Aly leaned in. “All this for a bare room?”
I took the torch from Marco and held it to my right. “Yo! Anyone in here?”
Cass, Aly, and Marco followed close behind. The echo made our footfalls sound like an army. The Song of the Heptakiklos was pounding in my head now. “It’s deafening now,” I said. “That song. The thing has got to be near.”
“Maybe the Loculus is underground,” Aly said.
Marco stomped on the floor. The thumps echoed loudly. “It’s hard packed. We’ll need tools.”
A loud sssssshish went from left to right. “Yeow!” Aly screamed. She fell to the ground, cupping her hand over her left ear.
“What happened?” I said.
“I think I’ve been shot!” she said.
We all dropped beside her. “By what?” Cass asked.
“Let Dr. Ramsay take a look.” Marco pulled her hand away from her head. Her palm was covered with blood, but he used the edge of his tunic to wipe gently at her ear. “You’re lucky. It just grazed you.”
“What just grazed me?” Aly said. “Owww!”
I moved the torch to the left. Nothing and no one. I moved it to the right, in the direction the whooshing sound had gone. Floor and wall. I crouched, slowly standing up.
Ssshhhhhish! Ssshhhhhish! Ssshhhhhish!
I felt something whiz by my ear. My shoulder. My chin. “Get down!” Cass shouted.
His voice caromed around the room as I dropped back to the ground. “What’s going on?” Aly shouted.
I looked at the wall for a hole, some indication of an inner room, where someone could take potshots through a crack in the surface.
But I saw nothing. Whatever was shooting at us was completely invisible.
“Stay low,” I said. “The shots happen when we stand up.”
“J-Jack, we need to get out of here,” Cass said.
“Crawl,” I said.
We dragged ourselves slowly toward the door, keeping close to the dusty floor. But the song was boxing my ears, telling me where to go.
In the back . . .
“Guys, we need to head to the rear wall,” I said.
“Are you nuts?” Aly snapped. “With you and what armor?”
“Maybe we can do it if we keep low,” I said, veering off in that direction.
“Got your back,” Marco said.
I held the torch high. As Marco and I pulled ourselves like turtles across the floor, Cass and Aly looked on in silent dismay. The song grew louder. “We’re almost there,” I said to Marco.
“You mark the place,” he said. “Then we’ll get some picks and shovels.”
My nose began to twitch. I sneezed. Then Marco did, too. My eyes stung and began to tear, and I stopped to wipe them with my sleeve.
That was when I heard a low, persistent hiss . . .
“I—I can’t breathe!” Cass cried out. Behind him, Aly was coughing.
Marco collapsed to the floor, his hand over his mouth. “Gas . . .” he said.
I could see the tendrils of smoke now, but my eyes were swelling. They rose upward, collecting at the ceiling. “Stay low!” I said.
I was losing consciousness. Coughing. I put my hand over my mouth, as close to the floor as I could go without biting it. I tried to suck in something that felt like oxygen.
Now.
With my last burst of strength, I reached out to Marco and yanked him back. Toward the doorway. Toward air.
With the strength remaining in his legs, Marco pushed hard against the floor. We tumbled over each other in a tangle of limbs, bowling into Cass and Aly. Both of them were choking, holding their necks.
I was still positioned farthest into the room. I pushed the other three toward the door. My vision was clouding, and I could feel myself losing consciousness. A breeze from outside wafted in and I gulped it down as best I could.
“Breathe . . .” I said. “Almost . . . there . . .”
An image flashed through my brain, something I’d seen on a flight with Dad to Boston: an airline flight attendant with an oxygen mask, smiling placidly, tying the mask around her mouth. Secure your own mask first, before attending to children.
I was losing it. Having ridiculous hallucinations. I ignored this one, preparing to push my friends again.
And then I stopped.
I knew what that image was about. I had to get the fresh air first. Because I was the one who could. I was one who had some strength left, who had not breathed as much gas as the others. If I could revive myself, just a little, maybe I could save them.
