“Do you really think this Xander knows anything the Order doesn't?” Surely the order has been in existence far longer than this wizard in Denver. What could he possibly know that we don't?
“I have no idea, Kareef.. That's the whole point of your Hajj. Surely you understand this. There are many members who wish they could be going instead of you.”
“Then why don't they? They are better prepared, surely, to discern what little Xander might know...”
Qusay closed his eyes and shook his head. Kareef got the feeling that the man was trying not to laugh out loud. “They are better prepared, and more grown into their power than you. So yes, maybe they could easily see where his methods differ. But you have to understand this, Kareef. Those who have the gift of magic, and have developed it, can recognize each other without a word. If the order sent one of its magi to the school Xander would know them.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Think, Kareef! We would prefer to learn more of them than they know of us. And the most significant thing they could learn is that we already have our own magic users. We would prefer not to disclose such a thing. This is why you are sent without training. We want you to present yourself as a merely potential wizard. None of the more trained members of the Order could pull this off. They are not entirely happy about it, but you are the one for this task, this Hajj.”
He scowled. “But that means that I...”
“...will be the only member of the Order not trained by the order but by others. Yes. But this is not a bad thing. It will make you unique.”
“A misfit, you mean. I'll have nothing in common with the other members but my Faith and the name. And the black robe, if I ever get it.”
“Oh, you'll get it.”
“Will I? What if the Xander School rejects me? What then? I'll be the only member with no training.”
“Kareef, listen to me.” Qusay's eyes bored into his. “No matter what, you are in the Order now. If for any reason, any reason at all, Xander doesn't accept you into his school, we will train you. You're ours for life.”
Chapter 32
Nathan: the pursuit of peace
שלום,לרדוף אחריהם
“Seek peace and pursue it”
– Psalm 34:14
It took them two days traveling south and west to pass through the Desolation. Like most citizens, Nathan had never had any reason to confront it before. He stared out the windows of the coach as they passed through the blasted landscape and marveled at the extent of the destruction.
“How did this happen?”
His father did not answer for a minute. When he spoke he did so with great deliberation. His voice was hushed with a mix of solemnity and sadness. “Tactical nuclear weapons.”
“What are those?”
“In the days of the Ancients there were many wars. I am sure you have studied some of them in school. Many ways of killing, terrible ways, were developed by the warriors of those times. Do you remember seeing the fireworks last year in Albany?”
“Yes, they were beautiful. But they harmed no one.”
“Fireworks are made with an ancient formula that was also called gunpowder. It was the explosion of this powder that made the bullets of the Ancients fly out of their guns with such speed. You could kill an opponent far enough away that you could not see the pain on his face when he died.”
Nathan gazed out the window as they passed another scene. On their right the top of a hill seemed to have been bitten off. The forest was reclaiming it, but the trees that grew there were thin and scraggly compared to the land around it. Between them, here and there, he could make out bits of melted wreckage that once might have been part of a building. “So this...this is the result of gunpowder?”
Isaac shook his head. “I mentioned gunpowder because of the way it explodes. An explosion is simply a massive and sudden release of heat, which makes the air move outwards with great force. In the guns of the Ancients the force was confined to tubes of metal, so that the heated gases could only leave in one direction, pushing the bullet out in front of them.”
He bowed his head before continuing. “There are many ways to produce an explosion. Gunpowder does it by a rapid and powerful chemical reaction. Nuclear weapons released far more energy, and in a different way. They came in two kinds. Strategic nuclear weapons could destroy entire cities. Tactical nuclear weapons were made to use against armies and fortifications.”
“I don't understand. What is the difference?”
His father sighed. “We remember these things in order to never repeat them. Strategy refers to the larger picture of a war, to longer periods of time. Tactics refers to specific actions taken in particular places and times. Do you remember the argument between the two neighbors about water? My strategy was to effect a long term situation what would remove the cause of their conflict. There are various tactics I could have employed in order to accomplish this. I could have forced one of the families to move. I could have forced them to combine the two farms and share the land and the spring on one of them.”
“But you didn't”
“No. I don't like to force people to do things they do not wish to do. The tactic I employed was to ask God to melt some of the ice on the one man's pond so that his animals could drink.”
“I do not see the connection,” Nathan complained.
“Strategic nuclear weapons were used to destroy the enemy's ability or will to wage war, by destroying their weapon factories in their cities. Tactical nuclear weapons were to be used on the battlefield, against armies or outlying fortifications instead of cities.”
“So?”
His father looked out the window at the blasted hill. “There was a fort there once.”
“I still don't understand. Why would there be a battle here? In school we were taught that this land used to all be one great nation, and that the parts of the Union were at peace with each other.”
