The Golden City

28

Gabriel waited for that final moment when he would be forced to take water into his lungs. How much longer would he live? His heart beat once, twice-and then the massive wave passed him by and continued down the canyon. Still clinging to the evergreen bush, he opened his eyes and gasped for air.

Once again, the river appeared harmless, a thin line of water flowing over a bed of smooth stones. Gabriel lowered himself down to a patch of gravel and lay there for a long time, gazing up at the turquoise sky. His first thought was to climb out of the canyon and find the passageway home before nightfall. He would return to his own world and its familiar reality.

And then what? Eventually, he would have to leave the secret apartment and speak to the Resistance. Although he opposed the Brethren’s philosophy of power and control, he didn’t know how to express his vision in a way that would make sense to other people. Perhaps some higher power could help him. He needed to stay here and learn the secrets of this place.

Gabriel stepped into the shallow stream and sloshed his way up the canyon. At each new curve in the rock wall, he would pause and listen for the sound of another flood. Eventually, he reached an area where a section of the rock wall had peeled away and collapsed into the stream. He climbed up the rubble and jumped onto a narrow ledge. His back was pressed against the wall, his knees were bent and his feet splayed out like a ballet dancer making an awkward plié. The ledge widened as it led him upward, and a few minutes later he was out of the canyon. Once again, he turned toward the mountains and saw towers outlined against the sky. It was a city-a golden city-built in the middle of this desolation.

His body felt slow and cumbersome as he trudged up a steep path that threaded its way around massive boulders. It looked as if the mountains themselves had exploded, and the debris still littered the ground. He would take a hundred steps, stop to catch his breath in the thin air, and then start climbing again. At one point he had to force his way through the narrow gap between two boulders. When he emerged, he saw that his destination was only a few miles away.

The city consisted of three massive structures built on ascending terraces. Each building had a rectangular base, as white as a block of sugar, with thirty-three floors of windows. Golden towers rose from the roof of each base. Some were simple cylindrical shapes, but there were also domes, minarets and an elaborate pagoda. Gabriel wondered if he was looking at a fort or a school or a massive apartment building where each black-framed window had a view of the plateau. From a distance, the white buildings supporting the towers reminded him of three enormous birthday cakes with fanciful decorations on top.

Neither armed guards nor barking dogs gave a warning as he hurried up a short staircase to the first terrace-an open space of packed gravel. Gabriel stopped halfway across the terrace and gazed up, expecting a face to appear in one of the windows. It was almost painfully bright, and all the shadows had sharp edges. There was nothing welcoming about the golden city; it was more of a monument than a residence. At first, he couldn’t find a way in, and then he noticed an entrance at the far right corner of the building. The door was made of a greenish metal that resembled tarnished copper. An elaborate metal lotus was placed at the center. When Gabriel pushed this ornament, the door swung open. He waited a few seconds, then stepped inside, expecting to find something magical-perhaps a serpent twined around an altar or an angel in white robes.

“I’m here,” he said. But no one answered him.

He was standing in an empty room with white walls and bars on the windows. The bars created little boxes of hazy light on the floor. A second door was set in the wall left of the entrance. Gabriel pushed it open and found himself in an identical room.

So where were the gods? As he glanced out the window at the courtyard, he heard the door shut behind him. Moving slowly, he passed through a row of empty rooms until he reached the other side of the building. The silence was starting to bother him. He had never been in a space that felt so empty.

A staircase led him upward into an identical room with another doorway.

“Hello!” he shouted. “Anyone here?” When no one answered, he lost his temper and marched forward, slamming each door behind him. Floor after floor, he climbed upward, but there were no room numbers to announce how far he had gone. At a certain point, he entered a room and found a white cube supporting a model of a palm tree made out of bits of colored metal.

The next few floors displayed more artificial plants. Gabriel found daisies and oak trees and sea kelp, but there were also plants he had never seen before. Had the gods created these objects? Was he supposed to offer prayers, or was this building simply an enormous museum? A few floors higher, the plants vanished and models of animals appeared. Fish. Birds. Lizards. And then the mammals. There was a room devoted to foxes and another filled with cats. Finally, a spiral staircase led him out of the building, and he stood among the gold towers.

Perhaps the gods were watching him, testing him in some way. Gabriel crossed the terrace and entered the second building. The rooms were exactly the same, but there were models of tools and machinery. He inspected one room full of hammers and another that displayed lamps. There was a room dedicated to different kinds of steam engines next to one filled with antique radios. Gabriel was getting tired, but there was no quick way out. He climbed staircase after staircase until he reached the second terrace.

