The Golden City fr-3

by John Twelve Hawks

  Gabriel walked up the central aisle and stopped when he saw the passageway that floated on the surface of a stained-glass window. Had his brother already crossed over? If that was true, then Michael could be in any of the six realms. He could search for hundreds of years and never find him.

  The door squeaked on its iron hinges and Michael entered the church. He stopped when he saw Gabriel and smiled slightly. Even in this place, he played the role of the confident older brother.

  “Why are you standing there? Take the passageway.”

  “I’m staying here with you, Michael.”

  Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled between the pews as if he was a tourist visiting a minor attraction.

  “I’ve experienced the whole cycle in this barrier. Everything burns down, and then it reappears again.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s no food in this place. No water. We have to cross over and move on.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Michael. You’re like a virus that infects everyone who comes near you.”

  “I’m a Traveler-just like you. Only I just see things as they are.”

  “And that means killing children?”

  “If that’s necessary…”

  The altar caught fire, dry wood crackling as it burned. Gabriel looked behind him and saw fire touch the dead roses held in a copper vase. The flowers shriveled slightly and were transformed into tiny points of flame.

  When he turned back around, Michael was standing on a bench, trying to climb onto the frame of the stained-glass window. Gabriel sprinted across the room, grabbed his brother, and they fell onto the floor. Kicking and punching, Michael tried to break free while Gabriel held him tightly. They rolled sideways, knocking over the benches, and Michael rammed his elbow into his brother’s chest. He jumped up and scrambled back to the window. This time, he stacked up the benches and formed an improvised platform.

  “You can stay here!” Michael screamed. “Stay here forever!” A ceiling beam broke away from the wall. It twisted as it fell, flinging off sparks, then hit Michael’s shoulder and knocked him to the floor. He lay stunned for a few seconds as another beam fell and then a third. Michael pushed his palms flat and tried to get up, but the weight held him down.

  Gabriel saw the hate and rage in his brother’s eyes. He knew that he couldn’t save Michael, nor could he leave him to die. Sitting on the floor, Gabriel crossed his legs and waited. He accepted the moment, accepted it so completely that it felt as if all his questions had been answered. Breathe. Breathe again. And a luminous field appeared in front of him, infinite, expanding, accepting.

  ***

  The only two streets in the town met at a central square with park benches and a stone obelisk covered with a circle, a triangle and a pentagram. Anyone standing by this memorial would have watched the final moments of the conflagration when flames cracked windows and burned their way through doors. Finally, the buildings themselves began to collapse, the burning timbers unable to hold the weight of the upper floors. The church with its wooden pillars and white copula was the last to go. It seemed to explode from within, creating a point of energy as bright and powerful as a new sun.

  45

  There was no air conditioning in their apartment in Rome -just a collection of antique electric fans. A fan occupied a side table in each of the eight rooms, and Alice Chen had decorated them with red and blue ribbons that rippled in the air whenever the blades were spinning.

  Because of the September heat, they woke up early in the morning. Priest pushed the living room couches and club chairs against the wall and turned the area into a gym. After drinking two cups of espresso, he did his push-ups and stomach crunches on the white marble floor, then ran through a complicated series of martial arts exercises. When he was done with his own workout, he started Alice ’s karate lessons.

  Now that she was seven months pregnant, Maya found it difficult to jump and kick, so she sat on a yoga mat, stretched her muscles, and offered advice. She and Priest would finish the morning workout sparring with kendo swords. She felt fat and awkward, but her reaction time hadn’t changed, and she knew a wide range of fakes and maneuvers. In a ten minute session, she could usually block Priest’s attack and jab him with her bamboo blade.

  After a light breakfast, they would leave the apartment and shop for food and supplies on the side streets near the Piazza Navona. In the afternoon, Maya would take a nap while various tutors came to the apartment. Priest was learning Italian, and a college student was teaching Alice history, literature and mathematics. Linden had returned to Paris. With his help they were beginning to accumulate a collection of fake I.D. cards and cloned passports that would enable them to travel anywhere in the world.

