The Tyrant's Nephew

by Sophie Masson

  ‘Of course,’ said Miyar. ‘I’ll get you out. Now, let me support your father, and follow me. This way leads to the river, and to safety.’

  Twenty-six

  As they swam along, Omar began to hear the rushing noise of the river. He remembered that just below the Black Prison the mighty Lyan River fell almost perpendicularly over a waterfall, and his heart began to pound.

  ‘Miyar,’ he said, ‘remember, my father and I are not water creatures like you, we cannot survive a fall over the rocks.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ grinned Miyar, ‘there’s someone out there who can help you. I’ll leave you at the river grate, and they’ll help you over the falls.’

  There was nothing Omar could say to that. He looked over at his father, who was supported by the sinewy frogman. He did not seem in the least worried, but then it was hard to know what was really going on behind that blank metal face.

  A shiver seized Omar. Would he be able to do anything for his father? What would his mother do when she saw him? The thought of those long years endured in the Black Prison – it was unbearable. Unbearable, too, the fact his uncle thought he should be grateful for his life. Horrible. Oh, horrible!

  A huge black iron grate loomed up in front of them. It was the end of the passage. Beyond it was darkness. The roar of the river was very loud now.

  Miyar put a finger to his mouth and whistled. At once, two heads bobbed up just beyond the grate – two women’s heads, with sleek black hair and bronzish skin, and long, light cat’s eyes.

  ‘Girls,’ said Miyar, ‘I have a task for you. You are to take these two to a place of safety on the far bank of the Lyan, and from thence to our camp. And no tricks, understand? This is not a time for tricks.’

  ‘Oh Miyar,’ said one of the girls, laughing, ‘what do you take us for?’ As she laughed, Omar saw her rows of sharp, pointed teeth, and, remembering what he’d seen in Mydannar, he suddenly knew what they were. Suloowa! Lake-maidens, who lured men to their watery deaths. Brother Yussuf had warned him against them.

  ‘We are friends of Yussuf, and of Layla,’ he said, more steadily than he felt.

  ‘So you see,’ grinned Miyar, sounding unsurprised, ‘there’ll be hell to pay, girls, if you play silly tricks.’

  ‘As if we would,’ the first Suloowa huffed. But the two Suloowa’s hungry eyes were fastened on Omar, a scrutiny he did not find at all pleasant. The first continued, pointing at Omar’s father, ‘That one is very weak already, and we cannot be sure he won’t die in the plunge over the falls.’

  ‘Oh, I think you can, girls,’ said Miyar pleasantly ‘otherwise you’ll have to answer for it at Council.’

  ‘Very well,’ she snapped. ‘We will do our best, my sister and I.’ Without another word, they dived down, and reappeared, suddenly, beside Omar and his father.

  ‘You take my hand,’ said the first Suloowa to Omar, ‘with your little finger against my fourth finger, so my own little finger is free. Your friend must do the same with my sister. There. That’s it.’

  Omar could feel the Suloowa’s cold touch like an icicle to the heart.

  He looked at Miyar, who nodded and said, ‘Do not be afraid. They will treat you as they must. If they proposed to drown you, they would have told you to grasp all their hand, finger to finger. This one is the hand-clasp of friendship. Do not be afraid. Marshlanders cannot live for long if we are outlawed from our kind; the girls know this well. Good luck, my friends, and may the world be kinder to you than it has been. I have business in that Black Prison, and must move on.’

  ‘Thank you, Miyar,’ said Omar. ‘You have been more than kind; you don’t even know –’

  ‘I don’t need to know,’ said Miyar, hushing him. ‘You are no friend of The Vampire, that is all I need to know.’

  ‘Are you ready, human?’ said the Suloowa, impatiently pulling at Omar’s hand. ‘We have business in here too – so many guards to pull into the water – and we don’t want to have to wait any longer than necessary.’

  Omar looked at her lovely, terrible face, and gulped.

  ‘We’re ready. Your sister will be careful with my father, won’t she.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the lake-maiden huffily, and all of a sudden she dived, dragging Omar down with her.

