The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (19 page)

“Return it without showing me, if you would.”

Oriana slipped the card back. The Magician shuffled the pack and dealt all the cards faceup into three piles, one card to each pile in turn.

“Point to the bottom of the pile that contains the card.”

Oriana tapped the table by her rightmost pile. The Magician placed the pile with the phoenix card between the other two piles and, without shuffling, dealt the cards into three piles. Again, he asked Oriana which pile contained the card. Again, she pointed to the proper stack, and the Magician placed the pile with her card between the other two and dealt three more piles.

“How much longer?” Oriana said.

“Patience,” the Magician said. “Which pile holds the card?” Oriana pointed to the left one. The Magician plucked out the phoenix card and handed it to Oriana with a flourish. “Is this your card, madam?”

“It is,” Oriana said.

“Tell me how it’s done, and the flag is yours.”

She conducted calculations in her extended consciousness.

“The card is always in the middle of the pile I select in the final layout.”

The Magician stroked his white pointed beard. “This one is
wise
, and you would be wise to keep her.” He snapped the gray flag from his belt, and it turned gold. He handed it to Oriana’s eager fingers.

They rushed out of the Magician’s illusion and onto the limestone trail. Color returned. Lights along the bridge shone like molten silver, its outside made of plastic, its inside filled with flowing water. Thick carbyne coils looped around the top and bottom, swirling over the bridge. Fog shrouded different spots along the bridge but thinned at the far end where it curved to an island, and golden fireflies scattered about a tree wider than any Halcyon dome, towering high above. Water fell in streams through it from pipes. On either side, farther away, blue and green bioluminescent falls flowed from white-capped cliffs into streams around the forest. The winds smelled fresh, tinged with mint and rosemary.

Oriana activated the golden flag, and the riddle transferred to her extended consciousness. She read its title aloud: “A bridge crossing at night.” A violet flag materialized, much larger than the golden one that held the riddle. “With four members of your team, a maximum of two can cross the bridge at one time, and any party that crosses must have the violet flag with them. If a party of two crosses, the flag must be held by both team members. Find the fastest way to accomplish this task and provide a range plus or minus thirty seconds for your solution, then move across the bridge. If you fail to time in this range, a barrier shall block your fifth teammate from crossing.”

“What does that mean?” Duccio said.

“We have to choose,” Pasha’s eyes moved up and down rapidly as he conducted calculations in his extended consciousness, “whether to leave the slowest teammate here even though that might hurt us, in the end, for the final riddle.”

The bridge was five kilometers long, by Oriana’s calculation. This could slow them down considerably. Unless … she quickly developed an algorithm to test the many ways they could attempt to mimic each other’s weights somehow, carry a tree limb or a boulder, and fool the flag. From her calculations it seemed they could not. The flag could sense their transhuman essence in the ZPF.

“I have the solution,” Pasha said. He turned to Nathan, Duccio, and Desaray. “How fast can you guys run five kilometers?”

Duccio blew raspberries and threw his head back. “Short distances I’m fine, but this is
far.
”

“I could run this bridge in five minutes,” Nathan said.

“Can you run it three times at that rate?”

Nathan nodded.

Pasha turned to Desaray. “How fast can you run five kilometers?”

“I can do it in nine.” Oriana looked to Desaray and raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know,” Desaray added, “thirteen, fourteen—”

“I need exact figures,” Pasha said.

“Call it fifteen then, just to be safe.”

“Duccio?”

“I’m good for twelve.”

“Why does it matter how fast we run?” Desaray said.

“Because the Trek is timed,” Oriana said, “and every second on every query counts, just like in the Harpoons.”

Pasha sucked in his lips and said to Desaray, “So I guess you’ll have to stay here …”

“So I will.”

“Let’s get on with this,” Oriana said. “I’m nine minutes.”

Pasha took the violet flag. “Nathan’s the fastest, and I’m second at seven minutes, so we go first. We tag the rod on the other side, then Nathan returns. That’s twelve minutes. Then you two go,” he pointed to Duccio and Oriana, “and … I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“Not for me,” Duccio said.

“You just keep to your side of the bridge and we’ll be fine—”

“
No!
” Pasha said. “You both need to hold the flag as you go! So you’ll make it down there at the slower pace, that’s Duccio’s rate, twelve minutes—”

“So we’re at twenty-four minutes,” Oriana said. They only had fifty-three minutes left to complete the Trek.

“I run back by myself,” Pasha said, “so that’s another seven minutes, and back again with Nathan, who’ll have to run at my pace—”

“Thirty-eight minutes total,” Oriana said.

They all nodded together.

“Right, ready?” Pasha held his end of the flag, Nathan the other. “Okay. I’ll transmit the range then as thirty-seven and a half to thirty-eight and a half minutes in three, two, one … let’s go!”

Nathan and Pasha disappeared and reappeared in and out the fog upon the bridge. Oriana and Duccio watched and waited. Desaray pouted. Nathan and Pasha burst out of the fog at the other end and tagged the rod. Nathan turned around and disappeared. In a few minutes he returned, breathing hard, and handed the violet flag to Duccio and Oriana.

Oriana found it easy to keep up with Duccio, who, though tall and muscular, took measured strides across the bridge. They disappeared into the fog. Oriana could barely see Duccio’s face, which she counted as a blessing. Then something scraped her leg, water possibly, or was it Duccio, tripping her? They both lost their balance, spinning out across the bridge.

Oriana yelled.

