The Book of M (39 page)

THE NEXT DAY, THEY KNEW THEY COULDN'T WAIT ANY LONGER.

“You've got it?” Zhang asked. The tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.

“I've got it,” Malik said, clamping down even harder on his modified choke hold. “I'll keep you still until it's done.”

“It'll be quick,” Fenton added grimly.

Naz sat in front of Zhang, blocking his view of his hands. She had thought they might be out of the woods, but two days after the ambush, one of his fingers had started to die. The little one, on the left side. The fire had just burned too much. By the end of the next day, it was clear that they would have to amputate it after all, before it took the rest of his hand.

“If I faint after, just throw me in one of the carriages and keep moving. I'll come to soon enough,” Zhang said.

“You need
rest,
” Naz argued again, for what felt like the hundredth time. She hated that she'd said it. The tone of her voice made her wince. She'd tried to keep him in the same place she kept Imanuel and Malik and the rest of the soldiers—she couldn't have another Paul, another Vienna. Another Rojan. But it was a losing battle.

“It's all right,” Fenton said. “As long as he stays inside a covered carriage and keeps the bandages clean, we can continue on.”

It was settled then. “Just keep looking at me,” Naz said to him. She slipped a hand against his cheek and clenched her teeth. She waited for him to scream.

THEY STOPPED FOR ALMOST NOTHING AFTER THAT. THEY ALL
began eating just once a day, and each night, everyone slept straight
on the grass, as close to the carriages as possible. One horse stayed hooked into each yoke, loose enough that the animals could doze, but tight enough that all the soldiers had to do if they had to run fast was yank the straps tight and go.

Three days out from New Orleans, they broke for camp once the scouts started fainting in their saddles. Malik made do with a skeleton night watch crew, and Naz allowed them to build a small fire, just for an hour. The men were so beaten down, some of them wept when they heard her agree.

“I can't eat,” Vienna said softly beside Naz as they huddled with the rest of the soldiers to share in the glow. “Do you want mine?”

Naz looked at Vienna's handful of stale, brittle jerky. They were down to only that, the last scraps of dried meat from their stores at the Iowa—there was no time to hunt now, because there was no time to cook or cure anything fresh. “You have to,” she said, even though she knew how Vienna felt. She hadn't even opened her own stash, and didn't want to. She was just too tired to even be hungry. “Just dump it all in your mouth at once and then it's over.”

Vienna obeyed bravely, as if it had been an order. “Thank you,” she said wearily as she tried to chew. “I'll be able to report to my father that yes, I did eat my dinner after all today.” She smiled once she was done.

“Oh,” Naz said. “
My
report.” She climbed to her feet and dusted the back of her pants. She realized she'd forgotten to give Zhang her daily update on the distance left.

“Ahmadi, rest,” Vienna said. “It's one day. The General won't care.”

“
I
care,” Naz replied. They were just a few days from New Orleans, but it didn't matter. If she started slacking off now, who knew what could happen. When they made it, they had to be even more ready for anything. “I'll be back in a minute,” she said as she turned to make her way around the carriages. “Don't let them put the fire out before I return. I want to soak it up one more time.”

It felt immediately colder as she trudged off in the dark. Or maybe it was just her. She made her way to where Zhang was set up tonight in one of the carriages—he was the only one who didn't sleep in the grass, in order to keep his injured hands clean. The back door was cracked, and there was a small flicker of light inside from a flashlight. Naz thought he'd seen her, but Zhang had been facing away as she approached. She was about to say his name, but the word died on her lips when she saw what was happening.

Zhang had unwrapped his bandages to bare his injured hand, and was holding it out in front of him. She could see his thumb and the first three fingers, and then the flat spot where his little finger should have been. There was a click, and then Zhang raised the flashlight up and aimed it against his hand so his shadow appeared low on the carriage wall beside him. Naz realized immediately what he was doing. They both held their breath as the dark shape materialized on the wooden surface.

Of course it did, but it was comforting to see—it also had four fingers.

“Well, look at you,” he said to his shadow, amused. “Nice hand.” He wiggled the remaining four digits as best he could without causing pain to the mutilated fifth knuckle. They were both smiling—Zhang at his shadow, Naz at Zhang—but then his face slowly grew more serious. He put his hand down and tipped the flashlight so it rested lazily against his chest. A vague dark shape in his same form trailed off into the corners of the carriage. He watched it shift as he breathed. “I haven't been very good to you, have I?” he asked his shadow quietly. “Starving you, taking you to war, cutting your fingers off. And you stay.”

