Infinity Ring 05 - Cave of Wonders (2 page)

The other travelers on the road didn’t seem to take any particular notice of them. Dak figured that was because they were still wearing their clothes from China, which was also on the Silk Road, and people here probably saw clothing from China all the time. For once, Dak, Sera, and Riq didn’t look so out of place. Or out of time. Dak was glad, too, that their Chinese clothes were relatively thick and warm. It was wintertime here, and the desert air was surprisingly cool.

Baghdad turned out to be less than a mile away. It soon loomed up out of the dust and sand. The wind died down as they passed through the city outskirts, where some buildings were constructed in stone, but most were made out of mud bricks. They crossed several canals, and passed houses with thick walls, low doors, and narrow windows, a design perfect for life in this climate. They crossed open squares where people gathered around wells and in the shade of palm trees.

Ahead of them, the outer walls of the city rose up, high and imposing, reminding Dak of a really huge sand castle.

More facts bubbled in Dak’s head. “Baghdad was built not far from where Babylon used to be, and it was one of the greatest centers of learning in all the world, with giant libraries holding thousands of books. This was a Golden Age for the Middle East, while Europe was in the Dark Ages.”

Riq turned to look at him. Dak kept going before he could interrupt.

“Scholars and philosophers from all over the world traveled here just so they could study, and everyone worked side by side, no matter where they came from, or what religion they belonged to. The most important thing to them was knowledge.”

Riq was still staring at him. Dak waited for him to make fun of him, getting ready to fire something back. But Riq didn’t say anything. He just . . . stared.

“What?” Dak asked.

Riq shook his head. “I just don’t get why you like history so much.”

That caught Dak by surprise. How could someone
not
like history? It was everyone else who was weird, including Riq, and even Sera. But then again, Dak didn’t understand why Riq loved languages so much, or why Sera was so into science and math. So, why
did
Dak like history so much? He realized he couldn’t exactly answer the question Riq had just raised.

They soon arrived at a city gate where many caravans and travelers merged, jostling Dak from all sides. He heard the others around them call it the Khurâsân Gate. It was only after joining the crowd that Dak noticed the guards standing watch with their metal helmets and swords. They were collecting a toll from everyone who entered the city.

“Um, guys?” Dak stopped in the road.

“What are we going to do?” Sera asked. She had obviously seen them, too. “We don’t have any money.”

But before they could come up with an answer, the pressing crowd behind them drove them forward. Dak looked around, frantic, but there was no way to escape. The traffic going into the city had caught them in its current, and with each moment brought them closer to the guards.

“Just act natural,” Riq whispered. “We’ve faked our way out of worse stuff than this.”

He was right about that. Dak took a deep breath.

They shuffled forward behind the large caravan they’d met on the road, and before long, they were almost to the guards’ station. The leader of the caravan, the man who had yelled at them earlier, got off his camel and went to the guards to pay the group’s toll.

“I have an idea.” Riq moved forward. “Follow my lead. Stay close together.”

Dak and Sera glanced at each other, and went with Riq. He led them in between the camels, mixing in with the other members of the caravan. It was a good plan, to try to blend in, but Dak found himself forced right up against the backside of a camel, its tail whipping him in the face, and it smelled even worse than the other camel’s front had.

“We better not be here for too long!” he hissed.

Sera and Riq both suppressed smiles.

One of the caravan riders noticed them and looked down, scowling.

Riq gave him a sheepish shrug. “Sorry. Busy day at the Khurâsân Gate.”

The rider snorted.

After that, the three of them kept their heads down and remained quiet. And when the caravan started moving, they moved with it, staying as hidden as they could. Dak risked a glance at the guards when they reached them, but the men seemed to already be looking beyond the caravan on to the next travelers.

“It worked!” Dak whispered.

“Of course it worked,” Riq said, and then Dak regretted saying anything.

They passed under the shadow of the gate’s high arches, through the city wall, and into a busy street where a cacophony of sights and smells and sounds assaulted them. Buildings rose up several stories to either side, sprouting tents and canopies at their bases. Shopkeepers and street vendors shouted their wares.

“The sweetest dates you’ll ever taste!”

“Olives! Plump, rich olives!”

“Come! Run your hands over the finest silk between Samarkand and Damascus!”

“The brightest lapis and jasper your eyes have ever seen!”

The sharp smell of spices filled Dak’s nose, mixed with that of smoke and camel and other things he couldn’t place. It was overwhelming, and amazing. He felt like Aladdin, and could almost believe there was a lamp somewhere waiting for them with a genie in it.

“Wow,” Sera said. “Okay. Let’s find a quiet place to pull out the SQuare.”

“You!”

The three of them turned to see one of the guards marching toward them.

He pointed at them. “You three! Stop!”

“Uh-oh,” Dak said.

T
HE GUARD
had one hand on the pommel of the sword he wore at his waist. “Did you pay the toll?”

“We were with the caravan that just passed through.” Riq tried to sound confident. His skill with languages meant he usually ended up being the spokesman.
And let’s face it,
he thought, looking at the other two,
that’s probably a good thing.
“The leader of our caravan paid the toll.”

The guard looked all three of them over, and took his time doing it. “They came from Medina. How is it you are wearing the clothing of China?”

“We spent time there before joining up with that caravan,” Riq said.

The guard didn’t seem to be buying it. He kept looking at their clothes. “You’re pretty young to be working caravans.”

For a moment, Riq worried that maybe the man was a Time Warden, an undercover SQ agent on the lookout for time travelers, and his heart began to pound. But he tried to hide it, and told himself to stop being paranoid. “We . . . uh, travel with our parents.”

