by Danny Lasko
“I will guess. After all, we have been watching you quite intently over the past years.”
The tightness in my chest falls to my gut. By just thinking about turning to Boxrud, it feels like I’m betraying my family. But it’s them I’m thinking about, too.
“Since you were nine years old, you have been unjustly treated, Horatio Gaph. Ripped away from your friends, a dearth of affection from your parents—they never understood you, nor did they ever try. They deceived you, hoping to push you into believing what they believed. And they promised you help, then rescinded that promise for no other reason than fear. Fear has motivated the Children from the beginning. It has cost them twenty three of their own, not counting the Lost Children they have spent decades not finding. Hundreds of Citizens in London and ten thousand in your beloved Allen.”
“Allen?!” I ask without thinking.
“Yes,” Boxrud says. “While you were sleeping, there was an uprising. A little more than ten thousand lo-pry rushed the district hall in protest of the ill treatment they’ve suffered as well as the impending doom. They were summarily exterminated to keep the peace.”
I try, but I can’t keep my feet. I sit in the nearby chair, and even that is almost inadequate. Ten thousand. I think of my friends. Of Tommy. I think of Hogsworth and Maypole. Of the fifth year that made me the eclairs. I think of their parents. Of Coach Mane and Principal Wilds. Of the ranch hands waiting for the Blue Line before dawn. Of the driver of the Blue Line.
“The Synarch has also announced that Allen has become insoluble and will be razed in three days whether you are found or not. All except the best of the students, of course. That would just be wasteful. Those of promise have already been transferred to Citizen cities to start their careers or to other schools best suited for their talents. So you can at least be happy for that. But what do you expect from The Children and their long history of betrayal and deception?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, pulling my thoughts away from the slaughter.
“It is time you were told the truth about who you are, where you come from, and where you are meant to be going,” announces Boxrud. “For it is far different from the fairy tale you’ve been fed. That is why you’ve come, isn’t it, Horatio Gaph? To find out the truth?”
“You … tried to kill us,” I breathe, trying to remember who it is offering me the truth.
“Not you, Horatio. Them. It is our moral obligation to defend against any group or organization that openly poses a threat to our end goals. Do you not agree? Surely, you heard the same talk in the whispered conversations in the trees. The only difference is we found them before they found us.”
“But you used me to find them. That’s why you messed with my shield during the game. So they’d come get me. So you could find them. They died because of me.”
“Horatio, indulging in guilt is unprofitable and naive. They did not die because of you. They died because they gave into their fear and because of foolish traditions of their fathers. They put themselves in a position of weakness. They were caught off guard. They died because of themselves. As did London. As did the thousands in Allen. Because of themselves.”
He lets the meaning of his words swirl around me, echoing in my head. The stars and planets sparkle in the imagined sky surrounding me. I scan the room, see the smiling faces, remember the soothing, praising voices, the power. The power in this room. Power that has helped me become better than I was.
“I would like to show you the rest of our home, if you would.” Boxrud gestures toward a door that opens immediately, pouring a bright yellow light into the Star Room. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t want to go.
Boxrud leads me along a garden terrace constructed on a ledge of the castle overlooking the breathtaking views of the island. The tropical warmth is a shock from the damp cold of London. I cannot stop glancing back and forth from the white stone palace to the sweet-smelling foliage on the island floor to the endless blue skies to the breaking waves along the crystal sands. I feel comfortable with Boxrud. The way he speaks, words lacking the desperation that plagued the Children every time they talked of the Soul and its destiny. I still don’t know that I believe Boxrud when he tells me he wasn’t trying to kill me, but for the life of me, I can’t think of a reason why that should matter.
I really don’t know what’s happening to me.
“It took me one hundred and seventy years to build it,” he continues. “Transporting the stone to the island, that was a feat in and of itself. But I met another wizard, not unlike your father but who, with the help of a jumper, constructed a remarkable device.”
“A hundred and seventy years?”
“Do you, Horatio Gaph, know who wrote the Restoration Edict? The sacred text that all Children hold dear and is the defense for their crimes of negligence?”
“One of the first Children is all I know.”
“Ah, here is a story the Children will not tell you. Again, one of their deceptions. Rexwood Dynsth was his name. He had a way with words. It took him only a handful of days to absorb entire foreign vocabularies. But that was merely a sideshow. Rexwood Dynsth learned that his way with words roused or weakened those who read them. In short, he was persuasive. He wrote a two-word poem to a woman he wooed, and she promptly fell in love with him—a fellow Child who happened to be a healer, like your own love, Annie.
“Rexwood Dynsth was so elated with love that he literally screamed it from the rooftops, and during one unfortunate sonnet howled from a three-story Tudor, he fell. Apparently his feet were not as graceful as his tongue. And without a care or a thought for the crowd who had been drawn by the sonnet, his young love laid her hands on his broken body and whisked him back from the edge of death, fully healed and standing when he should have stood no more.”
“The crowd. They weren’t Children,” I say.
