The Dark Water

by Seth Fishman

  And she does, tossing him over her shoulder with no preamble. It’s like she can’t allow two people to die today. We follow, my father leaning on me and Rob. I smell his sweat, his blood. He’s heavy, but he’s trying. He needs more water himself.

  We pass Straoc. I step on his hand accidentally. I feel his finger break beneath my heel. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound.

  Up the stairs, in the light, Lisa bears a look of stark resolve. “There is no easy water here. The nearest font will be with Arcos and his clan. No one speaks but me, understand?”

  We all nod, confused, and then she raises her head and screams like a banshee in the wind.

  “Lisa, what’re you doing?” Rob says, his voice straining. “You’ll bring Arcos’s men.”

  She looks at him, her face impassive. “That is exactly the plan.”

  12

  IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG.

  They come as a troop, more soldierly than I have yet seen, nine Keepers running three abreast. Both male and female, they’re dressed in thin, tight silver shirts and pants that appear to be hybrid armor and clothing. They shimmer as they run. Each has the same long black hair twisted into a bun on top of his or her head. They are big and scary and stop fifteen feet from us, watching warily.

  One of them, the collar of her shirt lined in a shimmering red, calls out to Lisa in their native tongue. We’ve gathered together in a clump, a pretty pathetic group. Dad can’t stop rubbing my back, as if he’s not sure he can believe I’m here.

  Lisa responds in English, presumably for our sake: “Please, friend Keeper. We need safe passage to a font.”

  The Keeper is tall, fierce looking, and I notice that she has a paint streak of that same red down the ridge of her nose. She glances at the open door to the Lock and squints suspiciously. With her large eyes, it makes for a very intense expression.

  “Where are those who guard the Lock?” She looks us over. “Why are you carrying a Topsider?”

  “I understand, and I am sure the seeing of us now and at this moment brings questions to your heart,” replies Lisa. Keeper diplomacy seems very proper, a slow way of doing business. “I am Lisenthe, daughter of Randt, one of the Keepers of the Source. You know of me, surely. We surrender ourselves to you and Arcos, Keeper of the Source, so that we might have your protection and speak to Keeper Arcos.” She motions to Brayden with her head. He’s bleeding down her shirt. “But most of all we need a font, all of us.”

  The officer considers this. “I am Palu, commander. And who does not know of the daughter of Randt, kept in his tower? You look of your father, and Keeper Arcos has little to trust in him at the moment. You will come, and you will be bound.”

  At a gesture from Palu, the soldiers fan around us, giant pale shadows, and without a word we’re trussed up and organized. A Keeper takes Brayden from Lisa and puts him on his shoulder; another carries Dad, who winces with each step his carrier takes, but I get it: he’d only slow us down if he walked on his own.

  Once we’re lined up we move quickly. I’m tired, both physically and emotionally, and soon the hallways blur and I’m lost in the rhythm of running, just trying to keep up. Like the end of a day doing laps at the pool, exhaustion fading in. I stare at Rob’s feet, watching him stumble over and over again.

  I don’t realize we’ve entered a new tower until the stone under my feet turns abruptly to wood. Long wide boards, dark with a distinctive wood grain, laid in crisscross pattern. The boards must be thick because they don’t give at all. I catch my father looking at me as he dangles almost upside down from a Keeper’s back. He shakes his head. I’m not sure why.

  We’re in an enormous spherical courtyard at the center of a huge building, like the inside of Epcot. Everything’s wood. There are wooden beams lining the walls, balconies supported by columns as thick as redwoods. On the floor there are trees, like at Randt’s tower, except here they jut from huge planters dug into the floor instead of grassy gardens. The place is empty, the vastness reminding me of the inside of a cathedral.

  Palu takes us directly to another gazebo/elevator, this one with a wooden door, but we head down, not up. Levels flash as we go, exits into foyers like at Randt’s tower. Five, six, seven of them until we stop.

  Palu motions for us to rise. “You must not speak unless spoken to,” she says, her voice deadly earnest. “I cannot repeat myself enough. To speak will be to end your lives. Have patience. Is this clear?”

