The Scorpions of Zahir

by Christine Brodien-Jones

  “Get away!” shouted a voice from somewhere overhead. It sounded like her father. “Get out, get away! Out!” It was her father; she was certain of it!

  “Dad!” she yelled excitedly. “Dad, where are you? It’s me, Zagora!”

  Her words were drowned out by the scorpion at the window, shrieking in frustration as it thrust its claws through the grillwork, stretching them unnaturally across the room, until they were only inches away from Zagora. Screaming, she fell to the floor, rolling over and curling herself into a ball.

  More scorpions clustered outside the window, filling her head with thoughts—dark scorpion thoughts: Come with us, be one of us, we will teach you every star in the heavens and reveal the spells of the moon and the planets. Follow us to the desert.

  She curled herself tighter and gritted her teeth. Clinging to the outside walls, the scorpions clacked their pincers in a mad fury.

  We are molten gold, radiant, magnificent, destroying with fervor, our claws sharp as scimitars. Beneath the light of Nar Azrak, we will rule the desert.… Come, be one of us, follow us into our lair.… Follow us to the desert.…

  Covering her ears, she began singing her father’s favorite Broadway tunes at the top of her lungs. After what seemed like an eternity, the scorpion thoughts died away and she stopped singing.

  A distant voice floated down from somewhere above, calling to her, like a dream from long ago: “Zagora!”

  “Dad!” she shouted. “Dad, it’s me. I’m right here!”

  There was no answer, and she shouted again, but there was no reply. Perhaps it had been a trick of the wind—or the scorpions, darting crazily up and down the outer walls. Wracked with anguish and fear, Zagora huddled on the floor and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  When Zagora awoke, she was lying on the floor and the chamber was filled with the pearly-gray light of morning. Rubbing sand from her eyes, she sat up, suddenly alert. From the other side of the door came a strange sound—the sort of sound a claw would make scraping against wood. Scrambling to her feet, she ran to the far side of the room.

  Through the keyhole shot a long thin tentacle. At least, that was what it looked like in the murky light. The scorpions really were intelligent, just as Edgar Yegen had said—and now they’d figured out a way into the room! She stared in horror as the tentacle flicked back and forth. Holding her breath, she waited for the scorpions to burst in, waving their claws and stingers.

  The door flew open. This is it, she thought. I’m done for!

  Confused, she gaped at the small, ragged, hollow-eyed figure before her, which held a twisted wire in one hand. “Razziq?” She took a step forward, then lunged, hugging him tightly. “I thought you were a scorpion!”

  “Scorpions do not appear in the day,” he said, giving her a quick hug back. She thought he might be blushing, because the tops of his ears, showing through his messy hair, looked bright red. “This wire trips the lock.” He held up a long wire. “My uncle Jamal showed me this trick.”

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “I came back into the palace to find you and I heard loud voices. I saw a woman—very big, very angry. She was dragging you up a staircase.”

  “Olivia Romanesçu,” said Zagora. “She’s an evil scientist we met in Marrakech. And, oh yeah, she does experiments with scorpion venom.”

  Razziq’s eyes went wide. Before she could say more, Duncan stumbled into the room.

  “You’re safe!” he wheezed, looking tired and upset. “I was afraid something terrible had happened to you! I shouted when I saw that turquoise spray-painted car go by, but you didn’t come out with the others. I wanted to storm the palace! But Pitblade said no, it was getting dark fast and the scorpions would be coming out. We spent the night shuttered up in some smelly old camel barn.” He threw his arms around her. “I’m just glad you didn’t get eaten by scorpions.”

  “Me too,” she said, hugging him back.

  “Zagora! I am pleased to see you,” said Pitblade, towering up behind Duncan and Razziq. Beneath his ragged beard she noticed a crooked smile. “We’ve all been terribly worried.”

  His words gave her a warm feeling inside, and she realized that Pitblade Yegen was much more than a leader and explorer; he was also her friend.

  “I was so scared,” she told them. “Scorpions tried to get in through the window—a deathstalker almost got me with its claw!” She tried not to panic at the memory. “But it was too big to fit through the bars.” Her heart lurched as she remembered that the scorpions could think.

