The Lazarus Curse

by Darren Craske

‘That was years ago!’ said Makoi. ‘And I was lucky that night. Cho-zen Li has no doubt updated his security measures since. I am sorry, Cornelius, I do not wish to be harsh, but you may have to decide which is the more important task… killing the warlord or rescuing your friend. You cannot do both.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Quaint, to whom the plan sounded perfectly logical, as always.

  ‘Because it will take a miracle to get into the mine, another miracle to get you close enough to Cho-zen Li to kill him, and yet another miracle to actually do it! Unless you have a limitless supply of miracles at your disposal?’

  Quaint tapped the side of his nose. ‘One or two.’

  Makoi cast his hands into the air, seeking support from Prometheus and Butter.

  ‘What’s that outlaw looking at us for?’ Prometheus whispered.

  ‘No idea,’ Butter replied. ‘Though he seems in frustration.’

  ‘No wonder, lad. He’s arguing with the boss, after all,’ said Prometheus. ‘I’ve seen that look in his eyes often enough. He’s deaf to reason now.’

  Yin arrived to join the group, looking decidedly more refreshed since his escape from Cho-zen Li’s mine. ‘What’s all the shouting about?’

  ‘Maybe you translate for us,’ said Butter. ‘It is all in the Chinese.’

  Before Yin got a chance—

  ‘Just the man I wanted to see,’ cried Quaint, slapping the young acrobat on the back. ‘We’re all going on a little hike.’

  ‘Where to, boss?’ asked Yin.

  ‘To the mine.’

  ‘But… I’ve just come from the mine.’

  ‘Yes, and now you’re going back.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Back,’ Quaint confirmed. ‘You’re the only one of us who has spent time inside that mine, so you’re the closest thing I’ve got to an expert on how we can free Ruby. Are you game?’

  ‘Will there be danger on all sides and a high probability of death?’ asked Yin.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ replied Quaint.

  ‘When do we leave, boss?’

  ‘Ten minutes, and I expect everyone to be ready!’ said Quaint. ‘If my plan is going to work, I’m going to need a bit of back-up. Whilst I’m busy upstairs in the palace, I’d feel a lot happier knowing that Ruby was safe with you. Arm yourselves as best you can. Swords, bows, knives, whatever you can lay your hands on. I’ve a feeling that you’ll need them.’

  The assembled group watched as Quaint strode off towards his deer-hide tent, Makoi convinced that surely he must be fast asleep and this was all just a dream.

  Makoi shook his head in disbelief. ‘Is he always like that?’

  ‘Not always,’ replied Yin. ‘Sometimes he can be quite impulsive.’

  Chapter XXVII

  The Painful Truth

  Ruby Marstrand was led from Cho-zen Li’s chambers and down into the depths of the palace. Every time she slowed or stumbled, Li-Dao would tug the rope hard, causing Ruby to gasp in pain.

  ‘Come along, vixen, we do not wish to keep Dr Shinzo waiting,’ she told the young knife-thrower. ‘He is a man with a knack for sniffing out lies. The truth will come out, vixen, even if you have to bleed it through every pore. Shinzo will make certain of that. He is, after all, the most gifted torturer in all of China. You will soon feel more pain than you could possibly comprehend. And the beauty is that you will be conscious for the duration. Eventually you will be begging to tell him what he wants to know.’

  Ruby held her head low. As much faith as she had in her employer, even she had to admit that escape seemed impossible now. Something told her that the only way out of the warlord’s stronghold would be if her dead body was carried out.

  They arrived at a fortified iron door and Li-Dao thumped her fist upon it. Ruby felt her blood in her veins slow to a crawl as the door was unbolted, and a middle-aged man stood there, dressed in a filthy white laboratory coat, with a hunched back and a green pallor to his flesh. He reminded Ruby of a reptile, his greasy skin glistening, the lenses of his spectacles magnifying his eyes as he looked Ruby up and down.

  ‘Nice… very nice,’ Dr Shinzo said. ‘Let us hope that she provides me with a bit more sport than the last one, eh?’ He motioned behind him into the room, and Ruby’s eyes spotted something that made her mouth go dry.

  Lying motionless on a wooden slab was the naked body of a female. She was quite dead, with limp arms hanging down from the slab. Her arteries were tainted green, almost glowing through her flesh.

