“That was why Villius Ren told the Bastion he was only one man down! He knew that Wickham was alive!”
“Blaise will help us,” said Roxleigh. “We’ll wait until night falls. The Pyreboys will be going back to the shore to light the stakes. We can speak with him then.”
Delphi ran along the shore of Curfew Peak, the cold wind biting at her flesh. She had no idea how long she had been gone, but it was beginning to grow dark again. She had lost her cape in the water at the other end of the shore, and her loose grey top slid off one shoulder. She was desperate to find Oland, terrified that he too had been taken by the wave. All she wanted to do was to tell him everything that had happened, how the water had taken her under, dragged her into a blinding eddy, how she had been filled with horror. And how, when she tried to move, it had proved effortless. She had glided with the current; she felt like she was dancing. It was exhilarating, like nothing she could have imagined. Chancey the Gold, the scryer, her mother – they were all wrong. Why anyone had feared for her safety, she could not understand. How could such a terrible mistake have been made? She was free. There was nothing to hold her back.
As she ran along the hardened sand, it began to rumble beneath her, and before long she heard the dull sound of hooves. In seconds, the hot breath from a horse and rider turned the air white in front of her. Before she could move, a lantern, strapped to the horse’s saddle, lit up the unmasked face of Malcolm Evolent. Delphi screamed.
He wore no bandages. Delphi recoiled. They had clearly been there to hide the deformity of his skull. His face looked like it had been carved from a block of bone and covered with dried parchment. His heavy brow jutted out over his nose, and his thick, wide chin curved up to meet it. A vein bulged along the side of his face. His eyes were deep-set and entirely white, like his long hair, his eyebrows, his lashes. The only dark part of Malcolm Evolent’s face came from the evil that shone from inside him.
He jumped down from the horse, landing hard in front of her. He was dressed in layers of heavy leathers and cloths with crisscrossing straps and buckles. He yanked hard on the reins of his black horse. He reached a finger out towards her.
“Don’t touch me,” said Delphi, whipping her head away. She couldn’t understand how he had got here. But, by the shore, she could see the sails of Bream’s boat whipping in the wind. She knew that it was unlikely he was still alive.
Malcolm raised his hand, covered in a heavy gauntlet, and struck Delphi across the face. She landed hard on the damp sand. Malcolm leaned slowly down to her, inching his face towards her. He reached out and shoved his hands under her armpits and picked her up, holding her in front of him like a doll.
“So,” he said, setting her down. “Do you know who you are yet?”
Delphi stared at him.
“After the swim you were warned never to take?” said Malcolm. “Are you enlightened?”
Delphi frowned.
Malcolm smiled. “Why, Delphi,” he said. “You are my most treasured possession. You are my Thousandth Soul.”
ELPHI WAS PARALYSED. “WHAT? NO…” SHE MANAGED to say. “I’m not the Thousandth Soul! The Thousandth Soul? You are insane.” The Thousandth Soul was a monstrosity, an experiment, part-human, part-animal, the creation of two evil doctors who only wanted to find it so that they could kill it.
“I’m not the Thousandth Soul!” said Delphi. “I’m not!”
Malcolm Evolent laughed, and it was a grotesque, choking sound.
“I’m not the Thousandth Soul!” screamed Delphi.
Malcolm Evolent laughed louder.
Delphi stood, fighting tears and the terrible sickness that was rising in her stomach. “I’m not!” she said, over and over.
Malcolm Evolent raised his hands in the air as if he were powerless to say otherwise.
“That would mean…” said Delphi, “that would mean…”
“Well, that would mean that I’m here to take back what is mine,” said Malcolm. “I created you; you are mine.”
“That’s not true,” said Delphi. “That’s not true.”
“Oh, but it is,” said Malcolm. “Don’t you know?” he said. “Don’t you know what creature we crossed you with?”
“I’m not crossed with anything,” said Delphi. “I’m a person.”
“I’m tired of your protestations,” said Malcolm. “Tired.”