  We nod our heads like schoolchildren. I’m tired of the surprises this place brings. I can hear the sound of Straoc’s finger under my foot. I can see the faint bubble of breath on Brayden’s lips. I just want to get this over with.

  Palu opens the door and steps out, guiding us into an amphitheater filled with Keepers in all manner of clothing and style. It’s like the Exchange, only quiet. Five hundred pairs of bright eyeballs stare at us from their seats as we’re ushered in, but no one makes a noise. I wonder why they’re all here; surely not because of us? That would be impossible. Palu walks down the center aisle and motions for us to sit in the first row, which is empty. She lays Brayden down on the thick wooden beams in front of me, then steps off to the side, as if she doesn’t want to obstruct the view of the Keepers behind me.

  In front of us, onstage, is the fattest Keeper I’ve yet seen. He’s huge, easily five hundred pounds, but at seven feet tall his bulk seems manageable—at least mobile. He’s got several chins, and a long black braid that goes over his left shoulder and drapes down his ruby red robe. His eyes are fierce green and he’s staring blankly at the crowd, as if in a daze. Beside him is a font, and behind him is a large white canvas, mounted between two gray and stiff pieces of petrified wood, gas lamps and glowflowers positioned all around to provide light.

  I lean over to ask Dad what he thinks is going on, but he waves me away, and I remember the rule not to speak. Dad winks reassuringly, the crows’ feet around his eyes wrinkling, and it’s just like him to try to make light of a serious moment. An irrational anger flares; why can’t he see that I got us this far, that I’m not some helpless kid who needs his comfort?

  What are we doing here? Jo mouths to me. Her knees bounce and I wish I had that kind of energy.

  The Keeper onstage dips his fingers in water from the font and sucks them greedily, then picks up a large brush from the ground. It’s the size of a broom, though the head is smaller and more refined. He dips it in some paint—it looks like there are dollops of color at his feet, as if he’s using the floor as a paint palette.

  This must be Arcos himself, one of the Three, and like Randt with his library of scrolls he must paint images, except that Arcos seems to prefer a bigger canvas and a larger audience. Watching his robes shift and his massive bulk move gracefully back and forth is entirely surreal. I feel like I’m at some bizarre performance for the Postmodern Club back at Westbrook. But it’s what Arcos draws that actually matters.

  He divides the canvas in half, right down the middle, and on the left side he draws Capian, just as I remember it from the gates. It’s stunningly accurate, identical to the memory I have of the view from the steps leading in. He finishes the towers quickly, and then he turns to the empty canvas on the right. He’s pushing his brush hard, scraping the paint on. At first I think he’s just drawing something from Capian I haven’t seen before but then, suddenly, I know. My stomach curls. I’ve seen that view, I stood there, on the hill above Westbrook by the broken statue of Socrates. I could see the school and Fenton beyond. There was snow and soldiers and spotlights and we escaped Sutton’s quarantine by knocking the statue down and racing across the frozen lake. And in less than five minutes Arcos has dipped into my memory and sketched exactly what I saw. He paints a line of blue between the cities, and underneath them, like an aquifer.

  Arcos steps back and examines his work. He picks up a fresh paintbrush and dips it in a bowl of red and then yellow paint and smears it vio
lently across the Keeper city, lighting it on fire. I can feel the breaths behind me suck in. The hair on my arms stands on end. Even Palu looks queasy.

  Then he dips the same brush in black and red and splatters Westbrook, and only Westbrook. But he draws little tendrils up to Fenton, and I’m sure Rob and Jo and my dad recognize that the tendrils aren’t random, but follow the exact line of Highway 504, snaking through the mountains.

  Arcos drops the brush, turns around and stares right at me.

  “The source speaks of a falling city, of Capian in flames, but I do not know why.” He squints at me, then at the rest of us, settling finally on Brayden on the floor. “Palu, I do not want sickness and hurt here. Take him to my personal font.”

  Palu nods, then hurries to lift Brayden from the floor onto her shoulders. His hair falls down his face and a drip of blood streams from his nose. Before I can do anything she runs up the steps and is gone. I stare at the blood he left on the floor, shuddering.

