Sebastian Darke: Prince of Explorers (9 page)

He turned and saw Keera coming towards him from the direction of the huts. She was carrying a large wooden bowl filled with green liquid.

'Good morning,' she said. 'I'm surprised to see you up so early. I thought you might be feeling tired after last night's celebration.'

'Me? Oh no . . . I'm right as rain,' said Sebastian. 'We've all been up for ages working on the battle plan, haven't we, lads?'

Cornelius and Max exchanged sardonic looks.

'And you,' said Keera, looking at Max. 'You drank a lot of icara last night. It's powerful stuff if you're not used to it.'

Max affected a devil-may-care laugh that wasn't entirely convincing. 'Oh, don't worry about me. We buffalope can handle our drink.'

Keera looked relieved. 'Oh, that's all right then.' She nodded at the bowl of green liquid. 'I was just bringing you this special medicine. But as you don't need it—'

'Medicine?' said Max.

'Yes. It can cure a headache instantly. The Jilith have used it for generations. But as you're feeling all right—'

'Well, let's not be too hasty!'

Before Keera could react, Max had lunged forward and thrust his snout into the bowl. He began gulping down its contents eagerly. 'Yes!' he said, between slurps. 'I can feel it working . . . or rather . . . I probably
would
. . . if I had a bad head in the first place. Which I haven't. Actually . . . it's quite tasty!'

Keera was staring at him in dismay. 'You're not supposed to drink it,' she said. 'I was going to rub it onto your forehead.'

'Really?' Max stepped back, looking worried. 'I don't suppose it'll do any harm,' he muttered. 'What's in it?'

Keera thought for a moment. 'Let me see now . . . You crush tree beetles, green worms and white lizards in a gourd and then you add some rusa spit . . .'

Max blanched. 'Excuse me,' he said; and hurried away behind the nearest hut. After a few moments they heard the sounds of him being spectacularly unwell.

'Oh dear,' said Keera.

'Don't worry about him,' Cornelius reassured her. 'It's not the first time he's been like that. Now, umm . . . was there some other reason you came to see us?'

'Oh yes. I've come to take you to meet Joseph,' she said. 'Remember, the old man who visited the lost city?'

'Ah, excellent,' said Cornelius. 'I've been looking forward to this.'

Max came stumbling back from behind the hut.

'Did you hear that, shaggy?' said Sebastian. 'We're going to meet Joseph.'

'Oh, goody,' said Max.

'Just give me a moment.' Cornelius moved away and had a quick word with the trench-diggers, then returned to the others, smiling. 'Let's go,' he said to Keera.

She led them amongst the huts. The villagers were up and about, preparing fires and brewing their first shot of chai. Many bowed their heads respectfully to Sebastian as he passed. More worryingly, he noticed that some of the younger women were whispering to each other and giggling.

Keera saw his nervous look and tried to reassure him. 'Many of our girls think you are good-looking,' she told him. 'You set some hearts aflutter last night with your wonderful display of dancing.'

'Is that what he was doing?' muttered Max. 'I thought a spark from the fire had gone down his breeches.'

'Do you mind?' growled Sebastian.

'Not at all,' said Max.

'So you are already making ready to face the Gograth?' observed Keera, changing the subject.

'Oh yes,' said Cornelius. 'We believe in striking while the metal is hot. But everything must be ready, I want to leave nothing to chance. In a couple of moons, all the preparations will be ready.'

'The young master seems to think we shouldn't be so hard on them,' observed Max gleefully. 'If it was up to him, he'd give them nothing worse than a good telling off!'

Keera looked at Sebastian in surprise. 'This is true?' she asked him.

'Not really. As usual, he's twisting my words.' He thought for a moment. 'I think they deserve a harsh lesson, of course, but killing every last one of them . . . ? Wouldn't it be enough to destroy
some
of them and let the others understand that it will happen to all of them if they don't mend their ways?'

Keera shook her head. 'I'm afraid you do not know the Gograth,' she told him. 'They are animals, not men. Allow just one warrior to escape and he will keep his hunger for revenge alive in his heart. He would not have a moment's rest until he had taken it. They are hateful creatures, totally without conscience or remorse.'

'But how can that be?' reasoned Sebastian. 'There must be families amongst them – husbands, wives, children. There has to be
some
love there, surely? Some . . . compassion.'

'For their own kind perhaps . . . but not for anybody else, of that you can be certain. We have had to live with their barbaric ways for a long time now; and I have seen many of our best people die at their hands.'

Sebastian was about to say something else, but he saw that Keera was heading towards the doorway of a small hut. It was dark and smoky inside. She bowed her head and spoke softly into the gloom.

'Joseph?' she murmured. 'I have brought the visitors to meet you.'

There was a short silence; then a croaky voice said, 'Bring them inside.'

Keera went in first; Sebastian followed, bowing his head to avoid banging it on the lintel. Cornelius strolled through easily, but Max's huge shoulders would not fit through the narrow opening, so he had to stand with his head poking through the doorway.

