“I did not expect that you would be undertaking a journey again so soon. But of course, Father. We are prepared to proceed as you direct.”

Despite the fact that Roman was a grown adult, and had taken over the full leadership of the clan a quarter of a century before, he still feared his father’s power. It was right that he did; for though he coveted it, Roman was not yet ready to take on that role. He had more to learn: restraint, gratitude, forgiveness.

Roman might have the sharp, bright intelligence that had bettered their clandestine world through his initiatives and inventions, but he did not connect with the spiritual world as readily or as easily as one must to be the same powerful Shaman that Lev was. That lack would be his weakness as he continued to build his levy of supporters and his government. There were two critical aspects to leading the Skaladeska clan: intelligence and strategic leadership, and spiritual communion with Gaia.

Feeling the healing warmth from the crystal soothe his arthritic joint, Lev said mildly but firmly, “I will journey again tomorrow. Then we will talk again. Make no further arrangements until we have discussed it.” There was more, and he would have it from his own son’s mouth. He was tired of waiting. “When will Viktor arrive?”

Roman froze.

Lev smothered a shot of delight. He should not be celebrating his victory, as it confirmed his son’s perfidy.

“Viktor?” Roman repeated. Then he recovered. “A surprise that you have already uncovered, I see, Father. I should have guessed you would learn of his imminent arrival through your community with Gaia.”

“You kept it from me, and I am severely displeased.”

“Father, I was not sure how you would respond, knowing … knowing what happened. I felt it was the right time to bring him back, but I meant to talk with you about it first.”

“For what purpose have you invited him to return?” At one time, Lev did not think he would ever desire to see his son again. But now, with age … perhaps he could consider forgiveness.

Perhaps.

“As we implement the Phase Two, I wanted there to be no one in the Out-World who might be traced back to us. Safety for us, and for him as well.”

Lev nodded. His explanation made sense and he accepted it. “Indeed. I will not argue that Viktor could be a weak link in our chain. You will notify me when he has arrived, then.”

“I will.”

“Now then, what else have you to report from Out-World? It has been several days since you have visited alone.”

“That is true, but I meant only to give you the time for your meditations and journeys. It’s not the best tidings.”

Lev felt the darkness in his son’s mind, and knew that it was indeed bad news; but his easy acquiescence bothered him. “What is it?”

“An oil spill.”

Not what he had expected; a tragedy, not an error. “Where?” He lurched from his chair to his knees, brushing his hand over the covering on the floor, sending his energy through to the rock and soil beneath—to soothe and comfort her.

Oh Gaia.

The horrific images from past oil spills assailed him. Seabirds, loons, eagles swallowed in thick black grease, so filthy their feathers turned blue-black and grey, and the dainty nostrils in their beaks, clogged and dripping. Helpless salmon, herring, even killer whale, gasping for breath in the oil-slick water; washed onto the beach, their scales slick and black, flopping helplessly in the sand. He felt their helplessness, breathed their demise, felt Gaia shuddering with them.

Crude pools and puddles shining on top of the water, winking with rainbow streaks in the sun. Gaia did not deserve this smothering of her oceans. Turtles, sea otters, penguins; all of them, destroyed, starved, swamped with the greasiness of man’s carelessness.

“It is not as bad as it could be,” his son told him. “It was the Crimson Shell. Our oil. She ran abreast of a sea rock, and spilled off the northwest coast of Ireland.”

No, not as bad as the Valdez or the Jessica Spill in the Galapagos, but bad enough. And dangerous for the Skaladeskas for different reasons. Any investigation into the spill could lead the Out-World back to them.

“I have already given the directive,” Roman told him. “The Kamut was applied within twenty hours of the report of the spill. And Fridkov … he has severed our ties with Medivir. Permanently.”

Lev nodded, his worry ebbing. Roman was more than capable when it came to operations and management. “Excellent. That was a dangerous mistake—one we cannot afford at this time. And the Kamut?”

Roman appeared to relax for the first time since joining his father’s presence. He settled back in his chair as he had when he first sat down and allowed his hands to move in graceful gestures. “It was applied in the early morning hours when the rescue workers had returned to their camp. There was one human casualty—a rescue worker who apparently woke early and returned on her own just after the Kamut was applied—but it is likely that she will recover. Varden has traveled to Dublin to see to it.”