She heard Nathan call out, to Duccio first, then to her.

Pasha shouted her name.

Oriana slid into a bridge coil and wrapped her arm around it. She fell over the side, gripping the carbyne ledge.

Her fingers slipped, but Duccio caught her wrist and held her, suspended in the fog. All she saw was the yellow of his eyes and his smile. “Good night, sweet princess …”

She screamed when he let her go.

Portage City

Portage, Underground Central

2,500 meters deep

Gwen fiddled with her hair while Marcel and Juvelle tinkered with a scroll that held a map of the Great Commonwealth. Red slashes crossed through all the territories except for Luxor, Nexirenna, and Portage.

“Oh, Marcel, look,
look.
”

Portage’s silver sun hung on the horizon and reflected over the tens of thousands of Portagens on the thousands of skywalks that linked the clay-colored buildings. Ahead, the citadel’s bronze spire shone blue-green, and Citadel Guardsmen lined the central steps, forming a corridor. The pale sunlight glimmered through the dust.

The minister honors our arrival
, Gwen thought.

“All I see are shadows,” Marcel said. He lowered his voice. “Are you … okay?”

Gwen nodded. She didn’t know what to say. Her parents had left her on the steps of a government building in Transport City with a z-disk that read, “Please take care of her.” In a different time in Beimeni, this might have led her to the Lower Level. Luckily for Gwen, House Variscan had altered developer views of orphans many decades ago. She hadn’t been back to Portage since her development or since she’d been crowned Harpoon Champion, but the territory was every bit as magical as she’d dreamed.

“Aha, mademoiselle,” Juvelle said. The bot scanned the map scroll. “We’re running out of time for the campaign, and we still have to visit Luxor and Nexirenna. We
could
go to Nexirenna next—”

“It’s bad enough we missed Luxor on the first pass into the South,” Gwen said. “We cannot visit Prime Minister Decca last. We will go to Luxor next, then Nexirenna.”

“I agree,” Marcel said.

“A fine decision, mademoiselle,” Juvelle said.

Gwen took the scroll from Marcel, rolled it, and slipped it into a satchel.

Word of her campaign for Antosha’s candidacy had traveled through the commonwealth. And along her travels, word of the field reached her. Competitors included Supreme Scientist Dorian Knox, who had expanded the human genome, theoretically rendering the transhuman race immune to 99.9 percent of naturally occurring pathogens; Supreme Scientist Nasha Ele, whose work had led to the acceleration of the gestation processes in transhuman embryos; and Supreme Scientist Minta Pollopa, who had enhanced the Granville sky to its present realism, among others.

“Where does the polling stand?” Gwen said.

“Notwithstanding the Northeast resistance,” Marcel said, “the vote is looking better today than when the campaign began.”

“Better still if he succeeds with Dr. Shrader—”

“And what if he fails?”

Gwen looked out the transport window. “He won’t,” she said bitterly.
He never does.

She hoped Marcel would understand when she stepped away from the project after the campaign. She still hadn’t told him about Antosha, and she wished that she could. Her time with her sweet brother had shown her just how miserable she’d become back in Palaestra.

A guardsman marched down the steps, his diamond sword sheathed across his back, utility belt with pulse guns and scanners around his waist. “Welcome to Portage Citadel,” he said. “The minister and his lady have prepared a territory-wide feast in your honor.”

In our honor
, Gwen thought. No minister had welcomed her this way.

No minister can honor you the way I will,
Antosha transmitted to her.
We’re close, my violin.
Soon I’ll return to Palaestra with you at my side, and together we’ll defeat the Reassortment Strain.

Every centimeter of the table in the Gallery of the Minister contained a plate. There were beef tenderloin steaks with sautéed spinach and dates; flourless chocolate cakes topped with strawberry strips; mashed cauliflower; sautéed shrimp scampi with broccoli rabe; Piscatorian crab cakes and seared salmon with citrus ginger; Gaian turkey chili; Portagen lemon chicken; and more glasses filled with Loverealan wine than Gwen had ever seen.

An ensemble of two oboes, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons serenaded the chamber. Conversations at the table softened when Gwen approached.

“Splendid to see you here,” Lady Larisa, Minister Kaspasparon’s eternal partner, said and kissed Gwen’s cheeks. She looked just as Gwen remembered her from just after the Harpoon Auction, her face smooth and bronze, her eyebrows as thin as blades of grass, her smile warm. Her hair hung down in two teal braids that looped under her ears and connected in the back, tied with a ribbon that dangled down her velvet gown.

“Pleasure, my lady,” Gwen said. “This is Juvelle, my keeper bot in Palaestra City, and Marcel Auroro—”

“Your brother-in-development, we’ve heard so much about you! Welcome!” Larisa kissed his cheeks as well, and he looked to Gwen from the corners of his eyes.

Gwen shrugged.

She didn’t recognize any of the hundreds of guests, all dressed in fine gowns and button-down suits with jewels and gemstones around their necks and wrists and ankles, many seated in chairs with phoenix feathers woven into the backs. The Citadel Guardsmen lined the walls beneath two skywalks that ran through the gallery. Long heavy curtains concealed coolant piping, keeping the room temperate, despite the crowd.

Minister Kaspasparon neared and kissed Gwen’s cheek. “Lovely to host you during this special time. We’ve missed you.”

“Pleasure, Minister,” Gwen said, holding both his hands. “Likewise, I owe all that I am to you.”

“Nonsense, child, we didn’t compete in the Harpoons.”