Ben turned the thing so that it pointed out over the crowd. He stood behind it, his feet planted wide apart. “This is your last chance,” he shouted at the crowd. “Disperse! Or take the consequences.”
Mary Waters dashed toward him. “No, Ben!” she cried. “We can’t do this!”
Ben pushed her away. “We agreed!” he cried. “Stand back, Mary!”
Now the crowd in the plaza sensed danger and began to push backward. Tick cried, “Stand your ground!” but Doon saw him take a step back, too.
Ben squatted at the rear end of the Weapon. “Leave now, and take your gang of hoodlums with you!” he shouted. “Or I fire!”
Fire? thought Doon. What does he mean?
It was clear that Tick didn’t know, either. “You have one weapon,” he shouted, “but we have many!” And he raised the rod in his hand, and behind him his warriors did the same.
Ben gave a furious shout. He was crouched over the Weapon. Doon saw his bent back, and his arm jerking at the machine. Nothing happened. His arm jerked again, harder, and at the same time Mary rushed forward. She aimed a powerful kick at the nose of the Weapon, bumping it upward, and the Weapon, in a harsh machine voice, began to chatter. Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, it went, turning its snout back and forth. People in the crowd began to scream.
Doon couldn’t see at first what the Weapon was doing. What was the point of its loud, furious shuddering? The noise was horrible, but the Weapon was staying in one place, not flying out into the crowd. Was it shooting something out of its— Yes! Across the plaza, over the heads of the people, Doon saw a line of holes punching into a wall, splintering a window—
But the Weapon suddenly stopped its chattering. Doon looked down and saw Ben give it a furious shake, and shake it again, pounding on its nose to aim it lower as the crowd yelled in panic and scrambled backward, and Mary shouted and tried to rush toward Ben, but Wilmer grabbed her arm—
And then the Weapon exploded.
No chattering this time, just a spurt of fire that shot from the Weapon’s rear end, knocked Ben flat on his back, and toppled the Weapon forward so that it stood on its nose. This made the fire shoot straight upward, a column of bright orange, scattering sparks and reaching toward the branch of the pine tree that hung over the town hall steps.
From his place in the tower, Doon watched, horrified. Where was his father in that frenzied crowd? Where was Lina? Below him, the pine tree was on fire. The building would be on fire, too, in a minute, because the tree stood right up against it. Smoke was already curling through the windows. He had to get out.
And that was when he heard a scream—not from the plaza below, but from somewhere above him. A bird? An animal in the pine tree? A second later, an echoing scream arose from the crowd. Doon heard someone cry, “The tree! Up in the tree! Someone’s there!”
Doon was at the door, ready to flee down the stairs. But he heard the scream again, and it sounded close. He darted back into the tower room and ran to the window that faced the tree. The lower branches of the pine tree were a mass of flame. He could hear the rush and roar as the fire raced among the dry needles. When he turned his gaze upward, he saw what the screaming was about: a boy was clinging to a branch a little higher up than the tower roof, hugging the trunk of the tree and screaming in terror as the fire swept upward.
Kenny! Doon thought. Was it? He couldn’t tell for sure. But he knew he couldn’t leave him there. Maybe somehow he could get him in through the window. He opened it as far as he could—it was the kind of window that swung outward on hinges—and then he grabbed one of the chairs from around the table. Holding it by its back, he thrust it out the window as far as he could.
“Climb down!” he shouted to the boy in the tree. “Climb down, quick!”
The boy saw him—and with a start Doon realized who he was. It wasn’t Kenny at all. It was Torren, the one who had started so much trouble, the one who had pointed a lying finger at Doon. For one furious second, Doon felt the urge to leave Torren to his fate and get himself out of the tower as fast as he could. But he pushed that thought away and shouted louder: “Hurry! Get down here!”
Torren clambered down through the branches, down toward the flames beneath him. When he was opposite the tower window, he was still too far away to reach the legs of the chair. He edged out along a branch, but it was a slender branch and bent under his weight.
