Luka and the Fire of Life (22 page)

The Mountain of Knowledge began to shake violently, as if some invisible colossus were jumping up and down on its slopes. The trunk of the Tree of Terror cracked from top to bottom, and the Tree fell in ruins to the ground, its crashing branches narrowly missing Luka and the thunder demon. One falling
branch struck Mimir the Head, and he unleashed an injured yelp. From among the ranks of the gods and monsters there were many more cries, of anguish, bewilderment and fear. Then came the most terrifying events of all. There were instants, very brief, fractions of seconds, when
everything completely disappeared
, and Luka, Bear and Dog – the three visitors from the Real World – remained suspended in an appalling, colourless, soundless, motionless, lawless, everything-less
absence
. Then the Magic World came back again, but a horrible realisation began to dawn on everyone and everything there: the World of Magic was in trouble. Its deepest foundations were shaking, its geography was becoming uncertain, its very existence had begun to be an intermittent, on–off affair. What if the ‘off’ moments started getting longer? What if they began to last longer than the ‘on’ ones? What if the ‘on’ moments, the periods of the World’s existence, diminished to split seconds, or even vanished entirely? What if everything the Fire Thief had just told them was the naked truth, in which they had until now refused to believe, clothed as they all were in the tatters of their old divine glory and the remnants of their pride? Was this the bare, unvarnished reality: that their survival was tied to the ebbing life of a sick and dying man? These were the questions plaguing all the inhabitants of the Magic World, but in Luka’s panicked, racing mind there was a simpler, more horrifying query.

Was Rashid Khalifa about to die
?

Anzu the thunder demon fell to its knees and began to plead with Luka in a soft, sad, piteous voice, ‘
.’
Ratatat was
so scared that her voice shook as she translated the Sumerian. ‘“Save us, sir! Only, please, sir, we don’t want to be just fairy tales. We want to be revered again! We want to be … divine.”’

‘Sir, huh?’ Luka thought. ‘That’s a change of tone if ever I heard one.’ Hope surged through his body, fighting against his despair; he rallied all his strength to make one last effort, and said with all the force he could command, ‘Take it or leave it, all of you. It’s the best offer you’re going to get.’

The darkness stopped closing in around him; the wrath of the gods wavered; overcome by their fear, it broke into pieces and dissipated completely, to be replaced by abject terror. The clouds of anger parted, the daylight returned, and everyone could see that the rip in the sky through which the god-swarm had poured had grown ten times as large as before; that there were actually cracks running across the heavens from horizon to horizon; and that the army of mythological figures was itself deteriorating – ageing, cracking, fading, weakening, diminishing and losing the ability to be. Aphrodite, Hathor, Venus and the other Beauty goddesses looked at the wrinkled skin on their hands and arms and shrieked, ‘Smash all the mirrors!’ And the immense figure of the falcon-headed Egyptian Supreme Deity fell to its knees just like Anzu had, its body beginning to crumble like an ancient monument; and all the other gods followed Ra’s lead – or at least those of them who had knees. In a low, respectful, frightened voice, Ra the Supreme said, ‘
’

‘What did he say?’ Luka asked Ratatat, who had started jumping up and down on his shoulder, squeaking loudly.

‘He says they’ll take it – your offer, that is,’ squeaked Ratatat, in a voice that was simultaneously relieved and terrified. ‘You can take the Fire now. Hurry! What are you waiting for? Save your father! Save us all! Don’t just stand there! Move!’

Shadows rushed across the sky above their heads. ‘Well, will you look at that!’ said the welcome voice of the Insultana of Ott. ‘I thought I was leading my loyal Otter Air Force on a doomed-but-gallant rescue attempt of an incompetent but oddly likeable young fellow, because, in spite of your foolhardiness, in the final analysis I couldn’t stand by and leave you to your fate with only my Honorary Otter Ratatat to represent me; but I see – to my considerable surprise, considering what a foolish boy you are – that you have managed pretty well on your own.’ There in the newly cloud-free, but also decaying, sky above the Mountain of Knowledge was the entire OAF on its flying carpets, with quantities of rotten vegetables and itching-powder paper planes at the ready, and Queen Soraya at their head aboard
Resham
, the Flying Carpet of King Solomon the Wise, along with Coyote the decoy runner, the Elephant Birds – ‘We came too!’ they shouted down. ‘We don’t just want to remember stuff! We want to
do
stuff too!’ – and a male stranger of great age and improbable size, who was also completely naked, with a heavily scarred midriff.

Luka didn’t have time to reply to anyone, or to ask who the naked stranger was, or even to embrace Bear and Dog, who had jumped off the Horse King’s back and rushed to his side. ‘I have to get to the Fire,’ he cried. ‘Every second counts.’ Bear the dog reacted at once, and charged at breakneck speed into the Fire Temple, to return a few seconds later with a burning wooden
brand between his teeth, ablaze with the brightest, most cheerful, most attractive, most hopeful fire Luka had ever seen; and Dog the bear climbed the columns of the Fire Temple and, with one great paw, hammered the golden ball over the entrance as hard as he could. Luka heard the telltale little
ding
, saw the number in the top right-hand corner of his field of vision click up to 8, grabbed the burning wood from Bear’s jaws and plunged it into the Ott Pot, whereupon the little Ott Potatoes began to burn with the same heart-warming, optimistic cheeriness as the stick.

