John Hawks - The Golden City

The shopkeeper laughed, and then covered his mouth to be polite. “You have reached your destination, sir. This is White Crane Books and I am the owner, Akihido Kotani.”

“I’m looking for a special book. It might be difficult to find.”

“Is it a foreign book or Japanese?”

“I only know the English title. It’s called The Way of the Sword.”

Looking frightened, Kotani held up both hands. “I am sorry, but do not know this book.”

“Of course you do. It was written by a fighter who called himself ‘Sparrow.’ He was close to a German named Thorn and Frenchman named Linden.”

“You must be mistaken. I have never heard of these people. Excuse me. I must close my shop now. Gomennasai…”

Kotani wheeled one of the book shelves into the tunnel while Hollis stood on the sidewalk. “You were Sparrow’s friend, Mr. Kotani. You got his fiancé out of the country and she had a son named Lawrence Takawa. He was a brave young man, but the Tabula killed him.”

“Do not bother me. Please…” With frantic energy, the bookseller grabbed the second shelf and pushed it into his shop.

“I need your help, Mr. Kotani. It’s important.”

Kotani hurried into bookstore, pulled the door shut and locked it.

Seconds later, he peered out the display window. When he saw that Hollis was still there, he retreated into the darkness.

Hollis wandered down the street to a bus stop and sat on a wooden bench. He had concentrated so much on finding the bookshop that he hadn’t considered an alternative plan. Should he search for this spirit woman on his own or should he return to London? Although he had never totally believed that he could speak to Vicki again, he had felt a spark of hope. Once again he sensed the stone inside him, that constant anger that never seemed to go away.

“Excuse me, sir. Excuse me.” Hollis glanced up and saw that Akihido Kotani was standing beside the bench holding a plastic shopping bag. “I am sorry to bother you. But you left this at my shop.”

Confused, Hollis took the shopping bag. Kotani gave him a quick bow before hurrying away. Why didn’t he stay and talk? Hollis wondered. Are surveillance cameras watching on this side street? He returned to the main avenue before he inspected the bookseller’s offering. Inside the bag was a copy of The Way of the Sword and a mobile phone.

Michael was locked inside a metal container carried by a steam-powered crawler that was bumping its way down a country road. No one had explained where they were going. He had been dragged out of the men’s dormitory, carried across the courtyard and thrust through a narrow opening like a log being tossed on a fire.

The holding container had a teardrop shape and sloping sides. It felt as if he was sitting in an empty water boiler built with sheet metal and rivets. The only light came from an air vent near the top of the container, and Michael spent most of the morning gazing up at a rectangular patch of clouds and sky.

Late in the day, the crunch of steel wheels on gravel changed to a steady grinding noise. Michael scrambled to his feet, grabbed the grate covering the air vent and pulled himself up. Peering through the bars, he saw that the crawler was passing through a city.

The buildings that lined the street had slate roofs, round windows made of yellow glass, and walls constructed with a series of triangles, each three-sided shape outlined with a darker shade of red brick. The visionary screen had revealed a society with sophisticated technology, but Michael couldn’t see any electric lights or power cables. Porters carried baskets filled with chunks of a black substance that looked like coal, and smoke trickled out of crooked pipes that jutted from the roofs.

Michael saw one guardian wearing the distinctive green robe and two church militants patrolling the streets with clubs hanging from their belts. But the city was dominated by the faithful servants. Men and women baked bread, cobbled shoes and stitched clothing. There were street sweepers with long, feathery brooms.

The crawler made a great deal of noise as it turned to the left and began to climb a low hill. Michael let go of the bars and slid back down to the bottom of the container. He sat quietly and waited as the machinery creaked and shuddered and stopped moving. A few minutes passed, then the door was unlatched and light streamed through the opening.

Michael crawled out and encountered three militants holding thick wooden clubs. Maybe this was a different world, but the militants resembled the police officers he had met in the Fourth Realm. Michael wondered if there was some kind of universal cop attitude towards suspects: Mess with me and I’ll put you down .

He was standing in a courtyard circled by the nine crystal towers he had seen on the visionary screen. At night, the towers had glowed with light; they looked like magical creations that could detach from their foundations and float into space. In the daylight, Michael could see that the towers were built with steel girders and thick panels of glass or plastic.

“Who’s in charge?” he asked.

The church militants glanced at each other. That wasn’t clear.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Wait for the guardian,” answered the tallest man.

The youngest guard repeated what Verga had said when they were out in the waterfields. “All is just when each does his part…”

Someone wearing the dark green robes of a guardian emerged from one of the towers and walked across the courtyard to their little group. It was the same blond man who had directed the weddings-and the executions-on the visionary show.

“Did he give you any trouble?” he asked.

“No, sir,”

The guardian scrutinized Michael’s face. “I think he wants to run away.”

Holding his club with two hands, the tall militant approached the prisoner. He hit Michael in the stomach, directly below the rib cage, and Michael went down-gasping for air.

“You can’t escape, so don’t even consider it,” the guardian said calmly. “Now get up and follow me.”

Michael struggled to his feet and staggered forward. When they were about twenty yards away from the militants, the blond man stopped and faced him.

“What do you call yourself?”

“Tolmo.”

“A deliberate lie is like mud smeared on the altar of our Republic. You’re not a servant named Tolmo. Each collar has to match its owner. I’m sure he’s floating in the waterfields or rotting in a hole scratched in the ground.”

Michael nodded. “He killed himself.”

“Ahhh. Now I understand. So the servants were worried about three must be , and then you appeared.”

“Yes, that’s what happened. I’m called Michael.”

“You have an unusual name. But that’s common for barbarians that find their way here from the outlands.”

They reached the base of a tower, and the guardian led him down a sloping causeway. The guardian pushed open a sliding door and they entered an underground area lined with glass panels that gave off a greenish light.

“Electricity,” Michael said.

“What?”

“You’re not using torches or oil lamps.”

“Our temples and the visionary can use the sacred machines.”

An elevator door opened at the end of the corridor, and the guardian motioned for Michael to step in. The elevator glided upward with a soft grinding sound. When the door opened, Michael found himself in a large star-shaped room. There was no furniture of any kind-just a bare stone floor. The steep walls of the tower were composed of interlocking triangles reaching upward to an apex lost in the gloom.

The guardian remained in the elevator. He pressed his hands together in a pious gesture. “You have been given a great privilege: a chance to feel the power of the gods. The servants and the militants worship them from afar. We guardians only encounter them once or twice in our lives.”