Medusa in the Graveyard (The Medusa Cycle)

by Devenport, Emily

  Right on cue, my dragonfly unit began to lose altitude.

  I heard Ashur shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words. He and Ahi were also dropping. We weren’t falling precipitously; the descent seemed gradual and intentional. Ahi pointed toward a ridge of rock that extended past the base of the Three. I hoped we weren’t going to have to climb down from that height.

  The dragonflies lifted us over the ridge, and we descended to the floor of a side canyon, about three hundred meters. Just as my feet planted on solid ground, my dragonfly became inert.

  Ahi unstrapped hers, so Ashur and I did the same. “We’ll walk from here,” she said. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour or so.”

  Ashur peered up at the enclosing walls of the canyon. “Where did we end up?”

  “We’re in the system that leads to the Lower Gorge,” said Ahi. “These cliffs are made of schist—hard rock that was supercompressed for millions of years. That’s why they’re so steep.”

  Dragonette let go of Ashur’s dragonfly and flew up to a point where she could see over the ridge. She hovered there, scanning the sights from several directions. She took her time. Then she flew back down to us and hovered in front of my nose.

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  The rest of us froze. “What’s up?” I said.

  “The Three are gone.”

  * * *

  According to Dragonette, it wasn’t just the Three who had disappeared. “The Gorge isn’t there. I see a maze of smaller canyons, and they sort of just keep zigzagging off into the distance.”

  Ahi touched the canyon wall. “This rock belongs to the Gorge. No one has explored very much in here—no one who’s come back to talk about it, anyway.”

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Dragonette.

  “Our way has been made more difficult,” said Ahi, “but the path is smooth. To me, that means we should walk it and see where it leads.”

  “Can we go back and get our packs?” said Ashur.

  That would be quite a distance to hike, but I confess, the same question had crossed my mind. Ahi didn’t reject the idea—instead, she walked to the end of the canyon that zigged back in the general direction from which we had come, and looked around the bend. “Come see this,” she said.

  We joined her. At the far end of the next segment, a rock fall had blocked the way. If we wanted to get our packs, we would have to climb quite a distance, on unstable rocks.

  “This is a clear message,” said Ahi. “We have to head the other way.”

  Ashur didn’t look scared, though maybe he should have. He seemed more puzzled. “Why did the Three go away? Where are they?”

  “I think we need to ask when are they,” said Ahi, “compared with when we are. We’re not syncing up with them. Someone interfered.”

  “Who would interfere?”

  Ahi shook her head. “I don’t want to say it aloud. Not here. We have to go and do what we’re supposed to do. Maybe then they’ll let us see the Three again.”

  I could tell that Ashur wanted to ask Who are they? I had an inkling who could have tampered with our expedition—and who was to blame.

  Dragonette flew to Ashur and perched on his shoulder. “Things were going too well,” she said. “That’s not how it usually works out for Olympians. For anyone, I expect. I don’t know about you, but I’m always suspicious of good things that fall right into your lap.” She fluttered her pectoral fins. “Call me a pessimist.”

  “I agree,” said Kitten. “If this were a stage production, and we all got everything we wanted without having to work for it, no one would stay past the intermission. We would be a flop.”

  When Ashur frowned at this example, Kitten added, “Unless we had good songs—but the critics would trash us anyway.”

  That made Ashur laugh. “Okay. So we have to make the critics happy. Let’s get to it. The sooner we do, the quicker it’s done.” He patted his overstuffed pockets. “And the sooner we get supper.”

  When Ashur had turned away, Ahi and I exchanged long looks. I got the feeling there was something she wasn’t sure she should ask me.

  Funny. I knew how that felt.

  “Stupid critics,” she said at last.

  Kitten wrapped herself around my waist. “Right? But they keep us honest.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about our current predicament, because I wasn’t sure if I had caused it. My connection with the Three had been brief, but I wondered if it had been long enough to let them see my doubts. Maybe my lack of confidence made them change their minds about me.

