The Lazarus Curse

by Darren Craske

  Cho-zen Li was right. Quaint winced, trying to flex his ankle to shift the pain, but he moved a little too much and the wooden slab shifted three inches closer. A bamboo spike was inches from his face, and many more were equidistant to his torso. He could not afford another slip like that, which was going to be difficult, as the cramp was most insistent, as if someone was running a razorblade down his calves and stripping out the tendons one by one. Again he moved his foot, and again the slab shuddered ever closer. Quaint pushed against the board beneath his feet with all his might, but it was a wasted effort. It had slotted into a nook set into the ratchet, and there was no power on earth that could push it back into place.

  ‘All, right – I submit!’ he said to Cho-zen Li. ‘I’ll tell you what you want to know!’

  Cho-zen Li stifled an amused chuckle. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Cornelius… I have changed my mind. This is no longer to be an interrogation – this is an execution.’

  The Chinaman’s words picked at the conjuror’s resolve like a vulture on a carcass, and his foot slipped slightly from the board. There was the sound of taut rope straining against wood and the spiked slab dropped. A bamboo spike pierced Quaint’s thigh and he screamed.

  Cho-zen Li cackled with delight, shifting his bulk around the table to get a good look at the wound. He suddenly took a step back, amazed. There was no blood to be seen. Instead, what appeared to be coiled springs leaked from Quaint’s trouser pocket where the spike had stabbed him. Cho-zen Li prodded the mechanisms, and the conjuror’s broken pocket watch slipped onto the wooden table.

  ‘It seems that time was on your side, Cornelius,’ the warlord laughed. ‘But you have run out of it now.’

  Quaint’s leg muscles were on fire. He felt his legs tremble and knew that his strength was fading. The bamboo spikes were only inches from his flesh. He couldn’t push any more. As his strength evaporated, the slab slammed down…

  He waited to be impaled by the spikes.

  He waited for the pain.

  He waited to die.

  And he waited.

  And he waited some more… but still death did not come.

  Quaint opened one eye. Cho-zen Li held the spiked slab at bay with one hand, whilst in the other was the dented pocket watch. The warlord twirled it around by its golden chain, as if hypnotised by it.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded.

  ‘My watch?’ asked Quaint, thankful that he wasn’t dead, but still not exactly out of the woods just yet.

  ‘Where did you get it, Cornelius?’ Cho-zen Li asked again. ‘Tell me or I let this thing drop!’

  Quaint gulped. ‘I’ve got a better idea… disengage this contraption, and we can have a nice little chat about the damn thing, all right?’

  Quite unexpectedly, Cho-zen Li did exactly that.

  He pulled a wooden lever attached to the table and the ratchet began to turn. The spiked slab cranked back into position three feet above Quaint’s body. The conjuror barely had time to sigh with relief, before Cho-zen Li pounced on him, thrusting the watch into his face, pushing the cold metal against his skin. ‘Tell me how this came to be in your possession, Englishman! Did you buy it? Steal it?’

  Quaint replied, ‘What does it matter to you? It’s just a damned watch, man!’

  ‘It is far more than just a watch… damned, though it may be,’ said Cho-zen Li, his nostrils flaring. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It was a gift from my father if you must know,’ Quaint told him. ‘He left it to me in his will when he died. But I don’t see why—’

  ‘His name! Tell me his name!’ demanded Cho-zen Li.

  ‘My father?’ asked Quaint. ‘It was Augustus. Augustus Quaint.’

  ‘Quaint?’ Cho-zen Li gasped. He stepped away from the table, only to snap right back as if he was attached by elastic. He slammed both his fists down onto the wooden table and the whole room shook. ‘You lie!’

  Quaint frowned. ‘Lie? Why would I lie about something like that?’

  ‘You are certainly cunning enough to come up with something like this, you have proved that already. Tell me this is a trick! Tell me quickly or you die!’

  ‘It’s no trick!’ Quaint said. ‘My father was Augustus Quaint and he did give this watch to me. But what’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I did not know… how could I have known? You told me your name was Cornelius, and I never thought to ask for any other,’ rambled Cho-zen Li, erratically. ‘Is that why your queen chose you to come here? Because she knew of my history with your father? Did you expect to use it as leverage against me?’ He suddenly doubled over in pain, clawing at the wooden table. ‘No… not now.’

