Rennington interrupted, “I’m just saying, keep an open mind. For what it’s worth, I like him. More than I ever liked that piece of shit, Jirin.”
“Duly noted,” Kazuaki retorted, lingering in the doorway. “Until we return, then. Keep an eye on the ship.”
The captain’s boots thundered as he ran up the small flight of stairs to the main deck. He took in his surroundings and cracked his knuckles, ready to start. “Brack, Revi, Bermuda, Bartholomew, you’re with me,” he barked, turning as the comrades he named grabbed their supplies and empty satchels and headed for the cockboat. “And you,” he said, plucking Nicholai from the bench where they left him while they unloaded the boat.
“I’ve got legs,” Nicholai interjected as the captain forced him to his feet.
“You will discover quickly that insolence is not welcome aboard my ship, Nico.” Kazuaki’s words were straightforward, like the calm before a storm Nicholai had no desire to endure. They all boarded the cockboat and headed back to the catacombs, waiting to light their lanterns until they drew closer to the mouth of the secret tunnel. They did not want to raise any alarms should anyone see lights pouring into the mainland.
Once inside the protective arms of the tunnel, everyone removed a lantern from their packs, save for Nicholai. Kazuaki pulled out his flint and steel, sparking a kerosene soaked wick to light each device. The flint and steel was an older method of achieving fire, but Kazuaki had lifetimes of practice and mastered the art. With their shadows flickering across the interior walls of the catacombs, the team crept deeper into the darkness.
Nicholai listened to the sounds of their marching feet echo through the narrow corridor. Their shadows followed them like ominous demons. How did he find himself here, in the company of a band of outlaws? Who were these strangers who clung to the ocean? Seafaring was a dead art. The whole thing was strange.
Nicholai lamented his predicament. Not several weeks ago he was Time Father to an entire division, overseeing the water purification industry's expansion and furthering the growth of technology by making more advanced machines. He always had water and food available and wanted for nothing. Now, he crawled through dusty catacombs to steal literature meant to be buried away by a fellow Time Father. If he lived a thousand years, he never would have predicted this.
“You sure we’re just here for books?” Brack said, his lantern illuminating the mild disappointment in his face as they walked. “No myths, no legends—just paper and ink?”
“Just paper and ink?” Bartholomew’s deep voice boomed even more than usual in the narrow tunnel. “These documents probably hold the knowledge of countless lifetimes. Secrets long forgotten and cast away from the public. These books are sure to be priceless.”
Brack shrugged. “Forgive me for not finding old parchment as exciting as heaps of gold.”
Bartholomew muttered something under his breath. Kazuaki held his lantern high, casting his light deep into the tunnel. “The goal is not so much the books, themselves, Brack. Knowledge brings us opportunities. The opportunities are what bring us the real prize.”
Brack blinked, familiar with Kazuaki’s insightful rants, but never absorbing the full impact. “That’s why you’re the cap, Captain,” was all he said, knowing it was better to soothe Kazuaki’s ego than enter into a full on philosophical debate. That was far more up Bartholomew’s alley than his own.
Nicholai walked ahead of the crowd, motioning toward several places he had hacked at with a chisel and hammer. “These were some locations I scouted already, but I had little success.”
Joining his side, the captain inspected Nicholai’s former efforts. “Were you digging mindlessly, or do you have evidence-based assumptions as to the library’s location?” he asked, half-insulting, half-inquisitive.
With a mild irritation, Nicholai replied, “All I know is it’s beneath the church. And the catacombs are beneath the church.”
“We should’ve brought Iani,” Bermuda mentioned, looking bored as she glanced around. “He was forced to attend services here. Without the blueprints to the church, he would’ve been our next best asset in terms of where to look.”
“Iani was not needed here,” Kazuaki said. “He’s too concerned with his brother to focus. That makes him useless right now.”
“It’s more likely the library will be some place easily accessible from the church interior,” Kazuaki explained. “It’s more practical to seal an existing room off than make an entire new one to house banned books. Do you know the approximate location of the church basement?”
