The Search for Truth (37 page)

T
EN-YEAR-OLD
T
HANATOS
A
RGUS
Baskania saw the long line of people waiting outside his grandmother Cassandra's courtyard. Cringing, he ducked into her side yard. As soon as his grandmother saw him, she would chide him for being late and make him work the rest of the afternoon. And with so many people waiting, the healing would take forever. He probably would miss dinner, even. If he was lucky, he'd get a little bowl of olives and dates.

Best to put off work as long as he could. He knew a great spot in his grandmother's yard where she would not see him. He could spend time there with his new best friend.

Cassandra was an iatromantis, a healer-prophet, the only one in Constantinople. It wasn't a tradition here as it was in Thessaly, where he had been born. But even though there were other iatromantes in Thessaly and the other parts of the Empire that had once been Greek, Cassandra was the best.

Thanatos's grandmother loved that her bloodline was pure Greek. Straight through to Plato, she always said. She missed Thessaly, but they were lucky to have escaped when they did. Nine years ago she'd known to pick up and move, right before Emperor Samuil of Bulgaria attacked. There had been other battles before, with the Saracens. And of course, rogue crusaders galloping through. But this was the worst, and she had been wise to have gotten them out when she had.

Constantinople was okay. It was all that Thanatos remembered. His mother, Magda, hated it, but she hated most things. At least their emperor, Basil II, “the Bulgar Slayer,” kept them safe.

Actually, if not for his grandmother's high expectations, life would have been great. He would have spent all his time uninterrupted with his new best friend. But his grandmother had decided that he should be an iatromantis, just like her. She said he had better natural abilities than anyone she'd ever seen. As if he wanted to spend the rest of his life fixing things for one person after the next.

Not that he wanted to play with other kids anymore. They just didn't get it. There were so many things more interesting than playing chase, tossing a ball, or throwing a discus around. His new best friend was showing him tricks he had never dreamed were possible. If it weren't for his grandmother's obsession with healing people, he would have disappeared with his new best friend and never come back.

He knew he was through with other kids when Junius's father had taken a group of them to the hippodrome for the chariot races last Saturnalia, right before the Winter Solstice. He had been to the chariot races before, and he was excited about going. But this time a new spectacle awaited him. Slaves were brought into the arena for a show like the popular one in faraway Rome. They were made into gladiators and had to fight lions, other beasts, people with bows and arrows, and one another, with or without armor. The fights were gory and awful, and it made him sick watching the crowds enjoy them.

These were the people his grandmother expected him to help day in and day out?

Thanatos found a quiet spot behind some shrubs and relaxed. Time to call his new best friend. He had made up a name for her: Life-Song. That's because she was everywhere, happy, and he could hear her singing. If he sat very quietly, he could feel her presence.

In a few moments she appeared. He could not see her, but he could sense everything about her, and hear her too. She didn't actually talk, but he understood what she felt. And when he played with her in his mind, real things would happen around him. The other day he pushed a spot in Life-Song, and a tree in the distance fell over. He was delighted with this discovery. He knew just how he'd done it, just where he'd touched, so he tried it again and again. The tree leaped like a frog across the field, making him laugh. He didn't know how to put the tree back, but he would figure it out.

He would figure everything out. He wanted to learn what every bit meant, how to make Life-Song his own.

Today he found a rush of waves coursing through Life-Song that he had not noticed before. Interested, he moved them in his mind. It made her sing a shrill, sad note. Then somebody screamed in front of the house.

Sure he had caused whatever it was, he ran to see what had
happened. A woman in line had fainted and hit her head on the brick pathway. People rushed the woman to his grandmother. Cassandra closed her eyes and put her hands over both sides of the woman's face. “She'll be all right.” Cassandra nodded. “Let her rest under the tree.”

Then she spotted Thanatos and clucked her tongue. “Late again, Thaddy,” she snipped. “Can't Magda get you out of bed in the morning? Why does she keep you in that place, anyway? You two should live here with me.” She grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him to his chair at the other end of the courtyard. “Look at all these people here waiting on you.”

Yeah, right, Thanatos thought. Live here with you and slave away every minute of my day?

A man approached and bowed, saying his back was bothering him. Sighing, Thanatos closed his eyes and rested his hands on the man's back. He could feel the area that wasn't right, and he adjusted it in his mind. The man smiled, bowing over and over again. “Thank you, Thanatos.”

 

He was about to drop dead when Cassandra finally took him into her house. Everyone had been cured. “You did a good job, Thaddy I can see you're improving. But tell me,” she said, gripping his shoulder, “what is it you do in my side yard every day?”

Thanatos blushed. “I'm just…experimenting.” He didn't want to explain about Life-Song. She was special, for him alone.

Cassandra leaned down and squinted at him. “You're getting pretty good at working with the Substance. Making trees hop, for example. But be careful.”

Thanatos was surprised she knew what he was doing. “What is the Substance?”

“It's all around us. Everywhere. That's what holds life, Thaddy.”
She handed him a bowl of olives, which he wolfed down. “You can make it do things, I know. But you need to stop, okay? Leave it alone. What you need to get good at is fixing people. Concentrate on that. Playing with the Substance will just make you want more. And you can't do everything, you know.”