“Varden will soon return? He must be by your side when the second phase is executed. He’s wise in the ways of the Out-World. I want there to be no chance that he would be apprehended or injured during the events.” And Rue Varden brought a more purposeful, tempered view of the Out-World. He was a needed foil and trusted confidant for Lev’s linear-minded Roman.

“Yes, of course. I have commanded him to return within three days.”

Lev waited for a moment, watching Roman closely. There was more. He would wait, for here was the test.

His son shifted on his chair, and Lev sensed him curtaining his mind; obscuring something he did not want to discuss.

But discuss they would. He had moved beyond his pain, his desire to seep back into the ground and to give up. It was not yet time for him; and while he walked the earth, he would command and lead with the strength he always had. He might not wish to acknowledge it, but Roman still answered to him.

Lev considered his son. Despite his placation, there was something else Roman was not telling him. Rather than force it from him at this time, he would wait. He had other ways to learn what happened beyond these walls.

-22-

July 8, 2007

L’Anse, Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Marina sat on the edge of the bed, at the rickety table in MacNeil’s hotel room. Because the Best Western was booked, they’d resorted to taking rooms in the simple, worn, but clean Lake View Motel. Since the busiest season for motels in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was not during the summer, but during hunting season, Boris was welcomed as well. He wasn’t the first hunting dog to stay in the log cabin inn; in fact, the front desk boasted a sign offering dog dishes upon request. The room smelled like Pine-Sol and smoked whitefish, and its solitary double bed was draped in red plaid flannel—even now, in the middle of summer.

The owners of the motel were so welcoming to Boris, in fact, that their pre-teen son had asked if he could take the dog for a walk along the lake. Marina agreed, knowing that Boris needed some time out of the small motel room.

On the low table in front of her rested the book they’d found in Dad’s hidden cellar. Marina turned the brittle pages and scanned each one, looking for something that she could translate.

The inscriptions were hand-written in some kind of brushed ink. The characters flowed with ornate curlicues and sweeping serifs on the first line of every page, but the rest of the text showed more restraint. The ink was a dark green color, and the fancy letters decorated with blue, red, yellow and violet were not unlike the scripts written by Christian monks in the middle ages of Europe.

How old was this manuscript? What did she hold in her hands? Something more important than the Lam Pao Archive?

The key to an entire world she hadn’t known about … or had forgotten?

Diagrams appeared throughout the text, often taking up a whole page. The same symbol of the Skaladeskas left on the paper in Marina’s office also littered the pages and diagrams.

Marina smoothed her hand over the crinkling, textured pages, staring at words and characters that she knew she’d seen before, struggling to read them, but managing only a word or phrase per page.

But it was there; they were there. Swimming at the edge of her consciousness, ready to burst forth. Sometime.

MacNeil sat on the bed behind her, long legs extended and ankles crossed. He was finishing the last piece from the pizza they’d shared for a late dinner and, she was sure, was waiting impatiently for her to translate the book while he flipped through the news channels. She couldn’t help that her attention kept wandering toward him instead of being focused on the pages in front of her. Gabe had seemed to warm considerably toward her since they’d left Ann Arbor.

Bergstrom had returned to Langley, leaving the two of them to spend another day at the ruins of her father’s house. If only Gabe would leave to get some air, instead of alternately glowering impatiently or checking her out when he thought she didn’t notice. It was the latter that befuddled her more than the impatience. His restlessness she could handle. But the other, the subtle awareness of her…well, that was unsettling.

Not necessarily in a bad way.

“Are you getting anywhere?” he finally asked. He walked over to the small wastebasket, already overflowing with the pizza box Bergstrom had tried to jam in there, and shoved in the wad of paper towels he’d been using as a plate. “I’d like to give Bergstrom something when I call.”

“I think I recognize a few words, articles and pronouns mostly. The word ‘Gaia’ appears quite often—the goddess of the earth.”

“Isn’t Gaia a Greek word?” MacNeil asked, surprising her.

“Yes. I always wondered about that; how a small tribe in Siberia used a Greek name for their goddess.”

Marina smoothed her hand over the rippled, translucent paper. “I wonder what this is made of, if it’s some kind of ancient text … or just the way they make books in Skala Land.”

“You can’t read anything else?”

“Not now. Maybe later it will come back to me. It’s … familiar, but I can’t read it now. I feel like I’m on the verge of the language flooding back into my memory … .”