Naz took a silent step back, just to be sure he wouldn't see her crouching in the darkness outside and be angry.

“I'm sorry I sometimes wished it had been you instead of Max's shadow.” He looked down at the flashlight. “I understand if you'd want to leave me now, after all this. But please just let me make it
to the city first. Please let me make sure the books are safe. That everyone gets there. After that, I won't be angry if you leave. I'll understand. But if you still want to stay, there can be a future in New Orleans. There can be more memories. I've started to make them already. I can—I'll make even more, if you want.” He stared at it. “If you're in, I'm in.”

She didn't remember leaving, but Naz found herself standing by the army's dimming campfire again, watching her own shadow flicker weakly against the embers.
Still there.

Who knew why any of them stayed or any of them left? Did hers like this new, reluctant hope she'd made for it, too? she wondered. Because she had made something, Naz realized as she thought of Zhang—even though she'd tried so hard to do the exact opposite.

THE DAY THEY REACHED NEW ORLEANS, ZHANG HAD BEEN
awake since before dawn, watching the navy sky. He'd been watching it since before sundown really, too tense to rest. Every moment they weren't galloping felt like an ambush was about to spring on them.

They were so close.
So
close. They just had to keep ahead for one more day.

“Can't sleep either?” Malik asked as he trudged through the grass to the open door of Zhang's carriage.

“Not all night,” Zhang said. He glanced through the little tufts of chiming
iizinger
clouds overhead to the sky. “I know it's still pretty dark, but . . .” He didn't finish his sentence. It was almost too big of a thing to say.
But we're only a few hours away.
He could feel his heart fluttering against his ribs, like a panicked bird in its cage.
But we could make it before noon if we left now.

Malik rubbed the stubble on his chin slowly. “Rest is important, and the troops aren't getting enough of it.”

Zhang nodded. Malik was right. They'd been pulling twenty-hour days for a week at least. Their cavalry had taken to riding in pairs so one soldier could doze in the saddle while the other held her up.

Malik adjusted his grip on the rifle he was carrying. “That being said, you know the saying ‘You can lead a horse to water . . .'?”

“But you can't make it drink,” Zhang finished.

“I'd bet not a single one of them is in their bedroll like they ought to be.”

Zhang grinned. Together they stepped around the row of carriages to look at the rest of the camp. The soldiers had been trying to act nonchalant, leaning against the wagon wheels or thoughtfully examining
their weapons, but as soon as Zhang and Malik appeared against the dim sky, all of them snapped to immediate attention. Every single one on their feet, in five neat rows. Even the horses pricked their ears toward the two men.

Zhang turned to Malik and smiled. “Let's move out!” he cried, to resounding cheers.

THE ARMY CAME SOUTH INTO LOUISIANA THROUGH THE
remains of Bogalusa, then Covington. The entire area had flooded from overflow off the Old Pearl River, and the roads were ankle-deep in water. The horses slogged carefully, trying to stay on the asphalt and away from the mud. At every corner, wooden buildings sagged, roofs long succumbed to moss and rot. The wind was completely still, and there was a strange fog floating over the water, making the land appear as if it was gently steaming.
Alligators,
Zhang thought, but he had no idea how rational a fear that was. Or if he'd even recognize one if he saw it—who knew what they looked like now. His carriage was in front this time, so he supposed he'd know soon enough, if they were lurking. “No one goes any deeper than the ankles,” Zhang ordered softly. “And no one goes wandering into flooded houses or down any sloped streets.” He hoped that as long as they stayed away from the deeper water, they'd be all right.

Malik and Ahmadi patrolled carefully alongside the procession, eyes searching for any flicker of movement, but they saw nothing. Covington was completely empty.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Ahmadi said to Zhang as her horse fell into line with Holmes.

“Me too,” he agreed. “Looks like it's been abandoned for months, at least.”

She looked at Zhang again, and he nodded back. They didn't need to say it to know what the other was thinking. That it either meant very good news about New Orleans or very, very bad.

“As soon as we make it out of this town, we'll be officially within
New Orleans limits,” Malik said on the other side of Zhang's carriage. “When we see Lake Pontchartrain, we'll have made it.”

That's when they cleared the last few ramshackle buildings and suddenly could see the outline of the distant walls.

