The Fire Chronicle by John Stephens

creating a terrible racket. There is more here than meets the eye.”
    Emma muttered, “I’m gonna throw up.”
    The wizard stepped to a scraggly tree that was growing between two mausoleums and broke off a long, dry limb. Michael watched as the wizard then poked the stick into the swirling gray mass. To Michael’s surprise, it went right through.
    “An illusion. Designed to discourage intruders. There are no rats. Indeed, I seem to feel a sort of shaft.”
    Emma took a half step closer. “So … they’re not real?”
    “Not at all. Now, one of you should come below with me while the other stays here and watches the way back to Malpesa. Just in case we were seen.”
    “You mean climb down into the rat hole?” Emma asked. “You—”
    “I’ll do it,” Michael said quickly. “Emma can stay up here.”
    “Very good,” the wizard said. Then he took the branch he was holding and broke it into thirds. He handed one of the sticks to Emma.
    “Rub this on any surface, and it will burst into flame. But onlydo so if you’re coming below. Otherwise, you’ll make yourself too visible.” The wizard looked at Michael. “I’ll go first.”
    He draped his long legs over the side of the stone coffin. Michael and Emma watched with horrified fascination as his foot went into the swarming tide. For a moment, the creatures seemed to swirl around it, then his foot disappeared, and then his legs, and his chest, and finally, his white head vanished into the nest of rats.
    The children were alone. Michael turned to Emma.
    “Are you warm enough?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Don’t stand on top of a mausoleum. Silhouettes are really visible in the dark.”
    “Okay.”
    “And sound will carry a long way; so I’m afraid no singing or whistling to keep yourself company.”
    “Got it.”
    “Oh, and don’t stare too long at any one thing. Look at something, look away, then look back. It’s an old sentry’s trick.”
    “Michael …”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’ll be fine. You be careful too.” She gave him a hug. “I love you.”
    She released him, and Michael stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to say.
    “Go ahead,” Emma said finally. “Dr. Pym’s waiting.”
    Michael nodded, then climbed up the side of the tomb, took a deep breath, and lowered himself down.

“Take this.”
    The wizard handed Michael a burning torch. They were in a large cavern directly below the grave. Michael had found it unnerving, submerging himself in the squirming pool of rats, and though he’d known it was an illusion, he’d shut his mouth and eyes tight as he’d gone under. But he hadn’t been bitten, and a moment later, he’d found himself in a shaft that burrowed downward from the tomb. An iron ladder was affixed to the rock wall. The wizard had called up to him, and Michael had seen the red glow of the wizard’s torch thirty yards below.
    “So,” Dr. Pym said, “we must decide which way to go.”
    The cavern was unlike the caves and tunnels that Michael and his sisters had explored near Cambridge Falls. Both the ceiling and the floor were studded with stalactites and stalagmites,so the effect was like being in the mouth of a great, many-fanged beast. And there was water everywhere, dripping from the ceiling in a constant
thip … thip … thip
, running in rivulets down the walls, collecting in pools upon the floor. And there was the air itself, which was so moist and thick with minerals that every breath tasted like a dose of medicine.
    As to where they should go, Michael could see two choices, two tunnels that faced one another across the cavern.
    “Now, I would wager that tunnel,” the wizard pointed to their left, “runs back to Malpesa. While this fellow,” he gestured to the right, “seems to continue on beneath the cemetery. What do you think?”
    Michael had no idea. Part of his mind was still back in the graveyard. He hoped that Emma had listened to his advice. He hated leaving her alone.
    He tried to make himself