by Dale Peck
But one spire remained. One tower, looking down serenely on the emptied island.
Her tree.
The redwood hung below her, beautiful, majestic, but just as evanescent as everything. In another moment it too was gone, and darkness—the eternal, peaceful, empty darkness of the end of time—descended on the world.
TWENTY-FOUR
Closing the Jetty (part 2)
“Charles?”
Charles looked from Murray’s face to Iacob’s. The Greenland boy was staring at Charles in confusion.
“Did it work? Did we close the jetty?”
The hopeless tone in Iacob’s voice suggested he already knew the answer. From the head of the room came a small chuckle. Then:
“Guards. Seize them.”
And now something strange happened. A guard took Iacob’s arms and pinned them to his sides, and another took Charles’s arms and held them tight. But when they were wrenched from their mirror books (which Charles, for one, was ready to get as far from as he could) the open tomes didn’t budge. Which is to say, they didn’t fall, but hung in the air exactly where they’d been.
Stifled gasps. Charles felt the hands of the guard behind him slacken somewhat. He thought of wrenching free and making a break for it. But where?
Nervous whispers hissed about the room; the guard holding Iacob was looking left and right, as if he wished he were anywhere but there. Before Charles could decide what to do, however, the voice at the head of the room barked, “Silence!”
The twittering stopped; the guard’s hands tightened. Charles got the feeling the man behind him was more afraid of the man on the dais than of whatever force held the two books aloft, and he turned now, to take in this man.
The priest—what else could he be?—wore a long white robe edged with rich gold embroidery at the square neckline and the hem. The robe hung over one shoulder, and beneath it Charles could see some kind of undershirt that was also embroidered, in so many iridescent colors it seemed to have been woven from the tail feathers of a peacock. The priest had a long oval face that was medium brown in color, and a bald head that supported a yellow and blue striped hat thingy. Crown? Headdress? Charles wasn’t sure what the right word was, but it was very imposing, and beside all this finery Murray looked small and shabby and helpless.
Murray.
When Charles’s eyes flickered to his brother, the priest pursed his mouth in a sneer.
“Charles Oakenfeld.”
Charles flashed back to the priest’s face. The sneer curled up at one side, exposing a single, fanglike tooth.
“Do not be alarmed, Charles. I am no mind reader. Your brother told me your name. But I do not know yours.” And he turned to Iacob.
Iacob seemed to screw his mouth shut, which only made the priest laugh.
“Really, my dear child. There is no need to be shy of me. I, for one, offer you my name freely. I am called Nimrod. I am priest and king of the land of Babylon, and soon to be the ruler of time itself.” The priest—king?—paused to allow this last to sink in, and then said, “And you are?”
“No friend of yours!” Iacob snarled, and writhed against the man holding him, to no avail.
“Child, child,” Nimrod said in a soft voice that sent a chill down Charles’s spine. “I am a king. Kings do not have friends. Only allies and enemies. I beseech you,” he said, his voice dropping even lower, so that Charles had to strain to hear it. “For your own sake, do not be my enemy.”
Charles stirred himself to life. “Why have you done this?”
Nimrod turned to Charles. “Done what, Charles? Brought you here? Opened the jetty?” He tugged lightly on the chain attached to Murray’s neck. “Enlisted the… aid of your very unusual brother?”
“Don’t believe him, Charles. He didn’t do anything. He doesn’t know what he’s—”
“Silence, boy!” A rough jerk of the chain nearly knocked Murray over.
“He’s being used, exactly as your father was,” Murray continued defiantly, turning to Iacob. “He stumbled across these devices, just as your father did.”
“Silence!” Nimrod jerked the chain again, practically lifting Murray up this time, so that he had to grab the collar to keep from choking. Charles struggled, but couldn’t break free from the man who held him.
When both Oakenfeld boys were still, the priest glared down at Murray. “Another outburst from you, and your beloved brother will never see his time again.”
Murray stared defiantly up at his captor. “Harm even one hair on Charles’s head, and I won’t show you how to use the jetty.”
“Bah, you think I need you, boy? I have the books now.”
“Do you? They seem to have themselves.”
Everyone turned and looked at the two floating books. Floating was the wrong word: the books were absolutely, implacably still, and it seemed as if the world floated around them—as if the books were the anchors, and the world a great ship tethered to them by invisible chains.
Beneath his grandly accoutered skull, Nimrod’s composure cracked slightly. “Do not stretch my benevolence, child.”
“Your benevolence has about as much stretch as this chain,” Murray said, fingering the collar at his neck. “You will free Charles and his friend, or I will tell you nothing. The secrets of the future will remain closed to you forever.”
“Boy!” Nimrod’s shout echoed through the subterranean chamber. But Murray only stared up at him, his features as eerily still as the mirror books.
For a long moment no one moved. Then, finally, Nimrod gave in.
“Very well then. Release the boy’s brother and his companion.”
The guards seemed only too eager to let go of Charles and Iacob and step back in line.
“You need to walk between the books, Charles,” Murray said. “They’ll take you back to your time. You too,” he added, turning to Iacob. “Step between them, and they’ll transport you back to the last place you were.”
