The Sound of Seas (24 page)

CHAPTER 21

I
nterstate 95 is a wide, sterile highway that slashes through Connecticut like a scar. The treeless, industrial commercial expanse made Caitlin long for the humanity of Galderkhaan. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that in the brief time she was there she felt a kind of comfort and camaraderie she had rarely felt in New York, Phuket, Haiti, or anywhere else she'd been—at least, not since her student days with Ben, when the world was fresh with new ideas, when the only responsibility was to learn and engage, when it was still theoretically possible to be and do whatever they could imagine.

Falkhaan had been a campus, with possibilities for intellectual, spiritual, and interactive growth in every direction—
including up.

Caitlin and Ben rode in the rental car mostly in silence. Ben had picked up the Prius while Caitlin checked herself out of the hospital. Except for Nancy O'Hara's protests, leaving the hospital was easy enough. Dr. Yang voiced strong disapproval but had no power to compel her to stay. Her mother was angry and insisted she go back to her room; Caitlin was calm but insisted she would be in better hands somewhere else. She didn't say where that somewhere was or whose hands were out there. Her refusal to answer those questions added to
Nancy's frustration. When Ben pulled up, Caitlin put her mother in a cab and that was that.

Along the way, Ben tried several times to ignite a conversation.

“What do you think happened at the mansion? . . . What are you going to ask Madame Langlois? . . . How much do we confide in these Technologists?”

Caitlin had no answers and didn't offer any. Barbara had put a dent in her confidence and she was trying to hammer that back into shape.

Galderkhaan is real. Jacob is in danger. I have to get back there.

Several times during the sixty-minute drive Caitlin closed her eyes and allowed her fingers to seek the stone. Nearly a dozen times she caught an energetic whiff of it, the sensations of power and spiritual expansion rising with an almost sexual fervor before dropping again.

The man who had the stone was also on the move, most likely heading to the same place they were.

Ben turned off at Exit 15 and drove toward the Long Island Sound. A series of increasingly narrow streets took them to a gated private road. A guard admitted them and they drove to the curved driveway that fronted the Victorian mansion. It was painted the color of whiskey with white shutters and trim. It appeared to be about a century old, though to Caitlin it felt much, much older.

A van from the New York City Department of Sanitation was out front, along with the SUV that had brought Madame Langlois and Enok from the city. Several other vehicles were parked under a long lattice canopy off to the side.

The gentle lapping of the Long Island Sound could be heard across an indeterminate expanse of flat, rocky coast to the south. Caitlin was drawn to the water as she had been drawn to the harbor on her rooftop. It wasn't hypnotic; it was cellular in a way she couldn't explain.

“They're obviously not concerned that the stone will cause this place to come down around them,” Ben remarked as they got out of the car.

Caitlin looked toward the mansion. “Whatever the tile was responding to earlier, it's stopped,” she said. “From the South Pole, I'd say. I'm not feeling anything from that direction.”

They walked toward the front door. Caitlin walked far enough from Ben so that he wouldn't attempt to take her hand. It was nothing personal; she wanted her fingers free to rove, to sense. It was colder here than in the city and, being past sunset, she really felt the chill. She hadn't been dressed for this colder weather and she suddenly felt self-conscious in clothes that were still ripe with the dirt and water of the previous night. She realized suddenly how much cleaner Bayarma's clothes and body had been in Galderkhaan . . . except for her fingers, but they were dirty with clean, rich earth.

Eilifir was standing on the small patio, tucked behind a column. Ben didn't notice him until they were climbing the short, white wooden steps. The man nodded at Ben but smiled at Caitlin.

“This is an honor,” the man said, extending his hand to Caitlin. “I'm Eilifir Benediktsson.”

Caitlin shook his hand and they all went inside. The foyer and the salon were dark, the shades drawn. The carpets and wallpaper smelled of an aging beach house.

“If you wouldn't mind waiting here,” he said, indicating the salon.

Caitlin looked toward a closed door on the opposite side of the room. “I came to see the tile,” she said. “It's here.”

Eilifir moved between Caitlin and the door. “How do you know that?”

She raised the two fingers of her right hand. They were vibrating rapidly, beyond spontaneous muscular fasciculation.

“I cannot help this,” she said, her voice a blend of anger and desperation. “Let me see the tile, please.”

“Do step aside, Eilifir,” a voice rolled through the salon as the door opened. “I wish to see our guests.”

A man dressed in a long white robe entered the room. He stood about five feet tall and had the same gold eyes, ruddy complexion, and
short, dark hair as Yokane. Beside him stood a taller, grizzled man holding a plain mahogany box; the tile was inside. It was buzzing in her fingertips.

