Infinity Ring 05 - Cave of Wonders (19 page)

“What made you change your mind?”

“I have a mission. I have a responsibility. And I want to honor the sacrifices made by others to get us to this point.”

“That is very noble,” Abi said.

“Thanks.”

“What else could you do?” Abi asked.

Riq shook his head. He frowned. “Just go back. See what happens. Or
not
see what happens.”

“I don’t understand time travel,” Abi said. “But let me ask you this. Are you only a product of the past? Or are you something more? Are you not also the decisions you make right now in the present?”

That was a pretty deep question. But it seemed important. “I guess I’m kind of both.”

“Exactly,” Abi said. “I believe that even if your past is erased, there is still the part of you that is here, right now, being true and noble, worrying about your friends and seeking to honor them. That makes you real to me.”

A knot formed in Riq’s throat. He swallowed. “Thanks, Abi.”

The next morning, Riq was standing in the courtyard of the House of Wisdom when Dak, Sera, and Tusi walked through the front doors. He laughed and ran toward them, and the three time travelers hugged. There was so much to talk about, but no time. Dak and Sera explained that Hulagu had only given them a few days to save the books in the House of Wisdom.

“The caliph will surrender in four days,” Dak said. “Hulagu said he would hold his men off for three days after that.”

“I’m not certain how you know that about the caliph,” Tusi said. “But I believe you. And that means I have a week to save what I can.”

Abi stepped forward. “I’ll be happy to assist you. I’m very familiar with the most important volumes in the House of Wisdom.” He looked at Riq, Sera, and Dak with a smile.

Riq knew what he meant, those most important volumes being those written by Aristotle about the Great Breaks. It seemed they had succeeded. The Time Wardens had been defeated. The Break was fixed.

“We did it,” he said.

“Did you?” came a familiar voice.

Riq turned to see the Market Inspector standing at the entrance, with half a dozen guards at his side. Each of them held a burning torch in his hand, and Riq realized with horror what they planned to do. One way or another, the library would be destroyed, if not by the Mongols, then by the SQ themselves.

“How dare you!” Tusi said. “Hulagu Khan has placed this library under his protection!”

The Market Inspector spread his arms. “Is he here to protect it? Because all I see are a few children and two scholars.”

“Perhaps that’s all we need,” Abi said. “Tusi, Hystorians, come with me.”

They all backed away from the guards, and the Market Inspector laughed. “Run. Run away. Meanwhile, we’ll torch this place room by room.”

His guards scattered in different directions, and soon, flames began to appear in all the doorways around the courtyard. How many books were burning right now? How much knowledge had just been lost in an instant? Riq raged inside, but there wasn’t anything he could do.

“Come!” Abi said. “Follow me!”

He led them deep into the House of Wisdom, through doorways and down hallways Riq had never seen. They eventually took a flight of steps downward and came to a room with a lock on the door. It was a very peculiar lock, with several spinning brass dials filled with scrolling Arabic letters.

Abi rotated the dials. “An invention of the Banū Mūsā brothers. You have to know the secret word to unlock it.” A moment later, the dials clicked into place, and the door opened. “Go, go.”

Riq smiled.
Open sesame
.

Inside, they found a small room with earthen walls, almost a cave, with another door on the opposite side. Several chests sat in the middle of the floor.

“These contain the works of Aristotle,” Abi said. “I gathered them together when you Hystorians first arrived, against the day we might need to move them. We must take these now.”

“But the House of Wisdom!” Dak said.

“There is nothing we can do,” Abi said. “But these books must survive. And there are many other libraries in Baghdad, with hundreds of thousands of books. Tusi and I will save as many as we can before the Mongols begin their destruction. And we will see that they are copied, so that these words may spread to many libraries in many lands.”

Riq thought about what Abi was saying, and realized he was right. This was now the only way. Maybe it had been all along. The important thing was that they would now be able to fix the Prime Break, because the works of Aristotle would survive in a new library. It was like that riddle they’d solved at the beginning. This small room was a cave of wonders, and these chests contained history’s light.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Abi opened the other door, which led them outside the House of Wisdom, down by the river. A small boat waited there, and they loaded the chests of books into it. Then Abi and Tusi climbed aboard, and Abi used the oars to slide them out into the river’s current.

“Wait!” Tusi said. “What about the children?”

“They have a very special boat of their own,” Abi said, smiling. “One that sails backward up the river.”

Riq, Sera, and Dak waved at the two scholars. Abi’s grin never fell as he waved back, but Tusi simply looked completely confused. Once the scholars were safely away from the House of Wisdom, Sera pulled the SQuare back out.

“New coordinates,” she said. “Give me the Ring.”

Riq handed it over to her. As she punched in the data, he looked up at the smoke rising into the air from within the House of Wisdom, the ashes carried over their heads into the river. The destruction of Baghdad had begun. But it would not be a complete destruction, not anymore. Many of its books, its wisdom and knowledge, would survive.

“Ready!” Sera said.

