by Emily
"Is she having any luck?"
"I hope not. Look, Quait, nobody would like to find that place more than I do. Her woodsman found some marks on trees, but they could be anything. What's going to happen is, she'll put together a mission, it'll get a few miles outside the borders, and they'll run out of signs. Then they'll come back, and anybody with a professional reputation to lose will very surely lose it. I can't afford to get mixed up in that."
"I didn't say anything," said Quait.
"Well, you were looking at me as if you disapproved. Even what's-his-name. Shannon, admitted he couldn't make any guarantees."
"Shannon?"
"The woodsy guy.'
Quait nodded. "You won 7 get a guarantee, Silas, with a thing like this. Not ever. You know that as well as I do."
"I know." A candle burned in a globe on the table. Silas stared at it. "I wasn't looking for a guarantee, Quait. You know that."
Quait tried his wine, licked his lips, put it down. "Silas, may I speak frankly?"
"Of course."
"What is it that frightens you? What is it that keeps you from going after the one thing in this life that has real meaning for you? You backed off nine years ago, and you're backing off now.'
"And I was right nine years ago, wasn't I?"
"I don't know. Were you?"
"Nobody came back. Except Karik."
Quait shrugged. "Maybe you would have made the difference." He leaned forward. "Silas, I know you'd risk your reputation if you went. I know the odds for success aren't good. But I think basing your decision on what someone else will think doesn't sound like you."
"Sure it does,' said Silas. 'I've always been concerned about public opinion. I have to be. My livelihood depends on it."
"Then maybe you're right,' he said. "Maybe, if it's out there, you're not the right person to find it. But however that may be, I think you've been asking the wrong question. I'm more inclined to wonder what might happen if Shannon is right? If the trail is complete. If Haven really is at the end of it."
"That's a lot of if's."
"Yes. Well, I think we've already agreed about the odds. But anybody can do stuff when the odds are in their favor. Or when there's no risk. Right?"
Silas liked Bernard Shaw. He spent the evening in the Senate library. He was leafing through Mrs. Warren's Profession, but it was the conversation with Quait that drove his mood. The
illyrians also possessed Man and Superman, Major Barbara, and Too True to Be Good, in addition to a fragment of Saint Joan.
"I'm going after the prize, Silas," Karik had said. "It's all out there. Shakespeare and Dante and the Roadmaker histories. And their mathematics and science. It's waiting for us. But we need you."
Silas had rejected the offer, had turned away. It was nonsense. He'd so thoroughly convinced himself that now he suspected he wanted it to be nonsense. Does a man clasp old beliefs, and old fears, so desperately?
And it had come again.
A prize so vast that no risk was too great. But this time, there'd be no Karik Endine to plunge into the wilderness. Only a young woman whose passions were running away with her head, and his infatuated former student.
Idly, he turned the pages of Mrs. Warren's Profession, staring at the script, not really reading. But one line jumped out at him. It was Vivie's comment to Mrs. Warren, near the end of Act IV: /// had been you, mother, I might have done as you did; but I should not have lived one life and believed in another.
After a while, Silas put the book away.
He walked slowly home, up the curving road, past candlelit cottages and the bakeshop and Cape's Apothecary. Tomorrow he would send a message to Chaka, and then he would ask the Board of Regents to finance the attempt.
Once it became official that a second expedition would be mounted, Silas became the center of attention at the Imperium. Close friends advised him against the foray; others, not so close, made no real effort to hide their amusement. Nevertheless, all his colleagues, regardless of their views, seemed to feel required to explain publicly why they were unable to join the hunt. After all, the masters were supposed to have invested their lives in the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. But, as one mathematician pointed out, if his desire for knowledge suggested he should go, wisdom dictated he stay put.
Silas immediately announced his intention to accompany the mission, and argued that it should leave as soon as possible. The lirsi expedition had been gone more than six months, he-said. We know we'll be heading north, and we wain to be back before winter sets in. Silas put himself at Chaka's disposal, and they set February 16 as the date for departure.
Silas used his political connections to get Quail assigned as an ad hoc military escort, thereby saving his pay. In addition, he informed Chaka that Quait had been responsible for his change of heart. When she took him aside to thank him, Quait pretended to a degree of humility, but took care not to overdo it.
It appeared for a time there would be only three of them. Or four, if Chaka was right and Shannon eventually joined. That's okay, Quait insisted. He argued that a smaller group might have a better chance to succeed. "We'll be more able to function as a single person, and less likely to run into personality differences. And three people aren't going to make the Tuks nervous."
Chaka spent much of the time leading up to departure reading every scrap of information she could find relating to Haven and Abraham Polk.
Most of the tales agreed that Polk had been captain of the Quebec, a warship that could sail at high speed against the wind. (Modern authorities thought there might have been a kernel of truth in the legend, that there might have been such a ship, and that it may have been named the Quebec. But no one knew who the name referred to, and of course they dismissed the more fanciful details, e,g., that it had been a submersible.) Folk's naval efforts, traditionally, had consisted of salvage and rescue.
