Chapter Seventeen
Their fires are so close Thomas can smell them. He huddles behind a spray of sagebrush, the pony curled beside him.
“Wake up, friend.”
The pony shifts and lows out a bovine moan. Its jowls are reared back, baring its teeth at Thomas.
“I’m not leaving you here to die,” he tells the wretched creature. He snatches the lead and tugs it like a leash. “Get up.”
The pony wheezes to its feet with tired disdain. Thomas throws the saddle off onto the sand to lighten its load, then pulls it forward in the darkness, walking alongside it with his arm over its bony shoulder.
“Little ways more,” he reasons, “and I’ll give you all the water you can drink.”
They form a human conveyer from the upper-most chamber of the sunken library, through the house, across the back porch, and out into the yard—swift, nervous hands passing the plates along in a seemingly endless stream. Some of the men have never seen what lies beneath Hargrove’s floor, and his quick, rattling explanation leaves them further confounded. Plates of history, each century emblazoned in platinum, pass from one man to the next, across the backyard where they land finally at Nyla’s feet. She wraps them in cloth and trusses them together with heavy twine, tying off tight little knots that look impossible to untangle. Three horses stand obediently and accept the weight of the Ages on their drooping backs. The elder men know what they hold, understand its importance. Some of them rode out as Ethan and Renning had done, as Hargrove had done in a younger life.
Jack stands at the edge of the trapdoor, reaching down to accept another silvery-white tablet.
“That’s it,” says Hargrove.
Jack sinks back on the floor, rubbing his arms, thinking there is more to know in all the world than he had ever imagined. He caught only glimpses of the small engraved text as it passed through his hands, only enough to ignite more curiosity.
Hargrove climbs out of the cellar, slick perspiration covering his knobby old body.
“That about does it,” he says, with a touch of sadness.
“Did you really mean it? You’re going to the Temple?”
Hargrove pulls down a stool and sits rubbing a handkerchief across his brow.
“Don’t see any other way,” he says. “If that’s their army up on that hill… then they’ve got thin protection back at the Temple. If we don’t go now, then we might just as well say we’re never going. And then what? Let them keep killing? I have friends that used to live close to there. Someone’s got to stop that man.”
“This Marikez,” says Lia, standing in the doorway with a satchel over her shoulder, “how many does he have?”
“Oh… depends how many he’s willing to part with. Maybe thirty, forty.”
She catches Jack’s eye. “It’s not enough.”
“I don’t feel too good about it myself, tell you the truth. But I don’t know what choice we’ve got now. They’ll storm this house come morning time.” Hargrove looks around, pushing back a wave of memories. “I want you to go with Nyla,” he tells Lia. “She’ll need your help convincing them to join us.”
“I want to go with you.”
“You’re still limping on that leg of yours. It’s too dangerous. Nyla needs you down south. I’m sorry. And I need Jack with me.”
“Okay,” she says, reluctant to separate again..
“Well…” says Hargrove, steadying himself to his feet, “I’m gonna run out back and see how they’re coming.” He gives Jack a sympathetic look over his shoulder as he leaves.
They collapse against each other.
“I’m not leaving you, Jack.”
“You have to go with Nyla.” He pulls her tight and runs his hand along the hollow of her back.
She pushes her wet face against his chest. “Let’s just go. You and me. We’ll run away.”
“I have to do this.”
“They’ll kill all of you,” she says, her voice strained and hushed. “You said so yourself.”
“Hargrove’s right—this is our only chance. The army is away. I have to go.”
His words settle on her and her face contorts in a sort of anguish. “I know.”
Their embrace feels so numb and distant that it makes Jack’s bones hurt. He can sense what she is thinking as she clings to him—that it is the last time they will ever see each other. He starts to say something, to tell her everything will be all right, and she kisses him quick before he can speak it.
She pulls away, and she wears that look on her face again—the look of profound understanding, of infinite compassion, the look he clung to in the pit while his stomach growled and the world seemed hopeless. Warmness spreads through his jangled nerves as he gazes into her glossy brown eyes. She turns, without saying a word, and goes outside to meet Nyla by the post where their horses are tied.
