by Karuna Riazi
He looked at Winnie, who was wide-eyed. “Do you know how to get to the Minaret?”
“Yes, sir!” she said quickly.
“Good. Go there and start the challenge. I’ll search for Madame Nasirah.”
“But I—” Ahmad started.
“Ahmad,” Vijay Bhai said firmly. “You need to win this. You need to end this. For all of us.”
All Ahmad could do was nod. Vijay Bhai gave him a final clap on the back, smiled at Winnie, and bolted off in the direction he came from. After a moment, the kids did as well, heading in the direction of the Minaret.
There was no more time to waste.
The mice troop were way ahead of them as the kids approached the Minaret, panting and grasping their sides. They scurried and flailed their short arms, seeming to point this way and that.
T.T. pushed through, utterly exasperated, and managed to squeak, “The regiment has . . . rather fallen apart, I’m afraid! That sound brings out the worst of rodent instinct in them—steady on, Matilda, you needn’t shove!”
He pressed through and Winnie and Ahmad caught up to him, following closely as he led them down a paneled boardwalk above the lower quarters of the city. Ahmad doing his best not to peer through the rickety wood slats into the dark quarry of tunnels and dingy buildings that lay hundreds of feet below them, beckoning.
“The instructions said we were supposed to head for the Minaret!” Winnie protested, but T.T. shook his head and tapped his nose.
“Smells like trouble that way.”
“Sand Police?” Ahmad asked with a sinking heart, and T.T. nodded. “They might have been responsible for the announcement. They hold a grudge like nothing else.”
“But what does it mean if the police have commandeered the game announcements?” Ahmad asked. “Where is the Architect?”
T.T. only shook his head. “I have no idea what is going on at all.”
He led them toward another of Paheli’s mysterious wooden doorways, bearing an ominous emblem of a sandstorm that the kids couldn’t help but take note of, because their feet were sinking into what was indeed sand.
“Yipes!” Winnie yelped, and Ahmad grasped her arm for balance when he slid too far to the side. “This must be a desert level. So much sand!”
Golden letters shimmered before them in the air.
FINAL TRIAL: DO THE MATH AND AVOID THE MONKEY BUSINESS! BALANCE OUT THE SCALES AND YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU SEEK!
“Great,” Winnie muttered. “Math. I knew that was going to come up sooner or later.”
“But you enjoy math class,” Ahmad pointed out.
“Exactly. The game has ruined most of my loves in some form or another: our flying car, my mom’s tea. I guess I’m lucky it hasn’t broken out the Zelda or Star Wars. Yet. Well, let’s do this thing. Where do we start?”
There was a rumble beneath their feet.
“Whoa! What’s that?” Ahmad clutched Winnie’s arm. The two of them rocked back and forth, trying to maintain their balance while not getting swallowed whole by the erupting ground beneath them.
A bizarre structure rose from beneath the sand: square and bricked in, it resembled a fortress, complete with what appeared to be pixelated soldiers marching back and forth on its walls. The mice cowered and chittered behind them, not daring to move forward.
In the building’s courtyard stood a scale of gold, each side being tugged upon and bounced against by the same horrible zombie-monkeys they had encountered during the jungle level. They yanked at the arms of the scale and tossed themselves on and off the platforms.
“Ugh, return of our furry not-so-friends,” Winnie groaned.
Ahmad groaned too, but for a different reason. A scroll blinked and flickered in front of him. “I have a feeling things are about to get much worse.”
He reached out and tapped it once. It unfurled, and Winnie leaned over his shoulder to read too.
Race the rising sand! Balance out the monkeys on the golden scale—an accurate weight shall bring forth peace and an ebbing of the wind!
“Well, that sounds easy,” Winnie said sarcastically. “At least they didn’t tell us to form a cheerleader pyramid with them or anything.”
Ahmad frowned. “There must be a trick to it. It sounds too easy.”
He was ever so wrong. There was no way it could have been worse. Because they had to get ahold of the monkeys first, and they were hardly feeling cooperative, running this way and that and squealing—shrieking, really—with delight and amusement as the kids tried to chase and capture them.