  Li-Dao eyed the woman. ‘This one is not here for your depraved entertainment, Doctor… at least, not yet. She is here at the Master’s wishes. She is from England, and he wants to know everything about her. Who she is, why she is here, et cetera, but she is not to be permanently harmed. Do you understand me, Doctor?’

  Dr Shinzo salivated at the prize before him. ‘Hmm? Oh, yes… yes. Consider it done, Mistress. There is little that can evade the lotus oil’s potency. The master will learn all he needs… and then she will fulfil mine.’

  ‘Good,’ said Li-Dao, pushing Ruby roughly into the dank room. ‘The sooner the Master has his information, the sooner you can play.’

  ‘The machine will take some time to warm up, Mistress,’ said Dr Shinzo. ‘Would you be so kind as to detail an attendant to me, I require warm water and fresh utensils. You may inform Master Cho-zen Li that his subject shall be ready to confess all in one hour. Either that, or she will be a lifeless husk… whichever comes sooner.’

  Li-Dao slipped a dagger from her scabbard and held it at Shinzo’s brow, its blade tickling his forehead. ‘For your sake, I hope that was a joke, Doctor. Just see to it that the Master is well satisfied.’

  ‘Oh, do not fear, Mistress,’ said Dr Shinzo, ‘when it comes to matters of torture, satisfaction is guaranteed.’ He closed the door firmly, and motioned towards the cluttered room. ‘I was not expecting visitors, let me just tidy this place up, my dear.’ He pushed the dead body off the wooden slab and it landed with a hollow thump onto the floor, the legs splayed out in an undignified manner. He patted the table.

  ‘What?’ asked Ruby. ‘If you expect me to sit on that after a dead body’s been on it, then you’re crazier than you look!’

  ‘How delicate the English language is,’ purred Dr Shinzo. ‘I think I shall enjoy this. You, on the other hand… will not.’

  Chapter XXVIII

  The Path of Danger

  Cornelius Quaint crouched amongst the trees adjacent to the entrance to the silver mine at Q’in Mountain’s foot, with the masked Makoi by his side. It was mid-morning, and although Makoi had griped constantly about the foolishness of an assault upon the mountain in daylight, Quaint was adamant that his plan would be successful.

  Makoi, it seemed, did not share his appreciation.

  ‘You are a lunatic, Cornelius!’ the outlaw snapped. ‘You are seriously considering offering yourself up as a prize to Cho-zen Li? His soldiers will slice you to pieces were you to get within six feet!’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that very much. Cho-zen Li employs men of limited intelligence from what I saw last night. They’re pack animals, happy to follow whoever shouts the loudest. Once those guards hear what I have to say, they’ll have no recourse but to take me directly to their boss. I’ll be perfectly safe.’

  ‘Right up until the moment that Cho-zen Li kills you,’ said Makoi.

  ‘That’s not exactly my plan,’ smiled Quaint.

  Prometheus and the rest of the troupe moved through the trees and joined the outlaw and conjuror as they spied upon the mountain. ‘So, whilst you’re swanning about in the palace, what are we expected to do? We want to be in on the action, man!’

  ‘If boss to die we want to be by his side,’ added Butter, firmly stamping his fist into his pal.

  ‘Who said anything about anyone dying?’ snapped Quaint. ‘Do you really have no faith in me whatsoever? Once I hand myself in, Cho-zen’s soldiers will escort me up to the palace, and with any luck they’ll be too focused on me to noti
ce what is going on down here at ground level. Whilst I’m busy, it’ll be up to you lot to find Ruby and get her out of that place.’

  ‘Boss, if you are up mountain, what if trouble comes towards you?’ said Butter.

  Quaint gave the Inuit a cheery smile. ‘That’s why you lot will be keeping the soldiers busy down on the ground. But it won’t be easy. Cho-zen Li’s soldiers will have no choice but to throw everything they’ve got at you. Don’t give them chance to regroup, just whatever you do, or I’m liable to walk back down into a bloody war zone!’

  ‘Assuming you walk back down at all,’ muttered Prometheus. ‘And what about any of Cho-zen Li’s patrols that might be about, like those ones who got us last night? What if they come by the mountain and see there’s a problem?’

  ‘Then it’ll be up to you to convince them that there isn’t one.’

