Into the Heart of Magic.

'Is this an illusion, too?' Luka boldly asked Captain Aag. 'Is this another of your pesky magic tricks?' Captain Aag gave what might have been intended as a laugh but came out as a sort of snarl. 'Security,' he said, 'is not an Illusion. Security is the Foundation of any World. Alas! Those of us who labour in the field of Security are often misunderstood, regularly abused, and frequently ignored by those whose safety and values we protect, and yet we struggle on. The Maintenance of Security, young feller-me-lad, is a Thankless Task, I'll have you know; and yet Security must be Maintained. No, Security is not a Deception. It is a Burden, and it has fallen upon me. Fortunately, I do not work alone; and a loyal Fire Bug' here Luka saw the little telltale flame hovering at Aag's shoulder 'who makes haste, overcoming all obstacles and distractions, to bring me word that thieves are on their way, a heroic Fire Bug such as we have here, such a Bug is not the creation of flimflam or prestidigitation. Such a Bug is Virtue's Child. Nor is the murderous and terrifying Dragon Nuthog the product of any conjuring trick as you will soon discover.'

He was a man of hair and anger, this Aag, whose henna-tinted locks stood out from his head like wrathful orange serpents; a man, too, of chin hair, whose russet beard stuck out in all directions like the rays of an ill-tempered sun; a man of eyebrows, quarrelsome scarlet bushes which curled upwards and outwards above a pair of glaring black eyes; and a man also of ear hair, long, stiff, crimson strands of ear hair, that corkscrewed outwards from both those fleshy organs of hearing. Blood-red hair sprouted up from Aag's shirt at the collar and out from his pirate's greatcoat at the cuffs, and Luka imagined the Captain's entire body covered in a luxuriant growth, as if that body were a farm and hair its only crop. Soraya, also a flame-haired person, whispered in Luka's right ear that this Grandmaster's bushy excessivity of hair might give all redheads a bad name.

The hair was Aag's anger made visible. Luka could see that from the way it waved around, shaking itself in his direction as if it were a fist. Why was he so angry? Well, there was the little matter of the destruction of his circus by Luka's curse, that much was obvious; but, in the first place, that circus was now revealed to be a side issue, merely the minor Real World plaything of the Gatekeeper of the Heart of Magic, and, in the second place, that hair had been growing for a long, long time, so Captain Aag had plainly been furious all his life, or, if he was by some chance immortal, then he must have been angry since the beginnings of Time.

'His original name was Menetius,' n.o.bodaddy whispered into Luka's left ear, 'and he was once the t.i.tan of Rage, until the King of the G.o.ds lost patience with his crosspatchery, killed him with a thunderbolt, and hurled him into the underworld. Eventually he was allowed to return to this lowly job he's no more than a doorman now so here he is, in a worse mood than ever, I'm sorry to say.'

The seven vultures had arranged themselves in the air above Aag and the dragon, like guests at a banquet, waiting for a feast. Aag, however, was for a moment in a playful mood. 'In other places, such as the Real World,' he said from the dragon's back, almost as if he were speaking to himself, looking off into the distance and adopting a thoughtful expression, 'such terrible creatures as one might encounter the Yeti, the Bigfoot, the Unbearably Unpleasant Child are what I like to call monsters in s.p.a.ce monsters in s.p.a.ce. There they are, but that's all they are, unchangeable, therefore always the same. Whereas here, where you have no business to be, and where you will very shortly be no more, our monsters can be monsters in time as well; that is to say, they can be one monster after another. Nuthog, here, is actually called Jaldibadal Jaldibadal, and she's a Magical Chameleon: quite the quick-change artist is old Jaldi when she wants to be, but she's a lazy good-for-nothing creature a lot of the time. Show them, Nuthog, why don't you? There's no real rush to cook them in dragon-fire, after all. The vultures can wait for their lunch.'

Nuthog the dragon or, more properly, Jaldibadal the Changer gave what sounded very like a tired, serpentine sigh and then mutated, with what looked very like a monstrous unwillingness, into, first, a giant metallic sow, and then, one after the other, a huge, s.h.a.ggy woman-beast with the tail of a scorpion, a Monstrous Carbuncle (a mirrored creature with a diamond shining out of its head) and an immense mother-tortoise, and finally, with what felt very like a sullen resignation, back into a dragon again. 'Congratulations, Nuthog,' said Captain Aag sarcastically, and his black eyes glittered with anger and his bushy beard flared out around his face like the red flame of an evil match. 'An excellent show. And now, O indolent beast, get on with it and fry these thieves alive before I lose my temper.'

'If my sisters were here beside me, to release me from your spell,' Nuthog spat back, in a voice of considerable sweetness, and in surprising rhyme, 'you wouldn't speak so bravely, and we'd send you back to h.e.l.l.'

