by Luke Donegan
He did not visit the Builder in the Doctor’s rooms. Jay was there, recovering from the fire of Passage. He did not want to see the Teacher.
So he worked amongst the furnaces of the workshop, collapsing at the end of each day with exhaustion. But no matter how tired he made himself, sleep did not come easily. His thoughts at night were plagued with faces. Sian, the Teacher, the Builder, the emu man, Jay – they watched him as he struggled to sleep, each with their own accusations.
But one accusation sounded above all the rest, that of the terrified woman he had tried to save in the zeppelin. The expression in the woman’s eyes as she fell towards the red earth haunted him. I begged you to hold on. Why didn’t you save me?
I watched her die, he thought.
He sat up with a knock at the door.
There is nothing for you here.
He wiped the fog from his eyes. The knock came again.
“It’s open.”
Saskareth and the Curator of History entered the room.
“We are sorry for the lateness of this visit,” said Paris Aristotle, bowing. “We have just returned from a meeting with the Ascendancy.”
“Please, come in.”
He found two chairs and gestured for the men to sit. He sat on the bed facing them.
Paris Aristotle surveyed the bare room. “You live simply,” he observed.
“Most of my belongings are still in the Teacher’s rooms,” he explained. “My books and things. They are of more use there.”
The curator nodded. Saskareth looked at him with blank eyes.
After a few moments of silence, Erys asked: “Curator, do you have word of the Builder? Is he well?”
“He is recovering in body. His spirit will take a long time to heal.”
“But he will heal?”
“Perhaps. If he can forgive himself. The Builder is a good man, with fierce ethics. Self-forgiveness is a difficult task for such a person.”
Erys nodded. He looked from man to animist. Does Aristotle know the truth about the emu-man? he wondered. Has Saskareth told him?
“The Teacher is recovering as well,” added the curator. “He was caught in Ariel’s Passage. I have never known anyone to return once Passage has begun.”
“I have no interest in the boy’s health,” he stated coldly.
They sat in silence for a long time. Erys looked at the floor.
Saskareth finally broke the silence. “I am returning to the desert.”
“When?” asked Erys, suddenly alarmed. “I thought you would stay longer.”
“In a few days.”
“The Ascendancy has come to a decision,” said Paris Aristotle. “We will form a dialogue with the Umawari. I am to be our Emissary. I will travel with Saskareth into the central desert and meet his people.”
The curator stood and paced across the floor of the small room.
“This is a pivotal moment in our history,” he proclaimed. “Saskareth and I will form a bridge between our two societies. Who knows what it will lead to? Exchange of ideas, of cultures, of resources. Together, pooling our knowledge of Science, Nature and History, we may even find ways to right the ills of our world.”
“As you know Erys, my people are close to Nature,” said Saskareth, “Aiding the Taxidermist and the Curator of Nature, we may find a way to reverse the evil of Aberration.”
But Erys was not prepared for Saskareth to go. The man had saved his life. They had been together every day for the past year. Saskareth had tended his wounds. He had shown him another world, a world thick with the essence of Nature.
Saskareth had shown him his true form.
He forced himself to speak. “Congratulations, Curator,” he said to Paris Aristotle. “You will make a fine emissary for our people.”
But he felt jealousy. Once again, he had been passed over. If not for him, these two communities would not have met. Fire rose in his belly and he wanted to rage.
Peace, he thought. Not here. Find the grace to accept this harshness. What will you do with your life? he remembered Saskareth asking him once. How will you make the fire of your life balance all those that fell into darkness? His hands were flailing in the wind as the zeppelin soared beyond his reach. He would clutch at anything.
“I need a scion to accompany me,” said Paris Aristotle. “Jaime must remain here. Erys, will you return with us to the desert?”
He did not need to think about it. His hands were outstretched, and they gripped that offering with all their strength.
