“My name is Jack,” I said. “His name is Marco, her name is Aly, his is Cass.”
“Nyme-iz-Zack . . . ” As she spoke, her face puckered as if tasting mango-chili ice cream. Pointing to herself again, she said, “His nyme-iz Daria.”
“Your name is Daria,” I said. “My name is Jack. His name is Marco . . . Aly . . .” I pointed to the king. “Um, Nabu-na’id?”
“Ahhhhhh, Nabu-na’id!” the king said. As he beamed with approval, his adviser’s eyes bounced like a ball on a roulette wheel. He seemed to have some kind of vision problem, like a jangled nerve that wouldn’t let him focus his eyes. He leaned low, whispering into the king’s ear. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I didn’t trust his tone of mumble.
Marco grinned at Daria. “Yo, Daria, you’re a language person. Maybe you can help us. If you can get us to the Hanging Gardens—Hannnng-inng Garrr-dens—that would be pure awesome.”
“Poor . . . ossum,” she replied, her face turning slightly pink.
“She’s crushing on the Immortal One,” Cass whispered.
“No, she’s not,” I snapped.
“It’s obvious,” Cass said.
“It is not!” I said, a little louder.
“Will you curb your jealousy?” Aly hissed. “This is a good thing. This could help us. She has the king’s ear.”
I buttoned my lip, staring at Daria. I felt heat rising upward from my neck into my face and tried desperately not to let myself look embarrassed. Which was about the hardest thing to do at that moment.
Daria wasn’t looking at Marco anymore, but at the king and his strange, younger henchman. They were leaning forward, alternately listening to her words, eyeing us suspiciously, and peppering her with questions. I had no idea what they were saying, but she seemed to be calming them down.
Marco was fidgeting. “Yo! King Nabisco! Your Honor! Can I step outside for a minute? I’ll be right back—”
Daria whirled around. With a questioning look, she pointed to each of us, then made an abstract, sweeping gesture, as if indicating the great, wide world outside.
“I think she wants to know where we came from,” I said.
“America, land of the free,” Marco said.
Daria turned toward the king and bowed again. “Meccalandothafee,” she said tentatively.
The old king turned to his adviser, who shrugged. Another flurry of words followed between them and Daria. Finally the king sank back into his throne, waving his fingers in a dismissive gesture.
The guards took our arms. They shoved us back through the entryway and down a hallway.
Marco was grimacing. “Let me know if you see a door with a male silhouette on it. I really have to go.”
“Hey . . . hey—Where are you taking me?” Aly shouted.
I spun around. Two of the guards were forcing her down a side corridor, out of sight. Marco, Cass, and I all braced to run, but our three guards blocked the way. Gripping our arms tight, the pushed us onward with unintelligible grunts, their faces bored and impatient.
Marco was seething. “On the count of three,” he said, “we kick these guys and run.”
But before he could start the count, the guards veered through an open door, shoving us into a large room with rough mud-brick walls. Pale white light shone through an open window, illuminating three flat slabs of stone in the center of the room. Each was long enough for one human body, like table in a morgue.
Next to each slab was a bearded court slave, holding a machete. They were avoiding our eyes, looking closely at our necks.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LATER, GLADIATOR
“ONE . . .” MARCO SAID.
The servants shoved us closer. They shouted instructions to the slaves, who sharpened their blades on long leather strips that hung from the sides of the slabs.
“Two . . .”
Placing their machetes on the slabs, the three wardum walked toward us. One of them carried a pot full of liquid. Each slave dipped his hand in the pot, coating it in some kind of oil. Two of them went toward Marco and Cass, the other to me. He nodded and smiled, reaching toward my head.
“Thr—” Marco began.
“Wait!” I shouted.
Fingers massaged my scalp with warm oil. The servant hummed as he worked, smiling gently. I glanced over to Cass and Marco. They looked as baffled as I felt.
In moments my bewilderment gave way to relaxation. It felt good. Incredibly good. As if my mom were alive again, shampooing my head. As I closed my eyes I saw Marco rushing off to an alcove with a rectangular hole in the floor. And I heard a sigh of great relief.