'Who are her sisters? Where are they?' Luka hissed at n.o.bodaddy; but then Nuthog blasted the Argo Argo, and all the world was flame. 'It's odd, this business of losing a life,' Luka thought. 'You ought to feel something, but you don't.' Then he noticed that the counter in the top left-hand corner of his field of vision had gone down by fifty lives fifty lives. 'I'd better think fast,' he realised, 'or I'll run out of chances right here.' He had re-formed in the same place as before, and so had Bear and Dog. The residents of the World of Magic were unharmed, though Soraya was complaining loudly. 'If I wanted to be sunburned,' she said, 'I would go and sit in the sun. Point that flame-thrower, please, in some other direction.'

n.o.bodaddy was examining his panama hat, which looked very slightly scorched. 'That's not right,' he grumbled. 'I like this hat.' BLLLAAARRRTT! BLLLAAARRRTT! Another blast of dragon-fire, another fifty lives lost. 'Oh, for goodness' sake,' Soraya cried. 'Don't you know that flying carpets are made of delicate stuff?' The Elephant Birds were also extremely upset. 'Memory is a fragile flower,' complained the Elephant Drake. 'It doesn't respond well to heat.' Another blast of dragon-fire, another fifty lives lost. 'Oh, for goodness' sake,' Soraya cried. 'Don't you know that flying carpets are made of delicate stuff?' The Elephant Birds were also extremely upset. 'Memory is a fragile flower,' complained the Elephant Drake. 'It doesn't respond well to heat.'

Things were rapidly arriving at crisis point. 'Nuthog's sisters,' murmured n.o.bodaddy, 'were imprisoned by the Aalim in blocks of ice, over that way in the Ice Country of Sniffelheim, so that Nuthog would obey Aag's orders.' BLLLAAARRRTT! BLLLAAARRRTT! 'That's one hundred and fifty lives gone in no time at all, just four hundred and sixty-five left,' Luka thought as he came back together; and when he looked around him this time, Soraya and the flying carpet had vanished altogether. 'She has abandoned us,' he thought. 'Which means we're done for.' 'That's one hundred and fifty lives gone in no time at all, just four hundred and sixty-five left,' Luka thought as he came back together; and when he looked around him this time, Soraya and the flying carpet had vanished altogether. 'She has abandoned us,' he thought. 'Which means we're done for.'

Just then Dog the bear asked Jaldibadal a question. 'Are you happy?' he demanded, and the monster looked surprised.

'What sort of question is that?' Nuthog asked in return, forgetting to rhyme in her confusion. 'I'm in the process of burning you to death, and this is the thing you want to ask me? What's it to you? Suppose I was happy; would you be happy for me? And if I was not happy, would you sympathise?'

'For example,' persisted Dog the bear, 'are you getting enough to eat? Because I can see your ribs sticking out through your scales.'

'Those aren't my ribs,' answered Nuthog, looking shifty. 'Those are probably the skeletons of the last people I gobbled down.'

'I knew it,' said Dog the bear. 'He's starving you, just as he underfed the animals in the circus. A bony dragon is an even sadder sight than a skinny elephant.'

'Why are you wasting time?' Captain Aag roared from Nuthog's back. 'Get on with it and finish them off.'

'We rebelled against him back in the Real World,' said Bear the dog, 'and he couldn't do a thing about it, and that was the end of him in that place.'

'Cook them!' shouted Captain Aag. 'Grill them, roast them, blast them, toast them! Bear sausages for dinner! Dog chops! Boy cheeks! Cook them and let's eat!'

'It's my sisters,' Nuthog told Bear the dog mournfully. 'As long as they are imprisoned I have no choice but to do as he says.'

'You always have a choice,' said Dog the bear.

'Also,' said a voice from the sky, 'were these perhaps the sisters you were looking for?'

Everyone aboard the Argo Argo looked up; and there, high above them, was Queen Soraya of Ott, on King Solomon's magic carpet, looked up; and there, high above them, was Queen Soraya of Ott, on King Solomon's magic carpet, Resham Resham, which had grown large enough to carry three enormous, shivering monsters, just released from their prison of ice, too cold to fly, too unwell to metamorphose, but alive, and free.

'Bahut-Sara! Badlo-Badlo! Gyara-Jinn!' shouted Nuthog joyfully. The three rescued Changers uttered weak, but happy, moans in reply. Captain Aag had begun to look distinctly panicky on Nuthog's back. 'L-Let's all stay calm now,' he said, stammering a little. 'Let's all remember that I was only following orders, that it was the Aalim, the Guardians of the Fire, who put the three excellent ladies here on ice, and instructed me to work with you, Nuthog, to guard the Gate to the Heart. Let's understand, too, that Security is a hard taskmaster, who requires some tough decisions, and that in consequence it can happen that some innocents suffer for the sake of the greater good. Nuthog, you can understand that, can't you?'

'Only my friends can call me Nuthog,' said Nuthog, and with a smooth little wiggle she flipped Captain Aag off her back. He landed with a b.u.mp right under her smoking nose. 'And you're no friend of mine,' Nuthog added, 'so the name is Jaldibadal. And I'm sorry to tell you that, no, I don't understand.'

