Eternity Road

1

It is a fond and universally held notion that only things of the spirit truly endure: love, sunsets, music, drama. Marble and paint are subject to the ravages of time. Yet it might be argued that nothing imperishable can move the spirit with quite the impact of a ruined Athenian temple under a full moon.

There was something equally poignant in the wreckage the Roadmakers had left behind. One does not normally equate concrete with beauty. But there it was, formed into magnificent twin strips that glided across rolling hills and through broad forests, leaped rivers, and splayed into tributary roads in designs of such geometrical perfection as to leave an observer breathless. And here, in glittering towers so tall that few could climb them in a single day. And in structures whose elegance had survived the collapse of foundations and roofs.

The engineering skills that created them are lost. Now the structures exist as an integral part of the landscape, as familiar to the children of Illyria as the Mississippi itself. But they no longer serve any function save as a tether to a misty past.

Perhaps most striking, and most enigmatic, among them is the Iron Pyramid. The Pyramid dominates the eastern bank of the river. Despite its name, it is not made from iron, but from a metal that some believe is artificial. Like so many Roadmaker materials, if seems to resist rust and decay. The structure is 325 feet high, and its base measures approximately a quarter-mile on a side. It’s hollow, and the interior is given over to vast spaces that might have been used to drill an army, or to conduct religious exercises.

Roadmaker cups and combs, dishware and jewelry, toys and knickknacks have been excavated from the ruins and now fill the homes and decorate the persons of the Illyrians. They too are made of material no one can duplicate; they resist wear, and they are easy to keep dean.

Rinny and Colin rarely thought of the ruins, except as places they’d been warned against. People had fallen through holes, things had fallen on them. Stay away. There were even tales that the wreckage was not quite dead. Consequently, adolescents being what they were, they favored the ancient concrete pier a mile north of Colin’s home when they wanted to drop a line in the water.

On this day, rain was coming.

The boys were fifteen, an age at which Illyrian males had already determined their paths in life. Rinny had established himself as a skilled artisan at his father’s gunmaking shop. Colin worked on the family farm. Today both were charged with bringing home some catfish.

Rinny watched the storm build. When it hit, they would take shelter in Martin’s Warehouse at the foot of the wharf. Martin’s Warehouse dated from Roadmaker times. But it was still intact, a worn brick building with its proud sign announcing the name of the establishment and business hours. Eight to six. (The Preservation Society kept the sign dean for tourists.) Colin shifted his weight and squinted at the sky. “Something better start biting soon. Or we’re going to be eating turnips again tonight.”

So far, they had one fish between them. “I think they’ve all gone south,” said Rinny. A damp wind chopped in across the river. It was getting colder. Rinny rubbed his hands and tightened the thongs on the upper part of his jacket. On the far side, a flatboat moved slowly downstream. They were rigging tarps to protect themselves from the approaching storm. “Maybe we better think about clearing out.”

“In a minute.” Colin stared hard at the water as if willing the fish to bite.

The clouds were moving out over the river from the opposite shore. A line of rain appeared. Rinny sighed, put down the carved branch that served as a fishing pole, and began to secure his gear.

“I don’t understand it.” Flojian Endine stood away from the bed so Silas could see the body.

Karik seemed to have shrunk year by year since his abortive expedition. Now, in death, it was hard to remember him as he had been in the old days. “I’m sorry,” said Silas, suspecting that he was more grieved than Flojian.

“Thank you.” Flojian shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t the easiest man in the world to live with, but I’ll miss him.”

Karik’s cheek was white and cold. Silas saw no sign of injury. “How did it happen?”

“I don’t know.” A sketch of a wandering river running between thick wooded slopes hung on the wall. It was black-and-white, and had a curiously unfinished look. The artist had titled it River Valley. In the right-hand corner he’d dated it, and signed his name, and Silas noticed with a mild shock that it was Arm Milana, one of the people lost on the Haven mission. The date was June 23, in the 197th year since the founding of the city. The expedition had left Illyria March 1 of that year, and Karik had returned alone in early November. Nine winters ago.

“He liked to walk along the ridge. See, up there? He must have slipped. Fallen in.” Flojian moved close to the window and looked out. “Maybe his heart gave out.”

“Had he been having problems?”

