by Jon Mayhew
‘I used to think that only the strong survive,’ Ness sighed. ‘My father drummed that into me. Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’
‘But you don’t think that now?’ Azuli said, narrowing his eyes at her.
‘I’d give anything to go back and save the girls at the Academy,’ Ness said, choking back a sob, ‘and all those poor people who worked for Lumm and the others who have become Pestilents.’
‘But we can’t change the past. I can’t change the fact that I lost the sword. We can’t bring people back from the dead,’ Azuli said, looking grim. ‘Widow Quilfy tried that, didn’t she?’
Ness shuddered. So much had happened in such a short time. They sat silently and watched the light fading from their world of cloud.
‘I know but I was such a . . . a bully,’ Ness said, sniffing. ‘If there’s any way I can make it all right then I’ll take that chance.’
‘And I’ll help you.’ Azuli smiled and stroked away her tears with the back of his hand.
‘Tomorrow is day seven,’ Ness whispered to herself. ‘Tomorrow Zaakiel grants my wish, but it’ll cost me everything.’
A good anvil does not fear the hammer.
Traditional proverb
Chapter Twenty-seven
The Seventh Day
Dawn crept over the horizon, revealing the distant domes and spires of London to Ness and Azuli. The city grew, a stain spreading across the landscape, and the smell of smoke filled Ness’s nostrils. She drew a long, deep breath.
‘I never thought I’d find the stink of London welcome,’ she grinned, blotting out the thoughts of what lurked down there and what they would soon face.
‘Shall we go to Scrabsnitch’s or to Arabesque Alley?’ Azuli said, returning her grin with a tight smile.
‘The Alley,’ Ness said, her voice wavering. ‘We need to find out if Hafid has located the djinn and your father will be worried. Besides, I don’t think I could bear it if we went to the emporium and found . . .’
Azuli gave a brief nod and squeezed her hand.
The river became an ever-thickening ribbon until they could see the ships cutting through the black waters.
‘Is it just the view from up here or are there fewer boats on the river?’ Azuli said, frowning.
‘And they’re all heading east,’ Ness added. ‘Away from the city.’
‘The djinn’s evil must have spread,’ Azuli gasped, pointing down.
The streets seethed with people running in every direction. Horses whinnied, rearing as people crushed past them. Ness could pick out overturned barrows, their contents of fruit or fish scattered across the cobbles. Here and there preachers ranted at small groups of kneeling onlookers. Their angry cries mingled with the yells and calls of the panicked crowds and the occasional muffled explosion. Ness could see plumes of smoke rising all over the horizon.
The thin, green mist drifted across the city but was still thickest around the tight knot of dilapidated houses and twisting narrow streets that surrounded Arabesque Alley. The carpet flew down, skimming the heads of the terrified crowd. The fog grew more dense and the streets became emptier and more desolate.
‘Where have all the Pestilents gone?’ Ness frowned. ‘There should be an army of them filling these alleyways.’
Gradually they came to the alcove and Azuli gave a gasp. The blue gate hung on one hinge, splintered and dangling inwards. Ness yanked the carpet up, red brick and grey roof slate flashed past them, and her stomach lurched as she forced the carpet down into the alley on the other side of the gate.
‘Oh no,’ Ness gasped.
The Alley lay littered with Pestilents. Here and there were huddled shapes, those Lashkars who had made a valiant last stand against the tide of evil. In the distance Ness could hear the tumult of the city, but a deathly hush hung over the Alley. Somewhere water trickled from a bullet-holed barrel.
‘Are we too late?’ Azuli muttered, his knuckles whitening around the scimitar’s handle.
Ness said nothing but sent the carpet skimming over the destruction towards Hafid’s quarters. The Pestilents had obviously squeezed into this narrow alley, almost unable to move. They lay piled on top of each other, filling the passage, crushed against the doors.
‘There was a fierce battle here,’ Ness said, gripping Azuli’s hand. ‘We’ll have to go in through an upper window.’
Ness guided the carpet to one of the windows and peered in. A rifle barrel poked cold against her nose. Behind it, confusion creased Scrabsnitch’s face, followed by wide-eyed recognition.
‘Azuli! Miss Bonehill!’ he cried. ‘We thought you were gone, never to return.’