Captain Aag stood up to face his fate. He looked like a very wretched pirate indeed, all hair and no fire. 'Any last words?' enquired Jaldibadal sweetly. Captain Aag shook his fist at her. 'I'll be back!' he roared.

Jaldibadal shook her scaly head. 'No,' she said, 'I'm afraid you won't.' Then she unleashed an immense flame that wrapped itself around Captain Aag, and when the flame died away there was no more Captain, just a small pile of angry-looking ash.

'Actually, of course,' she added, once Aag had been, so to speak, put out, and his vulture troupe had fled into some distant sky, never to be seen again, 'there are Powers in the Heart that could bring him back to life if they chose. But he doesn't have many friends here, and I think he's probably had his last chance.' She blew hard on the little pile of ash that now lay under her nose, and it was scattered to the four winds. 'Now, young Sir,' she said, looking straight at Luka, 'and, I should say, Sir Dog and Sir Bear, how can I be of a.s.sistance?'

Her sisters on the flying carpet flapped their wings experimentally; and found, to their great pleasure, that they could fly again. 'We too will help you,' said Badlo-Badlo the Changer, and Bahut-Sara and Gyara-Jinn nodded their a.s.sent. The Insultana Soraya clapped her hands in delight. 'That's more like it,' she rejoiced. 'We've got an army now.'

In all the excitement n.o.body noticed a small fiery Bug rushing away from them as quickly as it could fly, making its way deep into the Heart of Magic, whooshing along as quickly as a wildfire running before a helpful wind.

n.o.bodaddy was acting strangely, Luka thought. He was fidgety, scratching constantly at his panama hat's scorched brim. He seemed irritable, pacing up and down and rubbing his hands together and speaking in monosyllables, when he spoke at all. Sometimes he seemed almost transparent and at other times almost solid, so plainly Rashid Khalifa at home in Kahani was struggling for life and health, and maybe that struggle was having a bad effect on n.o.bodaddy's mood. But Luka began to have other suspicions. Maybe n.o.bodaddy had just been humouring him, toying with him for his own warped amus.e.m.e.nt. Who knew what sort of twisted sense of humour such a creature might have? Maybe he had never expected Luka to get this far, and in fact didn't like the idea that they were now flying towards the Fire of Life itself. Maybe he hadn't been honest, and didn't want the quest to succeed. He'd need watching carefully, Luka decided, in case he tried to sabotage everything at the last moment. He looked, walked and talked like the Shah of Blah, but that didn't make him Luka's father. Maybe Bear and Dog had been right: n.o.bodaddy was not to be trusted an inch. Or maybe there was an argument raging inside him, maybe the Rashid-ness he had absorbed was at war with the death-creature that did the absorbing. Maybe dying was always like this: an argument between death and life.

'Who wins that argument is a matter for another day,' Luka thought. 'Right now, I've got to stop thinking of him as my dad.'

Soraya's flying carpet was aloft again, after briefly landing to allow all the travellers, and the Argo Argo of course, to come aboard. Jaldi, Sara, Badlo and Jinn, the four Changers, in their dragon shapes, flew in strict formation around the of course, to come aboard. Jaldi, Sara, Badlo and Jinn, the four Changers, in their dragon shapes, flew in strict formation around the Resham Resham, one on each of the carpet's four sides, protecting it against any possible attack. Luka looked down and saw below him the River of Time flowing from the distant, and invisible, Lake of Wisdom at the Heart of the Heart (which was still too far away to be seen) the River flowing into, and then out of, the immense Circle of the Circular Sea, at the bottom of which, he knew, slept the giant Worm Bottomfeeder, who coiled his body all the way around the Circle just so that his head could nibble at his tail. Outside the Circle, directly beneath the flying carpet at that moment, were the vast territories of the Badly Behaved G.o.ds the G.o.ds in whom n.o.body believed any longer, except as stories that people once liked to tell.

'They don't have any power in the Real World any more,' Rashid Khalifa used to say, sitting in his favourite squashy armchair, with Luka curled up on his lap, 'so there they all are in the World of Magic, the ancient G.o.ds of the North, the G.o.ds of Greece and Rome, the South American G.o.ds, and the G.o.ds of Sumeria and Egypt long ago. They spend their time, their infinite, timeless time, pretending they are still divine, playing all their old games, fighting their ancient wars over and over again, and trying to forget that n.o.body really cares about them these days, or even remembers their names.'

'That's pretty sad,' Luka said to his father. 'To be honest with you, the Heart of Magic sounds a lot like an old folks' home for washed-up superheroes.'

'Don't let them hear you say that,' Rashid Khalifa replied, 'because they all look gorgeous and youthful and luminous and, well, perfect. Being divine, or even ex-divine, has its perks. And inside the Magic World they still have the use of their superpowers. It's in the Real World that their thunderbolts and enchantments no longer have any effect.'

'It must be awful for them,' Luka said, 'to have been worshipped and adored for so long, and then just discarded, like last year's unfashionable clothes.'

