Chapter Twenty
Their walls collapse in cascades.
The Rain of Fire does not come and their longcast spell splinters and dissolves away.
A surprising lot of them are finding a new life here, casting off bitter-clung superstition—though the reconciliation has been tenuous at best.
Some stay gone, apocalyptic cults roaming the forest still, waiting in vain for an inferno of destruction that will never come.
Already the keep has been emptied—the implements of torture carried out into the daylight and set ablaze, soft gray smoke carrying their wickedness away on the cool Pacific breeze. Relics bearing Arana Nezra’s name or likeness were summarily burned and turned to ash and thrown back into the earth, along with the corporeal being itself.
Behind barred doors, some whisper that they are happy to see the old regime go, and those voices multiply and grow less hushed with the passage of time.
The grounds are returned to green splendor, and it made sad work for those tasked with collecting up the bodies and digging their graves.
Jack stands at the edge of the cliff, looking across the charred field of ruins in the valley. He thinks of his mother. He thinks of the lost village of his dreams, and in a waking daze he sees her shimmering on the old stone promenade, coming closer, and he feels her warmness, and he knows that she is asking for peace. And he knows what must be done.
“Jack!” Lia is standing by the reflecting pool, smiling. “Come on.”
Everyone is heading out toward the old quarry road. They pass the towering white palace and skip off to join them. Hargrove is waiting by the side of the road with his hands in his pockets, grinning back at them. Together they fall into the flow of bodies and trek off to meet the incoming band of riders.
Hargrove sees his daughter and throws his hand high. Nyla rides at the head of the dusty caravan, poised gracefully in the saddle, and she holds in the crook of her arm a shiny silverwhite tablet, glowing brilliantly in a wash of bright sunlight.
In the summer of 2499, the small group from the forest makes a solemn trip through the enormous redwoods, returning after long years to the place of their birth. They hold hands in a circle in the middle of the promenade, bowing their heads in silence while the forest song whispers to their hearts. They inter their families’ precious remains in the village cemetery, so they can be with their grandparents, and their parents before them, and it is a sacred place to them all. Jack and Lia have talked and decided they will go into the earth there too, someday.
They stand and breathe in the lingering presences. All else is lost—there is nothing here but memories, and they leave carrying them.
From out here the Earth is gorgeous, rotating majestically on her invisible axis, aquamarine with swirls of churning pearlescent white. Nightfall slips across the globe like a curtain being drawn. Gone are the arterial skeins of twinkling amber light that once coursed across the surface of her continents at night. The great land masses turn slowly below, dark as the surrounding emptiness that contains them.
A lonely vessel glides by, with bold black letters standing out against the stark white metallic surface that read SERAPEUM 587JRX39USA. She is Alexandria’s daughter, a failsafe, an exact replica of the entire precious payload carried inside—the lost knowledge of a civilization in ruins, preserved incorruptible in this digital mausoleum. Only a small blinking green light gives hint of the artificial sentience on this riderless voyage—the electric currents of the olden masters. She arcs off silently into the blackness, having completed thousands of cycles thus far, and prepared to complete many thousands more.
Far down below, on the distant shores of a dark continent, a celebration is underway.
Swells of revelers arc dreamily around the radiant white palace, the sandstone tiers laced over with streamers of flowers and hanging lanterns. They carouse along the garden paths and make their way down to the luminous reflecting pool. Tiny metal skiffs with lit candles float on the surface of the water, hundreds of them, and the gardens are alive with magical light.
Inside, Nyla and Denit pass through the wide sandstone corridors and come to rest by an open doorway, where inside an old man huddles over his desk, bent to his ink and paper.
“Happy New Year, Dad.”
“Ten more minutes,” says Hargrove, blowing out the sconce. “Unless my clock’s wrong.”
He scribbles one last note, then collects up his things and greets them at the door. He kisses her cheek and they head off to the gardens, passing by open chambers where the old sciences are taught by candlelight.
Lingering on the grand staircase, they meet Sajiress and his reunited kin. He smiles and extends a hand, enamored of the new custom.
“Hello, old soldier,” says Hargrove, taking his hand. “Care to join us? Diwaa?”
Sajiress hefts Alok onto his shoulders and they cross the grounds to join the congregation along the coast. Marikez and Karus wave them over and thrust glasses into their hands as the last moments of the century float by. Hargrove and his daughter spot Jack and Lia off to the side of the pool, bright with laughter, and they move to embrace them.
“It’s something.”
Lia smiles. “It’s beautiful.”
“Been a hell of a long time coming. Jack, how do you fair?”
“Better now,” he says, taking a glass.
“Wish Thomas could see it.”
“So do I.”
Hargrove’s new prototype is sure to be off, but they adhere to it regardless, counting the numbers down together as the thin metal sliver ticks toward the emblazoned 12 at the top of the dial. With a blossom of explosions over the coast, they raise their glasses high and toast the passage of the year.
Jeneth carries little Mariset over to meet them, Eriem walking with his hand around the small of her back. Lia whisks her away and holds her high, her arms outstretched, the ruddy little face looking down at her and smiling. The rest of their old friends slowly make their way over, longing for a happy reunion.
They clamor for Jack to say a few words and he shyly declines, until he feels petite hands on his back pushing him forward.
“I just… I thought, in honor of Hargrove, who is one of the best and bravest men I’ve ever known, and for all the people who fought, and for the ones that didn’t make it to see this night… that we could call this city Alexandria, so that we never forget why we’re here, and how this all came to be.”
The decision is unanimous, and as a new century dawns on this awakening planet, a stronghold is established against the darkness—this new city, Alexandria, which will stand through the coming Age as a beacon of light and reason.
The crowd breaks and music fills the air. Hargrove looks up to the shimmering palace and drinks to his brother, wherever he may be, then strikes a match to his pipe and wanders down along the garden path, lost in an old man’s reverie.
As the celebrations soars, Jack takes Lia’s hand and they slip away from the festivities and walk alone down the quarry road. They stumble from too much wine and collapse in the weeds, laughing. Eventually they weave toward the stables and light their way down to the last stall where Balazir stands with peaceful calm. Jack saddles him while Lia whispers drunken things and giggles.
They lead him outside and fumble onto the saddle, then ride down to their little spot along the cliffs. A river of galactic beauty flows slowly above them. They hitch Balazir and lay out a bed of fur. The shore is alive. Algae blooms off the coast and as the waves roll in and crash on the rocks they sizzle with electric blue. Jack settles in next to Lia, looking off at the vibrant ocean, and he shares with her Hargrove’s most beautiful secret. She looks quickly to the sky in wonderment, as though she might see it there, the Serapeum, traveling its ghostly orbit.
There is only the cosmos.
She closes her eyes and lies back on the soft fur, basking in the brilliant starlight. Jack lies back with her, holding her. Their voices are soft, almost whispering to each other. They talk about their journey, about science and the mysteries, and about small things too. They talk until their eyelids grow heavy, conversation sparse, and they drift into a deep golden sleep and dream of the future.