The Emerald Atlas

by John Stephens

  Kate saw Emma look at her, confused, questioning. She had wanted to skip this part; it scared her to think about it and she didn’t want to share that fear with Michael and Emma. But the man was giving her no choice. So, her heart racing, Kate told about putting her hand on the blank page of the book, about the visions she’d seen, about the blackness that had seeped into her fingers.

  Afterward, Emma and Michael stared at her, their mouths literally hanging open.

  “You saw dragons?!” Michael gasped. “Fighting?!”

  “What do you think that black stuff was?” Emma asked. “Maybe it was ink, huh? Like magic ink? And why didn’t you tell us?”

  Kate started to explain. She didn’t understand what it meant. She didn’t want them to worry—

  But the man interrupted and told her to continue. He was looking at her more closely than ever.

  Kate felt Michael tense as she arrived at their capture by the Secretary and his own betrayal, and though for his sake she glossed over it as best she could, once again the man pounced.

  “You helped the witch to lure and trap your sisters?”

  Kate saw Michael open his mouth. She could see the arguments forming on his lips, the explanations why at that time turning over his sisters had been a reasonable course of action. Then he sighed and looked down at the table.

  “… Yes.”

  A sound, almost like a growl, escaped from the man.

  “We’ve forgiven him,” Kate said quickly.

  She went on, telling how the Countess had taken the book only to have it disappear in front of their eyes, how she’d locked them in with the other children, how Abraham had smuggled them out through secret passages. She told about running through the forest and hearing the howl of the first wolf.

  And there she stopped. He knew the rest.

  The man picked up a crust of bread and dunked it in the honey jar.

  Kate felt drained. Telling the story had been difficult. She looked across at the man. He was chewing, pondering what he’d heard. Her gaze traveled to his scar. It started an inch from his left eye and curved crookedly down to his jaw. It gave his face a terrifying aspect. But even so, it occurred to Kate that he was broodingly handsome. Her face flushed hot, and she stared into her lap. What was wrong with her? Here they were, trapped in the past, pursued by who knew how many of those awful Screechers; what was she doing thinking about how good-looking this man was?

  “So, will you tell us your story, then?” Emma asked. “Please?”

  Kate and Michael gaped.

  “What?” Emma said.

  “You said ‘please,’ ” Michael said.

  “So?”

  “You never say ‘please.’ ”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No,” Kate said, “you don’t.”

  “I didn’t think she knew what it meant,” Michael said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Emma muttered.

  “Very well,” the man said, the rumble of his voice silencing them. “You have told the truth. You deserve the same in return. What is it you wish to know?”

  Kate thought their first priority should be finding out who this man really was.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gabriel Kitigna Tessouat.”

  Michael giggled. “Really?”

  Gabriel looked at him.

  “Because it’s a very nice name,” Michael added quickly.

  Kate asked if the man was from Cambridge Falls.

  He shook his head. “For centuries, there were two human communities in these mountains. Cambridge Falls. And my people. The way it is handed down, one day a magician came to our village. He told us how, in every land, the magical world was withdrawing. He said the rest of the world would no longer be able to see us. They would forget we had ever existed. We and the people of Cambridge Falls were given a choice. Resettlement, somewhere out in the normal world, or we could stay in our mountains and be hidden for all time. We both chose the latter.”

  He paused to refill his milk, and Emma leaned over, whispering to Kate and Michael, “I bet that magician was Dr. Pym, huh? That’s how he knew about him having white hair and all.”

  Kate shushed her. She was thinking how something about the man had hinted of another, older world. Now she understood why. She asked how he’d come to be there that day at the dam.

  Gabriel said that he periodically came to Cambridge Falls to spy on the Countess. He’d seen the witch and her secretary leave the mansion and, curious, he had killed a Screecher, dressed in its clothes, and followed them to the dam. Once there, he saw the Countess dangling a child off the edge. Before he knew what was happening, he was striding toward her with his sword raised to strike.

