Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(43)

We wobble and shudder as we finish the climb. I think I make it up the final steps on willpower alone, because my body gave up on me about three layers ago.

My legs feel like boiling goo. They burn, they sting. O’Malley is grunting and wheezing—I wonder if he’s going to throw up. Aramovsky is worse off: he looks like he might keel over and die at any moment, but that horrid glow remains in his eyes. Even Bishop and Visca are tired, trails of sweat cutting skin-toned streaks through the plant juice on their faces. They have made this climb twice in two days—too much for anyone, even a tireless circle-star.

Up here we are no longer sheltered from the wind. It whips us, snaps at our black coveralls. The sun is already heading down to the horizon—the climb took us longer than we had hoped. The fabric that kept us cool now keeps us warm, but our hands and faces feel the wind’s biting chill.

The last layer is the smallest one, of course. We stand upon a plateau, a square as long as ten of us lying head to feet. In the center is a stone slab, and, rising up from it, a tall, smooth stone pillar. On it, the six gold symbols, each taller than Bishop. From top to bottom: circle, circle-star, double-ring, circle-cross, half-circle and gear.

Inside the empty space of the gear, a plaque with a red handprint. In the palm, a golden double-ring.

All around us, the city seems tiny. Insignificant. At ten layers up, the tops of the tallest pyramids were at eye level. At twenty, everything looked small and we could see a long, long way. Here at the top, thirty layers above the streets, the city below no longer looks real. The Observatory is more like a mountain than a building.

I can see well past the city walls. Trees, vines and the ruins of six-sided buildings blend together, a broken yellow jungle that stretches out and out and out. To the west, far off, mountains rise up. To the north, a sparkling lake with steep cliffs all around. To the northeast is a wide clearing, crescent-shaped like a quarter moon. Maybe someday soon that clearing will be farmland for us, giving us a place to grow crops where we don’t have to clear the jungle.



The same wind that whips at us is driving those dark clouds toward us. Hidden flashes of lightning flicker within. I hope it doesn’t rain.

Aramovsky fights away his fatigue, stands to his full height. Atop the city’s tallest building, our tallest boy looks important…regal.

“The gods have called to us,” he says, almost yelling so that we can hear him over the wind. “They paint a picture of what has been, and what is to come. They will—”

“Hold on,” O’Malley says. He’s at the layer’s edge, looking down at his feet. “What do you all make of this?”

He’s standing on a black line, so faded none of us noticed it. It’s a curve. We all glance around the plateau and see it: the curve is a circle that goes all the way around, touching the edges of the square plateau. And inside it, a second circle.

At first I think it’s Aramovsky’s double-ring, but then I see a dot on the outer circle. The dot is also black. There are four of them. If I were to draw lines from plateau corner to plateau corner, the dots are where those lines would intersect the outer circle.

And on the middle ring, there are two dots, one on either side of the stone pillar.

Two rings: four dots on the outer ring, two on the inner.

I look at Aramovsky. “Do you know what it means?”

He walks around, staring down. “This entire building has to be a religious place, some kind of temple, so this symbol is clearly related to mine.”



He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, and failing at it. He has no idea.

The wind bites into me.

“Try the handprint,” I say to him. “I want to get out of here.”

He walks to the pillar, but doesn’t press the handprint. Instead, he tilts his head back and raises his arms to the sky.

“Oh gods, you have chosen for us to be here in this divine place, so that we may live out your plans and—”

Bishop grabs Aramovsky and shakes him.

“Just press the damn thing already!”

Aramovsky’s grand moment is ruined. He’s far more worried about his safety than his speech. He presses his hand against the plaque.

Nothing happens.

A wave of relief washes through me. This entrance, if that’s what it is, is broken, or Aramovsky is the wrong kind of person. Whatever the reason, we can’t get in. I don’t have to learn what horrors Matilda planned on committing once she took over my body.

A grinding sound. It stops and starts. Silence. We listen for more, but hear only the wind’s lonely howl.

The plateau trembles beneath us. We are so high up. If the Observatory collapses…

The pillar shudders. The rectangular slab beneath it rises up, each corner supported by a golden column that reflects the red sun’s final light. The bottom of the slab reaches eye level, then shudders to a stop.

At our feet, in the space below where the slab was, an intricate metal staircase spirals down into the darkness.

—



If I never see steps again, it will be too soon.

As we descend, the dark stone walls start to glow. Dimly, but enough that we don’t need our flashlights. The sound of the wind fades away. Soon we hear only our breathing and our boots stepping on metal stairs.

At least there’s no “art” on these walls.