He looked down at the oddity, a small sculpture of his grandfather. The statue was about the size of Dominy when he’d entered Aspiria. Memories of Everlen flooded his mind as he stood enraptured. He bent over and stared into the gleam of its marbled eyes. He understood. The masterpiece wasn’t created for the current generation. It symbolized for future generations a responsibility to progress beyond, to become larger than the once-great guardian. The genius of the sculpture resided in its intensity, one Dominy hadn’t been prepared for when he met the real Everlen. It seemed to be reassuring him that Aspiria would be fine as long as its principles were upheld. But Everlen’s figure wasn’t speaking only to him, the person standing here in front of the statue. It faced the entrance of the academy, welcoming all who entered—even outsiders.
Long ago, in the last Grand Debate, Everlen won the guardianship. In a few days, Dominy would debate Sergian in the Grand Debate Hall in front of the entire master population with Aspiria’s future hanging in the balance. He shivered in the hot sun and circled the work, studying every detail of its intricate design. The right arm, its hand extended, its palm facing skyward, gave the appearance of Everlen striving to reach out to the students while his left arm cradled a book. Only one person could have created this sculpture. It was Genna’s tribute to Everlen.
He imagined Sergian’s thought process: allow Genna to exhibit the tiny sculpture and wait for the students’ mocking reaction. And Genna’s thought process was to send him some sort of message.
“Master Dominy, good success.”
“Huh? Oh, yes.” Dominy didn’t look up. Stay in the moment. His head snapped alert to reconsider the comment. The voice, young and strong, rang slightly familiar. “Good success? Yes, thank you. Who’re you?”
“We met at your cell door a while ago. Philiam’s the name. I wanted to meet you. I tried to ask you a MetaMath question, and…” The boy’s calm voice was a sharp contrast to his twitching limbs.
“Speak freely.”
“Well, you were rude. I ascended, and you weren’t even a master. We made eye contact, but you kept looking at your notepad, and, you don’t remember any of this, do you?”
A warm breeze billowed the canopies over in Sector Three. Dominy shook his head.
Philiam jumped up on one of the benches. “And I gazed high over your head.” The boy exaggerated the motion.
“Maybe that was the problem.”
“Master?”
Dominy smiled. “Maybe I thought you were looking for an eagle—and I was barely more than a worm.”
The boy scrunched his eyebrows and jumped down.
“Garin. It’s a parable told by my master.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. To prepare for him. You see, I’ve been assigned to Garin.” Philiam, the young First, smiled broadly—another rare sight.
“Ah, you’re fortunate. Come by my study after the Debate and we can talk—if you’re still interested.” If I’m still here. I must win. But he needed to win, not for himself or even for the outsiders. Nalton was right. They had a responsibility to save the Meritocracy for future generations. He must win for all of the Philiams.
The boy shook his arms, glanced at his timepiece, and smiled. “I’m not sure I’ll have the time.”
“Let me ask you another way.” Dominy ascended. “May I spend time with you?”
“Yes, thank you, Master.” The boy started to go. “Oh, anything I can help you with?”
Dominy did a double take. “Pardon?”
“With the Debate.”
Dominy eyed the small boy and swallowed the beginnings of laughter. Truth knows no age. “Ah, yes, study the Grand Debate transcripts, I wish to hear your critique following the proceedings.”
Philiam nodded. “Uh, Master?”
Knots of students gathered nearby, murmuring, pointing at Dominy.
“Yes?”
“Well, a couple of us Firsts figured out what’s going on. Sure, we’ll know the outcome of the GD soon enough. But we wanted to tell you—whatever happens to you—we’ll always be grateful.” He turned to go.
An unbearable burden weighed on Dominy. “Philiam, thank you.”
