by Angie Sage
Alex reached the cliff top and climbed up onto the old railway platform. She stood beneath the rusting sign that declared it to be Oracle Halt and looked back at Rekadom, with its high walls and the pointy tips of the three towers rising up from the center of the fortified city. She squinted up at the tiny triangular windows at the top of the Silver Tower, wondering if Poppa knew she was gone. Or was Benn still in that creepy cupboard all on his own? Maybe the king had left by now and Benn was out, telling Poppa that she had vanished. Whatever was happening up there, she knew it couldn’t be good.
Alex turned around from the city and, shading her eyes, she surveyed the restless gray-blue sea, then she looked to her left, along the cliff tops. All she saw was a seemingly endless flat expanse of gritty soil scattered with small rocks and scrub, ending in a hazy line where the pale, dusty horizon met the pale, dusty sky. This, Alex knew, was the territory of one of her father’s more dramatic Hauntings—the Skorpas. The night before he had told her that to create each one he had taken a live scorpion and placed it in an Enchanting chamber buried in the desert sand. Over the next twenty-four hours the scorpion would expand at a rapid rate until it burst out from beneath the sand, the size of a small house—and a whole lot more venomous. The sting on the tail was loaded, Hagos had told her proudly, with enough venom to kill ten horses at once.
Alex knew that the Skorpas lay dormant beneath mounds of sand during the day. She looked up at the sun. It was still high in the sky, but was already on its downward path toward the distant horizon. She had to be out of the desert before it set. She remembered that Benn had said that somewhere near Oracle Halt was a flight of steps down through the cliff to the beach below. But where? How she wished Benn were here with her now. What now felt scary would be fun. They could search for the steps together, and she was sure that together they could find them. Alex sighed. The thought of Benn made her feel even more alone.
The thought of Alex was making Benn feel alone too. Where was she? Hagos was staring out of the window miserably. “Can you see Alex?” Benn asked.
Hagos shook his head and moved over so that Benn could look out too. Benn watched from the window, hoping maybe he’d catch sight of Alex’s distinctive green headband and sash, although he still didn’t understand how she could have gotten out of the cupboard and now be somewhere else entirely.
Deela joined them. “Alex will come back,” she said. “It’s just some silly Enchantment gone wrong. She’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
But Benn could tell that Hagos didn’t think that. Abruptly, the Enchanter left the window and strode away to his little room, where Benn guessed he’d be staring into the closet in the wainscoting, as though he might find Alex there after all.
Alone by the window, his longing for home overcame Benn. “I have to go home,” he told Deela.
Deela looked anxious. “But, Benn, you’re safe in here with us. Alex would want you to stay, I know she would.” Deela gave a little laugh. “She’s probably playing a trick on us all and is still here. Just done a little Fade for a joke.”
Benn was indignant. “Alex would never do that!” he said. “She would never watch us all being so upset about her just for fun. Never.”
“Indeed she would not,” Hagos said, returning from another fruitless search of the cupboard in the wainscoting. “Benn, if you want to go home, I will help you.”
“Hagos!” Deela remonstrated. “You don’t know what you’re saying. There’s another Jackal outside the door.” She dropped her voice. “You can’t kill another one.”
“I didn’t kill that one,” Hagos said irritably. “Another Jackal must have got it when it was weak. Nothing to do with me.” He turned to Benn. “I will see you safely out of the city, but after that you will be on your own. Do you still wish to go home?”
“Yes,” Benn said. “I do. And thank you. Thank you very much.”
“And Deela, before you ask any more questions, I shall get out of here in exactly the same way I did as when I took you from the dungeons,” Hagos told her. “I shall be the king.”
Benn and Deela watched as Hagos put his hands up to either side of his head, with the palms facing inward and the fingers splayed out so they resembled, Ben thought, the silver wings of the king’s crown. They even seemed a little metallic. And there was a strange silvery light around Hagos’s head too. Hagos lowered his hands and began to move them slowly down his torso, and as he did so, the silver light traveled with him and his cloak began to shine like silk. Hagos made a sudden downward, sweeping motion, a shimmer ran over him, and in front of Benn stood an oddly insubstantial image of King Belamus the Great. “Come on, boy, don’t keep me waiting,” Hagos said, in an eerily accurate impression of King Belamus’s pompous whine.
