Tree of Truth (Book of Pilgrimage 1) (16 page)

“Why not two girls and a boy?” Shelley said playfully.

“Why not? Two girls and a boy!”

We wasted away our breath and the night with idle chatter, tickles and giggles, and soft kisses all over. I don’t remember falling asleep. I only remember the nightmare of waking up.

Chapter XXVII

“Marlowe—Marlowe.” Shelley’s soft voice tickled my eardrums. I thought I was still dreaming. “Marlowe—wake up.” I rolled over languidly and opened my sleepy eyes.

I rubbed my face with both hands and tried to focus my vision. It was dark but for a pale morning light, an intimation of sunrise that gave a soft glow to the tent and formed an aura behind Shelley’s sweet face. “What is it, Shelley?”

“I want you to watch the sunrise with me one last time before I go.” Her voice was shaking, and there were tears welling in her eyes.

“Where are you going, Shelley?” My hands started trembling violently. She took them in hers and tried futilely to stifle their shaking.

“It’s okay, Marlowe.” She had a confidence in her voice—my weakness made her stronger. She pulled me in close.

“No, no, no, no, no . . .” I repeated it like my charm, my mantra, my prayer to call my goddess back from the heavens.

She took my head in her hands and brushed the tears on my cheeks gently away with her thumbs. She spoke as one who had walked the earth a thousand years: “Marlowe. Do not be afraid for me. I will never leave you. I will always be here,” and she touched my heart, “as long as you don’t forget about me.”

“Oh, Shelley, I will never forget about you!” I wailed miserably.

She petted my hair and tried to calm me. “Marlowe, my hero, my love, my husband—let’s enjoy the sunrise. Okay?” She was so brave, so serene. I was terrified, but I did not want to waste those final moments with her.

I collected myself (I don’t know how) and opened the tent flaps behind her. We turned and sat facing the eastern horizon. She lay her head on my shoulder and held my hand tightly. I didn’t know what to say, what to do.

“Why don’t you read to me, Marlowe?” Shelley said sweetly. “I’d like to hear your sweet voice.” She wiped the tears from my face and stared through my eyes into my soul.

I reached for Benjonsen’s Book, clumsily opening it and fumbling through the pages with one hand so as not to pull the other away from her warm and loving grasp. I read to her for the last time, the final episode of that star-crossed Pilgrim’s journey:

*.*.*

“Before long I was in the outskirts of the city. First came the serried houses, all built alike and all deteriorating the same. The country mansion was built with loving hands, but these structures were thrown together with machines and money. That kind of thing never lasts long. It seems the Ancients had forgotten, for the remnants of their haste and greed littered the blighted landscape. Our best furniture and sturdiest tools come from a time years before the Great Disease, before the Ancients lost their way. It is said that even the Disease was the result of their avarice and impatience. There were many stories about the Disease, too many to know truth from rumor. I had learned to think not of the past, only the future. And my future lay before me, in the city I was so desperately seeking.

“Past the ruined suburbs and beyond the steepled churches, the towering buildings I had imagined since boyhood were finally before me, scoring the sky with their jagged edges as they soared upward from the horizon below. The sight of them took my breath away. The houses and small buildings had been thrown together, but the Ancients built these colossi to last. It is said that after the riots in the city ruins, the only things left standing were these behemoths of glass and steel. They were godlike. I sat down to rest and admired them as I ate a bit of food the nomads had packed for me. But there was still more to my journey, so I hurried my lunch and quickly made my way to the city gate.

“I approached with care, for the redoubtable city guards were said to man their posts like a lioness guards her cubs. The pair of feet propped upon the cluttered desk of the guardhouse told me otherwise. I cleared my throat, and the slipshod sentinel scrambled to his feet, rifle in hand. He looked me up and down, pacing in a tight semi-circle before me. ‘What is your business?’ He stopped directly between me and those daunting doors. His tensed face betrayed a feigned fierceness, but I knew his mind was on the book lying open on his desk. It was a romance. I let loose a soft chuckle. With graver tone he repeated himself. ‘What is your business?’

