by Martin Dukes
Kelly nodded bleakly.
“I wish,” she said. “I wish, I…” but she could not bring to utterance what had haunted her since leaving Jemail. He had expressed his love for her at the moment of their parting, and she had not done likewise, whether through moral cowardice or confusion or for whatever reason, but the fact remained that Jemail had breathed his last without that consolation. The dreadful awareness of this gnawed at her being.
“What?” said Henry after another inspection of his wound, one that was sorer now than it had ever been. Perhaps infection had set in. “Spit it out, whatever’s on your mind.”
“Leave her,” said Will looking anxious.
“What?” demanded Henry more insistently now.
“I should have told him I loved him,” blurted Kelly, before being racked by another fit of sobbing. Amjad and Zoroaster looked across uncomfortably from the tree they were sitting under. Will put his arm around her shoulder and shot Henry a glance of pure poison. Tanya came across and held Kelly’s hand, mouthing a word at Henry that caused him to pull a disgusted face.
“Oh, right,” said Henry awkwardly, ignoring Tanya’s jibe. And then, after a moment, “Did you love Jemail? I mean, really?” A hot flush rose in his cheeks even as he asked.
“I don’t know,” moaned Kelly, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve, her own face reddened and contorted with grief. It was true. Her mind was in turmoil with grief, regret and self-doubt. “I don’t know what I feel. How am I supposed to know?”
“How can you not know what you’re feeling?” said Henry to himself, getting to his feet. “Chicks!” he continued disgustedly, shaking his head.
“Well, I guess you’d be best placed…” he said out loud.
“Shut up Henry,” said Tanya and Will together. “Leave her alone,” added Will. “Can’t you see she’s hurting?”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry,” muttered Henry with a sidelong glance at Kelly. “Come on, chin up. We need to get moving. There’s going to be people around now.”
There were, as Henry predicted, more road users on the move as the rim of a blood-red sun crept above the horizon. They passed a party of farm workers heading off to their morning’s labours, a couple of merchants leading a file of mules and an elderly man on an ox-cart. It was inevitable that these should be questioned by their pursuers, that their position and direction should be disclosed. It was not, however, until they reached the outskirts of Tattash that the Sultan’s men caught up with them. It was a sultry day, the sun baking the flatlands around the town on the desert’s edge. There was not even a hint of an oven-mouth breeze to stir the heat haze that shimmered above the road, and the lizards basked heavy-lidded on walls and on the shattered pantiles of crumbled buildings.
“Listen,” said Henry, raising a hand and glancing around him.
“What?” said Zoroaster, turning in his saddle.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” asked Zoroaster irritably. He twisted round to see where Kelly, Tanya and Will were bringing up the rear, each of them heavy shouldered with the heat and the weariness of the miles they had travelled.
“It’s silent,” said Henry. “No birds, no insects. Nothing – that’s what I mean.”
The streets were deserted, too. It was as though the entire population of Tattash slumbered uneasily in the breathless shade of porches and verandas.
“You’re right,” said Zoroaster. “And I don’t much like the look of that.”
He pointed to the west, where there was a brooding darkness low on the horizon.
“Riders!” came a shout from Amjad, who had climbed on a wall to peer back along the road they had travelled. There was the sound of hoof beats now, growing louder, and a party of eight horsemen appeared from behind a ruined farm. Another four emerged from between buildings ahead of them, spear points levelled.
“That’s done it!” said Amjad jumping down from the wall. “I don’t like the look of those odds.”
Henry swore, thwacking the flat of his sword despairingly against the side of his boot and beckoning for the others to hurry up. They needed no encouragement, arriving breathlessly at Henry’s side, the horsemen trotting up behind them, spears in their hands and heads wrapped in loose black cloth so that only their eyes were exposed.
The leader flicked his reins and approached closer, even as the other riders formed a loose circle around them. There was no way of escape. Agile and confident, the young man passed his lance to the man next to him and sprang down from his saddle, snatching away the black cloth that had concealed the lower part of his face.
