“Think if we’d come out in the winter instead of in the summer,” Lina said. “We might not have seen the moon or the stars, if it had been a cloudy night. And the grass wouldn’t have been green, and we’d have been cold.”
“And even if we’d seen the fox,” Doon said, “he wouldn’t have had that plum in his mouth, and so we wouldn’t have known to eat the plums ourselves.”
They stood there at the cave’s edge for a bit, thinking about how lucky they’d been. Then Doon shouldered his pack again, and Lina went back and fetched hers.
“Now,” he said, “the next thing is to go up and around, that way”—he pointed—“and find that little crack where we went in.”
It wasn’t hard to find. The first time, it had taken ages, because they hadn’t known what they were looking for. This time they went almost straight to it: a spot where a low place in the ground, a sort of dent, led to a narrow slit in the mountainside.
The sun was sitting just at the horizon now; in a few minutes, darkness would fall.
“We’ll just go in and look,” Doon said. “And then we’ll make our camp for the night.”
They pulled candles from their packs and lit them. Then they edged into the passage and slowly, taking small steps, made their way along its twists and turns. Their shadows loomed beside them on the rocky walls, and the passage had the dank smell of old, cold dirt.
“Almost there, I think,” said Lina, who was in front. “Yes—here’s the edge.”
Just ahead, the light of her candle showed the edge where the ground dropped away. She reached back for Doon’s hand, and he came up beside her. This was where they’d stood when they threw the message down to their dying city—the message that saved Ember’s people. Lina remembered exactly how it had felt to fling that bundle—the scrap of paper wrapped in Doon’s shirt and weighted with a rock—as hard and as far as she could. Then, they’d been able to see the lights of Ember far below. Now, of course, there was only a vast darkness.
“Wait,” said Doon. “I think—”
“Me too,” said Lina. “It looks like—”
Doon lowered his voice to a whisper. “Let’s blow out our candles, just for a moment.”
They did. They gazed downward. It was unmistakable. A dim, pulsing orange light shone from somewhere in the heart of the city.
CHAPTER 6
________________________
A Light in the City
They stood there a long time, staring, then blinking and staring again to make sure their eyes weren’t playing tricks on them. With their candles out, the darkness was complete except for that distant light. They couldn’t even see each other’s faces. But the more they looked, the more sure they were: a light shone in Ember.
“Someone is still down there,” Doon breathed.
“Or maybe not,” Lina said. “Maybe there’s a tiny bit of electricity left. Maybe it’s just a streetlamp still glowing.”
They stared for a few minutes longer, wondering. Doon knelt carefully and stretched a hand over the edge of the cliff. “It seems to go straight down,” he said. “But I can’t really tell.”
“It’s a long way down,” said Lina. “I don’t see how we can possibly get there.”
“We have to,” said Doon. “Now that we’ve seen that light, we have to know what it is.” Lina heard him take in a quick breath. “Oh!” he said. “It might be what the book is about! Something that shines! We have to find out. There must be a way down.”
“Tomorrow we’ll look for it,” Lina said. A whole day of walking had tired her out, and she knew Doon was tired, too, though he might not want to admit it.
They went back through the passage and out into the waning evening light. Their shadows stretched like long fingers across the ground. Stars were beginning to come out, and both Lina and Doon gazed upward at them. They still marveled, having grown up under the black, unchanging sky of Ember, at a sky full of lights.
“Look at that one,” Lina said, pointing. One star, bigger than the rest, was moving at a slow, steady pace. Its light was greenish rather than white.
“A traveling star,” said Doon. “It must be what that roamer was talking about. Edward has a book about stars. I’ll look up traveling stars when we get back.”
They made their way around the mountainside to the place where the dark cave opening loomed in the mountain wall. Inside the cave, toward the rear, the ground was more or less dry. They spread their blankets. It was a gloomy place—dampness seeped from the walls, and Lina could feel the cold breath of the tunnel that stretched away behind them, leading down deep into the earth to the underground river they’d ridden out of Ember. But Doon was scraping out a shallow pit in the dirt to build a fire in; that would help. “I’ll look for kindling,” Lina said. She reached into her pack for a match to relight her candle, because full darkness had arrived by now. But Doon stopped her.
“Here,” he said. “Take this. We need to save candles and matches whenever we can.” From his pack, he took the little generator he had made at the end of summer from a magnet, some wires, and a crank. He’d attached a socket to it, one he’d taken from an old light fixture in the Pioneer Hotel, and screwed a light bulb into it. “You’ll have to keep turning the crank,” he said, handing it to her. “But it will give you more light than a candle.”
Lina grinned. She’d almost forgotten about the generator, having seen it working only once. She turned the handle, and the light bulb glowed, and the cave became a bright little hollow, almost cozy. “Wonderful,” she said. She set down the generator and tied her sack to her belt so she’d have both hands free, and she went out into the darkness, heading for a grove of trees to the left of the cave entrance, cranking the little generator as she went. It gave her enough light to see the ground a few feet ahead of her. When she stepped in among the trees, it helped her to see where twigs lay in the leaf litter and to avoid stumbling into prickly shrubs and tripping on the rough ground. Each time she found sticks that looked dry enough for kindling, she stopped cranking, picked the sticks up, and thrust them in her sack. The light dimmed as the crank slowed, but if she was quick, it didn’t quite go out.
