“When I was on the street,” he says to me, “I would be kicked or hit for how I looked. I don’t know where we are now or how we got here, but that kind of hurting has got to stop.
“No,” the Bearded Boy tells the angry hatchling again. But then, even in the dim light of the nearby fires and the early sunrise, he must see something familiar in the young mammal’s face or in his eyes, because then he adds, “Please.”
“Naftali!” Eli shouts at the hatchling. “He won’t hurt you.” Like the Bearded Boy, Eli is speaking the English of his people. And despite the way plasmechanical material is using all of us to spread itself around, I don’t believe this young boy is wearing a lingo-spot. I hope he is as adept at reading expressions as I believe him to be.
“Excuse me,” I tell the hatchling. Then I pick him up — I hope he’s never seen Slaversaur! — and set him down closer to James. “You two should be open-palmed trust colleagues,” I tell him, using Thea’s tongue. I hope it is close enough. I haven’t been here long enough to fully understand the local idiom. “You could protect each other.” I repeat it in both their languages. “We are in a period of uncontrolled time reactions, and young ones are especially vulnerable.”
With that, I hop over to see if I can help Eli. Somebody’s always after that boy, and he doesn’t even look like a dinosaur.
Chapter Sixteen
Eli: Wrestling With Angels
583 B.C.E.
We’re all under some kind of house arrest. On top of that, A.J.’s bleeding from a head wound, Thea seems better but is still weak, and Rolf Royd, the Dragon Jerk Kid — who didn’t look so much like a kid anymore when he arrived in a time explosion early this morning — is running around loose somewhere in Biblical Jerusalem, causing who-knows-what kind of damage to history itself. But all of us, especially Clyne and Jeremiah, are guarded now, surrounded, not allowed to take more than one or two steps.
Apparently, from what I can pick up from Thea, Jeremiah himself, and the snatches of conversation translated by the lingo-spot, the people here are deciding whether to stone Jeremiah to death, since they blame him for many of their misfortunes.
The arrival of Clyne — and the remnants of the carnival that he’d been with — was the last straw. The survivors here are sick and tired and at the ends of their ropes, with nothing left to lose. There was all that talk about rebuilding and sacrifice. But I guess too many people think that will take too long and that it would be faster and easier to kill us — and it might be worth finding out if that makes God happier. The woman who keeps talking about Gehenna brought it up. “Your words,” she said to Jeremiah, “your words said all this would happen. They made it happen.”
“If only my words had such power,” Jeremiah sighed. That’s when they took their spears and knives and rocks and put us here, in the middle of what used to be their temple, right next to the altar A.J. and I were building.
“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind, when I talked about makin’ offers to God,” A.J. whispered to me at one point. “I didn’t mean us.” This was after he’d already been hurt — one of the flying rocks hit him in the head during the growing hysteria about the new arrivals.
Jeremiah holds his hands over the ashes remaining from the fire, then puts them together when he realizes there’s no heat left. “The summer is past,” he says, “the harvest is come, and we are not saved.”
A.J. groans and rubs his head.
“Getting rid of me will not free them of their burdens.” Jeremiah turns to A.J. “When you came here, I was prepared to vanish from Jerusalem, where I was no longer wanted and where the sight of me reminded everyone — man, woman, and child — of their unending sorrows. When I was ready to vanish, it was you who told me to stay. Told me that things could yet be made whole, made right. You wanted to start rebuilding, even then, holding on to a simple faith that even I was in danger of losing.”
While that sounds good, I’m remembering what Thirty and Mr. Howe were saying before I left, about all the sudden changes in Biblical history, and maybe Jeremiah isn’t supposed to stay — maybe that’s one of the “breaks” in history we have to try to fix.
But now that Thea’s here, and seems to be cured, part of me wants to just put on my cap and go with her and Clyne and maybe A.J. But I already know I can’t leave Rolf here, and on top of that, if something happens to Jeremiah that wasn’t supposed to…well, we have to keep history from getting even more messed up than it already is.
