The Black Rose

by James Bartholomeusz

  Ruth gasped and sat up in bed, drenched in sweat. She, too, was in a cabin of The Golden Turtle, though as captain she had considerably bigger quarters than Jack’s. She swung her legs over the bed and dropped down, seating herself at the table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. She pressed a key on the table leg, and an overhead lamp cast an orange hue across the room.

  She lay her forearm on the table, palm upwards. A tattoo, a stylized lion in black ink, was woven into her skin just below the elbow. This and the nightmare were the only remnants from her life before The Golden Turtle.

  Five years previously, she had awoken aboard the ship with no memory of her former life or how she had arrived there. The captain, Ishmael, had told her she’d been hauled out of the sea, unconscious, close to drowning. With nowhere to return to, she had been enlisted in the ship’s crew and eventually adopted by Ishmael. It was only later, when she had come into contact with the Cult of Dionysus, that her recurring nightmare began to make sense. She had been imprisoned on Nexus but had somehow fallen or escaped into the Darkness and ended up in another world.

  Ruth sat back and gazed up at the lantern’s fiery pattern crisscrossing the metal ceiling. Jack, she knew, had had a similar family experience but without a parental figure like Ishmael as a guiding beacon at the end of it. She presumed Jack wanted to return to his home world, but she was secretly glad he was unable to for the time being. Her first proper talk with him, the night he had arrived on The Golden Turtle, had been the only time she had opened up to anyone but Ishmael. She considered seeing if he was awake now but dismissed the idea immediately. He wouldn’t want to be disturbed at this time.

  She stood, turned off the light, and went back to bed.

  Jack awoke properly to a knock on the door a few hours later. It was Aonair, a crew member he vaguely knew.

  “Sardâr wants you to get to the command deck. We’re nearing our destination.”

  Jack washed quickly, changed into new clothes, and made his way across the ship to the command deck. There was obviously no natural lighting here, as they were underwater, but soft lamps lining the wood-panelled corridors mimicked the cycle of day and night. He passed various crew members and eventually came to the double doors emblazoned with a golden turtle symbol.

  This room was a large glassy dome, the head of the turtle, against which the dank water of their current passage pressed on all sides. Futuristic navigational machines lined the walls, operators sitting before the humming screens. In the center, on a lower level, a large oak table was bolted down, with a plethora of maps pinned to it. Three people stood around it. Ruth, adorned with her signature bandana, was directly opposite him; the elf Sardâr, Middle Eastern in complexion and wearing a tunic, studying one of the maps; and Bál the dwarf stood a little back from the others, distinctly out of place in his traveling gear.

  Bál’s first reaction to The Golden Turtle had been a mixture of wonder and gruffness. He came from a world, Thorin Salr, which roughly resembled Earth’s Dark Ages. This ultrasophisticated technology had baffled Jack, so he could only imagine how Bál felt.

  “Jack.” Sardâr gestured for him to join them at the table. “We’re due to arrive at Albion tomorrow.”

  Jack dropped to the level of the table, smiled at Ruth, and got a look at the maps. The one on top, which Sardâr had been examining, showed a city with a river weaving through its center.

  “So where is this place?” Bál asked, leaning closer. “What is Albion?”

  “It seems to be a city-state, which governs the surrounding lands,” Sardâr said. “It is in a stage of rapid development—Jack, roughly in line with your nineteenth-century Europe—so there’s an increasing urban population.”

  “Do we have any idea where the Shard is?” Ruth asked.

  “Not at the moment. We don’t know if it’s even in the city, though that would seem the most likely place. We’ll need to get there and make some inquiries to find out.”

  “And the Cult?”

  “They will be on the same trail. We’ve got to keep on our guard. As we saw through the black mirror, the Emperor has dispatched Archbishop Nimue to discover the Shard, and she is probably significantly closer than we are.”

