Aquifer

  Seward slowly rises from his place and plunks down beside the pilot.

  He gave it away. He’s giving Father’s dropping point, the first step to reaching the Rats, to this Watcher. I feel a sting inside that quickly subsides. It’s less than ideal to give away the location, but many Amongus are already there, probably drilling again. Little harm can come in a few more knowing. At least this is what I tell myself.

  “There.” Seward points toward a speck of light that grows and sharpens. The pilot curses.

  “What is this? There’s Teria, and Gershon!” He circles the island, slows over the excavation, and quickly flies off. “I dropped them off at the PM’s isle. We were told that’s where we’d stay.” His voice softens. “I’ve dropped off hundreds …”

  “They’ll all end up here. The Nine have lied to us,” Seward says. “You’ve seen our fate with your own eyes. Your next assignment is a prison camp. Sloshing in the muck toward the world of the Rats.”

  Haifer glances back. “I have just enough fuel to deliver you to the Council’s isle, but then my flights are done. I’ll radio the others. All flights end now. I won’t enslave us again.”

  Seward leans back and pushes his hand through his dreads. He did it, and more. He got us off the mainland. He secured us transport to the PM’s isle, the most likely location of Father. He’s driven a wedge between the Nine and the Amongus.

  But when I close my eyes I see the family on the museum roof. They will be waiting, expecting kopters that will never arrive. The barricade will not hold up long. Without airlifts of food, the Amongus are trapped.

  Phale. Connyr. Haifer.

  Amongus. Decent men.

  Seward glances toward me and raises his palms. In that one look it’s clear; he knows that he’s severed the last supply line into New Pert and doomed thousands of women and children in the process.

  He’s just assumed the role of judge.

  It’s a lot of moral weight to fall on a pirate.

  CHAPTER

  33

  The kopter thumps down into a clearing surrounded by dense forest. The sun hints its arrival, and I rouse Talya, who drifted off long ago. The pilot shuts down the engine and the rotors slowly still.

  “Everyone off,” Haifer says. “I will give you your instructions.”

  Soon we stand circled beside the transport. It feels so peaceful, so different than the Amongus’s last stand along the Swan. A distant inland cry interrupts the moment, and Meline draws her children close.

  “Until now my orders were to direct all men to follow that path down to the beach in order to meet with the council,” Haifer says. “I was told they will welcome you with a brief Ceremony of Gratefulness. There you’ll receive well-deserved accommodations.”

  “Ceremony of Gratefulness.” Seward barks a quick laugh. “I bet the beach be littered with boats.”

  “It is.” Haifer’s face tenses. “Women and children were to follow the other path.” He points the opposite direction, toward a cut in the forest. “It leads to the PM’s mansion. The PM will comfort you with pleasant living arrangements. Your men will join you shortly.”

  I shake my head. “It didn’t dawn on you that it would be unlikely that a PM, if he existed, would have thousands of spare dwellings waiting on a secluded, tropical island?”

  “It did not.” Haifer draws a deep breath. “I do not claim to have given this assignment any thought. We were perishing on the mainland, and hope was offered.” He straightens and draws a deep breath. “But now, after seeing this treachery with my own eyes, I myself will go speak with the Council.” He glances around. “I must verify the origins of this deception. Where the rest of you go is your business — you need not fear reprisal from me.”

  Haifer walks briskly toward the beach, pauses, and turns to Seward. “I know you are not a Watcher. I know this. But, I reasoned, allowing you on the kopter seemed a good way to bring you to the Nine should your story prove false.” He faces me, cups his hands, and bows. “Be safe.”

  The others in the circle fix their gazes on me, blink, and rub their eyes. They glance at each other and bow, cupping their hands and moving toward their paths. All, including Connyr’s family, take the path to the mansion.

  But there is no mansion …

  Moments later only Seward, Talya, and I remain.

  Seward climbs aboard the kopter and pounds the instruments. “Oh, that I could fly one of these. But I left the sky to the birds.”

