The Eagle's Quill

by Sarah L. Thomson

  Then Theo was on his knees beside them again, leaning over to grab Marty’s shoulders. “Now!” he shouted, and Sam heaved, and between them they hauled Marty onto the wet, muddy stone floor.

  Panting, Sam shoved himself up into a sitting position. “Where’s the mountain lion?” he wheezed.

  “It backed off into the tunnel. Theo hit it with a couple of rocks,” Abby said, coming to kneel beside Marty. She laid the burned-out torch down on the ground and patted Marty’s shoulders. “Are you okay?” Marty nodded, shaking, her mouth tight. It looked to Sam as if she were trying hard not to let herself cry.

  “You’re not hurt, are you, Marty?” Sam peered at her closely.

  She shook her head. “Just . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “You are so brave,” Abby said with admiration gleaming in her eyes. “I can’t believe what you did! Stepping onto the bridge like that.”

  Marty blinked at Abby, looking a little surprised. She stopped shivering.

  “We should have known it wouldn’t be that easy,” Sam said, shaking his head. “It’s a Founder thing. It’s a puzzle.” He sighed. “It’s always a puzzle.”

  “Then we’d better solve it quick,” Abby said. “That lion might be back any minute. Did you see it limping? It’s hurt. Probably it hasn’t been able to hunt. It’s hungry.”

  Sam shuddered. “That isn’t exactly helping me think!” He stared hard at the bridge. They couldn’t just step out onto it—Marty had proved that. It would tip with any weight. But nobody built a bridge that couldn’t be crossed either. There had to be a way.

  “All men are created equal,” Marty said suddenly, confidence back in her voice. “Equal!” She slapped Sam’s shoulder, and he jumped.

  “What? Don’t hit me!”

  “I knew the bridge looked familiar!” Marty said. “It looks like a scale, don’t you see? It is a scale. Like the Scale of Justice!”

  Sam knew what she meant—the blindfolded figure of Justice herself, holding a perfectly balanced scale. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. So if the weights are equal, just like Thomas Jefferson said—”

  “Then the bridge won’t tip!” Marty finished for him.

  “So two people have to cross together. One on each plank.” Sam jumped up.

  “Two people who weigh about the same.” Marty got up too. “Abby, you and I can probably go at the same time.”

  “But what about . . .” Abby’s voice trailed off as she looked at Theo and Sam.

  Sam looked up at Theo. Theo looked down at Sam.

  “There’s no way.” Sam shook his head. “We need two of me. At least.”

  “No,” said Theo, sounding sort of cheerful—for Theo. “We need you and a really big rock.”

  While Sam and Theo hunted for a rock the right size, Abby and Marty got ready to cross. Marty looked tense, standing on the edge, and Abby, several yards away by the other plank, gave her a quick, nervous smile before, at exactly the same time, they both stepped out onto the bridge.

  Each balanced on her plank, and Sam held his breath. For a moment he thought the bridge was wobbling, but it was an illusion—the planks were steady. The girls’ weight had the scale balanced perfectly. Slowly, keeping pace with each other, they walked across.

  “It’s working!” Sam said.

  “Great.” Theo bent down and picked up a rock the size of a beach ball. “Here.” He dumped it in Sam’s arms.

  Sam staggered. “Are you kidding? I have to walk across holding this thing?”

  “No, you have to put that in your backpack. You walk across holding this.” Theo held up another rock. Sam groaned.

  “Are you sure this makes me as heavy as you?”

  “How am I supposed to be sure? It’s not like we have a scale handy.”

  “Well, there has to be some way that we can test it—never mind! Let’s go now!” Sam said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because that mountain lion must be really hungry.”

  Theo snapped his head around toward the tunnel entrance and saw what Sam had seen—the slinking shadow that had crept behind a stalagmite. “Don’t run!” Theo said, bending down to pick up a handful of small rocks.

  They backed slowly toward the bridge, Theo moving toward the left plank, Sam toward the right. “Come on!” Abby called urgently from the other side.

  “We have to do it together,” Sam said. “On three. One, two . . .”

