Alexandria (49 page)

Lia breathes heavily and looks up to her.
“Monsters…”

“It’s a lot to take in. I wish I could offer more in the way of answers,” says Hargrove. “I gave up trying to figure it out a long time ago. Decided there were better things to worry about.”

“How do you know it won’t happen again?” Jack asks numbly.

“It may well. History is full of savagery. No reason to think that’s the end of it.”

Jack rubs his knuckles in his eyes until a mosaic of expanding squares eclipses his vision.

“It’s not all bad,” says Nyla. “There are good things, too. Would you like to see?”

“What kinds of things?”

Hargrove touches the console and a crackling sound issues from the corner of the room.

“Bah
,” he says.

He stands and bangs his fist against a perforated vent and beautiful music pours through it—a multitude of instruments never heard before in their lives, full of magnificent sound.

“This was written seven hundred years ago by a deaf man.”

He calls forth more images and the screen once again animates with a pageantry of brilliance. Hargrove begins in the early days and proceeds through the millennia with a quickness that bewilders his young audience, still of the forest at heart. They watch civilizations rise. They watch them fall. Yet through it all, and despite the failures and losses accrued through the centuries, what they see is a great ascension, a quest lasting thousands of years with no end point. The ache of destruction becomes a wistful thing next to the majesty of creation. These are the people Jack has dreamt of, in bright crisp attire, carrying on through streets of wonder with casual aplomb. They see the great works in their former pristine grandeur, before the scourge of Time wore them brittle and picked their bones clean. The whirlwind of visions comes to rest on a vast, barren red desert. Jack and Lia sit breathlessly on the edge of their seats, knowing at once that it is not the earth they see before them. An insectoid contraption with metal legs and a shiny exoskeleton settles itself on the surface of that red wasteland and two figures emerge wearing suits of silver, their heads encased by translucent globes. They bound airily across the alien vista, and they plant in the hard-packed redness the flag of a forgotten people.

The screen flashes to blue. The only sound is the steady thrum of subterranean machinery.

Hargrove rests his hands on his stout belly. He is beaming.

“A hundred years,” he says, “from the days of horse and buggy until the Age of great cities. We could lift ourselves out of this mess in a hundred years time. We have the force of knowledge behind us. We don’t have to wait centuries for new ways to be devised. We know the way. It’s all so simple, really.”

“How?”
asks Jack. “Everything is gone. It’s all gone.”

“Oh, they had certain advantages that we don’t have. But the opposite is also true—we have a blueprint that they did not. Yes, their population was stronger. They had more established trade routes. Resources were plenty. We’ll have to power our work differently, but it can be done. Oh yes, Jack, it can be done.”

Hargrove smiles so brightly he seems at once more youthful than his two boggle-eyed visitors.

“A hundred years…” says Lia.

“A hundred years. When your grandchildren are as old as I, this world could be a very different place indeed. I’ve dreamt it my whole life. We have everything we need right here.”

“But your machine is breaking.”

“Let it break. Come on upstairs. I have something else to show you.”

He starts up and out of the crescent chamber and Jack snatches one last look at the sparkling pillars beyond the glass, barely able to comprehend the sheer volume of work contained therein. They climb to the upper landing and Hargrove opens the hatch he had bypassed earlier and they step inside. Black composite trunks are stacked floor to ceiling like coffins in a catacomb.

“Everything we need is here.”

He unlatches one of the trunks and creaks it open, revealing a silverwhite rectangular plate, so shiny it looks wet to the touch. With slow reverence he reaches inside and raises the plate, handling it as delicately as he might hold a butterfly.

“Platinum.”

Jack and Lia step close enough that their breath fogs its surface. It is engraved with minute writings on front and back, full of odd symbols that call back the dirt-written equation that Thomas had drawn by firelight.

“This tells of the movements of astral bodies, thousands of years worth of studies.” He hands it to Lia then lifts out another. “Here is the chemistry. Below that, more physics. More of the sciences in here. In this one lay the humanities,” he says, swatting the side of a high-stacked trunk. “Here, the engineering. And over here, more philosophy. It’s a scant collection, but it’s enough. The rough basics. You could build quite a society with the knowledge contained in these trunks.”

“Why do you keep them locked down here?” asks Lia. “Why don’t you share them?”

“We do. I have a small printing press. We run copies of the vitals, the things people need to live. The settlements we work with know we have
something
. But the full extent of it we keep hidden. It would be disastrous if it fell into the wrong hands. Such as this supposed King you speak of.”

“So Ethan and Renning…”

“Were spreading the word. Field work. We’ve done it for generations, since the downfall. For a long time not much happened. The die-off in the aftermath was terrible. Most people weren’t killed by war but by nature. Preventable deaths. Some of them we reached, most we did not. And records have been kept so that these last two hundred and seventy years aren’t lost to history. I’ve scrolls and ledgers from the earliest keepers here, the ones who lived down in this shaft until the poisons cleared from the air. Some are from the man I’m named after.”

“The man in the picture.”

“Exactly. Little by little, people came out of their hiding places and started to live again. Hasn’t been easy, though.”

A thought occurs to Jack. His own ancestors were there, surviving the terrors he and Lia have just beheld.
They must have been
, he thinks,
or I wouldn’t be here
. The notion sends a shiver down his spine, imagining some long-gone relatives of his, citizens of the tall glass cities, perhaps bearing some of the same familial traits as he, fighting their way through the horrific downfall. He thinks of the voice that rang in his head when he was locked in the pit, urging him forward, and imagines that they must have heard it too.

“Hargrove!”
Denit’s voice echoes down the shaft.

“Yeah?”

Denit shouts more words, garbled and incomprehensible. Hargrove sighs and sets the plate carefully in the black trunk.

“Time to get back up, anyway. Let’s see what he wants.”

He stows everything as it had been and they climb back through the narrow shaft, rung over rung, until they reach the cellar. Nyla stays behind to seal the hatch and the others go up the wooden ladder to the front room. Jack is last out—when he surfaces, he sees Denit and Hargrove leaving by the front door.

“What happened?” he asks Lia.

She shakes her head, then takes his hand and leads him outside. The men from the outpost line the edge of the porch, staring off at the horizon. Hargrove shuffles up and joins them. At first it appears they are looking at nothing, just the dark empty desert, but as they step closer the fires becomes visible, burning like a votive memorial on the far-off horizon.

“It’s them
,” says Lia, tightening on Jack’s hand. “Where are we gonna run?”

He wishes he had a response.

Hargrove turns around, scratching his head, and addresses the gathering.

“Here’s your King’s army, now,” he says derisively. “I guess we’re leaving a little earlier than I thought—they’re not twenty miles off yet.”

Nyla steps out onto the porch and startles when she sees the fear in everyone’s eyes.

“Dad
… what’s going on?”

“We’re leaving. Now. We’ll head north,” he says, turning his thumb toward the men. “You’ll ride south, down to Marikez. The plates are going with you. Tell Marikez to send everyone who’s able and willing to fight. We’ll chart his route.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the Temple," he says. "To kill the King.”

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.