'Particularly for the Aztec deities from Mexico,' Rashid said, putting on his scary voice. 'Because they were used to receiving human sacrifices; the throats of living people were cut and their lifeblood flowed into the G.o.ds' stone goblets. Now there's no blood for those disused G.o.ds to drink. You've heard of vampires? Most of them are blood-thirsty, long-in-the-tooth, undead Aztec G.o.ds. Huitzilopochtli! Tezcatlipoca! Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli! Macuilcoz-cacuauhtli! Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli '

'Stop, stop,' Luka begged. 'No wonder people stopped worshipping them. n.o.body could p.r.o.nounce their names.'

'Or it may be because they all behaved so badly,' Rashid said.

This got Luka's attention. The notion of G.o.ds behaving badly was an odd one. Weren't G.o.ds supposed to set an example to the people whose G.o.ds they were? 'Not in the Olden Days,' Rashid said. 'These Olden, and now Jobless, G.o.ds usually behaved as badly as people, or actually much worse, because, being G.o.ds, they could behave badly on a bigger scale. They were selfish, rude, meddlesome, vain, b.i.t.c.hy, violent, spiteful, l.u.s.tful, gluttonous, greedy, lazy, dishonest, tricky and stupid, and all of it exaggerated to the maximum, because they had those superpowers. When they were greedy they could swallow a city, and when they were angry they could drown the world. When they meddled in human lives they broke hearts, stole women and started wars. When they were lazy they slept for a thousand years, and when they played their little tricks other people suffered and died. Sometimes a G.o.d would even kill another G.o.d by knowing his weak spot and going for it, the way a wolf goes for the throat of its prey.'

'Maybe it's a good thing they faded away,' Luka said, 'but it must make the Heart of Magic a peculiar sort of place.'

'Nowhere more peculiar in the universe,' Rashid replied.

'And what about the G.o.ds people still believe in?' Luka asked. 'Are they in the Heart of Magic as well?'

'Oh, dear me, no,' said Rashid Khalifa. 'They're all still right here with us.'

The memory of Rashid faded away, and Luka found himself flying over a phantasmagoric landscape dotted with broken columns and statuary, with creatures out of fable and legend walking, running and flying among them. There over there! were two vast and trunkless legs of stone, the last remaining echoes of Ozymandias, King of Kings. Here, slouching towards them, was an immense rough beast, Sphinx-like, only male, and spotted, a man with a hyena's body and its hideous laugh as well, destroying whatever house or temple, hill or tree it pa.s.sed, by the sheer force of its ecstatic, ruinous laughter. And there! yes, right there! was the Sphinx herself! Yes, surely that was she! The Lion with the Woman's Head! See how she stopped strangers and insisted on talking to them ... 'It's too bad,' said Soraya. 'She keeps asking everyone the same old riddle, and n.o.body can be bothered to answer, because everybody has known it for ever. She really needs to get a new act.'

A gigantic egg walked by below them on long, yolk-coloured legs. A winged unicorn flew past. A curious three-part creature a crocodile, lion and hippopotamus combined shuffled its way towards the Circular Sea. The sight of a small G.o.d in the shape of a dog excited Bear. 'That is Xolotl,' warned Soraya. 'Stay away from him. He's the G.o.d of bad luck.' That disappointed Bear the dog a good deal. 'Why does Bad Luck turn out to be a dog?' he complained. 'In the Real World, a faithful dog is very good luck for its owner. No wonder these bad-luck G.o.ds are done for.'

Luka couldn't help noticing that the Heart of Magic was in some disrepair. The Egyptians' pyramids were crumbling, and in the Nordic quarter a gigantic ash tree lay on its side, its three huge roots clutching at the sky. And if those meadows over in that direction were really the Elysian Fields, where the souls of great heroes lived on for ever, why was the gra.s.s so brown? 'These places are in really bad shape,' Luka said, and Soraya nodded sadly. 'Magic is fading from the universe,' she said. 'We aren't needed any more, or that's what you all think, with your High Definitions and low expectations. One of these days you'll wake up and we'll be gone, and then you'll find out what it's like to live without even the idea of Magic. But Time moves on, and there isn't a thing we can do about it. Would you like,' she said, brightening, 'to see the Battle of the Beauties? I believe this is the right time of day.'

The carpet began to fly down towards a great pavilion topped by seven golden, onion-shaped domes, all shining in the morning sun. 'Shouldn't we stay out of these G.o.ds' and G.o.ddesses' way, though?' Luka objected. 'Surely we don't want them to see us, to know we're here? We are thieves, after all.'

'They can't see you,' Soraya answered. 'If you're from the Real World, they are blind to your existence. You don't exist for them, just as they no longer exist for you. You can walk right up to any number of G.o.ds or G.o.ddesses, say "boo" and pinch their noses, and they'll act as if nothing happened, or as if they're being bothered by a fly. As for persons from the general neighbourhood, like myself, they don't care about us. We aren't part of their stories, so they think we don't count. Stupid of them, but that's the way they are.'

