Eye of the Forest (26 page)

“It’s a thought, you know,” said Nimrod. “When human hair is bound and braided like this, it’s extremely strong. You’d probably need a very sharp machete to cut through it.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” said Groanin.

Experimentally, Nimrod bounced the blunt edge of his own machete on the handrail.

“What the heck do you think you are doing, you blithering idiot, sir?” demanded Groanin.

“The tensile strength of this hair is indeed remarkable,” said Nimrod. “Maybe as strong as steel cable.”

“I wish the same could be said of my nerves,” said Groanin, mopping his brow again. “They feel like they’ve been put through a shredding machine.”

“Relax, Groanin,” said John. “The bridge is still aloft. And we’re still here.”

“I wish I wasn’t, young Master John. I really do wish I wasn’t here at all.”

“No wishing in here,” Nimrod said sternly. “I thought I made that clear.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s just that I didn’t think that applied to me, sir. For obvious reasons.”

They walked along the bridge for another two hours before they began to see an end in sight. And near the stone anchor at the far side was a vaguely human figure. At first it looked like something vaguely monstrous and hairy, like a human-sized fly. It was only when they neared the thing that they realized it was a human being enveloped in millions of strands of the same hair from which the bridge was constructed. Nimrod put his ear to what appeared to be the head
and listened carefully. But it was Philippa who first recognized who it was.

“It’s Zadie,” she said. “Look at the boots.”

Sure enough, the hair-wrapped being was wearing Zadie’s distinctive purple boots.

“And there’s something sticking out of the mouth,” said John.

“Her toothbrush,” said Philippa.

“It is Zadie,” said Groanin. “At last, someone or something managed to stop her from dancing. She looks like a caterpillar before it becomes an insect. You know. A thingy.”

“A pupa,” said Philippa.

“Aye, a pupa,” said Groanin.

“Talk about a bad hair day,” said John.

Groanin chuckled. “That’s good. Very good.”

“Is she dead?” asked John.

“No,” said Nimrod. “Not dead. I can just about detect some signs of life. But she’s been completely immobilized, obviously. And I’ve an idea why. Look at this.” He ran his hand down from the head to what were only just recognizable as a shoulder, an arm, and then a hand. In the hand was the vague shape of something metallic.

“A machete,” said John.

“Exactly,” said Nimrod. “It would seem that this bridge is designed to protect itself against destruction. From the look of her I’d say that when she started to cut the handrail, the
hair fibers she’d severed managed to reconnect themselves. And along the way, made her a part of the bridge.”

“How are we going to get her out?” asked Philippa.

“How?” Groanin sounded outraged. “Why on earth should we bother? She was cutting the bridge. Need I remind you that we were standing on it at the time?”

“Zadie didn’t know that,” said Philippa.

“She didn’t know we weren’t, either,” said John. “I agree with Groanin. She wouldn’t bother trying to get you out.”

“We can’t just leave her here,” said Philippa.

Nimrod smiled and handed her his machete. “Would you care to try and cut her out?”

“Er, no,” admitted Philippa.

“A wise choice, Philippa,” said Nimrod. “I fear you’d only end up like her. Wrapped up like — what was it again, Groanin? A pupa. Except that this is one butterfly that’s not going to fly anywhere.”

Groanin pushed his way off the bridge to stand on the rocky outcrop on which the stone anchor had been built. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll only feel more comfortable discussing this on terra firma.”

“Me, too,” said John, joining him.

Nimrod shrugged and followed them. A set of steps led steeply up the side of a mountain and around a corner.

“Uncle Nimrod?” There was a note of strong protest in Philippa’s young voice.

“What?” said Nimrod. “Look, there’s nothing to discuss. It’s entirely up to John what happens to her now.”

“Me?” said John. “I don’t see why. I don’t even like her.”