Charles looked up at his little brother. For the first time he realized Murray was wearing the very clothes he’d worn when he disappeared into the dumbwaiter. What was left of them anyway: his pants were shredded below the knees, his T-shirt in tatters. His shoes were gone and his feet caked in dirt.
Charles cleared his throat. “I’m not leaving without you, Murray.”
“Don’t be stupid, Charles,” Murray said. “Go back to your own time. This doesn’t concern you.”
“If it didn’t concern me, I wouldn’t be here,” Charles said. “And I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“I’ll make it easy for you, Charles. I can’t go back. Do you understand? I can never go home with you. It’s not possible.”
“But—”
Charles broke off. All at once he understood that Murray knew even less about his condition than the older version Charles had met on the Sea of Time last year, or the one he’d met in Drift House. Those two boys—or one boy at different places in his life—at least knew they could somehow get back to their right place and time. But apparently that knowledge was still in the future for this Murray, and he didn’t even have that hope.
Charles glanced at Iacob, who stared back at Charles and nodded. Charles wasn’t sure what Iacob’s nod meant, but it gave him courage. He turned back to Murray. “I’m staying. With you.”
“Charles—”
“No, Murray. It’s not right for you to be alone. You’re five years old.”
“My age is immaterial, Charles,” Murray said, sounding like anything but a five-year-old. “And you cannot be with me.”
“I’m staying.”
“Charles!” Murray stamped his foot. “You’re not listening to me. I said it’s not possible for you to be with me.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
The two brothers stared at each other in a curious mixture of love and defiance. Charles had squabbled with his older sister on more occasions than he could count, but this was, to the best of his memory, the first time he�
�d ever had a serious disagreement with Murray.
Suddenly Murray’s face softened, and he regarded Charles as if the ten-year-old were the younger of the two boys.
“Oh, Charles,” he said in a hushed, almost reverent voice. “I wish I could tell you all the great things you’re going to do.” And then his voice hardened. “Make your way to the river.”
“Wha—?”
With a jerk, Murray snapped his chain from Nimrod’s hands. The priest had been watching the exchange between the two brothers with a fierce and slightly confused look on his face, and his grip had slackened. There was a good five or six feet of loose chain, and before Nimrod or Charles or anyone else in the room quite knew what was happening, Murray—five-year-old Murray Oakenfeld, his pudgy little cheeks puffed out in fierce determination—had swung the chain across Nimrod’s face, once, twice, three times, slashing the priest’s face open until he stumbled backward and fell to the floor.
“My eyes! My eyes!”
The guards nearest Nimrod approached Murray warily. It was clear they were afraid of more than his spinning chain.
“Charles, behind you!” Murray shouted, and Charles barely had time to twist out of the way before a large form hurtled past him. The guard, unable to check himself, lurched into the space between the two books…
… and vanished.
Without a sound, save that of his sword clattering to the tiled floor. Even as all the other guards fell back gasping, Iacob pounced on the weapon.
But now Nimrod was standing, propped between two guards. His headdress had been knocked off his shaved skull, and a thick stream of blood ran down the left side of his face. His voice thundered into the room.
“Kill the two half men, but bring the boy alive!”
There was a brief moment of hesitation among the guards, as they all stared at the space where their comrade had just disappeared. Murray took advantage of their fear to charge—straight down the aisle between the two rows of guards, his chain clanking behind him as though he were a runaway dog.
“Get him, you fools!” Nimrod roared.
A dozen guards leapt for Murray’s dodging form. Charles had no idea how his little brother would make it. Suddenly a roar exploded to his left. Charles whirled, and saw Iacob lunging forward with his recovered sword. He caught a soldier from behind and plunged his blade into the man’s thigh, causing him to scream and tumble to the ground.
Charles fumbled for the knife Handa had given him. He drew the stone blade from its sheath. Compared to the swords, the knife looked tiny, but it was all he had.
A soldier had managed to trip Murray to the floor and clung to his ankle. Murray reeled in his chain and began beating the soldier’s face relentlessly, but three more men were closing in. Without giving himself time to think, Charles ran forward and drove the knife into the meat of the soldier’s right shoulder. The man screamed and rolled away from Murray.
Charles stared into his brother’s face. “Murray—”
“Remember, Charles,” Murray cut him off. He stood poised before the two books. “The river. Now close your eyes, and hold on to your glasses.”
Charles obeyed instinctively.
“Iacob,” he called, screwing his eyes shut and taking firm hold of his lopsided glasses. “Close your eyes!”
The chain clanked as Murray leapt for the space between the two floating books. Nimrod’s voice screamed from the far end of the room.
“Don’t let him esc—”
The priest-king’s voice was drowned out by an explosion, and Charles’s eyelids flashed pink and purple and finally searing white, as a wave of energy knocked him to the floor. He rolled over one body, another, felt the sharp tip of a sword nearly pierce his ribs, and twisted out of the way.
As his body came to a rest and the echoes of the explosion faded, the sound of moaning filled the room. Charles blinked his eyes open warily, wiped a film of dust from his lenses. Soldiers lay tossed about the room like rag dolls, some forlornly still, others with their hands on their eyes. Cries of “I’m blind, I’m blind” told Charles exactly what had happened.
