by C. J. Farley
Dylan saw something else he wished he hadn’t seen: the patch-eyed hummingbird, tears streaming out of his one good eye, flying back toward the fires. It happened in a flash, but it was so awful, his mind held the image, like a photo.
It was then that the children heard the Grand Chirp.
“FOREVER SHALL THIS NIGHT BE INFAMOUS! THE BABYLONIANS HAVE REPAID KINDNESS WITH BETRAYAL! DEATH TO THEM, AND THEIR QUEEN NANNI! TO ARMS! WE MUST RESTORE OUR ANCIENT POWERS! WE MUST DEFEND XAMAICA FROM NANNI’S CONFEDERACY OF SHADOWS!”
“He just broke every Grand Chiper rule!” Eli yowled. “And my eardrums!”
“Queen Nanni set us up!” Ines said. “Now the King thinks we’re part of her awful Confederacy of Shadows!”
Over their heads, above the trees and the smoke, there was a tearing in the corner of the sky. The sound of the vast ripping was louder than a hundred lightning storms. It echoed across the clouds and shook the trees and made Dylan’s bones vibrate and his teeth rattle. All the creatures of the forest answered the cacophony with howls and bellows and screams until the air was a stew of horror and dismay. Dylan covered his ears with his hands but the sound continued—on and on until dawn spilled like blood across the gray flesh of the sky. “The Groundation has begun,” whispered Nestuh.
“Groundation? What does that mean?” Ines asked.
“The Great Web is falling,” Nestuh said. “In three days, the crimson bird will fly again and this world will end.”
The flames were far behind them now, but they could still smell the smoke. Given that the kids were all terrorized, tired, hungry, and scared, they were in remarkably good spirits. Part of the reason was Nestuh, who kept a positive vibration going with his general good nature, and his constant stream of stories, jokes, and comebacks. After a while, the kids were putting aside their problems and pains and chuckling along with him.
“This landscape’s like a supermodel,” Ines joked. “Beautiful but difficult.”
“Sounds like a woman I had once,” Nestuh said. “Don’t ever date a praying mantis, mon. It always ends badly.”
They pushed on. Dylan would have traded all the stupid conversation and camaraderie for a clue about where his sister was. Emma and the Professor were always complaining that he couldn’t stay focused and that topics started trending in his brain for a few moments and vanished just as quickly. This time, he wanted to prove them wrong and complete his search. The problem was, they weren’t even looking for Emma right now, they were pretty much just fleeing. Eli was doing well enough, but he was in a wheelchair and things were getting hard for him, even with Nestuh helping to carry him. Eli motioned he was tired and that Nestuh should set him and his wheelchair down.
“Nestuh—I’m officially friending you,” Eli said. “I couldn’t have made it without your help.”
“I know how you feel,” Ines said. “This is the hardest trip I’ve had since the time I was mistakenly booked in coach. Trust me, you cannot get a good hot stone foot massage on a commercial flight!”
“I’ve got something a little more serious on my mind,” Eli said. He pointed to the sky, and the huge torn corner of the Great Web. “Now what was all that about the end of the world?”
“It’s the prophecy, mon,” Nestuh said. “When one corner of the Great Web come down, the other three follow in three days. Truth.”
“Okay, that means we got seventy-two hours to find Nanni’s book,” Eli said.
“You’re thinking about treasure?” Ines said. “I still have no idea where to find the Root of Xamaica! And are you forgetting about Dylan’s sister?”
“You have some cojones ordering us around!” Eli said. “What happened to you back there?”
“What do you mean?” Ines asked.
“When it all hit the fan, you froze! I thought you were a big TV adventurer!”
“Last season you saved orphans from a mudslide,” Dylan recalled.
“You rescued nuns from a burning bus during fall sweeps,” Eli added.
Ines put her face in her hands and let out a loud scream. “I’m just gonna tell you: I’m not an adventurer!” she cried. “I just play one on TV!”
“What?” Dylan and Eli said together.
“It’s all special effects! I’m a fraud! I’m a fake! I travel all over the world and I never get to leave my hotel room!”
