by Kaden, John
“If you’re fit enough to stand, come with me. We need to tie down the horses.” He raises his remaining hand and points skyward. “When the sun is here, we leave. If you cannot make it, it is your choice whether we end your suffering or leave you to die.”
“Do you think this is all that’s left of it?” Lia asks, clicking her heel against the bundles. “Alexandria?”
“This is all. Nothing could have survived that blast.”
“You’re sure it was your dad?”
Nyla nods. “It’s funny… he talked about doing it a long time ago, he just didn’t have the heart. It wouldn’t have lasted another twenty years, the way things were going.”
“Aren’t you sad?”
“We’ll move on. We have everything we need right here.”
“What’s it for?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does it just teach people how to plant and build? We could already do that, and almost as good.”
“I’ll bet you could. No, it’s more than just planting and building. It’s… everything. It’s our history.”
“Not our history. Theirs.”
“Ours, too. Don’t you want to know what it used to be like? How they used to be, how they used to think?”
“I always used to… We used to sit around and talk about it all night.”
“What did you say?”
“That their world was like magic.”
The golden desert turns slowly to dusky lavender and they hasten their pace. They have been riding at an almost imperceptible incline, and by the dim-starred twilight they reach the brow of a sandy mound that sweeps down toward the village where Marikez resides, nestled in the bend of the shallow river. Points of torchlight flicker around the darkening settlement, shining out from the many flat-roofed tents that surround the outskirts. The tented abodes are walled with colorful cloth exteriors that billow softly in the cooling night, giving the whole settlement the mystique of some traveling gypsy caravan. Situated in the center is a more permanent structure of wood and stone, with sullen light creeping out from a wide-open doorway.
Vague forms shuffle between the tents, wearing flowing robes and banded head-dressings. Lia and Nyla float toward them on weary horses, laden with the bound platinum plates.
In the dusty yards, old women mill about the clotheslines, unpinning the day’s wash and folding everything away in woven baskets. They look up from their work with spooked faces and hiss out warnings to the others and scurry inside. In only a matter of moments, the alleyways between the tents are empty and the entire colony looks a ghost town.
“Are you sure they’re friendly?”
As the words part Lia’s lips, droves of armed men fan out through the outer quarters and take cover. She can see them in the shadows, their glinting arrows trained straight at them, following their slow advance down the sandy way.
They skirt past a few outlying shelters, flaps of red cloth snapping around them. Nyla stops in the center of a circular plaza and rides a slow circuit around.
“We’re sent by Ryan Hargrove,” she calls out to the creeping shadows.
They sit still on their horses and wait, and for a long while no one moves.
Three figures advance through the deepening night—one striding up the middle, flanked by two armed men. He enters the round market and studies the two young women who’ve suddenly appeared from the desert. He takes another step forward, squinting against the darkness.
“Nyla?”
“Yes.”
She hops down and bounds toward him, leading her horse along. Lia sits quiet and watches. The man is swarthy and sun-darkened, with a long mane of coarse brown hair. Nyla runs into his arms and they embrace tightly.
“Hello, Marikez.”
“It has been years,” he says, stepping back and taking her in. “You were so little last I saw you.”
“It’s wonderful to see you. So much has changed here.”
“More of everything, all the time. How is your family? Your boy?”
“They’re fine,” says Nyla, wearing a strained smile on her face.
“What’s wrong? Is your father ill?”
“No. He’s… he’s fine. We’ve come to ask your help.”
“Of course. Anything.” Nyla’s worried silence speaks volumes and a deep crease furrows his brow. “What is it? What has happened?”
She turns and beckons Lia to join them. She rides over, leading the third horse along behind her.
“This is Lia.”
“Welcome,” he says. He takes her hand and helps her down from the horse, then turns to Nyla. “She’s your friend from the seaside?”
“No. She… we only just met.”
Marikez flashes a look of confusion and Lia raises her hand meekly and waves.
“We have something that needs to be kept safe. It’s very important.”
A slew of onlookers have gathered around the plaza, curious old faces and excited children. They eye the rectangular bundles lashed over the saddles.
“Perhaps we should talk elsewhere,” he says.
With the kindly grace of a gentleman, he takes the third lead from Lia’s hand and guides them through the quaint neighborhood of tents and shelters. Unknown spices float on the air and Lia swivels her head, drinking in the oddities hung from beams around the open-air dwellings—dried gourds and snakeskins, carven tools and utensils, child puppets with crisscross eyes and strange little wooden toys. The leery forms shuffle and stare as Lia and Nyla stroll past with their much-burdened horses in tow. They round a corner and head toward the center of the colony. Several of the children follow along at a distance, and on either side of the lane sit families around fire pits and old men who smoke pipes and watch them pass with casual disinterest. The homes grow sturdier as they approach the innermost, and oldest, part of the settlement. Wooden structures paling from the sun, with packed layers of mud and straw insulation.
“Don’t let me forget,” says Marikez, “I have something for your father.”
