The Forgotten City

by Nina D'Aleo

  “You two should go. I don’t want either of you getting hurt because of me.”

  Luther gestured in the air. No. I’m with you.

  Flintlock agreed. “I’m staying. I’ll never leave you.”

  The words caused unexpected pain – maybe it was being back in the old neighborhood – but he saw a memory of himself as a kid, standing on the sidewalk in the rain, waiting for his father to come and pick him up. His father, Farleigh Freely, an especially shifty Glee by all accounts, had made contact with him – against his grandparents’ wishes. He’d said Eli could come and live with him in Thrumburstone. He’d told him to pack his things and sneak out – to wait for him on the street corner – that he would come. So Eli had waited, with a suitcase full of comics and inventions, all day and half the night until his gran’pa came out and got him. He and Gran’ma had been watching him from the window the whole time. He’d never seen his father again and it made him wonder why he’d called in the first place.

  If Eli ever crushed a child’s heart like his father had crushed his that day, he thought he would actually stop breathing from guilt. He shook the memory out of his mind; he chose not to focus on these things for a reason. His real family were the friends who loved him – and they needed him to be strong for them again.

  He heard a wrenching sound as Flintlock ripped out his backseat and threw it down on the sidewalk. The Corámorán climbed in, lowering the craft in a significant way. Nelly stayed quiet in Eli’s pocket, not game to challenge the giantess in the way she would have any other girl trying to climb into Eli’s craft. In Eli’s mind, he heard Ev’r saying Snack-size, and his next step came to him. Clearly this situation was over his head, and he needed someone wiser to help him. He needed Ev’r Keets – and the formula he believed would change her back from Ravien was already rattling behind him in the cargo hold of the craft. It felt like fate.

  He turned to Luther. “We’re going to Golmaria to revive Ev’r Keets. She’ll know what’s happening.”

  Luther dipped his head and he and Moses vanished back into the shadows.

  Eli turned over the engines. They shuddered and the craft lifted upward. He initialized the desert mapping system he and Silho had created together, and as they flew, the past replayed in his thoughts …

  *****

  Occasionally Eli carried on conversations with himself – especially if he had a new idea or high levels of stress – and he realized he was definitely doing it now, talking, plus laughing randomly. He wiped his expression clear and shot a furtive glance into the rear-vision mirror. Luckily, Silho was still consumed by the task at hand. She wore telescopic glasses and held Ev’r’s desert map on her knee, managing to look both at the aged parchment and through the transparent base of the craft down to the Matadori plains flashing by beneath them. Using the re-routed steering column that Eli had set up for her, Silho navigated the borrowed craft toward their destination. She had insisted on taking the backseat, saying she needed more room to spread out the map, but Eli knew a compassionate lie when he heard one. Their friendship had developed into a little-to-no-explanations-necessary arrangement, and she understood that sitting in the pilot’s seat would help calm his nerves. With the face of a pixie girl, and the stare of a war survivor, Silho was singularly lovely and phenomenally dangerous – and for a person who claimed to be socially inept, she was also painfully insightful. Eli had gotten used to feeling psychologically nude in her company. She was very much like the commander in that sense.

  Eli found his gaze drawn back to the map. Intoxicatingly musty and ancient, he’d discovered it tucked behind the cover of a book, a personal journal, in Ev’r’s bag. He had no idea who had originally created the map, but whoever it was had swung some serious power. The map was not the one-dimensional, fixed topographical sketch of the Matadori that it had first appeared to be. Once in the proximity of the desert, the inked borderlines and landmark icons had started changing, rearranging themselves to combat the rogue magics of the Matadori that worked to send travelers off-course. And it was highly protected, too, by an enchant so strong that any attempts to duplicate or transformate it were violently denied. When Eli had tried to pass the parchment through his scanner machine to create a holographic copy, the scanner had literally disintegrated before his eyes. The lingering smoke had reeked unmistakably of dark magics.

