CHAPTER

FOUR

 

 

On foot to the sea –

A following airship – Das and Knives, again –

Anand faces death –

“To think that soon we will be in England...!”

 

 

THE LIFEBOAT HIT the ground with a bone-jarring crash and slid down the hillside like a toboggan. Jani gripped a handle on the wall with one hand and held on to Anand with the other. Through the porthole she watched trees and shrubbery pass in a verdant blur, deafened by the din of metal scraping across rock. Alfie Littlebody sat at the far end of the vessel, bracing himself in the entrance, nose to nose with the mechanical dog.

Then the rush of greenery outside came to a halt along with the screech of metal. The lifeboat was suddenly very still and a profound silence settled, which Jani was loath to break. The dazzling sunlight dimmed as a fog enveloped the craft – no, not a fog, Jani realised as she peered through the porthole, but the parachutes settling over the lifeboat like a shroud.

Anand was hugging her, his tousled head pressed to her breast. She eased him from her, smiling at him in the half-light. At the bottom end of the vessel, Alfie pulled himself into a sitting position and regarded the dog, which was sitting on its haunches, absolutely motionless.

“Well,” he said, “We seemed to have survived that little adventure.”

Jani whispered, “The dog...?”

“Strange looking beast,” Alfie opined. “It seems to have run out of power.”

“But look at its eyes!” Anand pointed out. “They are still glowing.”

“It is obviously Vantissarian technology,” Jani said. “Moreover, it can read thoughts.”

Alfie stared at her. “A mind-reading dog?”

Jani explained what its handler had told her, and Alfie said, “Well, I suggest we get out of here and lock it inside before it comes to life again.”

He reached for the handle on the hatch and pulled it towards him. The door cracked, admitting sunlight and the rich scent of crushed shrubbery. He swung the door open. “After you.”

She slithered down the inclined deck of the lifeboat and eased herself past the immobile hound with care. Alfie took her hand and she climbed out on to Greek soil and ducked out from under the veiling parachute. The hound made no move to follow. She watched Anand jump out and Alfie close the hatch, imprisoning the alien dog, and felt a surge of relief.

The lifeboat had fetched up against an outcropping of rock on a gently sloping hillside. The land rose in a series of foothills towards a range of snowy mountain peaks; downhill, the terrain eased into an expanse of pastures, sun-parched farmland dotted with tiny stone-built villages. From this elevation, Jani made out stippled fields of olive groves.

To the west she made out the tiny shape of the Pride of Edinburgh. It showed no sign of slowing down or turning. “Do you think they’ll come after us?” she asked Alfie.

He stood on a rock, shielding his eyes with one hand, and gazed at the retreating airship. “They might have smaller craft which they could send after us.”

Anand gazed into the sky. “I can’t see any smaller vessels,” he reported.

Alfie gestured towards the parachute-shrouded lifeboat. “From the air this would stand out like the proverbial sore thumb,” he said. “I think it would be wise to camouflage the lifeboat as best we can.”

They pulled off the two multi-coloured parachutes, bundled them beneath a bush, then set to work gathering branches and foliage and piling them across the lifeboat.

“That should do the trick,” Alfie said when the job was done, dusting his hands. “Of course, if the vessel has some kind of device capable of being tracked...”

“Perhaps,” Jani said, “we should make haste and leave the area.”

Her initial exultation at having evaded the clutches of the British was abating now, to be replaced with the cold, hard facts of their situation. They were stranded in a foreign land, hundreds of miles from their destination, with no food, precious little money – and what good would a handful of rupees be in Greece, anyway? – and no means of making headway north-west, save travelling on foot.

“What do we do now?” she asked, trying to keep a note of desperation from her enquiry.

Anand had joined Alfie on the high rock, and side by side they looked like a pair of intrepid explorers scanning the lie of the land. Her heart swelled; and to think that mere hours ago she had been bemoaning their attention.

“I must admit,” she went on, “that my knowledge of Greece and its political affiliations is scant. Are we likely to be welcomed?”

Alfie stared down at her, and his expression clouded. Jani guessed the reason for his indecision: how could he tell her that a British officer might be treated with deference here, but that a dusky pair of Indians would more likely be disparaged as gypsies?

“The Greeks are on our side,” Alfie said. “In fact, we have garrisons at Athens and Thessalonica. The Russians have great influence in the Slavic states north of here, and the Greek government is understandably fearful of communist unrest on its soil. This is a double-edged sword. While the Greeks themselves might be amenable to my uniform, it does mean that the British have quite a presence here – they are likely to despatch a search party for us forthwith, once the Edinburgh has alerted them as to the situation.”

“And how far away might be the nearest British outpost?”

Alfie scanned the horizon. “I know for certain they have a station at Ioannina, which I’d guess is a hundred miles or so east of here.”

“So if they did send out an airship?”

“Two hours or so could see them overhead.”

Pointing to the nearest tiny village, Anand said, “Perhaps we should seek help there? Perhaps we could hire a rickshaw–”

Jani smiled. “We are not in India now, Anand. They don’t have rickshaws here. A taxi, perhaps – but then they are unlikely to accept rupees.”

Alfie pulled out a wallet, riffled through its contents, and frowned. “I have two five pound notes,” he said glumly, “which is hardly likely to buy our way across Europe.” He scanned the terrain and pointed to the west, where Jani made out a line of blue on the far horizon.

“I think we should make for the coast,” Alfie said.

“And then?” she asked.

“Perhaps we might hire a boat to take us to the south of France.”

They set off down the hillside, favouring the shade of trees. The heat of the midday sun was punishing. “It’s a great pity that I didn’t foresee our sudden flight,” she laughed at one point. “Or I would have packed sandwiches and water.”

“Oh, Jani,” Anand said, “I could eat a masala dosa now!”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to find something to eat along the way,” Alfie said.

They were brought up short by a noise from further up the hillside – a peculiar, high screeching sound. “The lifeboat!” Alfie cried, alarmed. “It’s become dislodged.”

He took Jani’s arm and hurried her at right angles across the slope, but Jani withdrew her arm and silenced him. “Shh! Listen. It’s not the lifeboat.”

