The Legend of the Rift (17 page)

T
HE REST OF
the night, it was hard not to be bothered by Torquin's giggling, a rhythmic wheezing that sounded like a bulldog with allergies. We were trying to decipher Karai's notes and diagrams. Lots of them were ripped, stained, burned, or missing.

“You can be cruel, Tork,” Cass said.

“Did not like Herostratus,” Tork said. “Not as man. Not as kitty cat . . .”

As he went into another fit of giggles, I looked at my watch—3:07
A.M.
I think we were all feeling a little giddy.

We hadn't really looked at Wenders's notebooks. We'd spent most of our time on Karai's scroll, which had been carefully cut and divided into four sections. Cass, Marco,
Eloise, and I had each taken one.

Mine was the last. The very bottom of it had been burned away. But I was determined to read all of it. “Okay, guys, this is our last Wonder and Loculus,” I said. “We don't want to mess it up. Did we learn anything here to help us?”

Cass raised his hand. “I had the earliest part of the scroll. Okay, so, Massarym is like the big show-off of the two bros, right? He goes to the Mediterranean on a ship he steals from the royal Atlantean fleet, and what does he do? Shows off. He figures, ‘Hey, I want everyone to think I'm some kind of god. Then I can park the Loculus in some kind of cool gnidliub—or get some architect to build one. Then—boom—I put some kind of spell on it and—moob—I make sure it's protected by a beastie.' He goes to Greece, or whatever they called it back then. They love him so much that this group becomes the Massarene monks. Generous old Massarym rewards them by leaving his seven beautiful codices, woo-hoo!”

“What's a codice?” Eloise asked.

“Singular is
codex
, plural is
codices
,” Cass said. “A codex is an ancient text. So, the monks find an architect to make the Colossus, where Massarym hides the Loculus of Flight, guarded by a griffin. Trouble is, Tweety likes to eat monks, so Mass takes the bird back and puts this spell on the statue. It's totally stone until someone tries to steal the Loculus—then it comes to life and pounds the thief into human
moussaka. The monks are like, ‘Great, what a deal!' and he leaves. Problem is, Massarym's carrying around those Atlantean beasts on a ship. And the crew are freaking out. The big green blob is oozing out of its cage and managing to eat them.”

“The one Marco the Magnificent stabbed in the rift?” Marco said proudly.

“Well, not
that
one, but maybe its little brother or sister,” Cass replied. “Anyway, that's where my part ends.”

“I got the part where Massarym's sailing up the Euphrates and he meets this shaman from a place called Sippar,” Eloise said. “The guy takes him to Ancient Babylon. When Massarym goes to the palace, the queen is throwing shoes at the king. And her royal highness has
a lot
of shoes. The king is embarrassed and says she's really homesick. She's like a mountain girl, and Babylon is superflat. So Massarym goes, ‘Build her a mountain! You know, like a big structure with Hanging Gardens and stuff, which
looks
like a mountain. And I'll leave you with these foul creatures that will protect it and, oh, yeah, can I keep this orb inside it?' That works out well. Then he gets back to his ship, and there's been this mutiny. He offloads a bunch of the monsters, which have been spitting acid on the crew and messing up the ship. But that still doesn't make the crew happy. They're so angry they nearly kill Massarym. Anyway, that's all I got.”

Eloise put her part of the scroll down and looked at Marco. “You guys went to all these places? I am so jealous.”

Marco shrugged. “Dude, it wasn't all fun times.”

“I'm not a dude,” Eloise said.

“And you're not fun times.” Marco spun away to avoid being slapped. “JK! Anyway, so yeah. Massarym starts ramping up the magic spells. He gets rid of the crew and enchants a bunch of new sailors to obey his every wish. He makes sure extra guys are on board in case Greenie eats some. And he heads to Halicarnassus, where he knows this famous guy Mausolus has died. He gets the guy's wife, Artemisia, to build this awesome structure, the Mausoleum. Only now his dad, King Uhla'ar, is hot on the trail, and he shows up in Halicarnassus with his toga in a twist. So Massarym tries to throw him off the trail by pretending to throw the Loculus off a cliff—”

“And then they meet again near Olympus,” I said, “where Massarym puts a spell on his dad, trapping him in the Statue of Zeus. That's in my part of the scroll. Afterward, Massarym is feeling guilty about what he did to Uhla'ar. But he got what he wanted. Dad is off his trail, the crew is a bunch of yes-men. The problem is, Greenie has escaped.”

“That big thing?” Marco said.

“Yup,” I said. “So most of my scroll is about Massarym's
li'anu
.”

