For a moment the wind ceased howling, and from below came a disembodied voice, high and raspy. The three stood listening. It reminded Zagora of the voices she used to hear crackling through the airwaves on Aunt Agnes’s shortwave radio.
“I know this song,” said Razziq, his eyes bright. “It is an old nomad song.”
“Listen, guys, here’s what we do,” whispered Zagora. “We sneak down, the three of us, totally quiet, and keep to the walls. We check it all out, and if it’s not safe, we turn around and head back up here. Simple.” She looked at Duncan, imagining the wheels turning inside his head: click, click, click.
Duncan wiped his sweaty face with the edge of his shirt. “That’s what Dad always says,” he grumbled. “He’ll say something’s simple when it’s not simple at all.” He glanced at Razziq, then back at Zagora. But Zagora was not going to give in.
“Okay,” he said at last, his face pale but resolute. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
They stood beside the trapdoor, breathing in smells of spicy cooked food and staring down into a dark murky space. Diffuse light illuminated the stairwell. The steps looked like they might lead to a dungeon, but Zagora tried not to think about that. Glancing at Duncan, she felt a surge of affection, thinking how hard he was trying to be brave.
They nodded at one another, gripped hands and started down. As they descended the crooked steps, the air grew cooler, and the smell of burnt food became more intense. Down and down they spiraled, until the steps ended. Ahead Zagora could see a passageway lined with rough stone and archways unfolding, one after the other, a dim light streaming through them. Was she really up to this? What if they were attacked? How would they protect themselves?
She motioned for the others to crouch low. Heads down, they slunk through the archways, keeping close to the walls, sand muffling their footsteps. In the grainy light, everything seemed alien, misplaced in time. She strained to hear the voice again, but everything was quiet. On the walls she noticed faded drawings of galaxies and constellations, colored with what her dad would describe as natural dyes—reds, yellows, blues. Her brother paused every few steps, tracing a pudgy finger over a star or a planet.
The last archway opened into a small domed chamber walled with shiny black stone. Zagora recognized it from Mrs. Bixby’s Earth Science lessons as volcanic rock. There were no windows; smoke rose from a small fire and wafted up through a makeshift chimney. The three stared apprehensively into the shadows and flickering light.
With a start she noticed a lone haggard figure, hunched by the fire. As if sensing their presence, the stranger began singing off-key.
“What do you think?” she whispered, staring wide-eyed at the others. “Does he look like a kidnapper?”
Duncan shrugged. “He looks harmless, but who knows?”
A faint smile crossed Razziq’s face. “This man sings Arab folk songs. He doesn’t appear dangerous, but we should keep our distance. It is possible he knows something.”
“I’m going for a closer look,” said Zagora, trying to put on a courageous front. “I’ll be right back.” She flattened herself against the wall and inched her way around the perimeter of the room, hoping the smoke wouldn’t make her cough.
As she drew nearer to the figure, she could see a silver dagger at his waist, and she began to make out vague facial features. Beneath the softly wrapped head cloth, two eyes burned strangely. Around the face, light quivered. Zagora thought of mythic beasts and angels, of dark beings dropped secretly to Earth. As she stepped bravely forward, ready to introduce herself, Duncan let out a hair-raising scream. Startled, the man leapt up, waving the dagger, and Zagora froze, her heart thumping wildly.
“A rat!” shrieked Duncan. “A rat ran over my foot!”
Oh no, thought Zagora, we’re done for!
Tall but stooped, the man began shouting in Arabic. Zagora saw Razziq jump out from behind the archway; keeping one eye on the dagger, he began speaking to the stranger in a slow, calm voice. The man fell quiet, and after a few moments, he set the knife down on the floor.
Duncan loped over to Zagora. “That rat was—”
“You almost got us killed!” she hissed at him, trembling with fear.
“This man asks what we are doing here,” said Razziq in a loud voice.
Zagora felt a twinge of excitement. The stranger must be connected in some way to Zahir, or why would he be here? Maybe he was a watcher, a kind of gatekeeper, like she’d read about in olden-day books. He was bound to have seen travelers passing through the city.
