Children of the Wolves (20 page)

“Hello?” she said, then realizing her voice was barely a whisper, tried again, louder: “Hello?” No answer. She walked down the passageway that the caretaker had led her down the day that Rodrigo was newlyborn. Jelena had been with Michael then. She would never be with Michael again. She pushed the thought out of her mind. She had chosen, he had chosen. It was for the best. It was the Way.

She reached the steel door that led to the glass wombs, as the storyteller called them. She hesitated. She didn't want to see all of those motionless bodies again, horrifying in their number and their stillness. She took a deep breath and readied herself, then pushed the door open.

The caretaker bent over one of the glass cubes. When she looked up and saw Jelena, a frown creased her face but she didn't say anything, simply waited for an explanation of the intrusion.

Jelena gave her an apologetic smile. “We just realized that this is where it might be,” she said. “I'm sorry to disturb you when you're busy.”

“No, that's quite all right,” the caretaker said, moving away from the glass cube. Jelena could see the lines of fatigue on the other woman's face, the pain in her eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“One of them is dying.”

A shock jolted through Jelena. She looked at the cube the caretaker had been standing over and saw that the light glowed red, instead of the yellow that bathed the other cubes. “You mean — some of the saved die before they're newlyborn?”

“Yes, of course,” the caretaker said. She motioned toward the cube with her hand. “When the light turns red it means the body is failing.” Yellow for stasis, then green for birth. Red for death. Impersonal, mechanical. Who mourned them?

“We never perform any rituals for them,” Jelena said.

“They have to be awakened to receive the rites,” the caretaker said. “And to be awakened, they have to be newlyborn. Besides, the elders don't like the tribe to dwell too much on the death of the saved. Reminds all the newlyborn of their mortality.”

“Does it — does it happen often?” Jelena asked. She shivered although it wasn't the cool air in the steel-clad room that caused her reaction. The entire cave felt haunted by the souls of the not-yet newlyborn. Jelena knew she would have nightmares about that red glowing light for the rest of her life.

The caretaker shrugged and looked around at the rows of cubes stretching endlessly into the darkness. How long would it take for her to fulfill her duty, to see each of the saved either newlyborn or dead?

Jelena pressed her shaking hands together. The task should contain joy but she doubted very much that the caretaker's joy outweighed her sorrow.

“More die these days,” the caretaker finally said. “I think whatever the makers did to create this, it doesn't work the way it should. Not anymore. We can't blame them, they had no way of knowing … ”

“Knowing what?” Jelena asked.

“That it would be like this. I think — and this is just what I believe from all these years of looking after the saved — I think the makers meant for all of us to be newlyborn together. Not spread apart like this for years and years. Then, you see, we would have had all that we needed. The teacher to remind us to read and write, the warrior to keep us safe, the explorer to show us where the other caves are.”

“The other caves?” Jelena said.

“Of course, of course,” the caretaker said a bit impatiently. “Don't you know your history? The seventy tribes of Irminsul? Doesn't that imply seventy caves? One to each tribe? Where are all the missing tribes?”

“Yes, I see,” Jelena said.

“Plus wherever they stored what we would need.”

“What we would need?”

The caretaker nodded vigorously. “There must have been some sort of records. There must have been instructions. What to do when we were newlyborn. What to expect. Medicines for the physician to administer. Seeds for us to plant. They can't have meant for it to be like this, can they?”

The caretaker was right. The makers wouldn't have just flung them into their cold glass wombs, no matter how much of a hurry they might have been in. Of course there were instructions, there were seeds, there were tools, and everything you might need to build a world. A world such as the makers envisioned.

But perhaps, Jelena thought, perhaps it was just as well that the makers had miscalculated and the first born were forced to make a different world, one the makers could not have intended. Perhaps
that
was the Way.

