“Less talking. More reading.” He snatched the offending book from me and gave me a rap to the back of the head with it.
“Hey!” I rubbed where he had connected and went back to reading. Caduceus chose a chair next to me and propped his leg on the table. He pulled the top book from the new stack and began thumbing through its onionskin pages.
Three hours later, I stood and arched my back till it popped. I wondered how late it was. “No clock in here?”
“Whadda ya need with a clock? You taking medicine or something?”
“I was just thinking it’s getting late and these books will be here tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s your mysteries we’re trying to solve. If you’re ready to call it quits for the night, lead the way. Why don’t we grab a snack and watch a little TV before bed?”
“That’s totally not the kind of thing I ever want to hear from a big, strappin’ lad like yourself, C.”
“I could put you in a coma, you know,” he said as he rubbed his tattoo.
“Oh is that your M.O.? Mama warned me about guys like –” I had been enjoying the joke a little too much, perhaps, because all of a sudden I found myself knocked back by a hefty blast from up the hall. I went flying, ass over elbows, before smacking against one of Caduceus’ bookshelves. “What,” I had time to ask before being pelted by a heavy rain of first editions from above.
6
Caduceus came into the living room hefting three family-size bags of chips and a tub of Mike’s Famous Cheese Dip. I had already taken a seat in my customary spot and was looking around the living room at the odd knick-knacks he had gathered over the years. “Now, we’re ready for my shows,” he announced triumphantly as he reached into his remote control drawer. “Aha!” He pushed the power button on his mega universal remote and the entire system came to life.
He handed me one of the bags and set the others next to the cheese dip on the table. “What’s this,” I feigned, “Store bought dip? Not homemade? In this house? Outrageous!”
“It’s fine, I taught Mike everything he knows about dip,” he confided.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah. I am. But you don’t have to eat any of it, either, bozo. Hey, turn that one up,” he pointed at one of the consoles showing President Perry. “I hear he’s got some kind of big announcement to make. I’m going to get some bowls. Be right back.”
By the time Caduceus had gotten back with the bowls, and a soda each, I still hadn’t figured out the big control. “Gimme that, boy.” He unmuted it to find the president had already finished his address. Now, the various news anchors were discussing the footage. If you notice, there’s almost always a thin undertone of excitement in an anchorman’s voice, no matter what the story. That’s why it was so unnerving to hear the solemnity in the reporter’s voice.
“If you are just tuning in, we have been covering the president’s address. Shocking revelations in his speech have finally shed some light on the attack of two long weeks ago. The president’s words reverberate throughout this studio and the rest of America and beyond. From day one, the American people have been led to believe there have been no leads. Just minutes ago, however, the president confirmed the murder/suicide that took place on Liberty Island almost a week ago was in-fact an attempt to cover up a secret the French people did not want us to know. In the ensuing investigation, emails were found on the ambassador’s confiscated laptop. They offer an unbreakable chain between the murder victim, Josh Sanders, and Ambassador Andres. Mr. Sanders, a self-described mercenary-for-hire, had allegedly been commissioned by Andres to steal the desired weapons tech from Davenport Engineering back in January. Though that technology remains classified, we are already receiving rumored reports it might be some kind of short-range teleportation bomb. The emails indicated Sanders was regretful of his involvement, upon learning of the misuse of the information he had given Andres. While President Adelard was never fingered in the emails, the messages seemed to indicate that might be the case. Many details still remain sketchy, at this time. What would France have to gain from this cowardly attack? Why wouldn’t they have claimed credit already? Are there even larger plans down the line? Far from sketchy, however, were the ramifications of these revelations. Let’s look once again at the ending of President Perry’s address.”
The view shifted from the anchor desk to the recently recorded speech. The president spoke with fire in his eye, slamming his fist down behind the microphones like a Southern Baptist preacher.
