Oracle by David Wood, Sean Ellis Page B

and onto the floor of the courtyard. Dorion however reached out for the ball.
    “I don’t think you should—” Before Professor could finish uttering the warning, and a heartbeat before Dorion’s hand could touch the ball, something clicked underfoot. The center of the pedestal upon which the ball rested abruptly fell away and the ball dropped down the center like water down a drain.
    Jade heard Professor ’s shout and whirled just in time to see the ball shoot from a hole in the side of the wall beneath the dais. She didn’t need the gift of prophecy to know that something very bad was about to happen.

NINE
     
    The ball arced out over the courtyard floor and hit, bouncing with a loud thwock. Jade thought that might trigger whatever nasty surprise the ball court had in store, but aside from the ball continuing on its journey, nothing happened.
    In a rush of intuition, Jade saw the reason for this, and just as clearly saw that the danger was far from past. The point of the game was to keep the ball from reaching the goal, which given the sloping floor, had to be the trough at the center. If a player could do that, they would stay safe. If they failed….
    Jade knew from bitter experience that ancient architects had delighted themselves with devising wonderful methods of dealing with unwelcome visitors; there was no telling what sort of death trap they had created here. The ball court was like an enormous pinball game, and if she made the wrong move, it would be game over.
    In a split-second, she weighed her choices. She was just a couple steps away from the dais. She could make it back up to that place of relative safety before the ball reached the center... but it would reach the center, and under the circumstances, that seemed like a very bad thing. The only other option was to try and play.
    The ball was about ten feet away, already descending for a second bounce. She dove forward, throwing her clasped hands out, trying to get them in between the ball and the floor in a classic volleyball bump.
    Her timing was perfect, but that was about the only thing she got right. The solid ball hit like a blow from a hammer, slamming her arms into the floor even as the rest of her body hit the rough surface and, carried forward by her momentum, slid toward the center of the courtyard. The friction tore at her, burning hot through the fabric of her clothes, scraping bare skin raw, though she barely felt any of it. The pain of contact with the ball had left her arms completely numb.
    The glancing impact was enough to divert the ball ’s course, if only slightly. Jade caught a glimpse of its next bounce. She had managed to knock it onto the section of floor that sloped down from the side of the courtyard. It bounced again, though just barely, and continued rolling along across the slope at a slight curve as gravity began drawing it once again toward the final destination.
    Jade struggled to get up. Her arms were nearly useless, so she had to roll to a sitting position to get her feet under her. There was no way she would be able to intercept the ball a second time, but she knew she had to try.
    Something moved in front of her; Professor, charging headlong toward the center of the court in a desperate effort to do what she could not. Before he could reach it, the ball hit one of the stelae and rebounded back up the slope, away from his direction of travel. He skidded to a stop even as Jade managed to get back to her feet.
    A measure of sensation was returning to her hands, all of it bad. She felt like she ’d been smacked with a baseball bat; nothing was broken, but the throb of pain was almost paralyzing. She realized now why the ball game was played without hands or even feet; the ball was so heavy, so dense, that trying to hit or kick the ball might easily break the small bones in the extremities.
    “ You okay?” Professor shouted as he spun around trying to track the ball’s new trajectory.
    “ Fine!” she lied.