The Ruined City

by John Wilson

  “Shenxian may think he will be able to control the forces he would let loose by putting on the mask. Ambition can blind us to many things, and Shenxian is very ambitious.”

  “I will talk with him,” Kun said, without much hope in his voice. “Perhaps I can persuade him of the folly of his plan.”

  “I fear that he is determined and set upon his course. Already he has sent messengers across the mountains to seek an alliance with the Ma Zhang.”

  “The Horse Warriors!” Kun exclaimed. “But they are people of the flatlands. They’ve never crossed the mountains.”

  “Never is a long time, and we don’t know what Shenxian has offered. If he seeks unlimited power, then he can offer much.”

  “But if all he needs to do to gain his power is put on the Golden Mask, why does he need the Ma Zhang?”

  “Until he puts on the Golden Mask, he is still mortal. A powerful mortal, indeed, but still one who can be defeated. I suspect he wishes to use the Ma Zhang to attack Sanxingdui in the time of danger. If they can occupy the city, even for a brief period, Shenxian will be free to open the Chamber of the Deep, release the mask and put it on. When he does that, nothing will matter. The world will be lost in a new chaos.”

  “But he must do this at the time of danger?” Kun asked, clinging to some hope.

  “Yes,” Jingshen agreed. “It must occur when the Min Mountains fall.”

  “But how can he know when that will be?”

  “I don’t know, but once it happens, I fear it will be too late for us.”

  “We must find out when.”

  “I agree,” Jingshen said, “but how?”

  As they sipped their tea and wondered about the future, neither Jingshen nor Kun noticed the tiny tremble that ran across the floor of the tearoom as the Min Mountains far to the west flexed ever so gently.

  AYLFORD

  THE DREAMING DAWN

  The sun hauled itself slowly into the narrow slab of clear sky between the eastern horizon and a strip of dark, rolling clouds. It announced its arrival by painting the undersides of the clouds a deep purple, but the first rays to illuminate Arkminster tinted the spires and office buildings an encouraging orange. Night fears were pushed aside, eyes cleared of sleep, breakfasts eaten, doors opened, vehicles retrieved from garages. The well-kept streets began to fill with the bustle and babble of another day.

  Satisfied with its work, the sun swept on. Rays of light fired the tops of the Black Hills and found their way between the trunks of the fir trees and into the open spaces, where curiously carved, moss-draped stones stood in disturbing patterns, as if awaiting the arrival of someone—or something—to perform ancient rituals in their midst. The sharp line of dawn crept grudgingly down the treed slopes in a vain attempt to plumb the deepest reaches of the precipitous canyon where the dark water of the Bane River flowed endlessly over smooth rocks that were molten when the earth was young.

  With obvious relief, the sunlight escaped the hills and raced across the southern plain, bringing the day to the pebbly beaches and the jagged black rocks of the Shipwreck Coast. Only one community, Aylford, huddled in the shadow of Knife Ridge, remained in darkness.

  Aylford had once been a thriving port. Boats had navigated the Bane River and unloaded the ocean’s bounty, passenger ships had delivered immigrants, and freighters had brought cargo from around the world. But a great storm had destroyed many of the waterfront warehouses and one of the largest Chinatowns on the west coast, the river had silted up, and the docks had emptied. The town’s population declined as families moved to nearby Arkminster to seek opportunities and a better life. Now only the small Aylford College and the minor summer influx of tourists kept the town going.

  At last the sun turned its attention to Aylford. It touched the gothic spires of the college, brightened the mansions on Hangman’s Hill, washed over the portables outside Charles Dexter Ward High School and slipped along Arcton Street to number 194, where a shaft shone through the narrow gap in the curtains of Howard Peter Lawson’s bedroom window. It skittered over the clutter of books and binders on Howard’s desk and the pile of clothes on his floor, and climbed onto his bed.

  Howard was restless. His eyeballs moved jerkily beneath closed lids, and his fingers clenched and unclenched spasmodically. Blankets had been thrown to one side, and only the twisted, sweat-soaked sheet remained. Howard was dreaming. He was sitting at his kitchen table across from Madison Danforth, the hottest girl in tenth grade.

