The Infinity Engines Books 1-3

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘How come you know so much about her?’

  Caitlin gave him one of her quirky smiles. ‘Because Isabella was awesome. She re-unified her country, brought down the national debt, created a police force and even financed Christopher Columbus to find the new world.’

  An idea struck Josh. ‘So how many Queens are buried down here?’

  ‘I would guess ten, maybe more.’

  ‘More than twelve?’ he asked as he brushed the dirt off of a nameplate on one of the vaults.

  ‘Careful,’ warned Caitlin, pulling his hand away from the stone. There was a moment when her fingers touched him that Josh felt something pass between them. A memory from before, like a dream that awoke in both of them.

  ‘What?’

  She let go of his hand, her eyes full of questions. ‘Ossuaries, they’re —’ She shook her head dismissively. ‘They’re not the kind of vestiges that you want to weave with.’

  Josh smiled. ‘Are you afraid of ghosts?’

  Caitlin shook her head. ‘They’re not ghosts, more like bad memories. Echoes of old lives.’

  ‘So they’re harmless.’

  ‘No, not exactly. Reavers believe that they’re a way to open a door to the other side. They call it Tombing.’

  The catacombs opened up into a chapel of rest, the cave walls carved with the ornate reliefs of the crest of Castile and scenes from the bible. Darkling was standing irreverently on top of the tomb of Queen Isabella.

  ‘So, as far as I can tell we’re the first to make it down here. I’m guessing the next clue has something to do with this Lady.’ He squatted down and looked at the white porcelain effigy that lay serenely on top of the coffin. ‘I assume they don’t intend for us to dig her up, so there must be something else. Everybody spread out and search for a clue.’

  The others broke off into groups of twos or threes, exploring the room and the tunnels that led away from it.

  ‘Do you think we should tell him about the Queens?’ Josh whispered as Caitlin inspected an alcove full of skulls.

  Caitlin stepped back, winding an old cloth around the end of a piece of bone. ‘No, I would rather try and figure it out first. I don’t want him to end up blaming us for a dead end.’

  Darkling sat on the end of the sarcophagi, swinging his feet and drinking from one of the bottles he’d taken from the ship. It was apparent he wasn’t about to get his hands dirty. One by one, the teams disappeared into the catacombs. At first, Josh could hear their voices echoing back along the tunnels — but then everything went silent.

  Caitlin lit the end of her home-made torch and walked off into a dark passage.

  ‘What’s with all the heads?’ Josh whispered as they walked along the tunnel. The walls were stacked with the pale, eyeless remains of thousands of skulls.

  Caitlin was unusually quiet, and Josh could tell that something was bothering her.

  They came to a T-junction, where a small shrine had been carved into the rock ahead of them. Caitlin pushed the torch into the alcove, and the guttering flames lit up the yellowing bone of a skull covered in runes and glyphs. A rictus grin leered out of the darkness, its jaws displayed an array of gold and be-jewelled teeth.

  ‘Skull cults were popular in the fifteenth,’ Caitlin mused, studying the symbols. ‘They believed that the souls of the beheaded were trapped in purgatory, and that they could use them to communicate with the other side.’

  ‘Can you read what it says?’

  She whispered something under her breath. A word that Josh couldn’t quite hear.

  ‘Cat?’

  Wind caught the torch, creating wild shadows across the surface of the rock wall.

  ‘Shit!’ Caitlin cursed.

  Josh felt a cold chill in the air, his breath suddenly visible in the weak light of the torch.

  Josh reached out to touch her shoulder. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she screamed, turning to face him. ‘Why didn’t I see it. Shit! Dalton you bastard!’

  As she moved out of the way, Josh saw that the skull was changing, the bone slowly regaining its flesh — it was decay in reverse.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve failed. It’s a trap. Dalton’s been here and left us a harbinger.’

  ‘What the hell is a harbinger?’