Sian worked with a herd of mountain goats on the cliff face in the Nature Dome. One by one she checked the voltage in their battery packs, hidden beneath a flap of skin in the side of each creature. One of the goats perched precariously above a sharp drop. To reach it Sian had to climb out from a nearby ledge, supported by a belay rope secured above. She hung in space, checking the creature’s battery and fluid pack. Something restricted the flow of fluid through the forward torso of the creature. She stretched up towards the creature’s mouth with a thermometer. Her reach was short by a foot.
She searched for and found a toehold at waist level. Slipping her toe into the hold she hoisted her body up, just enough to place the thermometer into the goat’s mouth. But waiting for the reading, her leg muscles cramped. Her grip slipped and she fell ...
“Can I help?” offered a voice from above.
She looked up from where she hung on the rope to see Erys standing at the cliff top.
“Pull me up.”
He unlocked the winch and wound its handle, slowly dragging her up the cliff face. As she passed the goat she retrieved the thermometer. The animal’s temperature was two degrees below the safety parameter. The embryo inside was at risk.
It will need to go to Gregor, she thought.
Erys locked the winch and helped her up. She pushed him away and unclipped the rope. They sat at the cliff’s edge, looking over the Nature Dome. Below them the desert zone stretched away to the dome wall.
“I am sorry if I hurt you,” he said. “The other day. When the Teacher passed, I kind of went ... I don’t know ... a bit crazy.”
Ignoring him, Sian gestured at the mountain goat below. “Its temperature is off. Could you help me get it down?”
“Sian,” he insisted. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was ... Sian. I am a selfish person. When we were at Restoration Day and the Teacher collapsed. When she was passing, all I could think about was myself, how I had to reach her before the boy.”
She stared at him with indifference. “Do you think I don’t know how selfish you are? She shook her head. “You’re such an idiot. Help me with the goat, will you?”
“Sian. I have nothing to offer you. When I survived the crash, I thought there must be a reason. I thought perhaps there was something I must do. A way to give value to the fact I had survived when no-one else did. But I don’t think there is a reason. There is no meaning to any of this.”
Sian glared at him. “No meaning? Then what am I doing with my life? What are Xia and Gregor doing? I can’t believe you just said that. After everything we have achieved?”
“Everything you have achieved. But not me! I have achieved nothing.”
She gathered her equipment. As she moved towards the stairwell within the cliff, Erys called after: “I’m going away.”
She stopped.
“Aristotle wants me to return with him and Saskareth to the desert.”
“When?” she asked quietly.
“Tomorrow.”
She looked down, defeated. All her anger was spent.
“Erys? When were you going to tell me?”
He did not know what to say. He faced her with his hands on his hips, a defiant posture he used when they argued.
“Erys,” she said, her voice a whisper.
She turned and walked away.
Layers of gauze covered the Builder’s chest. Blood seeped through the webbing. His sleeping face twitched and jumped with bad dreams.
Erys st
ood above the bed, wondering whether he should wake him.
“Let him sleep,” suggested a voice. “He needs to rest.”
Across the ward a curtain was drawn back, revealing Jay in his bed. A young girl secured the curtain. She whispered to the Teacher and kissed his forehead. “Goodbye Yay,” she said, then left the room.
Erys glanced at the girl as she passed. Her face was mousy, her arms and legs the skinny limbs of a child. A hearth-friend of the boy’s, perhaps a girlfriend. Too late he noticed she was wearing the robes of a Hearth-Mother. He bowed quickly, automatically, but she was gone and the show of respect missed.
The boy sat up. Like the Builder, the chest of the boy was covered in gauze, held together with bandages. He gazed at Erys. His expression was harder, older than Erys had seen before. His experience of Passage had aged him.
“He will heal,” said the boy. “But it will take a long time. His heart is broken.”
Erys nodded. “He loved her,” he said.
The boy swung his legs out of bed. “And what about you, Erys?” he asked. “You loved her too, as a scion loves their master.”
Erys turned away and walked towards the door.
“Don’t leave,” Jay called after him. “I need to talk with you.”
