Once all the secret soldiers had gathered in a circle around him, Timothy spoke loudly to the man in gray, ���I will not help you,��� he said, as a true Prince of Earth would say.
���All the better,��� the man answered. ���You will make my job much more fun.��� And he smiled a truly horrifying smile, but then was instantly cut short, as if he had heard a noise.
He put two fingers to his ear, as if he were pressing on a hearing aid, but what Timothy assumed must be some sort of in-ear communications link. And the man in gray spoke loudly, as if to himself, though he was obviously addressing a subordinate by the cruel way in which he spoke.
���What do you mean, ‘there’s a problem?’��� he said harshly, and then stopped, as if listening for a response.
���Why don’t we try this again?��� he said with a false tenderness, before gritting his teeth, ���Someone will be shot tonight, and I’ll let you decide whom that will be.���
Almost immediately, from out in the distant halls of the museum, Timothy heard the sharp blasts of gunfire and of men screaming, and the unmistakeable sound that they were getting closer… much, much closer.
���Bolt the doors,��� the man in gray ordered.
Yet, before that could be done, as if both flying and sprinting through the open doors, pushing past the armed guards, a boy, roughly Timothy’s age, came speeding through the open doorway, holding with both hands a glowing mechanical sphere. And he may have been shot immediately, if he had not been so unexpected.
He broke through the ring of guards, and diving, he slid feet first underneath the collection of tables, and flung the sphere across the library as he slid. He came to a stop, one hand held tightly around Timothy’s ankle. And then, without warning, he touched his metal forearm bracelets together and both he and Timothy were being dragged at an enormous speed, across the marble library floor.
At the sight of this, the armed men at once came to their collective senses, raising their military style rifles at the sliding boys.
���Fire!��� the man in gray yelled, baring his teeth and his eyes never wider.
A spastic trail of bullets went up behind them, chipping the stone floors. They landed at the far end of the room, and dove behind a massive bookcase, as bullet shredded bits of paper flew down around them.
���Hold on!��� Ata yelled in the chaos of the moment. As he took Timothy flying over the rows of bookshelves, soaring in a game of catch, like they had done before. And they flew through the air, as fast as Ata could throw, gunfire always only nearly missing them, and Ata threw the sphere like a brick through a high glass window. And they went soaring through the shattered glass, hoping to be free, but in the last second the toe of Timothy’s shoe struck the window sill, and the force was just enough to pull his hands loose.
And he was falling, from out of the high library window, roughly four stories above the paved streets below. Many times before, Timothy thought he might likely die, but this time he was sure of it.
Ata had thrown his sphere at too great a distance from where Timothy was falling, he couldn’t save him in time, and Timothy knew this in a split second as he accelerated, plummeting toward the earth.
And unintentionally, almost as a reflex, he braced his arms out in front of him, to cover his face. The metal edges of his forgotten bracelets touched together. A thick vivid blue, curved shield of electric energy instantly appeared in front of him as he fell.
The ground was speeding closer.
���Ahhh,��� Timothy cried, his voice raising louder as the ground drew nearer.
And he hit the pavement like the force of a sledgehammer, broken chips of concrete and gravel dust burst in every direction, shooting outward from where he’d impacted.
Only seconds afterward, Ata flew blindingly to the street. And Timothy was found in an instantly formed curved cracked hole in the city pavement. He was lying on his back now, hands cupped over his racing chest, trying to calm his well shattered nerves, and panting heavily.
���Let’s never do that again,��� Timothy said, through large puffs of air.
���I agree,��� Ata replied, taking Timothy up by the hand, out of his would-be grave.
And the two boys flew together, over the nighttime Turkish sky, away from the museum: newly made fugitives, on the run, and in real imminent danger. The gravity of which they still hadn’t known the full extent of.
*
�� Since there may be some confusion on this point, I will try to add a bit of clarity: Here on this page, I have not said that the globe was in fact Babylonian, but only that Timothy thought that it might be; And moreover, that the language system written onto the stone tablets in the museum and the language painted upon the walls of their secret cavern in Gleomu were also the same. However, logically, we should avoid the conclusion that this would mean that the globe was, itself, Babylonian. In the same way that German may be spoken by the Swiss, but that does not make them German.
Chapter Ten
Fleeing
By dawn they found a place, stowed upon an open shipping car, on a train head west. The glaring sunlight shining on behind them. And one of them, Timothy, was happy to be leaving the Near East, and the murderous Illutu-��mu, hoping to find a place, safe and hidden from their ever present gaze.
But the other of them, Ata, his heart burned and ached inside of him. He was fleeing from his only home, and from his father who had turned on them as a traitor, and he was now, once again, an orphan.
Which one would think, that given Ata’s self-sufficient upbringing, in the church orphanage, that he would be used to being on his own and that their escape from Istanbul would have meant less to him, that he might be calloused or hardened to such a thing. When in truth, he felt broken, but in a way that could hardly be told by his face, and only seen in his eyes as he gazed back at the rising sun. He had let the true hopes of family and acceptance and security come into his inner self, and now he felt them choking within. And a single tear, which might have been mistaken for watering from the glare of the sun in his eyes, rolled softly on his cheek, and he wiped it away as soon as he could.
