And the last to leave that morning was Barbara, sobbing on the Queen’s shoulder, which was still wet from their swim beneath the waterfall.
���Let me stay, please,��� Barbara said, being less afraid to plead now that only the Queen was left.
���I know it’s hard,��� she answered her, holding Barbara close, who had become like one of her own daughters by this time. ���Sometimes it is our normal life that requires more bravery than our adventures,��� she said kindly.
And they held for another moment, in no rush to leave, waiting until Barbara felt the courage enough to make the journey back to her parents’ home.
���I’m here,��� Barbara said. ���And I’m safe, no need to worry,��� she called out, opening the door to an empty home, and finding her parents had gone away for the weekend, to visit with new friends, and would be late in returning.
She climbed the stairs to her room, and immediately, tore down her calendar from the wall, with its red circled date, and crossed out days; Taking the time to rip it into pieces in her waste basket, fully intending, for all that had happened, to live every day she was given, for all the time was given them. And from then on, it was her habit, whenever she was at home, to keep the door to her room opened. Not that her parents would, even then, take the time to visit with her, but as a sign to herself that she would try to remain brave in her unchosen life, and vulnerable when it was appropriate.
And that night, she dreamt about Gleomu, and the grace and dignity of courtly affairs, and the following day, which was a Monday, her family’s private chauffeur drove her back to school at Mayfield, where she honorably failed each and every one of her make-up exams, with the exception of a short quiz in Physics about the subject of water pressure, of which she was an unfortunate expert.
*
�� It may be noted, that after this time, a group was allowed to return to this colony to check their progress. However, they were saddened to report that the majority of those exiles did not make it past their first winter, despite being adequately supplied. Yet gratefully, those that had and their decedents, have borne no ill will toward Earth, nor her leaders, and have developed a rudimentary civilization that is in most regards, fair and decent.
Copyright
All the Worlds of Men Globe Light Press :
All rights reserved. Copyright �� Steven J Carroll 2013
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or to be placed on a website for the purpose of review. For information address: Globe Light Press, [email protected].
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Acknowledgements
Great thanks to my fans who have encouraged me to keep writing, and thanks to Chad Lewis, your artwork is fantastic as always. Thanks to Christine Hysell for her excellent editing work.
A special thanks as well to my wife, my biggest advocate.
(Book 4 of The Histories of Earth)
That we may seek those things which are incorruptible.
Chapter One
Trinkets
There was once a girl who sold trinkets. Or I should say, there was once a girl who should have sold them, and the fact that she hadn’t would not be well accepted by her father: who often dealt heavy punishments whenever Tavora was, as her father called her, ���an unprofitable daughter… not worth the barley or the bedroll,��� Oded, Tavora’s father, would often say.
And this night would be exceptionally sour, that sad girl thought, as she led her tired old plow horse by the reins, on a route back from Ismere, a route that wound meanderingly along the ledge of a canyon river. Below her, the river rushed and careened over waterfalls. The ride that evening was lovely, and perfect in many ways, so that it should have brought some peace to her fears, but oddly she had grown to hate the sound of waterfalls and the look of the sunset as it lit across the gorge; For those things she’d always experienced during her journeys home.
And as she walked the ledge, leading her feeble horse who was tired from riding that day, but who seemed always tired since they had bought that poor work animal, Tavora rehearsed in her head the list of excuses she could make for why she had not sold her allotted trinkets. ���The weather was at odds with the festival this year, papa,��� or ���With the new royalty, there was far too much excitement in the capital for men to care at all about trinkets.��� Or, she might say… that she’d lost them, Tavora thought, staring disgustingly at her nearly full pouch of metal chains and jeweleries, and figurines. How she’d hated trinkets, she thought: almost as much as waterfalls, and that, almost as much as returning home.
She stopped her horse at a part of the trail overlooking a plummeting stream that fell continually over the face of a mammoth boulder. Peering over the edge, she wanted to rid herself of those loathsome trinkets. This place was remote, miles from her father’s cottage. She could throw the pouch into the river… but then what? If her father was furious with her, and he would be, then Tavora would never be able to find them again. And so she did something more levelheaded, she’d wanted to lose her pouch of trinkets, but not forever. And so she aimed to throw them into a set of bushes by the river ledge. That would teach her father a lesson, she thought.
She pulled the strap off her shoulder, and she flung her filled pouch into that growth of shrubbery, and began to walk away, but stopped suddenly. It did not make a sound anything like she might have imagined. Instead it fell for much longer than she thought it could, and crashed with a distant, echoing, metallic ringing that rattled and shook from below the earth, from out of the mouth of a hidden monumental cavern.
