2
Finally! Weezy thought as she turned the page and saw the words “Opus Omega.”
The Final Task . . . what she’d found so far gave the impression they thought they’d have it finished before too long. But thousands of years had passed and it still wasn’t completed. Sort of like the very early Christians who thought the Second Coming was just around the corner. Opus Omega’s age was multiples of Christianity’s.
The title read “BEGINNING THE END” and described the dimensions of the pillars, the symbols that had to be engraved on the sides, the size of the opening in the end, and how a living person—the “Sacrifice”—had to be sealed within. She knew all of this from Jack.
Come on, come on, come on, she thought. Tell me something I don’t know.
Then it began to describe the age of the Sacrifice, how he or she couldn’t be too young or too old, but should be in the prime of life. Weezy guessed that was to dodge the possibility of some sick old crone volunteering herself . . . or a family ridding itself of a deformed or severely crippled child. The pillar demanded a healthy male or female.
In other words: with everything to lose.
The message was sick enough, but the dry, matter-of-fact delivery made it worse. Like reciting the rules of baseball.
The batter shall take his position in the batter’s box promptly when it is his time at bat . . .
It described the pattern of column placement—lines of force supposedly ran between all the nexus points, from each one to every other one. A pillar had to be placed wherever three of those lines crossed.
The pillar had to be inserted vertically but did not have to remain in the ground to have its effect. Mere insertion was sufficient to accomplish the purpose—like injecting a toxin.
What purpose? Do damage? To whom or what? The Lady?
But as with so many things within its pages, the Compendium assumed the reader already knew. Then it moved to the order in which the pillars had to be placed.
Weezy straightened in her chair. Here was something new. She’d gathered from Jack and Mr. Veilleur that the pillars were being buried in no particular order.
But as she read on she realized that only the first pillar’s placement mattered. The Final Task had a set starting point. The first pillar had to be inserted at a very specific location called the Null Site. All others could follow in random order, but the first must occupy the Null Site.
Of course, nothing was said of what made the Null Site so special, or why Opus Omega had to start there.
She turned the page and found herself in the middle of a paragraph on some unrelated subject.
She clenched her teeth. Just when she was making progress. So frustrating.
She turned back. Both the pillar and its insertion point shared the same name, a Latin word she knew. It meant “beginning.”
Orsa.