Delphi stepped towards him, despite herself. “But—”
“I thought Oland Born was my Thousandth Soul,” said Malcolm. “When I heard a slave of just fourteen, with no training, no experience, no reputation for bravery, dived into an arena and slew three panthers, I thought it was him! I thought that I had instilled in him some extraordinary powers of strength. I followed you to the border, lost you in the woods, but what wonderful dogs we have. How they trailed your familiar scent all the way to Pallimer Bay. I arrived here, all ready to steal Oland Born away. You see, like everyone else, we believed that the child was a boy. We had seen only enough of the newborn to know that it was perfect in terms of what we had created. So it was to my surprise… that my Thousandth Soul turned out to be… well… you.” He paused. “Tell me, Miss Delphi… did you enjoy your swim?”
Delphi stared at him.
“Didn’t you find it strange that the Scryer of Gort told your mother never to let you go underwater?” said Malcolm. “Yet tonight you find out, not only can you swim, but that you are quite an accomplished swimmer. In fact, the most proficient swimmer I have ever seen? For a person who has never before swam?”
“But my father is—” said Delphi, before she stopped herself.
“Chancey the Gold!” said Malcolm. “Now, how would I know that if I didn’t know all about you? But it’s not just the blood of Chancey the Gold that makes you swim.” He let out a breath. “Do you know what creature we crossed you with?”
“You didn’t!” shouted Delphi. “You didn’t cross me with anything!”
“The six scars on your back,” said Malcolm. “Three on each shoulder blade. Have you ever seen them?”
Delphi was horrified that he would know anything about them.
“Did you feel them when you were underwater?” said Malcolm.
“Stop!” she said. “Stop!” Her panic was rising.
“I could hold you under the water to show you,” said Malcolm, “or you can take my word for this: they’re not scars. They’re gills.”
Delphi’s legs went weak.
“Now,” said Malcolm. “Before we go to find and kill your friend, please take a guess. A wild guess. At what creature you were crossed with…”
Tears welled in Delphi’s eyes.
Malcolm laughed loudly. “Come on! Guess… guess!”
Delphi shook her head, and tears spilled down her face.
“Well, what has gills?” said Malcolm. “Answer me that.”
Delphi spoke through her sobs. “A… fish? A fish… has gills.”
“Oh, Delphi,” said Malcolm. “Would we have wasted that much time on a simple fish?”
Delphi stared at him, puzzled.
“You can see in dim light, can you not?” said Malcolm. “You had no problem seeing your way around Curfew Peak. Haven’t you got thick skin that can’t easily be cut?” He leaned down and whispered to her. “I chance you didn’t tell your friend Oland what you did to the drogue… they didn’t sink their teeth into each other at all, did they?”
Delphi stared down at the ground.
“Have you unsettled young Oland with your black-eyed stare?” said Malcolm. He laughed. “Oh, Delphi, didn’t you see the beautiful white shark skeleton on the wall of my brother’s laboratory? Yes, shark, Delphi. That skeleton is one of our treasured possessions… as are you. Well, at least until we’ve studied you… and created more. After the autopsy…”
Delphi screamed so loud, she thought her throat would rip apart.
Malcolm Evolent laughed. “Carry on,” he said. “Scream.” He looked around. “There is no one here—”
“Ah, your protector?” said Malcolm.
Delphi hesitated.
“Just like Chancey the Gold protected you?” said Malcolm, smiling.
“Yes!” said Delphi. “Yes!”
“Oh, Delphi, you don’t understand, do you?” he said. “All this time…” He let out a long breath. “Chancey the Gold wasn’t protecting you from the world. Chancey the Gold was protecting the world from you.”
Delphi’s head started to spin; she remembered it all now. She remembered that day in Galenore when she took ill. She was eight years old. Chancey the Gold had gone to the chandler’s. She was wandering down a side street when someone ran up behind her. She could feel someone pulling at the silver amulet that was around her neck. She spun around and there was a boy there, she remembered a boy, a thief, with his mean, twisted little face. His arm reached out towards her, his hand gripped on to her amulet, and he wouldn’t let go, and there was a ring on his finger, an emerald ring… and… and then everything was red, and he was screaming and she was running the other way, and she ran into the arms of Chancey the Gold, and he scooped her up, and they ran away and over Chancey’s shoulder as they moved up and down, up and down, she could see the now one-and-a-half-armed boy zigzagging, screaming down the street… and later that night, when she was crying and coughing and choking, and Chancey the Gold rubbed her back, she remembered… she remembered now… she spat something round and gold with an emerald centre into the pewter tray he held to her chin.
