The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending

by Steven J. Carroll

  No words were spoken. Del followed cautiously behind Gamel, and Mattie behind her. She wondered how they would ever get into the city without being seen, and she rightfully decided that this was either the bravest thing she’d ever done, or the most foolhardy, and that it was still too early to tell which it might be. The towered walls rose to meet them. Del pressed her palms against the massive quarried stone, still warmed from the day’s sun.

  Then there was a whistling sound like a bird’s song. Cupping his hands to his lips, Gamel made a sound that almost none but the keenest watchman would suspect. Then suddenly, a rope was thrown down from atop the battlement, its tip reaching the ground only a few feet from where they stood. The general gave a tug to be sure it was securely fastened.

  When he was satisfied with this, Gamel turned back to the girls, and in a hushed voice he said, ���You see��� we still have many friends in hiding. Faron may well kill the shepherds, but he cannot scatter their sheep.��� (This he said regarding the fallen generals and their armies.)

  In the dark and shadows, within a minute, both girls were given a crash course in the simple mechanics of wall scaling. And Del, being the stronger of the two, was encouraged to go first, followed there after by Mattie, and then by Gamel, who would wait till last in case either fell.

  ���And remember,��� he whispered. ���Be as silent as you can, even if you feel yourself about to fall.���

  There was no going back. Del grabbed at the rope, and on her second try began to walk her feet out in front of her. Her arms ached. Her hands were red and sore, though she wasn’t yet halfway up the wall.

  ���I can’t give up. I can’t������ she repeated with every new step. All the muscles in her limbs spiked with pain. The next step. Her hands were now blistering. The next step.

  At the brim, she was very near screaming. Till suddenly a strong hand grabbed her by her feeble arms, and pulled her swiftly onto the ledge. The great stones of the city wall felt cold now. She was deathly tired, and lay there till Mattie and Gam had both made it safely up the wall together, being that Mattie wasn’t strong enough to make it up on her own.

  The city of Ismere was sparsely lit. Its streets were dreaming below them. And soon, before she was quite ready, they were up again. The dark figure who’d pulled Delany to safety led them down the darkest alleyways, between closed shops, through the narrowest avenues, and into a low door.

  In the corner of a spare room, Del and Mattie were offered a makeshift bed of cushions, which they graciously accepted, for by then it was very late. Also, they were helplessly tired. So no fuss was made about sharing a bed, nor about the coarseness of their pillows. And they were soon fast asleep, again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Of New Plans and Old Men

  The next morning, a panel of light shot out from between the wood-slatted shutters. It warmed Del’s cheek and shone into one of her eyes. Truthfully though, this beam had been creeping along the floor since sunrise, for by now it was nearly noon.

  Del squinted her eyes, trying to rub the glare out of them. She felt along the bed, but Mattie wasn’t there. (Mattie awoke much earlier that morning, having slept far better, on both occasions, than Del had the previous evening.) But just then, from the kitchen, came a noise that could not have been mistaken for anything else, a kiddish sort of laugh.

  Through the open entryway, Del could now hear bursts of excited, hearty laughter. Uninterested, she rolled about for a few minutes, trying her hardest to fall back asleep. But as most might find, under similar circumstance, she could not. Her body still ached from climbing the night before, which made her forearms smart as she sat up in bed. And then, as if to speak above the noise of laughter, she heard a loud, unfamiliar voice saying:

  ��� …and remember the time we all rode out to Lochshire for May Festival?��� Here the two men broke out, once more, in roaring laughter, Gamel apparently knowing already what the man was about to say, as if he had heard it told many times before. Del was now standing in the doorway and could see the two men sitting at opposite ends of a square table, and Mattie in between, sipping tea, fully amused by the old men and their stories. Then the other man, turning to Mattie, who could not stop grinning, continued his story. (Good reader, to better understand his story you should note that a crest is a common currency in that territory of Gleomu, roughly the equivalent of one British pound.)

  ���You see, deary,��� he said, ���Gamel had convinced us, said we’d each save two crests each if we’d just agree to a week’s sleep out in the fields.���

  Here Gamel interrupted, ���And we did, as I recall,��� he said pointing to his chest. ���Fourteen crests in all, between the seven of us, it was…���

  ���Sure, sure,��� the other man conceded. And turning again to Mattie, ���Yes, but every morning we’d have the shepherds’ sheep grazing near our heads.���

  Mattie giggled, trying to cover up the bite of toast in her mouth.

  ���And what harm did it do you?��� Gamel exclaimed.

  ���Ha! Except for a blasted fear of farm animals, I cannot tell,��� he said, and laughed roaringly.

  At this point, the lively group noticed Del standing there and offered her a warm cup of tea, and a bread roll with jam. The stocky storyteller at the table was indeed the same dark figure from the night before. This man, Radcliffe, was as you may have gathered, a longtime friend of Gamel’s, since childhood. (And also, it should be noted, he’d served as a lieutenant general under Gamel during the great war. Yet, through all this, they had still remained friends.)

