Prisoner of Glass (17 page)

A stone door was above her.
 
A stone door, with a single Honeybee hieroglyph.
 
She almost laughed aloud.
 
She pushed the bee and the door popped open.
 
She climbed up and through.

She was now standing on top of a giant stone ball.
 
It was a stone-scape of granite and moss.
 
It was massive, literally a small moon housed in a slightly bigger underground cavern.

And the whole thing was ridged, as if it were a giant beehive.

The small moon was rotating, rotating ever so slowly.
 
Elspeth guessed this motion was like the ticking of a clock — one that eventually ended in a minor earthquake — and snapped time back one week on 2002.
 
How the Mayans could have achieved such a thing was beyond her.
 
For several long moments, she could just stare.

But now the elevator was arriving again.
 
Geez, that was fast.
 
Yet Elspeth felt safe: she knew that Sebastian Cone could not leave the sanctuary of the Glass Prison — else, she would die.
 
Nothing could protect her from that.

The doors slid apart.
 
Sebastian Cone burst forth, brandishing a gun, drool dripping from the sides of her mouth.

Elspeth almost laughed.
 
“Soap and shoe polish!” she shouted, calling her bluff.
 
David was close behind Sebastian.
 
But disturbingly, he shook his head,
No
.
 
It all seemed to go to slow motion now.

Sebastian raised her supposedly fake gun — and fired.

Elspeth had been waving her hand.
 
The bullet clipped her pinkie at the base, blowing it clean off.
 
Her digit became a mist of red.
 
There was nothing left to re-attach.

Elspeth screamed.

That gun had been real …?

Of course it had been.
 
After all,
something
needed to remove her finger again.
 
Outside the Glass Prison, she was no longer in 2002.
 
She was in the present — where she did
not
have a pinkie.
 
The universe had to re-create her physical condition in the present somehow.

David tackled Sebastian.
 
Sebastian was small, but vicious, making it an even struggle.
 
The elevator descended again.
 
Elspeth gripped her severed finger stump.
 
Blood agony pulsed from it.
 
Warm red spouted between her other fingers.
 
She rolled away from the opening of the door.
 
She knew that Sebastian could not come through the door any more than a vampire could step into daylight.
 
But she also knew Sebastian would do more damage if she could — even kill her.

And out here, it was the present — which meant anything could happen to her now.
 
A shot to her heart would kill her now.

The elevator was back.
 
Out poured James Card and several Latin Kings carrying the Vizier.
 
The Kings joined David in subduing Sebastian: one of them plunged a knife into her belly, and then threw her lifeless heap through a window, sending her falling into the hollow moon.
 
The rest helped the Vizier and Card up through the doorway and out of the Prison of Glass.

Elspeth knew that none of this would be fatal to Sebastian: she’d come back to life within moments.

As soon as the Vizier tasted free air, the fire beasts arrived and restored him to his ‘present’.
 
They purged him, burning the leprosy clean from his body.
 
He laughed uproariously — all while having every appearance of being eaten alive by fire.
 

As soon as he was whole, he began barking orders to the Latin Kings.
 
They formed a protective ring around Elspeth.
 

“Wait … no.
 
I never—” she protested.

“The Vizier asked us to, Doctor Lune.”

“You’re safe now, Doctor Lune.”

“We have you to thank, Doctor Lune.”

“No choice, Doctor Lune.
 
You’re stuck with us.”

Meanwhile, David recovered.
 
“Elspeth!
 
You can’t leave!” David cried out.
 
He may as well have said,
You can’t leave me!

“I’m sorry David.
 
I have to go find my husband.”

“But Vicky!
 
What you did to Vicky …”

“Was horrible.
 
And I’m paying for it, believe me.”

“But … but I love you!”

Elspeth shook her head.
 
“You’re a good man David.
 
But I don’t love you.
 
Goodbye, David.”

The Vizier laughed.

Then the hatch to the Glass Prison snapped shut, sealed, abruptly cutting off David’s
Noooo!
 
Elspeth jumped back in surprise.
 
“Who did that?” she said.
 
The Vizier chuckled but offered no explanation.
 
Elspeth jumped forward and tried to open it again, but it was sealed as tightly as a stone sarcophagus.
 
“Come on!” she howled.
 
“Help me!”

But no one did.
 
The Vizier shook his head.
 
“That is the way of the Glass Prison.
 
It has a mind of its own which none may gainsay.
 
Those others, it was not …
auspicious
… for them to escape.”

Elspeth jabbed a finger into the Vizier’s chest.
 
“Auspicious my ass!
 
This escape is for everybody, not just us.
 
Open that door back up!”

The Vizier shrugged.
 
“I am powerless where this door is concerned.”
 

Elspeth wanted to believe that this was just another trick on the Vizier’s part, but her instinct said he was speaking the truth.

So the Glass Prison remained shut.
 
Its inhabitants, once again, fulfilled a cyclical, yet immortal, existence inside a terrarium of time.
 
By degrees, Elspeth looked out now across the slick and strange granite-and-moss surface of the slowly-spinning stone Mayan moon.
 

“Our way lies there,” the Vizier said.
 
“Follow me.”

The ceiling was lower in some areas than others.
 
At one point, it was not even three feet off the ground.
 
Here Elspeth found a hexagon-shaped door — and pushed.
 
It opened.
 
She grabbed the edges — and with the help of the Latin Kings — scrambled up inside.
 

Her companions followed.

It was a largish Hexagonal room, seemingly made of wood like cedar.
 
There was food and water aplenty here, as well as as a makeshift bathroom with a working shower.
 
