The Sea of the Dead

by Barry Wolverton

  Bren tried to sit up, but a set of hands he didn’t recognize gently stopped him. “Lie still,” said the stranger. “Your wounds are quite serious.”

  Bren realized his tunic was undone, and he felt for the places where the blades had entered his body. Two were already stitched shut; the man was working on the third.

  “What happened?” said Bren.

  “Our new friend here saved my life, and he’s trying to save yours, if you’ll let him,” said Sean. “Quit talking. You’re wasting your strength.”

  What strength? thought Bren, who let his head fall back against something soft. He was soon out cold.

  The next time he opened his eyes, it was daytime. Natural light filled the entrance to the cave, and Sean and the stranger were sitting around a small fire, sharing a meal. The stranger was thin and had a full grey beard. He wore a white turban and a dark green robe that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time.

  “Ah, Bren is awake!” said the man.

  “How do you feel?” Sean asked.

  Bren wasn’t sure how to answer. He was alive, and when he sat up, he felt stiff and sore, but his pain was numbed. He looked down at his stomach and sides and admired the neat surgical work and tidy stitches.

  “Meet Ali-Shir,” said Sean. “Warrior poet and surgeon.”

  Ali-Shir laughed. “Your friend is being funny. I know a few things.”

  It was Sean’s turn to laugh. “A few things? You singlehandedly disarmed all three of those monks and sent them running for their lives! And then you performed some combination of witchcraft and surgery to keep Bren from bleeding to death!”

  “So the three monks are still out there?” said Bren.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Ali-Shir. “Proof that your friend exaggerates. A real warrior would have killed them, I suppose.”

  “Aren’t you afraid they’ll come back? With friends?”

  Sean smiled. “We moved. While you were asleep, lad.”

  Bren looked around. He never would have known he was in a different cave. “How do you know English?” he said. “I guess you’ve already explained that while I was out.”

  “I don’t mind telling my story twice,” said Ali-Shir. “I am a linguist. I grew up on the eastern frontier of the Persian Empire; my parents were Turkic. As a child, I learned several of the central Asian languages as well as Persian. I received an invitation to study at the House of Wisdom, in Baghdad, but I was expelled for heresy.”

  “Heresy?” said Bren.

  “I asserted that the Turkic language was superior to all others for the purposes of literature. The Persian elite did not fancy that. So I came back home, and then began traveling east, to learn and study the Himalayan and Chinese languages. I picked up English in Baghdad because of the Church of the East there.”

  “And you picked up medicine and martial arts as well?” said Sean.

  Ali-Shir shrugged. “I am a poet,” he said. “I will admit to that. In fact, while you were recovering, Bren, I was composing a few lines about your bravery.”

  “Bravery?” said Bren.

  “I was as shocked as you are by the use of the word,” said Sean. “What you did was plain foolishness.”

  Bren tried to activate his memory, recalling the events of however many days ago that was. He had thrown himself in front of Sean, right in the path of the three blades, because . . . because he thought the black jade would protect him. Instinctively he reached for his pocket, to make sure the stone was still there. It was, but why hadn’t it worked?

  “Why were they trying to kill us?” said Bren.

  “Not us,” said Ali-Shir. “You! The leader referred to Bren as the Knowledge Thief.”

  “What does that mean?” said Bren. It sounded like something Mr. Black would have called him back when Bren used to sneak books out of the old man’s store.

  “Well, did you steal something from them?” said Ali-Shir.

  “I don’t even know who they are!” said Bren.

  “Ah, I see,” said Ali-Shir. “Judging by their dress, I’d say they were part of the League of Blood.”

  “Bloody terrific,” said Sean.

  “The League of Blood is not traditionally a violent group,” said Ali-Shir.

  “You could’ve fooled me!” said Bren, holding open his tunic to show off his three stitched wounds.