  ‘What’s all this about you having history with my father?’ Quaint yelled, straining against his bonds. ‘How could you possibly know him?’

  Cho-zen Li writhed in agony, clutching his vast gut. ‘Did your father never tell you…of the watch’s… significance?’ he asked, stumbling around the table to unclasp the bindings at Quaint’s ankles and wrists.

  ‘Of course he told me!’ Quaint said, getting up swiftly from the table. ‘It’s a Lunameter. It measures the phases of the—’

  ‘No!’ boomed Cho-zen Li. ‘Did he tell you how he obtained it?’

  ‘It once belonged to Galileo, that’s all I know,’ said Quaint, still on the back foot and unable to catch up. ‘But why the hell is it so important to you?’

  Cho-zen Li began to cough, and violently so. A wad of tar-like substance spat onto the floor. ‘I must consume my oils… before it is too late. My garden… I must get to my garden.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll get you to your bloody garden,’ said Quaint, grabbing the warlord’s robes and dragging him closer. ‘But first you tell me about this watch! When you clapped eyes on it, it almost looked like you’d seen it before.’

  Cho-zen Li nodded. ‘I have.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because it was me… that gave it… to your father.’ Cho-zen Li clutched at his chest, steadying his voice. ‘To Augustus.’

  Quaint shook his head in denial. ‘No. That’s not true. That’s impossible!’

  ‘It is true,’ admitted Cho-zen Li. ‘Augustus was a friend… of sorts. A long time ago… I sent that watch to him as a warning. Knowing his love of astronomy… I hoped that he would understand. It… was all I could do to try… to prevent it.’

  ‘Prevent what?’ Quaint yelled. ‘What do you mean it’s a warning? A warning about what?’

  Cho-zen Li’s body was racked with pain, fighting against his best efforts to remain lucid. With a rasping hack at the back of his throat, he lost his balance and keeled over. Quaint skidded to his knees and just caught the warlord’s head before it struck the stone floor.

  ‘Don’t you die on me yet, Cho-zen Li!’ he roared. ‘I need you alive, do you hear me?’

  He looked around in desperation. Even if he was strong enough to drag the Chinaman’s gargantuan frame to the lotus garden, he still had no idea where it was. What did any of this mean? As if in answer, from somewhere at the back of his mind, he recalled the warning that Madame Destine had imparted before he had left London, the very same one repeated verbatim by the All-Knowing One: ‘The immortal man shall see the end of the eternal man’s world.’

  At that moment, Cornelius Quaint had a sudden thought. He had assumed that the warning referred to him killing Cho-zen Li, but what if he was wrong?

  What if he was not the immortal man after all?

  What if he was the eternal man?

  Chapter XXXVIII

  The Prophecy Fulfilled

  Following the sound of battle up the winding staircase, the reunited circus troupe joined Makoi’s assault. Many of Cho-zen Li’s soldiers had blockaded themselves inside the garrison, and were managing to hold the area off quite successfully. Whilst half his men ascended the stairs to try to breach the doors to the palace, Makoi and a handful of others attempted to flush out the blockaded soldiers. It was not easy; swarms of arrows and crossbow
bolts streamed relentlessly into the confined corridor from the garrison doors. Cheers of delight reached Makoi’s ears as Yin was reunited with his twin upon the staircase. Yang flung his arms around his brother and the two acrobats melted into one identical blur.

  ‘I thought you were guarding the entrance in case reinforcements arrived?’ enquired Makoi of Prometheus.

  ‘We were…and they did,’ replied the strongman. ‘What’s the hold-up here?’

  ‘A brigade of Cho-zen Li’s forces have barricaded themselves inside. They cannot come out, we cannot go in. We are at a stalemate.’

  ‘Is there not another way in?’

  ‘No, the only other way leads into the rear of the garrison from the palace – which happens to be our destination!’ explained Makoi. ‘We are trying a two-pronged attack. Us here, and my friends a few flights up attempting to breach the main doors, but it is next to useless. I have never seen fortification like it. It is as though Cho-zen Li’s bloated bulk is blocking the door from the other side. Unless you happen to be an ape, we have no choice but to wait for them to make a mistake.’

