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Pulling Ethan roughly towards himself, despite Ethan’s reluctance, Tariro gave him a hug. “As usual, you two took so long, Ethan, we thought you had drowned. Not that we would miss you, but I have grown rather fond of Jimoh.” He put an arm around Jimoh’s neck, pulling his head down into an arm lock, spilling his sopping wet hat onto the floor, and ruffled his hair with a fist. “Fisi didn’t have a great crossing,” he added, cocking his head towards the back of the group of men. Ethan opened his mouth to protest. He had not taken a long time. He had hardly run out of breath. But when he looked in the direction Tariro indicated he frowned worriedly.

Fisi looked terrible. He walked over unsteadily, smoothing back his bedraggled brindle hair. The deep growl in the back of his throat adjusted itself into a hawking and spitting as he advanced.
 

“I ran out of air,” he complained. He mimicked Tariro by hugging first Jimoh, and then Ethan, his gesture stiff, his eyes darting warily from Sobek to Sobek. Ethan wondered if Fisi had been frightened by his underwater swim or if he had a reason to be afraid of the Sobek. Could Salih have misplaced his trust? Should they all be afraid of the Sobek? He stifled a shiver when he thought of the dragon.

The crowd parted and a thickset man in a white linen kanga with shiny gold tassels, wandered forward in no particular hurry. Hanging from around his neck was a splendid gold breastplate in the shape of a stylised hawk. Its wings spread-eagled across his chest, each feather intricately carved and inlaid with jewels, each talon gripping a ruby the size of an eagle egg.

Ethan shrank back involuntarily, tightening his grip on his rolled up cargo pants. He wondered if those rubies had come from the sinkhole. Then he pulled himself together and stood beside Salih while the man inspected each one of them for a long while, his thin black crocodile pupils narrowing disconcertingly at the exact moment Ethan hoped he would not find out about the gems he’d stolen. Could it have been a coincidence? The man’s eyes shifted to Tariro, who gazed back at his breastplate in stunned awe.
 

He glanced almost dismissively over Fisi before coming to rest on Jimoh. Such a powerful ripple of excitement and pleasure passed over the man, that Ethan stifled a small gasp and reached out a hand to grip Salih, wondering if Jimoh were in danger, but Salih looked unafraid, and Jimoh appeared not to have felt it at all.

The man turned immediately towards Ethan, as if to allay any fears. “I am Kashka,” he said evenly. Ethan found, if he cocked his head just slightly, he could almost make out the words. Salih translated anyway.

Ethan stepped forward and held his hand out, bracing for another forceful, finger-crushing grip. “I am Ethan,” he said, turning to introduce the others, but Salih interrupted.

“He knows that, Ethan. That is what he has been finding out since he came in. He hears every thought that passes through your head. They all do.”

Oh drat
, thought Ethan, trying desperately not to think of gems, or bloodletting. No wonder Fisi had been so jumpy. He wondered what the hyena youth had to hide. Kashka smiled, momentarily revealing faint traces of the green and grey markings of crocodile in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t say anything about gems, or offer any comment on what he had read in Fisi, just motioned for everyone to follow him.

Kashka herded them to the back of the cavern where they climbed up a flight of steps into a narrow tunnel. The boys and Salih looked curiously from side to side as they passed by a row of subterranean caves, each with a fire pit in the middle and a chimney funnel leading up to the surface overhead. Hundreds of small square scraps of reflective metal hung down, catching and multiplying the sunlight as it shone down through the funnels. Cave paintings and murals decorated almost every wall.

Some caves had clay shelves running along one or two of their walls where Sobek people and a few crocodiles lounged on pallets chatting to one another or playing a complicated-looking game with sticks and stones. Kashka turned in to a cave with four small alcoves scooped out of a wall about waist height off the ground. Bedrolls, in the same colourful cottons as their Kangas, were stacked neatly in each alcove. Three walls were decorated with murals depicting scenes that looked remarkably like Tjalotjo village and Crystal Pools. A large cartoon mahobohobo tree loomed over a cartoon pool, with a set of rapids and an unmistakable baobab tree in the distance. Even the intricate map depicted beside it looked familiar.

