Authors: Heather Terrell
Boundary (11 page)
After a few ticks, I’m able to get my bearings. The floor is so slanted beneath us that we’d slide headlong into the opposite wall if we weren’t harnessed. There are footsteps in the snow that can only be Madeline’s.
I cannot help but gasp. On the tables and wedged on walls, I see it all. The Tech she described. The Tech I’d been hoping to find.
Theo sees it, too.
“Tech,” he cries out. His voice cracks. He pulls on his line like a madman, desperate to flee from the room.
I look up at the two Boundary Climbers staring down on us. Unlike Theo, they show no fear. In fact, I imagine they have to hide their snickers. Like me, they understand the truth about Tech. They give me the tiniest of nods, and in that tick, I realize that they know who I am and what I’m here to do. We are on the same side. I feel the comfort of Lukas’s arms all the way from the Aerie. I knew he wouldn’t have abandoned me.
I also realize that no matter his liberal view of The Lex in the matter of medicines, Theo is otherwise an innocent. He has no comprehension of the truth about Tech or anything else. He believes what all the Aerie people believe, that Tech is evil. That it holds a terrible, dark, and destructive power. He has no clue that these strange objects are just tools, devices. The evil—or the good—only derives from those who wield them.
Would all the Archons be as terrified as Theo is now? Are they all so ignorant? I think of my father, of how he knew the mirror could help me in the Testing. But the mirror wasn’t Tech. Is the truth about New North kept to a select few in the Aerie? How much does my father
really
know? Perhaps most of the truth has been lost to time, preserved only in the memories of the Boundary people and in Madeline’s journal. For a moment, I wonder if I’m the only keeper of the truth.
But if that’s the case, who stabbed my Triad symbol as a warning?
XIX.
Journal of Madeline
Aprilus 24 Year 98, A.H
.
I thought I would feel that initial elation forever. For the first few days, I carried around the weight of my secret discovery like a precious talisman. I was delirious at the thought of my finding. When the unearthing began, my Relic revealed itself in satisfying stages, by tick and bell and day. But I remained silent. The calls of “Relic!” from other Testors sounded out, and still I bit my tongue. I felt invincible. I had uncovered part of the Genesis; what could possibly stop me?
When I pried open the door from the Genesis’s deck,
I found it packed with Tech. At first I shrugged it off; perhaps the Founders had commandeered an ancient vessel for their holy purpose. But as I dug into the small chamber, the ice felt soft and fell away quickly under the force of my pick. Much too quickly for a hundred-year-old freeze. Still, I held my disquiet at bay and entered with hope. This was hallowed ground, the very place where the Gods visited the first Founders and gave them The Lex. The place from which the Gods led us to the New North
.
The sacred place looked ordinary on first glance. The room was lined with simple tables anchored firmly into the metal hull of the ship. The ship’s wheel stood in the room’s center. A few toppled chairs were still frozen to the floor underfoot. No particular Relic for me to bring to the top, even though a Chronicle of the Genesis itself would be enough for my Archon Laurels
.
At that moment, I saw them. Sitting on a tabletop in the back corner were a portable Apple altar and a book bearing a clear symbol of The Lex. I drew closer. The bitten Apple rune on the altar was defaced, almost entirely scratched out
.
Was this evidence of the very beginning of mankind’s rejection of Apple? Proof of our Founders’ acceptance of the true Gods’ salvation? My heart started to beat fast, and I clasped my hands for a short prayer
.
I dared not touch the Relics, they were so delicate. I drew my lamp over them for a closer look. At that tick,
I noticed something, a fact that had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness but which I had been repressing. The altar and the book were not sealed in ice and bore no signs of long ice-locking. No dissolving of The Lex pages, no rusting of the metallic cover of the altar
.
I could no longer ignore my suspicions. Someone had placed these artifacts here recently
.
It was the only possible explanation for their fresh condition, for the ease with which I removed the ice and snow from this chamber. The longer I stared at them, the more the Relics reminded me of what mankind called “fiction,” the sort long banned by The Lex and the Triad. It was as if they had been placed here by someone who wanted me to tell a particular story to the people of New North. Had Apple himself come here to trick me? At that tick, as I stood at full height in the control room on the deck of the Genesis, I was consumed with a fear I’d never known. The Testing had been aptly named. This was a Test of the gravest kind
.
What in the Gods should I do? Who would I be accusing of this awful deed? Only Archons were permitted on the Frozen Shores, and to blame them of tampering with this holy Site would be tantamount to treason. Anyway, what proof did I have, other than my gift for reading the ice and snow? If I wrote a Chronicle that shared my misgivings, I could suffer punishment under The Lex, and so could my family. Banishment to the Boundary lands would be the least of the possible sentences; I had
seen people swing from nooses for less. Anyway, what purpose would this sacrifice serve? To undermine The Lex? To mock the Gods? To destroy the New North? But how could I Chronicle what I found?
