Cave of Wonders Read online

Arin Cole appeared on the screen. She was one of Riq’s fellow Hystorians, the one who had tried to load all the information they would need about the Great Breaks onto the SQuare. It appeared to be a prerecorded video, created before the attack on the Hystorians’ headquarters. She looked stressed, as usual. More stressed than usual, in fact.

  “He-hello,” she said. “Dak and Sera and the rest of our insertion team.”

  The sight of her, thoughts of the old HQ, it all made Riq think about how he’d grown as a Hystorian. About what he’d given up for the mission.

  Kisa. His first true friend, the girl he’d left behind during their mission in the time of the Maya. The girl who had become the first Hystorian to her people. Riq missed her. When he thought of her, he felt the pain and longing of a different kind of Remnant, and he had to take a deep breath to drive it out and focus on the recording.

  “If you are watching this,” Arin said, “you have reached the Great Break in Baghdad, in the year 1258.”

  Riq, Sera, and Dak all looked at one another. That was true. They were in the right place. So far, so good.

  “That’s the good news.” Arin sighed. “Now the bad news. In two days, Mongols under the leadership of Hulagu Khan, the grandson of Ghengis Khan, will sack Baghdad. The city will be decimated.”

  Okay, that was bad news. Riq thought back to Paris when the Vikings had laid siege to it, and did not like the thought of going through that kind of thing again.

  “During the destruction of the city, hundreds of thousands of books will be destroyed, including those in the House of Wisdom.”

  “What’s the House of Wisdom?” Riq asked.

  Dak perked up. “Oh! The House of Wis —”

  “Shh!” Sera looked hard at both of them. “Do you mind?”

  “The House of Wisdom contained a library,” Arin said, “with many of the writings of our founder, Aristotle. The Mongols emptied the library and threw all the books in the Tigris River. Among the books they destroyed was a volume of Aristotle’s research on the Great Breaks. Specifically, research pertaining to the very first Great Break — or, from your perspective, the last Great Break. The final one you will fix.”

  Riq leaned closer. If the Hystorians didn’t have the volume about the last Great Break . . .

  Sera shook her head. “But if the book was lost — ?”

  “Shh!” Riq said.

  “Without that book,” Arin said, “that first, crucial Great Break — the Prime Break — will be impossible to fix, and our entire mission will be lost. New Breaks will occur faster than you can fix them. The Earth will be destroyed in the Cataclysm. We Hystorians knew this day would come, when our knowledge of the Prime Break would have to be saved.”

  “Great,” Dak said. “No pressure or anything.”

  “Shh!” Riq and Sera said at the same time.

  “Your task,” Arin said, “is to save the library at the House of Wisdom, and with it the writings of Aristotle. It is the only way to save the world.”

  Arin stepped aside, and then Brint and Mari walked into view on the recording. Riq hadn’t seen them since the SQ had attacked them all, before their first Break saving Christopher Columbus from a mutiny.

  “We want to express our gratitude and admiration,” Brint said. “If you’ve made it this far, you’ve fixed eight of the Breaks. Only a handful more to go before the Prime Break.”

  Eight done. Only a few left. As Riq thought about that, a dread seeped into him about what would happen to him when they finished. He knew he had messed with his family tree back in 1850. He didn’t even know if he technically existed anymore. . . .

  It didn’t help that the people in the video, people he’d known all his life, weren’t addressing him by name. But he told himself that was just because he had joined Dak and Sera’s mission at the very last second.

  Mari spoke next. “After you have fixed the Baghdad Break, and saved the information we need on the Prime Break, you will face the most dangerous part of your mission so far.”

  More dangerous than a Mongol invasion? Riq froze, waiting for what Mari would say next. So, it seemed, did Sera and Dak.

  “Your current SQuare has no information on the Prime Break,” Mari said, “because we didn’t have any information to load on it. If you fix the Baghdad Break in the past, we will have that information in the present. That means you will have to return to the present for a new SQuare at some point.”

