CHAPTER 2
QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN LEMUR
MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY
Masikura gazed up at the lead-colored sky. She walked slowly, forcing herself to concentrate on the noise coming from the crunching stones underfoot, now and then interrupted by the lonely cries of the jungle birds behind her in the palm trees. She had withdrawn here to the shore after an hour of deep meditation. As was her habit, she had awakened right before sunset, when she'd felt the weakening rays of light caress her face. Just like earlier, her meditation had not gone well today; for the past two weeks she'd been unable to cleanse her mind of delusive, disturbing thoughts and bring her body and soul in harmonious accord. She could feel it deep inside her, a growing uneasiness that would soon come over all the other animals as well…
Maybe the ocean breeze would help her clear her mind and settle her nerves. She doused her face with cold, salty water. Her scales bristled as she wiped them dry and blinked to look toward the horizon. The hot dry morning had turned into a humid and windy afternoon; a haze of hovering golden fog hung in the air causing the horizon to shimmer iridescently.
This was exactly the image she'd been seeing in her dreams, over and over again…
The fresh air did nothing to ease her or allay her fears. Her thoughts followed her, colliding with each other inside her mind just like the waves crashing into the rocks in the shallow water, and the scenario she'd seen before so many times kept rolling through her mind, threatening to overwhelm her –
The sky over Madagascar grew hauntingly dark and ominous as the air began filling with the terrifying cries of creatures long forgotten to this world, creatures she had hoped to never have to face again…
– As much as she wished she could be, there was no way she was wrong about predicting this; her visions were as clear as hardly any she'd ever had.
It had already begun – the sea winds were sending thick, black clouds roaring in. When she looked at them now, it was as though she could already hear the progressive roar of the approaching swarm!
The wind started blowing harder and harder, and slowly, very slowly, rain began to fall. By now the sky was almost entirely dark. As she gazed up in prayer one more time, her green eyes intensified and brightened, her tears blending with the raindrops now washing down her face. Yet she stood pale and grim as she braved the coming storm, great tension in her stance, instinctively raising the large flaps protruding from either side of the upper surface of her neck. She was deeply worried about the peace of the people, about the future of Madagascar…
But there was one thing that scared her more than anything else – the fact that she would be considered the one to blame for all this.
MADAGASCAR, PAST
"Are you sure this is the right way?"
Clemson stopped the motorcycle and took the engine out of gear before he thoroughly studied their surroundings. They had reached the island after all: this morning they'd arrived in Madagascar after stowing away on a grimy cargo freighter. The past couple of hours they'd been heading deeper and deeper into the jungle, trying to find the witch's home by following the way described on the map.
By now they were stuck in the mud miles from any civilization; there didn't even seem to be any lemurs or other inhabitants of the island living around here.
"Because it sure doesn't look like it is." Mea handed his maker the map from behind.
Clemson unfolded it with a frown and checked it again, measuring distances by eye.
"Absolutely. There's no other way to the castle… according to that map, at least."
However, there was nothing to indicate that a castle should be sited anywhere around here. In fact, there was nothing in sight, nothing at all; just a lump of a hill, a huge old baobab tree standing sentry at the top, old and gnarled, and the muddy road that kept getting narrower with each turn.
They were both a little afraid that they were taking their motorcycle beyond the boundaries set for its use: they'd already had to drag it through the woods because it'd had its wheels clogged with mud so bad they wouldn't turn anymore.
Mea leaned back in his seat with a sigh. "Are you sure you got it the right way round?"
"Hey, just because I don't have an electronic mind like you doesn't mean I'm not able to read a street map!" Clemson muttered, half annoyed, half joking, but then handed him the map back, just to be sure. "Why don't you just use your built-in navigation software?"
"I'm trying to do that all the time, man. There's no service out here."
Clemson got off the bike to stretch his muscles while the android was scanning the map one more time. As he swung his right leg off, he could feel the strain in his lower back and root of his tail; both were sore and aching from the long journey.
He kicked a pebble, encouraging it to precede their ride up the muddy hill in front of them. He was afraid that the bike wouldn't make it, that it'd break down after all, and then they'd have to continue on foot.
Somewhere in the distance he then spotted an older lemur sowing seeds in a field.
"Let's ask that guy over there for directions."
