Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls

by Jeremy Lachlan

  ‘You’ll tell me all about her before the end, Hickory.’ I give Scab’s reins a gentle tug and walk on with Aki. ‘We both know it.’

  THE CANYON OF THE DEAD

  The road narrows. The cliffs close in. A faint, hot breeze growls around us. Pebbles clatter, nudged by the darkling beetles as they scurry out of sight – pudgy, black, walnut-sized things. We ride in silence. Violet’s back in the saddle behind me. Aki’s the only one on foot, walking faithfully by our side.

  Hickory’s brooding behind us, deep in thought, and no wonder. How many years has it been since he heard someone say Farrow’s name? The secret’s out. He loved someone, once. Loved them so much he’d risk the ruin of all worlds to get revenge, just like Roth.

  Must be a scary thing, knowing you have something in common with your enemy.

  ‘We heard him say the Manor should be destroyed,’ Violet mutters after a while.

  ‘He was just trying to get under my skin,’ I say, trying – and failing – to keep the heat from my voice. ‘Same old, same old.’ Ahead of us, Elsa pulls another bottle from her saddlebag, takes a swig and sneaks it under her cloak. ‘How’d she react?’

  ‘It threw her,’ Violet says. ‘She went quiet for a bit. But I think she’s okay.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. A brief pause. I don’t want to ask this, but I have to. ‘Are we okay?’

  Violet exhales. I feel her breath brush past my neck. ‘Elsa told me everything she told you. About Roth and Neela. The Dahaari Cull and the arrowhead.’

  ‘The Immortal War?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The pilgrimage led by Hali-gabera?’

  ‘Jane –’

  ‘Elsa’s journey to Atol Na?’

  ‘– I said everything.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘The point is,’ Violet says, ‘I’m sorry I overreacted when you got back. It’s just … when I woke up and saw you weren’t there, I thought the Boboki had thrown you from the balcony. I panicked. But I get it now. You had to do what you had to do, and it worked. You got Elsa to open up. Besides, it’s good you weren’t in the room when the Boboki attacked. Who knows what could’ve happened if you were?’

  Aki scoops a bunch of darklings from the path and gobbles them down. Offers me a couple, too. ‘I’m good,’ I say, staring at a glob of beetle-gunk oozing down his chin.

  ‘I’m sorry I tried to force you to cause a quake at the Pass, too,’ Violet says. ‘Elsa said I should go easy on you, and she’s right. I just want to say, though: I know you’re scared, but you can’t hold back forever. You will have to use your powers again – soon, probably.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I sigh. ‘I know.’

  ‘But I won’t force you. I promise. We all have our roles to play here. You’re the hero. I’m the sidekick. It’s my job to help and protect you. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s what Winifred trained me to do, so … that’s what I’ll do.’

  I hate hearing her talk like this. Laughable is what it is. There’s no way I would’ve made it this far without her. Hell, if she was the third key, I bet we’d be kicking back on Bluehaven by now, sipping from a couple of coconuts. Sidekick? Uh-uh. She’s more than that.

  So much more.

  ‘Violet –’

  ‘Hard to imagine, isn’t it?’ she says, moving the conversation along. ‘Roth. With Neela. Living in peace. No mask, no army, no rotting stench. To be honest, I feel sorry for him. Not the Roth we know, but the man before the mask. The man who had to watch the woman he loves get shot through the heart. And those bone shards in his lungs …’ She shudders.

  I wish I could agree with her, but I don’t. Roth took my dad. He doesn’t deserve my pity.

  ‘Mostly, I feel sorry for Neela,’ Violet continues. ‘She must’ve really loved Roth to take his place in the Cull. Imagine if she saw what he’s become. If she knew what he’s done.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, glancing back at Hickory, ‘imagine.’

  He’s feigning disinterest, but I can tell he’s listening in. Must be killing him, hearing snippets of Roth’s past. I bet he’s dying to ask us about him – he’s known the guy longer than any of us, after all – but he’s too bloody proud.

  ‘Don’t suppose any of it matters now,’ Violet says. ‘Neela’s long gone, and so is the man she loved. He died when the queen buried him. A monster rose from the tomb.’

  ‘And destroyed the only weapons that can stop him.’

