The Passage to Mythrin 2-Book Bundle (24 page)

“Ten to one we'll get caught,” Simon muttered. “We'll get arrested for break-and-enter.”

“We
didn't
break in! The window was already
broken
!”

“Okay, don't yell! They'll hear you.”

Amelia let her breath out slowly, through her teeth. Simon could be so
maddening
, in his quiet, reasonable, stubborn way.

A pencil-thin beam of light sprang out and ran across a row of metal partitions, then a row of sinks. (Ike
was never without his keychain flashlight.) They were in a washroom. Something with too many legs ran away from the light. The place smelled of clogged drains.

The rest of the basement was just as dark and stuffy. In a slanted space under the front stairs they found a folded blanket, an empty Styrofoam cooler and a tidy stack of cigarette butts, arranged like a miniature woodpile. But whoever had been living here wasn't here now. The building sounded empty. The tap-tap of Amelia's sandals echoed back at them.

On the ground floor, Ike switched off his flashlight. The boards covering the tall, arched windows let light in through a dozen cracks. Gold bands stretched down to the floor. Dust swirled through them. Simon sneezed.

Dust, dust, dust. Nothing else. The shelves and tables and chairs were gone. The old circulation desk had left a ghost of itself, a pale, curved mark on the dark floorboards. The ceiling lights were gone. Nothing was left but … Amelia squinted. Some faded gilt words along the tops of the walls: Chaucer, Milton, Sha… something.

“What a sad place!” she said. “It's like a, a dead person in a funeral parlour.”

“Hurry it up, okay?” Simon wiped his nose on his wrist.

She walked along the walls from window to window. At each one she stopped and touched the ring to the
glass. After a minute, when nothing happened, she moved on.

Banging sounds came from the back of the library. “Uh-oh.” Simon looked around nervously. “They must be taking out that big back window. They'll come inside and catch us.”

“Why would they want a window?” Amelia asked.

“Just the stained-glass ones,” Ike said. “They'll put them in the new library out on Hill Street.” Ike always knew what was happening in town because his father was the local newspaper editor. “Look, the front one's already gone.”

They climbed up the wide front staircase and stopped on the landing. It was dark because of the boards nailed on outside. A tall, arched window had once filled the outer wall. Now the space was empty, but it was still the right size and shape.

“I wonder.” Amelia tightened her hand around the ring. She looked at Ike and Simon. “Get ready!” Took a deep breath. Reached up with a hand that trembled only a little. Touched the ring to one of the boards.

After a minute she let out her breath and touched the ring to another part of the boarding. After another minute she dropped her arm. “Darn it!”

“There's still upstairs,” Simon said.

The second floor felt even emptier than the ground
floor. It was one long stretch of dusty floorboards. Amelia stood shaking her head. “Look at the windows. They're all too short. And their tops are flat. What a complete waste of time!” She jammed her fists in her pockets.

Something bumped against the back wall. Metal rattled. “They're working out there on the scaffold,” Ike said.

Simon sneezed again. “How are we going to get out without them catching us?”

“Luck,” Ike said. “We were lucky before.”

Amelia headed towards the front stairs. Then came a sound from below that stopped her. A click, two dull thuds, and a crash. Like somebody had unlocked the front door, but then it stuck, and they pushed too hard, and it flew open and bashed the wall. Daylight reflected up the stairs. Boots clomped. Voices echoed back and forth.

Ike was already at the far end of the room. He waved at them from the doorway to the back stairs. “Hurry!” he called, and started down. Simon and Amelia ran after him. The back stairwell had a frosted-glass door at the ground floor. They wouldn't be seen if they moved fast.

Halfway down, Amelia stopped on the landing with her mouth open. “Oh, wow!”

Whoever was working outside the stained-glass window had taken off some of the boards, and you could
see the left half of the window plainly. There was a man in a blue coat on a beautiful white horse, and he had a long sword. What was that dark red thing up along the right side?

“Ammy, c'mon!” Simon tugged at her arm.

“
Hurry!”
Ike whispered from the stairs below the ground-floor landing.

