Out of Exodia (16 page)

A strange quiet fell over the Reds when
at last every man, horse, and cart arrived on the debris-strewn
side of the river. It was late enough to consider setting up camp,
but to stay there meant burning or burying the Grays’ bodies, a
decision that Bram and his twelve judges rejected because the cloud
had already moved ahead half a mile. They voted to leave the bodies
to the beetles and worms, and to the larger scavengers like
raccoons and wolves and maybe lions. It was a grim and grisly
choice, repugnant to all but three of the judges.

There were dirt roads that ran in every
direction, well-used but full of potholes. The recent tracks of the
Grays’ vehicles revealed the most likely direction of their town,
if it was a town they came from. Feet and hooves obliterated those
prints as the Reds stamped after the cloud.

* * *

“
There’s something ahead.”
Lydia’s soft words make me lift my eyes. Something red winks
between the oaks and pines, its horizontal lines crossing sharply
against the forest trees.

“
Something ahead!” I yell
and raise the rod. The banner Lydia has tied on it swings like a
flag on its shortened staff. Josh and Blake and about forty others
rush ahead toward the structures.

Lydia’s far-sightedness gives us a
chance to be prepared.

“
There are more,” she
whispers, though with the sounds our large troop is making there’s
no advantage to whispering.

My oldest judges, Teague and Korzon,
draw near. Korzon, old as the wind, speaks as low as Lydia has.
“Those are shipping containers. Used to see them on long trucks
when I was a boy. Full of products, everything imaginable, from all
over the world. And those over there are box cars.”

Teague, just as ancient, furrows his
brow and nods. “Yeah, I remember. And after the Suppression, when
so many homes got burned, people turned them into dwellings, just
like the cars in the Red slum back in Exodia.”

Of their own accord the Reds behind us
stop and let more of our semi-soldiers advance. The last thing we
need is an ambush.

But the last thing I need is to ambush
and kill innocent people. Again.

I shout without the help of Malcolm’s
box and raise a warning to any who might live in these steel-clad
cabins.

Josh kicks in the door of the first one
with his soldier-like force. He reports what he sees: beds, crude
vents, and shelves of personal items. Some food. Lots of jugs.
Fermented juices, he says. No weapons.

The forest gives up fifty or sixty more
of these cages, all the same, red from peeling paint and iron rust,
and jam-packed with ciders and ales. There are at least another
hundred sitting on long narrow wheeled platforms, attached to one
another, end to end.

Teague sighs and Korzon explains,
“Flatbeds. There used to be trains. Those containers were moved by
ships across the oceans, then by truck or train across the
nation.”

I have, of course, heard of trains. My
grandfather, that is, the man I thought was my grandfather, made
sure I had superior combat training and the best tutors in as many
subjects as possible. This train, however, is much bigger than
anything I imagined. The rails run off into the distance as far as
I can see. The forest, now behind us, opens unto carelessly-tended
fields, burnt along the edges. The Grays are … were… farmers. The
cave-dwellers stole food and women from these men. Stole their
hope. Stole their future. I can’t imagine how industrious these
people had been to move so many containers into the sheltering
trees, to toil these fields, to keep a fleet of cars running. The
lead Gray said he’d heard of Exodia by a different name. What if
everything I learned is wrong?

“
Don’t shoot!”

More pleas of mercy follow the scream.
Teens, children, old women reveal themselves.

Words come at me from all directions.
Instead of single letters rearranging into prophecies or warnings
the words jumble around in my ears. I pick the ones I need to hear,
but nothing comes together to make sense. Little girls pop up from
their hiding spots, an old man surrenders two guns, women and boys
peer out with wary eyes. Ragged clothes, thin bodies, rough hands.
Tears. Barrett’s father wants to assimilate these people into our
mass; Cleavon says to shoot them all; Herb thinks we should make
them harvest the field and take what we need; Malcolm urges us to
catch up to the cloud which is far beyond the visible end of the
train; and Teague suggests we let these sixty or so souls tag
along, agreeing with Barrett’s father.

But how can we bring them with us? They
will hate us for what I’ve done.

The judges argue on. Placid expressions
mold the faces of the older Grays, but a random twitch or a darting
eye betray their fear. I heed their silent plea for
mercy.

And then they sing. The tune astonishes
me. Each line begins with the same lilting measure the Reds sang as
we left Exodia, but the words are new and the lines end on lower
notes. The refrain curses the men beneath the earth and repeats an
oath to fight against the orange and black.

The words fade. It grows quiet and both
groups, confused Reds and helpless Grays, look to me.

“
Your men are all dead.
Back at the river.” I feel sick to say these terrible words, sicker
still to lie to them: “Killed by the orange and black devils who
lived underground. But you can come with us if you want to. You
don’t have to fear us. We’ve killed the devils.” These fragile
Grays cling to one another, but nod their agreement. They will come
with us.

