Crowded within the embrace of its thick outer guard wall, Manderia’s jumble of stone buildings, wood-shingled roofs and narrow streets seemed straight out of the Middle Ages. Quaint shops beneath second-story living quarters offered bakery items prepared in wood-burning ovens. Others peddled hand-tanned leather, handmade shoes, pottery, tin pots, and armor—there was even an apothecary stocked with herbs. Donkey- and goat-pulled wagons abounded, and chickens, cats, and scrawny dogs roamed streets where raw sewage ran down a central gutter. Smoke veiled the rooftops, and soot coated everything.
The Outlanders planned to exchange their wares for supplies the afternoon of their arrival and depart by dawn the next day, so after settling into an inn near the east gate and staking out their sleeping quarters—the luck of the draw won Callie a berth in the stables—everyone set out on their various errands. Rowena’s responsibility was to show Callie the Gate.
She’d gotten her first glimpse of it over a week ago, flashing on the cliff line like a beacon. Even from miles away, she’d felt an unexpected thrill—and then a rising, inexplicable attraction. More and more often she had found herself staring at it, transfixed by its shimmering beauty and longing to see it more closely. Ironically, now that she had arrived, she couldn’t see it at all, as Manderia’s grimy buildings obstructed the view. She’d see it again, Rowena assured her, when they reached the temple, perched on the hillside above.
As they walked through the surprisingly busy city the implications of its existence began to dawn on Callie with foreboding weight. Primitive as it was by modern standards, its construction had required considerable planning, time, and effort. No fly-by-night affair, it was a place of roots, a place people had clearly settled into for good.
“I guess they’ve resigned themselves to their fate,” Rowena said when Callie voiced her observation. “They probably think they’re making the best of it.”
“You mean they’ve given up.”
“That’s one way to put it. But remember, some of these folks have been here almost twenty years.” She glanced at Callie. “Blows your mind, doesn’t it?”
It did indeed. So much so that Callie decided not to think about it further. They dodged a cartful of reeking cabbages as it trundled by, wooden wheels thundering over the cobbles. When they could hear again, she gestured at a storefront across the street, where machine-knit T-shirts and denim jeans were displayed in the window. “I thought our captors provided that stuff.”
“They do. It just takes a lot of hands to get it out this far—traders selling to traders selling to traders. You know.”
“But if the traders get it from the aliens, where do the aliens get it?”
“Some people say there are cities of civilized Trogs in the Inner Realm that make it all.” Rowena stepped around a pile of fouled, chicken-pecked cabbages. “That’s possible, I guess, but I think it’s stolen from Earth. They steal people, after all, why not hiking boots?”
“Did you say civilized Trogs?”
Rowena grimaced over her shoulder. “Hard to believe, I know. Rumor says the trade route comes down through the canyon we’re looking for. I don’t know how ‘civilized’ they are, though, since I’ve heard they mainly trade in slaves.”
“And this is where you guys want to go?”
“If it is where all the goods come from, and the goods do come from Earth, well . . .” Rowena grinned. “Where there’s a way in, there’s a way out.”
Before long the street emptied into a square ringed by dull-colored awnings. On the far side, midway up a wide stone stairway, stood a young man in a pale jumpsuit. He was raving something about death and Mander, but most of his words were rendered unintelligible by the extreme passion with which he shouted them. The crowd ignored him.
“Watch this.” Rowena crossed the square and mounted the stairway. The man appeared not to notice. Even when she was about to run into him, he ignored her, continuing to rant as she walked right through him.
Callie gasped, and Rowena stepped back into view, grinning broadly.
“Hologram,” she said. “Isn’t that something?”
Studying the image, Callie saw now that it wasn’t as substantial as she’d thought. The stair and doorway showed through first an arm, then a leg, then a shoulder. “Where does it come from?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.” Rowena joined her again.
“Mander is not the way out!” the image screamed. “Don’t let his lies ensnare you!”
“Not from the temple, I’d guess,” she added as they left the square. “I’ve heard the aliens project them to confuse us.”
They came finally to the gate road. Cutting straight through the city, its humped center and spongy white surface shed dirt, sewage, and debris like Teflon. Despite the surroundings and the heavy travel it received, it remained as white as the one Callie had first been deposited upon weeks ago. Two times wider than any Manderian street, it channeled a cool, fresh breeze and led them to the square where the walls of Manderia met the walls of the temple. Various flimsy booths stood outside the doubled gates, offering trinkets, modern clothing, and greasy-smelling food. Past that, the white road continued on, bisecting an empty greensward.
According to Rowena, every gate had a temple, every temple a benefactor, and every benefactor an angle. Some demanded service for their help; others required sacrifice or offerings—usually of items found only in the Outlands.
They passed through the double gates unhindered and crossed the yard. Stairs led to a colonnaded court crisscrossed with second-story, vine-clad walkways, but Rowena turned onto a secondary path before they got that far. The new path descended a forested hillside to a meadow, where it ribboned through silvery grasses to the cliff base.
