Her throat hurt. She still had a snake in her head. She was overwhelmed by the horror of what had happened underground. If the others hadn’t turned back for her, if they’d run to save themselves . . .
She owed them her life. She thought of saying this, and then she thought of how uncomfortable that would make everybody. While she was thinking this, her eyes gradually got accustomed to the light.
She saw her two friends. First they looked gray and indistinct. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she saw that they were staring around them in amazement. Finally, she saw what they were looking at.
Land. More open space than Chantel had ever seen. Rolling, broken hills and bluffs. Ravines and woodlands. A mesa above them with a still-standing dead tree sketched against the sky. A heap of boulders at the base. Faraway mountains climbing the horizon. And when Chantel turned around—
A wall. A high, imposing wall, marble-white, smooth as sheet steel, tall and implacable. A wall that was the only interruption of the forever-space around them.
For the first time in her life, she was looking at Seven Buttons from the outside.
7
WITHOUT WALLS
It was at the same time wonderful and terrifying . . . so much space with nothing being done to it. In Lightning Pass, there were the Green Terraces, carefully planned, painstakingly arranged. So much space for growing fruit, so much for vines, so much for vegetables. Gardens for people to sit in, or stroll in, at such and such hours of such and such days.
Here the land was alive. Things were growing wherever they wanted to, with no plan at all. You could probably walk right up to the trees and touch them—though then again, Chantel wasn’t sure if that was safe.
She took an unsteady step, dizzy and uncertain. It was hard to stand upright with no walls closing you in, hard to walk with no doors or gates ahead of you.
They turned around and stared at Seven Buttons, outlined by the setting sun.
“Well, there has to be a gate in it somewhere,” said Anna.
“We could go back the way we came,” said Bowser, without enthusiasm.
Chantel could still feel the cold grip of the fiend’s slimy hands on her neck. “No.”
“If we follow the wall we’ll come to the gate,” said Anna.
Chantel looked over her shoulder. She didn’t feel safe turning her back on the vast, open land where anything could happen.
“The gate’s at the port,” said Bowser.
“And which way is that?” said Chantel.
Bowser frowned up at the sun. “Well, it’s in the south part of the city.”
“We know that,” said Chantel impatiently. The snake in her head was making it hard to be polite.
“Which is this way,” said Bowser, with a firmness that communicated quite clearly that he didn’t know.
Chantel didn’t have a better suggestion. They started walking.
It was difficult. They were used to cobblestone streets and flag-paved steps. They weren’t used to uneven ground, and weeds that came up to their waists, and then to their necks. Thistles and teasels snagged at Chantel’s robe, combining with the snake wriggling in her head to make her crankier and crankier. She tripped over something and fell headlong.
“Owl’s bowels!” she yelled.
She’d never sworn before in her life, and she found it worked.
“Shouldn’t we try to get the snake out of your head?” said Anna, helping her up and pulling a burr off her robe.
“Not now,” Chantel snapped. “We have to get out of here before we meet any Marauders. And besides, there’s the little kids at the school.”
“Right,” said Bowser, pushing his way through a tangle of plants higher than his head. “We don’t know what that woman is doing to them. She might . . .”
He let out a squawk, said a much worse word than owl’s bowels, and disappeared.
Chantel and Anna hurried through the broken weeds, and stopped short at the edge of a ravine.
“Bowser?” Chantel called.
“Down here.”
All Chantel could see down there was more weeds.
“Are you all right?” said Anna.
“Yeah.” There was a rustling, and his head appeared above the scrub. “Look, we can’t get through this stuff. We’re going to have to find a street or something.”
“Are there streets out here?” said Anna.
“Who knows?” said Chantel.
Bowser looked around. “It looks easier to walk down here.”
The girls started to climb into the gully. They slid, crashing through undergrowth and grabbing at nettles. They landed jarringly at the bottom.
Chantel swore again. Anna gave her a shocked look, but Chantel and the snake in her head didn’t care.
It was easier walking down here. The weeds didn’t grow quite as high and there weren’t as many thistles. And the closeness of the gully walls was reassuring. They heard things scurrying away from them, and once Chantel trod suddenly into an ice-cold hidden stream. She worried because they were heading away from the wall. Away from the little girls at the school.
“How much further is it to the street?” Anna asked.
“Oh, not much further at all,” said Bowser.
“He doesn’t know,” said Chantel irritably. “Why are you asking him?”
Anna looked hurt, and so did Bowser. Chantel felt bad, but Japheth’s scales were tickling the inside of her head.
She couldn’t bring herself to actually apologize for being in a bad mood. After all, other people were in bad moods all the time—Miss Ellicott, Miss Flivvers, and as for that manageress woman, Mrs. Warthall, she was all bad mood. Why shouldn’t Chantel be in one for once? She was sick to death of deportment.
She grumbled to herself as she pushed through the brush. The gully smelled of mud and dirty water. There had been no sign of civilization anywhere, except for the blank glaring face of Seven Buttons, and there was no way to know whether they were getting closer or further away from this street that the Marauders might or might not have, and anyway, who knew what Marauders had? They probably all rode around on warhorses all the time, and maybe the warhorses didn’t need—
“The gully stops here,” said Bowser, turning to look at them. His face was covered with scratches and dirt, and he had a stinging-nettle welt on his neck. His shirt was torn. Chantel expected she didn’t look any better.
“I guess we have to climb up, then,” said Anna. She, too, was covered with scratches and nettle stings, and her clothes were even more of a mess than Bowser’s.
“Stay right where you are,” said a voice from above. “We have you surrounded.”
8
MARAUDERS
Chantel looked frantically up and all around. The rim high above them was covered with thick growth. She couldn’t even be sure which side the voice had come from. The Marauders surely had weapons aimed at them.
“We should have gone back to the catacombs,” said Anna.
“We couldn’t,” said Chantel. “The fiend.”
“Lay down your weapons!” The voice was deep and booming. It had an annoying twangy drawl that made the snake in Chantel’s head twitch.
“We haven’t got any weapons, fool,” she heard herself say. “Do we look like we have weapons?”
Bowser took his knife out of his pocket and laid it on the ground at his feet.