History Keepers: Nightship to China (26 page)

‘Cage them!’ he spat, throwing off his armoured tunic and inspecting his wound. Jake and Topaz were forced into separate cages.

‘Nanny, it’s time,’ Xi said, clicking his fingers at her.

Jake’s heart pounded as he braced himself for the worst, but Fang merely nodded, climbed the stairs, unlocked the door and left. Xi returned to the pool, scooped up his octopus and sat on his throne, sulking as his pet stroked his face with its tentacles. Gradually he grew calmer and sank down into his seat.

Fifteen minutes passed as he gazed out at the underwater view; then he leaned forward. ‘Here she is,’ he said.

The windows darkened as a vast shape approached, blocking the view entirely. At first Jake couldn’t make it out, but then he realized what it was: a giant squid. The egg-shaped body glowed with light, its eight limbs undulating as it moved. Jake shook his head. How could Xi control such a thing? It defied all logic. Then he saw that the beast was man-made, forged in steel. Its tentacles were lengths of jointed metal, attached to a glass cockpit in the centre.

‘Isn’t Nanny the cleverest girl on earth!’ Xi shrieked excitedly, jumping up and waving at the driver in control of the beast. His pet octopus gestured with its tentacles in agreement. The mechanical squid drew closer until its outline filled all four windows. Fang’s shadow nodded back at her commander, then guided the machine out to sea again. It motored south towards the deep part of the ocean.

‘Lower the lights,’ Xi ordered, and the mute giant turned a dial until the lanterns around the room grew dim.

Now the underwater vista came into sharper focus. In the distance they saw the hull of a ship bound for China. Gradually, Fang ascended towards the surface to intercept it.

Jake and Topaz watched as the two shapes came together, the squid’s tentacles enveloping the vessel. For a while the two moved as one, before they separated again, the destroyer’s tentacles folding up as it came away.

The ship floundered on, slowly sinking, turning onto its side as it went. Its three sails spread out, ghostlike, as they were dragged underwater. Tiny shapes flowed out of the sinking vessel, and Jake suddenly realized that these were people. The destruction of the ship looked unreal, graceful almost, but he could imagine the cries of the sailors as they were sucked down into the vortex. As the ship hit the sea bed, the hull split silently in two. The mechanical squid lingered for a while, hovering above its conquest, before turning and gliding back towards the palace.

Topaz, who had been watching in horror, started mumbling curses, rattling her cage in fury. ‘
Vous êtes le diable. Vous allez souffrir d’une mort inimaginable
.’

Xi wasn’t listening. He clapped his thin hands in joy and did a waltz around the room with his octopus. Then he went to the window, giggling and talking to himself as he watched his monster return.

As it approached, Jake saw that there was a corpse skewered on one of its tentacles: a sailor from the ship, mouth wide open, eyes frozen.

The beast carried on towards a docking bay at the side of the palace, and a few minutes later there was a distant clanking of metal. After another pause, footsteps approached, and Fang stepped into the room.

Xi got down on his knees and kissed her hand. ‘No one murders like Nanny does!’

He went over to the pool, set his pet down in the South Pacific and waggled his finger over the fleet of miniature ships, looking for one in particular. Finally he found it and threw it on the floor, stamping it underfoot. It scrunched like a beetle and he shrieked with laughter.

Jake looked around at the other flattened maquettes – at least ten of them – and realized they must
all
be ships that Xi had sunk. This was horrific enough, but a hundred more craft remained bobbing in the pool.

Xi’s master plan was now clear: he had an underwater palace beneath the busiest trade routes the world had ever known. In this region of the South China Sea, in the seventeenth century, vessels crisscrossed from Europe to Asia and from Asia to the New World and back again in an endless loop; vessels from Britain, Holland, Spain, Arabia, Indonesia, India, Japan, Brazil and hundreds more countries . . . The fortunes of the entire world, present and future, were tied up in this ceaseless movement.

Topaz shook her head. ‘You’re going to destroy all those?’ she said, looking at the pool. ‘
C’est ça?
’

Xi giggled. ‘I would happily sink every last one – but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.’ His lips tightened and his good eyes narrowed as the third one opened wide. He spoke in a whisper. ‘Very soon everyone will start doing our job for us – by destroying each other. And I have a feeling that the catalyst will be this ship here . . .’

