“Oh, not long—not long at all,” stammered Sir Emerik. “I locked the boy upstairs and came directly here.”
Lord Phineus looked down at the book, the tip of his black widow’s peak pointing to the floor. When his gaze returned to Sir Emerik, there was suspicion in his eyes.
“Get Sir Philip and meet me in the main chamber.”
A thought crossed Lord Phineus’s mind, and he changed the order just before leaving.
“Give me an hour with it alone; then you may come.”
When Lord Phineus was gone, Sir Emerik felt his temple. A cold sweat clung to his skin, and his hands were shaking. I wonder what it is I’ve found.
The main chamber of the House of Power was a sterile, private place of stone and wood. There were round bowls on the center table full of oily fuel with long wicks aflame in the open air. The statue of Mead’s Head seemed almost alive in the dancing shadows of the night. An hour had passed in which Lord Phineus scoured the pages of the book. Sir Philip and Sir Emerik had arrived outside the door, wondering if they ought to go in.
“You should be aware,” said Sir Emerik. “He’s in a foul mood.”
“When is he not in a foul mood?” asked Sir Philip. He had a crooked front tooth that seemed to want out of his mouth, for it was always pushing on his upper lip and making him perform a sort of half-smile, which he was doing just now.
Sir Emerik knocked on the door, and the two went in. When Lord Phineus looked up from the book, there was a mysterious, cold look on the man’s face. Without a word of introduction, Lord Phineus turned a few pages back and began to read aloud. He read to them the parts that Samuel and Edgar had already read, and soon he was reading sections that Edgar hadn’t had the opportunity to hear.
… There were volunteers, people who had a great deal of wealth or position, and had the means to finance this chance for escape. There were also those who were starved for adventure, for something natural and beautiful they couldn’t find any longer in their own world. And there was a way—a way that would put you to sleep and give you a kind of new memory. It didn’t stop you from being yourself; it only changed what you remembered about certain things. When people woke up, they were on Atherton—you were on Atherton, Edgar—and you were new like Atherton was new. I don’t know how else to explain it so that you will understand. I sent you to Atherton to save you, not to harm you.
The words had a chilling effect on Sir Emerik and Sir Philip, but they seemed to have no effect on Lord Phineus. The wheels in his mind turned on how he might use the information, but he betrayed no outward emotion. There was a stretch of seven or eight pages in which the words had smeared over time. Whole sections were nearly impossible to read. Toward the end, the words became legible again, as though the inside of the book had somehow gotten wet throughout the years and the outside, near the leather cover, had remained safe and dry.
As they came to the last of the little book, Lord Phineus saw that a page—the final page—had been ripped out. He ran his fingers over the tattered edge where the page had been, and a great curiosity grew within him. These were the final words the three men found:
Edgar—you must understand that I am an intelligent man, but my thoughts are simple compared to Dr. Harding’s. I and the others helped him, but he was the architect of Atherton, and I fear he kept many things from us. As I leave you here on Tabletop and make my escape, I feel certain we’ve brought you and the others here too soon. But it’s too late. You are here, the others are here, and Atherton is not what it seemed when we began. We thought it was fully formed, stable, ready to populate. It’s what he told us, but I’ve discovered a part of his hidden plan and it speaks of something more. If you have found this little book it can only mean that it came to you, that what I feared has come to pass. The Highlands have fallen into Tabletop. It’s the only way you could have this book, the only way it could come to you. Time is short and there is only one thing more I must tell you. It is this….
And then Lord Phineus understood what the soft trembling was. He knew, and his mind was aflame with the thought of it. The Highlands are sinking.
“What this Dr. Harding said to Dr. Kincaid is true,” he told them in an even voice. “He’s made a game of it, don’t you see? All the things we have and all the things they don’t….”
“How can this be?” asked Sir Philip, his face awash in fear. He received no reply, only a look of bewilderment from Sir Emerik and something more from Lord Phineus—something odd. It was a cold resolve.