‘Mr Scrabsnitch,’ Ness replied, equally confused. ‘But what are you doing here? I mean –’
‘Let us get in, Ness,’ Azuli said, giving a tight smile. ‘Or are we going to chat like this all day?’
‘Do forgive me,’ Scrabsnitch stammered, jumping back.
Ness guided the carpet through the narrow window. She squinted in the gloom. Refugees from other houses lined the chamber. Old Lashkar men and women, coughing, sobbing.
Scrabsnitch shook his head. ‘The Pestilents started moving a few hours ago. They were slow and clumsy but there were so many of them.’
‘Where’s my father? Jabalah? Hafid?’ Azuli asked urgently, grabbing Scrabsnitch’s sleeve.
Scrabsnitch shook his head and sighed. ‘They fought their way out of Arabesque Alley but I was left here to guard Hafid.’
‘Can you get me some rope or a belt?’ Ness grunted, kneeling on the protesting carpet and rolling it up inch by inch.
‘Er, yes.’ Scrabsnitch glanced around, then pulled a length of rope from his pocket and handed it over, grinning. ‘Here we are. Lucky I picked that up before.’
The grin quickly faded as he led them down through the building. Worried faces peered from every shadow in the house. Old and tired, the last of the Lashkars of Sulayman crowded and huddled in every room they passed. Some sat on the stairways. Others lay on pallets, groaning from infected wounds.
Hafid sat, cross-legged and alone, in the centre of the room where Ness had first met him. His eyes were squeezed shut and he muttered and mumbled under his breath.
‘He’s casting a charm over the remaining Lashkars and Sergeant Major Morris,’ Scrabsnitch whispered.
‘Morris is alive?’ Ness said. ‘How did you escape from the djinn?’
‘Another piece of incredible luck.’ Scrabsnitch gave a thin, self-satisfied smile. ‘The emporium collapsed in on us.’
‘That’s luck?’ Azuli murmured.
‘Well,’ Scrabsnitch said, smoothing his wispy beard. ‘I managed to drag Morris behind a solid granite statue of Moloch. To cut a long story short, the whole shop collapsed and, by some stroke of luck, the djinn couldn’t find us or assumed we were dead. He just left.’ Scrabsnitch gave a snort of delight, then covered his mouth. ‘So once we’d dug ourselves out, we came here to see if there was any news of you.’
‘What did you . . . find?’ Hafid croaked, half turning his head.
Ness hurried over to the feeble figure. ‘Riddles and dreams,’ she muttered.
‘I’m sorry I can’t . . . be of . . . more help,’ Hafid gasped, his breathing heavy. ‘I am . . . struggling to keep the . . . contagion from the last fighting party.’
‘I had a vision. My mother read me a story,’ Ness said, reluctant to relive the experience. ‘I had eyes of blue fire. When the djinn grabbed me, our eyes were the same.’
‘Which story?’ Hafid hissed. Sweat trickled down his wrinkled brow.
‘The Merchant and the Djinn,’ Ness said, frowning, ‘from the Arabian Nights book I used to have . . . But they’re just children’s tales.’
‘Ha!’ Hafid’s whole body shook with silent laughter. ‘Ancient tales . . . told around the campfires of many in the old countries . . . We seek our wisdom in our holy books these days but these stories . . . were told for a reason. Think about the tale. You
have your answer there.’
My answer to killing the djinn? Ness thought. But it doesn’t find my parents.
Hafid took a breath and retreated into his deep concentration.
‘My father and the others, where did they go?’ Azuli asked, grabbing Scrabsnitch by the shoulders.
‘Hafid has tracked Zaakiel to St Paul’s Cathedral,’ Scrabsnitch said, shaking his head. ‘He suspects that the fiend wants the best vantage point from which to view the carnage.’
‘The highest house,’ Azuli whispered. ‘That’s what the guardian of the oasis said . . . On the highest hill.’
There Zaakiel views his destruction and revels in it, Ness thought. That’s where my parents will be.
‘The cathedral is on Ludgate Hill, the highest hill in London,’ Scrabsnitch added. ‘Your father and the remaining Lashkars were not content to wait here. They fought their way out and are heading for St Paul’s.’
