The Sound of Seas (10 page)

Walking over, Ben said, “They must like you. Until now, they kept to themselves.”

“Not true,” Madame Langlois said, retrieving her cigar and addressing no one in particular. “Everyone knows us in Port-au-Prince. Everyone.”

Ben wanted to give up. He didn't know whether Madame Langlois was being difficult or whether she was just
that
literal. It didn't matter. In a moment, she would be Eilifir's problem, at least for a while.

While they waited, Ben leaned close, facing away from the Langloises.

“She was afraid you were a sorcerer,” Ben said. “Why?”

“Shouldn't you ask her?”

“I don't have time for more riddles, from them
or
you,” he said. “Is there something in your past, from Galderkhaan, that she might have picked up on?”

“Probably,” Eilifir said.

That caught Ben off guard. “Care to explain?” he asked.

“I apologize, Mr. Moss,” Eilifir said. “But one must be authorized to divulge information to outsiders.”

“I freakin' read Galderkhaani,” Ben said. “How am I an outsider?”

“Being a scholar does not make you of our blood,” Eilifir said.

“By ‘blood,' you mean Galderkhaani?”

“You already know my heritage,” Eilifir said.

“Right. And I'm asking if that's what you just meant. Or by ‘blood' do you mean something else, something clannish?”

“I will request permission to tell you more. If it is granted, I will contact you.”

As they spoke, a white SUV pulled over and double-parked near the tree. Eilifir turned; Ben grabbed his arm gently.

“These two people are not bound by your rules of omertà,” Ben said. “I want—I would
like
to know if they say anything that could help Caitlin.”

“Of course,” the man replied as he turned to open the door.

“One more thing,” Ben said, still holding his arm. Eilifir turned back with less patience. “You said earlier that your ancestors once lived with the Group members, yet you don't communicate with them now. I assume you're rivals.”

“Our argument is not with the personnel of the Group as such, but—what you said would be somewhat accurate. And now, that's all I can say.”

“So your dispute is with . . . their sponsors,” Ben continued to press.

The other man was silent.

Ben released his arm and took a step back. Without saying anything, the man had confirmed what Ben had already begun to suspect.

Excusing himself, Eilifir prepared to put Madame Langlois in the SUV while her son examined the inside. Only when he stepped back did she get in.

Eilifir shut the door, then went to the passenger's side and climbed in. He nodded a farewell. Ben briefly saw himself reflected in the dark window as the vehicle pulled away. He looked like crap. He felt like crap.

Plus now he was truly frightened. The world as he knew it had suddenly ceased to be. Despite his silence, Eilifir and his companions were not just descended from any Galderkhaani. He didn't know which was which, but they were descended from either the Priests or the Technologists.

And they were still at war.

CHAPTER 8

H
earing Caitlin's claim that she was from the distant future, brought here by transcended souls,
Standor
Qala stopped so suddenly that she had to throw an arm across Vilu to keep him from slipping off her shoulder. A half-smile quickly settled on Qala's face, as though she couldn't decide whether what Caitlin had just told her was a joke or whether she was mad. It certainly couldn't be the truth. Undecided, the air officer continued walking toward the tower.

“The idea is absurd,” Qala said.

“No less absurd than Candescence.”

“
That
is irreligious.”

“As your comment is ill-informed,” Caitlin replied.

Qala slowed, studied her as they continued toward the tower. Her eyes were suddenly like tiny machines, studying her . . . evaluating her.

“You are in earnest,” Qala said. It wasn't a question. She wasn't insulted by Caitlin's remark. She wasn't afraid that someone might overhear them questioning the foundation of Galderkhaan's religious faith. The
Standor
was genuinely curious.

“I am quite serious,” Caitlin replied.

“Are you going to tell me you are Candescent?”

Caitlin had not been expecting that. She frowned. “No. I don't think so. What I can tell you is that I am new to this culture, its language, its religion. Events here will occur that impact people I know, far from here in time and place.”

“In this future time. From which you say you come.”

“I
am
from the future.”

“And you have somehow dropped into the body of another.”

“That is correct, by means I don't entirely understand.”

The
Standor
was quiet again, contemplative rather than doubtful. “The
Drudaya
were forbidden,” she said. “Do they return?”

There was no English word that matched. The closest would have been a phrase: the children of the earth.

“That name is unknown to me,” she said.

“If such is true, then it is best that we not speak of it.”

“Why?”

“Did I not just say they are forbidden?”

“I'm sorry,” Caitlin said, deciding not to press the matter. She wanted to try and find out everything she could in order to understand why she was here, in this city . . . and whether she should remain in Falkhaan or go to the capital. Because Bayarma was not present when Bayarmii and her grandmother died, Caitlin was reluctant to place this body anywhere near there. It might change events, cause them to transcend, alter the way Caitlin interacted while she was trying to protect Maanik. The young Indian girl might be lost as a result.

