Secret of the Giants' Staircase (4 page)

For a few seconds, no one said anything, not even baby Sofia.

Then Ravvi sighed deeply. “Go,” he said. “Tomas, you will make sure they get safely away from the camp.” Tomas didn't look happy with the command, but he nodded. Margo immediately ducked into another room.

“Then let's go at once,” Parvel said. Jesse knew he wanted to leave before Ravvi changed his mind.

“Good-bye, Sofia,” Jesse whispered. “You were my favorite.”

She smiled toothlessly at him like she could understand. Jesse decided he was probably her favorite too. He handed her back to Margo, who had reentered the main room.

In exchange, she gave him a wrapped package and a small object on a leather cord. When he looked closer, Jesse could see it was a piece of wood carved in the shape of a bird. “The food is for you,” Margo said, pointing to the package. “The other is for Barnaby. It's his token, the fledge bird. Each member of the Kin is given a token at birth.”

Jesse put the cord around his neck. “I'll give it to him,” he promised.

“And tell him to bring Zora back,” Zacchai added.

“Zora?” Rae asked, frowning. “There was no one in the Youth Guard with that name.”

“That's because she's a bird,” Zacchai said, like Rae was a complete fool. “A fledge. Like the one on the token necklace. Only real.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Rae demanded.

“Rae,” Silas said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “He's six years old. Let him win this argument.”

“Come,” Tomas said, jerking his head toward the door.

“Give me back my dagger first,” Rae demanded.

“Not a chance.”

“Son,” Ravvi said, in a warning tone, “do as she says.”

Immediately, Tomas gave Rae the dagger. She sheathed it with a glare at him. Jesse guessed that disobeying a command from a parent was a serious offense in the Kin. Otherwise, he was sure Tomas would have died before giving back Rae's dagger.

They ducked out the door into the rain, falling steadily now. Jesse's staff sank down in the mud with every step. Tomas scanned in all directions before leading them out of the camp.

The others followed behind them. Jesse knew it was not because they couldn't keep up, but because at training camp they were taught never to let an enemy walk behind you. Jesse didn't care. He was sure Tomas wasn't a threat anymore, in spite of his bluster.

“I always knew Barnaby would do something like that eventually,” Tomas muttered.

Jesse guessed it would be better not to ask questions or say anything at all. He just kept pace with Tomas and tried not to slip in the mud.

“He never cared about anyone, or about what others thought of him. He was the bold one, the one everyone liked.” His voice became bitter. “Some in the camp called me Barnaby's brother, and him the younger one.”

Something about the way he said it made Jesse think of Eli. Immediately, he felt guilty at the comparison. He had always been jealous of Eli, of his strength and good looks and sense of humor, but they had been friends. Eli had always protected him.

And maybe that's why I resented him
.

Jesse shook off the thought. Still, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Tomas.

They sloshed through the camp as quietly as possible, hiding behind a wagon once when they heard someone passing by.

“Here's where I leave you,” Tomas said, once they reached the trees at the edge of the camp.

“Don't worry,” Parvel said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We'll find your brother.” Clearly, he didn't understand this kind of sibling rivalry. Jesse knew that Parvel and his brother had been close.

In fact, that was one of the problems. Parvel was searching for his brother, Justis, who had disappeared five years before. What Parvel didn't know was that Justis now called himself by another name: Captain Demetri.

Jesse and Silas were the only ones who knew. Silas insisted that if they told Parvel, he would do something rash and endanger them all.

“Do you want us to give Barnaby a message from you?” Parvel asked.

Tomas thought about that. “Yes,” he said, tightening his cloak against the rain and turning away. “Tell him: don't ever come back.”

It was a cold, miserable night for standing watch. Jesse never thought he'd wish they were back in the mountains.
But at least there we could find an overhang or a cave to make camp
, he thought.

Now, after a day of travel, they had reached the soggy, wet terrain of the swamps. Jesse had to content himself with huddling under the draping branches of a tree—a swamp cypress, Silas called it. Jesse had never seen one before. Old Kayne, back in Mir, had taught him to identify all the trees in District One.
He would be fascinated by this place
. The thought made Jesse miss the crusty old hermit.

Kayne would be able to spend days just examining the plants of the swamp. For some reason, when Tomas spoke of the Swamp of the Vanished, Jesse pictured a flat bog with nothing but scum coating the water, like a plowed field after a week's worth of heavy rain.

Instead, the swamp looked more like a forest than anything else. Silas had insisted that they stop as soon as they reached the fringes of the swamp. “It will be safer,” he said.

