The Lost Cities

by Dale Peck

  “What did Bjarki say?” Susan said, stalling for time. “A dab in each ear?”

  Uncle Farley nodded. “And a drop on the tongue.” He uncorked his test tube. “Let me go first.”

  Susan opened hers as well.

  “We should do this together.” While the Qaanaaq continued to argue, Susan and her uncle moistened their fingertips and brought them to their ears. She shivered as the cold wind blew against her dampened skin, then wet her finger again, stuck out her tongue.

  “Hea goeth—” She pulled her tongue back in her mouth. “Here goes nothing.”

  The drop of water was tasteless, but she still made a little face, as did her uncle. She contemplated the idea of becoming an Accursed Returner, coming unstuck in time, always trying to get back to your place. But before she could plumb the depths of that idea, a voice distracted her.

  “We can scale the side and enter the vessel.”

  “It’s not necessary,” a second voice said. “Can’t you see these strange reflective squares are extremely fragile? We can just break one and enter that way.”

  Susan found herself filled with elation and fear. “It worked!” she hissed. And then: “They’re trying to get inside!”

  Uncle Farley looked more bewildered than frightened. “There are swords in the trunk in the library. I suppose we’ll have to arm ourselves.”

  They began to inch toward the door, when a new voice stopped them.

  “Stand aside, men of Qaanaaq. I mean you no harm, but this vessel is under my protection.”

  Uneasy laughter floated up from the ocean’s surface.

  “Look! We are threatened by a boy!”

  “In those clothes! In that boat! Take him, men!”

  The Qaanaaq war cries almost drowned out a series of faint boings, followed by sharp whizzing sounds and hollow thumps. The war cries turned to angry shouts.

  Susan couldn’t take the suspense. She crept forward to investigate.

  “Susan!”

  The eldest Oakenfeld didn’t respond to her uncle’s frightened hiss, nor to his hand on her ankle. A moment later her nose was between the railings, and a strange gasp escaped her mouth.

  As the Qaanaaq’s shouts had indicated, a sixth boat had appeared on the scene. It was wide, shallow, and flat bottomed, more raft than boat, and even to Susan’s landlubber eyes it seemed unsuited for the rolling ocean waves. But the boat was hardly what had caused her to gasp. It was, rather, the boy standing effortlessly on the rollicking surf. He wore pale linen trousers and a tuniclike shirt, and his feet were wrapped in leather sandals whose laces wound up his ankles. Both his clothes and the rich tan hue of his skin made Susan think he’d just come from someplace sunny and warm—certainly not the forbidding beach that lay a half mile off Drift House’s port stern.

  Perhaps more to the point, the boy held a bow and arrow, cocked but unreleased. Susan looked left, and saw an amazing sight. Two of the kayaks were half sunk, the arrows poking from their leather hulls a clear explanation of what had happened. While two of the remaining kayakers paddled to their comrades’ aid, the fifth warrior faced the boy in the rowboat. His spear was hefted, but he didn’t release his weapon.

  The eyes of the spearman flickered in the direction of the poop deck. The stone-tipped staff wavered in the air, as if he were unsure whom to target.

  The boy in the flat-bottomed boat spoke. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “My arm is fast, little man,” the Qaanaaq replied. He glanced at Susan and Uncle Farley on the railing. “You risk more than your own life.”

  “My arrow is faster,” the boy said in a level, dangerous voice. “I won’t aim for your hull this time.”

  The stalemate lasted only a moment. The Qaanaaq was neither hero nor fool. He whirled his kayak and retreated. The two kayakers in distress had been pulled from their boats, and they shivered athwart the narrow hulls of their rescuers’ kayaks, feet trailing in the water. One of the punctured craft had already sunk out of sight, and with a long bubbling sigh, the second followed it down into the dark and extremely cold-looking ocean. After a long moment, the last warrior struck his paddle in the water, and his kayak twisted and skittered toward shore. Somewhat sluggishly, the other two followed.

  Throughout all this Susan squirmed with anticipation. She hardly waited until the kayakers had reached a safe distance to jump up and yell the word she’d been holding back ever since she’d seen the lightly clad boy with the boy and arrow:

  “Murray!”

  She raced down the stairs.

  “Murray! Murray!”