She recognised the sound, having heard it once before aboard the Edinburgh: a whining screech, the product of a mechanical throat.

“What is it?” Anand said, his eyes wide.

The screeching was joined by another sound, the scraping of metal on metal.

“I think it’s...”

The noise stopped suddenly. All three looked up the slope. They heard a rattle of scree, the clanking sound of metal feet on rock – and through the trees appeared the oiled, gunmetal-grey carapace of the mechanical hound.

Jani backed away. Alfie fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a cylinder – his Vantissarian light-beam. He turned its base and a rod of brilliant light sprang forth.

He stepped forward, brandishing the weapon – but it was clear that the hound did not intend to attack. It approached to with a couple of yards of the trio, settled on its haunches and stared up at Jani.

Alfie lowered the light-beam and, as the hound remained seated, he deactivated the weapon. The light disappeared and Alfie returned the device to his pocket.

“It appears,” Jani said, staring at the motionless dog, “that it’s at a loss without its handler.”

“The danger is,” Alfie said, “if it’s transmitting its whereabouts as–”

He stopped as the dog moved. Jani started, fearing an attack – but the hound sprang to its feet, turned, and bolted away from them across the hillside. Within seconds it had disappeared from sight beyond the olive trees.

“Very strange,” Alfie said to himself.

They continued down the incline and paused to stare down the slope to a shaded lane snaking along the valley bottom.

Jani glanced up into the cloudless sky. The sun was merciless, the air dry; it reminded Jani of high summer in Delhi. She looked west, but there was no sign of the Edinburgh. She considered Lady Eddington, and knew that the dowager would worry herself senseless at their mysterious disappearance.

She would reach London, Jani thought with resolve, assure Lady Eddington that she was well, and continue her mission to contact the Morn. And after that? Well, she should not get ahead of herself; first there was the small matter of effecting transport from this country.

They descended to the lane and walked west, their progress shaded by a line of poplars.

“I have never seen the sea,” Anand said. “Aboard the Edinburgh, I tried to see the Indian ocean as we passed over the coast, but it was dark and I saw nothing. Have you ever seen the sea, Jani-ji?”

She nodded. “I went to Brighton one day with Sebastian. A day trip.” She saw Anand look away at the sound of the Englishman’s name. “I walked along the pier – that’s a long metal and timber construction built out over the sea...” She trailed off, recalling the meal they’d shared that evening at the Grand Hotel.

To think... Now Sebastian would be on summer break from Cambridge, and knowing him his thoughts would be on anything but his studies. She wondered whether he was thinking of her.

She sighed and stared at the distant, snow-capped mountains.

Anand said, beaming at her, “It is a great pity that we don’t have Mel now.”

Jani laughed as she recalled the mechanical elephant; those days in northern India, fleeing the British and the Russians alike, seemed so far away in time and space.

Anand pulled a glum face. “Jani-ji?”

“What is it?”

“The letter I was writing to Mr Clockwork aboard the Edinburgh. I never finished it. I wanted to tell him where I left Mel and Max, and apologise for running away as I did! Mr Clockwork will hate me.”

Jani reached out and squeezed his hand. “We will send a telegram to Mr Clockwork when we reach London,” she said. “We’ll explain the situation and Mr Clockwork will be proud of you. Just as I am, Anand-ji,” she added.

This had the effect of bringing an instant, foolish grin to the boy’s face.

On either side of the lane, the land rose gently to distant mountains. Olive groves covered the fields to the left, and to the right dense forest. For a mile, a silver twinkling stream paralleled the track.

A little later Anand said, “I’m hot and hungry, Jani-ji!”

She smiled. “We all are, Anand. I’m sure we’ll find somewhere soon where we can rest and buy food.”

The dumpy little Englishman, striding ahead before them, turned and said, “We should find somewhere to sleep when the sun goes down, and resume our trek at dawn. We should reach the coast by sunset tomorrow. We’ll find a room for the night, and while you sleep I’ll attempt to find a willing boat owner.”

“And I’ll come with you, Mr Alfie!” Anand offered.

Alfie smiled. “We’ll see.”

Jani scanned the skies. “At least there’s no sign of British airships.”

“They’d have little chance of finding us now,” Alfie opined, “even if they did locate the lifeboat. And in a day or so, with luck, we’ll be out on the high seas.”

She made out a quick flash of dark grey between foliage at the side of the track. She wondered if it were a predatory animal, biding its time before it attacked.

“Alfie,” she said, “forgive my ignorance, but are you likely to find... dangerous animals in Greece?”

He turned and stared at her. “What an odd question. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering.”

He shrugged. “Dangerous? Well, this isn’t Africa. You won’t find man-eating lions and tigers here. Maybe the odd wolf; I don’t know.” He smiled his reassurance at her. “But I wouldn’t worry if I were you. We’re perfectly safe here.” He patted his pants’ pocket. “I have my light-beam, after all.”

She nodded, but nevertheless kept an eye on the undergrowth as they walked.

An hour elapsed and she saw nothing more, and her nervousness abated. She told herself that she had nothing to fear from a shy but curious animal; perhaps, in the wake of all that had happened aboard the Edinburgh, she was being over-cautious.

Ahead, Alfie paused, his head cocked to one side. “Do you hear that?”

Alarmed, she listened intently. A low drone was coming and going in waves.

She peered into the cloudless sky, searching for the source of the sound. The drone grew louder, a definite engine noise now that could be neither denied nor ignored.

“There!” Anand called out, pointing. High in the east, a mere fly-speck against the fleeceless azure heavens, Jani made out what could only be an airship.

As they watched, the ’ship lost altitude as it came over the foothills. Alfie said, “A Rolls, by the sound of the engine. Don’t worry, they’re common in Europe. You even have a few in India.”

“But might it be the British, searching for us?”

Alfie shook his head, whether to reassure Jani or because he was genuinely unconcerned, she could not tell. “I doubt it. The RAF prefer Sopwiths and de Havillands. And anyway we’re probably too far away for them to make us out.”

She nodded, far from reassured.

