Switch! (7 page)

His scream turned into a gurgle as something huge and gnarly clamped down on his foot and spun him round and round, dragging him towards the bottom of the pool. Trying to curl up into a tight ball and go with the spin before the crocodile ripped his leg off, he opened his eyes but he couldn’t see anything with the water bubbling around him. He doubled over and groped between his legs for an eyeball to poke his finger into. Feeling his way down the creature’s nose, Ethan frantically moved his fingers backward towards the eyes and was about to dig his thumbs hard in to each squishy eyeball when his shoulder crashed painfully into the bottom of the pool and the crocodile let go abruptly, scattering sand and pebbles.
 

Ethan shook his head in slow motion as he righted himself. Perhaps he was just dizzy, but he could have sworn the amulet drifted purposefully towards him. Trying to ignore his burning lungs, he reached out and snatched it up, taking no care at all to avoid touching the stones. Energy rushed up Ethan’s arm as he gripped it, sending waves of prickly heat reverberating through his body. About to push off from the bottom of the pool, he looked up towards the surface, and froze. The shadow of the crocodile circled slowly above him, choosing its moment...

It would be seconds before he ran out of breath. His chest was burning, a deafening drumming in his ears. If only he could make it to where he could see Jimoh’s feet dangling in the water. They would help him out of the water, only, his arms and legs wouldn’t move. He didn’t seem to have the strength to propel himself towards them. He felt a massive surge of water pushing him along as he passed out.

Joe woke up disoriented. His mind hovered for a few moments on the edge of reality. He was not sure if he had drowned or hit his head on the bottom of the pool. Strangely, he didn’t even feel wet. He wondered if that was because he had been lying here long enough to dry out.

The forest canopy above his head wafted in and out of focus; the gigantic trees, nothing like the ones at Crystal Pools, were such an impossibly dark shade of green they were almost black. He blinked a couple of times, thinking there must be something wrong with his eyesight, but stopped, because that made him dizzy. He guessed Tariro had gone for help but he wondered where everyone else had got to. Someone was beating a drum. Just what he needed. His head wanted to explode.

Trying to roll over, he felt dread rising as he discovered that he could not move his arms or legs. He must have broken his neck! When he opened his mouth to howl in anguish, all that came out was a weak cough.

Turning his head to the side slowly and painfully, but with the relief of realising his neck wasn’t broken after all, he squinted in the direction of the noise to see who was beating the drums, and swore he could see not just one, but a whole troop of Tokoloshes.
 

Am I hallucinating?
He had heard the fairy stories about the hairy little men that lived in crevices and under riverbanks. They were supposed to be visible only to children.
And I’m not a child
, he thought.

One or two of the little creatures yelped as he moved, and bolted in fright towards the edges of the clearing, their scrappy animal-pelt skirts flapping around their knees. A few braver ones crept forward to take a look at him or touch him before running away again in a sort of delighted panic. Closing his eyes wearily, he wondered if the reason he couldn’t move his arms and legs was because they had tied him up, and then he passed out again.
 

The second time Joe awoke, he was startled to find a Tokoloshe face swimming in front of his eyes. Yes, it was definitely a Tokoloshe. The little man perching on his chest gripped Joe’s cheeks in both his hands and stared intently with his little jet black eyes into Joe’s eyes. The long, spiky hairs growing out of his ears twitched while he and Joe considered each other. Joe noticed that, close up, the Tokoloshe had longish, bristly, clay red-coloured hair all over his body, but he looked closer to a gnome than any sort of an ape. He shifted a primitive-looking bow from one shoulder to another and reached down to a second Tokoloshe for a gourd, which he pressed to Joe’s lips.
 

“Drink,” he commanded. Joe had taken a swallow even before he got over his astonishment that he had understood the fellow. The soothing liquid slid down his throat more like cool oil than water. It had no taste but it gave off a smell of pears.

“Where am I?” he croaked, more to himself than to the creature. “How come I can’t feel my legs?” The Tokoloshe turned and signalled to someone over his shoulder. Joe shrieked in agony, sitting up abruptly, clutching at his shin, and almost toppling the Tokoloshe from his chest. One of them had stabbed him in the leg with a spear or something.