Besides Thea feeling better, the only other bright spot right now is that Naftali seems to have become friends with the kid that Clyne brought with him — James, the Bearded Boy. He looks a little bit like a small Bigfoot, I guess, with fur all over his body.
He’s sort of cute. Thea seems to think so, too. She’s been translating for Naftali and James, so they can understand each other. They’ve both discovered that neither of them has any parents around.
“Friend Eli,” Clyne whispers to me now.
“Yes?”
“What is the custom here with this kind of snnkt! legal proceeding? When do we find out whether they will stone us?”
“I’m not sure. I never read the Bible much. And even though these people are in the stories” — I point to Jeremiah and the people surrounding us — “you and I and everybody else with us sure aren’t. So we’re in the middle of a brand new story that hasn’t ended yet.”
“Can’t that be said about all fnnntk! lives? And stories? And what is this Bible?”
“It’s a very powerful collection of stories for humans who are Jewish or Christian. Belief systems, about the way the world was created. About how to act toward other humans, about what God wants us to do.”
“‘God’…is the mammalian name for skkt! the Endu-kaaan?”
“I don’t know, Clyne. What is the Endu-kaan?”
“Melonokus called the Endu-kaan, ‘the great source of all thmmb-skizzles.’”
“I’m not sure that helps.” I look out at the crowd. They’re talking to one another, pointing back at us. I pick up stray words that don’t comfort me, like rid, and stone. I keep watch out of the corner of my eye, then turn back to Clyne, stepping in front of him so it’s a little harder for the people around us to see him.
“A thmmb-skizzle is what feeds…your spirit, what sparks your life. Melonokus wrote, during the Bloody Tendon Wars, that there was no snnnt! reason for us to keep eating each other. ‘Nothing compares to the nourishment of the Endu-kaan, so wipe that blood off your face,’ he said. According to the legends.”
“Maybe it’s something like that. But I never really went to church or synagogue much. Except sometimes for Christmas or maybe a friend’s bar mitzvah.”
“Were you of these Jewish or Christian thmmb-skizzle groups?” Clyne asks.
“Both, really. I had grandparents that were both. Parents that were at least a little of both.”
“But there are many such thmmb-skizzle groups on Earth Orange?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “They’re all called religions. Not just Jewish or Christian, either. Muslims, and people who believe in Buddha, and the ones in India…”
“Tkkknt! Hindus?” Clyne says.
“Yes! How did you know?”
“I recall a travel-entertainment shown on your Comnet, between dinosaur movies. This India was mentioned.”
I’ve known Clyne for centuries, in a way. But I realize I don’t have nearly as good a memory as he does.
“And each thmmb-skizzle group claims to believe in God?” he asks.
“Each group has a different name for God, but in the end, it’s still God. And sometimes, there are more than one.”
“Each often willing to zkkkt! kill the other groups over what they insist is the essential goodness of their gods?”
“Yeah. Usually.”
“That doesn’t seem very thmmb-skizzly.”
“I know.”
“So this Jeremiah we are detained with…”
“He’s what t
hey call a ‘prophet,’” I tell him.
“What are they?”
“As near as I can figure, they go around telling people to treat each other better, and everyone winds up hating them for it.”
“Melonokus had similar szzzn! experiences,” Clyne says.
“But then later, people act like they agreed with them all along, like they just want to be lovey-dovey too. Even when it’s not true. Did that happen to Melonokus?”
I step a little closer to Clyne—whether to protect him or just to shut out the crowd a moment or two longer, I’m not sure. I look at Thea and she seems to be doing the same thing with the two littler kids, just drawing them close. Clyne, as usual, seems more excited than scared.
“We are required to read Jail Notes of a Bad Lizard in school now. There is little mention that once, before the Bloody Tendon Wars had sknnnt! ended, mere possession of the writings was enough to earn a jail sentence of one’s own. But in that volume,” — and if it’s possible to describe a dinosaur face as “brightening up,” I’d say Clyne suddenly looks like he’s seen a report card with all A’s— “Melonokus notes that the hardest prisons to leave are the ones we build ourselves, szzlp!, in here.” And Clyne taps the right side of chest, where I guess his heart is. “Although we also seem to spend far too much time detained by zgggt! authorities here on your world.”
