‘Get out of here, Scab,’ I shout. ‘Go!’
He peels off to the side with a whinny and vanishes out of sight. Aki ducks back inside, dumps Masaru on a bench, and sets Violet carefully on her feet.
‘Woah,’ she gasps, swaying slightly, her dark hair wind-blown and wild. ‘That was intense.’
Yaku leaps for the lever, yanks it down hard. The ramp rises a foot or so and stalls. He tries again, but it’s jammed. Hickory runs to help him. They squabble and work together at a different lever, cranking the ramp manually instead, but it isn’t fast enough, because something else is coming our way now: two big round yellow glowing eyes parting the crowd and lighting up the crumbling runway, gaining on us with incredible speed.
It’s a car – no, a truck – just like the ones I’ve seen in books.
‘Where’d they get a bloody truck?’
‘Another project of mine,’ Elsa shouts, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Runs quite well, actually. Clutch is a bit stiff, but –’
‘Shut up and fly,’ me and Violet shout together.
I catch a glimpse of the runway through the grimy windshield. Betty’s headlights keep flickering on and off, but the moonlight’s bright enough to see. Elsa was right: we’re running out of road. There’s no mountain blocking our way. We’re about to go over a damn clifftop.
‘The crate,’ Hickory shouts, jabbing a finger at my casket. ‘Toss it!’
Aki hurls it out the back. The crate bounces along the runway, but the truck swerves at the last second and continues speeding towards the slowly rising ramp. It’s too high for the red-cloak behind the wheel to drive aboard, but he could still ram us, and then what?
We need another weapon. We need –
‘Me …’
I wrench the bandage from my palm, dig my fingers into the wound, jump onto the ramp before anyone can stop me, and hold out my bleeding hand. I think about Elsa’s betrayal, Masaru’s madcap plan, and Roth, Roth, Roth. I let the furious tide overflow, my blood catch in the wind. I can feel each drop as it hits the rock and sand. I can feel every jarring crack, every yawning fissure, every boulder breaking free from the canyon walls. The pain’s excruciating, but I embrace it. I clench my hand into a bloodied fist. The rock shatters like glass. I shove my fist into the air, and a pillar explodes upward right beneath the truck, sending it flying and flipping through the air just as it’s about to hit us.
‘Jane,’ someone shouts, ‘stop!’
But I can’t. The power’s too much.
I send my fury way back towards the red-cloaks and their guns, splitting the runway in two. I can feel the vibrations of their footsteps from here. They’re panicking, fleeing back to Asmadin, but there’s no escape. I could squash them all right now if I wanted.
It’d be so easy.
‘Jane!’
Somebody grabs my ankle and yanks me backwards into the cabin. Betty pitches sharply, the runway disappears, and we soar over the cliff, into darkness. In the blinking electric light of the cabin, I catch a glimpse of Hickory and Yaku dangling over the black void of the open ramp, racked by the wind. Of Masaru, awake at last, hugging a bench-leg. Of Violet clinging to my ankle, and Aki clinging to hers. Of Elsa up in the cockpit, and the two captured, red-cloaked guards dangling behind her. I’m scared. Beyond terrified. Betty’s levelling out, but it’s still so noisy and windy, and my limbs have turned to stone.
The furious tide’s wiped me out.
‘It’s okay,’ Violet shouts, pulling me close. ‘Look at my eyes. Breathe.’
I look at her eyes. I breathe. And pass out.
HICKORY’S CHOICE
I slip in and out of consciousness, the soft cocoon of a dreamless sleep slowly spinning me in, holding me tight, then unravelling, over and over again. Darkness comes and goes. Spared from my usual nightmares, now it’s the glimpses of the waking world that scare me. I see Elsa leaping out of the cockpit while everyone else fusses over me. I see her freeing the red-cloaked guards behind them, pulling weapons from a hidden cache. I try to warn everyone, but the cocoon smothers me again. I hear raised voices, threats being made. I see a stand-off. It’s Elsa and her red-cloaks against Violet, Aki and Yaku. Three versus three.
I see Hickory in the middle, and Elsa throwing him a gun.
‘You really want to destroy the Manor?’ she says. ‘You’re with us.’
More threats. More shouting.
‘We can end this. Wipe the slate clean, once and for all.’
