by Matthew Cody
“His army?” Jezebel whispered back. “What does he need an army for?”
“To kill things. All things. Everything. That forest down there looked just like the other one before he arrived. He’s killed just about everything on this side of the ridge. They say when the Gentleman calls, the dead answer.”
At that moment there was a noise like a trumpet, only with a deeper, grating quality. Jezebel covered her ears and fell to her knees behind the rock line. Listening to it felt like chewing on tinfoil.
After it passed, Tommy went on. “It’s a hunting horn. Every now and then he lets his followers out to play. The horn means that they’ve spotted something down there.”
“What is he? How could something that terrible exist?”
“Good question, but I don’t have much of an answer. The Explorers have known about the Gentleman for centuries, and even we don’t know where he comes from. Not really. Some say he came out of the space in between—the blackness between worlds. He showed up when the first Explorer started using the portals, and he’s been skulking around ever since.
“Mind you, the first time I met him he was sneaking into a gambling hall through the back door. Not so grand, eh? I lifted Merlin out of his posh carriage on the Bowery—is that still there, by the way? Anyway, he raised holy hell trying to get it back from me, until Captain Scott showed up.”
“Captain Scott,” Jez said. “He was an Explorer, too?”
Tommy nodded, but he looked away as he did so.
“The thing is, with the Gentleman,” he continued, “he shows up on our Earth from time to time but he never stays long. All the old legends are true—the undead can’t stand the light of our sun. It’s lethal to them. That’s because they have no soul—no life, no soul. So when dawn breaks, the Gentleman has to scurry off to the void or be destroyed.”
Tommy cocked his head and looked at Jez. “Listen, you said that Bernie had a book, but did you see anything else?”
“Sure, he had lots of weird stuff …”
“How about a bird? A little metal bird.”
Jez remembered the little mechanical canary perched on Bernie’s shelf, squawking and chirping at him like an old friend.
Jez nodded. “Yeah. He called it Merlin.”
Tommy was quiet for a minute as he chewed over this information. Jezebel had no idea what any of it meant, but for once she was content to sit and wait.
“It was Merlin I was looking for when the Cycloidotrope showed me you,” Tommy said at last.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Jez said.
Tommy smiled, but he still looked worried.
“The Gentleman’s been after Merlin for years. I don’t know why, but it can’t be good. He trapped me here because he thought I had the bird with me. But I’d already given it to my partner, Bernard, for safekeeping.”
“So if Bernie and Bernard are the same person, then he’s had Merlin all these years,” said Jez. “Wouldn’t the Gentleman have figured that out by now and given up looking for you?”
Tommy shook his head. “Remember, only a couple of months have passed here. If you saw Merlin safe and sound in the future, then that means Bernard’s keeping it safe from the Gentleman, and he’ll go on doing so. But I think a hundred years from now, the Gentleman finally finds it—in your time. For some reason the future Gentleman thinks that you have it, too. That’s why he sent those crouchers after you. It took him over a hundred years, but he’s finally close. He knows it’s in the Percy; he just has the wrong person. We have to stop him! We have to get to Merlin before he does, but we’re stuck here in the past. Over a hundred years too early!”
“But we’ve got all the time in the world, right? I mean, I hate to say it, but we’ve got, like, over a century to try and find a way out of here!”
“Time doesn’t work like that. It’s not linear—it’s more egg-shaped.”
Jezebel was about to ask him what the heck he meant when a second horn blast rang out through the valley, another cringe-inducing, piercing bleat. As the noise died down Tommy pulled himself back up to the edge of the rock line. “Sounds like they’ve spotted something. We’d better get back to our side of the valley before the Grave Walkers start scouting up here.”
“What are Grave Walkers?” Jez asked. The name alone conjured up a nasty image in her mind.
“The Gentleman uses many different servants—crouchers like the ones who came after you. Worse things, even. But as much as I hate to say it, the bulk of his army is made up of people. Most are a bad sort to start with—murderers, thugs. They are drawn to his crazy death-worshiping cult and become … less than human. Not quite alive, not quite dead. The near-dead. The Gentleman keeps them at the edge of death so that he can control them, but they haven’t given up their souls yet so they can move around freely in the daylight. They go by different names in different times, but their methods are always the same. They’re killers, through and through.”
