John Hawks - The GoldenCity

“Maya.”

“Maya…” He savored the word. “Such a beautiful name.”

Pickering had a ferret’s ability to squeeze through any gap as large as his head. Before Maya could react, he passed through the crack in the doorway and was suddenly inside the room. He was a skinny, trembling man with a long hair and a beard. A shred of green silk wrapped around his neck looked like a hangman’s noose, but Maya realized that it was an even more unlikely object-a necktie.

“So how did you find me?”

“I know all the hiding places on this island. I came here once and saw a footprint on the stairs.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“I was tempted. Anyone would have been tempted.” Pickering showed his yellow teeth. “The new Commissioner of Patrols has offered one hundred food units to whoever kills you.”

“If he really wants me dead, he should double the reward.”

“Most of the wolves are scared of you. Some say you’re a ghost or a demon. You can’t be killed because you’re already dead.”

Maya sat back down on the chair. “Maybe that’s true.”

“You’re alive. I’m quite sure of that. Gabriel wasn’t a ghost, and you came here to rescue him. But now you’re trapped here like the rest of us.”

“And that’s why you tracked me down? To tell me that I’m trapped?”

“I’m here to save you. And save myself, of course. But first we have to go to the library. I’ve searched the entire building and I finally found the map room. The door to the room is still locked. I don’t think it’s been looted.”

“The people here don’t care about maps. They want food-and weapons.”

“Yes. Quite true. That’s all they want. But I believe that a map of the island is in the library. There have always been rumors about a tunnel beneath the river. A map might show us how to find the tunnel entrance.”

Maya’s fingers tapped nervously on the sword handle. Her passageway back to the Fourth Realm was in the middle of the river. On two occasions, she swam out and attempted to find it, but the current was too strong and she barely had enough strength to return to the shore. She had no idea what existed in the shadow lands on the other side of the water, but she couldn’t remain on the island. As time passed, her body grew weaker. Eventually, the wolves would hunt her down.

“So why haven’t you taken this map and escaped?” she asked.

“I need your help.” Pickering looked down at his ragged pants and mismatched shoes. “It’s not easy to get into the room.”

One part of his story was true: there was a library in the city. Maya had walked past the ruins several times, but had never gone inside. As she wandered around the island, she kept finding little bits of reality in the rubble; if shopping lists and school report cards had survived, then there might be a map that showed a way out.

This sudden feeling of hope was so powerful, so unexpected, that she was unable to speak or move. It was like finding a red ember in a cold fireplace, a speck of warmth and light that could grow and fill a room.

“All right, Pickering. Let’s go to the library.”

“I’d be happy to guide you there. And if we find the right kind of map-”

“Then we’ll leave the island together.”

“I hoped you would say that.” The little man grinned. “No one else on this island will keep a promise, except you.”

Maya shoved the desk back against the wall and followed Pickering out of the office. They climbed down the building’s circular staircase and stepped onto a street littered with rubble and the blackened shells of torched cars. Pickering’s head jerked back and forth. He was like a small animal that had just left its burrow.

“Now what?”

“Stay close and follow me.”

A thicket of dead trees and thorn bushes was a one end of the island, but it was dominated by a ruined city. Maya had given names to the different locations: there was the insurance building, the schoolyard and the theatre district. She tried to imagine what the city had looked like before the fighting started. Were there ever leaves on the trees? Did the trolley actually roll down the central boulevard and did a conductor ever ring its little brass bell?

Pickering had a different vision of Hell. He ignored the few remaining sign posts, but appeared to know the location of every gas flare that roared fire and smoke from a broken pipe. His city was comprised of different intensities of darkness and light. For most of their journey, he remained in a shadow land, avoiding the flares as well as the black tunnels where someone might be hiding. “This way… This way…” he hissed, and Maya had to run to keep up with him.

They entered a looted department store filled with smashed display cases and a pile of dress mannequins. The mannequins were smiling as if pleased by the destruction. When Pickering reached the store entrance, he looked out at the library across the street. The library was designed in the same neo-classical style as the other public buildings in the city. It looked like a Greek temple that had been attacked in a bombing raid. Some of the marble columns had been reduced to rubble while others leaned against each other like dead trees in an overgrown forest. A large statue had once stood guard at the base of the outer staircase, but all that remained were sandaled feet and the hem of a stone toga.

“We have to cross the street,” Pickering explained. “They may see us.”

“Keep moving. I’ll handle any problems.”

Pickering took three quick breaths like a man about to dive underwater, and then dashed across the street. Maya followed him, walking slowly and deliberately to show that she wasn’t afraid.

She found Pickering hiding behind one of the columns, and they entered the library’s main lobby. Chunks of plaster and concrete were scattered across the floor, and a brass chandelier had been ripped away from the ceiling. Books were everywhere, littering the floor and staircase. Maya picked up one near her foot and searched through the pages; it was written in a language she had never seen before and featured delicate drawings of plants that looked like ferns and palm trees.

“We’re going to the third floor,” Pickering said. She followed him up the staircase. Maya tried to avoid the torn and stained books, but sometimes she stepped on the loose pages or kicked them away. It was dark on the staircase; the oppressive gloom seemed to add a weight onto her shoulders. By the time they reached the first landing, her entire body felt heavy and slow.

On the third floor, books had been stacked against the wall as if someone had tried to sort through the collection. Pickering led her down a corridor, made a sudden turn through a doorway and stopped. “Here we are,” he announced. “The reading room…”

They stood at one end of the large public space that dominated the top floor of the building. The reading room had a forty-foot ceiling and a green and white checkered marble floor. It was filled with long wooden tables and chairs. The room’s bookshelves were on two levels-a floor-level row of shelves and a second tier that began halfway up the wall. Some of the gas pipes in the library hadn’t been destroyed, and a few of the desk lamps were still burning. Their sputtering flames gave off an oily smell.

Pickering’s shoulders were tense and his lips were pressed tightly together. Maya wondered if her lack of fear made him nervous. She followed her guide between the rows of tables to a point halfway across the room where the floor suddenly disappeared. Apparently there had been an explosion-and then a fire-and a large portion of the library had collapsed.

What remained was a three-story fragment of the building, a pillar made of brick and stone and concrete, surrounded by twenty feet of empty space. At the top of the pillar was a fragment from the reading room-a single table on a patch of checkered floor and a barred door that looked like the entrance to a prison cell.