The inquiry grabbed Nicholai’s attention. The captain’s observation made sense; it irked him he had not thought of it before. “Of course,” he said, directing them farther down the tunnel. “I thought I found the room earlier when I removed some brick work, but it just led to the church basement.” He stood before a brick wall with some obvious foundation flaws. The occasional shifting of the earth’s plates below weakened the walls. “I replaced them, as not to draw attention, but they should slide out easily enough,” he said as he gripped the edges of a brick with his fingertips and slid it out.
Bermuda, Brack, Bartholomew, and Kazuaki helped Nicholai remove more bricks. The hole he made earlier was barely big enough for a child to fit through. “Chisel more in the mortar joints,” Kazuaki instructed the crew, “as quietly as you can. I realize the irony in asking you to demolish a wall in silence, but it’s still likely there are footmen outside, even at this hour.”
“Especially since your men left two bodies behind in our escape,” Nicholai muttered beneath his breath. He did not enjoy being a participant in any man’s death, even when others deemed it a necessity.
“Only two?” Kazuaki’s brow rose as he watched Brack remove more bricks. He sounded disinterested and showed no emotion to indicate otherwise, though the news came as an alarm. The death of two footmen guaranteed increased surveillance. They would have to exercise caution if this was to be a successful trip.
Bermuda could not operate a chisel and hammer with one hand, and therefore stood by, annoyed at her own inability. Once enough bricks fell away and were set aside, they crept into the church basement one by one. Greeted by ghoulish looking figures and carvings of various religious deities, it almost looked as if an ambush awaited them inside the basement walls. All were inanimate, but eerie. The room was a glorified storage facility for all the decorative overflow. Religious paraphernalia piled in every corner of the small space, but none were the books they sought.
“Room seems small for a church of this size,” Bermuda observed as they walked farther into the space. She approached a wall with a bookshelf covering it. A small portion of the original wall behind it remained visible. Lifting her lantern to get a better view, she squinted her eyes. “Captain, these bricks differ from the walls of the others.”
Kazuaki closed the distance between them, leaning over near her to get a better look. The reddish hues of the bricks on the obscured wall were much lighter than the others. “This looks like a great place to start,” he said, motioning the crew over.
Nicholai’s heart raced as he approached the wall. Bartholomew, Bermuda, and Brack grabbed at the bookshelf and slid it across the floor to remove the obstruction. With little delay, the men started with their chisels and hammers again. No conversation ensued. Anticipation emanated from Kazuaki, Bartholomew, and Nicholai. Each man held a different reason for craving the contents of the library, but the level of excitement was the same.
“Captain,” Bartholomew breathed, holding his lantern up to the small hole they created. “Look ...”
Kazuaki leaned over, peering into the hollow room that waited on the other side. There, stored away from the eyesight of mankind for many years, was a veritable treasure trove of reading material. It was everything Nicholai said it would be. Lingering on the other side of the wall was torture. “Dig,” the captain ordered, a broad grin spreading across his face. “My gods, men, dig.”
Chapter Seven
As the solution flowed through him and the tight grip on his lungs faded, Brack patted a hand on Nicholai’s shoulder. “Thanks, mate. I knew by the look on Bart’s face it’d be breathtaking, but I thought more of a metaphorical sense, you know?” He coughed several more times, grinning all the while. It seemed nothing dampened the man’s mood, not even oxygen deficiency.
Nicholai glanced at Brack’s hand on his shoulder and forced a smile. “Couldn’t very well let you suffer,” he said before easing out from under the man’s touch. Each person scattered to a different area of the room to increase the effectiveness of their search. It was chaos. Subjects lumped together in thoughtless piles. This deterred no one from diving in.
