Cave of Wonders

  “Uh . . . Now I will tell you a story!” He waved his hand in an arc in front of him. He didn’t know why. It just seemed like a storyteller thing to do. “Once . . . upon a time!”

  Sera slapped her forehead. Riq folded his arms across his chest.

  “There was a djinn.” Dak congratulated himself for using the real word for genie. “And this djinn . . .” What? What should his story be about? Dak realized he probably should have figured that out before he got up here, but it was too late to back down now. So he grabbed the first thing that came into his mind. “This djinn had a ring that had magical powers. It allowed the djinn to travel backward in time!”

  Sera was shaking her head now. Riq’s mouth hung open. What was their problem?

  “One day,” Dak said, “the djinn met . . . a man. In the desert. And the man was wandering around, lost and depressed. And the djinn goes, ‘Why are you wandering around lost and depressed?’ And the man, uh, the man goes, ‘Oh, I’m sad because my house burned down, and the fire destroyed . . . a book my parents gave to me. It was my prized possession.’”

  Dak thought he was doing a pretty good job. The audience seemed to be interested. None of them had walked away yet. So he kept going.

  “When the djinn heard this, he said, ‘I can grant you your heart’s desire. What is it?’ And the man was like, ‘Really? My heart’s desire is to have my book back.’ So the djinn used his magical ring and took them both back in time to the man’s house before the fire.”

  Hey, this story is actually pretty good! But Dak noticed a man standing at the back of the audience who did not look so happy. He wore a gray robe over a striped one, with a bright red turban wrapped around his head. Two fairly big guys — city guards by the look of them — stood on either side of him, and all three of them were glaring at Dak.

  He kept going. “And they snuck into the man’s house, and the man from the future wanted to warn the man from the past about the fire, but the djinn was all, ‘No. You said your heart’s desire was your book.’” Dak felt his voice getting louder, and the words came faster. “So they went to the man’s library, and they found the book his parents had given to him, and they took it, and the djinn used his ring to take them both back to the future where they came from. And the man had saved the book, his one true desire. The end.”

  Dak bowed low.

  No one clapped. He looked up. A moment later, he heard the light clink of a metal coin hitting the ground in front of him. Then another and another. The audience broke up, going back to whatever it was they’d stopped doing to listen to him.

  Dak hopped down from his basket, feeling proud, and collected the money he’d earned. He didn’t recognize the coins, and he didn’t know how much was there, but he didn’t care right then. As he picked up the last, Sera and Riq rushed up to him.

  “What were you thinking?” Sera was talking in that hissing voice she used when she was mad at him but couldn’t yell because there were teachers around.

  “What do you mean?” He held out his handful of coins. “Look!”

  “That’s great,” Riq said. “But what about that thing you just did where you told the whole city about the Infinity Ring, and why we’re here?”

  “I didn’t do that,” Dak said.

  Sera lifted an eyebrow at him. “Magical ring that goes backward in time? Saving a book from a fire?”

  Dak looked at the coins in his hand. “I did do that, didn’t I?” How could he have not realized he was basically turning their mission into a story? “Oops. What do we do now?”

  “Hope there wasn’t a Time Warden in the audience,” Sera said.

  “Uh-oh.” Dak remembered that guy with the red turban, and started looking around for him.

  “‘Uh-oh’ what?” Riq asked.

  Dak spotted him. He and his two guards were stalking toward them, and they looked even less happy than they had before. “‘Uh-oh’ him.”

  “You! Storyteller!” The man in the red turban pointed at Dak. “Hold it right there.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?” Riq asked.

  “The trouble,” the man said, “is that I don’t remember issuing a permit for this young man to tell stories on the street.” He had a long, pointed beard and very deep-set eyes.

  “You need a permit to tell a story?” Dak asked. “Really?”

  “I am the Market Inspector!” The man’s glare trampled over all three of them. “And I decide what you need a permit for, and, yes, you need a permit to be a public entertainer. Do you have a permit?”

