They walked on; but Michael had one more thing to ask.
“Dr. Pym …”
“Yes?”
“So the last book, the third one, is it … well …”
The wizard stopped and faced him.
“Yes,” the old man said, “the last is the Book of Death. But that is not a matter to concern us now.” He seemed to study the boy, the torchlight reflecting off the old man’s glasses and making it appear as if small flames danced in his eyes. “Hugo was right. You do look so like your father.”
And again, despite all that had happened, despite all that was still happening, Michael felt a warm glow spread out from his chest and down to the tips of his fingers. He did not even try to suppress it.
He said, very quietly, “… Cool.”
“Yes,” the wizard said. “It is cool.”
Ten yards further on, they found the inscription.
On a section of the tunnel wall that had been sanded smooth, someone had chiseled the same symbol—the three interlocking circles—that had been on the tomb. Below that, likewise carved deep into the stone, was what Michael took for writing, though the language was one he did not recognize. In some ways, it reminded him of Chinese or Japanese, in that the characters were ornate and heavily structured, but there were no breaks between them; everything seemed to flow together, and Michael couldn’t tell if you read it forward, backward, top to bottom, or bottom to top.
He thought it was very beautiful.
“Amazing.” Dr. Pym held his torch close to the rock wall and gripped Michael’s shoulder. “So many years I’ve been searching. We are close, we are very close.”
“What does it say?” Michael asked. “Can you read it?”
“I can. It is the ancient language in which the Books of Beginning are written. Here is the oath of the Order of Guardians.” He pointed to the script just below the symbol and read aloud, his voice reverberating off the walls, “ ‘Bear witness all that I, nameless, do pledge my breath, my strength, my very life, to this sacred task. None shall harm that which I have vowed to protect. So I swear till death frees me of my bond.’ ”
Michael decided that it was a very good oath. Granted, if a dwarf had written it, there would’ve been more mentions of bashing in an enemy’s helmet and of promises hardened in the forges of eternity, but Michael knew you couldn’t hold everyone to a dwarfish standard.
“And this part,” Dr. Pym continued, tapping his finger on the lower portion of text. “ ‘I have failed in my mission. What I leave, I leave in hopes the Keeper may one day arrive. Choose rightly, and you may never die. Choose wrongly, and you will join me.… And Three will become One.’ ”
“What does it mean?” Michael asked.
“Three becoming One is a reference to the Books of Beginning. According to legend, one day the Books will be brought together, three working as one to fulfill their destiny. But the part that interests me is where he writes ‘What I leave, I leave in hopes the Keeper may one day arrive.’ That implies that our mysterious friend has indeed left some sort of map to find the Chronicle. We may yet be in luck.”
“Wait, what’s that?” Michael pointed to a line of very small writing at the bottom of the inscription. He thought it looked like a different language.
The wizard leaned forward, and suddenly let out a loud, echoing laugh.
“What?” Michael demanded. “What does it say?”
“ ‘Tunnel and tomb constructed by Osborne and Sons, Dwarf Contractors, Malpesa.’ ” The wizard was still laughing. “I’d wondered how our sick fellow had burrowed down from that grave. He hired dwarves to do the digging for him.”
“And he would’ve trusted them to keep his secret?” Michael asked, and immediately felt guilty for having said it.
“Oh, I doubt he conveyed the true nature of his secret, but in essence, yes. He would have trusted them. Dwarf builders are known for their discretion. There’s not a safe or vault in the magical world that wasn’t built by a dwarf. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
“Well,” Michael said defensively, “you can’t expect one person to know everything about dwarves. There’s so much. You could learn everything about elves in a good twenty minutes. But dwarves—”
“Yes, yes. Come along.”
And they set off once more.
As they walked, Michael thought about the Keeper mentioned in the inscription, and his mind went back to what Dr. Pym had told him the night before, that Kate had dreamed of him holding a strange book. Could that book have been the Chronicle? But then if he got the Book of Life, did that mean Emma got the Book of Death?
