

Across

The

Largo

Book One: Seek Song

Mitchell Atkinson III

Copyright 2014 by Mitchell Atkinson

Smashwords edition
  1. # Table of Contents

Introduction

Esmeralda and Robert

Mr. Chandrasekhar

The Party

The Largo

Song

The Princess Switch

Yaris, Robert and Unfortunate News

Among the Phoon

The Mountain Pass

Under the Tower

Wane and the Ivory Turtle

The Songs of Ko

Fire in the Night

The Mother Turtle and the Return to Song

Home
  2. # Introduction

There is an old story. But then, old is in the eye of the beholder. To some it is an old story. To others it is moderately old. To some it is brand new.

The story is about a young scientist giving a lecture about the universe. He talks about the stars and planets, about gravity, about how the earth revolves around the sun, and so forth. He gives a beautiful presentation, and everyone claps even if they didn't understand him at all.

After his talk, an old woman clutching a bone-white cane comes up to speak to him.

"That was a lovely speech," the old woman says, "but everybody knows what supports the world. The universe rides on the back of a turtle."

The scientist smiles. "Alright then, what's under the turtle?"

The old woman smiles back. "Very clever, sonny, but it's turtles all the way down."

  3. # 1. Esmeralda and Robert

Mr. Eldredge was droning on. He was up there at the board, scratching away, talking about who-knows-what: Christopher Columbus, the Pilgrims, or something else that happened a long time ago. All those squeaks and squawks dancing off of the chalkboard became an awful kind of music, causing certain members of the class to despair or to find distraction.

In principle, Esmeralda liked both school and history. The problem was the rhythm, the terribly irregular scraping across the board. It was all of the things that would run behind her eyes. You see, Esmeralda was twelve years old; and being twelve she had a great deal on her mind, all sorts of things to work out, like the world for instance—how it behaved, how it was shaped and what the powers were within. What was in the world that we ought to be concerned about, and what should we forget? She felt often that she was made of concerns and enquiries, that she was a breathing question and not just a girl. And these thoughts, wrapped up within her, worked their way around what was properly present and became the bright focus of her mind.

"Ms. Comstock!" Mr. Eldridge called out.

Esmeralda snapped to attention. "Yes, sir."

"Can you please tell me your thoughts on the discussion before the class?"

Esmeralda looked inside herself for a moment. What has he been talking about? She had no idea. She looked up at the chalkboard; there was nothing on it. Hasn't he been writing? Hadn't I heard him scratching all over the board? Did he just erase it all? Esmeralda briefly considered the possibility that she had dreamed the sound of furiously scribbled chalk. She looked over the room into the great dark eyes of Mr. Eldredge. He was a very tall, thin man, grey at the temples, with a bushy, speckled beard. At moments like this, his black eyes pointed like lasers across the room and through the head of whatever student had drawn his ire. Esmeralda felt she had received more than her fair share of withering looks from him.

"Um," Esmeralda said.

"Ms. Comstock, you have been staring at your desk, daydreaming, for the past twenty minutes. I don't mind if you find my class boring. I'm sure a lot of children do. But I'm quite sick of you, you, sitting in my classroom with your head empty and your eyes half closed. Please afford me the courtesy of checking in every few minutes so you might know the subject we are studying."

Esmeralda heard some snickering coming from the back of the room.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Eldredge," Esmeralda said.

She really did feel sorry. It wasn't that Esmeralda didn't care and wanted to misbehave. There were just so many different things to think about.

"That was brutal," Robert said as he and Esmeralda walked out of class.

"Yeah, I guess," she answered. "He's just being himself."

"But, no one can blame you for spacing out in Eldredge's class. He is pretty boring."

"And at the same time terrifying," Esmeralda said. "What were we supposed to be talking about anyway?"

Robert smirked. "Christopher Columbus and stuff. We've been doing it all week."

"Yeah, Columbus," Esmeralda said distantly.

Robert and Esmeralda were very good friends. They had been so ever since the first grade when Robert offered to share his lunch with Esmeralda after she forgot hers at home. Robert was good for Esmeralda; she did not have many friends. He was a bit small, about an inch shorter than Esmeralda, had sandy brown hair and blue eyes. His parents were both lawyers, and, either because of their influence or Robert's choice, he tended to dress something like a lawyer. He wore well-pressed slacks, blue or khaki, and usually a button-down dress shirt with a collar. The previous year, in sixth grade, he started to wear neckties to school, and every now and then a sport coat. But the outrageous verbal abuse he suffered from the other kids in class caused him to reconsider the ties. He went back to simply a collared shirt, buttoned all the way to the top, and the moderate abuse that came with that.

The pair headed over to their lockers. In seventh grade you got to pick your own locker instead of having them assigned to you like the fifth and sixth-graders did. Of course, Esmeralda and Robert chose lockers next to each other, so that they could talk between classes, conspiring and coordinating.

"Here comes Stacy Keenan," Robert said.

Stacy Keenan was tall and blonde and very, very smiley when she wanted to be. She was a shining example of middle school royalty. Just about everybody loved or envied her. Just about everybody, but not Esmeralda.

"Nice going, Mesmeralda," Stacy Keenan hissed as she walked by.

"You'll get your comeuppance," Robert said just quietly enough not to be heard.

"What is comeuppance?" Esmeralda screwed up her forehead.

"It's comeuppance. Your just deserts."

"Robert, geez, dessert?" Esmeralda said. "So, is it good?"

"It's like 'you'll get yours.' You know?" Robert shook his fist.

"Yeah, Robert, I know."

After Mr. Eldredge's history, came sixth period gym, and then everybody got to go home. Gym class was always a disaster for Robert. First of all, he had to wear gym clothes, crushing his spirits with their unashamed casualness. Also, the gym lockers were too small to fit hangers in, and he had to stuff his collared shirts and finely pressed slacks into the dingy aluminum rectangles; no matter how careful he was, they always got wrinkled. Added to that was the fact that Robert was no athlete, probably never would be. When he complained to Esmeralda about gym, he always said that it didn't bother him that he wasn't athletic; he didn't want to be an athlete; he wasn't interested in it. What bothered him was that the school was making him pretend to be an athlete when he knew that he wasn't. He felt like a hypocrite. "It's like somebody impersonating a police officer or a priest or something."

It was Friday, and every Friday in gym class they played dodgeball. Esmeralda liked just about everything they did in gym. She liked using her body, becoming as fast as possible, moving through the air. The thing she never liked, no matter what game they were playing, was picking teams or, more exactly, having to be picked for a team. It seemed like every week Stacy Keenan was one captain and Billy Moore or some other popular boy would be the other. They would pick teams, and, because no one really liked her, she would be picked last. If not picked last, she would be picked next to last because nobody wanted Robert on their team. So Esmeralda and Robert were almost always the last two people picked and had to be on different teams. Esmeralda thought that if she could play on Robert's team, she could maybe help him or at least comfort him when things went horribly, as they often did.

And so it went, like always. Stacy Keenan was one captain and Billy Moore, a very tall, black-haired boy with sharp green eyes, was the other. They got to stand in front of everyone and smile and look over them like they were fish in a market. Esmeralda, picked next to last, ended up going on Billy's team. Robert went to Stacy's.

The two groups lined up on the back wall of either side of the gym. Ms. Swearingen, the P.E. teacher, who was a very small woman but as tough as anyone you might meet, brought her great black whistle to her lips. She was always wearing brown clothes, and when she talked, the words came in hard snaps and barks like a drill sergeant in the army.

"And...go!" Ms. Swearingen said, right before sending the high scream of the whistle into the air.

All the kids tore after the not-quite-soft-enough rubber balls lined along the center of the gym. Esmeralda ran, feeling wonderful and free. Her hair, pulled back into a ponytail, lifted off of the back of her neck and flapped in the wind. She enjoyed the warmth of her body pushing itself, always faster, across the ground.

The game went along well, at least for Esmeralda. Periodically, she would look across the gym and see Robert standing behind anyone who was taller than him, or clutching at his chest in fear, or pulling off his glasses and quickly wiping them clean of sweat with his t-shirt. Esmeralda, of course, would never dream of throwing anything at Robert. The idea of him being hit with a dodgeball filled her with anxiety. And it was interesting that, although Robert wasn't an athlete—or at least he told Esmeralda he wasn't and never would be—he rarely got hit by a dodgeball. Perhaps through fear of being hit he was given some temporary extra-normal powers, or possibly he had perfected the art of cowering behind tall people. In all of the games of dodgeball they played, Esmeralda saw him get tagged out two or three times at most. It so happened, unfortunately, that on this particular day and in this particular game of dodgeball, whatever hidden physical ability or gift for self-preservation that Robert possessed failed him.

Billy Moore, the black-haired captain of Esmeralda's team, shot across the floor of the gym, dodged four or five well-placed red globes in a series of acrobatic feats, snatched up a stray ball and hurled it at such an incredible speed that the projectile could hardly be seen. It was a red streak across the gym, like a shooting star in an alien sky. Robert was hiding behind Sven, a very large boy whose father had come from Sweden to work at the chemical plant in town. The monumental speed with which Billy had hurled the ball would allow no one, no matter his or her quickness, to dodge it. Sven didn't know the ball was flying right toward his chest. He didn't notice it whatsoever. What he did notice at the perfect moment—for him—was that his shoe was untied; and as he bent over, serenely unaware of the peril that he was removing himself from, the ball streaked over Sven's head and landed directly upon Robert's right eye. Robert's glasses went flying, and it seemed to Esmeralda that his body was hurled just as far in another direction. He careened through the air, landed with an ugly thud, lifted up his head to look across the gym, and, just as he caught Esmeralda's eyes, his head snapped back to the wood floor.

Ms. Swearingen blew her whistle. "Stop," she screamed, running over to Robert.

As the sounds of the whistle, Ms. Swearingen's voice, and the settling of the other kid's feet died down, Esmeralda heard a new noise in the fresh quiet. It was Billy Moore.

He was laughing.

Esmeralda ran full blast at Billy Moore. The world was a thick red haze, and Billy was an ugly black spot in the middle of it; if there were anything she could do to erase that spot at that moment, Esmeralda would do it. She caught Billy by the shoulders and kicked his legs out from under him. She didn't know it, but she was screaming at the time, not words or anything, just screaming. Billy fell over hard, and Esmeralda jumped onto him, trying to punch him in the face. Ms. Swearingen began blowing her whistle, running toward the scuffle. By the time she was able to pull Esmeralda off of Billy, he was pretty shaken and had a pretty fat lip.

Robert went to the nurse's station; Esmeralda went to the principal's office.

Luckily, for both of them, gym was the last class of the day. In Robert's case, if you got all sweaty or if someone happened to hit you in the face with a dodgeball, you could go quickly home and shower or bandage yourself up. As for Esmeralda, she didn't want to be at school; didn't want to see Ms. Swearingen and her whistle, hear the droning of Mr. Eldredge, see Stacy Keenan and her huge smile, or look at Billy Moore, not even with his busted lip.

Robert's parents usually didn't get home until six or seven o'clock, and Esmeralda lived only a few blocks from the school. Robert would, nearly every day, walk home with Esmeralda, and his parents would pick him up there on their way from work.

When Robert met Esmeralda outside the school, after the final bell rang, he asked her if she wanted him to take the bus home instead of going to her house. "Should you face the music by yourself?"

"No way," Esmeralda said. "You're coming with me. I need your eye for evidence."

***

"Can I get salmonella or something from this thing?" Robert asked.

He was seated in Esmeralda's little kitchen, in her little brown house, in a little neighborhood just a few blocks from the school on Symphony Street.

Esmeralda's father had listened patiently to her story, with Robert jumping in periodically to clarify some issue that Esmeralda had glossed over. Her father reached into the pockets of the old, brown sport coat he always wore when he was puttering around the house, furrowed his brow a little and waited for all the facts to straighten themselves. When the tale had wound down, he reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a fat, red steak.

"I don't think you'll have a shiner come out of this," he said, "but this will help put down any swelling you might get."

That's when Robert got concerned about the salmonella.

"Salmonella comes from chickens, Robert," Esmeralda said.

"I just don't want to get a disease in my eye, okay?"

"Are you wearing a chicken on your eye?" Esmeralda smirked.

"I don't know. I can't see it." Robert pointed to the steak now resting upon him. "It's on my eye."

"Robert," Mr. Comstock cut in, "you can't get salmonella from free-range flank steak. You can get mad cow disease from it. But you won't. And if you do, have your parents call me. Now, as for you, Esmeralda, I'd like you to come upstairs to my study so that we can talk alone."

Esmeralda's father's study was filled with huge and ancient books. They lined the walls, riding tall shelves cut from cherry wood. His desk was a big, black thing, crammed into the middle of the little room. While Mr. Comstock didn't use the space with great organization, he did fit a great deal into it. As a result, there was very little room for walking or, say, little girls about to be scolded. But it was a comfortable place, with many books and stack after stack of papers arranged haphazardly on the desk and floor and other places besides. In the corner was an old globe, and on the walls were a few little paintings and many pictures of Esmeralda and her mother.

Mr. Comstock sat behind his desk and Esmeralda stood.

"Now, honey..." he began.

"Dad, it wasn't my fault," Esmeralda said. "You heard me and Robert. Billy Moore is a crazy, homicidal maniac, and he hit Robert in the face. And that wasn't the worst of it, I mean, we're playing dodgeball, and you heard it, Dad, he was laughing and you know he was laughing and you can't just do that. You can't just hit someone in the face and just be...laughing, and awful, and all that mean."

"Honey," Esmeralda's father said softly, "that's enough. Now it's time for you to listen to me. Okay? I love you; I'm your father. I understand what you were trying to do. You wanted to defend your friend. That makes sense to me..."

From there, Esmeralda's father went into a giant speech that had nothing to do with Billy Moore and how awful and cruel he was. He kept going on and on about Esmeralda. He talked about how actions have consequences and about responsibility and things like that. Esmeralda knew all of that stuff already. She knew she shouldn't have punched Billy in the mouth, even though he really deserved it. She just wanted, just had to have for once, some justice. She wanted some of Robert's comeuppance. Her father didn't even get it; he didn't understand that Billy Moore was something like the focus of all the evil in the world. If he gets a fat lip, he gets off easy. Her father didn't understand that at all. But the longer he talked, the more she felt like he wasn't saying that Esmeralda was bad, or that she had been bad. He didn't even mention punishing her. She began to feel like her father said only that he wanted her to be better and that he knew she could be.

"Honey, are you okay?" Mr. Comstock asked.

Esmeralda hadn't noticed it, but she had started to cry just a little. "I'm sorry, Dad," she said. "But they're all so mean."

Mr. Comstock jumped up from behind his desk, walked over to Esmeralda and gave her a hug. One of those big, warm bear-hugs: not too tight but close enough that she didn't have to feel that she was lost to the air of the world. It was close enough that she could feel like part of something; that she belonged somewhere; that things were now, would be soon, or perhaps always were, all right.
  4. # 2. Mr. Chandrasekhar

Mr. Eldredge was not in the room when everyone filed into fifth period history the following Monday. They went into the class rowdy but ready to be instantly silent when he appeared. After five minutes, Mr. Eldredge still had not arrived.

"If he's not here in two minutes, we should leave," Billy Moore called out.

Someone in the back made a fart noise. Everybody laughed.

A moment later, Mr. Dee, the principal, came into the room. "Alright kids, let's settle down. Mr. Eldredge is out very, very sick today. He called in, and you'll be having a substitute."

What Mr. Dee did not tell the class was that the onset of Mr. Eldredge's sickness was rather inexplicably sudden. He awoke that morning around five, rolled out of bed, went cheerfully to the bathroom to wash up, looked in the mirror and became instantly, quite messily ill. The substitute the school found for the unfortunate Mr. Eldredge was one that they had never used before. No one in the district knew him, personally or professionally, except for one person, who gave him the highest and most enthusiastic recommendation.

"Children," Mr. Dee said, "please behave for Mr. Chandrasekhar."

Into the class walked a tall man. He had skin the color of cinnamon, a thick black mustache, and straight black hair that fell over his ears. He wore perfectly round spectacles, and in his right hand he was holding something like a briefcase that at the same time was something like a wicker basket. You could call it a rectangular wicker basket with a handle, or you could call it a briefcase made of wicker. If it contained sandwiches and juice, it would properly be called a wicker basket. If it contained papers and pens and school supplies, it was a briefcase. Esmeralda figured it was a briefcase.

Mr. Dee left, and the substitute walked to the chalkboard and began to write.

"My name is Raahi Chandrasekhar," he said. "I know that, for you children, 'Mr. Chandrasekhar' is not an easy thing to say. So, if you want, you can call me Mr. Chandrasekhar, Mr. Chandra, Mr. C., Mr. Raahi, or you can just call me Raahi. It's up to you."

As he spoke, Mr. Chandrasekhar seemed a little distracted, almost as if he had planned out exactly what he was going to say and so was free to scan the room and look into each of the student's faces for just a moment. It may have been Esmeralda's imagination, but it seemed that as his eyes landed on her face, he looked for a great deal longer than when he examined the others.

After he finished writing on the board, Mr. Chandrasekhar began rummaging through the drawers of Mr. Eldredge's desk, maybe searching for a lesson plan or something like that. The students waited quietly, most of them noticing how slightly out of place Mr. Chandrasekhar looked. He was certainly an adult, but he didn't seem much like a teacher at all. Teachers on the whole have a certain swagger about them. Even the good and engaged ones have a lifted eyebrow somewhere in the way that they walk and talk in the classroom. Kids tend to notice this.

"Yes, children," Mr. Chandrasekhar said, still rummaging through the desk, "this is, uh, history class, or at least that is what I was told, so I assume that, uh, you have been studying history. So, can someone please let me know what kind of history you have been studying, or what you have been doing, so that we can, uh, do some more of that?"

Robert raised his hand. "We've been working on Christopher Columbus." He turned to Esmeralda and smiled.

"Yes, very good. Christopher Columbus," Mr. Chandrasekhar said flatly. "Who can tell me who Christopher Columbus is?"

Stacy Keenan raised her hand with a huge, plastic smile on her face. Mr. Chandrasekhar was still searching, almost desperately, through the desk and didn't bother to look up.

Stacy waited for about thirty seconds. Before her smile had faded completely, she simply called out, "he discovered America."

"Mmhmm. Yes, very, very interesting," Mr. Chandrasekhar said, closing all of the drawers to the desk. "Very good. Inspiring stuff. You all seem to know what it is you are talking about. Listen, I'd like to go around the room and have everyone tell me your name and birthday."

Everyone did as he requested, with only a few giving out fake names. When it came to Esmeralda, Mr. Chandrasekhar seemed, at least to her, to be very intently listening to everything that she was saying. And when she said, "my name is Esmeralda Comstock, and my birthday is January thirteenth," a subtle grin inched across Mr. Chandrasekhar's face.

"Alright children," Mr. Chandrasekhar said when everyone had finished, "we have about forty minutes left of class. Does anyone know what we're supposed to do? We've covered Christopher Columbus. That went well. Does anyone have a suggestion?"

"We could all go home," Billy Moore shouted.

"No, no, I'm pretty sure you have to..." Mr. Chandrasekhar opened his wicker briefcase and began searching through it. "I think we're all supposed to stay in here until the bell. Is there a book? Do you have books you can read?"

It so happened that the class did have a book. They had a very heavy and thick history text with big block letters on the front that spelled out "AMERICA: PAST TO PRESENT." Mr. Chandrasekhar instructed them to take out this book and read. He didn't tell them where to read in it, what chapters, what pages. He just said to read for a while. So they did, or pretended to if they didn't feel like actually reading.

Mr. Chandrasekhar sat at his desk watching them. After a little while he pulled out of his briefcase a long wooden flute. It was covered in strangely arranged buttons, as opposed to holes, each fashioned of gleaming silver. The dark, reddish wood of its body was carved with intricate designs.

As the kids read, he held the instrument, licked his lips and began to play. At first the music was so quiet no one could hear it. But they all felt there was something new in the air, that things had gone all soft somehow. Then the sound revealed itself, delicate and intricate and alive. It snaked through the lower registers of the beautiful instrument and produced the strangest effect. No one in the room felt bored or restless anymore. No one even thought of making a sound or moving a muscle while that music hung in the air. It seemed to Esmeralda that as Mr. Chandrasekhar played this very exotic and beautiful music he was looking at her. It may have been her imagination; maybe everyone felt like that. But it certainly seemed as if he was playing for her, that every note he played was a note in her song.

In two blinks the bell rang and class was over. For a long moment after Mr. Chandrasekhar stopped playing nobody moved. Everyone, seemingly, had to wait for the music to drip out of the air and for things to become normal again. Then all at once the whole class got up, collected their things and headed out of the room.

"Ms. Comstock," Mr. Chandrasekhar said as Esmeralda passed his desk on her way out of the door.

"Um, yes," She said, stopping.

"Your birthday is January thirteenth. That's coming up. It's this Friday."

"Yeah," Esmeralda said, "I know it's not very lucky, turning thirteen on Friday the thirteenth."

"Well, luck means different things to different people." Mr. Chandrasekhar smiled. "Where I come from thirteen is a very important and lucky number."

"Really?"

"Of course really," Mr. Chandrasekhar said. "But then, Esmeralda, luck, like most things, is in the eye of the beholder."

Esmeralda smiled. "I hope Mr. Eldredge is really sick. I mean, I don't want him to be sick, that's...I mean, I'm glad you're teaching us."

"Well, we'll see about tomorrow then."

Esmeralda turned and left.

Robert was outside the door waiting. "What did he say?"

"Nothing really," Esmeralda said distantly. "He just said thirteen is really a lucky number where he comes from."

"What a bad teacher that guy is," Robert said.

"Huh? Did you think so?"

"I'm not sure he even knew who Christopher Columbus was."

Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "What difference does it make who Christopher Columbus is?"

Robert was a little put off by this. "Well, we're studying Christopher Columbus."

"I guess," Esmeralda said, "but maybe now we can study music."

***

Mr. Eldredge wasn't at fifth period history the next day or the day after that. Both days Esmeralda found Mr. Chandrasekhar waiting in the classroom, sitting peacefully with his wicker briefcase on the desk. Both days, just like the first, Mr. Chandrasekhar didn't seem to know exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He asked the class to sit down at their desks and read, which everyone did—at least the sitting down—as he played them always new and ever more mystifying music. Both periods, both days, both precious hours that Esmeralda sat in that class were the best and, to her, the most worthwhile times that she had ever spent in school. Sometimes she read, sometimes she pretended to read, but much of the time she just sat listening with her book closed. Mr. Chandrasekhar didn't seem too concerned one way or another. But the entire time she heard the music. She listened to it, feeling it walking around her ribcage. She was, both days, surprised and truly sad when the bell rang and class came to an end.

After the bell on Wednesday, Mr. Chandrasekhar said, "Esmeralda, could you stay after for a moment please?"

She stood attentively before Mr. Chandrasekhar's desk.

"I don't think I am doing a good job substituting for Mr. Eldredge," he said.

"Oh, no. You're doing a great job. All of the kids like you more than Eldredge."

"That's nice, but I am afraid I don't know much about American History. I'd hate to think that you kids weren't learning anything." Mr. Chandrasekhar began putting away his flute.

"What is that called?" Esmeralda asked.

"This?" Mr. Chandrasekhar said, removing the flute once more. "This is Chandravenu. I designed her a long time ago."

"It's beautiful," Esmeralda said.

"Thank you very much. Where I come from music is very important. Though I suppose the kind of importance I am talking about is something that has to exist no matter where you come from. Esmeralda, listen, I think tomorrow I will try to show the class something about this flute. Would you like to try to play it?"

"I don't know." Esmeralda shook her head. "It looks too hard. I don't think I could do it."

"Well, we may see tomorrow. But let me tell you: in order to play a song—especially on this flute—you need two things. You have to know the song and you have to play it for good reasons."

***

"Esmeralda, what are you going to do for your birthday?" Her father had grown more and more restless as the days ticked closer to Friday. It was already Wednesday and Mr. Comstock still did not have anything like a plan for the party.

"Dad, I don't even want to do anything. It's just another day."

"Well, don't you want to have a party?" Esmeralda's father asked, "I already talked to your Aunt Kay. She said she can bring up your cousins and we can have a nice party. You can invite your friend Robert. We can have cake and the whole deal. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Daddy, no. It doesn't sound nice. Okay? You know I don't like my cousins. They don't want to come here anyway. If you're going to have a birthday party, it should be with your friends."

"Well then, what would you like to do?" Her father smiled. "Because you have to have a party. You're turning thirteen. It's a very important date."

"Well, if I have to have a party, we can just have Robert sleep over."

"Just Robert? You don't want to invite any other kids from school?"

"Just Robert."

"Well, honey, I love you, and if you want to have just us three at the party that's fine," Esmeralda's father said. "But, I talked with Robert's parents last week and they don't seem to want him to spend the night at our house."

"I know, Dad, Robert told me about it. He changed their minds."

Esmeralda's father shoved his hands into the pockets of his ugly brown housecoat. "How could he possibly do that?"

"I don't know," Esmeralda said. "He gave them a whole presentation. He had charts and graphs and everything."

"Well, if it's alright with Robert's parents, and that's what you want to do, then that's fine."

Esmeralda walked up to her father and took his hand. "But, Dad, I don't want you to give me a Mommy Present. Just give me a Daddy Present. That's enough."

Esmeralda's father paused for a moment and squeezed her hand. His eyes clouded over. "Alright, honey, if that's what you want."

For three years, Esmeralda's father had been getting her two presents on her birthday. One was from him, and one, he said, was from Esmeralda's mother. Esmeralda's mother and father, ever since she was a baby, had gotten her two presents for her birthday: a Mommy Present and a Daddy Present. Esmeralda knew that some kids got any number of presents for their birthdays, but her family never had a lot of money. They weren't poor; they weren't rich either. Her parents always got her things that were small but meaningful.

Three and a half years before Esmeralda's thirteenth birthday, her mother got very sick. The sickness was a word that, at the time, Esmeralda didn't understand. Before then she hadn't needed to know what "cancer" was. Now she knew: it was something that took people's mothers away.

That night Esmeralda could hardly sleep for the anticipation of trying to play Mr. Chandrasekhar's flute. Was it possible that anyone else could produce that very special, living music? She thought how horrible it would be if Stacy Keenan or someone was able to play the flute while she failed. It felt like a test of some kind. What if the flute had a sort of mind of its own, and it could tell who the deserving and undeserving were?

***

The next day Mr. Chandrasekhar didn't tell the class to read. He told them he had a story for them. "A student in our class has alerted me that you children, some, or even most of you, are interested in this flute of mine and that you would like to learn about it and its music. Is this true?"

"Yes." The class answered uncannily in unison. No one neglected to answer. No one made any silly remarks or tried to be funny. They all genuinely wanted to know.

"Well," Mr. Chandrasekhar clapped his hands. "Then I will tell you a story, which is short for history, which is what this class is all about. It may not be an American history that I am telling, but I am only a substitute. What can you expect?

"My story begins a long time ago in the place where I am from. It begins with my father, who made flutes and other instruments for a living. My father didn't play exactly, or, that is to say, he didn't play very well. Nearly everyone plays where I am from. He was a fashioner of instruments, and he taught the craft to me. But, and this is the tricky part, he could only teach it to me after I had taught some of it to him.

"Before my parents were married, my mother wanted my father, in order to gain her hand, to prove that he was a very skilled artisan. She probably would have married him no matter what, but she wanted to see how good he could become. So she asked him to make her a flute different from any other flute. For a year he worked on it every day and couldn't get it right. Now, while all of this was going on, I was waiting impatiently to be born. So, in order to hurry up my birth, I designed this flute and gave the plans to my father. I named her Chandravenu. My father gave her to my mother. And, after I was born, my mother gave her to me, knowing the flute was really mine to begin with."

Stacy Keenan raised her hand. "But what do you mean? How did you design it if you weren't even born yet?"

"It is a mystery," Mr. Chandrasekhar said. "But aren't mysteries sometimes wonderful?"

Mr. Chandrasekhar picked up his flute, held it at arms-length toward the class. "Who would like to try to play?" he asked.

Every hand rose.

Mr. Chandrasekhar patiently took the flute from child to child, positioning each finger on the proper button. Most couldn't make a single sound come out of it. The ones who had some success made teeny, little squeaks jump out of the flute, after which silence reigned. Stacy Keenan couldn't get the thing to make any noise whatsoever.

"I really don't think I've had the proper training," Robert said when the flute came to him.

"Do you want to try?" Mr. Chandrasekhar held the flute out.

Robert thought it over. "No."

Then it was Esmeralda's turn. She was afraid; it wasn't clear to her why. No one had really been able to play it, but she desperately wanted to play and make that beautiful sound. She had such fear of not being able to play that she wasn't sure she wanted to try at all.

"Would you like to?" Mr. Chandrasekhar asked.

Esmeralda didn't say anything.

"Ms. Comstock?" Mr. Chandrasekhar placed the flute on her desk. "Here it is."

Esmeralda picked up the flute. Its wooden body felt warm in her hands, and the silver buttons gleamed in the sunlight streaming into the room. Mr. Chandrasekhar positioned her hands and fingers correctly, and Esmeralda placed the instrument as she had seen. She waited for a moment, took a breath and closed her eyes. She thought about all of the music she had heard Mr. Chandrasekhar play. She could recall every silken note from the few days he had been in class. She thought of how complete she might feel if she could make sounds like that come alive. Esmeralda opened her eyes. The flute was sounding. She hadn't intentionally started playing; she simply found herself blowing into the flute and producing a strong high tone. Mr. Chandrasekhar was smiling.

No one else had been able to make the flute sing. She felt immense satisfaction. Then she thought about the other kids, about how she had succeeded where they had failed. They're all going to envy me, she thought. And all at once the flute stopped. She tried blowing again and nothing happened. It was as if it simply decided to stop working, all on its own.

  5. # 3. The Party

On Friday, Mr. Eldredge was back in fifth period history. Esmeralda was crushed. She walked in the door beaming and happy and ready to hear and do more music. But there he was, standing at the board, already scribbling away. She knew she would never see Mr. Chandrasekhar again, that the strangely real magic of him and his flute was gone forever.

"Are you okay?" Robert asked as they were walking home after school.

"What do you mean?" Esmeralda asked.

"Well, I mean, I know you hate Mr. Eldredge, and you kind of were in love with Mr. C."

Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "I don't love Mr. Chandrasekhar. He was nice. And besides, anybody would be better than Eldredge."

"You're in denial." Robert pulled off his glasses, breathed on the lenses and wiped them with his shirt.

"Robert, denial?"

"Yes." While distracted with replacing his glasses, Robert tripped on a crack in the sidewalk, let out a little squeak and then continued on as if nothing had happened. "You're in denial. I heard about it on a talk show. The grief is too much for you to bear."

***

Esmeralda's father had decorated the entire house for her party and done an incredibly bad job at it. He had run streamers crookedly across the ceiling and covered the dining room table with a wrinkled, white tablecloth. There were balloons, but not filled with helium; they said "Happy Birthday" on them and clung fearfully to the ground. On the dining room table sat a little circular cake, not encased in plastic. Upon it, in blue frosting, the words "Happy Birthday Ezzie" were written in a rather unsure and haphazard style.

"Oh, no," Esmeralda said, inspecting the dessert. "I think Dad tried to bake."

"What do you mean, tried?" Esmeralda's father came out from the kitchen wearing jeans, a white t-shirt and an apron with "Kiss the Cook" printed across the front.

"Hello, Mr. Comstock," Robert said.

"Robert, you know to call me Aaron," Esmeralda's father said.

"I know that you want me to, sir, but propriety really dictates that..."

The doorbell rang.

"Excuse me, Robert." Mr. Comstock walked from the dining room muttering something about twelve year olds using words like propriety.

"You think it's edible?" Robert asked.

Esmeralda shrugged. "Last year he bought a cake."

"Hey!" Esmeralda's father shouted from the living room. "Raahi? Is that you?"

Esmeralda and Robert ran from the dining room and found that in the living room, just inside the front door, stood Mr. Chandrasekhar wrapped in a great green parka. Mr. Chandrasekhar was standing in Esmeralda's house. Esmeralda's father shook his hand enthusiastically.

"You're here!" Esmeralda blurted.

Mr. Chandrasekhar regarded her for the first time. "Now, I wondered about this."

"How are you here?" Esmeralda was in a kind of shock.

"You know Raahi?" Esmeralda's father asked.

Esmeralda looked at her father as if he had just entered the room. "You know Mr. Chandrasekhar?"

"Mr. Chandrasekhar," Esmeralda's father snorted. "Me and Raahi worked together during my college days."

"Yes," Mr. Chandrasekhar, Raahi, said, "your father and I were great friends, Esmeralda."

"This is weird," Robert said under his breath.

"And now," Raahi said to Esmeralda's father, "I have been substituting for Esmeralda's teacher. The circle completes itself."

"They usually do," Esmeralda's father said, smiling. Then he turned to Esmeralda. "I used to work the night shift at a hotel downstate, the Claymont Inn. That must have been, what, twenty years ago?"

"Most certainly," Raahi said, "twenty years at least."

"This is amazing," Esmeralda's father said.

"Amazing is one way to put it," Robert whispered.

Esmeralda stared.

"Well, come in, come in. Take off your coat." Esmeralda's father waved Mr. Chandrasekhar into the living room, gesturing toward the worn, little couch.

"I see you are having a party, I suppose for Esmeralda's birthday," Mr. Chandrasekhar said, hesitantly shuffling into the living room. "I don't want to disturb anything. I can leave and catch up with you another time."

"You can stay," Esmeralda said quickly. "You don't have to go; it's just my birthday. You can stay...if you want."

"Alright." Mr. Chandrasekhar sat on the couch, and he and Esmeralda's father talked of old times and stories. Some of these had become wonderfully hazy with time's passage, and they could fill in the gaps at will, polishing the details with colorful flourishes. The recollections became little duels of cleverness and improvisation. Esmeralda's father was always good at telling stories.

"Well, Raahi," Mr. Comstock said after a little while, "I want you to come upstairs, to my study. There are a few items I have to show you."

The adults left the room, which is something adults seemed to do when they were having a good time and the requirements of children temporarily left their minds. Esmeralda and Robert sat in the living room in their respective seats, still a little dumbstruck.

"Your dad knows Mr. C.," Robert said after some time.

"I know he does," Esmeralda replied.

"It's weird, right? I don't want to be the only one who thinks it's weird."

"It's weird." Esmeralda squinted her eyes. "But it also kind of makes a lot of sense."

Robert thought about this a moment. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm not sure; it's just that..."

Esmeralda's eyes darted to the sound of adult male clunkyness bumbling down the stairs.

"Esmeralda," Raahi said, entering the living room, "I feel that I have intruded horribly on your party. I did not want to do so. I have made contact with an old friend. That is enough for today. I will leave you in peace."

"Will you stay?" Esmeralda had a strange, desperate feeling at the thought of Mr. Chandrasekhar taking his leave. "Could you maybe, uh, maybe play us a song?"

Mr. Chandrasekhar smiled. "Esmeralda, I thought you might ask me that. Perhaps I was counting on it, even. I will, if you'd like, play you a song and give you a present. Though I am afraid I haven't wrapped it."

Mr. Chandrasekhar left, apparently to retrieve his flute from his car. He was gone a few moments, and when he returned he held his wicker briefcase in one hand and a small drum in the other. It looked very old, made of some dark wood like mahogany or rosewood. A faded, brown skin stretched across the top. The wood was decorated with odd, angular letters that Esmeralda didn't recognize. On the top of the drum, painted into the skin, lay a dull, red circle.

Mr. Chandrasekhar sat on the floor, crossed his legs, set the drum down to one side, the briefcase in front, and removed his flute. Esmeralda, Robert and Mr. Comstock took seats on the couch opposite Mr. Chandrasekhar. No one spoke, only waited; Mr. Chandrasekhar began to play.

It was slow, mournful music. The flute seemed to pull the light from the air and cause everyone's skin to feel soft and warm. Esmeralda turned her gaze from Mr. Chandrasekhar's eyes momentarily and looked at her father. His eyes drooped. Sitting next to her, Robert laid his head on her shoulder and began snoring. After a moment, Mr. Chandrasekhar stopped playing; both Robert and Esmeralda's father were sound asleep.

"Dad?"

"They are quite deeply asleep," Mr. Chandrasekhar said.

"But how...did you do that?" Esmeralda asked.

"I did nothing. The music did it. The music and my flute." Mr. Chandrasekhar placed the wooden instrument on the ground. "I played a song that I know that makes men, and men only, fall asleep. I learned it long ago."

"Then why is Robert asleep?"

"It works on male humans of whatever age."

Esmeralda said, "why did you put them to sleep?"

"Are you afraid, Esmeralda?" Mr. Chandrasekhar asked.

"No," she said honestly.

"Good. I thought that you would not be." Mr. Chandrasekhar picked up the little drum. "I want to tell you about your present. This is a Largo Drum. It is used to get into the Largo."

The term seemed slightly familiar. "What is that?"

"Largo is a name that we have given to, well, I suppose you might call it a place. It is really a barrier, an in-between. It is a barrier that you must cross to get to the place where I am from."

"You want me to go there?"

Mr. Chandrasekhar raised his hand and struck the drum once. The sound was rich and reverberant beyond what one would predict possible for so small a thing. "I have been sent here to plead with you to come. We could not force you. Not even with so much at stake. We wish you to come and help us. Only you can do it."

Esmeralda thought for just a moment. She had been given no real information, only a sense of urgency, of some Power at the center of Mr. Chandrasekhar's words. "I will help you. What do I have to do? Where do I have to go?"

"Across the Largo." Mr. Chandrasekhar put down the drum. "To my homeland, a place called Song. To get into the Largo you must play exactly this rhythm on the drum."

Mr. Chandrasekhar began tapping his leg in a stuttering pattern and singing with every strike of his hands. "Doom tick tak da doom tick takita, Doom tick tak da doom tick takita." Over and over he sang the pattern.

"You can remember," he said.

"I am not sure," Esmeralda said.

"I wasn't asking you. I know you will remember it."

"What will happen when I play it?" Esmeralda asked.

"The Largo is different for each person every time they enter it. Few in the History of the Worlds have entered the Largo. It is unpredictable. The Largo is the membrane between the Worlds. It was not meant to be entered or crossed. What I promise is this: when you enter the Largo, I will be playing my flute to guide you into Song. You must listen very hard for my flute. If you do not concentrate on it, you may be lost to the Largo."

Esmeralda considered. "But how do I know..."

"What, that I will be there to guide you, or that anything will happen at all?" Mr. Chandrasekhar stood, holding the flute in one hand and the wicker briefcase in the other. "You have a choice Esmeralda: you can believe that something very new and peculiar is happening, or you can think that your friend and your father have simply dozed off and that I am a hare-brained substitute teacher. But, think, according to everything you knew before today, there are no hidden Worlds, no Largo Drums and no such place as Song. If that's true and you play this drum that I am giving you, nothing will happen. You will have risked very little. If, however, everything you have known up to this point has been woefully incomplete, you will see things and become a part of something larger than you can probably imagine. I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm giving you an opportunity to find something out for yourself. I want you to try and accept the idea that you are a very important person."

Esmeralda looked him in the eye. "When should I do it?"

Mr. Chandrasekhar smiled. "If you decide to go, play the drum tonight, after everyone goes off to bed. Only make sure that you start playing before eleven o'clock. Make sure that no one is in the room when the drum is played. Anyone who hears the drum's cycle could be pulled into the Largo with you."

"My father can't go, can he?" Esmeralda sensed this must be true.

"A man your father's age cannot cross the Largo. I wish to heaven that he could. It would make this easier for you and for me. The Largo is a fluid place, very disorienting to a human mind. I have been training in the Largo since I was much younger than you. In the Largo, your father's mind might crack."

"I understand," Esmeralda said.

"You do?" Mr. Chandrasekhar asked the room a question. "Perhaps you do in some way."

He raised his flute and blew three high, clear notes. Esmeralda's Father and Robert shook their heads lazily in unison.

"I see my music is so invigorating it lulls the audience into a stupor." Mr. Chandrasekhar chuckled.

"Raahi, I'm sorry." Esmeralda's father wiped his eyes. "I just got desperately tired all of a sudden. Don't take it personally..."

"No offense taken," Mr. Chandrasekhar interrupted, "and you must not be offended if I am now on my way. The evening beckons, and I have hijacked your party long enough." With that, Mr. Chandrasekhar turned, put on his coat, held his wicker briefcase firmly in hand and walked out the door. He left the Largo Drum sitting in the middle of the living room, silently waiting.

***

The rest of the evening was intolerable. Esmeralda's father wanted to play horrifying games and be really "involved" with the kids. Esmeralda was preoccupied and shot with energy and could not wait for the party to be finished and for everyone to go to bed. She had suggested quite forcefully that they all retire every half hour, from seven o'clock onwards. Finally, ten-thirty arrived, and she could hardly stand it. Esmeralda, Robert and her father were in the middle of a game of Scrabble, which Esmeralda's father insisted on playing, commenting that modern children couldn't spell.

"Dad, should we be heading off to bed? It's ten-thirty," Esmeralda said.

"Well, honey, it's getting late...but it's alright; you don't have school tomorrow, and it's your birthday." Esmeralda's father wore a satisfied smile. "Also, you may not realize it because of all of the fun we're having, but you are, right now, building your vocabulary and learning to spell."

Esmeralda sighed.

"The game is mine!" Robert nearly shouted, pumping his fist in the air. "Triple word score."

"What is 'tortiously'?" Esmeralda's father asked, suspicion in his voice.

"It's a legal word," Robert snidely replied. "My parents say it all the time."

"Is it in the dictionary?"

"It doesn't have to be in the dictionary. It's a legal word."

Esmeralda's patience was wearing thin.

"You said that when you put down 'tort,'" Esmeralda's father said, annoyance in his voice. "Now you add I-O-U-S-L-Y, and say 'tortiously.'"

"Are you saying 'tort' isn't a word?" Robert asked.

"I have heard the word 'tort,' Robert. But 'tortiously' is a new one for me..."

"Are you a lawyer?" Robert cut in.

"I don't have to be..."

"Because my parents are lawyers."

"Robert, the rules say the dictionary is the deciding..."

"But is it a legal dictionary...?"

"Oh come on!" Esmeralda screamed. "I am tired and I am going to go to sleep!" She walked into the living room, grabbed the Largo Drum and ran up the stairs to her room.

Stunned, silent and motionless, the two competitors watched her go.

"Women," Robert said flatly.

The game ended abruptly. Mr. Comstock retired to his study to read. He did this nightly, often falling to sleep at his desk. Robert would sleep in the living room on the pullout couch. Esmeralda sat in bed, staring at the glowing bones of her digital clock. Ten forty-eight. Mr. Chandrasekhar said she had to play the Largo Drum before eleven. She still heard Robert rustling around downstairs. So particular about his sleeping arrangements, he could take an hour to get his bed just so. Esmeralda feared that if she started playing the drum now, her father might hear it down the hall. She believed Mr. Chandrasekhar when he said that the Largo would be very dangerous for her father. She was also nervous about doing all of this alone. What would happen when she went into the Largo? She held the drum in her hands. The clock changed.

  6. # 4. The Largo

"You really think you're funny, don't you?" Robert said.

"Robert, this isn't a joke, and I don't have much time."

Esmeralda had painstakingly gone over all of Mr. Chandrasekhar's instructions with Robert. She tried to be understanding and patient, but Robert refused to consider the possibility that anything that she was saying could be true. Meanwhile, the clock was getting horribly close to eleven, and Esmeralda's father was upstairs and might come down at any minute.

"You want me to go into Limbo with you?" Robert asked.

"Robert, Largo, Largo. It's called the Largo."

"Uh-huh."

Esmeralda looked at her watch. Five minutes to go. "Look Robert, just watch my hands and play what I play. If it doesn't work, we can go to bed."

Robert considered. "I feel like you will make fun of me for this later."

"Robert!" Esmeralda said a little too loudly, "I need you to do this for me. Right now."

Esmeralda positioned the drum between them and started playing. Doom tick tak da doom tick takita... Robert watched for a moment and began copying each beat. They played on opposite ends of the drum, Esmeralda waiting for some mysterious transformation to occur, Robert waiting for Esmeralda to start laughing. They played the series over and over, and, although they didn't notice it, it was on the thirteenth repetition of the rhythm that the clicking of the grandfather clock opposite the couch stopped, and the light from the street wavered and dimmed. They played on for a full five minutes after these unobserved events, until finally Robert stopped.

"Well, thank you for that." He seemed genuinely annoyed. "Now, please, let's try to go to bed."

"Robert, we can't stop!"

"Esmeralda, look, I know that love can do a lot of crazy things to a woman, but, please, let's not go thinking we can magically drum ourselves to Mr. C."

Esmeralda looked around in confusion. Why hadn't it worked? She was sure she had played the rhythm correctly. They should both be in the Largo.

"We have to try again," Esmeralda declared.

Robert sighed. "You're taking this a little bit far, don't you think? Besides, what did you say? The thing has to happen by eleven, right? Well, I'm sure it's past."

Esmeralda looked at her watch. It read ten fifty-six. She noticed the second hand wasn't running. "My watch is busted," she said thoughtfully.

"Well, fix it in the morning."

Esmeralda got up and looked around the room. "Does it seem dark in here to you?"

"It's night time," Robert said. "Usually, I sleep in the dark."

Esmeralda ran to the window. "No, the streetlights, the streetlights are out."

"Yes. So?"

She ran to the front door and opened it. "The streetlights aren't there!"

She ran into the street looking up and down the snow-covered block. Not one streetlamp in sight. Robert ran up to her, wearing snow boots below his striped pajamas.

"Esmeralda, what are you doing?" Robert shakily asked. "It's freezing out here."

Esmeralda looked Robert in the eye.

"Is it?" she asked.

"What?"

"Are you cold?"

Robert thought a moment, furrowing his brow. He looked around nervously. They were outside. It was the middle of January. There was snow everywhere. He opened and closed his fists several times. Robert looked at Esmeralda, knelt down and picked up a handful of snow. "What's going on?" Robert asked.

"I don't know." She could only be honest.

"I can feel the snow. I mean, I know the snow is in my hand. But I can't feel the cold of the snow." Robert's voice shook. "What is going on?"

"Listen," Esmeralda said. "We can't get distracted. When Mr. Chandrasekhar starts playing, we have to be listening."

They were startled by a loud metallic bang coming from up the street. They wheeled about simultaneously and saw one of the missing streetlamps. It was walking down the middle of the street. Esmeralda gripped Robert's hand. The streetlamp hopped along the road, and its wide, yellow light bobbed up and down as it approached them. It stopped and turned its yellow face, showering them with light.

"What do we do?" Robert asked in the barest whisper.

"Hello?" Esmeralda called to the streetlamp.

The lamp tilted its head like a curious dog and simply regarded them for a moment. It then rotated its face so that its light pointed straight into the sky. The warm, yellow glow ignited and became a brilliant, white flame that shot straight up, wide and bright enough to be seen for miles. After a few moments the streetlamp tilted its head down, shining a considerably dimmer yellow light.

"What's it doing?" Esmeralda wondered aloud.

"Calling its buddies," Robert answered. "Listen."

Loud, metallic footsteps came from all directions. The two friends peered up the street and saw streetlamps coming around the corners of each of the intersections in sight. Streetlamps stepped between houses, hopped across lawns and eventually all lined up to train their collective light on Esmerlda and Robert.

Robert broke and ran for the house. Esmeralda took off after him. They flew through the front door, locking it behind them, and leaped onto the couch to peer out the window at the front lawn. The streetlamps were hopping around the yard, sending their lights in all directions. Some looked into the second floor windows of the house.

"Do you think they want to eat us?" Esmeralda asked breathlessly.

"How would they do that?" Robert said, looking with eyes round as half-dollars. Having posed the question, he turned and ran for the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Esmeralda asked.

"To see if your father's awake."

Esmeralda ran after him. "No, Robert, don't you see? My father won't be there. We aren't in my house anymore."

Esmeralda followed him upstairs. They flung wide the door to her father's office and found a man's body seated behind the desk. The body was wearing an old black tuxedo, perhaps the one Esmeralda's father wore on his wedding day. Attached to the neck of this body was a very large amphibian head, the head of a turtle. The turtle head inclined in their direction and blinked twice.

Robert held his right hand over his stomach and sank down into a crouch. He did not look well at all. "You know, you always ask yourself if you get in a situation, 'what would Clarence Darrow do?' Well..."

"Is the boy alright?" The Turtle-Headed Man asked.

"You talk!" Esmeralda exclaimed.

The Turtle-Headed Man looked around the room. "Well, I have talked; am talking now. Of course, I don't 'talk' in the general sense. When you are gone, I will have nothing to say."

Robert curled himself up into a ball on the floor. A streetlamp stared into the little window behind the desk.

"Who are you?" Esmeralda asked.

"I am either you or everything else." The Turtle-Headed Man managed to twist his beak into a smile. "No one can tell me for sure."

"Is this the Largo?"

The Turtle-Headed Man's smile faded. "I haven't a clue what that is supposed to mean. If this were anything that could be called a name, how could it be what it is?"

"What?"

"A name, a name!" The Turtle-Headed Man seemed to get agitated. "You want me to have a name? You want to have a name?"

"Why do you look like a turtle?" Esmeralda tried to ignore this little outburst.

"Look on my back and you'll find a blemish the size of the universe." The Turtle-Headed Man pointed to Robert. "Your friend isn't doing so good."

Esmeralda had nearly forgotten all about him. He was still curled up on the floor, now moving rhythmically back and forth, mumbling something under his breath.

"Robert!" Esmeralda shook his hunched shoulders; there was little response. "Robert, it's okay. We're in the Largo. Just like I said. Everything is okay."

Robert's eyes were frighteningly vacant. Esmeralda leaned in close, trying to hear what he was mumbling. She strained her ears and her mind, desperate to focus on the nearly breathless words. And then she heard it, not what Robert was mumbling: the flute. Far in the distance, Mr. Chandrasekhar's flute sang.

It was just barely audible, riding through the sounds of the streetlamps lumbering around outside and into the still air of her father's office. The music came from far outside the house, from someplace in the neighborhood.

"Robert!" Esmeralda shook him. "Can you hear it? It's the flute! Just like I said. We have to get up and follow him, Robert. Can you get up?"

The Turtle-Headed Man rose from his seat and came around the desk. "The poor dear seems overwhelmed at the moment. Perhaps you should leave him here and go after the flute yourself."

Esmeralda took her eyes from Robert's blank face. "I can't leave him."

"But you want to."

"No, I don't." Esmeralda shook Robert hard.

"But if you didn't really, then why would I suggest it?" The Turtle-Headed Man walked over and knelt down.

"Robert, please," Esmeralda pleaded, ignoring the Turtle-Headed Man. "You can hear it. I know you can."

Robert blinked his eyes. His lips moved, but still no sound came out. His hands twitched. The Turtle-Headed Man leaned close to Esmeralda, his amphibian breath cool against her cheek.

"You're sure you don't want to leave him?"

Esmeralda stared into his shining black pupils. "I would never leave him. Even if it meant being stuck here with you."

"Good." The Turtle-Headed Man stood, snapped his fingers, and all of the lights in the room turned a deep blue. He walked over to the desk, pulled out a large, metallic ball the size of a grapefruit and tossed it to Esmeralda.

"What is this?" She asked, catching the object.

"It's your friend."

"What?" Esmeralda stared up at the Turtle-Headed Man.

"Look down," he said.

Robert's body was gone.

"Where is he?" Esmeralda shouted.

"In your hands." The Turtle-Headed man smiled. "A body or a form is a very transient thing. Why don't you take him and go? He hasn't got a lot of time, I don't think."

"You turned Robert into a ball?"

"Turned? It has always been what it is, always will be. It is self-simultaneous, like everything." The Turtle-Headed Man smiled.

Esmeralda looked at the metal ball in her hands, turned and ran out the door. She thought of looking over her shoulder and shouting a "thank-you" but decided against it. Esmeralda tore through the house, straining to hear the flute, the music so faint she feared she imagined it. She reached the front door and swung it wide. At least thirty streetlamps congregated on the lawn, all turning their yellow light toward her. The metallic ball that may or may not have been Robert sat brilliant in her hand.

"Not afraid at all," Esmeralda said.

She ran between the streetlamps, all swiveling their golden faces to hold her in a pool of light as she passed. She made it to the street without incident and ran toward the sound of the flute, which grew louder as she moved. Behind her she heard hundreds of heavy metallic stomps. She looked back and found them following at an unimpressive pace.

"Couldn't eat me even if you could catch me."

Esmeralda ran up Symphony St. toward the sound of the flute. The further she went from the house, the less familiar became the surroundings. As she ran, she felt the air turn hot and sticky. Soon the houses lining the street became hazy. Nothing was wrong with her eyes; everything around the houses was sharp and distinct. But each little dwelling on either side of the street seemed shot with an out-of-focus camera. Esmeralda ran on. She reached the intersection of Symphony and Concord and turned to the school's parking lot. The school was missing. Beyond the black asphalt there was nothing save a field of sunflowers. And no snow at all.

Esmeralda ran into the field. The flowers towered over her head on long, green stalks, and their flat, wide leaves slid softly across her face as she pushed forward. The moonlight sprinkled through the leaves and grew brighter as she advanced, while the field grew denser. She no longer needed to strain to hear the music. It flowed solidly into her face and around her body. The sound increased with the light until it was as if she fled through a gauntlet of velvet, green-and-silver brilliance and music pulsating from all directions. The music was no more that of a single flute plaintive in the night. It had become an entire orchestra, flooding the world with the sounds of foreign instruments and ancient drums.

The metal ball that may or may not have been Robert began to grow frighteningly heavy. She tried to switch hands, but it was no good. She held it with both, balancing it against her stomach, and in this position slowed considerably. She shuffled toward the sound of the flute, the light. The smell of the sunflowers drifted around her head. She closed her eyes and concentrated, looking for strength. Her arms strained.

"I'm not going to stop," Esmeralda shouted over the music.

The light became a flood, washing the entire world out of existence. Esmeralda closed her burning eyes, dropped her shoulder and burst forward. She broke free, into open air, and tumbled onto warm grass. The sun shone brightly overhead.

Robert lay next to her, eyes closed, still wearing his striped pajamas and big snow boots. Esmeralda knelt over his face and fixed his glasses, which had gone crooked in the fall.

"Robert!" She shook his shoulders. "Robert, you made it. Are you alright?

There was no response.

Esmeralda shook harder, desperate now. "Robert, wake up!"

Robert coughed hard a few times, blinked his eyes and rolled over onto his side. "Esmeralda, oh, I don't feel well at all."

"It's okay Robert." She tried to be soothing. "We made it, I think. I think we're through."

Robert was hardly paying attention. "Bad dreams last night. Never want to sleep on your couch again, I just..." Robert sat straight up, looked around. "Where are we? Why are we outside?"

"I don't know," Esmeralda said truthfully. "I'm not sure where we are."

She looked around for the first time. Behind them, the field stretched over a gentle slope, the sunflowers looking out with their cyclopean, black eyes. They were seated on a patch of short grass beyond which was a little dirt road. The road ran away from the field, over a few rolling hills, and, in the distance, perhaps a mile or two off, disappeared into an expansive forest.

"Esmeralda," Robert said slowly, "Last night I dreamed..."

"Nothing about last night was a dream," Esmeralda interrupted him. "Two minutes ago, it still was last night."

"What?"

Esmeralda stood up. "Robert, you dreamed about the streetlights walking around?"

Robert's eyes went huge. He stood next to her.

"This is it." Esmeralda smiled. "We got across."

"Ho, there!" A voice called from somewhere up the field.

They turned and saw a tall woman walking toward them. She walked along the outside edge of the field, a big, white husky with dark fur over its feet padding happily at her side. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and bibbed overalls, a pipe stuck firmly in her mouth, though no smoke issued from it. The woman looked, to Esmeralda, about the same age as Esmeralda's father, or maybe just a bit younger.

"Who is it?" Robert asked as she approached.

"It's not Mr. Chandrasekhar."

"That dog is humongous," Robert said. "It doesn't have a collar or anything."

The two friends quieted as she came near. The woman stood with one hand in the big pocket of her denim overalls and the other scratching the husky's head. The woman and the dog both stared with piercing, grey eyes.

"Hello, children. Don't be scared," she said. "Name's Dorthea. This is my field here. Is everything all right? The road ends at the field. Got to go a mile east to pick it back up again. You got yourselves pretty far out from the City. Assume that's where you're comin' from, dressed the way you are. You kids lost?"

"Where are we?" Robert said, staring at the enormous dog at Dorthea's side.

"Well, right next to my field'd be the simplest answer. But, how did you get so you don't know where you are?" Dorthea asked.

"Is this Song?" Esmeralda asked.

Dorthea pressed her eyes together in a twinkling squint. "Is this Song? Where are you children from?"

  7. # 5. Song

Esmeralda and Robert tried for some time to tell Dorthea about the Largo, about Mr. Chandrasekhar, about Earth and about the seventh grade. She had never heard of any of it. Robert asked several times, between frustrating attempts at explanation, whether the husky had had its shots, and Dorthea had not heard of those either. After something like ten minutes of this rather fruitless conversation, Dorthea decided that they all should come back to her house and have a cold drink and figure it out there.

She took them through a little path in the sunflower field to a big, red barn house with a wrap-around porch and a tall apple tree stretching in the front yard. There were beds of flowers surrounding the base of the house and a stone path leading around back. On the porch, in a squeaky, red swing, sat an old man with white hair that flashed in the sun.

"What you got there?" he called out as they approached.

"Not quite sure," Dorthea said and turned to Esmeralda and Robert. "Kids, this is Pa, my daddy. You can call him Pa, doesn't matter how you were bred. Pa, this is Esmeralda, and this is Robert."

"Very good to meet you two," Pa said, a crooked smile on his face. "You from the City? Look it from your clothes. Where you headed to?"

Esmeralda liked Pa instantly. "We're headed to Song," she said.

Pa laughed. "Well, you can't get away from it. Not unless you try real hard. Dorthea, where'd you come across these two?"

"Out by the field," Dorthea said. "I was just walking Boots and seen these two out by the road."

"Got some lemonade inside if you want to sit 'em down. I got to wait out here for them crows to come back."

"Pa, what are you gonna' to do to them crows?" Dorthea asked, smiling.

A devious look entered Pa's eyes. "Smart bird, a crow is. Smartest, maybe. But them crows don't have any idea what's in store for 'em. Me and Boots mean business. Ain't that right, Boots?"

The dog barked, happily wagging his tail.

Dorthea took the kids into the house, past a living room full of old and comfortable-looking furniture with a fireplace on the far end. She seated them in the kitchen at a large, rectangular table hewn of dark wood, and brought out a pitcher of lemonade and three ceramic cups.

"I like your house," Esmeralda said.

"Yes," Robert echoed, "very rustic."

"It serves."

Esmeralda sipped the lemonade; it was delicious. Very clean tasting, yet sweet enough to be fun.

"Now." Dorthea set her own glass down. "We're out of the heat. We can talk. You say you are going to Song. You mean the City?"

"I guess," Esmeralda said, "what else could it be?"

"Well, that is a strange thing to be asking." Dorthea smiled. "But I suppose there is something more than a little strange about you two. Song is the city at the end of the road I found you two at. If you haven't been there, you should go. I am not a city girl myself, but I have to go there every now and then. Reminds me of certain things. But Song is also this entire country. This whole Land, as some still say. So, if you were looking for Song, you've found it."

"Oh," Esmeralda said. "Do you know Mr. Chandrasekhar?"

"Can't say as I do," Dorthea answered. "You looking for him?"

"He told us to come here. I think he probably lives in the City."

"Well," Dorthea said, "I guess the only thing to do is get you into Song and track this Mr. Chandrasekhar—that's a heck of a handle—down. I could take you in my carriage. It's a good fifteen miles. We set out now, we'll have a few hours before nightfall to look around the City."

"Carriage?" Robert was incredulous. "Like with horses?"

"One horse, yeah."

"You don't have a car?" Robert asked.

"Not sure I know what that is," Dorthea said happily.

Robert blinked his eyes behind his glasses. "An automobile. Like a carriage that goes by itself...without the horses."

Dorthea looked serious for the first time since Esmeralda had seen her. "Where exactly are you children from?"

"From Earth," Esmeralda said.

"You said that before," Dorthea answered. "And I'll tell you again that we all come from the ground and all have to return there. The only place I know of that has a lot of those kind of machines, the kind that move of their own will, is Alavariss. Could be there is a city called Earth in there."

