Sebastian Darke: Prince of Explorers

by Philip Caveney

  'What, now?' he asked. 'What time is it?'

  'The sun is just rising,' Phelan told him. 'You are to come with me, you and the little warrior . . .' He glanced at Cornelius, who was already sitting up and taking notice. 'He wishes to speak to both of you. And the comical talking creature. I have told Aaron all about him and he wishes to see him for himself.'

  'All right.' Sebastian elbowed Max unceremoniously in the rump.

  'Oh well, perhaps just another star fruit,' said Max. 'I'm watching my figure.'

  Sebastian stared at him. 'What are you blathering about?'

  Max directed his bleary gaze at him. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I was dreaming I was at a buffalope restaurant.'

  'I've been to one like that in Golmira,' Cornelius told him, blinking the sleep from his eyes. 'Very tasty it was too. I had roast buffalope in hot pepper sauce, with a side order of suckling rusa. Dee-licious!'

  'That's nothing to boast about,' said Max. 'And you misunderstand me. This place was run by humans, but the buffalope weren't on the menu, they were the customers. It was called Buffalopia. There were really smart candlelit troughs, and every so often a waiter would come by and throw in another bucket of fruit; and there were these giant tankards filled with ale and—'

  'I'm sure this is fascinating,' interrupted Sebastian, 'but we have to go and meet Aaron now.'

  'What?' Max looked apprehensive. 'Well, good luck to you, that's all I can say. Let's hope he doesn't bite your heads off.'

  'What are you talking about?' asked Sebastian, getting to his feet. 'You're coming with us, you ninny – he's asked to see you.'

  'Me? He doesn't need to see me. Why should he want to see me?'

  'Because I have told him all about you,' said Phelan. 'I have said what a funny old thing you are.'

  'Oh, well, thanks for that, I'm sure,' said Max, finding his feet with great difficulty on the slippery stone floor. 'I suppose you told him that I had a good bit of meat on my bones, did you? Yes, he's probably woken up hungry. That'll be it.'

  Phelan looked at Sebastian. 'What's he on about?' he asked.

  'Good question. Max seems to have got it into his head that Aaron is some kind of flesh-eating monster.'

  Phelan laughed. 'He's been called many things in his time, but never that!' He turned to look at Max. 'There's no need to worry,' he said. 'Aaron isn't going to hurt you. He's kind and generous. Come along, you'll see.'

  He led the way out of the room and the others followed, Max with visible reluctance.

  'Why do I have to go?' he complained.

  'Because he's heard about you and probably thinks he'll be entertained,' said Cornelius. 'Most people are, the first time.'

  Max looked at him dolefully. 'What's that supposed to mean?' he muttered.

  'Only that the novelty soon wears off.'

  At the end of the landing Phelan turned to climb the next flight of steps to a level they had not yet visited.

  'Oh yes, go on, insult me,' Max told Cornelius. 'You may as well, everyone else does! But if we get up these stairs and this Aaron character turns out to be some kind of unspeakable monster, don't expect me to help you out.'

  'For goodness' sake, Max,' whispered Sebastian. 'Why are you so convinced he's going to be something awful?'

  'Because that's what always happens,' said Max. 'Haven't you worked that out yet? We meet somebody and they seem all right, but in reality they're crafty and evil or they turn into wild animals or they've been plotting to murder you, or eat you or something even worse. Why do we never meet any nice people?'

  'We do meet nice people,' protested Sebastian. 'Jenna Swift . . . Princess Kerin . . . Garth Bracegirdle, the landlord of the Brigand's Arms . . .'

  'Peg o' the Hills,' said Cornelius. 'The Kid and his father.'

  'Lemuel,' offered Sebastian, 'Cassius and the rest of the crew of the Sea Witch.' He thought for a moment. 'Osbert,' he added.

  'Oh yes, well, now we're really scraping the barrel, aren't we? As I recall Osbert was a rather thick mule who could barely string a sentence together. All I'm saying is, if I had to start listing all the nasty scumbags we've encountered, I'd be here till doomsday.'

  They came to a set of ornate metal doors, which Phelan pushed open with a flourish. He led the three friends into the room beyond and Sebastian stared around in amazement. Unlike the bare rooms they had seen so far, this one boasted fine furniture, gold drapes and handsome ornaments. The walls were hung with huge oil paintings – mostly portraits of stately-looking men and women; and the room was lit by a gigantic glass chandelier, upon which scores of candles burned brightly. Sebastian was reminded of the treasure trove of Captain Callinestra because so many fine objects had been crammed higgledy-piggledy into the room.

  Along one entire wall stood a gigantic bookcase crammed with handsome leather-bound volumes like those Sebastian had once seen in the palace of King Septimus. But there were so many other things to catch the eye – furniture and statues and goblets and weapons and jewels and things that Sebastian could not even put a name to.