Kazuaki set his lantern on a tall stack of books to provide illumination as he sifted through the oldest tomes. Fairytales, myths, legends: those were the subjects that called to him. Bartholomew drifted over to philosophical texts and journals from men of science and thought. Nicholai found himself in the political documents, rummaging through to find any references to Time Fathers, searching for the elusive loophole that could carry him back to Southeastern to spare Lilac’s life. Bermuda drifted without direction, only there to act as another hand to help steal and carry books back in her satchel.
Though his focus first laid with the books, Kazuaki's attention slipped. His eye followed Bermuda as she stood in the surrounding black. Literature put him in mind of the woman she was years prior. Before Mimir. The Bermuda he knew would have been nose deep in the old journals, enjoying the trip the authors long gone painted. She used to love throwing herself into the days of old. She loved nothing now. Doomed to live a life robbed of every pleasure.
“Oi!” Brack’s boisterous voice made everyone in the room jump. “Here I thought this would be a boring trip. I guess there really is something for everyone!” He shoved a medical book in Bartholomew’s face with a laugh. “Check it out, Bart—” He pointed at the anatomical illustrations that showed a nude adult woman. “—wench’s tits are as big as cannonballs, aye?”
Bartholomew glanced at the page and rolled his eyes before looking away. “Gods alive, Rabbit, you’re awful.”
“Too right, I forgot she’s not your type,” he smirked and turned the book back toward him to admire the drawings again.
Bartholomew bristled. “Sexual preferences aside, it’s a medical journal. Show a little respect for the work its author and artist put into it.”
Brack tilted his head, squinting his eyes so he could read some text. “Right-o, Bart, forgive me. What I meant to say was, check out this young female. Her breasts are as big as cannonballs,” he mocked, snickering at the medical vernacular.
Bermuda knocked the book out of his hands to cease his relentless laughing. Brack was unaffected, chuckling as he shoved books into his pack. “At least one of these smut books is coming home with me.”
Bartholomew shook his head and walked away, choosing to get lost in his environment and not Brack’s behavior. “This place is stunning,” he breathed, soaking in the gravity of the library. “All these writings, hidden from the public eye. All this knowledge, wasting away in a tomb. It’s criminal.”
“So’s stealing it, but we’re still doing that,” Brack continued to pile books Kazuaki handed to him into his bags.
Nicholai sifted through the texts like a madman, trying to find anything that might be of use to him. Most of it was catalogs of Time Fathers dating as far back as the written word, but nothing that would be useful. Kazuaki observed his fiendish pilfering through the political documents. The captain kept a watchful eye on him in between his search through the books of folklores. It was amazing what a religious fanatic considered a threat to his cause. There were fairytales hidden away even Kazuaki had not heard of before. All banished before they spread, in hopes they would remain forgotten, unable to contradict the details of Darjal’s religion.
As Kazuaki combed over the books in his section, he gravitated toward Nicholai. As Nicholai’s texts thinned out, he unknowingly edged closer to Kazuaki. The pile of fairytales and political texts intersected as the two met in the middle, each setting their hands on the cover of the same book. Kazuaki eyed Nicholai, undeterred until Nicholai submitted to his intense stare and moved his hand. “The Balance of the Earth Mother,” Kazuaki read the title aloud, glancing at Nicholai. “Is this political or myth?” he asked with a quizzical brow raise.
Nicholai cleared his throat, uncertain. “I’ve never heard of an Earth Mother, so my guess is a fairytale,” he murmured, still on the search for the Time Fathers’ code. He was paranoid by Kazuaki’s awareness but tried not to let it bother him.
Kazuaki shrugged and handed it to Bermuda. “We’re almost full up, Captain,” the quartermaster noted as she stored the book with the rest. She looked comical with her large bag of books dangling on her back. One would doubt a small woman could holster so much weight, but she didn’t break a sweat.
“Mine too, Cappy,” Brack mentioned, repositioning the weight of the full satchels on his shoulders.
