“We close,” Haidan told him. “Revanche stock. Got enough food for there and back.” He cleared his throat. Moving the hand under his chin away, he laced his fingers together to look over the top of his chapped knuckles at John. “How you feeling?”
John changed the subject. “Prime Minister Dihana will christen the boat tomorrow?” She was out meeting a group of refugees, trying to bring order and get a census of how many lay in the city’s streets and in the tents in the piers.
“And you leave the next day,” Haidan said. “Everything, charts, copies of the documents I want you to read, are in you cabin, sealed.”
“Thank you. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Aren’t you coming? Who knows this plan better?”
“I have to stay.” Haidan put the palms of his hands on the edge of the table and drummed his fingers. “I visible. The whole city know me, know my skill for leading the mongoose. If I leave, what they go think? DeBrun, you the best sailor Capitol City ever see. You and I both know you can figure that map out and navigate that boat.”
“This is that important?” John dug the tip of his hook into the table and broke off a small piece of wood.
“The Loa think so. I believe it. Dihana believe it. We got three of the city best Preservationist ready to get on you ship. John, man, I ordering my best mongoose-man out with you: Avasa. And his best mongoose. I can’t give you anything more without hurting us here in the city bad. You understand how important I think this may go be?”
The door opened. A mongoose-man walked in and whispered into Haidan’s ear. “Okay,” Haidan said as the man left. “They here.”
Haidan let go of the table. The table lights lit him from beneath. His dreads cascading down out of seemingly nowhere.
“A Loa join we now.” Haidan leaned forward, more of his weathered face coming into the light. “They insist on it, just as they had insist on the journey. See what I mean about how important this is?”
A strange tickle ran down the back of John’s spine. Would Loa be on his ship? A strange reversal from the last expedition, a journey the Loa had protested, priestesses denouncing the attempt throughout the waterfront. The Loa themselves even came out of their six streetside buildings to stand on balconies and show their displeasure.
“This Loa tell me that it go help you. We really need that.”
“Okay,” John said. “Where the priestess?”
Wheels squeaked. A divan poked forward through the door into the electric light. A Loa’s comma-shaped body lay on the couch: a wet, pink silhouette on the purple plush. Its steeltipped tentacles dragged on the floor, pushing it forward.
“This isn’t the same Loa we speak to earlier,” Haidan noted.
“I have not the need of a translator,” the Loa hissed at them. The sound sent shivers down John’s shoulders. “My helper stays in the corridor.” The door shut. “Nor do I want any other than you to hear my words.” Clear eyes squinted in the light. The creature looked around the room by shifting its thick upper body up onto a tentacle to regard them.
“The Ma Wi Jung,” it rasped. “The location coordinates you have are correct. And you surmise that it can be used to stop Azteca correctly.”
“Good to know,” Haidan said. “But what is it? How can we use it to stop the Azteca? And which Loa are you?”
“The one you spoke to is dead,” the Loa said with a sigh. “It is unimportant. This expedition faces an obstacle. You must realize that you are not capable of using the Ma Wi Jung. Your technology, even if closely guided by us, is hundreds of years away in such regards. But my kind has an item that can be of assistance. So we must work together.”
It held up a silver cone in one of its tentacles and set it on the table. John picked it up and turned it over. “How will this help us use the old-father artifact?”
“If you follow the coordinates exactly, and dig through the ice to get to it, the entrance to the Ma Wi Jung is an oval door, and on the left is a square box. Place this on the box. It will take a week, maybe two, but it will be able to open the Ma Wi Jung to you,” the Loa said. “It will inform you when it is able to open the ship to you. You can then tell it to open the ship to you.”
“But then what?” Haidan asked. “How they go use this thing? What it go do?”
“I have not finished,” the Loa said. “The Ma Wi Jung will need more than just you can provide it to create a powerful weapon. Our device will follow your commands. You must tell it to force the Ma Wi Jung to come to Capitol City. Tell it, ‘Khafou, fly this device back to Capitol City coordinates.’ You must use that exact phrase. It has been precreated for you to tell it to do that. Do you understand?”
