The old man paused.
“Can you fix his collar?” Nisha asked Anand.
Anand was not sure that he had enough strength for it. But when he focused his attention on the old man’s collar, he was surprised to feel the energy particles shift almost immediately. Were his skills improving, too?
“Say something,” he said.
Disbelief was stamped on the old man’s face, but he cleared his throat cautiously. When that did not hurt, he tried a short word, “Who?” His voice was rusty from disuse, but his eyes glistened when he realized that he was able to speak.
“We’ve come from a different world,” Nisha said.
“A different world?” the man repeated incredulously.
“It’s too difficult to explain. But please, help us,” Nisha said.
Words began to spill from the old man as though he was making up for years of silence. “You given me back my voice. I take you with me. My assistant sick today, is why I late. I pretend you my helpers. Nobody question us. Dome people never care what collectors do. They don’t think we also people like them. All they want is us clean their mess.”
Relieved, Anand and Nisha helped the old man siphon garbage from several other buildings, unrolling and dragging the heavy hose back and forth so he didn’t have to keep climbing down from the truck.
“Thanks,” he said with a grateful sigh when the truck was finally full. “My leg hurting bad. I not able to do all work on my own. I afraid dome people complain and I lose job. If old ones lose job, we sent to Outer Lands.” Dread colored his voice as he said the last words.
Anand wanted to know more about the mysterious Outer Lands, but they were approaching a gate. He held his breath, worried that the guards would question the old man about having two assistants, but the garbage man had been right. The guards gave them a cursory, uninterested glance and waved them through. Almost immediately, even through the closed windows of the truck, the air stung their throats. Hurriedly, they pulled on their masks. Nisha looked up at the brown sky and grimaced.
“It was nice to have a sun for a while, even a fake one,” she said.
But Anand was too concerned with their next move to pay much attention to their surroundings. Closing his eyes, he visualized the mirror and tried to send it a mental signal. But he must have been within the range of the Blocking Towers, for he felt as though he had hit a wall. The pain made him gasp. Nisha stared at him, biting her lip.
“You can’t contact the mirror, can you?” she whispered.
Anand shook his head. He thought hard for a moment; then said to the garbage man, “I need to find something important that I left behind. If I describe the place where I hid it, would you be able to take us there?”
“Could be,” said the old man. “Did know Coal streets good, one time. Now no more garbage pickup there.”
But when Anand described the dark, trash-filled alley under the raised roadways where the mirror had brought them into Shadowland, he gave a bitter laugh. “All Coal look like that now. Must give me street name.”
But neither Anand nor Nisha could provide that information.
“What shall we do now?” Nisha asked.
Panic spiraled inside Anand. Time was wasting away, and they were farther than ever from the conch. Maybe he should have stayed inside Futuredome and taken his chances.
“Wait,” Nisha said, “didn’t that boy, B, say something when we were at the Farm? Didn’t he mention a place we could go for help?”
Anand rubbed his forehead, trying to think past his headache. “It was something about spirits—ah yes, he said we should look for a House of Spirits.”
The old man’s brows drew together. “House of Fine Spirits! Very dangerous place. No good for you.”
“Why is it dangerous?” Nisha demanded.
“Bad things happen. Murders. Vanishing. People there not normal. Spell casters. Even guards not go there except in big troop.”
“The people there are magicians,” Anand said. “That’s why we need to see them.”
“No trust spell casters,” the garbage man said stubbornly.
Nisha looked like she wanted to argue with him, but she only said, “We’ll take a chance. Can you take us there, please?”
The old man gave a reluctant nod. He was not convinced of their safety, but perhaps he saw their determination. They drove in silence for a while. Then he maneuvered the truck off the raised roadway and into an alley. Although by Anand’s calculations it was late afternoon—it was hard to tell in this sunless world—there weren’t many people on the street, and those who were there walked fast with their heads down, not meeting anyone’s eyes. The few shops had bars on the windows and doors. Their curtains were drawn and most looked as though they were closed, though a few times Anand saw movement behind a curtain. The alley was filled with potholes, making the truck bounce up and down. Just before they came to a halt, they hit an especially large one and the old man rubbed his leg, wincing in pain.
