The Sabotage Page 8

  “What happened to Mima?” Vanessa asked.

  “She was young but strong. She made it back to the beach alone, and it was quickly known what had happened. To the Nukula, it is very shameful for anyone to wish to leave.”

  His words turned over in Vanessa’s mind.

  “So that’s why Mima is alone.”

  “Yes,” Ani said. “As a child, you are only as worthy as your family name. Her name has been disgraced, so she has no value. You have experienced her kindness, but the Nukula view her as a pariah.”

  “So, why even bother trying for a seccu?” Vanessa asked.

  “If she proves herself in Raku Nau, she becomes her own person. She will be treated as an adult, and her life would be much improved,” Ani answered, looking over to where Mima slept. “It would mean a new start for her,” he said.

  “But what about—” Vanessa began, before Ani cut her off.

  “I have said more than I should,” he told her. “Take your brother and lie down with the others. You will need your rest. Tonight, more than any other.”

  Vanessa looked at Ani in the dim light from the fire. His face was always so hard to read. But something told Vanessa that he’d just given her exactly as much information as he’d intended. No more, no less. She knew better than to keep asking questions.

  “Good night then,” she said.

  “Good night. Get some sleep,” he told her.

  “I’ll try,” she said. But with everything behind them, and everything still to come, it was hard to imagine getting any sleep that night at all.

  A long howling call woke Carter. It was a horn of some kind—the blast of a conch shell, he realized.

  Someone was shaking him awake. It wasn’t just the sound in the distance that had roused him. Buzz was there, yanking him by the shoulder to sit up.

  “What’s going on?” he blurted out.

  “It’s starting,” Buzz said. His voice was tense. Other runners were moving quickly around the camp.

  “Wha’?” Carter managed, but he jumped up, too. His body was ahead of his brain. Everyone was on the go, headed east again.

  The sun was barely up. There had been no starting ceremony. No nothing. Two days in a row.

  “Does this thing just . . . start itself?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Vanessa said. “I think that’s exactly what it does.”

  They were running now, too. It was a violent feeling, to be asleep one minute and hurrying away from camp the next. There was no indication of who had moved first, and no sign of Ani or the elders anywhere.

  They ran in a clump, toward the sunrise. Mima was at the front, while Carter hung back, just far enough to make sure the others stayed together.

  Almost right away, the grassy plain near the camp gave way to more woods. The forest was sparser here than in the jungle, so the running wasn’t hard. The difficult part was navigating all the other people. Runners ahead of them cut left and right, darting behind trees then quickly reappearing. It was disorienting as Carter and the others worked to keep up.

  Quickly, the ground began a steep upward slope. Now the way ahead was marked by a well-worn path in the dirt. It was probably made over generations by previous Raku Nau runners, Carter assumed, but there was no way to know for sure. There was no way to know anything right now.

  As they moved higher, the valley behind them began to show through gaps in the trees. It soon became clear that they were farther up the mountain than any of them had realized. All the climbing and descending the day before had left them on deceptively high ground.

  For a long time, nobody spoke at all. The group of twenty-three runners moved in a cluster along the wooded trail. Mist began to show in the air around them. Carter felt the temperature drop.

  When they came out of the woods again, it was onto flatter ground. Looking ahead and behind, Carter could see the tall spires of Cloud Ridge in both directions. They were the same ones that had looked like the spikes of a crown from far away. Now they were like smokestacks, rising up into the thickest part of the fog.

  Several runners sprinted ahead and disappeared. The trail seemed to be leading them toward the next spire, looming directly in front of them, but it was impossible to see farther than twenty or thirty yards through the mist.

  Carter could smell the ocean as they ran, too. The eastern shore couldn’t be too far off now, he thought. But it also couldn’t just be that easy. Something else was waiting for them. Some other obstacle, or challenge. That went without saying.

  After several more minutes of silent running, the yellowy light of a fire showed up ahead. Coming closer, Carter could also see the male elder from before. He stood near the wide entrance of a cave, where the white mist gave way to a black nothingness behind him.

  Shadow Island, even more than Nowhere Island, seemed to be riddled with passages, caves, and caverns, like an underground network. The question was, Where did this one lead?

  Stuck into the ground all around the elder was a grouping of sticks. Each one was bound around the top with vine and matted grasses. They were torches, Carter realized. He didn’t count them but suspected there were twenty-three in all, one for each runner left in the competition.

  Chizo was among the first to have arrived. He’d gone straight for the torches, but as he began gathering several for himself, the elder spoke sharply to him.

  Chizo responded immediately and dropped all but one. Then he placed the head of the one he’d kept into the fire.

  Right away, a dozen or more runners were jostling for position, lighting their own torches and heading straight into the cave. It wouldn’t be dark back there in a minute, Carter realized. Already, he could see the flames inside as the first runners began crisscrossing the space, searching inside for whatever came next.

  As soon as Buzz and the others had fire to take with them, they raced into the cavern. Its wide entrance forked almost immediately, lit by the other competitors’ torches as they ran in both directions.

  “Mima, which way?” Jane asked.