“Jump!” Doon yelled. “Jump! And catch the chair legs! I’ll pull you in!”
Torren crawled backward to where the branch was sturdier. He stood up. Then he froze. He stood clutching the tree trunk, staring down at the flames, his mouth a dark O.
“Jump!” screamed Doon again. Smoke was pouring into the tower room now. “Hurry! You can do it!”
A gust of wind. The flames leapt. Now the branches just below Torren’s feet were blazing, and suddenly he made up his mind—Doon could see the moment of decision in his face. He clamped his lips tight. He fastened his gaze to the chair dangling out the window. And then he pushed himself away from the trunk with his hands and flung himself toward the tower. His hands caught the rung between the chair legs, and Doon’s whole body was yanked forward. He almost lost his grip on the chair, but not quite. “Hang on!” he yelled. With all his strength, he hauled the chair upward, and when Torren’s hands were within reach, he grabbed one of them, and then both of them, letting the chair topple back into the room. One last heave, and Torren was in the tower room, shaking so violently he could hardly stand.
“Now,” said Doon, “let’s go.”
He headed for the door. Over the sill of the window Torren had just come through crept a row of flames like sharp orange claws.
CHAPTER 27
Firefight
Lina was on the side of the plaza farthest from the river when Tick called out his demands and Doon yelled, “At least listen!” When she heard his voice, she tried to make her way toward him, but the crowd was so dense and turbulent that she couldn’t get through. Tick’s warriors were everywhere. The sun flashed off their steel rods and pipes and jagged pieces of glass. She was worming her way among the dozens of shoving and shouting people when Ben fired the Weapon.
She heard the sound, a chain of loud pops, and the people in front of her screamed and scrambled backward. Lina ducked and put her hands over her head. She stayed that way as people pressed past her and stumbled over her, and in a moment the popping noise stopped. Then there was a bang, and more shouts, and when she dared to stand up and look, she saw that the pine tree was on fire.
The flames were small at first, creeping along just one branch, with sudden flashes as dry bunches of pine needles caught fire. But in seconds the flames grew bigger. They leapt and crackled. Black smoke rose in a pillar into the air. The crowd pressed backward, crashing against each other. The people of Ember, for whom fire was a rare and terrible danger, stared upward with their eyes wide and their mouths gaping. Some of them screamed. Some were too frightened to make a sound.
Such a terror came over Lina that she couldn’t move, except to stagger a few feet back along with the crowd. Her eyes were fixed on the flames—the terrible orange hands, reaching up into the branches of the tree. A voice in her mind screamed, “Run! Run!” but she couldn’t run. Her legs wouldn’t work. It was all they could do just to hold her up.
A voice cried out, “Someone’s in the tree!” and Lina looked up through the smoke just long enough to see the upper branches thrashing and get a glimpse of something white moving among them. Then she was surrounded again by struggling people. She tripped over a piece of pipe rolling on the pavement and fell to her knees. When she managed to get to her feet again, the mass of people had pressed back behind her, and she found herself near the front of the crowd.
On the steps of the town hall, she saw Ben lying motionless, sprawled on his back. Wilmer bent over him, and Mary Waters shouted, “Fire truck! Fire truck!” The fire had leapt from the pine tree to the town hall tower—flames licked up its wall.
That was when Lina heard a wild laugh from behind her. “Let it burn!” someone cried. “Let it burn! It’s their punishment! They deserve it!” She recognized the voice. It was Tick. Others took up the cry. “Let it burn!” they shouted, and a chorus of voices raised a harsh, triumphant cheer.
The people of Ember were packed together at the far south end of the plaza now, as far from the town hall and the fire as they could get. A few ran into the streets to get away, but most of them waited to see what was going to happen. They stayed at a safe distance, hovering between terror and fascination, and watched as the flames streaked up the sides of the tower.