Jezebel hugged herself. She was suddenly cold. “You’re right, let’s go. I don’t want to stay up here.”
As the pair made their way down the ridge, Jezebel was careful not to stumble over the nettle vines that snaked across their path or slip on the loose, gravelly dirt. This time Tommy stayed close to her side, never quite offering a helping hand, but close enough to steady her if need be.
“You said the Gentleman trapped you here?” Jez asked as she navigated a particularly crumbly bit of rock.
“The Gentleman set a trap for me and Merlin in the basement of the Percy Hotel. With the help of my old partner, he left me underground with only one way out—the portal to this place. When I got here, he was waiting for me. I think he was hoping that if he couldn’t catch me, then one of the native inhabitants would. Careful, watch your step there—that’s a tricky drop. The Hollow World is a very dangerous place, and I think he figured that a boy wouldn’t last long.”
“Well, looks like he figured wrong.”
“Yeah, I guess he did.” Tommy grinned wide at the compliment. “I’ve managed to keep a step ahead of him and his goons this long, but it can’t last forever. We have to find a way out of here. For some reason the Gentleman seems to think that bird is the key to conquering our world, and you saw what he’s done here in just a couple of months! If he’s right about Merlin, then our whole world is at risk.”
They went the rest of the way down on their butts, in a kind of controlled slide. When they reached the tunnel entrance, Tommy started pacing outside the door. He was animated, excited. He began making plans immediately, filled with new energy and optimism.
“Every world has portals. We just have to find one! Even if we can’t get back to your time right away, we can at least get back to Earth. Then we can work on your time problem. Like you said, there’s gotta be a way.”
Tommy stopped pacing. “If it is Bernard, if he did betray me, then we have a score to settle.”
Tommy’s gaze drifted down to the valley below. “The Captain said Bernard was weak. But I never thought in a million years that he’d betray us to the Gentleman. It’s his fault I’ve been stuck here these last few months. Worse, he’s put the whole world in danger.”
“Bernie went out of his way to show me Merlin,” Jez said. “He wanted me to know all about you. He’s had Merlin in that closet of his for who knows how long and he hasn’t told anyone but me. If he’s working for the Gentleman, then he’s a sucky employee.”
Tommy chewed his lip. “That’s true.”
“I don’t know what his game is, but we’ll figure it out.”
Tommy nodded at her and brushed past. “Just let me get my stuff. There are some hills on the western ridge that I haven’t explored yet. Maybe there’s a portal there, just waiting for us!”
Then he pulled his goggles down over his eyes and flipped a switch on the side. At once his eyes lit up with a blue glow.
“Don’t want to waste bug fuel!” he said, crawling on hands and knees back into the cave tunnel.
Jez
was tired of dark holes. She called after him, “Hey, I’ll just wait here, since I don’t really have any stuff to get. Okay?”
There was no answer.
“Tommy?” Jez called again, but still nothing. Perhaps he’d crawled out of earshot. She bent down and stuck her face in the hole and nearly screamed when she saw several pairs of luminous yellow eyes staring back at her. It was impossible to make out details in the dark except for those round eyes, as big as grapefruits, and a general sense that she was looking at something very hairy.
A grinding noise startled her out of her momentary shock, and she blinked as a sudden avalanche of dust spilled down upon her head. The entrance was closing in on itself, the very rock growing around the hole, shrinking it, until it was little more than a crack. Jez managed to get her leg out of the way just in the nick of time, or else she might have become a part of the hill, her foot planted in the rock like the roots of some Jezebel-sized plant.
As the moving rock settled, she peered into the entrance, now little more than a peephole as wide as her index finger. The tunnel was still open beyond, and she watched as the yellow eyes slowly backed away from the hole and disappeared into the dark.
“Hey,” she shouted. “Hey!”
