by James Bow
The other Zeppelins’ engines surged, and they floated higher. The grapples descended, jaws open, and struck at Puck, who dodged.
Peter and Rosemary ran for the road, but the Professor flung his arms wide. They turned into tentacles and wrapped around Rosemary’s and Peter’s bodies. He hauled them back, their feet dangling in the air.
“What was it you read off the idea tree?” he said, his tongue flicking across Rosemary’s cheek. “What if we could fly?”
“What if rugs could fly!” Rosemary cried, feet flailing. “Rugs!”
“Pity you don’t have rugs, then. Bye-bye!” Peter and Rosemary screamed as he tossed them over the edge.
The girl with the horn-rimmed glasses came sliding down one of the grapple cables. She jumped to the ground and joined Professor Em at the cliff edge.
“Hey, you were supposed to capture them,” she said. “Why did you throw them off the edge?”
“All the better to crunch their bones to make my bread. Have you ever tried to put unbroken bones through a grinder? Dear, dear, it is a bother!”
Rosemary fell. The tumbling air deafened her, carrying her screams away. Her hair whipped her face, and the long fringe of her dress lashed her arms and legs. Peter fell beside her, grey and unreadable as a shadow.
Suddenly she saw something plummet towards her, huge as a shark. It swooped past and swung beneath her, spreading tremendous wings.
Rosemary struck the eagle’s back. It knocked the wind out of her. In her whirling vision, she saw Peter hit, and slide. She saw his pale hands pull out huge feathers. Then he fell again. “Puck!” she screamed.
“Hold fast!” the eagle cried. It folded its wings and dove after the falling boy. They passed Peter and swept under him. Rosemary dug her knees into Puck’s back and caught hold of Peter’s collar as he thudded and slid past. Peter grabbed desperately, plucking more feathers before steadying himself. He lay gasping. Rosemary held him.
His knuckles white, Peter looked back. “They’re following us!”
“What do they want?” shouted Rosemary.
“To bring things to a head,” said Puck. “They want to attack before you are ready. They are no longer interested in the story, only its climax.”
“What do we do?” yelled Rosemary. “Enough of challenges,” said Puck. “I shall take you to the centre of the Land of Fiction, quick as I can.”
He swooped close to the cliff face, turning a corner in the valley. The pursuing Zeppelin banked. “Where’s the other one?” shouted Rosemary.
Then they turned another corner and found the second Zeppelin waiting for them.
It hovered at the rim of the valley, its sides almost touching either wall. It towered over them, eclipsing the sun. The grapple struck towards them.
“Hold on!” Puck screeched. He swerved down and right. Rosemary yelled. The wall of the valley swept towards them. The grapple was just feet behind. They were in the middle of a gap between grapple and cliff, and the gap was narrowing by the second.
The grapple swung in. Puck put on a burst of speed. The grapple hit the cliff face, raising a spray of rock and dust.
Then Puck’s wing smashed against the cliff with a sickening crunch. Puck cried out and fell.
Rosemary and Peter clung for dear life against his back. The wind whistled in their ears. The ground rushed up to meet them.
“Look,” Peter yelled, pointing. “The tracks!”
Rosemary looked ahead. Before them, the train tracks ran along a narrow ledge before crossing the valley on a high bridge, plunging into a tunnel.
Behind them, the second Zeppelin rose above the rim of the valley and began a ponderous turn. The first sailed past.
“Puck, slow down!” Rosemary cried.
“I can’t!” Puck shouted. “My wing is broken!”
The ledge rushed towards them. Puck banked, his body shuddering. They were feet above the railway tracks, the gravel rushing past. “Jump!” he cried.
Peter grabbed Rosemary and rolled off Puck’s back. They hit the ledge hard, rolling over and over.
Puck topped out and fell, hitting the tracks and cartwheeling. A cloud of dust rose up around him. When it cleared, they saw the eagle lying on its back, still. All was silent save for the drone of the Zeppelins.
