Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls

by Jeremy Lachlan

  He blinks at me, rattles his throat and nods.

  I explain what we’re trying to do. Show him the Cradle keys, describe the foundation stone, tell him how we have to save the Manor and stop Roth before it’s too late.

  Aki just cocks his head.

  ‘Hang on …’ I flip through the pages till I find a blank space. Grab a chip of charcoal from the little compartment next to my chair and do a sketch. ‘Roth. You know him, right?’

  I’ve drawn his face, half-mask and all. It kinda looks like it was done by a three-year-old, but Aki gets the picture. He snarls at the drawing and spits between our seats.

  ‘I hear you, buddy,’ I say, and draw a big cross over Roth’s face. ‘That’s why I need to stop him.’ I hold up the two keys again. ‘I have to get to the Cradle before Roth ruins everything.’

  Aki presses a button, releases the yoke in front of him, grabs the parchment and charcoal and sketches a picture of his own. I glance out the window, scared we’ll hit a mountain or something, but Betty flies true. When he’s finished, Aki takes control of the plane again.

  He’s drawn four stick-figures – four Gorani – standing side by side.

  ‘Are these your friends?’ I hold a hand to my chest. ‘Your family?’ Aki does the same, and nods. ‘Are they … alive? Um. Are they …’ I thump my hand lightly, like the beating of a heart. Aki rattles his throat softly, shakes his head. ‘Oh. I’m sorry. Did Roth …’ I tap the crossed-out face. ‘He killed them, didn’t he? That’s why you escaped. Why you broke the bond. Roth betrayed you.’ Aki blinks at me. ‘You never owed him anything,’ I add. ‘You don’t owe me anything, either. You don’t have to come with us. You’re free.’ How can I make him understand? I pretend my wrists are bound together, then yank them apart, snapping invisible chains. I flap my hands like two birds heading for the horizon. I’m about to give up, when Aki reaches over, gently takes my hand, and places it over his heart. I can feel it beating, just like mine. Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. He nods at me. Holds his other hand over my heart, and smiles. Nearly makes me bloody cry. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Together.’

  I want to say we’ll make Roth pay for everything he’s done, but that’s exactly what Elsa told me. I give Aki a thumbs-up instead. He gives me one, too, then takes the parchment back to gaze at his family. I decide to give him some privacy. ‘Rattle if you need anything.’

  I go check on the others. Violet’s asleep, snuggled up with her longbow on the bench. So cute. Yaku’s further down, keeping an eye on Masaru, Elsa and the two red-cloaked guards.

  Hickory stirs when I pass him. ‘Can’t sleep either, huh?’

  ‘Nah.’ I sit next to him on the bench. Tap my hands in the awkward silence. ‘So –’

  ‘Hey –’

  ‘Sorry –’

  ‘No,’ Hickory says. ‘You go. Please.’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to say, you know … sorry. For hitting you. And saying you were no different from Roth and Elsa. I was out of line.’

  ‘No,’ Hickory says with a sigh, ‘you weren’t.’

  I frown at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This afternoon, Masaru told me what Roth did to this world, and why. I got the fanatical version, of course, but he spared no detail. It scared me – more than anything’s ever scared me before.’ He pauses, struggling to find the right words. ‘I used to believe there was nothing more terrifying than a monster I couldn’t understand. Now, I think the opposite’s true.’

  I scratch my ear, trying to make sense of what he’s said. ‘You’re saying … you understand Roth? Killing all those people, starting a war, all because Neela was killed?’

  Hickory nods. ‘Pain. Isolation. Grief.’ He stares at Elsa, still slumped over down the back of the plane. ‘These things can tear even the strongest people apart.’

  ‘Speaking from personal experience?’

  Hickory takes a deep breath, clasps his hands. ‘I told you, back in the Manor. I was alone for so long in there I began to forget … well, everything. Bluehaven. My family. I was truly, utterly alone.’ He sniffs, wipes his nose. ‘Then the Manor started changing. That acrid smell drifted through the corridors. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew something was … off.’ He nods at Aki, up in the cockpit. ‘I remember the first time I saw the Leatherheads. Thought my mind was playing tricks. I avoided them for ages, but they found me in the end.’

