The Lost Cities

by Dale Peck

  “How many—”

  “One hundred seventy-two. Once we were numberless, but now we number one hundred seventy-two.”

  Charles was silent for a long time. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he touched a finger to his cheek. The dried paint on his cheeks felt like paper.

  “Is this to protect me? Or protect you?”

  The Wendat glanced at Votav, who continued to stare impassively into the flames.

  “It is a precaution,” Grabant said. “Time flickers around you strangely, and these symbols will keep you—and us—in one place.”

  Charles glanced around the circle. “Not everyone has the symbols. You don’t.”

  “Not everyone believes time is as easy to shape as Votav does. We have heard the stories for generations, but none of us has ever slipped ourselves, let alone journeyed through the fog.”

  “The fog? Where are you going anyway?”

  Grabant’s eyes narrowed, almost as if he’d been expecting this question. “We are being led far away. To a place no English-or Frenchman will ever come to. As the deer must stay with deer and the wolf must stay with wolves, so our people and your people must remain forever separate.”

  At these words, Charles’s mind flashed to visions of what he knew lay in the future: Europeans spreading unchecked west, south, north across the continent, with the native populations confined to reservations encompassing a fraction of the land they’d once lived on. In a way, Grabant’s desires would come true, Charles thought. But probably not in the manner he or his people were hoping.

  “Your presence is troubling to us, Handa-vey,” Grabant continued. “Our people have already wandered far from the places we knew. These lands are colder than the ones we left. But neither French nor English have ever been seen in these parts, and we had hoped to stop soon. There is still time to plant squash and beans and corn for the fall harvest. Time to build warm shelters for the winter so we won’t have to huddle in tents to keep from freezing. But if your presence is a sign that others like you are not far behind, we shall have to keep going. And, perhaps, we shall have to leave a warning behind.”

  Charles gulped. “Warning?”

  Grabant paused, contemplated his words. “The Wendat are not a warlike people. We have always lived in peace with our neighbors until the French came, and the British, and the Iroquois. But we will fight if we have to, to protect ourselves. Our ancestors say, if you have to go to war, do not leave your spear at home, or your bow, your hatchet, your knife, or your wits. Do you understand?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  With a flick of his finger, Grabant made the piece of skewered meat in front of him wobble like a metronome. “There are some among us who want to mount your head on a stake as a warning to any who come after you. The Wendat are not yet helpless, Handa-vey. If you think otherwise, you are much mistaken.”

  Although he was only ten years old, Charles had had his life threatened before, by the mermaid Queen Octavia. But the mermaid had been careless—at any rate overconfident—and, as well, Charles had had his uncle to help him, and Susan and Murray, not to mention Pierre Marin and the Time Pirates. But Grabant had spoken in a calm, matter-of-fact voice about beheading Charles, who was suddenly, acutely conscious of the circles of hostile eyes ringing him, and the empty forest beyond them.

  “I, um, that is, well—”

  Suddenly a voice rang out of the dark trees.

  “Stay where you are!”

  Instantly, knives appeared in the hands of every Wendat seated around the fire.

  “Drop your weapons!” another voice cried out. “Back away from the boy!” There was a pause—during which, Charles noted dismally, no one did any backing away—and then a third voice called out, “We have you surrounded!”

  On the other side of the fire, Grabant made subtle movements with the fingers of his right hand. Although Charles didn’t actually see anyone move, he had a sense of fewer shadows around the fire.

  “Do not delay!” a fourth voice cried. “Step away from the boy or my men—RAK!”

  Charles, who had been as mystified by the voices as the Wendat, suddenly understood. A moment later, a young man appeared carrying President Wilson. He held the parrot upside down by the legs, like a chicken. As always when he was stressed, President Wilson resorted to a stream of abuse.

  “Unhand me, you foul miscreant, or I will flay the flesh from your bones with my talons!”

  It was pretty obvious that President Wilson was in no position to do anything of the sort, but given the fact that his captor probably spoke no English, it was a particularly hollow threat.