Ben looked like he did when Caitlin first met him in a master class on the theory and practice of terminology. He stood silent but alert, missing nothing. Caitlin was trying to stay balanced—open to the tile but guarded to the Technologist.

“I am Antoa,” the man said.

“
Ramat
, Antoa.”

“Greetings to you as well,” he said, smiling. “Mr. Skett you know?”

Caitlin glanced at the other man and shook her head. There was a foulness about Skett, and she turned back to the leader. Antoa seemed an amiable man, less guarded than Yokane, less suspicious than Flora. Perhaps because he no longer had the one and possibly the other to concern him.

“We have just been discussing how much you have achieved in just a few weeks,” Antoa said. “More than many of us have in a lifetime.”

“It's easy when you can borrow the lives of others,” Caitlin said. “I would like to try and establish a deeper connection with the stone.”

“That won't be possible,” Antoa said. “Not because I don't wish it, but because it has been disconnected from the others. The power inside is once again dormant.”

“That power,” Caitlin said, moving toward him. “What is it? Where does it come from?”

“The Candescents, we believe,” the man said.

“What is your evidence?” Ben asked. He added quickly, “I'm Ben Moss, Caitlin's friend and linguistic consultant.”

Antoa regarded him politely. “The evidence is that there is no other explanation,” he replied. “That is why we are excited to have this artifact to study. It is a tile, we believe, from the
motu-varkas
, the most powerful set of tiles in Galderkhaan.”

“It
is
powerful,” Caitlin observed. “I have seen it. I was there with the transcended souls of two Priests.”

Antoa's expression was as respectful as it was curious. “I wish to hear everything about your experience,” he said.

“I'll be happy to oblige, after I go back and save my son. I believe he is trapped there on the eve of the destruction of Galderkhaan.”

Just mentioning that catastrophe caused Antoa's smile to waver.

“I help you go,” a throaty voice said from the other room.

Caitlin took a few steps around Antoa and Casey Skett. Behind them, Caitlin could see Madame Langlois and Enok in what looked like a library. The woman was seated in a deep armchair and had an unlit cigar in her mouth. Her son was standing several paces in front of her and to the side, between the door and his mother. Behind them, a fire glowed in a large stone fireplace.

“I am happy to see you again,” Caitlin said in earnest. She continued to approach. “You knew something was happening.”

“I listen to noise, I see the light, they do not lie,” she said.

“What is the truth they tell?” Caitlin asked.

“Yes, they,
they
,” the madame replied. “You understand.
They
ask for you. First I thought, ‘They
take
you,' but no, you are here. Now I understand.”

“Tell me,” Caitlin said. She held her hand as she passed the tile to keep it from trembling. “Who are ‘they?' ”

“The dead.”

“Cai, do I even have to say ‘be careful?' ” Ben said, walking several steps behind her.

Caitlin hushed him with her hand. “Do you mean the dead of Galderkhaan?”

Madame Langlois shook her head. “The dead of the snake.”

“The snake. You mean the one I saw in Haiti?”

“The snake
I
saw in Haiti before I leave,” Madame Langlois responded.

“Let me talk to them, the dead,” Caitlin said.

Ben caught up to Caitlin and stopped her at the door. Her eyes were unblinking, intense. “Cai, please. I don't think you're all here
right now. Just come back and sit down, get some input from the others—”

Eilifir had walked up behind Ben and gently but firmly held him back. “Don't interfere.”

“She doesn't know what she's doing,” Ben said to him.

“What explorer does? Let this play out.”

Before Ben could figure out what to do next—as, clearly, the only rational man in the room—Madame Langlois waved her son over. She handed him her cigar and indicated for him to light it from the fireplace. The young man did so, puffing it to life and handing it back to her.

“They see you. They hear. Perhaps they speak.” Tucking the cigar in her mouth, Madame Langlois blew three quick puffs at the cherrywood floor. The gray clouds vanished quickly.

The shadows cast by the fireplace rippled on the floor behind each person in the room. Standing beside Caitlin, Ben felt a deep chill and was the first to notice that her shadow had changed. It had the general shape of Caitlin O'Hara but there was a diaphanous shade around it—the contours of a robe.

“Look,” Eilifir said to Antoa.

“Casey, the portal is not quite closed,” the Technologist said. “Open the box and set it down.”

Skett did as he was told and then backed away. The tile glowed faintly and the shadow began to writhe toward it with a pronounced snakelike undulation.

“Is this how it began before?” Antoa asked him.

Skett shook his head. “There was no visible element.”