Puck shuddered back into his accustomed body as Peter and Rosemary rushed to him. He clutched his arm, which was bent in a direction it wasn’t supposed to go. His bright face was darkened with pain.
Rosemary knelt beside him, afraid to touch him. “Puck! Are you okay?”
He staggered to his feet. “No.”
The drone of the Zeppelins grew louder as they tracked along the valley, grapples gnashing at thin air.
“You must cross the bridge,” said Puck. “The quest leads there.”
“We’d never make it,” gasped Peter. “There’s no way. They’ll snatch us off the track!”
“I will make sure the path is clear,” said Puck. He clasped Rosemary’s shoulder with his good hand. “Brave Rosemary, you must go on.”
Rosemary looked up. “What? Puck, what do you mean?”
He gave her a sad smile. “I must leave you.”
“What? No! We can’t go on without you!” She clutched at him.
He pried her off and touched her cheek. “I can no longer be your guide. But you are the hero. You must go on.”
A shadow fell across them and they looked up. The Zeppelins were almost overhead.
Puck stepped back to the cliff edge. “Farewell.” Peter stood up. “What are you —”
Puck turned, took two staggering steps, and jumped off the edge.
Rosemary ran forward. “No!”
Puck flung his arms out and transformed back into a great golden eagle. He soared up with a sweep of his giant wings, even though one was broken. He turned his beak to the Zeppelin guarding the bridge and surged forward, faster and faster, becoming a blur, his feathers like fire.
Peter pulled Rosemary into the cliff face, shielding her with his body. The phoenix struck.
The Zeppelin burst. Shafts of flame shot out in all directions. The second Zeppelin caught and it too exploded.
Peter and Rosemary watched as the falling airships cracked against the railway bridge and crumbled. Their burning metal skeletons rained on the valley floor.
Puck was nowhere to be seen.
“Wow,” said Peter. “Umm ...” He struggled for words. Finally, “Wow.”
Rosemary slumped down on the ground, curled up, and buried her face in her knees.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CITY OF MARBLE AND CHROME
The flames ebbed. The last piece of twisted metal toppled off the bridge and echoed from the valley below. Then the only sound other than the flames licking on the bridge was the wind whistling through the canyon. Peter stood staring at the devastation, then looked at Rosemary, all curled up and rocking. He stood silent for several minutes, waiting for her to look up. She didn’t.
Finally he reached out. “Hey.” He touched her arm.
She swatted his hand away. “Leave me alone!”
He halted, stood a moment, then reached out again. “Hey.”
She hit him harder. “I said leave me alone!”
He jerked back, then lunged forward and hauled her to her feet.
She beat at him. “Leave me alone!” Her words echoed through the canyon.
“Stop it.” He grunted as a punch caught him across the mouth. “Ow!” He grabbed her wrists and shouted in her face. “Stop it!”
His words echoed back at them for several seconds. “Stop it! Stop it. Stop. Stop ...”
She stood in his grip, breathing hard. She didn’t look at him.
“We have to keep going,” he said, his voice level, firm.
“Why?” she said bitterly.
“Because he said so,” he said. “He ...” He stumbled, cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. “You’re the hero. He ... he did what he did so ... so that you could go on.�
�
“What’s the use?” Her eyes glistened. “We’re no closer to finding Theo. Everything’s attacking us, and the one person who could help us the most d-, d-, d-” She spat it out. “Dies!”
“It’s —” Peter began. “We —”
“I shouldn’t have come here!” Her voice echoed again. She struggled to free herself from his grip. “I shouldn’t have brought you here! Now they’re after you too!”
Peter’s grip held firm. He looked at her levelly. “Let me guess. If this was a book, you’d have stopped reading right about now.”
She stopped struggling. She looked at him.
“Well, it’s not a book.” He let go of her wrists and clasped her shoulders. “It’s not going to go away just because you decide to stop. We’ve got to keep going.”
“You go, then,” she said, turning away. “Just leave me alone!”