  Buzz turned to see which direction Mima would point. His torch whooshed through the air as he did, and nearly caught Vanessa’s hair.

  “Careful!” she said, stepping back and nearly knocking Carter over.

  “Watch it!” Carter said.

  They were going to have to be more cautious than ever in the tunnels. Buzz held his torch closer now, feeling the heat on his face. It added to the sweat of the run they’d made to get this far. Still, there was no time to lose.

  Mima seemed as confused as they were. She held her torch in front of her, looking left, right, and then left again. Shouts from one runner to the other echoed around the cave and filled the air with a disorienting blur of noise.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone knows which way,” Buzz said. “I say we just pick a direction and go.”

  “Go . . . to what?” Jane asked.

  “I have no idea,” Buzz said. “But we’ve got to find out.”

  He chose for them then, and traveled left.

  It was getting easier to make quick decisions as Raku Nau went along, mostly because the race demanded it. But that was no guarantee of doing this correctly, Buzz knew. All they could really do was keep going and hope they’d made the right choice.

  Jane could feel the tunnel sloping uphill as she went. More than once, the passage forked, or another path crossed in front of them. Sometimes those intersections became apparent only when someone’s torch showed itself around a corner or raced by in another direction.

  Buzz seemed to have a feeling about what to do in this maze, and they continued to follow him, including Mima. It was clear that she had grown to trust them over the past few days, just as they’d come to trust her. Hopefully it would get them all farther in the end.

  The passage narrowed, then opened up wide and closed in again as they we
nt. It was easiest to stick to a single-file line. Jane’s arm ached from the heavy torch as she held it at her side, running behind Vanessa at a safe distance.

  Soon, they came to another fork. This time, there was some daylight ahead. It showed in both directions, where the tunnels curved out of sight. Both ways seemed like potential exits, and both were empty of other runners.

  “Which one do you think?” Vanessa asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Carter said. “Just lead, Buzz! Pick a way and go.”

  Buzz nodded, headed left, and continued without another word. Jane and the others stuck close behind.

  The light from up ahead made it easier to see the ground, and they moved faster now. Coming around the next bend, Jane saw a good-sized exit waiting for them. Beyond that, there was nothing more to see but wisps of fog.

  Finally, they emerged into the fresh air. Straight ahead, the ground dropped away to a sheer cliff. They were standing on a tiny outcropping of rock no bigger than a closet. And the scene that spread out in front of them was unlike anything Jane had ever seen.

  First, there was the summit of Cloud Ridge itself. It was a massive wall of earth stretching as far from side to side as it did up and down. But to reach it, they would have to cross the gorge in front of them.

  And that was the strangest part of all. There, in the gray mist, was an incredible bit of Nukula construction, bridging the gap. Jane could scarcely take it all in.

  Stretching all the way across the gorge were three levels of intertwining mesh net, bamboo poles, plank bridges, suspended platforms, and roughly constructed ladders—all lashed and secured to the mountain itself. It looked as though it had been there for years. Every element seemed to be attached to at least one other, like a giant interlocking puzzle.

  The overall course sloped in an uphill direction, from the ledge where they stood to the far side. And there, standing alone, was Ani. He watched the proceedings with no expression that Jane could make out from this distance. But he nodded when her eyes met his across the space, as if to say, You made the journey this far. Good.

  Behind Ani, a vine had been strung between two trees. Jane could see a row of sixteen seccu hanging there. She’d seen the seccu before, around the necks of several elders in the village, along with the two who had been officiating from the start of Raku Nau.

  Beyond all that, the only thing Jane could see was more mist. It looked as though the crest behind Ani dropped off sharply again, toward the east. Which was where they had to go.

  This was it—the end of Raku Nau.

  Twenty-three competitors were left.

  Sixteen seccu waited to be claimed.

  And one enormous obstacle still stood in the way.

  Vanessa’s mouth dropped open, but there were no words. The place they’d come to was an enormous natural arena. Behind them, one of the green spires of Cloud Ridge stretched up into the mist, while a backdrop of swirling white behind Ani and off to either side seemed to enclose the whole area within a barricade of clouds.

  At Vanessa’s feet, the gorge wall dropped straight down. Off to her right, more cavern openings and tiny outcroppings showed in a line. She counted six of them in all. Each one presented a different starting point for the obstacle course. From the spot where they now stood, the way on was a tiny plank bridge. The near end of it rested on the ground at her feet. The far end was lashed to a small platform, maybe two yards away.

  After that, they would have to choose whether to continue forward, left, right, or even down. The course had been constructed on three levels. The top two levels consisted of obstacles, all hanging above a vast net fifty feet or more below. The net was made from the same woven mesh Chizo had used to capture them earlier. That meant if someone fell, it would be strong enough to catch them, but there would be no way back onto the course from that far down. The drop was too far and the gorge walls were too sheer.

  At the same time, Vanessa realized, there was nothing she could assume about any of this. The wood and bamboo elements were all faded and weatherworn. There was no knowing how long ago this whole thing had been constructed, or how strong any single element was.

