Oracles of Delphi Keep (40 page)

Ian felt Carl’s words sink in and his guilt seemed to wash away like the tides rolling out from the beach.

“I quite agree,” said the professor to Carl before turning his attention back to the cavern. “Gentlemen, and lady, we must face facts. The way behind us is clearly blocked, which means our only choice is to go forward on the quest that
Laodamia has set for us, and find the Star of Lixus.” Ian couldn’t help noticing how much the professor’s eyes were sparkling at the idea.

“You can’t be serious,” said Thatcher, and he looked to his brother for support, but Perry didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, Ian’s second schoolmaster was staring at the sea with a humorous grin and a blank stare. Ian worried that he might indeed have gone a bit mad.

“Oh, I’m very serious,” said the professor. “What other choice do we have, Thatcher? We can’t go back and I believe the swim to Spain might be a bit challenging even for someone of your athletic nature.”

Ian’s schoolmaster scowled. “How far away is the city?” he asked.

“Just over that outcropping,” said the professor, pointing to the Mother’s Cradle.

“Am I correct in remembering that Larache is one of Morocco’s larger points of port?” Thatcher asked.

“It is,” said the professor.

“Then we’ll be able to book passage on a boat to Spain at the very least!” he insisted.

“And your pockets are bursting with pound notes?” said the professor wisely. Ian watched as his schoolmaster blanched. “I didn’t think so,” said the old man with a triumphant smile. “My pockets, however,” he added, “are filled with money.” And to Ian’s astonishment the professor pulled out a great wad of bills that made everyone gasp.

The professor eyed his billfold with a grin. “I never leave home without being fully prepared,” he said. “But even this amount won’t be enough to get all six of us back to England.
So this is what I propose …” Ian and the others listened intently as the professor suggested that they go to Larache and send word to England regarding their whereabouts so that money could be wired to get them back home. The professor figured that it would take no less than two weeks for word to reach the earl and for funds to be wired. While they waited, they might as well travel the short distance to Lixus and look about for the Star. If they found it, then they would have fulfilled Laodamia’s prophecy, and this magical transport to Morocco would not go to waste.

Ian was brimming with excitement. He was finally going to get a crack at a real, live treasure hunt! Thatcher, however, didn’t seem the least bit enthusiastic and his eye kept darting back to the cavern.

Finally, however, the schoolmaster relented and with a nod he said, “All right, Professor, we’ll do as you say, as I suppose we’ve little choice in the matter.”

“Good man,” said the professor, slapping Thatcher on the arm. “Now, come along. I’ll need some help making it up those rocks. I’m not as limber as I was the last time I was here.” And with that the professor began to shuffle off through the sand, seeming fully to expect everyone else to follow.

Back in Dover, Caphiera the Cold clutched her arm and cursed the end of the tunnel angrily. She had thought the mortals’ attempts to escape her icy trap quite comical, until that last gunshot had sliced into her arm.

Caphiera waited in the silence, squinting in the dimness to make sure her handiwork had finished off the despicable
lot. From behind her she heard someone on the stairs call out.

“I am here, Dieter,” she answered.

“We had no luck at the orphanage, mistress. I’m afraid they might be on to us.”

“Oh, they are on to you,” said Caphiera, her eyes still focused on the ice in front of her. She snapped her fingers, and above her head three icicles grew from the ceiling and cast a light along the expanse of the tunnel.

She heard Magus’s servant come down the next few steps and gasp. “What happened to the boy?” he asked.

“He was overcome by my beauty,” Caphiera replied drolly “You and your wife will need to dispose of him the same way you did with the girl.”

“Yes, mistress,” said Dieter. Then the man noticed what the sorceress was looking at. “What’s beyond that ice?” he asked.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” she said, and with a wave of her hand, the wall evaporated. Caphiera shrieked. She had expected to find corpses, but to her astonishment, there were only the rock wall and some old bones jutting out. Gone was any sign of the mortals she’d cornered.

The sorceress cursed anew and charged down the tunnel, her silver boots making an awful racket. She stopped when she got to the end, and searched the corners of the cavern, but no trace of them remained.

