The Marus Manuscripts

by Paul McCusker

  Anna’s heart ached, as if somehow she shared in the pain and disappointment the Unseen One felt at that moment, like a father who had to punish a rebellious child. “The king will suffer the full consequences of his faithlessness.”

  The baron let the subject drop. Then, as if he’d just remembered something else, he said, “You have a brother. Where is he? Did he go with Darien?”

  “No,” Anna said, her eyes starting to burn. “He is with the king.”

  The baron lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, dear. What will happen to him?”

  “He will go home.”

  The battle against the Palatians was a catastrophe from the start. King Lawrence ignored his generals’ advice to spread his battalions out over strategic areas to the south, west, and north of Kellen. He thought they would be more effective as one solid army, concentrating on the Palatian troops to the west. This allowed the Palatians to circle from the south and southwest, while the Monrovians and Adrians circled in from the north and northwest. Prince Edwin of Gotthard hastily assembled his army and cut off part of the Monrovian and Adrian forces, but it wasn’t enough.

  King Lawrence found himself outflanked and outmaneuvered in the Valley of the Rocks. Where he had once trapped General Darien, he was now himself trapped. The Palatians bombarded the king and his soldiers with cannon fire, then moved in for hand-to-hand combat.

  Kyle witnessed it all firsthand. The king would not let Kyle out of his sight after they left Anastasia’s shack. “You’re my lucky charm,” he said over and over.

  Kyle explained in despair that he wasn’t anyone’s lucky charm. “I’m just a kid,” he insisted.

  “You protected General Darien,” the king said. “You’ll protect me.”

  “I can’t,” Kyle pleaded. But his words had no effect. The king dressed Kyle as one of his attendants and insisted that the boy stay nearby wherever he went. That included the battle against the Palatians.

  The Palatians broke through the front lines of the Marutian army and aggressively made their way along the edges of the Valley of the Rocks toward the Royal Guards—those who were committed to protecting the king. The Royal Guards fell quickly at the hands of the Palatians. The king’s sons, including Prince George, rushed to counterattack. Kyle saw the Palatians strike them down.

  King Lawrence watched from his hiding place, his sword drawn. “Tell me what to do!” he commanded Kyle.

  “I don’t know!” Kyle cried.

  The king grabbed him. “Then we’ll run.”

  Blindly, they stumbled through the passages and crevices of the rocks, the roar of cannons and gunfire in their ears. No matter how far they went, however, the Palatians’ shouts seemed close behind. Somehow they wound up at the very cave that Darien had found months before. It seemed like such a long time ago, Kyle thought.

  “Maybe they won’t find us here,” the king said breathlessly, panic in his eyes.

  Kyle fell to the floor of the cave. It was muddy and cold. “Help me!” he prayed to the Unseen One. “I don’t deserve it, but please help me.”

  The Palatians were coming. Kyle could hear their voices echoing in the rocks around the cave.

  “Tell me,” the king said to Kyle, “are we safe here?”

  Kyle shook his head and began to cry. “I don’t know!” he said.

  The king slapped him. “Prophesy for me! You’re supposed to be my protector! Tell me your dreams!”

  Kyle put his face in his hands.

  The Palatians weren’t far from the mouth of the cave now. Kyle felt sick to his stomach, but it wasn’t a warning. He knew they were doomed.

  The king looked around, wild-eyed. “They can’t capture me!” he shouted. “They’ll humiliate me—torture me. I can’t be captured!” He thrust his sword handle at Kyle. “As soon as they arrive, you have to kill me.”

  “No!” Kyle said, pushing the handle away. “I won’t.”

  “You have to!” King Lawrence demanded.

  Kyle refused.

  Just then, a Palatian soldier appeared at the mouth of the cave. King Lawrence drew his pistol and shot him. Kyle scrambled behind a nearby rock for cover.

  “You won’t have me!” the king shouted to the Palatians. He followed Kyle and begged, “Please, take my life! Don’t let me die in dishonor!”

  Kyle looked helplessly at the king. “No. I can’t!”

