The Golden City fr-3

by John Twelve Hawks

  “Hello!” he shouted. “Hello!” His voice sounded weak and plaintive.

  Michael pivoted on his heel and saw something he hadn’t noticed before-a bonfire burning in a distant thicket of brush and trees. Staying on dry land, he followed the levee bordering a watery rectangle. A light wind made waves that splashed against the reddish-brown dirt. The only other sounds he could hear were his own breathing and a squishy noise from his wet socks. After awhile, he made a left turn onto a new levee and passed scraggly bushes that reminded him of wild sage and dwarf trees with twisted branches jabbing at the sky.

  He heard voices and began crawling through the tangled vegetation. When he reached a thicket of plants with leaves that looked like strips of old leather, he moved cautiously.

  Eleven men and women sat around a fire. It was a woeful, ragged-looking group-like the survivors of a flood or a tornado. Both sexes wore wide-brimmed hats woven from dry grass and long boots with the top part folded down at the knees. The women were dressed in black skirts and blouses with red or green trousers underneath while the men’s clothing displayed bright geometric designs-mostly squares and triangles. Each person also wore something around their neck: a red collar about three inches wide with a silver clasp. Their only other possessions were long curved knives that hung from their belts.

  The group was arguing about something. When the voices became louder, an old man struggled to his feet. He had bandy legs, stringy hair, and a paunch that sagged over his belt buckle. “He’s a thief!” the old man announced. “He’s a squat-house thief who cared nothing for the boots working beside him. But the trouble is-he’s the thief and we’re the ones that pay.”

  A young woman stopped feeding twigs to the fire. “The wet crawlers are on their way here. And now we’re one beneath twelve.”

  Michael could understand most of what they were saying, but the rhythm of their speech, the inflection of their words, seemed to come from an earlier time. Trying not to make any noise, he crawled a few feet to the right and saw a dead man hanging from a noose tied to a tree.

  He considered crawling back through the undergrowth to the levee, then rejected the idea. Come to us was the message that appeared on the monitor screen. Yes, these people were carrying knives, but the sheaths were stained and smeared with dirt. They’re tools, Michael thought. Not weapons. He stood up, pushed his way through the underbrush and stepped into the clearing. Everyone in the group looked startled and the old man began blinking rapidly, like a cave creature pulled into the light.

  “What’s the name of this place?” Michael asked.

  “The-the waterfields,” the old man stammered. “That’s the old name. Of course maybe they’ll hammer up a new one.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “We’re faithful servants, sir. All of us. As you can see.” The old man touched his collar. “We’re here to harvest the spark.”

  Michael pointed at the hanging man. “And who is that?”

  “He’s a thief.” This announcement prompted grumbling and comments from the rest of the group. Yes. A thief. Worse than a contempter.

  “What did he steal?”

  The old man seemed astonished at the question. “He killed himself and stole his life, sir. The gods own that and only the gods can take it from you.”

  Michael glanced at the suicide and saw that the branch was too low for a quick, neck-snapping death. The man’s eyes were open and the toes of his boots touched the ground as if he were an awkward ballet dancer.

  A broad-faced man stood up and spoke angrily. “No more teeth and tongue. We’re all in the same pot and you’re puttin’ it on the fire.”

  “He’s not a servant,” the old man said, nodding at Michael. “He’s not a militant either or we’d be burnin’ on the ground. Don’t know what he is and what he wants-so what’s the harm in talkin’ to him?”

  “He’s a guardian,” the young woman said. “Just like the ones on the visionary.”

  “That’s right,” Michael said quickly. “I’m a guardian. And I’m here to see the waterfields.”

  “Well, now you’ve seen them,” a voice said. “So run back to the center.”

  “Wait! Wait! Let me calculate now,” the old man said. “Grant me a short measure.” Everyone watched as he paced back and forth in the narrow clearing. Whenever the old man stopped and changed direction, he kicked a divot in the packed dirt. After a minute or so of this ritual, he made a quick about-face and approached Michael. The few teeth left in his mouth were crooked and stained, but he smiled broadly.