  What could I do about it, anyway? Should I tell Ashur what had happened? Would I do more harm by talking about it? I honestly didn’t know.

  At least the level path was easy to walk on, in the sense that it didn’t slope up, and the sand and gravel underfoot provided some relief for our feet without bogging us down. The canyon walls shaded us, so it felt warm rather than hot. The big problem, as far as I could see, was that we didn’t seem to be going anywhere. We were taking a long time not doing that. We were taking so long, we got tired.

  I felt it long before the youngsters. The Minis never felt it at all. I said nothing until Ashur called a halt and said, “I need to sit down for a few minutes and eat something.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” I gave him a grateful smile.

  Ahi grinned and pointed her chin at a low bench of rock. “That spot looks like it was made for us.”

  “Was it?” said Ashur as the three of us sat and began to dig in our packs for bars.

  She took her time answering that. “Maybe. It’s hard to say what’s a gift and what’s already there for anyone who cares to notice. I think most of the time, fate favors the prepared mind.”

  Those were pretty wise words from a twelve-year-old, but I’m not sure Ahi was wrong when she said that she had grown old and wise inside the time fracture in Seaside. She had been exposed to Joe’s Canyon longer than anyone. It had taught her things, and she was uniquely receptive to its lessons.

  We ate our bars, but we didn’t linger over them. Ashur seemed impatient to get back to the Three.

  I found myself hoping we wouldn’t get back to them. I did, however, want out of that maze. So we tucked our wrappers back into our pockets and hauled ourselves upright. We walked side by side, too weary to talk, though Kitten could have conducted a conversation without any extra effort. She went with the consensus.

  The canyon zigged this way, then zagged the other. We had no choice but to follow. It must be taking twice as long to make any progress—maybe ten times longer. It was getting harder and harder for me to put one foot in front of the other. I wondered if I should suggest we ought to camp. That was going to be fun, without air mattresses, though I felt so tired, I wasn’t sure I would mind.

  We walked to the end of another zig. Before we could turn the bend, two men stepped into our path.

  I recognized them—sort of. They were two of Sheba’s poachers I had seen back in Joe’s Salvage Yard, the ones who had been so overshadowed by the giant standing with them. It wasn’t their faces that tipped me off, though. It was their expressions, and the way they licked their lips when they saw Ashur and Ahi.

  They drew hunting knives.

  “Back up!” I told the kids.

  Before any of us could move, Dragonette and Kitten rushed the poachers.

  The Minis had biometal bodies, and the same nerves and brains that motivated Medusa and her sisters. I didn’t even have a chance to be frightened for them. They bit, and scratched, and hurled themselves at the two men so fast, the poachers lost their footing. One moment, those men had been stalking us with grins on their faces and knives in their hands; the next, they were backpedaling like people caught in a swarm of stinging bees. One man dropped his knife; the other lost a small pack that hit the ground with a hollow clunk.

  They ran, disappearing around the bend. Dragonette swooped up, back and forth, and then she returned. “They’re
gone!”

  “Running away?” I guessed.

  “No. I mean they vanished. I never heard them approaching, either, which I certainly should have done.”

  “Me, too,” volunteered Kitten. “My hearing is supersharp. I heard them running, but the sound cut off as if they had gone through a door.”

  Whatever had dumped those two henchmen into our laps had just scooped them out again. Had they been sent to remind us that the canyon was dangerous? Were they sent to kill us? Or was it just dumb luck that they ended up in our path?

  “Where the hell are Sheba and the other guys?” I said.

  “Her path into the canyon wasn’t optimal,” said Ahi.

  Ashur raised his eyebrows. “Meaning?”

  “She wasn’t invited by the right entities, and she didn’t have me as a guide. So she could be lost now or she could be dead. Or she could be fine, but part of her party got lost.”

