by Gloria Craw
My stomach flip-flopped. “Do I have to do it, too?” I asked.
“Not this time. It only takes one dewing’s blood to open the door.” He pointed to a vertical crack that had appeared in the wall behind us and then played another chord. Two panels of the wall slid back to reveal a downward sloping ramp. “I have no idea how it works,” he commented, “but it does.”
With wide eyes, I followed him down the ramp. At the bottom was a windowless space I assumed was the roundtable room because of the wood table in the center of it. It looked like a project from a freshman shop class. All the legs varied in thickness, and the tabletop sloped because they weren’t the same height. The one thing it had going for it was size. It was big enough for thirty chairs to fit around it.
The look in Logan’s eye was worshipful as he went forward and laid his hand on the top. “After Atlantis sank,” he said, “some of the trees washed ashore here. The clan chiefs made this from them.”
“So, this wood grew on Atlantis,” I remarked, feeling a sense of reverence as well. I laid my hand on the table and drew a breath as fifteen clan signatures softly vibrated under my fingers. “Incredible,” I remarked.
He nodded agreement and straightened up. “It’s round to signify that all the chiefs have equal authority at the meetings held here.”
“Like King Arthur’s mythical Round Table,” I remarked.
“Who knows?” he replied. “Maybe our table inspired that myth.” He pulled out a chair, sat down, and then looked up at me intently. “Have a seat,” he suggested.
I did, and he tapped his index finger on the table a few times. “Claire and I were new caretakers at the Arx in the years before you grandparents died,” he said. “They spent a lot of time here toward the end, so we got to know them better than the other chiefs. What happened to them and your clan…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Tragic isn’t a strong enough word. I’m sorry for your loss.”
I cleared my throat, realizing no one had said I’m sorry for your loss to me before. The words were oddly comforting.
“Thank you,” I responded.
He nodded. “Claire and I have been talking, and we’ve decided you should know a few things before the rest of the chiefs get here.”
Feeling both apprehensive and excited, I hoped I was going to get some information that would help me as a clan chief.
“The relationships between some of them are strained,” he began. “The Bethex and the Gallem can’t agree on anything. The Calyx and Hezida flat out don’t like one another. Nobody thinks much of Luke Stentorian, and some are starting to resent the way Spencer thinks he runs everything.”
I wasn’t surprised. I’d gathered from some of Spencer and Katherine’s conversations that things had been tense between a few chiefs. It was the way Logan spoke about it that concerned me. He was worried about what was happening.
“It wasn’t like this when the Laurel chiefs were at the roundtable,” he continued. “Claire thinks some sort of balance has been upset. If that’s true, it was upset when Sebastian stopped coming to represent the Truss. He became the problem in that instance, but since the Laurel chairs have sat empty, the chiefs have become their own problem.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Some of the chiefs, like the Vasitass, don’t spend any more time here than they have to. They stay at their own places in town or farther inland instead of using their suites when they come for meetings. The traditional way of doing things is breaking down. The chiefs are starting to make decisions on their own that would normally be discussed at a roundtable meeting first.”
He tapped his finger on the table a few more times and looked uncertain about continuing. After a moment, he cleared his throat and went on: “Claire and I hear a lot of raised voices coming from the Pradnium when they meet. From the look on their faces when they come out, I’d say none of them are happy with how things have gone. It feels like things are splintering…sort of coming apart.”
From the picture he painted, the discontent among the chiefs was worse than I’d imagined. I sort of shuttered internally. The implications were huge. “You don’t think the clans will split up, do you?” I asked.
He sighed. “It hasn’t gotten to that point yet, but there isn’t unity anymore, and that’s a step in the wrong direction.”
I nodded my agreement.
“I’m telling you so you’ll be prepared for the tension you’ll feel as the chiefs arrive.”
“I appreciate that,” I replied truthfully.
“Working here, we overhear things sometimes,” he continued. “There are a few chiefs who believe having you sit at the roundtable is a courtesy, not a right.”
I thought through what he’d said and figured I understood what he was getting at. I would be a chief without a clan. It seemed pointless to me at first, but tradition was very important to the dewing. There had been fifteen clans on Atlantis, and if someone with Laurel blood lived, there would be fifteen clan chiefs at the roundtable. At least, that’s how Katherine and Spencer explained it to me. I’d expected some of the chiefs to be lukewarm toward me personally, but I’d assumed they wouldn’t question having a Laurel clan chief at the roundtable again.
“Watch yourself around the Illuminant and Ormolu couples,” Logan warned.
My blood ran cold. “Why?” I asked with a gulp.
“They don’t want you here,” he explained. “They’ll be looking for ways to discredit and undermine you.”
Translation: they would actively work to get me banned from participating in roundtable meetings.
Noting my pallor, Logan hurried to remark, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, you were right to tell me,” I assured him. “I’d rather know what I’m up against than be surprised by it.” At least someone was trying to prepare me.
“That’s how I’d feel, too,” he said with a nod. “Just know if you need anything, Claire and I will be here for you. We want what’s best for the clans, and we think it’s having a Laurel clan chief again.”
