Of all the girls in the port city of D’loom, nobody knew better thanjelindel how far or fast Lady Fortune could cast a person down. She had been in the garden of her prosperous father’s mansion one night, gazing up at the night sky and escaping the noise and bickering of her family. That very night the dark, deadly figures had struck, slaughtering everyone in the house, then burning the place to the ground.

Jelindel alone had escaped, but because she could read and write, she soon found work as a scribe in the market. She dressed as a boy and called herself Jaelin, because if someone had wanted her entire family dead, they would now be looking for the one girl who had escaped. If the murderers had done a body count before starting the fires, then she was definitely being hunted.

The day had all started like any other, and by the afternoon she found herself making a little more money than usual. The D’loom market was always crowded with buyers and sellers, the latter hawking their wares at the top of their vmces, the nmse indescribable.

Jelindel had been sitting cross-legged beside the scribe’s stall she shared with Bebia, though just then the old man was off fetching his afternoon cup of teblith - a drink brewed from dried beans, and that seemed strong enough to make the dead sit up.

‘I’m alive and things can’t get any worse,’ was what she whispered to herself every day, every hour, and sometimes every minute. She was whispering it when a sudden quiet made her look up.

Coming towards her, swathed in their distinctive maroon-coloured robes, was a clutch of Maelorian monks. She looked to her left. In the distance, rising grandly above D’loom’s smog, were the towering walls of their temple fortress, Maelor, named after the god they served.

Only moments before, the marketplace had been a seething cauldron of noise and activity. Now it was silent, and a large space had opened up around the monks to let them through unhindered.

Jelindel wondered what was happening, because the monks of Maelor seldom left their temple fortress. Although powerful and dangerous, they rarely interfered with those in D’loom. It almost seemed as if the citizens of the port city were not important enough to murder.

‘Get an eyeful,’ muttered Barbar, the one-eyed salt seller in the next stall. ‘Pity them as have business with that lot!’

‘Keep your gaze and voice down!’ Jelindel hissed back.

‘Trouble’s brewing.’

‘What now?’

‘You have customers.’

The monks weren’t passing by, they were coming straight for Jelindel’s stall. She swallowed, and noticed that Barbar was sidling away from her.

The monks came to a stop in front of the stall, as perfectly synchronised as a squad of soldiers. They parted, and a senior monk stepped forward. He was short, well-muscled, and utterly expressionless.

Jelindel stood, trying not to let her legs shake. She gave the monk a small bow, unsure of the proper etiquette for greeting killer monks.

‘Welcome, exalted one,’ saidjelindel. ‘My master,

Bebia Ral’Vey, greets thee through this junior one, and sends his apologies for being absent at so auspi cious a time. May this unworthy one bear a message to his master?’

The short monk gave her a curt nod. ‘I am Stands Waiting. I serve at the feet of my master, who is called Benign Fist. I am here to engage your services, Jel -Jaelin.’

Jelindel gasped inwardly. Stands Waiting had all but told her he knew her real name. How could that be? Jelindel dek Mediesar was supposed to be dead, butchered and burned with the rest of her family! So, the murderers had indeed counted the bodies, and had noticed that they were a body short.

Had the monks killed her family?

She kept any hint of her inner turmoil out of her voice as she answered. ‘This unworthy one is honoured beyond words for such unexpected benevolence.’

Stands Waiting regarded her for a moment, then stepped closer.Jelindel tried not to flinch. Maelorian monks could move so fast that their movements were a blur. Even Zimak, considered one of the finest Silurian kick-fist fighters in D’loom, would have turned and run if Stands Waiting had stepped into the ring with him.

‘Let us speak plainly . . . Jaelin,’ said Stands Waiting, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. ‘Let us also speak very, very quietly.’

He raised a hand, palm up. From behind him a monk placed a bamboo tube into his grasp. Stands Waiting removed a scroll and spread it on the stall in front of Jelindel.

‘This is the Star Testament. As you see, it contains writing in the ancient language of Astradis. I know that you have been taught it, no need for silly games of deception.’

