CHAPTER THREE
Mazol twisted bony fingers around my wrist. I ripped my arm away, jumped to my feet, and elbowed him in the nose. Dashing away, I heard my uncle yell, "Grab him!"
I looked back. The flash of lantern light lit their faces; a trickle of blood ran down Mazol's chin. I charged down a thickly overgrown alley. Their boots splashed behind me. Curses echoed out fainter and fainter, ringing over the pouring rain as the men collided with branches and stepped in potholes only I knew to avoid. I darted around a dragonhornet nest the size of an ox cart that hung next to a swinging hotel sign. A few bites from dragonhornets might make Mazol forget about the book I'd stolen.
I turned again, entering a part of the city that was so overgrown, almost no light reached the jungle floor. I felt my way along using the wall as a guide. Faintly at first, I heard something that sounded like crying. The sound grew louder. I moved toward the sound, stumbling on a wooden crate. I lifted the object, discovering it was another casket, smaller than the last. I held it to my ear.
A baby.
I fumbled with the clasp.
Behind me, a long, deep growl.
I froze; turned. Nothing, until my eyes traced upward.
Two rows of white fangs hung in the twilight above me. The hiss of rank, hot breath rolled from the beast's mouth. I stumbled backward. Claws swiped past my face. My back hit the wall. The beast lunged at me. I dove to the pavement, rolled over, tucked the chest under my arm and ran. Crashing through the brush behind me, the jungle cat chased.
I reached the fields of longgrass that lay between the city and the castle. No trees grew within a hundred feet of Daemanhur, like the plants were smart enough not to get too close. The beast flew over my head, pouncing forty feet in a single jump. A million heads of grass twice as tall as me swayed in the wind,. I could only see a foot in any direction.
I moved slowly, pushing the stiff green blades aside with each step. Behind me, rustling. Something whooshed past me on my right. I jumped back. A branch snapped under my foot. A few feet away, a low growl rumbled. I ran, dashing out of the grass into the paved courtyard that led to the castle's steps just as my uncle and the others appeared on the other side of the clearing.
I sprinted across the courtyard. They moved to cut me off. My uncle grinned. The cat jumped over my head, landing between us.
My uncle's grin vanished as he stumbled backward. "You let a Black Leopardi inside the courtyard?"
The giant slid the ax from a sling across his back. I turned around and ran for the castle, tracing along the wall back into the longgrass below the tallest tower. I rounded a corner and collided with my cousin Pike.
"What's going on?" Pike said.
"Come with me." I pulled him along behind me.
"Where'd you get that chest?"
"No time to explain."
The baby cried. Pike, snatching the chest, put his ear to it.
I grabbed it back. "We've gotta get out of sight. Quick!"
"What'd you do this time?"
I peered up at the tower that rose above us. Three hundred feet. Daemanhur's tallest tower. "Nice night for a climb."
"It's pouring rain."
I shrugged, ripped a stand of longgrass from a pile of straw at the base of the tower, tied it through the iron work of the casket, and slung it around my neck. I tested my foot's grip on the first ledge. "You coming?"
Gaps and ledges lined the wall of the tower all the way to the top, but I'd never climbed it in the rain.
"Let's just hide in the castle."
"Why, you scared?"
The giant cat screeched. Pike's eyes lit. Lanterns flashed against the wall of the castle. I flattened, trying to stay in the shadows.
Mazol yelled, "Found anything?"
"Foot prints," said Yesler.
I whispered to Pike, "Mazol's gonna whip me."
Pike craned his neck. "Who's that other voice?"
I began to climb. "I'll tell if you come up with me."
Pike peered into the darkness for another moment before following me. I explained about the two men and the girl in the casket. About fifty feet up, I stopped to watch two lantern lights dancing below us.
"How long you reckon he lasted against that Black Leopardi?" Pike said.
"That giant's as big as a horned elephant. Had a wicked ax. Might actually have a chance."
"What was it like? Seeing a girl for real."
I smiled. "Even prettier than the pictures."
"Does she have a name?"
"Henrietta."
We went quiet—the kind of silence I imagined would fill the moments after finding a chest of buried gold.
"And you're sure she's alive?" Pike said after a while. "I mean, do you think she's gonna stay? Hey, maybe she'll be my girlfriend."
"I saw her first."
"So she's yours, is she?"
"Didn't say that. Henri's just—"
"It's Henri now? You two must be closer than I realized."
"Shut up. She's too old for you anyway."
I stared out on the world as we climbed higher and higher. Daemanhur sits on a cliff's edge, high above the Leschi Sea which fills the northern horizon. A hundred foot wall encircles the courtyard, with houses and shops and passages built inside it. The wall runs close to the castle on the uphill, western side and stretches for nearly a mile down the slopes to the east in the direction of the harbor and a docktown called Queen Anne where a few hundred shipmen and their families live. That city was dying too. Mazol said it used to be home to ten thousand, long before I was born. But the jungles were growing more dangerous. Every week, more people left on north-bound ships and never returned.
Soon, Queen Anne would be like Daemanhur's forgotten city. Thousands of people might have lived inside the walls around our castle at one point, but Mazol said they all left a long time ago. Then he told me to leave him alone, and I didn't see him for hours.