They drove a little around the hill and up to the field on which the lemur was working, then pulled over and stopped again. Clemson revved the bike up a couple of times to get the man's attention. The elderly lemur – a sclater's lemur with light blue eyes – came up to them; he had a coconut beverage in his paw and a satchel slung over his shoulder which was filled with mango cores. Clemson told him about the castle they were looking for and asked him to show them the nearest way to it.
"A castle?" The stranger's eyebrows shot up when Clemson mentioned it. "You don't mean that castle, do you?" – Now it was Clemson's turn to look surprised; the stranger's eyes widened and his face dropped with sheer terror for the briefest of moments before he pulled himself together and took the map Clemson was offering him.
"You guys aren't from around here, are you?" he asked after he'd studied it for a while, "I'm Horst." He reached out a paw. Clemson didn't shake it.
"What about that castle?"
"No one knows who built it, but our archeologists think it is at least two thousand years old. After our very first ruler, King Julien I, mysteriously disappeared one day when he visited that castle, it became feared and abandoned by the rest of the citizens of Madagascar. Very few lemurs have dared to visit this place after this incident; they, too, did not return."
He handed Clemson back the map. "If you want to go there, you're on the right way. But you're not seriously planning on doing that, are you? – Because after all that happened, that castle is said to be haunted, a terribly frightening place! There are ghosts roaming the desolate building; sometimes their eerie laughter can be heard from outside as it issues from those empty halls. Some say that those are the apparitions of the lemurs who have disappeared. Some say that this building isn't even a real castle at all; it's a gate leading to the netherworld, and through it you can hear the voices of the dead."
Clemson and Mea exchanged a glance. "Sounds great. – It's those ghosts we're looking for," Clemson explained to Horst, "Is one of them known to you as the Golden Lemur?"
At this question Horst visibly blanched under his fur. "Oh, yes. She's one of those lemurs who went there and never returned. It didn't happen too long ago that she disappeared; some of those living on this island have known her while she was still among us. They say she has departed from this life with many regrets. Sometimes, at night, her furious screams can be heard echoing over the courtyard… In life she was said to have great powers. Since her disappearance no other lemur has dared to visit the castle."
Recalling the lines he'd read before, Clemson kick-started the motorcycle engine back on: they were definitely on the right track. However, just as they were about to drive off, Horst stepped in their way, a terrified expression on his face.
"Don't take this lightly! No one's ever found out what exactly happened to those lemurs and why they didn't return, but it sure is an extremely dangerous place!"
When he received no answer, Horst sipped his drink noisily through the straw as he observed the two red lemurs more closely. – "Say, where are you guys from? I know any lemur around here, but I've never seen you here before." His bright blue eyes flicked suspiciously between Clemson and his android double. "Are you twins?"
"Go to hell." Mea drew his gun and fired a shot that hit the mud in front of Horst's feet, causing him to jump out of the way with a yelp. He cursed loudly, but most of his words were drowned out in a roar from the bike's engine.
"You fools! You will find that I was right, and you will regret not having listened to me! If you manage to make it back from there alive, I will plant my mango trees upside down!" they still heard him yell as they drove away without looking back.
Clemson bent low over the steering wheel, his foot hard on the gas, urging the motorcycle to greater speeds. Over the next hill in front of them the sun was sinking, gilding thick green grass. As they neared the crest of the hill his hopes swelled: a dark stone castle that looked like a towering black mountain loomed up in front of them against the dark green background of the jungle. Soon they were close enough so it filled all their vision.
Clemson killed the engine and then dropped the stand with his foot. As soon as the bike was balanced upright, they climbed off and continued afoot, pushing their way past thick underbrush and fallen, rotten trees.
"I'll buy you a drink if we actually meet a witch in there," Mea smirked.
"You got a deal," his maker replied very seriously. He then waited for Mea to give him a structural analysis of the building, but the android shook his head and told him that something was blocking his scanners and that he needed to check them later.
They continued toward the castle, fighting through ferns which were as tall as themselves, and their feet eventually found a solid path that curved up to its enormous front portal. It was flanked by two gigantic statues resembling winged lemurs. The castle had a surrounding moat which was walled and very deep, but there was a drawbridge leading over it to the entrance. The bridge was down – the entrance portal, however, was locked. Clemson tried to shove the black wing-doors open but to no avail. Frowning, he turned around to his android.