But Timothy, who was always keen at noticing things, noticed this as well, which led him to say, ���I’m sure he had a reason for helping them…��� and then more quickly, he blurted, ���You’ll see, when this is all through, you’ll get to go back, everything will be-���
But Timothy was interrupted. ���He’s not a coward,��� Ata said, harshly.
���No, I didn’t think that he was,��� Timothy answered.
���He’s a genius. If he’s helping them, then there’s a reason. And in some way, they’re helping him. You’ll see…���
���I’m sure,��� Timothy said, and repeated, ���I’m sure you’re right.���
And with the blast of a train whistle, puffed smoke flew more condensed around their faces, as they sat in the open cargo car, staring out at all that lay behind them; And would it be gone forever? And the whistle blew once more.
After many stops, and disconnected train cars, and reconnected freight cars, and a night spent sleeping in a grain car’s bin (which is nothing at all as comfortable as it sounds, seeing that there are rats in especially ill-kept train cars, like that one was). And when the morning was come, they were finally compelled to leave, when their train’s engine came to its final stop, on a route into France, and they found themselves arrived in a tiny farming village on the outskirts of L’Isle-Jourdain, near Toulouse, a town with avenues of large cobble stone that had separated and spaced themselves with age, carving thick cracks into all the streets.
Yet all they could notice, after a day and night on the train, were the delectable smells from a confectioner’s window, that wafted out onto the street where Timothy and Ata stood, after a short walk from the village’s meager train station. And they were both
desperately hungry, and exhausted, and they would have given anything for food, but they had nothing to give; empty, parched, and with no money to speak of, and no French currency between them.
And so they were left to stare longingly, and somewhat pathetically, until the shop owner came to shoo them away with a broom, saying in French that they would scare away his customers. Yet, neither of them knew what he had said. They only knew he was irritated by them, and his words meant something like, ���go away.���
And knowing themselves to be unwelcomed in the center of town, they began to walk away, over a rustic stone footbridge that left the village, across the river, headed for no place in particular. And after a good deal of walking, when they had gone for several miles, Ata started to ask Timothy, why he shouldn’t just use his light travel abilities and take them out of that world entirely, away from the Illutu-��mu’s watchful eye, and maybe to some place that would give them a decent breakfast.
But to that Timothy replied, ���That’s not how light travel works at all.��� And telling him further, that they still had eleven full days there on Earth, until October 8th, which would be their escape day. But until that time, they would need to fend for themselves.
Chapter Eleven
A Cottage
In the meanwhile, it was morning in a rented cottage in Lamport, and an elderly couple, who had both given false names, and who had paid the rental fee in cash, upfront, were securely locked up and bolted into the century old cottage: Enjoying a breakfast of poached eggs, marmalade jam, toast, and pleasantly kept cups of coffee and tea. Yet, their moods were anything but optimistic.
���Don’t let it get to you, dear,��� Wilbur said, seeing his wife’s fidgeting fingers on her coffee mug. ���We’ve done all we can do…���
���How can I not let it bother me, Wilbur?��� Matilde answered back. ���And you’re always so ghastly calm about everything… how can you be like that when our daughter, and grandson, and son-in-law have been taken while in Turkey, and Barbara, as well, stolen away in the middle of the night.���
And she took a sip of coffee, but didn’t enjoy it.
Though seeing Wilbur’s reaction, Matilde knew that she’d upset him dearly with her words, for he always put extra cubes of sugar in his coffee when he was feeling upset, and this time must have been especially upsetting, because he’d portioned in five cubes, stirring his coffee clinking his spoon against the cup.
���I’m calm, yes… but it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings, you know,��� Wilbur muttered.
And at that Matilde realized she was growing cross at the wrong person, and that those who’d really deserved her anger were whomever had stolen her family from her.
The old woman stretched out both her hands across the rough square table, to reach for her husband. ���Oh, thank you for keeping a clear head on you. I don’t mean to bite at you. You’re always there when I need it,��� she said tenderly.
And as the day passed, the two were very happy for each other and for the seclusion of their country cottage.
Even possibly, Matilde thought to herself, that given no other options, she might actually grow to enjoy her time of isolation in Lamport.
After all, it was such a homely little summer cottage, and it might do her some good to have eleven more days of confinement from the chaos in the world, and rest, even a forced rest as this one was. And it might stand to reason, that when this was all finished with, she and Wilbur might actually remember their time there with fondness: Thinking that this small house did remind her of her first days as a newlywed in Cape Cod, and of their small, but lovely home near the Atlantic, when she was just a young woman.
In the end her mood did improve, but that could not last, for around lunchtime there arose a knock at the door. A knock, when they’d specifically requested not to have any intruders for two weeks. But this knock would not subside, nor go away, so that Wilbur was eventually the one to answer it.
