The Lost Cities

by Dale Peck

  “Last time? You mean the time I successfully impersonated a pirate, defeated Queen Octavia, became the first person to return from the Great Drain, and saved the flow of time?”

  A chuckle came through the speaker. “She’s got a point, Farley.”

  Uncle Farley sighed. “Well, what were you going to say, Bjarki?”

  “Just this. The squall seems to be centered somewhere around 1500 or so, just off the northeast coast of Canada. If I had to guess, I’d suggest the southern tip of Greenland.”

  “Greenland,” Uncle Farley said. “Isn’t that where the Vikings had their New World colony? Their own”—he paused, glancing at Susan—“lost city?”

  Susan had a vague memory of this—something about Erik the Red, maybe? But Uncle Farley was still speaking

  “But, Bjarki,” he said, “it was my impression that the Viking settlement had died—er, disappeared by 1500. And at any rate, are you actually suggesting someone in a medieval Viking colony might have caused this squall?”

  “Well, now, history’s your department, not mine. But near as I can recollect, the Vikings hung on till right around the time we’re talking about. As for them causing the squall, well, I wouldn’t go that far, but only because I don’t know how anyone could cause a disturbance like we’ve got here. Still, time’s a pretty even-tempered entity. It’s only your kind that tend to stir it up.”

  At this “your kind,” Susan caught her breath, suddenly realizing Bjarki might not be human. But she was too caught up in another possibility to give this idea much thought.

  “You want us to investigate?” she said, doing a poor job of keeping the excitement out of her voice.

  “Susan, please—” Uncle Farley began, but the voice on the radio spoke over him.

  “I’ve tried hallooing the Chronos, but they’re not responding. My guess is Captain Quoin had them out beyond the squall’s perimeter on one of his missions or other. Ditto the Island of the Past. You’re the only contact I’ve been able to make.”

  “You must understand, Bjarki. It’s not that I don’t want to help. But Susan is my niece. My sister sent her to me for a summer of diversion and esoteric study, not to remedy anomalies in the temporal flow. I can hardly risk her well-being by dragging her into this”—he glanced at Susan—“‘investigation.’ ”

  “I hate to belabor the obvious,” Bjarki said in a gentle voice. “But she’s already in it. The question seems to be, how are you going to get her out?”

  Susan was wise enough to bite her tongue here and let the truth of Bjarki’s words sink in.

  At length Uncle Farley sighed and, in a resigned voice, uttered two words.

  “Where?” he said. And then the magical addendum: “When?”

  TEN

  Stealing Fire

  “Really, Charles,” President Wilson’s slightly wheezy voice floated down from the trees. “There is no need to run.”

  “Whatsamatter?” Charles said. “Too old to keep up?”

  Ever since he’d realized he’d gone back in time, Charles had been filled with exhilaration. He, Charlie-o-o-Oakenfeld, was on his own in North America’s preindustrial past! Here was his chance to prove his resourcefulness and bravery! He would make his own way back to Drift House, and never have to stand in Susan’s shadow again!

  “Need I remind you that I am, at the present moment, your only ally?”

  “We don’t even know when the present moment is,” Charles said. “And what good’s an ally if he can’t—keep—up?” Charles had picked up a stout limb to use as a walking stick, and his last words were punctuated by crashing sounds as he mauled some hapless bush to the ground.

  “I assure you, Charles Oakenfeld, I am perfectly capable of outpacing you and any other two-legged creature. But these branches are so infernally thick I can’t fly more than five feet at a time.”

  “Well, ride on my shoulder then.”

  President Wilson blinked in the bright light. He was above all else a prudent bird (and, at 103, he was, if you will pardon the expression, no spring chicken). Nor was he a hummingbird or a roadrunner, and so, as Charles plunged into the underbrush, the parrot launched himself at the boy’s left shoulder, digging his claws somewhat more aggressively than necessary into the straps of Charles’s backpack. Fortunately the wide, padded straps blunted the edge. There was a moment of silence (if you don’t count Charles’s smashing stick and the crack of dead limbs underfoot), and then President Wilson chuckled slightly.

