فصل 12

CHAPTER TWELVE Breakfast for Dinner

The child weighed nothing. Gabriel gently laid her on the floor of the first chamber so that she rested on her side. Her shirt, front and back, was soaked with blood.

“Gabriel …”

“Close your eyes.”

She did so, and Gabriel grasped the feathered end of the arrow. For perhaps the first time in his life, his hands trembled. He snapped the shaft with a sharp crack. Emma whimpered but kept her eyes closed. He did the same to the end of the arrow sticking out her back. This time a small shuddering cry escaped Emma’s lips. Her hands were clenched together as in prayer, and tears welled from the corners of her eyes. Now only a few inches of the dark, bloodstained shaft stuck out from either side. He had decided to leave the fragment in her body. Its poison had already contaminated her, and the shaft at least served to stanch the bleeding. He gathered her up and turned down the second doorway to the left, moving as fast as he dared.

“Michael and Kate didn’t come back,” Emma said in a weak, trembling voice, half muffled against his chest. “I thought … I thought they’d come back for me.”

“Don’t speak. You need your strength.”

Time, he knew, was their greatest enemy. He needed to get her out of the mountain and to his village as quickly as possible. Once there, Granny Peet, the tribal wisewoman, could treat her. But would Emma survive that long? Would he? The same poison that was on the arrow had been on the swords of the Screechers. Gabriel had half a dozen wounds on his arms and a large gash in his side; he could feel the poison, like ice in his blood, moving toward his heart.

And what of her brother and sister? Had they kept moving through the maze, simply assuming Emma was with them? Sooner or later, they would have realized the truth and turned back. But with each deserted chamber, each dark, empty tunnel, Gabriel knew the chances of meeting the other two children grew smaller. Had they gotten lost? Or had something found them? These tunnels were not empty of life.

Gabriel glanced down at Emma. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was fast and shallow. Droplets of sweat stood out on her face. She would not make it to the village. He paused in a chamber and set her down. He did not like stopping here, but he had no choice. He rolled up her shirt to expose the wound. The poison had spread. It was visible around the nub of arrow, a large black spider under her pale skin, stretching its dark legs.

He took out a small leather pouch and removed the contents: several different types of leaves, a gnarled root, a vial of yellowish liquid. He laid the pouch flat on the ground and crumpled the leaves into a small pile. They were dry and quickly turned to dust.

“What’re you doing?”

Lying on the floor, Emma had opened her eyes.

“I must treat your wounds. The arrow was poisoned.”

Gabriel took his knife and cut two thin slices off the root. These he chopped into small pieces and added to the crushed leaves. Then he removed the stopper from the vial and carefully released three yellow drops. The roots and leaves began to hiss and smoke. Gabriel took the handle of his knife and began kneading it all into a brownish mash.

“They’re lost because of me, aren’t they, Gabriel?” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I shouldn’t have left them. They figured out I wasn’t there, so they went back to look for me and got lost. That’s what happened, isn’t it? It’s all my fault. You gotta find them, Gabriel. You gotta leave me and go find them.”

“I will find them. If I have to return with every man and woman in the village.” He dipped his finger in the brownish-yellow paste. It had a warm, peaty smell and stuck to his fingers. “But first I must take care of you.”

“No—”

“Do not argue.”

Gabriel began to apply the salve, and Emma sucked in her breath to keep from crying out. Where it touched the edges of her wound, Gabriel’s concoction bubbled and hissed. Emma thought it must be burning right through her skin.

After a moment, when she knew she could control her voice, she said, “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

“This will slow the poison,” he said, continuing to spread the salve.

“It’s okay.” He was applying the medicine to her back now. It was still burning, but the feeling seemed a long way off, like she had drifted away from her body. “I’m not scared. But when you find Michael and Kate, say I’m sorry, okay? For running off? And tell Michael it’s okay what he did. I probably would’ve done the same. And say I love them. Make sure you say that most of all.”

Gabriel wiped the last of the salve around the nub of arrow protruding from her back. He had done all he could. Her survival now depended on her own strength and how quickly he could get her to the village.

He took a moment to look at her, lying there in the light of the lantern. He had always been solitary. Even among his own tribe. But he felt connected to this child in a way he had never felt toward any living thing. He laid his large hand gently upon her head. Her eyes were closed. Despite his medicine, she was slipping away.