They pass the central stone building and come to a modest dwelling just beyond. Marikez hitches the horses in his small yard and two girls run up to greet him, throwing their arms around his stout legs. He hefts them in his arms and carries them to the side of his house where their mother sits idly, talking with the neighbors. Lia walks back out into the lane, flexing out her leg, and peers around the small community.
“When I was little, this is all that was here,” says Nyla.
“What happened?”
“They grew.”
Shouts issue from down the way where a group of young boys kick a leather ball around the dirt lane. Lia turns and looks and they stop in her gaze, struck by the two strange beauties standing in the middle of their usually boring neighborhood.
“Hi,” says Lia, smiling expectantly.
They freeze, then run off in a half-crazed fit.
Nyla laughs.
Marikez brings his family over and introduces them around, then takes his children to the curtained doorway of his small house and they slip inside. He returns a moment later, holding a small bundle.
“Come,” he says, moving to the fire. “Sit down.”
“Thank you,” says Nyla.
“Now, how is it that I can help you?”
“Something is happening up north along the coast. People are being slaughtered. I should let Lia tell it—she knows more.”
“Slaughtered?”
His face grows dire as Lia begins. When she tells the worst of it, he leans forward with his hands in his lap like a boy being lectured.
“Arana Nezra. You’ve never known of him before?”
“No. Most of our contacts were in the central valley. No one has heard of him.”
“He kills them if they come close,” says Lia. “Or even if they don’t.”
“They’ve been there… how long? Forty years?”
Lia nods. “But they’ve not been killers that long.”
“This is horri
ble,” says Marikez. He fixes his eyes on Nyla. “What have you come to ask of me?”
“My father rode out this morning… for their Temple. With some of the men from my home. He wants to see if they can be stopped.”
“Yes?”
“And he would like your help.”
“I see.” Marikez sits back and stares up at the sky. “I have my people here to think about.”
“I understand. I understand if you can’t—”
“And if these killers are as bad as you say… then it is only a matter of time before they find your lovely home by the ocean, is it not?”
“Probably.”
“And they have already reached your father’s house?”
“Yes…”
“Then it may only be a matter of time before they find our lovely home. Your father has meant so much to us here. If he believes this man is a threat, then I believe it. Of course I will help you.”
“Thank you.”
“We’ll go house to house,” says Marikez, rising. “We’ll call them out. I can get you fifty men. And horses. Where is this Temple?”
“We have a map.”
“I can take you there,” says Lia.
“Good. Very good.” He unwraps the bundle in his lap and removes an intricately whittled pipe with a long, fine stem. “This is not the gift,” he says, taking out a little drawstring satchel. He opens it up and wafts the cherry-sweet tobacco under their noses. “This is. I’ll take it to him myself.”
“I don’t know how to ever thank you.”
“Come visit more often. We miss you.” He motions to the horses. “You said you have something for us to keep? What is it? Valuables?”
“It’s… kind of a long story.”
Nyla steps across the yard and unties the bundle from her horse, then crouches down and pulls back the cloth wrapping and removes one of the plates. She carries it back toward the crackling fire and hands it to Marikez. It looks glossy and wet in the firelight, full of tiny lettering barely readable to the naked eye. Marikez runs his fingers over the inscriptions, scrutinizing them with mystified eyes, then turns it over in his rough hands and peers at still more miniscule writings on the back.
“Is this your father’s work?”
“He didn’t make them. Preserved them, only. They were handed down…”
“From?”
“From before the fall.”
Marikez tugs at his beard, thinking. “These are very old, then.”
“Two hundred and seventy years, at least.”
“The American Civil War?” he reads. “This is what happened to everything?”
“No. That was six hundred years ago. It’s history.”
He examines the plate suspiciously. “This is your father’s secret? Lost words?”
“This is it.”
“The writings he gave us… the books he said he discovered… came from these?”
“Everything.”
Marikez laughs robustly, gleaming at the plate.
“Can you keep them safe?”
“Of course. I'd be honored. I have just the place. Come.”
They step into the narrow alleyway, vacant now as the neighborhood sleeps, and they unhitch their horses from the post. Marikez guides them to the stone building at the heart of the settlement, where an aged watchman reclines by the open door, half-asleep.
“Our sanctuary,” he tells them. “Victor, wake up.”
“Hmm…”
“I need your help. Quickly.”
He bids old Victor to rouse himself and call everyone out from their slumber for a midnight meeting at the sanctuary.
Lia and Nyla untether the rest of the bundles and start carrying them through the gloomy shelter, past rows of the settlement’s own carven tablets. Lia gazes up, taking them for tombstones at first glance, then seeing more closely that the chipped and smoothworn tablets each contain their own engraved history, written in the dark years by Marikez’s forefathers, telling the story of their own long struggle for survival in the aftermath. They pile everything in a pitch-black side chamber, then Marikez pulls the door shut and braces it.
“There. Night and day, they will be guarded.” He takes their elbows and ushers them to the front row of benches. “Please, sit down. I’m going out with Victor to gather everyone… when I come back, I’ll need your help,” he says, turning to Lia. “I need you to tell them everything you’ve told me. And I promise you… they will go.”
