The Fourth Sage (The Circularity Saga) (23 page)

She talks about the time when she discovered Born-of-Night in one of the air ducts and how she involuntarily entered Kiire's room. She pauses when she speaks about her and Kiire becoming friends. She tells them how she began to communicate with Born-of-Night and about subsequently setting her free in the building's core. When she starts to talk about C.J.'s note on her pad, she feels a sting of loss and worry for her well-being. And for a moment she thinks about whether or not she should tell everyone how she feels. She decides that she might as well. She continues to talk about her failure to find a way to help C.J., to try to find her, or at least figure out a
way
to locate her based on the trace program on her pad.

When she tells them about being captured and tortured, she can see the anger in Ty's face and the pain in Tevis's eyes, and all along Max's silent encouragement for her to continue, to purge the memory by sharing it. When she talks about Born-of-Night's urging to follow her to the Forgotten Floors, the children begin to come into the room. Tevis has no objection, and within a few minutes they’re all sitting on the floor between them.

She talks about their fleeing from the S.S. Units through the food processor toward the prison and into the water tank. When she comes to the part where she almost dies, a murmur goes through the children. She continues with their encounter with Sam and how he brought them here. When she ends, there is silence in the room for a while. Max signs something that Tevis translates: "We should try to get your friends."

"You mean C.J.?" she says.

He nods. "C.J. and Kiire and Seth," Tevis translates.

"I don't know how to find C.J. without a location inside the building. I only have an IP address. And I don't think bringing Kiire and Seth here is a good idea. I don't know how. Besides, they might not want to come," she answers.

"They might want to... follow you," Tevis translates Max's words.

"Why would they want to follow me?" All eyes are on her. "What is it?"

Tevis nods slightly to Mila who gets up and runs out of the room.

"Please excuse our rudeness," Tevis begins. "We have lived down here for so long, have encountered things that cannot so easily be explained, that don't concur with a more traditional way of looking at the world and ourselves. We... forget, I think, how bewildering this must be for others. For that, I apologize." Tevis holds Aries's glance, and continues. "When we all first came here, we just tried to hold it together. I started out with twelve children. Every couple of months a few more came. They all missed their parents and families terribly and it seemed at first as if we were merely waiting for our death. The Corporation provides the basics to survive. Food, water, and very basic medical supplies. It became clear early on that I needed to implement some kind of structure. I began to teach them what I knew but after a while I realized that these weren't average kids. Each of them has at least one subject, one thing, one characteristic where they are far—and I mean far—superior to myself and anybody else in here.

"In time, we found out more and more about one another. We became aware of each other's strengths, even though some of them were very subtle. Take Max. He is deaf, can't hear words or sounds and voices, but he remembers every place he has ever been inside the building—remembers every hallway, door, and floor he ever set foot into. He knows the building better than anyone. Although, from what you told us, that might exclude you, Aries.

"Most of the children had no idea of their abilities. One day, Mila began to draw Tuari's family. He was sick and she was caring for him, when she suddenly got up and went into this room. You should have seen his face when he saw the drawing. After this one, she drew others, and more after those. She doesn't know where this ability comes from. For her it's quite normal.

"Amber can speak and write in a language none of us can understand. No one except Jeremiah. One day, he began to assign numbers to the letters and figured out that Amber's language was, in part, made up of mathematical formulas strung together. For what purpose, he doesn't yet know, but I'm sure in time he'll figure it out. It seems that everyone here has an extraordinary ability. What we don't know is how it all works together. And then the girl who speaks to hawks arrives on our doorstep. And she doesn't know what else she can do, what else sleeps inside her, waiting to be discovered."

Into the silence that follows, Aries hears Mila's footsteps outside.
There's no need to get nervous,
she thinks. And yet, she can't help but feel anxious. This is only slightly reduced by Max's encouraging glances at her. Mila enters the room, a rolled up cloth under her arm. The children make a space for her as she unfolds the cloth and spreads it on the floor. At first, Aries can't make it out. Until Mila turns it in such a way that the drawing faces her. The cloth is a square, about six-by-six feet. Aries can feel her stomach revolting. Whatever little she’s eaten is trying to make its way back up.

"I don't feel so good," she says, holding one hand across her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Tevis grabs her and leads her into a small room with a sink and toilet. Aries holds on to Tevis's arm while she vomits the meager contents of her stomach into the toilet.

"I'm sorry," she says, when Tevis hands her a small paper towel.

"There's no need."

"I don't understand," Aries says. "None of this makes any sense to me."

Tevis removes a strand of hair from Aries's face, touches it gently.

"Sometimes, mostly at night," Tevis says, "during the times when nothing seemed to make sense, when I wanted to find a way for all of this to end, I thought to myself that the day would come when everything would change. When everything would begin to fall into place. Please don't ask me why and how, but when I saw the hawk land in front of us on the railing of our floor, I knew that day was near.

"I think you came to us because we might be able to help you. Help you understand who you are. Don't be afraid of it. That's why you were born. That is why all of us were born. To find out who we are. And when destiny knocks on our door and commands us to open it and let it enter, we become sick to our stomach, and all we really want to do is hide under a blanket somewhere. But we can't. We can't hide anymore. We must accept who we are. For we have come too far to turn back."

Aries can't escape Tevis's eyes.

"You can't stop now, Aries. Too much has happened. Too much will be lost if you do."

Aries smiles slightly.

"What is it?" Tevis asks.

"Nothing. Only, that's what Born-of-Night said. Or something similar."