Jack stands alone in the front room, next to the dark open cellar, and listens to the hushed commotion all around. He never thought, after risking their lives to run as far away from the Temple as their legs could carry them, that he would turn around and run right back. He supposes this is his calling—and if this is his calling then there is no use in fighting it. He lets out a shaky sigh and trudges out onto the back porch.
Hargrove stands in the backyard, crooked up against the clothesline post, and watches the proceedings with a calmness only achieved with age. The men from the outpost scour through the shed, pulling out anything that might serve as a weapon—old garden tools, rusty shears, poles that can be sharpened to spears. Jack shuffles past the door and looks in on them, imagining their chances against the Nezra. Even if the Temple is left guarded only by the old and weak, their chances against them still look slim to none.
A thought cracks open in his mind—the vision of a skull-sized rock crushing a tiny pebble army. He rushes over to Hargrove.
“I know how to get more men,” says Jack in a hurry.
“I’m listening…”
“They’re in the valley… by a fork in the river…”
“Who?”
“Dad—”
Nyla leads her horse over, looking grief-stricken, and laces her arms around her father’s neck. Lia sits on her horse, off to the side, rubbing the little celestial pendant between her thumb and forefinger.
“Be careful, sweetie,” Hargrove tells his daughter. “And don’t worry on us. We know what we're doing.” Nyla looks up to him with deep admiration and holds his cheek in her palm. “Get Marikez. Tell him we need him more than ever.”
She springs up onto the saddle and checks that her freight is tied down securely. The third horse is laden with cargo only, and she tugs its lead and starts to amble down toward the river. Lia takes one last longing look at Jack, then pulls the reins and circles around to follow Nyla.
Jack feels alone at once. He glazes over, watching her ride away, and doesn’t realize Hargrove is speaking to him until he feels the hand on his shoulder, shaking him.
“Come on inside with me, I’ve got a couple things left to do.”
They creak up the back porch steps then move down a darkened hallway to a staircase leading to the second story. Hargrove holds a plated candle before him, his hand cupped around the flame, lighting the way up the groaning steps. They curve around a bend in the staircase and emerge in the stale, musty attic. It looks like a salvage yard of old machinery. The tiny orange flame reveals a menagerie of gears and sprockets, wooden boxes overflowing with antiquated odds and ends, a gallery of long metal rods leaning in the corner, tarnished old wires and casings.
Hargrove weaves through the aisles between heaps, shielding his flame, and works his way to a rolltop desk buried amidst the clutter. He flicks a switch on a tall wooden stand and the attic illuminates with incandescent light, the crooked filament burning yellow-white in its glass casing, throwing harsh shadows against the walls, stark machines in silhouette, looming tall and black along the upper molding like mechanized bogeymen. Hargrove rolls back the corrugated top and busies himself with rummaging through reams of disorganized files, pitching some away haphazardly and collecting others in a neat little pile.
Jack wanders across the creaky floorboards, squinting at the odd collection heaped around him. There are worktables buried in old papers, with measuring sticks and containers full of peculiar implements arranged carelessly, schematics tacked crudely to the wall, the dry pulp edges curling with age. The attic smells more ancient than any place he has ever been. Fine old dust tickles his nose hairs.
A large machine rests in a tight outcropping, its edges touching the cracked plaster walls. It is full of gears and tremendous rollers, like it was meant to flatten things down to nothing and then spit them back out onto the cold metal tray. Jack reaches out slowly, as though it might bite his fingers off, and touches it. Discarded papers crunch under his foot and he picks one up and uncrinkles its folds.
On the Proper Treatment of Common Ailments
Written below are long columns of blocked text, with thin-lined diagrams and pictures. He drops it from his hands and lets it float back to the floor.
He paces along the worktable, drawn to the dismantled oddities scattered across its top like an elaborate riddle, and he works to reconstruct them in his mind, imagining how the pieces might fit together and then, once so, what on earth they might work in concert to accomplish. He leans down and inspects a dust-coated metal box, with crude dials affixed to its facade and a whittled wooden switch stuck in the Off position. A thick bundle of wires protrudes from the back and snakes down through the top of a wooden barrel on the floor. He stares at the switch, looks over his shoulder for Hargrove, and flicks it toward the engraving that says On. The sharp hiss of static cuts through the stale air and quickly dies, and Jack flinches and jumps back, then, as an afterthought, reaches his arm out straight and jerks the switch back down. He turns—Hargrove is looking at him with raised eyebrows.
