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TWENTY-FOUR




Marty and the team had several choices on how to travel three days south toward the so-called human outpost the sloths had told Lowanna about, but opted for the simplest option, which was using one of the smallest sailing ships still beached on the shore. The party sailed southward in a vessel just big enough for the six of them.

Marty had taken for granted the details of how to sail one of these things, because he hadn’t had to know about any of that on their escape from the island. But with just the six of them on board, there was no escaping the details. The ship was roughly thirty feet from stem to stern, with a small hide lean-to aft that could shelter two people comfortably sleeping or four sitting or all of them hunkering down against the occasional hail they encountered. François knew the workings of rigging and rudder and sail, and the craft was small enough that he could manage it all, with a judicious amount of bellowing at the rest of the party.

The Frenchman taught them a few knots so they could help, and when to heave on what lines, and it was enough. They sailed close to the land and stopped daily to replenish any supplies. Luckily the hardy plant life provided fruit and fresh water, and along the way, they hadn’t spotted another sign of humans anywhere.

As they traveled south, Marty detected the scent of pending snowfall, and it had gotten cold enough that they could all see their breath in the air.

Marty felt the reality of his vision getting closer and closer, and as they approached, he sat more and more in the front of the ship, staring forward in daylight and in darkness. When he first spotted the ice from his vision, it was as a gray line of fuzz on the horizon, yet he knew instinctively that this was their goal.

Lowanna saw him staring and tapped him with a boot. “What do you expect when we get there?”

Marty had been asking himself the same question for weeks, and now tried to formulate his thoughts. “I think a portal. Just like last time, when my visions were trying to get us to where we could proceed to the next phase, and I think we’re being led to the same kind of portal. We’re in some kind of test, but I get this feeling it’s like a game to whoever is administering it. It’s almost certainly larger than we even know. The portals are just how we move forward from scene to scene.”

Gunther looked up from his own reverie. “Do you know how to operate the portals?”

“No,” Marty said. “We had instructions the first time around.”

Surjan laughed. Of all the party, he’d been in the best mood since parting ways with the Neshili. The burdens of kingship—and maybe arranged marriages—had weighed heavily on him. He’d sung his way down the coast, occasionally leaning over the side to spear fish for them to eat. “The first time around, we had no such thing. The first time around, we were in Egypt and we set off a portal by accident. The second time, Narmer told you what to do.”

“Who will tell us what to do this time, if you’re right?” Gunther asked.

“I may have a vision that will show us the way,” Marty said. “Or maybe that voice you were talking about will give us some hints or teach you what to do. Or maybe the portal will activate itself. Maybe, if Narmer hadn’t taught us anything, the second portal would have simply functioned. Maybe they’re programmed to do that, to advance us from scene to scene.”

“Like the door in the wall in Super Mario, after you rescue the princess,” Kareem said with an amused expression.

Marty hadn’t realized the teen was familiar with western video games.

“Is he called Super Mario in Egypt, too?” Surjan asked. “Disappointing. I’d hoped he’d be Sayyid Mario or Pasha Mario or something, at least.”

“Pasha is Turkish,” Kareem grumbled.

“My voice wanted us to go into the last portal,” Gunther pointed out.

Marty nodded slowly. “Well, maybe your voice will give us a second chance.”

“Did we do what we were supposed to do here?” Lowanna asked. “How do we know when it’s over?”

Marty wanted to point out that it wasn’t clear that they were supposed to do anything, but in his heart, he had the same question Lowanna had posed. And he didn’t know the answer to it, so he eventually just shrugged.

“This is the archetypal dilemma of the human species,” François said from the rear of the ship, where he sat working the rudder. “What do I do with my time? Attempting to do all the good we can for others is not a terrible answer. Maybe it’s the only decent answer, in fact.”

“And if we are . . . built to a heroic scale, then perhaps we need to be doing heroic amounts of good for others,” Surjan suggested.

“Like marrying multiple women,” Lowanna suggested.

“I didn’t choose that,” Surjan muttered.

“Still,” Marty said, “it does feel as if there is an intelligence watching us, waiting to see what we’ll do.”

“More than one,” Gunther said as he puckered his lips, looking like he’d tasted something sour.

“And if this is a test,” Lowanna asked, “what’s the goal? How do we know if we’re winning, or even scoring points?”

“I don’t have any answers,” Marty said. He cracked a grin. “As you know, better than most?”

“Last time, they set up other creatures against us,” Lowanna continued. “Was it just the Grays? That’s it? Or are we about to get walloped by some other players in this game and we don’t even know it? We never did fight the big boss Gray. What did they call him, the Guardian? Do we not get to advance until we beat him in a fight?”

On that sobering question, even Surjan fell silent.

