HalfWorlder #Wattys2017

Chapter 27-Point of origin

The sideway moving elevator doors opened and the four came tumbling into the room together in record speed.

"What?" Ryan worried. He was slightly ahead of the others. "What's going on?"

"This!" I held Simon's drawing out, my hands practically shoving the wrinkled, crease-lined paper in their faces. "When Orion falls, to Draco goes the spoils."

The black charcoal scratches were like no sketch of Simon's I'd ever seen, this one all hard lines and dots and quickly scribed old hieroglyphs. When I saw it moments ago, it took my brain three seconds to interpret the symbols, and that's when I knew what I had in my hands.

"These are overlapping constellations. Orion." I pointed slowly and flipped the paper upside down. "And Draco." I ran my finger across the lines of the constellation. "I think Draco's inverted too. Here, show them, Neter."

"Yes, Gil." The room fell dark and the blue sky above us winked out, replaced with deepest black. The observation deck felt suddenly cool, like a damp mist had fallen. The mist swirled at the ceiling above us into a vortex of shadows that formed themselves into a 3-dimensional diagram of the universe, the stars in the constellations on Simon's paper brightening against the others that hung there with them. Lines radiated between one of the constellations. The figure of an archer, his bow drawn back tight, ready to let arrow fly, took shape. "This is the constellation Orion, named for Osiris long ago." The stars of his constellation turned from white to startling blue so they stood out against the others.

Another constellation took shape, these stars brightening to brilliant white. "And this is the constellation Draco, the dragon constellation." Shimmering lines connected the stars here again. This one wasn't as obvious. It was more like a serpent than a dragon. It snaked its way across the sky. "Draco never sets below the horizon. So, this constellation cannot be observed from the skies of Palenque."

Draco turned bright red against the white background stars which abruptly winked out, leaving Orion and Draco hanging alone above us. Then Draco grew, rotated 180°, and flipped transverse. Then the whole sky, both constellations, swiveled nearer to us for a better view. The image of Draco shrunk again and moved to overlap Orion. Both constellations had a trapezoid cluster of four stars that now fit almost perfectly atop the other. Orion's bow and the dragon's tail crossed each other as well and pointed in the same direction like two pathways leading to the same thing – I thought, maybe the same chamber? The chamber Isis was in.

"I felt pretty dumb when I saw that." Alexandra waved above her. "We should have figured it out ourselves. Egyptians have used constellations to map out pyramid shafts before."

"It makes sense Ra used the same format at the Palenque temple, but he was smart about it too. To use a constellation no South American would ever lay eyes on in ancient times. He hid Isis well."

"Yes, but where did you get that?" Amisi pointed at Simon's drawing.

"My friend Simon. My weird friend Simon," come to think of it. "He gave it to me the day I turned."

"The tsunami guy?" Ryan remembered. "Is he Hazel's son?"

"No, they are in San Diego."

"I don't think we're going to be able to explain this today." I shook the paper. "He must have some sort of second sight or something. He liked to draw disasters, that sort of thing. This," I said, "this is different, but he knew we would need it. He handed it to me when he left from school and told me it was for the last day."

"Today then," Wep added. "Today's the last day?"

"Yes," I answered. "It must be."

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