The Tyrant's Nephew

by Sophie Masson

  He said, ‘What you do is what you do. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh, but it has,’ said Mira. ‘Look, Omar, for quite a while now we’ve known your uncle is losing his grip. He does not live in the real world any more. Nobody tells him the truth. His crown is askew; his country is rotten; his people not only hate and fear him but despise him, too. His army is grumbling and without morale, and his right-hand man, the Secretary, is working secretly against him. One determined push from the rebels will send the whole thing toppling.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ said Omar, at last, though his heart beat like a drum. ‘Why are you talking to me like this? How do you know I won’t tell my uncle what you’ve been saying? You would be executed for this. People have been for less.’

  ‘We know that,’ said Ingrid, after a glance at Mira. ‘But we know you won’t do that, Omar. We can see it in your eyes. You are a good person, as your uncle is a wicked one. You took a big risk trying to save that little beggar girl. Few have ever stood up against your uncle, and certainly no small and meek-looking child. We know you are not all you seem, but are brave and clever. And we’ve seen in the crystal ball. We know the end is close for The Vampire’s reign. And you are involved in that. You are crucial to it.’

  Omar whispered, ‘You call my uncle that?’

  ‘Of course. Doesn’t everybody?’

  ‘But he …’ Something unexpected choked Omar. He looked at the two women, their fine clothes, the gaudy jewellery around their necks, and he felt a little sick. He said, ‘But he gave you so much.’

  ‘Bah,’ said Ingrid, pettishly. ‘He gave us costly gifts, but he also forced us to twist our magic. He gave us jewels and estates, but he made us prisoners in the palace. He gave us so much, yes, but he took away so much.’

  ‘And all the time,’ chimed in Mira, ‘we knew that we might make one small misstep, one small stumble, and we’d have everything stripped away and find ourselves on the torture rack in the Black Prison. Why should we be grateful? Are you grateful, Omar, for all he’s given you?’

  Omar stared at her. He didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘You see,’ said Mira triumphantly, ‘you feel just the same as we do. Which is why we’re glad to have met you, because we want to ask you something.’

  An astonishing notion jumped into Omar’s mind.

  He said, ‘Very well. But first you must promise to answer a question of mine in return.’

  The women looked at each other. Slowly, they nodded.

  ‘Ask away,’ said Ingrid. ‘Do you want to know the future?’

  ‘No, I’m not interested in that,’ said Omar. ‘What will be, will be. What I want to know is this – where is Latifa being held?’ They looked at him, silent. He added impatiently, ‘The little beggar girl, as you called her. Her name is Latifa.’

  ‘Goodness, Ingrid,’ said Mira, laughing, ‘I knew that’s what it was, I told you, remember? True love. First love.’

  Omar went scarlet. ‘Don’t be silly. I owe her my life. I want to give her life back in return. It’s only fair.’

  Mira said, ‘You have an antidote for the Spell of Darkness?’

  Omar nodded cautiously.

  ‘You know how to use it?’

  ‘Well, not exactly, but …’

  ‘We’ll show you,’ said Ingrid. ‘Where is it?’

  Omar looked hard at them, searching their faces to see whether he could trust them. He had to. They had got themselves in deeply enough as it was. He took the jar out of his pocket.

  ‘It’s in here. But you can’t touch it.’

  ‘We know,’ said Mira. She cocked her head to one side. ‘Well, I never. We saw you were not all you seemed, but we didn’t realise quite how special you were! How did you get this?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Omar boldly, and the women laughed. ‘Please tell me where Latifa is.’

  The two enchantresses looked at each other. ‘We’ll do more than that, little man,’ crooned Ingrid at last. ‘We’ll take you to her.’

  Twenty

  The magicians’ quarters were at the opposite end of the palace, overlooking a most elaborate water garden. The women had their own separate apartments within it, and very luxurious they were, too. They took him through their flashy living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms, and through a little door into a dark chamber. Ingrid switched on a light. Omar gasped.

  It was a kind of laboratory. Long shelves lined the walls, cluttered with beakers and jars, and various smelly distillations in test tubes, and piles of dried ingredients that Omar didn’t much like the look of. But it wasn’t these that made him gasp.

  For in one corner of the room was the strangest sight of all: a large glass box like an open coffin, sitting on a raised, carpeted platform.

