Escape From Riddler's Pass (8 page)

“Just be quiet and look around,” another voice replied.

As Jesse's eyes adjusted to the dark, his tired mind realized what was happening.
Captain Demetri's Patrol—they're still here! And just beyond the trees.

Silas removed his hand, satisfied Jesse wouldn't betray their presence with a shout. Rae was behind Silas, and both stared past the trees toward the mountain, tensed and ready to flee at any moment.

“They couldn't possibly have lived through the cave-in,” the first one continued, in a whining, nasal voice. “We barely got out alive. Even if they didn't get crushed right away, they'll be trapped.”

Jesse shivered, picturing the slow end he could have met, pinned under a boulder, starving but unable to die.

“The captain says to check the perimeter once every watch,” the other replied patiently. “We do it. At least, we pretend to. An easy assignment—we'll be back home in a few days once the captain is satisfied.”

His eyes wide, Jesse tried not to breathe.
Will they see us in the trees?

“Look at this,” the nasal Patrol member said, laughing. “Not a rock out of place. Those children are as good as gone. Don't know what all the fuss is about anyhow. Come on, let's get back to the western side. Likely the others will have eaten all the rations without us.”

Two sets of footsteps, one of them sounding like they were kicking small stones, clunked into the night. For the first time in his life, Jesse was glad the lazy and dishonest often filled the ranks of the king's Patrol.

“What are we going to do?” he whispered, after he was sure the Patrol members were gone.

“We will leave. Tonight,” Silas said grimly. “That is, if you can walk, Jesse.”

“Why?” Jesse asked. “They don't know we're here.”

“They could find us,” Silas said. “Or see traces of our camp. Matted grass, displaced stone. We can't assume all the Patrol are as careless as those two. Never underestimate your enemy.”

It sounded sensible when he put it that way, but Jesse suspected Silas really just wanted to get to the headquarters as soon as possible. With the Rebellion in sight, sleep wasn't important to him anymore.

Jesse picked up his walking stick from the ground beside him. Rae offered him her hand, but he waved it away and tried to stand on his own. His head throbbed a little, but the dizziness was gone. “I won't be able to move as quickly as I did before,” he admitted.

“Never mind,” Silas said. “The main thing is getting away from here. It sounds like the Patrol will be camped here for a while.”

Making sure we're dead
. The thought chilled Jesse, more than the cool mountain air, and gave him enough motivation to pack the supplies, cover up all traces of their camp, and leave the grove of trees behind.

“I didn't want any sleep tonight anyway,” Jesse muttered to himself. He knew it was a lie, but it didn't matter. If Silas said to move on, they would move on until they reached Riddler's Pass. After that who knew what they would find?

Jesse remembered Noa's story about the Patrol member who went mad, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

 

Jesse began to hate traveling in the mountains even more than he had hated the desert. Besides being exhausting, the travel was dull and tedious. Every path looked the same, and even the mountains seemed like taller or shorter versions of the same exact rocks. Jesse found himself hoping the Rebellion headquarters were nearby.
At least then we could stop and rest.

He hoped so, anyway. With Silas' current state, it was hard to say for sure.

They walked all through what was left of the night, until the sky got lighter and the air warmer as dawn approached. Every few minutes, Silas would pull out Noa's map and glance around at their surroundings.

Once, Jesse heard Silas muttering to himself as he walked

“What are you doing?” Jesse asked.

Silas didn't even stop. “Counting paces,” he said. “That way I know the distance.”

It made sense to Jesse. Silas always thought of everything.

Except, of course, that a wounded cripple would have a difficult time walking quickly. It was all Jesse could do to keep up with Silas. Despite what he said about traveling slowly, Silas pushed them ahead. They even ate while they walked.

We're supposed to be rescuing Parvel from the Rebellion, not following Silas' quest for revenge
. Jesse almost said it, almost asked Silas if he had forgotten the purpose of their mission. Then he decided that would only make Silas angry. “How much farther?” Jesse asked instead.

“We should reach Riddler's Pass soon, if this map is accurate,” Silas said.

Jesse was glad to hear it. He had never been so sore, not even after traveling through the desert. His leg was throbbing with pain, but he kept going. Silas would probably leave him behind if he slowed.

For a while, he counted his own paces, more to keep his mind off the pain in his leg than to track how far they had walked. Suddenly, right before Jesse reached a thousand paces, Silas stopped in the middle of the path, staring into the sky.

“There it is,” he said, pointing to the east in awe. “The fist pounding the mountain. Just where the map said it would be.”