From the outside, the third and final building resembled the previous two structures. But when he pulled open the entrance door, he found five staircases that led off in different directions. Gabriel took the middle staircase and immediately got lost in a succession of intersecting hallways. There were no models of the natural or mechanical world in this structure-only a great many mirrors. He saw his bewildered faced in convex mirrors, pocket-seized mirrors and tarnished mirrors held in antique frames.

The sun was directly above the mountains when he finally emerged from this maze and stepped out onto the third terrace. Wandering through the towers, he found shards of broken mirrors and then a spot between two towers where someone had used mirrors to build something that resembled a solar oven. Would gods make something like this? Gabriel assumed they could just wave their hands and objects would appear.

Cautiously, he passed between the towers to an open section of the terrace. Fifty yards away from him, a man was sitting cross-legged on a bench. Like a stone idol, the figure waited for Gabriel to approach him. He looked smaller than Gabriel had remembered and his hair was much longer-almost touching his shoulders.

“Father?”

Matthew Corrigan stood up and smiled. “Hello, Gabriel. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“That could have been a long wait. I almost died a few hours ago.”

“Hope grows from faith. I always believed that you and Michael would find your way here.”

His father’s certainty, his calmness, was infuriating. “Is that why you disappeared?” Gabriel asked. “So you could live in this empty place?”

“After those men burned down our house, I hid among the trees near the top of the hill. When the three of you came out of the cellar, I made the decision to leave. I knew you would be safer without me around.”

“Mom was never the same after the fire. It destroyed her life.”

“When I married your mother, I didn’t know that I was a Traveler. All that came later. The Tabula found out and put me on their death list.”

“So where did you go after the fire? Were you hiding out in this world while we wandered around like bunch of homeless people?”

“I was teaching others. I tried to show them a different way.”

“Yeah, I know all about that. Remember the New Harmony group in Arizona? The Tabula executed everyone living there. They destroyed the entire community-the men, women and children you ‘inspired’ to change their lives.”

Matthew bent slightly forward as if taking the pain and sadness into his body. “What a terrible crime. I’ll pray for all of them.”

“Prayers can’t change what happened. Those people are dead because of your ideas. And you want to know something else? Michael became a Traveler, but he went over to the other side. Now he’s running the Evergreen Foundation.”

Matthew stood up, walked to the edge of terrace and gazed out at the mountains. “Your brother was always angry. He wanted to be just like everyone else, but that wasn’t possible.”

“Michael is going to turn the world into an enormous prison. And I’m the only one who can stop him. Was that part of your plan? Did you know we’d be on opposite sides?”

“I can’t predict the future, Gabriel.”

“People are risking their lives because I’m a Traveler and they think I have an answer. Well, I don’t have an answer. I wake up at night and wonder if I’m just going to create another New Harmony for the Tabula to destroy.”

“Hatred and anger are like two men standing in the street and shouting for revenge. Sometimes, it’s difficult to hear the softer voices.”

“I know all about hatred and anger. I’ve been to the dark city. In fact, I’ve met the crazy museum director who is still waiting for your return. But that’s your style, isn’t it? You never stay long, not even for your own family. Just one short visit and then you’re hiding in some distant world.”

“The realms aren’t distant, Gabriel. They’re parallel to our lives. A student sits in a classroom. An old woman cuts a slice of bread. They think they’re light years from a different reality, but those new worlds are right there if they could only reach through the barriers.”

“Most people don’t want to cross over. They’re more concerned with the problems they’re facing right now. The Vast Machine is becoming more powerful, more pervasive. A few individuals realize they’re about to lose their freedom, and they’re joining the Resistance. If I make a mistake or say the wrong thing, they’re going to get hurt.”

“That’s possible. We can’t control the future.”

“What about the gods? This is the golden city. Aren’t they supposed to appear and tell us what to do?”

“When I first came here, I searched for them. I explored the mountains and the canyons. I tapped my knuckles on these towers, searching for passageways and secret rooms. There’s nothing hidden here, Gabriel. The Light that created the universe endures forever, but the gods have vanished.”

“What happened?”

“They left no message, no explanation. I’ve come up with my own theory. Their disappearance is an opportunity.”

“So no one’s here?”

“If the gods have left the stage, then it’s just the two of us.” Matthew stepped toward his son. “So who are you, Gabriel? And what kind of world do you want to live in? I’m not going to tell you what to believe. All I can do is guide you forward, and make sure you don’t turn away from your own vision.”