The Book of M

by Peng Shepherd

“Saw you from the window,” he said. “Transcendence?”

  Naz nodded. “Gajarajan’s seen them. We have a day, a day and night at best. He wants you to join Zhang and me in the final discussions with something he calls The Eight. Share our firsthand experience with them.”

  Malik nodded. “Come on in while I get my shoes.”

  She and Zhang stepped into Malik’s small shared room. A half-eaten apple sat on the table. “Where’s Vienna?” Zhang asked.

  “In the alcove on the bed, rereading the book you let her take from the library,” Malik said, coming back into the main room from where he’d just pointed with his chin. “Well, reading. She forgot she finished it before.”

  “If I forget again, give it back to Zhang so he can reshelve it!” Vienna called. Then, more quietly, “No point in keeping it.”

  Malik sighed. “Vienna, we’re going to—”

  “Wait, just wait for me! I can’t find my gun.” Her voice replied from around the corner.

  They’d given them up already, weeks ago, when they’d all arrived in New Orleans. The weapons had been added to the wall guard’s inventory. “You don’t need a gun right now,” Malik finally said.

  Vienna came around the corner. “Yes, I do,” she said. She nodded at Zhang, then studied Naz thoughtfully, for the hundredth first time. “Isn’t she—I mean, isn’t she from the precinct?” she asked her father. She turned back to Naz. “Did you come to help my dad and Zhang and me find my mom? See if she went farther downtown toward the White House?”

  “We’re not—” Malik grimaced. “Doing that today.”

  “We’re going to speak to Gajarajan right now,” Zhang finally said to her, more gently.

  “Oh. Well, that’s good, too,” Vienna replied. She went over to the floor by the door, where her shoes were. Naz watched her start to tie the laces—calmly at first; then her fingers stuttered once. She’d realized she didn’t know how she knew Gajarajan, even though she knew who he was. That she’d forgotten some things in the gap between her mother and their new lives.

  “Vienna,” Malik said. “You’re not going. Only us.”

  Vienna looked up at him, one shoe dangling in her hand. “But . . .” She looked between them, confused. “Why are you going then, if not to take me to volunteer?”

  Malik sat down slowly on the chair at the table. “Later. Not this time.”

  Naz looked down at her hands. So Vienna had told him what she’d said to Zhang in their kitchen the other day. More than once. It seemed this wasn’t the first time this argument was playing out. It made her heart break to hear it, because she knew Malik couldn’t win forever. Don’t come to Boston, Rojan. Don’t you dare come. But no matter how many times she ordered her sister not to leave their home in Tehran, it made no difference. Nothing could have stopped Rojan. Nothing would stop Vienna.

  “Why not now?” Vienna persisted. “You’re going there yourselves anyway. Take me with you. I want to volunteer to try to receive a shadow.”

  “Not now.”

  “I want to volunteer, Dad.”

  “Not now!” he shouted.

  Vienna didn’t speak again, but she didn’t put the shoe down either. She looked at Zhang, begging. But Naz was the one to help her.

  “Malik,” she said to him.

  He finally looked up from his hands. “I just thought, if I waited a little bit . . .” He trailed off.

  “I know,” Naz said. She did know. She would have done the same thing if it was Rojan who was shadowless. “But if you try to wait Vienna out until she doesn’t remember, that won’t mean that you can decide for her. It’ll just make it wrong.”

  Malik buried his head in his arms.

  Naz reached out and put her hand on his big, slouching shoulder. “You have to let her do this. Before she forgets she wanted to. Don’t take away the last bit of freedom she still has from her.”

  DAVIDIA WAS ALREADY BESIDE THE SILENT, SEATED BODY AT the altar, talking quietly with the surface of the wall. As they crested the hill, Naz saw Gajarajan’s ears ripple slightly, like an animal catching a sound on the breeze.

  “Vienna,” he said warmly. “It’s an honor to meet you at last. I’m glad you came.”

  It was the first time Vienna had seen the leader of their city. She stared openmouthed at him. At the blindfolded man—unmoving, almost unaware, almost nonliving. And at its shadow behind on the wall, manlike—the same rough size, with the same motions—but not shaped like a man at all.

