Shadowland: Book III of the Brotherhood of the Conch

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  Why on earth had he thought of her?

  Now as he peered surreptitiously from the other side of the file cabinet, he knew exactly where the mirror had brought them.

  Dr. S’s office was disconcertingly white: white walls, white ceiling, dazzling white lights that shone from every corner. There were several stainless-steel file cabinets, as well as a number of machines whose functions Anand could not guess. In the middle of the room was a large desk very much like the one he had imagined, except it was empty. Naturally. It was night now. Dr. S must be back in her airy, pretty apartment, so different from this sterilized place. Along with relief he felt an inexplicable sense of disappointment because he would not see her again. He wondered if the purple plant in her house had flowered.

  Nisha had run over to a small cabinet and opened it. “Food!” she cried, holding up what looked like a bar of chocolate.

  Anand’s mouth watered. He suddenly realized he was starving. He could not even remember when he had last eaten. Was it at Dr. S’s apartment?

  There was a sound outside the door. Nisha quickly stuffed a couple of bars into her pocket before they both ran to their hiding place. “We’d better get out of here,” she said. “Let’s ask the mirror to transport us inside the vault. Then we can get the conch and go home.”

  She was right. But Anand wanted to take another look around the office, to find something that would tell him a little more about Dr. S. He listened carefully. Outside the office, all seemed quiet. “In just a minute,” he said, as he walked over to her desk. There were several neat stacks of paper, but they were written in a code that he couldn’t decipher.

  Suddenly the door swung open, and Dr. S entered the office with an armload of files. Anand had no time to hide. For a moment she stared at him, eyes wide with incredulous fury. Then, before he could say anything, she ran to her desk and pressed a button—to summon the guards, he guessed.

  “You mustn’t turn us in!” he whispered. “We’ve got to talk. I have something important to show you.”

  “Why should I trust you?” the scientist hissed. “Do you know how much trouble you landed me in, escaping from my car like that?”

  There wasn’t time for Anand to say anything in his defense. He heard footsteps running toward the office and ducked behind the cabinet.

  The door burst open. “Dr. S!” a voice said. “You activated the intrusion alarm. Did you see or hear something?”

  Anand held his breath, waiting for her to point them out, for the guard’s heavy hand to descend on his shoulder, for the trip back to Rehabitational 39. Would they find the mirror on him and turn that in to Dr. S, to be harvested along with the conch?

  Then he heard the scientist say, “We’re conducting a study on how long it takes for our guards to respond to the alarm. You’ve done excellently, F-1776! I’ll be sure to recommend you to your supervisor.” She walked out with the guard, talking to him as she went. The door swung shut soundlessly behind them.

  Nisha let out a huge sigh of relief. “Whew! I was sure she’d turn us in! If we hurry, the mirror can get us into the vault before she returns.”

  Anand wavered. Nisha was right. He knew he should do what she suggested. Yet he was reluctant to betray Dr. S’s trust again. “Something tells me we should wait for Dr. S—she did protect us from the guards, after all. I’m going to confide in her this time, like the conch advised me to.”

  “The conch?” Nisha asked in surprise. “Why would it say that?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  In a minute, Dr. S returned. She clicked a few buttons, and large metal sheets descended from the ceiling to cover the door and windows of the office.

  “No one can interrupt us now,” Dr. S said. She looked sternly at Anand. “Start talking. You’d better have a good explanation, otherwise I’m going to press that button again, and this time the guards will find you and take you away.”

  Anand racked his brains. What could he say to convince Dr. S of the rightness of his mission, to stop her from destroying the conch? She probably saw it as her mission to do so—the only chance she had to save her city from ruin.

  Conch! he implored. Tell me what to do!

  A thought came into his mind, but it was very weak. Was the conch losing its power in this poisonous environment?

  Love.

  What could the conch mean by that ambiguous message?

  Dr. S drummed her fingers on her desk, looking exasperated.

