Eternity Road

by Jack McDevitt

  Few had penetrated more than a hundred miles beyond the populated areas of the Mississippi. These were primarily hunters, searchers after Roadmaker artifacts (which, in decent condition, commanded a good price), and those who traded with the Tuks.

  Jon Shannon engaged sporadically in all three occupations as the mood hit him. The profit was no more than fair, and certainly did not approach the income of his brothers, who had joined their father in running an overland trading company. But Shannon had freedom of movement, he had solitude, and he enjoyed his work.

  Although maybe the solitude was disappearing. The world was changing with the coming of the League and its attendant peace and prosperity. The great web of forest that had once surrounded his cabin was giving way to homes and farms. He’d moved twice in the last seven years, retreating northeast, only to be overtaken each time by the wash of settlements exploding out of Illyria. Shannon had always been something of a maverick. He had no taste for the petty entertainments and ambitions of urban life. His first wife had died in childbirth, taking the infant with her; the second had tried to change him into someone else, and had eventually given up, grown bored, and moved away.

  He’d loved both, in his methodical way. But he was drained now, and if he was not as happy in the vast green solitude as he had once been, he was nevertheless content. It was a calmer, safer existence, and a man could ask no more than that.

  It was almost time to move on again, and that fact forced him to reflect on the course of his life, which seemed every bit as wandering and aimless as the Mississippi.

  But aimless is not necessarily a bad thing.

  He would retreat again, but he didn’t need do it immediately. Maybe spend another year here. That would give him time to scout the new location. There was a place twenty-five miles out that he liked. Hilltop site, of course, a couple of nearby streams, plenty of game. But the way the frontier was advancing, he wasn’t sure that was far enough. On the other hand, even that short distance would be stretching the line of communication with his clients. And therein lay the problem. If he wanted to move out and draw the wilderness around him, and not have to be bothered doing it again in a few years, he would have to make some changes in his own life. And maybe that was what he should do; he did not, after all, need money. Why tie himself to all these various expeditions and tours with people he’d just as soon not spend time with anyhow? His shoulder still ached from a bullet one of his idiot clients had put into it, mistaking him for a deer.

  A horse was approaching.

  Shannon watched it come out of the woods, and recognized its redheaded rider at once, although he needed a few moments to come up with the name. Chaka Milana. Tarbul’s daughter. All grown up.

  “It’s been a long time,” he said, meeting her outside.

  She was a good-looking woman, even after a hard ride. (He was two days out from Illyria.) The red hair she’d disliked so much as a child stood her in good stead now. She had a hunter’s eyes and a wistful expression that could get a man in deep real quick. She’d come a long way from the girl he’d last seen at her father’s side shooting geese.

  “Hello, Jon,” She reined up and dismounted in one fluid motion. “Do you remember me?”

  “Of course, Chaka,” he said. She wore a dark gray linen blouse and a buckskin jacket and leggings. “It’s good to see you.”

  She nodded. “And you.”

  He helped her take care of her horse and then they returned to the cabin. He’d been adding some shelves, and the interior smelled of fresh-cut wood and resin. “I’ll put some tea on,” he said. “You want to wash up meanwhile?”

  She did. He pumped a basin of water for her and heated it. She retreated to an inner room. He listened to her splashing around in there, thinking what a good sound it was. She came out in fresh clothes, and they sat down at a wicker table to tea, warm bread, and dried beef.

  “You weren’t easy to find, Jon,” she said.

  “How’d you manage?”

  “You remember what you used to say? ‘Over the horizon plus two miles and look for a hill.’”

  He laughed.

  “You look good,” she said, lifting the mug to her lips and peering at him over its rim. “Jon, have you ever heard of Haven?”

  “Sure. It’s a fairyland, isn’t it?”

  There had always been an impish quality about Chaka Milana, a sly smile and a vaguely mischievous cast to her features, augmented by her startlingly bright red hair. Keep a cap over it, he used to tell her, or you’ll scare the deer. It was all still there, he realized, complemented now by the self-confidence that maturity brings. He was surprised she wore no ring.

