Eternity Road

by Jack McDevitt

  Chaka had gone to see Karik shortly after her father’s death. She’d never understood precisely what had happened to Arin. So she went to his cottage and knocked on the door, determined to ask him. He’d let her wait a long time, and it had become a war of nerves until Karik gave in and opened up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sleeping.”

  His tone suggested he was lying. She was still very young but her blood was up by then. “My father told me Arin drowned, Master Endine. But I wonder whether you could explain just what happened?”

  He stood in the doorway, ferocious in moonlight. “Come in, Chaka.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  “I know my father talked to you.” But he had come home and stared into the fire and said simply that Arin had drowned, had got swept away by the current and drowned. And that was all.

  Karik offered her a seat. “We were trying to ford a river. We thought we were getting close to the end of the journey, and maybe we got careless. Arin was leading the way, with our guide. Landon Shay. One of the packhorses lost its balance. It panicked and Arin went after it and tried to pull it back.” His gaze focused on a distant point. “In the end they both got dragged away. When he saw it was hopeless to try to save the animal, Arin let go and swam for shore. We thought he’d make it, but every time he got close, the current pushed him out again. Finally he got sucked into white water, into rocks.” He leaned close. “I think he hit his head. The last we saw of him, he looked unconscious. Then the river took him around a bend. It all happened so fast. We just couldn’t reach him, Chaka.”

  “But you never found his body?”

  He reached out for her. “We searched for him downstream. But no. We never found him. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something.”

  He had begun to cry. Only a short storm, but fierce all the same because he did not look like a man capable of tears. And when he’d recovered, he’d gone upstairs and come down with an armload of sketches, her brother’s work. “These are from the mission,” he said, offering them to her and then asking if he might keep one.

  “Does anyone else wish to speak?” Flojian looked over the assembly. It was a lovely day, bright and cool and clear. The river was ablaze in the sun. The priest, an elderly woman with white hair and severe features, inserted a couple of sticks into the cookfire and glanced at the torch.

  Chaka had wondered about the description of Arin’s death. He hadn’t been much of a swimmer, and she had a difficult time imagining him daring deep water to bring back a panicked animal. It could have happened. But it was out of character. She had concluded that Karik might have added the heroic details to comfort her. It was more likely that Arin had simply been carried away himself and sank like a stone.

  She surprised herself by standing up. “I would like to say something.” The assembly parted and she walked forward and ascended the platform. She had red, shoulder-length hair, features that had been boyish during adolescence and which retained a rugged, devil-may-care aspect, softened by luminous blue eyes and a warm smile.

  “I hardly knew Karik Endine,” she said. “My brother made the trip north with him nine years ago. After Master Endine came home, I asked him about my brother.” Her listeners stirred uneasily. “I came away with the sense that he was in as much pain as I. I always loved him for that. He was, I think, the most unfortunate man I’ve known. But he did what he could to ease the suffering of a child he barely knew.” The wind was loud in the elms. She stepped down.

  Flojian thanked her and asked whether there was anyone else. There was not. “When the ceremony is concluded,” he said, “Karik welcomes you to stay.” The priest came forward, drew down the Tasselay banner, folded it reverently, handed it to an aide, and took the torch. She held it over the cookfire until it caught, and gave it to Flojian with a whispered admonition to be careful. Flojian now delivered the ritual appreciation to his father, thanking him for the sun and the river and all the hours of his life. When he had finished, the priest intoned a prayer to Ekra the Traveler, who would convey the departing spirit to its next life. They bowed their heads. When the priest had finished, Flojian touched the torch to the pyre.

  Within seconds, it was engulfed in flames. Chaka looked away. Goodbye, Arin, she said, as if the final link to her brother were being cut.

  Afterward, they retreated into the house, exchanged toasts through the afternoon, and talked a lot about how they would miss the deceased. Chaka had a light tolerance for wine, and she was getting ready to call it a day when a short, stout man with a neatly clipped gray beard put a drink in her hand. “You said exactly the right things, young lady,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  She understood immediately from his formal bearing and precise speech that he was an academic. He was about sixty, probably one of Endine’s colleagues. “The rest of us babbled like damned fools,” he continued.

  She smiled at him, pleased.

  “We’re going to miss him.” He tasted his wine. “My name’s Silas Glote. I teach at the Imperium.”

  The name sounded familiar. “Pleased to meet you, Master Glote.” She smiled. “I’m Chaka Milana.”

  “I knew Arin,” said Silas.

  She recalled where she had heard the name. “He was in one of your seminars.”

  “A long time ago. He was a fine young man.”

  “Thank you.”

  Flojian came up behind them, nodded to Silas, and thanked them both for their comments. “I’m sure,” he told Chaka, “he was delighted.” This was, of course, a reference to Karik’s spirit.

  “It was true,” she said.

  Flojian managed a smile. “Silas was invited to go on the expedition.”

  “Really?”

  “I have no taste for the wilderness,” said Silas. “I like my comforts.” He turned to Flojian. “How far did they actually get? Did he ever tell you?”

