by Stuart Gibbs
And so Aramis, Porthos, Greg, and Catherine decided to ride on ahead of the army. They accepted a hot meal from Emil, as well as new clothes and weapons. They went to bed as soon as the sun went down, intending to catch up on some much-needed sleep, although it seemed to Greg that he had just closed his eyes when Aramis was already shaking him awake. The sky was still dark, so Greg checked his watch.
“It’s three in the morning,” he protested.
“We’ve wasted enough time already,” Aramis replied. “Paris will not stand for long.”
Greg couldn’t argue with that. He staggered to his feet and helped Aramis wake Catherine and Porthos.
They had just saddled their horses when a voice caught them by surprise. “Where do you think you’re going?”
It was Athos. Greg was stunned to see him awake, let alone out of bed. Athos looked considerably better—the swelling in his leg had gone down dramatically—although he still seemed drained from his ordeal and needed a crutch to support himself.
“Back to Paris,” Porthos replied, and quickly filled Athos in on what had happened.
“Then I’m coming with you,” Athos replied.
“No,” Aramis said. “You need to rest. You almost died because you wouldn’t take care of yourself before.”
“And now, thanks to D’Artagnan, I’m fixed.” Athos flashed a smile, looking more like his old self than he had in days. “I’m not going to sit here twiddling my thumbs while the rest of you run off to confront Dinicoeur and Milady and Condé. Without me, you’ll all be dead in five minutes.”
“No,” Aramis repeated. “You might feel better, but you’re not. Not yet. We’ll be all right without you.”
“You won’t even be able to get back into the city without me,” Athos replied.
The others looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?” Porthos asked.
“You can’t simply walk up to the city gates in the middle of a siege and ask to be allowed in,” Athos explained. “The moment anyone opens the gates, the enemy will sweep in. That means you’ll need to use the secret entrances, but you don’t know where they are, do you?”
Greg frowned in response. The truth was, the map he’d seen had only indicated the approximate locations of the three secret entrances to the city. Finding them, however, certainly wouldn’t be easy. “And you do?” he asked.
“I know one,” Athos replied smugly. “I learned it when I was in the king’s guard. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to describe where the entrance is. So I’ll just have to show you.”
Greg wondered whether this was true. He suspected that Athos certainly could have described the entrance’s location and was merely pretending otherwise so he’d be asked to come along.
Aramis, Porthos, and Catherine leaned in closely to Greg. “Could he truly be ready to travel so soon?” Aramis asked.
“I suppose,” Greg replied. “I’m not a doctor or anything, but his wound wasn’t really that big. It was the infection that was killing him. And if we took care of that, I suppose he could recover quickly. I’d probably want to spend another few days in bed, but this is Athos we’re talking about.” He pointed toward Athos, who was currently practicing how to sword-fight while using a crutch at the same time. “He certainly seems to be feeling better.”
Catherine smiled and shook her head in amazement. “Far better than he would if they’d sawed off his leg.”
Aramis approached Athos again. “All right,” he said. “You can come with us. But promise me, if the exertion starts to make you worse again, you’ll stop. You’re worth far more to us alive than dead.”
“I won’t be slowing anyone down,” Athos said. “If anything, you’ll be slowing me.” With that, he clambered on one of the horses and spurred it on.
The others raced to their horses and followed. They galloped after Athos, through the camp, and onto the Roman road again, heading north toward Paris.
As he’d threatened, Athos set the pace, riding hard the whole way. Greg suspected that his friend’s leg was still in great pain, but the swordsman didn’t show it. He didn’t put any weight on it if he could help it, but other than that, he rode as fast as any of the others. After a few hours, Greg felt as though he was the one who’d been operated on. His muscles burned and he was dizzy with fatigue. But still, they pressed on.
They reached Paris just before noon and found it in the midst of a full-on siege.