“You have a great heart.” He brushed the hair back from her sweaty forehead. “You will not die today.”

And then he heard it. Click-click. He looked toward one of the doorways. Though he saw nothing but darkness, he knew that sound. It was the tap of claws on stone.

He glanced at Emma; she was unconscious. A small blessing.

He stood, his legs shaking from the poison coursing through his body. He took the falchion off his back.

There was no hope of flight. The creature was too close.

He stood there, facing the doorway, waiting for it to emerge from the shadows.

“So I run an orphanage! Amazing! The turns one’s life takes!”

Kate and Michael were sitting on piles of straw across from Dr. Pym. The flame, which Dr. Pym had placed on the stone floor of the cell and caused to grow into a cheerful little fire, crackled away between them.

“Well, to be honest,” Michael said, “it’s not much of an orphanage.”

“Michael!”

“I’m just saying, what kind of orphanage only has three children?”

“He’s quite right,” Dr. Pym said. “It sounds as if I’ve made something of a hash of it. Or I will. In fifteen years or what have you.”

When the old wizard had first emerged from the darkness, Kate’s reaction had been bafflement. That it was actually Dr. Pym she had no doubt. She did not think she was having another vision. But what was the head of their orphanage doing locked in a dwarfish prison? She stayed as she was, her back pressed against the door. “Dr. Pym! What’re you … doing here?”

Michael gaped. “He’s Dr. Pym?! The Dr. Pym?!”

“Hello,” the wizard said, smiling at them over the flame dancing in his palm.

Kate put her hand on the wall to steady herself. She was having the same feeling she’d had that day in the library, that she had met this man before. The image of him standing in shadow clawed at some memory deep inside her.

“You’re really Dr. Pym?” Michael said.

“That I am. Who might you be?”

“Michael,” Kate said. “Our brother. He wasn’t there the day you met me and Emma.” Kate was fighting to stay calm. She had to think clearly. Emma was in danger. They needed help if they were going to find her. But could they trust Dr. Pym? As the shock of seeing him had abated, her doubts about the wizard had come rushing back.

He was looking at her now. “And who are you, my dear?”

She managed to say, “… What?”

“I asked, ‘Who are you?’ Of course, I’m always happy to meet new people. But I gather you do know me.”

“Yes! Don’t you remember? We met …” The words died on her lips as Kate realized her mistake. She and Emma wouldn’t meet with the wizard in the house in Cambridge Falls for another fifteen years. The man smiling down at them, wearing, she was certain, the same tweed suit he would wear a decade and a half in the future, had no idea who she was. She felt foolish and defeated. “… I mean, we’re going to meet.… It’s complicated.”

“The reason you and I haven’t met,” Michael said helpfully, “is that I was already trapped in the past.”

“I see,” Dr. Pym said. Then he shook his head. “Actually no, I don’t see at all. Here, you had better come in and explain everything.”

He led them deeper into the cell, which was about the size of a comfortable living room, a comfortable living room, that is, made entirely of stone and iron with no windows and only old straw for furniture. Dr. Pym gathered the straw into two piles and told Kate and Michael to sit down. Then he slid the flame out of his palm, blew on it, and the fire sprang to life. Dr. Pym settled himself on a third heaped-together pile, folded up his long legs, and pulled a pipe from his inside jacket pocket.

“Now,” he said as he began to pack the bowl, “start at the beginning.”

“Wait—” Kate had made up her mind to ask him for help. What other choice did they have? Emma was lost. “We’ll tell you everything, okay? But first—”

“Ah yes, introductions. Quite right. I’m Stanislaus Pym. But you knew that. Did I hear your name was Kate? Is that short for Katherine?”

“Yes, but—”

“Katherine what?”

“P! Katherine P. And this is Michael, again! But—”

“P? You mean like the letter? That’s unusual.”

“We don’t know our real last names! Look, I said we’d tell you everything! But first you have to find our sister, Emma! She’s probably in terrible danger!”

“She ran off to help Gabriel!” Michael said. “Even after Kate told her not to. She’s always doing that kind of thing.”

“Michael, not now.”

“Sorry,” Michael mumbled, “… but she is.”

“So your sister is with Gabriel, then?”