  “Hello,” she finally whispered.

  Malik was overcome with the urge to protect her and thought what was in her face was fear. But Naz could see what she was thinking. It wasn’t fear. It was hope. That was the reason she had wanted to volunteer—to give Gajarajan permission to work his dangerous magic, and possibly fail, without fear, because she’d asked him to try knowing the chances. Naz’s hands twitched, wanting to hold Vienna and cry, but she wouldn’t want it. Not from a person she no longer remembered she knew. More than that, it wasn’t Naz’s place. Malik was here, and the grief belonged to him, not her. Vienna was not her little sister.

  “I know it’s been a difficult time for you, but I’m very pleased you’ve come to share what you remember about Transcendence with The Eight,” the elephant said.

  “That’s not why I came,” Vienna blurted out. Malik stepped protectively in front of her, but she leaned out from behind him again. “I mean, I’ll tell you everything I remember, of course. Anything that will help,” she stammered, moving around her father completely to face Gajarajan. “But that wasn’t the reason I came.”

  The elephant shifted on the wall. “What is the reason, then?”

  Naz could feel Malik about to speak again. She reached out and grabbed his arm firmly to stop him—not a shake, but a hug. His other hand appeared on top of hers unconsciously. Naz squeezed as hard as she could.

  “I want to volunteer,” Vienna said. “To be the next shadowless who tries to rejoin with a shadow. I know you’re close, but you’re afraid to hurt anyone else until you’re sure you can do it. But you’re never going to be sure unless you keep trying. I want you to try with me.”

  Naz waited, trembling. Before them, the wall darkened as Gajarajan slowly grew. His ears unfurled, trunk lifted in a muscular, graceful S. Naz didn’t know if he was happy or insulted. He was just terrifying.

  At last his trunk curled to his chin. “You’re very brave,” he said.

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

  “Yes,” the elephant said. Malik started, as if he’d been hit with something. But before he could argue, Gajarajan spoke again. “But I need something from you in return.”

  Davidia glanced at the wall from where she stood. “She’s a child,” she said softly to him.

  “She’s a shadowless,” Gajarajan replied. “And the only shadowless that’s seen Transcendence with her own eyes.”

  Naz wanted to look at Malik’s face, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was keep watching the huge shadow spread before them. “Vienna,” Malik began.

  “Tell me the price,” Vienna said to the wall.

  “Vienna.” Malik took her by the shoulders. “Honey,” he pleaded, voice breaking.

  “I accept,” she said fearlessly, staring into the dark shape of the elephant.

  “Hear the price first,” Gajarajan said.

  Vienna nodded. “Name it, then.”

  “Become one of The Eight.”

  They all cried out in disbelief. “You’re joking,” Naz said, incredulous.

  “I’m afraid not. In fact, we may not succeed without her.”

  “But you have eight already!”

  “We do. But perhaps not the right eight. Transcendence is strong—and Vienna knows them better than any of the current members.” Gajarajan looked down from the wall. “It will cost her memories to take one of the eight’s places for the fight, yes. But it could also be the difference between winning and losing this last battle.”

  Beside Na
z, Zhang shook his head. “Is that what you tell The Eight every time you need them to do something for you?” he asked. “Everything you tell them to voluntarily forget?”

  “I would never force anyone to do something they didn’t want to do,” Gajarajan said. “Each of The Eight is here willingly. They want to help the city.” His ears waved, big gentle fans. “You’ve seen what’s out there. Without their help, New Orleans would be the same as every other place—or worse. How do you think the wall that keeps us safe was built? Where the first food came from before what we had planted grew? How do you think all of the dangerous little misrememberings are all fixed so quickly?”

  “Even if it means slowly dying for it?” Naz countered. “That’s a high price to pay.”

  “Is it, though?” Gajarajan asked. “Any one of you also could have died fighting the Reds to save your home in the Iowa. What The Eight do here is the same thing. Except once I figure out how to give them shadows again and make the shadows stay . . .” He seemed to smile. “In fact, the price you might have paid for the same goal was far greater, then.”

  Vienna touched her father’s arm. “Gajarajan’s right, Dad,” she said. “I might lose something, but if we don’t win against Transcendence, I’m going to lose everything anyway. All of us are.”

