Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon Page 4

  Farther upstream, Aly had made it to solid ground. Marco was back in the river, helping Cass out of the water. I struggled to my feet. My legs ached and rain pelted my face, but I hobbled toward them as fast as I could in the soggy soil.

  That was when I began thinking about the rain. About the fact that moments ago the air was hot and dry. That the weather had changed drastically from the time it took to swim from one side of the river to the other.

  What was going on here?

  “Jack!” Aly threw her arms around me as I arrived. Her face was warm against my neck. I think she was crying.

  “Behave, you two,” Marco said.

  I pulled away, feeling the blood rush to my face. “What just happened?” I said.

  Cass was staring across the river, looked dazed. “Okay, we jumped into the river. We hit a rough patch. We came out the other end. So . . . we should be staring across the river, at the place we left from, right?”

  “Left,” Marco said. “Right.”

  “So where is everything?” he asked. “Where are our peeps—Torquin, Bhegad, Nirvana? They should have made it down here by now.”

  Aly and I followed Cass’s glance. “Looks like we were carried pretty far downstream,” Aly said.

  “Yeah, like a zillion miles away,” I said.

  “That,” Cass said, “would be geographically elbissopmi.”

  A dense cloud cover made it hard to see north and south, but I could see no sign of human life—no settlements, no Babylonian ruins, no KI people. Just swollen river in either direction.

  “We can’t waste time—come on!” Marco was already heading up the slope into a thick pine grove.

  Cass, Aly, and I shared a wary glance. “Marco, you’re not telling us something,” I said. “What just happened?”

  Marco scampered through the trees without an answer, as if our near drowning, our battering against the rocks, had never happened. Cass looked at him in disbelief. “He must be kidding.”

  “Chill is not in that boy’s vocabulary,” Aly said.

  We followed behind as fast as we could. My legs were bruised and my head bloody. My arms felt as if I’d been bench-pressing a rhinoceros. The slope wasn’t too steep, really, but in our condition it felt like Mount Everest. We caught up with Marco at the edge of the pine trees. Here, everything seemed a little more familiar. Just beyond the grove I could see a vast plain of dirt to the horizon. The clouds were lifting, the water-soaked ground quickly drying. Scrubby bushes dotted the landscape, which was crisscrossed by a network of wide paths cut through the plain.

  “Check it out,” Marco said, gesturing to the left.

  A giant rainbow arched through the sky, sloping downward into a city of low, square, yellow-brown buildings—thousands of them, most with crown-like sandcastle roofs. The city rose on a gentle hill, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I could see another wall deeper inside the city. The outer wall contained a mammoth arched gate of cobalt-blue tiles. In the center of the city was a towering building shaped like a layer cake. Its sides were ornately carved, its windows spiraling up to a tapered peak. The city’s outer wall was surrounded by a moat, which seemed to draw water from the Euphrates. Closer to us, outside the city limits, were farms where oxen trudged slowly, plowing the fields.

  “Either I’m dreaming,” Aly said, “or no one ever told us there was a phenomenally accurate ancient Babylonian theme park on the other side of the river.”

  “I don’t remember seeing this from the air,” I said, turning to Cass. “How about you, Mr. GPS—any ideas?”

  Cass shook his head, baffled. “I’m totally turned around. I don’t know where we are. Sorry. Clueless.”

  “It’s not a theme park,” Marco said, ducking back into the trees. “And it’s not the other side of the river. Follow me, and keep yourselves hidden by the trees as long as possible.”

  “Marco,” Aly said, “what do you know that you’re not telling us?”

  “Trust me,” Marco said. “To quote Alfred Einstein: ‘a follower tells, but a leader shows.’”

  He slipped back into the trees, heading in the direction of the city. Aly, Cass, and I fell in behind him. “It’s Albert Einstein,” Aly corrected him. “And I don’t believe he ever said that.”

  “Maybe it was George Washington,” Marco said.

  We trudged through the brush. The river roared to our right. The same river that minutes ago showed no signs that it could ever roar. Okay, it was swollen by the rain—but how long could it have rained, five minutes?

