by Julie Berry
Tom’s eyes twinkled at me. I laughed in spite of myself and, for good measure, kicked sand at his shoes. He laughed and hopped nimbly aside.
Now that I could catch my breath, I tried to think what to do. Persia didn’t seem to want us around. After two near misses like this, shouldn’t I give up and take my friends home?
Alice stood up and brushed the sand off her skirts. “Well, come on, then.” She reached out a hand to hoist me to my feet. “Time’s ticking, and the day will only get hotter. Let’s explore while we can.”
Good old Alice. I took her hand and stood up.
We set off, with Tom leading the way and Alice behind me, clutching my elbow. Midstride, a strange sensation passed over my body, a sort of buzzing in my teeth.
“What was that?” I asked.
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know. I felt it, too.”
I thought I heard Mermeros’s voice sound a faraway warning in my ear, like a whining mosquito.
Alice caught up to us, then paused when she felt the jolt. “Oh! How strange.” She cocked her head. “Such a perplexing place!”
“It’s probably just the heat,” I said. “The sun and air take some getting used to, I’m sure. Let’s keep moving.”
Tom reached the hole the wolf had created. He knelt and poked his head inside.
“Oh, Tom, don’t,” Alice said. “What if that’s a wolf’s den, and there are more of them down there?”
But Tom ignored her. He pulled himself up and fished in his knapsack for a candle and matches. He quickly lit his candle, lowered it down into the hole, then poked his head and trunk down in after it. I was surprised that the hole was deep enough for him to do this; from above he was a pair of legs abandoned by its own torso.
“Maeve, you need to see this,” he yelled. I barely heard the muffled echoes. He pulled himself upright, then poked his feet down the hole. “I’m going in. Come along after me. The drop’s not far. You won’t get hurt.”
And before we could say anything, he disappeared.
I peered over the edge. His flaming-red hair reflected off the small patch of sunlight that had followed him down.
I bent further down and saw light from Tom’s candle wavering on faraway walls. This was no mere fox’s den. There was a room down there!
I lowered my feet into the opening.
Alice seized my arm. “Maeve, say you won’t do anything so foolish as this,” she pleaded. “We are in Persia. The wilderness. Suddenly a wolf leaps out of a hole in the ground, and you decide you want to go down that hole?”
Tom’s voice came echoing up from the chamber below. “You have to see this place!” he called. “Both of you! Bring my sack so we can light some more candles!”
Alice sighed and sank to her knees. She took a long look at me, then shook her head.
“I could no more stop you than I could grant a magical wish,” she said. “I’ll stay up here and keep watch. Don’t be long down there.”
I squeezed her hand, grabbed Tom’s sack, turned toward the darkness, and jumped.
Chapter 15
I landed crouching in the dark. Mine was a fighter’s stance, but if a blade-wielding enemy was inches away, I’d never know it in the blackness of this space. Up above, in the sunlight, Alice’s blond braids hung down around her pink face, but she was all I could see. My guardian angel of worry.
My eyes found the orb of candlelight surrounding Tom. Beyond him was only dimness. The weight of the earth pressed around me, and I took an uneasy breath to reassure myself that I still could. Tom tipped a new candle into his own and handed me the lit taper. It was only another drop of light in a sea of darkness, but it was something.
The walls, though thickly covered with dust and spiderwebs, were walls. This was no animal’s lair, but a room built by human hands. A cellar?
Tom brushed away a swath of dirt and debris, and held his lamp up close. “Look.”
I came closer. By the light of both our candles we saw, not rough-hewn rocks, but glazed bricks, and on them, carved in relief, a splendid horse, with long, prancing legs, a graceful curved neck, and a mane wrapped in tight coils.
It was beautiful. Perfect in its detail. And thousands of years old. I reached out my fingers to explore the surface, then hesitated. Something this ancient, one didn’t lightly touch, and yet it was so lifelike, I almost expected it to peel itself off the brick wall and gallop away.
