“Ja-Lil, it is late and Man-Den will be waiting.” With the moment broken, she kissed him quickly and stepped back. Behind her, he saw the eyes of many citizens watching them. In fact, wherever he looked people were observing them. He realized that from the moment they stepped from his house, heads turned slightly or people would hesitate in their walking and whisper to each other as their eyes followed the path he and Tei-La were taking. When he first noticed, he thought people were looking past him at something else so he paid no attention to it. He had never known anything but complete anonymity. Feeling it disappear, he longed for the freedom it had given. He felt self-conscious. He wanted to return the kiss before he left but did not want others to bear witness to his every move. They both were still for a moment before Tei-La smiled and repeated, “Go.”
He moved off quickly, away from the city center to the wide avenue that led to the Elder’s lodgings and behind that to Man-Den’s home. The way was clear to him as if he had never forgotten it. Alone to think while he walked, his thoughts returned to the man who tried to kill him. He could think of no plan other than to wait for his next move. His mother or Tei-La would have warned him of any danger so they must have been unaware of it. To ask anyone else might be to ask the very one he could not trust.
Every step seemed to be greeted with a smile or a nod of the head. At one point, he thought he saw the kind eyes of the old man, but they were gone in a crowd of eyes staring at him. Will they ever get used to me? He tried but could not remember this phenomenon occurring when he had walked the city with his father so long ago. He actually felt this might be one of the hardest things to overcome if he truly took his place in the city and became its king.
“If?” he stopped suddenly at that thought. “If?” After the moments last night with his mother, he had never considered another course but to fulfill the function of heir to the king. But just this moment, without planning the thought, he considered …if. There is no if. I am my father and his line is mine.” Memories of the surface and the friends he’d left there had caused the if, but he knew what he would do.
In another minute, he stood before the house of Man-Dan, the Minister of the Right and Left. The large double doors were open. According to city custom, the doors of all the Elders remained open as a sign of their being in service to the people. Mark had only seen this door closed once, when his father and Man-Den had gone to the sea together and Roi-Den and his aunt lived with the queen for the two months they were gone. The Dome, with no one living there, merely sealed the house until they returned.
Mark climbed the stairs and passed under the relief emblem of the House of Man-Den. As he stepped into the waiting area of the house, he recognized immediately the blonde woman as she approached him with her arms wide in greeting.
He barely had time to drop his head and say, “I respect you, Len-Wei, sister of my mother,” before she held him tightly to her.
“Ja-Lil, we have missed you. The thought of you not returning was a dark time for the city and our family. And how many times have I told you not to be so formal with me?” Pulling away she continued, “I am not my husband.” When she leaned away and looked at him, he could see in her eyes what he had seen in others.
“Yes, Len-Wei, my years on the surface have passed the time for my body more quickly.”
“I can see your father in every line of your face, and it makes me glad in my heart.”
“You and Man-Den are well?”
“Thank you, yes, but Roi-Den was most troubled by your absence.”
Roi-Den! Like a blast of sound, the name came to his ears and with it a complete and wholly formed history. His best friend in the city. The one he had grown with and schooled with. He was amazed that so large a part of his life could have been omitted when he was remembering so much.
“Where is he? Is he well?”
“He is scheduled to return from travel in a few days. I have sent someone to prepare him for the shock of your return.”
“I know how you think, Len-Wei, if you send a messenger it will speed his return home to you, true?”
Her smile was her answer as she walked Mark to the other end of the greeting room and said, “Man-Den is in his chambers. Please, go in.”
Mark walked through the rooms he had played in so often and felt strange to be here as the king. Or at least as the soon-to-be king. He turned the corner and stepped into Man-Den’s main room. As he entered, he saw the back of a man as he was leaving from a door at the other end of the chamber. The large man at the table spun around quickly.
“Please do…” The voice, which had been loud and hard, stopped dead. Man-Den stood there motionless staring at Mark. Though Mark had always considered his own father to be a big man, and, most likely, the memory of him made him even larger, the man staring at him now was every bit as big as the king and even thicker in body and muscle. The dark yellow hair had not a strand of gray, and the thick features of the face were still full and without many lines. The face still commanded respect and a little fear. The piercing gray eyes, with their brows of almost black, widened and then blinked several times as though some small speck of something had flown into them. His hands hung limply at his sides, and Mark could detect the beat of his heart from the large veins. For a moment, he thought the big man might drop to the chair that was directly behind him.
Mark nodded his head. “Minister of the Right and Left, I respect you.” Since the minister had not responded, Mark stepped to him. “I understand how I appear to you. It seems everyone needs a little time to adjust to it.”
“Ja-Lil.” A large smile preceded his embrace as well. Reaching forward, Man-Den put both arms around Mark.
