The Last Phoenix (16 page)

“G
et away, pet,” Fenella croaked from the table. “Run, lovie, run!”

Milly jumped to her feet, but as she turned back to the open window it slammed shut with a loud bang. Mr. Milton chuckled softly. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

“I don't understand,” Milly said, her mind still struggling to accept the change in him. “You seemed so nice…”

Milton arched an eyebrow. “Would you have come here with your phoenix had I been bad-tempered or aloof? I had to seem a harmless, lonely old man of whom you could take advantage.” He snorted. “You thought you were tricking me wonderfully, didn't you? That I was unknowingly providing you with the perfect home for your golden friend.” His face hardened. “But all the time,
I
was the one pulling the strings.”

Milly stared, realizing how completely they had been fooled. “So you knew Fenella would come to us and you made friends with my stepmum just so we would know about the workshop and think of it as a hiding place?”

He nodded. “And, gracious me, the kiln was jammed on full blast twenty-four hours a day. How convenient!”

“I thought it was destiny,” croaked Fenella.

Mr. Milton's eyes glinted. “Ah, but your destiny is to serve me—all of you!”

Fenella launched herself into flight, straining once more against her chain. “Quickly, lovie!” she squawked to Milly. “I'll distract him, you run!”

“No! I won't leave you!” Milly cried.

“And you, phoenix, are going nowhere.” Milton reached out, grabbed Fenella by the neck and hauled her roughly back down to the table, where she lay panting for breath. “After all, you don't want to miss a happy reunion between a girl and a worm, do you?” He laughed, crossed to the nearest workbench and picked up an object that Milly recognized in a heart-stopping second. It was a brass lamp with a round body and a long tall spout. The handle was twisted and had a snake's head rearing up at the end of it.

“The genie lamp,” Milly breathed. “
Skribble's
lamp?”

“My aged guest—or, more accurately, my prisoner.” Milton plucked out the brass stopper. “Ho, worm! Are you still in there, you cringing cur?”

Milly forgot her own predicament and Fenella's for a moment. “Don't you talk to Skribble like that!” she shouted.

“I will talk to him as I choose,” said Milton calmly.
“For he is in my power.
I
took the lamp when you placed it in that junk shop, you see. I summoned the genie.” He held the spout to his lips and raised his voice. “You have no choice, do you, Skribbaleum! Not now that I have commanded from you an endless stream of wishes that must be granted!” He rubbed the lamp disdainfully on the sleeve of his suit and in a purple puff of smoke, Skribble appeared, just as he had done outside the workshop, a tiny mustached figure in a cloak and turban floating on an iridescent cloud. He looked worried and furious in equal measure.

“Milly,” Skribble cried. “And Fenella, are you all right? Has this misanthropic microbe harmed you in any way?”

“Harm them, wormish one?” Milton laughed. “Does a craftsman damage his tools before he begins work?”

“These are not tools,” Skribble stormed. “They are living things, marvelous and magical. The girl is but a child—”

“And most necessary,” Milton interrupted. “Which is why I've separated her from her siblings.”

Milly swallowed down her frightened tears as she looked at her beloved bookworm. “Oh, Skribble, why didn't you warn us more that something was wrong when you came to us?”

“Milton
compelled
me to go to you,” said Skribble wretchedly. “He is the wish-maker and by my genie oath I can do nothing but serve him. He wished that I would
appear to you to keep you focused on your quest—but forbade me from warning you of his true nature.”

“I remember,” Milly groaned. “You found it hard to speak…But you warned us somebody was watching. We just didn't think you meant Mr. Milton!”

Skribble sighed. “I could sense that Michael had doubts about him. I tried to make him look at the words I had placed on the map right from the start: ‘Know yourself, trust yourself,
believe
in yourself'—and not in me. I couldn't be clearer because of the wish but, oh! How I wanted to say more!” The worm shook his head. “Forgive me, my dear Milly…and please, Fenella, forgive me also. For I have been forced to deceive you all along, right from our first encounter in Morocco…”

Fenella blinked, incredulously.