  “So what do we need in the way of disguises? And weapons? And alchemy?” Jack looked around. The only world other than Earth he had visited had been Thorin Salr. As the local population of dwarves had seen only elves and goblins, he and Ruth had been disguised as elves with The Golden Turtle’s technology. Those disguises had been reverted as soon as they’d returned to the ship, and he was still getting used to his human body. He wasn’t too keen on transforming again anytime soon. “How are we going to stop drawing attention to ourselves?”

  “From what we know, the local population is human—so, Jack, you’re fine.”

  Jack breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

  “Bál, you and I are going to need some alchemical disguising.”

  The dwarf grimaced. Not alone amongst his fellows, he had reacted with a strong distaste to alchemy when the Apollonians and then the Cult had brought it to his home world. Though his experience with the First Shard had changed that somewhat, he was still none too keen on the idea.

  “What about me?” Ruth put in. “I mean, I look human, but from what I know about the history of Jack’s world, I’m not going to fit in very well with this skin color.”

  “We’ll sort something out,” Sardâr replied. “You may be surprised at the tolerance.” The elf stood and went over to inquire with one of the operators about the journey.

  “So you’re coming with us, then?” Jack addressed Ruth.

  “That’s the plan. The ship will keep a low profile under the river whilst we search. We might need to get out quickly at any time.”

  Sardâr returned to them. “Alchemy, in Albion, is rare, possibly unknown. But if we don’t want to draw the attention of the authorities, then we’ll need it: we won’t be carrying weapons.”

  “No weapons!” Bál looked outraged. His axe, his companion throughout the siege on his home world, had barely left his side on the journey.

  “None. We may pick some up whilst we’re there, but in any case, you’ve got the First Shard to learn how to use now.” Sardâr raised his eyebrows, looking at the chain around Bál’s neck on which a Shard of the Risa Star hung. Jack instinctively reached around his own neck for the familiar thread on which another Shard, the Seventh, was looped.

  The dwarf managed to grumble himself into silence.

  “If that’s all,” Sardâr concluded, “then I think we should get back to work. I’m sure Quentin has some duties for us all to perform.”

  Ruth’s quivering first mate stood at the command deck door, evidently looking for some potential recruits for a job.

  Being royalty on his home world, Bál hadn’t been impressed with having to pitch in with menial work like everyone else. He rolled his eyes and followed Jack to the door.

  Chapter III

  snow and water

  Lucy had never been so cold. She was trudging across a ridge, knee-deep in settled snow. To her left, an imposing cliff rose, slate grey but with ice clinging in stalactites to the nooks and crevasses. To her right, the ground fell away in a steep slope to a frozen river that reflected the pale sunlight and a sparkling white plain that might once have been agricultural lands. Beyond that, mountains rose from the frosted fog: bleak, pale regents marking the horizon. It was from those regents that the wind sliced, surging like a wave of invisible arrows across the plains towards them.

  They had been here for less than a day, but already she’d had enough. She had changed for the better over the last month—she accepted that—but her body still had its limits. Recovering a childhood knowledge of martial arts to defend a fortress against demons was one thing; hiking through a mountain range with no end in sight was entirely another. One of the first Apollonians she had met, Vince, had arrived from Earth in his dimension ship the day after she had watched
Jack depart on The Golden Turtle. The journey from Thorin Salr to here—this wasteland was called the Sveta Mountains, according to the others—had, like her first journey from Earth, induced extreme nausea. Now it was the cold, fatigue, and hunger which were taking their toll.

  Vince was in front of her, plowing through so that she could follow in his footsteps. In an arctic jacket, thick boots, and trapper hat, he was far better equipped for the weather than the rest were. She, Adâ, and Hakim had left Thorin Salr with the best attire that could be provided, though it was hardly suitable for this climate. She was mostly wrapped in assorted furs and thick hides, though the wind and damp snow seemed to have found the gaps and slid in to nestle. The two elves were behind her, Hakim’s wooden staff leaving an additional print in the snow every few feet.

