Chapter 41:

Back in the bunker, Mayah folded a thick white bandage over Vek’s injury. “How is this an act of mercy?”

It had been a rhetorical question, but Vek answered it seriously. “It’s an old law. I mean, you heard him. He wanted to kill me because I broke his fingers. Back then that was the way it was all the time. A life for a finger, then my brothers would kill him, then his brothers would kill mine, and on and on. An eye for an eye, though, a finger for a finger – that shows mercy to those who otherwise would get sucked into the feud.”

His voice was quiet, almost brooding. It made Mayah nervous. But she was already kneeling before Vek as he sat on the trunk. She couldn’t really get into a more repentant position. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m really sorry they cut your finger off.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that as much as… just… I never thought I’d be called a Rajas tail again.” He half-shook his head. “Especially not after I got branded.”

Desperately Mayah wished she hadn’t run into the serfs. At the same time, though, she felt confusion rising up inside her. Vek cared more about not being called a Rajas tail than he did losing his finger? Mayah had heard some serfs back in her village call Sukren a Rajas tail for being a doctor-priest, but when she’d told Sukren about it, he hadn’t seemed to think it was a big deal. Then again, Mayah thought with a flash of shame, Sukren had probably just been hiding his true feelings from her.

“I thought serfs called only regents and doctor-priests Rajas tails,” she said. “Why would anyone call you that? You’re just a Chenta serf, aren’t you?”

A bitter laugh escaped Vek’s lips. “Yes. Just a Chenta serf. With a special father.”

Mayah didn’t know what to say. After a moment, Vek shrugged. “Well, it’s done now. No finger, no map, no daysclock. Nothing we can do about it. What were you so excited about, anyway, that you had to go run off for?”

“Oh!” Mayah leapt to her feet, the lines of the maze returning to her memory. “Oh, Vek, I think…”

In the midst of the conflict with the Chenta serfs, Mayah had forgotten her discovery. She tied off the swathe around Vek’s hand and urged him out of the bunker, grabbing the pack of supplies and the lightstick herself.

“What? What is it?”

“I think…” Mayah took a few steps forward. “I think…”

Another step, and the walls around her spun. It was as if Mayah was back in Lost Technology’s library, its wooden bookcases standing in for the Temple’s stone walls. The slope they were on – how many times had Mayah walked down it on her way to Circle Plaza? She barely heard Vek’s queries as she rushed past the bookcase with the thick filigree and then around a curve in the wooden wall. There it was! With the same figure in its center, to boot!

“I knew I knew this place,” Mayah said, as Vek came up behind her. She turned, her face shining. “I knew I knew it.” Her eyes drank in her surroundings, and she laughed out loud. “The bunker was the panoramic tower you took me into! And look, here, this shelf holds the Biographies of Notable Princesses! Oh, Vek, all this time, I kept feeling like I had been here before – and I was right!”

Vek was grinning at her, and Mayah knew he was doing so despite his pain. “I told you you were special,” he said, and Mayah could just see him wink from under his goggles.

***

Ring’s Home. Mayah could picture it in her mind’s eye. The lounge where she first became friends with Qat, the one with the defunct fountain, or statue shaped like a fountain, or whatever it was, Mayah still didn’t know. She knew how to get there though. The paths, the darkness, everything was all familiar now.

“Why though?” Mayah wondered out loud. Her feet were sure as they traveled through the shadowed hallways. “It doesn’t make sense. Why would they build the same labyrinth into the Temple and the library?”

Vek shrugged. “Rajas, you know,” as if that explained everything. Mayah felt a little miffed. Rajas weren’t that bad. Well, maybe they were, if she was doing her absolute best to escape from them, but still, it seemed like Vek brought up how crazy the Rajas were like every other second.

A splash sounded up ahead; without hesitating Mayah turned left down a different path. She found herself feeling excited at her very confidence. She knew the way. To Ring’s Home! Oh, Mayah hoped that the Dome Ring really would be at Ring’s Home. That would be perfect. And it would be there, wouldn’t it? Why else would the lounge have been named Ring’s Home?

Mayah took another turn to the right, and then another, and then they were there. She touched Vek’s arm. “Look!” she whispered.

Vek said nothing, but his eagerness was easy to read. He strode ahead of her towards the fountain. She followed. Around them the walls loomed, enclosing them and the fountain in a circle. Fixed to the basin of the fountain was an upside-down U, like a sheepshoe, fused to the surface on both ends.

And beneath it – there it was – its emerald glistening – the Dome Ring.

Mayah caught her breath. “It’s actually here!” She hoisted herself up onto the rim of the basin. “But there’s a bioplastic chain connecting the ring to the sheepshoe.”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Use this,” Vek said. He tugged free the knife sheathed at his belt and placed it next to her knee. “Careful, it’s metal.”

A metal knife? Mayah had never heard of metal being used to make anything but capacitors. She looked at the knife uncertainly. “Can you do it?”

Vek held up his bandaged hand, the dressings soaked in red. “I’d probably end up slicing my arm off if I tried. Just be careful with it. You’ll be fine.”

Mayah positioned herself on her knees so that her weight would be balanced. The lightstick she placed next to her. Through its glow Mayah saw that the bioplastic chain only had to be severed at one point for the Dome Ring to come loose. Pricking at the tightly linked chain was delicate work, but the blade’s edge was keen, and it took her only a few minutes to free the ring from its fetter.