He turned back to the pool and selected another model; one of the largest. Even in miniature, Jake recognized its distinct yellow sails: it was the Chinese emperor’s flagship, which they had seen in Canton.

‘Tomorrow morning at eight a.m., the imperial fleet sets off on its vulgar tour of neighbouring lands, showing off their big ships,’ Xi added. ‘But their voyage is already doomed. The sovereign’s favourite son will perish, along with all the royal court.’ He paused to appreciate his cleverness. ‘A letter – composed by me, of course, but apparently written and signed by all the European trading nations – will arrive in Peking, claiming responsibility in retaliation for their own losses. War will break out – world war, east versus west.’ Again he lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘It will be the
end of seas
. The end of everything.’

Now Jake and Topaz had put all the pieces of the puzzle together: the destruction of the galleons in London and Amsterdam; the commission to build warships in China – followed by a mammoth battle waged by the most powerful factions of the day. They knew enough history to understand that it would result not just in terrible loss of life and the cessation of trade; it would also stop the exchange of
ideas
. Kingdoms would become isolated, paranoid. Progress would stall.

Jake suddenly remembered the mural of the Lazuli Serpent in London: an ancient tide stone at the bottom of the sea, a crystal so dreadful that it could destroy the world.

‘Anyway’ – Xi clapped his hands and turned back to his prisoners – ‘that’s enough talking. Let’s get you two eaten, shall we?’ He skipped over to the control panel and pushed a button. A trapdoor beneath Topaz flipped open and she let out a little gasp as she dropped through the hole.

‘Noooo!’ Jake cried. Topaz called back, but her voice grew more distant as she was carried away. There was the sound of splashing, followed by a far-off scream.

‘No palace would be complete without a maze,’ Xi tittered, ‘and a
water
maze is even more thrilling. Brace yourselves for a truly gory drama.’

He pushed another button and the floor gave way beneath Jake, but he clung onto the bars, his feet dangling. Below him, he could see nothing but darkness.

‘Really?’ Xi said, coming over as Jake’s hands slipped. ‘That’s
so
touching; he doesn’t want to leave us. We understand: we
are
rather fun, aren’t we? But we’re busy now, Jake Djones . . .
so
much to do. Nanny will be setting off again in no time, and she abhors killing on an empty stomach.’ Still smiling, he kicked Jake’s whitened knuckles. ‘Say goodbye,’ he said, nodding at Jake’s reflection in the mirror, then jabbed his heel hard into Jake’s fingers. There was a nasty crack, but still he clung on, every sinew stretching.

Xi stopped smiling. ‘You’re being stupid now. Don’t you need to go and find your friend?’ He was about to kick out again – but Jake took a deep breath, let go of the bars and fell into the void.

HE PLUNGED INTO
darkness. Soon his feet hit a sloping wall. He slid down the slimy stone, then plummeted through the air, catching a glimpse of a cavernous space before he finally struck water – hard.

It was hot – he swallowed a mouthful – and he felt creatures moving around him: fish slipping through his shirt and his trousers, biting with sharp little teeth. He shot up, breaking the surface, hearing himself scream. He tried to reach a ledge above him, but it was too high. He felt a sharp pain in his heel and looked down to see a long brown fish like a pike. Jake launched himself upwards again, and this time he caught hold of the ledge and pulled himself up onto a rocky shelf.

He stood there panting, his bites stinging, and looked around, eyes slowly growing accustomed to the gloom. He was at the intersection of three cavernous tunnels that led in different directions, rising or falling and twisting and turning. Spread out along them were many more pools, all different sizes and shapes. Water dripped everywhere.

‘Topaz!’ he cried out. ‘Topaz, can you hear me?’ His voice echoed into distant, unseen spaces. This hell he was in, this
maze
, as Xi had called it, seemed to be as large as the palace itself. ‘Topaz!’ he called again.

Finally a reply came, so far away that he could barely hear it: ‘Jake?’ He tried to work out which passage it was coming from. ‘Jake . . . I’m trapped.’

‘I’m going to try and find you,’ he shouted back, selecting the widest of the three tunnels. He edged round the side of another pool that disappeared into a chamber beyond. This one was stuffed with fat, round fish covered in sharp spikes. Sensing his presence, one of them suddenly puffed up to its full size.

