Chapter 12 - Ghosts in the Machine
.:"'You already see it, though you think you do not,'
Corlis said. 'Your mother's gift to you.' When he still
looked bewildered, plainly not taking her meaning: 'The
blood of the Sidhe.
'Through us, and others who have wed and borne as we
have, Danaan blood will pass into generations of the Gael,
to bring magic, the Sight, length of days...'
He drew back a little and looked at her...in the glow of
the grieshock she seemed to glow with a light of her
own...the People of the Star...
'My mother's folk--your folk,--my folk, came here from
the stars,' said Brendan at last, in a voice scarce louder
than a wondering whisper...'Before we came to Eruinn,
before we came to Atland, we came to Erith from the stars.
'Now, we shall return there...':.
--Patricia Kenneally Morrison
--The Deer's Cry
"They spoke of many things old and new, and Frodo
questioned Gildor much about happenings in the wide world
outside the Shire. The tidings were mostly sad and
ominous: of gathering darkness, the wars of Men, and the
flight of the Elves."
--J.R.R. Tolkien
--Fellowship of the Ring, LOTR
. . . .
Athena had retired for the night; Daryl having persuaded
her to stay on with them rather than travel back to the
gatehouse in the storm. He and Jack were in the kitchen,
having cleared off the coffee things and, at Emlyn's
suggestion, they had decided to 'take things down a
notch', and Daryl had found the old andirons with arms for
hanging a pot or kettle over the fire, and were now
setting it up in preparation for making hot cocoa and
toddies, as everyone had become rather keyed-up with the
coffee, storm and ominous revelations.
'Thanks Jack, and Daryl!' Emlyn was once more seated upon
the sofa watching as Daryl hung a cast iron pot upon the
hinged arm, and pouring almond milk within, set the heavy
lid over it and swung it over the fire to heat.
'Won't take long...and that will give us something else to
do with the marshmallows,' Daryl smiled a tired smile as
he flopped down into a nearby armchair.
'I think the worst of the storm is over...it's much
quieter now,' Em was hoping. 'That was fierce thunder
indeed!' Thunderumbles sounded softer now, farther from
them.
'Possible,' Jack sauntered over and sat beside Em, an arm
on the sofa behind her, 'storms here are unpredictable at
best.' He looked at Daryl meaningfully.
'Ah, yes...partly due to the force-field's action coming
up against the natural electromagnetism of the storm...
sortof augments things...' Daryl was staring off out the
window, the curtains open wide to the view without.
Yeats stood from his seat in the corner, not having said
much thus far this evening, he approached the fire and,
hooking a poker about the pot's lid, opened it to find it
bubbling merrily. 'I'll do the honors. Chocolate or
toddy?'
All voted on the cocoa, so Yeats, bringing in a loaded
tray, set to, and soon handed round steaming mugs.
'This time, I shall take a nip of the brandy in mine...'
Em brought the decanter over to the tea table and added a
decent drop to hers, and found she wasn't the only one so
inclined.
'And now,' Yeats began, standing at the mantle and looming
over all, 'we may at last have our little chat...'
Emlyn simply stared at him, eyes wide. 'Goodness! There's
more?'
'Indeed, we have not yet begun to discourse,' Yeats
informed her from beneath his browline like a Spanish
balcony. He took a seat in the armchair next to Daryl,
whilst Aleister pulled his chair beside the sofa and added
more brandy to his mug.
'I agreed to have Athena here to begin the evening's
dissertation, to 'set the scene' so to speak...' Yeats
began, 'now that Emlyn knows some of the more practical
points of discussion, I'll give the floor to Daryl.'
'Oh, ho, wait a moment!' Jack set his mug down. 'You knew
about Athena?'
'I did.' Yeats replied casually.
Jack didn't know how to react. But, as Yeats was their
Head, he wisely said nothing, although he felt rather out
of the loop in his own domain.
'Right,' Daryl began. Well, now or never...he sighed,
'Jack, do you recall your boarding school years?'
This was the last topic of conversation Jack had expected
tonight. 'School? Well, was awhile ago! But,
unfortunately, yes, I recall it all too well.'
'I'm not sure if you knew that Drake, your father and I,
also attended such schools,' he shot a dark look at Jack.
Jack hadn't really wanted to admit to anyone, or even
himself, how little he knew of his father, or his entire
family and their doings, having been schlepped off early
to said schools... 'Ah, well, actually...' he sighed, 'no,
Daryl, I didn't know.'
'What you also didn't know was, due to my own experiences
in such places, I was vehemently opposed to having you
sent there, and, as Drake was just as determined that you
should go, it was a key point in our...discordance.'
Em looked at Jack, who was staring at the fire, frowning.
'N-no, I...never knew of this...'
Interesting, though...
as Jack had decidedly found much of what took place in
those institutions to be so injurious to a developing
child that he was still recovering... Indeed, it was why
he had taken up meditation and martial arts to discipline
his mind to overcome the lingering negative effects of
such treatment.
Daryl looked grim. 'Yes. What you also may not have known:
these 'schools', so-called, were not educational
establishments, per se, but actual offshoots of eugenics
labs.' Daryl's tone was indicative of describing some
particularly loathsome roadkill.
Jack stood suddenly as if pulled up by a string. Hands on
hips, he glowered at the fire, then began to sweat, ran a
hand through his hair...he walked away from them all,
removed his jacket in a huff and crumpled it before him
with both hands.
'I...I...' he began, as he paced up and down the room,
'I...no, I didn't know.' But, he had suspected, oh, yes.
In fact, now, everything made some sort of utterly
revolting sense.
Emlyn, noting Jack's obvious distress, reached out to
him,'Jack...?'
--but he was oblivious to anything at the moment other
than his inner turmoil.
Daryl, however, shot her a warning glance. 'We'll get to
you, soon enough, missy.'
What could that mean? Em thought it did not sound good.
She sat back in her seat. 'I'm not unfamiliar with the
term...but from what I've heard, isn't it supposed to be a
useful thing? Being able to eliminate, say, a gene that
would predispose a child to a life-threatening illness,
for instance? Or so H.G. Wells and others have intimated.'
Jack was still standing at the window clutching his
rumpled jacket and staring without, seemingly lost in his
own recollections. Daryl watched him carefully, as he
replied to Em's query,
'Perhaps, in the beginning that may have been a primary
consideration. However, it soon became perverted into
something altogether evil, especially considering it was
perpetrated upon women and children, by men, and often
without their knowledge.'
Yeats cleared his throat, '...And sometimes, without the
knowledge of the men involved, as well.'
'This is the recombinant DNA we were speaking of then,
Daryl, when you were explaining our rather complex family
ties?' Em was getting the right of it now... '...Gene
splicing and all that?'
Jack finally became aware that he was strangling his
jacket and slowly folded it over a chair's back. He
resumed his place at the window, hands in pockets now,
Daryl noted.
'Ah, yes, Em, that...and other things. The main objection
to such experimentation came from non-whites, and for
obvious reasons...they feared being bred out of existence.
And they had good reason to fear,' Daryl made a sour face.
'So! Such ventures were relegated to the shadowy world of
the scientific underground where they were carried on
illegally.'
'Such was the case with the former inhabitants of Nob
Hill House...'
'What?' Em started, 'that, that was the 'scientific
society' you mentioned who used to meet at your house?' Em
was beginning to feel ill. 'Daryl...I can't...you should
have told me!'
Em felt betrayed somehow...and to think it was there she
found those photographs of her mother and father, and
Daryl...all together on the front steps of the place...and
there was the mystery of her mother's picture in the cameo
Daryl had given her...all this did bode most ill indeed.
Daryl stood and came over to Em, sat beside her, an arm
behind her on the sofa. 'Filla, no...it wasn't like that.
The actual labratory was not there, and the house was
indeed, just formal meeting rooms for the society--which,
by the way, engaged in perfectly respectable pursuits; at
least as far as the public and their peers were concerned.
'It was true, however, that many of the scientists in
this society, also were experimenting with eugenics on the
sly.' He sighed then, leaning back. 'I met your parents
and the rest of the members all unknowing of this at the
time. I, too, believed them to be simply brilliant,
cutting-edge men of science with unblemished reputations.'
Jack had turned from the windows and was looking at Daryl
now and frowning. Emlyn appeared somewhat recovered. 'But,
Daryl, you will tell me how you came to have Nob Hill
House in your posession?'
Daryl appeared somewhat discomfited. Yeats spoke then, 'We
are coming to that, all in good time.'
. . . . .
The clock struck 12.
Daryl appeared to be undergoing some sort of inner
conflict...he began shaking his head, then running both
hands through his hair, he slowly stood. 'The TIME is
NOW!' All eyes were on Daryl as he circled the table and
surveyed everyone. Yeats regarded him beneath heavy lids,
as if humoring a naughty lad.
Daryl rounded on him: 'And don't give me that look,
Shane!' He shook a finger at the Head, much to the
amazement of Jack, Al and Em.
'The High Council knows what should be done and when to
do, or not to do--' Yeats began, in a dry tone...
'The HIGH Council...' Daryl held up a hand, head down,
slowly pacing before them, (ala Hamlet, thought Em,
admiring his chutzpah...the cabron'),
'...has done exactly nothing! And that is why the League
had to reinsert themselves! The High Council, sit on high,
doing nothing, while the planet below suffers! Their own
kindred! We--'
'AH! "WE" you said!' Yeats was on his feet, pointing at
Daryl and looking about at everyone, 'You admit it! You
are in with the League!' Yeats was nodding, looking well
satisfied, and regarded the room. 'What of non-
interference?'
'This isn't Star Trek.' Daryl just looked disgusted.
'This is real. Would you allow all here, and all you love,
to simply be destroyed? No? Well, WE are doing something
about it!'
. . . .
What just happened here...? Em thought to herself,
flabbergasted.
I've certainly never imagined it of old Yeats...
After some serious attitudinization, the two men said
nothing. Just glared at one another. Em snuck a glance at
Jack who was, at least, finally shocked out of his
previous shock. He and Al both were staring wide eyed at
the Head vs. Mad Uncle theatre. Jack's mouth was even
slightly open. At last, he put it to use:
'Daryl...what...is going on? Do be seated! Athena will
be down here soon!'
Mentioning Athena seemed to get through to Daryl at last.
He smoothly resumed his seat in the armchair. Yeats
retreated to a far dark corner.
Strangely enough, it was Aleister who took up the baton:
'We're not altogether uninformed you know. Jack and I are
aware of...well...rumors of such...'
Daryl sat forward, elbows on knees, clasping his hands
before him as if to rein himself in. If he were a wolf, or
panther, his back would be up. 'Well,
well...so...'informed', are you?' he slowly shook his
head, 'I wonder.' He glanced up, wiping his mane from his
eyes. Riviting Aleister with his silver grey statue's
gaze, he leaned toward him, whispering hoarsly, 'tell me,
doctor, did you know this: Emlyn's father, Axelis, yes--
of the League! -- was branded a wanted man and accused of
kidnapping Emlyn's mother from the Pages? Seren stayed
with Axelis...yes, and she had her child, Emlyn, while
under his care and the care of his people...they were
later returned. The Pages, of course, knew all. The
kidnapping charges were dreamed up by your High Council!'
Daryl fixed Yeats with a look of a dagger-thrust.
Yeats spoke from his cave-like corner: 'Why, did he kidnap
Seren?'
'He didn't, you fool...' Daryl sat back and rubbed his
forehead as if it pained him, and whispered, 'He was
saving her, saving them both, Seren and Emlyn...' he
sighed, then spoke in a clear, quiet voice, '...saving
them from Seren's husband, Emlyn's 'father', so called!
And from the scientists of the Society.'
. . . .
