Rivers of Fire (Atherton, Book 2) Read online

  "We'd better be getting on," called Vincent. "It's a world of chaos we live in now, and we need to travel as far as we can under cover of night."

  Sealing off the bag with a string, Edgar placed it in his pocket, and the three travelers went out into the open toward the Highlands.

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  *** CHAPTER 4 UNSEEN LADDERS

  Lord Phineus had recently emerged from a treacherous journey into a world beneath the House of Power that had not ended well. He had screamed twice for Sir Emerik and was growing impatient. Gazing out into the night he could not see that the Highlands had begun sliding down inside of Atherton, that his once lofty home was now the lowest place of all. Already the Highlands were three feet lower than they had been when he ventured into Mead's Hollow. There were precious few who knew this secret, and Lord Phineus was not among them.

  When Sir Emerik arrived outside the door to the main chamber he wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Lord Phineus offered no greeting. Instead, he began speaking as if Sir Emerik had been there all along.

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  "The problem is, you can't see where we're supposed to go," said Lord Phineus. "Only I know where it is. No one else."

  Lord Phineus was covered in a cold sweat, his eyes swollen and rimmed in red. The frenetic and edgy way in which he spoke made Sir Emerik wonder if he was in the presence of a lunatic.

  "Lord, what's happened to you? Are you all right?"

  In truth, Sir Emerik had not the least concern over the well-being of his master. In fact, if Lord Phineus were to take ill, it would be all the easier to do away with him. But why had the man's demeanor changed so drastically in only a few short hours? Lord Phineus had always been so calm, logical, and calculating; now he was rambling, pacing, and speaking near nonsense.

  "Did you hear what I said?" asked Lord Phineus. "No one else knows!"

  "I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean," said Sir Emerik. He was aware, suddenly, of all the candles in the room and how the light from them cast shadows on the walls showered with cascading ivy. It made the room feel alive with evil. Sir Emerik's eye twitched at the sight of so much fire so near.

  "What's that absurd thing you're doing there?" said Lord Phineus. "That terrible twitch. Stop it at once."

  Sir Emerik breathed deeply and stared at the floor. The twitching stopped, and when he looked up again Lord Phineus was bent over, scratching vigorously at his leg. "Something wrong, my lord?"

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  Lord Phineus's eyes were inflamed with blood. He wasn't feeling at all well. "The Crat," he mumbled. "I should have killed them a long time ago."

  This made no sense to Sir Emerik, but he was more and more pleased to see that the man before him was not in his right mind. It might be easier than he'd thought to take control.

  "There is yet another problem that must be overcome," said Lord Phineus. His mind seemed to be righting itself, if only a little, as he stood up and leaned heavily against the wall. "We'll need water to survive."

  "But we have all the water we need!" Sir Emerik was almost too animated in his response. He had understood this to be a problem already solved.

  "I've told you before of the secret place where the water finds its beginning," said Lord Phineus. Sir Emerik had to work very hard not to show his anticipation. Lord Phineus should have known deceit when it was before him, but it seemed that he did not. "The time has come for you to know of this place."

  Sir Emerik couldn't stop a small rise at one corner of his mouth at the notion. Having power over the water had long been the one missing piece in his plans.

  "Are there guards who can maintain order in the absence of us both? This will take some time."

  Sir Emerik tried to contain his glee. "There are, lord. There's Tyler, a protégé of mine, a very good man at the gate. And there's Horace--you remember Horace, don't you?"

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  Sir Emerik was testing Lord Phineus to see just how mad he had become. Horace had been chief guard here for a long time, but he had been banned from the House of Power, like so many others, after the Highlands came even with Tabletop. He and the others had families who would gobble up resources and split their allegiance to Lord Phineus.

  "What kind of absurd question is that?" said Lord Phineus. He was scratching his leg again and gazing knowingly at Sir Emerik. "You think I'm losing my mind."

  Sir Emerik hesitated. In the split second of silence Lord Phineus removed a long blade from his boot, shot across the room with alarming speed, and pinned Sir Emerik against the door. The sharp edge of the weapon lay horizontal against Sir Emerik's chin.

  "I know your intentions. You should not imagine them fulfilled."

  The blade was pushed harder against Sir Emerik's chin and it broke skin. Sir Emerik whimpered as if he were a small, scared boy of six or seven. It had never crossed his mind that Lord Phineus might know of his deception.

  "There are many lines and ladders in my mind," said Lord Phineus. "Yellow lines and ladders that are mine alone. They are hopelessly out of your reach."

  Though his master was beginning to sound unstable again, Sir Emerik was strangely mesmerized by the voice as he felt blood dripping down his chin. It occurred to him that the world's radical change was a prophetic sign that it was time for him to seize power, and as long as he had water and no Cleaners

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  could get into the House of Power, his world would be better than it ever had been before.

  Lord Phineus stepped back, releasing Sir Emerik. He casually put the blade back in his boot and scratched his leg once more, as if the encounter had never occurred.

  "You will come with me," Lord Phineus said at length. "And do as I say." Sir Emerik nodded in agreement as he held back the blood dripping from his chin.

