He turned back as Jifaar continued. “Like the Zeusite you’ve got there, Theo, Gorgonite seeks to bring out the true essence of a person. If the individual who owns it is inherently evil, the stone will quickly enhance that evil, making that poor soul’s blackest thoughts even darker. Most people have some good in them, so many of us are soon repulsed by the stone and will resist handling it. I myself cannot work with it without wearing my protective gloves.” Jifaar pointed to some thick woolen gloves on the bench. “And even wearing those and all of my best calming crystals, I must be careful to work only for short periods with the stone so that my thoughts do not become too dark.”
“Why would you be making a chess set out of it, then?” Ian demanded, shocked that Jifaar would be so irresponsible as to make something he could sell to some poor unsuspecting person that would turn them evil.
Jifaar sighed heavily, as if he carried a great burden. “A long time ago, when I was a poor youth and my older brother still ruled the Jstor, I was trying to find my place in the world. I loved searching for valuable treasure in the hills near here and turning the gems I found into pendants, bracelets, rings, and such. It was my mother who suggested I find a way to make my living at it, and so, I traveled the world in search of teachers to apprentice under.
“As an apprentice, I was given the smallest of stipends, and I eventually ran out of money while I was in London, learning from a master craftsman there.” Ian now knew how Jifaar had come to speak such perfect English.
“I’d made some pretty rings and pendants out of the small amount of gold I had left to sell in one of the London markets,” Jifaar continued, “and one day a man came to my stall and offered me a great deal of money to craft him two chess sets out of a strange black stone I’d never seen before. I gladly accepted his offer, but shortly after I began to work with his pieces, I started having dark thoughts, which soon led to terrible violent outbursts. I got into fights and yelled at patrons, and the master craftsman who had taken me on as his apprentice quickly told me to leave his shop and never return.”
“When did you realize that all of that was because of the crystals the man had given you?” Ian asked.
“Not long afterward,” said Jifaar. “I had rented a room and stored the Gorgonite under a floorboard there for safe-keeping while I was out looking for more work, and I began to realize that all of these dark thoughts seemed to occur only when I was working on the chess pieces.”
“Then what happened?” asked Carl.
“I started avoiding my commission,” Jifaar said. “I simply couldn’t bring myself to work with the Devil’s Stone again. Eventually, the man who had paid for their creation found me and discovered that I had foolishly spent most of his money, and that I was only finished with half of the chess pieces.”
“So what did you do?” Ian asked, gripped by the story.
“What could I do?” said Jifaar, raising both hands in surrender. “He was a very frightening man. I sensed that he could cause me great harm if he wanted to and I was terrified that he would kill me or report me to the authorities, so I begged him to show mercy. He did but he forced me into an agreement, one that I regret to this day.”
“Whatever did you agree to?” Theo asked.
“He made me promise to finish his pieces within the week, and at some point in the future he would find me again and commission one more chess set from me.”
“What could he be doing with three identical chess sets made of that awful rock?” Ian wondered.
Jifaar sighed. “Nothing good, I’m afraid,” he said, then attempted to smile. “I have never had the courage to ask him who they were intended for, and I doubt very much he would tell me if I did. My instructions from him were to craft them in such a way that they would be too beautiful to resist. And he wanted them fit for a king, so he supplied me with extra gold, silver, rubies, and emeralds.”
Ian glanced again at the ornate pieces on the table. “They certainly are beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Jifaar with a bow of his head. “Still, I will be glad when they are gone and my obligation to the man is at an end.”
“When will you be finished?” Theo asked.
“I was going to polish those last few tonight,” he said with a smile as he reached for the blankets he’d set on the floor and handed them to Ian, Carl, and Theo, “which means that you lot will need to leave me and get some rest.”
Ian turned to go, then, remembering his manners, stopped and said, “Thank you, sir, for the blankets and for allowing us to stay with you.”
“You are most welcome, lad,” said Jifaar kindly as he walked them to the door.