The heresy made her dizzy. Jelena steadied herself. The caretaker moved to another glass womb and stood shaking her head. “I'm sorry, child,” she said softly. “That's not what you came here for. But I have so little chance to talk … to rage. I used to go up to the hall at night but I stopped … oh, many years ago. Because I knew the world we were making was wrong, it was not what the makers intended. It tears my heart, you see, that we have created a world the makers would not have wanted for us.”

The caretaker bowed her head. Jelena recoiled from her. She said nothing, although she disagreed with the caretaker. She didn't think the tribe had done everything as perfectly as possible, but she was — she had to admit it — frightened to think of the world the makers
had
intended. She didn't know why the thought should have frightened her so. The makers loved them. That was why they'd saved them. But she couldn't help but feel the world the makers intended would have been even more restricted and confined. She didn't dare utter this doubt. Another doubt caught at her heart and it made her take a step away from the caretaker. How could anyone, even the caretaker, imagine what kind of world the makers had intended?

The caretaker raised her head and asked, “So why are you here, child?”

“Oh. Yes.” Jelena pulled herself together with an effort. “Michael had something in his hand when we came for Rodrigo and he thinks he left it here. Dropped it or left it on the pallet.”

“We clean up in here after every newbirth,” the caretaker said. “I would have seen it. I don't remember anything out of place. What was it?”

That was a very good question. “It was just a small — a very small — uh — a vial. A vial of essential oil, which as you know Michael uses in his work. Very rare, and he misses it sorely.” Jelena knew the caretaker hadn't been to a meeting in years; she wouldn't know what Michael did or didn't do and even if she knew Jelena was no longer under his protection, it wouldn't surprise the caretaker that an unawakened had been sent on an errand like this.

The caretaker shook her head. “No, dear, I don't recall seeing anything of that sort.”

“Perhaps it rolled under one of the cases?” Jelena suggested, torn between being proud of her facility at invention and horrified of it. “May I look? Ah, here's where Rodrigo was newlyborn.” Jelena approached the space where Rodrigo's glass womb had rested. It was gone, an empty pocket of space there instead.

The caretaker saw her glance. “Oh, we give them to the mechanic. We don't have any need for them, after, and he can always find a use for the glass.”

“Yes, of course,” Jelena murmured, the secret of the invention of glass now revealed in all its homely glory. She wondered what the mechanic would do when the supply of glass cubes finally ended. She suppressed a shudder at the sight of those cubes stretching endlessly back into the cave; that problem would not have to be faced any time soon.

Dropping to her hands and knees, Jelena groped on the steel floor as if she were looking for a small vial. The lengths she went to in order to make her fabrication seem true. She should be ashamed. After a while, she got to her feet and shook her head. “Michael will be so disappointed. I can't think where else it might be.” Scanning the cave, she almost believed in the missing vial.

“Really, I've seen nothing like that since you were here. Why did it take him so long to realize it was missing?” the caretaker asked.

“It's only used rarely.” Jelena resisted the urge to embroider that simple statement. “I wonder if he can make a substitute. Do you know,” she asked innocently, “if birch and aconite grow to the north here?”

The caretaker glanced at her, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “It's all plains to the north. So they say. Some wildflowers, of course, sunflower and such, but trees don't grow on the plains.”

“I was just curious. I've never have been beyond the fence. The gardener has tried to cultivate aconite but apparently it's difficult and we just don't find enough growing wild around here.”

“Greta?” a voice called. Jelena and the caretaker looked up to see the runner, who had pulled open the steel door to find them. “Greta, I've got the jugs of wine. Where do you want me to put them?”

“Yes, dear, hold on, I'm coming,” the caretaker said, throwing a tight smile in Jelena's direction. She moved swiftly to the door, taking the runner's elbow and moving him down the passageway. The door clanged shut behind them. Jelena supposed she might develop a fondness for wine herself if she had to stay cooped up among all these saved, motionless bodies. As she turned away to follow the caretaker from the room, her glance fell on the cabinet she'd seen the caretaker open when she'd been here with Michael at Rodrigo's newbirth. The cabinet had been stocked with useful goods — goods that would serve her and the others well on their journey, and which wouldn't be missed right away if she borrowed them.

