16.
‘Any news about The Book?’ asked Emily, after they’d dried themselves off.
‘Let’s go see the sentry slugs,’ replied Zeus, and with a click of his fingers they were sitting in the cockpit of one of the moons.
‘Hi Castor,’ said Emily, giving the slug a kiss on both cheeks.
‘About time you visited!’ said the slug, reddening up a little. ‘I’m Pollux. I’ve been dying to meet you.’
‘Sorry,’ said Emily, examining him closely. His face was slightly rounder than Castor’s, his eyes bigger and with a different pattern on the iris. ‘It’s just that I got to know Castor first.’
‘Well, it’s lovely to meet you at last. Don’t forget I’m up here too.’
‘The Book of Light?’ asked Zeus.
Pollux flashed the screens up.
‘It’s there,’ he said, zooming in on the tiny lighthouse island of Mulo until they could see Petra’s box of special things hidden under the gnarled olive tree. ‘A little soggy, but intact.’
‘Has she looked at it yet?’
‘No, she’s delighted to have company; first Molly and Spot, and now Brian and Theo. This girl is special. I’ve never seen a human so in tune before. Look at this.’ He showed images of her catching crabs then giving them to a huge octopus, then another clip of the octopus giving treasures to her.
‘She has grown up her whole life on that little piece of rock, so everything that happens to her, she thinks of as normal.’
‘She looked very sad and lonely when I saw her,’ said Emily.
‘She is,’ said Pollux. ‘Especially now that her foster parents have babies of their own.’
I know what it feels like; you feel like they don’t love you anymore.
The picture on the screen zoomed out to show the whole of Mulo, with the lovely enclosed garden, the cottage tucked in behind the fortifications and the lighthouse standing proudly, topped by a red dome and wind vane.
‘There’s a lot of driftwood,’ said Emily.
‘That’s the wreckage of the dhow.’
The image switched to high resonance radar image of the dhow being tossed around by huge waves. One mast is lying across the deck and the sails on the other mast are in tatters, flapping madly in the hurricane force wind. As a wave swept over the deck, sailors and soldiers jumped up and hung onto the rigging. Lit up by flashes of lightning, Brian the Lion pounced across the heaving deck grabbed a seaman and tossed him over the side. He ran about the deck, vanishing from sight at times under the water and spray, disposing of the men. Sometimes a swipe of the paw was enough to send then flying. One soldier raised his gun, trying to get a shot, but Brian pounced on him then picked up him and shook him like a rag-doll before throwing him into the wild foaming sea.
The screen flicked ahead to a daytime image of the island. The sea was still huge but the wind had dropped. The water was full of wreckage, heaving in the swell.
‘I like this bit,’ said Pollux, and zoomed in on Brian, soggy and forlorn hanging on to a piece of wreckage. A sailing dinghy was being rowed backwards towards Brian with Petra on one oar and a big, square shouldered man on the other.
‘That’s Mario, Petra’s foster dad.’
They stopped, looked at the lion and discussed whether it was safe to go any closer, then backed up some more. Suddenly, Brian pounced into the small boat, almost capsizing it and sending them sprawling in a tangle of legs and paws.
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ laughed Pollux. ‘Who in their right mind would rescue a lion?’
‘Teroids!’ said Emily.
The next shot showed the boat sailing over the swells, its two sails pulling it along at a good clip, sending spray flying over the bow. Brian was sitting at the back and Petra and Mario were squeezed in by the mast, with Petra holding the tiller.
‘What a lovely little boat,’ said Emily.
‘The Book has floated out of its box,’ said Zeus. ‘Do you know what happened to the key?’
‘No, it’s lost, probably went down with the boat.’
‘That’s a good thing,’ said Zeus, ‘and at least The Book is with Petra and not her evil mother.’
‘She’s lonely,’ said Emily. ‘She needs friends.’
‘She is lonely. She does need friends,’ said Zeus. ‘And she’s too young and naive to have the power of The Book. I’ll get Theo to see what he can do. With all that daft two-wit two-wooing he does you’d never guess that he’s the most level headed creature on Earth.’
‘Emily, let’s have a game of backgammon,’ said Pollux. ‘I hear that you’re pretty good.’
‘You’re on.’
‘Two, three or four dimensional,’ asked Pollux.
‘Two dimensions will be just fine!’
They took turns playing each other. Zeus lost terribly but seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself.
Emily was half way through a game against Zeus when Pollux flicked an image up on the screen. ‘Look at this,’ he said.
Live Al Jazeera was scrawled across the bottom of the image that showed a beam of light glancing down from the clouds with something slowly moving up it.
‘Amazing, incredible, bla, bla, bla,’ said the commentator, too gob-smacked to find the right words.
The object vanished up into the clouds and the beam of light was gone, leaving the sky grey and overcast.
‘Let’s show that again,’ said the commentator, finding his tongue again.
The footage rewound itself with the object coming back down to Earth and people walking backwards.
‘It’s a grey day for Pope Benedict here in Khartoum. The Pope’s visit reflects the growing credence given to claims that Azziz was the second Son of God. In an unprecedented show of religious unity, top Muslim scholars are here at the grave with Pope Benedict today.’
The Pope bent down to place a small posy of flowers on the simple grave, no more than a pile of rubble then knelt to kiss the grave. Suddenly a beam of light broke through the clouds and lit up the Pope.
‘Incredible,’ continued the commentator, ‘Scenes similar to those we witnessed at the recent burial of Emily Taylor in Sheffield. Whoa, what’s happening...?’
The image shook and jumped around as the cameraman ran to get a better vantage point.
‘The very ground is moving...’
The Pope stepped back and crossed his chest as the loose rubble shook and was pushed aside by the robed body of Azziz rising from the grave.
‘Incredible, amazing....’
The body, lying horizontal and completely stiff, rose slowly up the beam of light until it vanished into the clouds.
‘Let’s see that again....’
‘Azziz,’ yelled Zeus, red with fury and hopping from foot to foot. ‘All the hard work I do and you go and do that! Selfish, egotistical show off! It’s going to take millennia to repair the damage. You’re as bad as your brother. Useless layabouts the both of you!