'Then it's a sort of ghost town,' Luka thought, 'and these supposed almighties are sort of sleepwalkers, or echoes of themselves. It's like a mythological theme park here you could call it G.o.dland only there are no visitors, except for us, and we've come to pilfer a piece of their most precious possession.' To Soraya he said, 'But if they can't see us, won't it be easy to steal the Fire of Life? In which case, shouldn't we just hurry up and do it?'

'In the Heart of the Heart, which is to say inside the Circular Sea, where the Lake of Wisdom is bathed in the Eternal Dawn,' said Soraya, 'things are very different. There are none of these moronic sleepwalking sacked G.o.ds in there. That is the Country of the Aalim the Three Jos who watch over the whole of Time. They are the Ultimate Guardians of the Fire, and they don't miss a thing.'

'The Three Jos?' asked Luka.

'Jo-Hua, Jo-Hai and Jo-Aiga,' Soraya answered, and she was whispering now. 'What Was, What Is and What Will Come. The Past, the Present and the Future. The Possessors of All Knowledge. The Aalim: the Trinity of Time.'

The golden onion domes were right below them now, but Luka was thinking only of the Fire of Life. 'So how do we get past the Jos, then?' he whispered back to Soraya, and she spread her arms with a shrug and a rueful smile. 'You knew from the start,' she said, 'that no one has ever done it. But there's somebody who usually skulks around here, who may be able to help us. He usually lies pretty low, but this is the best place to find him. When the Beauties battle, he likes to watch.'

She landed the flying carpet behind a spreading thicket of rhododendrons, large enough to conceal the Argo Argo. 'Few magical creatures ever approach a rhododendron,' she told Luka, 'because they believe them to be poisonous. If there were any Yetis in the neighbourhood they would devour them, of course, but this is not Abominable Snowman country, and so the Argo Argo will be safe enough here for a while.' Then she folded up the carpet, put it in her pocket, and marched towards the onion-domed building. The four Changers shape-shifted into metal sows, and, clanking a good deal, trotted along beside Soraya, n.o.bodaddy, Luka, the Memory Birds, Bear the dog and Dog the bear towards the Battle Pavilion, from which loud, angry noises could be heard: the sounds of G.o.ddesses at war. will be safe enough here for a while.' Then she folded up the carpet, put it in her pocket, and marched towards the onion-domed building. The four Changers shape-shifted into metal sows, and, clanking a good deal, trotted along beside Soraya, n.o.bodaddy, Luka, the Memory Birds, Bear the dog and Dog the bear towards the Battle Pavilion, from which loud, angry noises could be heard: the sounds of G.o.ddesses at war.

'It's so idiotic,' Soraya said. 'They fight over which of them is the loveliest, as if it mattered. Beauty G.o.ddesses are the worst. They have been flattered and spoiled for thousands of years, mortals and immortals have sacrificed their lives for them, and as a result you wouldn't believe the things they believe they are ent.i.tled to. Nothing but the best will do for them, and if it belongs to someone else, so what? They are sure they deserve it more than its owner, whether it's a jewel or a palace or a man. But now here they are in the junkyard of their power, and their beauty no longer launches warships or makes men die for love, so there's nothing left to do but fight each other over a hollow crown, a t.i.tle that means nothing: the loveliest of them all the loveliest of them all.'

'But that's you you are the loveliest of them all,' Luka wanted to tell her. 'See how your red hair flies in the wind, and then there's the perfection of your eyes, your face, and I even enjoy it when you're insulting people, and I don't like it when you sound sad.' Unfortunately he was too shy to say such embarra.s.sing words out loud, and then a great burst of cheering began, and grew louder and louder, so she wouldn't have been able to hear anything anyway.

The crowd in the pavilion was the sort of gathering of fantastic creatures out of fables and legends which would have utterly astounded Luka just a few days ago, but which he had, by now, almost begun to expect. 'Oh, look, there are fauns here horned, goat-eared and goat-hoofed and proud centaurs stamping their feet,' he thought, and was surprised by how unsurprising the World of Magic was starting to feel. 'And winged men would those be angels angels? angels watching women fight? that doesn't sound right. And presumably all these other battle fans are the lower orders of the various G.o.d gangs, the G.o.ds' servants and children and pets, out for a morning's fun.'

Just then, the first G.o.ddess was ejected from the fray. She came tumbling head over heels through the air, right over Luka's head, screaming her rage as she went by, and turning from a palely powdered, geisha-like beauty into a hideous long-toothed harridan and then back into the geisha again. She crashed through the swing doors of the fight hall and was gone. 'I believe that was the j.a.panese rasetsu rasetsu, Kishimojin,' said n.o.bodaddy, with the air of a G.o.ddess-fight connoisseur. (Being at the battle had clearly improved his mood.) 'A rasetsu rasetsu is more demon than G.o.ddess, really, as you saw from her transformations just then. Out of her cla.s.s in this company, one feels; you'd expect her to be the first one to be knocked out.' is more demon than G.o.ddess, really, as you saw from her transformations just then. Out of her cla.s.s in this company, one feels; you'd expect her to be the first one to be knocked out.'

