Come on, come on
, he thought.
The image of the boys trying to duck away from Phemus’s swinging fists forced his eyes open. He snatched the pouch down from the hook, grabbed the two other items—a small bundle of hay and a rock—and yanked the portal door open.
FRIDAY, 11:12 A.M.
“Okay,” Mike Peterson said. “It’s scanning the databases now.”
Ed leaned forward to get a better view of the monitor.
Flickering letters and words faded to black. A small dot appeared in the middle and expanded until a globe filled the screen. Ed recognized the American continents, hosting the countries of Canada, the US, all the way down to Chile and Argentina. The globe began a slow rotation toward Europe.
Words flashed in the top left corner:
Indo-European . . . Celtic . . . Germanic . . . Greek . . .
The top right corner showed years counting backward by century:
AD 2000 . . . AD 1900 . . . AD 1800 . . .
As the words and years changed, geopolitical boundaries shrank and expanded, appeared and disappeared over the image of land masses. The globe rotated one way, then the other. It zoomed in, back out, zoomed in again. The program isolated certain areas, appeared to change its mind, and zipped to another location.
Back and back the years went:
AD 100 . . . AD 1 . . . 100 BC . .
. At 600 BC, the location hovered over the Greek islands, then began moving west. It settled over the Atlantic Ocean, zooming in on the Azores Islands.
Mike nodded. “I thought so.”
On the screen, the small group of nine islands melted into one large island and continued to expand, as if rising out of the ocean.
When the computer let out a musical chime, Ed jumped. Nothing more on the screen moved. Then a label appeared over the new landmass.
Ed stared at it for at least ten seconds. He looked at Mike out of the corner of his eye. He said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
David stared in awe.
The land on the other side of the river was a huge mountain that climbed high above them. At the peak was a castle or fortress many times larger than any he had ever seen. The shape, as well, was peculiar: every wall was straight, but they jutted one way and then another, as though the builders had followed the shape of the mountaintop in order to make the structure as large as the plateau would allow. At every juncture where the walls took a turn, towers rose above the level of the parapets. Spaced evenly along the top perimeter were flags of every color, shape, and design, hundreds of them fluttering in the wind. But the most striking aspect of the castle—for David had decided it was definitely a king’s castle—was its color: the entire thing appeared to be covered in or made out of gold. Sunlight glinted from it in a thousand places.
Below the castle, cliffs dropped a short distance to smaller buildings. These structures appeared to have been constructed of polished rock: black, silver, and red, all glistening as though wet. Some were checkered, others striped, and a few cobbled together with no discernable pattern. They seemed to follow an avenue—about the width of a football field—that gently spiraled around the mountain, climbing toward the top. Two levels down from the castle, a bridge spanned a broad crevasse, allowing the avenue to continue. Tall pillars and arches supported the bridge. They were so ornately carved, David thought Michelangelo must have had a hand in their design. The bridge, arches, and pillars were made out of the same blood-red stone, polished to mirror perfection.
The buildings flanked the bridge, but did not encroach on it. Rather, the bridge’s surface had been turned into a park: except for a strip of road on its inside edge, grass covered it. Big trees grew straight up from it. The space below was too shadowy for David to see where the root systems went.
People were enjoying it as they would any park. Some were picnicking, others strolling hand in hand. Children rolled and tussled. One boy flew a kite, a dragon-shaped collection of colorful fabric that rose higher than the rooftops of the buildings on the next level up. Roving musicians danced as they played their instruments, which David could
almost
hear in the movements of the musicians’ bodies.
A ribbon of water, as wide as a street, fell from an arched opening at the base of the castle. It disappeared behind the buildings on the highest level, then emerged from beneath another structure and fell to the level below. It did that two more times before reaching the foot of the mountain. There it became a stream that ran through a large garden of trimmed hedges and topiary, where more people strolled, musicians played, and gymnasts and jesters performed. Eventually the stream drained into the large river that separated David from the spectacular mountain-city.
“Xander,” David said, breathless. “It’s . . .”
“Beautiful,” Xander said. “Incredible.”
“Let’s get over there,” David said.
“Yeah . . .
no!
” Xander said. “We’re not here for that.”
Of course not
, David thought. But eyeing the glittering gold and polished stone, the fantastic buildings and flawless . . .
bushes
—for crying out loud!—he wanted to be there. He ached to experience it, to walk in the parks, taste the food, and listen to the music, which he was certain would change his idea of what music could be.
“No, I . . . wow,” David said. “I’ve never heard of a place like this. Where . . .
when
. . . are we?”
“Come on,” Xander said. He led David off the side of the terrace, where a cobblestone path led around the house and down a steep hill, in the other direction from the grassy slope to the river. The path had been carved into the earth, forming vine-covered cliffs that rose on either side.
“I can smell the ocean,” David said. “Salty.”
Xander crinkled his nose. “And something not so nice.”
“I thought that was you,” David said and laughed.
Xander gave him a shove. He said, “When we get to wherever this path leads, keep your eyes open for Phemus.”
They rounded a bend, and David saw that the path ended at a tall metal gate. It was intricately designed, with swooping curls of iron and ornamental flowers, petals, and leaves. At its center, framed by two concentric circles, a crown rested on a smaller circle, as though on a faceless head. A few feet beyond the gate, a wall of leaves showed that the carved-out path hooked sharply to the right.
Xander fiddled with a lever and sprang the gate open.
