He shrugs. “And yet, here we are. Free of the Golyat and still alive.”
I concede the point mentally, but won’t verbalize it. Just speaking the words would feel like a violation. “The amendments weren’t enough for your father, then?”
“Not nearly. He believes that humanity can, and should, return to the ways of our ancestors. He embraces technology, and innovation, and freedom above all else.”
“Even if it risks everything?” I ask.
“He doesn’t believe the Golyat poses a true threat. There are whales in the ocean, a hundred feet long—”
“Really?”
“—and yet the waters of New Inglan still teem with life. Even if the Golyat consumed people, how could it devour our entire population, or that of the outside world before our time? In the same way our ancestors hunted whales with giant spears called harpoons, he intends to bring low the Golyat, slaying the creature and freeing mankind from its self-imposed slavery.”
“You sound convinced.”
“I’ve heard the speeches enough times to recite them with his inflections.”
“Did you ever believe him?”
“For a time,” he confesses. “When I was younger.”
“And now?”
“I’m here to kill him. What do you think?”
“Right…”
A growl tickles my ear. It’s barely there, but enough to raise the hairs on my neck. I pick up the machete and scan the forest for movement, searching for any aberration in the brush, tall grass, or trees.
“What is it?” Shua whispers.
“A growl.”
The next sound I hear is snickering.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Quiet.”
“The growl was me,” he says, and when I turn to face him, he raises his hands, pleading mercy, but still laughing. He pats his belly. “I’m hungry.”
“When did you last eat?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” he says. “But I obey the laws of the counties I travel to. I haven’t eaten meat since leaving the north.”
“What have you eaten?”
“Berries. Roots.”
I expect the list to go on, but that’s where he stops. I can’t help but shake my head at the man who is a natural with a weapon, but useless in the forest.
“If you don’t eat something substantial, you won’t last long.”
“In case you forgot, you lost your pack, and all your food.”
It’s my turn to laugh, but not really in a kind way. “We are surrounded by food.”
He scans the area, clearly spotting nothing edible. While we are surrounded by plants, mushrooms, insects, and fruit, all of which are edible, a man Shua’s size needs calories—muscle and fat. I require far less, but just talking about food has awakened my hunger.
“We’ll hunt,” I say.
“I can’t eat raw meat.” He looks a little peaked.
“Can, and will, or you’re no use to me.”
“There isn’t time,” he argues. “Once our clothes are dry, we need to move. My father won’t be idle.”
“If you collapse from hunger and exhaustion, you’ll never reach your father. Certainly not before Micha does.” I bend down and pick up a rock the size of my fist. “And we’ll be done eating long before our clothing dries.”
The animals have been quiet since we’ve arrived. Despite being separated from people for five hundred years, they’ve maintained their fear of us. But I doubt they’ve grown any smarter. I spotted them when we first arrived in the clearing, high in the branches, nervous heads bobbing.
I reach my hand out to Shua. “Spear.”
He hesitates a moment, but then hands his weapon to me. I heft it, feeling its weight. It’s a little longer, heavier, and more flexible than I’m accustomed to—designed for fighting men, not killing animals—but it will work. I hurl the heavy stone toward the broad tree. The loud thunk, as it strikes, kicks off a panicked flurry. Plump turkeys burst from the leaves, lacking any clear sense of direction or grace. Some flutter into neighboring trees. Three of them take flight across the clearing, directly overhead.
The spear wobbles as it flies upward, but my aim is true. The pierced turkey rises with the weapon’s impact, and then falls with it. I catch the spear and hold the already dead turkey out to Shua, who looks both impressed, and disappointed.
“Let’s eat,” I say.
“Don’t you need to prepare the bird? Remove its feathers? Clean the meat?”
After removing the bird from the spear, I place it atop the flat stone and draw my knife. With a quick cut, I remove the head and hold the bird upside down by its feet, draining the blood until it slows to a trickle. Then I lay the turkey down again, slip my blade into its neck, facing up. I cut a line down its chest, over the sternum, and into its gut, mimicking my technique with the lion, but on a much smaller scale.
After exposing the ribs, I place the machete against the sternum and give the blade a hard whack. These ribs flex and crack far easier than the lion’s did and soon we have access to the turkey’s innards.
“You’re depleted, so you can eat the organs. I’ll eat the meat.”
“Organs?”
“I’m trying hard to not mock you,” I admit, “because I want you to know how serious I am when I say this. If your lack of food slows you down, I will leave you behind, and I cannot promise you if I come across your father, that I will be as merciful with his death as you will. Most of my days are spent in the forest. If you want to survive it, you’ll do as I say.”
With that, I reach into the bird’s chest and tear out its heart. After shaving off the arteries, I carve the vital muscle into four, bloody, bite size segments. “You don’t need to chew it. Just swallow it.”
He takes the first bit of heart and after a moment’s debate, tosses it in his mouth and swallows. He clenches his eyes and mouth for a moment, and then relaxes.
“Not bad, right?” I ask.
“Not good,” he says. “But I’ll live.”
