Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls

by Jeremy Lachlan

  He wants me to lose control.

  I step closer to Hickory. Maybe he’s just injured. Faking it. If I remove the arrow and tend to his wound, maybe he’ll come back to us. But no. Roth won’t allow it. He ditches the crossbow, brings a sickle blade to Violet’s throat, and I freeze.

  ‘Jane,’ she gasps, crying, choking, trembling with rage, ‘swim …’

  But she knows I can’t. This place is so big I can’t even see the foundation stone out there in the Sea. I’d never make it. How the hell are we supposed to get to the centre?

  ‘Let her go, Roth,’ I say, trying to ignore the throbbing in my palm, the itch on my skin, the hot tears welling in my eyes. ‘I swear, if you hurt her –’

  He tightens his grip on Violet, she drops her key and cries out, and the furious tide within me stirs in response. The quake intensifies. The Sea ebbs and flows. Roth’s already got me tangled in his strings. Already dangling me like a puppet, making me dance.

  I drop my key, too. Play nice.

  ‘You don’t need to do this, Roth. I’ll go with you. Just let her go, and we’ll head out to the stone. Me and you.’ I nod at the Sea. ‘Assuming you know how.’

  He takes the blade away from Violet’s throat and taps the tip to his temple. He knows, all right. Probably gleaned the secret from Dad’s mind.

  He drags Violet to the edge of the Sea. Forces her hand out over the water and cuts it. She grits her teeth and winces as her blood drips into the black water.

  ‘Blood of the innocent,’ I whisper.

  Just like Dad and Elsa were way back when.

  The blood of someone who doesn’t want to claim the Cradle.

  The silken water bubbles and churns. Roth drags Violet back a step as it laps at their feet. An ancient stone bridge rises from the depths, long and thin, stretching out into the Sea. It stops an inch or two above the surface. Waves lap over it as the water swirls and settles. Violet stares at me, imploring me to make a break for it, but I can’t leave her. I won’t.

  Roth points his blade back at the door before pressing it against Violet’s neck again. He wants me to grab one of the torches.

  I force my legs to move. Pluck a torch from its bracket and hold it up high. Thousands of symbols are painted onto the walls of the Cradle. Millions of them. They’re rust-red. Dried blood, I think. The blood of a god. Seer blood. Nabu-kai engraved the fate of all worlds into the walls of the Manor itself, Dad told me, and the destinies of those who would shape them.

  What would happen if I touched one? Would I be granted a vision, just like Winifred? Would I be shown someone’s life from beginning to end? All their trials and triumphs? I can tell Roth wants to find out, too. He’s staring at the symbols with a sick look in his eyes. A kind of overpowering hunger. But now isn’t the time.

  He nods at the bridge. Walk.

  Torch held aloft, I step back past Hickory. For a second, I’m sure he moves. Certain his mouth just twitched. I’d give anything for him to sit up, flash his stupid dimples at me and tell me he has a plan, but he doesn’t. It was just a trick of the light. A cruel tease.

  What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

  The arrow’s sticking out of his stomach. The crossbow isn’t far, but I’d never make it in time.

  I wipe away a tear and pause at the edge of the Sea. Shoot Roth a death-glare, nod at Violet. I want to tell her everything’s gonna be okay, but we both know that isn’t true.

  Roth marches us onto the bridge, further and further out to Sea. It’s terrifying, being surrounded by this much water. This place has plagued me all my life. How many times did I drown in those dreams, tossed around by those waves, dragged through the depths?

  I can’t believe I’m here. This is where I was born. Where the Makers made and left me. Where I stayed for millions of years while life sparked and spread in the Otherworlds. While people lived, loved and died. While empires rose and fell, and Roth tore Arakaan apart.

  ‘It’s like mercury,’ Violet mutters, gazing out at the rippling Sea.

  My quake’s still trembling. The Cradle sounds like it’s growling. I bet I could snap the bridge like a twig if I wanted to, but then what? Roth can’t drown. We can.

  Tiny waves break out across the Sea, splashes of white foam flashing gold under the torchlight. The bridge dips below the surface now and then, so it looks as if we’re walking on the water itself. We walk and we walk, sickened by Roth’s stench. Weakened.