She’s not going to be happy about that, Michael thought.
“Oh dear.”
Michael stopped beside the wizard. Before them, the tunnel came to an abrupt end where a sloping mound of dirt and rocks stretched to the ceiling.
“A cave-in,” Dr. Pym said. “It looks quite recent. This may take some time to deal with— My boy, what’re you doing?”
Michael was clambering up the rocky slope. He’d spotted a small hole or tunnel near the ceiling. Once level with the opening, he balanced himself between a large boulder and the wall and reached his torch into the tunnel’s mouth.
“It goes through,” he said, still breathless from his climb. “It’s only ten or twelve feet. I think I can fit.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Dr. Pym, the longer we’re down here, the longer Emma’s in the graveyard by herself. Just let me go take a look. Please.”
“Michael—”
“If Kate was here, you’d let her go. You know you would.”
The wizard sighed. “Very well. But you are only to look and report back, you understand?”
Michael said he did, and immediately stripped out of his thick coat. Then, with the torch held before him, he wriggled into the tunnel. It was smaller than he’d thought. He had to crawl on his belly, using his forearms and elbows to drag himself along. Soon, he had scrapes on his arms and elbows, on his shoulders, chin, legs, the top of his head. And then he got stuck. He twisted this way and that, but it was no good. He told himself not to panic, that he was nearly at the end. Gripping with his hands while bracing one foot against a rock, he heaved himself forward with all his strength. It was a ferocious effort, so much so that he pitched himself completely out of the tunnel and landed hard on a rocky floor.
He was up in an instant, scrambling about for his dropped torch. He could hear the wizard’s voice echoing through the tunnel:
“Michael, say something! What was that noise? Are you hurt?”
Michael opened his mouth but no words came. His torch was illuminating a small chamber. There was a wooden table, there was a chair, and there was the thing that sat in the chair, staring at him.
Emma had climbed onto the roof of a large mausoleum, and from her perch, she had views both down into the rat tomb (where she was very consciously not looking) and out over the uneven skyline of the graveyard. The bridge to Malpesa had vanished. Everything was silent and dark and still.
To pass the time, and as a way of not thinking about the squirming pool of rats—fake or not, she didn’t trust them—Emma had started imagining that Kate had come back from the past and was sitting beside her. She had only to turn her head and Kate would be there, smiling, ready to take Emma in her arms. The more she imagined it, the more real the vision became, till Emma started to think that Kate actually was there and only waiting for her younger sister to notice her presence.
Don’t look, she told herself. She’s not there; don’t look.
Emma looked. She was alone.
Turning back, she had to wipe her hand across her eyes, as the lights of Malpesa had begun to blur and shimmer in the distance. She wrapped her arms around her knees and began to rock back and forth.
I want Kate back, she thought. I want Kate back I want Kate back I want Kate back.…
The night was cold and dark, and nothing moved in the graveyard.
What were Michael and the wizard doing?
She glanced up. The lights in the distance were still blurry, and Emma rubbed at her eyes. She looked again, and the lights were moving. She started to stand, then remembered Michael’s warning and crouched low, peering through the darkness.
The bridge to Malpesa had reappeared, and a line of torches was marching across it, coming toward the cemetery.
Snatching up the stick the wizard had given her, Emma rushed to the edge of the roof. She had to warn Dr. Pym. But then, slipping to the ground, Emma heard a voice close by, echoing through the tombstones.
“They’re here! Spread out! Find them!”
With horror, Emma realized that there was another group already in the graveyard. She’d let them slip by while she’d been thinking about Kate! She cursed herself. Dr. Pym had trusted her to do one thing, and she’d let him down!
She could hear the stomping of boots, and the same voice spoke again; it had an accent she didn’t recognize.
“Find the children! You hear me? I want the children!”
Crouched beside the mausoleum, she could see torches flickering between the gravestones. She had to cross ten yards of open space to get to the tomb. She would be completely exposed, but there was no other way. Gathering herself, Emma bolted across, climbed up the side of the tomb, and froze—
Below her, the sea of rats roiled and squirmed. Panic seized hold of her.