“I have said this numerous times: If you are not with us, you are against us, even unto the nation. The American people deserve vindication. They deserve honesty. They deserve better than a so-called ally, who performs cowardly attacks on our soil and then attempts deception by offering aid to engender their nation to ours. France hoped to birth a powerhouse of nations by forcing a unity between our two countries after this tragedy. President Adelard thought to subvert our government into being run the way they would have us run. He planned to usurp our resources for France’s gain and, over time, assimilate us at the cost of our cultural identity. With few exceptions, and despite petty bickering, France has been a staunch supporter of the United States for so long. It is my sincerest hope we reach that day again soon. I am deeply saddened and sickened to say, until that day, I have no choice but to use this address as an undisputed intent and declaration of war against the nation of France. I have no further comments, at this time.”
7
Caduceus switched muted the sound and searched my face for my reaction. “You think it’s bogus, too, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think. It was more than a little convenient for the suicide after the murder. Now, they have a scapegoat to fuel a retaliatory war. Kinda nice they just happened to find this laptop full of emails, too?”
“If there even is a laptop. Did you notice whom Josh was mercing for? Davenport is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, competitors of VPI. He and Van Parson have been at each other’s throats since you were in grade school. It’s pretty blatant, really. I guess it goes to show that people are willing to either believe anything, or suspend their disbelief long enough to quench their bloodlust.”
“This is crazy, C. We’ve gotta do something to stop this cover-up. What about the allegations of France’s involvement? Do you even think they have anything at all to do with any of this? Surely you don’t think VP or President Perry are behind the attack, do you?” It was something I had wanted to discuss with him for a few days now.
“Behind the attack? I wouldn’t put it past either of them given the right motivation. Actually, I don’t know if France is involved or not. I know it wasn’t the ambassador who killed that boy. If he wasn’t involved, then there could be no smoking laptop. Nothing about this adds up. All I know is Richard Van Parson’s fingerprints are all over this, whether as the chief orchestrateror or the cover-up man, I couldn’t say for certain.”
“We’ve gotta do something,” I repeated.
“Hmm, like what? If either of us were to return to the statue, they wouldn’t hesitate to lock our miserable carcasses up and tell the whole world we were spies sent over by Adelard himself. No, we need to approach this of the mind, not of the heart. Clear heads will prevail.
“Besides which, your focus should be to find the truth about who you were and what you are. There is someone I think you should meet. I will arrange a visit for you. Do not fret, though, for I will keep a watchful eye. At the first sign of further trouble, or if I can devise a way to get us indirectly involved – or better yet, directly so, without getting entangled in the whole mess – then I shall send for your return.”
“What are you talking about? A visit? With whom?” I asked, surprised at the abruptness of this idea.
“With the man who might just be your only hope at a forced remembrance, the one man whose arcane knowledge outshines even yours truly. I speak of my estranged childhood friend, Aesculapus. He is incredibly sensitive in the worki
ngs of the mind. I must be honest with you, though: his methods leave a lot to be desired. They might even be harmful in their own right. His tests have been known to carry serious side effects up to and including death.”
“That’s a pretty serious side effect, actually.”
“Indeed. If you are serious about regaining your memories, however, I will arrange for you to go tomorrow morning. I will travel with you to his dwelling place and once you have been delivered, I shall take my leave of you. I’m sorry, but I’m not entirely welcome there. Pitty. He will always be welcome here. I remain hopeful we can, one day, work through our perceived differences.”
“What exactly caused the rift between you?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing my nose too deeply into my new friend’s business.
“Well now, I’m not a hundred percent certain what happened. We were fine until we were each about your age. Then, we roomed together – this was shortly after I found and built this place – and things went to hell. Something happened to him, and he changed, became cold toward me. To tell the truth, over the years, I’ve thought of him often and wondered where it all went wrong, wondered what I could have done differently. I’ve beaten myself up over whether I somehow pushed him away. I tell you, I cannot see anything in our past that could have caused this chasm in our relationship. I loved him like a brother, and it saddens me to my marrow. I think I am finished talking of it for now. In the morning,” he promised, “I shall tell you as much as I can, once we have begun our trek. Now, go get some sleep. I’ve got some contacts to make.”
