“Boats like this generally have food and water stored in case the ship sinks,” she whispered. “Can you give us some light?”
“How?” he asked sarcastically.
“You’re the magician.”
Jarvey clenched his jaw. No, as he had tried and tried to explain to Betsy, he wasn’t a magician, not really. Tantalus Midion, the evil master of Lunnon, had taunted him about that. True, people in his family were sometimes born with a talent for magic, just as they tended to be born with dark blue eyes and blond hair streaked with reddish tones. The magic missed some of them, though. Jarvey’s dad was as ordinary as a warm day in June, and though Betsy was a remote cousin of his, she couldn’t do magic either.
And while it was true that magical things sometimes happened around Jarvey, he had no idea how to control them. But Betsy kept insisting that he should be able to perform magic. He growled, “Abracadabra, I want light. See? Nothing happened.”
Betsy grumbled, “You’re not even trying.” Jarvey felt her fumbling with something and then she found his hand and thrust something into his grip. “Here, make one of those strange candles, like the ones in old Junius’s theater.”
“What is this?” It felt like a short round piece of wood, not like wax.
“Dunno. It’s a wooden peg or something, felt it rolling around loose on the bottom of this boat. Turn it into a candle.”
“I don’t know how!”
Betsy was nothing if not stubborn, sometimes annoyingly so. “Try! You made that trapdoor slam shut! And you could make people not notice you back in Lunnon, when they were hunting you! Remember how those strange candles looked and felt. Then command that piece of wood to be just the same. Picture it. Imagine it.”
“I might as well imagine a turkey dinner and a hot bath,” grumbled Jarvey. He tried, though. Holding the wooden peg, he visualized in his mind the candle he had taken from the sconce back in the theater. The candle had been lighter in weight, and the surface felt smooth and cool, not rough and splintery. The flame was a teardrop of cool yellow light. He tried to persuade himself that he was holding the candle at that moment.
“You got to say something, I think,” Betsy whispered. Jarvey took a deep breath, held it, and then said, “Let this be a candle.”
He felt something, a twitch of power, or maybe the ship had just changed course. But the darkness didn’t lift.
“You want light,” Betsy said. “Not just a candle, but a lighted candle. Try that.”
Jarvey squeezed the thing he was holding. Did it feel somehow waxier, more like a candle than wood, or was he just fooling himself? He couldn’t tell. “Let this candle give us light,” he said.
Nothing.
He heard Betsy sigh.
Unreasonable anger filled Jarvey, partly because he still ached, partly because he took Betsy’s sigh as a sarcastic hint that she didn’t think much of him. “Light!” he snarled, so loudly that Betsy shushed him.
But something happened at last. Jarvey blinked. The candle was giving a kind of glow. It was so dim that the difference between darkness and its light was hardly any difference at all, but at one end of the thing he held, a spherical red spark shone. He could barely make out Betsy’s face.
“You did it!” she said, her eyes wide.
Still feeling grumpy, he whispered, “I’m the magician, remember?”
The candle obstinately refused to burn any brighter, but gradually their eyes adjusted to the feeble gleam. Betsy found a row of wooden kegs tucked under the forward seat of the lifeboat. A tin cup was tied to one of the kegs, and she undid the cord. Then she pulled a cork that plugged the nearest keg and held the cup beneath the gush of water that poured out. It was very warm and tasted of wood, but they drank it anyway. After pounding the cork back into place, Betsy squirmed toward the stern and after a few minutes came back with a bulky package wrapped in what felt like thick canvas soaked in wax. “Ship’s biscuit,” she said, peeling the canvas away. “Here.”
The flat thing she handed him was nearly as hard as a rock, but Jarvey crunched it and immediately felt his hunger rise. They found that by dribbling a little water on the biscuit, they could soften it enough to chew and swallow.
“Best get some sleep if we can,” Betsy said at last, and she crept back toward the rear of the boat. “Put out the light.”
