Some of the men had scattered, trying to find a way into the House of Power or simply going back home with no plan for getting water or food. But Horace had pulled aside five of Sir Philip's men, and they'd all agreed: Lord Phineus was a violent man, and his way of ruling Atherton had not worked. He had to be stopped.

In the absence of Sir Philip, Horace took the lead of the five men, for he had held an important post-very close to the seat of power-and the men were in search of a leader.

"We can't wait here all day," said Horace. "One of us will have to go to them."

He glanced at each of the men's faces and saw not a volunteer among them. This turned out not to be a problem for Horace, for when he gazed back at the Village of Rabbits, he saw a group of men with clubs heading toward him and his men.

"Leave your swords in the trees," said Horace, "and come with me." He felt certain there would be no hope of a peaceful encounter if both sides came with weapons of war. The men reluctantly followed the command as Horace stepped out from the protection of the trees and walked toward the oncoming mob, his men following hesitantly.

"Get back to your own land!" screamed someone from the Village of Rabbits. "We're prepared to protect ourselves if we must!"

Horace held his arms up and told the rest of the men to do the same. "We've brought no swords with us. We're unarmed and only want to talk. Have you a leader among you who would listen to us?"

There was some chatter in the group, and then one of them ran to the inn and disappeared. When the messenger reemerged, Briney and Maude were with him.

There was arguing Horace couldn't discern, though he was sure they were debating whether or not he and the others from the Highlands had come to trick them.

Eventually, Briney and Maude ventured closer to Horace without the rest of their group. "Are you here on errand from Lord Phineus?" asked Maude. She was the most matter-of-fact in the group and had no trouble getting to the point.

"We weren't sent by anyone," said Horace. "We just want to talk."

Maude and Briney whispered to one another.

"What's your name?" asked Maude. Horace told her.

"All right, Horace. You alone can come with us to the inn. Send your boys back to the trees."

A vision of Horace's little boy flashed before his eyes, sitting at their kitchen table with bowls and spoons, watching the stream flow by in front of their little house. And then he remembered how the water that had always run in front of his house had disappeared, how it had felt on his feet to walk the dry bottom of the stream bed.

"Go on," he said to the other men, motioning them back to the trees. They were not willing at first and wished they'd brought their spears, but Horace convinced them that it was the only way.

"If we find you've been sent by Lord Phineus, you'll never see those trees again. You might want to take a last look." Maude still didn't trust this man of the Highlands with droopy eyes and no hair on the top of his head.

When they entered the inn, it was dark but for a few wicks burning, and Horace was escorted to a table. Rabbits were being cooked on the fire as a group of men and women stood nearby.

"That table," said Briney, pointing to the same corner where Sir Emerik had been questioned by Edgar. Horace crossed the room and sat down while Maude told the rest to set the rabbits on the stick aside and wait outside. Soon the inn was empty but for the crackling fire and three people seated in a gloomy corner.

"Why have you come here?" asked Briney. He regarded the man before him thoughtfully, trying to read his expression.

"Because I think we misunderstand one another," said Horace.

"I understand Lord Phineus planned to poison us, and that you are one of his men," said Maude.

Horace tried to answer, but Maude wouldn't let him.

"I understand how you've taken every fig and rabbit and sheep you could force from us."

"Yes, but-"

Maude slapped her hand on the table, and the man was silenced. To Maude, Horace symbolized everyone and everything in the Highlands, and she would say her piece whether he liked it or not.

"You gathered the orange dust," she said. "Something that those in the grove have worked so hard to subdue in the face of your demands for more, more, more figs! How dare you try to harvest it to use against us!"

"You tried to poison us," said Horace, surprised by the accusation. This seemed to set Maude back on her heels, and he took advantage of the silent moment. "Do you deny it? Do you deny using poison against us? Men have died. There are others back in the Highlands who can barely breathe. How do you respond? They have sores on their hands and faces. What would you have us think? That you are a peaceful people?"

Briney could take no more of this man insulting Maude and pointed a finger in Horace's face.