  ‘It’s a type of snare. You trigger it when your mind deconstructs the sigils.’ She pointed to the nearly human head that sat on the shrine. ‘The symbols on the skull are Akkadian — it’s an archaic language, one that his father decrypted years ago. He bloody knew I’d read it. We’re time-bound now — locked into this stupid head’s timeline until they come and let us out.’

  ‘But I can’t read it.’

  ‘You got dragged in the moment you touched me.’

  ‘So, how do we get out?

  ‘We wait,’ she said, sitting down on the floor. ‘Dalton will probably tell Vassili once he’s won. I would assume that every one of team Aries is currently trapped in some side pocket of time.’

  ‘Except Darkling.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said with a smirk. ‘I’d noticed our self-appointed leader doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.’

  ‘Do you know him?’ Josh asked, sitting down next to her.

  She shrugged. ‘A Dalton clone as far as I can work out.’

  Josh wanted to ask what it was that made her go for Dalton, but couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How did I end up with Dalton? Lyra told me you were asking about him and me.’

  Josh felt the warmth rise in his cheeks. Lyra already guessed about their relationship from when she’d been inside his head.

  ‘It’s just — well, it was just different before.’

  ‘In your time?’

  ‘Yeah, you and Dalton were — ‘

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ she screamed, sticking her fingers in her ears. ‘Nemesis preserve us! Don’t you know how unlucky it is to share an alternate outcome with a nescient?’

  Josh laughed. ‘You were never this superstitious before!’

  ‘Stop it!’ she said, trying not to laugh herself. ‘I’m serious!’

  ‘What’s all this voodoo? Who is this Nemesis? Lyra seems totally obsessed with him.’ He looked up at the now fully human face on the shrine — the man’s eyes stared directly at Josh, and he had to look away.

  Caitlin frowned. ‘You’re telling me you have never heard of the Nemesis? The change bringer? They’re a kind of fairy story except with demons — the type you get told when you’re a kid. He keeps the night creatures at bay. He knows the names of the Djinn. Blah, blah, blah.’

  ‘And who are the Djinn?’

  She took a long, deep breath. ‘The ancients, the gods of chaos, those that live beyond time in the maelstrom. It’s all a load of nonsense, really.’

  Lyra had mentioned something about a book before, but Josh couldn’t remember the title. ‘The ones in the book — that Daedalus wrote.’

  ‘The Malefactum Maelstromo, or Reaver’s Bible, first ever account of the world beyond time. It’s supposed to be one of our oldest manuscripts. Personally, I think it’s a fake, but many amongst the Order have become true believers.’

  Josh realised then that the book had to be part of the change in this timeline. No one had spoken of a Reavers Bible before, and certainly not created a religion out of it.

  ‘Who was this Daedalus?’

  ‘The bravest Scriptorian that ever lived,’ Caitlin quoted rather sarcastically. ‘The only man to ever cross into the maelstrom and return. No one knows his true name — they discovered the book under Herculaneum, after Vesuvius, conveniently.’

  ‘Why conveniently?’

  ‘No way to trace back, as the volcano wiped out any useful artefacts.’

  ‘So, you’re saying he made the whole thing up?’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, but don’t tell Dalton. He’ll have you burned for heresy!’
/>   Josh was shocked. ‘Wait, Dalton believes in all this?’

  ‘Why do you think he was so keen to join up? Dalton is obsessed with finding Daedalus’ second manuscript — the so-called Book of Deadly Names.’

  ‘Why?’

  Caitlin pointed up to the severed head. ‘Because Daedalus wrote in the Malefactum: “it holds the key to an ancient power, one not limited by time,” and “to know a name of a thing is to hold dominion over it”.’

  ‘And this second book is lost?’

  She nodded. ‘Daedalus mentions it, but never revealed it’s whereabouts. Dalton is determined to find it.’