This had to be a test of my faith and loyalty. I was alone with the Gods. I wished my papa or one of my Teachers or a Basilikon were here. As I hesitated, Father Earth shifted the ground under my feet. I lurched, crashing into a corner of one of the stationary tables. Warmth trickled down my cheek, and touching my glove to it, I realized it was blood. The air filled with a deafening shriek that could only be the Genesis breaking free from her ice casing. Every warning ever issued by every Archon flashed through my mind. Suspended on my sealskin rope, which mercifully I had kept tied around my waist, I swung like a pendulum. As I pulled myself to the surface hand over hand up the rope, trying to block out the awful cracking below, I had no choice but to conclude that this event was a message from the Gods themselves. An answer to my quandary. “Think on The Lex,” the Gods seemed to say with each wrench of the ice. The Lex commands that Testors write Chronicles about the Gods’ redemption of mankind, not Chronicles that challenge everything we believe
.
As I climbed out of the chasm, I made a promise to the Gods in exchange for my life: If I survive, I will hew to Your message. I will follow Your commands. I will write a Chronicle about my Relic worthy of The Lex and worthy of mankind’s second chance. No matter my
misgivings. I inscribe again from memory the words of The Lex:
Mankind is only as sinful as his darkest secrets. For it is in this darkness that the false god Apple worms his way into the hearts and spirits of mankind. Man must close off this opening to darkness. No whispering of confidences may pass, no clandestine writing of private affairs may take place, no secret thoughts may fester. If mankind rejects this admonition, he rejects the salvation of the Gods on Earth and beyond. Mankind must shine the light of the Gods into the darkness to secure this, his second—and last—chance at redemption
.
—The Lex, 214:78
XX.
Julius 17
Year 242, A.H
.
I climb over to Archon Theo and try to calm him. “This is our sacred job as Archons,” I murmur. “To drive the evil of Apple from our hearts and minds and excavate this sacred Site. This is the
Genesis
, the blessed ship that delivered some of our Founders here to New North at the command of the Gods. This is where Apple was first defeated. We have nothing to fear here, Archon Theo.”
He takes a labored breath. “You’re right, Archon Eva. Please forgive me. All this Tech”—he gestures around the room—“just came as such a shock.”
I clasp his hand. Even through all our sealskin layers, I can feel him shaking. This is what Tech does to those who don’t understand its true nature. This is exactly what the Founders of New North wanted.
“Let’s grid the room,” I say. I know that this standard task will soothe and occupy him.
“Yes, yes. That’s exactly what we should do.”
I set him to work mapping out the size and shape of the room’s opening and all the objects within its walls. Holding tight to my line, I move around the room. My leg still throbs occasionally with the wound, though Theo’s quick administrations might have saved my life. Anyway, there’s no reason to mask my pain in front of him.
Plain tables are anchored into the metal hull that Madeline described. The ship’s wheel sits right in the center of the room, just as she detailed. The chairs she saw scattered around the room now sit in a heaping pile on the wall opposite the door, no doubt from the shifting of the ship. And the Tech is everywhere.
“You were right to focus on this task, Archon Eva. It’s critical that we memorialize this room in the exact state that we found it. This is the
Genesis
, after all.” His voice is steady now that he has Lex dictates to follow.
On the table farthest from the floor, wedged in a corner between the table and the wall, I spot some Tech and the early version of The Lex. Exactly as Madeline must have left them. Now it’s my turn to control my voice.
“Why don’t I focus on this area of the room? It might be a little—” I pause, as if trying to select the proper words. “—challenging for you to access.”
He looks across the room and down the steeply pitched floor and nods. No more convincing is necessary. “Yes, that’s a good idea.”
Clinging to my sealskin rope, I maneuver into a safe spot. I make a show of pulling out my gridding equipment and finding a steady spot to make my recordings. I
start by plotting the table and jumble of chairs, and then move onto the Tech heaped against the wall. I am careful to grid everything except the portable Apple altar—laptop, I correct myself—and the book with the Lex emblem on the cover. These are the artifacts that had so troubled Madeline.
Finally I take out my own journal and make a careful sketch of the laptop with its defaced Apple symbol and copy the unfinished Lex pages as best I can. I want to assess for myself the suspicions they raised in Madeline’s mind.
Noises begin to echo in the room. A stomping of feet, followed by raised voices. I look up for the Boundary Climbers who are supposed to be at the doorframe, but they’ve disappeared. Theo and I glance at each other. I think we both know what’s happening. Archon Laurence has discovered our entry.
I will not rise to the Site surface empty-handed like Madeline. Her lack of evidence about her findings and suspicions led to her downfall. I won’t let that happen to me, even if it makes a thief out of me under The Lex. For the third time.
Anyway, what is The Lex? If it’s as flawed as I suspect, if it’s a man-made document created to manipulate the New North people, then I don’t care if its laws deem me a thief. If it’s not, if the Gods truly divined it and They are indeed real, then I think They will forgive me. They will understand that I seek truth above all else.
I only have a few ticks. While Theo’s eyes are fixed on the door, I reach for the laptop and The Lex. But the distinctive
kamiks
of Archon Laurence descend on his line lower into the room before I can slide them into my pack. I have no choice but to leave the laptop and The Lex.
“How dare you two enter this room without permission?” he yells, though he need not in this echo chamber.
“My apologies, Archon Laurence,” Theo rushes to say. “I understood your group assignments to mean that we had permission to cross the threshold.” I suppress a smile as he echoes my very excuse.