"Your Lord Phineus asked Mr. Ratikan to harvest the orange dust and to test it on us in the water, which he did. We were lucky enough to find it before it could be used against us, but I have no doubt Lord Phineus planned to poison the whole lot of us. It is you who tried to poison us. We have only tried to protect ourselves all along."

Horace didn't exactly know how to respond. If what Briney said were true, everything was altered. He had never been told of such a plan. None of them had. Could Lord Phineus be so cruel?

Maude got her wind back. "Why have you always been so stingy with the water? From what I can see of the Highlands, you've had all you could use for far too long."

This was a point Horace had trouble disputing even in the quiet of his own mind. He'd known for a long time that the Highlands enjoyed more water. Seeing the dryness in Tabletop first-hand had made him realize how truly miserly Lord Phineus had been.

"The water is one of the reasons I've come," said Horace, feeling as though he might have arrived at a point on which they could agree. "Lord Phineus has shut himself in the House of Power with his closest allies. He has plenty of food, for much of it is stored there. And he controls the flow of water from a secret place known only to him."

Horace looked across the table and couldn't tell if Briney and Maude understood what he'd meant, so he repeated himself.

"He's locked the gate to the House of Power and he controls the only source of water from within," Horace said again. "It would seem that Lord Phineus has turned against not only Tabletop, but the Highlands as well."

"How can he shut himself away like that?" asked Briney. "It's not possible."

"You are wrong," answered Horace. "The wall around his fortress is very high and well protected by his most dedicated guards."

"Who knows of this place where the water comes from?" asked Maude.

"Only one-Lord Phineus. Once there were three, or so I've overheard from my post in the House of Power. Sir Philip-who pa.s.sed in battle at the Village of Sheep today-and Sir William, who was lost a while back in an unfortunate accident. There is one other, Sir Emerik, who seems to have been left out of the loop, I imagine because he couldn't be trusted, though he wields considerable power."

"Then we must get to Lord Phineus!" yelled Maude. "We must go to the House of Power and force him to make the water begin flowing again. And then we must kill them both-him and this Sir Emerik."

"That, I'm afraid, will be more difficult than you imagine," said Horace. He rubbed his hands together, trying to decide how he should tell them.

"I and those five men I brought with me are the only fighting men I know of who will help us. We will meet with resistance not only from the House of Power, but from a great many more men who don't want anyone from Tabletop in the Highlands. Just because they can't get into the House of Power doesn't mean they will tolerate your entering into the Highlands."

"Can't you talk to them? Convince them we only want the same thing they do?" asked Briney.

"Do you want the same thing?" asked Horace. "Can you say you only want water? Can you say you do not also want to live in the Highlands as we do? And will you still give us food when you're no longer forced to do so?"

"He has a point," said Maude. "I see it in the faces of almost everyone in the village. They want to go in. They don't want to be ruled any longer."

The door to the inn flew open, and light poured into the room.

"Briney? Maude?" It was Charles and Wallace from the other villages. They were both breathing heavily, as though they'd tried to run the entire distance between villages.

"We're here, Charles," said Briney from the dark corner of the room. "What's happened?"

Charles had to catch his breath before he could speak. His voice was a thin, raspy whisper, and it was difficult to hear what he was trying to say. They pulled him and Wallace over to the table and set them down on a bench.

"What is it, Charles?" asked Briney. Horace looked on with a mixture of concern and bewilderment.

"Isabel," murmured Charles. "She talked to a boy from the Highlands, a boy who knew Edgar from the grove. She made him tell her something before he escaped to his home. It's happening again, only much worse this time!"

Charles swallowed, wishing for a cup of water, but there was none to be had in the inn.

"What's happening? What do you mean?" asked Maude.

Charles was so agitated by the news he hadn't thought to use some discretion. But Wallace had been looking at Horace, half hidden in the shadows, since the moment he entered the inn.

"Who is this man?" Wallace asked before Charles could go on.

They all looked at one another, unsure of how to proceed, and then the ground began to move beneath them.