  “There might be more to it than that,” she said. Jon knew about Karik Endine’s expedition, of course. But he listened with interest to her account of the aftermath. She opened a cloth bag and showed him the sketches. “There’s a decent chance,” she concluded, “that it’s really out there.”

  Shannon wore a knit shirt and baggy, grass-stained trousers. A pair of boots stood on the floor near the door. He was just over forty, with black hair, a clipped beard, and dark skin. His features were coarsened by too much sun and wind, and were too blunt to have been considered handsome. But he knew they were amiable enough to put most people at their ease. “Seems like your evidence is kind of thin,” he said when she’d finished.

  She nodded and glanced up at the battered campaign hat and militia colors on the wall. The weather had turned cool and damp, and a fire burned cheerfully in a corner of the room. “Do you recognize any of these places?”

  He pointed at the first one. “Frontier. And I know where the Dixie Gun Works sign is. But that’s about it.”

  “Never seen this?” She looked down at the city in the sea.

  “No. I’ve heard the Tuks talk about the dragon, though.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But you know how Tuks are.” He focused on the thirteenth sketch. “Just looks like a cliff to me.”

  “It was supposed to be a hidden fortress. A retreat. A place that no one could find.”

  “Where’s it supposed to be?”

  “We have no idea.”

  He shrugged. “You’re going out looking for it, right?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “How do you expect to find it?” He jabbed a finger at the sketch titled Frontier. “This one’s on the Ohio, where it branches off from the Mississippi. A few miles east of Argon. The Gun Works is a little farther on. After that—?” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My advice is to forget it.”

  “If you were going to guide an expedition like this, Jon—”

  “—I wouldn’t do it. What’s to guide? Where’s it going?”

  “But if you were, and you expected to succeed, how would you get home afterward?”

  Shannon looked at her as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “That’s easy. We come home the same way we went.”

  “With you showing the way? Because nobody else is likely to be able to find the way back.”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “But it’s dangerous, right? What if something happens to you? How do we get back then?”

  Shannon looked out and saw lightning in the west. “Yes,” he said, “I guess that would be a consideration, wouldn’t it?” He folded his arms. “We’d have to mark the trail.” And he realized where the conversation was going. “Oh,” he said.

  Chaka looked delighted. She put both thumbs up. “What kind of marks? Would they survive nine, ten years?”

  He thought about it. “Who was with them? Do you know?”

  “You mean the guide? Landon Shay. Did you know him?”

  “I knew him to talk to. Never worked with him.” He remembered hearing that Shay had died on a long-range trip.

  “So what kind of marks?”

  “Trees, maybe,” he said.

  “In what way?”

  “Just carve a couple of notches. They’d try to travel
on the old highways. In fact, if you look at the sketches, that’s what they’re doing.” The highways, of course, even the giant ones, were overgrown, the asphalt often buried beneath the centuries, covered with vegetation. To Shannon’s forebears, when they were establishing the settlement that would eventually become Illyria, the great green lanes, gliding across hilltops and rivers and forests, were a mystery, associated with supernatural forces. The modern Illyrians knew better.

  They were constructed with a layer of asphalt laid over concrete. Hard as rock. The technique made for stable roadways, but even after a foot or more of soil was added to make a surface, they were uncomfortable for horses and other beasts. Especially in those places where the cover wore thin and the asphalt became exposed.

  The highways were convenient to modern travelers. They provided crow’s-flight passage through the wilderness. There were no steep climbs or dead ends, save perhaps for an occasional missing bridge or collapsed foundation.

  “So they’d do what?” asked Chaka. “Where do we look for notches? We couldn’t inspect every tree along the side of the trail.”

  “I’ll tell you how I’d do it. Whenever we changed direction. Or whenever the road forked, or whenever I thought someone would be tempted to wander off the wrong way, I’d leave a mark. And every now and then I’d do something to confirm it was still the right trail.”