  At first, it was as if black stars had exploded in his head, then as if a white, choking mist suffocated him. Half a second later, he was dizzy with relief at emerging into a bright clearness, as if his eyes had suddenly been rinsed. He looked around him; he was moving with the Suloowa in a strange, silent, bright world, tinged with green. I’m underwater, he thought, dazed, moving underwater as though I were born to it. His limbs moved lazily; the green, bright air flowed around and through him; he felt light as a breath of wind. He looked over for his father, and saw the metal mask transformed by the watery air, so that it looked more like a silvery skin. His father’s eyes were wide open underwater, and there was a dreamy expression in them that was a long way from the vacant glare of before. Hope surged into Omar’s heart.

  They moved in this way for what seemed like some time; at one stage, Omar felt his stomach lurch a little, as if he were going down in a lift. He thought, it must be the falls; and then the rush of air took him, and his ears were full of popping noises. Soon, he was light and lazy again, floating through the water. He felt bereft when he suddenly surfaced at the side of the Suloowa in a quiet little pool beside some trees. The sudden re-exposure to the air of the earth made him gasp and splutter. He turned red and purple with the effort of regaining his normal breathing; and if it hadn’t been for the lake-maiden pulling him up by force onto the bank, he would probably have drowned at that moment. As it was, he collapsed, half-fainting, on the grass; and when he came to, it was to find that his father lay beside him on the bank, breathing harshly and noisily through the mask.

  Omar sat up. The Suloowa were back in the water, a short distance away, their lovely, dangerous faces peering curiously at them. The one who had carried Omar lifted up a long arm when she saw Omar looking at her.

  ‘All well, then?’

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ said Omar, his hand on his father’s chest.

  ‘You will find the camp if you follow the river a little way downstream, then up and through a grove of fruit trees. Don’t worry about encountering enemies; they are fully occupied in the city as it is. Now we must go; our prey awaits us!’ She laughed, and her sister echoed her laugh. Then, with a flash of teeth, and a victory salute, the Suloowa dived down under the water again and vanished from sight.

  Omar sat there for a moment, staring at the spot where they had disappeared. It was strange how that brief time in the watery otherworld had made him feel more peaceful, and even more hopeful. Those creatures, the Suloowa – they were dangerous and you had to be wary of them, but they had been true. They had kept their promise. In the tyrant’s Mesomia, nothing at all could be trusted, and certainly not a promise …

  ‘Father,’ he said, bending close to the stirring form, ‘we will have to get up and walk again. Are you ready?’

  The eyes fluttered open and looked into his, and it seemed to Omar for a brief moment that they had focused, become clearer, more alive. Then he blinked, and the illusion vanished. The dark eyes were blank. But the man nevertheless began to struggle to his feet. Omar helped him, his heart wrung by twin emotions of love and pity.

  ‘We will soon be safe, Father. We will be in the shelter of those who really care about our country. We will find a way to cure you; that I promise you, Father. I promise you with all my heart.’

  He heard a strange sound coming from behind the mask. Was his father crying? If he was crying, did that mean he understood – he glimpsed through the iron bars of his madness – that something better was ahead? Omar would choose to believe that. He would act as if there was hope that his father would be cured and that one day his life would be restored to him, after so long in his brother’s murderous care.

  He must get his father to the rebel
camp, get his bruises and cuts seen to, and plan how he would find a cure for his condition. With his arm around his father’s frail shoulders, he began to stumble off down the river bank, walking painfully slowly at the halting pace of the crippled man.

  Usually, the river bank would have been crowded with fishermen and swimmers, but today it was strangely deserted. The whole city seemed to be holding its breath; there was the sense of a storm poised to descend.

  As they hobbled along, Omar began to think uneasily about what Miyar had said about killing the tyrant and all his kin. Even if The Vampire was defeated things wouldn’t be safe for Omar and his father. Though Gur Thalab might not want to see bloody and indiscriminate revenge fall on those associated with The Vampire, he might not be able to control all his people. If someone found out who they were, Omar and his father might well be lynched; people would not stop to ask questions. So, was it really safe to go to the rebel camp? Perhaps he should think more carefully about that …

  Suddenly, his father stopped. He stared into Omar’s face. Then he raised one hand, stiffly, and pointed.