  Silho murmured something to herself. She shifted the transflyer leftways and slowed their speed. Eli glanced down to the desert. A relentless wind rolled its sands into waves of yellow-orange mist, unearthing bleached bones and steely angles of crashed crafts and other great ships forgotten. Moments later they were lost again – that was the perfidiousness of the Matadori, its face a constantly changing mask, each expression more duplicitous, enigmatic, than the one before. This far out from the city, travelers could put no confidence in their tools of navigation or the sighting of landmarks, and especially not in their own senses. Even with Ev’r’s map, Eli knew he would have been most hopelessly lost forever if Silho hadn’t agreed to come along. She could read the sands. She saw the Matadori for what it was, and when it came up against the skill of Silho Brabel, all the desert’s ferocity and bravado seemed quite pathetic, like a night shadow scared away by the sunslight.

  Despite all the failed green lights, Silho’s belief in his cause and, surprisingly to Eli, in his ability to find a Ravien cure had remained devout. She was the only one to really realize that this was more to him than an infatuation with an idea. In fact he’d been stalking hope for so long now that he was feeling something he’d never felt before – what it was like to hit a wall. All his life, problems and riddles, however complex and cryptic, had been like friendly faces in a crowd. Whatever it was, given enough time, he’d found a solution – but this … Eli pushed the thought of failure out of his mind. He refused to abandon hope. It was all they had left of Ev’r – the ghost of hope.

  Behind Silho, in the cargo hold, hundreds of little dart-vials of antidote jiggled in merry opposition to the actual mood of the journey. These were it – the antidote to finally free Ev’r Keets from her Ravien form. The thought brought Eli solidly back into the reality of their mission and he started to sweat again in earnest, as though his body was trying to drown him before he did anything to further endanger himself. On top of the sweats, he had also recently developed both restless wing syndrome and stress-induced alopecia – body hair only – leaving him a sweaty, shedding, twitchity, repetitious, ulcerated insomniac – as though he needed further turn-offs for the opposite sex. But this was it – this was definitely it … Nelly sat on the front seat, staring at him with an expression that said his stubborn optimism was making them both look ridiculous. She huffed, curled up and went to sleep.

  “Eli,” Silho said, her voice startling him out of his thoughts.

  “Yes, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” He almost dove into the backseat.

  She slid up her glasses and pointed ahead of them.

  Eli turned back around to face the front windscreen. Nerves crawled all over his skin. They had arrived. They had finally found it. Golmaria. Fallen city of the Ravien.

  The Ravien …

  One of the most dangerous monsters in Aquais. One bite and people transformed into one of their attackers. Luckily they weren’t greatly ambitious as far as demon-monsters went. They kept to themselves and the rare accounts of attacks involved people entering Golmaria – for whatever lunatic reason they had – such as searching for a recently turned friend to try out an untested, potentially fatal potion that might or might not restore them to their previous form, with unknown side-effects and consequences. Eli exploded into fits of hysterical laughter.

  “I can’t do this. I cannot do this. I feel like I’m going to …” Eli sucked in gasps of air, his chest heaving, “… pass out or implode or ignite or … or … or … or …”

  Silho put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Easy. This is just a fly-by and a test – right?”

  “But this is
it – this is the one. Everything has to be right. I need to check the formula – the darts.” Eli tried to turn around, but Silho held him firm.

  “Already checked – seventeen times. They’re loaded.” She paused a moment before continuing. “I know you want this to be the one – but it might not be. We haven’t done a live test.”

  “I know, but this is the closest we’ve been, and then finding the map in Ev’r’s journal … It just feels like fate, don’t you think?”

  Silho’s returned expression was cautious. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, just patting him on the shoulder and sitting back in her seat to unplug the diverter cable, throwing control of the craft back to Eli. He gripped the steering yoke and felt calm descending over him as he glided them over the city, dropping low just above the building peaks.

