The League of Seven by Alan Gratz

Author:Alan Gratz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466838505
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

20

Archie was dreaming again.

He was in the chamber with the big round well again. The one with the stone doors in the floor that said XX. His parents were here too, staring at the covered pit.

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. Malacar Ahasherat pounded on the door of her prison.

At a silent signal, Archie’s parents turned together and walked to the wall. Archie’s father pushed on a stone, and it slid into the wall and clicked. Gears ground and the stone wall dragged away, revealing an enormous machine built into the rock. Its huge brass gears and chains were still.

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. Rock dust rained down from the ceiling.

Archie’s mother walked slowly and deliberately to a control panel filled with dials and levers and gauges. She stared at them for a moment, then started turning and pulling and flipping them.

The machine’s gears began to turn. Weights lowered. Wheels spun.

Behind them, the great stone doors that sealed the Swarm Queen in her tomb rumbled and parted.

* * *

“No!” Archie cried as he woke. He looked around, disoriented. He wasn’t underground with his parents. He was in the Hesperus, on his way to Florida with Hachi and Fergus and Mr. Rivets. The Great Bear’s white fur pelt lay on top of him like a blanket, and he was covered in sweat.

Hachi stared at him from her hammock across the cabin, looking like she too had just woken up.

“Did you just see my parents in a dream?” Archie asked.

Hachi nodded. “Now we know why that monster kept them alive.”

“It brought them there to open its seal.”

“I don’t think they know how to operate that machine though,” Hachi said. “The seal opened, but just a crack.”

“They got through because they’re librarians—they’ve studied the puzzle traps. They know how to navigate them. But they’re not machinists. They don’t know how to work the mechanism that opens the seal.”

“That’s the only thing buying us time,” Hachi said. “But they’ll figure it out eventually, just through sheer dumb luck.”

“Fergus?” Archie called. “Fergus, did you see that machine?”

Something metal clanged to the floor, and Archie and Hachi stuck their heads out of their hammocks. Fergus lay on his back at the front of the cabin, under the steering console. Half the ship’s tools lay scattered on the floor around him. Mr. Rivets stood watch nearby.

“Fergus, what are you doing?” Archie asked.

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

Archie and Hachi climbed down to join him. “No, we had another dream. What’s wrong? Is the Hesperus broken?”

“No, sir,” said Mr. Rivets. “Master Fergus is not fixing anything. He is instead taking the airship apart piece by piece.”

“I hear it again,” Fergus said, his head still hidden inside the helm. “The beeping. Very faintly.”

Archie was suddenly very much awake. “The meka-ninja, you mean? It’s back?”

“No. I don’t think so. But I think it must have planted another homing device on the Hesperus before it came into that Atlantis power station looking for us. I picked it up while I was sleeping.” Fergus tossed a wrench into the ship’s toolbox.

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