Michael was getting impatient. “So what do we need to know?”
Her finger came back out, its yellowed nail pointing straight at him. “This one is no longer allowed to speak. One peep and I vanish.”
Bryson snapped an arm out and clamped his hand over Michael’s mouth before he could say another word.
“He had a rough time getting here,” Bryson explained, an exasperated look on his face. “He’s a little bit softer around the edges than the rest of us. Don’t worry. He’ll keep his mouth shut. Won’t you, Michael? Nod once for yes like a good boy.”
Michael wanted to smack him, but he nodded once with a smile and peeled his friend’s hand from his face.
The old woman folded her hands in her lap again and started talking.
4
“They call me the Satchel, and never you mind the reasons. I’m here to keep my eye on the Path. At times we get intruders walking its ways. I don’t think I need to tell you that it won’t be much of a pleasant trip. Not very pleasant at all. Some of them smarter folks might call it irony, but the Path’s only purpose is to try and stop people from walkin’ it.”
She paused again. “Things are different here,” she continued. “Not like anywhere else in the VirtNet. You had to hack and code to get this far, but from here on out you can’t just rely on that alone. You’re gonna need to be clever. And brave. And there’s one rule you’ll need to remember most of all. When you hear it, you’re gonna wish your ears had been lying.”
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
The Satchel didn’t answer for a second, and Michael almost trembled with impatience.
“You die, you’re done,” she finally said. “Done like rabbits in a lion’s den. You’ll be sent back to the Wake, and the odds of you ever making it back inside the Path rank right up there with tryin’ to walk from Venus to Mars. It can’t be done. You made it here, that’s a fact—and with some fine bravery and gaming skills. But now we have you registered top to bottom, inside and out, and there’s no way you’ll get in twice.”
Michael swallowed hard and exchanged a worried look with his friends. This was serious business. Even the most brutal games in the VirtNet were played with the knowledge that dying was just a setback. Nothing more than a delay. And that helped people go out there and play without reserve, taking chances and doing things they’d never do in real life. That was what made it fun—you could always go back and try again.
But if what this old woman had said was true, Michael and his friends only had one shot at this. If that had been the case in Devils of Destruction, they’d have been done days ago.
“You’re taking it like grown-ups,” the Satchel said. “I gotta give you credit for that. Things are different on the Path—never been a better firewall built. Hands down.”
Michael was about to go crazy from the command not to speak, even though he didn’t really know what he wanted to say.
Thankfully, Bryson spoke up. “Okay, if we die, we’re sent back to the Wake. Got it. What else can you tell us?”
The Satchel laughed before she answered. “There are only two ways off this disk. The first one’s to jump to your death and head back to the Wake.”
That’s not an option, Michael thought.
“And the second?” Bryson asked.
The woman smiled, shifting the many wrinkles on her face. “Figure out what time it is.”
5
As soon as she said the words, the entire structure on which they sat dropped several feet. Michael’s stomach lurched as they fell, and he reached out to grab on to something to still himself.
Light flashed in the sky, and openings began to appear and disappear in random patterns around them, chasms of pure darkness that hung in the air just a few feet from the lip of the stone.
The disk abruptly rotated in place, throwing Michael off-balance again. He sprawled across the stone and was sliding toward the edge when the disk slammed to a stop. The Satchel’s chair remained unmoved, and the old woman cackled from her perch.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked. “Why are we moving?”
Michael crawled back to sit right next to the chair in the center.
“I’ve already told you what needs be done,” the Satchel said. “Searching the code won’t help you now.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Michael asked, forgetting her command to stay quiet. “How do we guess the time?”
Her eyes found his—they were dark with anger. “I only have a few more words for you troublesome three, and then I’ll be gone.”
“Then get on with it,” Michael answered, relieved she hadn’t reacted to his breaking his silence.
The disk shifted again, and everyone scrambled to hold themselves in place. Michael glanced up at the edge of the stone circle and saw that the black rectangles were still appearing and vanishing. All around, dark clouds churned and boiled, stretching, collapsing on themselves, then growing large again.
The Satchel shifted in her seat, pulling Michael’s attention back.
“Listen closely,” she said, her expression now blank. “For I won’t repeat my words.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “We’re ready.”
Business as usual, that’s Sarah, Michael thought. He leaned closer to the chair and prepared to listen intently—to not miss a thing. The Satchel spoke clearly, but her words were some kind of riddle:
Before you choose the witching hour,
Take care to dream the tallest tower.
Then careful before you leave too soon,
Behold the dark and hollow moon.
She gave one last cackle before she, along with her rocking chair, disappeared.
6
Michael focused all his attention on remembering her words as she spoke, so he hardly noticed when she vanished. But when he squeezed his eyes shut and ran through it again, he was disappointed to find that he only remembered about half of it.
“Did you guys get that?” Bryson asked.
Michael looked at him, heart sinking. “Uh … maybe. Most of it. Some of it?”
Sarah shifted her position so that the three of them faced one another. She was just about to say something when the disk rotated again, spinning ninety degrees. The dark rectangles—which Michael assumed were Portals of some sort—continued their pattern, flashing in and out of existence.