Nothing must change
, Caitlin told herself.

Yet if Vilu were going to Aankhaan, there was no way Caitlin would not go with him. The burden was ferocious in its complexity, and Caitlin was still fighting hard to accept the reality of what was happening.

The road was wide enough for two, or for one of the many bicycle-like carts that passed them. They seemed to be constructed of tightly woven vines covered with some kind of smooth, brown pitch.
The wheels were made of some kind of rubber substance. Perhaps sap or animal fat or even skin. She had seen some citizens with masks around their necks that appeared to be made of a similar substance.

Nonetheless, once the conversation was ended—as Qala made clear by the forward set of her head—Caitlin fell in directly behind the
Standor
, now and then touching the forehead of the unconscious boy. As they walked, it was deeply distressing to Caitlin when she considered that the person she was desperate to return to had not yet been born. That thought made her want to scream—and yet it also had an unexpected, calming quality.

If Jacob does not exist, he cannot be missing me
, she thought.

It was a strange, elusive comfort but it was the only one she had and she forced herself to hold on to it. She failed. Her memory was her reality. She also wondered about Ben, what he must be thinking, trying, fearing. And her parents. It occurred to her, with a flash of horror, that she still had a body in her time. She suspected—hoped, prayed—that it was still alive and that Ben would somehow see to its care.

If it is dead, then there will be no “me” to go back to
, she thought with deep horror.

And if the spirit of Bayarma began to push, tried to reclaim her body, where
could
the spirit of Caitlin O'Hara go? Would she be like Azha, ascended, stuck in limbo?

No
, she told herself. Azha was
cazhed
with Dovit. She had transcended. A single soul would merely ascend—alone, witnessing without experiencing, moving through eternity with mute awareness.

Would I have to wait millennia to see myself, and Jacob, alive? Could I go wherever I want? Or are the ascended locked in one time, one place
?

There wasn't a thought that didn't chill her, didn't make her want to scream. And now she had the added burden of being with someone who, at best, wasn't sure she could believe Caitlin; at worst, might think she was crazed.

The familiar sea and sky around her made the strangeness of the
situation even worse. There were differences, but nothing alien. She had looked up at the blue sky and clouds from Central Park, had looked out at the Atlantic Ocean, with Jacob, from Coney Island. They had appeared more or less like this. Caitlin felt that she should be able to close her eyes, open them, and
be
in one of those places. But as much as she pointed her fingers down while she walked, the energy was gone, or at least depleted. Her spirit was inert.

Her curiosity about Galderkhaan was even less than that. She did not know how these people came to be, who they really were, how long the civilization had thrived. She should be asking questions, making careful observations in case she did get back. Ben—she actually chuckled a little maniacally inside when she thought of this—would probably be watching every gesture, noting every word, looking at every marking, satisfied just
knowing
more than he did.

But he doesn't have a child. He doesn't have other children who depend on him. He has ambassadors, most of whom he doesn't even like.

What touched her, maybe even helped to anchor her a little, was the realization that Ben would swap places with her even knowing he might be booted out of this body and cast into limbo. He wasn't a loving soul, but she knew he loved her.

Caitlin forced her brain to stop thinking. She was here because she wanted to help others, and she had succeeded. That was her job
. Whatever has happened, you earned this, the gold star of collateral damage
, she thought.

The walk to the tower was brief . . . or at least it seemed so, as Caitlin contemplated other things. When she had been at the
motu-varkas
it was dark, she was being assaulted by Pao and Rensat, and she was unable to appreciate the construction of the tower. Though smaller by about one-third than that largest of the columns, it was nonetheless an imposing structure. Constructed of blocks that resembled granite but were possibly volcanic basalt—and lined, she knew, with olivine tiles—the tower tapered slightly as it rose, with two inverted V-shaped structures on either side of the mouth: these were
the moorings for the larger airships, of which there was only one at the moment. The vessel was about three hundred feet in length, with a long, open gondola suspended beneath the dark gray balloon. A large platform similar to but wider and longer than a window washer's scaffold was suspended from ropes that hung from a long, pointed prow.

A prow with a dragonlike carving on the front. It was similar to the one Caitlin had drawn while doodling on the airplane while returning home from Haiti.

That was too much to add to the mix, so she didn't. How could she possibly have
anticipated
seeing this? Unless she was remembering from the past . . . ?

Good God, don't try and make sense of this now
, she told herself.
Stay in the moment.

A second scaffold was suspended from the rear of the airship. Hoists lowered bags that she assumed were filled with waste or casks that needed refilling. It was a clean, efficient operation powered by weights like elevators in some of the older buildings in New York.