  Violet shifts in the saddle. ‘Maybe not. If anything, I think Elsa’s story proves we’re here to find a way to stop Roth. A Dahaari weapon survived. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘But … Violet, Elsa looked. For years. She didn’t find anything.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there somewhere. I want to talk to this Masaru guy. I’m sure there’s something they missed – something we’re all missing.’

  I sigh. Violet isn’t gonna give up. Not now, not ever.

  ‘Fine.’

  The path slopes downward, steeper and steeper, the cliffs so close we can touch them. I grip the saddle to stop myself from sliding onto Scab’s neck. The warm breeze growls again.

  ‘We’re close,’ Elsa calls out. ‘Right on time.’

  ‘Time for what?’ Violet asks.

  ‘Noon. Only time we can cross the canyon. The suns clear the path.’

  ‘Clear the path of what?’

  We round a super tight bend, the canyon walls open out, and we stop at the edge of a short drop-off, staring open-mouthed at the view before us.

  ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ Hickory mutters.

  Elsa holds up her arms. ‘Welcome’ – she hiccups – ‘to the Canyon of the Dead.’

  A thin path flanked by towering pillars of stone. Sheer cliffs riddled with thousands of holes, like honeycomb or holey cheese or the rotting gateways inside the Manor. But there are no gateways here. These are the ancient-beyond-ancient tombs, and they’re deep and dark and everywhere, even way up near the clifftops. It’s a stunning sight, but creepy, too. Almost as creepy as the –

  ‘Scorpions?’ Violet grabs my arm. ‘Nobody said anything about scorpions.’

  They’re scurrying over every inch of the path, crawling over every rock, flicking their black pincers at the hapless darkling beetles and feasting on them. A cluster nearby are fighting over the corpse of a bird. The whole canyon’s overrun, the air alive with the constant tick-tick-tick of their legs and claws.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Elsa says. ‘I’m sure I told you.’

  ‘You said there were tombs, but you never said anything about scor … scor …’ She can’t even say the word now. ‘Are they poisonous? Like, on a scale of one to ten –’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen?’

  ‘Maybe twenty.’

  ‘Oh no.’

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Violet, are you … scorpi-phobic?’

  ‘That isn’t even a word. And no, I’m not.’

  ‘You’re shaking.’ I twist around in the saddle to look at her. ‘You can run along train-tops without blinking, but you’re terrified of a few bugs?’

  ‘They aren’t bugs. I read all about them in one of Winifred’s books. They’re complex, deadly organisms, and in case you hadn’t noticed there’s a million of them.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Elsa says. ‘Watch …’

  The light slowly leaches down the southern clifftop as the suns near high noon. The scorpions up there scuttle back to the tombs like ants fleeing a storm. The darkling beetles remain, free to go about their buggy business till both suns pass overhead and the scorpions return to feast again.

  ‘How long will we have once the path clears?’ I ask.

  ‘Two hours,’ Elsa says, ‘give or take. Plenty of time.’

  Second by second, minute by minute, the sunlight creeps down the cliff-face, slowly filling the canyon. We share our waterskins with the horses while we wait. Elsa passes around some flatbread and dried berries from
her saddlebag. Violet nibbles on the berries one at a time, wide eyes fixed on the scorpions. Hickory plays with a sliver of flatbread. I wonder if he’s eaten since we came to Arakaan. Elsa’s watching him, too.

  ‘Eat,’ she tells him. ‘You need your strength.’

  Hickory stares at her. Pops the bread into his mouth and chews. ‘Happy?’

  Elsa smiles, but her eyes are still probing. She bites the head off a darkling beetle, spits it out and – to Aki’s delight – tosses the rest into her gob, still-wriggling legs and all. ‘Ecstatic,’ she says, and swallows.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Violet says. ‘Get ready …’

  The first sun creeps into view, bathing us all in direct light. We don our goggles to cut the glare as the sun clears the canyon path of scorpions. They scurry into every crack and tomb, but that tick-tick-tick remains, muted, as if a million angry clocks are hiding in the shadows.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I say.

  Violet groans.

  CHOSEN FAMILY

  As if the canyon wasn’t creepy enough, Elsa decides to hum a slow, eerie tune to pass the time. Aki plods along behind her, snatching up and gobbling down every darkling beetle he can. The canyon floor’s littered with bones. Taw-taw carcasses, for the most part. I hope.