  The tree cover seemed a lot denser than I’d remembered seeing it from the other side. It partially obscured our view of the city, save for a few glimpses of distant yellowish walls.

  As the rain clouds burned away, the temperature climbed. We may have walked for ten minutes or an hour, but it felt like ten days. My body still felt creaky from our little swim adventure. All I wanted to do was lie down. I could tell Cass and Aly were hurting, too. Only Marco still seemed fresh and dewy. “How far are we going?” I called ahead.

  “Ask George Washington,” Aly mumbled.

  Marco took a sharp turn and stopped short at the edge of the trees. He peered around a trunk, signaling us to come close. With a flourish, he gestured to his left. “Abracadabra, dudes.”

  I looked toward the city and felt my jaw drop. The tree cover completely ended here. Up close, I could see that the city spilled directly to the banks of the Euphrates.

  Marco was climbing a pine tree and urged us to do the same. The branches hadn’t been trimmed, so it was easy to get ourselves fifteen feet or so above the ground.

  From this vantage point we could see over the outer wall and into the city. It was no theme park. Way too vast for that. It wasn’t a city, either. Not like the ones I knew—no power wires, no cell towers, no cars. The roads leading into the city were hard-packed dirt. On one of them trudged a group of bearded men in white robes and sandals, leading swaybacked mules laden with canvas bags. They were heading toward a bridge that led over the moat and into the city gate. From the lookout towers, guards watched them approach. I craned my neck to see what the place was like inside, but the walls were too high.

  “These people are about as low-tech as it gets,” Cass said. “Like, from another century.”

  I felt a chill in spite of the hot sun. “From another millennium,” I added.

  “M-M-Marco . . . ?” Aly said. “You have some ’splainin’ to do.”

  Marco shook his head in wonder. “Okay. I’m as baffled as you are. Lost in the Land of the Big Duh. No idea where we are or how we got here. I wanted to show you, partly because I couldn’t believe it was real. But you see it, right? I’m not crazy, am I? Because I was having my doubts.”

  A rhythmic whacking noise nearly made me slip off my branch. We all scrambled down the trees. A little kid’s voice was coming nearer, singing in some strange language. Instinctively we drew closer together.

  Strolling up the path toward us was a dark-haired boy of about six, wearing a plain brown toga and holding a gnarled stick. As he sang, he whacked a hollow, dead tree in rhythm, his eyes wandering idly.

  He stopped cold when he saw us.

  “Keep singing, little dude,” Marco said. “I like that. Kind of a reggae thing.”

  The boy glanced from our faces to our clothes. He dropped his stick and darted back toward the main road. We must have seemed pretty strange to him, because he began shouting anxiously in a language none of us knew.

  At the road, a caravan of camels turned lazily toward him. A man with graying hair was at the head of the caravan, leaning on a stick and talking to a city guard dressed in leather armor, who had strolled out to meet him. Both of them turned toward us.

  The guard had a thick black beard and shoulders the size of a bull. Narrowing his eyes, he began walking our way, a spear balanced in his hand. He shouted to us with odd, guttural words.

  “What’s he saying?” Aly asked.

  “‘Does this toga make me
look fat?’ How should I know?” Cass said.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Fido,” Marco said. “I say we book it. He’ll give up. He has no reason to be mad at us, just probably thinks we’re dressed weird. We hide for a few minutes and wait for Spartacus and Camel Guy to go away. Then when things are quieter, we go find the Hanging Gardens.”

  He pushed us toward the river. We began running into the woods, down the slope, tripping over bushes and roots. I felt like I was re-banging every bruise I had. Marco was the first to reach the river banks. Cass was close behind, looking fearfully over his shoulder.

  “Um, by the way, it’s Toto,” Aly whispered.

  “What?” Marco snapped.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Aly said. “Not Fido. It’s a line from The Wizard of Oz.”

  As we crouched behind some bushes, Marco’s eyes grew wide. I looked in the direction of his glance. Over the tops of the trees, a solid black band shimmered across the sky. It wasn’t a cloud cover exactly, but more like a distant black cape.

  “And, um . . . that thing?” Marco said. “That’s maybe the wizard’s curtain?”