“That one,” he said, pointing to a small, squat building at the end of the road with sooty walls that looked as though they had been scorched by a fire. The lopsided signboard that hung from it simply said Spirits.
The old man swallowed nervously. “I go now.”
Anand thanked him and jumped down from the truck, but Nisha leaned toward the old man impulsively and gave him a hug. Then she passed her hand in the air over his sore leg and whispered a few words from a healing chant.
“Leg was hot,” the old man said, his eyes wide, “now pain gone!” He stared at them. “You cast spell?”
Nisha nodded.
The old man shook his head hard, as though he were rearranging some of the ideas in there, and gave a reluctant smile. “Not all spell casters bad!”
Anand wondered what had led the old man to hold such a negative view of magicians. But there was no time for questions. Every moment pushed the conch closer to destruction—and the two of them, too, for without the conch, they would be stuck in Shadowland forever.
The old man groped inside a pocket, pulled out a coin, and handed it to Nisha. When she tried to refuse, he gave a broken-toothed smile. “Not money,” he said. “Garbage men not get money, only vouchers for government shops. This from my grandfather.”
The two friends looked carefully at the coin, which was embossed with an intricate lettering that looked strangely familiar.
“This, friendship coin,” the old man explained. “If you in trouble, show to garbage man or other worker. He help. Good-bye.”
Anand and Nisha waved him good-bye, feeling strangely bereft as his truck disappeared around the corner. Nisha peered at the coin in her palm.
“Doesn’t the first letter look like something in Bengali? Could it be the letter M, for maitri, which means friendship? Do you think this coin could have come from our world?”
Anand’s mind was snared in worries about what would happen if no one at the House of Fine Spirits were able to help them, but to please Nisha he took a look at the coin. “No, it’s just a looped design,” he said after a moment. “Come on, it’s getting late. Let’s go into the shop and see if someone there can help us find the mirror.”
Nisha put the coin away. Together, they walked up the crumbling steps of the House of Fine Spirits, wondering what awaited them inside.
8
THE MAGICIANS
Inside the House of Fine Spirits, it was so dark that Anand was forced to pause at the entrance to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Behind them, the door swung shut with an ominous crack, darkening the foyer further. Ahead, there was a room, long and narrow, lit only by smoky tapers placed in alcoves. They made Anand feel as though he had stepped back into an older time. The far end of the room was taken up by a bar, where several figures slouched. Along the walls were seating areas shrouded in shadow, so that Anand could not tell if they were occupied.
As Nisha and he walked toward the bar, Anand had the distinct sensation of descending into a river. An invisible cur
rent pushed against him, growing stronger with each step so that soon he was struggling to keep his footing. It was a cold, sad current, bringing up memories of loss and failure—the family he had abandoned, the friends he had let down, the skills he had been unable to master. It made him want to lie down and give up, for surely the task that lay ahead was too difficult for an ordinary boy like him. When he looked down, it seemed there were many others—heroes dressed in the noble attire of bygone times, gold-worked robes and headgear glittering with rubies—lying in the river. He saw them under the surface, their bodies still, their faces so peaceful that he longed to join them. His steps grew slower and then stopped.
Did Nisha sense what he was feeling? Perhaps, because she gripped his shoulder and shook it. “What on earth are you doing?” she whispered urgently.
Anand realized that he was kneeling on the floor—no, it was the riverbed. One of the heroes in the water smiled at him, inviting him silently to give up useless strife and lie down next to him.