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Chapter 11 - When Sleeping Dragons Waken
Chapter 11 - When Sleeping Dragons Waken
"Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land."
--Tolkien, LOTR
. . . .
A misty morning greeted Jack and his guests, nothing lingered of the storm except downed tree limbs and a look about the property of a general thrashing. Jack and Emlyn
had been up before anyone else oddly enough, and after breakfast, had taken a walk about the grounds checking for anything amiss.
When they returned to the house some hours later, they found Daryl and Yeats both up and seated across the dining table from each other, Daryl looking as though he'd just been interrupted in intense debate, and Yeats leaning towards him, brows twitching like a beetle's antenna. As Em and Jack approached, they knew they had interrupted...something.
Daryl flicked a glance at them, then to Yeats, who leaned back in his chair, and nodded.
'Good, that's settled,' Daryl remarked, looking relieved.
'What's settled?' Jack wished to know what was going on in his house, now...who knew what these two had been plotting...?
Daryl spoke up:'We were hoping that, with your permission of course, Jack, I might stay on another day, and Emlyn, as well?'
Jack and Em took seats about the table. 'Yes, naturally,
you can stay! Daryl, this is your house. I, well, I rather wish you would stay on, for good and all, and run the place, in fact!' Jack was smiling, but he had never been more serious.
Daryl smiled ruefully, but looked down, shaking his head.
'I can't Jack...I wish I could. I don't mean to add to your burdens, but it isn't a good idea for me to stay here for any length of time,' his gaze went to Yeats then, who simply stared out the window. Daryl sighed. 'I will, however, if it would help at all, try to spend more time here and, ah, take on some duties of maintaining the property. I'll...try not to be in your way.'
Jack was well pleased with this: 'That, Uncle Daryl, is the best birthday gift you could have made me!'
'Also,' Daryl continued, 'I was hoping I might persuade you to allow me to invite a guest here tonight, for Emlyn to meet. A fellow librarian.'
'Oh? Indeed?' Em was curious now, 'I'd very much like to meet her, er, him?'
'Her.' Daryl looked at Em. 'She is, a contemporary of mine. And she could tell you a bit about the role of libraries in your centuries to come.'
Jack cast a glance at Yeats then. What was Daryl up to now? But Yeats spoke up, 'I, also, am staying through tonight, and along with our, guest...we were thinking of having a...talk.'
'Sounds serious!' Em smiled. When no one returned her grin or spoke, she knew it may very well be.
'Well, now...' Jack tried to compose himself and wrap his head around all these new developments, 'of course, your guest would be welcome. It would be of interest to Em, I dare say, to speak with a librarian from this time.'
If the Head has given his approval, who am I to argue? Jack thought, adding to himself, that any idea of Daryl's might prove to be problematic somehow, and he best be on guard.
'The library of the future...' Em mused. 'I have wondered how they've changed. I have seen the library here at the house and it looks wonderfully similar to those of our time.'
Daryl grinned then, looking down at his coffee, 'I, ah, am somewhat of an anachronism, I fear, Em. Not many deal with actual physical books nowadays.'
Emlyn looked rather nonplussed. But, she decided, all would be revealed later tonight.
And indeed, it was. And rather more than she or anyone else had bargained for, perhaps...
. . . .
The wind had picked up again by evening, trees lashed against the house and blasts howled down the chimneys.
'Dark already...and it's early still.' Emlyn stood at the parlor window, watching the storm begin it's second act.
Jack came up behind her and slipped his arms about her, staring at the slate grey-indigo skies. 'It looks like lightning clouds...I've seen it like this before. Night will come early and soon.' He noticed then the glow of headlights moving through the trees lining the drive. 'I think this may be our guest...' Jack glanced over his shoulder to see if Daryl was about.
Racing down the stairs, Daryl was shrugging into a jacket as he headed for the door, just in time to hear a soft chime. He smiled at Emlyn and opened the door. 'Entre! Do come in from the storm, Athena, and warm up!' Jack noted that Daryl was back in his element, acting as head of the house. Good.
In glided a tall imposing woman with long silver white hair braided into intricate strands. A handsome woman, as one may say, of a certain age yet still most lovely. Her eyes held one's gaze like blue steel traps however, Em noted.
'Thank you for joining us tonight,' Daryl ushered her into the parlor. 'Jack, Emlyn, this is my dear friend, Athena...ah! Mr. Yeats, Aleister, do join us!'
The lady nodded to all and shook hands, holding Em's awhile longer. 'It is a pleasure to meet you, Emlyn. Daryl has told me much about you.'
'And I have been anxious to make your acquaintance as well! Always good to meet a fellow bibliophile!' Em gushed.
Athena looked over Em's shoulder at Daryl, but said nothing.
'Do have a seat, cherie....coffee? Or brandy?' Daryl slid into his role as host easy as butter, thought Jack, taking a seat on the sofa beside Em.
'Oh, why not both?' Athena smiled, removing her gloves as she sat near the fireside, Yeats stood beside her leaning against the mantlepiece while Aleister administered the cognac.
'Athena worked for the local public library where I grew up as a lad,' Daryl confessed as he poured coffee all round.
'Many years ago, thank you, Daryl...' Athena crossed her long legs clad in fashionable boots and sat back sipping her coffee. 'Back when there were such rare animals...'
Em sat forward. 'Sorry? Rare...you mean libraries themselves are rare now?'
'My dear Emlyn...life as you now know it, in your time, is but a picture in a book--if there were books still about,' Athena dropped this newsbomb right off, but sat looking demure as a cat still.
Em set her coffee cup down with a clatter. 'I, I do realize, from what Jack and Daryl have disclosed, that life is rather...unnatural in the future. But--no books?'
For Emlyn, this hit hard, and seemed so unreal she simply couldn't fathom...
Athena smiled gently. 'Let me back up abit...' she sipped her brandy-laced coffee, 'Ah, let's see...about when did we meet, Daryl?'
'I was 5 years old...so around 2025 I believe...' Daryl supplied. Hard to think of Daryl ever being so young, somehow he seemed rather out-of-time; remaining always the same age he now was.
'Riiight...I was just 19 and it was my first real job,' Athena smiled at Em. 'I loved library work...and real libraries. I was a bit of a Luddite for my time: although I was a computer wiz, I actually preferred real books. When I was a child, we had real-book libraries, still.'
Em looked rather lost. 'A 'whizz?''she enquired.
Athena glanced at Daryl. 'Haven't you updated the lass at all, Daryl?' Not bothering to await an answer, she pressed on, 'PCs or personal computers...ah, are you familiar with Babbage's analytical machine, my dear?'
'Oh! That, yes. Something like unto a mechanical abacus, I thought...' Em had heard vaguely something of Babbage's machine.
'Calculations, yes, only it does so much more...' Athena set her cup down, and tasted from her snifter, a sad smile marking her features. 'Little did we know just how much more! Before machines took over the world, they seemed to be time and work saving devices. Alas, all too soon, they over-ran the earth like locusts, gobbling up jobs... You can compare it to your Industrial Revolution, Em. So many jobs were displaced by computers...printing, photography,
microfilming, file clerking...the list goes on...but eventually, and within scant decades, bookstores disappeared, and libraries were barely hanging on by their fingernails...'
'Oh, dear!' Em glanced over at Jack, truly alarmed. 'Jack, I'd no idea the future was so ominous!' Em seemed able to imagine artificial life underground, but no books! That was truly diabolical.
Athena sighed, leaning back in her seat. 'You've no idea, and be glad of that!' She rested her head against the armchair, pondering awhile and Yeats took the seat beside her. 'When I first started working there, libraries kept a few token best-sellers, and academic libraries did keep certain books archived, but as everything had gone digital, even rare volumes, digitally copied, were thought
to be all one would ever need, and times were hard, so many libraries were forced to sell some of their hard-won collections.'
'Digitally?' Em endeavored to keep up.
'It's rather like...photography in a way, Em,' Jack spoke up, 'the books were 'scanned', photographed, cataloged and filed into the data base on computer. To access the 'book' one needed only to turn the machine on, and there, displayed on a screen, you can view the 'virtual' item.'
'Ah, I see. So, you can read the book, without having the actual item.' Em thought this could be a good thing, in a way, 'but, that would enable more people to access knowledge, wouldn't it? Certain books are difficult to get, especially for the poor...'
'Dear Emlyn...' Athena regarded her sadly, 'the future, despite all it's so-called advances, was in dire straights during that time...computers were fiendishly expensive! And the disappearance of books and libraries made it even more difficult for the lower classes to access knowledge!'
'Never had there been such a great gulf between rich and poor, not since the French Revolution, perhaps,' Daryl added, looking drear, 'people, entire families slept in the streets, while the richest 1% of the population held all the wealth. Entire cities went bankrupt.'
'It was all part of the plan, of course,' Athena continued, 'to keep the masses down. College, classical education was beyond reach of most. Only the very rich could afford to educate their offspring.'
Em sat in stunned silence. This was not the future she had envisioned for her brave young suffragists to rally toward. 'We...we are endeavoring to gain the right to vote. Surely women can vote in the future? I can see how a few greedy men would allow the world to go to hell in a hickory basket, but women?'
Athena sat forward, clasping her hands, 'Oh, my dear girl...I'm so sorry. But, the devil has the future by the tail. You will make great strides, and women were freed from the basest of injustices. Even reproductive freedom was won, somewhat, for awhile...' she looked down, 'but, the 'few greedy men' you mentioned, became great corporations--juggernauts that trampled all in their path: including the judicial system and all areas of government.'
'Voting, became a joke,' Jack added softly, 'since the system was completely controlled by the rich CEOs of the top corporations; in effect, as the saying went then, 'Corporatocracy is the new Aristocracy,' and might made right.'
Em could envision it all, here and now, even: the railroads, the trusts...and industry's relentless march... 'But, what of Unions? Have they no say at all?'
Everyone looked at her sadly, saying nothing.
'I see...' Em did.
Daryl felt moved to supply, '...At first, the Unions were a force to be reckoned with. Then, there were far too many people desperate for work! And with outsourcing, that sounded the death-knell for unions.'
'Ah, with computers, you see...' Jack endeavored to explain, 'the world became a 'global village'--distance was no issue: one can communicate across the globe within seconds. So, the rich few, opened up factories in dirt-poor countries where people were glad to work for pennies, then ship it back to the US, mark up the price by an indecent percentage, and sell to the people here still able to work, make and spend some meager dollars.'
Emlyn was beginning to see the problem. The same old problem, really...
'Anyway,' Daryl continued, 'I was young enough and lucky enough to still be able to access 'real' libraries...Aleister here might recall the library at college. Real books there, eh, Aleister?'
Al blinked. 'Ah, there were! In archives, of course...' he turned to Em, 'all to be handled with white gloves, and treated like the fragile treasures they were...'
'Of all the horrors I have heard of the future, no books puts it into perspective for me!' Em huffed.
'Indeed...' Athena regarded her young sister in library science, finishing her brandy.
All sat in relative silence a moment, listening to the storm build. A sudden flash of light was seen through the windows, then a far-off rumble of thunder made itself heard.
Jack stood then and added logs to the fire, whilst Aleister, as ever, brandished the brandy decanter enquiring if anyone cared to join him? Nearly all assented, save Yeats, who trudled off toward the kitchen, mentioning something about fresh coffee...
. . . .
As the logs blazed up and Jack turned up the amber wall sconces lighting higher, the room brightened somewhat and when Yeats returned with a tray of aromatic Sumatran, all felt somewhat revived.
