A World of Secrets (The Firewall Trilogy)

by James Maxwell

  Taimin’s position on the dune’s summit meant he had a clear view of the surrounding landscape. He realized something he should have already noticed. A horizontal band of pink clung to the horizon. Everywhere else the sky was blue.

  Taimin had grown up near the firewall and knew what he was seeing. If they continued in their current direction, the strip of pink would grow in height. The shade of the sky would darken until it was as red as the crimson sun. When more of the sky was red than blue, and the ground ahead was black, the firewall’s edge would have been found.

  “The firewall,” Taimin said. He took a deep breath. Their destination was almost upon them. He turned his attention to Lars. “How will we know when we’ve come to the right place?”

  Lars indicated the map. “There are two landmarks. The marker sits right between them.” He pointed to the piece of paper. “A range of hills on one side. Three peaks on the other.” His voice was determined. “We’ll soon find out if there’s a way through the firewall.”

  Taimin shaded his eyes. “I also don’t see any hills. Or peaks.”

  “Our map hasn’t proved wrong yet. Keep looking.”

  Taimin glanced back and saw Selena and Ruth both climbing the dune.

  “How are you both holding up?” Taimin asked. He knew how weary he was.

  “Fine,” Selena said.

  “Ruth?”

  Ruth wiped a hand across her wide mouth. Her lips were cracked and dry. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

  “Just a little longer,” Taimin said. “We’ll take a short break, but then we need to keep moving.”

  The worst of the heat began to leave the day as the crimson sun fled the sky, leaving Dex alone to scorch the five travelers foolishly crossing the desert. Conversation was absent. Each member of the group focused on marching over the undulating landscape of sand. Their journey was almost at an end.

  As he walked, Taimin had been thinking about the darkness in the mountain and dreaming that he was cool. A sound broke through his reverie, and it took him a few moments to realize Ruth was calling out. He looked back and saw her pointing into the distance.

  “Look, three peaks,” Ruth called.

  Taimin followed Ruth’s gaze and saw three sharp triangular rock formations. He realized he might be nearer to the place marked on the map than he had thought. The firewall was certainly close. A thick strip of reddened sky now covered the flat horizon.

  “What’s the other landmark?” Vance asked from behind Taimin.

  “A range of hills,” Lars grunted.

  Selena turned her head and pointed. “Like those hills over there?”

  Taimin saw a distant series of ridges, knolls, and rocky outcrops. In the dry, still air, he could even make out detail. He heard Ruth cry out in excitement. Lars grinned. Vance punched his fist into the palm of his hand.

  “The hills and peaks are ahead of us,” Taimin said. “We won’t make it today.” He met the eyes of each of his companions in turn. “But we will get there tomorrow.”

  Three brown peaks like sharp, stony teeth stood clearly on the horizon. In the opposite direction, dusky hills signaled the end of the desert. Taimin gazed at the peaks, then turned around to look at the hills. As far as he could tell, he was standing directly between the two. The firewall now filled the sky, tinting it an ugly shade of red. Barely half of the sky was blue.

  Taimin saw Lars scan the horizon, muttering under his breath. Ruth was climbing a taller dune, although the view wouldn’t be much better than from the high point where Taimin was standing. Selena frowned and turned in a slow circle.

  Vance spat dust from his lips. He drank water from his flask and scowled. “There should be something here.”

  Taimin didn’t know what to say. He could see nothing but sand dunes and the occasional patch of gravel or brown rock. The red sky was unbroken. Shielding his eyes, with the three peaks at his left and the range of hills at his right, he could even make out where the scorched earth began in the distance. His heart sank when he saw a continual expanse of blackened ground that went on and on until it vanished in a smoky haze.

  Despair made Taimin’s shoulders slump. He had been a fool. Of course there was no way through the firewall.

  “We were wrong,” Selena said softly. Her eyes met Taimin’s. “There is no passage.” Her voice became bitter. “Was it even real, what we saw? There can’t be a way through to something that doesn’t exist.”

