Rivers of Fire (Atherton, Book 2) (22 page)

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side as the stone flew past. The creature had gigantic, powerful wings with scaly feathers that intertwined in a pattern of murky blue and bloodred. It moved as nothing Isabel had ever seen, fluid and smooth. She'd hit a man on a horse, but this was something entirely different.

"Get back into the rocks!" screamed Vincent, but Isabel was glued to the ground, mesmerized by the Nubian's shrieking descent. The flying beast, she saw, had a jet-black beak like a long spike that she could easily imagine ripping into her. Isabel's brain went cold. She could think of nothing but to hide, and so she ran away as fast as her legs would carry her down the path that led through the valley floor.

"Isabel!" cried Samuel. He couldn't bear the thought of seeing her stabbed and carried off by a giant flying creature with a monstrous black beak. Running into the open behind Vincent, he began waving his arms and yelling into the sky. "Leave her alone, you terrible beast!"

Samuel's father leaped out from the crack in the rocks and grabbed Samuel by the arm, dragging him back to safety. Samuel struggled and yelled, but Sir William refused to let him go.

A second Nubian came in behind the first, and both creatures dived toward the group. The first swooped low and fast behind Isabel, lowering its great claws as if to snatch her from the ground. Vincent fired the crossbow when the Nubian passed over. The arrow jammed into a wing and the Nubian howled in pain, flapping up and away unsteadily from the valley floor.

The second of the two Nubian was not deterred. It closed its

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wings entirely and flew like an arrow for the ground while Vincent bent down on one knee, trying desperately to reload. His hands fumbled with the arrow as the Nubian spread its wings and turned sharply, aiming straight for Vincent with its pointed black beak. Vincent looked up and knew without a doubt that he was finished. He wouldn't get the arrow loaded in time and the Nubian would overtake him.

But then he heard a sound he hadn't expected. It was the
snap!
of Isabel's sling, and this time she had used a fig as black as the Nubian's pointed beak. Unlike the stone she'd thrown before, the black fig flew fast and true, so fast that the Nubian could not react in time. The beast glanced sideways and was struck firmly in the neck. Screeching with rage, it darted up along the rocks, through a giant crevice, and out of sight.

Sir William let Samuel go and the boy darted out into the open. He stood before Isabel with some embarrassment for having tried to rescue her, only to be dragged back to safety by his father.

"Thank you for trying that," she said, surprised by how much it had meant to her.

Samuel nodded. "We need to find Edgar together, and we can't do it if you're dead."

The two smiled as Dr. Kincaid emerged from the rocks, staring at the whole lot of them with admiration.

"We may overcome this strange world yet," he said, smiling at the sound of the two Nubian trailing off. "The inside of Atherton is vast. Those two are the only ones we're likely to see for a while, and I don't think they'll be back."

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Vincent nodded and winked at Isabel, and she winked right back at him.

"There's really only one thing the Nubian won't attack," Dr. Kincaid went on, still smiling in a jovial sort of way. "They won't even go near it."

And then Dr. Kincaid's cheerful moment came to an end, because he remembered they would all have to overcome the very thing of which he spoke. He'd done it before, but never with so many, and never with children.

"The Inferno," said Vincent.

Dr. Kincaid nodded, then deflected all of the questioning eyes with a wave of his arm.

"Vincent will get us through," he said. But there was a part of him that was sure they wouldn't all make it past the Inferno, and there was no other way to escape the inside of Atherton.

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*** CHAPTER 27 ACROSS THE VALLEY FLOOR

"Is it day or night on Atherton?"

Isabel had been quiet for a while as they trudged along the valley floor. The shafts of light had grown dimmer, and it made her wonder why the light had changed.

"If I had to guess," said Dr. Kincaid, putting a hand on the young girl's shoulder, "I'd have to say it was morning on Atherton. But then I haven't been down here in a while, so I could be wrong. The way we're going is a darker way, so I'm not entirely sure it matters what time it is upstairs."

Despite all of their hardships, Isabel was amused by the thought of the outside as being upstairs.

"I wonder where my parents and Edgar are," she thought out loud.

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Dr. Kincaid was naturally given to the qualities of a grandfather, and he tried to comfort Isabel.

"Dr. Harding can be very determined when he wants to be.

I'm sure he found Edgar and managed to rid the world of Sir Emerik. And I have no doubt our climbing boy is already free of the Highlands."

Isabel laughed softly and Samuel slowed to join the two on the path. He was curious to know what they were talking about, but he was also looking for something to take his mind off the grim path they were traveling.

"And as for your parents," continued Dr. Kincaid, "I wouldn't worry too much about them. Changes are afoot! I believe you'll see them again soon."

Dr. Kincaid found that with Samuel on one side and Isabel on the other, guiding them through the shadows of the valley, he felt almost as if he
were
a grandfather to them both.

"I think the future of Atherton is in good hands," he said. "You two will do just fine."

Samuel seized the moment to ask Dr. Kincaid one of the many questions that had been brewing in his mind during the journey.

"Why did you take Edgar away from Dr. Harding?"

Dr. Kincaid looked straight ahead, and without much hesitation, he answered the boy so that everyone could hear. "He was more like Lord Phineus than Dr. Harding toward the end. Does that answer your question?"

Samuel nodded, feeling a little guilty for having asked at all.

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But then Isabel asked just as difficult a question, and it made him feel better.

"Why did you work Dr. Harding so awfully hard? You must have known he was sick."

Dr. Kincaid looked at the children on either side of him with some surprise. "You two don't give an old man much benefit of the doubt, do you?"

Samuel and Isabel weren't even sure exactly what this meant, but they had a pretty good idea that Dr. Kincaid didn't enjoy any questions about his past.

