"No, I didn't see the boy. No one in the village knew who I was talking about." It would not be an overstatement to say that Sir Emerik was a magnificent liar, and it was impossible for Lord Phineus to tell that he'd just been told a big one.

Not another word pa.s.sed between them as the two made their way to the cliff walls. A pair of guards were on duty at the basket when they arrived. The men were accustomed to watching the pool at the grove, but Lord Phineus had demanded they be moved earlier in the day. Things were unstable, he thought. What if someone from Tabletop tried to take control of the basket, leaving him stranded below?

"Everything still in one piece?" asked Sir Emerik, a hint of nervous energy in his voice.

"Yes, sir-everything works fine," said the taller of the two guards.

"Fine, then get back to your watch at the pool. The water supply might become... compromised."

Sir Emerik couldn't hide a certain amount of contempt when he spoke to these people. They couldn't read, and in his mind this made them stupid and only marginally useful. But Lord Phineus saw them differently. He had long taken comfort in knowing he could control things from afar. The guards at the basket were of the minority in Tabletop who could be bought with a price to maintain control. They worked for Lord Phineus and received special privileges for doing so, but it was hard to say where their allegiance would lie if a conflict arose. He wondered now if the Highlands could count on them.

"Gentlemen, you understand that the Highlands may collapse all the way and become even with Tabletop, don't you?" The guards nodded. "I shall put you to great use if this should come to pa.s.s. Understood?"

Both men said "yes," but neither was entirely sure on which side he would serve if ever relations between the two realms turned violent.

"Instructions will follow shortly." Lord Phineus carefully set the bag from Mr. Ratikan's house into the basket, then climbed in. Sir Emerik was not enthusiastic about following, but the alternative bothered him even more. He couldn't be left behind while Sir Philip and Lord Phineus plotted a war without him.

As if marking time, the mound of rope at Sir Emerik's feet was growing larger as the cliffs continued their descent.

"Get in, Sir Emerik. We haven't got all day," Lord Phineus snapped.

Sir Emerik sighed, grabbed hold of the edge of the basket, and jumped inside.

It was a strange sensation rising up while the cliff was coming down all at one time, but it was especially disorienting for Sir Emerik. He had endured a difficult day of being tied up, having his hair go up in flames, and trekking for miles between the grove and the village. Instead of watching the world below, he sat on the floor of the basket wondering about the purpose of the bag at Lord Phineus's feet. The basket pitched from side to side, and he felt his stomach swirl.

Lord Phineus glanced down at Sir Emerik and saw his ill expression. Along with his burnt head and hair, it was a revolting sight. He quickly turned away.

"If you're going to be sick, don't do it in here." Lord Phineus stepped away from Sir Emerik, who stood and leaned out over the edge of the basket. Out came the rabbits from the inn, the water he'd drunk there, and the baguette he'd eaten for breakfast. He remained sick for the rest of the trip, and when the basket reached the top, Lord Phineus hastily departed, leaving Sir Emerik to hobble back to the House of Power on his own.

Even in his misery, Sir Emerik could not help but notice the frenzied activity among the inhabitants of the Highlands. Horses and food were being moved, the courtyard gates were heavily guarded, and the children were being gathered and sheltered indoors. Sir Philip's certainly gotten everyone worked up now, hasn't he? I wonder if he's in over his head.

When Sir Emerik arrived at the door to the inner chamber, it was locked, and neither Lord Phineus nor Sir Philip could be found. The two of them were in there-Sir Emerik was sure of it-and it worried him that he'd not been able to return sooner. He didn't trust the two alone.

With great urgency, he knocked on the door, but was refused entry.

"Go away!"

"But sir, it's me, Sir Emerik."

"I'll call for you when I'm ready. You may rest awhile."

Sir Emerik thought he might try to listen, but what if they opened the door and saw him there? He hesitated, then started up the stairs toward his room. The more I think of it, the happier I am that I've kept my secret well. Only I know the contents of the last page of the book. I must get Sir Philip alone to make the most of it.

Mr. Ratikan had gathered all the men from the grove and in his haste and fury demanded that they stop what they were doing and go directly to work repairing his house. Thirty men were pulling up the walls and tearing out the fallen ceiling. They retrieved the furniture-most of which had been smashed-and then Mr. Ratikan called all the women and children from the grove to fix the broken bed and chairs and tables.

Everyone in the grove had fallen houses of their own that they were now unable to attend to. Some had a sheep or a box of rabbits at home-treasures, to be sure-and these animals were seen dashing through the grove, nibbling on the gra.s.s beneath the trees. Mr. Ratikan was strutting about the place, rapping knees and backs with his walking stick and hollering, "Stay away from the water!" and "Get busy there, you!"

