World's End (35 page)

"That must be it over there," said Resuza, as she pointed toward the remains of the mouth of a tunnel, which was blocked by tons of rubble.

"It'd take six teams-a miners to move them rocks," declared Misty.

"There must be a way out of here," said Clink. There was more than a hint of desperation in his voice. "After all, we don't see Kiril lurking around and it looks like his glider is here."

"I suspect that Kiril, being a Jasberian, knew how to get out of here," said Hill. He paused and frowned. "Apparently he also knew how to close the air vent that cut off our jet stream." Hill gestured upward. They all looked up and saw two massive vents, one on top of the other, both of which resembled the vents they had seen at the Hub. The lower vent was closed—covered with a series of horizontal copper flaps. Much higher up, they saw the second vent. This one was open.

"Come on," said Hill. "Let's look around and see if we can find a way out of here."

They fanned out to look for any sign of recent activity in the Terminus. It was Resuza who saw something first. Just below the lower vent, the rock wall was scarred, as if someone had chiseled away at it with a pickax. The ground here was littered with pebbles and broken tiles. Resuza bent down and began sifting through these pieces.

"What is it?" Alfonso called.

"There was something on this wall," she said. "Maybe a mosaic or a painting? These pebbles on the ground are colored and shiny. Whoever destroyed it did a thorough job. And the damage looks pretty recent."

Alfonso helped Resuza look through the debris. After several minutes of searching the ground, they collected a number of painted pebbles. They were mostly different shades of blue, although there were scattered greens and reds. Hill and Clink joined them in the search, and it was Hill who found something of greater interest.

Buried underneath a layer of dust and dirt, Hill found a small metal plaque. It was dark and streaked with ribbons of green, oxidized metal. He rubbed a finger over the surface and found the faint traces of Dormian hieroglyphs. After he cleaned the plaque thoroughly, the following markings stood out:

"A New Sailing Route to Jasber," Hill translated. He whistled in amazement. "The map was probably
new
a thousand years ago."

Clink sighed. "That map would've been useful," he said. "So of course Kiril destroys it, just in case we'd have any chance of getting out of here and following him. What a very clever fellow that Kiril is. A truly worthy adversary! First chap that I have encountered in a very long time with the acumen and mental gifts to rival my own."

"The two of you oughta go into business together," quipped Misty. "It'd be less than thirty seconds before one of ya double-crossed the other."

Everyone laughed, including Clink. Alfonso realized that this was the first time in days that he had smiled. It felt good.

Resuza looked up at the closed vent. "I wonder if it's a coincidence that the map was just underneath this vent." Without uttering another word, she free-climbed up the twenty feet of stone wall to the vent and pulled at the nearest copper flap. It was about two feet wide and it moved quite easily, though the on-rushing air kept pressing it back into place. Resuza shimmied herself into the vent through the open flap.

"Wait a minute!" yelled Hill. "You don't know where that leads. Come back!"

But it was too late—Resuza had already disappeared into the vent.

T
HE DOOK TO
M
ARTA'S ROOM
opened silently, throwing a thin ray of light over her bed. Moments later, the abbot poked his head in. He saw that Marta was in bed, resting. This was actually quite unusual. Typically, whenever Marta fell asleep, she sat at her desk and read. She rarely, if ever, used her bed. The one notable exception was when she had a vision. On those occasions, like today, she was often so exhausted that she simply collapsed and lay motionless for extended periods of time.

The abbot nodded his head and closed the door as noiselessly as he had opened it. He assumed that Marta would be knocked out for many hours; seers, and especially young ones like Marta, often needed as much as a day to recuperate after a vision. The abbot would check on Marta again in about ten hours and, in all likelihood, she'd be the same curious, intelligent child that she had been prior to having the vision of her family and the fire. The abbot was not an unfeeling man. He could well understand Marta's distress. Yet he reminded himself that the ancient codes of the seers had to be followed. There could be no exceptions. Even still, his heart ached for Marta. How much could she be expected to bear?

When the door closed, and the room fell back into a heavy darkness, Marta cautiously sat up, fully awake and dressed. She sat in her bed for a few minutes and listened for any noises. Satisfied that everything was quiet, she glanced at a wind-up clock that she was holding in her hand. It was ten minutes to midnight. She sighed and continued to wait. Other than the ticking of the clock, the only sound was the gurgle of the water chime. Beyond that, she could just barely hear the far-off rumble of Jasber's many waterfalls.

She thought about her time in the monastery. It wasn't fun—that was for certain—but Marta had tried to make the best of it. After all, being the seer was the greatest honor imaginable. Her family was very proud of her. What's more, the citizens of her hidden, treasure-filled city were counting on her to keep them safe. So she did her best and counted her blessings. Overall, life in the monastery had been comfortable. The abbot was kind to her, the food was exceptionally good, and her lifelong curiosity was satiated by the volumes upon volumes of accumulated wisdom that sat in the monastery's rich collection of archives and manuscripts. It was an honorable life. It was a life Marta fully accepted.

Until today.

Marta glanced at her clock again. It was exactly midnight. The monks who patrolled the shores of Monastery Isle would be changing their shift.

Now was her moment!

She threw off the covers, sprang to her feet, and put on her robe and sandals. She took a deep breath, cracked open the door, and tiptoed down a long stone corridor. Torches flickered every twenty feet and water dripped steadily from an unseen leak.