Robert sighed heavily.

"We've never heard of Alavariss," Esmeralda said. "Is it near here?"

Dorthea smiled sadly. "Gets nearer every day. If you haven't heard of it, it's for the best."

Outside they heard a loud thump and a voice call out. "Here I come, ya black devils. I got somethin' for ya!"

Dorthea ran to the door with Esmeralda and Robert close behind. They burst onto the porch and looked out over the front lawn. Pa was running through the sunflowers nearest the front yard with a long plank of wood in his hand. He swatted the plank fruitlessly through the air, mumbling unintelligible bird curses. Several crows circled above the field, cawing now and then. Boots was somewhere out of sight, barking up a storm.

Dorthea ran off into the field. Pa did not want to give up the attack, even as most of the crows had flown off. He shouted a great deal at her about respect and other things. In the end, he came out of the sunflowers, though he refused to give up the plank of wood.

"Now, Pa, you've made a great fool of yourself in front of the kids here. We have to get Darius and the carriage. We're heading into the City," Dorthea said.

"Goin' up the road, huh," Pa said, still slightly out of breath. "If you see any good concoctions or ointments at the 'pothecary, pick 'em up for me."

"You won't go with us?" Esmeralda asked.

"No." Pa smiled. "Can't leave with all these crows and whatnot around. Hmm, truth be told, I don't get off the farm much these days."

"Okay, but we'll see you when we get back." Esmeralda smiled.

Dorthea went around to the back and brought up a huge, black horse pulling a little, wooden carriage.

"That's Darius," Pa said, eyes bright. "Strongest horse I ever had in my long years. He'll get you to the City and back a hundred thousand times. Guaranteed."

Esmeralda and Robert climbed in the carriage. Dorthea rode on top to direct the horse.

"You take Boots with ya," Pa called after them.

"You don't want him here with you?" Dorthea said.

"Nah." Pa pointed Boots into the carriage. "'Tween him and Darius, not a thing can go wrong with you all."

In this state they left, Esmeralda, Robert and Boots the humongous husky riding inside the carriage, with Dorthea on top driving Darius the horse. Esmeralda went almost immediately to sleep. Since coming through the Largo she had not slept, of course, and the craftsmanship of the tiny, wooden carriage was such that the ride over the dirt road was surprisingly smooth. The last thing she remembered seeing was Robert looking suspiciously at Boots's large, contentedly panting frame.

***

"Esmeralda." Robert's voice pulled her out of a dreamless sleep.

Esmeralda sat up, wiping her eyes. Robert was sitting across from her in the carriage, Boots curled up at his feet, resting peacefully.

"I think he likes you," Esmeralda said.

Robert looked down and scratched the dog's snowy head. "Yeah, he's alright. I'm convinced he won't eat me. My feet are sweating." Robert looked down at his oversized, grey snowboots. "You could have told me to bring different shoes."

"I didn't know what the weather was going to be like here!" Esmeralda smiled.

"Neither did I."

"What's going on?" Esmeralda asked.

Robert pointed to the window. "We're almost there. Look."

The road ran ahead of the carriage. Over the period Esmeralda had slept, it had gone from a quaint, little dirt path to a wide avenue fashioned of an unfamiliar, reddish stone. There were riders on all sides of the carriage, most on horseback, some on very large and ornate bicycles, often with multiple seats, from which trailed brightly colored flags. Esmeralda looked behind and saw they were followed by an elephant with a shining green harness wrapped around its head. The great creature, having space for many passengers, carried only one; atop rode a little girl holding the reigns in one hand and eating an apple with the other.

"What is all this?!" Esmeralda exclaimed, wide-eyed.

"I figured you'd want to be awake for it." Robert smiled.

Further in the distance, sun gleaming from its many surfaces, lay the City. Stretching out in all directions, it filled her vision with shimmering light. Most of the buildings were made of polished clay or brick, and sent warm beams off their organic flanks, as if the City shared duties with the sky in illuminating the landscape. There were many large towers, each seeming to be fashioned with an entirely different architectural philosophy. Some evoked feelings of different Earth cultures, and some were entirely alien. There were mammoth spires and little houses and some areas filled with simple tents. Around the borders of the City, teams of people were working on what looked like a defensive wall. It was not nearly finished, but what had been laid seemed dark and unnatural when compared with the City that breathed softly beyond. The road stretched past the wall to Song and the flags and towers of light within.

"You see it?" Dorthea called from her perch atop the carriage.

"I see it!" Esmeralda said, smiling.

The carriage picked up speed, passing a couple of people riding matching ostriches, and came through the half-finished gate. The interior of the City smelled like cinnamon and roses and people and baking bread and nectar and olive trees and all manner of unknown things.

The place vibrated with interior, bustling life. On either side of the road citizens went happily about their day's business. Everywhere Esmeralda's eyes fell there were different kinds of people, different colors of skin, different types of clothes. The air was thick with sound and laughter and the shrewd but good-natured haggling of market-goers.

Dorthea took the carriage off of the main thoroughfare to a smaller street that was lined with tall brick buildings. Above their heads, lines crisscrossed, holding drying clothes. Ahead on the left lay a large, sandy lot, nearly empty but for a few carriages and a group of stables at the far end.

Dorthea parked the carriage and stabled Darius in the back. Esmeralda, Robert and Boots climbed out of the carriage and took in the air of the City. It was mid-afternoon, the day still hot and pleasant.

"Where do we go?" Esmeralda asked.

"Not quite sure," Dorthea said. "You wouldn't happen to have a picture of this Mr. Chandrasekhar, would you?"

"No," Esmeralda said.

"'Fraid of that. We'll just have to ask around, I guess."

They set out across the yellow sand of the lot and onto the street, made a right turn at the intersection and stopped directly in front of the first shop. It was little more than a great deal of red cloth wrapped around sturdy bamboo poles. They were just about to move through the open entrance when Dorthea spotted something strange nailed to one of the bamboo supports.

"It's you!" Dorthea called out.

Esmeralda followed her gaze and saw a very accurate drawing of herself posted there.

"It's me," she said.

Under her picture, the poster read: "This girl is lost in the Shining City. Escort her to Shrine at once! REWARD OFFERED!"

"What does this mean?" Robert asked.

"Not exactly sure," Dorthea said. "Means somebody's expectin' you. I have seen the Shrine."

"What is it?"

Dorthea smiled. "A bright place. A peaceful place still. The very center of our Land, you might say. It's a great white tower, near as tall as the sky. You don't have to worry about going there. It's the safest place in the world."

***

The Tower shone—orange flame in the setting sun. The carriage ride to the center of the City took well over an hour with little traffic. Esmeralda looked and strained to memorize every street corner, every shop, every face she passed. The day fell sweetly into dusk as they approached the enormous monolith that the locals called Shrine and the gate and courtyard that waited below.

The carriage approached the impressive gate and was halted by two very large guards, one on either side, each wearing long dark-blue tunics with red symbols embroidered on the chest. They smiled with sincerity as they held the carriage for questioning, betraying behind the comfortable greetings great confidence and power.

"May I please know the nature of your business at Shrine?" The smaller of the two guards asked.

"First time I've ever seen guards posted at the White Tower," Dorthea said. "Seems awful strange."

"It is more than this." The guard's smile evaporated. "It is a tragedy in the Free City. But with the attacks and the growing fear of Alavariss..." The guard's eyes wandered into the carriage. He drew a sharp breath. "The girl. The Doppel."

Dorthea looked back into the carriage. Esmeralda smiled and waved.

The smaller guard began shouting orders to his counterpart. "Run ahead and tell the watch that the Doppel is entering Shrine. Notify Counselor Ran. She'll rouse Chandrasekhar."

The larger guard took off across the courtyard toward the Tower.

"Mr. Chandrasekhar!" Esmeralda lit up at the sound of the name.

The guard looked at her, considered saying something and thought better of it. He turned to Dorthea. "Please take your carriage across the courtyard. Disembark and enter through the red door. There is a chamber within. Wait there. You will be contacted."

The interior of the courtyard was filled with tall trees of a few different varieties. These were evenly spaced, and between them were several winding paths, adorned here and there by hedges or beds of flowers. Each tree carried leaves colored differently than the others and, though the travelers were too busy to notice, if they had stopped and stared a while, they would have seen that each leaf on each tree was slowly changing color, from bright red to blue, purple to gold, anything to anything. This happened to no other trees in Song. The locals called them Chameleon Trees.

The carriage flew over the lush courtyard; Darius seemed to sense the unrest and let it filter into his gait. The red door was over ten feet high and shaped in a wide arc, its face engraved in intricate designs. Dorthea leaped down from the carriage and pushed the door open with surprisingly little force.

Mr. Chandrasekhar was waiting on the other side.

Esmeralda jumped through the doorway. "Mr. Chandrasekhar!" she screamed and gave him a hug.

Mr. Chandrasekhar smiled, patting her on the back. "Here you may call me Raahi. You must. I am so glad you found your way."

"It wasn't easy," she said. "Robert almost got lost."

"Hi." Robert waved, clearly uncomfortable.

"Esmeralda?" Raahi looked surprised. "You brought your friend across?"

"I was afraid. A little. I was sort of concerned about what would happen," she said, trying to sound as tough as possible.

"If it makes you feel any better, I didn't really think anything would happen." Robert shrugged his shoulders. "I just figured one of you was nuts."

"Um," Raahi said, "are you comfortable, I mean, dressed like that?"

Robert looked down at his giant snowboots, pulled the collar of his striped pajamas, grimaced and shrugged. "My feet are hot. But I didn't, you know, this wasn't well planned."

Raahi smiled. "Many things are unplanned, but we go forward anyway."

Dorthea explained her role in bringing Esmeralda and Robert safely to Shrine, and Raahi gave her very warm thanks and congratulations. He led them across the chamber to a set of stairs. They went up one flight, through a sturdy oak door, and into a remarkably vast room. The walls were lined with row after row of bookshelves, and there were two tiers of balconies, each holding a countless number of books. At the room's center, across a sea of wooden tables, a series of statues—some of human beings, some of Turtles, some of other forms—was elegantly arranged around a fountain carved of white stone; the sound of gently trickling water bounced everywhere. Around the perimeter above the balconies, several stained glass windows let in ample natural light, some of which reflected off of the fountain's water, sending rippling radiance in all directions. As Raahi and the others entered, a group of kids, fifteen or so, were seated at a set of tables near the statues. In front of them, his head firmly planted in a huge, dusty book, was a silver-haired man of quite advanced age. Taking notice of the minute commotion caused by the newcomers, the old man looked for a moment across the room, sneezed twice, stood, and led the other kids out.

Raahi sat Esmeralda, Robert and Dorthea down at one of the tables. Boots, having dutifully followed everyone, sat on the floor and closed his eyes.

"Dorthea," Raahi said, taking a seat, "have you ever been to Shrine?"

"Never in the Tower, sir," Dorthea said.

"Why? This is a free city."

Dorthea smiled. "I run a farm, 'bout twenty miles out of town. Beautiful place. Sunflowers mostly, some corn and beans too. I have a little garden where I grow tomatoes and such. The Tower is a place where great things have happened, they say. Seems too big a place for me to puddle around in."

"Esmeralda," Raahi said, turning from Dorthea, "this is a place where many things are possible. Nearly anything. The reasons for that are not known to us. When the grandfathers of my grandfathers of my grandfathers came to this land, the Tower was already here. This Shrine is older than our histories and commemorates something we do not understand. Many people, even those who live near here in the City, feel like Dorthea. They don't come to Shrine. Or if they do, they stay in the courtyard."

"Why?" Robert jumped in.

"I have lived here all my life. One of the few, I was born here, raised in the ways of the Tower," Mr. Chandrasekhar said. "Watch this."

He grabbed a book from the nearest shelf. It had a dark black-leather binding. He set the book in the middle of the table and said, "red." The book turned a deep red, almost purple.

"How'd you do that?" Esmeralda said, eyes wide.

"Well, it's not that impressive," Robert said folding his arms. "I mean, ever heard of a mood ring?"

"Locket," Raahi whispered.

The book folded itself up many times and became a tiny, gold locket. Esmeralda picked it up, opened it and found inside a small picture of the City standing before sunrise.

"That's a little more impressive," Robert admitted.

Raahi inclined his head. "Thank you."

"It's magic," Esmeralda said. "The whole place is magic."

"No," Raahi corrected her rather sternly. "Or at least it's best not to call it that. I don't exactly understand what it means when people where you are from say the word magic. We do not have such a thing as 'magic' here. We have Music and Art and things that work or not. But no, not magic. In this room the books are very flexible. That's all."

"Okay," Esmeralda said, not really understanding.

"Now, let's move on to see the Counsel. They're waiting for you."

Raahi led them on across the expansive floor of the library and to a set of black doors. He pushed them apart, sliding them into the wall on either side. Beyond, there was an open shaft fashioned of smooth, bleached stone.

"The Counsel meets on the top of the Tower in the observatory. From there you can see a long, long way. It's half a mile of winding stairs to the top and we haven't nearly got the time to walk."

On the wall next to the door, a small clay disk about the size of a fist hung by a leather cord. Raahi grabbed this and put it to his lips. He blew a simple three-note song and waited. In a few moments, a large, wooden basket came humming up the shaft and into view, supported by nothing apparent save the air. Large enough for ten or so, the four travelers and the dog would fit comfortably inside.

"Um," Robert said, the last to climb in, "how exactly is this working?"

"I honestly couldn't tell you," Raahi said. "But it does work."

"That's very comforting," Robert said, closed his eyes and climbed into the obediently floating elevator.

They slowly ascended, the basket rising noiselessly past floor after floor of the enigmatic Shrine. The vertical journey ended with them rising through the final floor, onto a large circular platform with a domed ceiling about twelve feet overhead. This was supported by pillars spaced six feet apart, set around the outer edge of the floor. Between the pillars there was either very clear glass or nothing at all, giving the inhabitants of the observatory the distinct feeling that they were atop a gigantic tower with nothing to stop them from flying off into the growing night.

Boots barked nervously and stepped off the basket

"Heavens." Robert held his palm to his chest.

In the center of the observatory floor were seated thirteen people in a circle, each facing outwards and with their backs to one another, so that they faced in all directions to the City and the Land beyond. None of the Counselors made any indication that they noticed the newcomers.

"The Doppel." Raahi bowed low. "As I promised."

One of the Thirteen stood and came forward. She was dressed in a flowing, white gown with the most delicate lace around the neck and at the cuffs of the sleeves. Her hair was black with streaks of silver that fell over deep, dark, almond-shaped eyes. She was the most beautiful woman in Esmeralda's experience, save perhaps the memory of her mother.

"I am Speaker Han," The woman said. "I understand you have come a long way to see us."

"Yes," Esmeralda said timidly.

"Good. Journeys build strength." Speaker Han smiled elegance. "You are a very special little girl, and, though we did not know of him, your friend is a very special boy, and we are happy that he is here with you."

"Glad to be here," Robert awkwardly interrupted.

Speaker Han continued. "Do you know what a Doppel is?"

"No," Esmeralda said. "Everyone seems to think that is what I am."

"A Doppel is like another instance of a person. All the Worlds are linked, Esmeralda. They are linked by a membranous network that is beyond the wisdom of humanity to understand. We here, from this high platform, see but dimly the interwoven nature of the Worlds. Your Doppel is a princess in a place very different from Song. She lives in a Land called Alavariss. Have you heard that name before?"

"I have, yes," Esmeralda said. "Since coming here."

"Good. The princess is the focus of a very old prophetic song. It is about the girl and a flute, a very important flute. The name it wears to us is Ko. That is what we are calling this flute, though giving such a thing a name is almost silly. When the girl plays the flute correctly and in the correct mind, she will reveal the whereabouts of the new Engine of Worlds."

"What is that?" Esmeralda asked.

"A turtle." Speaker Han smiled. "We have been expecting the birth of a new Great Turtle for more than half a thousand years now. It is time very soon. We need you to be the princess at Alavariss, take back the flute, and play it. We believe only you can play it correctly."

Esmeralda stared, confused.

"My friend, Counselor Judah, will help you to understand with a song. Please sit." Speaker Han pointed to four chairs that no one noticed when first stepping off the elevator.

Counselor Judah left his position in the circle and sat in front of the four travelers, crossing his legs on the floor. In his hands he held a small lute with strings that caught the silver moon and flashed its light into Esmeralda's eyes. He held the instrument delicately, as if it might turn to dust at any moment, positioned his fingers just so, and started to play.

"Listen," Speaker Han whispered.

Esmeralda closed her eyes and whisked off into the air, out of the observatory, and over the City. She opened her eyes, frightened, and found herself in her seat. Speaker Han smiled. Esmeralda closed her eyes again and the vision of flying through the air returned. She went off the observatory, over the courtyard and the rows of trees and gardens within. She flew over half of the City, dodging the jutting spires of its many carefully erected buildings and soaring over avenues filled with those returning home for quiet evenings or rambunctious parties. She swept over the incomplete far wall; underneath her snaked a road, and upon it, not a full-blown exodus, but a thick stream of people traveled in the same direction: away from Song. She moved past them, flying at incredible speed and feeling no wind, nor any body of her own. She soared over fields and hills full of growing food and forests with silvered leaves glimmering in the moonlight.

Soon the land became less green and filled up with rocky hills and short, scraggly trees that grew sideways instead of toward the stars. The surroundings became ever more dark and shadowy, the moonlight choked out of the air by some inexplicable haze. In the distance a new city grew. It was full of irregular, black shapes, and around these huge, silent teeth a darkling, green glow spread. Esmeralda looked out at it, at the noisome smoke rolling around the city's knees and the angry monoliths that rejected the silver moon, and knew she did not want to go there. Against her wishes, she flew on.

She shot over the gigantic iron border of the city, a series of fences with horribly serrated fangs that would break anyone attempting to cross. She flew over grimy streets full of strange, angular vehicles with many crawling legs, like spiders. Within them, people with strangely aged eyes stared out after unknown objectives. She flew up and across the city until she zipped through the window of a high balcony in a sprawling, black palace. Within, seated in front of a mirror, pulling a comb through long, exactingly-styled hair, was Esmeralda. Or, if it was not her, it was a twin sister she had never known. The girl wore a long satin gown, with high shoulder pads and frills throughout the skirt. Her hair was held in place by a jewel-encrusted tiara, and each of her fingers supported a ring. The girl smiled at herself in the mirror. Esmeralda flew across the room and through the door into the palace, went down a hallway, down a flight of stairs, through several spacious foyers, until she reached a huge entrance. She then turned and followed exactly the same path, ending at the princess's bedchamber.

Esmeralda flew out the balcony window and went over top of the palace roof. Beyond lay a series of gigantic cages. There were thirteen in all, though only ten were occupied, their bars fashioned of pitted, black iron that glowed sickly green. The occupants of these cages were turtles, each the size of a small mountain. They looked like sea turtles, their flippers bound with thick black cords that ran over the backs of their shells and to the iron bars of the cage. Each turtle was fitted with a dark mask with two round fixtures placed over their eyes. From these ran several tubes, each of which flowed into a long black pillar raised in front of the row of bars. The tubes twitched at intervals, and a high whining noise filled the air. The noise grew in intensity until it became too great to bear.

Esmeralda opened her eyes.

"What was that?" she said.

Robert put his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him. He had seen the same thing.

Raahi stood from his chair. He knelt in front of Esmeralda and Robert. "The Turtles are bound up with the Largo and the substance of all of the Worlds. The rulers of Alavariss, for centuries upon centuries now, have been capturing the Great Turtles and using their nature for their own purposes. They have taken, we believe, all but two of the Great Turtles now living. And they mean to find the next to be born."

Dorthea's face was flushed with anger. "Alavariss," she said coldly.

"Why are their eyes covered?" Robert asked.

"They collect the tears," Speaker Han said simply. "The liquor holds great power. There is very little that cannot be made or improved with the tears of a Great Turtle. The Alavarisians have hoarded rivers of them."

"How can we get there?" Esmeralda said, a sudden anger in her voice. "How can we stop them? I want to stop them."

"Entering the city is easy," Raahi said. "Do you remember seeing all of those people leaving Song?"

"Yes," Robert answered. "Where were they all going?"

"There are always people leaving the Shining City these days," Raahi said quietly. "They are going to Alavariss."

"But why?" Esmeralda was distraught. "Why would they leave here to go there? It's a terrible place. It's terrible."

Raahi shook his head. "Some say it is the call of the Great Turtles, that some of us cannot bear to be separated from such a concentration of their wondrousness, even when housed in such tragedy. Some, of course, simply choose that path to take; Alavariss makes sense to them. Whatever their reasons, Alavariss takes them, takes everyone, being greedy for cogs in its machines. Getting into Alavariss will be easy. The gates will swing wide for us. The problem will be with you."

"What do you mean?" Esmeralda asked.

Raahi smiled. "Have you ever worn a tiara?"
  8. # 6. The Princess Switch.

Princess Yaris yawned. She had brushed her hair three hundred and thirteen times, which seemed appropriate considering her recent birthday. Soon her house-slave Mr. Penrose would come in and tell her that it was time to try the flute again. Every night since she could remember she had put that awful thing to her lips and failed to make it sing. What was the point anyway? The thought of Mr. Penrose and his slimy, little eyes coming in her room tonight filled her with contempt. Earlier that morning, he brought her tea with only two sugars. She knew it was only two sugars. It was horrible. She thought she would come up with an excuse to have him fired tomorrow, maybe thrown in one of the dungeons. Princess Yaris smiled.

She went back to brushing her hair, thinking another three hundred and thirteen strokes might be in order, when she heard the strangest sound, unlike anything she had heard before. It was high and smooth and somehow found its way deep into her chest. Yaris stood up and went to the window. She couldn't see what made the noise, but could tell the direction. She began to itch all over. She tried to scratch the itch, but couldn't cover enough area to soothe it at all. The sound had something to do with all this. She felt an incredible burning desire to find whatever was making that sound. She had to have it.

She went to her third closet and pulled out the rope ladder she used for sneaking out the window. Yaris snuck out of the palace all the time, usually to set little fires in the courtyard. On dry nights they would grow and grow, and the princess could climb back into her room and watch the palace slaves running around tossing water on the flames. Tonight, she slung the ladder and climbed down much more quickly than usual.

Princess Yaris crossed the courtyard, not noticing or caring that the hem of her skirt picked up a few stains. She found the section of the out-fence with the loose bars and slid her way through. She knew the sentries' schedule by heart; they wouldn't be passing this way for another ten minutes. Outside the palace grounds, she closed her eyes and, finding the sound tantalizingly close, broke into a run.

She ran across the stony ground—the area around the palace was always deserted—and in the distance spied a ramshackle carriage with an ugly, brown tent pitched next to it. The sound seemed to be coming from the tent.

She walked up, grabbed the thick brown material and shook it vigorously. "Come out now!" she yelled.

The music stopped, and out from the tent came a tall man wearing a hooded black cloak. In his hand he held a wooden flute with silver buttons.

Princess Yaris felt very strange when the music died out. "What is this?" she said. "I demand to know."

"I'm sorry," Raahi said, placing his flute in his robe, "but you are about to be horribly inconvenienced."

Esmeralda and Robert stepped down out of the carriage. Princess Yaris's eyes went wide. The girl before her wore exactly the same clothing, same jewelry...didn't have the hair quite right. They were near mirror images of each other.

"Hi," Robert said, trying to break the ice.

Princess Yaris screamed with her whole body. The wake of wailing washed over Esmeralda and Robert. Dorthea came from somewhere beyond the tent and slapped Princess Yaris across the face. The girl stopped screaming momentarily, staring up with the most shocked expression. Dorthea smiled. Princess Yaris opened her mouth and screamed louder than ought to have been humanly possible.

Raahi put his flute to his lips; Esmeralda and Dorthea put their fingers to their ears. He played a short, forceful song, and on the last note of it, Princess Yaris fell backward, eyes closed.

"I may be deaf." Robert shook his head.

"Quite a scream on her," Dorthea said, binding the sleeping girl's hands.

"Alright," Raahi said, serious, "there are sentries posted nearby. We need to be quick."

"I'm ready," Esmeralda said.

Raahi smiled. "I know you are. Remember everything we told you about behaving like the princess. Concentrate on the palace maps we showed you and your vision of the path to the bedchamber. The way is simple. Do not smile overmuch, and do not be kind to anyone you meet. Not even, Song forbid it, should you meet the Emperor."

"I know. I'll remember everything," Esmeralda promised. She gave everyone a quick hug, turned and ran off through the dark toward the palace, alone.

***

She knew there would be a large, imposing gate at the head of the palace. She knew there would be many guards posted there and that, seeing her, they would stand at attention, that she would command their fear. She approached the gate, careful to hold her head high and not make eye contact with any of the guards. Raahi had been adamant about this.

"Princess Yaris!" A man wearing a thick metallic mask walked up from the gate and knelt in front of the princess. "What has befallen? Why are you outside the gate?"

Esmeralda took a deep breath, looked over the sentry's kneeling frame. "I am outside the gate because I want to be, slave! Open. Now. I am expected within. I haven't played Ko yet tonight."

"Yes, princess." The sentry rose, backed away and turned a huge iron crank; the gate swung wide.

The Black Palace loomed monstrous across the court. Its black walls, smooth as a still pond, echoed her footsteps as she ran across the stone path to the open doors. Once in the palace, Esmeralda was accosted by a number of deeply concerned people in clean, white uniforms. They fussed horribly over her, checking her for bruises and cuts, asking all sorts of strange and unnecessary questions. Someone tried to redo her hair, while a man with a long nose and broken spectacles examined the hem of her gown.

"Stop!" Esmeralda said, trying to sound as snotty as possible. "I have to go to the flute Ko. Let me be!"

The servants each stopped what they were doing and kneeled down, staring at the floor. Esmeralda left them and headed for the stairs leading to the princess's bedchamber on the other side of the palace.

She walked through two rooms filled with fine furniture and gold fixtures. It seemed every place she looked there were diamond chandeliers and ostentatious fireplaces. The palace appeared populated only by servants, all impeccably dressed in white uniforms. They all had dark, weary eyes and bent backs. None smiled. She reached the staircase that led to the princess's bedchamber and began to ascend.

"Yaris." A voice called from behind her.

Esmeralda turned and saw a spider of a man dressed entirely in black; he supported a shock of ebony hair, white at the temples, and wore a pair of round, smoked spectacles. This was Marshal Thoth, chief of the Emperor's "miscellaneous" affairs. Raahi had shown Esmeralda his picture and told her to try, if at all possible, to avoid him.

"Madam, your father craves a word." Thoth said in a dry and cracking voice.

"I have to get..."

"Now, now, now. Only now will do." Thoth took Esmeralda by the arm and began to lead her quickly toward a golden door at the far end of the room.

"I am the Princess!" Esmeralda wailed. "I need take no orders from you!"

"You are the Princess; your father is the Emperor." Thoth's smile dripped acid. "Your orders come from Harao. Just like everyone else's."

Harao. The name was seldom used anywhere within the borders of Song. He was the Emperor and that was enough. Such a thing had no need of something so personal as a name. The Emperor, the Green Hand, Lord of Wolves and Panthers—these he was called. But seldom his name was used. How could such a one as this acquire a name? What mother would give it to him?

Thoth led Esmeralda through several turns and down several strange hallways. She had not studied much more than the route from the main palace gate to the princess's bed chamber, and she was at this point hopelessly lost. The Palace was one gilded hallway and marble-floored atrium after another. Each more useless than the next. They walked through giant doors leading to giant rooms without occupants. The only people Esmeralda saw were a few huddled and frightened servants, all of whom avoided looking her in the face. The place was not beautiful, even though it was meant to be so, not dark on the inside as were its intimidating exterior walls. Meant to be bright and glittering and impressive, the palace's innards were morbid, rotten.

Eventually, they crossed the circular floor of a very large atrium that had a pair of floor-to-ceiling doors at one end upon which was carved a complex symbol in green. The Royal Seal. Stationed about the circumference of the atrium and on either side of the doors were sentries wearing polished, metallic masks. Their eyes were obscured—shadows—and they seemed in this state to be without souls.

Thoth rapped on one of the great doors and looked down at Esmeralda. "Well, I have delivered you. Now he can do with you as he wishes."

"What is going on in there?" Esmeralda said more timidly than she might have.

"The same thing that happens every night." Thoth looked at her strangely. "Celebration."

The door opened from the inside revealing a world of color, scent, and sound. The room pulsed and churned with extravagantly clothed bodies, each engaged in bizarre frivolity. Clowns on stilts breathed fire over the heads of dancers, acrobats, jugglers and magicians—all performing at once over the expansive floor of the banquet hall. The place was awash in course laughter and the occasional, shouted vulgarism. Huge, black cats—panthers—prowled about, all their potential menace ignored by the banqueters. At the far side of the room, across that ocean of spectacle, a great rectangular table spread nearly from wall to wall. On either side of the central seat were a number of women, fierce eyed, all dressed identically in green and black. Esmeralda knew the collective name for these women: the Attendants. They were guardians of the highest caliber. The most dangerous people in the world. Each focused on the center of the table, their sharp eyes watching for the slightest hint of displeasure or desire from what was seated there.

The Emperor. He was cloaked in darkness embroidered in gold. His right hand was gloved green, and in it he held a scepter with a huge emerald at its head. He was very thin, his gaunt face incongruent with the surrounding excess. Also, Esmeralda noticed that, though this seemed to be a banquet, no food was placed in front of the Emperor. Neither did the Attendants to either side of him have anything to eat. Perhaps they had just finished.

"Finally!" The Emperor's voice was a bitter sizzle high and low at once. He held up his green-gloved hand and the hall fell completely silent. Motionless. "Daughter dearest, nearest my heart, where have you been?" The Emperor smiled from the mouth down; his eyes were set in stone. His teeth were perfectly aligned and blindingly white.

Esmeralda hesitated.

"Can you not speak?" he shouted. "Do you have no memory in that head of yours? Can you tell me where you have been this very night?"

"Outside," Esmeralda managed to say.

"Come here." The Emperor motioned to the area directly in front of the table.