“Hear, hear,” said Groanin. “Look what she did to Mr. Vodyannoy. Tried to kill him with one of them frogs. Not to mention that giant centipede that nearly ate me for supper. I can be quite a forgiving man, it’s true. But I draw the line in front of anyone who’s set a giant Peruvian centipede on my trail. The image of that thing underneath my hammock will live with me forever.”

“Which is about the length of time Zadie will be here, unless John releases her,” said Nimrod.

John looked at the machete in his hand uncertainly. “I don’t see why I should be the one who has to risk going the same way as her. Mr. Groanin wasn’t the only one who nearly got eaten. You’re forgetting that giant anaconda.” He shook his head.

“Need I remind you again that, whatever wrong she’s done, she has done because she was hypnotized by that scoundrel McCreeby?” asked Nimrod.

“Exactly,” said Philippa.

“I don’t care,” said John. “I’m not going to do it. She can stay there forever as far as I’m concerned. I’m not chopping this bridge. Not for her. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

“Nobody said anything about chopping the bridge with a machete, John,” said Nimrod.

“What then?” demanded Groanin. “I wish you’d make yourself clear to the lad. We’re facing nuclear annihilation,
after all. Blimey, I don’t half wish old Rakshasas was here. He certainly couldn’t make less sense than you, sir.”

“No wishing, Groanin,” said Philippa. “Try to remember.”

“Sorry, miss.”

Nimrod touched the handrail opposite the one that had enveloped Zadie in a web of human hair. “Haven’t you noticed these colored spots? They’re in the same order as the ones near the other side of the bridge.”

“So?” asked John. “What about them?”

“Well, it’s just a thought,” said Nimrod, “but it strikes me that if you were to pronounce those Quechuan words again in the same order that you learned them when you untied the knot on the Eye of the Forest, you might very well facilitate the release of Zadie.” John thought for a moment.

“What if I can’t remember them?” said John.

“Then I suppose poor Zadie will be hair for the rest of her life,” said Nimrod.

Groanin chuckled. “That’s good, too,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” said Philippa.

But John and Groanin were laughing.

“John,” said Philippa. “This is me talking. I know you’re lying. I know you can remember the words. And you know I know.”

“Yes,” sighed John. “All right. I’ll do it. But she’d better be grateful. Not to mention a lot easier to get along with than she was before.”

“Amen to that,” said Groanin.

“If she gets out of line, I’ll zap her myself,” said Philippa.

Nimrod winced. “I do so hate that expression. Zap. It makes you sound like a pest controller.”

“Zadie is a pest,” said Groanin. “And she does need to be controlled.”

John frowned as he tried to remember the words.
“Yana chunka,”
he said.
“Yuraj pusaj. Puka tawa. Willapi qanchis.
What was it now?
Kellu kinsa. Komer phisqa. Sutijankas iskay. Kulli sojta. Chixchi jison.
Wait a minute.” He tapped his forehead impatiently. “Yes, I’ve got it.
Chunpi uj.”

Immediately when John had uttered the last Quechuan syllable, the hair binding Zadie to the bridge started to unravel. It was like watching a time lapse film of a plant growing, only in reverse. Several minutes passed before Zadie was able to speak. And when she was finally free she spent several more minutes weeping and apologizing for all her bad deeds.

“I couldn’t even speak my focus word,” she said through gulps of tearful air. “As soon as I had cut some of the hair, it bound my jaws tight together. If I hadn’t had my toothbrush in my mouth, the bridge would have smothered me.”

Zadie was still holding the machete and the realization that she might have been killed was enough provocation for her to take another swing at the handrail of the bridge, cutting more of the hairs so that once again she was quickly enveloped in another massive beehive of human hair.

Groanin groaned loudly. “Flipping heck,” he complained. “Is the girl daft or what? I mean, you’d think she’d have learned her lesson, wouldn’t you?”

“Actually,” said Nimrod. “It’s my fault. I completely forgot to bring her out of the hypnotic state that McCreeby put her in.”