“Which means?” Eloise asked.

“Well, I couldn't figure that out, even with the Loculus of Language, but I think I got it from context—you know, get the meaning from the words around it,” I said, reading aloud: “‘Although Massarym was brilliantly skilled in the magic arts and persuasive among the people he met, although he was able to trap his own father and assemble a new crew, he lacked control over many of his fearsome Atlantean beasts. These often acted with wills of their own. Those who lived in or traveled by water proved to be the most difficult. Although Massarym brought them to the Great Lands by cage, the most fearsome of all, the great Atlantean Mu'ankh, broke free. Thus Massarym began his great
li'anu
, following the sea up through the vast north lands.'”

“So,
li'anu
is some kind of search,” Eloise said.

“Exactly,” I replied, continuing onward: “Anyway, he's in Greece now, so he sails over to Rhodes to borrow the Loculus of Flight . . . ‘Under cover of night, Massarym traveled to lands covered by forests and swamps. The crude, warring tribes there took him to be a kind of god, which he enjoyed greatly, of course. He created detailed maps of his travels, some of which I was able to steal, some of which I copied. And it was in these cold, dank, horrid places where he heard of sightings of a great green sea beast. There were many names given to it by these people, the most common
being
kraken
. After much searching, he finally found the Mu'ankh frolicking in a long and narrow waterway, frightening the local tribes.'”

Cass grabbed the map from me, staring at the circle that had been drawn on the map. “Guys, this is Europe,” he said.

Eloise rolled her eyes. “Tell us something we don't know.”

“This area . . .” Cass went on. “It's Scotland.”

“Wait,” I said, pointing to the circle drawn on the map. “So this waterway would be . . . ?”

Cass nodded. “Loch Ness.”

“Wait,” Marco said. “Nessie is Greenie? How cool is that?”

“Wait, don't people claim to see Nessie even now?” Eloise asked.

“Falsely,” Cass said. “It's the power of suggestion. The legend sticks and then people see it for years and years . . . mostly because they want to.”

“‘It took Massarym a great deal of time to guide the Mu'ankh out of the lake and onto the land,'” I read. “‘He proved too unwieldy to fly through the air, so Massarym by necessity used the most dangerous Loculus of all, that of . . .
de'alethea
' . . . ?”

“That's got to be teleportation,” Cass said. “He teleported Greenie—but where?”

I kept going: “‘The beast was nearly dead upon arrival. Great was Massarym's woe, and he set to restoring the hideous monster to life. For while he was gone, the architect Sostratus had completed plans for the greatest of all . . .'”

“Greatest of all
what
?” Marco said, slapping his hand down on the Loculus.

“That's it,” I said. “That's where the scroll ends.”

“Wait. What's that guy's name?” Cass raced to the hospital desk and sat at the computer there. As I spelled out the name
Sostratus
, he did a quick search.

Torquin, Eloise, Marco, and I followed, looking over his shoulder.

“Bingo,” Marco said.

Our answer was glowing on the screen:

SOSTRATUS: ARCHITECT OF THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA.

“I
T'S DEAD,”
M
ARCO
said as the Jeep bounced along the road toward the airfield. “Greenie, I mean.”

Eloise glared at him. “How do you know it's d— Owww! Torquin, will you slow down?”

Much as we begged Aliyah not to let him, Torquin was our driver. Heading directly into potholes at top speed had always been one of his favorite things to do. But today his driving seemed more absentminded. Like he just just wasn't paying attention. “So . . . sorry,” he said, jamming on the brake. “It is difficult . . . to maneuver a wheeled vessel . . . such as this.”

“Not funny,” Eloise said.

“Maneuver a wheeled vessel . . . ?” Marco narrowed his
eyes. “Torquin, you don't need to impress us. Just drive, dude.”

Torquin immediately began speeding up again.

“To answer your question, E—think of what that Loculus did to us,” Marco said, putting his hand over his head to cushion his banging against the roof. “Greenie has a gazillion times the number of atoms we have. Like Brother Asclepius said, it's all about atoms. The more you have, the more complicated it is assembling them all. There's no way that thing survived being teleported.”

“What if Massarym had the Loculus of Healing?” Eloise said.

“What if he didn't?” Cass replied. “What if it was already hidden away in the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus?”

The Jeep jolted so suddenly I thought we might have hit a tree. “Yeeeow, I only have one head, Tork!” Marco shouted. “Dang,
we're
the ones who need the Loculus of Healing.”

