The two girls started in, batting words around like crazy. Aly was an awesome teacher. But the sun was going down and before I knew it, I had drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, the sun had completely set. I felt as if I’d been asleep for hours. I could hear Marco and Cass in the other room playing some kind of game. Aly and Daria had stood from the table, laughing and chattering.
“It was great to meet you . . .” “Please enjoy food . . .” “I will give a good report, but you must be careful . . .”
I couldn’t believe it. Daria was not only beautiful and unbelievably talented, but probably the smartest person I’d ever seen. She’d picked up passable English in just a few hours.
“She’s amazing,” Aly said as she sent Daria on her way through the front door. “Her vocabulary has grown like crazy—colors, articles of clothing, names of animals and plants. By making faces, I was able to teach her the words for emotions—and she got it all!”
As I listened, I noticed she left a small, leather pouch on the table. I grabbed it and ran for the door.
Daria was already far down the pathway. I burst outside, shouting “Hey! Daria! You forgot—”
I jerked backward as if I’d run into a pole. Mainly because I had.
One of the guards stood over me, his spear still held sideways, where he had blocked my path, like a baseball player bunting for a single. He grumbled something in a language I didn’t understand. “What’s he saying?” I asked.
Aly was standing in the door, looking stunned. “I don’t know,” she said. “But at the rate we’re going, our kids will be growing up in the twenty-fourth century.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE DREAM
I HAVEN’T HAD the Dream in a long time.
But it’s back.
And it’s changed.
It does not begin as it always has, with the chase. The woods. The mad swooping of the griffins and the charge of the hose-beaked vromaski. The volcano about to erupt. The woman calling my name. The rift that opens in the ground before me. The fall into the void. The fall, where it always ends.
Not this time. This time, these things are behind me.
This time, it begins at the bottom.
I am outside my own body. I am in a nanosecond frozen in time. I feel no pain. I feel nothing. I see someone below, twisted and motionless. The person is Jack. Jack of the Dream.
But being outside it, I see that the body is not mine. Not the same face. As if, in these Dreams, I have been dwelling inside a stranger. I see small woodland creatures, fallen and motionless, strewn around the body. The earth shakes. High above, griffins cackle.
Water trickles beneath the body now. It pools around the head and hips. And the nanosecond ends.
The scene changes. I am no longer outside the body but in. Deep in. The shock of reentry is white-hot. It paralyzes every molecule, short-circuiting my senses. Sight, touch, hearing—all of them join in one huge barbaric scream of STOP.
The water fills my ear, trickles down my neck and chest. It freezes and pricks. It soothes and heals. It is taking hold of the pain, drawing it away.
Drawing out death and bringing life.
I breathe. My flattened body inflates. I see. Smell. Hear. I am aware of the soil ground into my skin, the carcasses all around, the black clouds lowering overhead. The thunder and shaking of the earth.
I blink the grit from my eyes and struggle to rise.
I have fallen into a crevice. The cracked earth is a vertical wall before me. And the wall contains a hole, a kind of door into the earth. I see dim light within.
I stand on shaking legs. I feel the snap of shattered bones knitting themselves together.
One step. Two.
With each it becomes easier.
Entering the hole, I hear music. The Song of the Heptakiklos. The sound that seems to play my soul like a guitar.
I draw near the light. It is inside a vast, round room, an underground chamber. I enter, lifted on a column of air.
At the other side I see someone hunched over. The white lambda in his hair flashes in the reflected torch fire.
I call to him and he turns. He looks like me. Beside him is an enormous satchel, full to bursting.
Behind him is the Heptakiklos.
Seven round indentations in the earth.
All empty.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE TEST
“I DON’T GET why he doesn’t just fall over,” Marco whispered.
Bel-Sharu-Usur walked briskly up the stairs, with Daria tagging along behind him. Behind her was a gaggle of wardum with fans made of palm fronds and sacks of food and drink. The entourage for the king’s son.
His eyes never rested in one place. He reeked of fish, and something sickly-sweet, like athletic ointment. His hair was dark at the sides and white down the middle, giving him the appearance of a drunken skunk. At the top of the stairs he looked over the city and took a deep breath, blasting us with a gust of foul air.
