19. Across the Empty Lands
20. The Battle at the Rock
21. Stranded
22. Return and Discovery
23. Home Alive
24. The Salvage Expedition
25. Light for the Journey
26. An Interesting Arrival
27. A Bright Future
_____________
The Vault
Around the middle of the twenty-first century, when it seemed that a great catastrophe was about to engulf the world, an underground city was built as a last refuge for the human race. It was called the city of Ember. The Builders, who designed the city and constructed it, tried to cast their minds into the future—not only to imagine what the residents of the city would need for the many years they’d live there, but also to imagine what life might be like for them when they came back out into the world aboveground. It was this latter question that was on the chief builder’s mind on a day when the city was nearly finished and global tensions were rising fast. He summoned his assistant to discuss it.
“When the people emerge from the city,” he said, “they will find themselves in a devastated world.”
“Unfortunately true,” said his assistant.
“Life will be very hard for them,” said the chief builder, who was the kind of person who worried about the well-being of others. “I’m wondering if there’s something we can do to give them a head start.”
The assistant waited, raising his eyebrows politely.
“I have an idea,” the chief builder said. “My idea is to give them one thing from today’s world—one of our newest inventions—that we know they’ll need.”
“Excellent,” said the assistant, who had no clue what that one thing might be.
“We need a location,” the chief builder said, “not far from the exit spot, where we can build a vault into the side of the mountain. We’ll put a timed lock on its door, of course, so that it won’t be accessible until it should be, just as in our plan for the Instructions for Egress. The vault should be placed so that the citizens of Ember will come across it when they emerge.”
“Certainly,” said the assistant. He made a note: Select location. “But will the people who have lived in Ember know what to do with the . . . um, the contents of the vault?”
“Probably not,” said the chief builder. “Naturally, I have thought of that. We’ll provide a printed book explaining in detail everything they’ll need to know.”
“I see,” said the assistant. “A good plan.”
So it was done. A large, steel-lined room was built into the side of the mountain and stocked according to the chief builder’s instructions. Then the door was sealed.
Despite the Builders’ fears, the catastrophe did not happen immediately. The midcentury crisis eased. Fifty years later, however, the world came once more to the brink of war, and the government put its plan into action. Volunteers were assembled, couples were formed, and babies were given to each couple. The city of Ember received its first inhabitants.
The bombs fell. Cities burned all over the world. People died in the millions, and plagues and famines and floods reduced even further the numbers of those who were left. It was many, many years before the scattered survivors of the Disaster began to rebuild any sort of civilization.
The people of Ember came out of their underground city somewhat later than planned. Because they were in a state of bewilderment and exhaustion when they emerged, and because trees had grown up where trees hadn’t been before, they failed to notice the door to the vault. They trudged away over the hills until they arrived at the village of Sparks, where, after a struggle, they took up their lives anew.
Instead, it was a roamer who discovered the vault. The door wasn’t locked; he opened it and went inside, where he found one thing that was interesting, which he took, and one thing that was not interesting: a large, heavy book with small print. Like many people in those times, he had lost the skill of reading. He flipped the book open and scowled at its pages. Should he take it or not? Yes, he decided. He might be able to sell it someday. If not, he could use it for starting fires.
CHAPTER 1
________________________
The Storm
In the village of Sparks, the day was ending. The pale winter sun had begun to sink behind a bank of clouds in the west, and shadows darkened the construction field behind the Pioneer Hotel, where workers labored in the gloom. Winter rains had turned the ground to a soup of mud. Stacks of lumber and piles of bricks and stones stood everywhere, along with buckets of nails, tools, old windows and doors, anything that might be useful for building houses. Though the daylight was almost gone, people worked on. They were trying to accomplish as much as possible, because they could see that a storm was coming.
But at last someone called, “Time to quit!” and the workers sighed with relief and began to pack up their tools.
