The Remembering
Authors: Steve Cash
Praise for
The Meq
by Steve Cash
“The book’s blend of melancholy and optimism, synchronicity and fate, melodrama and spiritual concerns, calls to mind the work of Nicholas Christopher in such novels as
Franklin Flyer
.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“Mesmerizing.”
—
The New York Times
“An appealing and entertaining story.”
—
The Denver Post
“A unusual and textured fantasy novel … Cash has me anxiously awaiting the second installment.”
—
Contra Costa Times
“An astonishing, inventive and addictive book … Steve Cash’s incisive storytelling runs the gamut of the emotional spectrum, touching upon love, hate, joy, loneliness and despair.”
—
January
magazine
“A surprisingly ingenious, lushly detailed story that turns fantasy on its head … The drama is intense, the characterizations are fully realized, and the very cadence of the language infuses a rich sense of time, place, and historical context that draws one in.”
—
Booklist
(starred review)
“
The Meq
is a deep and entertaining fantasy that promises to develop into a rewarding series, as the story of this enigmatic people continues through the twentieth century and on into the future.”
—
BBC Book News
Also by Steve Cash
THE MEQ
TIME DANCERS
The Remembering
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2011 by Steve Cash
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52480-5
Cover design and illustration: Kathleen Lynch,
based on photographs © Corbis (station)
and © Jenkins, R./plainpicture/Corbis (hand)
v3.1
For Chloe, Colin, Zoe, and Scout
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank the true believers: Cody and Allison, Star and Mike, Sydney, Linda, and John. I also want to thank Betsy Mitchell for every question and suggestion. She was my “other” voice and she was always right. Lastly, I want to thank Tom and Frances Bissell. Inside their hearts and souls, I know they are Meq.
Contents
Chapter 1 - Labezomorro: (Cockroach)
Chapter 2 - Zori: (Luck)
Chapter 3 - Orbain: (Scar)
Chapter 4 - Hezur: (Bone)
Chapter 5 - Itzalpe: (Shade)
Chapter 6 - Ametsharri: (Dreamstone)
Chapter 7 - Bidaitari: (Traveler)
Epilogue
THE MEQ
Aitor Zezen (B. 426
BC
) / Itzia (B. 311
BC
)
begat
Yaldi Zezen (B. 172
AD
)
Yaldi Zezen / Xamurra (B. 201
BC
)
begat
ZIANNO ZEZEN (B. 1869
AD
)
| Umla-Meq (B. 1005 BC ) | Opari (B. 1310 BC ) |
| Sister – Eder-Meq (B. 998 BC ) | Sister – Deza (B. 1313 BC ) |
| Geaxi Bikis (B. 51 BC ) | Trumoi-Meq (B. 1117 BC ) |
| Unai Txori (B. 217 BC ) | Usoa Ijitu (B. 412 BC ) |
| Baju Gastelu (B. 299 BC ) | Nova Gastelu (B. 1894 AD ) |
Xanti Otso – the Fleur-du-Mal (B. 356
BC
)
Mother – Hilargi (B. 897
BC
)
Father – Unknown
Uncle – Zeru-Meq (B. 901
BC
)
| Ray Ytuarte (B. 1783 AD ) | Susheela the Ninth (B. 3061 BC ) |
| Sister – Zuriaa (B. 1790 AD ) | |
| Mother – Ikerne (B. Unknown) | |
Previously, in
The Meq
and
Time Dancers:
From the introduction of the electric lightbulb to the supernatural light from an exploding nuclear bomb, Zianno Zezen, or Z, has been witness to these events, and yet he remains in the body of a twelve-year-old boy. His human friends and family are changing, aging, and dying. But Z is not human. He is something else, something older. In his heart and mind, now more than ever, he knows what it means to be Meq, living inside Time and history, to be part of it, and still be outside of it—a stranger, a seeker … a survivor.
In Book One,
The Meq
, Zianno’s adventure of self-discovery led him to understand the significance of the Stone of Dreams. The ancient black rock with its mystical hypnotic power over all other animate beings was passed down to him from his father, and his father’s father, and so on, going back millennia to the Time of Ice. Four more Stones are known to exist: the Stone of Silence, now carried by Nova Gastelu; the Stone of Will, carried for the last two thousand years by Geaxi Bikis; the Stone of Memory, carried for nearly three thousand years by Umla-Meq, also known as Sailor; and the Stone of Blood, carried even longer by Z’s one true love and Ameq, Opari. As Sailor once told Z, the carriers of these Stones must endure, and it is essential that all five Stones are present at the Gogorati—the Remembering. Why? No one knows for certain, but the Meq have always speculated that the Stones have something to do with their origins, and possibly their future. At the end of Book Two,
Time Dancers
, very few Meq are left alive, and it is possible, nay probable, that Z’s friend and mentor, Sailor, has been incinerated by the nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. The Fleur-du-Mal, the cruel Meq assassin and nemesis of Z and the others, is alive and well, and it is known that he has captured and imprisoned Susheela the Ninth, the Ethiopian Meq whose existence was once thought to be only a rumor. She has been alive for five thousand and six years and is by far the oldest among them. The Fleur-du-Mal is sadistic and completely unpredictable. What will he do next?
It is late 1945, World War II is over and the Cold War has just begun. The Meq and their secrets, powers, and “abilities” will be sought by the Soviets and the Americans. The Remembering is just on the horizon, less than seventy years away. Since the Time of Ice the Meq have always believed they know the
when
… but they still do not know the
where
. The mystery must be solved in time, and Zianno may be the only one who can solve the ancient riddle.
Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous
.
—A
LBERT
E
INSTEIN
When the people are gone, when the trees are dead, when the animals are dead, when the sky is poisoned, the earth blackened and the rivers and seas fouled, the cockroach will be there. He will survive. He will be awake, hungry, scurrying in darkness through holocaust and nightmare—an elegant, six-legged silent witness and ancient sentinel. He will be waiting for you there. He will be among the survivors. Underground, in the wall, at the back of the cave, the cockroach will be there
.
I
t was 11:09 in the morning, August 9, 1945. Forty thousand feet in the air, the enormous cloud began to break up and spread across the sky in swirling whites and grays. Below it, the Urakami Valley and the city of Nagasaki were invisible under the dark mass at the cloud’s base. I hadn’t moved or blinked or said a word for seven minutes.