“Why? Do you think? If you’d said something—”
“Because he loved me,” I say. “And he wanted more for me.”
“Is that why he allowed Micha to marry you?” He speaks the words with disdain, either disapproving of the concept of arranged marriage, or revealing his feelings for my husband, who we would be wise to remember is not far behind us.
“We make mistakes with the people we love the most,” I say. “That’s why we’re both here, isn’t it? To correct our mistakes. I failed to raise my son with enough respect for the law.”
“And me?” he asks. “How did I fail my father?”
I stand and start down the steep hill leading toward the city. “You didn’t kill him sooner.”
My words must have some kind of effect on Shua because he falls silent. I don’t know if he’s saddened by the truth of my words, angry for suggesting he failed, or more determined because he agrees. His face remains hidden from me, and I don’t bother looking back to read his eyes. He can feel however he wants. It changes nothing.
I walk with my head turned up. The closer we get to the ancient buildings, the bigger they seem.
Why would people live in a place like this? The structures’ colossal sizes are imposing. I’ve faced down every predator known to man, aside from the Golyat, and have never felt quite so intimidated…though the shark was a close second. And it’s not just their size.
Looking at these buildings, I have no trouble envisioning the kinds of horrors people with that much knowledge and ability could inflict. Limited to swords and spears, I’ve seen mankind’s dark heart on occasion. But if our ancestors had the ability to build, and destroy, entire cities like Boston…
Why would anyone want to claim that kind of self-destructive power?
Until peoples’ hearts change, we will find a way to turn innovation into suffering. The anguish of some might be reduced, but on the backs of many more. That’s the way of the world now, with so little. How much more so was it then, or will it become if the Modernists bring technology to the world once more…and the Golyat with it?
We walk through what Shua tells me were once streets, hard flat paths made from a kind of hot, almost liquefied stone laid out between the buildings. Moving things, with wheels, rolled along them, under their own power, carrying people from one spot to another. The journey from my father’s hill in Essex to Boston might have once taken less than an hour. I understand the concept of a wheel—we have carts for the migration, but we move them, not the other way around.
I try to look straight ahead when my neck grows sore from staring up. The forest between the buildings, and inside the cores of many of them, is thick and wild. Vines climb the sides of buildings, stretching more than a hundred feet up, taller than the trees, maybe even helping hold the structures together.
With no sign of the Modernists on the ground, and no real idea of where to go, I focus on what I can hear. The wind coos as it moves through the empty buildings, like a giant, sad bird. The leaves shift and rustle, tapping out a beat to accompany the bird songs and squawking gulls. If we’re still and silent, the distant sound of crashing waves echoes through the city.
But there are no voices.
No human smells.
No trace of the Modernists.
“How do we know they even came to the city?” I ask.
“We don’t,” he admits, “but I can’t think of another reason to visit Suffolk.”
“Perhaps the water on the island’s far side is easier to cross?” My eyes drift upward again. The building looming above us appears mostly intact. “Perhaps, Suffolk isn’t an island at all?”
The question, spoken without much thought, staggers me to a stop. It’s not impossible. No one has been to Suffolk in five hundred years. Who’s to say the ebb and flow of the water around its shores hasn’t changed? Even if the water isn’t missing completely, perhaps only a stream remains, or an average-sized river, which the tribes are adept at crossing.
“We can’t find them from down here,” I say, still staring up.
Shua stops beside me, following my gaze. “You want to… Up there?”
“We could wander this island for days and find nothing. At the very least, we need to study the landscape. It could give us an idea of where to check first. Or maybe we’ll get lucky and spot one of your father’s meat cooking fires.”
I meant the last remark as a jab toward his father, but he offers a convinced nod instead of a laugh. As we head toward the behemoth of a building, part of me wishes Shua had dismissed the idea of entering, and climbing it. Being surrounded by this ancient civilization feels akin to strolling through a bear’s den. But walking through the ruin’s doors is like putting my head in the bear’s jaws.
The building looks much older than those I’ve seen so far. Its gray brick façade looks almost noble, despite being overgrown by vines. Nesting birds flit in and out of the vines, many of them in the refuge created by the row of large, arched windows along the second floor. I’m about to move on when I spot letters above the arches. There are entire words, and I can’t help but feel fascinated by this message from the past. Shua has seen and read books, but these are the first written words I’ve ever seen in my life.
“What does it say?” I ask, knowing Shua might have trouble reading the words. Some have crumbled. Others are overgrown with vines.
He cranes his head up, mouthing words to himself as he scans the line of text running from one end of the building to the other. Then he says, “The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.”
I’m not sure what a ‘commonwealth’ is, but I suspect it’s some kind of ruling authority. That’s the only part of the sentence that makes sense to me. In New Inglan, under the Prime Law, keeping the people from being educated protects us from freedom, which might otherwise lead to our mutual demise. “Were they really that different from us?”
“You think they were different?”
I motion to the inscription I can’t read. “They valued freedom, education, and liberty above all else, and it led to their demise.”
