Secret of the Giants' Staircase

by Amy Lynn Green

  Jesse ignored him and kept reading.

  As I understand it, the lines refer to some sort of ritual that must be performed in the presence of three people, one from each of the ancient people groups surrounding Lidia. Whatever that ritual might be, it would allow the discovery of the fabled Lidian treasure, long lost to the ages, which drew me to this godforsaken swamp.

  Jesse remembered the stone carving around the entranceway’s border: “Not all that is missing is gone.” Could the legend of treasure really be true?

  Tomorrow the moon is full. I have chosen to go to Westlund rather than remain in this underground prison. All in my company have chosen similarly (though one perished in our initial struggle with the Watchers in the ruins). I will learn a trade, rebuild a life and perhaps, with time and research, uncover the secret of the Lidian treasure at last.

  So, that was what Castor had been trying to tell them. His tutor, Gideon, had chosen the same fate as Parros deGuardi. All who entered the ruins were captured. Those who struggled died, but those who surrendered were allowed to live as citizens in Westlund.

  That gave Jesse hope. If he and two others performed this mysterious ritual, they might be freed. Maybe they could even persuade the Westlunders to let them go. Castor, at least, seemed reasonable.

  Owen yawned loudly.

  “Tired?” Castor asked, giving him a strange look. Then he got a look of realization on his face. “Yes. You sleep at night. Watchers watch at night. Sleep at day.”

  He threw open the door to the other room. “Sleep, son of Amarias and son of Lidia,” he said, patting Owen on the head.

  Castor’s bed was the only item in the room, besides a trunk at the bed’s foot. Owen jumped up on it, bouncing around.

  “I come back at day,” Castor said. He set their oil lamp, still lit, on the trunk and backed toward the door. “Goodnight. We wait for circle moon.”

  Almost as soon as he closed the door, Owen stopped jumping. “As soon as he and his Watcher friends leave, we’re getting out of here.”

  “Quiet,” Jesse said, glancing at the door. “He’ll hear you.”

  “He doesn’t speak Amarian,” Owen said.

  “He’s just as intelligent as you,” Jesse countered. “And he can understand more than you think.”

  “Fine,” Owen lowered his voice. “We can bring one of his kitchen knives and pry the others’ chains off, then run up the stairs and out of the city.”

  “You forgot one thing,” Jesse said. “Even if we could free the others, which I doubt, we can’t escape. The giants are leaving the tunnels…but they’re going up into the city, probably to all of the gates. You think they’d just let six people leave?”

  “So we split up,” Owen said, shrugging. “That way they won’t spot us so easily.”

  “And what if even one person gets caught again?” Jesse said.

  Owen didn’t say anything.

  “Besides,” Jesse continued, “if we’re the two sons they’ve been missing, they might let us go after whatever ritual we have to participate in.”

  “What are you talking about?” Owen demanded.

  Jesse quickly explained what he had read in the book. “You never told me you were from Lidia,” Owen said.

  “I’m not,” Jesse said, blinking. “I’m from District One.”

  “Well, so am I,” Owen said. He yanked off his shoes and threw them on the floor. “But Castor-the-giant called us the ‘son of Amarias and son of Lidia.’ So one of us has to be Lidian.”

  Jesse groaned, reaching up to touch Barnaby’s token, the one the two giants had gotten so excited about. “The Kin,” he said. “Of course! They live near the swamps, and they act like their own tiny country. They must be descendants of the Lidians, and the giants saw Barnaby’s pendant and assumed I was Lidian.”

  “Well, you’ll have to tell them in the morning,” Owen said, flopping down on the bed and burrowing under the blanket. “Right now, I’m ready for sleep.”

  Jesse took off his wet shoes and socks and set them out to dry on the chest. He felt guilty getting into Castor’s bed with tar caked all over his clothes, but he didn’t have anything to change into.

  Castor’s words came back to him: “We wait for circle moon.” If Jesse remembered correctly, the full moon would come soon. He closed his eyes. Hopefully, by then they would be out of Below-Lidia alive.