“Maybe we should grab them by the tail,” Winnie suggested, already out of breath.
Ahmad gingerly reached out behind one of the creatures. “Easy does it,” he gritted out. “Don’t turn around, don’t turn around—”
Another of its watching comrades let out a high shriek of warning.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
Ahmad was left sucking at the scratches and attempted nips left on his fingers.
“Oooh,” Winnie winced in sympathy. “Maybe . . . maybe we should try to get one of those guys to help us! It feels like they got put there for a reason.”
Sure enough, there was a neat row of soldiers on the fortress walls, standing shoulder to shoulder, many decked out in turbans and beautifully embroidered tunics, holding glistening swords at their sides.
“Hey! Um, hello up there!” Ahmad and Winnie hollered together, jumping and waving their hands.
It didn’t take long for them to realize that it wasn’t going to work.
“They haven’t blinked,” Winnie grumbled, lowering her hands.
“They are non-playable characters,” Ahmad said. “That’s disappointing. Maybe we could have used their spears to corral the monkeys into place. No one likes a pointy tip.”
“Ooh, I’ll show the Architect,” huffed Winnie, rolling up her sleeves. “I’m done with being Ms. Nice Girl. Come here, you monkeys!”
She seized one bodily and, apparently shocked by the affront, it froze. Winnie held it aloft, beaming from ear to ear as though the creature in her hands were a gold trophy for excellent participation, and not a seething, moth-eaten bag of scientifically tampered-with bones.
“See! It’s all in the wrist!”
The monkey quickly recovered and tried to seize up her arm with an outraged chitter. Winnie shrieked.
“Go long, Winnie!” Ahmad hollered, pointing frantically at the other end of the scale. “Go long!”
Winnie gritted her teeth, dug in her heels, and tossed the monkey out of her arms. The creature flew through the air, shrieking as it went, and landed in the lap of the scale, looking rather dazed as it settled in place.
“All in the wrist,” Winnie repeated triumphantly. They high-fived.
By the time they had wrestled a few creatures and were bathed in their own sweat (and a bit of blood), that initial wave of triumph had washed away. They’d fought and measured and added and subtracted, and now seven monkeys sat on each side of the scale. But it refused to balance properly, and the wind continued to lash at their faces and tug at their clothes like a petulant child, frustrated they were trying to ignore its lamentations.
Ahmad threw up his hands in exasperation, not caring that the monkey he had been wrestling took the opportunity to scamper away. “This is not working.”
“There’s probably a trick to it,” Winnie huffed, brushing her damp hair out of her eyes. “But what are we supposed to do?”
Something occurred to Ahmad. This was a game where they had been warned from the beginning that the rules always changed. So why were they still standing here, expecting fairness?
Why not assume that they were being set up from the very beginning?
Without answering Winnie’s inquiry, Ahmad strode to the fuller scale, staring at the wriggling creatures. The monkeys looked up and hissed malevolently, exposing dripping fangs—except one, one that curled on its side and stared out at the rising sand, as though it couldn’t be bothered to play the part.
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br /> Or . . . like it was playing its part, the way it was told.
Ahmad gritted his teeth and reached into the pile, narrowly missing a few pounces at his hand from the other monkeys, who seemed suddenly frantic. He fished about for a moment before grasping the bored creature’s tail, yanking it free from the pile.
“It was hiding itself!” Winnie gasped as he held it aloft.
“Exactly. It’s an extra, set in here to throw us off no matter what we did.” Ahmad roughly tossed it aside, ignoring its chitter of outrage.
The scales tipped slightly to one side before settling. They were both equally measured out, finally, a fine balance. The monkeys upon them had stilled, holding a sulky silence.
At long last, Ahmad knew, he’d figured out the trick to playing in Paheli. You had to beat the game with its own tricks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AHMAD AND WINNIE CLASPED each other’s hands and danced around, tossing their heads back to shriek their triumph at the sky. They had done it, they had done it, they had done it. It was another step—perhaps the final step!—toward survival, toward freedom and home.