  “What I mean is, their name doesn’t mean what it sounds like. At least, not in translation. The League of Blood believes certain people were born to control the knowledge of the world. Or perhaps the knowledge in the world is more accurate.”

  “You mean, blood like family?” said Sean.

  “Precisely. This select group of heirs is called the Nine Unknown. They supposedly guard nine sacred books of knowledge that would be dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands.” Ali-Shir turned to Bren. “These monks must believe you have stolen one, or something connected to them.”

  Bren couldn’t believe he almost died over something so absurd. “Why in heaven’s name do they think that?” he said.

  “Wait a second,” said Sean. “You said the monk at the Leopard’s Nest warned you about men in red sashes. Why would he have done that, given what Ali-Shir just told us?”

  Bren just shook his head. “I don’t know, honestly! I didn’t steal anything from the Leopard’s Nest.”

  “Are you sure?” said Ali-Shir.

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  Ali-Shir thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “What about a gift? Did one of the monks give you something? Something that perhaps wasn’t his to give?”

  “No,” said Bren. “They gave us food and shelter. And the clothes I’m wearing. The ones I had been traveling in were falling apart.”

  “They didn’t give me a new outfit,” said Sean.

  Ali-Shir came over to Bren. “May I?” he said, motioning for Bren to take off his tunic. Bren handed it to him, and Ali-Shir turned it inside out, looking at it backward and forward. Finally he spread it out along the ground and began picking at the stitching along the inside of the collar. After he’d worked at it for several minutes, Bren could see what he was up to.

  “There’s something sewn into the back?”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” said Sean.

  But all Ali-Shir was pulling was a large square of fabric from inside Bren’s tunic, carefully working loose the threads so as not to damage the fabric itself. When he was done, he turned the loose piece over and laid it on the ground for all of them to see. It was an incredibly detailed painting, an ornate geometric pattern of circles and squares, with figures of gods or people and cosmological images. The innermost circle had a background of sky blue and appeared to show three mountains thrust out of snow or ice, the sun rising behind the one in the center.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Bren.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Sean.

  “We may all be damned,” said Ali-Shir. “If this is worth killing for, then the League will not stop pursuing you.”

  Bren wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Why him?

  “Do you have any notion of what this is?” Sean asked.

  “In a literal sense, yes,” said Ali-Shir. “It looks like a tangka. It’s a style of Tibetan art, a painting on cloth. Often used as teaching tools because they typically depict religious stories or historical events.”

  “Sort of like a book?” said Bren.

  Ali-Shir thought about it. “Yes, I suppose you could consider them booklike in a way.”

  “So you’re saying this small painting might be one of the nine books of sacred knowledge,” said Sean.

  “I did not say that,” said Ali-Shir. “I said it appeared to be a tangka. Your conclusions beyond that are as good as mine.”

  “I should just leave it here,” said Bren. “That way if anyone catches us, I can prove I didn’t steal anything.”

  “Perhaps,” said Ali-Shir. “Assuming they believe you. Then again, perhaps you were given this fo
r a reason, and are meant to use it.”

  “How?” said Bren, not meaning to raise his voice. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . this is too much.”

  Ali-Shir gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think I should put your tunic back together for you. And then I believe I can get both of you out of here safely, headed west. There are caravans that pass north of here, not too far, traveling one of the old Silk Roads to Cashmere, India, and Persia.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” said Bren.

  Ali-Shir shook his head. “No, my young friend. Sean explained to me that your ultimate goal is to reach home. Your home. My home, and destiny, lie here.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  FUGITIVES

  A man who might have been a cadaver dressed up for a prank sat propped at the end of the church bench, clutching a Bible. It was no ordinary Bible, either. It looked to weigh half as much as the man himself, bound in thick brown leather and held closed with two brass-buckled leather straps. The man held it as if it were his last worldly possession, which in fact it was.

  It was hot in the church. It was hot everywhere in India, and the thin man nestled into the blanketing heat and fell asleep.

