The Secret of Zanzibar (4 page)

Solomon shook hands with Emmeline and Rebus then put a hand on Alice's shoulder. ‘So, Alice, are you ready for your next mission?'

Before Alice could answer, her brother interrupted.

‘Hey, Solomon,' said Alex, ‘how are we getting to Gerander this time? Have you got another balloon?'

‘You'll see,' said Solomon, who never gave away information before he had to.

As they stood to leave, Alice looked around the square. At the far side, partially obscured by the statue in the square's centre, she thought she saw a flash of silvery grey and coal black. Despite the baking heat emanating from the cobblestones, she felt a chill run through her. It couldn't be … could it? Swallowing, she peered again. No, she must have imagined it. Still, the unease didn't leave her, and as she followed the others from the square she cast several nervous glances over her shoulder. But no one was following them.

They left Sharman via a different, smaller road at the top of the town. They passed a few cottages on the outskirts before they plunged into a forest of towering pines. The road climbed up for the next hour before it finished abruptly. Solomon led them to a path carpeted with pine needles and they continued their ascent through the trees.

‘Are we really going to walk all the way to Gerander?' Alex grumbled. ‘I thought you'd have some really cool way to travel, Solomon.' He kicked at a rock in his path and muttered under his breath, ‘I wish we'd gone by owl.'

The ache in Alice's muscles from the morning's downhill trek through the gorge was soon replaced by a burning in her legs from the relentless climb of the afternoon. But while the four mice he was leading struggled to keep up, Solomon seemed hardly to notice
that the ascent was arduous; he maintained the same steady pace, allowing them occasional stops to rest and refresh themselves from their water bottles, but quickly urging them on.

‘We need to get there before dark,' he said.

‘Get where?' said Alex. ‘To Gerander?'

Solomon just shook his head mysteriously.

The light had turned golden when they cleared the tree line and, buffeted by the wind, slogged the final stretch of a steep bare hill, which ended in a sheer drop of hundreds of metres. When they squinted into the setting sun they could see for miles over a flat plain.

Solomon pointed. ‘See the river in the distance? That's the Winns.'

So this was Gerander stretched out before them. But as far as Alice could see, there was no way to reach it from where they stood. The cliff was impossible to descend. Surely Solomon hadn't made them climb all that way in the mistaken belief they'd be able to cross the border here? They couldn't afford mistakes like that – they had no time to lose! Alice could have groaned out of sheer frustration.

Solomon didn't seem at all disturbed by their predicament, though. Instead of looking at the view, he was pacing the cliff top, scanning the ground as if searching for something. Finally he said, ‘Aha!' and, reaching into a hollow under the lip of a rock, pulled out a rucksack. ‘Alice, can you give me hand?' he said when he saw her watching.

Alice hurried to take the backpack from him, and then a second. Soon they had five packs piled at their feet.

‘What are those for?' Alex asked, coming over to join them.

Solomon looked at him, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘These are going to get us to Gerander.'

A shout echoed through the canyon and Alistair lifted his head to see two red-coated Queen's Guards yelling and gesturing from the top of the rock the FIG members had just descended.

‘Right, playtime's over,' said Slippers abruptly. ‘Let's go.'

They marched beside the stream in single file. The sun on the white pebbles was blinding yet Alistair had no choice but to stare at them. If he slipped or twisted an ankle they would lose precious time – time in which the pursuing guards could catch up to them. It was possible, too, that the Queen's Guards knew this terrain well, that they knew shortcuts and paths which were invisible to the FIG operatives. And perhaps the two guards they had spotted weren't the only guards in the vicinity. What if the guard at the top of the rock had been shouting and yelling to alert other guards to the presence of the intruders?

He glanced over his shoulder and saw two spots of red halfway down the rock; they were moving fast. At least the guards were easy to spot in their red coats. But so were he and his companions, Alistair realised – he and Tibby especially, with their ginger fur, would be quite distinct against the white pebbles.

As if she had had the same thought, Slippers said, ‘We're like sitting ducks out here in the open. Anyone watching from above will have no trouble seeing us.'

She picked up the pace, till Alistair was half jogging, his rucksack bouncing awkwardly against his back. His pulse was racing from a combination of exertion and fear.

‘Are they gaining on us?' Slippers demanded after some time.

Feast shot a look over his shoulder. ‘I can't tell. But one thing's for sure …' His voice was grim. ‘We're not losing them.'

‘We'll keep going around that bend then look for a game-changer,' Slippers said. ‘We need to disappear, try to confuse them.'

The bend was further away than it looked, and even though they kept up their fast pace Alistair reckoned it was fifteen minutes or more before they reached it. As they rounded the turn Alistair saw Slippers' head moving left, right, up and down, scanning the landscape.

‘There,' she said finally. She was pointing to a boulder wedged between the base of two towering rock walls on
the other side of the river. The boulder was as tall as a house. It looked like an enormous marble stuck in a chute.

Slippers turned to Alistair and Tibby Rose. ‘Have either of you done any rock climbing?' she asked.