The people of Sparks were running in all directions. Shopkeepers grabbed buckets and ran to the river and filled them with water, but most of the fire was high above their heads, impossible to reach. They flung the water into the air and then stood with empty buckets, watching the tower burn.
The two fire trucks arrived, their drivers standing up and lashing the oxen to make them trot. Water sloshed from the big barrels on the trucks’ beds. As soon as the trucks stopped, people jumped up onto them, grabbed buckets, and began dipping buckets in the water.
“Fire line! Fire line!” the cry went up, and the villagers, who must have practiced this many times, formed straggling lines stretching out to the fire from the truck at the edge of the plaza. Burning twigs broke from the pine tree and blew in the wind, and new fires started up here and there. The people in the fire lines flung water in all directions, but for the few flames each bucket of water doused, it seemed ten new ones sprang up.
Lina’s heart was beating so hard it drowned out all her thoughts. She wanted to run, to get away from here, but something paralyzed her. Part of it was fear of the fire. Part was fear of something else, fear of an idea that was trying to come to the surface of her mind. She didn’t want to hear it. Pay attention, a voice whispered to her. She tried to push it away.
Faster and faster, the people on the truck dipped the buckets into the barrels, dipped, filled, and handed the buckets to those in the line, who passed them along from hand to hand. The last person in line, the one standing nearest the flames, flung the water, which hissed and steamed and put out a few flames.
Tick and his warriors, along with the rest of the people of Ember, watched all this as if it were a frightening but fascinating show. Tick and a few others cheered. But most people just gazed goggle-eyed as the flames blackened the town hall. When the wind blew sparks toward them, they shrieked and pressed back farther.
Lina scanned the crowd. Where was Doon? Where was Mrs. Murdo? She didn’t see either of them—she could hardly see anything. Smoke filled the air. All she could see was a shadowy tumult of people. Only the flames were bright. The pine tree was a column of fire—within it, Lina could see the tree’s black skeleton. When a great branch broke off and fell, crashing into the shrubbery below and setting it alight, a terrified clamor arose from the people of Ember, and now instead of pressing backward many of them turned and ran.
Lina stayed where she was. She felt as if she were being gripped by two huge hands. One pulled her backward, away from the fire, back toward the streets of the town, through which she could run to safety. The other pulled her forward into danger, urging her to do what she suddenly knew was right. It was the good thing. It was what she’d been waiting for. But she didn’t want to do it. I can’t, she thought. I don’t want to. I’m too afraid. Someone else will do it. Not me, not me. I can’t.
At that moment, the tower collapsed. Its walls crumpled, the roof caved in, and flames shot up from the hole. The flagpole came hurtling down like a spear. The blackened walls leaned and toppled.
And then the fire was everywhere. Flaming branches and tufts of needles, blown by the wind, landed in the dry grass at the edge of the plaza, and in the trees by the river, and on the thatched roofs of the market stalls. “There!” cried the people in the bucket line, pointing. “There! And over there!” The lines twisted around, the buckets traveled faster and faster from hand to hand, and those at the front of the lines tossed the water this way and that. But there were too many fires, and not enough people to keep up with them.
It’s now, thought Lina. I have to do it. I will do it.
Quickly then, before she could change her mind, she ran. She ran with a hammering heart, with her head down and her hands in fists. She ran as if fighting a powerful wind, out across the plaza by herself, and when she reached the nearest bucket line she pushed her way in.
“Traitor!” shrieked a voice behind her. It was Tick’s voice, that voice like a cutting blade. Lina heard it, but she paid no attention. “Traitor, traitor!” Tick cried again, and his warriors echoed him. “Traitor!” they yelled, jumping backward when the sparks flew too close.