  At the sight of the bird, another murmur went through the circle. Charles thought it was directed at President Wilson’s strange appearance—he was sure the Wendat had never seen a parrot before, let alone a bird that could talk. But the situation turned out to be somewhat different. Grabant leaned over and spoke to the man next to him. As he talked, he made the circles around his eyes that Charles had seen so many times in the past few days, and Charles thought he detected a distinct expression of relief on his face. The second Wendat nodded, glancing at Charles with what seemed to the boy a look of newfound respect, then slipped off into the darkness.

  Grabant turned back to Charles. His expression had changed yet again: there was a cautious smile on his face.

  “It would seem Tankort was right about you after all.”

  The last time Charles had spoken to Tankort, the young Wendat had voiced his hatred of Charles, then made off with his backpack. Charles wasn’t sure he wanted Tankort to be “right” about him.

  “Are you deaf, imbecile!” President Wilson was still screaming. “You continue to hold me at peril to your own life!”

  Grabant nodded to himself. “He insisted you were of the trader’s kind. That is why Handa let you live in the first place.”

  Charles felt he almost understood what the Wendat meant, but not quite. Too much had happened too quickly—he couldn’t add it all up. President Wilson’s screaming in his ear didn’t help matters any.

  “Curse you, cretin! Release me or they’ll need to use dental records to identify your body!”

  “The trader?”

  Grabant’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Perhaps you did not realize our name?”

  Now Charles really was confused.

  “Your name is… Wendat. Isn’t it?”

  Grabant nodded. “Yes. Wendat. It is an old, old word in our language. It means ‘People of the Floating Island.’ “

  People of the Floating Island? Did he mean the Island of the Past? And the trader? Pierre Marin had been a fur trader, before he discovered the secrets of time travel. President Wilson said Pierre Marin had learned to navigate time from the Huron. Could it be…?

  Just then the Wendat who had left the circle reappeared carrying a long pole. One end was sharpened into a stake, and Charles, who remembered Grabant’s threat to mount his head on a pike, felt a shiver travel down his back. But the man only stabbed the sharpened end of the stake into the forest floor, allowing Charles to see a horizontal bar mounted at its top. The bar was about a foot long, and scored with familiar-looking scratches.

  “Is that a—” Charles was too overwhelmed by the odd turn of events to finish his question.

  “Come, Xerxes,” Grabant said now. “I apologize for the undignified way we have brought you among us. But it has been so long since we have played host to you or anyone else from the Sea of Time that we have started to disbelieve our own memories. This man did not know who you were.” And, gently taking President Wilson from the boy who held him, he set him on the well-used perch.

  President Wilson glared balefully at the circle of Wendat. His plumage, Charles saw, was ragged and ruffled, making him look simultaneously bigger and smaller than the parrot Charles was used to seeing.

  “Xerxes?” he said finally, in a mightily aggrieved voice. “I’ll show you Xerxes.”

  FIFTEEN

  The Amulet of Babel
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  After all the preparation of getting to Osterbygd, meeting the actual Vikings took less time than Susan would’ve imagined. They’d barely left the punt behind the rocks when a woman came around the side of one of the hill-like houses carrying a small bundle of sticks. They seemed to see each other at the same time: the woman’s bundle clattered to the stony soil, and she lifted her skirts and ran screaming for the nearest door. Her cries carried clearly over the flat land.

  “Pirates! Pirates!”

  “Well, I guess we know these are still working,” Uncle Farley laughed, touching his vial beneath his jacket.

  “Nothing to do but keep walking,” Mario said. “Running’ll just confirm her fears.”

  “Good point,” Uncle Farley agreed. And, shifting Miss Applethwaite’s heavy picnic basket from his left to his right hand, he continued trudging over the pebbles.

  A moment later five men burst from the house, carrying between them an ax, a bow, and three spears. Well, no, Susan realized, the spears were actually shovels, or maybe hoes. And the bow was just a curved piece of wood. Even the ax head looked small and kind of dull. The woman followed them out, but remained crouching in the safety of the low doorway.