  Dak gave a little shrug. “Well, no.”

  The Market Inspector put his hands on his hips. “Then you must forfeit your illicit gain. Turn over the money.”

  Dak didn’t want to. He had earned it. He had found a way to maybe buy some clothes. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Can’t you just let it go this one time?”

  The man’s eyes got sharp and narrow. “I never let things go.”

  Dak looked at Sera and Riq. They looked back at him. He flicked his eyes in the direction Riq had pointed before. They nodded.

  “Well, sir, I’m sorry,” Dak said. “If I’d known I needed a permit, I would have — RUN!” Dak launched into a sprint across the square, Sera and Riq close behind him.

  “Seize them!” the Market Inspector shouted.

  Dak looked back and saw the two city guards barreling after them as they left the Perfume Market and dove into the city.

  The streets got narrower. They twisted and turned like a maze, climbing up and down steps, and they were as crowded as ever with camels and donkeys. People shouted at the three time travelers as they ran past, bumping into things. Dak accidentally knocked over a cart full of bread.

  “Sorry!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Riq ran up alongside Dak. “Let me lead the way!”

  He turned them down one street, then another. Dak soon lost all sense of direction, and he hoped Riq knew where he was going. But no matter how many turns they made or how far they ran, they just couldn’t seem to dodge the Market Inspector and the guards, who stayed right behind them.

  “Apparently,” Sera shouted, “he really doesn’t let anything go!”

  “Keep running!” Riq shouted.

  Eventually, they burst onto a busier, wider street. There were even more people and animals here. More stalls and carts and shops. There was an old guy sitting on the ground nearby selling rugs, which he had laid out in stacks in front of his shop.

  “I have an idea!” Sera looked back, and then led them to the rugs. She dropped to the ground, grabbed the edge of one of the rugs, and rolled herself up in it. Dak grinned and did the same thing.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Riq said, but soon he was rolled up in a rug, too.

  The three of them lay there, side by side like burritos, while the rug seller just stared in surprise. Dak wiggled a hand free and flicked him one of the coins he’d just earned, then put his finger in front of his lips to say, “Shh.”

  The old guy caught the coin, looked at it, and then glanced up as the Market Inspector charged out into the street. The rug seller winked at Dak, and looked away. Dak smiled, then ducked back inside his rug and tried to hold completely still.

  Several moments passed. The sounds of the street carried on around them. Dak realized he was holding his breath, and at the same time realized he couldn’t hold it forever. How long would they have to lie there?

  “You, Rug Merchant!” That was the Market Inspector’s voice. “We are looking for two children, one a Frank and the other a Persian like you, and an older youth with them, an African. Have you seen them?”

  “Yes, muhtasib, I have seen them,” the rug seller said.

  Dak went cold inside.

  “Well? Where are they?” the Market Inspector asked.

  “They ran that way,” the rug seller said. “Toward the Gate of the Sultan.”

  Dak closed his eyes in relief. Then he heard the sound of several feet beating th
e road away from them, eventually growing distant and quiet until he couldn’t hear them anymore.

  “You can come out now, little pirashki.”

  Dak jerked sideways as the old guy lifted the edge of the rug and rolled him out into the street. He got up and dusted himself off as the rug seller did the same with Sera and Riq.

  “Now that’s what I call a magic carpet,” he said.

  Riq turned to the merchant. “Thanks for not telling him where we were,” he said.

  “Bah.” The rug seller gave Dak back his coin. “The Market Inspector is a powerful and unpopular man. It pleases me to find ways to frustrate him.”

  “Thank you,” Dak said. “What’s your name?”

  “Farid,” he said. “And you are?”

  “I’m Dak. This is Sera and Riq.”

  “I am happy to meet you,” he said. “And now, I do not want to seem rude, but the Market Inspector will realize you have slipped out of his grasp and return this way soon.”

  “Thanks,” Riq said. “We’ll get going. Could you tell us the way to the House of Wisdom?”

