The Curse of the Ice Serpent

by Jon Mayhew

  ‘Do you think we can trust him?’ Georgia said, twirling a spring between her fingers. ‘What he said was right. If Oginski can change his ways, so can Borys. And why shouldn’t he want to?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dakkar replied, leaning heavily on the bench. ‘Oginski seems adamant. He’s spent the last two nights guarding Borys’s room. He wouldn’t do that unless he had good reason. He looks terrible.’

  ‘He’s still recovering from his encounter with Napoléon’s guards,’ Georgia said, nodding. Oginski had received near fatal wounds when they fled from Elba, pursued by the Emperor Napoléon’s toughest soldiers.

  ‘What if we sent word to Cutter?’ Dakkar said, lifting his head. ‘They could come and keep an eye on Borys.’

  Cutter and his men were Cryptos Red Faction, elite guards who fought with Oginski before he turned away from the organisation. Each member of the Red Faction owed Oginski his life and had sworn to serve him. Since Oginski had reformed, they had kept their distance, living in a cove along the coast and hoping he would return to the fold. But Cutter’s men were loyal to Cryptos too and this made any involvement with them complicated.

  ‘I don’t think we need to keep an eye on Borys,’ Georgia said, throwing the spring back on to the bench. ‘We need to persuade Oginski to find this Thermolith before Tomasz does!’

  A slight cough made Dakkar and Georgia turn. Borys stood at the door, peering in. Dakkar looked over his shoulder, expecting Oginski to be shadowing him.

  ‘Your mentor is asleep on his chair outside my room,’ he said, as if reading Dakkar’s mind. ‘It seemed a shame to wake him. Can I come in?’

  Dakkar looked at Georgia and then nodded. ‘He’ll be furious when he finds you’ve sneaked out of the room,’ Dakkar said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Ingenious,’ Borys said, stepping into the workshop and picking up a clockwork model of a dog. ‘You are a clever young man.’

  ‘I have a good teacher,’ Dakkar said, reaching out and grabbing the toy. ‘Please be careful. It’s … delicate.’

  ‘Explosive, more like.’ Borys chuckled. ‘How far does it walk before it goes off?’

  ‘A few feet,’ Dakkar muttered. He could feel his face reddening. ‘It gives off a loud bang, a flash of light and releases a thick cloud of smoke. To cover a retreat.’

  ‘It seems a waste to put so much effort into making something that does so little damage.’ Borys gave a sly smile and gently took the toy back, squinting at it. ‘But you work on … bigger projects with my brother too?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Dakkar shrugged.

  ‘You seem mighty interested in Oginski’s inventions,’ Georgia said, folding her arms.

  ‘Tomasz will find the Heart of Vulcan, my dear,’ Borys said, his face suddenly serious. ‘He will find it and he will use it to conquer the world. If we’re going to get it before him, we’ll need all of Dakkar’s ingenuity – and yours, of course. Oh, yes, Georgia Fulton, I’m fully aware of your famous uncle, Robert Fulton, and his part in the invention of the submarine called the Nautilus.’

  ‘Robert Fulton’s Nautilus was a mere toy,’ Dakkar said. ‘He tried selling it to Napoléon years ago but it didn’t impress the emperor.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me. I’m not talking about the prototype,’ Borys said, throwing up his arms in mock despair. ‘I’m talking about the craft he perfected with Oginski. The one that works. The one that my brother Kazmer made them build before he died.’

  Georgia and Dakkar stood in silence but couldn’t help glancing at one another.

  ‘If we’re going to get to Greenland then the Nautilus is our best chance,’ Borys said, his voice low. ‘But she will need some modification – the waters there are cold and icy. I only want to help.’

  ‘Even if we did want to help you,’ Dakkar said, ‘I won’t go against Oginski. He’s like a father to me. It’s him you have to persuade.’

  Borys shook his head. ‘Tomasz must be stopped,’ he said. ‘If Oginski doesn’t see this, we’re all doomed.’

  ‘So this is how you repay my hospitality, Borys?’ Oginski said, his large frame filling the doorway. ‘You sneak off while I’m asleep and try to turn Dakkar and Georgia against me.’

  ‘I was merely trying to persuade them that doing nothing is madness,’ Borys growled back. ‘And they are totally devoted to you.’ He gave a slight smile.

