Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  On the bunker’s far wall were three tall safes containing Lifintyls he’d excavated or bought over the centuries. The most important of all, Mereau’s Sinethal, was stored in the center safe — the safe that Foucault now opened. Uncharacteristically, his hands trembled as he reached for the squarish black stone. It had been many years since he last visited with the valorous Munuorian captain, and tonight’s visit would not be a pleasant one.

  For long stretches of time, Foucault had regularly used the Sinethal to meet and learn from Mereau. From the onset of his first meaningful visit with the captain, he had been drawn to Mereau’s commanding, yet compassionate personality. An hour in his presence had filled Foucault with soaring confidence. It was the kind of self-assurance that had enabled Foucault to accomplish many things that would otherwise have been out of his reach. Mereau had also been an able teacher whose bullish spirit made Foucault desire to exceed his expectations in every way imaginable. However, that standard had proved beyond his capabilities when it came to Muran. Ashamed of his failures to fulfill his promise to bring The Betrayer to justice, Foucault had suspended his visits with the great man.

  It had crushed him to disappoint Mereau, for Foucault owed the Munuorian everything. With Mereau’s guidance and encouragement, Foucault had become an educated and wealthy man. Under different names and personas, he had used these assets to cultivate favor among European aristocrats for hundreds of years. In so doing, he had been an eyewitness to many of the continent’s most extraordinary historical events over the past four centuries. In some cases, Foucault had been far more than an eyewitness, shaping some of that history himself.

  But now Foucault’s magic was nearly spent. The life-extending effects of enjyia had deteriorated precipitously over the past decade, causing him to rapidly age. At his current pace of decline, Foucault didn’t anticipate surviving more than another five years.

  A moot concern, thought Foucault. And a selfish one. He’d enjoyed six lifetimes of the average man, and he’d made the most of each. There was only one thing that mattered now, and that was ending the curse of The Painted Lady…whatever the sacrifice.

  Foucault lowered Mereau’s Sinethal to the stone table with reverence. Retracing his steps to the safe, he retrieved a Naetir and returned to the table. Seated in an armchair, he wasted no time maneuvering the Naetir to the center slot on the back of the Sinethal. Before he slid his fingers into the side notches, Foucault took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  The vision began as it always did with Mereau. The captain stood on the bridge of his ship as it pushed through sparkling waves made silver by the sun above. While Foucault gazed up at Mereau from the main deck, groups of crewmen moved about performing their appointed tasks. As Foucault started for the bridge, a sea breeze rose up. It ruffled his tunic and peppered his face with a spray of saltwater. The familiar taste prompted a smile. Also familiar was the feel of the ship’s vibrations on his bare feet. They emanated from belowdecks, where a dozen men rhythmically hammered on a bank of enormous Breyloftes embedded in the aft hull. The pulsing sound waves produced by the Stones powered the ship forward.

  When Foucault stepped onto the bridge, he bowed and spoke in the Munuorian tongue. “Halas, Mereau, fryael ut visi.” Greetings, Mereau, captain and master.

  “Ut aeh, Mathieu!” replied Mereau, invoking Foucault’s birth name. “Vean ut fereau.” And you, Mathieu! Friend and countryman. Continuing the conversation in Munuorian, Mereau looked into Foucault’s eyes and his brow furrowed. “Your spirit is heavy, my friend, I can feel it.”

  “Aye, it is indeed,” Foucault said.

  Mereau studied Foucault’s weathered face and gray hair. “And you are much older than you were when you last journeyed with us.”

  Foucault nodded. He knew Mereau would quickly notice his aged appearance. He also knew the captain would deduce the cause of his aging just as fast. The disappointment evident in Mereau’s reply hit Foucault in the gut. “How long has it been, Mathieu?”

  “Eighty years, give or take,” Foucault said.

  “Eighty?”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Why, Mathieu? Why so long?”

  Foucault turned away from Mereau’s punishing gaze. A sudden craving for a cigarette rushed through his body. “There is no excuse. I should have come earlier. I grew weary of the search. I didn’t see the point in visiting unless there were new developments.”

