Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle (30 page)

L
et us go back a few minutes earlier, to when Paladin parted from Gabriel.

The raven flew down through the center of the staircase. It was frightening, because he didn't know where the bottom was. Eagles, hawks, and falcons fly straight down to catch their prey, but ravens rarely do. Paladin began to worry. An increasing smell of rotting meat intensified his panic.

Then he became aware of wings beating the air just above him.

Perhaps you've had that eerie feeling when you walk at night, the sense that someone is matching your footsteps, step for step. Paladin was sure he was not alone. Then he remembered something Twit, the gossiping finch, had told him about Corax:

“He's the size of a man—no,
twice
the size! With black wings as big as sails! He soars in complete silence, plucking smaller birds from the air with the appetite of a devil.”

This memory had Paladin trembling. Even though he knew Twit had been exaggerating, he could think of nothing
but a monstrous creature bearing down from above, swallowing him in midair without so much as a burp. Gasping, Paladin decided to catch his breath on the staircase. Perhaps if he could just listen, his worries would evaporate. So he tilted his wings to land, bumped clumsily against the wall, dragged his talons to break his momentum, and somersaulted down three steps. It was a very painful, embarrassing touchdown.

Whoosh!
Something flew past. It was impossible to see, and almost as impossible to hear, but the rush of air assured Paladin it was enormous. Just a few feet away, he heard the rasping sound of talons scraping on stone and guessed that the bird had landed.

For a chilling moment both predator and prey stood silent in the darkness.

Paladin's fear quickly became a stouthearted kind of courage.
If I were that big, I would eat my victim immediately
, he told himself.
It's not fair to let a bird worry himself to death. How dare he be so silent!
Paladin felt so indignant that he cried out, “You there!”

“Greetings,” came a deep and gravelly reply.

“I have a riddle for you,” said Paladin, determined to find out what kind of a bird he was dealing with.

“Proceed,” said the stranger.

“How stupid is a sparrow?”

“I cannot answer that,” replied the voice in the darkness.

“Why not?”

“No owl cares to be insulted,” came the reply. “Or did you think I was a peanut?”

“A peanut?” said Paladin. “What do you mean?”

“Peanuts can be salted or insulted.” The owl burst into a vigorous coughing fit.

“Oh, that's a terrible pun!” complained Paladin.

“Speaking of terrible, I just saw you land on those steps. Best imitation of a bowling ball I've ever seen!”

“I'm still learning,” Paladin replied indignantly. “You sound just like Caruso, the owl who saved me once before.”

“ 'Tis I, nose, and throat,” quipped the owl as he fluttered up to join Paladin.

“What are you doing down here?”

“I've come to help you on your mission. I heard about it from the sparrows. Remember, ravens and owls have the same enemies.”

“Oh, Caruso,” cried Paladin with relief. “I'm lost, hopelessly lost!”

“ 'Tis better to be loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” replied the owl, giggling.

Paladin offered a polite chuckle, then proceeded to explain about Septimus and the torc, and Gabriel's plan to rescue his father. When he finished, the owl told him that he had traveled too far.

“How do you know?”

“We owls see better in darkness. You missed an entrance to Aviopolis a short way back. Follow me!” said Caruso.

The Bridge to the Citadel

“Y
ou guys were great,” Gabriel told Abby and Pamela. “Those were really hard riddles.”

“Yes, they were,” admitted Abby. “Septimus, on the other hand—”

“I can assure you,” interrupted Septimus, “mine was exceptionally difficult.”

Nobody replied, not even Somes, who had guessed the answer before Septimus did.

“I promise you,” Septimus continued, “I didn't choose to come here!”

“But you did,” replied Gabriel. “You need my father to help you.”

“Let's not dwell in the past, my good lad. The point is, we got by that awful creature!”

The group had arrived at a ledge. Before them lay a grand and terrifyingly deep underground cavern, its walls dotted with small chambers. This, at last, was the city of Aviopolis. The bottom of the cavern (if there was a bottom) was too far
to see. In its center stood an immense tower of stone with thousands of candlelit windows that flickered in the darkness.

“Look at all those windows! They're so pretty,” said Pamela.

“Each is a cell,” said Septimus. “The citadel is a prison for all who refuse to serve Corax. Many are ravens, hanging in cages, forgotten and doomed.”

In spite of this grim description, Gabriel felt a glimmer of hope. He sensed his father's presence again. Perhaps, in one of those windows, Mr. Finley was looking out right now. It wouldn't be long, Gabriel told himself, before they might be together for the first time in three years.

Getting to the tower was a problem. Gabriel saw no way to reach it across the dark abyss. Septimus, however, led them to a point in the cavern rim where a stone bridge became visible. It was ancient, with great cracked steps of rock leading upward to a narrow span that arched high over the abyss, then descended to the citadel.

The closer they came to the bridge, the more anxious everybody felt, for the stone railings had broken away, leaving only a jagged path that narrowed to the width of a cafeteria tray in some places. With nothing to grasp, it would be like walking a balance beam; and to make matters worse, small chunks of the bridge seemed to be dropping from the edges every few moments.

“I wouldn't like to walk across
that
thing,” said Pamela.

“Me neither,” said Abby. “So, where
do
we cross, Septimus?”

“I'm afraid this is the only way,” said Septimus.

