The Tenth City by Patrick Carman
“We’ll both go,” said Pervis, shifting his eyes between me and my father. “The two of us can do it while Alexa waits down here for us.”
My father looked at Pervis in the gloom of the tunnel, and the two of them seemed to agree that it was the only way.
“I came into the tunnels through the guard’s entrance hidden in the courtyard,” my father told us. “I’ve been hiding down here since Grindall arrived, so I don’t know where they are. We’ll go back the way I came in and scout around for where they might be keeping Yipes. My bet is they’ve put him in one of the prison cells in the basement of Renny Lodge. We should be able to sneak down there at this hour and look around.”
“What if there’s an ogre guarding the basement?” I asked.
Pervis and my father looked at each other and shrugged.
“We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” said my father. “If we can’t rescue him at least we’ll know where he is. That’s a first step.”
My father led us through the tunnels and into a room where he’d stored up some provisions and another lamp. He lit the lamp and trimmed it low, then gave me a very firm look.
“You stay here, Alexa. There’s nothing you can do but get yourself into trouble if you try to follow us.”
I nodded and sat down on his makeshift bed, hopeful that they would find Yipes somewhere within Bridewell without encountering ogres.
Pervis and my father took one of the two lamps, along with swords my father had brought down with him.
As they turned to go, I said, “Father?”
“Yes?” He turned back and looked at me.
“Please be careful. If you even see an ogre, run for your life. They’re impossible to stop.” I knew the ogres could be defeated, but I wanted Pervis and my father as far away from danger as I could get them. If my father knew that a knife to the top of the head could kill an ogre, he’d waste no time in trying it.
“There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got Pervis to protect me,” my father said. Pervis took this as the joke it was and gave my father a sour look. They began walking again. Soon it was very quiet in the room; even Murphy sat still as a statue. The very air seemed to stop cold.
Go to the library by your usual way.
I’d had a feeling this was going to happen — that I would hear the voice again, guiding me to a familiar place. All roads seemed to lead back to the library, and somehow I knew that rescuing Yipes was my task, not my father’s.
I hesitated a moment and closed my eyes. It was dark and quiet inside my head, and I realized then how tired I was. I shook my head and opened my eyes, rubbing them with my hands before standing up.
“Murphy,” I said, “are you ready for another adventure?”
“Always ready, Alexa,” he replied.
I picked up the lamp and began walking to where the stairs led up into the library, behind my favorite old chair, a place where I had enjoyed so many lazy days of reading and resting. Murphy ran ahead, scouting the way, and I was lost in my thoughts, trying to remember all the nooks and crannies of the old library, the rooms in Renny Lodge, the places I could hide and where I thought Grindall might be.
The smoking room. The room with the giant wall of stone and the flames licking in the grand fireplace. The velvety couches and the high ceilings. That’s where he would be plotting and planning, his awful ogres milling around in the shadows near him, waiting for me to come to him and give him the stone.
But where would he put Yipes?
CHAPTER 10
THE LIBRARY
There had been a long walk through the tunnels, winding this way and that, before we found ourselves at the bottom of the ladder, looking up into the shadows. I took a long, quiet moment to consider the day’s events. The questions were coming faster than answers, and my head was swimming with anxiety. Where were Warvold and my other friends? What was my father encountering? Where would this adventure lead? Where was Yipes? Standing there at the bottom of the ladder I soon realized that the only way I would find the answers to any of my questions was to keep on with the journey. Stopping only left me worn out with my own thoughts. And so I climbed.
We reached the top of the ladder. I was about to open the trapdoor that led into the library. Murphy sat happily on my shoulder, wondering what might be waiting for us inside.
“Are you ready to bite some ogres?” I said.
“I can hardly wait.” He was a silly little squirrel, but he certainly was brave.
“Here we come, Yipes,” I whispered. “Prepare to be rescued by a fur ball and a lanky thirteen-year-old.”
I turned the latch, and it clicked ever so quietly. Then the door swung open into the darkness of the tunnel. It no longer squeaked when it opened — Pervis had seen to that last summer when he’d discovered it and forbade me from ever using it again. Though he kept the key and never used the secret door, he couldn’t help making the rusty hinges right again.
My favorite chair remained in its usual place, with its back pushed up against the trapdoor, concealing the opening to all my adventures. It smelled a little ogrish inside, but not so much that I thought we might find them sitting around reading books. This was probably the last place they would choose to spend time.
I placed my hands against the back of the chair and braced myself, ready to push it out of the way so we could enter the library.
“Wait,” whispered Murphy. He was right next to my ear, so I knew immediately to remain still. Something was near.
A black leather-booted foot hit the old wooden floor of the library, then another. The feet had been propped up on the box where I’d propped up my own feet so often. The boots were not huge, like those of an ogre, and they had silver rings that clanged as they hit the floorboards. A book was placed heavily on the wood box in front of the chair, and whoever it was stood, advanced to the one window in the room, and grumbled. A chain rattled on the floor as he went.
