Zal and Zara and the Champions' Race

by Kit Downes

  “Forget it!”

  “Grrrr!”

  They stopped and looked around. Standing in the nearest doorway was a giant ape. It was nearly eight feet tall, with wide shoulders and a huge, barrel-shaped chest, covered in shaggy grey fur. Long muscles coiled along its arms. Its forehead furrowed as it peered at them from beneath thick bushy eyebrows.

  “Oh, Stork,” whispered Zal. He reached for his sword.

  “Wait!” said Zara. “It might not be—”

  “GGGGRRRRAAAAAWWWAAARRRR!” roared the ape, showing two rows of sharp teeth. Its breath was hot enough to make the air ripple.

  “Never mind!”

  “OOK OOK OOK!”

  The ape threw back its head and hooted, beating its chest with its fist and dancing on its flat feet. Answering hoots rose out of the ruins all around them.

  “OOK OOK! OOK OOK!”

  Two more apes loped into the doorway, carrying clubs made out of giant bones.

  “RUN!” shouted Zal.

  Elsewhere in the ruins, a mound of sand moved. It shifted from side to side, rose up and down, turned around in a circle and then burst apart as Rip finally dug himself out.

  “Wraff!”

  The small dog flopped down on the sand, breathing hard. He could not remember what had happened after the Shadow man had uncorked the bottle, but it had not been pleasant. He stood up on shaky legs and looked around. He was in a long, rectangular room without a roof under a strange green sky. It was filled with fallen square columns lying on their sides or leaning against one another, like the wooden blocks he used to help Zal play with when they were both puppies.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!”

  Rip barked as loud as he could. He listened as the sound bounced away through the ruins. No one barked back.

  Rip lowered his nose to the ground and breathed in. A storm of scents flowed up his nostrils. Sand, night, wind, dust, fire, ashes, charcoal and rubble. But there was no trace of Zal’s distinctive odour of hot spiced camel steaks mixed with sword polish or Zara’s pleasant aroma of flowers and magic.

  Rip scampered forwards, keeping his nose pressed to the ground. He wove through the columns towards the room’s arched doorway and then stopped as he found a scent he recognized, a combination of raw meat, claws, tails and fur. He could not place it exactly, but he knew he had smelt it recently and the trail was fresh and strong. Rip followed it out of the room and into a long corridor.

  “Grrrrr?”

  Rip stopped and looked up slowly into the face of Cloudclaw who was standing right in front of him, their noses inches apart. The other two horribly large cats were standing behind Cloudclaw. Rip felt his fur stand up by itself.

  “GRRRAAARR!” said Cloudclaw, as he sprang at him.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!”

  Rip ran underneath Cloudclaw while he was airborne and shot between Sheertooth and Jeweltail, who stared at him in surprise. Cloudclaw skidded around in a spray of sand and was after him in an instant.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF, WRAFF!”

  Rip raced through the ruins, barking for help, squirming under the columns and around the broken statues. Right behind him, Cloudclaw bounded over the obstacles, snarling with fury. Sheertooth and Jeweltail followed him, both hissing at their brother to stop wasting time. Up ahead, Rip saw another doorway and ran straight through it.

  “Ook?”

  Rip stopped. His heart froze as he realized he might just have made a mistake.

  “GGGRAAAARRR!”

  Cloudclaw charged into the room behind him, teeth and claws first … and stopped in his tracks. Sitting in a close circle around a campfire, cradling clubs made from giant bones, were seven of the largest, greyest, furriest monkeys Rip had ever seen. They stared back at him and Cloudclaw with wide, surprised eyes as Sheertooth and Jeweltail dashed through the door behind them.

  “Wraff?” said Rip, hopefully.

  “OOK OOK OOK!”

  The apes swarmed to their feet, grabbing their clubs.

  “OOK OOK OOK! GAAHK GAAHK GAAHK!”

  “ZARA!”

  “I’M TRYING!”

  Zal, Zara and Sari ran flat out through the ruins, dodging blocks of stone and leaping over fallen statues. Zara glimpsed other things as they raced through the rooms and corridors. Their feet crunched over crumbling scrolls from ancient libraries, broken cups and plates from great dining halls, fragments of mirrors from huge ballrooms and shards of amphoras and cooking pots from kitchens. When it was new the palace must have been the size of a city.

