Lost Worlds (33 page)

‘The ceiling is rough,’ he said. ‘Rougher than the walls. It feels natural. Argh!’

Rhino felt Gecko’s legs shake. ‘What’s the matter?’ he called.

‘Sorry – spider web. No spider.’

‘Maybe it dropped on Natalie,’ Tara murmured.

Natalie brushed her shoulders and hair convulsively.

‘Anything else?’ Rhino asked.

‘Not sure.’ Gecko’s voice was strained. He was finding it hard to balance on Rhino’s shoulders and feel his way across the ceiling at the same time. ‘I do not
– Oh, wait! I can feel a breeze!’

‘That’s a good sign,’ Rhino said encouragingly. ‘Can you tell where it’s going to?’

‘I think it is over to the left,’ Gecko said. ‘Can you move across a bit?’

‘I can try.’ Rhino took a couple of shuffling steps.

‘That is far enough. Yes, I think . . .’

The weight on Rhino’s shoulders abruptly lessened. It felt as if Gecko had pulled himself up.

‘There is a chimney up here,’ Gecko called down. ‘It is not carved. I think they took advantage of some natural fissure in the rock. The way the breeze is going through it, I
think it must lead to the outside.’

Rhino’s mind raced. ‘How large is it?’

Gecko’s next words crushed his hopes. ‘I can get into it. Tara might be able to. You and Natalie – not a chance. And besides – it might narrow further up.’

‘Can you explore it?’ Rhino asked.

‘No problem. Just catch me if I slip and fall.’

‘OK.’

‘What do you want me to do if I get outside?’ Gecko’s voice echoed down from above. He’d obviously moved a little way inside the shaft.

‘You can’t free us,’ Rhino said, thinking as he spoke. ‘There are Almasti guarding the outside of the cave. Even if you could arrange a diversion and draw them off, you
still couldn’t move the boulder in the doorway. I think our best bet is if you make your way back to where we were captured, get one of the headbands, make contact with Calum and get him to
contact Professor Livingstone. If anyone can organize a rescue party, it’s her.’ He paused. ‘And watch out for that other expedition – the one that kidnapped
Natalie.’

‘Will do.’ There was a scrabbling sound from above Rhino’s head, and some fragments of rock dropped down. ‘Wish me luck.’

‘Good luck,’ Rhino and Natalie chorused.

‘I don’t believe in luck,’ Tara said. ‘It’s not rational. But good luck.’

More scrabbling from the darkness, and then Gecko was gone.

The rocky fissure seemed to close in Gecko from either side like the jaws of some carnivorous reptile. He pushed the image away from his mind. There was no time for imagination
now.

His fingers scrabbled across the rock, seeking purchase. His right foot pushed down on an outcrop and he gained another few centimetres.

He told himself that it wasn’t much different from climbing a brick wall, but usually he didn’t have another brick wall just behind him. He was used to open spaces. Here he could
feel the coldness of the rock, and feel it scrape his back as he moved upward.

The fissure smelt of smoke, and his questing fingers kept slipping on patches of soot that had been deposited over the course of hundreds, perhaps thousands, perhaps even
hundreds
of
thousands of years. Gecko’s head swam with the thought of how old this place was. And there was he, just a kid, daring to climb up it. He wondered how many generations had lit fires and
cooked food down below, in the cave.

He also wondered if anyone else had been stupid enough to try climbing this natural chimney, and whether he might find their bones still stuck in there.

Something skittered in the darkness above him – maybe a rat, maybe a cockroach. Gecko’s heart raced. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He had to wait for a few moments and catch his
breath before he could continue.

What if the fissure narrowed to the width of a few centimetres somewhere up above him? What if he got stuck, wedged between the rocky walls? Would anyone down below be able to get him out? Or
would he stay there until he starved to death, able to hear the voices of his friends but unable to move?

Don’t think about such things, he told himself. Keep going. Save your friends.