Conversation sort of faded away between us after that. He probably figured he’d given me more than enough to think about. And he had.
He pointed out the two doors that led to the library and museum, then said he needed to get back to work. Since leaving the Pradnium was just a matter of pushing the door at the top of the ramp open, I stayed behind.
I wandered through the small museum. There were a lot of fascinating objects to examine, but my mind was too busy with other things to do it properly. Eventually, I stood staring at an ancient map of Atlantis with my thoughts spinning.
The Ormolu and Illuminant chiefs had gone from dewing I was concerned about to my enemies. After leaving so much of what I loved behind in Vegas, I wasn’t going to let them kick me out of roundtable meetings. Logan and Claire thought it was important my clan was represented, my mother told me it was when she appeared from the afterlife, and I believed it, too.
A wave of fatigue hit me. I’d been bragging when I told Helen I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Now karma had come back around to give me a slapdown. I was overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion.
I left the Pradnium and headed back to my suite. I was so ready for a nap that I didn’t bother locking the door before going to my bedroom.
The feeling of someone watching me brought me out of an early REM cycle. Lying on my stomach, I opened one eye and saw a thin woman with a halo of white hair and watery hazel eyes staring down at me.
“Why are you sleeping?” she asked with no inflection in her voice. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
It wasn’t a friendly greeting, but Lillian wasn’t known for being friendly.
Throwing the duvet back, I jumped up and hugged her. Lillian wasn’t known for hugging, either, so it was like embracing a post, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t seen her since she’d moved to Sweden two months before, and I’d missed her terribly.
“I had a rough morning,” I r
esponded, letting her go. “When did you get here?”
She looked at her watch. “Forty-eight minutes and five seconds ago.” Then shaking her head, she added. “These rooms are a mess.”
“I know,” I agreed. “When Ian and Theron get here, I’ll ask them to push all the crates against the walls so we can get around better.”
Lillian walked to the crate at the end of my bed. “There’s something very old in this one,” she said with her eyes squinted.
“Claire said there’s very old stuff in all of them,” I responded.
Lillian shook her head. “This is much older than the rest. Its energy is stronger. Stronger means older. In fact, I’ve never sensed something as ancient as this.”
I’d already tried to look inside some of the crates. All the lids were nailed down. “When I find something to pry the nails out with,” I said, “I’ll open it and let you know what’s inside.”
She gave me a sharp nod and then turned to leave. “I have something to show you,” she said without looking back.
I pulled the duvet up and smoothed it before following her into the other room. I maneuvered my way to the suite’s door, where she’d set up a sort of camp. She was sitting on a pillow on the floor with a stack of about six books next to her on one side and a cup of coffee and three doughnuts on the other. There was a book open on her lap, and she had bent over it so that her face was just inches from the page.
“Sit,” she said.
I smiled. She was as blunt as always.
When I’d done as she suggested, she handed me a book from her stack. That’s when I noticed all the books were bound in red leather like the ones I’d seen in the Pradnium library. Logan told me they weren’t supposed to leave that level of the Arx.
“You’re not allowed to have these up here,” I said, trying to hand it back.
“I’m two hundred eighty-three years old, Alison. What are they going to do to me if they find out?”
I wasn’t really surprised that Lillian would flaunt the rules when old books were concerned. She’d been a rare book dealer for a lot of her life and had an insatiable curiosity about ancient texts, both the human and dewing varieties.
“You should look through that,” she said, nodding to the book. “There’s an account of a naming ceremony in it.”
“Okay,” I replied, “but if anyone asks, I’m telling them you brought these up here.”
If she heard or cared, I couldn’t be sure. “I’d bet my arm there’s gallnut in this ink,” she with a triumphant point to the page she’d been studying.
“That’s not much of a bet since your arm would grow back,” I replied with a smile.
“I don’t like inconveniences.”
I chuckled. Lillian thought a lot of things were inconvenient. Polite greetings, eye contact, and personal space were a few of them. I glanced at her open book. Graceful, looping calligraphy covered it. “Why aren’t there any periods or sentence breaks in there?” I asked.
“This is an account of the Trojan War,” she explained. “It was written in Greek by a woman from the Bethex clan about three thousand years ago. Periods weren’t essential at the time. It’s difficult reading when you begin, but you get used to the author’s rhythm, and it becomes easier.”
“All these books should be translated,” I remarked. “They could be printed or made downloadable. I’m surprised it hasn’t been done yet.”
Lillian looked at me like I’d suggested bulldozing the ancient pyramids of Giza. “Computerized information can be stolen,” she said. “Our people can do a great deal more than humans to protect it, but that doesn’t mean our technology is foolproof. The best way to keep our history private is to keep it here…in its original written form.”
“What if someone steals one of books?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “Someone like you, for instance.”
She didn’t see the humor. “They’d be left with a handful of ash,” she replied. “These self-destruct if they leave the outer walls of the Arx.”
That didn’t seem as crazy as it probably should have. If a piano could test your blood, then self-destructing books weren’t that improbable.
