All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923)

by Humphrey, Michael C.

  Kole saw that all of the roofs of the buildings below and around him were also blooming with a profusion of yellows and oranges. Melons and corn, lettuces and bean pods were thriving in the dense, rich soils on the flat stone tops of the city. A city of stone covered in a layer of swaying green life, no wonder Kole had mistaken the dwellings from the air. The strangeness of the landscape had tickled his awareness, but he had been so consumed with the elation of his flight, his own thoughts after being shot at and then the near panic of the storm. Now he struggled to keep his glider centered between two of the taller buildings. Giant, fifty-foot tall walls, laced with tendrils of Remus and narthicant, towered imposingly over him, casting long shadows.

  The wind buffeted him through their narrow valleys, and he steered with his legs and his hands, trying not to overcompensate. Through the gauntlet of the towers, Kole maneuvered around other equally hazardous obstacles, other mountains of buildings, all hidden from plain sight beneath their curtains of verdure. The wind was unpredictable and strange, not adhering to the tendencies that Kole had long since come to rely on. His seedvision confirmed that these were indeed man-made halls and homes, rock sheered from other rock and mortared snugly together. The hanging gardens had tricked his eye from the air though, causing the land to look flat when it was anything but that.

  What was this place? It seemed vast and well-tended. The size of the buildings shamed many of the structures that Kole had encountered on his travels. The paths between the crops that Kole had seen from the air were actually broad streets between the umbrage-covered walls.

  Kole smelled animals, many animals. But the air, though strong and mean-spirited, smelled fresh and clear, not tainted with the burning dry-eyed smell of excrement. Carts leaned empty and unhitched upon their back wheels and railings. Where were the people?

  A city this large should be teeming with people, bustling about in the fading light, wrapping up the remains of their wares and tying loose ends. And it was quiet. Almost too quiet, thought Kole. Where are the sounds of the children running and playing, parents scolding, animals braying and mooing and barking? A door slamming? A boot scraping?

  Kole nearly had his glider under control and was looking for a place to land. There, ahead. At the end of the street was a broad, open area with a stone well in the center of it. The ground looked to be packed dirt and cobbled stone, but Kole had landed in worse places. He aimed his glider for this new target and kept his eyes fixed on that destination. He was vaguely aware when the wind erratically swirled off the face of one building and tossed him off-balance toward another. But it didn’t matter. He was only a few feet off the ground. Just a few more yards and he’d be clear of the walls altogether and safely landed. But he was unaware of the door that opened just in front of him.

  He pushed forward on his control bar to lift the nose of the glider up and stall the craft, which would have allowed him to then glide into his landing. He spread his legs apart, easily enough despite the clinging burrs, and swung them forward to meet the ground.

  The gasp of a woman’s voice sounded just as Kole realized that she had stepped out of the open doorway and directly into his path.

  “Look out,” Kole yelled and then collided with her. She had just time to inhale a surprised breath before Kole’s outstretched legs scooped her up under both of her arms. Her face, and her wide, white eyes, stared at him in something like wonder. Kole was so surprised he just stared back. Thankfully his muscle memory caused him to quickly pull his control bar back toward his chest, and a fortuitous blast of wind lifted the glider back up into the air before they could crash.

  The girl was beautiful. Stunning to be exact. Kole had never seen anyone like her. Her eyes gleamed like crystal in the setting sun and sent chills down his spine. Her lips were trying to form words, but she seemed to have forgotten the language. She gripped his legs tightly with her arms, so tight he felt their bones bump each other. Her hair tumbled down out of the bun she had on her head and swirled freely around them like a golden nimbus. Of course these thoughts were fleeting, less than a second, but brilliant in hindsight as Kole recalled them later. The moment he had met her.

  She was slim and lightweight, but the glider, not designed for the awkward ballast of both their bodies reacted sluggishly to Kole’s commands. The strange wind from the west blew them higher, above the roofs of the lower houses, and then slackened.

  “Hold on,” yelled Kole. “I’m going to get us down from here.” But the words sounded faint compared to the threnody of blood pounding in his ears, and he was not at all sure that she had heard him. The girl just continued to stare up at his face. It was unnerving, all the more so because Kole felt vulnerable beneath that gaze. It pierced the polished solitude of his heart.

  He fought the overburdened controls of his glider, angling toward the low roof of the nearest building. But this time the wind seemed to actually help him, and with a soft breeze guided him toward the solid safety of the overgrown roof.

  Kole sensed the girl’s feet touch the vegetation and pushed out hard on his bar, dropping into the springy mat of foliage with a grunt. His legs had unwrapped themselves from her as he landed, and he let the glider tip back onto its tail. He untied the harness from his chest and let it drop away. The wind died suddenly, and they stood there in the still empty pocket of the world, face-to-face and body-to-body, staring at each other in disbelief and stunned surprise. Kole felt he should say something, but the girl spoke first.

  “I want to do that again,” she breathed, and her wide smile captured him, made him smile too.

  Kole laughed. It was a release of all the tension he had felt up to that moment. The harrowing ride against the grain of the world, his shock at crashing into this amazing woman, and his deep sense of relief to finally have his feet on solid ground, even if it was not quite ground in the traditional sense of the word.