She watched the airship as it tracked across the bright blue sky, seemingly following them. She thought it might be wise to conceal themselves beneath the boughs of a tree, at least until the airship had passed by, and suggested this to Alfie.

He hesitated, clearly thinking her alarmist, but conceded anyway. “Very well,” he said, pointing along the lane.

Ahead, beside the stream, a vast oak tree spread its branches halfway across the lane. They hurried into its shade and looked up.

The airship had lost altitude, following the line of the valley. It passed overhead, a bulbous two-man affair. Jani was confident that, even if its pilot was searching for them, they would no longer be visible beneath the tree.

She squinted up at the ’ship’s envelope, grasped Alfie’s arm and hissed, “But look! Isn’t that the Indian flag?”

She pointed to the tri-colour painted on the nose of the envelope, the tangerine, white and green rectangle tiny but recognisable even at this distance.

“You’re right,” he said, frowning. “But...”

“It can’t be coincidence!” she cried. “What is the likelihood of an Indian airship flying over northern Greece, if it were not searching for us?”

He shook his head. “Impossible,” he said, more to himself. “No one from India could possibly know where we are.”

“I think Mr Alfie is right,” Anand said.

She wanted to believe that the presence of the Indian airship was indeed no more than a coincidence, but she feared that the ill-fortune that had dogged her steps across northern India was stalking her still.

The airship beat its way west, twin engines thrumming. Jani held her breath, hardly daring to hope that the ’ship would continue on its way. As the minutes elapsed, however, the vessel did just that. The thrumming diminished and the ’ship dwindled to a point, then passed from view beyond a line of distant trees.

A quiet reigned, broken only by the rasp of cicadas.

Jani smiled at Alfie, who said, “There, what did I tell you?”

“We should wait here a while,” she said, “until we’re absolutely sure.” She looked at the silver stream chuckling over rocks and boulders. “I think I’ll take the opportunity to cool down.”

“You do that. I’ll keep watch.”

Anand settled himself in the oak’s gnarled root system protruding above ground. “I’m so tired I could sleep for a week.”

Jani moved to the water’s edge and peered into the swirling shallows. She removed her shoes, then sat on a rock and unrolled her stockings, stuffing the balls into the pocket of her dress.

She dipped a toe in the water and gasped; straight from the snow-capped mountains, it was icy cold. She placed both feet in the stream and stood up, wading through the braided silver water, small pebbles and mud oozing between her toes. She lifted her dress and waded further out.

A large boulder protruded from the stream by the far bank, and she made her way across to it and sat down, pulling her feet from the water and placing them on the stone’s sun-warmed flank.

She wondered how long it might be before they arrived in England. Had things gone to plan, they would have docked in London tomorrow evening. Now it would be days at least, and probably weeks, before they reached the capital. She pressed a hand to her belly, recalling her audience with the alien entity in the Vantissarian ship. Lodged within her was the ventha-di, containing one of the three venthas, the discs which – when all three were placed within the ventha-di – would allow passage from this world to the next.

What had the alien entity told her aboard the Vantissarian ship, that reality was a great book? “Imagine that everything you know of your world is in fact but a page of this vast book, separated from the next page, or reality, by nothing more than a complex weft and weave of sub-atomic particles or strings – a curtain, if you like.”

And the fact that the British – and others – would stop at nothing to get their hands on the ventha-di, lent veracity to the fantastical story.

She had the first ventha, and Mahran – imprisoned in London – possessed the second; the plan was to facilitate his rescue (quite how she would not dwell on now), and with him attempt to locate the third, and so enable a portal between the worlds to be opened. And then? Well, Mahran would know how the Zhell might be defeated, she hoped.

She looked across the river at the meadow which sloped towards the foothills. The grass was long, and laced with a hundred colourful wildflowers. She stood, strode through the water and climbed out. She let her dress fall about her wet legs and walked through the grass, putting all thoughts of the immediate future from her mind.

She happened, then, to glance to her left, down the valley, and stopped in her tracks. What she saw there turned her stomach.

Perhaps a mile along the valley, swaying gently in the breeze above a line of trees, was the Indian airship.

She turned back to the river, panic seizing her. There could be no doubting now that the airship, or rather whoever piloted it, was here in search of herself, Alfie and Anand.

She was starting down the slope towards the river when she heard the first gunshot. Alfie, a tiny figure far below, ducked behind the trunk of the oak and drew his light-beam.

She scanned the track, or the little of it she could make out behind the line of trees, her heart hammering. A second shot detonated; Alfie ducked and the tree trunk splintered a foot above his head.

Anand had leapt from his impromptu bed amid the tree’s roots. In fright or confusion, he sprinted away from the tree, across the track and into the cover of the shrubbery on the far side of the lane. Jani saw someone dash along the track in pursuit of the boy – the figure too far away for her to make out with any clarity. But she was convinced, as she stared down impotently from her vantage point, that the man had been an Indian.

Alfie turned and looked across the river, seeing Jani and waving for her to get down. She obeyed, ducking into the long grass and peering out. Another bullet split the trunk of the oak. Jani judged that the shot had come from further along the lane. Which meant that there were at least two attackers: the individual who had followed Anand, and the gunman.

A hundred yards along the lane, to the west, she made out a flicker of lapis lazuli through the trees, a shimmering glow she recognised from somewhere but was unable to place. It might have been the silver-blue reflection of the sun in a mirror – it coruscated with the same dazzling intensity – but she thought not. She had seen the brilliant blue light somewhere before, and recently... and then she suddenly knew where. Her stomach flipped sickeningly.

“No!”

Alfie looked up at the meadow and, with the tree trunk between himself and the gunman, decided that he could make good his retreat. He darted, his dumpy little figure doubled up, splashed across the stream and attained the protective custody of the meadow’s waist-high grass, diving into it and disappearing from sight.

Jani watched as a swathe of grass was displaced by his progress towards her; she felt relief but at the same time anxious for Anand’s safety.

“Jani! Get down!”

She fell on her side and Alfie parted a stand of grass, his moon face, beet-red with exertion, staring out at her.

“You forgot these,” he said, passing her shoes through the grass.

She took them and slipped them on, then grasped his arm. “It’s the priest, Durga Das!” she said.

