The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan

by P. B. Kerr

  “Many years ago, a very holy djinn guru called Patanjali wished to purify himself of all worldly experience. And so he fasted and meditated very hard but it wasn’t enough, and he decided that the only way he could really become pure was if everything that had happened to him since being born simply hadn’t happened at all.”

  “Daft so-and-so,” muttered Groanin, pouring his master another cup of tea.

  “So he set out to go back beyond himself and to travel into the past, through his previous incarnations and, along the way, discovered that what he was really doing was traveling through the memories of all his ancestors.”

  “You mean in a Jungian sense,” said the professor.

  “Something like that, yes,” agreed Nimrod. “You see, the brain, even the human brain, is very large indeed. It contains approximately one hundred billion neurons and perhaps ten times as many support cells, called glia. Hence, it has enormous overcapacity. Or so it was once thought. In fact, there’s a part of all brains — djinn, human, actually all mammals have it — that the djinn call the Well. But instead of water, this is a well that contains thoughts and memories that belonged to our ancestors. And from time to time, our conscious and unconscious mind dips into it for ideas. This Well affects how and what we dream about. The Well makes us who and what we are.”

  “Utter rubbish,” said Groanin, and buttered some toast that he handed to John.

  “So the plan is very simple, really,” said Nimrod, ignoring his butler. “As soon as we get to Australia we’re going to retrace the steps of the explorers Burke and Wills across the continent, to try to find a wild camel descended from Dunbelchin. And —” “Horrible beasts,” muttered Groanin, and returned to the skillet where a large quantity of sausages were frying noisily. He poked the sausages around the skillet and wondered what a sausage made from camel meat might taste like.

  “I get it,” said John. “Because then we can go inside this camel’s memories — its ‘Well,’ if you like — and find the memories that originally belonged to Dunbelchin.”

  “Exactly, John,” said Nimrod.

  Philippa nodded. “And that way we can find out where Genghis Khan is buried,” she said. “And when we find out where that is, we can find out what happened to those Hotaniya crystals that were once owned by the Chinese emperor Xuanzong.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And when we find that out,” continued John, “we’ll know who’s behind what’s going on with the earth’s volcanoes.”

  “On the button,” said Nimrod. “Simple, really.”

  “Simple?” Groanin laughed a hollow-sounding laugh. “Very,” he said. “I’ve seen advanced quadratic equations that looked more simple than what you just described. I’ve peeked inside computers that were children’s toys next to that plan, sir. As a matter of common interest, how many wild camels are there in Australia?”

  “About a million,” said Nimrod.

  “A million?” Groanin snorted back another guffaw. “And you think you’re going to happen on the one that’s descended from this Dunbelchin that was once owned by the sons of Genghis Khan? It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Nimrod grinned. “It’s good to have you back, Groanin,” he said fondly.

  “Eh?” Groanin frowned. “How’s that?” He forked some sausages onto a dinner plate and handed them around.

  “I’ve certainly missed your input,” said Nimrod. “Your positive outlook on life in general. Not to mention your tea. And your sausages. These are delicious.”

  “So’s this toast,” said John. “And those sausages smell fantastic.”

  “But you’re missing the point,” added Nimrod. “It’s not one camel that’s descended from Dunbelchin. Very likely it’s tens of thousands of camels. Perhaps more. That’s how genetic descent works. For example: You’ve heard of DNA.”

  “Of course. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Well then,” continued Nimrod. “Recently, a group of scientists were able to isolate a Y chromosome particular to Genghis Khan. How many men in the world do you think share this same Y chromosome?”

  “I dunno,” said Groanin. “Half a dozen?”

  “Sixteen million. Sixteen million men can claim to be directly descended from Genghis Khan. So you see, it won’t be like looking for a needle in a haystack at all. In fact, it’s my guess that we won’t have to get into the bodies of more than a couple of camels before we find what we’re looking for.”

  Groanin grunted. “I see. Well, either way it’s very hot in Australia. Very hot. And very uncomfortable. And I’ve had more than enough of hot, uncomfortable places.” He shook his head. “What were Burke and Hare doing in Australia, anyway?” “Burke and Hare were grave robbers in early nineteenth-century Edinburgh,” explained Philippa. “Burke and Wills were thirty years later, in the 1860s. They were two Victorian explorers who set out to walk two thousand miles across the Australian continent. From one coast to another.”

  “Why?” asked Groanin. “I say, why would anyone want to walk all that way? And in Australia, of all places.”

  “To find out what was in the middle,” said Nimrod. “At the time Australia was largely unknown country.”

  “Still is,” said Axel. “Most of it, anyway. Everyone lives on the coast and hardly anyone in the middle.”

  “Is that a fact?” said Groanin. “And what happened to them?”

  “They died,” said Nimrod. “Of thirst and hunger in the desert.”

  “Yes, that is encouraging,” grumbled Groanin.

  Axel clapped Groanin on the back. “Don’t worry, Mr. Groanin,” he said. “That’s the advantage of a flying carpet. We don’t have to walk anywhere.”

