by B. Roman
Resentment and pain form a heavy veil across Bianca's face, but she steels her voice to go on. “My sister was put in the position of having to help launch an attack on a group of city council members who were meeting in the church one evening to come up with a counter plan to save the city.
“To make a long story short, there was a confrontation, a violent one. Falana was killed by the guards as she and a group of snipers approached the church. All but one member of the council was brutally murdered.”
Bianca rests her head in her hands, weary from the tormenting memories. She shakes her head and whispers, “She was just a child, really. What did she know about such things?”
With these words, a memory sparks in David's mind with eerie familiarity. “She was just a kid. What did she know about any of this!” his mother used to rant about her own sister, shot to death at age 19 by armed guards firing on a group of student anti-war protesters. She was caught in the fray, not even a part of the protest, just one of the frightened kids running from the chaos. It was this tragedy that led Billie to become a pacifist.
David wondered if seeing her sister killed is what made Bianca such an avid protector of the peace in Coronadus.
“Yes. That and many other things.” Bianca expels a heavy breath of fatigue, then inhales deeply to energize herself. “Sokar is, indeed, a sad child from the loss of his mother. But it was different for you, wasn't it? Your mother didn't die the same way.”
“No. It was an accident.”
Bianca segues back into her philosophical persona. “I've learned nothing is an accident. In fact, we choose many of our own life and death experiences to learn some particular lesson of the soul.”
David grimaces, not quite wanting to apply that philosophy to his mother, and remembering that he himself accused her of not wanting to live, as though it had been her choice. Is that the same thing?
But in response to Bianca he scoffs, “That's weird. Why would somebody choose something bad to happen to them?”
“For the same reason you chose your deafness,” Bianca says, not unkindly.
“No, I didn't. I got sick when I was seven and lost my hearing.”
“You made that choice long before you were born, so you have no conscious awareness of it.”
David frowns. “But why would I?”
“So that you could hear in silence what you could not hear surrounded by sound - the cry in the wind, the music in the ocean tide, the song in your heart - all of them messages from other worlds deep in your consciousness.”
David smiles and rolls his eyes. “Now you sound like Ishtar.”
“He had a profound effect on me, that's a fact.” Bianca's eyes beam at the thought of her husband then are clouded over with the sadness of separation from him.
A delayed reaction to one of Bianca's statements stirs up a curiosity in David. “You said everyone on the city council was murdered except one. How could one person survive such an attack? Who was it?”
Surprisingly, Bianca's answer is needling and almost sharp. “As always, you are a bundle of questions, David Nickerson. Enough of this. Now we must get back to the problem at hand. Finding the Singer.”
Her brusque evasiveness is so obvious that David knows he has struck a very sensitive nerve, which makes him even more curious. Another Coronadus mystery that he determines he must solve before he leaves. If he is ever able to leave.
David follows Bianca into the living room to enlist the aid of Maati and Sokar in looking for the crystal. It has to be somewhere in the house. But where?
Maati comes home, prancing into the living room, invigorated after a late day swim in the cool ocean. Maati is less intense than her brother, and more inclined to go with the moment, especially a moment of pleasure. Relieved to see her, Bianca embraces her niece briefly, then explains that she needs her help to find the Singer.
“Tell me, Maati, can you recall seeing or hearing anything strange last night?”
“No, Bianca. I slept like a rock. Sokar had to wake me up this morning to get ready for the Council meeting. How could the Singer just disappear, Bianca?”
“That's what we're trying to figure out. Until we do, we will search every inch of this place and every blade of grass outside. By the way, where is your brother?”
Maati shrugs with indifference. “I don't know. I haven't seen him since just after the debate. I asked him if he wanted to go to the beach with me and he said he had something else to do.”
“What could he have to do –” Bianca's head turns sharply toward something that causes her to hesitate. “What's that?”
Maati and David look at each other, befuddled. “What's what?” Maati asks.