One of the workers was a boy named Doon Harrow, thirteen years old, who had spent the day hauling loads of boards from one place to another and trying to measure and cut them to necessary lengths. When he heard the call, he set down the rusty old saw he’d been using and looked around for his father. The workers stumbling across the field were no more than shadowy figures now; it was hard to tell one from another. Ahead of them loomed the hotel, a few of its windows shining dimly with the light of candles lit by those too young or old or ill to be outside working. “Father!” Doon called. “Where are you?”
His father’s voice answered from some distance behind him. “Right here, son. Coming! Wait for—”And then came a sound that made Doon whirl around: first a shattering crash, and then a shriek of a kind he’d never before heard from his mild-mannered father.
Doon ran, squelching through the mud. He found his father sprawled on the ground beside a broken window pane that had been leaning against a pile of bricks. “What happened?” Doon cried. “Are you hurt?”
His father struggled to his knees. In a hoarse, strangled voice, he said, “Tripped. Fell on the glass. My hand.”
Others had gathered now, and they helped him up. Doon took his father’s arm. Enough light remained in the sky for him to see what had happened: the palm of his father’s hand was sliced open, gushing blood.
One of the men standing nearby tore off his shirt and wrapped it around the wound. “Make a tight fist,” the man said.
Doon’s father curled his fingers, wincing. Blood stained the shirt.
“We have to get to the doctor,” Doon said.
“Yes, that cut needs stitching up,” said the man who’d given his shirt. “Go quick, and maybe you can make it to the village before it rains.”
“Can you walk, Father?” Doon asked.
“Oh, yes,” said his father in a weak voice. “Might need another . . .” He trailed off, holding out his hand, and Doon saw that the shirt wrapped around it was already soaked with blood.
“Ice would slow the bleeding,” someone said. “But we don’t have any.”
A woman took off her scarf and passed it to Doon, and another man ripped strips of cloth from his shirt. Once the injured hand was wrapped in these, Doon and his father started across the field.
“You’ll need a lantern!” cried a boy—one of Doon’s friends, Chet Noam. “Go on ahead. I’ll get one and catch up with you.”
They walked as quickly as they could, but it seemed unlikely they’d avoid getting wet. A few raindrops were already drifting down. Doon felt their light, cold touch on his face. Rain had become familiar to him by now. Since he and his people had arrived here in Sparks from the city of Ember, where sun and rain alike were unknown, four rainstorms had swept over the land. The first had terrified the people of Ember, who thought something dreadful had gone wrong with the sky.
A voice called to them from behind, and Chet came running up. “Here,” he said, handing Doon a lantern made of a can punched with holes and containing a burning candle. “And listen,” he added. “A roamer has arrived, wanting shelter at the
hotel. Tell people that if the rain stops, there’ll be trading in the plaza tomorrow morning.”
“All right,” said Doon. He and his father turned again toward the town and hurried on. “Is the pain very bad?” Doon asked.
“Not too bad,” said his father, whose face was unnaturally white. “It is bleeding a lot.”
“Doctor Hester will know how to stop it,” Doon said, though he wasn’t sure of that. The doctor did the best she could, but there was a great deal she couldn’t cure.
They passed a grove of trees thrashing in the wind. Behind the trees, a little distance off the road, a tall building loomed. A patch of blackness showed where a section of its roof had fallen in.
“They still haven’t fixed it,” said Doon as they went past, but his father didn’t even look up.
The damaged building was called the Ark, the place where the people of Sparks stored their food supplies. The first rainstorm of the winter had been too much for one of the many rotten spots in its roof. Beams and chunks of tile fell inward. Shelves toppled. Jars and crocks broke and spilled, sacks of grain tore open, and rats got to the food before the cave-in was discovered. Even to begin with, there had been barely enough food stored in the Ark to get everyone through the winter. After that storm, a great part of the food was ruined.
“Father,” Doon said. “Press your hurt hand tight with your other hand. That might keep it from bleeding so much.” His father nodded and did as Doon said.