Alfie nodded. “I wouldn’t have believed it possible, if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes.”

She recounted Anand’s dash across the lane into the undergrowth, pursued by someone who could only be Mr Knives. “But how could they have followed us so far around the world?”

Alfie shook his head. “It’s hard to credit...”

“And Mr Knives!” she said. “I thought I’d killed him.” Fighting for her life, back in Nepal, she had cut off his right hand and half of his left arm. She recalled the monstrous devil’s head framed in the blue light, exhorting Mr Knives to kill her. But how had Mr Knives possibly survived the double amputation?

She increased her grip on Alfie’s arm, making him wince. “What do we do? Knives went after Anand!”

“If only I had my revolver! This...” He held up the shaft of the deactivated light-beam, “is worse than useless against someone armed with a pistol.”

“Alfie, we must do something to save Anand.”

Alfie closed his eyes, funk clearly doing battle with his sense of duty. “Perhaps he managed to evade Knives?”

“But we don’t know that!” she wailed. “I owe it to Anand. If it were not for me, getting us into this mess...” She held out a hand. “Give me the light-beam.”

“What?”

“The light-beam. I’m going down there. If I can reach the far side of the track without being seen...”

“Madness! The priest will pick you off as soon as he sees you.”

Jani stared at the quaking Lieutenant. “Then what do you suggest?”

He chewed his bottom lip, torn by indecision. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Perhaps... perhaps Anand will evade Knives and make his way...”

“To where? He doesn’t know where we are.”

Alfie shook his head. “Good point. But if you’re going down there, I won’t let you go alone. I’m coming with you.”

Jani smiled, her heart leaping. She could have kissed the pusillanimous Englishman.

“Very well,” she said, readying herself to raise her ahead above the grass and scan the lie of the land.

In the event, she was spared endangering herself in pursuit of Anand when a voice cut through the afternoon calm.

“We know you can hear us!” The sing-song Indian voice was stentorian, wheedling and threatening at the same time: Durga Das.

She peered cautiously through the grass and made out, on the lane beyond the oak, the vast saffron-robed belly of the Hindu priest, his greasy grey beard and over-fed face. At his shoulder, hovering in mid-air, was the blue light coruscating around the hideous devil’s face.

“Janisha Chatterjee! I know you can hear me. We have some unfinished business to conduct. Now, listen carefully to me.” He paused, obviously relishing what he had to say next, and then called out, “We have your little friend, Anand Doshi.”

He fell silent, the better for Jani to appreciate the awful fact of his statement. She closed her eyes, a sob filling her throat.

Das went on, “But we are not unreasonable people, Janisha Chatterjee. We have Anand Doshi, and you have something I wish to possess. Thus, the makings of a deal. We can achieve, through rational and sensible negotiation, an outcome mutually beneficial to both of us.”

Jani stared at Alfie. “I don’t trust him!”

Das’s baritone boomed out again. “If you don’t believe me, Janisha Chatterjee...”

She looked up, over the fringe of grass, and stared down the incline towards the priest on the far side of the river. He gestured, signalling to someone, and as Jani stared, horrified, Mr Knives carried a kicking and struggling Anand from the cover of the tree and stood beside Durga Das.

In the place of hands, she saw, Mr Knives now wore on each arm a leather cuff from which projected a pair of shining, silver blades.

Knives dumped the boy at the feet of Durga Das, who proceeded to gag Anand and bind his wrists behind his back. To his credit, Anand struggled and kicked out, earning a blow to the head for his pain. Quelled, he sagged and the priest completed binding his ankles.

Durga Das beamed down at his handiwork, then called out, “We will return to the airship now, Janisha Chatterjee, and allow you to dwell upon my proposition. But I warn you, time is of the essence. Our mercy, let’s say, has its duration, and if you delay too long...”

He let his threat hang in the air, then bundled Anand over his shoulder and moved off down the track. Soon they were lost to sight behind a line of trees.

Jani said in a small voice, “But they wouldn’t kill Anand, would they? They want what I have, don’t they? The ventha-di. They wouldn’t kill Anand!”

Alfie took her hand and avoided her gaze. “Come. We’ll take the high ground, climb the incline so we can look down on the airship. Then...”

“Yes?” she said, tearful with hope.

He squeezed her hand. “Then we’ll do our best to rescue the lad.”

He gestured her to follow him, and then set off through the tall grass.

As she went, Jani recalled watching the boy striding along the lane at her side, his face childlike and innocent, his mop of hair as unruly as a storm cloud. He had been so full of wonder at their adventure... and she could only imagine his terror now.

They emerged from the long grass of the meadow and came to the margin of the forest. Alfie ran doubled up into the shadow of the trees. Jani followed.

Alfie pointed west and they set off, climbing the sloping, forested incline. They trod carefully, but even so twigs and dry undergrowth snapped and rustled underfoot. Jani hoped the sound wouldn’t travel far.

When they had been climbing for around five minutes, Alfie paused and turned to her, a finger to his lips. They came together and he whispered, “We’re probably halfway there. I estimate the airship was about a mile from the meadow.”

“But what do we do when we reach...?”

“Assess the situation,” he said. “Work out where they are holding Anand and where Das and Knives are positioned. Remember, there are two of them and two of us. We have this,” he held out the deactivated light-beam, “and the element of surprise. Have confidence, Jani. We’ll rescue Anand.”

“I hope you’re right.” She gripped his arm before he could set off again. “One thing. How did Durga Das know where we were?”

Alfie shook his head. “I honestly can’t imagine.”

She bit her lip, looking the dumpy Lieutenant in the eye. “I wonder...”

“Jani?”

“The blue light. Did you see it, and the face within the light?”

He nodded. “What about it?”

“When I confronted Knives in the clearing back in Nepal, the devilish face within the light seemed to be... I don’t know... exhorting Knives to action, instructing him. I could hear it speaking, but not well enough to make out the words.”

“And?”

“And I wondered whether this creature might somehow have tracked us from India.”

They set off again, Jani dodging through the close-packed trees in the Lieutenant’s wake.