She could hear the stamping of boots coming closer.…
Do it, she commanded. Now!
And she lowered herself down, praying she didn’t throw up.
The figure in the chair was a skeleton. It—or he (Michael was fairly sure it had been a man)—wore the rotted remains of an ancient tunic and sat behind the wooden table, positioned so as to face anyone who entered the chamber. The skeleton’s hands rested on the table, the right one curled about the hilt of a naked sword. Hanging from one of the joints of its left hand was a gold ring bearing the now-familiar symbol of three interlocking circles.
It seemed to Michael that the skeleton was watching him.
“Michael!” The wizard’s voice was insistent. “Answer me! Are you hurt? Are you in danger?”
“I’m … I’m fine! Just give me a second!”
Michael took a tentative step closer. The skeleton didn’t move.
Okay, Michael thought, let’s stay calm and see what we have here.
The table had clearly been prepared for visitors. There were three jars, arranged in a line, and an old metal goblet. The goblet was on Michael’s, not the skeleton’s, side of the table. Michael glanced again at the skeleton. It still hadn’t moved.
He recalled the message on the wall.
What I leave, I leave in hopes the Keeper may one day arrive. Choose rightly, and you may never die. Choose wrongly, and you will join me.…
It was a puzzle! You had to drink from one of the jars.
Michael rubbed his hands together. Things were looking up. He loved puzzles, riddles, anything you could work through logically.
“You sly fellow,” he said to the skeleton. He really was feeling much more comfortable. He turned to tell Dr. Pym what he’d found—
Then stopped.
No doubt the wizard could solve the puzzle in an instant. But perhaps this was an opportunity. He was the oldest now; he’d been given Kate’s role. Only Michael was aware that no one really saw him that way. This was his chance to prove himself. He imagined climbing out of the tunnel, and Dr. Pym saying, “What did you find out? What do I need to do?” and as he casually dusted himself off, Michael would reply, “Save your spells, Doctor. I solved the puzzle. Good old-fashioned logic.” Even Emma would be impressed.
“Michael, what’s going on in there?”
“Just one more minute!”
He would have to be quick.
Choose wrongly, and you will join me.…
That was pretty self-explanatory. Drink from the wrong jar, and you become a skeleton yourself.
Choose rightly, and you may never die.…
This man, when he’d been a man, had lived for thousands of years thanks to the Book of Life. Indeed, the whole thing was perfectly clear. Two jars were poison. One would guide him to the Chronicle. He only had to make the right choice.
He started with the jar on his left. It was a reddish-brown clay jug, bell-shaped and stoppered with a cork. Michael pulled out the cork and sniffed. He jerked back in revulsion. It was as if someone had filled the jug with sludge from the bottom of a swamp and mixed in kerosene, vinegar, and something that smelled like wet dog. Michael stuffed the cork back into the jug and stepped to the right.
The middle container was a slender, ruby-colored bottle half filled with dark liquid. Michael removed the cork, leaned forward, and—gingerly this time—sniffed. He sniffed again. He hadn’t imagined it. Whatever was in the bottle smelled like root beer.
He moved on to the last container.
It was a small metal flask the size of a bottle of perfume. The cap was held in place by a lever shaped like a tiny claw, and when Michael pressed a button, the cap popped up. He brought the flask to his nose. He smelled nothing. He held it closer and inhaled more deeply. Still nothing. He released the button and returned the flask to the table.
“Michael”—the wizard’s voice was now more annoyed than worried—“I insist you tell me what is going on.”
“There’s no map! There’s a table with three jars! Oh, and there’s a skeleton! But he’s just sitting there.”
Michael looked at the skeleton. He hadn’t moved, had he? Michael tried to remember if the skeleton’s head had been in that exact position.
“Michael, I forbid you to touch anything! In fact, come back right now! Do you hear me?”
“I’m just … tying my shoe.”