  “We are an unlikely pair, no?”

  Charles laughed. “I can’t say I ever imagined I’d be spending this much time with you.”

  “I remember when you were afraid of me. Life was simpler then. Tell me, though: why didn’t Murray accompany you and your sister on this trip? Of all of us, he has the largest investment in Drift House.”

  “He was vague about it. I dunno if he just didn’t remember, or if there were things he couldn’t tell us. He just thought he shouldn’t be on the Sea of Time.”

  “Did he think it was dangerous?”

  Charles whacked a branch out of his way, wishing he could clear up Murray’s story as easily.

  “I think maybe it had more to do with Mario.”

  “Mario?”

  Charles remembered that President Wilson didn’t know about Murray’s alter ego. Realizing there was no need for secrecy anymore, he told the parrot about the older version of his brother, who had adopted the name Mario during a stint with Captain Quoin and the Time Pirates.

  “Fascinating,” President Wilson said when Charles had finished. “A second Murray. Do you think there’s a second President Wilson out there, or another Charles Oakenfeld?”

  “Wouldn’t we have to be Accursed Returners for that to happen?”

  “Hmmm, good point. In any case, we should keep an eye out for this Mario.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, we know Murray has been to the future and back, and that he retains some shadowy memories of what happened there. It stands to reason that if he’s worried about meeting Mario, then he must have a strong sense Mario’s path will cross ours at some point.”

  “Duh,” Charles said. “I can’t believe I didn’t figure that out.”

  “That’s what teamwork is for, Charles. What one comrade misses, the other catches.”

  After what felt like hours, the two hikers (or, more accurately, the hiker and his passenger, who had been snoring lightly in Charles’s ear for some time) came to a place where the trees were a bit thinner. President Wilson roused himself and suggested he fly up and check their bearings. After the parrot had launched into the air, Charles made his way to the nearest tree and sat down against it. The tree had thick exposed roots and he settled himself comfortably between two of them. His feet were hot, so he took off his shoes and socks to let them breathe. Leaves rustled, the occasional bird called. In every direction, no matter how far he looked, Charles could see nothing but tree trunks and underbrush, blurring in the distance into a brownish greenish wall. It was a big world, he thought. A big empty world. At least it had been, before it filled up with people.

  He noticed a cluster of mushrooms growing on one of the exposed roots of his tree. They were pretty mushroomylooking mushrooms: tan, with thick, slightly wrinkled stems and rounded tops shaped like the dome of a sports arena. Charles wondered if they were edible. You were always reading about people being poisoned by toadstools, but he’d never heard of it happening in real life. Of course, he’d never heard of anyone eating a wild mushroom either. Mushrooms—like all food—were something you bought in a store, or maybe at a farm stand when you went to the country.

  Charles’s stomach rumbled loudly. He was suddenly very hungry, and there were no grocery stores around. No farm stands either, despite the fact that he was surrounded by the countriest-looking country he’d ever seen.

  The fact of the matter was, Charles didn’t particularly care for mushrooms. Mushrooms seemed to him one of those extra things you put on food to
make you appreciate the main part—the tomatoes if you were eating salad, or the steak if you were eating steak. But these mushrooms were starting to look like the tastiest thing he’d ever seen in his life. Charles picked one and brought it to his nose. He sniffed. The fungus smelled like wet mud, and as bland as that might sound Charles’s mouth still watered at the scent. If you cooked one, he reasoned, wouldn’t that neutralize any poison? Or would it activate it? Which raised another question: how to start a fire?

  Just then President Wilson landed on the exposed roots of Charles’s tree. Despite the fact that he had no lips, the parrot still had the uncanny ability to look as though he were frowning.

  “Is there something wrong, President Wilson?”

  The bird shook his head. “Not exactly.”

  “We’re still on course?” Charles had heard of people walking in circles in the forest. Maybe that had happened to them?

  Now President Wilson nodded. “As nearly as I can tell. But the column of smoke doesn’t seem to be any closer at all.”

  “Do you think we walked in circles?”

  “I doubt it. The ocean has quite disappeared from view, so we must have made some progress. That said, however, I think we ought to consider the possibility of stopping for the night.”