The guard narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Dak said. “They’re silk traders.”

“And they’ll be expecting us,” Sera said.

The guard released the pommel of his sword. “All right. Get moving, then.”

The three of them nodded and turned away. They walked down the street together, and Riq could feel the guard staring at them, his gaze a weight on the back of his neck.

“He’s watching us, isn’t he?” Sera asked.

Riq peered over his shoulder. “Yup. Just keep moving.”

“Do you think he was a Time Warden?” Dak asked.

Riq shook his head. “We can’t assume that everyone who looks at us funny is a Time Warden. We tend to get a lot of funny looks.”

Dak looked down at his Chinese clothing. “I guess maybe we need to find some clothes that will help us blend in better. The good news is that Baghdad at this time was a diverse place. I mean, it was on the Silk Road, after all.”

“The Silk Road?” Sera echoed.

“Duh, like I said before. The Silk Road was a trading route stretching from the Mediterranean all the way to China. Meaning Baghdad had people from all over the world coming through here. We don’t have to pretend to be locals, we just might want to look a little less . . . exotic.”

Sera glanced around. “I think we need to check out the SQuare before we do anything about clothes. We need to figure out the Break.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dak pointed at an alleyway nearby. “How about over there?”

Riq nodded. “Looks good.”

The three of them crossed the busy street and entered the alley. It was narrow, filled with deep shadows, and aside from a few baskets, it was empty. Dak pulled the SQuare out of his pants, and Riq expected Sera to say something about how gross that was. But she just took the device from Dak with a blank expression. Riq wondered what was going on with her. She wasn’t acting like herself. Maybe something was happening with her Remnants, those strange feelings and false memories that came in waves and hinted that something . . . wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

“Okay.” She flipped on the SQuare and peered at the screen.

Riq waited for her to tell them what she saw there. It was usually some kind of Art of Memory puzzle or a coded message protecting what little information the Hystorians had managed to load onto the device.

“Listen to this.” She read it out loud:

“To find what Aristotle gave

Speak the words, open the cave.

Inside a treasure gleaming bright,

The jewels of learning, history’s light.”

The SQuare let out a little bleep, and an empty box popped up.

“Weird.” Sera’s eyebrows knitted together. “It looks like it wants a password for something.”

“For what?” Dak asked.

Riq peered over Sera’s shoulder. “Try
password
. That’s what worked before.”

“Wait, wait.” Dak held his hand out over the screen. “Is this one threatening to blow up if we don’t get it right?”

“No.” Sera typed. “Okay,
password
didn’t work. Any other ideas?”

Riq had no ideas. But the riddle had mentioned something about history. Which meant it was kind of Dak’s thing. The kid was annoying, but every once in a while one of those endless, useless facts he pulled out actually helped. “See what Dak can do with it.”

Dak nodded. “Let me see it.”

Sera handed him the SQuare. He read over the riddle again, and within moments Riq could see him getting all excited. When he got talking about history, he kind of rocked back and forth on his heels.

“Okay. Aristotle,” Dak said. “He was the one who founded the Hystorians back in 336 BC. His writings helped uncover the existence of the Great Breaks in history. That
could
be what the riddle means about what Aristotle ‘gave.’ Or, it could also be referring to how Aristotle’s writings influenced the great minds of Europe during the Renaissance.”

Riq sighed. Sifting through all the facts for the useful one sometimes took a while. “That’s great, Dak. What else you got?”

“Well, it says ‘Speak the words, open the cave.’ We
are
in Baghdad. That line of the riddle might refer to the tale of Ali Baba, which, by the way, some believe was
not
one of the original tales from the
One Thousand and One Nights
. Same with
Aladdin
, which was originally set in China. But it would make sense with the ‘treasure gleaming bright.’ I’m not sure what that would make the ‘jewels of learning,’ though.” He tapped his chin. “I’m going to try something.”

“What?” Riq asked.

“Open sesame.”

Sera raised an eyebrow. “Actually, that sounds right, with the cave and all.”

Dak nodded and typed it in. The SQuare’s screen flashed. And then something else came up. “Guys?” Dak held the device out. “Check this out.”

Arin Cole appeared on the screen. She was one of Riq’s fellow Hystorians, the one who had tried to load all the information they would need about the Great Breaks onto the SQuare. It appeared to be a prerecorded video, created before the attack on the Hystorians’ headquarters. She looked stressed, as usual.
More
stressed than usual, in fact.

“He-hello,” she said. “Dak and Sera and the rest of our insertion team.”

The sight of her, thoughts of the old HQ, it all made Riq think about how he’d grown as a Hystorian. About what he’d given up for the mission.

Kisa
. His first true friend, the girl he’d left behind during their mission in the time of the Maya. The girl who had become the first Hystorian to her people. Riq missed her. When he thought of her, he felt the pain and longing of a different kind of Remnant, and he had to take a deep breath to drive it out and focus on the recording.

“If you are watching this,” Arin said, “you have reached the Great Break in Baghdad, in the year 1258.”

Riq, Sera, and Dak all looked at one another. That was true. They were in the right place. So far, so good.

“That’s the good news.” Arin sighed. “Now the bad news. In two days, Mongols under the leadership of Hulagu Khan, the grandson of Ghengis Khan, will sack Baghdad. The city will be decimated.”

Okay, that
was
bad news. Riq thought back to Paris when the Vikings had laid siege to it, and did not like the thought of going through that kind of thing again.

“During the destruction of the city, hundreds of thousands of books will be destroyed, including those in the House of Wisdom.”

“What’s the House of Wisdom?” Riq asked.

Dak perked up. “Oh! The House of Wis —”