Twenty Nine
The helicopter stopped briefly outside New New York to refuel and Duncan and Jessica were allowed off the helicopter, briefly, to relieve themselves. They were under a constant Magistrate guard, though, and the opportunity just didn’t present itself for escape. More Magistrates from the city surrounded the entire fueling location as if Duncan and Jessica were some great plague that needed to be contained.
“It’s quite amazing, isn’t it?” the Lord Probate asked.
“What?”
“Jeremiah Fredrick had the foresight to keep a large amount of human equipment available for our use, should the day come when your kind somehow managed to make the magic fade, as they have now.”
It was Duncan’s turn to laugh. “Do you really believe that a bunch of farmers and fisherman, just barely scraping by every day, have somehow managed to make the mighty Magician’s power fade? Are you that daft?”
The Lord Probate raised his hand and electricity sparked between the fingers. “Watch your tongue, boy. We are in the range of a Magician city. I could strike that foul organ from your mouth.”
“Do it then,” Duncan told him, defiant.
The arcs of electricity grew stronger and brighter, but the Lord Probate didn’t strike him down. “Get back in the helicopter. Jeremiah Fredrick will deal with you.”
As soon as the big helicopter was fueled, they set off again, heading out to sea. They flew out over the ocean. There were miles and miles of trash islands, formed by a thousand years worth of debris. A few that they flew over had small fires on them, indicating to Duncan that his people even lived out here, in the most extreme of conditions. If humankind could survive on an island of floating trash, they could survive anywhere. Seeing those campfires gave Duncan at least a little hope. Man could escape the Creeping Death underground and survive. If they could avoid the Magicians, they could one day walk out of their holes and return to their proper place in the world. It was a little hope, but hope was like that. It could start off small and grow.
The sun began to set in the west but he could see a great light on the horizon, illuminating the night sky as if the stars had fallen to earth and still blazed.
“That’s New Atlantis, Duncan Cade, your prison. You’ll see it in all its glory in the sunlight in the morning.”
Duncan couldn’t sleep through the rest of the flight. He was just too full of nervous energy, unsure of what to expect at New Atlantis. He had some idea just from what the Lord Probate had said, but he didn’t know how it would play out. Would he spend the rest of his life in a prison cell, or would they just execute him to be sure? He felt worst about bringing Jessica along. At least back in Shreveport she would have had a chance. She managed to sleep, however, and rested her head against his shoulder as he watched the stark blackness of the ocean rushing by.
As the sun began to rise in the east, he watched the ocean waves rush by. The water was black and dead looking, and he wondered if anything at all lived there. Jessica had told him of her people fishing near their home, and how they’d had to go out further and further to find anything. He wondered if the ocean was much like the land in respects to the Creeping Death. Were there patches of life in the vast oceans where life still thrived? And as he wondered they passed over a clear border where the ocean turned from dirty black to bright green and his suspicions were confirmed. The water below was now alive with life. He saw whales spouting water high into the air and a school of dolphins frolicking about. There were also other creatures in the water, creatures that he only recognized from fiction he’d read, including a giant squid and a Kraken.
“We’re getting close, aren’t we?” Jessica asked, rubbing her eyes as she awoke and looked out the window.
“I think so.”
“Oh, we are. We definitely are,” the Lord Probate said, rubbing his hands together. “To the motherland we go.”
The helicopter jolted, then dropped a hundred feet, the rotors stopping. Jessica screamed out and Duncan gripped the seat tightly. The Lord Probate laughed loudly as the pilot poked his head in the cabin and said. “They have us now, my lord.”
“It’s much safer to land under magic than it is science,” the Lord Probate responded. “We will be there shortly.”
Duncan, his fear alleviated, watched the magical land of New Atlantis out the window as the helicopter, guided by Magicians in the city, zoomed across the countryside.
The lush green vegetation of New Atlantis made the area surrounding Shreveport look like a marshy swamp. The beach bordering the continent was pristine and white, with green waves lapping at the shore. There were hundreds of Magicians dotting the beach, playing in the sand, bathing in the bright sun, and surfing just off shore. Further in the immense forest started. Trees towered hundreds of feet into the air and were dotted with tiny cabins with rope bridges strewn through the branches like spider webs. Fierce wyverns flew among the trees, some with Magician riders, some not. They twisted and turned in the air, lightning bolts sizzling through the air between them in a game that he assumed was something like Fireball.
They cruised out over great swaths of grassy plains. For as far as the eye could see the grasslands ran bright green and herds of unicorns played and grazed. The ‘corns only gave them a passing glance and Duncan had to assume that an ancient machine traveling through the sky above them just wasn’t all that unusual. They soon approached a large mountain chain and the helicopter had to gain altitude to clear the massive mountains. On those hills, Duncan saw Orks by the thousands, their cooking fires burning with black smoke. Above them hundreds of dragons circled. They came in every shade of color of the rainbow and streaks of fire flashed through the air. Duncan had seen images of them from memory stones and wondered what mountain his parents had visited to get such memories. Past the mountains, they entered a massive cloudbank, and even the clouds themselves seemed alive, rippling with energy. Faces made of the clouds pressed up against the windows, curious about the helicopter’s occupants.