  “And then she cast that spell on you,” Emma said. “Otherwise, you’d have killed her for sure. I know it.”

  “When I awoke, I was in a cell,” the man said. His face grew dark remembering. “There was no light, and at first I did not know where I was; then I felt everything move and heard the lapping of water.”

  “The boat!” Emma cried. “Abraham told us about it! He said it’s a prison where they torture people. Do experiments on ’em and stuff!”

  “It is not a prison,” said Gabriel. “It is a cage. For a monster.”

  It seemed to grow very still in the cabin.

  “The first thing I did was to call out and see if I was alone. No one answered. But I thought I heard something below. The stench in that place, so thick with death!” He closed his eyes, as if waiting for the smell to clear. After a few seconds, he went on. “The floor was an iron grid, and I could see that a large cage ran below all the cells on my level. I called again. Again, no answer. I became very quiet. Then I heard it, deep in the blackness: raspy breathing, the clicking of claws, and a faint whispering voice, promising itself, ‘Soon … soon …’ And I knew then what the creature below me knew. I was not a prisoner. I was food.”

  If it had been quiet before, it was nothing compared to when the man finished speaking.

  Finally, Emma said, almost hopefully, “Maybe it was a Screecher.”

  “No. This was something else.”

  “But why would the Countess keep it on a boat, whatever it was? Why not keep it under the mansion?” Kate asked.

  The man shrugged.

  “I bet it’s hydrophobic,” said Michael.

  Kate asked him to explain. Michael coughed and pushed his glasses up his nose. Emma groaned. That was the signal he was going to tell them something really boring he’d read in a book.

  “In stories, it’s not uncommon for witches and evil wizards to keep a monster around. Kind of like a weapon of last resort. Of course, dwarves never did that sort of thing. They were too honorable—”

  “Michael—”

  “Right, well, the thing about having a monster around, whether it’s a werewolf or a dragon or a mud troll or whatever, lots of times it ends up attacking its master. So people build in all these protections and safeguards. I was thinking if this monster is afraid of water—that’s what ‘hydrophobic’ means—”

  “That’s what ‘hydrophobic’ means,” mimicked Emma under her breath.

  Michael ignored her. “The Countess could control it by keeping it on the boat. Then if she needs it, she just has it brought ashore.”

  Gabriel nodded. “You are probably right.”

  “Really?” Emma said, unable to hide her annoyance. “Are you sure?”

  “But how did you escape?” Kate asked.

  “The cage has not been built that can hold me.”

  He said it as if no further explanation was necessary. And looking at him, Kate agreed.

  “So are you gonna try and kill the Countess again?” Emma asked. “We can help. We’d love to kill her!”

  “No,” he said. “I will return to my village. I must tell them what you have said. The things that will happen to our forests. And our wisewoman must be consulted about this book the witch desires. She will know what it is.”

  �
�What’s a wisewoman?” Emma asked.

  “It’s a woman that does magic,” Michael said.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” Emma growled.

  “He is right,” Gabriel said.

  Emma glared at Michael.

  Kate was quiet. An idea had come to her. She held it carefully in her mind, afraid it might slip away. Now she spoke:

  “Take us with you.”

  The man shook his head. “I will have to move quickly, and the path I will take is dangerous. You will be safer here. With the stag I killed, there is food enough. The stream behind the cabin is safe to drink. Wait till night to light a fire. As soon as I can, I will send someone to look after you.”

  “But—” Kate said.

  “We—” Emma said.

  “No!” And he slammed his huge hand flat on the table, rattling the plates and cups and ending the discussion. He stood and took a brass telescope from the wall, saying that there was a ridge above the cabin from which he could see the entire valley. He would make sure there were no Screechers nearby. Then he must leave.

  The moment the door shut, Emma turned to Michael.

  “It’s your fault he won’t take us.”

  “What?”

