"What do you think, Wallace?" asked Charles. "Shall we trust him or not?"

Charles had finished telling Briney and Maude about the descent of Tabletop and the horrifying creatures they could expect to find in the Flatlands. The group of them had sent Horace outside to wait, and now they had to decide if he should be told.

"Threats mounting on all sides," Wallace muttered. "This changing world is a curse."

Wallace was a thinker and a waiter, less p.r.o.ne to action than the rest. And yet his quiet, philosophical way had a calming effect on people, as if they were his sheep and he were only trying to herd them in the right direction.

"We don't know what's coming," he continued. "The danger from the Flatlands is a mystery, but it sounds to me as though it threatens everyone." He looked at the others and saw that they didn't understand what he was driving at.

"It would be unwise to wage war on two fronts if there is a chance we could wage one, together, against the greater foe."

There was a silence at the inn as each of them pondered the risks.

"Could this boy from the Highlands have lied to Isabel, to scare her? Could Lord Phineus have sent him?"

"She's not easily tricked," said Charles. "She came to me not with a rumor or a possible lie, but with the truth. She was convinced the boy came to warn us."

"And yet even the boy could be deceived, couldn't he?" asked Briney. "This page from the secret book-it might be filled with lies."

They all listened to the deep moan of Tabletop slowly moving down. Eyebrows raised and chins nodded around the table as they silently agreed that some predictions from the page were already coming to pa.s.s. It would be foolish to expect a peaceful meeting with the Flatlands.

"We trust this man at our own peril," said Maude. She remained unconvinced. Horace, the secret book, and the boy could easily be part of an intricate deception by Lord Phineus. And yet, she grasped the wisdom Wallace had shared. How could they fight two enemies at once when they'd only just begun to understand how to fight at all? They were doomed to fail in both endeavors.

"Who wants to bring Horace in and tell him what we know?" asked Charles. "Show of hands."

Wallace raised his hand almost before the words were said. Of them all, he was most certain they were on a precarious path. He had tasted battle and even victory, but in the hours that had pa.s.sed after the fight, he had felt a terrible unease and a growing belief that in the end they would fail. Ongoing war was no place for a peaceful people, and it did not suit him.

Charles was next to vote in favor. Then Briney looked at Maude as if to say he would not raise his hand if she did not want him to. His heart was torn between his devotion to her and his hope to work with the Highlands instead of against them. He was very pleased when Maude sighed deeply and raised her hand.

"Wallace, you do the talking," said Maude. She was determined to force some part of her will on this table full of men. "The men he leads fought in your village and lost friends to its clubs, and the trust must come between the two of you if I am to be convinced."

Once Horace had settled back onto the bench where he had been seated before, he looked nervously at the faces before him, wondering why no one spoke. Wallace relished the silence in the room, but it clearly made Horace uncomfortable.

"Tabletop feels like it's moving," remarked Horace, as if to break the ice. "I wonder what it means."

Still not a word from the group at the table. Horace was not a rash person p.r.o.ne to babble in order to fill an empty s.p.a.ce, and said no more. Charles nudged Wallace on the shoulder, thinking maybe the man had nodded off to sleep, but Wallace was not sleeping. He was waiting for the right words to come to him, something very few people are apt to do in times of tension.

Wallace looked intently at the man before him. The heavy jowls told him Horace had eaten too much for too long. In his eyes he felt the man's exhaustion and worry, the worry of a father.

"You have a wife and children," said Wallace, breaking the silence. "I have only my sheep, but they mean as much to me as anything I've ever known."

Another silence ensued in which Horace thought of the sheep his five men had probably trampled over with their horses. My child is safe, for the moment, but some in this man's care have perished before their time.

"Your men fought well," said Wallace, folding his hands on the table.

"From the looks of things, so did you," said Horace, thinking of the many fallen men from the Highlands.

"No, that's actually not true. I don't know how to fight well. We don't know how to fight well." Wallace glanced at his friends. "We were very lucky. Briney has told us you have your doubts about Lord Phineus. We haven't any doubts at all. History tells us he will use his power to control us, but we have some hope that your visit is a sign that not all in the Highlands feel as he does."

"Your hopes are well founded," said Horace. "I don't claim that everyone in the Highlands feels as I do, but there are some. How many, I can't say."

"We have a new enemy, one that might bring our two peoples together."

Horace was baffled by the comment. "You mean Lord Phineus?" he asked.

"I'm afraid he is only part of our problem, the rest of which I should like to ask Charles to explain to you."

Charles was about to begin when Wallace touched him on the arm, prompting him to wait a moment more.

"Horace, I'm sorry for the loss of your friends in my village. I would have wished for another outcome."

Horace felt the sincerity of the words. He wanted to tell Wallace he too was sorry for a great many things, but he seemed unable to get started. Wallace nodded, seeming to understand what the man felt without hearing the words.

It took only a few minutes for Charles to tell Horace everything he knew from Isabel and her mysterious visitor about the fearsome creatures in Tabletop. In the telling, Horace began to realize that it might be Samuel who'd come to the grove with the news. The thought of it was worrisome, for he had some paternal feelings toward the boy. But Horace was a man of action and wasted no time shifting his thoughts to the peril at hand, as if he were trained for just such an encounter.