  Golmaria had been built long before Scorpia and had nowhere near its size. It was a traditional design of all one level, with a cathedral in the center and all the streets spreading out from this like spokes of a wheel. And it was without one doubt the most spooky, evil-lurking-in-dark-spaces place Eli had ever seen – and he’d seen some serious spooky in his time. Why exactly the fine hairs on his wings twitched at the sight of this lost city he couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it just seemed that the shadows weren’t falling right. From their bird’s-eye view it seemed to him that life here had just stopped. There were no signs of resistance, of a slowly fought war with ruined buildings, dead bodies and battling survivors. Everything looked perfectly untouched. The only indication that the city had died at all was the plant life that had re-conquered the streets, and the lack of activity on what should have otherwise been a busy day.

  Eli spotted a child’s bike lying on its side in the middle of a sidewalk. One wheel rotated slowly without a breeze. The people here had just … changed was the only word that fit, knowing what he knew about Golmaria. What was even more disturbing was that it was broad daylight with both the blue suns riding high in the sky. What would this fallen city feel like after darkfall?

  Eli shuddered.

  “What was she thinking coming here?” Eli spoke of Ev’r.

  Silho raised her eyes to meet his in the rear vision mirror. “About treasures and artefacts, I suppose,” she said, but her tone told him there was more.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, the Lava Diavol Mountains are nearby. That’s where she buried Ismail.”

  Eli nodded. Ismail Ohavor – a scullion-gypsy from Ev’r’s family tribe – her dead love. Eli had found sketches of him in Ev’r journal, and sobbed his way through Ev’r’s written account of their story.

  “Eli …” Silho’s voice hesitated. “Have you thought that maybe she doesn’t want to come back?”

  Something twisted in the pit of his stomach. Ev’r had been through so much, and had been so scarred, that perhaps death had been a relief. He had asked himself on more than one occasion if his mission to save her was more about his obsessions than her actual wants, but every time he’d come back to the memory of her fighting the inevitable transformation to the last breath. She had wanted to survive, to live – despite everything.

  “I think she’d want us to try.”

  Silho nodded, accepting the idea. She blinked and her eyes darkened as she jumped to light-form vision.

  “Anything?” Eli asked.

  Silho’s eyebrows flickered and she gave a nod. “They’re everywhere – inside all the buildings.”

  Eli’s skin crawled, his wings twitching.

  “But they’re stationary.”

  “Sleeping?” Eli squeaked hopefully.

  Silho shrugged. She didn’t know the ways of the Ravien. No one did. They were entering some seriously untrodden territory here.

  “Do they all look the same?” Eli asked, bringing the craft around for another wide circle over the city.

  “All the same,” Silho confirmed.

  It meant they had no way of knowing which one was Ev’r.

  “We’ll just have to run the trial and then figure out a way of doing a mass drop,” Eli said.

  “Are you sure this craft is going to hold up against them?” Silho asked.

  “I’m sure,” he said, but wasn’t even certain himself if that was the truth or a stress-induced lie. Silho climbed over from the backseat and sat beside him. Nelly had hidden in her cage and Eli could see her accusing eyes shimmering in the shadows.

  “Take us down in front of the cathedral,” Silho directed. “The biggest population is in there.”

  Eli gripped the steering yoke and took them down to hover in front of the cathedral door, the entryway blackened with ominous forms.

  “And the priest wondered why his parishioners weren’t attending church,” Eli joked, but his voice was shaky.

  “Hit the lights,” Silho murmured.

  Eli’s finger hovered over the switch then flicked it up. He gasped. The cathedral was jam-packed with Ravien – all squashed in and squirming. In a sudden burst, the winged monsters spewed out, battering the craft, throwing Eli and Silho from one side to the other. The monsters’ horrible faces smashed up against the glass. Eli triggered the craft’s guns and opened fire. The dart-vials of antidote pelted out, sinking into the beasts. One Ravien hit the windscreen, turned into a naked person, then straight back into a monster.

