The City of Ember: Chapters 13–16

The title of this document is ‘Instructions for Egress.’”

He would have helped them decipher the Instructions and expose the mayor’s thievery; he would even have come down into the Pipeworks and helped search for the rock marked with E.

As they neared the west end, Lina saw the rocky outcroppings Doon had described to her. They were strange bulging shapes creased with lines like the faces of the very old.

Doon knelt down beside a clump of stones. He ran a finger over their convoluted surface.

It was dull gray, mottled with greenish and brownish blotches that looked like mildew.

It wasn’t a pan at all, but a small square of steel embedded in the wall.

The air had a dank, stuffy smell.

Doon dawdled over his breakfast of carrot sticks and mashed turnips, waiting for his father to go.

The guard nodded curtly and beckoned to his companions.

She pictured frenzied crowds of people, and Poppy tiny and lost among them.

Someone appeared at a second-floor window of a building on Gilly Street and unfurled one of the banners that was always displayed for the Singing — a long piece of red cloth, faded after years of use but still showing its design of wavy lines, representing the river, the source of all power.

“Impudence will make things worse for you.”

Your accomplice — another known troublemaker — will join you, as soon as he is located.

With its rolling, relentless rhythm, it seemed to urge her onward, saying, Go down, go away, go now.

Lina clutched the edge of the clock tower as if the tumult below might cause her to fall.