by Lisa McMann
He could see Florence just outside the door, sitting against the rocks, wiping down her bow and arrows with a bit of moss she’d pulled up.
Sensing Alex hanging back, Florence spoke up. “I may try to work on the ship if the storm lets up a little. For now, though, I can barely hang on to this arrow even though I’m partially sheltered in this corner. The wind wants to take everything. So I imagine out on the open shore it’ll be nearly impossible to do anything in these conditions.” She looked at Alex. “I mean it, Alex. Get out of the rain. I’ll be fine here.”
Alex, finally convinced, nodded and went inside to find the others settling in nicely. The little man scurried over and gave him a towel and some dry, ragged clothes to change into, then disappeared into one of the nooks. Alex could tell the clothes had once been adorned with a colorful pattern that had now faded almost completely away. Alex changed quickly and hung his clothes to dry by the others, then wandered about through the open space, visiting the different nooks where his friends had settled. He checked on Captain Ahab, making sure the statue was comfortable. He spied Sky with Lani and Samheed, all talking animatedly in one nook, Samheed acting something out to the others’ enjoyment. Alex looked away. He’d join them later. Maybe.
On one side of the shelter was a nook that led to a large enclosed area with a door. Alex peered inside the doorway. To his surprise, he found it was a greenhouse, brightly lit. The little man was inside with his back to Alex, working intently on something.
Alex looked up, wondering where the light was coming from. Instead of a rock slab ceiling, there was glass to let in whatever natural light there happened to be, and strange glowing orbs hung above a healthy assortment of vegetation.
The man noticed Alex and pointed to the glass overhead. Loud sheets of rain swept over it. “You see this?” the little man asked. “Marcus Today makes magic glass for us.”
The words sank in and Alex’s eyes clouded with emotion. He was surprised by how much this information affected him. Mr. Today had been here, in this place. He had been kind to this man. Yet he’d never spoken about it. And there was a tube here! If there was a tube in this desolate place, how many other tubes could there be? And all of those Quillitary vehicles buried at sea . . .
He looked at the man and then suddenly frowned, replaying his words in his head. “Wait a minute. Did you say ‘us’?”
The man nodded. He pointed to an area of the shelter that had been thus far unexplored, and he held up two bony fingers. He went to the opening and called out in the strange language. After a long moment, two equally ancient men appeared from deep inside the shelter. They nodded politely at Alex, who smiled and gave an awkward wave.
The three island inhabitants had a conversation, and then the first man invited Alex to follow him. “If everyone is ready, may I speak, please?”
“Of course,” Alex said. He went back to the main room and called the Artiméans to gather. The man asked everyone to sit down on the floor around a blackened area. He disappeared, returning a moment later with dry firewood, and began to work two pieces of wood together with a bit of dried moss. Samheed offered up a damp origami dragon, which was able to spit a few sparks to help the process along.
When the fire was going strong, and the smoke was funneling itself neatly out a nearly invisible vent hole near the ceiling, the man sat back on his haunches.
Alex and the two men joined him by the fire. Florence leaned in and poked her head through the doorway to listen.
“This is home of many and few,” the man said to the tune of the wind and thunder. “We did not build it. The ones who came before us did not build it. We are all visitors here, like you.”
Sky smiled and caught Alex’s eye. The both swiftly looked away.
“These are my friends. They only speak our native language,” the man said. “We are . . . scientists.” His hesitations and stutters lessened the more he spoke, as if the Artiméans’ language was swiftly coming back to him.
“I am youngest,” he said with his gummy grin. “My name is Ishibashi Junpei. You may call me Ishibashi-san.” He nodded at Samheed, who sat closest, prompting him to repeat it.
“Ishibashi-san,” Samheed repeated.
“Good.” Ishibashi drew some symbols on the dirt floor with his finger. “I am ninety-six years old. My friends are ninety-eight and one hundred and ten,” he said, pointing to them. “Ito and Sato. They are very old.” Ishibashi cackled. The other two islanders smiled politely, not understanding. They were mostly toothless as well.
“We are pleased to meet you and grateful for the shelter, Ishibashi-san,” Alex said. “My name is Alex.” He introduced the others. Fox, who was embarrassed at being pointed out, and Kitten, who decided to be embarrassed too, scampered around the shelter, to the delight of the islanders.
“Are you the only people on the island?” Alex asked.
“Hai, that is correct. There were more, but dead now. Some lived here with us for a time. I am sure more in the future will smash upon our rocks during the hurricane. But now, we are only three.”
Lani edged closer, her eyes ablaze with the fire’s reflection. “How long have you been here? Are all three of you scientists? Don’t you want to escape? What is a hurricane?”
Ishibashi’s laughter rang out and echoed in the stone chamber. “Slower please; I am very old.”
Lani repeated her questions.
The old man nodded after each one and began to answer slowly. “Our ship carried a great number of scientists and crewmembers. It was lost here many, many years ago.”
He paused, a faraway look in his eye, and continued. “At that time, there were ten or twelve others from shipwrecks living here. They were old. Most died soon after we came. Also there are outcasts.”
“Outcasts?” Sky asked.
The man nodded. “There is an island of pirates—you know of it?”
