Gregor the Overlander - 1 (6 page)

"Nice to meet you," said Gregor politely. "What does that mean, that you're bonded to each other?"

"Soon after we arrived in the Underland we humans formed a special alliance with the bats," said Solovet. "Both sides saw the obvious advantages to joining together. But beyond our alliance, individual bats and humans may form their own union. That is called bonding."

"And what do you do if you're bonded to a bat?" asked Gregor. "I mean, besides play ball games together."

There was a pause in which glances were exchanged around the table. He'd said something wrong again.

"You keep each other alive," said Luxa coldly.

It had seemed like he was making fun of something serious. "Oh, I didn't know," said Gregor.

"Of course, you did not," said Solovet, shooting a look at Luxa. "You have no parallel in your own land."

"And do you bond with the crawlers, too?" Gregor asked.

Henry snorted with laughter. "I would as soon bond with a stone. At least it could be counted on not to run away in battle."

Luxa broke into a grin. "And perhaps you could throw it. I suppose you could throw a crawler...."

"But then I would have to touch it!" said Henry, and the two cracked up.

"The crawlers are not known for their fighting ability," said Vikus, by way of explanation to Gregor. Neither he nor Solovet were laughing. He turned to Luxa and Henry. "Yet they live on. Perhaps when you can comprehend the reason for their longevity you will have more respect for them."

Henry and Luxa attempted to look serious, although their eyes were still laughing.

"It is of little consequence to the crawlers whether I respect them or not," said Henry lightly.

"Perhaps not, but it is of great consequence whether Luxa does. Or so it will be in some five years when she comes of age to rule," said Vikus. "At that time, foolish jokes at the crawlers' expense may make the difference between our existence and our annihilation. They do not need to be warriors to shift the balance of power in the Underland."

This sobered Luxa up for real, but it killed the conversation. An awkward pause stretched into an embarrassing silence. Gregor thought he understood what Vikus had meant. The crawlers would make better friends than enemies, and humans shouldn't go around insulting them.

To Gregor's relief, the food arrived, and an Underlander servant placed a half circle of small bowls around him. At least three contained what looked like various types of mushrooms.

One had a ricelike grain, and the smallest contained a handful of fresh greens. He could tell by the skimpy portion that the leafy stuff was supposed to be a big treat.

A platter with a whole grilled fish was set in front of him. The fish resembled the ones Gregor was used to except it had no eyes. He and his dad had once watched a show on TV about fish that lived way down deep in some cave and didn't have eyes, either. The weird thing was that when the scientists brought some up to study in a lab, the fish had sensed the light and had grown eyes. Not right away, but in a few generations.

His dad had gotten very excited over the show and had taken Gregor to the American Museum of Natural History to look for eyeless fish. They had ended up at the museum a lot, just the two of them. His dad was crazy about science, and it seemed as if he wanted to pour everything in his brain right into Gregor's head. It was a little dangerous, because even a simple question could bring on a half-hour explanation. His grandma had always said, "Ask your daddy the time, and he tells you how to make a clock." But he was so happy explaining, and Gregor was just happy being with him. Besides, Gregor had loved the rain forest exhibit, and the cafeteria with french fries shaped like dinosaurs. They had never really figured out how the fish had known to grow eyes. His dad had had some theories, of course, but he couldn't explain how the fish had been able to change so fast.

Gregor wondered how long it took people to become transparent with purple eyes. He turned to Vikus. "So, you were going to tell me how you got down here?"

While Gregor tried not to wolf his food, which turned out to be delicious, Vikus filled him in on the history of Regalia.

Not all of it was clear, but it seemed the people had come from England in the 1600s.

"Yes, they were led here by a stonemason, one Bartholomew of Sandwich," said Vikus, and Gregor had to work to keep a straight face. "He had visions of the future. He saw the Underland in a dream, and he set out to find it."

Sandwich and a group of followers had sailed to New York, where he got on famously with the local tribe. The Underland was no secret to the Native Americans, who had made periodic trips below the earth for ritual purposes for hundreds of years. They had little interest in living there and didn't care if Sandwich was mad enough to want to.