“No way!” groaned Henry. “It’s my favourite aristo.”
“So,” said Shazad smugly. “We meet again.” He cast his head cloth back over his shoulders.
“Is that the best you can do?” asked Henry. He repeated Shazad’s greeting back to him in a high mocking voice.
“Your final hour has come, my friend,” said Shazad grimly. “The Sultan has appointed me your executioner. It’s always good to be able to combine business with pleasure.” His sword flew from its sheath and suddenly Henry was looking at its glittering point. “I trust you’re not going to make this too easy. I want to look back on this one and savour it.”
“Henry!” gasped Tanya from behind him as he brought his own sword point up to engage his opponent’s, pressing lightly, oh so lightly, on its tip; a trip wire, a sounding board to alert him to any sudden move. A glance around him sufficed to assure him that the other riders were content to watch the show. His friends and companions stood in a tight knot behind him, faces tense with anxiety.
“Nowhere to go this time, is there Henry?” said Shazad, right foot edging forward, left hand held back – an elegant counterbalance. “Only one way out this time, Henry, isn’t there?”
Henry found that he was afraid. No verbal riposte tripped off his tongue. This organ lay heavy in his mouth, swollen and useless even as the saliva welled in the back of his throat. It was all he could do to steady himself, to focus all of his being on the sword point, the front foot and Shazad’s eyes, the true heralds of intent. He tried to clear his mind, to focus on the action to come, but it was different this time. He knew that he would lose, that Shazad was better than him and that the sharp steel would bite into his flesh once more. This terrible knowledge throbbed in his head, trembled along his arm and along the slick blade of his sword, shivering down his legs until he thought he must surely collapse.
“Nothing to say, Henry?” sneered Shazad, making a sudden darting lunge.
With a grunt, Henry stepped back and deflected the blade, making a riposte of his own that owed more to instinct than to strategy. Shazad easily flicked this aside and tut-tutted, taking a series of small side steps which were reciprocated by Henry until the two were warily circling each other, tensely alert for a moment’s vulnerability. The blades engaged again and there was a series of flashing clashes of steel as each sought to find a weakness in his opponent’s defence. Twice Shazad’s blade flicked at Henry’s sleeve and once darted within a hair’s breadth of his chin. He bit his lip. “Focus,” he told himself. “He’s confident, perhaps over confident, so lead him on.”
He stepped back a little, weaving a tight steel mesh of defence as he did so, conscious of Shazad’s right foot edging forward. There was a momentary adjustment in balance, a shifting of weight from back to front. Henry lunged, his blade questing for Shazad’s throat, but his opponent was too fast, stepping sideways, his blade slithering along Henry’s, deflecting it deftly aside and riposting with a thrust of his own that sliced hotly along the side of his face. Henry staggered for an instant, recovered his balance, conscious now of the trickle of blood on his cheek. There were agonised gasps behind him from his friends.
“First blood, my friend,” taunted Shazad. “But I’m sure there’s more where that came from. Let’s see, shall we?”
The pain of his wound seared through Henry’s cheekbone, but the furious indignation that
seized him now was hotter still, burning through the chill of terror that had dulled nerves and synapses. He hacked and lunged and slashed at Shazad in a heedless frenzy of rage that drove his opponent back towards the line of his mounted comrades. Shazad only smiled, effortlessly turning aside each of the fierce blows and finally stepping forward nimbly, sweeping aside Henry’s advanced foot with his own, meeting his blade firmly and hurling Henry to the floor. Henry’s sword flew from his hand. He sprawled in the dust, his face a mask of fear and consternation.
Shazad stood over him, sword point poised at Henry’s throat.
“Enough of this, I think,” he said, drawing back the blade to strike.