  Riq’s whole body felt like he’d just walked outside into the snow in his pajamas. Every Hystorian knew that once you entered the time stream, it would be extremely dangerous to warp back to the present before all the Breaks were fixed. There was no telling what would happen. Paradoxes. Holes ripped in the fabric of reality. The end of the universe. But Riq had something else to be afraid of.

  “We know it’s a risk,” Mari said.

  You have no idea. If Riq went back to the future now, he might cease to exist.

  “But it’s one we have to take,” Brint said. “There is no other choice. Hopefully, by this point, history will be repaired enough to cope with the potential paradoxes.”

  Riq swallowed. What if it isn’t?

  “Good luck,” Mari said. “And one last thing. Arin?”

  “There’s more?” Dak threw up his hands. “Isn’t that enough?!”

  Mari and Brint stepped aside, and Arin came back on the screen, clutching an armful of papers.

  “Yes.” She adjusted her glasses. “I’m sorry. I’ve done countless hours of research. Really, you have no idea. I mean, if you could see the mountain of parchment I —”

  “Arin.” That was Mari’s voice off to the side. “It might help if you could get to the point.”

  “Right.” Arin cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, we have no idea who the Hystorian in Baghdad was. You’re on your own.”

  THE SCREEN went black. Sera stared at it. Really the message from Arin could not have been any worse. Of all of them, Sera was the only one who had seen the Cataclysm. She’d witnessed firsthand what would happen to the world if they failed in their mission to repair the Breaks. She also knew that somehow, she had parents now, in the future, a mother and father who had only been Remnants before Sera, Dak, and Riq had begun their mission. Before they’d changed the past. Parents who would die in the flooding, ripped away from Sera just as she’d become aware of them.

  But if she had to go back to the future for a new SQuare, would they be there? Would she be able to meet them?

  “So, let’s get to it,” Dak said. “We have a Hystorian to find. I bet he’ll be at the House of Wisdom with Aristotle’s books, don’t you think?”

  How could Dak just move on like that? Didn’t he realize what was happening? Sera’s irritation got the better of her. “How do you know it’s a he and not a she, Dak? Huh? Why do you assume that?”

  Dak shrugged, his eyes downward. “I don’t know. Geez, what’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with both of you?”

  “Nothing,” Sera and Riq said at the same time.

  Sera looked at Riq. He was frowning, his forehead creased in worry. When he looked back at her, Sera saw that Arin’s message had obviously disturbed him, too. Maybe it had something to do with his Remnants. She knew he had them like she did. They’d talked about them before.

  “Fine,” Dak said. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Oh, for the love of mincemeat,” Sera said. “Quit pouting, all right?” Maybe it would be best to just get moving and not think about all that other stuff. Put the Cataclysm out of her mind and concentrate on the mission. The Break. The really, really important Break on which everything depended. Sera sighed. “The House of Wisdom seems like a good place to start. Don’t you think so, Riq?”

  “Yeah.” Riq’s voice was quiet. “Sounds good.”

  “Well —” Dak looked back and forth between them. “Okay, then.”

  Sera took the SQuare and tucked it away. They left the alley, returning to the main street with its seemingly endless
stream of pedestrians and camels. She had to admit, it was pretty exciting to be here, and not too different from what she’d imagined it would be like. Except for the noise, which was louder than she would have expected.

  “Okay,” Riq said. “Directions.” He stopped someone walking past and asked him about the House of Wisdom. The man gestured and pointed, his hand going one way, then the other. Sera couldn’t really hear him, so she hoped Riq got it all.

  Riq thanked the man, and then said, “Let’s go. It’s on the other side of the city. We’ll try to find some clothes on the way.”