“That’s not entirely accurate,” he says. “Most of the world before lived in poverty, as slaves, or under the rule of a cruel dictator. And while freedom was a governing principle to the people who founded Boston, and the country in which it was once a part, the generations that followed willingly gave up that freedom for the illusion of it.”
“But why? Freedom is death.”
I expect this ancient truth to ring true with Shua. Those three words have ended many an argument about the Law.
Freedom is death.
Instead, Shua is amused.
His condescending laugh irks me, and I bark, “What?”
“Freedom is death…” He pauses long enough to tamp down his smile. “It’s a bastardization of the original, which meant something closer to ‘Freedom or death. The actual words are, “Live Free or Die: death is not the worst of evils.”
My mouth opens to speak an argument or mock the words, but the second half—‘death is not the worst of evils’—rings true. I know from experience. What I manage to say is, “Huh…”
“The words were spoken by General John Stark, who fought to free New Hampshire from the people who ruled it.”
“New Hampshire is…”
“What you know as Rockingham, Strafford, Belknap, Carroll, Grafton and Coos, plus a few more counties that were lost during the Divide’s creation. ‘Live free or die’ was their motto, and there was a time when the concept guided far more people than the Prime Law does now.”
“You sound…enamored,” I say.
He shrugs. “A craving for freedom is one of humanity’s most primal desires.”
His words are traitorous, but I don’t say so.
“It was a different time,” he says. “And as much as I agree with the heart of those words, I also live in a world where freedom is death. Had the founding fathers of that country, which
no longer exists, had the foreknowledge of where their undefended liberties would lead, I doubt they would have pursued it so thoroughly, or, at the very least, they would have noticed when their freedom was plucked away bit by bit. Bad men, when left unchecked by good, become evil.”
“You sound like them,” I say, looking up at the inscription. His words have a noble poetry about them, on occasion.
“Another bastardization,” he says. “The original sentiment was, ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ That’s why we’re here.”
“You’re calling me a good man?”
“Good is still up for debate. Man?” He shakes his head. “I’ve seen you naked.”
“True,” I say, “But for the record, I’m nothing like them.”
Even I hear the hollow sound of my words, but I can’t not say them. An admission of understanding is to admit doubting the Prime Law. And if I’m to carry out my mission, my faith in the guiding principles of my forefathers needs to be unshakable…even when it’s shaken.
“You’re the daughter and wife of two different elders, and yet you find yourself a shepherd, alone in the forest, surrounded by dangers. A woman with your family connections, even as the eighth daughter and eighth wife, does not end up in your low position unless she also values her freedom above all else.”
I sigh, take one last look at the inscription, and then strike out toward the towering building that will be our lookout. “I think I’ve had enough talk of freedom for one day. And you would be wise to control your tongue, and possibly your heart’s desires.”
“Why is that?” Shua asks, following behind.
“It’s enough that I might have to kill my son, and you your father,” I tell him. “I would hate to have to kill you as well.”
I don’t hear him laugh, but I’m sure he’s smiling. Then again, maybe he’s deciding whether or not to kill me, too. His revelations about the ancient world might simply be a test of my loyalties. As we approach the crumbling building, I step aside and motion for Shua to take the lead. If he decides I’m a Modernist, I’d rather not make it easy for him to kill me by standing in front of a several-hundred-foot drop. Then again, a quick death at the hands of gravity might be less painful than at the tip of his spear.
Knowing Shua could kill me at any time, regardless of our location, I follow him up a slope leading to a window. The building’s entrance has long since been buried and perhaps several floors underground. He steps through the hollowed out window. I step through after him and immediately regret it.
12
While the exterior of the building stands mostly intact, the interior is hollowed out all the way to the roof, giving us a clear view of the sky high above. The vast height and towering walls disorient me. Dizziness forces my eyes back down, feeling a bit embarrassed by my weakness. But then I see Shua stretching and rubbing his eyes, and I know he’s feeling the same thing.
“That’s, ahh…that’s… I don’t know.” He smiles.
“Like your brain hurts?”
“That sounds right.”
I look up again, but not toward the ceiling. The walls are thick, but they look fragile, too. Every hand and foot hold will be suspect. “We can climb this.”
“Climb it?” Shua sounds both aghast and impressed. “You were planning to climb the walls?”
“How else would we get up there?” I motion toward the non-existent ceiling without looking.
He points across the open space, which is layered with decay and small saplings struggling to grow tall with the limited amount of sunlight they receive. “I was going to take the stairs.”
I’m vaguely familiar with the concept of steps, though they are forbidden. There are mountains in the North, where steps were carved into the granite in the Time Before. But I’ve never seen a staircase like this, zig-zagging up through the building, supported by thick metal beams. The steps are pocked with decay, but there appear to be metal rods woven through the concrete. “Will it hold us?”
When Shua shrugs, I realize he does that a lot. As much as he knows about the Old World, he doesn’t know everything.
