by P. B. Kerr
Philippa fetched the burning torch down from the wall and, for a second, held it under the piranha’s tail. Immediately, the fish let go and dropped onto the floor.
Groanin let out a breath and rubbed his backside painfully. “Thank you, miss.” He looked irritably at the piranha, which now lay on the ground biting at thin air and then booted it across the cave. “Ugly nasty thing.”
“I daresay the fish had the same thought,” said Zadie, which earned her a look of reproach from the butler.
“That’s a relief, I must say,” said Groanin.
“I wouldn’t start ringing any bells,” said Zadie. “Those Indians are on their way back here. They must have heard you bellowing.”
“I’m only human, you know,” answered Groanin.
“Don’t remind me,” said Zadie.
Muddy ran to the edge of the cave and looked down a hill at the Xuanaci village. A large party of Xuanaci warriors was already coming up the hillside path. They were carrying spears and longbows. “She’s right,” he said. “We gotta do something quick before them Indians come up the hill.”
Philippa was untying the sack in which Sicky lay, bound hand and foot. “Sicky’s tattoo,” she said. “The one on his belly. It turns anyone who looks at it to stone. Like the Gorgon. They won’t dare come up here if there’s a risk of seeing that.” She loosened the gag on Sicky’s small mouth.
“Thank you, miss,” he said.
“How do you feel, Sicky?” asked Philippa.
“Sick,” he said, sitting up and untying his feet.
“Ask a silly question,” said Zadie.
“But I’ll be all right.”
“Just tell him to bring his belly over here,” said Zadie, tap-dancing on the floor nervously. “And quick.”
“No good,” said Sicky, and showed Philippa his belly. “I’m not well at all. Before they put me in the sack, the Xuanaci blindfolded themselves and covered my tattoo with liquid latex. Rubber. From the Hevea tree. It’ll take ages to peel off.”
“That’s unfortunate,” remarked Philippa. “Because it will take at least an hour to build a fire and get warm enough to have djinn power again.”
“I hate to sound like I’m stating the obvious, but we don’t have an hour.” Zadie screamed and then ducked as an arrow and then a spear flew through the air and into the cave.
“She’s right,” said Sicky. “We gotta get out of this place. If it’s the last thing we ever do.”
“How I wish Pizarro and his whole army were here now,” yelled Zadie. “To teach these horrible people a lesson they’d never forget.”
Philippa picked up the torch and then retreated into the back of the cave. “Here,” she cried. “This way. There’s a kind of curtain in the rock.”
She peered inside the fissure and saw that the torch had illuminated a steep natural stairway that was enclosed between narrow walls of cold damp rock. Philippa stepped inside. The others followed quickly. There was no time to debate where the passage might lead them.
At the bottom of the narrow stairway, Philippa scorched the wall with the torch. “In case we need to find our way back again,” she said.
“I hardly think we’ll want to come back this way,” observed Zadie. “Not unless we want to wind up on the Xuanaci menu.”
“We don’t actually know that they’re cannibals,” said Philippa. Remembering that she had been completely wrong about headhunters, she glanced at Sicky and said, “Are they?”
“Not cannibals as such,” he said. “Xuanaci like to eat raw piranha that have just feasted on living human flesh. This is why you were in the rock pool. Piranha stuffed with fresh human meat is a great delicacy for Xuanaci.”
This made everyone hasten their steps even more, although there was no indication that they were being pursued.
“Why don’t they come after us?” asked Groanin, looking around nervously. In a small backpack, the butler was carrying the box containing Pizarro’s skull, which he’d grabbed just before leaving the cave, to avoid Nimrod — if he ever saw Nimrod again — scolding him for losing it a second time.
“Because we have the only torch,” said Philippa, heading farther down into the secret depths of the cave and making another scorch mark on the wall. “They’ll probably follow as soon as they’ve brought more light.”