The frosted-glass door rattled. Somebody on the other side said, “It's locked.”

“That's my dad!” Ike hissed. “I'm
stone
dead!” He skittered down out of sight.

Amelia took a last look at the window, and then headed down the stairs with a lump in her throat. Her feet dragged. It felt wrong to leave. Felt like someone was calling her, someone needed her, and she was just walking away.

She stopped next to the glass door to look back up. She couldn't help it. Simon pulled at her arm. She yanked free.

At that moment, another slice of darkness broke from the outside of the window. Then another. Sunlight streamed through. Jewelled light quivered on the white walls.

“Oh …”

The red thing up the right-hand side was a magnificent crimson dragon. It was huge, far bigger
than horse and rider. One wing arched up and over them like a tent. Its eye was an emerald crystal, and its claws were … its claws …

Simon dragged at her arm.

“No! Don't you
see
?”

“Hold your horses,” somebody growled on the other side of the door.

Amelia ran back up the stairs with Simon right behind her breathing
“What? What?
” She saw exactly what she had to do. But the window sill was a good five feet above the floor.

“Boost me up!”

“But ….” Simon looked wildly down the stairs. Keys jingled behind the door.

She got her elbows on the sill and struggled to get a knee up. Hands shoved from below and suddenly she was kneeling on the sill. She climbed carefully to her feet. It was just deep enough to stand in. Simon scrambled up beside her.

Shapes moved on the other side of the window. A man's surprised-looking face, raspberry-red, stared through the dragon's wing at Amelia. She smiled at him and touched the ring to the rider's blue sleeve.

Nothing happened. She leaned her forehead on the warm glass and closed her eyes.
But I was so sure …

Down the stairs, a lock clicked.

A whisper ran around the walls. All the colours drained away except the blue, which deepened and spread. The whisper rose to a hum.

Simon grabbed Amelia's hand — the one not holding the ring to the window.

“You don't have to come,” she gasped. “There's still time.” He gripped harder.

“Hey!” from below.

The white horse and its rider faded back into the blueness. The dragon sank back. Blueness seeped forward, became a slab of glass, tall, arched, glowing like an evening sky, its surface a mass of twining shapes.

Someone shouted faintly outside the window. Down the stairs, someone shouted loudly. “Hey, you up there! You kids!”

The slab flared. When they could open their eyes they were looking into a tunnel of light. A tunnel blue as the depths of the sea, blue as dusk. The hum rose to a high, sweet singing all on one long note.

Amelia and Simon stepped forward hand in hand.

Light beat on Pier's eyelids. The gate was opening. Opening for her, as it always did in her dreams, but never while she was awake.

Her eyes opened. It wasn't a dream. The picture in the window above her was gone. A tall sapphire slab stood in its place. An underwater glow drenched the Hall of Gates. A high singing crept along the edge of hearing.

Opening. By itself!

Pier was on her feet and running. Past the archway, she slid to a halt. Crept back, hid behind the wall, and inched her head forward.

Blue fire crackled under Amelia's feet. She rode the lightning like a skateboard. Above and below and all around was endless sky. Forever and ever and —

“Ow!”

“Um, you okay?”

“No!”

One moment soaring. Next moment a heap of bruised elbows and ankles on a stony floor. She'd crashed down on something wooden, too, something with sharp corners, some kind of box. At least Simon hadn't landed on top of her this time.

She rolled over and looked around. Tall, arched, greyish shapes formed in the darkness. “We're here!” She pulled her feet underneath her. “Oh — ouch!”

“What?” Simon sat up and gazed around in a blind, saucer-eyed way.

“I think my ankle's sprained or broken or something.”

“The door this side must be high up, like on our side, and we fell out.”

“Yeah, it is. Can't you see it up there?”

“Sort of. Not much. It must be night here.”

“There's a moon outside. What's the matter with your eyes?”

“My eyes are fine. What are you, a bat?”

“Just help me up, okay?”

