Rivers of Fire (Atherton, Book 2) (3 page)

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Samuel quickly moved the stepping stone back over the passage and grabbed Isabel's hand. "He knows we're here," he said, pulling her along the vine-covered wall. "But he'll be gone awhile."

"I hope he didn't send a guard to do his looking for him," said Isabel.

"He wouldn't do that," said Samuel. "Sir Emerik wants me dead, and none of the guards would kill me if they found me. They'd take me straight to Lord Phineus, which is just what Sir Emerik is afraid of."

Isabel started to ask him why Sir Emerik wanted him dead, but Samuel silenced her with a raised hand. Then he was running, waving to Isabel to follow. They swished past winding hedges, slithered under vines, and crawled beneath low, rounded walls until they reached the other side of the courtyard. Samuel heard the sound of boots on stone coming near and seized Isabel's hand once more, pulling her down into a sea of thick ivy that lay before a bone white wall dancing with shadows.

When the guard had passed, they made their way up a set of darkened stairs to a narrow hall with a rail of grey stone that ran the length of one wall. At the very end of the hall was one of Samuel's favorite hiding places, an alcove buried in thick ivy. The ivy crept down the side of the wall like dark green water, filling the space as high as their heads with waves of tiny leaves. It felt to Isabel as if a thousand tiny green hands were pulling her inside as she crept forward into the alcove.

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"I wish Edgar was here," said Isabel, feeling the itchy touch of leaves against her face.

Samuel peered out from their hiding place, which had a commanding view of the whole courtyard and the guard towers at the gate. He was thinking of the place they would soon be going, to a set of stairs leading up to the main chamber, in which Mead's Head could be found.

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*** CHAPTER 3 MYSTERIOUS COMPANIONS

Edgar walked quietly along the unlit path that snaked between the houses of the village. The hour had turned very late but only a few from the grove had settled in for a fragment of much-needed sleep before dawn. Some were scattered through the trees trying their best to keep a watchful eye on the sprawling grove, a nearly impossible task since it offered a thousand points of entry. The rest were hastily making plans, fashioning weapons, or piecing together places to hide.

Edgar did none of these things. He had said all that he'd been instructed to about how Tabletop had collapsed into the Flatlands. He'd told them about the approaching threat of the monsters known as Cleaners and the need to get ready by making spears and barricades, and now they were preoccupied with the preparations. It was time for him to go, for he was expected

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elsewhere. Edgar slipped away unnoticed, taking great care not to be seen or followed. Soon he had made his way to an outer line of trees where no guards were posted.

Edgar rubbed the bandaged nub where his pinky finger had once been and it stung sharply; then he made a fist with the hand and squeezed with the fingers he had left. It hurt, but not that much. His shoulder was still sore from the catastrophic fall he'd taken when he'd climbed down into the Flatlands, but it felt remarkably healed. His body wanted to climb if only a cliff could be found.

After a time Edgar spotted a dim figure approaching cautiously from the direction of the Village of Rabbits. The person carried no light to speak of and would have been visible only to those looking for him.

"Is that you, Vincent?" whispered Edgar. He was aware of the dryness of his throat when he spoke and of how thirsty he was. The advancing shape stopped short of the grove and Edgar heard the muffled sound of one man bumping into another in the night. It had looked like one man, but there were two, walking single file toward the line of trees.

"It's me, Edgar," said Edgar, sure that he'd found his two friends once more.

"It's just the boy," said Dr. Kincaid. "There's no need to panic."

"I didn't panic," said Vincent, who stood in front and had stopped short. "You shouldn't follow so closely behind."

"Come away from the clearing," said Edgar. "This is a good spot, as I'd hoped."

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Soon the three were sitting beneath a tree whispering about their errands. Dr. Kincaid and Vincent, Edgar's two mysterious companions from the Flatlands, had gone in different directions as they'd approached the grove--each to warn one of the other two distant villages about the coming Cleaners--while Edgar stayed to inform those in the grove.

"How did it go?" asked Dr. Kincaid, holding out a leather bag full of water. Edgar gratefully took it and eagerly began drinking. "Not too much, Edgar. It's all we have."

Edgar returned the bag of water and watched as Dr. Kincaid took a small sip. He was surprisingly alert for such an old man at so late an hour. He'd walked all the way to the Village of Sheep and back again in the night, which would have been several hours on foot, and yet Dr. Kincaid seemed reasonably well rested.

"They're not used to seeing me as someone with information they could use," said Edgar. "It takes awhile to convince people of certain things that are hard to believe."

"Like monsters coming from the Flatlands into the grove?" asked Dr. Kincaid.

Edgar nodded, stretching his arms up over his head and feeling the dull roar of pain in his shoulder. He had the peculiar feeling of being exhausted and full of energy at the same time. He had only managed a couple hours of rest in the village, but he felt oddly alive. Maybe it was all the food he'd eaten or the unexpected time of rest at Dr. Kincaid's home.

"That man Wallace in the Village of Sheep is a good shepherd," said Dr. Kincaid. "They're lucky to have him, though it's

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A hard to imagine they'll be able to stay in their village when the Cleaners find it."

"And you were right about Maude," added Vincent. Edgarhad pointed Vincent in the direction of the inn and the strong-willed woman he would find there. "She was quick to take the lead in the Village of Rabbits."

Dr. Kincaid handed Edgar a chunk of Cleaner from his bag. The outside of the meat had dried in the night, but it burst with squishy liquid once Edgar broke the surface with his teeth.

"How long do you think it will take for the Cleaners to find this place?" asked Edgar. He had already gobbled up half the food and was wiping one of his hands in the dying grass at his feet.