And so it came to pa.s.s that the people of the grove began quietly whispering to one another that they would rise up and depart the grove as one and leave mean Mr. Ratikan to tend to his own house. Cruelty finally became Mr. Ratikan's undoing, for they tied him to a tree and left him alone, without food or water, in full view of his broken house. He wept and cursed all day, but mostly he wondered what would happen to him when Lord Phineus came back to find he'd lost control of the grove.

In the Village of Rabbits, some people were sifting through the rubble that had been made of their homes. Others were scurrying after thousands of rabbits that hopped down cobbled paths through the wreckage of the village, trying in vain to retrieve their property.

And there was something else, something very odd that put people on edge. Someone had died, and this had never happened in the Village of Rabbits before. It was a Mason-Gabriella Mason-who was crushed when one of the walls of her home collapsed upon her. There was no cemetery on Atherton, and no one knew what to do with the body. Eventually they moved it to the steps of the inn, where Maude cleaned it and covered it with bunny sacks.

After a time, the few hundred people of the village gathered around the first victim of the fall of the Highlands, and stood in silence. More than one rabbit hopped on Gabriella Mason's body and sniffed all around before continuing in search of something to eat.

CHAPTER.

18.

THE SOUND OF BREAKING BONES.

The sun had moved off to the other side of Atherton, casting a cold shadow over the cliff, where Edgar sat gazing down at the Flatlands. The rocks were darker and smoother here, with long winding curves that were nearly impossible to grab. With his great agility and climbing skills, Edgar was able to slide through the seams of these enormous formations and move quickly.

But there was a problem he'd realized early on as he made his way down. It would be impossible-even for him-to climb back up again. Every inch he moved down was an inch to which he could never return, and he began to understand that the mysterious wasteland below would soon be his new home. There would be no escaping it once he arrived. It was a thought that haunted him in his descent to shadowy and unknown places.

He would miss the grove and the Village of Rabbits, but not as much as the people he'd come to know-Isabel, Samuel, Briney, and Maude. Edgar hadn't thought it would be so hard to leave them, and he wondered if making friends had been a mistake after all.

Edgar was just coming to a ledge where he could rest when he shifted in a way that crushed the cooked rabbit in his pocket for what seemed like the hundredth time. He was trying to save the food for when he really needed it, but it was becoming wet and greasy against his skin, and the smell was starting to make him hungry. After carefully situating himself-legs dangling out over the edge-he pulled the roasted rabbit out of his shirt pocket.

"Better to put this in my stomach where it can be of some use," Edgar said out loud. He ate the three remaining legs first and flicked each of the bones into the open air as he gnawed them clean of every last bit of meat. He couldn't help leaning forward and watching as the bones slowly disappeared, well before they hit the Flatlands.

"I hope I'm not dropping these on someone's head." He chuckled to himself, but suddenly realized he didn't know who or what threat might be below him. He strained to see people moving or smoke rising from below, but there was nothing-only a barren swath of rocky ground beneath him. After that he stopped throwing the bones, placing the rest in a small crack in the rocks.

His hand was beginning to feel better. By now all of the blisters had burst and scabs were forming, and he could see out of his eye without forcing it open. Looking up, he was once again reminded of the almost immeasurable distance down to the Flatlands. He estimated that he'd come only about a third of the way in the same amount of time it had taken him to make a complete trip down from the Highlands, even with the speed of his descent.

Edgar was an impulsive boy of unusual determination, and he had set his mind to finding the second book of secret things without giving much thought to what he would do with the book once he found it. Even if he discovered the book in the vast openness of the Flatlands-which would be a feat in itself-he had no way of reading it and was unlikely to find someone in the Flatlands that could read it to him. He did not even know if there were another human being in the Flatlands.

Edgar quickly shut the horrible thought out of his mind. That would be a kind of loneliness he'd never experienced and would never choose for himself.

Edgar spent the rest of that first day climbing and sliding and almost falling too many times to count. The evening turned chillier than Edgar was accustomed to, and the lower he went, the colder the air enveloping him became. As night fell, he found a spot where he could lean back on the rock face. It wasn't a cave, but it was almost flat, and though he had trouble sleeping for a while for fear of falling, eventually he drifted into a sort of half-sleep that revived him.

When morning came, he saw that he was farther than halfway. He sipped at the precious water from the leather sack tied round his waist and nibbled at the few remaining bones in his pocket, and then he started off again.

It was midday when Edgar arrived at a place in which we are well suited to rejoin him: He was now near enough to the bottom that he was actually beginning to see the Flatlands for the first time.

