The Emerald Atlas

by John Stephens

  All was quiet and still and completely, utterly dark.

  They had landed on a stone floor that was sparsely covered with straw. Kate reached out and found Michael’s arm.

  “Michael,” she whispered, “are you okay?”

  “Uh-huh. I think so.”

  Quietly as possible, the two of them got to their feet. Kate stared into the darkness. Something was in there with them. Something dangerous, the jailer had said. But what? Could it see them?

  “What’re we going to do?” Michael hissed, and Kate could hear the panic in his voice.

  There was a noise across the room. It sounded like someone, or something, standing up.

  “Don’t come any closer!” Kate shouted. “I’m warning you! Stay where you are!”

  But whatever it was came closer. They could hear slow footsteps moving over the straw. Kate and Michael retreated till their backs were pressed against the cold metal of the door.

  “I said stop! Or I’ll … I’ll …”

  Before Kate could think of a credible threat, the something spoke.

  “Perhaps we just see what we’re dealing with.”

  Kate froze. That voice … How did she know that voice?

  A flame appeared in the darkness, and a man’s shape separated itself from the shadows. At first, Kate thought he had a lantern. Then, as he came closer, she realized he was holding the naked flame cupped in his open palm. But that was not what caused her to gasp in surprise. It was the man’s face.

  “Well, well,” said Dr. Stanislaus Pym, “what have we here?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Breakfast for Dinner

  The child weighed nothing. Gabriel gently laid her on the floor of the first chamber so that she rested on her side. Her shirt, front and back, was soaked with blood.

  “Gabriel …”

  “Close your eyes.”

  She did so, and Gabriel grasped the feathered end of the arrow. For perhaps the first time in his life, his hands trembled. He snapped the shaft with a sharp crack. Emma whimpered but kept her eyes closed. He did the same to the end of the arrow sticking out her back. This time a small shuddering cry escaped Emma’s lips. Her hands were clenched together as in prayer, and tears welled from the corners of her eyes. Now only a few inches of the dark, bloodstained shaft stuck out from either side. He had decided to leave the fragment in her body. Its poison had already contaminated her, and the shaft at least served to stanch the bleeding. He gathered her up and turned down the second doorway to the left, moving as fast as he dared.

  “Michael and Kate didn’t come back,” Emma said in a weak, trembling voice, half muffled against his chest. “I thought … I thought they’d come back for me.”

  “Don’t speak. You need your strength.”

  Time, he knew, was their greatest enemy. He needed to get her out of the mountain and to his village as quickly as possible. Once there, Granny Peet, the tribal wisewoman, could treat her. But would Emma survive that long? Would he? The same poison that was on the arrow had been on the swords of the Screechers. Gabriel had half a dozen wounds on his arms and a large gash in his side; he could feel the poison, like ice in his blood, moving toward his heart.

  And what of her brother and sister? Had they kept moving through the maze, simply assuming Emma was with them? Sooner or later, they would have realized the truth and turned back. But with each deserted chamber, each dark, empty tunnel, Gabriel knew the chances of meeting the other two children grew smaller. Had they gotten lost? Or had something found them? These tunnels were not empty of life.

  Gabriel glanced down at Emma. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was fast and shallow. Droplets of sweat stood out on her face. She would not make it to the village. He paused in a chamber and set her down. He did not like stopping here, but he had no choice. He rolled up her shirt to expose the wound. The poison had spread. It was visible around the nub of arrow, a large black spider under her pale skin, stretching its dark legs.

  He took out a small leather pouch and removed the contents: several different types of leaves, a gnarled root, a vial of yellowish liquid. He laid the pouch flat on the ground and crumpled the leaves into a small pile. They were dry and quickly turned to dust.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Lying on the floor, Emma had opened her eyes.

  “I must treat your wounds. The arrow was poisoned.”

  Gabriel took his knife and cut two thin slices off the root. These he chopped into small pieces and added to the crushed leaves. Then he removed the stopper from the vial and carefully released three yellow drops. The roots and leaves began to hiss and smoke. Gabriel took the handle of his knife and began kneading it all into a brownish mash.