Condé’s army might have been smaller than Richelieu’s, but it had come prepared with siege weapons. Greg could count a dozen catapults and trebuchets, one of which launched a huge rock at the city walls while he watched. The rock smashed into the ramparts, scattering the guards there and shattering a merlon as though it were made of glass. The huge weapons allowed the army to attack from afar, keeping out of range of any arrows the Parisians could fire. While Condé had the city surrounded, the bulk of his attack was focused on the eastern side. Until a few months before, this side of the city had been protected by the Bastille, a large fortress, but Michel Dinicoeur had badly damaged that when he’d freed Dominic Richelieu from its dungeon, and it had yet to be fully repaired. The city wall was weakened there, and now Condé’s army was building a massive battering ram, apparently hoping to destroy the fortifications once and for all.
Fortunately, the secret entrance Athos knew of began far beyond enemy lines. “It’s an abandoned limestone mine,” he explained.
“Like the one the Spanish assassin chased D’Artagnan into?” Porthos asked.
“Yes,” Athos replied. “From what I understand, there are several abandoned mines around Paris. The difference is, this one actually runs underneath the city. It was built hundreds of years ago—I’ve heard that most of the stone for Notre Dame came from it. But it’s long been forgotten.”
Athos led the others to one of the few bits of forest still standing near Paris, two acres of trees atop a rocky mound that every farmer knew was impossible to clear and plow. They left their horses at the edge and pushed into the woods on foot. To Greg’s surprise, Athos seemed even better after the long ride than he had before it, as though the exercise had done him good. His fever appeared to be gone, and while he still limped to keep his full weight off his wounded leg, he was barely even using the crutch. He led the way through the woods so quickly, it was difficult to keep up.
Still, it took him a while to locate the entrance. It was hidden deep in a tangle of underbrush, near the base of an ancient oak tree that looked like a hundred others nearby. The only difference was that at the base of this one, there was a hole between two of the roots. The hole wasn’t even that big, barely wide enough for a man to wriggle through. “This is it,” Athos said.
“That?” Porthos asked. “That little thing is the secret entrance to Paris?”
“Well, if it were a giant tunnel with signs all around it saying, ‘This way to Paris,’ it wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it?” Athos shot back.
“I know that,” Porthos said, then glanced down at his large belly. “I just expected something that I could actually, well . . . fit through.”
“It’s only the entrance that’s this tight,” Athos told him. “In order to keep it hidden. It widens out inside.”
“How much?” Catherine asked. Though she could easily fit through the entrance, Greg noticed that she didn’t look very eager to head down through the narrow, muddy hole.
“A bit,” Athos said, though without much confidence. He stooped to wriggle into the tunnel, but before anyone could take another step, he held up his hand. He knelt by the mine entrance and inspected the muddy ground there. “Someone else has been through here,” he said.
Greg and the others leaned in to see that there were two sets of boot prints in the mud. They appeared to be exactly the same size.
“Dinicoeur and Richelieu,” Aramis said.
“Are you sure?” Catherine asked, now looking even more worried.
“No,” Aramis replied. “But what other two men with th
e same size feet would have come this way? Dinicoeur knows all the secret entrances into the city—and we already suspected he would be returning to Paris.” He turned to Athos. “Can you tell how long ago the prints were made?”
Athos pressed a finger into the mud. “I can’t say for sure, but since this mud’s still wet, they seem quite fresh. I’d guess it hasn’t been too long. Less than a few hours, if that.”
“Then we don’t have a moment to lose,” Aramis said. “Lead the way.”
Athos nodded and started into the tunnel again.
“Wait!” Porthos called out.
Athos swung back toward him. “What now?”
“Isn’t anyone else bothered by the fact that our enemies just came through here?” Porthos asked. “What if they’re waiting in the cave to ambush us in there?”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Aramis explained. “In the first place, it’s not so surprising that Dinicoeur and Richelieu came this way. There are only three secret entrances into the city, and this is the only one on the southern side. To use any of the others, they’d have to circle around past Condé’s army. They’ve merely done what we did: get to the closest access point. If anything, we should be pleased to learn they came through recently. It means that we’ve nearly caught up to them.”
