanted more than ever to tell him off, but she held her tongue. The last thing she wanted was to engage the buffoon in a debate. She would rather pull out her own teeth. By hand.

  She sighed, took off her hard hat, and tucked it under her arm, then scrubbed her fingers through her sweat-soaked hair. That was something she did when she was thinking. Her papa had often teased her about it, quite lovingly.

  Papa had been a construction foreman, and when one of his workers had gotten too surly, he said a good boss needed to “put him in his place, but not with a heavy hand.” She didn’t know if that would work with Durban, but it was worth a try. She put on her best smile and met the man’s eyes.

  “I respect your opinion, professor. And I apologize for any name-

  calling. That was inappropriate. Now, we have more pressing matters. I need your help to find a way out of here. Will you do that for me?”

  For a moment Durban regarded her suspiciously. Then he nodded, if a bit standoffishly.

  It was a start. They began at the door, which was backed in a slab of smooth granite on this side, not gold. There were alcoves nearby, arched along the top, about two feet high and one foot deep, each one containing more of the odd copper sconces. Reminded of the old adventure flicks that had inspired her as a child, Faith felt for hidden switches or triggers. Not once in her entire career had she ever found a genuine secret switch, but she had no better ideas.