The Lightning Key

by Jon Berkeley

  Miles showed Baltinglass to the well; then he and Little followed some of the smaller children, who cantered up the steps like mountain goats. They reached an ornate door with a curling triple arch above it, and one of the boys hammered on the wood as hard as his little fist would hammer. The door was opened almost immediately by a man in white robes and a wine-red fez. He looked his visitors up and down, taking in their dusty indigo clothes and peering closely at their half-hidden faces. The village children all began speaking at once, but the man said something to them, and they turned and ran back down the stairway, laughing and shrieking.

  “You are welcome,” said the man politely, with a flash of gold teeth. “How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to have my fortune told,” said Miles.

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Do you have an appointment?” he asked.

  “I didn’t know I needed one,” said Miles.

  “We’ve traveled a very long way,” said Little.

  “I can see that,” said the man. “You had better come in, but I can’t promise to grant your request.”

  “Thank you,” said Miles. They were brought up two flights of stairs and into a small courtyard painted a cool blue and filled with lush plants. A jug of water stood on a round mosaic table, and the man filled two glasses before leaving them alone. There were two wrought-iron chairs, and they sat opposite each other and drank thirstily. Miles put his hand in his pocket to check on Tangerine as he drank. The bear was in his usual place, floppy and familiar and fast asleep as always. Miles suddenly noticed over Little’s shoulder a tall, dark woman dressed entirely in black. He was not sure how long she had been standing there, but her sudden appearance reminded him of the Sleep Angels, and he jumped despite himself.

  The woman came forward and stood behind Little’s chair. She did not smile. Little followed Miles’s eye and quickly vacated her seat. The woman sat down and took Miles’s hand. Not a word had been spoken.

  Miles was glued to his chair by the woman’s gaze. He expected her to examine the lines on his hand, but instead she looked deeply into his eyes, and he could not have looked away if his life had depended on it. He felt as though he were being unpacked like a suitcase, and things swam to the surface of his memory that he had not thought of for years. Suddenly the woman’s grip tightened; then she gave a little cry and released his hand quickly.

  “They told me you had died,” she said.

  Miles felt his face flush red. His plan to keep his identity hidden seemed idiotic. “Are you Nura?” he said.

  “I am Nura,” said the woman. “How did you find me?”

  “We have a good map,” said Miles. It was not just the intensity of Nura’s gaze that made him stare at her now. He knew that this was the closest he would ever come to seeing his mother’s face, and he was hungry for every detail, as though he could make up for a lifetime’s loss. He could see in his aunt’s features a strength born of the harsh desert, but her eyes were softened by sorrow. Miles had to fight the sudden urge to sit on her knee and let her fold him in her arms.

  Nura looked at him searchingly, and for a moment the ghost of a smile lifted the sadness from her face. She had earrings of silver coins and a cowrie-shell necklace, which looked strangely out of place in the dryness of the desert. “You are like my sister,” she said, “and you are not like her. Why have you come?”

  Miles felt himself swept on a flood of confused feelings. All at once he wanted to tell his aunt everything about his life: how he had fought against the gray regime of Pinchbucket House, how he had learned to fend for himself, and befriended Little, and brought down the Palace of Laughter. Although he had met her only moments before, he realized that he wanted Nura to be proud of him, as he hoped his mother would have been. He knew, of course, that he could not let all these feelings flood out to someone who had only just learned of his existence, so he swallowed them with difficulty and began with a more practical matter. “We came to warn you about the Great Cortado,” he said. “He and Doctor Tau-Tau will arrive here later today.”

  “I remember Cortado,” said Nura. “Celeste was friendly with him, but I never liked him.”

  “I think you’ll find he’s gotten much worse since then,” said Miles.

  “Who is the other man?” asked Nura.

  “He calls himself a clairvoyant,” said Miles, “but to be honest I don’t think he’s any good.”

  “And who is the spirit?” asked Nura.