“Tell him our father was kidnapped and we’re looking for him,” she said in a shaky voice. “Our dad promised to meet us here—tell him that, too.”
“Ask if he’s seen any ne’er-do-wells or unsavory characters,” added Duncan.
Ne’er-do-wells? What the heck century was her brother from? she wondered. Oh yeah, it was probably another phrase from The Smugglers of Truro.
“This man sees nobody for many weeks,” translated Razziq. “But in the desert, he says, strange things can happen, and sometimes people disappear.”
Thinking of her father, Zagora felt a pain, raw and sharp, deep in her chest.
The stranger tossed something into the air. A lizard impaled on a stick, charred from the fire, landed at her feet. Zagora saw what looked like tooth marks along one side and her stomach did a slow flip.
“Spotted lizard,” said Razziq. “He says to eat this: high protein, to keep you strong.”
To her surprise, Duncan picked up the lizard and lifted it to his lips, but he didn’t bite into it. He must be starving, she thought. She had lost her appetite completely. The man threw over a beetle, its wings crushed, but neither she nor her brother touched it. Beetles were good-luck signs, but a chewed-up one probably didn’t count.
The stranger crooked a thin finger, motioning them closer, and they shuffled warily toward him. As they closed the distance separating them, Zagora began to see the man’s features more clearly: sunken eyes; papery skin; a long, bony face. A jagged scar sliced through one eyebrow.
“You are English?” he asked, and she looked at him in surprise. “I hardly recognized the language. It has been a long time since I’ve heard it spoken.”
Zagora listened curiously to the stranger’s odd, clipped accent. “We’re from America,” she said, feeling a bit less scared knowing he spoke English. “We’re here on a quest.”
The smell of burnt lizard was beginning to make her feel nauseated. Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted to be home, sitting at the kitchen table, joking with her dad and Duncan, eating pizza with everything on it. She wanted to be reading Tintin or losing all her Boardwalk hotels to Duncan in Monopoly. She wanted things to be the way they used to be.
“How did you find your way here?” asked the stranger. The scar on his face was deep and ferocious and it gave her the shivers. It was the kind of scar a desert explorer would have—maybe one who’d been attacked by a scorpion.
“An or-oryx,” she stuttered. “We were lost in the sandstorm, then all of a sudden I saw an oryx. It led us to the tower.”
The man’s breath rattled excitedly. “You saw an oryx? Well, well. How extraordinary.”
Zagora was proud of having encountered an animal that was rare, and in most places—including Morocco—gone forever. “I know oryxes are classified as EW—Extinct in the Wild, that is,” she went on, feeling more confident, “but I really did see the oryx. It was sort of … ethereal.”
The man smiled at her, and she could see his teeth were discolored.
“Razz and I saw oryxes, too,” Duncan piped up, keeping his distance from the man. “They were standing right outside this tower.”
The stranger frowned. “You’ve all seen oryxes?”
“We think the oryxes are coming back, see, because of the—” About to say Oryx Stone, Zagora stopped herself in time: not a good idea to reveal that she was carrying something of value. “Um, because of the legend. The one that says the oryxes will
return to Zahir.”
At first the man said nothing, and Zagora worried maybe she’d said too much.
“My dad told me that when the oryxes return to Zahir, the city will rise again.” She tried to sound authoritative. “But only after great chaos.”
The man nodded. “Yes, I know this foretelling. The nomads often talk of it.”
“So …” Duncan gave a little cough, the way their father always did when he wanted to steer the conversation in a new direction. “Who exactly are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Trader, mapmaker, hunter of antiquities,” came the dry, creaky voice, sounding as though it had not been used in a very long time. “ ‘Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,’ ” he recited. “ ‘The lone and level sands stretch far away.’ ”
“I know that poem!” said Zagora, amazed to hear familiar words in a place that was so foreign. “Mrs. Bixby read it to our class.”
“ ‘Ozymandias,’ ” breathed the man, sounding a bit more, well, friendly. “Shelley, of course.”
In the firelight, Zagora noticed, his eyes seemed to be made from beaten gold. She was no longer frightened of him; in fact, she was eager to find out more. There was, she decided, something almost mystical about this stranger.
