Stones (Data) (42 page)

“What was it?”

Matt turns. “Why do you want to know?”

“So I can help you. Trust me.” With his hands behind his back, Ryzaard looks vaguely paternal. “What did they take from you?”

Matt squints his eyes and scrutinizes the city. Its collection of structures look like a graveyard of tombstones.

“Tell me,” Ryzaard’s voice lowers to a whisper. “I know it can be hard to bring back the memories.”

Matt whirls around to face Ryzaard full on. “My mother!” His voice booms in the darkness of the balcony, bounces off the walls and is sucked out into the city. “They killed my mother.”

“How old were you?”

“Barely ten.” Matt’s voice trails off.

“It must have been hard.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You would be surprised. I had a mother myself. And a father. Both killed by the Nazis.” For an instant, the skin seems to stretch tight across Ryzaard’s face. “Do you miss her?”

Matt glares at Ryzaard. “Do I miss her? What kind of a question is that?” He feels his own face flush with sudden heat. “She was everything to me.”

“Perfect.” Ryzaard licks his lips and takes a step forward, like a lion about to dig into a feast of raw meat. “Now think of all the years you have been without her, of everything you have lost that can never be repaid. Think of the pain they have caused you. Think of the injustice. Think of all the people in the world who have their mothers but could not care less. Nurture your outrage. Let it build and grow. Focus all of it on the Stone. Embrace its power. Hunger for it. Become it.”

Matt’s hands are shaking. He has a sudden urge to kill Ryzaard. Fighting it back, he swallows again, closes his eyes. Abdominal muscles grow taunt as his chest lifts up and his hips move forward. Slowly at first, and then more deeply, a knot of emotion gathers strength inside him, like a cobra coiling itself, preparing to spring and strike, feeling the need to explode. The image of a smooth laser beam shooting out of the Stone forms on the back of his eyelids.

“Feel it. Grasp it with your mind. Hold on to it. Now let it go.”

The tension builds in Matt’s chest until he can hold it no longer. The next instant, a tightly wound ball of emotion explodes out of his hand and the sound of a howling wolf drifts into his ears. It feels as though a dam has broken and years of frustration are flowing out into the night. And then he realizes he’s standing, head thrown back, mouth gaping open, the sound bursting out of his own throat. Eyes snap open. A jagged blue beam is shooting out of the Stone like lightning. He is slashing across the horizon from end to end, incredible pleasure welling up to replace the raw anger flowing out. He draws the beam back and forth, over and over, without mercy, finding full expression for all the built-up rage inside, feeding off the fire and devastation playing out in front of him.

He vents his rage until there is nothing left to destroy. As far as he can see, the city lies in smoldering ruins beneath him and Ryzaard.

The beam fades. Matt steps back from the railing with his shirt drenched in sweat. He is breathing in sync with the drumbeat of his heart.

“Magnificent.” Ryzaard turns to face him. “Tell me how it felt.”

“Power.” Matt’s words come between gasps as his chest heaves in and out. “I’ve never felt such pure power.”

“E
xhilarating, isn’t it?” Ryzaard folds his arms across his chest. “Now you understand a small part of what I have been talking about.”

Matt has a worried look on his face. “There weren’t any people in those buildings, were there?”

Ryzaard turns and walks back through the door behind them. “Does it really matter?”

Matt follows Ryzaard into the square room, afraid to pursue the question further, still gripping the Stone in his right hand and breathing heavily.

They move across the gilded floor to a pair of double doors hanging open on the opposite side of the room and pass through into a much larger enclosure. Impossibly large. Matt estimates each of the room’s four sides are a kilometer long. The walls and ceiling have the same look of inlaid gold encrusted with multi-colored jewels. He sees brilliant chandeliers the size of houses hanging from the ceiling. They stand together on a raised platform above the main floor of the room.

Ryzaard walks to the edge.

Matt stops, still stunned by the destruction that flowed from his Stone on the balcony, unsure of whether to follow, unsure of what he may become.

When Ryzaard gets to the edge of the platform, he turns and motions with his hand for Matt to move closer. “Come. There’s someone here to meet you.”

Hesitating, Matt is afraid of what he may see, but the force of his curiosity pulls him closer. As the main floor comes into view, a deafening chorus of cheers and applause rise up out of a sea of purple.

Matt swings back around at the door he and Ryzaard just passed through, but it’s gone. The wall they came through seems to have disappeared.

“What happened to the—”

“No need to worry about such details,” Ryzaard says. “Just have a look around.”

Matt scans in a quick full circle. They’re standing on a round dish of a platform hovering in the center of the massive chamber, a hundred meters above the main level. The room now feels much larger than he first thought.

Together with Ryzaard, Matt walks the circumference of the platform only inches from the edge. Ryzaard clasps his hands behind him, and it reminds Matt of a dictator doing a triumphal review of his troops. Choruses of adulation swell up from the floor to meet them.

“I don’t understand,” Matt says. “Who are these people, and what’s going on?”

“As I told you before, this is a window into the future.” Ryzaard strokes his mustache and returns the hand to his back. “The future you and I will create with the power of the Stones. Take a look. Tell me what you see.”

Matt stares at the throng below, each of them, male and female, dressed in identical purple robes. “They look happy.”

