“There,” he said, giving the lid several full turns. Gafilair or whoever had designed the cylinder clearly hadn’t wanted to risk damage or rot to whatever was inside.
He had almost finished unscrewing the lid when Captain Bream plucked the container from his hands. David felt himself shrinking, like when Darren Kenneally started in on him.
Captain Bream removed the lid and upended the canister, allowing the contents to fall into his waiting hand: a heavy sack, and a scroll. Dropping the cylinder to the ground, he fumbled eagerly with the knot closing the sack, but as he opened it, his face fell.
“Sand,” he said, shaking his head. “Red sand.” He passed the bag to David.
Reaching in, David rubbed a pinch of the red sand between his thumb and forefinger. It was cold to the touch.
“And for you,” Bream said as he passed the scroll to the magus. As he handed the container back to David, he almost dropped the compass rose.
David was about to say something—
Don’t. This is not a place where they tolerate a boy talking back. Especially to a man with a sword.
David bit his lip and re-tied the bag of sand.
Setting his book on his lap to form a small table, the magus broke the twine wrapped around the scroll and carefully unrolled it. He glanced at the canister in David’s hands.
“That is quite a remarkable box,” he said appreciatively. “The vellum is more than a thousand years old, but perfectly preserved.” He held one corner of the scroll between his thumb and forefinger, bending it slightly. It did not crease or tear. “Perfectly.”
“Is it the map?” the captain asked.
“It is a map,” the magus said. “I can only assume …” His voice stopped. “Ah, yes. I suspect this is the map we are looking for.” He showed David and the captain the round hole that had been cut into the upper right corner of the vellum.
David passed the silver disk to the magus. Setting the map down on the book, Loren carefully placed the compass rose into the hole in the map. It fit perfectly.
Pulling the blanket tight around himself, David craned his neck to see the map more clearly.
“The rose,” the magus said, “seems to be centred over the canyon. You can see the entry here.” He pointed. “We’re about here.” He moved his finger to a spot partway downriver.
The river ran from the compass rose along the top edge of the page. It took David a moment to get his bearings. He touched the river near the edge of the vellum.
“So this, where we are, that’s north.”
The magus nodded.
“Does it tell us where to go?” the captain pressed.
“There’s something written here,” the magus said slowly, looking intently at the area of the scroll below the silver disk.
Leaning in, David could see the faint writing. It didn’t look much like any of the printing in books that he had ever seen, with lots of tails and whorls, but he was able to follow along silently as the magus read the words out loud:
BY THE DAY’S FIRST LIGHT
YOUR JOURNEY SHALL BE PLAIN
TO FORESTS OF SILVER
THROUGH MOUNTAINS OF RAIN
TO THE FOUR DIRECTIONS
THE ONE SHALL RIDE
THE CHOSEN YOUR CHAMPION
THE STONE YOUR GUIDE.
The captain grunted his disapproval.
“Instructions, I think,” the magus said. “It seems clear that something will happen with the Stone at dawn, something to show us the way.”
David looked up from the writing to Loren’s face. He waited for the magus to continue, but the old man didn’t read aloud the final four lines:
THE CHOSEN SHALL RISE TO THE CHALLENGE ALONE
SACRIFICE ALL IN SEARCH OF THE STONE
AND THROUGH TRIUMPH OVER DEATH AND BETRAYAL
SHALL RETURN TO CLAIM HIS RIGHTFUL THRONE.
David was about to ask about the final four lines, when Matt cried out, David, don’t!
He snapped his mouth shut.
He’s hiding something, said Matt.
But he’s not covering up the words.
Because he doesn’t know you can read.
After a long meeting with the chief of Nursing, Jacqui’s supervisor granted her a one-month leave of absence, with an option to renew if David’s condition required it.
I had stayed at the hospital during the meeting because I wanted to be there when Dr. Rutherford returned with the test results. They revealed nothing out of the ordinary: I didn’t know if that was good news or bad.
I had also stayed at the hospital for David. I couldn’t bear the idea of him being alone.
To be completely honest, though, I stayed also because I had nowhere else to go. My quest was done—I had discovered the root of David’s suffering, but there was nothing I could do to alleviate it.
Later, I helped Jacqui bathe him, lifting him slightly from the bed so she could take off his gown, holding one arm up, then the other, as she wiped at him, quickly and efficiently, with a warm, wet cloth. We dressed him in a clean gown, and she used a fresh cloth to wash his face. She lingered over his mouth, his stitches, the inside corners of his eyes, the gentle seam where his nose met his cheeks.
“I’ll go downstairs for a bit,” she said, after we had lowered him back down to the bed.
The words had come out of nowhere. “What? Why?”
“Isn’t it storytime?” she asked. “I thought I’d give you guys a little time alone.”
Of everything that Lazarus Took had done, the need to keep reading David the story that had crippled him was probably the cruellest. As I read, I could feel the bile in my throat, and the words turned to dust in my mouth. But I forced myself to read them, wondering what other stories were lurking just underneath. I savoured the moment that David’s hands and eyes stilled, but any solace that I had once taken was tainted by the knowledge of Took’s absolute control over my son’s life, even from beyond the grave.
