‘The spice market,’ she said. ‘The smell might be a bit strong for you. Can’t have you crying.’
As the girls paused to inspect a rack of clothes, a movement in the shadows caught Gerald’s eye. He glanced up in time to see something move past the end of the alley. He was astonished.
It was an elephant.
Gerald grabbed Sam by the elbow and pointed in disbelief. ‘Did you see that?’
Sam jumped in alarm. ‘What? A rat?’
‘An elephant, you idiot,’ Gerald said. ‘Come on, let’s check it out.’
Glad for an excuse to leave the girls to their shopping, they elbowed through the crowd and tumbled out onto a broad walkway. Gerald looked to his right—an endless sea of heads—then to his left. And there it was: the back end of a great grey elephant swaying through the crush of people. Gerald and Sam weaved up to the animal, which was making its steady way down the road. Strings of bells were tied around its feet and neck, jangling in time to its ambling gait, and its face was decorated with white paint. A man leaning on a long bamboo pole and walking next to the beast appeared to be its handler, not that he was doing much handling. The elephant seemed to know where to go.
Gerald bounded along, trying to get in front. ‘Can you believe this?’ he called to Sam over the heads of the crowd. Sam caught up and they both managed to get a few paces ahead.
The elephant came to a halt in the middle of the path, its bells falling silent. People gathered around and paid the handler some money. The elephant raised its trunk and tapped each of them on the head.
‘He’s blessing them,’ a voice by Gerald’s elbow said. Gerald startled and looked around to find a man standing beside him. He could have been aged anywhere between thirty and seventy. The man was dressed in a white tunic and his hair was dyed a dull orange. He had an enormous black moustache that occupied half his face, which wore an expression of benign happiness.
‘It’s a temple elephant,’ the man said. ‘People seek good fortune with his blessings.’
‘He must be tame,’ Gerald said. ‘With all this going on.’
The man smiled a knowing smile. ‘The elephant is patient.’
Gerald nodded and turned back to watch the string of blessings.
‘Do you know,’ the man spoke again, ‘that all Hindu gods have an animal to carry them in this mortal world?’
Gerald nodded again. He wasn’t in the mood for a conversation with a complete stranger.
‘They’re called vahanas,’ the man said.
‘What?’
‘The gods’ vehicles—they’re called vahanas.’
‘Oh.’
‘My word yes. The elephant is the vahana of Indra.’
‘Indra?’
‘The storm god. The monsoons are almost upon us.’
Gerald grunted and looked around for Sam. The man suddenly grabbed Gerald’s right hand.
‘Hey!’
‘I can tell your fortune,’ the man said.
Gerald tried to pull away but he was clamped tight around the wrist.
‘You are an interesting one,’ the man muttered, running his fingertips across the open palm. ‘You will face great challenges, great temptations...’
Gerald yanked back on his arm, but the man was insistent.
‘Do you mind?’ Gerald said.
‘You are on a quest, yes? To find something long hidden?’
Gerald shook his head. ‘No. I’m not looking for anything.’
‘Not yet, perhaps. But soon enough. There are those who will do all they can to stop you. You must resist them. For what you seek is quite near.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’m not searching for—’
The man lifted his head and looked into Gerald’s eyes. In an instant, the man’s expression of happiness vanished. He stared at Gerald in dismay.
Gerald stared back at him. The clamour of the market fell away. All Gerald could hear was the man’s voice.
‘The tenth gate is about to open,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. He released his grip and held trembling fingers up close to Gerald’s eyes. ‘But you are not yet ready.’
The man spun around and went to flee. But Gerald grabbed him by the arm. It was his turn to hold on tight.
‘Are you talking about the casket?’ Gerald asked. ‘Do you know where the casket is hidden? Is it behind some gate?’
The fortune-teller struggled to free himself. ‘I will tell,’ he beseeched. ‘But you must let go.’ Gerald pressed his lips together then relaxed his grip.
The man rubbed his arm. ‘Much is set down in your future that you cannot change,’ he said, gasping. ‘You will face a decision, a choice that you must make.’ He looked at Gerald with stricken eyes. ‘When the time comes, you must remember this: nothing is certain.’