"Come. I'm sure the others are waiting."

"Okay," Aries says, even though inside all she really wants to do is run away and hide, under as many blankets as she can possibly find.

* * *

When they return to the group, Max has Born-of-Night on his arm.

I can talk to him. He understands me.
The hawk's thoughts reach Aries.

Tell him that he seems very brave and to thank him for his encouragement,
Aries answers back, even though the full import of what she has just heard escapes her for the moment.

For a split second, she hopes the canvas on the floor will be gone, that all of it would turn out to be a figment of her imagination. But as she comes closer, she sees it's still there, surrounded by the group of kids. They part to let her into their midst. When she stands before the drawing she realizes that it includes more details than she remembers. The symbols in the large stone pillars are exceptionally detailed. The individual light strings that make the three-dimensional blade in the center are drawn with excruciating attention to detail. The circle around the blade and the triangle outside of it have shaded shimmers of light in them. A beam of light shines from the top, in the space between the two curved pillars.

Aries's eyes wander from the machine to a tiny figure in the lower part of the drawing. Within the drawing's perspective, it stands far away from it. The figure is so small in relation to the massive machine that Aries almost overlooks it. It gives the machine immense proportions.

Aries looks around at the faces of the children. Her gaze rests on Ty for a while. He hasn't said much in the last few hours. "This is what I saw when I almost drowned. I didn't remember it until now. I have no clue what this means."

Amber and Tevis exchange a glance. The girl steps forward. She is tall, thin, maybe fourteen. A few freckles dot her nose. Her reddish hair falls past her shoulders.

"I... can't decipher most of the symbols on the pillars," Amber says quietly. Aries has the impression that the girl probably feels at least as uncomfortable as she herself does right now. "But when I wrote out each letter, I saw that some of them were identical to those." She points at one of the pillars on the canvas. "I found out that those are not so much letters as phrases. But I can't... I don't know what they mean. Except maybe one. All I can make of it is that it says something about the heavens. A river in the heavens. But it doesn't make sense, so I don't think it's right—"

"A stream of stars," Aries says, surprised that the thought came to her so quickly. "I'm... so sorry to have interrupted you."

"Yes. No! That's it," Amber says. "It makes more sense that way. A stream of stars. But I still don't know what it means. How did you know this?"

"I... don't know," she answers. "It just came to me."

Amber nods to a boy in the group who nods back. Jeremiah gets up. His round face is surrounded by thick black hair. Aries guesses that he must be her age or maybe a bit younger. He's about Ty's height and is wearing a worn-out shirt that’s far too big for him.

"T-t-to make a long st-s-story short." Jeremiah's face is red, his lips are trembling, and he’s breathing heavily. The kids don't seem concerned. Someone starts clapping rhythmically. Another joins in and then another. Now all the kids are clapping. In between the claps, they begin to hum. A hum, a clap, a hum, a clap. Tevis looks at Jeremiah, telling him without words to watch her slowly breathing in and out. Jeremiah follows her example and does the same. This has obviously happened before. Jeremiah now joins in. A clap, a hum, a clap, a hum. Then, after about a minute, the clapping gets quieter until only the rhythmic humming is left. And after a while, that ebbs too. When it is all still in the room, another child, a boy around eight years old, says, "Tell us what you know, Jeremiah." A couple of the other kids repeat the same line quietly. "Tell us what you know, Jeremiah." He nods.

"I f-f-first assigned binary numbers to each letter of Amber's alphabet. There were twenty of them altogether. Some of the letters do not stand for only one letter. They are exp-p-pressions and phrases. I know that they are f-f-formulas, equations. All I can f-f-figure is that they have to do with two points that are very f-f-far apart. But I can't calculate them without a calculator. So, right now, they d-d-don't mean anything."

With his last words, Jeremiah's eyes rest on Aries. All is quiet in the room and when she looks into the faces of the other children, she can see it. Tevis was right. They're barely holding it together. She can see the fear in them that none of this will make a difference in the end, that they are doomed down here unless something happens, unless someone reaches out their hand and lifts them up.

Don't look at me,
she thinks.
I'm not the one who can help you. I can barely keep it together myself.

The circle is not yet complete
. Born-of-Night's thoughts reach her.

What was that?
she replies.

The circle is not yet complete.

What do you mean by that?

I don't know,
the hawk answers.

I wish sometimes you would be clearer.

That is my wish as well. And Max wants to show you something,
Born-of-Night replies.

Aries’s eyes meet Max's. "Okay," she says out loud. Max gets up, signs something to Tevis, who nods back.

"Max wants to show me something," Aries says to Ty.

"I'm coming with," he says, while getting up from his box and stretching himself.

He reaches out his arm and Tevis holds onto it as they walk together toward the entrance. Max leads the way through the opening and down a hallway. The walls here are even more rusty than in the other rooms. It looks as if water has run down them at one point, judging by the streaks of lighter color.

"That's from condensation," Tevis says. "During the warmer months, the humidity in here increases. So much so that it condenses on the metal sheathing and runs down as water."

As they approach the first doorway on their right, Aries wonders how they all could have made it down here for two years. Max signs something to Tevis. For some reason, Aries knows what it means.

"This is Jeremiah's room," Tevis says.

Aries can't see much at first. Until her eyes adjust to the semidarkness. The room is empty except for a small box in its center. It contains pieces of charcoal. Three of the four walls are filled with mathematical formulas. They are written in the smallest letters possible. To preserve space, Aries surmises.