Century #4: Dragon of Seas

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  Following the faint voice, Fernando and Cecile walk over to a playground bordered by a ring of manholes. The voice is coming from below them.

  Fernando kneels down and presses his face up against the metal grate, but he can’t see anything.

  Then the voice from below the manhole shouts, “Fernando!”

  “Ermete?” Elettra’s father asks, stunned. “Is that you?”

  “Come down here! We’re about to drown!” shouts the engineer.

  Mademoiselle Cybel has managed to remove the gag from his mouth.

  THE FIRST ONE TO GO DOWN THE STAIRS IS HARVEY. THERE ARE only twelve steps, which lead into a large, sloping, low-ceilinged chamber carved into the rock.

  “It’s dry,” he says.

  “What do you see?”

  The only source of light is the narrow opening he just came down through.

  “Nothing,” he replies.

  “Move,” Heremit Devil says from behind them. He goes down the stairs and stands beside Harvey. He switches on a flashlight and shines it around. Sheng, Mistral and Elettra follow him, escorted by Nik Knife.

  “So this is it?” the man mutters. “This is the secret?”

  The dim light illuminates walls covered with writings, carved stone panels, a metal tripod that looks like a torch holder and other stone slabs lying on the ground.

  “Who knows what this room is for?”

  Nik Knife checks his watch. Nine minutes until the helicopter returns.

  Elettra feels her fingers sizzling with energy, despite the insulating outfit she’s still wearing. She spreads open her hands. “Light,” she says.

  And twelve metal torches are instantly ablaze.

  When the room lights up, Heremit Devil staggers, frightened.

  “How did you do that?” he shrieks.

  Then he looks around, astonished. The chamber now looks much larger than it seemed. It’s almost three meters high and the sloping floor leads into a long, spiral passageway that winds down into the rock. On the walls are torches and large vases with stylized trees painted on them. Inside the vases are handfuls of seeds that look just like the ones they found in the underground realms of New York. Slabs of carved stone are on the ground, leaned up against the bare walls. But farther down the passageway, the walls are covered with inscriptions and engravings. Plaques in different materials covered with writings, the most recent ones in Western characters and in a totally unexpected language.

  “Spanish?” Heremit Devil asks aloud, walking over to the most recent panel to read it.

  JUAN CABOTO, PER ENCÀRREC DE LA CORONA ANGLESA, DESEMBARCA A TERRANOVA (1499)

  The panel beside it is in Chinese. On it is the account of Zheng He’s fleet leaving the ports of China to explore the world many years before Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America.

  Peering around and glancing at the writings, the little group makes its way down the spiral passage, Heremit Devil at a restrained pace, the kids almost running. The farther down they go, the more ancient the plaques are. And the languages keep changing, moving from Chinese to Arabic, from Hebrew to Russian.

  Farther down.

  Latin. Greek.

  Even farther down.

  Hieroglyphs. Cuneiform alphabet.

  It’s like going back in time through the history of the world’s languages. Heremit Devil looks around, astonished.

  At the umpteenth turn, the passageway comes to an end at a wall covered with an intricate mosaic. In the center of the mosaic is the sun. And the eleven rings around it are the uniform orbits of the planets in the solar system. A twelfth planet’s ring is completely out of phase compared to the others: a long ellipsis tapered on its far ends.

  Resting on a small altar on the floor in front of the wall is a crudely carved stone.

  While the others are looking around, trying to make sense of their surroundings, Sheng is looking around as if the chamber was filled with people. And for him, it really is: standing before the stone slabs are people of all different nationalities and from all different eras. Navigators, mandarins, knights, court officials, priests, legionaries, scribes, desert nomads, tribal shamans. Passing before his golden eyes are guns, lances, chariots, coats of arms, warhorses. Passing by are ideas and dreams from different times and different countries, which have remained there, filling the chamber with images for those who are able to see them.

  “They’re our … ancestors,” the boy whispers, captivated by the flurry of visions. He steps closer to the walls and touches them. “And this is their diary.”