“You know him?” Kate was taken aback.

“Oh yes,” Dr. Pym said. “And if that is the case, you have nothing to worry about. Gabriel is one of the most capable individuals I have ever met.”

“But we don’t know for sure that she is with Gabriel! Can’t you just do some spell—”

“Katherine, first off, magic doesn’t work like that. You don’t say ‘hocus-pocus’ and have someone simply pop out of the air. Well, sometimes you do, just not in this case. Secondly, rest assured, even as I am sitting here talking to you, I am already working to locate your sister.”

“You are?” She was unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

“Oh, most definitely.”

“But you’re just … sitting there,” Michael said. “Chewing your pipe.”

“Yes.” Dr. Pym smiled. “Quite amazing, isn’t it? But now I insist you begin your story. I promise, everything you tell me that gives me a clearer picture of your sister will aid me in finding her.”

Kate relented (again, what choice did she have?), and they began telling their story, though in a somewhat abbreviated form (Kate reasoning he’d just hear the whole thing again in fifteen years), but hitting all the major points: their parents’ disappearance, moving from orphanage to orphanage, arriving in Cambridge Falls and learning from Abraham that the head of the orphanage, Dr. Pym, was a wizard—

(“My, this Abraham fellow is a bit of a gossip, isn’t he?” Dr. Pym said.)

—finding the book in the underground room—

(“Was that your study?” Michael asked.

Dr. Pym shrugged. “No idea. I don’t own the house yet. Was it nice?”

“A little creepy,” Michael said.

“Oh,” Dr. Pym said, sounding disappointed. But then he waved his pipe for them to continue.)

—and they told about using the book to go into the past, seeing the Countess, Michael being trapped, Kate and Emma going back to rescue him—

(“Very brave,” Dr. Pym said approvingly. “Very noble.”)

—about the book disappearing before their eyes, the children in the dormitory whom Kate had promised to help, their escape, the wolves, Gabriel, the chase through the tunnels, getting separated from Emma, and then their capture by Captain Robbie McLaur and his dwarves.

“My, my, my,” Dr. Pym said. “What a time you’ve had. Little wonder you look so exhausted.”

“Listen”—Kate’s impatience was getting the best of her—“I understand you’re a wizard, and probably know what you’re doing, but maybe you need to try another spell or something because clearly Emma isn’t here yet—”

“My dear, I am doing all I can,” Dr. Pym said, peering down at her from under his snowy eyebrows. “But the truth is, my powers are somewhat depleted at the moment.”

“What do you mean? You can do magic!”

“Correction—I can do some magic. This cell—”

“It’s the iron, isn’t it?” Michael exclaimed. “The dwarfish iron in the walls!”

“Ah,” Dr. Pym said admiringly, “I see you know something about dwarves.”

“I think dwarves are the most noble, most—”

“All right, Michael, we know. Dr. Pym, why’s it matter if there’s iron in the walls?”

“While not magicians themselves, dwarves are magical creatures. Everything they build is infused with magic. The greater the craft involved, the greater the object’s magical properties. And dwarves have no peer when it comes to working in iron. So when they build a cell like this, the iron is wrought in a way that serves to dampen the powers of one such as myself.”

Kate was about to say something she probably would’ve regretted—something along the lines of “Then what good are you?”—but at that moment the door opened, and four dwarves entered the cell. One carried a short-legged square table. The other three balanced trays packed high with steaming plates of food.

“Ah,” Dr. Pym said, “dinner.”

Except it wasn’t. The dwarves were laying out stacks of butter-smeared pancakes, piles of fatty bacon, thick, cheesy meat-stuffed pies, jars of jam, marmalade, and honey, brackets of golden toast, steaming bowls of porridge, hunks of soft cheese, pyramids of plump jelly-filled donuts, and, finally, a jug of what had to be hot apple cider.

“Dwarves,” Dr. Pym said, “are strong proponents of breakfast for dinner, and I must say I have grown to like the custom. Thank you, my friends.”

The serving dwarves bowed low, their beards sweeping the floor as they backed out and closed the iron door.

“Come now, you two. I know you’re worried about your sister, but you must keep your strength up. You’re no use to anyone if you get run down. And I have some things to tell you that I think you will find very interesting indeed. So let’s dig in, shall we, before it gets cold?”

