Sebastian Darke: Prince of Explorers (27 page)

At the far end of the room was an elaborately carved and bejewelled throne, and upon it, dwarfed by its size, sat the oldest man Sebastian had ever seen. He had thought Joseph, back at the Jilith camp, was ancient, but this man was shrivelled and wizened by time, so that his pale blue eyes stared out from a face that was a mask of lines and wrinkles. He wore a simple white tunic; beneath it, his body was so emaciated, it looked as if the softest breeze would be enough to blow him away. Sebastian noticed that his bare legs were horribly twisted and marked with ancient scars and realized that he would not be capable of walking without the aid of crutches.

Phelan led Sebastian, Cornelius and Max up to the foot of the throne. He bowed his head politely and the others did likewise.

The old man smiled and bowed back. 'So,' he said, in a voice that was as dry and papery thin as his own flesh, 'at last you have come. And not before time.'

Max sighed. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Not another blooming prophecy!'

Aaron seemed amused by this. He tilted back his head and gave a wheezy laugh that threatened to turn into a hacking cough. 'Excellent!' he said. 'A talking buffalope. I knew such a thing was possible, but to have lived all these years and never seen it till now . . . What a strange world it is and no mistake.' He looked back at Max. 'No, Mr Buffalope, not a prophecy – just the belief that one day somebody would finally come here and survive the ravages of the Night Runners.' He turned to Phelan. 'Bring some chairs for my guests' – he looked doubtfully at Max – 'and some . . . cushions for the beast.'

Phelan immediately scuttled off to do the old man's bidding. There was no doubt that Aaron enjoyed all the

powers of a king and yet, despite his bejewelled throne, he wore nothing that would have marked him out as one – no crown, no splendid robes or badge of office. Phelan came back with a chair for Sebastian, a small stool for Cornelius and, after some frantic searching, a couple of plush silk cushions upon which Max duly settled himself. Phelan stood watchfully by, awaiting further instructions.

'What a fabulous room,' said Sebastian, looking around in awe.

Aaron nodded. 'This building was the king's palace,' he said. 'And this was his throne room. Once every room contained as much finery as this, but that is something we shall speak of later. We are all comfortable and we can speak freely. Tell me first where you come from and why you are here.'

There was a long silence. Sebastian and Cornelius looked at each other. Sebastian told himself that the best thing was simply to tell the truth.

'We have come from a port called Ramalat,' he explained. 'It's on the east coast of the known world, beyond the jungles of Mendip.'

'Yes, I know of it,' said Aaron. 'Your homeland?'

'Er . . . no, I'm from Jerabim, which is further west. And Cornelius here is from Golmira, way up in the frozen north. We—'

'Ahem!' said Max. 'I, on the other hand, am from the great plains of Neruvia where, as a young calf, I lived as part of a mighty herd. But through a series of unfortunate events I came into the care of Sebastian's father, who looked after me and brought me to adulthood—'

'That's probably enough background,' Sebastian told him.

'I was only trying to give him the full story,' said Max.

'Yes, but I know you – you'll blather on for ages.' Sebastian turned back to Aaron. 'We were all in Ramalat after a seafaring adventure; and it was there that we met a rich merchant called Thaddeus Peel. He had heard stories of a lost city in the jungle, so he paid us to mount an expedition to go and look for it. He told us that if we found it, we were to bring him back proof of its existence . . . and, well, here we are.'

Aaron nodded. 'Yes, here you are,' he said. 'And when you finally get back to Ramalat, you should tell this Thaddeus Peel that on no account should he or his people ever try to come here. Tell them that a terrible fate awaits them should they try.'

Cornelius nodded. 'You speak, of course, of the Night Runners.'

'I do, sir.'

'Can you tell us what they are?'

'They are the people who once lived and worked in this city,' said Aaron sadly. 'They are all that is left of a once mighty empire.'

'And how did they come to be in this frightful condition?' Cornelius asked.

Aaron waved a hand at the great bookcase to his right.

'Before you, you see an incredible wealth of knowledge,' he said. 'There are the answers to all your questions about this city. Phelan, go and pluck out any two books at random and give them to our guests.'

Phelan rushed away and was back in a moment, pressing a book into Sebastian's hands and another into Cornelius's.

Sebastian examined his eagerly. It was beautifully made, the cover of rich brown leather, but where he imagined a title ought to be there was nothing but a series of odd-looking marks. Puzzled, he opened the book at a random page and saw lines of the same indecipherable dots, dashes and squiggles.

'What language is this?' he asked.

'A good question!' said Aaron. 'It is the language of the people who founded this city, thousands of years ago; it is called Chagwallish, the language of the Chagwallans.'

'Oh, the Chagwallans!' said Max, and everybody turned to look at him. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. 'No, never heard of them.'