The boy left and Dominy stepped back from the statue, taking in its beauty a final time before the Debate. From that distance, something about the statue looked familiar. Even though it represented a young Everlen, something about it was identical to when he and Genna had seen the guardian in the wheelchair. He shut his eyes, recreating the scene. Everlen was pointing with one hand and, with the other, cradling an old book—just like Genna’s statue. Dominy raced over to the sculpture, dropped to a knee, and read the cover of the marble book. Squinting, he read the tiny inscription, A New Philosophical Treatise? He thought he’d read everything authored by the guardian. He tapped his notepad and input the title and author: “A New Philosophical Treatise, Everlen.”
An instant later, the response came: “Media Vault.”
Genna must have noted the obscure title and did the same database search he had. That must be her clue for him to search Everlen’s treatise. He reexamined the book, rubbing his fingers along its width. It wasn’t a book but more like a … a pamphlet.
Dominy flung open the heavy wooden doors, burst into the main room of Artemas and greeted Garin. “We’ll have to take the stairs to the back entrance. The elevator to the Media Vault’s not operating.” Everlen’s A New Philosophical Treatise had to be the pamphlet referenced by the footnote in the Lucean document. “Talia already down there?” He wanted both of their help to analyze the treatise. Maybe his former masters would gain new perspective in the basement, not an eagle’s but a worm’s.
Garin dropped his chin. “She’s in the infirmary.”
“Is she okay? What happened?”
“Don’t know. They won’t let anyone talk to her now. I have a meeting scheduled with Sergian.” Garin shook his head. “I thought she felt better, researching and studying more than she had in a long time, since the mission. I guess the stress of failure was worse than we expected. I try to imagine her feelings of devastation—the first complete failure of a Conflict Resolution Mission in Aspirian history. For Talia, that was an inconceivable outcome.”
Dominy fingered the collar of his new red robe. “She’ll be back soon.”
“They did say she’s improved.”
Dominy led Garin down the stairs. Dominy took a few steps and turned. His former master moved easily down the nineteen stairs. Garin didn’t even have to twist his body in the narrow staircase. Once through the door, Dominy cringed. While everything—books, documents, even the makeshift table—had been returned, the room seemed more depressing than ever. “There aren’t any flowers growing here.”
They ran to the basement’s south wall and through the partition door. The micro-blinds disappeared, revealing the glass room. The two masters jumped back. Armbands lined the inside perimeter of the vault. Dominy peered into a retina scanner and yanked the door. It didn’t budge. “No! Open up!”
Garin stepped forward and tried. Still nothing.
Dominy pounded on the glass. The Armbands stood frozen, staring straight ahead. “Now what?” Garin just shook his head.
They walked away from the vault. Dominy sat at the makeshift table. “Do you recall anything at all about Sergian’s research in the undeveloped area?”
Garin leaned against a bookshelf and closed his eyes. His eyes widened. “He once bragged about something regarding the Games of the ancient Academics.” He shrugged. “I never heard another word about it.”
Cupping his chin, Dominy pressed his elbows down on the wobbly table in contemplation. He tightly wadded up two blank pieces of writing paper in the crude form of cubes and rolled them along the surface, trying to imagine Aspirians playing games like Luce’s Cubes. The paper cubes bounced along and rolled off the lopsided table. Dominy bent over to prop up the table’s shorter support. “Could you hand me one those big books?”
Garin handed him the b
iggest one he could find, an art book. Its great size reminded Dominy of the book of portraits. He had almost forgotten about that old book of so-called art. He mentally flicked through the images. Something teased at his memory. He scrunched his eyes and remembered that he’d examined only one portrait closely and something wasn’t quite right. That face, it was taut, the chin and neck, defined—like Garin. He sprang up and stared at his former master.
Dominy yanked out every old portrait book he could find, flipping through page after page, book after book. Not one or several masters, but almost all had that similar look. The Academics must have engaged in other activities beyond Luce’s Cubes. They all resembled Garin’s physical appearance—trim and muscular. “Maybe the Academics walked.” Dominy dropped the last book, its great weight thudded on the floor, and he raced for the stairs.
“Where’re you going?” Garin demanded.
I think I figured out what Sergian was researching and hiding. “At the intellectual capital of the galaxy, I think they all walked.” Dominy shouted back. “For pleasure.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Ancient Aspirians, the Academics, during the time of Lucean, played games of chance and walked for pleasure. “Why, why, why?” The word followed him as he snaked up Starry Mountain.
