Quest for the Sun (6 page)

It wasn't possible … yet it explained everything. Blue-bum hadn't looked different because he'd been tortured; he'd looked different because he
was
different. He had been Evor all along — ever since we found him half-dead at the edge of Chattering Wood. And he
had
been half-dead … hadn't he? It
had
needed the healing potion to bring him back from the brink of death … hadn't it? I remembered the dried blood we'd sponged from his matted fur, the cuts and lacerations we'd assumed the potion had healed, but never actually saw …

Evor peered up at me from his nest of grizzled hair. ‘Well?' he croaked. ‘Worked it out yet? A simple matter of having you followed from Arakesh; then a sip of water from Chattering Stream, a little glonk-blood here and there … a scatter of kindling to lead you to the bait. A little acting … and you children did the rest, in your pathetic eagerness to believe the best of everything.' He leered at Kenta. ‘Thank you for the cuddles, little girl. I almost grew to like them.'

He hobbled round to face me again, his eyes glittering. ‘The
only one I feared might guess the truth was you …
Prince Zephyr.
'

There was a long beat of silence. Karazeel advanced on the cage, his eyes fixed on me so hungrily I felt they were sucking at my soul. ‘So … that which was prophesised has come to pass. But this is where the legend ends. There will be no triumphant entry into Arakesh for you, nephew. Like the winged horses of Karazan, you will soon be nothing but ash and dust, a forgotten name breathed on the dying wind. But I am one of the mighty, the lords of destiny who shape the future and bend it to their will. Nothing can hinder my rise to greatness.'

In one stride he was beside the massive machine; grabbed a lever and pulled. An electronic humming filled the room. The stars in the vast window began to rotate, faster and still faster, spinning into a vortex of whirling light. Karazeel wheeled to face us, face blazing and demented. ‘You see? I have harnessed the power of skyfire. Night and day are at my command. Soon the very galaxies will be in my control; my forces are as legion as the stars.'

He crossed to the golden lectern and raised both hands above it. There was something on its sloping surface … something flat with raised buttons that glittered like jewels. A keyboard … and the massive box must be a computer, though I was betting most of it was show — the guts would be the microcomputer we'd left behind in Shakesh. With a few modifications thrown in, I thought grimly.

‘It's not a window,' whispered Jamie. ‘It's a computer screen.'

The whirlpool of stars shattered and fragmented. Jamie was right. It wasn't a window with a view of the stars, it was a screen saver — and now, like a camera, it panned to a sweeping panorama of the mountains below. A dizzying hawk's-eye view of the range, a sleeping dragon blanketed in darkness. The camera panned, tipped and swooped downwards, taking us with it on a roller-coaster ride into the swirling depths of the cauldron.

I'd been wrong: it wasn't bottomless. The Cauldron of Zeel was a seething mass of monstrosity. Here were the hordes of Zeel — computer-generated maybe, but like Karazan itself, transformed into creatures of flesh and blood, with gleaming fangs and burning eyes. We skimmed low over a horde of dog-armadillos, past a legion of slavering shrags … and when their forms melted into the wavering grey ranks of the Faceless I closed my eyes and turned my face away. I'd seen enough.

‘When the Cauldron is full to overflowing I will give the command. It will be soon, very soon,' crooned Karazeel, stroking the glittering gems encrusting the keyboard.

‘Alt Control Delete — the magic of destruction.'

 

Suddenly Kenta was beside me. I'd always suspected there was more to gentle Kenta than she let on, and now she proved me right. She gripped a bar in each fist and gave a furious shake. The McCracken whiplash was back in her voice and her eyes were snapping fire. ‘That's what you think! Call yourself king? You're nothing but a crazy upstart! So you think you're going to take over the world? Well, you're wrong —
we're going to stop you!'

Karazeel's mouth dropped open. ‘I —'

‘I haven't finished!' snapped Kenta. ‘I knew Blue-bum would never betray us — I never doubted him for a second. Where is he? What have you done with him?'

‘Kenta, for goodness' sake shut up!' hissed Rich.

Evor was hobbling forward, with a smile I didn't like. Hobbling to the birdcage in the corner and flicking the cover off with a flourish. There, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light, crouched Blue-bum. His fur was as smooth and silky as ever, his monkey-face unlined and almost chubby-looking compared to the wizened mask of Evor. His paws were wrapped tight around the bars of his cage in a mirror image of Kenta's — the smooth, nimble-fingered monkey-paws I remembered. But it was when I looked into his bright, inquisitive eyes that I knew for sure it was really him.