“Well, for goodness— Oh, hold on a second, my boy!”
Michael thought he could hear another voice, further off, his sister’s, and the wizard was calling to her. He wondered if something had happened in the graveyard. Michael sensed that his time was running out.
Choose rightly, and you may never die.…
Choose wrongly, and you will join me.…
The clay jar certainly smelled like poison, but maybe that was the point. When designing a puzzle, you always put the solution where it’s least expected. In which case, the swampy, wet-dog-smelling concoction was Michael’s best bet.
Or was that a little too obvious? Wouldn’t the skeleton man have assumed that Michael or whoever would automatically go for the most disgusting alternative? Wouldn’t it be far more clever to have the least poisonous-seeming option not actually be poison? In that case, Michael should choose the ruby-colored bottle and its promise of root beer.
Except … there was still the metal flask to consider. That smelled like nothing at all. How did that figure into the equation? And, come to think of it, was he making a mistake in not looking at the containers themselves: a clay jug, a glass bottle, a metal flask? Was there some meaning there? Or perhaps the clue was in their respective placements on the table?
What I really need, Michael thought, are lab rats. I could feed each of them one of the potions and see who survives.
Michael glanced about, but the chamber was depressingly rat-free.
Admit it, he thought, you have no idea which is the right potion.
Very quietly, he murmured, “Eenie … meenie … miney—”
He stopped, too embarrassed to continue.
Choose, Michael told himself. You just have to choose. Do it. Now.
He uncorked the clay jug and tilted it into the goblet. His hands shook and he had to steady the jug against his body. Slowly, almost reluctantly, a foul greenish-yellow sludge slithered into the bowl of the goblet. Michael stared. How was he supposed to drink this? He’d need a spoon. Or a fork.
As Michael raised the goblet to his lips, he had to pinch his nose to keep from gagging. He could actually see the goop crawling toward his mouth. He knew he
was being stupid. If only he’d had more time, he could’ve worked it out. Perhaps found some rats in another cave. He was glad that Kate couldn’t see him, or Dr. Pym, or his dad, or even G. G. Greenleaf, author of The Dwarf Omnibus—
Michael abruptly lowered the cup, the goop a hairbreadth away from touching his lips.
Setting down the goblet, Michael pulled the Omnibus from his bag. He knew the chapter he was looking for and opened directly to it. He read: “ ‘Puzzles have long been a key part of every magical quest, and no surprise, dwarves have always excelled at them!’ ”
Michael felt relief washing over him. Good old G. G. Greenleaf!
The key to solving any puzzle is to place yourself in the mind of the puzzle maker. What were his intentions with the puzzle? Whom did he want to solve it? Whom to fail? Always go back to the directions; someone wrote them for a reason. Also, if nothing else works, try smashing the puzzle with your ax. It’s frequently effective.
Michael closed the Omnibus and looked at the skeleton. The man had been one of the last Guardians of the book; he’d wanted to protect it. Therefore, he’d wanted most people to fail the test. But if someone just randomly chose a potion, he had a one-in-three chance of succeeding. Michael thought that seemed too high. The Guardian would not want one in three to succeed, but the one. The Keeper.
Michael was suddenly sure that none of the potions was the right answer, and that if he’d drunk the foul-smelling sludge, he would now be dead.
“Michael!”
Emma’s voice yanked him to the tunnel. He could see the flickering of torchlight at the far end.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“You gotta get outta there!” She was desperate. “They’re coming! Lots of them!”
“Who? What’re you—”
“Screechers! I saw them! Hurry!”
“But we still don’t know where the next book is! I can—”
“Michael”—it was the wizard speaking—“we’ll find the book some other way! Come back now! That is an order!”
But Michael was already turning back to the table. He was certain that if he didn’t get the answer now, didn’t discover the location of the Chronicle, then they would never find the book. And everything depended on that. Which meant everything depended on him. He opened the Omnibus and read the passage again. One phrase caught his eye: “Always go back to the directions; someone wrote them for a reason.…”