Alexandria (7 page)

Chapter Four

Jack stands at the head of the reflecting pool, in a loose cluster with the rest of the boys, and breathes deeply the salty ocean air. It is pristine and fresh, humid from the wall of marine fog that boils toward them from the west. It is a good smell, he thinks, but it is not the forest. Savagery or not, that was the place he called home.

They dawdle around, waiting for Quinlan to return so they can tour the Temple and grounds. Warriors stand around them and stare off at the ocean, looking bored and restless, hardly seeming like the same men who committed a gruesome massacre of their village only days before.

Under the high archway, Quinlan appears. Nisaq walks with his arm around Braylon’s shoulder, fatherly, pulling him close and leaning in so that his whispers are not heard by the others. He gives instructions, gesturing with his free hand and sometimes pointing up at the Temple. Braylon listens pensively and gives small nods.

Quinlan arrives, blinking around absently in the morning sun. Nisaq halts Braylon off to the side to finish his confidential lecture. The deep resonance of his voice carries but the children cannot understand what he says. Braylon looks downcast as Nisaq levels his attention on him.

“Okay?” Nisaq says, as a parent would say to a child after tough discipline has been sanctioned.

Braylon nods. “Okay,” he says in a low, husky voice.

Nisaq gives him a firm squeeze on the shoulder and he is allowed to rejoin the group. The boys move to give him space, almost as if he bears contagion.

“Are you all right?” Aiden asks from a distance, a bit scared of the answer.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Good morning,” Nisaq booms.

“Good morning,” they say.

“I’m going to leave you in Quinlan’s hands today, but first,” he pauses, smiling, “I just want to thank all of you for such a good job at the welcoming. You handled yourselves, and everyone thought you were just wonderful.” He joins Quinlan at the foot of the staircase. “The hard part is over. You’re here. Today should be a simple day, and I’m sure you need that. Quinlan will take you around the Temple, so just relax and listen. I’ll join you later.”

They follow Quinlan up the grand staircase toward the giant redwood doors. Jack looks around as they ascend and off to the left he sees the girls walking the garden paths, led by Ezbeth and Sena. He slows, looking for Lia. She is near the back, walking as gingerly as a little sparrow on the gravel path while a brute killer stands guard beside her. He hopes she will look over, that she will notice him, but she does not. The warrior at rearguard gives him a pat to keep moving and he hops the last few steps and quickly passes through the entrance, looking very tiny indeed next to the massive doorway.

Natural light maps a slanted shape across the floor and illuminates the ground level of the foyer. Colonnades of stout sandstone pillars reach upward, fading into dimness as they stretch to greater heights, and the foyer’s lofty ceiling is obscured by dark shadows, seeming, by some trick of perception, to continue on forever. A row of crude, skinny windows courses along the front facade, and galaxies of dust specks float languidly through the slivers of light. Curved twin staircases envelop the foyer and rise to a lavish balcony. Their mouths drop open and they turn in slow circles, looking up, trying to grasp the enormity of the space.

“Arana Nezra the First started building this Temple thirty years ago,” says Quinlan, acting as their docent. “His son continued building after his death.”

Jack takes Lathan’s hand and walks him to the pillar and they run their fingers over the rough texture. Lathan is either settling down or disconnecting entirely, Jack isn’t sure which. Quinlan guides them straight ahead, down a narrow corridor off the main foyer that runs through the center of the Temple. Jack feels a tug on his sleeve and there is Creston, looking up shyly.

“Will you hold my hand too?”

“Sure, Creston.”

Jack and his new wards travel down the imposing corridor with the other boys while Quinlan rambles on about the illustrious Temple. The walls on both sides are painted with sweeping scenic tableaus that stretch from floor to ceiling. Jack looks on one that depicts the grounds and hillside before any construction began—only a few small huts dot the landscape and the rest is rough, tall grass and craggy boulders, filling the space now occupied by the Temple’s gigantic footprint.

“This was the first village, settled here over forty years ago.”

The mural transforms to chronicle the passage of years. A tight-knit cluster of huts are circled together on the high cliff overlooking the ocean, with simple figures brushed in, some carrying lumber or playing in the fields, others huddling by a small, coarsely painted campfire, looking, all in all, like a fairly pleasant sort of place to be.

Ahead, a concavity recedes back into the stone, ringed with sconces and metal reflectors that angle their light toward the focal point—a framed linen canvas with a small memorial arranged below. The portrait shows an old man, long gray beard hanging down, with vibrant brown eyes and a kindly face. He is shown wearing simple robes with garlands draped around his neck.

“Arana Nezra the First.”

A few items are arranged neatly below the portrait, items that apparently belonged to the man himself. Some scraps of garments, trinkets, a neatly folded fur, the skin toughened and dried, and an aged and worn hammer and chisel.

“He cut the Temple’s first stone with these tools here,” says Quinlan with an air of astonishment.

Opposite this small tribute, in mirror image, is another indented concavity. There is no portrait here, only an ornately carved stone enclosure, low and squat on the ground, with a flat slab laid over it.

“What’s in there?” asks Aiden.

“His bones.”

Aiden recoils from the grimly lit sarcophagus and casts a sidelong glance at Jack. William shuffles up next to them.

“Are they going to put our bones in those boxes after they kill us?”

“Shut up, William.”

Quinlan is already moving down the hall and the boys speed up to catch him. The settlement expands further—sturdy cabins have replaced the ramshackle huts and the population has grown to multitudes. Their manner of lifestyle has changed and the whole village has taken on a new aspect—they seem to have advanced suddenly and in radical fashion. A flock of people encircles Arana Nezra the First and another man, not present in the earlier depictions. This new man is clean-shaven with slicked-back hair, and his clothes have been strangely tailored, giving him an altogether foreign appearance. Nezra the First rests one hand on the outlander’s shoulder as the tribe genuflects before them.