How this could be so, none of them knew.
 
But they did not question it.
 
They all took turns taking advantage of the amenities.
 

Elspeth’s severed pinky had already healed at a massively accelerated rate.
 
And already, she felt no pain.
 
A fresh layer of pink skin had grown over the bloodied finger-stump.
 
She nodded in approval, realizing that in the present the wound was not new: it would ‘catch up’ quickly to a fully healed state, complete with scar tissue.

ELEVEN: ON THE ROAD

ELSPETH LUNE watched the Vizier with awe.
 
Gone was his crippling leprosy.
 
He must have had it back in 2002, and somehow been cured of it later on, she reasoned.
 
Now healthy and hale, the Vizier cut a figure of health and strength.
 
There was a casual robust power in his limbs, and a dazzling smile filled with shiny white teeth in his mouth.
 
“On the Road again!” the Vizier cawed over and over.
 
He seemed like an addict, reunited with the narcotic of his heart at last.

“You have your iPhone still?” Elspeth asked James Card.

“Yeah,” James replied, holding it up forlornly.
 
“But it’s out of juice.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah.
 
There was a map on my wall — and I’m pretty sure it was a map of this hexagon-maze we’re in now.
 
I took a bunch of pictures of it with your phone.”
 
When he scowled, she added:
 
“All we have to do is find a way to juice up your phone and we have a map, is what I’m saying.”

The Hexagon they were in had three adjoining doors, none of which would open.
 
So the company had decided to rest on the floor for the night — and try again in the morning.

IT WAS the tickle of the gaze of another on the face that woke Elspeth more than anything.

She saw Titus staring down at her.
 
“Hey,” Titus said.
 
He looked over his shoulder nervously.
 
Then he said: “I don’t have a lot of time.
 
Questions.
 
Let’s get some answered right now.
 
Okay?”

Elspeth sat up.
 
“Yeah,” she replied.
 
“That would be good.
 
Why don’t you start with the prison?
 
What was the goddamn point of all that?”

Titus smiled.
 
“The purpose of the Glass Prison is to escape.
 
To see who will become seduced by its false immortality — and who will break free?
 
Only a special person navigates it, completes it, frees themselves from it.
 
Someone like you.

“Oh, Elspeth … you did so well!
 
So impressive.
 
You are indeed a sort of a Isis.
 
Quite literally.
 
And the fire — that walk through lava purified your resemblance to Isis even more.
 
You know how often the number 1515 pops up in your life.
 
Don’t you realize that spells ISIS with numbers?
 
You chose 1515 as your ATM pin, as your mobile unlock code.
 
That was no coincidence.
 
That was your subconscious, stating the obvious, trying desperately to tell you the truth.
 
You’ve known this your whole life.”

“So you’re saying … what, that I actually
am
Isis?
 
The actual Egyptian goddess?”
 
Elspeth shook her head.
 
That made no sense.
 
She was already certain she wasn’t.
 
It even felt ridiculous, just saying it aloud.

“No,”
 
Titus said.
 
Elspeth was actually palpably relieved to hear this.
 
“It’s more like, you’re an
instance
of Isis, appearing in profane, historical time — instead of eternal, archetypal time.
 
You’re Isis, playing out
as a real person in real life
.
 
That’s
never happened before.
 
See, the real Isis exists only as an idea.
 
Or eternally.
 
‘Only’ is a bad word, forget I said it.
 
I suggests smallness where I want to suggest bigness.
 
The idea of Isis is very big — it’s an archetype, as a matter of fact.
 
And archetypes are about as big as you can get.”

“Still not getting this,” Elspeth said.
 
“Try again.”

“Your name is Elspeth LUNE.
 
As in lunar, as in the moon, the symbol of Isis.
 
You husband was snatched from you, just like Isis.
 
He —”

“Oscar?” she broke in.
 
“What does Oscar have to do with this?”

“Oscar
Cyrus
.
 
O. Cyrus.
 
Come on, how much more obvious can I get?”

“You mean as in … Osiris.”
 
Elspeth’s heart sank.
 
Was
everything
about her life rigged to resemble that of Isis?
 
Even she knew the legend — Isis had her husband stolen from her as well … and she had to find him and bring him back to life.

“Not everything,” Titus said, seeming to read her mind.
 
“Actually, we had nothing to do with arranging your life.
 
You can forget about that.
 
We just
found
you and realized how similar your lives were.”

“And who are you, that you can just find people and abduct them?
 
Where do you get the goddamn
gall
?”

Titus was silent a moment.
 
Then he said, “We’re travelers.
 
On The Road.”

“Like the Vizier.
 
What is this ‘Road’ everyone’s so excited about?
 
Because believe you me, I’m not all that enthusiastic about it.”

“Oh, Elspeth,” Titus said.
 
“You have no idea how many have spent their lives to get where you are right now.
 
Most die along the way.
 
For most, it is legend only: for you, even unwillingly, it has become reality.
 
So many would give so much to trade places with you.”

“So let them.
 
I don’t give a good goddamn.
 
I just want to go home!”
 
She wept softly, clenching her fists.

“But they’re not you.
 
They’re not the Star of Sirius, the Isis.
 
You
are Sirius, just as the Vizier said.
 
He wasn’t asking if you were ‘serious’ — no!
 
It was Sirius he was after.
 
He knew only a true Sirius could free himself.
 
You were his best hope.
 
In fact, you’re the best hope we all have.
 
We
can’t
let you go home, we just can’t.
 
For better or for worse,
you
are on The Road now yourself.”