I scrambled around the clutch of bodies, their three backs jerking up and down with racking coughs. Rising upward, I froze.
Stay down.
The bullets—or darts, or arrows, or whatever they were.
I dropped to a crouch. But nothing had been fired. Had the shooter gone away? Or run out of ammo?
Or was he lying in wait, trying to fake me out?
I crab-walked toward the door, gulping in air. Carefully I set the torch down, just outside the door. In that position, it would keep the vizzeet away and also provide light. I would need two hands for what I had to do. I could see Marco struggling to drag Cass and Aly toward the door. Good. He was reviving, too.
My body was cramped, my lungs tight. I breathed again. I had a little more strength, I could feel it. This would have to do.
I turned toward my friends, ready to pull them to safety. But the room began to shake. From above came a heavy metallic sound. The bare ceiling cracked in a couple of places. With a resounding clang, the entire floor bounced.
I fell backward. As I hit the floor I spun toward them again. I reached forward, focused on their rescue.
But my hand jammed against something hard. Metallic. Something I could feel but not see.
Gripping Cass’s tunic in one hand and Aly’s in the other, Marco lunged for the door. But his body seemed to freeze in midair and he cried out in agony, abruptly falling to the floor.
I reached forward, grabbed his arm, and pulled. I could only get a few inches before something stopped me. Dropping Marco, I felt around desperately, my hand traveling up and down what felt like metal bars—but looked like thin air.
I held one of the bars and shook. But it was useless.
Cass, Aly, and Marco were trapped in an invisible cage. And I was on the outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
INVISIBLE BARS
“JACK . . .” ALY MOANED. She flopped onto the floor, her eyes fluttering.
“Get out get out get out!” I cried, shaking the invisible bars. They were stuck solid. Not budging.
Inches from me, Cass was trying to cradle Aly’s head, but his hands were twitching. I couldn’t keep my eyes from crossing. My lungs screamed at me. I turned and tried to gulp more fresh air. When I turned back, Leonard was crawling groggily out of Cass’s tunic pocket. In the light from the torch outside the door, I could see the glint of a tiny silver shard caught in the lizard’s claw.
A gum wrapper.
It gave me an idea.
I threaded my arm through the cage’s bars and reached inside. Fumbling in the pocket of Cass’s tunic, I extracted a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint. It took all the concentration I could muster to unwrap one piece and begin to chew it. My mouth was dry, but I worked it, willing the saliva to come. I would need it.
I turned and took another breath of fresh air. Then, against all instincts, I forced myself to hold my breath and walk into the room.
Sshhhish.
This projectile grazed my tunic. I flinched, stepping aside. I was trembling, oxygen-starved.
Move.
I was also standing. But no one was firing at me.
I threw the gum wrapper to my right. Toward the direction I’d come.
Sshhhish.
The wrapper’s presence in the air had drawn a shot. There was a zone—an area where the projectiles would be activated. Outside the zone you were safe.
But the gas was still hissing. Al
though I couldn’t see it, I could hear it. As I stepped closer to the wall, to the sound, my eyes began to blur.
There.
I blinked. In a seam between stones, I could see a hole. A dime-sized blackness. I dropped to my knees, avoiding the direct path of the gas trail. And I reached into my mouth.
My fingers shook. I couldn’t make my thumb and index finger meet. With my tongue, I thrust the chewed gum to the edge of my teeth.
It fell to the floor.
Steady.
I could see the lump. In fact, I could see two. Three.
My vision was doubling and tripling, and I blinked hard as I reached down. I tried to grab the wet wad but missed, poking it with my index finger.
As I lifted my arm, the gum rose, too, stuck to the pad of my finger.
I fell forward—eyes focused on the hole, finger extended with a feeble burst of energy.
And I went unconscious.
“Jack!”
Aly’s voice stirred me from a dreamless sleep. “Whaaaa—?”
I felt as if my head had been split open with a cast-iron skillet. I sat up, rubbing my head.
“Get down, Jack—you’ll be shot at!” Cass screamed.
I ducked. I caught my breath.