  “But isn’t it, like, only the middle of the afternoon?”

  “I imagine making camp will take a bit of time. There’s shelter to be built, and food to be gathered”—President Wilson nodded at the mushroom in Charles’s hand—“and it would be nice if we could get some sort of fire going. I imagine nights are quite cool in the open.”

  “I’ve got an idea about that,” Charles said. He took off his glasses and looked at them.

  “Er, Charles? Aren’t you supposed to look through them? Not at them?”

  “Cute,” Charles said. He rolled into a patch of sunlight, then moved his glasses around until the lens caught the sun and focused it into a bright spot of light on the ground. “I think,” he said, reaching for a bit of dry grass, “I can use them to start a fire.”

  A breeze stirred the leaves and Charles lost his patch of sunlight. He rolled over and sat up.

  “We’re going to have to find a place where the trees aren’t so thick.”

  “I spotted a clearing about half a mile that way.” President Wilson pointed with his wing. “And I think there was a stream nearby.”

  “Water!” Charles said, suddenly realizing he was as thirsty as he was hungry.

  Before they set off, Charles gathered all the mushrooms from the tree roots and put them in his bag (except for one that had some white fuzzy stuff growing on it, and smelled gross). President Wilson led the way. Charles kept a careful eye on his companion. Maybe it was because President Wilson had told him how old he was, but Charles couldn’t help thinking that the bird looked exhausted. He barely flapped his wings as he moved from one branch to the next, and panted heavily between the short flights.

  Suddenly the oaks and maples gave way to a thinner stand of white birch. Toward the bottom of the hill, where the ground was significantly damper, dark green fern grew in dense clumps. A sound he realized he’d been hearing for a while resolved itself into the gurgle of running water—only to be drowned out by the crash of his footsteps as he hurtled toward the stream.

  “Careful, careful,” President Wilson called in a breathless voice. “The last thing we need is for you to sprain your ankle.”

  Charles ran on, but when he reached the stream his fastidious side reasserted itself: instead of throwing himself on the muddy ground, he stretched out on a large brown rock, then scooped up handful after handful of water and sucked it into his mouth. It was as cold as ice cream, and had a slight vegetable taste. Charles thought he had never drunk anything so refreshing in his life.

  At length he looked up to see President Wilson a few feet away. The parrot had made his way to the water’s edge, and sipped at it demurely. For some reason the sight of the bird—the lone spot of red amidst the endless brown and green—unnerved Charles, as he realized not only how alone they were, but how far from everything he knew.

  Boy and bird looked at each other. From the expression on President Wilson’s face, Charles thought he might be having the same thought.

  President Wilson spoke first. “Right then. Camp. I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help with the construction”—the bird flexed his wings as if to show their tininess, or lack of fingers—“but perhaps I can spy something to eat.”

  Charles nodded. “I’ll try to build a fire first, while the sun’s still strong.”

  “Right then. Onward and upwards.”

  The parrot flapped into the air, leaving Charles to trek uphill in search of drier ground. From a fallen birch, he pulled several sheets of bark, as well as twigs and tiny branches. The branches were brittle and snapped sharply when he broke them off, and Charles knew this meant they were dry, and would burn easily.

  Kindling at hand, he cleared the ferns from a large area open to the sun, then scooped out the earth to form a hollow firepit. As he pulled the ferns he noticed that they were soft and springy, and he figured a thick pile of them would make a nice mattress. He shook the dirt from their stems and set them aside, then lined his firepit with good-sized round stones. Even as he wondered why he did this, the answer came to him: the stones would capture the heat and reflect it upward, rather than letting it be absorbed by the porous soil. He was deeply impressed with himself for sussing this out, though some part of him was a little troubled by how he knew it, just as a part of him wondered how he knew to shred the papery bark into bits and stack them in a small, airy pile atop the stones. He knew why he stacked the bark so: the fire would need the air to burn more freely. He just wasn’t sure how this factoid had entered his brain. But he was too nervous about the next step to give it much thought. The moment of truth had arrived.