  Ahead, the ridge narrowed, and their path took them between two high rocks. Vince clambered up first and disappeared over the top. Lucy followed but slipped down the bank on the other side. Picking herself up and shaking the residual snow off her clothes, she followed Vince’s gaze. The land dropped steadily before them, plateauing into an ivory plain. The river wove like a shimmering ribbon draped across a white sheet. Beyond it, she could make out a cluster of dark shapes, apparently alone in the wilderness.

  “Are those… houses?” She gasped, her breath clouding.

  “Yep,” Vince replied, his eyes still fixed on them. “Well, huts. A settlement, anyway.”

  “Who would live here?”

  “Goblins, I believe,” Hakim responded, joining them. “Similar to the ones who live around Thorin Salr, though I’d wager not exactly the same. Life never evolves exactly the same on different worlds.”

  “It’s probably a good thing we don’t have any dwarves here then,” Lucy replied.

  Adâ smirked.

  One of the more surprising developments in the last week had been the uncomfortable peace agreed between the previously opposed dwarf and goblin populations of Thorin Salr. The two had united to fight off the Cult, but that didn’t mean things were neatly parcelled up. Even though Bál, one of the most vocally xenophobic dwarves, had voiced his support for the peace agreement, no one was naïve enough to think all on both sides felt the same way.

  “So is that where we’re going?” Lucy asked.

  “It certainly looks like it,” Hakim replied. “With this few people living here, there’s a good chance those goblins can at least point us towards the Fifth Shard. And, for that matter, the Cult.”

  Vince began down the slope, tilted sideways to avoid falling.

  Pulling her furs tighter to resist the slicing wind, Lucy followed.

  True to Sardâr’s prediction, The Golden Turtle arrived at Albion the following night. Jack had no indication of them drawing near, as they kept underwater all the way, but he heeded the elf’s call to disembark when it finally came.

  He returned to his room and repacked his few possessions in the sack he had taken from Thorin Salr, laying out the three remaining items on the table. The first was a gauntlet, a gift from the goblin Vodnik for Jack’s part in saving him and his comrades during the battle. The second was the language ring, another alchemical contraption originating from The Golden Turtle, which translated other languages to him as if they were actually being spoken in English. The third, and most important, was the Seventh Shard of the Risa Star, given to him by Inari the white fox the night he had left Earth. It had saved his life on more than one occasion already and, as one-seventh of what the Cult pursued, was exceptionally valuable. He slid the gauntlet onto his left forearm, the language ring onto his middle finger, and the Shard on its cord around his neck under his shirt. Then he made his way to the command deck.

  The ship was already surfacing when he arrived, the grimy water bubbling up the sides of the transparent dome, becoming steadily lighter. Ruth, Sardâr, and Bál were already there, all equipped with their possessions and wrapped in warm clothes.

  “Come on, we need to get to the hatch.” Ruth led them across the ship through a network of corridors to the bottom of the metal ladder that marked the only way out. She waited for the rumbling to cease and then climbed up and unscrewed the hatch.

  The others followed.

  The first sensation that hit Jack was the smell: the acrid stench of a sewer system which seemed to cling to and weigh down the air. The sky was almost devoid of stars, the orange hue of light pollution dissipating into the blackness. They were indeed on a river, the top of the turtle’s shell forming an island the size of a roundabout on the running water. Either side of the water the city closed in, stretching as far as he could see in both directions: a chaotic multitude of buildings, cranes, warehouses, and street lamps. A few bridges arced over, figures and horse-drawn coaches passing across.

  “So where are we heading?” he asked.

  “That way,” Sardâr whispered, gesturing at the bank on one side where stone steps rose from the waterline.

  “But how are we going to—?”

  Sardâr dropped into the water and began to swim towards the shore, followed by Ruth and Bál.

  “You’ve got to be joking…” Wincing and trying to hold his breath, Jack jumped into the river.

  The water was freezing, and it was immediately apparent that it was the origin of the stench. Trying not to imagine what might be swilling around his legs, Jack kicked off the side of the ship and front-crawled as quickly as he could towards the bank. He grasped the steps and pulled himself up.