  38

  Haast Eagles

  Dalton was unbearable that evening — team Gemini paraded him around the refectory on their shoulders at dinner. He held Isabella’s Crown over his head like a victorious football captain who’d just won the world cup. Caitlin had walked out halfway through their first lap of the canteen. Josh wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but he knew better than to interfere.

  Three of the teams had been caught out by Gemini’s tricks. It had been a hard first lesson, as there weren’t any rules during the trials and cheating seemed to be positively encouraged — Vassili called it ‘Ingenuity.’

  First blood went to Dalton. Josh’s heart sank as the points went up onto the leaderboard. Aries were last — and they had less than two weeks to make the cut.

  Josh found Caitlin sitting on the roof of the castle, watching birds of prey as they hunted across the valley. He followed their effortless flight, gliding on unseen winds as they soared over the dark canopy of pines — he’d never seen something quite so deadly and yet so beautiful.

  ‘Did you know the Lord of this castle had the last breeding pair of Haast Eagles?’ Her tone was despondent, subdued as if she’d been sitting up here all this time contemplating throwing herself off.

  He sat down beside her, careful not to get too close. The flat roof felt hot from the sun and the warm evening winds fluttered the banners that hung from the turrets. There was a calm up here that even the distant screech of the hunting birds calling to each other couldn’t disrupt.

  Her fingers toyed with the dragon pendant. ‘Do you ever feel like you want to go back and start again?’

  ‘Every day,’ Josh said with a chuckle.

  ‘Dalton’s asked me to join Gemini. I want to tell him to stick it!’

  ‘So what’s stopping you?’

  She sighed, letting go of her necklace and dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘What was I like? The me that you knew before.’

  ‘You told me not to tell you.’

  ‘Do you always do as you’re told?’

  When she spoke that way, it was hard not to think of the old Caitlin — the grief almost overwhelmed him. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Was I different?’ She turned to face him, trace lines of mascara still wet on her cheeks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  Josh didn’t think she was in the right emotional state to have this kind of conversation.

  ‘You weren’t with Dalton. You thought he was a dick.’

  She nodded, as if Josh had spoken some incontrovertible truth. ‘He always has been.’

  ‘Then why put up with him?’

  ‘His family took me in when my grandfather couldn't. They were very good to me.’

  Josh couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to live with the Eckharts. Ravana, Dalton’s mother, was a terrifying woman and hardly someone you’d want to leave children with, let alone bring them up.

  ‘I thought your grandfather raised you?’

  She shook her head. ‘He tried, but he had to manage an entire guild, and that didn’t leave a lot of time for family. Although he always took me away every summer — Dalton used to call him the fairweather grandfather.’

  ‘What’s Dalton going to do now he knows you’re here? Won’t he try to get you kicked out?’ It was a question Josh had been worrying about since they arrived.

  ‘Oh, no. I know too many of his dirty little secrets.’ Her face grimaced as she thought of them. ‘Tell me something else.’

  Josh was trying to imagine what Dalton’s guilty secrets might be and wasn’t concentrating when he replied. ‘Well, you still lost your parents when you were ten.’

  Her lips stretched into a thin white line. ‘I was hoping for something more positive.’ She glared at him with eyes full of fire.

  There were so many memories to choose from, moments that he’d wanted to tell her about and yet couldn’t bring himself to share; they belonged to another time, and just like the photos of his childhood that kept under his bed, they were precious.

  ‘I once watched you take out the most hideous bunch of strzyga, single-handed, in under ten seconds.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘How many?’

  ‘Like fifteen, or maybe twenty,’ he said, exaggerating.

  ‘So I could kick ass?’ she asked, relishing the idea.

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘It’s weird to think that you know things about me. Yet I don’t know anything about you at all!’

  Josh shrugged. ‘Not sure how much I can tell you. We were friends, you taught me a lot about the Order — saved my life more than once.’

  ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Share the memory,’ she demanded, putting her hands on his temples. ‘I want to feel what it was like to be that girl.’