'As I said, I was abit of a Luddite, in my way,' Athena continued, smiling grimly, 'and I tried to fight the tide rising against "evil books"!' She glanced meaningfully at Em, 'You would not believe it! If a book did not circulate enough according to Powers That Be--which of course, were those who thought only of money to be made--they were labeled 'shelf-sitters' and discarded! I recall working the Central branch for a time, and all these orphan books were stacked in great heaps, for librarians to peruse and pass scentence upon: to be trashed, or merely sold off...'
'But, how did getting rid of books, help the library make money?' Em wanted to know.
Athena smiled like a cat, 'Ah! Well may you ask!' She sipped her coffee, adding a dash of cream, 'I can recall, when first starting out in the field, the battle cry of administration: 'The Digital Library of the Future!' You see, Em, people with money, had computers and ever smaller computers, portable, lightweight, and one could download entire books onto them, and read them, simply looking at a tablet with a view-screen. The PTB thought this was a gold mine in the making! Their thinking was that libraries would simply become stations where folk, upper-class folk, of course, would merely pop in to, choose a virtual book, called an 'e' or electronic book, from the catalog, download it to their device, and then they would pop out again and not bother them long. You see? No books, no need for shelvers, workers to check in and out physical books, no need for librarians really, perhaps a token few, well-versed in computer, not necessarily library science, and less space needed for these dirty, nasty books, germ-ridden little beasts that they were.'
'Oh,' Em saw. She was utterly crestfallen.
Aleister spoke up: 'And that was just the beginning; PCs or personal computers, soon gave way to CPs or Chip Programmers.'
Chips. Em had heard of them. She had one in her head apparently.
'Nowadays, it is the usual thing to simply program one's chip,' Jack told her gently, 'to upload a book, or a video, whatever one wishes, into one's personal microchip, and acquire the knowledge; no need of a device with a viewscreen.'
'Thus the first cyber-bioengineering was born...' Daryl half-snarled in remark. 'And machines made man in their own image!' he paused, taking a deep pull of brandy, 'I've had mine removed.'
All looked at him then. Apparently, this was news.
'How, if I may ask?' Jack demanded, frowning.
'We're getting to that...' Daryl would only say, glancing at Yeats. 'But first--'
--On cue, a great flash at the window, brighter than before, and a rolling thunder clap sounded, that shook the house, making everyone jump.
Jack laughed a bit shakily. 'You, didn't do that, did you Uncle?' Everyone chuckled, tension relieved somewhat.
Daryl merely smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. 'Ah, not this time...but, the Cosmic Stagehands seem to be on cue!' He nodded thoughtfully, 'Odd...that actors and musicians seemed to do well enough in these future times, moreso than just ordinary folk trying to earn a living by regular means...' he poured more coffee for himself and Athena who held out her cup. 'But, that was before the CMEs...'
Emlyn was wearying of all these blasted acronyms; they made her head hurt trying to keep up. 'Oh, not more computer language...'
'Ah, no Em...actually, rather anti-computer!' Daryl crossed his legs, warming to the subject, 'Computers had one nemesis! The Sun! Coronal Mass Ejections!'
Jack smiled, sadly. 'Yes, Em...you see, in times to come, science discovered that the sun...'
'Yes, Jack, I do know of the sun's emanations. You do know of the great solar storm of 1859! Telegraph signals were down all across Europe and North America. Telegraph operators were shocked unconscious by it!' Em supplied knowledgeably.
'Ah! You see, young Jack! Librarians are still fountains of knowledge! Even for those who know the future!' Athena
winked at Emlyn companionably.
'That's right...!' Jack admitted. 'I had forgotten that!'
'Apparently, everyone else in the world had as well!' Daryl continued, 'Because, computers ruled the world and were deemed the ultimate be-all and end-all; invulnerable, invaluable, and prized above human life or liberty...absolute rulers of earth. All our convenient machines ran everything: the power behind the planet; dismissing the inconvenient truth: that they were, in fact, not indestructible.'
'Much inconvenient truth was dismissed then, to the ruin of all,' Aleister commented darkly, 'even when it was proven again and again...3 Mile Island, Fukushima...not to mention Nagasaki and Hiroshima.'
Emlyn looked lost again. 'Japan? What of Japan?' Em had felt a life-long fascination, perhaps a tie with that far-eastern country.
'Japan did what they had to do, for a small island nation, with an ever-expanding population,' Jack supplied, running a hand through his hair and frowning, 'THAT was the big inconvenient truth: over-population!' He looked at Em then, 'Alas; mainly due to the church, and the Elite, who found it's repressive teachings to their advantage, nothing was done to curb over-population of the planet.'
'More little consumers! Buying ever more material crap to be chucked into overflowing landfills!' Aleister growled, 'Simply barbaric!'
Athena held her snifter to him for a refill, 'Thank you, Aleister.' She took a dainty sip. 'Yes, rather than disturb the status-quo, only China took pains to do curb their burgeoning population which would soon have overwhelmed them otherwise. And their means was viewed by all the rest of the world as draconian and proof of their demonic communistic insensibilies!'
'Eat The Rich!' Jack put in, 'that was the rallying cry, for awhile, when the common folk began to catch on that their lives were worthless.'
'I'm quite lost, I fear,' Emlyn spoke up, 'tell me the significance of these Japanese cities you mentioned.'
All were quiet for a moment, then Aleister began, 'Ah, Em...science had created a monster. In mankind's search for ever more destructive and abominable means of killing
one another, we found a power that could not only decimate
entire cities, but entire worlds. And the aftermath, was even worse than the destruction. A poison aftereffect, that would last thousands of years, making the air, land, water, all life, deathly toxic. But! It could also be used for power! Power to run our dear, precious machines! Even though the residue from it was that deadly poison--which no one knew what to do with! They simply stored the toxic waste in containers underground. 'Thinking' that someday, maybe, someone might have an idea what to do with it...'
Emlyn was shocked to her core. 'How was this possible? How could people have allowed this?'
A collective sigh was heard as everyone wondered where to begin. Daryl took up the baton, 'Well, the dangers were of course, downplayed, while efficiency and progress and savings! of course, were marketed to the public.
'People knew. They simply were so busy living their lives, working, breeding, consuming, they let the world run on however it would...thinking, rightly, that they had no power anyway.'
'I, I simply can't believe it...' Em was shaking her head.
'How, knowing that the future, or some unlooked-for happenstance, could unleash a power that could wipe out all life on the planet! And no one really cared?'
'Oh, my dear...' Athena looked at her woefully, 'I recall when all this was still ongoing, a friend of mine, who had children, no less--said to me that she was angered because a majority in her town had managed to shut down one of these power plants! She was distressed that now her electric bill would go up by afew dollars!'
Em knew now what one was up against. And if only the rich could afford an education...people would be kept in ignorance as long as it was profitable for others, the favored few.
'So, as to the CME's you said...?'
'Yes. One day, during solar peak activity, a great coronal mass ejection hit the earth, knocking out all power. Despite knowing what this would do to the power plants, and having no recourse for the toxic waste, nothing was put into place, or had even yet been conceived of, to withstand such an occurrance. Back-up generators eventually gave out, and the cooling systems couldn't hold. The air was poisoned by emissions, the oceans decimated by toxins. World-wide. The powers that be, had at last found something that their great god: money, couldn't solve.'
Again, the silence in the room. Strong winds could be heard rattling the windows and flames in the fireplace blew up and out. Jack reached forward with the poker and rummaged about the logs, banking the fire down.
Emlyn was beginning to get the big picture. 'So...because of this...poison power monopoly, and the CMEs, with all systems geared to computers, which were vulnerable to the sun's ejections, eventually, survivors were forced underground...'
'Exactly, Em.' Daryl looked at her, meaningfully.
A pause. Em noticed then, everyone looking her way. Even Yeats.
She got it then.
'So...so...why, how...are we here, now? We ARE in Massachusetts, in the USA, are we not? In...the 2070's?'
She looked at them all. 'But, Jack, we were outside, walking, taking the air this morning...? Oh, I'm confused...'
A sudden blast of light and lightning, a resounding BOOM! thundered overhead, and the lights went out.
Jack laughed. 'Ah, you see, Em, we're still vulnerable to the elements here!' He got up and went to the desk drawer where he dug up an electric torch. 'I'll just go see to the fuses...there is a backup generator, as well. Won't be but a moment. Ah, Al--light some candles, meanwhile, eh?'
As Aleister, ever-ready with a match, began brightening the room about them with candlelight, all felt the need to stand and stretch and relieve themselves of the dire, dark mood which had engulfed them minutes before.
Jack returned, finding everyone staring out the window, surrounded by soft candlelight. 'How's it look out there?'
'Can't tell, it's so dark out...' Em replied, 'but, may we leave the lights off awhile, Jack? Candlelight is so warm...and we've enough candles to see well enough, yes?'
All agreed this was much preferable. 'And we've wood enough for heat. And cooking. Yes, let's just, ah, camp out indoors, then, shall we?'
'Great idea, Jack! One moment!' Aleister bustled off to the kitchen.
'I've always preferred candlelight myself,' Athena allowed, 'and real books.'
If Em had ever been envious of Jack or her other future-based friends, she certainly was no longer. Never would she begrudge the time, the era, she found herself within.
Al reappeared with a bag of marshmallows and skewers.
'Campfire treats! Toasted marshmallows, anyone?'
. . . .
All were hunkered down about the fireplace, having moved aside the furniture, and piled up comfy cushions to sit and lean upon, and toasted their puffy sweet treats by the fire. (Yeats the only exception, remained in the chair nearest the fire, while Emlyn passed him his toasted treat on skewer.) In addition, Jack and Em had brought in tasty comestibles from the kitchen; assorted nuts to crack with hammers and nutcrackers, fruits and cheeses.
Gathering together and bending to some physical tasks helped everyone to shake off the gloom of the preceeding presentation of Hard Facts.
'This will do well. In fact, I could live like this myself,' Jack offered, 'I just couldn't work like this...
computers again, alas...but the refrigeration and heating systems are running on auxiliary power, they'll be fine.'
Nothing was heard for some time but the cracking of nutshells and crackling of the fire logs, whilst the wind continued to rage without.
'An oasis in Time...' Yeats offered, taking the skewer Em handed to him.
'How's that, Mr. Yeats?' Em acknowledged.
The Head cleared his throat, 'Where we are, Emlyn, is rather like being wrapped within a cocoon of Other-Time.
We are physically located in Massachusetts, yes, but we are rather outside of time, proper. We are almost in an alternate world unto itself here.'
Em poked her marshmallow, examining it's crumbly brown shell. 'How far does it extend, this oasis?'
'Approximately 2 miles, in all directions,' Daryl answered.
'And, are there any other...residents?'
'No,' said Jack, at the same time Daryl answered, 'Yes.
'Athena lives nearby...' he smiled her way.
'In the gatekeeper's cottage,' that lady admitted, 'but Daryl keeps yet another field surrounding it, cloaking it, so that the very view of the cottage is blocked to outsiders, as an added safeguard, being so near the Border.'
'Interesting...' Jack cracked open a pecan, 'I actually believed that it had been torn down.' He chewed thoughtfully. 'To think, all this time, Al, we had An Invisible Resident!'
'Isn't that what we all are? Here?' Daryl smiled at them mischeviously.
'Refugees of Time...' Jack mused.
'Orphans of the Storm,' Emlyn decided, once again.
. . . .
"Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land."
--Tolkien, LOTR
. . . .
A misty morning greeted Jack and his guests, nothing lingered of the storm except downed tree limbs and a look about the property of a general thrashing. Jack and Emlyn
had been up before anyone else oddly enough, and after breakfast, had taken a walk about the grounds checking for anything amiss.
When they returned to the house some hours later, they found Daryl and Yeats both up and seated across the dining table from each other, Daryl looking as though he'd just been interrupted in intense debate, and Yeats leaning towards him, brows twitching like a beetle's antenna. As Em and Jack approached, they knew they had interrupted...something.