Marty watched the ice as they approached. He was looking for an opening, a cave, a landing place, and saw none of those things. He saw gray-white ice, rising starkly in cliffs above choppy, cold ocean. Every moment, he felt that the ice could not possibly get any taller, that they had come so close, they must surely bump into the ice wall itself and be done.

But they kept sailing closer and the cliffs continued to grow. The land to their right also became spotted with thick fields of ice.

“The Straits of Magellan might not be open,” François said, breaking an hour of silence.

“Because of the shape of the land being different?” Marty asked.

“That could be a factor,” François agreed. “Also, it could be iced over.”

“We’re not circumnavigating the world,” Marty reminded them.

The air became uncomfortably crisp and they took to wearing the animal skins that the Neshili had sent with them.

They saw penguins, swimming for fish and huddling on floes of ice.

They continued to follow the coast, until they saw smoke.

“That’s not a natural fire, by God,” Kareem said.

François frowned. “There’s so much ice, I’m not even sure what flammable material is exposed to be able to burn.”

“It’s humans,” Lowanna said. “Humans lit that fire. We should go talk to them.”

“Ask if they’ve seen a portal to other lands and times?” Surjan chuckled, but then he nodded. “Might as well get all the intelligence we can.”

“No guarantee it’s humans, though,” François said. “And even if they are, they might not be all that welcoming to strangers.”

They beached the ship in an inlet, dragging it up onto a long sandbar thick with tall, scrubby grass to a stand of trees where they could hide the craft, covering it with hardy green branches. They concealed their ankhs beneath furs and linens and marched toward the smoke, Surjan and Marty in front and Kareem bringing up the rear.

A three-mile walk brought them over a low rise and into a broad valley. As they walked, Surjan surveyed the sheets of ice to the south. “I think those cliffs are two miles tall,” he said. “I think they’re five miles away, and two miles tall.”

“That’s insane,” Marty said. “That’s mountain-tall.”

“That’s where the oceans of the world are locked up in this age,” Surjan said. “It’s why the land is different. And look, the ice stretches continuously almost to where we are. I’m not sure we could have gone much farther in the boat.”

The south end of the valley ended in a rocky ridge. Snow capped the ridge, and a cave opening gaped in the stone. The cavern was round and regular, suggesting to Marty volcanic action.

Around the mouth of the cave and spread around the floor of the valley were tents. Near the cavern, steam rose from the ground, suggesting a hot springs. Smoke rose from numerous small fires near various tents.

Marty and Surjan stood on the high ground, letting the others catch up. “Look at the different tent styles,” Surjan pointed out. “These are people of different nations.”

Marty stared at the site and concluded that Surjan was probably right. The construction materials ranged from animal hides to wood to something that looked like roughly woven wicker. It was a patchwork of different domiciles and he wondered aloud, “What is this place? A neutral ground? A shared holy site?”

Lowanna, François, and Gunther joined them. “That’s a magma tube,” François said immediately, pointing at the cave. “That must go where we want to go. That must be what draws all the people here.”

“They might have come for the hot springs,” Lowanna suggested.

“They’ve come for the portal,” Gunther said. “The portal is a place of visions and voices. These people have been summoned.”

Marty looked over at his German friend and asked, “Do you know that or are you suspecting it?”

Gunther shrugged. “I don’t know it for certain, but I’m sensing that these people were called in some way—don’t ask me why I think that, I just do.”

“We probably should ask them and find out,” Marty said. “But be ready for any reaction, you got me?”

They all nodded as Kareem joined them and they sauntered down among the tents and their inhabitants. As they drew closer, Marty saw that not only were the tents of various styles, but the people were visibly different in complexion, in sizes, and in styles of clothing. Some had beasts of burden, of various species: Marty saw alpacas, burros, and yaks.

The team walked into the area as if invited, and the inhabitants didn’t even give them a second look.

Just in case there was some hidden threat, Marty didn’t want to get all the way to the center of the makeshift village and then discover the issue, so he quickly approached a short, broad-shouldered man who stood outside a tent, attaching the two yoke-poles of a sturdy hide travois to the back of an ox.

“Hail, friend,” Marty called out. “My name is Marty, and I come in peace.”

The man turned to him, revealing a flat, circular face, long dark hair, and blackened teeth. “My name is Lelwan. You’d better come in peace, or the healer won’t see you.”

Gunther emitted a wordless murmur of excitement.

“Are you the healer?” Marty asked.

“Your people have no knowledge at all if you think I’m the healer,” Lelwan said. “I’m here with my cousin Anittas. He cannot eat, and vomits blood.”

“I could—” Gunther said, but Marty put a hand on him to stop him. They didn’t want to set themselves up in competition with the healer or muddy the waters in any way at all.

“We have brought no sick,” Marty said. “We’ve been brought here by visions and voices.”

“Ah,” Lelwan said. “We call that soul-sickness in my people.”

