Infinity Ring 05 - Cave of Wonders (13 page)

Remnants
. It had all started with Aristotle’s Remnants, and it always seemed to come back to Remnants. Even though Dak wished he knew what they were like for Sera, he was mostly grateful he didn’t have Remnants. They didn’t seem to bring anyone anything but pain. And fear.

But having actual parents missing in time was worse. Dak hadn’t yet seen a sign of his parents in this era. He’d been trying really hard not to think about it, but he couldn’t help wonder if that meant something. Maybe Dak, Sera, and Riq had fixed enough Breaks that his parents had gone home. Would they be there in the future when he went back for a new SQuare?

His heart started beating faster at that thought. It filled him with hope, even as the sounds of battle raged on outside.

The guards came back that evening with a second meal that consisted of the same stuff as the first meal. They dropped off the food and water, took away the empty bowls from earlier, and left.

“I don’t think they’ll be back until morning,” Riq said. “Now is probably our best chance if we’re going to try and chip our way out of here.”

He took out the knife and went over to the window. Dak watched as Riq ran the blade along the edges of the mud bricks and scraped at their seams. He tried to drive the knife in between them, putting all his weight behind it.

“They’re harder than they look,” he said. “This is going to take a long time. Too long.” But he went back to it, and soon he’d worked up a sweat, even though the sun had set and the room was getting colder as it got darker.

The third day of siege had come to an end. They were running out of time. Dak’s thoughts went to the unstoppable Mongol army, and facts started bubbling in his head. Normally, each fact just kind of popped and went away, replaced by the next, but right now, one of them was staying around.

The Mongols did something cool with their armor. They wore silk underneath it, against their skin. When an arrow pierced their armor, the arrowhead got caught in the silk, and even if it then pierced the warrior’s skin, the silk made the arrow easy to pull out, and kept the injury cleaner and less deadly.

Dak kept thinking and thinking about this fact. There was something about it that seemed to apply to this situation. He turned his attention from Riq’s attempts to chisel at the window and looked around the cell. He looked at the door. The lock where he’d spent several frustrated hours.

The lock
.

That was it! Dak almost wanted to jump. “Abi!”

Sera and Riq startled in surprise at his outburst.

“Yes?” Abi said.

“Can I cut off a piece of silk from your turban?” Dak asked.

“I . . . I suppose if it is absolutely necessary.” Abi started unwinding it from his head again. “What do you plan to do?”

“You’ll see,” Dak said.

A few moments later, Abi tossed one end of the thin fabric across the hallway, and Dak used the knife to slice off a couple of inches. Abi pulled the rest back, while Dak took the metal pick that Sera hadn’t been able to put back in the SQuare. He went to the door, reached around, and laid the piece of silk from Abi’s turban over the keyhole. Then he took the pick, and gently packed the silk into the lock. He remembered the way the inside looked in his head, and he packed the silk all around the pins.

“What are you doing?” Sera asked.

“The silk is quiet,” Dak said. “And slippery. When the guards go to use their key, I think the silk will give enough to let the door unlock, but then it’ll jam up the pins, and keep it from locking again when they close the door. We’ll be able to walk right out of here.”

“Uh, don’t you think the guards will notice the door not staying shut?” Riq asked.

“Not if we do something to keep them from noticing,” Dak said. “And I’ve got an idea for that, too.”

Dak explained it to them, and they were both quiet. So was Abi.

“Dak?” Sera finally said.

“Yes?”

“I think this might be one of your
good
ideas.”

Dak smiled with a bit of pride. “Let’s hope it works.”

The rest of that night, they rehearsed what they would do when the guards came. Riq tossed the knife and pick to Abi, managing to land them both right through the bars, and Abi cut some silk and did the same thing with the lock on his door.

The sun came up, and everyone waited without saying much. Then, sometime midmorning, Dak heard the guards coming. He nodded to Riq and Sera. They nodded back.

Moments later, the guards came into view with the same bowls of nasty food. One of them pulled out his key and stuck it into the lock. Dak’s heartbeat quickened. He held his breath. The guard tried to turn the key, stopped, and looked down at the lock.

Was it going to work
?

The guard turned harder, and the lock clicked. He pulled the key out and opened the door the same foot or so they always did to slide the bowls of food in and out.

Dak readied himself, and hoped Riq was doing the same.

Then, right as the guard went to close the door, Dak launched himself at it.

“N
O!”
D
AK
screamed. “Let me out! You can’t keep me here!”

Riq rushed the door, too, ready to play his part. The guard reacted to Dak’s charge by slamming the door shut hard just as Dak crashed against it. Dak and Riq grabbed the bars at the same time, and while Dak made a show of tugging hard on them, Riq used his strength to keep the door from opening. Assuming the door would open.

The guards stepped away from Dak’s thrashing at the door. “Back off!” one of them shouted.