The rain came harder. In the last rays of evening light, Doon saw the lines of water like silver pins in the air. He put up the hood of his jacket, shivering. When he was faced with troubles, Doon usually looked for solutions and took action. But tonight he was feeling disheartened. So much about the winter in Sparks had been hard. People were ill with coughs and fevers, and some of them had died; they were hungry nearly all the time; and there had been one accident after another. A candle flame caught a curtain and set a house on fire; a toddler wandered outside at night, fell into the river, and drowned; there was the hole in the Ark’s roof; and now this gash in his father’s hand. Misfortunes came from every direction, it seemed, and Doon could see no way to make things better.
In a few minutes, they came to the town. People had drawn their curtains and closed their shutters against the wind, so the streets were dark, except for where a narrow line of candlelight showed here and there at a windowsill.
Nearly everyone had gone inside, but they spotted Mary Waters darting from a doorway with her coat pulled up over her head. Doon called to her. “Mary!”
She turned and strode toward them. She was the strongest and most clear-headed of the town’s three leaders. Lately, with food supplies so short and a few citizens of Sparks starting to grumble about how everything would be better if those “strangers” were sent away, Mary had stood firm as a rock in defense of the Emberites. “We are all the people of Sparks now,” she’d declared, again and again. “That’s what we decided, and we’ll stick to it.”
Now she frowned with concern at Loris Harrow’s wrapped hand. “What happened?” she asked.
Doon’s father explained in a few words. “We’re going to the doctor’s,” said Doon. “And a roamer has just arrived at the Pioneer, so there’ll be trading tomorrow if the rain stops.”
“Good,” said Mary. “Maybe he’ll have something we need. Go quick, now; that hand needs attention.”
They hurried on, pausing only twice more to mention the roamer to passersby.
The doctor’s house was at the far end of town. By the time Doon and his father reached it, the rain was coming down hard. Doon pounded urgently on the door, and in a moment it opened, and there stood Lina Mayfleet, staring at them in astonishment. Her little sister, Poppy, clung to her leg, whimpering. “Oh!” Lina cried. “Come in! What’s wrong? You’re soaked!”
Just seeing Lina’s face, alarmed though it was, made Doon feel a little better. Lina was his closest friend. Together they had found the way out of their dying city of Ember and brought the rest of Ember’s people out as well. Doon didn’t see Lina very often these days, since he lived at the Pioneer and she lived at Doctor Hester’s house. He thought she looked thinner since he’d seen her last.
“I’ve hurt my hand,” Doon’s father said. “I need the doctor.”
“She’s not here,” said Lina. “She’s with a child who has a fever. But Mrs. Murdo can help.”
Mrs. Murdo was at that moment descending the stairs. She had been Lina’s neighbor in Ember and now was like a mother to her and Poppy. She peered down, and when she saw Doon and his father, she quickly smoothed her hair and tucked in her shirt. Behind her came Torren, the doctor’s nephew, a boy a little younger than Lina, with a narrow face and a tuft of hair that stood up above his forehead as if the wind had lifted it and forgotten to put it back down. The two of them hurried to the new arrivals. Torren’s small blue eyes popped with curiosity. “What happened?” he said. “He hurt his hand? Can I see?” He crowded up close to Doon’s father. “Eeeww, so much blood!”
“Torren,” said Mrs. Murdo, “step aside, please. You and Doon get candles and come with me. Lina, I’ll need boiled water and clean rags. This way, Loris. We’ll do the best we can until Doctor Hester gets back.”
In the doctor’s room, Mrs. Murdo sat Doon’s father down and had him lay his arm on the table next to him. She bent over his hand. “I wish we had ice,” she said. “It might slow the bleeding.” But they had none. The last roamer carrying blocks of ice from the mountains had come through town seven weeks ago, and all that he’d brought was long melted. “There are splinters of glass in this cut,” Mrs. Murdo said. “Doon and Torren, hold your candles right here so I can see.”