  Considering all that Sheba had survived so far, I didn’t feel inclined to hope the canyon had finally done her in. As Dragonette had said—things never went that easily for Olympians.

  That was the same reason Dragonette and Kitten had been able to turn tough when the chips were down.

  I thought I could have handled one of those men. I wasn’t so confident that I could have fended off two of them, considering how confident they had looked, how comfortable they had been with those blades in their hands. On Olympia, my adversaries had been pampered bullies who weren’t accustomed to victims who fought back, but the Forgettables had not been softies. Which was all the more reason to be impressed with the actions of our wonderful Minis.

  “That was fast thinking, you two,” I told them.

  Dragonette curled and uncurled her tail. “I’m not sure it was any kind of thinking. I saw the knives, and I just—foom!”

  Kitten looked up from the discarded pack. “I have never felt so scared and so angry at the same time. I’m glad we could do something about it.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a canister. It was blue, and I could see green letters printed on its side. “Evernight,” read Kitten.

  “What…?” Ahi’s eyes went wide. “Let me see that.”

  The canister may have held water at one point, but it was empty now. Ahi studied it for a moment, her face blank. Then she placed it back inside and left the bag where it was lying. “I know where we’re going now.” She didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Where?” said Ashur.

  “Evernight Canyon.”

  Kitten sat down at Ahi’s feet and looked up at her. “Another side canyon? To receive another clue?”

  “That’s the way it looks.” Ahi seemed to be getting used to the idea.

  “Have you been there before?” I said.

  “No, but I’ve heard of it. Come on. Now that we know where we’re going, we’ll make better time.”

  Ashur and I exchanged glances. In Ahi’s current mood, she seemed as secretive as Baba Yaga. We gathered our packs and regarded the bend around which the Forgettables had disappeared.

  “Hear anything?” Ahi asked the Minis.

  “No,” said Dragonette.

  “Not even breathing,” added Kitten.

  “Then let’s roll.” Ahi started forward, but she stopped again when she stepped on something. She bent to pick it up, but recoiled without touching it. “Hey—come look at this.”

  We gathered in a loose circle around the object. It seemed to be the knife one of the Forgettables had dropped, but on closer inspection, the hilt was broken and cracked, and the blade had corroded.

  “That’s the same knife, right?” Ahi looked around, as if expecting to find another knife on the ground, this one in better shape.

  “It’s the same,” Dragonette assured her. “I saw where it fell.”

  Ahi looked up at us. “We’ve been moved to another time. I’m pretty sure we won’t run into those Scavengers again.”

  Pretty sure. I didn’t remind her that there had been two other men in that party, and one murderous old lady—and we hadn’t encountered them yet.

  * * *

  “Gifts, but gone, then what?” quoted Dragonette. “Bite the ones who take. The Sentinel was right again.” She fluttered on Ashur’s shoulder.

  Our pace had slowed. We were tired, and we also worried about stumbling into more poachers.

  “What came after that part?” said Ashur.

  “Running ruins and sad!”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Ahi sighed. “No. But it sounds true. We should have been consulting Dragonette’s transcript all along.”

  “I think it may be time to tell us what you’ve heard about Evernight Canyon,” I said.

  “For one thing, it’s always night there.”

  “Dark and shady?” said Ashur.

  “No.” Ahi shook her head. “The sun never comes up inside that canyon. It’s night, all the time. A dark sky—what you can see of it.”

  As one, we looked up. The afternoon light slanted bright and hot into Joe’s Canyon, but we stood in deep shadows because of our rock walls. Did I imagine that night was approaching faster than it had the previous day?

  “If it’s so dark,” said Ashur, “how will we see anything?”

  “Good question.”

  I glanced at Ahi—she looked resolute, but not frightened. She walked at a steady pace and seemed ready to face whatever we would find at the end of our zigzag maze.

  Assuming it ever did end.

  The day waned. Whether the rotation of Graveyard had taken us out of the path of the sun, or Evernight Canyon had asserted its peculiar sway, I couldn’t say.

