Alexandria

by Kaden, John

  “You’re a genius,” he says.

  Jack rides at the head of the caravan, next to Hargrove. The old man takes out his small notebook and a folded map and begins to study their route, checking his bearings against the ornate wooden compass in his palm.

  “What’s that?”

  “Compass,” says Hargrove, passing it over. “Here.”

  Jack turns it in his hands and watches the little disk spin on its axis. “Why do you need it?”

  “Tells you what direction you’re headed.”

  “But… why do you need it?”

  Hargrove laughs, sensing the brightness of the boy. “Precision. Better than the sun and stars.”

  Jack reaches across to hand it back.

  “Keep it. You can be my navigator.”

  “Okay. What’s that?”

  “You’re gonna chart our course. Here, take the map.” He veers close and passes it over as they ride. “Show me where your friends live.”

  Jack lays the map across the pommel and traces his eye over the narrow valley between the coastal ranges, searching for the forked river.

  “Here,” he says, pointing.

  “Where?” Hargrove squints across to read it.

  “North of… Elpass… Robbles.”

  “Huh? Ah, I see. El Paso de Robles. You’re sure they’ll help?”

  “I know they will.”

  “Fair enough. We can use all we can get.”

  Jack looks around behind him. There’s little more than twenty of them in all, and they each wear a look of deep anxiety. A couple of them ride hunched over their saddles, drifting in and out of consciousness after a long, sleepless night. One jerks awake just before he topples over, and he stiffens himself and ogles around. Only half of them carry bows—the rest are armed with a hodge-podge of old shed tools and hunting knives. He starts to wish that he had bolted with Lia when he had the chance.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Something like a plan,” says Hargrove, riding with one hand and gesturing with his other. “My hope is they won’t suspect us. That would buy us some time to lay up on the high ground and see what we’re dealing with.”

  Denit rides forward and keeps pace with Jack. “I never properly thanked you.” He smiles with a kind, creaseless face.

  “What for?”

  “It’s a brave thing you did. May well have saved our lives.”

  Jack feels ashamed to accept the gratitude, feeling at fault somehow for the whole mess.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Nyla said the same—she has a better eye for people than I do. Knew right away you weren’t lying to us.”

  “We promised Ethan.”

  “But most people wouldn’t have kept their promise.”

  “Tell us more about these people,” says Hargrove. “What are their defenses like? How do they fight?”

  Jack starts in on a lengthy discourse about the Temple’s methods of warfare—about blackened warriors hiding in trees and their ruthless protocols, stockpiles of weaponry, stealth attacks. Hargrove listens quietly and interjects rarely. He seems especially interested in the King.

  Lia’s legs straddle awkwardly the bound plates, braced on either side of the saddle with heavy ropes. The added weight impedes their horses and the slow pace has her restless, clenching her teeth.

  “How far are we?”

  “A day’s ride.”

  “Have you ever been there before?”

  “Not since I was little. Marikez runs a route that spans a hundred and fifty miles south along the gulf.”

  “What does he do down there?”

  “Brings back coffee and dried fruit, grains and spices, mostly. It’s how they stay alive. They’re right along this same river, and it’s not what it used to be.”

  “Why don’t they move?”

  Nyla shrugs. “Tradition.”

  “Do they have an army?”

  Nyla considers the question, smiling a little. “Not an army, no. Just good people. My father’s done a lot to help them. They were nearly starving when he found them. Didn’t want to give up their land. They still don’t.”

  “They’re friendly, though? You think they’ll help?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, Lia. We’ll be in good hands.”

  “I’m worried about Jack.”

  “He’s in good hands, too. The best.”

  Lia studies her face, wondering if she truly understands what they are up against. Has she seen violence with her own eyes, or just watched it on a panel of light?

  A ways south, the river fans out and shallows and Nyla crosses over to the other bank, then slows to a halt and slips off her saddle.

  “Let’s switch. Give this one a rest.”

  They drink from the river and tighten the bundles. The river is dirty and barely flowing in places, and the banks are the parched bed of what used to be gushing water. Nyla pulls a jar of fruit out of her saddlebag and pops the top. Lia digs around and finds bread and soft cheese, and they stand on the cracked riverbank and eat, staring off at nothing.

  “I’m riding back with them,” says Lia, after a long spell of silence.

  “That’s not a good idea. You’ll be safer down here.”

  “I don’t want to be safe. I want to be with Jack.”

  “I understand. I miss Denit and Aaron.”

  Lia tightens up her face, pushing back a wave of heartache.

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  “Always have.”

  “He’s going to be all right.”

  “Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”

  “I believe it,” says Nyla. “He’s pretty smart, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “So is my dad. He won’t let them do anything stupid.”

  “My friends are back there. I’m going.”

  “I understand.” Nyla stows their things away makes no further contest.

  They let the horses finish grazing on the scant pockets of grass, then saddle up and trudge along the bank. Lia stares back the way they came, looking to see if they are being hunted.