Deela hugged Benn tightly. “Safe journey,” she said.
Benn nodded. “Thanks.”
“Ready, boy?” Hagos said in his king’s voice.
Benn grinned. “Ready, Your Majesty.”
“Very well. We will go.” Hagos took a deep breath and then threw open the door out onto the landing. The Jackal jumped to attention and then whined uneasily. The master did not smell right.
Hagos fought back the mix of revulsion and fear that being close to a Jackal always gave him. “Stand aside,” he growled menacingly.
The Jackal hesitated.
Hagos knew he had to act fast. He raised his voice to a shrill approximation of the king’s angry squeal. “Down, cur!” he yelled.
To Hagos’s relief, the Jackal dropped to the ground and groveled. It knew the master must be obeyed at all times—even when the master smelled of incense and fear. From under its tiny hooded eyes, the Jackal watched its shimmering master hurry down the steps with his boy prisoner. Then it got to its feet and stood guard at the door as its master had decreed.
Alex was sitting despondently on the edge of the tiny platform of Oracle Halt. She had searched in vain for any steps and all the time the sun was moving across the sky, and the afternoon shadows were growing longer. Deep in her disappointment, Alex felt her Fade leaving her. She gazed out at Oracle Rock, which lay calm and apparently deserted, a bell-shaped island of granite, crisscrossed with paths and steps, topped with the strange little cottage where she and Benn had briefly thought they were safe. Alex gazed at it for some time, hoping maybe to see Palla and call out for help, but there was no movement but for the wheeling of gulls, no sound but their eerie cry and the swash of the waves. Fiercely, Alex wiped away a stray tear that had escaped and wandered down her cheek. You’re on your own now, she told herself. Get used to it.
The sun went behind a large, gray cloud and Alex shivered. She had to be out of the desert by sunset, and the only place she could hope to reach by then was Netters Cove, the small fishing village where a few days ago she had found Benn waiting in Merry. But Netters Cove was so far away she could scarcely make out its distinctive headland—the Thirteenth Titan—on the misty horizon. She must move fast.
Alex set off at a brisk trot along the cliff top, and soon discovered that beneath a thin layer of sandy grit was the old railway track. She was surprised; at school they had been told that the king had torn up the track across the desert. Her spirits rose a little. She remembered Benn telling her that there was an old railway halt at Netters Cove, and she guessed the track would take her there. Following a track where so many others had gone before gave Alex a strange feeling of companionship. As she hurried along, she no longer felt quite so alone.
Chapter 21
Revenge
BARTLETT WAS ENJOYING BEING ALONE in the office. She was also enjoying the sound of scraping as the Flyer got down to some real work for a change. She wandered over to the window and was unscrewing the top of the cookie jar—chocolate cookies were her favorite—when a strange sight caught her attention. Frowning, she watched the progress of the king and a somewhat grubby boy. Bartlett wiped the greasy glass to get a better view—something was not right. In fact, quite a few things weren’t right. One:
the king was without his Jackal bodyguard, and the king never went into the Outer Star without a Jackal in tow. Two: he was oddly shimmery, and it wasn’t just his bad-taste silks. Three: the king was with a scruffy urchin, but everyone knew that the king hated kids. Bartlett screwed up her eyes and stared hard.
Happily, Hagos was unaware of Bartlett’s suspicious examination of his Enchantment—or Personation, as it was called. If he had known, he would have been very spooked. Because the Personation moved, spoke and projected itself it had a lot of work to do and depended upon people seeing what they expected to see. It did not hold up if—as Bartlett was doing—someone looked at it too critically.
