Beyond the Knock Knock Door (10 page)

‘Excuse my rudeness but this is a matter of haste,' Nobleman Guido said. ‘Are you certain, my liege, that you encountered a monster in the rainforest?'

‘Well, it was something huge –'

‘And it attacked you?'

‘Sure but –'

The young man grabbed Michael again and herded him further along the bridge. ‘This is unexpected news. All that I've learnt – the disappearance of your companion, the Red Samurai, it –'

‘Nobleman Guido,' Prime Minister Pasquale said in a loud voice, causing the older boy to jump. ‘Come, leave our liege alone. He's had a long journey, and if his tongue is anything like my belly, he needs his rest.' Before Guido protested, the Prime Minister waved
forward two marines. ‘Gentlemen, show this fine lord here home. No doubt his sister, Lady Isabelle, is waiting for his return.'

The marines saluted then ushered Nobleman Guido into a sea snail carriage. He opened a small window, and, before the driver slapped the reins, he handed Michael a silver signet ring. ‘Alms for the poor, my liege. Use it to help the lost.'

Blank-faced, Michael struggled for words as he examined the expensive jewellery inset with an engraved ruby.

‘What a fine citizen,' Pasquale said as the carriage rode away. ‘Eccentric, but a good son of Pacifico nonetheless.' He staggered back to the palace, leaning on Michael for support. ‘Now, my boy, let's discuss more important things – like what we are going to have for lunch tomorrow.'

Angelfish swirled and pecked around Michael's feet as he threw stale cake crumbs onto the flagstones of the promenade. He watched as the sunrise prowled across the ocean and slipped by the royal titans, transforming the city from a misty grey to a fiery gold. A deep foghorn scattered the shimmering school of fish as a cruise liner passed directly overhead, buffeting him with its enormous hover engines and sprinkling him with cosmic dust. It splashed down in the harbour and carved its way to the marina, heralded by dozens of ringing buoys.

Allowing his siblings to sleep in, he started his day by exploring the extraordinary. It didn't take long for him to be recognised, or more accurately his alter ego, the Gold Knight. After separating himself from several fawning tourists, he disguised himself with his red cloak then walked along the marina, marvelling at the intergalactic ships. Next, he and other sightseers stepped inside a bubble submarine, laughed as seawater flooded
above its glass hull then gawped as it purred through gigantic forests of coral. Radiating a thousand bright colours, they stretched for hundreds of kilometres. Squat brain coral grew among wavy sea anemones. Willowy pink ones fired playful tiger prawns from their tube-like branches. Greens prickled with thorns when a lobster crept too close. And big kettle drum reds fizzed like they were boiling.

A school of squid shot above the glass hull to everyone's enjoyment until the captain lurched the submarine hard to starboard and sheltered it within a ribcage of thick coral. To the left, an enormous crab loomed with its snapping claws. Any fears were quickly eased – professional crab hunters snorkelled past with nets and harpoons.

The tour's centrepiece was the underwater opera house. Curved like sails and featuring great glass windows, the ocean bathed the structure in the brightest of blues. They watched from outside as a diva rehearsed in front of five hundred empty seats before the tour returned to the surface.

Next stop was a sports arena. Inside a small rectangular stadium built over water, two teams played a game that could only be described as a cross between a giant crossword puzzle and football. Players ran across a limited number of magnetically floating tiles to catch and kick a ball into their opponents' goal. However, the tiles continually moved and left gaps. Half the teams ended up falling into the water, much to the delight of the fans.

Last stop was the commercial hub. Here, all manner of shops flourished. A master glassblower puffed out a collection of candlesticks. A tour company advertised camping trips inside a sunken city. Treasure hunters displayed their latest finds of pottery and coins. A jeweller laughed with young Pacificans who considered new cheek gems, while a goldsmith's front window sparkled with necklaces and rings. Michael entered the heart of the buzz – a large, shaded central market. It was an emporium of flowers, spices, silk and exotic pets. But rather than set up traditional stalls along the canal, most merchants sold their goods from gondolas.

A trio of teenage girls giggled as Michael passed by. He faltered, fearing he'd been spotted, only to realise they were swanning around their prettiest friend, who had tried on a lime-green gown. Mischievously, she flirted with an unsuspecting boy until he plucked up enough courage to stroll across and comment on how great she looked. With a little too much familiarity, he placed an arm around her waist when –
snap!
He literally froze to the spot. He stayed that way for another five minutes, long after the girls paid for the dress and left, still laughing.

‘Is he okay?' Michael asked the seamstress.

‘Only if he keeps his grubby hands off our pretty maidens.'