Vincent looked off toward his old home. "I think they'll go where there are more animals first." It was the beginning of a logical if not gruesome assessment from the man who'd spent years protecting Dr. Kincaid. "They'll go first to where they've always gone--near the Village of Rabbits and the Village of Sheep. They've grown used to finding lots of bones near the cliffs there. My guess is they'll follow their noses to those places first and only stumble into the grove by accident sometime after that."

"That's good, I suppose." The faces of Briney and Maude in the Village of Rabbits came to Edgar's mind, and he felt terrible for being relieved that their village would likely be attacked before his own. "I mean, at least it will be good for the grove. They'll have a little more time."

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"Did you tell them what I told you to say?" Dr. Kincaid asked Edgar.

"I told them to make as many spears as they could and to build fortresses from stones if they could find them," said Edgar. "And I told them not to use wood, because the Cleaners would eat right through it, and that stone was the only thing that would hold them back."

"And?" said Vincent, eyebrows raised as if testing the boy.

"And I told them not to try to hide up in the trees, because the Cleaners would knock the trees down. I also told them they could eat the Cleaners, if only they could kill them with the spears in the right way, and that the Cleaners were good to eat even though they were terrible to look at."

"Very good!" cried Vincent. "You've done well. All we can do now is hope they heed our warning and prepare themselves. One dead Cleaner can feed a lot of people, and if they can protect themselves and fight well, who knows what might happen?"

Edgar felt a growing sense of dread as Vincent tried to hide the truth. He knew that the Cleaners were huge, vicious creatures. Could the people of the village really survive if a thousand angry Cleaners found the grove?

Dr. Kincaid could see the boy wanted to stay, to fight and protect the people of the place where he'd spent most of his life. "Your path leads out of the grove, Edgar," Dr. Kincaid reminded him. "To the House of Power."

Maybe the House of Power really did hold the key to saving

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Tabletop, and this gave Edgar hope. But he felt another pull to the House of Power: Isabel and Samuel. Edgar had a strong feeling that this was where both of them had gone. Friends can feel such things in times of peril, as if a long, thin string holds them carefully together, tugging at one another through the open space of a dangerous world.

The three of them were about to leave when Edgar turned back and pulled a clump of green figs from one of the trees. The figs weren't ripe yet and they were still attached to the vine. Edgar had a chunk of the slimy Cleaner remaining in his other hand, which he'd been saving for this moment. He put the Cleaner into a small sack made of sheepskin which he'd taken from the village, then pushed the gathering of figs down into the squishy meat of the Cleaner in the sack.

"We'd better be getting on," called Vincent. "It's a world of chaos we live in now, and we need to travel as far as we can under cover of night."

Sealing off the bag with a string, Edgar placed it in his pocket, and the three travelers went out into the open toward the Highlands.

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*** CHAPTER 4 UNSEEN LADDERS

Lord Phineus had recently emerged from a treacherous journey into a world beneath the House of Power that had not ended well. He had screamed twice for Sir Emerik and was growing impatient. Gazing out into the night he could not see that the Highlands had begun sliding down
inside
of Atherton, that his once lofty home was now the lowest place of all. Already the Highlands were three feet lower than they had been when he ventured into Mead's Hollow. There were precious few who knew this secret, and Lord Phineus was not among them.

When Sir Emerik arrived outside the door to the main chamber he wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Lord Phineus offered no greeting. Instead, he began speaking as if Sir Emerik had been there all along.

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"The problem is, you can't see where we're supposed to go," said Lord Phineus. "Only I know where it is. No one else."

Lord Phineus was covered in a cold sweat, his eyes swollen and rimmed in red. The frenetic and edgy way in which he spoke made Sir Emerik wonder if he was in the presence of a lunatic.

"Lord, what's happened to you? Are you all right?"

In truth, Sir Emerik had not the least concern over the well-being of his master. In fact, if Lord Phineus were to take ill, it would be all the easier to do away with him. But why had the man's demeanor changed so drastically in only a few short hours? Lord Phineus had always been so calm, logical, and calculating; now he was rambling, pacing, and speaking near nonsense.

"Did you hear what I said?" asked Lord Phineus. "No one else knows!"

"I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean," said Sir Emerik. He was aware, suddenly, of all the candles in the room and how the light from them cast shadows on the walls showered with cascading ivy. It made the room feel alive with evil. Sir Emerik's eye twitched at the sight of so much fire so near.

"What's that absurd thing you're doing there?" said Lord Phineus. "That terrible twitch. Stop it at once."

Sir Emerik breathed deeply and stared at the floor. The twitching stopped, and when he looked up again Lord Phineus was bent over, scratching vigorously at his leg. "Something wrong, my lord?"

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Lord Phineus's eyes were inflamed with blood. He wasn't feeling at all well. "The Crat," he mumbled. "I should have killed them a long time ago."

This made no sense to Sir Emerik, but he was more and more pleased to see that the man before him was not in his right mind. It might be easier than he'd thought to take control.

"There is yet another problem that must be overcome," said Lord Phineus. His mind seemed to be righting itself, if only a little, as he stood up and leaned heavily against the wall. "We'll need water to survive."

"But we have all the water we need!" Sir Emerik was almost too animated in his response. He had understood this to be a problem already solved.

"I've told you before of the secret place where the water finds its beginning," said Lord Phineus. Sir Emerik had to work very hard not to show his anticipation. Lord Phineus should have known deceit when it was before him, but it seemed that he did not. "The time has come for you to know of this place."

Sir Emerik couldn't stop a small rise at one corner of his mouth at the notion. Having power over the water had long been the one missing piece in his plans.

"Are there guards who can maintain order in the absence of us both? This will take some time."

Sir Emerik tried to contain his glee. "There are, lord. There's Tyler, a protégé of mine, a very good man at the gate. And there's Horace--you remember Horace, don't you?"