looked down at the water, she was quickly joined by Capella and Mars who watched in astonishment as they saw the water draining away into the core of the bored hole with rapid speed. Suddenly lights came on level by level as the water retreated, within twenty minutes the compound was free of the flood, dripping water from the drying levels followed gravity into the chasm below.
As they searched below for any sign of life they heard a whooshing sound to their left, when they looked over an elevator came into view. Standing by the door were Wolfe and Sheriff, they had survived the flooded chasm in the middle of the mountain.
‘Well come on then,’ Wolfe shouted as he gestured to them to enter the lift.
With no more hesitation, the Magellan’s rushed over with a barrage of questions. ‘What happened? We thought you were dead! Are you alright? What did you do to make the water disappear? Where has the water gone?’
‘So many question’s, I’ll answer them later. Just take in the view,’ Wolfe said as the elevator door closed and they began to descend into the hidden city.’
The elevator was swift and smooth in decent. Each flash of light represented a level of workshops and offices that they saw briefly like a blink of their eye. The details of what was contained there did not matter, but the vastness became apparent the further they travelled into the depth of the mountain. Mars watched the descent as water streaked past the window like a shower as the streamlined capsule brought them nearer to the ground floor. As the elevator began to slow and the weight of his body pressed down putting pressure on his feet, his ankle began to ache a little. They had finally reached their destination in the heart of the mountain, and as the elevator door opened Mars could not contain himself any longer, he rushed out of the lift a little too quickly slipping as he lost his grip, landing directly on his back before sliding on the slimy floor. Cursing his luck he slowly placed his hand on the floor and felt the red moss, which had built up there, sediment from the mountain water.
‘That should teach you to stop running off,’ Capella reacted to Mars’s tumble.
‘Yuck,’ he said, before pulling himself off the ground. His uniform was no longer the Maverick shade of white but red, which matched the sandstone of the mountain.
Mars carefully moved his way over to his waiting family who had slid their way over to the arched exit door, a secret city reveal itself in the shape of a rectangular courtyard. He made his way through the archway and joined everyone in his or her amazement at the sight in front of them. There was patches of vegetation in various parts of the compound, but all around them scorch marks were visible that highlighted damage in the otherwise exquisite architecture. Some explosions had ripped into the ground leaving large craters in the compound.
It was like a large adventure playground, so Mars decided he would look around by himself. The enclosed compound was vast and sheltered on all sides by smooth rock, in front of them was another block of sandstone, to the west two towering circular boulders wedged together made up one wall and to the east one massive boulder finished the fourth side of the compound. All looked as if they had been inhabited in the city’s heyday, now it appeared to be a ghost town with not even a single inhabitant left within it. In the centre, of the compound where he could hear the steady movement of a man made river lapping the edges of a rectangular island. He walked away from the main group along a bridge to cross it. On both banks were bridges which linked the two halves of the city together. As he moved closer he could see the island was dissected into eight squares of equally proportioned grassed areas, and on each corner of the squares were the strange lollypop trees, giving shelter to stone pathways. He approached one of the bridges and looked closely at paths on the island, but he could not make out what was laying in the shadows. For a moment he hesitated and looked back towards his parents, should he investigate further? His inquisitive nature and the hunger in his belly drew him closer and closer as if he was hypnotised. He sensed fruit might be ready for harvesting. He could feel his mouth water with anticipation as he made out yellow star shapes of what looked like some exotic fruit hanging in the trees.
‘Hey there’s some fruit over here on these trees,’ Mars yelled back to his elders as he pointed upwards into the trees. Mars reached up to a branch and started to climb until his feet were firmly planted on two solid branches that could hold his weight. With one arm, he held onto the trunk before leaning out to pull off the fruits with the other, after a few minutes he had collected a few together in his palms.
‘Mars throw them down,’ Halley shouted from below.
He tossed the fruit down to Halley one by one; she looked at them with a scientific eye considering if they were edible. As Mars pulled more off the tree his mother pulled a poison tester from her field bag, but somehow he knew these were fine to eat. As she diced up the juicy flesh of the star ready to examine biological and chemical readings, Sheriff shouted across. ‘It’s too late for that!’
‘What do you mean,’ she replied.
Sheriff pointed up into the tree at Mars devouring one of the fruits. Hmm,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘Mars!’ she exclaimed with annoyance, placing her hands on her hips.
‘It’s all right these are delicious,’ Sheriff declared as he gestured to Capella to throw him one.
‘Don’t worry, we could all do with some food and a rest,’ Wolfe added as he joined the group.
Mars threw as many fruit out of the tree as he could find and they eventually sat and ate the picnic underneath the shade of the trees. All except one exhausted Sheriff who consumed one before putting his head back to fall asleep. The guard from Maverick, the man who had helped them escape Gonzalo had finished wandering the stars, he had found what he had been looking for all these years and brought him back to safety. Sheriff had returned home.
Mars sat next to Sheriff and Capella and ate more delicious fruit it was sweet and was a blend of tastes like coconut and pineapple, with the flesh like a grapefruit. He had his fill, then lay back like Sheriff and looked up through the leaves at night falling across the sky. He saw the darkness of space above them sprinkled with stars as the other nearby planet and moon becoming more visible, nighttime replaced the dazzling sunshine of the day, and he closed his eyes and also drifted into a deep sleep.
A Passage Through Alexandria
The next day started early for Sheriff as he made an initial assessment of the main buildings and the compound, whilst everyone was still asleep under the fruit trees. He had examined the lower levels of the palace, and it appeared strangely undamaged compared to the devastation in other areas of the compound, like the market and food storage areas.
The palace interior was also mostly undamaged, but there might be a reason for that. He looked closely in the clerk’s rooms, and corridors he once called home. His search spread to the main courts of the building. Here lots of files were missing, and some areas of the court looked as if unwanted occupiers had used them excessively. Evidence of this was contained on the seats and tables that were heavily worn and scratched with people’s names and insults directed at the captors. ‘It looks like Lord Jazri held a court here directly after the invasion. He dreaded to think what might have happened to the people unlucky enough to be sentenced to a life serving the dictator.’
Sheriff searched around in some storage cupboards and triple checked both entry and exit of rooms, he knew only too well that any part of the palace could be hide explosives to kill who ever was stupid enough to return. After all Jazri had let his biggest prize escape his grasp. The right to rule this world was not his, and somewhere out there was the true heir to the Alexandrian throne, something the occupier had still not been able to come to terms with.
In all Sheriff had made a comprehensive assessment of the compound, and felt safe there. Apart from the main accommodation block, which he had not searched yet. However, he was becoming increasingly suspicious about hidden traps being set in the upper levels of the palace, especially in the main accommodation
block where one mine could have devastating consequences for any of them. This was the only accommodation block he was interested in clearing for his companions. He was determined to secure appropriate surroundings for distinguished guests.
Later in the morning Sheriff’s concerns were confirmed when he stumbled across a box of small personnel mines in the courthouse. He was left with a dilemma, should he risk setting off charges in the rooms that could destruct part of the palace or should he find other alternative accommodation elsewhere. He thought long and hard about the palace’s spiritual and ancestral importance before deciding to stick to his original convictions to house everyone there.
Sheriff had arranged to meet Wolfe just after noon, and he could tell he was already late because of the angled shadows in the rooms of the palace. It was time to take a break, he looked down on the courtyard and could see Wolfe sitting under a fruit tree, and so he made his way out of the building to join him.
A few minutes later Wolfe looked toward Sheriff as he approached. ‘I’ve also been snooping around this morning and looked in the utility block at the water turbine, all readings, are fine. There’s plenty of work needed to stabilise some of the structure to the