  The men were short—the largest was only an inch or two taller than Susan—but they were broadly built, and their heads and faces were covered with hair that ranged from pale yellow to reddish to dark brown. All of them had on leather trousers and ragged, coarsely woven woolen shirts. Most were barefoot, though one wore a pair of fur-lined boots. The boots were unlaced and the wearer had trouble keeping them on as he walked, suggesting he’d run out in a hurry. This was the man carrying the curved stick of wood.

  The men surrounded the newcomers and brandished their weapons. Several made threatening noises as you would to a wild animal. The man in the boots even smashed his stick on the ground. Unfortunately it broke in two, but he recovered quickly, picking up the second half and brandishing the two short, splintered stubs.

  “Yar!” he said.

  Susan wasn’t sure if she should be worried or start laughing.

  The men’s thick beards made it hard to read their facial expressions, but Susan thought one man, a middle-aged individual with glittering, sober blue eyes, was trying not to smirk. He was the man with the dull-looking ax, and after a moment he let his weapon drop to his side.

  “Perhaps you should try speaking to them,” the blue-eyed man said dryly, “instead of just saying ‘yar.’ “

  Susan bit back a giggle. There was a bluntness to the man’s speech. She couldn’t tell if it was his natural manner or the literalness of the translating charm, but in either case, he did good deadpan.

  At the sound of her stifled snort, another man peered at her with slitted eyes, as if he was trying to figure out if the strangers could understand Norse. He had big holes in his trousers, through which Susan could see a pair of knees black with dirt. The man brandished his hoe at her, and Susan noted that, like the ax, the hoe’s blade was worn down to a rusty stub. Nevertheless it was dirty and jagged, and she took a step backward.

  The man with the blue eyes put a hand on the hoe’s gnarled shaft, staying his companion.

  “Who are you, and how have you come to Osterbygd?”

  “Please,” Uncle Farley said, setting the picnic basket down and opening his empty palms before them, “we come in peace.”

  “He speaks Norse!” the man with the boots exclaimed.

  The man with the holes in his knees said, “And his hands! They are as soft as a woman’s!”

  “Their clothing is a bit delicate as well, if it comes to that,” said the man with the blue eyes.

  Susan glanced at her uncle and brother. Mario was still wearing the linen trousers and tunic (she marveled that he wasn’t freezing, but he seemed perfectly content), while she and Uncle Farley both wore jeans and polar fleece jackets—hers was dark purple, Uncle Farley’s bright red.

  Now a man with a beard as red as Uncle Farley’s jacket spoke.

  “Do not think we are fooled by empty declarations of peace. If you have come to raid us you will find Osterbygd more than a match for such a paltry crew, no matter what weapons you conceal in that carrying case of yours.”

  “Gunnar,” the man with the blue eyes said in an impatient tone. “A boy, a girl, and a man with soft hands. Clearly piracy is not this group’s objective.”

  “Aye, Iussi,” the man called Gunnar said. “It is their very lack of weapons and warriors that has me worried. Who but magicians would send children and porters among strangers? How do we know these aren’t devils Karl Olafson conjured with that charm he stole from the Qaanaaq?”

  “Now see here,” Uncle Farley cut in. “I am not a porter, nor do I have womanly hands.”

  “I’ll say he doesn’t,” the woman in the doorway threw out now. She emerged from her cubbyhole and thrust a pair of calloused, dirty hands in front of her. “A little girl’s hands, maybe, not a hardworking woman’s. Speaking of which—” She plucked the pair of broken sticks from the booted man, then turned to retrieve the rest of her fallen faggot. “I’ll be having those, Hejnryk Jenison. A woman’s got work to do while menfolk gossip the day away.”

  “I’ll have you know I just rowed all the way from—” Uncle Farley turned and pointed at Drift House floating on the open waves. “From there. Look, I’ve even got a blister.”

  While Uncle Farley tried to get everyone to notice the little welt on his pinkie, Susan, along with the rest of the party on the beach, turned and looked at the distant ship. How stately Drift House looked as it bobbed on the water! The cannons gleamed on the upper deck and the glass of the solarium was like a beacon reflecting the brilliant cold light of the northern sky. To her it was a comforting sight, but to the Vikings the effect was somewhat different.