Suddenly, Tommy’s earlier words rang, unbidden, in her ears:
I think it was once a trog cave—they’re great rock shapers, you know—but it’s abandoned now. Well, it looks abandoned, don’t you think?
She kicked the cave, her anger overriding the pain of her suddenly stubbed toe.
“Tommy Learner, you stupid, stupid … BOY!”
She pounded on the rock until her fists hurt and her eyes stung with tears. The rock scraped her knuckles raw, but the tears had nothing to do with the pain.
Jezebel was alone. Tommy was gone, taken by those things, and she was on her own.
Something tickled the back of her neck just before it thumped into her head—once, twice. She turned to see a black dragonfly buzzing around her ear.
Thump.
Jez swatted at the pest and sank down to the ground, her back against the rock.
“Stupid,” she whispered, and pulled her knees up close, hugging them to her as she stared at the dense, alien jungle looming before her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TOMMY
THE ENLIGHTENED HIDDEN CITY, 1900
In time, Bernard and I would become friends, but it took some doing. Our first real bit of trouble had to do with our positions aboard the Nautilus. As the more experienced apprentice, young Bernard still technically outranked me, and he wasn’t above taking advantage of it. After the first week of shining his shoes and making his bunk, I complained to the Captain, and when this didn’t help I resorted to a good old-fashioned street thumping (this being sort of a headlock wherein you bump the locked head into the dirtiest manure-laden patch of street you can find). As it turned out, one street thumping was all it took to even the scales, and Bernard never again ordered me to so much as pass the salt at dinner.
That over with, we settled into a routine of … wonder. Alongside the Captain and Bernard, I saw twin suns rise over the Sea of Glass while scaling the shoulder of a thousand-year-old petrified giant. I rescued Bernard from the leopard-men of the Obsidian Temple early one morning and nicked their holy Cat’s Eye Emerald later that afternoon. Those few months were the happiest of my life, bar none. And I only wish with all my heart that they could’ve lasted.
All was not perfect, though. The Captain still suffered his gray, faraway moods. He’d sometimes disappear into his cabin by himself for hours, even days at a time. He spent long evenings obsessing over his books or simply staring at Merlin, leaving Bernard and me to our own devices (hence the little detour with the leopard-men). But the Captain really wasn’t alone in this. I’d felt the same ominous fear since the moment I’d looked into the Gentleman’s black, soulless eyes. Something bad was coming.
So when the distress signal reached the Nautilus, I can’t say I was all that surprised. The message was garbled and hard to make out, and we didn’t even receive it until we’d returned to Earth for a bit of ship’s maintenance—twelve hours after its first transmission. The automated beacon was being rebroadcast from the London Chapterhouse on a protected ether-radio frequency in a continual loop. A single, desperate voice calling out:
The Hidden City has been invaded! Academy under attack! All Explorers are ordered to—
That’s all there was. Whether it was a call for help or a warning to stay away, we couldn’t be sure. It just ended in the middle. Cut off. Slammed shut like a closet door.
We arrived at the London Chapterhouse only to find it already abandoned. Not even the deaf fellow was left to man the door. There was no rain this time, just a cold, clear moon that played its silvery light along the darkened hallways. The lamps were all out and the fireplace, cold. The Captain opened a number of hidden weapons lockers, but they were all empty. The Stitch-Golem still worked, however. The Captain announced the three of us, and the great bear’s mouth opened to reveal the passage to the Academy. The Captain stared at it for a long time before he spoke.
“I should have been here,” he said, finally. “I should have been here to fight with them.”
Bernard started to say something, but I waved him quiet. I could see what the Captain was going through, and nothing we could say would help him. We all suspected the same thing—the Academy was lost. As complicated as his relationship with the other Explorers was, they were still his family, and the Academy was his home. Odds were, that was all gone.
For the first time, I understood the Captain perfectly. He was an orphan now, just like me.
“I’m going in to see what I can find out,” he said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. You two keep guard here until then. If there’s more trouble than I can handle, I’ll send Merlin back through, and then you two are to close this gate, take him and the Nautilus and get as far away from here as possible.”