  The mountain lion seemed to sense that its prey was trying to escape. Its hindquarters bunched. It was preparing to leap.

  Theo flung his handful of stones, and the cat, confused, jumped not at the boys, but at the incoming missiles.

  “Three!” Sam yelled, and he and Theo stepped onto the planks, out over empty air.

  The bridge wobbled. The mountain lion landed awkwardly, shifting its weight away from its injured front paw. It seemed confused by the bridge but unwilling to let its prey simply walk away. Keeping an eye on the boys, it crept closer to the edge of the ravine.

  “Walk, walk, walk,” Sam muttered. Hugging his rock to his middle, he took step by careful step, as Theo matched him on the other plank. Far below, Sam could hear the deep, hollow sound of water rushing past. They were hundreds of feet in the air, with only a few inches of wood between them and a drop into water that, from this height, would feel as hard as rock when they hit.

  The plank was wide enough, the width of a sidewalk—there was no real reason Sam should fall. But all that empty space seemed to pull at him. He felt wobbly, and the burden of the rock in his arms and his backpack made it worse. Had they calculated the weight correctly? Did his rocks make him as heavy as Theo?

  No, Sam realized. The rocks made him heavier. Not much, but some. The bridge was slowly starting to tip to the right.

  “Watch out!” Marty called. “Sam, get rid of some weight!”

  With an effort, Sam pitched the heavy rock he was holding over the side. It took a few hundred years to hear the splash.

  It worked. The bridge slowly eased back into balance. Sam let out a huge sigh of relief, and they kept moving forward.

  “Keep going!” Marty yelled. “Oh no!” Abby had gripped her arm tightly.

  “Oh no what?” Sam shouted.

  “Just—don’t look back!”

  Was there anybody in the world who, when told not to look back, didn’t look back? “Theo, stop!” called Sam. They paused in the middle of the bridge, and Sam turned his head.

  The mountain lion was still on the edge of the ravine behind them. It didn’t seem to like the look of the planks, but it liked even less the idea that Sam and Theo were about to get away. It put out a huge paw and reached across the gap to touch the plank tentatively.

  “Get moving!” Marty called sharply. “Now!”

  The lion did not have to eat them to kill them, Sam realized, frozen with horror. All it had to do was decide to jump onto the bridge. Its weight would tip the mechanism, and all three of them—Sam, Theo, and the big cat—would plunge into the ravine.

  “Sam, faster!” Theo ordered. Sam had to wrench his neck around to face forward. He hated not knowing what the mountain lion was doing behind him, but he had to look where he was going. If he didn’t, he’d fall off the crazy bridge all by himself.

  One step more, another, another. They didn’t dare run. The other side of the ravine was ten yards away, then eight. It might as well have been a mile.

  “What’s that stupid cat doing?” Sam shouted to Marty.

  “It’s walking back and forth a little,” she answered. “No—now it’s kind of crouching. It’s—”

  “It’s going to jump!” Abby shouted. “Run! Now!”

  Sam and Theo ran. The bridge lurched. The mountain lion hissed. The edge of the ravine was getting closer—five yards, three, two, one!

  “Jump!” Marty yelled. They jumped. Sam’s feet flew over empty space, and then hit rock. He fell to his hands and knees, glancing sideways to make sure that Theo had made it too—just as the l
ion behind them leaped.

  It hit the plank and yowled in distress, skidding to a stop and gripping the wood with its claws. The bridge was tipping. The cat didn’t like that at all. It backed up clumsily as the bridge tipped more, and Sam felt himself holding his breath. The animal would have killed them, but he couldn’t help it—he didn’t want to see it tipped over the edge to its death.

  “Maybe it can jump,” Marty whispered.

  “Jump, you stupid cat!” Sam yelled. “Get off!”

  As if the mountain lion understood him, it twisted itself around on the plank to face the other side of the ravine. Only its claws kept it from falling as the bridge tipped further. The cat shrieked and then it seemed to fall and jump all at once. Its front paws reached the cave floor, while its back ones scrabbled at the ravine’s wall. Then, with a slithering scramble, it got itself back on firm ground once more.

  Marty let out her breath with a whoosh.

