The Anzu's Egg 2

by J F Mehentee

  Toojan’s gaze alternated between Biyu and me. It took me a second to understand his last sentence was an instruction and not a statement.

  I glanced at Biyu. The anzu was already in our care, but now that we understood the stakes and how dangerous the creature could be, I wouldn’t agree without first checking with her.

  Her eyes locked onto mine and, without hesitation, she nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ I said to Toojan, with a large dollop of fear. ‘We’ll take care of it.’

  Toojan poured the water in the bowl onto the grass. Empty, he set it down.

  ‘What else have you brought?’ he said.

  Biyu unzipped the holdall’s side pocket and pulled out the sceptre she’d wrapped in a pillowcase. As soon as the pillowcase came off, the anzu sprang out of the holdall. Balanced on its hind legs, the anzu raised a paw and stretched to touch the sceptre as Biyu passed it to Toojan. I told him about how we’d encountered the demoness, disguised as a goatherd on Kazera two nights ago, and how she’d visited the practice this morning with a task and a threat.

  Toojan held the sceptre and listened. Biyu had the anzu nestled in her lap. She stroked its chin to divert its attention from the sceptre.

  When I’d finished and asked him what we should do, Toojan dipped one of the sceptre’s onion-shaped ends into the bowl, which had—somehow—refilled itself. The water boiled. Toojan inhaled the steam. Again, he closed his eyes, and we waited.

  ‘Indeed, the demoness is of royal blood,’ he said, his eyes now open, ‘and she knows the whereabouts of the original sceptre. Its location is hidden within this replica. Take it to Babu Zaya. His powers of divination are superior to mine.’ Toojan snorted. For an instant, I saw a young boy amused by a rude joke. ‘And Zaya’s about ready to pass a fresh kidney stone.’

  If circumstances were different, I’d have wanted to know what was funny about this Zaya and his kidney stones. I had a more pressing question.

  ‘If the demoness knows where the original sceptre is, why does she need us to get it for her?’

  Toojan bowed, no longer the little boy and all business again. He placed the sceptre behind him.

  ‘Because the sceptre is a means to a greater end. Her recruiting you both to get the real sceptre continues a chain of events foretold centuries ago.’

  Biyu said, ‘What chain of events?’

  Again, Toojan emptied the bowl. He then pulled a piece of what appeared to be tortoise shell from his robe. He snapped the shell in two. One piece he left on the grass and the other he dropped into the bowl. He waved a finger over the bowl and the shell caught fire.

  Toojan sat back and waited.

  The anzu jumped out of Biyu’s lap and pounced on the piece of tortoise shell lying on the grass.

  ‘You’re true to your nature, little thief,’ Toojan said to the anzu, the tortoise shell in its mouth.

  Biyu apologised. Without teeth, the anzu only had limited grip with which to hold on to the piece of shell. It slid out of the anzu’s mouth with a loud smack. Biyu wiped the shell on her trousers and held onto it.

  Undeterred by the flames, Toojan retrieved the charred piece of shell. The flames inside the bowl winked out. Toojan turned over the blackened shell, blew on it and then traced the cracks made by the heat with a fingertip. His lips moved without him speaking, and his brow bunched. He glanced up and at Biyu with a frown.

  ‘Her magic is powerful,’ he said, and sighed. ‘The demoness has hidden her intentions behind an impenetrable veil.’ And then he grinned. His grin would have shamed a demon. ‘Help her. Do everything she wants and then do what the two of you do best as relic hunters. That’s the only way you’ll undo her and free the anzu.’

  The possibility of defeating the demoness buoyed me. But telling us to find the sceptre without knowing how to defeat her troubled me. And what were we supposed to do with the anzu during all of this?

  ‘Should we leave the anzu with the Ministry of Holy and Demonic Magic?’ I said.

  Biyu stared at me in disbelief. Her hands tightened around the anzu and her third eyelids swept across her eyes.

  ‘It imprinted on me,’ she said. ‘If the Ministry knows what we know about it, they won’t take any risks—they’ll kill it. Cubchick thinks I’m its mother. And that’s what I’ll be until it can protect itself.’

  She had a point about the Ministry.

  ‘But we can’t take it with us while we search for the sceptre.’

  Toojan interjected.