He handed me a metal ball the size of my fist. “This is called a mayfly. It’s a bomb that is used to collapse portals. If Merlin comes through without me, you twist here.” He indicated a very subtle hinge along the circumference of the ball. “Then give it a hard shake. That twist wakes the explosive mechanism inside, and the shake makes it mad for extra effect. Toss it inside the portal and run. You’ll have about three minutes of angry buzzing before the thing goes off. It’ll seal this portal up tight.”
Then I did the darnedest thing. I saluted. Surprised myself and just about gave the Captain a heart attack, judging by the wide-eyed shock on his face. But then, with a pleased grin, he saluted back.
“Good men,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Two hours later and Scott still hadn’t returned. I’d scuffed a very clear set of boot marks along the floor with my endless pacing. For some reason I felt compelled to keep checking the window, even though I knew that if any enemies were coming for us, they wouldn’t come from the street. It was just a place to look other than that hideous bear’s mouth—the open portal.
Bernard picked up a book, but I noticed he never turned the pages.
“How long has it been now?” I asked.
“Exactly two minutes later than when you asked last time,” answered Bernard, not even bothering to look at his chronometer.
“He’s in trouble,” I said.
Bernard didn’t say anything.
I grabbed my Tesla Stick and planted myself in front of the Stitch-Golem. The dark tunnel was visible just beyond the Golem’s teeth. And beyond that, I knew, was the Academy.
“If you are thinking of going in after him, just forget it,” Bernard said. “Captain Scott was very clear in his orders.”
Bernard was right, of course. The Captain had been clear. Dead serious, in fact.
“We just need to wait,” Bernard was saying. “If he was in trouble, he’d have sent Merlin.”
No sooner had the words escaped Bernard’s mouth than a flickering, fluttering fla
sh of brass came ricocheting through the darkness of the portal mouth. It was Merlin, and he was alone.
The bird flew in a tight circle around my head, squawking out a tune of short, troubled whistles that I knew too well. After a few frantic minutes, I managed to calm him down enough that he settled on my shoulder. But his head continued to pivot worriedly, back and forth on tiny hinges.
“The Captain?” I asked.
Merlin gave a swift nod.
“He still alive?”
The bird didn’t nod, but he didn’t shake his head, either. He just blinked at me. Scott was in trouble, but whether he was alive or dead, Merlin didn’t know.
I took the mayfly out of my pocket. It was heavy for its small size. Unusually solid.
“Here,” I said, tossing it to Bernard. He let out a little yelp as he made an awkward catch with both hands.
“Merlin, can you show me where you saw the Captain last?”
The bird nodded back.
“I’m going,” I said. “Same rules apply—if I get in over my head, I’ll send Merlin back and then you use the mayfly to seal up the portal.”
Bernard looked at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “You’re going to leave me behind? What if you need help? This is not the Captain’s plan!” he said. I could tell that Bernard was torn between his concern for the Captain and his fear of what was on the other side of that portal. I made it easy for him.
“I work better alone,” I said. “New plan.”
“What new plan?”
I shrugged as I hefted my Tesla Stick and stepped through the Stitch-Golem’s mouth. “I’ll let you know when I get back. Making this all up as I go!”
When Merlin and I emerged into the Academy, it was night. But I’m used to sneaking around in the dark, and I hadn’t gone two steps before I spotted a patrol of black-robed Grave Walkers armed with some kind of long sickle knives. The Dead Gentleman’s foot soldiers. If there had been any doubt as to who had attacked the Hidden City, it was gone now. Luckily, the cultists seemed to dress for effect and not effectiveness, and the large horse-skull masks they wore looked stupidly hot and cumbersome. I could hear their ragged, gasping breathing long before they marched into view. Merlin was normally an excellent scout and could smell danger the way I could smell an overfull coin purse, but something here had overloaded the little bird’s senses. Whatever evil those Grave Walkers had brought with them, it now permeated every inch of the Hidden City. Merlin couldn’t pinpoint the danger because danger was everywhere.