The Artiméans all nodded.
“When the pirates capture intruders or enemies, they hurt them, drag them near our island. Set them adrift in little fishing boats. They have done this for hundreds of years—or so the legend goes. The little boats get caught in the hurricane and crash on rocks. Only a few outcasts lived and made it to shore.”
“Where is everybody now?”
“Gone.” Ishibashi looked at the floor. “Most cannot withstand the constant storm. They go crazy. Then they try to escape. The current and the wind always drive them back against the rocks, to their deaths. Only one time someone escaped—just last year.”
Crow and Henry exchanged horrified looks. Copper leaned over and whispered something to them, but they didn’t look relieved. Alex’s stomach knotted.
Ishibashi went on. “Some from our ship died that way—trying to get off the island. The rest died from accidents or old age.”
“That’s horrible.” Alex shifted uncomfortably as fearful, questioning eyes turned his way. There was so much pressure being the head mage! How were they going to get out of here? He was pretty sure he could transport the ship to calmer waters, but that presented a new set of problems, like how would they get to it without Simber? Living things didn’t transport, so they couldn’t board the ship before moving it. And poor Spike had had a hard enough time getting them safely to the island, and that was swimming with the current. She couldn’t possibly carry them that great distance fighting the current the whole way. And of course there was Florence, too heavy for everyone present to lift for long. It had taken Simber and Spike combined to bring her up from the pirates’ aquarium, and that was in calm water. There was simply no way to get off this island without Simber—they’d have to wait . . . and hope he’d find them.
But what if he didn’t?
Outside the wind howled and thunder crashed. Ishibashi looked out the stone doorway at Florence, who remained unaffected by the horrible weather. “Are you okay, robot?”
Florence, disturbed by the hopelessness of escape, murmured, “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
Ishibashi
turned back to the other Artiméans. “You know by now a hurricane is a terrible storm. Every day the hurricane comes. It howls all afternoon and through the night. In the morning the storm rests, only to return a short time later, more fierce than the day before.”
“Every single day?” Sky asked. She couldn’t imagine it. She had seen very little rain in her life, and she didn’t like it. Automatically her hand went to her throat, which had once worn the thorns that had silenced her voice. She wasn’t sure which was worse—that, or living in a hurricane like this every day of your life. She found herself longing for Artimé. And she wasn’t the only one.
Ishibashi’s face wore the effects of many years of sorrow and hurricanes. “Every single day,” he said softly.
Trying Not to Panic
After the gathering, Ishibashi and the other two scientists left the Artiméans to get settled. Once alone, fear and worry spread through the group. How were they going to get out of here? When would they have time to fix the boat with the hurricane pounding them every day and blowing away all their supplies? And once Simber returned, how was Alex going to transport the ship far enough outside of the treacherous hurricane zone to keep it from crashing on the rocks again?
Henry was the one to say it out loud. “If Simber had been with us, he would have seen this coming and steered us away. We wouldn’t be stuck here.”
Crow couldn’t hide his fear. “I don’t like this place. Are we stuck here forever?”
“We have to get out of here,” Samheed muttered. “We have to.” He clenched his fists and began to pace the floor.
“Everybody, please stay calm,” Alex said, not feeling calm in the slightest. “We will get out of here.”
Samheed stopped in front of Alex, his face intense. “How?”
Alex flinched. “We’ll fix the ship and wait for Simber.”
“Fixing the ship will take forever!”
“We’ll get it done, Samheed,” Alex said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, well what if Simber doesn’t come? We’re stuck here!”
“Sam,” Lani said. “Take it easy. We’ll figure it out.”
“Of course we will,” Ms. Octavia said. “We always do.”
But her words didn’t sound as sure as everyone wanted.
Copper spoke up. “In fixing the ship, we just have to be efficient with timing. We can do the salvaging and repair work during the morning reprieve from the storm,” she said. “And any leftover material we have each day, why, we’ll drag it into the shelter so it doesn’t blow away, and work on it in here. That way the next day we’ll have material to build with as soon as we can head outside safely.”
She paused, and then leaned forward, putting a gentle hand on Samheed’s shoulder. “You don’t know me very well. And maybe I seem weak because I was a captured slave to the pirates. But I promise you that I know what I’m doing. I know how to fix ships, and so do Sky and Crow.” She looked at her children, and they nodded solemnly. “You have to trust us and Florence. Together we can get this done.”
“And what about the rest of the time?” Samheed prompted. “Sit in this cave? Endlessly? I’ll go crazy. I’m already going crazy just thinking about it.”
“The rest of the day we’ll do what we do best,” Alex said. “We’ll make spell components. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m almost out of them, and we lost a whole crate full of them when we wrecked.”
The others checked their supplies and reported minimal components remaining. “What are we going to use to make them?” Lani mused. She peered out the door as the rain pounded the rocky ground like a million footsteps. “All there is here is rocks and moss.”
Alex’s face was troubled. “Then we use rocks and moss,” he said weakly. “I can think of five new spells to create without even trying.”
Samheed smirked, clearly calming down a bit. “Oh yeah? What are they, Stowe?”