  “Saints preserve us!” said the man with holes in his knees. “I think you are right, Gunnar. I have never seen such a craft as that. They must have strong magic indeed to make so fine a vessel.”

  Even the woman seemed to be cowed by the sight of the ship, and, giving the newcomers a wide berth, she scooted into the house with her firewood.

  “Is that pointed part… glass?” Hejnryk, the man in the boots, said now.

  “It’s the solarium.” Susan nodded. “It’s fantastic. It’s almost as big as your whole house, and it has the most amazing banyan tree you’ve ever seen, and orchids and vines and—”

  “Susan,” Uncle Farley cut her off in a low voice. “I don’t think now is the time.”

  With a sinking feeling, Susan realized Uncle Farley was right. The men seemed impressed by what she had described, but not in the good way. Rather, they seemed intimidated, and as such, frightened and mistrustful.

  For the first time, Mario spoke. “We are neither magicians nor pirates. Nor are we allies of Karl Olafson. In fact, we’ve come to help you against him.”

  “Karl Olafson is gone,” said Iussi, the man with the blue eyes and the ax (which, Susan noted, he no longer held loosely, but in front of his chest).

  “Karl Olafson has gone to Leifsbudir,” Mario said. “But he’s taken your fishing boats, hasn’t he? He can come back and raid you anytime, but you are trapped here.”

  The Greenlander peered at Mario. Through the healthy coating of grime on his hands, Susan could see his knuckles whitening as he tightened his grip on his weapon. “How do you know so much about us?”

  Yes, Susan wondered. How did he know so much? But it wasn’t Mario who answered her question.

  “I told him,” a new voice said.

  Susan and everyone else whipped their heads around. A boy about her age had emerged from the shadow of something she’d taken for a small hillock with concave sides but now realized was a collapsed building, so densely covered in grass that it looked like part of the landscape.

  “Traitor!” Hejnryk spat at the boy. Shorn of his splintered sticks, he waved his empty fists.

  “Hejnryk,” Iussi said, “there’s no need to announce
our business to strangers—though they do seem to know quite a bit about us already. Certainly much more than we know about them.”

  “You can’t keep secrets from them,” said the boy Hejnryk had labeled a traitor. “These people are from the future. I told you they would come.”

  “You said your father would open a hole in the sky too,” Iussi said, “but I do not see that.”

  “It’s true,” Mario said.

  “Er, Mario,” Uncle Farley said. “Ixnay on the ime-tay avel-tray. I don’t think it’s wise for us to be putting such ideas into the heads of fifteenth-century ikings-Vay.”

  Gunnar snorted. “Vikings?”

  With a start, Susan realized the translation charm had worked on Uncle Farley’s Pig Latin exactly as it had on his English. Fortunately, Gunnar seemed much more interested in Uncle Farley’s comment about Vikings than about time travel.

  “Vikings?” he said again. “Don’t taunt me, stranger, lest I strike your ample body with my hoe and use it to fertilize my fields. Our ancestors were Vikings, roaming the world, conquering villages, taking what they wanted and striking fear in the hearts of men. We are Greenlanders—farmers and fishermen, and prisoners of a barren land.”

  “You are prisoners of your own ideas,” said the boy. “This land is harsh, yes, but hardly barren. Your imagination is far less fertile than the hills behind us and the sea before us.”

  “I can sow you next to the fat one, boy,” Gunnar snarled. “We will see how fertile you are.”

  With a snort, Iussi lowered his ax. “This has turned into an argument among children. You, sir”—he nodded at Uncle Farley—“perhaps while these boys are squabbling, will accompany me inside. There are nets to mend, and while we knot you can tell me how you came to be in our remote part of the world. Are there any men who wish to join us?” Iussi looked sternly around the group.

  With varying degrees of head-hanging and grumbling, the men turned and headed inside. Susan made as if to follow, but Iussi held up a hand.

  “While I sense you are not like our females”—he glanced at Susan’s pants—“still, this is a conversation for men. Unless you wish to help Eirika with the meal, I suggest you let Iacob divert you while we talk.”