He remembered pages and pages of times with his father, each page a spotlight of memory leading to the next, until…
“Tei-La, where is my father? I must go to him. I have to explain and apologize for my absence!” The abruptness of his move caused her to straighten, and she sat there looking into his face. Mark felt a bit embarrassed for forgetting his father. He had always felt an almost mystic bond with him. From the time he could trace his memory, they had been able to think outside each other’s thoughts. Not only when in each other’s company but even when separated by vast distances. They were the only two of their kind he had ever heard of who could water-talk when they were in the city or on the rare occasions when they went to the surface together. Many times, his mother would come to him to ask where the king was or to relay some word of hers to him. He would simply make his mind become the mind of his father. That was the only way he could explain it when his mother once asked how he did it. With his mind set, the next thing he would hear would be his father’s voice saying, “Yes?”
It was from his father, both by strict lessons and by example, that he had learned so many of the abilities he now possessed. The line of knowledge that had been severed was once again intact. What he knew now, it was as if it had never been forgotten. This drew his thoughts to the surface. These were the abilities that Elizabeth and the others at the lab had studied for so long and called gifts. He had been the student and his father the teacher. He had been taught to read his own body and regulate all of its functions. From his major organs to the cells of his skin. Before he left that last time to the sea he had, for the first time, been allowed to sit with his father on the day of the public chamber and read the health signs of those who came for wellness. Mark never failed to appreciate the sense of safety and wellbeing everyone—especially he—had always felt from his father’s presence.
Mark let his eyes leave Tei-La. A voice from deep in his mind called for him to focus. He tried to place the feeling he had right now. He knew he must think inside this strange feeling. Then he realized. There was no feeling. That was what was strange. There was no place he could direct his mind to find the presence of his father.
“Tei-La, where is the king?” He dropped his legs over the side of the bed and was now sitting up. His head was clear and he knew his body was complete. He took her by the shoulders as he stood and asked again. “Where is my father?”
“You must speak to the queen.” That was all she said. “The queen.”
Tei-La had never referred to his mother by title since she’d been with him. When anyone in the city made reference to his mother or father, it was always the king and the queen as a sign of their respect. Tei-La was, however, to be his bride and therefore the daughter of his mother and father. From the time of their consent, she had called them by their names or mother and father.
He looked at her. Nothing he saw gave him a clue. She stood calm and straight, her gaze direct and her voice pure. He touched his right palm softly to her cheek and left her there.
Each room he entered was familiar, and as his memory sharpened, he knew where he was going and where he would find his mother. He crossed the reception room that stood across the hall from the resting room, took the stairs two at a time to the second level of the house. He went down the long hall on the right, directly to the room of his mother and father. The door was open and she was there. The naturalness of her beauty had always amazed him and filled him with pride. She sat on a wall bench with a small box on her lap. She had increased the light from the small protuberance that rose from the section of wall by her head, and in the white-green glow she was deeply studying what was inside. She didn’t look up when he entered.
“You cannot feel him, can you?”
“No.” The rising feeling in him was most like the sensation he often had that allowed him to react to something just before it was about to happen. Some physical reaction was kept in check only by her. She looked up at him with such open love it seemed to actually enter his chest and calm him.
“Sit with me.” She moved the small wrapped object that lay on the bench beside her. Carefully she put it in the small box and placed them on the bench to her left. She took his hand in hers. “Con-Or, the One Who Knows, Of the Trilogy, the Keeper.” He had never heard his mother say the quality titles of his father before. At functions of importance, the Elders would address him that way, or when the king would recite the oath of convergence upon moving the city he would repeat his quality names. This was the first time she had used these words when talking to him. Then she continued. “Your father, my husband, is no more.”
The two Marks again materialized in his mind. The Mark of the surface had learned to feel a sense of loss that came with another’s death. He had witnessed the grief experienced by his friends at the lab. He understood the importance of it because of them. Now he was, once again, the Mark of this city. Ja-Lil knew of the life-thought, of the natural sequence of birth and leaving. He knew of the long duration of his people and how natural the leaving was.
“It was not that long, son, after you had left for your last tour of observance and were overdue to return. Your father felt, even though you were not back, that you were still complete and told the Elders so. I did not suspect he was less than well. His life span ended in the night while we slept.” She stopped for a minute and, when she continued, her voice was no more than a whisper. “I felt him enter my dream and kiss me gently.” She sat quite still as if reliving that last embrace. “When I woke in the morning, he lay there beside me without life. That kiss was his goodbye.” Her eyes searched Mark’s face. “To both of us.” She picked up the box and took out several small objects he recognized as being given to him by his father. She randomly chose one and held it in the palm of her right hand. It was a large red ruby. It was not cut and fashioned as gems were by Those on the Surface. It was irregular in shape but polished so brightly it appeared to emit its own light. “Your father found it in a small basin of rock in the tidal basin at the mouth of a river. Centuries of water and sand and motion created it. He told me that every time it was in my hand that I was holding his heart.” There was no pain when she spoke, but Mark could feel the loving connection she still had for his father. “When I said goodbye to him, I summoned Man-Den so he could announce it to the city then prepare the body for enclosing. Since you had not returned, Man-Den took the life-thought of the king and delivered it to Nari- Tanta.”