John and Haidan nodded.
“Please repeat the command phrase,” the Loa said. John repeated it. The Loa settled farther into its couch. “Good. Make sure you stand inside the doors when you say this. You will return to the city where we can share the power of the Ma Wi Jung’s functions with you.” It shifted its flabby body. “Remember, you cannot control the Ma Wi Jung without us. Only together can we use Ma Wi Jung as a weapon. If you try to do this by yourselves, or hide Ma Wi Jung from us, you will certainly suffer.”
Haidan leaned forward again. “The Councilman Emil told Dihana Ma Wi Jung is a ship, one that can fly up past the sky,” Haidan said to the Loa. “I listen to you speak, and it sound like you believe the same thing. Is that what this thing is?”
The Loa shifted. “I think so.”
“Then how it go make a weapon?”
“If you had something that could take you anywhere in the world in minutes,” the Loa said, “how would you use it as a weapon?”
John leaned forward while Haidan thought about that. “What exactly is this?” John held up the cone from the table.
“I was born to be master of languages for my kind and nothing more,” the Loa explained, almost out of breath with the sentence. It spoke as if it was not accustomed to so much effort. “My memory dims with the years, but I remember almost three hundred years. Some of us were grown for the purpose of breaking into ancient machines and controlling them. They are the Kha. That was in the long years before I was created, when there were machines to be controlled, and fought, and used. But no one has ever needed Kha since then, and so they died. Only our master breeders kept the templates, in case they were ever needed. We have nourished and raised this Kha ever since the old prime minister died. We teach it what little we know, we expose it to the ancient ones among us who still remember things. It will crack open the Ma Wi Jung when you arrive using old memories we have kept for it. It will let you in.”
“And bring the machine back to the city?” Haidan asked.
“Yes. Then we can study and use this machine to save us. We will do this together. We must examine this machine together. You must use the Kha to bring it here, or we will all die when the Teotl attack. And you must do this soon. Already one of us has been killed this week. It is untenable.”
The tentacles stirred, their metal tips clinking against the cement floor, and the wheeled chair rolled out of the room.
“Something ain’t right.” Haidan leaned forward in his chair to look closer at the cone of metal in John’s hand. “They been fighting metal technology for as long as anyone can remember, now they want help us bring it back. Strange change of mind.”
“I imagine they want to survive.” John had been transfixed watching the Loa. A second memory returned to him. Distrust. It sat ugly in the pit of his stomach. “They’re staring death in the face.”
“Yeah. And they refuse to let us guard them. Something up.”
“They’ve been part of Capitol City for as long as anyone can remember.” John puzzled through the question himself. “You might disagree with their advice, but haven’t they always helped the city?”
“Common interest,” Haidan said. “The Loa don’t want be invade and that’s the only thing I can pin them down on. True, they ain’t like we, and we don�
��t know what they thinking, and we need be careful out there, but they still want the Azteca away from the city. I think that the only thing we can trust from them.”
“So this is probably genuine.” John stood up. He wanted to get out to the ship, check it over, make sure all was well. He needed to hide the Loa’s Kha somewhere safe with the other papers he would use to guide the mission north. And he wanted to get in motion before his own doubts and second guesses could begin. “We should get moving, then.”
“Yeah.”
John reached out with his good hand, keeping the Kha in the crook of his elbow. Despite the metallic sheen, it felt as warm as his own body. “You’re right though. If the Loa want this that bad, it probably is going to be one hell of an adventure.”
Haidan stood up and grabbed John’s good hand. “Good. I need you navigation and captain skills. You the best. We lucky you made it to the city.”
“The north won’t be an easy place on men.” John let go of Haidan’s hand and gestured at his hook.
Haidan looked at the leather straps. “Neither was Hope’s Loss when you and me had pass through there. I lucky to still be alive.”
They looked at each other, remembering others who had died in the jungle from whatever it was they had walked into.
