by Kit Downes
“Ha!” said Zara to the unconscious Sphinx. “I knew it! Not as clever as you think!”
“RUN!” said Zal.
Dust flew and the iron bars started to bend as the apes howled and hammered on the gate with their clubs. Zal, Zara and Rip turned away from the Sphinx and bolted down the courtyard. They skidded to a stop. The three walls joined together perfectly at the corners. There were no gaps, no holes and no doors.
“Come on!” yelled Sari, as she and the tigers ran the other way, straight towards the gate.
“What are you doing?” shouted Zal, just as the apes broke through.
Sari reached into one of her belt pouches as she ran, pulled out a small bag and ripped it open. It was filled with fine black powder, with tiny specks that gleamed like stars. Sari poured it into her palm and held her hand up before her face.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “Don’t breathe in!”
Sari blew the powder out of her hand. It spread out into a wide cloud in the air as the apes charged howling straight into it. Their nostrils flared as they inhaled the powder. Their eyes widened and then dimmed. Their charge slowed to a shuffling walk, their eyelids drooped and then the apes collapsed on top of one another in sprawling, snoring heaps.
“What the Stork?” said Zal.
“Dozing dust,” said Sari, holding her sleeve over her nose and mouth and waving the rest of the cloud away. “The best sleeping powder you can buy on the black market. Come on.”
They stepped over the sleeping apes, holding their noses, and ran through the twisted gate and into the apes’ den. It was a wide, circular chamber with a big campfire burning in the centre. Spare clubs were resting against the round walls, in between more broken statues and dozens of small alcoves that had been hollowed out of the stone. They were filled with vases, shoes, musical instruments, writing tablets, turbans, lanterns and all sorts of other odd things all carefully displayed inside them.
“This must be their collection,” said Zara.
“They collect junk?” said Sari. She picked up a spear that was leaning against the wall to replace her broken one. “That’s not very… Holy Monkey!”
Piled between two of the statues was a huge mound of treasure. Gold coins were stacked up to their waists. Emeralds, rubies and diamonds gleamed in green, red and sparkling white from crowns, cups and pieces of jewellery.
“I don’t think it’s junk,” said Zara. “I think it’s what they’ve collected from everyone else who’s been trapped in here.”
“Wow,” said Zal. He brushed some dust off the wall and found more wishes carved underneath. “How old is this place?”
“Wraff, wraff!”
Rip had suddenly dashed over to the far side of the room and was jumping up and down beside an alcove at the wall’s base. He reached in and gripped something with his teeth, trying to pull it out. Cloudclaw reached in and helped him.
“What is it, boy?” said Zal, running over to him. “Oh, yes!” He knelt down and pulled out a rolled-up carpet.
“Oh, well done, Rip!” said Zara.
“Is it one of Azamed’s?” said Sari. “Can it fly?”
“Let’s find out.”
Zara gripped the end and pulled, unrolling the carpet. She and Zal gasped. Their mouths dropped open and they blinked at the carpet, unable to believe their eyes. It was a flying carpet – Zal had woven enough of them to recognize it instantly. It was a very old one with a simple, plain weaving pattern and rather uneven edges. But – amazingly – it was a rainbow carpet. All seven colours of magic stretched across it from one end to the other. They were dull in the dim light, but they weren’t faded. Strong magic sparkled amongst the carpet pile. Inside it, Zal’s weaver’s hands could feel, but not see, the invisible thread, the secret ingredient which they had rediscovered in Azamed that allowed all seven colours of magic to work together and make a rainbow carpet fly.
“Holy Stork!” breathed Zara.
“Well?” said Sari, leaning over her shoulder. “Is it Azamedian?”
“No, it’s not,” said Zal. “It’s Nygellian. It’s a Forgotten Empire flying carpet. An original one!”
The carpet’s pattern was a simple design. Seven snakes, each one in a different colour, wiggled from one end of the carpet to the other, and a geometric pattern ran around the four edges. Zal had seen the pattern before, carved around the doorway of the throne room in the remains of the Fire City beneath Azamed. There they had met the ancient and mad ghost of Faradeen the Eight-Hundred-and-Thirty-Fourth, the last Emperor of Nygel, who had been guarding the secret to rainbow carpets since his empire’s fall. If a flying carpet from the empire’s glory days was here, it meant the bottle was ancient, older even than Azamed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sari, “but can it fly?”
