Raging Star (20 page)

The light brightens an brightens to the gold of fresh mornin. The music grows louder an quicker. The walls leap to life. Jack starts with surprise. An, jest like I remember from before, we’re soarin above grasslands, lush an green, with a bird’s-eye view of the world below.

What the hell is this? he says.

Great herds of beasts thunder the plains, with snow-topped mountains in the distance. It’s still magical. Incredible. Unimaginably beautiful. Last time, I wept. This time, I don’t. It’s DeMalo’s vision. But without DeMalo.

I got no idea, I says.

Jack’s tried to touch one of the shaggy big-horned creatures as it leaps from crag to crag. Jest like I did when I seen
it. Suspicion darkens his face. Visions, my ass, he says. This is Wrecker tech. That trickster sonofabitch.

Eagles fly beneath his hands as he feels the walls. Seekin to know how they work. Far from bein overcome like I was, he takes little notice of these glimpses of a long-gone world.

It’s like the walls hold the memory of the past, he mutters. Somethin must set it off. With the lights, it was us, our movement did it. But this was playin already, so what triggered it?

Trigger. Light. Memory. Suddenly I remember. The tiny pinprick of light in the ceilin.

As it grows to a weak beam, I start to see DeMalo. He stands in the centre of the room, right unnerneath it. He lifts a chunk of clear, glassy rock. The light beam latches onto it. The rock begins to glow with a faint pink light. But not jest the rock. The whole room. The light grows stronger. Birds begin to sing
.

DeMalo ain’t here now. There ain’t no rock. But still the birds sang. Still the day dawned on the walls of this room. I stand in the middle an squint at the ceilin. It’s harder to see now the room’s so bright. I can only jest see the pinprick of light in the dome above me. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t think to look. You’d never notice it.

Jack, I says. Could it be triggered by light from outside?

He’s beside me in a second. We stare up. You genius, he says. The first light of day sets it off. Somehow it gits in here, maybe … through a pipe or somethin. I cain’t hardly see that.
What made you look there?

I dunno, I says. I jest looked up an there it was.

The music plays on. The lost creatures of the lost world roam the walls all around us. They fly the skies. They swim the waters. Lakes an rivers an the Big Water. What DeMalo called the ocean, the sea. I never thought I’d see these sights agin. My heart cracks open wide, to fill itself with them. Greedily. Hungrily. I’m glad I don’t hafta hide how I feel. After all, I’m meant to be seein it fer the first time.

It’s beyond wonderful, I says. I would never of imagined this.

Wonderful fer sure, says Jack. But it ain’t nuthin to do with DeMalo. If this is triggered by the dawn, it happens every day. All that Pathfinder malarkey. He ain’t nuthin but a high-stakes con man.

He’s lied, I says. About everythin.

Don’t sound so surprised, he says. Anyways, lyin’s hardly the worst of his sins.

We sat in the sweetgrass meadow that mornin. The Stewards, DeMalo an me. The breeze dried my tears as he spoke. Of the music on the wind that led him to this room.

As that new day dawned, I had the vision. Just as you’ve seen today. Mother Earth revealed to me, through me, the glories of our world as it was. And she revealed to me my destiny. You are the Pathfinder, she told me. I have chosen you to heal me
.

We’ve all believed him so completely. That’s becuz he
believes it hisself. He’s told the tale so often, it’s become the truth even to him. At what point does that happen, I wonder. That you start to believe yer own lies.

It’s quite the make-believe he’s cooked up, says Jack. The dream of Mother Earth reborn, DeMalo the big hero with his visions.

On the walls all around people walk an run an dance. Long ago gone. Long unremembered an long unmourned. The Wreckers. But in this moment, they live fer me an Jack. I think of the ten skellentons, lyin in them bunks. Whoever they was—man, woman, child—they closed the door in the hillside one day an shut theirselfs in. Knowin their refuge might well be their grave. That they’d seen the last of the sky.

Suddenly I git it. They go together, I says.

What goes together? says Jack.

The seedstore an this room with these visions, I says. They left it fer us. Fer those who might come after. When them people lay on them bunks fer the very last time, they died with hope. That somebody would find this one day. But they didn’t mean fer someone like DeMalo to find it. A gift like this, a gift to the future, the chance to start over with them seeds … it’s meant fer all of us. Not jest people, but the earth itself an every creature. It’s fer the common good. The many. Not the few. They meant fer it to be used rightly an justly. These visions tell us so. Look!

Around the walls there’s the young an the old. The strong help the weak. The healthy tend the sick. All manner of people together.

He’s stolen this place, I says. He ain’t no visionary. He’s a thief. He’s a liar.

Saba, says Jack. We better go.

His voice right behind me makes me start.

It’s dawn, he says. The guard change. Remember?

He takes me by the hand an we run.

We ride into a strange kinda mornin. Uncertain day born of unsteady night. Short winds dash at us then die. Clouds threaten, then calm in a watery sunlight. At last a lumpy grey sky thumps down like a lid an sharp picks of rain razor us. It settles to a mean-tempered dank of a day. Jack jams his hat low an wraps his cloak high. Nero’s quick to wriggle inside it an hitch a ride. Me, I got my coat an my sheema. But it ain’t long before we’re miserably damp.

It’s all cloud an sharp rain inside of me as well. My thoughts clod an churn. Feelins spike me, slash at me. I try to grab ’em as they pass. Try to hold on long enough to take a good look.

One. DeMalo don’t have miraculous visions. It’s a trick. A cheat. He ain’t who he says he is. He ain’t what he says he is. He discovered the bunker an its secrets by chance. He claimed them fer his own an began to misuse them.

