Taksidian waved a hand at him. “Hush,” he said. “Save your strength. You have a long journey ahead.”
CHAPTER
sixty
FRIDAY, 11:48 A.M.
“Atlantis?” Ed King said. “But I thought it was an enlightened society.”
He and Mike Peterson had been discussing the lost civilization for the past ten minutes. They had agreed to not debate the historical accuracy of its existence and pressed on into the realm of “Let’s pretend it was a real place . . . now what?”
“It probably was ahead of its time,” Mike said. “Paleo- historians hypothesize that because of its location between the Ameircan and European continents, it was able to take technological advancements from both and synergistically expound on them, moving ahead faster than either region. Supposedly, it was centuries ahead of the rest of the world in agriculture, architecture, medicine, ship building.” He shook his head. “But enlightened? I don’t think so.”
“But wasn’t it Plato’s perfect society?” Ed remembered that Plato had been the first to write about the mythological land, couching it in terms that had historians debating whether Plato was writing fact or fiction.
Mike laughed. “It’s like that telephone game, remember?” he said. “You whisper a sentence into a person’s ear, and he turns to the person on the other side of him and whispers what he heard and remembered. By the time it gets around a whole circle of people, the sentence is something completely different.”
“We played that in school,” Toria said. “It’s funny.”
Mike nodded. “The stories of Atlantis are like that, only with millions of people saying what they think they heard and remembered, and through hundreds of generations. Plato said Athens was the perfect society. He held up Atlantis as the antithesis of that.” He smiled at Toria’s puzzled expression. “The opposite of perfect. It was ruled by a group of kings who were incredibly greedy. They made their own playground out of Mount Cleito, named after the mother of Atlas, whose father was Poseidon. They forced the rest of the citizenry into poverty and servitude, destined to work solely for the benefit of the royal families. Fact is, Atlantis was a society bent on war, on conquering the European and American continents. Everything they did was about acquiring more land, more treasures, more slaves.”
Ed sat back in his chair. He ran his palms over his face, trying to reign in his runaway thoughts. Is this what they faced in Phemus? A soldier from one of history’s most bloodthirsty, battle-hungry societies?
He hoped the brute didn’t return while the kids were in the house alone.
“But Mr. Peterson,” Toria said. “What did Phemus say to me?”
“Phemus?”
“A name we made up,” Dad explained, surprised that he had not asked the question himself. “The voice on the teddy bear. What did he say?”
Mike leaned back in his chair, smiling thinly. “He said, ‘Have you come to play?’ ”
“Play?” Toria said.
Dad put his hand over hers. “That doesn’t make sense, Mike. We thought . . . I mean, we’re pretty sure it was meant as a warning or threat.”
“Oh,” Mike said. “No doubt it was. Considering the violent games the Atlantians engaged in to prepare their young people for war, Atlantis is the last place you want to go to ‘play.’ ”
CHAPTER
sixty - one
Taksidian turned to the soldiers, who had stopped just out of range of the boys’ kicking feet. “Ayta ta agoria anikoyn sto skafos stin Athina.”
He pointed toward the road David and Xander had been heading for. Streaming from it into the square was a line of children, shackled and chained together. Their eyes were downcast, their hair messy birds’ nests, their clothes nothing but rags. They shuffled forward, chains rattling, as a soldier in the front tugged on a leash and another cracked a whip behind them.
A boy in the corral of fighting children appeared at the fence. Others joined him. They were panting hard, bloody and battered. Still, they grinned and pointed at the chained kids. They began calling out, words David didn’t understand. But he could tell by their tone and sharpness that they were taunts: insults hurled like rocks at kids who were already miserable.
“Your timing is impeccable,” Taksidian told David and Xander. “The Atlantian fleet is just about to set sail for an assault on Athens. Never one to waste a resource, this society uses all its members in battle. They have found that children, mostly those captured in previous conquests or their own who show no other aptitude, come in especially handy.”
He stepped close to David, grabbing his knees to stop his legs.
“Imagine,” Taksidian said. “Swabbing decks, washing dishes, stocking pantries.” His nails dug into David’s legs, making him cry out.
“Stop it!” Xander said.
“Now, now,” Taksidian said. “I’m just getting to the fun part. You’ll get to witness the battle firsthand. The Atlantians always send in an advance platoon of children. It seems to confound their enemies, facing a horde of terrified kids.
Once the opposing force gets over the initial shock, they expend valuable arrows and energy, while giving away their hiding spots, to clear the field.”
The chain gang of children stopped beside them. Phemus lowered Xander into the arms of a soldier. They gripped him so tightly, all David could see of his brother’s struggle were flexing muscles. They bound him with shackles and slipped the end of the chain through protruding hoops.
Phemus swung David around and dropped him behind his brother. A guard, still tending to Xander’s shackles, reached a hand back and clamped it over David’s shoulder. Phemus stepped away, giving David a clear view of Taksidian. David tried to drill holes into him with his gaze.
