Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

Once again they were back on the shore.

“We should have gone to Ayacucho,” Pedro said.

“I know. I’m sorry. Why did you decide to come along?”

“Because of the man who died. Micos. He died because he wanted to help us. And at the end, when he only had one breath left, he told us to go to Cuzco. It was that important to him. If we didn’t do as he said, his ghost would never forgive us.”

“Do you know anything about Cuzco?” Matt asked.

“Not much. Sebastian went there once and he didn’t like it. It’s a long way away… high up in the mountains. Sebastian told me that you can’t breathe properly because there isn’t enough air. A lot of tourists go there.” Pedro thought for a moment. “It’s not far from a place called Machu Picchu, which is where the Incas used to live.”

“What about the temple of Coricancha?

“I’ve never heard of it.”

The two of them sat in silence for a minute. But in this strange world, a minute could have been an hour or even a day.

“So who do you think he was?” Pedro asked. “He said his name was Micos but he didn’t tell us anything else. And what about the man with the big head? That was Salamanda.”

“Yes.” Matt shuddered.

“I’ve never seen anyone like him. I mean, there are people in Lima with no legs and no arms and stuff like that. You see it all the time. But he was a freak. A real freak. And he was evil. It was like it was oozing from him. He made me want to be sick.”

“Yes. I felt the same.”

Matt glanced at the boat with the cat’s-head prow. He thought that quite soon, he and Pedro must leave the dream island. There was a whole dream world to explore.

“Listen, Pedro,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about everything that’s been happening. It’s all happened so fast – the airport, meeting you, all the rest of it – I didn’t have a chance to work it out. But now I have. And maybe I’ve been stupid. I may have got it all wrong.”

He paused.

“Let’s start with Salamanda. He’s our enemy. He’s the one who wants to open the gate. He must have paid someone to kill William Morton and take the diary. But it wasn’t Salamanda who snatched Richard. He more or less told me that himself. He didn’t even know Richard had been kidnapped.”

“Then who…?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking. Richard and I arrive in Lima and we’re met by a driver who says that he’s working for Fabian. He tells us his name is Alberto but he could have been anyone. He heads for a hotel where Captain Rodriguez and the police are waiting for us. We’re walking into a trap.

“But on the way, another bunch of people run into us. They shoot at the driver and try to grab us. They take Richard, but I get away.”

“They were trying to stop you! They didn’t want you to go to the hotel because they knew the police were there!”

Matt nodded. “That’s right. Micos was one of them. I recognized him at the hacienda. He was there, with them, in Lima. And last night, he must have followed us somehow to Salamanda’s place. Or maybe he was always waiting for me to show up.”

“Maybe he could have told you where your friend is.”

“I wish he’d told us more. Who he was. Who he was working for.”

“He didn’t know he was going to die.” Pedro thought for a moment. “This temple…”

“Coricancha. If we can find it, maybe we can find Richard.” Matt picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea. It made no sound as it hit the water. “How long will it take us to reach Cuzco?”

“They said twenty hours when I bought the tickets.”

“Well, if we can sleep most of the time, at least we can talk.”

“Yes.” Pedro frowned. “What about this place, Matteo? Where are we now? How come we can understand each other… and remember everything when we wake up?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “When I met you here on this island, I hoped you’d be able to tell me.”

“No chance. I don’t know anything about anything. I’m just me. I do juggling and I steal from tourists. It’s all a mystery, and how I got mixed up with you is the biggest mystery of all.”

“Then let’s get moving.” Matt stood up. “I think we should get off this island. You’ve got a boat. We can take it.”

“Where?”

“There are five of us, Pedro. That’s what this is all about. We have to find the other three.”

The two of them went over to the boat and dragged it off the shingle. Matt climbed in and Pedro pushed off. Suddenly, the mainland looked a long way away. Matt looked up. The sky, still black, was clear. The huge swan hadn’t returned.

The swan. Salamanda had been talking about it in his dining room.

The silver swan must be in position five days from now…

That was what Salamanda had said, but what did he mean? Did he have the power to enter this dream world? Was the swan in some way controlled by him?

Matt shivered. Pedro leapt in, water dripping from his ankles and feet. The boat seemed to have a life of its own. Almost at once it turned away from the island and, picking up speed, it carried them out to sea.

Matt jolted awake again.

The bus had stopped at a crossroads with a few ramshackle buildings and stalls selling food and drink. The old woman who had been sitting next to him got off and Pedro, carrying two bottles of water and some more rolls, was able to join him. As the doors hissed shut and they set off again, Matt remembered the piece of paper that they had found in Salamanda’s study and took it out again.

It had been photocopied from the diary. He was sure of it. The entire page was covered in lines, some of them forming shapes. There was a sort of rectangle that narrowed at one end. A drawing of what looked like an elaborate spider. And there was writing everywhere, going in every direction, some of it so tiny that it would have been unreadable even if it had been in English. There were four lines in the very centre of the page. They looked like a verse from a poem. And in the bottom, left-hand corner, a blazing sun and two words in capital letters:

Was that Spanish? Somehow it didn’t sound like it. What did the page mean and why had Salamanda felt the need to photocopy it? Matt folded the paper away. He would solve the mystery later, once he had found Richard.

They drove on.

The countryside was changing. It was much more mountainous, covered in dense green vegetation. The road, which had been straight before, now continued in a series of hairpin bends as the bus climbed ever higher. Matt remembered what Pedro had said and sniffed the air cautiously. It was definitely getting thinner. Even the colour of the sky was different; a harder, more electric blue. There were farmhouses, thrown onto the upper slopes as if by chance, and strange fortresses, small and circular, built of solid stone. It would be impossible to grow anything here, or so Matt thought. But then they turned another corner and he saw that someone -the local Indians or some civilization before them – had carved fantastic terraces into the sides of the hills, shoring them up with boulders and then planting them with crops. It must have been the labour of hundreds of years.

They passed through villages and then towns. Everything was strange here, quite different from the other side of Peru… more ancient and spectacular. The mountains were huge, enclosing everything. And then the bus reached the top of a valley and Matt saw the city of Cuzco spread out in front of him. It was like nothing he had ever seen in his life.

It really wasn’t like a city at all. That was his first thought. There were no skyscrapers, no office blocks, no main roads, no traffic lights nor even very much traffic. Cuzco was like something out of a storybook, and one written a long time ago. Looking out of the bus window, Matt saw a central square dominated by two Spanish cathedrals and all around, neat, white-fronted houses with terracotta roofs that continued in a sprawl for what looked like several miles, to the foothills on the other side.