  Susan shouted her little brother’s name four or fifty more times until she was standing with her arms wrapped around his (surprisingly strong) shoulders, and even then she continued to say his name over and over again.

  “Oh, Murray! I can’t believe it’s you!”

  Murray took a step back from his big sister—who wasn’t much bigger than he was now—and looked down at his feet.

  “Smario now,” he said, half under his breath.

  Just then Uncle Farley panted up. “I beg your pardon?”

  Murray looked up, an expression of undeniable anger on his face. “I said, ‘It’s Ma-ri-o now.’ “Uncle Farley looked somewhat taken aback by his nephew’s tone, but before he could say something, Murray’s—or Mario’s—face brightened, and he turned back to Susan.

  “Oh, Susan! It’s so good to see you!” He threw his arms around his sister, and Susan felt the wiry, strong muscle beneath the tanned skin.

  “It’s so good to see you too. You can’t imagine what a surprise this is. I’ve got so many questions for you.”

  “You’d better save the rest of your questions for the boat. We ain’t got much time.” He turned to Uncle Farley. “I assume you’ve provisioned your vessel?” His voice was gruff. Cold really. Cold and rude.

  “Er, ah, that is, I’m sure Miss Applethwaite can provide—”

  “Don’t she always?”

  It seemed to Susan—and, apparently, to Uncle Farley—that Mario directed his words at his uncle’s stomach, and the older man colored under his skinny, sun-browned nephew’s judgmental gaze.

  “Well, come on,” Mario said. “We can’t be gabbing all day. Time,” he added significantly, “is truly a-wasting.”

  Susan and Uncle Farley exchanged a look behind Mario’s back. Physically, he was undoubtedly an older version of the Murray they knew—Susan put him around ten or eleven, which fit in with the boy Charles had told Susan he’d met last fall. Charles had mentioned the salty accent as well, but he hadn’t said anything about this new, aggressive personality.

  They followed him to the dumbwaiter, which Murray was already opening. An enormous wicker basket sat inside on the plush red carpet.

  “You just had to make it pretty, didn’t ya!” Murray called into the shaft with a chuckle. “If you’d been born three hundred years later you’d’ve made a regular Martha Stewart, you would have.”

  Susan smiled, somewhat—well, a lot actually—confused. “Mario,” she said. “Your, um, accent?”

  “Aye.” Mario peeked under the basket’s lid. A blue-checked cloth was visible, and a delicious odor of roasted turkey leaked into the dining room. “Life among salts’ll do that to you, even those as learned as the Time Pirates.” He took a deep breath, then stuck his tongue out, twisted it left, twisted it right, then crossed his eyes. Susan wasn’t sure if he was making funny faces to get her to laugh, or if this was some arcane magic rite he’d picked up somewhere. “There,” he said when he was finished. “’Ow, er, how’s that?”

  “I wasn’t criticizing—”

  “You wouldn’t be Susie Oakenfeld if you wasn’t hung up on how people talk. Weren’t hung up.” Mario grinned. “Come on, sis. To the boat. We’ve got to get ashore.”

  “Mario,” Uncle Farley said as he followed his niece and nephew to the back door, “you seem very… directed. Have you got some sort of plan?”

  “My plan,” Mario said, and
his voice seemed particularly bitter, “is for you to row.”

  A moment later, they were seated in the shallow punt, where Uncle Farley somewhat unsteadily took his place at the oars. He looked at his hands, then gripped the splintery-looking paddles.

  “I wish I’d thought to bring gloves.”

  Mario snorted. He flipped up the picnic basket and folded back the tablecloth. There sat a pair of sturdy-looking leather gloves.

  “At least someone thought ahead,” he said, tossing the gloves to Uncle Farley. He aimed a bit high, and the gloves smacked Uncle Farley in the face.

  Mario’s hostility rendered Uncle Farley speechless. He put the gloves on and resumed pulling at the oars.

  “Mario,” Susan rushed to fill the strained silence. “Who were those people back there?”

  “Qaanaaq,” Mario said. “They thought you were some of Karl Olafson’s men, come back to attack them. During the last Nordseta, he got in a skirmish with some of them and took something that belonged to them, then made off to Leifsbudir.”