“Heart problems? No. Not that I know of.” Flojian Endine was a thin, fussy version of his father. Same physical model, but without the passions. Flojian was a solid citizen, prosperous, energetic, bright. But Silas didn’t believe there was anything he would be willing to fight for. Not even money. “No. As far as I know, he was healthy. But you know how he was. If he’d been ill, he would have kept it to himself.”

Silas, who was a year older than Karik had been, marveled at the indelicacy of the remark. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t seen much of him for a long time, but I’ll miss him all the same. Won’t seem right, knowing he’s not here anymore.” Silas had grown up with Karik. They’d challenged the river, and stood above the rushing water on Holly’s Bridge and sworn that together they would learn the secrets of the Roadmakers. They’d soldiered during the wars with Argon and the river pirates, and they’d taken their schooling together, at the feet of Filio Kon of Farroad. Question everything, Kon had warned them. The world runs on illusion. There is nothing people won’t believe if it’s presented convincingly, or with authority.

It was a lesson Silas learned. It had served him well when Karik started rounding up volunteers to go searching for his never-never land. Silas had stayed home. There’d been a difficult parting, without rancor on Karik’s side, but with a substantial load of guilt on Silas’s. “I don’t know why I felt a responsibility to go with him,” he’d later told whoever would listen. “The expedition was a colossal waste of time and resources and I knew it from the start.” Karik had claimed to have a map, but he wouldn’t show it to anybody on the grounds that he didn’t want to risk the possibility that someone would mount a rival expedition.

There wasn’t much chance of that, but Karik had clearly lost his grip on reality. Haven was a myth. It was probable that a historical Abraham Polk had existed. It might be true that he had indeed gathered a group of refugees in a remote fortress to ride out the Plague. But the notion that they had emerged when the storm passed, to recover what they could of civilization and store it away for the future: That was the kind of story people liked to tell. And liked to hear. It was therefore suspect. Silas was not going to risk life and reputation in a misguided effort to find a treasure that almost certainly did not exist. Still, his conscience kept after him, and he came eventually to understand that the issue had not been the practicality of the expedition, but simple loyalty. Silas had backed away from his old friend.

“He looked well this morning,” said Flojian, who had never really moved out of his father’s house, save for a short period during which he had experimented unsuccessfully with marriage. He’d kept an eye on Karik’s welfare, having refused to abandon him when the town damned the old man for cowardice or incompetence or both. Had the lone survivor been anyone else, no one would have objected. But it was indecent for the leader to come home while the bones of his people littered distant roadways. Silas admired Flojian for that, but suspected he was more interested in securing his inheritance than in protecting his father.

The river was cool and serene. There had been a time when he’d counted Karik Endine his closest friend. But he didn’t know the man who’d returned from the expedition. That Karik had been withdrawn, uncommunicative, almost sullen. At first Silas thought it had been a reaction against him personally. But when he heard reports from others at the Imperium, when it became evident that Karik had retired to the north wing of his villa and was no longer seen abroad, he understood that something far more profound had happened.

Flojian was in the middle of his life, about average size, a trifle stocky. His blond hair had already begun to thin. He was especially proud of his neatly trimmed gold beard, which he ardently believed lent him a dashing appearance. “Silas,” he said, “the funeral rite will be tomorrow afternoon. I thought you’d like to say a few words.”

“I haven’t seen much of him for a long time,” Silas replied. “I’m not sure I’d know what to talk about.”

“I’d be grateful,” said Flojian. “You were very close to him at one time. Besides,” he hesitated, “there is no one else. I mean, you know how it’s been.”

Silas nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll be honored.”

Silas and Karik and their intimates had spent countless pleasant evenings at the villa, by the fireplace, or on the benches out under the elms, watching the light fade from the sky, speculating about artifacts and lost races and what really lay beneath the soil. It had been an exciting time to be alive: The League was forming, intercity wars were ending, there was talk of actively excavating the colossal Roadmaker ruins at the mouth of the Mississippi. There were even proposals for more money for the Imperium, and a higher emphasis on scholarship and research. It had seemed possible then that they might finally begin to make some progress toward uncovering the secrets of the Roadmakers. At least, perhaps, they might find out how the various engines worked, what fueled their civilization. Of all the artifacts, nothing was more enigmatic than the hojjies. Named for Algo Hoj, who spent a lifetime trying to understand how they worked, the hojjies were vehicles. They were scattered everywhere on the highways. Their interiors were scorched, but their pseudo-metal bodies could still be made to shine if one wanted to work at it. (It was Hoj who concluded that the charred interiors had resulted from long summers of brutal heat before the very tough windows had finally blown out.) But what had powered them?