To my astonishment, I realized I had breath. The tiny, poisonous stream that was closing my windpipe was gone.
Glancing at the wall, I saw the tiny clump of gum, stuck in the hole. And I no longer heard the hissing of gas.
“That was amazing, Jack,” Aly said.
“Thanks,” I replied, gathering my thoughts, “Okay, I’m thinking this room has some kind of sensor—some primitive form of electric eye, without the electricity. When we were in one area, it shot at us. In other, we tripped the gas. In each zone, a different trap. All, unfortunately, invisible.”
“And we’re in the cage district,” Cass said.
Marco knelt and began shaking the invisible bars. “We have to lift this thing,” he said. “On the count of three! One . . .”
Aly and Cass struggled to their feet. Cass was still coughing.
In the light of the torch, which was still resting on the ground outside the door, the back wall was a long wash of dull yellow. But off to the right, I saw a door opening. In a small rectangle of moonlight, I caught a quick glimpse of what seemed to be a wooden cottage just beyond the Hanging Gardens. But that was quickly blotted out by the silhouette of a cloaked man, filling the doorframe.
“Two . . .” Marco said.
A face peered out of the cloak’s hood. From here I couldn’t make out any features, just a pale white oval.
“M-M-Marco . . . ?” Cass said, staring at the apparition.
“Thrrrreeee!” Marco shouted. “That means lift!”
Snapping out of our fearful trance, we all crouched down. The bars might not be visible, but they felt as solid as iron. I quickly dug my fingers along the bottom, to where the cagelike structure met the ground. Crouching, I pulled from my side, they from theirs.
The cage was massively heavy. We raised it maybe two inches.
The apparition moved closer. One eye penetrated the gloom like a flashlight beam—no pupil of any color, just a disk of dull greenish-white. Where his other eye should have been was instead a dark socket. His legs were the shape of parentheses, and his feet dragged across the ground as if he couldn’t lift them. A cape hung loosely over his shoulders, which were thin as bamboo.
Aly, Cass, and I stared, stiff with fear.
“I think,” Aly said, “this is Kranag.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KRANAG
“LIFT AGAIN!” MARCO shouted. “Three!”
This time we pulled at the same time. I could feel the cage rising . . . maybe six inches. Kranag was walking across the room strangely. And slowly. Zigzagging one way, then the other. He raised his hand, revealing a rusted sword. It took a moment for me to realize he was talking. His voice was like the fluttering of dry wings, all air with a few consonants.
“Keep it . . . up . . . !” Marco grunted.
Knee high . . .
“Go,” Marco said. “Go! Now!”
Aly ducked first. She slid her body under the cage, not letting her hands leave the bottom. Cass followed. As Marco slid under, the cage dropped with a loud thump. He grimaced, hopping on one foot. “Out! Out now!”
As we raced out the door and into the night, I heard a sharp clang. Instinctively I spun around. Kranag had struck the side of the invisible cage with his sword. I don’t know if he thought someone was still in there or he was frustrated. He stood rigid now, moving his head toward us.
“What’s with his eyes?” Marco asked.
“Daria told us he was blind,” Aly said.
“He doesn’t need to see,” Cass said. “His other senses do it for him.”
I grabbed the torch and held it high. The night air was surprisingly cool on my skin. The vizzeet had retreated to the second level of the Hanging Gardens, still shrieking and spitting. Their fear of fire kept them far enough away from us, but the torch wasn’t going to last forever.
“Let’s get out of here!” Aly shouted.
“I say we ambush this guy and snatch the Loculus!” Marco hissed.
I shushed them. Cass was right about Kranag. He was responding to our smallest sound. His hearing was super-sharp. As he moved toward us, he sheathed his sword with one hand. With one uncannily fast motion, his other hand disappeared into his tunic, pulled out a tiny dagger, and threw it.
The shaft spiraled toward my face.
“Down!” Marco shouted, pulling me from behind. I crashed to the ground, nearly letting go of the torch. Above us, the vizzeet cackled and jumped, slavering hungrily.