  “OOK OOK! GAAHK GAAHK!”

  Eleven apes were barrelling through the ruins behind them, jabbering and hooting as they loped along on their feet and knuckles, carrying their bone clubs. Others were appearing out of the ruins to join the chase. Zal’s sword blade was chipped and Sari was carrying the top half of her broken spear from when they had tried to fight them off.

  Zara threw back her arm and tried again, focusing on the burning red shade of magic inside her. She sent her power down her arm and into her hand, trying to send it out through her palm in the form of an ape-repelling combat spell. But nothing happened. Her magic filled her palm, glowing underneath her skin and stopped there. Zara pushed and groaned through her teeth. Her magic wouldn’t budge. Something was working against her. It wasn’t Etan’s spell-suppression talisman this time; that was wrapped up in her pocket in case it came in handy. Something else was lying over everything in the ruins, stopping her from using her powers.

  “Zara?!”

  “It’s no good!” said Zara. “I can’t do it!”

  “Well, do something!” said Sari. She stooped while she was running, picked up a rock and threw it over her shoulder at the apes. It bounced off the leading ape’s head, making it roar and lope even faster.

  “Stop doing that!” said Zara.

  “Wait! This way!” said Zal.

  Zal darted through the door to another room. Zara and Sari followed him. The room might once have been a kitchen. It was long with what looked like deep oven pits sunk into the floor. There were no other doors.

  “What are you doing?” cried Sari, as the apes tried to charge through the doorway behind them and got stuck. The chase slowed down for a few seconds while the apes fought over who would go first, giving Zal the time to run to the far end of the room.

  “Here!” he said.

  There was a large crack running down the wall from the top to the floor. It was just wide enough for them, standing sideways, to squeeze through.

  “Come on!” said Zal, wiggling into the gap.

  “Go faster then!” said Sari.

  “OWW!” said Zal, as Sari kicked him through and then slipped effortlessly through it herself. Zara squeezed into the gap behind her, just as the apes thundered down the room. Zal and Sari grabbed her from the other side and pulled her clear.

  The apes howled with rage. Four grey furry arms shot through the crack and waved about, grabbing at handfuls of thin air. Fists pounded on the wall on the other side, sending dust flying.

  “Phew!” said Zal.

  “Come on,” said Sari. “They’ll find another way around.”

  They ran again, passing through several more rooms, filled with so much sand that it was impossible to guess what they might have been used for. The apes’ howling faded into the distance behind them, but tiredness started to catch up. Zara felt her heart pounding. They slowed and stopped in one of the corridors.

  “Where the Stork are we?” said Zal.

  “I don’t know,” said Zara. She leaned one hand against the wall to rest. “I…”

  The wall was covered in thick dust, which fell away under Zara’s hand and her fingers touched carved grooves. Zara lifted her hand away, leaving a perfect hand print in the dust, and saw the wall was covered in writing. Dozens of sentences were written across it, crossing over one another in all directions.

  “What is it?” said Zal.

  “I don’t know.”

  Zara brushed off more dust, reveali
ng more sentences. There had to be hundreds of them, written in Shirazan, Azamedian, Jaktivarian, Pursolonian, Yamarotoan, Tabarasari, Hothathian and a dozen other alphabets Zara couldn’t recognize. Zara looked more closely at the writing, focusing on the sentences in Azamedian. They were jumbled and some of them were written backwards or upside down, but they all began with the same two words:

  I WISH…

  “Oh, no!” said Zara, going pale. “Oh, Stork!”

  “What is it?” said Zal.

  “We’re inside a genie bottle!”

  “GGGGRRRRR!”

  “OOK OOK! AAAHHK!”

  Cries rang out and sand flew as the tigers and the apes fell on each other. Rip scurried between thick furry legs and broad stamping feet. The campfire flared in a shower of sparks as one of the apes stood in it, trying to grab Sheertooth. Rip skidded around it, trying desperately to find a way out.

  “GGGGRRRAAARRRR!”

