Snow fell in the foothills and continued once they reached the mountains proper. Each night they went to sleep amidst a scene of silently descending flakes, and in the mornings they awoke to a fresh layer of white all around them. The tribe had lent them a couple of smaller tents, one for Lucy and Adâ and another for Hakim and Vince. These were notoriously difficult to set up and disassemble, so they allowed an additional hour at sunrise and sunset to do so. The days were freezing, and the nights were even colder. They ate what little they had brought—mainly dry food from Maht’s store—in two small meals each day around an alchemically conjured fire.
They barely spoke for the entire journey, all of them silently acknowledging that words would waste energy they sorely needed. The air became noticeably thinner the higher they climbed, and it took considerable effort for all of them to continue moving at a steady pace. Their priest guide had said not a single word since leaving the matriarch’s tent but shuffled always several feet ahead of them, forging a shallow causeway through the snow.
Lucy, like her three companions, had piled on as many layers as possible before departure. She was aching now from the daylong periods of hiking, and she had almost lost all feeling in her extremities. When she removed her gloves, it was to find her fingertips had turned black. One evening, as they were eating, she had shown Hakim. The elf had grimaced and, placing his fingertips to hers, proceeded to heal her with alchemy. This was fine until she noticed later that, rather than disappearing, the frostbite seemed to have transferred to him. She felt instantly guilty and resolved to keep it to herself in the future.
To her slight surprise, her thoughts were not mostly occupied by Jack or even Alex but by Maht. They had shared the briefest of good-byes before she had left, when the goblin had pulled her into a swift hug and wished her good luck. Lucy felt nothing but admiration for the single mother raising her daughter alone. As soon as she was able to, she intended to honor her last words to Maht: “I’ll come back for you.”
Night was approaching on the fourth day when they finally crossed a ridge and reached the temple. The sun rippled bloodred through the watery sky, approaching the western horizon and elongating their fur-plumped figures into skeletal shadows. The entrance to the Cave of Lights was three human-sized slabs of stone, marking a gloomy opening in the mountainside. There was nothing to distinguish it from anything else in the arctic range. Lucy couldn’t see what was particularly lit about it.
“So this is it, then.” Vince panted, knocking patronizingly on the doorway. “Not an easy place to find, is it?”
“I think that’s the point,” Adâ replied, joining him. The elf looked particularly ridiculous in all those furs, something like a giant cotton ball.
Hakim exchanged a few words with the goblin priest and then pulled the three Apollonians into a huddle slightly away from the entrance. “We need to be on our guard going in there,” he said quietly. “By now, the Cult will have had time to get in and possibly even take the Shard. We don’t know what might be waiting for us.”
“Yeah,” Lucy added, unable to resist, “what does this remind you of?”
Hakim and Adâ winced, clearly remembering Mount Fafnir.
“Very well,” Hakim addressed the priest as they returned to the entrance, “could you lead us inside?”
The tunnel they entered was completely black. Hakim conjured a fireball to hover in his palm, sending flickering orange light to illuminate the rough-hewn walls. They moved downwards with no indication of when the passage would end until, finally, a glimmer became visible in front of them. They continued in single file until they reached another high doorway, and it opened out.
Lucy wasn’t sure what she was seeing. She initially thought they were outside again, but that wasn’t possible; they had been moving downwards all the time. It took her several seconds to realize what she saw was not a starlit sky but a colossal underground chamber stretching the length of several football pitches. What she had taken for stars were actually floating lights, set in alcoves around the entire circular wall and up countless levels. The floor of the Cave seemed to be a massive lake, forming an exact mirror reflection of the lights above except for seven stone walkways from the wall to a small island in the center. She had visited cathedrals with her parents and never really understood them, but this was something else. For the first time, she began to understand why some people were religious.
“What are the lights?” she whispered to Hakim as they proceeded.
“I’m not exactly sure. This is only a guess, but I think there’s one for every deceased goblin. I think it symbolizes them being led safely to the afterlife.”