But Nisha wouldn’t let him be. She pulled at his arm, and when he didn’t respond, punched his shoulder. He opened his eyes in annoyance—when had he closed them?—to tell her she was more irritating than a gadfly, and that was when she slapped him hard on the cheek. The slap stung, but it cleared Anand’s vision. He dragged himself to an upright position. The force of the current seemed diminished now. He could see the uneven floor under his feet. Nisha was crying, “Sorry, sorry,” and cupping his face. He wanted to tell her that he was the one who should be apologizing for always causing her trouble, almost causing their mission to fail. How warm her hands were. They sent a surge of comfort through him, countering the spell of this place. That’s what he recognized it to be now: a Barrier spell that the magicians must have devised to prevent enemies from invading their sanctuary.
Now that he had recognized it, the spell affected him less. He could move forward again, though his feet still felt blocky and awkward, as though they belonged to someone else. Ironically, he felt more at home in this place than he had inside Futuredome. It was filled with danger—but danger of a kind that he understood.
From the corner of his eye, he could see that the figures that had been standing at the bar were coming toward them, moving with a strange gliding step. He guessed them to be guardians of this space. Their bodysuits were dark blue and hooded, and they were masked like all the inhabitants of Coal. But their eyes, which Anand could see beneath their hoods, glittered with a strange red light.
Quickly, he began to whisper a protection spell to weave a net around them. But their eyes—strangely mesmerizing—distracted him, making him forget key words. The figures slowed, but they kept advancing.
Anand’s heart raced with fear as he tried to recall what he knew of guardian spirits. “Keep your face turned away and keep walking,” he told Nisha, trying to speak calmly.
“Who—or what—are they?”
“They’re protectors of this place—perhaps human, perhaps not,” Anand replied. “They can’t harm you unless they catch your eye, so be sure you don’t look at them.” He himself kept his gaze focused on the bar. A little silver bell sat on the warped wood of the counter. Somehow he knew that if he rang it, he would be safe. But the guardians would try to prevent him from doing that.
One of the figures had reached Anand. It couldn’t touch him—the protection spell had achieved that much—but it stood right in front of him, blocking his path. A stench of rot came from whatever was under the hood.
“Speak!” it hissed. “Tell us what you’re doing here, spy!”
“Spy! Spy! Spy!” The sibilant whisper went around the room.
Anand wanted to blurt out that he wasn’t a spy, that he, too, was a magician. But he knew that responding to the creature would increase its power over him.
“Move around it,” he said to Nisha. “No matter what it says, don’t reply. It can’t touch us.” He focused his eyes on the bell and his mind on the protection spell, weaving its unraveled parts again.
Behind him, he heard a slimy voice say, “Yes, my pretty, my delicious one, come closer, come to us!”
“Ignore it!” Anand warned. But Nisha cried out, “Get away from me, you filthy, stinking monster!” Then she screamed. The scream was followed by scuffling sounds. Torn, Anand longed to run back and pull her away from her tormentor. But he did not have the strength to fight all the creatures that flocked around them. His only hope for saving Nisha was the bell. Using all his willpower, he continued ahead. The bell was only a few inches away from him now. He reached out for it.
Nisha gave another scream. “Anand! Help!”
Anand stiffened. Nisha should have known not to call out his true name, the knowledge of which gave enemies power over you. She must have been desperate with fear to have forgotten this basic lesson. Did she think he had abandoned her?
He tried to block out the thoughts that raced around his head and reached again for the bell. But he was too late.
A hand shot out from behind the counter and grabbed his wrist. Hard fingers dug into his arm. A tall, cloaked man with piercing eyes glared at Anand. Where had he materialized from?
“Anand, eh?” the man said, eyes flashing. “Soon we’ll know everything else about you, too. But first, we’ll show you what we do to spies. Come, guardians!”
An electric shock ran up Anand’s arm, making him gasp. He didn’t know what kind of spell the man was using. He couldn’t think of anything to counter it. Whatever it was made him dizzy. His legs could hardly hold him up. Soon, he knew, he would lose consciousness. He could feel the guardians behind him. Nisha gave a despairing cry that was cut off abruptly.