When my servant was done, he gestured toward the slab. Next to it, the machete gleamed in the light from the open window. Marco and Cass turned, as their slaves finished oiling their hair. “What is going on here?” I asked.
“It’s a makeover,” Marco said.
“Did we really look that bad?” Cass asked.
“I mean with the knives?” I said.
Now the three wardum, finished with their work, were all gesturing toward the slabs.
“Easy, Brother Jack,” Marco said. “I’m betting they’re not going to hurt us. I’ll go first.”
He lay faceup on his slab. His servant pulled him toward the top of the slab, so his hair hung over the top edge. Taking the machete, the wardum brought it down swiftly. I flinched. A lock of Marco’s hair fell to the floor.
Marco smiled, closing his eyes. “Sweet. Can I get a back rub?”
When they were done, our hair was trim, our feet were washed, and we had fancy new tunics and sandals. The servants gave us over cheerfully to the guards, who grunted with what seemed like admiration at our new look.
“What the heck did we do to deserve this?” said Cass, as we were escorted back into the hallway.
“Either they think we’re some kind of visiting gods,” Marco said, running his fingers through his hair, “or they’re preparing us for slaughter.”
Cass gulped. “Thanks for that cheery thought.”
The guards quickly ushered us into the hallway, where two female attendants waited patiently with Aly. She was scowling, her own hair oiled and garlanded with flowers, her tunic replaced by a flowing toga-like gown. “If you take a picture, I will kick you,” she grumbled.
“You look nice,” Marco said.
Aly raised a skeptical eyebrow. “But not as nice as Daria, I’ll bet.”
Together we were led back through the snaky corridors and out another door into the sunlight. A sweet tang hit us as we marched along a stone pathway, past colorful gardens and birds bursting with song. It was an area of the palace grounds we hadn’t seen on the way in. Trellises arched overhead, their purple blossoms tickling our faces. Simply clad wardum trudged in and out of a mud hut with bowls, shovels, and gardening equipment.
We stopped at a door, flanked by two windows—an entire two-story house was actually built into the city’s inner wall and extended behind it. The guard opened the door and ordered us inside.
Another team of wardum bowed to us in the entry room. Two of them carried trays of fruit and flagons of liquid. Two others took us on a brief tour. The first floor had a sun-filled room with a small pool, sleeping quarters, and a locker full of salt-cured meats. The second had simple bedrooms. We ended on a roof deck overlooking the palace grounds. The air was cool and sweet. As the slaves placed the fruit on a table surrounded by cushioned chairs, I stared in disbelief. “Is this where we’re staying?”
“I thought goggle-eyes was going to throw us in jail,” Marco said, “not paradise!”
As he dug in to the food with two fists, Cass, Aly, and I walked to the waist-high wall around the roof. We scanned the sculpted landscape of gardens and woods. I could see a small cattle pasture, a pig pen, a vegetable garden. “Do you see anything that looks like the Hanging Gardens?” Aly said.
“Evitagen,” Cass said, shaking his head.
Over the treetops, I spotted a distant flash of white
. Grabbing a chair, I stood on it and caught a glimpse of what looked like the roof of a temple. “Maybe that’s the top of it. Looks like a ziggurat.”
“Orff onooway fannow,” Marco said through a mouthful of food.
“Either that’s really bad Backwardish, or you need to swallow,” Aly said.
“I said, ‘only one way to find out,’” Marco replied. “Let’s go see the place.”
He headed for the stairs. We all tromped down after him to the bottom floor. As we flung open the front door, two guards turned, gripping their spears. “Later, gladiator,” Marco said.
He got about two steps. The guards went shoulder to shoulder, blocking his way.
“Whoa, peace out,” Marco said, backing into the house. “Kumbaya. Nice work on the biceps. Who’s your trainer?”
“What now?” Aly said.
Marco turned. “We go to Plan B. There’s more than one way to escape.”
He strode back upstairs, followed by Cass. But Aly was looking at something over the guards’ shoulders.