“The worm was my puppet,” Milton said. “That prophecy of the egg he shared with you was entirely
my
invention. I wished of my genie that he fool you into thinking it had come from the Great Library…and naturally he had no choice but to obey.” He gave her a jackal's smile. “For centuries now I have been planning…plotting…planting the seeds of my eventual triumph!”

Milly stared. “Centuries? But how can you be that old?”

“Once,” put in Skribble, “‘Mr. Milton'—or to call him by his real name, Miltakbar Memesis the Thrice-Born—was a genie himself. Yes, by all accounts a very great genie
indeed, way back when even I was but a stripling.”

“A great genie?” Milton snorted, threw back his head and set his fez tassels twitching. “You wrong me, worm—I was master of all!”

Milly was struggling to take in so many revelations. “He's a
genie
! But then how come he's got a hold on you, Skribble? I thought genies weren't able to work magic on each other!”

“He is a genie no longer,” Skribble explained. “The scraps of magic he possesses now were stolen from the human world in the dark, savage times of old.” The worm scowled. “Many centuries ago, he and his witch-bride attempted to overthrow the Genie Council. Their revolution was crushed, and this would-be master's magic was taken from him. He was sentenced to walk the earth in mortal form forever. As for his charmless lady friend—”

“Cringing worm!” Milton stormed. “If you must speak of my queen you'll do so with respect!”

“We owe respect to the living!” Skribble shot back. “And that is hardly a word one can use with regard to that old harridan, is it now, hmm?”

Milton's dark eyes glowed like coals in a furnace. “With this child's help, my lady's condition is soon to be reversed,” he said softly. Then he stood aside, to reveal a statue behind him, blocking the doorway of the octagonal chamber.

It was the statue of the sad woman that had been placed outside the workshop. As she took in the crisp lines of the pristine white creation, Milly gasped in fear.

The statue was sad no longer. The stone woman was smiling.

 

Still roaming the rambling corridors of Milton's house, Jess, Jason, and Michael were no longer creeping about. Now they were clomping here and there, opening and slamming doors, growing more and more agitated.
I
want
someone to hear us now,
Jess thought to herself.
Mr. Milton's nice, he won't get angry—

“Hang on, look!” said Michael with some relief, pointing ahead of them. “It's that croc again! We must have come this way!”

Jess frowned. At the end of the silent corridor she could see it was indeed the same stuffed crocodile in a glass case they had passed before.

“Hang on, though,” said Jason nervously. “Before, it was tucked away in a corner—not lying in the middle of the floor.”

“Someone's moved it,” Jess agreed, moving cautiously closer. Then suddenly she remembered the whispered words they'd heard on the blustery peak and held very, very still. “Jason, Michael,” she whispered. “The warnings we heard on the wind at the glacier—the voice said we
should beware false lines on parchment.”

Jason gasped. “You…you think it was talking about the lines on the map?”

“What else did it say?” asked Michael.

Chills coiled around Jess's backbone as she stared at the crocodile in the case with its cold, beady gaze and remembered the unearthly mutterings:
“Beware eyes behind glass…”

She caught a flicker of movement from within the cabinet.

The crocodile had
blinked
.

The next moment, the glass cabinet shattered as the green, sinewy reptile burst forward toward them. Jess and Michael both yelled, but Jason was too scared to do even that. He turned on his heel and led the charge back down the corridor away from the crocodile.

“This can't be happening,” he babbled, “it's impossible!”

“It's magic,” Michael corrected him.

The three of them ran on in blind panic through the seemingly endless passageways until Jason suddenly skidded to a halt. He could hear a slow, rhythmic
thump-thump-thump
coming from the shadowy corridor ahead of them.

Jess stopped running and clutched hold of her brother's arm. “What's that?”