Jeremiah has been watching us. “And what messages do strangers bear in a time when few are ready to listen?”
“He’s been making plans with the goat-demon!” one of our guards shouts. There’s no more shutting out the crowd anymore; another couple of rocks come whizzing by.
Then Clyne turns to Jeremiah and repeats the last part of what he just said, about the hardest prison being the ones you keep yourself locked up in, inside. But now he says it in Hebrew.
Jeremiah nods. Slowly, and then a little faster. “How strange that I should find myself sharing thoughts with a goat-demon. I have been thrown in stocks and left in prison, too. But I have so far kept the jailers out of here.” He taps his own heart — on the left side — then turns toward the crowd surrounding us.
“These people are innocent!” He points to us. “None deserve to be held by you! They are strangers who have come to us in their time of need! Even if it is our time of great need as well! Who is to say this is not part of God’s plan, too?” He stands by the cold remains of the fire. “If it is me you blame for the presence of the goat-demon,” he says as he points to Clyne, “blame me as you will! Though this demon, perhaps born horribly deformed —”
“I was a good egg,” Clyne says, a little indignantly.
“—is likewise merely a stranger, who comes to us asking for help. We talked before of helping ourselves — planting crops for the new year, even though our numbers are small. I then said we needed to make blessings, here, where the temple stood, to ask for a good new year. A year that will sustain and nourish and not brutalize us. But the Rebuilder and his friends have helped me see — we need to rebuild here first,”— and Jeremiah taps his chest again, this time so everyone else can see it— “before we start raising walls again. We carry the temple, and all it stood for, inside us now. We each have these seeds, and we each tend the crop that’s been given us. Yes, the harvest is past, the summer is gone, and we were not saved. But there comes another time to plant and reap. Right now, the sun has returned, and the frost is melting. I am no longer content to stay in these ruins. I have new planting to do.” Jeremiah walks toward the edge of the circle. Thea — and the guy named Rocket, who is apparently related to Rolf — move to let him by.
Jeremiah passes us, and keeps walking into the crowd of people holding the rocks and sticks. No one stops him.
“We haven’t decided your fate yet,” the Gehenna-woman says.
“My fate is not for you to decide,” he replies. He then puts his hands on two of the crude spears and pushes them aside. Jeremiah stands his ground, as everyone else shifts on their feet, wondering what to do, wondering whether they should hurt the prophet or let him walk away.
“Egypt,” A.J. whispers.
“What?” I ask.
“If he goes, he’ll keep walkin’ straight to Egypt, after he’s done plantin’. Jeremiah just disappears from the Bible completely, once he leaves Jerusalem. We gotta stop him.” Maybe it was the bonk on the head that’s keeping him from thinking clearly. It’s also keeping him from moving too fast, so when he goes after Jeremiah, I catch up quickly and put my arms around his shoulders.
“A.J., no, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
First off, there’s no reason to believe that those people will let us walk past the spears the way Jeremiah just did. But there’s an even bigger reason I have to stop A.J. “If he’s supposed to walk off, to disappear, you’ve got to let him. You’ve got to let history fix itself.”
“Don’t you get it, boy? History can’t be fixed now. It was broken bad enough the first time through. And all the time-travelin’s made it worse.”
“What about your time-traveling? You thought coming back here to save Jeremiah would change all that?”
“When that Mr. Howe and I broke in, we both knew I was willing to take the time jump. The idea was to go back far enough to stop the whole Project Split Second, if I could. I didn’t know it would land me all the way back here.
“So, when I did find myself this far back, in the living days of the Good Word, I figured maybe I could still give history a push in the right direction. An even bigger push, if I could help save the life of Jeremiah…help him stick around longer.”
“But you just said history can’t be fixed.”