Erys stopped in the doorway.
“I have nothing to talk with you about.”
Jay walked slowly across the room. The top of the boy’s head only reached Erys’ shoulders.
“I am Teacher now,” said Jay. “I do not demand respect. That is something I must earn. But if you disrespect me for no reason, then you are a fool.”
Erys’ eyes narrowed.
“You may have cheated death in the zeppelin crash,” continued Jay, “but I have been somewhere you could not imagine. I need to talk to you and you will listen.”
Jay turned away and walked to an adjoining room. His damaged chest still hurt him. Erys considered ignoring the boy’s command. But the boy was Teacher. To walk away would show disrespect and violate a lifetime of conditioning.
He reluctantly followed the boy into a small sitting room. Two chairs faced each other across a low table. Through a window could be seen the wide, blue ocean.
Jay lowered gingerly and gestured for Erys to sit opposite him. When they were both settled, he asked: “What are your plans, Erys? Now that Ariel has gone.”
“The Curator of History is returning to the desert, with Saskareth.”
“Yes. Paris is to be our emissary.”
“He has asked me to join him.”
“And will you?”
“Yes.”
Fishing boats rode the ocean waves, far from shore. The boy’s eyes fixed on these distant vessels as if yearning to be out on the ocean and away from this sterile room.
“To be elsewhere,” he said, almost to himself. “I thought you would say yes. Of course, your heart must desire the desert. And what is here for you otherwise?”
Erys glared at the boy.
“You must be very hurt and very angry that she chose me over you.”
Erys did not reply. The best approach was to be silent, to hold back.
“It was not because she loved me more,” continued Jay, turning from the ocean view to face Erys. “We did not have time for our relationship to develop. I feel deeply saddened, about that. Her Passage came before we knew each other. No. I believe she chose me for two reasons. Firstly, I think she believed it was the right choice according to Law. I was the current scion. Scion follows master.”
Erys shook his head. He had been the true scion, according to Law. The boy had only been acting in his absence. He opened his mouth to argue.
Jay cut him off. “We could debate that forever and I will not argue with you. The other reason I believe is this. I think she sensed in me an ability that you do not possess, something that may prove vital. I sensed this as she passed into me. It does not mean you are not worthy. It just means we have different roles. Our lives are meant for different paths than those we would necessarily choose for ourselves. I do not speak of destiny. No, we are creatures of free will. I speak of our abilities. Our differences. I am able to achieve things which you cannot. And the same is true for you.”
Erys curled his lip at the boy’s presumption.
“I sensed many things during the Teacher’s Passage. I take it you know the truth of Passage?”
Erys nodded.
“The Museum is a secretive place. I take it you know many things that are going on here.”
Erys studied him carefully. How much does he know? he thought. How dangerous could he be?
“Be that as it may,” said Jay. “I am only a boy, trapped in a body now damaged. But my mind is full like you would not believe. It is teeming. I followed the Teacher to a place I should not have seen. What I now know is something no person should ever have to bear.”
The boy returned his gaze to the ocean.
“So you see my problem,” he said. “I am a vessel, filled with the essence of the universe. But the vessel is weak. I have all this knowledge, but I cannot act. I am a Teacher, a master, with no scion to pass my knowledge on to. If I were to die now, much would be lost.”
The boy perplexed Erys. He could not be asking what Erys thought he was about to ask.
“You on the other hand,” said the Teacher, “are strong. Foolish, but strong. You have fallen through fire and survived. And Ariel loved you. I need no other reason.”
He looked at Erys. His eyes pooled with darkness. They were filled with the horror of Dark Matter.
“I want you to be my scion,” said Jay. “Everything that is in me shall pass to you, one day. My knowledge, my hopes, my fears. My love of life. This is what I offer.”
Erys stared at him with incomprehension. What are you asking?
He shook his head. He did not know if he was rejecting the words or the vision of Dark Matter within the Teacher’s eyes.