With the last of his strength, he lifted his left hand and sketched in the air the sign that B had made, long ago, at the Farm. His head was swimming, and he was not sure that he remembered it correctly.
“B told me to come to you,” he croaked as he fell, face forward, onto the counter.
* * *
Anand was dimly aware of hands. Hands that grasped his arms and legs and were carrying him somewhere. Human hands, thank the Powers! They weren’t particularly gentle, but at least they didn’t attempt to hurt him. Now they were jostling him—down a flight of stairs, it seemed. He kept his eyes closed because he wanted to learn as much as he could while they thought he was still unconscious.
“Maybe you’re right,” one of the men carrying him said to the other. “Maybe he is a friend of Basant’s, like he claimed. But I think Commandant Vijay is correct in being cautious.”
Anand was so startled he almost opened his eyes. Basant? Vijay? The magicians had Indian names! Did this mean that at some point when they still possessed the skill to do such things, they had traveled to Shadowland from Anand’s world?
“What I want to know is, how on earth did he and the girl get past the River of Dejection?” someone else said. “We thought it was foolproof!”
“That’s part of the reason why the commandant is so concerned. If the scientists have discovered a way to get past our strongest conjurations, then we’re really in trouble!” a third voice said. Evidently there was a whole contingent of people transporting him.
“I agree with Vijay. He’s a spy sent by the scientists,” a different voice burst in. “And if he can’t satisfy us as to why he’s here, he’s going to be in deep trouble.”
“Yes, we’ll give him some of their own medicine!” This time it was a woman’s voice, spitting out the words. “When I think of my poor Basant, and all our other boys, stuck in that prison for months now, doing hard labor! Who knows how else they’re torturing them—”
“Hush, all of you!” The other man carrying him spoke, his tones deeper and calmer than the others. “That’s why we’re taking him to Chief Commandant Deepak. He can look into a person’s heart and see his truth.”
The magicians fell silent. Only one person muttered, somewhere behind Anand’s head. “I’m not so sure of that anymore, not since the scientists killed his son—and now w
ith his grandson a prisoner—” The muttering faded away.
* * *
A splash of cold water hit Anand’s face. He gasped and opened his eyes, blinking as though he had just come to. He found himself in a small room without windows—somewhere underground beneath the House of Fine Spirits, he surmised. The room was crowded with men and women dressed in bodysuits. Unlike the pristine white suits the scientists wore, the magicians’ clothes were a motley of colors, often threadbare. One looked like a garbage collector’s outfit; another was similar to what the cook had worn at the party. Anand guessed that the magicians had been forced to take up different jobs in order to survive after they went into hiding. Perhaps these disguises also helped them gather news.
Then he noticed that none of them wore breathing masks. His mask, too, had been removed. The air in the room, though dank and stale, did not burn his lungs. In spite of the danger facing him, Anand was intrigued. Somehow the magicians had learned to clean the air of Coal sufficiently to make it breathable.
In front of him, in a big carved-wood chair, sat a stooped old man dressed in a blue robe. This had to be Basant’s grandfather, Chief Commandant Deepak, the leader of the magicians. Anand examined him carefully. His long gray hair fell to his shoulders and a white beard covered most of his chest. His eyes were sunken, as though he had not slept well for many nights. Still, they were deep and wise and looked at Anand as though they could indeed see into his soul. Anand knew that he should be cautious—maybe even frightened—of this powerful man, but somehow he was not. The old man’s eyes reminded him of Somdatta, the Chief Healer of the Silver Valley, who had always been fair, and he had the same aura of calmness.
Impulsively—for he was not usually demonstrative—Anand raised his hands—realizing only now that they were tied together—and joined them in greeting.
“Greetings, Master Deepak Datta,” he said, bowing as he would have to one of his teachers.
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