Gerald recoiled. ‘What did you just say?’ he demanded.
The man ran his hands down the front of Gerald’s shirt, straightening his clothing. ‘It is nothing,’ he babbled, stumbling backwards. His eyes darted in all directions, as if afraid of being watched. His face was smeared with dread.
‘Did you say nothing is certain?’ Gerald asked again, advancing on the man. ‘Is that what you said?’
The man backed across the laneway, bumping against people in his haste. ‘I was wrong,’ the man said. ‘A mistake.’ Before Gerald could get any closer the man squeezed between two stalls and vanished into the rust-coloured night.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sam asked as he caught up. ‘What was he on about?’
Gerald stared at the narrow gap where the man had escaped.
‘Nothing is certain,’ Gerald said through tight lips.
Sam shrugged. ‘What’s the big deal?’
Gerald turned and stared into his friend’s face. ‘I’ve never told anyone this,’ he said. ‘On the last day of school term, the day before I left for England with my parents, I was daydreaming in history class.’
‘So?’ Sam said. ‘I’ve been known to snore.’
‘I was being chased by a monster.’
Sam let out a snort.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Gerald said. ‘It sounds lame.’
‘Only sounds lame?’
‘Shut up. This monster was yelling at me. And he only yelled one thing.’
‘Nothing is certain?’ Sam said.
Gerald nodded. ‘It must be a coincidence. But my daydreams have a habit of coming true.’
Sam looked at Gerald with a puzzled expression.
‘You remember,’ Gerald said. ‘First in the British Museum and then in Mr Hoskins’ bookshop. I went off into some trance, saw a vision and then thirty seconds later it came true.’
‘What did that guy say to you?’
‘I don’t know. I was too busy trying to get my hand back. Something about some challenges. And what I seek is hidden behind the tenth gate.’
‘Are we seeking something?’
They were interrupted by the arrival of Ruby and Alisha.
‘It would be nice if you tried not to vandalise the stalls,’ Alisha was saying. ‘I’m sure the shop owners would appreciate it.’
Ruby turned to Gerald in exasperation. ‘I bumped into a stack of tablecloths and they fell into a puddle,’ she said. ‘It was an accident. These alleyways are so tight. I offered to pay for the dirty ones.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Alisha said. ‘I sorted it. I explained you were English and couldn’t possibly help it. The shopkeeper more than understood.’
Ruby’s lips showed white. Gerald thought she was about to explode. ‘Excuse us a second, will you?’ he said to Alisha and Sam. He pulled Ruby across to a stall piled high with cotton shirts.
‘That’s okay,’ Sam beamed after them. ‘Take your time.’
Gerald tried to mollify Ruby. He failed dismally.
‘Tell me,’ she ranted. ‘What have I done? What have I done to make her treat me like this?’
‘Let’s see. There was the bit about her being bland, boring, and opinionated…’ Gerald star
ted.
‘Okay—’
‘And then you said she had massive flaws in her personality…’
‘Well, I think I actually said ‘holes’ not ‘flaws’ but—’
Gerald counted off on his fingers, ‘Conceited, spoilt…’
Ruby held up her hands. ‘All right. I admit I was a bit harsh,’ she said.
‘A bit?’
‘All I’m saying is I knew she was going to be awful to me.’
‘So you got a few shots in first? You two need to sort it out or this holiday is going to be a nightmare for all of us. Okay?’
Ruby mumbled something under her breath and scrunched the toe of her shoe in the dirt.
‘You thirsty?’ Gerald asked.
Ruby gave a sullen nod. They found a stand selling bottles of water and soft drinks. Gerald reached into his shirt pocket for some money and a quizzical look appeared on his face. He pulled out a piece of cardboard—dog-eared and worn—about the size of a credit card.
‘What’s that?’ Ruby asked.
‘The fortune-teller must have slipped it into my pocket.’ He waved off Ruby’s questions and held the card under a lantern.