The heat of the afternoon seemed to intensify. Jani pulled at the neckline of her dress and blew downwards to cool her chest. Cicadas thrummed deafeningly and the scent of pine resin filled the air; she recalled travelling through the jungle of northern India, what seemed an age ago, accompanied by birdsong, exotic blooms and scents altogether different from those around her now. She thought of Epping Forest, and her walks there arm in arm with Sebastian.

They slowed, and Alfie pointed. Through the treetops, far down the slope, she made out the orange, green and white flag on the nose of the Indian airship. She judged it to be perhaps a hundred yards away, moored above the track that wound along the valley bottom. The bulbous balloon swayed from side to side in the slight wind.

Alfie gestured along the incline and crept forward. Heart thumping, Jani followed him.

Within a minute they were level with the airship. Alfie gestured that they should move, circumspectly, down the slope. He led the way. Through the treetops Jani could see the airship, swaying in the breeze.

They came to a tangle of shrubbery and Alfie dropped into a crouch and edged forward, Jani at his side. He parted a fan of leaves and peered through.

Jani gasped at what she saw.

“But what are they doing?” she whispered.

Alfie shook his head as he stared down the hillside.

The airship hung twenty yards above the ground. Guy ropes, attached to thick tree trunks, secured the vessel fore and aft. In the inky shadow of the craft, Durga Das was tying a length of rope to the rope already securing Anand’s ankles.

The boy sat on the ground, unmoving, his head bowed. Something tightened in Jani’s chest and it was all she could do to stop herself from sobbing.

Mr Knives stood to attention beside the priest, keeping watch. Jani searched the air for the devil’s face within the blue light, but it was nowhere to be seen.

When the priest had secured the rope to Anand’s shackles, he tied the other end of it to a nearby tree trunk, thus further ensuring the boy’s imprisonment; that, at any rate, was Jani’s assumption: Durga Das would now turn his attention to negotiating with her.

However, the priest picked up another length of rope and proceeded to fasten it to the rope binding Anand’s wrists.

“What is he doing?” she whispered.

Durga Das walked away from Anand, holding the rope attached to the boy’s wrists. She was at a loss to work out what the fat priest intended – and even when he approached the rope ladder dangling from the hatch of the airship’s gondola, Jani was unable to guess his motives.

Alfie, a second or two ahead of her, swore under his breath.

Durga Das bound the rope to the bottom rung of the rope ladder and Jani felt cold fear rise through her chest. “No!”

The priest spoke to his henchman, and Mr Knives turned and carefully – hampered by the small matter of having no hands – climbed the rope ladder and entered the airship.

Jani recalled Das’s claim that ‘we are not unreasonable people.’ She wanted to rush from her hiding place, career down the hillside and confront the evil priest. Which was perhaps exactly what Durga Das desired.

The priest took something from the folds of his robe. Jani made out a silver revolver.

Durga Das looked around him, searching the undergrowth for any sign of Jani and Alfie. He raised his head as if addressing a crowd. “Janisha Chatterjee,” he called out, “the time has come for us to negotiate. You have five minutes in which to show yourself, to emerge and come down here so that we might talk. But be warned!” He paused. “If you should attempt any trickery, if your tame British officer should get into his head the notion that by shooting me he might effect the boy’s rescue, think again. I have instructed Mr Knives to power up the engines and lift off if either of you resort to duplicity.” He paused again, smiling. “And also, Janisha, he will take off if you fail to show yourself in the next five minutes. So, for the sake of your little friend, I would advise that you emerge from your hiding place and come down here this minute.”

Anand looked up. Even seated, bound hand and foot, he managed to strike a pose of heroic – if futile – defiance. He said something to Durga Das, and Jani could well imagine the choice words he unleashed upon the fat priest.

For his part Das chose to ignore him, and moved away from the shackled boy. He stared up the hillside; he appeared to be looking directly at where Jani and Alfie were crouching.

The priest consulted a big wristwatch on his hairy left arm and announced. “Four minutes, Janisha Chatterjee. You have just four minutes to present yourself before me. Otherwise your little friend will be torn limb from limb.”

Alfie murmured, “An idle threat, Jani. Anand, as it stands, is the priest’s only bargaining chip. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to harm the boy.”

Jani glanced at Alfie, wondering whether he were saying this merely to comfort her. “I hope so.” She shook her head. “But what should we do?”

Alfie licked his lips, lost in thought. “Very well. The only option we have is, for the moment, to go along with what Das says. Go down there and keep the priest talking.”

“While you...?”

He hesitated. “While I approach from the blindside of Das. Our first priority is to disarm Das and then cut the ropes that bind Anand before Knives can power up the ship and gain altitude. With the light-beam, that should be achievable.” He licked his lips nervously. “It all depends on whether I can approach Das without being seen – either by Das himself or by Knives. Fortunately, it appears that the control room of the gondola is not in the direct line of sight of Das. And even if it were, it would take a good minute for Knives to power up the engines.”

“And Knives will be unable to fire at you, without hands,” she pointed out.

“What he could do, if he sighted me, would be to call out and alert the priest. Therefore I must emerge from under the airship, and still remain on the blindside of Das.”

“Can you do it?”

“If you keep Das talking. When you see me on the far side of the airship, then do all you can to move Das so that he faces you, with his back directly to me.”

“The difficulty will be prevaricating long enough so as to give you time.” She hesitated. “Of course, Das might be lying.” The thought sent a spear of dread through her chest.

Alfie glanced at her. “Meaning?”

“He knows that what he wants from me is in here.” She indicated her stomach. “I don’t know quite how he knows, though I suspect his informant is the creature in the blue light. Not that that matters.” She drew a shaky breath. “There is always the possibility, Alfie, that as soon as I show myself, he might shoot me dead in order to get what he wants.”

Alfie considered her words. “But he doesn’t know,” he said, “that I am not carrying my revolver. As far as he is concerned, I cannot shoot him now for fear of risking Anand’s life. But if he were to shoot you, then surely he would fear my response, fear that in my rage I’d fire upon him.”

She considered the possibilities. “You’re right.” She took a breath. “But, at some point, as the ventha-di is in here – then he will be planning to open me up.”

