by Kit Downes
For a long moment, nothing happened. Zal and Zara looked at each other. Then, suddenly, smoke and dust exploded from the throne in a cloud of wind that almost swept them backwards. Huge, leering eyes and a mouth full of teeth appeared at the centre of it, glowing bright blue.
“YAAAAAH!” Zal and Zara screamed.
“Mallaka!” the ghost roared, silencing them. “Distinine barfourrow calchenche…”
“We don’t speak your language!”
The cloud suddenly vanished and the ghost could be seen clearly. He had obviously died an old man and had a long beard trailing down to his feet. His crown was made of mist, like the rest of him. His small eyes regarded the trembling Zal and quaking Zara with fury.
“Gods!” His voice filled the room and echoed up and down the city cavern outside. “Do you condemn me such that the enemy must finally penetrate my capital? And I must address them in their own barbaric tongue! Why have I, Faradeen, the Eight Hundred and Thirty-fourth Emperor of Nygel, been forsaken? Why? Why?”
Indigo
There was no answer other than the echoes of the ghost’s own words. They faded, and then there was silence save for Zal, Zara and Rip’s breathing. The Emperor and his guards did not need to.
“Um … Emperor?” Zara said. “I don’t think… We’re not your enemies.”
“Not my enemies?” The ghost looked at her in scorn. “Who else are you apt to be? The enemy surrounds the Fire City on all sides, in every direction, for thousands of miles! Every province of my empire has fallen into their accursed, thieving hands. They even have the impudence to build homes and raise families on the mountainside above us! Hah! But whatever they build will be pitiful compared to the glory my Fire City once had.”
The Emperor’s mist eyes roamed around the dusty grey room, taking in the dry lava channels. Then he looked back to Zal and Zara.
“They send children now, do they? Is there no limit to your master’s conniving and scheming? Damn the Asameedians to the glaciers and ice plains of hell!”
Zal and Zara looked at each other in concern at the name of the Emperor’s enemy. Asameed was what the first Caliph, Az the First, had called his city, deciding it would be too arrogant to name it after himself. This merely made “Azamed” all the more memorable, and it completely supplanted Asameed within a few years. Legend had it that the Caliph had still been demanding the correct pronunciation on his deathbed.
“So,” said the Emperor. “If you are not my enemy, who do you claim to serve?”
“Um, well…” Zal opened his hands in a gesture of apology. Haragan’s medallion, which he had forgotten he still held, slipped from his palm and landed on the floor between the Emperor’s feet.
“AHA!” The Emperor stood bolt upright, pointing at it in triumph. “I knew it! The crest of Salladan Shadow! May he be crushed in a thousand freezing avalanches for all eternity!”
Zal and Zara started and looked at each other.
“The founder of the Shadow Society…” Zara murmured.
“Whatever he founded is irrelevant!” the Emperor cried. “His greatest ‘triumph’ will for ever be the destruction of my Fire City! The mountain was impregnable. Your masters from Asameed threw troops in their thousands against its rock walls, but not one of them broke through. Not one! The body of Nygel died, yes. But the heart beat here, in the Fire City. It still does! Asameed’s barbaric Caliph knew he would never win a true victory while the city lived. So Salladan Shadow resorted to the lowest, dirtiest, filthiest tactic his vile mind could concoct!”
“What did he do?” Zal asked.
“Don’t pretend ignorance to me, spy!” the Emperor cried, but he answered anyway. “He crept into the city, alone, in the dead of night – though night never truly came to the Fire City. He crept down to the lowest level, and he used his pagan magic to extinguish the volcano’s fire!”
The Emperor was panting without breathing. Zal and Zara both watched him, wide-eyed. He drifted back down into his throne.
“He extinguished it and his bodyguards built the accursed maze in a single night. That gave the Caliph his victory. My people proved themselves to be weak, disloyal cowards. They minded not the mountain when we had heat and light, but when cold and dark, save for candles, they claimed they could not stand it. They left! To join the enemy on the surface. They said the war was lost, but I proved them wrong. Look at me now! I died for life everlasting. I stained my hands with the blood of my own children so that I would never be pulled to the other side – and to this day, I rule Nygel!”
The Emperor gestured at the mummies with a ghostly arm.
“My palace guards saw that. They followed me down this path so that Nygel would never fall. They were mummified alive, making no sound as their organs were drawn from their bodies and their eyes plucked out. Such is their discipline. Gods! Why could you accursed Asameedians not be content? You were primitive tribesmen. Savages. Wasting yourselves in farming and hunting. Your rightful role was as the slaves of Nygel! We gave you hovels and water and rotten bread – what more did you require? Why did you have to rebel? Why?”
“Emperor,” said Zara. “This is it! This room. You and your guards. They’re all that’s left of Nygel. The city is dead. And … that I know of … no one, on the surface, even remembers Nygel…”
Zara leant back as she finished, expecting another screaming outburst from the ancient, hopelessly mad ghost. But the Emperor didn’t scream. He gripped the arms of his throne and leant forward to look her in the eye.