"We should send someone to the edge as quickly as we can. We need to know how close we are to the bottom. Soon enough these creatures, whatever they are, will be close enough to see. We must know our enemy."

"I'll go," said Maude. "And I'll bring Morris and Amanda with me. The three of us can be back here before dark with news."

She didn't wait for an answer from the rest, and Briney knew his place was at the inn, overseeing the village. He was glad she'd thought of bringing someone with her. For the time being he wanted her as far away from the Highlands as possible, at least until Tabletop had descended closer to the Flatlands.

After Maude left the inn, Horace was the first to speak.

"She's a strong one," he commented.

"You have no idea," said Briney. The four men smiled and together began discussing how they would begin to prepare for a day when Atherton would be flat. It was a short conversation, for their mouths were growing parched and sticky, and they began to realize they would have to conserve their energy.

Horace rose to go, and the rest of the men followed him out. They stood at the front of the inn.

"I will leave a man in the woods, just there," said Horace, pointing to where his men were awaiting his return. "When Maude returns with news, you must go to him. He will find me. If we've come near the bottom and there is a threat as the boy said, I'll go directly to the House of Power and try to convince Lord Phineus we must fight them together."

"Take your men to the Highlands by a new way," said Wallace. "Follow the rim where the two lands had been separated. There is a man and a horse in that direction, if you keep walking, and I wonder if he might be someone you know."

Before long Horace would find Sir Philip where he'd fallen, away from all the villages in the middle of nowhere, and wonder how he had come to an end in such a desolate place.

It was one of those times when Isabel wished with all her heart that she could write and her parents could read. She wanted more than anything to leave a note for her mother and father telling them not to worry, for she would return soon. And yet she also knew that if she told them, they would surely come looking for her and meet with violence in the Highlands. No, she could not risk losing the chance of helping Samuel on this important mission.

She decided to tell her most devoted follower from the grove, a very affectionate, loyal girl of seven.

"Tell my mother something for me, will you?"

"I will," the little girl said.

"Wait an hour, then go to her and say that I've gone to do something that could not wait, but that I'll return tomorrow."

"Where are you going? She'll want to know." It was really the little girl who wanted to know.

"I can't tell you, and she can't know."

"Will you come back?" The little girl's voice trembled, and Isabel got down on one knee before her.

"I promise to come back. There's something I can do to help save the grove, but she cannot come after me. You just have to tell her that I will return."

"I can do it," said the girl. "I'll wait until an hour after dark and then I'll tell her."

The little girl ran off and Samuel jumped down out of a nearby tree. Early evening had come; and as the sky was turning grey, Isabel tore a leaf from one of the trees. There was a subtle change, something only someone who'd lived in the grove all her life would be aware of. The leaf was just a little dry, starting to turn a slightly different color. Isabel thought of the saplings across the grove and wondered how long the fragile young trees would last. They were delicate, requiring great care and lots of water. If they failed, the future of the grove was in question. The grove might be lost.

"We must go quickly," she said. "There's no time to lose."

And so Isabel and Samuel began a journey that would take them through lands dangerous and beautiful, on a quest to bring water to a barren land and a thirsty people. It would be more perilous than either of them suspected.

Isabel and Samuel crept across the hardening mud where the bottom of the waterfall used to be, and they both thought of the boy who had brought them together.

"What do you think Edgar is doing right now?" asked Samuel as they pa.s.sed into the Highlands unseen.

"I wish I knew," answered Isabel.

"There's still a chance the three of us will return to the grove."

The two looked back at the trees as they slipped into the tall green gra.s.s. Even in the grey light Isabel had seen how lush the Highlands were, but all of the beauty of the Highlands paled at the sight of the precious fig trees she loved. The grove had taken her heart and would not let go. It was filled with the power of memory, and above all with the spirit of the boy Edgar.

By the time she'd return to the grove, it would not be as she remembered it.

CHAPTER.

32.

MEAD'S HOLLOW

Throughout the day Atherton released a dull roar as if it were taking a final, labored breath of air in its drive for the very bottom. The steady descent was easier to hear than feel, a lullaby of dark sounds that seemed to play forever and fade into the background as the clamor of the waterfall once had. Now and then it would rumble and howl, falling fast, then grinding slower, reawakening the senses of everyone on Atherton. But it never stopped completely as the Highlands had during the many days it took to crash into Tabletop.

The nearer Maude and her companions came to the edge of Tabletop, the more parched and bleak it became. Dusty rocks marred the ground, and the air became harder to breathe. Maude stopped well short of the edge and pointed to a faraway place. Already they could see the Flatlands in the distance. Tabletop had moved lower than they or anyone else would have believed. The three of them looked back at the center of Atherton, where the Highlands had once risen from the land.

"This isn't home anymore," she said. Her voice was dry and quiet. Morris wished he could pour a cup of water over the words, making them wet and fluid again. Maybe then they wouldn't sound so hopeless. But he had to agree the absence of the cliff made Tabletop feel wrong somehow. Atherton looked empty. The cliff had been something to huddle against and make them feel sheltered and safe, but it was gone now, replaced by a feeling of dread Morris couldn't shake.