And he leaned forward and cut himself a thick slice of ham, egg, and cheese pie. Michael glanced at Kate. She nodded, and they both took up positions around the table and went to work.

“Now let me start by asking you something.” Dr. Pym was eating a jelly donut and trying, without much success, to keep it from dripping onto his suit. “Am I correct in assuming that you are yourselves looking for the book?”

“Yes,” Kate said; she was sawing through a thick stack of blueberry pancakes. “It’s the only way we’re ever going to get home. Only we have no idea where the book is.”

“Well—” The old wizard popped the last of the donut in his mouth, a large dollop of jelly landing unnoticed on his tie. “Then it is a good thing I do.”

Kate and Michael both froze.

Then Kate said, “What?”

“It is a good thing I do know where it is.” He’d begun sorting through a pile of cinnamon twists, searching for the longest and sugariest. “Ah, here we are.” He pulled free one doughy, golden spiral and held it up for admiration.

He told them that the book was hidden beneath the Dead City.

And what was the Dead City?

The Dead City, Dr. Pym explained as he chomped panda-like down the stalk, was the ancient dwarf capital. It had been abandoned some five hundred years earlier after being devastated by an earthquake.

“Are you all right, my dear? The pancakes not agreeing with you?”

“I’m fine.” Kate’s voice was strained. She was recalling her dream from the night before, of the city inside the mountain, how the earth had split open to swallow it. Was that the same city? It had to be.

“Anyway”—Dr. Pym licked clean his fingers—“the book is locked in a vault beneath the ruins.”

Kate felt a chill come over her. Why was she having these visions? Once again, she remembered the Countess saying that the book had marked her.

“Does the … does the Countess know?”

“Well, she clearly knows something. She’s had the men of Cambridge Falls digging there for the past two years.”

“Bhuhoduuknoballdis?” Michael asked (he had most of a banana pancake crammed into his mouth).

“A good question,” Dr. Pym said. “Perhaps I should start farther back.”

He brushed a shower of golden crumbs off his jacket, reached for a donut, and began.…

As the children already knew, there were once three great books of magic. The so-called Books of Beginning. Of the Books’ various properties and powers, Dr. Pym did not think it necessary to delve into at present. Suffice it to say, twenty-five hundred years earlier, after the city of Rhakotis was sacked by the armies of Alexander the Great, two of the Books of Beginning did indeed vanish. However, the third was smuggled out of the city by a very clever, very attractive young wizard. (He mentioned the young wizard’s handsomeness several times. It seemed to be a key point in the story.)

For years, this young wizard remained on the move, secreting the book from one hiding place to another. He knew there were many dark forces who craved the book’s power and who would have used it to foul and destructive ends. Eventually, after perhaps a thousand years, the no-longer-quite-so-young wizard carried the book over the ocean, climbed into these mountains, and made a pact with the dwarf king to hide it.

Once again, Kate felt a shiver of recognition. This was the vision that had led her through the maze. Was the book giving her clues? Did it want her to find it?

“Are you going to eat that waffle?” Michael whispered. “Because it’s chocolate chip—”

Kate pushed the waffle at him.

The dwarf king had his greatest masons build a vault deep below the city, and there the book was placed. For another ten centuries, all was quiet. Then the earthquake struck, and it not only destroyed the city, it killed much of the population, including all who knew of the book’s existence. So when the dwarves moved south to rebuild their capital, the book was left behind, forgotten under the ruins.

“Now, how I myself learned of the book’s existence and location is not important—”

“How did you?” Michael asked. This was the kind of practical detail he couldn’t resist.

“My boy, I said it is not important.”

“I bet you found some old manuscript in a library. But it was pushed way in the back with all these other manuscripts, and for years and years nobody gave it a second glance, then you saw it and realized it was the young wizard’s diary and—”

“No, that was not how it happened.”

“Oh! I bet the trees told you, didn’t they? The old oak trees. They were probably just small baby trees way back then, but they saw the young wizard carry the book into the mountains and you cast a spell to make them talk—”

“Don’t be silly; no one can make trees talk. At least not oak trees. They’re terribly dull.”

“Then I bet—”

“You were the wizard!” Kate exclaimed.