“Nygel has existed since the forests that died to form the Great Desert were nothing but earth themselves. My ancestors tunnelled their way into this mountain, harnessed its fire and built on it the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Nygel’s heart still beats here. Nygel exists, girl. And it will exist, and I will rule it, long after the mountain has once again become level with the sea.”
The Emperor’s voice rose again and he quickly regained his former tone.
“But that isn’t why you two spies are here! I know why you’re here. You have come for one of two reasons. To assassinate me—”
“No!”
“Then it is the other! You have come to steal Nygel’s greatest secret. The one thing that none of my deserting citizens could reveal.”
“No…”
“You have come to steal the secret of the rainbow carpets!”
There was an awkward pause. Zal and Zara looked at each other and then at the floor.
“I knew it!” said the Emperor, pointing a triumphant finger at their uncomfortable faces. “You have come for the secret. Now” – he sat back on his throne and stroked his beard – “how should I punish you for that?”
Zal opened his mouth to suggest a slap on the wrist, but Zara shushed him.
“You’re fortunate that I rule from beyond the grave,” said the Emperor, considering the options. “I cannot pick up my favourite disembowelling knives any more. My guards don’t have the muscles needed to work the rack.”
The mummies hung their heads in shame.
“And we have no thumb screws, itching powder or boiling oil. So I think I will do something completely different. I will give you a chance to learn the secret! You have come closer than any of Shadow’s other agents ever have. I think you deserve it.”
“Well… Thank you, Emperor … of our enemy!” said Zara. “Give us this chance and we will succeed.”
“For our master’s glory!” Zal added with enthusiasm.
“You will not, girl,” said the Emperor. He pointed to Zal. “It will be down to him.”
Zal was outraged by Zara’s horrified expression.
“Now, wait a moment, Emperor,” Zara said.
“Can you fence, girl? Do you know the first thing about sword-fighting?”
“Well … maybe the first thing…”
“That will not be good enough. He, however, clearly knows a great deal. That scimitar has been drawn often, and I can see the calluses of practice on his hands. Com
e! To the chamber!”
The Emperor floated off his throne, cackling with evil and madness. Another of the mummies shuffled forward and pushed the throne aside. It was a sliding door to a small room, into which Zara, Zal and Rip were thrust. The Emperor glided after them, his misty form filling the doorway.
“Do you recognize it, boy?”
“Yes,” said Zal, gulping, “I do.”
Carved on the opposite wall were three deep grooves. They crossed over a centre point to form a six-pointed star.
“Then I will leave you to it,” said the Emperor. “The secret will be yours when you have performed the perfect cuts. Once you have opened the second chamber, you will see a bell inside. Ring it and I will let you out. Take as long as you want. Centuries, even. Farewell and give my regards to the maggots…”
The Emperor’s laughter stirred up more dust as the throne was slid back into place. For a moment, the trio were plunged into complete darkness. Zara cupped her hands and conjured up the ghosts of several thousand fireflies. They danced around the ceiling of the chamber, shedding warm, golden light downwards. Zal looked at the carving with a glum expression.
“What is this?” asked Zara, as Rip began leaping up at the phantom fireflies.
“Well,” said Zal, “that wall is another door to another chamber – which, I presume, contains the secret. The carving is the lock. It’s also an ancient sword exercise, which I have to do just right in order to open it.”
“Again, what is it?”
“The six perfect cuts.” Zal demonstrated with his finger. He traced each of the lines in turn, twice, once from each end, going round the circle. “I have to swing my sword through each one like that. It must not touch the stone, nor even be more than a hair’s-breadth from the stone. If I do that through each groove, in the correct order, with no long pauses between each one, the door will open.”
“Can you do it?” said Zara.
“I’m going to try.” Zal drew his scimitar and shook his arms to loosen the muscles. “But this is an exercise you start practising when you’ve studied the sword for twenty years. I’ve done five. And it’s meant to take fifty years to master.”
Zal took a breath and swung his scimitar at the first groove. There was the chink of metal on stone.
“If I make a mistake, I have to start again.”
Zal started again. There was another chink.
“And the race begins tomorrow morning.”
Zara sat down on the floor to wait.
In the living city above the dead one in the mountain, it was late afternoon. The sky was turning orange-gold as the sun began to think about setting. Haragan, Shar and Dari were crouched on the roof of the palace. Their brown clothes made a stark contrast to the palace’s light colours, but as they were at the highest point of Azamed, no one could see them. It was a serious breach of etiquette to fly carpets higher than the palace roof.
There were several skylights in the roof. As Dari worked on the lock of one of them and Shar kept watch, Haragan wandered around, looking through the others. Before coming here, he had giggled to see Augur Thesa and Arna Aura rushing through the streets searching for their missing children. But now, the sight of the Caliph’s treasure room from above made him want to laugh aloud. Gold coins and statuettes and jewellery were piled up in glittering millions. When he wasn’t faced with the Leader’s irritating test, Haragan loved gold.
He found himself again slipping into memory, this time a more pleasant experience: the early training sessions of the Society. They had taught him combat, magic, stealth and cunning, and he had enjoyed them. There would be mazes or trap-filled rooms, where a puzzle had to be solved for escape to be possible. The solution would always be gold: a bag just heavy enough to place on the scales to open the door; a lock for which a single gold coin was the key. It was a fantastic system which taught the young Shadows the true value of gold. It was the Cosmos Vulture’s greatest gift to men; a means to achieve anything.