“My father’s work.”
“What was that noise?”
“Outer space.”
Jack looks to the ceiling and backs further away, tipping over a box of heavy assemblages that clank and rattle against the floor. Hargrove rests his elbow on a stack of crates and smiles across the expanse of the attic.
“It’s background interference.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s a radio. You can send and receive messages with it.”
“Messages from space?”
“Other people with radios.”
“Who else has a radio?”
“No one. We wanted to use them on our trips, but we could never get them small enough as to be portable, with the battery and all. So here it sits.”
Jack works the switch again but the juice has run dead.
“Come on over,” calls Hargrove. “Give me a hand.”
Jack winds his way between the thin aisles, boxes and machinery brushing against his sleeves as he passes, and finds Hargrove kneeling in a small niche by an octagonal bay window. Set before him is a tripod with a slender cylinder perched atop.
“Here she is.”
“A scope?”
“Mmm. A good scope. Have a look.”
Jack squats down on the floor and peers up through the eyepiece. “I can’t see anything.”
“Here—” Hargrove settles in his place and swivels the cylinder on its mount, tightening a wing nut at the base, then proceeds to adjust the eyepiece ever so slightly. “Try it again.”
Jack crouches down and sets his eye against the gasket. It tickles his eyelashes and he blinks. When he settles in, he sees the cold lunar landscape through the eyepiece, half in light, half in dark, covered over in craters from the endless pummeling it has taken through the Ages. It looks close enough to reach out and touch, and still distant enough to make his heart ache for faraway lands.
“It’s something, ain’t it?”
“It’s beautiful.”
Hargrove unscrews it from the tripod and hands it off to Jack. “Run this down to Denit. Tell him, if he hasn’t already, to fetch out that little keg of powder from the shed.”
“Powder?”
“Mmm. Powder.”
Jack holds the long scope close to his body and walks down toward the kitchen. Hargrove takes a quick look around, takes a deep breath of the sour air, and descends the staircase.
“Tell ‘em I’ll be out in a minute,” he says, heading into the front room where the wooden trap still lay wide open on the floor. “I’ve got something yet to do here.”
Jack watches him lower himself down the wooden ladder and disappear from view. Powder, he thinks. What good is powder? A deep uneasiness begins to tug at him.
Outside, some of the fellows have already taken to their horses, waiting to set out. The night is dark and quiet—sunrise is still hours away. He finds Denit tightening his saddle and delivers Hargrove’s message.
Denit pats his hand along his saddlebag. “Already taken care of.”
Jack shuffles down to his horse, feeling like he’s about to throw his dinner all over the ground. He pets his hand down the coarse mane and it makes him think of Balazir—probably standing over on the ridge where the Nezra’s fires are burning. He hooks into the stirrup and pulls himself onto his new horse, then rides over to join the other men.
“Gonna be a long ride,” says Trevor, a tanner from the outpost.
“I know.”
“Denit said you were a fighter.”
“I was a soldier.”
Trevor smiles. “Where do you put our chances?”
“I’m… trying not to think of that.”
“Smart man.”
“You?” asks Jack. “Were you a fighter?”
Trevor rolls up his sleeve and shows tributaries of old scars. “Convoys used to get attacked all the time. Hard work setting a new line.”
“What about Hargrove?”
“Oh yeah. He was quite a bruiser back in his day.”
The kitchen light goes dim as Hargrove snuffs the candles. He looks around the dark kitchen, sighs, and walks back to the front room. A small ornamental cupboard hangs by the doorway, each shelf containing a row of neatly arranged pipes. Hargrove waves his finger before them, tracing over each row, until he lands on one resting on the middle shelf—rich umber wood with a thin carven stem. He slips it into his pocket, then shambles out the back door and climbs atop his horse.
“All right,” he sighs, sliding into the saddle. He shines a toothy grin over his shoulder, then snaps the reins and gallops into the yawning dark.