  Chapter 13

  When Jesse woke up without Owen beside him, he groaned, immediately coming up with a list of the trouble Owen could be getting into without him. Maybe the Westlunders took him to the prison. Or maybe he went back to Lidia and is hiding in some suit of armor in the palace. Or he’s in the crypt, drawing pictures on the walls.

  The last place he expected him to be was sitting in Castor’s front room, talking animatedly with the giant. But that’s exactly what he was doing, although he stopped as soon as he saw Jesse.

  “What are you doing?” Jesse demanded. Something about Owen’s upturned nose and bright smile made him always look mischievous, but he could tell Owen was struggling to hold back a laugh.

  “Having Amarian lessons,” Owen said cheerfully. “Listen!”

  “Jesse look ugly this morning!” Castor said politely.

  “Does he know what that means?” Jesse asked Owen, who just shrugged.

  Castor looked from Jesse to Owen. Despite Owen’s innocent smile, he seemed to understand exactly what had happened. “Owen says means hello,” he said. “But no?”

  “See,” Jesse said to Owen. “Castor’s just met you, and he can already see through your innocent act.”

  Owen made a face at him. “At least we saved you some breakfast.”

  Even the mention of the word made Jesse realize how empty his stomach was. A day with nothing but fruit to eat had taken its toll. “Where is it?”

  “No,” Castor said, shaking his head. “First, water. Jesse is—.”

  “Ugly,” Owen insisted.

  Castor ignored him, waiting for Jesse to give him the word.

  “Dirty,” Jesse said.

  Castor nodded. “Jesse, please wash in water.” He presented Jesse with a basin of warm water. There was a large sponge floating in it. Jesse soaked it and wiped at his arm. The water in the basin soon turned a dingy brown, but flecks of tar still stuck stubbornly to Jesse’s arms.

  He pointed to them and asked, “Can I have…something else?” Castor inspected the tar and nodded, disappearing into the bedroom and returning with a coarse bristled brush. Jesse gritted his teeth and scrubbed, managing to get most of the caked tar off of his face, neck, and arms.

  When he set the brush down and turned around, Castor frowned. “Jesse, you are….” Again the word seemed to escape him. He pointed to Jesse’s skin, glowing pink after the scrubbing.

  “It’s called clean,” Owen said. “Something Jesse hasn’t been in a long time.”

  Castor shrugged, dismissing whatever had bothered him. “Breakfeast,” he said, pointing to a bowl on the table. Jesse didn’t correct the mispronunciation, although the sticky, gray-brown contents of the bowl didn’t look like any kind of feast. At least Owen managed to teach Castor one useful word.

  He took a cautious spoonful, and the food burnt his tongue so much he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The second spoonful was better, and he could tell it was a kind of porridge that would have been tasteless except for the bits of yellow fruit mixed in. Jesse recognized the fruit from the vineyard outside the palace. So that’s who harvested the fruit. And who kept the rope in the well in good repair, and created the smoke, and left a hundred other small signs of life in the abandoned ruins. The Watchers.

  “Owen teach me more Amarian words,” Castor said.

  “Good,” Jesse said, giving Owen a stern look. “I hope the rest of them were defined correctly.”

  “Most of them,” Owen said
. He grinned. “Well, some of them. I taught him a few phrases on my own. But the rest were just words he pointed to from some book.”

  That made Jesse pause, a spoonful of porridge halfway to his mouth. “A book in Amarian?”

  “This book,” Castor said, setting a heavy book on the table next to Jesse.

  Jesse’s spoon clanked to the table. It was the Forbidden Book. He would recognize it anywhere. “Where did you get this?” Jesse demanded. He opened the cover and fingered the wax seal of the red dragon.

  “From Amarian boy in prison,” Castor said.

  Silas. Jesse wondered how much of a fight he had put up before Castor got the book away from him.

  “What say the book?” Castor asked. It was a thick, heavy volume, but he held it easily in one hand.

  Jesse hesitated. “Do you understand the word evil, Castor?”

  He nodded. “Right, wrong. Night, morning. Good, evil.” Gideon had clearly spent a day teaching Castor opposites.