Daryl flicked a glance at them, then to Yeats, who leaned back in his chair, and nodded.
'Good, that's settled,' Daryl remarked, looking relieved.
'What's settled?' Jack wished to know what was going on in his house, now...who knew what these two had been plotting...?
Daryl spoke up:'We were hoping that, with your permission of course, Jack, I might stay on another day, and Emlyn, as well?'
Jack and Em took seats about the table. 'Yes, naturally,
you can stay! Daryl, this is your house. I, well, I rather wish you would stay on, for good and all, and run the place, in fact!' Jack was smiling, but he had never been more serious.
Daryl smiled ruefully, but looked down, shaking his head.
'I can't Jack...I wish I could. I don't mean to add to your burdens, but it isn't a good idea for me to stay here for any length of time,' his gaze went to Yeats then, who simply stared out the window. Daryl sighed. 'I will, however, if it would help at all, try to spend more time here and, ah, take on some duties of maintaining the property. I'll...try not to be in your way.'
Jack was well pleased with this: 'That, Uncle Daryl, is the best birthday gift you could have made me!'
'Also,' Daryl continued, 'I was hoping I might persuade you to allow me to invite a guest here tonight, for Emlyn to meet. A fellow librarian.'
'Oh? Indeed?' Em was curious now, 'I'd very much like to meet her, er, him?'
'Her.' Daryl looked at Em. 'She is, a contemporary of mine. And she could tell you a bit about the role of libraries in your centuries to come.'
Jack cast a glance at Yeats then. What was Daryl up to now? But Yeats spoke up, 'I, also, am staying through tonight, and along with our, guest...we were thinking of having a...talk.'
'Sounds serious!' Em smiled. When no one returned her grin or spoke, she knew it may very well be.
'Well, now...' Jack tried to compose himself and wrap his head around all these new developments, 'of course, your guest would be welcome. It would be of interest to Em, I dare say, to speak with a librarian from this time.'
If the Head has given his approval, who am I to argue? Jack thought, adding to himself, that any idea of Daryl's might prove to be problematic somehow, and he best be on guard.
'The library of the future...' Em mused. 'I have wondered how they've changed. I have seen the library here at the house and it looks wonderfully similar to those of our time.'
Daryl grinned then, looking down at his coffee, 'I, ah, am somewhat of an anachronism, I fear, Em. Not many deal with actual physical books nowadays.'
Emlyn looked rather nonplussed. But, she decided, all would be revealed later tonight.
And indeed, it was. And rather more than she or anyone else had bargained for, perhaps...
. . . .
The wind had picked up again by evening, trees lashed against the house and blasts howled down the chimneys.
'Dark already...and it's early still.' Emlyn stood at the parlor window, watching the storm begin it's second act.
Jack came up behind her and slipped his arms about her, staring at the slate grey-indigo skies. 'It looks like lightning clouds...I've seen it like this before. Night will come early and soon.' He noticed then the glow of headlights moving through the trees lining the drive. 'I think this may be our guest...' Jack glanced over his shoulder to see if Daryl was about.
Racing down the stairs, Daryl was shrugging into a jacket as he headed for the door, just in time to hear a soft chime. He smiled at Emlyn and opened the door. 'Entre! Do come in from the storm, Athena, and warm up!' Jack noted that Daryl was back in his element, acting as head of the house. Good.
In glided a tall imposing woman with long silver white hair braided into intricate strands. A handsome woman, as one may say, of a certain age yet still most lovely. Her eyes held one's gaze like blue steel traps however, Em noted.
'Thank you for joining us tonight,' Daryl ushered her into the parlor. 'Jack, Emlyn, this is my dear friend, Athena...ah! Mr. Yeats, Aleister, do join us!'
The lady nodded to all and shook hands, holding Em's awhile longer. 'It is a pleasure to meet you, Emlyn. Daryl has told me much about you.'
'And I have been anxious to make your acquaintance as well! Always good to meet a fellow bibliophile!' Em gushed.
Athena looked over Em's shoulder at Daryl, but said nothing.
'Do have a seat, cherie....coffee? Or brandy?' Daryl slid into his role as host easy as butter, thought Jack, taking a seat on the sofa beside Em.
'Oh, why not both?' Athena smiled, removing her gloves as she sat near the fireside, Yeats stood beside her leaning against the mantlepiece while Aleister administered the cognac.
'Athena worked for the local public library where I grew up as a lad,' Daryl confessed as he poured coffee all round.
'Many years ago, thank you, Daryl...' Athena crossed her long legs clad in fashionable boots and sat back sipping her coffee. 'Back when there were such rare animals...'
Em sat forward. 'Sorry? Rare...you mean libraries themselves are rare now?'
'My dear Emlyn...life as you now know it, in your time, is but a picture in a book--if there were books still about,' Athena dropped this newsbomb right off, but sat looking demure as a cat still.
Em set her coffee cup down with a clatter. 'I, I do realize, from what Jack and Daryl have disclosed, that life is rather...unnatural in the future. But--no books?'
For Emlyn, this hit hard, and seemed so unreal she simply couldn't fathom...
Athena smiled gently. 'Let me back up abit...' she sipped her brandy-laced coffee, 'Ah, let's see...about when did we meet, Daryl?'
'I was 5 years old...so around 2025 I believe...' Daryl supplied. Hard to think of Daryl ever being so young, somehow he seemed rather out-of-time; remaining always the same age he now was.
'Riiight...I was just 19 and it was my first real job,' Athena smiled at Em. 'I loved library work...and real libraries. I was a bit of a Luddite for my time: although I was a computer wiz, I actually preferred real books. When I was a child, we had real-book libraries, still.'
Em looked rather lost. 'A 'whizz?''she enquired.
Athena glanced at Daryl. 'Haven't you updated the lass at all, Daryl?' Not bothering to await an answer, she pressed on, 'PCs or personal computers...ah, are you familiar with Babbage's analytical machine, my dear?'
'Oh! That, yes. Something like unto a mechanical abacus, I thought...' Em had heard vaguely something of Babbage's machine.
'Calculations, yes, only it does so much more...' Athena set her cup down, and tasted from her snifter, a sad smile marking her features. 'Little did we know just how much more! Before machines took over the world, they seemed to be time and work saving devices. Alas, all too soon, they over-ran the earth like locusts, gobbling up jobs... You can compare it to your Industrial Revolution, Em. So many jobs were displaced by computers...printing, photography,
microfilming, file clerking...the list goes on...but eventually, and within scant decades, bookstores disappeared, and libraries were barely hanging on by their fingernails...'
'Oh, dear!' Em glanced over at Jack, truly alarmed. 'Jack, I'd no idea the future was so ominous!' Em seemed able to imagine artificial life underground, but no books! That was truly diabolical.
Athena sighed, leaning back in her seat. 'You've no idea, and be glad of that!' She rested her head against the armchair, pondering awhile and Yeats took the seat beside her. 'When I first started working there, libraries kept a few token best-sellers, and academic libraries did keep certain books archived, but as everything had gone digital, even rare volumes, digitally copied, were thought
to be all one would ever need, and times were hard, so many libraries were forced to sell some of their hard-won collections.'
'Digitally?' Em endeavored to keep up.
'It's rather like...photography in a way, Em,' Jack spoke up, 'the books were 'scanned', photographed, cataloged and filed into the data base on computer. To access the 'book' one needed only to turn the machine on, and there, displayed on a screen, you can view the 'virtual' item.'
'Ah, I see. So, you can read the book, without having the actual item.' Em thought this could be a good thing, in a way, 'but, that would enable more people to access knowledge, wouldn't it? Certain books are difficult to get, especially for the poor...'
'Dear Emlyn...' Athena regarded her sadly, 'the future, despite all it's so-called advances, was in dire straights during that time...computers were fiendishly expensive! And the disappearance of books and libraries made it even more difficult for the lower classes to access knowledge!'
'Never had there been such a great gulf between rich and poor, not since the French Revolution, perhaps,' Daryl added, looking drear, 'people, entire families slept in the streets, while the richest 1% of the population held all the wealth. Entire cities went bankrupt.'
'It was all part of the plan, of course,' Athena continued, 'to keep the masses down. College, classical education was beyond reach of most. Only the very rich could afford to educate their offspring.'
Em sat in stunned silence. This was not the future she had envisioned for her brave young suffragists to rally toward. 'We...we are endeavoring to gain the right to vote. Surely women can vote in the future? I can see how a few greedy men would allow the world to go to hell in a hickory basket, but women?'
Athena sat forward, clasping her hands, 'Oh, my dear girl...I'm so sorry. But, the devil has the future by the tail. You will make great strides, and women were freed from the basest of injustices. Even reproductive freedom was won, somewhat, for awhile...' she looked down, 'but, the 'few greedy men' you mentioned, became great corporations--juggernauts that trampled all in their path: including the judicial system and all areas of government.'
'Voting, became a joke,' Jack added softly, 'since the system was completely controlled by the rich CEOs of the top corporations; in effect, as the saying went then, 'Corporatocracy is the new Aristocracy,' and might made right.'
Em could envision it all, here and now, even: the railroads, the trusts...and industry's relentless march... 'But, what of Unions? Have they no say at all?'
Everyone looked at her sadly, saying nothing.
'I see...' Em did.
Daryl felt moved to supply, '...At first, the Unions were a force to be reckoned with. Then, there were far too many people desperate for work! And with outsourcing, that sounded the death-knell for unions.'
'Ah, with computers, you see...' Jack endeavored to explain, 'the world became a 'global village'--distance was no issue: one can communicate across the globe within seconds. So, the rich few, opened up factories in dirt-poor countries where people were glad to work for pennies, then ship it back to the US, mark up the price by an indecent percentage, and sell to the people here still able to work, make and spend some meager dollars.'
Emlyn was beginning to see the problem. The same old problem, really...
'Anyway,' Daryl continued, 'I was young enough and lucky enough to still be able to access 'real' libraries...Aleister here might recall the library at college. Real books there, eh, Aleister?'
Al blinked. 'Ah, there were! In archives, of course...' he turned to Em, 'all to be handled with white gloves, and treated like the fragile treasures they were...'
'Of all the horrors I have heard of the future, no books puts it into perspective for me!' Em huffed.
'Indeed...' Athena regarded her young sister in library science, finishing her brandy.
All sat in relative silence a moment, listening to the storm build. A sudden flash of light was seen through the windows, then a far-off rumble of thunder made itself heard.
Jack stood then and added logs to the fire, whilst Aleister, as ever, brandished the brandy decanter enquiring if anyone cared to join him? Nearly all assented, save Yeats, who trudled off toward the kitchen, mentioning something about fresh coffee...
. . . .
As the logs blazed up and Jack turned up the amber wall sconces lighting higher, the room brightened somewhat and when Yeats returned with a tray of aromatic Sumatran, all felt somewhat revived.
'As I said, I was abit of a Luddite, in my way,' Athena continued, smiling grimly, 'and I tried to fight the tide rising against "evil books"!' She glanced meaningfully at Em, 'You would not believe it! If a book did not circulate enough according to Powers That Be--which of course, were those who thought only of money to be made--they were labeled 'shelf-sitters' and discarded! I recall working the Central branch for a time, and all these orphan books were stacked in great heaps, for librarians to peruse and pass scentence upon: to be trashed, or merely sold off...'
'But, how did getting rid of books, help the library make money?' Em wanted to know.