Taksidian merely smiled. He lifted his hand and waggled his fingers at him. “Bon voyage,” he said. “I’ll give my regards to your family.”
David’s molars ground together. He didn’t know which was worse: being shipped off to a battle where he and Xander would almost certainly die, or Taksidian winning. Their disappearance would break Dad. He would either give up and leave the house to Taksidian, or he would be so defeated, so down, it wouldn’t take much for Taksidian to crush him. Crush. David tried not to think of what that word meant, but he could not stop an image from filling his mind: men carrying stretchers out of his home’s front door, white sheets covering bodies from head to toe, one Dad-sized, one Toria-sized.
David felt a fire ignite within him. It felt as though flames would burst out from every pore of his body.
The soldier holding David stooped to pick up a set of shackles. His hand slipped off David’s shoulder. David lunged forward, shoving his hands into the man, toppling him.
And he ran.
CHAPTER
sixty - two
David dodged away from the soldier’s reaching hand, kicking feet. The soldier on the far side of Xander yelled. Chains rattled, and David realized without really thinking about it that the man had jumped for him, only to be stopped by the chains between his brother and the boy in front of him.
David ran deeper into the square, heading for a gap between two vendors’ stalls on the far side.
Behind him, Xander hollered, “Go, David! Run! Run!”
The words echoed in David’s ears, putting energy into his legs, driving him forward. He wanted to yell back, I’ll come back for you! I’ll find you! But all he could do was run . . . and plan his maneuvers around the men in the square. They were turning toward him, scowling, pointing, moving to stop him. The two bare-chested fighters wiped blood and sweat out of their eyes and darted into David’s path. He ducked below lunging arms. Another man kicked him in the ribs, a blow that sent David rolling over the cobblestones.
He scrambled up, catching sight of the kids from the fighting corral slipping between and over the fence rails and running toward him. Footsteps behind him. A glance over his shoulder showed him the three soldiers pushing past the men who had tried to catch him.
“David, run!” came Xander’s voice.
He lowered his head and concentrated on pumping his legs, swinging his arms. Speed was one of his advantages on the soccer field, and he called on that talent now.
Move! Move! Move! he told himself.
Behind him, pounding feet, huffing breaths. The jingling of metal, probably swords in their scabbards, the thin chains that held leather armor in place.
Two men in front of the stalls on either side of the gap he was targeting turned toward him. Each held a bundle in his arms and appeared confused about what to do.
Before either could decide, David shot between them and into the narrow space. The wooden sides of the stalls flashed past on either side. He entered a packed-earth alleyway. Stone buildings rose above him, left and right. A man sat against one of the walls, sleeping. David jumped over his legs and kept running.
The pounding feet of the soldiers grew louder and deeper, reverberating against the walls. But he thought he had put some distance between them. He could no longer hear their ragged breathing.
He passed an intersecting alley on his right, realized he should have turned into it. He approached another alley, also on the right. Without slowing he arced into it. It ended in the distance at what appeared to be a sunlit street— probably the one the chain gang of children had used to enter the square.
He had to do something before the soldiers spotted him. Doors lined the walls on both sides: homes or the back entrances of shops, he thought. He zipped past one that was open. Braking hard, he spun around and slipped into the building. The guards had not yet appeared, but their footsteps announced their nearness. He yanked on a heavy door, swinging it fast, closing it quietly. A length of wood rested in a bracket attached to the wall beside the door, aligned with a matching bracket mounted to the door. He pulled the wood until it crossed from wall to door: a lock of sorts.
On the other side of the door, footsteps beat against the alley’s dirt path. They slowed and stopped. Voices—hurried, questioning. The soldiers moved back and forth.
David pressed his palms against the door. He looked over his shoulder. He was in a cavernous barnlike room. Wood planks rose like mini-buildings everywhere. On the other side of the room an old man stood, holding a board in one hand, a hammer in the other.
David pleaded with his eyes. He said, “Shhhhh.”
The man slowly lowered the board to the floor. He set the hammer on top of it. Then he turned, pulled open a door, and disappeared through it. Sunlight—not as bright as it was in the open square—came through the doorway. Beyond was a stone wall, and David realized the man had stepped into the first alley he had passed.
The door under his palms rattled. He almost cried out.
Someone pounded on the door, shouted. David kept his hands pressed against the wood and watched them quiver in fear. A bead of sweat trickled from his forehead into his eyebrow, then slipped into his eye. He squeezed his lids closed.
He heard quieter pounding on other doors in the alley.
The soldiers were checking every one.
The door rattled again.
Go away, he thought.
He noticed his breathing, fast, loud. He tried to stop his lungs from working and found he couldn’t.
Did the soldier hear it? Is that why he wasn’t moving on?
