by Perrin Briar
“Please,” Bryan mouthed. “Help us.”
He thought he caught sight of a small smile on the lord’s lips, one that did not look entirely accommodating.
But the lord got to his feet, and set his shirt collar and sleeves straight. He was enjoying himself, getting comfortable for what he was about to say. He looked up and addressed the crowd.
“This is not anyone’s fault,” Lord Maltese said. “Did any member of this family wield a knife? Did they attack the victim? Of course not. Bryan and Aaron were outside the town at the time, working to protect us, all of us. Zoe and Cassie were with Jeffrey, working on his designs. I myself can attest to that. They aren’t responsible.
“Are farmers responsible for the bad weather if the crops they planted die? Of course not. Should we have trusted a stranger and his family? Yes, we should. We didn’t care who they were. We made the decision to listen to them, to want to do what they wanted, and not care about the outcome. Because it was worth it. To rid the world of the dragon forever? It was a good plan, but it just didn’t work out, that’s all. And here we stand, ready to kill them for it.
“This is a tragedy, no doubt about it. We should focus on finding the perpetrator so we can get on with our lives and get on with what we’re doing, with developing and making our future brighter.”
The locals didn’t seem very sated, their anger still plain on their faces. But they broke, and the mob began to disperse and head out the door.
“What do we do now?” Zoe said. “I’m not sure I feel very comfortable with all these people here, wanting to kill us.”
“Don’t go anywhere by yourself,” Bryan said. “No one goes out by themselves, under any circumstances.”
The dragon was no longer their greatest threat.
33.
THE FUNERAL was a sad, dour affair, at total odds with the one in the previous world where it had been normal to burn bodies in pits of red hot magma. Here, it was more akin to what happened up on the surface, with a priest reading from a Bible over the body of the dead, family and friends gathered around.
They were in the church’s graveyard, a pretty spot that backed up to a small grove of trees. There were many other tombstones here, dating back several centuries. Several were clearly very recent, the soil of the graves still visible where the grass had not yet grown through.
Everyone wore black, matching their sad expressions. The murder had come as a shock. The victim had been a baker’s assistant, Bryan learned from the eulogy. Her rolls were the envy of the whole town. Her secret recipe would be buried with her.
The undertaker began shoveling dirt on the casket. The crowd began to disperse, filtering off in various directions. The family left too, heading their own way.
“We were close to trapping the monster too,” Bryan said. “If we could have waited just a little longer, a few more days, we would have had him. I’m sure of it.”
“Hm,” Zoe said.
Bryan looked at Zoe. She was wearing a frown.
“What is it?” Bryan said.
“It’s the murder,” Zoe said. “What are the odds it would happen right then of all times? Right when you were there, trying to catch the monster?”
“You’re saying it was used as a distraction?” Bryan said.
“Yes,” Zoe said. “At least, it is a possibility, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Bryan said. “It is certainly that.”
“It makes more sense, now I think about it,” Zoe said. “No natural creature could breathe fire the way it does. It was designed. We know that. But who designed it?”
“You think someone here designed it?” Bryan said.
“What other explanation can there be?” Zoe said. “How else can a dinosaur breathe fire? And someone put that metal shield on its back. I’m betting the person who did that was the same person who murdered Cynthia.”
“Why would someone do that?” Bryan said.
“To stop us searching the caves,” Zoe said.
“You’re saying there’s something in there someone here is willing to murder for?” Bryan said.
“Yes,” Zoe said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Who knows, it might even be the Passage they’re trying to keep hidden.”
“It seems to me you’re talking about the same thing,” Cassie said. “We want to find the Passage. If we’re right, and Cynthia was murdered in order to distract us from capturing the monster, then if we can find the murderer…”
“We also find the person responsible for the dragon,” Zoe said. “Ingenious.”
“In that case, isn’t it obvious who did the murder?” Aaron said.
The others turned to look at him. Aaron checked over his shoulders in case someone was close enough to hear, but they were alone.
“There’s only one person here capable of making the technology the T-Rex now wears,” Aaron said.
“Who?” Zoe said.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Aaron said.
Zoe ran the evidence through her mind, her eyes widening at Aaron’s thought process and the conclusion he must have come to.
“No,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am serious,” Aaron said. “Can you think of anyone else who might be capable of designing such advanced technology?”
“But he’s not capable!” Zoe said. “You’ve seen him!”
“It could all be an act,” Bryan said. “The perfect camouflage. To disguise himself as a bumbling idiot genius.”
“But he’s shown his hand,” Zoe said. “His skills betray him. It’s Jeffrey!”
34.
“JEFFREY?” Lord Maltese said. “Our inventor, Jeffrey? We’re talking about the same person? You can’t be serious. He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“He did hurt a fly once,” Abigail said. “I was there. I saw him do it.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” Lord Maltese said, rolling his eyes.
“I don’t care,” Abigail said, pursing her lips. “It’s true. He did hurt a fly once.”