Athena smiled like a cat, 'Ah! Well may you ask!' She sipped her coffee, adding a dash of cream, 'I can recall, when first starting out in the field, the battle cry of administration: 'The Digital Library of the Future!' You see, Em, people with money, had computers and ever smaller computers, portable, lightweight, and one could download entire books onto them, and read them, simply looking at a tablet with a view-screen. The PTB thought this was a gold mine in the making! Their thinking was that libraries would simply become stations where folk, upper-class folk, of course, would merely pop in to, choose a virtual book, called an 'e' or electronic book, from the catalog, download it to their device, and then they would pop out again and not bother them long. You see? No books, no need for shelvers, workers to check in and out physical books, no need for librarians really, perhaps a token few, well-versed in computer, not necessarily library science, and less space needed for these dirty, nasty books, germ-ridden little beasts that they were.'
'Oh,' Em saw. She was utterly crestfallen.
Aleister spoke up: 'And that was just the beginning; PCs or personal computers, soon gave way to CPs or Chip Programmers.'
Chips. Em had heard of them. She had one in her head apparently.
'Nowadays, it is the usual thing to simply program one's chip,' Jack told her gently, 'to upload a book, or a video, whatever one wishes, into one's personal microchip, and acquire the knowledge; no need of a device with a viewscreen.'
'Thus the first cyber-bioengineering was born...' Daryl half-snarled in remark. 'And machines made man in their own image!' he paused, taking a deep pull of brandy, 'I've had mine removed.'
All looked at him then. Apparently, this was news.
'How, if I may ask?' Jack demanded, frowning.
'We're getting to that...' Daryl would only say, glancing at Yeats. 'But first--'
--On cue, a great flash at the window, brighter than before, and a rolling thunder clap sounded, that shook the house, making everyone jump.
Jack laughed a bit shakily. 'You, didn't do that, did you Uncle?' Everyone chuckled, tension relieved somewhat.
Daryl merely smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. 'Ah, not this time...but, the Cosmic Stagehands seem to be on cue!' He nodded thoughtfully, 'Odd...that actors and musicians seemed to do well enough in these future times, moreso than just ordinary folk trying to earn a living by regular means...' he poured more coffee for himself and Athena who held out her cup. 'But, that was before the CMEs...'
Emlyn was wearying of all these blasted acronyms; they made her head hurt trying to keep up. 'Oh, not more computer language...'
'Ah, no Em...actually, rather anti-computer!' Daryl crossed his legs, warming to the subject, 'Computers had one nemesis! The Sun! Coronal Mass Ejections!'
Jack smiled, sadly. 'Yes, Em...you see, in times to come, science discovered that the sun...'
'Yes, Jack, I do know of the sun's emanations. You do know of the great solar storm of 1859! Telegraph signals were down all across Europe and North America. Telegraph operators were shocked unconscious by it!' Em supplied knowledgeably.
'Ah! You see, young Jack! Librarians are still fountains of knowledge! Even for those who know the future!' Athena
winked at Emlyn companionably.
'That's right...!' Jack admitted. 'I had forgotten that!'
'Apparently, everyone else in the world had as well!' Daryl continued, 'Because, computers ruled the world and were deemed the ultimate be-all and end-all; invulnerable, invaluable, and prized above human life or liberty...absolute rulers of earth. All our convenient machines ran everything: the power behind the planet; dismissing the inconvenient truth: that they were, in fact, not indestructible.'
'Much inconvenient truth was dismissed then, to the ruin of all,' Aleister commented darkly, 'even when it was proven again and again...3 Mile Island, Fukushima...not to mention Nagasaki and Hiroshima.'
Emlyn looked lost again. 'Japan? What of Japan?' Em had felt a life-long fascination, perhaps a tie with that far-eastern country.
'Japan did what they had to do, for a small island nation, with an ever-expanding population,' Jack supplied, running a hand through his hair and frowning, 'THAT was the big inconvenient truth: over-population!' He looked at Em then, 'Alas; mainly due to the church, and the Elite, who found it's repressive teachings to their advantage, nothing was done to curb over-population of the planet.'
'More little consumers! Buying ever more material crap to be chucked into overflowing landfills!' Aleister growled, 'Simply barbaric!'
Athena held her snifter to him for a refill, 'Thank you, Aleister.' She took a dainty sip. 'Yes, rather than disturb the status-quo, only China took pains to do curb their burgeoning population which would soon have overwhelmed them otherwise. And their means was viewed by all the rest of the world as draconian and proof of their demonic communistic insensibilies!'
'Eat The Rich!' Jack put in, 'that was the rallying cry, for awhile, when the common folk began to catch on that their lives were worthless.'
'I'm quite lost, I fear,' Emlyn spoke up, 'tell me the significance of these Japanese cities you mentioned.'
All were quiet for a moment, then Aleister began, 'Ah, Em...science had created a monster. In mankind's search for ever more destructive and abominable means of killing
one another, we found a power that could not only decimate
entire cities, but entire worlds. And the aftermath, was even worse than the destruction. A poison aftereffect, that would last thousands of years, making the air, land, water, all life, deathly toxic. But! It could also be used for power! Power to run our dear, precious machines! Even though the residue from it was that deadly poison--which no one knew what to do with! They simply stored the toxic waste in containers underground. 'Thinking' that someday, maybe, someone might have an idea what to do with it...'
Emlyn was shocked to her core. 'How was this possible? How could people have allowed this?'
A collective sigh was heard as everyone wondered where to begin. Daryl took up the baton, 'Well, the dangers were of course, downplayed, while efficiency and progress and savings! of course, were marketed to the public.
'People knew. They simply were so busy living their lives, working, breeding, consuming, they let the world run on however it would...thinking, rightly, that they had no power anyway.'
'I, I simply can't believe it...' Em was shaking her head.
'How, knowing that the future, or some unlooked-for happenstance, could unleash a power that could wipe out all life on the planet! And no one really cared?'
'Oh, my dear...' Athena looked at her woefully, 'I recall when all this was still ongoing, a friend of mine, who had children, no less--said to me that she was angered because a majority in her town had managed to shut down one of these power plants! She was distressed that now her electric bill would go up by afew dollars!'
Em knew now what one was up against. And if only the rich could afford an education...people would be kept in ignorance as long as it was profitable for others, the favored few.
'So, as to the CME's you said...?'
'Yes. One day, during solar peak activity, a great coronal mass ejection hit the earth, knocking out all power. Despite knowing what this would do to the power plants, and having no recourse for the toxic waste, nothing was put into place, or had even yet been conceived of, to withstand such an occurrance. Back-up generators eventually gave out, and the cooling systems couldn't hold. The air was poisoned by emissions, the oceans decimated by toxins. World-wide. The powers that be, had at last found something that their great god: money, couldn't solve.'
Again, the silence in the room. Strong winds could be heard rattling the windows and flames in the fireplace blew up and out. Jack reached forward with the poker and rummaged about the logs, banking the fire down.
Emlyn was beginning to get the big picture. 'So...because of this...poison power monopoly, and the CMEs, with all systems geared to computers, which were vulnerable to the sun's ejections, eventually, survivors were forced underground...'
'Exactly, Em.' Daryl looked at her, meaningfully.
A pause. Em noticed then, everyone looking her way. Even Yeats.
She got it then.
'So...so...why, how...are we here, now? We ARE in Massachusetts, in the USA, are we not? In...the 2070's?'
She looked at them all. 'But, Jack, we were outside, walking, taking the air this morning...? Oh, I'm confused...'
A sudden blast of light and lightning, a resounding BOOM! thundered overhead, and the lights went out.
Jack laughed. 'Ah, you see, Em, we're still vulnerable to the elements here!' He got up and went to the desk drawer where he dug up an electric torch. 'I'll just go see to the fuses...there is a backup generator, as well. Won't be but a moment. Ah, Al--light some candles, meanwhile, eh?'
As Aleister, ever-ready with a match, began brightening the room about them with candlelight, all felt the need to stand and stretch and relieve themselves of the dire, dark mood which had engulfed them minutes before.
Jack returned, finding everyone staring out the window, surrounded by soft candlelight. 'How's it look out there?'
'Can't tell, it's so dark out...' Em replied, 'but, may we leave the lights off awhile, Jack? Candlelight is so warm...and we've enough candles to see well enough, yes?'
All agreed this was much preferable. 'And we've wood enough for heat. And cooking. Yes, let's just, ah, camp out indoors, then, shall we?'
'Great idea, Jack! One moment!' Aleister bustled off to the kitchen.
'I've always preferred candlelight myself,' Athena allowed, 'and real books.'
If Em had ever been envious of Jack or her other future-based friends, she certainly was no longer. Never would she begrudge the time, the era, she found herself within.
Al reappeared with a bag of marshmallows and skewers.
'Campfire treats! Toasted marshmallows, anyone?'
. . . .
All were hunkered down about the fireplace, having moved aside the furniture, and piled up comfy cushions to sit and lean upon, and toasted their puffy sweet treats by the fire. (Yeats the only exception, remained in the chair nearest the fire, while Emlyn passed him his toasted treat on skewer.) In addition, Jack and Em had brought in tasty comestibles from the kitchen; assorted nuts to crack with hammers and nutcrackers, fruits and cheeses.
Gathering together and bending to some physical tasks helped everyone to shake off the gloom of the preceeding presentation of Hard Facts.
'This will do well. In fact, I could live like this myself,' Jack offered, 'I just couldn't work like this...
computers again, alas...but the refrigeration and heating systems are running on auxiliary power, they'll be fine.'
Nothing was heard for some time but the cracking of nutshells and crackling of the fire logs, whilst the wind continued to rage without.
'An oasis in Time...' Yeats offered, taking the skewer Em handed to him.
'How's that, Mr. Yeats?' Em acknowledged.
The Head cleared his throat, 'Where we are, Emlyn, is rather like being wrapped within a cocoon of Other-Time.
We are physically located in Massachusetts, yes, but we are rather outside of time, proper. We are almost in an alternate world unto itself here.'
Em poked her marshmallow, examining it's crumbly brown shell. 'How far does it extend, this oasis?'
'Approximately 2 miles, in all directions,' Daryl answered.
'And, are there any other...residents?'
'No,' said Jack, at the same time Daryl answered, 'Yes.
'Athena lives nearby...' he smiled her way.
'In the gatekeeper's cottage,' that lady admitted, 'but Daryl keeps yet another field surrounding it, cloaking it, so that the very view of the cottage is blocked to outsiders, as an added safeguard, being so near the Border.'
'Interesting...' Jack cracked open a pecan, 'I actually believed that it had been torn down.' He chewed thoughtfully. 'To think, all this time, Al, we had An Invisible Resident!'
'Isn't that what we all are? Here?' Daryl smiled at them mischeviously.
'Refugees of Time...' Jack mused.
'Orphans of the Storm,' Emlyn decided, once again.
. . . .
Monday, August 12, 2013
Chapter 10 - Tales of Twilight and Shadows
Chapter 10 - Tales of Twilight and Shadows
:.And so Orion was come, before the sun had set, to that strip of land from which all men turned away, where westward stood men's houses...and eastward the Elfin Mountains shone over the boundary of twilight.
He went with his hounds along the last hedge down to the boundary. And no sooner had he come there than he saw a fox quite close, slip out of the Twilight between earth and Elfland, and run a few yards along the edge of our fields, and then slip back in again. And of this Orion thought nothing, for it is the way of the fox thus, to hunt the edge of Elfland and to return again to our fields: it is thus that he brings us something of which none of our cities guess.:
--Lord Dunsany
--King of Elfland's Daughter
. . . .
Daryl saw Aleister to his room, (i.e: he opened the correct door and pointing Al in the general direction of his bed, gave him a push forward, and shut the door behind), and had just repaired to his own, when a soft knock was heard upon his door.
'Mister Yeats!' Daryl was surprised, finding Yeats at his door at this hour, still bright-eyed and bushy-browed.
Yeats put a finger to his lips in silence.