  “That was incredible,” she said. “Why are you laughing at me?”

  Kole’s muscles ached from his long flight. He wanted nothing more than to sink down onto his back and relax under the gaze of the first twinkling stars of the night.

  “I’m not,” he started to say, “I’m just, oh, I am so sorry about all this. I didn’t see you come out of that door, and I had no idea the wind would pick up like that. Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? I’m terribly sorry. I tried to steer, but nothing about my glider would respond the way it was supposed to. I should have…”

  “Shhh…” the girl said quietly, bringing the torrent of Kole’s apologies to an abrupt halt. “I’m alright. I’m not hurt.” She paused, then added, “What did you call your contraption? A glider? It’s amazing. Did you build it? Is it broken? Can you take me up with you again? I have never felt anything as wonderful as that, flying above the tops of my father’s buildings. How did you learn to do that? Can you teach me? Or at least take me back up with you sometime? When I stepped out of that door and you swooped down on me I thought I’d been caught by some terrifying bird, to be taken to its nest, torn apart, and fed to its chicks. And then I saw you and your face, like from a dream, and your strange purple wings, and then the world was dropping away, and I was afraid I would too, but looking at you somehow gave me courage, you know? Like if you could do it, then I could too. I know it sounds crazy, like I’m going crazy, but surely you’ve felt it? This feeling like the world is bigger than you’ve ever imagined it could be. Oh, I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe I am going crazy. Going crazy on a roof in front of a man whose name I don’t know.”

  Her words ran and tumbled over each other in a hurry to be heard. The two of them gazed at each other, out of breath and out of words, but making introductions that words were insufficient to foster. The wind was still, and the pleasant scent of flowers and fruit filled the air and wafted over them, stirring her hair and his heart. How long they stood there, Kole didn’t know. He meant to answer her questions rig
ht away, to tell her at least his name, but he seemed to have misplaced it for the moment. The world around them seem to slow down and blur, as if he were moving so fast that he was draining the world of movement, robbing it of motion, and leaving nothing for anything or anyone else.

  Not true. She was moving. Kole watched the pulse in her neck, rapid, hidden behind a veil of honey-colored hair, her breathing, causing her breasts to rise and fall. No, don’t look there, Kole. He observed the nervous twitch of a finger and the flutter of an eyelash; the tip of a tongue wetting dry self-conscious lips. Kole saw it all in the twinkling of an eye and memorized every detail before the world faded back into being and began again to turn.

  She giggled, childlike, blushing, suddenly aware that she should be nervous in his presence. He was a man, a handsome man, her dream man. At least that much had been true. Would the rest of it come true as well? If so, she glanced down at his body and flushed hotly at the swarm of warm feelings and thoughts that flooded her core like skyfire bugs in a bottle. She looked away, down. She clasped her hands in front of her and looked everywhere but at him, everywhere but into his eyes; his deep blue, maybe green, eyes, brow-shadowed and smoldering, measuring her, penetrating. She…had…to…speak. Say something, her mind screamed at her.

  “I apologize for gushing.”

  “No need,” said Kole. “I felt a bit of a gush myself coming on before you shushed me.”

  “Oh, I did shush you, didn’t I? How embarrassing.”

  “I have absconded you from your father’s house and deposited you upon his roof. I believe I can overlook a bit of shooshing if you can ever pardon me for…for…”

  “Sweeping me off my feet?”

  “Yes, that,” said Kole.

  “And for your gushing?”

  “That too.

  “Well, you really didn’t gush,” she said. “Yours was more of a nervous ranting.”

  “I am quite the ranter,” joked Kole.

  “You should enter a competition,” she kidded back.

  “A ranting tournament. Hmm, good idea,” said Kole. “Perhaps I will organize one of those when I return home. Although I don’t think there would be many who could successfully compete against me.”

  “I’d be hard-pressed,” she quipped.

  “Against me?” asked Kole in mock astonishment, raising his eyebrow.

  “No, no, I’d be hard…” It suddenly dawned on her what she had said, and she stopped and shook her head. “I’d look less foolish if I sat down on the ground in front of you and stuck my whole foot in my mouth.”

  “No, that would be a very impressive trick. But maybe we should save it for later. Down below, you are probably being missed.

  “Oh my, it’s true. The dinner party. You must come.”

  “Dinner party?”

  “Yes, for my sister Jemimah. There is a handsome suitor here to talk with my father of marriage.”

  Her father. An idea was forming in the back of Kole’s mind, something he should have put together a long time ago. He had not been this far east in over three hundred years. He expected things would have changed in that time, but he had not given it much thought. During most of his travels he had journeyed north and south among his own people. That is, among Adam’s progeny, those that were not of the line of Cain, found primarily west of the boundary river. He had hoped that when he landed he would eventually find some scattered settlements, people among Cain’s descendants that he could talk with, trade with.