“Easy for you to say.” Jarvey couldn’t blow out the flame, because the candle had no flame, just a little round red glow about the size of a marble. It didn’t even feel hot. Finally he pulled the cork from the water keg, stuck the candle into the hole, light first, and shut off the glow that way.
Then Jarvey stretched out as well as he could, tried to ignore the constant movement, the pitching and rolling, and the sick feeling that he was lost.
Best get some sleep, Betsy had said.
Jarvey wasn’t sure he wanted to try.
Because when he slept, he was likely to dream.
9
Unsafe harbor
Betsy nudged him awake. “C’mon. Almost daylight. Quiet, now!
Feeling giddy with weariness, Jarvey checked to make sure the Grimoire was still safely buttoned inside his shirt, then followed her out, worming his way under the tight canvas cover and dropping down to the deck. It was still dark, though a lot cooler than it had been. He frowned. The ship’s motion felt very different, much steadier. As soon as his feet touched the deck, Betsy pulled him back into the shadowed darkness under the hanging lifeboat. Ahead, reddish-orange torches flared, and in their ruddy light, Jarvey could see that the ship had glided to a pier. Figures were busy with mooring ropes, snugging the ship up against wooden pilings. No one glanced back toward them.
“We can climb over the rail and jump to the dock,” Betsy whispered. “Be quick and be quiet, though.”
“Okay.”
He followed her, but when he poised himself on the rail of the ship, he almost turned back. Because of the curve of the deck, the rail was a good five feet from the edge of the dock, and the dock lay in almost total darkness. If he misjudged the leap, he would drop straight into the water—
“Hey! Away from there, you thievin’ brat!”
Someone was rushing toward him. Jarvey didn’t hesitate, but jumped out into space as hard and as far as he could. He hit the pier and sprawled flat, then scrambled to his feet and clutched at the Grimoire, still safe inside his shirt. Betsy was running away already, and he stumbled after her, hearing the man up on the ship’s deck curse him and bark out, “Keep an eye out for wharf rats, men! These beggar children will get aboard and steal us blind.”
One of the crew, already standing on the pier, lashed out with the end of a rope as Jarvey raced past. The man missed, but Jarvey heard the rope hiss through the dark air and even felt the breeze of it on his cheek. He caught up with Betsy a second later. They passed the prow of the ship, and then pelted down the long pier and onto a cobbled street. There Betsy stopped short, gasping for air, and Jarvey blundered right into her. “What now?”
“Get our bearin’s,” she said. “Get some food. Get some clothes.” She sniffed. “Get a bath, if we can. You need one.
“So do you,” he growled.
They were in a town of low one-story buildings, hushed and quiet in the hour before sunrise. Betsy’s keen nose led them to a place where someone was cooking something. Jarvey’s mouth started to water at a scent like bananas and fresh-baked bread. It seemed to be a simple kind of restaurant, with a long counter along the front and a few people inside bending over stoves and opening ovens. They walked past it, and then Betsy said, “Wait,” and slipped away. Jarvey stood in a darkened doorway as she melted off into the twilight.
The sky had begun to show streaks of dawn by the time she returned a few minutes later. “Here,” she said, thrusting something warm into his hand. “Eat this.”
“What is it?”
“Dunno, but it’s loads better than ship’s biscuit!”
Jarvey bit into it. It was a sweet banana brea
d, still warm from the oven, and he ate it voraciously. “Where’d you get it?”
“Slenked it from a little shop,” Betsy said shortly. “They’ve got shelves full of it, never miss a couple of pieces. C’mon, we’ll find a place to hole up until we can tell where we are and whether your parents are here.”
That was something else Betsy was good at, finding hideouts. Back in Lunnon she and her gang had existed like rats, finding a way to live right under the feet of the masters of the place, and they had never been caught. By the time the sun was well up and people were stirring, Betsy had found a possible hiding place. It was just a neglected and dusty ten-by-ten-foot structure of splintered gray wood, some kind of abandoned storage building, standing right up against a fence. The door creaked open and they slipped inside.