  The first sun blasts us. Hickory throws a blanket over his bare head and shoulders to block out the sky. I scan the cliffs from tomb to tomb, both hoping for and dreading the sight of a coffin or a mummified corpse.

  The scorpions tick-tick-tick in the dark.

  ‘Do not fear death,’ Violet whispers behind me. I can feel her breath on my neck again, soft as a kitten’s paw. ‘The dead have their secrets, but they’re at peace.’

  I’m sure I’ve heard this somewhere before. And then I remember. The catacombs, back on Bluehaven.

  A certain scarred, red-cloaked someone.

  ‘Winifred said that to me once.’

  ‘Not surprised,’ Violet says. ‘She said it so often it was like she was trying to convince herself.’

  ‘You reckon Winifred’s afraid of the dead?’

  ‘No. But maybe she’s afraid of dying.’

  ‘Seems unlike her,’ I say. ‘She put herself in danger all the time, didn’t she? Entered the Manor more times than anyone. I kinda figured she was fearless.’

  ‘Everyone’s scared of something,’ Violet says.

  Tick-tick-tick.

  ‘You must miss her,’ I say, to take her mind off the scorpions. ‘You spent as much time living with Winifred in the Museum as you did at home with … you know –’

  ‘My parents,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to talk around them, Jane.’

  ‘I just wasn’t sure if … I mean, I know things turned bad after I left.’

  ‘Turned bad?’ Violet scoffs. ‘Things were always bad. They just got worse.’ She taps my shoulder. ‘Hey, what did you used to call them? The praying mantis and the –’

  ‘Weasel,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. They deserved a lot worse for everything they did to you. Growing up in that house … I’m not saying I copped it as bad as you, but it wasn’t exactly a loving environment.’

  ‘They were just trying to protect you.’

  ‘No,’ Violet says. ‘I think I scared them as much as you did sometimes.’

  ‘At least they’re your actual parents, though, right?’

  ‘Pfft.’ There’s her breath again, brushing past my neck. ‘You think that matters? There’s more to family than blood, Jane. You have a stronger bond with John than I’ll ever have with my parents, and he’s basically been a vegetable your entire life. No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘You love him and he loves you, and that makes you family. Winifred and the others are my family – my chosen family. They gave you a hard time back in the day, sure, and maybe people like Atlas, Eric Junior and my parents haven’t changed, but the ones on our side? They’re good people.’

  A chosen family. I kinda like the sound of that.

  ‘Truth is, I’m worried about them,’ Violet says. ‘You left the island six years ago, Bluehaven time, yet only a few days went by for you inside the Manor. Who knows how much time has passed back there since I left? Winifred’s an old woman. Maybe she’s already had to face her fear. Maybe they all had to. Food was scarce when I left. What if … what if –’

  ‘They’re alive, Violet,’ I say.

  ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘Because, I … I saw them. In a dream last night. Sure, they were all running for their lives because the Cradle Sea swept across the island, and they all died in the end, but they were very much alive to begin with. It felt so real. And Winifred was there. Stood her ground right to the end.’

  ‘Back up,’ Violet says. ‘You saw the Sea unleashed?’

  I take a deep breath. It’s time to come clean. ‘First, the Spectres Gripped me. Because they know I’m gonna fail, and that makes me a threat. And then … I did fail. In the nightmare, I was on the foundation stone and the power got away from me because I – I felt …’ I can’t say it. Can’t tell her about the void in my chest. That I knew she was dead, along with Dad. ‘The Sea wiped out the Otherworlds, Violet. What if it was a vision of things to come?’

  She rests a hand on my shoulder. Her head on the back of mine. For a split second, I’m sure – I hope – she’s gonna hug me, and my fears are driven away by that warm, fuzzy-buzzy light. It’s so overwhelming I wonder if the others can see it radiating through my pores.

  Jane Doe, the third Arakaanian sun.

  ‘We won’t let it happen, Jane,’ she says. ‘Any of it.’

  Unfortunately, that’s when Hickory yells, ‘Oi, we nearly there yet?’ and Elsa shouts back, ‘We’ll get there when we get there,’ and hiccups so loudly it echoes through the canyon.

  Really kills the mood.