Sure enough, the rising sun just beyond the mountains showed a clear silhouette of a rock formation stacked on top of a plateau. It truly did look like a fist, with four boulder knuckles and a rounded rock thumb jutting out of the hand.
It would only be clearly visible in the dawn light
, Jesse realized.
Otherwise, it would blend in with the rocks behind it in the distance.

Rae and Silas immediately ran toward the cliff face. Jesse limped along at his own slow pace.

By the time he got there, Rae and Silas were studying the rock wall of the canyon beneath the fist, looking puzzled. It was small, perhaps only thirty paces deep and seven paces wide.

“I don't see anything,” Rae said at last, running her hands over the stone. “Not an opening, not a cave, and certainly not a pass.”

Jesse looked around. No patches of briars could cover up a secret entrance, no tiny crevice in the rock could be seen for them to squeeze through. “Maybe we got the wrong fist.”

“It has to be here!” Silas exclaimed in frustration, pacing back and forth beside the canyon wall. “It has to be. It looks just like the canyon on the map.”

“Maybe the map was wrong,” Jesse suggested. “It was an old map. Besides, the Roarics didn't go Above-ground much. Things could have changed.”

“We'll look closer,” Rae said, giving Jesse a warning look. “It will make him feel better, at least,” she whispered to him as she passed.

Fine. I'll waste my time in a boxed-in canyon to make Silas feel better
. Jesse kicked the mountain to see if anything moved. He only succeeded in hurting his good foot.

On the other side of the canyon, Rae and Silas were feeling the rock. “Maybe you'll find some sort of trap door,” Jesse suggested, grinning. “Or a hidden lever that will pry the mountains apart. Or a magic portal that will take you to the Rebellion lair.”

Both glared at his attempt at humor and continued their careful search.

So he would at least look like he was searching, Jesse tapped his staff against the rocks, first lightly, then harder. After a while, he began to beat out a rhythm, the solid
tap, tap, tap
of the stick against stone creating a pattern of sound.
This is actually fun
.

He began to step in time to the rhythm, like the people of Mir did at the annual harvest celebration. With one swollen, lame leg, it was a sad imitation, to be sure, but it was better than poking at Silas' barren mountain.

Jesse danced up the length of the canyon, tapping the rock all the way. Then, right before he reached the dead end, his good foot tripped on something, and he sprawled to the ground—hard. Strangely, the dirt and moss underneath him shuddered slightly.

“Are you all right?” Silas called, looking up from his work at the noise of Jesse's fall.

“Just fine,” Jesse said, not wanting to explain what had happened. When Silas and Rae turned back to their search, Jesse looked down.
That's strange
. Beneath him was a large patch of dead moss among all the green.

Maybe it's some sort of fungus or disease.
The thought made him pull away, and he scurried over to the green moss nearby.
What did I trip over, anyway?

He peered into the square of dead moss and saw it, nearly buried in the ground. An iron ring.
Someone left it here, I suppose. Maybe the metal poisoned the moss around it.

Jesse reached down to pick it up, but it would not budge.
It's attached
, he realized. Then, another thought immediately after it:
What if this moss isn't poisoned or diseased? What if it's a patch of dead moss that was used to cover up something…like a door?
“Silas,” he called, excited now. “Come over here!”

Silas and Rae both came, although neither one seemed to be in much of a hurry. “What is it?” Silas asked. “Do you need help standing back up?”

Jesse gave him a scathing look. “No. But look what I found.”

He pointed to the iron ring in the moss, and Silas seemed to understand right away. “A secret entrance,” he breathed, staring at it. “Noa's map was right after all.”

“We don't know that for sure until we try,” Rae pointed out. “It could be locked. Or the place could be abandoned.”

“Then let's try,” Silas said, grasping the ring.

The first pull yielded nothing. “It's locked,” Silas groaned, his face twisted in frustration.

“No,” Rae said, shaking her head, “I saw the ground move. Try again.”

This time, Silas used both hands, his muscles straining to pull the door open. Something in the ground seemed to give way, and a thick square of turf and moss pulled away. Jesse could now see that the slab was attached to a wooden panel that opened to reveal a black gash in the ground.

They surrounded the hole, looking into it. “How do we get down?” Jesse wondered out loud. “I hope not by jumping.”

In response, Rae reached into the hole and pulled up the first few rungs of a rope ladder. “We climb.”

“I'm still not sure this is a good idea,” Jesse said. “Noa spoke of traps and pitfalls. You and Silas are armed only with small daggers. Maybe we should go to a town nearby and get more supplies.”

“The nearest town is almost a day's travel away,” Silas said. “I cannot—will not—wait that long.”

