Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls

by Jeremy Lachlan

  ‘No more stalling,’ I say. ‘Tell us how you found the Cradle.’

  She sniffs. Stretches out her neck and rolls her shoulders. ‘Untie me first.’

  ‘Tell us, or we’ll throw you off this hunk of junk.’

  ‘Junk? Wash your mouth out. And we both know you wouldn’t dare, Jane. What would Daddy say if you killed the woman he loves?’

  ‘If he knew what you’d become? Not much, I’d say.’

  ‘Come, oda min,’ Yaku says. ‘You still have a chance to make things right.’

  ‘You wanna talk about making things right, old friend?’ Elsa scowls. ‘After everything I’ve done for you – everything I’ve taught you – this is how you repay me?’

  ‘Oi!’ I shout. ‘Tell us how you found the Cradle right now. How did you and Dad escape from Roth? He started taking you both out into the Manor, right? Figured you’d have better luck finding it than him because you’re not evil. At least, you weren’t evil, back then.’

  ‘And he was right, wasn’t he?’ Violet says. ‘You were making progress.’

  Elsa scowls at us. I wouldn’t be surprised if steam started hissing from her ears.

  ‘Fine,’ she says at last. ‘After Roth killed my son – after he’d deemed me fit enough to help Charlie continue the search – he marched us out into the Manor constantly. Deeper and deeper we went, deciphering clues, dodging traps, following the path of Cradle symbols.’

  ‘Cradle symbols carved into the stone,’ Hickory says, deep in thought.

  Elsa nods. ‘But the path only ever took us so far. The Manor was working against us. We knew it’d never let Roth near the Cradle. He knew it, too. One day – night – whatever it was – a guard forgot to lock our cell. We sneaked out. The place was deserted. We ran. Found ourselves back on the Cradle trail. I wanted to pick a different path, get away, but Charlie wanted to save the worlds. What he really wanted was revenge …

  ‘This time, the path kept going. Very long. Very dangerous. Eventually, we came to a grand hall.’ She stares into space, like she’s right back there, taking it all in. ‘It was big. At least twenty storeys high. Hundreds of balconies, archways and doors. It seemed safe, so Charlie stepped inside and, as soon as he did, the stone fell away beneath his feet. I grabbed him just in time. The floor was false. I’m sure you can guess what lay below.’

  ‘The spike pit,’ I say.

  ‘We were about to turn back when we heard a Taw-taw bark far behind us, and we knew.’ Elsa’s voice trembles with rage. ‘Roth had let us escape. We scanned the walls for a sign that we were still on the right path. That’s when Charlie saw it: a Cradle symbol etched onto the floor of the hall, near the portion that had fallen away. And beyond that, another.’

  ‘You had to pick your way across.’

  ‘Quickly, too,’ Elsa says. ‘Even the stones with the Cradle symbols on them were only safe for a moment. They crumbled as soon as we jumped to the next. We were about halfway across when the whole thing started to collapse. We ran, leaping from stone to stone. By the time we made it to the other side, the entire floor lay in ruin between the spikes below.’

  ‘Then where did you go?’ Violet asks.

  ‘Through a door. Down a hallway. The keys were on a pedestal at the entrance to the Cradle.’

  ‘Which door?’ I ask. ‘Tell us exactly –’

  ‘So you can ditch me when we land?’ Elsa tut-tuts. ‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’

  Violet grabs her by the collar. ‘You pathetic, twisted –’

  ‘There are hundreds of doors in that hall, and if Roth’s army’s on our tail – let’s face it, a highly likely scenario – you won’t have time to check them one by one. Then you have to actually open the Cradle. No small task if you don’t know the secret …’

  Violet releases her grip. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We all know the Makers are cruel,’ Elsa says, ‘their methods unique. The door to the Cradle itself is a puzzle. Another trap. Deadly one, too. Simple but effective. Charlie and I figured it out, of course, but only just. Take me, and you’ll pass through in a breeze.’ Elsa grins at me, ever so sweetly. ‘I told you I’d be right beside you till the end, Jane. I meant it.’

  I grit my teeth and clench my fists. I’m about to say ‘Fine’ when Hickory turns to us, wide-eyed.

  ‘Jane. Violet. A word, please?’

  We leave Yaku to watch over Elsa and the red-cloaks, and huddle a safe distance away.

  ‘I know where it is,’ Hickory whispers. ‘The path to the Cradle.’