  Lord Phineus took hold of the statue that stood in the main chamber. Mead's Head. He turned the stone head right, left, and right again. Hearing the familiar click on the floor behind him, he turned and faced Sir Emerik with a grave and weary look on his face.

  "I've lost control of the water," said Lord Phineus. "And you must help me get it back."

  ***

  While Lord Phineus and Sir Emerik disappeared into Mead's Hollow in the dead of night there were two others who discovered that the Highlands were descending into the center of Atherton. Until then, only Samuel and Isabel had known for sure. But that was about to change.

  "What do you smell?" asked Horace.

  "I'm not sure what I smell," answered his companion, whose name was Gill. "Something ... different."

  Gill was a wiry man, quick and stealthy on his feet. He had the unusual habit of sniffing the air around him in order to gain any insight he could, especially at night.

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  [Image: Statue: MEAD.]

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  His larger than average nose raised into the air as his long neck bobbed rhythmically from side to side. Gill had the look of an animal that had smelled something unexpected but could not see it. If he o had ever experienced it for himself, he would have said the air smelled like a dirt road after a hard rain. But there had been no rain on Atherton--not ever--and he tried his best to place the smell somewhere simpler in his mind.

  "Something is wet," he whispered into the night.

  Horace moved forward cautiously with Gill close behind, and with each step the smell grew heavier around them. When they came to the very place where the Highlands had once risen into the sky, Gill knelt down and felt the moist new edge of Tabletop. He held the gritty mud on his fingers to his nose.

  For a moment he thought they'd stumbled into a place where the two lands hadn't met flat against each other, but his mind was quickly changed. The Highlands had moved down inside of Atherton about the length of a man's arm, and putting his fingers at the seam on the bottom, Horace felt it ever so slowly grinding. He gazed to his left--across the deep grey of night--and could see a dark line of land running long and crooked.

  Horace stood, feeling his lungs swell with the knowledge of a chan
ging world.

  "I must go to the House of Power and reason with them," he said. "We can't stay in the Highlands any longer. This place must be forsaken."

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  It was a rather gloomy way of putting things, and Gill shuddered as he stood.

  "But what about those creatures--the Cleaners? This could be a good development. It could separate us from them."

  Horace was unmoved. Staying within the sinking Highlands seemed to him the worse of two approaching evils. What would become of a people trapped in a sinking world with cliffs rising all around? There was something altogether wrong about the idea of being trapped, of descending into inescapable darkness. And there was something else, something deeper in his awakening soul. He felt a bottomless guilt at the very thought of leaving those in Tabletop alone to battle a coming enemy they could never defeat alone. The Highlands had to be left behind, because if they weren't, then Tabletop and everyone in it would be destroyed. All of Atherton would fail.

  "If we are to learn anything from the past," he said, turning toward Gill with the best argument he could craft in short order, "we should know better than to think the Highlands will stop. Soon it may be too late to get the horses and the families out, and then what?' Everyone will be trapped in a growing darkness, and who's to say the Cleaners couldn't find a way in? We have to escape this place before our chance has passed."

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  *** CHAPTER 5 A HOUSE DIVIDED

  "You there!"

  The sound of the voice startled Samuel and Isabel. The man who'd shouted the words was outside the wall, where the two could not see.

  "I know that voice," whispered Samuel. "That's Horace!"

  Isabel put her finger to her lips and pulled a hard, dry fig from her pocket, expecting something terrible to happen at any moment and getting ready to fight. The two stayed very still and listened to the voices in the dark.

  "Get back!" screamed the guard stationed in the tower atop the gate. He was holding a sizable rock over his head. Samuel could see him looking down at Horace, a man who had, until only recently, been the main guard in the House of Power.

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  "Put the rock down, Joseph." Horace spoke with great authority. "It's me."

  The man with the rock let his arm hang loose. He was a young man, only twenty-five, and he had no family to speak of.

  "Horace? That you, Horace?"

  Isabel leaned her head out of the ivy and glanced over the stone rail where she saw another guard running through the courtyard with a torch.

  "Things are getting awfully busy around here," she said. "Maybe this is our best chance to find the source of water. That is, if you truly know where it is."

  This came as something of a surprise to Samuel. Can she really think I've lied to her? She appeared to be losing confidence in him.

  "Let's listen for another minute," said Samuel. "Then we'll go."

  The situation at the wall grew more complicated as Samuel and Isabel looked on.

  "It's Horace!" shouted Joseph from the tower.

  "Get rid of him!" said the other who had run up with the torch. He was a little older than Joseph but not nearly as seasoned a guard as Horace. His name was Tyler.

  Joseph turned back to Horace. "You know I can't let you in," he said. "Lord Phineus won't allow it."

  "I need to speak with him," said Horace. His voice was stern and even. He knew the man above him well enough to know that he'd very much like to open the gate but that it might cost him his life if he did.

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  "I'm sorry, Horace, but he can't be disturbed. It's the middle of the night. Maybe if you come back tomorrow."