Mark could feel the hardness of the big man’s arms and chest. “The resemblance to your father is wonderful.” He then put both hands on Mark’s shoulders and, with a little show of effort, he was almost lifted off his feet. Mark could not remember his uncle ever being this physical with him before. “Welcome back to the city! Please sit down. We have many things to discuss. Some will bring joy, and the others we we’ll make the best of.”
Over the next few hours, Mark listened as Man-Den told him of being summoned by his mother and his care of the king. He arrived at the house just minutes behind the returning messenger to find the king as Myo-O had.
“I could find no face of pain or discomfort, Ja-Lil. Whatever had failed in him, left him at peace.”
He then went on to describe in detail preparing the king for enclosure. The ceremony that had been done for every passing king of the city was followed to the letter. The Elders had carried the body to the room before the chamber of treasures. There, Man-Den had removed the garments the king had worn when he died and laid them out for Ja-Lil’s return. The line of kings was continued not only by blood but also by action. Mark would later put on the very clothes and be the next king, just as one second leads to another.
Man-Den then washed the body and wrapped it in the ancient royal cloth, and then the Elders were summoned to witness Man-Den’s taking of the king’s life-thought. Following that, they removed the body to the chamber of kings where it would forever rest. That completed the final ceremony for Con-Or fourth king of the city. He would now stay wrapped in the yards and yards of almost transparent cloth in the honeycomb chamber until the convergence.
Mark had gone with his father one time into the chamber. The king had taken him there after the celebration for the last moving of the city.
“It is one of the few times I see value in looking to the past,” his father had said as the Dome opened the wall to the chamber. The air was different in that room, he remembered. It was cool and had a scented aroma. Not at all what he had expected. They walked to the far wall where he could see the round tube-like individual chambers. There were four of them in a line and each ended in a curved solid finish. Starting from the right-most chamber, which had no cover on the end and was empty,
the king motioned to it, saying, “Here is where Con-Or will rest, the One Who Knows, Your Father.” He then looked at his son and, with a smile, finished, “But not for some time.”
He then stepped to the next tube, and when he laid his hand on the curved end for only a moment, a line appeared. The cone drew back and Mark saw for the first time the face of his grandfather. And he could see the face. The cloth wrapping bound the body securely but was of such a fine material that the body seemed covered by glass. “Here lies Dar-Soc, my father.” Mark could see many of his father’s features in the wrapped face. The hair, although mostly white, was thick and fell in waves much like the king’s. One by one, the Dome opened the ends of the remaining chambers as his father introduced him to his line.
“Poi-Dan.”
“Draa-Pic.”
“When I am at last laid here,” his father said, and stepped to the center of the room, “the Dome will create another chamber to await you, my son.” It was only after being on the surface that Mark now appreciated the feelings of the living for the dead in the city. Here each person celebrated their life and the lives of all others. Each day and each encounter cleared all debts of gratitude and left no regrets for the next. Therefore, when a citizen died, there was nothing but the celebrated memory of the value they had created while alive. The knowledge that their life-thought continued uninterrupted left no need for the feelings of loss or sorrow.
Man-Den ended his story with the last of his responsibilities. “I then entered the meditation-of-oceans for your father’s repose and after took my friend’s life-thought to the Nari-Tanta.”
Man-Den then fell silent. He appeared to Mark to be exhausted after reliving the story. He sat quietly starring at his hands before him on the table. Mark rose and went to him.
“You were a good friend to my father. I trust you will honor me by continuing as my friend and councilor.”
The minister sighed and rose to face him. Even now, he stood taller than Mark by at least three inches. Mark still felt the awe he had experienced as a child for this man. There was still respect for this person his own father had loved so much.
“The age of the surface is on your face, Ja-Lil, but it is the face of your father. You are the line and you are the king. I only hope to serve you as I did him and your mother.”
He walked Mark back through the house and was joined by his wife as they reached the front entrance. She slid her arm through her husband’s and put her small hand on his wrist, which remained motionless at his side.
“For the next two days you have much to do in preparation. In the king’s chamber is the book I spoke of. Follow it and you will be ready.” Man-Den stared for a long time at the city’s new king. As his eyes made their way up and down, Mark thought how strange it must feel for the man to be looking at the son and seeing the father. The minister regained his bearings and continued clearly, “I will then take you through the final anointing, and we will go to the Kivs.”
