Quest for the Sun Gem (20 page)

Aisha whined, snuffling him with her black muzzle. The other four all whispered furiously over each other.

‘Where have you been?’ Lily exclaimed.

‘What have you been doing?’ Saxon said.

‘Why did you take so long?’ Roana whispered. ‘We thought the Sedah guards had caught you for sure!’

Lily gave him a big hug as Ethan slithered ungracefully out of the cramped opening. ‘Thank the Moon Goddess you are all right.’

‘What now, Roana?’ asked Ethan wearily. ‘Are there any more secret passages, sliding panels or
hidden doorways we need to crawl through? Where are we now?’

‘In the pantry,’ replied Roana with twinkling eyes. ‘And it looks as though our wonderful Cookie is still cooking her precious heart out. Look what I have found – a freshly baked egg and bacon pie, cold roast chicken, lemon tarts, strawberries and raspberries from the garden, and a jug of creamy custard. You are so lucky we waited for you, Ethan!’

Saxon had found a box of candles, and they lit one with a tinderbox.

They all sat cross-legged on the floor with their backs leaning against plump flour sacks. They found some clean cloths to spread on the floor, then hungrily helped themselves to ‘Cookie’s’ stores.

Saxon used one of the jewelled daggers from the Treasure Chamber to cut thick wedges of egg and bacon pie, the pastry crumbly and delicious. Ethan carved the chicken using another golden dagger.

Aisha lay between Lily and Ethan, swallowing her share whole and licking up the crumbs. Charcoal came out to play for the first time in many hours, chewing delicately on a shred of chicken breast, then prancing prettily around the dancing shadows from the candle.

Lily found a jug of freshly squeezed lemonade, which they drank out of their mugs.

Finally the last lemon tart had been eaten, and the last drip of custard licked from the jug. Ethan lay contentedly against his flour sack. He leant over to his pack and pulled out the carved box and started fiddling with it again, pressing panels, pulling edges and rubbing carvings.

‘Do you think this could possibly contain the gems we’ve been searching for?’ he asked lazily. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

‘What time is it?’ asked Lily, catching Ethan’s infectious yawn. ‘How long is it since we found the entrance to the tunnels – it must be days, or nights!’

‘I don’t know, but I could do with a good sleep now,’ agreed Saxon, rubbing his pleasantly full tummy. He rolled over to get more comfortable, then felt a hard lump in his pocket.

Saxon sat up suddenly.

‘Oh, I forgot,’ Saxon exclaimed, looking slightly sheepish. ‘I picked up a couple of things I thought might come in handy. I borrowed a bag of your father’s gold, Roana. I thought we might need it on this quest … and I didn’t think he’d mind.’

Saxon pulled out a soft leather pouch, filled with golden coins stamped on one side with the
flaming sun, and on the other with the crescent moon. The gold sparkled and shimmered in the candlelight. Saxon handed the bag rather reluctantly to Roana.

She smiled at him as she took the bag and stowed it in her pack. ‘Good idea. Much better that we use it than letting the Sedah send it all to Emperor Raef. So what else did you “pick up”?’

‘I don’t know if it will be any use but in your parents’ bed chamber I saw an envelope on the desk. It was addressed to His Most Gracious and Powerful Emperor the Fearful Raef. It wasn’t sealed so I pulled the letter out and brought it with me in case it tells us anything helpful about the gems.’

The others drew near, peering at the folded parchment in Saxon’s hands.

‘It doesn’t say anything,’ cried Lily in disappointment.

‘It appears to be gibberish,’ exclaimed Roana. ‘Just a lot of numbers!’

The parchment was penned in a flourishing hand with a string of numbers.

Ethan turned to Saxon. ‘It must be a code, like the codes we used to send to each other – just with numbers substituted for letters!’

‘Yes,’ Saxon agreed. ‘I think you must be right. Let’s see if we can crack it.’

‘There are different spacings between the numbers,’ said Lily. ‘Certain numbers seem to be grouped together, so perhaps each group is a word.’

‘Perhaps A equals 1, B equals 2 and so on up to Z at 26,’ suggested Saxon, peering at the parchment.

Ethan scribbled down some letters and numbers.

‘That would make the first word VJBCNA, which doesn’t seem to make sense,’ Ethan observed. ‘Plus that makes it a bit too easy to crack. Perhaps 1 is a completely different letter and it just loops around a bit.’

