ALEC: An Action & Adventure Fantasy Novel (Alexander Trilogy)

by Stan I. S. Law

  Just then her cell-phone chimed. She got it out of her handbag with trembling hands.

  “Oh, my goodness, really, oh no… yes, yes, of course you can. Yes, at once, of course. Don’t worry. Oh my goodness. Really? Oh, dear. Yes, yes, I too am sorry. I’ll be right over.”

  She cut the connection and got to her feet.

  “I’m most terribly sorry, I must leave you. Perhaps some other time? In my place? Soon?”

  They all wanted to know what happened.

  “It’s Alec, my son. He’s been hurt. Must run. Not serious but he needs me. You understand…”

  They understood. They were all mothers.

  Alicia ran out to her car. She took a deep breath. It’s good to be a mother, she thought. One always has an excuse.

  Alec put the cell phone down, puzzled. All he wanted to know was if he could be late for supper. Just a lousy half-hour. What on earth was mother on about? And why was she so sorry, he wondered? I would come sooner if she’d insisted.

  Coming right over? Coming right over where? He wasn’t even home. For crying out loud, that’s why he’d called mom to begin with.

  13

  Machu Picchu

  Alec had only read about the Inca Empire; he’d never visited Peru. But he knew from many pictures about the mystery of Machu Picchu. He’d seen a movie about it. Seen it three times. And now, here, he was in the forbidden fortress. But it was unlike any of the photos he’d seen. It was resplendent in all its glory. Not in ruins. It was as it had been. As he’d imagined it should be. And much, much bigger. And bustling and alive but in a very different way from any city Alec had ever visited.

  He looked around.

  The air was so pure that he could see minute details of intricate stonework from afar. Still farther, the surrounding pinnacles sported a sharp tonsure above a white ring of puffy clouds near the top. The somber crags looked like an army of ancient sentinels guarding access to the Forbidden City.

  In spite of the thousands of people all around him, he marveled at the near silence—as though no one spoke here, only whispered. No cars, no railways, no planes, no blaring radios disturbed the elusive tranquility. Only the wind sang softly an air that invaded the narrow streets, carrying the intoxicating smell of the rain forest below him.

  They’d landed on a platform about three floors higher than street level. From this relatively humble elevation they could oversee practically the whole plateau. There were some taller buildings, but few and far between. He could see the streets were laid out in an orderly fashion. Narrower than on Earth, and mostly planted with trees, bushes and an incredible kaleidoscope of flowers. People walked footpaths carved in lawns, skirting larger trees, winding up and down, interrupted by cascading steps. Little arched bridges swung over bubbling brooks; swans posed for absentee photographers.

  “You sure this isn’t heaven?”

  “Only if I’m an angel!” she laughed. Her laughter he actually heard. Not just felt. As for her answer, he wasn’t sure it satisfied him.

  “Those people like walking,” he observed.

  Suddenly, Alec became aware that he was still holding on to Sandra’s hand. Before he had the chance to blush, he smiled and relaxed his grip. He only now realized that he had been holding on to her not out of fear, but because touching her felt good... It felt natural. It was hard to tell where his hand finished and hers began. Anyway, he was perfectly safe here. He belonged in this city, in these enchanted gardens of Babylon. Only the gardens weren’t hanging. They were laid out before him, begging to be entered, explored, experienced.

  An enormous sun, about four times the Earth’s sun’s apparent diameter, hung motionless above them. Aren’t we too close, he wondered. And as the thought formed in his mind, a tattered cloud separated itself from a cloud lower down and drifted up and overhead to offer partial shade. I like this place, he thought. This is much better than on Earth. Much better.

  “This is where you practice your skills,” Sandra remarked.

  He didn’t quite know what she meant, but guessed that here you had to imagine whatever you wanted to come into your life. He suspected that things didn’t happen much by themselves.

  “Let’s go down,” said Sandra, and this time she took Alec’s hand and led him down the steps. Not like leading a child, but more like two friends ready to explore a new mystery together. As one.

  The broad stairs led them towards two intermediate levels, each as big as a tennis court. Only instead of lines defining the rules of the game, the floor sparkled with colorful mosaics, intricate patterns leading them towards the next flight that drew them in a seemingly predetermined direction.

  Alec was spellbound. “Is it always so peaceful here?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Look to your right.” Just on the other side of the lower platform, there was a sheer drop of what must have been... well, a bottomless pit. A ravine so deep that his eyes could not reach its bottom. It was as though he were looking towards a dark horizon, only he was looking downwards.

  “Down here, there are no limits to curb your desire for adventure. Not only the sky is the limit, but so is the very opposite...”

  The words didn’t make sense; the view did. Alec, grateful that Sandra was still holding on to his hand, drew back from the precipice.

  “It is because you are willing to face the unknown that you’ve earned the right to be here. Courage is practically the only qualification.”

  Courage or not, her hand felt good in his.

  They wandered along the wide path, greeting other people strolling, seemingly aimlessly, with a courteous nod. They smiled to each other, as though meeting old acquaintances. It was not personal knowledge that made them so familiar but rather the apparent sharing of the common purpose. All people who lived in this place had earned a right to be here. They must have done something right.