‘No,' said Alistair, his heart thumping in his chest as he craned his neck to see the top of the boulder. Was Slippers really meaning for them to climb this? It looked impossible.

Tibby Rose shook her head. ‘Me neither,' she said, before adding, ‘but Charlotte Tibby has, so I know the theory.' Charlotte Tibby was a famous Sourian explorer after whom Tibby Rose had been named. In the years that Tibby had spent alone in the big old house in Templeton, with only Grandpa Nelson, Great-Aunt Harriet and Great-Aunt Harriet's well-stocked library for company, she had read all her namesake's books many times and learned all kinds of survival tips.

‘Good,' said Slippers. ‘You can explain the theory to Alistair after we've crossed the river. Feast, should we use the rope, do you think?'

Feast stepped forward to undo the rucksack still on Slippers' back and pulled out a coil of rope.

Slippers looped the rope around Feast's chest, leaving two long ends which she then tied together.

‘Alistair, take hold of the rope and walk downstream a bit,' Slippers instructed as she too picked up the rope. ‘Now pay it out slowly as Feast crosses.'

Feast waded into the river, which was shallow at first then dropped suddenly so that the water was up to his stomach.

‘This seems to be as deep as it gets,' he called from the centre of the river. ‘The current's strong, though.'

‘Keep the rope taut,' Slippers said to Alistair, ‘so he doesn't wash away.'

Feast reached the far bank and swiftly loosened the rope and wriggled free.

‘Tibby, you're next,' Slippers said.

Tibby Rose stepped forward and Slippers looped the rope around her. ‘Just walk straight to Feast,' Slippers told her. ‘And don't worry if you lose your footing. Feast has got one end of the rope and I've got the other.'

Tibby nodded bravely and walked into the river as Alistair watched, feeling anxious for his friend.

One step, two, then a sudden plunge and the water was up to Tibby's chest. She wavered slightly, and lifted her arms into the air as if for balance, but kept walking towards Feast. Within a few minutes she was wading up the far side and Feast was pulling the loop of rope up and over her shoulders and head.

‘Alistair?'

Alistair stood still as the rope was looped around his chest and under his arms.

He shivered with the shock of the cold as he was immersed up to his chest, but he kept going, stroking through the water as if he were swimming. The current
pushed at him and it was hard to get a footing on the slippery rocks on the river bed; he was glad of the rope. Then at last he was on the far side and Slippers was hastening through the rush of water.

Minutes later, with the damp rope stowed back in the rucksack, the four sodden mice stood regarding the boulder Slippers had decided they should climb. It looked even bigger up close, Alistair thought with a tremor of apprehension. He cast a glance across the river. The guards could round the bend at any moment, he knew.

‘Okay, let's take it slow but steady,' Slippers advised. She flexed her fingers as she considered the rock in front of her. ‘Tibby, you explain the theory to Alistair.'

‘One really important thing to remember is to keep all your weight on your feet,' Tibby began. ‘Even when you've got a good hand-hold, you want your legs to be doing most of the work. And always keep three points of contact on the rock – both feet and one hand, or both hands and one foot.'

‘Sounds good to me,' said Slippers. ‘Now follow me, watching where I put my hands and feet.' She reached up to grip a knob of rock with her left hand, then moved the toe of her right boot into a small hollow.

When she had gone a few metres, Tibby followed, copying Slippers' moves closely.

Alistair waited till Tibby's tail was a metre or so above his head, then he too reached for the knob of rock. As he
climbed he forgot about the guards chasing them, forgot about their urgent mission; he was aware only of his hands and feet and where to place them, all his concentration fixed on the minute bumps and swellings of the rock.

He was panting when he reached the top, but there was no time to rest as he heard Feast, who was close behind him, breathe: ‘I think I hear voices.'

Alistair clambered over the lip of the boulder to where Slippers and Tibby crouched, just out of sight of the river. Feast slipped over the top seconds later to crouch between Tibby and Alistair. They waited in tense silence, still breathing hard from their climb, as the voices of the Queen's Guards grew clearer.

‘I can't see them,' whined one. It sounded close; just across the river from the boulder, Alistair guessed.

‘Why don't you climb up to that ledge and see if you can spot them?' suggested a second voice.

‘Me?' said the first voice querulously. ‘Here's an idea:
you
climb up to the ledge.'

Alistair saw Feast and Slippers exchange a series of gestures that ended in Feast reaching over the top of Tibby to slide the rucksack from Slippers' shoulders. He pulled out the still-damp rope, then slipped his own arms through the straps of the rucksack. He uncoiled the rope, tied one end around an outcrop protruding from the rock and handed the other end to Slippers.

‘We'll have to abseil down the other side,' he whispered. ‘Watch how Slippers does it.'

Slippers took hold of the rope just below the point where it was anchored and tugged it to make sure it was secure. Then she fed the end of the rope between her legs, wound it around her right leg, pulled it across her chest and threw it over her left shoulder. She then grasped the end of the rope with her right hand behind her, while gripping the rope in front of her body with her left hand. Planting her boots on the rock, she began to rappel down the boulder's face, paying out rope as she went. It looked quite easy really, Alistair thought.

