off the first round, the boy brought Silas a damp cloth. He wiped the dust of the road from his face and draped the cloth around his neck. “Feels good.”
Karik’s gaze was distracted and remote. “I missed you, Silas,” he said.
“What happened out there?” asked Silas. “Did everyone get back okay?”
The older man’s expression remained rock hard.
“Who did you lose?”
The Mississippi was visible through the windows. Karik got up, looked out at it, and finished his wine. “Everybody,” he said. “I came home alone.” His voice shook.
Silas lowered his glass, never taking his eyes off his old friend. “What happened?”
Karik’s breathing was loud. “Two drowned in a river. Others dead from exposure. Disease. Bad luck.” His eyes slid shut. “All to no purpose. You were right.”
A flatboat came into view. It navigated carefully into a wing channel on the west side of the ruined bridge. Its deck was piled high with wooden containers.
Silas swallowed his own disappointment. It was true he had maintained stoutly that Haven was mythical, that the expedition was an exercise in fantasy; but part of him had hoped to be proved wrong. Indeed, he had lain at night dreaming how it would be if Abraham Polk’s treasures actually existed. What it would mean to find a history of the Roadmakers, to learn something about the race that had built the great cities and highways, what they had dreamed of. And perhaps even to recover an account of the Plague days.
Eleven dead. Silas had known most of them: the guide, Landon Shay; Kir, Tori, and Mira from the Imperium; Arin Milana, the artist; Shola Kobai, the daredevil ex-princess from Masandik. There was Random Iverton, a former military officer turned adventurer; and the scholar Axel from the academy at Farroad; and Cris Lukasi, the survival expert. And two whom Silas had not known, save to shake their hands as they set out on rain-damped River Road and headed into the wilderness.
Only the leader survived. He looked at Karik and knew his old friend was reading his thoughts.
“It happened,” he said. “I was just luckier than the rest.” Pain came into his eyes. “Silas, what do I tell their families?”
“Tell them the truth. What else is there?”
He faced the window, watching the barge. “I did everything I could. Things just broke down.”
“Do you have a list of next of kin?” asked Silas.
“I was hoping you’d help me put one together.”
“All right. We can do that. Tonight, you should invite them here. Before they find out you’re home and start wondering where their relatives are.”
“Some of them are from other cities.”
“Do what you can. Take care of the others later. Send messengers.”
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose that is best.”
“Get to as many people as you can. Bring them here this evening. Talk to them together. Tell them what happened.”
Karik’s eyes were wet. “They won’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? The people who went with you knew there was a risk. When did you get home?”
Karik hesitated. “Last week.”
Silas looked at him a long time. “Okay.” He refilled the cups and tried to sound casual. “Who else knows you’re back?”
“Flojian.”
His son.
“All right. Let’s get it over with. Listen: The people who went with you were volunteers. They understood there was danger, and their families knew that. All you have to do is explain what happened. Give your regrets. It’s okay. They’ll see you’re hurting, too.”
Karik folded his arms and seemed to sag. “Silas,” he said, “I wish I’d died out there.”
They fell into another long silence. Silas picked up a tablet and began writing down names. Fathers. Sisters. Axel’s daughter, who was a relative of Silas’s, having married his cousin.
“I don’t want to do this,” said Karik.
“I know.” Silas poured more wine. “But you will. And I’ll stand up there with you.”
1
It is a fond and universally held notion that only things of the spirit truly endure: love, sunsets, music, drama. Marble and paint are subject to the ravages of time. Yet it might be argued that nothing imperishable can move the spirit with quite the impact of a ruined Athenian temple under a full moon.
There was something equally poignant in the wreckage the Roadmakers had left behind. One does not normally equate concrete with beauty. But there it was, formed into magnificent twin strips that glided across rolling hills and through broad forests, leaped rivers, and splayed into tributary roads in designs of such geometrical perfection as to leave an observer breathless. And here, in glittering towers so tall that few could