Usually, Jesse would attribute that to Silas' caution, but even Rae wasn't eager to enter the swamp at night. The trees were so tall they seemed to block out the light of the moon, although Jesse knew it was only the heavy storm clouds.

“They say it's the greatest uncharted territory in Amarias.”

Even though Jesse recognized Parvel's voice a split second later, he still jumped. Parvel lifted a branch to join Jesse under the tree. His shirt was plastered to him with water, his curly brown hair hung limp around his face, and he had to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the branches of the swamp cypress. He looked like a dripping wet grizzly bear.

“It's not your watch for another hour yet,” Jesse said.

“I just couldn't sleep,” Parvel replied.

“I'm surprised anyone can in this rain.” They were far enough away from the others that Jesse wasn't afraid of waking them. Silas, at least, could sleep through wind, rain, thunderstorms, and possibly an attack by Captain Demetri.

For a moment, Parvel just looked out at the swamp. “Beautiful, isn't it?”

Jesse hadn't thought about it that way before. “I suppose.”

“I learned only a bit about the swamps from my tutor. He was rather weak on geography and history, I'm afraid. Mostly had us memorize capitals and trade routes and things of that nature. Terribly dull.”

Jesse tried to imagine that kind of life: growing up as the son of a nobleman, with nothing more to do than eat extravagant food and learn about geography. He had learned to read and write and do simple sums at the village school, but that was all.

“Is that where you learned about God?” Jesse asked.

Parvel laughed. “No. In fact, quite the opposite. My tutor was adamantly opposed to any mention of God, even the watered-down talk of the priests. He was also a most miserable man. I decided I did not want to believe as he did, because I did not want to be like him.”

“But how do you know so much about God, then?” Jesse asked.

“I made it my goal to find out all I could,” Parvel said. “Somehow, I knew that what I heard from the priests couldn't be the truth, or at least not the whole truth. I started a private collection of texts from the Holy Scriptures. Just fragments, you understand. I have yet to find a complete copy.”

“Because it's so old?”

“It is old, yes. Preserved from an age no one now remembers. But, more importantly, the king doesn't appreciate the God of the Scriptures. He and his court subscribe to a very different kind of religion.”

Instantly, Jesse remembered the dragon sculpture he had seen in Chancellor Doran's parlor. Even thinking about it gave him a sick feeling, like someone was twisting his stomach inside of him.

“I have found many scraps with fire damage on the edges,” Parvel said, shaking his head angrily. “I believe they burn all copies of it, Jesse. The most important book in all of history. Can you believe it?”

“I believe it,” Jesse said flatly. “We're here in the rain outside a swamp because the king is trying to kill us. It doesn't surprise me that he's willing to burn a few books.”

“In any case, God rewards an earnest search for truth. As it says in the Scriptures, ‘God did this so that people would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.' I read those words, and ones like them. And I believed.”

Jesse turned around, wincing as the rough bark of the tree scraped his neck. He looked toward the camp, where he could dimly see Silas and Rae's sleeping forms. “What about people who don't want to believe?”

“You can only choose for yourself, not for others,” Parvel said, shrugging.

He keeps speaking in vague, intellectual terms, like this is a debate in his study at home
.

“But what about Rae and Silas?” Jesse asked, getting right to the heart of the matter. “They don't want to listen to anything about God. Silas especially. Rae seems to tolerate it, as if belief in God is a harmless myth. But Silas….”

“Yes, Rae and Silas,” Parvel said. He didn't sound upset at all. Instead, he frowned thoughtfully, like Rae and Silas were logic puzzles his tutor would have him solve. “Rae thinks she doesn't need God, that she can do without Him even if He does exist. Silas, on the other hand, doesn't trust God. He doesn't believe that He's good. Besides, he wants revenge for his father's death, and he knows that if God exists, He wouldn't approve of revenge.”

That was frustrating to Jesse. “What would it take to change their minds? What more can we
do
?”

“Let me tell you a story,” Parvel said, instead of answering. Jesse knew from experience, though, that the story would be the answer.

“Long ago, there was a messenger in the court of King Marias who was sent to the city of Lidia to announce that an army of Westlunders was planning to attack it.”

“Who were the Westlunders?” Jesse asked. Parvel often forgot that not everyone was as familiar with history as he was.

“A powerful tribe from the western side of the mountains,” Parvel said. “Some even said they were giants. In any case, after hearing the report of the impending attack, the sovereign of Lidia refused to prepare for war. He left the city defenseless and sent the messenger away in disgrace.”