  “The spirit?” said Miles. Nura inclined her head in Little’s direction.

  “This is my sister, Little,” said Miles. Nura looked at Little sharply, and Miles corrected himself. “She’s my adopted sister,” he said.

  “She is not from here,” said Nura. Something about the way she said it made the hair stand up on the back of Miles’s neck, and he suddenly realized that Little’s presence frightened Nura.

  “I know that,” said Miles. “It’s all right. She chose to stay here to save my life.”

  “We sort of adopted each other,” added Little.

  Nura turned her dark eyes back to Miles. “The spirits we know make people ill and must be driven out.”

  “I’m not that kind,” said Little, smiling brightly.

  “It’s true,” said Miles. “Though we know a few of those too.”

  “And what . . .,” began Nura; then she stopped abruptly. An old woman was passing by one of the arches that led off the courtyard. She shot Miles a suspicious look from eagle eyes as she passed. Nura sucked in her breath, but said nothing.

  “Who was that scary old woman?” asked Little when she had gone.

  “She is my mother,” said Nura. “It’s better if you don’t meet her yet. Are the ringmaster and his friend following you, or coming to see me?”

  “A little of both,” said Miles, “although they will be hoping to get here before us. Do you know anything about the Tiger’s Egg?”

  “I know that Celeste had one,” said Nura in a low voice, “but it was lost or stolen when she died.”

  “The Great Cortado and Doctor Tau-Tau think they have it, but the one they have is really a fake,” said Miles. “They’re coming here to make you tell them how to use it.”

  “Use it for what?” asked Nura.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” said Miles, “but it won’t be for anything good.”

  Nura reached out and held Miles’s hand again. It was not a harsh grip exactly, but there was more firmness than friendliness in it. She looked into his eyes in that unnerving way.

  “You have the real Egg!” she said. “It was hidden by the last thing I expected—a surviving child. That is why I could see neither the Egg nor you.” She loosened her grip. “It clings to you like it did to Celeste. Not a color nor a smell, but something in between.” She sat back and looked at him curiously. “Have you mastered the tiger at such a young age?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Miles. “We were sort of friends, but we’ve had a falling-out.”

  “Friends?” Nura laughed. “You’re a strange boy,” she said, “and I haven’t even asked your name.”

  “It’s Miles,” said Miles.

  “And what do you think we should do about the ringmaster and the clairvoyant, Miles?” asked Nura.

  “I was hoping to string them along for the moment,” said Miles, “and trick them into returning to where they came from, so they can be handed back to the police. The Great Cortado is already on the run from a secure hospital, and he’s a dangerous man.”

  “Trick them?” said Nura. “I don’t remember Cortado as a fool. You must have great confidence in yourself.”

  “We were hoping you would help us,” said Little.

  “They’ve come all this way to find out from you how to master the tiger,” said Miles. “I think they’ll believe whatever you tell them.”

  “This is a difficult and dangerous thing you are asking, Miles,” said Nura. “And I have only just met you.”

  She was interrupted by the
jangling of bells somewhere deep in the house. “How close behind were they?” asked Nura. She stood and swept out to where a window opened onto a commanding view of the village.

  “That depends on how long it took them to buy a camel,” said Little.

  “And on the strength of the medicine woman’s prunes,” added Miles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SOMETHING SOMETHING

  Nura Mahnoosh Elham, pepper-black and twinless, leaned across the sill and looked down at the doorstep below. “If that is Cortado,” she said, “a life of wickedness has not been good to him.”

  Miles peered cautiously over the sill beside her. She smelled faintly of cinnamon and orange peel. “That’s not Cortado,” he said. “That’s our friend Baltinglass of Araby.”

  “I have heard that name before,” said Nura.

  “Everybody’s heard of him,” said Miles. “He seems to know half the people on this continent.”

  “That you up there, Master Miles?” called Baltinglass, cupping his hand behind his ear. “The villains are coming down the track. You’d better let me in before I get carried away with my new swordstick.”