  “Father,” I say. “Where would they keep him?”

  Uncle jumps out of the flyer and points toward the dense trail. “There.”

  “But that’s taken by the women, the children.”

  Seward walks toward it. “They take it to their own undoing. Mark my words. Nobody reaches the fictional home of the fictional PM.”

  “They’ll all perish?” Talya gasps. “How do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything.” He smirks. “But, lass, on the sea you be floating, shifting without a worry, then a breeze, strange and warm, strikes your neck. And the thought comes: Get off the water. A storm comes. It be intuition — the water be clear as glass — but the sense has never failed me yet.” He waves us onward. “I feel it now. There be sadness along that path.”

  “And, uh … do you feel how all these thousands are undone?” I peek through the dense trees. “Beasties? Amongus in waiting?”

  Seward plunks onto the ground. “That’s yours to figure out, mate. I got us here.”

  An hour passes, and we haven’t left the kopter. I had hoped to see the pilot return. Hoped his return would give direction to our steps.

  I don’t know which way to go.

  Trust your uncle.

  The Voice. It alone has guided me. I exhale and stand. “We follow the women’s path.”

  Seward leaps to his feet. “‘Tis a miracle. The young mate speaks! Onward.”

  Talya stretches and pads to my side. “Luca, I believe in you.”

  At least one of us does.

  She takes my hand and the three of us vanish into the trees. Rabal lived here. My ancestor. Maybe this is my true home.

  One step in and morning’s light is swallowed by dense growth. We quickly come to a fork in the way. “Luca?” Seward calls.

  I glance back and forth. All is thick and green. “No idea. How about left?”

  “Left it be.”

  Seconds later, another choice. And then another. It becomes easier to simply recite the sequence already buried in my head.

  The walk is steep and painful, as the trees encroach onto the path. Leaves, broad and cutting, slice through our arms, and the sounds of unknown beasties surround us. Light from the sun barely penetrates down to the forest floor. Still, the path is well worn, though filled with forks. Hundreds of choices later, we come to a stone arch. It’s the first manmade object we’ve seen.

  Seward pushes to the fore.

  “Seward! Stop!”

  He freezes. “What is it? Snakie? Beastie?”

  “Here.” I hand him a stick. “Take small steps. Don’t take your eyes off the ground.”

  He taps the path before him and takes one more step. “It’s only water, mate! In front of us, through the arch, it’s a pool.” He clears his throat. “Aye, how a drink of fresh water would soothe.”

  He hands me the stick, and I fire out my hand and grip his shoulder. “No, keep it. Tap first.”

  Seward leans forward and dips his staff into the water. “I feel no bottom. It just falls away, falls … away … I owe you a life. Mine. It’s no pool, it’s the swirl of a stream that tumbles down some distance. There’s no seeing the bottom. We stand above a waterfall breaking, from the sound, on rocks that we don’t need to dwell on —”

  “Seward,” I say, stroking the arch, “if Rabal once lived here, what better way to rehearse the route to the Rats, to teach his sons —”

  “Than to cut a path to the beach in the same sequence! This would be the point where Phale and me tumbled.” He ta
kes a step back. “We’ve reached the dome. Blime, the Council has had the directions to the Aquifer right here, beneath their noses. No doubt they’ve hiked this many times, memorized every turn.” Seward pushes me back away from the pool. “Lead the way, mate, just not through the arch. No need spending time there.”

  I bite my lip, step to the front, and glance down. The distance is cloaked in darkness, but from the depths I hear the crash of water. I close my eyes and imagine dark silhouettes riding the waves.

  How many must have fallen!

  A smell overpowers me, one I met on Connyr’s barge. It’s sweet but turns foul in the nose. It thickens, and in this place there’s no escape.

  Death is here.

  “I reckon this a convenient burial for families who make it up this far.” Seward stares down at my side. “Like the blind Amongus who pursued us through the arch, and off the ledge, they never see it coming.”