  Yet as the sunshine faded, another light took its place, from a different direction. Ahead, something glowed on the canyon walls.

  “Somebody turned on a lamp,” said Ahi.

  Overhead, the darkness congealed. No stars appeared. I wondered if clouds had moved in. Shouldn’t we have seen them before the sun set?

  The artificial light grew brighter, starker, throwing odd shadows on the canyon walls. Nothing moved in that landscape, yet I heard something—a mechanical sound. Maybe a fan? We rounded the last bend and saw a low structure to our left.

  “Holy moley!” said Ahi. “That’s a bathroom!”

  The door stood open. Light spilled from inside.

  21

  The Evernight Incident

  The bathroom we used at Joe’s Salvage Yard had been a simple structure, humble and utilitarian. That would be the sort of thing I would have expected to find in the canyon (emphasis on simple and humble), if such a thing could be expected at all. The building that confronted us now looked pretty substantial—like it had been built to last. We crept closer and saw more buildings stretching into the distance—or rather, we saw their lights.

  “Evernight isn’t a canyon,” I said. “It’s a small town.”

  “Who lives here?” Ashur pitched his voice as if he were afraid someone in Evernight might hear him, but nothing moved in that town, except for the fan we could hear. No one investigated our intrusion.

  “Maybe the lights come on automatically?” I said.

  Ahi shook her head. “I’ve heard rumors about this place, but this is the first time I’ve been here. No one said there were buildings, and you’d think that would be an important detail.” She considered the bathroom again. “There may be running water.”

  I wanted to go in and splash my face, and drink water until my stomach made funny noises. I waited for Ahi’s verdict.

  “We’re going in,” she said. “Everybody stay close. Don’t let yourself get separated, no matter what happens.”

  “Should we all go into the same bathroom?” Ashur sounded incredulous.

  “Yes.” She leveled a glare at him. “Safety trumps modesty.”

  He frowned, then nodded. “You’re right. I don’t want to let you guys out of my sight. Let’s go be immodest.”

  The bathroom didn’t stand alone; it was one room in a larger structure. Its
door stood open, held in that position by a metal prop at its base. As we were going in, I cast a long look at the town over my shoulder.

  Until now, we had never encountered any of the support structures you might find at a spaceship graveyard: the hangars, the office buildings, and so on. Yet somehow, they were present here, stretching across a broad sandstone platform, pretty much in the logical place for them to be, should someone want to construct buildings inside a canyon: up out of the flood zone.

  They still functioned. Lights illuminated the inside of the bathroom, and it was clean.

  Most important—it had running water. Ahi ran the tap and took a sip. “Spring water,” she decided. “There must be a pump. Joe’s Canyon has a lot of springs, so that’s no big surprise.”

  I took a long drink, straight from one of the sinks. Then I filled my water bottle. Behind me, I could hear Ashur and Ahi going into stalls. Dragonette perched on the counter next to my sink, and Kitten joined her there.

  “I think we’re missing something,” said Dragonette.

  “Something in the town?” I wondered.

  She fluttered her fins. “Something in our situation. We think things have been made hard for us because nothing is supposed to be easy, but there’s method behind it all.”

  Kitten wound her tail around herself. “A method to the madness?”

  “Someone thinks they’re being practical,” said Dragonette. “They think they’re being logical.”

  “Who?” whispered Kitten.

  Dragonette whispered back, “We haven’t met the southern gods yet. Maybe they’ve seen us.”

  That was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me. I might have been blaming myself for nothing. The relief was short-lived when I considered the consequences of that sort of attention.

  “Do you think they’re angry with us?” I wondered.

  Dragonette flattened her fins. “No, but I’m not sure it matters.”

  We heard Ahi working the latch on her stall. When she came out to use the sink, I made use of the same facility. It was clean and well stocked. The supplies did not appear dusty or old. “I’m grateful,” I said softly. “Thank you.”