Ashes of the Earth

by Eliot Pattison

  The iceboat freighters lay beyond the guard, tethered to the dock as if they might float away. Hadrian and his three companions crouched for a quarter hour in the shadow under one of the boat racks, assuming the sentry would soon move away from the shed where he lingered to patrol the rest of the docks. When the moon finally rose out of the fog and lit the man’s face, Bjorn rose.

  “I know that Norger,” was all he said before marching deliberately toward him.

  He spoke only briefly with the guard, pointing down the docks. Even from the distance it was clear the big policeman was berating the man for staying out of the cold wind instead of making his rounds along the waterfront. No one ever argued with Bjorn. The sentry offered a gesture like a salute and trotted away.

  They chose for themselves a sleek midsized craft with a small cockpit that opened through a hatch into the oval-shaped hold. As Nelly settled into the hold beside their packs, Hadrian and Jori collected blankets from the other boats, quickly cutting the rigging on each as they did so. Jori lit the onboard lamps then began to explain how Hadrian and Bjorn must push the outrigger struts to position the boat out on the open ice where it would catch the wind as she unfurled the mainsail.

  Bjorn bent to untether the boat, then paused and suddenly sprang to the shadows behind a piling and heaved out a small figure. The boy’s legs flailed the air as Bjorn held him at arm’s length. Dax ignored Bjorn, calling to Boone.

  “I know you’d have to go!” the boy said. “As soon as I saw those jackals steal the ice freighter after the fire last night I knew you’d be following.”

  Bjorn slowly lowered the boy to the ice and Dax scrambled to the strut, where he began pushing. When the boat did not move, he quieted and fixed Hadrian with a solemn expression. “I told you. I have to get that book back so Mr. Jonah can rest on the other side.”

  Bjorn snapped a curse and was about to pull the boy away when Hadrian held up a restraining hand. The Norger glared at the two a moment then shrugged and motioned Hadrian to join him on the struts.

  In past winters Hadrian had crewed on the ice bullets, as the small racing craft were called, and had suffered so many rough landings on the lake ice when the unstable boats had veered or toppled that the bruising and discomfort had begun to outweigh the thrills of the winning runs. This larger boat was a different creature. The bullets might behave like erratic hares, but as the craft they were on now picked up speed, she was a long graceful snow leopard, loping toward the silver horizon.

  As Bjorn, Nelly, and Dax settled into the compartment under the heavy blankets, Hadrian leaned on the rail beside Jori. Her eyes darted from the rattling sail to the rigging, the outriggers, the compass, the ice ahead. He had never seen her so confident, so at ease with herself. She was in control, at a task at which she obviously excelled. Everyone remembered her as a lacrosse star, she had told him when they had argued about who should pilot the boat, but her passion had always been ice sailing.

  “Following the coast, it’s nearly a hundred miles to the camps,” he said, raising his voice over the wind. “Can we make it by dawn?”

  Jori’s face seemed to shine as she watched the shoreline speed by. “Much sooner. Funny thing about these ice luggers. With their shape and displacement, they’d sink like a stone in the water. But on the ice, riding on the outriggers, they are speed demons. We’re doing thirty knots at least.” She paused and gave him an inquiring glance. “But the camps aren’t our destination,” she ventured.

  “There must be a salvage trail leading from them to the southwest. From the harbor we’ll have to slip through New Jerusalem to find it.”

  She asked no more, only nodded, then lifted his hand and rested it on the tiller. She spoke no more of the dangers ahead, but only of the rigging and headings, pointing out how the compass had been cleverly mounted in a case embedded with mirrors and crystals that concentrated the light so the needle was illuminated by the small oil lamp built into its base. With her gloved hand resting on his, she showed him how only the subtlest movement was needed to shift direction, then moved to the side, letting him steer. “A good skipper watches the needle and embraces the music,” she told him. For a quarter hour she stood silently, the wind whipping her hair, the stars filling her eyes. At last she yawned and lowered herself to the deck, wrapping herself in a blanket before leaning against his legs.