“Foolish,” Jesse said. “What kind of ruler was he?”

“He believed the city walls were strong enough to withstand any attack,” Parvel said, shrugging. “He trusted that faulty belief more than he trusted the messenger. The messenger tried again to gain audience with the sovereign, but he was denied. Three days later, the Westlund army attacked Lidia and put it under siege. After a few months, the city fell and was destroyed.”

Jesse didn't try to picture that scene. He had never seen warfare up close, not living in the tiny village of Mir. The war on the Northern Waste was weeks of travel away from District One, and very little news came to them from the battlefield.

“Tell me, Jesse, was it the messenger's fault that the city fell?”

“No,” Jesse said immediately. “He did his duty. Even more by going back after he was thrown out of the sovereign's court.”

“And that is what you must always remember as a messenger of the truth of God,” Parvel said. “You cannot make people accept the truth. You can only present it and pray that God will change their hearts.”

Jesse thought about that. “But there's one difference from your story. After the second try, the messenger left. I will get thrown out of the court a hundred times if I need to. I will not give up on Rae and Silas.”

“That's the spirit, Jesse.” Parvel clapped him on the back, probably harder than he meant to. He often underestimated his own strength. “When they are ready to listen, we will be there.”

Jesse nodded. “If we make it out of the swamps alive.”

“The Swamps of the Vanished,” Parvel mused, stroking his chin. “I wonder what the Westlunders would think of that? It's quite possible they marched across this very ground.”

“You mean—” Jesse started.

“Yes. There was once a city in these swamps…Lidia, the very one that fell to the Westlunder army. That was the last Amarias ever heard from these parts. The Lidians simply disappeared.”

“Others too, from what I've heard,” Jesse added.

Parvel raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And what, exactly, have you heard?”

“Just a few stories,” Jesse said quickly, “told by boastful travelers and traders at my aunt and uncle's inn after a bit too much to drink. Probably just lies and exaggerations.”

The truth was, he was trying to forget the stories he had heard. None of them ended well. They were tales of noxious bogs, “where just a whiff could poison your blood,” not to mention the strange creatures, including dragons. There were men who claimed that they were the only survivors of an expedition to the other side of the swamps, telling how the others in their group disappeared overnight, with most of their possessions left behind.

And they told of giants, ones with matted, greasy hair and fists the size of horse carts. Evil smiles, too, ones that glowed in the darkness of the swamp. The Westlunders, though Jesse had never heard anyone call them by such a polite name.

“They say the giants of the swamp will jump across Amarias in three steps and snatch children from their beds as they go,” Parvel said, swooping down and picking Jesse up on the last words.

Jesse kicked him in the shin, laughing. “Put me down, Parvel.”

Parvel did. “Isn't that what your nurse told you when you were young?”

“I didn't have a nurse, Parvel,” Jesse said, “just a mother and a father.”

There it was again. Talk of his parents always made Jesse pull back. But if Parvel noticed, he didn't say anything. Jesse was glad. Even though Parvel was usually right, he didn't want a philosophical answer for why suffering and separation existed. He wanted his parents.

“What is the other squad doing in the swamps, anyway?” Jesse asked, to change the subject.

Parvel frowned in concentration. “You ought to ask Silas to be sure, but I'm fairly certain they are hunting for the fabled city of the giants, a fortress that would put even the proud city of ancient Lidia to shame.”

Now Jesse remembered. He had read the entry too. All of them had, though only Silas had memorized all the entries. “In case something happens to the book,” he always said.

“The stairs,” Jesse said. “There's a staircase in the center of the giants' city that holds the secret to their power. They're looking for the staircase to the sky.”

“Imagine it,” Parvel said, sweeping his hand toward the stormy sky. “Steps that wind past the tallest of the swamp trees and into the clouds. Perhaps that's how the giants can leap over to District One to steal disobedient children.”

“I take it, then, that you don't believe in the Giants' Staircase?”

Parvel shook his head. “No, Jesse. I do not even believe in the giants themselves. Perhaps the Westlunders existed once, but they died out, as many people groups do. They do not live in the swamps.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Think about it: an entire civilization, never venturing out of the swamps. One that no one has ever seen. How could they sustain themselves? What would they eat? With whom would they trade?” He shook his head. “No, the Giants' Staircase is just another invention of the king to send a squad of Youth Guard into death.”

Jesse looked out at the towering swamp. “Not if we get there first.”