  Carved into the rock in the long, spiral chamber are mankind’s ideas, feats and explorations. It’s a diary of stone, added to every hundred years by different people with different alphabets.

  Sheng sways on his feet as he touches the millennia-old stone slabs. “This was done by the Sages who came before us,” he says.

  “The words of the Sages?” Heremit Devil screams. “That’s all that’s hidden inside this island? Crumbling old writings?”

  “Don’t you understand?” Sheng exclaims.

  “What is there to understand?”

  “It’s all here!” Sheng says, continuing to dream as he brushes his hand over the hieroglyphs next to him. “Look! This one is about the construction of the first pyramid! It wasn’t a tomb! And they didn’t use slaves! But … of course, it’s so simple!”

  Heremit grabs him violently by the shirt. “What’s so simple?”

  Sheng closes his golden eyes. When he opens them, they’re blue again. Everything has disappeared. The dreams have vanished. “You made them go away …,” he murmurs.

  Heremit lets go of him, furious. He sees Nik Knife standing behind the two girls and Harvey leaning over the stone in front of the mosaic. “And what’s that?”

  “Stop,” Elettra says, planting herself between him and her boyfriend.

  “St-stop?” Heremit stammers, stunned that a girl would dare give him orders.

  Elettra claws the air like a wounded cat and her gesture is so unexpected that Heremit Devil backs up. Nik Knife rests his hands on the daggers tucked into his belt, but when Heremit motions for him to stand still, he withdraws into the shadows, seething.

  “What is that?” Heremit asks again.

  “It might be an answer,” Harvey says, looking at him.

  Harvey rests both hands on the stone and listens.

  He stays there for a long time, in silence. Then, slowly, he relaxes.

  “This stone fell to Earth when mankind didn’t exist here yet,” he says. “It fell along with thousands of other meteorites. It came from the orbit of a planet called Nibiru, which passed by thousands of years ago, leaving behind a shower of stellar material. Some of the stones burned up in the atmosphere. Others fell into the seas. Still others smashed open against the rocks. One, which was too large to fall, was trapped in the Earth’s orbit and became its only satellite: the Moon. The wandering planet passed by our planet many other times. During one of its last crossings, it found people expecting it. People who’d told others about its passing. People who believed they descended from it, like angels raining down from the heavens. People who saw Nibiru passing the last time believed they were the fruit of its eternal wanderings and returns. They thought they were stellar seeds that had fallen to this world.”

  “When did that happen?” Mistral asked, crouching down in front of Harvey.

  “I don’t know, exactly …,” the boy murmurs, taking his hands off the stone. “A long time ago.”

  “In the time of the Chaldeans,” Sheng says, staring at something or someone in the middle of the room. “They were the ones who were expecting it to pass by.”

  “How do you know that?” Elettra asks.

  “I don’t know,” Sheng replies, pointing at the empty space in front of him. “But I can see it.”

  “What can you see?”

  Sheng’s eyes are gold again. “It’s a man. He has a beard, and his hair is woven into little braids. He’s wearing a qu
iver full of arrows and a gown with the stars drawn on it.”

  “Where is he?” Harvey asks.

  “In front of you. Next to the mosaic. And he’s looking straight at me.”

  Harvey stands up and rests both hands on the wall. “He says he’s one of the first Magi,” he begins, “and that he lived when the Earth was different from what it’s like today. The North Pole and South Pole were reversed. The sun set in the east and rose in the west.”

  Beside him, Sheng nods, describing to the others what he’s seeing. “He’s making a gesture, like he’s turning a ball upside down. And he’s pointing at the strange orbit in the mosaic, the one that’s different from the other planets in the solar system. That’s Nibiru’s path.”

  “He says that the last time it passed by,” Harvey continues, “its passing caused unprecedented cataclysms. The Earth turned over and was engulfed by water. All the world’s populations speak of the flood.”

  Sheng and Harvey lapse into silence. In the shadows, Heremit Devil’s eyes burn like embers.

  “What’s he telling you now?” Mistral asks with a tiny voice.