  “They’re lost because of me, aren’t they, Gabriel?” Her voice was almost a whisper. “I shouldn’t have left them. They figured out I wasn’t there, so they went back to look for me and got lost. That’s what happened, isn’t it? It’s all my fault. You gotta find them, Gabriel. You gotta leave me and go find them.”

  “I will find them. If I have to return with every man and woman in the village.” He dipped his finger in the brownish-yellow paste. It had a warm, peaty smell and stuck to his fingers. “But first I must take care of you.”

  “No—”

  “Do not argue.”

  Gabriel began to apply the salve, and Emma sucked in her breath to keep from crying out. Where it touched the edges of her wound, Gabriel’s concoction bubbled and hissed. Emma thought it must be burning right through her skin.

  After a moment, when she knew she could control her voice, she said, “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

  “This will slow the poison,” he said, continuing to spread the salve.

  “It’s okay.” He was applying the medicine to her back now. It was still burning, but the feeling seemed a long way off, like she had drifted away from her body. “I’m not scared. But when you find Michael and Kate, say I’m sorry, okay? For running off? And tell Michael it’s okay what he did. I probably would’ve done the same. And say I love them. Make sure you say that most of all.”

  Gabriel wiped the last of the salve around the nub of arrow protruding from her back. He had done all he could. Her survival now depended on her own strength and how quickly he could get her to the village.

  He took a moment to look at her, lying there in the light of the lantern. He had always been solitary. Even among his own tribe. But he felt connected to this child in a way he had never felt toward any living thing. He laid his large hand gently upon her head. Her eyes were closed. Despite his medicine, she was slipping away.

  “You have a great heart.” He brushed the hair back from her sweaty forehead. “You will not die today.”

  And then he heard it. Click-click. He looked toward one of the doorways. Though he saw nothing but darkness, he knew that sound. It was the tap of claws on stone.

  He glanced at Emma; she was unconscious. A small blessing.

  He stood, his legs shaking from the poison coursing through his body. He took the falchion off his back.

  There was no hope of flight. The creature was too close.

  He stood there, facing the doorway, waiting for it to emerge from the shadows.

  “So I run an orphanage! Amazing! The turns one’s life takes!”

  Kate and Michael were sitting on piles of straw across from Dr. Pym. The flame, which Dr. Pym had placed on the stone floor of the cell and caused to grow into a cheerful little fire, crackled away between them.

  “Well, to be honest,” Michael said, “it’s not much of an orphanage.”

  “Michael!”

  “I’m just saying, what kind of orphanage only has three children?”

  “He’s quite right,” Dr. Pym said. “It sounds as if I’ve made something of a hash of it. Or I will. In fifteen years or what have you.”

  When the old wizard had first emerged from the darkness, Kate’s reaction had been bafflement. That it was actually Dr. Pym she had no doubt. She did n
ot think she was having another vision. But what was the head of their orphanage doing locked in a dwarfish prison? She stayed as she was, her back pressed against the door. “Dr. Pym! What’re you … doing here?”

  Michael gaped. “He’s Dr. Pym?! The Dr. Pym?!”

  “Hello,” the wizard said, smiling at them over the flame dancing in his palm.

  Kate put her hand on the wall to steady herself. She was having the same feeling she’d had that day in the library, that she had met this man before. The image of him standing in shadow clawed at some memory deep inside her.

  “You’re really Dr. Pym?” Michael said.

  “That I am. Who might you be?”

  “Michael,” Kate said. “Our brother. He wasn’t there the day you met me and Emma.” Kate was fighting to stay calm. She had to think clearly. Emma was in danger. They needed help if they were going to find her. But could they trust Dr. Pym? As the shock of seeing him had abated, her doubts about the wizard had come rushing back.

  He was looking at her now. “And who are you, my dear?”

  She managed to say, “… What?”

  “I asked, ‘Who are you?’ Of course, I’m always happy to meet new people. But I gather you do know me.”