Once again, John was obliged to repeat the Incan words of command. Only this time, Nimrod relieved Zadie of the machete as soon as she had been released by the hair.

“I think I’ll take that,” said Nimrod. “Just in case.”

And his voice had altered. To the others he sounded exactly like Virgil McCreeby. It was the first time they realized that among his many other talents, Nimrod was also a brilliant mimic.

“Listen to me, Zadie,” he said. “Listen to my voice. And only my voice. Forget everything else. Only my voice matters. When I snap my fingers, you will no longer be hypnotized. You will come out of the trance I put you in and behave quite normally. You will remember everything. But you will behave quite normally.”

Nimrod snapped his fingers in front of Zadie’s eyes.

She blinked and looked around with a look of bewilderment. “Oh,” she said, and bit her lip as a tear welled up in her eye. “Oh.”

Nimrod put an arm around Zadie’s shoulders to comfort her. For a moment, Zadie could not speak. Then she said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the terrible things I’ve done. I owe all of you an apology. I don’t have an excuse, only an
explanation. I did all that I did because I thought I was in love with Buck. But I realize now I wasn’t in love with him at all. Dybbuk and Virgil McCreeby were using me. I know that now.”

“It’s all right,” said Philippa, taking Zadie’s hand and squeezing it affectionately. “You were hypnotized. You couldn’t help yourself.”

“Yes,” said Zadie, realizing this for the first time. “I was, wasn’t I?” Then she shuddered. “When the bridge wrapped me up with hair, Dybbuk didn’t even stop to try and rescue me. He said he’d come back and rescue me when his power was restored. But I just knew he was lying. And that he would never come back for me. Just as he didn’t try to find me when the Xuanaci were holding us prisoner.”

“I’m afraid we’ve no time for explanations now,” said Nimrod. “But one thing I must tell you, Zadie, and it’s extremely important. On no account must you use your djinn power while we’re on this side of the Eye of the Forest. There’s an Enantodromian wish at work here. That’s a wish that —”

“I know what an Enantodromian wish is,” said Zadie. “Whatever you wish for with djinn power you get the exact opposite.” She nodded. “It would certainly explain the midget submarine. I can’t tell you how mad they were when that happened. McCreeby bashed his head and is making no sense at all. I think he has a concussion. And Buck called me the most useless djinn he’d ever met and said I was of no use to him if I couldn’t fly them across a chasm. I tried to explain
about the whirlwind situation, and how nobody can make one right now, but he simply didn’t believe me. After that, I think he was just looking for an excuse to leave me behind. Sometimes —” She shook her head, exasperated. “You know, sometimes it seems like there are two Bucks. Good Buck and Bad Buck.”

“You say more than you know,” said Nimrod. “Come on. We’d better move.”

I
n the beginning, when first they had met and Dybbuk had been feeling quite sorry for himself about losing all his djinn power, he had quite liked Zadie — enough to allow himself to believe that he was as fond of her as she appeared to be of him. But that had been before he guessed that Virgil McCreeby had hypnotized her into believing she was in love with Dybbuk, as a way of making her obey him. Dybbuk was satisfied he himself had not been hypnotized. But at the same time, he half wondered if McCreeby hadn’t been using Zadie as a way of controlling him, too, by way of ensuring that it was McCreeby who remained in charge of things and not Dybbuk.

Since this discovery, Zadie had become something of a nuisance to Dybbuk. Clingy and overattentive, she was always looking at him, smiling in a cloying, saccharine-sweet sort of way, reciting the love poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, humming happily, and trying to stroke his hair or move it
back from his brow so that she could look him tenderly in the eye. Dybbuk loathed people trying to touch his hair. Especially when they were humming or reciting poetry. Even if they had been hypnotized into behaving in that way.