  ‘I’ve told you before, destiny chose you both to find the anzu’s egg. Without the anzu, you will fail. For now, the demoness doesn’t know you found it and that it hatched. When she learns it imprinted on Biyu and not Yeong-tae Pak, she’ll seek its destruction. The anzu must remain with one of you at all times.’ He held out his hands. ‘Give me the anzu.’

  It was my turn to nod my consent. Biyu lifted the anzu from under its forelegs and placed it in Toojan’s lap.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘watch the anzu.’ He took the sceptre from behind him and held it before the creature.

  Chubbychick by name and chubby chick by nature—the anzu sat up, rested a paw on the sceptre and began to lick it.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught Biyu cover her mouth. I leaned in closer, uncertain of what she’d seen. A tuft of down rolled onto Toojan’s robe. More pin feathers covered its body, and the fur around its face and neck had darkened.

  Toojan offered me the sceptre. With nothing to rest its pawn on, the anzu fell forward. It jumped into my lap and scrabbled up my body to reach the sceptre I held above my head.

  ‘Watch it!’ I said, the anzu’s claws scratching my chest. Biyu grabbed the sceptre from me and wrapped it in the pillowcase. The anzu dropped onto its front paws and padded over to Biyu. It turned its head and sniffed the air.

  ‘Magic draws the anzu,’ Toojan said. ‘And magic, holy or demonic, will speed up its growth.’

  The anzu sniffed Biyu. She returned the sceptre to me with one hand and ran her other over the anzu’s neck and then along the grain of its feathers.

  ‘It’s changed,’ she said. She picked up the anzu and lowered it into the holdall. ‘And it’s heavier, too.’

  The little monk stood. He had nothing more to tell us.

  ‘Thank you, Toojan,’ I said, then bowed. ‘Next time, I promise to bring laddoos.’

  ‘I’d prefer withky,’ he said, brushing past me.

  He led us to a door that wasn’t there a second ago.

  4

  After sitting on grass and beneath a cherry tree, the bustle, noise and pavements of the temple district left me a little disorientated. Biyu’s eyes told me she felt the same way. I resisted the urge to peck her on the cheek—it would be disrespectful outside a temple. I waved bye-bye, instead. Biyu had agreed to return to the practice with the anzu. While she’d spend the next few hours searching for information on the sceptre or, at least, similar demon relics, I was off to consult the diviner, Babu Zayer.

  Zayer, according Toojan’s directions, sat outside an alley at the easternmost end of the temple district, which bordered the slums of District Four.

  By the time we’d left Toojan’s temple and I’d headed deeper into the temple district, I walked against the tide of worshippers who’d completed their prayers and were eager to enjoy the rest of their day off. It took me thirty minutes to reach the alley between the two districts.

  Before we’d parted, Toojan had said, ‘You’ll know Zayer from the smell.’

  And he was correct. I detected the waft of ash, dried sweat, lemons and sulphur before I noticed a figure huddled behind a line of books arranged on a folded piece of canvas. The odour emanated from the turbaned figure in a thawb of red and black stripes. A curved pipe hung from the corner of his mouth.

  On reaching him, I crouched and said, ‘Babu Zayar?’

  The man looked up from the atlas he studied. White flecked his grey hair. Skin sagged under his cloudy eyes and beneath his cheekbones, giving him a
world-weary appearance.

  He gave me a slow, sleepy smile and lifted the pipe from his mouth.

  ‘I am he,’ he said, then reinserted the pipe.

  I unwrapped the sceptre and held it out.

  ‘My name’s Sanjay. Toojan sent me. He said that you’d be able to locate this for me.’

  An eyebrow rose at a glacial pace.

  Zayar eyed the sceptre.

  ‘Young man, the article you seek is in your hand.’ He removed the pipe again and pointed its chewed bit at the sceptre. ‘Glad to be of service. Ten xerafin, please.’ He traced a short line with the end of his pipe, his sleepy smile broadening. ‘Don’t have a sense of humour, do you?’

  I needed his help, so I wouldn’t be rude.

  ‘For a second, you had me going,’ I said.

  Zayar received the sceptre from me with one hand and patted the ground beside him, an umbrella lying across it.

  ‘Sit,’ he said. He grabbed the umbrella and tossed it behind him.