  The king leaned against the cave wall, looking like a puppet that someone had casually thrown there. “This is the end,” he said mournfully. “Oh, that it should come to this!” A tear slid down his face. “This is what it’s like to die as a coward, without faith. May the Unseen One forgive me.” He lifted the pistol and put it to the side of his head.

  Kyle realized too late what was about to happen. He turned away as the king pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast exploded through the cave.

  Kyle didn’t remember much after that. He crawled away from the king on his hands and knees, the mud on the cave floor sticking to him like tar. His body convulsed from his sobs. With little strength left, he got to his feet. The Palatians were in the cave now. One raised the butt of his rifle and brought it crashing down on Kyle’s back. The pain shot through his body and he thought, This is what it’s like to die as a coward. Without faith. His mind was filled with images of pirates and adventure, of abandoned houses and a room with whispering voices, of guardian angels and being chosen by the Unseen One. I was going to be a hero, he thought. But I didn’t have patience. I didn’t have faith.

  He closed his eyes as stars spun in his head. For a moment he thought he saw Anna peering at him through a hole in a ceiling.

  Anna didn’t tell Baron Orkzy what Darien had decided because she didn’t want to spoil the element of surprise. She feared that the baron might blab to the Adrians that Darien was coming back to rescue them. As it turned out, the baron had bribed one of the guards and departed long before Darien’s return.

  Darien and his army didn’t approach Lizah by the normal route. They circled around the south of the town, to the west, and caught the Adrian soldiers completely unawares. Darien’s attack was swift and merciless. The Adrians who managed to escape told of the “mad Marutian general” for years to come. Others called it “Darien’s Fury.”

  Darien never forgave the Adrians for the deception that took him away from the king in his hour of need.

  Anna was still sitting in the red, velvet chair in the lobby of the Lizah Hotel when Darien and a handful of men burst in. The hostages cheered him. He ignored them and went straight to Anna. He knelt in front of her, his face dripping with sweat, his eyes a picture of worry.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “The king is dead,” she said in a voice that seemed far, far away.

  Darien lowered his head. When he looked up again, the sweat had been replaced with tears. They traced lines through the dust on his cheeks.

  Colonel Oliver suddenly joined them. “General, we just heard on the shortwave,” he said. “Our armies were defeated. Prince George was fatally wounded . . . and the king has been killed.”

  Somewhere in the room, a shout of joy went up.

  Darien leaped to his feet and furiously cried out, “No! Be quiet, all of you! There’ll be no joy. We’ll have no celebration. The king—God’s chosen—is dead. Let there be mourning and lamentation. Our king is dead.”

  The crowd was silenced, and the people slowly made their way out of the hotel.

  “We must go to Sarum,” Colonel Oliver said softly to Darien. “The nation needs your leadership now.”

  Darien looked at Anna. “Is it true?” he asked.

  Anna nodded. “You are the king now.”

  “Will we be victorious over the Palatians?”

  “You will, but at a great cost.”

  Darien gazed at her for a moment. “You’re not going back to Sarum with me, are you?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I’m going to find Kyle.”

  Darien didn’t understand. He couldn’t h
ave. But he accepted it anyway. Kneeling again, he kissed her hand. “May the Unseen One allow us to meet again,” he said softly.

  She smiled at him. She hoped He would.

  Darien and Colonel Oliver strode quickly from the hotel. Anna was alone. She felt a heaviness in her heart that seemed to weigh down her feet as well. She stood and walked sluggishly up the stairs to her room. She wasn’t sure what she would find there, but she felt compelled to go.

  Opening the door to her room, she saw that it was different. “Oh,” she said. The furniture and carpets were gone, replaced by broken boards, peeling wallpaper, and dirt. A white light flashed, grew in intensity, and seemed to swallow her up.

  Anna was on her hands and knees in the bedroom at the abandoned house back home. Somewhere, someone was groaning. She followed the sound to the door. Careful to avoid the section of the floor that had collapsed, she peeked through a large hole to the floor below. Kyle was lying there on his back. He was wearing his normal clothes. He moved his head slightly and groaned some more.