“I stood straight and cleared my throat once more. ‘My name is Benjonsen of the Appalachian Villages, Elder of the Pisgah Mountain Tribe, allied with the Eastern Commonwealth and Southern State, and loyal to the Union of New America. I have come to see the doctors.’ A few nervous breaths tickled the hairs of my nostrils before he capitulated to his hovel and returned to his novel. The gate opened. I stood motionless until, from inside the guardhouse, he blurted out, ‘You may pass.’ It was much easier than I imagined it would be. I stepped across the foreboding threshold into a distant land—it was like traveling into both past and future, a confusing quagmire of anachronism, a city ruled by modern people, but dominated by the legacy of the Ancients.

“Inside the city fence the people wandered about with a sense of comfort and freedom. Like the gazelle in the zoo who knows her attacker is merely a few swift steps away, but will never reach his prey, the citizens knew that the nomads and looters—hyenas who would slit the throats of those city folk for the wealth and wonder within that great wall—wandered the perilous sod opposite their forte barrier. Yet they took comfort in the wood and metal structures—erected decades after the Great Disease, years after man had lost much of his architectural ability—that with dent and deviation stumbled and wandered in a fitful circle around the edge of the metropolis, leaning to and fro, wavering with the wind and rusting in the rain. It was enough to keep the inglorious and inept tribes from invading. It was their comfort in this discomfiting world.

“The closer I came to the city center, the denser the population became. More and more people dotted the streets and avenues. Some stared at the shrouded stranger before them, pondering his journey or guessing the moment when night would veil his young eyes forever, feeling both sorrow and amazement for him and his primitive Pilgrimage. Others went about their business as though I were a mere phantom of light, an illusion that briefly flitted before their eyes and disappeared, never to be seen again. Pilgrims were not unknown here. Many had set off for the city in hopes of finding the Tree of Truth or the path that would lead them to it. None had returned. I was not an anomaly.

“The hustle and bustle reached its zenith in the downtown market. I had never seen so many people in one place before—there must have been thousands. The stalls were stocked with foods of all sorts: fruits and vegetables I had never tasted, meat of animals I thought extinct, coffees and teas of great variety, breads and pastas, cereals, grains, wine and beer. It was a feast for my eyes. Past the wet markets were stalls of cooked foods from all parts of the country. I had nothing to barter except my books, so I was left to gaze at the amazing cuisine that lay before me. I caught the eye of a sympathetic stranger who must have sensed the emptiness of purse and stomach. ‘See anything you like?’

“It was an odd question to me. The people of the city were said to be quite rude and self-centered. I suspected his motives. ‘No, it’s okay. I’m just looking.’ I turned, but he caught me by the arm. ‘It’s okay. I know who you are. You
must
be hungry. Pick something.’ The Shroud gave me away. I pushed the hood back to my shoulders, revealing my face. The citizen smiled. I sort of half-smiled, not knowing what to think, and he gestured at the food. The steam table had nine or ten compartments, and as my eyes jumped from one item to the next, the merchant anticipated with his enthusiastic salesmanship. Each dish was the best, depending on where he thought my appetites lured me. I settled on a few skewered pieces of lamb meat, roasted in a spicy, red sauce. The citizen dropped a few coins in the merchant’s hand and escorted me through the busy market.

“He didn’t seem in much of a hurry. ‘What brings you to the city?’ For the first time, I took a good look at him. He was younger than me, dressed in fancy clothes with a white overcoat, like the doctors of old. I suspect he may have even been a doctor himself. He never said. ‘I’m looking for the hospital.’ ‘You don’t look sick—not unusually sick, anyway.’ He meant the Great Disease. We are all sick. But some of us suffer more. ‘It’s not that. I’m looking for something. I’m on my Pilgrimage.’ He nodded with a grin that almost concealed its hint of condescension. Of course he knew. It was a stupid thing for me to say. I tried to make up for my foolishness. ‘My people seek the Tree of Truth. They think it will cure the Great Disease. They believe in the old legends. I believe in science. I have come to talk to the doctors, the researchers, the
true
wisemen.’