  “No.” Taimin shook his head. “I was with you. I saw it too. The firewall is a barrier. We both know it. There must be a way through.”

  “Why mark something on a map if there’s nothing here?” Vance asked with a frown.

  “If there was something we would see it,” Lars said. “There is no city, no passage, nothing. We should never have come. We’ve traveled all this way but there’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Taimin’s heart sank. The journey had been his idea.

  “This is my fault,” Selena said, echoing his thoughts.

  “How is it your fault?” Taimin asked. He shook himself. He had to think. “Before we start blaming ourselves, let’s remember: there’s still a mystery here. Someone built Zorn. Someone made that map. Someone marked this place as special—”

  Taimin broke off when he heard a cry. He turned to see Ruth on the next dune’s summit, waving her arms. As soon as she had their attention she beckoned again and then vanished down the other side.

  Taimin and Selena exchanged glances. Something approaching hope made Taimin’s heart beat faster. Vance took long strides as his boots sank into the sand. Taimin and Selena hurried after him. Lars hesitated, but then came along.

  Taimin panted as he climbed, but at least the next dune was firmer, packed rather than soft, so that he made swift progress. Even so, his chest was heaving by the time he reached the top and saw Ruth standing at the bottom of the dune, where a stretch of gravel gave way to a low, sand-filled gully. She was on her knees, wiping at the sand at the gully’s lowest point. As Taimin neared, he saw that she was revealing the surface of a buried object.

  She frantically cleared the sand and her eyes gleamed with excitement. Taimin’s curiosity grew. Maybe they had found something after all. Something important enough for the builders of Zorn to mark it on the map. His spirits rose as he eagerly hurried down to join Ruth’s side.

  As Ruth continued to remove sand, the surface of something smooth and hard grew bigger and bigger. The object was dull gray in color, and so far Ruth had cleared a square about three feet wide.

  “What is it?” Vance asked, perplexed.

  “Who cares what it is?” Lars scowled. “It’s nothing.”

  Vance sank to his knees beside Ruth and joined her in clearing the sand away. As they worked, they exposed more and more of the gray surface.

  Selena met Taimin’s eyes and he saw a familiar, determined look. He wondered what she was doing when she walked to a part of the gully twenty feet away. Sinking to her knees like Ruth, she began to dig. Taimin tilted his head; he heard the scraping sound of Selena’s hands when she struck something hard. Soon Selena had cleared her own region of sand. The afternoon light revealed another expanse of whatever it was, the exact same gray color as the section where Ruth and Vance were working. Selena rapped her knuckles against it. The returning sound was muffled, as if she were striking stone. The object was clearly hard.

  And it was big.

  “Does this mean anything to you?” Lars asked Taimin.

  Taimin didn’t reply. He started to walk. Leaving the gully behind, he chose a direction at random and took determined strides, barely aware of his limp. He climbed a dune, and while descending the other side, spied another low point in the terrain. He headed over to the hollow and fell to his knees. He bent down and used both arms to pull, working to clear the sand away. He burrowed with his right hand, digging a tunnel until his fingers struck something hard. Soon he knew without doubt that the same gray surface rested under the sand in this place
too.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lars hurrying over to join him. The older man’s eyes widened when he saw Taimin move sand away with his arms to expose more of the smooth gray surface.

  Taimin climbed to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We need to see if it keeps going.”

  Soon they had all dispersed to search the area. Taimin took a bearing and then walked until he could no longer hear his companion’s voices. The three peaks grew a little larger in his vision, while the range of hills fell away behind him. He climbed a hill and then stopped and stared.

  He didn’t need to do any digging.

  He was staring at the valley between two dunes, where a hard, gray surface stretched for at least a hundred feet. It was perfectly level, flat as the surface of a bucket of water. With quick footsteps he clambered down toward it, spilling sand at the edge where it was covered.

  Soon he was walking on it.