  “No mistakes now, you guys,” she said. “We have to be extra careful.”

  “No kidding,” Carter said, looking down.

  More than half of the runners were already out on the obstacles. Others, she could hear, were shouting and echoing around inside the cavern, trying to find a way out.

  “Mima?” Vanessa asked. “Ekka-ka?” She pointed onto the bridge.

  “Ah-ka-ah,” Mima answered, though she seemed to be guessing as much as the rest of them.

  Even so, Mima planted her torch in the ground, then stepped into the lead position. She put a foot onto the bridge to test it. Once she’d satisfied herself, she quickly ran across, followed by Buzz and Jane.

  Then, as Jane reached the halfway point, a sharp cracking sound confirmed Vanessa’s fear. The bridge wasn’t strong enough.

  “Jane, come back!” she said. She and Carter both dropped to the ground, reaching for the end of the little bridge as it pulled away. Both of them got there a fraction of a second too late.

  Jane fell to her stomach on the plank as the whole thing flipped into a vertical position, still lashed to the little platform on the other side. Mima and Buzz clung to the platform as it swayed on its one supporting bamboo pole.

  “Jane!” Carter yelled. She was clinging to the board with her arms and legs, one foot trying to hook a vine that hung off Mima and Buzz’s platform. The vine extended safely to the middle level below, if she could get to it.

  “This isn’t going to hold for long!” Buzz said. Already, the bamboo beneath the platform was making its own cracking noises.

  “What do we do now?” Vanessa asked Carter.

  “I don’t know!” he said. Both of them stayed on the ledge, reaching for the others, but it was an impossible distance.

  “I’ve got it!” Jane said. She’d just managed to hook the vine with her foot, and she pulled it in close enough to grab—first with one hand and then with the other.

  “What are you doing?” Buzz shouted as she slid down the vine rope, headed for a bamboo lattice that waited below. “You’re going the wrong direction!”

  “It’s my only choice!” Jane said. “I’ll look for a way back up. Keep going!”

  Vanessa watched Jane slide down the twelve-foot vine to reach the next level. Mima had run across a wooden beam from the first platform to another one several feet farther on. Buzz had moved to the right, working his way along side-by-side lengths of bamboo.

  It was too late to think about moving through this together. With the little bridge already gone, Vanessa and Carter were going to have to find another way onto the course. And the only way to do that was to head back into the caves.

  “Carter, we have to get to one of those other entrances,” she said. “Right away!”

  “What happened to sticking together?” he asked.

  “We don’t have that choice anymore,” Vanessa said. “Come on! And bring your torch!”

  Carter picked up his still-burning torch from where he’d planted it in the ground and slipped past Vanessa to lead the way. He was too amped to follow right now, and it was torture turning his back on Jane, Buzz, and Mima, who were still on the course.

  He raced back into the tunnel as two more runners came toward them, the flames of their own torches swaying dangerously small. With the shouting, the open fire, and the close quarters, it was just as chaotic inside the cavern as it was outside. There was no knowing if this challenge was going to go on for minutes or hours, either. All Carter knew was that they had to keep moving.

  “This way?” Vanessa asked, pointing right at another fork. This was one they hadn’t come to before, Carter thought—but then he wondered if that was actually true. Every twist and turn looked alike
in the torchlight.

  “Let’s try it,” he said, but they barely made it another ten steps before a rocky dead end rose up in front of them.

  “Other way!” Vanessa said, even as they were turning around.

  They doubled back and took the opposite side of the unfamiliar fork. From there, another wash of daylight showed around an upcoming bend. Soon they were outside again, facing the course from another tiny outcropping of rock.

  Carter looked down and spotted Jane right away. She was on her stomach, crossing a stretch of vine mesh toward the next small platform. From there, she’d have two options—straight up, if she could climb the bamboo pole that rose from that spot, or forward again, across a plank that would take her toward the center of the course. It was impossible to say which was the better move. The whole arena was crowded with so many possible paths, Carter had trouble even focusing his eyes.

  “Jane! Are you okay?” Vanessa shouted down.

  Jane paused and looked around. It took her several seconds to spot them.

  “I’m gonna keep going!” she said.

  “Try to get back up to this level!” Carter shouted.

  “Buzz!” Vanessa yelled at the same time. “Do you see a way across?”

  He’d stopped on another of the small platforms and seemed frozen in place. The only thing he moved was his head as he looked left, right, and down. Carter couldn’t tell if he was terrified or studying the other runners’ movements. Maybe both.

  From the outcropping where Carter stood with Vanessa, their only way onto the course was a vine-rope swing. That meant jumping, one at a time, grabbing the vine that hung three or four feet away, and using it to propel themselves onto a waiting platform. It was the kind of move that would seem simple in a gym somewhere, or on a playground.

  But here, a miss would mean falling two levels down to the mesh that underlay the entire course—and falling out of the competition, too.

  When Carter looked down again, he saw one boy had already met that fate. He was at the bottom level, struggling just to get his footing on the net where he’d landed. The look of defeat on the boy’s face said everything. There was no way back up.