Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon by Peter Lerangis

clothing, names of animals and plants. By making faces, I was able to teach her the words for emotions—and she got it all!”
    As I listened, I noticed she left a small, leather pouch on the table. I grabbed it and ran for the door.
    Daria was already far down the pathway. I burst outside, shouting “Hey! Daria! You forgot—”
    I jerked backward as if I’d run into a pole. Mainly because I had.
    One of the guards stood over me, his spear still held sideways, where he had blocked my path, like a baseball player bunting for a single. He grumbled something in a language I didn’t understand. “What’s he saying?” I asked.
    Aly was standing in the door, looking stunned. “I don’t know,” she said. “But at the rate we’re going, our kids will be growing up in the twenty-fourth century.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
T HE D REAM
    I HAVEN’T HAD the Dream in a long time .
    But it’s back .
    And it’s changed .
    It does not begin as it always has, with the chase. The woods. The mad swooping of the griffins and the charge of the hose-beaked vromaski. The volcano about to erupt. The woman calling my name. The rift that opens in the ground before me. The fall into the void. The fall, where it always ends .
    Not this time. This time, these things are behind me .
    This time, it begins at the bottom .
    I am outside my own body. I am in a nanosecond frozen in time. I feel no pain. I feel nothing. I see someone below, twisted and motionless. It is Jack. Jack of the Dream .
    But being outside it, I see that the body is not mine. Not the same face. As if, in these Dreams, I have been dwelling inside a stranger. I see small woodland creatures, fallen and motionless, strewn around the body. The earth shakes. High above, griffins cackle .
    Water trickles beneath the body now. It pools around the head and hips. And the nanosecond ends .
    The scene changes. I am no longer outside the body but in. Deep in. The shock of reentry is white-hot. It paralyzes every molecule, short-circuiting my senses. Sight, touch, hearing—all of them join in one huge barbaric scream of STOP .
    The water fills my ear, trickles down my neck and chest. It freezes and pricks. It soothes and heals. It is taking hold of the pain, drawing it away .
    Drawing out death and bringing life .
    I breathe. My flattened body inflates. I see. Smell. Hear. I am aware of the soil ground into my skin, the carcasses all around, the black clouds lowering overhead. The thunder and shaking of the earth .
    I blink the grit from my eyes and struggle to rise .
    I have fallen into a crevice. The cracked earth is a vertical wall before me. And the wall contains a hole, a kind of door into the earth. I see dim light within .
    I stand on shaking legs. I feel the snap of shattered bones knitting themselves together .
    One step. Two .
    With each it becomes easier .
    Entering the hole, I hear music. The Song of the Heptakiklos. The sound that seems to play my soul like a guitar .
    I draw near the light. It is inside a vast, round room, an underground chamber. I enter, lifted on a column of air .
    At the other side I see someone hunched over. The white lambda in his hair flashes in the reflected torch fire .
    I call to him and he turns. He looks like me. Beside him is an enormous satchel, full to bursting .
    Behind him is the Heptakiklos .
    Seven round indentations in the earth .
    All empty .

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
T HE T EST
    â€œI DON’T GET why he doesn’t just fall over,” Marco whispered.
    Bel-Sharu-Usur walked briskly up the stairs, with Daria tagging along behind him. Behind her was a gaggle of wardum with fans made of palm fronds and sacks of food and