'May we have a word together, in the library, perhaps?'
--the ever-enigmatic Yeats proposed.
'Of...course...' Daryl ran a hand though his hair, Jack-like, and closed his door, gesturing Yeats before him, and wondered what the devil was up now, and hoped that whatever it was, it wasn't wicked Uncle Daryl's fault, for a change.
Silently they headed down the hallway and stairs, until they came to a dark oaken door which Yeats opened and held for Daryl. Daryl hadn't been within his old library in quite some time...it wasn't like his study at Nob Hill House, this was more in keeping with the dark wood, old world style of the Massachusetts place.
A round room: books lined the walls all about them, with ladders here and there, attached to the bar encircling the shelves; a second level above covered half the room.
Dark wood panelling peeked through space not taken by the many esoteric and various volumes, mostly hardcover and bound in old soft leather. Daryl had spent many happy hours lounging, working at the British Museum's Reading Room, joining the esteemed throng: Mark Twain, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, all numbered among his fellow seekers therein. Daryl had attempted to replicate the feel here at his former home.
'Haven't been here in awhile!' Daryl headed up the wooden spiral staircase to the second level. 'I say...there's someone who sleeps here now?' Daryl spied a day-bed at the loft end, covered in a dark tapestry depicting a woodland scene, surrounded by many large pillows in complementary tapestried cloth.
Yeats cleared his throat, having followed Daryl upstairs.
'I, sometimes take my ease here, after a long evening of study...' and indeed, Yeats did seat himself upon the bed-cum-couch, and kicked round a leather armchair nearby for Daryl.
'Do you, now...?' Daryl studied an old volume of Shakespeare, and returned it to it's place in the 800's. He liked to stick with the old Dewey system once popular in public libraries, back when such places existed. 'Well, I can think of no other I'd rather have living in my library.' He took a seat in the old red leather armchair.
'So, to what do I owe the honor of this importunity?'
Yeats, surprisingly, chuckled, lifting his long legs up upon the bed. 'Ah, Daryl; one could hardly accuse me of
having had similar assignations with you. You're a tough fox to run to ground.'
Daryl shot him a hard fast look, then blanked his features and took a seat. Yeats bent round behind him where an old roll-top oak desk sat and opened a lower drawer, taking from it a bottle of cognac and two snifters. He poured without asking, and handed a glass to Daryl.
'To...truth!' spake Yeats, lifting his glass.
'"In vino veritas?"' quoth Daryl, who saluted Yeats nonetheless, and sipped. 'Ah, such a rare commodity, nowadays...'
'Indeed...' Yeats said nothing more for some time, simply stared out across the library floor below, darkened now but for a few wall sconces shining dimly behind frosted amber shades. Sighing, at last he regarded Daryl, 'I have just spoken with Thelene. I found her coming back from this last meeting of the High Council.'
Daryl looked impressed. Although he had suspected there was rather more to old Yeats than most surmised, he did not know for certain how far that recondite gentleman's
influence did reach. He now knew it to be fairly astronomical indeed. 'I...see,' he said, wondering if he did.
'Do you!?' Yeats challenged, leaning forward, brows bristling. He sipped his own brandy, and sighed. 'I rather doubt it,' he continued softly, 'I'm not certain I do. I wonder if there is anyone who does.'
Daryl frowned, his mind spinning with conjecture of what all this might mean...so, Jack's Order had dealings with the High Council, did they? Daryl wondered if they were in cahoots with the League as well...? And all that might imply...
'We were close once, Thelene and I...' Yeats sipped and leaned back into his pillows propped against the wall.
'She still assumes we are. But, after tonight, I wonder if I ever really knew her...'
Daryl wondered where all this was going. And why bring him into it? Surely some method lurked behind Yeats' mad revelations?
'...which is why I come to you now.' Yeats regarded Daryl at last, bearing down with full force of his formidable brows, 'I think you may be able to supply some answers which Thelene only skated about in reply.'
'I?' Daryl set his glass down, 'I am hardly a player in all this...you should be asking John, or Dr. Stein.'
'Ha!' Yeats barked, 'even harder to track down. For that, I'm glad, though, for Stein's sake. No...I think for finding the answers I seek, you will do fine, Daryl.' He paused, twirling his snifter in hand, 'I believe that the League has begun to move again; despite warnings from the Council.'
'Ah. And to what purpose?' Daryl figured the League would be involved in whatever troubled Yeats so.
'What other purpose have they? The same as they always had: infringing upon the rights of others, and forcing their own agendas upon those who, being ignorant of them and their machinations, cannot defend themselves against their juggernaut!'
Daryl stayed quiet, feeling himself suddenly back in Mexico and la Revolucion...both sides would accuse the other of the same atrocities, committed for the same reasons. And so it goes, in every battle, apparently. And, as below, so above?
'Ah. The wars in heaven...' Daryl remarked quietly. "'For who guards the guardians?"' he quoted.
'The wars in heaven are played out here on earth!' Yeats drank off his brandy. 'I, for one, am heartily weary of them,' he ran a hand through his forelock, 'and weary of being a pawn in their game...'
Daryl was beginning to glimpse what lay behind Yeats' query. 'Ah. And Thelene...disagrees with the High Council's position.'
'She won't admit it. No. As if she believes that she can still sit and not be revealed? Surely she is being watched!' He slowly shook his head with it's mane of white hair, 'and when they catch her, as I did, plotting with Axelis...it will not go well with her.'
No, it would not, agreed Daryl, wondering just what Yeats sought from him. If Thelene could not escape her judges, what could Daryl possibly do? His 'Disappearing Woman' stage act, was just that: an act.
'No, but look you, Yeats...what can I possibly do? Thelene herself has far more options than I... I have never had congress with the High Council.'
Yeats lifted an eyebrow, a mighty feat; 'No. But you have had dealings with the League.'
. . . .
'Tired?' Jack asked Emlyn, as they sat together on the parlor sofa, watching the fire die away.
On Jack's birthday? Even though she would have liked nothing better than to slip beneath fresh cool sheets and shut her eyes for the night at last, she knew why she had agreed to be here. 'No, not truly. You?'
'A bit,' Jack admitted, smiling, 'but I don't mind just sitting here awhile...' he lay back against the sofa pillows and motioned for Em to put her head upon his shoulder. 'Thank you for a very fine birthday.'
'Not too much of a surprise for you? I wasn't sure how Daryl's being here would go over...' Em snuggled against him, 'but, he is a good cook!'
Jack chuckled softly, '...Yes, I'll give him that.' He lay his head beside hers, staring up at the ceiling, so dark now as to disappear into shadows. 'Nooo...I guess it's time for hatchets to be buried. Although...' he looked at Em, 'it does rather gall me still to know you and he are living together...'
Em sat up. 'Jack! You know it isn't like that! I'm not living with anyone! I rarely see Daryl at all.' (Not quite true, she thought. He'd been there at least every other week of late.)'I could say I'm living with Rosa and Manuel, perhaps, in Daryl's house.'
'Ah, Manuel, is it now?' Jack teased her.
Em punched his shoulder playfully. 'You know it isn't like that either. Honestly!' she huffed, lying back on her pillow once more. 'Daryl is a law unto himself and comes and goes, and whitherto, no one knows...it quite undoes me
whenever he decides to just pop in! I try not to show it...' Em bit her lip again, 'It's only this, really: I like living there because I'm mostly on my own, you see...'
'Yes, I figured as much...can't help but kid you a little ...' Jack admitted. He took his new birthday watch from his pocket and opened it. 'I think you would tell me if you were seeing someone...'
Em blinked, thinking: am I?--seeing someone? Well, just once, I happened upon someone, and now, I rather was, just, considering, seeing them again, perhaps...and, besides...
'Oh? And what about you and Sugar?'
Jack closed the watch. 'Ah. Eh, well, Em...if you'll recall...you had just left me, you know...and you know how much I did not want you to go.' He frowned, wondering how Em knew...Sugar might have said something, thinking that, as Jack had surmised then, it had been all over between he and Em.
Em sighed and pretended to sulk somewhat. Then: '...I suppose it's a good night to, just let things be...' she
glanced up at Jack, who nodded once.
...Altogether too agreeable, our Em, thought Jack.
He was distracted by her finger tracing along his lip line...what was she saying...?
'It's true I do miss you, Jack. But you know, I have to be on my own now, as much as possible, at least!' She paused a moment, recollecting, 'But, you know I went back to Crowley Place, and when I found everyone, and everything gone, well, it gave me quite a turn. I felt rather forlorn, thinking you so far away then...'
'You did? When?' Jack toyed with her braid, 'And how did you get inside the fence?'
Everyone's so interested in how I got over the bloody fence! Em thought that rather beside the point. 'I climbed the tree around back, and voila! I was over! I do still have the keys...that's alright, isn't it?'
'Of course, Em! I...I'm sorry I didn't let you know we were off. There wasn't time...and then, we've been so busy... I didn't think you would be wanting to return to Pankhurst so soon after you decided to stay in the City...' What else could I have done? thought Jack: beg her not to go--again?
'I know, I was just, so surprised...'Em recalled that bereft feeling all too well. 'Anyway,' she brightened, 'you will come back for the show won't you?'
'Show? What show?'
'Oh, Jack, remember? The amphitheatre!' Hadn't they discussed this over dinner? 'Homer wants to have a Harvest Moon Music Festival at the equinox! And, can you guess? Rob Williams is going to headline!'
Jack leaned up on one elbow, regarding Em, 'Truly? That's wonderful...of course, we'll be there!' It would be good to see the amphitheatre, as it was his own idea. And the old gang as well--Woody, Jethro, Homer of course, and ah, Sugar... 'Em...did you ever hear from the Guevara's? Or Marco?'
Em closed her eyes, shaking her head, 'No, I haven't. Oh, Jack...it hasn't been easy for me, either, you know! I don't know what's become of them, or Esperanza or Carlos, or Josephina...!' She looked up at him, '...and you must know how I miss Alice!'
'...as does Aleister you know! We all miss her.' He slunk back down upon the sofa and lay his head on the pillow beside Em.
'It's not all that easy for me, living with Daryl, as you call it!' Em spoke in low, whispering half-growl, 'I was kidnapped by your uncle, you kow! And I had so loved it there, back in la Villa Encantada. And I had Carlos for a mentor! And, Esperanza! So much I could have learned from them!'
She was right. Em had nearly as many reasons for disliking Daryl as did he... How does Daryl do it? Jack sighed...eyeing the grand in the corner and the priceless antiques casually gracing the manse. Ah, a buck,a yen, a mark or a pound...money is coined liberty; Dostoevsky spoke truly. He knew why he and Em, and Madame Yvanna and everyone, forgave his affluent, errant uncle.
He regarded the vast, heavy mirror above the equally massive mahogany mantlepiece. 'You and Alice went through that mirror?'
'We did.' It was marvellous, thought Em, eyeing the frosted fleur de lis art noveau design about the edges, recalling that unparalleled evening. I wish Alice had left me her locket, she mused...but, it's good to know she has it, and can find her way back here if or when she likes... She probably can't pull herself away from Frank's side, not after losing him for so long. Understandable. It must be an awful sort of limbo, being lost in time...
. . . .
'Being lost in time is not an easy thing to manage!' Daryl was up now, pacing along the loft floor; he stopped to pour another cognac. 'And, we hardly had a choice! It was the League who found us that time in Sonora, not the other way 'round!'
'Aye, but Daryl, you came upon the League rather earlier, did you not? And not with Emlyn, either.' Yeats eyed Uncle Daryl as he strode to and fro, apparently most discomfited by the subject at hand.
As well he should be.
