The Imperial Synod of Wizards cast about for a new world to which the Norumbegans could retire until the Game was decided. They produced brochures for each possible world, which the Emperor Randall and the Empress Elspeth inspected, pronouncing one world too lush and humid, another too arid, a third too low on gravity, a fourth too full of predators, a fifth too vexingly non-Euclidean. Eventually they agreed upon the Realm of the Broken Globe.
For three weeks, the Imperial Synod of Wizards labored to open a bridge to the Realm of the Broken Globe. The bridge was established at tremendous cost. For this, the Norumbegans extinguished their sun, which had first been lit in the reign of King Taskwith the Architect. And so the Empire of Norumbega fell into shadow. For the last days of the Empire, it was lit with torches and lamps.
Runners were sent to the furthermost grottoes and caverns, and all the citizens of the Empire were told that they must take the Way of Shadow into the new Realm. The mansions in the air above the forests were abandoned; the resort cities rising like splinters from the mountaintops were shut up; distant caves were closed with avalanches; a duke who lived in a crystal palace touched a tuning fork to his home and shattered it; and citizens assembled from everywhere to walk the final route into the mystic portal from which they might never return.
They left their homes. They left their beds and their wardrobes. They trudged along Blarnwyth Avenue, overseen by Thusser warlords. It was on that Avenue that the great triumphal marches of the ancient days were held. It was there that the Empress Qui I first saw her beloved Bax across the crowd.4 It was there that each Emperor and each Empress had been carried upon their Coronation Day to greet their subjects. It was there that, on warm evenings, citizens had gathered beneath the trees for gelato and games of jacks.
They took with them what they could in carts and on bicycles.
As they walked, the Weeping Matriarchs of Norumbega threw the dust of their kingdom upon their clothes and ground it in, knowing that they would not see this dust or these gables and gargoyles again for centuries; perhaps forever.
Children held out their hands for their homes behind them. Others, I suppose, looked forward to the strangeness of the void before them. Women wore scarves on their heads against the glare of alien suns. Men carried fishing poles or the mailboxes of their former homes. Families loaded their donkeys with golden clocks or papier-mache masks from village rituals. They stacked file folders with all their past bills and their portraits and daguerreotypes in the sidecars of their motorcycles. They walked two by two and four by four and ten by ten toward the black portal.
Their kingdom gone, their Empire dissolved, they passed out of this world. The matter which constituted them ceased to exist, and left behind the sucking of air into a void. Thus vanished the People of the Mound of Norumbega.
The Earth was lighter with their passing.
REGARDING THE EMPTY CITY.
Jackets hang on hooks behind doors. The dishes in some houses are stacked still in the cupboards. In others, a father or a mother, in anger, smashed the plates against the tile floor, weeping for what would be lost. Now the shards will be there for centuries.
Rooms full of stuffed toys sing to themselves and settle down for sleep.
A few of the mechanical servants did not absent themselves; they have continued to clean their masters’ houses carefully until finally, recently, they have run down. They stand in stiff poses, mops drying in their hands, or they crouch on their knees, as if polishing, their heads bent low.
Ovens are cold now. There are no boats by the piers.
For miles and miles, the city is nothing but stone. The cold has grown strong and constant.
When my people fled, I remained behind. I sit in a room with a desk and a chair. I will not abandon my city.
Frost gathers on the windowpanes.
Doors sway with the slightest touch.
Winter has come to Norumbega.
THIS HISTORY, CONCLUDED.5
I remain here in an empty house, in an empty city, finishing my chronicle of centuries. The miles of corridor and cavern are silent, for it is night, or would be, if there were a sun.
There are others, I suspect, who remain: thieves who hope to profit from the ruin and somehow escape the Thusser; sentimentalists who will not leave their homes; the crazed, who I hear shouting at no one in echoing squares.
The Thusser are engaged in disinfecting the city. They spin in heli-choppers near the roof, shining lights down upon the alleyways. They pass through whole quarters and blast poisons that bleach the stone and cause woodwork to melt. Furniture runs down the streets in brown rivulets.
In a few days, perhaps tomorrow, they will reach the empty slum where I am hidden, and they will spray it, and I will be liquefied. Thus will be an end to the nobility of Norumbega.
For many aeons, I have guided the Emperors and Empresses of this hidden realm. I have always acted to benefit the kingdom, expand its influence, and preserve its ancient ways. If I have not always been understood, if I have, on occasion, had to ensure that someone didn’t interfere by removing them, it is only because I fought so zealously for the old virtues of our forefathers.
Left alone in this desolate city, I am once again master of the Empire of Norumbega. For a few hours, its empty streets and plazas belong to me. Hear me, stones: I am at last your king.