  Behind him, Cloudclaw bit an ape’s ankles and slipped out of the way as it tried to grab him. Sheertooth and Jeweltail were clinging to the backs of two apes with their claws and biting their heads and shoulders as the apes flailed around trying to pull them off. Rip skidded along the edge of the wall and his heart sank. The space they had run into was one of the few intact rooms left in the palace. The four walls were still standing and there was no other door.

  “OOK!”

  “WRAFF!”

  THUD!

  Rip dodged just in time as one of the apes swung its club at him. The head of the huge thigh bone hit the wall just above the ground, and smashed a rough hole straight through it.

  “AAARGH!” said the ape in frustration.

  “Wraff, wraff!” Rip barked in thanks as he jumped through it.

  He came out into a more open part of the ruins. Broken walls and columns stretched away before him. The huge monkeys would never fit through the hole. He was safe.

  “GGGRRRAAAAARRR!”

  Rip looked back through the hole at Jeweltail’s cry of pain. One of the apes had just pulled her off the back of its friend, and thrown her against the wall. More were chasing Cloudclaw around the squashed campfire, grunting but ignoring the pain when he clawed or bit them. Three others had cornered Sheertooth against the side wall and were closing in with their clubs raised.

  Rip hesitated. They had tried to eat him.

  “GGRRRAAAIHHK!”

  Jeweltail shrieked as one of the apes grabbed her by her tail. It started pulling her towards him, hand over hand like Zal’s father winding up carpet thread. Jeweltail’s paws scrabbled at the sand, trying to grip it with her claws. Tears beaded in her eyes as she hissed with pain.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!” Rip jumped barking back into the room.

  “GRROOAAARR!” Before he could reach Jeweltail, Sheertooth broke free of the apes surrounding him. He flew across the room and landed on the monkey pulling his sister. The ape hooted as Sheertooth knocked it and its two friends over. Jeweltail broke free, her tail badly ruffled, and joined Cloudclaw in bolting about the room.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!” Rip shouted from the hole.

  They didn’t hear him. Cloudclaw and Jeweltail bounced between the room’s four corners, dodging the apes’ paws and clubs.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!” said Rip, jumping up and down.

  Sheertooth rolled off the monkey he had knocked over and joined in as well. The tigers ran in a flowing orange figure-of-eight around the room, with the monkeys chasing after them.

  Rip rolled his eyes. There was only one thing for it. He dashed forwards, jumped and sank his teeth into Cloudclaw’s tail.

  “WRROOOOAAAR!”

  Cloudclaw jumped in the air, roaring with pain. Sheertooth and Jeweltail dodged around him. The apes, who didn’t share their cat-like reflexes, stopped in their tracks and crashed into each other. Rip released Cloudclaw’s tail. The tigers blinked at him, amazed to see he was still anywhere near them.

  “WRAFF, WRAFF!” said Rip again. He turned around and ran through the hole.

  “GRRR!” said Sheertooth, unable to believe he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “OOK OOK OOK!” The monkeys started scrambling back to their feet, grabbing their clubs.

  Sheertooth and Jeweltail crouched low and wormed through the hole behind Rip, followed quickly by Cloudclaw.

  “GRRARR!”

  Just as Cloudclaw squeezed through, a grey arm shot through and grabbed his hind leg, pulling him backwards.

  “Wraff, wraff!”

  “OOK!”

  Rip jumped forwards and bit the monkey’s thumb. It released Cloudclaw and shot back through the hole instantly. The wall boomed and started to shake. Dust and stone chips fell off it – revealing writing underneath – as the monkeys pounded on it with their fists and clubs. It was starting to weaken.

  “GGGRRR!”

  Rip looked around. The three tigers were at the junction of the next corridor, looking back and waiting for him. Rip ran to catch up and together they raced away through the ruins.

  * * *

  “What the Stork is a genie bottle?” said Sari.

  “It’s a bottle that used to have a genie inside it,” said Zara. “They use them when they can’t get lamps.”

  “There’s a genie in here?” said Zal. He had rubbed patches of dust off several of the walls around them, revealing more wishes covering each one. If every wall in the vast palace was like this, it meant the bottle was not just old, but ancient. “That’s great! We can wish ourselves out.”

