The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan (22 page)

I
s this a better place than the last one? Or a worse one?

Philippa’s spirit was between camels when the first bolt of lightning hit the billabong, and the impact left her feeling like a cartoon character hiding in a trash can that someone hits with a sledgehammer. For several minutes afterward, she had no idea where or even what she was, only that she was not a camel; for a while, she just lay on the sodden ground and tried to gather herself together. This was almost impossible to do, however, as water is an excellent conductor of electricity and every time the lightning hit the ground, a small part of the charge passed through the water and into her stricken spirit.

Is this death? Has my body ceased to function? If Im climbing up, why does the correct direction seem to be down?

By the time the storm had cleared, the camels were all gone and Philippa thought she was a ghost, a confused spirit
abroad on the darkened face of the earth, lost for all eternity in a confusing maze of visible songlines and spirit pathways that were more visible than she was.

Who was I? Why am I here?

This electric-blue maze was not like any other maze she had ever seen for there were no walls, just tracks on the ground, footprints left in rock, landmarks, shapes in the land left by the spirits of people, animals, plants, as well as darker things of which she had no knowledge or understanding.

What did I look like? Was I horrible, like that face? If it was a face. I’m not sure what it is.

For this reason it was a frightening place, where strange faces leered at her and silent hands tried to take hold of her spirit and draw her after them.

I don’t think I can deal with this. It’s beyond me. It’s too much to expect anyone to have to deal with this.

It was not a quiet place. All around, there was the confused sound of songs that were more than just music; they were visible, too, like long lines of vibrating sound waves you could see but which were animated with strong ideas and powerful emotions and life itself. She sensed that these songs were somehow connected with a world she had left behind, but she could not understand how.

They should have someone to explain things to you. When you arrive here, it’s too much to expect that you will know what’s happening.

And yet there was something she recognized. A sound that seemed to touch her somewhere deep in herself, if deep and self there were. A sound that was more than just a noise,
for it was full of meaning, a sort of line that she could take hold of. If she dared.

Do I dare take hold of this? Suppose it means me harm? I should try to understand it before I take a hold of whatever it is.

She looked around in fear and dread. And having once turned, walked on. And turned no more her head. Because she knew a frightful fiend did close behind her tread. She took hold of the line of the sound that seemed to present itself to her shapeless understanding and realized that the sound was a word, full of meaning and significance to her, more than any other. Or was it her imagination? But where did imagination end and reality begin?

What does it mean
, Philippa
?

She held tight and let the line draw her along for a while and gradually she perceived that the word was part of a song. Not a great song, it was true, because the song only seemed to have the one word and that one word was
Philippa
. But a catchy song nonetheless because, although she was not yet caught, she was content to trust the word that was the song; for wasn’t the alternative worse? Something foul really was behind her in the dark. Something fiendish.

Hold tight. Hold tight. Don’t let go or you’ll never again have this opportunity. You’ll be lost forever. You do realize that, don’t you? If you hold the line of the song for long enough, surely you will find out who and what you are and why the word means so much to you.

She held on tight. And let the line of the song guide her through the spirit maze, certain now that the word
Philippa
meant something near to her.

“Philippa.”

Yes. That was my name. Of course. Someone is calling to me! Singing to me to come to them! I’m coming. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here, whoever you are! I’m coming to you. Wait a while. It’s hard to reach you. Will I know you when I see you? Please don’t stop singing to me. Surely, I will see you soon. And then will you take me away from this dark place? Say that you will! Oh, say that you will take me away.

The song was stronger in her hand now. Thicker. Not thin like before. And it was moving more quickly. Helping pull her along. Back to her friends, her family. Back to Life! That was it! The song was pulling her back from this half world to Life! And yet.

She could see him now. A figure who was holding the other end of the line. And surely it was no one she knew. A near-naked man wearing a loincloth and a sinister black mask. Dancing in a little circle, and singing her name.

“Philippa.”

Should I fear him?

Seeing her, the man stopped dancing for a moment and beckoned. She hesitated.

“Can you see me?”

“Yes, I can see you.”

“Who are you?”

“Come,” he said. “Philippa. Come. There’s nothing to fear. But you must take my hand, sweetheart. And you must come back with me.”

Still she hesitated.

“I can take you back with me, Philippa. But you must trust me.”