  “You think Shay would have done that?”

  “I think he’d have an obligation to do it. And to make sure everyone knew he was doing it.”

  Chaka’s eyes shut, opened again, and her expression changed. “What about the Tuks? How big a threat would they be?”

  He shrugged. “The local ones should be okay. Take some stuff with you to give them. They like guns but I don’t think I’d offer any. Maybe some trinkets. Cups. Cups are good. Especially with pictures. Mottos. Things like that. And bracelets. They’ll probably keep their distance as long as you keep moving and don’t approach a village. If you do see them, try to look as if you’re passing through and you do it all the time. Right? Show no fear, and say hello.” He got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with more tea.

  Chaka nodded. “This city is in the sea. Or on the edge of a sea. You know anything at all about it? Or about anything remotely like it?”

  “There’s a city in the north. Chicago. And a sea up there. But the city’s supposed to be spooked.” He wasn’t eating much, had in fact eaten shortly before Chaka’s arrival. But he nibbled on a piece of beef to be sociable. Chaka, on the other hand, was hungry. “I’ve never been there.” He glanced at the drawing. “But if that’s what it really looks like, people would expect it to be haunted. Wouldn’t they?” A log fell into the fire and sparks flew. “But you never really know. Roadmaker ruins are restless.”

  She smiled. It was a warm smile, a little tentative, and it told him he’d succeeded at what he’d hoped to do: frighten her. “Jon,” she said, “I’d like to try to find this place. My brother died out there somewhere, and I think I was lied to about the way of it. I know this is asking a lot, but I’d be grateful if you’d reconsider.”

  She was hard to say no to, but he did. “It’s just a way to waste a lot of time and effort,” he said. “And maybe get yourself killed. Take my advice, Chaka: Don’t do it.”

  She looked steadily at him, and he suspected she was trying to decide whether he was adamant. “In that case,” she said, “I wonder if I can hire you for a few days.”

  Flojian had been uneasy since his conversation with Chaka. The Mark Twain had been given away to injure him, to send a message to the wayward son. I am leaving this extraordinarily valuable find to a person I hardly know, in preference to you. Furthermore, I know its existence will create trouble, and you are welcome to that. And I have even arranged that you be the instrument of the transaction.

  Damn him.

  And damn Milana, too. If she could have simply accepted her gift with grace and gone away, it would have been over.

  Flojian tried to bury himself in his work, but he was too restless to think about new shipping schedules and maintenance problems. He gave up late in the morning, told his assistant he was going to take the rest of the day off, and rode into town. He wandered listlessly through the markets for two hours, stopping occasionally for something to drink. When fatigue and appetite began to overtake him he rode back out through the gates and stopped at the Crossroads Tavern (which was not really located on a crossroad) for some lunch.

  He was a regular and favored customer at the Crossroads. The host sat him at a corner table, back in the shadows, where a candle flickered fitfully in a smoked red globe. A waiter brought cold brew while Flojian considered the menu board and settled on beef stew. You can’t go wrong with the basics, he told himself. It was midafternoon, and there were only a handful of customers. But sound travels well in a nearly empty room, and Flojian found himself listening to a group of two men and a woman several tables away.

  “—Second expedition.” That was the phrase that caught his attention. It was part of a sneer delivered by the younger of the men. He was mostly belly, blond, shaggy, overflowing his chair. “It’s crazy.” He stabbed a fat index finger in the air. “They’ll kill themselves.”

  The second man wore a purple shirt with a white string tie. He was young, probably in his mid-twenties, but his otherwise good features were spoiled by a hangdog look, a combination of cruelty and cringing. “How will they know where they’re going?” he said.

  “I guess they’ve figured out the route the other one took,” said the woman. She was middle-aged, well dressed, and had had a little too much to drink.

  Flojian examined his stein. It was ornate, inlaid with midnight glass tears. Nice, actually.