  “But why end their lives?” Talya covers her nose, her sense of smell surely more developed from years belowground.

  Seward shakes his head. “The Amongus leave the island, no doubt convinced they’re on their final assignment before ‘settling in’ with their families. But when they see the dig on Massa’s isle, they’d know it be more than an assignment. It’s the reason they were rescued, once again, for bondage. Feelin’ deceived, they would demand to return to this isle and their families.”

  “Unless there are no families to return to,” I say. “But why would they continue to work for a council that has undone all they hold precious?”

  “Because they don’t know freedom.” Seward guides me along a thin ribbon of earth rimming the pit. “We need to be movin’. The price paid to reach this point was high.” Seward gestures down. “The price paid by the fallen higher still. We honor them by finding Massa.”

  I take Talya’s hand and we press forward, dense jungle on the right, rocky pit to the left. Foliage reaches from the jungle and roots stretch spindly fingers onto the path. It’s an old path — I feel it. On any other day I would walk it quietly, listening to the heaviness. But this is a sad day, a red day. Too many people, including children much younger than myself, likely were undone.

  Do I hear a moan? Yes, but faint amidst the crash of waves. I pause and listen.

  Silence.

  I clench my teeth and dip back into the forest, leaving the maybe behind. My feet grow heavy. What if swimming in all that death there is a small life?

  I can’t bear to think of who it could be.

  Hours later, we still hike. There is only our breath, the crunch of leaves, and the route. And then I’m out of words. “This is it. The directions end here.”

  “To be certain they do.” Seward walks cautiously forward.

  “It ends with water.” I rub my face. “Rabal had a flair for the symbolic.”

  We wander the shoreline of a small lake, each of us scouring its banks. We don’t speak. We pretend it is a typical lake and that we expect to discover nothing unusual. But we all know who we look for, who we do not find.

  Nightfall instead finds us, sitting on a downed tree and staring: Seward at the ground, Talya at the sky, and me at the water.

  Father. Where are you? I need to hear from you.

  It’s getting harder to remember his voice.

  I wish I still had my father’s book, but I sigh, thankful for the passages fixed in my practiced mind.

  Talya places her head on my shoulder. “What are you thinking?”

  “People keep saying that the surface has shifted, and that the world has changed.” I run my fingers through her hair. “Nothing has. Fear and anger, they’ve always been. Suppressed, but simmering. The Amongus have always been pawns of the Council, slaves to a nonexistent peacemaker. And even now that they know of the deceit, it changes nothing. They continue to work for the same men who destroy their loves.

  “We’re told Wishers are evil, but they gave their lives for me. We’re told our leader will care for us, but we end up undone. We’re lied to all our lives. We teach lies to the children, and they pass them on to theirs, and after years of the drumbeat, lies sound like the truth. That’s when the flip happens, and what’s real and good sounds like insanity.”

  We traded the truth for a lie.

  My heart is heavy. “I want to know something for certain. Anything.” Talya lifts her head, and I continue. “Do you know anything beyond a doubt?”

  “Yes. But I also believe in this.” She presses her finger against my chest. “Sounds like your father did as well.”

  We sit in silence.

  “I think he did. I think he trusted me. It said so in his book, but those passages are lost to me now.”

  Talya nestles closer. “What do you remember? Recite for me. I want to know him too.”

  I close my eyes and see the pages, recall the words that speak of a time so far away.

  My mind flips forward to the last chapter.

  Odds and Ends. Mostly Ends.

  You need to know, son, what the world doesn’t. You need to know how deep the deception goes, and the reason it must continue.

  Here is the piece: The PM is no more. All is the Council. And the Council seeks to destroy from their home on the isle.

  “Even Father wrote of deception,” I say.

  “Go on,” Talya says quietly.

  Which isle, you may ask? May you never see the PM’s isle. May you never walk the walk you know so well and descend to where much debriefing cruelty is accomplished. This is the only piece I will withhold from you, my son.

  “The walk I know so well … we just did that.” I straighten. “And descend. Descend to where the cruelty is accomplished.”