At first I didn’t see anything unusual. But I did notice the birds had stopped chirping. Totally. Another sound floated through the gardens, like the trilling of an impossibly beautiful flute. The guards seemed to melt at the sound. Smiling, they turned away from us.
Daria appeared around a bend in the path. She was still wearing a head scarf but no longer a veil. Her face was the picture of bliss as she sang. Now I knew why the birds had stopped. They couldn’t compete with a sound like that.
I waved and shouted hello.
“Hello!” Daria replied, as the guards parted, gesturing for her to come inside.
“We can’t have her around while we’re trying to escape,” Aly hissed. “Why is she coming here?”
I shrugged. “She’s the language person. The only one who managed to pick up a few words of English. Plus, in case you don’t remember, she saved our butts. I don’t know what she told the king, but it set us free. I’m guessing they think we’re exotic foreigners. He probably sent her to get further info from us.”
Aly shook her head. “This is a trap, Jack. Think about the history. Babylon was always under attack from Persia. Nabu-na’id would have hated the Persians. Eventually they defeated him and took over Babylon. When they found out how he’d been ruling the city, they were appalled by what a bad king he was.”
“I could have told them that,” I said.
“And here we are, four strangers wandering into town,” Aly barreled on. “Of course they suspect we’re enemies! This girl could be a spy, Jack. The first line of interrogation. They treat us nicely, fill us with food and drink, and then—zap!—they move in for the torture.”
“Torture—Daria?” I replied. “How? She sings us into a coma?”
“I’ll stall her,” Aly said. “You go up and tell the others. Make sure she can’t see them planning an escape.”
I raced inside. Cass and Marco were at a window in the back of the house, looking down over the outer wall. When I told them about Daria’s arrival, neither of them reacted much.
When I leaned out the window and looked down, I realized why. Directly below us, tracing all three sides of the building, was a wide moat.
“Any ideas?” Cass asked.
“It would be pretty easy to swim across that,” I said.
“Not so fast,” Cass said. From a plate of food, he took a hunk of unidentifiable leathery-brown dried meat and tossed it out. The water roiled with green scales and beady black eyes. A long, crocodilian jaw snapped open and shut.
“Welcome to Paradise,” Marco said softly. “Paradise Prison.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CALCULATIONS
ELEVEN DAYS.
That was how long we’d been gone. Not in Babylonian time, but real time. Back-home time. In Babylon, it had been just under three hours.
Aly had done the calculation. Now she was sitting with Daria at the rooftop table, running quickly through English words. Whatever paranoid idea Aly had had about torture and spying had faded pretty fast. The two of them had become instant BFFs. Well, BFs. I’m not sure how you could define that second F—forever—in these messed-up time frames.
Cass, Marco, and I paced the floor, waiting. Marco’s mouth was full. He’d eaten nearly all the food. Now he was swigging a green fruit liquid. “How can you eat at a time like this?” I demanded.
“Stress makes me hungry,” Marco said.
Daria stared at him. “Food. Hungry. Marco eat.”
“Good, Daria!” Aly said, furiously scribbling images with a bit of coal on a piece of tree bark.
“She sounds like Torquin,” Cass said.
“She’s about a million times smarter than Torquin,” Aly replied.
And about a trillion times better looking, I thought extremely silently.
“Where’d you find the cool writing tools?” Marco asked.
“Daria brought them,” Aly said. “She really wants to learn.”
I eyed her warily. “A minute ago, you thought she was a spy.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Aly said. “We’re bonding.”
Daria was looking intently at Marco. “Marco like meb’dala? Tasty good?”
“Aaaah!” Marco said, putting down his flagon. “Tasty good!”
Aly gave Daria an impulsive hug. “This girl is amazing! She picks things up from context. And she doesn’t forget anything.” Aly quickly drew crude stick figures behind bars in a prison cell, crying. “We—Cass, Marco, Jack, and me—are prisoners?”
“Prizz . . . ?” Daria looked closely at the drawing, then shook her head. She pointed to the food, then gestured toward the nice house. Taking the bit of coal, she drew four stick figures standing tall, smiling, with more stick figures around us on their knees with bowed heads.