  Clothes. Sera looked around, trying to figure out what girls and women wore here, but quickly saw there were a lot more men on the street than women. The men all seemed to be wearing about the same thing. Layers of fabric of different patterns and colors, robes with wide sleeves and wide belts, and most of them wore some kind of wrapping or turban around their head. Things would be easy for Dak and Riq. But it looked like it would be harder for Sera. The women wore a wider variety of styles. Some wore plain dresses, or dresses that were brocaded or embroidered, and some wore flowing silks in vivid colors. Some dressed in black with veils that covered their hair and their faces. Still others wore scarves and beaded headdresses.

  “What am I supposed to wear?” she asked out loud.

  “Take your pick,” Dak said. “You should be happy. Lots of cultures and religions mean lots of choices for once!”

  “Come on,” Riq said. He set off down the busy road.

  Dak shrugged at Sera, and they followed after him.

  The road ran a straight course ahead of them, but off to either side, it seemed to Sera the city stretched away in a maze of narrow, twisting streets. The buildings climbed up high, some with balconies surrounded with wooden screens, and canopies that reached out above them.

  “It’s so loud.” Sera almost felt like she had to shout over the camels, the donkeys, and the shop owners.

  “I know, isn’t it great?!” Dak grinned.

  They soon came to an enormous archway spanning the road. It almost looked like an older version of the city gate they had just come through, except it was standing by itself in the street, without any walls connected to it. They walked under it, and entered an open square in front of a building that was much larger than the rest. It stood apart, decorated with paint and iridescent tiles.

  Sera turned to Dak. “What do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “It’s a college,” Riq said, scowling.

  “Good call! Baghdad had — has — a lot of colleges,” Dak said. “And a lot of libraries. In fact, there was this one rich guy whose personal library took four hundred camels to move. Even I think that’s a lot of books for one dude.”

  “But we need to find a specific library,” Sera said. “And a specific book.”

  Riq shook his head. “Let’s keep moving.”

  Sera grunted. She didn’t know what was going on with Riq, and she was trying to be patient, but she was kind of getting annoyed.

  Not much farther, the road turned sharply to the left, a canal running alongside it, sometimes visible, sometimes underground. Sera couldn’t even see the end of the street off in the distance. This city was huge. They walked ahead for what would have been three or four blocks back home, and before long, all the sights and smells and sounds started to overwhelm her. How were they going to find a single Hystorian in all of this?

  “I think I see another one of those gates.” Dak pointed down the street.

  Sera squinted. “I think you’re right.”

  “They must be pretty old,” Dak said. “From when the city was smaller, with a whole different wall around it or something. And now all that’s left are these gates.”

  As they got closer to this one, a metallic clanging pierced the air. It sounded like a large group of people was banging a whole bunch of pots and pans together. The three of them looked at one another.

  Then Riq leaned toward a passerby. “Excuse me, but what is that up ahead?”

  The man looked back over his shoulder. “The Archway of the Armorers, of course.”

  Armor. If blacksmiths were making armor up there, that explained the sound. It also made Sera wish she had some earplugs, because the noise only got louder the closer they got.

  This archway was in better condition than the last one had been. Decorations covered much of it, swirling patterns pressed into the clay bricks, with more of the iridescent tiles. Up close, they swirled with golds, greens, and browns. The archway still had its gate, too, but it was open, and they walked through it.

  “Cool!” Dak said. “Look at that!”

  Blacksmiths stood at forges and workbenches near one side of the square, shaping sheets of metal into what looked to Sera like helmets, and bending metal wire into rings, which they linked together into shirts of chain mail.

  The people around here mostly seemed like soldiers, or guards, and as Sera passed by them, she overheard snippets of conversation.

  “Hulagu and his Mongol horde are only a few days from the city.”

  “What about the caliph’s cavalry?”

  “Defeated. Wiped out.”

  “All of them?”

  “All twenty thousand.”

  Sera’s eyes widened. She knew a little bit about the Mongols. She knew they rode horses, and that the Great Wall of China, where the three of them had just been fixing another Great Break, was built to keep the Mongols out. But to think of them wiping out twenty thousand soldiers, and now approaching the city, dropped a chunk of ice in her stomach.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked Dak and Riq. “We don’t have much time.”