Stole them
, she amended. She might have a hitherto unrecognized facility for lying but she wasn't going to start lying to herself.

She slipped over to the cabinet and opened the door. On the inside panel of the door, she noticed strange designs she had never seen before, one large rectangle with an “X” in the center of it, plus symbols she didn't recognize dotting the surface of the rectangle. She wondered what it might mean. The symbols looked nothing like the ones she had sewn into her curtains in the quarters she'd shared with Michael. What could they mean? She'd never learned the meaning of the symbols on her curtains, either, though she and Michael had both hoped when she awakened she'd know. They had never spoken the thought aloud, but she knew both of them hoped she would be the teacher.

Jerking her mind away from that dangerous line of thought, she turned to see what was on the shelves of the cabinet.

She unfolded one of the blankets and spread it on the floor beneath the cabinet, then piled more folded blankets on top of it. Her scrambling hands came in contact with a hinged metal case. Unclasping it, she looked inside to see medical supplies — basics like gauze and sticky ribbon, items that might come in useful where she and William and Matilda were going. Wherever they were going. She left the bowls and trays behind; they must take only the essentials.

She shut the cabinet door, tied the blanket into a pack, tossed it over her shoulder, then picked up the metal case and tucked it under her arm. She walked to the steel door, set the case on the floor and eased the door open. Seeing no one in the passageway, she hurried out of the room, picking up the steel case as she left and using her foot to slow the motion of the steel door so it wouldn't clang shut behind her. Then she crept slowly down the passageway, moving as quietly as she could so that she could hear Greta and the runner if they returned. They did not.

Breaking free of the cave entrance, she ran until she was no longer in sight of the cave. She breathed deeply, feeling as if she'd been running for miles. She kept expecting to hear the caretaker or the runner shout at her and set off in pursuit, but neither appeared. Perhaps the presence of the wine accounted for their disinterest in seeing what had become of her.

Nerves made her hands sweat and her breath come in harsh gasps, but she made it back to the rock fall with her treasures. No one stopped her.

Matilda and William seemed tensely watchful as she approached. Jelena could see the relief in both sets of eyes when they recognized her.

“Hello,” she said more cheerfully than she felt — much more cheerfully, considering she didn't feel cheerful at all. “I found some supplies for us.” She hefted the bundle before loading it onto Horse. “And I found out that we're headed in the right direction. Plains to the north, just as I thought. We'll have to be careful, though, there's not a lot of shelter on the plains. We'll need to decide what we're going to do about staying warm and dry come winter.”

She didn't remind them that winter wasn't far off. They should have left in the spring if they were going to leave; they should have laid in supplies, planned a route. They could recognize the obstacles and turn back now, but they weren't going to. Freezing to death on the prairie had to be an improvement over throwing yourself to the wolves or living a life of unremitting drudgery with no hope of redemption. They could make up their own rules, Jelena thought. Maybe out there, on the prairie, it was the unawakened who had souls.

William spoke up. “We could find a home.”

“Yes,” Jelena said, so as not to discourage him. She'd wanted him and Matilda to discuss their plans together, not rely completely on her to make all of the decisions about their future.

“A home,” he repeated. “We could decide how we want to live.”

Jelena was startled that his thoughts so matched her own. She'd thought she was the only one who could envision a different way of life, who questioned the elders and wondered if there weren't better ways of doing things.

“Yes.”

“I can read the weather,” William said simply.

“Yes, that's handy,” Jelena said, not quite sure where he was leading.

“I mean I can tell when a storm is coming on, and when you need to keep the animals out of it. I know when the weather is going to turn cold and when it's going to snow.”

“And how much it's going to snow,” Matilda added proudly, looking at William with shining eyes.