So there had been ground for optimism twenty years ago. The League had formed, and peace had come. But wreckage in the Mississippi had discouraged operations in the delta; funds lor the Imperium had never materialized; and the hojjies remained as enigmatic as ever.

They stood at the front door while Silas took in the river and the ruins. “He loved this view,” said Silas. It was his window into the past.” The hillside sloped gently down to the water’s edge, about a hundred feet away. A pebble walkway circled the house, looped past a series of stone benches, and descended to the narrow strip of beach fronting the river. A tablet lay on one of the benches.

Flojian shook his hand. “Thanks for your help, Silas.”

Silas looked at the tablet. A cold wind moved in the trees.

Flojian followed his gaze. ‘That’s odd,” he said. He strolled to the bench, almost too casually, regarded the tablet as if it were an animal that might bite, and picked it up. It was drenched from the rain, but the leather cover had protected it. “My father was working on a commentary to The Travels.”

Silas opened the tablet and looked at Karik’s neat, precise handwriting. It was dated that day.

Unfortunately, only a fragment of The Travels was then known to exist. There is, in the prologue, a celebrated conversation between Abraham Polk and Simba Markus, the woman who would eventually betray him, over the value of securing the history of a vanished world. “It’s only the dead past,” Simba says. “Let it go.”

“The past,” Polk replies, “is never dead. It is who we are.”

“But the risk is too great. We might bring the Plague back with us. Have you thought of that?”

“I’ve thought of it. But for this kind of prize, any risk is justified.”

Apparently in reference to this exchange, Karik had written: “No, it is not.”

“Odd to leave it outside like that,” said Silas. “Maybe he wasn’t feeling well.” He looked from the bench to the top of the ridge, where Karik customarily walked, to the strip of beach. “He set it on the bench and did what? Walked up onto the ridge?”

“I assume that’s what happened.”

“And he was wearing boots, wasn’t he? The first thing the boys saw was a boot.”

“Yes.”

“There are bootmarks here.” They were faint, barely discernible after the rain. But they were there. Immediately adjacent to the bench, the marks crossed several feet of beach, and disappeared into the water.

Kon had provided Silas with another gift: an unquenchable desire to know about the Roadmakers, whose highways ran to infinity. Now they were frequently covered with earth, mere passages through the forests, on which trees did not grow. An observer standing on the low hills that rimmed the Mississippi could see the path of the great east-west road, two strips really, twin tracks rising and falling, sometimes in unison, sometimes not, coming like arrows out of the sunrise, dividing when they reached Illyria, circling the city and rejoining at Holly’s Bridge to cross the river.

Kon had suggested an intriguing possibility to Silas: The great structures were more than simply roads, they were simultaneously religious artifacts. Several studies had found geometrical implications that tied them to the cosmic harmonies. Silas never understood any of it and exercised the principle of skepticism that Kon himself had encouraged.

If the ruins were simply part of the landscape to Rinny and Colin, no more exceptional than honey locusts and red oaks, they meant a great deal more to Silas. They were a touchstone to another world. It was painful to be in the presence of so great a civilization and to know so little about it.

Silas Glote had found his life’s work investigating the Roadmakers. And if it didn’t pay well, it supplied endless satisfaction. There was nothing quite like introducing students to the mysteries of the ruins, whose peculiarities they had seen but rarely noticed: the shafts, for example, that existed to no apparent purpose in most of the taller buildings; the ubiquitous metallic boxes and pseudo-glass screens; the massive gray disk mounted near a sign that read Memphis Light, Gas, and Water, pointed at the sky; the occasional music that could be heard at night from within a mound on the west side of the old city. Silas’s sense of guilt over staying away from Karik’s expedition might have arisen not only from his failure to support his old friend, but also from his mixed feelings regarding the out-come of the mission. In a dark part of his soul, he had taken satisfaction in Karik’s failure. He didn’t like to admit that fact to himself, but it was nonetheless true.

Karik had not shown him any evidence that he could find Haven, or that Haven even existed. Instead, he had asked him to trust his judgment. I know where it is, he’d said. I have a map. You’ll want to be there when we find it.

Polk’s fortress was said to be tended still by scholars, descendants of the original garrison, men and women who had cared for the contents, who restored what they could, who meticulously recopied the texts as paper crumbled.