“Why not?” Thanatos asked, confused. “I think I
can
do everything with Life-Song…I mean, the Substance. I'm still learning, though.”

“Not everything,” she repeated. “Some things are of-limits. And for good reason.” Her eyes turned hard. “There is something called the Final Magic, Thaddy. Lets you do unnatural things. Create life, control people, steer the planet. If anyone says they can give it to you, run away.” She waved a finger in his face. “It is not meant to be in our world. It's a remnant of a time long before ours. The Golden Ones had that power. Now only a few of them are left, and they are ghosts.”

She leaned toward him and whispered, “I know what's happening, Thaddy. It has to stop. Now. I've been having dreams. Not good ones either. Every night I see them—the three of them—and I'm battling them.”

“Three who?” He leaned forward, interested.

“The Fates,” his grandmother said. “The dream's about a prophecy, and they won't tell me what it is. I fight them each night to find it out, even though when I'm awake it's the last thing I want to know. Of course, in reality I couldn't lift a finger against those three. But in my dreams, I wrestle them, force the information out of them. And last night I finally got it.”

Thanatos waited for her to continue, until he was about to burst. “What did they say?”

“I won't tell you the prophecy,” she said, her voice flat. “It was the secret of how to get the Final Magic. It's not right, Thaddy. I'm going
to take it with me to my grave. And it involved you.” She looked at him sternly. “You are the one who could learn it someday. But
don't.
Mark my words.”

“But why would you have those dreams—why would the Fates tell you—if it's such a bad thing?” he asked.

His grandmother turned on him fiercely. “Because you've gotten too close with the Substance. It's never known a person before as a friend. I think it loves you. It wants you to have the Final Magic so you can know its deepest secrets.” She clucked her tongue. “It doesn't see yet how that could never, ever work. The Substance has been giving me these dreams, Thaddy, because of you. Now,
call it off
.”

Thanatos squirmed with delight. Life-Song wanted him to have the Final Magic, to know everything? She loved him. Who needed anyone else?

A breeze wafted in and blew a small piece of paper out of Cassandra's pocket. It spun in the air and dropped onto the floor. Thanatos picked it up and read,
It's hidden in the smallest
—

“What's hidden?” he asked, looking up sharply. “The Final Magic? Is it hidden in something small?”

Cassandra ripped the paper from his hand, her face white. “That is
not
the prophecy. It's just a note I jotted. Now go to bed.”

She stormed away, leaving Thanatos with a dreamy smile.

C
OLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER
(CCD), or the case of the missing honeybees, is not fictional, unfortunately. Millions of bees have vanished from all around the world in the past few years. Between 80 and 90 percent of the U.S. commercial beehives are empty, with similar findings throughout Europe, South America, and parts of the Far East.

Honeybees have met with tough times in the past, fighting diseases and losing their habitat. But now bees are simply flying away and vanishing without a trace. No bodies are lying on the ground, like with past bee problems. They are just up and leaving.

Nobody knows why this is happening, but if the situation does not change, it may cause serious ecological problems. A third of U.S. crops, such as apples, pears, cherries, melons, strawberries, and nearly a hundred fruits, vegetables, and nuts around the world are dependent on honeybee pollination. Bees are an important part of our food chain. What would life be like without them? Would other species die off as a result? What would a trip to the grocery store be like? Luckily, so far, we haven't had to find out.

Of course, there has been much research and guesswork as to
what is going on. Assuming that Substance leaking out of Upper Earth isn't the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, scientists are pointing fingers in several directions. Mites carrying viruses may be a part of the problem. Others think the bees are affected by pesticides on the plants or by genetically modified crops. In fact, bees are often fed high-fructose corn syrup in the winter months. Beyond the implications of giving them a substance we know is unhealthy, and which may pass through into their honey, the high-fructose corn syrup itself is often made with genetically modified corn. Some beekeepers have even been found using sodium cyanide, illegally, in their apiaries, to get rid of pests.

Stress on the hives may be a part of the puzzle. Bees get trucked from city to city in the United States. Tons are shipped into California each November to pollinate the almond tree groves. Some hives get moved ten times a year, from apples to oranges to peaches, which is not easy on them. Droughts affect them as well.

Some people even wonder if the world's extensive cell phone network is causing the bees to get “lost,” the radiation from the phone towers interfering with the bees' navigation systems. Reportedly, studies show that putting cell phones on hives keeps bees away. But how much this has to do with the problem is unknown.

It's possible that Colony Collapse Disorder is caused by a mix of all of the above problems together. Maybe our honeybees are giving up on us and moving to greener pastures that only they know about.

Of interest, the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium recommended that beekeepers feed their bees an antibiotic, Fumagillin, for fungal infections, in case it might have something to do with their disappearance.

Reportedly, organic bee farms, which do not put chemicals, cyanide, or pesticides in their hives, or give their bees antibiotics or high-fructose corn syrup, have not been touched by Colony Collapse
Disorder. They are also required to have plenty of forage area that has no pesticides or genetically modified crops. Just something to think about.

Maybe the Substance is stronger on organic farms. That's the answer I tend to go with.

—Kaza