“Where is she? Where is that insolent girl with my stone?”
It was Victor Grindall who’d been sitting in my chair, reading my books, and kicking up his feet on my wooden box. I was very glad then that Pervis had oiled the hinges on the trapdoor! Murphy and I stayed perfectly still, waiting to see what Grindall would do.
I listened as he slumped back down in the chair and picked up his book once more, propping up his feet as he flipped through the pages.
“She must show herself by tomorrow or I’ll have to throw you out the window,” Grindall threatened, his wicked voice echoing off the walls in the library. “That might not be so bad after all. I’m sick and tired of dragging you around.”
“You should throw me out now. She’s not coming here. She knows better than to risk it.” It was Yipes! He was in the room. It sounded as though he was sitting on the windowsill.
Grindall laughed out loud, a cackle of a laugh that angered me so much I wanted to push away the chair and take him on. The chain rattled on the floor as Grindall played with it in his hand.
“Oh, she’ll come. I have little doubt of that. And when she does, I’ll kill you both.” He laughed again and seemed to settle into the chair. I wished I could see Yipes and know that he was unharmed.
“The two of them must be chained together.” It was Murphy, whispering in my ear again. “Why don’t I sneak under the chair and see what sort of shape our friend is in?”
This seemed like a good idea. There was plenty of room for Murphy to crawl under the chair and catch a glimpse of Yipes at the windowsill. I took him in my hand and set him down carefully on the floor of the library. At first he hesitated, but then he crept ever so slowly to the edge of the chair and looked out in the direction of the windowsill.
“She has many allies,” said Yipes, “some large and some small, and all with more bravery than you can muster from your ogres.”
Yipes was signaling us with his carefully chosen words that he’d seen Murphy.
“Shut up!” answered Grindall. “If you can’t keep
Murphy was back on my shoulder twitching and fidgeting, trying to stay calm and quiet as he whispered in my ear.
“He’s sitting on the windowsill in a cage that’s chained to Grindall. The cage has a big lock on it. I don’t see how we can get him free.”
As Murphy said this, the sound of giant footsteps filled the library. The very floor shook and creaked as something approached. The smell outran the beast, and my nostrils filled with that wretched odor of rotting flesh. An ogre was approaching, and he seemed to be in a rush.
When the ogre rounded the corner I could see his huge feet approaching Grindall, trapped in worn leather boots. The feet alone were enough to scare me.
“What is it now?” Grindall asked, annoyed.
The ogre grunted and wheezed, the gurgling sound of his voice a terrible reminder of what would happen to Armon if the black swarm ever found him.
“Interesting,” said Grindall. “You’re sure you smelled something? Something not quite right?”
The ogre spoke excitedly again as Grindall’s feet came crashing off the wooden box onto the floor in front of me.
“She is here then, in the lodge, looking for her little friend,” said Grindall. “Well, let’s make sure she finds him, shall we?”
Grindall stood, and I heard the chain rattling, a key being inserted into a lock.
“I’m going to look for her, and when I find her I’ll bring her here,” said Grindall. The ogre seemed to be wrapping the chain around his massive waist. The lock was clamped shut once more.
“Don’t eat him! I want her to observe as we put an end to her friend.”
Grindall stomped away into the library, and his footsteps were soon lost in the distance. The ogre sniffed the air all around him while I quietly closed the trapdoor, sealing us in. I stepped down the ladder seven or eight rungs and waited, the low-burning lamp at my side.
From where I stood lower in the tunnel I could still hear the ogre smelling the air, searching for something that did not seem quite right. I listened as he grabbed hold of the chair and thrust it forward out of his way. It sounded as though the chair had tipped over and probably lay on its front on the wooden floor of the library. The chains rattled and the ogre grunted, but he seemed to accept that nothing lay behind the chair but a wall. Next he trudged over to the windowsill and took an interest in Yipes. I hoped he wouldn’t rip open the cage and make a late dinner out of him.
I climbed back up the ladder and listened at the secret door, not sure what to do. I wondered where Pervis and my father were, if they were safe or if they’d been captured. It was hard to imagine a more perilous feeling than the one I had hanging there from the ladder. I wanted only to be home by the sea, mending books, my world put back together again.
With the chair thrown away from the wall, I couldn’t open the door again without being seen. I was at a dead end, my friend locked in a cage and chained to an ogre, an eager squirrel my only help. As I stood listening, it sounded as though the ogre sat down on the floor of the library near the window, grunting and sniffing, his breath labored in what sounded like a wet sponge of lungs.
Yipes began to taunt the beast as he sat against the wall, which I couldn’t understand. Didn’t he know that he might be eaten or stomped on if he enraged the ogre?
“I have many friends you know, more than Grindall can keep track of.”
The ogre only gargled and grunted at Yipes, as if to tell him to be quiet.
“Some of my friends are small, but some are large, as big as you.”
The ogre rumbled more fiercely now and banged his mighty hand on the stone wall. I wished I could see what was going on.
“There are even secret places, places you know nothing about. Hiding places in this very library.”