The priest had stopped on the edge of the island. Hakim passed him, followed by Lucy. The only thing on the island was a simple stone plinth, carved with star symbols. The other two joined them, and they huddled around to inspect it. The top was completely bare, save for a small hole in the center—a hole that would have exactly fitted a Shard of the Risa Star.
“Like rats to rancid butter,” an unfamiliar voice echoed behind them.
They spun around.
A black-cloaked figure was standing on the walkway they had just come down, blocking their way back. But their attention was instantly distracted as the priest’s form contorted and ripped out of the furs, leaving a snarling winged demon in its place.
“One point to me,” crowed a female voice behind them.
The first figure tossed a coin over the island to a black-cloaked woman on the other side, and she caught it. “Paethon thought a doppelgänger could never fool you again, but I disagreed.”
They both cackled.
“Phaedra and Paethon, I take it?” Vince asked coldly.
“Correct,” they answered, and their voices slid together as one.
“Now,” Paethon continued, “perhaps you can assist us. Where is the Shard?”
The Apollonians exchanged uncomprehending looks.
“We don’t have the Shard,” Hakim replied. “Don’t you?”
Phaedra gave a theatrical sigh of contempt. “Now, is playing this game really worth our time? The plinth was empty when we arrived. We all know one of your meddlesome crew has it. If you’re not going to give it up, then I’m afraid force is the only option.”
Lucy could tell Adâ, Hakim, and Vince were also silently considering their options. There were only two Cultists, both surely powerful alchemists, but then so were Adâ and Hakim. They could probably take them and the demon down and run for the exit…
This plan was crushed by the materialization of five more Cultists in streams of black smoke, blocking all of the walkways.
“Keep close,” Hakim muttered.
They had formed an outward-facing ring around the plinth, each of them eyeing the Cultists nearest them. Lucy, Adâ, and Vince instinctively moved their hands to the hilts of their swords, and Hakim reached for his wooden staff. Lucy was now considering the lake. They might be able to make a break for it and swim to the other side. If they distracted Paethon and jumped, they might just make it…
Lucy leapt back, alarmed, as waves began to roll over the surface of the water. They were gathering momentum, rising higher and higher when suddenly, with the roar of a waterfall, they blasted upwards. The black cloaks dissolved into smoke form as the water towered over the island, spinning like an aquatic tornado. The lights were now only blurred glimmers beyond the swiftly rotating wall.
The Apollonians were completely disoriented, all four of them looking frantically upwards, trying to catch a glimpse of ebony smoke. A bolt of dark lightning was hurled from somewhere above them, striking Hakim between the shoulder blades and knocking him flat.
Adâ flung an emerald jet in return, but it was lost in the swirling wall.
“Cowards!” Vince bellowed over the roaring water. He was hit by a blast in the shoulder, then another two in the stomach, and he crumpled to the ground.
Lucy and Adâ took up positions back to back. The elf conjured a humming golden bal
l, which she sent through the cyclone, momentarily illuminating the streaks of smoke. Both of them fired bolts, but the smoke streams were too quick and the water washed the golden orb away. A spike of Dark alchemy launched outwards from where it had faded, passing through Adâ’s chest. She gasped, her eyes bulging, and collapsed on top of Vince.
Lucy leapt onto the pedestal. She knew she was more exposed here, but it afforded her a better chance of sighting the black cloaks’ smoke. Through the rippling water, she saw one of the lights. Remembering what Jack had done back in Thorin Salr, she focused on it, channeling the light through her body. With the sound of an organ note, her dull metal sword burst into life, the blade shining incandescent white.
She was just in time. A wreath of dark flames blasted out to her left. She parried it with the alchemically infused weapon, flinging it back into the water. A scream of pain on the other side was accompanied by the thud of a body colliding with stone.
The tremendous roar of the whirlpool around her continued, but over it she could hear the screeching voice of Phaedra.
“My, she is a tenacious little sprite, isn’t she?”
“I’m not sure.” Paethon’s voice resounded. “I doubt she’ll be standing after a good old-fashioned drowning.”