“Dude, what was on the breakfast menu?” Marco said. “Three-day-old roadkill?”
He gave Marco a twisted expression that could have been a smile or a sneer, then began babbling to Daria.
I eyed a large vase on a wall shelf. From this angle I could see the eyes of a bull and the hindquarters of some other beast. I’d put Daria’s pouch inside that vase for safekeeping. It contained some feathered needles, maybe for knitting. I made a mental note to give it to her at some point when Bel-Sharu-Usur wasn’t all over her.
Aly trudged out from her bedroom, looking exhausted. “What’s that smell?” she murmured.
As Bel-Sharu-Usur barked questions at Daria, the odor of his tooth decay settled over us like smog. Inches away from him, Daria nodded respectfully and (remarkably) managed not to barf. She seemed to be giving him a long report about us, as we nervously ate fruit that the house wardum laid before us on a table.
“Do you understand what she’s saying?” I whispered.
“No,” she replied. “I was teaching her English. She wasn’t teaching me Babylonian.”
Daria and Bel-Sharu-Usur went at it for a few minutes in rapid Aramaic. Finally Daria turned to us with an exasperated face and said, “He will walk us.”
“Walk us?” Aly said. “Like take us on a tour?” She walked with her fingers out over the rooftop.
“Nice!” Marco said. “Tell him we love gardens. Especially hanging ones.”
“Yes, a tour,” Daria said, looking at Bel-Sharu-Usur uneasily. “See us Babylon. He does not say, but I think he must watch you.”
“He doesn’t yet trust us?” I offered.
Daria shrugged. “We must go now. And be careful.”
We rushed out. It wasn’t until we were walking away from the house that I remembered I’d forgotten Daria’s pouch.
“Chicken . . . clucks,” Daria said. “Ox . . . pulls. Pig . . . oinks. Boar . . . snorts. Pine tree . . . grows tall. Sun flower . . . is round. Fence . . . has posts. Temple . . .”
As we walked through the palace grounds, Aly didn’t miss an object. And Daria repeated everything perfectly. Bel-Sharu-Usur hung with them, listening intently. It was impossible to tell what he was looking at or listening to. His strangely disabled eyes flitted all over the place, and it was miraculous he could even walk straight. Still, I could sense that he was noticing every movement, every gesture we were making.
His entourage hung behind him closely. Two wardum fanned him with gigantic palm-shaped leaves, muttering chants and making sly faces when he wasn’t looking. Two others carried buckets of water, stopping to hand him a ladle every few yards. Before us, two trumpeters blew a fanfare at each turn in the road.
All around the entourage, people took a wide berth. Gardeners, workers, wealthy people—all of them dropped into a fearful silence at the sight of Bel-Sharu-Usur.
“He makes me nervous,” Cass said softly.
At the whispered words, Bel-Sharu-Usur’s ears pricked up.
&
nbsp; “Dude, anyone ever tell you that you look like a cross between a warthog and a popcorn machine?” Marco asked him out loud, with a broad smile. “Just sayin’. Peace out.”
Bel-Sharu-Usur looked momentarily confused. He glared at Daria, who told him something that made him smile uncertainly.
“I guess she covered for you, Marco,” Cass murmured.
“She’s hot and smart,” Marco said.
“So, you think she’s hot, too?” Aly said.
Daria turned to Marco with a smile. “Not hot. Is cool in the morning.”
I looked at the ground to avoid cracking up.
“What do you call this place, Daria?” Aly asked, gesturing around the palace grounds. “Does it have a name?”
Daria thought a moment. “In language of Sumer people, is Ká-Dingir-rá. In language of Akkad people, is Bab-Ilum. Means great gate of god.”
“Bab-Ilum!” Cass said. “Probably where they got the name Babylon. Looc os si taht.”
“Can’t get a word of Babylonic, but it worries me that I’m beginning to understand you,” Marco said.
We walked briskly past a temple whose walls were pitted, cracked, and choked with weeds. A great wood beam along the roof looked about ready to buckle. “This is—was—palace,” Daria whispered. “King Nabu-Kudurri-Usur. Two.”
“Who?” Marco said.
