The Emperor of Mars
The second thrilling Martian adventure.
Book 2 of the Secrets of the Dragon Tomb Series
A missing Martian. A sinister plot. A French spy.
If Edward thought life was going to be easy in Tharsis City, he was very, very wrong. The moment he intercepts a thief escaping from Lady Harleston’s townhouse, he is caught up in a terrible scheme that threatens the whole of Mars.
Soon he’s fighting off vicious sea serpents, battling a small army of heavily-armored thugs, and trying to unpick an impossible mystery. Meanwhile, Putty has declared war on her new governess, a war that, for the first time in her life, Putty may be in danger of losing.
Edward doesn’t know whom he can trust. Will he make the right choice? Or will his family – and his entire planet – fall victim to the treacherous Emperor of Mars?
Join Edward and his family for a whole new, exciting adventure on Mars.
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Praise of The Emperor of Mars
“As in the first installment, there is plenty of action; readers will encounter saber-toothed spiders and shark kites, as well as sea serpents, mechanical scorpions, and the dreaded Apprentice. […] This fast-paced sequel exploring deep topics of power, corruption, family, and identity will find a broad audience.”
– School Library Journal
“The sequel has all the puzzle solving, adventuring, and humor you remember from the first book but turned up a notch to make this read even better than the last!
“One of our favorite things about this series is Patrick Samphire’s incredible talented for painting a scene, especially in this incredible steampunk inspired take on the red planet.”
– YAYOMG!
Chapter 1
Mars, 1817
I was twenty feet underground, surrounded by glowing blue sandfish crystals, with my head jammed in a beetle-vine warren, when I realized that vine-mining wasn’t for me.
I had seen the notice pinned up outside the local office of the Imperial Martian Airship Company:
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
ROOT OUT BEETLE-VINES!
SAVE LUNAE CITY!
SIGN UP TODAY!
BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
Perfect, I’d thought. What a great idea.
I had never been so wrong.
You might have thought that living in the middle of Mars’s biggest desert would mean that you never got wet. You would have been wrong. Once a year, it rained for a solid month in the wilderness hundreds of miles upstream. The Martian Nile rose, and the river valley turned into a gigantic lake. The Inundation, they called it, and it was very, very wet indeed.
That would be all right if you didn’t mind a bit of water. Or it would have been, if not for the beetle-vines. All year they had been burrowing away under Lunae City, sending out satellite clusters through their tunnels. When the Inundation arrived and water rushed into the tunnels, the beetle-vine clusters would erupt like fireworks made of multicolored toffee. The whole city would end up covered in bright, sticky string.
It was a crisis, but I was ready.
We’d been in Lunae City for eight months, and the truth was, I was bored. So when I’d seen the advertisement for vine-miners, I’d thought this was it: something fun to do at last.
I managed to believe that for almost half an hour. Then I found myself wedged upside down, dangling over a particularly ripe beetle-vine cluster, while sweat dripped onto the disgusting-smelling thing.
Water was what made the beetle-vine cluster think the Inundation had arrived, and here I was, dripping on it like a leaking pipe. I wondered what would happen if it exploded right in my face.
Beetle-vines were semidormant at night, so the mining took place after dark. I’d had to wait until my entire family had gone to bed before I could sneak out. Now I was wishing I’d stayed in bed.
“What the devil are you doing?” a voice snapped out.
I twisted around and saw that a tall, thin man in a long, black coat had emerged from a side tunnel and was peering up at me through thick lenses. My shoulders were still jammed tight, so I indicated the beetle-vine cluster with my head.
“Trying to clear that out.”
The man adjusted his lenses with a small lever set into the side of his glasses and squinted up at me again.
“And this is the way you propose to do it?” he demanded. “If you damage it, you’ll drive it further underground, and then who will go after it, boy? You?”
“This wasn’t exactly my plan,” I muttered.
“Amateurs,” the man said under his breath. He reached into one of his many bulging pockets and pulled out a small clockwork saw. “Don’t move.”
“Um, about that …” I said.
The man knelt beside the beetle-vine cluster and began cutting one of the tendrils that joined the satellite cluster to the other parts of the vine.
When I’d received my instructions, I’d been told that I would need to slice through every tendril before I touched the beetle-vine cluster itself.
Something crunched where my shoulder pressed into the tunnel wall. Sand and fragments of sandfish crystal powdered down over my face.
“You might want to hurry,” I said.
The man ignored me.
The sand shifted and I felt myself slide an inch down. I still couldn’t move my arms. I scrabbled about with my fingers, but there was nothing to grab hold of.
“Seriously,” I said.
“Please stop talking,” the man said waspishly, without looking up. “I’ve a good mind to leave you hanging up there all night.”
More sand trickled past my ear.
“Somehow I don’t see that happening,” I said.
The man straightened then moved around to the second tendril. In the pale blue glow of the sandfish crystals, I could see eight or nine tendrils snaking away into little tunnels.
I tried to slow my breathing so as not to dislodge any more sand. My left arm was itching like mad, and I was starting to feel dizzy from the blood going to my head.
Something gave way, and I dropped almost a foot before my arms jammed again.
“Keep still!” the man barked.
I bit back a reply. A knot of sandfish crystals pressed hard against my lips. If I spoke, they’d end up in my mouth.
The man stopped cutting to wind his clockwork saw. I wanted to scream.
“Use a knife!” I hissed through tight lips.
The man didn’t bother to answer.
Sand slid against my arms. I pushed them outward to hold myself in place. Hard crystals pressed into my shoulders.
“Oh, God,” I mumbled.
The sand crumbled. The sides of the tunnel gave way. With a yell, I dropped like a plunging crash-eagle.
I barely had time to get my arms in front of my face before I hit the beetle-vine cluster with a splat!
Sticky, stinking fluid sprayed across me. The smell was like rotting meat. I gagged and spat and clawed the stuff from my eyes.
“You imbecile!” the man screeched. “You useless, careless, dangerous imbecile!”