Finding dry sticks wasn’t easy; most of them were in among the sodden leaves that covered the ground. She decided that the best way was to break small dead branches from the trees. She went deeper into the grove, looking behind to make sure she didn’t lose track of the way out. Once she stopped, startled, thinking she’d seen her light reflect off something ahead of her. An animal’s eye? She thought of wolves. Someone had told her they had yellow eyes. Did wolves lurk in the woods, waiting to pounce on people? She stood still for a moment, listening. She heard no sound, but just in case something was there, she decided to turn around and get out of the woods. She had enough kindling anyhow. She hurried back to the camp.
“I saw something shiny in there,” she said to Doon. “Would a wolf’s eye reflect light?”
“I suppose so,” Doon said. “But lots of other things would, too. A piece of metal. An old glass bottle or something.”
“I guess it wasn’t a wolf,” said Lina, setting down her bag of kindling, “because it didn’t make a sound or move. Or try to eat me.”
They set to work to build their fire. They put it near the mouth of the cave so the smoke could escape, and by its dancing flames, they ate their skimpy dinner. The night was silent except for the crackle of the fire—until, far away, they heard a faint, high cry, and then more cries, weaving together into a fierce song.
“Night birds?” said Doon.
“No, I think it’s wolves,” Lina said. “Kenny told me they sing.”
They listened, but the cries quickly died away.
“That reminds me,” said Doon. “Let me show you something Kenny taught me.” He went outside the cave, plucked a sturdy grass blade from the ground, and clamped it between the sides of his thumbs. Then he blew hard against it, and an amazingly loud noise, part squawk and part shriek, blasted out into the air.
Lina jumped and then laughed. “How did you do that?”
Doon showed her how it worked. “It’s a wolf-scaring whistle, Kenny told me. All you need is one blade of grass.”
They practiced making whistles and earsplitting noises for a while. Then, by the light of the little generator, Doon read Lina the clues he’d picked out from the remains of the eight-page book.
“Here on page sixty-one,” he said, “is something about distance. “ ‘More than ninety million miles,’ it says. I’m not sure how long a mile is.”
“But ninety million of them sounds like a long way, even if a mile is short,” said Lina. “I hope it doesn’t mean we have to walk for ninety million miles.”
“On the same page,” Doon said, “there’s something about a square yard. That could be a space that’s a yard long on each side—or it could be a backyard that’s a square shape. ‘Square yard receives,’ it says. Then there’s a smudge, and the only two words I can read in the rest of the sentence are ‘jewel’ and ‘second.’ ”
Lina peered over his shoulder. “But they’ve spelled ‘jewel’ wrong,” she said. “It isn’t j-o-u-l-e.”
“It’s an ancient document,” Doon said. “They probably spelled things differently in those days.” Doon squinted at the smudged page in the unsteady light. “And then on page sixty-five,” he went on, “there’s part of a sentence that says, ‘those which are positive and those which are negative . . .’ And then, ‘. . . lose, gain, or share them, which creates . . .’ So that could mean something about having a positive or negative view of things, or about sharing . . .” He trailed off.
“Maybe,” said Lina. “Not too helpful, though.”
“But then listen to this,” Doon said, turning to the next page, which was half torn away. “Here it says, ‘. . . a number of cells of many sizes and shapes, connected . . .’ ” He looked up at Lina triumphantly. “What does that remind you of?”
“A cell is a room, isn’t it?” she said. “Like a cell in the Ember prison. So rooms connected to each other—it sounds like the storerooms.”
“Yes!” Doon said. “I think it could be.”
“All right,” Lina said. “Well, at least we have a little bit to go on.” She felt only slightly encouraged, though. Had they come up here to find a jewel in someone’s yard? Or to spend endless hours searching for a jewel in the storerooms? She had never cared much for jewels. In Ember, a jewel had been anything a person used as decoration for the body. Some people had worn bits of polished glass on strings around their necks, or bracelets of shiny metal. In Sparks, she had seen jewels sometimes on the harnesses of oxen, and now and then a roamer would bring something called jewelry from the ancient world, just some pretty stones wired together. No one got very excited about it. But she supposed they might be useful for trading.
It was time to sleep. The night was long and cold, and the ground was hard. But no animals or people disturbed them, and at the first light of morning, they were up and readying themselves to investigate the way into Ember.
Once again they stood on the ledge, looking down. The light they’d seen the night before was still there, dim but distinct.
“It’s a strange sort of light,” said Doon. “I think it must have something to do with what the book was about. Someone else has found it, whatever it was.”
“Maybe,” said Lina. “But then why would they stay in Ember with it? Why not bring it out?”
“Because they’re trapped,” Doon said. In his voice was a rising excitement. “Somehow, they didn’t hear about the way out.” He had brought his generator into the cave with him; he handed it to Lina. “Would you crank this?” he asked. “I want to try and see how steep the cliff is.” Lina had brought a candle with her in case one was needed; she put it in her back pocket, where it wobbled, being too tall to fit all the way in.