Evor unlocked the door of the birdcage and grabbed Blue-bum by the scruff of his neck. Sidled over to where we stood staring stupidly out and shook him in our faces. With a fumble and a chink, he unlocked a small door set into the bars, opened it a crack and slammed it shut as Blue-bum sprawled on the stone floor at our feet.

‘There is your little friend,' hissed Evor. ‘You can all die together.'

‘But not tonight.' There was a different note in Karazeel's voice — one that drew our eyes to him like a magnet. The wild frenzy had died away; he had sunk down onto his throne, his skin a sickly greenish-grey. ‘The largest part of pleasure lies in anticipation … and now, Evor, it is time for my potion.'

‘Wait!' What had got into Kenta? She was at the bars again, hugging Blue-bum in her arms. ‘If we're going to die anyway, why not give Blue-bum some of that sprinkle stuff and change him back into a boy?'

‘Yeah,' snarled Rich. ‘Be more fun to watch a boy die than a chatterbot.'

‘What a sensitive insight, Richard. But alas, it cannot be done.' As he spoke, Evor selected a phial from the array on the table and held it up, as if checking how much was left. The contents fractured the light like a prism and I caught hints of yellow, red, green and violet. It should have been beautiful, like a rainbow, but the colours were somehow dirty and putrid-looking. The yellow had the sickly cast of pus, the red was the crusty crimson of dried blood, and the green and purple the colour of an old bruise.

‘You see,' Evor continued, ‘the antidote will only work once. We have turned your little friend into a boy once before — a most talkative and knowledgeable boy, as it happened, once his tongue had been loosened by a drop of Truth Potion. No, your friend Blue-bum will remain a chatterbot for the rest of his life.'

‘You're lying! There has to be a way!'

Evor's eyes flickered. ‘There is one way he can be restored to his original form, but from what we have come to know of William Weaver, it might as well not exist. And now, my lord King …'

‘Wait.' The merest croak, but enough to stop the phial before it touched Karazeel's lips. ‘First, bring in the Mauler. It can guard them while I sleep … and the perfume of their terror will scent my dreams.'

Rich and I exchanged a glance. Last time, in Shakesh, the dreaded Mauler had turned out to be nothing more sinister than Hannah's little Tiger Lily, curled smugly on a velvet cushion. My heart gave a skip of hope. Weird things happened in Karazan. Could it be possible …

A faint hum came from the door we'd entered through. The elevator was making its way up from the levels below. It seemed to be struggling. The hum grew louder, and louder still … then stopped. The curved silver door slid smoothly to one side to reveal the dark interior. There was a subtle shift in the shadows, as if the darkness itself had moved.

A figure backed out: a youth, tall and broad-shouldered. He was moving very slowly, with exaggerated caution. Thonged sandals were on his feet; leather greaves protected his shins and forearms. He wore a short tunic and a pleated skirt of pliable leather, with a moulded leather breastplate covering his chest. His head was bare, and even from behind I could see the cow's-lick of brown hair sticking jauntily upwards. Kai — our friend, and the Keeper of the Mauler.

In one hand he held a leather whip, the base as thick as my wrist, tapering to a point as thin and supple as a serpent's tail. In the other hand was a trident. He eased backwards in a slow shuffle, his whole attention fixed on whatever was inside the chamber. His body was tensed, leaning slightly forward as if poised for instant flight. The skin on his back between the wide straps that held the breastplate in place was slick with sweat.

I was conscious of a peculiar smell, a fetid stink like algae in a stagnant pool. I darted a glance at Karazeel and Evor. If the Mauler, whatever it was, was so dangerous, then surely …

Behind the throne was what I'd thought was an ornamental golden screen, but now I realised it had a more practical purpose. Karazeel and Evor had retreated behind the protective barrier and were watching from safety, eyes fixed avidly on the open door of the elevator. Suddenly I felt sick.

Kai's whip snaked out with a crack like a rifle. There was a shuffle, a guttural, grunting roar — and a dark mass of muscle leapt out of the blackness and smashed into our cage with a force that carried it halfway across the room. Steel shrieked on stone; the air shook.

We cowered at the back of the cage, guts quaking.

The creature was scrabbling for a foothold, trying to heave itself on top of the cage. I saw a pulpy expanse of pinky-grey belly — webbed feet bigger than flippers ending in hooked claws that scraped uselessly against the metal. The thing flopped to the floor and squatted there for a second, then gathered itself into another lurching leap that shoved the cage back into the computer casing with a crunch.