“Huh?” Torquin grunted as the Jeep fishtailed onto the tarmac. He slammed on the brakes and we did a complete three-sixty, just before plowing into a crowd that nearly covered the entire field.

The people nearest the Jeep jumped back. Manolo grabbed Aliyah and threw her to another guard who was farther back in the crowd. Torquin skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with Slippy's landing wheels. He jumped out of
the driver's seat and held his hand up to the waiting crowd.

“My badness,” he grunted.

The rest of us were staring, dumbfounded. It looked like every single Massa and every single rebel had shown up to see us off. Streamers hung from Slippy's wings, along with shining cutout letters spelling
GOOD LUCK, SELECT
!

On the fuselage, next to Nirvana's portrait of Fiddle, was another one of Brother Dimitrios. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but I guess fair is fair.

As we staggered out of the Jeep, Torquin turned toward us, sheepish looking and even more red faced than usual. “They hate me. . . .”

“Turn around, please!” Aliyah barked, emerging from the crowd and walking directly for Torquin. “I would like a word with—”

But as Torquin slowly shuffled around to face her, his face beet red, his shoulders slumped, and his brow scrunched up like a field of just-planted corn, she spat out a laugh.

Her guard's shoulders began to vibrate up and down as they struggled to contain their merriment. A couple of rebels let out a giggle, and then Nirvana blatted out a “HAAAA!” that made every person completely lose it.

They were surrounding us now, and I realized that they were even more excited than we were. Finding the last Loculus would fulfill the dreams of both organizations.

Standing maybe ten feet away was Mom. I couldn't
jump into her arms, but she was mouthing “I love you,” which felt just as good.

I knew we had a long way to go. I knew that even if we were successful in Alexandria, we still had our most impossible task ahead of us.

But, boy, could I feel the love. And I let out a whoop at the top of my lungs.

A few hours later, as we swooped, jerked, and spun over the Mediterranean, the love was pretty much out the window—along with my stomach.

“I've got my mouth pointed toward the back of your head, Tork,” Marco said. “Keep flying like that and you get the shampoo of a lifetime.”

“Doing best I can,” Torquin said. “Promise.”

As bad as Torquin's driving is, his piloting is like riding a roller coaster rejected by Six Flags. He jammed the throttle back, and the jet began a nosedive. Both Eloise and Cass started screaming. I don't need to tell you what happened to Marco. Suffice it to say Torquin managed to radio ahead for someone to meet us on the tarmac with a hose.

Our landing wasn't a pretty sight.

Afterward we freshened up in the restrooms and then waited at the terminal arrival gate for Torquin. Cass was staring at his tablet, madly doing research. “Okay, the island of Pharos, where the Lighthouse stood? It isn't an
island anymore,” he said. “In ancient times they carted out some rocks and dirt and connected the island to the mainland. The strip of land is called a mole. Do you know how long the mole was?”

“Is this necessary information?” Eloise said. “Because I could use some quiet right now. And maybe ice cream.”

“Back then, instead of miles they measured land by the length of a stadium—which was six or seven hundred feet, give or take,” Cass said, his eyes brightening. “The land connector to Pharos was a
heptastadion
—seven stadiums!”

“Massarym was all about those sevens!” Marco punched a fist into the air. “Proves we're on the right track. He must have been there.”

“Turns out, the Lighthouse lasted a long time,” Cass said. “Like, nearly two thousand years, until an earthquake nuked it. Some of the stones were used to build a fort on the site. It's still there, and it's called the Qaitbay Citadel.”

Torquin came lumbering toward us from the restroom. “I rent car now.”

“No!” Eloise shouted.

Cass immediately ran to the curb, where a cabdriver was standing idly by a beat-up old taxi. “You need cab?” the driver called out, yanking his door open. “Of course you do!”

We all climbed in before Torquin could say a word.

It was a tight taxi ride through Alexandria, with Torquin hogging the front passenger seat and Cass, Eloise, Marco, and me squeezed into the back. The driver led us down streets of squat, whitewashed buildings. Most of the women wore head coverings and long dresses, everyone walked in sandals, and the smell of the sea got stronger the farther we got from the airport.

The cabdriver spoke fluent English, and he wouldn't stop. “First time? Of course it is! You from New York? London? Ha!”

“Actually, we're not,” Marco said.

“Of course you're not!” the driver said. “Those big American cities, European cities? Brand-new. Paint is not even dry on these cities!”

“But we don't live in any big American or European—” Cass began.

