The Apocalypse Script (38 page)

“
I know,” said the girl, “yet he
is my only relative. I should have liked to have said
goodbye.”

Lilian lifted the Peth’s chin. “He
is certainly
not
your only relative. Am I not your sister and is not Ben your
husband?”

This brought the glimmer of a
smile. “Yes. I did not mean
that.
”

“
Think also that in the coming
years we will have sons and daughters to share our lives with.
Shall they not be our relatives?”

“
I should hope they are,” laughed
Fiela through the tears that she vainly attempted to blink away.
More tears, she lamented. First for Ben and now for her uncle
and sometimes for parents she couldn’t even remember. Was everyone
she loved destined to disappear?

She swept both eyes with the back
of one hand, succeeding in only smearing the wetness. “I should
like that, if our husband is agreeable.”

“
Sister,” said Lilian firmly, “I
have no doubts that our husband will want to have children with
you. What a silly idea, that he would not. We shall have many
children because we shall need many princes and princesses and
dukes and duchesses to govern our kingdom.”

Fiela looked surprised. “I shall
be the mother of a prince? I had not thought of that. A week ago I
hoped merely to keep my life.”

The other woman said, “We must
both endeavor to stay alive. That will, in truth, be a challenge in
the days to come. But if we do, the world is ours. Truly -
the world!
”

“
And the Nisirtu shall be
restored, uncorrupted,” said Fiela, “and the Maqtu
destroyed.”

The women embraced and Lilian said, “It shall be
done.” She lowered her eyes and said, “Are you well?”

Fiela wondered whether she should
tell her sister about what had happened at breakfast. Lilian would
know how to deal with such a situation, wouldn’t she? But the Peth
could not compel herself to do so. The humiliation of her failure
was too great. “I am near fully recovered,” she said. “Thank you
for your mercy and kindness.”

Ben had fled Lady Del and returned
to the refuge of the cave earlier in the afternoon. He had no clue
what the coming reception entailed but Lilian had told him that his
only function was to stand with her and Fiela for a few minutes on
the newly constructed stage. It was a task that required no
preparation and he was anxious to escape the constant attention of
the guests.

He walked across the cave’s
elevated floor to the tablet repository as the lights overhead
flickered to life and slapped his hand on the porcelain panel next
to the door. The familiar whirring and clicking followed as the
metal bars that held the door in place retracted back into the
wall. Pulling open the door, he saw, to his surprise, Ridley. The
scribe was sitting at the oak table in a yellow robe, one elbow
propped up on a large leather book that Ben had not seen
before.

“
Nice robe,” Ben said. “If you
took that from one of the rooms, we’ll have to charge you for it
when you check out.”

Ridley laughed. “I brought it with
me. Interesting that you’d raise the topic of me checking out,
however.”

Walking in, the researcher said with less levity,
“You can’t be serious.”

“
I am. I’ve already told Lilian
and asked her to tell Fiela, since I am not man enough to do
so.”

Ben leaned backwards against one
of the cabinets and crossed his arms. “You’re going to leave
Steepleguard a day before the earth devolves into anarchy?
Why?”

“
Because it is
scripted.”

Ben huffed and shook his head.
“No, Ridley. I’m Ardoon, remember? Or ‘recovering Ardoon.’ Take
your pick. ‘It is scripted’ doesn’t fly with me. What’s
up?”

Ridley smiled crookedly. “Perhaps
I have become too reliant on my reputation with the Nisirtu. ‘It is
scripted’ usually feels them with awe and sends them packing.
Alright, Ben, let’s talk. That’s what I’m here for,
anyway.”

The other man nodded, signaling the scribe to
continue.

“
Let me pose a question to you,
nephew. What is more dangerous to a man? A devil who entices him to
be evil while being completely truthful about what evil is, or a
devil who poses as an angel and entices a man to be good but then
manipulates him into thinking that fifty-percent good is one
hundred-percent good?”

Ben thought for a moment. “I don’t
see how one-hundred percent evil can be less dangerous to man than
fifty-percent good.”

“
Really? In the first case the
devil is honest and offers the man an honest choice. In the second
he lies and guarantees that the man will forever march toward the
wrong objective, assuming the man’s objective is to be as good as
possible. You are saying the truth is more dangerous than the
lie?”

“
I’m saying that fifty-percent
good beats zero-percent good.”

“
It is the lie that allows
fifty-percent,” the scribe reminded him.

“
Then I’d guess the lie is better.
The truth is more dangerous than the lie. Is there a point to any
of this?”

The scribe patted the book beneath
his elbow and appeared to be lost in thought. At length he said,
“You have been understandably upset with Lilian and me for bringing
you to Steepleguard without fully disclosing our motives. You think
that we have taken advantage of you to further our own
agendas.”

Ben distended a cheek with the tip
of his tongue. “That’s a fair assessment. I am slightly
less
pissed with you two
as of late because I’ve accepted that civilization is about to fall
apart and I’m short the martyr gene, but yes, you have
misrepresented your purpose for bringing me here. You also tricked
me into signing a document that I thought meant nothing but which
apparently makes me responsible for Lilian’s very life. You - or
Lilian - plan for me to be a king, though as best I can tell, I’ll
be king over ‘not much’ and ripe for an assassin’s bullet about six
hours after I sit my Ardoon ass down on the throne.

“
About the only thing you’ve been
honest about is the existence of the tablets,” he said, motioning
at the cases behind him, “though your stories of mystical tongues
and monsters taint even those.”

“
Only if they are stories,”
challenged the scribe.