A wooden torch jutted from the wall above the horse. Tom lifted his candle to it and, after much fussing, managed to light its splintered end. It gradually put forth a cautious light that only made the carving look more mysterious. Furry black spiders scattered as heat spread.
Tom scraped more of the wall, revealing another brick relief carving of a bearded man in pleated robes. His sword hung from his belt, and he carried a round shield with one arm.
An ancient Persian man. The sight of him sent chills through me.
“How old do you think this is?” I whispered.
“Couldn’t say,” Tom said. “Old as the world, feels like.”
“This is no cellar,” I said. “This is much too grand for that.”
Tom cleared away more debris, revealing a procession of bearded men in pleated robes, carrying various weapons or offerings of food in their hands. All the men wore elaborate headdresses, some round, some pointy, and some flat. Their hair and beards were carved in small, tight curls. This art was unlike anything I’d ever seen in England. In the men’s wide, carved eyes I saw wisdom and dignity.
“Who are you?” I whispered to a carving of a man carrying a basket of fish. “I want to know.” But the brick-carved man kept his silence.
Tom unveiled carvings faster and faster. His excited eyes shone in the candlelight. “Can you believe we’re here, Maeve? Have a pair of kids ever been this lucky?”
He lit more torches as we moved along, observing the costumes, hats, and objects carried by each carved figure. Light began to reach beyond the wall where we stood. Stone structures dotted the room—broken columns, and benches of sorts, and footrests. In the center of the room was a wide, flat table. An altar? On a raised platform stood the remains of a stone chair.
But my attention was riveted by the ornately carved figures on the wall, parading one by one along the endless underground. “What are they looking at?” I asked.
Tom looked at me curiously. “I don’t know. Us?”
“No, silly. They’re all facing something up ahead.”
Tom kept stripping away the filth. We reached a trio of figures kneeling before the huge form of a man, larger by half than those gazing at him. He sat upon an elaborate chair, underneath a figure of the sun surrounded by feathered wings.
“It’s a throne,” I said. “And that’s the king. We’re inside the palace.”
Tom whistled. “Splendor and majesty.”
“It’s an old, dusty mess,” I said, “but I’m sure it was splendid once. I had rather envisioned pots full of rubies and pearls for the taking, and wagonloads of gold coins, but still…”
Tom rolled his eyes. “Anybody can have pots of rubies.”
“Not quite anyone, in fact.”
“This is real history,” Tom persisted. “It’s ancient! It’s secret! Archaeologists would give their teeth for a glimpse of this.”
“I’ll keep my teeth, thank you,” I said. “If you see any pots of rubies, be so good as to let me know.”
I studied the fearsome figure of the king, looming over the others, and the three figures kneeling before him with outstretched arms.
“Who do you suppose they are?” Tom asked. “Slaves?”
I shook my head. “Too well dressed, I think.” They wore earrings, necklaces, and rings, and finer clothes than any of the other worshippers. “And they’re closest to the king.”
“Look at this.” Tom pointed above
the heads of each of the three kneelers at carved figures of animals. A bird, for the one closest to the king. Next, a dog. The third one, I couldn’t quite make out.
“What’s that animal?” I asked Tom.
“A fish,” he said. “These curved things are gills.”
“Maybe,” I mused, “these figures represent animal kingdoms bowing before the great king, or something.”
“Or something.” Tom didn’t sound as sure.
I thought of a new idea. “I know! The bird—that could be air. The dog, earth, and the fish, water. The ancient elements. I read about this in a book about Persia once. Only I thought there were more of them…”
“Look here.” Tom pointed above the king’s head, where a flame was carved, just below the winged sun. “The king is fire.”
“What are you two doing down there?”
Alice’s musical voice echoed mournfully through the chamber. I’d practically forgotten about her with our discovery of the carved figures.
“We’re inside the palace,” I called back to her. “It’s incredible! You should join us!”