What was Yipes doing? It was as though he were trying to give us up, to drive us away so that we wouldn’t get hurt. I could only imagine that he wished us to leave and carry out what remained of our plan without him. He had to know that once this close I could never leave him to die at the hands of Victor Grindall.
The ogre was back on his feet, grumbling loudly and shaking the cage at the sill, no doubt battering Yipes around inside. Then the ogre laughed hideously, a gurgling sort of laugh that turned into a cough. I heard the chain clanging against the wall and knew in an instant that the ogre had dropped Yipes off the edge where he dangled from the chain in the cage. The ogre was having a bit of fun, swinging poor Yipes back and forth in the night air.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Grindall won’t be happy if you harm me,” said Yipes. I could barely hear him through the trapdoor and the stone of the wall. “Besides, with your back turned, someone might open a trapdoor and jump out after you!”
What was he thinking? Could he mean for me to open the door for some unthinkable reason? I couldn’t understand what Yipes was up to, and I stood on the ladder completely baffled by the unseen events unfolding only a few feet away.
The ogre yanked on the chain — pulling Yipes back into the room — and slammed the cage back down on the sill, shaking it mercilessly.
“Trust me!” Yipes called out.
The ogre was becoming angrier and angrier as I reached my shaking hand out for the latch and took hold of it. I turned it just so and I heard the quiet click of metal against metal.
And then I opened the door.
CHAPTER 11
THE DANGLING
CHAIN
As the secret door opened, the air from the library escaped into the tunnel. It was an evil smell, so thick it was like a dark cloud poisoning everything it touched. I saw what I had previously only imagined: The chair was flipped onto its side, pushed into the corner. The ogre stood at the windowsill shaking the cage that held Yipes. The chain was wrapped around the ogre’s waist and secured with a lock, the other end attached to the cage where Yipes was bouncing inside.
“You see there,” said Yipes, pointing in my direction as he was thrown all around inside the small cage. “I told you there were secret places.”
Unbelievable! I began to think Yipes had gone mad, driven crazy by the long days of companionship with Victor Grindall and his ogres.
At first the ogre thought it was a trick and wouldn’t look at me, but his curiosity quickly overcame him. The ogre turned and looked at me, my head and shoulders in plain view, and for a moment he seemed not to believe what he was seeing. He shook his head as he’d shook the cage, gobs of thick drool spewing into the room. I was frozen with fear, unable to move, as I watched Murphy dart out between us and onto the sill.
The ogre paid Murphy no attention as he turned his back on Yipes and cackled in my direction. Then he started for me, a grand prize for his master within his reach.
As he turned, the chain followed him like a slithering black snake, winding behind him where it ended at the cage. The window where the ogre had stood was suddenly filled with a great shadow, but it was quickly blocked from my view as the ogre bent over and reached down his awful hand to grab hold of me. I was too afraid to think, too afraid to try to escape. I simply waited for the ogre to pull me into the room and take me to Grindall. A familiar feeling of hopelessness and failure flooded me as the last Jocasta was about to be taken from me and put into the hands of my enemy. I could already hear Victor Grindall’s laugh echoing through Renny Lodge.
What happened next was mostly a blur, something I felt even more than I saw. It happened very quickly and without warning. I heard the sound of breaking chains and the cage falling to the floor, which made the ogre turn from me just as he was about to put his hand on my shoulder and drag me into the room. The ogre was pulled back violently toward the window by the chain wrapped around his waist. He made an awful sound when the chain jerked tight and pulled him off his feet, the sickly air and liquid flying from his lungs in a great snorting howl. The ogr
Armon looked back at me for a moment and smiled, then he, too, headed for the window to face the ogre outside. I jumped from my perch on the ladder into the room as Armon disappeared. Advancing to the window, I watched as Armon finished off the ogre and ran for the wall. Then I heard not one but two terrible sounds.
The black swarm was coming from somewhere overhead, and in the night sky I watched as Armon scaled the ivy-covered wall, trying to outrun the furious sound of bat wings in the air. He was so fast it took him only a moment to find his way to the top. He took no time to look back at us as he dropped over the other side and was gone. I listened as the bats came overhead. I watched the stars disappear, the night turned completely black by the mass of dark creatures. They flew over the wall and after Armon. I shuddered with fear for him.
I had little time to worry about this, however, for another noise came almost at the same time as the black swarm. It was Grindall entering the library with ogres in tow, and his voice was filled with rage.
Yipes, sitting in the cage at my feet, hastily said, “Alexa, now might be a good time to make our exit.”
“What shall we do? We’re trapped!” I said.
“Take hold of the cage and carry me into the tunnel. Quickly now!”
I did as I was told, carrying the heavy cage with the broken end of the chain rattling behind me until I reached the opening. I ran in front of the cage and through the secret door, grabbed hold of the ladder, and yanked on the chain, unsure whether or not I could hold the weight of Yipes dangling from one arm. Murphy, holding on to the outside of the cage with his claws, came right into the tunnel with Yipes.