Secret of the Giants' Staircase

by Amy Lynn Green

  Jesse moved around the room to Vincent the shipbuilder. “‘The walls that push back the sand.’ What walls?” He thought a moment, then snapped his fingers, “the foundations!”

  “Right, the foundations,” Owen echoed. “Obviously. Great. Now that we’ve got that figured out, can we find something to eat? I’m hungry.”

  “Vincent probably laid the foundations of Lidia, pushing back the mud and sand of the swamp,” Jesse said, still excited. Then he frowned. “Although why would they would need a shipbuilder to do that instead of a stonemason?”

  “Maybe he carved ships out of stone.”

  “And maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jesse shot back, starting to lose patience with him.

  “I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Owen insisted. “I just make it all up.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. He walked slowly over to the last statue, Jardos the sovereign. “Why call the city ‘the noble hill’?”

  “Because it’s on a hill,” Owen practically yelled. “How more obvious can it be?”

  “But Jardos ruled the city, not the hill,” Jesse said. “Maybe it means something.”

  “Maybe it means you’re crazy.”

  That was it. “Time to get something to eat,” Jesse said, walking toward the door. He couldn’t tolerate Owen’s complaints any longer.

  Owen did a flip to spring to his feet. “About time,” he moaned, clutching his stomach.

  Jesse turned around quickly, looking behind them. Nothing was moving. He could almost feel Jardos’ piercing stone eyes watching him walk out of the tower.

  “I know a great orchard near the market street,” Owen said, pulling on Jesse’s arm. “I fell asleep there the last time we were in the city.”

  “Well, you were clearly very useful to your squad.”

  “I’m a growing boy,” Owen protested. “I need my rest.”

  “Breakfast, then we search the city,” Jesse said. He checked the streets before letting Owen dart out. No one was there.

  “Again?” Owen demanded. “I told you, we checked everything!”

  “You were looking for a staircase, not…” Jesse’s voice trailed off. What would they look for? “Not three missing people.”

  “They vanished,” Owen said ominously. “The Swamp of the Vanished never gives anyone back.”

  “Then we’ll have to take them back,” Jesse said, fixing his face in determination.

  “Why can’t we just leave?” Owen whined. “I want to go home.”

  “So do I,” Jesse said, “but if you go home, and especially if I go home, the king and his Riders will kill us.”

  Owen stared at Jesse, wrinkling his freckled nose. “You’re not joking after all, are you? You really mean it.”

  Jesse nodded. “They know what we look like and where we live. In fact, there’s a one-hundred-sceptre reward on my head.”

  Owen gave a long whistle. “I’d turn you in for that much.”

  “Thanks. That’s very comforting.”

  But at least now Owen wasn’t acting like this was all a grand adventure. A trace of seriousness had entered his blue eyes. “That long story you were telling me about?” he said. “Now’s as good a time as any to hear it, eh?”

  So, as they walked through the city to the orchard, Jesse told him, starting from the very beginning. It took a long time, because Owen interrupted after what seemed like every sentence.

  “And here we were wandering around in a giant tar pit for a month,” he grumbled when Jesse had finished, taking a big bite out of the fruit he held. “You got to have all the fun.”

  “I would be happy to have a little less ‘fun’ if it means I’m not running for my life every day,” Jesse shot back. He had a neat pile of fruit stems next to him, but a look at the number of stems scattered around Owen’s feet told him that he had eaten twice as many. “You’re going to get sick, you know,” he said, even though he knew he sounded like Silas.

  Owen was looking on the ground for something. “Any brilliant ideas to find those friends of yours? Because you’re not leaving without them, and I’m not going into the swamp on my own.”

  Jesse couldn’t resist the urge to tease him. “What, are you afraid?”

  “No,” Owen said, picking up a fruit. He squeezed it slightly, and Jesse could tell it was rotten. “I just don’t like swamps.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Bet I can’t hit that pot?”

