Lost in Babylon

by Peter Lerangis

  “And if they stab you to death?” Aly said. “Maybe we can think of something else.”

  “We could drop three pots on their heads,” Cass suggested.

  “That’s the best you can do?” Aly said. “Jack, what do you think?”

  But my mind was still on Daria. “‘You will go to Mother’s Mountain,’ Daria said. She told me she left us the way to do it.”

  Cass, Marco, and Aly all turned in surprise. “Really?” Cass said. “What was it, a key? A secret password?”

  “I don’t know!” I said. “I don’t see anything left behind.”

  “Big help!” Aly threw up her arms.

  “I can focus if I eat,” Marco said, bolting toward the stairs. “I always think better on a full stomach.”

  As Cass scampered after him, Aly’s shoulders slumped. We were alone now, and the room’s temperature seemed to drop a couple of degrees. “Sorry I snapped at you, Jack,” she said.

  “We’re all tense,” I replied.

  “I said some things I didn’t mean,” she said.

  I smiled. “I heard some things I didn’t understand.”

  “Yeah. Well.” She opened her mouth to continue but seemed to have second thoughts. With a tiny smile, she gestured toward the stairs. “Last one to the fruit bowl is a rotten egg.”

  Marco slurped green juice. Cass took tiny bites out of a dried date. Aly played with a bowl of yogurt but didn’t seem too interested. I had a plate full of fresh figs but had only managed to finish half of one. Marco kept swiping the rest, one by one, which was fine with me.

  The pottery on the wall was decorated with images of hunters and animals. On one of the vases, a stylized mushushu seemed to be growling at me.

  I reached over to the vase and turned it around so the mushushu faced the other way. Now a less-accusing bull faced outward. It looked vaguely familiar.

  I have left you the way to do it. Remember . . . when I came to see you . . .

  I jumped up.

  The vase. I had used it the night before. To tuck something out of sight.

  “Jack?” Aly said curiously.

  I reached into the mouth of the vase and pulled out the leather pouch I’d put there. Daria’s pouch. Gently I pulled it open and looked inside.

  Three green feathers peeked up at me.

  “These aren’t knitting needles . . .” I said.

  Cass, Aly, and Marco all looked at me as if I’d just grown fins. I held out the pouch so they could see inside.

  “She knew,” I said. “Somehow she figured we might need some emergency help.”

  My three best friends began to smile. “May I?” Aly asked.

  I handed her the pouch, and she carefully spilled out six tranquilizer darts onto the table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  TO THE GARDEN

  WE CROUCHED AT the opening of the wardum hut. The sun was just sinking beyond the Ká-Dingir-rá, and I could hear soft, sweet singing inside. “Daria!” I hissed.

  The song stopped. Daria peeked out of the hanging cloth, her eyes wide. “Jack! What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” I said. “For the darts. The guards at our house are out for the count.”

  She nodded. Her eyes radiated fear even in the darkness. “I see. So now you will go to Mother’s Mountain. I am glad you came here first. I will go with you—”

  “No way!” I replied. “You’ll get into trouble. Just tell us the route.”

  “I will show you,” Daria said.

  “It’s okay, we can do it,” Cass chimed in. “I mean, you just leave the Ishtar Gate, circle around the temple, and walk to the edge of the first barley field, right? And then after about fifty-three yards you make a left after the last furrow, where there is this hut and some wood pilings. So if the hut contains some water vehicle, we take it across the river, after which we get out and walk, I don’t know, approximately an eighth of a mile to the outer gate of the gardens.”

  We all stared at him, dumbfounded. “What angle do we go across the water?” Marco asked.

  “Maybe sixty-three degrees, give or take,” Cass said, “depending on the current? Sorry I can’t be more exact. I should be. I saw all of this on our way back from the king’s forest. But some of it is pretty fuzzy.”

  “Dude,” Marco said, “what would you be like with a little confidence?”

  “Huh?” Cass said.

  Aly wrapped him in a hug. “You have not lost one bit of your powers, Cass. You just have to believe in them as much as we do.”