“Holy . . . ,” Ahmadi said, trailing off. They stared.

After the last stretch of land and glistening water of the lake, the city rose. Walls that had not been there before the Forgetting towered like shimmering cliffs around it. They were so perfectly straight and unbroken, it was as if a smooth, sheer mountain made of crystal had erupted from the earth on the other shore. From somewhere inside, vague tendrils of smoke curled up into the warm, gray air of morning. Zhang could only guess from so far away, but the walls looked to be forty feet tall at least, and so long that they disappeared into the humid, muggy horizon before he could see the end. He guessed they probably encircled the entire city, so that the only way in or out was the long, narrow bridgeway that spanned the lake.

New Orleans.
Zhang felt his heart start to race.
We made it.

Without a word, they all began to move. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, until all the horses were galloping.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridge was double-wide, with a gap between the two sides of traffic. The army streamed into the right lanes on instinct, even though it didn't matter—there was no one else on the bridge, in either direction. Their half was three lanes and a shoulder, and Malik and Ahmadi stayed on either side of Zhang's carriage as they raced over the dark, rippling water. The lake was miles across—almost a marathon's length with no emergency exit, no cover at all.

“Weapons?” Ahmadi called across the front wheels as they neared, and Malik struggled for an answer. The hooves drummed like thunder.

“I don't know!” he cried back at last.

Zhang looked up at the walls again. It meant one of two things. Either the ones inside, the ones with The One Who Gathers, “The
Creature”—that possible new name their hostage had contributed—were civilized and maintained law and defense, or they allowed no one from the outside and would shoot on sight. Zhang tried not to think about the second possibility as their carriages clattered past the halfway point, toward the narrow end of the bridge.

“Weapons out?” one of the soldiers yelled nervously from behind a few minutes later. They had all had the same thought as Ahmadi. The army was less than a mile away now, and Zhang could see much better. The walls jutted straight up from the first hint of shore and overtook the exit of the bridge. Once the carriages reached the end, there was nowhere to go—no landing, no small field before the gates. If New Orleans decided to shoot, they'd never get the horses turned and moving again before they were all dead.

“I don't know yet!” another answered the first.

“Should we draw?” a third called from farther back.

“Dad!” Vienna yelled, near the second carriage. “What do we do with our weapons?”

“I don't know!” Malik cried.

“No weapons!” Zhang shouted. He stood up facing back, toward the rest of the procession, and crossed his arms and swiped them flat and outward, over and over. “No weapons!”

“I hope you're right!” Ahmadi said. The end of the bridge was rushing up to meet them. Suddenly Zhang could see movement along the top of the wall. There were platforms on the other side, littered with lookouts, guards, torches. A thunderous clanging started then, and Zhang realized it was a warning bell: We see you. We see you, you are known.

As if it had been a cue, the carriages all slowed together, hooves clattering, everything leaning forward.
Please don't kill us,
Zhang prayed as they slowed to a nervous, twitching halt in front of a set of tall, heavy wood-and-iron doors.

Then for a moment, Zhang forgot his fear. They had come to a stop just a few feet away from the wall, Holmes's nose almost touch
ing the huge metal hinge where it met the gate. He could see it up close for the first time.

What is it?
He stared in awe. The wall was made of something he couldn't describe. It was almost like it was carved from solid, polished crystal, in a melding, swirling hue that shifted between almost diamond clear and dark, dark blue. It was the most magnificent, impenetrable thing he'd ever seen.

Just then, a dim shape soared by at eye height, inside the wall, then vanished. Zhang pointed, mouth hanging open. “Was that—” he stammered.

“Oh my God.” Ahmadi jumped.

“Was that a
fish
?”

Everyone gasped in awe. It wasn't a wall of crystal, Zhang realized. It was something even more impossible than that. It was a wall made entirely of water, for miles and miles and miles—so perfectly still the surface of it shone like glass.

“What is this place?” Ahmadi whispered.

“I don't know,” Zhang replied. “But we're about to find out.” There were sounds from above now, from people somehow walking on top of the water wall. Every inch of his flesh became keenly aware of the fact that they'd been waiting in front of the gates for a full ten seconds and had yet to be killed. Slowly he looked up.

“State your purpose!” A shout came down from the top.