“No, thank you,” she sang. “I prefer to bake in the scorching sun like a pudding.”
I felt ashamed then. We were pleasantly cool here in the underground palace, but Alice must be melting in the heat. If her hat didn’t shade her enough, she’d burn like toast.
I trotted back to where the hole cast a patch of light over the dark room. “Alice, please come down,” I called. “We’re perfectly safe, and you’ll burn to a crisp up there.”
Alice hesitated. Then she sighed. Her boots came through the hole in the ceiling, followed by her stockinged ankles and her lacy petticoats. I half caught her as she tumbled down.
“At least it’s cooler here,” she observed, dusting herself off.
I tugged her toward the burning torches. “Alice, look,” I said. “What do you see?”
She blinked against the dark and hung back a bit at the cobwebs and dust. But when she began following the carvings, she forgot her fear. “Oh, my,” she whispered. “Have you ever seen…? What does it mean?” When she reached the figure of the king, she wrenched a torch from its socket and kept on going.
The figure of the king appeared again, this time pointing an angry finger at someone. The someone was held in the elbow grip of two other figures. Back and forth darted Alice and her torch, comparing the two pictures.
“These are princes,” she said at length, pointing to the three figures with the bird, the dog, and the fish. “The king’s sons.”
“I wonder who their mother was,” I joked. “A zoologist?”
“Very funny,” Alice said.
“What makes you say they’re princes?”
Alice pointed to their clothing. “I think this symbol on their sashes or belts is some kind of family mark, or crest,” she said. “The king has it, and so do they. Plus, they’re the only figures with stuff, um, floating above their heads.”
Tommy pointed to the picture with the king pointing angrily at one of them. “So, this means the king was angry at one of his sons?”
Alice nodded. “It looks like the two other sons caught and captured the bad son. Bird and dog captured fish and brought him to the king.”
“Fish son…” I repeated. “The third son of a king…”
I lit another torch and pressed my way along the seemingly endless gallery. A flappy sheet of cobwebs stirred against the wall. I pulled them away. We stared at the raised carvings underneath.
“Criminy,” Tommy whispered. “Look at that!”
The king figure, looming larger than ever, pressed a massive hand down on the head of his rebellious son, stuffing him into some kind of vessel—a jar or vase. Beside him stood the other two sons, but their heads were now the head of a bird and the head of a dog.
“What does it mean?” Tommy asked.
“Can’t you see?” Alice’s eyes were wide lamps in the darkness. “It means Mermeros’s own father, the king, turned him into a djinni.”
Chapter 16
Inside my pocket, I felt Mermeros’s sardine can flop indignantly.
“I think you’re right, Alice,” I told her. Good old Alice!
“That’s Mermeros?” Tommy said. “He was a bad one from the beginning, wasn’t he?”
“He can hear you, you know,” I reminded Tommy.
He traced the king’s angry expression with his finger. “Wouldn’t that mean the king would have to be a sorcerer, or something?”
Something clicked. “That’s what Mermeros told me. That a sorcerer made him a djinni.” I continued dusting the wall free of spiderwebs. This wall was a story I was eager to read.
It finally ended at a corner. I turned and paced alongside the new wall, lighting torches as I went, but I saw nothing more than rectangular bricks. After a while of walking, I turned back, cutting a diagonal across the space to rejoin Alice and Tommy.
“What I want to know is, what about the dog and the bird brothers?” I asked. “I think… Oof!”
I wasn’t watching where I was going. I tripped hard on something heavy and solid, and tumbled down a long, stone shape. Tommy and Alice hurried over to help me up.
“What is that thing?” Alice asked, after I shooed her away from fussing over me.
“A coffin, I think,” Tommy said.
“Sarcophagus,” I corrected him.
Tommy knelt down for a closer look. The puddle of weak light from my candle fell upon the sarcophagus lid. “Here’s that royal symbol, again,” he said. “I think this sarco—whatever you said, belongs to the king!”