“Nabu-Kudurri-Usur is Aramaic for Nebuchadnezzar,” Aly said. “‘Two’ for ‘the Second.’” She turned back to Daria. “That king lived here?”
Daria nodded. “He was good. Then more kings—Amel-Marduk, Nergal-Sharu-Usur, La-Abashi-Marduk. All lived in palace. Kings supposed to live in palace. But Nabu-na’id . . . no. Lives in Etemenanki.” Her eyes darted toward Bel-Sharu-Usur uncertainly, and she dropped her voice. “Etemenanki is holy place . . . not king place.”
Aly shot me a look. I could feel Cass’s and Marco’s eyes, too. None of us had expected that statement. I knew her English wasn’t perfect, but the tone was unmistakable. Our friend Daria didn’t seem to like the king very much.
Any lingering mistrust of her was melting away fast.
Bel-Sharu-Usur was picking up the pace. We jogged after him, entering a grand tiled walkway, its bricks glazed with blindingly bright blues and golds. Inlaid into the tiles was a procession of fierce lions of smaller gold and yellow bricks, so lifelike that they seemed about to jump out. Bel-Sharu-Usur raised his wobbling eyes to a shining fortress of cobalt blue rising at the end of the processional path. It was topped with castle-like towers, the great protective city wall extending from either side. The trumpeters blew again, nearly blasting my eardrums.
“Ishtar!” barked Bel-Sharu-Usur.
“Gesundheit,” Marco said, gazing upward.
“It’s the Ishtar Gate,” Cass said. “One of the three most famous structures in Ancient Babylon, along with the Hanging Gardens and the Tower of Babel, aka Etemenanki.”
“Thank you, Mr. Geography,” Marco said.
“Not bad for someone who thinks he’s lost his memory powers,” Aly said, a smile growing across her face.
Cass shook his head dismissively. “That was easy stuff. You knew it, too, I’ll bet.”
If we weren’t in a parallel world, I’d be taking a zillion photos. Along with the sculpted lions were other elaborate animals—mostly bulls, but also a hideous-looking creature I’d never seen before. It had a long snout with two horns, the front legs of a lion, rear legs with talons like a raptor, and a tail with scorpion pincers. I ran my hands along it, and the tiles were so sharp they nearly cut my skin.
Daria winced. “Is mushushu. Good for people of Bab-Ilum. Means youth. Health. Also means . . .” Her voice dropped to a respectful whisper. “. . . Marduk.”
“What’s a Marduk?” Marco asked.
“Not what—who,” Aly said. “It was the name of the Babylonian god.” She turned to Daria. “The mushushu is, like, a symbol of the god? A representation?”
Daria thought a moment. “Representation . . . one thing meaning another. Yes.”
“Is it a real animal?” Cass asked.
“Yes,” Daria said. “Was in cage. In Ká-Dingir-rá. But escape when Nabu-na’id near. Mushushu bit foot. Bel-Sharu-Usur tried to help father, but mushushu attack face.”
“So this creature is the thing that mangled the king’s foot?” Aly asked. “And it injured Bel-Sharu-Usur in a way that caused his eyes to move funny?”
“All because they had it in a cage,” I said. “But why would they treat the mushushu like that? If it was the symbol of a great revered god—”
“King Nabu-na’id does not honor Marduk,” Daria said. “Each year we have celebration—Akitu—for new year. For Marduk. In this celebration, guards slap king, kick king to the ground.”
“Sounds like a laugh riot,” Marco said. “No offense, Dars, but that’s a pretty weird way to celebrate.”
“It is to remind king that he is a man,” Daria said. “He is not god. People love their king even more after this. But when Nabu-na’id becomes king, he does not come to Akitu. This makes Marduk angry.”
As we got closer to the gate, guards bowed to Bel-Sharu-Usur from the two turrets at the top.
As the trumpeters moved into the gate, Bel-Sharu-Usur gave a harsh command. Nodding, the two men reversed course and scampered out of sight. He bustled on through, with the rest of us following behind. We hurried out the other side of the gate and onto another tiled, walled walkway. The walkway soon emptied us into another part of the outer city. This section was less built up, a scattering of buildings among fields, leading to the outer wall in the distance.