  At the far end of the room was an elaborately carved and bejewelled throne, and upon it, dwarfed by its size, sat the oldest man Sebastian had ever seen. He had thought Joseph, back at the Jilith camp, was ancient, but this man was shrivelled and wizened by time, so that his pale blue eyes stared out from a face that was a mask of lines and wrinkles. He wore a simple white tunic; beneath it, his body was so emaciated, it looked as if the softest breeze would be enough to blow him away. Sebastian noticed that his bare legs were horribly twisted and marked with ancient scars and realized that he would not be capable of walking without the aid of crutches.

  Phelan led Sebastian, Cornelius and Max up to the foot of the throne. He bowed his head politely and the others did likewise.

  The old man smiled and bowed back. 'So,' he said, in a voice that was as dry and papery thin as his own flesh, 'at last you have come. And not before time.'

  Max sighed. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Not another blooming prophecy!'

  Aaron seemed amused by this. He tilted back his head and gave a wheezy laugh that threatened to turn into a hacking cough. 'Excellent!' he said. 'A talking buffalope. I knew such a thing was possible, but to have lived all these years and never seen it till now . . . What a strange world it is and no mistake.' He looked back at Max. 'No, Mr Buffalope, not a prophecy – just the belief that one day somebody would finally come here and survive the ravages of the Night Runners.' He turned to Phelan. 'Bring some chairs for my guests' – he looked doubtfully at Max – 'and some . . . cushions for the beast.'

  Phelan immediately scuttled off to do the old man's bidding. There was no doubt that Aaron enjoyed all the

  powers of a king and yet, despite his bejewelled throne, he wore nothing that would have marked him out as one – no crown, no splendid robes or badge of office. Phelan came back with a chair for Sebastian, a small stool for Cornelius and, after some frantic searching, a couple of plush silk cushions upon which Max duly settled himself. Phelan stood watchfully by, awaiting further instructions.

  'What a fabulous room,' said Sebastian, looking around in awe.

  Aaron nodded. 'This building was the king's palace,' he said. 'And this was his throne room. Once every room contained as much finery as this, but that is something we shall speak of later. We are all comfortable and we can speak freely. Tell me first where you come from and why you are here.'

  There was a long silence. Sebastian and Cornelius looked at each other. Sebastian told himself that the best thing was simply to tell the truth.

  'We have come from a port called Ramalat,' he explained. 'It's on the east coast of the known world, beyond the jungles of Mendip.'

  'Yes, I know of it,' said Aaron. 'Your homeland?'

  'Er . . . no, I'm from Jerabim, which is further west. And Cornelius here is from Golmira, way up in the frozen north. We—'

  'Ahem!' said Max. 'I, on the other hand, am from the great plains of Neruvia where, as a young calf, I lived as part
of a mighty herd. But through a series of unfortunate events I came into the care of Sebastian's father, who looked after me and brought me to adulthood—'

  'That's probably enough background,' Sebastian told him.

  'I was only trying to give him the full story,' said Max.

  'Yes, but I know you – you'll blather on for ages.' Sebastian turned back to Aaron. 'We were all in Ramalat after a seafaring adventure; and it was there that we met a rich merchant called Thaddeus Peel. He had heard stories of a lost city in the jungle, so he paid us to mount an expedition to go and look for it. He told us that if we found it, we were to bring him back proof of its existence . . . and, well, here we are.'

  Aaron nodded. 'Yes, here you are,' he said. 'And when you finally get back to Ramalat, you should tell this Thaddeus Peel that on no account should he or his people ever try to come here. Tell them that a terrible fate awaits them should they try.'

  Cornelius nodded. 'You speak, of course, of the Night Runners.'

  'I do, sir.'

  'Can you tell us what they are?'

  'They are the people who once lived and worked in this city,' said Aaron sadly. 'They are all that is left of a once mighty empire.'

  'And how did they come to be in this frightful condition?' Cornelius asked.

  Aaron waved a hand at the great bookcase to his right.

  'Before you, you see an incredible wealth of knowledge,' he said. 'There are the answers to all your questions about this city. Phelan, go and pluck out any two books at random and give them to our guests.'

  Phelan rushed away and was back in a moment, pressing a book into Sebastian's hands and another into Cornelius's.

  Sebastian examined his eagerly. It was beautifully made, the cover of rich brown leather, but where he imagined a title ought to be there was nothing but a series of odd-looking marks. Puzzled, he opened the book at a random page and saw lines of the same indecipherable dots, dashes and squiggles.

  'What language is this?' he asked.

  'A good question!' said Aaron. 'It is the language of the people who founded this city, thousands of years ago; it is called Chagwallish, the language of the Chagwallans.'

  'Oh, the Chagwallans!' said Max, and everybody turned to look at him. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. 'No, never heard of them.'