“That sound. Did you hear it?”
“No.” Maati eyes David questioningly.
“I didn't hear anything either,” David says.
Bianca's hand goes up as if their silence will conjure up the noise once again. “There. There it goes again.” Bianca moves with haste toward her office. Maati and David follow on her heels. The unidentifiable sound grows louder. Bianca throws open the office door and stands frozen in the doorway, aghast. “Oh, my God!”
Sixteen
“Holy cow! What's happening?” David's eyes are big as saucers. Maati stifles a scream and clings to her aunt's arm.
The three of them, stunned speechless, stare in amazement at the sight before them, at the din of eerie noises that make their skin prickle with disbelief. Sounds not heard in years, almost forgotten, are now audible as everything in the office that had lay dormant comes alive in a chorus of inharmonious song.
Movement, long a hopeless possibility, now activates each machine, as if rising from the dead. A phone, dusty from abandonment, rings in a bizarre rhythm of restoration. A typewriter print cartridge moves back and forth, dinging at the end of each pass along the carriage. The drum of a mimeograph machine turns round and round spewing ink repeatedly on a tattered stencil, printing the same page over and over again.
And a breeze, unfelt for far too long, sends paper fluttering in the air as the table-top fan oscillates back and forth in a jerky cadence.
“Oh, wow, Bianca. This is great. Unbelievably great!” David's enthusiasm is quashed by the look on Bianca's face, a mixture of horror and despair. “Isn't it?” David adds uncertainly.
“What does it mean, Bianca?” Maati asks timidly, her voice quavering.
“It means the end is near,” Bianca says quietly, at last finding her voice. At this, Maati begins to cry. Bianca shushes her niece maternally, then draws herself up formidably and heads back to the living room.
“I know this is all crazy, Bianca, but why are you so upset? Doesn't this mean that some energy field has been restored in Coronadus?”
“Why am I so upset?” Bianca nearly yells at him. “Think, David, think. What could have restored this energy field? Only one thing. And God only knows who has it now and what he will do with it.”
“You mean - you mean the Singer?” David slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. “How stupid of me. Holy cow. It means someone has found the Singer and is going around activating things. And - wait! Why didn't we think of this. Maybe the Singer is in your office. It must be if all the machinery is working.”
“If only that were true. But something tells me that my office machines are not the only things that have suddenly come alive in Coronadus.”
With those insightful words, a car horn begins to blow. The grinding of an engine trying to turn over and the flashing of headlights cause Bianca, Maati and David to rush outside where the blue touring car is parked. The beautiful automobile strains to re-acquire its full power, every piston and spark plug trying valiantly to fire up, ready to drive but with nowhere to go.
Then voices, frantic and fearful, people rushing up and down the street chasing after lawn mowers, dodging automatic garage doors, yelling for each other to come and see what has just happened in their own homes. Lights, refrigerators, stoves, anything that has a co
rd or a conduit of power; anything that cools, heats, cuts, sews, illuminates, communicates; anything that has a motor or a moving part that hasn't moved in years is now in motion as though it has a mind of its own, like something out of a futuristic horror movie.
Block after block, the pandemonium spreads. Amazingly, the people of Coronadus had never disconnected their utilities and appliances after they lost their power source years ago. Even in Bianca's house, as David has witnessed, there are electrical appliances, a car, an office filled with machinery. Yet she eschewed anything modern or technological. Bianca coveted the natural way of living that Coronadus was relegated to and firmly believed everyone else did, as well. Obviously she was wrong.
Those vital instruments of every day use in home, office, store, restaurant, were left plugged in and at the ready for that fateful day when they would be rejuvenated, resurrected, as a sign that a universal shift had taken place. David's memory flashes back to the Emporium, where no money ever changes hands, but an electronic cash register sits closed and quiet on the counter where he had discovered the Wind Rose compass.
Shivering with the weirdness of it all David thinks to himself, It's all like something out of the Twilight Zone.