Jarvey’s nose twitched. They had disturbed years of dust. No one had used this hut for anything for ages. Three empty wooden crates had been tossed in carelessly, but even they wore a fuzzy coat of ancient dust. Betsy tugged one of these into place so it blocked the door. “How will we get out?” Jarvey asked.
“This way.” Betsy tugged and pried at the rotten boards in the back, breaking them off until she had made an escape hatch big enough for them to scramble through on all fours. The fence was right up against the back of the hut, and Jarvey pointed that out. “We can’t squeeze into there. I doubt a mouse could do it.”
“We’re not getting between the house and the fence. We’re going through the fence,” Betsy retorted. Then she kicked at one of the fence boards until it creaked loose at the bottom. Finally she pushed the board aside and took a quick look.
“Lovely. Just a narrow, dark alley behind here, so we can get in and out without having to sneak by a watch-man or anything. We’re set. Now all we have to do is find out where we are, and what the rules are.” She thought for a moment and then said, “Maybe we’d better hide the Grimoire. If we get caught with it...”
Uneasily, Jarvey slipped the book from inside his shirt. “You’re right. If Siyamon is here, he’ll take the book and destroy us. But if we’re caught without it, what will we do?”
With a grin, Betsy said, “One of us’ll get loose, is what, and come back and get it, and then find some way to free the other. Better to leave it hid. If we’re caught, it gives us something to bargain with.
“I guess,” Jarvey said. “Where would be a safe place?”
Betsy looked up at the rafters. “Up there,” she said. “Can you reach that high?”
He couldn’t, but Betsy dragged one of the wooden crates over for him to stand on, and with its added height, Jarvey just managed to slide the Grimoire on top of the middle rafter. You couldn’t even see it from floor level. He jumped down. “Will that do?”
“Perfect,” she said, dusting her hands. “Now let’s go hunting.”
Before noon had come, they had found out several things. The town they were in was called Port Midion. The people looked vaguely Indian, with dark complexions and odd clothing, though they sounded completely British. Animals walked freely in the streets: An odd-looking cow with a hump on its back passed them by, and a troupe of monkeys playing some kind of chase game tumbled screeching across the rooftops overhead. They passed some prosperous-looking houses, and Betsy deftly found them new outfits, taken one piece at a time from clothes-lines. Before long, both of them wore the local costume, loose-fitting white slipover shirts and trousers.
Best of all, they wandered to a spot with jetting fountains where a host of kids their age and younger splashed and played, and they waded in. It was the first bath Jarvey had ever taken with all his clothes on, but it felt wonderful anyway. Betsy chatted with the kids. Jarvey admired her knack of sounding right at home and cheerful, no matter where she was. Later, after they had left the fountains behind and had walked through the sunny streets until they were reasonably dry again, she said to Jarvey, “Can’t quite make out what’s what. This isn’t as bad as Lunnon, that’s plain. Somebody calls himself the Nawab is the lord and master here, but they don’t seem to be all that afraid of him. Guess he’s a relative of yours.”
Jarvey frowned. “I didn’t ask to be born a Midion.”
“I know. Come on, don’t be like that. After all, we’re cousins, you know. My grandfather’s a Midion.” Betsy jerked her head back toward the fountains. “Kids back there didn’t know anything about new people in town, but then, they don’t know much of anything about the Nawab’s doin’s, nor even his right name. We’ll have to sneak about a little, I think, and keep our ears open. See if this Nawab is your Siyamon Midion or not.”
“Do you think he is?”
Betsy sighed, sounding a little irritable. “How should I know? If your Siyamon is like the other Midions, he was writing himself a nice little chapter, wasn’t he? Could be he wants to be the ruler of this kind of world. Could be someone else. All I know is that if he’s here, your mum and dad are probably not too far away.”
“I don’t think he could be,” Jarvey said slowly. “This place doesn’t feel like something from my time.”
Betsy shrugged. “Crazy magician can make it feel like anything he wants,” she said. “I wish—”
A blare of trumpets cut her off They had emerged from an alley back onto what seemed to be the main street of the town, a broad cobbled thoroughfare lined with shops. People rushed to get out of the way as a dozen huge men came lurching down the street, preceded by two who sounded trumpets.
