Taksidian had said it was there Mom was taken after being kidnapped from their house. But she’d escaped. David prayed she’d found a way out of Atlantis, away from this culture obsessed by violence and war.
I’m sorry, Mom, he thought. We tried to find you, we really did. He could hardly stand the thought that he would never see her again. Somehow that seemed even worse than heading into battle against his will.
The water was on the chain gang’s right side. On the left side, buildings lined the street as far as David could see. The nearest were open garage-sized stalls filled with crates. Farther up appeared to be a series of taverns. Laughter, shouts, and weird music like cats stuck in a box wafted out at them. To their right was the ship, a big Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-type thing. As they shuffled past, David watched the sailors on board: moving crates, coiling ropes, checking their swords and spears, bows and arrows, helmets and body armor. But he wasn’t see-ing them, not really. He was thinking, letting his mind examine every possible way of escape—the way he might have studied the size, speed, and movements of an opposing soccer team back in Pasadena, when winning a game was the only thing he had to worry about.
He bumped into Xander and realized the line had stopped. Chains rattled as the kids shuffled into a tight group. The front guard stomped up a gangplank leading up to the rear of the ship. He hopped onto the ship’s deck, looked around, and disappeared through a door. David could hear his footsteps descending stairs.
That’s where they’ll keep us, he thought. Down in some dark, smelly hold.
He didn’t know how long the voyage to Greece would be, but he’d bet it would be weeks. Didn’t these old sailing ships take forever to get anywhere? Weeks down there, smashed in with three dozen other kids, maybe a bunch of slaves and sail-ors. If they were lucky, some of them would see the light of day now and then, when they were ordered to swab the decks or something.
He wondered if his stomach would get used to the lurching ocean movements. Last year, his sixth-grade class had gone out on a tugboat from Los Angeles Harbor. Half of them had barfed their lunches over the railing. David hadn’t, but he’d felt like it. Probably these Atlantians wouldn’t even feed them, so before long they’d have nothing to puke up.
The guard reappeared and yelled down to the guard with the whip, obviously ticked about something. The whip-man returned his own angry words. He grunted in disgust and pushed past the children to the gangplank. Halfway up he turned back, pointed at the kids, and shook the whip at them. The kids gasped and yelped in fear. Most of them ducked their heads. Satisfied, the whip-man boarded the ship and disappeared into the hold with his partner.
“They’re probably mad that they’ve given us too much room,” Xander said. “Like a broom closet.”
The shackles were heavy on David’s wrists. They were wide and thick contraptions, rusty and showing hammer marks from being pounded into shape. The left one ground into his cast, the right one was a little looser. He wiggled his hand, tried to slip it through, but it was too tight.
If only . . .
Then he remembered.
“Xander,” he whispered. When his brother turned a mis-erable expression toward him, David smiled and said, “I have an idea!”
CHAPTER
ten
The cluster of Atlantian children shifted nervously on the dock beside the ship that was to take them to war. Their chains rattled, the sound of lost hope. Bound to them, but standing apart, the King brothers whispered to each other.
“Look,” David said, swiveling his rump toward Xander and hitching up his tunic to expose his jeans.
His brother scowled at him. “Yeah, that tunic totally makes your butt look fat. I think you’ve been hit on the head too many times.”
“My pocket!” David said. “I can’t reach.”
Xander squinted. “What is that?”
“Shampoo. I was going to squirt it in Phemus’s eyes when we were hiding in the tub. Then you took off after him, and I stuck it in my pocket. I forgot.”
“I don’t think these guys care if your hair’s clean, David.” He shook his head.
“Just get it, will you? Can you?”
Xander shifted around as far as the chains would let him, and stretched his arms. “Almost,” he said. Then: “Got it.” He showed David. It was oval-shaped and not “family sized”— both features that had allowed it to fit in his pocket in the first place. But now it was also bent and crushed. Yellowish sham-poo oozed from the top and coated the bottle.
“Oh, no,” David said. “Is there any left?”
Xander shook it. “Feels like it.”
David held up his shackles. “Squirt some on my wrist.”
Xander smiled. “I get it, yeah.” They stretched toward each other, and Xander snapped his head back, a pinched look on his face. “Holy cow, man. You stink.”
David glanced down at the wet stain that covered his shirt from neck to belly button. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Come on . . . “ He rattled his shackles.
Xander squeezed a glob out onto the back of David’s right hand. David smeared the slippery goop around and worked it under the edge of the shackle. Holding the brace with his left hand, he rotated his hand and tried to tug it through.
“Is it working?” Xander said.
“Give me a minute.” David felt the bones in his hand compressing and sliding under the rough metal. His hand popped out of the shackle. He grinned at Xander and looked around to see if anyone was watching. He let the cuff hang by the chain looped through the other shackle and grabbed the bottle. The left one proved more difficult: the soldier had squeezed the cuff into his cast. But the shampoo made even that slick enough to get his hand out.
“Get mine,” Xander said—as if David wouldn’t.
David squirted the shampoo on Xander’s hand, and his brother started working on it. Watching for the guards or anyone else who wanted them chained, David said, “Hurry.”