  Flojian saw three empty chairs around a table and steered his guests toward them. Toko, his ancient servant, brought more drinks. “No,” he said, passing a cushion to Chaka. “He didn’t talk about it. Not a word.”

  “How about the map?”

  “I never saw a map. I don’t know that there was one.” He took a deep breath. “The tradition has always been that it was to the north. On the sea. But what sea?” He rolled his eyes. “Well, it hardly matters.” He looked toward Chaka. “Silas blames himself for not going.”

  “I never said that.”

  “I know. But I can hear it in your voice. And you do yourself an injustice. Nothing would have been different. Except one more would have died. I suspect you refused him for the same reason I did.”

  “He asked you to go?” Silas blurted the question, and then realized the implied insult and tried to regroup by suggesting that Karik would not have expected Flojian to be interested.

  “It’s all right, Silas. He was relieved when I passed on the idea.” Flojian’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “But it was abject nonsense from the start and you and I both knew it. We told him so and challenged him to show his evidence. Show the map. But he refused.”

  Flojian finished his drink and sighed. “He walked out of here with a group of children. I apologize for that, Chaka, but it’s so. He took advantage of people who believed in him. And he led them to their graves. Nothing changes that, no matter what anyone says here.”

  Chaka was about to leave when Flojian appeared again and asked whether he could speak with her privately. The request was put so earnestly that she was at a loss to guess his purpose.

  He led her to a sitting room in the back of the house, and drew aside a set of heavy curtains. Sunlight fell on a collection of four books.

  The room was comfortably furnished with leather chairs, a desk, a cabinet, a side table, and a reading stand. “This was my father’s sanctum,” he said, “before he retreated into the north wing.” All four volumes were bound and, of course, hand-written. Two were inside
the cabinet, a third was on the desk, and a fourth lay open on the reading stand. They were Kessler’s The Poetic Rationale; Karik’s own history of Illyria, Empire and Sunset; Molka’s Foundations of the League; and a fragment copy of The Travels of Abraham Polk.

  “They’re lovely,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  The Molka book, on the stand, was most accessible. The craftsmanship was marvelous: leather binding, vellum of the highest order, exquisite calligraphy, fine inks, golden flourishes in strategic locations, brilliant illustrations.

  “They must be quite valuable.”

  “They are.” His brown eyes focused on her. “I’m going to sell them.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, yes. I have no way to protect them. When Father was here, it was one thing. But now, I’d have to hire a guard. No, they don’t really mean much to me, Chaka. I’d rather have the money.”

  “I see.” She ran her fingers lightly over the binding.

  “A pleasant sensation, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you must be wondering why I wanted to see you.” He opened a cabinet drawer and removed a package. She guessed by its dimensions and weight it contained a fifth book. He set it down on a table and stood aside. “I don’t know whether you’re aware of it or not, but you made a considerable impression on my father.”

  “That’s hard to believe, Flojian. He never really knew me.”

  “He remembered. He left instructions that this was to be given to you.” The package was wrapped in black leather and held shut by a pair of straps. Chaka released the buckles, and caught her breath.

  Gold leaf, red leather binding, fine parchment, although somewhat yellowed with age. “This is for me?”

  “It’s Mark Twain,” said Flojian. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

  She lifted the cover and stared at the title page. “Mark Twain’s books are lost,” she said.

  “Well.” He laughed. “Not all of them. Not anymore.”

  There were illustrations of knights on horseback and castle walls and beautiful women in flowing gowns. And a picture of a man fashioning a pistol.

  The language was antiquated.

  “Where did it come from?”

  “That’s a question I wish I could answer. It was as much a surprise to me as it is to you.” He pursed his lips. “It’s somewhat worn, as you can see. But this is the way it was put into my hands.”

  Chaka was overwhelmed. “I can’t take this,” she said.

  “I think you have to,” said Flojian. “It’s in his will. Be careful of it, though. I suspect it will command a substantial price.”

  “I would think so.”

  “I can make some suggestions with regard to getting full value for it, Chaka.”

  She closed the book and refastened the case. “Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t sell it. But thank you anyway.”

  Raney was waiting for her on Sundown Road. He was tall, congenial, with dark eyes and a gentleness that one seldom found in younger men. He was occasionally dull, but that was not necessarily a bad thing in a man. She wore his bracelet on her ankle.

  “How did it go?” he asked as she rode up.

  The Mark Twain was secured in her saddlebag. Raney didn’t seem to have noticed it. “You wouldn’t believe it,” she said, accepting his kiss and returning an embrace that surprised him and almost knocked him off his horse.

  Raney was a garment maker. He was skilled, well paid, and enjoyed the affection and respect of his customers and the owner of the shop in which he worked. The shop was prosperous, the owner feeble, and, as nature took its course, Raney could expect to have few concerns about his future.

  He nodded toward the pillar of smoke rising into the sky. “I was surprised that you’d go.”

  “Why?”

  “The man’s responsible for Arin’s death.”