But I knew how noisy they could be.
Quickly I ran toward them, waving the flame, causing their screeches to become deafening. I gestured toward Cass, Aly, and Marco to move away from the open cavern.
Kranag pulled out another knife and paused. He moved in the direction of the footsteps and threw again. The blade passed harmlessly into the garden.
We huddled at the base of the Hanging Gardens, our ears clanging with the deathly cries of the vizzeet. Kranag stared in their direction and didn’t move. The loud shrieks were blotting out all other sounds—including our voices and footfalls.
But he was not moving. He looked like he could stand there for ages.
We had to distract him, and fast.
I looked to the left, away from the open door. If we followed the wall, we could circle around the Hanging Gardens, pass by his little cottage out back, come out on the other side. Maybe we could attack from there, where he wasn’t looking.
Right, McKinley. He’ll hear you—or the vizzeet will follow you the whole way.
But at least it would confuse him momentarily. He might follow us. Maybe we could hide in that old weed-choked cottage and ambush him.
No. There was a better way. I turned to Cass, Aly, and Marco and mouthed: Come on.
I booked it to the left. A gob of vizzeet spit hit my pinkie finger and I nearly dropped the torch. Holding back a cry of pain, I veered farther from the wall.
We made a right and raced down the long structure. I could see the protective wall, off to our left. From the other side, guards shouted. There were more voices than before. They must have gathered backup. They were too chicken—or too smart—to face the vizzeet without a big crowd.
Our next right put us at the opposite side of the Hanging Gardens from where we’d started. Kranag’s hut was illuminated in the moonlight, a shabby rectangle of wood slats with a broken roof and a door that hung off rusted hinges.
“What are we doing, Jack?” Cass asked, speaking for the first time since we’d left Kranag’s earshot.
I raced toward a dry, scraggly bush that seemed to be growing from the base of the hut’s wall. The whole structure was neglected and overgrown. Dead vines twined up through the wall’s slats, threatening to overwhelm the house. To turn it into a tiny mockery
of the Hanging Gardens themselves.
As I touched the torch to the bush, it—and the wall—burst instantly into flames.
“I’m distracting him,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
TRAPS!
THE AROMA OF burning wood penetrated the night air. When we ran around the Hanging Gardens and reached the door to the cavernous room, Kranag was gone. A massive black shape flapped its wings nearby, from the base of the Archimedes screw. Zoo-kulululu! Cack! Cack! Cack!
“Careful!” Aly warned.
We watched in astonishment as the bird used its beak to turn the crank. Water began spilling from the broken mechanism into a wooden bucket. When it was full, the bird grabbed the bucket’s handle and flew off in the direction of the cottage.
Marco shook his head, hard. “Am I hallucinating?”
People said he can become an animal himself . . . That was what Daria had said. “It’s him,” I said. “Kranag.”
“That bird is Kranag?” Aly whispered.
I nodded. “He’s trying to save his home.”
“The flames will roast him,” Cass said.
I felt the pang of guilt. Setting fires went against everything I had ever been taught. I reminded myself that Kranag had wanted to kill us.
Sometimes you had to make choices.
I watched Cass drop to his knees and start scribbling in the sand. “Okay, Kranag can do some amazing stuff. He knew where all the traps are in that room. To the inch! Did you see how he was walking? Wherever he went—no gas, no arrows, nothing.”
“He probably set them up himself,” Aly said. “Of course he knows where they are. He doesn’t need to see them.”
“The point is, we can’t see them,” I said. “We can’t see anything.”
“Let’s go back a step,” Aly said. “Daria says he’s guarding the Hanging Gardens. But we know different. He’s guarding the Loculus. Jack feels it. I can feel it, too—I felt it more the closer we got to the back of the chamber. Marco, you say it might be underground, but I don’t believe that.”
“Where do think it is?” I asked.
“In plain sight, but invisible,” Aly said, a smile inching across her face. “Think about that. The first Loculus gave us the power of flight. I think this one has a whole other power.”