  “Axel is right,” said Nimrod. “When we get to Darwin on the north coast of Australia, we shall simply fly directly south toward Melbourne, across the Northern Territory, along the same sort of route as Burke and Wills. And when we see some wild camels, as we surely will, we shall swoop down on them and pick out a few so that we might investigate their minds.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” said Groanin. “Mind reading a camel.”

  “If you have a better plan, my dear fellow, I’d certainly like to hear it,” said Nimrod.

  “Well,” said Groanin. “It seems to me that we’re going about this all wrong. We need to be thinking more like detectives and asking ourselves some basic questions. Always supposing that it’s not just a coincidence that all these volcanoes become active at once —”

  “Impossible,” said Professor Sturloson. “It’s never happened before. Not even in prerecorded history.”

  “Well then,” continued Groanin, “we need to ask ourselves who stands to profit from such a thing? And how?”

  “You tell me,” said Nimrod.

  “Another djinn, perhaps,” suggested John.

  “It disadvantages us as much as it does mankind in general,” said Nimrod.

  “If not a djinn, then a human being?” said Philippa.

  “What kind of human being could do this?” mused Axel.

  “Aye, well, I’ll admit it’s not easy to see who could gain from such a thing,” said Groanin. “I’m not a detective, see? But I would think that whoever it was would have to be mad for a start. I mean, you’d have to be mad to look for profit or advantage in this kind of thing. Then I think you’d have to be either rich or powerful, possibly both because to do this requires money and influence.”

  “Go on,” said Nimrod.

  Groanin nodded. “All right, sir. There’s this. You say that the burial place of Genghis Khan has been lost for almost eight hundred years?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then it stands to reason that whoever found this tomb might have spent many years looking for it. Perhaps all his life. It might be that this bloke’s already pretty well known to the world as an enthusiastic collector of all things Genghis so to speak, and that he’s wealthy enough to indulge this hobby. Perhaps, he’s bought some bits and pieces a
t an auction: pictures, sculptures, Mongol objets d’art, junk like that. This bloke might even be someone who admires the character of Genghis Khan and all the nasty things that he did. Could even be that he’s as daft as Genghis was. I say, this bloke might be as daft as Genghis was. A right megalomaniac who wants to be the most powerful man in the world, and all that imperial malarkey. A nasty evil so-and-so — pardon my French — who has about as little respect for human life as Genghis.”

  Nimrod frowned. “Groanin, that’s brilliant,” he said. “Is it?”

  “Yes. It is. Have you been eating fish?”

  Groanin smiled a quiet smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Fish always improves Groanin’s thinking,” explained Nimrod.

  “So,” said John. “Let’s see. We could be looking for a crazy guy who’s very rich and powerful, who collects all kinds of weird stuff about Genghis Khan, who doesn’t care about anyone except himself, and stands to make money or gain power or both from behaving like a James Bond villain.”

  “I think you have summed that up very well,” said Nimrod. “But until we think of a precise motive, I still think we need to find the camel that will help us locate the grave of the tyrant conqueror who stole the crystals of the Chinese emperor to spike the volcanoes of the world to change the weather for power or money or —” He shook his head. “Or whatever. Something. I don’t know what. I’m afraid I start to run out of ideas when I come to an explanation of how you could achieve power and money from doing this.”

  “Yes,” said Philippa. “How could anyone profit by a volcanic winter and the failure of the world’s crops and possibly the worst famine in history?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Groanin thought for a moment. Being kidnapped — by at least four sets of kidnappers that he could remember — had given him a keener understanding of extortion and ransom, not to mention human nature and the perfidy and callous criminality that some people were capable of. There were, he knew, plenty of decent men and women in the world; but sometimes, it was easy to believe that there were almost as many evil ones. Especially after you’d been treated the way Groanin had been treated.

  “No, miss,” he said grimly. “It makes a lot of sense if whoever it is plans to hold the world to ransom in some way. Same as a Bond villain. Just like John said. And if so, then very likely he’s in it for the same grubby reason as the folk that kidnapped me. Money. Money’s still the reason most folk do things, good and bad. And probably always will be.”

  CHAPTER 27

  THE RING OF FIRE

  They flew low over India’s Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal where Barren Island, one of India’s only active volcanoes, was spewing ash and smoke into the atmosphere. But so was Narcondam, which the professor said had been dormant for centuries.

  “The word Narcondam comes from the Sanskrit naraka-kundam,” added the professor. “Which means ‘pit of hell.’ And you could certainly be forgiven for thinking that’s true. But this is as nothing compared with what lies ahead of us. We’re about to fly over Indonesia?”

  Nimrod nodded.

  “Indonesia is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire,” added the professor. “Seventy-five percent of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes are ranged along the horseshoe-shaped ring. From New Zealand, all the way up to Siberia and Alaska, and then all the way down to Chile. That’s about four hundred and fifty volcanoes, about a third of which are in Indonesia, including Kerinci and Dempo, which are massive by anyone’s standard.”

  While the professor held forth to Groanin, Nimrod, and John about Indonesia’s volcanoes, Philippa took a moment to chat with Axel:

  “How did you get into the volcano business?” she asked him.