Daryl was finally beset by all that he had been desperately trying to ignore of late: the timebursts and what or who was behind them. Once he and Em had escaped the shadow of Popocatepetal, he had shut the door in his mind against all that. It reminded him of too many scars of his youth, which he'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.
He couldn't forgive Yeats for trapping him here, in his own library, and giving him the third degree on his least favorite subject. Daryl began craving his pipe...
So apparently, his Anara, and Axelis, and now Thelene had all thrown in with the League. And, as he was stuck here in this timeframe and heavy dimension, pinned like a bug to a display case in a science fair, he was somehow considered a likely liaison.
'When I was first, c-contacted, by the League,' Daryl stuttered, wiping the cold sweat from his face, 'I didn't know who or what th-they were...' he drank off his brandy, nearly dropping the glass, his hands were so wet with nervous perspiration, Yeats noted, somewhat surprised. Daryl set down the glass, slowly, deliberately.
'I, I can't recall when it was...I was perhaps in my 20's at the time...'
Yeats was as surprised by Daryl's admission as Daryl had been by Yeats'. Shane had assumed that Daryl had somehow willingly initiated contact with the League by science, art, or magic...it had been Daryl's modus operandi to tread madly where others dare not go.
'No,' Daryl looked hard at Yeats, 'I did not seek that meeting.' He paused a moment, noticed the empty chair as if it were some strange foreign object, then sat, leaning forward, elbows on knees.
'True...I had wondered, about...things...as all young people do, and sought answers for why the world had spun so out of control by then...although it was nothing to what was to come.' Daryl hung his head awhile, then brushed back his wild hair and sat up. 'Well, I found out, in a rather round-about, unlooked-for way.'
'I see...' Yeats began.
'Do you?' Echoed Daryl, deeply sarcastic.
Yeats sighed softly, nodded once, 'I see now, that you were an unwitting party to their plots. I apologize. I had wrongly assumed that you had orchestrated an...entree'.'
'Yeats...' Daryl echoed him, sighing again, '...I could also have thought the same of you, you know. However, I do not presume to question your personal business.'
'Touche',' Yeats conceded. 'However, I think that it would behoove us both to remain in touch, and update one another when possible. Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'...And,' Yeats continued, 'I believe it a good time perhaps, to enlighten young Jack and Emlyn somewhat. Jack may suspect, but I do not believe Emlyn knows even a sliver of the whole truth about herself. Her legacy.'
Daryl's mouth felt dust dry. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and wanted nothing more than to escape to his room, a pitcher of icewater, and his trusty pipe. 'Ah...agreed.' He stood then. 'Til tomorrow, then?'
'Yes, Daryl, rather later, tomorrow.' Yeats stood then as well. 'Thank you.'
Daryl looked rather lost then, as though wondering how he had arrived where he was, then nodded to Yeats and took himself off back down the spiral staircase and exited the library.
Yeats had noted the rather wild, too-bright look in Daryl's eyes; he'd seen that look before--upon the face of a man who had just been rescued after being lost at sea for some days. He imagined the old prophets had borne that same look after finding angels upon the path before them and becoming suddenly 'sore afraid...'
He thought then, that perhaps they had had a right to be so.
. . . .
'Ah, Em...you know I do enjoy our little recrudescent rendezvous...' Jack attempted to sit up and have a last sip of cognac, '...but, you just break my poor heart over and again, when you go...' he managed to snag the snifter and apply a bit of pre-pain medication.
Em slumped on her side, staring at Jack. 'Then either we are very different, or very much alike, Jack Van Horn.'
Jack added some of his cognac to Em's glass, handed it to her. 'Do tell,' he snaked a sideways smile up his left cheek.
'Well. For one: have you ever thought that you enjoy my company so, simply because I always leave before you have a chance to tire of it? Hmm?' Em touched his nose lightly.
'It's, that's...not altogether true...' Jack couldn't help but keep smiling to himself, knowing that Em's observation was admittedly astute.
'Um-hummm...' ...thought so, Em congratulated herself. 'But, you were saying...about enjoying our time together?'
She began to tug his hair gently and massage his head...
'I...ah, that feels sooo good...' Jack's eyes closed as he leaned his head into the tender ministrations of her magic hands.
'I thought so,' Em knew her Jack.
. . . .
What the bloody hell do I know?
Daryl asked of himself as he sat perched in the window seat of his own private hide-out in the attic rooms. It was a small, spare room, the ceiling sloped at an angle.
Daryl had the closet door open to the scent of cedar panelling within. The curtains were open wide and Daryl sat, pipe in hand, with one window cranked open a notch, watching the trees about the property sway with the wild wind.
Daryl exhaled slowly, feeling his headache ease. Looks like dawn soon, he thought with some surprise. How time does fly...he couldn't even laugh at that one anymore.
How would he get through the next day? Disclosure, Yeats
had threatened. Gods this was never easy. He knew he couldn't simply disappear as was his usual wont...no, eventually this day would come again. Get it over with, man, he told himself.
All the same, he reached into his vest pocket and opened a small wooden box, checked his supply; good, enough for tomorrow and then some. Sighing, he pocketed his Dutch courage, (or with opium, would that be English?), and made a mental note that he needed to return to his duties in Mexico post haste. What he needed was something to occupy the present that was utterly antipodal to his past.
He would not find that here, at his old digs.
'" Be not afraid of shadows..."' Daryl comforted himself with Shakespeare, and other things, watching the dawn
slowly outrival the nighttime. One last pipe, then this old fox was decidedly ready for his den...
. . . .
:.And so Orion was come, before the sun had set, to that strip of land from which all men turned away, where westward stood men's houses...and eastward the Elfin Mountains shone over the boundary of twilight.
He went with his hounds along the last hedge down to the boundary. And no sooner had he come there than he saw a fox quite close, slip out of the Twilight between earth and Elfland, and run a few yards along the edge of our fields, and then slip back in again. And of this Orion thought nothing, for it is the way of the fox thus, to hunt the edge of Elfland and to return again to our fields: it is thus that he brings us something of which none of our cities guess.:
--Lord Dunsany
--King of Elfland's Daughter
. . . .
Daryl saw Aleister to his room, (i.e: he opened the correct door and pointing Al in the general direction of his bed, gave him a push forward, and shut the door behind), and had just repaired to his own, when a soft knock was heard upon his door.
'Mister Yeats!' Daryl was surprised, finding Yeats at his door at this hour, still bright-eyed and bushy-browed.
Yeats put a finger to his lips in silence.
'May we have a word together, in the library, perhaps?'
--the ever-enigmatic Yeats proposed.
'Of...course...' Daryl ran a hand though his hair, Jack-like, and closed his door, gesturing Yeats before him, and wondered what the devil was up now, and hoped that whatever it was, it wasn't wicked Uncle Daryl's fault, for a change.
Silently they headed down the hallway and stairs, until they came to a dark oaken door which Yeats opened and held for Daryl. Daryl hadn't been within his old library in quite some time...it wasn't like his study at Nob Hill House, this was more in keeping with the dark wood, old world style of the Massachusetts place.
A round room: books lined the walls all about them, with ladders here and there, attached to the bar encircling the shelves; a second level above covered half the room.
Dark wood panelling peeked through space not taken by the many esoteric and various volumes, mostly hardcover and bound in old soft leather. Daryl had spent many happy hours lounging, working at the British Museum's Reading Room, joining the esteemed throng: Mark Twain, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, all numbered among his fellow seekers therein. Daryl had attempted to replicate the feel here at his former home.
'Haven't been here in awhile!' Daryl headed up the wooden spiral staircase to the second level. 'I say...there's someone who sleeps here now?' Daryl spied a day-bed at the loft end, covered in a dark tapestry depicting a woodland scene, surrounded by many large pillows in complementary tapestried cloth.
Yeats cleared his throat, having followed Daryl upstairs.
'I, sometimes take my ease here, after a long evening of study...' and indeed, Yeats did seat himself upon the bed-cum-couch, and kicked round a leather armchair nearby for Daryl.
'Do you, now...?' Daryl studied an old volume of Shakespeare, and returned it to it's place in the 800's. He liked to stick with the old Dewey system once popular in public libraries, back when such places existed. 'Well, I can think of no other I'd rather have living in my library.' He took a seat in the old red leather armchair.
'So, to what do I owe the honor of this importunity?'
Yeats, surprisingly, chuckled, lifting his long legs up upon the bed. 'Ah, Daryl; one could hardly accuse me of
having had similar assignations with you. You're a tough fox to run to ground.'
Daryl shot him a hard fast look, then blanked his features and took a seat. Yeats bent round behind him where an old roll-top oak desk sat and opened a lower drawer, taking from it a bottle of cognac and two snifters. He poured without asking, and handed a glass to Daryl.
'To...truth!' spake Yeats, lifting his glass.
'"In vino veritas?"' quoth Daryl, who saluted Yeats nonetheless, and sipped. 'Ah, such a rare commodity, nowadays...'
'Indeed...' Yeats said nothing more for some time, simply stared out across the library floor below, darkened now but for a few wall sconces shining dimly behind frosted amber shades. Sighing, at last he regarded Daryl, 'I have just spoken with Thelene. I found her coming back from this last meeting of the High Council.'
Daryl looked impressed. Although he had suspected there was rather more to old Yeats than most surmised, he did not know for certain how far that recondite gentleman's
influence did reach. He now knew it to be fairly astronomical indeed. 'I...see,' he said, wondering if he did.
'Do you!?' Yeats challenged, leaning forward, brows bristling. He sipped his own brandy, and sighed. 'I rather doubt it,' he continued softly, 'I'm not certain I do. I wonder if there is anyone who does.'
Daryl frowned, his mind spinning with conjecture of what all this might mean...so, Jack's Order had dealings with the High Council, did they? Daryl wondered if they were in cahoots with the League as well...? And all that might imply...
'We were close once, Thelene and I...' Yeats sipped and leaned back into his pillows propped against the wall.
'She still assumes we are. But, after tonight, I wonder if I ever really knew her...'
Daryl wondered where all this was going. And why bring him into it? Surely some method lurked behind Yeats' mad revelations?
'...which is why I come to you now.' Yeats regarded Daryl at last, bearing down with full force of his formidable brows, 'I think you may be able to supply some answers which Thelene only skated about in reply.'
'I?' Daryl set his glass down, 'I am hardly a player in all this...you should be asking John, or Dr. Stein.'
'Ha!' Yeats barked, 'even harder to track down. For that, I'm glad, though, for Stein's sake. No...I think for finding the answers I seek, you will do fine, Daryl.' He paused, twirling his snifter in hand, 'I believe that the League has begun to move again; despite warnings from the Council.'
'Ah. And to what purpose?' Daryl figured the League would be involved in whatever troubled Yeats so.
'What other purpose have they? The same as they always had: infringing upon the rights of others, and forcing their own agendas upon those who, being ignorant of them and their machinations, cannot defend themselves against their juggernaut!'
Daryl stayed quiet, feeling himself suddenly back in Mexico and la Revolucion...both sides would accuse the other of the same atrocities, committed for the same reasons. And so it goes, in every battle, apparently. And, as below, so above?
'Ah. The wars in heaven...' Daryl remarked quietly. "'For who guards the guardians?"' he quoted.
'The wars in heaven are played out here on earth!' Yeats drank off his brandy. 'I, for one, am heartily weary of them,' he ran a hand through his forelock, 'and weary of being a pawn in their game...'
Daryl was beginning to glimpse what lay behind Yeats' query. 'Ah. And Thelene...disagrees with the High Council's position.'
'She won't admit it. No. As if she believes that she can still sit and not be revealed? Surely she is being watched!' He slowly shook his head with it's mane of white hair, 'and when they catch her, as I did, plotting with Axelis...it will not go well with her.'
