Budding Star (10 page)

I didn’t examine it TOO closely, but the twitching thing inside looked small enough - and
easily
dark enough - to be a Dark lord’s heart. “Dagger please,” I called calmly, like a nurse in ER.

My angel colleague immediately sent Heart Seeker spinning through the air. It made a sound like a v. sinister Frisbee.
Pyu
.
Pyu
.

The demon roared out a warning, but I’d already caught the dagger and plunged it through the locket, into the pulsing stuff inside.

The demon lord collapsed on to his knees with a yowl of pain that seemed to come from the core of the mountain itself. Then he crashed to the floor and lay totally still. Strange-coloured steam rose, hissing faintly, from his armour.

Reuben and I sagged with relief. The Dark lord had finally gone wherever dark lords go.

“No more abducting for you, old man,” my buddy told the steaming metal.

I immediately wanted to kick myself. “I am SO stupid. I killed him and we don’t even know what he’s done to her!”

Reuben pointed silently to the table. For the first time I noticed the litter of tiny green strawberry stalks and hulls beside the fruit bowl.

“You are kidding!” I wailed. “Doesn’t she have any sense?

“Don’t blame Tsubomi. She had eaten nothing since she came to this place”

I seriously believed I was hallucinating for a moment. The little brown mouse was talking to us. It wasn’t even talking in the special language that angels use for communicating with animals. It was squeaking in medieval Japanese!

“Tonight the demon brought her a bowl of strawberries. She was so hungry and thirsty, she’d eaten half the bowl before she realised what she was doing.”

“That’s helpful, little buddy, thanks,” Reuben said politely. “Isn’t there a fairy tale or something like this?” he asked in an undertone.

“Cinderella had talking mice,” I gulped. “At least, in the Disney version.”

“No, I meant the fruit. The girl ate an apple or a pomegranate or something, so she had to stay in the underworld for ev—”

But Reuben never finished his sentence. There was a sweet chime of music from some magical source. The palace dissolved around us, and we found ourselves in a totally different world.

Chapter Six

R
euben and I were lying under a tree, head to head, exactly like before. The sky above was lit with an angry red glow.

“Woo! Serious deja vu!”

I could feel Reuben’s voice buzzing through my skull bones. “Serious,
serious
, deja vu,” I agreed.

We scrambled to our feet and Reubs gave a low whistle. “Now
that
is you!”

“How on earth can you tell?” I giggled.

We were completely dressed in black. Black hoods, loose black fighting clothes, black boots. Even the lower parts of our faces were covered with black scarves.

“Hmm, first peasants, then ninjas,” I mused aloud.

“Ninjas were like secret agents and assassins, right?” Reuben asked.

“Something like that,” I agreed vaguely. There was some weirdly familiar logic behind our unexpected upgrade, but though I rackedmy brains, I just could not remember what it was.

We were in a woodland glade almost identical to the first, but with crucial differences. The first glade had been lush and summery, but here dead and dying leaves floated down through the air, collecting in rustling drifts. Several trees looked badly burned, either by lightning, forest fire or both. You could see their pale dead insides where the charred bark had peeled away. Somewhere beyond the fire-damaged trees, a wolf gave its lonely howl.

Once again I felt like I’d fallen into an old Japanese painting. This one was totally painted in fire colours. Fiery red skies. Red dirt. Red and gold leaves.

“What would this poem say?” I wondered aloud.

Reuben looked blank. “Poem?”

“Japanese artists used to paint nature scenes to show the different seasons. Sometimes they’d write little haiku or whatever, to sum up the mood. Like if I wrote a poem about this wood, it might say something like…” I shut my eyes for a moment then recited softly, “Summer came too soon. Flowers shrivel with a young girl’s hopes, turning to smoke and ashes.”

Reuben looked amazed. “You never told me you wrote poetry, Beeby!”

“I don’t,” I said. “Well, only when they made us at school.” I felt a bit weird about it, to be honest, so I changed the subject. “This world smells completely different, have you noticed?” The first wood had smelled of earth and rain. This one gave off a hot rubbery tang as if it hadn’t rained in a thousand years.

A v. disturbing theory was forming at the back of my mind. A theory which totally explained all the things that otherwise made absolutely no sense; for example, how Reubs and I were able to mash up an entire army without getting a teeny scratch ourselves.

When I spotted the satchel hanging in the tree, I knew for sure my theory was right. I unhooked the new bag of Limbo goodies from the branch. This one was made from way better-quality leather. Without saying a word, I emptied the bag on to the ground. This is what was inside: one coil of rope with a useful hooky thing on the end, two star-shaped ninja weapons, small spiky objects for scaling high walls, one pristine new scroll.

I waved it triumphantly. “Ta-daa! I knew they’d give us a new map!”

Reuben gave me a severe look. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I’m not sure.” I took a breath. “This might sound mad, but I think we’re playing some kind of game.”

“A game?” Reubs echoed.

“You know those musical chords we heard a few minutes ago? That’s because we just went up a level. When we killed the Dark lord, we absorbed his powers, which is why we’ve got more energy. I have, anyway.”

“Yep, that sounds mad,” he agreed.

“Because you never lived on Earth, Reubs! And you’ve never been interested in computer games. You said yourself this is like a fairy tale. Well, computer games are like interactive fairy tales. If you defeat the baddies you go up to the next level. If not, you lose a life and have to start again—”

My buddy held up his hand. “Stop! I’m lost. How can a world be a game?”

I shrugged. “It’s just the only explanation that makes sense.”

“To you,” Reuben said darkly.

“Remember the way things happened in that first world? How that kid gave you the dagger after we’d killed the first demon. That’s exactly like a game. You always have to earn things in games.”

“I still don’t—”

“OK, OK, how about the way we took out those soldiers? Remember the sound effects?”