Aaron smiled. 'Since I first came here as a young man, a member of an expedition from the Southlands, I have devoted much of my time to translating that language,' he said. 'It has been a long and irksome task, but I am stubborn and I have persevered and' – he gestured at his twisted legs – 'I certainly had plenty of time on my hands. Unable to come and go as other men do, I have devoted my life to study. Now, as I approach the end of my days, I am able to fully understand what came to pass here. It is not a nice story.'

'They never are,' said Max, rolling his eyes.

'Would you be interested in hearing it?' asked Aaron.

'We would,' said Cornelius.

'Absolutely,' added Sebastian.

'It's not too long, is it?' asked Max. 'Only I haven't had any breakfast yet.'

Sebastian gave him a sly kick in the rump and Max looked offended; but he settled down to listen.

Aaron paused for a moment, lifted a small goblet from a table beside him and took a sip of its contents. He set it down carefully and then, leaning back in his huge throne, he began to tell the story.

'It begins in a city called Chagwalla,' said Aaron, 'which in the ancient tongue means the Golden City. It was located across the Straits of Serim in the unknown world, where on our maps it says only,
Here Be Dragons
. The Chagwallans had a mighty empire, with their own language, their own gods and a powerful army that controlled their land with a rod of iron. In that city lived a man called Nasram and he was feared as the most powerful man alive.'

'Sounds a bit like King Septimus,' said Max. 'I'll bet he was every bit as evil too.'

'Oh, he was not a man to trifle with. But he was not a king – at least, not at first. He was a general who served a king, and that king was called King Daalam; for him, General Nasram waged many wars and conquered many cities. King Daalam was ambitious and had long sought to extend his empire; and so his thoughts turned to the unknown land across the sea. He commanded General Nasram to assemble a massive expeditionary force and sent it across the Straits of Serim to explore the world on the other side. King Daalam planned to claim it for himself and add it to his already vast empire. When he embarked on his mission, General Nasram commanded a fleet of fifty ships, every one of them packed with soldiers.'

Cornelius let out a low whistle. 'That's quite an army,' he said.

'Indeed. But Nasram wanted to be prepared for anything or anyone who might oppose him. After many days and nights of travel, the armada landed on the south-west coast of the known world and Nasram saw before him a seemingly impenetrable jungle, stretching east and west as far as the eye could see. Undeterred, he marched his men forward and they hacked their way through the dense undergrowth and just kept going.

'Every night the expedition would cut down enough vegetation to allow it to pitch its tents. Hunting parties were sent out to bring back enough meat to feed every last man – the jungles in those times teemed with wild animals. And so they marched for many moons, until finally Nasram's advance scouts brought back exciting news from up ahead: they had seen a great golden city, ripe for plunder.'

'Who lived there?' asked Sebastian.

'Another mighty empire called the Metyars,' explained Aaron. 'A much more primitive society than the Chagwallans, but fabulously rich because of the gold mines on the outskirts of their city; gold that the Metyars used to make statues, jewellery and fine ornaments to offer up to their gods. They had no real concept of the worth of the gold, but used it to adorn themselves.'

'Rather like the Jilith,' observed Sebastian.

'The king of this empire was called Selawayo,' the old man continued, 'a proud man who in his own realm was every bit as powerful as Daalam. But he was totally unprepared for the arrival of these strangers from the unknown world. They fell upon his armies like wolves and vanquished them quickly and mercilessly. Selawayo was taken prisoner and his people turned into slaves, forced to mine their precious gold, not for their gods but for Nasram.'

'Don't you mean for King Daalam?' asked Cornelius. 'After all, he had sent the expedition.'

'Indeed. But General Nasram quickly became corrupted by his new found power. Why should he send all his wealth back across the straits to King Daalam, he thought, when he could be a king himself, here in the new world? So that is exactly what happened. He proclaimed himself King Nasram and decided to demolish the Metyars' old city and build upon it a fabulous new one dedicated to his own glory. He no longer thought of himself as a mere mortal but as some kind of god.'

'He sounds a proper bighead,' said Max. 'I hope somebody took him down a peg or two!'

Aaron shook his head. 'Sadly, no,' he said. 'There was to be no retribution in his lifetime. King Nasram forced all the captive Metyars to work on his new city and it began to spring up on the rubble of the old one. He named it Nasrama, 'the place of the Golden One'.

'A modest sort, wasn't he?' said Max.

'He also made a promise to Selawayo, who was now a king in name only and lived as a captive in Nasram's court: when work on the city was complete, he would free the Metyars from slavery and let them go back to their old ways. But Selawayo could not have guessed at the scale of the project. Year after year the work went on. Thousands of slaves perished in their chains and were thrown into a mass grave on the outskirts of the city; their children took their places and whole families lived and died in servitude and ended up in that same mass grave. The Chagwallans treated the Metyars like animals and kept them chained up in pens like common cattle . . .' Aaron glanced at Max. 'No offence,' he said.