  There were two candles burning at either end of it, oddly scented candles whose smoke made Omar feel dizzy. In the glass box was a small figure, like a statue or a waxwork – the figure of a startlingly beautiful girl with honey-coloured skin and shining black hair with a great curl at the ends. Her long-lashed eyes were closed, as if she were asleep; her long, slender fingers were holding a bouquet of white flowers on her chest. She was dressed all in pure white, with a light gauzy veil on her head.

  Omar’s throat thickened. Strange, cold tears pricked like needles at the corners of his eyes. For though it must be her, the girl in the box didn’t look anything like the Latifa he had known so briefly. Instead, she looked like a figure out of fairytale, a lost princess. The perfection of her complexion and style was artificial. She didn’t look real. He couldn’t help taking a step back.

  ‘What have you done to her?’

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ trilled Mira. ‘Oh dear, and Ingrid and I worked so hard on washing and dressing her, and arranging her hair.’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a savoury job,’ growled Ingrid. ‘She was full of fleas and dirt, your little beggar maid.’

  ‘Are you just going to stand there gaping like a fish?’ said Mira sulkily. ‘We’d better get on with that antidote, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Maybe he prefers to leave her like that, Mira,’ said Ingrid, raising an eyebrow. ‘That’s okay with us too, Omar. Pretty, isn’t she? And once the spell’s really bitten her, and her soul’s gone, we could do all kinds of things with her. We can do spells to make her body incorruptible, and set her up as a beautiful sculpture somewhere. I think your uncle would like that. Or we could make a soul net to catch her soul before it vanishes into the ether, and use it as a vehicle for spying on other souls. I think your uncle would quite like that, too.’

  ‘Stop it!’ shouted Omar, horrified and revolted. He pulled out the jar, and unstoppered it. A soft radiance came out of it, wispy as a breath of smoke. He glared at the enchantresses. ‘Now what do I do?’

  Mira took the jar from Omar and produced a small glass dish lined with lead. She tipped the nablaylee into it. Both women looked at the sprig with an expression of gleeful greed on their faces.

  ‘I have never had a piece so close to me, have you, Sister?’ said Mira.

  ‘No, never,’ said Ingrid. A meaningful glance passed between them.

  Then Mira said softly, ‘You have brought more than enough, Omar. We will only need to use a little, to bring Latifa back from the shadowlands. We will help you with Latifa – if you give us the rest of the plant.’

  Omar stared at them. What did they want it for?

  Ingrid said, ‘And if you do, we will also cast a spell so that it will seem as if Latifa is still in that box.’

  ‘If you don’t, we won’t,’ said Mira sweetly. ‘And then when your uncle comes here and discovers her gone, he will be very angry. Oh, not with us, little man; we will tell him a story of how you, in league with those Shadow Walkers he fears so much, freed the girl, quite overpowering us. We’ll make sure he believes us.’

  Omar disliked them intensely. And he didn’t trust them, not really. But he was also quite confused. What should he do? If only Ketta were
here to advise him. He said sullenly, ‘Very well. If there is any left over you can have it, as long as you promise not to use it against Latifa.’

  ‘See how charming the child is!’ said Mira to Ingrid. ‘Doesn’t think of himself, only of the girl. Of course we wouldn’t harm her, silly. Why do you think she’s here, instead of the dungeon your uncle intended? We took pity on her, you know.’

  Omar felt more confused than ever, but he wasn’t going to let them sense it.

  ‘Please. Let’s hurry. My uncle will be back from the TV studio any moment, and he might go looking for me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. His speeches to the nation go on for ages, and this won’t take very long,’ said Ingrid. With a pair of metal shears she carefully clipped off a bit of the sprig of nablaylee, which she then transferred to a beaker. Going to the shelf, she ran her eyes along the selection of ingredients, before picking two or three of them and putting them in the beaker, too.

  Meanwhile, Mira had carefully tipped the rest of the nablaylee back into its original jar, stoppered it and put it away in her pocket. She joined Ingrid at the shelf, took down one of the distilled liquids, and poured it carefully into the beaker, while Ingrid stirred with a long glass spoon.

  Omar watched amazed as the concoction turned green and began to bubble. A strange silver steam came off it, and it seemed to him that he could see faces in it, and hear voices, agitating, begging.