She heard herself speak in a voice she hardly recognized. “I don’t know you,” she said.

“It’s me, Charlie,” he said. “Remember? I’m one of the two aborigines you met in the desert the other day. Charlie and Jimmy? The blokes your uncle Nimrod asked to help him find this herd of camels. Do you remember? Don’t worry about the mask I’m wearing. I wear it because of my fear. My fear that I’ll be recognized when I’m here. Fear of what’s here, Philippa. But never mind that now. Come with me. I’ll show you where your body is if you come with me, Phil. But you have to trust me.”

“My body?” Still Philippa hesitated.

“There’s not much time, Philippa.” Charlie glanced anxiously over her faintly visible shoulder as if there really was something horrible waiting there if she refused to go with him.

“If I could only see my body, now,” she said. “Then I’d know I could trust you.”

“I can’t bring your body here, Philippa,” said Charlie. “That’s not possible for me. I can only show you where you left it. Will you come with me? Please. You have to. There’s not much time left if I’m going to help you. There’s a limit to how long I can stay down here.”

Philippa shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m afraid.”

Charlie sighed. “That’s all right,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

Charlie thought for a moment and concluded there was only one thing he could do.

“That’s all right.” Charlie nodded. “Look, your uncle
said this was very important. That you and your brother were going to save the world. Well, I reckon if you guys can’t, no one can. But I reckon you’re going to need a bit of help. So, let me see now. Yes, that does look like it’s the only way to do this. Look, I can’t fetch your body down here, Philippa. But I can fetch another one. If I bring you another body to get you home again, Phil, will you do it? Will you take that one? Just to get you home again. It’ll be just a few feet to your own body. I promise. All right?”

Philippa nodded. “Yes,” she said.

Charlie sighed. “How did you get yourself into this, Charlie mate? Streuth. All right, Phil. Don’t be alarmed now. I’m going to be away for just a few seconds. And when I come back I don’t want arguments. You just do as you’re told and get inside this body. Fair enough?”

Philippa nodded.

“And above all, don’t look around, Phil. On no account are you to look around. There are things down here that aren’t nice, okay? And I don’t want you losing your nerve while I’m gone.”

“All right. But promise me you won’t be long.”

“I’ll be back before you know it,” said Charlie. “See if I’m not.”

The next moment, Charlie disappeared and Philippa was alone among the songlines and the spirit pathways.

Except that she knew she was hardly that. She was quite certain that there was something standing close behind her. Something foul and fiendish and very, very frightening.

J
immy had stopped playing the
yirdaki
. Now that Charlie was in a trance, there was no need. Besides, Jimmy’s playing had left him out of breath and exhausted. And yet even though he had stopped playing, the sound of that ancient drone seemed to linger in the air like a powerful smell or a strong taste. Groanin was fascinated with the instrument and said that he was keen to learn how to play it. But mostly, he said this because it helped to distract him from his worry for Philippa of whom he was very fond.

Jimmy showed him how to hold the instrument and how to get a noise out of it.

“To play the
yirdaki
you have to master circular breathing, Mr. Groanin,” explained Jimmy. “Sucking in and blowing out at the same time.”

“You’re good at both of those,” observed John. “So you should be an expert already.”

Groanin ignored him. “In and out at the same time? Sounds difficult,” he said.

“Nah,” said Jimmy. “Not at all. ’Sides, playing the
yirdaki
has important medical benefits.”

“Like what?” inquired Groanin. “I say, like what, Jimmy lad?”

“My dad used to say that it stops a bloke from snoring,” said Jimmy. “Playing the old didgeridoo strengthens the muscles in your upper airway. And they’re the ones that collapse during sleep and that make you snore.”

“Oh, please learn it, Groanin,” said Nimrod. “And soon. Anything that stops you from snoring is to be welcomed with open arms and a cup of sugar. Sometimes, when you’re asleep, it’s like living in a sawmill.”

“I don’t snore,” said Groanin.

John laughed. So did the two Icelanders.

“Nay, give over,” insisted Groanin. “I don’t snore. Never have.”

“You could enter an Olympic snoring event,” said John. “And win the gold medal.”

“Your snoring is something almost primeval,” said Nimrod. “When you hear it, you can almost believe that it predates human life on this planet; that some extinct antediluvian beast is still abroad in this world.”