  I wonder where the bloody Spectres are. They’ve gotta be out there somewhere, lurking in the deep, deep dark. Waiting for something, but what?

  I think about Hickory, lying on the stone. I think about Aki back in the frozen hall, injured or worse. I think about the Tin-skins and Leatherheads streaming down the Sacred Stairs, storming Bluehaven. Yaku carrying Dad to safety, the townsfolk in retreat. I think about Eric Junior and his team, headed towards Roth’s lair to rescue the other prisoners.

  They were counting on us – on me – and I’ve failed them all.

  ‘Jane,’ Violet whispers. ‘Look …’

  Step by step, the foundation stone emerges from the gloom at the end of the bridge, jutting from the Sea like a giant shark fin. A misshapen pyramid. A massive triangle of stone with one inward-curving side, just like the symbol on the keys.

  Roth flicks his blade and wrenches Violet’s arm. Keep going. Don’t try anything stupid.

  ‘Take it easy.’ I stifle a coughing fit. ‘I get it.’

  The foundation stone’s the size of a house. I don’t know if it’s the rumble of the quake, the ugly pockmarked stone or the Cradle Sea splashing at its base, but there’s something menacing about it. Something sinister. Maybe it’s the smell. Like rain before a storm. It’s getting stronger the closer we get, cutting through Roth’s stench, as if the air itself is alive with invisible lightning, ready to explode. It makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.

  ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ Violet wheezes.

  ‘Roth,’ I say, ‘it isn’t too late. You can still turn around. Walk away.’

  He chuckles. Not a chance.

  The wound in my palm itches and throbs again as I step up to the trembling stone.

  Roth flicks his head up at the steep, rotting slope. Climb.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Keep your shirt on.’ Then I do a double take, recognise Masaru’s cloak hanging from his shoulders. ‘Wait, is that’ – Roth grunts – ‘okay, okay. I’m going.’

  I hold the torch out wide and climb one-handed. Roth follows, forcing Violet up, too. The quake gets worse the higher we go, the wound in my palm itching so much it feels like a nest of ants are burrowing out of my skin. I try to block it out, but it’s maddening.

  We reach the top in no time. The air bites and bristles. The waves swell, surge and crash. It’s as if we’ve wandered out of the Manor to some lonely, forbidden Otherworld. A watery realm with starless skies. It’s just us, the quaking stone and the roiling Cradle Sea.

  There’s a smooth patch of rock at the tip of the foundation stone. This is where Dad and Elsa must’ve found me. I wonder what I did when I saw them, what they said.

  I shove the torch into a hole in the rock and turn to Roth. He forces Violet to her knees.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘I’ll do anything. The Cradle’s yours. You don’t need to hurt her.’

  But that’s the only reason he’s kept her alive. He wants her to suffer so I suffer. Break her so I break. Bend me to his will. Violet knows it, too. I can see it in her eyes and it kills me.

  ‘You’re not gonna be able to control me, Roth,’ I shout. ‘I can’t even control myself. Trust me, I’ve seen what’s about to happen – the Cradle Sea flowing through every gateway, destroying every Otherworld. If you do this, there’ll be nothing left for you to rule!’

  He grabs Violet’s hair and tilts her head back. She coughs and splutters, struggling to breathe. The furious tide swirls inside me. A phantom wind rises. A wave crashes into the stone, bursting like liquid fireworks. I
clench my fists and the rock cracks at my feet.

  ‘Stop, Jane,’ Violet gasps. ‘You’re giving him what he wants.’

  ‘I can’t let you die,’ I shout. And at Roth: ‘Let. Her. Go.’

  The torch snuffs out, and that’s when I see it – see them. Glimmers of white light, way out in the Sea. That eerie underwater moaning I heard so often in my nightmares fills the Cradle, reverberating through the electric air. The Spectres are here at last: great swirls of white fire swarming and shimmering near and far, lighting up the dark so brightly we can see the towering walls inscribed with symbols and the domed ceiling of the Cradle high above. For a second, I’m sure I see Hickory, too – stumbling along the stone bridge, coming to save us – but then I blink, and he’s gone.

  Wishful thinking.

  The Spectres rise around us. Twelve beastly wraiths of light spinning slowly in a perfect circle. They don’t roar. They don’t attack. They don’t even try to Grip Roth or me. They just float and spin, trailing those tentacles of light, their white-fire eyes burning.