“We can always scale the walls back down.” He takes the first flight of stairs and jumps up and down on the landing without incident.
I take another look at the walls, which look about ready to cave in, and find no comfort in his words. How many more years will this ancient structure resist decay? A hundred? Or maybe just one? For all we know, today could be the day the building shudders and falls in on itself.
“This was your idea,” Shua says, taking the second set of steps. At least they seem solid enough.
I follow him up the stairs, eyes down, wary for weak spots. There are a few gaps, and the occasional missing step, but for the most part, the staircase is intact. Ten minutes into our vertical hike, I need to stop for a rest. The tops of my thighs are burning. I’ve climbed the tallest hills in Essex and scaled untold trees, but I’ve never used my muscles like this. The repetitive motion is taking a toll on them.
A flight above me, Shua pauses, looking equally out of breath. He stretches with a groan.
“This is how people moved through these buildings?” I ask.
“Just in emergencies,” he says. “They mostly used boxes hung from cables that could move up and down through buildings. Bottom to top in seconds.”
“Like cars,” I say.
“But with less freedom. Up and down. That’s it. And they were communal. Shared by everyone. They called them ‘elevators.’”
“Elevator,” I say, enunciating each syllable. “That’s a horrible word.”
“Grating,” he says. “But somehow appropriate for all this.” He motions to the crumbling building around us, toward its jagged edges and hard surfaces.
We start upward again, bolstered by our mutual distrust for the building. “So they moved from one location to another, in cars, and then up and down in elevators. Did they have to walk at all? Between the cars and elevators?”
“They did,” he says, “but there were ways they could avoid that, too. Mostly, they sat. Not everyone, but most. My father used to joke that when the Golyat emerged, people were too fat to run away.”
“That’s horrible,” I say.
“And probably true. ‘Fatted cattle for the slaughter,’ he called them.”
“They needed a shepherd to keep them moving,” I say, getting a winded laugh out of him.
Shua pauses, one flight above me. “I think this is high enough.”
“Why?” I ask, despite desperately wanting him to be right. “We can’t be more than halfway up.”
“Which is still far above the forest,” he says, and as I climb the steps to join him, he motions to the next flight and adds, “Also, this.”
The staircase has crumbled, leaving a gap between us and the next floor. The railings are intact, but they are rusted and untrustworthy.
For the first time since starting our ascent, I look over the edge.
“Don’t,” Shua says, but his warning comes too late. Looking down into the building-turned-pit is even more disorienting than looking up. I step back from the edge, gripping the rail for balance, and it crumbles. I lose my footing, but just for a moment. Shua grasps my arm and steadies me. “Told you.”
I tug my arm free without offering my thanks. I’ve survived long enough without help. I don’t need it now, and not from a man who still doesn’t trust me enough to reveal his face. As much as we have in common—our upbringing, heritage, and current goals—he is still a stranger to me.
A quick scan reveals the situation. The staircase has no windows, but the surrounding floors do. From inside the building, I can see out the far side, but much of the view is blocked. I’m not sure it matters, as most of that view is dominated by the ocean. I’m fairly certain the Modernists aren’t attempting an ocean voyage. Building a boat would take a lot of time, manpower, and raw materials. They had to at least know there was a chance they’d
be found out and pursued. Whatever they’re doing here, it won’t take long.
The adjacent floor is largely missing, but there are metal rods protruding from the walls, marking where the floor had been. The beams are bent downward and are coated with rust, but they appear thick and strong. The nearest window is just ten feet away, and from this angle, I can’t see through it. To get a clear view to the west, we’re going to have to climb over to the window.
“I’ll go first,” Shua says, either following my eyes and discerning my conclusion or coming to the same on his own.
I wave him off and step toward the staircase landing’s open edge. “You’re twice my weight.” I regret my decision, fueled more by bravado than logic, when I step onto the first metal rod. It vibrates beneath my foot, but remains intact. It’s not the footing that bothers me; it’s the clear view of the three-hundred-foot drop beneath me.
“Hey,” Shua says. When I glance back, he’s extending the base of his spear toward me. “For balance.” Between the spear’s length and Shua’s arm, it gives me something to hold on to nearly the whole way across. I clutch the staff harder than I would ever admit and slide along the wall, feeling it crumble behind my back as I slide across. I’m just two feet from the window when I’m forced to let go of the spear. I feel exposed and laid bare, at the mercy of gravity and the skill of whatever long-dead worker built this portion of the building.
A deep breath, and then I lunge the remaining distance, throwing myself into the open window, clutching the thick wall…which turns to gravel under my weight and begins sifting through the metal beams. I shout in surprise and fright as the concrete supporting me melts away.
“Vee!” Shua says, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m aware that he’s using my familiar name, rather than my formal name.
My slow descent comes to a stop when the loose concrete slides away to reveal the metal framework holding it together, like roots in the earth. “I’m okay.” The words are as much to convince myself as Shua, and they’re proved accurate when I don’t plummet to my death.
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