ALCOLM EVOLENT LEANED DOWN AND LAUGHED IN Delphi’s face. “Scream again. Scream. You can run too, if you like. Go on, run. Run.”
Delphi turned and ran, her head filled with terrible images. Malcolm Evolent’s laughter was ringing in her ears. She could soon hear the thunder of the horse’s hooves closing in. Malcolm Evolent reached down from his galloping horse, scooped her up under his arm and rode away, along the edge of the lapping water.
Delphi bucked in his grip, hoping he would drop her; she knew that the further away she was taken, the greater the chance that she would not make it back alive. She would rather fight and die right there. She clawed at Malcolm Evolent’s hand.
“Stop,” he snarled. “Stay still or you’ll fall and be dragged to your death under my horse’s hooves.”
The blood was rushing to Delphi’s head. “If I’m trampled by your horse, there will be very little left of me to cut open for my autopsy!” she managed to roar, desperately trying to hold herself upright.
“Well, in that case…” said Malcolm Evolent. He pulled Delphi up and threw her in front of him on the saddle, gripping her around the waist, pressing her two arms against her body so she could not move them. She could feel the sickening heat of his breath on her scalp.
Malcolm Evolent rode harder and faster. Delphi bounced up and down with the motion of the horse. She could barely breathe at the thought that she was the Thousandth Soul, a terrible, grotesque creation, yet a prized one nevertheless. She desperately searched her memories to find proof that she wasn’t, facts that she could throw like weapons at Malcolm Evolent to get him to see that he was wrong, to give him no choice but to let her go. But she could sense his excitement, his vindication, burning like a fire against her. Malcolm Evolent had finally found what had eluded him for fourteen years; he was finally regaining possession of his finest work. And, with that, the opportunity to repeat his success over and over for as long as he lived.
Delphi jumped as she felt his lips against her ear.
“Maybe you have heard things about your parents…” he said.
Delphi stopped moving.
“Maybe you heard about their talents, or about your mother’s beauty, or your father’s medals,” said Malcolm.
Delphi stayed very still. She wanted to know. Malcolm Evolent had information she wanted and it sickened her.
“I had heard your mother, Emayo, sing, of course, everyone had,” said Malcolm. “She was famous, after all. But what I didn’t know was that she worked for my brother, cleaning our laboratory at night when I wasn’t there. One night, I arrived back unexpectedly and stumbled upon her. I was enchanted, as everyone who met her was, but I was more enchanted by her union with Chancey the Gold. What fine breeding! And, when she became pregnant with you, well, one night, when there was no one there who could stop me, I had the chance to work some of my experimental magic on her…”
Malben’s words rushed back to Delphi: “a young woman was brought to the laboratory by Benjamin Evolent to watch over me… she would take me in her arms, hold me and sing me to sleep… one day, she was gone… I heard you sing… it was so beautiful, so pure… I could no longer bear who I had become.”
Delphi realised that her mother was the caring woman that Malben had spoken of. He was caged in the laboratory at the same time; he knew that the woman had been experimented on, and he knew that she had left Decresian with Chancey the Gold before Delphi was born. And in Oxlaven, when Delphi was singing Malben to sleep, he realised who she was. And he would never have betrayed the child of the woman who had brought him so much comfort in his darkest times. He didn’t want to tell her, because he knew it would frighten her.
Tears welled in Delphi’s eyes, tears for everyone.