Wisps of sunlight creep into the tarnished sky as Thomas and his beleaguered pony straggle into the oasis. The front door is closed, the windows shuttered. The eaves are sagging a bit, the clapboards paling, but still in all it looks as it did when he left home some forty years ago. He pulls the reticent pony to the porch and reaches a shaky hand out to touch it, fearing it to be yet another hallucination. He digs his fingers into the wood and collapses on the steps. The pony, smelling water, fights against its lead and Thomas lets it slip from his fingers. It makes a straight shot down to the river, lumbering slowly on its knobby legs.
Thomas rolls onto his belly and works himself onto all fours. He crawls the last few feet to the front door, then curls his hand into a fist and knocks. Never before in his life has he knocked on this door—always just walked right through—and it saddens him, the realization that this is no longer his home. He reaches up and tries the knob and the door swings open with a high-pitched whine. The interior is dark and quiet. Thomas pulls himself to his feet and stumbles inside.
“Ryan!”
No answer.
He clumps across the front room, thousands of memories shooting off in his brain like fireworks. The same old rug is laid out of the floor, worn thin with age. He sees his father’s old chair, broken down and shoved into the corner. Through the open door, he looks in at the side room where he and Ryan used to play.
“Ryan!”
There is a jumble of old books and papers laid out on the side table and Thomas makes for them. His head knocks into one of the winged models and sets it rocking back and forth. A journal is laid out on top of the pile, its leather cover draped open. There is his own youthful face smiling back at him, drawn with the neat lines and feathered crosshatching that he recognizes as his own. He looks into the shaded gray eyes, shards of clean pulp peeking through the irises to show the light twinkle. There is his brother, spray of cowlick across his forehead. It comes rushing back. They stood on the back porch so the light was better. He set the old polished glass in the corner, and he sketched quick because Ryan was too antsy to sit still for very long. He drew rough lines and filled in the finer details later. His mother asked for a tracing of it to hang next to her desk upstairs.
Thomas holds the leather cover in his hand and wanders away toward the kitchen, letting the journal flap at his side the way a child would do. The house is so quiet. So still. It feels like it hasn’t been lived in for years. There is the table where he took his meals as a boy. He pulls back a chair and sits looking out the window, across the back porch, down toward the river where the old pony meanders along the water’s edge.
He listens to the house settle.
They must be downstairs. In the library. Hiding.
He rises and walks to the front room and slaps his head. The rug. Perfectly in place over the trapdoor.
They’ve fled, he realizes, and just as well. Now there won’t be any argumentation about what he came here to do.
He throws back the rug and deftly pulls the rope handle on the trap. It cracks against the hardwood floor. Thomas slips on the ladder and tumbles into the cellar, dropping the journal. He jackknifes forward, clutching his shin, then crawls in the darkness and feels out for the hatch. He tightens his hand around the wheel and grinds it slowly, round and round, until a puff of cool air whispers past his face. Sullen red light fills the cellar. Thomas opens the hatch and laughs.
A metallic buzz rumbles up from the deep and the red light strobes. Thomas grips the edge with clawed hands and his laughter rages down the shaft, mingling with the electric buzz and the spectacle of light. He laughs until tears burst from his eyes and fall five stories to the landing below.
It’s been forty rough years since he has felt such a close kinship with his brother. He snatches the splayed-out journal off the cellar floor and turns to the back page and kisses his brother’s graphite lips.
“You’re a genius,” he says.
Jack rides at the head of the caravan, next to Hargrove. The old man takes out his small notebook and a folded map and begins to study their route, checking his bearings against the ornate wooden compass in his palm.
“What’s that?”
“Compass,” says Hargrove, passing it over. “Here.”
Jack turns it in his hands and watches the little disk spin on its axis. “Why do you need it?”
“Tells you what direction you’re headed.”
“But… why do you need it?”
Hargrove laughs, sensing the brightness of the boy. “Precision. Better than the sun and stars.”
Jack reaches across to hand it back.
“Keep it. You can be my navigator.”
“Okay. What’s that?”
“You’re gonna chart our course. Here, take the map.” He veers close and passes it over as they ride. “Show me where your friends live.”
Jack lays the map across the pommel and traces his eye over the narrow valley between the coastal ranges, searching for the forked river.
“Here,” he says, pointing.
“Where?” Hargrove squints across to read it.
“North of… Elpass… Robbles.”
“Huh? Ah, I see. El Paso de Robles. You’re sure they’ll help?”
“I know they will.”
“Fair enough. We can use all we can get.”