Esmeralda began to move across the crowded room. As she approached the mass of performers, they made a path, slinking to either side. Each held his or her head down so that Esmeralda saw none of their eyes. She could not get a sense of whether they felt sorry for her, whether they would be mocking her under their breath, or whether—and this seemed the most likely—they were simply going through the motions because this kind of thing happened all the time. She caught the eyes of one of the panthers, lying now on its side and staring up at her, the only moving thing in the room. Esmeralda noticed an emptiness behind the yellow eyes of the beast. Or, if it was not emptiness, it may have been what remained of its wild and true past, the remnant of the broad days when it roamed and hunted and was free. She felt a deep sympathy for the panther, probably once beautiful and fierce, now so deflated, so weary.

"You look enchanting this evening," the Emperor said as she approached the table.

"Thank you," Esmeralda answered quickly.

"Very polite this evening too." The Emperor scraped his long, black thumbnail across his jawline. "You've been out setting fires?"

"No, father." Esmeralda found it difficult to look the Emperor in the face. "None were found."

"The Watch hasn't reported back yet. How would you know whether any fires were found out there?"

Esmeralda answered quickly, instinctively. "Because I did not set any."

The Emperor's face darkened a moment. "Where is the flute?" he spat.

"In my bedchamber. Where it always is."

"Wonderful. Are you going to serenade us tonight? Are you going to perform your usual concert of silent stupidity?"

"I will try," Esmeralda said. "I know it never plays, but I can try again."

"It never plays? No. You never play it." The Emperor's face was thick with disdain. "Because you are a failure. And what is this groveling, weak-stomached tone from you tonight? What has gotten into you?" He faced the Attendant immediately to his right. "Not one week ago, this diffident girl before us tells me, to my face, she will pull out my heart someday. Took more than a few lashes for that. But today it's all respectful deference." He looked at Esmeralda. "Tell me, do you not still hate your father?"

"I just might," she said.

The Emperor's smile was nearly sincere. "And my heart? You think you'll pull it out?"

"Someday."

The Emperor raised his scepter high into the air and slammed its emerald head into the table. Thunder rippled through the room, and a burst of green light wrapped around his dark form for an instant. The entertainers, instantly on their knees, cowered on the floor behind Esmeralda, while the Attendants leaped to their feet, drew short, straight knives—one for each hand—and waited on the word of their master.

"That's a little more like it! Get to your room," the Emperor said. "Get that trinket from its case and come back here. There is something I don't like about you tonight. Something in your scent. You come directly back. On the quick. I may have some questions...deeper questions for you."

As Esmeralda turned to leave, the Emperor called out. "Thoth, escort my daughter. See to it she finds her way back here. And, of course, that she doesn't get lost between here and her room."

She walked quickly out of the oversized doors with Thoth close behind her. What could the Emperor have meant? She feared the worst, that everyone already knew she was an impostor. They had spies in Song, in the Counsel. They were playing with her and would soon give up the game. But how could they know? The Emperor had many powers, but he was not omniscient. Spies in Song? Was such a thing possible?

Thoth walked beside her without speaking a word. His face and demeanor were empty of emotion; she could only place her anxieties there and wait to see if they were made real. When they reached the door to the bedchamber, he motioned silently for her to enter and stood outside as the door closed, his face still blank and bleached of purpose.

Esmeralda found herself alone in a room full of fine silk pillows and golden trinkets of all kinds. The ceiling was about fifteen feet high, and from its center hung a shimmering, crystal chandelier. She looked around, unsure of where the flute would be hidden.

There was a knock at the door.

"Hello?" Esmeralda called, uncertain.

"It's Mr. Penrose, Highness," A muffled male voice called from opposite the door. "May I enter?"

"Enter," Esmeralda said.

The door swung wide, and a tiny old man with no hair and a bent back stepped through. He wore a clean, white uniform, almost like a tuxedo, and white gloves. His eyes were watery and didn't seem to focus well. When he spoke, his droopy jowls bounced in the air.

"Highness, you are requested to bring the flute down to the throne room. Your father wishes to hear you attempt to play."

"I know," Esmeralda said quickly. "Thoth is waiting outside to escort me to the banquet hall."

Mr. Penrose bowed low. "Of course, princess. I wouldn't presume to know something that you don't. Your blood commands absolute superiority of knowledge over me. I only hope to remind you, so that you stay in the favor of our great lord the Emperor."

Mr. Penrose had the saddest voice Esmeralda had ever heard. He stared at the ground when he spoke to her; the heavy lids of his eyes twitched as she spoke.

"Mr. Penrose, where is the flute Ko?"

"Why, here in your bedchamber, Highness. Where it has been for some thirteen years now."

Esmeralda desperately wanted to be nice to this very weary man. She wanted to make him young and healthy again, to restore everything that had been taken from him throughout the cruel days of his life serving the Emperor. "I know," she said much too sweetly to be pretending to be the princess, "but where in the room is it? I can't remember."

Mr. Penrose looked at her curiously for a moment, seemed to remember something and pushed his eyes to the floor. He walked across the room and opened a closet that held a rectangular glass case. Under the glass a long crystal flute lay—silent and clear as clean water.

"Ko, your Highness."

"It's beautiful." Esmeralda momentarily forgot the role she was playing. "Would you like to pick it up?"

"Highness?" Mr. Penrose said, confused.

"Have you ever held it?" Esmeralda asked.

"Of course I haven't, your Highness. I..." A suspicious look crossed Mr. Penrose's face. "Do you wish in some way to test me, your Highness? I pledge my service and fealty to you and the Emperor."

Mr. Penrose kneeled slowly on his aging and uncooperative knees. Esmeralda ran over to him.

"No," she said. "I just thought you might like to see it."

She opened the glass case and removed the flute. It was as light as air. She held it out to Mr. Penrose, and he slowly took it.

He looked up at her, his already watery eyes welling with tears. "What has come over you, Highness?"

"I don't know," Esmeralda said.

Mr. Penrose placed the flute down and stood, brushing off the front of his pants. He ignored the water on his cheeks, perhaps in an effort to forget that it was there. "Thank you, Highness. That was...strange. Now I will leave you, if that is alright. Only please head quickly to the banquet hall. Your father expects you."

Mr. Penrose hurried out of the room. Esmeralda watched him go.

She knelt down and picked up the flute, its crystal skin warm in her hands. The room filled with a thousand whispers as she did, all without enunciation and in the same voice. She strained her ears, but made out no words.

"Hello," she said.

The whispering ceased.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Are you Ko?" Esmeralda waited. No response came.

A flash at the window. She held the flute close to her chest and went to inspect the disturbance. The palace courtyard had been infiltrated by twenty or so scurrying black figures, each carrying long, curved blades that blinked firelight as they ran. Behind them, the palace fence was missing an eight-foot section. Small fires were spreading throughout the area. Alavariss was a dry land.

The dark figures tore with amazing speed across the courtyard. They leaped onto the walls and by some unknown means began to scale the slick, black façade like lizards. They all seemed to be heading for Esmeralda's window. Horrified, she ran to the closet containing Ko's empty case and squeezed inside, clutching the flute to her chest. Outside, she heard heavy forms climbing into the room. She tried to calm her trembling hands, to regulate her breath.

Sounds of snuffling and heavy panting filtered through the door, as if a great greedy wolf was searching the room. Esmeralda sat in the dark, hoping it would pass her by, or that perhaps it wasn't looking for her at all and would soon exit into the palace beyond.

The closet door swung wide. On the other side, a thing stood on two legs, staring down. It might have been a man, if not for the slivers of crimson it had for eyes, and if not for its strange, angular cheeks and wolf's nose. It grabbed Esmeralda and dragged her out of the closet. She struggled in the creature's grasp, tearing her gown and falling to the floor.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed.

It shuffled toward her; she kicked at its legs. "Go away."

Thoth burst through the door and headed straight for the beast. He held a short sword confidently and called out with a steady, emotionless voice. "Let her go!"

The creature leaped. Spinning to his left, Thoth struck out at the same time with the blade, sinking it deeply into the creature's side. Unfazed, it grabbed at Thoth's throat. Without a blink, Thoth pulled the knife from the thing's rib and cut it across the wrist and the throat in two quick motions; Thoth then took a hop backward and kicked the creature squarely in the chest, sending it out the window. Esmeralda looked up at the man standing in the center of the room; he was not even breathing hard.

"Let's go," Thoth said, holding out his hand.

Four more of the creatures burst through the window in quick succession. Thoth attacked, made quick work of the nearest of them, but he was soon overwhelmed. One of them tossed him across the room as if he weighed nothing, his face deeply clawed in the process.

Esmeralda screamed.

The nearest creature let out a frustrated growl and reached into a pouch that hung at its hip. It flung a thick, yellow powder into Esmeralda's face. She quickly sneezed once and began to feel very dizzy. She was lifted up and stuffed under the arm of the powerful beast. Across the room, she saw Thoth's newly-wounded face, twisted by rage and helplessness.

Darkness took her.
  9. # 7. Yaris, Robert and Unfortunate News.

"You really can stop screaming any time," Robert said.

Princess Yaris was seated in a wooden chair in the corner of the dingy, little room. Her hands and feet had to be bound, though they all agreed that gagging her would be cruel. Robert wondered about the true definition of cruelty. The travelers had holed up in a tiny ramshackle building in one of the slums of Alavariss immediately west of the palace. The street was full of bleak chatter and shifting eyes searching for pockets to pick. Dorthea and Raahi sat at a table at the far end of the room. Down the hall, three of the Elite Guard, Song's best soldiers, busied themselves in different ways. Robert stared at Yaris.

"I'm thirsty," she snipped, momentarily halting the screams.

"Would you like a glass of water?" Robert asked.

"No, I wouldn't. Slave. I would like a glass of apple wine. We keep it in my father's cellars at the palace. The good bottles have been aged hundreds of years."

Robert called over to Raahi. "Do we have any apple wine, aged hundreds of years?"

"No."

Robert shrugged his shoulders. "I guess water is all we have for you."

"Your Highness," Yaris said.

"What?"

"When you speak to me, you must address me as your Highness." Yaris raised her right eyebrow and stared imperiously.

"I don't think I am going to do that." Robert smiled.

"Ugh," Yaris groaned, "how can you be so pathetic and stupid? Don't you people know what will happen to you once my father finds that I am gone?"

"What's that?" Robert asked.

Yaris smiled pearls. Her eyes lit up. "He's going to hunt you all down like animals. Like worthless dogs. He'll have you sent to the gallows at the center of Alavariss. Everyone in the city will assemble in the square; even the dungeons will be emptied for your execution. You'll be beaten for hours, for days, and, at the end, my father will allow me the honor of giving you a tiny kiss before the noose drops."

Robert looked her in the eyes. She flinched a little. She was afraid. He could see it somehow, as clear as day. This was the most frightening moment in her life. "No one is going to hurt you," he said slowly. "You are going to be returned to your home soon. You don't need to be scared."

Yaris's eyes went huge, and she drew a sharp breath. "Slave!" she screamed. "None of you had better even dream of hurting me. I am Princess of all Alavariss. My father is Emperor of the World. Slave! You think you have a right to look me in the face? I am heir to the Green Throne, holder of Ko. You should kneel down..."

Yaris began to cry; the words sloppily ran together.

"...beg for forgiveness, and I, I, may only send you to the dungeons and the dark for the rest of your ugly, little life. My father is a god among men. My mother was the fairest woman ever to hold breath. I am, I am, I am..."

Yaris closed her eyes and sobbed slowly.

Robert got up and left. He felt strangely sorry for her. Dorthea and Raahi were so deep in conversation that they had hardly noticed Yaris's little outburst. He decided not to disturb them. He went down the hall to see what the soldiers were doing. There were three of them all dressed as Alavarisian peasants. They had assembled in a large room in the back of the building and were practicing some form of hand-to-hand combat. Two of the guards attacked the third. He was a bit larger than the others and had tremendous skills. Raahi had called him captain earlier. His head was completely shaved, his dark skin tight over the back of his skull. The two attacked from opposite directions, there was a great flurry of activity, too quick to sort out, and the attackers went flying. The captain rolled his shoulders and motioned for them to begin again.

Robert sat and watched them go through several of these encounters, the captain always soundly deflecting his attackers. After a while, he noticed Robert standing in the doorway and stopped the exercise.

"Hello, young man," the captain said. "You want to try?"

Robert swallowed. "Oh no, sir, I don't think so. Looks rather, uh, involved, and I have shaky knees, you know. Never had the knees for fist fights. My father says bad knees run in my family. He can hardly play squash. But, hey, look at me, I'm rambling. No. I mean no, I'll leave it to you."

The captain smiled. "My name is Ngare. My friends here are learning the humility that accompanies loss to their betters. What we are doing is not so difficult. Come here."

Robert walked forward, incredibly uncomfortable. "Should I remove my glasses? They're pretty expensive. Last year, I broke my glasses playing chess."

Ngare ignored him. He went over to a large duffel bag sitting by the wall and pulled out a long, wooden staff. "This is a bo. You use it to convince your opponent that he has made an error in judgment. Here."

Robert took the piece of wood in his right hand. "Not as heavy as it looks."

Ngare patted his shoulder. "That is because you are so strong."

"Must be it." Robert chuckled.

Ngare stood before him. "Now, we are good men, good soldiers, so we rarely have to attack. We are not aggressors. You must learn then how to defend first. Let us say that I am me and you are you."

"Got it," Robert said.

"Now if I run up on you..." Ngare moved quickly toward Robert, grabbing the end of the staff. "Okay, wait. Open your eyes."

Robert did so. "Sorry. Got nervous, I guess."

"Well, you can't defend yourself if you will not look at your opponent. Here..."

Ngare proceeded to show Robert all sorts of things about how to hold his feet and where to put his hands on the staff. Robert felt that his progress was dreadfully slow, but even when the other Elite Guard left the room for boredom, Ngare took no notice and continued his instruction. Robert was strangely conflicted at learning something so physical; on the one hand he was sure he was doing terribly, but on the other, he feared he was really enjoying himself. Ngare taught him that all aggressors make themselves vulnerable, that it is easiest to defend and that a good defense will crush a superior attack.

"Alright, wait here," Ngare said, leaving the room.

He returned with one of the other soldiers. A stocky, sharp-eyed man, he walked with a certain sureness of gait that Robert found unsettling.

"Sir?" The man regarded his captain.

"I want you to attack Robert," Ngare said.

"Oh no!" Robert blurted. "That isn't necessary. I mean, I appreciate everything you are doing for me here, but attacking is not, I mean, shouldn't I earn some kind of a belt first or something?"

"Get ready." Ngare's voice was stern.

Robert hurried to put his feet in the right position. He flexed his hands against the wood of the staff. It felt warm against his palms. He rolled his shoulders, just as Ngare had, and narrowed his gaze at the attacker. The air in his lungs was electricity.

"Ready," Robert said.

The soldier took three deep breaths and shot across the room, hands raised in attack position. Robert concentrated on the lesson Ngare had given him. He had to kneel as the attacker came forward, placing the length of wood just so. Patiently, he dipped low, swinging the staff against the knees of his opponent, and in one quick thrust rose up to his full height, lifting the staff as high as possible over his head. The soldier let out a surprised scream as his feet left the floor.

Robert was laughing. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it felt right. "Oh, that was...tense. Ngare, did you see it?"

"Yes, of course I saw it. Very good," Ngare said. "Remember to set your feet. Once you decide where to make your stand, you must be resolute."

"I will," Robert said.

Yaris's screams erupted again down the hall. All three men groaned.

Sensing his lesson had ended, Robert went to see what the bother was. Raahi sat in front of the princess, holding a plate of food in one hand and a spoon in the other. It appeared that he had attempted to feed Yaris.

"Are you mad?" the princess shrieked horribly.

"Oh, Raahi," Robert said in disbelief.

Raahi looked up at the newcomer. "We tried unbinding her hands, but she just threw food everywhere. Look."

He pointed to Dorthea. The front of her overalls was stained with a dark substance.

"Yaris, come on," Robert said. "Are you hungry or what?"

She screamed. No words, just ear-splitting sound.

"Oh, my." Raahi stood up and backed across the room, shaking his head.

Robert held his hands up in a defensive gesture. "It's like I've got vertigo."

Yaris's face flushed as the air, laced with horrible sound, escaped her body. She held a high and quivering note for a period that felt like hours. And finally, having, banshee-style, screamed longer than previously thought humanly possible, she took a huge breath.

"What kind of food is it anyway?" she asked quietly.

"It's veggie chili," Raahi said. "Dorthea's recipe. It's delicious. Please."

Yaris opened her mouth. Raahi gave her a bite. She slowly chewed, thoughtfully appraising.

"Passable," Yaris said curtly. "Slave food...but passable."

"Passable," Raahi said, spoon in hand. "Well, try to pass another bite."

There was a knock at the door.

Ngare came running up from the back, a short blade in his right hand. He motioned everyone to the back of the room, crouched low behind the door and returned the knock. Three strikes. From the other side, a voice said: "The Land at peace sings."

Ngare swung wide the door, revealing a woman in tattered, black robes holding her side in obvious pain. She walked shakily into the room and found an unoccupied chair.

"I'm so sorry, sir," she said. "Completely unexpected. They weren't in great numbers, but they caught the Alavarisian sentinels completely by surprise. We only had a few Elites watching the gate...they...I'm sorry sir."

Ngare focused his deep, black eyes on the distraught guard. "Speak plainly. What happened?"

"They used a blasting powder of magnificent strength. Put a hole in the fence. No one ever bold enough to attack the Palace itself; they weren't expecting it..."

Ngare knelt down so that he was eye-level with her. "Tell me."

"The Phoon. The Dark Ones. They took her. They took the Doppel."

"Impossible," Raahi said, breathless.

"I fought them. I saw their eyes. The Phoon. They swept in with a small garrison. About twenty-five. They took the fence out and went straight for the princess's bedchamber. She was the purpose of the attack, there can be no doubt. They..."—the wounded Guardian shifted her position, groaned a little for the pain—"...took her and created a horrible smoke. The haze covered their retreat. I don't think even the Palace Watch could track their escape."

"Oh, save us," Dorthea said.

"What does this mean?" Robert asked.

Raahi looked at him, unable to say anything.

Princess Yaris chortled. "It means I left on a good day."

Dorthea walked across the room, sending Yaris a hateful look. She grabbed Robert by the arm and took him down the hall.

"It's best we leave certain talk to the higher-ups," she said when they were alone. "Besides, I just might put that pissy little girl through a wall, she keeps talking the way she does."

"What's going on?" Robert asked. "Is Esmeralda safe?"

Dorthea looked at him kindly. "If what they're saying in there is true, then no, she isn't safe at all."

Robert strongly suppressed an annoying urge to cry. "What are the Phoon?"

"Bad things. I only know the word from stories. The kind of stories you tell little kids and afterward they can't sleep at night. The Phoon are like human people but gone wrong somehow. They live in a wild country outside Alavariss. No one knows what they are or what they want or even where they come from."

"Will they kill Esmeralda?" Robert asked.

Dorthea took a sharp breath. "I don't know. I haven't ever heard of them doing what they've done tonight. Way I figure it, one little girl would be just like any other to one of them."

"What can we do?" Robert asked.

***

In the next room, deliberations became heated.

"We have to track them," Ngare declared for the third time.

"But we must inform the Counsel," Raahi countered. "The child and Dorthea cannot be put in the kind of danger such a mission entails. I was adamant that they shouldn't be brought even here."

"So was I," Ngare said.

"I know," Raahi agreed, "but the Counsel sees far, and they insisted that Robert and Dorthea belonged with us."

Ngare sneered. "And what good have they done? They are fine souls with much music between them, but now they hold us back. Can they be left behind?"

Raahi thought. "To the ravages of Alavariss alone? No, if left too long, they would develop the sickness of the Black City and never make their way out."

"What then?" Ngare said.

"They'll have to make the escape with us. We'll send word by hawk to Shrine that things have gone terribly wrong."

"Can we take them to the wilderness?" Ngare was skeptical.

"If we fly fast enough we may overtake the Phoon in the pass at the Narlith Mountains west of Alavariss. There we can try to effect rescue."

"And if we cannot?"

"I don't know. I guess they could camp by the mountain, outside the wilderness, as we enter to engage the Phoon."

"Not a very safe position. We will be closely followed by Alavariss."

Raahi shrugged his shoulders. "What else?"

Ngare said nothing.

"Um, excuse me, sirs," one of the Guards interrupted. "Supposing we overtake the group of Phoon before they reach their difficult lands...they are twenty-five Phoon man-hounds, and we are four Elites. One of us is wounded and at the edge of death. There is the woman and the small boy among us. And of course one of us is, no offense to you, sir, a flautist."

Dorthea and Robert walked back into the room.

Raahi smiled. "No offense taken; I assure you, before this ordeal has run its course, we will have need of a song or two."

"We have to leave," Ngare said, resolute. "The palace will send a battalion, at least, of troops into the field. It will take some time to organize, and they will be slow exiting the city; but once in open country, they will be swift. We must reach the Phoon before they do."

"What about the princess?" Raahi asked. "We could leave her here. Her people should find her eventually, restore her to the Palace."

"You had better return me home, slave," Yaris snapped.

To Robert, the words sounded quite hollow. He wondered if she wouldn't rather come with them.

Ngare rubbed his temples and sighed. "The Alavarisians still do not know about the princess switch. If they find Yaris here and afterwards get to Esmeralda before we do, they will surely kill her, knowing she is not the true princess."

"So she comes too," Raahi said.

Ngare grimaced. "She comes too."

***

The plan for the escape was simple: they would ride to the gate and ask to be let out. If anything went badly, Ngare and the Elite Guard would practice their trade. The custom in Alavariss was that people were free to leave the city if they chose. It was just that Alavariss was so designed that few had the ability to make that choice. They had two carriages between them and six horses. Dorthea regretted that Darius had been left stabled at Shrine. He would have been a fine addition to the chase. Ngare and the soldiers rode in one carriage, and Dorthea, Raahi, Robert and Yaris rode in the other. Raahi deferred to Dorothea as the driver of the second carriage, feeling she was more qualified.

They reached the southern gate and found it nearly deserted. There was a single sentry in the guard station. He walked up to the lead carriage and addressed Ngare, in the driver's seat.

"Don't see many horses anymore. You'll have to turn 'em around. No one out tonight," the sentry said.

"But sir, why not?" Ngare was cordial.

"Not sure. Trouble at the Palace. Word is just trickling through about it. The Man says half the army is being mobilized. Something has a bug up the Emperor's you-know-what."

"Sounds serious," Ngare said. "Listen, we need to go up-country. Got to be there by tomorrow to pick up a load of Altain Dust. Northern, Eldgred stuff, very potent. Listen, why don't you let us pass and I'll drop an ounce or two of it off here day after tomorrow for you?"

The sentry licked thin lips and smiled greedy, little, brown teeth. "And maybe you don't come back the day after tomorrow. Maybe you're not picking up any shipment of Altain. Maybe you're a liar."

Ngare reached into his robe and casually pulled out a dark leather pouch. "Maybe I have a little left over from the last shipment."

The sentry's eyes went wide. He licked his lips. "You are something, Mister. This never happened. You got it?"

Ngare smiled, tossed the pouch. "I got it."

The sentry opened it and sniffed. Pleased with what he found, he raised the gate, smiling as the two carriages passed him by.

The matching carriages whipped over the stony road away from Alavariss. They would travel with all possible speed, through the night, in hopes of reaching the Phoon. The creatures used an unknown transportation and so traveled at an unknown speed. The drivers of the carriages pushed the horses not cruelly but with great urgency. Little was said as the uncertain mission began; even Yaris was for the most part silent. Behind them, in the pale glow of Alavariss, the war machine churned.

  10. # 8. Among the Phoon

Esmeralda awoke in a dark place. Her hands and feet were bound, and she felt pressed on all sides. She could feel no covering over her eyes but still saw nothing. She felt motion, almost as if she were riding in a car. Harsh voices floated from somewhere, perhaps speaking but in no language she had ever heard. In fact, it was impossible to tell whether she heard some ugly speech or whether she listened to the rhythmically repeated grumbling of a strange beast. She felt the flute pressed against her stomach. Apparently, they hadn't searched her.

In the darkness, behind or perhaps within the horrible grunting, she heard an elusive whisper: the same whispering she felt in the palace before she was taken. Not exactly a sound, it bounced within her head, just on the edge of understanding, but refused to become words.

"Hello?" she said.

The whispering became very loud for a moment, but no translation came. Esmeralda closed her eyes, useless in the darkness anyway, and concentrated.

"My name is Esmeralda," she whispered. "Who are you?"

A thousand voices entered her mind at once, a thousand songs, a thousand bright lights. She could make no sense of it, though she felt that in some way her question was being answered.

"Please," she said, "speak to me."

Everything was silent for a moment. The darkness reigned. Esmeralda strained her mind.

"Ko." The word came faint but clear.

"Ko," Esmeralda echoed.

All motion stopped. She heard rustling nearby, footsteps in crunching dirt. She tried to move her hands but they were quite expertly bound. Seconds passed. Her breath came slow. Suddenly, light burst before her eyes. Rough hands grabbed her and pulled her up into open air.

It was early morning, just after sunrise. She must have slept for five or six hours.

They had stopped in a very rugged, flat place. Scraggly trees grew in patches, fighting the rocky soil. Ahead in the distance lay a range of grey mountains.

Esmeralda was surrounded by little slivers of brightly colored eyes and twisted faces. Behind her, a giant vehicle with many long, articulated appendages, like a spider, sat hulking. It was very much like the vehicles she had seen crawling across the streets of Alavariss, only larger. The Phoon had three of these, plenty of room for the creatures now holding her captive.

One of the Phoon, smelling terrible, held her by the back of the neck in a grip so tight she feared the blood would well up in her head. She wasn't sure if they were discussing anything or not. They stood in what was almost a circle, sniffing the air and grunting at each other. It was disconcertingly like watching a group of dogs trying to relate.

"Who are you?" Esmeralda said.

The creatures turned and stared, the light of their eyes slicing through the air and assaulting her. She thought perhaps she would be silent for the rest of the trip.

"You won't get an answer from them." A voice came from behind. "They can hardly speak."

She tried to turn her head but was held firmly in place. She waited, and a tall figure wearing the simple clothing of the other Phoon stepped into her view. His eyes were a little more human than his companions, but they flashed bright crimson. His nose was that of a hound, and when he grinned, regarding her, he exposed a set of razors.

"They're really little more than empty shells," the figure said.

"Who are you?" Esmeralda asked again.

"Ah, persistence. My name is Acheron, a captain in the armies of Phoon. I am a humble servant of the God-King Khalom."

"I..." Esmeralda hesitated. "...am Princess Yaris, and you should release me now and not get into trouble. My father—he's the Emperor, you know—will be searching for me."

Acheron smiled. "Your father is nothing compared to the glory of my king. And besides, I could not care less who he searches for. We are hours ahead of your sluggish and pathetic army."

"Why did you take me?" she asked.

"The king wants you for something. You and your flute."

They knew about Ko.

"Why have we stopped?" Esmeralda asked.

"I thought you might like to see something." Acheron raised his fist, signaling a group of the Phoon.

Immediately they fanned out and gathered all of the scraggly, squat trees nearby. These were thin of branch and dried out; the area seemed to get little rain. The Phoon assembled the wood and set to building a fire. They built it up to quite a height and left it raging, heading over to one of the spidery vehicles. They retrieved one of their own from it, carrying him by the shoulders. He was wounded badly, probably from the fight surrounding Esmeralda's kidnapping. The Phoon dragged him toward the fire, picked him up by his arms and legs, swung his body once, and tossed him in. The wounded Phoon didn't make any objections, not one sound or gesture to indicate that he had any problem with this.

Esmeralda turned away, gripping the flute to her chest.

"He was wounded in battle with the puny Alavarisian sentries. He doesn't deserve to ride with us. We would eat him, but I don't think there is enough to go around, and I don't want the men to fight among themselves. They would never fight with me, but with each other..." Acheron looked down at her, flashing his horrible teeth. He chuckled. "I want you to ride with me in the lead Crawler. Come."

With that, she was dragged into the interior of one of the vehicles. This time, she was placed in a hard stone seat next to another that was lined with some kind of animal fur. Acheron entered and sat on the fur, comfortably settling in. The other vehicles, Crawlers he had called them, lined up behind, and they sped off, metallic legs driving into the rocky earth. Behind them, the fire burned on.

"What is it like, living in the Green Palace?" Acheron asked her after they left.

"I don't know," Esmeralda said. "Probably better than where you live."

Acheron laughed. "Oh, you are an amazing little thing. Very lively. My king told me you would be so. He knows all about royalty, how useless you are."

"Isn't your king royalty?" Esmeralda asked.

"Well, now we're talking about the definition of words. We call him a god-king because he is the greatest among us, because he is near to the ultimate perfection." Acheron pointed into the front section of the Crawler. "Up there is a driver and his crew. It takes four of those monkeys to drive one of these dreadful things. If I were to ask him to come back here, cut off one of his hands and give it to you, he would. No questions asked. That is part of the greatness of my king."

"I don't understand," Esmeralda said.

"You wouldn't, princess." Acheron sneered. "The Lord of the Phoon is a force of nature. He does not build palaces like your vulgar, little Emperor. He eats. He has eaten the annoying parts of the souls of those driving this vehicle. He eats not to make himself fat but to make things stop existing. He is the greatest entity in the history of history, because he has gone further than anyone else in consuming the world."

"Then one day won't he eat you?" Esmeralda pointed out the obvious.

"I could only be so lucky." Acheron grinned.

***

It was hours later, when the grey mountains had grown considerably and Esmeralda had begun to wriggle in the uncomfortable stone seat and tight ropes, that Acheron got an unwelcome message. One of his soldiers, a very large Phoon with long, dangling arms, came to the rear compartment of the Crawler, walking carefully in order to remain upright amidst the irregular motion. The creature stood precariously at attention and waited for Acheron to acknowledge him.

"Yes," he said.

"Followed," the Phoon barked.

"What?" Acheron had very little patience.

The Phoon warrior made an ugly choking sound in its throat and sniffed the air dramatically. "Followed. Two times. Followed."

Acheron raised himself up, moved behind Esmeralda's seat and opened a hatch above their heads. He grasped onto a ladder on the side of the wall, climbed up, and put his head through the ceiling to sniff the open air. He stayed there awhile, drawing deep breath after breath, then came down and sat next to Esmeralda, his face a knot of unhappiness.

"Why is your father sending horses after us?"

"What?" she said.

"Their stink runs across the open plain. The Alavarisians don't have horses. They don't understand anything animal. Why has your father sent horses so far in front of the army?"

"You can smell all of that?" Esmeralda said.