  Hadrian had seldom known a feeling of such exhilaration, of such freedom. He was on a strange icebound planet, between known worlds—the catastrophe that was Carthage behind him, the ruined land of killers and thieves ahead. But for the moment, in between, as the aurora danced overhead and the ship ghosted across the empty lake, he was free. Gradually he understood Jori’s words, gradually the music reached his consciousness. When they were in perfect trim, the tight rigging ropes emitted a low humming noise as the wind stroked them, the brass pulleys offered a baritone drone, the runners sang on the ice.

  He was not sure when Nelly awoke, simply became aware of her kneeling at the hatch below him, her head cocked, listening to the song of their passage. After several minutes she rose and faced forward, loosening her blanket, letting the cold wind whip into her. She had seemed hesitant about leaving the prison with Hadrian, and he realized that of all the mysteries that plagued him, one of the most painful was why Nelly had seemed so ready to die on Buchanan’s scaffold. It had not been for Kinzler, and certainly not for the criminals of St. Gabriel. He almost had convinced himself that she was just worn out, too weary of the world and the mess that humans had again made of it to care about living. But there was no resignation in the woman who stood before him, scoured by the wind.

  “I didn’t know the grain was to be burnt,” she declared when she finally turned to him.

  “I never thought you did,” Hadrian replied.

  “That grain was part of Jonah’s dream of unification. He wrote me about it. There was finally enough to share with us. Wouldn’t it be a world shifter, he wrote me, if New Jerusalem brought the medicines to cure the sick of Carthage and Carthage opened her silos in gratitude?” She raised her chin toward the stars.

  “Jori saw log buildings on the island offshore from Kinzler’s compound. Two stories, with only a single door and a small hatch opening near the top. Did you ever ask what they were for?”

  “They were hidden from shore by the trees. Men from St. Gabriel did the construction. Storage, Kinzler told us. Warehouses for all the trade we expected.”

  “They’ve been stealing grain, Nelly. Stealing for months. Many, many tons of it. That must be where it is. Now that they’ve crippled Carthage they will use it to get what they want.”

  “Impossible. Kinzler knows how our crops failed. Some of our families have been close to starvation already. He would never hide the means to keep us alive.”

  “Kinzler hates Carthage as much as Buchanan hates the camps. And Kinzler is only one of the officers. Sauger is his general. He controlled the Anna, he controlled Fletcher. This is their final play, Nelly. The camps would mean nothing to Sauger without Kinzler’s help in making drugs. Destroying grain and selling drugs. That’s how Sauger and Kinzler gain power.”

  “You’re mistaken. Kinzler would never support such crime. He wants only the best for the camps.”

  “I’ve seen his little compound. He brings in the drugs from out in the ruined lands and refines them there for shipment to St. Gabriel.”

  Nelly turned long enough to cast a frown at Hadrian. “You’ve spent so many years fighting Buchanan you see conspiracy in everything. Kinzler uses that compound to repair the machines brought in from salvage. He makes drugs there, yes, he processes the willow bark according to Jonah’s recipe so we can make our own aspirin pills. He’s made belladonna from nightshade. That’s a poison if not handled correctly, so security precautions have to be taken. He explained it all to the Tribunal. We were going to learn how to make more medicines. Jonah was experimenting on simplified ways to produce them. Even Carthage has the same serious diseases, just
not as widespread. We want to cure everyone.”

  “The drugs Kinzler makes cure people of their very lives,” Hadrian said in a distant tone, wishing for a moment he could just lose himself in the music of the ice again. He turned back to Nelly. “Corresponding about aspirin was innocent enough. Then you started asking Jonah questions about the other medicines and the equipment needed to make them. Eventually Jonah remembered a place that would have everything necessary, a place he thought could have survived. The pharmaceutical facility where his wife once worked.”

  Nelly sighed. “He told you?”

  “No,” Hadrian admitted. “He went to old Hamada and found a book, a directory with maps showing exactly where it was. He wrote you asking if you’d be able to go and check there. He asked if he should send the directions out of that directory.”

  “Kinzler told me he knew the area, said everything there was destroyed, no need to bother.”