In the darkness here, I feel great joy knowing that the Empire has come to its end, a terrific relief. There is no way that human children—ignorant and befuddled—will ever make their way around the Rules of the Game and the deception of the Thusser to win. Eventually, the Thusser Hordes will not be able to hold themselves back. They will take possession of the Realm of Norumbega before the Game is decided; and by winning a triumph over us too soon, they will doom themselves eventually to destruction. And so thousands of years of contest will come to an end. Of this, I am satisfied.
I write near a flame from a tallow candle. The only sounds in the city now are the echoes of fountains in granite courtyards. Occasionally, I hear the lapping of waves down by the dark lake, and I shudder to think what has just pulled itself ashore.
The ghosts of those I betrayed are always around me. They do not speak, but sit in uncomfortable positions, glaring.
What would it mean if a single child came back to this city and played here? I picture him spinning his top. Everything might begin again.
I was born many ages ago. I was born in a grape arbor under the Norumbegan sun.
I have worked for my people, and now I am finished.
What happens next, I cannot describe. The chronicler fails. We are always at the end of history, no matter when our lives begin. We are always the last thing.
Who knows? Even hope is not impossible.
I close my eyes, lay down my quill, and wait for the story to unfold.
* * *
2 As has been detailed in Quentian’s history of the Dirgemoore Conspiracy, The Book of Corrosion. [Dainsplint’s note.]
3 These processes are described in The Tooth-Song of Pilge the Rhymer.
4 As retold in The Wooing of the Clockwork Doll.
5 In a series of puns that cannot be rendered into English, this section is made up entirely of words that sound, except for their inflection, like the Norumbegan words for “ash” and “ashes.”
A special sneak preview of M. T. Anderson’s
Coming soon!
Brian Thatz noticed he was being followed as he walked from his cello lesson to the old office building where he played interdimensional games.
At first, it was just a feeling that someone was watching. He pushed his glasses more securely onto the bridge of his nose and looked around. No one seemed suspicious. There were some other students with violins and guitars hopping down the steps of the music school. A crossing guard. Two women in high heels, wobbling on the brick sidewalks.
So Brian kept walking, dragging his cello. Sometimes he wished he’d chosen a smaller instrument. Even the viola would have bee
n better.
But there was the feeling again—like someone lightly touching his back, a gaze lingering on his collar, on his neck, on the fringe of hair coming out from under his baseball cap.
He frowned and glanced at the windows he passed to see if they reflected signs of movement.
Nothing. But the feeling persisted. He kept going for a block or two, then turned.
This time, he saw who was following him.
The man wore a camel-hair overcoat and carried nothing in his hands. His face, at a distance, looked violent and bloody red.
Brian loved to read old detective stories with names like The Gimleyhough Diamond, A Wee Case of Murder, and What Goes Up. In these books, people were always being hired to follow other people. They called it “shadowing,” and the creeps who shadowed were called “shadows” or “tails.”
Brian’s shadow was not very good at remaining unseen. The man clearly was used to following sly, nimble victims who slipped through crowds and darted down alleyways. He wasn’t particularly gifted when it came to lurking behind a stocky boy struggling down the street with a cello. The shadow had to make frequent stops so he wouldn’t walk right past Brian. He had to pretend he was interested in birds.
There were plenty of birds. It was early summer in Cambridge, and the Common was alive with them. An oak shuffled with finches. Brian saw the tail pause about fifteen feet back to shield his eyes and admire them. The man’s red face was riddled with old pockmarks, scumbled like cottage cheese.
While the tail watched the finches, Brian decided to make a break for the subway station. He lifted his cello—cranking up his elbows—and hopped across the puddles. For blocks, he puffed and hauled.
Even he could tell his burst of speed was pathetic. College students taking a brisk stroll walked right past him. Bicyclists nearly ran into him. The tail kept ambling along across the Common, fascinated by jays, looking fitfully at the dirty sky, slightly embarrassed to be so visible.
The tail followed Brian past a bus stop, past an old graveyard, past a church and a drunken busker playing the accordion. The man followed him past a newsstand and down the escalators to the T, Boston’s subway.
When the train pulled into the station and the doors hissed and rattled open, Brian lunged into the nearest car. He rested his back against one of the poles and twisted his neck to look out. The tail was headed along the platform, straight for the same car. The man stepped in at the other end and stood staring, unperturbed. No longer, apparently, so interested in birds.
“Ashmont train,” the voice on the loudspeaker said. “Stand clear of the doors. Stand clear.”
Brian flung himself toward the doors as they shut. He hauled his cello behind him.
His cello got tangled with the pole and seat. Brian tripped and almost fell.
“Whoa,” said a kid in a hoodie, gripping Brian’s shoulder. “Steady.”