  Eli’s heart leaped up and crashed down so rapidly that he didn’t know if he was severely disappointed or actually having a heart attack.

  “No good – pull out,” he heard Silho yell, but found he couldn’t move. She lunged over and grabbed the controls, shooting them straight upward at a dizzying speed until they were clear of the Ravien. She leveled them out high in the air and they sat there gasping, watching the Ravien looping up in the air, like the body of a huge snake, before darting back inside the cathedral.

  Eli blinked and found himself lying in the back seat of the craft, parked in the desert. Silho was fanning him with the map, concern pinching her features. Eli giggled, then slapped a hand over his mouth to stop it. If there was ever a moment when he felt less like laughing … Silho stopped fanning him and helped him sit up.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “Never better,” Eli lied on automatic.

  “You need to give yourself a break,” Silho said. “I mean it, Eli. You need rest, food, fresh air – a bath.”

  Eli sniffed himself – it was bad.

  “The stench of failure,” he said.

  “No,” Silho said firmly. “You successfully transformed a Ravien back to its previous form. That’s never been done before. It’s not even been imagined. Everyone says ‘There’s no point, so give up’, but you’ve done it. It’s a major step.”

  Eli felt his spirits lifting. “You’re right. As soon as we get back I’m going to re-test the formula and see why the transmute didn’t hold and then —” Silho’s expression stopped him short. “After I sleep, eat, inhale some premium-quality air and wash my armpits …”

  Silho smiled and shook her head. A crackling sound drew their attention to the front windscreen. As they looked out, a cave-pocked mountain appeared literally before their eyes and then vanished again.

  “The Lava Diavol Mountains,” Silho said.

  “Should we …” Eli started to say.

  “No,” Silho cut him off. “It’s the golden rule of the desert.”

  Eli paused for the answer.

  “Don’t go to investigate – ever.”

  “Noted,” Eli replied.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Agreed,” he said. He jumped back into the pilot’s seat and started the engines for the flight back to Scorpia.

  Chapter 12

  Diega

  Praterius

  Rambeldon Forest (Pond Odious)

  Diega moved through the pine forest, tracking the distant sound of a trickling stream. One of the first lessons she’d learned as a soldier was that water is magnetic to most living creatures. There is always someone to
be found near water. She stepped with practiced caution, watching her feet for snares and traps, searching for tracks, while some distance behind her Shawe crashed through the trees, more unsubtle than a stampede of elephants. She’d been trying to ignore the sound. She felt so much hatred for him right now that the thought of even having to acknowledge his existence was too much, but at this rate he was either going to scare away anyone who could help them, or get them captured or killed. So she forced herself to stop and wait until he was close enough, then she turned and burned him with a glare.

  “What?” he said, his mouth full of Barkers Mints.

  The urge to punch him in the face swelled with tidal force inside her, but then she saw blood had seeped through the skin overlay and thick wrap around his wound and was fast saturating his pants. Her anger subsided. He was moving unsteadily because he had an injury that would kill most people instantly.

  Her mind went to Copernicus before she could stop it, opening up a yawning void of fear that threatened to drag her down into despair, but she forced it closed. She looked Shawe in the eyes and in truth, though it made her sick to admit it, he didn’t actually look stupid – he looked like he knew exactly what she was thinking. She thought he might try to hit her with some waste-of-air speech about Copernicus being the toughest guy he knew, or a born survivor, or tell her lies about how he would be fine, but instead he said, “You hear that stream, sunshine?”

  “Where do you think I’m going?” she replied.

  “In the opposite direction.”

  She snorted. “Somehow I think I know more than you about tracking …”

  “Yeah, maybe – with all your fancy equipment,” he said. “But not without it. Fairy-breeds don’t have trutt-all sense of direction.”

  “And you do?” she demanded. “Galleys have poor eyesight, plus you’re too damn arrogant to admit it or get it fixed.”