  “Who locked you in here?” asked Pitblade.

  “It was Olivia,” said Zagora. He stared at her, uncomprehending. “Sorry to give you the bad news, but your cousin’s breeding scorpions and doing weird experiments. She’s got a laboratory downstairs. And she’s going to sell meteorites on the black market!”

  “Do you mean that nonstop-talking crazy scorpion lady we met in Marrakech?” asked Duncan.

  “Yes! Olivia has the Oryx Stone. She stole it from me!” Zagora felt herself growing angrier by the minute. “And she kidnapped Dad! She told me!”

  Duncan’s jaw dropped.

  “Charlie is here, in the palace?” Pitblade’s voice was barely audible.

  “Yeah, and last night I heard him shouting at the scorpions. At least … it sounded like my dad.” She looked at her brother. “He shouted my name—just one time—but I didn’t hear him again after that.”

  “Maybe he was too weak,” suggested Duncan.

  She gave a little shudder, remembering the scorpions, and hoped her dad was okay.

  “Think carefully,” said Pitblade. “Where exactly was the voice coming from?”

  Zagora tried to collect her scrambled thoughts, remembering her fear, and the unearthly light of Nar Azrak, and the scorpions shrieking outside her window. Concentrate, she told herself. She could hear the moaning of the wind and the cracking of the walls, the muffled beating of her heart.

  “Upstairs.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Yeah, his room is directly over this one.” She suddenly sensed a new emotion growing inside her, giving her strength. It was hope.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Duncan. “We’ll tear this place apart until we find him!”

  They charged out of the room, racing down a hall of tiles arranged in geometric designs. Zagora saw Pitblade looking around anxiously, and her heartbeat quickened: Olivia could turn up at any moment!

  At the end of the hall they stood before an archway of delicately carved wood, painted with symbols—some Zagora suspected were evil eyes. Four wooden panels lined the archway.

  “Where are the stairs to the next floor?” asked Duncan. “They should be here!”

  “You must use your power of desert sight,” said Razziq with a solemn look at Zagora. “I can think of no other way.”

  She tensed. Ever since they’d come to the palace, images had been flashing through her head, but nothing clear had appeared to her, only a kaleidoscope of colors, textures, sounds and movement—what she guessed to be echoes of the distant past.

  “Do it, Zagora,” said Duncan. “Use your desert sight to find Dad!”

  I’ve lost the stone, she thought, but I still have desert sight. That’s my power.

  She closed her eyes and stood perfectly still, letting images and sounds and colors pass through her, trying not to think but just to stand there and breathe, letting the past pull her in. Before long she heard the desert wind, low and haunting, and all she could see was shimmering sand.

  At the edge of her vision she glimpsed a veiled figure wrapped in pale striped robes, carrying a basket, hurrying through a side door of the palace, rushing up a staircase, along a darkened passage, to an archway of finely carved wood. Making certain no one was watching, the pale-robed figure leaned over and pushed on the bottom right panel, then disappeared inside.

  The image faded. Zagora blinked a few times, then fell to her knees, pushing against the bottom right panel. Hinges creaked and it swung inw
ard.

  “A hidden door,” murmured Pitblade. “Well done, Zagora.”

  She threw him a quick smile and dove through the space, tumbling into a small chamber where light fell through a window of green glass. A delicate staircase spiraled upward. When she saw it, her heart leapt.

  “Pitblade’s keeping a lookout, just in case,” said Duncan, scrambling in after her, Razziq close behind.

  The three children sprinted up the staircase to a great wooden door inlaid with copper, bone and colored glass and edged in round-headed nails. High on the door Zagora saw a brass doorknob shaped like a hand.

  “Oh man, we’ll never reach that,” groaned Duncan. “We’ll have to break down the door.”

  “No, no,” said Razziq, calmly moving past Zagora. “Lift me up. I will open the door.”

  “Right,” said Duncan, bending down. “Let’s do this in a methodical way.”

  Zagora watched Razziq scramble up onto her brother’s shoulders; then Duncan slowly straightened his back. She knew that in the past it would have been unthinkable for Duncan to lift Razziq—he just wouldn’t have been able to do it—but after spending time in the desert, Duncan had grown leaner and stronger.