Doon got out of the tower just in time. He’d had to almost throw Torren down the stairs and then take them three at a time himself. Torren ran off somewhere as soon as he went out the back door, but Doon dashed around to the plaza, staying close to the market stalls, and joined the crush of Emberites at the south end. Panting, he stared back at the ruin he had escaped from—the black spine of the pine tree, the smoldering boards of the town hall. He watched as the flames consumed the building and the tower collapsed. He saw the fire lines snaking among the scattered blazes, and he heard Tick’s laugh ringing out over the clamor. “Burn, burn!” yelled Tick, and other voices chimed in with his. “Let it burn! Serves them right!”
For a moment Doon stood there, stunned, his mind a blank. It seemed that war surged around him, but not the war he had imagined. Where did he belong in this battle? Who was his enemy, where were his friends? Noise and confusion assailed him. His eyes stung. His legs were shaking.
And then he saw Lina break away from the crowd and run across the plaza. He heard Tick and his warriors screaming, “Traitor!” And he felt as if suddenly his eyes had opened (though they hadn’t been closed) and he had awakened from a bad dream. The air around him seemed to become clear. Strength returned to his legs. He edged between the people in front of him, burst out of the crowd, and ran the same direction as Lina—toward the fire lines.
And seeing what Lina and Doon had done, others followed. Clary pushed through the crowd and ran forward, and Mrs. Murdo went after her, taking long, quick strides and holding up her skirts. Then came the Hoover sisters, and Doon’s father, and fragile Miss Thorn, and five more people, and three more after that. They ran with their hands before their mouths or their arms over their heads, shielding themselves from smoke and falling embers, and they added themselves to the bucket brigade and began hauling water.
More and more of the people of Ember followed. At last the only ones not fighting the fire were Tick and a few of his men. Wearing half-stubborn, half-frightened expressions, they clustered at the far end of the plaza, shouting, “Traitors!” now and then, with their useless weapons dangling from their hands.
CHAPTER 28
Surprising Truths
Fighting the fire was so hard that Lina forgot to be afraid. Everything but firefighting was erased from her mind. Her hands reached for the next bucket, over and over and over, and when a warning cry arose she would look up to see where the danger was and dart out of its way. The water in the barrels soon ran out, and the rear ends of the lines had to move back to scoop water directly from the river, which meant a longer distance for the buckets to travel. The lines snaked left and right, moving to follow the fires, which sprang up in the dry grass like a crop of terrible weeds.
In the smoke-dimmed air, people looked like ghosts, swarming every which way, shouting at each other. Once Lina caught sight of Doon. He had jumped into the fountain and was bent over, as if fishing with his hand for something at the bottom. He jumped out again, soaking wet, and in a moment the fountain began to overflow, and the water spread, running toward the flames in the grass at the plaza’s edge. Oh, Doon, hooray! Lina thought.
She saw Maddy, too, several times, appearing and disappearing in the swarm of firefighter
s, sometimes calling out instructions or warnings, sometimes just passing along the buckets, her hair flying in the wind.
It was the wind they fought against as much as the fire. It blew in unruly gusts, and the flames leaned and stretched before it, reaching for new things to burn. But there were twice as many people fighting the fire now, and before long the people began to win. The flames became flickers, put out with a shovelful of dirt or a splash from a bucket, and finally no trace of orange remained in sight. The plaza was a landscape of ashy puddles and smoldering black heaps, looking strangely open without the town hall and the pine tree.
Then for a few moments, people just stood and stared at each other. All of them had smoke-darkened faces and ash-dusted hair and damp, grimy clothes. The people of Ember were just as grubby as the people of Sparks; everyone looked more or less the same.
Lina went searching for Doon. She couldn’t find him, but she did find Mrs. Murdo sitting on the ground at the north end of the plaza. Her bun had slid all the way off the top of her head and was hanging beneath one ear. Her skirt was dotted with burn holes. “Are you all right?” Lina asked her.
“I believe so,” Mrs. Murdo said. “And you?”
“I’m fine,” said Lina.
“Yes, you are,” said Mrs. Murdo, giving Lina a long look. “Very fine indeed.” She held out an arm. “Help me up,” she said, “and we’ll go back to the doctor’s house and get ourselves decent again.”
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