  ‘What?’ Violet says. ‘You … you’ve seen the Cradle symbols somewhere?’

  ‘Technically, no.’ Hickory nods at me. ‘But she has.’

  ‘Me?’ I whisper, racking my brain. ‘What are you – I haven’t –’

  ‘In the booby trap,’ he says. I can barely hear him over the rumble of Betty’s engines. ‘The one we tripped when we were being chased by the Tin-skin, soon after we met.’

  ‘No way …’

  Hickory’s right. All those stone-plate symbols and crushing columns. The diving and ducking, scrambling and screaming. We were there. Right there.

  How could I be so stupid?

  ‘Elsa.’ I dash back down the plane. ‘When you and Dad were on the path to the Cradle, did you pass through a room covered in square stone plates? Plates with symbols on them?’

  She blinks at me, taken aback. ‘Yes.’

  This is huge. This is it.

  ‘And when you hit the Cradle symbol, the door sealed you inside, a whole bunch of columns shot across the room, and a trapdoor opened in the ceiling so you could get out?’

  Elsa shakes her head. ‘No, there … there were two Cradle symbols. Charlie and I pressed them at the same time and a trapdoor opened in the floor.’ She gazes up at me in goddamn wonderment. ‘You were there. You were on the path, but … you went the wrong way.’

  ‘Not my fault,’ Hickory pipes up behind me. ‘For the record.’

  ‘We were trapped in there with a Tin-skin,’ I say. ‘I saved us. Kind of.’

  ‘Never mind who did what,’ Yaku says, ‘where is it?’

  ‘Far away from Roth’s fortress,’ I say. ‘Way back near the –’

  I freeze. Images from my nightmare flash through my mind. Roth. The Spectres. That grand, frozen hall – the very first hall the Manor took me to. I saw myself in there. Wait, I shouted at her, you’re going the wrong way! I set off through the snow to stop her. The snow that had to be at least six-foot deep. The snow that was hiding a very pointy secret.

  Return, the voice said.

  Not just to the Manor. Not just to the Cradle.

  To the beginning.

  My legs get all wobbly. I’ve gotta sit down. ‘I’ve been there. To the hall with the spike pit floor. I … I just didn’t know it.’ Everyone’s watching me. Violet, Hickory, Elsa, Yaku and Masaru. Even the red-cloaks are craning their necks my way, and I don’t think they can understand a word I’m saying. ‘I know where the Cradle is.’ I grip the two keys tight. ‘It’s –’

  ‘Don’t,’ Violet jumps in, glancing at Masaru. ‘If things go south inside the Manor … if Roth gets into our heads … he’ll know it, too. Don’t tell any of us.’

  ‘What if something happens to me?’ I ask. ‘If I die, the secret’s lost.’

  ‘If you die,’ she says, ‘we’re all goners anyway.’

  That’s when Aki rattles his throat, alarmed. When Betty suddenly banks to the left, and we’re all thrown off our feet. We scramble back to the cockpit.

  ‘Aki, what the hell?’

  He slams his fist on the window to his right and rattles his throat, spraying the grimy glass with slobber. I dash to a side window with Violet and Hickory to get a better look, but can’t see what he’s fussing about. Rolling dunes. The sky. A tiny black cloud and trail of –

  ‘Smoke!’ I shout. ‘Down there. See it?’

  But it’s already slipped out of sight.

  ‘What th
e hell’s going on up there?’ Elsa shouts.

  ‘It was a flare,’ I say, sick to the stomach. ‘A black flare, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘An outpost?’ Yaku says. ‘Out here?’

  Aki snarls again. Another flare’s been fired. It streaks up into the sky ahead and explodes with a silent puff. Seconds later, a third flare’s fired, much further along the dunes, then a fourth, way out near the horizon. A tiny black squiggle. An inverted exclamation mark.

  ‘A network of them,’ Hickory says, ‘probably leading to the gateway.’

  The Leatherheads know we’re coming.

  ‘Aki, change course,’ Violet says, darting from window to window.

  ‘Swing west,’ Hickory says, checking Elsa’s charts. ‘Jane, tell him to –’

  ‘No,’ I say. Everyone freezes and stares at me. I’d be staring, too. I can’t believe I’m about to say this. ‘We have to follow the flares. Head straight to the gateway.’

  ‘What?’ Hickory ditches the charts. ‘No, Jane –’

  ‘We’ve lost the element of surprise. Any moment now, the entire camp above the gateway’s gonna be called to arms. There’s no way we’ll be able to sneak inside, which means we’ll have to fight our way in, and the longer we wait, the longer they’ll have to prepare. We need to strike now and get inside the Manor before word reaches Roth.’