  I hunkered down by Zayar. The combined scents of musk, citrus and sulphur wrinkled my nose. He as much as his pipe exuded the odour.

  Zayar sniffed the sceptre and then bit one of its onion-shaped ends.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘demon.’ He licked it. ‘Most certainly demon, although I can detect an animal.’ He squinted. ‘Was this a pet’s toy?’

  I shook my head. Best not to tell him about the anzu.

  ‘I’ve a new kitten,’ I answered.

  The diviner studied me with hooded eyes and then gave a lazy shrug. He sat with me on his right and a shoulder bag on his left. An open tobacco pouch lay in his lap. From the whiff alone, I knew he smoked more than tobacco.

  Zayar rested the sceptre next to the pouch and lowered his fingers into the shoulder bag. He fished out a tool bag of khaki hessian secured with twine. After he’d untied the twine and unrolled the bag, Zayar ran his finger along a row of tuning forks of increasing length and thickness. His finger stopped at a tuning fork five inches long.

  ‘Copper, methinks,’ he said, slipping the tuning fork from its pocket.

  Zayar put down his pipe, tapped the fork on the sceptre, held it to his ear and hummed the note. He stared skyward as if memorising the sound. Zayer then bowed his head and gazed at the sceptre. He spoke without looking at me.

  ‘It is made of demon blood. From the copper concentration, I’d hazard a guess the demon who made it is very powerful.’ He didn’t stop for me to confirm his claim. ‘The harmonics are complex,’ he continued. ‘This…?’ He looked at me.

  ‘Sceptre.’

  He nodded his thanks.

  ‘This sceptre is a reproduction and a receptacle. Yes?’

  Zayar’s ability to glean so much using taste, smell and sound impressed me. He picked up his pipe and clamped the bit between his premolars.

  ‘Is it, Sanjay?’

  I’d been humming the tuning fork’s note. It had a peaceful, dreamy ring to it.

  ‘What? Sorry?’

  With an ease attained through years of practise, Zayar used his tongue to move the pipe from one end of his mouth to the other.

  ‘Does this sceptre contain information?’

  I nodded, the movement making the world spin.

  Zayar had neither sounded troubled nor looked troubled by the power of the sceptre’s maker. When he reached under the neckline of his thawb, he frowned. He pulled out a small bag on a leather cord.

  ‘I’ll need another stone before this sceptre will surrender its information.’ Zayar rubbed his back, just below the ribs. After a long drag on his pipe, he said, ‘Blast. Darn thing’s gone out.’

  He returned the tuning fork to its pocket and handed me the sceptre. Zayar emptied his pipe onto the pavement and then, from the pouch, fished out some tobacco, a brown block of hashish and a dessert knife. He cut a slither of hashish, tutted and sliced off another.

  ‘Feels like a bloody big one,’ he said, more to himself than me.

  After adding three pinches of tobacco to the hashish, he rolled them together into a tight ball, inserted it into the pipe—the ball a perfect fit—and tamped down the mixture before lighting it with a word of energy. Zayar took another drag. He exhaled in the same moment I inhaled.

  ‘Right,’ he said, and pushed himself up. A bright purple energy gushed from his head chakra as he ferreted around in his shoulder bag. A tea strainer in one hand, Zayar pointed over his shoulder at the alley behind us with the other. ‘Nature’s call and all that. This one is particularly nasty. It’ll hurt a lot, which costs an extra twenty xerafin.’ He turned and gathered up his thawb’s hem. ‘I might not be joking this time.’

  I recalled Toojan’s childish snort and his comment about Zayar being ready to pass another kidney stone. What kind of magic did Toojan wield that allowed him to know when a man would pass a kidney stone?

  I looked away to give the diviner some privacy and studied the wall of books and their spines. Except for an encyclopaedia of magic, the others were all atlases.

  Above me, rain clouds the colour of fading bruises converged. I could see how the vapour trails conjoined and darkened as they merged. If I squinted, I could make out individual water droplets.

  I had no idea of how long I sat there entranced by the clouds’ shifting contours, and I never noticed Zayar’s return from the alley and him plonking himself down beside me. His complexion had become ruddy, and his eyes were watery.