  Anand turned to Nisha to see if she had any ideas. She offered him a worried smile. How sweet her face was, in spite of its tiredness, its grime—and her eyes. He was struck by the fact that he cared for her more than any human he knew. No matter what happened, he was glad she was here to share it with him. He reached for her hand, and suddenly, as her trembling, slightly moist fingers clasped his, he knew what he needed to do.

  “I’m going to tell you a story,” he said to Dr. S.

  * * *

  The story Anand began was that of his own life as an unhappy boy, forced to work at a roadside tea stall because his family was too poor to afford an education. “Life was rough and full of despair in the slums of Kolkata,” he said.

  The scientist’s eyes widened in surprise. “Did you say Kolkata? Why, that’s the name our city was known by several hundred years ago! How could you have lived here then, and if you did, how did you get here now?”

  Anand was too shocked to respond. This hellish place (not Coal, he realized, but Kol) with its unbreatheable air and sunless sky, its extravagant domes that separated the fortunate few from the desperate masses, was not a different world, as he had assumed all this time. It was what his hometown had become. In spite of his own difficult life, he had several beautiful memories of the city. He had strolled along the banks of the Ganga, enjoying the evening breeze and the twinkle of lights on the Howrah Bridge. He had fed giant carp on weekend mornings at Rabindra Sarobar Lake and watched them play hide-and-seek under the lotus leaves. He had climbed the monument and looked down on rooftop terraces where colorful saris were hung up to dry. A heaviness filled his heart at the fate of the city of his birth. Along with that came a rush of anger. All this time he’d been thinking that the valley had been devastated by strangers from another world. But it was his own people who had done it, reaching back into the past with their destructive, greedy grasp.

  “Well,” prompted Dr. S, “how did you get here?”

  Anand was too upset to answer, but Nisha, who had dealt better with the shock of finding out the identity of Kol, said, “We traveled through time.”

  Anand stared at her in consternation. She should not have given Dr. S that crucial piece of information. What if the scientist tried to snatch the mirror from them like the commandant had done? What if she called in the guards with their tubeguns to assist her? Anand and Nisha would never be able to escape from them.

  Nisha shrugged her shoulders defensively. “You said we should trust her!” she said.

  At the comment, Dr. S glanced from Anand’s face to Nisha’s, an unreadable look in her eyes, and started to say something in response. But, avid scientist that she was, she caught herself and got back to business.

  “Did you really travel through time? How did you manage that? We scientists have been trying to create a time machine for ages—because in spite of all our efforts, we’re afraid life in our world will soon become unsustainable. Can I see the machine you used?”

  “Only after I show you something else,” Anand replied.

  He went on with his story, describing how he had wished and prayed for something to change, and how—almost as though in response—Master Abhaydatta had come into his life, asking for his help to return the magic conch to the Silver Valley. He told Dr. S of a few of his adventures along the way, and then described the valley.

  His voice trembled as he spoke of how amazingly beautiful it had been the very first time he saw it, enclosed by icy mountains, its beautiful parijat trees laden with fragrant silver blooms. Ho
w fortunate he had felt when he walked into the Great Hall, with its hundred pillars and its crystal roof through which the stars shone, and was chosen as one of the Brotherhood. How special it had been to study, with the rest of the apprentices, in the Hall of Seeing and on the Watchtower Tree, communicating with distant parts of the world, ready to help all who were in need. Nisha joined in, telling Dr. S about Mother Amita, the herbmistress, and how she taught Nisha to use plants to cure even the worst illnesses—until the final day, when she and Anand had returned from their journeys to find a frozen wasteland.

  “That’s what your X-Converter did when it dragged the conch into the future,” Anand ended. “I don’t know what happened to the rest of the Brotherhood. Some are probably caught in the abyss. But others were pulled into this world with the conch. I’ve glimpsed them, great magicians now doomed to live out their lives in drab, menial labor.”

  Uncertainty flickered in Dr. S’s eyes. “I had misgivings from the first, but I never thought our machine would do something so terrible,” she whispered, half to herself.

  “That’s why you must help us take the conch back home. It’s our only hope of setting things right,” Anand said.