“Look,” Alice said. “A dog and a bird.”
Sure enough, two large figures stood at watchful attention on either side of the king’s royal symbol.
“Not just a dog and a bird,” I said. “A peacock and a wolf.”
We stared at each other.
“Does that mean the king turned his other two sons into animals?” asked Tommy.
In my pocket, Mermeros’s tin began to buzz against my leg.
“That doesn’t seem very nice,” Alice said.
Tommy peered at the sides of the sarcophagus. “Look,” he said. “A foreign army, marching. Marching at the king and his sons, with the dog head and the bird head.” He crawled along the back of the coffin. “Uh-oh. Here’s the king with a spear through his chest.”
We scrambled around to see. There was the king, falling back in his chariot, pointing at each of his sons, who fought by his side.
“He was about to die,” Tommy whispered. “He was a sorcerer. I’m sure of it. Before he died, he turned his sons all the way into a dog and a bird.”
“But why?” Alice asked.
Mermeros went mad with angry vibrations. Alice shuddered. “Do you think the king’s really in there? Right inside this big box?”
A wicked thought seized me. “There’s only one way to know,” I said. “Come on, Tommy. Help me.”
We crouched down and leaned with all our weight against the stone lid on the sarcophagus.
“No!” Alice wailed. “Don’t open it! You can’t! I can’t abide the thought of dead bodies.”
I pushed and gasped, but the lid didn’t want to budge.
“Don’t fret, Alice,” I said. “After all these thousands of years, if he’s in there at all, he’ll be nothing but dust.”
Tommy and I strained at the weight of the lid until finally it budged a bit.
“One, two, three, heave!” I cried. With a mighty shove, we shifted the lid off onto the floor. Alice covered her eyes with her hand, then peeked between her fingers and screamed.
Tommy and I peered over the edge. A grinning skeleton leered at us. Apparently, the king wasn’t dust.
Inside my pocket, Mermeros shivered in staccato like chattering teeth.
Th
e king’s head tilted toward us.
I gripped Tommy’s arm. “He’s alive!”
Tommy reached down gingerly and poked the skull with his fingertip. It moved like any other object would. I waited for a curse to strike Tommy.
“It’s not alive, Maeve,” he said. “Something made it move. Maybe it was us, shifting the lid around.”
I took a deep breath and tried not to feel too silly. Alice slipped her hand into mine. “I thought he looked alive, too, Maeve,” she said. Good old Alice.
We knelt for a closer look. Tommy reached in and lifted a heavy disk-shaped object, about four inches across, from somewhere just underneath the king’s ribs.
“It’s the king’s crest,” he whispered. “In the carvings, he wore it on his belt.”
“The sorcerer king,” echoed Alice.
“Perhaps,” I cautioned. “We’re making an awful lot of guesses here.”
I took the crest from Tommy and turned it over in my hand. Thin strands of what was probably once leather dangled from the back.
“Whatever it is, Mermeros doesn’t like it,” I told the others. “He’s quivering like a jelly in his sardine can.”
“There’s a mystery here,” Alice said. “That’s for sure.”
In the distance, I heard something. Something so faint that I wasn’t sure I heard it at all. But with each second, the noise grew.
Alice gripped my hand. “I think we should get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “But let’s take a souvenir.” He pocketed the crest, then reached into the coffin, and pulled a heavy ring off the king’s bony finger.
“That’s stealing,” Alice protested.
“I don’t think the king will mind.” Tommy laughed as he admired the ring.
“But those things belong here,” Alice said. “They belong to Persia. And to this king, and his memory. They’re part of his story.”
“Who will ever notice the difference?” I said. “It doesn’t look like anyone has known this king’s story for thousands of years.”
Alice shook her head. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Look,” I told her, “I’m running out of wishes. I’m not leaving here without something. Maybe I can sell it to make the money I need to…”