The Tokoloshe – now dangling from Joe’s neck – jumped down and squinted up at him looking a little embarrassed. “’Sokay now,” he lisped.
 

The sudden movement was too much for Joe. He felt dizzy, and terribly sleepy. He lay back on the ground. At least he could feel his legs again, however weakly. His eyes grew heavy and he felt himself drifting back into unconsciousness.
 

The Tokoloshe shook Joe’s cheeks uneasily. “Stay awake!” he cried. “We need to move you to a safer place.”

Joe fought hard to keep his eyes open. What did the Tokoloshe mean? And were the Tokoloshes themselves safe to be with? He drifted back to sleep.

~~~

It was late afternoon by the time Joe woke again. There was no sign of the Tokoloshe. Instead, a huge tiger lounged on its back amongst the dappled shadows of the forest, a stone’s throw away. Its giant paws dangled limp-wristed in the air like a playful puppy. Its mouth was closed and it blew through its nostrils, alternately producing a breathy snort and a thunderous purr that rumbled up through its chest and resounded through the jungle.

Joe groaned softly. This must be what the Tokoloshe meant about getting him to a safe place. There was no way he was going to survive this... Or would he? Surely if the tiger were going to eat him, it would have done so while he was unconscious, unless it liked to play with its food. Joe did not know all that much about tigers. What the hell had happened? Perhaps he was already dead, and it would just go away. Yes... Yes, he was probably dead. Being dead was the only way he could make any sense of the situation.

The tiger pounced so suddenly and so smoothly he could hardly follow its movement. One moment it had been scratching idly at its light furry underbelly and the next it had closed the distance between them and was all reddish orange fur and dark vertical stripes, one huge padded paw resting gently on Joe’s chest. A small shift in the cat’s weight would crush him, he realised.

“I know you are awake,” it said, gently nudging him on the shoulder, its face an inch from his. Joe recoiled, shaking. Was he in a dream? He thought those trees were too dark. Was he in India? How the hell had that happened? He watched the muscles in the tiger’s face tense and relax while it scrutinised him close up. The tip of its tongue, the texture of sandpaper, licked his face, leaving a light graze.

“Mmm...” it murmured enigmatically. Joe shot it a terrified look, but it merely sat back and watched him.

“I am Hajiri,” it purred eventually. “I’m glad you came. I was looking for someone to light me a fire. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

It had spoken to him! He hadn’t seen its lips move, yet he had heard it quite clearly.

“Where are those Tokoloshe?” Joe asked. He struggled to sit up, surreptitiously edging away from the tiger. He’d felt a lot safer with the Tokoloshe, and not only because they had given him water, although that may have been a trick. He’d heard they were tricky, and he
had
felt extremely sleepy afterwards.
 

“Oh, the Tokoloshe?” Hajiri purred, waving a paw in the general direction of the forest. “I chased them away. Pesky creatures. All one wants at the end of a long day is a nice fire and good company, not that lot of vandals with their noisy drums.”

“Where am I?” Joe ventured, once he had got over the idea that there really were Tokoloshe, and he was actually talking to a tiger.

“Not from here then?” Hajiri said, flopping down and stretching out to his full three meters on the ground.

“I don’t know? Is this India?” Obviously tigers came from India, he thought, and it had an Indian accent, but India was impossibly far away, unless he really was dreaming or had been unconscious for weeks. “I’m from Tjalotjo in Zimbabwe.” He wondered if he would die in an instant, or if the tiger would take its time killing him and eating him. He knew there was no point in running. He felt too disorientated and, besides, running would probably make things worse.
 

“Tjalotjo,” Hajiri drawled. “Never heard of it. I have heard of India though. My ancestors came from there.

“Er, where are we? And how did I get here? And how come you can talk?” Joe said shakily.

“Dear boy, I have always been able to talk. As to how you got here – I have no idea. I got separated from my party during the hunt this morning. Got bored and wandered off, if you must know. They will have gone back home without me, selfish lot.” Joe’s eyes widened as Hajiri unsheathed a four-inch claw but the tiger only scratched his chest with it in an unthreatening way.

“Now where was I?” Hajiri went on conversationally. “Oh yes, I was just casting about for someone to help me with my fire and there you were. Lying there all floppy.” He looked as if he was trying to fix his face into a sympathetic expression but fell short of the mark.
 