‘Then we must find them and join them,’ Azuli declared, turning to leave.
‘No,’ Ness said, grabbing his shoulder. ‘Our job is to battle the djinn.’
‘But the Lashkars will surely die,’ Azuli cried, yanking his shoulder from Ness’s hand.
‘And we will die with them if we try to help,’ Ness said, her voice calm. ‘But if we kill the djinn before they reach him, we can save them and everyone else. My parents, your father, everyone. And I think I know how to do it.’
The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.
Traditional proverb
Chapter Twenty-eight
Counter-Attack
Scrabsnitch waved them off as they unfurled the carpet, leapt on and flew out of the window, heading towards the distant crouching dome of St Paul’s.
‘And how do you propose to defeat Zaakiel?’ Azuli wondered aloud.
‘Think about the Arabian Nights tale,’ Ness said. ‘The djinn’s son, how is he killed?’
‘The merchant casts a date stone away and it strikes the djinn’s son . . . in the eye.’ Azuli’s speech slowed as realisation dawned on him. ‘That is madness! You think you can kill the djinn with a date stone?’
‘Hafid told me to think about the story,’ Ness said. ‘He said there was a reason that people told the tales. They’re ancient wisdom.’
‘But the Sleepers of the Amarant gave us this,’ Azuli said, patting the hilt of the silver sword. He had made a point of scratching Zaakiel’s name on the blade with a dagger point before they left.
Ness looked dubiously at the sword. ‘They said to take sustenance and to choose our weapons carefully,’ she replied, pulling a handful of date stones from her pocket. ‘I think they meant these.’
‘And how are you going to get close enough to throw them with sufficient force to kill?’ Azuli said, looking incredulous.
Ness avoided Azuli’s steady gaze.
Even in the short time they’d been back, Ness could sense that things had worsened in the city. Screams echoed up from the streets, more plumes of smoke rose above the roofline where fires had started. As they flew, she could see crowds of people trying to evade the streams of Pestilents that lurched along, spreading poison through the streets. They grabbed at the terrified survivors, gouging and strangling, their decaying faces twisted in a mindless rage. Ness squeezed her eyes shut and let the cool air blast her face. The djinn must be stopped.
‘There!’ Azuli shouted, pointing downward.
Ness peered over the edge of the carpet. The Lashkars stood back to back at the junction of several roads, surrounded by an ever-increasing mass of Pestilents. The weak sun flashed on their scimitar blades and every now and then a small puff of gun smoke drifted up from the crowd, followed by the throaty roar of Morris’s blunderbuss.
‘We must help them!’ Azuli pleaded.
‘No.’ Ness stared ahead through the haze of smoke at the bulk of the cathedral.
‘We must save your father and leave mine to die?’ Azuli snarled. ‘Is that it?’
Ness shook her head. Tears stung her eyes. ‘Our parents don’t matter now, Azuli,’ she sobbed. ‘Only stopping the djinn and saving mankind from this hideous plague matters.’
‘Then at least let’s buy them some time,’ Azuli begged, his eyes glittering. ‘With the carpet we can cut through whole swathes of those accursed creatures!’
Ness stared into Azuli’s pleading brown eyes and then heaved a sigh. ‘I’ll try to steer it down but we can’t waste any time,’ she muttered. ‘And I can’t guarantee the carpet will behave itself.’
‘I wish you could control it completely,’ Azuli sighed as Ness forced the carpet downward.
For a moment the world flashed blue, forcing Ness to blink and shake her head. She looked up to see Azuli staring at her.
‘What now?’ she snapped irritably.
But before he could answer, the carpet went slack as if all the life had drained from it. Ness felt her stomach turn as they lost height.
‘What’s all this?’ she growled. ‘Fly, damn you! Take these Pestilent creatures off their feet!’
As if Ness’s words had breathed new life into it, the carpet swirled around, almost unseating them. It plunged down towards the seething mass of bodies. Ness gripped the rough weave, gagging on the stench that blew up from the creatures. Azuli yelled, slashing left and right with his sword as the carpet bowled into Pestilent after Pestilent, sending them crashing to the ground. For a moment Ness forgot everything else – her parents, Azuli, the Lashkars. She was one with the carpet. It was one with her and followed her every command.