“Unless you have wings,” added Somes, who pointed out something the others hadn't seen: far below their ledge, hundreds of birds were circling the citadel, riding on the air currents in a counterclockwise direction like schools of fish swimming.

It took a few moments for their eyes to take in the scene. They saw linnets, herons, storks, albatross, and many birds they had never seen before. The birds were singing, a sound that might have been beautiful in a valley at dusk, but in this echoing chasm was a nightmarish mix of squawk and gabble.

Now that it was obvious that the bridge was nothing more than a crumbling ruin with a perilous path, Gabriel raised his hand. “Anybody afraid of heights?”

Abby, Pamela, and Somes raised their hands.

“Great,” said Gabriel. “Septimus, how about you?”

Septimus's face had turned green. In fact, he couldn't even look at the bridge—a brief glance had caused his cheeks to swell.

“Haven't you crossed before?” asked Gabriel.

Septimus took a deep, shuddering breath, and stammered, “N-n-never took the bridge. Terrible fear of big open spaces. Nausea. Vertigo. Awful.”

“How did you cross the chasm the first time?” wondered Gabriel.

“I paravolated with Crawfin.”

Pamela regarded him doubtfully. “If you flew, why weren't you scared? It's still a big, open space.”

“As I've told Gabriel, when you and your amicus merge, your similarities are enhanced and your differences erased,” Septimus explained. “Crawfin had no fear of wide-open spaces, so his confidence erased my fear. On the other hand, his greed for the torc was multiplied by my own—which is why we fought.”

At that moment he was interrupted by the echo of a rock tumbling from the bridge; it struck a larger boulder, which triggered bigger pieces to fall. A small rockslide rumbled into the darkness as the children watched with bleak faces. It appeared that even if they got across, there was only a slim chance the bridge would be there for the return journey.

“Well, I'll give it a try,” said Pamela. “It's the only way to get to Gabriel's father.”

Somes gave a thumbs-up. “I'm in,” he said.

“Me too,” said Abby, impressed by the others. She gave Gabriel's hand a squeeze.

Gabriel smiled warmly at his friends. He silently wished he could complete the journey alone with Paladin. Where
was
Paladin? It seemed his amicus had been gone for hours.

An odd figure greeted them at the entrance to the bridge—a squat-looking bird, like a very large turkey with a long neck and a bulbous beak. It had a clipboard under one wing, and waved its free wing enthusiastically. “Greetings,
visitors! Humans! What a pleasant surprise,” she said in a bubbling voice.

“Oh,” whispered Abby with astonishment. “It's a dodo!”

“Aren't they extinct?” said Pamela.

“I thought so,” said Abby. “I remember reading that sailors killed the last ones for food, hundreds of years ago.”

“Then why would it be glad to see people?” murmured Somes.

“Maybe they're just stupidly friendly,” suggested Abby.

“
Dodo
, what a perfect name,” said Somes.

The dodo stepped forward. “Welcome, oh welcome indeed, to the Chasm of Doubt. Crossing it is the only way to enter the citadel of Aviopolis!”

“Chasm of Doubt? Why is it called that?” asked Gabriel.

The dodo blinked. “I'm not sure.”

She balanced on one muscular foot, withdrew the clipboard from her wing with the other, and pulled a pencil free from the clip with her beak. “So, what are your names?”

“I'm Gabriel. This is Abby, Pamela, and Somes.”

“And Septimus Geiger, at your service, ma'am,” said Septimus in a sickly voice.

As the dodo took down their names, Gabriel stared at her. She wrote with a pencil in her beak as easily as anyone writes by hand, her eyes blinking pleasantly at the children like a kind elderly grandmother's. Her beak was the most extraordinary thing—much too big for her face, sculpted with absurd curves. Her wings were dark brown, with fluffy gray
tips; her feet were yellow and very thick and muscular, with talons that must have been good for crushing clams and other mollusks. Gabriel noticed a lot of razor-clam shells spread about the entrance. He guessed that the dodo snacked on them when she had nothing else to do.

“Pardon me,” asked Abby. “Why do you need our names?”

“Oh, I don't know,” laughed the dodo, patting herself on the chest. “If I didn't take your names, I doubt I would need to be standing here!”

Gabriel noticed that there were no other names on the dodo's list.

“Are we your first visitors?”

The dodo looked puzzled. “I doubt it.”

“Well—how long have you been here?” asked Pamela.

The dodo blinked. “I'm not sure if I know.”

“You don't know?” repeated Pamela. “Or you don't know if you know?”

“I'm doubtful,” admitted the dodo. She gave them another daffy smile.

“Can we go ahead, then?” asked Gabriel.

“Of course,” said the dodo. “I doubt that the bridge is very strong, so you should cross one at a time. It's a long walk and we don't want accidents, do we? Now, who will go first?”

The children regarded the bridge with fresh concern.

Septimus, who was nearest to the bridge, dusted off his hands. “Well, my lad, I have brought you as far as I can. It's time for me to go back.”

“What?” Gabriel replied. “Septimus, what's the sense of our crossing if you go back? The citadel has thousands of rooms. How will I find my dad? And what about the torc? Don't you want to get rid of it?”

“Oh, I'll figure it out. Best of luck. Cheers to all!” With that, the man nodded to the children and weaved his way down the path that had brought them there.