Рахма Крамбо - Guardian Cats And The Lost Books Of Alexandria

“Chuluum! You are being one difficult cat. Come! We must go find the others.” This time Chuluum grabbed hold and Akeel lifted him to the top of the wall.

Hoisting the bag over his shoulder and tucking his cat inelegantly under one arm, Akeel leaped. He landed on both feet.

The boundary wall of the city, which afforded relative safety, was behind them. They were now in territory that belonged exclusively to thieves and barbarians. Chuluum immediately ran off into the darkness.

Akeel moved toward a shapeless form on the ground.

“Sirus!” He cried out, dropping down next to his friend, whose head was soaked in blood.

“You missed all the fun,” Sirus said hoarsely.

“Barbarians at the gates! Why didn’t I see this coming?” Akeel wiped some of the blood from around his friend’s eyes.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Sirus said. “Who could imagine such brutality? We lived in a dream world, I think.”

“We have been awakened by mad men,” Akeel said. “They’ve stolen our life, our books… our dreams.”

“Not as long as you carry some of them with you.” Sirus closed his eyes and struggled to speak. “Don’t give up. Escape now.” His voice faded to a whisper. “I just don’t know how you’ll manage without me.”

Akeel shook his head. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here.” He looked out at the desolate landscape that merged into nothingness, a black void.

Sirus stopped breathing. Akeel shook him. “Don’t, Sirus! We’re companions. We always travel together, don’t we?”

Sirus recovered a breath, but Akeel barely understood him now. He was only able to make out, “…a different kind of journey.”

“You traveled just last month. No more days off.” Akeel tried to laugh. He thought as long as they could share a joke, his best friend might recover and he would not lose him along with everything else.

Sirus was still struggling for each breath, but he seemed to revive enough to rekindle Akeel’s hopes. The dying man grabbed his hand with a surprisingly firm grip and said, “I think you’re going to actually miss me.”

Sirus reached inside his tunic and handed a book to Akeel. “Leave this graveyard or your fate will be the same as mine.”

Akeel squeezed Sirus’s hand and stared into his face, as though his will would keep him alive.

Sirus’s next breath never came.

A pale sky-blue mist seemed to radiate from his body. For a brief moment, it pulsed like a heartbeat, then dispersed and drifted upwards, merging with a milky white light.

The clipped sound of voices from a distance broke through the fleeting moment of grace. The barbarians were getting closer. He closed his companion’s vacant eyes. Sirus’ body, unoccupied by his spirit, appeared as spent as an extinguished campfire. He pressed Sirus’ book into his bag. There was no time for mourning, but Akeel couldn’t leave him lying out in the open. He began to drag his friend towards the dubious shelter of the fortress wall. On the way he stumbled over another body. Akeel released hold on his friend and stood straight to survey the dark terrain. Now he saw that what had looked like scrub brush under the moonless sky was actually dead bodies.

Enemy voices punctuating the darkness reminded him of his fate if he lingered. He would be forced to leave his friends without a traditional burial or even the simplest tribute.

A waning gibbous moon was rising, making the landscape more surreal, like the empty space between his past and future.

He had to move quickly, he knew, but his feet seemed rooted to the ground. He was now a fugitive in no-man’s land, severed from home and friends. Even his cat was gone.

As if on cue, a line of silhouettes emerged from behind a desert scrub—shapes that moved like cats. They wandered through the landscape of corpses, touching each with a gentle nudge. They grew closer, and it became clear that Chuluum was leading the other cats on their sorrowful homage, giving the fallen librarians the honor they deserved.

A flame sprouted up not five hundred feet away. Triumphant voices congratulated themselves. Akeel did not have the luxury of time or sorrow. The best tribute he could pay would be to save the book each of his companions had hidden under his tunic.

With the troupe of cats following him, Akeel trekked across the barren land until they reached the river. He viewed the wide expanse of water and tightened the closures on his bag.

Then he stepped into the cold current and spoke to the cats. “If you want to survive, you’ll have to get wet now.”

Reluctantly the cats climbed onto the bag. Chuluum clung to his shoulder and the whole crew slipped quietly into the freezing water.

Chapter 18: Forever changed

Marco remembered to keep his eyes closed on the trip back, but he was forever a changed cat.

They returned to the small cave-like room under the Angel Springs Library, facing each other as though they had never left.

Cicero opened his eyes. “It’s good to be home again! That was a bit easier, wasn’t it?”

“Some,” said Marco, grumpy. The transition back to present time had been easier, but other things bothered him.

“Yes,” said Cicero. “I always found traveling forward through time rather pleasant.”

Marco only half listened as Cicero and Alaniah discussed the finer elements of time travel—surfing on light waves, the directional flow of energy, portals and wormholes. He was angry at the nonchalant way they were behaving. Marco’s safe world of off-the-shelf adventure books was over.

“How can you act as if nothing happened?” he demanded. Still caught between worlds, Marco asked, “Where’s Akeel? Where’d he go?”

“Ah, that was many years past. Centuries ago. Although in reality, there is no time…” Cicero said, licking his paw, which always indicated he was about to plunge into one of his esoteric lectures.

“Tell me what happened to him,” Marco demanded, before Cicero could start his monologue.

“Oh, he made it out. Not without plenty of difficulty, but he made it.

“And the cats?”

“Yes, the cats as well.”

“And the library? And the books? All those books…” Marco trailed off. He was afraid he already knew the answer.

“Very few of the books were rescued. We don’t know how many exactly, but Akeel saved The Book of Motion and the other sacred texts his companions had hidden inside their tunics.”

“They burned,” he gulped, “… all the rest?”

Cicero’s silence was enough.

“But who would want to destroy a lot of harmless books?”

“Ahhh, now it is time to explore the deeper meaning of things,” said Cicero.

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Why do you think books are harmless?” challenged Cicero. “Books are not harmless! Books are full of ideas! And ideas are powerful things.”

Marco sat up straighter, straining to follow Cicero’s explanation. “Watch people when they come in the library. They read and think. They leave and they do things with the ideas they’ve read about. You see, a human’s world is very different than ours, Marco. They are complicated.” He paused. “And so mysterious.”

“Yes,” said Marco. That was one thing they could agree on.

“I have seen the look in their eyes when their minds open, like they are being released from prison.”

Marco thought pleasantly of the new worlds he’d traveled through books.

“I am not talking about fiction here!” pronounced Cicero, as if he’d read his mind.

“Ideas begin their life as small seeds, so light they may drift through the air like dust motes. If a human is fortunate enough to catch one, when the light is right, it can be planted, just like a seed. With fertile soil, it may grow into a flower or tree, which will re-seed, thus producing a whole field or forest.”