  “What pot?” Jesse asked, looking around.

  “The one in the windowsill. Three stories up, to the right.”

  Jesse looked where Owen was pointing. He could hardly see the pot. “I’ll take that bet.”

  With a mischievous little grin, Owen reached back and threw the rotten fruit so hard that Jesse barely saw it before it sent the pot clattering faintly inside the building.

  “You lost,” Owen informed him, the mischievous grin creeping up again.

  Jesse stood and began to pace. “Great. Wonderful. Good aim. Now, if you want to leave this city alive, help me think of what to do.” He paused. “No. Forget I said that. Let me think of what to do.”

  Something in Owen seemed to sag, but then he shrugged. “Fine.”

  If only one of the others were here with me, Jesse thought. They were always so good at making decisions. Coming up with a plan. I don’t even know where to start.

  And what if they’re not even alive?

  Jesse shook his head, dismissing the thought. Instead, he focused on Owen’s story. “How did a city of four hundred people escape during a siege?”

  “You know, for claiming you’re not crazy, you sure talk to yourself a lot.”

  It was Owen, of course. He had moved on from target practice to balancing on the orchard wall, teetering from side to side as he hopped on one foot.

  “Get down from there,” Jesse said half-heartedly. Somehow, he didn’t think Owen would fall. Or if he did, he’d land on his feet.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t fall,” Owen said. “Anyway, it’s not very high. Once, I….”

  Jesse didn’t hear the rest of what he said. Instead, he focused on the history of Lidia, letting Owen chatter away in the background.

  “Tunnels,” Jesse said suddenly.

  “Newts,” Owen said. “Fenceposts. Rutabagas. Is this a game? Blurt out random words without explaining why?”

  “No. Listen. Unless they knew how to fly, the Lidians had to use tunnels to get out of the city when the giants put it under siege,” Jesse explained.

  Owen laughed. “I don’t think that would work. You fell into the tar pit. You know what the ground here is like. They’d practically have to swim to get out of there.”

  “Then who better than a shipbuilder, trained in keeping out water, to construct the tunnels?” Jesse said triumphantly. “What if the walls that pushed back the sand were real walls…walls with space in between?”

  “Then there would be tunnels underneath the city. Why should I care?”

  Jesse knew why he cared. If the Lidians had disappeared through the tunnels, there was a good chance that Parvel, Silas and Rae had too.

  “That might be where the Lidians hid their treasure,” Jesse said, watching Owen carefully.

  “I’ll search this side of the city. You can go east,” Owen said cheerfully, jumping down from the wall.

  “No,” Jesse said firmly. “We stay together. Understood?”

  “Fine,” Owen said, sighing loudly, “if I have to.”

  “I should be the one that’s complaining. I have to listen to you and keep you from killing yourself.”

  “But you’re covered in dried tar,” Owen pointed out, “and you smell bad.”

  Jesse just gritted his teeth. By the end of today, the ruins of Lidia might just have a new ghost.

  Chapter 10

  Several
hours later, Jesse and Owen had found only an abandoned tinker’s cart, a melon patch and a huge, hairy spider that Owen let crawl over his arm before Jesse made him kill it.

  Finally, they stopped for a break under the dead tree at the center of the city. Jesse sat down underneath its towering branches, wishing the answer would just fall from the sky.

  Why can’t we find them? He sighed loudly. Maybe we should wait here until nightfall, then shout and wave our arms around so we’ll get taken too.

  “I’m thirsty,” Owen moaned, plopping down beside him. It was the latest in a long string of complaints, which also included hunger, boredom, soreness and an allergy to old, crumbling buildings.

  “We can go down the hill and drink some swamp water,” Jesse suggested wearily, closing his eyes.

  “No,” Owen said, shaking his head. “There’s a well in the courtyard. We refilled our canteens there before.” He sprang up and Jesse limped after him, wondering at how Owen never seemed to run out of energy, no matter how much he complained about being tired.