‘Hickory, no!’
‘The Manor ruined your life.’
‘Don’t listen to her!’
‘You lost someone, yes? You can be with them again.’
‘Drop it right now!’
I hear Masaru cackling. See Hickory frown at the gun in his hands.
‘Hickory,’ I manage to say, ‘please …’
He points the gun at Elsa, then aims it down at me.
‘I’m sorry, Jane,’ he says. ‘I told you. You really don’t know me at all.’
And the cocoon spins me through the dark once more.
YAKU’S TALE
I wake up to Betty’s low, rumbling growl. Head pounding. Drool trailing down my chin. My hand’s been re-bandaged, but it still hurts. I’ve been given a blanket, but I’m shivering. It’s so cold in here the trembling floor feels like a sheet of ice. I don’t even want to think about the darkness yawning beneath it. The long, deadly drop to the rolling dunes below. It’s enough to make a girl feel sick. We’re flying. We’re actually flying.
Unnatural is what it is.
The cabin lights are off. Beams of silver moonlight seep through the windows. Masaru’s tied up across from me, watching me. Violet’s passed out by my side. Maybe she was knocked out during the stand-off with Elsa and –
Hickory.
The traitorous slimeball’s leaning over Violet now, probably about to strangle her in her sleep. I flex my fingers, wriggle my toes. All my limbs are working, ready to fire. The fool didn’t even tie me up.
Big mistake.
Before Hickory can say, ‘Holy crap, Jane’s awake,’ I crash-tackle the jerk to the ground and start laying into him as hard as I can. I don’t care if the red-cloaks grab me. Let them come. I tell Hickory I hate him. That he’s no different from Elsa or Masaru or Roth, and he can join them in hell for all I care. ‘I should’ve left you in the death pit,’ I scream.
‘Gerroff me!’ he shouts. ‘Jane, stop! I’m on – ouch – your – damn it – side!’
The cabin lights flicker on. I’m pulled off Hickory so easily it’s almost embarrassing. Not by Elsa or her red-cloaks, though. By Yaku. And Violet’s here, too, stepping in front of me, gripping my shoulders. She wasn’t knocked out, she was sleeping.
‘Jane, it’s okay,’ she says. ‘We’re all okay. Look at me. We’re safe.’
‘No, I – I caught him,’ I say, confused. ‘He was about to strangle you!’
‘I was fixing her blanket so she wouldn’t get cold!’ Hickory sits up, grimacing. ‘I fixed yours too, you little brat.’
‘You … what? Did I wake up on a different plane?’
‘He’s on our side, Jane,’ Violet says.
I stare at them all in turn. ‘But … no, I saw him side with Elsa –’
‘I was pretending,’ Hickory says.
‘He knocked her out the moment she turned her back on him.’ Violet points down the back of the plane. Elsa and the two red-cloaks are bound together with rope near the closed ramp, out cold. ‘See?’
I rub my head. ‘You’re killing me. All of you. Is it too much to ask for a bit of honesty around here? Masaru’s on our side, then he isn’t. The Boboki aren’t, then they are. You’ – I jab a finger at Hickory – ‘you’re all over the damn place, and don’t even get me started on Elsa. She’s –’ I freeze, too afraid to look. ‘Wait, if she’s down there, who’s flying the plane?’
Violet nods at the cockpit. ‘Like you said, he’s full of surprises.’
‘So … we’re okay, then,’ I say.
Hickory slumps down on a bench, rubbing his cheek, clicking his jaw. ‘We were.’
‘We’re better than okay.’ Violet holds out her hand. Masaru’s golden chain’s coiled in her palm, along with the two Cradle keys. ‘Go ahead. Take them. They’re yours.’
I hold out my right hand. Violet lets the golden chain slip through her fingers, and the two keys drop a second later. Part of me expects something to happen – a pang in my palm, maybe a vision of the Cradle or some kind of message from the Makers – but there’s nothing. I can’t even tell which key’s which; they look and feel the same. So small. So plain. Strange, to think the future of every Otherworld depends on two such ordinary things.
‘Huh,’ I say. ‘I guess that’s that, then.’
Clearly, the others were expecting something more, too. Yaku shifts on his feet. Hickory frowns. Violet chews on her tongue for a bit, then closes my fingers over the keys with a smile.