"It must be the ban that keeps the witch imprisoned… It keeps her from getting out and anyone else from going in, I guess."
"Ah, no way. Let me handle that."
Mea drew his handgun, aimed at the portal, and fired at the lock – once, twice. The door wouldn't budge. He tried his bigger gun, the one whose blast always scared Clemson a bit even though he held his ears shut when Mea fired it, but the bullets didn't even leave a scratch on the black wood. The android blinked in confusion; then he turned the gun around and peered into its barrel as if he couldn't believe it.
"I'm telling you, it's because of the ban," Clemson said, "We won't get that door open, unless…" His voice trailed off when he looked at the statues again. Each of the stone lemurs had an object in its paws, as if these objects – some kind of artifacts – represented a sort of assignment: both statues were holding a small square rock stand with a green ring on top of it. However, only the left stone lemur had a flat, round crystal fixed horizontally on the green ring… Clemson's gaze fell back on the book he still carried with him – the crystal attached to its cover looked exactly identical. He loosened it from the book and took it over to the other statue standing on the right. Mea watched him doing so; he didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that said 'as if that would work'.
Undeterred, Clemson placed the crystal atop the green ring. It fit perfectly.
I summon you, Golden Lemur – appear to me and grant me your powers!
Just as he silently thought so, the pentacle inside the crystal began to glow…
There was the scraping of stone against stone – and then the giant wing doors swung open with a mighty creak of hinges, causing both lemurs to skitter back a few steps. Beyond the portal lay a massive corridor, its arched roof glowing fiery orange in the twilight of dusk, stretching ahead into dark infinity. They stared into it, taken aback.
"What the hell…!" Mea muttered, looking shocked. Clemson had hardly ever seen him look so startled; he grinned at his reaction but only for a moment.
They stepped over the crystalline threshold into the corridor.
They were only a few steps inside when an uncanny feeling of being watched suddenly burned hard into Clemson's flesh. He ignored it. The silence of eons seemed to fill his ears; Mea's skates made a strangely loud scraping sound as he curved across the stone tiles in the floor that were the size of swimming pools. At the end of the corridor a door opened into an entrance hall of enormous size; one could probably fit the entire Central Park Zoo into that hall alone.
They crossed it to the nearest flight of stairs; there was another door at the end of it, sharing the same design as the one outside, only there weren't any statues standing guard on either side of it. Judging from its size it presumably led to the main chambers of the castle. Oddly enough, it had been left ajar for some reason…
Clemson put his paw on the handle and pushed. It eerily creaked before him, like a breath of evil, moving slowly in and out as he warily stepped inside. He was greeted by an unbreakable stillness; the room was not only deserted but seemed uninhabited for a long time. It was void of any life… entirely too silent. Clemson didn't remember the last time he'd been in such a profound silence. A shiver went down his spine as the feeling of being watched grew stronger with every step he took inside, until he could almost hear the in and out breaths of the watcher.
Perhaps the witch was eyeing him now –?
He languished in the center of the room searching for any signs of life. The curtains were tightly drawn in front of the large windows, but there was enough light to see that this place had once been stylish. There was a mosaic floor; from the ceiling hung a huge chandelier with all its candles burned down. A broken grandfather clock stood in a corner; in another one there was a grand organ with intricately carved legs, its lid open, and its four tiers of black and white keys covered with layers of grime and dead leaves. A banquet table was stretching all the way through the room; like every other piece of furniture it was covered with thick layers of dust. Grass was growing through the cracks in each of the stone walls; only the back wall was hung with a huge woven red curtain.
There was a fireplace opposite the entrance door; an enormous armchair had been placed close to it. Its back was facing Clemson, but he could tell no one was sitting in there.
He approached the fireplace and squatted down to inspect the ashes. They were cold; there couldn't have been any recent fire. However, their black vestiges were spread all over the marble floor, and the strange texture of them clung to his feet; as he bowed down to brush out his fur, he suddenly noticed a soft trail carved into them… a trail of footprints.
A feeling of terror rose in his gullet. Now he was suddenly and terribly sure that they weren't alone, that there was someone else here in this castle with them –
And then the edge of his eye caught a small flash of light. He flinched. His gaze darted up toward the ceiling – catching a tiny glowing form…
A golden butterfly.