  Prometheus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Ape?’

  Makoi pointed at a wooden grate set into the whitewashed wall about thirty feet above their position. ‘That inlet up there, but the walls are like glass. There is no way to get a decent grip.’

  Just then, Yin and Yang spontaneously had a strikingly brilliant idea. Yang linked his hands into a bridge and Yin stepped into it, as Yang catapulted him into the air. Yin flew up like a rocket and ricocheted from one wall to the other, seemingly finding stability everywhere his fingers and feet touched. Just as he was at the right height, the acrobat kicked out at the wooden grate. Inside the garrison, the barricaded soldiers yelled in alarm as shards of wood rained down upon them.

  ‘He’s done it!’ Makoi cheered. ‘He did it in five seconds. Absolutely incredible!’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Yang, disgruntled. ‘I could have done it in three.’

  With the guards distracted, Makoi charged inside the garrison. His group punched, kicked and hacked until everyone was dead. They clambered over the fallen tables and cabinets and bodies, and eventually they found it – a narrow gap in the wall inset with a contraption not dissimilar to a dumb waiter. It was used to move equipment and weaponry up the height of the mountain from within, with ropes affixed to two grooved pulleys either side of the shaft. Prometheus stared into the gap. There was no way that his huge frame would be able to fit inside.

  Makoi patted his shoulder. ‘My men could use a big ram like you higher up the staircase, my friend. If anyone can break down the doors to the palace, it is you!’

  Prometheus looked at Ruby, Yin, Yang and Butter. ‘Right. You lot look after each other. Now we’re all back together, let’s do our best not to get separated again, eh? Try to find the boss as quick as you can, and then we can get out of this place.’

  Ruby inspected the shaft. ‘It’s a bit on the cramped side, isn’t it? How do we even know it’ll take our weight?’

  Yin and Yang shared grins.

  ‘After you, dear brother,’ Yin offered.

  ‘No, I insist. After you, my twin,’ countered Yang.

  But they were both too late. Butter had already climbed inside the contraption and was thumbing the ceiling, eager for the off..

  ‘I send back down trolley once I get in palace, yes?’ he said. ‘Then you follow.’

  ‘Good luck, sweetie!’ said Ruby, blowing him a kiss. ‘We’ll see you in a minute.’

  At thetop of the shaft, in a small room not much bigger than Butter’s quarters on the circus train, the Inuit sent back down the dumb waiter. After an anxious wait, still he could not tear himself away from the open shaft. He did not carry a watch, but he knew that five minutes had elapsed. Ruby and the others should have been there by now. He could hear distant cries, and his hairs stood on end. Ruby and the others were not coming.

  ‘I must find the boss,’ he said, aloud. ‘He will fix things.’

  He knew that his employer had to be nearby, but the palace was a maze of corridors and hallways. Finding Cornelius Quaint would not be easy. Even more reason to begin the search then, he told himself. Pulling his walrus tusk-handled knife from his belt, he set off. His footsteps hardly made a sound as he padded along the carpeted corridors. He had no idea where he was going, but wherever it was he had every intention of getting there as quickly as possible. He passed an entranceway into a corridor that looked exactly the same as the one that he had just come from, except this one had a large curtained off area at its far end with two small plinths either side. Paying it no mind, he moved on. His nose was captivated by a scent emanating from an unlit room off from the main corridor. Butter felt his heartbeat thump a little harder as he approached the room. Expecting trouble, he gripped his knife tighter and stepped deftly into it.

