Lethe

by A. Sparrow

  Chapter 33: Zion

  Full sail, seams holding, we creep around the point, heavy in the water, despite my tireless bailing.

  “Shoulda fixed those cracks,” says Sabonis. “Good thing we ain’t got far to go.”

  “How far are we going?” I say.

  Sabonis stands and points at an indentation in the hills, as if a giant thumb had descended and squashed the bedrock like dough. “That far,” he says. The pocket valley, barely two stone throws wide, at first doesn’t impress me, but its headwall abuts a mountain face that seems to climb straight to the summit of Mt. Abdiel: a stairway to heaven, if ever there was.

  And then I notice the buildings. Not rude huts, but solid, orthogonal structures arranged in blocks. Some have spires like churches, and roofs both flat and peaked.

  “Wow, it’s actually a … a city,” I say.

  “Nah, just a fancier version of Gihon,” says Sabonis. “Too many poor bastards mistake it for Heaven’s Gate. They beg to get in and once they’re in, they Shade out just as quick as anywhere else.”

  I resist his derision. Zion seems tons nicer than Gihon. The town has a quaint, Scottish, Isle of Skye feel. The wind swirls the reeds lining the harbor. Swaths of red wildflowers spatter the heights behind.

  My gawking interferes with my bailing. Water sloshes halfway up my calves. I get back to work.

  The sail strains. Threads pop. One of the newly reinforced seams threatens to split. Sabonis drops it and takes up oars. He steers us towards a dock crowded with little papyrus dinghies surrounding a sleek, twin-hulled, twin-masted dugout.

  “We got him now, kid,” says Sabonis. “That fucker’s here.”

  “Is that—?”

  “Yup. That’s my cat. The sooner we dump this piece of shit for it, the better.”

  I see now why Sabonis was so distraught to lose this boat. This cat is no mere canoe. Its hulls have the sleek lines of a dolphin, as if evolution, not a craftsman designed them. They’re carved from what must have been ancient trees and connected by sturdy cross braces thick as trees themselves. The central platform supports a covered shelter that looks cozier than many of the huts I’ve seen here.

  Twin masts angle forward and diverge from a confluence of braces in front of the platform. An upended rudder rests on the stern-most bracing, sticking up like a dorsal fin.

  Sabonis struggles to pull us to the dock. Men bearing spears rush out to meet us. Another climbs out of the catamaran holding a machine pistol with a skeletal stock. One of them shouts at us in French, and the other in a language I can’t discern.

  “Speak American, you fuckers,” says Sabonis.

  “Can’t dock here,” says the man with the gun, an Aussie, from the sounds of it. “This landing is secured.”

  The outrigger bumps a piling and makes the man stumble.

  Sabonis’ face purples. “That’s my boat, you bastard, and you know it.”

  “Pope’s decree,” says a man with a spear. “No one ties up until Mr. Delgado leaves.”

  “Fuck that shit,” says Sabonis, reaching for a waterlogged line.

  The machine pistol erupts. Bits of wood spray off the hull of the outrigger. “You heard him,” says the man with the gun. “Bugger off.”

  Sabonis drops the line. “Fine. We’ll beach her,” he says, through gritted teeth.

  He pushes off the dock and hauls us into the shallows. We hop out and lodge the outrigger against a graveled beach beside a creek that blends its muddy, murky waters into the pellucid harbor, like cream into coffee. Tiny orange crabs scurry across the hard mud of the bank.

  People emerge from a line of closely-packed stone houses at the head of the beach and gather to stare at us. Unlike Gihon or Sixwing, most people here seem to be clothed.

  Sabonis runs his hand over the bullet-riddled prow. The men with the spears run onto the beach and peer into the outrigger. The Aussie remains on the dock, guarding the cat.

  “What you bring for us?” says a black man with a French accent.

  “I bring you bupkis,” says Sabonis, striding off across the gravel.

  Another man, an Asian, lowers his spear. “You can’t go that way. You must have authorization to enter.”

  “What is this bullshit?” says Sabonis. “Come on, the Pope knows me. You know me for Chrissakes.”

  “Tings change, Marco,” says the man. “The registrar hasta clear you firse.”

  The Asian leads us to a little, round house like a walled gazebo at the head of the docks. Sabonis glares over his shoulder at the Aussie sitting on his precious cat. The Aussie glares back.

  A small, rotund man reclines on a wicker chaise outside the gazebo. He watches us approach, looks me over from head to toe, but his eyes linger on my bosom. He makes no attempt to budge from his chaise.

  “Schofield. How ya been?” says Sabonis.

  “This one can enter, no problem,” says the round man. He speaks like someone from Minnesota or the Dakotas. “But who’s this lady with you?”

  “His name is Dan Tompkins,” says Sabonis.

  The round man snickers.

  “Yeah, I know,” says Sabonis.

  The round man swings his short legs off the chaise and enters the gazebo.” T for Tompkins,” he mutters in a languorous, breathy manner.

  I follow him inside. Shelves on the walls are lined with spineless, raw-hide bound books with wooden covers. He pulls one down and drops it on the table that occupies most of the interior. He flips through pages of inked parchment.

  “You ain’t gonna find this little twerp in there,” says Sabonis. “He just floated up a couple days ago.”

  The round man ignores him and continues to flip through the pages. He finds a page in back, mostly blank, with parchment thin as onion-skin.

  “Full name?”

  “Daniel Tompkins,” I say.

  “City, Province, Country?”

  “Um, Cortland, USA. It’s in … Cortland County.”

  “Birthday?”

  “April 1, 1988.”

  “A baby,” says Sabonis. “You were just a little twerp when I passed.”

  “Death day?”

  “Um, it was a Monday. May … May 17, 2010.”

  “No shit, May 17?” says Sabonis.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Joanne. That’s her birthday. How weird.”

  “Sign here, and you can enter.” The round man dips a beveled reed in a crock of sticky brown ink and hands it to me.

  I look at Sabonis. “What am I signing?”

  “It’s only a registry,” says the man. “Welcome to Zion.”

  “How do they even know me?” I whisper.

  “Beats me,” says Sabonis. “Somebody must have signed you up.”

  I sign my name. The round man takes the pen and hovers over the page, blowing on the ink to dry it, daubing with a scrap of ink-smudged chamois.

  “Please check your weapons at the armory,” says the round man.

  “Don’t have any … worth checking,” says Sabonis.

  “You hear him,” says an oriental man with a spear. “All weapons must be check.”

  Sabonis lifts his shirt and pulls a slender knife from his waistband. “Ah, screw the armory. Here. You can have it.” He slams its point into the tabletop and turns to leave. “C’mon, Dan. Let’s go find our friend Hector. Don’t need no knife … for what I plan to do to him.”