Dylan spat out a sliver of fingernail. “So you’ve never really faced any danger?”
“Are you kidding?” Ines said. “I’m a spokesperson! You think Smokey the Bear puts out forest fires? He has people for that!”
Eli laughed loud and hard. “You asked me to believe in magic—I can’t even believe in reality! My dad always says—never trust any business with more than thirty employees! You want us to go on this quest—Greatest! Adventure! Ever!—and you still haven’t told us why you need this Root. Start talking, phoney!”
Dylan looked around. What would Eli say if he knew about Dylan’s cheat code? Wasn’t Dylan kind of a faker too? Not that the code even worked here, but still.
Ines’s dark eyes were bright and wet.
Eli snorted. “Enough with the alligator tears!”
“The right phrase is crocodile tears, actually,” Dylan said.
“Whatever. I’m sure she’s got purses made out of both. What are you crying about?”
Ines sniffed and wiped her eyes. “It’s my dad. He’s sick.”
“Dr. Mee?” Dylan asked. “But he spoke at the tournament!”
“I get it,” Eli said. “Remember I said that speech seemed old? It was a recording!”
Ines sat down on a rock and cupped her head in her hands. “I found him passed out in his study three months ago. The crimson feather was clutched in his hand. The last thing he said was, Find the Root of Xamaica. He hasn’t spoken since. The doctors say he’s in a coma, but I know it’s something else—something magical. That’s why I set up the tournament. That’s why I followed the symbols he left behind. I knew the key was on the forty-fourth level. I needed the best players to help me. I think if I find it, I can cure my dad.”
“So you need to find the Root,” Dylan said. “Eli wants that book. And I have to locate my sister. How do we pull this all off?”
“Hope,” Nestuh said.
“We need more than that,” Eli said.
“Nah, mon. I’m talking ’bout Hope Road,” Nestuh clarified. “It’s the trail that runs through the island.”
“Where does it lead?” Ines asked.
“It’s a magic pathway. It takes you wherever you need to go.”
“Can Hope Road take us to my sister?”
“It doesn’t work like that. You can’t pick the place—you just need to go there. And you can only use it three times. So maybe it takes you to your sister. But maybe it takes you to somewhere else you need to go first.”
“So it might take me to the Root,” Ines murmured.
“Or it could take me to Nanni’s book,” Eli added.
The kids took a vote and the result was unanimous: they would follow Hope Road. Even Nestuh raised six of his limbs in favor of the plan (he needed the other two to stand on).
“Hope Road it is then,” Dylan concluded.
“How do we find it?” Ines asked.
“Once you decide to take that route,” Nestuh said, “Hope Road finds you.”
The children all looked down at once and saw they were on a path leading into dark woods.
* * *
Hope Road was a strange way to travel. It stretched out before Dylan and the others as far as they could see. The route was narrow and sprinkled with red rocks that glittered in the light. The whole path seemed to shimmer and shift and sway like a desert mirage.
At one point, Dylan looked back and saw, to his surprise, there was no back, and there wasn’t even a there. The way vanished behind him as soon as he took a step forward. In back of them was only a kind of blankness. Like an empty sky after the sun sets but before the stars are out, a pencil drawing that
has been erased, or something important that you just can’t seem to remember.
The hike was hard. The path led over hills and through rivers. So as they walked, Nestuh told them a story to pass the time. “Krik krak, Nanni’s back,” the spider began.
As he spoke, he puffed on his magical pipe, one that filled the air, not with smoke, but with bubbles. In each of the bubbles, pictures appeared, images from the tale he was telling—of giant spiders, cruel witches, and misty mountains. He wove a story about the time Queen Nanni challenged Anancy to a game of Shatranj. It was a game like chess, but magical. Nanni tried to cheat—she granted her pieces temporary life and pledged that they could live on as her servants if they helped her. She taught them Bangaran, a mystical martial art of which she was the master, and her pieces became great fighters. Desperate to win, she sacrificed piece after piece in wild attacks. In this game, when pieces were captured, they really perished. They begged for mercy, but Nanni said their pain was not her problem—she only sought victory. Soon she fell into the spider’s trap and was defeated. The pieces had been following her opponent’s designs all along, for he had promised them freedom, which makes life worth living. Nanni had tried to ensnare Anancy in a web of deceit. But Anancy was one of those spiders who was good at untying things.