“I, for one, am not surprised,” Roland said. “He always seemed a bit fishy to me.”
“But where is your evidence?” Lady Maltese said. “And even if he is guilty, he already lives like a hermit. What else can we do to him? Taking away his workshop will harm us more than it does him. We would only be hurting ourselves.”
“So we’re supposed to just let him get away with it?” Lord Maltese said. “Because he’s of use to the town? He shouldn’t be punished if it turns out he is responsible for Cynthia’s death?”
“No one would have to know about it,” Lady Maltese said. “We could keep it between ourselves. Then he could carry on doing what he does.”
“And murdering other innocent people,” Lord Maltese said. “No. The people must have justice, whatever form that takes.”
“This is all academic,” Lady Maltese said. “Until we speak with him and either he confesses or the police discover the evidence for themselves.”
“Why haven’t they figured out it was Jeffrey too?” Aaron said.
“Because they’re approaching it as police investigators investigating a crime,” Bryan said. “We’re looking at it from the outside. Whether Jeffrey is responsible for it or not there’s no denying the fact he must be responsible for what was done to the T-Rex. I’m betting that before he came along, the T-Rex never had the ability to breathe fire, did he?”
“No,” Lord Maltese said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“Should we go to the police?” Zoe said.
“No,” Lord Maltese said. “What you say makes sense, assuming any of it is true. But he has become a friend of the family. The least we can do is confront him in person before we contact the authorities. I wouldn’t want to undermine our friendship now.”
The lord stood up.
“Come on then,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
35.
THE DOOR squeaked open on ancient hinges. The room inside was dusty and packe
d to the rafters with items. Most of it Zoe could name but there were some things she had no name for, nor idea what they were meant to do.
It was a dream world for hoarders of useless garbage, and amongst this rubble, like a bomb had gone off, was meant to lie the hope and future of this world. If that was true, this world was in bigger trouble than Zoe thought.
“Jeffrey?” Lady Maltese said out loud to the room.
The armchair where he was usually fast asleep was vacant, the depression his body had made pressed into it. The chair had been disturbed, slightly off its axis, a small coffee table knocked over, spilling a cup of tea or coffee over the tiled floor.
The rest of the room was its usual mess, of course, but it was a well-ordered chaos, the kind of space where the occupant knew where everything was, that if pushed, he could recall precisely where he’d put every object.
But there was something somehow wrong with the whole situation, as if it had been set up for their benefit. Nothing about this room felt like it had before. All the warmth had been stripped from it, and when they rounded the corner, they could see why.
Zoe’s hand went to her mouth, covering her shock. She turned back to block the kids’ view, and even the lord’s kids, but it was too late. They’d already gotten an eyeful.
Zoe turned them away in any case, and led them back toward the door, to look out the window at the regular world and the town where everything was business as usual. Zoe for one needed the air.
Each time Zoe blinked she saw another image behind her eyelids, of Jeffrey’s wrinkled hand, outstretched and reaching for something across the tiles, of his face hidden from her, pressed to the hard floor. His straggling hair, so much like Einstein’s wayward style, stuck out at odd angles. His body was twisted into a position his large frame was not used to, a yoga pose that forced the joints beyond their usual extremes.
Zoe and the others had seen a lot of death over the past couple of weeks, but it had always been in the pursuit of something, had been unavoidable. And it had always occurred in foreign and dangerous situations. This death happened in familiar settings, in a room that Zoe had been in before. She had met the old man that was now dead.
We all have a clock, Zoe thought morbidly, and none of us really know how much time we have left. To a large extent, it didn’t really matter how much time you had remaining. It was how you used that time to enjoy yourself, the quality of time, that was the most important thing.
Bryan crouched over the dead body, inspecting it.
“What happened to him?” Cassie said.
“I don’t know,” Zoe said. “I know as much as you.”
Her mind was working on overdrive, coming up with wild theories. Where these theories came from, Zoe didn’t know. Probably from a lifetime of stories and movies and TV shows, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad and underhanded had taken place.
It wasn’t long before Bryan came over.
“Are you all okay?” he said.
He hugged them each in turn, and gave a comforting smile to the lord’s kids.
“We’re fine,” Zoe said. “What happened to him?”
“Heart attack,” Bryan said.
“But there was blood…” Zoe said.
“He hit his head when he fell,” Bryan said. “He cut open his nose and forehead, spilling the blood over the floor.”
“That’s terrible,” Zoe said. “That he had to die alone.”
“According to the lord and lady, he was often alone,” Bryan said. “It was inevitable he would go by himself.”
“I suppose,” Zoe said.
She set the crazy theories and conjecture in her mind aside. The death had been entirely natural, though what the town was going to do without their beloved inventor, Zoe didn’t know.
He may have been a little crazy, having used his technology to make the dragon an even more deadly foe, but he had also been the light and salvation of the town’s future. How were they going to cope without him now?
36.