They wound this way and that and eventually found themselves descending a precipitous path into a spacious cavern from whose dripping ceiling hung virtual chandeliers of stalactites. Leaving this cavern, they progressed down to another cavern that was full of stalagmites growing out of the ground like so many stone trees. And beyond this, at an even deeper level, was a vast cavern where stalactites and stalagmites had come together in fantastic glittering pillars and in which everything was a shadow or a pool of darkness. The light from the burning torch in Philippa’s hand seemed quite unequal to the task of illuminating the tomblike gloom. And now, for the first time since the excitement of their escape, the silence of these deep, underground caves laid a chill hand upon their spirits. It hadn’t escaped anyone’s attention that the light from the torch was getting smaller and that all too soon they would be in cold darkness.
“I was kind of hoping that we might find something to burn down here,” Philippa said as they climbed down a new passageway. She put her finger in a freezing rock pool and tasted it carefully.
“Duh,” said Zadie. “Most plants and trees that you could burn don’t grow underground. Any fool knows that. And with nothing to burn, there’s zero prospect of getting warm.”
“I was thinking more of mineral deposits,” admitted Philippa. “Oil or sulfur or coal.”
Groanin shot Zadie a sarcastic smile. “See? She knows what she’s doing.”
“Unless we find a mineral deposit we should go back, and take our chances with the Xuanaci,” said Zadie. “One chance in a hundred with them is better than no chance stumbling around in the darkness.”
Sicky took the torch from Philippa and wrapped the sack he’d been tied up inside earlier on around the flame. “We can burn some of our clothes for a while,” he said. “We can do that.”
“And get even colder than I am now?” demanded Zadie. “I don’t think so. I’d give anything for a nice hot bath.”
“Wait a minute,” said Philippa. “A hot bath. Yes. That’s it. Maybe there is something we can do. Back at Mr. Vodyannoy’s house, when John was attacked by that big cat in the hall of shadows, he put his hand in the fire and pulled out a burning log.”
When Zadie failed to respond with anything more than a shrug, Philippa shook her head and said, “Don’t you get it? He wasn’t burned. Perhaps if, together, we sort of washed our hands in the flame of this torch we might get a bit of djinn power back.”
“Have you ever done anything like that before?” asked Zadie.
“No,” admitted Philippa.
“Well, then. It sounds a bit far-fetched to me.”
“Why? We djinn are made of fire. Everyone knows that.” Philippa shrugged. “And what’s the worst that could happen? We get our fingers burned.”
Somewhere in the distance they heard a shout echoing through the caves. The Xuanaci were on their trail again.
“Better hurry up,” said Muddy. He peeled off his T-shirt and wound it around the burning torch.
“Look, why do you need me to do it with you?” asked Zadie. “Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“All right, I will,” said Philippa, and sitting down on the cold stone floor of the cave, she rolled up her sleeves and cracked her knuckles, like a conjurer preparing to perform a magic trick.
Sicky sat down in front of her and held the torch out. “You sure you know what you’re doing, miss?” he asked. “This fire burns small but still plenty hot.”
And seeing it close up, Philippa was bound to agree with Sicky in one respect, at least. The flame probably wasn’t going to last long enough for what she had in mind.
A shirt lasted hardly any time at all. They were going to have to burn s
omething else as well. Something longer-lasting that gave a more even flame. But what?
“Here,” said Groanin, guessing the reason that lay behind Philippa’s hesitation. “Why not burn this?” He laid the antique wooden box, which he had been carrying, on the ground between them before opening it and removing the skull of the infamous conquistador, Francisco Pizarro.
“Good idea,” said Zadie.
Philippa considered the idea for a moment. Something about the ancient box gave her pause. “I don’t know,” she said.
“It’s just an old box,” added Zadie. “What harm could it do?”
“All right,” Philippa told Sicky. “Go ahead and set fire to it.”
Sicky lit his vest and then laid the box on top of the burning cloth.
For a moment the box smoked mysteriously and started to burn with a small clear green flame. Philippa was about to take a deep breath in order to concentrate but was put off from doing so by a strong sulfurous smell — like the vague stink of rotten eggs — that now filled the cavern’s air. She waved her hand in front of her nostrils.
“That wooden box is inlaid with cinnabar,” said Groanin. “I’ll bet that’s what we smell.”
Philippa nodded and, extending one hand, held it over the growing green flame.
“Ouch,” said Muddy.
“Give over talking,” said Groanin. “She needs to concentrate. I say, she needs to concentrate.”