Zerra was poking at a particularly noxious piece of bird poop when Bartlett threw open the office door and strode past, her boots narrowly missing Zerra’s left hand. Stonily, Zerra watched her tormentor head out of the mews into the sunlit courtyard beyond. She listened to the sound of her hurried footsteps, and when she was sure Bartlett was not coming back, Zerra got up and took the bucket of bird mess into the office, where she sprinkled a fine shower of dried dirt into the cookie jar on the windowsill and screwed the lid back on. Then she tipped the rest of the contents of the bucket into Bartlett’s messenger bag. Quickly, Zerra took her confiscated training Lightning Lance from where it was hanging behind the door and two lightning bolts from the ammunition box. Then she loaded the lance, tucked it into its holster and strapped it on.
Zerra strode through the gloom of the mews, her hurried footsteps sending the nesting birds into a flurry of warning screeches. At the door, she peered out and was pleased to see the courtyard was empty. With a lightness in her step, she headed out into the sunshine. Mews Court was empty, but Zerra could hear Bartlett’s bullying tones from Gate Court next door. Intrigued, she headed across to the Star Snicket and slipped into the shadows of the neighboring Gate Court.
In front of the closed city gates, Zerra saw Bartlett flanked by both gate guards. All three had their back to Zerra, but facing them was, to Zerra’s surprise, the king. Although Zerra could not hear what Bartlett was actually saying, her tone of voice was unmistakable—Bartlett was haranguing the king. Zerra was impressed. She just had to hear more. Gambling on the king being too taken up with Bartlett to notice her, Zerra snuck along by the wall, keeping to the shadows until she reached the shelter of a wide stone buttress, where she stopped and peered out. Now she could see a new member of the group. To Zerra’s surprise, it was the boy who had been with Alex when they had so rudely pushed past her into the Inner Star. Zerra smiled—so Alex’s little boyfriend was the king’s prisoner now, was he? That served him right.
But as the words of the acrimonious conversation drifted over to Zerra, she became even more intrigued. Bartlett was calling the king a Beguiler! Zerra chuckled. Oh, this was so good. Bartlett was destined for the dungeons, that was for sure. It was a shame she’d not be able to watch Bartlett eat a cookie from the bird-poo jar, but this was even better.
And then, to Zerra’s delight, a fight kicked off. Bartlett grabbed hold of the boy’s collar and the king roughly pulled her hand away from the boy. Bartlett lunged at the king again but he shoved her away, pushed open the little wicket inside the barred gates and yelled at the boy, “Run! Get yourself home!” in a surprisingly strong voice that didn’t sound like the king at all.
With that, the boy was out of the gate and gone.
Zerra found herself envying the boy. He was free now, out of this dump of a city and on his way home. At the thought of home, Zerra felt a twist of unease. The boy was lucky—he had a home to go to. But she didn’t. She was stuck here with no friends and no family. All she’d had for company all afternoon had been a load of stupid birds and a bucket of old bird poop. A little niggle of a thought—and whose fault is that—threatened to surface, but Zerra was saved by the sight of Bartlett chasing the king back across the courtyard. They passed close by, but neither noticed her. The king was striding angrily on and Bartlett was matching his strides step for step as they headed for the Star Snicket back into Mews Court. Intrigued, Zerra slunk quickly back along the foot of the wall, keeping pace with them. She saw the king take a surprisingly athletic bound onto the Rocadile step, and then turn to face Bartlett, who was now at a height disadvantage. He raised his arms up very dramatically and then . . . disappeared.
Bartlett gave a howl of triumph and lunged forward, but her hands met empty air, and to Zerra’s delight, she fell forward and toppled facedown over the snicket in a highly undignified manner.
While Bartlett picked herself up and limped off into the mews courtyard, Zerra mulled over what she had seen. Her hand strayed to the twisted black-and-gold strands with their chunky silver seal on her wrist, and she almost laughed out loud with excitement. She could hardly believe her luck. She’d been the King’s Spy for only a day and already she had something amazing to report.
But maybe, Zerra thought, I can do even better.
If she could catch the boy and bring him back to the king, how good would that be? And maybe he would lead her to Alex and she could catch her too—and bring them both to the king. Zerra smiled. What fun it would be to go visit Alex in the dungeons and make her feel really bad. Of course, after a while it would get boring, and then she could just forget about her. And know-it-all Alex would be gone for good, because no one survived the dungeons for long.