Callie stood at the meadow’s edge and tipped her head back, gazing up the soaring rock face. How high was it? A thousand feet? Two thousand? The cliff whirled, and she shut her eyes. When she opened them, the precipice still loomed over her, still very, very vertical. She could just barely see the Gate.
About eighty feet up something moved, and she made out a trio of men, hitched together with a bright green rope. “They’re climbing it?” she gasped.
“Yeah.” Rowena squinted up at them. “Won’t work, though. Rock gets crumbly at about two hundred feet.”
“You speaking from experience?”
Rowena nodded. “No one ever makes it past two hundred fifty. You ready to go back?”
“Let’s check the end of the trail.”
The pavement flared where it met the cliff, flanked by a jumble of fallen sandstone slabs. Etched into the rock at eye level was the familiar trio of interlocking circles now arranged around a central t. Callie fingered the carved grooves, then gazed upward again. The view was even more overwhelming from here. Carefully she studied the walls, the rock slabs, even the pavement. She had no idea what she hoped to find. A control panel? Cracks betraying a hidden passage? Some sort of instruction plaque?
“People say this is a map.” Rowena traced the symbol with her index finger. “Some guy over at the Lunville gate made all these calculations— tangents, sun angles, the distances between the t and the center points of the circles. Supposedly if you added them together and went in the direction of the tangent to the cosine or something, you’d find a secret door. Far as I know he never has gotten it right.”
Callie stepped back and scanned the cliff again. The climbers dislodged a brief shower of rock. A breeze whispered through the grass behind her and birdcalls echoed brightly in the quiet.
Slowly she turned, grit squeaking under the soles of her boots. There’s nothing here. There’s really nothing here. Her gaze swept the fallen slabs, the shimmering meadow, the dark forest cradling the temple’s white walls, and then, once more, the rough, ragged cliff shooting straight up from her feet.
How could they do this? How could they put her down here, tell her to find this place, and have it be impossible to reach? It was outrageous, even downright cruel.
But everyone had been telling her that for weeks. It was the whole reason her new friends were looking for their canyon.
“Seen enough?”
Callie drew a shuddery breath and tucked her anger back into its box. As she glanced around one last time she was surprised to see a man seated amidst the boulders. His robe matched the rocks, but his skin was tanned mahogany. He sat ramrod straight, legs pretzeled yoga style, eyes closed. A sparrow landed on his head, pecked at his lank hair, and flew away. He never moved.
“A Sitter,” Rowena said. “Every gate has a few of them. There’s another to his right. And one behind the rock on his left.”
“What’re they doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“If I knew that, maybe I’d be sitting with them.”
A shout rang out from above, followed by a sudden rush of pebbles. Callie looked up and saw one of the climbers dangling at the end of his rope, bobbing against the wall as his companions called down worriedly from above. Little by little he stopped swinging, and soon hammer blows rang against the rock as he began to climb back up.
“Idiots,” Rowena huffed. “Can we go now?”
“I’d like to see the temple.”
“What?”
“The manual says there’s only one real Benefactor. Maybe Man-der’s the one.”
“Maybe I’m the one.”
Callie frowned at her. Rowena scowled back.
“You said yourself,” Callie reminded her, “that you hadn’t investigated this temple.”
“I don’t need to investigate it. It’s obvious they require some sort of service or there wouldn’t be a temple.”
“Well, why do people go along with it?” Callie asked.
“Because they’re idiots.”
“You can’t just dismiss it like that.”
Rowena exhaled forcefully and rolled her eyes. “All right, let’s go. I can see you’ll be second-guessing forever if we don’t.”
As they returned to the green Callie glimpsed a brown-haired man in jeans and leather vest walking out the main gate. “Hey!” she cried. “Isn’t that—” But he was already out of sight behind the wall.
Rowena stopped beside her. “What?”
“I thought I saw—” Pierce? He’d been more disdainful of this temple than Rowena. “Never mind.”
They headed down the temple’s gauntlet of colonnades toward a glass-walled sanctuary at the far end. Here and there, robed worshipers gathered in small groups, watching the newcomers with quick sidelong glances. Dim corridors led off into the recesses of flanking buildings, while overhead walkways supported large electronic screens bearing digital images of the gate on the cliff, now hidden by the temple itself. Callie was amazed. Considering the primitive state of the rest of Manderia, the temple was the ultimate in state-of-the-art technology. Where had all this equipment come from, and how was it powered?
The sanctuary was a large auditorium that stairstepped down to a window-backed stage overlooking a small grotto. Water trickled down the grotto’s rock face to a pool nestled in mosses, vines, and sprays of grass. Inches above the pool’s surface hovered a flat white stone surrounded by jets of water, while overhead, distorted by the building’s glass walls and ceiling, they could just make out the shimmering gate atop the cliff.
“Must be siesta time,” Rowena said, glancing around the empty hall.
“May I help you, ladies?”