  Roth chuckles. He isn’t afraid. Not one bit.

  Hell, he’s enjoying this.

  ‘Jane,’ Violet shouts, ‘look at me! Focus on my voice! It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay.’

  But I know that isn’t true.

  The phantom wind howls around us. The Spectres circle faster and faster till they merge into one blinding blur. A white halo shining over the stone. The air crackles. The wound in my palm hurts so much I can’t help scratching at it, drawing a steady stream of blood. The quake responds in kind, the foundation stone shaking so much me and Roth lose our footing.

  And that’s when Violet makes her move.

  She breaks free. Leaps up, twists Roth’s arm around, kicks the back of his leg and brings him to his knees. Without thinking, I slam my bleeding palm onto the stone and make the connection at once. I feel every crack and quiver, and shove my other fist up into the air. The stone responds like an extension of my arm, shooting a column of rock up at Roth, which slams into his side and sends him flying. But Roth’s too quick, too nimble. He flips through the air, lands on all fours like a damn cat, and charges right at me.

  ‘Violet,’ I shout, ‘no!’

  Too late. She leaps between us, takes the full brunt of his attack. Roth knocks her out in an instant, but he doesn’t stop there. In one swift motion, he picks her up, lifts her high over his shoulders and tosses her from the stone.

  I scramble to the edge. See her disappear beneath the surging waves. Fall to my knees, cry and scream.

  The spinning Spectres roar so loud it hurts.

  And that’s when the furious tide really overflows.

  THE KEY OF ALL SOULS

  The foundation stone splits in half, right down the middle. A cleft one foot wide. Feels like my head splits, too, cracked like a goddamn coconut. I feel a crackle in my fingertips, as if lightning’s running through my veins, as if my whole body’s on fire. Worse still, I can feel the void opening deep inside me, just like in my nightmare, and Roth leaping on top of me, strangling me with one hand and holding my bleeding palm to the stone with the other. This is it.

  He fixes his eyes on mine. I want to shut him out, but I’m in too much pain. He forces his way into my mind, and what he finds delights him. The fear. The power. He can feel what I’m feeling and see what I’m seeing. Every crack spreading through the stone. Every fissure snaking deep down under the Sea, up along the towering walls of the Cradle, and across the cavernous ceiling. The stone bridge falling to pieces. The hundred-keyhole door fracturing. The corridor beyond falling apart. The cracks spreading through the frozen hall and out into the Manor. The second gateway to Bluehaven shaking, trembling, rotting away.

  He can feel it all, and he’s hungry for more.

  Violet was right: the foundation stone’s amplifying my powers. But the Makers aren’t here to guide me. It’s just me and Roth and the terrible void. I try to resist it, relax the way Hickory suggested, but Hickory’s gone now, and so is Violet, and all I feel is loss and heartbreak. The kind of grief that turned Roth into this walking disease, this monster, this cruel puppeteer. I can feel him trawling through my memories, fixating on the worst. Hickory dying. Violet disappearing into the waves. Elsa plummeting in the truck, and that snippet from my nightmare of Dad sinking in the dark. He forces me to relive them, Gripping me like a Spectre. Like the Grip, it seems to last an age. But he also shows me other things. His dastardly goddamn plans. He’s gonna choose an Otherworld to test out the power of the Cradle Sea, all right. It was gonna be Arakaan, but now he has a different target in mind.

  Bluehaven.

  Dad, Winifred and Yaku – all those townsfolk who came to our aid – they’re about to feel his wrath. First he’ll wipe out the island, then he’ll go after the Otherworlds.

  I’m the key to enslaving them all.

  ‘Roth,’ I gasp. ‘You can’t …’

  Oh, but I can. His voice feels like knives scraping through my skull.

  The cracks keep spreading, snaking deeper into the Manor. Balconies collapse. Columns snap in two. Archways crumble. The hundred-keyhole door explodes. I can feel the Sea now, too, surging and splashing around the stone, pulsing like the blood through my veins. I can’t just feel it, though – I can control it. Which means Roth can control it through me.

  Take a step back, Hickory said. Focus on something good.