‘The three Cradle keys,’ she says, ‘reunited at last.’
I slip the chain over my head. ‘And the arrowhead?’
The medallion isn’t dangling from Masaru’s neck anymore. Violet’s already done the honours. She tosses me a feathered arrow – the one that was wedged into the back of Elsa’s chair – beaming as bright as the Arakaanian suns. ‘Sorry. Couldn’t wait.’
She’s replaced the regular arrowhead with the one from Atol Na. It’s super light, sharp and pale, the colour of a dirty tooth, still flecked with tiny spots of red baked clay, and it’s no longer than my middle finger. Awful tiny for a legendary weapon. I can’t believe Winifred used this to take out Roth’s jaw. I can’t believe this is all we have to work with.
‘Well,’ I say, handing the arrow back, ‘better than nothing, I suppose.’
Violet slips it into her belt, and picks up a longbow from the bench. ‘I nabbed this on my way to the plane. I’ll only get one shot, but that’s all I’ll need.’
‘Yeah, I – wait, what? Why you?’
‘I’m a crack shot, remember? All those years Winifred had me training instead of burning things? She was preparing me. I’m the one who’s supposed to kill Roth. I’m sure of it.’ She stares at me – glares at me – daring me to defy her. ‘I can do this, Jane.’
‘Okay,’ I say. I don’t like the idea of Violet going anywhere near Roth, but I can tell she isn’t gonna back down from this – not now, not ever. Unless I can come up with a better plan. I turn to Masaru. He’s staring at us. ‘Did he tell you how he found the arrowhead?’
‘We questioned him,’ Violet says, setting her longbow down. ‘Turns out he broke into Hali’s tomb when he was a kid, years before the Manor brought Elsa back to Arakaan.’
‘He said he wanted to spit on the traitor who defied our rightful king,’ Yaku says.
Violet nods. ‘He found the arrowhead in the sarcophagus. Figured Roth gave it to Inigo after he killed Hali-gabera as a sign of his compassion, in hopes that they’d one day see the light.’
‘He thinks it is his destiny to return it to Roth.’ Yaku spits at Masaru’s feet. ‘Ladaal …’
Masaru narrows his eyes, crusty old nostrils flaring over the gag in his gob.
‘Did you tell him about Winifred?’ I ask.
Violet nods. ‘Didn’t believe me. Big surprise.’
I turn to Yaku. ‘What about you?’
He shuffles uncomfortably. ‘It is difficult to get my head around. But you have no reason to lie. If you say Hali-gabera lives, then … Hali-gabera lives.’
‘Oh, she lives, all right. Lives, lies, smacks people in the head with shotguns.’ Yaku frowns at me, confused. ‘Long story,’ I add. ‘So we’ve got the keys, the arrowhead. What now?’
‘We rest,’ Yaku says. ‘Gather our strength.’ He sits on the rusty bench across from Masaru, casting a wary eye over Betty’s rattling hull. ‘Elsa charted a rough course for Roth’s gateway, but it was mainly guesswork. Your Gorani friend seems to know where to go. I would guess he has been to the gateway before, or close enough to it. Can we trust him?’
‘We can.’ I’m so thankful Aki’s here, I could hug him. Maybe I will. First, I take a seat beside Yaku. ‘Thank you for coming for us. But I don’t understand. Elsa told us the Boboki were murderers.’
‘They were, once,’ Yaku says. He sighs. ‘My parents died when I was young. A hunting accident. I was raised by Elsa and the tribe, out on the flats. I grew up hearing stories about the amber-eyed woman who would one day come to Arakaan. The woman who could move mountains. Elsa told us the story many times herself.’ He smiles sadly. ‘You were my hero, Jane. I used to sneak out to the salt-flat gateway at night. Wanted to be the first to greet you when you arrived.’ His smile fades. He frowns at Elsa, still out cold. ‘Everything changed when she returned from Atol Na. She was … different. One night, I fell asleep by the gateway. Awoke when I heard Elsa staggering over the salt. I scrambled out of sight. She was drunk. Ranting about a vision she’d had in the desert – a vision of you, Jane, here in Arakaan. Before she passed out, she swore she was going to kill you in the Cradle. Unleash the Sea, wipe out Roth and tear the Manor apart. I was terrified. Did not know what to do.’