Further along, a ruffled young lady walked across a footbridge, holding several strings of pearls leashed to an equal number of flying seahorses. They floated up
and down on their little wings, sniffing lamp posts for scents, until being gently tugged away.

‘I don't know about you, friend, but where I come from pets walk on the ground.'

Michael faced a middle-aged man who sported a peppered goatee and a bright orange sari. He was completely bald except for a long, plaited topknot that fell between his shoulders. From his nose up, his face was painted red. From the nose down, a bright yellow. Like most of the merchants, he spoke with a rough accent vastly different from the Pacificans.

‘You're not from Pacifico either?' Michael asked.

The merchant shooed away a blue groper fish sniffing his baskets of light and dark sugars. ‘An old buzzard like me? No, I would have been shipped to a nursing moon years ago. Look around you. All us merchants are off-worlders. Same as you tourists, we fly in at dawn and fly out at dusk.'

The sugar merchant squinted at Michael's hooded face then stepped back, aghast. ‘The Gold Knight! My liege, I'm – I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you. If you'd shown yourself, I would have –'

He started to kneel but Michael grabbed his elbow. ‘Please, don't. No offence taken. I just want to explore the city without attracting a crowd.'

Nodding, the merchant hurriedly steered him out of earshot towards a mooring pole. ‘So the rumours are true! The Hall of Heroes
is
opening its doors again! This is fantastic news. Let me tell you, parts of this galaxy have gone a little crazy since you left. There've
been strange things happening around the Dead Planets that –'

A customer interrupted the merchant, who excused himself to sell her a sack of raw sugar. Michael had moved to the next gondola when the merchant shepherded him back. ‘Apologies, friend. Where was I?'

Michael pulled his hood closer as a couple of bottled water merchants pushed past. ‘You were telling me about being an off-worlder.'

He scratched his goatee. ‘Well, as you know, Pacifico is a collection of ninety islands. Problem is, over the centuries, the city has grown too big. There's no more spare land to build on. So the government has passed a law that says if you're not born here, you can't be a citizen. It's afraid of further overcrowding. Can't blame it, though. There's no crime, no wars, no instability and – twelve silver crowns, thank you – no shortage of customers. Where else would you want to live?'

A skinny, brown boy with a shaved head and tattooed legs slunk across an arching footbridge, spying the baskets of fruit.

‘Although,' the sugar merchant added, ‘there's always the Scorned. Gotta keep your eye on them types. Their fingers are as fast as their feet.'

A large shadow crossed overhead, and Michael followed an odd-shaped spaceship with six glass cargo holds that glistened in the sunlight.

‘Something else you haven't seen before, eh?' the merchant said. ‘Can't imagine the Hall of Heroes ever
needing a water tanker. Is the Hall in the middle of a lake of diamonds like all the stories say?'

‘I can't really –'

‘That's okay. I understand. It's a secret and all that. Don't know why a water tanker would be visiting a place like this, though. You'd think on a water planet they'd have plenty of the stuff.' He stepped into his gondola and restacked a handful of sugarcane stalks. ‘Then again, I've heard rumours that the freshwater lake on top of the volcano has gone salty. The government is rushing in new supplies from the ice worlds every couple of days until they can build desalination plants.'

The tanker disappeared below the rooftops, prompting Michael to ask, ‘If this city is so old, why are there spaceships?'

‘My liege, with respect, even you haven't been away that long,' he said, before stopping himself. For the first time, he took note of Michael's age then, with a muddled look, continued. ‘Er, faster-than-light travel only became a commercial reality thirty years ago. It caused all sorts of headaches. Explorers and mining companies trespassed on planets that still ran on steam or coal power, like this one, and changed their whole history. No longer did these worlds want to slowly develop their own technology – they wanted the same advancements as other planets. The Universal Council had to step in and fix the mess. Most worlds are still in transition. The older civilisations are showing the younger ones like Pacifico how to advance their technology – for a hefty price, of course. Some
governments are more stubborn than others, though. They want to protect their culture and laws. They have asked to be quarantined from the rest of the universe, until they are ready for First Contact.'

‘And the Seven Worlds of Wonder?'

‘Seven planets so unique that you've got to see them to believe them. That's if you can. One or two are strictly off-limits.'

He sold three more sacks of fine white sugar to a pastry chef for a handful of coins. ‘They can't stay that way forever, though. Progress is progress. Money is opportunity.'

Watching the man count his morning's takings, Michael asked him, ‘When you sell sugar, do customers ever trade you something other than money?'