As soon as they darted out of the cloudbank, he saw the city of New Atlantis. It was the biggest city he’d ever seen, even in the histories of ancient man or the Magicians. Great spires shot up into the sky at impossible angles, topped with canopies of gold and giant diamonds. The entire city looked like one ancient castle, though on a much more gigantic scale. Cobblestone streets twisted between buildings made of gold and silver. The city was so bright and shining that it was hard to look at directly. This was the epitome of Magician power on earth, the seat of their power. At the base of the city, below even the lower levels, the giant pipes from the mainland shot up out of the ground and into the bottom of the city. The dull glow blue of the pipes from the continent were now bright and fantastic, and electricity raced around the piping, sparks shooting hundreds of feet into the air. The city itself looked like a living, breathing organism, and despite his ever growing-hatred of the Magicians and what they’d done to humankind, he couldn’t help but gasp at the splendor of the city.
“It’s beautiful.” Jessica said, once again echoing his own thoughts. “They build so much.”
“They built it with magic that is sucking the life out of the world, Jessica. It is beautiful, but it’s beautiful at the cost of our people.”
The helicopter veered towards one of the outward spires where there were massive platforms for the landing of such vehicles. There were also dozens of other ancient aircraft, all in pristine condition. There were bombers, fighter aircraft, unmanned aerial drones, as well as other helicopters. On the lower levels of that particular spire were outcroppings with ancient land attack vehicles, including jeeps, tanks, and trucks. And everywhere, among the various ancient vehicles, were hundreds of red-armored Magistrates sporting ancient weapons.
“They’re preparing for an invasion, aren’t they?” Duncan asked the Lord Probate, looking directly into his eyes.
The Lord Probate laughed at him. “Just a back up, Duncan, just a back up. Should we not be able to restore
magic to the land, then we will eliminate the vermin with time-proven tactics.”
“And that’s what you think my people are? Vermin?”
“Aren’t they? They crawl up out of the ground and leech off the world, the very definition of a rat.”
The Lord Probate reminded Duncan of his son, Timmy, and all those taunts that seemed like a lifetime ago. He wasn’t going to take the bait, though, and instead settled back in the seat and waited for the helicopter to land. It touched down softly and the door slid open. There were two rows of Magistrates forming an isle out of the helicopter, and another man, dressed in robes similar to the Lord Probate’s, greeted them outside the aircraft.
“Lord Probate, welcome to New Atlantis. I trust your trip was a pleasant one?”
“As pleasant as it could be considering the circumstances and the cargo. I trust the Master is ready and waiting for the degenerate’s appearance?”
“He will see them in the morning, Lord Probate.”
“I was to understand this was an emergency. I dropped everything in New Dallas to find him and bring him here.”
“You would question Jeremiah Fredrick?” the other man asked, a scowl on his face.
“No, of course not.”
“Then enjoy the accommodations for the evening and we will deal with these pests in the morning. Please, go forth and enjoy all that New Atlantis has to offer. It has been a long time since your last visit.”
“Too long. I will be happy when we can finally abandon the cities. And what of these two?”
The other man grinned. “We will take care of them. Have no worries. They are officially out of your care.”
A squad of six Magistrates led them through the streets of New Atlantis. It was more like a parade, and there was no small amount of gawking as they passed the citizens of the city on the pristine streets. There was an army of Golems working, picking up trash and endlessly sweeping. Duncan wondered if they were the same Golems from Center. Were these people their ancestors, lost souls trapped in the Void while their bodies toiled for eternity for the Magicians? He tried to make contact with the Golems, hoping against hope that they might, like the ones back in the town, help them. But the charmed humans didn’t react to their presence—or anything else, for that matter.
They marched for half an hour and then stopped in front of a quaint-looking inn. The lead Magistrate turned to them.
“You will find food and drink inside, as well as a place to spend the night. Do not attempt to leave the building, and make no attempts at escape. Such attempts will be met with extraordinary force. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Duncan answered. Even if they could escape from the inn, how would they escape from New Atlantis? He wasn’t going anywhere without help and he knew it.
There was no one inside the building. They were completely alone. The main table, surrounded by a dozen chairs, was piled with food, everything from roasts and chicken to fruits and vegetables that he’d never seen. There were cakes, pies, and cookies. Duncan sat down at the table and began to stuff himself.
Jessica was hesitant. “Are you sure it’s safe? Don’t they conjure all their food?”
“It’s the same as real food,” Duncan told her. “It just comes from a different place. I ate magically summoned food all the time when I was a kid.”
“But what if it’s poisoned?”
“If they wanted us to die, they would have killed us above Center, or thrown us out of the helicopter. No, they want us to meet whoever this person is pretending to be Jeremiah Fredrick.”
“You don’t think it’s the original Fredrick?”
“No. How could it be? First off, he was reportedly killed during the naval barrage of New Atlantis during the start of the Last War. Even if that’s wrong, and he somehow survived, how did he survive a thousand years?”
“The Golems survived that long,” Jessica said matter-of-factly. “If they could, he could.”
“They didn’t survive through magic; they survived through some wonder of science that the humans thought of during the last days of the war. They were preserved in their town, in Stasis Level Three, whatever that was, and then were somehow released when the Creeping Death overtook the town. It was science, not magic.”
“Are the two all that different?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan answered honestly. “They seem like two sides of the same coin, but neither works well in the presence of the other. It’s just like in Center. When they met, things went wrong.”
“We can’t all exist in the same world for long, can we? It’s either them or us.”
Duncan didn’t like to think that way, but she was right. “You heard the Lord Probate. They’re readying an army with ancient weapons just in case the Magic fades. They mean to end us, as a species. I don’t know how we live with that.”
“We don’t,” Jessica replied, finally sitting down and taking part in the meal. “We fight.”
“But how?”
It was a question none of them knew the answer to.