Dr. Kincaid sighed deeply. "Are we close?" he asked Vincent. The sound of the Nubian cut through the air from a long way off, and Vincent looked up into the rocks.

Vincent said, "Not far to go, but plenty enough for you to answer the girl's question."

Dr. Kincaid scowled at Vincent, then looked back at Isabel and saw that he hadn't distracted her one bit. The girl wanted an answer, and he would have to provide one.

"If you must know, it was mostly out of my control. I told them time and time again not to push so hard. There is nothing so fragile as a brilliant young mind. It's a delicate thing, easily traumatized by demands it cannot achieve. But then, I have to admit, even I was too demanding of him. Not at first--at first I was always the one to make them leave him alone--but after a while, well, as a man of science, I couldn't help it. He knew so many things I didn't, and I wanted desperately to understand."

Silence fell over the group and the Nubian screeched again, closer but still far off.

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"He wanted to please everyone," said Dr. Kincaid. "But when it was all over, he pleased no one. There's a lesson in that, don't you think?"

Isabel and Samuel nodded, and then Samuel remarked, "The Dark Planet must be in terrible shape if Atherton was so important to them."

"You have no idea," said Dr. Kincaid. "And yet, they have always found a way to survive. It would not surprise me if they've already cooked up some other way of making do. It's a dirty place and getting dirtier, but who are we to say they can't solve their own problems? We've certainly got enough of our own."

He was about to tell them other ideas that had been in the works to save the planet of his origin, but he was cut off by Vincent. They were now approaching the Inferno.

They had come to a place where tunnels led off in many directions and red stone reached into the sky all around them. They were trapped but for the tunnels as a way out, and all the tunnels were dark.

"You must each listen carefully," started Vincent. "And know before we begin that this is a hard way that cannot be avoided."

As he spoke, a small, fluorescent light that looked like a dancing blue dot in the air crept noiselessly out from between two rocks. It hovered silently behind Vincent in such a way that he could not see it, but the others could, even though it was no bigger than the tip of a spear.

The dot came around to the side of Vincent closest to Isabel,

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and she reached out toward it, drawn by the pulsing blue light. Vincent glanced behind and saw what Isabel was after.

"Don't touch it!" he cried. She was the most curious among them, and he should have known to warn her sooner. But Isabel had already extended her arm and the blue dot moved toward her, as if it wanted to be caught.

The glowing light was a bug that was part of the Inferno, and Isabel could hear its microscopic wings beating ever so softly as she touched it. The result was not what she'd expected. Her hand felt a shock of electricity that then flowed down her arm all the way into her toes. It seemed to paralyze her momentarily, and she could not move her muscles to flick the glowing blue bug away from her skin. She was being electrocuted, though not enough to kill her.

Vincent carefully swished the bug away with his sleeve. It hung in the air once more, turning from blue to green to red. Then Vincent blew softly and the bug bounced on the air back into the dark opening from where it came.

"They turn red when they're angry," said Vincent.

"What was that thing?" howled Isabel. From her shoulder all the way to the tips of her fingers there was a painful tingling that made her itch frantically. She shook her hand but it was no use.

"Hold your hand over your head," said Dr. Kincaid. "It will go away in a few seconds."

Isabel held her arm up and tried not to scratch. She'd never felt anything so powerful. It was like her arm had fallen asleep

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and woken up all at once, little needles poking up and down her skin.

Sir William came over, held her arm up, and looked at Vincent. "Why did you bring us this way?" he asked with dismay. Things were getting more perilous by the moment--first the Nubian, and now this new threat. He truly wondered if he could trust the men in which he'd placed so much hope. How well did he really know them?

"Because it's the only way out," said Vincent. "If there were any other options, believe me, we wouldn't be going in there." He pointed into the Inferno.

"You should have told us it would be like this," said Sir William. "It wasn't fair to drag us down here without telling us how dangerous it would be."

"Would you have come with us if we'd told you?" asked Dr. Kincaid.

Sir William didn't answer and Dr. Kincaid went on.

"The Highlands were already filling with water, crashing into the middle of Atherton. This was the
only
way. If we'd said you'd have to do battle with flying beasts and tiny winged zappers, would you have come? Of course not!"

Sir William seemed, for the moment, to concede. "I have to get them back home," said Sir William, glancing down at Isabel and Samuel. "Just be honest with us."

Dr. Kincaid faltered a moment. Sensing there was no other option he decided it was, indeed, time for honesty in all matters. "Things are going to get worse before they get better," he said.

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"What do you mean,
worse?"
asked Samuel. "How could they get any worse?"

"The Inferno is ... w-w-well, it's complicated," stammered Dr. Kincaid. "But I've done it many times before, and I'm old! If I can make it, so can you."

"There are things in the Inferno that you'll want to lay a hand on," Vincent told them, thinking about the task ahead more carefully. The fire bugs were mesmerizing, he knew; they
wanted
to be touched. It was hard not to obey. "But all of them are dangerous, and most of them can kill you."

Vincent looked at Dr. Kincaid as if to say,
This is your department, don't you think?

The sound of the Nubian grew nearer and angrier, and Samuel imagined the one injured by the arrow now looking for revenge.

"How's your arm feeling, Isabel?" asked Dr. Kincaid. Sir William let go of her hand and she shook her arm hard, scratching at her elbow.

"It's better," she said. "It still itches, but the pain is gone."

"Wonderful!" said Dr. Kincaid. "Now listen, all of you. Vincent is absolutely right. There's no point in explaining every little thing to you, but nothing that's in there is meant for humans to go near. Unfortunately, it's also the only way out from beneath Tabletop. Where we're about to go is under the Flat-lands, and once we get past the Inferno, the rest of our way is easy." Dr. Kincaid marveled in his own mind at the outrageous imagination of Dr. Harding. The way down from Tabletop had