Jack looks around behind him. There’s little more than twenty of them in all, and they each wear a look of deep anxiety. A couple of them ride hunched over their saddles, drifting in and out of consciousness after a long, sleepless night. One jerks awake just before he topples over, and he stiffens himself and ogles around. Only half of them carry bows—the rest are armed with a hodge-podge of old shed tools and hunting knives. He starts to wish that he had bolted with Lia when he had the chance.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Something like a plan,” says Hargrove, riding with one hand and gesturing with his other. “My hope is they won’t suspect us. That would buy us some time to lay up on the high ground and see what we’re dealing with.”
Denit rides forward and keeps pace with Jack. “I never properly thanked you.” He smiles with a kind, creaseless face.
“What for?”
“It’s a brave thing you did. May well have saved our lives.”
Jack feels ashamed to accept the gratitude, feeling at fault somehow for the whole mess.
“It’s okay.”
“Nyla said the same—she has a better eye for people than I do. Knew right away you weren’t lying to us.”
“We promised Ethan.”
“But most people wouldn’t have kept their promise.”
“Tell us more about these people,” says Hargrove. “What are their defenses like? How do they fight?”
Jack starts in on a lengthy discourse about the Temple’s methods of warfare—about blackened warriors hiding in trees and their ruthless protocols, stockpiles of weaponry, stealth attacks. Hargrove listens quietly and interjects rarely. He seems especially interested in the King.
Lia’s legs straddle awkwardly the bound plates, braced on either side of the saddle with heavy ropes. The added weight impedes their horses and the slow pace has her restless, clenching her teeth.
“How far are we?”
“A day’s ride.”
“Have you ever been there before?”
“Not since I was little. Marikez runs a route that spans a hundred and fifty miles south along the gulf.”
“What does he do down there?”
“Brings back coffee and dried fruit, grains and spices, mostly. It’s how they stay alive. They’re right along this same river, and it’s not what it used to be.”
“Why don’t they move?”
Nyla shrugs. “Tradition.”
“Do they have an army?”
Nyla considers the question, smiling a little. “Not an army, no. Just good people. My father’s done a lot to help them. They were nearly starving when he found them. Didn’t want to give up their land. They still don’t.”
“They’re friendly, though? You think they’ll help?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, Lia. We’ll be in good hands.”
“I’m worried about Jack.”
“He’s in good hands, too. The best.”
Lia studies her face, wondering if she truly understands what they are up against. Has she seen violence with her own eyes, or just watched it on a panel of light?
A ways south, the river fans out and shallows and Nyla crosses over to the other bank, then slows to a halt and slips off her saddle.
“Let’s switch. Give this one a rest.”
They drink from the river and tighten the bundles. The river is dirty and barely flowing in places, and the banks are the parched bed of what used to be gushing water. Nyla pulls a jar of fruit out of her saddlebag and pops the top. Lia digs around and finds bread and soft cheese, and they stand on the cracked riverbank and eat, staring off at nothing.
“I’m riding back with them,” says Lia, after a long spell of silence.
“That’s not a good idea. You’ll be safer down here.”
“I don’t want to be safe. I want to be with Jack.”
“I understand. I miss Denit and Aaron.”
Lia tightens up her face, pushing back a wave of heartache.
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Always have.”
“He’s going to be all right.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”
“I believe it,” says Nyla. “He’s pretty smart, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“So is my dad. He won’t let them do anything stupid.”
“My friends are back there. I’m going.”
“I understand.” Nyla stows their things away makes no further contest.
They let the horses finish grazing on the scant pockets of grass, then saddle up and trudge along the bank. Lia stares back the way they came, looking to see if they are being hunted.
Thomas sits like a bearded old maid in his brother’s faded rocking chair, the wooden spindles white as sun-weathered bones, pitching back and forth in the hot arid draft with his journal laid out across his lap—the pages full of bisected ellipses and angular perspectives, mechanical diagrams and personal notes. His skin is burnt bright red and peeling. He flicks up his eyes without raising his head and surmises the far-off column of approaching riders, kicking up a spew of desert sand in their wake. He returns to his reading.
13 June 2456—Another good trip to the canyon with Ryan and Dad. Found evidence of recent activity, as many as fifty heads, judging by the size of the camp they left. Encountered no one. Wonder where they all went?
