The light drew them across the room.
“Careful,” Jake warned, but didn’t stop.
As they got closer, Jake saw that the archway—tall enough for an elephant to pass under—did not open into another tunnel. It just framed a huge plate of metal, the same shiny substance he’d seen back at the royal pyramid of Ka-Tor. Only this one didn’t have any writing or a picture of a wisling on the metal. It was blank and featureless, though again it held a strange translucence that made it look as if it was constantly flowing.
As odd as this feature was, it failed to hold his attention. Instead he stared above the arch, to a perfect sphere of crystal—ten feet across—imbedded halfway into the wall.
“A crystal heart,” Marika said.
Jake had seen such an object before, back in the great Temple of Kukulkan. It had hung suspended in a similar chamber, rotating slowly in midair. It had glowed steadily, but Jake had felt a pulse burst out with each full spin. The crystal heart of Kukulkan had really been three spheres—one inside the other—spinning in opposite directions: one spun left to right, the other right to left. The third spun from top to bottom. Atlantean letters had been carved across the surface of all three spheres and spun to form all manner of combination, like a crystal computer.
As Jake crossed the chamber, he saw those same letters here—but this heart had gone cold, dark, and lifeless.
As dead as the city.
The glow that drew them onward came instead from the floor. A giant triangle had been carved at the threshold to the archway. It was marked with cryptic arrows: one pointed left, another right, a third circled in on itself.
An icy blue crystal glowed in a corner, by the arrow pointing left, resting inside a bronze cup.
“The third timestone,” Marika said as they reached the far wall. “The sapphire one.”
The wisling slipped from around Jake’s neck. Its wings blurred to a humming buzz as it snaked through the air and hovered over the sapphire, slowly circling the timestone, studying it first with one eye, then with the other.
“What are we supposed to do?” Marika asked.
Jake stepped around the triangle, noting the empty bronze cups at the top and right edge. Plainly they were meant to hold the ruby and emerald timestones. The pattern was a match to his apprentice badge.
“I think we’re supposed to return the emerald and ruby crystals here, to repair what’s been broken,” Jake said.
But he wasn’t sure. He turned to the others. Marika crossed her arms, worried. Bach’uuk simply shrugged. They were leaving the decision to him.
Moving to the top corner, he knelt and lowered his emerald stone toward the cup marked with the twisted arrow. The wisling sailed over to watch him, as if to make sure he took great care. When the crystal was a few inches from the empty cup, Jake felt a force pushing against him. He had to lean his shoulders, using both arms now, to try and force the emerald down into the bronze cup.
The wisling sped up to his face and hissed angrily.
“Not there,” Bach’uuk said with a shake of head. “Wrong corner.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Marika said.
Jake stopped fighting the force and moved to the other corner of the triangle, the one with the arrow pointing right. He reached the crystal toward that cup, expecting the same resistance, but this time an unseen power snapped the emerald from his fingers and snagged it into place.
Jake rubbed his palm on his pants. The tug felt magnetic, and the ringing clang of crystal on metal sounded like a circuit closing. He stood and stepped back, then nodded to Bach’uuk.
“Try yours.”
His Ur friend moved to the top corner. He lowered the end of the staff toward the final cup. As the stone came close, a magnetic pull yanked the crystal from the staff and seated it firmly inside the third cup.
As that final circuit closed with a clang, they all fled back, not knowing what to expect. Even the wisling raced along with them, winging to hide behind Jake’s shoulder.
A humming rose in the room. At first Jake wasn’t sure if it was the snake’s wings or something else. But as the sound grew louder, he knew it wasn’t coming from the wisling. The glow of the three timestones became even brighter.
“Jake!” Marika said. “The heart!”
He looked up. The imbedded sphere above the archway had also begun to glow. For safety’s sake, they took another few steps back. With a sandy grind of protest, the sphere began to turn—at first haltingly, them more smoothly. Soon it revealed three layers, turning in different directions, like a spinning gyroscope.
“We did it,” Marika exclaimed.
“But what have we done?” Jake asked.
“Listen.” Bach’uuk cocked his head.
Jake heard a soft pulse growing, felt it in his chest: a beat timed to each turn of the sphere. Like the crystal heart of Kukulkan. The sphere here had come to life. It was beating again.
But that wasn’t what Bach’uuk was referring to. He had turned toward the exit. “Listen,” he said again. “The storm’s howl.”
Jake couldn’t hear anything—then realized that was exactly what Bach’uuk was talking about. The constant scream and moan of the sandstorm had died. Whatever they’d done had turned off the Great Wind. He had to see what that meant.
He hurried toward the tunnel with Bach’uuk in tow.
Marika stayed behind. She stared up at the spinning crystal heart. Its glow was so bright now that the metallic archway below looked like a churning silvery pool. Marika took a step closer to the wall.
“Jake …” she started, her voice curious.
“I’ll be right back!” he said as he hit the tunnel heading up to the outside.
Jake and Bach’uuk raced back to the pyramid’s opening, bright with moonlight. Reaching the open air, Jake stepped out onto the first step. From his perch, he stared beyond the city, searching the skies. The small patch of stars above Ankh Tawy had spread wider in all directions, stretching to the horizon. Past the broken walls of the city, a slight haze still clouded the desert, coming from small particles of dust still suspended in the air. A few sparks of lightning popped and sizzled as the last of the storm’s static energy dissipated.
But that was all.
The Great Wind had blown itself out.
“Jake …” Bach’uuk said, drawing back Jake’s attention. His friend was not staring out—but down.
At the foot of the pyramid, movement drew his eye. The stone statues slowly shifted, at first almost too slowly to tell. Then the movement became more evident. Arms shifted, swords were raised. As Jake watched, color slowly returned to the guards as if some invisible hand were painting them stroke by stroke. As the color filled in, the movement grew fuller. Heads turned. One figure leaped down to the square.