‘It’s a picture of some tower,’ Gerald said. He flipped the card over. And let out a loud gasp. ‘Holy cow!’
On the back of the card, scratched in black ink, was a rough drawing of the familiar three forearms, forming a triangle around a blazing sun. Ruby snatched the card.
‘Your family seal. What’s some fortune-teller doing with that?’
Gerald took the card and stared at it. ‘Can I talk to you about something?’
Ruby was still in a deep sulk about Alisha. ‘I guess so. What is it?’
Gerald took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been having dreams—Sir Mason Green dreams.’
‘I thought you were going to stop worrying about him.’
‘I know. But the dreams keep coming back. He spoke about the other two caskets. About how he’s going to get them. And if he finds them first, there’s going to be three tragedies.’
‘Gerald, listen to me.’
‘And the thin man has somehow survived and now this fortune-teller guy says something about someone trying to stop my quest—’
Ruby took hold of Gerald by the shoulders and shook hard. ‘Gerald! Sir Mason Green is half a continent away. You don’t have to keep on about him.’
Gerald stood silent. He blinked at Ruby.
‘It’s all just coincidence, okay?’ she said. ‘You’ve got to stop obsessing.’
Sam sauntered over. He looked like he’d been rolling in catnip.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Alisha’s bored.’
Ruby switched her frustration. ‘And as for you,’ she said. ‘Come back to the land of reality. She doesn’t even like you!’
The sky was now dark and the market flickered with lanterns and shadows. Gerald was buffeted as a surge of people elbowed past them—a man in dark clothes bumped hard into his shoulder—but his mind was on the card from the fortune-teller. Surely that couldn’t have been a chance meeting. He was dragged from his thoughts by Sam.
‘Has anyone seen Alisha?’
Gerald looked up but all he could see was a mass of bodies squeezing and rolling through the tight confines of the market. Then, about twenty metres away on his right, he spotted her. Alisha was chatting to a storekeeper and stuffing something she’d bought into her bag. She lifted her head and turned towards Gerald. A broad smile burst across her face and she waved.
Gerald grinned back. He could understand Sam’s infatuation.
Then a figure clothed entirely in black emerged from the sea of people. In a second, Alisha was grabbed by the upper arm. There was a brief struggle. Then she disappeared.
Chapter 7
‘She’s gone!’
Gerald pushed through the crowd to where Alisha had been standing. Ruby and Sam were a metre behind.
‘She was standing right here. Then this guy grabbed her.’ He scanned left and right, but there was no sign of her.
‘Are you sure?’ Sam said. ‘She didn’t just duck down one of these side streets?’
Gerald didn’t respond. He knew what he saw. He turned to the shopkeeper: ‘The girl who was here— where did she go?’
The woman shook her head. She didn’t understand.
Ruby spoke quickly. ‘There are only two ways they could have gone. Back the way we came or up this alley. I say we split up.’
Gerald knew there was no time to argue. He dived into the alley without looking back. Ruby and Sam would just have to keep up.
The crowd was thinner in that part of the market and Gerald increased his pace, dodging left and right between the shoppers. He looked around in desperation but all he could see was a line of stalls selling beads and sequins. He came to a crossroads: another alley cutting across his path. He looked either way and gazed up to the second- and third-storey balconies stacked up over the market.
Nothing.
No sign at all.
His mind raced. What was Alisha wearing? Jeans and a gold T-shirt? Or was it white? He couldn’t think clearly. How would they find a policeman in this jumble of stalls and people? And would they be understood? Or even believed?
Then he heard a cry.
He looked around and caught a glimpse of gold in the night shadows. At a point where a lane forked in two and a pool of light spilled onto the ground, Gerald saw them. Alisha was struggling with the figure in black, battling to free herself.
Gerald yelled out and, for an instant, the attacker looked around. The figure’s head was swathed in a black scarf that revealed only a narrow strip across the eyes.
‘You,’ Gerald whispered.
It was the same person who had been watching him at the airport the night before. But before Gerald could take a step the lithe figure wrenched Alisha’s arm and dragged her deeper into the maze of laneways.
