The Anzu's Egg 3 Read online

  My skin prickled with Biyu’s distress.

  That’s a complicated way of saying there’s nothing we can do to help Cubchick, she said.

  Toojan turned to Biyu.

  ‘Take the anzu with you. Care for him.’ Toojan stopped and raised a pudgy forefinger. ‘And keep him away from magic.’

  Biyu folded her arms.

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Cubchick grows whenever he touches the stuff. Wouldn’t magic make him heal faster?’

  As if he’d expected such a question, Toojan shot her a crooked smile. It looked out of place on such a young face.

  ‘The anzu’s injuries will also grow, requiring more time and qi for a recovery.’ Toojan gazed at the snoring Mr Lee. ‘Your father must remain in Bagh-e-Khuda. The Divine Monkey, Anjaneya, foresaw only three of you receiving the sceptre.’

  Since this morning, most of the conversation had been about retrieving the sceptre. But it was only part of a solution to a bigger problem.

  ‘And once we have the sceptre,’ I said, ‘what did Anjaneya foresee us doing with it?’

  Again, the crooked smile.

  ‘If I were to tell you, I might misdirect you or divert you from the path the Divine Monkey has chosen for you.’

  6

  Up on the practice’s roof, I stood inside the basket with a sleeping Cubchick and waited for Mr Lee to finish saying goodbye to Biyu.

  Biyu whispered something, and her father released her from his bear-like hug. She kissed him on the cheek and then strode over to the basket, her third eyelids sweeping across her eyes.

  Once behind the basket, she slipped off the bathrobe and handed it to me. I passed it on to Mr Lee.

  ‘Take care of her,’ he said. ‘And take care of the not-so-little fella and yourself, Sanjay.’ He chewed his lower lip. ‘To be honest, I wish I was coming with you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘No need to explain things again. It’s only you three, I know. Just make sure you all come back. I never ever want to light a funerary fire again.’

  We hugged across the basket’s edge. My throat tightened.

  ‘Me neither,’ I said. The basket creaked as Biyu grasped the circle of metal connected to its frame.

  Biyu floated above us, her orange sinuous body coiling and uncoiling while she waited. Purple hair surrounded her horns. Orange reflected her impatience to reach Anganera and take possession of the sceptre. Purple described her sorrow at seeing her father so upset.

  The basket began to rise.

  ‘Don’t forget to contact Mr Tarigan,’ I said. ‘His people are watching this place, but he won’t know where we’re going and what we’re up to.’

  Mr Lee stepped away from the basket and waved. Biyu roared her goodbye.

  My father-in-law and mentor soon shrank to the size of an ant. I sat down. Cubchick lay on top of the three blankets I’d brought. Thanks to the midmorning sun, I wouldn’t need them.

  I retrieved a pouch from the shoulder bag that replaced the rucksack I’d lost on Shirin. I fished out a tablet and rolled it between my palms, imbuing it with more of my qi.

  Cubchick opened one eye and whimpered.

  ‘I know, they taste bitter,’ I said.

  Cubchick opened his mouth, and I placed the tablet on his tongue. He closed his mouth and raised his head. I thought he was swallowing and then realised he was waiting to rest his head on my lap. I shuffled closer, grabbed the bottom of the pile of blankets and hauled them and Cubchick over to me.

  ‘Thank you for saving, Biyu,’ I said. ‘I was lost without her.’

  Cubchick’s chest rumbled.

  For the next half hour, Cubchick slept while I rolled one tablet and then another.

  Sanjay, Biyu said, breaking the silence. Something dawned on me: if we’re to stop the demoness from getting her hands on the sceptre, shouldn’t we just leave it with the Anganerans? What are we supposed to do with it? We don’t have yakshini of our own to guard it.

  I stopped rolling the tablet.

  I don’t think leaving it on Anganera is an option, I said. We have to find a way to destroy it. Before she could ask how, I added, We should ask Governor Utsmani if he knows a way.

  An hour later, I got up carefully to avoid waking Cubchick. Anganera came into view and made the first of our alternatives, leaving the sceptre with the governor, a no-no.

  A grey ship, a battleship from the double gun turrets on its bow, streaked towards the island. The battleship’s giant electric engines turned propellers that churned the seawater and left trails of white in its wake. From our vantage, we saw a Zadrinesian frigate undock from the island’s southern port. Half the length of the Leyakian battleship, I didn’t rate its chances.

  How is it the rest of the Zadrinesian fleet isn’t on the tail of that battleship? I said.

  We began a steep descent.

  Look, Biyu said. The air’s fuzzy round its hull.

  I squinted and pressed a hand to my stomach—my vertigo always worsened the closer we got to the ground. I fought the encroaching dizziness and concentrated on the battleship. The fuzziness Biyu described resembled flickers of transparency along the ship’s hull, its greyness causing the surrounding water to mask its edges.

  It’s like they’ve covered the ship in a giant sheet of chameleon cloth, I said. Chameleon cloth that’s immune to water and works well from a distance.

  Once again, the Leyakians had used our magic against us. Three days ago, the demoness had told me she had given the Leyakians the poison they’d used on Rahmat, the leader of the Resistance. Had she also shown them how to hide a battleship? Was its arrival a coincidence or insurance against Biyu and me failing to collect the sceptre?

  Beneath the basket, I spotted a clearing and the governor’s mansion.

  To our left, one roll of thunder swiftly followed another. The cloudless sky meant only one thing.

  The Leyakians are bombarding the island, I said. Due to the surrounding tree canopy, I couldn’t tell where the shells would land. We can’t stay here for long.

  The basket’s base thumped and bumped over the mansion’s driveway. I heard two distant explosions. Biyu’s shadow grew. Above me, Biyu rose into the air, her size doubling instead of shrinking. The anzu continued to sleep.

  Biyu, what are you doing? I called, my promise to Mr Lee to take care of her at the forefront of my mind. Where are you going?

  To even the frigate’s odds against the battleship, she said. And payback for Shirin’s crew.

  I grasped the edge of the basket. An all-red three hundred-foot dragon snaked its way westwards and towards the sea. Biyu’s fierce roar made me cover my ears.

  Be careful, I said. I already lost you once. I don’t want to lose you again.

  As if a concertina, Biyu’s serpentine body contracted.

  I will be, she said. And you be careful, too.

  Her body blurred as it shot forward and disappeared.

  7

  ‘Sanjay.’

  I stared at the empty sky, hoping Biyu had heard my plea. The sky remained clear. Her roar came from somewhere in the distance. Cubchick sat up and yawned.

  Feet crunched against leaf litter. Flanked by yakshini, their skin smooth grey-brown tree bark, Damini Utsmani marched towards the basket. She held the demoness’s sceptre in her right hand and a rod-shaped daughter staff in her left.

  ‘We have to go,’ Damini said, pointing at the mansion behind her. ‘The island’s wards won’t offer much resistance against an army.’ The anzu whined, causing Damini to bunch her brow and then smile. ‘You brought Cubchick? Tarigan called and told me both Biyu and the anzu are alive. But he didn’t say how they survived that torpedo.’

  I slung on my shoulder bag and then climbed out of the basket. I reached in and hefted Cubchick out of it. The anzu spotted the sceptre and struggled for several seconds to reach it. Exhausted, he gave up.

  ‘Biyu’s helping to even your frigate’s odds against the advancing battleship,’ I said. A distant peal of thunder made me wince. It l
eft me praying the Leyakians aimed their shells at the shoreline and not a flying dragon. ‘I’ll explain everything, but first you have to put the away sceptre. Cubchick is attracted to the magic it contains.’

  Damini handed the sceptre to the yakshini on her right. The yakshini opened her mouth, pushed her head backwards and let the sceptre slide into her.

  As one, Damini and the two yakshini turned. ‘We have to go, before the Leyakians reach the mansion.’

  I shivered at the thought of Biyu returning here and finding us gone.

  Biyu, I called out to her, Damini’s here. She has the sceptre. Come back.

  ‘I just called her,’ I told Damini. ‘I don’t know if she heard me. Can we wait a few minutes before I give it another try?’

  The brows of Damini and the yakshini crimped in unison. I shuddered. All three chewed one corner of their mouth and raised their shoulders.

  ‘All right,’ Damini said. ‘Three minutes.’ She eyed Cubchick. Her shoulders relaxed. A faint smile raised her cheeks. ‘So, tell me then, explain what happened.’

  Glad for something to do while we waited, I described the underwater earthquake Cubchick had caused and how it had helped lift Biyu to the ocean’s surface.

  I had finished describing my encounter with the demoness when, as if on cue, a shadow filled the clearing. Biyu, a blue dragon, descended. I put down Cubchick, lifted the shoulder bag’s strap over my head and unpacked Biyu’s clothes.

  Damini stepped forward to greet the humanoid Biyu, her arms outstretched.

  Biyu just nodded.

  ‘Er, naked,’ she said, and then started to dress.

  Damini’s cheeks reddened.

  Biyu finished tying her laces, stood up and gave Damini a hug.

  ‘The Leyakian battleship is on fire,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do anything about the landing vessels. I didn’t want to risk burning the soldiers guarding the shoreline.’

  Damini turned and headed for the mansion.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t fire on them,’ she said, her back to us. ‘Father’s there. He’s overseeing the island’s defences.’

  Damini strode into the mansion, the yakshini close behind. We skirted the copse of macadamias, passed through the lead-lined passageway, entered the warded room and approached the tree branch on which an empty glass case rested. Damini vaulted over a tree root and touched a panel in the wall. A door swung open, and a ball of heat struck my face.

  Biyu’s third eyelids slid over her eyes. She’d also felt the thick, dry heat.

  Damini waved at us to follow.

  A yakshini sidled past us and through the doorway. The second yakshini took up a rearguard position. I handed Cubchick to Biyu and, lacking Damini’s finesse, climbed over the tree root. Biyu returned Cubchick to me and vaulted over it.

  Damini waited for us a few feet beyond the doorway. She handed out three hooded cloaks, their fabric thin and pearlescent.

  ‘Put these one,’ she said. ‘They’ll provide some protection from the heat.’

  Biyu pulled the cloak over her and then wrapped the other around Cubchick. The anzu didn’t struggle or protest at being swaddled.

  When she’d finished, Biyu said, ‘Where are we going?’

  Damini put on her own cloak and covered her head with the hood.

  ‘Anjaneya created this passageway,’ she said. ‘It leads to a cavern. Come—you’ll soon see what I mean.’ She waved us forward. The yakshini in front of us carried a torch.

  Inside the arched passageway, someone tall and with a stride twice as long as mine had carved deep and wide steps into the dark and porous rock. I kept my eyes fixed to the floor and concentrated on not overextending my second stride and missing a stair’s edge.

  Our descent seemed endless. The anzu’s weight and the rising temperature added to the sweat dripping from my face. After twenty minutes, the passageway levelled. My hips ached as I reacquainted myself with level ground.

  We had followed the yakshini with the torch in silence. At first, the distant sound resembled breath blown over the top of a bottle. Now, the sound was a rumble. Up ahead, fifty feet away, an archway of red glimmered.

  The passageway ended in an arid, black cavern, its walls and ceiling lit by a river of slow-moving lava. The air reeked of sulphur.

  Biyu and I had visited several islands with active volcanos while hunting for relics. The closer we’d got to one, the more equipment we’d needed to protect ourselves from the heat and the noxious gases. This close to all that lava, we should have suffocated.

  I smell magic, Biyu said, confirming my suspicion. Powerful magic.

  Damini pointed. The light made it difficult to discern what she wanted us to see.

  ‘There’s another passageway on the opposite side of the cavern,’ she said. ‘It goes up to the surface of Arlanga.’

  I glanced at Biyu. At its narrowest point, the body of ocean separating the two islands had to be about a mile. Was this river of lava a mile long?

  ‘Arlanga is where the demon king lost the battle to open a hellmouth for his army,’ Damini continued, ‘and it’s where he dropped his sceptre. Like Anganera, there are warded rocks buried beneath Arlanga. Those wards prevent anyone from approaching the island by sea or air. Father and I could think of only one reason for an invasion: the Leyakians want the sceptre.’

  Damini extended her open hand to one of the yakshini. The yakshini mimicked the gesture. A tear appeared in the centre of her palm, and the sceptre emerged from it.

  Cubchick wriggled once in my arms but nothing more.

