by Curtis, Gene
“Tim’s mind suffered too. He hides it well, but the scars are visible if you knew him before it happened. I don’t know if you noticed but Tim never uses contractions when he speaks, and for Tim that’s very unnatural. Some part of his mind was broken that day as well.”
Mrs. Shadowitz pointed out one of Shirley’s paintings hanging on the wall as they approached. “That was her favorite horse. She always rode her in the flags matches until she made second team. Then she had to switch between horses to keep from tiring out the horses too much.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Aftermath
Mark, Nick and several other students arrived on the healing ward balcony with Cynthia Dover when she remanifested back. Mark, followed by Nick, went directly inside, scanned for familiar faces among the hubbub of activity and spotted Mr. Diefenderfer and Mr. Young standing trancelike near the main entrance. He made his way toward them dodging healers and caretakers every step of the way. When he was standing directly in front of them he asked, “How can I help?”
Both of them just stood there as if he wasn’t even there. He asked again and neither stirred. Cynthia came up behind him and said, “They can’t hear you. They’re listening to reports.”
“Listening to reports? What’s going on? Why’d they attack the school if all they wanted was the sunstone?”
“I don’t have any answers yet, but I’m going to find some. You can come with me if you want.”
Mark shook his head, “Thanks, but I think I’ll stay here.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want answers; he just didn’t want to leave the most likely place where answers were apt to be found first.
Nick said, “I’ll come with you.”
Cynthia said as they passed him on the way to the door, “Don’t get in the way.”
Don’t get in the way? I’m not a toddler that needs to be told to stay out of the way. Is that how she sees me? Is that how everybody sees me: as a little kid?
A few minutes later Mr. Young stirred from his trance. He called, not quite shouting, “There is extensive damage on the basement level. It is believed that there are people trapped there.”
Suddenly there was a shift in the controlled chaos of the healing ward. A large number of people, including some healers, stopped what they were doing and started heading for the door. Mark looked back at Mr. Young; he had resumed his trance. There was nothing he could do here except wait, so he joined the crowd heading for the door.
The stairway landing on the basement level was totally blocked by rubble. Dust was hanging in the air and it smelled like freshly dug soil. Someone farther down the stairs called, “Human chain.” A moment later someone farther up repeated the order. A moment after that the guy on the next lower step handed Mark a dark brown stone weighing about fifty pounds which he passed up. He turned back and was handed another dark brown stone. Three hours later he was exhausted and very glad when someone above called, “Clear out. The engineers are here now to set up conveyers and bring in machinery.”
He couldn’t imagine how much work it was going to take to make any significant progress in clearing enough rubble to be able to get to anyone that might be trapped down there. The time that he’d been there had seen only about five feet of progress onto the landing. Rubble from higher up kept sliding down and filling in what they managed to clear away.
He was extremely tired but he had also worked up an aggressive appetite. He was sweaty and grimy and wanted to get cleaned up before going to get dinner and he knew that getting anywhere close to a bed might be too much of an inducement to sleep. He wanted answers more than he wanted food or rest.
He put on his communicator ring and pressed the buttons for Nick, Jamal and Chenoa. Jamal answered, “Where are you?”
“I’m heading for the dorm to get cleaned up. Meet me at your kitchen in about an hour.”
“I’m heading for the dorm too. See you there.”
The shower was invigorating except his muscles still moved with a slow lethargy. He knew he’d sleep hard once he finally got to bed, however that had to wait. They’d gotten the sunstone and blown up the basement level. Were they hiding the sunstone in the labyrinth and trying to keep him out? No, that didn’t make sense. He could get in through the moat and hadn’t that imp last year alluded to another entrance? There had to be another reason, but they had to be connected. Maybe it was part of the diversion, but why blow up the basement when they were keeping everyone occupied with the attack on the field? Were they after something in the basement too? That had to be it.
Jamal was waiting for Mark in the common room. He looked as tired as Mark felt. “Heard anything?”
Jamal shook his head, “Everything is still in turmoil. Everyone I spoke with didn’t even know the sunstone was stolen until I told them.” He started walking toward the door. “I need to get to the kitchen. I imagine there’s going to be a lot of hungry people.”
It was getting close to sunset and there were a lot of people waiting in the picnic area around Jamal’s Kitchen. Everyone had questions. Jamal dismissed himself from Mark, “I’ve got to get my cooks started; that is if any of them are here,” and started walking toward the kitchen.
Mark stepped up onto a table and waited for the crowd to quiet down. “I don’t know a lot about what just recently happened. What I do know is we were attacked by the Neo-Phylum. The sunstone was stolen. The basement level was blown up. Casualties are being treated in the healing ward. Excavation of the basement is underway to rescue those that might be trapped. Assessment of the situation is still underway. I don’t have the answers to any other questions. When I find out I’ll tell you.”
He stepped down and sat at the picnic table.
The dream’s sense of urgency woke him; everyone was being called to assemble on the school grounds in view of the healing ward balcony at eight a.m. He got dressed and went straight to The Oasis. It was seven thirty a.m., enough time to get a cup of coffee and a bagel. The rest of his close friends arrived piecemeal and ordered a simple breakfast. Shana and Jeremy were nowhere to be seen. Someone without any answers waited on them. A short time later they walked out as a group.