Samuel and Isabel were hiding in the deepest part of the grove, sitting among the leaves and branches of a third-year tree.

"The grove's being neglected," she said. "And there's no water in the pool."

Samuel touched one of the wilting leaves.

"Lord Phineus has turned off the water," said Samuel.

"I didn't know he could do that." Isabel was beginning to think Lord Phineus held even more power than she'd been led to believe.

Samuel wasn't sure if he should tell Isabel all that he knew. Growing up in the House of Power with a father who was part of the ruling cla.s.s had exposed him to much more information than anyone realized. He had always been a secretive boy, especially once he had only his mother to trust. The thought of her in the House of Power alone, and his selfish act of leaving her, made him hope he could trust Isabel with one of the most important secrets of Atherton.

"The way to control the water is hidden beneath the House of Power," said Samuel. "It is known by only two."

"Who are the two?"

Samuel kicked at the dirt, trying to form the words.

"There used to be three men who knew how to control the water: Lord Phineus, Sir Philip, and my father. My father would never show it to me, but it didn't matter."

"Why didn't it matter?" She felt as though she were slowly pulling the story out of Samuel's mouth on a string, bit by bit.

"I know every nook and cranny of the House of Power. n.o.body ever watched me."

He looked at Isabel until she caught his eye.

"Besides Lord Phineus, I'm the only other person who knows where the source of water resides. It's not an easy place to find, and it's a scary place to go, but I know the way."

He paused and shook his head in frustration.

"What?" asked Isabel.

"To get to the water would require us to first get inside the House of Power."

"That shouldn't be hard," said Isabel. "We can tell my father and he'll go there with a lot of men. Lord Phineus will have to listen to him."

Samuel almost smiled wryly at Isabel's simple view of the challenge ahead. Of course, she had never encountered a fortress before, or any security more formidable than the guards who had strolled near Tabletop's waterfalls and streams.

"I don't think it will be that easy," said Samuel. "There is only one gate, and it's heavily guarded. It's surrounded by a wall that only Edgar could climb. It's flat and smooth as water. If Lord Phineus doesn't want people inside, he can easily keep them out. But there is one place we might get in...."

Isabel waited, letting the words rest in the air, and then she pulled on the string once more.

"Where is the place?"

Samuel feared for his mother. The longer he sat in the tree the more he felt that he needed to return to her and make sure she was safe.

"Isabel, if we're to do this, we must go alone."

Isabel began to protest, though she was secretly excited about the idea of entering the Highlands with someone who knew the way, free of her mother's will. She imagined the adoration from the other children in the grove when the water would flow thick through the trees again and they would find out that it was Isabel who had made it happen.

"We're little, Isabel. We can hide more easily, especially once we're inside the House of Power. I know many places where we can remain concealed, but they are small places. And there is a more sensible reason we must go alone as well."

"Why?" asked Isabel, though she was already touching her bag of black figs, wondering if she had enough of them for a perilous journey.

"The hidden way into the House of Power is only big enough for us. An adult won't fit."

And so it was decided that the two of them would go alone when night fell on the grove. Isabel would spend the late afternoon gathering food, water if she could find it, and the very best black figs. She had an extra bag in her room filled with figs dipped in orange dust, which she would also bring.

As they plotted their journey, the feeling of the ground falling from under them came again, and the haunting groans from far away rippled through the air. It went on so long that finally Isabel rushed off to make her preparations with the tremors still afoot.

After she was gone Samuel reflected upon some of the details he'd left out of his story, and he felt badly for not telling Isabel everything. But if he had, she might not have agreed to come, and he needed her skills with a sling to make the journey and reunite with his mother.

There were two things he did not tell her in the tree. The first was how deep underground the source of water was and how perilous the way to it would be. But that wasn't the most troubling part. He also hadn't told her that even if they did find their way inside the House of Power and to the deep underground pa.s.sage, it wouldn't matter. For at the end there was a door that required a key only Lord Phineus possessed.

CHAPTER.

31.

THE SPIRIT OF A BOY REMAINS.