Placing the ruby in the cloth pouch and pulling the slender drawstrings to close it, she exchanged it for a piece of amber with a small insect in the center. Mark had seen this many times when he was young. His father had given it to his wife as a “piece of the surface of life.” Often, he had invited her to accompany him during the times he briefly walked the lands for the placement of the sighting stones. Every time she would refuse, saying she had no desire. She would laugh and tell the king, “I would rather stay and be the magnet that draws you back.” She held the clear brown object up to better see the light through it. The wings of the strange captive seemed ready to take flight. She spoke to Mark.
“The city had never been without One Who Knows so I sat in council with the six Elders and it was decided to wait on the appointment of the new leader. As your father had never felt you were gone, they decided to have the decision be mine. After fifteen solar cycles, I felt it was no longer right for the city to be without a king even if it meant our line would end. The people needed a center. I could feel them seeking and their desires called for someone. Man-Den had even suggested I consider breaking with the tradition of not remarrying in order that we at least have an heir for the city that would come from the wife of the king.
“As much as it bore the test of some logic, when I considered the emotions of the people, it was not a choice for me. The love that exists between your father and myself lives. We, none of us, could abandon another and be a true citizen. Apart from having no desire for another,
it is not only the life-thought, but in the case of the king’s line, the very blood itself that carries the vital information of our people. The blood is the key to the future of the city. Simply an heir was not the issue. If the line was not to continue, all that was needed was good honest management. I felt the citizens could best decide whom to lead and how. Man-Den, who had administered the Right and Left for your father, supported my wishes, and it was decided for the first time that the people would choose their center. Man-Den was beside me constantly and without him, the particulars of this time since the king’s death would have been most difficult. We had set the date of the choosing for the beginning of the new solar cycle and preparations were made.” She looked deep into Mark’s eyes, and he felt so much of his father’s presence in her. They were truly one, a single entity, as the binding ceremony said husband and wife should be. “I see now I needed more of your father’s confidence and should have waited. It was as if you were summoned to take your rightful place, Ja-Lil. The next king of the city and the next of your father’s line.”
The time Mark had spent on the surface and what he had learned had expanded his view of the world. He had also learned that he had a responsibility to do what he could for the betterment of that world. That was all before he had returned to the city. With pieces of his memory constantly being opened, he tried to balance the new information with the growing awareness of his place in this larger equation. The most important thing was something he had never considered before. The city without a king. Not just any king or center but a king of the line.
“Mother, I have no knowledge of what it is to be king. Father never spoke to me about the qualities and duties needed to rule the city.”
“My son, all the time you were with your father, all of your life, was preparation for it.”
Now Mark realized the carefree times he remembered in the city, the preferential treatment he received from the citizens as the king’s son, and his father’s loving attention was the training for this moment. Everyone had hoped, if they even thought about it at all, that this moment would not occur for a long, long time. Knowing he could never completely sever his connection with the surface, he also knew there was no other option but to remain here. He thought about the message he had left for Elizabeth, but he spoke to his mother.
“What do I do?”
CHAPTER SIX
Mark spent the rest of the day with his mother. They spoke
mainly of the history of the city and of his father’s line. Much he knew and more he remembered as soon as she gave it words. He was now the fifth in line since the placement of The Three. Of Those Who Walk and Those In The Air, he only knew the legends and she told him little. In his lifetime, and indeed the time of his father’s father, there had been no contact with the other two civilizations. All knew the story of the passing of Those On The Land, but folktales and sagas were repeated and he was sure exaggerated about Those of the Air. They flew, they could vanish from sight, and they required no sacred treasures to perform great feats. He asked his mother simply for the truth of their history.
“With your father’s life-thought, that will come,” was all she said. He was told of the six Elders, the Sadhannas, who kept the life of the city. They kept a rotation of vigilance in their Kivs in the tower and from there all actions of the Dome were managed. The living Dome accepted this. The growth of the structures and all regulations of the environment that made life possible on the inside happened only through the cooperation of the Elder and the Dome. Depending on what was needed and how difficult it would be, from one to six Elders may have to enter the Kivs. The seventh Kiv was only used by the king and only on two occasions. First, after his anointing to establish his place in the Dome, and second to direct the moving of the city, which had only been done three times before. He remembered the excitement at the lab last year when news of the discovery of the “the largest living organism on earth” was made in the state of Oregon. A fungus-type growth that covered over two thousand acres was determined, by genetic testing, to be one large entity. When he saw now how that growth would be dwarfed in size and complexity by this city and Dome of living tissue, he smiled.
