The Diamond of Darkhold - 4 (13 page)

Then she went on her way, and before too long, she came to the place where the path began to slope upward along the cave wall.

It was a lonely, frightening walk, but almost easy compared to getting across the pit. Halfway up, when she was so high that she was once more looking down at the spot of fire glowing in the center of the city, her candle burned low and grew too warm to hold. She jammed it into a crack in the rocky wall beside her, and with shaky hands, she pulled another candle from her pack and held its wick to the flame. Here on this uneven ledge, with a steep drop inches away, she did not want to be left in total darkness even for a moment.

The climb seemed endless. Her legs began to ache, and the sound of her own hard breathing filled her ears. All the way, the image of Doon captured and tied up stayed with her, a terrible picture burned into her mind. She should have paid attention to her bad feeling about coming here. It was a mistake, a dreadful mistake.

But there was no point in thinking about that now. She was coming to the top of the path at last—she could tell by how far above the spot of light she was. And sure enough, a few more steps and she found herself on the ledge, with the entrance to the passage on her right. She sidled through and came out into the clean, cold air of the upper world.

The sun, low and red in the sky, blinded her for a moment. She could tell that it was late afternoon—maybe four o’clock or even later. Not much daylight was left. Could she find her way back to Sparks in the dark? She couldn’t bear leaving Doon a prisoner a second longer than she had to. She imagined how desperate he must be feeling. He wouldn’t even know if she’d got safely out of the cave. He might think she’d fallen into the pit or slipped off the edge of the path on the way up. She had to hurry.

So she retrieved the rolled-up blankets and supplies they’d left between the rocks and stuffed them into her pack. She began to walk, heading down around the mountain the way they’d come.

She’d gone no more than twenty steps when exhaustion washed over her like a wave. Her legs wobbled; her head felt heavy. There was no way around it: she would have to rest before she could go on. She staggered a little farther and made it to the main cave entrance. Inside, she threw a blanket on the ground, flopped down upon it, and went instantly to sleep.

When she awoke, the daylight was nearly gone, and somewhere not far away, someone was shouting. Lina scrambled to her feet, snatched up the blanket, and hurried out into the open. There she saw a startling sight: a tented wagon drawn by a scrawny horse. Beside it walked some sheep and a shepherd who Lina recognized right away: it was the roamer who had come to Sparks.

“Hey!” the shepherd shouted, starting toward Lina, coming through the flock of sheep, poking them out of the way with her long stick. The sheep bleated and sidestepped nervously.

Lina ran forward. “Please help me!” she cried. “I have to get home! I have to hurry!” In a rush, the awfulness of her situation came over her: Doon a prisoner, the sun going down, the long walk ahead. Her heart began to hammer.

The shepherd came closer. Her eyes were a watery blue in the red of her face, and her nose showed a network of fine red lines. “Are you lost? Are you a runaway?” She tilted her head and peered hard at Lina. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Yes,” said Lina. “I saw you in Sparks, where I live. That’s where I’m going. I have to get there tonight.”

The shepherd poked her stick at the rear end of a sheep that had separated itself from the rest. “Get back here, you filthy fluffball!” she yelled. Then she pointed the stick at Lina. “You,” she said, “are a foolish child. You can’t possibly get there tonight. What are you doing up here, anyhow, so far from home?”

The words spilled out of Lina in a rush. “We came to our old city, looking for things, but there are people living there, and they captured Doon! I have to get help for him!”

“Your old city?” said the shepherd.

“Yes, underground!” Lina’s voice was shaking. “Awful people have taken it over.”

“Captured your friend, you say?”

“Yes, tied him up!”

The shepherd crooked a corner of her mouth and shook her head. “Up to his mischief,” she muttered.

Before Lina could ask what she meant, the shepherd turned away abruptly. One of her sheep was wandering off. She strode after it and gave it a whack with her stick to steer it back toward the flock. “Move, fuzzface!” she yelled at it, and the sheep put its head down in a sorrowful way and trotted toward its companions.

Lina felt more and more desperate. How could she get this woman to help her? She saw that lanterns hung from the front and back of her wagon. There was even a lantern dangling from the side of the horse. So maybe the shepherd could travel at night. Besides, she’d been to Sparks before. She knew how to get there. “Could I go with you?” Lina called, running after the shepherd, who was still dealing with the wayward sheep. “Could you take me back to Sparks tonight?”

“I don’t travel at night.”

“But you could,” Lina said. “You have lanterns. You know the way.”

“I
could,
” said the shepherd. “But I don’t want to. Too hard and too dangerous. Wolves out there, you know. I heard them howling just a little while ago. Besides, it’s going to rain.” She tilted her head toward the clouds at the horizon. “Anyhow, I’m not going that direction. I’m heading due south tomorrow. Just made my last delivery.” She thumped her stick on the ground. “He can get his own, after this,” she said. “Maggs is quitting!”

“Quitting what?” Maggs, Lina assumed, must be the shepherd’s name.

“Quitting this job of food-finder. I’m sick of it. It’s cold and miserable up here, and nobody in the towns has anything to trade with, and I’m through.”

Lina was confused. “Finding food for who?”