Haven.

If it did not exist, it should. And therein, to Silas’s mind, lay the root of his doubts. If Abraham Polk had not existed, someone would certainly have invented him.

For Chaka Milana, the news of Karik Endine’s death conjured up images of her fourteenth birthday. Her brother Arin had taken her to her favorite spot, a quiet glade fronting on one of the Roadmaker buildings, and had painted her portrait.

She had wanted him to do that as far back as she could remember. But she had been too shy to ask, too afraid he would laugh. On that cool, late winter day, however, he’d posed her on a slab of granite in front of a broken wall and an arch whose spandrel was engraved: MEMPHIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE—2009.

The spot was special because Memphis had burned. Much of its ruins were ashes. But here, the little arched building with its fluted columns was whole. And lovely.

“Chaka, please keep still.” Arin peered at her, tilted his head while he measured the quality of the light, nodded, and returned his attention to his canvas.

“Are you almost finished?”

“Almost.”

They had speculated as to what a chamber of commerce was, and what its functions might be. She liked the stylized characters, with their flares and tails. When she looked at them, a wind from another era blew through her.

When she arrived at the service, Karik’s body had been placed on a pyre at the water’s edge and covered with a funeral cloth. The corpse was surrounded by wood cases containing his personal belongings, his anuma. These were the items which would accompany him on his final journey. The ceremonial torch had been unsealed, and the emblem of the Tasselay, the Cup of Life, fluttered on an emerald banner.

Guests filled the house and grounds. Singly and in pairs.

they mounted the low platform that had been erected in front of the pyre, paid their respects to Flojian, and gazed thoughtfully at the body.

“I think that’ll do.” Ann flourished his brush, dabbed his signature in the lower right corner, and stood aside. Chaka jumped off the rock and hurried to look.

“Do you like it?”

He had captured it all: the granite, a couple of the Roadmaker letters, the failing late afternoon light. And Chaka herself. He’d added a degree of poise and an inner illumination that she persuaded herself were really there. “Oh, yes, Ann. It’s lovely.” He smiled, pleased, his amiable features streaked with paint. It was a family joke that Ann inevitably used himself as the prime can—

“Happy birthday, little sister.”

She was thinking how it would look on the wall of her bedroom when she saw that a shadow had darkened his green eyes. A casual visitor could not have been blamed for concluding, from the size and demeanor of the crowd attending the service, that Karik Endine had been blessed with a loving family and a large body of devoted friends. Neither was true. There were no kin other than his son and a couple of neglected cousins. And it would have been difficult to find anyone in Illyria, or for that matter in any of the five League cities and their various suburbs and outposts, who would have thought himself part of Karik’s inner circle.

Among those who had known him in better times, he had become an object of curiosity and pity, whose death was seen as a release. But they came out of loyalty, as people will, to the old days. Some felt an obligation to attend because they were connected in some way with Flojian. Others were curious, interested in hearing what might be said about a celebrated man whose achievements had, at the very least, been mixed. These were the people who arrived to celebrate his life, to wish him farewell on his final journey, to exchange anecdotes with one another, and to drink somber toasts to the man they realized, at last, they had never really known. As was the tradition on such occasions, no one gave voice to personal reservations about the character of the deceased. (This happy custom arose not only from courtesy to relatives, but from the Illyrian belief that the dead man lingered among them until the priest officially consigned him to eternity.)

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Ann wiped his hands and pretended to study the painting. “Nothing’s wrong. But I do have something to tell you.” He’d been standing a long time, more than an hour. Now he sat down on the grassy slope and patted the grass, inviting her to join him. “Do you remember Karik Endine?”

“Yes, of course I remember him.” He had been an intense little man who seemed always out of breath, who visited the house and locked himself away with her father and her brother. When she was a little girl, he had patted her on the head, but even then she could see he was distracted and anxious to be away.

“He thinks he knows where Haven is. He wants me to go with him

to find it.”

She knew about Haven, knew that it was a story and not a place.

“You’re kidding.”

“I never kid, Chaka.”

“I thought it was made-up.”

“Maybe it is. Karik doesn’t think so.”

“So where is it?”

“In the north somewhere. He doesn’t really want to say where. But he says he knows how to get there.”

He was so handsome that morning. “How long will you be gone?”

“About six months.”

“It seems like a lot of trouble to me. What’s the point?