  ‘They shot you,’ I say. ‘Carted you off to Roth’s lair. You told us that, too.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell you what happened next. Roth was delighted when he saw me.’ Hickory taps the side of his head. ‘I’ve seen more of the Manor than anyone, after all. He trawled through my memories, but I’d been in the Manor so long, what he found was … scattered. A mess. He grew frustrated, was about to kill me, but realised I was worth more alive. He knew I was desperate to get out of the Manor, so he showed me what he was looking for.’

  ‘The Cradle,’ I say. ‘The keys.’

  ‘One key, remember? He didn’t show me you, or your dad or Elsa. Didn’t want me to know the whole story. Didn’t want me beating him to the prize. He just told me to bring him one key and whoever was carrying it. Promised he’d release me from the Manor at last.’

  ‘He told you to catch any other people you came across, too, right?’

  Hickory nods slowly. ‘Gave me one of his masks to show the Leatherheads I was under his protection. Made me the first bounty hunter. Then he let me go. I fled as far as I could. Told myself I’d never help Roth. But then – must’ve been a year or so later –’ He pauses. ‘You once asked how many people I turned in. How many I led to their death …’

  Part of me doesn’t want to know anymore, but I still find myself asking, ‘Are we talking, like, ten? Twenty?’

  ‘One,’ Hickory says, but he might as well have said one hundred, judging by the look of shame on his face. ‘A man, unremarkable in every way. I don’t know which world he came from or how he found his way into the Manor. We couldn’t understand each other, but I knew he was afraid. I comforted him. Told him to follow me. Before I realised what I was doing, we were halfway to Roth’s lair.’ A tear rolls down his cheek. ‘I got in and out as quickly as I could. But I heard the man’s screams as I fled into the Manor again.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I ask. ‘If you were so scared –’

  ‘I did it because I was scared – of Roth, of his army, of spending another thousand years trapped inside the Manor.’ He wipes his cheek. ‘Everything changed when I met her.’

  ‘You mean Farrow,’ I say. ‘You … you met her inside the Manor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She wasn’t from Bluehaven?’

  ‘No. She came from Barjuun. A peaceful world of green, rolling mountains.’

  Farrow, Hickory tells me, was a shepherd. She loved it, too, tending her flock of goats, camping out under the stars. But one night, a storm swept over the mountains and her flock scattered – some of them into a deep, dark cave. It was there that Farrow found a door.

  A Manor gateway.

  She touched the stone, the cave shook, the door rumbled open and candles flickered to life in the corridor beyond. She stepped inside. The gateway closed behind her.

  ‘Bet she really hated goats after that, huh?’ I say. Hickory frowns. ‘Sorry, I just meant, you know, if it weren’t for the – she wouldn’t have … anyway, carry on.’

  Apparently, a goat or three ran into the Manor, too – right into a booby trap. That was when Farrow knew she was really in trouble. The gateway wouldn’t open again, so she wandered deep into the Manor, got lost. Wasn’t long before she found Hickory.

  ‘I was building my hideout in the middle of the maze,’ he says, ‘hammering together a couple of Manor doors. I looked up and … there she was.’

  She was beautiful. Black hair. Dark eyes. Hands calloused from years of wielding her shepherd’s crook. Farrow was wary of him, kept her distance, but Hickory comforted her. Again, he didn’t want to offer Roth a new
prisoner. Again, he started to anyway.

  It was a long journey to the fortress. Hickory and Farrow understood each other. Spoke the same language, in more ways than one. Hickory had found a friend at last. When they were a day’s march from the fortress, he realised he couldn’t turn her in. He broke down and told her everything – about Roth, about the half-mask, and the man he’d led to his death.

  ‘And she forgave you?’ I ask. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘She left me. Fled into the Manor. I don’t know how much time passed before I saw her again. I’d gone back to my hideout. I was in a bad place. Very bad. I used to step outside my shack, stand at the edge of that dark abyss and’ – Hickory clears his throat – ‘never mind. I’d been there before, of course, in the bad place, but something always held me back. Fear. Hope.’ He shrugs. ‘But one day I couldn’t feel it anymore. Couldn’t feel … anything. I was so tired. But she found me again. She pulled me back from the edge.’

  ‘Why did she come back?’