‘Well, every word needs to have vowels in it, so the most commonly used letters would probably be vowels like A, E, I and O,’ Roana said. ‘U is not so commonly used.’

‘Good thinking, Roana,’ Ethan laughed. ‘So which letters appear most frequently?’

‘There are quite a few 14s, 1s and 10s,’ Lily observed.

‘Also quite a few 24s and 21s,’ Saxon added. ‘Here the number 21 is repeated inside the word as if it’s a double E or double O.’

Ethan scribbled down the numbers that appeared frequently.

‘There are lots of 10s so that could be E, and if we work forwards from that the first word would be Q E W X I V – it still doesn’t make sense!’

The four children pored over the parchment, making notes and substituting various numbers and letters, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper for what seemed like hours.

‘What if we try making 14 the letter E,’ suggested Ethan, scrawling down a cipher of letters and numbers.

‘So then … 22 would be M, 10 would be A, 2 would be S, 3 would be T, 14 would be E, 1 would be R.
Master!
That’s it. It makes sense!’

‘So Emperor Raef has the letter R as the number 1 letter in his alphabet,’ joked Saxon. ‘That figures!’

‘I hope we’re right. Let’s each take a number word and work it out, then put it all together,’ suggested Ethan in excitement.

The message they finally jointly deciphered was this:

Everyone squirmed in excitement as the words were decoded, but when the final message was put together the disappointment was crushing.

‘It doesn’t make any sense!’ Lily cried, nearly weeping with exhaustion and despair.

‘Maybe it’s a code within a code,’ suggested Ethan hopefully.

‘The
Sea Dragon
was one of the ships at Goldcoin Cove,’ remembered Saxon. ‘Maybe it sails for Sedah in two days.’

‘Lunar means moon, maybe Lunar Moth is code for Moon Gem,’ suggested Lily. ‘Stars could be referring to the Star Diamonds from the sword.’

‘What about cigars, though,’ asked Roana sceptically. ‘I can’t see any way that cigars could mean Sun Gem?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ethan smiled. ‘Cigars, smoke, fire, sun?’

The others laughed, rubbing their faces in frustration and tiredness.

‘Well, this is the only clue we have,’ Saxon said. ‘Maybe the Moon Pearl and Star Diamonds are sailing on the
Sea Dragon
in two days. So we need to find the
Sea Dragon
, and then find out where on board the gems are.’

‘Was there anything else in the packet, Saxon?’ Roana asked.

‘Noooooo.’ Saxon paused. ‘I am sure there was nothing else. Only a lot of papers on the desk.’

‘But,’ Ethan wondered worriedly, ‘if Lord Lazlac
discovers the note has gone, he will probably change the arrangements.’

‘Hopefully he won’t notice,’ Saxon smiled. ‘I folded up one of the scrap pieces of paper lying on the desk and put it into the packet ready to be sealed. Hopefully he won’t see the note has changed. I think it was a dinner menu from the cook!’

‘It probably said Egg and Bacon Pie, Roast Chicken, Lemon Tarts, Custard and Fruit! I wonder what poor old Lord Lazlac will get to eat now?’ laughed Ethan, patting his stomach.

Just then there was a faint noise from outside the door, which quietened everyone immediately. Ethan hid the little box in his pack, while Saxon and Lily gathered up the pieces of paper they had been scribbling on and stuffed them in their pockets.

The door swung open. Aisha jumped to her feet, growling softly. The four children cowered back into their flour sacks, but there was nowhere to hide.

At the door a round, cross face peered in, holding up a lantern with a red, work-worn hand.

‘What’s going on in here?’ shouted the face in a furious tone. ‘You thieving beggars. Lord Lazlac will have you whipped. How dare you? How dare you!
How did you get in, you little thieves! Street urchins! Oh, my pie and the tarts! That was for his lordship’s luncheon!’

She raised her arm with the lantern as though to whip them with it. Lily, Saxon and Ethan shrank back in consternation.

‘Cookie. Cookie,’ interrupted Roana, tugging at the sleeve of the violently waving arm.

‘Don’t “Cookie” me, you ragamuffin,’ scoffed Cookie, cuffing Roana sharply behind the ear. ‘You’ve no right to call me Cookie. Madam to you, if you please.’