  Mereau’s eyes widened. “You have found her?”

  “Aye, my captain. Though it is more accurate to say she has made an appearance. An unmistakable public appearance.”

  A large wave slammed against the starboard side of the ship, causing the hull to shudder. Mereau stood with eyes transfixed on Foucault as another swell pummeled the boat. Mereau shouted instructions to the crew to make ready to dive. He took Foucault by the arm and led him down the bridge steps to the main deck. Around them, Mereau’s men pulled the curved sections of the boat’s inner hull from their retracted slots in the port and starboard gunwales. They guided the two arching halves toward the deck’s center. When they met at the center, the main deck became fully enclosed. From the outside, the encased ship looked like a dolphin swimming on the surface.

  Inside the enclosed ship, the crew on deck rapidly split into two teams. One focused on sealing the inner hull with a long, rubbery band that they fastened from bow to stern. The other team rubbed pairs of Dreylaeks together until their inner surfaces glowed, providing dim amber lighting for the darkened chamber. They clamped the Stones into iron sconces around the gunwales. The clamps applied pressure on the Stones, thereby maintaining the friction responsible for their radiance. With both missions complete, the crew braced themselves against railings lining the gunwales. Mereau gave the command to dive and the rudder-man edged the bow downward. The crew manning the Breylofte engines belowdecks increased the rhythm of their pounding, and in less than a minute the ship was submerged beneath the pummeling action of the waves.

  Foucault had observed Mereau’s men perform the maneuver thousands of times over the past four centuries, and on many of those occasions he had lent his own hands to those of the crew. Yet, he still marveled at the speed and efficiency of their teamwork and at the amazing prehistoric technology built into their hybrid ships. He often wondered how historians would react if they ever found one of the Munuorian vessels, for the ships predated the first manned submarines by nine thousand years. Would they still view the fish-man legends as fanciful parables, or would they treat them as factual accounts? They literally came up out of the sea.

  As the ship glided underwater, Mereau led Foucault to his cabin. As soon as the door closed behind them, he asked, “Tell me of Muran. What has happened?”

  “It is a long tale, I’m afraid. You will not be pleased with most of it,” Foucault said.

  Mereau sat in a chair by his map table and motioned for Foucault to join him. “Come, tell me all, good and bad.”

  Foucault lowered into a chair next to Mereau and bowed his head while he gathered his thoughts. During the silence, Mereau poured a glass of enjyia and handed it to Foucault, telling him the drink would settle his spirit. Foucault sipped the Munuorian concoction and savored the silky fluid coating his tongue and throat. Its sweet, earthy taste was richer than any batch Foucault had ever made on his own. He thanked Mereau and placed the glass on the table. “I suppose it’s best to start with Malinyah.”

  “Malinyah?”

  “Yes, her Sinethal resurfaced within the last year. It found its way into the hands of an archaeologist, a man named Devlin Wilson.”

  “Malinyah…,” whispered Mereau, blankly staring at the pile of rolled maps. “I am happy to hear her mind still lives. Have you talked with her?”

  “I have not, but I’ve met with the man who now has the Sinethal. His name is Anlon Cully, and he is the nephew of the archaeologist. Cully and his female companion have visited with her. Malinyah is well, but still very angry with Muran,” Foucault said.
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br />   “Understandably so,” Mereau said with a sigh. “Poor Alynioria.”

  Foucault watched Mereau bow his head and close his eyes as he honored the memory of Alynioria. The murder of the teenaged girl’s mind had hurt him deeply, and Foucault had always suspected Mereau’s obsession with Muran stemmed from a desire to avenge Alynioria’s untimely death rather than punish The Betrayer’s other misdeeds. After the impromptu moment of silence, Mereau raised his head. “Forgive me, Mathieu, but I don’t understand. Many years ago, you told me you believed Muran had destroyed Malinyah’s Sinethal.”

  “That is true. I knew for certain Muran had removed it from Malinyah’s tomb. It seemed likely to me that she destroyed the Stone and Malinyah’s mind along with it,” Foucault said.