  Daria had backed away from us and returned with a sack around her shoulder and an armful of shawls. “Wear this clothing. Cover your heads. The king must not know you have gone. I will go with you to the Ishtar Gate. Pul, the child of Nitacris, is very sick. I must help her. We all help each other. My friends, Nico and Frada, will stay with the baby for now, but they have been with Nitacris all day. I will talk to the guards. They know that Pul is ill, and they are kind to wardum. I will tell them we are going to the temple of Marduk to pray for help.”

  “What if they ask us questions?” Aly asked.

  “I will talk for you,” Daria said. “Bab-Ilum is full of people from many places. It is not unusual for wardum to speak languages the guards do not know. I will say that I must return by myself, to sing Pul to sleep. But you will remain for proper prayers. They will understand this. But we will not stop at the temple. Together we will go to the river. You will continue. I will return.”

  We left right away, walking quickly from the wardum compound and across Ká-Dingir-rá to the Ishtar Gate. There, a group of guards were playing a game that involved rolling stones against the base of the blue brick wall. They barely looked up when Daria talked to them.

  We scurried through the Gate’s long, dark hallway, emerging in front of the temple. Cass and Daria led us to a path that veered around the building. We walked across a broad stretch of farmland, and before long I heard the racing waters of the Euphrates. Daria led us to a hut, where the boats had been stored. Within minutes we were carrying a flat-bottomed boat, and a wooden paddle, to the river.

  As we set it in the water, Daria’s hand shook. Her face was taut with concern. “There will be guards at the entrance,” she said. “The garden is very big. Mother’s Mountain is at the center. Nabu-na’id built a wall around it. He made an inner and outer garden, like the inner and outer city of Bab-Ilum—so now only the king can enter Mother’s Mountain. This inner garden is guarded by monsters, who came to Babylon from a foreign land. They are controlled by the garden keeper, Kranag.”

  “Do you know this guy?” I asked. “Can you get him to let us in?”

  Daria’s face darkened. “No one knows Kranag. Some say he is an evil god fallen to earth. He came to Bab-Ilum many years ago, around the time of Sippar, with a dark man who had a strange marking on his head. They brought many fierce animals. Great red bird-lions. Small beasts with white swords for teeth. Black birds with skin like bronze. Vizzeet, who kill with their spit.”

  “Massarym,” Aly whispered. “With creatures from Atlantis. That must be when he brought the Loculus here.”

  “Kranag does not see,” Daria said, “yet he is master of the animals. He can talk to the creatures, control them. People say he can become an animal himself. When Nabu-na’id built the wall around Mother’s Mountain, he enslaved Kranag there. With a job to protect and defend Mother’s Mountain.”

  “And all those animals—they’re in there now?” I said.

  Daria looked off into the distance. “Perhaps. You must be careful.”

  Aly shook her head. “Now you tell us about this stuff?”

  “It’s a game changer,” Cass squeaked. “Maybe we shouldn’t rush into it.”

  “Hey, it’ll be fun!” Marco declared.

  “How do you define fun?” Aly said.

  Daria reached out. She rested one hand on Marco’s arm, the other on mine. “I understand if you want to go back.”

  I l
ooked up toward the Hanging Gardens and took a deep breath. I thought about the griffin and the Loculus. The marauding monks. Back then, if we’d been warned about the dangers in advance, we would have chickened out. But we were forced to go, and we did.

  Sometimes you just had to do it.

  “We’re rebels, like you, Daria,” I replied. “We’ve survived worse than this.”

  She smiled. From a sack outside her tunic, she drew out a long torch, a small bronze urn with a cork cap, a piece of flint, and a crude metal knife. Last, she gave Marco a blowpipe and set of darts. “The moon is full tonight. Let it guide you. I believe animals are in there, but I do not know how many animals. I hope they are sleeping. I hope you will find what you need quickly. Most of all, I hope you do not see Kranag. If you do, retreat. He has no mercy, no feeling.”

  “Thanks, Dars,” Marco said. He gave her a hug, and she held tight. When she let go, I moved closer to hug her, too. But she turned and walked away, back toward Ká-Dingir-rá.