  “To your ears, sir-I’m Verga sire-Toshan. And what would your tag be?”

  “Michael.”

  The name sounded odd to Verga, but he shrugged and continued. “Now you say you’re a guardian here to see the waterfields. But we’ve all heard tales of contempters running from the city with militants after them. You’re like a finner on dry land-flopping around while the night birds gather. But we can save you if you help us with our error.”

  “What kind of help are you talking about?”

  “Three must be,” Verga intoned, as if reciting a passage of scripture. “If we’re one short of three then the church militants appear. Join us. Be a faithful servant. Help us cut the spark.”

  A murmur of approval came from the others. Michael realized that if he joined them, the number of workers once again became a multiple of three. He had no idea who the militants were, but it was best to keep a low profile until he learned more about this realm.

  “Three must be,” Michael said, and everyone smiled. Verga knelt in front of the dead man and began to pull off his boots. Two women left the group by the fire and removed the suicide’s hat, clothes, belt and knife. These possessions were placed at Michael’s feet, and the youngest woman smiled shyly.

  The dead man’s boots and clothes smelled moldy, but they fit. By the time Michael was dressed, the naked thief had been cut down, and Verga had used his knife to snap open the silver clasp and remove the suicide’s red collar. As the others rolled the body into a shallow ditch, Verga fit the collar around Michael’s neck and forced the clasp back together. The collar was smooth, but fairly heavy; it felt like a thick strip of plastic. Michael wondered if it was an electronic tracking device or just a mark of servitude.

  Everyone worked quickly to cover the dead man with branches and brush. When they were done, Michael followed them through the undergrowth to the waterfields. Three of the machines they called “wet crawlers” were a half-mile away, grinding toward the levy. The largest of these machines looked like a crazed mechanic’s amalgamation of a farm tractor and an old-fashioned locomotive. It had a pair of large wheels in back and a smaller single wheel in front, a long cylindrical body and a black box like a riverboat wheelhouse on top. A black cloud of smoke puffed from a red smokestack and drifted across the water. Two smaller machines that looked like dump trucks with three wheels were on opposite sides of the main crawler-meek attendants for a roaring dragon.

  Michael touched the handle of the dead man’s knife. He had been expecting a high-tech world that looked like a cinematic version of the future. Where were the talking robots and massive skyscrapers that glowed like crystal spires? Where were the space vehicles floating down from the heavens and gliding into some vast loading dock?

  He realized that the wet crawler would destroy the stick marker he had left in the water. If he lost the passageway, then he would be trapped in this primitive world forever. Trying not to look nervous, he approached Verga.

  “Where are we harvesting today?”

  “Just follow the tips of your boots.” The old man motioned to the area directly in front of them.

  Michael pointed in the direction of the passageway. “Are we also going over there?”

  “Three suns gone. Three suns come.” Verga said as if this phrase answered the question.

  “We guardians don’t speak the same way,” Michael told him. “We’re harvesting here until darkness and then-”
>
  “Three suns gone,” Verga repeated.

  While they were talking, the other harvesters had fastened the top part of their boots to their belts. Now their legs were protected from anything swimming in the water. When the wet crawlers were about fifty feet away, they began to make slow turns in the water. One servant controlled each machine while boys tossed chunks of fuel into fire boxes and adjusted the valves.

  Verga slapped Michael on the shoulder as if he had just joined a football team. “From now on, you’re ‘Tolmo.’ That was the thief’s tag.”

  “What if someone asks about him?”

  “They don’t care about our faces. That’s as clear as the boots I’m standin’ in. Only the gods watch our lives.”

  The harvesters clutched their knives as if they were going to climb onto the crawler and kill everyone onboard. The machinery squealed and chugged and spat little jets of steam. Suddenly, Verga reached into the water and pulled up a green, pumpkin-size plant still attached to its leafy vines.