“Now let’s find your uncle,” Winnie said happily, “and GO HOME.”
“Wait,” Ahmad said, gently drawing his hands out of Winnie’s. “Is it just me, or is it really quiet?”
Winnie frowned. “It is. Where are those monkeys? And where is the puzzle piece we earned?”
“Right here, on both counts.”
“Whoa!” Ahmad hollered, and drew back, Winnie backing up with him. They were surrounded by the zombie-monkeys, hair bristling and backs arched. The leader of them—the one that Ahmad was sure he had roughly tossed aside, moments ago, pounced in front of them, teeth bared and paws outstretched.
And it was the monkey that had spoken.
It took a moment for Ahmad to realize what it held between its teeth.
“Hey! The puzzle piece! That’s ours!”
The monkey backed away. “Not so fast. There’s something else you seem to be missing.”
Ahmad and Winnie glanced between each other. “Uh, excuse me, Mr. Monkey,” Winnie snapped, “but we really don’t have time for riddles.”
“And who told you just that?” the monkey asked, a smug tone to its voice that grated on Ahmad’s nerves.
“Madame Nasirah, of course. Heard of her? She’s the . . .” Ahmad’s voice trailed off. “The Gamekeeper. The Gamekeeper disappeared and we haven’t found her yet!”
“When all the pieces aren’t on the board, there is a reason for concern,” the leader monkey responded. He brandished the puzzle piece, and Winnie leaned forward gingerly. When he made no sudden movements, she took the piece, subtly wiping it off on her jeans.
“Uh . . . thank you. For the piece. And the advice.”
The monkey nodded. But Ahmad had a question of his own.
“Back there, you were ready to tear us apart. Why help us and hand the last piece we need over now?”
“Everyone has their role to play,” the monkey said. “Some more willingly than others.” He backed up, and the monkeys moved expectantly with him. As they left, he turned and looked over his shoulder at them one more time.
“Stay on your guard. You aren’t in the clear. Not by a long shot.”
And with that, they moved back into the rising sand. The platform and its bizarre architecture, with a single rumble, receded into the earth.
“Wow,” Ahmad said with a whistle.
“So now what?” Winnie asked. “Apparently, we need to find Madame Nasirah, but where do we begin? Where could she be?”
“Why,” a familiar voice said. “I’m right behind you, dear.”
The two whirled around. Sure enough, there stood the Gamekeeper, in her familiar endless folds of cloth, looking entirely untouched by the gusting wind and reddish sand that flew around her.
“Madame Nasirah!” Ahmad called, relieved. “You’re all right!”
“Where have you been?” Winnie asked eagerly.
“In a meeting with the Architect,” she said, picking her way delicately toward them. Under her veil, her eyes were solemn. “I’m sorry to have concerned you with my absence. There have been some . . . complications.”
“What do you mean?” Ahmad demanded. “We got the last puzzle piece.”
Madame Nasirah pressed her lips in a tight line, but before she could say anything more, there was a low lightning crackle from the edges of the city. Ahmad and Winnie whirled around, watching in horror as the Minaret sent up its green flare.
“It can’t be!” Ahmad gasped.
“But we just finished the last challenge!” Winnie protested.
But there, again, was the spark of flame from the minaret, and the words streamed out over the sky.
ALL THREE PUZZLE PIECES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED. AN ADDITIONAL TRIAL HAS BEEN DEVISED BY THE ARCHITECT IN COMPENSATION FOR AN INFRACTION OF PAHELI LAWS. PROCEED TO THE PALACE OF DREAMS. THE PIECES HAVE BEEN WON. IT IS TIME TO ASSEMBLE THE PUZZLE.
“When did we break a law?” Winnie sputtered. “If he means that joy ride with his police force, they were shooting at us! And that fake challenge was all his partner’s fault too!”
“Like he would listen to that,” Ahmad grumbled.
When he turned to look at Winnie, though, her eyes were shining.