“These are kid-sized shackles,” Xander observed, grunting at the effort. “Bet they’re all the same size. That’s why it was so easy for you. I’m bigger.”
“It’s not working?” David said, panicked.
“No,” Xander said. “Just go, save yourself.” But his hand was already out, and he was smiling.
“Come on,” David said, irritated at the lump in his throat Xander’s joke had given him. “Get the other one.”
When he was free, Xander said, “Let’s go.”
David grabbed his arm. “Wait,” he said. “Give me the shampoo.” When Xander handed him the bottle, David turned back to the chained kids. He stepped up to a boy about his age. Scratches and bruises showed through his ripped rags. The boy’s head hung low, partially hiding a face that seemed molded in a plastic mask of sadness. David lifted the boy’s shackles and began rubbing shampoo over his wrists and hands.
Xander appeared at his side. “Good idea,” he said. “The more kids they have to catch, the less likely they’ll catch us.” “I just want to help as many people as we can,” David said. He forced a hand free. The kid’s eyelids fluttered, and he seemed to come more fully aware with each blink. David thought he saw the beginnings of a smile.
“Give me some,” Xander said.
David squirted shampoo into Xander’s cupped hand. He freed the boy’s other arm and gave him a shove. “Go,” he said. The boy shuffled toward the taverns, moving slowly, as though invisible chains still bound him. David pushed him again, and the boy picked up his pace.
David turned to another prisoner, a teenager who nod-ded and bounced with excitement. When he was free, David grabbed his arm to keep him from running. He held up the shampoo and gestured toward the remaining chain gang. The teen didn’t understand until David pulled him to another boy and pointed at the shackles. Then he nodded, and David gave him a palm full of shampoo.
Xander was working quickly, moving from boy to boy, slapping shampoo on their hands. David followed, helping the ones who needed it.
A
shout came from the ship. The whip-man was running toward the gangplank. He turned to yell into the hold— calling for help, David thought.
“Run!” Xander yelled. He pushed at the freed kids who were helping others or milling around, looking lost and unsure.
Three kids were still chained. David ran to them and squirted freedom on their wrists. Xander grabbed his shirt and pulled him away. “Time to go,” he said.
They ran toward the corner, which was a good soccer field away.
“Wait, wait,” Xander said. He was looking back. The kids were running along the dock toward the taverns. Some jumped off the dock into the water. The whip-man ran away from Xander and David, moving toward one kid, then chang-ing course to go after another. He had shoved the handle of his whip into his belt at the small of his back. It played out behind him like a rat’s tail.
Or a demon’s, David thought.
Xander pulled him into one of the covered holding areas. They slipped behind a crate and watched as the other guard came out of the hold, then two soldiers. The men saw the scattering kids, clambered down the gangplank, and scrambled after them.
“They would have spotted us before we got to the corner,” Xander said. “Look.” He pointed at a half dozen sailors who were leaning over the ship’s railing to observe the commotion.
Xander pulled the silver rock from his pocket and let it rest in his palm. “No pull,” he said.
“Didn’t it come from the antechamber?” David said. “We’ve been here long enough. It should be showing us where the portal home is by now.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not working because we followed Phemus and didn’t end up where the antechamber thought we would.”
David remembered going through the portal, seeing a dark cave, then getting yanked away from it. At the time, he’d thought portals had never felt like that before, violent and somehow unsure. They’d wound up not in a cave, but in Taksidian’s Atlantian home.
The silver rock rolled over in Xander’s palm.
“Did you do that?” David said.
“No, but that’s not much. I don’t feel anything pulling, nothing to follow.”
“We’ll have to give it some time,” David said. The items from the antechamber seemed to become more anxious about returning to it as time passed, like a horse wanting to get back to its stable.
“I’m not waiting,” Xander said. “Let’s get back to Taksidian’s house. We know it has a portal.”
“I saw him and Phemus heading for it,” David said.
“Good. If they open the door, we can slip through before it closes.” The door covering the portal was a heavy stone slab.
“I don’t want to be anywhere near those guys,” David said.
“You want to stay here?” Xander shot a glance at the ship.
“No, but—“
“Okay,” Xander said. “I think we just have to get away from the guards and soldiers who know we’re supposed to be chained up. No one cared about us until Taksidian told them to get us. Get around the corner and we’re home free.”
David wasn’t so sure, but he nodded.
“Come on.” He shot out of the holding area and ran for the corner. David stayed so close he could have been his brother’s shadow.
CHAPTER
eleven
Taksidian climbed the path toward his house, thinking Three down—mom and the two boys—and two to go—dad and the little girl.
Kind of depended how you looked at it, though: Jesse would make another one down; Keal another one to go. But Taksidian didn’t think those two counted. Jesse had been a frail old man. If you started counting swatting away pesky mosquitoes among your victories, then the real triumphs lost their significance. And Keal, the man who had come with Jesse, who was he? Nobody. He didn’t belong and was sure to vanish as soon as Taksidian eliminated the father and the little girl. Maybe sooner.