  Pulling the wire from his pocket, Razziq closed one eye. Zagora watched him twist the wire through the keyhole beneath the hand-shaped knob, moving the wire up and down.

  “Dad!” shouted Duncan, his face taut with anxiety. “Dad, are you in there?” He banged his fist on the door, almost shaking Razziq off his shoulders.

  Zagora heard a rustling on the other side. She was so excited she could hardly breathe. Razziq gave the wire another twist. There was a soft click and Duncan lunged forward, kicking the door open. Razziq jumped off his shoulders.

  “I will go back now to stand guard with Pitblade,” said Razziq. Before Zagora or Duncan could say a word, he was gone.

  Peering into a shadowy chamber, Zagora saw light streaming in through a high window, illuminating walls covered in symbols, a ceiling curved like the inside of an eggshell.

  “Dad?” she whispered.

  From the shadows a parched voice startled her. “Zagora?”

  “Dad!” she cried as a lone figure with tousled gray-flecked hair, cracked lips and stubble on his face limped toward her, looking exhausted and confused. Seeing her father again, Zagora thought her heart would break.

  “But … it can’t be you,” he mumbled. “I must have a fever. I’m seeing things.”

  Mute with shock, Zagora looked her father over, half expecting to see a man who was frail, stooped and gaunt, as wizened as a desert prophet. But no, he still looked more or less like the Dr. Charles W. Pym she knew, standing before her holding a tattered book to his chest. She squinted to see the title: it was his old favorite, Morocco on the Run.

  “Your eye—what’s happened?” he murmured. “You’ve hurt your eye, Zagora.…”

  Before she could answer, Duncan barreled up behind her. “Dad!” he bellowed.

  Their father, bewildered, gazed back and forth between them. “Then you are real!” he said.

  There was a stunned silence and Zagora felt a knot at the back of her throat, making it hard to swallow. “We’re not mirages, Dad,” she said, starting to cry. “It’s really us.” Unable to control her emotions any longer, she leapt at her father, throwing her arms around his neck. “Dad, Dad,” she sobbed, burying her face in his shirt. “Dad, I really missed you!”

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he said, hugging her. “However did you find me?”

  “We looked all over the desert!” She hiccupped. “Then we came to the palace and Olivia tricked me and locked me up, but last night I heard you yelling at the scorpions—”

  “I’ve been so worried about you both.” He stepped back, smiling bravely. “I knew you’d find me. I never gave up hope.”

  Zagora smiled back. “Me neither, Dad! We were going to search the desert forever until we found you—right, Duncan?” She turned to her brother, who stood with arms dangling, looking awkward. “It really is Dad, Duncan,” she said. “He’s going to be okay.”

  With a gut-wrenching sob, her brother stumbled over and gave their father a bear hug, lifting him off his feet. “Whoa, Duncan!” Dr. Pym said, laughing out loud. Wiping a tear from his face, he threw an arm around each of them. Zagora, standing on tiptoes, kissed her father’s bristly cheek.

  “It was Zagora who saved us. She was really brave,” said Duncan, trying to stay collected. “She was determined to find you, Dad.”

  Zagora grinned. She was finally getting used to the new Duncan.

  “Duncan was brave, too,” she said, beaming. “He was amazing, Dad. Duncan Pym is the bravest kid I know!”

  “I’m so proud of you both,” said their father. He hugged them again, then suddenly let go with a gasp. Zagora saw him staring over their heads in surprise. “Pitblade? Is that you?”

  The two old friends embraced, laughing heartily and thumping each other on the back, but to Zagora’s dismay there was no time for talk of the desert or reminiscences. Razziq appeared and Dr. Pym shook the boy’s hand. Within moments they were all heading downstairs, worried that Olivia and her henchmen might turn up at any minute. We’re like fugitives, thought Zagora.

  As they crouched along the walls of the palace, bodies tensed, she whispered to Duncan: “Olivia’s going to blow a gasket when she sees we busted Dad out of his cell! But we’ll show her a thing or two, right, Duncan?”