A young man in an iridescent gray robe had come up behind them. Smelling faintly of sandalwood, he had thin blond hair, hazel eyes, and a round, cherubic face with a dimple in his chin.
Rowena waved him off, but Callie asked what people did at the temple.
The youth looked at them quizzically. “You are interested in serving Mander?”
“We’re interested in getting through that gate up there.”
He smiled. “Then you have come to the right place. The manual says no one can pass through the Gate without Mander’s help.”
“I don’t remember it specifying a name,” said Callie. Not that she’d read that much of it, but it seemed to her she’d surely have noticed a name if one had been there.
“Nevertheless,” Wendell insisted, “Mander is the True Benefactor.”
“How do you know that?” Rowena asked, propping a hand on one shapely hip. “I mean, no offense, but there are at least thirteen other benefactors who make the same claim.”
The youth—man?—regarded her with surprise, a crease forming between his pale brows. “I don’t know about them, but the manual says if you sincerely desire the truth, it will be made evident to you. Would you like to see the Grotto of Ascension?” He gestured with a pale hand to the stage and pond below.
Callie said they would—Rowena huffed exasperation.
As they descended he told them his name was Wendell, and that he had been serving in the temple over two years. In another six months his period of service would end, and then he could ascend to the Gate himself.
They reached the bottom as two robed supplicants entered the grotto and knelt beside the pool.
“Can we go down there?” Callie asked.
“I’m afraid only the Faithful are granted entrance. Those two are beginning their final purification for the Ascension ceremony tomorrow night. You’re welcome to stay and watch.” He smiled at her again.
“So what kind of service do you all perform here in order to earn this little ride?” Rowena demanded, scowling at the grotto.
“We serve in the meal dispensary or in the clinic, clean the temple, work the gardens, sing, meditate, pray.” With his pale skin and soft grublike hands, Callie thought he must have done much of the latter and very little of the former. Was there a hierarchy, then, with new converts assigned to hard labor, while the experienced Faithful followed more cerebral pursuits?
“We also bring food to the Sitters,” he went on, “and read Mander’s Meditations to the climbers. We hope it will move them to cease their futile efforts, but it rarely works. When they finally fall, we bury them.”
Callie recalled the spiderlike forms on the vast, rough rock, the dangling body struggling for a hold. What if that man had not found his hold? What if he’d pulled his friends down with him? She shuddered, glad that hadn’t happened.
“So your term of service is what? Three years?” Rowena asked, fingering the short blond hair on the side of her neck. Her glance caught Callie’s—Told you.
“It varies,” Wendell said, “but three years is standard, yes.” He paused. “How long have you been here?”
Rowena lifted her chin, her mouth hardening. “Long enough to know better.”
“Longer than three years, I guess.”
“At least we’re free.”
“No one in this world is free,” Wendell said quietly, and Rowena had no response to that.
Callie watched the supplicants for a moment, then asked, “Did you say that in six months you will be ascending to the Gate?”
“If I decide so, yes.”
“If?”
“I have a home here. And I find joy in helping others to ascend.”
They stared at him. Finally, Callie said, “You’ve seen these ascensions, then?”
“Thousands of them. As I said, we’ll be performing one tomorrow night.”
“But how do you know they’re going home?” Rowena persisted. “How do you know when they walk through the Gate, they’re not just vaporized? Do you ever see them again?”
“Of course. They send us holograms assuring us of their arrival and encouraging us to persist.”
“Holograms can be faked,” Rowena pointed out.
He smiled. “I guess it boils down to faith.”
“You mean check your brains at the door when you sign on.”
The crease marred his brow again. “Do you ladies have a place to stay for the night? We have plenty of rooms.”
“We’ve made arrangements, thank you,” Rowena said. “And speaking of that, we’d better be getting back.” She seized Callie’s arm and steered her toward the stairway before he could say any more.
As they started up the stairs Callie pulled free. “Good grief, Row, you didn’t have to be so rude.”
“Aw, he would’ve kept us there all day—‘Do you want to see the gardens? Do you want to see the dispensary? Can I show you the mop room?’ ”
“He was just being nice.”
“He was just trying to get us to stay. They get points for new converts, you know.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about this temple.”
“They’re all the same. I’m sure he gets points. He’s probably trying to think of some way to call us back right now.”
“He was only answering our questions.”
Rowena wasn’t listening. “It all boils down to faith, huh?” she muttered. “Faith in what, I’d like to know? Mander? The manual?” She snorted. “ ‘Serve me for three years and I’ll release you.’ You’d have to be an idiot to buy into this. I’ll put my faith in myself, thank you.”
“Well, you have to admit,” said Callie, “it is a little nicer than sleeping on the hard ground and always worrying about Trogs.”
Rowena cast her a disgusted look. “Maybe you oughta stay, then.”
She took the stairs two at a time. Annoyed now, Callie followed more slowly. At the top, she glanced back. Sure enough, Wendell still stood where they’d left him, smiling up at her.