As Kishimojin retreated from the pavilion, Luka could still hear her high-pitched cursing. 'May your heads split into seven pieces like the flower of the basil shrub.' 'The so-called Arjaka curse,' n.o.bodaddy explained to Luka. 'Terrifying in the Real World, but pathetically ineffective against these formidable females.'

Luka couldn't see much of the fight, but didn't like to ask any of his companions to lift him up. Over the heads of the crowd he saw thunderbolts being hurled and loud explosions lighting up the fighting area. He saw huge clouds of b.u.t.terflies and flocks of birds, apparently also at war with one another. 'There's a little side battle going on between Mylitta, the moon G.o.ddess of ancient Sumer, and the Aztec vampire queen Xochiquetzal,' n.o.bodaddy reported. 'They don't like it that they both have bird and b.u.t.terfly entourages beauty G.o.ddesses always want to be unique! so they usually go at each other right away, and so do their flapping friends. Usually the two ladies knock each other out and leave the field clear for the top girls.'

The Roman love G.o.ddess, Venus, was eliminated early, staggering from the hall, reattaching her severed arms as she went. 'The Romans are low down in the rankings here in the Heart of Magic,' n.o.bodaddy shouted over the din. 'For a start, they are homeless. Their followers never came up with an Olympus or Valhalla for them, so they wander around the place looking, to be frank, like vagrants. Also, everybody knows they are just imitations of the Greeks, and who wants to watch second-rate remakes when you can see the original movies for free?'

Luka shouted back that he didn't know there was a divine pecking order. 'Who's at the top of it, then?' he yelled. 'Which bunch of ex-G.o.ds are the Top G.o.ds?' 'I'll tell you which ones are the snootiest,' n.o.bodaddy shouted. 'The Egyptians, for sure. And in these battles their girl Hathor often comes out on top.'

On this occasion, however, it was the Greek Cypriot, Aphrodite, who was the last G.o.ddess standing. After Ishtar of Babylon and Freya, Queen of the Valkyries, had beaten each other unconscious in the mud-wrestling ring, the betting favourite, cow-eared Hathor a shape-shifter like Jaldi and her sisters, only far more powerful, capable of turning herself into clouds and stones had made the mistake of turning briefly into a fig tree, which had allowed Aphrodite to chop her down. So at the end of the battle it was Aphrodite who approached the great Mirror that was the Ultimate Arbiter of Beauty, and asked the famous question, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, and so on; Aphrodite it was who received the Mirror's accolade, You are the loveliest You are the loveliest, as was traditional. 'Oh well,' said n.o.bodaddy, 'it's good exercise, and they'll all be back at it tomorrow. There's not that much for them to do around here. It's not as if they can stay home and watch TV, or go out to the gym.'

The victor, Aphrodite, pa.s.sed through the crowd, waving graciously, but a little robotically. She was within a few feet of Luka at one point, and he saw that her eyes were oddly glazed, and focused on infinity. 'No wonder she can't see anyone Real,' he thought. 'She has eyes only for herself.'

He looked around for Soraya, but she had disappeared. 'She probably got bored,' said n.o.bodaddy. 'We'll find her outside.' As they left the Battle Hall, he pointed out some of the more remarkable audience members to Luka. The Humbaba of a.s.syria was a naked, scaly giant with a horned head and lion's paws. His tail was a living snake with a little, flicking forked tongue. 'And so is his w.i.l.l.y,' Luka noted with delight. 'That's quite something, a w.i.l.l.y-snake, that's a thing I've never seen before.' And close behind this brand-new sight was a group of Central Asian Boramez, who looked like baby lambs, except that their legs were made of two different varieties of long. fleshy roots, like sweet potatoes and parsnips. 'Lamb chops and two veg,' Luka thought. 'Yum! These creatures would make a complete, nourishing meal.' There were several three-headed trolls in the crowd, and many disappointed Valkyries, who had been hoping for their girl Freya to come out on top. 'Nev-er mind mind,' they told one another in their sing-song, phlegmatic, good-natured Nordic way, 'to-morr-ow is is an- an-oth-er day day.'

Soraya was waiting in front of the rhododendron bushes, looking innocent, which was such an unusual look for her that Luka immediately suspected she was up to something. 'What's going on?' he began, then changed tack. 'Never mind,' he continued. 'We're wasting time. Let's get going, okay?'

'Once upon a time,' said Soraya dreamily, 'there was an Indian tribe called the Karaoke. They didn't have Fire, so they were sad and cold and never sang a note.'

'This is no time for fairy tales,' said Luka, but Soraya ignored him and continued. 'Fire had been created by a G.o.d-type creature named Ekoarak,' she said in the same dreamy, musical voice, which Luka had to admit was a beautiful voice, a voice exactly like his mother's voice, which made it comforting to listen to, 'but he had hidden it in a music box and given it, for safe keeping, to two old witches, with instructions that on no account were they to give it to the Karaoke '

'There's a point in here somewhere, I hope,' Luka interrupted, a little rudely, but that only made the Insultana smile, for, after all, it was the Otter way.

