The Fire Chronicle (21 page)

“Thank you for the ride,” Michael said, his voice muffled by the mask. “We’ll see you soon. I hope.”

And he followed Emma out into the cold.

The ground had a hard, icy crust, which allowed them to walk without snowshoes. The Horns loomed above them, outlined against a blue sky, their crooked peaks bending in toward each other. Gabriel led, with Emma in the middle and Michael bringing up the rear. Looking back, Michael could see the pale disk of the sun hanging above the rim of the earth. More than ever, he felt like a voyager on some distant planet.

With the extra weight of the clothes and the boots, walking was hard work, and Michael’s legs soon grew heavy. His watch was buried under multiple layers, and the only landmarks he had to gauge their progress by were the mountains before them (which seemed to grow no closer) and the plane behind them (which, somewhat distressingly, became smaller and smaller).

They had been walking, Michael guessed, for half an hour when Gabriel stopped and turned, staring past the children.

“What is it?” Michael could see nothing except the plane, tiny and dark, in the distance.

“I am not sure.”

Gabriel knelt and took a rope and set of metal clips from his pack. He ran the rope between the clips, and fastened the clips to his, Michael’s, and Emma’s jackets, linking them together.

“What’s this for?” Emma asked.

“Safety.”

They kept walking. The ground rose. Michael was cold now, even though it seemed impossible that a person could be cold while wearing so many layers. To distract himself, he thought about the library in the house in Cambridge Falls, and how much he wished he was sitting beside the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and
The Dwarf Omnibus
open in his lap, watching the snow fall outside. Maybe eating a grilled cheese.

And he was thinking this, and thinking how much nicer it was to read about adventures than to actually have them, when he noticed how faint his shadow had become. All the time they’d been walking, his shadow had stretched before him, sharp and black against the white ground, but now it was barely visible. He turned and saw that the sun had disappeared. But that made no sense. There were still several hours of daylight left. Then he realized that he could no longer see the plane either. He began to have an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

“Gabriel—”

That was all he managed before the storm hit. It was like a wave, crashing over him, knocking him into Emma. Sprawled upon the snow, the children were blown helplessly forward. Michael scrambled for something to cling to, but his hands found no purchase. He saw the two of them being blown, like leaves before a hurricane, to the other side of Antarctica. Then—with a jerk—they stopped. Gabriel had dug his boots into the ice, planted his ax, and wrapped his arm around the rope tying them all together. Like a fisherman reeling in his catch, he drew the
children toward him, angling his back to take the brunt of the wind. Michael and Emma huddled into the small eddy of his body. The howling filled their ears. Visibility was an arm’s length or less.

A whiteout, Michael thought, having read the word somewhere. We’re in a whiteout.

Emma yelled something, but her words were swept away.

Gabriel leaned forward, shouting over the wind.

“I will set up our shelter! It is useless trying to return to the plane! We would become lost! We must wait out the storm!”

“But we’re so close!” Michael shouted. “If we get to the cave, we’ll be safe!”

“We’ll never find it! Even the mountains have disappeared!”

“I can find it!”

The words surprised Michael. He hadn’t thought them, or planned on saying them, but he knew that what he’d said was true. All the time they’d been walking, some invisible force had been pulling him forward. He was only fully aware of it now that they’d stopped; but he knew that if he let himself be led, he would find the cave.

“What’s going on?” Emma turned from Michael to Gabriel. “I can’t hear anything!”

Gabriel was staring at him, his eyes hidden behind dark, frost-covered goggles.

“Are you sure? It is a risk!”

He means we could all die, Michael thought. Become hopelessly lost. Stumble into a crevasse. Setting up camp was the only sensible, practical thing to do.

He looked at Emma, swiveling her head between him and Gabriel, saying, “Huh? What’d you say?! It’s so loud! Huh?!” It wasn’t fair. Michael would risk his own life willingly; why did he also have to risk his sister’s? Or Gabriel’s?

“You must decide!” Gabriel shouted.

Michael closed his eyes. The tug was still there, like an invisible hook attached to his chest. He knew it was the
Chronicle
.

“Yes! I can find it!”

“Find what?” Emma shouted. “What’re you two talking about?”

Gabriel didn’t answer, but set about switching the rope so that Michael was leading.

“We’ll follow you!”

He handed Michael his ice ax, and Michael stood and started off through the storm. He had to brace himself at every step to keep from being blown over, and it was incredibly tiring, walking forward while pushing back with all his strength. With the gusting of the wind, there were brief moments when things would clear and Michael could see ten or even fifteen feet ahead. But most times, he waved his hand before his face and saw nothing.

Please, he kept thinking, please don’t let me be wrong.

But he could feel the
Chronicle
out there, calling to him, more and more strongly with each step. He found himself thinking of a field trip that he and his sisters and a bunch of other kids had taken to a farm a few years before. They’d been out in the middle of nowhere, and the driver of the van, a sulky teenager, had scoured the radio for any station that, as he put it, “didn’t
play banjo music.” Finally, he’d found one. It had been scratchy and faint at first, but as they drove on, and presumably got nearer to the source, the signal had become more and more clear.

Michael felt that way now, as if he’d finally gotten close enough to hear the music.

“Michael!”

Emma had shouted in his ear, and was grabbing his shoulder and pointing.

Michael looked up—he’d been staring at the ground, focusing on not leading everyone into a chasm—and there, ten feet away, just visible through the whirling snow, past three pillars covered in snow and ice, pillars that tapered as they rose to give a very credible impression of fangs, was the dark, gaping maw of a cave.

