WE RAN ACROSS the furrows of grain. A farmer screamed as a team of oxen dropped into the earth, out of sight. We fell to the ground, barely missing the crack that grew across the soil like a grotesque opening zipper.
“Stop here!” Marco’s voice cried out.
He materialized at the edge of the farm, not twenty yards in front of us. “Go through the city and directly to the river!” he shouted. “I’ll take the old guys and come back for you!”
He grabbed a satchel from Brother Stavros’s shoulder and pulled out a glowing Loculus. A visible one. The one we’d taken from Rhodes. Marco must have dug it up when he was bringing the Massa in.
When he was betraying us.
He knelt again and vanished. I saw the satchel bulge and realized he was storing the invisibility Loculus. As he materialized once more, the three Massarene gathered around him and put their hands on the flight Loculus. Together they rose high above the farmland. The men let out frightened shouts, scissoring their legs like little kids. In another circumstance, it might have looked funny. But not now. Not when we’d been betrayed by one of our own.
Not when we were destroying an entire civilization.
“He . . . he is truly a magician . . .” Daria said, looking up at Marco in awe. “Will he be safe?”
“Don’t worry about him!” I said. “Let’s go!”
Daria and I ran together across the field, with Cass and Aly close behind us. Daria looked bewildered but determined. How little she knew.
The Ishtar Gate was looming closer. One of the moat walls had cracked, and a crocodile was climbing out onto the rubble. It eyed Cass and Aly as they took a wide berth around it. The turrets of the gate were empty. One of them had partially collapsed. As we sprinted through the gate’s long passageway, we had to shield our heads from falling pieces of brick. We burst out the other side into utter chaos. The stately paths of Ká-Dingir-rá were now choked with fallen trees. Boars, fowl, and cattle ran wild, followed by guards with bows and arrows. I saw mothers scooping up children and running into houses with broken doors, teams of wardum carrying the injured away from harm.
“Daria,” I shouted as we ran, “you have to leave this city! It’s not safe any longer.”
“This is my home, Jack!” she replied. “And besides, I can’t—Sippar will stop me.”
“The mark on your head—we have it, too,” I said. “It gives us special powers. We can take you through Sippar. To safety!”
We were approaching Etemenanki now, the turnoff to the wardum houses. I felt Daria let go. “I must help Nitacris and Pul!” she shouted.
“You can bring them with you!” I said, following after her. “And your other friends—Frada, Nico. If they hold on to you and don’t let go, they can come, too!”
She stopped. “Go, Jack. You must think of yourself. We will follow if we can.”
“You have to come now,” I insisted. “Later may be too late!”
She shook her head. “I cannot leave them, Jack. As you can never leave Aly and Cass.”
It hurt to hear her leave out Marco’s name. And it hurt more to know I could not change her mind.
“You promise you’ll follow later?” I asked.
I felt Cass pulling me from behind. “What are you doing, Jack? Run!”
“Go out the nearest gate,” I shouted to Daria. “Keep going until the trees begin, then head for the river. Look for the rocks arranged like a lambda—the shape on the back of your head. When you dive in, head for a glowing circle and swim through to the other side! Anyone who is touching you can come through with you. Will you remember that?”
A loud boom knocked us to our knees. The top of Etemenanki tilted to one side. A crack ran from the top level downward, slowly widening, spewing dried-mud dust. I could see courtiers racing out of the building.
“Jack! Cass!” Aly’s voice cried out.
“You must leave, Jack—now!” Daria shouted.
“Promise me you’ll remember what I just said!” I shouted.
“I will,” Daria replied. “Yes. Now go!”
Now Aly was pulling me, too. I shook her and Cass loose. Daria was running back to her quarters. For a moment I thought of running after her.
“Jack, they’ll be all right!” Aly said. “I don’t believe Brother Dimitrios. Either Shelley will work, or Daria will come through the portal.”
“How can you be sure?” I said.
She drew me closer. “You and I have a lot to do still. If the Massa gets ahold of the Loculi, there will be more deaths. Us, for example. I will not lose you, Jack. I refuse.”
I looked over my shoulder. Daria had disappeared around the corner. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s book.”