‘But many scholars know Astradis.’

‘True, but the person who wrote the testament was killed by her captors as soon as it was finished.

Only then did they discover that it had been a subtle code, woven within the astrological text and pictures. We want you to decrypt it. Many have tried. All have failed.’

‘But master, why me?’

‘Because you are one of the speakers of Astradis who has not been given a chance to decode it. Take care and be diligent, because we kill every fifth scholar who fails, just to give the others some incentive.’

Jelindel gulped. There had been the slightest em phasis on the word ‘fails’. It told her that there was a fairly good chance that the previous four scholars who had disappointed Stands Waiting were still alive.

‘We will return in forty-eight hours,’ said Stands

Waiting, who then turned and strode away without another word.

‘Wait!’ calledjelindel.

Stands Waiting stopped and turned, regarding her with a cold, blank expression.

Jelindel gestured at the scroll. ‘Forty-eight hours isn’t enough!’

‘Is forty-eight years enough?’ asked Stands Waiting.

‘You have forty-eight hours, use them wisely.’

‘But I’m not certain I can do it!’

‘Then the scholar who follows you will have your fate to inspire him.’

There was that threat again, though less veiled than before.

‘What if I can’t do it?’ askedjelindel, desperate to find some trapdoor to escape this mad commission.

‘Then here is a little more incentive,’ said Stands Waiting. ‘We know who killed your family. If you fail, we will tell them where you live. If you succeed . .. we know where they live.’

‘But -’

‘And if you succeed, do not think about using the secret of the Star Testament on us. The followers of Maelor are shielded by an anchor spell. It protects us from even the intention of attack.’

And with that, the monks of Maelor were gone. Jelindel stared after them, shifting rapidly from one mood to another: anger, relief, fear, and then back to anger. She sat down hard and stared at the scroll.

From nearby came Barbar’s voice. ‘My deepest condolences, Jaelin,’ he began, but she waved him silent.

Moments later, Bebia returned, looking pale. ‘Is it true? Were they here?’

Jelindel nodded. Bebia sat down, pressing a hand to his chest. ‘May the gods protect you.’

‘Should I start running or decoding?’ Jelindel wondered aloud.

‘Nobody can run faster than the monks,’ said

Bebia.

If running and decoding were not options, that left hiding. The youth Zimak was good at hiding, especially when he had just thrown a kick-fist fight, and angry betters were looking for him and waving cudgels.

‘I need to see Zimak, do you know where he is today?’ askedjelindel.

Bebia nodded. ‘He’s in the stocks for a week, for throwing a fight.’

Jelindel closed her eyes tightly for a moment. Zimak was not so much her best friend as her only friend. She was in hiding, pursued by criminals, so she needed criminal skills. Zimak had been the perfect teacher for anything criminal, but now he was no help to anyone.

‘I fear, boy, that you are too good at what you do,’ said Bebia. ‘Word has spread.’

‘Cursed by competence,’ mutteredjelindel, pick ing up the scroll.

Jelindel didn’t sleep that night. Even as the noise in the marketplace died away with the coming of dark ness, she sat poring over the testament by the light of a lamp burning discarded cooking oil. It did not take long to translate the testament, but the words told her nothing. She studied the pictures from every angle, even upside down. But it was all to no avail.

Jelindel threw her hands up in despair and slumped across her work bench.

Dawn came, and the D’loom market lurched into life again, unsteadily, like a soldier forced to wake up and start marching after a night in the taverns.

Today something was different, however. It was as if everyone - buyers and sellers alike - was avoiding the scribe’s stall. Even Bebia managed to make himself absent for long periods.

In a way, this helped. Jelindel had slipped into the world of code breaking, searching for subtle patterns, recurring motifs, analysing the spacing between words and letters, the orientation of pictures and script, always seeking symbolic meanings . . .

By late afternoon Jelindel had used up her first twenty-four hours. When the sun set she had less than twenty hours until the deadline.