“He’s a madman—was a madman,” said Sir Emerik. “Could this really be true?”
“If it is true,” said Sir Philip, “we must act quickly and with great care.” He was the most military-minded of the three and understood immediately the peril of a fallen world.
Sir Emerik felt the world trembling under his feet again and wondered aloud, “What will become of us?”
Lord Phineus said nothing, for his mind was preoccupied with only one thing: What sort of man had Lord Phineus been before reaching Atherton? If this Dr. Harding had planned to put him to this kind of test, then Lord Phineus must have been a powerful man indeed. Well, Dr. Harding—I suppose the game is afoot, now, isn’t it? We shall see if things go as you expected.
Lord Phineus closed the small book and pushed it slowly across the table, then centered his gaze on Sir Emerik.
“Bring me the boy.”
It didn’t take long for Sir Emerik to return and push Samuel into the room, where he fell to his knees. Samuel raised his head meekly from the floor and saw the eerie face of Lord Phineus, liquid in the orange glow of flames.
“Have you read this book, Samuel?”
Lord Phineus took a drink from a cup on the table. He seemed not to notice as trickles of water spilled from the corners of his lips and down his chin.
“I didn’t read it,” said Samuel.
Lord Phineus picked up the book and held it to his nose for a moment, then he reached across the table and forced the book into Samuel’s face. Samuel tried to retreat, but Sir Emerik held him firmly in place.
“Do you smell that, Samuel? It smells like fuel, don’t you think?” Lord Phineus pulled the book away from Samuel’s face. “I don’t suppose you tried to destroy the pages of this book, did you, Samuel? Maybe you were smearing the pages when Sir Emerik arrived and stopped you from finishing the job. Were you going to burn the book, was that it?”
Samuel struggled to free himself from Sir Emerik. He was grip ping the boy’s arms forcefully, and it was beginning to hurt.
“You do realize, Samuel, that we have quite a problem on our hands.” Lord Phineus was serious and direct in the face of a changing world.
“I barely touched the book,” said Samuel. “I only glanced at it and couldn’t read it. How could anyone read it?”
Lord Phineus stood and advanced toward the boy. He bent down so that his face was very near Samuel’s.
“So you don’t know that the Highlands are sinking and that soon we will find that our city on a hill has come even with the world beneath us?”
“What do you mean?” Samuel was trying his best to hide what he knew.
“I’m not here to answer your questions—you’re here to answer mine,” said Lord Phineus. “There are a few things I need to know, Samuel—and until I know them, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave this room.”
Lord Phineus took hold of Samuel’s wrist and turned it around until it felt like a tight spring in his hand. Samuel screamed.
It didn’t take long to break poor Samuel’s will. He was a smart boy, but his strength and will were thin as paper. Soon enough Lord Phineus knew who Edgar was and where he had come from. Samuel managed one convincing lie, and it was one he was determined to hold onto even if Lord Phineus broke his arm in two.
“I don’t know anything about the missing page. I didn’t see it was gone. I tell you I don’t know!”
Samuel’s heroic effort hid the whereabouts of the final words of the book,
but he could only hope that somehow Edgar would find a way to read the page before it was too late.
Lord Phineus hauled Samuel to his feet by the arm, then thought better of the idea and swept his foot across the boy’s skinny legs, sending him tumbling to the floor.
He took two steps toward Mead’s head, the white stone statue on the pedestal, and he touched the stone face. He put his thumb over the stone eye and was lost in his own thoughts. It soothed his mind to touch Mead’s head, to wonder about it. The moment passed in silence, and then Lord Phineus commanded Sir Philip with an order.
“Ready the men and the horses. The Highlands have been trembling for weeks, and now we know why. There’s not going to be much time to prepare, and we may soon have use of your little army.” Lord Phineus picked up the book once more. “The people from below must be kept out of the Highlands.”