  “If she didn’t destroy it, she has had it with her all these thousands of years?”

  “I cannot say for certain,” Foucault said.

  “Did Muran give it to this man Devlin?”

  “It is a good question,” Foucault said. “For much of the past year, I would have said yes. But there are things that have happened more recently that seem to suggest she did not.”

  “Such as?”

  “As you can imagine, when Malinyah’s Sinethal was rediscovered, it spun me about. Of course, I tried to find out where Devlin had acquired it, believing the answer would lead me to Muran. Before I made much progress, I learned Devlin had figured out how to activate Malinyah’s mind-keeper and that he’d used it to make a map.”

  Foucault paused and watched Mereau absorb the comment. The captain stared down at his map table and mumbled, “A map?” Then his head lifted and his eyes lit up. “The Munirvo Maerlifs!”

  “Precisely. This made me believe Devlin was acting for Muran. I reasoned she had given him the Sinethal to coax the Maerlif locations from Malinyah. I should have gone to Devlin directly, but I was concerned it would cause Muran to act. Instead, I hired someone close to Devlin to learn the truth without alerting Muran to my presence. I tasked him to get a copy of the map so I could find and destroy any Tuliskaeras still left in the vaults.” Foucault’s voice trailed off. He shifted his eyes from Mereau to the maps stacked on the table.

  “I don’t understand. Why would Muran want a Tuliskaera, Mathieu?”

  “Because her own was destroyed, along with her Sinethal and Taellin.”

  “What? How do you know this?”

  “I found Muran’s Maerlif.”

  Mereau popped up out of his chair, his hip bumping the table. Several of the coiled maps rolled over the edge and fell to the floor. “Her Maerlif? She died?”

  “Yes, she died. But someone found her crypt before me. A woman, I believe,” Foucault said. “A portion of the Maerlif’s wall had broken free, as happened with yours, and she must have climbed in to investigate. And just like I figured out how to activate your Sinethal, and Devlin did with Malinyah, this woman activated Muran’s. I believe Muran convinced her to lure another young woman to the Maerlif, and together they moved Muran’s mind from her Sinethal into the unsuspecting girl’s body.”

  “How do you know all this? How do you know it was Muran’s Maerlif?”

  Foucault explained. “There are tributes to Muran painted on the inner walls of the Maerlif. Well, tributes to the last persona she assumed before dying. She went by the name Wak Chanil Ajaw. She was the ruler of a great city called Naranjo. According to the tributes, she held power for almost sixty years before a rival city overthrew her and her son. The son was captured and executed, but she managed to escape on a ship. The tributes claim ‘Ajaw’ was injured in the final battle and died shortly after.”

  “Was Muran mentioned by name in these tributes?” asked a skeptical Mereau.

  “No.”

  “Then, how can you know for sure it was Muran’s tomb?”

  “My captain, there is no other explanation. It is clearly a Munuorian burial Maerlif. I have seen enough of them over the last four hundred years to know.”

  “Could it not be the tomb of one of our people who survived Munirvo and resettled near this city you mentioned?” Mereau asked, rising from his chair.

  “No. Please let me continue. I will explain,” Foucault said. Mereau crossed his arms and glared at Foucault.

  “First of all, the Maerlif is on an island very far from Munuoria — the farthest away I’ve ever found one of your people’s tombs. It is also a great distance from the land where Ajaw ruled.”

  “Show me,” Mereau said, reaching for one of the fallen maps. He unfurled it and spread it on the table. It was a crude drawing of Earth’s current continents drawn by Foucault during a Sinethal session with Mereau many years prior. The great captain had commissioned the map so he could better understand the full scope of changes to the world’s geography caused by Munirvo.

  “Right here, off the continent of Africa,” Foucault said, pointing to a bay directly below what is now Nigeria. He then ran his finger to the west across the Atlantic Ocean until it reached the east coast of Guatemala. He tapped the map. “This is where Ajaw ruled.”

  “That is very far, but it doesn’t prove the Maerlif is Muran’s,” Mereau said.