Moments later, they were inside the cave, stamping their feet, beating the caked-up snow and ice from their bodies, brushing the crystals off their fur-lined hoods, as the storm raged outside. Gabriel clapped Michael on the shoulder.

“Well done.”

Michael tried to shrug, but the gesture was lost inside the enormous parka.

“Oh, you know, it was no big deal.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, “you’re probably right.”

“Well,” Michael said, irked, “it was kind of a big deal.”

Then Emma laughed and clapped her mittens together (or tried to—she couldn’t quite make her hands meet while wearing the parka) and told Michael that of course it was a big deal and if
King Robbie were there he’d probably give Michael a dozen more dwarf medals.

“Ha-ha,” Michael said. Though he couldn’t help thinking a medal wouldn’t be uncalled for.

“Are you still cold?” Emma asked. “You’re shaking.”

In fact, Michael was trembling, but it had nothing to do with the cold. In trusting his instinct, he should have been filled with confidence. But the opposite had happened. He didn’t understand
how
it had worked,
how
he’d succeeded. He felt out of control, and the feeling scared him. He’d gotten very lucky, and he mustn’t count on it happening again.

“I just need to start moving.”

“Then let us.” Gabriel had taken three flashlights from his pack, and he handed one to each of the children. “You’re the leader. Lead.”

Michael looked at Emma, who shrugged and said, “Just don’t get us killed.”

And with that, Michael turned, and they set off into the cave.

The cave was different from all the other caves and tunnels the children had explored in one major respect: it was covered in ice. Floor, ceiling, and walls were glazed in a hard blue-white shell. Luckily, the new boots Gabriel had bought them had rough soles that gripped the slick surface. Still, they proceeded slowly, and their flashlights kept reflecting back at them, making the children’s hearts beat faster as they imagined beasts with glowing eyes peering at them from the darkness.

Soon, the sound of the storm had faded, and the tunnel opened into a vast cavern, and they walked along a narrow track
that hugged the wall. They shone their lights into the abyss, illuminating a lake of black ice, and Michael peered down and saw things with claws and teeth and wings held in a frozen sleep. The tunnel resumed on the far side of the lake, and the ice on the walls began to give way to bare rock till there were only patches of ice here and there, and then finally none at all. Michael found himself pulling down his mask, pushing back his hood, unzipping his jacket.

Then he snapped off his flashlight.

“Michael …,” Emma whispered.

“I know.”

The end of the tunnel was before them, and light poured through it. Not the dim, grayish haze of a snowstorm, but sunlight, golden, warm, bright sunlight.

Only that wasn’t possible. Michael knew that wasn’t possible. And then …

“Michael, can you hear …”

“Yes.”

It was the sound of a bird singing.

“Did you know—”

“No.”

“None of this …”

“No.”

“Because it’s … wow.”

Yes, Michael thought. Wow.

They had come out of the tunnel and were high above an enormous, crescent-shaped valley. From where they stood, sheer rock walls dropped down nearly a mile to the valley floor, while snowcapped mountains rose above them, encircling the valley in an unbroken ring. Michael guessed it was at least a mile to the other side. To both the left and the right, the valley curved away and out of sight. The sky was a pure, crystalline blue, and the air
was warm and still. Far below, the valley floor looked to be covered in a dark canopy of green.

Michael thought of taking a Polaroid, then decided a photo wouldn’t do the view justice.

“But we’re at the South Pole!” Emma said. “There should be penguins! And snow! And—and polar bears!”

“Polar bears are at the North Pole.”

“You know what I mean! This is—”

“It’s the
Chronicle
,” Michael said. “Thousands of years ago, I bet this was just like the rest of Antarctica. Then the Order brought the
Chronicle
here and everything changed.”

They were silent, staring down at the impossibly lush valley. Then Gabriel said:

“There.”

He was pointing to the right. Past the bend of the valley, just visible over the shoulder of a mountain, a thin trail of black smoke rose into the air.

“The volcano,” Michael whispered.

“Amazing,” Emma marveled. “You were actually right.”

“You don’t have to act so surprised,” Michael said.

“But I am,” Emma said. “I’m really surprised.”

Quickly, for they were already hot and sweating, the trio removed their cold-weather gear—their parkas, heavy boots, insulated pants, long underwear, goggles, mittens, and hats—and Gabriel stowed everything inside the cave for their return journey. Michael was surprised to find the gray-blue marble hanging from a strap around his neck and realized that in the excitement
of the last twenty-four hours, he’d forgotten all about it. Obviously, now was not the time to ponder who had sent it or what its purpose might be, but as he tucked the glass orb back inside his shirt, Michael promised himself he would try to figure it out the moment he got the chance.

The tunnel had given onto a promontory, from which a set of nearly vertical stairs, cut into the face of the cliff, wound down to the valley floor. Gabriel took the safety rope and clipped it to the children’s belts.

“We’ll get to the bottom,” he said. “Then make for the volcano.”

The stairs were more like a ladder than a staircase, with every step nearly two feet high. Only once did Michael peer over the side to check their progress, and he found it was a straight drop to the bottom. After that, he kept his attention on each individual step. The further they descended, the warmer and more humid it became. Michael’s glasses kept slipping down his nose, and his T-shirt stuck to his back. Birdcalls echoed through the valley, and soon they could hear the sound of running water.

They stopped halfway down, and Gabriel gave them bread, hard sausage, and dried fruit from his pack. Michael was checking his watch, thinking that the sun should’ve set and yet it was still light, when they heard something that was not a bird. The cry came from the direction of the volcano. It was harsh and savage and silenced everything in the valley.

“What was that?” Emma whispered.

Gabriel shook his head. “I do not know.”

Neither did Michael. But he did know that whatever had made the sound was very, very big.