The roar of Morris’s gun grew nearer and the startled face of Taimur flashed past them. The carpet took them in a dizzying circuit of the tight-knit group. Jabalah let out a cheer as the Pestilents staggered back from them, creating space. Morris gave a grin and saluted Ness. She returned his grin and then pulled them back up into the air and looked down.
But as she waved her heart plummeted. More Pestilents swarmed in from the side streets, others staggered from houses to replace those that had fallen.
‘We have to stop the djinn,’ Ness bellowed.
Azuli nodded, his face ashen.
The carpet whipped them through the sooty air towards the dome of St Paul’s. It loomed over the city, black and squat, making Ness think of some kind of beetle rather than a place of worship.
‘There, on the lantern,’ Azuli snapped, pointing to the tower that jutted up from the great dome. ‘Up on the golden cross.’
‘Mama, Father,’ Ness gasped. Her heart pounded.
Clinging, frozen, to the main upright of the golden cross that topped the cathedral stood Eliza and Anthony Bonehill. Zaakiel crouched on the left arm of the cross, cackling at the carnage that unfolded below.
Ness could see her mother’s fine features stained by tears, her blonde hair blown by the breeze. Beside her, Father’s dark face was calm and stern. No matter how uncaring they’d been, they were still her parents.
‘We can save them,’ cried Azuli.
‘No,’ Ness murmured, her throat dry. ‘It’s the djinn we need to catch. Get me in close,’ she hissed at the carpet. ‘Quickly, before he notices us.’
Ness dragged the carpet round and leaned forward so that its speed increased. Zaakiel stared up, consternation flickering across his face to be replaced with an evil grin. He jumped up, standing on the cross and swinging out to offer Ness the fullest target.
The carpet swept in. Ness felt she could almost touch Zaakiel. He wore some kind of robe that billowed in the wind. She could see the open sores where Morris had blasted him in the emporium. Ness pulled the stones from her pocket and readied herself to launch them at the festering creature.
‘It won’t work, Ness,’ Azuli cried. ‘His eyes – they’re stitched shut! The stones can’t hurt him!’
But Ness had already committed herself to the throw. She watched as the date stones passed straight through Zaakiel’s smoky form and rattled uselessly against the cross.
Ness steered
the carpet down to the roof below the dome. She felt numb.
‘I’ve failed,’ she whispered.
‘We still have the sword,’ Azuli growled.
They turned to face the djinn as he floated down from the dome, his robes billowing in a pestilent breeze.
‘It is day seven, Necessity,’ Zaakiel hissed. ‘It’s time to grant your wish!’
I wish. I wish. but it’s all in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
‘Died for Love’, traditional folk ballad
Chapter Twenty-nine
The Death wish
Zaakiel stood on the roof before them, a mocking grin stretching his pock-marked skull of a face.
‘Is that why you did that?’ Ness hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Stitched your eyelids, as protection?’
‘Yes.’ The djinn scowled. ‘But not against clumsily thrown date stones.
‘The second person to free me from the bottle was a woman. She wore rich silks and a golden crown. This one has no need of gold, I thought. Maybe she will make a gracious wish.
‘ “My husband’s mother is an interfering old witch,” the queen said. “For my first wish, I would have you turn her into the lowliest worm. For my second, I would have you send an ugly crow to devour her. And for my third, I would have you return to your bottle.”
‘I tried not to watch the queen’s mother-in-law as she melted into another form only to be consumed by the ugliest of birds. I couldn’t bear to see the terrible things men made me do, so I tried to claw my eyes out. When that didn’t work, I stitched them shut.
‘But three thousand years ground on. Every single man, woman and child who opened the bottle displayed themselves at their worst. A creature of pure magic cannot help but see, hear and feel every scream, cry and whimper. And every disgusting demand.
‘Make my sister ugly. Give me my neighbour’s house and farm. Kill my son. Burn that city to the ground. Give me more gold than I can ever carry home. Drown those children.
‘My words were twisted, extra wishes were tricked out of me. Every sin, every vice, every excess was indulged until I could bear it no longer. And I couldn’t even take comfort in the fact that for many of the wishers it ended badly, because too many of them profited from their perverse wishes while the innocent suffered.