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
1
We had breakfast earlier than our usual. The spread was so much it covered his little kitchen island completely. My first thought, upon entering the kitchen, was we must have a few guests joining us. “I thought we were going to visit Aesculapus. Did you change your mind and decide to have him – and perhaps the whole neighborhood – over while I was asleep?”
“Good, you slept well.” His reaction was more solemn than I had expected.
“Something wrong?”
“Whassat? Oh, yes, sorry. No, nothing is wrong. I’m just a little unprepared for our travels today, is all. More to the point, I’m not ready for the destination, for the reunion with my old friend. Plus, I didn’t get but a few winks last night. Thinking about the past, again. I haven’t seen him in, oh, nearly eighty years or so.”
“Eighty? That would’ve been …” I trailed off, doing the math.
“A long time ago,” he finished, smiling wryly. He shoveled a spatula of scrambled eggs onto a plate, handing it off to me as he did so. “I figured I’d make something special this morning. You won’t be eating like this again anytime soon, I reckon.”
“You sound like you’re saying goodbye, Caduceus. I’ll be back soon. Well, I hope it’ll be soon. Yeah, I want to know who I am, and I’m starting to get a little impatient about it. Aesculapus had better have the answers, quickly, or I just don’t know. Regardless, I’ll come visit and tell you all about it. Who knows, I might even be able to talk him into burying the hatchet. I mean, eighty years, I think that’s a little long to carry a grudge. When I regain my memories, I’ll even have you out to the house. Wonder what type of place I live in. Probably someplace spacious. I tend to enjoy myself more when we’re outdoors. Sorry, I’m babbling,” I caught myself. I motioned toward the waiting buffet. “May I?”
“Yeah, go ahead. It’s certainly no Van Parson breakfast, but it’ll do.” Then, in answer to my comments, he explained, “Guess I am sayin’ goodbye at that. Living as long as I have, I’ve come to be a little jaded regarding relationships. I know how much lives can get in the way of friendships. That’s why we’re going on foot rather than by car or ‘porting; it’ll give us a chance for me to tell you the tale I promised you of my split with Aesculapus, as well as extend the goodbye a little. Sorry, I know I said I was jaded, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to accept I am.”
We carried our heaping plates over and took a seat at the breakfast nook in the corner of the kitchen. “So, what’s our agenda for the day?”
“I figure you can pack any stuff you have here and anything of mine you feel you might need. I can replace whatever you take the next time I go out. I’ll gather a few snacks, of course, for the trip, and I’ll be ready. I feel like we can probably be on the road in little over an hour.”
“The road to where? How far away does this guy live, exactly? If we’re going on foot, it surly can’t be too far.”
“Hmm, I don’t know where he lives, really. It’s been so long since we’ve spoken to one another.”
“But you have his address, so we can just look it up online or something, right,” I suggested.
“Ah, that would be a negative. I do not know where he lives, period. No address, nothing. I told you, last night, he briefly stayed with me here, right? Well, the last thing he said to me, before leaving, was he was gone from my life for good and he didn’t want me to even try to find him.”
“What the heck are you saying, that you don’t know where we’re going, but, by golly, we’re going anyway? That doesn’t make any sense at all, not even for you, man.”
“Why not? All creatures, great and small, do a heavy amount of relying on their instincts, yes? Why not us? Have faith. Walk. When the time is right, we’ll find him.”
I shook my head at my friend, the modern Zen master. “Whatever.”
2
An hour and eight minutes later, we stepped out of Caduceus’s strange realm and onto his perfectly suburban American front porch. It was surreal to be in the real world after spending the last week flying around, shooting energy beams, and exploring Sherwood Forest. There I was, though, walking down a New Jersey sidewalk, past regular New Jersey kids, doing perfectly real-life chalk drawings. “I’ve gotta admit, this is throwing me off a little. Who would’ve ever guessed a plain-enough-looking Jersey home would contain the secret world we just exited.”