‘Let’s go!’ yelled Luka, hanging the Pot around his neck again. Its warmth felt comforting; and Soraya swooped down to allow Luka, Bear and Dog to leap up onto King Solomon’s Carpet. ‘No faster mode of transport in the whole Magic World,’ she cried. ‘Say your farewells and let’s be on our way.’ Then Nuthog and her sisters and the squirrel Ratatat shouted, ‘No time for that! Goodbye! Good luck! Go!’ And so they did. Soraya’s carpet hurtled back through the rip in the sky. ‘You came in from the Right-Hand World, so that’s the way you’ll have to go back out,’ she told him. The rest of the Otter Air Force followed, but the Carpet of King Solomon was flying at its very fastest, and the others were soon left behind.

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Soraya in her most determinedly cheerful voice. ‘I’ll get you back in time. After all, it turns out that you have our whole World to save as well as your dad.’

The sky was falling. They were flying through the hole in the sky, and parts of the heavens were dropping off and crashing down on to the Heart of Magic below. Luka (once again wrapped up for warmth in Soraya’s charmed blanket) could not feel the wind inside the defensive bubble Soraya had erected around the flying carpet, but he could see its effects on the world below. Whole trees had been uprooted and went flying through the air as if they had been blown off a huge dandelion clock; fierce leather-winged dragons were being tossed hither and yon like children’s toys; and the Gossamer Net Heaven, the most fragile area of the Heart of Magic, made up of fifty-five layers of glistening webs, had been torn to shreds. The ‘Great Pure Realm’, the legendary Library of Ling-pao T’ien-tsun, which had survived for thousands of years in the Gossamer Nets, was no more. Its ancient volumes were borne aloft, their torn pages fluttering like wings. ‘The Winds of Change are blowing,’ cried the Elephant Drake, and the Elephant Duck mourned, ‘Our little knowledge counts for nothing when you compare it to the wisdom that is being destroyed today.’ It was almost impossible
for Luka to hear what they were saying because there was a screaming in the wind that seemed, well,
alive
. It was Coyote, his hair standing on end, who explained that
the Wind Shriekers are loose, an when they get to shriekin, why the whole of creation is fit to come apart at the seam
. Luka decided he didn’t want to ask who or what the Wind Shriekers might be.

Luka, along with Coyote, the Elephant Birds, Bear the dog and Dog the bear, sat tensely near the leading edge of the flying carpet, watching the turbulent World flash past. Behind them, at the carpet’s centre, Soraya stood with her eyes closed and her arms outstretched, forcing
Resham
to achieve speeds it had never touched before; and behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, lending her his strength, knelt the gigantic old naked man whom Luka had never met.
It’s him
, Coyote hissed into Luka’s ear.
The Old Boy. First an greatest. Heard bout your run an came out to lend a hand. The Old Boy. After all this time. It’s a fine thing, kid. It honours us all
.

They flew out of the Heart of Magic and the Forking Paths were below them, their waters boiling, leaping into the air to form hanging walls of liquid, then falling back again in floods. ‘So this is Level Nine,’ Luka heard himself saying, and Soraya answered grimly, ‘No, this is the End of the World.’

The Inescapable Whirlpool and the El Tiempo time-trap were swirling around faster and faster, sucking material into their mouths with ever greater force, and Soraya had to take the flying carpet dangerously high, sixty-one miles above the Earth’s surface, less
than a mile from the Kármán Line, but there was still a moment when Soraya had to take the flying carpet dangerously high, sixty-one miles above the Earth’s surface, less than a mile from the Kármán Line, but there was still a moment when Soraya had to take the flying carpet dangerously high, sixty-one miles above the Earth’s surface, less than a mile from the Kármán Line, but there was still a moment when Soraya had to take the flying carpet dangerously high, sixty-one miles above the Earth’s surface, less than a mile from the Kármán Line, but there was still a moment when – They were almost trapped, and then they broke free and flew like a missile from a boy’s slingshot in a direction which Soraya was unable to control. The flying carpet was spinning round and round like a coin and its passengers clung to one another for dear life. Luka didn’t notice the Great Stagnation below them, and then they were at the Mists of Time. The Mists were in trouble too: large holes and tears had appeared in that formerly impenetrable wall of grey. Inside the Mists the carpet was still spinning and the Memory Birds wept with the fear of Oblivion and Coyote howled and things could have become unbearable if the ‘Old Boy’, the Titan Prometheus, had not risen to his feet and spoken for the first time, using words of Power. ‘
Khulo!
’ he roared at the swirling fog of nothingness. ‘I did not escape the Bird of Zeus to perish in a fog!
Dafa ho!
Begone, foul Curtain, and let us be on our way.’ And at once the flying carpet emerged from the Mists, and Luka could see where they were.