The shepherd flung up her arms, and her raggedy sleeves flapped in the wind. “My brother! King of the Underground!” she cried. “That’s what he’s made himself. And I’m supposed to drop down supplies for a few months and then go down there and join them. Well, I’ve decided I don’t want to. Especially if he’s taken to kidnapping people.” She shouted at her flock again, which had drifted away. “Scurvy beasts! Wretched meatbrains! Get back here!” She flailed her stick at them. The horse lowered its head and ripped up a mouthful of grass.

“You mean,” said Lina, putting all this together, “that’s
your brother
down there? That awful man?”

“He’s not
that
awful,” Maggs said. “He’s gotten too high and mighty, is the problem. Too set on having his perfect little world, all for himself.”

Lina was paying attention now. “How do you deliver food to him?”

“Just drop it down,” said Maggs, gesturing behind her in the direction of the crack in the mountainside. “You may not know this,” she said, “but I am a kind and caring person. If I could, I would let my brother know he’s just had his last delivery, and he’s on his own now. But if you think I’m going down into that dark old cave to tell him, you can think again.”

“Why didn’t you write him a message,” Lina asked, “when you made the delivery?”

“Write?” said Maggs. “I don’t write.”

“You mean you don’t know how?”

The shepherd shrugged and scowled. “Never wanted to,” she said.

An idea began to form in Lina’s mind. “I could help you,” she said. “If you take me back toward Sparks tonight, even just part of the way, I would write a message for you to send to your brother.”

“No point in that,” Maggs said. “He can’t read.”

The wind turned colder and rustled the leaves of the trees. The red light in the west faded to a dusty orange, streaked with dark purple clouds. Lina thought fast. “I could
draw
the message,” she said.

“I told you,” said Maggs. “I don’t travel at night.”

“But it isn’t
quite
night yet,” Lina said. “We could go at least a little way.”

“Not very far,” said Maggs.

“Please,” said Lina. “I’ll draw a really good message for your brother. Watch. I’ll do it.”

Lina pulled her pencil stub and a scrap of paper from her pack. “I need something flat to draw on,” she said. Maggs unhooked a bucket that hung from the side of her wagon and turned it upside down. Lina drew this:

“You put words on it,” Maggs said. “I told you he can’t read.”

“Oh,” said Lina. “I forgot. Well, it doesn’t matter. The drawing is clear without them.”

“What do they say?” the shepherd asked.

“They say, ‘Brother—I’m quitting. Get your own food. —M.’”

Maggs put a finger on the last letter. “That isn’t
M,
” she said. “I know
M
when I see it.”

“Oh, oops,” Lina said. “I wrote it wrong.” She added a big
M
right next to the
L,
thankful that her last name was Mayfleet. “Now,” she said, “all you have to do is wrap it in a rag, and put a rock with it, and throw it down where you dropped your supplies.” Maggs reached for the message, but Lina pulled it back. “You have to promise to take me home,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Maggs. “The answer is no. I’m not going your direction anyway. I’m heading south. You need to go southwest.”

“Oh,
please,
” Lina said. “It’s so important!”

“Can’t do it,” said Maggs. “I’ll tell you what, though.”

“What?”

“You can walk with me until it’s dark and then camp with me tonight. Sleep in the wagon, out of the rain.”

“But that will take me the wrong direction, out of my way.”

“Not far,” said Maggs. “It won’t be more than half an hour before it’s dark and we have to stop.”

It was so terribly frustrating—Lina wanted to
go,
to
travel,
right now. But it was just not possible, unless she wanted to risk never getting home at all. She would have to accept Maggs’s offer, even though it would take her out of her way and she’d need to backtrack some in the morning. “All right,” she said. She held out her drawing, but just as Maggs’s hand reached for it, she snatched it back again. Another idea had struck her. Only her panic had kept her from thinking of it before. “That book!” she said. “That book you sold to my friend Doon! I’ll give you my drawing if you’ll tell me where you found it.”

Maggs shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “No reason not to, if you already know about that underground city. Give me the message, and then I’ll show you the place.”

Lina handed it over.

The shepherd went to the back of her wagon and burrowed around inside. Lina could hear her humming, and now and then the hum became a song with a few mumbly words. It was the same tune Maggs had been humming the first day she came to Sparks, the tune Lina had recognized from somewhere. What was it?

When Maggs emerged, carrying a greasy rag, Lina asked her.

“Oh, an old song that lots of roamers know,” Maggs said. “It used to be a sort of riddle, but it isn’t anymore. Not to me.”

“Will you sing it for me?” Lina asked.

In her croaky voice, Maggs sang:

“There’s buried treasure in the ancient city.
Remember, remember, from times of old.
What’s hidden will come to light again,
A diamond jewel more precious than gold.”

Maggs grinned. “The reason it’s not a mystery is, we found the city, me and my family, and we found the diamond, too. Hah! So the riddle’s solved.” She tied up Lina’s message in her rag, along with a rock. “I’ll go toss it down,” she said. She handed Lina her stick. “You keep an eye on these woolies; don’t let them stray.”

Lina watched as she trudged up the mountainside toward the crack in the wall. She pondered the song. It was the one she’d heard from the roamer on the way back from her journey to the ruined city during the summer. The same song—and yet something was different about the way Maggs sang it. The words weren’t exactly the same, were they? Lina couldn’t remember. But she was too cold and tired to think about it now. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against the wind, which was gaining force. If I’m lucky, she thought, Doon will see that message and know that help is coming. And I’ll know where Maggs found the book that got us into all this trouble.