Rivers of Fire (Atherton, Book 2) (26 page)

When the first of the people from the grove arrived at the place where the Flatlands began, Horace knew the time had come to stop and face the oncoming massacre. He knew that if he didn't stop and convince the men who were with him to do the same, many more would be lost.

He beckoned the thirty or so men around him to stop, and to his great surprise they made no effort to dispute his idea. They knew, as Horace did, that the only way to get everyone out was to stay and fight, to create a diversion.

"You have done a great service to the living in Atherton," said Horace. "Generations will recall this moment. They will remember how you stood and fought a terrible enemy so that others could live!"

The men gathered around him and called out a great cheer. They had been chosen for reasons they did not know to stand between the forces of destruction and a peaceful people. They formed groups of four or five each, turned to the sound of breaking bones, and dived headlong into a sea of Cleaners, beating them back with ferocious resolve.

As fate would have it, Horace was one of the last to fall, and he was given the gift of seeing with his own eyes the children and sheep and rabbits being hoisted out of Tabletop and into the Flatlands, their little feet dangling in the air as they were yanked hard and fast into a new life he would never know. He knew as he passed that his family and the others would make it out of Tabletop.

Horace's eyes closed and he was at peace, a leader among

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men, sleeping at last and searching on the other side for his good friend Wallace.

A small number of Cleaners bolted for the Flatlands, hearing the sounds of voices and seeing the immense quantity of food that lay in wait for them there. But they were greatly outnumbered and no match for the men and women who remained. The Cleaners were beaten back with flying rocks and spears by a great horde of humanity from above in the Flat-lands. The few who remained in Tabletop were soon lifted out, and the whole race of men in Atherton pelted the Cleaners with weapons until they retreated out of reach.

A huge shout rang out as had never been heard in Atherton. It seemed that everyone who lived was shouting at once, raising their voices with anger at all that had been taken from them, and with joy at all they'd overcome.

And then, as if to show them who really was in charge, Atherton began to quake as it never had before. It rumbled so hard and fast that many next to the very edge almost fell back into Tabletop as it careened spectacularly downward beneath them. In moments, Tabletop went from being five feet below them to thirty.

With a falling Tabletop the water came over the edge of the Highlands. Like a monster it charged, washing over the grove and pushing all the trees and homes from the ground. The Cleaners could hear the water rushing for them, and they reacted by trampling over one another in search of the Flatlands. But finding the edge leading thirty feet up meant finding a wall

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they could not scale. They attacked one another and leaped into the air, snapping their teeth.

And the water kept rolling through, covering Tabletop in a thin layer that glistened in the sun.

When the quake quieted to a mere tremor, Maude searched through the throng of people, trying to find the one person who had been put in her charge. She had lost her grip on him at the edge of the grove and hoped he was near, in the swarm of children. But she was wasting her time. She was in a place that had once been the lowest place in Atherton but had been transformed into the highest. Looking down, she wondered where the boy had gone. And she was right to wonder, for Edgar had gone back to the grove.

***

The first wave came into the grove without warning, toppling over a few of the trees that were left standing and barreling through the doorways of the very few houses that hadn't fallen over. This came as a surprise to Charles, Eliza, and Adele. They'd been spared the coming of the Cleaners, who were drawn into battle with the departing horde of people, but the wave was only the first of many that were about to overtake them. They had not prepared for the eventuality of a flooded grove.

And so it was a very good thing that Edgar had been the first to realize what was happening and to turn back. Something deep inside him had taken over when the ground shook so

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violently that second time. He was the firstborn of Atherton, and maybe this gave him certain powers of perception about the place of his birth. He began to remember his dream of the night before, of the words Dr. Harding had said in the House of Power. Suddenly, he was sure that Tabletop would sink, that the water would come, and that Samuel and Isabel's parents would perish if he did not go back for them.

And there was another part of the dream that made him feel a peculiar certainty that Isabel and Samuel were in danger but still alive, that he would see them again. They, too, were children of Atherton. They were born here, and Edgar sensed them moving inside, as if trying to be reborn as Atherton was being reborn. He felt Atherton had brought him by this way for a purpose bigger than himself--to bring Samuel and Isabel's parents to the safety of the Flatlands or to die trying.

Edgar now had a little experience on the water and had an idea of what might keep them afloat if the water reached as high as he thought it might. The space of Tabletop was an enormous area to fill, but the water was already flowing so fast over the edges of the Highlands, Edgar thought all of Tabletop would have a layer of water upon it within minutes. After that, it was just a matter of how fast and how high the water would rise.

He jumped down out of one of the only trees that remained standing and landed in a foot of water at his feet. He lapped up handful after handful. Even in the face of escalating danger he could not help but quench his thirst. The water was pushing hard against his legs and another wave was rising out of the Highlands, threatening to bowl him over.

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"Charles! Where are you?" he screamed as he made his way into what little remained of the village.

"We're here!" cried Charles, stepping out of a door and onto a porch just as a five-foot-high wave slammed into the house. The wave knocked Charles and Edgar off their feet. Edgar had taken hold of a fallen tree with roots that were still lodged in the ground and he was sucked under the hanging branches. When he emerged, gasping for air, chunks of tree and house were floating all around him, threatening to hammer him unconscious.

Charles had recovered from the blast of water and retrieved Eliza and Adele from inside the house. When they came out, Edgar had made his way to the porch, and the four stood together as the water receded. Another wave out of the Highlands was building as the four braced themselves.

"After this one comes through, we need to run for it!" said Edgar.