  These must be the ancients, he murmured. Sandra smiled her approval.

  “How did I know that?” he wondered.

  “How do you know anything? One feels things. It is the only way one really knows anything.” She smiled her approval.

  “None of the people look a thousand years old...” he commented.

  “Nobody ever does. But you could if you wanted to.”

  “What?”

  “You are what you want to be. Some people here spend a few centuries as aged, almost senile doters. Of course, they are neither old nor senile. They assume this form to learn to cope with the infirmity of old age.”

  “Is that why some people on Earth cope so well although they are pushing a hundred years?”

  “Hundred and more. On Earth we are lumbered with the limitations of physical laws. We respond to gravity, pollution, and mostly to the food chain. Here you can become young or old at a moment’s notice.”

  “Don’t we respond to the food chain here also?”

  “Here you eat if you want to. If you don’t, you don’t.”

  Sandra let go his hand and reached up on her toes. She pulled an apple from a tree and offered it to him. “You can make one yourself, if you want to, but it’s more fun to pick one, don’t you think?”

  The moment he took the apple, he became hungry. He’d felt no pangs before. This was a strange world. You responded to the stimulus, but you could also change the stimulus at will. One could learn a great deal about oneself that way.

  “Precisely,” Sandra agreed.

  They walked hand in hand for some time. The buildings were all of stone, or what looked like stone, mostly off-white marble, or maybe onyx. Can you imagine? Whole buildings made of onyx? The structures were all arranged so as not to block anyone’s view of the surrounding gardens. The windows seemed to be just openings in walls, allowing the clean balmy air of late springtime to breathe through the rooms. It must have taken great care to arrange all this. One had to take all others into consideration when planning one’s abode. He assumed, of course, that these were the private quarters of people who lived here.

 
“Yes and no. These are the living quarters, but they are not limited to any particular person. Any empty house is at your disposal. When you’re resting, of course.”

  “Don’t people work here?”

  “You don’t remember much, do you!” Her face was aglow with mirth. “You worked harder than any man I saw. For centuries at a time!”

  He wanted to say “who, me?” but held his breath. Learning, learning, learning, he repeated under his breath. He believed her that the memories were stored somewhere in his mind, but he didn’t really want to face a thousand years of memories. Not if they were memories of hard labour.

  “Where do people work?”

  “This is a large planet. If you feel constrained, there are eleven other, lesser planets, and a total of forty-seven moons. At one time or another, they’ve all been visited by people seeking various challenges. You’ll be surprised what imagination can create. And that includes your own.”

  “And this?”

  “This is the holiday area. Of the billions of… of people inhabiting this system, only about a hundred-thousand ever rest at the same time.”

  “Workaholics?”

  She laughed. “You should know. But seriously. People who spend any length of time here do so because they find joy in facing ever-new challenges. The range of the challenges is only limited by your own imagination. You can develop your skills in virtually any field.”

  “And we use those skills on Earth? Later, I mean?”

  “What you do with them is, of course, up to you. But if you so choose, then you certainly carry with you a predisposition to certain talents down there, as we call it here.”

  “Like Mozart for composition?”

  “Exactly.”

  If all this was here, ready and available, then why ever leave? What was there on Earth that was more attractive for anyone to choose the nether realms? All other worlds seemed redundant.

  “Would you give up the Far Country?”

  “Of course not! Ah, I see what you mean. There are many ways to skin a cat.”

  “I’ve never heard it put exactly that way, but yes. There are many different ways to grow. To become whole.”

  They reached a house on a slight hill and Sandra pulled him towards it. Somehow it seemed slightly familiar. It had curved arches for entry and windows. He could see that some of the ceilings were also arched, as in some cloisters on Earth he’d seen photos of. The place looked charming and inviting.

  “I’ve been here before,” he affirmed. “It has three bedrooms and a studio. Two of the bedrooms are always empty. We kept them for temporary visitors from Earth. They’ve been used only about a dozen times in all the years I’ve been here.”

  “A few times since you left.” For the first time in a long while she emitted a girlish giggle. The giggle wasn’t offensive in any way. In fact, he rather liked it.

  “What is it? What’s so funny?”

  “You were the visitor on the last three occasions.” This time she laughed out loud.

  He didn’t argue. He decided never to argue with Sandra again. “Can I come here on my own?” he asked.

  “Without me?” She was definitely coy.

  “Of course not! I mean from Earth under my own… ah, steam.”

  “I’m afraid not. I mean, not without a compelling purpose. You are here now for only one reason. The recall of your memories is a necessary stage before the next step.”

  ***

  “You’ve got to teach me, Alex. Teach me now. Really. It’s urgent. Very urgent.” She raised her voice slightly. “Alex, are you listening to me?”

  Alicia was at the end of her tether. She not only didn’t tell the girls any stories about her sailing trip, the stories she’d promised, but now the expert, the EXPERT asked her to give a lecture about the Caribbean.

  “Alex!”