  Descend, Luca.

  I slowly rise and walk toward the lake.

  “Luca?” Seward says. “Mate. What do you see, lad?”

  “Descend!” Behind me, Talya exclaims, “All good things come from below.”

  She hurries to my side.

  “What manner of foolishness moves this company? What is your purpose? Is it not Massa?” Seward shouts.

  “Massa,” I whisper.

  “For Massa.” Talya nods.

  I step into the water. Blackish swirls surround my ankles and I can’t see my feet, but the footing is firm, firm and rock. Talya joins me, and we slowly descend down a submerged stairwell. Water reaches my waist, my chest, and I fish for the next step. There are no more.

  “There’s no sense to this,” I say to Talya. “How do we drop farther? We’re not fish.”

  “No. But we have to try. Let’s find out what secrets this lake is willing to share.” She winks at me and dives, her body swallowed by the splash. I wait. Twenty seconds. Forty pass, and all ripples vanish. She does not break surface.

  “Don’t follow her, mate. Don’t —”

  I dive and power forward. A strange undertow pulls me deeper and deeper — there will be no surfacing. I swallow and feel a subtle shift in direction. The unnatural current pulls me on, even as my lungs suck the last bit of oxygen from my breath. Up; I’m pulled upward, and my head escapes the water’s grasp.

  I gulp and sputter, and then frown. There are no trees. All is rock, rock and Talya dripping and glowing in the light of a submerged rod. I climb up out of the pool and cough. Talya comes to my side. “I think we’re below the lake,” she says, and we continue down a thin rocky corridor.

  It veers right, and when we peek around the corner Talya’s fingers grip my arm.

  We have come to the end, and the end is a chamber about the side of our old shanty, roughly hewn into stone. The ceilings are low, and five chairs scatter throughout the room.

  In the far corner sits Walery. He does not blink or move; he is here but not here. I don’t know what’s happened to him, what they’ve done to him. But my gaze bounces from Walery to a crumpled body in the near corner. One which is gaunt. Staring.

  Father.

  I run to him and fall to my knees. He breathes. He lives. I lift his head onto my lap and
the tears fall. Talya weeps at my side and gently cups Father’s cheek in her hands.

  “Father Massa. Oh, Father Massa, I’ve come for you. I’m here.” My words fight out in spurts, landing small and muffled on his ears. Five minutes pass, and still he does not speak. He stares at something beyond. Something through.

  “I’ve come so far,” I whisper. “I need you back. I need your counsel. We all need your help. Those above. Those below.”

  Still nothing.

  This is worse than not finding him. Before the dive, my father lived on as last I saw him. Strong, vibrant — a man who could trample Amongus beneath his feet, remove their dials, and sail into the sea.

  He was my hero.

  I don’t know the remains of this man.

  I glance at Walery, and his gaze shifts to me. His eyes hold no emotion. They simply fix on the spectacle.

  “I don’t think Massa knows it’s you,” says Talya. “Tell him something only you would know.”

  I’m suddenly angry, furious at my father for being so weak. So many lives ended so that we could find him. I ball my fists and then force them open. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  I speak of Old Rub and the shanty. Of his brother, my new best mate. I tell him of the last time I saw him. What he said, the strength that surged through him. When I finish, I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Steady, but oh so slow, the space in between each beat so very long.

  Father, where are you? I look around. Where are we?

  Talya is no longer at my side. She kneels in front of Walery. “This boy has been through a lot.”

  “That boy is the reason my house burned. That boy is one of them.”

  One of them. One of them like Connyr? One of them like Phale?

  Talya nods. “So he’s one of us. Just a boy.”

  “He works for Mape — at least he did. He failed. And what did he fail at? My undoing! He wanted me dead. He gave me away. He slept in my shanty. He … he probably got information from Father.” I calm and rub my father’s head. “But that part was my fault. I saved him. I brought him into our residence. I couldn’t watch him become undone.”