  ‘I would trust either of them with my life,’ Oginski said, his stern features softening.

  ‘He does have a point, Oginski,’ Dakkar said. ‘The Heart of Vulcan is out there and Tomasz won’t rest until he’s found it. We must retrieve it before he does.’

  Oginski raised a hand. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Borys, I’d be obliged if you returned to your room. I need to talk to Dakkar and Georgia.’

  Borys inclined his head. ‘As you wish, my brother,’ he said and sauntered out through the door, making Oginski step back for him.

  ‘Oginski, believe me, we wouldn’t have gone against you –’ Dakkar began.

  ‘We must find this Thermolith though,’ Georgia cut in.

  Oginski held up his hand again. ‘Calm yourselves,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought long and hard and I can see that you’re right. We can’t ignore this. And as much as I have my reservations about my brother, I agree that we must give him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Yes!’ Dakkar hissed, clenching his fists. He hated to admit it but the prospect of another adventure sent a thrill of excitement up his spine. Georgia beamed over at him too.

  ‘But we must prepare properly,’ Oginski said, labouring each word to press home the message to Dakkar. ‘We can’t just go waltzing off to Greenland in the Nautilus. Adjustments must be made to her.’

  Dakkar’s heart thumped in his chest. ‘Borys said that he would help. We can get any modifications done in no time if we start now.’

  ‘Ah, the enthusiasm of youth,’ Oginski muttered, shaking his head and smiling. Dakkar thought he looked older at that moment, his hair greyer and the lines on his face somehow deeper.

  ‘Are you all right, Oginski?’ Dakkar asked, frowning anxiously at his mentor.

  ‘Of course!’ he replied, straightening his back and clapping his hands together. ‘Now, call that reprobate brother of mine to my study. We must plan!’

  ‘And, if you remember,’ Georgia said, raising one eyebrow, ‘get him to give you that explosive dog back …’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LURKER IN THE DEPTHS

  The secret sea cave that lay deep within the cliffs beneath the castle echoed with Borys’s delighted laughter.

  ‘I’d heard about this incredible craft,’ he said, as he clambered aboard the Nautilus, ‘but the rumours and descriptions from our spies didn’t do her justice!’

  ‘We tried to keep her as secret as possible,’ Oginski muttered, throwing an almost comic look of alarm at Dakkar.

  We were spied on by Borys and Tomasz and I didn’t even notice? Dakkar thought.

  ‘A truly amazing invention, Frank.’ Borys ran his palm along the polished, watertight boards of the submarine. ‘Such craftsmanship too.’ He looked over to Dakkar and Georgia. ‘I bet these two had more than a hand in her construction.’

  Dakkar felt his cheeks flush with pride in spite of himself. Even Oginski appeared flattered by his brother’s praise.

  ‘I consider Dakkar and Georgia my partners when it comes to developing the Nautilus,’ he said, a smile playing around his lips. ‘They’re brilliant students and even more original thinkers.’

  The Nautilus bobbed, straining at her mooring ropes like a spirited young whale, eager to take them all out to sea. The submersible was essentially a long wooden tube made of close-fitting burnished planks. A tower rose out of its middle, housing a hatch in its top. She looked like no other vessel on the seas.

  ‘I’ll need to know everything,’ Borys said, climbing up the ladder on the side of the tower to get inside. ‘Maybe you could take me out in her, to begin with.’

/>   ‘That makes sense,’ Oginski said, but Dakkar noticed that his smile had faded and the haggard lines of pain and worry had returned.

  The exclamations and murmurs of delight continued inside the Nautilus as they climbed down into the tower.

  ‘So this is where the captain sits,’ Borys said, tapping the chair in front of the helm. He peered through the porthole at the view ahead of the submarine. ‘This engages the engine?’ He gripped the brass lever at the side of the seat.

  ‘Yes,’ Oginski said, sliding into the chair. He pointed to a brass handle. ‘And that’s the ballast control.’

  Borys frowned for a second, rapping his knuckles against the inside of the craft. ‘Ballast?’

  ‘The hull has two skins and a gap between …’ Oginski began.

  ‘The gap fills with water, making the submarine heavier,’ Dakkar finished the sentence for him. ‘So she can submerge.’