  From here on, the rest of the day seemed oddly routine, considering the dangerous plans they were to attempt that night. Around noon, Radcliffe’s wife, Rhoda, returned from market with a cart of ham and vegetables to make for supper, and some other pastries and sweet cake she had got for them all. At this, Radcliffe was a bit upset. For although he loved sweet cakes more than most, he said she should have avoided raising suspicions.

  She only laughed at his cautions, however, ���If they’ve not suspected us by now, with all the food I buy for us, I daren’t say they’d pay us any mind for a few extra cakes.���

  The city streets were quiet again that evening. So that by cover of darkness, when it was well into the later watches of the night, the three fugitives left out the back door of the house, and scurried in among the dimly lit alleys. It was previously decided, over a hefty supper, that there would be no use for Radcliffe to join in with them this time, seeing as four are more easily spotted than three, and also because they hadn’t needed his help to get into the palace.

  Yet, during their meal that evening, the men, using a stir of military phrases which neither of the girls had understood, not even Del (who may have had a good chance at it, considering she’d grown-up around such talk); The men agreed that Radcliffe was to follow not too far behind, carrying a torch and an empty water pitcher he was to fill at the fountain in the main square. The strategic reasoning for these being, of course, that the torchlight might serve to flush out any of the king’s spies, and also, that the empty water pitcher would give him an adequate excuse for wandering about the city streets at night.

  Del could hardly see her steps in the midnight around her. They trailed through the darkest, most obscure parts of the city toward the rear of the palace, and they were all completely silent, though the girls’ hard-soled shoes made a subtle tapping as they ran from shadow to shadow. In one instance, they were nearly seen by a baker as he set out in the very early morning hours for work.

  The streets led uphill, then wound up to a high wall, but only about a fourth as tall as the one they had climbed the night before.

  ���Is there no other way in?��� Mattie asked, trying to sound exhausted, but Gamel refused to answer. She had been dreading this next part of the mission ever since she’d heard about it, but there was no other way in, a
nd she would have to climb over the wall alone.

  ���Very well…��� she said below her breath, as she was hoisted up to stand upon Del’s shoulders, who was then made to stand on Gamel’s shoulders.

  Mattie’s breath shortened. She braced herself frantically against the wall. This was not the sort of thing she’d naturally been accustomed to. She stood on her toes, but it was still not enough.

  ���A little more,��� she softly called down below.

  ���Oh, come on, Hardy. You can do it,��� Del urged, trying to keep a good attitude about it.

  ���I can’t though,��� Mattie said, for the top was still several feet above her head. Mattie stretched the tips of her fingers as far as they could go, but it was still no use.

  ���Hold on now,��� came Gam’s voice from below as he grabbed at Del’s feet and, with a strain, lifted them both up, his hands now above his head.

  At last, it was just enough. Mattie grabbed at the top and squirmed her way onto the rim of the wall. Below her lay the dark stillness, the palace gardens with its rows of hedges. Within a moment Mattie was down the other side, using the slack end of a rope Gamel had thrown up to her.

  Her feet touched down onto the cushy garden sod. The hedges loomed, too high to be seen over. To her left the corridor wound in through the dark like a maze, and to her right it was the same. Neither route, she thought, looked particularly promising, and then it hit her. She knew where she was, or better yet to say in what she was, having before read books about this sort of thing.

  ���Not now,��� she thought. Then saying the words out loud, although she hadn’t meant to, ���…a labyrinth.���

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lost

  Lost. Mattie Hardy was hopelessly lost. As she walked hesitantly around corners and seemingly endless passages, this thought pervaded her senses. It made her breath dry and shaky, until at last it was unavoidable. She was altogether completely unfound.

  To her credit though, at the out start, she had tried to do a rather sensible thing. From the stories she’d read, she knew the smart thing to do when you’re trapped inside a labyrinth is to leave a trail for yourself, and at that she gave a good attempt, by unraveling the rope that she’d climbed down the wall with along her path. Yet, several paces and turns ago she’d run out of rope, though not out of maze. Even still, what made matters worse was that the night was in its darkest hours, after the moon has set and while the stars are dimmed.

  A split up ahead. She chose left, although she might have just as likely chose right. Both paths were now obscured by deep shadows, and no path seemed separate from the other. She was lost, and so continued on.

  Though, after some bit of lostness, the hedges were not so black looking as they had been before. She could see a tinge of the faintest green in them, and her footsteps were not so hidden as they had once been.

  ���Hurry!��� she thought, for she knew that time was getting away from her. From deep inside she wanted to scream out for help, but knew she shouldn’t. That would give herself away for sure.

  Her lips moved now, and what may have been intended as an idea, came out as a whisper.

  ���Help me…��� she spoke out, softly in the still night air. Though, be as it may, she did not know the reason why she’d said this aloud, nor to whom she may have been speaking.

  Likely some may argue that what occurred next may be merely an instance of probability, not at all related to Mattie’s frail pleading found within the previous paragraph. Notwithstanding, I would rather choose the side that would think these two related, given how often miracles are mistaken for common luck, and vice versa.