"I'm not leaving here," said Eliza. "Not without Isabel." The wave struck the porch and the four held on tightly.

"I was wrong!" said Edgar. "She's still alive, and so is Samuel! I'm sure of it. But we must go to the Flatlands! There's no other way out for them or for us."

Eliza and Adele were struck by the courage of this boy-- how he had come back to get them--and as the water receded once more, they relented.

"How do we get out?" asked Adele, looking at Edgar and Charles, her wet hair hanging in strands before her face. "We have to find them!"

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Edgar moved to the door of the house where water was standing two or three feet high. "We need a rope. A long one," he said.

"I have it!" hollered Charles. He had made a stash of provisions in the house and waded through the door looking for the rope he'd saved. "Here! Here it is!"

It was still wound tight and he threw it over his shoulder. When he came out the door he saw Edgar, Adele, and Eliza staring with horror at two Cleaners swimming through the water, their jaws chomping at the surface as they were propelled on flapping tails. They could swim surprisingly well. It appeared to come naturally to them.

The two Cleaners approached the porch, snapping their teeth as if laughing with glee.

"Hold on!" commanded Charles, and a moment later, the biggest wave yet smashed into the house and blew it over. The Cleaners were swept away, past Edgar and through the trees. Charles, Eliza, Adele, and Edgar screamed for one another as they were all pulled under and through the grove. None of them knew how to swim.

When the wave was gone, its power taken by the vast open space of Tabletop, three feet of water remained, a shifting lake that spread all through the trees. Edgar and Charles popped out of the water first, quite near each other, and to their left Eliza emerged drenched and coughing. Adele was nowhere to be found and they called out for her.

Edgar had quickly grown used to the feeling of water

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around him, as if he were made for water in the same way he was made for climbing. He dived under, searching the fallen trees for any sign of Adele. He came up for air, went back down, and this time he saw her, trapped within the tangled roots of a third-year fig tree. She was not moving.

"Here!" cried Edgar, calling for Charles. He followed Edgar to the tree and the two dived under, releasing Adele's legs and hauling her to the surface. Her face had turned a shade of blue and she was cold all over. They didn't know how to help her.

"Put her over your shoulder," said Edgar. "We have to get out of this grove before it kills us."

Charles hoisted Adele up and her chest slammed into his shoulder, shooting water out of her lungs and mouth. Adele was a small woman, and as Charles moved, she bounced up and down, her chest pumping with air and pushing out water. Then, miraculously, she began to cough.

Charles placed her down in water that came to the tops of her legs and he lifted up her back. Soon, she was able to stand on her own and the group of four was moving fast out of the grove. The waves had stopped and the farther they went the lower the water became until it was splashing at their ankles and they were able to run once more.

At the edge of the grove, where the water was shallow, they encountered a Cleaner, staring them down. Its jaws were snapping wildly, but it was unable to move.

"What's happened to it?" asked Eliza.

"It must be the water," said Edgar. It seemed right to him

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that Dr. Harding would plan it this way. Before them lay a Cleaner thrashing with rage and might, but its legs were gone and only the wild teeth and tail remained. The legs had retracted, leaving only small stumps that were too short to carry the Cleaner anywhere. It also appeared that the Cleaner was having some trouble breathing, as if being submerged in water had changed it into something entirely different. A sea monster lay before them, only it had been pushed out of the water and here it was, hopelessly stranded.

The group of four walked past the Cleaner as it snapped and tried to attack them, but it could not move to sink its awful teeth into a leg or an arm. It struggled to breathe as they made their way past, its middle heaving in and out.

"Can you keep running?" Edgar asked Adele.

"I think so," she answered. They began moving faster toward the Flatlands, looking in every direction for Cleaners as they went. At a dead run it would take them twenty minutes or more to get across, but even from where Edgar was he could see in the distance that Tabletop had moved down. How far, he couldn't say.

They saw no Cleaners as they went, but soon Edgar spotted them in a writhing pile at the edge of the Flatlands. He could make out the shapes of people above, hurling rocks down at hundreds of Cleaners. The Cleaners seemed intent on leaping and scratching at the wall, trying to get out, totally immersed in the effort of trying to exit Tabletop.

"They want out," said Charles. The group had come to a stop out in the open.

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"They must know the water will change them," said Edgar. "Maybe the change hurts."

Eliza thought the whole messy business of Cleaners was sickening, and she made a sour face at the thought of these monsters transforming.

"We need to change course, stay wide of them," said Charles. He had been able to keep the tightly wound rope over his neck and shoulder, and Edgar wondered aloud how long it was.

"I don't know, maybe fifty feet," said Charles.

"That will be plenty," said Edgar, though he secretly knew that if Atherton began moving again the Flatlands might well rise quickly out of reach of a fifty-foot rope.

They set off at a run once more, taking a diagonal path to the Flatlands that led away from the thrashing pile of Cleaners. When they were but a few minutes from reaching the rising, jagged cliffs leading to the Flatlands, the ground began to sway beneath them.

"Don't stop!" yelled Edgar. All of them were out of breath, but Edgar the least. He was a boy who had spent his life climbing to heights no one could imagine. He had boundless energy, and raced ahead of the rest at full speed.

"I'll start up," he hollered back at Charles, who struggled to go on. "You'll need to throw me the rope."

Edgar charged on as Atherton shook with the pains of birth -- a new world being formed and shaped just as Dr. Harding had planned--and the Flatlands rose higher. When Edgar reached the wall, he climbed without delay, the stones