Sir Philip’s crooked tooth slowly emerged, and a grave smile overtook his face. His chance had come to show his worth. He wasted no time leaving the room, and soon the sound of his boots echoing through the stone stairway was gone. Lord Phineus aimed his piercing eyes at Samuel.
“He’s got more on his little mind than he’s telling, but there’s no time to get it out of him now.” Lord Phineus moved his gaze to Sir Emerik. “Lock him up with no food or water and come right back. I have an important errand for you.”
Sir Emerik had been angry when Lord Phineus gave so much responsibility to Sir Philip, but now he beamed. He had been the one to find the book, and now Lord Phineus would surely reward him with a grand role in protecting the Highlands that would be worthy of his position. He commanded the boy to get up, took him by the arm, and pulled him out the door.
CHAPTER
13
BLACK FIGS AND BLISTERS
It took only half as long for Edgar to get down to Tabletop as it had taken him the first time. He was feeling proud of himself as night turned to morning and he arrived at the bottom. When he looked up, he understood why his descent had been so easy, and his satisfaction turned to surprise. The distance to the top was only half as far as it had been when he’d gone up.
There was a constant, gravelly sound seeping from the guts of the world, and it alarmed Edgar. He saw the cliff slowly but steadily disappearing into the earth. If this kept up, it wouldn’t be long until the Highlands were no more—it would be one with Tabletop in a matter of days.
Edgar crept across the expanse in front of the grove until he was within a few feet of the first trees. People would already be at work, and he had to hide quickly. He chose the first large tree he encountered and climbed up into its thick branches, surrounded by leaves and tiny green balls that would soon grow into figs. He took the page out of his front pocket and looked at it once more, wishing he could read the words. As he retraced the messy lines and loops and dots on the page, he felt secure, hidden in the branches of the tree—but he was wrong to assume that no one had seen him enter the grove.
He heard the snap of a sling, then the sound of a black fig hitting the trunk of the tree he was hiding in.
“You’re back awfully soon.” Isabel’s voice came through the trees.
“And you’ve made a new sling.”
She arrived under the tree and peered up through the branches. Edgar jumped down and stared off uneasily toward the center of the grove.
“Everyone is working in the third-years today. It’s the farthest from the cliffs, and Mr. Ratikan is trying to keep them focused on the work. There’s been nothing but talk since you left.”
“Talk of what?” asked Edgar.
Isabel glanced nervously toward the third-year portion of the grove before answering. When she returned her gaze to Edgar, she spoke quickly.
“Everyone in the village knows the Highlands are moving down. It’s all they’ve been talking about. And someone else has become ill in the grove.”
Edgar couldn’t believe his ears. What was becoming of the grove, the only home he’d ever known?
“I’m worried, Edgar,” she said. “Everyone is asking whether or not the Highlands will keep falling and if there will be enough water. Already the pool beneath the waterfall is half what it was a day ago. Mr. Ratikan says the Highlands will stop sinking, that everyone in the grove needs to keep harvesting or they’ll slow the water supply even more. But he’s having a hard time keeping everyone working. They want to talk about what’s happening. They want to know if the water will keep coming. If the Highlands come down much farther, I think everyone might stop working. People are scared. They don’t know what to do.”
Edgar thought about everything she’d said. He spotted the black fig Isabel had hurled a few feet off and picked it up.
“So everyone is in with the third-year trees right now?”
Isabel nodded as Edgar handed her the fig.
“Even Mr. Ratikan?”
“Especially Mr. Ratikan. He’s doing everything he can to keep them busy and away from the cliffs.”
“Do you think we could get into his house without being seen?”
As Edgar started for the center of the grove, Isabel wondered what anyone could possibly want from Mr. Ratikan’s house. Edgar whispered while they zigzagged between the trees.
“I have a friend in the Highlands—a boy my age named Samuel. He heard something that makes me even more suspicious of Mr. Ratikan. If there’s anything to be found, it will be in that house of his.”