  “Yes! Don’t you remember? We met …” The words died on her lips as Kate realized her mistake. She and Emma wouldn’t meet with the wizard in the house in Cambridge Falls for another fifteen years. The man smiling down at them, wearing, she was certain, the same tweed suit he would wear a decade and a half in the future, had no idea who she was. She felt foolish and defeated. “… I mean, we’re going to meet.… It’s complicated.”

  “The reason you and I haven’t met,” Michael said helpfully, “is that I was already trapped in the past.”

  “I see,” Dr. Pym said. Then he shook his head. “Actually no, I don’t see at all. Here, you had better come in and explain everything.”

  He led them deeper into the cell, which was about the size of a comfortable living room, a comfortable living room, that is, made entirely of stone and iron with no windows and only old straw for furniture. Dr. Pym gathered the straw into two piles and told Kate and Michael to sit down. Then he slid the flame out of his palm, blew on it, and the fire sprang to life. Dr. Pym settled himself on a third heaped-together pile, folded up his long legs, and pulled a pipe from his inside jacket pocket.

  “Now,” he said as he began to pack the bowl, “start at the beginning.”

  “Wait—” Kate had made up her mind to ask him for help. What other choice did they have? Emma was lost. “We’ll tell you everything, okay? But first—”

  “Ah yes, introductions. Quite right. I’m Stanislaus Pym. But you knew that. Did I hear your name was Kate? Is that short for Katherine?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Katherine what?”

  “P! Katherine P. And this is Michael, again! But—”

  “P? You mean like the letter? That’s unusual.”

  “We don’t know our real last names! Look, I said we’d tell you everything! But first you have to find our sister, Emma! She’s probably in terrible danger!”

  “She ran off to help Gabriel!” Michael said. “Even after Kate told her not to. She’s always doing that kind of thing.”

  “Michael, not now.”

  “Sorry,” Michael mumbled, “… but she is.”

  “So your sister is with Gabriel, then?”

  “You know him?” Kate was taken aback.

  “Oh yes,” Dr. Pym said. “And if that is the case, you have nothing to worry about. Gabriel is one of the most capable individuals I have ever met.”

  “But we don’t know for sure that she is with Gabriel! Can’t you just do some spell—”

  “Katherine, first off, magic doesn’t work like that. You don’t say ‘hocus-pocus’ and have someone simply pop out of the air. Well, sometimes you do, just not in this case. Secondly, rest assured, even as I am sitting here talking to you, I am already working to locate your sister.”

  “You are?” She was unable to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

  “Oh, most definitely.”

  “But you’re just … sitting there,” Michael said. “Chewing your pipe.”

  “Yes.” Dr. Pym smiled. “Quite amazing, isn’t it? But now I insist you begin your story. I promise, everything you tell me that gives me a clearer picture of your sister will aid me in finding her.”

  Kate relented (again, what choice did she have?), and they began telling their story, though in a somewhat abbreviated form (Kate reasoning he’d just hear the whole thing again in fifteen years), but hitting all the major points: their parents’ disappearance, moving from orphanage to orphanage, arriving in Cambridge Falls and learning from Abraham that the head of the orphanage, Dr. Pym, was a wizard—

  (“My, this Abraham fellow is a bit of a gossip, isn’t he?” Dr. Pym said.)

  —finding the book in the underground room—

  (“Was that your study?” Michael asked.

  Dr. Pym shrugged. “No idea. I don’t own the house yet. Was it nice?”

  “A little creepy,” Michael said.

  “Oh,” Dr. Pym said, sounding disappointed. But then he waved his pipe for them to continue.)

  —and they told about using the book to go into the past, seeing the Countess, Michael being trapped, Kate and Emma going back to rescue him—

  (“Very brave,” Dr. Pym said approvingly. “Very noble.”)

  —about the book disappearing before their eyes, the children in the dormitory whom Kate had promised to help, their escape, the wolves, Gabriel, the chase through the tunnels, getting separated from Emma, and then their capture by Captain Robbie McLaur and his dwarves.