Phaedra cackled. “You’re on!”
The very peak of the water wall rippled, turning inwards. The entire whirlpool was collapsing on the island.
Lucy’s cry was immediately stifled by the torrent. She was knocked onto her back, the edge of the pedestal cutting a ridge in her spine as water hammered her. She gasped for breath but inhaled only foul liquid. She could see nothing; she could hear only the pounding of millions of droplets on stone. Her senses washed away, she passed out of consciousness like a sacrificial lamb on the altar as the black cloaks closed in.
Chapter XIV
comforting words
True to Ruth’s prediction, Dannie had settled right in. She was intrigued by the ship and spent hour upon hour exploring its every corridor and chamber. She often sat with the crew on the command deck discussing mechanics. But she didn’t stop there. Less than three hours in, she was scrambling through chutes in the walls and under the carpet to examine the inner workings of The Golden Turtle. Dannie had an adaptability and buoyant optimism that Jack instinctively warmed to.
Sardâr, recovering from his latest alchemical injury, took things easier for those two days, mostly remaining in his room. As usual, Bál kept to himself. But Jack and Ruth passed the time with Dannie, soon finding they had something in common.
“So you’re an orphan as well, then?” she asked Jack after the three of them had been talking for a while.
“Join the club,” Ruth remarked drily.
“How were things for you?” Dannie asked them both.
After Ruth explained about her amnesia, Jack began talking about his orphanage: that it had been in a depressing ex-prison and was chronically underfunded, though the staff had tried their best, and that he’d never really got on with the other children.
Dannie listened with raised eyebrows. “You think that’s bad? You’ve never seen a workhouse.” And by the time she’d related the squalor, the lingering hunger, the constant threat of disease, the staff’s physical and mental abuse, the regular fights and occasional murder, Jack and Ruth’s mouths were hanging open.
“Yep, you’ve definitely had the worst luck of us all,” Ruth said weakly.
“Well, I don’t know for sure whether I’m an orphan,” Dannie qualified. “I never knew my mum; she disappeared pretty much as soon as I was out of her body. She might still be around somewhere, but I’m not fussed. As far as I’m concerned, I only had one parent.”
Jack realized it was a mark of how much he liked Dannie that he wasn’t annoyed that he couldn’t be alone with Ruth. They hadn’t spent any time together, just the two of them, since the previous Sunday, and the chances were increasingly unlikely with Ruth’s renewed duties as captain of The Golden Turtle.
The first night, he had been so exhausted from factory work and their anti-Cult escapades that he’d been asleep as soon as he’d hit the bunk and for fourteen hours solid afterward. But the second, he found himself rolling over and over, each position less comfortable than the last, unable to rest his mind. His thoughts were on Lucy and Alex.
It had been over a week now since he had heard from Inari. He wondered if it was possible to summon the fox—he’d never tried it; the spirit had always appeared to him—but, he supposed, if there was nothing to report, then everything must be fine. He knew Lucy could look after herself, probably better than he could, but that didn’t stop him from worrying about her or the three others with her, even though he didn’t know them nearly as well. He imagined it must be something like how a big brother would feel towards a little sister.
In fact, he was much more concerned about Alex, who he’d received no news about at all since their departure from Earth six weeks ago. Jack agreed with Sardâr that Alex was probably still alive: Icarus wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of abducting him unless he was more useful to the Cult alive than dead. But that introduced a whole new range of unpleasant ideas, like what the Cultists might do to get him to talk. He knew Alex was resilient, more so than anyone else he’d ever met, but how long could he hold out against Dark alchemy and demons? And if he had already cracked, would they just kill him as he was of no more use to them?
Finally, he gave up trying to sleep and went to see if Sardâr, in the next cabin, was awake. He knocked, and the elf called for him to come in.
