by Martin Dukes
“And his pupils have shrunk to tiny pinpricks,” said Kelly glancing back at him. “It’s weird!”
“We’ve got long ropes up there. I guess we can let you down all the way to the ground now the bars at the window have gone,” said Tanya. “Jemail’s up there,” she said with a significant tilt of the head at Kelly. “Will’s there too and Henry’s friend Amjad. Rakesh is organising a boat to get us away. Not tonight, though,” she said with a nod that encompassed the window, the rain and the howling gale beyond.
“Do you think we can get Alex in that harness thing?” asked Kelly doubtfully after a moment in which a cloud seemed to have crossed her brow.
“We’ve got to,” said Henry. “We can’t leave him here.”
“I’d better tell the others what’s going on,” said Tanya. “I guess we’ll have to get Alex down first, then you, then Henry. Then the rest of us’ll come.”
“Careful babe,” said Kelly, squeezing Tanya’s arm as they helped her up to the window once more.
Alex was a deadweight – alive, breathing, but completely unresponsive. With difficulty they tied him into his harness, wrapping a soaking wet shirt around his head to protect it from bumps and scrapes. Then he was pushed up onto the window ledge and out into the void, swinging and turning helplessly as they lowered him the hundred feet or so to the jagged rocks below. Tanya was already down there, waves crashing all around as she unfastened the harness and half dragged, half shoved Alex into what meagre shelter was provided by a cleft between two rocks. She was exhausted; panting, gasping, clutching with one hand at her sides as with the other she tugged on the rope to signal to those waiting above and watched the empty harness spin crazily upwards into the night.
Poor Alex, she thought, battered and bruised by his descent, his cheek gashed, his ear torn, a trickle of blood running from his nostril. Soon she was joined by Kelly, then Henry, then Will and finally Jemail. Jemail was obliged to climb down the rope, a terrifying and hazardous descent, since one man alone could not safely lower another. His hands were red raw, even inside his gloves, and his shoulders and arms ached as though they were on fire. After this, Amjad’s task was to haul up the ropes and make his way back to Zoroaster’s tower where the other conspirators would pull him back up to the balcony. A set of pulleys from the dockyard had been set up for this purpose. By daybreak, except for the damp patches on Fajaruddin’s carpets, there would be no clue as to how the Outlanders had escaped from their cell.
“Thank you so much,” said Kelly, enfolded in Jemail’s embrace.
“You are welcome, my dear,” said Jemail in a mild shout, the expression on his face suggesting that any amount of peril was worth it for this moment.
A huge wave crashed on the rocks below, drenching all of them in a dense cloud of stinging salt spray.
“We should go,” said Henry, looking back at Jemail. “Here, give me a hand with Alex.”
“I’ll show you where to go,” said Tanya, squeezing between Henry and the barnacle encrusted base of the sheer prison wall. “There’s an old house nobody lives in.”
It was as though Alex had sleepwalked along the wave pummelled strip of coastline to the derelict property that was to be their refuge. He seemed oblivious to Henry and Jemail on either side of him, supporting him by the elbows, and oblivious to the surging waves that twice took away their legs and threatened to drag them back into the furious sea. At last, though, they were safe. Amjad had wrenched away the strips of wood that had fastened shut the garden door and they pushed through into the blissful shelter within. The house was a shell, with no furniture of any kind, but it was dry and the gale battered impotently against cracked and splintered shutters that nevertheless held out. Jemail went out to fetch blankets and dry clothes.
“I think it’s dying down a bit,” said Kelly after a period of time that was impossible to measure.
She had been addressing Tanya, whose damp head rested on her shoulder, but Tanya made no response, as she was fast asleep. Kelly shifted her weight to make herself comfortable, conscious of a dull ache throughout her back where the hard edges of bare brick pressed into her.
They were huddled together for warmth, soaking clothes clinging to flesh in which cuts, bruises and grazes were only now becoming apparent, the adrenalin in their systems having rendered them insensible of these until now.