And then, of course, there was the tap dancing and the toothbrush that was forever in her mouth like a lollipop. Those things really drove Dybbuk mad. So, all in all, he was quite pleased when at last they were able to leave Zadie behind. Besides, they had little choice but to do so. It was clear that any attempt by himself or Virgil McCreeby to cut the hairs of the rope bridge that now held her fast would only have resulted in their getting tied up like Zadie. He felt sorry for her, sure. It was a tough break, her ending up looking like a set of New Jersey hair extensions, but what was he to do? It wasn’t like he had any djinn power to help her.

Dybbuk leaned as close as he dared to Zadie’s nearly mummified head and told her that after his power had been restored he would come back and try to help her out. At the same time, however, somewhere inside himself he knew the truth was different and that in all likelihood he probably wouldn’t bother. As soon as he had his power again, he was planning to make a whirlwind and fly off to the Bahamas for a few weeks. On his own.

Virgil McCreeby ought to have been more upset about leaving Zadie behind than he was, reflected Dybbuk. After all, he stood to lose the three wishes she had promised him for helping them. Then again, he was hardly himself since the blow on the head he had received when the plane/submarine
Zadie had made for their journey across the chasm crash-landed. McCreeby had hit his head hard on the periscope, and Dybbuk had been obliged to drag him out. Ever since then, McCreeby had been repeating himself and looked puzzled whenever Dybbuk told him something. Dybbuk guessed he had a concussion. He himself was still puzzled how a small plane ended up turning into a midget submarine. Was it just Zadie’s incompetence as a djinn, or something else? Some other manifestation of djinn power interfering with hers, perhaps? Nimrod’s, or the twins’. Or even Manco Capac’s.

So, leaving the bridge and Zadie behind, Dybbuk and McCreeby proceeded up a winding yellow stone path above the chasm. It was a bracing walk and the clear mountain air tasted pure and sweet. Even McCreeby seemed invigorated. He kept inhaling noisily through his nostrils like a personal trainer trying to enthuse a client. And, after an hour or two, McCreeby had sufficiently recovered his senses to notice Zadie was no longer with them. But when he asked where she was, Dybbuk felt obliged to provide him with an answer that would not delay their steady progress up the mountain for long. Indeed, he felt quite justified in filling McCreeby’s head with what he wanted him to believe because that was, he strongly suspected, what McCreeby had been doing to him with Zadie.

“She’s dead,” he said, affecting some sadness.

“Dead?” repeated McCreeby. “How? What on earth happened?”

“You really don’t remember it?”

“I think it’s not that I don’t remember,” said McCreeby. “It’s just that I’ve not been thinking straight since we were in a midget submarine. Can that be right?”

Dybbuk nodded. “You had a blow on the head, that’s all.”

“I’m better now. So tell me about Zadie.”

“Well,” said Dybbuk, “do you remember when you told her to cut the bridge? With a machete? To stop anyone like Nimrod from coming after us?”

“Did I?”

“Yes,” lied Dybbuk, “you did.” In fact, it was Dybbuk himself who had suggested that Zadie do this. “And you remember how it was made of human hair?”

“Yes,” said McCreeby, “I do remember that much. Who’d have thought there were so many Incas willing to have a haircut?”

“So, when Zadie cut the bridge, some of the hair fibers, well, they sort of came alive, like a boa constrictor, and strangled her as they repaired the bridge. Before she could utter her focus word, the hair had wrapped itself around her neck. There was nothing she or I could do.”

“Good grief,” said McCreeby. “Poor Zadie.”

“Could have happened to any of us,” said Dybbuk, and shrugged nonchalantly.

“To any of us who had cut the bridge with a machete, you mean,” said McCreeby.

Dybbuk nodded gravely. “You were very brave,” he said.

“Was I?”

“Yes. Don’t you remember? You tried to cut some of the hair that was strangling her with your own machete and narrowly escaped being strangled yourself.”

“Good grief,” said McCreeby. “It sounds as if I had a lucky escape.”

“You’re very lucky, yes. I’d say so.”