  ‘Cornelius,’ said Makoi, with a tap on Quaint’s shoulder. ‘Sorry to interrupt your briefing, but a question strikes me… everything hinges on you being taken before Cho-zen Li, but he does not know you. How do you know the guards will not just kill you on the spot?’

  ‘Because I’ll be looking like this,’ Quaint said, as he pulled a golden mask from behind his back and held it up to his face. ‘You gave me the idea last night. As long as I wear the mask no one but Cho-zen Li himself would dare harm me. I’ll be untouchable!’

  ‘And when you take the mask off? What then?’

  ‘I’ll do what I always do,’ Quaint winked. ‘Improvise!’

  Chapter XXIX

  The Doctor of Death

  Ruby Marstrand was not having a very good day.

  She was strapped to a makeshift operating table in the palace of a Chinese warlord whilst a demented torturer planned to bleed the truth from her bones. Her wrists and ankles were bound and she could do nothing to escape. She was not usually the praying type, but considering the nature of her predicament, she was willing to try anything.

  ‘What… what are you going to do to me?’ she mumbled.

  Dr Shinzo looked up as if he had only just realised that she was there. ‘Do to you? You really want to know? Most people prefer not knowing, but I suppose it won’t hurt. Let me explain.’ He tapped a large machine at the end of the wooden slab, with all manner of dials and gauges on its face and several tubes feeding into a glass vat of green liquid mounted to the wall. ‘It’s a wonderful thing, nature. Plants, especially. The master’s lotus garden, for example. The oil that those plants produce has been proven to have an interesting reaction on the human body. In time, in the right amounts, it can be amazingly restorative, slowing the ageing process by decades, even repairing damaged muscles and limbs… but it’s also capable of isolating the specific enzymes on the surface of the skin that feed directly into the brain. It shuts off your body’s pain receptors, and with your ability to sense injury disabled, I could hack off your limbs one by one and you won’t even feel it.’

  Ruby gulped. ‘You you’re just saying that to scare me, right?’

  ‘Is it working?’

  Ruby nodded frantically as tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Excellent!’ giggled the doctor. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, I outgrew my artistic phase long ago, and moved onto more specific areas of research. Imagine what the lotus oil would mean to medical science, to be able to isolate measure pain, to simply turn it… off. I could cut you wide open and thrust my arm elbow-deep into your guts, and all the while you’d be completely conscious! Once, I even got one of the dogs to eat the lower intestines of a prisoner who resisted the oil’s effects. I made him watch as the hound had its meal. It wasn’t long before he spilled his guts… no pun intended.’

  ‘You’re a monster!’ Ruby yelled, tears flooding her eyes, nausea rising in the back of her throat. ‘How could you do such a thing?’

  ‘It came to no harm,’ replied Dr Shinzo. ‘I liked that dog.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the damn dog, you bloody ghoul!’ Ruby screamed. ‘How can you look in the mirror in the morning?’

  ‘My dear girl, it is only a job… and inflicting pain is one of the perks,’ answered Dr Shinzo, picking his teeth with his fingernails. ‘Once I inject the oil into your flesh you will be paralysed, but should I wish it… I can make it so that you feel everything. Every single thing.’ Shinzo nudged the corpse on the floor with his toe. ‘This one was quite entertaining before she expired on me. I took a flame to the soles of her feet, but the stench of her flesh melting off her bones made her pass out, the poor soul. A shame, though. I prefer ones with a bit more fire in their bellies. Ones like you. It’s just like taming a wild horse… a little fight makes the ride more enjoyable.’

  ‘I’d die before letting you touch me!’ Ruby yelled.

  ‘All in good time,’ said Dr Shinzo.

  Ruby flinched as his hands groped her body, sliding up and over her chest and around her neck to cup her cheek. As he leaned towards her mouth, Ruby tried to twist her head from his grasp, but the hunched man was far stronger than he looked.

  She clamped her eyes shut as he leaned closer…

  The doctor hissed angrily as there was a knock on the door. ‘I’m working!’

  ‘Mistress Li-Dao sent me,’ said a man’s voice from the other side of the door.

  ‘Ah… the attendant, yes. What good timing you have,’ said Dr Shinzo. ‘I hate cutting up flesh with blunt scalpels.’