“It’s a piece of history, Chaka. Think what might be there.”

“The treasures.”

“Yes. Maybe there really was an October Patrol, and maybe they really did save part of the Roadmaker world.” He bent toward her.

“Abraham Polk probably is made-up, and maybe the whole story’s a fabrication. But there might be some truth to it. We won’t know unless we go look.”

She asked whether she could go, too. He’d smiled that gorgeous smile and ruffled her hair.

“He never really lived in our time.” The speaker was round-faced, bearded, ponderous. “One might almost say he really lived with the Roadmakers. In this house, he was only a transient.”

Even Chaka knew that Karik had in fact taken to the house and remained unseen in it for nine years. The remark struck her as unfortunate, and she had to work to restrain a smile.

Others expressed similar sentiments, and it became dear to Chaka after a time that no one seemed to have had a recent personal experience to relate. Karik Endine had been a man at a distance, someone glimpsed at the periphery of vision. It seemed that nobody had ever gone to lunch with him. Or shared an intimate hour. Nobody said, he was my friend. Nobody said, I loved him. Something else was missing in the tributes. There was no mention of the mission to Haven. It was as if it had never happened.

Flojian tried to look mournful but after a while he gave it up and simply walked around wearing a blank expression that probably masked his relief that the old man was gone. He’d shunned an academic life like Karik’s for one that seemed more useful, and certainly was more lucrative: He operated a pair of ferries and a service that used horses to drag flatboats back upstream. The villa had been in the family for four generations, but it had fallen into neglect and disrepair during Karik’s tenure. It had been Flojian’s money that had restored it, and subsequently furnished and maintained it. His father had been a dreamer. Flojian saw nothing wrong with that, but it required men of purpose and action like himself to create a world in which dreamers could live. Chaka had gone to see Karik shortly alter her father’s death. She’d never understood precisely what had happened to Arin. So she went to his cottage and knocked on the door, determined to ask him. He’d let her wait a long time, and it had become a war of nerves until Karik gave in and opened up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sleeping.”

His tone suggested he was lying. She was still very young but her blood was up by then. “My father told me Arin drowned. Master Endine. But I wonder whether you could explain just what happened?”

He stood in the doorway, ferocious in moonlight. “Come in, Chaka.”

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.”

“I know my father talked to you.” But he had come home and stared into the fire and said simply that Arin had drowned, had got swept away by the current and drowned. And that was all.

Karik offered her a seat. “We were trying to ford a river. We thought we were getting close to the end of the journey, and maybe we got careless. Arin was leading the way, with our guide. London Shay. One of the packhorses lost its balance. It panicked and Arin went after it and tried to pull it back.” His gaze focused on a distant point. “In the end they both got dragged away. When he saw it was hopeless to try to save the animal, Arin let go and swam for shore. We thought he’d make it, but every time he got close, the current pushed him out again. Finally he got sucked into white water, into rocks.” He leaned close. “I think he hit his head. The last we saw of him, he looked unconscious. Then the river took him around a bend. It all happened so fast. We just couldn ‘t reach him, Chaka.”

“But you never found his body?”

He reached out for her. “We searched for him downstream. But no. We never found him. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something.”

He had begun to cry. Only a short storm, but fierce all the same because he did not look like a man capable of tears. And when he’d recovered, he’d gone upstairs and come down with an armload of sketches, her brother’s work. “These are from the mission,” he said, offering them to her and then asking if he might keep one.

“Does anyone else wish to speak?” Flojian looked over the assembly. It was a lovely day, bright and cool and clear. The river was ablaze in the sun. The priest, an elderly woman with white hair and severe features, inserted a couple of sticks into the cookfire and glanced at the torch.

Chaka had wondered about the description of Arin’s death.

He hadn’t been much of a swimmer, and she had a difficult time imagining him daring deep water to bring back a panicked animal. It could have happened. But it was out of character. She had concluded that Karik might have added the heroic details to comfort her. It was more likely that Arin had simply been carried away himself and sank like a stone.

She surprised herself by standing up. “I would like to say something.” The assembly parted and she walked forward and ascended the platform. She had red, shoulder-length hair, features that had been boyish during adolescence and which retained a rugged, devil-may-care aspect, softened by luminous blue eyes and a warm smile.