“This is it, Ahmad,” she whispered. “I can feel it. I don’t know what else is going on, but we’ve gotten under his skin. We’re making him nervous. I mean, why else would he feel the need to make Madame Nasirah disappear, to mess his own ground rules. If there’s anything we know from the past, a player making the Architect worried about his hold on Paheli is only ever a good thing. We’re going to win this, and he knows it.”
Ahmad wasn’t so sure, but looking at his friend’s calm and confident expression gave him hope. He nodded. “Okay. We’re going to show this guy who’s boss. But where is this Palace of Dreams anyway?”
“I can show you the way,” Madame Nasirah broke in, making both of them jump. They had forgotten she was there. “It is the home of the Architect within this world, but now that he no longer shares it with his mother, the Lady Amari, it has been mostly abandoned. I would think that MasterMind finds it an eyesore, as the Architect refuses to let it be properly joined with the rest of her tricks and devices within this new Paheli.”
“What happened to Lady Amari?” Winnie asked.
Madame Nasirah lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “The last we saw of her, she was aboard her beloved sand train, attempting to escape the wreckage of the previous game with her son. But when he reappeared, he was alone. Maybe she abandoned him.”
“Harsh,” Winnie muttered. “Meanness seems to run in the family.”
Ahmad’s brow furrowed. That didn’t seem right. Could a mother really leave her son behind like that?
Winnie tugged at his arm. “Ahmad! We need to get going!”
“Right.” Ahmad squared his shoulders and faced Madame Nasirah. “Let’s go.”
They rushed through the silent city. The puzzle pieces weighed heavily in Ahmad’s satchel while the quiet of the city troubled his mind.
Apparently, the Architect couldn’t even be bothered to bring the souk back to life as they moved through it. Every stall was dark and still. Birdcages swung quiet and empty under white sheets.
Even if the people weren’t real, even if they were only non-playable characters that could be turned on and off at will, it made him feel guilty.
And worried.
Winnie seemed to share his apprehension. “He must be real mad now,” she muttered softly.
“Here we are,” Madame Nasirah said briskly, pointing upward. Ahmad and Winnie squinted at the sky. She had led them to the far end of Paheli, into a mostly deserted area between two abandoned buildings. What she gestured to was a rusted, flickering fire escape ladder.
Ahmad eyed it dubiously. “That . . . doesn’t look like it should be the entrance to some fancy palace.”
Madame Nasirah shook her head. “You should know by now to not take anything in this world for granted.”
Winnie gritted her teeth and grabbed the first rung. “Come on. Let’s win this thing and go home.”
Home.
Ahmad followed after her, wincing at every shake and shiver the ladder gave. Winnie vanished into the darkness above him. He looked back. Madame Nasirah gazed back up at him, as mysterious and hidden as she always was.
“Give my regards to the Architect,” she called up, and then Ahmad was surrounded by clouds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AHMAD COULD FEEL THE cottony moisture closing about him while he flailed in confusion. How could there be clouds here?
“Ahmad, take my hand!” Winnie’s voice was muffled, but close enough that he was able to reach out in its direction. He felt her fingers close around his hand. A moment later, he was yanked up and out of the fog, shaking his head to get the last of it out of his ears.
“What was . . .” he began, trailing off in amazement.
They hadn’t only been in a cloud.
They were now standing on top of one, and not only that, in front of one of the most incredible palaces he had ever seen. It resembled the ones in the pictures from their trip to India, back when he had only been a small, pouty toddler: hundreds of eyelike windows and elegant domes.
It looked far too grand for one kid Architect, but then again, the Amari style was apparently overblown and oversized.
“This is incredible,” Winnie whispered beside him.
“The Palace of Dreams,” Ahmad responded. “I feel like . . . I’ve been here before.”
Winnie squared her shoulders. “Good. Hold on to that feeling so we can get through this. Let’s go.”
They strode forward. They froze as the Palace of Dreams right split in two. A moment later, it split again.
The cloud-earth shook beneath them and they clung to each other, watching as palaces split and split and split to reveal more palaces, leaping out from the frame of one another like nesting dolls and fitting together with neat clicks before floating upward to dot the sky, resembling clouds of deceptively heavy brick and inlaid marble.