But Haragan wasn’t here to raid the wondrous, glistening horde. The Caliph’s treasure was far too vast to be carried away. It could stay where it was, waiting for the inevitable day when a Shadow sat on the throne of Azamed.
“Aha!” called Dari as the window lock sprang open.
After two hours, Zal had to change sword-hands. He was making some progress: his blade swept through the first and second grooves just as it needed to. It was when he tried for the third that the chink came.
“Will you stop sighing!” he said to Zara.
“I’m sorry. I’m just bored and tired.” She was still sitting, leaning with her back against the throne.
“I’m trying my best!”
“I know. I wasn’t criticizing you. It’s been a frustrating day.”
Zal thought about it and nodded. His blade chinked against the stone.
“So, how is it that you know Haragan?”
“He’s the bane of my life,” said Zara.
“I thought I was.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Zara gave a short laugh as she recalled their first encounter. There was bitterness in her words.
“I first met him five years ago – it was my first contest in the Under 10s. He was the Shadow Society’s champion and I was the Guild’s from the Under 7s. It was about halfway through the contest, and he was winning hands down, when I spotted that he was cheating.”
“Oh, old habit of his, is it?” said Zal.
“He was using Tremor spells: making the ground move under his opponent’s feet to distract them. It wasn’t technically against the rules, but he was making them invisible and that was unfair. Every spell is meant to be visible so that the opponent can see it coming and has a fighting chance. What Haragan was doing was just sneaky.”
Zal nodded. Fencing contests had similar rules. You couldn’t ignore an attack made by your opponent to launch one of your own. You had to defend the attack before you counter-attacked.
“So what happened? Did you report him?”
“I wanted to,” said Zara, “but I couldn’t prove he had done it. I didn’t know how to capture spell evidence back then. And you know how good Shadows are at denying stuff.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could think of. I cheated too.”
Zal stopped, turned and looked at her with wide eyes.
“All I did was jump,” said Zara defensively. “I jumped above the spell when he used it, and won with my next spell. Everyone saw what I did. Haragan saw me jump and he saw the spell coming. He had a chance to stop me, but I think he was too surprised.”
“Sorry.” Zal turned back to the wall. “I didn’t think you would sink to his level.”
“Actually, I did,” said Zara. “I do. That match started something. Like a vendetta between us. Whenever we enter the same competition, we always end up fighting each other in the final round. Each time we do it, he’s dreamt up a load of new cheats and tricks to use against me and I have to do the same. I have to spend weeks before every contest working late, coming up with new ways of cheating. Between us, we could write a book of competition cheats. And it’s not easy. I have to trawl through all the records of past contests looking for inspiration. I can never do the same thing twice. I can’t use anything too obvious, or anything too complex, because it all has to be fast. And we both have to worry about the judges catching us at it. It’s really hard and it’s exhausting, but it’s better than letting him win when he doesn’t deserve to, and knowing that I could have stopped him.”
“You’ve never struck me as a natural cheater,” said Zal. “But that’s really why you want to weave a rainbow carpet, isn’t it. Just to be sure he doesn’t win.”
“It’s also because I don’t want you and your father living on the streets,” Zara said, jumping up. “It’s not about Haragan and it’s not because we’re engaged. You’re a stupid, hot-headed camelpat, but you’re OK really. I want to help you. And I couldn’t bare the thought of Rip sta
rving in a gutter.”
She bent down and began tickling Rip, who rolled about in pleasure.
“All right, that was a bit unfair of me,” said Zal. “You may be an arrogant, magically gifted chip in the beak of the Celestial Stork, but you’re good company. I’ve always liked visiting Mum when you’re there.”
“Really?” Zara looked up.
Zal and Zara’s mothers had been the best of friends. They had both died in a plague that had ravaged Azamed when the children were very young, and they were buried close to one another in Azamed’s cemetery. Throughout the children’s lives, Augur and Arna had taken them once a month to visit their mothers’ graves. Quite often, the two families met there.
“Yes,” said Zal. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I like it too,” Zara said. She sat down again. “Do you ever wonder if our dads arrange it? Timing it so we would keep meeting there? Hoping it would help us fall in…”
“Oh, definitely,” said Zal. His sword scraped in the second groove. “I don’t think they’d put up with the amount of arguing we do otherwise.”
“But we’ve had fun in the park by the cemetery, haven’t we? Remember that time we spent all afternoon chasing that sunfire butterfly that neither of us could catch? I guess you’re not bad company either.”
“Thanks,” said Zal. “And you’d better get used to me.” His sword clinked on the stone of the third cut. “At this rate, we should be in time for next year’s race.”
“I think we’ll have died before then,” said Zara, looking around the small bare chamber.
“Can’t you magic food for us or something?”
“That’s it!” Zara jumped to her feet in excitement. “You’re a genius, Zal!”
“Thank you,” said Zal, still concentrating on the wall. “So you can do it? We won’t starve?”
“Not that, you moron! You need to make six perfect cuts, right?”