He expected the door to burst in on him. He looked down at the dirt floor, where light seeped below the door. Shadows cut through the glow in two places: legs. A fat drop of sweat fell from his face, plopped into the dirt between the shadows, and vanished. The shadows stirred and moved away, taking footsteps and the clattering of metal with them.
His legs felt rubbery. His entire body shivered.
Get a grip, Dae.
Movement on the other side of the door. Shadows flashing past. The soldiers weren’t going away. They knew David must have entered one of the shops.
The other alleyway, he thought. Slip out the way the old man had gone. Get away.
Slowly he lifted his hands from the door, careful to not rattle it, afraid that simply moving his hands would cause the soldiers to storm through it. He lowered his arms and turned.
Three shirtless boys stood inside the doorway across the room. One had a gash on his face, bloodying his cheek. Another’s ribs were black and blue. One eye of the third was swollen shut, the skin mottled in blacks and reds. Boys from the corral, the ones who had appeared so intent on killing one another. Now it seemed they’d found someone else they’d rather murder.
Wide, broken-toothed grins contrasted with their rough, battered faces. Another boy ran up behind them. Then another.
A boy slapped his palm with something in his other hand.
David saw that the kid held a club, like a small baseball bat.
Another boy stooped and picked up the hammer the old man had left behind. When all five had filed in, a sixth appeared behind them in the alley.
David held his hands up, palms out to them. “W-wait,” he said, barely a whisper. Louder: “Wait . . . please.”
The boy with the club—a stocky blond kid, shorter than the others—squinted at him. He turned to the others. “Enas ilithios allodapos.”
They all laughed. There was no humor in the sound.
When the kid with the club turned back to David, his face was twisted in a mask of hate and fury. As if sharing a single thought, the others lost their smiles, their mouths shaping into expressions he had seen only on snarling dogs. Their muscles tensed, their knees bent. Ready to attack.
David spun around, grabbed the length of wood that bolted the door, and yanked it out of its brackets.
Behind him came the stomping of a dozen feet and a chorus of screaming rage. Shadows fell over him like night.
Not the end . . .
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO . . .
Taner Baret, this book’s winner of my Dream the Scene contest. His entry put David and Xander in the Alps, facing Hannibal’s army. Good job, Tanner . . . but David and Xander aren’t very happy with you!
My early readers, who help make sure this wild adventure doesn’t become too wild or unbelievable: NICHOLAS and LUKE FALENTINE, SLADE PEARCE, BEN and MATTHEW FORD, MADDIE WILLIAMS, ALEC OBERND ORFER, JOSHUA RUARK, and ALIX CHANDLER.
My son ANTHONY, who is an early reader, constant encourager, and just plain cool.
The rest of my family—my wife, JODI; my daughters, MELANIE and ISABELA; and my son, MATT—for putting up with my bouts of childlike enthusiasm and artistic moodiness.
My editors: AMANDA BOSTIC, JOCELYN BAILEY, LB NORT ON, and JUDY GITENSTEIN—wonderful ladies and perfect editors.
My publisher, ALLEN ARNOLD, and the rest of Team Nelson, especially JENNIFER DESHLER, KATIE BOND, BEC KY MONDS, and KRISTEN VASGARD—for letting me write these stories and putting them into the hands of the best readers an author could hope for.
BENTLEY BROWN and the incredible faculty and students at Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge—your passion for these stories is the reason I write them. And an equally loud shout-out to the teachers and kids at Einstein Elementary School in Redmond, Wash., and two special schools in Monument, Colo.: Creekside Middle School and Lewis Palmer Middle School. (I wish I had the room to name all the educators and students who made me feel so welcome in their schools during the past year. You know who you are—thank you!)
BURKE ALLEN, JAKE CHISM, BONNIE CALH OUN, REL MOLLET, TODD MICHAEL GRENE, JEANETE CLINKUNBROOMER, SCOTT QUINE, NANCI KALANTA, and PAUL and JENIFER TURNER—for helping me get the facts straight, spreading the word about the Kings and their adventures, and being good friends.
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. When David is in the dark chamber of bones (with no apparent way out), he panics and imagines the worst of outcomes. Have you ever been in a situation that seemed hopeless? Were you optimistic or pessimistic about what would happen? What did happen? What did you learn from the experience?
2. After Dad and Xander discover his grisly “artwork,” Taksidian wants t
o “have pie” with them. Dad thinks he’s trying to find out if the Kings intend to go to the police and wants to convince them not to. Even though Taksidian might be arrested if they did turn him in, Dad decides to wait until they’ve found Mom. Do you agree with his decision? Talk about a tough decision you’ve had to make and whether you believe you made the right choice, looking back on it now.
3. The Kings find out the wall lights in the third-floor hallway help keep people from the past from entering the house by scaring them. Xander tells David it’s like a skull-and-crossbones warning or a Viking symbol during their reign of terror. Can you think of other signs and symbols that scared people in ancient civilizations? What symbols frighten people today?