  He had a strange dream. He was sitting at a long wooden table in a candlelit hall, with a ledger opened before him, filled with names and notations. With one hand he held a large quill pen, and with the other he touched the end of his nose, which extended far in front of his face and curved to a narrow point. He thought that was odd, so he reached into his robes for a looking glass (How did he know he would find one?) and looked at his reflection. He was Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of writing, the scribe for the gods.

  He replaced the looking glass and looked up from his ledger to find he was not alone in the long hall. In the middle of the floor was a large set of scales, being operated by a jackal-headed man—Anubis. Waiting hungrily alongside was Ammit, the god with the body of a lion and the head of a crocodile. Anubis had placed the Feather of Truth on one side, and on the other, he prepared to set a fresh heart that Thoth recognized. It belonged to Emily Owen, mother of Brendan Owen. The scribe felt the blood run cold through his ibis heart. He tried to put the quill pen aside, but found he couldn’t. He was compelled to record the results of judgment, whether Emily Owen would be allowed to pass into the Afterlife or be devoured by Ammit.

  Anubis lifted the beating heart in both hands and moved it toward the scale as the crocodile god opened his mouth, his teeth stained with the dried blood and tissue of unworthy hearts.

  Thoth felt his hand shake as Anubis set the heart upon the scale, and the breath caught in his narrow throat as the heart began to descend while the Feather of Truth slowly rose from the ground.

  When the heart and the feather were level, the scales came to rest. Ammit closed his mouth in disappointment and stalked away; Thoth, his hand still shaking, recorded the result in his ledger.

  But he wasn’t done. It was the scribe’s duty to record the spells Emily Owen would need to pass through the Afterlife—to write her Book of the Dead.

  He was alone in the hall now. The ledger was gone and before him was a long, blank scroll of papyrus. The man dutifully began to write the necessary hieroglyphs across the page, somehow knowing them without knowing. He wondered if he would get to see Emily Owen in person, but instinctively he knew his purpose was to guide her to another—her son. It would be a long book, a difficult one to finish, and as he paused to contemplate the difficulty, someone began trying to take the book away from him, tugging at it from behind. Someone he couldn’t see, but he cried out, “No! I have to finish! It’s a matter of life and death!”

  Archibald, wake up! Archibald!

  Archibald Black woke with a start, clutching at the Bible in his arms. Sitting next to him was David Owen, one hand on Black’s shoulder and the other on the Bible.

  “Don’t worry, Archibald,” said David. “I’m not trying to steal your Bible. I was just afraid the bloody huge thing would crush you.”

  Black tried to sit up, but the Gutenberg Bible was in fact so heavy that it more or less had him pinned against the edge of the church bench. When David Owen held his hands out again, Black nodded and let him take the Bible and help him sit upright.

  “Did you know you fell asleep?” said David.

  “Of course I did!” said Black, checking the corners of his mouth for drool. “I’m exhausted, as I’m sure you are.”

  David nodded. “Speaking of exhausted, I’m afraid I may have exhausted our options for getting out of here. Apparently Jammu becomes the winter capital for Cashmere. Everyone’s coming in; no one’s going out.”

  “That’s preposterous,” said Black, stretching his rather lengthy back and arms to restore his circulation. Church pews apparently were universally uncomfortable, to prevent the wicked from dozing off. Black was no ordinary sinner, though. He and David Owen had come to India on false pretenses, as part of Britannia’s Indian Royal Survey in the service of Mogul emperor Akbar, and now were unofficially fugitives, having used the distraction of an earthquake in northern India to escape the emperor’s army and flee to Cashmere. David Owen claimed this was a disputed territory, but they had discovered that wasn’t exactly true. In Emperor Akbar’s mind, there was no dispute who ruled Cashmere.

  Now they were trying to escape again. By David Owen’s reckoning as a professional mapmaker, they were due east from Baghdad, which had been their original destination—the House of Wisdom. But they were nearly two thousand miles away. Black had joked that there was an old saying: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” But there were two of them, so everything was double.