The three of them took hold of the Infinity Ring. As the device hummed in his hand, and the world began to shimmer and break apart in a shower of sparks, Riq thought back to what Abi had said.

Riq was making choices
now
.

That had to count for something.

S
ERA BLINKED
.

The smoke and the burning House of Wisdom were gone, but they were still standing on the banks of a wide river. This was clearly not the Tigris, though. This river was lined with green trees. It was summer here, and the warm, humid air stuck to Sera’s skin. Insects buzzed around them, and frogs croaked from the mud.

“Where are we?” Dak asked. “What river is this?”

Sera checked the SQuare. “The Mississippi. It’s the summer of 1804.”

“1804?” Dak got that familiar look in his eye.

Sera smiled. “Yes, 1804.” She glanced at Riq, who seemed ready to shut Dak down. But since she and Dak had talked back in Hulagu’s palace, she found she wasn’t so bothered by Dak’s enthusiasm. “Please, tell us about 1804.”

“Well”— Dak cleared his throat —“that was the year the Louisiana Expedition left from St. Louis.”

Right. Sera remembered something about that from school. “Go on.”

Dak beamed. “President Jefferson had just acquired the Louisiana Purchase, which was this huge territory of land. He basically doubled the size of the United States. But he didn’t really know what was out there, so he sent an expedition to explore. They were supposed to travel along the Missouri River and find a route to the Pacific Ocean.”

“Supposed to?” Riq echoed.

“Yeah,” Dak said. “But it was a complete disaster. Nobody made it back alive.”

The three of them looked at one another. It was another life-or-death situation — this time in the wilderness, far from the comforts of anything like the House of Wisdom.

Dak continued. “What happened to the expedition is a mystery. Jefferson believed all kinds of crazy rumors about the West. He thought there were mammoths out there, and volcanoes, and mountains made of salt.”

“Mammoths have been extinct for more than four thousand years at this point,” Sera said.

“Yup,” Dak said. “We know that now, but when the explorers failed to return, nobody knew what to believe. All they could say for sure was that the territory was dangerous. It was declared off-limits for decades. Jefferson was disgraced because he’d spent all this money. The country was mad at him, and he only served one term as president —” Dak paused.

“What is it?” Sera asked.

“It’s just . . .” Dak’s eyebrows creased together. He looked worried. “I have to remember to question everything now. Everything I thought I knew about history.”

“Like what?” Riq asked.

“Like the Louisiana Expedition. What if it wasn’t simply a failure? What if it was
sabotaged
? What if the SQ got involved, and they ruined Jefferson’s reputation on purpose? Doesn’t that seem like something they would do?”

Sera looked out over the smooth river flowing past. “That seems
exactly
like something they would do.”

“There should be a fort somewhere around here,” Dak said. “Camp Wood. It’s where the expedition really got started, on the outskirts of St. Louis.”

“I entered the coordinates carefully,” Sera said. “It has to be close.”

“Then that’s where we should begin,” Riq said. “Let’s look around. Just, uh, be on the lookout for bears.”

They started up the bank of the river, moving slowly through the trees and the underbrush. Birds skimmed the water and sang from the branches overhead. Sera had to admit, after the desert it was nice to be in a place that was so full of life. Even if some of it wanted to eat her.

They hadn’t gone very far when Riq held up his hand to stop them. He pointed ahead, and through the trees Sera glimpsed the log wall of a fort in the distance. It looked just like the paintings she had seen of the American frontier. Tall tree trunks stood tightly together, sharpened at the top like a row of gigantic pencils.

“I think that’s Camp Wood,” Dak whispered. He motioned toward a cluster of cabins and cottages that stood between them and the fort. “And this must be St. Louis. It’s a total frontier town in this era. It’s the edge of civilization, as far as the Americans of the time are concerned.”

Something about the place felt sinister to Sera. “Do you think there are any Time Wardens this far west?”

“It’s definitely possible,” Dak said. “If the SQ sabotaged the expedition, they probably have an agent here. Unless he’s on the road with Lewis and Clark.”

Riq turned to Dak. “Lewis and Clark?”

“Right,” Dak said. “Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Jefferson put them in charge of the expedition. They were last seen leaving Camp Wood.”

Riq smirked. “What do you want to bet the Break has something to do with helping these Lewis and Clark guys?”

Sera had the same thought. It was getting to the point where she could tell when something was wrong. She could almost feel it in her gut, as if she was becoming a real Hystorian with real Hystorian instincts.

“I bet you’re right,” Dak said. “But the expedition left weeks ago.”

“Then we have some catching up to do,” Riq said.

A journey into the wild American frontier sounded exciting to Sera, but no matter what anyone said, she was
not
going to wear a dress.

And then she saw something that chilled her blood. It was carved into the wooden homes before them. It was stitched into flags and sacks of dry goods.

The symbol of the SQ was
everywhere
.

The SQ didn’t just have an agent in St. Louis. They controlled the entire town.