  Simon Lumbroso usually arrived at seven o’clock, bringing a bag of fresh fruit or a carton of gelato. They would cook supper at the apartment or stroll through the quiet evening streets to a restaurant in the old Jewish Ghetto. The staff spoiled Alice with special desserts and everyone asked about Maya’s l’arrive bendetto-the blessed arrival of her child.

  Maya refused to read newspapers or watch television, so Simon was her main source of information on what was happening in the world. Some changes had taken place in the days that followed Gabriel’s speech. In the United States, the Guardian Angel Program was cancelled and most parents had removed the RFID chips from their children’s bodies. A mandatory I.D. card law was rejected by several European countries, and the Germany legislature made it illegal to monitor store purchases that did not involve dangerous products.

  An organization called We Stand Together was started in Britain and quickly spread to a dozen other countries. Initially, the group criticized the activities of the Evergreen Foundation, but now each chapter was involved with local issues involving personal freedom. While this was going on, the Free Runners continued to organize informal demonstrations against the Vast Machine. Jugger had come up with a slogan-No More Fear!-and these three words were scrawled on walls and bridges all over the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, the slogan had evolved into the words No Más next to the cartoon image of a little man looking frightened. Along with the graffiti, there were local demonstrations like the infamous “Poke in the Eye” night in Glasgow when the lens of every surveillance camera in the city was sprayed with black paint.

  All of these public activities were reported by the media while other developments took place in the underground culture. People created blogs and chat groups that explained how to create a parallel identity. They published pamphlets and set up websites that challenged the politics of fear.

  After Simon described all the latest developments, he would take out a large white handkerchief and wipe his brow. “Gabriel’s speech made a big splash like a rock tossed into a pond. In some places, the water is the same again. But the ripples spread out and we don’t know how they’ll change the world.”

  ***

  It rained Tuesday night, and the following day was hot and humid. When Simon arrived in the late afternoon, they decided to stroll over to the park that surrounded the Villa Borghese. Alice had memorized the maze of narrow streets in the old city, and she led them east to the Piazza de Popolo, a large cobblestone oval with an obelisk at the center. They cut across the open space and followed the zigzagging stairway that climbed up the Pinicio Hill to the gardens. As usual, Alice led the way like a scout guiding them through a forest. Maya and Simon followed. The baby started kicking inside her about halfway up, and Simon stopped several times to point out a distant building.

  Priest followed them, carrying his sword in a black tube with a shoulder strap. Maya still had a knife strapped to her left forearm, but her own sword was stored in a closet back in the apartment.

  Alice reached the top of the hill first and waited for them in the main square that overlooked Rome. If they stood beside the wall, they could see most of the city-from Monte Mario to the Janiculum. The dust and pollution of that summer’s day softened the lig
ht. The church domes and marble monuments had the yellowish-white color of antique ivory found in a museum.

  They strolled down a pathway to the Giardino del Largo at the center of the park. Huge pine trees and Lombardy poplars sheltered them from the sun until they reached an artificial lake near the center of the garden that Alice called “the Sea.” In the summertime, the lake water was green with algae and dotted with lily pads. Families rented aluminum rowboats and spent afternoons bumping into each other and tossing bread crumbs at the swans.

  Maya sat down on a park bench and ate two biscotti. Directly across the lake was an Ionic temple dedicated to Aesculapius, the god of health; it felt like good luck to gaze at his statue.

  Alice had too much energy to endure such sedentary pleasures. She ran around the park tossing pebbles into the lake and searching for a group of baby ducks hidden among the bamboo and banana trees. Finally, she returned to the bench and approached Simon.

  “Let’s go to the River. Did you bring a boat?”

  “Instead of just one vessel, I’ve brought a fleet.”

  Simon reached into his canvas shopping bag and took out a piece of balsa wood with a stick mast and paper sails. In the middle of the gardens, someone had built a brick and concrete canal about the size of a drainage ditch. Alice called this ornamental gesture “the River,” because the water in the canal meandered down a low hill, passed beneath tiny bridges and finally emptied into the Sea. The Italian children liked to send chips of wood or paper boats down this miniature waterway, but Alice had insisted on a “real” toy boat. Three weeks ago, Simon had shown up with a balsa wood craft. His creations had gradually become more sophisticated.