Chapter Two
To Istanbul
The heated metal tracks warmed hotter as his train ground to a halt in the station. It was mid-summer in Istanbul, and that could be easily seen in the way the sun beat around the train car, and you could see it in the wearied expressions on travelers’ faces, and in the beads of sweat on their upper lips.
Timothy grabbed his single duffel and found a spot with the exiting crowd. Mists of steam went up from around the train wheels as he stepped from the passenger carriage.
���Timothy! Over here,��� a boy shouted, waving his hand to be seen above the pressing crowd that filled the station beyond its borders. And seeing this waving arm, Timothy caught the glint of a golden armband in the reflecting sunlight.
Timothy waved in return, from the steps of the train car, holding up the line, and then pushed through the pressing crowd, until he eventually came to the place where his friend was.
���I take it back, maybe we will have a bit of danger on this visit. These crowds are impossible,��� said Timothy.
���Give us some credit, you know. We might have more excitement than that,��� Ata replied, as if he had known some new intriguing secret. ���Come on, I have something you’ll want to see.���
Professor Asim ��elik, Ata’s father, stood in the doorway of his elaborate home and welcomed Timothy in as if no time had passed at all. And put rather plainly, it was good to see that the chubby old scientist was still in good health, Timothy thought, as he’d been tremendously difficult to get ahold of over the past eight months. So much so, that Timothy and his mother had to sort out most of the details for his visit, instead, with Ata, who would often be much better about returning their phone calls.
Th
rough the main foyer of that sprawling house, past an indoor three-tiered fountain, and down a hall, Timothy was led to the guestroom, which would be his bedroom for the next two weeks. He threw his duffel into the corner and fell backwards onto the bed, closing his eyes and resting from his long train ride.
���Comfortable?��� Ata asked, still standing in the doorway after showing Timothy to his room.
���I could get used to it, I think,��� Timothy replied without opening his eyes. And then sitting up on the plush bed, he said, ���What was that thing you’d wanted to show me?���
���Where did you find these?��� Timothy asked, standing in the main dining hall of Ata’s house, staring across a long banquet table covered from end to end with massive open books.
���We broke into the Illutu-��mu’s abandoned headquarters one night, and there they were,��� Ata answered. ���We thought it’d be such a waste to leave them, so we brought them home with us.���
���Incredible,��� Timothy said, flipping to a page in one of those mammoth books that showed accurate diagrams, and the true reason for the building of the Great Wall, in China. ���But there’s so much here, you’d never be able to read all of it.���
���What do you think my dad has been doing for the past eight months?��� Ata replied. ���When he’s not in his workshop, he’s here till midnight, reading about Julius Caesar, or King Solomon. He says he remembers all of it, but I don’t know how anyone can.���
���Have you read any of it?��� Timothy asked, flipping through another volume in these true histories of earth.
���Not much, just the first forty, or so, pages in the first book, and then anything that has to do with globe travel. I asked my dad to call me in if he’d found anything like that.���
���Anything interesting?��� Timothy asked, blowing off the dust on the cover of a far volume at the end of the table that hadn’t yet been read.
Which led Ata into a short description of all that he’d learned thus far about the globe of Earth: How the globe had been conquered by the Babylonians for several generations, and then during the rise of the Persian Empire, it was stolen away and hidden in Jerusalem, though it was then conquered and reconquered several times over, many times fading into obscurity for a century or more, and always only barely kept from the Illutu-��mu’s grasp. Until it had somehow ended up back in Jerusalem during the First Crusades, at which time it vanished from memory, and was not seen again.
���Is that it?��� Timothy asked, when Ata had finished his story.
���Isn’t that enough?��� Ata replied.
���Well, sure, it’s nice to know about the Crusades and all, but what I’d like to know is how it’d got into my grandmother’s attic,��� Timothy said.
Now, this was hardly an adventure to save the world, as they had been used to, but still an adventure nonetheless. And also, what Ata thought to be a great idea as well. So that the boys made it their goal, for the next several days, to read through the last remaining massive volumes in the Histories of Earth, while drinking whole batches of overly-caffeinated spiced teas.
Until the third night, as they were just coming to the start of the twentieth century, they turned a weathered old page and found a rather mundane story, by association, and something most readers, and likely the writer of that history book, himself, might have overlooked. Though this story was not at all trivial for those who’d known better, as Timothy and Ata had, who at once knew that they had found their next adventure, written into the pages of a dusty old book.
Chapter Three
A Confession
Stretched across the stream that led to her father’s cottage, lay a poorly constructed wooden bridge. It was always a risk for Tavora to take her horse over the bridge with her, and the boards below Myre’s hooves would always splinter and creak. Though it was not a life threatening danger, and if the rickety bridge had finally broken once and for all, perhaps she might be allowed to have a few days of rest, instead of continually going back to market in Ismere, or so she had always hoped.