  “Oh, the House of Wisdom is it?” Farid chuckled. “Are you scholars in addition to being rug testers?”

  “Yes,” Sera said. “I guess we kind of are.”

  Farid gave them directions, and they said good-bye to him. They weren’t as far off track as Dak had worried they would be after their escape from the Market Inspector. Before long, they were standing before the Gate of the Willow Tree, the great palace they had seen before much closer now. They had circled around it.

  Riq pointed through the gate. “The House of Wisdom is on the other side.”

  They’d made it.

  RIQ STILL couldn’t believe how careless Dak had been. What if there had been a Time Warden in the audience? That could have been the end of the entire mission. As it was, Riq was still worried about the Market Inspector. He had seemed a little too determined to catch them.

  Through the gate, they were able to see more of the palace. It was incredible, like something out of those old postcards Riq’s Grandma Phoebe had kept from all her travels. Now that they were on this side of the wall, Riq could see there were actually several grand palaces and buildings. Gardens grew between them, lush with different trees and palms, and all kinds of colored flowers, bushes, and plants, while fountains spouted and bubbled in their midst.

  Riq pointed to the right. “The first guy I talked to said the House of Wisdom is one of those buildings overlooking the river.”

  “There’s a river running through the city?” Sera asked.

  “That would be the Tigris River,” Dak said. “Along with the Euphrates River, it forms a part of what’s known as the Fertile Crescent region.”

  Riq rolled his eyes, but he was too tired to even make fun of Dak’s history vomit right now.

  So Dak kept going. “The region was also known as the ‘cradle of civilization,’ because it’s where some of the first civilizations in the world started. Like the ancient Sumerians. Did you know they had the first system of writing in the world? It’s called cuneiform.”

  “That’s great, Dak,” Sera said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” From the sound of it, Dak hadn’t picked up on Sera’s sarcasm.

  “We’re almost there. Let’s just go. We can worry about new clothes later.” Riq hadn’t said anything to the other two, but he almost didn’t want to get to this House of Wisdom place. Every step he took toward it felt like a step toward a future where he didn’t exist anymore. The only thing keeping him moving was his dedication to the mission. It was his way of honoring the memory of Kisa.

  They passed in front of a two-story building with a series of striped, pointed arches in the walls. Riq remembered that was another college from the first guy’s directions. Beyond the college, they could finally see the Tigris River flowing. It was as wide as maybe four soccer fields. Sailboats and rowboats moved across its surface like bugs. Bustling wharves and piers covered the shoreline, and across the water, Riq could see the western half of Baghdad. The river flowed right through the city, on its way to wherever it went, and it made Riq think about their mission. Fixing the Great Breaks, like removing boulders from the river of time.

  “It’s big,” Sera said.

  “This is called the Wharf of the Needle-Makers,” Riq said. “And the next building should be the one we’re looking for.”

  Up ahead, past a small courtyard, they saw a large, plain building. Its walls looked sturdy and well kept, but lacked the opulent decorations of the palaces and colleges. It had no windows, and a single large door standing open. Several men milled about in front of the entrance, most of them wearing white turbans.

  To the side of the door, Riq saw a single engraving. It read:

  “The House of Wisdom,” he said, pleased that he’d taken the time to learn how to read and write Arabic. “This is definitely it.”

  “Okay,” Sera said. “So how do we do this?”

  “What do you mean?” Dak asked. “We just walk in.”

  “Oh, for the love of mincemeat,” Sera said. “First you go and blab our mission in front of the whole Perfume Market, and now you’re going to just walk in and . . . what? Ask which one of them is a Hystorian? Do you realize there could just as easily be SQ Time Wardens in there?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Dak said.

  “I know,” Sera said.

  “But I would have figured it out,” Dak said.

  “But not before it was too late,” Sera said.

  Riq raised his voice to interrupt them. “If we can get in there, the Hystorian may come to us. They’re on the lookout for us, remember?”