  ‘Now I will give this to her,’ Mira began, lifting up the beaker, and taking up a dropper.

  ‘No,’ Omar said firmly. ‘I think it should be me who gives it to her. I think it’s only right. She is my friend.’ Steadily, he met Mira’s gaze. She was the first to drop her eyes.

  ‘As you wish,’ the enchantress said, a bit sulkily. She handed him the beaker and the dropper. Ingrid watched them both, a faint smile on her face.

  Mira said, ‘Listen well, Omar. Drop seven drops on her lips; six on each of her eyes; three on her forehead; three on her throat; and seven on her heart. These are all entrances for her soul to return through, which are barred at present. Take care, for there must be no more and no less of the drops on each part of her.’

  ‘And don’t take fright at what happens,’ added Ingrid, still with that faint smile. ‘Whatever you do, do not lose your nerve. It is not a pretty sight, calling back a soul from the realm of darkness. The powers in the shadows don’t like it at all.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ said Omar.

  He dipped the dropper in the beaker and drew up a drop of the mixture. Leaning over the side of the box, and whispering a prayer to himself, he gently let the drop fall onto Latifa’s lips. Nothing happened. He drew up another drop and did the same. Again, nothing happened. But as the third drop fell, suddenly Latifa’s lips seemed to turn into two snakes, hissing and spitting up at him. He almost dropped the beaker, and was only saved from doing so by the fact that he caught a glimpse of his father’s prayer beads under the bouquet of white flowers Latifa was clutching.

  Ingrid whispered, ‘Good work, Omar. Keep going. Faster!’

  Mastering himself, Omar continued his work. At the next drop on the lips, the snakes vanished and a little colour began to come back to Latifa’s mouth. The next drop intensified that. Soon, her lips were the only live-looking part of her. Omar finished them, and turned to her eyes.

  Once again, nothing happened with the first couple of drops. Then all at once, they flew open, and Omar saw a demon looking out from the girl’s eyes. The cold cruelty of its expression was so paralysing that it almost froze him into immobility. His head began to fill with ghastly images – images that seemed to be sent directly from Jehannem. And from Latifa’s mouth came a weird high voice, an inhuman voice, cackling and laughing enough to freeze the blood.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ said Mira urgently, ‘you have little time left, hurry, hurry!’

  Struggling, Omar finished the eyes. Now they closed again, as if the girl were weary, but this time, the eyelashes fluttered on the cheeks. They were alive.

  He turned his attention to the forehead. At the first drop, Latifa’s skull seemed to split open, and a Harpy emerged from it – a vicious wraith with a face like a woman’s and the terrible claws of a bird. This vision seemed to fly at Omar’s own face, but he resisted, knowing it to be a phantom, and knowing he must hang on as tight as he could. He dropped the next drop; and Harpy and split both disappeared, leaving Latifa’s forehead quite undamaged, and blood beginning to course again under the terrible stillness of her face. Now the third drop, and the hair that sprang from her forehead no longer seemed to be like a gorgeous wig, but living. To his great joy, Omar saw that Latifa’s fingers were moving now, too, flexing a little on the flowers. She was definitely coming back to life!

  His heart singing, he leant further over the box and dropped the three drops on her throat. Nothing horrid happened there, except for the fact that a kind of strangled howl emerged after the first drop, to die almost immediately as the second drop fell on the throat. Now it was just the heart that was left.

  He dropped the first drop over the spot where her heart was. As the liquid fell onto the white cloth, it burnt a hole through it, and the skin underneath was exposed. Omar literally saw the resulting jolt. It was like she’d been zapped with the machine in hospital that sends an electric shock through you to start your heart. The next drop sent Latifa springing up like a jack-in-the-box. Then she fell back again. Her eyes were wide open, fixed on Omar but somehow unseeing.

  ‘Hurry, Omar, hurry!’ shouted Ingrid. ‘If you’re not careful, she’ll –’

  In a panic, Omar spilt the next drop. This time, Latifa’s hands shot out, and she grasped him by the throat. Her hands were terribly strong. She squeezed hard.

  Yelling, Ingrid and Mira flung themselves on him, trying to drag him back. The beaker had gone flying, and with it the rest of the mixture. It hit the floor and instantly dissolved, in a shower of silver sparks.