"Of course, he was quite sane," said Vikus. "He knew that one day the earth would be empty of life except what was sustained beneath the ground."

Gregor thought it might be rude to tell Vikus that billions of people lived up there now.

Instead, he asked, "So, everybody just packed up and moved down here?"

"Heavens, no! It was fifty years before the eight hundred were down and the gates to the Overland sealed. We had to know we could feed ourselves and have walls to keep us safe. Rome was not built in a day." Vikus laughed. "This was how Fred Clark the Overlander said it."

"What happened to him?" asked Gregor, spearing a mushroom.The table got quiet.

"He died," said Solovet softly. "He died without your sun."

Gregor lowered the mushroom to his plate. He looked over at Boots, who was covered from head to toe in some kind of mushy baby stew. She sleepily finger-painted on the stone tabletop with the gravy.

"Our sun," thought Gregor. Had it set? Was it bed time? Had the police gone, or were they still there questioning his mom? If they'd gone, he knew where she'd be. Sitting at the kitchen table. Alone in the dark. Crying.

The darkness pressed down on Gregor's eyes until he felt it had physical weight, like water. He'd never been completely without light before. At home, streetlights, car headlights, and the occasional flashing fire truck shone in the tiny window of his bedroom. Here, once he'd blown out the oil lamp, it was as if he'd lost the sense of sight entirely.

He'd been tempted to relight the lamp. Mareth had told him that torches burned all night long in the corridor outside his room and he could rekindle the flame there. But he wanted to save the oil. He'd be lost without it once he got out of Regalia.

Boots made a snuffling sound and pressed her back deeper into his side. His arm tightened around her.

Servants had prepared separate beds for them, but Boots had climbed right in with Gregor.

It hadn't been hard to get the Underlanders to excuse them for bed. Everyone could see Boots could barely keep her eyes open, and he must have looked pretty ragged himself. He wasn't. Adrenaline was pumping through him so fast, he was afraid that people could hear his heart beating through the heavy curtains that shut off their bedroom from the hall. The last thing he could do was sleep.

They had been invited to bathe again before bed. It was something of a necessity for Boots, who, in addition to stew, had conditioned her curls with some kind of pudding. Gregor hadn't objected, either. The water gave him a quiet place to think out his escape plan.

It also gave him a chance to ask Dulcet about the water system in the palace without seeming suspicious. "How do you guys have hot and cold running water?" he asked.

She told him the water was pumped from a series of hot and cold springs.

"And then it just empties back into a spring?" he asked innocently.

"Oh, no, that would not be fresh," said Dulcet.

"The dirty water falls into the river beneath the palace and then flows to the Waterway."

It was just the information he needed. The river beneath the palace was their way out.

Even better, it led to the Waterway. He didn't know what that was exactly, but Vikus had mentioned it had two gateways to the Overland.

Boots stirred again in her sleep, and Gregor patted her side to quiet her. She had not seemed to miss home until bedtime. But she looked worried when he told her it was time to go to sleep.

"Mama?" she asked. "Liz-ee?"

Was it only that morning that Lizzie had ridden off to camp on the bus? It seemed like a thousand years ago.

"Home? Mama?" insisted Boots. Even though she was exhausted, he had a hard time getting her to sleep. Now he could tell by how restless she was that she was having vivid dreams.

"Probably full of giant cockroaches and bats," he thought.

He had no way to tell how much time had passed. An hour? Two? But what little noise he'd been able to hear through the curtain had ceased. If he was going to do this thing, he needed to get started.

Gregor gently disengaged himself from Boots and stood up. He fumbled in the dark and found the sling Dulcet had given him. Trying to position Boots inside it proved tricky. Finally he just squeezed his eyes shut and let his other senses work. That was easier. He slid her in and slung the pack on his back.

Boots murmured, "Mama," and her head fell against his shoulder.

