The Book Knights

by J. G. McKenney

  Rounding a corner past a low-rise apartment complex, Arti breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the bridge, lamp posts sticking up like quills from its arching back. But her celebration at seeing the glowing path to freedom was cut short when she noticed two black Destrier sedans parked up the street. If it had not been for the light cast from the bridge, Arti wouldn’t have noticed them.

  With their high, curved fenders and wide running boards, the vehicles had “Incendi” written all over them. It was impossible to tell if there was anyone in the cars; even in daylight, the thick tinted glass would have shielded the occupants from prying eyes. Arti knew that turning back now would be pointless; they would easily run her down. All she could do was pretend to be passing by the bridge, then make a run for it.

  Continuing along the street, Arti stared down at her vidlink, trying to look casual, just another person on her way to work the night shift. Keep moving, she told herself. Don’t look up.

  The bridge was approaching on her left, getting closer with each step. Almost there. Her heart was racing, and her breaths came in short gasps. Without lifting her head, she glanced up at the cars only a few hundred feet away.

  Now!

  Arti stuffed the vidlink into her pocket and sprinted toward the bridge, the sudden acceleration throwing back her hood. The Destriers’ engines rumbled to life, their tires screeching on the asphalt as they raced after her. Cradling the duffel bag, she ran as fast as she could up the bridge’s gentle incline, but the span was deceptively long; there was no way she’d make it across before the cars caught up. Then Arti heard the vehicles squeal to a stop behind her. Still running, she looked back, wondering why they had ended the chase. When she faced forward again, she had her answer.

  A tall figure stood at the apex of the bridge. Arti stopped suddenly, her feet skidding across its slippery steel surface.

  The man approached Arti, hands raised in a gesture of calm. Passing through an island of light cast down from one of the bridge lamps, the flame insignia on the man’s fedora shimmered, and his face was revealed. Arti recognized him immediately, the angular jaw, the piercing eyes. It was the Incendi captain in the newsflash, the one who had given Robb Tulley his reward.

  “There’s no reason to run away,” said the man. It was the same hard, sharp voice she’d heard from behind the bookshelf of her family’s library. He was only thirty feet from Arti and edging closer.

  “Your parents are safe. They’re getting the help they need. I’ll take you to them,” he added, extending his arm to her.

  Twenty feet.

  “It’s not your fault, Arti.” Hearing the Incendi speak her name sent a chill up her spine. He knew who she was. He knew everything.

  Ten.

  Arti backed away from the man, and he stopped moving toward her. “Please,” he begged. “I just want to talk to you.”

  Arti heard car doors slamming behind her. Four troopers, big men carrying electroshock batons, were standing beside their vehicles. They didn’t look like they just wanted to talk.

  The Incendi captain spoke again, but this time the words that came from his mouth were of a language she didn’t recognize, possessing a lyrical quality, a strange intonation and rhythm. In a blur of movement, he closed the gap between them, driving his index finger into Arti’s chest. The focused strike sent her tumbling backward onto the bridge platform. She landed hard on the steel surface, and the duffel bag flew from her arms.

  The officer raised a hand, signaling his men. “Take her.”

  Arti rolled onto her side, unable to rise. The blow had knocked the wind out of her, and she gasped for air. As the troopers trudged up the bridge to collect her, she forced down her panic and looked for a way to escape. The only option was to roll into the canal; the edge was near. But a voice from below the bridge platform offered a better plan.

  “This way,” it hissed. A grate lifted not three feet from where Arti was lying. From the narrow opening, a hand emerged, pulling the duffel bag down. “Hurry!”

  Though still reeling from the blow, Arti managed to crawl across the bridge deck and squeeze through the gap. A shout rang out from above: “Stop her!”

  Light filtered down through the latticework of the bridge’s steel platform, illuminating the substructure of beams and girders in a checkerboard pattern. Through the flickering ribbons of light, Arti could see the back of the stranger who had come to her aid. The boy was smaller than her, and thin, wearing a wedge-shaped cap and dark clothes that blended with his dark skin; it was hard for Arti not to lose him in the shadows. He moved like a cat, scampering across the narrow framework of bridge supports with amazing agility, holding the bulky duffel bag in front of him as he ran. In contrast, Arti was slow and awkward, picking her way clumsily behind, feet sliding through mounds of powdery pigeon droppings.

