“Under the law, I hold sole responsibility for that.” He moved his candle across the line of books. “These are more serious.” His candle paused on the section labeled Science. “The penalty for reading a book on sciencecraft is death to all residing within the dwelling.”
“So you don’t think it’s wrong, only too dangerous?”
“Under the law, it’s both, without a doubt,” he said.
“I thought there was no black-and-white?”
The monk stiffened, then chuckled. “My own words.” He removed his pipe from a pocket and placed it in his mouth, though he didn’t light it. He surveyed her for several heartbeats, then nodded. “Okay. You’re old enough to decide for yourself, even if I disapprove.”
“You’ll let me take them?” Kayla’s eyes sparkled, then dulled. “But wouldn’t I endanger you, as well?”
The monk laughed. “Don’t use me as an excuse. I’m too old to worry about such dangers. Now that you’ve declared yourself an adult, this decision is yours alone.” His voice softened. “Everything of value has a price. Be certain you’re willing to pay it.”
He dropped a linen sack at her feet, half-filled with the spare cloth he padded delicate equipment with. “Fill this with either books or medical supplies. It’s your choice. If you take the books, I don’t want to know, and I never want to see you reading them in my presence. Is that clear?”
Kayla nodded.
The light from his candle faded down the corridor and up the stairway.
The books lay before her, silent. Her mouth salivated as she confronted these windows into the minds of people centuries past. The want was so powerful. A demon inside her. An insatiable hunger that had set her apart since she was a child.
Knowledge. Answers. Truth. Am I willing to risk everything for such things? To pay the price of death and possible damnation?
She reached for a book.
***
As Kayla slept, she dreamt of a forest. Giant sycamores rocked in a hypnotic rhythm, as if summoning the approaching storm. A woman lay on the autumn leaves atop an expanding halo of crimson. The lower half of her homespun dress gleamed red with each flash of lightning. Matted strands of blonde hair pasted her young face like a shredded veil.
The woman’s green eyes stared upward, unblinking. Between her naked thighs lay a newborn child. A girl. The left half of the child’s face and its right foot twisted into a gruesome misinterpretation of nature’s design.
I’m watching my own birth.
Cloaked apparitions appeared out of the darkness. Angels, demons, or something else?
The shadowy beings anointed their leader in whispered reverence with the name Melchi. They chanted it over and over like a spell.
Melchi led the silent procession to the mother and child. Then he swept back the hood of his cloak, revealing a gaunt face with such translucent skin that the outlines of his skull shone through. His eyes burned like the embers of a fire. The pupils were marked by the dark silhouette of a naked woman in his right eye, and a naked man in the left. Both figures writhed as if in pain.
His blackened horns curved from his temples to the corners of his mouth like the mandibles of an insect. Who else could this be but the Devil himself?
It’s only a dream. I’ll wake up soon.
The infant’s tiny chest spasmed in attempts at drawing breath into its lungs. With each failure, its skin lost more of its bloom.
“She is merely human,” one of the apparitions said.
“Far more than human,” said Melchi.
“She is one of us, then?”
“A half-sibling only.” Melchi’s eyes flickered as he gazed at the child. “Her name is Nihala, the Creator’s tool for our destruction.”
“Why would the Creator destroy his own greatest creation?”
“He fears us.”
The child jerked its arms and legs convulsively, nearing suffocation.
“This creature must die before we can be free?”
“Yes.” Melchi’s voice vibrated with command.
“But the Creator has placed her beyond our reach.”
The crippled newborn stopped struggling, its skin ashen.
“A time will come when Nihala will seek us out,” Melchi said. “We will either destroy this weapon of the Creator, or perish ourselves.”
The child’s eyes opened with an emerald flash of light.
Kayla woke from the dream and gasped for air. She lay on her bedroll in the ancient ruin and focused on the square of stars framed by the hole in the ceiling.
It was only a dream.
The monk’s snores echoed in the hollow room.
Her heart slowed, and her breathing returned to normal. The dream had been so vivid, unlike anything she’d experienced before. Had she somehow seen her own birth?
Was that my mother?
The bag the monk had given her sat beside the five others he’d stocked with medical supplies. She’d wrapped each of the selected books, forty in all, in old rags and stuffed fabric around the edges to mask their shapes.
Hauling the load up so many flights of stairs had proved a grueling task for someone with a crutch and a dwindling candle. But she’d done it. The fateful decision had been made, and there was no turning back.
The starlight flickered as something dark moved across the entrance.
Kayla’s heart leapt. Had Melchi come for her?
The monk continued snoring.
The silhouette of a man blotted out a portion of the stars. The figure held a bow, with an arrow strung at the ready. Moonlight reflected off a silver band encircling his turban-shrouded head.
The glint of light she’d seen! Not the monsters from her dream, but someone who’d followed them.
The dark form slunk to the edge of the hole and peered inside. How much could he see by the starlight? Beads of sweat formed on her brow.
The figure’s foot extended over the edge and explored the sand beneath.
