Read Infinity Ring 05 - Cave of Wonders Online

Authors: Matthew J. Kirby

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Childrens - Middle Grade

Infinity Ring 05 - Cave of Wonders (9 page)

The smoke of the fire and the smells of the food they cooked filled the air, and Sera saw that Abi had been right about the diversity in the Mongol empire. The three of them could pretty much fit right in. Their translation devices picked up a few different languages from the snippets of conversation they overheard.

They kept moving. And moving. All the tents started to look the same to Sera, and she wondered if they were going in circles.

“Guys,” Sera said, “I’m just going to say one more time: I don’t think Tusi is SQ.”

“Oh, for the love of mincemeat,” Dak said.

“We’ve been over this,” Riq said.

Sera wanted to yell at them, but she tightened her lips and kept it inside.

More tents and more tents and more tents. And more horses.

“You wouldn’t think they were going to battle tomorrow,” Riq said. “Most everyone seems to be asleep.”

“I think the Mongols slept pretty easy,” Dak said. “They know how it’s going to go down in Baghdad.”

“What’s that up there?” Riq nodded ahead.

An enormous white tent materialized out of the night sky, towering over the war camp. It seemed to be almost as big as a small baseball stadium. Sera figured that had to be Hulagu Khan’s tent.

Now that they knew where they were going, the three of them hurried forward, but they hadn’t gone far before Sera noticed the closer they got to the khan’s tent, the more guards she saw posted, men wearing conical helmets with tufted points at the top, some with fringes of fur. Each of them had two swords, and some also had axes.

“We’ll never be able to get close to Hulagu,” Sera whispered.

Riq said, “Did you think he was going to send out an invite and roll out the red carpet?”

“No,” Sera said. “I just don’t know how we’ll do this.”

“I do,” Dak said. “I know just the thing.”

Sera recognized that tone. It was the tone Dak used when he
thought
he knew just the thing, but hadn’t stopped to actually think through that thing.

“Dak, stop and think first,” Sera said.

Dak smiled. “I already did when I got the idea.” He started forward, toward a group of guards.

“Dak!” Sera whispered. “Come back!”

But he was already too far away to hear her.

“That dumb kid,” Riq said.

“Easy,” Sera said. “He’s still my best friend.”

She and Riq watched as Dak strode right out of the shadows, swinging his arms wide in a high-footed march. Like he was
trying
to draw attention. The guards shouted a cry of alarm and swarmed him, weapons drawn.

“Oh, for the love of mi —” Riq stopped. “Was I seriously about to just say that?”

“Yup,” Sera said.

Riq nodded. “Perfect. Just perfect. You stay here.” He crept forward a few steps, and then marched out of the tents toward Dak and the guards. They instantly seized him, too. Sera strained forward to hear what they were saying, chewing on her lip, watching and waiting. She had no idea what Dak had planned here, but it made no sense to her.

After a few moments of questioning, the guards took hold of Dak’s and Riq’s arms and heaved them in the opposite direction of Hulagu’s tent.

“No, wait!” Dak shouted. “We’re spies! From Baghdad! You need to take us before Hulagu! You were supposed to send us to Hulagu!”

So that had been his plan. But now they were taking him someplace else, a prisoner. Riq was shaking his head. He glanced in Sera’s direction at one point, and gave a little nod, even though Sera knew he couldn’t see her. It was all up to her now.

Sera was torn. Should she follow Dak and Riq and see where the Mongols were taking them, or should she go forward with the mission in the way she thought was best? If she did that, she would try to find Tusi.

In another moment, she would lose sight of Dak and Riq. She hesitated, and the moment she had to act was gone. They rounded a tent and disappeared. Sera felt a sickening hollow spreading in her stomach, but decided to hope they could take care of themselves. She would work on saving the House of Wisdom. Fixing the Break.
Saving her parents
.

Everything she did now was for them and to prevent the coming Cataclysm that would take them away from her.

She turned toward Hulagu’s massive tent and crept forward. She actually had an easier time staying hidden without Dak and Riq. She was smaller and quieter than they were. The tent only got bigger as she got closer to it. When she finally had a view of the front entrance, with dozens of guards and horses, it confirmed to her that it would be impossible to get to Hulagu that way. Which was why her plan was better.

But how could she find Tusi? She figured he, as the khan’s adviser, would probably have a nice tent, and it would probably be near Hulagu’s. Sera started scouting around. There was a ring of tents around the khan’s, and they were bigger and richer than the plain ones they’d seen since entering the camp. These were embroidered and painted. But none of them had any features that came right out and said, “Astronomer and mathematician inside.”

It took quite a while, but Sera made it all the way around Hulagu’s tent, sneaking past guards and regular Mongol warriors, without finding any sign. She was frustrated and discouraged. If Tusi was inside one of the tents nearby, she had no way of knowing. If he was somewhere else in the vast war camp, she had no way of finding him at all.

She kicked at the ground in frustration, and that’s when she noticed something. There were markings in the dirt. Geometric markings with writing next to them. The writing looked like Arabic, but the markings were clearly diagrams. Specifically, two circles, one half the size and inside the other. It was the Tusi Couple. A bench leaned up against the tent right in front of the markings, and Sera could picture the whole scene:

Tusi, sitting on the bench, drawing in the dirt, working through problems. This tent had to be his. It had to be. Who else would have drawn these things?

