فصل 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

To the Dead City

Kate and Michael walked in the center of the group, directly behind the dwarf assigned to carry the ancient, white-bearded, and loudly snoring Fergus on his back. Hamish marched up front. There were seven in their party.

There had been no fanfare when they departed the dwarf city. Hamish said if his people knew he was leaving, they’d insist on throwing a parade and he’d be kissing babies for days on end. Kate caught the other dwarves trading glances, and Fergus even snorted, then tried to disguise it as a cough, then ended up actually coughing horribly for nearly a minute.

They’d left through a small, out-of-the-way gate and proceeded along a series of well-maintained, torch-lined tunnels. All the while Hamish kept up a constant chatter about the history of the Dead City, various legends associated with it, how many bicep curls he did every morning.…

Kate moved close to Michael.

“You shouldn’t have stood up to Hamish like that,” she whispered, then squeezed his hand. “But it was really, really brave.”

Michael looked embarrassed. “It was no big deal.”

“Yes, it was. Emma would’ve thought so too.”

Their conversation was muffled by the rattling of the dwarves’ armor, the clank of iron heels on stone, Fergus’s snores, Hamish’s droning commentary, and when Michael spoke again, Kate had to ask him to repeat himself.

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“I do,” Kate said, with more confidence than she felt. “And like Dr. Pym told us, Gabriel is with her. He won’t let anything happen.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever see her again.”

“Of course we will. Don’t even think that.”

Michael nodded, and then quickly changed the subject, saying he didn’t understand why Hamish wasn’t bringing more dwarves. The Countess couldn’t have that many Screechers. Why not just order his army to drive them away?

“It’s the salmac-tar.”

The dwarf who’d spoken was walking behind them. He had black hair, a black beard, and a thick, heavy brow. He looked younger than the other dwarves. He made a point, Kate noticed, of keeping his voice low. “Like a year ago, right, King found out that ever since the witch got ‘ere, she’s been talking to them slimy, dwarf-murderin’ fiends. You know about them, right?”

Kate nodded, remembering her dream in the dungeon … the pale, sightless creature advancing on Gabriel, its claws tapping on the stone floor of the maze.…

“Well, she’s been promising ‘em stuff. Baths’re what they need, ask me. Point is, she’s protectin’ ‘erself. Building alliances. So now if Hamish—the King, I mean—tried to attack ‘er Screechers, she’d have ‘ordes and ‘ordes a’ salmac-tar to ‘elp ‘er out. Be open war, wouldn’ it? King don’t want that.”

“What’s your name?” Kate asked.

“Wallace,” he said, then added, for no obvious reason, “the dwarf.”

The party had been walking for nearly an hour, and they came out of the tunnel to the edge of a large crevasse. Kate and Michael could hear, but not see, water flowing in the darkness far below.

“The Cambridge River,” Hamish proclaimed, kicking a rock over the edge. “Runs down through the mountains, past the town, and right up to the dam. Used to be how we traded with them idjit townspeople. Till the witch came. Woman has no respect for the forces a’ commerce. Come on now. The bridge is close. We can cross over into the old kingdom.”

“Hamish would make a good tour guide,” Michael said as they walked along the edge of the crevasse. “He’s really well informed.”

“ ‘E used to be one,” Wallace said. “ ‘Fore the Queen died, when visiting dignitaries would come, ‘e’d show ‘em around. Always did a right fine job. When ‘e was sober, I mean.”

As they neared their destination, Kate found herself thinking about the things Dr. Pym had said. Why should a vault sealed more than a thousand years ago, a magic vault that would only open for a few special people, open for her and Michael and, she assumed, Emma? How was that possible? And what had the wizard meant, “that it should be you, of all children …”? Her of all children what? And what about him saying the book had chosen her, but to access its full power, she first had to heal her heart? The more Kate thought about everything, the more confused and troubled she became.

They arrived at an arched stone bridge guarded by a single dwarf. Seeing the King, he went down on one knee.

Hamish asked for news from the Dead City.

“Nothing, Your Highness. Though whatever that witch is looking for, she’d better find it in a hurry. Them townsmen ain’t gonna last much longer. Not with how them Screechers whip ‘em and starve ‘em and work ‘em night and day. You ask me, we should drive them out a’ our mountains and—”

“Right, but who asked you, eh? You just stand there and hold your bloody spear, you nit!” Hamish shook his head and started over the bridge, muttering, “Everybody’s got a bloody opinion.”

On the other side of the bridge, Hamish ordered his dwarves to take off their armor. He didn’t want them making more noise than they had to. Then he poked Fergus awake.

“Come on, you old coot; time to sing for your supper.”

Fergus opened his eyes. They were rheumy and unfocused. “Hmm?”

“We crossed the stone bridge. How do we get to this golden cavern, then?”