  Horace was a man in possession of a thunderously loud voice, deep and powerful and made for distance. He liked to use it to its full effect.

  "You will open this gate and take me to Lord Phineus!"

  Joseph was torn between the escalating demands of the men on either side of the wall. "Wait a moment. Both of you calm down," he said softly, as if his quietness might bring things under control. But Horace only yelled louder, until finally Tyler could take no more and climbed up next to Joseph.

  "Are you sure we shouldn't be going?" asked Isabel. "I can't imagine a better diversion."

  "Just another moment," said Samuel. "I've a feeling this is important."

  "Horace, you must leave this place at once!" said Tyler when he'd arrived at the top.

  "I have something to say, and I will be heard!"

  Soon everyone who remained in the House of Power was awake and wondering what was going on outside. Even Samuel's mother had come running from her room at the sound of Horace's voice. She and a group of others stood by the giant gates and clamored for information.

  "That's my mother!" said Samuel, seeing her within the crowd below. Isabel had the feeling that Samuel might suddenly try to run or call to her without thinking about the consequences.

  "You know she's alive and well," said Isabel, responding

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  with quiet force. "Trying to talk to her won't help us find the water. It will only get us caught. Better to wait."

  Samuel was confused. This was a lot more adventure than he'd bargained for.

  "Everyone please just calm down!" Joseph had abandoned his soft voice from the tower and resorted to hollering. Just when Horace was drawing in a giant breath in order to roar even louder than before, Joseph finally put an end to all the shouting. "Lord Phineus isn't here," he announced.

  Tyler slapped Joseph's shoulder and glared at him as if he'd said something he really shouldn't have, but Joseph kept on. "We don't know where he is. And Sir Emerik is gone as well. We can't find either one of them."

  Samuel now realized their best chance to enter the main chamber really had come. Still, he couldn't bring himself to leave his mother before knowing she was all right.

  "Where do you suppose they've gone?" asked Horace, beginning to take command of the situation in the absence of power within the walls. "Could it be that they've left you and have plans of their own?"

  "They're here somewhere," said Tyler, but he was lying.

  "Are you sure of that?" asked Joseph. "You told me only an hour ago that they wouldn't return until morning."

  Everyone heard -- all the people who had gathered on the other side of the wall, and Horace, too--and control swiftly shifted entirely in Horace's favor.

  "Open the door," said Horace. "I have something to show you."

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  "We're not opening this door!" shouted Tyler. "Come back in the morning and we'll discuss it. Until then, you can scream all you want. This door stays shut!"

  "What do you want to show us?" asked Joseph, who was a more curious sort than Tyler.

  "Come down here and I'll show you."

  "Back away from the door," Joseph ordered. When he appeared to be pleased with Horace's location he climbed down the narrow stone steps.

  "This is a terrible idea," Tyler said to no one in particular.

  Joseph and another young guard from the House of Power removed the vast wooden beam that lay across the swinging wooden doors. Everyone backed away as one of the two heavy doors was pulled open just far enough for Joseph to slip out. At that moment Adele bolted from the crowd and into the opening, sliding outside as she shrieked at Horace, "Where's my boy? Where's Samuel?"

  Horace had found her boy once before and she hoped he would know of his whereabouts again.

  Samuel very nearly opened his mouth and yelled out, "I'm here, I'm here!" But Isabel immediately gave him a very stern look, telling him she might punch him if he made so much as a peep. And so he said nothing as he craned his neck to listen more carefully.

  "Take this horse. I brought it for you," said Horace to Joseph. "Ride it to the edge--where the edge used to be -- and you will see. I'll be here when you return, and then we'll have something to talk about."

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  Isabel heard the sound of hooves as Joseph galloped for the border of the Highlands. And then she heard Hora
ce's voice again, louder than it needed to be, as if he knew that Samuel was hiding nearby and needed to hear him.

  "You and your son will cross paths again," he said. "Though I believe you must leave the Highlands if you are to find him. We must all leave the Highlands."

  "But she's the cook!" cried Tyler from his perch on the wall, his voice cracking. I've already lost a guard, he thought heavily. Now Sir Emerik is going to kill me for letting the cook escape.

  Samuel had seen his mother escape the House of Power, and she was with someone he trusted. Now he held on tight to the words Horace had said. You will cross paths again. He turned to Isabel with a new resolve in his voice that surprised her.

  "Follow me," he said as he began moving cautiously toward the main chamber. "It's time we made our way to the source of water."

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  *** CHAPTER 6 INTO THE HOLLOW

  As Samuel and Isabel approached the stairs leading up to the main chamber they could see that the way was lit, though unguarded. Everyone had gone to the wall. Samuel's mother was safely away, and only the challenge of finding the source of water remained before him.

  "This is our best chance," he said. They started off, fast but silent, and soon the two were up the deserted stairs, down the hallway, and in front of the door to the main chamber.

  Samuel tried the handle and found the door locked as he'd expected. Lord Phineus had been mistaken to assume Samuel wasn't a clever boy, however, for Samuel had a secret known only to him, a secret left by his father, Sir William.