Before we discover what Edgar saw, it is worth noting that Edgar was usually a careful climber, even when he was moving over easy routes he'd done a thousand times before. But every climber will say the same thing: being careful most of the time is precisely what will get you into the greatest trouble in the end. You might just as well be careful none of the time from the start and get your falling over with early, quit climbing altogether, and be rid of the habit with your limbs unbroken and your life intact. No, it most certainly is a boy just like Edgar who eventually gets into trouble of the most serious kind.

It is not surprising that Edgar was enthralled by what he saw in the Flatlands. Beneath him lay a desolate world of sharp stones, where darkness and light were split in two by shadows of every shape and size. Between the shadows the Flatlands were alive with a writhing movement the boy had never seen before. Edgar was so captivated that for an instant, he was careless with a foothold. This one careless act would cost him dearly.

As he looked down at the Flatlands in wonder, Edgar moved his left foot to a place that felt firm and fast. But the moment he put his full weight down on it, the footing broke loose, and his left foot dangled out into the air. He held firm for a moment with his hands, but soon he was clawing at the rocks, slipping quickly down the curved stone with nothing to hold.

Edgar's chin bounced on the rock as he went, and he scrambled with all his might to catch hold of something, anything, but his speed only increased.

Fortunately, Edgar's ample resourcefulness and climbing instinct kicked in, and he latched onto an idea. It would be painful, very painful, but he could do it. The rock face to his right was filled with crags, and if he could reach over and take one of them in his hand, he might just be able to slow or stop himself.

Bracing himself for the pain that was sure to come, Edgar scanned the face of the cliff wildly as it raced by. He shot his hand into a tiny crevice at precisely the right moment.

There was a violent jerk of his entire body and a searing pain, but he kept falling as his hand slipped free. Edgar tried once more, and, as luck would have it, his hand found a long, skinny crack in the rock that started wide and gradually narrowed. The gap clamped his arm until it was stuck in the rock and his shoulder popped.

Edgar came to a vicious stop, hanging limp and screaming. The same shoulder Isabel had nearly destroyed with a black fig was now firmly wedged into the side of the cliff.

Edgar's feet instinctively found new holds, and his wedged arm remained immobile. This was fortunate, because Edgar soon fell into shock and closed his eyes.

When he awoke some time later, Edgar was quite sure that he had pulled his shoulder out of its socket. The pain pulsing from his elbow to his neck was almost unbearable, but his hand had gone entirely numb, and for this small blessing he was thankful. That is, until he wrenched his hand free from the rock and saw how b.l.o.o.d.y it was, which at first troubled him because he'd never been cut so badly before. But when he realized why there had been so much blood to begin with, it was more horrifying still. Edgar turned his hand around and saw that the little finger at the end-his pinky-was missing.

He remembered how his body had jerked and continued to fall, leaving the pinky behind. It had been a hidden blessing to have his hand so utterly wedged between the cracks of the rock when he'd finally come to a stop, because it had virtually cut off his circulation and stopped the bleeding. This, combined with the fact that he'd unintentionally held his hand up over his head for an hour, had saved his life.

There were other problems. His shoulder would hold no weight, and the hand with the missing finger dangled at his waist. It was the same hand that he'd used to touch the dust in the bag, and the scabs had been torn off. As the numbness wore off, his hand began to throb mercilessly, and blood dripped slowly from a thick scab forming at the stump where his pinky used to be.

Edgar was nearly dizzy with anger and frustration at himself for his carelessness. An already nearly impossible feat had just been made even more difficult. He would have to make do without the pinky the rest of the way down, and he wasn't quite sure he could do it.

It wasn't until he looked down again at the Flatlands, his hand and shoulder alive with roaring pain, that he remembered what he'd seen before falling-and now he knew why it had been such a shock.

Whatever was moving below him on the ground was not human.

Dozens of glistening thin trails appeared against the shadows like a tangled mess of bright green threads and winding ropes. Though he couldn't make out the features of the creatures-whatever they were-from where he stood high on the cliff, he could see they moved fast. He counted seven beneath him, writhing across the landscape and occasionally slithering into or over one another.

Beyond these strange beings Edgar could make out formations of jagged stone and a great deal of what could only be described as nothing at all. It was haunting and silent in its vastness, a blanket of rocks and dry earth with a primal power that took Edgar's breath away.

The rest of the day was very slow going, as you might imagine, but Edgar made steady progress at about half the pace he'd been going before. If it weren't for the pain he had to endure, he might even have relished the challenge of trying to climb with three rather than four limbs. He cursed himself for not trying it sooner so that he might have become skilled at it.