  Violet lets go of my shoulder, leans back in the saddle. ‘Look …’

  The first sun disappears behind the southern cliffs – tick-tick-tick – but the second’s already shining in the north. I adjust my goggles and scan the clifftops ahead. The canyon disappears around a distant bend. Elsa starts to sing drunkenly, veering her horse left and right across the path, verging way too close to the tombs.

  I frown. ‘By the way, did Elsa tell you about Betty?’

  ‘Yep,’ Violet says. ‘I can’t believe we get to fly in an actual plane.’

  ‘Hmm. You’ll probably get to die in one, too.’

  ‘You don’t reckon Elsa can do it?’

  ‘I’m sure she could’ve, once upon a time. Now?’ Down the path, Elsa burps, chuckles and tosses her empty bottle into a tomb. ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. I bet flying a plane’s like making a slow-burning fuse. Once you know how, you never forget.’ Violet twists in the saddle. ‘Think he’ll join us?’

  Aki’s behind us now, still stuffing his face with darklings. I want him to stick around. He’s strong. Fast. Like Elsa said, he’ll blend in at the dune sea gateway. But surely the life debt can only stretch so far. I can’t ask him to risk his life. Besides, we still have no idea why he fled Roth’s army. He could have a bigger target on his back than mine. Doubtful, but you never know.

  ‘I wonder if he has any idea who we are,’ Violet says. ‘What we’re doing.’

  Aki offers a darkling to Hickory, who refuses with a blunt ‘Go away.’ Aki takes the hint, eats the beetle and grins at us, slimy, crooked teeth and all. I can’t help but smile back.

  ‘I think he’s just happy to be here,’ I say.

  ‘Look!’ Elsa cries out, pointing at the sky.

  I picture the worst – Boboki raiders, a pack of Taw-taws watching us from the clifftops – but it’s just a bright red bird flying through the canyon. Shielding our eyes against the sun, we watch it glide and soar, trilling a beautiful song. It swoops down, then flies higher and higher till it’s just a red dot disappearing beyond the cliffs. Elsa was right. There is beauty in this world
. And it’s worth saving. Hickory keeps staring long after the bird’s gone.

  ‘That was nice,’ Violet says.

  But then Aki rattles his throat, stops walking. Snarls as five more birds fly overhead. No, a dozen more – two dozen – a whole flock of them darting through the sky. And their singing doesn’t seem peaceful anymore. They’re panicked, fleeing something bad.

  A hot gust of wind sweeps through the canyon. Dust swirls. The scorpions tick-tick-tick from the shadows. The darkling beetles scatter. Slowly, we look back the way we’ve come.

  ‘No,’ I mutter. ‘Not now …’

  A dirty great cloud’s blooming in the east, towering over the mountains, swallowing the jagged peaks.

  Another sandstorm’s on its way.

  ‘Asmadin isn’t far,’ Elsa shouts. ‘Ride. Now!’

  THE SECOND STORM

  Elsa leads the charge, cloak flapping wildly as she gallops down the path. The sandstorm’s gaining on us, sweeping through the canyon, strangely silent beyond the thunder of the horses’ hooves and the roar of the wind in my ears. Scab’s gone into furry firecracker mode again. Violet’s holding me tight. Hickory’s riding beside us, focused in a way I haven’t seen since the Manor and half-bloody-naked again, his blanket long gone. Aki’s in last place, pumping his long legs as fast as he can but falling way behind.

  ‘He isn’t gonna make it,’ I shout to Violet. ‘We can’t leave him!’

  ‘We don’t have a choice,’ she screams back. ‘Look up!’

  The upper reaches of the storm are arcing across the sky: a colossal wave breaking well ahead of the wall of sand. The suns’ll be shrouded any second.

  ‘Seriously, this world is the worst,’ I shout.

  The canyon’s plunged into shadow. The scorpions emerge from the tombs, tricked by the premature twilight. They crawl down the cliffs all around us, feasting on the darklings again. Scab tries to dodge the black clumps of stingers and claws, but the path’s quickly overrun. He ploughs through them, kicking up his back legs, nearly bucking us off. Violet tightens her grip around my waist, buries her face in my neck, and screams. Hickory bellows behind us, swatting at the scorpions flung into the air. Aki’s already vanished in the storm.