  But Dr. S had forced a professional expression onto her face. “I’m sorry for what happened to your people,” she said in formal tones. “But I can’t give the conch back. My people need its energy in order to survive.”

  “Didn’t you understand anything we said?” Nisha cried passionately. “To you the conch is nothing but a big battery, something to keep your domes going so you can keep enjoying your fake sunshine and your hover cars. Well, I have news for you. It is a Being. It’s older and more important than all of us. We’re not going to let you destroy it! Maybe we should have listened to the commandant and helped him to blow up your entire lab.”

  Dr. S’s face grew dark at the mention of the commandant. “You’ve been with the magicians, haven’t you?” she cried. “Did they send you here to do more damage? Tell me what they’re planning, or I’ll call the guards!”

  Nisha turned to Anand. “You should have listened to me when I told you to go to the vault! But we can still do it. She can’t stop us. Once we free the conch, it’ll protect itself—and us, too.”

  Still Anand hesitated. The conch had told him to trust Dr. S, and though right now she didn’t look particularly reliable—in fact, she looked as though she was reaching for the security button again—he needed to give it a try.

  “You wanted to see the machine that brought us here?” he asked. “If you sit back quietly, without calling the guards, I’ll show it to you.” He brought out the mirror from behind the file cabinet.

  “Why, that’s just an old image reflector,” the scientist said angrily. “Are you playing games with me?”

  Anand cradled the mirror for a moment in his arms, trying to decide what to say to convince her. Either way, it was risky. If she didn’t believe him, she would summon the guards to take him away. And if he did convince her, she would probably snatch the mirror from him and put it in the vault to be destroyed along with the conch

  To his surprise, words formed inside his mind.

  Put me in her hands.

  The mirror, which hadn’t wanted to be touched by Vijay, who was a magician, was willing to go to Dr. S, the woman responsible for all of the Brotherhood’s woes! Anand was perplexed, but he obeyed.

  Holding it out to her, he said, “This is the Mirror of Fire and Dreaming, which brought us here.”

  Dr. S gave him a disbelieving glare, but she took the mirror from his hands. She turned it over and examined it, tapping the back and then the front, checking for hidden controls. Anand stiffened. One of the first lessons he had been taught in the valley was to treat objects of power with the greatest respect. Beside him, Nisha let out her breath in an angry rush. “Take it back from her,” she cried to Anand.

  But even as Dr. S tinkered with the mirror, a strange look came over her face. Her hands stilled, and her breathing grew slow and regular. Though her eyes were open, it was as if she had fallen asleep.

  “The mirror has pulled her into a waking dream!” Nisha whispered.

  Anand remembered what Abhaydatta, a Master of the art of remembrance and forgetting, had told him once about waking dreams. Sometimes a person’s mind blocked out something important—something without which he or she couldn’t function as a whole human being. The blockage usually occurred because of a traumatic event or psychic interference, but unless it was removed, the person couldn’t live fully. Usually an experienced healer such as Abhaydatta could put such a person into a waking dream and remove the block—but it seemed that the mirror had the same power.

  “That’s why it’s called the Mirror of Fire and Dreaming!” Anand exclaimed.

  “Shhh!” Nisha cautioned. “It’s showing her something.”

  Dr. S’s lips were moving, though she made no sound. She held the mirror very close, and smiled as if she were looking at someone dear to her. Her face had taken on an intense, listening look. Then her expression grew sorrowful and tears formed in her eyes. A drop splashed onto the mirror.

  The teardrop must have broken the trance, for Dr. S looked up. Her eyes were unfocused, and she looked around as though she did not recognize where she was.

  “Dr. S,” Anand said in concern, “are you all right?”

  She gave a start and stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. Anand’s heart lurched as he wondered if he’d been mistaken. If instead of making her remember, the mirror had made her forget who she was in order to protect them—and the conch—from her. In spite of all she had done to the Brotherhood, he didn’t want that to happen to her.