“That was true for a long time,” his father answered. “But when the civilization of the Ancients began to fall the Union also fell. Local shortages caused areas to go to war with each other over things their neighbors had that they did not.”
“Like the spring the neighbors were arguing about?”
“Much more than that. You are aware, are you not, of the geographical differences between new Israel and the lands of the Dixie Emirates?”
“Well, as I recall our lands are more mountainous, whereas theirs are flatter, on the whole.”
“That is so. The differences in terrain carry with them differences in natural resources. Mountains tend to be where ores for metal can be found, whereas flat land is better for farming.”
“You're saying, we fought over metals and crops?”
“That's an oversimplification but it is close enough. We cannot eat iron, and they cannot make swords out of wheat.”
“So what happened? Did we win?”
“In the times of the Ancients nuclear weapons were stashed in many places. The strategic ones were much like fireworks in that they were fired from the ground in rockets. They were stored in the ground in silos, which were mostly out in the Northwest. Tactical nuclear weapons were stored in armories in military bases. I don't know,” he continued, “whether they had some left from the Cold War or made new ones, but the decision was made on both sides of our conflict to seal off the region between us to stop the fighting. Thus we made the Desolation.”
“You mean all this...this Desolation, it was a tactic?”
“Yes.” Isaac shook his head. “The strategy was to end the warring and to that end, the tactic decided upon was to render the land between ours and theirs unusable for armies.”
“I still don't understand. We can still ride though it, as we are doing now.”
“Yes, my son. But think of a large army, thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers.”
“Ours or theirs?”
“It doesn't matter. Everyone needs to eat, and it is hard for an army to carry enoug
h supplies to feed itself for a long period of time. For thousands of years, the way war has been done has been to march through farmland, taking and eating the crops and then burning the fields to leave nothing for opposing armies. Like a worm chewing its way through an apple. So we got rid of the apple.”
“We destroyed farms?” Nathan was horrified. The farms and fishing fleets were all that stood between the citizens of New Israel and starvation.
“We did. We used to just burn fields we marched through, so that next year there would be more crops again in case we needed to march through the same land again. But the decision was made that the fighting had to end. So we destroyed the farmlands between us with tactical nukes. As the radiation faded, it was possible to ride though the lands in trade caravans and such, as we are doing today. But no one works the land now, so it is no longer possible for large armies to support themselves marching through to invade either country.”
“What a terrible decision to make!”
“Yes.” His father sighed. “But it worked.”
Chapter 33
Lester: “what dreams may come”
“Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.”
– Albert Einstein
There was something wrong with Inverness. He couldn't make it come into full clarity – the place kept shifting in and out of focus. He squinted at the sun, which kept hanging over the rooftop of the forge like an unruly child refusing to go to bed.
He went over to the watering trough in front of the inn and tried to splash some cold water on his face to get his head straight. But whatever was in the trough was much darker than water and very warm. His lifted his hands and saw drops of blood fall back into the trough.
He jumped back from it, startled, and was nearly ridden down by the horses pulling the coach. Ching aside, he shook his head. The coach was all wrong. Instead of peeling yellow paint it was blue and red, and where the tall letter had spelled out SCHOOL BUS on the back, now he saw they read XANDER SCHOOL.
Why had they repainted the coach? While he stood there by the trough pondering this, Clem called out the stop and men in blue and red uniforms began tramping out of the front of the coach and stepping into the inn. What was this? They were soldiers from Texas!
He tried to go after them but Brutus emerged from the bus. He was wearing a gray robe and carrying a staff. “How's it going you Rado pussy?” he snarled.
Lester gaped at him. This couldn't be happening. Two Lone Star soldiers came out of the inn dragging his mother between them.
“Let her go you bastards!”
Brutus turned toward him and sneered. “Oh, we're not going to hurt her. Not yet. I just wanted her to watch.”
What? Watch what? This was all wrong.
A wind picked up in the street, blowing dust and snow toward Lester. Bewildered, he looked up from the road to see Brutus gesturing with both hands. “Wait!”
“No, I've waited long enough for this,” said the Texan.
Lester's feet were leaving the ground. His jaw dropped as a vortex of wind, sand, and snow lifted him high into the air. He kept rising, going up so high that the inn and other buildings were as small as toy blocks.
Then the wind stopped dead and he began to fall...
Lester thrashed around, then realized he was battling his own blanket. Sitting up, he gazed about him. He was on Xander's couch in their main room. The room was dim, but he could see the familiar surroundings lit by the faint glow of the everflame on the table warming the room.
Only a dream, then.
Chapter 34
Kareef: “tell me how much you have traveled”
“Don't tell me how educated you are. Tell me how much you have traveled.”