“That’s crazy,” Michael said. “He’d have to be thousands—”

But he stopped himself, for Dr. Pym was smiling at Kate. “My dear, how did you know?”

Kate thought of telling the truth, that she’d suddenly realized that the ginger-haired man in her vision, the one who’d given the book to the dwarf king for safekeeping, was Dr. Pym—only much much much younger. But if she told him that, Dr. Pym would begin asking questions; he would want to know everything about her visions.

She shrugged. “Just a lucky guess.”

Dr. Pym glanced at her but went on.

He told them how, in the beginning, he had made a practice of returning to the region every few years. But as time passed and the book lay undisturbed, particularly after the earthquake, when he was the only living soul who knew of the book’s location, his visits became less frequent. His last trip was five or six years ago. It was then that he met Gabriel. And he discovered, to his alarm, that stories had grown of an object of great power buried in the mountains. It was as if those who lived here had begun to sense the book’s presence. Dr. Pym knew that sooner or later, these rumors would reach the wrong ears. He began searching for a new hiding place.

He scoured the globe, rejecting an undersea cavern here, a mountain fortress there. He was in the Amazon, examining a system of caves, when the news reached him of the Countess’s arrival. He returned immediately. By then, the Countess had been at her work for nearly two years. The men of Cambridge Falls, under the whips and blows of their guards, had dug a warren of tunnels beneath the Dead City. While they had not yet discovered the vault, Dr. Pym felt that day could not be far off. The book had to be moved immediately.

“What about the men?!” Kate cried. “Or the children?! Why not free them first?!”

“Katherine, your feelings do you credit. But the safety of the book had to take precedence. If it were to fall into the Countess’s hands, many more lives would be in peril.”

Kate set the scone she’d been eating back on the table. Her hands were trembling with anger. She told herself that given the choice, even if it meant that she and Michael and Emma would be trapped in the past forever, even if it only saved the life of one child and reunited just one family, she would let the Countess have the book.

The question, Dr. Pym continued, was how to retrieve the book. The Countess’s soldiers had set up a prison camp in the Dead City. Avoiding their sentries would not be easy. But even more daunting was reaching the vault itself. The earthquake, all those years before, had completely sealed off the passage.

“But I bet there’s a secret way, isn’t there?” Michael said.

“What a bright lad you are,” Dr. Pym beamed. “A good thing you’re not working for the Countess; our collective goose would be cooked.”

“Oh, I’d never work for her,” Michael said stoutly, then he glanced at Kate and muttered, “I mean … never again.”

Dr. Pym explained that when the vault was built, the dwarf king had a sort of back door constructed. It was intended for just such a calamity.

“Good old dwarves.” Michael grinned. “Always one step ahead.”

This secret entrance was accessed through a cavern far below the throne room. The walls of the cavern were covered with a rare kind of lichen that glows gold in the dark. Get to that cavern, and you could get to the vault.

“So how do you get to the cavern?” Kate asked.

“That, my dear, is precisely the problem. The earthquake jumbled everything about. Tunnels. Passages. Though I managed to infiltrate the Dead City, I could not find the correct entrance. My goodness! Have you tried one of these?” He held up a fat, custard-filled donut from which he had just taken a large bite.

“You got the last one,” Michael said sullenly; he had been eyeing the donut for several minutes.

“Oh, my apologies.” Dr. Pym tore it in two and handed over half; a somewhat messy operation, but Michael seemed to appreciate the gesture.

“So what’d you do?” Kate asked impatiently.

“Well, realizing I needed a guide, one who knew the tunnels below the Dead City and would recognize the cavern I described, I came to the only place to find such an individual—the dwarfish court. Everyone had enough to eat? Excellent. I think it’s time for tea.”

Dr. Pym took up the small iron kettle and poured out three cups of steaming amber liquid, cautioning them not to burn their tongues. He remarked that while frustrating in some respects, dwarfish iron did make for a truly first-rate kettle. Then he sat back, stuffed a wad of tobacco in his pipe, lit a match, sucked till it had begun to draw, and exhaled a long stream of almond-scented smoke.