‘Why didn’t you send word to the Elders?’
‘I was sure they were in on it – Masaru, especially. He and Elsa were always close. Even if they were not, I had no proof. It would be my word against hers. I knew I needed help.’
‘The Boboki didn’t kidnap you, did they?’ I say. ‘You sought them out.’
Yaku nods. ‘Rena Boboki had been banished by Masaru and the Elders for trying to kill Elsa. I knew she would side with me. So I ran away. Found them, deep in the mountains.’
Violet crosses her legs on the floor. ‘Brave kid.’
‘Desperate kid,’ Yaku says. ‘But the Boboki were not evil bandits – nothing like the stories we had been told. They took me in. Gave me water, food and shelter.
‘Rena was very old. Fierce, but kind. I told her everything. She believed me. Believed in Elsa’s vision, too. Said the spirit of the desert was showing us the way. That one day you would come, Jane, no matter what. It was our duty to help you – to help Arakaan.
‘The decision was made. We would keep Elsa alive, but watch her, closely. Pretend I had been kidnapped. Make her believe she had saved my life. Make her believe I owed her. I would stay close, earn her trust, and report back to Rena when I could.’
I lean against the rattling hull. ‘I don’t know what to say, Yaku. All that waiting and watching. You must’ve been disappointed when I showed up looking so …’
‘Young?’ Yaku smiles. ‘Shocked, more like it. And worried. I was furious when you jumped into the pit to save Hickory – such a risk – but when you stood up to the Gorani? I was impressed. Still, I had to pretend I was on Elsa’s side.’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’ I ask. ‘Out on the salt flats?’
‘Again, I had no proof. I knew you would take Elsa’s word over mine, because of her connection to your father. I was the one who tied you up when you first arrived, after all.’ Yaku turns to Hickory. ‘I am sorry I hurt you that night.’ He nods at Violet. ‘I am sorry you were scared. I had to obey Elsa’s instructions.’
‘And at Orin-kin?’ I ask.
‘We could not risk smuggling you to safety out in the open. A night-time raid seemed the best option. You were all supposed to be sleeping in your room. When we saw your guard returning from the watchtower, Jane, we rushed. Made mistakes. Sadly, some of my brothers and sisters lost their lives, but they knew the stakes when they volunteered to help.’
‘Were many people injured at the Pass?’ Violet asks. ‘When the wagon exploded?’
Yaku shakes his head. ‘We got away. Set off for the northern road at once.’
Violet breathes a sigh of relief. ‘We owe you a great debt, Yaku.’
‘Yo
u owe me nothing,’ he says. ‘I am doing this for my people – for Arakaan – not for you. I will help you get to the Manor, but I will not step inside. I will not leave my home.’
I scratch my head and cringe. ‘Speaking of, I’m sorry I kind of … broke Asmadin.’
Yaku smiles. ‘You are not the only one who can shape stone, Jane Doe. What is broken can be rebuilt.’ He shrugs. ‘It will just take us a little longer.’
FARROW
Aki can barely fit into the cockpit, but he looks right at home. I’m sitting in the manky chair beside him, afraid to move. There’s a panel packed with switches and dials in front of us. A couple of control-stick thingies Yaku called yokes. I’m worried Betty’ll drop out of the sky if I touch them. In the cracked windscreen, I can see our reflection. Girl and Gorani. Beyond that, the black night sky. It’s like we’ve set off into space, or the space between spaces, like Po travelling to the Otherworlds before she met Aris and Nabu-kai. Before the Manor was made.
I’ve got a small stack of old parchment in my lap: Elsa’s maps and calculations. There’s a sketch of the dune sea gateway, too. A giant open door in the base of a cliff, like the entrance to a massive cave. Dad told me Roth built a metal frame inside it when he entered the Manor, to keep the gateway from closing. Couldn’t have his supply route cut off. The gateway looks as big as a house, and it’s flanked on either side by two zigzagging, cliff-side roads. Both roads lead to a ramshackle stronghold on the clifftop: the camp Dad and Elsa were taken to when they were first caught.
Not exactly a pleasant destination.
‘So … you’ve been here, right?’ I say to Aki, tapping the drawing of the open gateway. ‘You know where it is? You’ve been inside?’
Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls Page 17