Charles whipped his head toward the mirror books. The first thing he saw was that the two tiled pillars closest to them had shattered, and a large section of ceiling had collapsed. So much dust shrouded the air that Charles couldn’t tell if the mirror books were still there or not. But then he saw a thick beam of light pulsing through the cloud, and as some of the dust settled he saw that the beam emanated from one of the mirror books. It still floated in the air, but it was no longer stable. Instead, it spun slowly, almost lazily, and from its open pages came that thick beam of light. Of the second book, no trace remained.
And now Charles smelled burning. How could a room of mud bricks and tile be on fire? He whipped his head around for the source, and saw that where the beam of light passed over the walls it left a black smoking track behind.
“Charles!”
Iacob’s dust-shrouded head emerged from beneath a pile of writhing, blinded soldiers.
“We must run!”
But Charles ignored him. Instead of turning for the exit, he ran straight for the book. And now a second voice called out.
“Demon! I will kill you myself!”
Charles whirled, and saw Nimrod rise from the wreckage at the head of the room. Aside from the cuts on the left side of his face, he appeared unharmed, and he held a sword in each hand.
“Charles, duck!”
Charles turned and fell to the floor, just as the burning beam of light swept through the space where he’d been. He heard its sizzling passage, then a kind of muffled whump as something—another pillar?—exploded beneath the beam’s heat.
“Charles, come on!” Iacob was suddenly beside him. “That ray is destroying the pillars that hold up the ceiling.”
Charles pushed Iacob’s hand away. “I have to find something!”
“Charles, the ceiling could fall down. Maybe the whole building!”
Charles froze. The whole building? Collapse? It suddenly occurred to him that that’s what had happened to the historical Tower of Babel. Had he come to the very moment the tower was destroyed?
But Charles didn’t allow himself to dwell on that possibility. He squinted at the mirror book, trying to see if it still bore the seal on its cover. But as far as he could tell, it was bare.
“We have to run, Charles. Before it’s too late.”
Over Iacob’s shoulder, Nimrod was fighting his way toward the boys. The flashing beam of light slowed him, and he seemed to be limping as well, but his progress was inexorable.
Charles looked back at Iacob. “I’m sorry. I have to find something. For my brother. You go on ahead if you need to.”
“Charles, your brother … exploded.” Suddenly Iacob’s eyes went wide. “It’s the amulet, isn’t it?”
Charles didn’t answer, just fell on the pile of rubble beneath the book. Up close, its heat was like an open oven, and Charles had to take off his glasses because the sweat and dust rendered them virtual blindfolds. Half blind, choking on dust, he sifted through the debris.
Iacob knelt beside Charles. “Charles, you cannot do this! Look what the amulet did to my father!”
“Murray needs it. And besides, don’t you think it’s better he has it than someone like your father?”
“Demon!” Nimrod’s voice roared behind them. “Prepare to meet the end of your time!”
“Charles.” Iacob’s voice was pleading.
Charles’s fingers continued to sift through the dust. “Don’t you see, Iacob? If we leave without taking the amulet, then Nimrod will find it. For all we know, all this could happen again. And Murray won’t misuse the amulet. He just needs it to get home. I have to get it for him.”
There was an excruciating silence while Iacob considered Charles’s words, and then he put a hand on Charles’s shoulder.
“Keep looking. I’ll deal with him.”
The Greenland boy stood up and began pelting the priest
with broken pieces of brick and tile. His aim seemed pretty good, judging from Nimrod’s curses. Meanwhile, the debris was so thick that Charles knew it was a one in a million chance he’d find what he was looking for. He found Murray’s pants, his shirt, the collar and the iron chain that had been around his neck. Despite the gravity of the situation, he giggled at the thought of his brother materializing naked somewhere….
“Charles, hurry! Nimrod is almost here!”
If he could just see a little better! But the dust was everywhere. Charles threw bits of brick left and right, but this only made the dust worse. He let out a grunt of frustration.
“Charles!” Iacob screamed. “Come on!”
All at once calmness flooded Charles’s being. He took a deep breath, his shirt over his mouth to filter the dust, and closed his eyes. Then he thrust his fingers into the pile. In his mind, his hand was a mole, perfectly capable of sensing everything in the darkness. His fingers dug down, left, curled over a chunk of something.
“Charles!” Metal clanged against metal now. “Charles, he’s here!”
Something almost infinitesimally small (“Don’t say ‘infinitesimal,’ Charles, it’s affected”) brushed against the side of Charles’s hand. He twisted his wrist, snagged it, pulled his hand from the dust. Only then did he open his eyes.
There, in his palm, sat a tiny blob of gold. The seven lines were gone, and it had shrunk considerably—it was heart shaped now, just like the locket Murray wore around his neck—but for that very reason Charles knew it was the right thing. He squeezed his fingers tight around it and felt the faintest of tingles, as the amulet called out for Murray across the farthest reaches of space and time. Charles realized it was his brother the amulet had been calling for—had been leading him to—the whole time. Somehow the amulet belonged to Murray, just as it belonged to the mirror book.