"We are not so stunted as you in our perception of the world. Tell me. Why?"

"I don't know," Esmeralda said truthfully.

Acheron screamed into the driver's compartment, "increase speed! We need to reach Narlith before they close upon us."

The great metal legs churned on. Esmeralda, of course, couldn't explain why the Emperor would send people riding horses after the Phoon. It was no shock that the monarch at Alavariss couldn't keep or understand horses. But, a smile creeping into her heart, she remembered someone who could.

***

Dorthea had insisted that the group stop. Ngare was annoyed, Raahi was nervous, Robert wasn't sure what was going on, and Yaris was exactly the same as she always was. They had come across the remains of a large fire, still smoking, with glowing embers beneath the ash.

"It's six hours since we've been goin', and they've had naught but two meager rest breaks and about a gallon of water between 'em," Dorthea said. "You say the nearest river is fifty miles south of here, and we don't have time for the detour. So's we're stuck to what store of water and such as we got for now. Right?"

"Yes." Ngare was unimpressed. "And what shall we do about this?"

"Well, I just happened to talk to my friend Raahi earlier about his flute and his musical training, and I bet he's got a song or two that might brighten the spirits of a tired horse."

Recognition leaped to Raahi's eyes. "I might."

"Meanwhile, I am going to cook up a stew." Dorthea began rummaging in her knapsack.

"Stew?" Ngare asked.

"Yes, my grandma's grandma's recipe. It's for horses when they need a little extra and for people when they need a lot extra." She looked up at the mid-morning sun. "And I figure if you expect these horses to make it back from this trip, and if you all think you're going to accomplish anything in the confrontation that's to come, we're all going to need somethin' extra."

"Don't try to re-ignite that fire," Raahi said. "It's bad. Start a new one."

"Bad?" Dorthea said.

"Bad."

Dorthea busied herself with the new fire. "Won't take me ten minutes. We'll suck it down and be on our way."

The matter seemed to be settled. Robert was uneasy with stopping, but even less easy with moving on. What were the Phoon really? And what did it mean to be held captive by them? The Elite Guard were off in a group talking to each other and going over tactics. The wounded woman, whom Robert learned was named Sala, had been expertly bandaged by Dorthea and seemed to be doing well after sleeping several hours in the carriage. Her color still was not good, but her hands were steady. She, too, had listened to one of Raahi's songs.

"Slave!" Yaris screamed from her place in the lead carriage; no one had bothered to untie her or let her out. "Slave! Come here. Come here right now!"

Robert acted as if he didn't hear her. He had already told her several times that his name was not "slave" and that he would not answer to it. He looked at Raahi, who just shook his head and walked off to play for the horses.

"Slave!...Slave!...Slave, slave, slave, slave, slave!"

Robert began walking, whistling as he did so, toward the circle of Elite Guards. He could feel Yaris's aggravation like boiling oil on the back of his neck. It felt wonderful.

"Oh, fine. Robert!" she called out.

Robert wheeled around, wearing a huge grin. "Yes?" he crooned.

"Come here."

Robert walked over to the carriage and swung wide the sturdy wooden door. He considered waiting for her to say please, but felt that he had already won a victory and needn't be cruel.

"What can I do for you?" Robert said sweetly.

"You can tell that horrible peasant that I won't eat any of her dreadful stew," Yaris answered.

"Okay." Robert turned to leave.

"Wait," Yaris called after him, just a little desperation in her voice. "You don't have to leave right now. She'll get the message one way or another."

"Uh-huh."

Yaris dripped sugar into her voice. "Um, do you think you could untie my hands?"

"I don't know," Robert said. "I can ask Raahi or Ngare and see what they say."

"Oh, come on," She said, batting her eyes clumsily, "I'm sure you're capable of making a little decision like that on your own. Take some initiative."

"Initiative?" Robert said.

"I mean, take some control of the situation; be a man..."

"I know what initiative means," Robert said.

Yaris smiled. "Of course you do, scholarly, young gentleman like yourself. It's just that my right hand has been asleep for something like four hours, and I'm afraid my thumbs are going to fall off, and so on, and... Where am I going to run to anyways?"

"Well, I sympathize," Robert said. "I'll go talk to Raahi."

"Ugh! Slave! Do as you are told and untie me right now!" Yaris glared her most royal glare. "I am the princess, you are the, the..."

"Slave," Robert interjected.

"I shall be obeyed!"

Robert turned and walked off. She kept yammering on behind him. He figured she would run out of breath eventually. He contemplated talking to Raahi about Yaris and her sleeping fingers but saw that he was busy playing for the horses. The music that passed across the dusty plain was lively and full of bubbling notes. It did make the day feel better. He started to go over to talk to Ngare and the Elite Guard, hoping they would comfort him with their fierceness in these times approaching turmoil, but Dorthea stopped him mid-route with a bowl of piping-hot stew.

"Ready already?" he said.

"Not much time for art and careful simmering," she said. "In fact, take it up to the carriage. We're going to eat on the road, I think."

They piled into the carriage; Dorthea asked Raahi to drive this leg as she intended to feed Yaris whether she liked it or not.

The stew Dorthea made was very hot and smelled sweetly in a way that Robert could not identify. The concoction reminded him of the farm outside Song, of the light and flowers there. When he drank it, he felt his body opening up and drawing more air out of the sky, as if he were learning for the first time what it meant to take nourishment.

"This is great stuff," Robert said.

"Well, thank you," Dorthea said. "You should have seen them horses take to it. I raised Darius on the stuff, and you've seen him. Wish he were here now."

Dorthea stood up in her seat, a steaming bowl of stew in her hands. "Alright, princess, time for breakfast."

"I, uh, what's in it?" Yaris asked.

"Lots of good stuff. Most of the store of food that the soldiers brought along. Also some special ingredients from the farm back home."

"Could you unbind my hands so I can eat it myself?" Yaris asked.

Dorthea looked at her incredulously, remembering the last time Yaris threw food at her.

"I promise to be good," Yaris said.

Dorthea relented. She unbound Yaris's hands and gave her a good-sized bowl of stew. Yaris sniffed, nose full of wrinkles, stuck her finger in the bowl to test the temperature, very carefully took a sip of the hearty substance and pondered it a good long time.

"It's not awful," she said, perhaps surprised.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it," Dorthea responded.
  11. # 9. The Mountain Pass.

The Narlith Mountains rose up on either side like the brown fangs of some elemental titan. The range moved on in both directions, crawling to the south all the way to the River Sole. The pass itself may have been a riverbed at one time, having dried up through the years. On the other side of the mountains lay the Phoon wilderness, a dense jungle of green and black, with biting snakes and all manner of alien creatures within.

The Phoon knew the mountains but did not like them. They had slick skin and needed the humidity and rain of the jungle beyond the western slopes. As the day progressed and they approached the pass, it became apparent that whoever was following them was making incredible speed. They would not come close to the eaves of the forest before they were overtaken. They would have to hide and fight amongst the rocks.

The Phoon caravan entered the pass, the wide opening leaving about twenty feet of flat land on either side. Acheron pulled Esmeralda out of the Crawler, placed her on the ground next to a great red boulder. All but the key drivers of the vehicles exited and stood, not really at attention, off to the side. Acheron bunched his right hand into a fist and raised it into the air. "Down, down," he called out.

The three spidery vehicles shook, rose up and plunged their wide middle sections into the earth. The ground seemed far too tough to dig into, but the metal legs stabbed and spun with such menace that the earth surrounding them was chewed up, and the vehicles sank lower and lower until they were completely covered with dark, gravelly soil. The drivers of the vehicles crawled out from these tombs, grey soot over gleaming eyes, ghosts from the stone.

Acheron looked out over the plain. "How many are in this scouting party?"

Esmeralda sat silent.

He turned, his red eyes ignited. "How many!"

"I don't know," Esmeralda said. "How would I know?"

Acheron paced before her, tense. "We lost three in the escape, one more wounded. That leaves us twenty-one. You have no idea how many they would send out front?"

"No," Esmeralda said. "I could make something up, if you would like."

Acheron turned his full attention onto her. "Let us not forget our positions in all of this, princess. Your disgusting father did a strange thing, sending out a small force immediately, on horseback. The way they tracked us, they must have left almost before the kidnapping was achieved. Very unexpected for that bloated monstrosity of an army. But I still have you. You are not going to get out of this. Do you understand? You had better pray they don't come with overwhelming force. Because they are not taking you alive."

Esmeralda returned silence.

Acheron raised his fist and shouted in a booming voice: "Up."

The Phoon scrambled up either side of the pass, finding clever hiding spaces at different elevations. They slid behind and under boulders and within barely surviving shrubs. The Phoon may have been of little mind, but they were well trained; by the time the commotion had ceased, they were all but invisible among the stones.

Acheron grabbed Esmeralda and slung her bound body over his shoulder, holding her in place with his left arm. He clambered up the northern slope of the pass, incredibly agile for only using three limbs.

"We are the Phoon," he said as he went. "Your people don't have a chance. I don't care how many they bring. We will rain arrows upon their heads and storm down out of these hills to clean up what's left."

He set Esmeralda down behind a large bolder and tore a strip of cloth from his shirtsleeve. "Have to keep you quiet."

"I could just promise not to make a sound," she said.

"That you could." Acheron tied the gag as if he'd done it many times before.

Esmeralda looked at him with fierce hatred.

Acheron smiled.

***

Yaris was asleep; everyone was happy. Dorthea chatted with Robert extensively on the art of sunflower cultivation. He found it fascinating. He was amazed at how calm she was in the face of such unstable times. They had no way of knowing what would meet them when they reached the mountains. The Phoon could be waiting in ambush, or they could have made it to their homeland. As Robert understood it, invading the Phoon wilderness was something akin to committing suicide in the most unpleasant way possible.

"Do you think this will work out?" Robert asked.

"I don't know," Dorthea answered. "I think that eventually things do. Work out that is. It's just the getting from here to there that's the trouble."

"In the long run, you mean," Robert said.

"Yeah, I suppose I do, but..." She looked at her hands. "...you can't always wait for the long run. In the long run, we're all dead."

"Comforting," Robert said.

Dorthea laughed out loud. Robert found it contagious and laughed too, long and uninhibited.

The carriage began to turn off from the straight way to the mountain pass. Robert pressed over to the little window. "What's going on?"

"Don't know," Dorthea said. "Nothing out there to stop us from headin' on straight. Although, suppose they're waitin' between the mountains for us. It would be a bad idea to just go waltzin' straight in."

"Yeah," Robert said.

They detoured far to the right, pulling the carriages up to the mountain slope north of the pass. Everyone disembarked. The Elite Guard began loading up with equipment: swords, smaller knives, bows slung over the shoulder and quivers at the middle of the back.

"The Phoon fight something like we do," Ngare said. "Not quite as elegant, but they fight blade to blade. They have none of the strange weapons of the Alavarisians."

"Yes, sir," the Guard answered in unison.

"We will be badly outnumbered, but we'll have the element of surprise. Keep your eyes wide and your hands fast."

Ngare left the group and moved over to speak with Raahi.

"What do you think?" Raahi asked

"I think they're in the pass. Hiding," Ngare said, matter-of-fact.

"Could be." Raahi scratched his mustache. "Should we wait for dark? Try to surprise them?"

"Very few have fought with them, the Phoon beasts. I have, years ago when my people went to war. They have strange eyes. I have heard it said that the Phoon see better in the night than cats, and I believe it."

"Then we go soon."

"Soon," Ngare said. "Do you have a song?"

"I don't know." Raahi was thoughtful. "The sleeping songs I know are designed for human beings. I am not sure if they will take for the Phoon. Are they very different anatomically?"

"Different enough, I fear," Ngare said.

"If we move in to the pass and they are hiding in the cliffs, we will be hopelessly exposed to their arrows from above."

"Yes." Ngare said nothing more.

"Well, what can we...?"

"Maybe a trick...in the Alavarisian style."

Robert, silent and uncomfortable, stood next to Dorthea. He had no idea what it was that he was doing there and felt that he may as well have been at home sleeping. He wondered how Yaris could sleep when who-knows-what was on its way, but, then, she didn't have much wrapped up in all of this. If Esmeralda was killed or the rescue went in some other way wrong, it wouldn't mean much to her.

Ngare came over and put his hand on Robert's shoulder. "You are going to have to stay here as we go in. I need you to keep sharp. There is really no telling how things might go once we enter the pass."

"Okay," Robert said.

"Good." Ngare held out the bo staff he had instructed Robert with the previous night. "Take this. It is better for you to take one of the horses and run than to try to use it. But if you cannot run, you can try...something. Can you ride a horse?"

Robert considered. "I think I could figure it out if chased by blood-thirsty monsters."

Ngare smiled. "Good."

With that, he turned back to his fellow Elite Guard. They all formed a circle and began, very quietly, to chant. Not exactly like singing, they made a kind of bubbling, verbal noise that crawled rhythmically out of the circle with an aggressive urgency, for all of the lack of volume.

"What are they doing?" Robert asked Dorthea.

"Gettin' ready, I guess," she answered.

Mr. Chandrasekhar was outside the circle, pouring through a pocket-sized book, concentration etched on his face. He looked grim, unhappy with what he was finding. The chanting warriors dripped their music into the air. The song before the blade falls. Robert gripped the wood of the staff. Hands tense, eyes open.

***

Esmeralda sat behind the boulder and looked up at Acheron's snarling, grey face. He was tense, eyes trained to the mouth of the pass. She worked her hands against the tightly bound cords at her wrists. The gag tasted like sweat and cut at the corners of her mouth. She felt the flute under her now hopelessly ruined dress, its crystal body warm.

From the bottom of the slope and to the left she heard a repetitive creaking. She tried to crawl around the edge of the rock but quickly found Acheron's awful hand gripping her shoulder.

"Do not move," he hissed under his breath.

She stayed still, wary of the wildly fearful look in Acheron's eyes. He seemed quite ready to snap. Sweat rolled off of his grey face, and his eyes flashed from side to side erratically, scanning for everything at once. He released his hold on her after a moment, shifting his position to see further down the pass. With the supervision temporarily relaxed, Esmeralda inched up a tiny bit, so that she could see down the slope of the mountain.

A carriage, no horse attached, rolled slowly along the ground, as if given a great push at the mouth of the pass. Esmeralda looked up at Acheron. His eyes were wide, staring. He held a fist up above the boulder, extended his index finger and waved it in a circle. From across the ridge, one of the Phoon drones fired an arrow into the carriage. Just one.

They waited. There was no response. No motion from within. Acheron lifted up his fist and spread his fingers wide. From all throughout the hills, the hidden Phoon sent arrows into the carriage, riddling the wooden frame, smashing through the windows and sometimes splintering through the planks of wood.

They waited. Esmeralda breathed slowly. She knew that she might be rescued soon. She also might be forced to see a number of people die. She looked up at Acheron, his face a horrible mask of grimacing hate. She tried to breathe slowly. The restless air fled out of her mouth.

THOOM. The carriage exploded into a raging sphere of fire and thick, black smoke.

Acheron screamed, not surprised, infuriated. He stood up from the boulder, staring over the flames to the mouth of the pass. Deep, opaque smoke piled into the air. Visibility was quickly diminishing. Without orders, some of the Phoon fired on the wreckage, foolishly. Acheron held up his fist and all firing ceased. From the mouth of the pass came the sounds of quickly scrambling feet. The attackers were on their way. Eyes desperate, Acheron raised his own bow unsteadily; there was nothing to be seen through the smoke, no way to shoot confidently through that expanding gloom.

"Down, down," he screamed out.

The Phoon drew out of hiding and began to descend out of the hills with incredible agility and speed.

Down the pass, the attackers began calling out, deep cries through the haze, the sound of the wide-eyed warrior.

Acheron didn't descend with the other Phoon. He turned his attention to Esmeralda.

"Smart soldiers, your father's scouts are. I don't think they have a chance against us."

Esmeralda was thinking of a response when a high, bright sound cut through the cries of approaching warfare and the low and constant growl of the flames. Raahi's flute. It sang over and through the fire below, flew around the smoke and, like a bird, landed on Esmeralda's shoulder, chirping its secrets to her ears.

Acheron's eyes went wide. "The Song Wizards?" He looked down at Esmeralda. "Why do they want you?"

***

Raahi had gone forward with the Elite Guard. Robert and Dorthea stayed behind with the remaining carriage, waiting. Robert wondered what chance the four of them could possibly have over a group of what, in his mind at least, were horrible monsters five times their size. Dorthea said little, though she sat near to him on the ground beside the carriage. The horses, all in a group, nervously stamped the ground but were otherwise quiet. Everyone sensed the danger.

The explosion jarred Robert to his feet.

"It's starting," he said.

"Now you stay low," Dorthea chided him. "No tellin' what's going to come over those mountains. We may have to ride out of here at any moment."

They waited, tense, until Raahi's flute slowly leaked into the air around them. The tune was unlovely—angular and strange. The instrument seemed not to be meant for such combinations of sound.

"Do you think it will work?" Robert asked.

"No way to know. Not even Raahi knew. Seems he is sort of improvising."

Screams came from the conflict and finally the sound of blades clashing. The fighting had begun.

Dorthea rose. "Looks like they didn't all fall asleep. Get Yaris up. We're going to saddle the horses."

"But we don't know who's winning," Robert said.

"We'll find out sooner or later, but things are goin' sideways Robert. Get Yaris up."

Robert ran over to the carriage to shake the sleeping princess. But when he swung wide the wooden door, he found the carriage empty.

"She's gone!" he called out.

"What!" Dorthea screamed and ran over to the carriage, saddle in hand. "Oh well, isn't that just..."

"What do we do?" Robert asked.

Dorthea shut the door and stepped around the carriage to scan up the mountain. Yaris wasn't in sight.

"Well, doesn't matter now, I suppose. Her people are following us anyway. She probably headed toward them. They'll pick her up and maybe the army will turn back."

Dorthea took Robert over to the horses, two already saddled, and helped him get on.

"You know, we could ride together," he said, unsteadily holding the reigns.

"Faster on separate horses if it comes to it." Dorthea looked him in the eye. "Can you ride?"

Robert paused, thinking. "I can."

"Alright now, if they come for us, we have to run straight south along the mountain till we get to the river where..."

One of the Crawlers burst out of the mountain pass half-covered in flame. Its multiple legs flailing in all directions, the body of the Crawler reeled drunkenly around the corner and headed toward Robert and Dorthea. It took several steps toward them, shuddered and fell over onto its side, black smoke pouring off of its body into the air, staining the sky.

"Move!" Dorthea yelled, turning her horse.

Robert attempted to follow her, pulling the reigns, but somehow got all wrong and tangled. The horse became hopelessly confused and, already spooked by the flames, reared up and shook Robert loose. He fell through the air, landed, and rolled onto his side. A white-hot flash lit his field of vision.

He looked over at the horse; it was fine. Dorthea, already fifty or so feet up the mountain, wheeled around and started back. Robert looked the other way and saw a figure emerge from the hulking, flaming form. It was one of the Phoon, tall with strange eyes that seemed, even from a distance, shot with a hateful light.

He scrambled to his feet, went to try and remount the horse, but stopped when he noticed the Phoon was carrying something. It was Esmeralda. The creature held her as if she weighed nothing as it charged toward Robert and the waiting horses. Robert ran over, grabbed the bo staff from the ground and stepped forward into the path of the monster.

He closed his eyes for a moment and felt the wood in his hands, remembering how to space his grip, thinking about his stance. Behind him, Dorthea was screaming; it didn't matter. Esmeralda was in trouble. He opened his eyes. The Phoon was before him, mouth wide, full of sharp teeth. At this distance, Robert could see that blood was running down both sides of the creature's face. Its ears were missing.

Robert knew that he should be afraid. But it was as if he didn't have time to be. He would be afraid, he almost promised himself, but later. He could always be afraid some other time. Now he had to set his feet, remember his breath, make his arms and legs as strong and as loose as he could. He had to be ready to flow and to crash.

The creature drew a knife as it rushed on. Robert, with feet firm, dipped low, set the staff just right, felt the hard impact of the Phoon's heavy frame and threw as hard as he could. Everything tumbled and spun; Robert, Esmeralda, and the Phoon all ended up in different places on the ground. The staff lay splintered in Robert's hand, and he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder but didn't think about it.

"Esmeralda!" he screamed, quickly crawling to where she lay.

She was gagged and struggling against her bonds. The Phoon rose to his feet, incredible frustration painted on his face. He drew another long knife and came forward, screaming wordless rage.

Robert held the splintered staff bravely, having no idea what to do now. Behind the Phoon, he saw Dorthea riding hard. She circled around the enraged beast, blocking Esmeralda and Robert with the horse's wide frame. Given the momentary freedom, Robert took the gag out of Esmeralda's mouth and went to work cutting her bonds with the sharp point of the broken staff. He worked the wood back and forth across the tightly woven rope. It was proving difficult.

"Robert, hurry up!" Esmeralda screamed.

"I'm trying!"

Dorthea, atop the horse, was dangerously attempting to block the Phoon's path and avoid being skewered by his knife. After a few moments of the game, he became intensely frustrated, sheathed his knife, screamed and ran full-throttle into the side of the horse, pressing his shoulder into the animal's ribcage. The inhuman force generated by the charge knocked the horse completely on its side and sent Dorthea rolling across the ground. The Phoon leaped over the disoriented horse and ran with all possible speed at Esmeralda and Robert.

"Run, Robert!" Esmeralda screamed. "You can't free me in time!"

"I am not leaving you to him," Robert said, matter-of-fact.

He stood up, held the little length of wood and stared, eyes open, at the coming onslaught. The Phoon, all resemblance to a human being gone from its face, leaped at Robert, knife poised to excise his heart. Robert set his feet, resolute, raised the splinter of wood above his head and felt a burst of air whiz between his arms. Momentarily distracted, he looked back at the Phoon and saw him holding an arrow, newly lodged in his chest. The creature staggered and dropped. His head lay about a foot from Robert's snowboots.

From behind, Ngare ran toward them, face tense with worry. It was his arrow that had stopped the Phoon beast. The other Elite Guard followed. They all seemed unhurt.

Ngare came forward and gently took Robert's arm. "You're injured," he said.

"Oh." Robert regarded his shoulder for the first time. The cut was rather superficial. "I guess so. I hadn't really had time to notice."

"Strong warrior." Ngare grinned.

Dorthea ran over to Esmeralda and carefully cut her bonds. "Did they hurt you?"

"No," Esmeralda answered. "I'm fine."

"You're all okay!" Robert exclaimed at the sight of the surrounding soldiers.

"Indeed." Ngare grinned. "Raahi's song only worked partly. The Phoon beasts were not really asleep, but they could hardly lift their weapons. They were stumbling around like drunkards."

"So you won!" Robert exclaimed.

Ngare's smile broadened. "Convincingly."

"They're all dead?" Esmeralda asked.

Ngare looked at her. "As dead as this one." He indicated Acheron, whose eyes were now empty of fearful light.

"I guess they had to die?" Esmeralda said distantly.

"In a war, there is death," Ngare said. "Where there is evil, there is death. I am happy you are safe."

Esmeralda looked at the body of Acheron, her captor and tormentor, a thing in the world that, as far as she knew, had no human feeling or sympathies of any kind. But could that really be true? She looked and looked, and she said nothing.

***

The travelers quickly organized themselves for departure. They had only one carriage now, and no one had a clue as to how to operate the Phoon Crawlers. So they crammed Esmeralda, Dorthea, Robert, Raahi and Ngare into the carriage, and the remaining Elite Guard went on horseback. South, along the mountains toward the river they rode, a humble caravan soft in the glow of the setting sun.

"Are you going to try it?" Raahi asked Esmeralda.

"Try what?" Esmeralda said.

"The flute."

"Yeah," Robert chimed in, "we went through all this for you to play the thing."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to play." Esmeralda carefully took the crystal instrument in her hands. "Am I supposed to play a certain song?"

"Prophesies are generally pretty cryptic," Raahi said. "You never seem to get really specific instructions. I suppose you should just play something...whatever comes to you."

She held the flute, feeling the warm, smooth surface that nearly breathed under the touch of her fingers. The whispering sounds returned, swirling around her head like wind. She felt the name "Ko" reverberate in her head and snake down the length of her body, to her toes and back again.

"I can try," Esmeralda said.

She put the flute to her lips, tried placing her fingers in a way that seemed as if it might be correct, and began to play. There was only one note, low and throbbing, that fell like water from them both: Esmeralda and the flute. She closed her eyes and saw, or felt, two quick flashes of light and was instantly in front of the tower Shrine in the midst of Song. She flew up, streaming toward the top of the tower, and saw the Counselors seated in the Observatory. Their patiently searching eyes stared in all directions, unaware of her presence. She quickly flew down, driven by a force she did not understand, until she approached a large, circular mosaic on the floor of the courtyard. The mosaic, done in pieces of multicolored brick, was of a great tree with a large, red circle in the center of its trunk. Esmeralda flew through this design and into the dark below. She soon slowed and floated to the floor of a cavern. Huge beyond reason, the cavern extended forward and opened into a chamber beyond. Water dripped from the ceiling arrhythmically, and there seemed to be more light than would naturally occur in such an underground area, but she could not find its source. In the chamber beyond, she heard an incredibly loud rustling noise, as if a great creature were idly shuffling its feet. She heard another fundamental sound, low and rumbling but huge in its breadth. She thought of walking forward but couldn't feel her body. The rumbling grew in intensity, and she thought it sounded a bit like snoring but hugely amplified.

"Esmeralda!" Robert cut through, collapsing the vision.

"What!" Esmeralda opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the carriage, the flute lying next to her.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"You've been laying there for a while," Robert said. "Raahi said you were okay, but, well, it's been awhile."

Raahi stood in the cramped surroundings and tried to help Esmeralda up to take her seat. "What did you see?" he asked.

  12. # 10. Under The Tower.

Esmeralda explained the vision as best she could. Everyone wanted to know what she saw in the cave under Shrine, and her ability to describe only vague sounds was met with general dissatisfaction. Night drew on as they neared the river, the weather going cool but not so uncomfortable as to cause anyone to complain. Robert sat next to Esmeralda and relayed how awful it was to be stuck for the better part of a night and day with the princess and what an incredible grace it was that Esmeralda did not have to get to know her. She agreed on all points, having nothing in the way of rebuttal and happy to be back with her friend once more.

When they reached the river, they all exited the carriages, filling canteens and taking drinks from the clean water.

"This river runs to the south of Alavariss," Raahi said. "The water is good. The Alavarisians have a river called Myrn which runs through their awful city; it is little more than black sludge."

"Yes," Ngare cut in, "this water is still good, but Alavariss grows all the time. Even now, I hear they are making plans to divert the water into their city. One day, this very old river will be as black as Myrn."

"Let's hope not," Raahi sighed.

"How does Alavariss work?" Robert asked.

"What do you mean?" said Raahi.

"I mean, it's such a bad place. How can a place like that exist? Don't the people just want to leave?"

"Well," Raahi considered, "it is a bad place, through and through, and there are many people there who are slaves to the Emperor. They are his property and could not leave if they wanted to. But there are nearly as many who choose Alavariss for one reason or another. Some would like to be emperors themselves or something like him. Some are cast in a deeper spell, a good thing that has worked against them."

"It doesn't seem right," Esmeralda said.

"I know."

They traveled southeast along the banks of the river toward Song. It would take them all night and more to reach the Shining City, and everyone in the carriage did their best to sleep.

Around one o'clock, the lead horse in the caravan pulled up short, and its rider, the Elite Guard Sala, called back. "I think I've got something here!"

Ngari and Raahi ran up from the carriage to find Sala standing over a little form collapsed on the shore of the river. It was Yaris. The princess lay on the ground, hugging her knees, her hair a tangled mess over her tiara.

Ngare looked at Raahi. "What should we do?"

Yaris woke and stared up at them. She didn't speak.

"Yaris?" Raahi said. "What are you doing?"

"Sleeping."

"Do you need some help?"

"I don't know," she said and stood slowly on wobbly legs.

Dorthea, Robert and Esmeralda, sensing an end to the danger, came up from the carriage. They all stood in a half-circle staring at Yaris with disbelief.

"Yaris," Raahi said, "your father's army is somewhere on this plain. Alavariss itself is northeast of here. Are you trying to get home? If so, you seem to be heading the wrong way."

Yaris stared at the floor. "I don't think I can go home."

"Well, I'm sure you can. If you need help, we can give you one of the horses and some water."

Yaris was near tears. "No. I mean, I just don't want to go back there."

Ngare sighed heavily. Raahi pulled him aside.

"What do you think?" Raahi asked.

"I think the carriage is cramped as it is."

"But certainly we cannot leave her here in the open to starve."

"It would have been better for her to go back, meet up with the army and quell her father's assault," Ngare said. "She needs to go home."

"But she hasn't."

"She hasn't.

"Then the army will, what, advance into the Phoon wilderness?"

"Yes. But that must have been part of the plan to begin with. The Phoon will be well hidden."

"Either way, it means we needn't worry about them searching for us for some time."

Ngare thought for a moment. "We certainly can't force her any longer, but will she want to come with us?"

After some deliberation, it turned out that she did. She rode in the carriage, quickly falling asleep on Robert's shoulder, which he found deeply uncomfortable. The caravan moved on through the night, one passenger heavy, with the horse drivers and riders showing dogged determination as they crossed, unsleeping, into the day and the vision of Song in the distance that accompanied it.

***

They reached the City in the rising heat of the morning; headed straight through the calmly lying districts and the markets just springing to life; dodged people out walking dogs and meerkats, riding various creatures, as well as heading to early engagements and the opening of shops. The adventurers found the gate at Shrine and were rushed in by a cadre of Guards all wearing formerly worried faces newly turned to joy at the arrival of the missing expedition party.

The Elite Guard who hadn't slept the night found places of rest in the Tower while everyone else, Yaris included, quickly washed and changed and had a little food. They were then directed to the top of the tower to face the Counsel.

Raahi served as the spokesman for the group, outlining in his soothing voice the events that occurred, the decisions made and the reason Yaris was there appraising the room with a slightly terrified look in her eyes.

"Are you going to kill me?" she broke into the proceedings.

"What?" Speaker Han asked.

"I understand. I mean, you can tell me. I expect you to," Yaris said plainly.

Speaker Han looked to Raahi.

"Of course you won't be harmed in any way," Raahi said. "We would never do that."

"Oh. Why not?"

Raahi said, "we don't kill people here. And besides, you haven't done anything wrong."