‘
No!
' bellowed Kai, brandishing the whip. ‘Get down!
NOW!
' His voice cracked. The creature was trying to force its head through the bars. Strings of drool stretched like slimy cling-wrap between the metal and its gaping jaws; mottled lips peeled back from fangs the size of butcher's knives. Bulging eyes the colour of custard stared at us … then the mouth opened and it roared: a bellow that blasted our faces with the stink of rancid drains. It turned its head sideways, clamped its teeth on the bars and shook. The massive metal structure creaked and juddered; again, the whip cracked. The creature's head twitched as if it had been stung. It released the cage and waddled slowly round … and its eyes locked on Kai.

His whole being was focused on the Mauler, the force of his will bent on it. Three, maybe four paces separated them …
one bound, and it would be over. Kai raised the trident and took one menacing step towards the crouching beast … then another.
‘Down.'
A snarl of a word; the growl of a dominant predator.

For a second the muscles of the great haunches seemed to bunch and flex … then slowly the great body lowered itself to the floor and squatted, slimy hide glistening, the dangling dewlap pulsating.

‘It's a toad,' croaked Richard in disbelief. ‘A mutant toad!'

Kai eased forward and clipped a thick chain to the metal shackle circling the creature's front leg. His hand was shaking; it took three tries before the bolt snicked home. Slowly he backed away, the toad dragging itself after him, the chain grating on the floor. Slowly, slowly, without taking his eyes off the Mauler, he groped for a heavy metal retainer in the wall and snapped the other end of the chain home. Then he turned to the king and bowed. His knees were trembling, but his voice was steady.

‘I am at your service, my lord King.'

Karazeel's eyes were glazed, his skin like dirty dishwater. ‘The Mauler … has it eaten?'

‘Not these three days, my lord.'

The grey lips twitched. ‘It will dine well tomorrow. Good night, children — I wish you pleasant dreams.'

The tower room was still. The flame of a single candle hung suspended in the darkness, a drop of molten gold surrounded by a dusty halo of radiance. The only other light came from the white pinpricks of the stars on the giant computer screen. I'd been gazing at them for what seemed hours, trying to memorise the unfamiliar constellations. Even though I knew it wasn't the real sky, I found it somehow comforting … yet at the same time it gave me the unsettling feeling of being inside a giant computer, staring outwards, as if the window was a star-spangled screen between two worlds. On one side of the screen, I was Adam Equinox … on the other, Zephyr, Prince of the Wind.

And Q, who'd invented the Karazan computer games … here, in the world he'd created, what did that make him? Which was reality — Karazan, or what I still thought of as home? Or was reality a time, not a place … wherever I happened to find myself,
now
? But even time was flexible, not fixed; Karazan had taught us that. The only certainty was inside myself; the only
reality was me. And in this moment —
now
— I was Zephyr. I felt it in every beat of my heart.

Some time after sunrise, Zeel and Evor would return. There was no doubt what would happen then. The vast shape against the wall snuffled and stirred as if it could smell my thoughts; a slit of pale light blinked open, then vanished. Between now and then, a plan must be made.

‘Told you we shouldn't trust anyone …' Rich had muttered bitterly before he fell asleep. ‘We should never have told Blue-bloody-bum anything …'

It was hard to see how we could be worse off than we already were. And anyhow, I thought with a bleak half-smile, there was nothing left to tell; no one left to trust. Only the motionless huddle of the others, exhausted by a day that seemed to have gone on forever — and would almost certainly be our last.

I was in no hurry for it to end.

My eyes jerked open. The kaleidoscope of stars had shifted. Time had passed; I must have slept. Had I dreamed it? No — the sleeping hum of the computer had deepened into a new note: a swelling buzz. It wasn't the computer. It was the elevator.

The hum snapped abruptly into silence. I sat still as stone, the bars digging into my back, staring past the candle — lower now, guttering in a puddle of wax — at the closed door of the lift. It slid open.

The dark bulk of the toad hunched and hissed. There was an answering growl. The creature sank back into the shadows where wall met floor, the two dim, hooded lamps of its eyes following the moving shape across the room. The door sighed shut.

Kai's face peered through the bars. ‘Adam,' he breathed, ‘be you awake?' At the sound of his voice my throat tightened.
There was something in his face … an odd kind of shyness.

‘Yes,' I whispered back. ‘I'm awake.'

‘Give me your hand.'