  The hangdog shook his head and addressed the belly. “Gammer, the other one didn’t come back. You’d think they’d learn.”

  Gammer looked bored. “I figured you’d be first in line to go, Hok.”

  “Not me. There aren’t any idiots in my family.”

  Gammer grinned. It was a lopsided grin, rendered cruel by vacuous eyes. “I didn’t think you knew your family.”

  Flojian took a long pull from his brew.

  “What really happened on the first expedition?” The woman’s question.

  “What’s-his-name, the guy who came back, he left them.” Gammer tore off an end of bread, dipped it into his stew, and pushed it into his mouth. While he chewed, he jabbed his fork toward the back of the room. “They got in trouble and he left them. That’s why he never said anything.”

  “I think there’s more to it,” said Hok. He finished his drink and offered to pour another round for everybody. The woman passed. “Look, that thing they brought back, the book, they say it’s worth a couple of sacks of gold. Big sacks. I tell ya, it doesn’t take much imagination to see a fight breaking out among them, winner take all. This what’s-his-name—”

  “Endine,” said the woman.

  “Yeah, Endine, he was the winner. The guy who came home. Maybe he murdered the rest of them.”

  Flojian banged his stein down. He got up and faced them. The tavern fell silent. “You’re a liar.” He threw a silver coin onto the table. It rolled about a foot. “Endine wouldn’t abandon anybody.”

  Hok tilted his head and grinned a silent challenge. Flojian started in his direction, but the host hurried over to make peace.

  Word came in the middle of the night. It was brought by one of the attendants, who was kneeling by her bed with a taper. “Avila. The boy is dying. They need you.”

  Her heart sank.

  “The father waits downstairs.”

  She threw the spread aside. “Wake Sarim.”

  “We’ve already attended to that. He’ll meet you in the sanctuary.”

  She rinsed quickly at the basin, slid into her robe, fastened her sash, and drew on a black cloak, for the night was cool. She had no stomach for what lay ahead.

  She gathered a supply of agora, which would ease the child’s
passage into the next world, for she knew the case offered no hope of recovery unless the Goddess intervened. But the Goddess had not acted in many years. Avila wondered what had happened that she had been so completely abandoned.

  She knew what the Kiri would say: Your faith is being tested. Believe and do your duty, and all will be well. But all was not well.

  The father waited in the reception room. He sat, head sagging, eyes devoid of every quality except pain. When Avila entered, he rose but could not speak. Tears rolled down his cheeks. She helped him to his feet, and held him. “Mentor,” he said, “we are going to lose him.”

  “He is in Shanta’s hands now,” she responded. “Whatever happens, she will be with him.”

  He wiped his eyes. When he seemed to have steadied, she took his arm. “Come with me,” she said softly.

  They left the sitting room, went down a stairway, and passed into a long marble corridor illuminated by lanterns. Murals depicted Shanta in her various aspects, creating life, sending the rain, protecting the child Tira against the serpent, appearing in blood-covered clothes to inform the Illyrians that she had fought beside their sons at the battle of Darami.

  They passed between twin columns, suggesting the Goddess’s support for the world, and ascended into the sanctuary.

  The sanctuary was oval-shaped, dominated by a small unadorned altar. The only light in the room came from a brazier, which contained the Living Fire, brought to the Illyrians by Havram, who had it from the Holy One herself. So long as these flames brighten my chapel will they give strength to your spirit and to your body. Nourish them and live forever in me. Sarim, broad, gruff, devout Sarim, was waiting. He held an unlit torch, which she took from him.

  “Blessed be the eternal light,” she said, and pressed the torch into the father’s hand. He took it, and she helped him hold it over the brazier until it caught.

  Moments later, they passed out of the Temple into the streets. It was a windy night. The torch, in Sarim’s grip, flickered and blazed and Avila’s cloak tugged at her shoulders. Sarim and the father walked side by side. Avila, a few steps behind, bowed her head and prayed fervently.