Yaris looked at the ground.

Speaker Han came over and put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "If you choose to stay here, and you can leave at any time, you will not have the kind of life you knew in the Palace. There are no palaces here. But you will never, ever be in danger, not from us."

Yaris blinked several times. "Thank you," she said.

"Now." Counselor Han turned to the group. "I trust you all have had a pleasant rest. The game continues. So far as we know, there is nothing under Shrine. So if there is a way under, it has remained hidden to many generations. Yaris, I'd like you to stay here so that I might interview you further and show you around Shrine a bit. Raahi, if you would, take the children to the courtyard and look into this mystery."

***

The mosaic was exactly as Esmeralda remembered it: a great tree stretched across the ground with a red circle in the center of the trunk. The brick pieces were brightly colored and showed no signs of what must have been their advanced age.

"How do you get under?" Robert asked.

"I don't know," Esmeralda said.

"If I know the nature of Musical dreams," Raahi said, "this spot must mean something in particular, something actual and not merely symbolic, or you would not have moved through it to the cavern. This should be the entrance, or it should lead to the entrance."

"Well," Robert said, "what does it mean?"

"What?" Raahi asked.

"The tree and the circle. What does it mean?"

"Of course, no one can be sure. Some say the tree is everything, with its many divisions and Worlds separating into branches of time. The circle, then, is the Largo, which is the Infinite Between, within and surrounding the Worlds."

"Okay," Robert said, "what does that mean?"

"I honestly am not sure," Raahi admitted.

Dorthea came out into the courtyard with Boots at her side. The dog was extremely excited, bounding in circles around her and wagging his tail.

"What's the story?" she asked.

"We're not sure yet," Raahi said. "We're trying to find a way down."

They walked the circumference of the mosaic checking for loose bricks or hidden triggers. Unsuccessfully, they stomped on what seemed like bright or key areas of the image. Boots watched them all happily, perhaps thinking about what strange creatures human beings are.

Finally Esmeralda stopped and readied her flute. "Maybe if I just try to play again."

"It's worth a shot," Dorthea said.

Esmeralda placed the flute to her lips and attempted to play. At first no sound came. She repositioned her fingers, not knowing in the least what she was doing, and attempted one more time. This time the flute played an ear-splittingly high note that rang through the courtyard and bounced off of the white walls of the Tower. They waited. Nothing happened. Esmeralda experienced no revelations or visions.

"Well, that didn't work," she said, slightly depressed.

She moved to put the flute away when a grinding noise began coming out of the ground.

"The circle!" Dorthea gasped.

They all stood back around the perimeter of the mosaic and watched as the red circle slid into the surrounding picture, leaving a wide open hatch, about ten feet in diameter, that led into the ground. A staircase fell beneath the hatch and into the darkness below.

Raahi smiled. "Could it be that the Mother Turtle and her new son have been underneath us this whole time? If so, we are the most privileged of people to see what we are about to see."

They walked down into the darkness. Boots waited at the top of the staircase, unsure of himself, until Dorthea walked completely into obscurity. Then he stepped down and padded after the group. The stairs wound down in long spirals around the outside of a hollow cylinder cut into the stone of the earth. As they descended, it got ever more cool and damp until, at the bottom, Esmeralda wished that she had brought a jacket.

A very large, open space led to a natural door cut into the far wall of the cavern; beyond this they saw a glimmering but not its source. They headed toward the opening, covering the fifty-yard expanse of the cavern in the not-quite-adequate light.

"What's in there?" Robert whispered.

"Not one of us knows," Raahi said.

They came to the door and heard a booming, incredibly deep and powerful voice. "Hello, there!" it said.

They stopped, listening at the opening in the rock.

"Well, are you going to come in or aren't you?" the voice chided them. "I have been woken up by you, and now a certain conversation is in order."

They crept through the opening and into a cavern that dwarfed the first. It, of course, had to be incredibly large, for in the center of the cavern, lying lazily on its stomach, was an exceedingly massive turtle. Of such great size that it was hard at that distance to contain in their visual field, it loomed above and regarded them with heavily lidded eyes. Its shell was not separated into regular shapes but was engraved with all sorts of swirling designs and unknown icons. The lines decorating the creature's back glowed with a pure, white light that danced strangely throughout the cabin.

"Hello," the Turtle said.

No one answered. The Turtle stared, perhaps waiting for a response.

"Who are you?" Robert broke the silence.

The Turtle chuckled; his laugh was deep and scruffy, like the laughter of a happy older man. "I am Grandfather. There was a time, long ago now I suppose, when just about everyone knew my name."

"Oh," Robert said.

"Sir." Raahi stepped forward. "We are here because of the prophecy. Because we believe that another Great Turtle is soon to be born and we want to save it. Can you tell us where the creature will come to be born?"

"Raahi!" The Great Turtle looked on him, surprised. "I thought I dreamed you. I am so happy to see that you exist. Or perhaps all of my dreams exist? I know they are all, at least, important. It's hard to say from where I sit. Who has the flute?"

Esmeralda stepped forward. "I do."

"Ah, good." Grandfather's eyes sparkled. "You look about right for it. Now, you awoke me from my sleep—I have been sleeping for a good long time—with that high note, and that is why I have let you down here to speak with me. Do you know what that particular flute is for?"

"Not really," Esmeralda said. "Raahi told me that it would find the new Turtle for us."

"And now all you've found is a very old Turtle." Grandfather chuckled a little bit. "Well, I will tell you. Ko is something like me. Not necessarily for anything, at least not anything that can be explained. Ko isn't good or bad, and yet Ko can do just about anything. Ko is full of potential. All you need is to learn how to play the right songs."

"How can I learn?" Esmeralda asked.

"I haven't a clue in the world." Grandfather laughed. "I never had the hands for flute playing." He pressed his great eyes together in concentration and stared down at Esmeralda. "Now, you all want to know where my grandson is and when he is going to be born. In order, really, for you to know this, I will have to tell you some history. So here goes. When I was younger, younger than I am now—I cannot recall ever being really young—the world was very different than it is today. I remember when we all used to live in the sea, playing and dreaming of the Worlds. In those days, my children and I would come up near the shore every once in a while, and the people would swim out in their little boats and climb up my shell and ask me things or tell me their secrets. Even when I couldn't answer their questions, they were grateful that I tried. In those days I had a wife, Grandmother, and we would travel the oceans of the world talking to all of the creatures of the sea and earth and air.

"It seems like only yesterday that my children started going missing, but it must be more than half a millennia now. We heard of a new type of dwelling, a strange city with a strange leader: an Emperor. And, of course, things like this come and go. I am very old. But no one before him understood how important my children and I are. He began, one by one, to lock us up. At first, all he had to do was ask, and they would follow him back to his city. That is how innocent and trusting my children were. And through these many years he has not died. He feeds on the tears of my children and they keep him alive. But what is interesting is that the Emperor had a brother who, at first, lived in the Emperor's house and ran his armies. And the brother started to believe that he deserved to be Emperor. The brothers warred for years. And though it was a dangerous time in their lands and the territories nearby, it was a good time for us, because they were too busy with each other to bother my family. In the end, one brother had to flee and take the soldiers loyal to him. He hid in the wilderness and slowly changed his goals. Now he is simply a destroyer, a beast bent on consuming all of the Worlds. His people call themselves the Phoon. It is said that the brothers are two sides of the same coin. I am not sure. Also, I am not sure which is worse: to be like the Emperor and want to own everything and everyone; or to be like the Lord of the Phoon and want to devour everything and everyone.

"But you want to know about my grandson. His mother is my eldest daughter, and was always the cleverest; when I came here to the underground to sleep, she went out to hide in her own way. I felt it when she laid her egg. It is very soon, perhaps today, that the boy will hatch. You need to go west, all the way to the sea. There you must take a boat, make sure it is a strong vessel and swift, and sail toward the island called Wane. My grandson is there. You will know how to find him by the flute. When near my grandson, the flute will sing. He is the thirteenth of us. The Phoon have destroyed so many, and the Emperor has enslaved even more. But my grandson will make our number thirteen again. He is, I think, a very special boy." Grandfather slowly blinked his heavy eyes. "Now, I'm afraid all of this talking has made me terribly tired. If you could excuse me."

The Great Turtle slowly pulled his head into his shell and began snoring so loudly that Esmeralda thought her body might shake to pieces in the wide, rolling noise. The explorers turned and left, not worried at all that they might wake the deeply sleeping Grandfather.

***

Esmeralda wanted to talk to Yaris before they left. She wanted to understand something about the girl, because it seemed that, whatever strange differences they had in where they grew up and how they were raised, they were connected in some deep sense. Esmeralda never had a sister.

"Are you going to go with us?" Esmeralda asked.

Yaris stared out the window, looking down on the courtyard far below. "No." She turned to look at Esmeralda. "Speaker Han tells me I can live here if I want. She said I can learn about Shrine, maybe be a Counselor one day. She's a really strange lady. This room is about as high as my bedroom in the Palace."

"Well," Esmeralda spoke carefully, "it seems like this is a much nicer place than the Palace. At least it seems to me."

"I hated that place. I used to try to burn it down. The walls are made of thick, black metal, cursed by some strange magic. The corners are so sharp you can cut your fingers on them. They won't ever come down."

"Are you sure you don't want to go with us? We might see the birth of one of the Great Turtles. A boy, I guess. Do you want to come? I already talked to Raahi about it, and he said that there shouldn't be any real danger on this trip. And even if there was, Ngare and a whole bunch of the Elite Guard are coming with us. Robert is coming, so you know it can't be that dangerous."

"Maybe not now," Yaris said. "Maybe the danger isn't here yet, but the danger is coming. I suppose my father probably thinks the Phoon still have me. He'll find out the truth soon enough. And then, when he does, I don't know what will happen."

"But you're in the safest place in the whole world." Esmeralda walked forward, considered putting her hand on Yaris's shoulder, but decided against it. "There is nothing that can happen to you here."

Yaris smiled thinly. "How did your mother die?"

"What?" Esmeralda asked.

"Your mother. Speaker Han told me she died."

"My mother got very sick," Esmeralda said. "She was sick for a long time, and the doctors did everything they could, I guess, and then she died."

Yaris looked out the window again. "My mother was killed. My father has had many, many wives. I guess he just gets rid of them when he is tired of them."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry for you," Yaris said. "When my mother left, I had, I guess, something to hold onto: the fact that my father had done it. I could hate him instead of loving her. Now that you've lost your mother, who have you got to hate?"

  13. # 11. Wane and the Ivory Turtle

Dorthea, regretfully, had to decline going onward to the sea. Pa would be at home, probably sick with worry, and she had to attend to her life at the farm. She told Esmeralda and Robert to be careful, to be smart and to come say a few words to her when they got the chance. Boots gave both of them a huge, sloppy kiss, and he and Dorthea were off on the road into the countryside.

The rest—Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, Ngare, and several of the Elite Guard—struck out in a caravan for the coast. Riding over hills and through gentle fields, they traveled straight west, staying always within the beautiful lands of Song. The world seemed pleased that they were on this mission and afforded them good weather.

They reached the sea in but a few hours, the air becoming thick and full of new smells. The people of Song controlled a port town there called Bartrem; it nestled into a deep bay that provided shelter from the periodic violence of the moody seas. Few citizens lived there; it was a fishing village and a port of call for those bringing in goods from the south or stopping for supplies on their way to the frigid north. But they had many fine ships docked at their harbor; the vessels bobbed gently in the throbbing sea, waiting for their next adventure, and sat proud in the orange approach of evening.

The caravan stopped first at the little shopping district in the center of town to get a few supplies from the general store. In truth, they had all that they needed, but Raahi insisted that Bartrem Brewing made the most delectable ginger beer in any country of any world in any part of the Largo. He demanded that Esmeralda and Robert give it a taste-test.

That accomplished, they rode down into the dock to meet the harbormaster and pick out a ship. He was a short, pudgy man, bald on top, with a big, speckled beard. He was given to squinting his eyes when he was thinking of what words to pair with his currently-forming thoughts, and this attitude gave him an air of wisdom, perhaps undeserved.

"Can I help you citizens?" the harbormaster said as they approached.

Raahi jumped down from the lead carriage. "We come from Shrine. We need a vessel."

"I know who you are." The harbormaster squinted his eyes into slits. "I got word by bird that you'd be coming this way."

"Good," Raahi said. "What is available with space for our entire group?"

"The Damsel Four is a good ship. It's that gold one there at the end of the third pier. She's fast as anything on the water. What do you have with you, fifteen, twenty? Space might be a bit cramped. How long you going out for?"

"We seek Wane," Raahi said. "I am told the trip should not take a considerable amount of time."

"Yes, sir," the harbormaster said. "That is, of course, assuming she feels like showing up for you. Wane's a tricky little thing. Look, there's the Naothool. She's not as fast as the Damsel, but she's got a lot of room for cargo and sleeping quarters below deck, if you happen to be out through the night."

"That sounds fine," Raahi said. "Speed should not be an issue."

They set to transferring their supplies to the Naothool. The Elite Guard moved crates of food and duffle bags full of things unknown to either Esmeralda or Robert, who both stood around feeling unnecessary and drinking ginger beer. Having made their preparations, everyone boarded the fine, sturdy ship, and they set sail for Wane and whatever mysteries it held.

"I can't believe this," Robert said as they left.

"What do you mean?" Esmeralda asked, staring at the red sun lowering in the sky.

Robert leaned over the rail of the ship, looked into the calm water. "It's just, here we are, like, crossing the ocean to find a secret island, and all I can think about is what I am going to tell my parents when we get back."

Esmeralda laughed out loud. "Oh, Robert, I hadn't even thought about it! What are we going to say to my father?"

"Not a clue. Maybe we can pretend we were kidnapped by ninjas or terrorists or something."

The ship sailed on. They cut their way through extraordinarily calm water, horizon after horizon, until, far in the distance, Esmeralda saw a dark, brown smudge. The sun had nearly set by this point, and they were approaching shore by the time the thick greenery of the island came into focus. A small place, perhaps two hundred yards across, it contained a single, uninterrupted jungle of unrecognizable tropical plants and trees.

They anchored the ship and descended in lifeboats. As night fell, the rowers approached, heading into bubbling sounds of insect and animal life: high chirps and distant, mournful howls. Ngare and the other Elite Guard pulled the boats onto the deserted beach while Esmeralda, Robert and Raahi looked across the sand to the wild darkness beyond.

"Where do we start?" Esmeralda said.

Raahi put his hand on her shoulder. "There is no way to know how close to the Turtle you have to be for Ko to start singing. Luckily, Wane is not a large island. The only reason we even have her charted is this used to be an outpost for our sea traders."

"You mean, pirates," Ngare cut in.

Raahi smiled. "There are no pirates in Song. They never stole from anyone but the Alavarisians. My grandfather was a sea trader."

"So what do we do?" Robert asked.

"We go," Ngare said. He made a few gestures to his fellow soldiers and they headed into the wilderness. Esmeralda, Raahi and Robert walked in the middle of the group, with several soldiers in front and several behind. Esmeralda noticed Sala, the Elite Guard in the rear, her wounds perhaps completely healed or at least manageable enough to bring her on this journey.

They traveled straight into the forest, and, the brush being wild and untamed, the lead Guards had to literally cut a path through the undergrowth.

"Is it absolutely necessary that I be here?" Robert asked after tripping on an upturned root and getting his knees terribly muddy. "I mean, I just got these pants at the Shrine and they're really nice and look..."

"You could turn back if you want," said Esmeralda.

Robert seemed offended. "I'm just saying this is really not my style."

"Got ya," Esmeralda said. "What is your style, exactly?"

They traveled on, cutting through the brush as the night grew increasingly dark. A full moon was rising, but its light was swallowed in the tangled canopy above them. They came to a clearing about a half hour into the trip, and everyone, weary from the difficulty of the journey, stopped to take a breath.

"The terrible thing is," Ngare said, "we haven't gone but thirty or forty yards. This forest is so thick."

"That's thirty yards in only one direction," Raahi noted. "We may have to crisscross this island numerous times before we find the Turtle. Grandfather gave us no other instructions than to look around and wait for the flute to sing."

Robert sat on the ground, careless of his once-clean pants. He felt a strange depression in the earth and turned over, running his fingers over a long, narrow trench in the hard clay beneath him. He got an idea and crawled over a few feet to the left.

"What are you doing?" Esmeralda asked.

"It's a road!" Robert called out.

"What?" Esmeralda said.

Raahi came over to see about the commotion.

"It's a road, this clearing." Robert grabbed Esmeralda's hand and ran it across the ground. "You feel that? It's from a carriage wheel."

Raahi stooped down to feel the tracks. "Ngare, what do you say we build a fire right here?"

"On it."

The work building the fire was initially difficult. The Elite Guard had with them a kind of kit, one they brought to all of their expeditions, that contained special kinds of matches and other substances that expedited the process, but the only kindling and fuel available was what came from the surrounding forest. This was all of a similar waxy constitution and was affected by the balmy ocean air and rainy climate.

Finally, after the fire was lit, they were able to see around the clearing, which was in no way natural but like a hallway cut into the surrounding foliage. In the fire's glow, the tracks became black lines following the road into the darkness.

"Well," Ngare said, "it is a road."

"Of course it is," Robert said.

"Why is it that the pirates stopped using the island?" Esmeralda asked.

"No one really knows for sure," Raahi replied.

"You people really need to keep better records," Robert said to himself.

Raahi smiled, his eyes bright in the light of the fire. "Well, the sea traders, as I prefer to call them, were always a part of the tradition of the people of Song. Not a part of the society exactly—they had their own customs and their own law—but a powerful part of our resistance to Alavariss and everything that it represents. Now, the story goes that this island was one of their prized hiding places, perhaps because it is so small. It has a reputation of getting lost in the mists of the sea."

"So what happened to the pirates...I mean, sea traders?"

Raahi spread his fingers wide, shrugged his shoulders. "Well, there were many different groups of sea traders; some still operate today. Legend has it that the ship Titania One was ported here when the island was lost to the mist, and when it came back, the sea traders stayed in the mist. Ever since, the island has been considered cursed."

"You mean this is a cursed island haunted by ghost pirates?" Robert asked in disbelief.

"No." Raahi chuckled. "I don't think there is anything wrong with the island. Something about it reminds me of the Tower Shrine. And I certainly don't believe in..."

"Ghost pirates," Robert cut him off.

"Robert," Esmeralda broke in, "geez, don't get all scared on us."

She wasn't getting through to him.

"Who here thinks that running around on islands occupied by ghost pirates is a good idea? If you do, raise your hand. Hmm? Any takers?" Robert looked at Esmeralda.

"Robert, there are no ghost pirates. Got it?"

Robert sighed. "Okay, I'm just saying."

Ngare and the soldiers broke out some rations, and they all ate. The decision to sit in one spot pleased Robert, as he liked the idea of staying near a fire, but the idea of idly waiting for the ghost pirates filled him with dread.

"So," Ngare said as they finished up, "the question is, do we follow the road or not?"

"I am not sure what would be the most effective," Raahi said. "In fact, there is no way to know. It will be easier going anyway."

"What do you think, Esmeralda?" Ngare said.

"Well..." She thought for a moment. "We might as well try the road."

And so they did, traveling through the forest on the well-worn path, a thing crafted in some distant period of the world for purposes that none in the group could know. The soldiers were silent and grim, all tensely checking the perimeter for dangers. After some time, they saw in the distance to the side of the road a little ramshackle building with empty windows and rotting walls. Ngare called for them all to hold still and sent two Elite Guard in to investigate.

"Could there be anyone in there?" Esmeralda asked.

"Probably not," Raahi said. "But there is really no precaution that we will not take with you and Robert here. Your safety is paramount."

The two Guards came out and gave the all-clear signal.

Within the little building sat an old iron stove, a table and desk, and, stretching across the far wall, a hammock, the ropes of which had been chewed through in many places by some unknown animal.

"It looks like someone once lived here," Raahi said.

"Ghost pirates," Robert whispered.

Esmeralda elbowed him.

"Probably was a sort of community home. A place where a traveler could take some rest, or hide from the..."

"Raahi!" Ngare's voice called from outside the shack. "Come on out. We've got a problem."

Raahi, Robert and Esmeralda ran quickly out only to find all of the soldiers bunched together in formation, blades and bows at the ready, eyes all focused down the path. Esmeralda followed their gaze and saw in the darkness two round, yellow lights floating low above the ground: an animal's eyes.

She caught her breath, steadied herself and spoke. "What is it?"

The eyes inched slowly forward until they were near enough that the thing's general shape could be discerned. It was a huge, brown bullfrog, about the size of a German shepherd but much fatter. It looked upon them with bulging eyes that gleamed the moon and stars, opened its big mouth, its great red tongue shaking, and let out a tremendous "ribbit."

"It's a frog," Robert said.

Esmeralda stared, shocked. "Raahi, do frogs normally grow that large in Song?"

"No." Raahi scratched his forehead. "No, they don't."

"Should we put it down?" Ngare asked, unsure.

"You can't hurt it!" Esmeralda was desperate. "It isn't even dangerous."

"Yeah..." Robert said, "...let's not go and say that giant frogs aren't dangerous. For all we know giant frogs are all like man-eating sharks. For all we know they're like rabid wolverines."

"Shut up, Robert," Esmeralda said. "We can't hurt it."

Raahi smiled. "She's right of course. Unless it proves in some way hostile, we can't harm it."

They all stood around for a while, not knowing what to do. The frog seemed very happy to just sit there, periodically letting out a contented croak to rebound off the trees and into the night. After about three minutes of pointless staring, they simply turned as a group and continued down the road. The frog, as if mildly interested in these newcomers to the island, hopped along after them, not really aggressive, just sort of bopping around on his wide, sticky feet.

"Listen, Esmeralda," Robert said, "of all the things I would not want to be eaten by, the first is ghost pirates, the second is a giant frog."

"He's not going to eat you," Esmeralda reassured him. "Frogs eat flies."

"How many flies would he have to eat to fill that stomach?" Robert asked. "There aren't enough flies in the world."

As Esmeralda and Robert talked, they began to lag behind the lead group of adults and come closer to the soldiers in the rear. As Esmeralda found herself further behind, she felt her pocket throbbing. She reached down and removed the flute; thin lines of light were growing within the crystal, and barely audible sound was drifting like smoke into the air.

"The flute," she said to herself. "Ko is singing."

Everyone stopped and stared. The lines of light danced across the flute's surface, cutting through the surrounding dark and bringing the shocked eyes of the adventurers to liquid life. As they stared, the song of the flute grew louder, becoming not a single voice but many, all singing in harmony and signaling the approach of the new Turtle.

"Where is it?" Robert asked. "Where's the egg?"

"That's assuming it hasn't hatched yet," Raahi said. "It might be already out of its shell and moving around the area."

Ngare and the other guards began cutting into the surrounding forest, searching the ground. A few ran ahead, searching the road for the egg or signs of a nest, above or below ground. Esmeralda watched all of the activity, afraid that if she moved the music might stop. Behind them, the frog stared with unknowing eyes.

"Anything?" Ngare called out.

Everyone answered in the negative.

Raahi stood next to Esmeralda, staring at the frog. "You know, there is something about this place that reminds me of the tower Shrine."

"Yeah?" Esmeralda said.

"Yeah." Raahi walked up to the frog; it sat still. He placed his flute to his lips and played a few notes. There was no visual effect, but as he finished his eyes held a knowing depth. "Esmeralda, come here."

Esmeralda walked toward Raahi and the patiently waiting frog, and as she did so the flute began to crescendo and blast with even more voices engaged in more elaborate harmonies. The light dancing across the crystal shone with ever-greater power until Raahi, the frog and the forest began to be scrubbed out, and the world walked into a field lucent and sublime.

"What is it?" Esmeralda asked.

Raahi looked down at the frog. "Turtle," he said.

There was no response. Raahi smiled.

"Egg," he said.

The frog blinked its huge, quiet eyes and shook all over its round body. Its mouth opened and a trickle of pale, blue light fell out, merging with the now-aggressive shine of Ko. The frog shook ever more quickly until, all throughout its form, fine cracks began to appear, growing like tiny snakes, and all at once the façade came down in a thousand pieces that blew away into the air like ash. What remained was a large egg, about three feet tall, glowing bright blue.

"The egg!" Esmeralda shouted.

Robert came forward to look, eyes wide.

"Yes," Raahi said. "This island is a strange place. A fluid reality like the Shrine. The Mother Turtle must have hidden her child here in the guise of the frog."

Ngare and the other elite Guard gave up their search and crowded around, their faces all luminous with the power of the two beacons. Ko and the egg sent their other-worldly light around the onlookers, through the leaves of the surrounding trees and into the sky beyond.

"What should we do?" Robert asked.

"I'm not sure," Raahi said. "I don't know if it can or should be moved. I suppose we could try."

"No," Esmeralda said, a strange certainty growing within. "Just wait."

They stood in the light watching, all with the sense that Esmeralda's imperative was one to follow. The flute sang ever wider and more complex music until, just as everything came to a powerful climax that sent the pulses of all attending to new speed, a long hairline crack split the egg from top to bottom. This was joined by similar fractures out of which spilled a pure, white light, which, unfiltered by the shell of the egg, completely overcame the light of the flute and caused all of the onlookers to shield their eyes. A multitude of splintering sounds went into the air, then a high-pitched squeal like an excited animal. And both lights, the flute and the egg, calmed and slowly went out.

Esmeralda opened her eyes. Before her, standing on four squarish legs and blinking perfectly round eyes too big for its face, was a Turtle. White from its feet to the tip of its shell, it stood shakily, like a baby foal. It opened its beak and squeaked, padded slowly over to Esmeralda and began rubbing its head on her calf, almost like an affectionate cat.

Hello, Esmeralda heard a voice say.

She looked around. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" Raahi said.

Down here.

Esmeralda looked down; the Ivory Turtle was snuffling around her shoes.

"Are you talking to me?" Esmeralda said.

No. I don't know how to talk.

Esmeralda looked at the others surrounding her. No one seemed to notice or hear what was going on. And when she thought about it, it wasn't as if someone was speaking to her; she wasn't hearing anything; it was more like thinking someone else's thoughts.

I think I am feeling to you.

"I think you're right," Esmeralda said.

"Who are you talking to?" Robert asked.

Esmeralda looked around at everyone as if they had just popped up from nowhere. "I can hear him."

"The Turtle?" Raahi looked in her eyes.

I think I like you.

Esmeralda looked down at the little creature now lying at her feet, contentedly staring up. "Oh, well, I think I like you too." She looked at Raahi. "I mean, yes, the Turtle. It's like he's talking in my head."

"Will he follow us?" Raahi asked.

Esmeralda looked at the Turtle. "Will you follow?"

Yes.

Having decided, they left on the dark road back to the ship. Esmeralda and the Turtle walked side by side with Robert staring at them both, wearing a look of creeping disbelief. The Ivory Turtle kept very good pace with the group, excepting that every once in a while he would stop and investigate some plant on the side of the path or smell one of the larger trees. He seemed, in keeping with the Turtle's age, to be intensely curious with everything in his surroundings.

Where are we?

"I don't know," Esmeralda said, walking behind Ngare. "This is an island called Wane. We came here in a boat. We're going to take that boat back to Song, and then we're going to visit your grandfather."

Can you show me Song?

"Well, it is a big place but you'll see it soon enough."

Just bring it out. Just feel it. I will see it if you feel it at me.

Esmeralda tried to picture the Free City rising with the sun. She imagined the streets and the happy people within, the colors, the many flags and towers. She looked over the open parks and the trees heavy with fruit. She remembered what it was to ride up to the Tower, jutting to the sky, and what it was to move through that gate and feel the air get nutritious and sacred once within.

She looked down at the Turtle, momentarily stopped in apparent concentration. "Did you see it?"

I want to go there with you.

"Good," Esmeralda said.

They traveled up the old road and to the opening in the undergrowth that they effected earlier with their blades. Once in the thick of the forest, Esmeralda began to notice something that may have been going on for some time: all of the foliage surrounding them was moving. The vines and ferns, even the individual leaves on the trees, were stretching out as they walked by, as if trying to, just for a moment, come in contact with these visitors to the jungle.

"Raahi..." Esmeralda began.

"I know. I think it is the Turtle. This is a very strange place. It's reacting..."

Raahi was cut off by a vision descending upon them of many swirling lights coming down, as if one entity, to dance around the newborn Turtle.

They're pretty.

"Yes, they are," Esmeralda said, smiling. One of the lights landed on her shoulder. Its long wings dazzled with intricate brilliance. A firefly, but unlike any she had seen at home. These were large, almost twice the size of a bumble bee and glowing all sorts of different colors, some blue, some orange or red, some bright, sparkling white.

They made their way through the forest and onto the beach. The fireflies surrounded them in a wide, circular formation and headed out toward the rowboats. The travelers made their way to the boats and out to sea, floating through a thousand reflections of light to the vessel sleeping in deeper waters.

  14. # 12. The Songs of Ko

Robert stared at the Turtle, who was slowly shuffling around the deck of the ship. "What kind is it?"

"What do you mean?" Esmeralda asked.

"What kind of Turtle."

"I don't know," Esmeralda said. "Raahi called them Great Turtles."

"The Grandfather Turtle was more like a sea turtle. You know? With like fins and stuff. This one looks more like a box turtle or a painted turtle."

As Esmeralda looked closely in the light of the ship's decklamps, she could see fine lines of very light blue decorating the Turtle's otherwise perfectly white skin and shell. His eyes were bright green and looked here and there throughout the environment with obvious intelligence and illimitable curiosity.

The Turtle came over to rest at Esmeralda's feet.

What is this?

"What is what?" Esmeralda asked in return.

This floating thing. The thing we are on.

"It's a boat," Esmeralda said.

What is a boat?

Esmeralda smiled. "Uh, a floating thing."

The Turtle smiled back.

Where did you get the flute?

"You mean Ko? I got it from a place called Alavariss. I used it to find your grandfather and then to find you."

"It creeps me out when you talk to it," Robert butted in.

"Shut up, Robert," Esmeralda said and turned back to the Turtle. "Why do you want to know?"

I like the flute. It's like I remember it. I know it. Could you ask it to play me a song?

Raahi came up from below deck to see how the kids and the Turtle were doing. The other soldiers were strangely uncomfortable around the Ivory Turtle and were nearly all congregated below deck. Perhaps for them the creature was something out of old stories, and, consequently, seeing it was like facing a dream in the midst of their waking hours.