“Then again. Poor Zadie. Dead, you say?”

“Dead.”

“That’s a pity,” said McCreeby. He made a tutting sound and then kicked a stone out of his path. “She was going to give old Virgil McCreeby three wishes. I was rather counting on those. Just to protect myself from Nimrod.”

“I’ll give you an extra three myself,” said Dybbuk. “When my own power is restored. To make up for the three you’ve lost from her.”

Of course, McCreeby ought to have contradicted him. Told him that a fourth wish always undid the first three. But he didn’t. And Dybbuk concluded that maybe McCreeby hadn’t yet completely recovered from the bump on his head. Either that or he was too diplomatic to contradict him. After all, without Dybbuk, Virgil McCreeby had no chance of getting even three wishes.

They walked on, and after another hour or so they came around a corner to see where the yellow stone path led through an avenue of tall, sinuous plants. These were about the height of a man, brown, with a bright pink flower like a drainpipe, and looked vaguely fungal. At first, Dybbuk thought it was the wind. And it was only after watching them
for almost a whole minute that he noticed the plants were moving very slightly, like a strange species of undersea animal. It was then he realized the plants were probably carnivorous.

“What are we waiting for?” asked McCreeby and, pushing past Dybbuk, stepped onto the path. “Paititi is just up ahead of us.”

Dybbuk grabbed McCreeby’s pack and hauled him back. “What is it? What’s the problem?”

“Watch,” said Dybbuk as a small tapir came blundering onto the path.

The pink flowers turned in the direction of the animal as if they possessed eyes. The next second, Dybbuk and McCreeby heard a series of spitting sounds, and then gasped as they saw several sharp tubular filaments fired from each flower, like a dart from a blowpipe, that hit the tapir’s leathery gray flesh. A split second later, the animal hit the ground, dead. Another few seconds passed and these tubular filaments filled with red. It was like watching a transfusion in a hospital. The plants were drinking the tapir’s blood.

“Good grief,” said McCreeby. “Those plants are carnivorous.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” observed Dybbuk.

“Sort of like Venus flytraps, but on a larger scale.”

“Much larger. I’d say they could kill a man, wouldn’t you?”

One of the plants stopped gulping for a moment and let out a noise that sounded very much like a burp.

“Since we have to get past them without getting hit with a poison dart ourselves, I suggest we take advantage of the fact that they’re feeding and move past them as quickly as possible,” Dybbuk suggested.

And before McCreeby could say anything, Dybbuk sprinted along the path and past the vampire plants.

“Good idea,” said McCreeby, and ran after him. Which Dybbuk thought was unusually courageous for a man he considered a craven coward, and he concluded that McCreeby was indeed still suffering the effects of his concussion.

But not every plant had fired a filamented dart at the tapir and, as McCreeby hurried up the path, two of the plants spat their lethal feeding apparatus at him. One missed him altogether. The other hit McCreeby’s backpack. It was lucky for him the pack was so large. The magician did not notice, however, and kept on running. At least he did until the filament reached its full length and brought him and his pack up short; such was the strength in the dart and the filament that it jerked McCreeby off his feet.

As he hit the ground hard, his mess tin, knife, fork, and mug slipped out of the top of the poorly fastened backpack. McCreeby lay there for a moment, waving his arms and legs, trying to right himself, like a great black beetle.

“I say, help,” yelled McCreeby. “Those horrible things have got their hooks into me.”

Dybbuk made a noise like a bassoon and rolled his eyes up to the top of his long-haired head. Yet he had little choice but to turn back and help McCreeby. In his backpack,
McCreeby was carrying Manco Capac’s golden staff and some of the other Incan artifacts needed for the
kutumunkichu
ritual. Without those, the journey to Paititi would have been a complete waste of time.