Then Feast was pulling the end of the rope back up and it was Tibby's turn. She descended more slowly than Slippers, her face creased in a fierce frown of concentration. She stumbled slightly on landing, but quickly righted herself and gave Feast and Alistair a thumbs-up. Feast pulled the rope up once more, and helped Alistair wind it around himself.

It wasn't as easy as it looked, Alistair found as he inched crab-like down the face of the rock, occasionally swaying too far to one side or the other, the muscles in his arms straining as he pulled himself back to the centre.

When he was safely on the ground, Alistair tilted his head back to watch Feast's descent. It was over in mere seconds as Feast seemed almost to bound down in a few giant steps.

‘What about the rope?' Alistair asked in a whisper.

‘We'll have to leave it,' said Slippers.

‘I've got a rope in my rucksack,' Tibby volunteered.

‘Let's hope we won't need it,' said Slippers, stretching her arms to ease the muscles. ‘That hurt. Though I must say, it feels good to have a whopping great boulder between us and those guards.'

They were in another canyon, narrower than the one they had left behind, but, as Tibby pointed out, at least it was headed due north. They trudged along the sandy floor, pausing regularly to reorient themselves as the path twisted and turned. When they felt they were straying too far west, they found another branch of the canyon forking off to the north and followed it. The sun was high in the sky now, and Alistair had to take frequent sips from his water bottle. There was little shade and the baking sand seared the soles of his feet. It had been hours since they had left the Queen's Guards behind on the other side of the river, and Alistair was starting to relax when a murmur reached him on the still air.

He turned to Feast, eyes wide, and saw that the FIG operative had his ears cocked.

Feast caught Alistair's eye and nodded. Alistair hurried to catch up with Slippers and Tibby and, tapping their shoulders, indicated behind him with his thumb.

Slippers let out a resigned sigh. ‘Is it the same ones?'

Feast ran a hand through the shock of chestnut fur on his head. ‘I can't tell,' he said. ‘Maybe not. The voices seem to be coming from the west.'

‘They must be in that branch we passed a while back. It's possible they don't know we're here.'

‘Let's try to keep it that way,' said Slippers.

They continued on in silence, their pace faster than it had been. As they walked, the canyon grew narrower and narrower, until the sides of the chasm were barely the width of a doorway and Feast, who had broad shoulders, had to turn sideways.

‘Uh-oh,' he said. ‘I don't like the way this is going.'

‘It has to lead somewhere,' Slippers said, sounding frustrated. ‘Otherwise we'll have to retrace our steps and risk bumping into those guards.'

But their worst fears were realised when at the end of the fissure they met a vertical cliff face.

‘Phew, that's steep,' said Slippers.

‘And high,' Alistair observed.

Feast added, ‘I can't see any handholds.'

‘I think something like this happened to Charlotte Tibby,' said Tibby Rose thoughtfully. ‘When she was climbing in the Molehill Mountains outside Skardon.'

‘Did she have to retrace her steps?' Slippers wanted to know. She sounded exhausted, Alistair thought. But that wasn't surprising, he supposed. While he'd been bored by the lack of action in Sheldon Gorge, Slippers and Feast had been constantly in motion. As far as he could tell, they never rested – probably hadn't rested in all the years they'd been working for FIG.

‘No,' said Tibby, though she had turned around to face the direction from which they had come. ‘She went up and over.'

‘Without handholds?' Feast said sceptically.

‘She called it “climbing the chimney”,' Tibby explained. ‘Like this.' She switched her rucksack to her front and turned to place her back flat against one wall of the canyon, and lifted first one leg then the other to rest her foot against the opposing wall so that she was wedged across the gap. With her hands pressed against the rock face by her sides she shifted her bottom up a few inches, then each leg.

Slippers watched Tibby's slow progress up the rock, then glanced down the canyon. She was probably weighing up their options, Alistair thought. Would they be in more danger shinnying up the steep rock face, or in a confrontation with Queen's Guards?

‘Going all right there, Tibby Rose?' Slippers asked. Tibby was now several metres off the ground.

‘Yes,' panted Tibby. ‘It's quite tiring though.'

‘All right then,' Slippers said. ‘Let's all climb the chimney.'

Alistair, Slippers and Feast lined up along the wall of the canyon and lifted their legs to the opposite rock face as Tibby had.

After only a few metres the small of Alistair's back was hurting where it pressed against the rock and he had scraped the heels of his hands against the rough surface. His legs ached from the tension. But slowly, steadily, he was making progress. Up, up, up … Halfway, then a little over halfway. He risked a glance down and wished he hadn't.

His head was brought up sharply as something crawled over his foot. He heard Tibby cry softly, ‘Scorpion!' He jerked his foot away and suddenly he was sliding, clawing desperately at the rock with his hands to arrest his fall, his fingers burning as the skin was scraped away. He held his breath against the scream welling up inside him as the ground rushed up to meet him and then, with a sickening thud, he hit the hard earth and the breath was punched out of him.