Relentlessly, repetitively, he reached up and let his fingers find a ridge of rock or projecting stone, then pulled himself higher up the crack while using his legs to take some of the strain.
He lost track of time – he might have been climbing for minutes, hours or days. A faint breeze whistled past him, cooling him and evaporating the sweat from his face and his hands. Somewhere
above his head that breeze would rejoin the atmosphere, like a stream feeding into the sea – but how far above? Was he going to have to climb the entire mountain from the inside before he
could get out into the open?

His fingers closed on a sharp flint that projected from the rock face thirty centimetres above his head. He braced his legs against the sides and tensed his arm muscles, pulling himself upward
while his left hand reached up for the next handhold, but the flint was loose and it came out of the rock.

Gecko fell.

S
harp stone projections tore at Gecko’s back and his chest, burning like acid. His hands flailed wildly, trying to get a grip on something,
but it was all going by too fast! Grit fell into his eyes, blinding him.

Desperately he pushed his legs outwards, as wide as they could go in the narrow fissure. For a few seconds his feet were knocked and scraped by the rough rock, but his left foot finally caught
on something, halting his fall. Quickly he braced himself with his right foot and found handholds to hang on to. He hung there for a minute or more, motionless, his breath rasping in his throat. He
could feel the warm sting of blood on his back, but he was alive. He was still alive!

After his breath had settled down he started off again, trying to reclaim the distance he had lost. Handhold after handhold, foothold after foothold, testing each one carefully to make sure that
it wasn’t going to give way.

Eventually his fingers scrabbled against what he thought for a moment was a ledge, but it must have been a large one because his fingertips couldn’t find where the rock wall of the fissure
continued upward. There was something beneath his fingers that wasn’t cold stone, and it took him a couple of seconds to work out that it was organic. It was grass!

His heart jumped, but he tried to calm himself down. It didn’t mean that he was at the top of the fissure. Grass seeds might have drifted down along with some soil and germinated in a
small patch on a rocky ledge. But surely they would need sunlight – and moisture. It had to mean that he was at least
near
the top.

He pulled with his right hand, using his left elbow and his legs to push himself up. He reached higher with his left hand, trying to locate the sides of the crack, but there was nothing there.
No rock.

With nothing to hold on to, Gecko was supporting his weight just with his legs. He kicked himself upward as hard as he could. His shoulders popped up above the level of the grassy surface, and
he thrust his arms out to either side to stop himself sliding down again. He levered himself up and out, falling sideways on to the grass, and it was only then that he allowed himself to realize
that he was out and free.

The sky was pitch black above him. The sun had gone down a long time ago, and clouds covered the stars, but the wind that blew across his face was the freshest thing he had ever experienced. He
lay there for a few seconds, every muscle in his body aching, and the scratches on his back and arms burning, and then he forced himself to climb to his feet.

That was the easy part over with. He still had things to do.

As Rhino watched, the crowd parted in several places and seven Almasti walked forward. They were older than the others, grey-haired, stooped and even more wizened, and they
wore long robes that had been crudely embroidered with designs. They also had leather thongs round their necks, but the stones hanging there were red rather than turquoise, and more ornately carved
than any of the blue ones that Rhino had seen earlier. They walked proudly to the semicircle of seven rocks and each stepped up on to one. For a moment they stood there, facing out to the crowd,
and then they turned inwards, towards the accused.

Somewhere behind the crowd, drums began to beat in a regular, hypnotic rhythm. A few seconds later an ear-scratching wail started up. It sounded like cats being strangled, but Rhino guessed that
it was some kind of crude bagpipes being played.

And then the trial began.

Rhino had taken part in trials before. He had given evidence before two Crown Courts and three courts martial, and as he stood there in the cave, watching the Almasti, he recognized the form and
the players. He knew exactly what was going on.

The Almast in the centre was the accused. He stood there – alone, isolated – staring around at his accusers – his tribe. The seven elderly Almasti standing on the rocks were
the judges, watching impassively as the proceedings went on. And the leader of the hunting party, the older Almast with the scar running down the side of his face – he was the prosecutor.