Ian had several nightmares that night. It was the same dream over and over, in which two beasts thundered down from the surrounding hills of Lixus while Theo stood directly in their path. Each time, Ian dreamt that he was unable to save her. He’d awaken, hot and sweaty, and look to make sure she was still there next to him, and each time, he had to reassure himself that it was only a nightmare. That is, until his last horrible dream became all too real.
The sound of the beasts vibrated under him, the thunder of their paws making the ground shake. Shouts rang out in the night and Ian looked over to see that Theo was missing. He surged out of the tent, but Carl grabbed his shirt and began shouting at him. “Open your eyes, mate!” Carl yelled. But Ian was too frantic about finding Theo. He spotted her then, up the hill, and charging down upon her weren’t just two beasts, but fifty.
“Theo!” Ian shouted. “Theo! Come back!”
But she only turned to look at him, innocent and pretty. Her bandaged hand was wrapped around her pendant, and she was saying something to him that he couldn’t hear. Carl still held him by his shirt and was demanding that Ian listen to him. “Theo!” Ian screamed, his heart racing as he willed her to come to him. “Run, Theo! Run!”
But she wasn’t listening. Instead, she kept gazing at her crystal, and in a moment the first of the beasts had tackled her small form. “Nooooooo!” Ian shouted. “No, Theo!” Carl still held him as he tried to run to her and Ian angrily shoved his friend, accidentally hitting him.
Carl fell back and shouted, “Owwww!” and that was when Ian opened his eyes wide, his chest heaving in panic as a chaos of noise surrounded him. “You hit me!” Carl cried, and Ian saw that his friend was lying on his back at the edge of the tent, rubbing his cheek.
“What’s happening?” Ian asked. “Where’s Theo?” he demanded just as a shot rang out.
Ian started and felt someone grab his arm. He turned and Theo was right next to him, her eyes wide and frightened. “There are men on horseback coming for us!” she said.
“Raajhi?” Ian asked, his thoughts muddled from his nightmare.
As if in answer, the flap of their tent was yanked open. “Children!” Thatcher said, sticking his head through the opening. “Come quickly! We’ve got to run for our lives!”
The three of them scrambled out of the tent. Perry was gathering up the backpacks and trying desperately to hurry along the professor, who looked rumpled and confused. “We’re being attacked!” Thatcher yelled, motioning up the hill.
Ian tried to focus on the area Thatcher had pointed to. He could just make out in the shadows of the night the three Jstor guards firing rounds from their guns as a horde of charging men on horseback pounded down the hill. High-pitched war cries filled the air and flashes of light burst from their guns. “Get down!” cried Perry, pulling the professor to the ground.
“We’ve got to run for it!” yelled Thatcher, helping his brother with the backpacks. “Ian! Get Carl and Theo to the boat!”
Ian grabbed Theo’s hand and Carl’s arm and tugged both of them down the short hill where their tent had been pitched. As the three ran, they heard a tremendous boom. Ian looked back over his shoulder to where Jifaar stood proud and tall on his porch, holding a large shotgun level with his shoulder. Ian smelled the acrid scent of gunpowder as the light gray smoke curled around the ba
rrel. “Get to your boat!” their host shouted at them. “Hurry!”
Ian hardly needed the encouragement. He half carried, half dragged Theo along as he and Carl raced for the boat, Ian’s bare feet pounding on the ground.
Carl passed him as they got to the short dock, and leapt with agility into the belly of the bow. He turned and held his arms up as Ian and Theo reached the boat’s edge. “Give her to me!” Carl said, and Ian swooped Theo in the air, hearing her gasp in his ear before shoving her into Carl’s arms.
“Get her down under the mast!” Ian yelled before racing to the stern and hopping aboard. He lurched to the line tied to the buoy as more gunfire ricocheted across the hills. As he worked desperately at the knot holding their vessel to the dock, he took a short glance over his shoulder and saw Thatcher and Perry jogging awkwardly to the boat with the professor slung between them.
Carl, meanwhile, was standing as still as a statue, suddenly frozen in terror by what was happening on the hills. “Carl!” Ian barked, shaking his friend out of his frightened trance. “Untie the other lead line! It’s at the stern!”