To our right was a small field, and just beyond it a temple that was cracked and neglected like Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. At the base of the temple wall, a group of wardum knelt in worship. Bel-Sharu-Usur stormed toward them.
Immediately Daria sang a high-pitched tune of four notes. Hearing it, the wardum leaped up and scattered. Bright potted flowers and bowls of food had been placed on the warped windowsills, and Bel-Sharu-Usur quickly moved in, sweeping them to the ground.
“Whoa,” Marco said. “He ditched the trumpeters so he could sneak up on these people? What’s he got against them?”
Daria’s body shook at the sight. “This place is Esagila. A temple. King Nabu-Kudurri-Usur build Esagila to honor Marduk. But Nabu-na’id . . .” Her voice trailed off.
The crowd was growing, murmuring, looking aghast and angry at what Bel-Sharu-Usur had just done. A giant clay pot came hurtling up from its midst, directly for his head.
“Yo, Twinkle-Eyes—duck!” Marco shouted.
Bel-Sharu-Usur turned abruptly. The pot was dead on target for his face. My reflexes kicked in, and I jumped toward him. But Marco was already in the path of the missile, swatting it away.
The two tumbled to the ground. The king’s son sat up, his eyes perfectly still for the first time. His entourage of wardum gathered around, closing into a circle that faced outward, preparing to take any further attack.
But the crowd of onlookers stared at Marco with an expression of unmistakable awe.
Guards had appeared upon hearing the commotion. With a shrieking command, Bel-Sharu-Usur pointed to a thin, trembling young man dressed in tatters. The guards seized him, pulling him toward the gate despite his anguished pleas.
“That guy wasn’t the one who threw it!” Marco protested.
“It does not matter,” Daria said sadly. “Bel-Sharu-Usur will punish who he wants.”
Now the king’s son put a scaly hand on Marco’s shoulder. As he spoke, Marco’s face began turning green. “What’d I do now?”
“Bel-Sharu-Usur is thanking you,” Daria said. “You saved life. He will do good thing for you now.”
“Oh,” Marco said, fanning the air between him and Bel-Sharu-Usur. “Make him promise to buy a toothbrush. And tell him to take us to the Hanging Gardens.”
As Daria translated, Bel-Sharu-Usur took Marco by the arm and led him to the Ishtar Gate. The king’s
son shouted a command up toward the turret. In response, the guard unhooked his quiver and tossed it down, along with a longbow. Marco stepped in and caught them easily. “Thanks, dude,” Marco said. “I’ll treasure it. Hang it on my mantel. But really, I’d rather see the garden.”
Bel-Sharu-Usur spoke to Daria. Her face stiffened. She seemed to be pleading with him, but he turned away, ignoring her.
“The weapon is not for you to keep, Marco,” she said. “Bel-Sharu-Usur is grateful you saved his life. He believes you are a man with great power. How do you say . . . ?”
“Superpower?” Marco replied. “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“Like a god,” Daria continued.
“I’ve heard that, too,” Marco said. “Also hero. But what about my request?”
“He will consider this,” Daria said. “But he believes you can help Bab-Ilum with your powers. So you must pass a test.”
“Dang . . .” Marco exhaled deeply. “Can’t we see the Garden first and do the test later?”
Daria shook her head. “In order to grant your wish, Marco, Bel-Sharu-Usur says you must take this weapon to the king’s hunting ground, and kill the mushushu.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE DARKNESS
IT WASN’T SO much the screeching noises that came from the king’s royal hunting grounds. Or the putrid smell of death. Or that we’d had to walk about a zillion miles up the river, far from the borders of Babylon. Or the fact that Bel-Sharu-Usur’s guards and wardum were all shaking with fright.
It was the darkness that gave me the willies.
We stopped at the tree line. Although the leaves rustled in the breeze and water flowed gently into the forest via dug-out streams and culverts from the Euphrates, a strange pitch-blackness hovered in the distance. A shimmering ribbon over the tree line. We’d seen it from the river, but up close it seemed to make the ground vibrate.
“There it is again,” Cass said. “That . . . thing.”
“What is that, Daria?” Aly asked.