I opened the text she’d handed me and groaned internally. The writing was German, and the author hadn’t done a very good job sharpening his or her quill because the calligraphy was splotchy and thick. I doubted there was anything interesting in it. Besides, I couldn’t read German.
I closed it again and, hoping to continue conversation with my long-lost friend, said, “I met Helen Vasitass this morning.”
Lillian made a hum sort of noise.
“She told me the two of you were friends,” I continued.
That got her attention. She looked up at me. “Do the two of us seem the type who would be friends?” she asked.
I snorted. “Not really.”
“We weren’t,” she confirmed. “We knew each other, but Helen always had too much to say about other people’s lives. I found that annoying.”
I chuckled. Her feelings about Helen were a lot like Claire’s. Hoping she would tell me something useful about Valentine, I asked, “What is her likeness like?”
Everything about Lillian went completely still for a moment. “He’s older than her,” she replied. “A lot older than her.”
That wasn’t the sort of information I’d been hoping for. “I mean, what’s his personality like?”
Her hazel eyes met mine. “I don’t want to talk about Valentine Vasitass,” she said.
“Okay,” I responded.
If Lillian didn’t want to talk about something, she’d usually give me one word answers until I stopped asking. That she’d spoken a full sentence meant I’d touched on a sore spot.
Like nothing odd had passed between us, she asked, “Why aren’t you looking through that book?”
“Katherine already told me what to expect at the naming ceremony,” I replied. “All I have to do is repeat some poem and then stand on the deck of a yacht with you and Theron while we float above Atlantis.”
“There’s a lot more to it than that,” she responded.
The way she said “a lot more” sounded ominous. A shiver ran down my spine as I thought of other ominous ceremonies. “It doesn’t involve some kind of animal sacrifice, does it?”
“No,” she replied, “but it involves blood.”
I froze. “Whose blood?”
“Read the book.”
“Is it my blood?” I pushed. “Do I have to play a chord on a finger-poking piano like you do to get into the Pradnium, because that wouldn’t be so bad…”
“Just look through the book,” she said.
“It won’t help. I can’t read German.”
“Then ask Katherine about the blood,” she responded, with a hint of irritation. “Tell her not to leave anything out because she thinks she’s doing you a favor.” She reached for a piece of folded paper near her coffee cup and handed it to me. “This is for you, too,” she said.
I opened it, read the first line, and wanted to throw up. She’d given me a copy of my own obituary. I handed it back to her. “I won’t read it,” I said, still feeling sick.
Genuinely confused, she asked, “Why not?”
Sometimes I forgot just how far away from normal she was. I let out a long breath. “Because it’s creepy, for one thing. For another, this is my life now, and there’s no place in it for my old one. I refuse to think about any of that stuff.”
Lillian’s hazel eyes watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. Eventually, she said, “You can’t pretend the past didn’t happen, Alison. I should know, I tried. Either you make peace with it, or it will cause you pain for the rest of your life.”
I breathed a long breath. “Well, you and the Thanes are part of my past. I don’t plan to pretend you don’t exist. That will have to be good enough.”
Chapter Eight
Lillian was done talking after that so I took the German book to my room. Lying on my stomach on the bed,
I turned the pages in hopes of finding anything more interesting than ugly calligraphy in a language I couldn’t read. I’d gotten close to the end and was almost ready to give up when I found something. It was a chalk drawing of the ugliest couple I’d ever seen.
Dewing weren’t big on photos of themselves. A few pictures taken ten or twenty years apart would show how slowly we aged. Before photos, they felt the same way about portraits. The ones I’d seen in old books always had the faces blurred out. So, it came as a surprise that the faces of the man and woman in the chalk drawing were finely detailed.
Every wrinkle around their eyes was discernable. The sagging skin on their cheeks and jowls was unmistakable. They had dark eyes that stared expressionlessly from the page and mouths so stern it seemed impossible they could ever have smiled. They were holding their palms up. The V marks in them were large and grotesque-looking, as though they’d lived several lifetimes longer than normal.
The creep factor was made worse by the rough brown robes they wore. Their gnarled, bare feet poked out at the bottom.
Behind them was a tree with a thick trunk and bare branches. Brown leaves lay rotting all over the ground.
A phrase had been written at the bottom of the page. I had no idea what it said, but Enjoy your future nightmare seemed like a possibility. I closed the volume and put it on the end of the bed, wondering what twisted mind came up with that horror scene.
I was trying to decide what to do next when I sensed a familiar signature.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I concentrated to be sure I’d identified it correctly. Then I jumped up and hurried to the other room.
Lillian had moved her things and disappeared somewhere, so I didn’t have to worry about stepping on her as I hustled to stand behind the painted door. I did a little dance of excitement and then when I was sure he was about to knock, I pulled the door open and shouted, “Hi, Theron!”
Startled, he paled and stumbled back.
My cousin was six foot five and had the physique of a NFL linebacker. He reminded me of a startled grizzly bear. I laughed uncontrollably.