  “That’s nonsense,” she said. “Arin took his chances when he went. There aren’t any guarantees upcountry. You should know that.”

  It was a fine sunny day, unseasonably warm. They rode slowly toward River Road, where they would turn north. “He came back,” said Raney. “The man in charge of the expedition is the only survivor.” He shook his head. “If it were me, I’d have stayed out there.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. But what would be the point?”

  The river sparkled below them. They talked about trivialities and after a while turned off the road and cantered upslope to Chaka’s villa, which stood atop the ridge. Her grandfather had built it, and it had passed to her remaining brother, Sauk, who’d granted it to her in exchange for her agreement to rear her two sisters. Now, Lyra was grown and gone, and Carin expected to marry in the spring.

  Raney was staring at her. “You okay?” he asked. “You look kind of funny.”

  “I’m fine.” She smiled as they rode through a hedge onto the grounds. “I have something to show you.”

  He carried the bag into the house and she opened it. When he saw the book, he frowned. “What is it?”

  “Mark Twain. One of the lost books.”

  “He’s a Roadmaker writer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “It’s an inheritance, Raney. Karik left it to me.”

  “Funny thing to do for a stranger. Why?”

  She thought she caught a suspicious note in his voice. “I don’t know.”

  “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “A lot. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not going to sell it.”

  “You’re not?” He gazed at an open page. “What do you want with it?”

  What was that supposed to mean? “Raney, this is Mark Twain.”

  He shook his head. “It’s your book, love. But I’d unload it at the first opportunity.”

  2

  The Illyrians knew the world was round, though some among the lower classes were skeptical. They knew that infections were caused by tiny creatures they could not see, that the pattern of days and nights resulted from the movement of the world and not of the sun, that the Mississippi rose in a land of gigantic ruins and emptied into a gulf whose waters ran untroubled to the horizon. They were aware that thunderstorms were caused by natural processes and not by supernatural beings, although, since no one could explain how this was so, that view was becoming progressively tenuous with each generation.

  They knew that a civilization of major dimensions had occupied the land before them. How extensive those dimensions had been was a matter for speculation: The Illyrians and their fellow dwellers in the Mississippi Valley did not travel far beyond League outposts. They were still few in number; population pressures would not, for many years, drive them into a dangerous and hard wilderness. Furthermore, river navigation was limited: They could not move upstream easily without powered vessels; and travel downstream was hampered in some places and blocked altogether in others by collapsed bridges and other debris.

  A metropolis had once existed at the river’s mouth, where the Mississippi drained into the Southern Sea. How this had been possible, given the fact that the entire area was swampland, no one knew. Silas and a few others suspected that the swamp was a relatively recent phenomenon and had not existed in Roadmaker times. But the ruin was there nonetheless. And, like Memphis, it had burned.

  Six years after Karik’s unhappy expedition, the Illyrians had joined the other four river valley cities to form the Mississippi League, one of whose express purposes was to gain direct access to the sea. It was an enterprise still in its planning phases.

  The League’s acknowledged center of learning was the Imperium, a onetime royal academy located in Illyria. It derived its name from its imperial founders and patrons and from its location in the west wing of the old palace. (The “empire” had consisted of Illyria, a half-dozen outlying settlements, and a lot of optimism.) It was one of the few institutions to survive intac
t the seven years of civil war and revolution that separated the murder of the last emperor, Benikat V (“Bloody Beni”), from the Declaration of Rights and the founding of the Republic.

  The palace had been restored, but it no longer served an official function. The Senate had made a point of their republican roots: Their first order of business under the constitution had been to move out of the imperial grounds and to take up temporary residence in a military barracks until a new capitol could be built. Much of the palace itself was converted into a museum.

  Daily visitors could now see the bedroom in which Benikat had been surprised by his guards; the Great Hall of the Moon, where Hethra had invoked the power of heaven to frighten Lorimar VII into submission; and the balcony on which Paxton the Far-Seer had composed his immortal ballads.

  In the west wing, men of science, literature, and philosophy served the sons of the wealthy and a specially selected few from the poorer classes. It was a position that carried respect and satisfied the spirit. Silas envied no one. He could imagine no finer calling than spending the winter afternoons speculating on man’s place in the cosmos and the reality of divine purpose. (Here, of course, he had to be a little careful: The religious authorities and their pious allies in the Senate did not respond favorably to any opinion that might undermine the faith.)

  He had never married.

  There were times now that he regretted being alone. The years were beginning to crowd him, and the coldness of the farewell to Karik had depressed his spirits. He arrived home wondering what sort of send-off he would be accorded when his time came.

  The palace straddled the crest of Calagua Hill, the highest point in Illyria. It was, in fact, a network of connected buildings clustered around a series of courtyards. Springs and hydraulic systems carried water into and waste out of baths and washrooms; interior courtyards and enormous banks of windows provided illumination. There was a web of stairways and corridors, apartments, workshops, sanctuaries, armories, and banquet halls. The royal apartments were still maintained on the south side, where they overlooked the busy commercial center.