  “My, my, my,” Dr. Pym said. “What a time you’ve had. Little wonder you look so exhausted.”

  “Listen”—Kate’s impatience was getting the best of her—“I understand you’re a wizard, and probably know what you’re doing, but maybe you need to try another spell or something because clearly Emma isn’t here yet—”

  “My dear, I am doing all I can,” Dr. Pym said, peering down at her from under his snowy eyebrows. “But the truth is, my powers are somewhat depleted at the moment.”

  “What do you mean? You can do magic!”

  “Correction—I can do some magic. This cell—”

  “It’s the iron, isn’t it?” Michael exclaimed. “The dwarfish iron in the walls!”

  “Ah,” Dr. Pym said admiringly, “I see you know something about dwarves.”

  “I think dwarves are the most noble, most—”

  “All right, Michael, we know. Dr. Pym, why’s it matter if there’s iron in the walls?”

  “While not magicians themselves, dwarves are magical creatures. Everything they build is infused with magic. The greater the craft involved, the greater the object’s magical properties. And dwarves have no peer when it comes to working in iron. So when they build a cell like this, the iron is wrought in a way that serves to dampen the powers of one such as myself.”

  Kate was about to say something she probably would’ve regretted—something along the lines of “Then what good are you?”—but at that moment the door opened, and four dwarves entered the cell. One carried a short-legged square table. The other three balanced trays packed high with steaming plates of food.

  “Ah,” Dr. Pym said, “dinner.”

  Except it wasn’t. The dwarves were laying out stacks of butter-smeared pancakes, piles of fatty bacon, thick, cheesy meat-stuffed pies, jars of jam, marmalade, and honey, brackets of golden toast, steaming bowls of porridge, hunks of soft cheese, pyramids of plump jelly-filled donuts, and, finally, a jug of what had to be hot apple cider.

  “Dwarves,” Dr. Pym said, “are strong proponents of breakfast for dinner, and I must say I have grown to like the custom. Thank you, my friends.”

  The serving dwarves bowed low, their beards sweeping the floor as they backed out and closed the iron door.

  “Come now,
you two. I know you’re worried about your sister, but you must keep your strength up. You’re no use to anyone if you get run down. And I have some things to tell you that I think you will find very interesting indeed. So let’s dig in, shall we, before it gets cold?”

  And he leaned forward and cut himself a thick slice of ham, egg, and cheese pie. Michael glanced at Kate. She nodded, and they both took up positions around the table and went to work.

  “Now let me start by asking you something.” Dr. Pym was eating a jelly donut and trying, without much success, to keep it from dripping onto his suit. “Am I correct in assuming that you are yourselves looking for the book?”

  “Yes,” Kate said; she was sawing through a thick stack of blueberry pancakes. “It’s the only way we’re ever going to get home. Only we have no idea where the book is.”

  “Well—” The old wizard popped the last of the donut in his mouth, a large dollop of jelly landing unnoticed on his tie. “Then it is a good thing I do.”

  Kate and Michael both froze.

  Then Kate said, “What?”

  “It is a good thing I do know where it is.” He’d begun sorting through a pile of cinnamon twists, searching for the longest and sugariest. “Ah, here we are.” He pulled free one doughy, golden spiral and held it up for admiration.

  He told them that the book was hidden beneath the Dead City.

  And what was the Dead City?

  The Dead City, Dr. Pym explained as he chomped panda-like down the stalk, was the ancient dwarf capital. It had been abandoned some five hundred years earlier after being devastated by an earthquake.

  “Are you all right, my dear? The pancakes not agreeing with you?”

  “I’m fine.” Kate’s voice was strained. She was recalling her dream from the night before, of the city inside the mountain, how the earth had split open to swallow it. Was that the same city? It had to be.

  “Anyway”—Dr. Pym licked clean his fingers—“the book is locked in a vault beneath the ruins.”

  Kate felt a chill come over her. Why was she having these visions? Once again, she remembered the Countess saying that the book had marked her.