“They were of course stunned and could do no more than stare slack-jawed. But the woman was so beautiful, so kind, they did not fear her power. Quite the opposite. It did not take long before the word of the miracle wended through the world, and the woman was soon mobbed by anguished mothers crying for their ailing sons, fathers shoving their crippled daughters into her arms, husbands bringing even their dead wives to her door. Worshippers sprouted below her windowpanes. Rexwood Dynsth wrote emphatic volumes to persuade the growing crowds to let his love be, but alas, even his great gift was not enough to stem the tide of the desperate masses. But it was not the masses of the ailing that Rexwood feared.”
“Profiteers.”
“After the third kidnapping attempt, Rexwood Dynsth lost his love. She was maimed during the rescue, died quickly thereafter. And as you are aware, healers cannot heal themselves. In death’s wake, Rexwood Dynsth’s fury and grief consumed him. He wrote spiteful letters dipped in such sorrow and despair and hung them on doors in villages. The readers of these letters often died, literally of a broken heart, just as they had broken his. He decided this world did not deserve the power of the Soul. And soon after, he produced the document known as the Restoration Edict, claiming it had been given to him from the Pied Piper himself. An edict in which he declared the Children stewards of the Soul rather than its owners, and that it should be protected, hidden at all costs, and returned when the time is ready for the Soul to be restored. It was written seventy-five years after the Children arrived in Hamelin. And they did not doubt it for a moment. After all, Rexwood Dynsth can be very persuasive.”
“You’re telling me the Restoration Edict was written by a heartbroken poet?”
“I in fact am.”
“How … how do you know?”
“I was there.”
“You were … ”
“I am, as far as I am aware—and I have looked, Horatio—the only immortal ever born.”
I remember my mother telling me that immortality was poss
ible, and I think I know why, even after centuries, Boxrud was never found.
“And the reason they can’t find you is your morphing.”
“No, trackers like your mother do not look upon the physical nature of others to find their true selves. She would have seen right through my skin-deep transformations. Hence the reason she was never allowed near me. No, I was simply an orphan, perhaps the first of the ‘lost Children’ who accidentally found he could not die and stumbled upon a girl who could just as miraculously save lives.”
Boxrud stops his story, points his face into the warm breeze, and smiles.
“I can still remember the relief, hope, and thrill that I was not alone. But I couldn’t get near them. If they weren’t barraged by illness, disease, and broken bones, they were in hiding. I watched the Children of Hamelin, shy as I was, from trees and behind rocks. And when the girl died, I watched Rexwood’s wrath, and I recoiled again. He hated the villagers, of which I was one, remember. And he persuaded other Children to hate them as well. I did not dare to show myself then. When he produced the Edict, the segregation was official.
“Years later, when I had a second emergence as a ‘chameleon’—and you must forgive me for this; remember, I was young and impetuous—posing as his lost love, I persuaded Rexwood Dynsth to admit he mingled the truth with his own sinister motives.”
Wherever Boxrud has been taking me, we seem to have arrived, in front of large redwood double doors with stained glass windows sparkling in the afternoon sun. Not even a day spent with the wizards and I have heard more that makes sense than anything the Children taught me.
“So what is the truth?” I ask, walking through into a darkened room.
“The truth is, Horatio,” Boxrud declares, as four monstrous video screens floating in the center of the stained glass room flash familiar scenes in front of me, “right here, right now. You have a chance to save people you know and love, something no one else can promise you. That is why you came, is it not?”
It’s a live feed from Allen. Empty. Not a living thing wandering or rushing the streets. Just iron cruisers and tanks patrolling this now criminal camp. The screen to my left flashes a shot of a smoldering pile of ash in front of the district hall. The ten thousand rebels. I don’t look too closely, afraid of what I might see. Other images show the abandoned academy and stadium. The Druxleys’ neighborhood. The street where all this began.
All four screens blink and flash and unite to become one, projecting an image that seems to be broadcast from one of the tanks as it drives down a barren neighborhood street. It zooms in on the houses, close enough to see inside the windows where the people of Allen huddle away, waiting for the inevitable. Most are crying, some are praying, others have saved the Synarch the trouble of killing them, or at least not giving them the pleasure. My hands shake. I instinctively look for a chair. There isn’t one. I force my legs to stay strong. But the rest of me bends over, perfectly willing to throw up if it comes to that. This feeling is getting way to common.
“Stop.”
The screens black out immediately.
“What do you want?” I ask the Wizard King.
“I want you to see beyond the moment, Horatio. See Allen’s potential. This world’s potential! See what happens to Allen when you and I join to save them. See a month from now. You know how. You will then know I speak the truth.”
I take a deep breath, block out everything around me, and give myself to my vision. It’s different this time. Instead of a flash, it’s more of a fade. I see a handshake between me and the Wizard King, making me part of their council. I see the battle between an army of wizards, at least five thousand strong, and the Synarch, every detail like in an Escape match where I call the plays and run them to perfection. So well in fact that no one dies, only disarmed or disabled. I see the Synarch surrender in less than a day. I flash forward again and see Boxrud sworn in as New Victoria’s leader. I flash forward another week and see Allen alive and bustling. Kids playing in freshly grown grass—in the early winter—water flowing clean and abundant into their homes and more food than can be eaten served in newly constructed halls.