  I stood and ran to higher ground, to a place where I could see the city. I saw the guard again and ducked behind a tree. But he wasn’t concerned about us anymore. The guard, the camel driver, the boy, and a couple of other men were hurriedly herding the camels toward the bridge.

  “I don’t like this,” Cass said as he caught up to where I was standing. “Let’s get out of here before a tornado strikes. We need to get Professor Bhegad. He’ll know what to do.”

  “No way, bro,” Marco protested. “It’s just weather. We need to move forward. And I have about a million things I have to tell you.”

  In the distance an animal roared. Birds flew frantically overhead, and a series of crazy, high-pitched screeches pierced the air. This place was giving me the creeps. “Tell us on the other side,” I said, heading back down.

  Aly, Cass, and I bolted for the river. It was three against one.

  “Wusses. All of you,” Marco said. And with a disgusted sigh, he followed us back in to the river.

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  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT’S ALIII-IVE!

  “LOOK! IT’S MOVING! It’s aliii-ive! It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s aliiiive!”

  It was Aly’s voice. That much I knew. And I had a vague idea why she was sounding so dorky.

  I tried to open my eyes but the sun was searing hot. My muscles ached and my clothes were still wet. I blinked and forced myself to squint upward. Marco, Aly, and Cass were leaning over me, panting and wet. Behind them, the cliff rose into the harsh, unforgiving sun.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “It’s a line from a movie.”

  Aly beamed. “Sorry. I can’t help it. I’m so relieved. The original Frankenstein. Colin Clive.”

  “Welcome to the living,” Marco said, helping me up off the sand. “The original Seven Wonders Story. Marco Ramsay.”

  The landscape whirled as I struggled upward. I looked warily up the slope. “What happened to Ali Baba and the camels?”

  “Gone,” Marco replied, his eyes dancing with excitement. “We are back to the same spot where we left in the first place. And are you noticing something else? Look around. Look closely.”

  I saw the worn path to the top of the ridge. I saw the gray river, placid under the rising sun. “Wait,” I said. “When we left, the sun was almost over our heads. Now it’s lower.”

  “Bingo!” Marco said.

  “From Bingo,” Cass murmured. “Starring Bingo.”

  “Meaning what, Marco?” Aly said. “I’m supposed to be the smart one. What do you understand that I don’t?”

  “Hey!” A distant, high-pitched voice made us all turn sharply. Nirvana was sprinting up the beach in loud Hawaiian shorts, a KISS T-shirt, and aviator sunglasses. “Oh . . . my . . . Gandalf!” she screamed. “Where have you guys been?”

  Marco spun around. “Underwater. ’Sup, Dawg? Where’s Bhegad?”

  Nirvana slapped him in the face, hard.

  “Ow,” Marco said. “Happy to see you too.”

  “We thought you were dead!” Nirvana replied. “After you jumped? I nearly had a heart attack! Bhegad and Fiddle and the Hulk—they’re all in each other’s faces. ‘How could you let this happen?’ ‘How could you?’ ‘How could you?’ Blah blah blah. Fiddle’s insisting we call nine-one-one, Bhegad says we can’t, Torquin’s just going postal, and I’m Will you guys just take a pill? So we all jump in the river to look for you, except for Bhegad, who’s so mad he’s practically doing wheelies. Finally we give up. All we can do is wait. Soon we assume you all drowned. Torquin is crying. Yes, tears from a stone. It does happen. Fiddle is like, ‘Time to break up the KI and look for a new job!’ Bhegad insists we set up camp. Maybe you’ll come back. Or we’ll find the bodies. So we’ve been sitting here for two days eating beef jerky and—”

  “Wait,” I said, sitting up. “Two days?”

  “Torquin was crying?” Cass said.

  Over Nirvana’s shoulder, I could see Fiddle pushing Professor Bhegad toward us. Torquin was waddling along beside them, his beefy face twisted into a pained expression that looked like indigestion but probably was concern. About twenty feet behind them was a camp-type setup—three big tents, a grill, and a few boxes of supplies.

  When had they set that up?

  “By the Great Qalani!” the old man cried, holding his arms wide. ”You’re—okay!”