  Thoughts whirled through his mind. Bafflement was strong, but also determination to discover what it was he was standing on. To understand, he was going to have to take some risks.

  He took a deep breath and then jumped into the air to land heavily on the thing buried under the desert.

  The returning sound was dull.

  He shook his head. He stood on the gray surface, in the center of the exposed area he had found, and turned in a circle. The surface was unmarked. Despite being buried under grit and gravel, there wasn’t a scratch on it.

  He walked a short way and grabbed a fist-sized rock resting on the sand nearby. Returning to the gray surface, he sank to one knee and tried scraping the rock’s sharp edge against it. He couldn’t mark it in any way. He frowned and then made a decision. Lifting the rock over his head, he smashed it down hard, then peered at the gray material. The rock didn’t even leave an impression.

  He climbed to his feet, utterly puzzled. Deciding to return to the others, he headed back toward where Ruth had first discovered the mysterious object buried under the sand. The golden sun’s rays beat hard on his back as he walked. He had covered a long distance, and pondered the situation during his return.

  They had found something. But it wasn’t at all what he had expected. He was no closer to knowing what it was that the city’s builders had marked on their map.

  Taimin saw Vance at the bottom of the gully Ruth had found, beside the patch of exposed gray surface. Lars stood nearby, and both looked perplexed as they talked in low tones. Vance smoothed his neat moustache and beard. Lars’s dark eyes were troubled.

  “How far does it go?” Vance asked Taimin. “It seems to be everywhere.”

  “I don’t know,” Taimin said. “But it can’t go on forever.”

  Lars stood with legs apart and his thumbs hooked into his belt. “If you’re looking for Selena, she said she’s going to try to find out where it ends.”

  Taimin turned to see Ruth heading their way. The healer was breathing hard. “Can you hear it?” she panted.

  Taimin raised an eyebrow as he listened but shook his head. Then his eyes slowly widened. He realized he could hear something: a low, steady rumble. He crouched on the smooth gray surface and put his palm on it. He lifted his hand in surprise before planting it down again.

  “What is it?” Vance asked.

  “There’s a . . . vibration.” The quivering was gentle, but becoming stronger, and along with it the growing sense that something was humming, deep beneath the desert. Vance began to look alarmed; he could obviously hear it too. Taimin no longer had to place his hand against the strange material. The ground everywhere was trembling. The reverberations grew louder and louder. Taimin thought he heard a distant hiss and wondered if he should be worried. But then the sound died away, and the ground became still once more.

  “What was that?” Vance asked.

  “Taimin, Lars . . .” Ruth said slowly.

  Taimin looked in the direction Ruth was staring. Vance made a sound of surprise. Lars put his hand on the axe at his belt.

  There was someone watching from the top of the dune.

  He was an old man, skinny but far from frail, with a lean face and sharp chin. He had gray hair and a wispy beard, and his skin was extremely weathered, making it hard for Taimin to guess his age. As Taimin wondered how long he had been watching, the old man realized that Taimin, Lars, Vance, and Ruth were all looking his way, and began to descend the slope toward them. His footsteps were slow, but he was nimble enough. The hot desert wind flattened his loose brown robe against his body.

  Taimin exchanged a quick glance with his three companions. The stranger was unarmed, and didn’t appear to present any danger. Surprisingly, he also didn’t carry a pack, just a water flask at his waist. He clambered down until he came to a halt in front of them.

  “It’s in the shape of a wheel, as far as I can tell,” the old man said. He squinted as he spoke and stared into each face, as if struggling with poor vision. “But there’s no use digging now, not with the sandstorms coming. They change the landscape every year.”

  The old man’s manner was friendly and he spoke conversationally, despite the fact that they were in such an isolated place. Taimin wondered if he might be the mystic that the skalen Leeska had told him about.

  “We expected to find a passage through the firewall,” Taimin said slowly.

  “Or perhaps a city,” Vance supplied.

  “City?” The old man’s gray eyebrows went up. “No, there’s no city. It’s a machine.” When Taimin frowned, he elaborated. “A contraption, built by intelligent hands to serve a purpose.”