Jemail came back with a bundle of dry clothing in various ill-fitting sizes that might have seemed comical had anyone cared or been able to see properly. No lamp could be lit, because to have kindled a light in this empty house would have risked attracting attention. With some difficulty Will and Henry stripped Alex of his clammy garments and dressed him in some new ones. Then they heaved him back into position against the wall next to Kelly. Time passed. The wind gradually abated and the rain became no more than an irregular pitter-patter on the shutters, finally dying away completely. The darkness that had enfolded them began to retreat as a grey light filtered into the bleak room that was their refuge.
“Alex?” said Henry, rubbing at a bruise on his elbow. There was enough light now to see Alex’s eyes clearly. They were wide open, the pupils no more than tiny black dots. His jaw hung slackly, his features expressionless. As Henry watched, the pupils suddenly dilated. The mouth twitched. Recognition dawned.
“Huh?” Alex swallowed, turning his head. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Ah, nothing,” said Henry sardonically, giving his cheek a tweak. “It’s been dull, dull, dull round here.”
“He’s back!” said Will getting stiffly to his feet.
Suddenly everyone was clustered around Alex, stretching aching limbs, talking in low, excited voices and explaining to him how they came to have escaped from the Sultan’s grasp. For now.
“There’s a cove to the south of here,” said Jemail, who had had the opportunity to meet with his brother earlier. “The seas are still high but the wind is settling in the south-west now and the master of my brother’s vessel thinks a passage will be possible, if hazardous. We need to be there at dusk. But first we must leave the city, as soon as the gates are opened. As soon as the escape is detected, all the gates will be watched.”
“Rakesh and Jemail are going to take us across to Zanjd, and then up north to Punt,” said Tanya for Alex’s benefit.
Alex still felt dazed. The world around him had taken on the appearance of an illusion, impressively realistic but illusory nevertheless. He felt as though by reaching out with his hand he would pass his fingers straight through the people who surrounded him.
“Ow! That’s my eye,” said Tanya ruefully, providing evidence contrary to this theory.
Alex felt light-headed and possessed of a kind of dreamy amiability that made it impossible for him to empathise with the tense anxiety so obvious in his comrades. He beamed at Kelly, who knitted her brow and offered him a wan smile while patting his knee comfortingly.
“I’m starving,” said Will plaintively.
“We’re all hungry,” said Henry with a critical glance, and Will immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. One of the penalties of being fat was having people believe you couldn’t think of anything but your own belly. There was, of course, an element of truth in this, at least so far as Will was concerned, but it was best not brought to public attention. There were other things on his mind, too. The skies had been completely obscured by cloud since his return to Zanzibar, but it was easy to imagine the two moons approaching fatefully closer and closer.
“I’ve got something I need to tell you,” he said, taking off his glasses and polishing them on his sleeve. His eyes always seemed much shrunken, pale, somehow vulnerable when he did this, and there was something in the urgency of his tone that secured everyone’s attention.
“Go on…” said Henry evenly.
“No way,” was Henry’s considered response when Will had finished telling his story. “I mean, what are you on?”
Will wished that Zoroaster were here to lend some credence to his accoun
t.
“You haven’t been listening to me,” said Will peevishly. “I’m not making this up.”
“I wish I could truly believe you,” said Jemail. “People speak of ill omens. But does the end of our small part of the world truly approach? It seems so bizarre.”
“Believe it,” said Will. “It’ll be the end of Zanzibar, anyway. Whatever you think. And Zanjd too, and maybe even Punt, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.”
“It sounds so improbable,” said Kelly, also struggling to accept Will’s story. “A storm of tiny worms?”
“They’re nasty little suckers,” said Will vehemently, wiggling his finger descriptively. “You’ve never seen one. Trust me.”