  Thomas sits like a bearded old maid in his brother’s faded rocking chair, the wooden spindles white as sun-weathered bones, pitching back and forth in the hot arid draft with his journal laid out across his lap—the pages full of bisected ellipses and angular perspectives, mechanical diagrams and personal notes. His skin is burnt bright red and peeling. He flicks up his eyes without raising his head and surmises the far-off column of approaching riders, kicking up a spew of desert sand in their wake. He returns to his reading.

  13 June 2456—Another good trip to the canyon with Ryan and Dad. Found evidence of recent activity, as many as fifty heads, judging by the size of the camp they left. Encountered no one. Wonder where they all went?

  He turns a few pages.

  18 September 2456—Another two weeks with Jacob. Weather too nice to leave. Three settlements here already, and two more since he arrived 7 years ago. Numbered on the left. We expect more to migrate down—esp. if valley keeps greening.

  He looks up. They are no longer a condensed speck in the distance—each horseman now appears as its own separate moving speck. He turns the pages.

  27 April 2457—Turned away again. Number 97 would rather starve than accept our help. Hostile.

  He can hear the rumble of their hooves.

  07 July 2457—Another early harvest. Best in 10 years, Dad says. Ryan and I finished the coop, and we’ll all ride down next week to trade with Maya. The most generous people we’ve found, though they haven’t much to give, and their records are astounding. They have carven tablets dating back 150 years or more. Hope to get etchings on next trip.

  15 July 2457—Returning with a rooster and three hens. I told them my ideas. Maya and her people are fine survivors, but they do not like change.

  02 August 2457—I dreamt a beautiful palace on the seaside.

  Penciled below is a quick freehand of an Atlantean paradise standing high atop
a cliff. He tries to recall the night he dreamt it and cannot. He coughs out a bitter laugh. He looks up. They’ve arrived.

  The column breaks and fans out in an arc around the perimeter of the oasis. Their bows are drawn yet they make no move forward—only loiter around the outskirts with rigid faces. A rider to the rear brings a scope to his eye and looks at Thomas.

  Thomas raises his hand and waves.

  They fall back and chatter some more.

  A solitary rider, the man with the scope, paces forward and stops at the base of the walkway. He squints up at Thomas. Behind him, the dusty warriors keep their bows leveled.

  “Hello,” calls Thomas.

  The man raises up his hands. “We mean you no harm.”

  “I see that.”

  “We’re looking for something.”

  “Oh?”

  “A city. Near here. Do you know it?”

  “I might. What’s it called?”

  The man hesitates. He is soaked with sweat. He looks toward his men, then back to Thomas.

  “Can’t tell you if I know it,” says Thomas, “if you don’t tell me what it’s called…”

  The man narrows his eyes. “Alexandria.”

  “Ah. A city, you say? Don’t know any city called Alexandria.”

  “Do you know any place called by that name?”

  “Only this place.” Thomas spreads his arms out and gestures to the run-down old house.

  The man hitches back and looks at him cockeyed. “Don’t play games, old man.”

  “I never do, Keslin.”

  Keslin startles, and the recognition is like a thunderclap in his mind. “Thomas.”

  “Been a long time. We have unfinished business, you and I.”

  Keslin waves his men forward and they storm the sagging front porch, quick as a flash, and Thomas makes no move to escape as they dismount and climb the steps. They knock the chair out from under him and wrench him to his feet. A scattering of warriors stays in the yard and another wing breaks off and kicks open the front door and rushes inside.

  “Are you alone here?”

  Thomas laughs.

  They jerk his arms behind his back at a pained angle and manhandle him through the splintered doorway. Keslin elbows his way inside and looks around the dingy interior, baffled. Footsteps sound from the ceiling above as the warriors search through the attic. They turn over chairs and tables, burst open more doors, pull portraits off the wall. The commotion is rapid and short-lived—they quickly finish parsing the entire house and find no one else.

  “What is this place?” Keslin asks, narrowing in on Thomas. “You’re not alone here, are you? Where are you hiding them?”

  “Are you looking for the pony?”

  Keslin hobbles forward and kicks him in the kneecap. Thomas’s legs buckle and the warriors lift him back up.

  “The boy. Jack.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “Oh, but you do. Him and his friend.”

  “You leave them the hell alone.”

  “Where are they?”

  “East. Sent them as far east as they can go. You’ll never find them.”

  “You’re as poor a liar as ever, Thomas. Break his teeth out.”

  They wrestle him to the floor—one man straddles him while another brings a booted heel down across his mouth. Thomas bucks and screams and spits out a soup of his own teeth.

  “Where are they?”

  Thomas’s wild scream turns to laughter and he spits his last tooth in Keslin’s face. Keslin belts him in the stomach and he reels with joyous laughter.

  “What in the hell is so—”

  And the ground rumbles and quakes as if the great round planet is set to rip open at the seams, and as Thomas laughs and Keslin screams, they disintegrate instantaneously in a blinding surge of furious white light.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The horses tremble and rear back as the hollow blast echoes across the wide-open desert, and on the distant horizon, thousands of years worth of human ingenuity billow skyward in a widening plume of thick black smoke. Jack peels off to the side and shields his eyes against the sun. The explosion looks a tiny thing from so far away, but the boom that rolls through the strata resonates in their ribcages and brings them all to a quick halt.