  But then she said, in a clear voice, “Yes, I’m fine.” She wrapped the mirror carefully in a padded plastic sheet and placed it inside a pack that she strapped onto her back. She filled a large black bucket with water from a sink in the corner of her office and clamped a lid over it. Then she took out two white bodysuits, complete with masks and bulging safety goggles, and lobbed them at Anand and Nisha. She pulled on a similar mask herself and hit the switch that controlled the metal sheath covering the door. “What are you waiting for?” she said impatiently. “Let’s get to the vault.”

  * * *

  The vault was a small room, much smaller than Anand had imagined. Its walls were formed of a gleaming black metal that must have had a certain blocking power, for as soon as Anand stepped inside, he felt as though his head was wrapped in a thick, clammy towel. He had expected to see a safe inside, but it was totally empty except for eight guards who stood, two at each corner, with their blue tubeguns ready. They looked surprised to see Dr. S, but did not appear suspicious yet.

  Anand glanced at Nisha. He could tell she was thinking the same thing as he was: It was a good thing that they had not attempted to enter the vault on their own.

  In her most clipped, businesslike voice, Dr. S informed them that her Analyzer machine had just alerted her to the fact that the object inside the vault had reached a volatile state and might explode at any moment. In fact, they were lucky that it had not done so already. She needed to place it immediately in a container of XB Neutralizer (here, Nisha, who was carrying the bucket, sloshed it loudly) and remove it from the premises. They were welcome to watch while she and her assistants performed this dangerous task, but frankly, she did not advise it.

  The guard in charge nervously informed her that they would rather wait elsewhere—maybe just outside the front entrance until she was done, if that was all right with her? Dr. S graciously gave them permission. As soon as they left, she pressed a complicated code into a keypad that was placed on the wall. A round metal door that had been completely camouflaged against the black metal swung open. Inside, on a metal tray, looking very small and frail, was the conch.

  With a cry, Anand lunged forward and cupped it in his hands. He could feel its energy—but how weak it was, only a trickle. I’m so glad to have found you! he said silently.

>   I’m pretty happy about it myself, came the reply. Whatever this vault—and the building—is made of, it drains magical objects. Let’s get out of here.

  Anand unzipped his bodysuit and placed the conch carefully in an inside pocket. Away from the vault, it was growing stronger already. He could feel it pulsing against his skin like a second heart. Without further delay, the three of them made their way outside the building, where Dr. S informed the guards that the neutralizing procedure had been successful. Anand saw some of the guards eyeing the bucket, which he was carrying now, with curiosity. He stiffened, hoping no one would ask to take a look inside.

  “Careful with that bucket!” Dr. S reprimanded him sharply. “Didn’t I tell you that a reaction could still occur if you slosh the solution around? That’s why we must remove it from the dome as soon as possible.”

  The guards fell back, and Dr. S marched briskly toward her white hover van. Anand noted, with some guilt, that the back doors did not close all the way. Dr. S strapped the bucket in with a belt and motioned for them to jump in.

  “I hope you can repair the damage you caused to my doors, young man,” she whispered as she slid into the driver’s seat. “Otherwise, I’ll have to answer to Dr. X—nothing escapes his eagle eye.”

  Abashed, Anand concentrated on the locking mechanism, but it was no use. His mind was too agitated to see into the essence of anything.

  After a moment, however, he heard a smooth click. He stared at the locked doors in surprise. Then a smile broke over his face. The conch had fixed the doors for him. It must be regaining its power.

  Before he could thank it, there was a banging on Dr. S’s window. It was the chief guard of the laboratory, his bodysuit stiff with medals.

  “Dr. S, I heard you’re removing the—uh—volatile object from the dome. Where do you plan to take it?”

  Dr. S looked offended at being questioned. “To Hazardous Dump 61, of course. It’s the farthest from the city and therefore the safest.”

  “This means you’ll have to travel across the slums, Doctor. I don’t like that. You know how dangerous those slums are. I insist that you take a contingent of my best guards along. It would be terrible if you—and what you’re carrying—fell into the wrong hands.”