Two. He must be revealed fer the fraud that he is. Everybody needs to know about the visions. By everybody I mean the Stewards an the Tonton. The only way they’d believe is if they seen it fer themselfs. My Free Hawks an Jack’s gang, we’ll jest tell them what we found an they’ll believe us.

Three. What’s my next move? My next play in this endgame he’s declared? Whatever I do, I gotta use what I know to our best advantage. I gotta be wise, be cool. Think, plan, then act. In the right way, at the right time, when he least especks it. But I got so little time, there ain’t no chance in hell that I’ll—stop, stop. Be cool. Stay calm.

Four. Four. It’s unbelievable. It’s shameful. But here it is. The cold stone of betrayal burns in me. I feel betrayed by him. By DeMalo. I feel deceived by him. I know this tight lump, hard right of my heart. I felt it when I thought Jack had betrayed me. You only feel betrayed if you place yer trust in somebody. If you believe what they tell you. I believed DeMalo. Believed him when he told me I was special. That I warn’t like nobody else. I believed that meant he would tell me—me above all others—the truth. But he plays me jest like he’d play anybody. He baits his line an reels us in. An what was my bait? My arrogance,
my self-regard an the weakness of my flesh fer his. I swear, when DeMalo hauled me from Weepin Water that night, he landed me on shiftin sands. Me, who used to think I stood on bedrock.

I realize Jack’s stopped. That I’m stopped becuz he’s leaned over to grab hold of Hermes’ bridle. Guilty heat breaks on my skin. As if he might be able to hear my thoughts.

Sorry, I says. Did you say somethin?

I said, this is where we part ways, he says.

We’re at HorseArch, in the middle of the boulderfield. The worn hindquarters of a stallion rear atop the crumbled stone archway.

Jack sits back in the saddle. He edges Kell away. Puts distance between us. His hat hides his eyes. He’s only said one thing since we left the bunker.
Lucky fer us they was late
. That’s when we’d reached the safety of the wooded ridge an looked back to see the two relief guards appear. Since then, not a word, an that’s strange. Jack ain’t no chatbox, but he’s social. There’s always some to an fro with him. It ain’t like him to leave me alone with my thoughts fer so long.

You bin awful quiet, I says.

I got a lot on my mind, he says.

His distant tone slams the door in my face.

Yeah, I says, this changes everythin, don’t it? The seedstore, the fake visions. D’you think I oughta tell Lugh an the rest what we found?

Not yet, he says. It’s way too big. We’ll keep it between us fer now.

Right, I says. Listen, I wanna meet with yer network today. You an me an them. Can you git ’em all together later on?

He says, I thought we agreed it was safer you didn’t.

That was before all this, I says. I need to talk to ’em right away.

What about? he says.

Jest tell me where to meet you.

Sector Four, he says. At the watermill on the Don River. I’ll see you there late afternoon. It’s short notice, but I’ll git as many as can come. With a click to Kell, he tugs the reins an turns to the north.

Hey, I says.

He looks back.

You got my crow in yer coat, I says.

I fergot, he says. He’s asleep. He reaches unner his cloak. C’mon you, wake up, he says.

He picks him out an with a shake an a squawk, Nero takes to the air. Rain or no, he’ll be glad to fly. He’s bin tucked inside there fer ages.

Jack, I says.

He waits. His hat’s still low over his eyes. I’m shut out. He’s shuttin me out. This ain’t like him at all. Unease heats my belly. Sticks my words in my throat.

What’s wrong? I says.

Nuthin. It’s jest a lot to take in all at once. I’m gonna catch a little sleep, he says. You should too. I’ll see you later.

I’m glad you was there, I says. That it was you an me. We always do make a good team. I wouldn’t of wanted to be with nobody else.

He answers with a tip of his hat. Then he flicks the reins an moves Kell out. I will a turn of his head. Look back, look back, gawdamnmit Jack. I ache fer a smile. Or a wave.

Jack! I call. The fog deads my voice. They’re melted to the mist as silent shadows. He probly didn’t even hear me. Nero perches on HorseArch an caws his impatience to be gone.

He’s right. I got much bigger things to deal with. I ride a thoughtful trail back to Starlight Lanes. I sort an sift an consider. All the words I bin hearin an speakin. What I’ve seen an thought an felt.

Whaddya make of this place, Mercy? Of New Eden?

Things ain’t always what they seem to be. People neether. The Chosen of New Eden, they’re all tryin to be what DeMalo says they are. Do you see? Not entirely real
.

DeMalo an his visions. The bunker. The seedstore. It’s the lodestone. He’s the lodestone. Brothers an sisters an fathers an mothers. Stewards stolen from their families.

You’re paired with a boy you don’t know. Sent off with this stranger to work the land an make healthy babies for New Eden. How do you feel?

Natural feelins don’t come into it.

They got no skills, no knowledge, no trust between ’em. They hardly know each other. It won’t take much to make their house crumble. It don’t stand on strong foundations
.

Strong foundations. Family. Blood ties. Babies taken from the Stewards.

Not one of them girls wants her baby to be took from her. They try to hide what they feel, but I seen it in their eyes, their faces, every time
.

Weak foundations. DeMalo’s weakness. Our strength.

Think like me, like me, not him.

Jack an me at the Irontree. He nearly had me undressed an I never noticed.

Boy, do you work fast
.

Yer a movin target, I hafta. Here, lemme help
.

I button, he unbuttons. I tuck, he untucks
.

Do. Undo.

When you start to pick it apart, their house will crumble. Undo it. Fast. Quickly.

What do you believe, Saba?

On the whole, I’d say we’re stronger fer love
.

Then I’m thinkin like me. Not like him.