  ‘And that’s how she sinks,’ Borys concluded, beaming. ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘And when we want to surface, we pump the water out,’ Oginski said, clearly flattered again. ‘Allow me to demonstrate. Georgia, could you release us from our moorings?’

  Georgia scurried outside, untied the Nautilus and scrambled back inside, closing the top hatch behind her. They all crowded around Oginski in the control room at the base of the tower and watched the water rise around them.

  Dakkar grinned as he noticed Borys grip the back of Oginski’s seat with whitened knuckles. Not so self-assured after all, Dakkar thought.

  ‘Here we go,’ Oginski said, turning the ballast wheel.

  They sank into the dim underwater light then Oginski pushed the lever to Full Ahead and began to turn the wheel.

  ‘But how does one see down here?’ Borys said, squinting into the gloom.

  Oginski gave a tight smile and turned a wheel mounted in front of the power lever. Outside, eight glass orbs rose out of the deck at the bow and stern of the Nautilus. Each contained a fluorescent jellyfish that cast a bright glow around the craft.

  ‘The jellyfish never dim,’ he said. ‘It was Dakkar’s idea.’

  Once more, Dakkar felt a surge of pride and gave a smile, staring down at his feet as his cheeks flushed.

  ‘Such ingenuity,’ Borys said, peering out at the bubbles that frothed around the porthole. ‘Look!’ he cried, letting go of the chair and pointing to a shoal of silver fish flitting past. ‘Beautiful.’

  Oginski spun the wheel again and headed towards a dark shadow that showed the entrance of a sea cave.

  ‘Originally, we used a second chamber to exit the cave,’ Oginski explained. ‘But with this larger vessel it was necessary to open a wider tunnel into the sea.’

  ‘That must have been dangerous,’ Borys said, still staring out into the cloudy waters.

  ‘It was a tricky job. We had to use the Sea Arrows to blast through the rock,’ Dakkar said and then winced as Georgia jabbed him with her elbow.

  ‘Sea Arrows?’ Borys said, glancing over to Oginski. ‘I assume they’re some kind of explosive device you can fire underwater? Wonderful!’

  They entered the mouth of the newly excavated tunnel, where pale blue fronds of seaweed danced with the ebb and flow of the sea. The weed emitted an eerie glow that illuminated the tunnel.

  ‘We cultivated the seaweed,’ Georgia said, pointing outside. ‘Encouraged it to grow in the tunnel.’

  The Nautilus gave a sudden jerk as if she’d been snagged by something. Borys stifled a panicky yelp as bars loomed out of the gloom before them.

  ‘Don’t worry, brother,’ Oginski said, grinning at Borys’s discomfort. ‘A hook on the Nautilus’s hull snags a chain that lifts the gate. When we come back in, it’ll fall closed again.’

  The barred gate began to rise as the Nautilus drew nearer. A loud clunk reverberated through the craft, telling them that the gate had clicked open.

  ‘Amazing,’ Borys stuttered, mopping his brow with a lacy handkerchief.

  Suddenly the closeness of the passage vanished and they plunged out into the open water, the Nautilus rocking slightly with the new currents.

  ‘Dakkar, if you could take the helm, Georgia and I will show my brother the engine room,’ Oginski said, rising from his chair and giving Georgia’s pistols the briefest glance.

  Georgia nodded and gestured to the hatch at their feet that led down into the main body of the submarine.

  Dakkar slid into the warm seat and gripped the wheel, listening to Borys’s continued cries of wonder as they climbed down through the hatch. He grinned and stared out into the waters.

  He watched shoals of fish flit by and laughed as he sent the Nautilus ploughing through them. A pod of dolphins swept past the window, looping over and under the craft, making Dakkar dizzy as he tried to keep track of them.

  The dolphins scattered suddenly as if in panic. Dakkar’s smile froze as a flash of silvery green blotted out the seascape. He glimpsed a round, staring eye and long teeth. Then they vanished into the thick jungle of swaying weeds on the seabed.

  Dakkar pulled the thick bung out of the speaking tube on his left. This was another new development. Huge lengths of tubing with a cup at each end snaked from the captain’s seat into each cabin. When you talked down them, a person at the other end of the tube could hear you. The heavy stoppers were there in case the room at one end became flooded and the water rushed up the tube.

  ‘Oginski,’ Dakkar called down the tube, ‘can you hear me?’

