Martyr (The Martyr Trilogy) (9 page)

“He
doesn’t talk to just anyone, you know.  Maybe you are a little special.”  It
was a nice thing to say.  She had her moments.

“Maybe,”
I conceded.  “I just know I’ll try a different tack if I ever manage to get a
second audience.”  The forest was a blur of yellow leaves and walnut trunks as
we raced toward our destination.  To our right the other animal and its rider
periodically passed into and again out of my field of vision.  “So Doog…does
he…,” I began.

Maya
finished the thought, “Doog is mute.  He used to work for my family from time
to time, mostly building things around the farm.  He has always been kind of a
big brother figure to me, ever since I was little; always had a certain
affection for me, an innate desire to protect me.  He’s a great man.”

“So…”
I began.

“He’s
just a friend,” she finished.  I saw her ears turn a pinker shade.

9

The
path we traveled merged onto an overgrown logging road.  Once broad enough
to allow big trucks to pass with their payloads of lumber, it was now a
barely-discernible thoroughfare where the trees were not quite so close
together, or so large, and where more yellow grass than moss prevailed. 
After a time it was intersected by a much wider swath of grass that had been
the route of a set of powerlines that led up the side of a small mountain to
our east.  The enormous utility poles with their many criss-crossing
beams stood bent, wireless and corroded, the defeated skeletons of an army of
metallic titans that once traversed this valley.  We paused here to rest
and refresh ourselves from the canteen Maya had taken from the chopper. 
The sun was by this time high in the eastern sky, and clusters of wispy clouds
occasionally obscured its face. 
 
"So," Maya began, breaking the silence.  "Tell me something
about this place you come from.  Was yours a large clan?"
 
I chuckled a little.  "There were no clans.  There was no
plague.  There are still billions of people in my world."
 
"Billions?!!?" Her eyes grew wide.  "That must have been
awful!"
 
"Awful?  No, it...I mean...yes, I suppose in some ways it was. 
But there were still lots of places you could go to be alone, places where you
could ride through the woods forever and never see another soul."

“That
many people…all living in peace…it’s hard to imagine,” Maya mused.

“Oh,
I never said my world was at peace,” I corrected her.  “There are wars and
smaller skirmishes going on all the time.  It’s just that they rarely involve
more than a couple of countries.  I guess that’s one way the population keeps
itself in check.”

“Have
they looked into plagues?  They can be very effective,” she offered, a wry grin
appearing in the corner of her mouth.  So, she had a dark sense of humor.  I
liked that.

Joining
into the game, I replied, “I believe they’re working on it.  Now all we need is
an egomaniacal evil magician.”

“You
can have ours!” she said cheerfully.  “Really, we’re done with him.”  We both
laughed, and afterward her gaze held mine for a couple of seconds before
dropping abruptly to study a fascinating blade of grass between her feet.

We
were interrupted by a snort from one of the puurr-deer.  Shortly the sound was
echoed by the other animal.  Looking down the hillside to the southwest, we saw
another deer with a rider, galloping our way. 

The
rider was an Asian man who appeared to be in his mid-50's.  Upon seeing us
his brow furrowed, then his face registered surprise, but he didn't
inquire about our destination or our reason for being so far from base.  I
didn't recognize him from camp, but there was an air of familiarity
about him; perhaps I had seen him in the vision of Tal-Makai's final
battle.  "Water spotter," he
explained.  "There was a report of a clean spring somewhere west
of here."
 
"Did you find it?" asked Maya.
 
"No, will look again tomorrow," he said, already prodding his ride to
motion.  He rode up the mountainside to the first utility pole
before veering off to the north toward camp.
 
"Hm...," said Maya, "He wasn't looking for water, he was looking
for us."  
 
"How can you be sure?" I asked.   
 
"Because he wouldn't have quit searching so early in the day.  Plus,
water spotters usually travel in pairs, for safety.  They keep searching
until they find water or it is too dark to look any more."

“Interesting,”
I said.  “So what do you think it means?”

“Isn’t
it obvious?” she asked.  “Reya’s keeping tabs on you.”  I wasn’t at all sure
that I was the one she was worried about, but didn’t voice my suspicions.  If
Reya wanted to reveal Maya’s genetic affiliation, she would do it in her own
time.  And if she didn’t, then it wasn’t my place to do it. 

“Yeah,
probably,”  I said.

“You’re
perfectly safe with Doog and me, but I can understand why she’d want to protect
you.  If you’re as important to the resistance as everyone seems to think you
are, you’ll be a high-priority target for Magus.”  She looked off in the
direction the rider had gone.  A soft breeze tugged at an unbound spiral of
hair at her temple.  “I doubt we’ll see anyone else today, but they’ll try to
track us in the morning.  Let’s get to that town and try to find what we need
before the sun gets much higher.  I’d not want to have to make camp in a
strange town.  No way to watch the perimeter.”

As
we rode on, Maya engaged me once again.  As grateful as she was for Doog's oversight,
it was clear that she longed for good old-fashioned verbal communication. 
"Sorry if I gave you a bit of a hard time earlier about your 'chosen one'
status.  I'd really like to know more about where you came from, and how
you came to be here."
 
"As would I," I said.  "I can only tell you what I
know, and it isn't much.  But I'm happy to share if you're really
interested.  Maybe you can find some sense in it that I couldn't."
 
"Try me," she said with a smile.
 
"As I said before, there is war in my world too, constantly. 
There are even those who, like Magus, seek to destroy all who oppose
them.  But where I lived was at peace, for the most part.  Not
everyone trained for war, only those who chose to.  There were buildings -
houses, schools, hospitals, places of commerce - all of the places that lie in
ruins in this world.  But there they are still used and lived
in.  If you need a tube thingy for your helicopter, there are stores where
you can buy it new.  If you need to, you can get it from the other side of
the world in a matter of days."
 