– Muhammad
The days had begun to blur together for him, and the nights as well. They had passed out of the lands of the Emirates now, but it seemed much the same in Okla: flat lands with fields and pastures that were outlined by strips of forest and punctuated by the occasional lone tree. Whenever he saw one of these hermits it reminded him of himself. He was a tree out of his forest here.
Sometimes Qusay would engage him in dialogue, but ofttimes the elder would leave him to his own thoughts. Whether this was because he was engrossed in one or another of his many books, or because he thought it best to allow him time to reflect on their last conversation, Kareef could never decide.
Today, however, was an exception. Qusay closed the book on his lap and addressed him. “Tell me, Kareef, what was your father's reaction to the news of your Hajj?”
The question surprised him. Up to this point the ambassador had avoided the subject of his family. “Not good.”
“Oh? He was against it?”
Kareef frowned out the window. “I had hoped he would oppose it. All the way home from the madresah I dreaded telling him that I was abandoning my studies, because I had been commanded to keep the reason secret. How would I tell him I was leaving before my final year, without an explanation?”
“Surely, not everyone graduates.”
“But I was never a good student. I was sure he would demand an explanation for this sudden change of mind. And then when I could not give him one, surely he would forbid it.” He looked down into his folded hands. “Forgive me, but although I dreaded his disapproval, I also hoped for it. I yearned from him to set his will against such a change in plans.”
“And when you told him?”
“At first,” said Kareef, “he was disturbed, as was my mother. My hopes of their forbidding it were lifted. Surely, someone else would be found to take on the task.”
“Yet here you are. What happened?”
“At first they were unhappy at the idea of my not graduating form the madresah. But when I told them I would be traveling to Denver and enrolling in a new school, my father changed his attitude about it. He gave me that quote about traveling. You know the one.”
“Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled.”
“Yes, that one. Suddenly he seemed to approve, as long as it involved traveling.” He scowled. “As if he were glad to see me leave.”
Qusay shrugged and smiled at this. “I do not know your father, Kareef,” he said. “But I am sure that he was happy not to see you go...but to see you broaden your knowledge.”
Certainty cannot arise from ignorance, Kareef thought. But he tried to smile. “Perhaps you're right, Ambassador. Yet it is still hard to accept a fate I did not choose.”
Now it was Qusay's turn to look away. “Fate can be a cruel word,” he said finally. “It is a thing many of the Faithful struggle with. For how can any of us be said to have choice, to have free will, if our entire lives are written in the Book before we are born? And yet it is surely written,” he reminded Kareef, “that nothing will happen to us, except what Allah has decreed for us.”
Chapter 35
Kaleb: the polite kingdom
“When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good, other things become bad.”
– Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Way, by Lao Tse
By the time they had crossed the desert of Nevada and entered the outer border of the Kingdom of Deseret they were nearly out of water. Horses, he had discovered, can be thirsty animals. While Boss Trent had a considerable supply of beer for his men, the majority of the water in the barrels of a couple of his wagons was for the horses. A small amount was allowed for cooking, but utensils, dishes, and pots and pans were generally scoured with sand, of which Nevada seemed to have an infinite supply.
All of this made sense to him, but he was surprised to learn that sand was used for personal cleansing as well. This he was not accustomed to back in central Angeles, where old swizzles refreshed by the Queen provided adequate fresh water.
As they followed the highway 80 of the Ancients past an old place called Wendover Trent informed him they were now in Deseret.
“A very dry country,
” Kaleb commented to him as they were setting out again after an early breakfast.
Trent laughed. “This is the hardest part of our route. East of here near the lake and mountains by Esalsee you'll see more trees. For now, we just have to push through the last of the dry land.”
He had, of course, seen maps of the lands along the trade route back in Angeles, but on them the city Esalsee was called New Jerusalem. As they walked back to the wagons he asked Trent about it.
“It's had several names,” the trader said. “Back before the Fall, before the Tourists, it was named after the great Salk Lake. Then for a time it was called new Jerusalem. About twenty years back the First Presidency decided to change the name again. They wanted to recall the good old days, so they made the new name from the initials of the original name.”
“You mean, the King changed it?”
Trent shook his head. “They don't have a king. I know, it's weird. They have a ruler, but they call him the First President.”
“You mean their form of government changed recently?” He knew that most countries had a central ruler. Texas called theirs the Honcho. Rado called theirs the Governor.
“No, it's an old title. Control is vested in the First Presidency, which includes the First president and his Counselors. Usually he has at least two. He chooses them from the Quorum of Twelve.”
None of this meant anything to Kaleb. He grimaced mentally as he realized that his position as Librarian for the Queen had allowed him to learn many things, yet not nearly enough to prepare him for this journey. He did know that the leader of the original Union had been called the President. “Are they a democracy, then, like the People's Republic of Wyoming?”
Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) Page 11