  One by one, we climbed into the boat. Marco and I dug paddles into the water. On the other side of the river, a light moved along the wall of the Hanging Gardens—a torch held by a guard who had not yet seen us.

  We moved slowly, silently. By moonlight I could only make out the outlines of my friends, inches away from me. Cass was holding his pet lizard, comforting it. I looked back toward the shore. Daria had blended in with the night’s blackness.

  But I could hear her singing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE TORCH AND THE VIZZEET

  “THEY’RE GONE,” CASS whispered.

  Stomach down on the river bank, I watched a yellow torchlight wink into blackness. We’d been there for what seemed like an hour, observing two lights, two guards standing still in a long conversation. Now they were moving in opposite directions, checking around the perimeter of the gardens.

  “Move,” Marco said.

  We raced up the embankment and onto the road. In the gravel, our footsteps were impossible to keep silent.

  Once through the gate, the ground was covered with cedar chips, trampled to a soft firmness by foot traffic. We followed the arc of a pathway in the moonlight, which led to a thick flowering bush. As we dived behind it, we peered back toward the gate opening. My heart was beating so hard, I was afraid it could be heard clear to the Ishtar Gate.

  After a few minutes, a torch passed slowly from left to right and then disappeared.

  We moved farther inward. The path drew us to the inner wall, which loomed above us, smooth and impossibly high. To the left was an imposing gate, but this one was a thick wooden door, shut tight.

  Another torchlight passed in front of us and stopped. A low, guttural voice barked something in our direction. I thought about running but stayed still.

  Behind the guard, from over the wall, came an eerie hooting. Zoo-kulululu! Cack! Cack! Cack!

  I nearly jumped back. The sound was cold and mocking. The guard muttered something under his breath.

  The torchlight moved on.

  We rushed to the base of the wall. The only way to do this would be up and over. Do not think of that sound, I told myself.

  Wordlessly, Marco hooked his hands together to give us a lift upward. Aly climbed first, then Cass. “How are you going to do this yourself?” I whispered as I stepped up. “You were injured.”

  “Watch me,” Marco said.

  He boosted me upward. I grabbed the top of the wall and lifted my legs over. The others had jumped down to the inner garden, but I stayed at the top. I didn’t want to leave Marco alone.

  At first I didn’t see him. But he appeared in the moonlight about twenty yards away as a flash of gray. He was rushing the wall like a sprinter, leaping, planting his sole against the wall and using the momentum to jump. His outstretched palm loomed upward toward me, and I grabbed it.

  “Piece of cake!” Marco whispered, scrambling to the top. We both leaped to the ground, landing near Cass and Aly. “Now what?” Cass said.

  It was a good question. All we could see were the silhouettes of trees, the curve of walkways. The air was sweet and cool, and Aly stopped to pick something off the ground. “A pomegranate,” she said. “Big one.”

  Zoo-kulululu! Cack! Cack! Cack! Something enormous swooped down with an oddly metallic clacking of wings. Aly dropped the fruit, and a black bird-shape with bright eyes scooped it up with talons and flew off.

  “Sorry, I promise I will not touch your fruit ever again,” Aly said.

  But my eyes were on a towering structure not far from us. Its upper corner blotted out a section of the moon. “There it is,” I said.

  Marco was practically shaking with excitement. “Follow me, campers. Let’s hope the crow is the worst they throw at us.”

  He began walking. The Hanging Gardens blotted out the moonlit sky. I could make out long trellises and hear the lapping of water into pools like soft laughter. Along the side of the building was a winding spiral that rose toward the top of the building from a deep pool that was fed by a culvert. It looked like a water slide. “What’s that thing?” Marco whispered.

  “An Archimedes screw,” Aly said. “It was in our lessons from Professor Bhegad. When someone turns it, the motion lifts water out of the well and brings it to the top. That’s how the plants are watered.”

  As we moved closer, I heard rustling. There was movement in the lower levels of the Hanging Gardens. And not just the waving of vines. Shadows were slipping among the trellises.

  “Sssh.” Marco took out the torch and soaked it with the oil from inside Daria’s container. He propped it against a rock and pulled the piece of flint from his pack and struck it against the steel knife. With the first spark, the torch burst into flame.