As he entered, Jack was struck by a strong sense of déjà vu from the very first time the two of them had spoken at length, after Sardâr had been rescued from the heart of Mount Fafnir. The amber lights were low, shadows stretching across the floor and collecting in the corners of the cabin. The elf lay in bed, looking just as physically drained as he had after coming out of the volcano, his ochre eyes half-closed and his face drawn between curtains of grey-flecked dark hair. As before, Jack saw a strong semblance of a Zoroastrian priest in deep thought.
The elf beckoned him to sit on the end of the bed. “You couldn’t sleep either, I take it?”
“Nope,” Jack replied, leaning back against the wall.
“What’s on your mind?”
Jack explained his concerns about Lucy and Alex.
“Yes, I miss Adâ too. And Hakim, obviously. And Vincent. But we haven’t chosen an easy life, have we? I suppose it’s up to us to sacrifice comfort and the closeness of loved ones for the good of everyone else.”
“I’m not complaining.” Jack replied quickly, “I made my choice, the same as you. I had Lucy and Alex, but other than that I never really had any friends at home. But I’ve got friends in the Apollonians I wouldn’t give up for anything. I’ve known you lot for such a short time, but still…” He was afraid he was becoming too sentimental, but Sardâr smiled encouragingly.
“I’m glad you feel that way. Think of it like this: every Cult plot foiled, every Shard discovered is one step closer to reuniting with Lucy and freeing Alex. And maybe we Apollonians can spend some time together as friends rather than agents when this is all over.”
Jack hadn’t thought ahead to it being over. He was slightly surprised at the suggestion. So far, it had been about getting over the next hurdle, fighting the next demon, finding the next Shard. “I’d like that. I’ve never been on a proper holiday.”
They were both silent for a moment before Jack built up the courage to ask the question burning on his lips. “So you think there can be an all over, then? You think we can beat the Cult for good, and that’ll be that?”
Sardâr inhaled slowly, gazing at the ceiling. “Even if we stop the Cult, it won’t be all finished. The Cult of Dionysus think they manipulate the Darkness, but the Darkness really manipulates them. That’s their biggest folly. It’s sheer arrogance for a group of mortals to think they can control a cosmic force which, as far as we know, has been around indefinitely. You al
ready know that. We can bring an end to the Cult, but the Darkness will still seek to consume the Light, even if it doesn’t have mortal pawns to act for it. That’s why finding the Shards of the Risa Star is so important—not just to keep them from the Cult but because we rely on this Übermensch legend to bring an end to the Light-Dark conflict for good.
“If only we still had Isaac here…”
Sardâr’s eyes clouded over, and Jack instantly regretted bringing up the elf’s old friend. He didn’t know what to say. “Were you close?”
“Yes, we were. Isaac, Charles, and I were the first Apollonians: three mortals from three different worlds. We were all, if you don’t mind me saying, great minds, but Isaac was greatest of all. He invented the first of our dimension ships almost single-handedly—he and his brother Ishmael built The Golden Turtle together. And he had this way of inspiring people, of helping them believe that even when the future looks like an abyss, we can change the world for the better.”
“He sounds very like you.”
“You are very kind, but—”
“No, I mean it. I’ve seen it. People look to you for leadership; they’re comforted by you being there. Do you think the Apollonians would have gone inside Mount Fafnir or into the middle of a battlefield just for any old person?”
Sardâr smiled again. “Thank you.” He paused. “Jack, there’s something you should probably know before we go any further. A suspicion of mine. It’s only that at the moment, but even so—” He broke off. “No, don’t worry. It can wait. We should probably both get some sleep.”
Anxiety not entirely assuaged, Jack bid Sardâr good night and returned to his own room.
Their voyage ended two days after it had begun, when The Golden Turtle was at the closest part of the river to the destination marked on the map. The group departing the ship—Jack, Ruth, Dannie, Sardâr, and Bál—had, for lack of any other appropriate clothing, been equipped with Thorin Salr-style tunics, boots and cloaks, and, to the dwarf’s relief, their swords. This time, without the need for stealth in a city center, they were able to lower the ramp so the five could scramble ashore without first soaking themselves in water.
The Black Rose Page 8