Alfie reached out and gripped her hand. “Don’t even think of that, Jani. I swear I’ll never let it happen.”

She jumped as Durga Das boomed out, “One minute, Janisha Chatterjee. One minute! Now, for the sake of your little friend here, do the right thing and show yourself.”

Alfie gestured for her to wait, then backed from the concealing bush and hurried up the slope.

“Janisha Chatterjee!” the priest called. “Thirty seconds...”

Jani counted to twenty and then, her heart loud in her chest, and feeling a little dizzy, she climbed to her feet and moved slowly down the hillside. Seeing her, Durga Das raised his arms as if greeting a long-lost daughter, a sickening smile spreading like grease across his features.

“So, Janisha,” he called out, “we meet again. Come, join me, and we shall talk.”

Anand looked up, his face on seeing Jani exhibiting at first joy, quickly followed by fear. “Don’t trust him, Jani! The fat priest is evil!”

Das kicked the boy with a sandaled foot. Anand rolled in the dust, restrained by the double binds of the ropes.

Jani concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other as she moved through the grass. She stared at Anand, smiling for his benefit, and raised the hem of the dress as she came to the river and stepped into the cold water.

She waded across the river and climbed the far bank, passing the tree to which Anand was tied and pausing five yards from the boy and Durga Das in the shadow of the airship.

She smiled at Anand, and he returned the expression, a tight grimace that said a lot: that he was bearing up, that he was relieved to see her, that he was fearful for her safety, and, she thought, that he was sorry he had been captured in the first place and had placed them all in this situation.

She squared up to the priest and said, “I will agree to give you what you want only if first you release Anand.”

Sweat beaded the priest’s great hooked nose. His smile widened, mocking her. “I have fallen for your duplicity once before, Janisha Chatterjee. You are as wily as your traitorous father.” He looked around, his beady grey eyes scanning the incline above the river. “Where is the Lieutenant?”

She replied without thinking, “Still aboard the Edinburgh. We jettisoned without him.”

He laughed. “Wily, traitorous, and a liar!” he bellowed. “I know he was with you. Now, if you don’t tell Lieutenant Littlebody to show himself, then I shall have no option but to instruct my accomplice to elevate the airship, and the results of that action might, of course, be a little messy. Do it!”

Jani shook her head. “I don’t know where Alfie is, honestly!”

“Very well. Mr Knives!” he yelled.

Jani’s heart leaped when she heard the airship’s engines crescendo from a low drone to a throaty whine. She looked up. The airship pulled on its guy ropes, and the rope attaching Anand to the dangling ladder tightened. Anand was dragged along the ground for a yard or two, yelping in fright.

“Enough, Mr Knives, for now!”

The roar of the engines diminished, the rope tied to Anand slackened, and Jani let out a fraught breath.

Das said, “Now, summon the Lieutenant!”

She said, moving her hand towards her pocket, “Better than that, Das – I can give you the ventha-di.”

“Stop!” He raised his pistol and aimed at her.

Jani froze, her hand above the pocket of her dress and her purse concealed here. She had meant to pull it out, throw it at the priest before he could raise the gun, then tussle the weapon from his grasp.

A hopeless plan of action, she realised.

Durga Das smiled. “I seem to recall that the last time you reached into your pocket, you pulled out quite a surprise. I have the scar to show for your treachery.”

And I would gladly carve you to little pieces if I had my light-beam to hand, she thought.

“Now,” Durga Das said urgently, “call the Lieutenant!”

At that very second Jani caught a glimpse of khaki in the undergrowth beside the track, directly behind Durga Das. Her heart leaped, and to deceive the priest she turned and called across the stream, “Alfie! It’s no good. You must show yourself.”

She turned back to the priest and stared at him, more than anything wanting to glance over his shoulder in order to gauge Alfie’s progress, but knowing that to do so would be a mistake.

“And when Alfie is with us?” she asked.

Anand crouched on the ground, staring up at her.

Durga Das smiled. Jani wondered how the man could invest such an innocent expression with so much malevolence, a rictus at once arrogant and almost ingratiating. She wondered if the priest had practised it while influencing powerful politicians.

“I want the ventha-di, Janisha, and if it means cutting you open to obtain the device, then so be it.”

She stared at him, controlling her breathing. She had to keep him talking, at all costs. “How do you know about the...?”

He interrupted. “That need not concern us now.”

She recalled what the Morn entity had told her aboard the Vantissarian ship, and made a stab in the dark, “You have the second Ventha, don’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “As I said, that need not–!”

Jani said, “And do you know to what use the venthas can be put?”

“Why do you think I want them, you little fool!”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Power, greed? But I do know that it is you who are the fool. Only by bringing the three venthas together can we hope to avoid the catastrophe that is awaiting the planet.”

He laughed at this. “You ignorant heathen! Do you know nothing? Did your father fail in your religious upbringing? Oh, but I quite forgot – your father was a notorious atheist, wasn’t he, as well as being a lackey of the Raj!” He controlled his anger and went on, “When I possess all three venthas, Janisha Chatterjee, then I – Durga Das! – shall usher in the Age of Kali, the downfall of the evil British rule of my fine country and the ultimate dominion of the Gods. And I shall be Kali’s High Priest on Earth.”

Beyond Durga Das, Alfie Littlebody was crossing the track with high-stepping, pantomime caution.

“You’re wrong, Das. Your God is a myth. You are being used!”

“You ignorant fool!” Das spat. He leaned forward, aiming the pistol at her chest. “And when I have the second ventha, and you lie bleeding to death, I will make my way to London and there obtain the third from the Morn known as Mahran.”

He smiled at her shocked reaction. “But evidently you were unaware that I knew about the Morn and its ventha?” He shook his head, and the weapon twitched in his hand. “Now call for Littlebody!”

Jani turned towards the river and called out, “Alfie! Please, show yourself!”

She turned back to the priest. Alfie was directly below the bulbous envelope of the airship now, perhaps twenty yards from Durga Das and creeping upon him slowly. In his right hand Alfie had the deactivated light-beam, evidently loath to activate the weapon lest its effulgent glow give him away.