Philippa nodded her thanks silently and continued to hold her small hand above the flame. To look at, it remained the same. Her hand did not change color and blacken as a human hand would have. Nor was it an unpleasant sensation that she experienced. Already she felt nothing more than the molecules in her hand starting to buzz, as if she were holding a wire attached to an electric current. But it was not enough and so she clasped both her hands together as if washing them in the pungent green flame, in the hope that heating both hands at the same time would achieve the desired result. Closing her eyes she pictured the heat now coursing through her body and the warmer blood moving more quickly in her veins, and prayed that the heat might stir something deep inside her supernatural being. And yet it was not enough. The return of djinn power still eluded her.
“It’s not working,” muttered Philippa. “Quick, Zadie, give me your hands for a djinncantation. I need to harness your power to mine. Immediately.”
“Yes, but what shall we wish for?”
“To find a way out of here, of course.”
For once Zadie did as she was asked without an argument. And holding hands tightly in the green flame the two young djinn waited for some sensation that the spark of djinn power had been reignited deep inside them.
But instead of Zadie harnessing her power to Philippa’s, it was Philippa who found her own power harnessed to Zadie’s. And almost immediately a wish was granted. Abruptly, Zadie let go of Philippa’s hands and stood up with a yell, aware that power had been and gone, albeit in an instant. “No!” she said. “Not that. I didn’t mean that.”
At the same moment, Philippa felt an almost insignificant bat-squeak of power herself and quickly wished for a flashlight. Almost immediately a flashlight duly appeared. It was not much of a wish. It was not much of a flashlight. But it was all that Philippa was able to manage with just the thin sliver of djinn power that had been left to her by Zadie. Something else — another stronger, more powerful wish — had taken precedence and vacuumed up all the djinn power that she and Zadie had manufactured in the heat of the now spluttering green flame.
“What happened?” asked Philippa.
“The power went out of me before I could stop it,” Zadie said forlornly.
“Yes, but what happened?”
Zadie shook her head. “It wasn’t my fault,” she insisted. “I must have wished for something a while ago. It was a simple case of earlier wish fulfillment.”
“But what did you wish for?” demanded Philippa.
“I don’t know,” said Zadie. “I’ve forgotten.”
“You great Sammy,” said Groanin, and pointed at the box. The flame had gone out and it seemed unlikely that they would manage to kindle it again.
“Something happened,” said Philippa. “I felt a surge of power. A wish got granted. Quite a big wish.”
“Er, I think I know what she wished for,” said Sicky, nervously pointing behind them.
Pizarro’s skull was no longer just a skull. It had become something much more than just yellowing bone and ivory-colored teeth. It had become a tall, sinewy, yellowing man of about sixty years of age, with hollow cheeks and a thin gray beard. He wore an ancient steel helmet and a rather battered-looking breastplate, but the edge on his sword looked keen enough. This unexpected result would have been quite bad enough, but even while they watched yet more Spanish conquistadors and several dozen horses began to appear inside the underground cavern.
“It’s almost as if an army is being assembled,” observed Philippa.
“Blimey,” said Groanin. “That’s it. I remember what it was that daft bat wished for now. It was back in the cave when the Xuanaci were chucking spears at us. I heard Zadie wish that Pizarro and his whole army could be here now to teach them Indians a lesson they’d never forget. And now here they all are.”
CHAPTER 12
GIVE A LITTLE WHISTLE
Back at the deserted camp, John handed Nimrod the message from Virgil McCreeby he had taken from Zadie’s pet bat, Zotz, which was still clinging to her backpack.
Nimrod read the message and then read it again. Then he read it aloud:
ZADIE.
YOUR MONSTER CENTIPEDES, MOSQUITOES, AND SNAKES ARE MUCH APPRECIATED BY US AND WILL CERTAINLY HELP TO SLOW NIMROD UP A BIT.
OF COURSE, IT IS TO BE EXPECTED THAT HE OR MR. VODYANNOY WILL DEFEAT WHATEVER YOU CAN THROW AT THEM. AFTER ALL, THEY ARE POWERFUL DJINN.
