Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

The villa was dark. The tree on the northern side was higher than she remembered, its branches flimsier. But she got lucky. Before attempting the climb she circled the house, trying windows and doors. The latch on one of the shutters in the rear had not been properly secured and she was able to worry it loose. She opened the window, pulled the draperies apart, and peered into the darkness beyond.

Seeing nothing to give her pause, she threw a leg over the sill and climbed into the room. This was the first time in her adult life she had flagrantly violated someone’s property, and she was already trying to compose her story in case she got caught. Too much alcohol. I didn’t think this looked like my house. Or, I fell off my horse last night. Hit my head. I don’t remember anything since. Where am I?

She was in the reception room where she had first met Silas. To her left was the inner parlor in which Flojian had told her of her bequest. And to the right was the north wing, Karik Endine’s solitary domain. Curtains were drawn across all the windows, and the room was quite dark. She waited for the tables and chairs to appear, and then navigated among them until she found a doorway in the right-hand wall. It opened into more darkness. She went through and closed the door softly behind her.

It was a passageway. She bumped into a chair, started to feel her way around a server, and knocked over a candlestick holder. It fell with a terrible clatter and she froze.

But the noise seemed not to attract anyone’s attention. She righted the candlestick holder and passed through another door into a large sitting room, illuminated through a bank of windows. This was, she knew, Karik’s wing. She looked outside to assure herself no one was about, and used a match to light the candle in her lamp.

The room was masculine, filled with hand-drawn charts and drinking mugs, and heavy oak furniture of a somber cast. (The charts depicted areas of political influence during various eras in the valley’s history.) A chess game, with ornate pieces, was in progress on a tabletop.

A wide set of carpeted stairs led to the second floor. The lower level consisted of three rooms. She opened cabinets, inspected desk drawers, examined closets. The area had been thoroughly cleaned. Clothes, shoes, toiletries, everything was gone. No empty glass nor scrap of paper remained to show there had been an occupant only a few days ago.

She was about to start upstairs when she heard a squeal. The hinges on the door from the corridor. She doused her light and ducked behind a curtain just as the door opened and someone thrust a lamp into the room. “Who’s here?” Toko’s voice.

Her heart beat so hard she could not believe it wasn’t audible. He came into the room a few steps and raised the lamp. She tried not to breathe. The shadows lengthened and shifted as Toko looked first this way and then that.

Then, apparently satisfied, he withdrew and closed the door. His steps faded, but she waited several minutes. When she was convinced he would not come back, she tiptoed upstairs.

There were two rooms on the upper level: a bedroom and a work area. The bedroom was made up, and it too retained no sign of its former owner.

The workroom was long, L-shaped, with wide windows. The-curtains were drawn back, providing a view of the river. Glasses and goblets filled a cabinet. The windows opened onto a wide balcony, where several chairs surrounded a circular table. One might have thought the occupant had been accustomed to entertaining.

There were two padded chairs inside, a long worktable with several drawers, a desk, a pair of matching cabinets, some empty shelves, and a chest.

The chest was locked.

The worktable drawers were empty, save for one or two pieces of paper. The desk contained a few pens, some ink, and a blank notebook. She found a sweater in one of the cabinets, somehow missed in the press to collect everything. And a revolver, which she recognized as the work of the same gunsmith who had supplied most of her own family’s weapons. Strange, she thought, that we forgot how to print books. But we remember how to make guns.

She knelt down in front of the chest.

The lock was designed to keep out curious children, rather than thieves. She produced the narrower of her blades, and inserted it. Minutes later the mechanism gave and she raised the lid.

She looked down at an oilskin packet. It was roughly sixteen inches wide by a foot. She lifted it out, set it down under the lamp, and released the binding cords.

It contained a sketch which she recognized immediately as her brother’s work. It was dated July 25, making it later than any of the others.

The drawing depicted a rock wall rising out of a frothy sea. A sliver of moon floated in a sky swept with dark clouds. It was one of his better efforts, but there was nothing extraordinary about the drawing itself.

Nothing extraordinary, that is, until she saw the title, which appeared in its customary place below his signature.

Haven.

In an age that depended on sails and oars for power, the Mississippi was a cranky partner at best. Northbound cargo had to be hauled upriver by a combination of flatboats and draft horses. To complicate matters, the river was prone to change course periodically. It had swallowed but only partially digested many of the concrete and brick cities that had sprouted along its banks in ancient times. These had now become navigational hazards. There were seven major collapsed bridges, three of which, at Argon, at Farroad on the Arkansaw, and at Masandik in the south, effectively blocked any vessel larger than a canoe. This was the factor that made Illyria the crossroads of the League, and its center of power. And which created economic opportunities for Flojian Endine.

His draft animals were raised on two ranches near Cantonfile. He’d been planning for some time to expand the number of horses in his stables, and his conversations with business allies in Masandik convinced him that the traffic would support the investment. On his return to Illyria he met with his groom at the pier to devise a strategy. When the morning-long meeting ended, and the groom had left, he sat back with a cup of tea, feeling satisfied with his life. Business was good, his financial health assured, and the future bright. He was living in the morning of a new age, now that his father was gone. The brooding presence was removed from the house at last. Only the shadow of his ruined name remained.

What had the old man done out there?

Well, no matter. Maybe the speculations would stop now. It was time for people to let go and bury their dead and be done with it. But that was unlikely. The damned book had appeared, as if Karik had been determined to stir everything up again. When he’d seen what it was, Flojian had been tempted to burn it. But he could not bring himself to violate his father’s last wish, even though he’d hated him for it.

He suddenly realized Chaka Milana was standing in his doorway. Her eyes radiated hostility.

“Hello, Chaka,” he said, carefully inserting concern into his voice. “Is something wrong?”

She was clutching an oilskin packet. “I owe you an apology.” Her tone was flat.

“For what?” He got up and came around the desk. “Please come in.”

She held out the packet. He recognized it, and his heart sank.

“I was in your house last night.”

A welter of emotions rolled through him. “So I see. Is your conscience giving you trouble?”

She glanced at the oilskin. “I’d be grateful if you’d explain this to me.”

Flojian made no move to open it.

“You do know what’s in it.”

“Of course I know.”

“Tell me what it means.”

Flojian would have liked to put the same question to his father. “It’s a false alarm. What else could it be? They thought they’d found it, but they hadn’t. Simple as that.”