Jani held her breath. All it would take now was for Mr Knives to come to the hatch of the gondola, look down and behold Alfie’s advance. She prayed that Knives would remain at the controls, the henchman hoping for another command to elevate the airship and so pull Anand to pieces.

In the end, Alfie’s downfall came not from a vigilant Mr Knives, but from another source entirely.

A yard above Durga Das’s right shoulder, the air began to shimmer like a heat haze above the ground on a blazing day. Jani stared as a blue light appeared in the shape of an ellipse – and within the lapis lazuli portal a monstrous devil’s face stared out at her, all horns and fangs and red, staring eyes. The creature hissed something which Jani did not catch. Das, alerted, spun with a nimbleness surprising in a man of his gargantuan girth, saw Alfie and fired his pistol.

Alfie fell to the ground, clutching his left arm. Between his clasping fingers, blood welled, trickling over his knuckles and staining the earth.

“Alfie!” she cried.

“I’m okay, Jani...” he gasped, grimacing.

Durga Das flung back his head and laughed. “Kali looks upon and favours the righteous, you heathen! Now do you believe me when I say that I have the gods on my side!”

Jani shook her head, staring at the fanged monster framed in the blue light. “I don’t know what it is, Das – but it isn’t Kali.”

“You infidel!” Das almost screamed.

The blue light faded and the devil disappeared from view.

High above, Mr Knives appeared in the hatch of the gondola and looked down. Durga Das backed away from her so that he had both Alfie and Jani covered. His eyes were huge as he stared at Jani. “Oh, your friend’s little game was foolish. You will pay for this!”

Alfie stared at her, wincing through his pain. He mouthed, “I’m sorry, Jani.”

She shook her head, despairing at the hopelessness of their situation. On the ground, Anand struggled futilely against the ropes that bound his arms and legs.

Durga Das looked from Alfie to Jani. “Now, who shall die first?” He laughed to himself. “I will leave you, Janisha, until last. You will have the supreme torture of watching your friends die first. Mr Knives!” he called out.

“Yes, sir?” said Knives from the hatch of the airship.

“Take the ship up, Mr Knives, and do not stop until the boy is torn to bloody pieces!”

“No!” Jani cried, launching herself at the priest. She hit his solid bulk and rebounded. She landed painfully on her bottom, her hands to either side. Her right hand touched something, and when she looked down she saw a sizable rock. Without thinking she snatched it up and ran at the priest.

He sprang forward and, with the butt of his pistol, coshed her across the brow. She dropped the rock and staggered backwards, attempting to remain on her feet but failing and falling to the ground. She touched her head, her fingers coming away slick with blood.

“You unmitigated coward!” Alfie Littlebody cried, pulling something from his pocket. Dazed, Jani saw with a sudden surge of hope that he was clutching his light-beam, still deactivated. If only he could activate the weapon, swing it at the priest...

But Durga Das sprang forward and kicked out, punting the light-beam from Alfie’s fingers. It went skittering across the lane and into the undergrowth.

Alfie slumped back, holding his bloody upper arm.

Mr Knives was no longer in the hatch of the gondola. The airship’s engines droned and the vessel rose. The rope ladder stretched, and with it the rope that bound Anand’s wrists. The boy was pulled off the ground, stretched between the two ropes. Jani scrambled across to him, her head throbbing. She reached out and grasped at the boy’s white shirt.

Anand was in the air now, turning with the torsion of the ropes like a spitted pig. He stared at Jani with huge eyes, but to his credit pursed his lips and kept his terror internalised.

The boy rose further, the ropes straining on his ankles and outstretched arms, and Jani lost her grip on her handful of shirt. She cried out, watching hopelessly as the boy was carried from her, borne higher into the air. He was six feet off the ground now, his expression one of petrified alarm.

Durga Das stood back, chortling at the sight.

“Higher, Mr Knives!” he exhorted, though Jani doubted that Knives could hear the command above the din of the engines. The order was for her and Alfie’s benefit only, a verbal exhibition of the power he wielded. “Higher! And do not stop until the boy is bloody meat!”

The airship climbed, and the rope connected to Anand tightened ever further, and for the first time the boy cried out in pain. The rope cut into the flesh of his ankles and wrists, drawing blood.

Jani could take no more. Crying out and fighting the pain that surged through her head like a hundred migraines, she scrambled to her feet and ran towards the fat priest yet again. She might be weaponless, but she would tear his eyes out with her fingernails.

He dodged her, kicked out a foot and sent her flying to the dusty ground. He swung, aiming the pistol at her. “One more move. Janisha, and I will shoot you dead.”

She was directly beneath Anand now, lying on her back and staring up at the boy as he was stretched between the ropes, his blood dripping down across her chest.

Anand screamed in pain as the ropes bit and his joints stretched.

Then Jani saw movement to her left, on the far side of the track. She made out a blue-grey blur – a wild boar? – as the animal moved through the undergrowth. Her first notion was that it had been attracted by the scent of blood, that the ignominy of Anand’s death would be compounded when the beast helped itself to his remains.

The animal leapt from the shrubbery and charged across the track, and Jani did not believe what she was seeing. Alfie cried out in alarm as the creature sprang from the ground and snapped the rope a foot above Anand’s wrists with its metal jaw. Mechanical dog and Anand landed on the ground with a double thump, and the hound, with a swift twist, was upon the priest, its jaws snapping down on his gun hand. The pistol fell to the ground, followed by the priest. Jani snatched up the gun and rolled away. The hound pounced on the holy man and clamped its jaws around his throat. Das screamed, blood siphoning from his jugular and across the ground in great throbbing pulses.

The mechanical hound had not yet finished its rescue mission. With a leap that was miraculous, the creature took off and in one bound cleared the thirty feet between the ground and the hatch of the gondola.

The dog vanished into the airship and Jani heard a startled cry. Mr Knives appeared on the lip of the hatch, his face contorted with fear. He looked down, then looked quickly over his shoulder, and chose the least terrible option. He leapt, screaming, hit the ground with a sickening thud, and lay very still.