  “He’s saying how the Magi studied Nibiru’s passing and calculated how long it would take it to return,” Harvey says. “They made sure their calculations and discoveries could be passed on. To do that, they entrusted a small group of scholars with the task of handing down the secret from generation to generation so the secret of the wandering planet would always be protected and mankind could prepare for its return.”

  “The Pact?” Mistral murmurs, looking at the others.

  “Along with the secret of the wandering planet, the Magi passed down the biggest secret of all: the whole universe is alive … and it follows the four fundamental laws of the universe.”

  “What are they?” Elettra whispers.

  “He says they apply to everything in the universe, big and small. Other men have studied them and have given them names like mathematics, genetics, physics, quantum mechanics … but they’re actually four very simple things: harmony, energy, memory and hope, or to use another word: dreams.”

  In the underground chamber, they can hear the sea now. Nik Knife whispers something in Heremit Devil’s ear. Then he moves back a few steps.

  Warned by the man that only he can see, Sheng notices. “He looks scared,” he says.

  Harvey nods. “He is. Nibiru’s coming back. It’s headed toward us. And this isn’t a good time for it to come back. On the Earth, the four laws have been seriously put to the test. The planet’s harmony has been wounded, it’s been robbed of its energy and its diamond memory has been diminished.”

  “Wait!” Elettra exclaims. “You mean diamonds are the Earth’s memory?”

  Harvey nods. “That’s what he says. But he also says the most serious thing is that we’re robbing it of its dreams.”

  “Our planet can dream?” Mistral asks, amazed.

  “He says it does it all the time,” Harvey continues. “It dreams of animals that appear in the woods. It dreams of men who explore its mysteries. It dreams of songs it entrusts to the wind. It dreams of new tongues of ice and silences full of ideas. And it waits.”

  “Waits for what?”

  “For Nibiru to return to the solar system and come back toward us.” Suddenly, Harvey almost starts to tremble. “And when Nibiru approaches, the Earth will use its energy to speak to it, its memory to tell it what happened … and will tell it whether the dream is still possible.”

  “And then …?”

  “If the dream is possible, Nibiru will pass by and disappear into the universe, its tail aflame with asteroids, to return again after thousands and thousands of years. But if the dream isn’t possible …”

  Harvey hesitates.

  Elettra steps closer to him. “What will happen?”

  “Nibiru will establish a new harmony. It will flip the North Pole and South Pole, east and west, and wipe out mankind with a flood or a shower of meteorites. To start over again. Just like it did in the past and just like it will do again in the future.”

  “Does he say … when it’s going to happen?”

  Harvey waits a few seconds, pulls his hands away from the wall as if he felt a shock and buries himself in Elettra’s arms.

  “Enough!” Heremit Devil shouts, bursting in between them. “Enough of this nonsense!” He kicks the stone, making it tumble over to the mosaic wall. “I’ve spent far too long listening to your ramblings! You’re trying to make a fool of me! There’s no old man talking here!”

  He lunges toward Elettra. “I waited five years to come here! And now I want the power! I want your energy, little girl! And I want to summon the animals!” he screams, shoving Mistral to the ground. “Where’s the power of this great secret?” he continues. “Where’s the secret? I can’t see a thing! I can’t hear a thing! I want something concrete!”

  He pounds his fist against a stone slab, panting.

  “I don’t want to hear about a nonexistent planet and the dreams of the Earth. I don’t want to hear how many thousands of years ago all this was written. I don’t believe you. I’ll never believe you. What you’re saying is impossible. But I saw the torches light up … I saw the swarms of insects, so I know there’s something … something that I want, too!”

  From the shadows of the passageway leading up, Nik Knife warns him, “The helicopter is here! We must leave! Immediately!”

  But nobody moves.

  In the underground chamber, the five stare at each other. Behind them, Nik Knife starts counting down. “Fifty-nine … fifty-eight …”

  “Talk,” Heremit Devil orders.

  “We have nothing to say,” Elettra replies.

  “Talk! Or else I’ll leave you here!”