When I finally went home, I poured several fingers of vodka into a glass and tossed it back without feeling it, then poured two fingers more. I carried the glass over to the desk, shoving some of the books and papers aside to clear a place to set it. I slumped into the chair and stared at the mess. All that work, all those answers, and it didn’t make any difference.
Reaching out without straightening, I woke up my computer.
Another message from Roger’s assistant, reminding me of dinner in New York. A short note from Tony Markus, asking if there was any way I could send him even a photocopy of To the Four Directions.
They were both going to be disappointed.
The last e-mail was from Cat Took, titled, simply, “Thank you!”
Chris,
I just wanted to mail you to say thank you—I received a telephone call this afternoon from Tony Markus at Davis & Keelor, expressing his interest in republishing my grandfather’s books. I suspect that there’s no coincidence in his interest following so closely on our correspondence.
So thank you, again, for doing whatever you did to pique Mr. Markus’s curiosity, and for your continued interest in, and now support of, my grandfather’s work.
Yours,
Cat
I smiled bitterly to myself: Tony Markus had taken the ball and run with it.
Picking up my glass, I absently scrolled through Cat’s message. Below her thank you was the entirety of our correspondence. I glanced at it idly—it all felt like so long ago, back in the days when every message seemed like it might hold a clue.
Yesterday. The day before.
I stopped scrolling down, but I wasn’t sure why. I reread what was on the screen twice, trying to figure out what had twigged my subconscious. Then I saw it.
Reaching into my pocket for my notebook, I fumbled it open for the page where I had written down Sarah and Nora’s phone number. My fingers shook as I dialled.
“Hello?”
“Sarah? It’s Chris. Chris Knox. I’m sorry for calling so late.”
>
“It’s not that late,” she said. “We’re just playing a couple of hands of gin before Mom goes to bed. What is it? Did something happen to your son?”
“No, no. Listen, I need to … I need to see you both.”
“Why? What is it?”
I looked at the computer screen, at a paragraph from one of Cat’s earlier e-mails.
“I think I know where I can find the lexicon,” I said.
PART THREE
NEW YORK
I
THE NIGHT PASSED SLOWLY. They let the fire go out before the darkness set in, and the air was cold. He hadn’t felt warm since he had come out of the river, even with his clothes dry again. Still, it was a small price to pay for being alive.
Sort of.
He held his hand up against the moon, marvelling at the size of it.
David. Dafyd.
Where did Dafyd end and David begin?
Triumph over death
The words from the scroll tumbled through his head, like pieces to a puzzle that needed solving. He was utterly exhausted, his body aching and battered, but every time he closed his eyes he saw the lines of verse on the map, the brown ink faint against the cream-coloured vellum.
The chosen shall rise to the challenge alone
The words Loren hadn’t read aloud.
What did you mean, when you said that Loren didn’t know I could read? David thought.
Remember, they don’t know that you’re … you, Matt said. All they see is Dafyd, the tavern woman’s son. Most people, in books like this, they don’t go to school. Unless they’re noble, or part of a religious group.
Like the soldier at the garrison gate, David remembered. Captain Bream said he couldn’t read.
Captain Bream probably can’t read either, Matt said. Or any of the soldiers. Why do you think they brought Loren along?
David thought back to all the conversations he had had with Bream and Loren, and with the Queen herself. All that talk about deciphering the ancient scrolls …
How do you know all this? he asked Matt.
I love books like this one, he said. Don’t you?
I’m not sure, David confessed. I don’t read that much.
Oh shit, man, Matt muttered. Are you ever in over your head.
David nodded, his mind flashing back to the last lines on the map.
So what do you think Loren is hiding? David asked.
Something about you, Matt answered, echoing David’s deepest suspicions. I mean, you are the chosen one, right?
That’s what he says.
He was the one who chose you—chose Dafyd—for this. There has to be some reason why.
He said it was written in the ancient scrolls.
David thought about the oversized book that the magus carried with him, and what secrets it might be hiding.
It only took unpacking my laptop bag to recreate a facsimile of my desk in the hotel room, complete with computer, notebooks, a couple of novels, a folder with hotel information and notes for the trip. The only thing missing was an ashtray: the whole of the Grand Hyatt had gone non-smoking since the last time I stayed there.
I had planned on cancelling my trip to New York, but Cat’s reference to her grandfather’s papers being sold to the Hunter Barlow Library had changed my mind.
“Are you sure it’s there?” Sarah had asked when I told her of my plan. She, Nora and I were again sitting around the kitchen table.
“Not one hundred percent, no,” I confessed. “But his granddaughter told me that that’s where most of his papers ended up. I just need to know what I’m looking for. I have no idea what a lexicon might look like.”
“It could look like anything,” Nora said.
“That’s not really helpful.”