“More than just happy. Deeply content.” Ryzaard’s glance floats over them like a god. “In the future, the future I will create, pain no longer exists. No suffering, no sorrow, no misery.” He turns to face Matt. “Think of it. No more wars. No more holocausts. No more evil. The world will be free of all that.”

“A world without pain. I wish I could believe—”

“Believe in the power you felt on the balcony. That was real. Power like that can do more than destroy. It can also build a world like this. Just be patient. In time you will understand.”

A hundred thousand faces turn up to Matt, each brimming with joy.

“It’s as if they worship us.”

“Yes, of course, that is the way it will be. Nothing will rival our power. And we will use it only for good. We ought to be worshiped. It’s our right.”

Matt shakes his head. “You talk as if it’s already happened.”

“In my mind, and on this world, it has.”

The crowd below begins to chant, reaching a crescendo of sound that rocks the platform.

Matthew. Matthew. Matthew.

“Who are they? How do they know me?” Matt says.

Ryzaard puts his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Perhaps you ought to talk with them, let them speak for themselves. Let’s go down to meet them.”

The platform begins to sink to the floor. It takes a full minute.

Leaving Matt, Ryzaard steps onto the main floor first, and the crowd draws back to allow him a worshipful distance. He raises his hands like a benevolent grandfather, a picture of love and concern. The room falls into immediate silence.

“My friends, my children.” Ryzaard speaks softly, yet as far as Matt can see, everyone in the massive space seems to be able to hear him as if he were standing only a few feet away. “As you can see, I’ve brought Matthew, the one who, with me, took evil from the earth so that you can live in peace.” Ryzaard turns back to Matt and motions for him to step down. “Talk to them.”

He descends onto the main floor with no idea what to expect and a burning suspicion of Ryzaard and the show he’s putting on. The floor gently slopes away so that he and Ryzaard stand at the pinnacle and look out across the tops of thousands of heads. With the Stone heavy in his hand, he grips it tightly and walks toward a woman standing on the edge of the congregation.

She has a look of wonder in her eyes that draws his closer. He beckons her to come forward with his hand, and she beams with gratitude at being the one chosen. Moving away from the fringe toward Matt, she stops a few meters from him and looks up into his eyes, raising her eyebrows slightly, waiting for him to speak.

Matt isn’t sure what to say and looks around the room awkwardly, his eyes sweeping past Ryzaard.

“Go ahead,” Ryzaard says. “Ask her anything. I know you’re full of questions. She will answer truthfully.”

Matt swallows and turns back toward the woman. “Tell me your name.”

“Nahal,” the woman says. Her dark eyes and olive skin defy easy classification.

“Are you happy?” Matt says.

The answer is obvious.

“Oh, yes, incredibly happy.” The woman smiles widely, showing perfect white teeth.

“Why?”

For a moment, the woman’s eyes drift through the room, as if searching for the right words. “Everything here makes me happy. It’s so much better than before.”

“Before?”

“Yes, before I came here. I grew up in Spain during the Holocaust, part of the resistance. They captured me, did terrible things to me and the others before…” She looked down at the ground as her voice trailed off.

“Before what?”

“I think I died, but then I woke up. Here.”

Matt spins around and faces Ryzaard. For a moment he can’t find the words to speak. Then they come. “You can bring people back from the dead?

Ryzaard walks toward Matt. “Like I told you. This is only an indication of what we can do, you and me together, in the future. As our knowledge of the Stones grows, there will be no theoretical limits.” He opens his arms up, as if encompassing the world. “We can build paradise. We can right all wrongs. Bring back everything that’s been lost.” Ryzaard stares directly into Matt’s eyes. “Isn’t that what you really want?”

Matt’s body begins to tremble. “Can you, can we, bring anyone back. From the dead?”

Ryzaard nods his head. “Of course. Anyone.” He moves toward Matt. “In fact, there’s someone else I want you to meet.” He walks ten paces into the mass of people until he comes to a small woman standing in silence.

The long black hair and the willowy figure cause a whisper to slip off Matt’s tongue.

“Mom.”

T
ears stream down Matt’s face. His breathing is suddenly ragged and can’t keep up with his surging pulse.

He stumbles through the mass of people to Ryzaard and the small woman with long black hair. Moving back a few steps, Ryzaard pulls away as Matt comes closer, making room for him to move by.

He stops an arm’s length from the woman, seeing just the top of her delicate eyelashes as she looks down. No matter how hard he tries, his trembling legs and arms can’t be stilled. He fights back the urge to rush forward and engulf her in his arms, afraid that if he touches her, she will disintegrate in his hands like an ancient silk garment or finely spun glass, just like the dreams he’s had since he was a child.

With his pulse still racing, Matt’s runs his shaking fingers over his own chest and thighs to confirm he’s really here, never taking his eyes off the woman, afraid to blink. The subtle scent of freshly peeled mandarin oranges lingers in the air. He pulls in a deep breath. It all feels real, not like a dream.

His arms move forward to touch her, but then he pulls back. The lump in his throat makes it hard to swallow. He licks his lips, and they feel like sandpaper.

“Mom.” Matt struggles to get his voice to make a sound. “Mom, is it really you?”

The small woman raises her face and opens her eyes, like a flower blooming in the morning sun. She is exactly as he remembers her, long black hair with a hint of a wave and those large eyes, mostly brown, with tiny flecks of green. There’s the dimple at the corner of her mouth, the one he always reached up and felt with his finger as a child when she smiled.