“Are you saying we’re guests?” Aly said, gesturing grandly around the house and giving a happy, thumbs-up gesture. “Guests?”
“Guests . . .” Daria said. “Yest. I mean, yes.”
“If we’re guests, why the guards?” I said, still pacing.
While I spoke, Daria was drawing an enormous soldier. His teeth were gritted, his sword pointed to a shriveled little man wearing a crown. “Persia,” she said, pointing to the soldier. “You? Persia?”
Aly’s smile faltered. “No! We are not from Persia! We are from . . .” She gestured into the distance. “Never mind.”
“From Nevermind. Ah.” Daria nodded. “You are . . . ?”
She drew a stick figure surrounded by stars and mystical symbols, with lightning emerging from its fingers. “What the heck is that?” Marco asked.
“Magic,” Cass said. “I guess the king figures we’re either Persians or awesome magicians. Process of elimination.”
Marco shook his head. “We’re not magicians, Dars,” he said. “But we do have natural star power.”
Daria looked confused. She thought for a minute then struggled for words. “You . . . coming to . . . us. Now.”
“Yes, go on,” Aly said, leaning forward.
“No . . . other . . . guests . . . comed,” she said.
“Came?” Aly said. “No other guests came? No other guests have come?”
Daria pulled around the dried bark and began to draw.
“The symbol for ten, three times . . . ” Aly said. “Thirty? Thirty what?”
Daria pointed to the sun. She pulled her fists together and shivered as if freezing, then fanned herself as if swelteringly hot. Then freezing again.
“The sun . . . cold hot cold . . . ” Aly said.
“I think she means a year,” I said. “The sun travels in the sky, and the weather changes from cold to hot and back, in one year.”
“Is that what you mean, Daria?” Cass asked. “No visitors—no guests—for thirty years?”
“Thirty years is two thousand seven hundred years for us,” Aly said. “That would be about the time Ancient Babylon split off from our time frame. They’ve had no visitors because the rest of the world
moved on.”
“So no trade?” Cass said. “No goods or food from outside?”
Marco shrugged. “Those farms outside the city are pretty awesome.”
“So, wait,” I said. “What happens if you go to the next town over? What’s there now?”
Daria looked at me blankly.
“Guys, this is all super-interesting but can we cut to the chase?” Marco said. “Daria, can you get us to the Hanging Gardens? Hanging. Gardens?”
Daria looked helpless. Not being able to answer everyone’s questions seemed to agitate her. She looked pleadingly at Aly. “Teach. I. More. Bel-Sharu-Usur is will here be.” Her eyes began to roll wildly.
“I think she’s imitating that weird guy behind the throne,” Cass said. “He’s coming, maybe?”
“Bel-Sharu-Usur . . .” Aly murmured. “That’s the same guy as Belshazzar—like Nabonidus for Nabu-na’id. And Belshazzar was the king’s evil son!”
“Sun . . . ” Daria paused, then gestured toward the eastern sky. “Go up . . . Bel-Sharu-Usur . . . come.”
“He’s coming in the morning?” I asked. “What’s he going to do?”
Daria shrugged. She glanced again toward the guards. Seeing that they were out of eyesight, she crossed her eyes and made a disgusted face. “Bel-Sharu-Usur . . . ucccch.”
“I don’t think she trusts him,” I said. “Sounds like he’s the one in charge of finding out who we are. If anyone’s spying for the king, he’d be my guess. She reports on us now, and Bel-Sharu-Usur comes to check for himself tomorrow.”
“Daria . . .” Aly said. “You’ll give him a good report?” She did a set of pantomimes—pointing to us, imitating Bel-Sharu-Usur, thumbs-up, and so on.
Daria nodded uncertainly. I could tell she still had a tiny bit of suspicion. “We have to convince her to trust us totally,” I murmured. “She doesn’t want to be burned.”
“Me . . . you . . .” Daria clasped her own two hands together. “Teach.”
Aly glanced at me gratefully. “Yes. That’s what Jack was saying. I will stick with you, Daria, for as long as it takes.”