“I hardly knew Karik Endine,” she said. “My brother made the trip north with him nine years ago. After Master Endine came home, I asked him about my brother.” Her listeners stirred uneasily. I came away with the sense that he was in as much pain as I. I always loved him for that. He was, I think, the most unfortunate man I’ve known. But he did what he could to ease the suffering of a child he barely knew.” The wind was loud in the elms. She stepped down.

Flojian thanked her and asked whether there was anyone else. There was not. “When the ceremony is concluded,” he said, “Karik welcomes you to stay.” The priest came forward, drew down the Tasselay banner, folded it reverently, handed it to an aide, and took the torch. She held it over the cookfire until it caught, and gave it to Flojian with a whispered admonition to be careful. Flojian now delivered the ritual appreciation to his father, thanking him for the sun and the river and all the hours of his life. When he had finished, the priest intoned a prayer to Ekra the Traveler, who would convey the departing spirit to its next life. They bowed their heads. When the priest had finished, Flojian touched the torch to the pyre.

Within seconds, it was engulfed in flames. Chaka looked away. Goodbye, Arin, she said, as if the final link to her brother were being cut.

Afterward, they retreated into the house, exchanged toasts through the afternoon, and talked a lot about how they would miss the deceased. Chaka had a light tolerance

for wine, and she was getting ready to call it a day when a short, stout man with a neatly clipped gray beard put a drink in her hand. “You said exactly the right things, young lady,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She understood immediately from his formal bearing and precise speech that he was an academic. He was about sixty, probably one of Endine’s colleagues. “The rest of us babbled like damned fools,” he continued.

She smiled at him, pleased.

“We’re going to miss him.” He tasted his wine. “My name’s Silas Glote. I teach at the Imperium.”

The name sounded familiar. “Pleased to meet you, Master Glote.” She smiled. “I’m Chaka Milana.”

“I knew Ann,” said Silas.

She recalled where she had heard the name. “He was in one of your seminars.”

“A long time ago. He was a fine young man.”

“Thank you.”

Flojian came up behind them, nodded to Silas, and thanked them both for their comments. “I’m sure,” he told Chaka, “he was delighted.” This was, of course, a reference to Karik’s spirit.

“It was true,” she said.

Flojian managed a smile. “Silas was invited to go on the expedition.”

“Really?”

“I have no taste for the wilderness,” said Silas. “I like my comforts.” He turned to Flojian. “How far did they actually get? Did he ever tell you?”

Flojian saw three empty chairs around a table and steered his guests toward them. Toko, his ancient servant, brought more drinks. “No,” he said, passing a cushion to Chaka. “He didn’t talk about it. Not a word.”

“How about the map?”

“I never saw a map. I don’t know that there was one.” He took a deep breath. “The tradition has always been that it was to the north. On the sea. But what sea?” He rolled his eyes.

“Well, it hardly matters.” He looked toward Chaka. “Silas blames himself for not going.”

“I never said that.”

“I know. But I can hear it in your voice. And you do yourself an injustice. Nothing would have been different. Except one more would have died. I suspect you refused him for the same reason I did.”

“He asked you to go?” Silas blurted the question, and then realized the implied insult and tried to regroup by suggesting that Karik would not have expected Flojian to be interested.

“It’s all right, Silas. He was relieved when I passed on the idea.” Flojian’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “But it was abject nonsense from the start and you and I both knew it. We told him so and challenged him to show his evidence. Show the map. But he refused.”

Flojian finished his drink and sighed. “He walked out of here with a group of children. I apologize for that, Chaka, but It’s so. He took advantage of people who believed in him. And he led them to their graves. Nothing changes that, no matter what anyone says here.”

Chaka was about to leave when Flojian appeared again and asked whether he could speak with her privately. The request was put so earnestly that she was at a loss to guess his purpose.

He led her to a sitting room in the back of the house, and drew aside a set of heavy curtains. Sunlight fell on a collection of four books.

The room was comfortably furnished with leather chairs, a desk, a cabinet, a side table, and a reading stand. “This was my father’s sanctum,” he said, “before he retreated into the north wing.” All four volumes were bound and, of course, handwritten. Two were inside the cabinet, a third was on the desk, and a fourth lay open on the reading stand. They were Kessler’s The Poetic Rationale; Karik’s own history of Illyria, Empire and Sunset; Molka’s Foundations of the League; and a fragment copy of The Travels of Abraham Polk.

“They’re lovely,” she said.

“Thank you.”