  Omar said, ‘What is it?’

  Omar’s father grasped at his son’s hand, and pointed again with his free hand. Omar peered. In the distance, he could see what looked like a honeycombed red rock wall. He said, ‘You want us to go there, Father?’

  A sound came from behind the mask, a sound Omar could not understand.

  He said, ‘Or is it something we should keep away from?’

  The man pulled at his hand. He pointed, feverishly. His eyes rolled. He began to pull him in the direction of that honeycombed wall and Omar allowed himself to be half-dragged in the cripple’s erratic wake. There was no mistaking his father’s urgency. He was afraid. He was very afraid.

  In the next instant, Omar understood why. There was a terrifying roar above their heads, then another – fighter jets, swooping low. Half-running, half-stumbling, the pair raced down the narrow river path, heading for the shelter of the rock wall. Closer, Omar could see the honeycombs were actually caves. Just as they sprang headfirst into the lowest of the caves, there was a tremendous boom, and the ground shook. The Vampire was dropping bombs on the rebel camp.

  His father was pulling at him, drawing him deeper into the cave. The boom came again, and again. There was a blaze of livid white, like a lightning flash, and Omar screamed. Then he heard again the hideous howl of the jets as they swooped in for the kill.

  He saw his father’s head lift. He was sniffing the air. He pulled Omar even deeper into the cave, and deeper, into thick darkness. He could hear his father’s laboured breathing, and knew he was struggling to speak. But no words came. Instead, he put a hand over his nose and mouth, and shook his head wildly.

  ‘What is it, Father?’

  His father was pulling him further in. The cave was much deeper than it had looked at first, and it was beginning to get quite frightening. The noises outside were quite muffled now. Then Omar’s father did a very odd thing. He pushed Omar against a piece of jutting rock, and by pantomime contrived to make him understand he should breathe through the rock.

  Terror shot through Omar. Did his father think they were dropping not ordinary bombs, but poison gas shells? The Vampire had used such things before. Omar’s heart plunged as he thought of all those brave rebels – the Marshlanders, the werewolf clans and all the others – who would die agonising deaths. Gur Thalab himself might not escape.

  He began to shake with fear and hopelessness. Then he felt his father’s half-metal hand on him, laid lightly on his back, and he felt his father’s fingers stroking his hair.

  ‘Oh Father,’ he wept, ‘Oh Father, whatever can we do? We cannot just leave them all to their fates like this. We cannot just let them die. Oh, if only … if only …’

  ‘If only what?’ said a sharp, familiar voice in his mind, and Omar jumped as something soft brushed at his ankle. He stared into the darkness at his feet, and saw two points of green light, fixed on him. That same voice said, ‘With if onlys, you could put all Madinatu in a bottle … but that’s not very useful. I suggest, Omar, that you do what you must do. And that is take up your destiny, as your father’s son.’

  ‘Ketta!’ exclaimed Omar. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s as good a place as any to take care of my girl,’ said the cat.

  A light was struck in the dimness of the cave and Omar saw that just a few feet away Latifa lay on the flying carpet, which had been laid on a rock ledge. There was a soft white cloth under her head. She looked asleep, and rather lovely; her eyelashes fluttered over her cheeks, and her chest rose and fell regularly.

  ‘She will soon be better,’ said the cat with great satisfaction. She sprang up on Omar’s shoulder and looked at Omar’s father, who looked back, quite blankly. ‘As will he, now hope has returned to him,’ she pronounced. ‘In fact, Omar, you and I are going to leave our two invalids together, to look after each other, and we are going to take a look outside.’

  ‘But the gas …’ said Omar. The cat arched her back and spat.

  ‘It was not gas but a fire bomb. They wouldn’t use gas here – just as likely to get their own men with it. Now, Omar, are you going to come with me? Only you can end this, you know.’

  Omar looked at his father. The metal face looked blankly at him, but the eyes – had they cleared? Omar was almost sure they had. Then the cripple slowly made his way across to where Latifa lay and sat down beside her. His eyes looked up into Omar’s. The boy felt his throat close up and his eyes fill with tears, though there was a leap of something like joy in his chest.