  “Because they wanted it to be their secret, not yours. They told you not to bother, then they had Hamada’s book stolen for them.” He watched her face to see if she understood what he was saying. “They found the place and are using it to make the drug that is killing people. They are sending supply parties to it every week.” He recalled his dinner with Nelly and Kinzler. “You said Shenker was often away. Where does he go?”

  “You make it sound like Jonah and I made all this possible, like we opened the door for these hoodlums from St. Gabriel.”

  When Hadrian did not answer, she turned her face into the shadows. She had nightmares, she had told him, about Jonah saying he forgave her for his death. She had begun to realize it was her letters, her questions, that had been the beginning of the end for Jonah. “Those men in St. Gabriel wanted to combine with us, to have a joint government, a united front against Carthage. The Tribunal declined their offer.”

  “When? When did the Tribunal reject this merger?”

  “Early last summer.”

  In his mind’s eye Hadrian revisited the pages he’d deciphered from Jonah’s chronicle. “It was you who stopped it, Nelly. Because Jonah had sent you a letter explaining that St. Gabriel was controlled by escaped criminals.”

  She didn’t reply, just pulled her woolen cap lower over her head as if she finally felt the cold.

  “My God, Nelly, it’s why they made it so easy for Fletcher to capture you out on the ice. Why were you out there? It had to be because Kinzler or Shenker told you to go.”

  Nelly stared toward the horizon. He realized she had not spoken about the bruises on her face and arms. “They said one of the First Bloods had been hurt by wolves,” she explained, “that his dog team had been attacked and he needed help. But a band of fishermen ambushed me.”

  “Did you ever see an injured First Blood that day?”

  “That iceboat came before I got to him.”

  “Exactly. Thousands of square miles of ice and Fletcher’s crew happens to pick the spot where you are. Your hanging would have guaranteed the camps and St. Gabriel would unite against Carthage. And Kinzler and Sauger would be rid of you. You had become an impediment to them. There never was an injured man out on the ice.”

  She still would not look at him. “You’re wrong.”

  “Where was your Shenker when Fletcher came for you? He was with you before the library fire, to make sure you performed your role, make sure you became the villain Buchanan wanted and the martyr they wanted. You said Shenker and you were separated the night Jonah died, that he was watching the rear of the library. What if he went inside the library? Jonah understood what was happening, he knew about the drugs. He had been working on a cure, a way to break the addiction, a way to end Sauger’s plans. He was going to explain the conspiracy, tell you about his breakthrough, how it would turn everything around. Having you introduce the antidote would be the perfect way to unite the camps and Carthage at last. Where was Shenker? Where was Kinzler? Your first escape was a tactic to fan the flames. It was part of the script, just like your recapture was. They didn’t free you this time, I did. They wanted you to hang as much as Buchanan wanted it. Jonah had to die . . . and so did you.”

  Nelly once again did not reply. She tightened her scarf and moved forward to the front of the boat, staring out over the ice, a lonely figurehead in the shimmering night.

  “SHE’S TOO BEAUTIFUL, Hadrian,” Jori protested when Hadrian explained what they would do with the iceboat when they arrived at New Jerusalem. It was an hour before dawn.

  “She won’t be lost, she’ll just stray a bit,” Hadrian reassured her. “Just ease toward shore and tack about. We’ll roll off with the packs. Then you aim her toward the center of the lake, tie the tiller down, and join us. The jackals will be no more than two hours behind us. This mast is over thirty feet high. It will glow like a beacon as the sun rises. They’ll follow her, recover her. It buys us another few hours.”

  Jori reluctantly agreed. They hit the ice hard as she expertly swung the boat about.

  They had begun stealing across the ice to the compound when Bjorn suddenly turned in alarm. His prisoner was missing. His hand went to the gun at his waist, then Hadrian pointed to a shadow running toward the nearby island. They caught up with Nelly as she approached the first of the squat two-story buildings. The heavy door was locked but Nelly spotted the rough timber ladder lying on the snow nearby. Hadrian silently helped her ease it in place under the hatch by the eaves. She was at the hatch moments later, flinging open its small door then leaning into the opening. Even from below they could make out the rich, sweet scent of the grain. She seemed to go limp for a moment, then closed the hatch and slowly descended.