  Two things about this told Howard that he was dreaming. First, the real Madison was light years out of his league and acted as if he didn’t exist. Second, they were talking about books, and as far as Howard could tell, Madison read nothing more than the instructions on bottles of hair products and the price tags in expensive clothing shops. Still, the dream was a pleasant enough fantasy until Leon appeared.

  Howard and Madison were sharing a mutual love of Neil Gaiman novels when the beautiful girl across the table morphed into Leon Whateley. Leon was Howard’s opposite in every way. Having been held back a year, he was the oldest kid in grade ten and the only one who had a full driver’s license. Howard, having skipped a grade, was the youngest and had a beat-up bicycle. Leon had everything—rich parents, a flashy sports car and the beautiful Madison. Howard had a paper route.

  Leon leaned across the table and leered. His watery blue eyes, rubbery lips and dramatically receding chin had earned him the nickname Fishman, but only Madison dared to call him that. Right now he looked particularly fishy—he was soaking wet, and strands of seaweed clung to his hair and draped over his shoulders. A hermit crab crawled out of his left nostril and scuttled over his pasty cheek.

  “What do you want?” Howard asked.

  Surprisingly, Leon laughed. He raised his right arm and pointed, tears of laughter adding to the salty moisture on his cheeks.

  Howard looked down. He saw he wasn’t wearing the aged sweatpants and Led Zeppelin T-shirt that was his usual night attire. Instead, he was dressed in shiny green pants with golden cuffs. His jacket had an intricately woven golden dragon on the front.

  Puzzled, Howard looked back up. Leon had vanished. Sitting in his place was a Chinese girl wearing a costume identical to his. Howard was about to ask who she was when an ugly dog jumped onto her lap, tilted its head and stared at him.

  The girl smiled, overwhelming Howard in a feeling of deep contentment. He smiled back, but the girl and the small dog grew dim and disappeared. Darkness began to slide in from the edges of Howard’s vision, and the feeling of contentment was replaced by a sense of foreboding.

  As the sunlight crossed Howard’s face, the fitful motion of his eyes and hands ceased. He woke up, but his eyelids remained closed as he tried, unsuccessfully, to make sense of his dream. When the lingering feeling of dread had dwindled, Howard took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The sunbeam was scrambling across the wall, and he watched it flicker and fade as the sun was swallowed by the dark clouds covering the sky.

  “Breakfast’s ready,” Howard’s mom shouted from the kitchen. “It’s your favorite—Smiley French Toast.”

  Howard groaned. He wanted to shout back, “I’m not five anymore!” What he said instead was, “Coming, Mom.”

  Howard grabbed some clothes from the floor, threw them on and headed to the kitchen. There it was on the table: a slice of bread, dipped in egg and fried. When Howard was five, his mom had struggled to get him to eat anything other than Cheerios. His dad had the brilliant idea of making a face on French toast using blueberries for eyes, a segment of orange for a nose and a line of chocolate sauce for a mouth. It had worked, and for weeks Howard had leapt out of bed in the morning to see what expression his dad had put on the face.

  “Thanks, Mom,” he said now, sitting down and popping a blueberry eye into his mouth. He had tried once to tell his mom that he didn’t want Smiley French Toast anymore, but it hadn’t ended well. Because Howard had been a sickly baby, and her only child, his mom had always been overpro
tective. As he’d grown, she’d continued to treat him like a much younger child, perhaps believing that babying him would keep him close to her and safeguard him against danger. Things had gotten worse after Howard’s dad was committed to the Aylford Institute for Psychiatric Care. That was almost a year ago now.

  Howard thought about his dad—and all the good times they’d had together—every day. He visited him once a week, even though his dad had no idea who Howard was. His mind had gone somewhere far away, and it didn’t look like it was going to return anytime soon. Howard was convinced his dad would want him and his mom to move on. Unfortunately, his mom clung compulsively to the past, convinced her husband was about to recover and would be home in a week or two. She obsessively cleaned and rearranged his tools in the garage and his clothes in his closet. She even recorded every episode of his favorite TV show so that he could catch up when he came home. Not that Howard could criticize. He’d moved his dad’s turntable, amplifier and vast collection of classic rock vinyl into his own room. Sometimes he spent entire evenings there, carefully playing odd albums by weird musicians with even weirder haircuts.