The Molka book, on the stand, was most accessible. The craftsmanship” was marvelous: leather binding, vellum of the highest order, exquisite calligraphy, fine inks, golden flourishes in strategic locations, brilliant illustrations.

They must be quite valuable. “

“They are.” His brown eyes focused on her. “I’m going to sell them.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Oh, yes. I have no way to protect them. When Father was here, it was one thing. But now, I’d have to hire a guard. No, they don’t really mean much to me, Chaka. I’d rather have the money.”

“I see.” She ran her fingers lightly over the binding.

“A pleasant sensation, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you must be wondering why I wanted to see you.” He opened a cabinet drawer and removed a package. She guessed by its dimensions and weight it contained a fifth book. He set it down on a table and stood aside. “I don’t know whether you’re aware of it or not, but you made a considerable impression on my father.”

That’s hard to believe, Flojian. He never really knew me.”

“He remembered. He left instructions that this was to be given to you.” The package was wrapped in black leather and held shut by a pair of straps. Chaka released the buckles, and caught her breath.

Gold leaf, red leather binding, fine parchment, although somewhat yellowed with age. This is for me?”

“It’s Mark Twain,” said Flojian. “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

She lifted the cover and stared at the title page. “Mark Twain’s books are lost,” she said.

“Well.” He laughed. “Not all of them. Not anymore.”

There were illustrations of knights on horseback and castle walls and beautiful women in flowing gowns. And a picture of a man fashioning a pistol.

The language was antiquated.

“Where did it come from?”

That’s a question I wish I could answer. It was as much a surprise to me as it is to you.” He pursed his lips. “It’s somewhat worn, as you can see. But this is the way it was put into my hands.” Chaka was overwhelmed. “I can’t take this,” she said. “I think you have to,” said Flojian. “It’s in his will. Be careful of it, though. I suspect it will command a substantial price.”

“I would think so.”

“I can make some suggestions with regard to getting full value for it, Chaka.”

She closed the book and refastened the case. “Oh, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t sell it. But thank you anyway.”

Raney was waiting for her on Sundown Road. He was tall, congenial, with dark eyes and a gentleness that one seldom found in younger men. He was occasionally dull, but that was not necessarily a bad thing in a man. She wore his bracelet on her ankle. “How did it go?” he asked as she rode up. The Mark Twain was secured in her saddlebag. Raney didn’t seem to have noticed it. “You wouldn’t believe it,” she said, accepting his kiss and returning an embrace that surprised him and almost knocked him off his horse. Raney was a garment maker. He was skilled, well paid, and enjoyed the affection and respect of his customers and the owner of the shop in which he worked. The shop was prosperous, the owner feeble, and, as nature took its course, Raney could expect to have few concerns about his future.

He nodded toward the pillar of smoke rising into the sky. “I was surprised that you’d go.”

“Why?”

“The man’s responsible for Ann’s death.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said. “Ann took his chances when he went. There aren’t any guarantees upcountry. You should know that.”

It was a fine sunny day, unseasonably warm. They rode slowly toward River Road, where they would turn north. “He came back,” said Raney. “The man in charge of the expedition is the only survivor.” He shook his head. “It it were me, I’d have stayed out there.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But what would be the point?”

The river sparkled below them. They talked about trivialities and after a while turned off the road and cantered upslope to Chaka’s villa, which stood atop the ridge. Her grandfather had built it, and it had passed to her remaining brother, Sauk, who’d granted it to her in exchange for her agreement to rear her two sisters. Now, Lyra was grown and gone, and Carin expected to marry in the spring.

Raney was staring at her. “You okay?” he asked, “You look kind of funny.”

“I’m fine.” She smiled as they rode through a hedge onto the grounds. “I have something to show you.”

He carried the bag into the house and she opened it. When he saw the book, he frowned. “What is it?”

“Mark Twain. One of the lost books.”

“He’s a Roadmaker writer.”

“Yes.”

“Where’d it come from?”

“It’s an inheritance, Raney. Karik left it to me.”

“Funny thing to do for a stranger. Why?”

She thought she caught a suspicious note in his voice. I don’t know.”

“How much do you think it’s worth?”

“A lot. But it doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to sell it.”

“You’re not?” He gazed at an open page. “What do you want with it?”

What was that supposed to mean? “Raney, this is Mark Twain.”

He shook his head. “It’s your book, love. But I’d unload it at the first opportunity.”