He turns a few pages.
18 September 2456—Another two weeks with Jacob. Weather too nice to leave. Three settlements here already, and two more since he arrived 7 years ago. Numbered on the left. We expect more to migrate down—esp. if valley keeps greening.
He looks up. They are no longer a condensed speck in the distance—each horseman now appears as its own separate moving speck. He turns the pages.
27 April 2457—Turned away again. Number 97 would rather starve than accept our help. Hostile.
He can hear the rumble of their hooves.
07 July 2457—Another early harvest. Best in 10 years, Dad says. Ryan and I finished the coop, and we’ll all ride down next week to trade with Maya. The most generous people we’ve found, though they haven’t much to give, and their records are astounding. They have carven tablets dating back 150 years or more. Hope to get etchings on next trip.
15 July 2457—Returning with a rooster and three hens. I told them my ideas. Maya and her people are fine survivors, but they do not like change.
02 August 2457—I dreamt a beautiful palace on the seaside.
Penciled below is a quick freehand of an Atlantean paradise standing high atop a cliff. He tries to recall the night he dreamt it and cannot. He coughs out a bitter laugh. He looks up. They’ve arrived.
The column breaks and fans out in an arc around the perimeter of the oasis. Their bows are drawn yet they make no move forward—only loiter around the outskirts with rigid faces. A rider to the rear brings a scope to his eye and looks at Thomas.
Thomas raises his hand and waves.
They fall back and chatter some more.
A solitary rider, the man with the scope, paces forward and stops at the base of the walkway. He squints up at Thomas. Behind him, the dusty warriors keep their bows leveled.
“Hello,” calls Thomas.
The man raises up his hands. “We mean you no harm.”
“I see that.”
“We’re looking for something.”
“Oh?”
“A city. Near here. Do you know it?”
“I might. What’s it called?”
The man hesitates. He is soaked with sweat. He looks toward his men, then back to Thomas.
“Can’t tell you if I know it,” says Thomas, “if you don’t tell me what it’s called…”
The man narrows his eyes. “Alexandria.”
“Ah. A city, you say? Don’t know any city called Alexandria.”
“Do you know any place called by that name?”
“Only this place.” Thomas spreads his arms out and gestures to the run-down old house.
The man hitches back and looks at him cockeyed. “Don’t play games, old man.”
“I never do, Keslin.”
Keslin startles, and the recognition is like a thunderclap in his mind. “Thomas.”
“Been a long time. We have unfinished business, you and I.”
Keslin waves his men forward and they storm the sagging front porch, quick as a flash, and Thomas makes no move to escape as they dismount and climb the steps. They knock the chair out from under him and wrench him to his feet. A scattering of warriors stays in the yard and another wing breaks off and kicks open the front door and rushes inside.
“Are you alone here?”
Thomas laughs.
They jerk his arms behind his back at a pained angle and manhandle him through the splintered doorway. Keslin elbows his way inside and looks around the dingy interior, baffled. Footsteps sound from the ceiling above as the warriors search through the attic. They turn over chairs and tables, burst open more doors, pull portraits off the wall. The commotion is rapid and short-lived—they quickly finish parsing the entire house and find no one else.
“What is this place?” Keslin asks, narrowing in on Thomas. “You’re not alone here, are you? Where are you hiding them?”
“Are you looking for the pony?”
Keslin hobbles forward and kicks him in the kneecap. Thomas’s legs buckle and the warriors lift him back up.
“The boy. Jack.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Oh, but you do. Him and his friend.”
“You leave them the hell alone.”
“Where are they?”
“East. Sent them as far east as they can go. You’ll never find them.”
“You’re as poor a liar as ever, Thomas. Break his teeth out.”
They wrestle him to the floor—one man straddles him while another brings a booted heel down across his mouth. Thomas bucks and screams and spits out a soup of his own teeth.
“Where are they?”
Thomas’s wild scream turns to laughter and he spits his last tooth in Keslin’s face. Keslin belts him in the stomach and he reels with joyous laughter.
“What in the hell is so—”
And the ground rumbles and quakes as if the great round planet is set to rip open at the seams, and as Thomas laughs and Keslin screams, they disintegrate instantaneously in a blinding surge of furious white light.