BUT THE CONFUSION CREATED BY YOUR OWN POWERS SHOULD BE ENOUGH FOR YOU TO GET THE MAP AWAY FROM MR. VODYANNOY.
I AM VERY RELIEVED TO HEAR THAT YOU MANAGED TO BRING THE TEARS OF THE SUN. YOU WILL REMEMBER THAT BOTH THESE AND THE MAP ARE ESSENTIAL TO OUR 5NAL PURPOSE.
VIRGIL MCCREEBY.
“You see?” said John. “What did I tell you?”
“Yes,” agreed Nimrod. “It’s disappointing.”
“Disappointing?” John shrugged. “I’d call that an understatement. Still, I guess it explains why she wanted to come along on this expedition. She’s been working for Virgil McCreeby all along.”
“It looks that way,” agreed Nimrod. “I suppose we’d better check to see if the map is still there.”
Virgil McCreeby was an unscrupulous and unprincipled English magus whom John and Nimrod had met before. He was also the father of Finlay McCreeby, his estranged son, who John regarded as one of his closest mundane friends.
John was already searching Mr. Vodyannoy’s backpack. “It’s gone,” he said.
“Let us hope that Frank has it on his person,” said Nimrod. “However, I do fear the worst.”
He placed McCreeby’s message in his pocket before examining the three stone statues, especially their feet.
“I’m afraid that these are Xuanaci warriors, all right,” he pronounced finally. “Each of them has the scar of a letter X on his heel. Sicky told me that this is a distinctive characteristic of the Xuanaci tribe. They make this mark so as not to confuse the footprints of other men they might be tracking, with their own.”
“Then we have to mount a rescue,” said John.
Nimrod said nothing.
“They’re headhunters. We have to go after them.”
“All in good time,” said Nimrod. “First we have to establish why three djinn were unable to protect themselves.”
“That’s easy,” said John, and pointed at Hector. “Muddy’s dog chewed up the tents, which then let in water during last night’s heavy rain. They all got wet and were probably too cold to use djinn power when the Xuanaci turned up.”
“While that might certainly be
true of immature djinn like Philippa and Zadie,” said Nimrod, “it doesn’t explain why someone of Mr. Vodyannoy’s age and experience failed to protect everyone from an attack. He would have to have been very cold indeed for his djinn power to have deserted him.”
“That’s right,” said John. “What happened to Mr. V?”
“As I see it there are three possibilities,” said Nimrod. “He abandoned his fellow travelers. He was murdered by someone. Or he was incapacitated by someone. Since I know Mr. Vodyannoy to be a djinn of some courage and resourcefulness, I must discount the first possibility. That leaves the second two possibilities. If he had died here, however, the Xuanaci would probably have taken his head as a trophy and, of course, we would have found his body. This leaves only the third possibility. That in some way Mr. Vodyannoy was incapacitated by Zadie. Perhaps, so that she might steal the map from him.”
Nimrod and John glanced around Mr. Vodyannoy’s tent.
“Maybe she put a djinn binding on him while he was asleep,” offered John.
“I fear it was not a binding that she put on him, John,” Nimrod said quietly. “QWERTYUIOP!” A thin latex glove appeared on the older djinn’s hand even as he bent down to pick up a small yellow object he had spotted underneath Mr. Vodyannoy’s camp bed. “I strongly suspect that she put this on him. A poisonous arrow frog. One of the most deadly creatures in all of South America. Any mundane man probably would have been killed by skin contact with this little creature. And while it wouldn’t have killed him, even a powerful djinn like Mr. Vodyannoy would have been made very seriously ill if, as I think, it was placed on his head or chest.” Nimrod put the frog on the ground and carefully peeled off his glove.
“It’s true, I don’t like Zadie all that much,” admitted John. “Especially now in light of McCreeby’s message. But I find it hard to believe she could have done something so wicked. I mean, she’s from a respectable family. From a good tribe.”
“What you say is quite true,” said Nimrod. “But if Zadie does turn out to be responsible I’m sure it will be discovered that she has been acting under McCreeby’s influence. McCreeby is without question a powerful magus and a hypnotist of some considerable skill. Let us ask Mr. Vodyannoy. I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us what we want to know.”