He scrambled up, tripped over the box, kicked it aside, and helped her stand. She held his arm and balanced on one foot and hopped close to the window. “Look! The
picture's different.” This hero had a blue jacket and a white horse, like the one on the Earth side, but instead of a sword he had a spear, and the crimson dragon was a huge green snake. “Darn. I wanted to show you the ring.”

“The …?”

“The red dragon in that window back in the library — it had a ruby ring on one claw.”

“Like Mara? How —”

“Like breeds like, Mara said. Anyway, that's how I knew it was the right window.”

“We're back on Mythrin.” Simon's arm trembled. “But where on Mythrin?”

“And how are we going to find Mara?”

“Maybe you should've thought of that before ….
What's that?
”

They were facing the end of the building where a big, light arch showed in the blackness. A doorway, Amelia thought. Something pale showed at the edge of the arch. It ducked back.

“Some kid,” she said.

“Kid? Can't be!”

“Well, it was. You still can't see?”

He waved that away. “A kid? A human kid? On Mythrin?”

“I saw humans in the dream, remember? Maybe they came through one of the gates.”

“Let's go ask. He didn't look scary.”

Amelia hobbled the length of the building to the archway, leaning on Simon's shoulder. He wanted to stop there in case anything large and dangerous was lurking outside, but Amelia gave him a push.

“If it's dragons out there, it's okay. We're Mara's friends, remember?”

They stepped out from the archway. A moon gleamed overhead: a little thing with one slightly flattened side, like a broken sequin, nothing like Earth's big silver face. Its bluish light was just enough to show a stony shelf that ended about ten feet away.

Someone was waiting for them.

“Um … hello?” Simon held out a hand. “Uh, hi there.”

A child stood facing them, halfway between the archway and the cliff edge. Seven, maybe eight years old, Amelia guessed. Short, pale hair framed a moon-white face. He (she?) looked like a little plastic doll dressed in clothes three sizes too big. She (he?) was not smiling.

“He saw us come through,” Amelia murmured. “We scared him.”

“Probably doesn't understand English, anyway,” Simon murmured back.

Amelia let go of Simon's arm and took a couple of painful steps forward. Simon made a small sound, but
she ignored him. She crouched down and tried to put a smile in her voice. “Hi, there! I'm Amelia, and this ….” She turned to wave at Simon, and her breath hissed in.

Simon stood stiff as a brick. Half a dozen men and women surrounded him. They pointed weapons at him — short bows held flat, with arrows that gleamed like steel. One was pointed at her, too.

One of the men said, “But they are only children! And human, surely?”

English: funny-sounding English, though, like water flowing
, Amelia thought in the back of her mind. The front part of her mind was full of:
Those arrows look like they could go through an elephant without stopping. Or a dragon. Or me
.

The pale child pointed at Simon. “He is human, yes.” She/he pointed at Amelia. “That one? I cannot be sure.”

“But where did they come from?”

“Through the gate,” the child said.

“From the Prism World?” asked one of the women.

“You might try asking us!” Amelia flared, more from nerves than courage. Simon shushed her.

“Keep clear of that one,” the child commanded. “I fear that she is —”

Amelia never found out what the child feared, or why he/she seemed to be giving the orders. Between
one word and the next, two giant sharp-tipped hands clamped onto one shoulder and one hip and snatched her up and away. She screamed. The stony shelf dropped. The last thing she saw before blacking out was Simon's upturned face — a white circle with a black “O” in it — growing smaller and smaller below.

“Amelia's
not
a dragon,” Simon said for the tenth time. They didn't believe him, he could tell that much by their faces. He wished Amelia would back him up, but there hadn't been a peep out of her since … since …

Something happened after they came out of that building with the stained-glass windows. But he couldn't remember what. All he could remember was how it felt to suddenly have something sharp against his spine. And then the singing.

The singing was all around him now. He could hear it when he listened for it, but mostly it clung to the background, soft and grey, like cobwebs. There were words, but he couldn't make them out. He thought the singing came from the eight or ten people sitting cross-legged on straw mats against the wall, with their hands in their laps. All their lips moved. Their fingertips moved too, gently in and out, as if they were braiding invisible string.