Not one Red refutes the lie I stitched
between the facts. I push my shame to the darkest part of my heart,
where I’ve buried the guilt of all my sins. Harmon whispers his
approval, “It was a necessary lie, Bram.”

And Lydia is comfortable with my
falsehood, too. She hated all the Blue propaganda in Exodia, but
she’s ready to share my guilt in this. I look away from these
widows and orphans and up toward the heavens. Have I taunted God
with my lie? The cloud settles behind us, shrinking over the
structures that hide in the woods. Tonight we’ll camp in the homes
of the misjudged Grays.

* * *

Jenny and Mira were the first to
approach the women. None were as young as Mira. They seemed to be
Jenny’s age or much older, apparently too old or too undesirable to
be stolen by the men of Proserpina. But these women were friendly
enough as soon as Jenny and Mira offered their sympathies, but all
except one held back on answering Jenny’s question about the words
to the song.

That one, Sabina, spoke in a
storyteller’s rhythmic pace, “Come along with us, they said. Let’s
lie in wait for someone’s blood. Let’s waylay some harmless soul.”
She crouched and put her crooked fingers over her eyes as if
hiding. “Let’s swallow them alive, like the grave, they said. Let’s
swallow them whole, like those who go down to the pit. We will get
all sorts of fine things and fill our underground city with
plunder.” She rose and stretched her hands out to gather invisible
treasures. “Throw in your lot with us, they said, and we will share
a common purse.”

Jenny looked at Mira and Mira shook her
head. “And so you did?” Jenny asked.

Sabina gave a sad nod. “I told my son,
I said, do not go along with them. Do not set foot on their paths.
Their feet rush into sin and they will be swift to shed
blood.”

Mira put her hand on the old woman’s
arm. “But your men went along with them, didn’t they?”

“
Yes, they did, and they
were taken far away, left to battle while the deceivers returned to
steal our women. Only a few of our men made it home. And now you
tell us that they are dead, too. Killed at the river.” Her eyes
filled with tears and she finished with grim effort. “Such is the
end of all who go after what is not theirs. It takes away the lives
of those who get it.”

* * *

I study their red metal lodgings and
try to imagine something much better for all of us if we can only
get to Ronel’s promised land. Our daily ration of meat begins to
drop across the fields to the amazement of the Gray children. Their
brief bereavement gives way to wonder. I cannot hide the little
smile that jerks at the right corner of my mouth. I see something
that no one else does. I see those steel shipping containers as
iron lodges.

Iron lodges.

Ronel is God.

Such a simple transformation. But
there’s more. The letters tremble in my mind, aching to move again.
Aching to reveal a bigger secret. For how can Ronel be God if he’s
a man? Were the stories my mother told me filled with
untruths?

Lydia breaks the spell. I can’t be
upset that her gentle caring touch brings me out of the trance. I
trust that I’ll get to the truth when the truth needs to be known.
It’s enough for now to know that we’re in God’s plan, whether his
name is God or Ronel or something else. I’m sure it’s his plan or
we wouldn’t have found these iron lodges.

I say it aloud to her, “Iron
lodges.”

A single crisp memory
flashes and I go rigid again: I’d been at Kassandra’s ranch a month
when her sister Katie walked between me and the youngest lambs one
morning as we headed for the grassy hills. She scrunched her face
and complained about her sisters’ special talents and in particular
about young Sana’s ability to make prophecies from random phrases.
At the time I had no idea that I was a gemfry and that my gemfry
skills included the same odd gift. Katie told me how Kassandra had
broken the news to Sana that a sheep called Carnation died. Sana
went into a trance, like I do now, and answered her sister with
several cryptic prophecies from
Carnation
died: addiction near, raid contained,
and
iron
candidate
. They never figured out what
they meant, but today … it seems clear to me. The letters quickly
flicker from one phrase to the next and end with a fifth:
a road incident
.

“
Bram. Bram. You’re talking
weird.” Lydia clicks her fingers by my ears.

“
Sorry. Just remembered
something.”

“
Well, you mumbled like
that when we crossed the bridge and left Exodia. You’ve done it
other times. Strange phrases. Do they mean something important?
‘Raid contained’ makes sense and ‘a road incident’, but what
addiction is near?”

I worry my head back and forth. I can
think of a certain addiction that ruled the cave-dwellers’ lives,
but I doubt the Grays were willing participants in that.

“
The fermented ciders.” I
open my eyes and look at her beautiful face. I turn to the others,
but there is no one close to us and only a few people scattered
about, walking towards the box cars. “How long was I in a
trance?”

“
A long time. Five, maybe
ten minutes.”

“
Where’d everybody
go?”

“
They picked up their meat
packages and went to make camp in the metal homes in the woods. The
Gray women said those would be more comfortable than the ones still
on the flatbeds.”

“
We need to warn them.
Where’s Malcolm? I’ll use the box so everyone hears. They better
not drink the cider.”