Ethan watched as Jimoh ran his finger over an illustration, which could easily have been himself in his hat. “Who does painting?” he asked, his eyes wide with wonder.
 

Kashka adjusted his voice a couple of octaves higher and spoke a little faster. “Each clan paints its own area,” he said. His rich, low tone still boomed around the cavern, but was a lot easier to follow.

He motioned for the boys to take a seat on the floor after unloading their backpacks beside the remainder of their equipment, which had been stacked neatly in a corner of the cave by a Sobek.

“They get the oxide from merchant vessels on the larger rivers when they travel,” Kashka continued, once they had seated themselves around him. “They go off into the world from time to time in crocodile form in pairs or in groups and when they return they paint the story of their travels for future generations.”
 

From Salih’s sharp intake of breath, Ethan got the feeling he was surprised that the Sobek came and went so freely without him and his witch friends even knowing it.

“Amun and Darwishi will add to these paintings once they have changed back into their man form. They have been studying the people at Crystal Pool,” Kashka explained.
 

Young men and women, carrying wooden bowls piled high with fish and some sort of dried root vegetable, interrupted his narration just long enough for Ethan to whisper a warning to Tariro that Kashka and the rest of the Sobek could read his mind.

“You mean they have been hanging around Crystal Pools reading everyone’s minds all this time?” Tariro gasped, his face a picture of horror. Ethan grinned. He could not tell if Tariro was more shocked at the thought of having his mind read, or if he had just discovered that the beautifully presented fish he had just bitten into was completely raw. Ethan had to admit, Tariro could be very entertaining when he wasn’t vying for Joe’s attention all the time – quite likeable even.
 

“Yes, and infusing the pool with health and well-being in exchange,” Kashka said, a little sternly, but without malice.

While Kashka explained how the magic they’d seen floating on the surface of the water was absorbed by the crocodiles and slowly released into the water at Crystal Pools for the benefit of all who swam there, in exchange for the privilege of studying them – a long standing arrangement from many years ago – Salih took the opportunity to have a private conversation with Ethan.
 

“I believe you have taken some stones,” he said, his expression set for scolding.
 

Ethan tightened his grip on his rolled up cargo pants guiltily. “We took them in the hope of ransoming Joe.” He swallowed and looked Salih straight in the eye. “You said yourself, we would probably have to give them something. We did offer to put them back.” He was about to start emptying his pocket to return the gems to Kashka but the Sobek’s hand shot out and covered Ethan’s to stop him. Kashka shifted his voice an octave lower again and rumbled deeply and unintelligibly to Salih.
 

“Stop!” Salih flashed a warning at Ethan. “You must not show the gems to the other boys. Kashka knows why you took them. He says it is not up to him whether you keep them or not. The gems do not belong to the Sobek.” Salih’s pupils narrowed to thin slits and his tail swished anxiously. “He says it was very brave of you to steal them from the Mokele Mbembe. I have heard of this thing, Ethan, and it is very dangerous, even for me.”
 

Ethan knew without asking that the Mokele Mbembe was the dragon-like creature that had flashed into his mind in the sinkhole. So that was what Darwishi had been trying to tell him.

An expression that might have been fear crossed Salih’s face when Ethan remembered the thing. “Yes!” he confirmed. “Apparently, he is asleep in one of the tunnels at the moment but if he had been awake there would have been an accounting. As it is, he will go in search of his treasures when he wakes up. Kashka says, even though the treasure looks like many, Mokele Mbembe knows each stone intimately. He will be able to tell if some are missing and will be able to track them down.”
 

Another rumbled exchange between Kashka and Salih followed. “They don’t want anyone bringing strangers to this place to die in an attempt to reach the stones either,” Salih continued to interpret into Ethan’s head. “There is a spell on the hole. Anyone who dives down the hole for them dies with the pain.”
 

Or they get the bends, thought Ethan, but a knot of tension was growing in his stomach. He wished he did not have to keep the gems a secret but there was no way he was giving them up. He might need them to get Joe back. On the other hand, he was having a hard enough time keeping Tariro and Fisi out of his sweets and his personal backpack. They would find the gems sooner or later and guess where they came from. He was pretty sure Fisi was able to coerce the source of the gems out of him if he wanted to.