MADAGASCAR, PRESENT DAY
Karl was tightening the last screw on the back of his zeppelin's underbody when his favorite cockroach came scuttled up to him to tell him something.
"What is it, Chauncey?" He put the wrench aside to take his beloved friend on his claw and bring him close to his ear, into which the cockroach excitedly chirped words only Karl or another cockroach could understand.
"Oh, really? …That sounds strange. Wait, I'll have a look at it."
Together they climbed up on the observation platform at the zeppelin's tailpiece. From up here they could also have a look at the good work they'd done: along with a hired pack of rats the two of them had spent the past four weeks patching up the big red balloon, reconstructing the transverse rings and longitudinal members that made up the framework, fixing the cables attached to the control car, and doing everything else it took to finally make the mighty zeppelin airworthy again.
After all, an evil genius of Karl's magnitude had to have a flying lair!
Leaning over the handrail, the fanaloka narrowed his eyes, peering in the direction Chauncey pointed. Dusk was beginning to envelop the island. A little further away he noticed a strange golden mist spreading throughout the jungle, hiding the base of the palm trees, slowly crawling toward his coffee fields.
Chauncey was looking at him quizzically all the while.
"Wait here for a second."
Karl grasped the wooden handrail and swung himself over and down on the other side, disappearing from Chauncey's view. He headed straight for the jungle. When he entered the woods he suddenly shivered when a breeze came up, causing the golden mist around him to rise a bit – and for a moment he thought he saw signs of movement in the swirling distance... The breeze intensified, chilling his fur. A scornful whisper seemed to pass through the leaves in the baobab tree above him.
Suddenly something darted past the edge of his sight – he whirled, but it was gone too quickly for him to make out its shape. He tried to see where it went, but the space between the trees was empty, except for a tendril of mist swirling in the breeze of his own movement. The whisper passed over him again – more than a gust of wind… the hissing of an incomprehensible, breathy language.
A rustle behind him, the faintest, softest brush of a wing against a leaf – he spun, and for a moment saw a thing that made him doubt his own eyesight: a tiny form, small like a butterfly but shimmering golden like the mist it emerged from.
No... It can't be! Karl stared at it with wide eyes, his expression changing rapidly from confusion to joy to bitterness.
Then he turned around and ran back to his lair as fast as he could.
"Everyone, prepare for takeoff! We'll launch in ten minutes!"
The rats, who had been lazing around on his fields chewing coffee beans and cheese bits after they'd finished their work, hurried to get back into the zeppelin.
Confused as to the sudden haste, Chauncey tried asking Karl why they needed to rush off like this, but the fanaloka just took him on his paw again and murmured, "I know we scheduled the test flight for tomorrow, but right now I think it's... safer to do it right away. – Before we can leave, there's something else I need you to do," he then told the rats, who were now gathering around them as well, looking a little puzzled.
Karl disappeared into the hull of the airship for a moment and came back with both arms stuck out to his sides, dozens of delicate silver chains hanging from them. Attached to each chain was a small pendant that looked like a scorpion with a long spiraled tail attached to a silver-blue body. He handed the chains to his rat workers and then pointed towards the log fence he and Chauncey had put round the coffee fields in order to make clear to the other inhabitants of the island that they were their property.
"Go around that fence and hang those things up on it. Meanwhile Chauncey and I will already start filling the balloon."
The rats did as they were told and a little later, with a smoothness that something of this size should not have possessed, the zeppelin started to lift into the air. They had done good work: the takeoff was flawless, and soon they were quietly hovering over the jungle. From above they could see the golden mist had now spread anywhere but over their coffee fields.
While the rats didn't worry about it too much, Chauncey's eyes were filled with concern.
Karl knew that there was no time to explain things to him now; Chauncey had to trust him. But when he bowed down to him and looked deep into the cockroach's eyes, he knew he would.
"Don't worry; we'll be alright. I saved two for us," he murmured, and Chauncey's eyes widened with surprise when Karl opened his paw and showed him two more of the silver chains which he hadn't given to the rats. He placed one of the scorpion charms around his own neck and gently fastened the other around the cockroach's carapace.