We raced through the city streets. By now they were a catalog of damage and destruction—roofs blown off houses, milk cans strewn about, injured animals screaming. I saw an old woman sitting against the side of a house, cradling a man in her arms. I had no idea if he was dead or alive.
When we arrived at the river edge, Brother Dimitrios and the Massarene were already there. They seemed fewer in number, thanks to the actions of the rebels. But as far as I was concerned, one Massa was too many.
The Loculi had been packed in two satchels. The Massa had them now. We had lost, and we would have to deal with it.
“I’m going to bring these guys through, two by two,” Marco said. “It’ll take a few trips. Or you guys can help me.”
Aly, Cass, and I stood on the riverbank with our arms folded.
“I will stay for last,” Brother Dimitrios said, giving us a stern glance. “To make sure all goes as planned.”
With a shrug, Marco held out his arms. Brothers Yiorgos and Stavros held on tight. Together they ran into the water.
I don’t remember much of the trip, except that I burst through to the other side near one of the monks Marco had apparently just pulled through. He was gasping with panicked high-pitched squeals, like a little kid. “Okay . . . I’m okay . . .” he kept saying.
I could see Cass, Aly, and Marco bobbing on the river, not far away. I trod water, catching my breath. Testing my body for symptoms of sickness. What if we were to collapse right now, the way we had last time we came back from Babylon? Where was the KI?
I looked downstream, to where I knew the compound would be. All I saw were piles of blackened canvas and debris.
On the riverbank, Brother Stavros had sidled over to keep an eye on me. “What did you do to the KI compound?” I demanded.
“We had to take action,” Brother Yiorgos shouted.
“Action?” My stomach sank. The water temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. I scanned the shore but saw no signs of life. “Are they alive?”
“Never mind,” Yiorgos said. “Come to shore.”
Professor Bhegad . . . Torquin . . . Fiddle . . . Nirvana. What had happened to them? Had they escaped? Been taken prisoner?
I didn’t want to imagine the worst. I never thought I’d feel so much for the people who’d captured me in the first place. But compared to the Massa, the KI seemed like a bunch of happy aunts and uncles.
We were near a stretch of riverbank, barren but for a dusty, new-model van. “I would advise you to swim with us,” Brother Dimitrios called out. “The vehicle is very comfortable on the inside. And quiet. We will have much to discuss.”
Yiorgos was swimming toward me, looking suspicious, as if I were going to swim away—to what? No one was there to rescue us now. “I’m coming,” I grumbled.
Marco was already near the shore, holding tight to Cass. Aly wasn’t far behind. I swam hard against the current. Each time my face lifted out of the water, I noticed the empty, peaceful opposite shore. It was hard to imagine that right now, in a dimension we could not see, a ziggurat was falling in super slow motion. The earth was opening up, fires were spreading, and an entire city was on a crash course with destruction.
After Sippar busted up, what would happen to Babylon? Would it be pulled apart like taffy, exploded like a bomb—or just vanish into space? We knew that time had split almost three millennia ago. But how did time de-rift?
And where was Daria?
I glanced backward. If she took an hour to reach the shore in Babylon, she would show up a week and a half from now. I’d be long gone. She would emerge into a world beyond her most bizarre imaginings.
If she came.
“Brother Jack!” Marco shouted. He and the others were walking in waist-deep water now. As I let my body drop and my feet touch the sand, I could see three more Massarene on the shore. They looked almost laughable in their brown robes and sandals, carrying rifles in hand. But no one was smiling.
“If we run away, what will you do?” I said. “Shoot us? How will you explain that?”
“Dear boy,” Brother Dimitrios said, “you do not want to find the answer to that, and neither do we.”
“Give these guys a chance, Brother Jack,” Marco urged. “You might be surprised.”
Cass was staring at the remains of the camp downstream. Tears inched down his cheeks. “Brother Jack . . .” he said, practically spitting the words. “What do you know about brotherhood, Marco?”
Aly put her arm around his shoulder. The two of them turned to the van. I was in no hurry. My face felt funny, my chest as if it had expanded a whole other size. I looked back over the water, scanning the surface against all logic for another face. Hoping to hear another voice, accented with Aramaic, calling my name.
But I saw nothing.
Someday, I knew, I would have to forget. But I would never forgive.