The small boy swallows. He’s no longer in a joking mood.
“The room is…weird,” he says. “It’s small and dark. You feel heavier, like an invisible hand is squeezing you, trying to make you sit. Our legs got tired fast. And we both felt like…like something was watching us. I wanted to get out of there. To be honest, Em, I don’t want to go back down.”
He’s asking without asking if he can stay up here. I would love to let him do that, but he’s the smartest of us.
“I need that big brain of yours,” I say. I tousle his black hair, trying to make light of the situation. “What if there are things down there that won’t work for anyone but you? Maybe there’s something you and Bishop didn’t see, something like the hidden panels in the archways.”
“Those things would work for me as well,” Aramovsky says. “Or perhaps we’ll find things that only work for me.”
He’s right. Besides, if I leave him up here with the circle-stars, who knows what he’ll tell them. I’m afraid of Bishop because he is big and strong. He could hurt me. I’m afraid of Aramovsky, too, but I’m not sure why.
“I’ll go first,” I say. “Then Bishop, then Gaston, then Aramovsky, then El-Saffani.”
The twins step forward in unison and start down the ladder before I can even say a word to the contrary. Maybe they’re just as afraid as I am, but if so they hide it well. Or maybe they are actually brave, like Latu was.
I look at Bawden and Visca.
“You two guard the door, okay?”
The two gray-faced people nod.
I start down the ladder.
THIRTY-ONE
I hold the spear in one hand, use my other to grip the ladder rungs as I descend.
It’s easy at first, but it quickly gets harder the farther I go down. I understand what Gaston was saying about something pushing him: I feel heavier, like I’m progressively carrying more and more weight.
It hits me how clean this tube is. Other than some footprints on the uppermost rungs, probably from when Gaston and Bishop first came down, there is no dust at all. Has the door above me always been closed?
I reach the bottom. The circular floor is strange. Like the black door, it’s metal, a grate of some kind. I can see through it to a black, curving surface below. The curve seems to slope up equally in all directions, becoming curved walls that join together to make a curved ceiling.
Before, we were inside a cylinder. Now, we are inside a ball.
My eyes adjust to the darkness.
I see the body Gaston told us about, a long bit of light gray that stands out from the shadows. It is chest-down on the metal-grate floor, arms spread wide. The skin-taut skull is facing us, greeting us with an eternal smile. A once-white body suit drapes thin ribs, hides arm and leg bones. Splotches of different colors—faded red, yellow, grayish black—stain the fabric. The biggest stain is in the middle of the back, where the spear must have dug deep, ending that person’s life.
I see the “shackle” Gaston described. Yes, it is exactly like the one the scarred monster aimed at my face. It is on the corpse’s right wrist. The rod connected to the bracelet points out, parallel to the metal-grate floor.
A few steps past the corpse, I see the three pedestals Gaston described. Unlike the other pedestals we’ve seen so far, these are unbroken. In full light, they would be white; right now they are a pale shade of gray. Gold symbols line the round stems. Their flat, square tops sit empty. If we could figure out what is supposed to be on top of those pedestals, I think that would connect a few more dots of the puzzle that is this place.
I take a few steps: my feet feel like they are weighed down by thick stones.
“Gaston, why are we heavier?”
He starts to talk, then stops. That frustrated look comes over his face again.
“I think it’s similar to how we didn’t fall from the ceiling, but”—he looks at Aramovsky—“I really don’t want to argue with you about that right now.”
Aramovsky actually bows. “Of course not, my chosen brother. Please, continue.”
Gaston sighs and shakes his head. Maybe he liked the confrontational Aramovsky better than the friendly version.
“Anyway, it’s like my brain is trying to tell me why we feel heavier, but it doesn’t know where that information is kept. So many things are still…blanked out.”
That phrase, blanked out—it’s his version of the sludge-brain sensation I defined as muddy. Gaston’s word feels more accurate.
I look at the body. So gross. My stomach feels queasy again. I’ve seen worse things, far worse, but knowing this person was speared in the back makes me wonder if the same thing could happen to me.
I need to focus: what we came for is lying right there.
“I’ll get the bracelet,” I say.