Puzzled, still half in a dream, I reached my right hand through the bars, expecting him to give me something, or grasp my wrist in the traditional handshake of Karazan. He didn't. He kissed it.

My face flamed in the darkness. I drew a breath to make some light-hearted quip that would brush his gesture aside and turn it into a joke — into something I'd feel comfortable with. The words were halfway to my lips when I saw his face. The rounded cheeks of the boy we'd known had hardened into the strong, flat planes of a man — and they were streaked with tears.

I thought about what those tears meant and something deep in my heart clicked into place. To me … well, I was just me, Adam Equinox. I'd blundered through life inside my own skin, messing up and picking up the pieces and somehow soldiering on. But that wasn't who I was to Kai. It wasn't who I'd have the luxury of ever being again … even to myself.

Kai had lived for this moment, risked everything for it, for Karazan … for me. I took a long, slow breath and tightened my fingers round his hand. ‘Kai, look at me.' We locked eyes. I lifted his hand, turned it, and touched the back to my cheek for a second; tried to smile, but my eyes had filled with tears.

In a hurried whisper I told him everything: about Highgate, Q, the diary, me. ‘Kai,' I finished, ‘we need your help. If we all try together can we lift the cage? Or open it? Is there some way we can get the key?'

He shook his head wordlessly. We'd all watched the tiny silver key Evor had used to open the cage disappear into the folds of his purple cloak.

‘Then there's only one thing for it. We'll have to wait until they let us out in the morning. With luck I'll be first. I'll need a weapon …'

Again, Kai shook his head. There was something almost
apologetic about the way he was looking at me. ‘My lord, there be two secrets I have discovered in the service of Karazeel. They are of great import, and I must reveal them to you now, though I cannot see how they will aid you. The first is this. We know there be a magic portal in the Cliffs of Stone: a door that opens but once in four spans, at Sunbalance.' I nodded. We'd spoken of it moments before: it was the portal Zagros told of in Queen Zaronel's diary, the one I'd been smuggled through as a baby, and our escape route last time we'd been in Karazan.

‘At first it was a secret known to none but Meirion the Prophet Mage. But Meirion vanished; the years passed, and the legend of the Lost Prince refused to die. It was whispered that the infant had been taken into another world: a world beyond the Morningside. Karazeel sent out his scouts, and for many moons they searched the Cliffs of Stone for any sign of an opening. In vain, for they found nothing.

‘But a trusted servant of the King, second only in favour to Evor himself, crept out at dawn on the infant Prince's birthing day and resumed the search. How they happened upon the portal, I know not. Enough that they did. Four years later, this same spy crossed into the other world in search of the lost Prince.'

My head was spinning. ‘Hold on a minute. You're saying that somewhere in the world I come from there's someone from Karazan, looking for me?'

‘Aye.' Kai's whisper was so faint I had to press my face against the bars to make out the words. ‘I know little more. I cannot even tell you if the creature was male or female, only that it was human — once. The name of the spy was Tallow: a dissembler.'

Even through I had no idea what Kai's words meant, a chill trickled down my spine. ‘A dissembler? What's that?'

‘It is the name we give to those whose form and spirit have been melted and remoulded to the will of King Karazeel and
the service of evil. They say their faces forever bear the scars, taking the form of the molten wax of a candle.'

‘Well,' I growled, ‘if he's got a face that looks like a melted candle, he wouldn't be hard to spot.'

‘Nay, for the art of dissemblers is in disguise. They are adept at cloaking their true being, concealing their identity so skilfully it is impossible for any to guess it.'

‘I'm glad you've told me.' But I wasn't. It gave me the creeps to imagine a creature from Karazan searching for me. I gave myself a mental shake. Truth was, there wasn't much point worrying about it, not here in Karazan, with the prospect of being eaten alive by the Mauler and the desperate need to find some way of dealing with Karazeel.

‘Kai,' I whispered, ‘about the morning. Time's running out. If I could borrow your trident, and find some way of hiding it …'

‘That be the second thing.' Something told me I was going to like this piece of news even less. ‘Evor has brewed potions for many things. Potions to kill …' I thought of my father … ‘and a potion to bestow eternal life.'

‘What?'

‘Aye: a potion of immortality, the potion Karazeel was calling for. It has become a hunger for him, a need greater than food or water or air itself. While it flows in his blood he will not age, and nothing under the twin moons can do him harm.

‘So, my Prince, your quest is ended. Nothing and no one in this world can overthrow Karazeel — not even the child of legend grown to man and King.'