  Miles looked out over the flat roofs and saw two distant figures on camels, one small and the other considerably larger, approaching the village. “That looks like them,” he said, stepping back from the window. Nura closed the shutters and a moment later came the sound of the door opening down below, and the clunk, clunk, clunk of Baltinglass’s cane as he climbed the stone staircase.

  The blind explorer marched into the courtyard, following the sound of voices. “Found my own way up,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind. The ringmaster and his fool are on their way. What’s the plan, Master Miles?”

  “Nura will talk to them,” said Miles, glancing hopefully at his aunt, “while we keep out of sight. We hadn’t really gotten any further than that.”

  “Hmm,” said Baltinglass. “A bit half-baked by your standards, boy, but it will have to do. I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am, wherever you are.”

  “And I you,” said Nura. “You had better step into the next room. There is a screen through which you can listen, but you will have to keep silent.”

  She led them into a small room that was filled with clean laundry, and they sat themselves down on neat piles of sheets and pillows. The wall of the room was an ornate wooden screen that allowed them a broken view of what happened in the courtyard, but kept them hidden in the darkness.

  The doorbell jangled again below, and the man with the gold teeth appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked a little flustered.

  “We have more unannounced visitors,” he said. “It’s turning into a strange kind of day.”

  “You have no idea,” said Nura. “You may send them up.”

  She stepped under the arch where Miles had first noticed her, and almost disappeared into shadow. “That must be one of her favorite tricks,” thought Miles, and he hoped it would unnerve the Great Cortado as much as it had unnerved him.

  Cortado and Tau-Tau appeared at the top of the stairs and were ushered into the courtyard by the man in the white robes. Both men had tried to smarten themselves up a bit. They were wearing clean clothing, which they must have bought or stolen before leaving Wa’il. Doctor Tau-Tau had replaced his faded fez with a new one, and the Great Cortado wore a large and impressive turban that made him look like a freshly picked mushroom with an eye patch.

  “Remember, let me do the talking,” said the Great Cortado in a low voice. “If things don’t go our way, then is the time to bring out the big cat.” He ran his fingers over his scarred cheek and a high-pitched giggle erupted from him, which he rapidly suppressed. “Are you sure you’ve got the hang of that now?”

  Doctor Tau-Tau cleared his throat nervously. “Of course,” he said, but he glanced over his shoulder to check his escape route when the ringmaster wasn’t looking.

  Cortado downed a glass of water and drummed his fingers on the table. “She obviously didn’t foresee our arrival time very accurately,” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting,” said Nura at that moment, emerging from under the arch. Miles was pleased to see both men jump. She sat down on the chair opposite the Great Cortado, leaving Doctor Tau-Tau standing.

  “It’s been a long time, Nura,” said the Great Cortado.

  “It has passed quickly, Cortado,” said Nura.

  “This is my associate, Doctor Tau-Tau,” said Cortado, waving dismissively in Tau-Tau’s direction.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Tau-Tau. “I had the good fortune to be apprenticed to your sister, Celeste.” The parts of his face that were not sunburned were turning redder as he spoke. “It’s good to see your face again. Not that I’ve seen it before, but on Celeste, you understand. That is—”

  “Shut up, Tau-Tau,” said Cortado. He took out a cigar and offered one to Nura. She refused it and produced a clay pipe instead. Miles stared through the carved screen. He had never seen a woman smoke a pipe before, but his aunt lit it with a practiced hand and was soon trading smoke clouds with the ringmaster.

  “I wonder,” said the Great Cortado, fixing Nura with his one gray eye, “if you have had a visit recently from a blind trickster and his two young accomplices?”

  “I think I would remember such an unusual visit,” said Nura.

  “Quite,” said Cortado. “But if these characters do call on you it might be the last thing you remember. The old man is in fact a ruthless killer, and the two children are his accomplices.”