Kayla’s right hand eased silently along the floor beside her.
A camel bellowed not far off, and the figure paused.
Kayla’s hand closed on her small knife.
The shadow stepped onto the top of the slide of sand.
Kayla lifted the knife. Just one more step.
His other foot extended downward, past the first … and tangled in the trip-wire the monk had strung across it.
A gourd filled with rocks rattled its warning, and the figure crashed down the slope, his bow flying from his hand. Kayla sprang forward. Her knife rose and stabbed downward.
A strong hand grasped her wrist, stopping the knife.
“Kayla, it’s me!”
“Ishan?”
“Yes.”
Sparks ignited a pile of tinder, and the monk used it to light a candle. Kayla straddled a dark-skinned boy in a black robe and turban. His left hand grasped her wrist, the knife hovering a few inches from his eye.
“What are you doing here?” Kayla all but shouted.
Ishan released her wrist and helped her stand. “I came to protect you.” He brushed sand off his robe, while the monk brought Kayla her crutch. “But it looks like I’m the one who needs protection.”
Ishan pulled a candle from his robes, and the monk lit it.
“You followed us?” the monk asked.
“My father heard that you’d entered the desert, so he sent me to see that you were safe.”
The monk’s eyes narrowed. “Nazeem sent his fifteen-year-old son into the desert—alone?”
Ishan shifted. “Well, he didn’t exactly send me—”
“Does your father even know you’re here?” Kayla asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Why didn’t you call to us? I could have killed you!”
“I wasn’t certain it was you down here.”
The monk shook his head. “You have more daring than brains, boy.”
Ishan gazed around and whistled.
Kayla and the monk exchanged glances.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Ishan walked to the bags and pulled out a syringe. His eyes widened. “This is sciencecraft.”
Kayla limped between him and the bag. “Ishan, do you remember when we first met?”
“Don’t change the subject. I want to know what—”
“Answer my question,” she said, “and I’ll answer yours.”
The black-skinned boy frowned. “I was six years old. My father took me to your village with his trade caravan, mostly because he enjoys smoking pipes with the monk and talking Potemian Politics late into the night. I’d never met a non-Muslim before.”
“You placed your hand on my scars as if touching a precious work of art,” Kayla whispered. “You said I must be brave to have such beautiful battle wounds.”
Ishan half-smiled. “When you told me you were born with your scars, I was even more impressed that you’d fought demons in the netherworld to reach this one.”
Kayla’s fingers traced the decorative scars on his own face—symbols burned into forehead, cheek, and chin during his tribal coming-of-age ceremony. “You were the first and only person to ever admire my appearance,” she said. “The weeks in the spring and fall when you visit are like Christmas, Easter, and Potemia’s Founding Day combined for me.”
“What does that have to do with this place?” Ishan asked.
Kayla stared into his dark eyes. “The monk used tools of healing sciencecraft from this place to save my life when I was born.”
“They’re against the Founder’s law,” Ishan said.
“Are you saying the monk should have let me die?”
Ishan averted his eyes.
The monk approached and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t turn us in, would you?”
Ishan hesitated. “I couldn’t do that, but it’s wrong.”
Kayla grabbed his hand and placed her knife into it. “If you really feel that it’s against God’s will, you should kill me right now and set things right.”
“You know I would never hurt you,” he said.
“Then pretend you never found us.”
Ishan looked at the bags and back at Kayla, his face tormented. Finally, he straightened, and his voice rang with an iron tone. “I must protect you by burning this place of evil.”
“No!” Kayla screamed and blocked his way. He threw her knife into the darkness and shoved past. The monk lashed out with his cane, but the Muslim youth yanked it from his grasp and tossed it aside.
Ishan seized the first bag and dumped its contents onto the floor. Glass shattered, and the smell of alcohol wafted over them, soaking the rags used to protect the various supplies. “It’s for your own good!” he shouted.
Kayla seized his leg, but he ignored her and dumped another sack onto the pile. Clamps, scalpels, syringes, and more bottles exploded across the floor, adding the reek of chloroform.
Ishan lowered his blazing candle toward the pile.
Kayla snatched one of the scalpels, struggled to her feet, and held the blade against her throat. Ishan froze.
“If you burn these supplies, you will be killing dozens in the future.”
“Suicide is a sin for Christians, just like it is for Muslims,” Ishan said. “You’d go to Hell.”
“Then save me.” A trickle of blood slid down her neck as she pressed the ancient blade into her flesh. “I won’t allow you the excuse that you’re doing this to keep me safe.”
“Not this way, my child,” the monk said to her.
She half-turned to her mentor. “You told me that you were willing to sacrifice your life to serve others.” The knife cut deeper and blood flowed faster. “Well, so am I.”
Ishan stepped back. “You win.” He extinguished his candle.
“You’ll keep our secret?” Kayla asked, not lowering the knife.
He hesitated. “Do you promise me there’s nothing else in these bags but healing supplies?”