  ‘How?’ Violet asks. ‘How can we take on that many Leatherheads?’

  I shrug. ‘We’ll figure that out after we land.’

  Masaru cackles into his gag, shaking his head and rattling his beads. Can’t believe his good fortune. Elsa narrows her eyes at me. She actually looks impressed.

  The others may not like it, but they know I’m right.

  Our plans have been shattered.

  We’re flying into battle.

  CRASH LANDING

  Turns out this bucket of bolts can fly fast. Before we know it, we’re soaring high over the tiny dune sea camps with their clusters of ant-sized tents and Leatherhead specks. Some open fire at us. Others are already on the move, leaping from dune to dune on these dirty great lizard-looking creatures, headed back to the gateway.

  ‘Reinforcements,’ Hickory grunts. ‘Well, this keeps getting better and better.’

  The edge of the dune sea emerges from the morning haze far ahead, lapping at the base of a sprawling plateau. The winding cliff cuts through the desert from east to west. Way off to our right, I spot a dark smudge along the clifftop: the main Leatherhead camp. And below it, big and wide and dark: the open Manor gateway.

  Click-clack-click. Aki points at something in the sky.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, but then I see it – no, them. ‘Oh, crap.’

  Three small planes are rocketing towards us.

  Aki tilts the yoke hard – we veer sharply to the left – and a volley of bullets peppers Betty’s side with a rat-a-tat-tat, blasting right through her rusted hull. We duck for cover, shielding our ears against the noise. The planes roar past, so close the wind thumps us as they go, like a slap from the sky itself. Masaru’s near tears, he’s loving this so bloody much.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Violet shouts.

  ‘Keep flying,’ Yaku says. ‘Try to lose them over the plateau.’

  ‘How?’ I scream. ‘There’s nothing out there!’

  Aki pulls back on the yoke. Betty climbs, veering to the right this time.

  ‘Jane, Violet, Hickory, check those windows,’ Elsa shouts from the back of the plane. ‘We need eyes on those birds. Yaku, get back here and untie me.’

  ‘No way,’ I shout.

  ‘You want to make it to the plateau in one piece?’ She barks an order at the red-cloaks bound to her back. They stop wriggling around at once. ‘Untie me right now! No time to argue!’

  Yaku looks at me. I turn to Violet and Hickory.

  ‘She built the thing,’ Hickory says. ‘Let her fly it.’

  I nod at Yaku. ‘Just her, though. And if she tries anything funny –’

  ‘She would not dare,’ he growls, and hurries back to set Elsa free.

  We scramble back to the windows, scanning the sky for the three planes.

  ‘There,’ Hickory shouts. ‘They’ve split up. Two went left –’

  ‘The other’s up there to the right,’ Violet shouts. ‘They’re coming back around!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Masaru cackles. He’s managed to slip free of his gag. ‘No escape this time, little ones! Roth will wrench the keys from your filthy, charred re–’

  BAM. Yaku knocks him out cold.

  ‘Finally,’ Elsa says, rubbing her wrists and storming past them both. She jumps into the co-pilot’s chair, flicks a few switches and starts shouting orders at Aki like ‘Quit snarling,’ ‘Level off,’ and ‘Speed up to two-fifty knots,’ miming each point to drive them home.

  ‘Please tell me you have a plan,’ I say. We’re soaring east now, in line with the cliffs.

  ‘Working on it,’ Elsa grunts. She digs around in a compartment beside her, tosses me a pair of old binoculars. ‘The encampment. In the distance. Tell me what you see.’

  I adjust the focus on the binoculars. The view’s shaky, but I can see that the zigzagging cliffside roads are packed with trucks and troops, heading to the ramshackle encampment above. Twenty-odd tanks are trundling into position around it, too, cannons aimed skyward.

  ‘Jane –’

  ‘Leatherheads,’ I say. ‘Hundreds of them. Tanks and trucks, too. They’ll be on us like flies the moment we land.’

  ‘Heads up!’ Violet shouts from the back of the plane.

  Thwat, thwat, rat-a-tat, another round of bullets tears through the cabin. Everybody hits the deck. Two planes shriek by, and one of the red-cloaks cries out. The other’s slumped forward, unmoving, a puddle spreading around him as red as his cloak.

