CHAPTER 9
The Invisible Circle
I
Smell was the first sense to return to Wilburn as reality rebuilt itself, and what a strange bouquet it was. Rotten eggs for starters—there was no missing that stench—and then an acrid burning smell, and underneath these, a subtler, mineraly smell like… hot stone? Next came tactile sensations, extra sharp after their absence: the tickle of hair on Wilburn’s scalp, the swaddling softness his clothing, the silky fabric of Alfajean’s pant leg in his fingers, and the hot smoothness of a stone floor pressing up under the soles of his bare feet. Then sound—a distant gurgling—and sight—a storm of swirling speckles that resolved into the interior of a temple.
A temple… wow. The word church wouldn’t cut the mustard. Here was, if not the templiest temple ever built, then a shortlist contender for that honor. It was a vast hexagonal pavilion defined by six towering pillars of black basalt. Between the pillars— nothing—only a panoramic sky. The architecture screamed at you LOOK UP, and when you did, you saw a vaulted ceiling hundreds of feet high, wrought with an ornate pattern of interlocking hexagons: black around the edges, fading to a single hexagon of brightest alabaster in the center. That was what you actually saw, but what you seemed to see, for just a moment, was a vertical shaft ascending into infinity… almost like a portal. The temple was so huge it could’ve fit twenty or thirty cottages, Wilburn figured, and it was absolutely empty.
“Is it just us, or are we unfashionably early?” Iddo asked.
“Strategically early,” Alfajean corrected him, “enough to guarantee we’d be the first ones to arrive.”
“Ah yes, the old waiting-around strategy. Very clever.”
“Tis better to wait fur than to be late fur,” Alfajean said primly. “We have a poster at the office of a baby bunny with a wristclock saying that. Get it…? A bunny? Fur?”
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No one laughed. It wasn’t that Wilburn’s seven-year-old wit was too sophisticated for such punnybusiness—au contraire, Alfajean’s egregious joke would ordinarily have had him in hysterics, but just now, Wilburn felt edgy, unsteady… There was something in the air… something besides the stench of rotten eggs… a restless energy, a tension, like a balloon inflated almost to the point of bursting… and still inflating, stretching tighter and tighter, and you just knew it was gonna go BANG at any second.
A deep enchantment lies upon this place, Iddo thought to him. Don’t look with your eyes, my boy, look with your mind. Look for the colors that aren’t part of the rainbow. The complexity is… breathtaking…
Aloud, Iddo said, “Well, Lieutenant Angel, your memo mentioned a ritual, now you’ve brought us to a temple. I begin to comprehend. The prophet is here to witness, and later create a record of this event; he will not participate in the ritual directly, I think… nor will you. Only Wilburn and myself. Or…” Iddo studied Alfajean’s reaction closely. Wilburn could tell he wasn’t reading the angel’s mind; he was just guessing, and hoping Alfajean would accidentally betray something important. “No…” Iddo said thoughtfully. “I’m not part of it either. Only Wilburn will participate in the ritual. So why bring me along? Not for the pleasure of my company, I dare say. Am I to be a subject of Buttrom’s prophecy despite my lack of involvement in the ritual…? Oh, go on, Lieutenant Angel, you can at least give me a hint. We’re on the same side here, remember?”
Alfajean hesitated, then they said carefully, “Upper Management has appointed you to serve as Wilburn’s master, Master Bungflower.”
“I’m aware of that, Lieutenant Angel, but we both know that’s not the real reason I’m here. The PROVED spurns my involvement at all cost. I don’t believe you would have summoned me unless my presence was utterly essential to the operation. You need me to do something that no one else can. What?”
“I’m sorry, Master bungflower—that’s classified.”
“Hmm. You’re very confident that I will play my part without instruction…”
Alfajean was silent.
“Ahh,” Iddo said quietly, “I see. We’re expecting enemies. And you’re expecting me to oppose them of my own volition. The question is: am I to be a shield… or a sword?”
At the mention of enemies Alfajean gave a small start, which was as good as confirmation. “I… think it would be in-bounds for me to compliment your deductive reasoning, Master Bungflower,” they said. “Let me just add, for general context, that it has never been the policy of the PROVED to employ the sword when the shield will suffice.”
Iddo nodded slowly. “I can work with that. How many enemies? One? Two? Fifty?”
“I can’t answer that, I’m afraid.”
“Because it’s classified, or because you don’t know?”
“Well…”
“There’s no rule against admitting what you don’t know, is there?”
“Well…”