THE NEXT few days passed slowly. The family searched for the Passage in every nook and cranny of the world, save the caves. The dragon stayed in its hovel, not bothering to come out. No doubt it had had its fill somewhere.
As predicted, the number of bodies coming out of Lake Rebirth had trickled to a stop. Starving hungry, the monster would be forced to attack the town. It was the only food source around.
Bryan warned the lord about this, that they should maintain vigil over the trap they had set, but the town still blamed Bryan for Cynthia’s death and the lord seemed unwilling to rail against his townsfolk supporters.
Lord Maltese had installed the world’s greatest engineers and inventors in Jeffrey’s former tower. They worked hard, but couldn’t make head nor tail of his designs.
Bryan assisted them as best he could, but he was severely limited by the technology of the time. There were so many fields of expertise on the surface that it boggled the mind. He needed all of them if he was to replicate the kind of prototypes Jeffrey had designed.
Funny, that the destruction of one world could have such a devastating impact on another, and it would continue to do so. It just went to show how inextricably linked each of these independent worlds truly were.
While he was out searching for the Passage, Bryan ran Jeffrey’s inventions through his mind. He worked with the other engineers in the evenings. Though he couldn’t say he helped with the inventions much, he was able to teach the young engineers about advanced engineering.
They were empty, but hungry, receptacles, ready to absorb everything he had to tell them. It was refreshing to find such willing young minds. It opened him up to the concept of becoming a teacher one day, should they ever manage to get to the surface.
They needed to get to the caves, Bryan felt. There was nowhere more likely for the Passage to be than amongst its catacombs. But they couldn’t enter it, not until the monster was no longer there. Most likely while it was attacking the town.
He and Zoe talked long and hard about what they would do in such a situation. They decided they wouldn’t leave the town that had been so kind to them—relatively speaking—and would stand beside them and fight.
But if the fight turned against them, and it was clear the dragon was going to overpower and destroy the town, then the family would escape to the caves and take refuge, searching for the Passage.
The dragon would eventually return, the caves being its home, but they could take their time, learn the monster’s routine, and work their way through the caverns one by one until they discovered what they were looking for. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but it was the best they had.
It wasn’t until the third evening of the third day after the inventor’s passing that a thought struck Bryan, coming at him from an unexpected angle.
The giant feasts had come to an end, the excitement of a vibrant future gone in the wind. Aaron worked with Bryan in the evenings sometimes, to help educate the engineers on subjects Bryan had no clue about—predominantly wildlife and nature. It was after one of these events, during a discussion over dinner, that Bryan had his brainwave.
“The more I learn about Jeffrey, the more I realize how incredible he truly was,” Aaron said, spearing a slice of steak with his fork. “I mean, being able to think so far ahead into the future like that, it’s remarkable. He was like Da Vinci, but with the engineering skills to back it up. He was one of a kind. There won’t have been many people like him in our history. His death was a real loss.”
“With his death went the future of our people,” Lord Maltese said. “We’ll survive, but that wasn’t what I wanted when I became lord. I wanted to do more than survive. I wanted to thrive.”
Lady Maltese put a comforting hand on her husband’s arm and gave him a supportive, tight-lipped smile.
“We’ll be all right,” she said. “You’ll see.”
“With time, you’ll piece together what the inventor had scribbled on those pieces of paper,” Z
oe said.
“Time,” Lord Maltese said. “The one resource we do not have.”
Time.
There was something about that, Bryan thought. Time. He turned his head to one side and set his fork down. Zoe saw him do it, and lowered her head to whisper to him.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“Yes,” Bryan said with a frown. “Yes, I’m fine. Excuse me.”
He got up and moved for the stairs, brow knitted in deep thought. He moved up the stairs without remembering he took a single one, and went to his and Zoe’s shared room. He moved to the balcony, leaned against it, and peered out over the town.
“Time,” he said out loud.
It was ten minutes before the door opened, admitting Zoe.
“Are you all right?” Zoe said. “It’s not like you to leave before the dessert course.”
“I’m fine,” Bryan said, still distracted.
“You’re not going to work with the engineers tonight are you?” Zoe said. “You need a night off. Time to recharge your batteries.”
“Time,” Bryan said abruptly.
“What?” Zoe said.
“Time,” Bryan said. “It’s all about time.”
“What is?” Zoe said.
“The inventor,” Bryan said. “He was ahead of his time. Too far ahead. He couldn’t have known the things he knew, couldn’t have dreamed the things he did.”
“But he did,” Zoe said.
“Says who?” Bryan said.
“Says everyone in town,” Zoe said.
“But no one ever saw him making these things,” Bryan said. “No one ever saw him do much more than make vague sketches from his dreams.”
“The mind is an incredible thing,” Zoe said.
“It is,” Bryan said. “But it is limited by the time in which it exists. Da Vinci was a genius, no doubt about it. He could look at nature and extrapolate ideas based on that. But if there was no nature, he wouldn’t have had the ideas.”