The others exchanged a glance of apprehension.
“You sure about this?” Char asked nervously.
“What else can we do?” said Ven. “Even if we could get out of the well, Felonia’s thugs would be waiting for us. I don’t see that we have any choice.”
They turned back toward the inner part of the tunnel, and stopped.
There, where the three men had been, were at least thirty more.
At the front of the group was a withered old man. In the glow of the Lightstone, they could see he was clothed in a ragged robe with sleeves that ended just above his elbows, a necklace made of large metal squares that had stones set in the middle of most of them, and a battered crown on his head. His eyes were black, but they sparkled with interest, and his thin lips spread into a broad smile, showing white teeth separated by gaps of darkness.
“Welcome,” he said in a scratchy voice that sounded amused. “The name’s Macedon, Ruler of the Downworlders, but most just knows me as the Rat King. These splendid gentlemen behind me are my court.” The scruffy men behind him laughed ominously. “So to what do I owe the, er, pleasure of yer company, young’uns?”
The friends looked at one another.
“Uh, we took shelter in the well,” said Ven. “We’re sorry to disturb you—we didn’t realize you were here.”
“Ah.” The Rat King nodded. “So King Vandemere didn’t send you, then?”
“Oh! Well, yes, sort of,” Ven admitted. Reluctant as he was to reveal too many details, he felt it best not to pretend or lie to someone who knew more about what he was doing than he did himself. “He gave me the Lightstone, if that’s what you mean.”
“But he didn’ understand what it was, then.” The Rat King sighed. “Too bad. I had heard a few years back he was an inquisitive youth, out pokin’ around to learn as much as he could about the kingdom he now rules. Too bad he didn’t get more of a chance.”
Ven’s excitement was raging, setting his skin on fire. He stepped forward a little.
“You can tell me whatever you want him to know, and I will tell him,” he offered. “That’s my job, actually—or at least it was.” His face grew hot as he saw the men behind the king looking at each other skeptically. “Please, Your Majesty—what can you tell me about the Lightstone?”
The Rat King smirked.
“Firstly, it’s keepin’ you safe right now,” he said humorously, but with a dark undertone of seriousness. “There’s many things what crawls around in these tunnels asides us, and they don’t take kindly to being disturbed, especially by strangers. An’ they’re always hungry.”
“Hoo boy,” Char said quietly.
“Other’n that, it was an invitation, from one king to another. An’ it wasn’t sent to him—it was sent to his father.”
“Yes, he did say that,” Ven said.
The Rat King chuckled. “Well, since yer here, why don’t you come in? You’re our guests now, so’s it’s proper to find you something ta eat.” His dark eyes glittered. “And we’ll show you the Wonder.”
“The Wonder?” Clemency said aloud before she could help herself.
The Rat King nodded. “Yes, indeed, my girl. So if you wants to see it, come with us. Give me the Lightstone and I’ll show ya the way.” He put out his hand.
Ven stared at the king’s stone. Do I have a choice here? he thought. The Downworlders were the only people in the world who might have the key to what the king wanted to know. At last he decided there was no other choice but to obey. He handed it to the Rat King.
The scraggly man waved them forward, then turned around in the tunnel and walked off, the court already gone in the shadows ahead of where the light reached.
The friends exchanged a glance, then hurried to catch up with them.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you called the Downworlders, Your Majesty?” Ven asked as he walked.
“What if I do mind ya askin’?”
“Then I’ll be quiet.”
The king nodded. “Well, not much fun in that,” he said. “I mean, ya came all this way and all. Not much point in havin’ company if you’re not gonna share stories. Here’s the beginning of ours.” He stopped at the end of the tunnel where another opening yawned, stepped out of the way, held up the Lightstone, and gestured for them to look beyond it.
Ven stepped forward and leaned through the tunnel opening. He gasped in surprise.
* * *
Beyond the opening was a vast vertical tunnel, many times the size of the well shaft, leading down into darkness at the bottom, as far as the light reached. In fact, this tunnel was so huge that it looked like the square of a vast city, with many levels where other tunnels led off in all different directions. The largest of those tunnels matched the squiggles and lines within the Lightstone. The large vertical line was now glowing blue.
Directly in front of us, hovering over the seemingly bottomless tunnel, was a floating floor of sorts, strung with ropes that reached up to the earthen ceiling above us, where they ran through round gearlike machines. This floating floor was only one of many that were being hauled up and down all across the wide central shaft, ferrying raggedly dressed people back and forth to each of the tunnel openings. There were more people than I could easily count, scurrying from platform to platform, as if to get out of the range of the Lightstone.
* * *
“The Downworlders aren’t used to brightness below the ground,” the Rat King said. “We like the dark.” He put the Lightstone inside the ill-fitting crown, making his head glow eerily. Then he stepped onto the floating platform and took hold of a rope. “Are ye comin’?”
The children followed him gingerly onto the swinging platform.
“Grab hold,” said the Rat King, pointing to the other ropes around the edge of the platform. “Down here, everybody works. No free ride for nobody, not even me.” He began pulling on the rope, hand over hand, and the others followed his lead.