  “Nobody has ever managed to bring harm to the occupants of this house,” said Nura.

  The Great Cortado smiled. “I am sure of it, but these cunning individuals require particular caution. The old man gains sympathy by pretending to be blind, and he uses the two children to charm the unwary. The young boy often poses as a long-lost relative to gain entry to a house. He can be very convincing.” He leaned forward and tapped his ash on the tiled floor. “Together they have murdered and thieved their way up and down the country, and just yesterday they tried to rob us as we lodged in a nearby village.”

  “You did not travel across sea and desert to deliver this warning to me,” said Nura.

  “Indeed not,” said Cortado. He seemed very uncomfortable on his chair, shifting his position continually, and there were violent gurgling sounds from his stomach that even Miles could hear. “I have need of your expertise,” said Cortado. He clicked his fingers and held out his hand to Doctor Tau-Tau, who scowled and fumbled the bogus Tiger’s Egg from what he imagined was a hidden pocket.

  The Great Cortado held up the Egg between his thumb and forefinger. “I think you know what this is,” he said to Nura.

  “It’s a Tiger’s Egg,” said Nura. “Doubtless the one that belonged to my sister. I often wondered what became of it.”

  “It was entrusted to me by Celeste,” said the Great Cortado. He leaned forward across the table. “I will get straight to the point, Nura. I have reason to believe that your sister was poisoned by Barty Fumble for this Egg, but that she foresaw her fate and gave it to me for safekeeping.”

  Nura’s face remained expressionless as she listened to this story, but Doctor Tau-Tau’s jaw dropped and his eyes bulged in disbelief. “Impossible!” he blurted. “No clairvoyant can predict her doom!”

  The Great Cortado turned to him with a look that made it suddenly very easy for Tau-Tau to predict his own doom. “I think I may have left my camel untethered,” said Cortado. “You’d better go and check, Tau-Tau.”

  The fortune-teller made as if to answer; then he changed his mind and hurried sulkily out of the courtyard and down the stairs.

  “What do you want from me?” asked Nura.

  “The soul of the tiger is contained in this Egg, is that not so?” said the Great Cortado.

  Nura nodded.

  “Then it should be possible to put another soul in there and combine the two, should it not?” said Cortado.

  Nura
looked at him in silence for a long time, sending curls of white smoke up into the leafy sky of the courtyard. “It is possible,” she said at last, “but I could not say what the result would be. It would take a strong person to share such a tiny room with a tiger and come out on top.”

  “I’ll worry about that,” said the Great Cortado. “Can you do it?”

  “Perhaps,” said Nura, “but why should I?”

  Miles held his breath. It seemed Nura had made up her mind not to cooperate, and he feared that things could get rapidly out of hand.

  “For two reasons,” said Cortado. “I too have a score to settle with Barty Fumble, and I have recently had reliable information as to where he’s been hiding all these years. He is a wily man and hard to get at, but he has a weakness for tigers, as you probably know. In the tiger’s body I could avenge your sister’s murder and settle my own score at the same time.”

  “Why become the tiger when you already own him?” said Nura. “Have you not gained power over him in the eleven years you have held the Egg?”

  “Of course,” lied the Great Cortado smoothly. “But I am no longer content just to pull the strings. A tiger is power in its purest form. I intend to be the power.” He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was listening. “Does that seem . . . crazy to you?”

  “It’s not something that would interest me,” said Nura. “You said there were two reasons I should help you. What’s the other one?”

  “Money,” said Cortado. “I don’t expect you to provide a valuable service for free.”

  “You would not be able to afford me.” Nura laughed.

  The Great Cortado stubbed out his cigar and produced a purse, from which he emptied an avalanche of coins onto the table. “There’s plenty more where that came from.” He giggled.

  Nura eyed the money on the table. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Oh, there’s one other thing,” said Cortado casually. “I fear those robbers I warned you about have some inkling of the value of the Egg, and they will almost certainly trace us here to make another attempt on it.”