“The prophet,” says Quinlan, “who came from far away and taught us many things.”

They come to another niche in the hallway, with double doors made of thick logs stitched together with black metal bands and rivets, framed by an archway, proscenium-like, with an intricately carved mosaic running down both sides.

“This is what’s left of that village,” Quinlan says softly, then disappears through the forbidding portal.

Burnt lumber is stacked in little piles resembling burial cairns. Larger pieces of timber are mounted on the walls, old framing joists, blackened and crumbling, covered with a meringue of light white ash. The ceiling is low and it feels as if the weight of the entire Temple pushes down on them, entombing them with the rest of this scorched detritus. Thick, musty air makes their breath ragged and hard to pull in.

“What happened to it?” asks Jack, already dreading the answer.

“Burned,” says Quinlan, “by savages.”

He surveys the relics with sullen reverence and his damning words linger in the stale air. The boys lower they heads and crowd by the door like chastened schoolchildren.

“Ready to move on?”

Many small heads nod
yes
.

Back in the main corridor they advance along the display. Gone is the mural’s bright tone. The vision depicted before them is terrifying and bizarre, and lumps of nerve rise in their gullets. Fire engulfs the burning cabins painted on the wall and the boys are horribly reminded of their own ordeal, barely a week old in their minds yet. The rising flames become demons with mouths of sparked teeth and sunken orbital sockets, full of hateful vexation. The happy people are now melting, their forms sagging and crusted with charcoal.

The flames continue to expand across the mural until the corridor is consumed by the gaudily painted inferno, the torchlight on the walls animating the wisps of smoke and fire in a twisted optical illusion. The boys huddle close together as they pass through the bleak tunnel.

Gradually, the blaze subsides and the scene turns into a junkyard of burned wreckage. The scenery is painted as if in daylight, with warm sunshine illuminating the ground and pronouncing the many varied colors, but the sky that hangs above this panorama is of darkest night. The Milky Way streaks across like a vein of silver ore, with night mists and comets sprinkled throughout. This midnight sky is torn open and purple light shines down upon a people painted in the center of the smoldering destruction. They are all sitting on the dirt, looking up at the one figure portrayed standing—Arana Nezra the First. He holds in his hands a small bundle, bathed in purple light, with the petite face of a baby smiling down at the onlookers with brilliant blue eyes.

They move further down the corridor. Banners of rainbow light encircle the good people, the gallery of bright faces, each carrying out some necessary task while the evanescent spirit glow swaddles them. The kind old face of Nezra the First watches over them, translucent in the sky, an apparition of everlasting love. The scene is beautiful and joyous. The Temple floats above the ground like a sandstone zeppelin. The boys scan the painted faces, so content and wholesome looking, clinging to their families and loved ones. Their eyes track lower on the painting and at the feet of those good, wholesome people are the bodies of fallen savages—twisted death shapes crushed under the feet of the Temple born.

“The cleansing,” says Quinlan.

A swell of heartache bursts in Jack’s chest as he looks at the spent carcasses, trampled so joyously to death.

Quinlan beckons them forward.

They come to the end of the corridor and find themselves facing directly a huge full body portrait of King Arana Nezra the Second. He stands cavalierly before a backdrop of billowing white clouds and not one, but two suns bathing him in golden light. Sparkling sapphire gemstones are set into his irises and they glimmer in the murky torchfire.

Quinlan opens a side door and harsh light floods in from outdoors, nearly blinding them. They find themselves in the long hallway at the rear of the Temple, near the baths. The heavy sliding door is open and they are led outside, onto the stage of the amphitheatre.

Nisaq stands in a semicircle with several of the Temple’s residents, carrying on about something that has them all very serious.

“Here they are… Quite a display, isn’t it?”

They tell him what he wants to hear and he beams that proud smile back at them.

“We’ll eat, then tour the gardens,” he says, “I just want to take care of this first. These men here will give you your work duties. Listen closely, because tomorrow morning this is who you’ll report to.”

The boys stand in a line and wait anxiously to be called upon. The youngest are assigned to the fields to plant and harvest, William and Creston are to apprentice the metalworks, and lastly, a suntanned and weather-beaten man named Karus steps forward, holding a small slip in his hand.

“This last detail is for the quarry. That’s for the rest of you that’s left. Braylon, Aiden, and Jack. Report to me in the morning after your lessons. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep, it’s going to be a long day.”

The girls huff up the tight spiral staircase, tired from their walk around the gardens and provinces. Sena leads them down a slim hallway toward the kitchen and they enter through an arched side door. The heavy heat of the ovens gusts into their faces, droplets of sweat bead on their small foreheads.

An island of mortared sandstone takes up the center of the enormous kitchen, with pots and pans dangling above it from a bracket chained to the ceiling. Ezbeth leans against the counter, drinking from a stone mug, engrossed in conversation with the head cook. Sena leads in the newcomers, and Ezbeth perks up and addresses them with airy lightness.

“Hello, girls. How did you like your tour of the gardens? They’re pretty, aren’t they?”

“Mmmhmm,”
say the girls.

“I’d like you to meet someone, and be nice because some of you will be working with her starting tomorrow. This is Calyn, head of the Temple kitchen.”

“Nice to meet you, girls. Come in, come on in. Don’t be shy in here,” she says, coming around the island, wiping her hands on an apron that covers her wide belly. She pats a couple of them on the head then scoots forward the few who are hanging to the rear. “Do you girls like sweets?”

A few little smiles break out and they nod yes.