Jason seemed speechless with fright; but the next moment
Jess had her impossible answer. The shabby carousel horse they'd seen earlier was somehow dragging itself toward them, animated by some unseen force to block their escape. Its painted features were jolly and bright, but its glass eyes were cold and dark.

Jess bit her lip. “We're dreaming. This is like something from a bad horror film.”

The crocodile came crawling into sight. Its movements were stiff. Its stuffed jaws opened and shut of their own accord, the eyes glowing yellow like torch beams, ivory teeth scraping and snapping together.

“Trapped between a stuffed croc and Muffin the Mule.” Michael groaned.

Jason spotted a wooden door to their left. “Quick, through here!” he shouted. The door flew open at his touch.

It was then that he realized this was the same door that had almost closed on them before. He froze in the doorway, opened his mouth to shout a warning—but Michael and Jess were right behind him and bundled him through…

The floor disappeared beneath them into golden flashes of sputtering light.

Falling and shouting in slow motion, Michael, Jess, and Jason were swallowed up by the impossible blackness.

I
n the octagonal chamber, Milly was still staring in horror at the stone woman with her deathly smile. “You mean…
that
is your wife?”

“That is my beautiful, beloved Ayeshaka, turned to stone.” Milton reverently stroked a perfect white arm with the tips of his fingers. “A great jest of the Genie Council.”

Skribble nodded. “I heard the story at my mother's knee. The council decreed that as Ayeshaka's evil heart was clearly hard as stone, the rest of her should be made to match it. Miltakbar was sent with her to the land of mortals, to attend his queen and reflect on their folly until the end of time.”

“I reflected, all right,” Milton declared. “I moved between the continents, steeping myself in dark wisdom. And I began to form a plan…”

Milly's heart quickened to hear the faint echoes of hoarse, panic-stricken cries. “That's my brothers and sister!” she cried. “What's happening to them?”

“About time, too.” Milton reached out his hand upward, as if plucking invisible fruits from the air. With the first gesture, Jess appeared, hanging limply in the air like an abandoned marionette, her feet a few centimeters from the floor. Milly gasped, and did so again as with a second gesture, Jason appeared beside her. With a third stab of the air, Michael shimmered into view, his dark hair flopping forward over his face.

Milly looked at Milton in awe. “How did you bring them here?”

He smiled and opened his palm. A small golden feather lay there.

“Phoenix magic?” Milly said. “The same way
we've
been traveling.”

“Alas, I have merely mastered the migration of objects through space, not through time,” Milton admitted. “Nevertheless, for a mortal such powers are impressive, no?”

Milly stared at Jess, Jason, and Michael. “What have you done to them? Make them wake up,
now
!”

Even as she spoke, Michael twitched in midair. “Oh, my head.” He groaned. “Did an elephant sit on it, or what?”

Jess stretched as if waking from a deep sleep. “No, you've always looked like that.”

Jason stirred too, opened his eyes—and did a double-take. “Whoa! Skribble? Milly? Fenella?” He blinked several
times. “Am I dreaming?”

“Oh, Fenella!” Jess cried, seeing the bird. “Thank goodness you're all right…”

“Be silent,” Milton snarled, and at his voice, Jess and Michael shook themselves properly awake.

“Okay, this is not good,” said Michael, taking in the scene in front of him. “Any chance I could go home and hide under the bed?”

“I do hope my little pets upstairs didn't alarm you too much as they herded you along,” said Milton. “But I did so want you to join us.”

“And you wanted them to see your power,” Milly said coldly. “Or you'd have just got Skribble to wish them here.”

Mr. Milton gave her a malicious smile. “How clever you are, my dear.”

“Mr. Milton,” said Jess in a shaky voice, “what…I mean,
how
…I mean,
why
—”

“Worm,” Milton interrupted, turning to Skribble. “I command you to apprise these brats of the situation without need of tedious repeated explanation.”

“Very well,” muttered Skribble, closing his eyes and swaying on his little cloud. Lightning flashes suddenly sparked about Michael's, Jess's, and Jason's heads. The three of them looked at each other in a daze.