  “If the situation was so dire, why didn’t you say anything before?” Malik asked, barely controlled.

  Gajarajan shrugged softly with his ears. “I told you. I would never have sought her out, because to join the sanctuary must be a free choice, not a forced one.”

  Naz didn’t want to agree with him, but she could feel the defeat already beginning to set in. It didn’t matter that it was Vienna, their Vienna. It wouldn’t even have mattered if it was Rojan. Vienna knew the shadow was right—without Vienna’s help, they might not win. She had to do it, even if it meant that she would have to sacrifice who knew how many of her precious last memories to save them all.

  Orlando Zhang

  DAWN SEEMED TO COME EARLIER THAN USUAL THE NEXT morning. As the sky slowly brightened, Zhang stood in the guard tower with Ahmadi, Malik, and Gajarajan—both the shadow and its body, which was seated behind them in the corner of the small enclosed platform. Far below, the world was very different than it had been when the sun set. Outside the city, and stretching to cover most of the long bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, the ground was blanketed in white, as if they had woken up to snow. Transcendence had arrived.

  “I wonder what they did to the deathkites overnight,” Ahmadi mused quietly.

  None of them replied. Whatever they had done, it had been effective. There was no sign of even one of them now. No vast, colorful shapes catching the light, no silent angular shadows drifting over the water and fragrant grass, waiting for prey.

  “We should tell The Eight,” Malik said tensely, glancing across the city toward the first great hall, where the shadowless waited inside. “They should know. Every bit of tactical information . . .” He trailed off, as if realizing how far it was. Zhang hadn’t thought of phones for a long time, until he realized he’d put his hand into his pocket as if to retrieve one.

  Gajarajan glanced at them for a moment, considering. The wall of the tower was suddenly brighter, containing only pale morning light, and then just as suddenly, the familiar gray pattern was cut back into it. The elephant ruffled his ears.

  “I’ve informed them,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Malik said, surprised. “That was—I appreciate it.”

  Gajarajan shrugged. “To move using light doesn’t require a similar effort to walking. It made more sense for me to go than any of you.”

  “Or him,” Ahmadi said, indicating the blindfolded body sitting quietly in the corner. The man made no move to acknowledge he’d heard her. “Why did you bring him?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Gajarajan said. “It isn’t very useful, is it? Better dexterity, as it’s a solid form, but that’s about it.”

  Zhang couldn’t help but shake his head. To be talking about a human body in such a way—especially his own. It was hard not to be entertained sometimes at how strangely Gajarajan understood people. More often than not, he seemed to Zhang more like a robot than an elephant, or the shadow of one—a disembodied intelligence that regarded their flesh like cars: interchangeable models. Zhang had always thought of the great gray animals as sort of like humans, really—with families, personalities, identities. Just bigger, and with tusks. But he supposed that was simply his attempt to understand them. Maybe that wasn’t how they were at all.

  Ahmadi was leaning cautiously over the edge of the tower, staring into the vast white. “What are they . . . doing?” she whispered.

  “Praying,” Gajarajan said.

  Zhang looked at him sharply. “Praying to what?”

  “Their leader.” The shadow edged forward slightly, as if to also get a better look. “A shadowless at their center.”

  Madness, Zhang thought. An army of shadowed people, led by a shadowless who wanted to remove all human shade from the world—against a council of shadowless, led by a living shadow, who wanted to give everyone back their dark twin.

  “Well, eight to one is good odds,” Malik said as hopefully as he could. Zhang knew he was wondering the same thing the rest of them were. Why Transcendence needed only one.

  “Don’t fear,” Gajarajan said, as if answering his thoughts. “The Eight are powerful, too.”

  “Why eight?” Ahmadi asked. “Yoshikawa said it’s the strongest number. But why?”

  “Eight is the number of verses about Surya in the Rigveda,” the shadow answered.

  “Surya?”

  “The god of the sun,” he replied, as if it meant something to them.

  Just then there was a small ripple across the alabaster army below. Something was about to begin.

  “The Eight are ready?” Zhang asked, resisting the urge to run, to hide anywhere he could find.