  At last, Mira and Ingrid managed to pull Omar out of Latifa’s grasp. Mira tried to reach for something on the shelf but in an instant, Latifa had jumped out of the box. Her eyes were full of a mad fire, and there was silver spittle on her lips. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out except for a long growl.

  ‘Latifa!’ screamed Ingrid, and then shouted something Omar could not understand, weird words in a language he didn’t know. The girl’s eyes rolled. Her mouth snarled. She stared at Omar, and he thought he could see tears in her eyes. Then she turned and bolted out of the door, her white dress trailing behind her, her black hair flying.

  ‘Don’t! No! You can’t follow her! It isn’t safe!’ shouted Mira, as Omar struggled to get away from them. ‘She is not herself. She will kill you, because all she remembers is that you are of her enemy’s house. The antidote is not complete, and though her soul has returned, it is now in torment, inside her body. Let her go. It is better for you and better for her.’

  Omar cried, ‘But she’ll hurt herself – or my uncle will find her – Ketta! Ketta must be told. She can help her! She can take her on the carpet!’

  ‘Ketta?’ said the magicians, so he had to quickly explain. They looked at each other. ‘Yes,’ Mira said, ‘a Jinn is just what she needs. We have a spell to summon Jinns – we’ll call her. You should go back, Omar – your uncle mustn’t know you came here. Leave Latifa to us – we’ll make sure she’s safe!’ She smiled. ‘You will have to trust us, you know.’

  Omar looked her deep in the eyes for a moment. Then he nodded, and was about to go out when he caught sight of something inside the box. The girl had left the prayer beads. He picked them up and put them in his pocket.

  Twenty-one

  Omar arrived, puffing and panting, back at the clinic. Not a moment too soon, for just as he got there, his uncle and the Secretary, accompanied by several bodyguards, came striding down the corridor from the other direction.

  ‘Out for a walk, boy?’ His uncle seemed in a jovial mood.

  Omar said, ‘Just
thought I should stretch my legs. Did the broadcast go well, Uncle?’ He was trying to sound casual, but his uncle didn’t appear to be bothered, anyway.

  He said, laughing, ‘Didn’t you watch it?’

  Omar swallowed. ‘Of course, Uncle Haroun. I was impressed very much by what you said.’ He caught the Secretary’s suspicious glance, and looked away. But his uncle still took no notice. He waved his arm in a grand gesture.

  ‘Splendid, splendid. Listen, I think it’s time you were introduced as my heir. I intend to take you back with me to the television studio.’

  Omar looked at him in dismay.

  ‘Now, Uncle?’

  ‘No time like the present, lad. They’ve got all their people ready. No reason to waste time, is there? And don’t worry – this one’s a pre-recorded one – it won’t go out live. They can edit it if need be.’

  Omar nodded. He wasn’t thinking of that at all, of course, but of Latifa, fleeing the palace. He desperately wanted to go after her, but he could not argue with his uncle as it would put everyone on their guard.

  He whispered, ‘Yes, Uncle.’

  ‘Good. Now let’s have a look at you … you can’t appear in those clothes. Faisal!’ He turned to the Secretary. ‘I want you to give orders to get that special uniform we had made for Sayid when he was this boy’s age. He can get changed in the studio. Come on, Omar.’

  Turning tail, he made off down the corridor, with the bodyguards scurrying after him. He’s really in an odd mood, thought Omar.

  The Secretary, startling Omar out of his reverie, said unpleasantly, ‘If I were you, I would stop giving an impression of a statue and go after him.’

  Omar’s heart thumped as he met the man’s eye. Did he suspect something? Omar hurried after his uncle, aware all the time of the Secretary’s eyes boring into his back. He remembered what the magicians had said – that the man was plotting to overthrow his uncle. Was that true? The Secretary had served the dictator faithfully for years, even decades. Why would he turn against him now? Or was it true that the regime was really crumbling and that Uncle Haroun was losing his grip? Omar could hardly believe it. Lots of people in the past had made that mistake, and they’d paid very dearly for it. It was true Sayid had been killed, but that was a car accident, not an assassination. Sayid had been the only person in the powerful sports car, and everyone knew he drove like a maniac. Besides, his own father had seen the car crash, as he was following some distance behind in his own vehicle.