Delivery to the Lost City

by P. G. Bell

  There was a splash in te waters behind them, and Wilmot swung the flashlight around to reveal one of the creature’s tentacles sticking out of the lagoon, its glowing eye watching them like a periscope. Suzy tensed, but the creature made no move toward them. It seemed more curious than aggressive.

  “Why’s that beastie lost its appetite all of a sudden?” asked the Chief. “It could have eaten us twice over by now.”

  “Maybe it’s friendly after all,” said Suzy, who didn’t want to tempt fate by examining the question too closely.

  “It is a kraken,” said the book. “A servant creature of Hydroborea. It can be made to follow simple instructions.”

  “You knew it came from Hydroborea all along?” said Suzy. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Because I knew you would find out when it brought us here,” said the book.

  The eye continued to watch them from the middle of the lagoon.

  “It seemed to be waiting for us,” said Suzy. “Do you think someone knew we were coming and ordered it to bring us here?”

  “Maybe,” said Wilmot.

  “But then why aren’t they here to meet us?” He shone the flashlight around the street, but it was still devoid of life.

  “Whatever the answer, we’ll certainly never find it by sitting here,” said the Chief. “Rule number one of discovery—when in doubt, be nosy.”

  “Good idea,” said Wilmot. “But first we need to get onto solid ground.” He turned his flashlight uphill, where the street emerged from the water. “I’ve got just the thing.” He ducked back into the H.E.C. and reemerged a minute later with something that looked like a cross between a fishing rod and a leaf blower. The rod was fashioned from a length of pipe with an oversized fishhook at the end, while the reel was attached to a small piston engine.

  “My dad showed me how to use one of these,” said Wilmot cheerily. “But I’ve never tried it myself. You’d better stand back.” He stood up, swaying a little, and pulled the piston engine’s rip cord. The engine chugged to life, making the whole contraption vibrate, and Wilmot fought to keep it steady as he angled it back over his shoulder. “It’s all about a nice, clean overhand cast,” he said. Then he snapped his wrist forward, there was a loud bang! and the fishhook blasted out of the end of the rod, trailing a shimmering silver thread behind it. It struck a wrought iron balcony on a mansion house just above the waterline, and caught. Wilmot gave the line a tug, and the hook held fast.

  “Excellent shot!” said the Chief.

  “Thank you!” Wilmot grinned. “I wish my dad could have seen it.” He began turning the fishing reel, the line went taut, and the H.E.C. was slowly pulled to the water’s edge. When they heard the caravan’s belly scrape the road surface, Wilmot stopped winding them in and pressed a button on the rod’s side. At once, the line of silver thread twitched as though it were alive, the hook unfastened itself from the balcony, and the line spooled itself back onto the reel.

  “You’re a natural,” said Suzy as they both climbed down from the roof onto the ground. “That spire we saw on top of the city must be the Gilded Tower.

  “It is,” said the book.

  “And we’re practically at the bottom,” said Suzy. “It’s going to be quite a climb.”

  “Think of all the discovering we can do along the way,” said the Chief, hovering between them.

  “I just hope we can discover a way out of here when we’re finished,” said Suzy. “Because right now, we’re trapped.”

  “We’ll do our best,” said Wilmot, winding his flashlight. “But our delivery comes first. Everyone at home is depending on us.”

  “Right,” said Suzy. She wiped her soaking hair out of her eyes again. “I just wish we’d brought an umbrella.”

  13

  THE ONLY WAY IS UP

  The Express left the tunnel with a whoosh! and daylight flooded into the cab again. Frederick, who had been sitting on the kitchen worktop trying to keep a lid on his impatience, sprang into action and hurried to the front door. To his annoyance, Suzy’s parents hurried with him.

  “Where on earth are we?” asked Suzy’s mom as the three of them stepped out onto the Belle’s gangway.

  The Express was racing through an undulating landscape of sand dunes, stained all the colors of the rainbow, as if someone had upended gigantic pots of ink across them. The colors spread out in rings from shards of crystal that jutted out of the sand here and there, pointing toward the azure sky.

