Shveta was first off the raft, followed by Ani. Lady Barrett was right behind them.
“Is this the North Pole?” Lady Barrett asked, looking Nindemann’s way.
“Your guess is as good as mine what the North Pole looks like,” he said. “It will soon get dark enough that we can find the North Star. That would tell us for sure.”
“Maybe this is the North Pole, maybe it’s over there,” said Shveta. “I don’t really care. We’ve found what was pictured in the mandala. We’ve found what was drawn on the map taken long ago to the employer of Bren’s father. The one he remembered in his feverish state.”
“And now that we’re here,” said Lady Barrett, “what is it you’re looking for exactly?”
“A well,” said Shveta, and she and Ani were off again.
That’s when Bren noticed how haggard Nindemann looked, and depressed. He quite possibly had just led the first successful expedition to the North Pole, the first one that could be documented and verified, that is, and he looked as if he’d lost his best friend.
“What’s wrong?” said Bren. “We made it.”
“Did we?” said Nindemann. “Does this feel like Paradise to you?”
“Compared to some other places we’ve been?” said Bren.
“You’re still wrapped in furs,” Nindemann pointed out. “Touch your hand to the water. Look at the ice and snow covering every inch of that mountain but the bottom.”
He was right, and Bren felt all his newfound hope and conviction begin to wobble. This wasn’t Paradise. It wasn’t the mountain in the mandala. They had gambled on an impossible quest to the ends of the earth and found nothing but more snow and ice. They would never survive the journey back, and there was no one left to rescue them. He would never see home again. It hit him like a sudden punch in the gut that he had seen his father and Mr. Black for the last time.
Anger began to consume him. If he could have known they were splitting up, back at the Caspian Sea . . . but no, Shveta had robbed him of that. He tried to remember the last conversation he had with his father, but his legendary memory failed him.
“This is all your fault!” He charged her. Aadesh stepped in front of him, but Shveta said, “Let him go.”
Bren grabbed her by her collar. His swollen, frostbitten hands radiated pain as he clenched his fists around the thick fur. He just stood there, holding her, staring into her eyes, and as he did so, he began to feel . . . warm. His whole body coursed with the kind of pain you feel when you’re freezing and put yourself too close to a blazing fire.
He pulled away.
Shveta reached inside her furs and pulled out a sodden piece of fabric and laid it on the ground. It was the mandala. The fabric itself had begun to fade and fray, but the painting was still intact.
“What did we miss?” said Shveta, kneeling before it and gently grasping Bren by the hand, inviting him to take a closer look. He had no strength left to fight her. He knelt down beside her.
The painting was an intricate work, and their attention had been drawn to the mountains in the middle. Bren’s eyes went to the edges, where he had dismissed an elaborate border as mere ornament.
“What is this?” he said.
Ani leaned in. “It’s writing, I think. Sanskrit?”
She was looking at Shveta.
“What does it say?” said Bren.
“It says nothing important,” Shveta replied. “Just typical formal religious language about the greatness of the gods and completeness of the universe.”
“Had you noticed it before?” said Lady Barrett.
“No,” said Shveta. “Now, if I may point out what you all should really be looking at . . .”
Her finger went to the belly of the mountain, to a tiny image Bren had originally thought was a tree or shrub. But on closer inspection, he saw that he had been wrong. It was a figure, indistinct, barely more than a pair of beady eyes, inside the mountain.
“What we came for is in there, in the heart of the mountain.” said Shveta. “The Well of Wisdom. We don’t find Paradise; we find the power to re-create it.”
CHAPTER
30
THE TUNNEL OF SWORDS AND AXES
They all watched the large grey cat as she ascended the mountain, her panther’s paws confidently finding purchase in the snow and ice. She wound around the face of it clockwise, twisting ever higher in search of a way in. They had discovered they were on an island, and the mountain was small by the standards Bren had grown accustomed to traveling across Asia, but Ani still disappeared for hours at a time when she was circling the peak, and each time she did, he felt as if she might not come back.