A strange Sargasso of silence and stillness followed in the aftermath of so much noise and action. Durga Das lay unconscious, his life blood pumping from his lacerated neck into the Greek soil. Mr Knives lay face down, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle and blood seeping from his chest.

Above all this, the mechanical hound sat on its haunches in the entrance to the gondola, staring directly down at Jani. Had it been a real dog, she thought, it would have been panting at its exertions and hoping for a reward.

She climbed to her feet, dazed, crossed to Alfie and knelt beside him.

“I’ll be fine.” He removed his hand from his upper arm and inspected the wound. “Despite all the blood, it’s superficial. In fact, it’s no longer bleeding.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, Jani. Fat lot of good I was.”

“We tried, which is all that matters.”

They moved to where Anand was slowly sitting up. Jani sat beside him while Alfie took a pen-knife from his pocket and sliced the ropes binding the boy’s hands and feet. Anand winced, then smiled through his pain.

Jani looked up at the mechanical dog, high above. “I wonder.”

Alfie looked up, too. “Yes?”

“Why?” she asked.

“While it was with you in the lifeboat,” Alfie said, “before we arrived. Perhaps, then, away from its handler, it had time to... I don’t know... to fixate upon you, empathise with you. See you as its... its new commander. You said it could read thoughts. Well, now it read yours, and did what it could to save you.”

“I don’t know. You see, the handler told me that it took months for him to bond with the dog, until it came to obey his every thought.”

“Then...” Alfie shrugged, “perhaps it just read your thoughts, your desperation, and it knew good from bad, and saved us.”

She laughed at this. “Good from bad?” But why not, she asked herself. This was Vantissarian technology, and therefore way beyond present human understanding, or at least her understanding.

The dog leapt, and Jani winced lest it smash itself to pieces on the ground. But it landed like a gymnast and trotted over to where she knelt beside Alfie. It sat down and stared at her, and Alfie laughed. “You’ve made a friend for life. What’s the phrase? Don’t look a gift dog in the mouth, or something like that?”

She reached out, tentatively, and touched the dog’s wedge-shaped head. It tilted its head to one side, nuzzling her palm. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Alfie nodded up to the airship. “Well, we were wondering how we might make it back to Blighty,” he said. “And now we know. It’ll certainly be quicker than finding a boat to France.”

“You can pilot the vessel?”

“Once I get this strapped up, Jani, and with a little help from Anand, then I’ll fly us home in no time.”

Jani examined the abrasions on Anand’s wrists and ankles. “We’ll get you fixed up,” she said. “There should be a first-aid box aboard the airship.”

“And you?” Anand asked. “How is your head?”

She touched her brow and felt a nasty bump, sticky with drying blood. “I’ll be fine.”

They crossed to the huge, recumbent form of Durga Das. The priest lay very still, his eyes open and staring sightlessly into the heavens.

Alfie knelt and examined him. “Dead,” he said, redundantly.

Jani stared down at the man who had taunted her. “Your God couldn’t save you this time, could it?” she murmured.

She fell to her knees and searched through the priest’s voluminous robe.

“Jani?”

“Das wanted my ventha. But why? As I said earlier, does he himself possess one of the three?”

She turned out the priest’s pockets, but aside from a money pouch and a miniature painting of his goddess, Kali, she found nothing. She saw a cord around his bloody neck, and grimacing pulled it free. It was not the ventha, however, but the Hindu swastika symbol of good fortune.

Alfie touched her arm. “We’ll search the airship, Jani.”

They crossed to where Mr Knives lay face down on the ground in a spreading pool of blood, his blades beneath his body. Alfie knelt beside him and felt for a pulse. “He’s barely alive,” he pronounced. “I don’t think he’ll last much longer.”

He moved across the lane, searched through the undergrowth until he found his light-beam, and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

They crossed to the dangling ladder and Alfie climbed carefully. Anand followed him and Jani brought up the rear.

She looked down. The mechanical dog sat on its haunches, staring up at her. Then it moved, lightning fast, and Jani stepped back as it landed beside her and trotted into the airship.

She found a medical kit in a storage unit and cleaned and bandaged the flesh wound on Alfie’s arm, then attended to Anand’s rope burns. Alfie returned the compliment and applied salve and a sticking plaster to her forehead.

They searched the lounge of the ’ship for the priest’s ventha, turning out drawers and cupboards, and riffling through Das’s travelling chest, to no avail.

“There is always the possibility that he didn’t possess a ventha,” Alfie said. “Or left it for safe-keeping back in India.”

Reluctantly Jani agree that he might be right.

“But look what I have found!” Anand cried, opening a hamper containing a half a dozen tiffin tins and a dozen samosas wrapped in greaseproof paper.

“Well done,” Alfie said. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m famished.”

One hour later, when Alfie had familiarised himself with the controls, Anand climbed from the ’ship and untied the guy ropes from the trees on either side of the lane. Then he scrambled back up the rope ladder, as nimble as a monkey, and hauled it up after him.

Alfie set a course north-west to London, left the ’ship on auto-pilot and joined Jani and Anand in the lounge.

Jani dipped a puri into a bowl of mutter masala and chewed the delicacy with relish.

Anand, ensconced in a huge armchair, beamed across at Jani. “To think that soon we will be in England!” he said, chomping on a samosa. “Jani, I have only read about England in books! The home of Rider Haggard and Kipling and Wells!”

“And in a day or so you’ll be setting foot on British soil for the first time,” Alfie said. “You’ll be seeing the country at its finest, in summer. I fancy wintertime would be a little too bracing for you.”

Jani shivered at the thought. “I found my first few winters there almost unbearable!” she said. “It wasn’t only the cold I found so hard to bear, but the unremitting greyness, the constant rain and fog!”

“Pea-soupers!” Anand carolled. “Will we be there long enough to see a pea-souper?” he asked.

Jani smiled. “Who knows?”

“When we get to London,” Anand went on, “I would like to go to the New Great Exhibition. I’ve read so much about it in Delhi.”

“And I’ll come with you,” Alfie said.

Jani sat back and considered their arrival in London, and wondered at Lady Eddington’s reaction when they turned up, bedraggled, on her doorstep.