  So many strange names. Susan focused on the last. “Leifsbudir?”

  “That’s in Newfoundland, isn’t it?” Uncle Farley added.

  Mario glanced balefully at his uncle. “Geography. That’ll come in handy.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Susan cut in before her uncle could protest, “why the Qaanaaq attacked us. I mean, why would they associate us with”—she tried to remember the other name—“Karloff?”

  “Karl Olafson.” Mario paused significantly, looked from Susan to Uncle Farley and back again. “Well,” he said finally, “why do you think I’m here?”

  Susan was wondering not just why Mario was there but who, exactly, Mario was. He seemed very unlike the person she’d’ve expected her little brother to turn into. “Well, we were wondering.”

  “It was that damn squall,” Mario said. “Pardon me, Susie. That cursed squall. Like to knock me into the Great Drain it did. It’s a good thing I wasn’t blown to prehistoric times, or worse. Of course, it wasn’t no accident I ended up here. Something pulled me to this time and place, as sure as my name is”—and here he broke off awkwardly—“Mar, er, Mur, er, ah…”

  “Let’s stick with Mario for now.”

  Ignoring his uncle, Mario leaned forward and grabbed Susan’s legs. “Oh, Susan! I thought you were dead!”

  Susan jumped back. “You, ah …I mean, what? I thought Charles told you—”

  “Charles? You mean, Charles isn’t …?”

  “Isn’t what, Mario?” This from Uncle Farley, who stared at the back of his nephew’s head, sensing they were close to the source of his strange hostility.

  Mario looked wildly from Susan to Uncle Farley. All at once his eyes dropped to the floor of the boat and he fell silent.

  “Nothing.”

  “Mario,” Susan said, putting her hand on her brother’s knee. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Mario pulled a length of cord tied around his neck from beneath his shirt. His fingers were rubbing it nervously, but when he saw Susan staring at his hands he stopped suddenly. Susan was startled: she had expected to see the familiar golden locket that Murray rubbed so often at home, but it wasn’t there. The cord around his neck was empty.

  “It’s nothing,” Mario said again. “Nothing I shouldn’t be used to anyway. It’s just, well, I thought Charles was dead. But it’s pretty obvious from your face he ain’t. Isn’t. I guess I should’ve known that.”

  “But, Mario,” Susan said, confused, “don’t you remember seeing him last fall?”

  “I…saw… Charles?”

  Mario looked flabbergasted. Susan had a hard time imagining anyone faking that expression—and besides, she couldn’t think of a good reason why Mario would lie about something like this. It led to a disturbing conclusion, however: that this Mario was somehow not the same Mario Charles had met last fall.

  “What’s this about Mario seeing Charles, Susan?”

  Susan looked at her uncle, who was staring at her sternly. Beyond him were the stony hills of Greenland, and all around was the frigid water of the North Atlantic. She realized the time for secrets had passed.

  “It happened last fall. Just off the Island of the Past, when you were, um, incapacitated after the battle with the Time Pirates. Mario showed up. That’s where the flying carpet came from.”

  Uncle Farley grunted against the oars. “I thought Pierre Marin gave the carpet to Charles?”

  Susan smiled wanly. “We probably should have told you, but Charles and Murray—that is, our Murray,” she said, glancing at Mario, “they thought it best that as few people as possible know about Mario’s existence, just in case it might… influence something.”

  “I saw Charles,” Mario said again, almost to himself. “I saw—Murray?”

  Susan nodded. “You did.”

  Suddenly Mario’s face brightened. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Susan looked at Uncle Farley, who shrugged.

  “It means I make it back! To you and Charles, and Mum and Dad! All of this endless, endless searching finally pays off, and I get to be Murray again!” His voice dropped to a plaintive whisper, and his fingers clutched the empty cord at his throat.

  “I finally get to go home.”

  The look of longing on her brother’s face was so overwhelming that Susan felt tears sting her cheeks. She put her hand on her brother’s knee.

  “You’re there right now.” She smiled. “You have chicken pox. Mum’s probably giving you medicine, and Dad’s reading you The Chronicles of Narnia.”

  Mario laughed out loud. “Oh, I probably hate that now. After everything I’ve seen I could never quite buy into something that simple. Do you …” Mario’s voice broke off.