  ‘Third plane’s coming,’ Hickory shouts at Elsa. ‘Do something!’

  ‘Aki, follow my lead,’ she cries. ‘Everybody hold on! Three, two –’

  They slam their yokes forward. Me and Yaku grip the backs of their chairs just in time as Betty nosedives towards the dunes. My stomach jumps into my throat. My legs leave the ground. I feel like I’m floating. I glance beyond my flailing legs and catch a glimpse of the red-cloaks squished against the back ramp, Violet and Hickory clinging to a bench, and Masaru dangling unconscious beside them. And ahead, through the grimy windshield, the dunes rocketing towards us, way too fast. All I can see is sand.

  We’re gonna crash.

  ‘Elllsssaaaaaa!’

  ‘Now, Aki!’ They pull back, straining and screaming with the effort. ‘That’s it, that’s iiiiiiiit!’ Betty pulls up just in time, we clip the peak of a towering dune, skim the surface of the sandy sea and soar up, up, up again, the view through the windshield nothing but sky.

  It worked. The third plane missed us.

  ‘Power levers back,’ Elsa says, levelling Betty out. ‘Don’t wanna cook the engines. Fuel?’ She checks a dial. Taps it frantically with her finger. ‘Fuel?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ I say. ‘Don’t tell me …’

  ‘Check the wings,’ she says. ‘Hurry.’

  I dash to a window halfway down the cabin and swear under my breath. The underside of the wing’s leaking all over. Our fuel’s being stolen by the wind.

  ‘How bad is it? Jane, what do you see?’

  ‘Just … picture a giant sieve.’

  ‘This side is no good, either,’ Yaku says behind me.

  Elsa swears. ‘We’re not gonna be able to shake these guys. I hate to say it, but our best bet is to surrender. Put her down on the plateau, and –’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ I shout. ‘We can’t give up!’

  Aki rattles his throat and veers Betty to the right as – BOOM, BOOM, BOOM – three massive explosions nearly blast us out of the sky. The tanks have opened fire. We’re soaring over the camp now, headed for the flat open wasteland of the plateau. I turn to Violet, Hickory and Yaku. They shrug at me, out of ideas.r />
  Think, think, think.

  Betty’s riddled with holes. We’re losing fuel. There’s no way we’ll be able to fight our way through that many Leatherheads once we land. We won’t make it anywhere near the –

  ‘Oh,’ I say, struck by a very bad idea that just might work. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’

  ‘What?’ Violet asks, but I’m already dashing back to the cockpit.

  ‘The gateway. Elsa, how big is the corridor on the other side?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The corridor. Inside the Manor. You said Roth turned it into a road. How big is it?’

  ‘Very,’ she says, frowning at me. ‘Why?’ Then she cottons on. ‘Jane …’

  ‘Can you do it? Is it long enough?’

  Rat-a-tat-tat, ka-boom! The planes shriek past again, taking out an engine this time. The propeller on the far right smokes, shudders and dies, shot to pieces.

  Still, Betty soldiers on.

  ‘You said it yourself, Elsa, we’ve only got one shot at this. The Leatherheads are gathering at the top of the cliff. The gateway’s pretty much unguarded.’ I put a hand on Aki’s shoulder. He looks back at me. Click-clack-click. ‘Can you do it or not?’

  ‘Do what?’ Hickory asks.

  ‘We’ll lose the wings upon entry,’ Elsa says.

  ‘So what?’ I say. ‘Do we need those on the ground?’

  ‘Valid point …’

  ‘Oi,’ Hickory says. ‘What’s going on?’

  Elsa buckles in, starts swinging Betty in a wide arc. ‘Brace yourselves! We’re going in!’

  Hickory gawks at us both. ‘Into – into the Manor? Right now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Violet says, hungry-eyed, like all her birthdays have come at once.

  I turn to Yaku. ‘I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to leave Arakaan, but –’

  ‘We have no choice.’ He stares out at the desert. ‘I know. I will help you to the end, Jane. Then I will find my way home.’

  ‘We’re all gonna die,’ Hickory says.

  ‘We’re not gonna die,’ Elsa shouts. ‘We can do this.’

  While she tells Aki the plan – miming, pointing, shouting – the rest of us prepare for landing. Me and Violet find a bundle of rope and lash it around the bench behind Elsa, so we can strap in. Yaku frees the red-cloak from the dead-cloak and ties him to the bench beside Masaru. The old git’s coming to. He’ll be thrilled when he wakes up inside the Manor.