He eats everything I give him, while I peel raw muscle from bone and eat, chewing and relishing the flavor. Ten minutes later, my belly is full and little of the bird remains. I rub my hands in the dirt, and then together, drying and flaking away the blood. Shua does the same without question. Then we collect our mostly dry clothing, dress, and strike out again, heading toward the island’s core, where the last remnants of the Old World still stand.
10
Walking through the quiet forest, I don’t feel like I’m rushing toward a small army of Modernists, or being pursued by Micha and his men, who have no doubt set out from the river by now. Shua and I keep a brisk pace, not a word shared between us for thirty minutes. Our course is southeast until we hear the ocean’s waves crashing against the shore. We redirect south, keeping the ocean on our left and avoiding the beaches. The open sand might make for faster travel, but it would expose us to both sides of this conflict, which we would like to avoid, save for two people. Neither of us have any illusions about fighting through the Modernist ranks. Stealth is paramount.
Our progress slows when we’re forced to navigate a swamp, and then again when we reach a network of concrete foundations. Some are just small walls, rising from the soil, the structure filled in and reclaimed by the forest. Others loom eight feet high. Every single one feels like an adventure. I want to explore. I can’t deny it. But such things are folly, so I squelch the childish emotions.
The concrete foundations are laid out in a grid, which is discernable, even though some foundations are missing.
“How tall were the buildings?” I ask. I’ve seen the towering remains from a distance, but have never really considered their size before time crumbled them.
“In Boston? Almost eight hundred feet.” Shua speaks the unfathomable number with the confidence of someone who is not guessing. “In the world…I believe it was two-thousand, seven hundred feet, plus a few. In a place called Dubai.”
The number stops me in my tracks. “That’s…no
t possible.”
“A lot of impossible things were once possible.” He pauses to admire a row of foundations, interspersed with tall trees. “People inhabited the whole planet. Traveled to the moon, before it was destroyed. Built machines that looked like people and could think on their own.”
“What is a planet?” I ask.
He looks a little stunned. “You know about the moon?”
I nod.
“What it looked like?”
“Round,” I say. “Like the sun. Like a ball.”
“A sphere.” He points at the ground. “Our…world is a sphere, too. Like a ball. It’s why the horizon falls away instead of stretching out forever.” He crouches down, collecting a handful of rocks. He places a large one down. “This is the sun.”
He places a smaller rock a foot away from the sun. “A planet is a sphere that circles the sun.”
His finger cuts a circle into the soil around the large stone. He moves the planet stone along the course, and then places a pebble beside it. “A moon revolves around a planet.”
“Until it’s destroyed.”
He nods and asks, “You know of the Red Star and the Bright Star?”
“Of course.” I’m a bit offended by the question, but try not to show it, as I’m positive my knowledge of the stars is about to be torn asunder.
“Neither are stars.” He places two more stones on the ground, one closer to the sun, one further away. He points to the closer. “Venus.” And then to the further. “Mars. Both are planets. Like Earth. But where nothing lives. There are other planets, too. In our solar system, and around other stars.”
I have no idea what a solar system is, but I sense the grandeur and immensity of what he’s telling me. For a moment, I feel small and afraid, but my curiosity has been piqued. “Our planet is Earth?”
He smiles. “Your father taught you a lot, but not everything, huh?”
“My father knows all of this?”
“Perhaps not all,” he says. “He doesn’t have access to the libraries.”
“Libraries?”
“A place where books are kept.”
I may not know as much as my father, or Shua, but I know what a book is. My father had one, when I was young, full of words I couldn’t read and images I had trouble comprehending. “How many books?”
His eyes crinkle, that hidden smile returning. “Thousands.”
“And you can read them?”
“Everyone in my family can,” he says. “But I wish they couldn’t. We wouldn’t be here if they were ignorant of the past.”
The question on my tongue is forbidden. To speak it incurs painful punishment. But Shua and I have already broken laws punishable by death, so I ask, “Do you know what happened? In the Time Before? What the Golyat is? Where it came from?”
He shakes his head. “Those things are not in the libraries.” Then he reveals a staggering truth that I only doubt for a moment. “No one knows what happened. Not my father, not yours, and not your husband. All we know is that what once was, is no more, and that the Golyat is to blame.”
He stands. “And if my father is not stopped, those dark times could very well return.”
With that, we set out again, our pace even faster, to make up for the time lost speaking, and because the knowledge garnered has reignited my sense of urgency.
The foundations disappear when we reach a hill and start climbing. Near the top of the hill, Shua stops and takes a slow step back, sliding behind a tree. His body language is easy to read: he’s spotted someone.
I slip beside him and whisper, “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “His clothing is…odd. But he’s carrying a sword.”
I lower myself to the ground and roll my head out around the tree so slowly that not even a mountain lion would notice. I stop when I see the man, standing sentinel, sword at the ready, as though expecting us. For a moment, I think he’s in shadow, but I can see the sun’s rays gleaming off his strange, wide hat. His clothing is black, with splotches of green, his fighting stance unusual, but steady. Behind him is a solid gray wall. Another foundation, I think, the top of it obscured by the large trees behind the man.