Carefully, Doon lowered himself to his knees and then lay down completely so that his head was just over the edge of the cliff. Lina stretched out both hands as far as she dared, one holding the generator and the other cranking, and Doon peered down. He’d been hoping the slope was more gentle than it had seemed, making it possible to walk or perhaps slide down. Or maybe steps had been cut into it long ago by the Builders of Ember. Or perhaps they’d left a ladder of some kind. But as far as he could tell, the cliff was bare, vertical rock. The only way to descend from here into the city would be to have a very long rope and climb down it—or many long ropes tied together, the distance was so great. The rope would have to be anchored to something at the top—maybe a sturdy spike driven into the ground. It might be possible to rig up a pulley system for hoisting things from below. But it would all be difficult.
Doon sighed and got to his feet again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure how we can do it. It would be really hard to get down there. And even harder to get back up.”
“I wish we could fly down,” Lina said.
They stood for a few more minutes. Lina stopped cranking the generator, and they stared down at the one dim, wavering light still shining in their old home. Then Doon turned around to head back into the passage to the outside. As Lina turned to follow him, the candle sticking up from her back pocket struck the cave wall and toppled out. Oh, no, she thought. She assumed the candle had fallen over the edge of the cliff—but when she started up the generator again and looked down, she saw the candle not far from her feet. It was rolling very slowly away, not out toward the edge but sideways.
She took a step toward it, moving along the ledge with her back to the cave wall. The candle rolled a little farther. She took another step—and she saw that the ledge continued. It was not just a short shelf jutting out at the end of the passage. It extended to the side, on the left, making a narrow path, with the cave wall on one side and the steep drop on the other. She couldn’t see very far ahead with her one light bulb. But it looked as if the path sloped downward. It might wind along the wall all the way to the bottom.
She let go of the generator’s crank long enough to stoop quickly and pick up the candle. Then she turned around and hurried through the passage to the outside, where Doon was starting along the mountainside. “There’s a path,” she said breathlessly. “Going down.”
It was a steep path, and rough, and narrow. They followed it with extreme caution, one slow step after another, keeping one hand on the wall beside them. They lit their way with candles; this was no place to have both hands occupied with the generator. At first, their idea had been to go just a little way, to see if the path continued. After they’d been walking for several minutes, it seemed that the path really might take them down to the level of the city.
“This is going to work,” said Doon. “I’m sure it is. We have to go back up and get our packs.”
They did so. They took out everything that wasn’t essential, leaving in mainly candles and matches. They’d each brought ten matches on the trip and had used two of Lina’s so far. Doon included his generator. Lina added some pieces of paper and a pencil stub that Doon’s father had found and given to her, because you never knew when you might have to draw something or write a note. Each of them took one of the clever leather water bottles made in Sparks, with a plug and a strap for hooking to a belt. They rolled the rest of their supplies into the blankets they’d brought and hid the blanket rolls between some rocks. Then once again, each of them holding a candle, they went through the narrow passage and started down the path.
It was far from easy. They couldn’t tell if the path had been constructed by people or if it was just a natural ledge along the wall of the cave. In some places it was partly crumbled away, and they had to step across gaps. Other places were blocked by rockslides that they had to scramble over. Always, though they couldn’t see it, they were aware of the long drop into darkness just inches from their feet. But frightening as it was, they weren’t willing to turn around, because the path led steadily down.
It went by way of switchbacks—they’d walk a long way in one direction, and t
hen the path would make a tight turn and they’d find themselves walking the other way. Lina imagined how the path would look to someone gazing up at it from below—a great zigzag sweeping back and forth across the wall of the cave. Maybe someone was down there now, watching their two dots of light slowly descending.
Little by little, the smudge of light far below in the city grew closer. They stopped every now and then to check, shielding the candlelight with their hands so they could see into the depths. After about an hour, they had to stop to light new candles. They knew an hour had passed, because Doon had figured out, before they left, how long it took one candle to burn down to a stub so that they could use candles a bit like clocks—two inches gone, that meant the candle had been burning for about fifteen minutes. Each candle was about eight inches long and burned for about an hour. The candles they were carrying were now too short to hold. They stopped to get new ones from their packs and went on, step after cautious step, steadily downward.
Then Doon, who was ahead, gave a startled cry. “Here’s the end!” he said. “I’m at the bottom.”
Lina came up behind him, and they stood side by side with their candles showing them each other’s faces, shadowy and orange. When they looked down, they saw bare ground, uneven, strewn with small rocks and pebbles.
“Can you believe it?” said Doon. “We’re in the Unknown Regions.”
“And going to Ember,” said Lina. “There it is.”
Across the ocean of darkness, she could see a faint and wavering glow. They began making their way toward it.
CHAPTER 7
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Calamity
They walked slowly, keeping close together, looking carefully before each step in case the sudden deep pits or nightmarish beasts that people had always whispered about were really there. Doon was using the generator now, cranking it briskly. Lina, walking right beside him, held a candle. Their circle of light was bigger than with the candles alone. But all they saw in it was sandy-colored ground scattered with rocks and pebbles, with an occasional crack or ridge that they had to step over.