“But the curvilinear shape
was
present,” Antoa replied. He held his open hands toward the shadow as if to caress it, to savor its presence. “They were present as lines of power, bent around the earth. It is everywhere in Galderkhaan.”

“Why this woman and why now?” Eilifir asked.

Ben wanted to say,
Because I involved her in this. She helped stop a war
and save our world
yet destroyed another. The question is where does she go from here?

But he just watched as the shadow moved around the box, covered the tile, created a dark scrim over the golden light.

“Madame Langlois,” Antoa said. “Are you causing
any
of this?”

“I just point,” she said. “They move.”

“The African migration,” Antoa said. “Our pieces are everywhere—”

That was the last thing Ben heard before Caitlin screamed.

CHAPTER 22

C
aitlin awoke in a gently swaying hammock. There was distant, muted noise and someone sleeping at her side. The room was dark and the physical atmosphere was highly charged.

Her head throbbed as if she had a hangover; it wasn't the drugs from the hospital, it was something else. It came with a floral scent, something other than jasmine, that clung to the insides of her nose.

Caitlin was aware of all that in a moment. It took her a few seconds longer to realize she was back in Bayarma's body, in a hammock onboard
Standor
Qala's airship, that people were very active just a few feet away . . . and that the figure beside her was that of little Vilu. She released a single, breath-stopping sob when she realized she had made it back.

Even in the dim light behind drawn, heavy curtains, she could tell that he was asleep or unconscious; his normal, audible breathing suggested the former. She prayed that Jacob was no longer here, that he was at home in their apartment with his grandparents.

Caitlin eased from the hammock, gripping the mesh as she steadied herself on wobbly feet on a floor that was swaying too. Vials rattled on a shelf behind her, all of them knocking to the left; the airship was twisting in a wide circle.

Bayarma's body was perspiring and Caitlin pulled down the hem of her robe before she made her way through the heavy hide curtains suspended from the low ceiling. Walking proved difficult, and not just because of the motion of the airship: she felt pressure, almost as if she were ascending in a high-speed elevator. It was pushing her down, toward the woven flooring, causing the pitch that sealed it to crinkle audibly. She had to move slowly with an awkwardly wide stance to keep from dropping to her knees.

There was more than just the clear sunlight outside the cabin. She squinted as she saw the yellowish glow that suffused the area just below the rail. She noticed that a section of that rail had been broken, that taut bands of hemp had been pulled across the narrow opening.

Crew members were moving swiftly but without panic along the ropes. It reminded her of the crew of a windjammer bracing for a storm, adjusting the sails, preparing for heavy winds.

Standor
Qala was forward. The glow was more intense in that direction, girdling the pointed prow of the ship with a nimbus. Caitlin began to approach the officer only to find herself stumbling forward, dropping facedown on the deck, her arms forward, fingers pointing.

Helping hands gathered round her while voices called for assistance. The
Standor
turned and rushed toward them.

“Bayarma, what are you doing?” Qala asked.

“It's Caitlin,” she replied in Galderkhaani. “And you must get away from here.”

The
Standor
indicated for two crew members to carry her back to the sleeping cabin. She followed the woman in then sent the two men away. Caitlin curled protectively around Vilu, spooning, cradling his head while Qala approached. Supporting herself on one of the ropes from which the hammock was suspended, the
Standor
leaned over the boy and the woman. Her face was drawn, her eyes pained.

“What is it?” Caitlin asked.

“The
galdani
was using a mineral he discovered—he fell to his death.” With a motion of her forehead she indicated the broken rail.

“Was it a stone? One of the tower tiles?”

Qala nodded. “He said that you two felt it first. What is this? What's happening? How are you back?”

“I used one of the tiles . . . in my time,” Caitlin told her. “
Standor
, you
must
listen to me. You appear to be heading inland.”

“I am.”

“I beg you to reverse your course, head out to sea.”

“That isn't possible,” the
Standor
said as she rose. “I must find out what's happening to the columns. I have been looking inside the
simu-varkas
. Something is causing it to burn from within. Apparently others as well.”

“It's the Source,” Caitlin assured her. She didn't want to say more unless she had to, lest Qala attempt to stop Vol.

“The expansion of the Source is not yet complete and the conduits to the new tunnels remain closed,” Qala replied.

“It's the Source,” Caitlin repeated.

“How do you know this? Because you are from the future?”

“That's all I can tell you. The Source is going to release a great deal of energy and it's best that your airship—all airships, if you can signal them—go to sea. Boats as well.”

Qala shook her head. “Only the Great Council in Aankhaan can authorize a flotilla. They are prohibited by the Theories of Conflict.”

“Then take that responsibility yourself,” she said. “You will save many lives.”