But finally, she did. One minute a long grey cat was trotting down the base of the mountain, the next an exhausted, naked girl was on all fours at Shveta’s feet.
They camped another night at the foot of the mountain so Ani could recover, and then the next day they climbed to the mouth of the cave she had found halfway up.
It was a treacherous, twisting descent into the mountain, through tunnels of irregular size and inclines sometimes so steep that Bren and the others slipped and slid along the way. But no one was complaining, because for once they were completely sheltered from the unpredictable Arctic weather. Their only light was a weak basket torch Nindemann had fashioned from one of Duval’s empty food tins and some blubber, and he and their two huskies led the way.
This was nothing like climbing down into the Pearl Cliffs. Those tunnels had been made by miners and fugitives. This felt to Bren as if he were invading some monstrous anthill or the combs of a wasp’s nest. The longer they walked, the longer he had to think about it, and every frightful thing he had ever read, fact or fiction, in Black’s Books crossed his mind. And then, thinking about the look Mr. Black would give him if he knew that, the satisfaction his old friend would take . . . it made Bren smile.
They had walked for over an hour when the two dogs took off running through a flat part of the tunnel. Nindemann hesitated, thinking there might be danger ahead, but then he saw the light. They all did, and they moved as quickly as they dared over the uncertain ground to see what was there.
Bren’s heart beat painfully against his chest as he recalled the last time he had followed a tunnel to light, on the Vanishing Island. But this time, there was no ancient tomb or catfish man or illustrated bones. It was just a cavern. A floor of mounded rock, surrounded by towering walls that somewhere, out of sight, were letting in a shaft of pale-white overhead light. There were no other ways in or out.
“Are we here?” said Lady Barrett.
Bren didn’t think it was wise to bait Shveta in a cavern, but Shveta didn’t seem to be listening. She was pacing the floor, as if she were measuring it for a Turkish rug. “In here,” she said, stomping her foot once. “It’s beneath us.”
“What, this Well of Wisdom?” Lady Barrett asked. “You think there’s a manmade well in the middle of a mountain at the North Pole?”
“Who said anything about manmade?” said Shveta.
Nindemann, meanwhile, couldn’t stop studying the walls. “I think this is volcanic rock,” he said, chipping away a piece with a knife, and then kneeling to examine the floor.
Suddenly it made sense—a mountainous island in the middle of a polar sea; the cracks of light; the light seeming to come from high above. They were in the throat of a volcano. The floor must have been pillows of lava that had cooled and filled the center.
“If it makes you feel better, I think it’s probably plugged,” said Bren.
“Might just be dormant,” said Nindemann. “Another eruption could easily move all this rock out of the way.”
“It’s not that warm in here,” said Lady Barrett. “If that’s a clue.”
“What’s the matter with you idiots?” Shveta scowled. “Don’t you see? It makes perfect sense. The Well of Wisdom filled deliberately to keep anyone from it!”
“If you think something is buried here,” said Nindemann, “how do you propose
to get to it? It could be hundreds of feet below us, and we have nothing worthy of digging into rock like this.”
“Maybe there are more tunnels,” said Ani. “There must be. We just have to find them.”
“No!” said Shveta. “We are precisely where we are meant to be. Precisely where Bren has led us. We blast this out, just like the volcano would.”
Shveta’s words stunned everyone into silence for a moment, and then Aadesh of all people blurted out, “You will not do that! You will not sacrifice us all. And you will not put Ani in harm’s way again!”
More silence. “Very well,” said Shveta. “You take Ani out of here. Take them all out. I’ll give you time. I don’t need you anymore. Just Bren.”
Bren had no idea what was going on, and from the looks on the others’ faces, no one else did either. Except for Ani and Aadesh.
“Shveta, what do you mean to do?” said Bren.
Shveta slowly removed the bindi from her head, and as she held it with one hand, she loosed the ruby from the center with the other.