  “The people who wrote this book were evil,” Jesse said. “They tried to kill us and many others like us.”

  “Wait,” Owen said, “it’s that book you were talking about?” He reached for it, nearly spilling what was left of Jesse’s porridge. “Let me see my picture!”

  His hand froze halfway there when a loud voice in Westlundish stopped him. He and Jesse both looked up. There, in the doorway, was an unsmiling Westlunder, with a small silver hatchet strapped to his side.

  “Head Watcher,” Castor muttered to them. “He is….” Words failed him again. “Not evil, but….” He shrugged.

  It struck Jesse that the contrast between good and evil was very clear, at least in the bare definition of the words. In real life, though, things became more complicated. It was much harder to describe people who were thoughtlessly careless, or who were friendly but discriminated against a group of people, or who were simply lazy and selfish. Maybe all of us are a mixture of evil and good, Jesse thought. Some just choose evil more often than good.

  The Head Watcher seemed to be one of those people. Jesse could see a hardness in his eyes, and though he could not understand the words the man barked out at Castor, he could recognize the superior tone of his voice.

  “Head Watcher says we come with him to Gathering,” Castor translated. “Gathering is every circle moon, before we change with other Watchers from Westlund.”

  So it’s a kind of shift schedule, Jesse realized. Some of the Watchers stay underground in Lidia for a month, and then the other half comes from Westlund to replace them.

  The Head Watcher left without waiting for them to agree to come. Jesse was sure they had no choice.

  To his surprise, Castor led them to the prison, where Parvel, Rae, Silas and Barnaby were still chained to the wall. There were eleven other giants waiting, crowded in groups against the wall, as if trying to stay as far away from the prisoners as possible.

  The instant the Head Watcher entered, all talk ceased. He strode to the middle of the room, turned to face them and began a speech in Westlundish, barely pausing for Castor to translate.

  “He says that in past days, there is much rain. Below-Lidia has much water come up,” Castor said, struggling to keep up with the Head Watcher. “And man alone in city kill two Watchers in week past.”

  The Guard Rider. It had to be.

  “We need do something before more happens wrong,” Castor continued.

  It was superstitious, Jesse knew, to believe that some kind of ritual will stop the rain from coming into the tunnels. It’s much more likely there’s a leak somewhere that needs to be fixed.

  “He says also of the words on the wall, of the Lidian treasure. We Watchers look and wait for the treasure many years.” Castor paused, his eyes focused and hands tense at his side. “We all are sons of Westlund. In past days, Watchers find many sons of Amarias. But now we find first son of Lidia.”

  Jesse didn’t think now was the time to tell him that he wasn’t Lidian. Castor was struggling so much that Jesse thought he might start to sweat from the effort of translating.

  Then the Head Watcher looked straight at Jesse and Owen, still speaking. Jesse didn’t like the look in his eyes as he put his hand firmly on the axe at his side.

  “What is he saying?” Jesse hissed at Castor, who was staring at the Head Watcher in horror. Castor didn’t answer.

  Even Owen could tell something was wrong. “Castor,” he said, and the stern voice coming from the mischievous eleven-year-old would have made Jesse laugh at any other time.

  Castor looked straight at them. He had recovered his composure. “Head Watcher say to find the treasure, words say we kill three sons this next night.”

  “What!” Owen yelped. All of the Westlunders looked over at him.

  “Castor, tell them that won’t work. It doesn’t make any sense,” Jesse said, fighting to keep his voice calm.

  “They no will listen,” Castor said. His eyes, so warm and friendly just moments before, were now distant and helpless.

  “You have to stop them,” Owen said. “You can’t just let them kill us!”

  “No,” Castor said. “No, I go with you.” He straightened up. “I am chosen son of Westlund. ‘To give my all for Lidia’s call.’”

  Dimly, Jesse recognized he was quoting the inscription. True, the words “their sacrifice of greatest price” did sound like death was needed to reveal the treasure.

  Then he remembered. “I’m not a son of Lidia,” Jesse said. “Barnaby is.”