“No!” he yelled, with such force that she jumped. “Not here, not now, not ever! Being alone is the worst thing in the world, and I’m not doing that to you. You didn’t drag me here; you hit me over the head trying to stop me. But I came anyway! And now we’re in this together, and we’ve got to work together if we want to get out! I’m not leaving this spot until you get that!”
Her face twisted. She shoved him away and fell against the cliff face. Sliding down, she curled up again. Her shoulders shook.
Peter touched his lip and checked for blood. The wind whistled.
Finally, Rosemary looked up. Her cheeks were wet. She took a rasping breath, and held it by biting her lip. She pressed against the rockface and levered herself up, ignoring Peter’s helping hand. She stepped to the cliff and looked down. The wreckage below was still burning.
The wind shivered the fringe of her dress.
Finally, she cleared her nose with a sniff and drew herself up. “Let’s go.” She turned away from the devastation and limped to the bridge in her bare feet. Peter followed her. The smoke from the wreckage veiled them. Peter looked down. Rosemary didn’t.
They trudged into darkness as the bridge met the tunnel. The click of scuffed stones echoed back at them. After several minutes, the light at the other end eased into view and a fresh breeze cut through the smell of damp soot.
Then their clothes changed.
Peter stumbled, then steadied himself on the tunnel wall. “Another story,” he muttered. “I hope this is the last one.”
He saw Rosemary in silhouette, in a jacket and a knee-length skirt, facing away from him. He stepped towards her. “Hey, are you —”
She turned suddenly and hugged him so hard, his breath left him.
“What was that for?” He held her.
“Promise me something?” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt front. “Stay close. Don’t let me lose you like Puck.”
“Look, you didn’t —”
“Promise me!”
He hesitated. Then he laughed. “Stay close? They’d have to pull me off you.”
They held each other a moment, then Rosemary pushed away. She walked down the tunnel faster than before.
As he followed, Peter shook his head and swallowed. There was a grip in his chest like fear. He could hear his heart beat. Then he realized it wasn’t his heart but a deep rumble just beyond the edge of hearing. As they approached the exit, a new noise added itself: a regular hiss, easily mistaken for a gust of wind, but timed to that rumble that made the ground shiver beneath their feet.
Peter stopped. “What is that?”
Rosemary stopped and listened. Her shoulders tightened, then she stumbled forward. She reached the opening and stepped outside, staring, her arms limp in horror.
“Rosemary?” Peter started forward. “Rosemary, what is it?”
Rosemary stepped back unsteadily. She tripped on the rail and fell without a sound.
Peter caught up to her just as she was picking herself up. She didn’t bat his hands away as he hauled her to her feet. He followed her wide-eyed gaze and almost let her go.
Before them, filling the bottom of a crater, stretched a white city. Chrome gleamed everywhere. The air was ozone and antiseptic. The buildings were square and alike and grouped like the rings of a tree, rising to a peak in the middle
Marble statues lined the edge of the crater, standing on podiums, each flanked by a pair of chrome jaguars like the ones they’d seen on the forest bridge.
And the sky was full of Zeppelins.
***
“I told you travelling at the speed of thought gets easier with practice!” said Marjorie.
She, Andrew, and John materialized, laughing. The laughter stopped when they looked around.
Marjorie gasped. “What is this place?”
***
“What is this place,” Rosemary whispered.
“Rosemary?”
They were wearing jackets and white shirts. Rosemary was in a kilt; Peter in pressed pants. A school crest adorned their lapels. Rosemary looked down at her clothes, then yanked off her glasses. They had changed into horn-rims. She shook.
Peter pulled her to face him. “Come on, Rosemary, give! Where are we?”
“I can’t do this, Peter,” she gasped. “I can’t! It’s a horrible place.”
“Look, the Zeppelins all came from here, so this must be the final challenge, right? We’re almost finished with the story!”
“We’re finished, all right.”
“Rosemary!”
The voice was not Peter’s. It drifted around them, indistinct, but Rosemary knew it at once.