She waited until the guards had passed, and then sneaked around to the tent entrance. With a deep breath, she stepped inside.

The inside of the tent was really comfortable. Thick rugs covered the floor in overlapping layers around a central wooden support post as thick as a small tree. Tapestries and silks hung from the sides of the tent, and tables around the room bore stacks of books and many brass instruments. In one area of the room, Sera saw a pile of cushions and pillows. When she focused on them, she realized there was someone sitting there, perfectly still, and she almost jumped.

It was Tusi. Staring at her.

“He-hello,” she said. “I didn’t see you there. Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” Tusi said. “Why and how have you come here?”

“I came with my two friends,” Sera said. “You met them. We came to convince you.”

“Convince me of what?”

“To save the House of Wisdom.”

Tusi sighed. He looked down at his lap, and Sera realized he had a book there, which he closed. Here he was with his books, stacks upon stacks of them, but he refused to do anything to save the books of Baghdad.

“Let me tell you something,” he said.

Sera put her hands on her hips. “What?”

“After making me his adviser, Hulagu Khan came to me before this military campaign against Baghdad and asked me if the stars would smile favorably upon it. Now, I had a choice to make. I knew Hulagu
wanted
to attack Baghdad. If I had told him the stars were ill-favored, he may have spared the city for a time, but he would have been upset with
me
. He may have even executed me. But if I told him what he wanted to hear, that the stars were favorable to his ambitions, then he would be pleased with me.”

“So you lied?”

“The movement of the stars is constant. However, the
interpretation
of those movements can be much more flexible.”

Sera closed her eyes and shook her head. “That still just sounds like lying to me.”

“You are young. When you are older, you will find that life is less absolute than you might wish it to be. There are few things you can truly rely upon other than the laws of the universe. And yourself.”

Sera thought about that, and it sounded like a sad way to live. “I can rely on my friends. I can rely on my . . .
family
.” As she said the word, its meaning shifted in her mind, gaining a new weight, a substance that included her parents in a way it never had before.

Tusi smiled. “If your friends and family be as constant as the movement of the stars, count yourself very lucky, indeed.”

Sera walked over to the cushions and sat down. “The House of Wisdom contains many, many important books. They must be saved for future generations. Don’t you see that?”

“Of course I see it. But there is nothing I can do.”

“Hulagu Khan might listen to you.”

“That’s not a chance I am willing to take.”

“Are you SQ?” She blurted out the question before she’d decided if she should.

“Am I what?” She saw no recognition of the name in his eyes. Just genuine confusion. If he had been SQ, he would have realized in that moment that she was a Hystorian, and things would have gotten a lot worse.

Sera sighed, vindicated. “Nothing. My mistake.”

“What is your mistake?”

It was a mistake coming to you for help
, she thought. But she said, “Nothing.”

Tusi rose to his feet. “When the Ismā ‘īlī captured me and took me to their fortress at Alamut, I had a choice to make. I could resist and most likely perish, or I could adapt to them and continue my work. I chose to adapt and continue my work. When Hulagu Khan destroyed the fortress and freed me, I saw another opportunity. I could perish, or I could join him and continue my work. Again, I chose to continue my work.” He looked around his tent. “I continue it now, and I will continue it if every library in the world burns. The work is all that matters to me. My work. I can’t let anything get in the way of that, so I cannot risk what you are asking of me. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Sera said. “You may not be SQ, but you’re still not the man I thought you were.”

D
AK’S IDEAS
hadn’t been turning out so well lately. He couldn’t see what the problem was. They all seemed like good ideas when he first got them. But the trouble with ideas was that you often didn’t know if they would turn out to be good until it was way too late to change them.

Like right now. Not a good idea to go walking up to Hulagu’s guards asking to be arrested. Obviously. But now Dak and Riq were captured, and the Mongols were taking them in the opposite direction of where they needed to go.

“Sorry I got us into this,” Dak said.

Riq shook his head. “I’ll be sure to give you a hard time about it later. For now, we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Sera will come for us,” Dak said.

“Maybe. But we can’t count on it. If she’s smart, she’s working on fixing the Break, not our mistakes.” He paused, and then said very quietly, “The fate of the world is more important than any of our individual fates.”

Okay, Dak
knew
there was something going on with the Cataclysm that these two weren’t telling him. He hated that. He hated not knowing. He hated the uncertainty. It got his mind going, and then his fears, and soon his fears were outracing his thoughts. But he figured there wouldn’t be any point asking Riq about it. Dak knew the guy didn’t like him much, and wasn’t about to open up.

“Where are you taking us?” Dak asked the Mongol warriors.

At first, they were silent.

“The Divine Man,” one of the Mongols said at last.

“What does he mean?” Riq asked.

Dak shrugged. He had no idea. But when they arrived at a wide tent, he figured they were about to find out.

The Mongol warriors shoved them inside and pushed them to the ground. Dak looked around the tent. It was supported by four columns, and had numerous tables laid out with maps and charts. There was one sitting area, with cushions and pillows, but no rugs. This tent was a tent of war, not a tent of luxury.

A man looked up from the table he’d been leaning over and made eye contact with Dak. Dak immediately bowed his head. There was something about the man that provoked an instant fear. But Dak didn’t like that, so he made himself look back up.

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