  No one of us knew quite what to do. Professor Bhegad wasn’t exactly a huggy kind of guy. So I stuck out my hand. He shook it so hard I thought my fingers would fall off. “What happened?” he asked, his eyes darting toward Marco. “If I weren’t so relieved, I’d be furious!”

  Marco’s face was flushed. He blinked his eyes. “My bad, P. Beg . . . shouldn’t have run off like that . . . whoa . . . spins . . . mind if I sit? I think I swallowed too much river water.”

  “Torquin, bring him to the tent. Now!” Bhegad snapped. “Summon every doctor we have.”

  Marco frowned, drawing himself up to full height with a cocky smile. “Hey, don’t get your knickers in a twist, P. Beg. I’m good.”

  But he didn’t look good. His color was way off. I glanced at Aly, but she was intent on her watch. “Um, guys? What time is it? And what day?”

  Fiddle gave her a curious look, then checked his watch. “Ten-forty-two A.M. Saturday.”

  “My watch says six thirty-nine, Thursday,” Aly said.

  “We fix,” Torquin said. “Busted watches a KI specialty.”

  “It’s still working, and it’s waterproof,” Aly said. “Look, the second hand is moving. We left at 6:02, our time here in Iraq, and we were back by 6:29. Exactly twenty-seven minutes by my watch. But here—actually in this place—almost two days passed for you!”

  “One day and sixteen hours, and forty minutes,” Cass said. “Well, maybe sixteen and a half, if you count discussion time beg we actually dove.”

  “Aly, this does not make sense,” I said.

  “And anything else about this adventure does?” Aly’s face was pale, her eyes focused on Professor Bhegad.

  But the professor was rolling forward, intent on Marco. “Did no one hear me?” he said. “Bring that child to the tent, Torquin—now!”

  Marco waved Torquin away. But he was staggering backward. His smile abruptly dropped.

  And then, so did his body.

  As we watched in horror, Marco thumped to the sand, writhing in agony.

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  CHAPTER NINE

  “IF YOU SAY, ‘It’s alive,’ I will pound you,” Marco said.

  His eyes flickered. Professor Bhegad exhaled wi
th relief. Behind him, Fiddle let out a whoop of joy. “You are a strong boy,” Bhegad said. “I wasn’t sure the treatment would take.”

  “I didn’t think I needed treatments,” Marco replied. A rueful smile creased his face as he looked up at Aly, Cass, and me. “So much for Marco the Immortal.”

  Cass leaned down and gave him a hug. “Brother M, we like you just the way you are.”

  “Sounds like a song,” said Nirvana, who was clutching Fiddle’s and Torquin’s arms.

  I glanced at Aly and noticed she was tearing up. I sidled close to her. I kind of wanted to put my arm around her, but I wasn’t sure if that would be too weird. She gave me a look, frowned, and angled away. “My eyes . . .” she said. ”Must have gotten some sand in them . . .”

  “Aly was telling me about your adventure,” Bhegad said to Marco. “The Loculus seeming to call from the river . . . the weather change . . . the city on the other side. It sounds like one of your dreams.”

  “Dreams don’t change the passage of time, Professor Bhegad,” Aly said.

  “It was real, dude,” Marco said. “Like some overgrown Disney set. This big old city with dirt roads and no cars and people dressed in togas, and some big old pointy buildings.”

  Fiddle nodded. “Hm. Ziggurats . . .”

  “Nope,” Marco said. “No smoking.”

  “Not cigarettes, ziggurats—tiered structures, places of worship.” Bhegad scratched his head, suddenly deep in thought. “And the rest of you—you all confirm Marco’s observation?”

  Nirvana threw up her arms. “When Aly talks about it, you assume it’s a dream. But when Marco says it, you take it seriously. A little gender bias, maybe?”

  “My apologies, old habits learned at Yale,” Bhegad said. “I take all of you seriously. Even though you do seem to be talking about a trip into the past—which couldn’t be, pardon the expression, anything more than a fairy tale.”

  “So let’s apply some science.” Aly sank to the ground and began making calculations in the sand with her finger. “Okay. Twenty-seven minutes there, about a day and sixteen-and-a-half hours here. That’s this many hours . . .”