  “It’s hard to get away from them if you live in Iceland,” he said. “They’re everywhere. A bit like Indonesia. Only colder. Our history has always been closely related to volcanoes. When I was a boy, my family had a weekend hut near a lake and a village called Kirkjubaejarklaustur, which happens to be near the famous Lakagígar system of volcanoes that killed more than a quarter of Iceland’s population in 1783. A cloud of poisonous gas drifted as far as south as Prague and Britain, where as many as twenty-three thousand people died from the poisoning. But the resulting Mist Hardships — which is what we called the terrible effect it had on the world’s weather, not just our own — resulted in a famine that killed one-sixth of the population of Egypt. Can you imagine that, Philippa? The Mist Hardships may even have caused famine in Japan.”

  He shrugged.

  “With a history like that it’s hard to ignore volcanoes. But my family has extra reason to fear them. When I was thirteen years old, my father, a film cameraman, disappeared on a trip up a small and long-dormant volcano called Guðnasteinn that is near the much larger and much more active Eyjafjallajökull glacier. When the search team found his camera, it was still running. But of my father, there was no sign. They played the film back and found nothing. In part, I became a volcanologist in order to try to find an explanation of what happened to him.”

  “And did you?”

  “For a long time, no. His disappearance remained a mystery. I even suspected that perhaps he had staged his own death to get away from me and my mother. But then one day, out of the blue, quite literally, there came an explanation. I said that Guðnasteinn was a long-dormant volcano. It was. For years. Until quite recently, when it erupted.”

  Axel sighed and shook his head.

  “What is it?” asked Philippa.

  “It’s not a very pleasant thing to say this, little sister. But one day, there was a frightening explosion. Ash blackened the sky and numerous volcanic bombs were thrown up hundreds of feet into the air. Pieces of near-molten rock. One of these fell onto a car on Route 1, the main road in Iceland. The driver stopped and when he got out to take a look, he found the remains of the body of a man that had been partly preserved in volcanic ash. Just like at Pompeii. That man was my father, Philippa. He was only identified by his dental records.”

  “That’s a terrible story,” said Philippa. “What I mean to say is that it’s a really interesting story, but that it’s really awful.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean, either.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Axel. “It’s all right. But that’s just the half of it. You see, I was the driver of the car, Philippa. After all the years of searching and study, suddenly, the volcano decided to give up its secret of what had happened to my father. Just like that. It was as if the volcano had been playing a game with me. I spend years looking for some clue as to what might have happened to him and then, the volcano tells me. The volcano’s idea of a joke.” He smiled bitterly. “Volcanoes are like that, Philippa. They are capricious. And I think they like surprising us. Just when you think they are asleep, they awake with a bang.”

  He clapped his hands loudly for effect. And it worked. Philippa jumped.

  “Like Vesuvius itself. For eight hundred years the people of Pompeii thought it was just another mountain and then, one day, boom. It goes off and thousands of people are killed.”

  “Yes, they do seem unpredictable.”

  “Of course, after the ash from Eyjafjallajökull affected all those planes in and out of Europe, my country made contingency plans for the eruption of Katla. Katla always erupts soon after Eyjafjallajökull. But no one expected anything like this.”

  “No,” agreed Philippa. “This seems much more extraordinary.”

  “And you, little sister,” said Axel. “Do you mind me calling you little sister? It’s just that I never had a little sister. And I always wanted one.”

  Philippa shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she said.

  “How did you feel when you discovered that you are a djinn, little sister?” Philippa shrugged. “At first,” she said, “it all seemed like a bit of an adventure. And while there were plenty of scary things that happened to me and John, it was also a lot of fun. But lately, I’ve started to feel like it’s all
a bit too much, you know? That it’s a lot of responsibility to have so much incredible power. You’ve no idea of how that can weigh on you, Axel. You give someone three wishes and then they wish for something horrible and then you have to make that happen. Or turning a person into an animal.” She shuddered. “That’s really horrible. Sometimes I think if I had a wish myself, I would wish that I wasn’t a djinn at all. That I was just an ordinary kid, you know?” She smiled. “I know it sounds weird. Like the poor little rich kid. But my mom, she gave up being a djinn for that exact same reason. And I’m beginning to see why. Because being a djinn is a little like being surrounded by that ring of fire that the professor was talking about. I’m surrounded and there’s no way out.”

  Axel squeezed her hand. “I understand,” he said. “Understanding who and what we are is difficult for us all. Especially when we’re young. But for someone like you and John it must be really difficult.”

  “I don’t know if he feels the same way,” admitted Philippa.

  “I imagine he does. You’re twins after all.”

  She nodded. “But there’s something else that’s preying on my mind. I’m haunted by the idea of something that woman said, back in Kandahar.”

  “Alexandra, yes.” Axel smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t remember anything she said. I confess I was rather dazzled by her remarkable beauty.”

  “I could see that.” Philippa nodded. “That’s okay. You’re only human, right?”

  “Just as one day other men are going to be dazzled by you, little sister.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so. So, what did she say that haunts you?”

  Philippa shrugged. “It’s strange but all I can remember now is the horrible, unpleasant things she said. It’s weird but everything else is a blank. And yet …” “What?”