I had heard of Orath before the expedition. Most Acolytes had, he was the foremost living scholar of the Caelith ruins, the author of the three definitive academic texts on sky-fallen structures, and the person whose proposal had funded this expedition in the first place.
In person, he was older than his portraits suggested, thin in the way of someone who forgot to eat when working, with white hair pulled back and a leather satchel that he wore across his body even at the base of an ancient pyramid at dawn, as though he expected to need his notes at any moment.
There had been no chance for me to interact with him during our trip, and I knew that it would be one of my most treasured memories if I were to speak with him, even if it was just a few sentences.
As the Anima Depths increase in the body, so also does the bodily function get enhanced, and so my sight could see across the distance with moderate clarity.
Scholar Orath was not using the instruments the way the other mages were.
The other five were measuring, but Orath seemed to be doing something else, as he held one of his own devices, smaller than the Academy-issue equipment, flat against the pyramid’s surface with one hand while his eyes were closed.
It was as if he was not reading the device but was listening to it. Or maybe listening to something through it, and I was not the only one who noticed this odd behavior.
"What is he doing?" Bari asked, appearing at my shoulder with his porridge.
"I don’t know," I said, which was true, and also the beginning of a question I could not yet articulate.
"He’s been there since before I woke up," Dara said quietly. "I saw him cross the camp in the dark. Before fourth hour."
Rex turned from the pyramid then and looked at us, at me specifically, I thought, though it was hard to be certain.
"He found something yesterday," Rex said. "I overheard him and Commander Rel last night. He didn’t say what."
We stood at the cook fire in the early grey light and watched the old scholar press his instrument against the black face of the pyramid, and the pyramid said nothing, and gave nothing back, the way it always had.
I was wondering what it would feel like to press my face against that black stone, and a desire to know what Scholar Orath may be hearing from this pyramid filled my chest. Surely, before we leave, there must be at least one chance to get close to the pyramid.
The porridge steamed in our bowls, and I spooned some distractedly into my mouth, my eyes not leaving the pyramid.
Somewhere behind us, Pell dropped something heavy and swore loudly, and the morning carried on.
®
I heard it before I saw it.
A sound like no sound I had a word for.
For a moment, the analytical side of my mind was trying to figure out what it was because the sound was entirely alien.
It was not an explosion or an earthquake. I had once heard the groan of settling earth, and that sound did not quite describe what I just heard.
The sound was something beneath all of those. A frequency that bypassed my ears entirely and arrived directly in my chest, in the place where I had learned to locate my Anima, as though whatever had made the noise was speaking directly to that part of me and nothing else.
I believe it was at that moment that something changed inside me, but I could not be sure.
Every mage in the camp felt it at the same moment. I know this because I watched it happen.
I saw the six researchers at the pyramid’s base all straighten simultaneously, instruments forgotten, with their heads turning as if they were listening to something.
I saw Dara’s cup stop halfway to her mouth, and Rex went very still in the particular way he did when he was frightened and did not want anyone to know.
Bari said, "What was—"
The pyramid answered him, as a deep red pulse that moved through the black surface from somewhere far below, traveling upward the way blood travels through skin when you press your thumb against it and hold it to a flame.
The entire pyramid suddenly glowed red, then the light vanished.
Then it happened again, and again, the pyramid seemed almost to be breathing.
My breath was caught inside my chest as I noticed then they were coming too quickly to count, and the entire eastern face of the pyramid was breathing red light in the grey morning, and every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to back away.
In the skies above, black clouds began to gather and revolve as if a tornado was descending upon the earth, and as the wind rose around us, I stood, and I watched because I did not yet understand that understanding could wait.
My mind seemed to be searching for comfort, and it looked for the man who should have the answers, and I saw Scholar Orath stepping toward the pyramid.
I saw him clearly from across the camp, the older man pressing his palms flat against the pyramid’s surface, his leather satchel swinging against his hip, his white head bowed as if in prayer or apology.
The five Academy mages around him were retreating, calling to him, and he was not listening to any of them.
"Orath!" Commander Rel’s voice cut across the camp like a blade. She had emerged from her grey tent already moving, her field coat half-buttoned, one hand on the short rod at her belt.
"Get away from the structure! Everyone back, now, move..."
The ground suddenly cracked ten meters from where I was standing, the earth split along a line running east to west as cleanly as if something enormous had drawn a blade across it, and the sound it made was the sound of the world breaking its own rules.
It was a tearing sound that I felt in my back teeth and the soles of my feet simultaneously.
I thought the open ground almost resembled a massive mouth opening.
For one second, nothing came out of it....
Then they did.