The Travels maintained that, after the Plague subsided, the Quebec prowled the seas under Polk's direction for seventy-seven years (surely a mystic number), gathering survivors and returning them to Haven, which was designed to survive the general collapse. He also collected as much as he could of the art, science, literature, and history of the dead civilization, storing it against the ages. The names of his comrades are almost as famous as his: Casey Winckelhaus, his female second-in-command; Harry Schroeder, a tough, iconoclastic shoemaker's
son who gave his life for his commander off Copenhagen; Jennifer Whitlaw, whose account of the voyages, ironically now lost, gave them the name by which they are best known: the October Patrol.
Polk himself vanished at sea, called home by the Goddess when his work was done. Haven then shut its doors against the general dissolution and embarked on an effort to preserve what it had saved. Generations of scholars devoted themselves to maintaining and, as the texts yellowed and began to crumble, copying the great works in their care. And they waited for a new civilization to rise. If the legend is correct, they are still waiting.
Chaka dug out every illustration she could find of the Quebec and of Haven. The ship was commonly depicted as a schooner without sails, but with its bridge and forecastle enclosed inside a metal shell.
Haven itself, seen from the outside, revealed an aspect that was not greatly unlike the cliff and sea in the thirteenth sketch. She found more illustrations of the mountain car, which was alleged to have traveled the cliffs between Haven and Folk's supply base.
The Quebec operated out of a chamber that had direct access to the sea. It was said the vessel could pass from its nest into the ocean without ever being seen. It was all so imaginative that she could not look at the material without dismissing it out of hand.
Midway through the final week of preparations, Flojian showed up at the Imperium and took Silas aside. He looked haggard and red-eyed, as if he had not been sleeping well. "I want to go with you," he said.
Flojian had never shown any interest in academic pursuits. Moreover, he seemed to be the sort of m
an whose idea of hardship was having to go outside for fresh water. "Why?" asked Silas. The consensus now was to keep the group small. Furthermore, the regents favored a strategy that would restrain expenses.
"The stories about my father."
Silas squirmed. "Don't pay any attention to them. People like to talk." He shook his head.
Flojian tried to straighten his shoulders. "I have a right to be with you. I can pay my own way. Whether you want me to or not, I'm coming."
Silas opposed the proposal. "Plans have already been made," he explained. "Anyway, it'll be a difficult trip. This won't be any pot of tulips." He winced after that phrase, but he was struggling. Flojian was after all a rather useless individual, whose life had always been circumscribed by money and comfort.
But he persisted. "You can't keep me from coming if I want to," he said. "Please, Silas. I know you don't think much of me, but you owe it to my father."
"I'll put it to the others," Silas promised, "and let you know."
One of the meetings drew another visitor: Avila Kap, of the Order of Shanta the Healer. It was a clear, warm evening, but she nonetheless wore a nondescript flannel shirt and cotton slacks in place of her usual clerical robes. "I would like to go," she said.
Silas could see that Chaka and Quait, as startled by her appearance as he, were now equally discomfited by the proposal. Avila was, after all, bound by the rules of her calling, and could not simply wander off on her own into the wilderness. "Mentor," he said, "we have filled our roster."
She was a tall woman, almost six feet, and she moved with grace. Her dark eyes caught the light, and there was a glint of desperation in them. "Nevertheless," she said, "I will go, if you will permit it." She looked at each of them in turn. "We are required to spend several weeks each year in the wilderness, to maintain communication with the Goddess. I'm adept at survival skills, and I can assure you I will not be a burden."
"I'm sure you would not." Silas thought about Flojian, and for that matter about himself. If there was going to be a burden
on this trip, he knew it would not be this very competent-looking woman. "Have you permission to travel with us?"
"Surely that is my concern."
An uncomfortable silence followed. "May I ask why you wish to come?"
She took a long, deep breath. "Because," she said, "I would like my life to count for something."
Silas was feted by the Imperium, given a scroll attesting to his efforts to expand the boundaries of human knowledge, and sent off with a blast of horns.
Flojian turned his business over to his executive assistant, who promptly unnerved him by promising to explore new avenues for profit. "Don't change anything," said Flojian. "Or I'll have your elbows removed when I get back."
On February 16, the twentieth day after they had made their decision, and the eighty-third after Karik's death, Silas, Chaka, Quait, and Avila rode at sunup to Flojian's villa, where a dozen packhorses and a barnload of supplies had been gathered. Silas had said good-bye to his friends and relatives, who had, in the tradition of the time, wished him that the wind should block his way, and the rivers afford no crossings. (It was thought this would allay the jealousy of the gods.) He had updated his will, and turned his small house over to a trusted student until his return. "Or until news comes, and my testament takes effect."
Avila arrived in forest green shirt and leggings, having discarded both her sacred raiment and her sacred orders. Her superiors were somewhat stirred up at the Temple, even though her action could not have come entirely as a surprise. Nevertheless, they were unhappy with her, and her life in Illyria would henceforth be that of an outcast.
Flojian hid an ample supply of gold coins in his saddlebags. He didn't like the idea of traveling with a lot of money, but he knew that gold opens all kinds of doors, and he suspected they would have use for it before they were done.