  Aaron smiled. 'Since I first came here as a young man, a member of an expedition from the Southlands, I have devoted much of my time to translating that language,' he said. 'It has been a long and irksome task, but I am stubborn and I have persevered and' – he gestured at his twisted legs – 'I certainly had plenty of time on my hands. Unable to come and go as other men do, I have devoted my life to study. Now, as I approach the end of my days, I am able to fully understand what came to pass here. It is not a nice story.'

  'They never are,' said Max, rolling his eyes.

  'Would you be interested in hearing it?' asked Aaron.

  'We would,' said Cornelius.

  'Absolutely,' added Sebastian.

  'It's not too long, is it?' asked Max. 'Only I haven't had any breakfast yet.'

  Sebastian gave him a sly kick in the rump and Max looked offended; but he settled down to listen.

  Aaron paused for a moment, lifted a small goblet from a table beside him and took a sip of its contents. He set it down carefully and then, leaning back in his huge throne, he began to tell the story.

  CHAPTER 21

  OF KINGS AND EMPIRES

  'It begins in a city called Chagwalla,' said Aaron, 'which in the ancient tongue means the Golden City. It was located across the Straits of Serim in the unknown world, where on our maps it says only, Here Be Dragons. The Chagwallans had a mighty empire, with their own language, their own gods and a powerful army that controlled their land with a rod of iron. In that city lived a man called Nasram and he was feared as the most powerful man alive.'

  'Sounds a bit like King Septimus,' said Max. 'I'll bet he was every bit as evil too.'

  'Oh, he was not a man to trifle with. But he was not a king – at least, not at first. He was a general who served a king, and that king was called King Daalam; for him, General Nasram waged many wars and conquered many cities. King Daalam was ambitious and had long sought to extend his empire; and so his thoughts turned to the unknown land across the sea. He commanded General Nasram to assemble a massive expeditionary force and sent it across the Straits of Serim to explore the world on the other side. King Daalam planned to claim it for himself and add it to his already vast empire. When he embarked on his mission, General Nasram commanded a fleet of fifty ships, every one of them packed with soldiers.'

  Cornelius let out a low whistle. 'That's quite an army,' he said.

  'Indeed. But Nasram wanted to be prepared for anything or anyone who might oppose him. After many days and nights of travel, the armada landed on the south-west coast of the known world and Nasram saw before him a seemingly impenetrable jungle, stretching east and west as far as the eye could see. Undeterred, he marched his men forward and they hacked their way through the dense undergrowth and just kept going.

  'Every night the expedition would cut down enough vegetation to allow it to pitch its tents. Hunting parties were sent out to bring back enough meat to feed every last man – the jungles in those times teemed with wild animals. And so they marched for many moons, until finally Nasram's advance scouts brought back exciting news from up ahead: they had seen a great golden city, ripe for plunder.'

  'Who lived there?' asked Sebastian.

  'Another mighty empire called the Metyars,' explained Aaron. 'A much more primitive society than the Chagwallans, but fabulously rich because of the gold mines on the outskirts of their city; gold that the Metyars used to make statues, jewellery and fine ornaments to offer up to their gods. They had no real concept of the worth of the gold, but used it to adorn themselves.'

  'Rather like the Jilith,' observed Sebastian.

  'The king of this empire was called Selawayo,' the old man continued, 'a proud man who in his own realm was every bit as powerful as Daalam. But he was totally unprepared for the arrival of these strangers from the unknown world. They fell upon his armies like wolves and vanquished them quickly and mercilessly. Selawayo was taken prisoner and his people turned into slaves, forced to mine their precious gold, not for their gods but for Nasram.'

  'Don't you mean for King Daalam?' asked Cornelius. 'After all, he had sent the expedition.'

  'Indeed. But General Nasram quickly became corrupted by his new found power. Why should he send all his wealth back across the straits to King Daalam, he thought, when he could be a king himself, here in the new world? So that is exactly what happened. He proclaimed himself King Nasram and decided to demolish the Metyars' old city and build upon it a fabulous new one dedicated to his own glory. He no longer thought of himself as a mere mortal but as some kind of god.'

  'He sounds a proper bighead,' said Max. 'I hope somebody took him down a peg or two!'

  Aaron shook his head. 'Sadly, no,' he said. 'There was to be no retribution in his lifetime. King Nasram forced all the captive Metyars to work on his new city and it began to spring up on the rubble of the old one. He named it Nasrama, 'the place of the Golden One'.

  'A modest sort, wasn't he?' said Max.

  'He also made a promise to Selawayo, who was now a king in name only and lived as a captive in Nasram's court: when work on the city was complete, he would free the Metyars from slavery and let them go back to their old ways. But Selawayo could not have guessed at the scale of the project. Year after year the work went on. Thousands of slaves perished in their chains and were thrown into a mass grave on the outskirts of the city; their children took their places and whole families lived and died in servitude and ended up in that same mass grave. The Chagwallans treated the Metyars like animals and kept them chained up in pens like common cattle . . .' Aaron glanced at Max. 'No offence,' he said.