Isabel wanted to know everything about Samuel and the Highlands. It was a struggle for Edgar to describe something so different from Tabletop, but he tried his best to share what he’d seen with her. Isabel thought it sounded very green and gold, full of water and exotic animals. Her imagination was running wild as they approached the clearing in the trees where Mr. Ratikan’s house sat. The two of them became more solemn.
There was no one about the place, not even the sound of someone in the distance. Edgar went first, followed by Isabel, but when they reached the three steps to the porch, both of them felt paralyzed. It had always been a forbidden place.
“The door is going to be locked,” said Isabel, breaking the silence between them. “Let’s go around the back and see if we can find another way in.”
They tiptoed all the way around to the back side of the house. At the top corner of the pitched roof there was a single window covered with wooden shutters.
“That’s our best chance,” said Edgar. “I’ll climb up and try to push it open. You go back to the front and make sure the door is actually locked.” He started up without waiting for Isabel’s reply. Edgar didn’t want to go on the porch and hoped Isabel would find the courage to do it for him. She nodded hesitantly and dashed off toward the other side of the house.
When Edgar reached the shutters, he found them locked from the inside. He shook them back and forth—and even tried punching one of them—but they wouldn’t come open. Then he heard a whirling sound from below.
“I can fix that.” Isabel had found the front door locked and had come back around. She was swinging a very long sling around in circles over her head, and it was gaining speed.
“Move aside a little more,” she said.
Edgar leaned into the small space on the side of one shutter and waited until he heard the pop! of the sling and, to his great surprise, felt the fig hit him in the shoulder. It stung more than anything he’d ever felt, like someone had taken a sharp stick and jammed it into his flesh until it came out the other side on his chest. Edgar tried as hard as he could to hold in the howl of pain that was building in his throat, but he couldn’t contain it.
Isabel said she was sorry eleven times before Edgar could get any coherent words to come out of his mouth. He shook his arm back and forth, holding on with one hand, and the sting in his shoulder turned to a tingling ache.
“This is our only chance, Isabel,” Edgar finally said, his voice cracking as he tried not to cry from the pain. “You’ll have to try again. Someone is sure to have heard me shout and will come to find us.”
/>
“I can’t control it! I’ve made it too long.”
“I trust you,” answered Edgar. “Just try again. If you can hit the shutter, it’ll go right through.”
Isabel fumbled in her pocket for a black fig and placed it in the sling. Her hands were shaking. I’m going to knock him off the house or hit him in the head and kill him. I can’t do this.
“Hurry, Isabel. Someone will be here!”
She swung the fig around and around and never took her eye off the shutter farthest from where Edgar was hanging. When she let it go with a snap, she closed her eyes and heard a loud thud. Either she’d hit Edgar in the head and quite possibly killed him or she’d managed to connect with the shutter. When she looked, there was a hole in the shutter where one hadn’t been before, and Edgar was putting his hand through it.
“I got it! I got it, Isabel.”
The shutters flew open, and Edgar climbed inside, closing them behind him. He was hanging from a high windowsill near the ceiling in a dark corner of the house. A thick shaft of light poured in from the hole in the shutter as he looked at the room beneath him. A chair sat against one wall, a bed, a round tub of… what was that? Water. Enough water to take a bath in if he’d wanted to. Cups and spoons were piled up in one corner, and a large basket with a lid in another. The room smelled like sweaty clothes, warm and stale. A ladder stood against the far wall, and Edgar took this to be how Mr. Ratikan opened the shutters.
“Isabel! Why aren’t you at work with the others?” It was the sound of a voice from outside. Just as they had dreaded, Mr. Ratikan had heard Edgar’s cry of pain.
“Get to the grove and don’t bother showing up in the dinner line tonight! Maybe that will cure you of your snooping around.”
Edgar heard Isabel run off and felt sure she’d stayed out in the open only to deflect Mr. Ratikan’s attention away from the house. But now Mr. Ratikan was coming up onto the porch: a step, then the thump of his walking stick striking wood, then a step. He was in front of his door.