Dak stopped pulling and glared at them.

“Back off,” the guard said again.

Dak stepped away from the door.

“You want to eat,” the guard said, “you won’t ever try anything like that again. Understand?”

“I understand,” Dak said.

The guards turned to Abi. They unlocked his cell, and as they went to close it again, he performed a variation of what Dak had done, though not quite as extreme. The guards did not look pleased.

“You, too, traitor?” one of them said. “Just for that, no food for any of you tonight! This is all you get until tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that!” Sera shouted.

“No?” The guard looked at her. “I guess you’ll find out when you go to sleep hungry tonight.”

Sera let out a little whimper that Riq would have believed completely if he didn’t know her better. Sera just wasn’t the whimpering type.

The guards gave them all one last glare and stalked away. Everyone waited until they were long gone, the hallways completely silent, before they approached the door.

“Moment of truth,” Riq said. He had to admit, if this worked, it would be one of Dak’s finest moments. So he decided to let the kid have it. “Why don’t you try the door?”

Dak took a deep breath and stepped forward. He grabbed the bars and gave a gentle tug. Nothing happened. Dak closed his eyes and pulled again, harder, and the door popped open. Riq stared at it, not quite sure he could believe what he was seeing.

“You did it!” Sera actually giggled.

Dak smirked in that cocky way that Riq had found so annoying from day one. “Of course I did.”

That changed Riq’s mind about the compliment he had been about to give. He turned to Abi. “Did it work for your door?”

Abi pulled on the bars, and his door also popped open. “Yes,” the Hystorian said with a smile.

The four of them left their cells and looked down the hallway. Riq had no idea where the guards were, but he was pretty sure he remembered how to get from their cells back to the front door.

“Follow me,” he said. “Quietly.”

He led them down the hallway and around a couple of turns, each time listening carefully before peering around the corner. The place was deserted. The guards weren’t anywhere to be seen.

“Looks like nobody comes here,” Riq said. “I bet the vizier picked this place so we wouldn’t be discovered. The guards don’t even seem to stick around except to bring us our food.”

“I hope they left the front door open,” Dak said.

It turned out that they had. The front door didn’t even lock.

“Okay,” Riq said. “Before we go out there, what’s the plan?”

“In three days Hulagu will be inside the city walls,” Dak said. “I say we try to meet him there and do what we were going to do in the war camp. What we’ve been trying to do from the beginning. We convince him to spare the House of Wisdom.”

“What about the Infinity Ring?” Sera asked.

Riq considered what to do. Guo Kan had said the vizier worked for him. That meant the vizier was probably going to turn the Ring over to the general the first chance he got. Once the general got ahold of it, Riq was pretty sure the Ring would disappear for good. So they had to get it back before Hulagu and Guo Kan entered the city.

“I think we need to split up,” Riq said. “Two of us try to get to Hulagu, while the other two go after the Ring. We meet back at the House of Wisdom.”

“Okay,” Dak said. “Who goes where?”

“I’ll go after the Ring,” Riq said. He felt like he had to be the one to do it, to prove to himself that he was still committed to the mission, in spite of the potential cost.

“It will be in the palace with the vizier,” Abi said. “I know my way around, so I will go with you.”

“That means Dak and I will get into position so that we’ll be able to reach Hulagu,” Sera said. “Right. We can totally do this.”

Riq grasped the handle on the door. “Ready?”

Everyone nodded at him.

He opened the door and peered outside. There wasn’t anyone around. “Coast is clear,” he said. “Good luck, everyone.”

He opened the door wider and stepped out into the sunlight, the sounds of the Mongol assault much louder now than they had been in their cell. The crash and boom of the artillery echoed across the city. So did the battle shrieks of their warriors.

Riq and Abi turned toward the palace, while Dak and Sera turned the other direction to head into the city. Riq glanced back at them as they set off, heading toward the danger and destruction.

Just outside the palace, Abi stopped. “I do not know what we will face inside. The caliph may still deny the danger, or he may have surrounded himself with his guards.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Riq said.

Together, they entered the garden they had seen on their first trip to the palace. The beauty and tranquility of the place felt really weird now when Riq thought about the destruction taking place not too far away. It was like the caliph lived in his own little bubble. He could look at his flowers and pretend that everything was okay.

After that, they passed into the menagerie. But something wasn’t quite right. Many of the animals were gone. Or at least, not in their cages. And some of the cages were open.

“It looks as though the animal keepers have fled,” Abi whispered.

“So where are the animals?” Riq asked.

“Probably wherever they would feel safer than in a cage.” Abi looked around them. At the trees. At the bushes. The tall grass.

Riq imagined eyes peering at him from all directions, and felt a tingling sensation crawl up his neck. He shook his head. He had to be imagining it. And yet . . .