  “What a lovely clean plate,” his mom said, clearing the dishes and placing Howard’s lunch bag beside him. At least she didn’t make him take his old Star Wars lunch box to school. “I’ve packed you a nice healthy lunch today.”

  Like every day, Howard thought, but he said, “Thanks, Mom,” and got up from the table. “Gotta go. I have some studying to do before class.”

  “That’s good. Keep your grades up. Dad will be proud of you.”

  Howard grabbed his backpack, gave his mom a hug and headed out the door.

  “I won’t be home when you get back,” she shouted after him. “It’s Friday, so I’ve got my cosmic harmony group. But I’ll put some vegan chili in the slow cooker, and we can eat when I get back.”

  “Okay, Mom,” Howard shouted from the front gate. “I’m going to visit Dad this afternoon.”

  “That’s lovely. He’ll enjoy that. Have a good day, sweetie.”

  Howard scanned the street to see if anyone he knew was within hearing range. It was really unlikely that Leon would be in this part of town, but if he was and heard “sweetie,” Howard might as well run away from home and join the circus.

  AYLFORD

  SCHOOL LUNCHES

  It was a typical lunch break at C.D.W. High. The cool girls were out in the open, giggling and preening where they were certain everyone could see them. The jocks were flexing their muscles and shooting hoops where they were sure the cool girls could see them. The 7-Eleven kids were wandering back with their slushies. And Howard was standing on his own beside a portable, worrying.

  Worrying was Howard’s specialty. Fearing that a single spot would burst into rampaging acne, that he’d turn over an exam paper and discover the questions meant nothing, that he’d forget which room his next class was in. None of these things had ever happened to him, but the possibility that they might could send him into an emotional tailspin.

  He was also afraid of the dark.

  There was a rational explanation for fearing what hides in darkness, of course. Thousands of years earlier, the dark could have been concealing a tiger, a deadly snake or a mortal enemy. None of that was likely to be outside Aylford’s only high school, but for someone with anxiety, there was always something just out of sight—some lurking social horror hidden around the next corner.

  Howard was used to this, but the darkness he feared most was different. It had started several months back. Howard would be having a perfectly ordinary dream, often about Madison, and darkness would begin to form at the edges of his vision. It would gradually thicken and move in—black tendrils overwhelming his dream with foreboding. Howard would wake up with a sense of dread but without any idea what was scaring him. He simply had a feeling there was something in the darkness that he should be very afraid of.

  The feeling faded with the daylight, but Howard was an expert worrier, so he began to think the encroaching darkness was a sign he was having a stroke or an aneurism. He thought about telling his mom, but the last thing he needed was his mother freaking out. One day, as he watched everyone else getting on with their lives, Howard promised himself he would go to the doctor about it. Meanwhile, the possibilities for creative worrying were limitless.

  Howard felt something rub against his ankle. He looked down to see bright green eyes staring up at him. “Hello…um, cat,” he said, realizing he didn’t know the animal’s name. It was jet black and belonged to the Chinese girl who had entered his grade at the beginning of the semester. Her name was Cate—short for Hecate, she had said when she was introduced—and the cat followed her everywhere, even to school. It wasn’t allowed into the buildings, but it hung around outside, doing whatever it was that cats did, and it was always by the door when the day ended. Howard bent to stroke the animal’s head, but it darted under the portable.

  A large raindrop thudded against the ground at Howard’s feet. He looked up to see low dark clouds racing across the sky. A gust of wind rattled, bumped and bounced a cardboard coffee cup across the parking lot. Another storm coming through, Howard thought miserably. It seemed like there was one every few days, howling down out of the Black Hills.

  “Hey, lonely boy! I’ve got a message for you.”