  “Stay with me,” ordered the boy. Throwing Arti’s duffel bag over his shoulder, he jumped to a ladder attached to a thick vertical column. Arti could hear the splashing sound of water below and wondered where he could be leading her. Are we going to swim for it?

  The noise of the churning current grew louder as Arti descended. She could smell the water now, a wet sliminess filling her nostrils. The farther below the bridge deck she climbed, the darker it got. She was surprised and relieved when she saw the figure of the boy standing below her at water level, balancing on what appeared to be some kind of raft. Arti stepped from the last wrung of the ladder onto the craft, a mishmash of wooden planks and timber pieces bound together with wire and rope. It shifted under her weight, and water splashed over its edges. For a moment, Arti was sure it was going to sink.

  A yell from above echoed through the steel skeleton of the bridge; the troopers were almost to the ladder. The boy untied a frayed rope holding the raft to the foot of the bridge and pushed off. The craft jerked as it was grabbed by the flow, slowly picking up speed, leaving the bridge—and the troopers—behind. They could only watch as Arti and the boy drifted away into the night. High above them at the bridge rail, Arti could see the tall Incendi captain’s dark silhouette.

  CHAPTER 3

  The raft came to rest against the half-submerged frame of a dock jutting out from a small boathouse leaning precariously over the island’s rocky shore. Tying the raft off, the boy jumped free of the waterlogged platform and without looking back, called tersely to Arti, “Come on.”

  Arti lifted the soaked duffel bag and followed, noting that those were the first words the boy had uttered since their narrow escape from the bridge. The rusted hinges of the boathouse door groaned as the boy forced his way inside. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a candle and matches; a moment later, the small room was alight. It was the first opportunity Arti had to get a good look at her rescuer, and it was then that she realized he was a she.

  “I thought you were—”

  The girl cut her off, “I don’t care what you thought.” Below her wedge-shaped cap and close-cropped curly black hair, she had a delicate caramel face with large hazel eyes topped with long lashes—an appearance that contrasted sharply with the way she moved and talked. She wore layers of clothing, the cuffs of her shirt sleeves and pant legs frayed and dirty, a pair of boots with the toes torn out completing the ensemble. The girl crossed her arms and scrutinized the dripping duffel bag.

  “Let’s see what you got. Dump it.” The girl’s speech had a hard edge to it, her words crammed together as if syllables were expensive.

  Arti hesitated, unsure of the girl’s motives. “Why?” she asked. “I…I can pay you for helping me.”

  The girl sighed, as if Arti was stating the obvious. “I’ll get to that.” She nodded at the bag. “Now dump it.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Arti obliged, tipping the bag slowly so its contents spilled onto the sagging wooden floor. The girl scanned the supplies, making quick calculations in her head.

  “Fifty flash, not bad. The lighter I can use, the knife and blanket will be easy to sell.” She lifted the ju
g. “And the water’s a bonus.”

  “But I’m not—“

  “What else have you got?” She looked Arti up and down. “Pockets.”

  “Wait…I—”

  “Empty your pockets!”

  Even though she was a head taller than the girl, Arti didn’t put up a fight. Maybe it was all she’d been through this night that stifled her resistance and made her comply. She reached into her pocket and offered her flashlight and vidlink to the girl, careful to keep the letter from her parents concealed.

  When the girl saw the vidlink, she was utterly appalled. “You idiot!” She grabbed it from Arti, wrenched open the door and ran outside. Arti followed, looking on helplessly as the girl tossed the device as far out into the water as she could. It bobbed for a second on the surface then disappeared into the murky depths of the canal.

  “What did you do that for?” protested Arti. “Are you crazy or something?” She followed the girl back inside the boathouse, waiting for an explanation.

  The girl tilted back her cap and glared up at Arti, eyes narrowed, words dripping with sarcasm, “You have no idea how dumb you are. Why do you think the Flames were waiting at the bridge for you?”

  It took a moment for Arti to understand. My vidlink. They were tracking me.