  Castor pointed at the bird around Jesse’s neck. “Token,” he said, pointing. “All Lidians have token, like in past days.”

  The Head Watcher asked Castor a question, and Castor timidly answered, bowing his head. The Head Watcher jerked Jesse to the center of the room and examined him, then pronounced something with a voice of authority.

  “He say you look like Hyram of Lidia,” Castor translated. “Small, with….” He pointed to Jesse’s leg.

  A limp. Jesse recalled from the statue that Hyram had been portrayed stooping over. “I happen to share a trait with a founder of Lidia,” Jesse said. “That doesn’t make me a Lidian.”

  One of the other giants stepped forward and grabbed his arm, but with all of his strength, Jesse pushed him away, standing to face the Head Watcher. “I am not a son of Lidia,” he repeated, but it didn’t look like anyone in the room believed him. Some of them began to mutter amongst themselves.

  Jesse looked over at Barnaby, waiting for Barnaby to speak up, to say, “He’s telling the truth. He’s not a Lidian, and that’s not his token. It’s mine.”

  But he never did. He didn’t even look away, just stared straight at Jesse with hard black eyes. Even Zora, perched on his shoulder, didn’t move.

  Jesse tried to pull himself back into the room as the giant hauled him away. “Tomas was right,” he said, struggling against the giant’s firm grasp. “You don’t care about anyone except yourself.”

  Before Jesse was dragged out of the prison, he saw a flash of recognition on Barnaby’s face. He hoped the mention of his brother stung—he deserved it for letting them take Jesse away.

  Suddenly, the dark water flooding the tunnels seemed sinister, foreboding, like it would suck him down. Jesse leaned heavily on his staff, because his legs were weak. Then, he felt a small hand in his. It was Owen. “I don’t want to die,” he said.

  He had never looked younger or more afraid. And Jesse had never felt more helpless. He wanted more than anything to say, “You won’t. I know a way to escape,” or “We’ll be rescued. I’m sure of it.”

  Going into the swamps, Jesse had been confident he could do anything. He had been so sure of himself, now he wasn’t sure of anything. He didn’t want to make a promise he couldn’t keep, but Owen was counting on him. Jesse tried to think of something brave, but he didn’t feel brave, not any more.

&nbs
p; Jesse remembered what Parvel once had told him, the words of Jesus, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Parros deGuardi called these swamps “godforsaken.” But it’s not true. God is here. Even though that didn’t change the fact that the giants were going to kill them, Jesse felt better, stronger.

  Suddenly, Jesse knew what to tell Owen. “I won’t leave you,” he said. “I promise. Whatever happens next, it’ll happen to both of us together.”

  When they reached Castor’s home, one of the giants stood straight and tall next to the door, posted as a guard. Jesse and Owen were shoved inside.

  Before stalking away, the Head Watcher gave one last pronouncement. Jesse didn’t know what he said but knew it couldn’t be good.

  Castor, still looking stiff and distant, translated. “The Head Watcher says, ‘Three sons of the treasure, we wait for the circle moon.’”

  Chapter 14

  It had been nearly an hour, and Castor hadn’t said a word, no matter how much Jesse and Owen pleaded and reasoned with him. He just moved back and forth across the room—which took only a few steps with his long stride—and muttered to himself in Westlundish. Every now and then, the guard at the door would poke his head in to make sure all was well.

  What is the guard expecting us to do? Jesse wondered. Burrow through the ceiling? Leaks or no, Vincent the shipbuilder had done an excellent job. Even after hundreds of years, the tunnels were still sturdy.

  Finally, Castor spoke, sitting heavily on the bench. “It is honor to die for Westlund.” He didn’t sound very sure of himself.

  “I’ll skip that honor, thank you,” Owen said.

  “You’re welcome,” Castor said dully.

  “Castor,” Jesse said, sitting down next to him, “you have to understand. This is not an honor. This is a disgrace. This is wrong.”

  Castor shook his head. “Jesse do not understand. In Westlund, every man is needed to…to do something—”

  “Something great,” Owen finished, in a small voice. Jesse looked at him, and shrugged. “Why do you think I joined the Guard?”