He reached the summit and peered down. He surveyed with fresh eyes the Retreat grounds and the monolith where Sergian had researched. Dominy’s gaze flicked back in a double-take at the meadow and his eyes blinked in recognition. He squinted in the bright sunlight, focusing. Stepping back, he released the tension in his eyes.
“Yes, I see something.” It was like a child’s puzzle in which an image popped out, but only if one adjusted their perspective. A faint outline appeared in the meadow. The outline came around to itself in the form of an oval. It was the extra-wide path he’d explored on his Retreat.
He scrambled down the mountain and raced to the meadow. After retracing his steps to the Retreat site, he spotted the campfire and searched north, locating the forsaken path, the oval outline he’d seen from atop Starry Mountain. He gathered bundles of long, slender branches and, as he followed the trail of beaten-down weeds, he planted the branches upright in the water-starved, pitted dirt at twenty-step intervals. On top of each branch, he skewered a fallen tree leaf. He climbed the largest boulder in the area and scanned his skyward-pointing pennants. The elliptical trail formed an oval, an Aspirian path leading to … nowhere.
He hopped down from his rock perch, yanked out the nearest stick and drew a picture of the oval in the dirt. He raced back to the campsite, and with his head bowed in contemplation, he came upon the fire pit. He stopped, stirred the powdered ashes with his stick and uncovered a piece of unburned wood about the size of his palm. Strange. Why hadn’t it burned? He remembered his Retreat fire and how it had stunk and thrown off odd colors. Was this wood chemically treated? Aspiria had once built structures out of wood. Artemas, the only surviving wooden building, had been constructed around ten generations ago.
Dominy dashed over to where he’d found the fallen pine while on Retreat. At the time, it had been dark, and he scooped everything—wood and dirt—into his robe. He had probably scooped up the milled wood then. He clawed through the desiccated wood, scraping away dirt clods, and found two more chunks of the special wood. Definitely Aspirian made. Judging by the significant surface cracking, they must have been old. But based on the wood’s discoloration, they also appeared chemically treated, perhaps with a copper compound.
He searched for more clues and found several other pieces strewn far afield in different directions. If his hypothesis was correct, he’d discover stouter support pieces nearer the center, closer together. Scouring through the underbrush, he narrowed his search circle and began digging. He found several of the thicker pieces and, sifting through the dirt, he discovered six old metal trinkets, thin and round and with engraved tiny script. Lucean’s name was on two of the trinkets. He carefully marked the location of each find for later analysis and fell back into a bed of leaves, exhausted.
No time to rest. He stood, shook off the leaves adhering to his sticky skin, and examined the locations of his finds. These had to be the remnants of a wooden seating structure in ruins, obscured by generations of aging. He gathered larger fallen tree branches and constructed a partial semblance of his imagined seating structure at the edge of the marked-off oval.
A shiver shot through his body, the same sensation he experienced during pregame MetaMath contests. The memory of the stadium’s odors assaulted his nostrils out here, even in the open air. He squinted, trying to blur his vision in front of him to match the image in his mind. Stadium seating. Perhaps it was Lucean’s stadium. He imagined MetaMath contested here, possibly an earlier, outdoor version. He checked his timepiece, remounted the huge boulder and waited.
A glint of the sun’s rays reflected off the shiny object in the distance. Seconds later, the mirrored monolith was ablaze in reflected light. The light emanated from a point in the center of the oval. The heart of ancient Aspiria! This outdoor stadium—the focal point of Aspiria during Lucean’s reforms—was part of the recent past, right before the time Artemas was constructed.
Dominy cleared more of the foliage from the path and stood in the long, straight section of the oval across from his makeshift spectator stands and imagined the Academics competing in front of factional supporters. They all walked for pleasure? No. It resembled nothing like an outdoor MetaMath stadium. The Academics—under Lucean, their competitions amounted to footraces! He collapsed to his haunches and pounded the dirt with his fists.