Zhang flinched. “Refuge!” he called back. “We . . .” It was almost impossible to believe that he'd come here on a hunch he had heard from a strange woman at a deserted apartment complex almost six months ago, and then been begged to believe by a dead friend. Had she and her Broad Street crew made it too, even with so many shadowless in their group? Had they perished on the way? “We heard New Orleans was still standing. We came to join your city.” Was that good enough? “We can contribute! We have—” He was going to say engineers, nurses, guards, lawyers, even though he had no idea what most of the soldiers had done before the Forgetting, but the
screeching sound of the sentry door in the bottom corner of the great gate cut him off. The water rippled where the hinges connected, a tiny wave traveling across the surface and disappearing. A cluster of men and women in mismatched armor trotted out, each brandishing a shotgun—and a shadow. Malik tensed, but didn't move. Zhang stared. If they had enough shadowed survivors to spare that they would send a whole group of them out to greet total strangers, he couldn't guess how many were inside the city. Hundreds?
Thousands?

After them came another shadowed woman in simple navy clothes, holding a clipboard. She was taller than Zhang, almost as tall as Malik, with reddish brown hair and freckles. Her pale skin gleamed in the sun, as if she'd never seen daylight in her life. As she approached with her small guard, Zhang climbed quickly down from the carriage, and Malik and Ahmadi dismounted. The woman's clothes were well worn, but clean and unwrinkled. No bones jutted anywhere. Just a few feet away, she stopped and dipped her head in greeting, and said, “Hello.”

Zhang tried to find his voice, but ended up only nodding dumbly. A gust off Lake Pontchartrain picked up and kicked sideways through their line, tinkling metal carriage links, ruffling his tattered coat and the papers on her clipboard.

“Do you speak for the group?” the woman finally continued. There was a faint lilt there, a trace of a French accent or something like it.

“Uh, yes,” Zhang finally said. “General—uh, I mean—Zhang. Zhang, from Arlington, Virginia.”

The woman's eyebrows arched slightly on her forehead as she recorded the information, but she didn't look up at Zhang until she'd finished. “Please confirm this is correct,” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You've come a long way,” she said as she took the clipboard back. She was smiling now. “I'm glad to welcome you to New Orleans.”

Zhang nodded with as much control as he could muster. Someone behind him was weeping.

“My name is Davidia. I'm captain of the wall guard here,” the woman continued, in a more formal tone again. “I work for the city of New Orleans. We need to record all of your details before we can allow passage, as well as conduct an inventory of your property.”

“They're all books,” Zhang said. “Almost three thousand.”

Davidia was very still for a moment. “You brought three thousand books from Arlington?”

“From Washington, D.C.,” Malik said. “From the D.C. Public Library. We saved as many as we could.”

Davidia turned and spoke softly but urgently to one of the guards next to her, to go and inform someone at once that “the newcomers brought something.” The young man nodded and bolted away.
He's going to tell The One Who Gathers,
Zhang realized. He tried to follow the sentry's path, searching for proof, but the young man vanished into the crowd bustling beyond the gates, and Zhang was lost for a moment. So many people. Their shadows blended into one giant block of shade on the ground, an indiscernible mass.

“We've had reports from a few other survivors who've come from the north . . . There's no president anymore in D.C.?” the captain asked hesitantly once Zhang turned back to her.

“No,” Zhang said.

The wind sharpened once more, ruffling Davidia's papers on her clipboard again. “That is sad news. But it's good that we know for certain. And what you've brought—you've all done well. It may be very useful indeed.” She smiled. “We'll find out soon.”

“There's one more thing.” Zhang put his hand up, to stop her before he lost the chance to warn her about the ones in white. “There's a large force on its way here, to attack the city. They're moving slow, but they have huge numbers.”

“Yes,” Davidia said. “Thank you. We know.”

Zhang didn't turn to her, but he could feel Ahmadi's eyes snap to his face, boring into his temple.
If this false prophet is even half as strong as all the lies claim, they already know we're coming.
What the hostage
had claimed turned out to be true. But what did that mean about what he had said next?
There's nothing they can do.

But Davidia was already busy with her clipboard. “Before we get any further—I need the rest of your names, please.”

“Malik,” Malik said.

“Ahmadi.”

The captain went slowly down the line. Zhang waited, exhilarated. As each person gave their information, they all grew more and more overcome until they were almost hysterical with laughter. Ahmadi grabbed Zhang's arm in the clamor, and he saw there were tears streaming down her cheeks. When he hugged her, he realized his own face was already wet as well. He kept laughing and crying into her hair.