“The golden cavern …” He seemed to have no idea what Hamish was talking about.

“Aye, the golden cavern, the golden cavern! If you were lying and don’t know—” He seized the old dwarf’s beard.

“Through the gate,” Fergus murmured. “West along the ridge. There’s a doorway marked with crossed hammers, and then stairs, many stairs.…”

“Right,” Hamish said, turning to the group, “you lot ‘ad better be like mice.”

They crept down a dark, poorly maintained tunnel, which ended abruptly at a large iron door. Hamish dug beneath his beard and pulled out a heavy key. He fit it into the lock, took a breath, and turned it. The bolt shot back loudly, the sound echoing down the corridor. Kate felt the dwarves cringe.

Hamish looked back, sheepish. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

The tunnel ended some twenty yards past the door, giving out onto what looked like a huge, brightly lit cavern. Hamish silently ordered them onto their bellies, and the five dwarves and two children got down and crawled forward. Kate could hear the sounds of hammering and smashing, shouted orders, the crack and slap of whips. Then she and Michael were at the lip of the cavern, looking over.

They were several hundred feet above the floor of the city, which—as far as Kate and Michael could tell for its borders stretched away to darkness—entirely filled the hollowed-out heart of the mountain. Kate thought it resembled nothing so much as a vast snow-globe metropolis, one that had been shaken and shaken until towers collapsed, buildings crumbled, and fissures tore open the streets. It was the corpse of a city, left to rot for centuries.

Until now.

Directly below them, dozens of hissing gas-powered lamps poured down light onto the ruins. Most of the work was taking place in a giant roofless building. Kate could just make out men-sized shapes moving about, but they were too far away and there was too much dust in the air to see clearly what was happening. Not that it mattered. She knew the building had to be the old throne room, and the shouting and the snap of whips told the rest of the story.

“Calmartia,” Hamish said quietly. “The Dead City.”

“I can’t believe it,” Michael whispered, pushing back his glasses, which were threatening to slip off his nose, “an ancient dwarf city. I wish I had my camera.”

Kate did not mention that she had seen this city once before. In a dream two nights before, she had seen it being destroyed.

Hamish motioned them back from the edge.

“Keep low and silent,” he hissed, “or we are all dead.”

Granny Peet eventually shooed Emma out of the cabin.

“But—but—but—” she stuttered as the old woman hustled her to the door. The black tendrils of poison under Gabriel’s skin had faded, but he had yet to reopen his eyes. Emma wanted to be there when he did.

“I need him alone,” the wisewoman said. “I’ll call you soon enough.”

Outside, the morning was nearly gone and the crowd in front of the cabin had disappeared. Emma stood there, looking up and down the dirt street. The only signs of life were a few dogs nosing through the remains of breakfast.

“Is he gonna die?”

Emma turned. The girl Dena stood at the side of the cabin. Emma guessed she had been trying to peer in the windows.

“Course not,” Emma scoffed. “Take more than a bunch a’ Screechers to kill Gabriel.”

Dena didn’t say anything. She just stood there, looking at her.

“What?” Emma demanded. “He’s gonna be fine!”

Dena neither spoke nor moved.

Emma turned away and sat down on a log. She scooped up a handful of pebbles and began pitching them one by one at an iron pot. After a few moments, Dena came and sat beside her. She gathered up her own handful of pebbles but instead of throwing them just moved them from hand to hand, sifting out the dirt.

“My parents got killed last year.”

Emma looked at her, but Dena was focused on the pebbles going from hand to hand.

“They were up near Cambridge Falls. Some of the witch’s Screechers caught ‘em. Probably thought they were from the town. Trying to escape or something.”

“… Really?”

The girl nodded.

Then Emma said, “My parents disappeared. Ten years ago.”

“Are they dead?”

“No. I mean … I don’t know.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, “about what happened to yours.”

“Gabriel tried to get everyone to go fight the witch then, but they wouldn’t do it. Same like they won’t do it now. Bunch a’ cowards.” And the girl hurled the entire handful of pebbles so they clattered dully off the pot.

“What do you mean?” Emma asked.

“That’s what they’re in there talking about,” Dena said, nodding up the hill to a large two-story rectangular cabin. “Last night, Gabriel woke up the whole village, yelling that they all had to go fight. He was almost falling over ‘cause of the poison. Now they’ll just talk about it and talk about it and won’t do nothing. They’re all—Hey, where you going?”

Emma was striding up the dirt lane. She could feel the blood in her cheeks, and the edges of her vision were clouded with anger. Gabriel had told them they had to fight. Emma was going to make sure they did.

She pushed through the flap and into the warm, smoky air. It was a single large room. The old men Emma had seen earlier were gathered around a fire in the center, while the rest of the village ringed them on benches, stood against the walls, or looked down from the tiered balconies above.

