Hadeed slapped Ephraim’s hand away. “I don’t see your point.”
“No? Look again.” He scooped more sand. “What color do you not see?”
“I’m tired, Hollander. I don’t know …”
“Closer, Hadeed. Tell me. Where is the green?”
“Green? I don’t see any …” Hadeed froze. He understood what Hollander suggested.
“Correct,” Ephraim said. “No brontinium particulates. Strange, don’t you think? Hundreds of years of particulates in the atmosphere; even since the mining stopped, they were still lifted into the atmosphere and carried by wind and dust storms. Here’s the thing, Hadeed. I checked soil samples at my other stops before coming here. No brontinium.”
“What does it matter? We’ll all be dead in a day.”
“Will we?” They turned onto a main road leading to the southern end of Asra. “I believe something unexpected is happening to this planet. Something that will change everything. A gift. Yes? Hadeed, brontinium ore is the hardest known substance in the universe – in our little corner of it, anyway. Its essence was formed in the fiery chasm from which the universe itself arose. Its extract transforms human beings into more and greater. Yes? In a very real sense, brontinium is alive. Or, at the very least, a bringer of life. A champion of life. I do believe this is the end, Hadeed, but only the end of a path. There is a new one waiting … for some of us. The question we have to ask is: Can we find it in time?”
Hadeed coughed. Others followed. He needed a moment for the wheezing attack to end. He grabbed his flask and swigged the last of his water.
“What do you want me to believe, Hollander? Even if your fantasy is true, what does it mean? Why tell me?”
“Because,” Ephraim said with reverence in his tone, “I believe you can make this happen. You more than anyone. Hadeed, a man can only see this new path when he embraces final truth.”
“What truth?”
“The one we do more to run away from than any other. The one we cannot face because we know in our hearts it is not possible, even though we desperately wish it were. We blind ourselves to its potential because we say, ‘What is done is done.’ We leave the past behind and stack regret upon regret, recrimination upon recrimination. You, Hadeed, understand this too well.” Ephraim leaned in close to Hadeed’s ear. “What if there was another way? A path reborn. Listen, Hadeed.”
The voice came as a whisper beneath his feet but also an echo from the distant past. The words were few, but they energized Hadeed. They sounded like those of The Father, and they made sense. They allowed him to pull everything together, to understand what it had all been about. He saw a purpose and a hope when there should have been neither. Ephraim backed away. Their eyes locked, and the depths of their crimes and their sadness revealed themselves to each other. Hadeed could not find it in his soul to thank Hollander – even if this gift eased the pain. Still, it was more than he could have ever imagined or deserved.
“Can this be?” He asked Ephraim.
“I believe so, assuming you give yourself to the truth. Long ago, people had a name for this truth. Then my ancestors wiped those people from the face of the Earth, destroyed the message, and banished the name.”
Hadeed coughed again. “What do we do now?”
Ephraim looked south, toward the desert. “Follow the road. I don’t know how far. Something is going to happen.”
“What will we find?”
“What you always wanted for Hiebimini,” Ephraim said. “I will watch over you for awhile, but I will not go any farther. This is not meant for me, Hadeed. Not for me or any of my kind. The Chancellors are finished. Yes?”
Hadeed did not care, but he asked anyway: “What are you going to do?”
Ephraim offered a vacant stare. “In the end? Die alone. Until then, I will make it up as I go. Seeing you today was the last item on my social agenda. Yes?”
Ephraim waved him forward. Hadeed shuffled along, hardly aware of the pain in his joints or the pressing heat of the sun. He did not look anywhere other than straight ahead, for all the debris on either side of the road brought back memories. He passed the remains of what was once the Trayem enclave, where he used to sit in a circle and listen to elder Tariq speak of the legendary Chancellors and their fearsome peacekeepers. He passed the remnants of the hydro-farm where his gene-father spent so much time off-shift from Radnor.
He shuffled into the open plain, a place where the dry, cracked clay fields of yellow and orange rippled for kilometers south toward the high desert. The heat rose above the plain and distorted his view of the hills at the desert’s northern border.
Hadeed stepped into a wide crack, twisted his ankle and fell hard to the ground. He felt the sun upon his back and the thirst rising from within. He pulled his foot out of the fissure and grabbed his ankle to massage it. He thought to ask Ephraim for help then looked behind. He saw no one. He had ventured at least a kilometer from the ruins of Asra.
He tried to walk on the ankle but realized at once he had broken it. He collapsed again and allowed the tears to come. As if on cue, a hot breeze swept across the plain. Voices arrived on the wind. Each was distinctive. He heard Matriarch Alessa’s gentle intimidation, Trayem Azir’s impatience, Polemicus Miriam’s sophistication, Polemicus Damon’s fealty, Abraham’s madness, Omar’s prudence, and Ilya’s truth. He saw them all together as if they had come here to say goodbye, yet also to remind him once more of the folly of his life. He wanted to apologize, but he knew the time was past for such matters.
He faced two choices: Die now, or …
The whisper came again. From Ephraim. From The Father. From nowhere and everywhere. Hadeed opened his eyes and embraced the other choice. The impossible direction. The truth no one dared to touch.
“Again,” he shouted to the dying world. “I want to try again. We can start over again.”
The wind died. The haze dissipated. The distant hills seemed closer, now crystal clear. Hadeed coughed as he tried to push himself up again.
“We will do it all over again. Make it right this time. We will …”
He blinked twice and froze. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them.
“We will,” he said. “I promise. We will.”
Something began to happen, and a deep roar from within the planet spoke to him.
Hadeed watched as virgin grass rose on the open plain. It sprouted in thick blades through the fissures then spread across the dry clay until it formed a carpet. Hadeed saw green in every direction, into Asra and toward the high desert. His tears watered the new grass at his feet.
“I know what you are,” he whimpered.
Dark clouds rolled over the plain and hid the sun. Hadeed heard thunder. Suddenly, a wall of purple rain fell upon the distant hills, and the air began to cool.
He saw the path and started toward it.
THE SAGA WILL CONTINUE … IN A NEW SERIES
The story of the Collectorate and the fall of the Chancellors will resume, this time through The Impossible Future saga. Book 1, called The Last Everything, is an action-thriller that debuts on Amazon in August 2018. The story will begin under terrifying circumstances in a small town in Alabama circa 2009 – but that’s just the start of a stunning adventure that crosses universes, revisits the power of the Jewels of Eternity, and shapes a new future for all humanity in the wake of the crumbling of a 3,000-year-old empire.
If you enjoyed The Father Unbound, please visit www.frankkennedy.org and sign up for my newsletter to receive alerts on new releases as well as opportunities for free novels and short stories.
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If you enjoy time-bending science fiction and/or alternate history, check out my novel The Savage Clock, now on Amazon.
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