  Once inside the walls, Jesse realized he had been in the courtyard before. It was the one with the phases-of-the-moon design in the center.

  Owen was already at the well in the corner, yanking on a rope like he was a sailor hauling up a load of cargo.

  “Don’t fall in,” Jesse warned him. That was all he needed to deal with: fishing an eleven-year-old out of a well.

  Jesse took his time joining him. Strange. The rope appeared to be in better shape than the rest of the city. It was still taut and strong, without any sign of wear.

  Owen dropped the bucket twice before he managed to haul it up, half full, but Jesse wasn’t about to criticize.

  Jesse had to admit he was thirsty. Except for the fruit they had eaten for breakfast, he hadn’t had anything to drink since the day before. He took the bucket after Owen and drank from it.

  His stomach growled, reminding him how much walking they had done in one morning. “I suppose it’s more fruit for our afternoon meal.”

  But Owen was already running around the courtyard, exploring. “I guess I’ll bring it to you,” Jesse called, rolling his eyes.

  “Thanks!” Owen said, scrambling over a fallen pillar.

  “Just don’t leave the courtyard,” Jesse said, using his sternest tone. He surveyed the courtyard, trying to remember how to get to the vineyard.

  There. Down the steps.

  Sure enough, the vineyard with the yellow fruit lay at the bottom of the steps. The dark vines, tangled around the stone walls, were exactly the same as Jesse remembered them. But there was something wrong.

  Jesse returned empty-handed. “Where’s the food?” Owen demanded. Now he was up in a tree by the courtyard wall.

  “There wasn’t any fruit,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “No ripe fruit, anyway.”

  “So this patch is a little slow,” Owen said, shrugging. “Let’s go back to the orchard where we got breakfast. Or, I guess there’s that melon patch a few houses over.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Jesse said. “I was just here yesterday, and those vines were sagging with ripe fruit.”

  “You sure you have the right place? I mean, there’s not much that’s special about a bunch of vines.”

  “Maybe…” Jesse said, trying to think back. But the scene from the day before played out in his mind exactly the same way every time: he ate a fruit from the vineyard, then came up the steps and saw Parvel in the courtyard with the phases of the moon.

  “Jesse,” Owen said, and his tone of voice made Jesse snap his head up instantly. “There are people coming.”

  “Get down from there,” Jesse hissed, scanning the courtyard for a hiding place. The well was too short, the tree not wide enough. Up the porch steps and inside the building? Not enough time.

  Owen didn’t bother to climb down using the branches. He just dropped from the tree, landing hard, but on his feet. Jesse hoped whoever was in the city hadn’t heard the sound.

  They both ran for the same place: the pile of crumbled pillars across the courtyard near the building. Owen scrambled over the top of one while Jesse went around. He crouched down and tried to make himself as small as possible.

  He could hear voices approaching now as well as footsteps. Two people, both men.

  “…wouldn’t hope to find them here, in these ruins,” one was saying. Jesse didn’t recognize the voice, and he didn’t dare bring his face up over the pillar. “Even if they chanced to be here, there is too much ground to cover. I say we return to the camp with Lillen.”

  “I don’t like this city,” another voice said.

  This one Jesse recognized, and the sound made him sink even farther down behind the crumbled stone. Captain Demetri. Somehow, he had traveled across the country and found them again.

  And this time, Captain Demetri isn’t alone.

  “Most prefer to avoid the ruins,” the other man said. “It has become more legend than reality. Haunted by Lidians, some say, the home of the Westlund giants, according to others, and a wandering place for the spirits of vanished Amarian travelers, others insist.”

  Oddly, the second man’s voice had a kind of lilting quality to it, like an actor in a theatre troupe. Somehow, it made Jesse want to lean in and listen.

  “Do you fear the city, Captain?” he asked.

  Captain Demetri made a derisive sound. “I do not hold to those weak superstitions. I don’t like this city because there are too many places to hide.”