There were just two people inside. At first glance Sebastian took the first, tending a metal pot over a fire, to be a longhaired boy of perhaps fourteen summers; but as the figure turned to look at him, he realized that it was in fact a skinny girl, who regarded him with bright green eyes. It occurred to him that under the layers of grime that covered her face, she might actually have been quite pretty.

A few steps away from her, sitting up in a low bed, was an old man. He was skeletal beneath the animal-skin clothes he wore and his face was etched deep with the lines of a long, hard life. His grey hair hung to his shoulders and around his skinny neck was an assortment of beads and charms, worn one on top of the other as though he had acquired more and more of them over the years.

'Please be seated,' he said, indicating a rug laid out beside the fire. He watched in silence as the visitors settled themselves down. Then he gave them a gap-toothed grin.

'You are welcome to my home,' he croaked. 'Keera has told me much about you, but this is the first time I have seen you for myself. My legs are not good these days – I seldom leave the hut.' He looked at Sebastian – 'You are the Chosen One who seeks the lost city' – then pointed a bony finger at Cornelius – 'Obviously you are the little warrior who fights like twenty men.' His gaze shifted to the doorway. 'And this must be the magical talking buffalope.' He smiled at Keera. 'You described them well,' he said.

'Well, he's certainly got the measure of us,' said Max; and Joseph gave a wheezy gasp of delight. He looked at the girl beside the fire. 'You were right, Salah, he
does
sound like he has the intelligence of a man!'

Max looked affronted. 'Judging by some of the people I've met,' he said, 'that's not saying very much!'

Joseph cackled again, as though this was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. 'Do you hear him? The brute clearly has quite an opinion of himself.'

'
Brute?
' echoed Max. 'Well, really!'

Sebastian spoke in a hasty attempt to defuse any argument. 'Thank you for taking the time to speak to us,' he said. 'You clearly know quite a bit about us.'

'Oh, Salah here brings me all the news of the village,' said Joseph. The girl grinned self-consciously and stirred the brew with a length of stick. 'She's my niece. Her parents both died in a Gograth raid some time ago and she hasn't uttered a single word since that day. I'm afraid I'm all she has left in the world.'

Sebastian was about to ask how Salah could tell Joseph any news if she couldn't speak, but at that moment she turned to the old man and made some swift gestures with her hands.

Joseph nodded. 'She asks if you would like to partake of a cup of chai,' he said.

'We'd be delighted,' said Sebastian.

Salah nodded and began to ladle dark-green liquid from the cooking pot into clay cups, which she handed round to everybody.

'I drink ten cups every day,' said Joseph. 'That's why I've lived to be as old as I am.'

Max looked hopefully at the others. 'Couldn't I have a little drop?' he asked pitifully. 'I'm parched.'

'You know the effect it has on you,' warned Cornelius.

'Yes, but my back end's not even in the hut. And I need something to take away the taste of that medicine. Surely it can't do any harm?'

Salah looked enquiringly at her uncle and the old man smiled and nodded.

'Pour the beast a hot sup,' he told her. 'Since he seems to think he's the equal of any man, we'll see what he thinks of our chai.'

Salah took a bowl to the doorway, set it down reverently in front of Max as though he were some kind of sacred cow, then backed away. He fell to, making loud slurping noises as he drank.

'That's very good,' he observed, between slurps. 'Quite the nicest I've tasted.'

Joseph laughed. 'I never dreamed I would live to see the day when a buffalope congratulated me on my chai,' he observed. 'What a world we live in!' He settled himself back against his cushions and studied Sebastian and Cornelius with interest. 'So . . . you wish to know about the lost city of Mendip?'

'Yes, please,' said Cornelius. 'We have been sent here to find it – and Keera tells us that you have actually been there.'

'That's true enough,' Joseph said, 'though it was many, many summers ago. I was but a boy then, not much older than Salah. My father used to tell me stories about the place, but I never dreamed that there was any truth in them. Then, one day . . . I went out on a hunt with some of the warriors of the village.'

'Yes, but which village?' asked Sebastian. 'I know that you move around from time to time, so . . . would you be able to find the place again?'

Joseph smiled. 'I believe so. You see, I think it was
this
village.'

Sebastian looked puzzled.

'We often return to former sites,' explained Keera. 'It means that we have very little work to do when we get there: we just patch up the huts we made before. We have lived in this place many times.' She turned to Joseph. 'But how can you be sure?' she asked him. 'This happened when you were a boy and you must have lived in so many different places. How do you know it's this one?'

'I'm pretty sure it was here,' he told her. 'I may be long in the tooth but there's nothing wrong with my memory.' He returned to his story. 'We set off along a rusa trail heading west and walked for the best part of two days. Then we reached a place where a fast-flowing river crossed our path. It was wide and rapid and we stood there, wondering how we would ever get across it.'

He paused for a moment and lifted his cup to his lips.

Sebastian saw that Salah was listening intently, her eyes on the old man's face. She was smiling knowingly – this was no doubt a familiar story.