Free Bindings by Carla Jablonski Page B

in his hands. Did I do this magic, or did the stone do it? Tim wondered. No matter. He was…somewhere. But where?
    He was someplace totally new. “Nothing recognizable here,” he murmured. This wasn’t the beautiful countryside he remembered from his first trip to Faerie. It wasn’t the desolate desert where Tamlin, his maybe father, had brought him. This was someplace…twisted. He could feel it. It even smelled wrong—sort of like the garbage when he and his dad forgot to take it out for a few days.
    Tim shoved the stone back into his pocket, then gazed around. He was standing in a broken-down courtyard of a mansion that had seen betterdays. A brick wall surrounded the grounds, making it impossible for Tim to see what lay beyond it. As his eyes traveled up the wall he noticed the sky was a bruised purple. Is it going to storm , Tim wondered, or does it always look like that here?
    Tim took a step and heard a crunching sound. Glancing down, he discovered he was standing on a pile of skeletons. He lifted his foot and carefully placed it a few inches over, in the nearest clear space, then gingerly brought his other foot beside it.
    Tim fought back a shudder. Skulls with their gaping eye sockets stared back at him, and the entire courtyard was littered with rib cages, leg bones, and skeletons of creatures Tim didn’t recognize.
    â€œGreat,” he muttered, “I’ve landed in bone city.”
    Looking down at the little pile beside him, Tim was horrified to see that the bones were covered with teeth marks. These creatures didn’t just die here—they were someone—or some thing ’s meal.
    I don’t think this is where I want to be , Tim decided. He scanned the wall. That doesn’t seem too tough. Shouldn’t be any harder than scaling the walls at the car park. But back home in London thewall around the car park was designed to keep him out. Tim had a sinking feeling that here the wall was intended to keep him in.
    Tim picked his way over to the wall, trying to avoid crunching any more of the scattered bones, but they were hard to avoid. He cringed every time he heard another crack.
    He reached as high as he could up the wall and shoved his fingers in between the crumbling bricks. With a grunt, he pulled himself up. Feeling along the wall, he found a handhold, then bent his leg until his foot found a toehold. By straightening his leg and pulling hard with his arms, he lifted himself another foot up the wall.
    That’s it, he told himself. Piece o’ cake.
    He repeated the process: handhold, foothold, grunt, up. Sometimes his progress was mere inches. Sometimes he covered more ground. Each time, he scraped his knuckles, his knees, his face.
    Sweat poured down his back. I’ve got to be near the top by now , he thought. Tim squinted up. He blinked several times, certain his eyes must be playing tricks on him.
    How is that possible? The top of the wall seemed as far away now as it had been when he had started.
    It didn’t seem to be much of a wall from the ground , he thought, gritting his teeth and reachingagain . Only fifteen or twenty feet high. With lots of cracks and little ledge things to hang on to.
    He let out a groan. His shoulders burned from the effort, and his arms felt wobbly as his muscles grew exhausted.
    It looked like an easy climb . Just one problem. You can’t ever get to the top.
    â€œHarum.” Tim heard someone clear his throat below him. “I venture to suggest that you are unacquainted with Zeno’s paradox, or you’d be exerting yourself to better purpose.”
    Tim craned his neck to glance down. A man in a velvet overcoat, a ruffled shirt, and breeches looked up at him. His greasy red hair fell limply from his receding forehead to his high stiff collar. From his spot halfway up the wall, Tim couldn’t quite make out the man’s face, but he could tell that there was something strange about