With that, he bustles out the door toward the plaza, leaving Lia and Nyla alone in the sanctuary. Lia looks down at her hands and rubs them, hoping this will be the last time she has to speak to an audience about the tragedy she endured.
Slowly they trickle in, wearing long undershirts with dark-ringed eyes and hair astray, none too happy about being pulled from their warm beds. Their moods continue to spiral as the dreadful news is delivered. Many seem disbelieving of Lia’s telling, but after Nyla bears testament and Marikez speaks to the debt they owe her father, they break away and fall into quiet deliberation.
In the morning, Marikez makes good on his promise, with forty-seven men and women saddling their horses and nearly clearing out their small stable entirely. They ride down the centerline of the settlement and congregate in the plaza, with bows and broadswords slung over the robes they wear, making them appear at once monastic and militant.
Lia circles around the edge of the plaza, past clusters of worried settlers, and finds Nyla standing with the contingent that will guard the sanctuary.
“I think we’re leaving…”
“Take care of yourself, Lia. When this is all over… you and Jack are welcome to come live with us on the coast. There’s always room for more.”
“Thank you,” she says, swallowing hard. “I’d like that.”
“Tell Denit I expect him back in one piece.”
“I will.”
“Tell him I love him.”
“I will.”
They turn their horses and parade through the settlement, past the early wooden buildings and finally through the leaning hovels at the outskirts. The citizenry follows them to the outer bounds, then stops and watches them disappear into the desert heat waves.
By sundown they pass the still-burning wreckage of the oasis. Light ash bristles across the sand like new fallen snow, collecting daintily on the bodies of the dead. Lia rides along the edge of the river with Marikez and two of his men, surveying the line of bloody indentions and stiffening carcasses spread along the bank, where already the buzzards have picked clean the eye sockets and started into the tougher meat. Lia’s skin ripples, looking into the dead faces and recognizing all of them.
“They saw to their wounded and left the rest to die.” Marikez looks across the scene of carnage, taking shallow breaths of the rancid air. “Hargrove rode out this way. And these Nezra followed his trail.”
Hargrove leads them through the unspoiled desert for many days. He talks all along the way, pointing off to faraway vistas and telling of the people and settlements he has encountered throughout his life. Most of the men have heard it before, but Jack rides in lockstep during the long journey and absorbs every word.
“Good farming people up north of here,” he calls, motioning off toward the tip of the broad green valley that engulfs the horizon. “I’ll bet they’re seeing the highest yields they’ve had in decades. Centuries. In fifty years, mark my word, this land up here will be booming.”
“Have you gone to the east?” asks Jack.
“Oh, to a point.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Centuries of draught. Hard living out that way. We never made it past the continental divide, though. Might be better further out.”
“Lia and I met people from the east. They hated it.”
“I don’t blame them.”
“What’s the worst you saw of it?”
“The worst?” Hargrove cocks his head and gives Jack a queer look. “Are you sure you want to know?”
<
br /> “I want to know what it’s like, that’s all. These people… they were running from something out that way.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t know if this relates, but… probably the worst of it happened, oh, about twenty-five, thirty years ago or so. We were looking for settlements, looking for a place to make contact and set up new lines. Mostly what we found was misery. People that would just as soon kill us as accept our help. We nearly turned back, and I wish we had. We weren’t far off from land we once knew had been fertile, so we pushed a bit farther to see what we’d find. Not long after, we thought we’d found what we were looking for—a nice, well-built settlement. Looked like they had done well for themselves. We saw the buildings from far off—log cabins, cobblestone streets. They’d sectioned off land for crops. As we rode in closer, though, we saw the crops were untended. Overgrown, rotting on the vine. Some of our group held back, in case they turned violent on us we wouldn’t all be lost. Me and several others set out in the morning to approach them, see if they were friendly or not. We expected to be met as we rode in, but no one came. We kept riding, and soon entered the town. The streets were as well-laid as they looked from far away, but they were empty. Weeds had just started up through the cracks. We called out to a few cabins—no one came. We circled around and knocked on their doors. No one answered. I’d seen smaller camps abandoned, lots of them, but never a place like this. People don’t just up and leave a place like this. We chanced entry of one of the little cabins and found it empty, too. Door to door we went, searching for any sign of life and coming up short every time. As we got toward the far end of this town… it hit us. We could smell it in the air. It was coming from a long shelter they’d built, stone chimney with a shingled roof—must have been build by hard-working, intelligent people. By the time we reached the doors leading in, we could barely hold our stomachs down the stench was so strong. The doors were locked from the inside. We forced them open and what we saw I will never forget for the rest of my days—there they all were, the whole lot of them, the entire town, stiff as boards, sitting on rows of wooden benches, facing away from us. I crossed my arm over my mouth and nose and ventured inside. They were in the early stages. We must have just missed them. Dead. All of them. Men, women, children. Dressed nice, canting over in their seats. Don’t know how they did it, poison or some such thing, but it was clear it was by their own hand.”