"How is it going, children?" Raahi saluted.

"Good," Esmeralda said. "The Turtle wants me to play a song."

"Well," Raahi said with a smile, "you had better do as he asks. He is a guest here with us."

"But," Esmeralda said, thinking, "he wants to hear Ko." She held the flute out to Raahi. "Maybe you could play him a song?"

"Oh, no." Raahi shook his head. "I don't have a perfect knowledge of Ko—there is limited information available to us—but I am certain that Ko will play for no one but you."

Esmeralda was dismayed. "Really?"

"Oh, certainly. I can try if you like." Raahi took the flute and pushed air into it, trying different positions and varying the amount of pressure. Finally he blew one great blast that left him red in the face. Nothing worked. He handed the crystal flute back to her.

"But I don't know how to play anything," Esmeralda said. "It's not right that the only person that can possibly play the flute should know nothing about playing it."

Don't be upset. The Turtle closed his eyes and rubbed his head across Esmeralda's calf.

Esmeralda knelt down to pet his smooth scalp. His skin was surprisingly warm for what she thought was a cold-blooded creature. "It's okay," Esmeralda said.

"I know only one way to play if you don't know how," Raahi intoned slowly, "that is to learn."

"Ugh," Esmeralda nearly spat. "Learn what? How to play? The first time I tried to play Ko, I made one note and passed out. I think learning a whole song would make my head explode."

Oh. You don't know how to make it play a song?

"No, I don't," Esmeralda answered the Turtle, "I'm sorry."

It's okay. But I think if you want to make it play a song, you can. I think I know how. I think I can show you.

"What do you mean? What do I have to do?"

Sit down.

Esmeralda did.

Now cup your hands below my head.

She did and the Turtle squeezed his eyes together until a shimmering drop of water came from each. Two Turtle Tears made their way down the smooth sides of the Turtle's face and landed sweetly into the palm of Esmeralda's hand.

Drink.

It felt at first like a carbonated beverage, like soda, tingling and spreading, growing in volume as the two tiny drops explored the interior of her mouth. Then she felt her stomach go warm and comfortable, and a profound weight enter every corner of her body. Suddenly sleepy, she blinked her eyes slowly a few times.

"Esmeralda?" Robert said, worry in his voice.

"It's okay," she whispered. "Just fine."

Close your eyes.

Her eyes shut, but she did not come to darkness. She found herself in a very bright room, seated in a chair with a little desk attached. In front of her was an oversized blackboard. To her left, a large, open window looked out onto sunrise over clear sea. On her right, a door opened, and through it walked a man dressed in a white suit; he had a thick, black beard and dark, piercing eyes. It was Mr. Eldredge, her history teacher.

"Oh, God," Esmeralda said.

"It's me," Mr. Eldredge said.

"What are you doing here?" Esmeralda asked. "Where is the Turtle? Where...?"

"No," Mr. Eldrege cut in, "I am the Turtle. I needed a pair of hands. I just found a person in your head that was a teacher."

"In my head?" Esmeralda didn't understand.

"Well, yes. That is where we are, of course. There isn't enough stuff yet in my head for us to hang around there. I just hatched an hour ago."

"Can you be someone else?" Esmeralda asked.

"Why? Do you have a problem with this form?"

"I really think I do," Esmeralda said. "Could you change?"

"I guess," Mr. Eldredge said.

He left the room for a moment. Esmeralda waited patiently, listening to a rustling commotion outside the door, a sound similar to someone quickly changing clothes in the next room. The Turtle returned, this time wearing a long, white dress with a high collar, and the appearance of Esmeralda's mother.

Strange feelings gathered in Esmeralda's heart. Esmeralda remembered the way that her mother looked; she thought about her all of the time. But seeing her this way, standing right there, was very different and somehow disconcerting. Her mother was so beautiful, always the most beautiful woman Esmeralda had ever seen. But, in the haze of her memory, even after only three years, she had become less a real thing and more like a dream, a dream of everything good and comfortable in the world. And there was another feeling, below everything else, something deeper and darker that she didn't understand and couldn't even see clearly.

"Is this alright?" her mother asked.

"Yes, I, uh...sure."

"Good." Her mother went to the blackboard. "Now, I don't really know, exactly, about Ko and how it works. It's more like I remember something about it that I have never known. Somehow Ko is written on the underside of my skin. So, I am going to try to take that feeling and what I can see from inside your head and figure out what it is that Ko is all about."

Her mother drew a representation of Ko on the blackboard. "Now if you can take your practice flute please?"

Esmeralda looked at her desk, and a little, wooden flute sat there, not Ko, but a kind of mock-up of Ko, having the same number of buttons and the same location for the air hole.

"Where is Ko?" Esmeralda asked.

"On the boat," her mother said. "I tried to feel Ko into this room but couldn't do it. I don't really know why. I think maybe Ko is sort of one thing. It can't be out there and here in your head at the same time."

"Uh-huh."

"Now, Ko has eight buttons, arranged in two sets of four. And this is hard because I'm trying to make these things that I am feeling into words that are already in your head. But, the first four buttons are all Creation. The second four buttons are all Destruction."

"What does that mean?" Esmeralda asked.

"I'm not sure," her mother answered. "Or, at least, I'm not really sure how to feel it to you. It just is that way, Creation and Destruction."

Her mother continued: "When you press all of the buttons you get a certain kind of, like, Everything, or All, or Love maybe; it's hard to say. But when you press none of the buttons you get the exact opposite of that thing. It's like nothing or, uh—there aren't the right words available—the opposite of All."

"Okay," Esmeralda said.

"The four Creation buttons are Love, Knowledge, Compassion, and the fourth is strange, Art, I guess, but that isn't quite right. The four Destruction buttons are Greed, Hate, Fear, and Dominance."

Esmeralda placed her fingers over each button as they were named. She felt, somehow, that these names made sense when thinking about the flute Ko. "So, is each button like a note?"

"No." her mother scratched her head beneath her wonderful, shining hair. "At least I don't think so. The notes are made by pressing different combinations of buttons, and songs are made by putting together different combinations of notes. But with Ko, each song should begin by pressing all of the buttons and playing that note, the All. Each song should end by playing through none of the buttons, the Nothing, or not really, the opposite of All. You can also reverse the order, beginning with the opposite of All and ending with the All."

Esmeralda looked at her practice flute for a moment, the four buttons for Creation and the four for Destruction. "Why do the Creation and Destruction live right next to each other?"

"What do you mean?" her mother said.

"You died."

"What?"

"I mean, my mom died. Right? You were destroyed."

"Esmeralda, I'm not..."

"Can't there be a Ko without the second set of buttons? And if there isn't one, why isn't there?"

Her mother looked distracted for a small moment. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said after the pause. "I didn't look into your head for everything about your mother. I didn't know that she... I'm sorry; I didn't know. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset," Esmeralda said. "I just don't see why it should be this way. You can see into my head, right? Why should my mother have died and my father have lived? Creation and Destruction. Why can't they both be alive? Raahi said you are like the center of all the Worlds, you Turtles. Is there a World where my mother and father still live together?"

"I don't know," her mother said. "I have felt the Worlds. Even before I was hatched, my first memories are of the feeling of the Web of Time. But I don't know the Worlds or what they contain. I'm very sorry about your mother."

Esmeralda put the flute down and looked into the eyes that from the beginning of her memory had been a part of her thought. "What is going to happen to you? More than half the world, Alavariss and the Phoon, want to kill or capture you. What happens if they find you? You know? What about when Creation gets to Destruction for you?"

"I don't know."

Esmeralda felt herself crying. "It's just that I love you so much." She spoke perhaps to the Turtle, perhaps to the memory of her mother. "I don't want you to go away."

"Esmeralda." Her mother's voice seemed now truly authentic, not like someone speaking through her mother's body, but just as Esmeralda remembered it. "I love you. I am not really gone from you. Not really. Everything that you got from me, all of that love, is still right there, and it will be there wherever you go. It is something that cannot be destroyed."

Her mother came over to her desk and took Esmeralda into her arms, and Esmeralda felt warm again and safe, the way she felt years ago. They both wept, and the tears that fell on Esmeralda's head were like warm light sending her not from sadness to sadness but from peace to peace to peace.

***

She awoke on the deck of the ship. The Turtle lay next to her, staring with huge and worried eyes.

Are you okay?

"I'm fine," Esmeralda said as her eyes adjusted to the surrounding night. "Thank you."

"What did you see?" Raahi asked. "What did he show you?"

"Just...things," Esmeralda shook her head groggily. "Things about Ko."

The flute was by her side, warmly occupying her pocket. She wondered whether it was really possible to play anything. Raahi said that the flute could be made to do anything; but what did that mean? How could she take these opposing forces, Creation and Destruction, and all of the terms under them, and attempt to make some kind of music?

"Can you play now?" Robert asked.

"I don't know," Esmeralda said. "Probably not."

"Why do you say that?" Raahi said.

Before Esmeralda could speak to this, a very large, dark-winged bird came out of the sky and landed on the railing surrounding the deck of the ship. There was a small canister tied to its right leg with a little, tightly-rolled parchment within. The creature, having found its perch, stretched its wings for moment, stared right at Raahi and heartily squawked twice.

Raahi came over to the bird, cooing softly, and removed the parchment. He read aloud: "Chandrasekhar, regardless of the status of your mission, having achieved or not the possession of the Sacred Entity, you must move with all possible speed for the Shining City. Repeat, abandon all activities and seek Song. The Counsel."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Raahi said and called below deck for Ngare.

"What's the matter?" Ngare asked after he had arrived.

Raahi handed him the message. "What do you think?"

Ngare read it over quickly. "I think we had better open wide the sails," he said. "Do you have a song that makes wind?"

Raahi smiled. "No. Not even I am that good a player."

Ngare screamed below deck for the Elite Guard. They assembled in half a moment and began carrying out his orders with precision and agility. Up to this point, they had been lazily cruising across the sea, enjoying the evening sail and in no sort of rush. They might have spent the night at Bartrem, awakening in the morning to breakfast and the day's ride into Song. Now they would need every ounce of speed that could be pulled from the rather unimpressive wind.

"It must be Alavariss," Ngare said, having given his orders. "Perhaps the Counsel learned of the army turning from the Phoon and heading toward us."

"But why would they?" Raahi wondered aloud. "How could they learn anything about the Princess after only a day and night of fighting in the Phoon jungle?"

"There is also the question of how the Counsel would know." Ngare lifted an eyebrow. "The Counsel sees far but they don't have the eyes of gods. Could Alavariss have marched on Song?"

"No," Raahi said definitively. "They wouldn't risk an attack on Song unless they knew without a doubt that the princess was there. There simply hasn't been enough time for them to find any of this information out. Besides, if Alavariss was attacking right now, the Counsel would never order us into the middle of the battle!"

"True enough," Ngare said. "Then what is the answer?"

"There is none right now," Raahi said. "We simply go as fast as we can."

The Ivory Turtle tapped his little foot on Esmeralda's shoe and looked up at her, his eyes thick with worry.

What is happening?

"Um, nothing really," Esmeralda said, attempting a reassuring tone of voice, "We are just trying to get back home."

But something is wrong. I can't understand what they are saying, but I feel it in you.

"Everything is going to be fine," Esmeralda said, trying to mean it. "We are going to Song. Everything will be fine."

Esmeralda put the flute to her lips. She thought that if she could do something with Ko, she might help at least to ease the tension. She remembered that the Songs of Ko begin with all of the buttons pressed, and so she did that, prepared her lips, and began to play.

The sound came thick and unwavering, sliding through the air to all present, and caused even the Elite Guard to pause in their various duties to take notice. She let the note play for as long as she could sustain it with her breath, not only because she was not sure what to play next, but because she felt this was right, that this statement ought to extend into the air for some time, making itself known to the world. She came to the end of her breath, quickly refilled her lungs and this time lifted her fingers from two of the buttons, one from Creation and one from Destruction, so that she was playing through Love, Knowledge, Art, Greed, Fear and Dominance. This note had an entirely different character from the first: higher, less loud and not quite as sweet. It cut across the middle register of the instrument and brought with it a hard edge. She quickly changed to play through Love, Knowledge, Compassion and Art, all four of the Creation Buttons. This note soared high above the last, though it was brittle sounding and in a way incomplete. There was an internal difficulty with the sound, a kind of dissonance—if that is possible—within the single tone. As it sounded, she feared that the note might shake itself apart and perhaps take her with it. She felt that she had done more than could have been expected of her, and, oddly, she was fatigued after playing these three notes. She took a breath, released all of the buttons and let sound the opposite of All for as long as her lungs would allow.

For a moment nothing happened, and Esmeralda was a little disappointed, though she knew on some level that what she had done was something of an accomplishment. But soon afterward, a kind of shower of little lights descended into her vision—nothing particularly substantial or representative, just sparkling lights, coming briefly from the sky and disappearing into the deck of the ship.

"Robert, did you see..." Esmeralda began.

"Yeah," Robert interrupted. "We all saw it."

The Turtle looked up at her, beaming.

You did very good.

"You think so?" Esmeralda said.

Oh, yes. Can you feel it? Can you feel the song in you?

Esmeralda thought that she might. A warm feeling rising from somewhere in the depths of her stomach, a calm was settling in her. She wondered if it was attributable to something produced by the flute or just a feeling of accomplishment at having played Ko.

No. We all feel it.

"Robert," Esmeralda said, "do you feel kind of...?"

"Warm?" he cut in. "Yeah, it feels good, like, reassuring."

"You have played a wonderful song," Raahi said, "but short, and the effect is already leaving me."

"And myself as well," Ngare agreed. "Look to the horizon. The weather is turning mean."

  15. # 13. Fire in the Night.

The weather coming off the shore grew ever more ominous, while strangely the waters did not grow difficult or choppy, and there was no increase in wind to help speed them along. The travelers found themselves sailing rather lazily toward heavy, black clouds that threatened great violence.

And then, far in the distance, came a glimmer of light. At first it seemed that those manning the port had set a lighthouse beacon for them. But soon, as they neared the harbor, it became apparent that a terrible fire raged there. Esmeralda, Raahi, Ngare, and Robert stood peering out over the bow of the ship, pondering. Behind them, the assembled Elite Guard went about their duties with grim eyes.

"It looks as if the whole town is ablaze!" Ngare said.

"Attacked?" Raahi asked. "There is little of great value in Bartrem, and it seems that what they had is now burning."

"Could be the Phoon," Ngare said. "They are known to attack for no reason other than destruction. They don't steal, just burn."

Ngare redirected the ship away from the flaming harbor toward a stretch of deserted beach immediately to the south. They came closer, within two hundred fifty yards, when Esmeralda screamed out.

"Turn around!" She pulled on Ngare's arm. "Stop the boat! Turn around!"

He saw it too. Ngare ran from the front of the ship to scream orders to the rest of the Elite Guard. The place became a mass of kinetic activity, all stomping boots and gripping hands and wide, concentrating eyes.

"What?" Robert said over all the bustle. "What is going on?"

"Robert, look, to the right of the fire, on the beach in the dark..."

Esmeralda was interrupted by many flaming lights rising at once in the area she was trying to point out to Robert. These made her explanation unnecessary, illuminating what was waiting on the shore for them. Alavariss was waiting: thousands of soldiers arrayed and at attention, with huge, black-steel Crawlers and other strange machines studded with menacing spikes. Catapults, spaced throughout the assembly, sat armed with great fiery boulders; it seemed there were hundreds of those angry lights onshore. Behind all of this, somewhere in the dark, was the Emperor. Esmeralda knew it. He would be there grinning his iron grin; looking over his incredible war machine; and waiting to destroy her friends, claim her with the flute Ko, and take the Ivory Turtle to those hopeless prisons in the dark of Alavariss.

Raahi stared over the bow of the ship, saying nothing.

The solders in the hateful army all wore dark armor and metallic masks that shielded their eyes. They were as one thing, a unity expressing the foul wishes of a single master. They began screaming in a strange, guttural tongue, and the sounds drifted and intermingled while passing over the water; from the boat, it was as if a huge, frightfully alien organism shouted at them from a distance.

What is happening?

Esmeralda, unsure how something like the Alavarisian army might be explained, looked down at the Turtle. "I'm not sure. But everything is going to be okay. Okay?"

You don't believe that.

They did not choose their vessel for its speed or maneuverability; they chose it for the space. Consequently, it was horrifyingly slow coming about, and, while the Elite Guard did everything they could, the vessel simply creaked around, inch by inch, helped not a great deal by the almost absent wind.

They had come almost halfway around; the port side of the vessel faced the shore. Esmeralda looked into Robert's face, a silhouette highlighted in angry orange. Eyes rigid with concentration, he breathed slowly and worried at his lower lip. And like old ghosts, the fire glimmered off of the lenses of his glasses and out of the dark of his eyes.

The volley began. The first of the fireballs left the shore, streaked high into the sky, almost beautiful, and slammed into the waters only a few yards in front of the ship. The first of many. The fireballs were each around seven feet in diameter and upon striking the water churned up the sea, making maneuvering the clumsy vessel even more difficult. The second volley was up soon after the first, flame flying like the gaping jaws of wrathful dragons greedily seeking to devour all things: wood and stone, flesh and bone. The catapults were terrifying but not initially accurate. The air was full of fire, it seemed, and this fusillade landed a little closer than the last, throwing up steam and water. A cloud of mist and flame obscured the view of the shore, and the aggressors on the other side seemed spirits crossing into another world. The Alavarisians were finding the range.

Ngare ran over to Esmeralda and Robert. "Follow me!" he commanded.

He took them across the deck, which was full of frenzied activity with the Elite Guard climbing ladders, pulling on ropes and screaming directions at each other in sharp, clipped military language. The Ivory Turtle followed Esmeralda as best he could, shuffling his squat, square legs with all available speed.

Ngare led them below deck, taking them across the cramped sleeping quarters and into one of the cargo holds full of food and other supplies. The underside of the ship was dark and full of strange shapes; even after Raahi followed them into the hold carrying an oil lamp, the room looked to them full of shadows.

"Ngare, Alavariss. Alavariss is come. How can this...what can we do?" Raahi spoke rapidly, not quite frantic.

"I don't know," Ngare said. "Somehow we have been betrayed. I don't know. I need you to stay here with the children."

Above them, they heard a crash like thunder but no sound of rain.

"I have no time," Ngare said. "You stay here with the children, Raahi."

With that, Ngare ran out of the room, leaving Raahi, Esmeralda, Robert and the Turtle alone in the flickering light. The ship creaked and groaned as they completed their turn to fly from shore. Above them, muffled sounds of shouted orders and swift feet radiated through the wooden ceiling.

"What is happening?" Robert said.

"Alavariss," answered Raahi.

Robert was getting upset. "But how did they know? How can we get away? Did you see them? There are so many."

A huge, wet crash came from somewhere just to the left of the wall. Close.

"We will run as best we can. Alavariss is come. They must have come on the march; perhaps they have no sea-worthy vessels to chase us. It seems they put down the resistance of those manning the port by laying waste to the entire area."

"And everyone in it," Esmeralda said quietly.

"It seems so, yes," Raahi said.

The Ivory Turtle was nervously walking around the storage hold, nosing between crates and searching out the areas that the lamplight failed to penetrate. Esmeralda watched, wondering if this searching was a way of removing himself from the tension in the room.

Huge detonation sounds were coming at an alarming rate from all directions through the walls of their below-deck enclosure. Like the clamorous thundering of an orchestra nearing its finale, the sounds of catapult fire streaming into the water around them came closer and louder all the time.

"Are we going to die?" Robert plainly asked.

"No," Raahi quickly returned, "we are not. We can run from them."

Robert narrowed his eyes behind his glasses. "How can you possibly know...?"

"Robert," Raahi stopped him. "No one is going die. I truly am sorry that you and Esmeralda have found so much danger here. These are dangerous times, I suppose, and stakes are high, higher than any of us can really understand. No one is dying here today."

Another explosion. This time the sound of the blast was more intimate, accompanied by a terrifying movement of the ship. Esmeralda looked to Raahi's eyes and saw a quite genuine fear. They had been hit.

"Raahi," Esmeralda whispered.

Raahi set the lamp down and crept forward to the rear wall of the room, stepping between the rows of crates and pressing the side of his face against the wood. He closed his eyes in concentration. Esmeralda and Robert watched him from the other end of the hold, his figure now half-obscured by distance and darkness.

"Raahi." Esmeralda repeated his name.

"Please," he whispered, "be silent for a moment."

Esmeralda took Robert's hand.

Eyes wide, Robert looked at her. "What's he doing?" he said.

Above them, the sounds of frantic activity reached a new height, with soldiers screaming orders at each other at such a volume and rate that no information, through the floor at least, could be gleaned from what they said. A feeling of things not going well was present throughout.

"He's listening...," Esmeralda breathed, "...maybe."

Raahi jerked his face back from the wall, bringing his hand up to his cheek. He ran across the hold to Esmeralda and Robert, grabbed each by the hand and began to pull them toward the door.

"What is it?" Robert asked.

"We need to go," Raahi said, pulling them both with great urgency.

"But the Turtle!" Esmeralda wrenched free of Raahi's grip. "Where is he?"

In the commotion, the Turtle had wandered off to some dark corner of the hold. The room was not of tremendous size, but it was large enough to take far too long to search out something the size of the Ivory Turtle. Raahi ran off into the hold, searching outside the lamplight's circumference.

"You kids run into the sleeping quarters..." He was on his hands and knees in the dark, looking between barrels of water. "...up the stairs if it comes to that. Only..."

Raahi stopped speaking and stood up straight. A strange popping sound came from the far wall of the room. There was also a lower, more consistent noise, as if the wood were being warped by some powerful, unseen force.

"Go now," Raahi said.

I hear something.

"The Turtle!" Esmeralda shouted. "Where are you?"

Right over here.

She might have laughed but for the tension. "Come here," Esmeralda said. "We have to go now."

The Turtle crawled up over several crates and stopped at Esmeralda's feet. He stared up at her with strangely calmed eyes. Raahi came toward them and the room's exit.

The far wall burst into flame, as if the fire had slowly been gnawing on the wood on the other side and finally, with one last strike of powerful, red jaws, came vehemently through. Now it was free to curl up the interior wall to the ceiling, surveying the storage hold for what might be inside to devour.

They ran. Esmeralda refused to leave until the Turtle was safely out the door, but, given the motivation of the approaching flames, the Turtle was surprisingly swift. They stopped in the sleeping quarters, surrounded in the dark by rows of gently swinging hammocks. The noise from above deck was much louder. Raahi eased slowly up the stairs, stopping about halfway to listen for conditions higher. Across the sleeping quarters, through the wall, came the low, rumbling menace of the flames.

Fire.

"Yes," Esmeralda said. "That is fire."

I heard something.

Esmeralda stared across the sleeping quarters to the far wall, her eyes waiting for the red wrath of the flames to burst through and send them running again. "It's probably the fire that you heard."

No. Something else. Something in the water...

"Can we go up?" Robert shouted to Raahi.

"I don't think so," he said. "We should wait as long as we can. Looks as if the ship has been hit more than once. There is fire loose on the deck."

"Well, we can't stay here!"

And ever the sky rained down fire and noise. The sea was churned up, and the ship seemed barely to creep forward, away from the onslaught. Horrible cracking and hissing sounds came from the storage hold, as if the fire was greedily consuming everything within, never finding satiation. Soon, a dirty, grey smoke began to creep under the door to the hold, filling the sleeping quarters with a hot, dense mist.

...something big in the water.

"Raahi," Esmeralda said, "we can't stay here."

He turned, an unsure look on his face, and quickly his eyes moved past her. The fire had come through the wall. Immediately the room filled with intense heat. The fire chewed lazily toward them, almost with a swagger, eyeing its meal.

Raahi grabbed Esmeralda and pushed her up the steps. Robert followed close after, and then came the Turtle, whose square feet were not particularly suited to rush up the narrow stairs. He struggled, scrambled, slipped. And all the while the fire moved closer, consuming along its way each hammock, savoring its delicacy and using its energy to drive the body of flame onward. Finally, Raahi took the Turtle's awkward bulk in his arms and pushed him to the top of the stairs.

The deck was a frantic mess. The fire, while exploring below, had made its way above to wreak havoc. People were running everywhere, trying to keep the ship on course amidst falling skies. Below deck, the fire continued to consume the guts of the ship. They had only so long before they would begin to sink.

Ngare, noticing Esmeralda and the others in the confusion, ran over. "What are you doing?"

Raahi answered, "it's all gone up. Fire eaten through the storage hold. The ship has minutes to stay afloat."

Ngare led them across the deck, dodging scrambling Elite Guard all the way. Along the port side of the ship, two large life boats were stationed: enough room for all on board and more besides. Ngare put them all in the nearest of these, helping Raahi to lift the Turtle, and with little gentleness sent the boat into the dark water below.

Above them, the fire had its way with the

ship. Esmeralda found herself staring powerlessly at the flaming hulk as they rowed across the water. Ngare was trying to arrange the other lifeboat, encountering some resistance from his soldiers who, on the whole, wanted to stay with him and fight the flames, perhaps with a mind to go down fighting.

And ever and always Alavariss fired its flaming missiles. Esmeralda's world became a churning sea of intermittent darkness and angry, red light. They floated farther from the ship, and, as they did so, they came to calmer waters. The vessel above them took two more direct hits, smashing the main mast in half and sending to ruin any hope that the ship might sail again.

Look.

"What?" In all the commotion Esmeralda had nearly forgot the Turtle standing in the boat next to her.

Behind us. Look.

Esmeralda did as she was instructed, and, far out to sea, at the edge of the horizon, a dark, black smudge was approaching. It could have been anything, obscured by distance and the blanket of night. Esmeralda feared it was some horrible war machine devised in the crooked mind of the Emperor, something come to collect her and the others, after their ship's abandonment, and carry them to the shore and the pain that waited there.

"What is it?" Esmeralda said.

It's what I heard, what I heard before.

"What are you talking about?" Robert butted in. "Keep rowing."

"Look behind us," Esmeralda said. "Something's coming."

The dark moved ever so subtly forward.

"We'll turn toward it!" Raahi shouted over the sound of the falling fire and churning water. He began pushing the little rowboat around toward the approaching mass.

"What?" Esmeralda said. "Why?"

"Because we have to get out of range of the catapults. The ship will go down soon. We have to be out of range before the ship goes down and they look to try and clean up the mess."

They pressed on. The floating darkness came nearer but was still unrecognizable. Esmeralda considered whether she was rowing to her doom. It could very well have been some horrible Alavarisian dreadnought; it was also possible that it was something altogether benign. But it had to be something, and it seemed they were in a place somewhat bereft of benign things. Ngare and the remaining Elite Guard were still aboard the vessel, fighting for every moment.

They had been moving in its direction a short time when Esmeralda began to see some definition in the approaching mass. It seemed not a formless, expanding shape but a moving body of great size quickly cutting the water as it charged toward them. No trick of the night, it moved with far too much purpose to be some random occurrence, some irrelevance. Soon it was close enough for Esmeralda's eyes to have a curious revelation. Trees. There were trees all over it. Whatever was coming toward them at this amazing pace was covered over with trees and vegetation.

"The island," Raahi whispered to himself.

"What?" Robert spat.

Esmeralda's eyes were wide. "It's the island, Wane, isn't it?"

"Has to be," Raahi said. "And swimming this way."

The question was whether to keep moving toward it. They had come to a point well beyond the current fire of the catapults, but it was impossible to know how far the army could actually fling those awful missiles if put to the test. Raahi veered them to the left, so that the boat was running parallel to the shore, between the ship and the approaching island. Out of the corner of her eye, Esmeralda noticed Ngare and the remaining Elite Guard lowering themselves in the final lifeboat. Even from this distance, and through the gloom of night, Esmeralda thought she saw a look of steely acceptance on Ngare's face. But behind him, another volley was slicing through the air. Ngare cut the lines suspending the boat, sending the tiny vessel plummeting toward the dark water. They landed with a confused splash, righted themselves and quickly began rowing away.

Three direct hits shattered what remained of the ship. In the tumult the lifeboat could not be seen; there was only flaming wood and water flash-boiled in the blast.

"Ngare!" Esmeralda screamed. "Raahi, we have to turn around."

"Come on," Robert agreed. "Maybe there are some still...some that we can pick up."

Another volley of fire leapt into the sky.

"Children, no," Raahi said sternly. "We have to keep ourselves safe. If not for our own sake, for the Turtle."

Up through the tumult, Ngare and a few of the Elite guard came treading water helplessly. Esmeralda looked over the face of the sea, knowing that she could never simply rest there and wait for the unlucky ball of fire to fall.

She turned to look Raahi in the eyes, but did not see him. All she could see was the island behind his head, coming forward at double, perhaps triple the speed she had observed just moments earlier. It came within twenty yards of their lifeboat and submerged completely, increasing speed all the time. It flew under them, making not quite a wave but a high, fat undulation that raised the lifeboat yet did not toss it. The island continued on, zooming under the surface of the water toward the shore and the dark army that waited there.

Suddenly it reared up, growing out of the shallowing water, revealing itself. It was an island, but only on top. Under the foliage stood a Turtle. Of such size that it was difficult to see much of the army behind it, the Turtle stood defiantly on flippers that were quickly, by some unknown process, becoming sturdier feet for going about on land. The island was only a superficial covering adorning the shell. The Turtle's skin was dark and slick, a camouflage for one going by night.

Raahi caught his breath in awe. "The Mother."

She reared up and trumpeted, a great war cry full of rage, and charged, jaws open, into the assembled ranks of Alavariss. Esmeralda had thought that turtles, on the whole, were slow creatures. Indeed, this idea was so firmly implanted in her mind that she never considered that the Great Turtles might be any different. She found, watching the Mother Turtle engage in such a wide variety of seemingly simultaneous destruction, that her ideas on the speed of turtles had to be drastically changed. The Alavarisians were totally unprepared for such an adversary. Their flaming catapults were set to fire well over the Mother Turtle's head and couldn't connect. Their evil crawling machines were helpless, like children under foot, and their little spikes and blades couldn't pierce the majesty of her skin. A couple of the fireballs struck but seemed not to harm her in the least. A section of the forest on her back was set burning, but no apparent pain was caused. She was only made a more terrifying sight: a blazing rage to rend the night.

"While they're distracted!" Raahi said, steering the boat toward shore.

