Lily noticed that Zoe was already awake—she’d been keeping watch. They hissed to Wizard and the others on the other platform, waking them.
They all observed the warlock break away the larger group and stride out onto the sacred triangular island in the center of the lake, via a stone bridge that rose from beneath the rippling surface. There the Delphic Orb and the Second Pillar sat proudly on their stone pedestal.
With great reverence, the warlock lifted the Delphic Orb from its pedestal and handed it to one of his monks, who dashed off to rejoin the procession.
The warlock stayed on the island, where he was joined by the two monks bearing the Philosopher’s Stone and the Firestone.
Lily and the others then watched in awe as, with great solemnity, the warlock placed his people’s Pillar—the Second Pillar—inside the Philosopher’s Stone.
When the Firestone was set atop it, a familiar white flash flared from within the Philosopher’s Stone, and when the warlock removed the Neetha’s Pillar from it, the Pillar was no longer hazy and cloudy. Its rectangular glass body was perfectly clear.
Cleansed.
The warlock looked like a man who had seen his god.
The ceremony complete, he replaced the Second Pillar on its pedestal. As for the Firestone and the Philosopher’s Stone, he handed them to his monks and while he remained on the sacred island, they took them— along with the First Pillar—into the maze.
About twenty minutes later, the warrior-monks with the Firestone, the Philosopher’s Stone, and the First Pillar emerged on the narrow flight of stone steps that rose out of the center of the maze.
“They know how to get through…?” Lily said, confused.
“Mazes like this were common in the ancient world,” Wizard said. “The labyrinth of Egypt; the palace at Knossos. But such mazes are not designed to be impenetrable. Each possesses a secret solution and so long as you know the solution, you can pass through a given maze quite quickly.”
Zoe said, “Most often, only royalty or royal priests knew the solution. It’s a cunning way to keep your treasures safely hidden from the commoners.”
The monks climbed the great staircase and then disappeared inside the trapezoidal doorway at its summit, entering some kind of inner sanctum where the two stones—the Firestone and the Philosopher’s Stone—and the First Pillar would be kept safe and secure.
Low chanting followed. The fires of their torches danced.
Then, a few minutes later, a speck of firelight appeared in the sky through a carefully cut gap in the tree canopy that covered the ravine—it appeared at a spot directly above the inner sanctum. One of the monks must have climbed up an internal shaft and emerged at the very summit of the volcano 650 feet aloft.
Suddenly—whap!—the speck of firelight was replaced by a completely otherworldy purple glow.
“It’s the Orb,” Wizard whispered. “They must have taken the Firestone up to the summit, too. They’ve placed the Orb atop the Firestone and unleashed its special power.”
“And what is that?” Solomon asked.
“The ability to see the Dark Star,” Alby answered solemnly. “Look.”
He pointed over at the warlock, still standing on the triangular island—only now the gnarled old man was bent over the inclinometer there, peering through an eyepiece on it, an eyepiece that was angled straight up at…the purple glow of the Delphic Orb high up on the volcano’s summit.
“It’s a telescope ,” Alby said. “A tubeless telescope like the kind Hooke built in the 1600s. A telescope doesn’t necessarily need a tube, only two lenses, one at the bottom and another at the top, set at the right focal length. Only this tubeless telescope is huge, the size of that volcano.”
“A telescope designed for one purpose,” Wizard said. “To see the Dark Star.”
As if on cue, the warlock howled with delight, his eye locked to the eyepiece.
“Nepthys!”he cried. “Nepthys! Nepthys!”
Then he intoned something in his own language.
Lily listened, then translated.“‘Great Nepthys. Your loyal servants are ready for your arrival. Come, bathe us in your deadly light. Rescue us from this earthly existence.’”
“This is bad…” Zoe said.
“Why?”
“Because this warlock has no intention of saving the world from the Dark Star. He wants it to come. He wants it to unleash its zero-point field on the Earth. More than anything, this man wants to die at the hands of his god.”
LILY AGAIN fell asleep, but just before dawn, something else happened.
It was many hours after the warlock and his monks had concluded their nocturnal activities by returning their people’s sacred objects to their usual places: the Delphic Orb and the (now cleansed) Second Pillar were returned to the pedestal on the triangular island, alongside the ancient inclinometer. After that, the priests had retired to their temple-fortress and the village was still—a stillness that had prevailed until Lily was woken by a series of small objects pelting her body.
“Huh?” she looked up with bleary eyes……to see a young Neetha man tossing pebbles at her.
She sat up.