“
That’s right,” conceded Ben, “but
since there is no possibility of me translating them before your
departure, I won’t belabor that point.”

Ridley said, “Actually, I can tell
you almost anything you want to know about what’s written on the
tablets. What they
say
, that is. I am still confounded by what they
mean
.”

Ben reared back and eyed the
scribe suspiciously. “Are you saying that
you already know how to read them?
”

“
I never said I
couldn’t.”

Ben’s jaw hit the floor. “You
brought me here to decipher them! You paid me ten million dollars
to do it. More, actually.”

The man in the yellow robe said,
“A small bit of subterfuge. In fact, I completed my translation
soon after the tablets were found. It was what you might call an
‘epiphany event.’ My brain is apparently wired in a way that allows
the Empyrean Glossa to escape its neural cage when my mind is
properly stimulated. My exposure to the tablets provided that
stimulation, breathing life into what had been lifeless -
the language of the gods.
”

Ben looked at the other man
skeptically. “If you understand what’s contained in the tablets,
why am I here?”

“
Do you not have a suspicion? Is
not some thought forming in the back of your mind?”

In fact, there was, but Ben knew
it would be a long time before the nebulous form became anything
identifiable. “Enlighten me.”

“
Very well. You
asked me once whether I brought you to Steepleguard for your
research skills or because Lilian needed a husband. I
said
both
.
In truth, the answer is
neither
. Nor did I bring you here to
marry my niece, though I am grateful for that commitment.
Understandably, you think that you have been sucked into an ongoing
script as a supporting player. You think that the script is beyond
your comprehension.”

“
That’s right.”

Ridley’s eyes sparkled. There
seemed to be a yellow light behind them. “What if I told you that
you were
not
brought here because of the script? What if I told you that
the script exists
because of
you?
”

“
I can’t even guess what that
means.”

“
It means, among
other things, that I did not choose you as Lilian’s
husband.
I chose her as your
wife.
”

“
What?”

The old man continued, counting
off items on his fingers. “You will not be king because you bear
the signet of Sargon; you bear the signet of Sargon because you are
destined to be king. I did not choose you to study the tablets
because you are an ancient language expert; you are an ancient
language expert because of the tablets.”

“
Wait,
wait,
wait,”
interrupted Ben, annoyed. “What was that last one? I’m an
expert on ancient languages because of the tablets? Ridley, I had
never seen the tablets before I came to Steepleguard and I
certainly can’t read them.” He studied the man. “You’re beginning
to worry me.”

In fact, the former Ardoon was
beginning to think that senility had finally begun to afflict the
Great Sage. Was that why he was going away? Did he recognize the
symptoms of dementia and decide to go quietly into the night while
he still had his wits about him instead of lingering at
Steepleguard until he had to be reminded who he was?

Ridley seemed to read his mind.
“Don’t worry, nephew. I’m not senile - not yet. I am giving you an
accurate account of why you are really here. I am the only one who
knows the truth, you see. Lilian does not, nor Fiela, nor anyone
else in the Nisirtu.”

He caressed the leather book on
the table and said, “You are mistaken about not having seen the
tablets before. In fact, you studied them long ago and you
mastered
them. It was
stunning to behold. By my estimation, fewer than one in a billion
people on the planet have brain configurations that make it
possible to do what you and I can do.”

Ben shook his head disgustedly and
turned and opened the cabinet behind him. He withdrew a tablet,
stared at it, and looked at Ridley triumphantly. “You know what I
see, Scriptus? A bunch of colored lines that look like they were
made by a tattoo artist revved up on speed. No language. No
Empyrean Glossa.
”

“
That’s because I made you forget,
Ben. I used the Empyrean against you. You could have easily
prevented me from doing so, of course. A scorpion cannot be killed
by its own sting. But you agreed it was necessary and found a way
to lower your mental shields and to let me do what had to be
done.”

“
Ridley, that’s more hocus-pocus.
More metaphysics. This has got to end.”

The scribe continued as if Ben had
not spoken. “I blocked not only your memory of the tablets and the
language, but of
me
, your mentor. It had to be done. You agreed that it is
unwise to unleash upon the world a boy with the power to make
everyone around him do and believe whatever he wishes. The power
terrified you. Of course, I did not and could not delete the
language. It remained in your mind, primal and restive, which is
why you have always been drawn to the study of languages and have
always excelled at them.” Grinning, the scribe said, “You had a
built-in cheat-sheet.”

Ben was about to object when
Ridley spoke a word. It hit the researcher like a sledgehammer to
the chest and he slid instantly to the floor, moaning. A wave of
nausea swept over him as his vision blurred.

“
I’m removing
the block,” said the old man above him. “I’m afraid it will be an
unsettling experience but there’s no way around it. It’s rather
like detox and will take a few hours. I am speaking to you, even
now, in
Empyrean
, compelling the dormant neurons to re-ignite.”

The researcher, already one the
floor, fell to one side. The room was spinning and he grabbed a
display cabinet’s legs in a vain attempt to stop it. Fragments of
memories sparked to life inside his head. Spirals unwound
themselves like dragons uncoiling their tails.

“
Why?” he moaned.

“
Because I have been told to do
so,” said Ridley. “We all have masters, Ben. This is my role in a
script not of my making. It is a far larger, more complex script
than anything I have ever attempted. It is one of a seemingly
infinite number of scripts tied together into a single scenario
that commenced with the birth of this reality. I do not know how it
ends. I cannot see the convergence point, though I have been told
it is almost upon us.”