One of the old men was speaking:

“We’ve no way of knowing how powerful the witch truly is! We have a responsibility, yes. But not to the people of Cambridge Falls. We have a responsibility to our blood! To our history!” He was beating his cane against the ground, raising small clouds of dust. “What if we fight her and lose? What revenge would she take? We don’t know. We don’t know what she could do. We can’t risk it!”

He sat down to much murmuring. In a flash, Emma had leapt up onto a bench—

“You’re all gonna die!”

The entire meeting hall—the old men in the center, the people on the benches and against the walls, the ones in the balconies overhead—all turned from whomever they were talking to and looked at her.

“You think you don’t do nothing, she’s just gonna let you go?! Is that how stupid you are?!” A voice inside Emma’s head said she should probably not call these people stupid, but she ignored it. “ ‘Cause that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life!”

The old man who’d spoken raised his cane and pointed it at Emma.

“Remove that child!”

Emma saw a woman move toward her. She wished Kate were here. People listened to Kate. “It’s true! I’ve seen it! Everything’s dead! The trees! The animals! They’re all dead! I’ve seen it! This place is gonna be cursed!”

“Remove her!” the old man croaked, stamping his cane on the ground.

“No.”

Everyone stopped and turned, including Emma. Granny Peet’s large, somewhat shabby form stood silhouetted in the doorway. She dropped the flap and shuffled forward to stand beside Emma.

“She has come to us from the future. If she says these mountains will become a wasteland, then I believe her.”

“But, Granny,” the old man said, a new tone of respect in his voice, “if what this child says is true—”

“It is true! Are you deaf or—” Emma began, until a look from the wisewoman silenced her.

“How are we to know what caused this devastation?” the old man continued. “Perhaps in the future this child comes from, we did fight the witch. And failed. Perhaps what the child describes was her revenge.”

“Call him an old chicken,” Emma hissed.

Granny Peet ignored her. “Then we must make sure we do not fail.”

She took Emma’s hand and led her forward till they stood beside the fire, in the center of the old men.

“I have been wisewoman of this village longer than most of you have been alive, and yes, if we confront the witch and fail, we are doomed. All we are, all our history, all our stories, will be wiped from the memory of the world. And yet”—she turned slowly, looking across the congregation—“we have no choice but to fight.”

Emma noticed a strange thing begin to happen. The wrinkles were fading from the old woman’s face, her eyes grew brighter, the curve in her back straightened. The old Granny Peet, wrinkled and hunched, was still there, but as she spoke, this other woman, tall and proud and beautiful, appeared as well. It was as if one were laid on top of the other.

“We all know the stories that tell of an object of great power buried in these mountains. Many of us believe these stories are what drew the witch. But what is this object she seeks? What is it capable of? The stories do not say.”

Granny Peet paused. Emma could see men and women leaning forward. Overhead, balconies creaked as those above shifted to better hear.

“It is a book.

“There were once three great books of magic, the most powerful books of magic ever written. But they were lost, thousands of years ago. Even so, all wizards and wise people know of them, know of their power. Each one has the ability to reshape our world.

“Long ago, I came to believe that one of these books was buried here. But which one, I did not know. Now, thanks to this child, I do.”

She laid her hand on the back of Emma’s neck. Emma could feel the twisted, callused hand of the old woman and the smooth, strong hand of the young one.

“The book hidden in these mountains, the one the witch seeks with all her might, is the one that holds the secrets of time and space. It is called the Atlas.”

A murmur swept the room, and even though she was standing beside the fire, Emma felt a chill run through her. Granny Peet raised her hand. The murmuring stopped.

“The Atlas allows the user to step through time. To move across the map of history. That alone should seed fear in all our hearts. But there is more.” Emma felt the crowd of listeners press in even further, each of them hanging upon the old woman’s words. “If a person can truly harness the book’s power, he will be able not only to move through time and space, but to control it. The very fabric of our world will be subject to his whim. On that day, all our lives, the lives of all those we love, the lives of every person on this planet, will be at his mercy. The Atlas cannot be allowed to pass into the hands of the witch.”

She stopped speaking. From the corner of her vision, Emma saw the beautiful ghost woman crumple and fade till once again only ancient, elephant-skinned Granny Peet stood beside her. For a few long moments, there was nothing but silence. Then a tall, muscular man stood at the back of the room.

“I will fight.”

And one by one, they rose from their places on the benches or stepped forward from the walls until every man between sixteen and sixty was standing, declared and ready to fight.

The old man sighed. “Very well, if we must, we must. But who shall lead?”

“I shall.”

Gabriel was standing in the doorway, a blanket draped around his shoulders. In a moment Emma was hugging him, burying her face in his side to hide her tears.