Kashka’s features relaxed into a gracious smile as he spoke to Salih. “He does not want to take them back. He says your lives may depend on them,” Salih said. “Although he is unable to explain how they do it, he says the Sobek feel some events in advance. For instance, Amun and Darwishi had been expecting the witch.” He looked quite perturbed at that news, and then adopted his usual expression of studied nonchalance. He arched his back and stood up. “Just be careful who you give them to because Mokele Mbembe will catch up with them. Even the Almohad do not deserve the dragon.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Tariro said, evidently beginning to get irritated with the private exchange.

“Oh, sorry, Tariro,” Ethan said. “The two of them are discussing a dragon. Nothing to worry about, apparently he is sleeping.”

“As if!” Tariro laughed.

“Okay, they are planning our next move,” Ethan said, and true to Ethan’s word, Salih sat down again and explained to Kashka how Joe had exchanged places with the witch, and how Amun and Darwishi had agreed to guide the boys to Karibu to rescue him. Ethan interpreted for the boys, feeling more and more wretched as he realised that while he had been fretting and complaining about having to go and rescue Joe, worrying about his own personal safety, Jimoh’s family and friends had been losing the magic the crocodiles brought to the pool.

He hadn’t really believed in the magic, although he had been surprised at the contentment of the villagers with their meager lot. He wondered how powerful the infusion was, and how much it contributed to that contentment. Had the Tjalotjo villagers known, and given the magic up willingly to save Joe? He vowed to himself that if he survived the rescue attempt and got home to Cape Town, and his step-dad’s millions, he would do everything in his power to help the kraal.

“Do not assume they need help, Ethan,” Kashka said quietly. “Although it will take a long time to get others to the Crystal Pool, and Tjalotjo village will be vulnerable while the magic is not there, they will manage.” Then he said, louder, so that everyone could hear. “As fascinated as I am with your thought patterns, there is one here who has travelled. He can help you to plan for your quest. I will take you to him.”

~~~

Kashka led them up a long flight of ancient steps to a series of sinkholes closer to the surface. The afternoon sun streamed in through a hole in the ceiling only ten metres or so above their heads. Water from an artesian well gurgled and bubbled to the surface through a small fissure in the rock below and pooled at their feet before meandering away into the darkness of the passage from where they had entered. Ethan could hardly take his eyes off it, as it shimmered golden and petrol blue, and almost syrupy with magic.
 

Amun and Darwishi, still in crocodile form – but looking softer somehow – and five Sobek men joined the boys and Salih, who seated themselves on rocks in a crescent around Kashka.
 

A Sobek man with a boxer’s build, seated besides Kashka, rubbed his huge sapphire pendant between thumb and forefinger reflecting on Salih and each one of the boys in turn, then rose from his rock, nimbly for one so muscle-bound, and broke a branch from a small tree that grew out of the side of the cavern where the sun shone.
 

He cleared his throat. “I am Nuru,” he said in his deep voice. Ethan glanced at Jimoh and Tariro. They had understood the man perfectly. He’d been somewhat easier to understand than Kashka. Ethan wondered if he travelled because he could be understood more clearly, or if he had learned to articulate himself better because he travelled.

Nuru drew a large oval in the sand at their feet. “This is our lake,” he explained, “and this is where you came in.” He added a winding tail to one end of the oval he had drawn. “Amun has told of your quest to rescue your brother from the magic forest that lies above us.” He jabbed his stick towards the ceiling.

“It will not be easy,” he went on, flashing a rueful smile. “You could go back the same way you came and forget the boy, but it will be a lot harder to climb up the waterfall to the river from within the Mokele Mbembe hole than it was to fall in.”

“There is no way I am going back that way!” Tariro gasped in dismay. “We had better find another way home. That was too creepy, even for me.”

It was too creepy for Ethan too. He shivered at the thought of the dragon. Thank goodness he had found a quiet moment to warn Jimoh to keep the gems a secret; if they survived their journey, he wouldn’t put it past Tariro to overcome his trepidation and come back for more. Even if he told Tariro Mokele Mbembe was the name of a dragon, not the name of the sinkhole, Tariro would never believe him.