Reaching McCreeby, he flipped him over onto his stomach and sliced the vampire plant’s filament off the dart with his machete. Oozing a surprising quantity of malodorous red liquid onto the yellow stone path, the filament snaked back to its owner like the tentacle of an injured octopus. But Dybbuk was even more surprised to hear the plant emit a loud hissing noise, like a threatened cockroach.

McCreeby picked himself up and shuddered with disgust. “Ugh,” he said. “Horrible, horrible, horrible. Did you see it? That big ugly potted plant almost got me.”

Virgil McCreeby looked at his backpack, wrinkled his nose with horror, and pulled the slimy dart out of his pack. It was about six inches long, barbed, and as sharp as the spine on a cactus. He threw it away before picking up the several objects that had bounced out of his backpack.

“Thanks a lot, Dybbuk,” said McCreeby, forgetting just for a moment the boy djinn’s enormous sensitivity regarding his oddish name.

“Buck,” said Dybbuk. “Just Buck, okay?”

Not more than an hour away from the vampire plants, the lost city of Paititi lay on a ridge that rose like a tall crown in the middle of the cloud-filled valley. A more magical place
could hardly have been imagined, thought Dybbuk. Even by a djinn. A narrow landing strip of rock led out on to the summit and the main buildings which, although obviously Incan in their origin, were in a much better state of repair than Machu Picchu, or for that matter, the Eye of the Forest. Although worn and smoothed by time, none of the large, ingeniously placed, perfectly fitting stones were overgrown like other Incan ruins. The squarish buildings themselves were little more than shells, however, without windows or doors and no obvious purpose except that one of them was filled with Incan weapons and armor. The main central building was different, however. This was shaped like a small dome and was chiefly remarkable for its heavy golden door.

“A palace?” said McCreeby.

“Could be,” said Dybbuk.

“Just look at this door, Buck,” said McCreeby breathlessly. “It’s even bigger than the one in the Eye. And it’s solid gold. This must be priceless.”

Dybbuk shrugged. He wasn’t much interested in gold. There had been a time when he’d been able to make the stuff appear with just a word and he’d never really understood why mundanes were so fascinated with it. Gold was just a metal, after all. More brightly colored than iron and copper but a metal nonetheless. Power was what interested him. Djinn power. Especially now that he didn’t have any.

More curious than the fact that the door was made of solid gold was the design engraved upon it, which appeared to be that of a large mushroom.

“Mushroom worshippers?” said Dybbuk, and laughed.

“Very likely,” agreed McCreeby.

“I was joking,” said Dybbuk.

“I’m not. Certain kinds of mushrooms were sacred to the Incas. And more especially to their holy men. They called them
teonanactl,
or the ‘flesh of the gods.’ The Aztecs actually considered these mushrooms divine.”

“I hate mushrooms,” Dybbuk sneered. “I can never imagine why anyone would want to eat a fungus.”

“When the Incan priests ate these mushrooms, they thought they saw visions. But quite what mushrooms have to do with the
kutumunkichu
ritual, I have no idea.”

“Maybe we’ll find out inside,” said Dybbuk, and pushed open the heavy gold door.

“Look how heavy the door is,” said McCreeby. “And how snugly it fits the doorway. Those Incas were amazing engineers, when you think about it.”

Even Dybbuk had to admit that McCreeby was right. The dome itself was perfectly spherical like a bubble and about thirty or forty feet tall. Each of its giant, smooth stones had been fitted together perfectly. Inside, the atmosphere was cool, almost clinical. A series of stone steps led up to a circular white rock, in the center of which was a tall rod made of gold.

“It’s almost as if the dome had been built to contain something,” observed McCreeby as he mounted the steps. “Hey, come and look at this.”

Dybbuk came up the steps, and standing beside him, saw
that the gold rod descended for several hundred feet below them into the darkness. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” said McCreeby.

“So what do we do now?”

McCreeby shrugged. “According to the ancient chronicle that was dictated by the Incan priest Ti Cosi, the final part of the
kutumunkichu
ritual would be found in here.”