  “This here’s a spark. Don’t know what you guardians call it. Now you want to take your knife and cut right around the base root. Trim the side vines off and toss your harvest into the feeder.” He picked up a smaller plant. “Now this one is still growing. And this one…” Verga grabbed Michael’s hand and pushed it below the surface so he could feel a large, smooth object. “That’s a mother plant. We leave that to birth the next measure.”

  “I understand.”

  “Slow and steady wins the day. Don’t cut your leg with your blade.”

  “There are creatures in the water. I got bit.”

  A few people laughed, and Verga tugged down the brim of Michael’s hat. “If a finner starts chewin’ on you, just let me know. He’ll end up in the pot.”

  Now that the main crawler had stopped, Michael could see the equipment attached to the back of the machine. A metal frame held a long conveyer belt that was only a few inches above the water. The horizontal belt fed the harvested spark to a vertical wire tube with a screw device revolving inside. Once the spark reached the top of the tube, it could be directed into the hoppers carried by the two auxiliary machines.

  “May the gods reward us,” Verga prayed. The harvesters drew their knives. Steel poles extending from the conveyer belt established twelve separate work areas. If Michael hadn’t substituted for the dead man, it would have been immediately clear that someone was missing. The loud noise from the machinery and the shimmering space of the waterfields was almost overpowering. For a moment, Michael wanted to turn away and slosh his way back to dry land.

  A steam whistle blew with a high-pitched shriek and the crawler began to roll forward. Startled by this disturbance, one of the finners broke the surface of the water. The old woman grabbed its tail and flipped it onto the conveyer belt, where a man sliced off its head and another man tossed its body onto the back of the frame. The crawler kept shaking as if were about to fall apart. Michael stared at the eel head with its needle teeth as it floated past him.

  “Tolmo!” Verga shouted. “What’s your task now? Where’s your blade?”

  Michael drew his knife and caught up with the others. Both the men and women worked quickly. They gauged the size of the unseen spark with their feet and legs, then reached into the water, grabbed a stem and pulled the plant to the surface. One or two quick cuts and the spark was free. Then they had to catch up with the crawler and toss their harvest onto the conveyer belt.

  Michael could feel the spark hidden below the surface, but it was difficult cutting them free. Their stems were thick and tangled. Everything was a mess of leaves and mud and his own confusion. Bend down. Grab. Cut. No, that’s not right. Too small. Toss it away. Finally, he cut a plant of the right size and realized that the crawler was now thirty feet away from him. He had to run through the muddy water, splashing and swearing to himself until he dumped the spark onto the belt.

  Verga smiled. “Good. That’s an offering for the gods.”

  “So how long do we have to do this?”

  “’Til the midway resting.”

  “And when is that?”

  “The crawler stops and turns when it reaches a boundary mark. You’ll have time to fill your lungs…”

  The crawler blew its whistle and Michael had to run again to catch up with the machine. Back in his own world, he and Gabriel had worked in a cattle feed lot, and one hot summer they had mopped tar onto roofs. But this didn’t feel like a job at all. It was a muddy battle with the living world-grabbing the spark, slashing its stem and flinging it away as if it was the head of dead enemy.

  7

  The hazy triangle of suns moved higher in the sky and one of the smaller machines left with its load of spark. Still squeaking and blowing off steam, the main crawler stopped beside a levee, and the harvesters stepped onto dry land. Near this resting point, someone had set up a large cone of hammered copper filled with clean water. Cups were attached to the cone with little chains. While the harvesters took turns with the cups, a young woman opened a sack and passed out small loaves of something that looked like bread. Michael took a loaf and bit off a piece of the end. The midday meal had a brownish-orange color and a coarse texture; it tasted like roasted hazelnuts.

  Verga sat near the edge of the levee gobbling down one loaf with two other loaves on his lap. “It’s the gunder-spark today. Thought they’d serve us the rasten-spark, but this is better.”