Jesse sighed, knowing any further arguments would be useless.
I liked the old Silas better.

Silas stared into the hole. “I'll give those Rebellion cowards their just punishment.”

“And rescue Parvel,” Jesse reminded him.

“Of course,” Silas said, as if that was something so obvious he hadn't felt the need to mention it. He pointed to the pit. “Now, come on.”

Knowing he wouldn't be able to climb while holding his staff, Jesse dropped it into the hole. A split second later, it hit the ground with a dull thud.

“Do you want to announce our presence?” Silas demanded, grabbing Jesse by the shoulders and shaking him. “What if someone heard?”

“I'm sorry,” was all Jesse could manage. “I didn't think.”

Silas never looked away. “Well, start thinking. No one will ruin this mission. Understand?”

“Silas,” Rae warned.

He glanced at her, then released his grip on Jesse's shoulders, looking a little ashamed.

“Well, let's go,” Rae said, staring at the hole. “No turning back now. After all, Jesse, you have to get your stick back.”

“After you, Silas,” Jesse offered generously.
I don't care if they think I'm a coward; I will not be the first to descend into the pit
.

Silas shook his head. “I'll replace the door,” he said. “It's too heavy for either of you.”

That earned him a glare from Rae, who led the way into the hole.

Jesse was squarely in the middle.
Not a bad place to be
, he mused as he stepped onto the rope ladder.
Rae can catch me if I fall. Silas can pull me to the surface if the rope ladder breaks.

But the rope did not break, though Silas tested it with his quick, jerking movements. “Slow down,” Jesse muttered, as one of Silas' hurried steps swung the rope ladder forward, nearly bashing his nose into the wall.

Jesse frowned as he jumped down from the rope ladder.
Another tunnel
. This time, though, they were surrounded by hard-packed dirt instead of stone.
So that's why my staff didn't clatter when it hit the ground
.

Jesse began feeling around for his staff, when suddenly a glow pushed away the dark. Jesse glanced over to see that Silas had the Rebellion stone out again. Jesse took advantage of the light to find his staff, then caught up with Silas and Rae.

Soon, the dirt ended, and the walls of the tunnel turned to stone. “We're inside the mountain,” Rae said, almost in awe, as they stepped into a large cavern.

But Silas was no longer listening to her. He was staring at the far end of the cavern.

Jesse followed his gaze, and his jaw dropped open.

It was a wall of glowing stones like the one in Noa's house, only much larger. Right next to it were twin pillars of stone, framing another gaping hole.

“There's something carved on the wall,” Rae said, sounding excited.

She was right. In large letters at the top of the wall that could be seen even from a distance were these words:

Here in the stone are riddles three;

Symbols of your destiny.

Those who solve them soon will find

The key for entrance is the mind.

“Riddler's Pass,” Silas said, nodding. “It makes sense. The riddle must be some sort of key for navigating the tunnels.”

“Navigating?” Rae asked.

Silas nodded and pulled out Noa's map. “Look at this.” Jesse looked at it more carefully than he had in New Urad. It was almost like a maze in its complexity. “They have the tunnels drawn,” Silas said, “but not labeled in any way.”

“So the map is useless,” Rae summarized. Silas nodded. “I hate riddles,” she muttered to herself.

Jesse had already limped closer to the stone. There, carved in smaller letters, were three blocks of text, spaced along the middle portion of the wall. Each letter was crisp and well-formed.
So they are recent
, Jesse decided.
Although, with no wind to beat at them, who knows if that's true?

“Read the first aloud,” Silas instructed Jesse.

Jesse did. The letters, though bold, were hard to see in the glowing stone.

To own it you must win it, and risk a world of ache.

Your quest to steal this treasure

may cause your own to break.

There was silence in the cavern for a few moments. “‘Your own,'” Jesse said out loud. “If you already have one, why do you need to steal another?”

“I don't know!” Silas groaned. “I wish Parvel was here. He was always good at mind games.”

They stared at the rock, as if the answer would suddenly appear. “And if you have to win it to own it,” Rae said thoughtfully, “then how can you steal it?”

It was a good point, but not a very helpful one. Jesse felt even more confused.

“Maybe trying to steal it doesn't work,” Silas offered. “It said that something will break if you try.”

That's it
. “It's a heart,” Jesse said. Rae looked at him blankly. “To win someone's heart, you must risk ache,” Jesse explained. “And your heart may even break if you try to steal another's heart and are rejected.”

“It must be the answer,” Silas agreed. “Good work, Jesse.”

Jesse tried not to grin with pride. It didn't work well. “Here is the next one,” he said, taking a step to the right.