  “Forty-nine … forty-eight …,” Nik Knife continues relentlessly.

  “You’re going to leave us here anyway,” Harvey says, leaning against the mosaic, “no matter what we do.”

  “You’ll die! The island will sink down into the ocean!”

  “Yeah, could be,” Harvey says, shrugging. “So what?”

  “What point will there have been in coming all the way here? And your powers? And my son’s powers?”

  “I don’t have any powers,” Harvey shoots back, looking the man straight in the eyes. Then he decides to risk it all. “I made up everything I said.”

  “That’s not true! You—you heard it!”

  “Heard what? The stone?”

  Heremit Devil searches his pockets frantically. He pulls out a gun, raises it. “The truth! I want the truth! Why you kids? And what power is there on this island?”

  “The greatest power of all,” Sheng replies. “The power of knowing.”

  Harvey takes a step toward Heremit. “Where we come from, who we are, where we’re going and why we should do it … those are the answers you’ve been looking for. We come from memory, we’re harmony, we’re moving toward hope … and all this because the entire universe is pure energy.”

  “But what’s different about the four of you … and my son? Why isn’t he here? Why didn’t he make it? Why—why don’t I feel anything?”

  “Thirty seconds, sir,” Nik Knife says.

  Mistral leans back against the wall and slides down to the ground. Her eyes are full of tears and she shakes her head weakly. “I knew it would end like this.…”

  Heremit Devil stares at them one by one. “Would somebody answer me?”

  “Twenty … nineteen … eighteen …”

  “Why don’t I feel anything?” the man asks again.

  Harvey and Elettra stand there in front of him, hugging each other in silence.

  “Would someone … answer me?”

  “Twelve … eleven … ten …”

  The lord of the black skyscraper raises his gun and points it first at Harvey, then at Elettra. At Sheng, at Mistral. His arm is rigid, tense. His hand trembling. Five years of waiting. A journey across the ocean. An incomprehensible island. And still nothing. No answers. Four co
mpletely meaningless words: energy, harmony, memory and hope. Those aren’t answers. His hands are tingling. His head is throbbing. There’s too much reality down there. Too much outside world. And no power. Nothing he hoped to find. After years of isolation, of disinfected air, of security teams, now, in the total uncertainty, in the total incomprehensibility of the world around him, Heremit Devil is losing his mind. He even thinks he can hear a voice whispering inside of him. A voice saying words that make no sense. Like a woodworm devouring him.

  “Eight … seven … six … We must go, sir.… Five … four …”

  Four. Four. Four.

  At that number, Heremit Devil raises his gun, exasperated. His inhuman scream fills the entire underground chamber. “Nooooooo! Enough!”

  He whirls toward Nik Knife and pulls the trigger.

  * * *

  When he hears the gunshot, Sheng thinks he’s dead. Then, opening his eyes, he sees Heremit Devil standing there, facing the other direction, and the knife thrower’s lifeless body slumping to the ground. A thin trail of smoke drifts up from the barrel of Heremit Devil’s gun.

  Mistral is beside Sheng, clutching his knee.

  Harvey is standing perfectly still beside the mosaic, Elettra’s face buried in his shoulder. The stellar stone lies on the ground. The sea roars outside the grotto. And the sound of the chopper begins to fade away.

  “A little … silence …,” Heremit Devil says, turning back toward the kids. Now his face is a grimacing mask: his left eyelid has started to tremble furiously again; his cheek is quivering; his lip is curled, baring his gums.

  Once again, the man waves his gun.

  “Where … were we?”

  Harvey, Elettra, Sheng and Mistral hold each other tight, discovering that the contact has a calming effect on them. Their fingers seek out the others’ fingers, interlock, squeeze tight. If they’ve gotten all this way just to die here in this grotto, then, they think, it’s better to die together.

  Their gesture doesn’t escape Heremit Devil’s only watchful eye.

  The man waves his gun around and says, “You’re four pathetic little kids. Everyone lives alone. And everyone dies even more alone. Hope? What nonsense.”