Jake shivered and glanced around at the dungeon prisoners, picturing the walled-up houses above. Were these the men and women who had once lived in those homes?
The guards forced Jake and his friends into the open cell and slammed the door shut. The tiny room was nothing more than bare stone with a pile of dried reeds in one corner for a bed. Along the back wall, a dank hole in the floor stank of things Jake didn’t want to imagine. Armored insects the size of his fist dove into that foul pit as Jake shuddered.
Marika hugged her arms around her chest. “How could they do this to their own people?”
Jake shook his head. He pictured the raucous, circuslike atmosphere of the outer city. Still, people shunned those sealed homes, refusing even to look at them.
“I think sometimes it’s easier to turn a blind eye,” he said, “than risk your life by protesting.”
“So no one’s going to help us.” Pindor sank toward the pile of reeds, but something scurried under the straw. He bolted straight up and backed away.
Outside, a horrible scream burst from one of the cells. Maybe the same prisoner who had been moaning before. They all stared at one another, wide-eyed with fear. The cry died into cackling laughter, which was worse than any screaming or moaning. It was the laughter of someone whose mind had cracked into a thousand pieces.
Jake stared at the others. He read the raw desire in all their faces.
We have to get out of here.
13
A CALL FOR HELP
Jake stalked back and forth across the small cell. He sensed the others’ eyes upon him, looking to him to come up with some escape plan. They had checked the walls, the door, even that foul-smelling hole in the floor. There was no way out.
Needing a distraction, something to help clear his head, he reached to the chain around his neck and pulled out his father’s pocket watch. He stared down at the dial. Earlier, the second hand had been spinning rapidly as they neared the city. Now it had stopped. He turned in a slow circle, but the needle refused to spin again. He shook the watch. Still nothing.
“Jake, what are you doing?” Kady asked.
“When we were landing here, the second hand was spinning wildly.” He pantomimed it with a fingertip atop the crystal face. “Almost like it was responding to something here in the city.”
Kady looked over his shoulder. “It’s not moving now.”
“I know that,” he said with a touch of exasperation. He placed a palm against the stone wall of the cell. “I think all this rock is blocking the signal. We have to get back to the surface. Follow where the watch leads.”
“How?” Pindor asked. “Even if we could get through this door, that wingless grakyl with the knives waits between us and the sun.”
Jake pictured the brutish dungeon master. The snick-snick of him sharpening his blades had grown to feel like spiders climbing up and down his spine.
Jake tucked away his father’s gold watch. “We’ll have to look for any chance to escape,” he said lamely, recognizing that it wasn’t much of a plan. He shook his head in defeat. “If only I still had my flashlight from before, the one that got turned into a freeze ray when it was fused with that blue ice crystal …”
Bach’uuk spoke by the door. He stretched up on his toes to stare out the window and sniffed the air. “No good,” he said. “No crystals here. Only fire and smoke.”
Jake didn’t understand what his Neanderthal friend meant. Bach’uuk settled back on the ground and stared at Jake with his sharp blue eyes.
Then it struck Jake, too. He remembered Bach’uuk staring at one of the wall torches. Back in Calypsos, the townspeople had used glowing crystals—called hearth-lights—to illuminate their homes. The stones had been powered by the energy given off by the crystal heart in the center of the great temple. But since landing here, Jake had not spotted anyone using crystals. Even the huge windriders were nothing more than clever pieces of engineering powered by a naturally combustive source, namely those firebombs.
But what did that mean? Had these people lost their knowledge of alchemy when Ankh Tawy fell? Or were crystals forbidden?
“Maybe those stones don’t work here,” Kady added.
Jake wasn’t buying that. He touched his throat. He could feel the subtle manipulation of his vocal cords. There was some energy here that allowed them to speak All-World. If that worked, crystals must, too.
Or he could be entirely wrong.
“If we had a crystal,” Jake said, “we might be able to test your theory.”
“I have one,” Marika said, stepping forward.
Jake swung toward her. “You do?”
She reached into her pocket and tugged out a chunk of green crystal. She held it out toward him. It was the size of a chicken egg, only broken in half. The other half of the crystal—carried by another—would vibrate in tune with its twin, allowing communication, like a walkie-talkie.
“A farspeaker!” Pindor gasped out. “Why didn’t you tell us you had one!”
“I did. Back when I first ran into you all,” she reminded them. “I had been calling Papa on my farspeaker when I was snatched here.”
Jake took the crystal, remembering her story. Normally such crystals were suspended within a web of tiny fibers inside a paddlelike frame.
Marika explained. “I broke its holder when I crashed in the desert. Still, I tried to reach my father again, but nothing happened.”
Kady put her hands on her hips. “So like I said, crystals must not work here.”
“Not necessarily. The two halves of the crystals may be too far apart. It might take more power to get them to link up across such a distance. If only we had more power …”
An idea began to form in Jake’s head. He remembered that, back in Calypsos, the battery from his flashlight had accidentally touched a ruby crystal and the crystal ignited into a crimson minisun. Could the same be done here?
He turned to his sister. “Kady, do you still have your cell phone?”
She scowled. “Of course I do.” To prove it, she reached into a hidden pocket of her slacks and pulled it out. “I wasn’t about to let them take it away from me.”
Jake held out his hand. “Does it still have power?”
She flipped it open and showed the glowing home page. Jake forced himself not to roll his eyes at the sight of her cheer squad posing defiantly, swords pointed at the screen.
“Pass me the battery.”
Kady frowned but obeyed. With the skill of a surgeon, she extracted the battery and placed it in Jake’s hand.