I see them all alive, cheering me as I address them in the stadium now bursting at the seams with Allen townfolk, telling them the rotten world they knew they will know no longer.
I skip further. Years into the future. The grass still green, the birds still flying. The kids who had been playing in the freshly grown grass are now freshly grown adults. Allen is now a majestic city among the Texas plains. The fear and rage of the Synarch are nothing but a memory. I see thousands of men and women among the streets. I want to see their eyes, clear of terror and pain. But I’m cut off before I can.
“The truth is, Horatio,” says Boxrud, pulling me out of my thoughts, “this is our world now, given to us by fortune and by right. We were meant to embrace it long ago. The power given us was power to help us build it to a great and lasting Arcadia. To protect it and its people. Use it to start anew, free from whatever evil threatened Mira and to ensure it never threatens Earth. Not to use it to build tree houses and caves where we can hide it away.”
“I want to believe you, Mr. Boxrud.”
“But you still have questions.”
Boxrud moves to the other side of the room and skims his hand along a wide bookcase spanning the far wall. He pulls down a large volume bound in green and gold. I have never seen it before, but I know it immediately.
“The Mirastory,” he says, presenting it to me. “Taken from the library of the Children of Hamelin. The original history and instruction from the Pied Piper himself.”
The green, tight binding feels warm to the touch, its pages ancient but not at all delicate. Boxrud opens the book to a page near the beginning. The text is handwritten, presumably in the Piper’s own script, laid out in two narrow columns per page.
“Do you know there isn’t a single Child of Hamelin who knows the Piper’s real name?”
He points toward the bottom of the first column of text. My eyes soak up each word, like parched and dry earth swallows each drop of rain from an opened sky.
Finally. Answers.
One I leave behind. The others I bring from all lands and lead through the 2nd Looking Glass to the Earthlands, far beyond the grasp of the Shadow Clan. Far beyond the travails of Mira. And into a world they can call their own. To protect and care for it. May the Children of Mira fare better than their fathers.
“To call their own.”
“And aid the Earthlands. Earth,” says Boxrud, pressing his finger into the book’s pages. “Here, Horatio. He saved us from Mira’s end and sent us here to begin again. To free it. And call it home.”
I stare at the words, burning them into my mind. I was right. This whole time, I knew. Saving Allen and everywhere else was what I was meant to be doing. I breathe in the smell of the ancient paper and hold it in my lungs until I feel it push against the walls of my chest. I want it to be a part of me. The Piper’s own words declaring that Earth should be the Children’s home. How could the Children of Hamelin get it so wrong?
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
Boxrud smiles and waves his hand. A back door opens, and two wizards lead in Special Agent Farr, grinning from ear to ear.
“So there you are,” he says. “Just like I promised. Found him, brought him back safe and sound.”
Boxrud nods to one of the two wizards. Immediately, the wizard stretches out his hand and shoots a white silken cord from each of his fingertips high into the air. It vaults over a thick black pipe near the high ceiling and down again until it attaches itself to Farr’s right arm.
“What the—”
The wizard shoots silken cords again and again until Farr is strung up from each arm and leg, the final one fastened to the back of his head.
“What is this? Get
me out of here!”
The two wizards pull the cords, lifting Farr about thirty-five feet off the ground.
“Get me down! Get me down! What are you doing?”
Boxrud stands, emotionless, simply watching his attack dog dangle. Finally he nods again, and the two wizards pull and twist the cords, causing Farr’s body to whip and twirl as if he were dancing.
“Boxrud, are you mad?! I’m not the enemy! He is! He is! Gaph, you’re a dead man! You, your family! Everyone you love will be hunted down, and I’ll dig their graves myself! You, too, Boxrud. You’re all dead! You and your freak army! You’ve killed them all, Gaph! You’ve killed them all!”
Another quick nod from Boxrud and the wizards let go of the cord.
“No! NO!”
The cord zips along the thick pipe near the high ceiling. Farr’s body crashes headfirst to the ground, the white silken cords piling up on the now lifeless corpse. I try to breathe, but I can’t open my chest enough. I try to blink, but my eyelids are shocked. I gape at Boxrud for an explanation.
“It is a new beginning, Horatio Gaph. One in which the Synarch puppets have served their purpose and will quickly fall lifeless. If you join us, Allen and the rest of Earth’s people will never have need to fear again.”
He glances back down to the Piper’s words in the Mirastory.
. . . And into a world they can call their own. To protect and care for it. May the Children of Mira fare better than their fathers.
“What say you, Horatio?” Boxrud asks, stepping in front of me. He stretches both hands out, presenting me with a blue-handled sword with an inscription on the broad side of the blade, Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