Imagining the scenario, Taksidian smiled. Keal would realize the boys were gone. He’d think about his fights with Phemus and how the big man had whupped him good, leaving him unconscious and certainly sore. He’d wait till the others were sleeping, then he’d slip out and spend the rest of his life trying to forget he ever met the Kings or seen their nightmare house. After all, he wasn’t part of the King bloodline. He didn’t feel the call. It wasn’t his destiny to fulfill.
Taksidian reached the terrace outside his front door and waited for Phemus to catch up. On the other side of a stone railing, a grassy hill sloped far down to a river. Beyond that lay the Atlantis of legends. It was a mountain around which a city had been built, slowly rising to the golden castle on top. Massive bridges made of rare stone; agricultural wonders; peace among those fortunate enough to live there, to be part of one of the royal families—all of it a millennium ahead of its time.
What history—or at least poets and songwriters—forgot to mention was the incredible war machine required to make such advancements. And war machines were never pretty: cogs made of conquered enemies-turned-slaves, powered by a ruth-lessness that had no regard for anyone, and greased by blood.
Taksidian shook his head. In one way Atlantis was indeed the perfect society, in that it represented man’s nature: greedy, violent, unapologetic. He had witnessed hundreds of cul-tures, societies, and times. In every one of them, these traits ruled. Those who embraced them instead of fighting them became the kings of their time. Taksidian embraced them, so he deserved the luxury and power he was amassing.
He realized others disagreed, but they were wrong.
Phemus finally reached the terrace, his massive shoulders rising and falling by the exertion of moving his bulk up the hill. The man had been captured by the Atlantians as a child. He’d fought many battles, some for Atlantis, many for Taksidian. The dumb brute was like a massive attack dog: vicious and obedient to his master.
Taksidian slapped the man’s arm, and told him in Phemus’s language, “Good job, my friend. Now come.” He walked to the other side of the terrace and stopped at a sundial. The gnomon—a pencil-like shaft—rose from the center of an intri-cately carved dial face. Its shadow pointed at a symbol, showing that it was about three in the afternoon.
He selected a black marble from a stone cup and dropped it in a dimple above the symbol that represented seven o’clock. “I have to get back to Pinedale before Time comes for me,” e said, eyeing Phemus. He pointed at the marble. “Go to the house when the shadow strikes this marble. If an opportunity presents itself . . .” He smiled. “Do some damage.”
Phemus nodded.
“We’re almost finished ridding ourselves of this current enemy,” Taksidian said. “Rest now.” He opened the door to the house and entered.
Phemus followed, trudged to the bed, and sat.
Taksidian thought Phemus’s “waiting mode” was like a vacuum cleaner waiting to be used. The man would have no life at all without me.
He caught sight of an empty peg on the wall and sighed. “That kid took my tunic. I tell you, those boys were a thorn in my side to the end. Get me another one.”
Phemus nodded.
Taksidian approached the heavy door that blocked the por-tal to the other house. It was counterbalanced, which allowed it to open with a light touch in just the right place. He opened it now. Through the doorway, black shadows swirled through slightly-less-black shades, like different types of oil mixing together. A cool breeze touched his skin, and he paused.
Normally, the Atlantian portal led directly to the house— thanks to the items from there he had stolen and affixed to this portal’s doorframe. Time, as it always did, tried to pull the items through the portal so it could deposit them where they belonged: in the Pinedale house. Instead, he and Phemus used this conduit to move to and from the house. An ingenious setup, Taksidian thought with smug pride.
But, like a closet, the antechambers were normally breeze-less and without temperature variations. The cool breeze told him the portal wanted to take him on a brief detour before delivering him to the
house. The only time it did that was when he possessed a specific antechamber item. Then the item itself directed the portal to take him to the time and place it repre-sented . . . then to the house.
Not that he minded the detours. Usually, they showed him boring scenes of woods or streets. But sometimes they treated him to history’s most entertaining action sequences: hordes of screaming families snatched up by the tsunami that devas-tated Alexandria in the year 350; the nuclear age’s equivalent at Hiroshima; the slaughter of General Custer’s 7th Cavalry by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull’s warriors.
Those detours he expected, because of an antechamber item he had brought with him; this one puzzled him.
He scanned the items around the portal, thinking maybe the boys had messed with them. A plank of wood, a scrap of wall-paper, a doorknob, a nail, a shingle. They all seemed in order.
He patted his pockets and pulled out the braided-leather tassel he’d taken from Xander. It trembled in his hand, anx-ious to zip through the portal.
Ahh, he thought. An antechamber item. He felt pleasure lighten his mood as he realized those little punks wouldn’t be using it: they weren’t going home. He returned it to his pocket and stepped through.
CHAPTER
twelve
Keal was deep inside the cave now. The sounds of the bear-human fight had faded away long ago. He swung the torch back and forth to make sure he wasn’t missing something, like a sign from one of the boys or another passage. So far he’d found nothing other than more cave drawings. He wished he could see farther in front of him. Moving through the cave in the small circle of light felt like scuba diving in murky water: you never knew what might show itself—and be too near for you to do anything about it.
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