  “Yes, Mario?” Susan said. “What is it?”

  “Do you, well, do you know how long it takes? Till I figure it out?” His hands stroked the empty cord around his throat. “Till I find what I’m looking for?”

  Susan could only shake her head. “I’m sorry, Mario. Murray’s never really said anything about what he did when he—when he was you. I don’t think he remembers.”

  Mario nodded his head, failing to hide his disappointment. “That makes sense, I guess. I forget so much.” Suddenly he turned to face their uncle. “I’m sorry I’ve been so rude, Uncle Farley. It’s just that, well, I thought you were responsible for Charles’s, well, you know. Death.”

  Uncle Farley looked at his nephew silently for a moment. As it happened, he knew a little about how long it would take Mario to find his way back home, having briefly met a ninety-year-old version of him last fall. But he kept this information to himself. Somewhat pantingly, he caught Mario up on the temporal wave and subsequent events that had separated Charles and President Wilson from Drift House. When he’d finished, he paused to catch his breath, then said, “I get the feeling you know a bit about this colony.”

  “Osterbygd?” Mario said, pronouncing it “Oster-bead.” “Yeah, I’ve been there once or twice.”

  Uncle Farley smiled. “I think it would be prudent if you told us what you know before we arrive.”

  They were well over halfway to land, Susan saw. The outlines of the grass-covered houses were more visible now, but other than a few white blobs on the hills that she thought were sheep, she saw nothing living. If it weren’t for the smoke coming from the chimneys, she could have believed the colony was abandoned.

  Mario nodded. “Right. Apparently, during the last hunt Karl Olafson got in a bit of a skirmish with a Qaanaaq hunting party, which got the worst of it. Many men were killed, their ivory and furs confiscated. But Karl also found … something. I’ve spoken to both Qaanaaq and Vikings to try to get them to be more specific, but people have been reluctant to talk about it.”

  “How did you get them to talk to you at all?” Susan said. “I mean, you don’t exactly pass for a Viking, let alone a Qaanaaq.”

  Here Mario grinned mischievously. “Oh, I’ve got a fe
w tricks up my sleeve. A few disguises. Anyway, from what I could pick up, the Qaanaaq somehow came into possession of this object centuries ago, and believe it has magic powers.”

  “Pardon me for stating the obvious,” Uncle Farley put in, “but you sound as though you think this object is important.”

  Susan noticed that her uncle had to work to get out such a long sentence. But the land was close now. She could hear the lap of cold waves on the shore; once she even thought she smelled woodsmoke on the wind.

  When Susan looked back at Mario, he was rubbing the empty length of twine around his neck, a thoughtful expression on his face. When he saw where she was looking, he jerked his hand away.

  “There are no coincidences in time travel,” he said finally. “Accidents a-plenty, but they always fit into a larger scheme whose pattern is always visible, assuming you look at it from the right perspective. I’m guessing Bjarki Skaldisson sent you here because it was in the eye of the squall, no?” Susan nodded; Mario went on. “I was drawn here as well. There’s something big going on in this colony, and when you start hearing about magic objects—”

  Just then, there was a scraping sound as the keel of the boat washed onto the pebbly shore.

  Uncle Farley dropped the oars with a thud. “Finally!”

  The boat wobbled from side to side in the current. Susan felt slightly wobbly too: she was perched on the edge of an island inhabited by people who had vanished from history more than five hundred years ago with a brother who, well, didn’t seem a whole lot like her brother. All this talk about a magic object, and the way he’d jerked his hand from his neck when he’d seen her looking: Susan was starting to believe Mario had come to Osterbygd looking for the same thing she and Uncle Farley were, but possibly not for the same purpose.

  She looked at Mario now, and he smiled pleadingly, as if he were asking for her faith. And Susan wanted to give it to him, but it was hard, when there were events from his own past that he didn’t seem to know about and his fingers were so nervously fiddling with that empty length of twine around his neck.

  Uncle Farley sighed in the middle of the boat. “No way to do this without getting wet, I’m afraid.” He jumped into the ankle-deep water. A weird expression—half pain, half shock—took over his face. “Now that is—what is the word I’m looking for?—cold.” A shiver shook his whole body, and then he splashed to the bow and dragged the boat farther up the beach.