Then Jess covered her face with her hands. “We've been such idiots!”

Jason stared at Milton. “So
you
were the one Skribble warned us about!”

“But we thought it was the other bloke!” Michael shook his head. “Who's he then?”

“I know nothing of any other ‘bloke,'” said Milton dismissively. “Now, be silent, and know that you are privileged to participate in the final stages of my master plan. I have need of all four children—according to the
true
prophecy of the phoenix egg.”

“What does he mean…?” Fenella struggled up weakly and stared at Milton. “What true prophecy? What do you…know about my egg…?”

“A very good deal,” Milton informed her. “Considering it was I who stole the first one you laid, as well as the second.”

Fenella went rigid. “You never did! You're lying.”

“I'm afraid he is not,” said Skribble heavily.

Milton turned to a large chest on the workbench behind him and opened its lid. Inside was the spiky nest Fenella had built, spun through with gold, the sticks daubed with ash, flecks of silphium scattered inside like strange petals. “You should thank me,” he said. “There is, and has always been, only one phoenix in existence. Had the egg hatched,
it might have marked an end to your own life as the new hatchling took your place.”

Milly gasped. “Is that true, Skribble?”

“I do not know,” Skribble admitted. “A phoenix egg is a mystery, a paradox, it is something that shouldn't be. Miltakbar is right that there is just one phoenix. She is unique. There isn't a scholar alive in this world or the Realm of Genies who truly understands what will happen if the phoenix hatches an egg. She is reborn from ashes, so what need does she have of an egg?”

“For the hope it brings,” Fenella whispered, closing her eyes. “The promise of someone to love and cherish forever.”

“Such promise was taken from me,” Milton hissed. “Why should I not take it from you? And yes, the egg might be a paradox, but there is one thing all agree upon—it contains mighty powers that can be unlocked and used. Powers of rebirth and renewal unheard of in all history.”

“Rebirth!”
Michael suddenly got it. “So that's what you're doing! You want to use Fenella's egg to bring your missus back to life! I bet that's why you took her egg the first time too.”

“Yes,” Milton snarled. “But agents of the Genie Council saw fit to track me down to Cairo and halt my work. To teach me a lesson they imprisoned me in a pyramid for
fifty years. But the fates smiled on me. For there, on my doorstep, I found the Brothers of the Sun Bird.”

Jason's eyes were saucer-wide. “That cult we ran into? You met them too?”

“A most knowledgeable clan,” said Milton. “I traded some of my dark secrets for many of theirs.” He nodded, a gleam in his eyes. “Writing with ink made from the magic-infused ashes of the phoenix nest, using magical feathers shed when
you
, Michael, hurled that stone at Fenella's head, the Sun Bird Priest wrote prophecies that truly came to pass.”

Michael hung his head. “I'm sorry, everyone.”

“None of us could have known,” Jess told him.

“Just as none of you could have known of the prophecy I had once discovered,” hissed Milton. “It concerned the power of the phoenix egg. It spoke of how the egg's powers would be unlocked with four magical ingredients and used to bring a long-dead soul to life.”

“Four ingredients,” echoed Jess.

“Don't tell us.” Michael groaned. “Gold spun from tomorrow's sunlight, phoenix nest ashes, a dewdrop from Mount Thingummy—”

“And silphium leaves,” Jason concluded.

Fenella gasped. “So those ingredients weren't needed to help my egg to hatch.”

“Just to help
you
use the egg to bring your stone bride back to life,” said Milly.

“Quite right.” Milton smiled craftily. “And so I used you children to collect the ingredients on my behalf, with that magical map the worm crafted for me.”

“But why get us to do it?” Michael demanded. “You had Skribble, surely he could have whipped up those ingredients in a flash?”

“No.” Skribble shook his head. “The Genie Council knew of the prophecy, you see, and protected the ingredients with a charm that stopped any genie from touching them or collecting them by magic.”