“Now we have come to the second part of my tale. The story of Hamish.” Dr. Pym took a delicate sip from his teacup. “Until recently, the dwarves in this region were ruled by a queen, a just, wise old lady and a great and dear friend of mine. During my last visit—again, this was about five years ago—she assured me that her younger son (she had two) would become king upon her death. Her younger son was everything a future king should be: good and true and all those other dull, necessary qualities. Her other son, the elder, was a thug. A creature of ungoverned passion and very poor hygiene. It was clear to all that he would be a disaster as king. But alas, shortly after my visit the Queen died without leaving a will. Or at least”—Dr. Pym looked significantly at the children—“a will was never found, and so Hamish became king instead of Robbie.”

“Wait—you mean Captain Robbie?” Kate asked.

“Ah yes, you’d said you’d met the fine Captain Robbie. He and Hamish are brothers. Though as unalike as night and day, as”—he paused, searching for another comparison, then shrugged—“well, night and day pretty much says it.

“Now, Hamish had not been king long when the Countess and her morum cadi appeared at court. She flattered him with gifts and promises and begged permission to dig in the Dead City. She did not tell him what she was digging for. In fact, she claimed not to know herself. She said she was following a legend, a rumor. A story about some lost magical artifact. But she promised that when she found this mysterious object, she and Hamish would share it. In the end, he granted permission.”

“Is he an idiot?” Kate asked.

“Oh, most certainly,” Dr. Pym said. “But even so, it didn’t take him long to realize he had been duped, that the Countess knew exactly what she was searching for and had absolutely no intention of sharing it. You may well ask, so why didn’t Hamish simply retake the Dead City by force? After all, his forces far outnumbered those of the Countess. For now, I will only tell you that he had reason, good reason, to fear open confrontation. And so, he simply sat on his throne and stewed—quite literally, for the oaf refuses to bathe—and such was the state in which I found him.

“He was in the midst of one of his endless feasts. I think the buffoon actually believed I had come to congratulate him on his ascension to the throne. ‘What’ve you brought me, Magician?’ Those were his first words. I replied that far from bringing a gift, I required one.

“ ‘Oh, do you now?’ he snorted. ‘Is it bloomin’ Magicians’ Christmas? Why didn’t anyone remind me, eh?’

“I said I needed a guide. That I intended to outflank the Countess and spirit away the object of her efforts. I had considered spinning some elaborate yarn to mask my plan, but I felt that Hamish’s suspicions were so raw he would have sensed the ruse immediately. In any case, the effect of my words was instantaneous. Hamish pounced like a tiger—a dirty, foul-smelling, half-literate tiger.

“ ‘You know what she’s after, then?!’ he shouted.

“ ‘I do,’ I replied.

“He demanded I tell him all I knew. I refused. He threatened me. Still, I refused. He became irate. He screamed. He spat. He threw plates. Overturned tables. He punched his minister of culture. It was a tantrum such as I have never seen, and all the while he was shouting that as this object was buried in dwarfish lands, it belonged to the dwarves, that is to say, to him, and no one else.”

“He does have a point,” Michael murmured.

“I told Hamish,” Dr. Pym went on, “that the dwarves had merely been the custodians of the object. It did not belong to them.

“ ‘So you refuse to help me?!’ he screamed. ‘You think I can’t hurt you, Magician?! Is that what you think, you scoundrel?! You great white-haired ninny!’

“I replied that I knew full well he could hurt me. But even so, I would not tell him what was buried beneath the Dead City. And that”—Dr. Pym spread his hands to encompass the walls of his cell—“was how I ended up here. All this happened four days ago.”

The children were silent, holding their still-steaming cups of tea, thinking of all Dr. Pym had said.

Michael asked if Dr. Pym had a key to get into the vault.

The old wizard smiled. “Of a sort. Yes. But I have talked too long for one night. You are tired and must sleep. Something tells me tomorrow will require all your strength.”

“But what about Emma?” Kate had listened to everything Dr. Pym had said, about the book’s journey, the vault, Hamish.… She had been patient. But enough was enough. “You said you were looking for her! Where is she? Is she safe? Is she even alive? Can you tell us that?”

“She was in great danger,” Dr. Pym said quietly. “But she is past that. She is now in Gabriel’s village, being treated by their wisewoman. I assure you, my dear, your sister is quite safe.”

For a moment, Kate and Michael were both too stunned to speak.

“Really?” Kate asked.

“Yes. Would you like to see for yourself?”