  “I’ve been looking for an opportunity to score some clothes,” Riq said. “I haven’t seen anything.”

  “I might have an idea,” Dak said. “But I need a quiet spot.”

  Quiet? What was Dak thinking of doing? Sera never knew with him, and usually, that was exciting and fun. It was part of why they were friends. She liked seeing what crazy ideas he came up with, but that was back home. Here in Baghdad, when the fate of the world was at stake, they didn’t need one of Dak’s turned-out-to-not-be-such-a-good-idea ideas.

  The crowded road past the Archway of the Armorers continued as far as the eye could see. They pressed their way down it, the equivalent of another three or four blocks, until they came to the biggest gate they had seen so far. It was a couple of stories tall, covered in more of the decorations and shimmering tiles. It arched over the opening to a large square, while the road continued on to the left.

  “We go through the arch,” Riq said. “According to that guy’s directions.”

  So they passed under its shadow, and the square opened up a wide patch of blue sky above. Sera felt like she could breathe again. She inhaled, and smelled new fragrances on the breeze: herbs, flowers, and perfumes. At the far side of the square stood a beautiful mosque. Sera recognized it as a mosque because of the minaret, the tall tower beside it.

  “That’s the mosque of the caliph,” Riq said.

  “Who’s the caliph?” Sera asked.

  “He was a religious leader of Islam,” Dak said.

  The mosque had a high wall around it, decorated in bright blue hues that glinted like a lake in the sun. Onion-shaped domes crowned the wall’s four corners.

  “He was also the ruler of Baghdad.” Dak pointed across the square. “And I bet that’s his palace.”

  Beyond the mosque, another city wall surrounded the edge of the square, and beyond that, Sera saw an even larger building. It was decorated with reds, blues, and purples, its many domes and towers forming an imposing skyline over the city.

  “That wall surrounds a couple of palaces like that one,” Riq said. “And a college, and the House of Wisdom.”

  “So, how do we get inside?” Dak asked.

  “The Gate of the Willow Tree,” Riq said. “The directions said it’s that way.” He pointed down a street in the far corner of the s
quare.

  They set off toward it. Sera was grateful for the open space, and the ability to walk without having to dodge oncoming camels. It was a bit warmer out in the sun, and the pleasant smell she’d noticed earlier just got stronger. When they reached the street Riq had pointed at, she realized why.

  It was a whole market of perfume makers. The fragrances of basil and other herbs hung in the air, the scent of spices and oils and aromas Sera couldn’t identify. Sweet smells, sharp smells, and pungent, musky smells. There were more women here, too, outside the perfume shops.

  “We just go through here,” Riq said, “and then . . . Where’s Dak?”

  Sera spun around. He had just been right there beside her, and now he was gone. She scanned the market and spotted him over by a lemon and orange vendor.

  “There he is,” she said. “What’s he doing?”

  Dak climbed up onto a tall basket and held out his hands. “Come!” he shouted. “Listen to me!”

  “Oh, no,” Sera whispered. This must have been his idea, the one he needed quiet for, and she could already tell it was going to be a bad one.

  DAK NOTICED immediately that Sera and Riq were staring at him. Sera, especially, looked worried. Maybe he should have told them what he was about to do before he did it. But they never seemed to like Dak’s ideas, even though sometimes, his ideas worked out really, really well. Other times . . .

  “Come, come!” As he shouted from his basket, a curious crowd gathered around him.

  Dak knew they needed clothes, and to get some, they needed money, because so far, he hadn’t seen any clothes just lying around waiting for them to come along. He’d been going over what he knew about Baghdad, trying to figure out what they could do to earn some cash, when an idea came to him.

  He remembered that there were storytellers who performed on the streets. They hadn’t seen one yet, but Dak didn’t see why he couldn’t try to tell a story. If people liked it and they tossed him a few coins, maybe they’d be able to buy some clothes.

  But now that he was up there, with a bunch of people looking at him, waiting, he wondered if he’d made a mistake.