The connection with Lucean was obvious. In footraces—as in games of chance—reason and logic were not needed. He imagined Lucean, like Sergian, slowly and methodically taking control of Aspiria’s leadership and reforming Aspiria until it was no longer recognizable. He pulled the trinkets from his pocket. These had to be winners’ awards but not for academic achievement. For footraces.
Dominy led Garin across the meadow. “I’ve named it Lucean’s Field. My hypothesis is that this was where Sergian researched. Dominy explained how he’d uncovered the evidence of a structure and the discovery of the trinkets.
Garin spread his palms. “And what is it?”
“Over here.” Dominy tugged Garin’s arm and led him to the path. They stood in front of the crude seating structure and an image flashed into Dominy’s mind: himself in the Grand Debate Hall, about to take on Sergian. His teeth chattered in the scorching heat. Even with the thesis about Lucean, he wasn’t sure how to use it in the Debate. And he’d have no help from Talia.
Dominy carved a starting line in the dirt with the edge of his sandal. “Here, place your toe on this line like I’m doing.”
“But why—”
“Ready?”
“We don’t have time for this—”
“Go!” Dominy sprang forward, sprinting down the path. After several steps, he swiveled his head around. Garin stood planted at the line, dumbstruck. “Garin, you still remember the definition of competition, don’t you?” At the first curve, his footfalls crunched on dry pine needles where he hadn’t yet cleared the path. He labored and slowed his pace until his footsteps fell into rhythm with his breathing. Exiting the turn, he heard thumping coming from behind, louder and at a faster rhythm. I’m getting caught. He willed himself to go faster, but his body refused the command. The thumping grew louder.
The two raced shoulder to shoulder. Dominy’s head wavered. He shot a glance at Garin in amazement. His old master glided effortlessly. Dominy inhaled but without benefit. His lungs burned. His chin sank to his chest, his shoulders slumped, and his hands flailed around his knees.
He and Garin entered the second curve. A pebble between his sandal and foot bit into his flesh. Sweat beaded his face. A drop fell from his nose, then another. He licked the salt from above his lip. His tongue swelled, filling his mouth. He kept going despite—or because of—the agony, despite the pleas from his mind to stop. With
his muscles throbbing and his lungs burning, he stopped short and collapsed, inhaling the smell of decaying leaves.
Garin flicked a glance over his shoulder, his face lit with excitement. “A first!”
What? Dominy could only mouth the word.
Garin completed the loop and yelled to Dominy, “A first for you. You quit.”
After hearing those words, coming from Garin of all people, Dominy rose to his feet and brushed his robe off. He hobbled ahead at a pace slightly faster than a walk. His throat tightened with panic, the same helplessness he experienced underwater at Falling River. This must have been how the Luceans felt when they played games of chance. Dominy crossed the line and dropped to his knees.
Garin reached out a hand. “Are you okay?”
Dominy, his breathing still labored, rose and looked back at the oval. “An odd sense of accomplishment.”
“You sound like my teapot when the water comes to a boil.” Garin seemed unaffected by the exertion. Impossibly, his old master appeared more alive now.
Dominy kicked a dirt clod. “How’d you do it?”
“I guess from my walks. The more I take, the easier it becomes—almost natural.”
Dominy imagined students lined up on the track, shoulder against shoulder, the stands crammed with cheering spectators. They must have trained, trained to run.
Garin started to leave, looking as though he was the one who couldn’t waste time on this nonsense. “Your Grand Debate preparation, remember?”
“Dominy! Master Garin!”
“Cal, Nalton!” Their robes were splotched with sweat. Dominy’s mouth ovaled at the sight of his oldest friend. Nalton’s eyes were yellow, his cheeks sallow. His wrists and ankles were now brittle-thin. His conditioned had worsened.
“We broke away. Quadtime.” Nalton raised a crutch, a ghastly yellow color, a pigment that would never be found in nature. “I didn’t pick the color. And I refuse to use a wheelchair. But even with this, it took me a long time to get here.”
Aspiria Rising Page 20