‘Cookie, it’s me, Roana. Princess Roana,’ Roana pleaded, tears filling her eyes from the hard blow.

The round face creased in disbelief. Cookie bent towards the scruffy ragamuffin child in front of her, searching her face for some sign of the proud Princess Roana. Incredulity turned to recognition, then turned to smiles, followed by shock and then tears.

‘Oh my dear, I mean, your royal highness. Oh, we thought you were killed. Oh, I’m so sorry, your highness, I would never have struck you if I’d known. Oh, can you forgive me? Oh, I can’t believe it …’ Cookie rambled on for a few minutes, until Roana gave her a huge bear hug.

‘Oh, Cookie. I am sorry we ate all your food, but it was so delicious and we were so hungry and we have been chased by Sedah guards and been lost in tunnels and we are so tired and it is so good to see you!’ Roana cried.

The others looked very relieved that Cookie had turned from a vengeful threat to a beaming friend.

Cookie tut-tutted over them. She bustled them out of the pantry and snuck them down the corridors and up the stairs to her own little bed chamber in the servants’ quarters.

‘No-one will think to come in here,’ she promised. ‘I’ll make short work of any Sedah guards who dare to interfere in my kitchen. They like my cooking too much! I will work out a way to get you out of the palace as soon as you have had a hot bath, a good sleep and a proper meal. Now give me those revolting rags and I will try to wash them for you.’

She dragged in a big tin bath, which she filled with scalding hot water for each child. The soap smelt of lavender, a soothing, comforting scent that lathered up to wash away all traces of the tunnels, dungeons and secret ways.

‘Just a quick one, mind,’ Cookie ordered as she dragged over a screen to hide the bath from the others. ‘His lordship will be wanting his breakfast soon.’

Cookie rustled up some cotton nightgowns and nightshirts from the linen stores for them to change into. Soon she had the girls tucked up top to toe, in her wide box bed with its soft goose feather mattress, patchwork quilt and downy pillows. The boys had a couple of thick feather comforters on the floor.

She brought them all big mugs of frothy hot chocolate milk, with flakes of rich dark chocolate on top. Lily, Ethan and Saxon had never tasted anything so delicious.

‘You mean you had this in bed every morning, Roana? I can’t think of anything more wonderful!’ enthused Lily, snuggling down into the fluffy pillows, sipping the delicate froth.

Ethan had been playing with the box while the others had been having their baths and getting changed. His fingers still fiddled with the panels incessantly as he sipped on his chocolate. His fingers had discovered that the centre finger-shaped panel on the side of the box felt slightly loose, but nothing would make it move completely. He gave up in disgust and moved on to the base.

Roana came from behind the screen wearing a delicate white nightgown embroidered with flowers and edged with lace. She held something out to Lily.

‘Lily, can you help me with this, please,’ Roana
asked. ‘I found it next to Lord Lazlac’s bed – I mean, my parents’ bed. It was my mother’s. I do not know why that beast should have it with him but I will wear it until I can return it to my mother.’

Lily took the delicate chain with the amethyst heart locket and clasped it around Roana’s neck. Roana opened the locket. Inside was a curl of hair – black, gold, and white plaited together into a tiny coiled braid.

‘My father, my mother, my brother and myself, plaited together,’ Roana said softly, tears filling her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She turned her face away and climbed into bed, hiding her tears in the pillow.

Lily sat up to comfort her.

Ethan continued to prod at the base of the little box, which appeared to be a solid piece of wood. ‘I saw Lord Lazlac take the locket from your mother at the dawn ceremony. He said, “Very pretty. I would like a fitting memento of this historic day.” There was something a bit sinister about the way he said it, I thought.’

Ethan wriggled the right side of the box’s base. The base moved a little. Ethan gently pushed it, first towards the front and then towards the back. The timber strip slowly slid away, revealing a narrow
cavity at the bottom of the box. A tiny gold key fell out, but there was nothing else inside the cavity.

‘Look,’ Ethan cried excitedly, jumping up from his feather comforter. The others crowded around on the bed. Ethan moved his attention to the other strips of the base. Now that the right-hand side had gone, this allowed the front part of the base to also slide away to the right. This in turn allowed the loose centre panel of the side to slip down to reveal a tiny gold keyhole.

Ethan placed the tiny key in the keyhole and turned it, his hands shaking with nerves. The lock clicked and the lid opened.