“He stopped and threw a puzzled look at me. ‘The only doctors in this city deliver babies. You’ll find no researchers here.’ ‘What do you mean? The maps say there’s a big hospital in Green City, a hospital with machines and medicines and—’ He interrupted. ‘Green City? Green City is three or four days west. You’re in Sparta.’ I drew the old map from the inner sleeve of my knapsack. Unfolding it carefully, I showed him the two cities—Green City to the east and Sparta to the west. ‘You need a new map,’ he chuckled. I slumped to the ground in despair. His face slacked when he realized his cold insensitivity. ‘I’m sorry.’ He tried to comfort me. ‘You can make it to Green City easily. It’s just a few days journey along the highway.’

“But it wasn’t his laughter that collapsed my knees beneath me. It was then that I saw the first flashes of the Light, the creeping ghosts of the Great Disease, the harbingers of the darkness that would fast descend upon me. ‘I don’t have a few days.’ He helped me to my feet. ‘If it’s food you need, I will help you. Here.’ He emptied his pocket of coins and placed them carefully in my hand. I wished I could return to my village to tell the people of this citizen’s kindness. ‘Stock up in the market, but be careful—these merchants are hungry. Don’t ever take their first offer. Your money will be short-lived if you do.’ I put the coins in my pocket and shook his right hand with both of mine. ‘Thank you.’ He pointed the way to the gate that would lead me to the highway and went about his business.

“I bartered reluctantly with those tenacious sellers—they surely got the best of me. I had no time to waste. I had to find something, if only a bit of knowledge to leave in this Book of Pilgrimage, maybe something that would spark the mind of one who would chance read it or carry it on his own journey. Who knows what future hurricanes are borne off the flapping of one butterfly’s wing? But nothing would be gained if I died before reaching Green City. And indeed nothing was gained.

“The flickering lights in my head became more intense after I reached the highway. I stopped not for food, not for rest, not for safety. I was already dying—the nomads could only take away this foolish record of my despair. After two days I had not reached the city, and the Light that would turn to darkness was perilously close to blinding me altogether. My day had finally come. The Disease was full upon me, and the Light had robbed me of my ability to walk, to write, to think clearly about my journey. So I chose this umbrageous and ancient tree, and I sat down beneath it to pen the remainder of this, my Book of Pilgrimage. I bid final farewell to my sweet Emily Dee, my adventurous little Will, and my life, my love, my darling Tiesse. The Tree of Truth lay not on my path, and so on some stranger I fix my hope that he (or she) will stumble across that mystical wood that might save us all.

“My name is Benjonsen of the Appalachian Villages, Elder of the Pisgah Mountain Tribe, allied with the Eastern Commonwealth and Southern State, and loyal to the Union of New America. On the 24
th
August Moon, in the 81
st
Solar Revolution of the Third Century M.E., my quest and my breath came to an end beneath this Tree of Death. This is my Book of Pilgrimage.”

Chapter XXVIII

I closed the book. Shelley was crying. “That was beautiful,” she murmured, and then she took my hand and spoke slowly without looking at me: “Marlowe, my dear husband, I have only one fear, one regret—that I must leave you, the spouse of my body
and
soul, here in this dreadful place. I don’t know what awaits, but the only prayer in my heart is that someday I will see your handsome face again.”

As she said those final words, she turned and took my face in her hands and kissed me very gently, very lovingly, and for the very last time.

The sun peaked just above the horizon. “It’s time,” Shelley said. Time—he is the enemy of us all, my despised nemesis, and he snatches our loved ones from our tenacious grasps without remorse. And why, Time, why did you choose this one to swipe from the face with your pitiless hand? Why did you snip the flower’s bud before she blossomed? Why did you extinguish that burgeoning star before she had chance to give life? In my mind’s eye I could see Time before me, monstrous, unbound, eternal. I begged the infinite niggard to stop, to slow down, to grant me just a fraction of his grace, but instead that perfidious god of ages teased me with but a few elongated seconds.