  The door opened and a young Chinese man entered carrying a tray. Upon it was a bowl of water and a selection of silver instruments: a scalpel, a pair of scissors and a long needle. The attendant rested the tray by the side of the wooden slab. Dr Shinzo lifted the six-inch long needle from the tray, and held it up to the light.

  ‘The Master does provide me with such exquisite tools,’ he sneered, flashing his lopsided grin to the attendant hovering in the doorway. ‘Just like any artist, I do my best work with instruments of superior finery. Now… where were we?’

  ‘I was about to stick that needle in your eye,’ said the young attendant.

  Dr Shinzo laughed, though not completely understanding why. ‘Hmm?’

  In a flash, the attendant grabbed the needle and plunged it through the thick lenses of the doctor’s spectacles. The soft flesh of the eyeball offered no resistance, spewing out a gooey substance like egg white. The attendant then picked up the scalpel and sliced it across the doctor’s neck. His head flopped backwards revealing a gash to his throat six inches long. He collapsed to the ground, blood seeping onto the floor.

  A million thoughts were rushing through Ruby’s mind as the young attendant turned to face her. He raised the scalpel, but Ruby didn’t see what happened next, she was too busy keeping her eyes shut. She felt the pressure lessen on her wrists and she opened her eyes to see the young man slicing the thick leather straps that held her to the slab. He then he moved down to the bonds at her feet and did the same.

  Ruby stared up at the young man’s face with wide eyes. ‘You’re alive!’

  ‘Not for much longer if we don’t get out of here, Rubes,’ said Yang. ‘If we can make it through the mine we shall be safe, but it will not be easy going.’

  Ruby flung herself into his arms. ‘We thought you were dead!’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Yang. ‘Merely keeping my ears to the ground, and you won’t believe what I’ve learned! There’s something that Mr Q needs to know about Cho-zen Li, and I don’t think he’ll like it. We have to warn him!’

  Chapter XXX

  The Conjuror’s Bluff

  ‘Wish me luck,’ said Quaint, as he pulled a black cowl over his head and then placed the mask of Makoi onto his face. He strode out of the long grass with purpose.

  Behind him, crouched in the bushes in the shadow of Q’in Mountain, his circus troupe exchanged anxious glances.

  ‘I hope he knows what he is doing,’ growled Makoi, reading their minds.

  ‘You don’t know him like we do,’ said Yin, the only member of the troupe able to understand Makoi’s words. ‘He�
�s Cornelius Quaint.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ asked Makoi.

  ‘That he might give the impression that he hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing, but I have known that man a long time, and I can say one thing with absolute certainty.’

  ‘And that is?’ enquired Makoi.

  ‘If anyone can perform miracles, it’s him.’

  Makoi smiled – if not exactly feeling more comfortable about the situation. The conjuror was possessed of a reckless streak that ran through him like fat through bacon, but the faith from his troupe was clear for all to see. As he watched Quaint approach the entrance to the silver mine, Makoi prayed that none of it was misplaced.

  Two heavily armoured guards stepped out from their positions on either side of the mine, and brandished long-handled spears in Quaint’s direction.

  ‘I take it that I don’t really need to introduce myself?’ he asked, pointing to his mask. The guards looked at each other open-mouthed. ‘Splendid! Now, if you would be so kind as to escort me to Cho-zen Li we can get this little event underway, hmm?’

  The shorter of the two guards lifted his helmet to get a better look at the masked man stood so brazenly before them. ‘How do we know that you are really Makoi and this is not another trick like last night?’

  ‘Would it make you feel better if I took the mask off?’ suggested Quaint.

  ‘Yes!’ snapped the guard, gesturing with his spear.

  ‘Teke, what good will removing his mask do? No one knows what Makoi looks like, remember?’ interjected his comrade. ‘But I know a way to prove that he is the genuine article. You, Makoi! We shall ask you three questions that only the true Makoi will know the answer to. If you answer them correctly, you will be taken before Cho-zen Li… and then he will kill you.’

  ‘And if I fail the test?’ enquired the conjuror.

  ‘We shall kill you.’

  ‘I see,’ said Quaint, pretending to ponder his options. ‘So, if I understand you correctly, confirmation of my identity merely alters the point of who gets to kill me?’ The two guards nodded. ‘Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable. Ask away.’