  “He is saving it, for when we need it most,” she offered unconvincingly, then let Jori lead her away toward the shoreline.

  They watched the compound for five minutes, waiting for its sentry to appear. Then Hadrian conferred briefly with Bjorn and began walking straight toward the main gate. He had nearly reached it when a man appeared with a shotgun in one hand, a lantern in the other.

  “I’m looking for Kinzler,” Hadrian announced, his breath fogging the air. His hand touched the sword knife he had retrieved from Jonah’s vault, his only weapon. “A message from St. Gabriel.”

  “In the outlands, getting the big shipment,” the guard said as he raised the lantern toward Hadrian’s face. “Hell, Sauger knows that—” He collapsed to the ground before finishing his sentence. Bjorn had silenced him with a blow to the back of his head, then grabbed his shotgun as he fell.

  They stayed along the inside wall, in the darkest shadows, confirming there were no more sentries, then entered the building closest to the gate.

  “Just as I said,” Nelly declared, as Hadrian held the lantern over a workbench strewn with small hand tools, gears, and springs. At least three mechanical clocks lay in pieces.

  “Your chairman doesn’t need a walled compound and an armed sentry to fix timepieces,” Hadrian pointed out. “Are you saying you’ve never been inside here? You were never curious?”

  “I told you about the dangers of the belladonna he was working on. And trade with St. Gabriel has become the key to our survival. The salvage they bring to us for repair has to be protected. You know people here are desperate. If they could steal a clock and get it to the black market in Carthage, they could earn enough to keep them alive for months. And Kinzler did show us, the Tribunal, showed us this shop and the little lab where he makes the medicine.”

  “Take us there,” Hadrian said, “to his little lab.”

  She lit a second lantern and led them to a door at the end of the central building. They found themselves in a small, warm chamber with two wooden racks that held large metal trays where a white brine was slowly evaporating. Under each tray was a small brazier with glowing coals to accelerate the drying.

  “And the rest of the building?” Hadrian and Jori exchanged a glance. They had been in the main chamber of the building before, when Hadrian had tried, and failed, to rescue Jori. He hadn’t had time to
study the contents of the room.

  “Storage. Vats for soaking the willow bark, to make the extract that gets evaporated. It’s a simple process, but unwieldy on this scale.”

  Hadrian led the way now, into the main entrance. There were indeed wooden containers along the back wall, the vats Nelly had just described. The adjoining wall had a large stove built into it, bearing several heavy cooking pots. As he began lifting the lids off the vats, Nelly’s eyes narrowed with worry. There was no aspirin being prepared in the room. The vats contained a brown pasty substance that, judging from the residue in the pots on the stove, had been poured into them after being heated. Along the wall opposite the stove were more trays, where the same paste had been spread in layers. On the ones nearest the door the paste had dried into a familiar white powder. Under the table lay several empty kegs, waiting to be filled.

  Hadrian opened the door of the cabinets that lined a wall. Clay crocks jammed the shelves. Several held only turpentine, but most also contained an orange scum on the surface. He found a spatula and ran it over the bottom of one of the crocks, scooping up a brown sludge. “They bring the main ingredient from the factory in the ruined lands,” he said, “then precipitate this by treating it with the solvent, cook it, and dry it in the trays.”

  Nelly stood very still, saying nothing, then marched to the shelves and began tipping over each of the crocks, letting the pungent turpentine spill out over the wooden floor. Hadrian slowly retreated, pulling Dax with him out the door just as Nelly threw the lantern onto the volatile solvent. It burst into flame.

  Outside, Jori showed Nelly the kegs of turpentine stored along the palisade wall. Bjorn did not object when Nelly gestured for him to carry them to the doors of the other buildings, where she kicked out the bungs that plugged them. He began pouring out the contents of another keg onto the frozen ground, making rivulets of the liquid leading to the buildings from where he stood. Nelly tossed a burning stave into the solvent. They were already across the little isthmus and into the forest when the explosions broke the silence of the night.