Jake called out to Topaz again, to check that he was going the right way. ‘Here . . .’ There was a tremble in her voice. He quickened his pace, vaulting up and down steps, over the ponds if he could, but wading or swimming through them where he had no choice. He quickly became used to the many sharp-toothed creatures.

He came to another intersection of three tunnels and called out again. Topaz’s voice echoed back to him, closer now, as if she was in a deep chamber. Jake took a passage that led directly to a wide pool that blocked his path completely. On the steps leading down into it sprawled a human skeleton, one hand reaching out. The upper half was intact – but everything from the knees down was missing.

Jake looked into the pool. It was perfectly still; nothing stirred. But was it safe to go in?

He picked up the thigh-bone of the skeleton and carefully poked it into the water. The surface bubbled and seethed as a school of plump little fishes flocked around, trying to bite it. Jake quickly pulled it out, but a couple of fish were still clinging on. He shook them free, their jaws still snapping ferociously.
Piranhas
. . . Jake had seen them before, and he knew that they worked as a pack, stripping flesh from anything that lived. He flicked them back into the water. Realizing that it might be a useful weapon, he kept hold of the thigh-bone, wielding it like a sword. ‘Better than nothing,’ he said to himself, taking the largest of the arm bones as well, and stuffing them both into his belt.

Suddenly there was a rumble from above. Jake looked up and saw one of the decapitated guards dropping down a narrow chute and crashing into the pool. Another corpse followed soon after; then the third and fourth. As the fish set upon them, making the water boil, four heads followed, one gliding by with its eyes fixed on Jake. In they dropped,
plop, plop, plop, plop
.

He turned, ran back to the intersection and saw that the next passage twisted round in a similar direction to the first. He went along it, calling again to Topaz. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Not going anywhere,’ her voice came back; but then she let out a little scream.

‘What happened?’

‘There are jellyfish,’ she replied. ‘I’m trying to keep away.’

‘Jellyfish,’ Jake sighed to himself. ‘Of course there are.’ He followed the path up and down steps, across more pools – until he came to a dead end. He thumped the wall in anger.

‘Topaz?’

‘I think you’re closer now,’ her reply came.

Jake swung round. It seemed like she was directly beneath him. ‘Say something again . . .’

‘If I’d known there was going to be swimming, I would have packed my bathing suit,’ she joked through her terror.

To one side, a pool led under the wall, with just a few inches of space above it. Her voice was carrying through this slither of air from the other side. There was nothing for it: Jake tested the water with the thigh-bone and, finding no piranhas or other predators, took a deep breath and slipped in.

He found that he could touch the bottom with his toes while keeping his mouth just above the water level. He waded forward into the darkness, heading for a sliver of light at the far end. He was halfway along when the surface rippled and something gently skimmed his waist. He froze, gripping the thigh-bone tightly. Whatever it was, it was thick and long. Jake edged forward a little, and this time it slid between his legs and curled round the back of his knee. This was no eel, snapping aimlessly; this was a sea snake, a python.

‘Jake? Are you still there?’ Topaz’s voice sounded urgent.

He dared not answer, or even move. The snake coiled round, gently breaking the surface, then retreated. Jake knew that snakes were more frightened of people than the other way round (except, of course, for Prince Zeldt’s black mambas), so he decided to carry on.

He was a yard from the light at the end of the pool when there was another disturbance. This time, the snake encircled his chest and back, tightening its grip. The effect was dreadful, instantaneous: the air was pushed out of Jake’s lungs. He tried to thump the creature with the femur, but it had no effect. Its neck was against his ribcage, and he dropped his makeshift weapon, grabbed the snake in both hands and squeezed. It simply coiled tighter, its grip like a vice, making the blood thump in his head.

Jake tried in vain to take a breath. Then a fragment of memory came back to him:
Constrictors do not have poisonous fangs – you can open their jaws and break them
. Jake slid his hands along the scaly head, felt for the mouth and tried to prise it open. At first it didn’t budge, but desperation made him strong. He edged it apart, slipping his fingers between the jaws. Now it fought back, trying to close its mouth while thrashing to and fro with the end of its tail. Jake kept up the pressure, opening the jaw wider and wider, but the python continued to crush him.