With venomous fury she whirled around, studying the walls with suspicion. Dieter stood shivering by the stairs. Caphiera thought he might flee in terror, and she rather hoped he would, as she’d like nothing better than a good
opportunity to vent her anger. Still, she thought that Magus might find the killing of his servant offensive, and as her brother was known to carry a grudge, she held herself in check … though just barely.

Instead, she stomped back down the tunnel, past Dieter and the frozen boy, and up the stairs to inspect the stones covering the entrance. She walked carefully around them, pulling at the weeds and vines. Finally, at the back of the primitive structure, she revealed a bit of writing in the rune script of her people. Her wretched blue lips pulled down in a deep frown as she read the words. “As I suspected,” she said, and spat into the dirt. Her spittle, however, fell as liquid, never forming an icicle. “Bah!” she screeched, noticing that even now she was feeling weaker. “Come, Dieter!” she yelled, staggering away. “This place is a curse to me. I must leave it immediately!”

Caphiera stumbled quickly out of the woods, Dieter lumbering behind as he attempted to carry the frozen boy. The sorceress knew she must tell Magus about what she had discovered, but then a thought occurred to her, and with an evil grin she began to develop another, more sinister plan.

O
n the beach in Morocco, Thatcher was looking down at his brother with contempt. “Perry,” he said firmly. “Get up.”

“A fever!” Perry said. “That’s it! I must have contracted a fever. It explains everything!” he insisted. “The hallucinations, the aches and pains, the fact that I’m sweating right now …”

Thatcher rolled his eyes. “You’re perfectly well!” he snapped. “Now, come along. I’ll need your help getting the professor over those rocks.”

Perry got up from the ground, but Ian could tell he still fully believed that everything happening around him was a hallucination. He heard Theo giggle and he turned to see Carl playing near the surf with the short sword. As he slashed and parried the air, the metal glinted brightly in the sun.

“That one’s a bit daffy,” she said with another giggle.

“He should probably leave that here,” Ian remarked, worried that the sword would call unwanted attention in the strange land.

But Theo turned to him with eyes that were intensely earnest and said, “No, he mustn’t leave it behind, Ian.”

“Why not?”

“Because …,” she said, searching for the reason. “Well, because I have a sense that he shouldn’t.”

“You have a sense?” he asked.

Theo nodded. “Yes, it’s terribly important for some reason that he bring that sword with him.”

Ian looked back at Carl still flailing away awkwardly at imaginary foes. “Well, he’d best learn to use that thing before he hurts himself.”

Theo and Ian laughed again as Carl got a little too close to the edge of the water and a sudden wave came in to soak him clear up to his knees. “You help Carl,” Theo said as the young boy slogged out of the water and began pulling off his soggy shoes and socks. “I’m going on ahead.”

Ian trotted down to the water’s edge and picked up Carl’s sword to save it from yet another wave barreling into the beach. “Come on, mate,” he said, motioning at the water. “Tide’s rolling in and you’re likely to get wet again.”

Carl stuffed his socks into his shoes, then knotted his shoelaces together and looped them round his neck. Before Ian had a chance to comment, Carl smiled wickedly, yelled, “Race you to the rocks!” and took off at a full run.

Ian barely had a moment to process the challenge and he shot after Carl, pumping his legs for all he was worth. He never gained a centimeter—in fact, he lost ground.

Moments later he crashed hard into the rocks, where Carl had touched first. “Crikey!” Ian gasped for breath. “You’re a fast one, aren’t you?”

Carl’s chest was also heaving, but he grinned with pride. “There were some older blokes at my orphanage in Plymouth who used to like to take turns giving me a few wallops—that is, till I learned to outrun them.”

Ian laughed and held up the short sword. “Yeah, well, this might’ve weighed me down a bit.”

There was a snort behind him and he turned to see Theo coming toward them. “Don’t let him fool you, Carl,” she said. “I saw the race and Ian would have lost even if the only thing he’d been carrying were his knickers!” The three broke into hysterical laughter, and Ian had to concede. “She’s right,” he admitted. “You’re blazing fast, mate.”

“Come on, then,” said Theo as she looked up at the rocks. “Let’s see what’s on the other side, shall we?”

She began to climb and Ian and Carl followed, picking their way carefully along to the flat platform of the Mother’s Cradle.