“Come on,” said Aadesh, grabbing Ani by the hand. Aadarsh nodded to Nindemann and Lady Barrett, encouraging them to come with him.
“I’m not leaving without Bren,” said Lady Barrett.
“You will, unless you want everyone here to die,” said Shveta.
Lady Barrett stood there, as if trying to decide whether to call her bluff. Assuming she was bluffing.
“Go on,” said Bren. “I’ll be fine.”
“No,” Lady Barrett replied, her voice breaking. “You won’t be. I promised your father and Archibald that I would bring you home.”
“You tried,” said Bren feebly.
Lady Barrett slowly shook her head. “Not hard enough. Not nearly. When you told me what you told me, Bren, back in Murmansk, well . . . I thought about it long and hard that night. Searched my barren soul. I could have given you no choice but to come with me. Instead, I chose to let you go, so I could come too.” She turned to Shveta. “You’re right, I have a reputation of putting myself first, regardless of who gets hurt. I just didn’t think . . . oh, Bren, I am so sorry. . . .”
“It’s okay,” said Bren, barely loud enough to hear. “I mean it. Just go. Look where we are. You can’t make good on your promise even if I follow you out.”
He could see Lady Barrett’s eyes filling with tears. It was all he could do not to break down.
“Let’s go,” said Aadarsh, pulling Lady Barrett away. Nindemann grabbed the huskies and led them back toward the tunnel. Aadesh was following with Ani when Ani suddenly broke free of him and ran back to Bren. She grabbed the front of his furs, pulling his ear to her mouth.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Did you get a good look at the Sanskrit written around the mandala?” Bren nodded. “It begins in the top left, above the mountains,” she continued. “Left to right, just like your language.”
“Okay,” said Bren as she released him and walked back to Aadesh.
“Go!” Shveta shouted. “Enough with this pitiful sentiment! This is not the end of the world, but the beginning!”
Bren felt numb as he watched Lady Barrett and the others disappear into the tunnel. He knew it didn’t matter, but he asked anyway. “Why don’t you want me to leave? Haven’t I done all I can?”
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know,” said Shveta. “But you have brought me to this place, as if you were meant to be here. And therefore I can’t let you go until it’s over.”
She was on her knees now and had placed the ruby on the ground between them. She held up the palms of her hands to Bren, her index fingers and thumbs touching.
“There is an Apocryphal book of the Veda, our most sacred scripture, that tells of a single powerful point of energy at the center of everything, a force of immense creation or destruction, depending on how we harness it.”
Keeping her hands in the same position, she lay them flat on the ground so that the diamond-shaped space between them surrounded the ruby. She closed her eyes and began to speak, words Bren couldn’t understand.
The ruby began to glow. At first, only as if it were catching light from a distant sun, but then, more hotly, as if the jewel itself contained a furnace and Shveta was stoking the fire.
“It’s working!” she said, opening her eyes and lifting her gaze to meet Bren’s. “Watch.”
She scooped up the glowing ruby, cupping it in her hands, and stood. The light from it was growing so intense that Bren had to shield his eyes, and he felt heat against the palm of his hand. Shveta was staring at the blazing jewel, which reflected in her wide brown eyes like fiery pupils.
Her hands began to shimmer. At first Bren thought it was just the halo of light from the ruby, but then her arms began to turn red, and then her entire body, until she was surrounded by a nimbus of bright hot light.
And then the cloud of light ignited, engulfing Shveta in a pillar of fire. She began to laugh at first, but her laughter became cries of pain as the ruby turned to a pile of ash in her hands.
The whole cavern began to shake, and Bren realized the floor was moving, bulging and buckling as a terrifying rumble came from the bowels of the mountain. He turned and ran toward the tunnel, looking back over his shoulder one more time at Shveta as the fire incinerated her. He was perhaps a hundred yards into the tunnel when the floor began to give way, and he fell, rolling uncontrollably backward as the floor of the cavern opened.