  39

  Daedalans

  Bentley couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following him. He’d tried several times to change direction, taking random diversions down different passages and stairs into the bowels of the castle.

  The echoes of his footsteps on the flagstones made it impossible to be sure, but when he stood still, listening to his breath, there was a shuffling sound in the shadows behind him.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d felt watched since he’d found the old stock room. He’d spent every night down there, converting it into a workshop. But in the last week, he started to get that creepy sensation down the back of his neck.

  The storeroom was full of discarded equipment and tools, either too old or broken to be useful. Bentley was in his element, and having always wanted to be an artificer like his dad, he liked nothing better than trying to fix things, and there were some amazing toys in there to play with.

  It took him less than a week to exhaust the supplies in the first room, which is when he started to explore the lower levels and began to hear things. He’d tried to tell himself he imagined it, that it was just an old castle and full of antiquated plumbing, but he couldn’t shake the thought that he wasn’t alone.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows, blocking the passage.

  ‘Who walks within the darkness?’

  He couldn’t see the face because the man was wearing a cowled robe, but the voice seemed familiar. The question sounded like a kind of password challenge.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Bentley stammered.

  ‘None of your damned business. This is off limits,’ the man growled, moving towards him.

  Bentley caught a glimpse of a metal mask beneath the hood and knew immediately he was in trouble.

  ‘Daedalans,’ he hissed under his breath.

  There was a rush of footsteps behind him and hands grabbed his arms roughly, pushing him to the floor.

  ‘He’s spying on us!’ said the other voice, who sounded younger than the first.

  ‘He’s too stupid to be a spy,’ said the first man. ‘What are you doing down here, fatty?’

  Bentley’s head was pulled back so that he was made to stare directly into the demonic mask. He tried hard not to look scared.

  ‘I was just looking for e-e-equipment,’ Bentley stammered, ‘for my a-a-artificer exam.’

  ‘Aaartificer?’ Mocked their leader. ‘You’ll be lucky to make the next cut — Vedris must have really screwed up to end up with such a bunch of
rejects.’ He leaned in close so that Bentley could see his piercing blue eyes through the golden mask.

  ‘You tell Caitlin she’s picked the wrong team,’ he hissed, then raising his fist, he smashed it down into Bentley’s face. Bentley was knocked to the ground, his nose pouring with blood.

  The man leaned over him, grabbed his hair and pulled him up.

  ‘Next time I see you snooping around I’ll use this.’ He pulled out a curved copper sickle and turned it so it glinted in the light. ‘And Nemesis himself won’t be able to protect you.’

  40

  Lessons

  The weeks of the first quarter were spent drilling the candidates in the essential skills that a Dreadnought was expected to master: survival, combat, engineering, mapping, navigation and a hundred other things. Unlike all those tedious hours he had spent in school, Josh was relieved to learn that most of their training was centred around practical exercises.

  Every day Corporal Vedris would wake them at six. They slept in their clothes since the castle was not heated and no one had figured out how to keep the fire going all night. They were expected to be at breakfast by quarter past.

  Josh had still not managed to master the internal layout of the academy. Every morning seemed to require them to take a different route to the ‘Trough,’ as the canteen was more affectionately known. It was decorated in the style of a Bavarian drinking hall, complete with massive wooden barrels, heavy oak beams and lederhosened staff. There were tables and benches to accommodate twice as many candidates as the current intake, and enough food to feed twice as many again. The training regime made them ravenous, and breakfast was a seemingly never-ending supply of eggs, bacon, toast and a wide variety of sausages that the chef had obviously taken a great deal of pride in creating.

  Caitlin always went for porridge.

  The teams would sit apart from each other, the rivalry between them growing more intense with each day and spurred on by the leaderboard that hung over them like an ominous reminder. A small team of grumpy attendants would grudgingly climb up rickety ladders during meals to update points and positions as the candidates earned merits from their training.