  Alice peered into the bag. “How many did you make?”

  “Five. An eighteenth century warship. A Polynesian outrigger. A rich man’s yacht. The ocean liner. And a tug boat. I’ll admit that most of them look the same, but you have to use your imagination.”

  “Who gets the fifth boat?”

  “The fifth one is Fate’s vessel and la signora sails it wherever she wishes. But you can pick your own, Alice.”

  “Let’s test them first,” Alice said. “We’ll sail each one to the first bend in the river.”

  “An excellent idea.” Simon bowed to Maya. “We shall perform a quick test of seaworthiness and then return.”

  The two of them walked off together and Priest sat down next to Maya. “I get the feeling that Alice is going to end up with the fastest boat.”

  “I think you’re right about that. And Simon will be a gentleman and take the slowest.”

  Maya sipped from a water bottle and gazed out at the Sea. West of the park, the sun was approaching the horizon, and the light around them began to change. The shallow man-made lake gradually began to look ageless and deep. When a light breeze touched the branches above them, shadows danced upon the ground.

  Hollis Wilson might have chatted about where they were going to go for dinner that night, but Priest could sit for hours without saying anything. The rage he had shown after Vicki’s death had disappeared, leaving a quiet seriousness that intimidated strangers. He picked the right name, Maya thought, and wondered if her friend would always look sad whenever he saw lovers walking through the park.

  “ Alice said you got a message from Linden.”

  “I was planning to tell you. Over the weekend, Linden and two of his mercenaries traveled to England and raided Wellspring Manor. They were going to rescue Matthew Corrigan’s body, but all they found was a grave. According to a log book, the Traveler’s heart stopped beating about two weeks ago.”

  Maya gazed out at the swans and tried not to panic. Did this mean that Gabriel had also died? After the incident in Los Angeles, the bodies of both brothers were taken north and concealed in the cellar of a Jonesie church in the Sierra Mountains.

  Priest saw the fear in her eyes. He touched her arm and spoke in a soothing voice. “Don’t worry. Tommy Wu drove up to Northern California last weekend to make sure everything was okay. Both Gabriel and Michael were still breathing. Their hearts beat every two or three minutes. That means they’re still alive.”

  “When I was a little girl, my father used to tell me stories about the sleeping hero,” Maya said. “There always a legendary person that’s hidden in a cave-like King Arthur in Britain or Priester John in Africa. They’re sleeping, but alive, waiting to emerge once again.”

  “So we wait?”

  “We wait, but encourage the Resistance.”

  “We’re going to have a race!” Alice ran up to the bench and danced around them. “I get the yacht, Maya gets the outrigger and Priest gets the warship.”

  “And I have chosen the ocean liner,” Simon said solemnly. “Like its owner, it’s somewhat awkward in the water.”

  They left the lake and followed a dirt path that meandered up the hill. The River started at a marble fountain that dribbled into a leaf-clogged pool. They placed the boats in the water and watched as the current pushed them over a thin lip of concrete and into the canal. Although Alice ’s boat appeared to be the fastest, all five vessels stalled at the first bend in the River. “Don’t push them,” Simon told Alice. “Let them go their own way.”

  When Simon wasn’t looking, Maya picked up a stick and tossed it into the water. This Harlequin catalyst drifted down to the first bend and struck the warship-which promptly bumped into the other vessels.

  That was all that was needed. One by one, the balsa wood boats slipped around the bend. Excited, Alice darted back and forth, cheering each boat on. Simon followed in his somber black clothes with a smile on his face. Even Priest was drawn into the competition. His sword case swung back and forth as he jumped across the River.

  Maya stood alone and saw everything, the sun touching the western horizon with a blaze of light, her three friends and the dark green canopy of leaves. No angels appeared with clarion trumpets. But she knew at that moment-knew with a subtle, quiet certainty-that she was carrying a new prophet, carrying a Traveler.

  And the four little boats and the fifth boat as well continued on their journey, stopping and turning, then racing to the Sea.

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