  He had not expected to find this strange, stone garden city. But then again, maybe he should have. There were stories, rumors, gossip that went around about the “People of the east” and a land cursed by the serpent. The Pote tribe had not crossed Kole’s mind in at least forty years since he had first heard tales of the terrible tragedies that had befallen the greatest of their men: crops ruined, livestock stolen or dying, homes destroyed and family killed; all except for a contentious wife, bitter but beautiful. Then came the boils, a blistering plague that had proven not to be contagious but had still scared most of his neighbors away. Many felt that the land was still uninhabitable.

  But then, several years ago, rumors began to circulate that the curse had been lifted and the man, Job, had begun to prosper. He was in fact now considered to be the greatest of the Pote tribe, extraordinarily wealthy and respected. It was also rumored that he had three very beautiful daughters.

  Kole looked at the girl who stood so still and stared so searchingly into his face. What thoughts were going on behind her large, liquid eyes while he had been lost in daydream and memory? To say she was beautiful would be an understatement. She was exquisite in every physical way, but she was barely more than a girl, possibly twenty summers old? Maybe.

  Kole smiled when he recognized that he was thinking in terms of summers instead of years. Something he had not done in centuries. The girl smiled back.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kole, “Where are my manners? My name is Kole, and I would be very pleased if you could introduce me to your father.”

  “It is my pleasure to meet you, Kole, and I would be happy to escort you to my father.” She took a step closer to him and leaned in. He did not lean away. “But first I feel inclined to thank you.”

  She paused for one brief moment, searching his eyes, then leaned in quick and gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

  “To thank me for what?” Kole asked in numb surprise.

  “Keziah,” she said. “My name is Keziah. And to thank you…for everything. Kole Chay.” And with that she walked to one corner of the roof and disappeared down some stairs.

  Kole, grinning ear to ear, shook his head and followed her.

  Using chopsticks, Lester picked out the last bite of chicken from his container of rice. He put down the journal that he had just finished and sighed. What a life his friend Al had led. Glancing at his watch, Lester registered that it had been less than twenty-four hours since he had met Al in the bar last night. Twenty-four hours that had changed his own life and his perspective of the world in which he lived.

  He still had trouble grasping the truth that his best friend was the oldest son of Adam and Eve; a living-breathing fossil, so to speak. The things that Al had seen and done were incredible, and he had probably barely scratched the surface. Like a frozen berg of ice floating in the northern seas, the bulk of Al’s life still lay hidden beneath the surface. What would the next day bring? Lester couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  He still had no idea how Al had survived the flood that had destroyed most of humanity, except for the family of Noah, safely aboard the ark. He had gleaned tidbits of what might be in store based on Al’s veiled references to Tubal-Cain, Noah, Job, King David, and Jesus, but how his friend figured in to the lives of these historical patriarchs Lester could hazard no guesses. Suffice it to say, thought Lester, it’s gonna be interesting.

  The last two hours certainly had been.

  They had left Lester’s house and had taken a circuituitous route to get to Al’s place. Lester thought that Al was probably being a bit overly cautious, but who was he to judge. Al had been dodging the Lightmen for far longer than he and knew better than anyone what was at stake. If the Lightmen caught up to them there would certainly be questions and lengthy detainments. What would I say if they decide to interrogate me, thought Lester. I couldn’t just give up my friend to save my own skin.

  When they had gotten to Al’s, Lester had started reading the next journal and Al had gone out again, apparently to meet with his contacts in the world of espionage. Lester had been vaguely aware when Al had come back but had only briefly looked up to acknowledge his return, so engrossing was the passage on flight that he had been in the middle of.

  Al had ordered Chinese food and made some hushed phone calls in the other room. When the food delivery had arrived, Al had brought Lester over some cart
ons of take-out and then disappeared into the back of the house. When the sound of the shower had penetrated Lester’s concentration, he had picked at his meal, barely able to peel his eyes off the words in the notebook. That must have been twenty minutes or more ago, and it was currently quiet down the hallway that led to Al’s bedroom and office.

  “Al?” Lester called out.

  “Be right out,” came Al’s voice from behind his closed door.

  Lester nodded and carried his empty food boxes to the garbage. He grabbed a bottle of Heineken out of the fridge and twisted off the top. He looked around.

  The living room that he had been in was dimly lit by two softly glowing tablelamps set in opposite corners. The furniture was comfortable but obviously antique, tastefully complementing the color scheme of the walls and window dressings. The kitchen was modern and functional, but welcoming as well, centered around a large butcher-block table with four thick, wooden chairs, comfortably cushioned.

  Lester didn’t know how long Al had owned the house, but knew that he had lived in it ever since they’d met—thirty years or better. The house was a two-story Victorian showpiece, well preserved both inside and out. Hardwood trim around the doorways and artistically decorated cornices, with rows of dentils and modillions around both the moldings and the corona, imbued all the rooms with cozy warmth.

  The house sat toward the back of a manicured and well-landscaped fifteen acres on the outskirts of town, separated from the nearest neighbors by a park-like band of trees. Lester had thought occasionally that he might ask Al if he could hunt the grounds during deer season but had never gotten around to it. There was nothing better than outdoor grilled venison on a lazy Sunday afternoon.