Eternity Road (2 page)

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 familar 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, it 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 clean.

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 clean 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’ve got a bite,” said Colin. He grinned. “That’s better.”

“Right. One each will go a long way.”

Colin tried to bring it in, but it resisted. “It’s tangled up in something.” He pulled hard but the pole bent close to breaking. There was a dark mass in the water. “What
is
that?”

“It’s not a fish,” said Rinny, disappointed.

A boot surfaced.

A boot with a foot in it.

Colin dropped the rod and the foot sank back into the water.

“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 Arin 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, inter-city 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 for 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.