A creek runs under the wall next to the smaller castle gate and passes through the abandoned city. It keeps the lake full year round, but most of the fish are too bony to eat. The creek runs out the lower side of the city, joining a large river just above Queen Anne. That's where the deliveries come from. An armored car pulled by eight huge horses and a band of hired guards brings us the supplies we need every week. The guards smell like beer and body odor and they swear a lot—but the one who's in charge is different. Dravus. He talks to me sometimes, while they're unloading the carts in the East Gatehouse. Dravus has been asking me to let him inside the walls. He said he wants to see the city. I haven't yet; Mazol said no one's allowed, but I might sneak him in someday. Dravus said he'll teach me magic tricks, maybe even my letters.
I thought about the book and the few words I understood. I wondered if Pike would read it to me. I wondered if I wanted him to know what it said.
It took another half hour for us to reach the top. Crawling over the eaves, we scampered up the ancient clay tiles to the roof ridge, placing our weight slowly as to not slip. Sitting on the ridge, we caught our breath. I pulled the chest off my shoulder.
Pike pointed at words engraved above the lock. "Rosling Corporation, Since 845"
"What do you think it means?"
"Maybe that's what they're called," Pike said. "Roslings."
I wondered if Henri had ever been to a city. Traded in a marketplace. Sailed on a ship. Maybe she could tell me what life was like outside the walls. I traced my fingers along the ice cold, rough-edged ironwork. "Do you think we could have come to the castle in caskets like these?"
"It's possible, I suppose."
"I've never seen any pictures or heard anything about caskets falling from the sky."
Pike eyed the chest in my hands. "I don't think it's normal."
"What if everything in the pictures is made up? Do you think there are other cities? What if we're the only people alive?
"There's Queen Anne."
"What if that's the only city left?"
"Where do the shi
ps come from then?"
"I don't know, but I mean, doesn't it bother you? Everything we need is delivered to the gatehouse each week. Why can't we go to town and buy it ourselves?"
"You wouldn't survive outside the walls for five minutes."
"The runners do."
"They're trained. Got armor and a whole caravan and proper protection."
"But still, don't you wonder if this is real? I mean, we could be dreaming right now and not even know it."
"We ain't dreaming."
"How do you know?"
"I'm two years older than you. That's how."
I slid the book from my pocket, stooping over to keep off the rain.
Pike leaned toward me. "What's that?"
"This is why your father's gonna whip me."
He held out his finger to touch it. "Is it real?"
"Not sure."
"Imagine if we sold it? We'd be rich."
"I'm not trading it."
"Why'd you steal it then?"
"I don't remember stealing it."
Pike raised an eyebrow at me.
"There's something in here... I think Mazol's afraid that I might read it." The words ran through my mind, burned into my skull. I tried to ignore them.
Pike tried to grab it away from me. "You don't know your letters."
"I know my name." And a few other words. Like monster. I tucked the book under my belt and stared out into the fog of rain and mist. The moon appeared in a hole in the clouds, disappeared again before I spoke again. "Do you ever wonder where you fit in?"
"Like, what I want to be when I grow up?"
"If the whole world is a huge puzzle, where does your piece fit?"
"I don't know... far as I can see, I'm probably staying, help my father run Daemanhur. At least we're safe from the jungle here."
"I want my life to matter. I want to help people."
"Then help people."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because you have a father."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"If I had a father, he'd show me how to be a good person."
"My father helps you."
"He wishes it was just the two of you."
"I don't think so."
I paused, the words from the book burning the insides of my eyes. "It's more than that. Remember the story Mazol tells. About how the castle's haunted?"
"About the shadow who roams the halls? He just trying to scare us."
"I heard those two men talking about it. Said people in town knew the story too. That people are afraid of coming up here. That's why we never get no visitors."
"We don't get no visitors because of the jungles."
"But what if there really is a monster living here? Mazol said the monster strangled my mother."
"Think we'd've spotted it by now."
"Unless..." I stared at the book.
"We should go," Pike said. "Father's gonna be burning angry."
"You're the son. You won't get in trouble."
"I'll tell him I didn't see you. Do you have enough food in the Elusian to stay hidden for a while?"
My eyes drifted to the corner of two roof peaks where a trap door was hidden. It led to a room I called the Elusian, an attic hidden in the rafters of the castle that Mazol didn't know about. "What if that's where the monster hides?"
"What're you talking about?"
I thrust the book into Pike's hands. "I don't think Mazol was making up stories about shadows."
Pike flipped through the pages, shielding it from the rain. Most were blank, except the first few.
I leaned over his shoulder. "Can you make it out?"
He studied a line, his lips moving a little. My heart beat so loud I wondered if Pike could hear.
"Well?" I said.
"I'm working on it." A moment later, he folded the book shut.
"What?" I said.
Jumping up, he slipped a little on the wet tiles. I reached out to steady him, but he flinched at my touch. His arm trembled.
"What is it?" I said.
He stared into the masked sky above the crashing waves far below. "You don't want to know."
"It's about me."
He turned away.
"From my parents, isn't it?" I said. "I saw my name. I saw the word... monster."
His eyes met mine. "I'll read it. But you ain't gonna like what you hear."
Evan Burl and the Falling, Vol. 1-2 Page 5