“Okay,” said Henry wearily. “So let me get this straight. If the Sultan’s men don’t get us, these little worm jobbies are going to do the trick. Am I right? Is it too late to get life insurance?”
“So what are we going to do?” asked Tanya. “If we go to Zanjd aren’t we actually going towards where all the worms are going to come from?”
“If this is true we need to take ship again in Zanjd and sail north, as far as we are able,” said Jemail grimly. “But the same is true if you are misinformed, so our plans remain the same. I suppose I must speak to Rakesh and ask him to pass the word of this, this ‘worm storm’ in Zanzibar before he leaves, although I doubt anyone will believe it.”
“But won’t there be mass panic?” asked Will round-eyed. “I mean, people fighting each other to get on ships at the harbour and all that?”
“No, there won’t, Will,” said Henry adamantly. “Because no one will believe it. Have you got that? It’s a silly story and no one will believe it.”
“You wait until we see Zoroaster,” grumbled Will. “I bet you’ll believe him.”
By dawn the party was on the move once more. Amjad arrived in the street outside with a covered wagon, and the Outlanders climbed into the back, making sure that they were unobserved by the few passers-by at this time of day. The wagon trundled up a steep hill and around a corner before meeting with one of the main roads that led to the south gates of the city. The rain had stopped, but a brisk wind tugged at the canvas flaps at the rear of the wagon and sombre grey clouds hurried northwards overhead. Even at this hour a few carts and workmen were passing through the Balaal Gate, observed without apparent interest by a couple of sleepy guards. Another, more junior, sentinel was balefully sweeping out one of the guard rooms flooded by the night’s torrential deluge.
Inside the wagon the Outlanders huddled together, regarding each other anxiously, pulses racing as their progress was suddenly halted. How early in the morning would the jailer check on his prisoners? Was he an early riser? If their escape had been detected there might already be messengers on the way to order the sealing of the gates and the searching of all carts and wagons leaving the city. Kelly bit her swollen lip. Tanya hugged her knees to her chest while Will rubbed his gritty eyes. Henry placed his hand over Alex’s mouth when it seemed that he might be about to make some cheerful observation about the large insect that had alighted on his foot. They could hear conversation outside. The cart in front of them had stopped whilst its driver, who was personally known to one of the guards, asked the man how his mother was recovering from her recent fall. Looking up and to the front of the wagon, Kelly could read the tension in Amjad and Jemail’s backs and shoulders as they sat on the driver’s bench. How soon should they display signs of impatience at the hold-up? As sons of the nobility, neither of them looked at all like a typical wagon driver, even dressed in stained and shabby garments. Neither of them wished to attract attention or to antagonise the guards unnecessarily. But on the other hand, to show unnatural patience in the face of this provocation might itself be thought suspicious. Another cart pulled up behind. A couple of pedestrians trudged past, one leading a donkey. Seconds passed. Henry swore under his breath and then repeated it over and over again as a kind of mantra until Kelly nudged his leg.
“What?” he mouthed.
She narrowed her eyes at him and made a face that might have intimidated more sensitive boys.
With a laugh, the talkative driver urged his horse into motion and the cart creaked onward at last. Amjad flicked his own reins and the wagon trundled past the guards and through the gate without incident.
“The heavens have smiled upon us once more,” said Jemail, turning to regard his passengers when the wagon was a good hundred yards along the road. “Now we must find a safe place to wait out the day. A retainer of mine has a forge on the outskirts of a village a few miles further on. He will let us take refuge in his stable until dusk. Now we must pray that the seas remain calm and the wind continues to blow from this quarter.”