The proceedings weren’t carried on in any recognizable language. Instead the prosecutor communicated with the judges and the crowd in a series of barks, yelps and snarls. It wasn’t
just animal noise, however. The audience understood it. Although the judges maintained their impassivity, not reacting to the diatribe from the scarred hunter, the crowd was obviously swayed. Rhino
could hear them murmuring to each other, and reacting together with sudden intakes of breath as particularly dramatic points were made.

The scarred prosecutor waved at one of the other hunters. The Almast he had waved at walked forward. He was holding something – it looked like a crudely fashioned bag. The hunter handed it
across, and the scarred prosecutor threw it dramatically on the rocky ground. Grain spilt across the rock, and the crowd gasped.

Tara shuffled closer to him. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘The Almast with the scarred face is accusing the other one, the one from the village, of bringing danger on the Almasti. He’s saying that when the accused went out by himself to
steal food from the outsiders, he attracted their attention.’

‘How do you know that?’ Natalie asked. She was standing off to one side with her arms wrapped round herself, hugging herself for reassurance.

‘Body language,’ he replied. ‘I’ve travelled a lot, and I’ve learned the way that people stand, and move, and gesture, when they are saying particular
things.’

‘What’s the mood of the crowd?’ Tara asked.

‘Sympathetic. Look at them. They’re half starved. Whatever the Almasti are eating, it’s not enough.’ He indicated the accused. ‘At least he did something about it.
The trouble is that the ones in charge don’t seem impressed. They’ve kept the Almasti away from the rest of the world very effectively, and probably for very good reasons.’

One of the judges raised a hand. Silence fell across the crowd. She asked a question – at least, Rhino assumed it was a question – but what worried Rhino was that she gestured at the
cave where the four of them were being held while she spoke, and then gestured at the rocky bowl around them.

‘What’s she saying?’ Tara asked.

‘I’m not sure. She’s not giving away very much with her body language, but if I had to guess I would say that she is pointing out that the fact we’re here is some kind of
proof that the accused Almast is guilty. People outside this place know about the Almasti now. The secret is out.’

The scarred warrior spoke in reply. He waved his spear and shouted something.

‘Damn,’ Rhino said.

‘What?’ Tara asked.

‘Honestly?’ he replied. ‘Or reassuringly?’

‘Honestly. Always.’

‘I
think
he’s saying that there’s a simple solution to that. Just kill us.’

Gecko headed down the mountainside, navigating more by intuition than by sight. It was almost pitch black. Fortunately, years of free-running had given him a kind of sixth
sense: he could tell when there were obstructions, or when the ground dropped away abruptly, and he could avoid them. For the most part. He fell a couple of times, but his reflexes were so fast
that he could tuck himself into a ball and roll for a few feet.

As he descended, he tried to work out how he was going to navigate his way back to where the party had been captured. Nothing came to mind. He guessed he was just going to have to trust to luck
– either that or be prepared for a very long walk around the base of the mountain.

Something made a noise nearby. Gecko stopped dead in his tracks. He held his breath, hoping that whatever it was hadn’t heard his approach. He waited there, counting his heartbeats, until
he estimated that a minute had gone by. Should he start moving again, or was there an Almast standing just as motionless as he was a few feet away, waiting like Gecko was for some sign of movement?
The only difference being that the Almast was likely to be armed.

Another movement, and this time he heard the sound of grass being pulled out of the ground. He made a soft
click
with his tongue. From out of the darkness came an answering
‘Meh-eh-eh-eh’.
A goat? A sheep? Whatever it was, Gecko didn’t think he had anything to fear from it, so he kept on going.

After a while he began to notice a reddish glow off to one side. He wondered for a while if it was the sunrise, but surely he couldn’t have been climbing the fissure for that long? A
sudden change in the direction of the breeze brought a noise to his ears: a squalling sound, like cats fighting. He slowed down, not wanting to get in the middle of a fight between mountain lions,
or whatever other carnivorous creatures lived on the mountain slopes, but after a moment he realized that the sound was more like music than the screech of a wild animal. Bagpipes, maybe?

Gecko realized that he must be getting close to the Almasti village. The red light he was seeing wasn’t the sunrise – it was firelight – and the bagpipe music might mean that
some kind of ceremony was going on.