Soon people are rushing to the town square, awestruck as neon and incandescent bulbs flash in a kaleidoscopic dance of life in every storefront and every street lamp, anywhere electric light had been installed before the war on Coronadus. The city is ablaze with light, as though birthing a new universe. The vision is almost more than the eye can bear without dark glasses, but the townspeople don't care. No longer afraid, they are caught up in the frenzy of electrifying excitement, once again realizing the potential for unlimited material rewards that can come from the revitalization of their city.
What they do not as yet comprehend is how and why it happened, and what the consequences will be.
“This is more than just someone using the Singer to activate a few machines and appliances,” Bianca says with foreboding.
“I'll say. It looks like the Las Vegas Strip. The people here sure are energy hogs,” David says critically, yet seeming to enjoy the spectacle. “Where in the world did all this come from? There can't be that many electrical outlets in Coronadus.”
“This is power of a different kind, David. Only a fraction of it comes from the receptacles of energy installed here. This light is magnified and multiplied by the cross currents of the Moon Singer's masts. Centuries of illumination stored there now flow unfettered and free. It means someone has found the Moon Singer and discovered that the ship works in concert with the Singer crystal. Once they also discover how vast their unified power is, it will destroy us all.”
“It sounds a lot like Atlantis,” David had said as he and Bianca once discussed the metamorphosis of Coronadus from a culture of advanced knowledge and achievement, to a wrecked and ravaged primitive way of life.
“Yes, knowledge is what set Atlantis apart, unprecedented technology. It's also what destroyed it. Abuse and misuse of that knowledge. Atlantis was a great experiment that was doomed to fail.”
“I've read about it. I'm not sure I understand why it happened.”
“Whatever man, with his great ingenuity, creates or deems as law, there are universal laws that are paramount and must be followed. There is nothing wrong with material gain or intellectual superiority. But when this knowledge is used for personal aggrandizement or as a weapon against others, the law of the universe becomes imbalanced and chaos results.”
“That's what Ishtar said happened on the Island of Darkness. I guess he lives on an Atlantis of sorts. Or he did until the island transformed back into the Kingdom of Light.” David's eyes pop wide at his own deduction. “Holy Cow! Is the Island really the lost continent of Atlantis?” The possibility thrilled him.
But Bianca assured him that Atlantis and the Island of Darkness were two separate but parallel universes. “Every civilization has its Atlantis,” Bianca had replied. “They needn't look far to find it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I suspect that Port Avalon is your Atlantis.”
“No way,” David says defensively. “Nothing like this could ever happen in my home town.” He wistfully longs for his home and his family.
“Perhaps not. Or perhaps, not yet.”
David snaps out of his reverie as Bianca tugs on his arm. “Quickly. We must go to the ship and find out who is behind all of this.”
Seventeen
The mood is weirdly quiet down by the harbor. Reflections from the light-filled twilight sky sparkle on the surface of the inlet waters. Citizens are still reveling in the town square, planning, rejoicing, some of them praying in gratitude for the deliverance of their city. But as dusk merges into evening, it seems that no one as yet has turned their attention to the boats at anchor in the sheds.
When David and Bianca approach the waterfront, all seems undisturbed. The doors are shut, the windows closed, with no sign of anyone inside the sheds. Still, Bianca urges caution. David remembers the window he had found slightly ajar the day he and Sokar encountered each other inside the building. Bianca follows David to the side of the shed and, sure enough, the same window is partly open. They force it up on its hinges to give them enough room to crawl through, then quietly lower it.
Moonlight shines through the skylight onto the marina, but David and Bianca are careful to walk in the shadows. All that is heard is the gentle lapping of the water on the pilings below. David and Bianca tread so lightly that their shoes barely make a sound as they touch the wood beneath their feet. They walk the entire length of the shed, counting each boat that is moored to a slip. Ten, eleven, twelve. The thirteenth boat is gone, her mooring ropes hanging idly from the bollard.