"It's getting late," he said. They had spoken little on the way, and he was surprised to hear his own fractured voice.

The three of them continued toward the edge, slower now, but with purpose. When they came within ten steps, Amanda stopped.

"I can't go any farther," she said. She was not a fierce woman like Maude, and the closer they'd come to the end, the more she'd wanted to turn back. She let Maude and Morris go the rest of the way alone.

When they arrived at the very edge, they leaned out and looked down.

"This cannot be," said Maude, overcome. It was as if a vast monster had crept up behind her in a nightmare and now stood at her feet. It was not the same feeling she had felt when the Highlands had come within view for the first time. The Highlands were filled with people. What she saw before her now was a mystery that made a dark terror well up in her throat.

Maude and Morris could see the jagged stones on its surface and the odd tangled green lines everywhere. But they could also see the strange creatures that caused them.

They had arrived at the place where the waste from the village was dumped, including the bones and unwanted insides of the rabbits. Cleaners gathered here in great number before dark. Edgar had climbed down at night, when most of the Cleaners are wont to hide amidst the jagged rocks and only a few venture in search of a bone that might have been missed. But in the light they came by the hundreds to this place, searching for bones and blood, anything thrown over the edge that might feed their insatiable hunger.

Maude's and Morris's stomachs turned at the sight of the squirming shapes below and smelled the scent of death wafting up. Maude had to fight back the urge to be sick, and she stumbled back from the edge in a daze.

The sound of Tabletop working its way down drowned out the distant noise of Cleaners moving and snapping their teeth, but if it had been a quiet day, Morris and Maude would have heard the faint sound of bones breaking from below.

"We may not be alone come morning," she said.

Morris nodded and stepped away. There was a large rock twice the size of his head nearby, and he picked it up, struggling to carry it back to where he'd stood. When he hurled it off the edge, he nearly lost his balance and went over with it. Amanda screamed and told him to get back, but Morris stayed and watched.

The rock smashed directly into the head of a Cleaner. The injured animal jerked in every direction as if it were trying to take flight. Morris was appalled as he watched dozens of ravenous creatures attack the fallen beast.

"We must warn the others," said Morris. "If these creatures enter the villages, we'll have no place to hide."

Maude went to Amanda and put her arm around her shoulders. "You and Morris will go to the grove. When you get there, send someone to the Village of Sheep. I'll go back home and warn everyone."

Morris and Amanda hastened toward the grove, and Maude started off alone. She would go directly to Briney, then find a way to get word to Horace and his men. Tabletop and the Highlands must unite against the one foe. She repeated the sentiment Wallace had expressed earlier in the day. It's our only hope.

Maude was better at thinking alone, always had been. She preferred the solitude of pushing her broom at the inn and letting Briney talk to the villagers. She had often thought of moving to the Village of Sheep and becoming a shepherdess, where she could be alone and think. But Briney would never leave the inn. She thought on these things in an effort to forget about what she'd seen in the Flatlands, but the sight of the stone hitting the creature below and the others attacking it kept firing back in her mind. She became obsessed with one thought near the end of her journey as the Village of Rabbits came into view in the distance.

We must find a way to turn these monsters against one another.

Lord Phineus stood before Mead's head in the main chamber and studied it as he loved to do, running his fingers over the white nose, up to the forehead, and over the waves of hair carved into stone. He was thinking of Sir William, for some unknown reason, remembering what a challenge it had been to keep him in line.

When Lord Phineus reached the back of Mead's head, his mind cleared, and he put his other hand on the face, holding the entire piece firmly in his grip. He applied pressure one way, and Mead's head began to move to the right. He did the same to the left, and then back again. When he pushed left once more, a sharp click! came from the floor behind Mead's head. Something had been unlocked.

He repeated the turning of the head in reverse order, which produced a different sort of clicking sound. Lord Phineus then enfolded the head with his arms, lifting it from its pedestal. He put his arm deep inside a shaft where the head had been and pulled out a key.

Lord Phineus replaced the head and checked the locked door to the main chamber for any sound of someone outside.

Carefully pushing aside the ivy that ran down the wall to the floor behind Mead's head, he found a large stone slab below him with notches on each side that allowed him to lift the sheath of stone. Lord Phineus dragged it away with a loud grating noise, then looked down into the hole underneath. He drew a deep breath as he listened carefully for any unusual sounds.

Lord Phineus felt a heavy dread come over him as his lighted wick illuminated the stairs leading down into the black. On the first stair were carved the words he'd read many times before on each journey to the source of all water: mead's hollow. It was not a friendly pa.s.sage, and the sight of it always made him shudder, but he had gone many times and knew the way well.

When he was far enough down the steep stairs to seal himself in, he set his small bowl of fuel and flaming wick on a step at his feet. He listened carefully once more, gazing down the narrow pa.s.sageway. Lord Phineus pulled the stone over the opening and was enveloped in darkness and shadow, only a weak orange light dancing from the wick at his feet.