Carl jumped at the order, picking his way to the other end of the craft to untie it. “It’s knotted!” he called back after a moment, his voice panicked. “Ian, I can’t get it!”
“Keep trying!” Ian yelled, realizing he was having just as much trouble. Whoever had knotted these had secured the boat a little too tightly.
While he worked at the rope, he saw Thatcher and Perry make it to the side of the boat. Huffing and puffing, they attempted to lower in the professor, who was fighting them every step of the way. “Be careful!” he yelled. “Look out! You’re going to drop me!”
Ian tugged at the lead line, working the knot in the dark with an increasing panic. To make matters worse, the pounding of galloping horses was growing ever closer, making his fingers shake and his palms sweat. “Bloody knot!” he yelled in frustration.
His eyes darted helplessly to one of his schoolmasters, thinking they might be able to get the knot undone, but the brothers were in no position to help him. The professor was dangling precariously between Thatcher, who was in the boat, and Perry, who was on the dock, as the sloop wobbled and threatened to tip.
Suddenly, a bullet hit a board of the dock and sent splinters flying by his shoulder. And then another bullet hit the wood right next to Carl, who dove for cover, abandoning the lead line as he joined Theo under the mast.
In that instant Ian remembered his pocketknife, and with shaking fingers he jammed his hand into his pocket and tugged it out. Another bullet smashed into the side of the boat, and Ian ducked low, finally getting the blade free. Reaching with one hand above his head, he began to saw the line as hard and fast as he could, but it was a thick rope and his blade was not as sharp as it could have been.
“Quickly!” Perry cried from right behind him, and Ian realized that both schoolmasters were in the boat. “We’ve got the other line to cut as well!”
Ian’s brow was slick with sweat as bullets continued to pelt the dock and the boat. Then, finally, to his immense relief, he felt the line give way and the vessel turned about in the water.
“Give me the knife!” urged Perry. “I’ll cut the other end!” But before Ian could hand over his pocketknife, the sound of hooves thundered onto the wooden dock, and above them a giant man on a great white horse appeared. “Arrêtez!” the warrior shouted at them. “Sortez du bateau!”
“He’s telling us to stop and get out of the boat,” whispered Thatcher, but no one moved. Ian looked from the warrior, towering above them, to the adults in the boat, waiting to follow their lead. It soon became clear, however, what to do. Breaking the silence, a knife struck the wood right next to Thatcher’s foot and the schoolmaster yelped. “I believe we should comply.”
THE JICHMACH’S REVENGE
The six of them climbed hurriedly out of the boat, and even the professor, Ian noticed, seemed to make a special effort to get out quickly and quietly With arms raised above their heads in surrender, Ian and the others were herded back to their campsite, where they were greeted by a group of warriors, many of them holding both guns and long curved swords.
Of the three Jstor who had been guarding them, two lay dead on the hillside, and one was getting the stuffing beaten out of him by a group of the invading tribesmen.
To add to Ian’s horror, a bloody Jifaar was being held roughly by two other men while the largest and fiercest of the warriors towered above him on his white stallion and shouted at the old man in Arabic, his words lost on Ian. The professor, who was standing next to Ian, translated quietly. “The man on horseback is their leader,” he said. “He calls himself Najib of the Jichmach He claims that Jifaar is responsible for the loss of the Jichmach’s Star of Lixus.”
Ian’s gaze shifted to Jifaar, his heart filled with fear that the old man would be murdered before their eyes. But Jifaar hardly seemed worried. The older Moroccan merely smiled at his enemy and spoke in a mocking tone.
The professor continued, “Jifaar has called Najib a liar and a thief.”
Ian barely managed to stifle a groan when Jifaar was rewarded for his insolence with a swift kick in the gut from the man on the horse. Theo gasped and hid her face in Ian’s chest.
Najib then pointed to the six of them and shouted at Jifaar, as if he was accusing him of something else. The professor murmured, “Oh, dear.”