Kate nodded.

Dr. Pym smiled. “Very well.”

And suddenly, it was as if Kate’s entire body was filled with sand. Her arms and legs became impossibly heavy. Her eyelids drooped shut. Instinctively, she fought to stay awake. She felt Michael slump against her.

“But …,” she mumbled, “we …”

She was asleep before she hit the straw.

As she slept, she dreamed she was back in the maze, floating down one of the dark corridors. There was a light ahead, coming from a chamber. She moved toward it, out of the tunnel, and the scene that opened before her was worse than any nightmare. Emma lay unmoving on the ground. The lower half of her shirt was black with blood. Kate could see the dark nub of arrow sticking out of her back. Gabriel stood over her, his terrifying machete-like weapon grasped in both hands, its edge gleaming in the light from the lantern. And moving toward him across the floor of the chamber, the most horrible creature Kate had ever imagined.

Its skin was a translucent, gooey white and dotted with greenish sores. Its arms and legs were hideously long and thin, its back curved from generations of moving through low-ceilinged tunnels. Its claws tapped the floor as it advanced, and Kate saw the milky, sightless eyes and huge, bat-like ears. The salmac-tar made a gurgling hiss deep in its throat and threw itself at Gabriel, its long claws outstretched. Kate tried to scream, but no sound came out. Gabriel stepped forward, swinging his weapon over his head in a shining arc. Man and monster met in the center of the room, and Kate felt her chest tighten in fear, but then the monster’s head was flying away from its body, rebounding against the far wall and rolling over, once, twice, three times, before coming to rest, facedown.

For a long moment, nothing moved. Even the headless body stood where it was, as if not yet realizing what had happened. Then, slowly, it dropped to its knees, toppled forward, and lay still. Gabriel wiped the blood off his blade, started to turn toward Emma, then stopped, listening.

Then Kate heard it too. Click-click … click-click …

The sound was coming from one of the dark doorways. Then another. And another. The clicking rose like the hum of insects, growing louder and thicker. Gabriel sheathed his blade, gathered Emma and the lamp, and ran.

Kate felt herself moving with him as he flew down the dark corridors. She could hear his breathing, smell his sweat. Behind him the clicking grew louder and louder. Emma never opened her eyes. Gabriel plunged from chamber to chamber, tunnel to tunnel. Looking back, Kate could see ghostly shapes in the darkness, scurrying toward them, climbing the walls, coming faster and faster.

Suddenly, they were no longer in the maze. They were running across a great empty cavern of natural rock, and Kate could see the white shapes pouring out of the mouth of the tunnel behind them, and Gabriel tripped and nearly fell and they would have been on him in an instant with their teeth and claws, but he caught himself and was splashing across a stream and stumbling down another short tunnel, and then they were outside, out of the tunnel, out of the mountain, and the night was cool against her face and the moon lit the darkness, and though it was a dream, she filled her lungs with gulps of clean, fresh air.

Gabriel paused and looked back. Though she could not see them, Kate could hear the fury of the creatures inside the mountain. For some reason, they seemed unable to come outside. Gabriel started down a trail along the ridge. Kate could see, in the valley below, a fluttering collection of fires she knew was Gabriel’s village; Emma was safe.

Kate woke, smelling Dr. Pym’s tobacco.

“Good morning,” said the wizard. “You’ve slept nearly nine hours. I believe you both were exhausted.”

Kate rubbed her eyes. The fire was crackling away. Michael was still passed out on the straw.

“I had the strangest dream.”

“Did you now? I can’t wait to hear all about it.” Dr. Pym was smiling at her with the same kindly smile, his face wreathed in smoke. “You know, I’ve been studying you and your brother. You say you don’t know your parents at all?”

“I have a few memories. But I don’t know their names or anything. Why?”

Dr. Pym knocked his pipe against the stone floor, emptying the ashes, and replaced it in his pocket. “Oh, we can talk about it later. You’d best wake Michael. They will be here any moment.”

“Who will?” Kate felt groggy, as if she was still half inside her dream. Had it even been a dream? It’d felt so real. And why was Dr. Pym asking about their parents?

There was the sound of a bolt being shot back; the door swung open, and Captain Robbie McLaur entered.

“Right, then, up and at ‘em! The King wants to see you lot.”