The stable proved to be dry, if somewhat smelly, but the Outlanders were past caring about such niceties by now. They slept for much of the day, having made themselves beds amongst the straw with which one end of the stable was stacked. By late afternoon, the wind had dropped to a steady breeze and the face of the sky was covered in low banks of brooding grey cloud, tinged with crimson in the east. The party set out an hour before dusk, avoiding the main road to the city, which was said to be patrolled by groups of soldiers. The owner of the forge reported that news of the escape had spread quickly, that the Sultan was said to be furious and that a huge search operation was being conducted within the city. All shipping was being searched in the harbour and no vessel could set sail without first having been thoroughly investigated. Jemail conducted them across the main road and along a track that led towards the coast, through orchards, neat fields and clove plantations, passing a number of imposing mansions set in walled gardens. The light was already beginning to fade when they struck the coastal path and turned to head south. They met a shepherd with his flock, but apart from this the path was deserted, passing through a dense wood at the head of a narrow valley and then hugging the flanks of cliffs that fell away steeply in tumbled masses to the heaving sea below.
After a mile or so it became clear that they were being followed. Looking back across the small bay they had skirted, Amjad spotted a number of small figures coming down onto the path from the ground of one of the large mansions they had passed. There was a particular urgency and single-mindedness in their movements. Although they were not running, they were certainly moving at a very brisk pace.
“Do you think they’re coming after us?” asked Will with a frown.
“I fear they are,” said Jemail appearing at his side. “We have a good start on them but they are moving fast. If there is another party coming along the path from the other direction, I fear we shall be doomed.”
The vessel that was to take them to Zanjd, a two-masted ship called a ‘sanbuq’, stood at anchor in a little cove a mile further along the coast, lateen sails flapping and ready to raise anchor at a moment’s notice. A launch waited in the shallows of the shingle beach, four men at the oars.
“Come on, nearly there,” said Will to Alex in encouraging tones. ”Let’s step out a little, shall we?”
Alex was clearly far from being recovered. He alone amongst the party was whistling unconcernedly, his stride casual and his arms swinging loosely at his side.
“Hurry up!” came Kelly’s anxious voice from up front. “They’re catching us up.”
It was true – the party of men that was following them along the coastal path had closed the gap alarmingly. There were at least a dozen of them. The manner of their clothing suggested that at least some of them were palace nobles. Henry stopped to look back, shielding his eyes.
“Oh my God!” he said after a moment. “If it isn’t my old pal, Shazad.”
“He has land in these parts,” said Amjad at his side. “We must have been observed as we cut through the grounds of that house. He will have summoned the Sultan’s men, too.”
Shazad and his party were fairly racing along the path, hidden from sight now and again as they followed the ins and outs of the rocky coastline. Distant shouts cou
ld be heard, carried on the wind.
“We’re never going to make it,” said Jemail judging the distance between the cove and their pursuers. “They’ll be onto us before we get down onto the beach.”
“They will unless someone holds them up,” said Henry with narrowed eyes, surveying the path as it narrowed to cling to the face of a high cliff. From here there was a sheer drop of thirty feet or so to the sea below. He turned to Jemail.
“You take care of the others. Put a boot up Alex’s backside. Sling him over your shoulders if you have to, but get them down to that beach double quick time. I’m going to hold the pass.”
“You’re what? Are you mad?” gasped Jemail, following Henry’s outstretched finger. “You have no weapon. You will certainly be killed.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Henry with deliberate casualness. “Me and Master Shazad have got history, see. This is how it’s going to be…”
When Shazad, his friends, retainers and servants came pelting round the base of the cliff they found themselves standing suddenly face to face with Henry, Amjad stationed warily a few yards beyond. Shazad’s party came to an abrupt halt, not without a little jostling at the rear as latecomers pushed forward. Shazad held out his arms to restrain his followers and stepped forward with a wary smile. The path was at its narrowest point here. There was no getting past Henry without pushing him off the edge or stepping over his body.
“Hi, Shazad, my big-nosed friend,” said Henry, breaking off from studying his nails. “I believe we have unfinished business.”
“Oh, yes. We have indeed,” said Shazad. “I believe you have some business on the end of this.”
He drew his sword briskly from its scabbard and held it towards Henry’s throat.