“Here, we are founded by Alexander the Great!” the cabdriver barreled on, ignoring Cass. “Of course we are! Because is why we are called
Alexandria
, you see? More than three hundred years
B.C
.! We had largest library in the world—five hundred thousand volumes! You think New York Public Library had that in ancient times? You think Library of Congress or Harvard?”

“Of course they didn't!” Eloise said.

“Smart girl!” the cabdriver said. “Alexandria greatest center of learning in history. I take you there now?”

“To a
library
?” Marco said. “Shoot me first.”

“I like libraries,” Eloise piped up.

“Of course you do!” the cabdriver said, swerving to the right across two lanes of traffic. “We go!”

“No!” Torquin, Marco, Eloise, Cass, and I all shouted at once.

“To the Lighthouse,” I said. “I mean, the Qaitbay Citadel.”

We got there at the height of the sun. The taxi's air-conditioning couldn't quite crank up high enough to make up for the heat-generating machine known as Torquin, so we were already sweaty by the time we got out.

The sea breeze helped. Seagulls cawed and swooped down toward food left by a group of kids on a railing. I could hear a buoy clanging out to sea. Qaitbay Citadel was a massive stone castle at the end of the long arcade lined with cannons. The castle's roof was crenellated along all four sides, with a great turret on each corner. Arched windows like two giant eyes gazed at us from above the entrance as we walked the length of the arcade, past tourist families posing for selfies. “You feeling the Song of the Heptakiklos yet?” Marco said. “Like Brother Cass said, some of the castle stones are from the Lighthouse.”

I shook my head. Not even a hint.

Off to the left, a dark-haired woman in a head scarf
clapped her hands and then spoke into a megaphone: “Three minutes to the start of the English-speaking tour, ladies and gentlemen! We will be discussing the history of the Qaitbay Citadel from its days as the famous Wonder of the World, the Lighthouse of Alexandria!”

I was so busy listening for the Song that I barely noticed. “Come on,” Cass said. “We might learn something.”

“If I knew we were going to a lecture, I'd have brought my sleeping bag,” Marco said.

“Can't we just go into the citadel now?” Eloise asked.

“So, I suppose you are the only customers this afternoon,” the woman said, now walking toward us with a huge smile.

“Customers?” Marco said, his eyes widening in panic. “We're—”

“Eloise,” Eloise said, extending her hand. “And this is my brother, Cass. And my friends Jack, Marco, and—where's Torquin?”

I looked around, but he was gone. “Restroom, I guess.”

“Good idea!” Marco said.

“My name is Sima,” the woman said. “Come. These tours are better when they're small. More intimate, no?”

As she began leading us toward the castle, Marco pantomimed a big, theatrical yawn.

“Too late for us to join?” a voice piped up from behind us.

I turned to see a group of tourists heading our way from a chartered van. There were about ten of them, about half men and half women, each wearing baseball caps and colorful T-shirts. All their arms were covered with tattoos, and most of the guys had beards.

The first guy to reach us must have been in his late twenties. His beard was thick and dark brown, and he wore narrow, black-rimmed glasses. “Americans?” he said.

“Yup,” I answered.

But my eyes were fixed on his shirt, which showed a print of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. As his friends ran up next to him, I couldn't help staring at their shirts, too. And their tattoos. I saw a great statue astride a harbor . . . a tremendous structure flowing with plants and flowers . . . a magnificent lighthouse . . . “The Seven Wonders,” I said.

“Can you recite them all?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. As I reeled them off, he looked surprised, but not as surprised as I felt right then.

His baseball cap—all their caps—were emblazoned with an unmistakable familiar symbol.

“Who the heck are you?” Marco asked.

“Actually, I'm Cooper, from Bushwick—that's Brooklyn,” the guy said, spinning around to show the back of his T-shirt, which said
SEESAW
. “And that acronym, in case you were mad curious—which of course you are—stands for Society for the Earthly Edification of the Seven Ancient Wonders. You've heard of us?”

“No,” Eloise said.

“The . . . upside-down
V
,” Cass said, “on your hats. What does that mean?”

At once, all of them held their hands out, fingers pointed down in a lambda shape. Scissoring the fingers open and closed, they cried out in unison, “Ka-ku, ka-ku.”

Then they cracked up, nodding toward one another with great satisfaction.

I felt like I was being flung to the outer reaches of the nerd universe.

“Please tell me I'm dreaming,” Marco mumbled.

“That's our sign,” Cooper said. “It went over really big at Comic Con. The inverted V was discovered by the Alexandrian archaeological diver who founded our group. We think we have a pretty good idea it relates to the actual origin of the Seven Wonders of the World!”