Jelindel began to panic. There was nothing in the testament! It simply told the myth about a witch who had made a journey to the stars and returned with a terrible spell, one so powerful it could not be shared. The witch had been forced to write the testa ment, but she had probably known what was going to happen to her. She had also been gagged, so that she could not use the spell on her captors. Had she used a code too clever for her stupid captors, or had she written gibberish? Were the monks wrong? Was there no secret message?

Jelindel had examined the other side of the scroll, which was blank. She had cast some simple spells, toy magic used by teenage scholars to pass invis ible messages to each other. They revealed nothing. The parchment itself was very old, and had been inscribed with a pen using an expensive metal nib.

At various points the nib had pierced the parchment, as if the writer had paused as she wrote, perhaps lost in thought.

Midnight came, andjelindel slumped back in her chair, defeated.

‘Were I the witch, what would I do?’ she muttered, her mind exhausted.

It would be simple enough to write nonsense, knowing that her captors would not know the difference. On the other hand, what if there was an important message to pass on to someone who was less stupid than her captors?

Jelindel wondered why the document was called the Star Testament. True, it was the testament of a witch who had visited the stars. But what did that mean? Jelindel glanced up at the night sky. The diamond-bright pinpricks of light reminded her of something she had seen recently ... very, very recently. She caught her breath.

There was a secret code after all! She held the scroll up to the meagre light issuing from her foul smelling lamp. The places where the quill had punc tured the parchment formed a diagram cipher. The long-dead witch had been smart. There was just a bunch of random-looking holes, the kind of mistakes one always found on parchments! The difference was that these mistakes had been made with exquisite care.

Jelindel began to read what was woven into the words, rather than the words themselves. What she saw filled her with horror.

It was a spell that travelled through time, erasing whatever you wanted to erase. Don’t like somebody? Send the spell back through time and stop them from ever being born. Detest an entire town, guild, a country? Erase it from history, as if it had never existed in the first place! If you didn’t want to annihilate it completely, you could just sponge away the memories of the people.

The morejelindel thought about the spell’s power, the more frightened she became. She felt as if she’d removed the lid from a basket and discovered an angry snake that was about to leap up at her face.

But she’d discovered something else, too. Slowly, fearfully, Jelindel began to whisper the spell of oblivion ...

Tired yet invigorated, Jelindel arrived at the stall where Zimak slept. She roused him by snatching his blanket away. The youth bounded to his feet, assum ing that someone was attacking him.

‘You owe me a favour,’ said Jelindel, tossing the youth’s blanket back to him.

‘Favour? What favour?’

‘I rescued you from a week in the stocks.’

‘What do you mean? Why would I be m the stocks?’

‘You’re not in the stocks because I erased the memories of some very angry men who bet lots of money that you would win today’s kick-fist fight - the fight that you threw.’

‘I never threw any fight!’

‘Keep your voice down and only we two will know. Get dressed, then come with me.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I need a criminal, someone good at lying. You have the right qualifications. Oh, and best you act like an oaf for the rest of the day. You’ll enjoy that.’

Zimak approached the fortress temple. He had Jelindel in tow. She was clutching a scroll and a sheaf of other papers, and looked confused. As expected, the guards challenged them.

‘I’m his bodyguard,’ explained Zimak. ‘I received instructions to bring him here and ask for Stands Waiting if something went wrong. Well, something did.’

‘What went wrong, Zimak?’ askedjelindel. ‘Why are we here? What are these papers?’

‘Simpletons,’ growled one of the guards, but his companion noticed the Maelorian royal seal on the scroll.

‘I’ll fetch the master.’ The guard glared atjelindel and Zimak. ‘Be it on your heads if this is a lark.’ Stands Waiting arrived moments later. His usual passive expression seemed feverish with excitment.

‘You have accomplished your task?’ he said to

Jelindel.

‘Yeah, well, me scribe friend said he’s worked out a secret,’ began Zimak.

Stands Waiting turned to Zimak. ‘Continue,’ he said impatiently.