“Isn’t the Light beautiful?” Her words came out slowly and softly echoed in my head.

“Yes, it
is
beautiful,” I said foolishly. But she was not talking about the sunrise. She turned and lay back in the bed. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling. I scrambled around next to her and took her hand.

“No, Shelley, no—don’t go! Please don’t go!” My heart was beating through my chest. I had the
tremor
cordis
on me!

“It’s so beautiful, Marlowe. So beautiful!” She arched her back, and then it dropped, and at that most dire and heinous moment in time, I knew my life, my love, my newlywed wife, had left me forever and gone into the Light, and I was sure my heart wept blood.

The sun rose, and its orange-red evanescence infused the tent with a divine glow. Behind her head was an angelic halo of golden rays shining in every direction—the cold Cosmos was reclaiming its greatest Spirit with that life-giving star. I never believed in stories of miracles and gods and angels, but that day I saw a spirit rise with the sun into the heavens. Oh, Shelley, I will find you again one day!

The glow reflected a faint blush upon her cheeks, and she looked alive, and I thought it a dream. I took her by the shoulders, and I cried,
Shelley, Shelley, Shelley
, and I shook her until the sun filled the tent with brightness and blanched the color from her cheeks, and there I held but a pale semblance of my fair Shelley, and so I gently settled her back into our wedding bed.

The parishioners must have heard my cries, for when I finally gained the strength to stand and step outside the tent, they were all gathered just a few meters away. Pastor came to me and hugged me. “My son,” he said. “She is in a better place.”

No. There was no better place than in my arms. I almost hated them for saying it, but it was the kindness of their kind, so I accepted it graciously and appreciated it nonetheless.

Each of the parishioners gave me a loving hug before walking to the tent and placing a flower upon Shelley’s body. When the last had given his condolence, I walked into the center of the circle of tents, alone. My vision became a blur, and I lost consciousness for a moment. When I came to, I was surrounded by a dolorous cry that echoed through the valley from every direction. I felt like I was floating, and when I looked down, I could see myself crying out, tearing at my hair and renting my clothes.

“Marlowe, my son.” There was a hand on my shoulder. “You will call the coyotes with that cry.” The sound waned, but the breath kept coming, fleeing my lungs furiously until they emptied. I tried to breathe in. I couldn’t—my lungs refused! I collapsed in a swoon.

* * *

In my dream I saw Benjonsen. He was walking along the path ahead of me, beckoning me to follow him. Shelley ran up next to me, and then ahead of me, and then she was walking alongside our Pilgrim friend. They turned and together beckoned me to follow. My legs held me to the path—I tried to walk, but my feet were infused with lead. They walked and beckoned, and walked and beckoned more, but they did not stop, and slowly they escaped my reach and then my vision.

I cried out in agony over my useless body and awoke in a cold sweat inside Pastor’s commodious tent. Harriet was wiping my forehead with a wet towel.

“He’s awake,” she cried over her shoulder.

I arose in a blanket—my clothes had been torn away. Harriet took the blanket and covered me in a black Shroud.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a mourning Shroud.” She slipped the hood over my head. “You will wear it until your grieving is over.”

“When will that be?” She didn’t answer my question; she just hugged me tight and told me everything would be all right. Nothing could be all right without Shelley. Nothing. But I had no more tears to give, so I sat there in her arms, numb to this pitiless world.

“There, there, my son. You will be home soon.”

The return to the village was a dreadful affair. The tribe marched in unison, I in front with Pastor, and Shelley behind us in a beautiful handmade palanquin-coffin adorned with branches and leaves and flowers. The boys at the guardhouse must have seen us advancing from a distance, for the entire village was gathered at the gate to welcome us home.