  “I know why Capian falls,” Lisa says, standing slowly.

  “Oh yes, Lisenthe, daughter of Randt, youngest of us all. Your father has finally shown you his scrolls, where he stores the visions the source gives him? The ones he locks away and guards like a treasure. I paint what I take from the source for all to see. I do not fear you reporting back to him. It is a shame that we no longer share our visions, that we are shown such different realities. When the Seven were here, when Feileen was alive and your father cooperative, we came together and could grasp the full meaning of the source every time. And now we are left with this,” he says, indicating the canvas. “An imperfection.”

  “The city falls because of the Seven you speak of, and the map they made,” Lisa says, her eyes fierce and defensive. Alarm bells go off in my head. Arcos shares his visions with his Keepers, which means they know of the map too. It is no secret at all.

  “Lisa, no!”

  But she goes on as if she hasn’t heard me. “The Topsiders here, this one”—she points at Dad—“he has seen and memorized the map.” The room erupts into shouts, not just shocked whispers but full-throated shouts.

  Arcos stares at Lisa, and then at my father, his great brow clearing. He steps closer. “The Seven, my sisters and brothers, left when we were young. Did Randt tell you why they left? Does anyone here understand why they left?”

  No one says a thing.

  “They left to ensure the source. To keep us safe. And any map they left was created for the same purpose.”

  “My father thinks differently,” Lisa replies, speaking loudly, defensively, as if on trial. “He believes the map is a guide to the Seven, that when we were ready enough to go Topside, it would be there to show us the way.”

  “We all know of your father’s politics, Lisenthe. Feileen has long opposed his wish to go Topside, to abandon us like the Seven. The map we sense is an excuse for Keeper Randt, nothing more. We Three made a vow to await the Seven and until then we will not allow anyone to leave, even if that involves force.” There are rumbles of approval around the room, but Lisa just takes it all in stride. She believes her dad, she has faith in him.

  “You don’t understand the map,” Dad whispers, so quiet I can barely hear him. But apparently loud enough.

  “Speak, Topsider, speak for your kind. There is little else you can do,” Arcos says. He holds out a huge hand to silence the crowd.

  Dad stands gingerly, his face a flower patch of bruises, his lips swollen. He cradles his arm awkwardly. But he still manages to look strong, smart, someone to listen to. I feel my heart swell in pride. It occurs to me that it’s not Lisa who’s on trial, but us.

  “Two of your cycles ago I found the map. And I can say this clearly: it will not lead you to the Seven,” he says, easily picking up the lingo. “I believe it was created to guide me,” he pauses, looks at me, “to guide us Topsiders to the source.”

  The crowd goes crazy, lurching to their feet with roars of indignation. The closest Keepers begin to spit all over us, disgusting warm globs that smack. We jump out of our seats and climb the stage, but guards are there immediately and hold us in place. Dad, though, won’t be cowed.

  “How do you think we got here? Why is this the first time a Topsider has found you? It’s because we were shown the way. The Seven want us here.” He struggles against the Keeper who holds him tight. “Keeper Arcos of the Three, you see the sickness that’s spreading among our people. The Topside needs the source to survive. Not just the water, but the source. Do you know why?” He’s still looking at me, as if this is all for my benefit. His years of secrets and theories laid bare. “Because we’re too late. Because the water has been tainted and turned evil and spreads too fast. Because we need a source of our own Topside to heal from the death that is coming. We need its visions and water and life Topside, not every seventeen years.”

  “The source does not work that way,” Arcos says after a moment. “Its powers differ for each of us, its gifts work best when we are all together. It cannot be moved. It is for us alone.”

  “I’ve seen the map,” Dad replies with conviction. Everyone’s listening, they can’t help it. “You are here, keeping the source safe, protecting it. Right? But for what reason? I believe you keep it for this very moment. Keeper Arcos, the Seven sent me to ask for your help.”