“Mother, there are still many dark areas in my mind.” Mark was confident in his ability to learn anything that was taught to him. It was the things that could not be taught but would come from memory or instinct that caused him to continue. There also remained the things he knew but could tell no one yet.
“Ja-Lil.” She reminded him sometimes of his father when she was serious as she was now. “Everything will come to you as it does to everyone, in pieces and in time. Much you will learn from the Dome while you are in the king’s Kiv, but most will be yours with the life-thought of your father given by the Nari-Tanta.” Again, the book of his memory was opened. When the dying young man had used the word Tanta, Mark only thought it a strange babble of his weakening mind, but to hear his mother mention the Nari-Tanta so much of their greatness came back to him. When he told her that small pieces of the particular history were still faded, she refreshed him on all the functions of the Tantas. He had recalled that they received the life-thoughts of all from the city. He had forgotten that any life-thoughts to enter the sea could be taken to them. The history of Those on the Surface that had died in the ocean rested in the Tanta if a citizen carried it there. The Tantas were a complete library of living souls.
“It is an outflow, my son. The life-history of a person resides in the body for some time once the life has left.” His mother reached for his right hand, turned it palm up, and rested it in hers. “Here are the lines of the three.” She traced the three creases in his palm that formed a triangle. “If you make the connection, you can receive the flow. You do not know what they knew. You will not see what they saw. And you cannot be what they were because you are not of their line. But you can hold them. What they were will reside in you until taken by the Tanta.”
She quickly demonstrated how to connect by touching her thumb to his lips and placing it on his forehead in the small indentation of the skull between his eyebrows. “The flow will emerge from this spot, the Nuham, and you will draw it into yourself.” While she was talking, she placed the triangle spot on her own right hand to Mark’s forehead. “It is our greatest act of compassion, Ja-Lil, for it continues life from the past to the future.”
He wondered how he could have remembered nothing of how to take a life-thought, but now recognized the actions of the larger man when the wounded one brushed his hand away. He briefly considered whether it was the right time to tell, at least, the Queen about the strange violent man who was a citizen. He was sure she would be able to identify him. But then what? If the two had not acted alone then there were others who wanted him dead. Her knowledge would put her in danger too. He must wait and watch alone.
The evening continued that way until it was time for sleep. Mark had never seen his mother as he saw her now. She seemed to radiate a light of her own as volumes of history passed from her to him. She would shift from a detailed account of some public matter and just how the king had handled the situation, to picking up an object from the box and telling stories of herself and his father. There was so much he hadn’t known. Things he was sure if he had been there all along and if his father had not died, he would have eventually known. He felt it was not just knowledge he was receiving but something of his father and the joy of their relationship.
At one point, she said softly to him, “Without his flow, I give you his life as I knew it.” All she had been with the king was being given to him, with love. As she looked at him one last time before retiring for the night, he thought she seemed tired and, at the same time, ageless and young. She picked up the box and gently closed the lid. Standing, she looked down at her son and said, “I love you.” Holding the box to her chest, she bent and kissed his head and walked into the next room.
The following morning, as the Dome increased the output of gree
nish-white light, Mark rose and prepared to meet with Man-Den at his home. Tei-La had come to guide him. It was almost like seeing her for the first time. Her beauty startled him, and the softness of her kiss left a feeling on his lips that lasted well into their walk. They walked quietly for awhile and she would softly squeeze his hand every now and then.
“You are all right about your father, Ja-Lil?” They stopped at the waterfall in the center of the city. The Dome had created a tower of about one hundred feet. Seawater gushed out from the top and was caught by various sized outcroppings along the sides. From these gathering places, there were aqueducts that carried the water downward. This multilevel cascade was the source of a network of streams and brooks that meandered through the entire city and also fed into many of the houses and meeting places.
“My father was too young for his life to have ended. If I had been here, I could have checked him for completeness. Mother should not have to spend the rest of her time alone.”
They continued now to a large pool, around which a few other people were seated and talking. Tei-La sat near the edge of the water.
“I know she does not feel alone, Ja-Lil.” The softness of her response made him stop and sit beside her. She looked at her hands that were resting in her lap. He sat silently waiting.
“She and your father were one when he was alive, and they are still one now. More in them than almost anyone else in the city, I saw how complete love can be.” She turned to face him. “I am sure she is still completely happy now. Their life together is what she has…always. Once you have that, nothing else matters. Not distance. Not even time.”
He wanted to say something to her, but he could not find the words to match his feelings. On the surface, he had searched for ways to express his heart and who he was. Each attempt gave him a degree of satisfaction. Sitting next to her now, feeling her leg against his, the beauty of every poem he had read seemed shallow. The words he had written faded as they became smaller and smaller. He searched his heart only to find the feelings intense but mute. At that moment, she got to her feet.
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