  “Yes, darling. What is it?” He sounded sleepy.

  “You haven’t been listening, have you?”

  “You said it was urgent, didn’t you?” he replied triumphantly.

  She gave him a dirty look and repeated her request. Then she told him why she needed to know.

  “Why don’t you just tell them that it was your first sail? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

  “I’d already promised. And I had one more sail in the Caribbean than most if not all of them. The others sailed mostly on Lac St. Louis, some on Thousand Islands, and none down south.”

  Lac St. Louis was a widening of River Saint Laurent that at its widest measured some miles across. Thousand Islands started around Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario.

  “You promised what… no, you didn’t. Surely. You didn’t tell them that you’ll lecture them about sailing the open seas?”

  “Betty said they want to form a sailing club and proposed me as the president.”

  “To sail where? And what? Did you buy a boat I don’t know about?”

  “No, you did.”

  “It’s not a bad idea, but I did nothing of the sort.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Darling!”

  “Don’t darling me. You won’t even buy me a li’l boat.” Her lips formed a perfect pout. For a mother of a thirteen-year-old, she certainly knew how to be coy. Actually coy and sexy.

  Alex sighed, than sighed again, then put the newspaper down and started laughing. “That is exactly how you looked when you wanted me to buy you that stole. Did you know it wasn’t even mink?

  “I am not stupid, Alex. I am your wife.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  As a matter of fact, at the time, Alex couldn’t tell the artificial fur from the real one, except by the price. And by the joy Alicia had expressed, also at the time, she couldn’t have either. He let that go.

  Alex has been dreaming of owning a boat for years; ever since his Solent days. They’d spent many days dodging vessels coming in and out of Gosport, the military harbor just south of Portsmouth. Solent is the strait that separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland of England. His friend’s sloop was just 25 feet, but she could tack on a pinhead. They had fun pretending that the sailboat had the right of way. Not all military vessels were amused when they tacked or jibed at the very last moment.

  Aaah… those were the days…

  He never imagined that Alicia would be keen on sailing. Not even after the Don experience. She gave him an impression of being a landlubber. Their sail on the Catalina did nothing to change his mind.

  “You’d really like a boat?” he gave her a long look.

  “I don’t have to sail in… Of course I’d like a boat,” she caught herself in midsentence.

  “Of course…” Alex agreed. “Of course.”

  “I only wish the water was a bit warmer here…” she almost whimpered.

  Alex had to agree that she’d look good on deck of a nice li’l boat. In her bikini, of course. He saw himself standing at the wheel; his chin thrust forward, his sights on the far horizon, his head adorned by a Commodore’s cap.

  “My name is Baldwin. Alexander Baldwin,” he almost said aloud; shades of 007?

  “Of course,” he nodded. “Of course.”

  ***

  The Next Step again. Somehow it sounded rather forbidding. As though to gain it he had to give something up. But what? He didn’t have that much as it was. It probably had nothing to do with any possessions. Probably with some concepts he would have to give up. Sometimes concepts are the hardest things to let go of.

  “Some people never do. That is why they’re walking in circles,” Sandra whispered.

  “Can’t they free themselves even here?”

  “Not all people come here. And if they do, they often just dream. It is the only way they can absorb new concepts.”

  “Just dream... Isn’t that what I seem to be doing on Earth?”

  “On Earth you are making up for the two children your mother miscarried since she gave you your earthly body. Mozart had achieved more, but Leonardo da Vinci
and Winston Churchill had problems with reading at your age. Louis Pasteur and George Washington couldn’t spell. You’re not doing too badly.”

  “Then why do I feel so stupid?”

  “That’s one of the things you must overcome.” Her tone was serious. “There is a great difference between humility and pig-headedness. You were never stupid, but you tend to be overwhelmed by the enormity of knowledge still facing you. That’s a very different story.” Then she looked into his eyes. “By the way, stupid means slow, and you are one of the fastest-growing boys I know. Even if you are just six feet tall.”

  Alec still looked uncertain.

  “One man once said ‘I know that I know nothing’, Sandra added. “He was one of the wisest men on Earth. His name was Socrates.”

  Alec looked down. The ground was a lot farther away than it should have been. Six feet tall indeed.

  Alec looked out through the window. Nothing appeared to have changed outside. As though time forgot to advance. Even the sun seemed to remain stationary overhead.

  “How does time work here?” he asked.

  “By Earth standards it is about ten times slower. But you can fill it with ten times as many things or activities.”

  He thought he knew what she meant. They must have been here for minutes, Earth time. It felt like hours. He supposed that in the Far Country time stopped almost completely. It felt like it. If he, there, could cover light-years in seconds, time must be obeying very different rules.

  In spite of the stillness of time, he felt just a little tired; perhaps drowsy is a better word. Too many impressions all at once. He was grateful, but he needed time to make them all his own. He knew that, back on Earth, he was still a child. And as a child he had to contain the Universe that seemed really without end. A tall order.

  A tall order for a boy who, down there, was a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old. Better than some, but not as good as Mozart, who at half his age, composed a symphony.