  Softly, he said, ‘Ketta, I am ready.’

  Twenty-seven

  The sight that met them when they stumbled out of the cave was a grim one indeed. Palls of smoke filled the air, and there was a smell of burning, an acrid, choking smell.

  Ketta, on Omar’s shoulder, sniffed the air and said, ‘To the river bank – quick, Omar, I can hear soldiers!’

  Omar almost rolled down the bank in his haste. He crouched in a hollow, holding his breath.

  Ketta said, ‘They are running. They are fleeing from something, Omar. Wait here.’

  She leapt lightly down from his shoulder and was gone in the blink of an eye. Omar stayed where he was. He thought of Latifa and his father in the cave and offered a heartfelt prayer to God that they might be protected and safe.

  ‘Omar,’ came Ketta’s voice, startling him as she nudged against his leg, ‘we’ve got to move on. It’s not the rebels who have been killed. The rebels have already taken the city. We’ve got to get to the palace, or else the tyrant will escape. They are saying he’s got a helicopter all ready and waiting to fly away.’

  ‘But I don’t understand – what about the bombings?’

  ‘There’s been a revolt in the Army,’ said Ketta. ‘They are fighting each other. It appears somebody in your uncle’s government has attempted to seize power, and they’re slugging it out.’

  ‘The Secretary,’ whispered Omar. ‘I bet it’s the Secretary!’

  Ketta said, ‘It doesn’t matter who. It can only help us. Under cover of this disorder we will make our way back, and you will do what you must.’

  ‘What I must?’ said Omar. ‘But I don’t know …’

  ‘You will,’ said the cat, infuriatingly. ‘Now, Omar, do as I say. Take that path up there. Don’t stop even for one second, no matter what you see. You understand?’

  Omar nodded and they set off. Though he tried to keep his eyes on the path, he could not help seeing the terrible sights that lay along the way – bodies contorted in agony, faces charred, or with limbs missing, or covered in blood. Most of the bodies were in Army uniform. Once, Omar stopped, for he recognised Mahmoud’s dead face. There were civilians, too, a few women and a few children amongst them. And all along the way, the smoke grew thicker and blacker, the acrid smell more horrible. Soon, he could see bombed, ruined buildings, and then in the distance he could hear shouts and screams, and
a great din of clashing metal and gunshots. He was shaking like a leaf, every step was agony, he wanted only to turn and flee back to the cave and wait there with his loved ones. But Ketta’s claws dug into his flesh, and he couldn’t shake them off. Besides, something hard and strong in the depths of his heart pushed him on and on.

  Still guided by Ketta, he entered a maze of alleyways. The houses seemed deserted and silent as the grave, though he felt instinctively that there were people hiding behind the broken windows and boarded-up doors. Over it all hung an air of waiting, an air both sinister and thrilling.

  Ketta said, ‘Don’t look to right or left, Omar, just keep going.’

  Omar didn’t wait to be told twice. Head down, he scurried through the alleyways, towards the palace. As they came closer, he began to hear the sounds of battle, and once, round a corner, he saw them – men in the uniform of the regular Army fighting men in the uniform of his uncle’s special forces. He thought of the Secretary, and knew that if that man took charge, the country would certainly be no better off.

  He skirted the palace gates. They were shut, and men in black balaclavas stood just behind them, giant machine guns in hand. These must be troops loyal to his uncle. He could hear a great deal of noise coming from the compound, including the roar of a helicopter engine. Ketta was right. The Vampire was preparing to flee.

  Anger and contempt filled Omar. He had always thought that his uncle had, at least, the bravery of the ruthless. That he was a wicked, a hideous man, but he was no coward. Yet now, his state crumbling around him, he chose not to stand and fight, but to run away. His anger drove Omar to an uncharacteristic recklessness.

  ‘Come on, Ketta, we’re going in. I’m going to stop him leaving. I’m going to make him face what he’s done.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Ketta. ‘Wait, Omar. I’m going to try and get us into the compound without those guards seeing.’ She made an unusual sound and suddenly, Omar saw a strange mist rise in front of him – a thick, black smoke.