Mark left and felt, as he walked through the city to his home, that his life was now being led by his father. But this had always been so even on the surface. He had always felt responsible for the oceans and all they contained, but now that included the city.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After reporting to the minister, Mark went to the king’s
chamber and read completely the ancient book that detailed the different ceremonies he would follow for the next two days before becoming the king of the city. That night, still remembering the meeting with the minister, his mother and he ate outside in the garden. The gentle sound of the water drifted up from a channel that ran along the back wall, under it, and into the large stream in the avenue beyond. Vines and fine strands of sea kelp grew in profusion from the sandy floor. Several large sea fans occupied the corners of the garden, their rough, rounded sections of yellow and purple reflecting the night-light that seemed to float down from the Dome like a glowing mist. A canopy of sea grass and bell kelp laced the arbor they sat under. Hundreds of red-ball anemones clung to the strands with their tentacles extended, each tip displaying its little ball of orange and red. Here and there, throughout the enclosed patio auger, snails inched along in their twisted shells, and sea urchins and sand dollars comfortably sat in their tiny sand dunes. Just under a cluster of small-coiled garlands of white whelks, a large reddish-brown fanworm waved its eight-inch feather-like gills, absorbing life from a sea current, which came, moisture free, from the Dome.
They talked for several hours under the faint evening glow of the Dome. They remembered for each other everything they could of her husband, his father. She later left him at the door of his room with a gentle kiss.
“I feel he is happy you are here to guide the city, Ja-Lil.” She gracefully walked down the corridor to her rooms. The way she moved was more like floating. The way sleek boats move on glassy-smooth water. He heard, just before she disappeared through the door, “Everything is complete now. Everything will continue.”
Mark lay for a long time on his bed but could not sleep yet so he rose and went out into the city. The glow was almost completely faded now and only the few maintenance walkers were on the street, making note of where re-growth was needed on the waterways and paths. Tomorrow this information would be passed on to one of the Elders, who would direct the Dome’s action. One passed him as he walked down the great avenue, nodded to him with a “Sir”, and then he was alone.
He felt good in the quiet. He mentally counted the hours since he had last been in the water. He was going on his second day. No feelings of weakness. He was actually stronger than be had been in a long time.
He was going no particular direction, but just walking where his feet led him. He still could not figure out why someone in the city had hunted him down and tried to kill him. He did not want to inquire about the identity of the man who died out there in the sea. Everything would have to work backwards from when he found the killer. He was going to, however, eventually find his family and deliver the young man’s final words. It seemed all he could do, for the time being, was move forward until new circumstances would dictate his actions. So far, he had encountered only friendly souls here in the city. It seemed there had never been any crime or conflict, and secrets were nonexistent.
As he passed from the grand avenue to a side street, the buildings on both sides and the many over-walkways shaded even the faint light from the Dome.
The quiet was suddenly occupied by a new sound other than his own soft footsteps. Mark stopped to listen but was greeted only with the echo of the distant waterway that ran along the grand avenue. After turning full circle and finding he could see nothing out of the ordinary, he continued on. A few more blocks into the narrow lane, he again thought he heard something behind him. It was faint and soft but definitely the regular compression of sand. Rather than stop again, he felt that if someone was following him, he would wait until they got closer before acting. He dropped his height by bending his legs a little. By shuffling each step, he softened his footfalls and continued on. Now he could clearly hear someone. Slowly they were making ground. He could tell that it was only one person and judged by the lightness of the footsteps that it was not the large man who had attacked him before. He calculated by the person’s walking that he would soon be able to turn and grab him. But then he heard,
“Ishnan abatta yddap ama ama.”
These words came from such a secret part of what he now had as his memory, he almost spun around to confront this ghost. But words rather than actions came from him by instinct over which he had no control.
“Klac torri belhorra ri tenso dan.” These words! Their words! Their most…
“Mil enso narama nylarc atui.” The ghost behind him recited it perfectly and then said, “That is all I know, the six lines he said there were.”
Mark turned. He knew the voice was not correct, but only he and his father knew this chant. It was theirs and n
o one else’s. His father had taught it to him out in the ocean to avoid the “accidental ear” that may be in the city. Over and over, he had said this was to be their bond, their secret. Mark had kept it so deep inside his life it seemed to him to be his very heart. And now someone had stolen his treasure. He found himself facing an old man of small stature, an old man who was looking up at him. With those eyes!
“You are the one I saw when I entered the city. I can remember you from before, but I do not know why. How do you know what was only between my father and me?”
“May name is To-Bay. I am your father’s only friend.”
“Then you lie because everyone in the city was my father’s friend.”
“Your father told me often, “Believe in everyone. Trust no one.” The old man smiled gently and gestured for Mark to follow him out from under the walkway where they were standing. In a low whisper, the old man said, “Open areas are the safest.” He then walked into the wide circle that joined six small streets. He sat on a bench in the center. “The king taught me only the first three lines of your poem. He told me of your times together when you learned it, and that it was the only way I could make sure it was safe for me to make myself known to you.” He paused a minute, and then seemed to look deeper into Mark’s eyes. “I am your father’s only friend, and the keeper of the secrets.”
From the moment he had stepped through the wall and into the Dome, Mark had only encountered people he knew to be honest and of good heart. All seemed open and appeared to have no secrets. Now this old man was talking in riddles and was wary of everyone. Mark wanted not to trust him, but he did value his own instincts, and they were telling him it was okay. And he knew their poem!
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