  “Who are you?” Lars demanded.

  Taimin froze when he heard a voice. Rather than hearing it with his ears, the voice was in his mind, speaking inside his head.

  My name is Milton, the voice said.

  Lars, Vance, and Ruth obviously heard it too, because they looked as startled as Taimin. The old man put a hand to his mouth.

  “My apologies,” Milton said. He gave a wry smile and spread his hands. “I don’t see a lot of people.” He harrumphed. “If you can call it seeing. The fact is, you’re all a little blurry to my eyes. It’s the same when I farcast. I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but it doesn’t to me.”

  “How did you find us all the way out here?” Vance asked.

  “And why?” Lars demanded.

  “I farcasted you, of course. Five people, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You said you know what this is?” Taimin asked, indicating the gray surface.

  “Well, in a way. I’ve been digging in this area for thirty years.” Milton tugged on his scraggly beard. “In all honesty I haven’t dug much in the last decade. I still try to find a way inside, but I’m getting old now.”

  Taimin spied movement and turned to see Selena descending a slope to join them. Taimin was blocking her view, and she initially didn’t see Milton standing with the group.

  “It just keeps going—” Selena called. Then she stopped in her tracks when she realized there was a stranger with the group. As she resumed her approach, she tilted her head. “What’s happening?”

  “This is Milton,” Taimin said. “He says he knows what it is we’ve found.”

  “Five of you.” Milton nodded. “At least I got that right.” He opened his arms in welcome. “My homestead isn’t far. Why don’t we head there before it gets dark? My guess is we’re all after the same thing. I’m happy to offer you whatever hospitality I can.”

  15

  Selena felt strange from the moment she entered Milton’s homestead.

  A wall made of piled-up stones encircled the house, cactus grove, and lizard enclosure. The house was sturdy, which gave her a sense of safety and protection from the howling wind outside. The homestead also wasn’t far from the edge of the firewall. It was an inhospitable place, but the old mystic had clearly managed to keep himself alive. Milton’s manner was friendly. It wasn’t that Selena thought she was in any kind of danger.

  It was something about the round table
that dominated the tidy interior, made from the trunk of a big sentinel cactus, and the smell that came from the hearth that burned with a few smoky embers. She was confused. She couldn’t place the feeling.

  The house’s interior was crowded but they made the best of it. Milton bustled near the hearth, where steam rose from an iron pot filled with water.

  “Please,” he said, waving an arm vaguely. “Sit wherever you like while I make tea.”

  Everyone found a place to lean or sit near the round table, with the exception of Selena, who remained standing. She frowned as she stared in all directions and wondered about Milton’s story.

  “How did you come to be here?” she turned and asked him.

  Milton wrapped a cloth around the hot pot, taking it away from the coals to set it down on a bench. “My dear,” he said. “Pass me the tea, if you don’t mind. It’s—”

  Glancing immediately to a bench at waist height, Selena grabbed a ceramic bowl with a closed lid. She passed it over.

  “And the cups,” he said, “just below—”

  He trailed off with a quizzical expression as Selena went straight to a shelf underneath the bench and began to place a collection of carved wooden mugs in front of him.

  “Thank you,” Milton said.

  He swiftly made a cup for each of his guests and handed them around. He then leaned back against the bench and looked at each face watching him.

  “I can see that you’re searching for answers. You’ll want to know what I’ve learned about the machine, and I have some questions for you too.” He combed his fingers through his wispy beard. “I suppose I should start at the beginning, or close to it.” He cleared his throat. “My wife and I were mystics. Not just any mystics . . . Sarah and I knew we had both talent and strength.” His eyes developed a faraway look. “We tested our skills on each other and together we explored the world, both physically and apart from our bodies.”

  As Milton’s voice became hoarse and he cleared his throat again, Selena thought about the block on her farcasting. Milton had said he was a strong mystic . . . perhaps he could help her.