  I try again, but Roth’s already taken over. He focuses my mind on the Sea, spins it round and round like the Spectres, a raging whirlpool with the foundation stone at its core. The faster it moves, the more it pulls away from the stone, the more it glows, shining that fierce, white-fire light, no longer bound by the life force of the Makers. It’s armed, primed, dangerous. Ready to fire.

  It’s happening.

  Roth’s about to unleash the Sea.

  He slips out of my mind. Wants me to see the triumph in his eyes before he does it. Wants to see the defeat in mine. He growls at me through his glistening half-mask, burning my face with his breath.

  I beat you, I can see him thinking. I won.

  The Manor is mine.

  But I also see something else – a quick shadow behind him, and then –

  THWAT!

  Roth’s eyes bulge. He glances down at his metal-plated chest, tries to reach behind his back. There’s no triumph anymore, only pain and confusion, a thin trail of black-ish blood seeping from his porcelain lips. He releases me, staggers to his feet and spins around, and that’s when I see the arrow, wedged between his shoulders.

  That’s when I see them.

  Violet, standing at the edge of the stone, dripping wet, crossbow in hand. Hickory, kneeling beside her, drenched and wincing, clutching his stomach.

  They’re alive. Praise the Makers, they’re alive.

  ‘Told you I was a crack shot,’ Violet says. And to me: ‘Now, Jane!’

  A surge of adrenaline. It’s now or never. I leap to my feet, grab a strap of Roth’s mask with one hand and the arrow protruding from his back with the other and drive it in deeper, angling it to make sure we’ve hit the mark. The arrowhead pierces his heart. He gasps. A quiet, pathetic sound. An exhausted sigh. He sways a little, steps back. The mask comes off in my hand, and we see his jawless face in all its gore and glory. The crooked top teeth. The rotting flaps of skin. His open throat like a mushy goddamn tomato. He staggers towards the peak of the stone and gurgles something, spit drooling, bubble-popping, a blood clot dripping down.

  That’s when the Spectres strike.

  One after another, they break free from their spinning circle and shoot towards Roth, seeping into his eyes, his ears, down his mangled, missing mouth, Gripping him at last. With his body dying, his mind is ripe for the taking. His eyes glow as bright as theirs. The veins under his pasty, mottled skin shine like spider webs caught in sunlight. He cries out, screeches, writhes and twists. Then he rises, lifted off his feet, starts floating through the air like the Spectres, out over the
shining Sea.

  I wonder which nightmares the Spectres are clinging to, which bad memories they’re forcing him to relive. The darkness of his tomb under Atol Na? The queen shoving those bone shards into his lungs? This very moment, right here and now? No. As the Spectres flee Roth’s body in a blinding flash, only one word escapes his mangled mouth. One name.

  ‘Neeeellaaaaa …’

  Then he drops into the shining, still-churning Sea, and dissolves like salt in water, disappears.

  Gone at last. Gone forever.

  I collapse back to the trembling stone. Violet runs to me, holds me, runs her fingers down my cheek. ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she says. I still can’t believe she’s here, she’s alive. ‘I hate to say it, Jane, but we’re not out of this yet. The Sea … the Manor … you need to fix it.’

  I shake my head, exhausted. ‘We’re too late. It’s already ruined …’

  Roth’s gone, but I can still feel the gaping void, the quaking stone and the swirling white-fire Sea. Everything’s falling to pieces, including the gateways. The Manor’s sucking the life out of the Otherworlds in a last-ditch effort to survive, drawing them inside.

  ‘We’re not too late,’ Violet says. ‘Remember what Yaku said on the plane?’

  I nod, maybe a little too earnestly. ‘I was his hero …’

  Violet rolls her eyes. ‘The other thing he said. What is broken can be rebuilt. We saved your dad. We just killed Roth. There’s nothing we can’t do. Nothing you can’t do.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Hickory says. ‘I didn’t cop an arrow to the gut just so you can give up now, Jane. Put your hand on that stone and think happy thoughts or I swear to the gods –’

  ‘Threatening her probably isn’t the best approach, Hickory.’

  ‘I’m just saying, I lugged the crossbow all that way, dodging waves and Spectres, and dragged you from the water with my intestines hanging out. You’re welcome, by the way.’

  ‘It’s called a flesh wound, moron. A few stitches and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Oi,’ I say, ‘a little focus, please?’