“I got it,” Mayah breathed. Cautiously she placed the knife down so Vek could sheathe it. She then pulled her sleeve down over her fingers so she could pick up the ring without touching it directly.

Vek leaned forward. His eyes gleamed under his goggles. “Put it on.”

“I… put it on?”

“It’s the best way to store it, isn’t it?”

Mayah hesitated. “I guess so.”

“Unless you want me to put it on. It would appropriately reflect my glory – only barely though.”

Mayah laughed. Vek had switched to speak in Rajim, imitating exactly the affected tones of a prince. Still smiling, she looked at the Dome Ring. The entire basis of Rajas rule was here, in the palm of her hand.

A wave of emotion rushed through her. She thought of all she had been through at the hands of the Rajas, of the suffering she had endured. Of the change Vek clearly believed in, the hope Sukren had written about in his journal. Gripped by longing, Mayah’s heart ached to take the Dome Ring to Sukren, to tell him, Look, look, Sukren, see what I’ve done! See how I’ve stolen from them that which they hold most dear! I have their power now. They can’t hurt us anymore.

Her sleeve had slipped out from under the Dome Ring. The band was heavy in her hand. Its shaft showed streaks of bioplastic melded into the metal. With fingers that did not shake, Mayah picked the ring up, then slid it onto the second finger of her left hand.

Then she screamed.

“What? What is it?” Vek shouted.

Mayah ignored him. Oh Sarana, her finger, it hurt, the ring, she had to take it off, she had to take it off now! Nearly sobbing, Mayah tugged and jerked the Dome Ring up her finger. Finally it came loose. She gasped and held her finger up. Streaks of red ran from the base of her finger to her nail.

“The ring shot out claws,” she managed, chest heaving. She closed her eyes. “It hurts, oh, it hurts!”

“Claws?” Vek repeated.

“Yes,” Mayah said. She glared at the Dome Ring; it lay indifferently on the basin’s rim. “It must have a serrated inside, but the claws didn’t extend right away. Jroya and Pal, I have no idea what’s entering my bloodstream right now… give me some water. I have to wash this out.” Mayah took in a shuddering breath, blinking away her tears. She wanted to continue complaining, to tell Vek she would have never put on the Dome Ring had she known it was going to attack her, but it seemed childish to complain about a few lacerations when Vek was missing an entire finger. Yes, it hurt, but the pain wouldn’t last. She hoped.

Unless there was some sort of bacteria in the claws, Mayah thought unhappily as Vek handed her a water bulb. That would be just her luck.

She had finished cleaning the cuts and had wrapped a bandage from the pack around her finger, when Vek gave a yelp.

“What?” Mayah asked.

“The ground is wet.”

“What?”

“The floor, the Temple floor. It’s wet. There’s water on it. I think… I think it’s rising.”

“Let’s go,” Mayah announced. She picked up the Dome Ring and tucked it into one of her frock’s pockets, grimacing at the sight of her formerly white pantaloons. “We’re done here. How do we get out?”

“I don’t know. Is there a way out of the library that might also be an exit from the Temple?”

Mayah cocked her head to the side, running through the library in her mind’s eye. “Yes. There’s a door near here, where the library opens up to a balcony.”

“Lead the way,” Vek said. He grabbed the knife, re-sheathed it, then pointed at the lightstick. “You take that. I’ll carry the pack.”

Mayah grabbed the lightstick and began splashing her way past the walls that loomed all around her. Their shadows jumped out from under the light in her hand. All the while the sound of rushing water grew louder. Were they flooding the place? A few more turns, and there the exit would be, the opening to the balcony…

Where was the exit?

Mayah skidded to a stop. The ground was slick under her feet. She looked at Vek but her goggles were so dirty and fogged up from crying earlier, she could scarcely make out his face. “Where is it?” she heard him ask. He held out his hand for the lightstick, then waved it over what seemed to be a solid wall in front of them. “Is it here?”

Falling to her knees, Mayah began slapping at the wall. Already the water had risen several finger’s widths. “It should be right here,” she said, her hands drawing in the air where the door should be. Why was there no door? What had happened to the door?

She brought her face closer to where the exit should be, but only managed to bump her eye goggles into a protrusion off the wall. She cursed, reaching up to rub the skin that her goggles had pushed into. Then the fury and frustration she had been holding in at not being able to see anything properly exploded out of her, and she tore off her goggles and threw them away behind her.

Now she could see. Even with her sweat streaking her glasses, Mayah’s vision was still a thousand times clearer. Twisting her head around, she was struck by the intricate carvings on the ceiling of the maze, which seemed so much loftier now. What she had taken as rough bumps and rude work on the walls was actually part of an elaborate pattern, and even the floor of the labyrinth, which she could see through the rising water, seemed to have a script etched into it. Vek and his horrified expression were clearer, as was the lightstick, which gave off a more yellow glow than green – and so was the handle fixed into the wall before her, beneath the lapping surface of the water.

Mayah grabbed the handle and twisted it all the way around. As the water rose, the wall in front of her revealed itself to be made up of a series of overlapping vertical slats that were now turning onto their sides and pulling apart, creating a gap in their center like a mouth opening in a yawn. Mayah could almost see the balcony on the other side. She reached for Vek’s uninjured hand; he returned her grip. Together they entered the mouth. And together they slipped, with a splash, into the waters of the holy lake.