Nanni, enraged, destroyed the pieces and spread the shards over a hilly region in the Land of Look Behind. She was so full of fury she cut her hands on the fragments and her blood stained the pieces and the soil. Anancy took pity on the pieces, and gathered them up and set them on the summit of a hill. The greatest of all spiders beseeched Jah for help. The Maker of All Music, moved by the scene, breathed lasting life into each one of the chessmen, for only Jah may grant that favor, no matter Nanni’s bargains.
“I name you the Maruunz,” said Jah. “You will have lion hearts, and eyes the color of the Xamaican earth. You will be the most magnificent warriors Xamaica has known.”
But to Nanni, he said: “Live for yourself, and you live for nothing. Yet if you give your life, you will find it. You have forced others to suffer for your ends—and now your blood will forever stain this land.” That is why, Nestuh explained, Xamaican soil is a deep red, even now.
Then Jah delivered this curse to Nanni: “You will, in your long life, face a great opponent. His final victory will be your final defeat.”
“Krik krak, Nanni’s back,” Ines said.
Eli smiled. “The most important part of storytelling is knowing when it’s the end.”
“So Nanni has terrorized Xamaica since then,” Nestuh said, finishing his tale. “She always escapes, despite many battles and many losses. Over the centuries, she’s come to terms with the spiders because we beat her fair and square. There are times when you could say we carried her on our backs. But the rest of the people of Xamaica take heart in the knowledge that a great opponent will someday defeat her.”
“That’s a serious curse,” Eli said.
“So who is the great opponent?” Ines asked.
“Maybe it’s the Game Changers,” said Eli.
“Prophesies come true in unexpected ways, mon,” Nestuh laughed.
“I need someone to teach me Bangaran,” Dylan said.
Nestuh put away his pipe and all around the children, the bubbles popped revealing a new landscape and the setting sun.
“I can’t believe how much ground we’ve covered,” Eli marveled.
Ines rubbed the spider on the head. “Thanks for the story. I usually travel with two producers, a camera crew, a makeup artist, a personal assistant, and a horse whisperer we keep on staff because of a union requirement. Traveling with you guys is way better—and a lot less paperwork.”
“This is just the kind of adventure that Emma would have loved to tag along on,” Dylan murmured. “She can be so annoying.”
“Did you ever think that maybe she tagged along because she loved you?” Ines asked.
“N-n-no!” Dylan stammered.
“Of course not,” Ines sighed. “Because you’re a guy.”
There was a gleam from over the crest of the next hill.
“Where the heck has Hope Road taken us?” Eli wondered aloud.
Wholandra—the city of the Iron Lions—was something to see. Actually, you couldn’t see it, not all at once, not in the full glare of the afternoon. It was too big, and too bright, to absorb in one glance.
“I can’t believe we’re in Wholandra!” Eli said. “If we were playing the game instead of living it, we’d be racking up the adventure points!”
The children moved toward the heart of the city. Every building was a pyramid—there were small ones and large ones, structures for storage and palaces for royalty, pyramid graveyards and pyramids with swimming pools (triangular, naturally). There were pyramid restaurants and pyramid shopping centers, pyramid hospitals and even pyramid fast-food drive-thrus, which, just like their non-pyramid counterparts back on Earth, always got your order wrong, but you never realized it until you were halfway home to your own pyramid. There was also a pyramid-shaped white-collar prison.
Three pyramids towered above the others. The sides were covered in burnished bronze, inlaid with patterns of ivory and onyx, and topped with shining steel. The middle pyramid had a huge feline eye at its tippy-top, and the orb seemed to follow Dylan, unblinking. The top Iron Lions lived in this trio of buildings, according to Nestuh. When the sun hit the sides, all three pyramids lit up like stars.