I roll back and stand. “We go back down, separate, and flank him.”
“Why not avoid him altogether?”
“He’s not with Micha,” I explain, “which means he’s a Modernist. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be told where to find your father, than search the whole island for him.”
“Mmm,” he says, and starts back down the hill. When the man is no longer visible, we split up, heading in opposite directions and then back up. I move swiftly, comfortable in the forest, able to move with little or no sound. If the deer cannot hear my approach, neither will the man with the funny hat.
When I spot him again, I slow, approaching low to the ground, a cat on the hunt. I can’t see Shua yet, but I’m sure he’s there.
The man maintains his post with perfect stillness, revealing a discipline the likes of which I have never seen. His drawn weapon tells me he’s expecting a fight, and won’t have a chat without first being subdued. I wait a moment longer, giving Shua time to close in. Then I slip behind the man and draw my knife.
I creep to within ten feet of the man, my eyes locked on target. When I’m close enough to strike, I do.
The knife leaves my hand as I charge.
Part of my mind registers Shua saying, “Davina, wait,” but I’m committed.
Around the same time my thrown blade strikes the man’s thigh with a metal on metal ping that tells me he’s wearing armor beneath his clothes, I bring the machete down on his sword. The plan is to either disarm him, or knock his sword downward, giving me a chance to place my blade against his throat.
That’s not what happens. Instead, he resists my downward swing. A vibration moves through my arms, numbing them, and I nearly drop the weapon.
What kind of man possesses such strength? I wonder, looking up into his eyes, which is the very same moment I realize he is not a man at all. “What…”
“It’s called a statue,” Shua says, approaching from the side, weapon lowered. “It’s made out of metal. I’ve never seen one before, but they were once common. Not too far south from where we are now, there stood a statue of a woman that stood taller than…” His eyes widen and turn up. “Taller than that, but…wow.”
I turn around and look up. What I had taken for another foundation is nothing of the sort. Constructed from layers of granite blocks, the stone structure rises into the air like an oversized needle, at least two hundred feet tall. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice oozing a sense of wonder that I’m feeling, too.
This is dangerous.
With every discovery I feel myself becoming more and more intrigued by the past. “Doesn’t matter. Best if we try to forget it.”
“Agreed,” he says, but he doesn’t sound any more convinced than I did a moment ago.
We round the tall building and are faced by the stone ruins of another. Neither of us give it a second glance as we walk by, though I secretly hope our return route will bring us past it again.
Old World ruins fill the forest, now part of it. Ancient buildings, long since crumbled, have become hills lined with both trees and beams of rusting metal. We pass more statues, and metal poles, and the five-story framework of a building that Shua says was once much larger.
I try to imagine what it all would have looked like, buildings intact, trees gone, but I can’t see it. I have no frame of reference aside from the ruins I’m seeing for the first time.
As the sun passes by overhead, we start up another hill. Looking up, where there should be trees, I see blue sky. The forest either ends on the far side, or there’s a steep drop off. Near the top, we slow our ascent, unsure of what we’ll find. When I peek my head up over the crest, I feel like I’m back in the river, breathless and near to drowning.
My strength is sucked away.
I fall to my knees. And despite everything I’ve been taught about the Time Before, about what is permissible, and what is not, about how even thinking about such things is forbidden, tears fall from my eyes from the raw power and beauty of what once was.
11
Tall rectangles rise from the forest, stretching skyward. These are the monstrous buildings I’ve seen from a distance. But I was only seeing a small fraction of the city’s actual size. It’s beyond comprehension. Like a dream. Or a nightmare. Could human beings have actually built this? It doesn’t seem possible.
Many of the structures have crumbled, and a few lie on their sides, like decomposing corpses. But a dozen still stretch toward the sky. Of those, some are gutted, revealing their internal framework. Others are heavily damaged from fire and something violent, but they still have thick walls lined with grids of empty rectangular holes. Three of the buildings, one of them the tallest of the bunch, look almost intact.
“Why are there holes?” I ask. As impressive as the buildings are, I can’t think of a good reason why such megalithic structures would be built in a way where someone could fall to their doom with ease.
“They’re windows,” Shua says. “They had glass in them.”
“What’s glass?”
“It’s solid, like metal, but far more fragile, and clear. Like perfectly frozen ice that isn’t cold and doesn’t melt.”
“A transparent wall.”
“Exactly.” His eyes squint. I think he’s smiling. “You have a decent vocabulary for a shepherd.”
“I had a good accidental teacher. My father rambled a lot. About the world. About the Law. He didn’t know I was taking it all in.”
Shua lets out a subtle laugh, but it strikes me like a hammer. “What?”
“Have you ever considered that he did?” Shua asked.
“Did what?”
“Know,” he says. “That you were listening? That you were learning?”
The possibility has tickled my thoughts on occasion, but to speak it would be to suggest a violation of the Law that would have resulted in my father losing his position. Possibly worse. But out here, with Shua, whose father has violated every law within the Law, I’m free to ponder the notion, and speak my mind. With a smile, I say, “He knew.”
The Divide Page 6