Chaka half expected that Raney would come at the last minute. While her companions carried out the final details of
getting organized, loading the packhorses, running down checklists, ensuring they had the means of reshodding the animals, she kept looking around, hoping to see him ride in on his big chestnut stallion.
Several dozen well-wishers arrived and shook their hands. The company mounted their horses, waved, and, in brilliant sunlight, moved out of the villa grounds. They climbed to River Road and turned north. It would have been an exaggeration to say that crowds lined the route. However, there were individuals and small groups gathered along the way, watching, waving as they went by.
But there was no chestnut stallion.
8
River Road ran along the Mississippi to Argon, the northernmost out-post of the League, about ten days' travel upriver. The road was all-weather construction: In most areas it had a pebble bed and good drainage. It plunged through thick forests of silver maple, bitternut hickory, pecan, and cypress. It passed farms and ranches, navigated among heaps of broken cement and patches of grassland. Concrete causeways carried it through swamps, and wooden bridges across streams and gullies. It hesitated before sites of historical interest: Pandar's Glade, where the Illyrian hero had turned the tide of war against the Argonites; a restored Baranji fort from the days when the Mississippi marked the western frontier of empire; a statue of a Road-maker military figure, right arm broken off, with the inscription: HE STOOD LIKE A STONE WALL.
Chaka was glad to get clear of the well-wishers, to move into the silences of the forest. She had been to Argon several times, although the most recent trip had been almost six years before, a hunting expedition with her family. Those earlier excursions had seemed like journeys to the end of the world. It was hard to realize that this time the outpost city would be little more than a jump-off point.
She was displeased with herself for agreeing to allow Flo-jian to join the expedition. The little man rode up front with Silas in his finicky, self-important way, and it irritated her that the two seemed to find much to talk about. She predicted to Quait that a few nights on the road would change his mind, and he would return home.
Silas bounced along on a horse that was too big for him. He'd borrowed a new animal from the Imperium for the expe-
dition; his usual mount was, he knew, too old for the kind of effort that would be required. Chaka thought that Silas looked cold and uncomfortable. But he hung on, trying to give the appearance of a man at home in the wilderness, even raising himself in the saddle on occasion to get a better look at the river, or a eucalyptus, or whatever happened to catch his attention.
"He'll be all right," said Quait. "He just needs a little time to get used to the road."
She was grateful to Quait, not only because he'd been instrumental in launching the expedition, but also because he obviously liked her and she needed that right now. Raney's defection had damaged her more than she was willing to admit, and she traveled throughout that first day expecting to hear him ride up behind them. She played the scene over and over in her mind, Raney apologetic and trying to shrug it all away; she cool and formal, allowing him to sweat. "You'll have to ask Silas," she would tell him. "It's not up to me."
"This is the high point of Silas's life," Quait told her. "It's what he's always wanted to do."
"Hard to believe," she said. "He doesn't look as if he's enjoying himself."
"He's not used to riding for long periods." "I can see that. What's he been doing for the last forty years?"
"Trying to understand what fuels the sun. The places he would like to go, people can't get to."
Chaka wasn't sure she understood that, but she let it pass. She was suspicious of Avila. The woman was friendly enough, but it was hard to overlook the fact that she had abandoned her vows. Chaka was a believer to the extent that she didn't like people to ask hard questions, and tried not to think too deeply about the assorted doctrines she'd accepted. Play it safe, respect the gods, and maybe it would pay off. Who knew? There had been a time, a generation back, when breaking wi
th the Order would have meant keeping out of public sight for the balance of one's life. But with the advent of the Republic, the ecclesiastical laws had been liberalized. Avila would be free to live as she wished, although most people would feel as Chaka did, that she was somehow remiss and morally suspect.
Avila was, however, the only member of the company who had been north of Argon. "We have a retreat about two days' ride above the city," she said. "It's on a ridge, in deep woods. A good place for prayer and contemplation."
"Didn't you worry about the Tuks?" asked Chaka.
"At first. But no one else seemed very concerned. At least no one who'd been around for a while. The Tuks turned out to be friendly enough."
"What did you contemplate?"
"Beg pardon?"
"You said you went up there to contemplate. What did you think about?"
Avila laughed. It was a pleasant sound, reserved, amiable, honest. "I think mostly I looked around at the wilderness and wondered what I was doing there."
Silas had ridden in closer to listen. "Will we pass the retreat?"
"No," she said. "We turn east when we get to Argon."
"I think," said Chaka, "you'll have plenty of time for contemplation on this trip."
They passed a sign. It was from the Roadmaker period, and gave no indication it would ever rust. (The origin of the more exotic Roadmaker materials, which seemed in some instances almost indestructible, remained just one more major mystery.) The letters were black and crisp in the sunlight:
WALK WITH THE SON YOU ARE ON ETERNITY ROAD
All five could read enough Roadmaker English to grasp the literal meaning. It was nonetheless baffling.
"What's it about, Silas?" asked Chaka.
Silas half turned in his saddle. "It means it's time to get off the horses and walk."
"No, really," said Avila.
"I think Silas is right," said Quait. "We should give the critters a rest."
It was cold, and Silas adjusted his scarf. "The Roadmakers believed in a god who tortured people after they died. If they'd sinned."