  “Is that all you eat?”

  “I forgot-you guardians eat more of the world. We servants eat finners and shantu and rake, but mostly it’s spark, cooked different ways.”

  “You ever want to eat like the guardians?”

  “Here I am and here I should be,” Verga said as if this one phrase could refute any argument. “We servants are the hands and arms and legs, standing strong on the ground. And the militants are here…” He touched his heart. “And you guardians are here…” He touched his head. “All is just when each does his part.”

  When the harvest resumed a short time later, Michael felt stronger and was able to keep up with the others. What had looked like a haphazard operation turned out to be an efficient system of farming. There was no need to plant seeds or pull weeds as long as the mother plants were left alone. Drainage pipes connected the different fields, and a weak current kept the water from turning stagnant. Even the clanking, hissing wet crawler followed an established pattern; the servant operating the machine steered a straight line by aiming at the sticks embedded in the mud.

  Toward the end of the day, the workers put away their knives, rolled down their boot-tops, and followed Verga through the grid of levees to the dry land that surrounded the waterfields. After twenty minutes of walking, they reached three railroad tracks set on a gravel bed. The tired workers lay down on a weedy strip beside the tracks until a steam engine arrived, pulling a line of flatcars. The steam engine itself was as simple as a teapot on a three-wheeled wagon: a steam cylinder and a single piston transmitted power to the crank shaft that propelled the train.

  If the train carried him to a new area, he might find it difficult to return to the passageway. As the harvesters began to climb onto to the flatcars, Michael looked around for landmarks and saw a rusty handcart that resembled an old-fashioned rickshaw. At night, he could follow the railroad tracks back to this point and then retrace his steps to the sticks he left in the water.

  His new friends waved their hands and called to him. “Hurry up, Tolmo! We’re leaving!”

  Michael jumped onto one of the flatcars, and the rickety train started down the tracks. They followed the perimeter of the water-fields, stopping every ten minutes or so to pick up another group of harvesters. Although the flatcars were moving about as fast as a Sunday jogger, there was a lively, excited feeling in the group. Everyone knew each other and people shouted jokes back and forth about the amount of spark each group had harvested that day. The wheels clicked with a quick rhythm as the wind of their passage ruffled the women’s hair and the hems of their
skirts.

  Michael sat at one end of the flatcar with his hat pulled low over his face. He thought again about the summer he and Gabriel worked at the cattle feedlot. They didn’t have money for gasoline so, at the end of the work day, an older man named Leon would give them a ride home in the back of his pickup truck. It was just like this: rolling down a road past the countryside.

  Forget all that, Michael told himself. Focus on the present situation. Listening to the conversations around him, he figured out the system of two-syllable names used by the servants. Verga was also called “Verga sire-Toshan”-which meant he was the father of the man named Toshan sitting a few yards away. Mothers added their oldest daughter’s name, and so the woman next to him was called “Molva san-Pali.”

  In the distance, huge white shapes seemed to emerge from the ground. As the train grew closer, Michael saw that they were approaching a cluster of triangular buildings with steep roofs. The steam engine blew its whistle loudly, the engineer pulled back a brake lever, and the entire train screeched to a stop. Everyone jumped off the train, and Michael followed Verga across the tracks. A line of rail cars had been left on a side track; some of them held wire hoppers filled with harvested spark. A few cars carried stacks of bricks and a work crew was unloading them into wheelbarrows.

  A pathway led them to a central courtyard surrounded by the triangular buildings. The courtyard was dominated by white brick structures that were as large as the barns back in South Dakota. Near a machine shop, men were repairing a vehicle that Verga called a “dry crawler.” It looked like a nineteenth century stagecoach with a driver’s box and a steam engine in front. But there were also three-wheeled carts pulled by shaggy ponies with blunt noses and hand carts pulled by the older children. An open cooking area was at one end of the courtyard; women scooped out the pale orange pulp of the spark plant and molded it into loaves which they baked in an outdoor oven.