He chuckled. “
Biff-boff
. I thought that was weird at the time.”

“And those flying peach stones?
Zoom-zoom
!”

Reuben gave me a sideways grin. “The peach stones were cool!”

“Extremely cool,” I agreed. “But they weren’t normal.”

“Not even for Limbo?” he asked wistfully.

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

I could see him gradually processing this new idea. “That would explain the birds,” he admitted. “And you’re right. I’ve got heaps more energy.”

“That’s because we just went up a level. If you notice, everything is extra vibey.”

“Extra vibey but still deeply sad,” Reuben commented.

He unfurled our superior Level-Two scroll and I heard his sharp intake of breath. “Well, look who’s back,” he said huskily.

When I saw that little blue butterfly, I almost burst into tears. Our unexpected upgrade hadn’t given me time to dwell on what the demon lord had done to Tsubomi. But she was OK, she was still OK!

“I can’t believe it!” I said shakily. “She must have got upgraded with us after we killed the Dark lord. From how he was talking, I thought he’d done something hideous to her.”

Reubs frowned. “If your game theory is right, who are we playing against?”

I shook my head. “You’re really trying to outwit the actual game itself. Plus you’re trying to beat your own best efforts. I just hope we get to Tsubomi before the demon lord this time.”

“The Dark lord on Level Two will be stronger, right?”

“Yeah, but
we’re
stronger too, don’t forget! Plus we’ve probably got heaps of cunning ninja skills we don’t know about!” I grinned at him. “Ok, we’ve had a little rest, now these angel assassins had better hit the road!”

He laughed. ‘“Angel Assassins’, sounds like the kind of hardcore stuff Brice listens to.”

With Reuben improvising mad Angel-Assassin-type lyrics to make me laugh, we set off in the direction indicated by the butterfly.

Level Two was mountain country, rocky and arid. Nothing seemed to grow there except cacti and scrub, and the occasional pine tree. I noticed that all the trees had been blasted by lightning along the exact same side. On Level Two peasant girls were clearing stones from parched red fields, passing filled baskets to each other in a never-ending chain gang, and the ladies who rode past in their creaky wicker carriages were fluttering their fans to actually keep cool, not just for coyness.

In its own way, Level Two was fabulously scenic. At intervals we’d glimpse fairy-tale castles perched on rocky ledges high above the track.

“Have you noticed how every castle comes with an identical pine tree?” Reuben commented.

“Yeah, yeah and the birds always fly in sevens!”

“They don’t actually. Those are eagles,” he said with a grin. “Eagles tend to fly solo.”

I looked up and sure enough there was exactly one fierce golden-brown eagle soaring on a current of hot air. “Boy, you really notice every tiny thing!” I marvelled.

We were practically jogging by this time, easily overtaking yet another travelling harp player.

“Hi,” we said in medieval Japanese.

“Hi,” he answered politely.

On Level Two, the musicians wore scarves tied over their mouths, bandit-style, to keep out the dust. We passed so many harp players, not to mention woodcutters and travelling monks, that I had a strong suspicion some of them were ninjas in disguise.

I was starting to think like a ninja by this time! I’m serious! My mind was suddenly humming with devious strategies; scanning the mountainside for caves to hide out in, bushes to skulk behind, castles to raid. I had no intention of raiding a castle for real, obviously, but if I HAD wanted to, I had all the relevant ninja skills at my fingertips.

“See that castle?” I called to my ninja angel buddy, as we jogged on under glowing skies. “If we crawled through those bushes, we’d find a secret ninja path that would lead us right into the lord’s private chamber, without the soldiers even seeing!”

“Yeah, but the lord of the castle would be expecting us,” Reuben pointed out. “He’ll have spent a fortune making it ninja-proof; secret entrances, hidden stairways, floors that sing like canaries when you step on the wrong board!”

I grinned. “It’s cool knowing all this stuff isn’t it!”

“It is actually,” he agreed.

We had gradually increased our pace, until we were literally running. I’m not a great fan of running as a rule, but on Level Two it felt natural.

The landscape was becoming increasingly otherworldly. Lone lightning-struck trees were replaced by strange Martian-looking rocks.

“Some of this rock looks volcanic,” Reuben said when we stopped to check the map.

“I haven’t seen any volcanoes!”

My buddy pointed wordlessly into the distance.

Me and my big mouth
, I thought.

An ominous cone-shaped mountain loomed on the horizon. Plumes of smoke belched out, in that unsubtle way you see in cartoons. Of course, when you are a complete wuss, even a cartoon volcano is enough to scare you silly. I swallowed, and for the second time that day, I heard a wolf howl close by.

Reuben saw my freaked expression. “Wolves don’t hurt people,” he reassured me. “That’s just a myth.”

He went back to studying the map. “This butterfly is zigzagging all over the place!” he complained. “Last time I looked it was off to the side. Now it’s behind us.” He tugged at one of his dreads in frustration. “Mel, I hate to say this, but I think Tsubomi’s stalking us.”

I gasped. “You’re kidding!”

Neither of us had the least idea what you did if the lost soul reversed cosmic protocol and started following you!

I blew a dusty strand of hair out of my eyes. “The first challenge was to do with earth,” I said slowly. “This level has to be about fire, so presumably our second-level challenge is to do with fire too.”

Reuben gestured to the smoking mountain. “Things don’t get much more fiery than that.”

“I suppose we could head in that direction for a while, and see if Tsubomi follows? Unless you’ve got a better idea?” I said hopefully.

He hadn’t. Luckily I didn’t seem able to worry and run simultaneously, possibly because running in this world felt SO exhilarating. At times it felt like we were standing still and it was the landscape that was flying past!

This is how a leopard feels, I thought, racing across the savannah, with the wind rushing through its fur.