Zara touched it with both hands. Zal did the same. For a second, nothing happened. Then the magic sparkled a little brighter. The ancient rainbow carpet rose up off the sand and floated as still and solid and perfect as their Rainbow Carpet used to.
“Thank the Stork!” said Zara.
“Great!” said Sari. “So let’s go. The dozing dust isn’t going to last for ever.”
“Wait a minute,” said Zal. “What’s that?”
He had just noticed something else in the alcove where the carpet had lain. He reached in again and dragged out a large, heavy wooden chest. It was varnished and solid, reinforced with heavy iron strips. Zal lifted the lid.
“Holy Stork on a sunbeam!”
Inside it, seven large white stones rested on a red velvet lining. All of them were oval-shaped, with a glossy surface and in the dim light, they shone like moonstones.
“Zal?” said Zara.
“I don’t believe it,” said Zal. He closed the box’s lid. “We have to take these with us.”
“What for?” said Sari, as Zal hoisted the box onto the carpet. She gestured at the treasure pile. “There’s way more valuable stuff here. We can find rocks anywhere.”
“They’re not rocks,” said Zal. “They’re more valuable than all of that put together—”
“WRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
A sudden roar of anger interrupted him. The Sphinx bounded into the chamber, her face red with fury. A dozen apes poured through the gate behind her.
“HUMANS!!!”
“LET’S GO!” said Zal.
He jumped on to the carpet and Sheertooth and Cloudclaw bounded on behind him. Sari and Jeweltail jumped on top of the chest, and Zara scooted through into the pilot’s position with Rip beside her. She pressed down with both her hands on the dusty carpet pile and the Nygellian rainbow carpet shot forwards as the Sphinx charged towards them.
“WRAAAAAHH!” The Sphinx roared again as she pounced, springing through the air as the ancient carpet zipped out from under her paws.
“Hold tight!” called Zara, as she leant backwards, tilting the carpet’s front end upwards as they flew up over the chamber walls and out of the roofless palace.
“Holy Stork!” said Zal, looking over the carpet’s edge. Below them the maze of rooms and corridors of the palace stretched for miles across the desert sands, dotted here and there by the orange campfires of the apes. It really had been the size of a city. The desert itself stretched even further. Zal looked ahead, trying to find the horizon. The grey sands merged into the green sky at a distance that had to be hundreds of miles away. Just how small had they been shrunk?
“Zara! Look out!” called Sari.
“Whoa!” Zal looked up and started as Zara steadied the carpet. A shiny green glass ceiling was above them. It was thick and the colours – Zal counted twenty shades of green in an instant – were so deep that they could not see anything through it. It was like they were skimming along underneath a frozen ocean.
“What now?” said Sari. “How do we get out?”
“Uh…” said Zal. From the outside, he remembered the bottle had been round. But the glass surface seemed completely flat with no curve to
it, which was another sign of how small they had shrunk. They could search for years before finding the bottle’s neck and even if they did, the cork was probably going to be the size of Azamed and the mountain it was built on.
“WRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGHH!”
The Sphinx’s roar echoed up from below them. Zal felt it in his toes and in his teeth. He glanced over the edge of the carpet again. They were still above the ruins of the palace. The Sphinx was standing up on the broken dome of an observatory, her tail coiling high and her chest swelling as she roared with all her might. Then there was a rustling, screeching and squeaking sound, as if dozens of voices were speaking at once.
“Oh, monkey droppings!” said Sari. Her face had gone white.
Thousands of bats burst out of the ruins below them. Their wings sliced the air like knives as they rose up towards the carpet in vast, spiralling black clouds.
“Fly faster!” yelled Sari, flipping her spear around. The tigers leapt to their feet, almost knocking each other off the carpet. Zal drew his sword.
“Skree! Skree! Skree! Skree! Skree!”