'Coyote was the one who decided he would steal the Fire,' she said. Bear the dog perked up. 'This is a story about a heroic prairie dog?' he said hopefully. Soraya ignored him. 'He got the Lion, the Big Bear, the Little Bear, the Wolf, the Squirrel and the Frog to help him. They s.p.a.ced themselves out between the witches' tent and the Karaoke village and waited. Coyote told one Karaoke Indian to visit the witches and attack their tent. When he did so they came out with their broomsticks and ran after him to chase him away. Coyote ran inside, opened the box with his nose, stole the burning firebrand, and ran. When the witches saw him running with the Fire they forgot about the Indian and chased Coyote instead. Coyote ran like the wind, and when he was tired he pa.s.sed the burning wood to the Lion, who ran as far as the Big Bear, who ran on to the Little Bear, and so on. Finally the Frog swallowed the Fire and dived under the river where the witches couldn't follow him, and then he jumped out on the far bank of the river and spat the Fire out onto dry wood in the Karaoke village, and the Fire crackled and burned and the flames rose high into the sky, and everybody cheered. Soon afterwards the Indian returned, having gone into the witches' tent (while they were chasing Coyote) and stolen the whole music box, and after that the Karaoke village was warm, and everyone sang all the time, because the magical music box never stopped playing its selection of popular songs.'

'Okay ... y ... y,' said Luka doubtfully. 'It's a nice enough story, but ...'

Coyote strolled out from behind the rhododendron bushes, looking Wild and Western and ready for trouble. Buenas dias, kid Buenas dias, kid, he said, in a cool, slanting sort of way. My friend here, that's the Insultana, indicated you could probly use some help. You ask me, I reckon you need all the help you can git My friend here, that's the Insultana, indicated you could probly use some help. You ask me, I reckon you need all the help you can git. He gave a confident, wolfish laugh. Hear this, Fire Thief. Aint n.o.body got more sperience than me in the fire-stealin line, xceptin maybe one individual big individual he was, too but after what happen to him last time aroun, he aint available. Caint be helped. Reckon he lost his nerve Hear this, Fire Thief. Aint n.o.body got more sperience than me in the fire-stealin line, xceptin maybe one individual big individual he was, too but after what happen to him last time aroun, he aint available. Caint be helped. Reckon he lost his nerve.

'What happened?' Luka asked, not really wanting to know.

Taken, said Coyote, bluntly. Got his big self tied down on a rock. Si, senor. Spreadeagled on there at the mercy of the merciless. Eagle got to chewin on his liver all day, which liver then done fix itself up an grow back ever' night on account of 3-J magic, so that Eagle he could jus go on munchin till the end of time. You want more? Got his big self tied down on a rock. Si, senor. Spreadeagled on there at the mercy of the merciless. Eagle got to chewin on his liver all day, which liver then done fix itself up an grow back ever' night on account of 3-J magic, so that Eagle he could jus go on munchin till the end of time. You want more?

'No, thank you,' Luka said, thinking, not for the first time, that he was a long, long way out of his depth. But he made his voice sound a lot braver than he felt and went on. 'Also,' he said, 'I'm smelling a rat, to be honest with you. Everybody has been telling me all along that the Fire has never been stolen in the whole history of the World of Magic. Now you tell me that you stole it, Coyote, and apparently this old-timer you're talking about stole it, too? So what's the truth? Has everyone been lying to me this whole time, and it's actually easier to steal the Fire than anyone has admitted?'

Soraya replied, 'We should have explained things better to you. n.o.bodaddy should have done it right at the outset, and so should I. You're right to feel aggrieved. So this is the truth of it. The World of Magic has taken many forms in different times and places, and it has had many different names. It has changed its location, its geography and its laws, as the history of the Real World has moved from age to age. In several of those times and places, it's true, Fire Thieves did make successful runs at the Fire of the G.o.ds. But n.o.body has succeeded since the Heart of Magic a.s.sumed its current shape and form, in this place, in this time, here and now. That's the truth. The Aalim have always been around after all, there's no escape from the Past, the Present and the Future, is there? but for a long time they left the management of things to the G.o.ds of the period, the same ex-G.o.ds you see here, inefficient deities who didn't always do such a good job. Now the Aalim have taken control of matters themselves. Everything has been reordered. The Fire of Life is impregnably defended. The Three Jos know everything. Jo-Hua knows even the smallest details of the Past, Jo-Hai can see even the smallest incident in the Present, and Jo-Aiga can foretell the Future. n.o.body has managed to steal the Fire since they took charge.'

'Oh,' said Luka, feeling horribly deflated, because the notion that n.o.bodaddy and Soraya and everyone else had hidden from him the successful Thefts of Fire had briefly given him hope. If Coyote could do it, he had thought, then he could do it, too. But that short-lived burst of optimism fizzled out and died like a well-doused fire as Soraya explained the truth. He turned back towards Coyote, humbly. 'What sort of help did you have in mind?' he asked.