Gerald set off. He had to keep up. He rounded a corner at speed only to find a cow lying in the middle of the path: a cow with two curved horns poking straight at his ribs. Gerald only had instinct to save himself from a certain impaling. He stuck out a hand and pushed down hard on top of the cow’s head. Momentum lifted his feet from the ground and he spun a full twisting pirouette in the air. The cow let out a startled bellow as Gerald zipped past her head and skidded down to his knees. He bounced back to his feet and scrambled on.
His runners bit the pavement as he danced around a cycle rickshaw parked on the kerbside, its driver snoozing in the back seat. He was sure he saw the back of Alisha’s head disappear around a bend. He slid sideways into the corner, upending a pile of baskets and sending their contents spraying across the ground. Ignoring the cries of the irate owner behind him, Gerald surged forward. He was gaining on them. He gulped in the hot night air. This is good, I’m almost there.
Then he ran smack into a wall of bodies. He’d wound his way into a lane so narrow that two people couldn’t pass each other without turning sideways. Alisha and the figure in black were almost within reach, but between them and Gerald was a gridlock of maybe a hundred people all trying to squeeze through the bottleneck at once.
‘Alisha!’ Gerald yelled. ‘I’m coming!’
Alisha turned towards him but her kidnapper was strong. She was dragged onwards. The harder Gerald pushed the people in front, the tighter he was stuck in the crowd. It was as if he’d blundered into a tar pit like some feeble-brained dinosaur. The crush of bodies pinned his arms to his sides and his progress stalled. All he could do was watch in despair as Alisha’s terrified face grew more distant in the lantern light.
Gerald looked frantically around him. There were no gaps in the mob, no way through.
Then he looked up.
The gap-toothed array of awnings and sun-covers hovered above him. Just maybe…
Gerald heaved himself sideways, pushing past a middle-aged man in an orange turban to get to the brick wall between two storefronts. He freed his right arm and reached
up. With an effort he grabbed a metal support rod that held up one side of a sheet of rusty corrugated iron. He wedged a foot into a gap in the bricks where the mortar had crumbled. Then he hauled himself off the ground and swung his other arm up to grab the rod. He pulled as hard as he could. But his hands were slippery with sweat. He needed more leverage.
He glanced down and saw the orange turban of the man beneath him. With a cry of ‘Sorry!’ Gerald stepped onto the man’s head with his left foot and scrambled up the wall, clambering onto the corrugated iron. He ignored the protests from below and jumped to his feet. A hotchpotch of iron and board stretched out before him like a line of stepping stones above the crowded laneway. Almost immediately Gerald spotted Alisha. She was only metres from the end of the alley where it opened onto a courtyard. At least five lanes twisted away in different directions. If they got much further ahead, Gerald could lose them forever.
There was a gap of a metre and a half to the next awning. Gerald peered at the people below. The man in the orange turban was yelling at him, shaking his fist. Gerald took a breath, edged his toes to the end of the sheet of iron and jumped. He soared over the gap and landed heavily on a section of plywood. The board shifted under his weight. He knew he was going to have to be quick to make this work. Without warning, the board dropped a foot and Gerald lurched backwards. His arms flailed as he tried to keep balance. With a push off his back leg he drove himself forward. He thumped down on the next board and it too began to collapse. Keeping his momentum rolling, Gerald stretched out, leaping across the trail of roofing off-cuts, flying along the line of awnings like a never-ending triple jump. Behind him battered iron and plywood swung over the heads of the startled people below. A storm of dust and bolts rained down as Gerald scrambled the length of the alley. He made a final leap onto the last of the awnings, landing on both feet with a resounding clatter. For a second he balanced there, unsure how to get down. Then the metal sheared away from the wall. Gerald rode the sheet of iron like a snowboard, bouncing first off a stack of wooden crates that splintered under him, then onto a trestle table covered with T-shirts. The table crashed to the concrete, and shoppers leapt clear as Gerald’s makeshift ride skimmed across the ground. He didn’t dare look back at the carnage behind him.
The Emerald Casket Page 8