Edgar was an injured boy of eleven who was all alone in the world and took no comfort in food or water or tears of self-pity. But there came a point when even he found himself thinking, I won't make it another night up here. I'm too tired to hold on in the dark. It was thoughts such as these that kept him moving in the face of impossible odds. Life had granted him adversity at every turn, and it had become his habit to find a way to keep going. His humble past served him well as he made his final descent into the unknown. And he would have completed it without further trouble, too, if he hadn't been startled so dramatically near the very bottom of the cliff.

There were only twenty feet to go, and night had long since fallen on the Flatlands. Edgar didn't know for sure how close he was to the bottom-only that it was near enough for him to feel its closeness. He had been near the bottom of a cliff after nightfall before and had noticed the same certain smell, a change in temperature, and other subtleties that played on his senses.

Suddenly there came a tremendous noise Edgar had never heard before, like the sound of a thousand dry bones snapping at once. It was close, as if it were coming from right below him. Edgar turned and gasped-but he saw nothing, for when he shifted, the pain in his shoulder flared hot and he let go of the cliff. He tumbled toward the ground-bouncing here and there off smooth stone for twenty feet or more.

As he hit the ground, Edgar felt as though his body had shattered inside and his brains had exploded into tiny parts that careened inside of his head. He heard the horrible noise once again, even closer this time. Then Edgar closed his eyes and lay still in the Flatlands.

CHAPTER.

19.

THE SHEPHERD'S IDEA

Many of the houses in the Village at the Grove had toppled over, but some had weathered the quake surprisingly well, and the largest of these was buzzing with activity. Mr. Ratikan was tied to a tree and could do nothing as people from all three villages gathered in the night. There were two women and a man from the Village of Sheep, Briney and Maude from the Village of Rabbits, and an a.s.sortment of adults from the grove.

Isabel sat outside the door at a table weaving slings out of thin strands of tree bark with two other girls. She had become queen of all the children, guiding them in the duty of collecting black figs and storing them in bags at the back of the house. Now and then a child would approach her as one would an emperor and ask her a question. It's getting dark, shall we keep going? We've found all we can in the second-year trees, where should we go now? Will you show me how to throw a black fig as you do? Isabel's story had already become legend among the other children-her dangerous friendship with a climbing boy, her mastery of a sling. Some even whispered that Isabel alone had destroyed Mr. Ratikan's house and freed the grove.

The group in the house was arguing over what should be done with the bag of poison brought along by Briney and Maude when Wallace, a man hairy from head to toe who lived in the Village of Sheep, had heard enough.

"I believe we must go to him, if we are to know the whole truth of the matter."

They all knew of whom Wallace spoke and where this person could be found. The group of them nodded agreement, and a small party was a.s.sembled to visit Mr. Ratikan. The group consisted of Briney, Wallace, and Isabel's father, Charles.

"How are things coming along, Isabel?" her father asked on the way out the door.

"Very well! We have bags and bags of black figs and more are arriving by the hour. And these girls are exceptional weavers." She nodded at the two girls beside her, who beamed with pride. "We already have twenty slings and we're only getting faster."

"We're going to need a lot more than twenty," said her father. He looked concerned. "Why don't you show some of the adults how to make them?"

The girls scowled at Isabel's father, as if he'd slapped their heroine queen across the face, and then looked to Isabel for hope that their important duty would not be taken away by the adults in the village.

"We've got plenty of black figs," said Isabel, trying to save the glory for her loyal followers. "I'll move some of the others to making slings and see how we do. Give me an hour."

Leaving Isabel to her work, the three men made their way through the grove. They stopped at the pool and drank some water, for the guards had seen the error of their ways. Their loyalties to Tabletop ran deeper than the temporary delight of a few extra figs given for their work on behalf of Lord Phineus.

Charles filled a cup as they left and brought it with him through the grove. He and the other two men arrived at the tree where Mr. Ratikan had been tied. The poor man was sleeping where he stood, the ropes holding him upright, his head slumped over. Charles dipped his fingers in the cup and flicked water on Mr. Ratikan's head. When Mr. Ratikan continued snoring, Charles tried yelling the man's name-and then kicked him in the shin.

"Get back from my house, you wretched man!" Mr. Ratikan screamed. His throat was dry as dirt and he struggled to swallow. But then he noticed the cup in Charles's hand.

"What have you got there?" asked Mr. Ratikan, his voice cracking out of a raspy whisper. He'd screamed until his voice had become shredded, and he'd gone without water all day.

Charles ignored the question. "Did you poison two men from the grove?"

Mr. Ratikan was surprised, and it showed in his reaction. How could they know? He denied the accusation and demanded to be let go. Briney stepped forward, holding the bag.