The doors were closed. The train pulled out of the station. The tail stared down the car as if Brian were a natural event he was watching. They all raced through tunnels, wheels screaming.
Brian knew who might have sent the man to shadow him. Nearly a year before, Brian and his friend Gregory had gone on a strange adventure in the northern woods of Vermont. They had found themselves the pawns in an ancient, supernatural game that led to mountaintops, caverns, and ogres. When Brian won the Game, he also won the right to oversee the Game’s next round. Now he suspected that the tail who stood a few feet from him had been sent by the Thusser, the elfin nation that had lost that contest. Perhaps they were trying to gain some advantage.
Maybe this man, the shadow with clotted cheeks, was sent to find out where Brian’s workshop was hidden. Several days a week after school, Brian went to an old office building, where he and Gregory set up the next round of the Game, making up riddles and designing monstrosities. Maybe the Thusser were trying to catch a glimpse of Brian’s plans.
Or maybe they sought revenge.
Brian thought carefully about what to do. He prided himself on always being rational and logical. He knew that in a few stops, the T train would shoot briefly above-ground. It would cross a bridge over the Charles River, and for a minute or so, his phone would work. He decided he would call Gregory and tell him he wasn’t going to the workshop today. He’d ask Gregory to meet him at a different stop instead, and they’d both just walk back to Brian’s house. That way they wouldn’t be giving the tail any new information. There was nothing secret about Brian’s own address. It could be found by anyone with a phone book and thumbs.
Brian took his phone out of his pocket. He waited for the train to rise out of the tunnel. He anxiously flipped the phone open and closed, open and closed.
As the subway neared the mouth of the tunnel, he speed-dialed Gregory. He held the phone up to his ear. It was ringing.
The tail watched Brian call. His blotched lips started to move, as if he whispered information to someone who couldn’t be seen. He closed his eyes.
The train rolled across a dark granite bridge between black turrets. The city of Boston was spread out on its hill. Sailboats were on the river, and people were jogging along the banks. Brian knew he only had about forty-five seconds. The phone was still ringing.
The train stopped at the Charles Street station. People got on and off, hefting backpacks. Brian hunched over the phone, shielding his face with his cello, which rested between his legs and the grasp bar. The phone rang on.
Then, finally, someone answered.
“Hey,” said Gregory’s voice. “Listen to this.”
“No, Gregory,” whispered Brian urgently. “There’s someone following me. Can you meet me at—”
There was a squalling noise at the other end of the phone, a vicious hissing, a crash.
“Did you hear that?” Gregory said. “I put the cat on my dad’s turntable. Like, for vinyl.”
“Yeah. Gregory, I’m being followed. One of the Thusser, I think. Can you meet me at—”
There was another sharp hiss, another thump.
Gregory came back on the phone. “Side B,” he explained.
“Gregory, listen!”
“How did people ever think that was a high-definition sound system?”
“Gregory, I need you to meet me at—”
The train sped back underground. Brian shouted the name of a stop, but his phone had already lost its signal.
Brian was on his own.
Excerpt copyright © 2010 by M. T. Anderson.
*“Anderson, the author of the YA novel Feed (2002), proves himself a natural in this genre, tightening the screws of suspense one twist at a time, and occasionally piercing the sinister atmosphere with a cheeky ray of comedy… Deliciously scary, often funny, and crowned by a pair of deeply satisfying surprises, this tour de force leaves one marveling at Anderson’s ability to slip between genres as fluidly as his middle-grade heroes straddle worlds.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Anderson gleefully deploys his wicked wit, leavening the Gothic atmosphere with hilariously anachronistic details like duct tape in the unlikeliest places. Jazzier than Susan Cooper, funnier than Philip Pullman, this is a highly original and enormously entertaining read.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[A] smart, consciously complex offering that never panders.”
—Kirkus Reviews
*“Anderson keeps the tension high even as he cuts it with colorful prose and an insightful motif involving the boys’ friendship. Dexterously juggling a seemingly impossible profusion of elements, the author builds to a climactic series of surprises that, exploding like fireworks, will almost certainly dazzle readers.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Joan Aiken meets Douglas Adams in this well-done, humorous fantasy… The novel never ceases to entertain, and the ending is genuinely unexpected. The book should strongly appeal to any teen interested in an original fantasy adventure.”
—Voice of Youth Advocates
This book was originally published in hardcover by Scholastic Press in 2004.
Copyright © 2004 by M. T. Anderson. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, AFTER WORDS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
This edition first printing, May 2010
Cover art by David Frankland
Cover design by Steve Scott
e-ISBN 978-0-545-28304-5
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
M. T. Anderson, The Game of Sunken Places
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends