The Emerald Casket (20 page)

Soon Gerald was back standing on the chair, which was now balanced on a wooden crate. Sam scaled up and perched on Gerald's shoulders, extracting more gasps of pain. There was a slight wobble between the chair and the box but they held.

‘Do you want to try anytime soon?' Sam called down, running out of patience.

‘Feeling the strain are we?' Gerald muttered under his breath.

Ruby clambered up to be face-to-face with Gerald. ‘Muscle up, Mack. Yertle the turtle is coming through.' She clamped a foot on his sore shoulder and pushed up. Gerald grimaced but held tight. Within seconds he heard Ruby exclaim a triumphant ‘ta-dah!'

‘Is she through?' he called up.

‘Not yet,' Ruby called back. ‘But I've got a hand in the gap. Just need to push up a bit more…'

Gerald's heart skipped a beat. A leg of the plastic chair was starting to buckle. He didn't have time to open his mouth and shout a warning. The platform under his feet toppled. His right shoulder hit the stone ground hard, igniting a flash of pain which surged throughout his body. He took a boot to the face as Sam crashed down on top of him.

Gerald clamped a hand to his mouth, the warm tang of blood on his lips. They both ended up on their backs, gazing at Ruby dangling by her hands, gripping the top of the drawbridge.

‘Hold on!' Sam yelled.

‘Thanks for the advice,' she grunted.

Ruby drew her knees up to her chin and planted her feet flat on the wooden boards of the drawbridge. She pushed out. Her head raised above the gap between the massive door and the stone wall.

Gerald glanced at Sam. ‘We might have to catch her.'

‘I heard that!' Ruby called down.

She swung a leg through the overhang and before they could shout any more encouragement she squeezed through to the other side.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then came the sound of iron chains clattering through the notches in the wall. The drawbridge was coming down. Gerald shoved Sam hard and they both rolled clear as the wooden door slammed onto the ground.

Ruby appeared in the archway. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘That got away from me a bit.'

The three of them crossed the drawbridge and entered the fortress.

Chapter 14

T
he skies opened and rain pelted down as Gerald, Ruby and Sam trudged up a steep path into the fort. Stone walls rose high on either side. Gerald guessed that even if they were on the back of a rampaging war elephant, archers from centuries gone by could still fire down on them with ease. This castle had been built to stand strong.

They reached the top of the rise and found a wide grassed area boxed in by more stone walls. There was no one else to be seen.

‘Keep close,' Gerald said. ‘If they don't know we saw them, we may be able to snatch Alisha back.'

They made for the nearest wall and followed the edge of the gardens towards a set of gates. The archway was wide open and they ran through.

Gerald ducked into a cloister that ran around the outskirts of a large rectangular garden. The others followed him. They stopped in the shadows, relieved to find some shelter from the downpour, and watched as the rain gathered intensity. Water gushed from spouts jutting from the roof onto the path in front of them.

Gerald nursed his injured shoulder and ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. A lump was forming where Sam had kicked him. He spat a glob of blood onto the stonework at his feet and shook his head with frustration.

‘Now what?' It was Sam. He sounded defeated. ‘This place is enormous. They could be anywhere.'

‘So you want to quit?' Gerald snapped. ‘You want us to leave Alisha?' He was tired and sore.

Sam turned on him. ‘I didn't say that.' He shoved Gerald in the chest. Gerald fell heavily against a pillar, sparking a fresh burst of pain through his shoulder.

‘Dammit!' Gerald cried. ‘You stupid—'

Ruby threw herself between the boys before the first punch could be thrown. She grabbed her brother.

‘Stop it!' she hissed. ‘What's the matter with you?'

Sam glowered at Gerald but said nothing. He pushed Ruby aside and flopped next to a column a short distance away.

Ruby was furious. ‘We've got to find Alisha,' she said. ‘You two can kill each other after that.'

Gerald stared out into the rain-soaked night. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He was tired of everything going wrong. He wanted to forget about his fortune, about his family history. He wanted to go…

Home.

Gerald blinked back tears. His eyes stung. He told himself it was because of his shoulder. He exhaled again and repeated the advice he'd given himself before: concentrate. All the other stuff could wait. Including arguing with Sam.

Gerald could make out the silhouettes of a number of buildings on the far side of the gardens, maybe a hundred metres away. There was no sign of any people. If they were going to find Alisha, they were going to have to start exploring.

‘We need to look for her,' he said to Ruby. His words were almost lost in the noise of the rain. Ruby nodded then went to her brother and spoke in his ear. Sam remained seated for a moment, scowling into the night. When he dragged himself up he refused to meet Gerald's eyes.

Gerald led the way along the cloisters to their left, keeping well inside the roofline. They reached a doorway that led through the rain to the ground floor of a large rectangular building, set around a central courtyard. They ducked inside. A line of arched windows, set close to the ground, looked inwards across a patchwork of shrubs towards the opposite wing.

Gerald knelt by the nearest window and peered across the garden.

‘There!'

He pointed to the opposite side. ‘Do you see it?' he asked Ruby. ‘That yellow glow.'

Faint and barely visible through the sheets of rain was a dull lamp inside one of the ground-floor rooms.

‘That's got to be them,' Ruby said. ‘So what do we do?'

Gerald looked to Sam, who was staring into the shadows. ‘What do you think?'

Sam didn't move. ‘Whatever you want.'

Terrific. Gerald shook his head. ‘We better see what we're up against,' he said.

A ribcage of stone columns ran the length of the building. The internal walls had decayed or been demolished long ago. Gerald, Ruby and Sam jogged to the end of their wing, keeping in the shadows. They reached the final turn then pulled up short. A huge pile of rubble blocked their path. A section of the first floor had caved in.

‘Great,' Sam said. ‘Now what are we going to do?'

Gerald looked at the ceiling. The section closest to the inner wall had fallen through but the outer part was intact. It was supported by three rows of columns, forming a mezzanine that overlooked the ground level.

‘We can use this,' Gerald said. ‘If we can get to that ledge we should be able to sneak along the length of the building and spy down on them.'

Ruby studied the edge of the collapsed ceiling. ‘How do we get up there?'

Gerald eyed the nearest arched window and traced a path up the wall to the window above that. ‘Follow me,' he said. ‘And don't look down.'

Gerald took a running jump at the window frame and vaulted up the wall. In one flowing movement he jammed his fingers into a cavity in the stonework, tucked his knees to his chest and pushed off against the wall to the second-floor window. Without pausing, he turned to the crumbling section of ceiling and launched himself into free air. He soared across the void, landing on the mezzanine in a rolling tumble. Seconds later he was lying on his belly and peeking over the edge at Sam and Ruby. He couldn't hide the grin on his face.

Ruby shot him an admiring look. ‘I don't think I can do that,' she said.

Sam said nothing.

Gerald considered his options. ‘I'll go see what's going on. Probably better to have only one of us up here anyway.'

‘And what do we do?' Sam asked, his voice sour as week-old milk.

‘You can stop laughing, for a start,' Gerald said. ‘And keep out of sight.'

Gerald pushed himself to his feet and headed in the direction of the lamp. His eyes had adjusted to the dark fairly well and he could make out a path ahead. It looked like the inner section of the first floor had collapsed for the length of the building, giving him a clear view of what he hoped was Alisha and her kidnappers.

Gerald crept along as fast as he dared. He picked his way through leaf litter and crushed plastic bottles, trying not to make a sound. The further along the building he got, the slower and more cautious he became. Every breath sounded like a wind tunnel in his head. The rain pounded down outside but still he moved like a cat.

After slinking through a number of rooms he entered a large chamber at the end of the building. The floor collapse had been more extensive there, with a framework of columns below propping up nothing but air. Then Gerald saw them: three black-cloaked figures huddled close together in the room beneath him. They appeared to be in a heated discussion about something. The bandit with the gun was shorter and more wiry than the others but was obviously in charge. The leader jabbed a finger towards the door and the other two ran outside. Gerald melted into the shadows and scoured the space below for any sign of Alisha. She must be down there somewhere.

Gerald sank to his haunches. He needed to get the remaining bandit out of the building so he could get to the ground floor and find Alisha. He needed a diversion. All he could see in the shadows were piles of vegetation and rubbish.

He stood up and took a half pace backwards. A howl erupted at his feet. Gerald jumped in panic as something grabbed his ankle. Two arms clutched at his calf. Then there was the sensation of something biting his boot. Hard. Again and again, teeth piercing the tough fabric. A dusty brown creature had wrapped itself around his leg. The beast drew its head back and bared needle sharp fangs. Gerald kicked out and sent the animal sliding on its belly across the floor. It splayed out like a ragdoll, then sprang to its feet and glared death back at Gerald. A monkey. It sat on its bottom and nursed its right hand, its tail pounding the air in anger. Gerald must have stepped on it while it was sleeping. Two other monkeys emerged from the shadows amid a chorus of chattering. They crossed to their companion. One put an arm around its shoulder; the other stared at Gerald and launched a fang-bared screech. If monkeys could swear, this one was turning the air blue.

Gerald cringed at the noise, not just the way it tore at his nerves but because of the warning it must be sounding to the bandit below. The three monkeys, apparently satisfied they'd got their point across, turned and launched themselves, one after the other, off the edge of the broken floor and into the void. The first monkey latched onto an iron ring fixed into the stone ceiling and swung out to land on top of the nearest column. It then leapt out to grab another ring before swinging across to the neighbouring column. In a bounding procession, his friends followed and the three of them in turn landed with a thump on the windowsill opposite, then disappeared into the rain outside.

Gerald held his breath. If the screeching hadn't been enough to warn the man in black, then the sight of three angry monkeys leaping across the array of columns in a game of aerial hopscotch should just about seal it. He counted to fifty, then, to be sure, counted to fifty again. In that time he spotted six other monkeys about ten paces away. One of them held a water bottle, like a small hairy man on the way to the gym. The others scuttled about, piling bottles into a heap. That explained the scores of old bottles on the mezzanine. The monkeys must collect them.

He was still no closer to figuring how he could get to Alisha.

Gerald flattened himself against the floor and wriggled as close as he dared to the edge. As more of the ground floor was revealed, he spied the bandit. Far from being alarmed at the monkey activity, the figure in black was squatting casually on the floor, apparently talking to someone. As Gerald edged further out he finally spotted Alisha. She sat with her back against a column and a dark cloth bag over her head. Her hands appeared to be bound behind her.

As he stared down at the forlorn image of Alisha, he had an idea.

Chapter 15

G
erald scurried back to where he'd left Sam and Ruby. Along the way he collected as many water bottles as he could carry. A couple of monkeys had followed him, screeching in distress at the loss of their treasures, but they kept their distance. Gerald poked his head over the edge of the collapsed ceiling and the twins emerged from the shadows.

‘I've found Alisha,' he said. ‘But I need you to lure the man in black outside.'

‘How are we supposed to do that?' Sam asked. ‘And what about the other two gorillas?'

‘Funny you should mention gorillas,' Gerald said.

Ten minutes later Gerald was back in his hiding place overlooking the chamber. He eyed the top of the nearest column. It must have been five metres away from the edge of the collapsed ceiling and a good four metres above the stone floor below. Gerald knew the margin for error in his plan was close to zero. He glanced at his watch. Only a few more seconds to go.

There was a volley of shouts from outside the room below. Gerald peered down to see the bandit reach around and pull out a handgun. Sam and Ruby were screaming up a storm, their cries piercing the rain. Before the figure in black could take a step to investigate, a hail of water bottles rained in through the windows. Scores of bottles, weighed down with rocks, bounced into the room and skittered across the flagstones. One hit the bandit in the stomach and others smashed into columns. They pelted the room like a mortar storm. Then the barrage ended. The shouting ceased. The sound of rain again filled the chamber. The floor was covered with plastic bottles. The kidnapper picked up one of the containers.

What happened next was highly dangerous for Sam and Ruby but it was a gamble they had agreed to take. The bandit raised the pistol and took a step towards the door.