This good-humored conversation made the sudden snorting noise all the more startling to everyone. They all turned around to see what had caused it, as even now another, louder stertorous snort emanated from Charlie’s unconscious body. But even more startling to them all was the
alarming discovery that in his trance state, Charlie had managed to roll over to the very edge of the carpet and was in imminent danger of falling off. He almost seemed to be wrestling with himself.

Jimmy yelled. “Charlie! Look out, mate!”

Charlie’s body moved again, almost as if someone invisible was rolling it, like a log. For a moment he seemed to pause, balanced halfway between heaven and earth, but the next second, Charlie’s body disappeared over the edge of the carpet.

“Blimey!” exclaimed Groanin. “He’s fallen off.”

Nimrod did not hesitate. He turned the flying carpet around as quickly as he could and swooped toward the ground with the aim of catching Charlie before he landed. And if he had started from a position of greater height he might have succeeded, too; but from only sixty or seventy feet in the air, Nimrod simply didn’t have time to intercept the man. And they were still ten or twenty feet from the muddy ground by the time that Charlie was already lying there.

The aborigine had landed mostly on his head and neck and it was immediately clear to everyone that he had landed badly. Very badly indeed. His whole body weight had crushed all of the vertebrae in his neck.

Not that it seemed to bother the camels very much, at least not right away. Now that they had drunk their fill of water, they were much calmer and viewed an aborigine’s broken body followed by the arrival of a flying carpet with complete indifference. But, gradually, they moved slowly
away, as camels often do in the presence of mortal injury, almost as if they instinctively feared the contagion of death.

As soon as they were landed on the ground, Nimrod and Jimmy, followed closely by Axel, John, and the professor, hurried toward their motionless Australian friend and turned him gently onto his back. Meanwhile, Groanin tore off his jacket and, arriving last of all, tucked it under Charlie’s head in an attempt to make him more comfortable.

“Are you all right?” Jimmy asked desperately, and wiped a trickle of blood from his dearest friend’s mouth.

Charlie opened his brown eyes and moved his lips silently for several seconds before any sound was heard, and when he spoke, with an effusion of yet more blood, the voice was not his, but Philippa’s.

“Where am I?” she said. “What’s happened? John? Uncle Nimrod? Groanin? Where’s Charlie? He was here a second or two ago. Where’s Charlie? Let me up. Let me go and look for him please. No, wait. What’s the matter with me? John. Help me, John. I can’t feel my legs, John.”

John winced as the same feeling spread to his own body by the telepathy that existed between him and his twin sister. It was uncanny but he felt the strength in his legs ebbing away and so strong was this sensation that he was obliged to sit down.

“In fact,” added Philippa, “I can’t feel anything very much. Just my right hand, I think. I’ve got a terrible pain in my head and I don’t feel very well at all.”

Charlie’s eyes rolled in their sockets, and Philippa, whose spirit was inside his body, now caught a glimpse of
her own unconscious body lying on the carpet a few yards away and, lifting invisibly out of Charlie, she quickly floated over there and climbed back inside herself before it was too late.

Almost immediately, she felt much better. The pain she had felt in Charlie’s body, especially in his head and neck, was gone now. Her limbs all moved normally. Everything was back to normal. But the strong taste of plum bush leaves in her mouth was alloyed with the more bitter taste of fear for Charlie’s life. She felt sick to her stomach with worry.

“Charlie!” said Jimmy. “Speak to me, Charlie. Speak to me, mate. Are you all right?”

Charlie grinned feebly. “I’m feeling a bit crook, mate,” he whispered. “But I reckon the little girl be all right now.”

Philippa hurried to the stricken aborigine’s side and, kneeling beside Charlie, took his hand in hers, understanding exactly what had happened now. How Charlie had used his own living body to aid her escape from the spirit maze and how doing this had cost him his own life.

“It was Yowee, the skeleton spirit, who was standing behind you,” said Charlie. “With a big head and fiery eyes. His coming always means just one thing: death. It was just as well I turned up when I did, I think.”

“Yes, it was,” said Philippa.

Charlie winced with pain as Philippa squeezed his hand anxiously.

“Not so hard, darling,” he wheezed. “In a minute or two, I reckon you can squeeze the hand all you like, but right now leave it out, there’s a good girl.”

Philippa grinned even as tears burst out of her eyes.

“Geez,” whispered Charlie. “Is it raining again?”