A minute later, she appeared at the top of a stone embankment that sloped down to the monastery's small harbor. Tied to a wooden pier were half a dozen sturdy rowboats with high gunnels, built to keep out turbulent waters. The boats were all painted a distinctive bright red. Marta had never rowed a boat before, but how hard could it be? She had seen others do it with relative ease. Besides, she only had to go several hundred yards. That's how far it was to cross the river and reach Jasber Isle, where her parents lived. She couldn't imagine what they would say upon seeing her.

Marta crouched behind the embankment and searched for any signs of the monks. The area was deserted. She took a deep breath and then dashed for the harbor. Her dark cloak and small size made her difficult to see even if anyone had been looking in her direction. Soon she arrived at the pier and jumped into the closest rowboat. She untied it and, within seconds, the boat was free. It took only a few strokes before the rowboat exited the harbor and began drifting downriver with the current.

Marta did her best to control the rowboat, but the oars were much heavier than she expected. The current was powerful, and as the turbulent water slammed into the hull of the boat, the tiny vessel shook and trembled. Marta pulled as hard as she could. Her life and the lives of her family depended on her success. She had gone over this route in her head: it was crucial to meet the current at an angle so that the waves broke harmlessly across her bow. A wave hitting the boat broadside might tip it, sending her and therefore her family to their deaths.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Marta's back and arms began to ache. Her hands burned and, in several places across her palm and thumb, she felt the onset of painful blisters. She was panting heavily and despite the cold water that frothed around her, sweat gathered in the small of her back and under her hair. In a moment of panic, Marta looked up and noticed that she was barely halfway across the river. A dark realization began to settle upon her.

She wasn't going to make it.

She struggled mightily for another ten minutes and succeeded in going forward no more than another thirty feet. It was a lost cause. Still, she kept going. Her mind willed her body to move, but it began to ignore her commands. Her arms felt like iron and slipped off the oars.

The rowboat drifted and ran smack into a wave. The jolt threw her to the bottom of the boat. Pilotless, the rowboat and its light cargo were carried away by the swift current. The current took command and smoothly forced the boat downstream, away from both Monastery Isle and Jasber Isle. Marta licked her suddenly parched lips. She crawled into a fetal position at the bottom of the boat, as water broke furiously over the top and drenched her. Her last conscious thought was that she had failed. The tall man with white eyes and the gruesome, coiling scar across his face would succeed in burning Jasber to the ground. Her family would be among the first to die. There was no way to prevent it.

***

A few minutes later, on the shore of Monastery Isle, a young monk who was on patrol glanced out across the river and, quite by chance, caught sight of a wooden rowboat being pulled downriver. The boat's red color indicated that it had come from the monastery. The young monk squinted into the darkness. Who was in that boat? It was hard to see clearly.

In the coming days, the abbot would question the young monk many times about what he had seen. The monk was hard-pressed to say for certain, but his overriding impression was that the boat was empty.

"But I can't be sure," concluded the young monk during one such questioning. "Although certainly there was no one at the oars."

The abbot thrust his hands into his tunic. He withdrew a piece of parchment he had found in Marta's room, in the former resting place of the Foreseeing Pen. He stared at the drawing of Marta's family and then in a fit of despair crumpled it in a white-knuckled fist.

Where is Marta?

Jasber's very existence lay in the hands of a young girl gone missing.

And there was another matter. The fire. In just a few days, the abbot knew that Marta's prophecy would come true and a fire would sweep through Jasber Isle. People would die. What's more, the fire would start near the house of Marta's family—and near the old armory, where the city's single most valuable treasure was stored and preserved. For a brief moment, the abbot was sorely tempted to share his secret, but soon his sense of propriety returned and he knew that, in accordance with his monastic vows to protect only the Founding Tree, he wouldn't say a word.

A
LFONSO AND THE OTHERS
followed Resuza's lead and, one by one, entered the large vent. Here they found rusted metal rungs that led the way up. In the distance they could hear Resuza's footsteps and, more encouragingly, they could see the faint, murky glow of daylight. Bilblox carried Kõrgu, who appeared quite comfortable and at ease on the longshoreman's shoulders, while Hill managed with some effort to carry Josephus, who remained unconscious. The others carried Bilblox's and Hill's packs.

The walls of the vent were covered with ice and the floor was wet with a constant trickle of cold water. For most of the time, they climbed straight up. Toward the end, however, the vent turned into an incline that they could walk up. At this point, Kõrgu began walking and Bilblox picked up Josephus. The old historian was pale and his white hair was matted to his damp head. After some time, they caught up with Resuza, and then they all paused to catch their breath.

"What's wrong with him?" Bilblox whispered. "He's so light, and he's shiverin'."

"He's got two fur coats, but he's soaked them through with sweat," replied Hill. "Outside of a few bruises, I don't see anything the matter. Maybe he's got internal injuries. I wish we had a doctor among us."

The others stood or sat nearby in silence.

"C'mon now, let's get goin'," said Bilblox finally. "Can't ya jus' taste the outside!?"

They continued onward and gradually the tunnel changed into what appeared to be the inside of a cave. The walls grew rougher and the ground flattened out almost completely. The skeletons of animals lay scattered across the floor and light green algae began to appear in small patches. A mist of water vapor hung in the air and the darkness began to recede.

When they arrived at the mouth of the cave, a strong wind, flecked with ice and rain, greeted them. At first they saw nothing because they weren't used to being aboveground. As they stood there, waves crashed around them and lapped at the floor of the cave. It appeared that the cave ended at water level. They huddled against the sides of the cave and grew progressively wetter. The way forward was unclear. There were no boats and they certainly couldn't enter the freezing water.