Rowing with their greatest unified effort, they sped over to Ngare and the other Elite Guard. They found the soldiers floating there and, for the most part, miraculously unhurt. Beyond them, on the shore, the Mother Turtle was an unstoppable destructive force.

There were too many soldiers to fit onto the boat, and it took some jostling around before they accepted that they would certainly capsize before they got everyone out of the water. They finally decided that Ngare and a couple others were strong enough to swim, even in shifts, until they found someplace relatively safe to dock.

They were about to depart when Esmeralda felt something curious. She felt strangely, suddenly alone.

"The Turtle," she said. She looked out over the water, and there, swimming with all his might toward the shore, was the Ivory Turtle. Somehow in the commotion they had not noticed him slip into the water. Perhaps going to be with his mother, or just to do whatever he could to help another of his kind, he was swimming into havoc and ruin: into war.

"Raahi!" Esmeralda screamed.

But Raahi had noticed it already. They turned the boat and began rowing toward the fleeing Turtle. All of this was for him, so that he could be saved from the Alavarisians and the Phoon. They would not lose him now.

The Turtle, while small, swam with impressive speed. They did not catch up with him before they reached shallow water. Several yards ahead of them lay the beach and the frenzied war-fighting there. The Mother Turtle showed no signs of slowing and Alavariss seemed all but spent.

"Stop!" Esmeralda called out to the still-fleeing Turtle.

It's her. I know her. I have always known her.

"I know...but please." Esmeralda leapt out of the lifeboat as they came alongside the Turtle. "You have to stop. It's dangerous."

The Turtle stopped and turned toward her. The water was not yet shallow enough for him to touch bottom with his little legs.

She is here for me.

"She's here to help you," Esmeralda said. "She wants to give you a chance to get away."

Suddenly, it became very strangely quiet. The air had been full of screaming soldiers and the various shouts and trumpeting of the Mother Turtle. All at once this was gone, and in its place was only the sound of the Great Turtle steadily breathing. She stood still, staring over the devastation she had effected, and beheld the one who advanced upon her. He rode a chariot out from the rear of the army where he had watched his soldiers come to such quick and decisive defeat. His chariot was for one, pulled by a team of great black wolves: horrible mutants with dripping, snapping jaws. In his right hand, he held a scepter with a glowing, green jewel at the head; in the left, he held a cruel whip. His eyes were dark and full of arrogance.

The Emperor. Esmeralda wondered what power he could exhibit over a creature with the size and will of the Mother Turtle, but, for a reason she did not understand, she felt a creeping fear for the much larger contender in the coming clash.

The Mother Turtle rushed forward, jaws wide and screaming. The Emperor stayed his hounds, cracked his whip once and held the scepter high over his head. He said something that Esmeralda couldn't hear, and a brilliant green chain leapt out of the scepter, splitting into many parts as it passed through the air, striking the Mother Turtle, stopping her dead in her tracks. She screamed, but this was not a war cry, the cry of the triumphant. She screamed in pain intense and horrible. She writhed and quickly came to her knees. The Emperor grinned his gleaming grin, his eyes going wide with immense joy at being able to cause so much agony in another creature. His laughter was reverberant through the field of battle and across the dark water.

"It can't...no," Esmeralda mumbled, feeble in the face of the Emperor's seemingly supernatural power.

Raahi grabbed her and tried to toss her into the boat. "We have to go!" he screamed.

Esmeralda twisted her body, kicked and flung her limbs in all directions. She managed to free herself and fell into the shallow water.

Robert jumped out of the boat. "Esmeralda, please, we have to leave."

"He's killing her!" she cried out.

The Ivory Turtle began swimming again toward the shore.

You can go. I cannot leave her. Not now.

Esmeralda ran after the Turtle, cleaving the water. Robert and Raahi followed.

From behind, Ngare called out. When Esmeralda turned to look, she saw the Elite Guard, all in defensive position, what weapons still among them—a few bows, a few more blades—drawn and at the ready. She turned her gaze forward, and on either side what was left of the Alavariss army was assembling between her and the Mother Turtle. The raging Mother had done an admirable job, but she hadn't extinguished their entire force. What was left had taken notice of them, assembled, and prepared to strike.

Esmeralda picked up the Ivory Turtle. The creature's awkward bulk was almost too much for her to grapple with, but she managed to walk it back to the main group. She rushed behind the Elite Guard, who were assembled in a defiant wall—fifteen soldiers, having survived fire, wreck, and ruin, facing an army that still numbered in the thousands.

Ceaselessly, the Mother Turtle howled in pain. The glowing, green chains wrapped around her body, ran into her open mouth and around her eyes. She bucked and twisted, sometimes rising up on her hind legs, but she could not advance. The strange power of the Emperor was complete. Beside Esmeralda, the Ivory Turtle wept. His little body shook with each sharp inhalation of air. And with each new howl from his Mother's tortured frame, he wept harder.

"It's not possible," Robert whispered.

Esmeralda looked at him. She looked up at Raahi, utter disbelief on his face and, worse, fear in his eyes. She thought of the song that she had played not twenty minutes ago. She felt the flute Ko vibrating warmly at her side. She looked down into the water; each of the Ivory Turtle's falling tears glowed a unique and otherworldly color. Into each little drop of color she peered down, down, down, to its center. What she was seeing was happening, for real, and something had to be done.

The Alavarisian warriors began chanting in whatever warmonger's tongue they used before the initial volley. At this distance, the gruesome curves of their repulsive silver masks were well defined. The eyes, however, were dead and dark, as they were no matter how close one got.

"Robert," Esmeralda said, flute music running in her mind, "get a bow and arrow."

Robert looked at her a moment, saw the expression on her face and sloshed through the water to the nearest Elite Guard holding a bow.

"Um...I need that," Robert said.

Esmeralda knelt down, held her hands under the Turtle's shaking face and collected as many of the Turtle Tears as she could. They sparkled and glowed in the palms of her hands.

Robert came up to Esmeralda, holding the bow and arrow uneasily. Over his shoulder stood a tall Elite Guard with a look of maniacal annoyance on his face.

"Here," Esmeralda said. "Dip the arrow."

Robert did, wetting the arrowhead with the Turtle Tears.

"Now get ready," Esmeralda instructed, watching Robert pull back on the bowstring and point it into the air.

Raahi and Ngare watched them both and said nothing.

She pulled out the flute and began to play; all the sounds of battle receded into the background. The pain of the Mother Turtle, the aggression of Alavariss, everything became a blank canvas onto which she painted a song of Ko. She played exactly the notes she had before, waiting until she sounded the Opposite of All to look at Robert and say, "now."

Robert loosed the arrow and it flew through a field of falling white light. The tip glowed a brilliant blue and accelerated as it moved through the sky.

The Alavarisian soldiers, seeing this, began their charge. Their commanders raised their swords and bellowed, sending their masked troops into a blood rage that had no expression but their bestial howls.

The arrow rose higher and farther than any bow could naturally send it: over the Alavarisian army, over the back of the Mother Turtle. Flying like light undisturbed, the arrow took the place that Esmeralda's song and the tears of the Ivory Turtle prescribed for it. It landed in the very center of the right eye of the Emperor.

Immediately the green chains disappeared, ending the assault on the Mother Turtle. The Emperor bellowed with impossible volume; his wolves came instantly to action, turning the chariot about and retreating into the night. The Mother Turtle rose to her feet. Leaving the Emperor to his flight into the dark, she spun around and scattered the Alavarisian army before it came within fifty feet of her child. The Mother Turtle moved with renewed strength, laying waste to all those foolish enough to battle. Most of the dark soldiers, seeing how overmatched they were, simply broke and ran. She didn't chase them. She only stared off into the night as they fled, the Emperor and his slaves. Once satisfied, she turned slowly about, with a small but growing smile on her face, to regard her newborn son.
  16. # 14. The Mother Turtle and the Return to Song.

As it became clear that the danger was fleeing in terror back to Alavariss, the Mother Turtle's skin slowly shifted from almost black to a pale blue, luminescent under a newly revealed moon. She came forward out of the remains of battle until her feet were in the water, and her face, now kind, looked on the Ivory Turtle, Esmeralda, Robert and the rest.

"My son," the Mother Turtle said in a beautiful, fragile voice.

The Ivory Turtle swam to the shore and walked slowly under the shadow of his mother, setting his head adoringly against a tiny piece of her powerful frame. He closed his eyes, and while Esmeralda heard nothing, she knew he was speaking to his mother and she to him. They stayed like this for several minutes, conversing on a plane and in a way foreign to the human beings observing: silently and from a deeper place than words can go.

After a time, the Mother Turtle trained her eyes on Esmeralda. "You saved us..." The Mother Turtle looked down at her son for a moment. "...Esmeralda. That is a pretty name."

"Um, thank you, I guess," Esmeralda said. "But I didn't do anything really."

The Mother Turtle wore a broad smile. "I think the Emperor would disagree with you right now. And your friends here: Robert, Raahi, Ngare, all of you. You have saved me and shown unfailing courage. I thank you all."

The Mother Turtle looked down at her son for a moment, and he moved out from under the shadow of her frame. She then knelt down, making her body as flat and low to the ground as possible.

"Now, please," she said, "come up and I will take you on to your home."

As she said this, long green vines began to grow down from the forest atop her back, knitting themselves together into a broad and sturdy ladder. Esmeralda and Robert looked at each other, awestruck and grinning. Always the pioneering soldier, Ngare went up first. Everyone soon followed until they were all up on the expansive back of the Mother Turtle.

The surrounding forest had rid itself of the fire from the catapults of Alavariss. The growing things there had somehow regenerated and showed no signs of the damage done in the fight. In fact, much of the forest seemed now changed. The jungle was not so thick and difficult as they had found it when searching for the Ivory Turtle. The forest was full of slender, pale trees, spaced at wide intervals, with a fanning crown atop each. The air was sweet with beautiful, natural smells—perfumes of bark and leaf and fruit. As they stood watching the surroundings, a group of huge fireflies of all colors drifted out of the trees and began swirling over their heads, adding wonderfully to the light of the moon.

And so they went, away from the place of battle, away from the sea, and into the wide and peaceful lands of Song. The Mother Turtle walked under them, tireless through the remaining hours of the night. She kept to an incredibly smooth gait, so that Esmeralda and the others could imagine that they were still and only their surroundings moved. The exertions of the night finally made their way into Esmeralda's body, and she lay down in the cool grass, face to the sky. The angry clouds had rolled out as quickly as they had arrived, and the night was powerful and precious again. She stared through a sheet of fluttering fireflies to a blanket of uncountable stars. The ground beneath her was soft and warmer than the disinterested earth. The Ivory Turtle lay on one side of her, curling not quite completely into his shell, and together they drifted off to sleep.

***

Esmeralda woke with the sun. Next to her, the Ivory Turtle still slumbered, head just barely peeking out of his shell. She got up, stretched, looked around and found Robert standing a few feet away, staring ahead toward the gates of Song.

"She can change size," Robert said as Esmeralda walked over.

"What?"

"The Mother Turtle. She's gotten a lot smaller. Look around."

Esmeralda took in her surroundings again and noticed that she could see through the forest on all sides. Previously this was not nearly possible. She estimated the Mother Turtle was about a third or less of her previous size.

"Huh," Esmeralda said, "I guess she probably was up to her maximum size for the fight."

"Yeah," Robert said. "Were you scared?"

"What do you mean?" Esmeralda asked. "Like during the fighting and stuff?"

"Yeah." Robert looked away from her. "I kind of feel like I freaked out."

"Hey." Esmeralda put her hand on his shoulder. "Everybody was scared. I was terrified. You don't have to feel..."

"I know. It's okay."

Esmeralda moved so that she was facing Robert, staring in his eyes. "Hey, look at what we've done in, what, three days? We moved to another dimension, infiltrated an evil palace, I got kidnapped, you fought an evil Phoon monster and saved my life, we found a sacred Turtle and saved it from a huge army, and more besides. Nobody gets to be ashamed here, you know?"

Robert smiled a little. "I guess it has been a big weekend."

"Yeah," Esmeralda said, "it really has."

"I have to admit I'm still trying to think of what to tell my mom and dad. They're lawyers. You have to have, like, an ironclad story, or they'll pick it full of holes. I was thinking of telling them I ate some bad cake at your party and ran off in the night having hallucinations. You could say the same thing."

"I don't know if that will work," Esmeralda said.

"Yeah." Robert smiled ruefully.

"How did you convince them to even let you spend the night at my house Friday? They didn't want you to at first."

"Well," Robert said, "I gave them a presentation, but they didn't really buy it. Something turned them around last Monday. I'm not really sure what it was."

"What day is it?" Esmeralda said.

Robert looked thoughtful. "I guess it depends on whether you went back or forward when you came through the sunflower field. Remember? You said you went from night to day in a moment. Well, if you went back, it's Monday morning. If you went forward, it's Tuesday."

"Huh," Esmeralda said, "either way, we've missed school."

"No." Robert smiled. "It's Martin Luther King Day on Monday. Remember?"

"Oh, right," Esmeralda said.

They rode on into the Shining City. The Mother Turtle continued to contract her size until she was about as large as four elephants going two by two, a width that allowed her to pass through the eastern gates. The sunrise painted its warmth on the various buildings of the City, making all things golden and fine. There was little traffic this early in the day, though they disturbed enough travelers to put the word out that something momentous was happening: a Great Turtle walked through Song.

When they reached Shrine, a crowd was gathered at the gates. Growing still, the crowd stared up, singing a song unknown to Esmeralda and Robert but which seemed to have some deep significance, something like a church hymn.

"What are they singing?" Esmeralda asked Raahi.

Raahi had a broad smile on his face. "An old song, one we only sang in a kind of melancholy fashion, a song written by the grandfathers of our grandfathers. The chorus goes:

The World is ever and always

The dream of those whose tears

Survive a thousand years

Free the great ones shall stay

Until the end of all days."

"What does it mean?" Esmeralda asked.

Raahi couldn't stop grinning. "People used to say that it meant that the World was going to come to an end soon. We thought there were no Turtles living outside the prisons of Alavariss. And now we find that there always have been. The Grandfather was sleeping under Song the whole time. The Mother Turtle now returns to the City with her son. The song has a new meaning now."

Within the courtyard they were greeted by several wide-eyed guards who asked no questions, only waved them by. Upon the Mother Turtle's entrance, all of the trees in the courtyard began coming in various ways alive, their branches swaying and their leaves changing to all sorts of bright and pleasing colors. The trees on her back followed suit, as if the two groves, the one on the earth and the one rooted in her, were holding an enigmatic conversation. Just inside the gate, under a wide willow tree shining gold, silver, red, stood Dorthea, Pa and Boots the husky. They waved, excitement and awe written all over their faces. Esmeralda called out to the Mother Turtle, and she kindly stopped and sent down several vines to gently lift all three up to ride with them into the courtyard.

The people of the City began pouring in, bringing food and drink, musical instruments, and tents. It was as if the City itself had decided that this was going to be a celebration. No one decreed it; no directives were issued or holidays declared. Everyone seemed to know what to do. In moments, a huge tent was erected in the eastern corner of the courtyard, and the air filled with the scent of good food and the sound of laughter. Many, many drums were brought in, and the courtyard began pulsing with the unison rhythms of multiple players and swirling with hundreds of dancing feet. The Mother Turtle sat in the middle of it all, smiling and trying her best not to step on anyone. Every once in a while, a little child would come inquisitively up to her, and she would send down a couple of vines, gently lifting the child into the air and placing the giggling youngster on her back. Everyone laughed, everyone sang, and, though it must have been hours into the day, it seemed like only half a breath before Raahi tapped Esmeralda on the shoulder and whispered into her ear, "The Counsel has to see us."

Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, and Ngare came to the observatory at the tip of Shrine. The Ivory Turtle did not go; no one wanted to separate him from his mother, even for a moment.

"You were attacked," was the way Speaker Han began the interview.

"Yes," Raahi said. "Alavariss. We received your message, but not in time to avoid the army. How did Alavariss know to give up the chase for the Phoon?"

"We don't know," Speaker Han said simply. "They must have turned around to follow almost directly after reaching the pass through Narlith. They could not have wasted any time battling with the Phoon. We fear there may have been a spy somewhere in the middle of all this, but we haven't a clue who it could be. Princess Yaris was even accused, not to her face, mind you, but we have no way of knowing how she would have gotten the information out. To our knowledge, she hasn't had access to any human being outside the Counsel since you brought her here. Also, after speaking to her, I do not believe that she would do anything like that. She would never help her father. So we don't know. Now, in the battle, was the Emperor injured or killed?"

"We aren't sure," Raahi said and then related the details of the Emperor's defeat.

"Well," Speaker Han said, thinking, "a wound like that would do away with most, but the Emperor has great, uh, longevity. We can hope."

"At the least, his army has been nearly obliterated." Ngare pointed out.

"Yes, wonderfully so," Speaker Han said. "Esmeralda, how did you make the arrow fly that way? Do you know the Songs of Ko?"

"I don't know anything about how it happened," Esmeralda honestly replied. "We were just frightened, and everything was going wrong, and I did something. I don't know if the song helped at all. It may have just been the Ivory Turtle's tears, or maybe Robert is just way better at archery than we thought before."

Robert perked up. "I'd like to strike that last possibility from the record."

"There are fewer answers here than I'd like," Counselor Han said. "But still, Alavariss has lost a great portion of its military strength and perhaps its leader. There are three Great Turtles in the Shining City as we speak. This is a great day."

Everyone agreed.

Counselor Han walked over to her spot in the circle of Counselors and picked up a little wooden drum that was sitting there. She brought it and sat it in front of Esmeralda and Robert. "Now, I'm afraid it's time for you to go home."

Esmeralda and Robert looked at each other.

"What day is today?" Robert asked.

"Today is Monday for you," Raahi said, smiling.

"Didn't miss any school," Robert said to himself.

"But we can't go back now!" Esmeralda blurted. "We just, I mean, everything just worked out, sort of. Couldn't we just wait until the party ends outside?"

Raahi looked expectantly at speaker Han.

She smiled. "There is no way of knowing how long this party will last. If you want, take a little time, say your goodbyes, dance and prepare yourselves to go."

And so they did. Esmeralda and Robert came down to where the people were, and everywhere they went faces were smiling and cheering them. The air was full of beautiful sounds and life. Raahi helped lead the music, which was incredibly coordinated for the sheer mass of people with drums, flutes, guitars, violins, horns and instruments of all kinds. Robert lost all of his stiff inhibitions and danced hilariously. After a while, Esmeralda noticed one of the high windows of Shrine occupied by a silhouette, much like her own, staring out over the festivities. She managed to break away from the party for a moment to head into the tower and visit Yaris.

"Are you all right?" Esmeralda asked, once in her room.

"This is a really nice place," Yaris said.

"I like it too."

Yaris stared out the window. "I heard you were in danger."

"A little, but it worked out okay."

"Is my father alive?" Yaris let no emotion into the words.

Esmeralda said, "I don't think so. If he's still alive, he's hurting pretty badly."

"Hmm."

Esmeralda tried to lighten up. "Are you going to come down to the party? It's like the best thing that has ever happened to Song. The whole City is celebrating!"

"I don't think so. I don't think they will like me, considering where I come from...or who I come from."

Esmeralda walked up beside Yaris. In the time since she had last seen her, Yaris had changed into a simple white dress, similar to the one the female Counselors wear. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the tiara was nowhere to be seen. Esmeralda wondered whether Yaris had just thrown it away.

"You don't have to worry about them accepting you," Esmeralda said. "No one is going to blame you for who your father is. Besides, I have to leave soon. You can tell everybody you're me."

Yaris smiled. "You have to go back to your World?"

"Yeah. But not for a little while. Will you come down?"

Yaris was still tentative. "You want me to?"

Esmeralda grinned.

The party went nonstop through the afternoon and into evening. Esmeralda, Robert and Yaris all danced crazily, taking turns picking up the Ivory Turtle by the front legs and teaching him some dance moves. Yaris, after a while, lost herself to the atmosphere and laughed with her entire body—a sound that she had perhaps never made in honesty before.

As evening fell, they all had supper. Most people just ate food that they brought along for themselves, making little picnics around the courtyard, but Esmeralda, many of the Elite Guard, certain members of the Counsel, and other people who were all happy and friendly but whom Esmeralda didn't recognize, all ate at an enormous wooden table set under the big, red tent. Robert and Yaris sat on either side of Esmeralda. Dorthea and Pa and Raahi sat opposite her. Boots roamed about in the large space beneath the table, seeking out fallen scraps. The food was exotic and succulent. Esmeralda had never sat at such a fine and well-stocked table in all of her life.

"So," Pa said, wiping his chin, "I hear you kids had a mighty adventure."

"Yeah," Esmeralda said. "It was pretty exciting at times."

He glanced sideways at Dorthea. "I'm glad you came out of it all right. I don't rightly understand where you all come from. No one can put it to me in a way I'll grasp it. But your first visit to Song ought to be a happy one. It ought to end with a celebration like this."

"I'll drink to that," Dorthea said, holding up a glass.

"Here, here!" Raahi said as everyone clanked glasses.

"And I can't recall a nicer celebration." Pa's eyes sparkled as he talked. "We used to have a dance now and then, when all us country folk would hoof into the City one way or another. You remember, Dorthea?"

"Yeah, before Mama passed, you would come in with your guitar and get together with folks."

"That's right. People were always having music and talking, making friends. Must be ten years since I've been in the City. Far too long."

"Well," Esmeralda said. "We're glad to give you a reason to come back to Song."

"And I thank you for it." Pa inclined his head, smiling.

"Will you play some music for us?" Esmeralda said, giving Pa her biggest smile.

"Oh, no. I ain't played in, I don't know, forever it seems."

"Now, Pa, don't you fib to the girl," Dorthea said with insincere severity. "You and I live in the same house. I hear you playin' all the time."

Pa held a sheepish grin. "You sacrifice your whole life to raise somebody up, and look what you get. Well, sure, I try to play all the time, but I can't, so..."

"I have a suggestion." Raahi stood up from the table. "Why don't we do something as a trio?"

"Uh-huh," Pa contemplated. "Who's the third?"

Raahi looked at Esmeralda.

"But I don't know any songs," she said.

Pa lifted himself up onto his feet and began walking toward the little stage at the head of the table. He called over his shoulder, "darlin', I been trying to get music to happen since I was knee-high to a June bug. I don't know any songs; nobody does. It's the song that knows you."

Esmeralda looked at Robert. He shrugged and smiled. She sighed and got up. She went over to the stage, took out her flute and waited. Someone had handed Pa a fine wooden guitar with bright steel strings; he held it with an attentive reverence.

"Well, Raahi," Pa said, "what are we gonna' play?"

"You start," Raahi instructed. "Esmeralda and I will follow you."

"You know that tune about Darlina Hailith?" Pa asked.

"You start. I'll figure it out."

Pa nodded and put his hands to the guitar. The people still assembled at the table took no more food; not a glass was raised nor a word spoken. Everyone was intent on what was to come from the stage. Pa began a low throbbing rhythm, made by fingers on strings, a kind of sound-blanket for a melody to lie upon. Raahi began next, filling the air with winding, shimmering lines of sound. The music was beautiful, bright, but not exuberant, a music that understood that this was a goodbye dinner. They went on for some time; Esmeralda stood on the side of the stage awkwardly, having no idea what she ought to be doing.

It's all right.

Esmeralda looked across the table and around the tent for the Ivory Turtle. She couldn't find him.

You can't make a mistake. You don't know how. Just play.

Esmeralda put Ko to her lips, trying to imagine a sound that would go both with what Pa was doing and with what Raahi was doing at the same time. She placed her fingers over Love, Art, and Fear, not because that was what she was feeling or because that was what she wanted. Ko didn't work like that. She imagined these three things like lines on a piece of paper. The note that sounded through them was like a point where they all came together. She closed her eyes and began to play. As she did, she felt that what she heard coming from her flute did make a kind of sense with everything else coming from the stage. She concentrated, trying other notes. Some she liked more than others. But always she felt that what she was doing was not wrong; it could not be so. After some time, this impromptu but consistently beautiful music, almost of its own accord, came to an end. Esmeralda opened her eyes and found that the interior of the tent was filled with shimmering light of all colors. The light drifted toward the seated diners in little pockets, and as each piece of light touched the top of a head or a shoulder, it burst into a thousand shards, and each of these danced away into the air.

Everyone stood, erupting into thunderous applause.

Pa looked over at Esmeralda, surprise and delight on his face. "You know a lot more about playing songs than you think, little lady."

"Thank you," Esmeralda said.

"Now," Raahi began with a fading smile, "unfortunately time has really gotten away from us."

Esmeralda looked up at him. "Time to go?" she asked.

"Time to go."

The citizens of Song crowded outside the tent and around the Mother Turtle. Here and there throughout the throng, people were holding candles and little torches, pinpricks of illumination in the surrounding night. Esmeralda, Robert, Raahi, Yaris, Dorthea, and the Ivory Turtle climbed up onto the Mother Turtle's back. Raahi placed the Largo Drum in front of Esmeralda and Robert.

You have to go?

Esmeralda looked down at the Ivory Turtle, his eyes wide and searching. "Yes. I don't think forever or anything like that. But I do, I do have to go now."

I will miss you.

Esmeralda felt herself tearing up. "I'll miss you, too."

From deep below all of them, the Mother Turtle's voice vibrated through. "You will return in time. We have begun a new cycle now, a new wheel. I am sad but not melancholy. I will see you again."

"But," Esmeralda said, "how will we find our way through the Largo? Who will play for us to lead us?"

"Mother will send you where you need to go," Raahi said. "And she will keep those of us that must remain from being pulled in by the drum. She is quite powerful."

With that, Raahi and Dorthea hugged them both quickly. Yaris was next; she awkwardly shook Robert's hand, but she held Esmeralda in a long, honest embrace. Esmeralda and Robert sat before the drum, took a deep breath and began tapping out the rhythm, still burned in their minds after those long days. Doom tick tak ta doom tick takita. Doom tick tak ta doom tick takita...
  17. # 15. Home

As they played, the world became ghostly and unreal. Esmeralda looked at Yaris; her head was tilted toward the ground, perhaps to hide tears. Slowly the faces of Dorthea, Raahi, and Yaris became ever more transparent until finally nothing was left. There was only Esmeralda, Robert and a swirling, colorless background. In the distance there was noise, not music, just incoherent noise. This grew in volume, and, as it did so, the world began to grow brighter, and slowly forms emerged: the ground, trees, sky. Esmeralda and Robert came out of the haze and into the hard world. They were just outside Esmeralda's school in the morning; the sun was low and rising.

Robert looked around. "So, is it Monday or Tuesday?"

"Does it matter?" Esmeralda said.

"I don't know," Robert mumbled. "Maybe it doesn't. I just think that I'll get, like, a certain amount of punishment from my parents for each day I was missing. You know, like sentencing."

"Your parents will just be happy you are alive."

Robert laughed.

They made their way down the street under sunrise. On a school day, the parking lot would already be full of cars, and yellow busses would be lined up. The empty asphalt demonstrated It was still Monday, a holiday.

Esmeralda thought about the idea of school with a new perspective. How had she taken all of that so seriously? In the grand scheme, with evil emperors and ivory turtles and everything, was Stacy Keenan or Mr. Eldredge really that big a deal?

"It's going to be weird going back to school tomorrow," Robert said as they walked.

"Yeah." Esmeralda smiled. "I think it's going to be a lot better."

They rounded the corner, Robert looking sharply at all of the streetlamps along Symphony Street, and before long they had come upon Esmeralda's little house. Happy to be home but incredibly anxious, she stood on the porch and thought about what waited on the other side of the door. Robert fidgeted with his pants, now full of holes and dirt. She could tell he was still trying to work something out to tell his parents.

"You want me to leave?" Robert asked. "It wouldn't take that long for me to walk home."

"I don't think so," Esmeralda answered, thoughtful. "I'm just not sure how I can use you for evidence."

"Should we say we were kidnapped? Or that you ran away and then reconsidered?"

"I'm not sure it really matters."

Esmeralda took a deep breath and reached for the door. Unlocked, it swung wide. They walked into the living room; Esmeralda's father was seated on the couch, a cup of coffee in his hands. He didn't rush up to give her a hug; he didn't have tears in his eyes.

"You're back," he said, happy but not ecstatic.

"Hi, Dad," Esmeralda whispered, confused and uncomfortable. "I know we've been gone the whole weekend, and you must have been worried sick about us. But, let me tell you, if you haven't heard of, like, the phenomenon of..."

"You're out of creamer." A familiar voice came from the kitchen.

Esmeralda turned. Nonchalant and smiling, Raahi walked into the living room and plopped himself down on the couch next to her father.

"Black coffee is a chore more than anything," Raahi observed casually.

Esmeralda and Robert stared, unable to say a word.

"We've got to toughen up your tastes. Bitterness can be a source of enjoyment," Mr. Comstock said and turned to Esmeralda. "Did you have a good trip?"

Esmeralda gawked numbly, blank faced, trying to understand.

"Old friends from college," Robert said, awe in his voice.

Mr. Chandrasekhar put his coffee to his lips, covering a smile.

"Dad?" Esmeralda said.

Mr. Comstock looked at her for a moment and then turned to her friend. "Robert, your parents will be expecting you to tell them all about being at the three-day moth and butterfly convention put on by the Entomological Society downstate. It was a surprise for Esmeralda's birthday. Do you know anything about moths?"

"I know something about moths," Robert intoned.

"Dad?" Esmeralda said, unsure of just about everything. "How well do you know Raahi?"

Raahi grimaced at his coffee. "Quite well, I should think."

"We go way back," Mr. Comstock said.

"And do you know about..." Esmeralda looked warily at Raahi and then at her father. "...Song and all that?"

Esmeralda's father winked, smiling.

"And I think it's time that our friendship was rekindled in a serious way," Raahi said. "I also think that in order for you to become an adequate flautist, I am going to have to visit every once in a while to give lessons."

Mr. Comstock looked with his warm eyes at the still-shocked expressions worn by his daughter and her friend, and he began to laugh in fullness and in honesty and in love. Gaining control, he finally said, "I hope you two had a good time."

***

  18. # About the Author

Mitchell Atkinson III is a writer and musician from Michigan. He is often between places, usually staring out a window and thinking. He can be reached at HedgeFox1@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2014 by Mitchell Atkinson

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed within are (obviously) fictitious or are used fictitiously.

Unauthorized duplication or distribution is prohibited.

A HedgeFox Book