  The cat seemed to have decided that this human prey was much more trouble than they were worth. It limped back toward the tunnel entrance without a backward glance.

  “I’m glad,” Marty said softly, watching it go.

  “That thing wanted to eat us, Marty,” Sam reminded her.

  “I know. But still . . . Anyway, you were yelling for it to jump, Sam!”

  “It was just being a wild animal,” Abby said. “Acting on instinct. Predators have to hunt. It’s not their fault.”

  “She’s right,” Theo said. “Animals don’t have the capacity for evil. Only people have that.”

  Abby glanced up at Theo, and Sam saw a strange look pass across her face.

  “Well, I’m still glad it’s not going to be hunting me anymore,” Sam replied. He got up, brushing grit and gravel off his hands and knees. He dumped the enormous rock from his pack and heaved the pack up onto his shoulders. “Where now?”

  “There.” Marty pointed.

  Behind her, the cave branched into half a dozen tunnels. But it was pretty obvious that there was only one Thomas Jefferson had wanted them to take. It was lined with wooden torches that had been mounted to the walls with iron brackets.

  “At least we won’t have to burn any more of my sweatshirts,” Sam said. He found the matches in his pack and pulled the first torch down from the wall, setting it alight. As they walked slowly down the tunnel, he lit each torch that they came to, and the smoky yellow light preceded them as they went deeper and deeper underground.

  “It looks like it widens out a little more down here,” Sam called back after they had been walking perhaps fifteen minutes. “Or a lot more, actually. Another cave, I think.”

  He was right. A little more walking brought them out into another cavern. More torches lined the walls. Abby took a second lit torch, and she and Sam moved quickly, getting every torch burning. Then they turned for a careful look at what was in the middle of the cave.

  “You said there are always puzzles,” Abby said, staring.

  “Puzzles and games,” Sam answered, nodding.

  In the middle of the cave was a giant chessboard, with a game laid out, ready to be played.

  The squares, dark and light, had been carved into the cave floor. Pawns and rooks and knights and bishops, made of black basalt or pale limestone, had been placed on their squares as if two giants had been interrupted midgame and wandered off, leaving the pieces set for when they returned.

  “White’s about to lose,” Sam said, surveying the board. “The king is vulnerable.”

  “Maybe whoever built this was thinking about a real king,” Theo said slowly. “Like George the Third. If we can checkmate the king . . . like Washington’s army did to King George . . .”

  “Checkmate means that the king cannot escape,” Marty said. “It’s based on a Persian phrase.”

  “Right!” Sam nodded. This was going to be a lot less scary than balancing on unsteady planks above an underground river while being stalked by a hungry predator. This was chess. Sam knew all about chess. He and Adam used to play after school. It was one of the oldest games in the world, and one of the best.

  “See the black queen—there?” Sam pointed. “One move and she can checkmate the white king. Game over.”

  “Okay, do it.” Theo nodded. Sam dropped his pack on the ground and moved onto the chessboard.

  It felt strange, stepping among pieces nearly as tall as he was. He had been a piece on the board ever since he’d entered that American Dream competition, Sam thought. Flintlock, Arnold, even Evangeline and her Founders, had been moving him around from day one. Was he a pawn in their game, easy to sacrifice? Or something more important—a knight with its twisty, unexpected jumps, or a powerful rook, plowing straight across the board?

  What he’d rather be, of course, was the chess master himself, the one who moved the pieces, the one who won the game. Well, now he had a chance. Sam reached the black queen, a smooth, curvy column of polished stone as tall as his shoulder. She sat in a groove carved into the stone floor, he saw. Simple. He’d just have to push her into the right place to checkmate the white king.

  Sam took hold of the chess piece and pushed. It didn’t budge. He braced his feet against the stone floor and shoved. The mechanism that let the piece move must have gotten rusty and dirty over the years, because when the black queen at last began to slide toward the white king, it set up a grating, grinding squeal that felt like it was shredding Sam’s eardrums.

  “Come on, lady,” he gasped under his breath, pushing the queen on to the next square. “You want to win this game, don’t you?”