  ‘The Divine Monkey foresaw this day,’ Damini continued. She took the relic from the yakshini and offered it to me. ‘He prohibited any Anganeran from setting foot on Arlanga until the sceptre had been returned to the island.’

  I passed Cubchick to Biyu, received the sceptre from Damini and slipped it into my shoulder bag.

  ‘None of this makes sense,’ Biyu said. ‘You want us to take the sceptre to the last place it should be?’

  Damini held up a rod.

  ‘This daughter staff remained hidden for a reason,’ she said. ‘As soon as I learned of your arrival, I knew what that reason was.’

  With an underhand toss, Damini threw the rod into the air. It flew far higher than it should have and drifted towards the cavern’s centre. From there, the rod elongated until it spanned the length of the cavern. My eyes dried, and I had to keep blinking to moisten them. For a moment, I looked away. When I looked again, the daughter staff bridged both islands.

  ‘Because of the wards on the island’s surface, the staff is the only way for you to reach and enter Arlanga,’ Damini said. ‘Don’t stray too close to the staff’s edge. The rising air will turn you to cinders.’

  So, no point in trying to fly across, Biyu said.

  Except for its silver tips, the staff’s colour matched the lava, making it tough to tell where the edges of the staff ended and the lava began.

  I’m still confused, Biyu said. Why didn’t the Arlangans just destroy the sceptre instead of giving it to Anjaneya for safekeeping?

  Footsteps and voices from the passageway made all of us turn. The yakshini ran to the entrance and pulled their staffs from their scabbards. They raised their weapons, which were as long as the yakshini were tall, and crouched to prepare for an attack.

  I had made Damini wait too long for Biyu, and now the Leyakians had caught up with is. There was no time to ask how they knew we were here.

  ‘Go,’ Damini ordered. She yanked her own daughter staff from the scabbard on her back. She flicked it, making it lengthen. ‘We’ll hold them off.’

  I repeated Damini’s order and waited for Biyu to run for the bridge. A shot zinged past me, and I quickly followed after her.

  The staff felt solid beneath my feet. Provided I concentrated on the space between myself and Biyu, I had no difficulty with keeping away from the staff’s edge. My exposed ankles burned, and so did my nose and ears when my cloak’s hood flew back.

>   My concern for Damini eased when, from over my shoulder, I heard men screaming. Bullets, however, would soon tear through the wooden yakshini. I hoped Damini would be close behind us, the yakshini buying her time to escape.

  A mile separated the islands. It had felt like ten when I sighted the ledge the daughter staff rested on. An arched entrance stood five yards beyond it.

  Almost there, I said as much to myself as Biyu.

  Biyu’s pace slowed a little.

  How wonderful, she said. But what do we do with the sceptre when we reach the surface?

  8

  The dull light from the cavern below only lit the stairs so far. I hoped the torch’s battery, which I hadn’t recharged since Kazera, had sufficient charge remaining for us to reach the top of the stone stairwell. I also hoped the Arlangans knew how to destroy the sceptre, because both Biyu and I were clueless about what to do with it.

  The torch’s beam lit no more than five steps. I couldn’t tell how far the stairs went and how high.

  We climbed, the stairs wide enough to ascend side by side, the anzu nestled in Biyu’s arms. Our feet puffed the powdery dust that had settled on the flat rock. The steepness of the staircase and the lack of handrails didn’t help my vertigo. One slip on the silky dust and I imagined my fall being an almost vertical one.

  After fifteen minutes of climbing, sweat drenched me, and the joints in my hips and knees were on fire. I was tempted to ask if we could stop for a short rest.

  ‘There’s a doorway,’ Biyu said.

  A line of grey light illuminated the floor ahead of us. The torchlight revealed a door frame and double doors, the woodwork as dusty as the steps we’d climbed. I couldn’t find handles or any other means of opening the doors. I tucked the torch under my arm, stepped forward and pushed. The doors didn’t budge.

  I pushed a little harder. White light leaked from the sleeves of my cloak.

  ‘Magic’s holding the doors closed,’ I said.

  Biyu laid Cubchick gently on the floor before joining me.

  ‘Then there must be wards,’ she said, taking the torch from me.