“Not the one we already have, boy.” He rubs his head. “I’m talkin’ about comin’ up with a whole new history. A better one.”
“Is that what they wanted to do in Project Split Second? What my mom wanted to do?”
It’s just one more thing I don’t find out about my mom. The Gehenna-woman speaks up again, after Jeremiah has been standing calmly for a few moments, tightly surrounded by some of the crowd, who are still deciding whether to let him go or to kill him.
“Let him pass,” the lady says. “Let him gather his seeds. Maybe he can do some good outside Jerusalem’s broken walls. He was no particular use inside them.” And for a moment, everyone seems calmer, like they all let their breath out at once. Jeremiah grabs a homemade spear from one of the men’s hands, then breaks off the tip, turning it into a walking stick. He looks like he’s ready to go.
“But leave the goat-demon here,” the lady adds, “until we decide what to do with him.”
There goes the calmness. Right away, someone in the crowd makes a move. People are getting jostled, and my first thought is that someone is going to hurt Jeremiah after all, because that seems to be what usually happens to prophets anyway.
Except this guy isn’t coming for Jeremiah. Whoever he is, he pushes past him, and comes toward us. I can see the white hair over the heads of everyone else. It’s someone moving fast —
Toward Thea, who is with Naftali and the Bearded Boy.
Naftali’s the one he grabs.
It’s not just anyone from the crowd. It’s Rolf.
He must’ve been keeping low, using the crowd as cover, until he was close to us. And I finally get a real good look at him, now that he’s all grown up.
That was his white hair. But now his skin stretches over his face in a weird way, and his eyes look like they’re getting ready to pop out of his face. But he’s still just a Dragon Jerk kid, as far as I’m concerned.
And of course, being Rolf, he’s holding a gun.
Now he turns his attention to me. “Giff me your hat, so I can get out of here,” he says with just a trace of his old accent. “Before I haff to hurt one of these kids.”
“You promised you wouldn’t let them hurt me,” Naftali says, almost crying, looking at me.
Right. I did. No more soldiers, no more being scared.
I don’t want that t
o be a lie. It’s too easy for grownups to lie to kids, and I don’t want to become that kind of grownup.
And maybe I’m more like A.J. than I realized, because as I look into Naftali’s scared eyes, I realize I do want to try and make history turn out better.
His, anyway.
“Are you listening!?” Rolf barks at me.
I am. If I’m going to help Naftali, I don’t have a choice.
Chapter Seventeen
Thea: Strangers
583 B.C.E.
My friend Eli will do whatever he can to help Naftali, but I don’t think he should give away the soft helmet — the “cap” that allows him to journey through time. Rolf Royd wants it, in exchange for the boy’s life.
I believe instead we need to devise another plan.
I’m not sure what that plan should be. Huldah might know. But she stays down below, tending to the sick. She refuses to come up because she is afraid, I believe, that she couldn’t survive the heartbreak of what has happened to her city.
Eli was forced to decide whether to give away his “cap” after Rolf, the time traveler from the Third Reich, snuck up on us. Our attention was elsewhere. Mine was with the two boys, Naftali and James. They’ve both been cast aside by history, or perhaps, swept away by it, the way Eli and I have. Each has losses, their entire families taken: In Naftali’s case, they appear to have been hauled away to slavery by the invading soldiers. In the case of James—who calls himself the Bearded Boy by way of making something of an entertainment of himself — he was told by authorities that his parents vanished in a mysterious incident — similar, perhaps, to the way Eli lost his own mother. Eli and I, meanwhile, have become victims of another mob, survivors in Yerushalayim who are deciding whether to kill us.
The people here have survived a calamity even worse than the fires in Alexandria. They’ve seen family members killed by an invading army or taken into slavery. And though like the mobs ruled by Brother Tiberius in Alexandria, the people here are motivated by fear, they are also motivated by their broken hearts. They want nothing else to cause them hurt, and the arrival first of me and Eli, and then of K’lion, and the group he calls his “carnival,” only terrified them more.
City of Ruins Page 14