  He held up the tea strainer. Without prompting, I held out my open hand. Zayar emptied the strainer with a twist of his wrist. A dark yellow lump with sharp crystalline edges rolled onto my palm. While it must have measured a quarter of an inch in length, its width—an eighth of an inch—made me wince. A tubular crystal caught the light and its pin-like tip glinted.

  Zayar removed the pouch hanging from his neck and teased it open. He took the kidney stone from me, dropped it into the pouch and tugged its drawstrings.

  Zayar pulled a book from the top of the pile and opened it. I shuffled sideways to make more room. A map of the archipelago wider than his lap lay before him. He inserted the sceptre through the pouch’s looped drawstrings and dangled it over the map.

  Zayar started at the top left of the page and then moved the bag to the right, east. With his pipe fixed to one side of his mouth, he scanned the archipelago with a tight zigzag pattern. The scanning continued for what felt like an age until the bag began to rotate clockwise. Zayar’s eyes narrowed. He searched the row of books, his lips moving silently as if he were trying not to forget something. He tapped a spine.

  ‘Pull out that one, please. Open it in the middle.’ My fingers wouldn’t move as fast as I wanted them to. However, Zayar didn’t complain. ‘Just put it on top of this one.’ With the new book opened at the middle, he flipped a couple of pages by lifting them by their corners. Once he’d found the page he was looking for, he began scanning a map of the westernmost islands close to the centre of the archipelago. As soon as the pendulum swung clockwise, we repeated the process with another book.

  The third atlas contained more detailed maps of the region. The latest book’s sepia paper had cracked and torn at the edges. Zayar turned the pages with infinite care, but from his harsh mutterings I could tell he’d run out of patience.

  The pouch filled with kidney stones swung beneath not one island but two, each on a separate page. Finally, he shook his head.

  ‘Blasted demonic trickery,’ he said. He took a long draw on his pipe.

  He exhaled, blowing smoke into the air above me. I wanted to sit up and inhale some of it. I reminded myself that trickery of some kind had annoyed Zayar.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  Zayar slid the pouch down the length of the sceptre until it landed in his hand. He gave the sceptre back to me and hung the pouch round his neck.

  ‘The real sceptre is on one of two islands,’ he said, indicating at an island named Anganera. He then turned the page and circled his finger over a second island, Arlanga. ‘Methin
ks the sceptre originated on Arlanga but now resides on Anganera.’ He turned the page again, read some text and chewed his lip. ‘Neither island was ever occupied by demons. Anganera was the home of a monkey god. No demons ever lived there.’

  I wrapped the sceptre in the pillowcase.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Those islands can’t be more than a mile apart. If the original sceptre isn’t on one, it’ll be on the other.’

  Zayar held my wrist before I could get up.

  ‘My stones detected something else up on Arlanga,’ he said. ‘It’s dangerous—more dangerous than the original sceptre. Whatever it is, it’s hidden itself away, and it’s waiting for something. If you must set foot on that island, be careful.’

  Best start by visiting Anganera then, I thought.

  His warning made me want to take a puff from his pipe and calm my mind. Any hope of easily ‘undoing’ the demoness, as Toojan had put it, had gone up in Babu Zayar’s pipe smoke.

  My throat dried. I thanked Zayar and asked him his fee.

  He shook his head, his eyes droopy.

  ‘If Toojan sent you, it’s important and likely involves the archipelago’s safety. It’s my duty to help. There’s no charge.’ He shook my hand with a firm grip. ‘Good luck, Sanjay. I pray the gods watch over you.’

  I thanked him again and walked away.

  What had Biyu and I got ourselves into?

  5

  By the time I reached the practice, my head throbbed and my stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten since I’d woken, and I’d used a lot of my qi to counter the effects of passively smoking Zayar’s hashish.

  ‘I’m back,’ I called out.

  ‘We’re in the vault,’ Biyu replied. By we, I assumed the anzu was downstairs with her.

  I pulled off my shoes and locked the practice door. Today being Sixth Day, and except for emergencies, we had no appointments.

  ‘I’m making breakfast,’ I called down, and then headed upstairs.

  Biyu hadn’t cleared away the remains of the chicken and a bowl containing dried chicken paste. She must have returned, fed the anzu and then set to work poring through her reference books.