  There was a moment’s pause and then a reply. ‘What is it, Dakkar?’

  ‘We’re not alone down here,’ he said.

  ‘Not alone?’ Oginski sounded puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  But Dakkar couldn’t answer. A confusing tangle of muscled flesh, teeth and staring eyes exploded from the weed below, heading straight for the Nautilus.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TRAPPED

  Dakkar sent the Nautilus spiralling into a dive. He could hear the creature’s tough hide scrape the planks of the craft.

  ‘Dakkar, what’s happening?’ Oginski yelled from below, forgetting to use the speaking tube.

  ‘Something big has taken a dislike to us!’ Dakkar yelled back. ‘Load some Sea Arrows!’

  ‘We can’t!’ Oginski shouted. ‘You know they’re kept in the explosives vault back at the castle. I didn’t expect to have to use them. Just head back to the cave!’

  With a hiss of exasperation, Dakkar slammed the drive lever to Full Ahead. The sudden acceleration pushed him back in his seat. Glancing out of the window, he saw the creature clearly now. It looked like some kind of enormous eel, wriggling its way towards them. The Nautilus was big but this monster made her look like a toy. Dakkar dragged his gaze forward, focusing on the entrance of the sea cave and hoping he could outrun the massive eel.

  The dark cave entrance and the gateway grew clearer as the Nautilus hurtled towards them. Dakkar gripped the wheel, aiming the craft at the centre of the narrow entrance. The eel swam closer, teeth glinting in the silvery light. Dakkar ignored it. If his aim faltered slightly, he would plant the Nautilus firmly against the rock of the cliff and that would be the end of them all.

  The tunnel mouth loomed around them, gaping to swallow them up. Dakkar allowed himself a fleeting smile of triumph. It vanished as another shape flitted across his path. A small, human shape.

  Instinctively Dakkar swung the wheel to avoid hitting whoever it was but something thumped against the hull. Turning the wheel in this confined space was not a good idea. Dakkar wrestled with the steering but the craft crashed heavily against the tunnel wall, bouncing from side to side as she careered onwards. Every bump and crack made him wince. He could hear the yells from below as Oginski, Georgia and Borys were thrown around the cabins. Luminous seaweed slapped at the portholes and whipped the hull as the walls of the tunnel flashed by.

  A metallic clunk told Dakkar that the gate to the cave had slid back in place then, in a cloud of bubbles, the Nautilus burst from the tunnel
into the sea cave. Dakkar dragged the lever to reverse, his stomach lurching as the craft slowed.

  ‘I think we’re safe,’ he panted, as Borys peered cautiously into the control room from the hatch below.

  ‘For now,’ Borys replied, looking pale and shaken.

  Within an hour, they all met in Oginski’s study. Dakkar and Georgia sat warming themselves in front of a roaring hearth. Gweek, appreciative of the extra heat, fluttered around the room, landing every now and then on someone’s head or shoulder. Borys had insisted on making everyone some hot spiced port and now he stood by the fire, cupping a warm glass in his hands.

  ‘That was a close call,’ he said and took a sip of his drink.

  ‘It was an eel,’ Dakkar said, nodding. ‘A huge eel.’

  ‘And it’s still out there,’ Borys said, his face stony. ‘I hate to say it but this has all the hallmarks of Tomasz. Like all the Brothers Oginski, he takes delight in breeding the most monstrous beasts and using them for his own ends.’

  ‘Not all of us enjoy making such monsters but, I agree, it has to be one of Tomasz’s creations,’ Oginski said, twirling his glass so that the firelight played on the ruby liquid inside. ‘That creature … it was so huge. We have native species that grow to considerable size but never that big. It’s unnatural.’

  ‘I saw something else too,’ Dakkar said, shivering in spite of the fire and blankets. ‘A human figure. I think we hit it.’

  ‘A Qualar?’ Georgia said.

  ‘It couldn’t be,’ Oginski murmured. ‘The Qualar are our sworn allies.’

  ‘The Qualar?’ Borys looked puzzled.

  ‘It seems you didn’t find out everything about our dear brother Kazmer,’ Oginski said with raised eyebrows. ‘The Qualar are a race of undersea people. They look like humans but have scales and green skin. Kazmer conquered them and treated them like slaves. He relied on the Qualar to herd and direct his monsters.’