The floating platform began to descend into the huge dark tunnel.
“I s’pose by now ye’ve figured out why we’re called Downworlders,” Macedon said as they continued to haul on the ropes. “Our people live below the streets, below the grassy fields, in the deepest parts of the world—well, perhaps not as deep as yer folk, Nain, but out of the sight of the humanfolk of the island, upstanding and otherwise. None of us has ever seen the light o’ day, ’cept from inside a tunnel.”
“Why?” asked Clemency as she pulled.
The Rat King regarded her thoughtfully.
“Now, that’s a good question, miss. Wish it had good answer. Long ago, we were outcasts among outcasts—our forefathers were citizens of the Gated City, but not part of its ways. We were considered unworthy even by the standards of the scum o’ the earth, and that’s about as low as ya can get. So we live here, away from everyone, keepin’ to ourselves. We’ve been here so long that even the thieves have forgotten about us. Which is as it should be. And as we want it.”
“Seems like a pretty lonely way to live,” Char said, hoisting away.
“Naw,” said the Rat King. “There’s a lot more of us Downworlders than you can imagine—a lot more people lost from the sight of the world than anyone knows. We live beneath the cobblestones, under the walls, below the houses, even—and nobody realizes we’s here, ’cept the occasional runaway from the Market, which is what we thought you all was. Just because we keeps to ourselves don’t mean we don’t have fun. It’s a good life, fer what’s it’s worth. There’s worse ways to live, believe me. Our tunnels go all over the island, so we sees a lot of what goes on upworld. Wouldn’t want to trade places with anyone. You all can stop pullin’ now.”
He tossed his rope to several members of his court, who were standing on a platform several levels down from where they had been, and all the way across the central vertical tunnel. He reached out a gnarled hand and held out the Lightstone. He tapped the glowing, starburst-shaped flaw with his long yellow fingernail. “Almost there.”
br /> Ven stared at the Lightstone. The starburst was gleaming brilliantly, brighter than since they had been in the tunnels. He looked down the dark hallway before them, where a slight light of the same golden color could be seen farther in.
“Is this where you reign, Your Majesty? Like a—a castle?”
A round of laughter went up from the Rat King’s court.
The Rat King smiled widely. “No, lad,” he said. “That be the tunnel what leads to the Wonder.”
Ven heard a sharp intake of breath behind him. He turned around to see Ida’s eyes narrow in suspicion. His other friends were looking at each other in confusion. Ven nodded encouragingly to them all, amazed that they didn’t seem to feel the same sense of excitement, of thrill that was coming, that he was feeling.
The Rat King stepped off the platform and started down the tunnel.
“Shield yer eyes,” he said.
The companions followed him down the tunnel until it ended, suddenly and completely. In front of them was a heavy door. The golden light seeped like water under the bottom of the door.
“Make sure yer eyes are covered, now,” cautioned the Rat King again.
Ven squinted as tight as he could, leaving his eyelids open only a crack. Then he put his hand over them, peering out through the space between his fingers. He heard the Rat King opening the door, and braced himself.
Like the steel fires of his father’s factory, a blinding light, burning bright and golden, blasted them. The children shrank away from the radiance and the heat.
The Rat King laughed.
“Hurry in,” he said. “Can’t keep the door open too long.”
Ven stepped into the room, followed immediately by Char. A moment later, the others came in as well. The Rat King shut the door.
They followed him into the endless brightness until they came to what was apparently the center of a relatively small chamber. Once closer in, the light seemed to fade, as if they had stepped beyond it.
In the center of the chamber was what looked like a floating glass globe the size of an apple, hovering without support in the air. Below it in the dirt floor there was a small hole, almost too small to see.
Within the globe was a pinprick of light burning so powerfully that it stung their eyes even to look at it. It leapt and danced, like candle flame, radiating heat and light of almost unbearable intensity. It seemed almost fluid, like brightly burning water.
“What is that?” Ven whispered, awed.
The Rat King smiled his crooked smile.
“Why, lad, yer lookin’ at a piece of the sun.”
21
The Wonder, and the Way Out
* * *
Then the Rat King told us the story of the Wonder, and how it had come to be here, in this dark place of tunnels and secrets, hidden away from the rest of world. His voice was hushed, like he was telling a holy story, which in fact he was. It was sort of like a poem, sort of like a song. I tried to keep careful notes in my head, kicking myself for not bringing my journal along with me, a mistake I will not make again.
At least his tale was short, so it wasn’t impossible to memorize it.
We were too entranced to notice at first that our clothes were dry, our skin warm. But we were suddenly hungry.
And the Rat King seemed to know it.
* * *
NOW THAT YOU’VE SEEN IT, COME AN’ I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT WE do with it,” King Macedon said. He hiked up the falling sleeves of his ill-fitting robe, straightened his battered crown, and stepped back into the circle of blinding radiance to the door again, followed quickly by the children.
“Go’n git our young guests somethin’ to eat,” the Rat King ordered one of the thin men who made up his court. The man eyed the children, then turned and disappeared into one of the side tunnels.
“That would be great, thanks, Your Majesty,” Char said as he followed the king. “I’ve been hungry ever since I’ve been in the Market.”