“There’s nothing else,” she said. The first time I’ve ever lied to him.
“Okay, I’ll keep your secret,” Ishan said.
Chapter 2
The log cabin was basic, built as partial payment for the monk’s services as village healer. The oak table dominating the small room served primarily to examine and treat patients. There was a leather bucket for hauling water, a few wooden plates and utensils, the prized iron kettle, and little else of note. A grass-woven curtain separated the monk’s sleeping nook and muffled his snores.
In the early morning darkness, Kayla huddled close to the glowing fireplace. A book titled Albert Einstein’s Life and Works sprawled open on the dirt floor before her. Portions of the fragile tome had succumbed to the ravages of time, rendering them indecipherable. But enough remained.
Gravitational dilation, black holes, relativity, entanglement, and a thousand wonders of the universe expanded before her.
One statement from this greatest of all sciencecraft philosophers stood out:“I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.”
The words so closely mirrored the predictions of the Founder that she shivered. Her eyes drifted to the flames of the hearth. What horrible weapons had sciencecraft unleashed outside the Wall in the five hundred years since Einstein’s death?
In the past two years, she’d read all forty books several times. Newton, Darwin, Euclid, Voltaire, Durant, and a score of others. They’d become her secret confidants. She read in the barn most often, sometimes discussing geometry with the cow, physics with the pig, or the Peloponnesian War with the chickens.
Jesus had used mud and spit to open the eyes of a man born blind. The sensation he experienced upon seeing for the first time must have been similar to this. I know things no one else in Potemia even suspects.
Many of the books contradicted the Bible, and seemed to question the very existence of God. Jesus had called blasphemy the one unforgivable sin. Did damnation also apply to reading such words?
One of the books even hinted at cures for her deformities, but contained nothing specific.
If only I could find the right book.
A pebble ticked against the window, and she covered the book with her skirt, her eyes wide and tense. A heron’s call relaxed her, and a smile danced across her lips. With sudden energy, she stashed the book alongside the others in a hidden compartment under the woodpile. The monk continued snoring as she used her crutch to stand and eased the door open with practiced care.
He stood off the trail, behind some bushes, the growing light of dawn highlighting the whites of his eyes in brilliant contrast to his ebony skin.
“Ishan,” she breathed, and limped as fast as her crutch and twisted foot would allow, trading pain for speed.
The Muslim boy embraced her and swung her in a circle like a big brother greeting a little sister. Finally, he set her down, and she let her hair fall across the left side of her face, hiding her deformity. He brushed it behind her ear, a reminder that she didn’t have to hide from him.
“It’s too dangerous for you to come this close to the village,” she said, though her smile contradicted her words.
“The caravan just arrived, and I couldn’t wait.”
“You brought the horses?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
Soon they galloped through the forest side by side, her crutch slung across her back like some ancient warrior’s sword. The woods to the north had always been their retreat during his visits. A place of freedom. Kayla breathed a sigh of contentment. Christian or Muslim meant nothing to the swaying trees.
After several miles, Kayla pulled up and squinted intently down the trail.
“What do you see?” Ishan asked.
“There.” She pointed. “Hunters from the village.” About a hundred yards ahead, three figures emerged from the woods beside the path and stared back at them. One towered above the others.
“That’s Elias, Minister Coglin’s son,” she sai
d. “Quick, before he recognizes us!”
She galloped off the trail, and Ishan followed close behind. After a few miles, they slowed.
“I lost my crutch, but I think we’re safe now.”
“What would happen if they found us together?”
She shrugged. “Probably another lecture on the dangers to my soul of too close an association with a godless, black-skinned Muslim like you.”
He laughed. “I’ve gotten the same lecture on the dangers of Christian infidels like you.”
She smiled, but an unease settled in her chest. What would he think if he knew of her forbidden books?
“Those things from the desert,” he asked, as if reading her mind. “Do you still—?”
“We’ve saved three people’s lives this year alone thanks to them.”
“But does anyone suspect …?”
“We’re very careful,” she said.
He nodded and lapsed into silence.
Kayla gave him a sidelong glance. “Have you ever seen the Wall?”
“Only from a great distance.”
Her heart sped, and she leaned toward him. “What did you see beyond it?”
“A milky curtain stretches above it into the sky. Nothing is visible beyond.”
“It must become clear at some point, or we wouldn’t see the stars or the sun.”
“I never thought about that, but you must be right, I suppose.”
She patted the mare’s neck. “The old legends say one can pass through the Wall from Potemia to the Outside, but not the other way around.”
He waved at a fly with his reins. “Who would want to leave, since everything Outside is a wasteland?”
“How do you know it’s a wasteland if no one has come through the Wall in five hundred years?”
“The Founder himself predicted it.”
“Maybe the Founder was wrong,” she said.
“You know the Founder can’t be wrong!”
“Nothing is more firmly believed as that which is least known,” she said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just a saying I heard from someone called Montaigne.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like anyone from around here.”
Nihala Page 2