“It’s a code. A key, for translation. If he was using it for rituals, for the Order as a whole, it might be a pamphlet or a small book, explaining each symbol, why it was chosen, giving a bit of arcane history …”
“Pamphlet,” I said, jotting notes. “How will I know I’ve got the right one? What if there are a whole bunch of different codes?”
Nora leaned forward. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. The symbols used on the book are very powerful. They weren’t chosen lightly, and my guess is that they’ve built up a lot of power from their use by this order. I think that once this system was developed, they stuck with it. We’re not talking about dabblers, here.”
As I was leaving, less than an hour later, Nora embraced me in the doorway.
“Here,” she said as she stepped back. She fumbled at the back of her neck, her hands coming away with the crystal dangling from its length of chain. “I think you should have this.” I lowered my head, and she fastened the chain around my neck. “It probably won’t help you at all. There’s no spell on it”—she smiled—“but crystal does help one focus and see things clearly, so …”
“Thank you,” I had said, holding the crystal in my hand.
In the days before my flight, I had tried to find out as much as I could about the Hunter Barlow Library, the private collection that had bought Lazarus Took’s papers in 1949. There wasn’t much information online: the library’s own website seemed wilfully unhelpful, while other sites referred to the library’s impressive collection of occult materials, “which runs as a counterpoint to the mainstream of the twentieth century.”
Even with packing and preparations, I’d spent as much time as possible at the hospital. David was becoming more responsive: he could eat and chew, and was able to walk, haltingly and with a walker, a few steps at a time. But his level of catatonia meant he was incapable of initiating even the most basic of actions. Jacqui could lead him into the bathroom and sit him on the toilet, but left to his own devices he would wet himself and not even notice. His will, his awareness, his initiative, were all gone.
And now I knew exactly where they were.
Under the light from the hotel desk lamp, the symbols on the cover of To the Four Directions still glowed faintly.
“I know you don’t want to talk,” I had said to Jacqui last night, before we left the hospital.
She took a deep breath and stiffened. Preparing herself.
“But I’m wondering if you could do me a favour while I’m gone. For David.”
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a thick sheaf of papers: a photocopy of To the Four Directions. “Could you read to him while I’m gone?”
She looked at me disbelievingly.
“Please. It’s important.”
Pursing her lips, she took the papers.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ve marked the place where we left off. It’s important that he be read to as close to eight o’clock as possible.”
She rolled her eyes as she turned away.
“I know you don’t believe it. It’s probably just a coincidence, but he hasn’t had any seizures since I’ve been reading to him at the usual time, and I’m hoping, even if you do it just to humour me—”
“I said I’d do it, didn’t I?” she snapped.
Her response silenced me for a moment. “You didn’t, actually.”
She’d lowered her eyes. “Well, I will.”
Now I glanced at my watch and did the time-zone math in my head. Just before dinnertime at home—a good time to call.
Jacqui answered on the third ring.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“I made it in okay.”
Nothing.
“I left you a note with my hotel information, my flight numbers and stuff.”
“I got it.”
“Good,” I said. “How’s David?”
“He’s home.”
“What?” Thinking I must have misheard her.
“He’s home. I checked him out today. I’ve got a bed set up for him in the family room for the time being.”
“What? When did this …?”
“The doctor said we could try it, with his progress in the rehab and the fact t
hat he hasn’t had any seizures in a week. We were about to have some dinner.”
“Why didn’t you wait till I was home?” I asked, almost too stunned to ask.
“Why?” she scoffed. “If I’m doing all of this on my own, what difference does it make what time zone you’re in?”
“Jacqui—”
“I’ve gotta go,” she said. “I’m making dinner.”
I sat at the end of the bed for several minutes, the cell phone dead in one hand, the other clutching the solid warmth of the crystal through my shirt.
David lay flat on his back, unable to sleep, staring up at the starry sky.
It’s beautiful.
It is, Matt agreed, his voice touched with wonder. It took David a moment to realize that this was probably the first starry night Matt had seen in who knows how long.
Do you think they’re the same stars here, he asked, as at home? The thought of home, his mother and his father, his hamster Nolan, cut him with sadness. He couldn’t imagine how much harder it must be for Matt, and he immediately regretted asking the question.
Maybe, Matt said, not giving any indication of sadness. It’s a lot like home in a lot of ways.
David tried to still his mind as he watched the flickering of the stars. A question was coming together, and he tried not to think it, tried to keep it from Matt’s attention. But struggling to avoid the question only seemed to bring it into focus, like that old trick of trying not to think about an elephant.
What do you think happened to us, he thought, back there? In the real world, I mean. To our bodies?
The question had been gnawing at the edge of his mind since he had awoken in the cave and realized that his old body, which couldn’t really run, couldn’t play baseball, with its too-small hands and too-short height had been replaced by these tough, rough hands, this rangy height, this body too skinny to get comfortable on the hard ground.
I think I died, Matt said simply. I remember—His voice grew tight. This was obviously something that he had tried not to think about. I remember reading. In my bedroom. It was the Fourth of July. My friends were setting off fireworks in the alley behind the Bartell Drugs. But I didn’t go. All I wanted to do was read.
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