Only John hadn’t been affected.
“At least,” Haidan said thoughtfully, “we got a chance now. Before I were spitting in the dark, hoping this would help we. Total long-shot plan. Now I know for sure it a good thing. You could make all the difference, John, if this thing go let we hurt the Azteca something good.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Far above Jerome the booming of waves against the rock was a distant and constant sound that permeated every conversation, whisper, and sound in the underwater caves. Sometimes the water flowing by the entrance to the cave would cool, and fog would creep in over the sand. Jerome would huddle in a pit of sand close to the rocky walls. There he could feel the thud of water against the small of his back.
The week went on, and Jerome realized how long they would be here for. Troy and other men came and went, diving out with scudder-fish to scout.
So Jerome explored the back of the large cavern while Troy was gone. He did it cautiously, scared of being yelled at. But no one did. Far from the fire and the green waterpool they couldn’t see him.
With his hands Jerome felt his way around the walls, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Within several minutes of walking around the cavern, farther and farther from the flickering orange of campfires and the steady babble of hushed Frenchi voices, he encountered several large lumps of metal sticking out of the rock. Flakes of corroded metal fell off when he brushed his hands over them.
“What you doing?” Sandy whispered.
Jerome leapt up, his heart thudded. “Why you following me?”
“Sorry. I just see you going off, so I thought I come over keep you company.”
She moved between him and the light and made a silhouette.
“I looking around. You know what this is?” Jerome took her hands and placed them on the metal lumps. Her fingers scratched over the metal and flakes dropped to the sand.
“It old,” said Sandy. “We don’t have much time to explore when we does come out to the cave, usually.”
“So you never been here long?”
“Actually”—Sandy shifted, her silhouette sitting down—“I never been in here in this one. There some other small caves us children learn to dive into, but this one supersecret.”
“Oh. Then you know as much as me about this place.”
“I guess.”
Jerome moved along the wall again. Sandy kicked sand around as she stood up to follow him. “You didn’t seem surprise,” Jerome said. “About the rusty metal.”
“Nah. That in all the cave them I see. I don’t know what they is.”
Jerome walked along. “Who made these?” he wondered aloud.
“The old-father. A place to hide from the Azteca, deep below. Some say these thing go deeper and stuff. No one really know. Is called Tolor’s Chimney. Is why we live out on the reef, ready to break down and go under any moment.”
She grabbed Jerome’s hand. He stopped and turned toward her shadow. “You should talk to Troy. He know all this stuff good.”
“Okay.” Jerome turned to pull away from her, but Sandy held on.
“Jerome?”
“Yeah.”
“No one here can see us.”
Jerome’s mouth dried out, and he stepped from foot to foot. Sandy stood right in front of him, her long hair framed in dark shadows.
“You ever kiss?” Jerome asked.
“Yeah. One of the other boy them.”
“Oh.”
Jerome kicked at the sand. “Don’t mean I don’t want kiss you, though.”
She leaned forward, and Jerome brushed her lips with his, the puzzle of the rusty metal lumps forgotten.
The sound of a woman yelling startled them. Dinner was ready. Now. She sounded impatient, and Jerome knew that if he missed eating now, he would not get anything later.
They both paused for a second, looked at each other, then ran across the dark sand toward the flickering fire.
Jerome soon realized that the old ladies were keeping up with him. Every half hour they would step around the camp with a good idea of who was where. And if he was missing, out in the dark edges of the massive cavern, they would give him a stern sermon. “What you doing over there, boy? You ain’t scared the dark or nothing? Stay close to we fire so we see you. We go cook up some hot soup for all of you.”
So his expeditions were quick, and hurried. But Jerome found that each of the metal lumps was spaced several feet apart. There were four of them at the back of the cavern, and if he spread his arms, he could reach two at the same time.
There were no buttons or levers on them. Nothing but featureless lumps of metal. He wished he had a torch.
On many of his excursions he waited for Sandy to catch up to him. They had ten minutes before the old ladies would check up on them, calling out their names.