She whirled around. “Theo!”
They were alone, yet Theo’s voice echoed back from the edge of the crater. “Rosemary, no! Get out of here!”
“Theo, where are you?”
A girl’s giggle rippled through the air. “That’s enough talking,” she said. “You just sit and wait for Rosemary.”
“Rosemary?” said another voice, louder and more distinct. The nearest statue turned its head smoothly. Peter and Rosemary jumped.
“Rosemary Watson,” said the statue. The voice issued from it as though from a speaker. “You have returned.”
Peter and Rosemary stared nervously at the marble statue’s blank eyes and hard face. It stood perfectly still.
“We have followed your quest to reach the city,” the statue continued. “It was a wasted effort. The Zeppelins would have transported you.”
“Yeah, as prisoners,” said Peter.
Smooth as milk, the statue stepped down from the pedestal. “I am the forty-second Sentinel of the southwest quadrant. My function is to greet all who seek to enter the city and escort them to the Capital Centre. You will now come with me.”
Peter swallowed. “Ah ... thanks! Supposing we don’t want to?”
The Sentinel’s head twisted towards Peter. “That does not follow. You are here, therefore you must come with me.”
Rosemary backed away. “No! I don’t want to go! You can’t make me!”
“If you cannot walk to the Capital Centre, we will find alternate means of transportation.”
Peter touched her arm and nodded behind her. “Look.”
She turned. Behind them, a Zeppelin lowered itself closer to the ground. A grapple dangled, flexing its fingers.
Rosemary closed her eyes. “I’ll walk.”
Gripping each other’s hands, Peter and Rosemary walked down a flight of metal stairs that ran down the edge of the crater. The Sentinel came down behind, its stone feet clanking on the steps. The Zeppelin’s shadow washed over them as they made their way through white streets.
The buildings grew higher the further they walked, until their feet echoed across marble canyons over the sound of the city’s heart. Cars shaped like bullets hissed past without drivers. The shop window mannequins gleamed, but their clothes were bleached with time. Peter and Rosemary’s reflections twisted in surfaces of chrome and moulded glass.
“What is this place?” asked Peter.
“The City,” said the Sentinel.
&n
bsp; “Does it have a name?” “Yes. It is called The City.”
Peter glanced sidelong at Rosemary. She was staring blankly ahead, lost in some memory. He nudged her. “What book was this?”
She started, then took a deep breath. “I don’t remember the title. I read it two years ago. Don’t you know?”
“I never read this book,” said Peter. “Where are we? What happened? Where is everybody?”
***
“Is this where the people went?” asked Marjorie.
“Yes,” said the Sentinel. “That’s comforting,” deadpanned Andrew. “I think we should go now.”
“Perhaps there was some disaster,” said John. “I wonder what happened here; it’s like the Marie Celeste!”
“Do you wish to see the people?” The Sentinel, moving stiffly on stone joints, stepped past them and pushed open the doors.
“That walking statue is just so creepy,” said Andrew.
***
“Ours is a powerful civilization.” The Sentinel cut into their thoughts. “We have built many wonders. But civilizations grow old, and old civilizations disappear. Knowing this, the people of this planet built the great Machine. The Machine was the pinnacle of our technology, capable of answering any question put to it and performing any action asked of it. We told it our fears and we asked it to preserve us so that our civilization would never die.”
“The book I read,” said Rosemary, “had three kids: a girl, her brother, and her friend. They came to this planet and found the same thing: the people had all vanished.”
“What happened?” asked Peter.
“The Machine automated this planet and preserved the population for all eternity,” said the Sentinel.
“Preserved? Preserved how?” asked Peter. “Where is everybody?”
They’d been following the street towards what they thought was a white wall. Suddenly the buildings around them fell away and they entered a huge plaza. All the streets in the city radiated out like strands in a web. At the centre was a building as tall as a searchlight, one great column fluted with lines of chrome. White steps led up towards large doors cut into the sides.