Alex materialised at Kelly’s side, a great thrill of triumph tingling across his scalp. He grinned broadly, but at once the expression on Kelly’s face banished the delight from his countenance. She whirled round to face him, but there was horror and confusion written in her features. Even as her mouth sprang open to speak, Alex had jerked his head round to take in the situation; the circle of mounted warriors, his friends huddled together, Shazad standing over Henry, Henry in the dust of the road, lifting himself on one elbow. It was as though someone had struck Alex a physical blow, as though he had received an electric shock. He jerked, took a sharp intake of breath, tightened his grip on the baseball bat and jammed his eyes closed.
“A time to die,” said Shazad, even as Alex appeared immediately behind him, arm already raised high. Down it came. The baseball bat hurtled down diagonally and connected with the back of Shazad’s head with a sickening crack. Shazad hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and lay still. Riders swivelled in their saddles. There was a moment’s stunned silence, and Alex span round to face Shazad’s comrades.
“Any more for any more?” he spat, eyes narrowed, swishing the bloodied bat.
Before the men could so much as draw breath, or begin to make sense of what they had just witnessed, Alex had disappeared once more, reappearing behind Shazad’s lieutenant and giving his horse a brisk blow on the hind quarters that made it rear in panic. The panic spread quickly as Alex flashed in and out amongst the awestruck riders, laying about him furiously. Within moments it was over, the riders spurring their mounts away in superstitious terror, a great cloud of dust rising up behind them.
Henry, assisted by Will, clambered groggily to his feet.
“Whoa!” he said. “Way to go, Alex. So that’s your special talent. And it looks like you found your sport, too,” he added with a nod at Alex’s bat.
The others were still standing awestruck, attempting in their own ways to reconcile what they had just witnessed with reality, with a world that’s underlying physical principles they had thought they understood.
“What?” asked Alex, turning to them with arms outstretched.
“You can do magic,” said Tanya in a small voice.
“It’s not magic,” said Alex waving a hand vaguely. “It’s just, er, I don’t know... natural.”
“It didn’t look natural to me,” said Amjad, eyes wide.
“Is anyone going to do anything with this?” demanded Henry, tenderly touching his cheek and looking at a bloodied hand.
Stirred into action, Zoroaster came forward to dab at Henry’s wound, probing it with his fingertips to assess the depth. “It’ll need stitches,” he said.
“Not now it won’t,” said Will looking at the sky anxiously. “We need to get moving.”
“Where are the others?” asked Alex, noticing the absence of Rakesh and Jemail for the first time.
“We had to leave them behind,” said Will with an anxious glance at Kelly, who was still looking stunned, her face ashen and her eyes red and puffy. He drew Alex aside. “Jemail was badly wounded as we got away from that warehouse. Rakesh stayed with him. I should think the Sultan’s men will have got them by now…” He made a vague gesture with his hand that might have been supposed to express his thoughts about their likely fate.
Alex nodded grimly. He looked across at Kelly and was about to say something, but Will caught at his arm.
“I should leave it for now,” he said. “Not the time, you know. Hmm?”
“Yeah,” said Alex with a sigh. “I guess.”
It was obvious enough that Kelly was beyond comforting just now, traumatised as she was by recent events. She had not even acknowledged Alex since his unexpected and wholly extraordinary triumph over their enemies. Alex reflected glumly that bad things tended to happen to those she felt affection for, at least when he was around. First there was Paulo, back in Intersticia, and now Jemail. There seemed a strong likelihood that she would make this connection herself – and that she would blame him for it.
“It’s not my fault,” he told himself. “It really isn’t!” And since when did that make any difference? a cynical strand of thought replied.
“How far now?” asked Henry as he and Amjad helped Zoroaster back onto his donkey.
“Not far at all,” said Will, looking west along the town’s main street. “We just need to head up to the top of the street and turn right. It’s behind those trees up there. You’ll be able to see it in a minute.”
“See what?” asked Alex, using Shazad’s robes to wipe Shazad’s blood off his bat.
“The tower, dumbass,” said Henry turning to him. “You’re not keeping up, are you?”
Will explained about the worm tower as they hurried along the street, where a few people were beginning to venture out to see what all the fuss was about, standing at doorways or on balconies.