“Then you’re a cartographer,” said Duncan. “You draw maps—maps of the desert, right?”
“I have done that, yes,” said the stranger. “Exquisite maps of the Sahara.”
“So, you’re not, um … dying or anything?” Zagora blurted out. She immediately regretted saying it, afraid she might have offended him.
The man ran a finger over his cracked lips. “Not dead yet.” He didn’t appear insulted.
Zagora saw a look of infinite sadness cross his weatherworn face. His expression was etched with misery, and she suddenly felt a kind of pity for him. She watched him put something into his mouth and heard it crack between his teeth.
“Care for one?” Licking his dry lips, he held out a handful of insects. “Fried purple locusts. Quite succulent.” He waved a skewered locust in the air. “I’m not terribly fond of beetles, they leave a bitter aftertaste.”
“This guy’s crazy,” Duncan hissed into Zagora’s ear. “Remember what Dad told us, about the desert and madness going hand in hand? Here’s proof.”
“He’s not crazy,” she whispered, though she remembered her father saying the desert could drive a sane man to lunacy. “He’s just … different.”
The stranger leaned forward, eyes glistening. “You say your father was kidnapped?”
“We believe somebody came to our camp two nights ago and took him,” said Zagora. When she talked about her father, it felt as if something sharp were stuck at the back of her throat. This is too painful, she thought, looking at Duncan.
“We went looking in the desert but we took a wrong turn,” Duncan continued. “We slept in some caves and today we walked into a sandstorm and Sophie fell down a sinkhole.”
The man blinked in surprise. “Sophie?”
“Our camel,” said Razziq, throwing Zagora a sorrowful glance.
“A pity. Camels are very loyal beasts.”
“Sophie wasn’t a beast,” said Zagora, indignant. “She was my friend!”
“Yes, of course.” When the stranger moved, dust puffed off his clothes and his turban. “Now then, about this missing gentleman. What is his name?”
“Dr. Pym,” said Duncan, his voice cracking.
“His friends call him Charlie,” added Zagora, noticing a funny expression on the man’s face. “Charles W. Pym, PhD, DSc. He’s a desert expert and he specializes in glyphs and symbols and he’s really, really brilliant—you could say he’s a genius.”
“Charlie Pym?” Locusts clattered to the floor as the stranger lifted his head in surprise. “But Charlie’s supposed to be on his way to Zahir to meet with me. He should be here by now!”
“You’re Pitblade Yegen?” Zagora stared in disbelief at the man’s long beard, the white hair straggling from underneath his soiled turban, the face etched with lines of sadness.
“The real Pitblade Yegen is our dad’s age,” Duncan whispered to Razziq behind his hand.
Zagora didn’t know what to think. The stranger looked put together from sticks and dust, as if he might blow away at any minute. It didn’t seem possible that he could be their father’s age. Yet the thought that he might actually be Pitblade Yegen unsettled her—because it meant the desert had turned him into an old, old man. Was this really what desert life did to you? Maybe it was time to scratch “desert explorer” from her career agenda and consider becoming a park ranger or an ice cream truck driver.
“I saw a photo of you in the desert,” she said, “and you looked—”
The man raised a shaky finger. “Much younger? Ah yes, I was once that, too. But eleven years is a long time.” His lips curved into a weary smile. “The desert always extracts a price.”
“Nomads have a saying,” said Razziq. “Something like ‘One man enters the desert but a different man returns.’ ”
“My dad always says the desert changes you.” Zagora couldn’t take her eyes off the stranger’s deep scar. “No matter how strong you are, no matter how smart.” She couldn’t decide if the man was a lunatic or a genius. Maybe he was both. “No matter how brave.”
“Charlie’s had plenty of experience with the desert, I’ll grant you that.” The man who called himself Pitblade gave a dry chuckle. “What I admire about your father is how equally at ease he is with both academics and nomads. A rare talent.”
“I know,” said Zagora, beaming. “He’s my hero.” Then she blurted out, “How did you get that scar?” She blushed, aware that it hadn’t been a very nice thing to say.