Qala's expression darkened. “You are not telling me all you know.”

“I cannot,” she said. “There is too much at risk.”

The
Standor
turned her back and stood silently facing the wall. Caitlin held tighter to Vilu. Once again, she didn't know how much time she had here. Her primary goal could not be Qala or the airship. She had to wake the boy and find out if Jacob was still present.

She kissed the boy's temple once, then again. He stirred.

“Hey there, Captain Nemo,” she said deep into his ear. Even when Jacob couldn't hear her, he felt the vibrations of her voice.

Vilu rolled his shoulders, reached back to touch the woman.

“Boy of mine,” Caitlin went on. “It's time to rise and do something wonderful!”

Jacob opened his eyes and then smiled in recognition. “Mother?”

The boy turned and threw his arms around her so hard he nearly choked her. She let him.

Qala had turned and was watching them.

“You are both here, now?” the
Standor
asked.

Caitlin nodded.

“And you will leave . . . by the tiles?”

“Hopefully,” she said. “We will return the bodies of Vilu and Bayarma to them.”

“Mom, how did you find me?” Jacob asked.

“Dream magic,” she said. “Like in
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“I believe you,” he replied, releasing her so he could gesture. “I can hear, now.
That's
magic.” The motions came naturally to him and were a beautiful thing to see.

She kissed his forehead. “You know we have to go,” she said.

“Home,” he offered. “Yes, I know. I miss Arfa. And I'm
missing
school. A lot of it.”

“I'll tell your teachers I took you on a trip, which is kinda true,” she said.

As they spoke, Caitlin felt the pull of the tower beneath them. It was causing the hammock to sway, to sag. She threw her arms around her son and looked up at
Standor
Qala.

“I'm sorry about the
galdani
,” she said.

Qala smiled graciously. “The winds are unusually restive. I must see to the course.” She started toward the curtain.

“Thank you for all you've done,” Caitlin said. “If this doesn't work, if the boy and I are separated—”

Qala stopped and looked back. “Whoever is here, I will look after him,” she said.

The
Standor
left the cabin and Caitlin broke the embrace with her son. “Jacob, I want you to do exactly as I tell you. All right?”

“I heard everything you just said,” he said, grinning.

“That's fine, just make sure you do it,” she replied. “I'm going to hold your left hand and point to the ground like this.” She demonstrated how to extend two fingers out and down. “I want you to do the same with your
right
hand. Got it?”

He nodded.

“We're both going to feel kind of tingly, but that's how we're going to wake from this dream.”

“Like Dorothy Gale did.”

“That's right,” Caitlin said, smiling.

“That's better than being attacked by a giant squid like Captain Nemo did,” Jacob said.

“I would think they both present problems,” Caitlin replied. She took his hand and pointed. “Just hold your hand like this, no matter what you feel. And don't get itchy like you do before you talk in front of class, because you can't say, ‘Hold everything!' and scratch.”

“I won't,” he said. “This isn't my body. Maybe it won't even happen.”

“True enough,” Caitlin said, letting go and scooching closer on the hammock. This time she took his hand for real, holding tight to his precious life itself.

As she did, she heard yelling outside, on deck.

“Something is wrong!” someone was crying. “Steam is covering Falkhaan!”

“Stay here!” Caitlin told Jacob as she flung herself from the hammock.

“What about going home?”

“I have to see what's happening, baby,” she replied. “Promise me you won't move!”

He crossed his heart. But as Caitlin made her way through the cabin she already knew what was wrong: the tiles were losing power, which meant that something had breached the tower. Pumped outward by the overzealous Source, magma must have broken through under the shallow shoreline and boiled the sea.

Stepping onto the deck she saw
Standor
Qala aft, ordering maximum speed from the flipperlike wings as, beyond, the water surged onto the shore and around the tower. It wasn't a tsunami: water was bubbling hotly, violently around a red maelstrom just off the coast, sending waves slamming into every vessel and structure on that side of the harbor. The
simu-varkas
was cracking from bottom to top and literally sinking into the ground below. The topmost section broke as the tower sank, sending workers to their deaths, destroying the ancestral road beyond, kicking up clouds of sand where structural stones struck the beach. The glowing tiles within fell in arclike pieces, like a shattered ring; they were quickly submerged beneath a wave of silt and water, magma and stone, as well as homes and shops to which people were desperately clinging as they swirled out to sea.

The
Standor
turned and hurried forward.

“All speed to Aankhaan!” she shouted to a crew member on an open platform outside the control room.

“All speed!” a
femora-sita
shouted back.

His eyes settled briefly on Caitlin. “We have to warn them about the Source!”