  “I think I’ve heard of this place,” said Frederick. “It’s the Tie-Dye Desert.”

  Suzy’s dad shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted out across the dunes. “Is that because of all the colors?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Frederick. “You see those big crystal things? They absorb the light from the sun and break it into its component colors, which soak into the sand.”

  “It’s incredible,” said Suzy’s mom, who had been steadily regaining her composure since the Express had got underway again in the Topaz Narrows. Frederick supposed she felt better now that they were actually doing something about Suzy’s situation. “But why are we here? I thought we were looking for a city.”

  “The city of Propellendorf,” said Stonker, sticking his head out of the front door. “We’re almost there. Now get back inside, all of you, and hold on to something. We’ve got a tricky maneuver ahead of us.”

  “But where is it?” said Suzy’s dad. “I can’t see anything but sand.”

  “Because you’re looking in the wrong place,” said Stonker.

  He jabbed a finger at the sky. A gigantic, angular shape had appeared over the horizon and was riding through the air high above the dunes. It was too far away for Frederick to make out many details, but he saw that it was crowned with several tall spires, all topped with whirling rotor blades.

  “That thing’s Propellendorf?” said Suzy’s mom.

  “The greatest of the sky cities,” said Stonker. “It’s only going to cross our path for a moment, so our timing’s got to be spot-on. Now hurry up and get inside.” He ushered them all back into the cab and slammed the door.

  “Our timing for what?” asked Frederick as Stonker made a quick assessment of the controls.

  “Our ascent, of course,” said Stonker. “Propellendorf doesn’t land to pick people up. We’re going to have to catch it as it flies by.”

  “You mean the Express can fly, too?” said Suzy’s dad.

  Ursel caught Stonker’s eye. Stonker chewed his lip. “Not exactly,” he said. “But it can be persuaded to fall upward. Probably.”

  Frederick’s mouth dropped open. “Oh no,” he said. “No way! Not the Negotiable Gravity.”

  “It’s against regulations to use it like this,” said Stonker. “But this is an emergency.”

  “What?” said Suzy’s mom. “What’s he talking about, Frederick?”

  “He’s going to reverse the effect of gravity on the Express,” said Frederick, stumbling to the sink and gripping the taps with both hands. “Instead of pulling us down, it’s going to pull us up toward Propellendorf.” The idea was already making him queasy. Suzy’s attempt to do something similar, by making the Express fall sideways across the gap between Center Point Station and the Ivory Tower, had only just worked, but the results hadn’t been pretty.

  “Brace yourselves, everyone,” said Stonker, taking hold of a large dial. “Ursel? Disengage the safety locks.”

  Ursel hammered at a section of the controls with a wrench until a large red light started blinking.

  “Is this a good idea?” asked Suzy’s dad. “It sounds dangerous.”

  “Of course it’s dangerous,” said Frederick. “So hold on!”

  Suzy’s parents lunged for the nearest door and took hold of the handle together.

  “Ready…,” said Stonker, his voice clipped. “Steady…”

  The Express raced on through the dunes. Through the front windows, Frederick saw the great shadow of Propellendorf sweep across the track ahe
ad of them.

  “Now!” shouted Stonker, and turned the dial one hundred and eighty degrees.

  Frederick’s stomach did a little flip as his feet left the floor. He clung to the taps as gravity shifted and pulled him up toward the ceiling. Suzy’s parents screamed as they, too, flipped upside down. Stonker and Ursel gripped the controls, fighting to stay right side up.

  “It’s working!” said Stonker. The ends of his mustache had risen to point upward and looked like an enormous hairy grin.

  Outside the windows, the Tie-Dye Desert dropped away below them. The Express had lifted clear of the rails and was rising straight up into the sky.

  If we miss Propellendorf, we’ll just keep falling upward into nothing, thought Frederick, and he immediately regretted it. The idea of tumbling helplessly until they left the world behind them, or, even worse, of the Negotiable Gravity overloading and the Express plunging back to solid ground, terrified him.