“Who are you?” an Iron Lion with a red mane and golden wings asked the children as they walked down Wholane, the city’s main street.
“Who are you?” Nestuh replied, and the Iron Lion nodded and flew away.
Nestuh explained: Asking “Who are you?” was just the standard way of greeting in Wholandra. Iron Lions communicated in an unusual way—that is, unusual for anyone who wasn’t an Iron Lion. They only talked in questions. No statements, no declarations—only queries. This made conversation rather cryptic, and even stranger still when it was between two Iron Lions. It took awhile for anyone to get to the point.
“See, the magical power of an Iron Lion is this . . .” Nestuh began.
“I know, I know,” Ines said. “If you answer its three riddles, it must grant your wish. I used to play an Iron Lion, so I’m not totally ignorant.”
“That must be why Hope Road led us here,” Dylan chimed in. “If we can get a wish, I can get my sister! Finally—we’re making some progress!”
Dylan kept his eyes open, peeking through every triangular door and window, searching for Emma. Then the children saw the lines. Visitors from all over Xamaica had queued up outside the pyramid hoping for an audience with the Whoberatum, the Iron Lion appointed that day to ask riddles and grant wishes. There were slithery Dlos, misty Moongazers, and even a few Arrowak (half-flesh and half-plant—you had to watch out for ones that were part poison ivy).
“It’s been done like this since I can remember,” Nestuh said. “If the wish is small, dem questions easy. But if dem wish big, dem riddle hardy-hard.”
“So what if someone asked for say—Nanni’s book?” Eli asked.
“That’s a hard question,” Nestuh answered. “Dem get a hardy-hard riddle.”
“What happens if they get the answer wrong?” Dylan asked.
“Then the Iron Lion eats them,” Nestuh said. “So dem usually ask for easy wishes.”
There were limits to the Iron Lions’ wish-granting power, Nestuh pointed out. They couldn’t do something ridiculously godlike such as bring someone back from the dead. Of course, Iron Lions never admitted to their limitations, not in public anyway. Ungrantable wishes were usually met with unanswerable riddles, like, “What’s the meaning of life?”
The kids arrived at the end of the wish-granting line. There were a couple wiggly Wata Mamas, a handful of Moongazers, and a terrifying one-sided Hai-Uri, which pretty much had everyone on edge—no pun intended, though it’s a good one.
“This must be how department-store Santas feel,” Ines
said, surveying the long line.
“Except Santa doesn’t eat kids who give wrong answers,” Eli said.
“What do we do now?” Dylan asked.
“Easy,” Nestuh answered. “We join the line and we waity-wait.”
It was a tough day for wishes. The Pharaoh of the Iron Lions himself was the Whoberatum on duty. The line was moving fast—in part because the people ahead of the kids were being steadily eaten as they failed to answer the riddles correctly.
“Have you ever seen so many beautiful wishcoins?” asked the floppy Wata Mama in line in front of the kids. They were strange creatures, these Wata Mamas. They looked like baby seals, but with human arms and faces and hair. They also tended to overshare.
“Uh, no,” Dylan said.
“Just look at them!” the Wata Mama sighed. “There up ahead—millions of wishcoins in piles all around the anteroom to the pyramid!”
None of the kids saw anything. The anteroom looked completely empty, except for the line of creatures snaking through it.
“I’m getting married in a month,” the Wata Mama said. “I’ve worked all my life for the birds but I have nowhere near enough wishcoins for a proper wedding. This is my last chance.”
“Is there any way we can help?” Eli asked. “If you get eaten, it’s gonna wreck your wedding plans.”
“Thanks, but I must do this,” the Wata Mama replied. “You children are known among my people. Someday we’ll repay your kindness.”
Soon it was the Wata Mama’s turn, and things weren’t going well. She had answered two questions so far (barely) but was stumbling on the third one. She had asked for a sunny day for her coming marriage ceremony, which seemed like a simple request, but was actually categorized as a “major wish” because it involved moving the sun, which is tough to do, and planning a wedding, which is even harder.