  I’m watching him in awe. Part of what he’s saying is totally spot on. There’s no way at all we’d have known to go through the well without the map. There’s no way I’d have jumped in without having seen the images on the map change to give me the hint I needed to find this place. Dad’s had the map for years; who knows how much more he could have deciphered. Maybe he’s right—maybe we’re here to bring the source home.

  Arcos looks back at his painting, at his burning city and the dark Topside. “And does the map tell you what the source is? Do you know what it truly does?”

  “I don’t,” Dad admits, rueful. “Not completely—”

  “I do,” I interrupt. “I know you and Randt use it to find people, to feel people, to understand what they are thinking. But you have to look, it won’t just tell you what’s going on in everyone’s minds. I know that if the virus spreads, we could use the source to find those who are sick and heal them.”

  I flinch, expecting the crowd to erupt again. But they don’t. They don’t make a sound, and in some ways, that’s scarier. Arcos blinks once, slowly, taking it all in. His eyes bore into my father, then me, and I feel it—the same thing I felt when Randt stared me down. Like he’s looking inside me right now, digging into my mind in some way. I squirm against the feeling, but it doesn’t stop.

  “You sound like Keeper Randt,” he finally says, relinquishing the grip on my mind, apparently satisfied with whatever he was looking for. “You are so focused on the Topside that you forget that we have been here long before you. It is not our duty to venture forth. We tried that once and lost our sisters and brothers and I will stop any Keeper who tries to do so.

  “Take them to my chambers,” he says to one of the guards, then turns to the crowd of Keepers. “My sisters and brothers, we do not have much time.” He points again at the burning city he painted. “Do you see? The source tells me that we must serve our purpose, that we must keep the source safe. Quickly now, go. Call our clans to arms. I feel something coming and there is not much time, not anymore.”

  13

  JIMMY

  SIX MINUTES, APPARENTLY, IS ABOUT AS LONG AS JIMMY can stay still.

  Gutierrez sits, tapping his combat boot on the concrete, his eyes never leaving Jimmy’s gun. “When you let me go,” he says, “what you gonna do? Go after her?”

  “Obviously,” Jimmy replies.

  “Won’t work,” he says.

  Jimmy’s trying not to listen. He looks around the room. It smells of ammonia and showers.

  “You want to know why not?” Gutierrez asks. “ ’Cause even if I lie to Sut
ton, he’s going to send someone after you. And if you follow her, they’ll find you both.” He shakes his head. “Look man, I’m just trying to help. You want to give her a real head start? Makes some noise on the way out, and go the other direction.”

  Jimmy’s body is so full of adrenaline it’s leaking from his pores. He checks his watch, seven minutes. Good enough.

  “Stand up,” he orders. Gutierrez gives a resigned smile, but does as he’s told, pushing his chair out of the way with a loud squeak.

  Jimmy raises the gun, butt first. Gutierrez holds up his hand in protest. “Don’t knock me out! I can’t help you then. I could be down for—”

  Jimmy clocks the guy hard in the gut, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him slumping to the floor. He happens to agree with the soldier; knocking him out would be stupid. Jimmy needs Gutierrez to be able to hurry back for more water, but he can’t just walk out the door arm in arm with the man.

  He watches him cough and curl on the concrete and then he moves, out into the hallway in a flash and sprinting down the halls.

  He can’t go the back door route, the way Sutton came in, the way Odessa’s gone. He’s looking to walk out the front.

  Suddenly he’s through a door and into an indoor parking lot. It’s disorienting and cold, the room so large that at first he thinks he’s made it to the greenhouses. But then he sees the three cars, sitting lonely in their lined spaces. There’s also a truck, a white van and a forklift.

  Jimmy thinks back to the monitors showing Sutton’s men out front with the police. The doors are closed now, probably to keep the police out.

  Jimmy checks the cars and finds no keys, but in the truck, a deep blue Ford with wheels beginning to crack with age, the keys are plopped on the dashboard, a Home Depot mini-rewards card attached.

  The engine turns over in one go, shuddering around him, and Jimmy feels some measure of safety for the first time in a long while, as if the truck were a suit of armor. He sits there idling, letting the cab grow warm, just taking a moment.