The trio was quickly under the shadow of the airship. Caitlin felt a chill going from bright sun to gray shadow; it had nothing to do with a change in temperature but a sense that recess was over. Unprepared as she was, events were about to become far more challenging. And though her instincts told her she could trust this woman, Caitlin still had no idea what
Standor
Qala meant to do with her. Perhaps Qala would lock her up in the airship. Still, Caitlin allowed herself to go forward.

The scaffolding that was lowered from the front of the airship was for personnel. She was correct about crew having time on the beach to stretch their legs and wet their feet. From what she overheard, with its fish-spotting duties done, the airship would be making cargo runs to other locations in Galderkhaan on its way to Aankhaan. The plan seemed to be to arrive while the celebration was just beginning, adding even more majesty to the night.

They boarded the lift at the base of the tower. There were hip-high metal rails around the sides and Caitlin held one with both hands in anticipation of the platform being jerked aloft. To her surprise, the ascent was quite smooth. As they rose, the splendor of Falkhaan, of ancient Antarctica, revealed itself in epic pieces. Ahead and below was the village itself, a collection of some two dozen wheel homes and courtyards and a roused populace going about their day. To her right, which was north, was the sea—windswept with choppy breakers in the horseshoe, smooth without. Neither wave nor wind posed a peril to the small crafts on it. In the distance, large fish leaped from the seas in unison, smaller fish among them who were seeking safety from ­albatross-like seabirds. There was a great deal of hunting and pecking from the birds' large beaks as they tried to nab the smaller prey. Some succeeded, some failed, but even failure left some fish wounded. These fell back and were easily carried off from the surface.

The small airships above were silent, save for the flapping of the finlike projections that obviously controlled their rise and descent, others that managed forward and backward motion. Nets maneuvered into position to catch the leaping fish. To her left, beyond
Standor
Qala and Vilu, was a very distant vista: a plain of ice and distant peaks. She had no idea whether settlements like Falkhaan were created by channeling magma from the Source and melting the ice or they were simply oases in the ice sheet. As they neared the top of the column she saw another village some two miles distant with what appeared to be another cemetery road connecting it to Falkhaan. The village looked to be a cluster of farms growing something that resembled cotton, definitely a fiber of some kind. Carts laden with cloth were moving along the cemetery road that stretched beyond it into a hazy valley.

The wind was louder up here, not quite thundering in her ears but making it very difficult to hear anything else. The slight smell of something sulfurous also became more pronounced as they neared the top. She likewise felt an increase in the heat, the little that drifted down instead of rising.

That must be the magma of the Source located in the belly of this tower.

It caused the vista of the harbor city to ripple gently.

Soon to be leveled
 . . . all
of it
, Caitlin thought with a fresh sense of horror. She did not want to be a part of this. She did not want the responsibility.
I'm going to wake, I
have
to wake
—

“Mother?”

At first, Caitlin wasn't sure she'd heard the whispered voice speaking in English. She had been looking away from Vilu. Now she turned toward him and saw his eyes partly open. The boy was smiling thinly.

“Mother,” he repeated, not as question this time but as a statement.

Caitlin started, did not know how to respond verbally. She touched his forehead comfortingly and returned his smile. Despite her expression, she prayed she had misheard, that this was not Jacob.

Standor
Qala heard the boy as well. “Did he say something?” she asked.

“I'm not sure,” Caitlin lied.

The
Standor
turned to the boy just as the elevator scaffold reached the top of the column. She stepped onto the far side of a ledge below the large inverted V. The platform was nestled firmly against the side of the tower. There was a ramp that led from the center of this platform into a gated opening in the side of the gondola. The gate was open. The gangplank wobbled slightly as they stepped on it, and a moderate wind blew across them. Caitlin was glad for the handrails along the sides, and held them as she followed Qala. Vilu's eyes were on her the entire time. The gangplank was about a dozen feet long. Halfway across, the boy stretched his arms over Qala's shoulder, toward Caitlin. Qala twisted her head around slightly. Her eyes followed the small hands, saw the fingers wriggling playfully.

“What's going on?” the commander demanded.

“It seems the boy is awake,” Caitlin said as matter-of-factly as possible.

“It is not like Vilu to be more interested in a stranger than an airship,” Qala remarked. “What is going on?”

Caitlin remained silent.

With a disapproving look, Qala turned her eyes ahead and strode forward, Vilu squirming to keep his eyes on Caitlin, his hands reaching for her. A guard at the open gate saluted by touching the fingers of his left hand flat against that side of his head. Qala bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment.

As soon as they were both on the open deck of the gondola, Qala turned to Caitlin. “I asked a question,” the
Standor
said.