The Cydonian Pyramid Read Online Free PDF

left leg and arms thrust straight back. The warrior was one of the least comfortable of the tantric poses. Lia suspected that Yar Song had been standing that way since sunrise.
    Lia took her place beside the motionless Yar and slowly positioned her own body into an identical form — or as near to it as she was able. She was determined to hold the pose for as long as it took to gain Yar Song’s approval. How long that might be, Lia had no idea. She had no sooner assumed the pose than her right leg began to throb and her arms to sag. She imagined that her left leg was fastened to the ceiling with invisible cords, that her right leg was augmented with steel rods, that her arms were feathers, that a powerful gyroscope was holding her effortlessly upright.
    Had she known of Lia’s thoughts, Yar Song would not have approved.
    “Do not imagine,”
she would have said.
“Become.”
    Easy to say, Lia thought. Not so easy to
do.
Imagining herself propped and suspended helped for a time, but soon her arms were quivering and her leg threatened to cramp.
    Song, without looking at Lia or moving by so much as a hair, said, “Your blood moon is nigh, Dear One.”
    Lia did not reply. The pose was requiring all her concentration. She funneled the pain from her legs and arms into her core, as Song had taught her, and sent the strength of her heart into her extremities.
    Song slowly moved from the warrior position to the tree pose, still on one leg but upright now, with her palms pressed together before her breast. “Maintain the position,” said Yar Song. “You are strong.”
    With those words, Lia could feel Yar Song’s strength flowing into her own legs. Her arms became weightless. She felt she could hold the pose indefinitely, effortlessly, as if the pose itself had formed an invisible shell to support her.
    “Defend yourself.”
    Lia had only the briefest of instants to wonder whether she had heard correctly before Song’s knee slammed into her side. Lia twisted away from the impact, striking out with her foot and grazing Yar Song’s hip. Song caught Lia’s ankle, but Lia was already spinning and bringing her other foot to bear, breaking Song’s hold with a blow to the forearm. Lia hit the mat with her shoulder, rolled, and came up on her feet to assume the all-purpose defense posture Song had drilled into her, over and over again.
    The Pure Girl and the Yar faced each other across the mat.
    Song smiled and nodded slightly. She turned her back on Lia and walked out the door. Lia slowly returned her body to a relaxed position, relishing the way her muscles moved. Yar Song’s teaching methods were frightening, and often left Lia sore for days, but, always, they left her stronger. She followed her tutor out of the dojo into the garden, where she found the Yar sitting upon the miniature bridge, dangling her bare feet in the stream and staring down into the water. Lia took a seat on the boulder across from her.
    “I do not believe that Pure Girls need to die,” said Song. She raised her chin and transfixed Lia with her tattooed eye. “I myself returned from Gammel.”
    Lia stared back at her. “No one returns from the Death Gates,” she said.
    Song let her head fall forward. “And yet here I sit, with my aging feet in running water.” She sat in silence, watching the water run over and through her toes.
    Lia waited. The Yars were reticent to speak of their experiences, but occasionally they did so.
    “Do you know why I was made a Pure Girl?” Song asked.
    Lia shook her head. She had wondered about that. Unlike most of those who had been made Pure Girls, Yar Song had no visible inborn flaws.
    “I taught myself numbers,” said Yar Song.
    A chill prickled Lia’s spine.
Numbers!
    “The numbers have not harmed me.” Song shrugged. “I find them useful at times.”
    “But . . .
Plague
!”
    “Life is risk. Life is random. Not all who learn numbers are stricken. Do you remember your mother?”
    Lia shook her head. She