  Hargrove’s face is cryptic as he surveys the destruction. He canters ahead and stares off at the smoke, resting his hand on his hip casually. Slowly he wheels back around, as if he is about to address the men with a speech.

  “Hup!” he shouts, and spurs his horse and tears off.

  They race across the empty desert range, a ragged band of refugee cavalrymen with their makeshift armory. The men press upon Jack, fearing the explosion to be the work of the militant encampment whose fires they watched from the porch only a few hours earlier. Jack assures them that, for all of their wicked contrivances, he has never known the Nezra to possess such a power as this. After a time, Hargrove grows weary and quiets their speculations and confesses his own hand in the matter.

  “I did it,” he says. “I blew the whole damn thing up.”

  “So it weren’t the army?”

  “No.”

  A wave of relief and astonishment enlivens the haggard men and they cinch their heels and hasten their gait, crowding around Hargrove as he dispenses his secrets.

  “That old fortress has been down in the earth there for almost three centuries. Built to withstand a nuclear bombardment.”

  “And you burned it?” says Trevor.

  “Cratered it. It was done for, anyway.”

  “How’d you come across something like that?” asks Jason, a young man only a little older than Jack.

  “My ancestors,” Hargrove says, and explains to them the mission his family line has been sworn to uphold.

  A new sense of gravity overtakes their journey. They ride in long silence through the enormous day, where overhead the earthly atmosphere seems to have extended itself into pale blue infinity. They veer north at Hargrove’s behest, riding along the centerline of a steep dry gulch until they come to a collected pool of run-off. The thin bath tastes gritty and they drink down as much as their bellies will hold.

  “You know the land,” Jack says to Hargrove.

  “Been years, but I’ve been through here before. Used to make the same outings as Renning and Ethan.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “Turned fifty. Took on the role of caretaker at the house.”

  Another pang of regret rolls through Jack’s gut. “What are you going to do now that it’s gone?”

  “Build another house. Live out my days in peace, if there’s any to be found.”

  “Will people still go out on those trips? The human terrians?”

  “Why? Interested?”

  “I don’t know… maybe.” He thinks about the map in Hargrove’s kitchen, about the frontier of Unknown Fate, and a tingle of adventure stirs inside him.

  “We’ve gone out less and less over the years. They used to send out big expeditions, every seven years, in all directions. I’ve read about them in the journals. Usually they made it back. Sometimes they didn’t. That had mostly ended by the time I came up as a boy. Most of the outings I went on were just simple upkeep. I played a matchmaker of sorts, putting one settlement in touch with another, each having something the other needed.”

  “Thomas went along with you?”

  “Side by side. I think he got a taste of the world and liked it. He was always spinning his wheels… but that was all so long ago it seems like another life. He set out on his own in the summer of fifty-eight.”

  “Fifty-eight?”

  “The year. Fifty-eight.”

  “What year is it now?” asks Jack.

  “Oh… if my math adds up, this would be late March of the year twenty-four ninety-nine. But that’s old-fashioned time keeping. We might as well start back at zero for all the good it does.”

  Taket is only peripherally aware of the hands that roll him onto his bac
k and apply the tourniquet to the shreds of flesh and slivers of bone that were once his left arm. The heat waves continue to boil over them, emanating from the molten crater that burns in the desert heat like an underground coal fire. The carnage spreads outward from the crater in an acrid black radius, full of dead and dying horses, dead and dying men, flaming and smoking like the hells of some medieval triptych. He screams as they cauterize the severed flesh of his arm with flaming shrapnel from the blast.

  Only twenty-three remain—those who had been guarding the perimeter of the decimated oasis. They behold the wreckage with devout superstition, eyeing the source of the explosion as if it might erupt again, fearing the dark forces responsible may not yet be satiated. Noxious fumes spew from the earth like the breath of some slumbering subterranean demon now awoken, full of mean venom and ancient fury.

  The brave Sons of the Temple leave the dead where they lay and drag the wounded down by the parched riverbed and arrange them in neat lines to perform a quick and reckless triage. They are sick with the task, operating on some baser level with their thinking minds disengaged from the gruesomeness. Those that can still ride are given grisly treatments by trembling, blood-slippery hands and left to suffer, the rest are dispatched swiftly in the same manner applied to the lamed horses—a slick cut of the throat and on to the next.

  Taket rises, holding his severed forearm against his chest, and looks around at the carnage. His men are covered in black char and red gore. The surviving horses have run scared, cutting a wide arc outward into the dry desert then doubling back to the bank upriver. Taket limps toward them, a hellish vision, and the horses start and skitter as he draws near. Only one seems fearless and calm—a tall, brown-speckled steed with an arrowshot scar on its hindquarters. Taket calls him forth and soothes him, then fastens his right hand on the pommel and hefts himself onto the saddle.

  He rides through the bloody field of dead like some arcane horseman on a mission of soul collection. He surveys the limp and mangled bodies and pieces of bodies, then rides a wide swath around the blast radius, peering into the smoldering crater that runs straight down into the earth like a tunnel to the underworld. There is nothing to salvage. He makes his way back to the provisional camp along the river, where the wounded bellow in agony as crude and painful treatments are administered to their injuries.