“Malcolm’s going to get us out of here,” Alex told him. “Just as soon as they get the lockdown lifted.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Will glancing at the sky to the west. “Because I don’t think we’ve got much time.”
They turned the corner at the top of the street and there was the worm tower, exactly as Will had remembered it, behind the ditch and the tall stand of bamboo. The sky was ominously dark behind it and there was a hot breeze now, blowing from that direction. Lightning flickered distantly.
“We need to get the ladder again,” said Zoroaster dismounting awkwardly from his donkey. “Will, you know where we got it from. Take Amjad. We’ll see you up there.” He nodded towards the tower.
Amjad set off after Will, who was hurrying towards the ladder owner’s house. The others stepped out briskly towards the tower, leaving the donkey standing morosely in the road. It flicked its ears.
“We can’t leave the donkey,” objected Tanya, who had privately christened him ‘Dusty’.
“I’m afraid we must,” said Zoroaster taking her hand. “Unless you propose to help him up a ladder, he must take his chances with everyone else.”
Nevertheless, Tanya turned back to regard her new friend sadly as they moved away. They had almost reached the base of the tower when horsemen appeared at the end of the road, scores of them this time, a cloud of dust rising behind them. Will and Amjad had not yet returned. The door to the tower stood half open, exactly as Will and Zoroaster had left it, but frustratingly inaccessible.
“I wish we’d got a rope,” said Alex distractedly, thinking that he alone was capable of getting up there. “I could pull you all up.”
“No such luck,” said Henry, looking down towards where the horsemen were coming closer. “Where’s Will and Amjad got to?”
“There,” said Tanya, pointing at two small figures emerging from an enclosure, the ladder held between them. The horsemen whooped and spurred their mounts on, brandishing spears and rifles aloft.
“They’re never going to make it,” said Henry gloomily, shaking his head as the distance closed between the riders and their friends. He glanced at Alex. “Looks like it’s down to you again, pal.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Alex taking a firm grip on his bat.
He was tired, mentally and physically. The weariness that troubled him was the mental kind. He wondered how many phase jumps he had left in him before the dark portal closed in the back of his mind.
He disappeared, reappearing in the middle of the road between the riders and their quarry. He stood facing the riders, arms folded and the bat leaning against his thigh. Behind him, Will and Amjad continued to run with their ladder. The column of horsemen halted abruptly, horses shying and capering as their riders struggled to control them. The leader of the column, clad in blue and white, was all too recognisable to Alex.
“You!” said the Sultan, his face dust-streaked beneath his jewelled turban. “They told me you were a devil, and now I see it for myself.”
“I’m not a devil,” said Alex simply. “And I’m not a raving lunatic, either.” He looked up into the Sultan’s eyes steadily. “If you know what I’m sayin’.”
“How dare you!” hissed the Sultan, eyes narrowed. “You will die for that.”
“I doubt it,” said Alex, cocking his head on one side, a half smile playing on his lips. At the same time his mind stood on the brink of the dark portal, ready to make the phase should a spear point twitch or a rifle rise to the shoulder.
“I took you in and befriended you,” said the Sultan bitterly. “I offered you my house, my hospitality… everything. I asked only loyalty and a little gratitude. And how did you reward me? You betrayed me.”
“I refused to kill some poor guy at your command,” said Alex angrily. “Because you’re crazy. Because the guy who did all those great things for me is not the guy I’m looking at now. You’re sick. If you were in my world they’d bang you up in some kind of secure hospital and get your head read.”
Alex glanced behind him, aware that Will and Amjad were struggling across the drainage ditch, Zoroaster and Henry helping with the ladder.
“What kind of devil are you?” demanded the Sultan. “Are you a djinn, which can appear and disappear at will?” He made a gesture and the column of horsemen divided, fanning out on either side of him so that they filled the whole road. More than half of them had Garek’s long rifles, which they now raised to their shoulders, directing their barrels meaningfully at Alex.
