Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sleeping.”

His tone suggested he was lying. She was still very young but her blood was up by then. “My father told me Arin drowned. Master Endine. But I wonder whether you could explain just what happened?”

He stood in the doorway, ferocious in moonlight. “Come in, Chaka.”

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.”

“I know my father talked to you.” But he had come home and stared into the fire and said simply that Arin had drowned, had got swept away by the current and drowned. And that was all.

Karik offered her a seat. “We were trying to ford a river. We thought we were getting close to the end of the journey, and maybe we got careless. Arin was leading the way, with our guide. London Shay. One of the packhorses lost its balance. It panicked and Arin went after it and tried to pull it back.” His gaze focused on a distant point. “In the end they both got dragged away. When he saw it was hopeless to try to save the animal, Arin let go and swam for shore. We thought he’d make it, but every time he got close, the current pushed him out again. Finally he got sucked into white water, into rocks.” He leaned close. “I think he hit his head. The last we saw of him, he looked unconscious. Then the river took him around a bend. It all happened so fast. We just couldn ‘t reach him, Chaka.”

“But you never found his body?”

He reached out for her. “We searched for him downstream. But no. We never found him. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something.”

He had begun to cry. Only a short storm, but fierce all the same because he did not look like a man capable of tears. And when he’d recovered, he’d gone upstairs and come down with an armload of sketches, her brother’s work. “These are from the mission,” he said, offering them to her and then asking if he might keep one.

“Does anyone else wish to speak?” Flojian looked over the assembly. It was a lovely day, bright and cool and clear. The river was ablaze in the sun. The priest, an elderly woman with white hair and severe features, inserted a couple of sticks into the cookfire and glanced at the torch.

Chaka had wondered about the description of Arin’s death.

He hadn’t been much of a swimmer, and she had a difficult time imagining him daring deep water to bring back a panicked animal. It could have happened. But it was out of character. She had concluded that Karik might have added the heroic details to comfort her. It was more likely that Arin had simply been carried away himself and sank like a stone.

She surprised herself by standing up. “I would like to say something.” The assembly parted and she walked forward and ascended the platform. She had red, shoulder-length hair, features that had been boyish during adolescence and which retained a rugged, devil-may-care aspect, softened by luminous blue eyes and a warm smile.

“I hardly knew Karik Endine,” she said. “My brother made the trip north with him nine years ago. After Master Endine came home, I asked him about my brother.” Her listeners stirred uneasily. I came away with the sense that he was in as much pain as I. I always loved him for that. He was, I think, the most unfortunate man I’ve known. But he did what he could to ease the suffering of a child he barely knew.” The wind was loud in the elms. She stepped down.

Flojian thanked her and asked whether there was anyone else. There was not. “When the ceremony is concluded,” he said, “Karik welcomes you to stay.” The priest came forward, drew down the Tasselay banner, folded it reverently, handed it to an aide, and took the torch. She held it over the cookfire until it caught, and gave it to Flojian with a whispered admonition to be careful. Flojian now delivered the ritual appreciation to his father, thanking him for the sun and the river and all the hours of his life. When he had finished, the priest intoned a prayer to Ekra the Traveler, who would convey the departing spirit to its next life. They bowed their heads. When the priest had finished, Flojian touched the torch to the pyre.

Within seconds, it was engulfed in flames. Chaka looked away. Goodbye, Arin, she said, as if the final link to her brother were being cut.

Afterward, they retreated into the house, exchanged toasts through the afternoon, and talked a lot about how they would miss the deceased. Chaka had a light tolerance

for wine, and she was getting ready to call it a day when a short, stout man with a neatly clipped gray beard put a drink in her hand. “You said exactly the right things, young lady,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She understood immediately from his formal bearing and precise speech that he was an academic. He was about sixty, probably one of Endine’s colleagues. “The rest of us babbled like damned fools,” he continued.

She smiled at him, pleased.

“We’re going to miss him.” He tasted his wine. “My name’s Silas Glote. I teach at the Imperium.”

The name sounded familiar. “Pleased to meet you, Master Glote.” She smiled. “I’m Chaka Milana.”

“I knew Ann,” said Silas.

She recalled where she had heard the name. “He was in one of your seminars.”

“A long time ago. He was a fine young man.”

“Thank you.”

Flojian came up behind them, nodded to Silas, and thanked them both for their comments. “I’m sure,” he told Chaka, “he was delighted.” This was, of course, a reference to Karik’s spirit.

“It was true,” she said.

Flojian managed a smile. “Silas was invited to go on the expedition.”

“Really?”

“I have no taste for the wilderness,” said Silas. “I like my comforts.” He turned to Flojian. “How far did they actually get? Did he ever tell you?”

Flojian saw three empty chairs around a table and steered his guests toward them. Toko, his ancient servant, brought more drinks. “No,” he said, passing a cushion to Chaka. “He didn’t talk about it. Not a word.”

“How about the map?”

“I never saw a map. I don’t know that there was one.” He took a deep breath. “The tradition has always been that it was to the north. On the sea. But what sea?” He rolled his eyes.

“Well, it hardly matters.” He looked toward Chaka. “Silas blames himself for not going.”

“I never said that.”

“I know. But I can hear it in your voice. And you do yourself an injustice. Nothing would have been different. Except one more would have died. I suspect you refused him for the same reason I did.”

“He asked you to go?” Silas blurted the question, and then realized the implied insult and tried to regroup by suggesting that Karik would not have expected Flojian to be interested.

“It’s all right, Silas. He was relieved when I passed on the idea.” Flojian’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “But it was abject nonsense from the start and you and I both knew it. We told him so and challenged him to show his evidence. Show the map. But he refused.”

Flojian finished his drink and sighed. “He walked out of here with a group of children. I apologize for that, Chaka, but It’s so. He took advantage of people who believed in him. And he led them to their graves. Nothing changes that, no matter what anyone says here.”

Chaka was about to leave when Flojian appeared again and asked whether he could speak with her privately. The request was put so earnestly that she was at a loss to guess his purpose.

He led her to a sitting room in the back of the house, and drew aside a set of heavy curtains. Sunlight fell on a collection of four books.

The room was comfortably furnished with leather chairs, a desk, a cabinet, a side table, and a reading stand. “This was my father’s sanctum,” he said, “before he retreated into the north wing.” All four volumes were bound and, of course, handwritten. Two were inside the cabinet, a third was on the desk, and a fourth lay open on the reading stand. They were Kessler’s The Poetic Rationale; Karik’s own history of Illyria, Empire and Sunset; Molka’s Foundations of the League; and a fragment copy of The Travels of Abraham Polk.