  Charles sat down next to his pile of shavings and pulled off his glasses. He had scorched paper with them before, but no matter how much the bark looked like paper, Charles knew it was thicker and less combustible.

  “Combustible,” he said aloud, taking strength from the word. But all he succeeded in doing was blowing his stack of bark apart. He built it again, then held his glasses over the tiny, shredded pile. He had to adjust the angle to get the light to focus, but soon enough a bright yellow dot was aimed at the pile. The dot was watery, like a spilled drop of food coloring, and Charles found himself doubting it could ignite anything. But after an endless moment the bark began to darken. And darken.

  And darken. And…

  … darken.

  Charles’s arm started to ache. He had no idea how long he’d been holding his glasses in the air. They weighed only a few ounces, yet the boy felt as though he were holding back a lunging German shepherd by its leash.

  He sat up. This wasn’t working. He had felt so sure it would. Not scientifically sure. He just knew it was going to work. There must be something he was missing.

  He held his glasses in front of his face. Two lenses connected by a thin bit of metal, two spokes shooting off either side. The glasses were too small to conceal any secrets, and yet he just knew there was something he wasn’t getting.

  Suddenly he saw it. Putting aside thoughts of how much his parents had paid for them, Charles twisted his glasses at the nosepiece so the lenses were stacked one on top of the other. He replaced them in the sun and fiddled with the angle until a new spot of light shone on his little stack of bark. This spot, focused through the pair of lenses, was noticeably thicker than the previous one, more golden in hue. “Come on,” Charles muttered out loud, “you can do it. Come… on !”

  As if responding to his words, the pale bit of bark turned brown, then black. Sooner than he would have expected, it began to smoke. And smoke.

  And smoke. And…

  … smoke.

  Charles’s arm was aching again. But he knew this would work. Worming closer, he blew as softly as he could on the delicate pile. I
mmediately he was rewarded by an orange glow on the edge of a shaving. He blew again, and again, the littlest puffs. The glow thickened; so did the smoke. Charles could smell it faintly. He felt an urge to sneeze. Light, he told himself. Burn.

  He puffed again. And again. And again.

  His arm burned. That was for sure. His hand jiggled, and the dot of light disappeared for a moment. Almost panicking, Charles focused it again as quickly as he could.

  Puff. And glow. And puff. And smoke.

  Charles blinked. His instinct was to put his glasses on, but he held steady. Could it be? Was it?

  The tiniest lick of flame had appeared. Charles was too afraid to blow on it. He simply breathed, offering the little flame the oxygen in his lungs as though he were resuscitating someone.

  The flame sputtered, seemed to go out, then—no!—it was back again, bigger. A second shaving of bark was alight! A third!

  Charles dropped his glasses in the dirt, reached for a larger piece of bark. He fed it edge-first into the fire until it too was burning. Soon he had a tiny but genuine blaze—no bigger than the five candles on Murray’s last birthday cake, but no smaller either. Onto this he placed a couple of twigs. The fire seemed reluctant at first. It oozed a thicker, grayer smoke, but the flames were hungry: in another moment the twigs had given in. More twigs; then tiny branches. Now the fire was eager. Whatever went on it was alight almost instantly. Soon enough Charles was putting branches on it that were as thick as his wrists. His wrists were, admittedly, tiny, but to see the branches burn made Charles feel as though he were lighting a Yule log (whatever that was).

  He had to run around then to gather more firewood. As he ran he sang out, “Ha ha ha! I, Charles Oakenfeld, have stolen fire from the gods! I am the mightiest of them all! Look upon my fearsome blaze and tremble!” At the moment, his fearsome blaze wouldn’t’ve cooked much more than a marshmallow, but Charles didn’t care. He had turned sunlight into flame! He had never felt more powerful in his life.

  Nor, for that matter, more blind. After tripping and falling on his face, the mighty Charles Oakenfeld had to return to his firepit and feel around in the dirt until he found his glasses. He untwisted them as best he could and put them on. The left lens sat distinctly higher on his face than the right, but he’d think of a good explanation before he saw his parents. He figured he had at least a few hundred years to come up with one.