  “Thank you, Daria,” Marco murmured, holding the torch aloft. “‘Be prepared.’ Motto of the US Marines.”

  “The Boy Scouts,” Aly corrected him.

  A chorus of screeches rang out from the Hanging Gardens. I heard a sharp hissing sound. Something small and liquid arced high in the air coming swiftly toward us.

  Cass recoiled backward. “Yeeeow!”

  A swirl of black mist twined upward from a blotch on his forearm. “What was that?” Marco asked.

  “I don’t know, but it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!” Cass said, shaking his arm in pain.

  Another tiny liquid missile sailed through the air, heading for Aly. Marco instinctively shoved the torch upward, like a baseball player reaching for a pitch. As the little glob made contact with the flame, it exploded high into the air. “What the—?” Marco murmured.

  From all around us, the high-pitched chittering screams came closer. Marco moved the torch quickly left to right. The walls of the Hanging Gardens were black with swiftly moving shadows, long-limbed and monkeylike. As they fell to the ground, they pounded their narrow leathery chests, grinning at us with hairless, long-snouted faces. Their teeth were long and sharp, their tongues bright red. They shot yellow globs of saliva as they approached.

  “Watch it!” Marco yelled. We jumped away, and the wet missiles landed in small clouds of smoke. I spun and saw Cass was on the ground, writhing in pain.

  Marco charged the creatures with the torch. They screeched, backing away, spitting. The flame erupted again and again, like fireworks. Marco dodged the spit like a dancer, warding them away. Aly was on her knees, hunched over Cass. “Is he all right?” I asked.

  “A severe burn,” Aly said. “He’s in pain.”

  Vizzeet, who kill with their spit, Daria had said.

  Marco let out a cry. Smoke rose from the left side of his face near his chin. He staggered, narrowly missing another liquid projectile. I grabbed the torch and charged toward them. They seemed wary of fire, backing away. A spit missile whizzed by my face, and the tips of hair on the side of my face went up in flames.

  I dropped the torch and fell. Marco was at my side in a split second, pressing a fistful of sandy dirt into the side of my head, blotting out the fire. He dragge
d me into the shelter of an archway that led into the center of the building that supported the Hanging Gardens.

  “Did I get it in time?” Marco asked.

  I nodded, gingerly touching the side of my head. “Thanks. I’m fine.”

  The ground was cool here. We stayed close to the wall, which made a kind of corridor leading into the structure, about ten feet long. Beyond us was solid blackness. Outside, about fifteen feet from the entrance, the torch lay on the ground, its flames protecting us from the vizzeet. Aly was near us, pouring water from an urn onto Cass’s wound.

  I eyed the strips of healing medicine, still stuck to Marco’s calves. “Hold steady,” I said, pulling one of them off. His wound was nearly healed, and I prayed that there was still some of the magic black goo left.

  Dropping to my knees, I laid the strip on Cass’s forearm, directly over the wound. “Don’t take this off!” I replied. “This will make you feel better.”

  Marco was staring out from the archway. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “They hate the flame, but the torch won’t last forever.”

  I peered out, too, looking to our right, where the vizzeet paced and fought, spat and argued.

  My head was throbbing. It had nothing to do with the burned hair. In the midst of the shrieking, an eerie but familiar sound was washing over me. I was hearing the strange song again. The one that I’d first heard near the Heptakiklos in Mount Onyx. Near the first Loculus in Rhodes.

  It was coming from the left. In the light of Marco’s flame I could see the outline of a door, farther down the wall of the Hanging Gardens. Its wood was warped and carpeted with moss. Most of the surface was covered with a great tangled mass of ivy. It looked as if it had not been opened in years.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  “Hear what?” Marco said.

  “The Song,” I said. “Coming from our left. I need to go to that door. I think the Loculus is inside.”

  Marco nodded. “I’ll cover you.”

  With a sudden scream, Marco burst from the entrance. He grabbed the torch from the ground and used it like a fencing sword, swiping it back and forth as he charged toward the vizzeet.