  But maybe the queen didn’t. It got harder and harder to move her; she seemed almost to be pushing back, and she shook against his hands. He could hear his friends shouting, but with all the noise, he couldn’t make out the words. Probably telling him not to give up. Well, he wouldn’t. Sam shoved with all his strength, thrusting the queen one more square. Then something closed around his upper arm, yanking him away.

  Startled, Sam looked up into Theo’s horrified face. “Jeez! What?” Sam asked, panting. “I was getting it . . .”

  He stopped speaking, suddenly understanding. It was not that the queen had been shaking under his hands; the entire cavern was shaking. Grit and dust rained down from the ceiling. Sam jumped to one side as a chunk of rock the size of his fist came down to shatter at his feet.

  “You couldn’t hear us yelling at you to stop,” Theo told him as Sam stared around, wide-eyed. “This isn’t—”

  A tremendous crash cut off his words. A stalactite near the tunnel where they had entered had been worked loose by the tremors, and it crashed down, pulling more rock and debris with it to scatter and bounce and roll across the floor of the cave. The entrance to the tunnel was blocked in seconds.

  Sam felt as if some of those rocks had landed on him. They were trapped.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Don’t just stand there!” Marty shouted at Sam. “Hurry!”

  “Hurry where?” Sam shouted back at her across the heads of giant pawns and looming bishops, everything vibrating as tremors shook the cave. The motion had not stopped when Theo yanked Sam away from the black queen. This cave was going to shake itself to pieces. “Did you miss the fact that our exit just got blocked?” Sam yelled at Marty. “There’s nowhere to go!”

  “Then you’ve got to solve the puzzle,” Abby called, coming to stand by Marty’s shoulder. She gave Sam a firm look, and her chin came up. “Right? Isn’t that what you always do? We have to solve the puzzle, then we can move forward.”

  Right. Abby was right. Sam shook his head a little, trying to jar his thoughts into motion. That was how the Founders always worked. Solve the puzzle, Sam, he told himself. That’s why you’re here.

  “Theo!” Sam said. “Shove the queen back where she was.” Theo grabbed the queen and pushed, moving her much faster than Sam had been able to do. It wasn’t just that Theo was stronger. She moved more easily in that direction, and the dreadful screeching noise she’d made was gone too.r />
  But when she slid back onto her original square, the shaking did not stop. Gravel from the ceiling scattered down over Sam. He brushed it out of his eyes, frowning.

  So moving the queen had been wrong—obviously. But getting her back where she’d been hadn’t solved the problem. Fixing the wrong move hadn’t been enough. They had to make the right move.

  With a grating crack, a wall of the cavern fell into the cave, torches coming down with it, their flames choked by grit and debris. Rocks and pebbles spilled and bounced across the floor. Abby grabbed Marty’s arm and pulled her out of the way of a giant chunk of rock that rolled to a stop right where she’d been standing.

  They had to make the right move now.

  The cave was falling apart around him, his friends were in danger, he was in danger—and Sam couldn’t let himself think about any of it. He turned back to the board that surrounded him. Think about chess. Only about chess.

  Look at the pieces, he told himself. See how they connect. Chess was never just about how each piece moved; it was about each piece’s relationship with the others. Which was vulnerable? Which was powerful? It all depended on where it stood and who stood with it.

  The white king was in danger from the black queen—but that hadn’t been the right move. There had to be others—yes! That black bishop could checkmate the white king too. Sam took a step forward and stopped.

  See all the pieces. Look at the whole board. He’d jumped in too quickly the first time and moved the black queen without checking to see if that was the only move he could make. That had been wrong. He couldn’t afford to be wrong twice.

  “Marty!” he yelled. “Do you play chess?”

  Marty shook her head. “Scrabble!” she shouted back.

  “But you know the moves?” he called. She nodded. “See the bishop? Anything else? Anything I missed?”

  “Don’t take too long,” Theo said, his voice soft enough to undercut the grinding of stone on stone that filled the cave.

  Sam nodded, but he didn’t move. Black queen to checkmate—wrong. Black bishop to checkmate—maybe. And there, on the edge of the board . . .