Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon (17 page)

“We're rebels, like you, Daria,” I replied. “We've survived worse than this.”

She smiled. From a sack outside her tunic, she drew out a long torch, a small bronze urn with a cork cap, and a crude flint knife. Last, she gave Marco a blowpipe and set of darts. “The moon is full tonight. Let it guide you. I believe animals are in there, but I do not know how many animals. I hope they are sleeping. I hope you will find what you need quickly. Most of all, I hope you do not see Kranag. If you do, retreat. He has no mercy, no feeling.”

“Thanks, Dars,” Marco said. He gave her a hug, and she held tight. When she let go, I moved closer to hug her too. But she turned and walked away, back toward Ká-Dingir-rá.

One by one, we climbed into the boat. Marco and I dug paddles into the water. On the other side of the river, a light moved along the wall of the Hanging Gardens—a torch held by a guard who had not yet seen us.

We moved slowly, silently. By moonlight I could only make out the outlines of my friends, inches away from me. Cass was holding his pet lizard, comforting it. I looked back toward the shore. Daria had blended in with the night's blackness.

But I could hear her singing.

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“T
HEY'RE GONE
,” C
ASS
whispered.

Stomach-down on the river bank, I watched a yellow torchlight wink into blackness. We'd been there for what seemed like an hour, observing two lights, two guards standing still in a long conversation. Now they were moving in opposite directions, checking around the perimeter of the gardens.

“Move,” Marco said.

We raced up the embankment and onto the road. In the gravel, our footsteps sounded like soft applause. It was impossible to keep silent.

Once through the gate, the ground was covered with cedar chips, trampled to a soft firmness by foot traffic. We followed the arc of a pathway in the moonlight, which led to a thick flowering bush. As we dived behind it, we peered back toward the gate opening. My heart was beating so hard, I was afraid it could be heard clear to the Ishtar Gate.

After a few minutes, a torch passed slowly from left to right and then disappeared.

We moved farther inward. The path drew us to the inner wall, which loomed above us, smooth and impossibly high. To the left was an imposing gate, but this one was a thick wooden door, shut tight.

Another torchlight passed in front of us and stopped. A low, guttural voice barked something in our direction. I thought about running but stayed still.

Behind the guard, from over the wall, came an eerie hooting.
Zoo-kulululu! Cack! Cack! Cack!

I nearly jumped back. The sound was cold and mocking. The guard muttered something under his breath.

The torchlight moved on.

We rushed to the base of the wall. The only way to do this would be up and over.
Do not think of that sound
, I told myself.

Wordlessly, Marco hooked his hands together to give us a lift upward. Aly climbed first, then Cass. “How are you going to do this yourself?” I whispered as I stepped up. “You were injured.”

“Watch me,” Marco said.

He boosted me upward. I grabbed the top of the wall and lifted my legs over. The others had jumped down to the inner garden, but I stayed at the top. I didn't want to leave Marco alone.

At first I didn't see him. But he appeared in the moonlight about twenty yards away as a flash of gray. He was rushing the wall like a sprinter, leaping, planting his sole against the wall and using the momentum to jump. His outstretched palm loomed upward toward me, and I grabbed it.

“Piece of cake!” Marco whispered, scrambling to the top. We both leaped to the ground, landing near Cass and Aly. “Now what?” Cass said.

It was a good question. All we could see were the silhouettes of trees, the curve of walkways. The air was sweet and cool, and Aly stopped to pick something off the ground. “A pomegranate,” she said. “Big one.”

Zoo-kulululu! Cack! Cack! Cack!
Something enormous swooped down with an oddly metallic clacking of wings. Aly dropped the fruit, and a black bird-shape with bright eyes scooped it up with talons and flew off.

“Sorry, I promise I will not touch fruit ever again,” Aly said.

But my eyes were on a towering structure not far from us. Its upper corner blotted out a section of the moon. “There it is,” I said.

Marco was practically shaking with excitement. “Follow me, campers. Move. Let's hope the crow is the worst they throw at us.”

He began walking. The Hanging Gardens blotted out the moonlit sky. I could make out long trellises and hear the lapping of water into pools. Along the side of the building was a winding spiral that rose toward the top of the building from a deep pool that was fed by a culvert. It looked like a water slide. “What's that thing?” Marco whispered.

“An Archimedes screw,” Aly said. “It was in our lessons from Professor Bhegad. When someone turns it, the motion lifts water out of the well and brings it to the top. That's how the plants are watered.”

As we moved closer, I heard rustling. There was movement in the lower levels of the Hanging Gardens. And not just the waving of vines. Shadows were slipping among the trellises.