“And the ambush . . . ?” Porthos asked.
“They probably think we’re dead,” Aramis said. “I’m sure they heard that we’d been captured by Condé and sent to Les Baux. Condé wanted the entire countryside to know that.”
“We don’t know that they heard that news for sure, though,” Greg cautioned. “And even if Dinicoeur and Richelieu knew we’d been captured, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be prepared for us anyway.”
“Still,” Aramis said, “they couldn’t possibly know that we’re trailing so closely behind them or that we’d follow them here. They’re not going to be waiting in the tunnel to attack us.”
“Probably not,” Greg admitted. “But they could have booby-trapped it, just to be on the safe side. They’d certainly know that if we did return to Paris, we’d most likely use this tunnel. And for that matter, Milady also knows this route exists. I wouldn’t put it past her to leave a surprise for us—or Dinicoeur.”
Porthos gulped. “Maybe we ought to try a different entrance then.”
“We can’t,” Athos grumbled. “This is the only one I know the exact location of. And even if I did know where the others were, we wouldn’t have the time to get to them.”
Porthos frowned. “All right,” he said. “I guess we have to go this way. But I think D’Artagnan’s right. We need to be very cautious.”
“And yet we need to move as quickly as possible,” Athos said, with a glance at Aramis.
“Er, yes,” Aramis admitted.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Athos said with a sigh. And then he slipped into the tunnel.
Porthos went next. As he’d feared, he barely made it through the opening. For a moment, he actually got wedged in the hole, but then he sucked in his belly and squeezed through.
Greg went next, with Catherine and Aramis close behind him.
Inside, the tunnel was damp, claustrophobic, and pitch-black. After going only a few steps, Greg couldn’t see an inch in front of his face. It was extremely unnerving—especially knowing that Dinicoeur or Milady might have left a trap. He was sorely tempted to use his last remaining match to light a torch, but he felt he needed to save it for a true emergency. Besides, the tunnel was so cramped, it would have been impossible to carry a live flame. At several points, everyone had to get on their hands and knees to wriggle through a narrow spot.
To find the way through in the darkness, Athos followed a series of markings that had been carved into the wall, sort of like signposts for the blind. There were several tunnels that branched off the main one, and Athos cautioned everyone to stay close together and not make a wrong turn. “It’s a maze down here,” he warned. “If someone ends up going the wrong way in the dark, there’s a decent chance they’ll never find their way out again.”
“What’s our priority when we get to the city?” Porthos asked. “Do we try to track down Dinicoeur first? Or Milady? Or find the other half of this Devil’s Stone?”
“I’d say we find Milady,” Athos suggested. “She’s the biggest threat right now. She’s had the biggest head start on us, and unlike Dinicoeur and Richelieu, the king doesn’t know not to trust her. He has no idea she’s in league with Condé. As long as she’s around, Louis is in grave danger.”
“I agree,” Aramis said. “Plus, Dinicoeur will be looking for Milady himself. She has half the Devil’s Stone—and he needs it to get the second half.”
Plus, she has my phone, Greg thought.
“So if we find Milady, we’ll probably find Dinicoeur close by?” Catherine asked.
“I’d assume so,” Aramis said. “There’s not much he can do without the stone.”
“Is that right, D’Artagnan?” Porthos asked.
“I suppose,” Greg replied. “I don’t really know any more about him than Aramis does.”
“Really?” Athos asked. “I thought he was your direct ancestor. Your great-great-great-great-grandfather or something like that.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that until recently,” Greg admitted. “You have to go a long way back in my family until you get to him.”
“Oh my.” Porthos stopped so suddenly that Greg slammed into him. “I just realized something. I’d been thinking that the best way to defeat Dinicoeur is to kill Richelieu. . . .”
“It is,” Athos said. “If we kill Richelieu before he becomes immortal, then that negates Dinicoeur’s existence, right? Dinicoeur can’t exist if Richelieu doesn’t exist to become him.”