"I'm working on it, baby," he whispered back, and searched the table for the lamp. That was all he was taking. Boots, the pack, and the lamp. He'd need his hands for other things.

Gregor groped his way to the curtain and pushed the edge aside. There was enough torchlight from the far hall for him to make out the passage was empty. The Underlanders had not bothered to post guards at his door now that they knew him better. They were making an effort to make him feel like a guest and, anyway, where would he go?

"Down the river," he thought grimly. "Wherever that leads."

He crept along the hall taking care to place each of his bare feet silently. Thankfully Boots slept on. His plan would disintegrate if she woke before he got out of the palace.

Their bedroom was conveniently close to the bathroom, and Gregor followed his way to the watery sound. His plan was simple. The river ran under the palace. If he could make his way to the ground floor without losing the sound of water, he should find the place it drained into the river.

If the plan was simple, its execution was not. It took Gregor several hours to weave his way down through the palace. The bathrooms were not always near the stairs, and he found himself having to backtrack so he wouldn't lose the sound of rushing water. Twice he had to duck into rooms and hide when he spotted Underlanders. There weren't many about, but some sort of guards patrolled the palace at night.

Finally the sound of water became stronger, and he made his way to the lowest level of the building. He followed his ears to where the roar was loudest and sneaked through a doorway.

For a moment, Gregor almost abandoned his plan. When Dulcet had said "river," he had pictured the rivers that flowed through New York City. But this Underland river looked like something out of an action adventure movie. It wasn't terribly wide, but it ran with such speed that the surface was churned into white foam. He couldn't guess its depth, but it had enough power to carry large boulders by as if they were empty soda cans. No wonder the Underlanders didn't bother to post a guard on the dock. The river was more dangerous than any army they could assemble.

"But you must be able to travel on it -- they have boats," thought Gregor, noticing half a dozen crafts tied up above the rush of the current. They were made out of some kind of skin stretched over a frame. They reminded him of the canoes at camp.

Camp! Why couldn't he just be at camp like a normal kid?

Trying not to think of the bobbing boulders, he lit his oil lamp from a torch by the dock.

On reflection, he took the torch as well. Where he was going, light would be as important as air.

He blew out the oil lamp to save fuel.

He carefully climbed into one of the boats and checked it out. The torch slid into a holder clearly designed for it.

"How do you get this thing down in the water?" he wondered. Two ropes held it aloft.

They were attached to a metal wheel that was affixed to the dock. "Well, here goes nothing,"

Gregor said, and gave the wheel a yank. It gave a loud creak, and the boat fell straight into the river, knocking Gregor on his rear end.

The current swept up the boat like it was a dried leaf. Gregor grasped the sides and hung on as they shot into the darkness. Hearing voices, he managed to look back at the dock for a moment. Two Underlanders were screaming something after him. The river curved and they vanished from sight.

Would they come after him? Of course they would come after him. But he had a head start. How far was it to the Waterway?
What
was the Waterway, arid once he got there, where did he go next?

Gregor would have been more concerned about these questions if he wasn't trying so hard to stay alive. Along with the boulders, he had to dodge the jagged black rocks that jutted out of the water. He found an oar lying along the bottom of the boat and used it to deflect the canoe off the rocks.

The temperature of the Underland had felt comfortably cool since he'd arrived, especially after the ninety-degree heat of his apartment. But the cold wind whipping up off the water made goose bumps rise on his flesh.

"Gregor!" He thought he'd heard someone call his name.

Was it his imagination or -- no! There it was again. The Underlanders must be closing in on him.

The river swerved and suddenly he could see a little better. A long cavern lined with crystals shimmered around him, reflecting back his torchlight.

Gregor made out a glittering beach flanking one side of the river up ahead. A tunnel led from the beach into the dark. On impulse, Gregor pushed off a rock and pointed the canoe toward the beach. He paddled desperately with the oar for the shore. Staying on the river was no use. The Underlanders were breathing down his neck. Maybe he had time to pull up on the beach and hide in the tunnel. After they'd passed by, he could wait a few hours and try the river again.