  “He hates know-it-alls. He told me this morning after he killed that deer. He said, ‘I really hate know-it-alls.’ ”

  “Right, I’m sure he said that.”

  “Quiet!” Kate hissed. “We have to make him take us. He said this wisewoman will know about the book. Maybe she even knows where it is. We’ve gotta find it before the Countess does. That’s the only way we’re ever going to get home.” Kate paused. She’d just had a horrible thought. “Emma, you still have the photo, right? The one to get us back?”

  For several stomach-churning moments, they watched Emma dig in her pockets.

  Finally, she pulled out the photo. It was creased down the center and bent at one corner, and a bit of pink gum was stuck to the back, but there was Kate, sitting in their bedroom, looking out at them from the future.

  The children released a silent, collective sigh.

  “Emma,” Kate said gently, “maybe I should hold on to it.”

  “Yes, please,” Michael muttered.

  “Fine.” Emma pulled off the gum and handed her sister the photo. Smoothing it out as much as possible, Kate tucked it into the inner pocket of her jacket.

  “Returning to the matter at hand,” Michael said, “how’re we gonna get him to take us?”

  As it turned out, this particular problem solved itself, for just then they heard pounding footsteps, the door slammed open, and Gabriel rushed in and said, “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Before the children could even begin to wonder what had changed his mind, the cry of a Screecher echoed up the valley.

  “Twenty of them,” Gabriel said as he took down a long, canvas-wrapped object that had been tucked among the rafters. “They will be here in three minutes.”

  “What’re we going to do?” Michael asked. “How’re we going to get out?”

  “We’ll fight our way out,” Emma said, her voice full of passionate anger. “Won’t we, Gabriel?”

  But he had gone to the fireplace, and now he put his hand against a stone and pushed. Very slowly, with a rough rock-on-rock scraping, the entire hearth swiveled, exposing a dark passage leading straight back into the mountain.

  “This way,” he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Maze

  Once in the passageway, the man ordered Kate, Michael, and Emma to stay exactly where they were. Then he pushed the hearth back into place with a dull thrudd. The children stood there in the darkness, breathing stale air, listening to Gabriel move about. He struck a match and used it to light two battered gas lanterns that had been hanging on the wall. He gave one to Kate.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  With the shadows from the lamp playing over his scar, Gabriel looked more fearsome than ever.

  “We are in the place where you are quiet and do as I say. Come.”

  He turned and headed down the passage.

  They arrived at a set of jagged stairs, at the bottom of which was an iron door with a series of bolts and locks. Gabriel opened it, ushered the children through, and then closed and locked the door behind them. They were now in a different tunnel. It was wide and had rough-looking walls. Two iron rails ran down the center of the floor.

  After they’d been walking for perhaps fifteen minutes, Kate ventured again, “So really, where are we?”

  For a moment, she thought the man simply wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “One of the old mining tunnels used by the town. It will lead us through the mountain to the valley where my village lies.”

  They kept on, Gabriel and Emma in front (the tunnel was wide enough to walk two abreast) and Kate and Michael following. Back in the cabin, when she’d told her brother and sister her plan for getting them home, Kate had tried to sound confident. But in her heart, she suspected that even if Gabriel’s wisewoman could tell them something useful, the chances of the three of them finding the book before the Countess and all her Screechers were slim indeed.

  As they walked, Gabriel surprised Kate by beginning to speak. He told them about the mountains, how they were full of deep, old magic and as such had to be respected. He said that the men of Cambridge Falls had always known there were places one did not dig, things one did not dare disturb. Such as the hannudin—hope killers, they were called—half-alive ghouls who came up behind you in the darkness and whispered that all the worst thoughts you ever had were true: your friends were disloyal, your wife did not love you, your children would grow to hate your name. Men would blow out their lamps and sit down in the darkness to be found months or years later, having starved to death on the spot. There were the salmac-tar, an ancient race, little more than beasts, who had supposedly given birth to goblins ages ago and lived down deep below the roots of the mountains. They had no eyes but huge, bat-like ears, and they moved around making clicking noises, listening to the sounds echo off the rock walls, their razor-sharp teeth and claws able to cut through iron and bone.