This beautiful lady here she's kindly disposed to you and I'm indebted to her for old kindnesses, said Coyote, chewing something at the side of his mouth. She says maybe I could guide you through the inner country, which maybe I could at that. Says maybe you'll need somebody to make a She says maybe I could guide you through the inner country, which maybe I could at that. Says maybe you'll need somebody to make a carrera de distraccion. carrera de distraccion. That's a decoy run. Says I should see if I can get the old gang together and run that diversion for you while you make your crazy bid. Wants me to draw the 3J attention way from you while you run for glory. That's a decoy run. Says I should see if I can get the old gang together and run that diversion for you while you make your crazy bid. Wants me to draw the 3J attention way from you while you run for glory.

Then Soraya said something that drained all the hope out of Luka's body. 'I can't take you in there,' she said. 'Into Aalim country. If they see the Flying Carpet of King Solomon the Wise entering their s.p.a.ce, and if they become aware of him him ' here she nodded her head at n.o.bodaddy with a distasteful expression on her face 'and, believe me, they will become aware, then the game will be up right away; they'll smell trouble and come down on us with all the power they have, and I'm not strong enough to fight them off for very long. That's why I wanted to find Coyote. I want you to have a plan.' ' here she nodded her head at n.o.bodaddy with a distasteful expression on her face 'and, believe me, they will become aware, then the game will be up right away; they'll smell trouble and come down on us with all the power they have, and I'm not strong enough to fight them off for very long. That's why I wanted to find Coyote. I want you to have a plan.'

'I'm going with you,' said Bear the dog, loyally.

'I'm going too,' said Dog the bear in a gruff, big-brotherish voice. 'Somebody has to look after you.'

The Memory Birds shuffled their webbed feet awkwardly. 'It's not really our thing, fire-stealing,' said the Elephant Duck.

'We just remember stuff, that's all. We're just rememberers.' And the Elephant Drake added clumsily, 'We'll always remember you.'

The Elephant Duck gave him a furious look. 'What he means,' she said, nudging her partner roughly, 'is that we'll wait with Queen Soraya for your return.'

The Elephant Drake harrumphed. 'Obviously,' he said. 'I misspoke, obviously. We'll obviously be waiting. Obviously, that is what I meant to say.'

n.o.bodaddy squatted down so that he could look Luka in the eye. 'She's right,' he said, annoying Luka intensely by using Rashid Khalifa's most serious and loving voice. 'I can't go with you. Not in there.'

'Here's something else you should have told me before now,' Luka said angrily. 'Both of you. How am I supposed to do this without you?'

Jaldibadal the Changer said firmly, 'You still have us.'

Nuthog's sisters had fully recovered from their icy ordeal by now, and nodded enthusiastically, which made their metal pig ears clank against the sides of their heads. 'We are creatures of the Heart,' said Badlo-Badlo at least Luka thought it was Badlo, but with all their Changing it was hard to remember which of the four sisters was which. 'That's right,' said maybe Bahut-Sara. 'The Three Jos will not suspect us.'

'Thank you,' said Luka gratefully, 'but maybe you could change back into dragons? Dragons might be more useful than metal pigs if we come under attack.' The quadruple transformation was quickly completed, and Luka was pleased to see that there were differences in their colouring which made it easier to tell the Changers apart: Nuthog (Jaldi) was the red dragon, Badlo the green one, Sara the blue one, and Gyara-Jinn, the Changer with eleven possible transformations, the largest of the four, was golden.

'Then it's settled,' Luka said. 'Bear, Dog, Jaldi, Sara, Badlo, Jinn and me. Seven of us, into the Heart of the Heart.'

'Call me Nuthog,' said Nuthog. 'We're friends now. And I never liked my real name much anyhow.'

Coyote spat out the remnant of his dinner and cleared his throat. Aint you forgettin somethin here, Aint you forgettin somethin here, chico chico? Or is it your intent to insult me by declinin my offer in public an in spite of it being both generous an bona fide? An in spite of your ignorance and my particular expertise?

Luka was genuinely unsure how to reply. This Coyote was a friend of Soraya's, so that made him trustworthy, Luka supposed, but was he really necessary? Maybe the best way was just to creep in without doing anything to draw the Aalim's attention in any direction at all, even the wrong one?

'Just tell me one thing,' he said, rounding on n.o.bodaddy, who he was beginning to dislike more and more, 'how many levels do I still have to get through? I've got this single-digit counter up here on the right, saying Seven '

'Seven is excellent,' said n.o.bodaddy. 'Seven is actually impressive. But you won't complete Level Eight unless you do succeed in stealing the Fire of Life '

'Which, let's be clear, has never been done at least, not in the current format of the Magical World,' interjected Luka crossly. 'Not under the Rules of the Game that are presently in effect.'

'And Level Nine is the longest and hardest of all,' n.o.bodaddy added. 'That's the one in which you have to get all the way back to the Start and jump back into the Real World without being caught. Oh, and you will have the entire World of Magic up in arms and chasing after you, by the way. That's Level Nine.'