  ‘I asked her the same thing. She just told me we had work to do. It took time, but we became friends again. Eventually something more. We finished the shack in the centre of the maze. Plotted and planned, dreamed and laughed. We lived together for … must’ve been fifty years, or thereabouts. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt truly free.’ Hickory smiles. ‘She was my world, and I was hers. I suppose we were lucky, in a way. Most people never know that kind of love.’

  ‘Now I really feel bad we blew up your shack.’

  ‘Don’t sweat it.’ Hickory’s smile fades. ‘Didn’t feel the same after she was gone.’

  ‘Can I ask … what happened to her?’

  Hickory steels himself. Takes a deep breath. ‘We worked tirelessly to beat Roth at his own game. Started scouring the Manor for the Cradle key – for any clues at all. Laid plenty of traps for the Leatherheads and Tin-skins, too. We swore we’d claim the Cradle, beat Roth and tear down the Manor to ensure nobody would share the same fate as ours.’

  It all ended while they were out searching for the key. Some Leatherheads found them. Farrow and Hickory fled but were caught in a booby trap. Stone-slab trigger. A single spear. A simple but deadly device.

  ‘It was my fault,’ Hickory says. ‘I should’ve seen it coming. It should’ve been me.’ He stares down at his hands. ‘Farrow died in my arms. I made her a promise, right then and there: I’d finish what we started. So I kept searching. Kept fighting. And one day’ – he looks at me – ‘I found a girl in the snow.’

  Once again, I don’t know what to say. I finally know the truth about Hickory, and it’s more tragic than I ever could’ve imagined.

  ‘The point is,’ Hickory says, ‘I lost my mind in the Manor. Farrow saved me. But when I knew I’d lost her forever? That was when I truly went mad. Buried alive for a thousand years … who’s to say I wouldn’t turn out like Roth?’ He looks straight at me, right into my goddamn eyes. ‘Who’s to say you wouldn’t, too, Jane, if you lost what matters most?’

  My nightmare. The pain I felt on the foundation stone when I knew – I just knew – Dad and Violet had been killed. The emptiness. The void. How do I know that sadness wouldn’t turn to rage? Maybe I’m more like Roth and Elsa than I thought. Maybe we all are.

  ‘I’m done letting grief rule my life,’ Hickory says. ‘I want to help you.’

  ‘Save the Manor,’ I say. ‘Stop Roth. No tricks. No games.’

  ‘No games.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that so you can turn around when we’re all standing on the foundation stone and take a big steaming dump on us, are you?’

  ‘What? No. Don’t be disgusting.’

  ‘You can’t blame me for having trust issues.’

  ‘I’m on your side, Jane. I still think the Manor’s dangerous, and you’re gonna have to think long and hard about what you do with it when all this is over, but – well – it’s simple. Farrow wouldn’t want more innocent people to die. I can’t promise I’ll stick around after Roth’s gone, but until then … I’ll do whatever it takes to stop him.’

  I smile at Hickory. ‘Told you. Push comes to shove.’

  He smiles back. ‘Push comes to shove.’

  ‘I mean, fixing our blankets while we sleep? That’s deep.’

  ‘Ugh, I knew I shouldn’t’ve done that.’

  ‘You love us. It’s okay. Perfectly natural.’

  ‘Shut up and let me sleep, already.’ Hickory wraps his cloak tight around his shoulders, leans back against the hull. I’m about to head back to the cockpit when he says, ‘Thanks, Jane. I’ve never told anyone about Farrow before. I just … miss her. So much.’

  ‘She’d be proud of you, Hickory,’ I say. ‘I am, too.’

  THE CRADLE PATH

  Dawn comes quickly up here in the sky. The suns rise in a burst of reddish-gold, illuminating the dune sea: an undulating, dappled expanse of rolling mounds, shadowy troughs and towering sandcastles shaped by the winds. It’s a desolate place. Barren but beautiful. I think I finally understand the appeal of flying.

  ‘Can you believe this?’ I ask Violet, fogging up my window with my breath.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ she says, glued to a window of her own.

  We can see Betty’s wings too, dangling a couple of big engines and propellers apiece, spinning so fast they’re a blur.

  ‘Elsa charted these regions using ancient records in the Elders’ library.’ Yaku’s kneeling on the floor behind us, Elsa’s papers spread out before him. He hands a map to Hickory. ‘Assuming she got this right, we’re not far from the gateway.’