  “But even such creatures,” Gabriel said, “are part of the balance. It was different when the witch came; everything changed.”

  He fell silent, and for a while there was only the crunch of their footsteps along the gravel floor. Kate found herself thinking about the twenty morum cadi the man had seen in the valley. She imagined them tearing apart the cabin, finding the secret door behind the hearth, then pouring one after another into the tunnel, their yellow eyes scouring the darkness.…

  She knew this kind of thinking wasn’t helpful, but she couldn’t stop herself. What finally brought her back was Gabriel; he was speaking again, describing something as a pair of invisible hands reaching into your chest and crushing your heart and lungs. He was describing, Kate realized, the shriek of a Screecher.

  “But it is an illusion,” he said. “The pain comes entirely from your mind.”

  “What?!” The suddenness of her anger surprised her. “You’re saying we imagined it?! That all those kids at the dam imagined it?!”

  “I did not say that,” the man corrected. “The scream creates panic and fear in your mind. So great is the fear that your body begins to shut down. That is the pain you feel. It is real, but it comes from your mind.”

  “So how do you stop it?” Michael asked.

  “By killing Screechers,” Emma said. “Obviously.”

  “Accept the scream has no physical power to hurt you,” Gabriel explained. “Then learn to manage your fear. That is the only way.” He added, “Besides killing them.”

  Kate thought of telling the man that it was probably a lot easier to “manage your fear” when you were a sword-wielding, wolf-killing giant, but Michael was already scribbling in his journal, murmuring, “Manage … fear,” and she let it go. Instead, she asked the question that had been troubling her since the night before:

  “Do you know if there’s some
one else? Besides the Countess. We heard her say something about her master.”

  “That’s right,” Michael said. “She and the Secretary, they both said it. I have it in my notes.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I have not heard of any master. We will ask the wisewoman. It is possible she—”

  He stopped and turned, staring back down the passage. Everything about him was alert and tingling. Kate peered into the darkness, but the tunnel was as silent and still as a tomb.

  “Maybe it’s one of those goblin-bat things,” Michael whispered.

  “Quiet.” Gabriel handed his lantern to Emma and unwrapped the length of canvas. It was not, as Kate had suspected, a sword. What appeared was more like an extremely large machete. The blade was slender near the handle, then expanded as it lengthened so that the end was very wide indeed. It was made of some dark metal, and the edge gleamed in the lamplight.

  Gabriel took a step forward.

  Still, nothing moved.

  Kate opened her mouth to ask what he thought he’d heard. Just as she did, the Screecher materialized out of the darkness. It made no sound at all but charged toward them, sword raised, yellow eyes glowing. Later, Kate would reflect that this was what had been most terrifying, for as awful as their screams were, at least they gave you time to run. Now, already, it was too late. She could only stand there and await the blow.

  There was a loud, reverberating clang as Gabriel’s blade met the other’s, and the creature’s sword shattered. A moment later, the two halves of its body lay on the floor, hissing, an evil-smelling smoke rising from its corpse. Kate looked at Gabriel. His blade was smoking as well. He had sliced clean through the Screecher, sword, body, and all.

  He said, “Run.”

  They obeyed, running as they never had before. Through winding corridors, up stairs, down stairs, around blind corners, Gabriel always urging them faster and faster. The tunnel kept splitting, but he seemed to know where he was going, “Left … right … that passage there, go!” It wasn’t long before they heard the first scream. More soon joined it, the inhuman shrieking billowing down the narrow tunnels. Kate felt weakness sweep through her, and she almost stumbled. She glanced at Michael and Emma and saw they were struggling as well. She tried telling herself the pain was only in her mind, that the screams couldn’t hurt her, but it made no difference. She still felt as if she was running uphill with a stone upon her back.