“It doesn’t work that way,” argued Erys. “I am older than you. Law dictates that scion should be younger than the master.”
“Only if the scion is expected to live longer. And we both know that I am probably not long for the world. Not after the damage I have sustained. Decide now, Erys,” insisted the Teacher. “I am beyond playing games.”
Erys stared at the boy, his short brown hair, his eyes now a deep, smoky brown, his young face dark with knowledge. How could he be this boy’s scion? He looked out at the ocean, but in his mind he saw the desert, flat and brown, shimmering with heat. A dust storm billowed in the distance. The desert. It pulled him, and he yearned for it. And yet, in his heart he was a teacher. A teller of stories. This was a way to be Scion-Teacher again, to be who he should be.
What will you do with your life, Erys? Decide now, and salvage some meaning for all those you failed to save.
“Do not go to the desert,” said the Teacher. “Stay, and be my scion.”
The young man turned from the ocean and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.” Although there is trepidation in my heart, and I do not know why.
“Good.” Jay sunk back in his chair.
Is that it? thought Erys. I am now Scion-Teacher. Is that it?
The boy looked away. Erys waited. He did not know if he should stay or leave the room. He too looked at the view. For him, the ocean was a wasteland whereas the desert was vibrant with life. Vibrant with possibility.
“Ariel kept secrets from me,” Jay said eventually. “I loved her, and I do not criticise her. In the end she redeemed herself and told me the truth. I will not keep secrets from you, Erys. And I expect, above all, you to be completely honest with me.”
The boy’s eyes poured into Erys, dark and endless, seeing everything.
“Now tell me about the Taxidermist,” he demanded. “No lies! Tell me about the animals he is breeding beneath the Museum, and his efforts to break the Law of Nature.”
Chapter 10 ARK
An amber haze permeated the air, obscuring the horizon. He lifted his fac
e. The great bowl of the airship curved above him in the dusty sky. It heaved in the wind and struggled against tie ropes that anchored it to the riverbed. It wanted to be on its way. And Erys too, his desire to board the airship with Aristotle and Saskareth was overwhelming.
“Not a great day to leave,” shouted Aristotle anxiously. “But the Captain assures me it is safe.”
Saskareth did not share the curator’s anxiety. The Emu Man was, for the first time, about to fly. He was living a dream, and it was all he could do mot to transform into the animal. The hair follicles on his scalp and neck itched to sprout feathers. His nose and chin began changing under the skin, but he forced it back. Not here! he thought. Not here! But soon I will be flying, and maybe then I will reveal my true self to the Curator.
A small group had gathered at the air base to farewell Paris Aristotle and Saskareth. Jack Gaunt stood with his scion and the Administrator. Xia Tsang stood with Sian, their blue robes flapping in the stiff breeze. Sian’s long dark hair streamed behind her. She would not look at Erys.
Erys represented the Teacher, still recovering in the Doctor’s rooms. Erys looked past the windblown figures at Sian. He wondered if he should try to speak with her during the walk back to the Museum.
The opportunity did not come. Sian bid the Curator of History farewell. She bowed before Saskareth and wished them a safe journey to the desert, then departed across the landing field. Erys watched Sian disappear into the swirling dust. He felt a tide of panic in his chest. I have lost her, he thought.
The Captain’s voice called for the passengers to board.
The Administrator bowed to those about to depart. “Travel well to the first staging post,” he said. “We will wait until your return. Go with all our blessings and friendship.”
Saskareth bowed. “I will bring your messages of friendship to my people. Look for us on the desert wind. I promise to return within the year, and to bring more of my people with me.”
Paris Aristotle approached Erys. “Are you determined to stay?”
Erys nodded. “I am, Curator,” he said. “I am sorry.”
“No, no,” said Aristotle. “I understand. You have made your decision.” He turned to his scion and hugged the boy. “You are Curator now, Jaime, until I return. Preserve the Laws of History, and keep well.”