  Gajarajan nodded. “Vienna will lead memories related to Transcendence, knowing most what they look like and how they act, and Downtown and Curly will lead any memories related to defending New Orleans. The rest shall harmonize, to help shoulder the burden of forgetting and intensify the strength of each act.”

  Downtown and Curly. Zhang had heard their names from the other New Orleanians from time to time, along with a few others who were no longer there—Marie, Buddy, and a shadowed doctor named Dr. Avanthikar. Of the original Eight, Downtown and Curly were the only two left who still served. The others had entered their endless wait long ago, and now remained in body only. No mind. Everything had been spent, down to the last recollection.

  To know that two of the original Eight were with Vienna gave Zhang hope their plan might just work. She didn’t really know what she was doing yet, but The Eight did, and they were intensely powerful. After all, they had been part of The Eight that had remembered the very first and still the most massive work of magic: the reimagining of the deadly hurricane that almost destroyed New Orleans into the gigantic water wall beneath them. Zhang watched the crystalline surface shimmer as the sun struck it. He understood it now—if unguided, how hard it would be to resist the urge to want to forget again thereafter. To do things even more incredible.

  “Easy,” Gajarajan said to Malik as the white shifted further.

  “This is crazy,” he replied, fists clenched. “Look at how many there are.”

  “Easy,” the shadow repeated. “This isn’t your battle.”

  Gajarajan had gathered everyone in New Orleans last night and reiterated that they were not to fight. That The Eight would do it for them. All the rest of them had to do was run to the center of the city on Vienna’s command, and stay there, no matter what. Whether Transcendence was inside or outside the gates, whether they were attacking or not. Simple enough, Zhang thought. Simple and terrifying. But where were The Eight? They still hadn’t arrived, and the army below was beginning to shift in waves, like a great ivory tide.

  “They’re mo
ving,” Ahmadi warned. Her fingers spasmed, wishing there was a bow to grab for. She was struggling as much as Zhang was to place all their safety in someone else’s hands. Zhang turned around again, but the far hill in front of the sanctuary was still empty. Where were The Eight?

  “There she is,” Malik gasped. They all looked to where he was pointing. Across the city, Zhang could see eight small figures moving out from the first great hall into the sun. From this distance, and with no shadows, they almost looked like they were floating.

  “Vienna, Downtown, Curly, Fromthelandoflakes, Skinny, Old-Timer, Chef, Survivedthestorm,” Zhang said to himself. He tried to picture each one of them as they headed toward the city gates beneath him, to make himself believe that they could do it. That whatever their plan was, it was going to work. Vienna, Downtown, Curly, Fromthelandoflakes, Skinny, Old-Timer, Chef, Survivedthestorm . . .

  “Gajarajan,” Vienna said when they had reached the ground below the watchtower’s ladder. They stood facing the gate in a pyramid formation, Vienna in front, Downtown and Curly behind her, and then the remaining five behind them.

  “It’s time,” Downtown called up to them. “Something is stirring.”

  A chill went through Zhang as he looked backward, at the rest of New Orleans. Everything was empty and still. He knew that all the shadowed and shadowless were hiding just inside doors and windows and behind walls, ready to do what seemingly suicidal thing Vienna was about to ask for—but the sight of the city so utterly dead was frightening.

  “His name will be Lucius,” Gajarajan said to Vienna. “Their leader.”

  Zhang had no idea how Gajarajan knew it. Vienna nodded gently, as if from far away.

  They watched the white waves begin to split from one endless alabaster surface into hundreds, thousands of small fluttering shapes, men and women covered from head to toe in their strange white robes. Maybe they were all hoping they would forget because they couldn’t even see who they each were anymore.

  “False prophet!” someone finally called from deep within Transcendence’s lines. “Show yourself!”

  Zhang nearly cried out when their gate trembled in response. Ahmadi clutched his arm with fingernails like razor blades as Malik forced himself to obey Gajarajan’s nod to crank the wheel to open the huge doors. “Why are we doing this?” Zhang hissed. “Why open it for them?” But the shadow beside them said nothing. Zhang clutched the railing of the tower’s low wall until his knuckles turned white.