  The other three were wringing out their clothes as much as possible.

  “Couldn’t we have surfaced closer? Or at least used the gangway?” He gasped, trying to rub some warmth into his arms and chest.

  “Too obvious,” Sardâr whispered. “We’re trying not to attract undue attention from the local people, and that would probably not be best served by a gigantic mechanical turtle surfacing in the middle of their river.”

  “So which way shall we go?” Ruth asked, shivering.

  “This way looks as good as any,” Sardâr replied.

  Jack followed his gesture indicating the alley from the river into the city. It was grimy, unlit, and he was sure he could see someone slumped against the wall about halfway up. It didn’t look particularly good to him. But he had little choice as Sardâr led the way, followed by Bál and Ruth.

  They moved onto a wider street, this one with lampposts every few feet. There was no pavement: the damp mud was littered with horse dung and pounded by carriage wheels and feet. The buildings all around were mixed: some limestone and green with erosion; others blackened brick; still more looked older and were gabled with black-and-white-painted wood. Candlelight flickered from some windows, illuminating the dust and grime layered on the glass. A couple of carriages passed, and a few pedestrians were making their way up and down the road.

  Sardâr nodded to their right, and they began walking, keeping their heads down as much as possible. They passed a few groups of people, in little more than rags, huddled against the wind. A few semiconscious individuals, almost all with nearly empty bottles in hand, slumped in doorways. The four of them attracted some odd looks, certainly not least because they seemed to have just returned from a nocturnal bath.

  “We need to get out of the open,” Sardâr hissed as they crossed paths with an unashamedly staring man. “We can’t do anything right now. We need somewhere to stay tonight and base ourselves.”

  They passed another alley, with a three-floor gabled building on the corner. Warm light spilled out of the grimy windows, highlighting the uppermost flecks of mud on the street. By the amber glow of the nearest lamppost, Jack could make out the writing on the sign creaking slightly in the breeze:

  THE KESTREL’S QUILL

  § FREEHOUSE & INN §

  “This should do.” Sardâr moved over to the threshold on the corner of the alleyway and, giving it a hefty shunt, entered.

  Chapter IV

  this is albion

  The inside of the inn was true to its exterior. I
t seemed to have been lit with the fewest possible candles, so that patches of light and shadow waltzed across the dark wood side by side. A few booths and stained tables filled most of the floor space. The only other person visible was a plump, greasy-haired woman in an apron, who eyed them suspiciously from the other side of the bar.

  “What’ll you be wantin’, then?” she demanded in what sounded remarkably like a Cockney accent.

  “A room for the night, if you please,” Sardâr replied, looking around the dusty room uncertainly.

  “Can you pay?”

  “Well…” Sardâr made a point of checking his pockets, but all four of them knew that, unless alchemy could create coins or notes, none of them carried local currency. The elf smiled apologetically and approached the bar to try to negotiate.

  Jack took another look around the room. Some of the planks of the ceiling were missing, and a yellow substance dripped into a small pool beneath. A dark brown insect, far too large for comfort, scuttled from under one booth to another. The rug in front of the bar was so tattered and threadbare that it more resembled roadkill.

  “We can stay tonight,” Sardâr informed them, returning, “but we’re going to need to earn some money in some way.”

  The woman, presumably the landlady, had disappeared behind the bar and emerged with a candle and a key. “You all look pretty strange folk, but you two colored ones not gettin’ your own rooms. My clientele would go mad if they found out.”

  Ruth appeared to have been shocked into silence. Sardâr grimaced weakly but evidently decided now was not the time to engage in a debate about political correctness.

  The landlady led them down a thin corridor opposite the entrance, past several doors, and up a stairwell of creaky wood. She unlocked three adjacent rooms and walked into each to light candles. When she was done, she returned to the top of the stairs. “I’ll come back up with some hot water. I’m not cookin’ anythin’ now, so don’t bother askin’. Good night.”