  “I…I didn’t know they could do that,” Arti confessed, trying to wrap her head around it. The admission was yet more proof of how ill prepared she was to survive on her own.

  “Why are the Flames after you?” asked the girl.

  Arti was reluctant to answer, but the girl had saved her and deserved the truth. “We had books and…the Incendi found them.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “You’re a reader?”

  Arti nodded, extending her hand feebly. “My name’s Arti, Arti Penderhagen.”

  The girl ignored the gesture, searching Arti’s face for something that would confirm her extraordinary claim of literacy. Not finding it, she replied coolly, “I’m Gal.”

  “Gal what?”

  “Just Gal.”

  “Okay…um…I really appreciate you helping me…Gal. But I need my stuff.” Arti nodded at the contents of the duffel bag on the floor, “It’s all I have.” She cautiously leaned over and picked up the flash chip, holding it out to the girl. “Like I said, I’ll pay you.”

  The offer of money seemed to appease Gal. “Yeah, you will,” she said matter-of-factly. “I stuck my neck out, and you owe me—big time.”

  “How much do you want?” asked Arti meekly. “I mean, what do you think is fair?”

  Gal laughed. “You ain’t gonna last long in this town, dealin’ like that. You’re lucky you made it this far. I coulda took your stuff back at the bridge and left you for the Flames.”

  The girl was right, and Arti knew it. She was an easy mark for anyone who wanted to take advantage of her. But there was something about Gal that told Arti she was not one of those people, that she was the exception to her parents’ rule.

  “But you didn’t,” Arti said, with a disarming smile.

  Gal started pacing back and forth in frustration, the weak floorboards of the boathouse creaking under each light step. “Maybe I’m the idiot,” she said. She looked at Arti with a mix of contempt and sympathy. “You got no idea how hard it is to live in this rat hole of a town. It ain’t nothin’ like Main. You got everything you need over there—made for good scroungin’ too. But now I can’t even cross the bridge, thanks to you.”

  “You can have the money,” said Arti. “I just need somewhere to stay until I figure things out. Until I can go back.”

  “Go back? Are you nuts? You can’t go back. The Flames will be watchin’ the bridges. Go anywhere near them, you’re dead meat.” Gal looked at Arti like she had two heads. “Why would you even think it?”

  “The Incendi have my parents. I…I have to....”

  “What? Save them?” Gal shook her head. “You’re crazy if you try.”

  The wounded look on Arti’s face made Gal regret her words, and she puffed out a breath in frustration. “I’ll take the fifty flash and fence it for Isle coin. Should be able to get twenty bucks for it to buy some food. The rest of your stuff we split down the middle—keep, trade, or sell. I’ll help you for a bit, but I ain’t makin’ no promises. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  “Alright,” said Arti. “It’s a deal.”

  Gal took a step toward Arti, with her finger raised. “And if you make things hard for me,” she said, poking her, “the deal’s off. Got it?”

  Arti nodded, caressing her shoulder, “Got it.”

  Gal gathered Arti’s supplies and stuffed them into the duffel bag. She extinguished the candle and returned it to its place in the cupboard, leading Arti out of the boathouse and up from the canal’s rocky shore toward a narrow road running alongside the waterway.

  “Where are we going?” asked Arti.

  “My place,” answered Gal, without turning. “Now be quiet.”

  They crossed the road next the canal and began weaving their way through a series of connecting alleys. Navigating through the pitch-blackness, Gal never slowed, only changing course once when they encountered a handful of people in a small courtyard crowded around a fire burning in a barrel. She grabbed Arti by her sleeve and pulled her through a hole in a high mesh fence to avoid the encounter.

  Arti stumbled blindly in Gal’s wake until they arrived at a long single-story building that spanned most of a block. Gal led Arti through a large open window concealed behind a copse of evergreens, the soles of their shoes crunching on fragments of glass strewn across a polished marble floor. Safely concealed inside the building, Gal produced the flashlight from the duffel bag and shone it ahead of them. A wide hall led past a room that had once been encased in glass, a high counter with a doorway dividing the space.

  “This was a school, back in the day,” explained Gal, stepping past the counter.