Zara pushed down hard on the carpet, taking them to full speed, but the bats caught up with them in an instant. Their red eyes burned with rage and their small, dagger-sharp teeth gleamed as they screeched towards the carpet.
“Ha!”
“Howzat!”
“GGGGRRRR!”
“WRAFF!”
Sari drove her new spear forwards, skewering three bats at once. The tigers swiped at them with their paws and Rip bit at the flapping wings of any that came close to the carpet. Zal hacked and slashed with his scimitar and was relieved to see they were not real bats. They burst in puffs of black dust as his sword sliced through them.
Zara swerved the carpet left and right, trying to shake them off. Hundreds of bats filled the air behind them and thousands more were still rising up from the ruins, as the Sphinx’s roars echoed behind them. There was no end to the glass ceiling in sight.
“Zara!” Zal shouted. “We need to get out!”
“I know!” shouted Zara. “But I don’t know how!”
The screeching storm was growing by the minute. Zal’s sword muscles were burning. Sari and the tigers were panting. There was nothing but green glass and grey desert ahead of them and no way out of the bottle. Zara groaned. Even if she had her magic, what could she do in a place like this? It would take a hundred high magicians, using all of their powers together, to break through the glass. Zara looked up at the glass ceiling flowing by above them. It was just like trying to break through the wall of octopus ink staining the Rainbow Carpet. Without the seven colours to link her magic to … the seven colours?
Zara blinked. The entire ceiling was green. But inside it, she glimpsed oil-like rainbow patterns, as the light from the apes’ campfires far below was reflected in the glass. Red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo and even violet swirled and rippled through the green glass. All seven colours were there. All seven colours of magic. Zara gasped.
“ZARA!” Zal shouted, slashing and jabbing at the bats. Sari was bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Jeweltail hissed as she felt a bat’s razor sharp wings slice her tail. They were close enough to nip at the Nygellian rainbow carpet’s tassels.
“KEEP THEM BACK!” Zara shouted.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’RE DOING?” shouted Sari. “WAIT… WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she yelled, as Zara pulled the carpet’s front upwards, aiming towards the glass ceiling.
“HOLD ON!” Zara called.
The seven colours of magic were the seven elements that made up the universe. Even inside the bottle, that was still true, and she could see all seven colours in the glass. As the Sphinx had said, magic worked fine here. And Professor Maltho had said that magic was nothing more than the influence of her mind upon nature. She couldn’t use her magic here, but maybe she could still use magic.
“ZARA, STOP!” yelled Zal, looking over his shoulder. “TAKE US DOWN!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WE’RE GOING TO HIT IT!” shouted Sari.
Zara closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, feeling for the seven colours in the glass. She found them instantly. The powerful, surging energy of red, the light, floating power of yellow, the violet, touching every other shade all around it, the blue, which felt like wind and water, the orange, racing like a fast river with indigo right beside it and the green, surrounding them all, lifting them up and bringing them together. The seven colours of magic that the Celestial Stork had used to make the universe were right there in front of her, where they always had been.
“ZARA!!!” shouted Zal and Sari, as they hurtled towards the glass.
Zara took hold of all seven colours. She peered through her half-closed eyes. The glass ceiling rippled open, the seven colours swirling around its edges, into a round door and the Nygellian rainbow carpet flew straight through it.
“HOLY STORK!” said Zal, his eyes wide with amazement.
All seven colours flowed past them and around them as they flew along a tunnel inside a rainbow. A few bats followed them in through the shrinking door and screeched as they disintegrated into clouds of ash. Sari gasped with wonder.
Up ahead, Zara saw another round door, this one ringed with golden light, and with the pale blue and white shades of the sky beyond it. She pressed her hands down on the soft pile and the carpet flew towards it and back into the real world.
Ten
In Shirazar it was the morning of the Champions’ Race. Flags and banners flew from every spire in the city. Excited crowds were already filling the streets. Stalls and restaurants were selling out of snacks and racing breakfasts. In their guest rooms and hotels across Shirazar, the Champions of the Seventeen Kingdoms were pulling on their flying clothes, checking their equipment and preparing their means of flight. Apart from Augur Thesa and Arna Aura – who were once again running through the streets searching for their missing children – there was no sign that anything was wrong.