“Gaw, blimey!” said Carl as the three stood at the top of the rocks. “It’s a whole city down there!”

Ian was too stunned to speak. On the other side of the outcropping was an enormous city of ramshackle huts topped with tin roofs, dozens of wooden stalls forming bustling markets, larger stone buildings with odd-looking cornices, winding streets that weaved aimlessly like a maze through the city in a zigzag fashion, and, at the water’s edge, a large harbor with fishnets, wooden docks, and every color, shape, and variety of ship imaginable.

He could just make out several boats approaching the port to moor at the central dock. Along the coastline were enormous palm trees, which he’d only seen painted in some
of the books he’d read, and he wondered how something so odd-looking could stand so stately against the bleakness of the grassless terrain.

Turning his attention back to the city proper, he had the sense that it teemed with the energy of a beehive, as thousands of people walked about.

Ian could see from his perch that Larache’s male inhabitants had dark olive skin and were clad mostly in tunics of white linen that reached just past their knees and matched their trousers. Almost every adult male had facial hair and they wore funny white cloth hats or red felt hats topped with golden tassels.

The women were quite a surprise to him too, and far fewer of them hurried through the crowd. Most were covered from head to toe in dark cloth that obscured the entire body, and their faces were hidden behind veils of black or white. Small children clung to their parents’ hands as they wound their way in family groups through the tangle of streets packed with people and a variety of animals, including donkeys, horses, cows, sheep, and, to Ian’s immense delight, camels.

“Shall we go down?” asked Carl, bouncing on his feet, as anxious as Ian to explore the city.

“Let’s wait for the professor and the schoolmasters,” said Theo, glancing behind them.

Ian frowned as he also turned to look and saw that the professor was only midway up the rocks. He sighed and sat down on the flat rock, perching his chin on his hands as he stared in wonder at the weird and marvelous city below.

When he could hear the puffing sounds of the professor getting close to them, he noticed a small boy below on the beach near their perch. He was staring up at them, cupping his hand across his brow.

Theo must have noticed him too, because she leaned out and waved down, and after a slight hesitation, the boy waved back. “Seems friendly enough,” said Carl.

“I … don’t … remember … these rocks … being this … steep.” The professor wheezed from just below Ian.

Ian got to his feet to make room for the old man as he finally crested the flat rock. “Would you like to rest here for a bit?” Ian asked, motioning to the nice piece of rock he’d just gotten up from.

“I believe … I would,” panted the professor. Then he noticed the boy below. “Who’s that?” he asked as he sat down gingerly.

“Dunno,” said Ian. “Just a boy from the city, I guess.”

“Marvelous!” said Thatcher, who had come up with the professor. Ian could see the amazement in his schoolmaster’s eyes as he took in Larache. “Perry!” he called behind him. “Come up here and have a look!”

Perry climbed the last few sections of rock and stood dumbstruck next to his brother. “Oh,” he said softly. “I hope I don’t come out of this hallucination soon. I’d very much like to see this to the end.”

Ian and Carl grinned at each other. “Wonder when it’s going to hit him that he’s really not gone off his nutty?” whispered Carl, and Ian snickered but quickly cleared his throat and hid his smile when Thatcher leveled a look at him.

“Look!” said Theo suddenly. “The boy’s coming up to meet us!”

Sure enough, when Ian looked down, he could see the boy hiking up the rocks.

“Bonjour!”
called the boy when he was just below them.

“Bonjour!”
called the professor, and then he spoke rapidly in French. Ian frowned; he had no idea what the professor had said.

“He says hello and that we are pleased to make the young man’s acquaintance,” whispered Thatcher. “Now he’s introducing himself to the lad.” He waited for the boy’s response before saying, “The boy’s name is Jaaved of the Jstor.”

“What’s the Jstor?” asked Theo quietly.

“I believe it’s some sort of clan or tribe,” said Thatcher, his attention still focused on the professor and the boy. “Now the professor is asking the boy if he knows of any vessels for hire to travel up the river to Lixus.”

Ian watched as the boy nodded eagerly and spoke. “What’s he saying?” Ian whispered when Thatcher did not immediately interpret.

“He says that his master has a vessel for hire, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to go to Lixus.”