The king stopped in the middle of the dark tunnel.
“That’s prob’ly ’cause yer spoilt,” he said. There was no accusation in his voice. “I bet yer usta three squares a day. This is one of the places in the world that hunger lives, or at least spends a lot of hours. Most of us down here is hungry all the time, lad. In fact, most of the world is hungry all the time. Be grateful that for you it’s only once in a while.”
They returned to the wide central shaft and stepped back onto the swinging platform, which the Rat King skillfully guided down a level directly below them, then stopped.
“Everybody off,” he said.
They followed the ragged man down another tunnel, to a door very much like the one in the room above. Ven noted that he had seen no other doors anywhere in the Downworlders’ realm. It was like being inside a giant nest of ants, or a hive of mud wasps, all these tunnels twisting and turning in the earth under the streets of the Gated City.
The Rat King opened the door.
“You go in first,” he said to Saeli, smiling his black-gapped smile in the glow of the Lightstone. Saeli blinked nervously and looked back at Ven, who nodded. She straightened her back and walked through the door, followed by the rest of them.
Even before he made it over the threshold, Ven knew that whatever the room contained was very different from the rest of the Downworlder’s realm, just by the smell. Out in the dark tunnels there was a constant odor of dampness and dirt, which was not unpleasant to Ven or Saeli, but clearly had taken its toll on the humans with them.
Beyond the door, that odor changed to a fresher scent. It was not clear, like a place that had been swept by the wind, but was strangely rich and green.
When Ven got through the doorway, he saw why.
Inside the room beyond the door, and below the chamber of the Wonder, was a small garden filled with drowsy light. The plants were mostly ferns and lichens, the sorts that grew in shade, with softly colored flowers scattered across the mossy ground, violets and bleeding hearts and night roses. They filled the room with a sweet, dreamy fragrance.
Ven shuddered when he saw a patch of pink-and-white Stuff-of-Dreams.
“What is this place, Your Majesty?” he asked the Rat King.
Macedon inhaled, his bony body taking in the sweet air.
“This be the fruit of the Wonder’s labor, lad. Upworld, where you all live, in the bright world, there are many things the sun makes grow—vege’bles, fruit, grass an’ trees, people—the Wonder’s a magic thing, but it’s not bright enough to replace your sun in our kingdom. But its power is used for nothin’ but good here. There’s just enough light ta have a little garden, a little special place where the darkness of our daily world goes away fer a while. It’s too small a place to actually live, so we jus’ bring folks here on special occasions, like when they’re being born, or dyin’, gettin’ married, and especially when they’re sick. Sometimes this place is all a sick person needs to get better again.”
“I can believe that,” Clemency said, looking around in amazement. “This is a magic place.”
“That it is,” the Rat King agreed. He bent over near a small bush where dark red berries were growing, snapped one off, and handed it to Ven. He held the Lightstone up.
“Ever seen one of them, Nain?”
Ven held his hand under the Lightstone, but he didn’t recognize the fruit. He shook his head.
“That be a kiran berry,” said the Rat King. “Most fruits, most berries especially, needs lots and lots o’ light and water to grow. We don’t have neither of them things here. But the kiran is different. It grows in bad soil, in harsh conditions, in little light and with almost no water—it’s a favorite of the Nain for all those reasons, I’m told. And it makes good medicine, just like all the flowers that grow here as well.”
“Even the Stuff-of-Dreams?” Clemency asked. “Isn’t that poisonous?”
The Rat King chuckled. “Only when misused,” he said. “Almost anything can be used to do good or bad; it all depends on what you want.
’Tis true of anything—and any one, no matter what they’re born into.”
Ven looked at Ida. She was staring at the ground.
“This is the place where we remembers that we was once part of the upworld,” Macedon said, looking up at the soft light beaming down from the ceiling. “And the place we remember what is to come, when one day we will be part of the light again.”
A tap came on the door. It opened, and the man whom the Rat King had sent for food appeared, a bag in his hand.
“Look’s like yer supper’s here,” said Macedon. “Come along, young’ns.”
* * *
It was surprisingly hard to leave the little garden. It was a drowsy place, a place that felt completely safe, even within tunnels below the streets of a city of thieves. The everyday realm of the Downworlders was so bleak, so poor, that it was difficult to turn our backs on such a pretty place to go back out into endless tunnels of dark dirt. But the Rat King was holding the door, so we sighed and followed him.
* * *
The man handed the Rat King the sack, then turned and went away into the dark.
Macedon rummaged in the sack. “Well, yer in luck,” he said, pulling out a few mushrooms and some little potatoes. “We got a regular feast here, though I’m afeared that we got no meat ta share at this time. The rats are all feastin’ away at the leavings from the Market, and don’ come ’round much in the summer. We mostly get ’em in winter, when they burrow deeper for warmth.”
“We’ll try ta contain our disappointment,” said Char under his breath.
The Rat King handed the mushrooms and raw potatoes to Ida and Clem. “Pass those around.”
“I may regret asking this, Your Majesty,” said Ven as the girls divvied up the meager food, “but what is going to happen to us now?”