  They walked through another hall leading out the rear of the first room, rounding a corner past a pile of legless plastic chairs until they were facing a wide steel door covered in dents, beneath a drop ceiling. Deep gouges on the door’s jamb hinted at many unsuccessful attempts to jar it open, and a long silver handle with a bend in it protruded from its right side just above waist height. Handing the flashlight to Arti, Gal removed her cap and pulled a thick twine necklace over her head; a shiny silver key dangled from its end. She inserted the key in the handle’s scarred lock and turned it, at the same time pulling down on the curved lever. A hollow “click” could be heard, and the heavy door swung open with an eerie squeal.

  “This is it,” declared Gal proudly. “Home.”

  A few steps from the door, Gal reached for a lamp sitting on a table and pressed a button on its metal base, igniting it. There was a whispering sound and a sweet metallic odor as the fuel burned, filling the space with a soft white glow.

  It was a large room, one side covered in a series of open metal cabinets with nothing on them but a few stacks of blank paper and cardboard file folders. The other half of the room was empty, save for a small table and chair against the wall, and a narrow bench with a grimy blanket and pillow at one end. Wedged between the tines of a large ventilation grill above the bench was a glossy advertisement featuring a man, woman, girl, and boy—laughing together. The happy family’s clothing and hair styles looked old fashioned, and Arti guessed the ad was from a long time ago when they used print for such things.

  “Just somethin’ I found,” said Gal, referring to the picture. “Couldn’t get nothin’ for it.” She shrugged, “So I stuck it up there to block the draft.”

  After checking that the door was pulled tight and locked, Gal added Arti’s supplies to a pile of canned food stacked next the table. She chose one and, lifting an opener from a nail on the wall, removed its lid.

  “Hungry?” she asked, offering it to Arti.

  Arti nodded and took the seat next the table. “Thanks,” she said, wondering how she should go about eating from
the can.

  “Watch your lips, the edge is sharp,” Gal warned. “I need to get another spoon. Well, two, I guess, now that you’re here. Traded my last one for lamp oil.” Gal lifted the back of her shirt and pulled a knife from a leather sheath clipped to her belt, setting it on the table. She plopped down on the bench and wedged the pillow between her back and the wall.

  Arti pretended not to notice the weapon, commenting on the food instead. “It’s good,” she lied, slurping down the contents of the can, a slimy mix of what might have been chicken and noodles. But she was hungry, and it was better than nothing.

  Gal lifted Arti’s jug of water from the duffel bag and pushed it across to her. “Try not to drink too much; clean water’s hard to find. And it ain’t cheap.” She pointed to a large pail near the door. “Don’t drink that; it’s for the crapper. I’ll show you tomorrow.” She squinted. “Unless you gotta go now.”

  Arti looked at the pail, her expression a mix of curiosity and dread. “No…I’m okay.”

  Although she was dead tired, Arti felt compelled to tell Gal her story. The anger and aggressiveness Gal had displayed at the boathouse were gone, and she listened intently to the harrowing account of the Incendi raid and Arti’s narrow escape from the burning house. Arti expected Gal to be impressed by her dramatic getaway, but she seemed more amazed by Arti’s knowledge of books.

  “So, you can really read?”

  “Yes,” said Arti. “I learned when I was little. My parents taught me.”

  Gal’s eyes narrowed. “Everyone says readin’s a black art, and that people that know their letters are dangerous.”

  Arti leaned toward her. “Do I look dangerous?” She reached for the jug and took another sip of water. “And reading isn’t a black art. That’s just what the Corporation wants everyone to think so they don’t think. My parents explained it all to me.”

  “How many books have you read?” asked Gal.

  “Lots.” Arti tipped her can back and swallowed the last of the noodles. “We had hundreds in our library,” she said, staring down at the empty container in her hand. “My parents work at one of the plants near the canal.” She paused, realizing that everything about their lives was in the past now. “They knew a trucker who brought in shipments from the Docks. They traded him for books—when he could get them. The hard part was making sure no one at the plant noticed what they were doing. There’s always someone willing to report you to get a reward.” In her mind, she saw the smiling face of her neighbor, Robb Tulley.