“And so I needed humans,” said Milton. “More particularly, I needed the four of
you
. For once you traveled back in time and met the Brothers of the Sun Bird, you became a
part
of the priest's prophecies! They wrote about you and the role you would play in unleashing the power of the egg—four children who balanced selflessness with greed…Who risked all for the phoenix and partook of her sacred charms and powers.” He pointed at Michael. “The boy who would buy respect with gold.” He stabbed a finger at Jess. “The girl who feared failure and tasted ash.” He sneered at Jason. “The ungainly lad who fed on herbs of antiquity in the hope he might learn to belong. And the little girl…”

“But I haven't done anything,” Milly protested.

“Not yet,” Milton agreed. “But it was written that you would succumb to temptation like your siblings, that you would taste the dewdrop. And so, for the charm to work, you
must
taste of it.”

“I won't,” said Milly. “I'm not letting your stupid, horrible prophecy come true. You can shove your dewdrop down your pants!”

“Ridiculous child, you cannot thwart my will!” Milton loomed over her. “Why do you think I lured away your siblings so that you, youngest and most helpless, might come to my sanctum alone?” He chuckled. “I cast a spell of obedience here ahead of your arrival—and it has now had time to work upon you.”

“No!” Milly shouted. “There's no spell on me, you're—”

“Be silent and hold still!” The old man snapped his fingers.

Milly's voice choked away. Her eyes widened with fear, and she looked helplessly at Skribble. A tiny tear was trickling down the worm's crinkly cheek.

“You
shall
taste the dewdrop,” Milton assured her, “just as your siblings will play their part in the ceremony.”

“You haven't charmed
us
,” said Michael shakily. “How come? Not up to it?”

“It is not necessary,” Milton informed him smugly.
“Disobey me and young Milly here shall regret it.”

Fenella raised her head wearily, trembling with rage. “I'm at the end of my life now, Miltakbar,” she croaked. “But if you harm these children, I swear to you that when I come back reborn you'll regret what you've done forever.”

“There'll be no chance of you coming back this time, phoenix.” Milton sneered. He looked at Jason. “Now, boy. I know you carry the drop of dew.” Milton snapped his fingers. “Give it to me.”

“Um…okay.” Milly saw a strange almost furtive look cross Jason's face as he swallowed hard and reached into his trouser pocket. “Now, where did I put it…?”

Milly strained against the spell, desperate to escape. But it was no good, she couldn't move a muscle. Through the window, she could just see the statue of the fighting gryphons.
Nothing like the real thing
, she thought, picturing George and the way he had smiled at her…

Suddenly the sun came out, shining through the window, and something on her raincoat glinted in the light. It was her zipper. Where George's blade-like claws had swiped her coat to get at the gold, he had cut clean through the metal fastener. Now the torn and toothy metal was gleaming like it was made of gold itself. But why?

“Hurry, boy,” snarled Milton, advancing on Jason. “Or I'll take the damnable dewdrop by force!”

“It's here,” said Jason shakily, handing over a small plastic tube with a pipette inside. “Take it.”

“No, Jase!” cried Michael.

“He has chosen wisely.” The old man turned to face Milly and removed the red stopper from the tube. “Now, take the pipette and drink…”

Milly couldn't stop her right arm from rising, reaching for the pipette. A laugh of triumph escaped Milton's lips.

“Wait!” cried Skribble. “First, have the child take off that raggedy old coat. This is a moment of great ceremony and import, Miltakbar, have you no sense of occasion?”

Michael groaned. “I actually thought the worm was gonna help for a minute!”

“Do as the worm suggests, girl,” rasped Milton.

Milly shrugged off the raincoat and placed it in a heap beside Fenella on the table.

“Now, drink!”

Milly could hardly see through tears as her hand jerked closer to the tube, and she took out the pipette.

“No, Mil!” Michael urged her.

I can't stop,
she thought, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she raised the pipette to her lips…