The last thing he remembered was plunging weightless into complete darkness, while far above him a ball of fire burned to a bright-white point of light, like a collapsing star.
He counted the seconds as he fell . . . one, two, three . . . but when he grew bored with that, he tried to remember the title of every book he’d ever read: The Throat-Cutters of Carib; The Isle of Dread; Adventures in Amazonia . . .
That would take forever. He didn’t have forever. He stopped counting and realized he had stopped falling. He was at the bottom of a chasm . . . a well? No, he was inside a mountain . . . a volcano. He was able to see, sort of, which surprised him. Angles of light had wedged through cracks in the mountainside, and across from where he lay was an opening to a wide tunnel. Perhaps he would get out of here after all.
Bren went to the opening and peered in, and what he saw struck him like a blast of polar wind: the entire tunnel, floor, sides, and roof, was toothed with swords and axes, daggers and knives, pikes, polearms, lances, and more.
He backed away and circled the cavern, looking for another way, but he found none. Of course not—this wasn’t some random, natural formation. This was deliberate. A test. Through this tunnel of swords and axes were the Lost Words of Magic. Even after everything Shveta had done, he wished she was here to see it, and to help him figure out how to get through.
What if he just declined? He looked up to see if there was any way he could climb out, but the walls seemed to rise for miles.
This was the only way. Maybe Shveta was right. He, Bren Owen, had been chosen for this. But he had to be willing to suffer to find out what he was meant to do.
He stepped into the tunnel. The blades cut through the thick, fur-covered leather boots he had worn since boarding the Sea Lion. He could feel the blood pooling under his feet. In agony, he stumbled and put out his hand to brace himself against the tunnel wall, and a lance pierced the palm of his hand. It was all he could do to keep from falling to his knees in pain.
On he trudged, looking for any sign of light, an end to the cruel passage. And then, the pain began to recede. His wounds still hurt, but each and every step no longer cut him, and finally he staggered into a chamber where one enormous book lay open upon a massive stone pedestal.
He went to it, and looked at the open pages. He couldn’t read what was written there, but he knew what it was. He turned page after page . . . the language changed again and again . . . wedges, runes, hieroglyphs, pictograms, alphabets of infinite shape and form . . . the book was a polyglot of ancient, lost magic.
And it
was he who had found it.
He closed the book and studied the cover, a thick leather hide embossed with a serpent swallowing its own tail. He picked it up, weighed it in his arms, thinking about carrying such a large book all the way home. It was priceless. He could sell it, and his and his father’s troubles would be over. But what responsibility would he bear putting such a powerful book back into the world?
He returned it to the pedestal. He could just leave it here. No one would find it again. But he found it. Bren Owen, a fourteen-year-old boy from a small town in Britannia. Or was he fifteen now?
He could bring the book back into the world but guard its secrets. If he was one of these Nine Unknown (which still seemed ridiculous to him), perhaps that was what he was meant to do. Power like this couldn’t be destroyed, but it could be kept out of the hands of the wrong people.
Shveta had said she wanted to remake the world. Didn’t it need remaking? Was there anything about it that seemed good and just? Admiral Bowman had been mad, but he hadn’t been wrong when he explained to Bren the cruelties of colonialism and the corruption of the company system. No doubt Shveta nursed legitimate anger against those people from Bren’s own country who had taken over her homeland.
Bren could hear Archibald Black scoffing at him. Do you see a pattern there? People righting wrongs with more and more wrongs?
He heard Mouse speaking to him again, on another mountain in another place: Whoever comes to power, there will no doubt be a prophecy about their downfall, and another child stolen from a family, or some other atrocity by those hoping to make it so. He and anyone else would just have to make a better world for themselves with their own mortal powers.
Had it been Mouse at the Leopard’s Nest? The deep and silent way the monk looked at him? Knowing all about navy signal flags—and knowing that Bren would understand them? If so, then she had given him the tangka, the mandala, and the instructions for where to find the Lost Words of Magic for a reason. And he thought he knew why. Ani had understood, too.
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