  He was only a second away from screwing his eyes shut and screaming along with Suzy’s parents when he saw Propellendorf through the window, and his terror was momentarily bested by wonder. It was a gleaming machine of a city, with four mighty spires at its corners. Each spire was crowned with triple-decker rotor blades several hundred yards across, whirling so quickly they were little more than a blur. Runways jutted like tongues from the city’s sides, and swarms of small aircraft buzzed around it like flies.

  It all rushed closer and closer until they were in the city’s shadow, its huge underbelly blotting out the sky above them—vents and pipework and bundles of cargo suspended in netting.

  “We’re going to make it!” shouted Stonker.

  “We’re going to crash!” Frederick replied.

  He shut his eyes, and the Express hit the city, not with the sickening crunch he had expected, but with a loud wet splat! The jolt was still enough to dislodge his grip on the taps, and he fell, flailing, to the ceiling, where he landed among the clutter of pots and pans. A second later, Stonker, Ursel, and Suzy’s parents landed beside him.

  They lay in dazed silence for a moment, until Suzy’s dad spoke.

  “Um … what’s that orange stuff?”

  Frederick looked and saw that a viscous tangerine substance was dribbling down the outside of the windows. At the same time, a sweet, hot-peppery smell invaded the cab.

  “Hrunf,” said Ursel, sniffing the air and sneezing.

  “Squashed magma berries, apparently,” said Stonker. “We can thank them for the soft landing.”

  Frederick gave a shaky laugh. “You call that soft?”

  “We’ve had worse,” said Stonker.

  “Never mind that,” said Suzy’s mom. “Let’s find Fletch and that bifurcator while there’s still time. Suzy’s and Wilmot’s lives depend on it.”

  14

  WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD

  Suzy, Wilmot, and the Chief trudged uphill through the curling streets of Hydroborea until they’d left the floodwaters below them. It was hard going—the salty rain was incessant, and Suzy and Wilmot were soon drenched to the skin. The ground was slippery underfoot, and every building they passed was dark and empty. Things that looked like streetlights lined the pavement—glass bowls mounted on columns of sculpted coral—but the coral was bleached and dead, and the glass broken. Wilmot’s flashlight cut a dazzling wedge from the darkness ahead.

  Suzy’s spirits dipped with every squelching step. So much for the birthplace of magic, she thought. It’s totally dead. And that means there’ll be no one to take the book back, which means we can’t complete our delivery, which means the crew will never be able to deliver anything again. Not that it matters, because the whole Union is going to fall apart without the Ivory Tower to hold it together. And to think a few hours ago I was just worried about having my friends over for dinner.

  “Cheer up, you two,” said the Chief. “I’ve just discovered something else. Look.” He pointed across the street to a shop decorated with jewel-like mosaic tiles and a striped awning, now badly tattered. The words FRESH CORAL GROWN TO ORDER were still visible on it before the book sucked them up, although when she approached the windows, Suzy saw that the coral arranged in the plant pots behind the glass was dead and gray.

  “How does this help us?” she asked.

  “I was talking about the poster,” said the Chief, pointing. Sure enough, a simple red-bordered poster had been pasted inside one of the windows. In bold black letters it said:

  OBEY FROGMAGGOG!

  (Or else.)

  “What d’you suppose that means?” wondered Wilmot.

  “I’m not sure,” said Suzy. “But I don’t like the sound of it.”

  The words on the poster evaporated and were drawn into Wilmot’s satchel. He sighed. “I don’t suppose you can shed any light on this?” he asked the book.

  “Obey Frogmaggog,” the book answered. “Or else.”

  “Very helpful,” said Suzy. “But who is Frogmaggog?”

  “I do not know,” said the book, its voice muffled by the satchel. “Hydroborea is not as it once was.”

  You can say that again, thought Suzy. She pictured the old ruins she had seen on television and in books at home: the Roman Forum, the Parthenon in Athens, the Aztec pyramids in Mexico … Once-great civilizations that had crumbled and faded. Had the same thing happened to Hydroborea?

  She pulled her sodden coat tighter around herself and shivered.