  Thusly, however remarkable this may have been, Mattie, from this point onward, found her way through the maze with growing ease. After a series of four consecutive proper turns, the corridor led out to an iron gate and a well trimmed lawn, and the sleeping palace beyond that.

  ���Meris…��� Mattie hushed from inside the gate.

  ���Meris,��� she said again. Still there was no response. The palace lawn was harshly silent.

  ���Meris,��� she repeated, only much louder than before, not wanting to venture outside the labyrinth gates for fear of being spotted in the growing daylight. Then, at once, there arose a motion from the bushes to her left, and out waddled a noticeably chubby creature with greying whiskers.

  ���Dear me… I heard you the first time. No need to go on shout’n and wake the guards. I was wondering when you’d-Oh.���

  He stopped short when he realized the girl inside the gate was not who he’d expected.

  ���Who are you?��� he asked, quite rudely, but only because he was just woken up, and also because he was so surprised.

  ���Mattie,��� she said. ���Delany and I came here to rescue you, but we need to hurry. It’s almost day now.���

  The few clouds in the sky blushed with the golden morning rays.

  ���So it is,��� said Meris, looking up towards the horizon. ���Well if we were in such a hurry, why didn’t you say so sooner?���

  Mattie wanted to defend herself, but knew that that would only take up more time. And so, hurrying, she motioned for Meris to follow her back through the labyrinth, meaning to use the rope she’d unwound along her path to help them get over the wall, but she was not being listened to. Apparently, her furry companion had already had plans of his own.

  ���This way then,��� the gopher exclaimed and was off, escaping across the lawn towards the far wall. Mattie followed as fast as her legs could move. In most cases, the pair would have been captured here, running through the palace grounds in the early morning hours, but, as you may remember, Faron’s hired guards were all terribly lazy, so there was little chance any would be awake so soon.

  The little mammal ran at top speed, ducking into a thick set of bushes. Their branches scraped against Mattie’s cheeks.

  ���Here it is.���

  He pointed to a wide hole near the edge of the wall.

  ���Down this way,��� he said, and leapt headlong into the black earth. As you can imagine this was an unpleasant sight.

  ���Do I have to?��� Mattie protested.

  His even-toned face and dirtied paws stuck up from below the ground. ���Yes,��� he replied.

  His head quickly disappeared again, and then he added, with the echo of the tunnel around him, ���You’ll like it.���

  Chapter Twenty

  Dark and Light

  Nothing could be seen. It was absolute darkness. All Mattie knew was the sound in front of her to lead the way and the grimy earth that enclosed her. She most certainly did not like it. Her only solace, then, were in thoughts of what the high society back home would have to say about such a thing, and how their noses curled up at the mere mention of dirt.

  Up ahead the tunnel thinned, so that she had to almost go crawling on her belly to get by. Before her, she heard Meris heaving and straining at some large weight that blocked their exit. Then the stone gave way, and it bathed the tunnel in swelling light. Meris sprung from the darkness, followed closely by Mattie, squeezing her head and shoulders through the opening.

  All around her was blindness. There was a considerable commotion and, by the sound of it, horse hooves and rolling carts. She knew at once, they had dug up through the waking city streets.

  ���Eeehh!��� cried an old woman by the side of the road.

  ���What now?��� yelled the deep voice of a man, who was now trying, unsuccessfully, to calm the fears of his aging cart horse.

  Her eyes were adjusting. A small crowd was quickly gathering round to see the girl who’d crawled up through the street. She was stunned.

  ���Come on,��� Meris pulled at her sleeve.

  This woke her. In a second she was out of the hole, and sprinting through the lane,
back along the wall to where she’d first begun that night. But as they bent around the last corner it was plain to see, things outside the wall were not going so well either.

  Several gruff and mean characters, some with sticks, had backed Del and Gamel into the entryway of a locked house that faced out towards the lane.

  ���Now, now… let’s not have any trouble,��� their leader smirked.

  Defiantly, Del grabbed at a stone along the ground, and hurled it towards one of the hoodlums closest to her, but he narrowly dodged it.

  ���Watch it, love. Don’t make this any harder than it ought to be,��� he issued.

  The air around Del’s face lightened, and the man she’d narrowly missed came at her quickly, holding his stick higher in his hand.

  ���This’ll teach you,��� he muttered.

  What happened next was like a blur. Meris, who had not stopped running since they’d left the tunnel, shot out with full force into the crowd, and threw himself onto the man’s thigh, biting as hard as he could.

  ���Ahkk!���

  The thug let out a terrible scream, and this was the perfect opportunity. In a flash, Gamel had the man’s stick out of his hand, and the two others nearest to him lay whimpering on the ground. Though in all this scuffle, Del was knocked off her feet.

  ���Are you alright?��� Mattie caught up and knelt there beside her.

  ���I’m fine,��� she replied, holding her head, and her eyes squinting tightly. ���Do you hear that awful ringing though?���

  To this Mattie gave a mothering smile.

  ���You must have hit your head harder than you thought-��� But while she said this, she went to place her hand onto Del’s forehead, in an attempt to console her, but was instantly startled by something she’d never have expected.

  ���Oh!��� Mattie cried.