  He paused, and Jesse’s heart beat faster. He could almost feel Captain Demetri’s eyes on the pillars.

  “At least we know why we haven’t received reports from the Rider assigned to the swamp,” the other man said. “The state of the camp was peculiar, to say the least. Wouldn’t you agree, Captain?”

  “No,” Captain Demetri said firmly. “He was ambushed, probably by the very squad he sought to kill.”

  “And what of the boy—Barnaby, wasn’t it? The squad captain and the girl said he entered the ruins and never came out.”

  “Nero and Talia?” Owen mouthed, a question written in his eyes.

  Jesse nodded. It had to be.

  “There must be a logical explanation,” Captain Demetri said. “I refuse to believe otherwise.”

  Jesse almost admired his confidence. He was nearly beginning to waver in that belief. The strange history of the city, the eeriness of the ruins at night, the way everyone who entered mysteriously disappeared…it didn’t seem natural.

  “Perhaps,” the second man said. “Should I give Lillen the order to kill the two we found?”

  Owen whimpered, but Jesse kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and his hand firmly on Owen’s shoulder to keep him from doing anything foolish.

  “No,” Captain Demetri said. “Keep them alive. The Four are looking for the other squad. If we hold our two captives prisoner, they will come to us.”

  “You really believe that?” the second man asked, a note of skepticism in his voice. “They would risk their lives to save two strangers? It doesn’t seem likely.”

  “You haven’t met these four, Ward,” Captain Demetri said bitterly. “Nothing they do is ‘likely’.”

  Jesse felt a surge of pride. He was one of the four that Captain Demetri spoke of, even though he did not belong to the Youth Guard. And I am a key reason we’re still alive, he thought, remembering the times he saved his squad members’ lives.

  “If they’re alive, they will come,” Captain Demetri said. His voice began to fade as he walked away from them. “If they’re not alive…well, then our work is done.”

  “No, Captain,” Ward said, giving a faint chuckle. “We are Riders. Our work is never done. There are always others.”

  In that moment, Jesse knew that these men would kill them without the slightest twinge of guilt. They would destroy the Youth
Guard by eliminating its members, one by one. This was no game.

  Owen started to move forward, but Jesse held him down. He couldn’t take the chance that Captain Demetri and Ward were still there, waiting and watching for them.

  “What do we do?” Owen whispered. He was fiddling nervously with something, and Jesse knew the overheard conversation had made him realize the seriousness of what was happening.

  Jesse shifted to take the pressure off of his throbbing knees. The stone of the courtyard was not a comfortable surface to crouch on. “I don’t know,” he said, feeling helpless. Now, they didn’t dare continue their search of the city. There was no telling when Captain Demetri and Ward would leave, and Jesse, for one, did not want to take any chances.

  Owen dropped the object he was holding, and it clattered to the ground. “Sorry,” Owen said, wincing and glancing over his shoulder.

  Jesse looked at the object for the first time. It was the golden dial, the one Silas had found in the swamp outside of the city. “Where did you get that?”

  He clutched it protectively, as if afraid that Jesse would try to take it from him. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because the last person to hold that was Parvel,” Jesse said.

  “But it’s mine now,” Owen insisted. “I found it.”

  “Owen, I’m not trying to steal your new toy,” Jesse said, frustration creeping in. “Now, think carefully. Was the dial tipped over on its side like someone had dropped it, or was it standing up?”

  Owen paused, turning the dial around in his hands. “Standing up.”

  If I were Parvel and someone was taking me away, what would I do?

  The answer was obvious. Leave a sign.

  “Owen, this is very important,” Jesse said. “Where was the dial, and where was its tip pointing?”

  “It was by the steps,” Owen said, standing and nodding at the steps to the porch of the building facing the courtyard. “Pointing inside.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going.”

  As Jesse climbed the steps, he pictured Parvel pausing to set down the dial, perhaps faking a stumble. At night, in the dark, who would notice?