“It is rather fierce-looking, isn’t it?” he said mysteriously. “Come, listen, I will tell you my story.”
They gathered in a ragged circle around the dying embers of the fire. Zagora kicked away a pile of beetle shells and sat down, anxious to hear what Pitblade Yegen had to say.
“Eleven years ago I came to Morocco to carry out archaeological excavations at Zahir,” he began. “We needed help deciphering glyphs, so I invited your father. A few weeks into the project I hired a small plane to fly over the site. A sandstorm blew in and we went down: my leg was crushed and I received this gash.” He traced the scar through his eyebrow. “The pilot was not so fortunate.”
There was a brief silence; then he continued: “I crawled out of the plane to safety; then I passed out. When I awoke, I had lost my memory. Nomads found me wandering and nursed me back to health. For eleven years I traveled with them through the desert, unaware of my true identity. Then, two months ago, I was thrown by a camel and struck my head on a rock.”
Zagora touched her swollen eye, remembering how painful it had been to be kicked by Sophie. She listened intently as the man went on: “I was unconscious for two days, and on the third morning I sat up in my tent and all my memories came flooding back. Naturally I headed straight to Zahir, in the wild hope that my team had finished the excavations.”
“Our dad told us the Moroccan government shut it down,” said Duncan, sounding less skeptical, as if maybe he believed this really was their father’s missing friend.
As for Zagora, she felt suddenly certain that this was Pitblade Yegen.
Pitblade nodded, sending up little clouds of dust from his turban. “Sadly, most of Zahir remains buried beneath the sand, with the exception of the casbah, where the palace stands—that was the area we’d excavated. Finding Zahir uninhabitable, I made my way here, to the Tower of the Enigmas, and sent a letter to my cousin Olivia asking her to contact your father.”
Zagora exchanged knowing looks with Duncan. This probably wasn’t a good time to tell Pitblade his cousin had been trying to convince people he’d gone mad in the desert.
“Did you send the message to your cousin by falcon?” asked Razziq.
“Yes, of course,” said Pitblade. “It’s the best
way.”
Zagora gave Razziq a sympathetic smile, remembering the wounded falcon.
“Look, Charlie Pym was my best friend,” said Pitblade. “And I want to tell you … he had something of mine that I gave him for safekeeping.”
“The Oryx Stone,” said Duncan with a glance at Zagora. She stiffened, waiting for him to say she had the stone, but to her relief, he kept silent.
“Ah, the mystical stone of the oryx,” said Pitblade, his tone rapturous. “One look and you realize it belongs not to this world, but to another. The holy seers of Zahir carved into it the sacred oryx, laying upon the stone a desert enchantment. The Oryx Stone is much beloved by oryxes—and despised by scorpions.”
“Is that why there were so many oryxes in ancient Zahir?” asked Zagora.
“Precisely.” Pitblade’s eyes shone like burning glass. “Oryxes flocked to Zahir by the hundreds and the scorpions kept well away, for centuries. But the theft of the Oryx Stone changed everything. Zahir’s protective barriers collapsed, the oryxes vanished and, most terrifying of all, the scorpions began to change.”
“Hmm, I had it right,” said Duncan. “I figured the Oryx Stone and Zahir were connected.”
Zagora knew this was her chance to give back the stone, but she was suddenly gripped by a fierce possessiveness. She admired Pitblade Yegen, especially the way he bordered on being a visionary. And the stone was his—sort of. Or did it belong to the Azimuth? Mina’s grandmother had said Zagora was the one who must return the stone. It was all pretty confusing. Zagora told herself she’d give up the stone when the time was right, but not a minute sooner.
Duncan gulped. “You say Zahir is uninhabitable?”
“Scorpions,” said Pitblade darkly. “Giant scorpions have overrun the excavated ruins of Zahir—and they have grown increasingly treacherous.”
“Oh cripes, I hate those things,” croaked Duncan.
Zagora thought of her father and her heart skipped a beat. “Does my dad know about the scorpions?” she asked anxiously. “He must have seen them when he was here eleven years ago.”
The Scorpions of Zahir Page 14