“I think that’s how it works,” Aramis agreed.
“But if we do that, won’t we negate D’Artagnan’s existence, too?” Porthos asked. “If Richelieu dies before he has a child, then no one in D’Artagnan’s family will ever exist.”
There was a moment of chilling silence in the darkness. “I’d never thought of that,” Athos said.
“That might not be an issue,” Catherine told the others. “Richelieu already has a son.”
“He does?” Porthos asked.
“It’s not common knowledge,” Catherine said. “Richelieu tries to keep it a secret. I rarely heard him mention the boy in all the time I worked in his quarters. He’s not married to the mother, and I don’t think he sees the child very often.”
“How old is the boy?” Porthos asked.
“Only a few months,” Catherine replied.
“Is his name Stefan?” Greg asked.
“Yes,” Catherine told him. “Is that your ancestor?”
“Yes,” Greg said. That was the name his great-great-grandfather had given in the diary Greg had found. And yet he didn’t feel any relief from this discovery. Instead, he felt even more unsettled. Now that he knew how devious and desperate Michel Dinicoeur was, he had a horrifying idea about what the man might be plotting now.
“Ah,” Porthos said cheerily. “Well, that’s settled then. Your ancestor exists, D’Artagnan. Sorry if I got you all worked up. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Actually, there is,” Greg said. “What would happen if Stefan died before he had children?”
There was another silence, even more chilling than the first. “Oh no,” Catherine said. “Dinicoeur would continue to exist—but you wouldn’t.”
“And if D’Artagnan didn’t exist, that would alter our history,” Aramis said. “We’re only together now because he brought us together. Without him, there might not even be any Musketeers. . . .”
“Which means there’d be no one to stop Dinicoeur,” Athos finished.
“Do you think he could be so diabolical?” Catherine asked. “To do something to his own son just to protect himself . . .”
“Nothing is too diabolical for Dinicoeur,” Greg told her. “Do you have any idea where his
son lives?”
“Not exactly,” Catherine admitted. “But I know the part of town and the mother’s name.”
“Then take us there,” Athos said. “Milady is no longer our priority. Protecting that child is. We must move faster. There is no time to waste!”
SEVEN
DOMINIC RICHELIEU FOLLOWED HIS FUTURE SELF QUICKLY through the streets of Paris.
Michel was moving with surprising speed, given that he had seemed to be at death’s door a few days earlier. He hadn’t healed completely, of course; his skin was still cracked and burnt, and there wasn’t a hair left on his body. This was all easy to hide, however. Michel wore a shawl draped over his head and wrapped around his arms, hiding every bit of skin. He looked no different from the hundreds of poor beggars who lurked in the alleys of Paris. No one gave him a second glance—although with the city under siege, everybody was distracted more than usual. Michel had a leather bag slung around his neck, in which he carried several diabolical things he’d made with his knowledge from the future: some poisons, chloroform, and a cluster of grenades. Though heavy, it didn’t slow him down. Michel just lurched along through the crowds, driven by his new plan, moving so fast that Dominic had trouble keeping up.
In truth, Dominic found Michel’s amazing recovery unsettling—but then, virtually everything about Michel was unsettling. Dominic now realized that in some way, he’d been in a state of shock ever since meeting the man who claimed to be his four-hundred-year-old self from the future. Who wouldn’t have felt that way? Since Michel’s arrival a few months before, much of Dominic’s life had seemed a bizarre dream.
And yet the last week had been the most bizarre of all. After his defeat on the Pont du Gard, Michel had changed. Up until that point, Dominic had gotten along famously with his older self. Perhaps that shouldn’t have been a surprise, as they were technically the same person—but as far as Dominic was concerned, they weren’t the same at all. Michel had lived a tremendously long life, learned a staggering number of things, and experienced a horrible amount of suffering. Those things all changed a man. To Dominic, Michel was more like a wise and distant ancestor. All they really had in common was their looks—and their desire for power.