Except when they came closer, Jarvey saw they weren’t men at all.
“Blimey!” Betsy said.
The creatures that passed by all wore armor and carried spears. But they weren’t human.
They were gorillas, walking stooped but on two legs, their heavy heads swinging from side to side and their deep-set brown eyes glaring at the crowd as they passed. As soon as they had gone by, the people seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief, and they went back to their business.
“What was that all about?” Jarvey asked.
“Dunno,” Betsy said. “Maybe the Midion that runs this place don’t trust men to be his bodyguards. What were those things?”
“Apes,” Jarvey said. “Gorillas.”
She stared at him, and he realized that on Lunnon there had been no apes. Lunnon had few animals other than cows, pigs, sheep, horses, and dogs. He said, “On Earth, they’re creatures from the jungles of Africa. They’re stronger than humans, but they’re just animals. I mean, they don’t dress up in armor and carry weapons. They don’t have a language and they can’t learn to talk.”
“Do they play horns?”
“Huh? Oh, the bugles. No, not the ones on Earth,” he said.
They had been walking up a long, gentle slope leading away from the docks, and now they came to a wide market square. Booths all around the edges of it offered everything from fruits and vegetables to carved decorations and clothing. At the center of the square a sort of bulletin board, protected by an overhanging roof, had been built, and men and women paused to read the posters tacked up on it. Jarvey and Betsy paused before this and Jarvey looked at what seemed to be the most recent poster:
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jarvey said. “ ‘You have been warned.’ What does he do, hunt with cannons or something?”
“We’ll have to be careful, looks like,” agreed Betsy.
The rest of the day went reasonably well. They got some sense of the world: Midion seemed to be the one important city, but the ships went to and from other settlements, exchanging goods and bringing supplies and luxuries into port. The people in town seemed friendly enough, though wrapped up in their own concerns and not particularly outgoing. Now dressed just like the local inhabitants, Jarvey and Betsy fit in well enough. They wore not only the loose tunics and trousers, but also comfortable sandals, thanks to Betsy’s talent at slipping things away while shopkeepers were not looking. No one gave them a second glance.
Betsy was not shy about striking up conversations with strangers, and once when
she was talking to a boy who was maybe seven or eight years old, she asked, “So who’s the Nawab, then?”
The kid had given her a quizzical glance, his head tilted on one side. “Who’s the Nawab? What d’you mean?”
“What’s his name?” she asked.
The boy shrugged. “The Nawab, is all. Lives in the palace, owns everything. That’s all.”
“Where’s the palace, then?”
With a snort of laughter, the boy said, “You don’t know much, do you? ’S on the hilltop, ’course!”
And that was a help, because the streets of Midion were all very level, all except one. The main street sloped up from the waterfront right through the center of town. They followed it until it ended at the entrance to a green park. A wrought-iron fence taller than Jarvey surrounded the park, and over the tops of the trees three golden onion-domed towers were visible. “That must be the place,” Jarvey said. “The palace, where the Nawab lives.”
“But we’re not going in there,” Betsy told him.
He looked ahead. The street ended at the open park gate, but a grassy lane led forward through an avenue of trees and climbed a hill. Jarvey couldn’t see anyone walking around in the park at all, but that had to be the way to the palace. “Why not?”
“ ’Cause look.”
Jarvey followed her pointing finger and felt a little sick at what he saw. He had not noticed them before because they blended in so well with the yellow and green grass beside the lane, but now he spotted them. They lay very quietly, very still. You might have mistaken them for a couple of tree branches that had fallen to the ground and that had been carelessly tossed off the pathway.
But they weren’t branches. They were snakes, two of them, at least eight feet long each, a mottled greenish-gray. As Jarvey stared at them, they reared, both at once, and spread out their hoods.
Jarvey’s heart thumped like a drum. Twenty feet away from him two deadly cobras, their bodies nearly as thick as one of his legs, stared right into his eyes.
Tracked by Terror Page 7