“Someone has taken off in one of the boats,” Bianca surmises. “Whoever it is used the Singer to start the motor and pilot the boat out of the channel.”
“Where is he going?”
“To the Moon Singer, no doubt.”
“To do what? Sail her away?” Apprehension mounts in David as he envisions his beautiful clipper ship sailing away without him. How will I get home now? He has yet to fully comprehend that no one is captain of the Moon Singer but he, himself; and no one can sail her but him.
“Sail away? No, I don't think so. I doubt that a plan has been devised just yet,” Bianca says. David sighs with relief. “Unless…” Bianca hesitates, clearly thinking the worst.
Fear wells up in David again, like the swell of a wave. “Unless what?”
“Unless it's not just one person who has control of the Singer. If a conspiracy is taking place, with men who are well-versed in the Moon Singer's powers, it could be worse than even I imagined.”
“Who do you think it is? Sechmet and his friends?”
“Before the debate he would have been the obvious choice. But after his distress at the sight of the War Chamber? No. But his cronies? Quite possibly.”
“Then we'd better get going. Can we use one of these boats?”
“Yes. With luck this boat next in line was in the energy field of the Singer when the first boat was powered up. We'll know as soon as we try to fire the engine.”
* * *
Sokar's only experience on the water has been with his small rowboat to do some fishing, or to find a place of solitude to contemplate his life. His favorite time of day to do this was at sunset, when the heat was less intense and the sky was a swirling ribbon of orange, pink and blue. The city of Coronadus, seen from the vantage point of the open sea, allowed Sokar's memories and imagination to converge into exciting scenarios of what life was once like in his beautiful homeland.
After a time, he couldn't tell truth from fantasy, or sort facts from fiction. He had heard one story from his Aunt Bianca, other versions from various friends whose parents had lived through the tumult; and still different versions as men and women gossiped and reminisced. But he knew with certainty what he felt, what never changed no matter how many fantasies he conjure
d or anecdotes he heard: the constant heartache of separation from his mother.
Sokar had been young when she died, but not so young he didn't remember her arms wrapped lovingly and securely around him, or the brush of her lips on his cheek in a kiss hello or goodnight. So painful are the memories still that he envies Maati for having been too young to remember the circumstances surrounding their mother's death.
But he would not trade his memories for anything. For, intermingled with the bitter are those sweet reveries, which make his heart ache even more, but are worth the pain. Sokar wept openly many times in his little boat at sunset, often letting out a primal scream of anguish that only the sea birds could hear.
On this night, inept as a sailor but miraculously aided by the Singer, he is able to start the boat's engine and steer her cautiously out of the warehouse slip and into the inlet, then finally out to the ocean and away from Coronadus. It is as though the little crystal has a mind of its own, a built-in intelligence to navigate and guide the sleek, 40-foot gaff-rigged ketch with little help, if any, from Sokar.
Thank heaven there is still no wind in Coronadus, Sokar muses. He hasn't the slightest idea how to hoist the sails of the fore-and-aft rigged, two-masted vessel, or what to do after that. His primary task now is to remember his mission: to find the Moon Singer, board her, and gather ammunition to exact vengeance for the murder of his mother.
Eighteen
The engine grinds and halts, grinds and halts, as Bianca and David try to power up the idle yawl so they can catch up to whoever may have gone before them in pursuit of the Moon Singer. With both of them moving their lips in a silent mantra, the vessel seems to get the message and soon the engine turns over with full power.
“I never thought I would be so happy to hear that sound again,” Bianca says.
David gives a slight whoop of pleasure himself, as Bianca steers the boat out of the slip and into the channel towards the open sea. The boat moves slowly due to lack of use, but soon is making a steady 10 knots. Not knowing where the Moon Singer has anchored herself to keep from being detected, Bianca speculates that their predecessor has a few hours head start and may have already found the clipper ship.