  “But so are Time Wardens,” Sera said.

  But that didn’t make sense to Riq when he thought about it. “Maybe not. Look, the Time Wardens know Aristotle founded the Hystorians, right? I’m betting if there were a Time Warden in the House of Wisdom, they would have destroyed Aristotle’s books a long time ago. There wouldn’t be anything in there for us to save from the Mongols in the first place.”

  Dak turned to Sera. “I guess you didn’t think of that!”

  “Neither did you!”

  “Let’s just go in and see what happens,” Riq said.

  They approached the front door, attracting looks from the men standing around outside it. Riq tried to hold his head up in a way that said the three of them belonged there, and they knew exactly where they were going. But they hadn’t reached the door before one of the men called to them.

  “Can we help you?” he asked.

  “We’re here to see the House of Wisdom,” Riq said, turning back to face him.

  The man nodded up at the building. “Then your purpose has been fulfilled.”

  Great. This guy was super literal. He was probably a linguist. The annoying kind. “What I meant,” Riq said, “is that we have come to visit the scholars within the House of Wisdom.”

  The man left his group and came over to them. “Is that so?”

  Dak piped up. “It is.”

  “And what is it you seek from us?” the man asked.

  “Uh . . .” Dak stuck out his handful of coins. “We’ve come to make a donation.”

  The man wrinkled his nose at the money like it smelled funky. “A donation?”

  And now Dak had gone and offended him. The kid was on a roll.

  “Sure,” Dak said. “You guys take donations, right? Don’t libraries always need money?”

  The man’s nostrils flared. “The House of Wisdom does not beg for money.”

  Now Sera spoke. “But do you take it when someone offers it?”

  The man looked back at Dak’s hand. “If you wish to contribute to the learning that goes on here, I’m certain such a donation would come back to reward you tenfold.”

  Riq’s tension eased. The guy may have been too proud to admit the House of Wisdom needed the money, but he wasn’t turning them away.

  “For our donation,” Riq said, “could we ma
ybe go inside?”

  The man looked each of them up and down. “I suppose that would not hurt anything. Follow me.”

  Riq sighed in relief, and so did Sera.

  Dak just grinned. “Open sesame,” he whispered.

  They followed the man to the door and he ushered them through.

  Inside, the building had a huge courtyard in the center, lined with columns and arches, and surrounded by two stories of doors and corridors. Dozens of people moved around, crossing the courtyard, going in and out of doorways, carrying stacks of paper and scrolls and books.

  “And now you have been inside,” the man said.

  “Could we look around a bit?” Dak asked.

  The man sucked air through his teeth. “Let me find Abi.”

  “Who?” Riq asked.

  “Ibn Abī al-Shukr. He volunteers to show newcomers around. He enjoys it, for some reason. Wait here.”

  He walked away, leaving the three of them alone.

  “This is amazing,” Dak said. “There are probably books in here the people of our time have never seen or even heard of. Think of the history!”

  “I’m more interested in the books on math and science,” Sera said.

  “The only book we’re here for is the one that will prevent the Cataclysm,” Riq said, even though as he said it, his stomach tightened up.

  “Right,” Dak said. “But if we happen to see another cool book along the way, there’s no harm in looking.”

  Riq shook his head. “Dak, I —”

  “Here they are, Abi.” The man who had let them in had returned with another man by his side. The new guy was younger, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. He wore a pale blue robe and a white turban. A thick beard covered his very round face, and his smile seemed wide enough to touch his ears.

  “Welcome!” he said.

  The other man nodded and left them, back through the front door.

  Abi lifted his eyebrows. “I’m told you wish to make a donation and see the House of Wisdom?”

  “That’s right!” Dak held out his handful of coins.

  The man took them with both hands and a slight bow of his head. “I do feel some discomfort taking money from a young man like yourself, but I believe you are sincere, and we thank you for your generosity. I am Ibn Abī al-Shukr, but you may call me Abi.”