Malcolm was still talking. “And months later,” he said, “your mother gave birth to what she and your father told everyone was a baby boy. Shortly afterwards, I came to their home to claim him and I saw through the window your mother holding the naked child in her arms. All I saw was the child’s back and six perfect gills, and I knew I had succeeded. I went to tell my brother, but when we returned, your parents were gone. Your father took the job as guide at The Falls, and the story travelled back to Decresian that your mother and her baby – a boy – had died on the journey. You can understand my confusion…”
Delphi’s stomach turned. She had no interest in Malcolm Evolent or his confusion or any other hideous thought that snaked through his twisted mind.
“Did you know,” said Malcolm, “that, when you were seven years old, Villius Ren found your mother? He had his reasons for wanting the Thousandth Soul. Your mother had travelled far from Dallen, far from Decresian, but he found her. She told him that she had lost her child, and he didn’t believe her. He caused her great harm, Delphi. Ever since, she clings to life, confined to her bed. Did you know that that’s where your father disappeared to? He climbed up on his horse, and every week he travelled hundreds of miles there and back to see your mother, to be by her side.”
Delphi’s heart pounded. Her mother was alive? She turned to look up at Malcolm. “Is she in Galenore?” she said. “Is that where… where is she? Where is my mother?”
“Because I don’t care, I don’t know,” said Malcolm. “All I know is that she’s in a hospital, far from here. Chancey the Gold was the only one who knew where. Your mother never woke up, Delphi. Not since the day Villius Ren came. And now that Chancey the Gold is gone, well, we’ll never know where she is.”
Delphi cried with a pain like no pain she had ever felt before.
As the horse galloped on, Malcolm Evolent’s chest heaved against her back. A cold, dark feeling grew inside her. Up ahead, she could see the white sails of Bream’s, no doubt stolen, boat. She knew that Malcolm Evolent would use it to take her to his laboratory in The Shadowed Woods. As she pictured the mounted skeleton on Benjamin Evolent’s wall, she was reminded of how it could all end.
The cold, dark feeling turned to fire. Sweat streamed down her face. She twisted in Malcolm Evolent’s grip, a primal strength coursing through her body.
By the time Malcolm Evolent realised the foolishness of holding his perfect, deadly Thousandth Soul so close, Delphi’s jaws had already sunk deep into his neck.
Malcolm Evolent roared in pain and bucked in the saddle, releasing his grip on Delphi. She screamed as she slipped down the side of the horse. Her feet were inches from the ground as she clawed at the
damp leather. As she felt her strength drain from her, she made one last grab and caught the reins that had fallen limply from Malcolm Evolent’s hands. As he fell to the sand from one side of the horse, Delphi rose from the other and was soon secured, wheeling the horse in a circle to charge to the water’s edge. She jumped to the ground and fell to her knees, scrubbing at the blood on her face with icy water and shaking hands.
She cried hysterically, clawing at the scars on her back that Malcolm Evolent had called gills. She could feel them move under her fingers, and it was almost too much to bear. She had a body that she had never given any thought to before, and now it repelled her.
Delphi’s sobs eventually slowed, and her breathing calmed. The sound of the waves settled around her. Then, in the distance, she heard the voice of an older man. And then another voice, one that made her heart surge. It was Oland! Delphi started to run in his direction, but faltered and quickly moved towards the rocks to hide. She pressed her back against them, and made herself as small as she could. She panicked when she saw her cape floating in the water, so close, but there was nothing she could do.
She stared out at the platinum sea, the sea that had delivered her darkest secret to her. She could still hear Oland’s voice, but not his words. The older man was replying. Delphi stayed out of sight until the voices passed. She saw no other choice.
Oland Born was a saviour. And she… she was a savage. A killer. She was no different to The Craven Lodge… the very men that Oland Born had run from. The very men he despised.
LAND WALKED WITH PRINCE ROXLEIGH ALONG THE shores of Curfew Peak. He saw a black shape floating by the rocks at the water’s edge. He ran to it. And froze. It was Delphi’s cape! He stood, transfixed, as it floated up over his boots. He wanted to keep it, and yet he wanted to rip it to pieces and throw it back into the sea. Instead, he picked it up and held it to his face. All he could smell was saltwater. He fell to his knees. He buried his head in his hands, and he sobbed.
Curse of Kings (The Trials of Oland Born, Book 1) Page 19