It was enough time for him to discover a great deal about kissing.
On the tenth day since Brungstun fell, Jerome sat on a chair of sand by the edge of the water. A smaller fire crackled next to him, and he sat with a stick poking at it. Fog rose off the water.
“You been exploring?” Troy asked. Troy sat crosslegged across from him, back from scouting. “Around the edge of the cavern?”
“Yeah,” Jerome admitted. “So what them thing is? The metal thing?”
“Mmm.” Troy poked at embers, stirring up pieces of ash that flew around in circles and landed in the sand. “Not any of the Frenchi remember what it really is; they think this a secret place to hide.” Troy got up. “Come with me.”
He walked across the sand, into the dark, without even a light. Jerome struggled to follow him.
They reached the wall, and one of the metal humps. Troy placed his hand over it. It glowed, and the rock in front of them scraped aside. There was dark now, but not the darkness of rock. An unlit passageway inside the rock. A tunnel.
Troy walked forward. His voice came from in front of Jerome, who could hardly see. Troy grabbed his shoulder. “Come, child, I ain’t go do nothing to you, but I have to show you something.”
Jerome stepped in—and jumped as the rock closed back behind him.
Eerie green lights lit up along a floor, and he could see Troy standing in front of him. Troy’s eyes were all gray for a moment, a trick of the light, Jerome thought, and then Troy blinked.
They walked a good hundred feet, and then into a room. There was a desk and two chairs. Troy walked over and sat down with a sigh.
“I come every year.” He motioned for Jerome to sit. “Make sure everything work still.”
“What is this?” Jerome asked, still in shock. He sat with a thump. The chair wasn’t too soft or hard. His spine aligned just right.
“Protected bunker,�
�� Troy said.
Jerome looked around. “For the old-father them?”
Troy nodded. “For me. I am a old-father.”
“But …” It wouldn’t take that long, Jerome realized, to become comfortable with that idea. He’d met Pepper. The idea that men like this existed was becoming a part of Jerome’s new understanding of the world.
“I almost four hundred year old,” Troy said. “I come to Nanagada. To retire. Pretty land, good fishing, some garden. They tell me I could have any land anywhere. I choose to settle down near other Caribbean people-them.”
“The Frenchi don’t know you a old-father?”
“I change me last name, claim to be me own son. There always a Troy here. Plus, the Frenchi is the Frenchi because of me.”
“What you mean?”
“Most of the Frenchi me descendant, from a couple wife me first while here. That why I single now. Can’t marry me own family.”
Jerome looked around. It was incredible. “Why you tell me this?”
Troy leaned on the desk, and Jerome looked down at it. There were screens of glass in it, he noticed for the first time.
“Because of you father, Jerome. He like me. He old-father.”
“No.” Jerome shook his head. “My dad can’t be that,” he protested.
“Think about it. In all you life, you ever see you father age? You see any picture of him when he first came here? He look exactly the same. But you mom, Shanta, you see the gray in she hair?”
Jerome sat there. “If you know them thing, you been lying all along.” He looked up at Troy. “You could have help him. You could have show him all this. Why wait? He hurt so much, not having he memory!”
Troy avoided Jerome’s accusative glare. “I make a choice, Jerome. I can’t give he he memory back, all I could do is tell him thing. And getting tell thing ain’t memory. I could have been lying for all he had know.” Troy took a deep breath. “You father did something, something really, really hard to do. I think the memory of it, it probably almost kill him. I believe for himself to survive, he forget it all. A way of defense. And you think I could force them memory back without something bad happening? No. I stay quiet, watch him, and make sure that if them memory start coming back, I would be here to help.” Troy leaned back in his chair. “But maybe I was mistake. I done sneak into Brungstun for a night, and I can’t self find him. And even he make it out and head for Capitol City, I still worry about him. Some of the Councilmen in Capitol City does know he still alive, and they might try and tell him thing that go bring back he nightmare-them.”
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