  Howard jumped at the voice and turned to see Leon lounging against the edge of the portable. He didn’t look as fishy as he had in the dream, but he was no George Clooney either.

  “Madison wants to talk to you.” Leon inclined his head toward the school’s west wing, where the beautiful and/or rich people hung out.

  “Madison?” Howard squeaked as sweat broke out on his palms.

  “Yeah,” Leon said lazily. “You know, the good-looking blonde.”

  “Why?”

  “God, you’re such a dork. Why do you think? Maybe she wants to discuss the latest fashion trends.”

  Howard cringed at the sarcasm while Leon scanned his faded sweatshirt, torn jeans and scuffed runners. Leon dressed casually, but Howard knew that his designer hoodie had cost more than his own entire wardrobe.

  “Why she would want to talk to you at all is beyond me,” Leon drawled. “But she said, Leon, go over and ask Howard to join us. I want to tell him something. Now, I can never refuse a pretty girl, so here I am. I’ve passed on the message. The rest is up to you.”

  Leon flashed his perfect teeth in what was the most insincere smile Howard had ever seen and strolled back across the schoolyard as if the entire world bored him.

  Howard’s worry level skyrocketed. This was no dream—Madison wanted to talk to him. The girl with the perfect skin, every hair in place, clothing special-ordered from Italy and the most startlingly wide brown eyes Howard had ever seen had noticed him. Or was this some cruel trick of Leon’s to suck him into their good-looking world just to mortally embarrass him? Should he take the bait? Should he stay where he was? What if Madison really did want to talk to him? His whole life could change.

  Tendrils of darkness edged in at the corners of his eyes. Howard panicked. This had happened only in dreams before. The stroke was coming. He shook his head and blinked hard. The darkness withdrew, but Howard was unnaturally aware of his breathing and heartbeat. The raindrops hitting the roof of the portable behind him sounded like cannon fire. He had to make a decision. He inhaled deeply and took a couple of steps forward.

  “Don’t go,” said someone behind him.

  Howard spun around to see Cate leaning out one of the portable’s windows, the black cat perched on the window ledge beside her. They both looked bored as they stared over at Madison and the others.

  “Why not?” Howard asked.

  Cate shrugged. “If you’re too dumb to realize you’re being set up, it’s not my job to convince you.” This was already the longest conversation they’d ever had.

  Oddly, Howard didn’t feel insulted by her comment. After all, she was probably right. “Why do you care if I’m being set u
p?”

  Cate turned her head slowly and stared down at him. She wore heavy, dark eye makeup and peered out through a black fringe. She was Chinese, yet something about her reminded Howard of Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of the Pretenders, an old rock band his dad was really into. He began to feel uncomfortable under this strange girl’s intense gaze.

  “I don’t particularly care,” she said at last.

  At least, Howard thought that was what she said. He wasn’t sure he’d seen her lips move.

  Cate withdrew her head from the window. With a disdainful look at Howard, the cat disappeared after her.

  Across the schoolyard, Madison and Leon appeared to be arguing. Howard made a snap decision and jogged around to the portable entrance. Cate was just coming down the steps.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Cate tilted her head in acknowledgment, and she and the cat walked past him.

  “Hecate was a Greek goddess, wasn’t she?” he blurted out at her retreating back.

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Howard winced. He couldn’t believe he had said something so cheesy—another opportunity for social interaction blown.

  Cate continued walking, but after a couple of steps she turned back. “Yes, she was,” she said. “And Howard in Middle English means ‘sheepherder.’ ”

  Those dark eyes were staring at Howard again. He knew he was supposed to talk into this silence, but his mind was a void. Then his dad came to his rescue with something he had once told Howard.

  “It’s also the first name of Duane Allman.” Howard wanted to explain that Duane had been the lead guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band and had died in a motorcycle accident, but a tiny voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to shut up.

  A faint smile softened Cate’s face. “I knew that,” she said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  A direct question. An invitation to be a geek. Howard could handle that. “You know the story that Duane Allman crashed his motorcycle into a truck carrying peaches, and that’s why the surviving band members called their next album Eat a Peach?”