“Sssh.” Marco took out the torch and soaked it with the oil from inside Daria's container. He propped it against a rock and pulled a piece of flint from his pack and struck it against a steel knife. With the first spark, the torch burst into flame.

“Thank you, Daria,” Marco murmured, holding the torch aloft. “‘Be prepared.' Motto of the US Marines.”

“The Boy Scouts,” Aly corrected him.

A chorus of screeches rang out from the Hanging Gardens. I heard a sharp hissing sound. Something small and liquid arced high in the air coming swiftly toward us.

Cass recoiled backward. “Yeeeow!”

A swirl of black mist twined upward from a blotch on his forearm. “What was that?” Marco asked.

“I don't know, but it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!” Cass said, shaking his arm in pain.

Another tiny liquid missile sailed through the air, heading for Aly. Marco instinctively shoved the torch upward, like a baseball player reaching for a pitch. As the little glob made contact with the flame, it exploded high into the air. “What the—?” Marco murmured.

From all around us, the high-pitched chittering screams came closer. Marco moved the torch quickly left to right. The walls of the Hanging Gardens were black with swiftly moving shadows, long-limbed and monkeylike. As they fell to the ground, they pounded their narrow leathery chests, grinning at us with hairless, long-snouted faces. Their teeth were long and sharp, their tongues bright red. They shot yellow globs of saliva as they approached.

“Watch it!” Marco yelled. We jumped away, and the wet missiles landed in small clouds of smoke. I spun and saw Cass was on the ground, writhing in pain.

Marco charged the creatures with the torch. They screeched, backing away, spitting. The flame erupted again and again, like fireworks. Marco dodged the spit like a dancer, warding them away. Aly was on her knees, hunched over Cass. “Is he all right?” I asked.

“A severe burn,” Aly said. “He's in pain.”

Vizzeet, who kill with their spit
, Daria had said.

Marco let out a cry. Smoke rose from the left side of his face near his chin. He staggered, narrowly missing another liquid projectile. I grabbed the torch and charged toward them. They seemed wary of fire, backing away. A spit missile whizzed by my face, and a hunk of hair on the side of my face went up in flames.

I dropped the torch and fell. Marco was at my side in a split second, pressing a fistful of sandy dirt into the side of my head, blotting out the fire. He dragged me into the shelter of an archway that led into the center of the building that supported the Hanging Gardens.

The ground was cool here. We stayed close to the wall, which made a kind of corridor leading into the structure, about ten feet long. Beyond us was solid blackness. Outside, about fifteen feet from the entrance, the torch lay on the ground, its flames protecting us from the vizzeet. Aly was near us, pouring water from an urn onto Cass's wound.

I eyed the strips of healing medicine, still stuck to Marco's calves. “Hold steady,” I said, pulling one of them off. His wound was nearly healed, and I prayed that there was still some of the magic black goo left.

Dropping to my knees, I laid the strip on Cass's forearm, directly over the wound. “Don't take this off!” I replied. “This will make you feel better.”

Marco was staring out from the archway. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “They hate the flame, but the torch won't last forever.”

I peered out too, looking to our right, where the vizzeet paced and fought, spat and argued.

My head was throbbing. In the midst of the shrieking, an eerie but familiar sound was washing over me. I was hearing the strange song again. The one that I'd first heard near the Heptakiklos in Mount Onyx. Near the first Loculus in Rhodes.

It was coming from the left. In the light of Marco's flame I could see the outline of a door, farther down the wall of the Hanging Gardens. Its wood was carpeted with moss and warped. Most of the surface was covered with a great tangled mass of ivy. It looked as if it had not been opened in years.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“Hear what?” Marco said.

“The Song,” I said. “Coming from our left. I need to go to that door. I think the Loculus is inside.”

Marco nodded. “I'll cover you.”

With a sudden scream, Marco burst from the entrance. He grabbed the torch from the ground and used it like a fencing sword, swiping it back and forth as he charged toward the vizzeet.

I crept up to the door. Under the ivy was an intricate carving. It was hard to catch the detail. Marco was moving the torch erratically. But as I got closer, I felt my heart pounding. The carved symbols on the door told me we had found what we were looking for.

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I
RAN BACK
to Cass and Aly, dropping to my knees. “Cass, if you can move, we need to get to that door. I think it's where the Loculus is hidden.”

They both leaped to their feet. Cass touched the bandage on his arm. “I feel . . . good,” he said. “What did you do to me?”

“Rebel painkiller,” I replied. “Keep it there. And remember to thank Zinn.”

“Yeaaaah!” Marco screamed.

We turned. He was staggering backward. One of the vizzeet had got him in the face. His knees buckled, and a couple of arrows fell from his quiver.