  With his finger poised over Guatemala, Foucault said, “There are monuments to Ajaw at the ruins of Naranjo. They date her reign. She came to power twelve hundred years ago. Unless another Munuorian violated your sacred laws and used a Sinethal to switch bodies, how could the Maerlif belong to anyone else besides Muran? The rest of your people died out thousands of years beforehand.”

  “Were the bones of this Ajaw inside the crypt?”

  “They were.”

  “Did she wear a Munuorian burial cloak?”

  “No, she was adorned with the finery of the Maya, the people Ajaw ruled.”

  “You say her Sinethal was destroyed?”

  “Pieces of her Sinethal were scattered everywhere inside. The same was true for her Taellin and Tuliskaera.”

  “Were the rest of her Tyls inside?”

  “No. I know what you are thinking. The tomb was looted. I considered it, especially since her Sulataers were missing, as were the diamonds from her Tuliskaera and Taellin. But, my captain, her Sinethal wasn’t just broken. It was obliterated. All three Tyls were obliterated.

  “There was only one explanation that made sense. Someone had tried a mind transfer, and something went wrong. Don’t you see? Muran’s accomplice did not use the Tuliskaera correctly and the Tyls exploded once the transfer was complete. Muran or her accomplice must have come back later to remove the remaining undamaged Tyls and the diamonds from the debris of the destroyed Tyls.”

  “But, Mathieu, if the Tyls exploded, Muran would have been killed. They both would have been killed,” Mereau said.

  “Muran was badly injured, not killed. I know this for a fact,” Foucault said.

  Mereau stalked the cabin to quell his anger. “Mathieu, you should have told me this as soon as you learned of it!”

  Foucault sighed. Standing to face the ire-filled captain, he said, “I know, but I wanted to catch her and bring her to you on my own. I thought she would be easy to hunt down. You see, I discovered the identity of the woman whose body she assumed.”

  Foucault went on to explain. He told Mereau he had found two bonnets in the Maerlif, one made from silk, the other from straw. He surmised one had been worn by the woman who facilitated the transfer of Muran’s mind, and the other by the woman whose mind was replaced. “They would have left in quite a hurry after the explosion, especially if one or both had been injured. In their haste, I assumed the bonnets were forgotten.”

  The silk bonnet, Foucault explained, had a distinctive floral pattern that helped him date the head covering to the mid-nineteenth century. With that information, Foucault researched the history of Fernando Pó, the island where the Maerlif was located. During that time period, he told Mereau, the island had been a Spanish territory, so Foucault focused his research on old Spanish newspapers and looked for mentions of unusual occurrences on the is
land.

  He discovered the island had been used as a port by slave ships ferrying captured Africans off the continent. Later, British authorities leased ports on the island to moor ships used to intercept slave ships and free their prisoners. Therefore, most of the Spanish articles Foucault found described events related to the slave trade, including stories about naval conflicts between the slavers and the British navy. In turn, Foucault started to examine old British newspapers as well.

  One day, he found an article describing an incident involving the daughter of the top British naval officer on the island, an explosion that gravely injured the teenaged girl. Foucault sought out other articles about the incident, the naval officer and his daughter, and found many. He told Mereau the officer had been a prominent member of British society and, as a result, the newspapers took great interest in the story.

  “Some of the articles included photographs of the daughter, before and after she recovered. It is the same woman who reappeared yesterday and killed many people with Dreylaeks. She looks a little older now but otherwise is identical. Understand, Mereau. The incident that injured this woman occurred over one hundred seventy years ago. It can be no one else. It is Muran.”

  “If you knew this woman was Muran, why didn’t you kill her?”

  “I discovered the Maerlif sixty years ago, long after she disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Yes. It’s a long story, one we don’t have time to discuss now, but I believe she moved about as I have over the centuries, changing her name, taking on new personas. The last mention I found about the daughter was an article written eight years after the Fernando Pó incident.” Foucault pointed at Australia on the map and continued his story. “She had married a British tycoon and they had settled here, on this continent.”