  The bundle of nerves in my gut knots a little tighter. ‘Let’s get back to it, then.’

  We’ve been going over the charts for ages, trying to work out how to get into the Manor and past Roth’s lair. Yaku has sketched a rough map of his own. ‘Elsa’s plan is still our best bet,’ he says. ‘We circle far around the gateway’ – he draws a long, curved line – ‘so we will not be spotted or heard, and land a safe distance on the plateau behind.’

  I glance back at Elsa. She’s glaring at us with bloodshot eyes. The two red-cloaks are awake as well, all bound together in one merry goddamn parcel. Masaru hasn’t slept a wink. He’s just sitting there, calmly watching us all. Disturbing is what it is.

  ‘Apparently, there’s a supply route up there.’ Hickory taps another sheet of parchment. ‘A road heading north, from the top of the plateau to some sort of ancient city. One of Roth’s old stomping grounds. We wait till nightfall, sneak up to the road and hijack one of Roth’s supply vehicles. Aki suits up and takes the wheel. We hide in the back and hope for the best.’

  ‘I will come with you to the top of the cliff,’ Yaku says, drawing another line on his map. ‘Jump out here and hide. Provide cover or make a distraction if you need it.’ He marks a cross on the map, at the base of the gateway. ‘There will most likely be a checkpoint here.’

  ‘The Leatherheads have no idea we’re out here,’ Violet says. ‘I doubt they’ll give the vehicles a second glance. Of course, getting inside the Manor’s just the start.’ She turns to Hickory. ‘How far is it from the gateway to Roth’s fortress?’

  ‘According to Elsa’s notes,’ he says, ‘about a day’s hike on foot, maybe more. In a truck, considerably less. Wish I could tell you more, but I never got close to it myself.’

  ‘Never got close to the gateway?’ I ask.

  Hickory shakes his head. ‘There are Leatherhead checkpoints at every intersection surrounding the fortress. Spotlights, barbed wire, the works. Soon as I saw them, I knew I’d never have a chance. And don’t get me started on the lava. Nasty stuff.’

  ‘Wait,’ I say, ‘what?’

  ‘Lava. Molten rock. Gunky fire?’

  ‘I know what lava is. What’s it doing around Roth’s lair?’

  ‘It’s streaming through a weakened gateway,’ Hickory says. ‘Corridors are full of the stuff now. Spewing down stairwells, over balconies – you think those waterfalls in the
Manor were impressive, wait till you see a lavafall.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Violet says, breathless and wide-eyed.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I tell her, and nod at Elsa’s notes. ‘Does she say anything about the corridor beyond the gateway?’

  ‘Just that Roth turned it into a road.’

  ‘Okay, so we break away from the convoy as soon as we’re inside. Find a hallway or a door, and hope the Manor shifts us far away from Roth and his fortress and … and –’

  And everyone in it.

  I stare at the charts, heart rattling my rib cage. It kills me that Dad’s in that place. That we’re gonna be so close and yet so far. That we can’t rescue him and the rest of Roth’s prisoners before we find the Cradle.

  We just can’t risk it.

  Get to the Cradle, he told me on the train. I love you.

  Violet gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘We’ll head back and get him, Jane.’

  ‘As soon as we can,’ Hickory adds. He nods at Masaru, Elsa and the red-cloaks. ‘What about them? We leaving them behind on the plateau?’

  ‘Masaru, definitely,’ Yaku says. ‘He wants to be captured. He will alert the Gorani to our presence the first chance he gets. Elsa cannot be trusted either, but this is not my decision.’

  Elsa isn’t glaring at us anymore. If she wasn’t gagged, she’d be smiling. She knows we need her alive.

  ‘I know she betrayed you, Jane,’ Hickory says quietly, ‘but the mission comes first. We can’t just wander aimlessly and hope the Manor sets us on the right track. The place is falling apart. Even if it wanted to help us, it might not be able to. What do we know about this path to the Cradle she mentioned, apart from the spike pit near the end of it?’

  ‘Not much,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’

  Violet cracks her knuckles. ‘Let’s remedy that, then.’

  I nod at Aki to show him everything’s okay, and head to the back of the plane with the others. Masaru hums into his gag when we pass him. Yaku plucks Elsa’s from her mouth.

  She spits at our feet. ‘That Gorani better not break my plane. Betty needs a soft touch.’