  He grinned back at her.

  Zagora was still furious about having lost the Oryx Stone. And at that very moment she resolved to find a way to get it back.

  The palace doors rattled as Pitblade threw them open, making Zagora’s heart jump, but all was quiet outside. Her father seemed a bit overwhelmed, so she took his arm and guided him down the palace staircase, trying to avoid the crumbled parts. Then, blinking like moles, they plunged into the dusty maze of excavated streets. The only signs of life were vultures circling overhead. All she could see was blowing sand and the ravaged remains of a forgotten city.

  “Did Olivia’s goons kidnap you, Dad?” asked Duncan as they hurried along.

  Their father gave a weary nod. Zagora was concerned: his eyes looked like two poached eggs. “Her two guards came in the night,” he told them, “bundled me into an old car and drove me to the edge of Zahir. Mad as hornets when they discovered I didn’t have the stone.”

  “A turquoise 1960s car, right?” said Duncan. “That’s the one that’s been following us!”

  “It was too dark to see much, but the car was definitely retro.” Zagora’s father turned to her. “You found the Oryx Stone, did you, where I dropped it in the sand?”

  “Yep, we did,” she said, throwing Duncan a look. She didn’t have the heart to tell her dad that the stone was gone, snatched away by that witch Olivia. A scary thought drifted into her head: what if, by losing the stone to Olivia, she’d jinxed one of Xuloc’s prophecies—or sent future events in a different direction?

  Her father rubbed his whiskery chin. “I was entombed in that miserable cell—ghastly, really—and every night the scorpions turned up outside my window, trying to get inside.”

  Zagora felt a fresh wave of hatred for Olivia.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” said Pitblade, and Zagora realized that the revelations about Olivia must have been a shock for him. “I had no idea my cousin was capable of such despicable behavior.”

  They descended belowground, through the lichen-crusted portal, past the bottomless lake, over the stone bridge spanning the Unknown River, where green mist enveloped them. At last they entered the subterranean pipe that led back to the tower. The steps of the journey—portal, lake, bridge, pipe, tower—reminded Zagora of the steps in a board game she and Duncan used to play at Auntie Agnes’s house.

  As they tramped through the crumbling clay pipe, bones crunching underfoot, she blurted out, “Listen, everybody, I’ve got to tell you something weird about the scorpions.” She couldn’t keep this un
settling discovery to herself any longer; it was too frightening. “The scorpions can communicate! It sounds crazy, but they’ve been trying to put thoughts inside my head.”

  To her surprise, no one laughed.

  “Intelligent scorpions?” Her father threw her a curious look.

  “What language were they speaking?” asked Duncan. “Like, scorpion language?”

  “It’s not a language, it’s more like the scorpions send messages into your head.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “They try to lure you to their nest—and they can sense a human’s presence.”

  “Hey, remember my theory about the scorpions mutating?” said Duncan. “See, not only are their bodies bigger—but their brains are bigger! That explains why they can communicate.”

  “They tried to trick me,” said Zagora. “They tried to get me to go down to their lair.”

  “Never forget, you are vulnerable to scorpions,” Pitblade reminded her. “Because you have desert sight, they will go after you. They want the stone so they can destroy it—and they will destroy you in the process.”

  “Yeah, I figured that,” said Zagora, thinking how devious the scorpions were.

  “You have desert sight?” Her father looked at her in surprise. “How remarkable! No wonder you’ve always been drawn to the desert, Zagora.”

  She smiled at him, still amazed by the fact she had this unusual gift. And it made her feel extra special seeing the way her dad beamed at her.

  Dr. Pym turned to Pitblade. “There were glyphs in the room where I was locked up: Oracle Glyphs. They kept me sane, actually, because I passed the time deciphering them. They mention an eclipse foretold centuries ago, when Nar Azrak will pass before the moon.”

  “The lunar eclipse, Dad, remember?” said Duncan. “Abdul told us about it.”

  “Of course. I’d totally forgotten. The glyphs warn that during the eclipse, the moon could fall away and the sun be extinguished—and the world will change forever.”

  “The Time of the Scorpions,” said Razziq.