“What?” asked Ian. As afraid as he was of the answer, he still wanted to know what was being said.
“Najib thinks we are more Germans recruited by Jifaar to steal from him.”
“But we’re not German!” said Carl, who was listening in on the other side of the professor.
“I think it matters little at this point, my young man,” said the professor. “Najib is telling Jifaar that he is taking us as payment for the Star. If Jifaar is wise, he will consider the score even.”
Najib spit at Jifaar’s feet; then he used the butt of his vicious sword to thump the man on the head so hard that Jifaar collapsed into the dirt, unconscious. Ian lurched forward without thinking, wanting to help Jifaar or hurt Najib—he wasn’t sure which—but his shoulder was grabbed tightly by the professor, who startled him with his strength. “Do nothing to anger them further,” the old man whispered fiercely in his ear, and Ian immediately checked his temper.
With a sneer, the terrifying warrior turned to the men still beating the last guard, and made a slicing motion across his throat. Ian’s jaw dropped as he realized what was about to happen. Swiftly, he turned his back and pulled Theo into his chest, shielding her from the scene, but Ian’s ears caught the horrible thump and the gurgling of the man as he fell to the ground and breathed his last.
When Ian turned to look up again at Najib, he felt his insides go cold. There was murder in Najib’s eyes. He stepped his horse forward to stand tall and imposing above them, and addressed them all in French. The professor responded first. Najib looked at the professor skeptically while the professor talked quickly and pointed to the rest of their group. Ian had the feeling he was begging Najib to spare their lives.
There was a long tense moment before Najib waved to one of his warriors and spoke to him in Arabic. The warrior nodded and got down from his horse, carrying with him several lengths of rope. One by one he tied each of their hands behind their backs, then tethered them all together with a longer piece of rope wrapped firmly about their middles, and set them roughly into a line.
Despite his discomfort, Ian tried to be grateful that it looked like their lives would be spared. But a moment later his heart nearly ripped in two. Theo, he noticed, hadn’t been tied to the group. Instead, she was snatched from the ground by one of the riders and hauled up onto the front of his saddle.
Ian all but forgot the professor’s warning. He screamed and struggled to break free of his ropes, but the warrior who had tied them up slapped him so hard he dropped to the ground. Through fading stars he heard Theo’s voice call out to him, “Ian, please do
n’t!” He blinked as he was yanked roughly to his feet again, and he managed to meet her eyes. “I’ll be all right,” she insisted.
Ian’s only solace was to hope that she would be.
With nothing left for them to do, Ian and the others waited dejectedly while the invaders tore through Jifaar’s wooden house, stealing the many beautiful crystals, before moving on to their campsite and tearing through the contents of the boat. Then Carl whispered, “Have you seen Jaaved?”
And Ian suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen any sign of their young guide since spotting him asleep on his grandfather’s porch hours before. “No,” he whispered back.
“Maybe he got away,” said Carl.
Ian nodded. He hoped for Jaaved’s sake that he had either found a good hiding place or managed to escape, as Ian had little doubt that these invading tribesmen would kill Jaaved without hesitation.
He was distracted from these thoughts, however, when the warrior who’d tied them all began to search the group. Ian’s pockets were roughly turned out and the warrior took his pocket torch and compass away. He was so upset that he barely felt better when the man shoved the prophecy back down into Ian’s pocket as if it were trash.
When the man moved on to search Thatcher, Ian’s eyes roved to the others making a mess of Jifaar’s house. Surprisingly, they’d left all the chess pieces on the ground, as if they were junk. Ian figured that surely if they didn’t want the chess pieces themselves, they would want the gold, silver, emeralds, and rubies adorning them. But it appeared that they tried to avoid them altogether—as if they knew that the pieces were cursed.
When the warriors had finally grown tired of ransacking Jifaar’s house, one of them took a piece of kindling from the fire near their tent and tossed it through the window of the small wooden structure. Ian heard the whoosh of the flames as Jifaar’s workroom caught fire, and his heart burned as hot as the fire with a loathing for the hateful men and their ridiculous war.