Maya's eyes grew wide.  "What manner of magic can accomplish
this?!!?", she gasped.
 
"Not magic," I explained.  "We have thousands of
people and vehicles that deliver..." I saw her dumbfounded expression melt
into a devilish grin.  "You were joking."
 
"I was joking," she replied.  "Sorry again.  I
couldn't resist.  Yeah, I know all about the post.  I read it in a
children's book I found.  What remains of libraries isn't in good
condition, but it's of no practical use to the looters, so sometimes you can
find some interesting stuff.  My parents taught me to read.  The
others thought it was a waste of time, but they valued the written word, and
I'm thankful for it."
 
"So you're something of a student too," I said.
 
"I guess.  That's also how I learned to fix stuff, so that's why it's
important to me.  Anyway, you were telling me about your world."
 
"Yeah, if you haven't already read this story," I teased.  She
wrinkled her brow and pursed her lips in an expression of mild impatience
mingled with interest, and I continued.  "My world seems to resemble
yours in many ways, but with a few subtle differences.  It's not even
exactly the same landscape, so I'm not sure if places here correspond to ones
in my world.  There are different types of animals, and no puurr-deer.  And no
magic.  Or if there is, it is a largely forgotten art.”

“In
my experience, magic is more trouble than it’s worth.  A world without it would
be a world without Magus.  A world where he could never have come to possess
the kind of power he has here.”

“You
may be right.  But there is a man in my world who wears Magus’ face.  I knew
him, he was one of my teachers.”

This
time her face displayed genuine shock.  “Your teacher!  What, exactly, were you
learning?”

“Nothing
especially important,” I assured her.  “Certainly nothing dangerous.  If the
man I knew is the Magus of our world, then I’d say we have very little to
fear.  He had the ego, but that’s about it.”

Not
looking totally convinced, she changed the subject.  “So you were a student. 
What were you planning to do with the knowledge you acquired?”

I
didn’t answer immediately.  I began to imagine how the life of an American
college student must appear to someone who lived in a world where all knowledge
must have a practical purpose.  I weighed my words with care.  “I had hoped to
write books, to teach others about philosophy, about theology.”

“Theology?”

“The
study of the Deity.”

“So
you knew Chaer-Ul in your world too?”  Her face was aglow with the excitement
of innocence.

“I
knew more about him than most,” I said, trying to inject an appropriate amount
of humility.

“Knew
about him?  I don’t understand.  Why didn’t you just talk to him?  Don’t people
in your world know him, as we do here?”

So
much for impressing her with my theological qualifications.  “Of course…I mean,
some people claim to know him, but most people think he can’t be known in that
way.  Actually, a lot of people don’t even believe he exists.”

Maya
looked at me in a way that could only be interpreted as pity.  “Your world
suddenly doesn’t sound that nice to me.”  She didn’t mean it in a hurtful way,
but I felt as though she had penetrated to my core and found it sad and empty. 
"Wait...you said you knew your world's version of Magus.  Are you
saying that every person in my world has a double in yours?"
 
"Apparently.  I knew Reya in my world, too.  Only she wasn't
called Reya."
 
"And me?" she asked playfully, batting her lashes,  "Do I
also remind you of someone back home?"
 
"No, sorry," I said.  "Nobody that I knew."
 
"Don't you think it's just a tiny bit convenient that in your first few
days here you happened to run across some of the same people you knew from your
world of billions?"
 
"I hadn't really thought about it, but now that you mention it, it doesn't
exactly seem random.  But that doesn't get me any closer to knowing why
this happened in the first place."
 
"Did it occur to you that maybe it didn't happen at all?" she
asked.  "I mean, maybe you're dreaming all of this, and you'll wake
up pretty soon in your own world.  Lots of times, in dreams, you see
things that are familiar, but not quite."
 
"Now look who's waxing philosophical!  As a matter of fact, that
possibility did occur to me, but I've never had a dream that went on for
so long, and with so much detail.  So I don't think that's what is going
on.  Anyway, are you saying that you might just be a figment of my
nocturnal imagination?  How then would you account for your memories, your
self-awareness?  If it's a dream, then from your perspective it would make
more sense that you were the dreamer, and I, the object of your dreams."
 
"Hmph.  In your dreams," she said smugly.

At
that moment our trail rose sharply, and we could see nothing beyond the birches
lining the ridgetop ahead.  “Wait here,” Maya said.  She dismounted and scaled
the last few meters of earth to gain a better vantage.  “Come on up,” she said,
waving us forward.  Doog and I dismounted as well, and clambered up to where
she stood.

Before
us a narrow valley stretched between two great peaks.  The weathered
remains of a small town straddled the trickle of a stream that wound
through its center.  It must once have been a rushing torrent to have
cut such a deep cleft through solid granite, but now only fed a taut
band of fertile green along its margins.  Green.  New growth was
green.  So even Magus' poison couldn't kill everything...not for good,
anyway.  The town's most defining attribute was a monstrous structure
of brick and steel that loped a third of the way up the eastern slope - an old
paper mill.  It stood in stark contrast to the valley in which
it sat; a foreign geometry amidst the natural curves of river and
mountain.  Incredibly, its ancient brick smokestack remained intact,
though no smoke had issued from its blackened depths for ages. 
 
"There," Maya said, pointing to a straight line amidst the crumbling
buildings that paralleled the river's edge.  "That will be Main
Street.  If anything is left of the old shops, we'll find them
there.  And if we can't find anything useful there...," her fingertip
drifted up and toward the behemoth resting on the eastern mountainside,
"Then we may just have to look in there."