“Actually, that’s not my house.” He gestured behind us at the white and cream two-story home we had just exited from. “That’s the Jacobs’ residence, I believe. Or is this one the Lendsey home? I forget. Anyway, that’s not my house.”
“Okay, yeah. That made it crystal, man. Explain.”
Caduceus scowled and said, “Humor me for a riddle: what is the nature of a doorway?” He had donned his instructor’s voice.
“A doorway? It opens and closes. That can’t be what you’re asking. It opens and closes …”
“A doorway opens and closes the way from one place to another. This doorway is the one I use to get from this place to my place. Get it?”
“I think so, yeah. So have you always been a Jersey resident?”
“Actually, I’ve had several points of egress since taking roost near my unique stream. Every few years, I change locales to keep the vermin at bay. In every generation, there are those wicked, or simply misguided, individuals who seek to gain future knowledge. This is never wise, especially for an untrained mind. There was a stretch of maybe ten or twelve years, right after I built my place, when I thought I would be safe by staying in one place. Then, a hunter, of all things, found his way through the same rip I had come through and couldn’t make his way out again. I offered him in, tried to ease his spirits a bit, and fed him, of course. Afterward, I helped him on his way. Wouldn’t you know the first thing he did was round up all his buddies and spread the story of the stream and it’s temporal nature? There was a fair amount of liquor involved, and discretion was thrown to the wind. The other hunters were skeptical and harmless. The story was overheard, however, by a third-level mage, one who would prove to be a nuisance and quite the menace to me over the next several months. I was never worried, simply annoyed, and I, eventually, put an end to his bothersomeness.” Caduceus wore an unreadable expression.
“After that, I decided to relocate regularly. I spent some time in Paris, where I learned what little French I know. Then, I moved on to a small town in
Arkansas, where I learned, well, nothing of great value, I’m afraid. Anyway, I’ve synced with dozens of doorways over the years. If I were to say, my favorite would probably have to be the three years spent exiting through the women’s bathroom in the lobby of the Smithsonian.”
“Museum?” I couldn’t help but laugh, as I pictured Caduceus appearing in the doorway of the lady’s room of one of the world’s most notable museums, and then lumbering over to a Monet painting, resplendent in his jeans and work shirt.
“What’s so funny,” He asked, arching a bushy eyebrow.
“You. You trip me out, sir. So, Jersey,” I prompted.
“I’ve been here for a while. It’s a nice neighborhood. I’ve gotten attached to the people who walk by my window. The last time I moved, it was only to a house on the opposite side of the street. Why, I’ve seen the Lendsey’s and the Jacobs’ kids grow up in the sandbox together and then move on to date each other. Probably getting to be a little too comfortable here, really. I should be moving on. I should’ve already. Yet another reason I’ve decided to extend this goodbye.”
“So, what? You’re going to pack up your house or door, or whatever, when you get back and I’ll never see you again? That’s not right. How will I find you?”
“I’m sure one of us will find the other when the time is right. Besides, I would very much like to be your houseguest, for a change, one day. I think it would be … an interesting experience.” He smiled. “Now, you wanted to know about Aesculapus and our shared past, yes? Where to begin; where to begin? Ah, yes.”
3
“Aesculapus came to stay with my family when I was about seven years old. You see, his younger brother had just passed – crib death was very common, then – and his parents felt their trauma would get in the way of providing a stable upbringing for him. Maybe they just felt providing a stable upbringing for him would get in the way of their trauma. I don’t know. I do know, at the time, neither of us could understand how any parent could give up their kid like that.” Caduceus snapped his finger in illustration. “Much less, how they could do so and ever expect forgiveness. I’m much older and wiser, now. Well, older. Anyway, I thank the Lord above I don’t have to live with that decision, you know?
Forging Truth (The Truth Saga) Page 9