Kazuaki scoffed at the unflattering moniker. “Just as well, we best be getting out of here before—”
“It came from over here,” a voice sounded from the basement, causing the crew to straighten upright. From their place in the hidden room, they saw the beams of lanterns bounce off the basement walls.
“Gods damn it all,” Kazuaki hissed, pulling out his weapon. His men were encumbered by the weight of the books; he’d have to do most of the dirty work. “I’ll clear the way,” he drew back the hammers on his revolvers. “Get back to the cockboat, I’ll meet you there.”
The captain flew out of the hole they made earlier, drawing attention away from the hidden room before the intruders plucked them off like fish in a barrel. The intensity of the gunfire increased tenfold when the surprised footmen fired back. Though Bermuda, Brack, and Bartholomew were at ease, having been exposed to these kinds of fights repeatedly, Nicholai panicked. This was only his second firefight. To add insult to injury, he didn’t find the information he was after.
Bermuda and Bartholomew lingered near the room’s entrance, waiting until Kazuaki obliterated the threat. Surprise splayed across their faces as they realized how many military men were dispatched. Nicholai was right; leaving two footmen’s bodies behind during Rennington and Iani’s rescue was a sure-fire way to garner a lot of unwanted attention from Southern’s military.
Kazuaki stood behind the statue of a prophet, firing rounds into the body parts of their attackers. One marksman got a lucky shot. The statue’s head shattered into pieces. The captain cursed as the dust from the old clay got into his eye. Even with the inconvenience, his rain of dual revolver fire drew the footmen back to the basement entrance. “Fast and away!” he called to the others.
Bermuda and Bartholomew slipped from their hiding places in the hidden room, darting back into the mouth of the catacombs. Several brave military men turned from the safety of the wall to shoot, but their bullets only found a place in the book-packed satchels. The thick paper protected their flesh, and they made it without injury into the protection of the crypts.
Brack lingered in the door. “You comin’, mate?” he asked, staring as Nicholai feverishly moved a stack of books aside.
Nicholai ignored him as his search intensified. Brack shrugged. “Aye, it’s your ass,” he uttered, following suit after Bermuda and Bartholomew.
At that mom
ent, Nicholai found his best shot: a decrepit, rotting rectangle with the words ‘Fundamental Principles of Behavior and Precepts for Time Fathers and His Chronometer’. Most of the lettering sloughed off on the front. It was a dry title, but with any luck, his salvation. He seized it with force and exited the room, though jolted back into the security of it when he realized the danger waiting on the other side was still in full force. Kazuaki stood in the man-made entrance to the catacombs. Having emptied one revolver, he hurled it onto the ground and pulled a third gun from inside his boot. He did not appear to be waiting for Nicholai.
“You’re leaving without me?” Nicholai shouted over the gunfire.
The guttural sound of a dying man pierced the captain’s ears. The soldier fell into the pile of bodies that accumulated at the basement entrance. Kazuaki flinched when a bullet lodged into his thigh, but he recovered with haste. “A useful man needs no help, Nico,” the captain replied through clenched teeth. His shots were quick. It didn’t even appear as if he aimed, but the amount of damage he did to the mob left no doubt there was strategy involved.
“Are you serious? A platitude?” Nicholai looked around and grabbed a broken piece of a tabletop to act as a primitive shield. He took a deep breath, held it, and hurled his body at the catacomb’s entrance as fast as he could. He felt the puncture of bullets into the old wood, each one made his adrenaline course faster through his veins. Though rattled, by a miracle he arrived at the entrance unscathed. Kazuaki stepped aside to allow him passage, then made a run toward the coast.
“They’ll follow, the catacombs will lead them right to the ship!” Nicholai said through breathless lips as the two men ran down the corridor, trying to catch up with the other three.
“We’ll be long gone before then,” Kazuaki said, stopping in his tracks to rifle through his pack.
“You’re—you’re stopping!” Nicholai halted his running. Though the captain nearly left him behind seconds ago, it was not in Nicholai’s nature to do the same.
The Panagea Tales Box Set Page 11