‘Well, I asksjaelin what he discovered, an’ he says some words that sounds like a goat being sick. Then he says he wishes he could forget about the past two days, and then wham! He’s forgot the past two days.’

‘It’s the spell, you blithering fool!’ exclaimed Stands Waiting. ‘Guards, keep this boy here at the gate. Scribejaelin, come with me.’

Benign Fist was meditating on a balcony of a tower facing out to sea when Stands Waiting entered with Jelindel. ‘Ah,’ he said, standing. ‘Our young market scribe whose life hangs in the balance. Welcome, child.’

‘She has suffered a foolish accident,’ Stands Waiting offered. ‘Perhaps a failed experiment with the Star Testament.’

‘Has she now?’ Benign Fist said. He cupped Jelindel’s head with his hands and performed a probe spell. Shortly he stepped back from her. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘She has indeed had the memory of the two days past sponged away.

‘And what are the papers that she carries? Let me see . . . notes, scribblings, words crossed out. Here! This passage here. Words in the ancient Yurlish tongue - no, this second last word is loksig, the Astradis word for anchor.’

‘From what her monkey of a bodyguard said, you speak these words, then say what you wish to have obliterated.’

Benign Fist looked up from the parchment. ‘Then let us perform a test. That filthy port city of D’loom is an insult to my eyes. I would have it sponged from history.’ Benign Fist held the page up to the lamp light then began reading. ‘Qsllio innaculus d’arthier . ..’ Stands Waiting had a feeling that something was not quite right, but Benign Fist demanded absolute obedience, so he held his tongue. The only problem with having followers with absolute obedience is that you must always make good decisions. In his eager ness to use this doomsday weapon from the dim, forgotten past, Benign Fist had allowed himself to be swept away. He had made a bad decision.

Benign Fist reached the end of the spell.

‘... vati kelloksig slarsh.’

He never got a chance to say ‘D’loom’.

For one terrible, terrible moment Stands Waiting realised what had happened. Vati kel was ‘this thing’ in Yurlish. Slarsh was Yurlish for ‘obliterate’. Benign Fist had just obliterated the Astradis word for anchor, and the anchor spell that protected the fortress tem ple was in Astradis. Deprived of the word anchor, the anchor spell that had protected Maelor for centuries collapsed.

An attack by Katrusi brigands many centuries ago had not been beaten off with the aid of the spell for it had now never existed. The temple and what was then the new sect of Maelor had been wiped out in the attack.

Jelindel found herself falling, and before she even had time to be afraid she crashed into thick bushes that were growing in the ruins of the ancient for tress temple of Maelor. Hearing the noise, Zimak came hurrying across the piles of overgrown rubble. Jelindel was not hurt, apart from cuts and scratches.

‘At the risk of sounding a bit simple, what are we doing here?’ asked Zimak.

Dazed,Jelindellooked about. ‘It’s the ruins of the

Maelor temple.’

‘I know that. But why are we here?’

‘Well, I don’t know, Zimak. Maybe you were teaching me to climb walls and burgle buildings.’

‘Out here?’ exclaimed Zimak.

‘Makes sense. If we practised on buildings with people in them, they’d set the city guards after us.’

‘Look, answer me one thing,’ said Zimak. ‘You fell into those bushes, right?’

‘I think so,’ Jelindel agreed.

‘From what? This tower was destroyed hundreds of years ago. It’s no higher than a midget’s gallows.’

‘Maybe some ancient magic lingers here, and it threw me up into the air,’ suggestedjelindel. ‘Maybe it plays tricks with our memories, too.’

‘You know what?’

‘What?’

‘I think coming here was a bad idea. We should go back to the market and get some sleep. It’s Haggling Day tomorrow.’

‘Haggling Day is still two days away,’ saidjelindel firmly.

‘You like to bet on that?’ asked Zimak, tossing a coin in the air.

And so the two young heroes returned to D’loom, unaware that they had saved the city, the past, the future, and the world. Behind them some sheets of paper that had fallen withjelindel had been found by a rat that lived among the ruins. It began shredding them to build a nest.