Alex could feel his ears growing hot. Of course Samheed was going to call Alex out. That’s what Samheed did. And that’s why Alex liked him so much, even if Sam was a little intense. He scrambled to think of something to say as a retort. “If I told you, you might steal my awesome ideas,” Alex said.
Samheed laughed. “Nice try. Come on. What are they? You don’t even have one, do you.”
Lani hid a grin. The two had been sparring since they were boys in Quill, and clearly it wasn’t about to change now.
With all eyes on him, Alex knew he had to say something or risk looking stupid. Even if he couldn’t make the magic work, he had to save face and show his leadership right now.
He coughed to stall for time, shuffled his feet, and finally blurted out the first thing that came to him. “A flying carpet. That’s one idea.”
Samheed blinked. “A flying rock carpet? Ha! Yeah, that’ll work.”
Alex shook his head as the idea took form in his mind. “No, you dolt,” he said, and stood up a little straighter. “A flying moss carpet.” And then, as it dawned on him, he added triumphantly, “And that, my friend, is what will help us get off this island.”
Liam Does the Dirty Work
After Aaron gave him the impossible task of stealing components from Artimé, Liam Healy retreated to his room at the top of the stairs, in the palace tower. It was a room chosen for him by Eva Fathom, who had become his dear friend in the short time they’d spent together. She’d given him this room because it was the highest point in all of Quill, and anyone who spent day after day awaiting death in the Ancients Sector before finally being rescued deserved to have a high point in life.
Above him, the point of the tower held up the barbed-wire sky that covered all of Quill. If he stood by one window, he could see nearly all of Quill spread out before him. And if he stood on his tiptoes by the other window, such that his hair brushed the sloping ceiling, and pressed his face against the top pane of glass just so, he could barely see over the wall to the sea.
He didn’t bother to look at it now, though, for he was quite perturbed about the task at hand. Instead he arranged his chair by the window, just outside the realm of the sunlight that streamed in, sat down, and thought about how he could possibly convince anyone in Artimé—through brutality or otherwise—to give him multiple magical spell components and tell him how they worked.
Brutality was clearly out of the question. It was only something Aaron had suggested, and something Liam would have done without much thought in the past. But Liam was done with that life. And once his eyes had been opened, he realized he hadn’t really liked hurting people in the first place. In fact, he now looked back in horror at the attacks he’d made on Artimé when he was a Restorer, and at doing one of the most horrendous things a human could possibly do—hold another human hostage and treat her, well, treat her terribly. He had pushed aside their former friendship, and worse, intentionally ignored the fact that she was a human with feelings and goals and . . . and a life. An actual, good, helpful life to live. A life completely unlike his own had been.
He didn’t even know that man now. The old Liam was obedient to Quill’s high priest. He didn’t dream. He didn’t express emotion. He followed the law and never had an original thought. From the time he was thirteen, when his friend Claire was sent to her death, until he and the other Restorers attacked Artimé and he’d seen her there, alive after all these years, Liam had given his entire self over to the power of Justine—the power she had to take away a best friend without anyone objecting. The power to make a person give up everything and obey, because obeying was easy, and standing against her seemed impossible.
And even when he saw Claire, and knew she was alive, he still did those horrible things to her because the high priest had more control over him than his own conscience. What a weakling.
It’s too late to change, he’d told himself back then. It’s the only way to get by. And then later, Aaron forced me to do it. That’s the weak excuse he offered himself whenever the guilt pushed its way to the surface of his bland, recycled thoughts.
How he wished he could take it all back. How he regretted the man he had become. How he longed to go back in time and live his life the right way, even if it meant he’d be put to death for it. Anything would be better than living with this torment.
But he had done all of those things, and he had made those mistakes. There was no one else to blame for his own bad decisions. He knew that now. Boy, did he know it.
And if it truly was too late for forgiveness from Claire and from Haluki and from all of Artimé, too, well, then Liam would get what he deserved. But he wasn’t going to stop trying to fix things. Eva Fathom had given him another chance. Another life. A new life.
He was going to live this one right, even if it killed him. But he had to go about it the right way if he was going to make a difference, make things better. He had to pretend for a while. He couldn’t lose Aaron’s trust—Eva was counting on him. All of Artimé was counting on him, though they didn’t know it yet. He couldn’t mess this up.
Ugh. Poor, stupid Aaron. Making all the same mistakes Liam did, and more, for the sake of an errant goal.
Liam leaned forward and cupped his face with his hands.
» » « «
After a while he rose up out of his chair and walked down the winding, uneven tower staircase, down the hall past Aaron’s closed office door, and down the main staircase to the door. He left the palace and continued down the driveway. His steps were firm and his jaw was set, and the guards opened the portcullis without question for the governor. They trusted him, though they shouldn’t.
He walked toward Artimé in the shadow of the wall, which would soon be coming down. When he drew near to the most desolate part of Quill, he could hear the distant sound of workers assembling, preparing to begin deconstruction. And when he reached the gates of Artimé, he weaved through the crowd of Necessaries and Quillitary and stepped inside the magical world. He presented himself to the girrinos, and behind them, hundreds of Artiméans had gathered on the lawn when they noticed the commotion in Quill.