No-one could contain their excitement. Even Aisha was shoving her nose inside the box in curiosity.

‘What’s in there!’ ‘I can’t see!’ ‘Is it the Sun Gem?’ ‘Let me look.’

‘Cigars!’ exclaimed Roana in shock.

It was true. There was nothing inside the box but seven thick foul-smelling cigars.

Ethan dropped the box in disgust. Saxon grabbed the box and checked it again, shaking it thoroughly and tipping it upside down.

Lily broke open the cigars in case there was something hidden inside. Thick curls of tobacco fell onto the bed, reeking pungently. She swept up the
scraps and threw them onto the fire.

‘It doesn’t make any sense!’ Lily snorted. ‘Why go to all that trouble to hide cigars!’

‘Perhaps Emperor Raef loves solving puzzles and smoking cigars,’ said Saxon half-heartedly.

‘We might as well try and get some sleep. Maybe we’re just too tired to think straight,’ Ethan moaned as he lay down and pounded his pillow in frustration.

Saxon put the box down beside the bed and blew out the candle. ‘Sleep well, everyone. Good night – I mean, it’s probably good morning now but sleep well!’ Everyone murmured good nights.

Aisha climbed up onto the bed and the girls groaned as she tried to find room to sleep. Charcoal curled up in the crook of Lily’s legs.

Ethan tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable, thoughts churning through his mind.

‘Oh, by the mighty Sun Lord, can’t you stop that thrashing around,’ complained Saxon grumpily. ‘I’ll never get to sleep with you making all that noise.’

Ethan sat up suddenly.

‘Light the candle again, Sax!’ ordered Ethan. ‘I just want one more look at that box.’

‘Oh, no,’ groaned Saxon. ‘Can’t we just go to sleep!’

Ethan crawled over, fumbling for the candle and tinderbox. Saxon begrudgingly lit it for him, grumbling under his breath.

Lily pulled the pillow over her head, but then curiosity once more got the better of her and she too sat up.

Ethan picked up the box and examined it closely once more. ‘I think you were right, Lily. It does seem very peculiar to go to so much trouble to hide cigars in a puzzle box with a secret lock, inside a sack of corn, in a heavily guarded Treasure Chamber. I think it must be a ruse to trick anyone who did manage to work out the secret of the box. There must be another cleverly hidden cavity. You would only go to this much trouble to hide something really valuable and really important.’

Ethan’s fingers slid firmly over the base, the sides and the lid, both outside and in. A small square of wood gave way right in the centre of the thick lid. With a strong push upwards, it popped out into Ethan’s hand. The top was the carved symbol of the eye and the crossed cutlasses – the sign of Emperor Raef. This was the lid to a tiny square box.

Ethan prised off the lid. There, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was a huge round gem. A huge round
ruby
. Its deep warm heart glinted in the candlelight.

‘The Sun Gem,’ breathed Lily.

‘We did it. We did it,’ squealed Roana.

Everyone jumped up and down on the bed, hugging each other, exclaiming over the gem. Aisha cavorted around the room, barking with excitement, her whole body wagging with her tail. Saxon picked up his pillow and whacked Ethan over the head with it. Ethan retaliated with a blow from his cushion. Lily grabbed her pillow and whacked both the boys.

Feathers flew up into the air. Roana had never seen a pillow fight but she was not going to be left out. She thumped a pillow, which hit both Ethan and Lily. Saxon whacked her back. Charcoal scampered out of the way, her back arching and her tongue spitting. Aisha barked, jumping up on the bed too, leaping and snapping at flying feathers.

Lily threw her pillow across the bed, knocking Roana over. Roana squealed in indignation and grabbed Lily around the ankles. Saxon pummelled both girls while they were down. Ethan was just about to hit Saxon over the head with his pillow, when he saw the nearly full moon through the window, setting over the western wall of the palace.

‘Look at the moon,’ he called. ‘It’s nearly dawn.’

The four children collapsed on the bed, exhausted. Ethan carefully laid the Sun Gem back in its tiny box, and gravely handed it to Roana.

‘Here, Princess Roana,’ he said. ‘The Sun Gem belongs to your family. You should look after it until we find the Sun Sword.’ He looked around at the faces of the other three children. ‘But first the Moon Pearl. Today we must find the
Sea Dragon
!’