‘Plenty of times. Once, a man even offered me a jar of leeches. I said, no thank you. I'm already being drained dry by all these taxes!' When the merchant realised only he was laughing, he cleared his throat and noted with interest, ‘Why, my liege? Do you have something worth trading?'

‘I'm not sure. Can you tell me what's so special about this ring?'

He handed over the silver signet ring with the engraved ruby that Nobleman Guido had donated. The merchant's eyes widened before he almost threw it back.

‘Get rid of it! Toss it into the whirlpool! Whatever you do, don't keep it. It's a dead man's ring!'

‘A what?'

‘A cursed copper. A golden ghost. A nooseman's supper. It's called many things on many worlds, but the story's always the same: whoever finds one, normally ends up dead.'

‘Dead?'

‘Pushed out airlocks, drowned at sea … Walk into any tavern and you'll hear the tales. These things are passed among the scum of the universe. They can hide secret messages or be made into booby traps. Rarely do they pop up in the purses of commoners, though. I nearly lost my life once when this bounty hunter traded me the wrong piece of jewellery. I spent two days tracking down a customer across five planets to get it back for him. Get rid of it, I say.'

‘But how can you tell?'

‘The ruby's a fake but someone has gone to great lengths to engrave a seahorse's head on it. And this number 6-8-2235 etched under it, see? That's not a date or year I'm familiar with.'

‘Then what do these words on the outside mean? I can't read –'

The sugar merchant caught sight of a flash in the crowd and suddenly stiffened. ‘I can't help you, my liege. Please, I have customers.'

Examining the dead man's ring closer, Michael sat in the shadow of a music conservatorium, which seemed to be devoid of students, tutors or even an orchestra. He read the inscription around the silver band:
Omnes aequo animo parent ubi digni imperant
. What did that mean? Unafraid of any jinx, he pocketed the ring and
weighed the merchant's warning. If the scum of the universe did swap these pieces of jewellery, then of course some would meet horrible fates. Such was the risk of dealing with traitors and criminals.

As lunchtime approached, the crowds grew. Tourists kept the cafes busy, while gondoliers delivering parcels via pulley systems to customers high above struggled with the logjam of traffic on the canals. Michael opened his journal and sketched all that he saw: the puppeteer and his funny marionettes, florists selling floating rock gardens, a mailbox with a stony face and legs that pulled free of its wall to deliver letters, even the long-legged black harlequin himself.

The tall actor was swarmed by excited children, who pestered him to perform a trick. Silently, he removed his three-cornered hat, proved it was empty then waved it above their heads. He tapped it four times with his walking stick and – hey, presto! – bonbons rained from its middle. The children ran back through a school of bumphead parrotfish to their parents, laughing.

Michael was all smiles, too, as he squeezed down an alleyway, rounded a wellhead then excused himself past a large Scorned woman going door-to-door collecting laundry. He found two more Scorned scraping barnacles and starfish from walls, before being cut off by a posse of old swashbucklers. They disembarked from a gondola at the Sandcastle Tavern and glanced at him with suspicion as the bouncers searched them for weapons. Two moray eels with chained collars whipped from crevices flanking the doorway and snapped at him.

‘Did you see that boy on the whale shark?' one swashbuckler asked. ‘Whose guild is he with?'

‘Not ours, that's for sure,' a second answered. ‘We don't accept spies and pied pipers.'

Michael hurried past the off-worlders, troubled at what he'd overheard. It was clear they were talking about Aurelio – a spy? He didn't believe it. However, admittedly, he was unsettled that they'd found the piper on the Broken Isles playing his flute while a dangerous monster roamed.

On the other side of the capital, he was watching handymen unfurl a large banner numbered ‘300' down an art gallery's wall when he heard a woman's scream in the distance. He hurried after a group of marines towards the waterfront where the wealthiest families lived and stopped outside a four-storey mansion. A red-headed lady threw a volley of pots, pans and vases at the soldiers, then retreated in tears. ‘This is your fault!' she cried. ‘Why weren't you protecting him? He's probably dead!'

‘Move!' Captain Cavalli said, bulldozing through the people. ‘Whose house is this?'

When no one presented themselves, a Scorned maid shuffled forward, eyes down. ‘Lady Isabelle and Lord Guido's, captain,' she answered, as more utensils bounced and clanged.

‘What is the manner of this disturbance?'

‘It's the master of the house, Lord Guido, sir. He's missing.'

‘Missing?'

‘We welcomed him home from Her Majesty's banquet last night, but he failed to rise this morning. When we checked on him this hour, his bedding – have mercy – was torn apart as if by some wild animal!'