No, it would not, agreed Daryl, wondering just what Yeats sought from him. If Thelene could not escape her judges, what could Daryl possibly do? His 'Disappearing Woman' stage act, was just that: an act.
'No, but look you, Yeats...what can I possibly do? Thelene herself has far more options than I... I have never had congress with the High Council.'
Yeats lifted an eyebrow, a mighty feat; 'No. But you have had dealings with the League.'
. . . .
'Tired?' Jack asked Emlyn, as they sat together on the parlor sofa, watching the fire die away.
On Jack's birthday? Even though she would have liked nothing better than to slip beneath fresh cool sheets and shut her eyes for the night at last, she knew why she had agreed to be here. 'No, not truly. You?'
'A bit,' Jack admitted, smiling, 'but I don't mind just sitting here awhile...' he lay back against the sofa pillows and motioned for Em to put her head upon his shoulder. 'Thank you for a very fine birthday.'
'Not too much of a surprise for you? I wasn't sure how Daryl's being here would go over...' Em snuggled against him, 'but, he is a good cook!'
Jack chuckled softly, '...Yes, I'll give him that.' He lay his head beside hers, staring up at the ceiling, so dark now as to disappear into shadows. 'Nooo...I guess it's time for hatchets to be buried. Although...' he looked at Em, 'it does rather gall me still to know you and he are living together...'
Em sat up. 'Jack! You know it isn't like that! I'm not living with anyone! I rarely see Daryl at all.' (Not quite true, she thought. He'd been there at least every other week of late.)'I could say I'm living with Rosa and Manuel, perhaps, in Daryl's house.'
'Ah, Manuel, is it now?' Jack teased her.
Em punched his shoulder playfully. 'You know it isn't like that either. Honestly!' she huffed, lying back on her pillow once more. 'Daryl is a law unto himself and comes and goes, and whitherto, no one knows...it quite undoes me
whenever he decides to just pop in! I try not to show it...' Em bit her lip again, 'It's only this, really: I like living there because I'm mostly on my own, you see...'
'Yes, I figured as much...can't help but kid you a little ...' Jack admitted. He took his new birthday watch from his pocket and opened it. 'I think you would tell me if you were seeing someone...'
Em blinked, thinking: am I?--seeing someone? Well, just once, I happened upon someone, and now, I rather was, just, considering, seeing them again, perhaps...and, besides...
'Oh? And what about you and Sugar?'
Jack closed the watch. 'Ah. Eh, well, Em...if you'll recall...you had just left me, you know...and you know how much I did not want you to go.' He frowned, wondering how Em knew...Sugar might have said something, thinking that, as Jack had surmised then, it had been all over between he and Em.
Em sighed and pretended to sulk somewhat. Then: '...I suppose it's a good night to, just let things be...' she
glanced up at Jack, who nodded once.
...Altogether too agreeable, our Em, thought Jack.
He was distracted by her finger tracing along his lip line...what was she saying...?
'It's true I do miss you, Jack. But you know, I have to be on my own now, as much as possible, at least!' She paused a moment, recollecting, 'But, you know I went back to Crowley Place, and when I found everyone, and everything gone, well, it gave me quite a turn. I felt rather forlorn, thinking you so far away then...'
'You did? When?' Jack toyed with her braid, 'And how did you get inside the fence?'
Everyone's so interested in how I got over the bloody fence! Em thought that rather beside the point. 'I climbed the tree around back, and voila! I was over! I do still have the keys...that's alright, isn't it?'
'Of course, Em! I...I'm sorry I didn't let you know we were off. There wasn't time...and then, we've been so busy... I didn't think you would be wanting to return to Pankhurst so soon after you decided to stay in the City...' What else could I have done? thought Jack: beg her not to go--again?
'I know, I was just, so surprised...'Em recalled that bereft feeling all too well. 'Anyway,' she brightened, 'you will come back for the show won't you?'
'Show? What show?'
'Oh, Jack, remember? The amphitheatre!' Hadn't they discussed this over dinner? 'Homer wants to have a Harvest Moon Music Festival at the equinox! And, can you guess? Rob Williams is going to headline!'
Jack leaned up on one elbow, regarding Em, 'Truly? That's wonderful...of course, we'll be there!' It would be good to see the amphitheatre, as it was his own idea. And the old gang as well--Woody, Jethro, Homer of course, and ah, Sugar... 'Em...did you ever hear from the Guevara's? Or Marco?'
Em closed her eyes, shaking her head, 'No, I haven't. Oh, Jack...it hasn't been easy for me, either, you know! I don't know what's become of them, or Esperanza or Carlos, or Josephina...!' She looked up at him, '...and you must know how I miss Alice!'
'...as does Aleister you know! We all miss her.' He slunk back down upon the sofa and lay his head on the pillow beside Em.
'It's not all that easy for me, living with Daryl, as you call it!' Em spoke in low, whispering half-growl, 'I was kidnapped by your uncle, you kow! And I had so loved it there, back in la Villa Encantada. And I had Carlos for a mentor! And, Esperanza! So much I could have learned from them!'
She was right. Em had nearly as many reasons for disliking Daryl as did he... How does Daryl do it? Jack sighed...eyeing the grand in the corner and the priceless antiques casually gracing the manse. Ah, a buck,a yen, a mark or a pound...money is coined liberty; Dostoevsky spoke truly. He knew why he and Em, and Madame Yvanna and everyone, forgave his affluent, errant uncle.
He regarded the vast, heavy mirror above the equally massive mahogany mantlepiece. 'You and Alice went through that mirror?'
'We did.' It was marvellous, thought Em, eyeing the frosted fleur de lis art noveau design about the edges, recalling that unparalleled evening. I wish Alice had left me her locket, she mused...but, it's good to know she has it, and can find her way back here if or when she likes... She probably can't pull herself away from Frank's side, not after losing him for so long. Understandable. It must be an awful sort of limbo, being lost in time...
. . . .
'Being lost in time is not an easy thing to manage!' Daryl was up now, pacing along the loft floor; he stopped to pour another cognac. 'And, we hardly had a choice! It was the League who found us that time in Sonora, not the other way 'round!'
'Aye, but Daryl, you came upon the League rather earlier, did you not? And not with Emlyn, either.' Yeats eyed Uncle Daryl as he strode to and fro, apparently most discomfited by the subject at hand.
As well he should be.
Daryl was finally beset by all that he had been desperately trying to ignore of late: the timebursts and what or who was behind them. Once he and Em had escaped the shadow of Popocatepetal, he had shut the door in his mind against all that. It reminded him of too many scars of his youth, which he'd spent a lifetime trying to forget.
He couldn't forgive Yeats for trapping him here, in his own library, and giving him the third degree on his least favorite subject. Daryl began craving his pipe...
So apparently, his Anara, and Axelis, and now Thelene had all thrown in with the League. And, as he was stuck here in this timeframe and heavy dimension, pinned like a bug to a display case in a science fair, he was somehow considered a likely liaison.
'When I was first, c-contacted, by the League,' Daryl stuttered, wiping the cold sweat from his face, 'I didn't know who or what th-they were...' he drank off his brandy, nearly dropping the glass, his hands were so wet with nervous perspiration, Yeats noted, somewhat surprised. Daryl set down the glass, slowly, deliberately.
'I, I can't recall when it was...I was perhaps in my 20's at the time...'
Yeats was as surprised by Daryl's admission as Daryl had been by Yeats'. Shane had assumed that Daryl had somehow willingly initiated contact with the League by science, art, or magic...it had been Daryl's modus operandi to tread madly where others dare not go.
'No,' Daryl looked hard at Yeats, 'I did not seek that meeting.' He paused a moment, noticed the empty chair as if it were some strange foreign object, then sat, leaning forward, elbows on knees.
'True...I had wondered, about...things...as all young people do, and sought answers for why the world had spun so out of control by then...although it was nothing to what was to come.' Daryl hung his head awhile, then brushed back his wild hair and sat up. 'Well, I found out, in a rather round-about, unlooked-for way.'
'I see...' Yeats began.
'Do you?' Echoed Daryl, deeply sarcastic.
Yeats sighed softly, nodded once, 'I see now, that you were an unwitting party to their plots. I apologize. I had wrongly assumed that you had orchestrated an...entree'.'
'Yeats...' Daryl echoed him, sighing again, '...I could also have thought the same of you, you know. However, I do not presume to question your personal business.'
'Touche',' Yeats conceded. 'However, I think that it would behoove us both to remain in touch, and update one another when possible. Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'...And,' Yeats continued, 'I believe it a good time perhaps, to enlighten young Jack and Emlyn somewhat. Jack may suspect, but I do not believe Emlyn knows even a sliver of the whole truth about herself. Her legacy.'
Daryl's mouth felt dust dry. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and wanted nothing more than to escape to his room, a pitcher of icewater, and his trusty pipe. 'Ah...agreed.' He stood then. 'Til tomorrow, then?'
'Yes, Daryl, rather later, tomorrow.' Yeats stood then as well. 'Thank you.'
Daryl looked rather lost then, as though wondering how he had arrived where he was, then nodded to Yeats and took himself off back down the spiral staircase and exited the library.
Yeats had noted the rather wild, too-bright look in Daryl's eyes; he'd seen that look before--upon the face of a man who had just been rescued after being lost at sea for some days. He imagined the old prophets had borne that same look after finding angels upon the path before them and becoming suddenly 'sore afraid...'
He thought then, that perhaps they had had a right to be so.
. . . .
'Ah, Em...you know I do enjoy our little recrudescent rendezvous...' Jack attempted to sit up and have a last sip of cognac, '...but, you just break my poor heart over and again, when you go...' he managed to snag the snifter and apply a bit of pre-pain medication.
Em slumped on her side, staring at Jack. 'Then either we are very different, or very much alike, Jack Van Horn.'
Jack added some of his cognac to Em's glass, handed it to her. 'Do tell,' he snaked a sideways smile up his left cheek.
'Well. For one: have you ever thought that you enjoy my company so, simply because I always leave before you have a chance to tire of it? Hmm?' Em touched his nose lightly.
'It's, that's...not altogether true...' Jack couldn't help but keep smiling to himself, knowing that Em's observation was admittedly astute.
'Um-hummm...' ...thought so, Em congratulated herself. 'But, you were saying...about enjoying our time together?'
She began to tug his hair gently and massage his head...
'I...ah, that feels sooo good...' Jack's eyes closed as he leaned his head into the tender ministrations of her magic hands.
'I thought so,' Em knew her Jack.
. . . .
What the bloody hell do I know?
Daryl asked of himself as he sat perched in the window seat of his own private hide-out in the attic rooms. It was a small, spare room, the ceiling sloped at an angle.
Daryl had the closet door open to the scent of cedar panelling within. The curtains were open wide and Daryl sat, pipe in hand, with one window cranked open a notch, watching the trees about the property sway with the wild wind.
Daryl exhaled slowly, feeling his headache ease. Looks like dawn soon, he thought with some surprise. How time does fly...he couldn't even laugh at that one anymore.
How would he get through the next day? Disclosure, Yeats
had threatened. Gods this was never easy. He knew he couldn't simply disappear as was his usual wont...no, eventually this day would come again. Get it over with, man, he told himself.
All the same, he reached into his vest pocket and opened a small wooden box, checked his supply; good, enough for tomorrow and then some. Sighing, he pocketed his Dutch courage, (or with opium, would that be English?), and made a mental note that he needed to return to his duties in Mexico post haste. What he needed was something to occupy the present that was utterly antipodal to his past.
He would not find that here, at his old digs.
'" Be not afraid of shadows..."' Daryl comforted himself with Shakespeare, and other things, watching the dawn
slowly outrival the nighttime. One last pipe, then this old fox was decidedly ready for his den...
. . . .
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)