Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“You don’t need to worry, little one,” Sir said dryly. “We will be permitted to ride in my chariot until the last hundred steps. Thereafter, if you get too tired I can carry you.”
I thought of my Great Aunt Maizy tucking one of her “babies” under her arm when she went out to the grocery store and frowned as the thought of Sir toting me up the steps in a similar, undignified fashion.
“No, a hundred steps I can manage,” I told him. “Just not ten thousand.”
“You’ll be fine,” Sir assured me.
And then we were driving up to the massive side of the enormous golden pyramid. The entrance was surprisingly small—maybe for security reasons, I speculated—it was barely big enough for the chariot to enter and Sir had to duck his head, after the guards had waved us through. But once we were inside, it opened up into a kind of tunnel which was lit from the sides with rows and rows of floating golden lamps that looked a little like blooming white roses edged in gold.
“The Sacred Glow Blossoms of the Sovereign,” Sir told me, when I asked what they were. “Only she who sits upon the Golden Throne of Ten Thousand Steps may use them.”
“Is your Sovereign always a woman, then?” I asked, looking up at him as we raced along the golden tunnel.
Sir nodded.
“Males are too prone to conquest and war.” His face hardened. “Though I fear that having a female Sovereign hasn’t stopped my own galaxy from being completely conquered and overrun by greed.”
“No, I guess not,” I murmured, watching as the golden tunnel walls with their glowing roses whizzed by.
Then, suddenly, the tunnel ended and we were in the center of the pyramid, which looked like an enormous, golden cavern. Rising up above us was another, smaller pyramid with a tiny golden throne at its summit. Of course, I realized, the throne wasn’t really tiny—it was probably quite big. But it was so far away that it looked like a little Barbie throne sitting up there and the woman sitting in it also looked doll-like and small.
Running up the front of the pyramid were many, many, many golden steps. Ten thousand of them, apparently, I thought. I was really glad we weren’t going to have to climb all those! It literally would have taken me all day. Plus, they were really steep and there were no handrails to hold onto.
On either side of the steps were smooth, golden channels. At first I couldn’t understand what they might be for, but then I saw another chariot, very like the one we were riding in, rising smoothly up the left-hand channel. Oh—so they were roads or paths up the side of the pyramids, made especially for the floating chariots, I thought.
“I see that Gra’multh has already begun his ascent.” Sir’s voice was grim as he watched the other chariot climb.
“Is that bad?” I asked anxiously. I was really beginning to feel the pressure of the situation we were in now.
Sir shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll have to stop at the base of the topmost steps in order to dismount and climb the last hundred, and Gra’multh will have to stop as well. We should reach the summit at roughly the same time.”
Then he leaned forward as though urging the golden chariot onwards and we sped towards the golden steps and the Sovereign who sat at the top, who would determine the fate of my galaxy.
FORTY-FIVE
ELLI
As we whizzed up the steep side of the pyramid—with Sir keeping one big hand planted firmly behind my shoulders so I didn’t topple over backwards and fall out of the chariot—I just hoped Splendara the Third and Thirtieth would listen to Sir speak and agree with his point of view. But I had a bad feeling about the whole thing—a feeling like someone had warned me I was heading into trouble, though I couldn’t remember who that might be.
It wasn’t Sir, was it? No—it seemed to me the warning had come from a woman with long, blonde hair. But I didn’t know anyone with long blonde hair aside from my big sister, Taylor, and I hadn’t seen her for months. So who was it that had warned me?
I couldn’t quite remember—it was just a fuzzy memory, like a half-forgotten dream. In fact, I thought it might have been what I was dreaming before Sir woke me up that morning. I wished I could have had a little time to lie in bed and try to process it, but he had been so busy, getting both of us dressed to go and instructing me on Court Protocol and Proper Pet Etiquette, it had driven everything else out of my mind. I—
An abrupt halt to our steep assent broke my train of thought. Looking up, I saw that we were almost to the top of the pyramid-within-a-pyramid. Our chariot had stopped on a broad dais that had about a dozen guards standing there, holding spears that were tipped with glowing blue lasers instead of blades.