But once again, she was not so fortunate, and shutting Myre into her meager pen, Tavora gave the poor creature and extra allotment of oats, and a pail of fresh water.
���He can’t be mad at you, can he? You’re just an old horse,��� she said.
Myre whinnied, and pressed her face against Tavora’s cheek.
Tavora smiled. ���Good girl,��� she said, and patted Myre’s coarse mane.
Through the open window could be seen a lit fire, and a kettle hung over the coals.
Tavora tried to mask her disappointment as she came inside. ���Vegetable soup again, I bet,��� she thought. And the smell of celery and wild roots confirmed it.
Her father was seated in his chair at the table, with a spoonful already set into his mouth. His look was anything but pleased.
���Sorry, father,��� she said, in a low breath. ���I’m late today.���
���You will be sorry, mark my words you will be,��� he answered back. Then, sipping the last bit of broth from the bowl, he rose from the table, but as he did so, his buggy eyes saw that something had gone missing, and he was not so kind.
���Where’s your pouch, child?��� he said, giving a scowl. ���You best have a saddlebag filled with gold crests, or I swear to you, on your mother’s grave-���
���I dropped it,��� Tavora interrupted.
Oded glanced at her with a questioning look. ���Well, what are you here for? Go and get,��� he ordered.
���I can’t,��� she said. Although, she knew her father’s recent disposition was not so tenderhearted, and that he would not kindly tolerate such talk.
���You can, and you will,��� he said, pulling at the belt around his pant waist.
���No, really, I can’t,��� she said again, knowing it to be dangerous to speak to her father this way, and so she explained, ���It fell into a cave.���
But this only angered him all the more, as he grabbed at her arm roughly. ���Now, I didn’t raise my child to be a liar, did I? There aren’t any caves on the route from the capital,��� he said, waving his calloused, heavy finger at the girl.
���No, but there is, honest… It’s hidden, near the gorge,��� she answered, scared of her father’s anger, and knowing she should not have been so stupid as to throw her pouch away.
���Well, there better be, for your sake,��� he muttered, letting her arm go, and snatching their oil lamp from the shelf.
���Can’t we leave it till morning?��� she asked.
Though in his gruff and temperamental way, he answered, ���That’s our bread for the winter, child. Do you think I’m just going to let us starve?���
And he shoved past her, showing his irritation, and they both traveled out into the night, taking a wrapped rope from the stable, and leaving across the warped and splintery footbridge, which she wished would, at last, fall apart, but it did not.
Chapter Four
A Gift
The old scientist was tremendously excited when he learned of the boys’ discovery, saying that these lesser moments in history were often the most pivotal, and reaffirming that he was right to rescue those books when he did.
���Didn’t I tell you, Ata, these Histories would prove useful to us, didn’t I?��� the pudgy professor said exuberantly.
���Yes, papa, you did,��� Ata replied, as he shifted his glance to Timothy, in an amused way that would show the humor in the fact that his father had somehow managed to take partial credit for their discoveries.
After this, their next week and a half in Istanbul was filled up with the more average types of mischief that boys will get into; When they’ve had a treasure trove of secret inventions t
o explore, and the ability to fly around the city after nightfall, though nothing that had damaged private property, or themselves, in any lasting way.
And when their time had come to an end, and after a long telephone conversation with Timothy’s father, they all agreed that Ata would be allowed to return with Timothy back to London; And privately, Asim also told the boys that he didn’t mind them leaving Earth altogether, as long as they would try to be reasonably safe about it. Because, after all, as he said, on their last night in Turkey, ���What good is it to have superpowers, if you never get to use them?���
And on their final morning, before they were to leave, while waiting for the conductor to call for their departing train, Asim handed Timothy a small present, delicately wrapped in a powder blue box, with a white ribbon tied securely around it.
���This is for Barbara,��� he said, setting the palm-sized box into Timothy’s hands, and then turning to his son, ���No peeking. Have you got that?���
���Yes, papa,��� Ata replied, with a glint in his eyes, that told that he’d been caught peeking at gifts before.
After a few moments, the conductor made his announcement, and they filled into the passenger car. And as their train eased from the station, Ata turned to Timothy, saying, ���Aren’t you at least a little curious about what’s in the box?���
���Sure,��� Timothy replied, ���but that doesn’t mean I’m going to open it.���
Ata let out a sigh, and set his head back upon the headrest.
���Well, I would have,��� he said.
Timothy looked at his friend, and shook the box in front of his face to tease him. ���And that’s why he gave it to me, and not to you,��� he said, and pulled the gift away when Ata tried to grab for it.
The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending Page 41