  Wilmot’s flashlight flickered and died as if in sympathy. He had begun winding it again, when Suzy realized that the darkness hadn’t reasserted itself completely—there was a faint but steady glow emanating from behind the houses farther up the street.

  “Look!” she said, pointing. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wilmot. “But it’s worth a look.”

  They hurried on with renewed enthusiasm. The light grew clearer as they climbed, and faint sounds began to filter through the hiss of the rain—Suzy heard footsteps, voices, and the steady background hum of a city going about its business.

  “There really is someone else here!” she said, her soaking clothes and numb fingers suddenly forgotten.

  “I think it’s this way,” said the Chief, pointing to a narrow alleyway between two of the vacant mansions. Suzy clasped Wilmot’s hand and together they plunged into it. The alley was thick with shadows, but the light at the end of it was almost dazzling. When they reached it, Suzy let out a little gasp of delight.

  The alley opened into a small plaza, ringed with glowing streetlights and busy with people. They looked roughly human in size and shape, although they walked with a curious waddling gait and were so wrapped up in waterproof jackets and boots that it was impossible to make out their features clearly. The bits of their skin that Suzy could see were so white they practically glowed.

  Her gaze was drawn to the streetlights. Their coral supports were a riot of colors, and their glass bowls were full of water in which shoals of tiny neon fish swirled and danced, their bodies emitting a fiery glow. The light they cast fell like dappled sunshine across the square and turned every raindrop into a flaring golden spark. Suzy let it play across her face and immediately felt a little warmer.

  The houses overlooking the square were clearly inhabited, and although their facades were cracked and faded, they looked clean and well cared for.

  The city’s not completely abandoned, she thought. We’ve got five hours left before our delivery deadline. We can still do this!

  “Extra, extra!” shouted a warbling voice from across the square. “No problems in Hydroborea, Frogmaggog confirms. Golden age of magic continues. Read all about it in today’s Daily Snail!” The voice came from inside a newspaper stall on a street corner opposite the alley, and as one, the Hydroboreans all stopped whatever they were doing and made toward it. Their behavior seemed eerily coordinated, but as they lined up in front of the stall, it gave Suzy her first proper look at them.

  Their faces were smooth and simplistic—big, blue-ringed
eyes, two small holes for a nose, and wide mouths that stretched almost from ear to ear. Or rather, would have done, if the Hydroboreans had had ears at all. Instead, they sported fern-shaped fronds on the sides of their heads, and the sight of them triggered a connection in Suzy’s mind—her school biology textbook, and the term they had spent studying amphibians.

  “They’re newts!” Suzy whispered. “Or something a bit like newts. I think.”

  “Fascinating!” the Chief declared. “I’ve not seen anything quite like them before. Have you, Postmaster?”

  “Never,” said Wilmot. “I’m sure we’re going to look just as strange to them, which means we have to be even more diplomatic than usual. Remember chapter five of The Knowledge: ‘When on a delivery, always give a good first impression.’”

  “Allow me to make the introductions,” said the Chief. “I’ve done this sort of thing before, remember.” He straightened his hat and cleared his throat in preparation.

  “We’ll all say hello together,” said Wilmot, putting his flashlight back in his pocket. “But perhaps you’d better stay inside your skull to begin with. We don’t want to overwhelm them.”

  “Taking the low-key approach, eh?” said the Chief. “Good thinking.” He retreated back inside his skull. Suzy wasn’t sure that a talking skull with glowing eye sockets was any less overwhelming than an actual ghost, but she chose not to comment as she removed the skull from her satchel.

  “Just make sure you hold me where I can see what’s going on,” he said. Suzy tucked the skull under her arm.

  “Now, remember,” said Wilmot. “The most urgent thing is getting to the tower. Someone here must be able to help us.”

  As they started across the square, the newspaper seller began hawking his wares again.

  “Get your list of today’s arrests and executions! Today’s mandatory news bulletin, ladies and gents! One copy per citizen! Fines for noncompliance!”

  Suzy wavered. “Um, Wilmot?” she said. “Maybe we need to think about this more carefully.”