  The scent that had captured his senses was all over the place. He had no idea whose quarters the room belonged to, until he came across a wall of knives, both decorative and functional, he surmised – which led him instantly to the room’s owner. These were the quarters of Cho-zen Li’s bodyguard; the young woman that he had witnessed fighting so viciously with Ruby. He knew nothing about her, other than she seemed to be the only female in Cho-zen Li’s army. That said much, but it did not say enough. Butter was intrigued by Li-Dao, he wanted to know more yet he didn’t know why. Looking around the quarters, he spotted a bedside cabinet with cluttered items upon it, and he found himself inspecting it, absentmindedly toying with Li-Dao’s possessions. Something grabbed his attention and viciously steered it to the corner of the room, where a tall cabinet decorated with tortoiseshell and pure gold handles stood. It was a thing of beauty, yet it was not this that ensnared Butter’s senses so absolutely. His hands were being guided towards the top drawer of Li-Dao’s cabinet, not knowing what it was that he expected to find, but his anticipation for it was overriding every other thought. His keen eyes spotted something wrapped in what appeared to be an animal’s hide. He scowled at it, cocking his head to one side. This was what had been calling to him, beckoning him to find it. Taking the parcel in his gentle hands, he carefully peeled back the hide to reveal what it contained.

  It was a knife.

  The blade was approximately six inches long with a serrated edge and a handle made of bone. No… not bone. It was fashioned from an animal’s tusk. A walrus tusk. Compelled by thoughts running far too fast through his head for him to make any sense of, Butter lifted his tunic and pulled out his own knife – a knife virtually identical in almost every way to the one wrapped in animal hide. Looking down at the tusk, Butter recognised it, but far more than that – he remembered it. He remembered the day that he had slain the beast that it had belonged to. He remembered staying up all night carving it. He remembered these things clearly.

  Holding the knife within his shaking fingers had revealed a barrage of forgotten memories, and now they were painfully restored one by one. Half-blind by sudden tears, the knife clattered noisily to the floor. Butter bolted from the room.

  Not far away from the Inuit’s position, Prometheus had split up from the rest of Makoi’s band. Whilst they sought to raze Cho-zen Li’s palace to the ground piece by piece, that did not mix with Prometheus’s wishes. He had set off with one thing on his mind, the same thought that had ignited Butter – the search for Cornelius Quaint.

  The Irish strongman had never set foot in a Chinese palace before – actually, he had never set foot in any palace before, Chinese or not (Buckingham Palace’s stables hardly counted). He continued down the corridor until he came to a wide door, wide enough for even him to fit through without a stoop. The door was decorated with all manner of Chinese symbols and ornate gold engravings. Swirling snakes and flying dragons, their tails entwined within each other, and in the dead centre of the door was a large pure gold representation of a leaf. Such elaborate finery surely meant that whatever was behind the door was of value.

  The sky was dar
k now, scattered with grey clouds obscuring the moon, and as they cleared, the moonlight illuminated rows upon rows of plants. His eyes tried to make sense of what he was looking at. It seemed out of place somehow, a pretty garden like this on the top of a mountain. As he looked around for more information, he spotted a large glass cylinder of bright green oil at the far end, which only mystified him further.

  Prometheus approached the cylinder, trying to fathom its use.

  The door to the garden opened behind him, but he did not hear it.

  Prometheus tapped the glass cylinder, as bubbles rose to the surface.

  Someone moved silently closer to him, but he did not hear it.

  Prometheus scratched his beard. ‘What in the world is this stuff?’

  His stalker removed two golden daggers from her belt, but he did not hear it.

  Li-Dao raised her daggers, ready to drive them into Prometheus’s shoulder blades.

  ‘No!’ screamed a sudden voice, and Prometheus heard it.

  Li-Dao spun around, as did Prometheus, seeing a dark blur launch itself at him. Everything moved so quickly; too quickly for Prometheus to stop Butter from taking the brunt of the bodyguard’s attack. Butter heard Li-Dao’s blades pierce his lungs. Butter tasted the spurt of blood that swamped his tongue, and he felt the freezing rush of cold air sear into his organs. He slid off the daggers’ blades and slumped onto the stone pathway of the garden. For a moment there was only silence. Prometheus screamed Butter’s name as Li-Dao staggered backwards, staring at her knives and the blood that coated them. Prometheus smashed his forearm across her chest and she flew through the air, crashing into the cylinder of lotus oil. The glass shattered, flooding the lotus garden in a sea of green-hued oil. Prometheus cradled Butter in his arms, rocking backwards and forwards. The Inuit was bleeding from two punctures in his chest and there was nothing that could be done to save him. Prometheus wept as Butter went limp.