  “Kyle!” she called out.

  He didn’t answer.

  Anna navigated the upstairs hallway back to the stairs. She took them two at a time, then raced into the room where Kyle still lay, semiconscious from the fall.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll get help.”

  The little sister who had seemed to hate adventure and screamed at bugs ran with all her might back through the woods. How she found her way to her grandparents, she didn’t know, but she did.

  “What in the world . . . ?” her grandmother asked when Anna burst through the back door into the kitchen.

  “In the woods—” Anna gasped, her breathlessness getting in the way of her words.

  Her grandmother shook her head. “Calm down, child,” she said. “Take a deep breath while I get you some lemonade.”

  “But Grandma—”

  “I knew going to those woods was a bad idea,” Grandma said as she started to pour a glass of lemonade. “I figured you were gone an awful long time. Two hours was long enough, but when it got to be three, well . . .” She tsked with her tongue.

  “Three hours?” Anna said, shocked. “But we’ve been gone for months and months!”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Grandma scolded. “Now, where’s your brother?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Anna cried out. “He’s hurt!”

  Grandma nearly dropped the pitcher of lemonade. Then, quickly regaining her composure, she shouted for Anna’s grandfather to come quickly. Anna told them both about Kyle’s fall. Grandma called an ambulance while Anna and Grandpa retraced Anna’s steps to the abandoned house.

  Kyle was kept in the hospital overnight. His back was bruised, and the doctors were worried that he might have fractured a rib in the fall. More than that, though, they wanted to be certain he didn’t have a concussion. He seemed delirious when the ambulance brought him in. He kept talking about Darien, King Lawrence, and “a protector.”

  That evening, Anna sat alone with Kyle in his room. They didn’t speak at first but seemed to scrutinize the room as if they’d never seen anything like it before. The silver metal on the bed frame above his head reflected the room in distorted shapes. The sheets on the bed were crisp and clean and smelled of detergent. A radio on the bedside table played a song by Doris Day. This was America. It was 1958.

  He looked into her eyes. “They aren’t different colors anymore,” he finally said.

  “I know.”

  “Was it a dream?” he asked.

  Anna shrugged. “It seems like it now.”

  He looked away from her, and Anna thought he might cry. “I failed,” he said miserably. “I stopped believing. I should’ve listened to you and waited.”

  Anna put her hand on his arm.

  “I liked being a big shot,” he said. “But I forgot who made me what I was.”

  A slight smile crossed Anna’s face. Her brother seemed bigger, much older somehow.

  He faced her again. “Are we still chosen?” he asked. “I mean, does it work that way here?”

  Her gaze moved upward to a symbol above the bed—a cross. “Yeah,” she said. “The Unseen One is here. We’re chosen.”

  “But . . . for what?”

  Anna shrugged. “That’s what we’re going to have to figure out. We were chosen for one thing in Marus. Maybe we’re chosen for something else here.”

  They sat quietly together and thought about it until the nurse said it was time for lights out.

  That night, Anna slept without dreams.

  MARUS MANUSCRIPT 2

  THE CHRONICLES OF THE DESTROYED

  ARIN’S JUDGMENT

  Manuscript date: September 18, 1945

  A punch to the stomach sent Wade Mullens doubled over to the ground. Black spots pulsated before his eyes, and he barely heard Steve Calloway mutter, “Kraut-loving freak!” before he walked away.

  Bobby Adams rushed up to Wade. “Are you all right?” he asked. His voice seemed miles away.

  “I . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .” Wade croaked.

  “Stay calm,” Bobby said. “Relax.”

  Wade rolled around on the ground, gasping like a fish out of water. After a few minutes, the air came back to him and he sat up.

  Bobby knelt next to him. “Oh, boy, you’re going to have a shiner,” he announced.

  Wade gently touched his left eye where Steve had punched him right before the decisive blow to his stomach. He could feel the eye swelling up.

  “Can you stand up?” Bobby asked.

  Wade nodded. Clasping hands with Bobby, he was tugged to his feet. His legs were wobbly.