Weaving her dreams of revenge and glory, Zerra decided to go after the boy. She headed over to the city gates and waved her King’s Spy wristband at the gate guards, who respectfully opened the wicket gate for her to step through.
Head held high, Zerra walked beneath the flock of crows back on their perch beside the Beguiler Bell. The bell rang and behind her the young guard looked out the wicket gate, puzzled.
“Stupid crows rang the bell,” Zerra said. “You ought to get that fixed.”
The guard shrugged and closed the gate.
Zerra hurried away. When she was clear of the city, she took out her spyglass and surveyed the vast scrubby desert before her. All was still except for a drifting trail of dust and the distant figure of the boy, running. Smiling, Zerra primed her training lance and broke into a run. She was good at this spying job. No, she wasn’t just good—she was incredibly, amazingly brilliant.
Chapter 22
Near Misses
“ALEX!” BENN YELLED OUT. “HEY, Alex!” With a wonderful feeling of joy and relief, he raced toward the figure running from Rekadom. Then he saw a glint of steel and stopped—why is Alex pointing a Lightning Lance at me? It took another long second for Benn to understand that despite the figure moving in just the same way Alex did, it wasn’t her at all.
It was Zerra.
Benn’s joy turned to terror—he had seen for himself the damage the Lightning Lance could do. He turned and ran back toward the edge of the cliff, where he skidded to a halt. He looked down at the sandy strip of beach far below, and at the clear green waters beginning to creep away from the causeway that joined Oracle Rock to the mainland. At the far end of the causeway, the familiar bell shape of Oracle Rock rose up solid against the sky and his heart gave a wistful twist as he glimpsed his little white boat, Merry, rocking gently in the harbor. Oh, how he wished he was on Merry now, sailing away from this awful place.
But you’re not, Benn told himself. He spun around to see Zerra rapidly approaching, the sun glinting off her lance as she raised it and pointed it at him.
Benn took a step to one side to get out of the line of fire, and his foot landed on something hollow. He raised his hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot! Please! Don’t shoot!” all the while moving his foot to explore what was beneath it. It was definitely a covering of some kind. And then his big toe found a metal ring. Benn thought fast. This must be the trapdoor to the steps, he was sure of it. But they were no use to him if Zerra saw him go down them. He didn’t even want to think about the damage a bolt from a Lightning Lance would do in a narrow tunnel in the rock. Somehow, he had to get down there without
Zerra seeing him.
Benn took a long, deep breath in. And then, injecting a sudden terror into his voice, he screamed out, “Zerra! Behind you! Skorpas!” and threw himself onto the hatch, so he was scrabbling for its handle while covering his head with one hand as if terrified. Zerra stopped, uncertain. Benn gave the handle an exploratory twist and felt it move. Aware that Zerra was still aiming the lance at him, he raised himself up so he was kneeling beside the hatch and, ramping up the drama now, he screamed, “No! No! Run, Zerra, Run!”
Zerra stared at Benn. She had never seen anyone look so scared. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, and as Benn shrieked out for the third time, “Skorpas! Run!” she was suddenly convinced there was indeed something truly terrible behind her. She spun around—and saw that she had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Zerra wheeled back and screamed out at Benn two of the new swear words she had learned the night she had spent in the Luma House of Orphans. But he wasn’t there. He had disappeared.
He’s a Beguiler’s brat. He’s done a Fade. What did you expect, you dummy? she told herself angrily as she set off at a run toward where Benn had been. And then she stopped. This, she thought, is a trick. He’s trying to get me to go to the cliff edge and then he’ll push me off. Well, I’m not that dumb. I’ll show him.
Zerra raised her Lightning Lance, and taking a very careful aim, she fired at the place where she had last seen Benn. The bolt shot off in a loud whoosh, trailing a band of blue light behind it. Zerra waited for contact with an invisible boy, but the bolt traveled on, over the edge of the cliff and out to sea. Angrily, Zerra watched its trajectory as her wasted missile made a graceful arc down toward the water and disappeared into the sea in a fizzle of white foam.
Zerra employed a few more new swear words. “I know you’re there, brat!” she yelled out. “You don’t fool me!”
