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PART SIX City of the Dead In her book Order First, Question Later, Mary Hightower offers us her personal insights on the art of war:
"To bring about order in a chaotic world, one must, on occasion, resort to large-scale conflict. Weaponry and the size of one's army are certainly factors--but far more important are brains and righteous convictions. In the living world it seems right-thinking people are often trampled beneath the filthy boots of impure ideas. However, I like to believe that, at least in Everlost, good will triumph over evil."
Chapter 31 On the Banks of Eternity
The city of Memphis is gone.
This once great river city--the very center of civilization--now lies in ruins, eternally buried by time and river silt. That is to say, the Egyptian city of Memphis, capital of ancient Egypt when that kingdom was at its height, over 3,000 years ago. The great palaces have crumbled, and the towering stone obelisks, once wonders of the upper and lower Nile, have fallen like trees, and now lay hidden beneath farmland.
Across the Nile river from Memphis, on its western bank, was the necropolis: the city of the dead, containing the tombs and burial chambers of Egypt. It seems all cultures respect the awesome and mystical nature of a great river--how it can divide life from death, here from there, known from unknown.
No one has ever accused Memphis, Tennessee, of being the center of civilization, although it does have its moments. It, too, lies on a great dividing river--a gateway to the West. At least it's a gateway in the living world. In Everlost, however, it is a city of relentless wind, and marks an inexplicable barrier to the West ... which makes it interesting to note that Memphis, Egypt, was also known as Ineb-hedj or "the White Wall."
To the living world, the kingdoms of Egypt are ancient history--because in the living world, even that which is considered permanent is always proven to be temporary. To the living, eternity is a concept, not a reality--and yet they know it exists.
The living do not see eternity, just as they don't see Everlost, but they sense both in ways that they don't even know. They don't feel the Everlost barrier set across the Mississippi River, and yet no one had ever dared to draw city boundaries that straddle both sides of its waters. The living do not see Afterlights, and yet everyone has had times when they've felt a presence near them--sometimes comforting, sometimes not--but always strong enough to make one turn around and look over one's shoulder.
Look behind you now.
Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?
... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with a thousand Afterlights heading toward Memphis.
... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in that same city in search of Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.
... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery--not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can. ... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep... . For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, which is which.
Chapter 32 The Low Approach
Nick had no idea that this day would lead him right into a vortex--and not just any vortex, but one of the most dangerous ones Everlost had to offer. All he knew was that nothing was going according to plan. The moment Nick had heard Allie was in Memphis, he was convinced that he was destined to find her. He was certain that he would arrive, and there she would be. How foolish. Did he expect her to be standing there in the middle of Beale Street waiting for him?
He had teams search the city for days, battling that soulnumbing wind, but they didn't find a single Afterlight in Memphis, or a single clue as to Allie's whereabouts.
A scout had returned from St. Louis, claiming the Mississippi wind was no better in that city. He spoke of rumors that Mary Hightower was farther north. Michigan, perhaps, or Illinois. Charlie, who wanted to map more of the Midwest rails, was urging him to head north, but Nick wouldn't have it. They could face Mary without Allie, but having Allie there simply felt ... right. The sum of the parts would be greater than the whole. It would make them complete. It would make him complete.
"Allie the Outcast is here!" he told his restless troops. "I can feel it." And he could. That connection, forged the moment they were born into Everlost, told him that she was right under his nose, if only he knew where to look. "Keep searching!" he told them, sounding more like an Ogre by the minute.
Then, on their sixth day in Memphis, Johnnie-O approached him with some news.
"She's coming," Johnnie-O said. By the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, and the way he cracked his knuckles, Nick knew he didn't mean Allie. "Somehow Mary knew we were here!"
Nick stood from his chair. It was getting increasingly harder for him to rise, and as he walked forward, he dragged his feet, leaving chocolate skid marks on the ground.
"How close is she?" Nick asked.
Johnnie-O cracked a knuckle, the sound as penetrating as a sonar ping.
"Stop that," Nick said. "For all we know she has a kid with big enough ears to hear that a hundred miles away."
"Sorry." Johnnie-O looked deeply worried, and he was not an Afterlight who was easily intimidated.
"How close is she?" Nick asked again.
"You're not gonna like it," Johnnie-O said.