  “Where are my books?” Wade asked.

  “All over the place,” Bobby replied. Silently the two boys retrieved Wade’s books, which had been littered around the school yard by Steve and his gang.

  Bobby, a stout boy of 11 with curly brown hair, grunted at the exertion of bending over for the books and bits of paper.

  Wade dusted the dirt from his blond hair and checked his clothes. A black eye was bad enough, but if he’d torn his trousers or shirt, his mother would have a fit. Apart from smudges of grass and mud, however, they seemed to be all right.

  Bobby shook his head. “You shouldn’t have said it. How many times did I tell you not to say it?”

  Wade shrugged. “I was just stating a fact.”

  “Fact or not, you can’t go around talking about German airplanes as if you like them,” Bobby said.

  “All I said was that the Messerschmitt has a sleek design. What’s so bad about that?”

  “And you said that the German Me-262 has turbojet power and beats anything we’ve invented.”

  “It’s true. It has a top speed of 540 miles per hour, and that’s a lot faster than—”

  “You don’t have to tell me! I’m the one who first told you about the Me-262, remember? But Steve’s dad was at Omaha Beach on D-Day! You can’t talk to people like Steve about the Germans unless it’s something you hate about them. Otherwise you sound like a traitor.”

  “I’m not a traitor. Steve’s dad came home after the Germans surrendered. My dad is still—” Wade stopped, unable to continue. America had just dropped two atomic bombs on Japan a month before, and the Japanese had surrendered, but Wade and his mother still hadn’t heard anything about his father. He’d been missing somewhere in the South Pacific for several weeks.

  “You know that and I know that, but Steve doesn’t know.” Bobby handed him a sheet of paper he’d picked up from the ground. It was a picture Wade had drawn of the B-29 Superfortress, number 77. Bockscar, it was called. It had carried the second A-bomb to Japan.

  In Wade’s picture, the plane flew through clear skies. Somewhere below lay the great shipping center called Nagasaki, represented by a distant shoreline and dots depicting buildings. There were no people in Wade’s picture because, like most Americans, he didn’t want to think about the thousands who’d died fro
m the two bombs. But, also like most Americans, he was glad that the force of those bombs, equivalent to 20,000 to 40,000 tons of TNT, had persuaded the Japanese to surrender. Now maybe they’d find his dad and let him come home.

  Wade took a moment to assemble his textbooks so he could carry them home. Jammed between the books were comic books about space travel and war, a science-fiction novel, and one of the academic journals lent to him by Mr. Curfew, his neighbor. He’d brought that in for show-and-tell, and to tell the class about the various weapons of war. He had told them about the B-17G, the “Flying Fortress Bomber,” which was able to carry more than 6,000 tons of bombs over 2,000 miles. He’d also described the Hawker Tempest Mark V, with its ability to go faster than 400 miles per hour; it was one of the few Allied planes that could catch and destroy the German “buzz bombs” (the V-1 jet-powered bombs). Then he’d mentioned the superiority of the Messerschmitt’s design and the Me-262’s speed. This last part had guaranteed his afternoon fight with Steve Calloway.

  Wade had tried to explain to Steve that he didn’t like the war or the Germans, but that didn’t stop him from learning about the machines and weapons they’d used in the war. Steve wouldn’t hear it, and the fists had begun to fly.

  “Remember Pearl Harbor!” Steve had proclaimed when he hit Wade in the eye. “Remember the death march on Bataan!” he had then shouted before hitting Wade in the stomach.

  Wade and Bobby made their way toward home.

  “Do you want to stop by my house to clean up?” Bobby asked.

  Wade nodded.

  “Good, because there’s something I want to show you.”

  Bobby’s mother worked afternoons at the downtown Hudson’s Drug Store, so the two boys could move around the house without adult supervision. Wade gave himself a quick wash in the bathroom while Bobby’s seven-year-old sister kept asking why Wade’s eye was so puffed up. It looks bad, all right, Wade thought as he inspected it in the mirror. It was already taking on the telltale tones of blue, black, and yellow.