Marty nodded. “Can the healer cure soul-sickness?”

“One can only ask,” Lelwan said.

“This travois is for your cousin, I take it,” Marty said. “Let us help you bundle him into it. Maybe we can accompany you to the healer, and you can show us the way.”

“You’ve found the way, as far as that goes,” Lelwan said. He pointed at the magma-tube opening. “There is the gate. Through the gate and you walk until you come to the healer. I have been told it is many miles of walking. But I’d be grateful for the help and the company.”

Anittas was a small man like his cousin, once sturdy but now wasting away. Even wrapped in furs, he was easy for Marty and Gunther to lift together. They laid him across the hides, turned him to his side with a leather pail in case he vomited. They covered him with furs Lelwan provided and strapped him in with rawhide thongs.

Then they followed Lelwan toward the magma tube.

“Have your people been coming to see the healer for a long time?” Lowanna asked.

Lelwan nodded. “Many generations.”

“Is the healer a god, then?” Lowanna asked. “If he were a man, he would be dead.”

“The healer is not a man,” Lelwan agreed. “He is something else. A spirit. A magician.”

They nodded, as if he had said something that was obviously true.

“There are two springs at the mouth of the healer’s cave,” Lelwan said. “The nearer spring is cold water, potable and healthy. There, beyond the gate, lie the springs of hot water and the basin they collect in.”

“Does the healer use the hot springs?” Lowanna asked.

“No,” Lelwan said. “But sometimes people who come to see the healer stop and immerse themselves in the springs first, and the immersion in the hot waters is enough to heal them. Obviously, the healer’s power bleeds into the spring.”

“Will you immerse Anittas?” Marty asked.

“I hadn’t planned to,” Lelwan said. “He is heavy for me to maneuver alone. But if you are willing to help me, then it is certainly worth the attempt. If my brother can be healed without bothering the healer, then I won’t have to pay the healer’s price.”

“What’s the healer’s price?” Marty asked.

“It is negotiated,” Lelwan said. “We pay in iron. My people have to trade furs and precious stones for iron from the far north.”

“I have confidence that the waters will heal Anittas,” Gunther said.

The pool of the hot springs lay beside the hard-beaten track leading down into the open magma tube. Several people, frail and sickly, huddled on stones in the pool. Each was accompanied by a relative or caretaker who massaged shoulders or spread mud onto chests or cheeks. Objectively, Marty knew the pool must be a bacterial soup as likely to cause illness as cure it.

Secretly, he knew very well what Gunther intended, and was proud of his friend.

“Lelwan, you keep the yak,” he suggested. “Gunther and I will carry Anittas into the waters.”

“He must be immersed,” Lelwan said. “We cannot be healed unless we are entirely immersed.”

Marty and Gunther stripped Anittas down. In only a loincloth, he looked like a plucked bird, unnaturally thin and shivering, with an oversized skull and a thick shock of black hair. The furs and linens he was wrapped in were clean, though; Lelwan had been caring for him to the best of his ability.

They hoisted the sick man between them and carried him into the pool, which was as deep as their waists. The heat was welcome on Marty’s legs. He could feel Anittas’s heart beating through his frail frame and paper-thin skin.

“Nice and slow,” Gunther murmured. To Anittas, he said, “Can you hold your nose?”

Weakly, motions jerky, Anittas did so.

Lelwan watched from the bank, holding the ox’s lead-rope.

As they dunked the prehistoric sufferer into this hot-springs mikveh, Gunther’s hands gave off the faintest of glows. They lowered Anittas down to the level of their knees, so that even all his hair, which suddenly exploded in a black crown, was under. They held him there for a brief moment, and the white light poured from Gunther’s hands into the sick man’s body.

“Healer!” Lelwan shouted.

The other people crouching in the pool turned to stare.

Anittas kicked his legs out and threw his arms wide, pushing Marty and Gunther away. Light played up and down his limbs and then he got his legs under him and stood suddenly, spraying water and light in all directions.

“Wow,” Kareem said.

Anittas retched up some bloody phlegm and stood sobbing in the pool. He still looked emaciated, but something had changed. The man stood firmly on his two feet and his shaking limbs had become rock steady. He reached out to Lelwan, and Lelwan rushed to join his cousin, embracing the restored man.

“That’s a sudden turnaround,” François announced. His voice had that echoing quality that made it sound like it had a halo and carried well. “The power of the healer’s pool.”

Gasps of excitement arose from the sick in the pool as well as people passing by on the track.

Gunther looked drained and began fumbling for one of the flasks at his belt. Marty gave him a hand and they climbed out of the pool.

With a dubious expression, François stared at the other still-sickly people in the pool and murmured, “We can’t wait around. Lelwan might realize we had a hand in it. Let’s get while the getting is good.”





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