Philippa looked at her uncle. “Can we help him?” she said.

Nimrod shook his head gravely.

“Reckon we needed all that rain.” Charlie swallowed but with some considerable difficulty. “I just love this country after it rains. You wait. There’ll be flowers all over this desert in a few hours. I just wish I could be there to see it.”

“Why did you do it?” sobbed Philippa. “Why, Charlie? Why?”

“’Cos if your uncle Nimrod is right,
Queanbeyan
, the earth is going to need all three of you to fix this disaster. And if that’s not worth taking a dive for, I don’t know what is.”

Jimmy laid his big hand on Charlie’s forehead. “Say hello to Mum for me, will ya, mate?”

“No worries,” whispered Charlie.

His lips continued to move for a moment without sound.

And then he died.

The professor pressed his ear next to Charlie’s barrel chest for a minute and then sat back on his haunches. His strange, young girl’s face remained inanimate — indeed, it was quite like a mask, so little emotion was written on it — but, from the evidence of his shaking hands and his tremulous voice it was clear to everyone that he, too, was upset.

“I’m afraid he’s gone,” said the professor. “Poor Charlie is dead.”

Philippa lay prostrate across the aborigine’s body and wept bitterly.

Jimmy stood up and walked away. John and Nimrod waited for a few minutes and then followed.

“Best mate I ever had,” said Jimmy.

“I don’t know much about aboriginal funeral ceremonies,” said Nimrod, placing a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “But I’d like to help. I’m sure we’d all like to help. If you’ll allow us.”

“Yes, please,” added John. “It’s the least we can do for a bloke like Charlie.”

Jimmy nodded. “Thanks,
pittong
Nimrod. Thanks,
poolya
John.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “A
toorooga.
A hollow log,” he said, half choked with grief. “A dead tree trunk that’s been hollowed out by termites. That’s where we folks usually leave our dead. At least, out here, it is.”

Nimrod nodded. “I think I can find a hollow log,” he said.

“But I’ll decorate it meself,” said Jimmy. “If you don’t mind.” He swallowed hard and then tousled John’s hair. “The decoration on that didgeridoo you made was a bit crook, mate.” He grinned at the boy djinn. “Some of it was upside down.”

“Sorry,” said John.

“No, mate. No need for that. ’Cos I reckon all of this was meant to be. And you can’t go kicking against that. Or else why are we here?”

A little later on, when Charlie’s body had been placed carefully inside a hollow tree trunk, Groanin — following a little bit of instruction from Jimmy — managed to play the
yirdaki
so that the aborigine could be free to dance and sing
in order to ensure his friend’s spirit might leave the area and return to his birthplace, where it might be reborn.

Philippa thought that for as long as she lived she would never ever forget the sound of the
goohnai-wurrai
, or dirge, that Jimmy sang as he danced a slow but graceful corroboree step around the hollow tree trunk that now contained his best mate, Charlie. And the dirge seemed to stay inside her head and heart long after they had climbed back aboard the carpet and taken flight for Mongolia. And whenever she thought of Jimmy’s dirge and of Charlie she thought of a good man who had bravely sacrificed his own life for hers and for something he believed in. It was a very humbling thought.

They asked Jimmy to come with them, but he declined.

“Please come,” said Philippa. “You can see the whole world from a flying carpet.”

“I’ve got no use for seeing the world.” Jimmy shrugged. “Not without me mate. Besides, why would I want to see the world when I haven’t yet seen all of Australia?”

For a long time, Philippa just sat silently at the rear of the carpet, as they crossed the continent, heading northwest, back to Asia. It was, she thought, one of the most extraordinary places she had ever seen. With its unending red deserts and dry irrigation channels, Australia looked like the surface of the planet Mars. And now, since Charlie’s death, it felt almost as alien to her.

As they left the land behind and reached the shore of the ocean, she reflected that it could hardly have been denied that perhaps Jimmy was right, that there was a great deal of
Australia to see. Not that there seemed to be anyone who was actually seeing it. She’d never seen anywhere that looked so unpopulated. There were just hundreds and thousands of miles of empty land, without roads and without towns and without people.

Of course, people were there, although mostly on the southeastern coast. People for whom Charlie had been almost happy to give up his own life. And that unselfish sacrifice touched her in a way that nothing had touched her before.

It left Philippa feeling inspired by his example.