  David Owen hadn’t found the joke funny. After all, making it to the House of Wisdom was never much of a plan. It didn’t necessarily bring them any closer to finding his son, Bren. In fact, it might be taking them farther from him.

  “Obviously people are going to be traveling out of Jammu, David,” said Black. “And we haven’t exhausted all our options. That’s why I’m here.” He indicated the sanctuary of the church, which remained empty but for the two of them.

  “What sort of church is this?” David wondered. “Doesn’t seem to fit here.”

  “It’s one established by the disciples of Prester John,” Black explained. “Supposedly the last Christian king of the East. It’s almost a cult, really, with pockets of true believers sprinkled across the Orient and India.”

  “Are we seeking sanctuary here?” said David.

  “No,” said Black. “Deliverance. Ah, here comes our man now.”

  A creaking door slammed shut, and David Owen saw the stooped older man shuffling across the altar and up the aisle toward them. “You’re Black?” he said when he was still a few steps away.

  Archibald pushed himself to standing while David remained seated, holding the enormous Bible. “You must be Prester Thaddeus,” said Black. The two shook hands, and the stooped man sat down, motioning for Black to do the same.

  “Now, as I understand it, you’re a long way from home,” said Prester Thaddeus, in a cheerful voice that David Owen thought had a hint of avarice in it. Here were two wayward travelers, he must be thinking, and he is going to take advantage of them.

  “Fortunately, we don’t need to get home,” said Black. “Just to Persia.”

  “Still a world away,” said Prester Thaddeus. “How do you imagine I can help?”

  Black arched a scolding eyebrow at the minister. “I don’t imagine anything. I was told by the person who set up this meeting that you could arrange for my friend and me to join a delegation to the Church of the East, leaving in a few days.”

  The minister clucked his tongue. “Ah, you heard correctly. We are sending a delegation westward, but those pilgrims were carefully selected. Each has something special, you might say, to offer.”

  I was right! thought David triumphantly, and he elbowed Black in the ribs.

  “Ow! What the devil did you do that for?” Ru
bbing his side, Black turned back to Prester Thaddeus. “And might you have a suggestion for what we could offer? To make us worthy pilgrims?”

  The minister’s eyes went directly to the Bible in David Owen’s arms. Black arched the other eyebrow.

  “You must be joking,” said Black. “This is a Gutenberg Bible. Do you have any idea how rare it is?”

  David laughed. Of course he does, you twit! Prester Thaddeus just smiled.

  “Christian Bibles are hard to come by in India. Such an important example of the Word of God would be invaluable to our ministry here.”

  “No doubt,” said Black. “But I simply can’t part with this. We need it for a much more vital purpose.”

  Prester Thaddeus merely shrugged and stood up, his stooped figure seeming to lunge at them. “Very well, perhaps there is another way.” He motioned for his guests to stand and follow him.

  Black turned smugly to Owen. “You just have to be firm with people sometimes. Show some backbone.”

  “He gave up awfully easy,” said David. “Although I must say, these days it’s easier than ever to see your backbone.”

  They followed the minister through the creaking door at the back of the church, along a hallway, and through another door that opened onto a blinding light. For a moment David Owen thought the odd little minister had delivered them directly to salvation, until he realized they were just outside.

  “Where on earth are you taking us?” Black demanded, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  Prester Thaddeus didn’t answer but kept walking until they entered a narrow alleyway that led to an unmarked door.

  “What is this?” said Black, more confused than commanding now.

  “The key to everything,” said Prester Thaddeus, and he knocked twice. Nothing happened for a moment or two, until Black and Owen heard a lock being turned, and slowly the door opened inward. A light from within was just bright enough to see that it was a girl who had answered the door. And even in the dim light Black could tell that she had the strangest green eyes he had ever seen.