Stepping through, David took in the gate’s beautiful craftsmanship. He shook his head. “I can’t imagine him coming from a place like this.”
But that impression ended when they turned with the path and stepped into a large town square.
Keal crashed down onto hard, uneven ground. Stretching out before him, illuminated by light pouring in from the portal behind him, was a tunnel. The irregular angles of its walls made him think it was naturally formed, by a stream or water that had once cut through the earth around him.
The portal door slammed shut, plunging him into darkness. The door’s sound echoed down the tunnel, as though scurrying to get away.
“Xander?” he called. “David?” His voice bounced against the walls and faded away. He sat in the darkness, thinking.
The items from the antechamber. They always had something to do with the world beyond the portal. He set the straw and stone down and reached his hand into the pouch. It was full of round stones that made him think of marbles. What he needed were matches.
Of course . . .
He got to his knees and picked up the straw and stone. He pushed the straw into the stone floor of the cave and hammered the stone down. It sparked against the floor. He did it again and again, until an orange dot appeared on a piece of straw. It flared into a flame, igniting the straw around it. He raised the burning bundle by one end, which had been wrapped tightly with a strip of leather.
A torch instead of a flashlight. A piece of flint instead of matches. He had a feeling the portal had sent him back in time a long,
long
way.
The fire cast a weak yellow glow that showed him only the tunnel walls nearest him. He turned on his knees and saw blackness in both directions.
He laid his hand over his throbbing head and rubbed it.
“Xander?” he called again. “David?”
He spotted something on the ground next to the curving wall. A spear. He picked it up and stood.
“Xander! David!”
The tunnel mocked him, repeating and swallowing his words: “David . . . David . . . David . . .”
He stared into the nothingness in each direction.
Which way?
Something on the wall caught his eye, and he waved the flame in front of it: a cave painting. It depicted two men fighting a bear-like creature as big as an elephant. Unlike the cave paintings he’d seen in history books, it wasn’t faded or chipped. This one was
new
.
Oh, please
, he thought.
Don’t tell me I’m in prehistoric times. Don’t tell me that!
He began walking, calling the boys’ names.
A noise stopped him. It was an echo weaving through the echo of his own voice. He stood perfectly still and listened.
Like music through the walls of a house, the sound reached him, a slow, pulsating whisper: breathing.
“Xander?” he said. “David?” But he knew this deep, heavy breathing didn’t come from one of them. The echoing made it impossible to guess how near it was, the source of this sound.
He couldn’t even be sure from which direction it came.
Then something in the darkness ahead scraped against stone, and the breathing grew louder. The thing snorted, loud as a train shooting out a quick blast of steam.
Keal lifted the spear and started backing away.
David gaped at the barbaric chaos splayed out in front of him and Xander.
The open-front stalls of tradesmen and vendors formed a crescent around the square, broken here and there to accommodate animal corrals. As much as the mountain-city was dazzling and alluring, the marketplace spread out before them was ugly and repulsive.
To their immediate right, a blacksmith pounded on metal, setting the teeth-grinding tone of the place:
Clang! Clang!
Clang!
In front of the smith, burly men examined knives and swords, spiked clubs and spears. They swung them at each other and at passersby, laughing and shouting. David could not understand their language, but by their sneers and the sharp sounds of their words, he guessed their talk was vulgar and abusive. Similar words rang out throughout the square.
He pushed the hair off his forehead and kept his palm pressed against his head. The assault on his senses made his brain ache.
In one stall a man cut the heads off fish, sliced into their bellies, and yanked out their guts. He slung the stuff onto the square’s cobblestones, where people clomped over the bloody piles. Another vendor butchered chickens, letting their headless bodies run around until they fell over. The market appeared to be dedicated to food, drink, weapons, and armor.
At the center of the square, two bare-chested men battered each other, while others cheered them on. One swung his fist into the face of the other, who staggered back, spewing blood.
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smiled a toothless grin, and retaliated with a frenzy of wild punches.
As though sprayed into this bedlam as some psycho artist’s final touch, an odor wafted over David—a offensive fusion of manure, raw meat, sweat, and things David didn’t want to think about.
“Xander?” David said, gripping the hem of his brother’s T-shirt. He looked back at the path. The house that had admitted them into this world appeared to be situated on a hill that marked this side of the square. To their left, a wide street cut into the same hill. Past that, buildings sprung up and arched around, making a huge circle out of what he had thought of as a “town square.”
Xander said, “See anything that indicates where we are?”
“Hell?” David suggested.
His brother nodded. “The road continues on the other side,” he said. “Maybe it leads to someplace . . . more sane.”
“What about that way?” David said. He pointed left, where a wide opening between the nearest buildings revealed more structures on the other side of the square.
“Docks, I think,” Xander said. “See the masts?”
And then David did. Tall poles rose behind the buildings and stalls. Crossbeams held gathered folds of canvas sails.
They started walking, giving wide berth to rowdy men. As they went deeper into the square, they could see more of the ships to their left: at least two of them docked in a line.
“David,” Xander said. He was looking into one of the corrals coming up on their right.
First David saw the men, sitting on the top rails of the fence, whooping and hollering with excitement. Next, he saw what captured their attention: boys younger than himself were going at each other with more ferocity than the men in the center of the square. A dozen or more of them punched, kicked, clawed, and bit. One tumbled away from the melee, staggered to his feet, shook his head, and dived back in.