The crowd on the grounds was huge; it looked like everyone from the school and Magi City was there. A few minutes later Mrs. Shadowitz stepped to the balcony wall. Even from a distance she looked weary. Her voice was amplified and it sounded dejected, “It is my sad duty to inform you that there were three people that did not survive the explosion and subsequent collapse of the basement structure. They were: James Wiggins, Agate Tribe, instructor in the school of art, Elizabeth Casper, Diamond Tribe, worker in the Museum of Artifacts, Charles Baltz, non-Magi, janitor for the museum. Funeral services will be held for all three in the cemetery this Saturday at noon.
“If you haven’t yet heard, all seven mountains were attacked simultaneously. There were thirty-seven more deaths as a result, the names of which are now being posted at the entrances to this school.
“The initial analysis of these attacks reveals that they were after many artifacts, most notably the sunstone. We believe they acquired most, but not all, of what they were after.”
While she wasn’t lying, Mark knew her words were crafted to hide the truth of the matter. The sunstone they stole wasn’t the real one. It was a fastidiously fashioned fake in her words. Only a handful of people knew about it. Reason said that the Neo-Phylum would try for it with a covert theft and they’d do it at night. The fake sunstone had been put in place to let them steal it that way. No one had any idea that they’d use an attack like they had.
Mrs. Shadowitz continued, “The damage to the basement is extensive. This is true here and at the other mountains as well. The engineers tell us that the basement ceiling here is in danger of collapsing further. If that happens it is expected that the first level floor would collapse too. Normally when a school has to be closed for a short while students are temporally assigned to one of the other mountains, but as they are in pretty much the same state we are,
that is not possible. Since the repairs will take more than a month and there is less than a month left in the school year the Four Thousand, One Hundred and Fifty Second School Year of The Seventh Mountain is at an end. Your points will remain where they are today and standings will be calculated on a prorated basis. The school is closed and until further notice no one is to reenter the mountain. Those taking summer classes will be notified when and where they start.
“One last thing of note, Mattaraw was assailed and all of the prisoners are gone. The staff there report only minor injuries.
“This assembly is dismissed.”
Shana walked up behind Mark, “Mrs. Shadowitz wants to see you.” She held out her arm. He grabbed on and they were on the balcony beside her. Shana said, “Presenting Mark Young as commanded.”
Mrs. Shadowitz said, “Thank you, Shana.” and then “Mark, there may be another entrance to the labyrinth. Do you have any idea where it might be?”
Mark shook his head, “No, but I have some clues. The imp said there was another side in the labyrinth, then there’s always the moat.”
“I want you to reenter the labyrinth and look for the sunstone.”
“Why? It’s a fake.”
“We know that, but they don’t and they will expect us to try to recover it. So we have to at least look for it. They went to all this trouble to blow up the basements and block the normal entrances by filling the first rooms in the labyrinths with rubble in order to make it look like they’re trying to keep us out of the labyrinths. That fact makes it pretty certain that the sunstone isn’t there and there will be some type of trap waiting for you. Going in through the moat limits how quickly we can get a large team in there and exposes you to more danger than is necessary. We need to find the other entrance.”
“Ma’am, don’t take this wrong. I mean no disrespect, but my destiny lies along another path. I’ll help when I can, but I have to help LeOmi find the other staff.”
“Raphael said you’d say something like that. We’ll start looking for the other entrances and let you know as soon as we find them.”
“Have you figured out why the sunstone is so important?”
“Raphael also said he’d be disappointed if you didn’t ask that question and that we should trust you. Please don’t share this with anyone outside of your group of seven, and then only in a dream.
“We have determined that the sunstone is a type of book that displays some major waypoints of destiny: past, present and future. We believe it is limited in its content, the only things we’ve seen so far are scenes of events in this hemisphere: South, Middle and North America. We also believe that our understanding of the sunstone calendar dial may be flawed since the historical events we can correlate with the dial are off by six years from the standard calendar. We are looking into the possibility that the standard calendar may be wrong by six years. As yet, we don’t know if that is even possible. The theft of the fake sunstone is one of the things it shows and we absolutely know when that happened and it’s definitely off by six years. I regret not having found it before it happened.
“If it happens to be true that the standard calendar is wrong it means we missed the birth of Benrah’s physical body. Based on that possibility, however unlikely, teams are searching the records and the stars for any indication of his birth thirteen years ago.”
“Thirteen years! That means Slone could be Benrah. His name is an anagram for ‘son of evil’!”
“We believe that possibility to be very remote for several reasons: He was raised right here in the orphanage; his mother, a Magi of The First Mountain died in childbirth; though rare, it does happen. His father was accidently killed while on an archeological dig in Northern Turkey. While he desires to lead, a trait of Ruby Tribe, he has shown no abilities beyond what is normal, not even as an infant. While Benrah would surely attempt to conceal himself, his innate powers wouldn’t keep him hidden for long from anyone that was looking for him. And believe me, we have been looking. I don’t think it’s possible that Slone is Benrah.”
Mark thought for a moment and then said, “I take it that the fake sunstone has been made to look like the real one, both inside and out. When I find it, should I destroy it?”
Mrs. Shadowitz nodded. “See Mr. Müeller in Engineering, he’ll give you what you need.”
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