“Vulture’s curses!” said the Leader, watching from the window of the Shadows’ new hideout. “I hope Sari Stormstrong is shivering in hell for ruining my revenge! I should have killed her as soon as she’d got us the casket!”
“We know, sir. You’ve been saying nothing else,” said Mira.
The Shadows’ new hideout was the top floor of a guest-house off Water Dragon Square. The street outside was bustling with spectators, but the Shadows were not going to be there to see the race. They were busy packing for their return to Azamed.
“Don’t be impertinent, Mira,” said the Leader. “My perfect revenge was ruined. Yes, we got them in the bottle, but I never got to see the look of horror on their faces when they realized they hadn’t defeated me. Now I never will.”
“Could we possibly let them out again, sir?” said Etan, looking at the bottle, which was standing on one of the shelves.
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’re probably already dead,” said the Leader. “No. I’ll just have to settle for taking revenge on Azamed. But it won’t be as satisfying.”
“OK. But are you sure setting the Knife Demon on the Champions wouldn’t help?” said Etan. “I think it’s getting restless.”
The stone box rocked from side to side on the table in the centre of the room. It shook its way along the table’s edge, knocking over two scrolls and a pot of pencils.
“Be patient!” said the Leader, rapping on the box with his knuckles. “No, there’s no point. We saw at the carpet shop that it’s enchanted only to attack flying carpets. It’ll have to wait until we’re back in Azamed.”
“But Denjar’s is not the only carpet shop here, sir,” said Hara. “We could take it for some exercise before we go. It would be a good parting compliment to the Shirazans.”
“An excellent idea,” said the Leader.
TIIIIIIIIINNG!!!
On the shelf, the genie bottle shattered into green dust. The Nygellian rainbow carpet, back to its normal size and overloaded with Zal, Zara, Rip, Sari and the tig
ers, burst out of it.
“HOLY VULTURE!” yelled the Leader.
Hara and Mira’s swords leapt out of their scabbards. Zal’s sword was already out. Sari’s spearhead sang as it clashed against Mira’s blade as Zara landed the carpet on top of the table, knocking the Knife Demon’s box to the floor. It landed lid down, trapping the Knife Demon inside it.
“GET THEM!” shouted the Leader, reaching for his own dagger. “AARGH!”
Rip leapt off the carpet and sank his teeth into the Leader’s wrist before he could draw his dagger. Cloudclaw was right behind him and pinned the Leader to the floor as Etan struggled to load his crossbow.
“HA!” Sari knocked Mira’s sword aside. Mira staggered backwards and fell over Jeweltail who had slipped around behind her. Zal’s sword clashed as he fenced with Hara until Sheertooth grabbed her ankle in his teeth and pulled her off balance. The Knife Demon rattled furiously in its box as it sensed another carpet. Zara grabbed the largest, heaviest book on the shelf and dropped it on top of the box.
“TAKE THAT!” yelled Etan, firing his crossbow at Zara. She ducked underneath the arrow and it sank into the wall. She rolled sideways and called up her magic. The rainbow fire of all seven colours blazed into life inside her again. Blue magic surged down her arms and filled her hands and she batted Etan’s second arrow aside, before shooting back a violet stun spell.
“YAAAAAHH!!!” yelled Etan, flying backwards as the spell hit his chest like a hammer. He bounced off the wall and landed on the floor in a heap. Sheertooth stamped on his crossbow, breaking it in half. Zara sighed with relief that her magic was back.
“Now, Sari!” shouted Zal.
“Hold your breath!”
Zara breathed in and then held her nose. Rip and Cloudclaw scurried off the Leader as Sari blew her second bag of dozing dust over all four Shadows. They stopped struggling to stand up and collapsed on the floor.
“Well done,” panted Zal, as the Shadows started snoring.
“Don’t mention it,” said Sari, picking up her spear. “Being betrayed by a client is bad for business. It encourages my other clients to do the same thing if I don’t do something about it.”