“Do you suppose I wished you here?” the tiger said, livening up. “Such a strange kind of magic pervading this kingdom. Most unsettling. Can’t get used to it myself, heaven knows I have tried. Just when you get used to one preposterous thing, another pops up. I blame the witches. In fact, you being here probably has something to do with the witches. Wouldn’t question it too much – a waste of time, my boy.” He shivered ever so slightly. “But I ramble,” he said, turning to Joe. “You are in Karibu, and I am glad of the company. Perhaps you will be kind enough to light my fire. Then you can tell me all about... Tjalotjo, was it?”

Gogo Maya slumped in the shade of a tree, alternately checking her pulse and anxiously watching the pool. It was taking an awfully long time to recover from the switching without the healing power of her amulet. Salih had finally persuaded the pale, weedy boy with the curly blond hair to go into the pool after it, but he was taking far too long to surface. It probably would have gone better for him if he had taken off his trousers and boots before going in. She hoped the silly boy had not gone and drowned himself, because she really needed that amulet, and soon.
 

“The handsome black kid would have been a better choice,” she grumbled to Salih, flexing her jaw muscles. They were still sore from the wedged mango pip. “I suppose he was too busy trying to revive me.”

Salih stood up and stretched, arching his back, then glanced towards the pool. “No, the smaller one was the only one I could read,” he said. “And, as unlikely as it seems, it was the smaller one who took charge and revived you. He seems to have some magic of his own.”
 

Gogo Maya shot him a skeptical look.
 

Her head snapped around as the surface of the water exploded at last, and a large crocodile launched itself out of the pool, dragging the hapless hero onto the muddy riverbank by the foot. Her amulet sailed through the air, almost landing back in the water. She watched Salih take a furtive look around to check if anyone else had noticed it in the confusion. He then sidled up to it, lifting it carefully by the leather thong that joined the two stones, and brought it over to her. She snatched it up eagerly and clutched it in both hands.
 

The expected fuzzy feelings of wellness did not channel up through her body. Uncurling her fingers, she inspected the amulet with a disgruntled grimace. It lay there on her palm, dead.

“He must have touched the amber!” she huffed. “The energy is completely spent. It will be hours before I have the strength to switch back to Karibu, even supposing I can make a bloody switch.” She fixed the boy with a sour look as his handsome friend rushed to help him. “I don’t know why he bothers,” she grumbled. “The drenched brat will be perfectly fine after draining my amulet.”
 

“You’re going to have to engage with these people,” Salih said in his stern voice. She hoped she was not going to have to remind him who was in charge. “Take some responsibility, even,” Salih went on. “They are obviously distraught at the loss of the boy, Joe.”

“No. He will settle down fine in Karibu once he gets over the shock,” she assured him. “Lucky to be there, if you ask me.” This was a nice place he came from, she mused, having a look around, but nothing near as beautiful and exciting as Karibu. There was plenty to entertain a boy there.

Salih gave her that look.
 

“Oh, stop worrying,” she snapped at him. “Morathi will probably ransom the boy to us once we get back. If he really hates it at Waheri village, we could always get Tacari to take him through the tear.” Gogo Maya was well aware that the exit through Tacari’s tear was on the other side of the world, but she had heard that people in the outside world were capable of travelling great distances in a relatively short space of time. His people would have him home in no time at all.

“We can’t take him to Waheri without explaining to Tacari how we got him there in the first place,” Salih said.

Salih had a point, she groaned. Tacari was going to be furious. Not only at the risk to Karibu, if she and Salih were discovered on the outside of the hidden Kingdoms, but if he found out she and Salih had borrowed some of his own magic to construct the switching opal in the first place, he would be apoplectic.
 

“And we don’t know that the boy is with Morathi,” Salih said. “Even if he is, who knows what those Tokoloshes will do in their present state? They’ll probably pass him on to whoever is supplying the
nzuri thana
that makes them so crazy. We have to make a plan to extract the boy from Karibu as quickly as possible, before anyone else finds out.”