  “No, the genie’s gone,” said Zara, looking around at the crumbling ruins. “Long gone probably. The bottle’s last owner must have used their last wish to free the genie from its curse. This palace must be the home the genie made for itself while it was here. But now it’s gone, it’s falling apart.”

  “We’re inside the bottle Mr Leader was pointing at us?” said Sari. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “OK, how do you explain the sky?” said Zal, pointing up at the strange green shade.

  “If you’re right, why is it crawling with giant monkeys?” said Sari.

  “Genies have the power to make dreams come true,” said Zara. “Now it’s gone, all that’s left over is the stuff it never needed to use. The magic in here is the stuff nightmares are made of. That must be why I can’t use my magic.”

  “Why not?” said Zal.

  “Most people have nightmares about things that really do scare them,” said Zara. “You used to have that one where your sword broke on the night before fencing tournaments. I used to have one where I couldn’t use my magic during a magic contest. Now I’m in here, it’s come true.”

  “So you’re even more useless than usual?” said Sari. “Great. How do we get out?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zara. “I don’t know if we can. Not without magic.”

  “Oh, Stork!” said Zal, looking around.

  “Well, you two can give up if you want,” said Sari. “I’m going to find my family and get out of here.”

  She picked up her spear and stalked away from them.

  “Wait! Sari!” said Zal.

  “Do not follow me!” said Sari, as she disappeared around the nearest corner.

  “Oh, Stork.”

  “Come on,” said Zara. They started to follow her, just as the wall beside them rippled.

  “What the—? HOLY CAMELPAT!”

  They jumped back out of the way as a giant jellyfish drifted through the wall. It was two metres tall, floating upright with a dozen long tendrils curling gently beneath its round, undulating body. It was transparent and glowing with pale blue magic. It was some sort of ghost.

  “Oh, Holy Stork!”

  Zara’s eyes went wide with fear. She grabbed Zal’s sleeve and pulled him clear of the jellyfish as it floated slowly across the corridor and disappeared through the opposite wall. Zara sighed with relief.

  “What was that?” said Zal.

  “A dream wraith,” said Zara, as they started after S
ari again. “They’re really dangerous. If we see another one, stay well away from it. And above all, don’t get caught inside one… Oh, camelpat!”

  They rounded the corner. Another dream wraith was floating in the middle of the corridor. Sari, her eyes closed and her head nodding as she slept, was floating inside it.

  * * *

  “GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!”

  Cloudclaw stood on top of a fallen column next to a broken fountain and roared as loud as he could up at the green sky. He, Sheertooth and Jeweltail listened as the roar echoed away across the ruins. No one roared back in reply.

  “Wrrrrroww!” Cloudclaw whined as he jumped down.

  Rip shook his head. They’d been trying to attract Sari’s attention like this for ten minutes and it wasn’t working. The only thing they had attracted was another pack of monkeys and several of those strange ghost jellyfish who had chased them before they had outrun them.

  Jeweltail moaned and Rip watched as Sheertooth padded over and rubbed his sister’s head with his own. They were missing Sari as much as he was missing Zal. But they weren’t going to find them like this.

  Rip lowered his nose to the sand and sniffed. The same scents flowed into his nose again: sand, dust, stone and wind, mixed with the tigers’ scent of meat, claws, tails, fur and spear wax, but there was still no trace of … spear wax?

  Rip paused and sniffed again carefully. This time, he detected tunic cotton, black hair and meat stew.

  “Wraff, wraff!” Rip bounced up and down. The tigers looked around at him.

  It was Sari’s scent. He had missed it before because she also smelt so strongly of tigers. But she had been here, beside this broken old fountain not too long ago, and … he sniffed again … yes! So had Zal and Zara!

  “Wraff, wraff!” said Rip again.

  “Grrrrr?” said Sheertooth, cocking his head.

  “Wraff, wraff!” Rip repeated.

  The three tigers stared blankly at him. Rip rolled his eyes. How did humans make talking look so easy? He pushed his nose into the sand and ran about in a small, weaving circle as if he was tracking something, showing them what he meant.

  “Grrrrraarrr!” said Jeweltail, her eyes lighting up as she understood. “Grrrr-arr-rarr,” she said to Cloudclaw and Sheertooth.