Suddenly the windows of the room flashed white. Both Doon and Torren jolted the candles they were holding and dripped hot wax onto Doon’s father’s hand. Mrs. Murdo cried out, “What was that?” and a second later came a crack and a rumble, like the sky breaking apart.
“It’s only lightning,” said Torren, as if he hadn’t jumped himself. “We’re having a thunderstorm.”
Doon steadied his hand, but he’d felt a moment of panic at the flash and rumble. He remembered that someone had told him about a thing called lightning—a bolt of electricity that came sometimes in storms. He had not known how to picture a “bolt of electricity.” He thought maybe it would be a kind of shudder, like what he’d felt once when he touched the wires of a wall socket back in Ember. Maybe there would be some sparks with it, or some kind of twinkling.
Now, holding his candle over his father’s bloody palm, he glanced at the window every time a jagged line of light split the sky from top to bottom. This was a power like nothing he’d ever seen. It struck him through with awe. Somehow, it was electricity. But how could a jagged line of light be the same thing that the old generator in Ember produced from river water? How could something that vanished in an instant be the same thing that made a lamp glow all evening? He saw now that electricity was nothing that people had made; it was part of the world, and sometimes, in some mysterious way, people were able to capture it.
Mrs. Murdo frowned and muttered over her work. “I wish Hester would get here,” she said. “I can’t see whether I have this properly cleaned. Where’s Lina with that water?”
The lightning came again, like a white root shooting down from the clouds. When the thunder followed, Doon felt its rumble deep inside himself, almost like a stern and powerful voice giving him an order he did not understand.
______
Lina was outside at the backyard pump, pulling the pump handle up and pushing it down, up and down, up and down, making water spurt out to fill the pot and getting splattered by rain the whole time. She felt furiously impatient. In Ember, you turned on a faucet and hot water came right out. If she’d been in Ember now, she’d have had this pot filled in a minute, and she wouldn’t be getting wet and cold, and—
At that instant, the whole sky lit up, sudden and brilliant. She staggered backward
and cried out, but a terrible roar drowned her voice. Leaving the water pot behind, she fled into the house, and as she crossed the main room, the door burst open and Doctor Hester lurched in, coat flying, scarves whipping around, water streaming from her hair.
“What’s happening?” Lina cried. “Is the sky splitting apart?”
The doctor slammed the door behind her, but not before a gust of wind shot in and blew out the fire in the fireplace, leaving the room in darkness. Again the light flashed outside, and again came a deafening bang. Poppy screamed, and Lina ran to pick her up.
“Hester!” Mrs. Murdo called from the other room. “Please come, we need you!”
Another flash of light whitened the windows, followed by a roar.
“Thunderstorm,” said the doctor, struggling out of her soaked coat.
“Will it hurt us?” Lina asked, holding tight to Poppy, who was wailing.
“It will if the lightning hits you,” the doctor said. “Lightning sets things on fire.” She tossed her coat on a chair and hurried off.
Fire from the sky. Lina shuddered. In Ember, the sky never let loose water or ice or stabs of fire; it never made a noise; it was always dark and still and quiet. In Ember, the weather of every day was the same.
The doctor and Mrs. Murdo worked over Loris Harrow’s hand for nearly an hour. Doon, Lina, and Torren grew weary from holding the candles to light the operation. Finally, Dr. Hester sighed and stood up. “I think we’ve got all the splinters out,” she said. “I just can’t see well enough to tell for sure. We’ll watch you for signs of infection.”
Doon’s father smiled faintly. He hadn’t cried out as his hand was being probed, but his face was gray. “I know you did the best you could,” he said.
“You and Doon must stay here tonight,” said Mrs. Murdo. “You can’t go out in that storm.”
“Thank you,” said Doon’s father. “We’re grateful. And I almost forgot to mention—a roamer is coming into town tomorrow. We may be able to replenish our supplies.”