And when it was opened, at the doorstep, there stood a younger man, dressed in handsome gray slacks, a white shirt and gray tie, as the other man in Istanbul had worn. Except this man had a very proper Southeast British accent (so that his tone sounded tender and good natured, although he was not).
���Wilbur and Matilde Wolcott, I presume?��� he said.
And because it would do nothing to deny it, and because of Wilbur’s own bravery, he answered, stalwartly, as any good King of Earth might.
���That’s right,��� he replied, not taking his stare away from the young man at his door, who’d made a play at civility, yet both he and Wilbur knew, his intentions to be anything but kindhearted.
Chapter Twelve
Unlikely Visitors
Trudging ahead miles and miles southward, on foot, on a dirt single lane road through the overgrown French countryside; And when the afternoon had come and they were both about to faint because of their hunger and persistent thirst, they found an unattended vineyard, which would satisfy both of those needs.
And as the sun was setting low behind the hills, they ate plump grapes until they could eat no more. When night had fallen, they found an unlocked barn, a far walk from the main road, and they collapsed into piles of hay, meaning to arise at the break of dawn, and to leave before being noticed. Except that they in their plan had forgot this simple fact, and one Timothy should have remembered from his days in Gleomu: that a good farmer will always be busy at his work since well before sunrise, and that is how they were caught.
Timothy’s head was lain down softly upon a bed of hay straw, yet he was woken sharply to the dreadful, irking feeling that someone was standing over him as he slept, and finding when his eyes were opened, a finely filed and pointed pitchfork only inches from his face.
And this particular pitchfork had belonged to a slightly slouched and short white-bearded old man, in roughly worn dress clothes; So that you would instantly know him to be a farmer, and of a certain generation that would not go underdressed, even while farming.
He yelled at them, something in French that most nearly means, ���You are not welcome here.���
���Excusez-moi!��� Timothy yelled in return, pushing himself back in fright, further and further into the pile of hay.
(���Excusez-moi��� in French means ���Pardon me��� or ���Excuse me���, which unfortunately was one of only about ten phrases Timothy knew to say, having elected to take German last term as his foreign language. And Ata was of no help at all, being only able to speak Turkish, and English, and one or two phrases in Kurdish, that would scarcely be helpful here.)
The old farmer jabbed his pitchfork at Timothy again, and repeat his yelling that neither of the boys understood. His pitchfork coming as close as a razor to Timothy’s skin, so that Timothy nearly made an attempt to strike his forearm bracelets together, to raise his force field, until Ata stopped him.
���I wouldn’t do that,��� Ata warned.
���Easy for you to say,��� Timothy yelled in return. ���He’s not trying to kill you, is he?���
Ata tried to remain calm for both their sakes, saying, ���No, but if you do that, then he’ll tell everyone he knows about the kids in his barn with ‘magic powers’, and they will definitely find out.���
Ata put an extra strain on the word ���they���, so that Timothy would know he’d meant the Illutu-��mu, thinking it to be unsafe to mention them by name, except in absolute privacy.
And so Timothy, looking over into his ally’s pool black eyes, he knew that Ata was right, that it was an inexcusable risk to use their bracelets, unless of course they were in the direst of deadly perils, which was not this case. Meaning that, he knew he must at the present time, rely on the old man’s mercy, if it were there at all.
���S’il vous plait,��� Timothy said (meaning ���please���), and then remembering a
key word, one that he had desperately needed at the moment.
���Amis, amis,��� Timothy said loudly (meaning ���Friends, friends���), and he repeated it, growing softer as the old man pulled back his sharp weapon, and slowly let his more kindly nature show from his also scared face, and from his wrinkled eyes and rosy aging cheeks.
The old farmer set the butt of his pitchfork handle down on the barn floor, leaning on it a bit, and holding it as a staff or walking cane in his hand. He stared intently at the boys until he’d made up his mind.
���Amis,��� the old farmer replied, and repeated his words, reaching out a hand to help Timothy off the barn floor, ���Oui, amis.��� (���Yes, friends.���)
If one could fully describe a person using only a single word (and I would postulate that such an action would be impossible, but if reader, I were wrong about this, however unlikely), then the single word that may suffice to describe Pierre Legrand would be a survivor.
A survivor of the First and Second World Wars, the last living member of his immediate family, being the youngest of seven children, and with both his sons having died in the German Blitzkrieg of the ravenous Second World War, and his wife Ulina, having finally passed away that previous fall, after suffering from a degenerative brain disorder that had been incorrectly diagnosed (but that I can tell you was Alzheimer’s).
Yet in the end, most of the suffering was had by Pierre, for his wife had barely known herself, let alone him, or anyone else for that matter; Seeing that Alzheimer���s is a disease of the memory and the mind, a very callous and hurtful type of malady. So that the old farmer, Pierre Legrand, could not even properly say goodbye to his wife of fifty-seven years, when the time had come, for she did not even know him as her husband, only a new and kindly helper, or friend, or acquaintance.
The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending Page 28