The apsara stilled for a few moments as she contemplated Elle’s answer. “And you are sure that you wish to know this?” she said after a while.
“I am,” Elle said.
“Everything has its price. We all end where we begin,” the apsara said. Her gaze snapped to Elle’s face. “What is the price you pay?”
Elle pulled her compass out of her pocket and held it up as an offering. “This is all I have,” she said.
The apsara stared at her. “I sense much turmoil within you. Answers may bring more strife than peace.”
“I have come a very long way and I have battled against so many odds to be here. I am ready. Please, I need to know how to bring him back,” Elle said.
“Then let it be so,” the apsara said. She moved her arms again, slowly rotating her wrists so that her fingers extended in a curve. “Then I call upon the moon goddess to set me free so that I may help those in need.”
There was the deep rumble—the sound of fine stone scraping on stone. The air around them fizzed with aether. The wind picked up, as if a sudden storm had blown through, but outside their small circle of light, the jungle was deathly still.
The rumbling increased, and in one graceful movement the apsara stepped free from the stone. She stood on one leg with her back impossibly straight, the other leg pulled up with her knee in line with her hips, perfectly poised. She drew her elbows up into right angles.
Elle heard Dashwood’s sharp intake of breath. Like Elle, he couldn’t help but stand in awe as he took in the astonishing beauty of the stone maiden before them. Somewhere in the background, she could hear the ghostly sound of a Khmer ballet in progress. The soft tinkle of instruments—echoes of music played long ago.
The apsara shifted position. She placed both feet on the ground and held out her hand.
“Please. I must see inside you.”
Elle took a deep breath and extended her good hand. She felt the cool stone of the apsara’s palm against her own as they touched. Elle felt a surge of energy rush through her, the ancient power of the Oracle rising up and filling the space around them.
The apsara’s eyes widened in surprise as their energies fused. Elle felt her tense and try to pull away, but the bond had already been sealed.
The apsara’s face drew into an expression of complete horror. “Too much!” she exclaimed. “Too many! I cannot—” She leaned back, trying desperately to free her hand, but it was no use.
Elle felt the surge intensify and she too tried to drag her hand out of the apsara’s grasp, but she was just as powerless as her companion. She felt her eyes roll in their sockets and she threw her head back as thousands of questions—all the questions ever asked of the Oracle, hidden somewhere deep within her—gushed out and spilled over to the apsara.
No! Elle thought as the realization of what was happening dawned on her. Vivienne had been right. She should not have come here.
The apsara screamed in pain. Her supersonic screech caused the bats that were flying around them to squeak as they darted about in the sky above them.
Faster and faster the questions flowed, some in foreign languages so old that time had forgotten them; others were new. Elle recognized glimpses of women with red hair, all of them dressed in dark blue robes. They stood and watched in disapproving silence, watching as their collective energy spilled forth through Elle.
The flow of questions was too much for the apsara to bear and she started to vibrate violently, her beautiful face frozen in an expression of surprise and horror.
A deep rumble rose up from the stone around them. It made the floor and pillars of the temple shake.
In what looked like an act of supreme effort, the apsara dragged her arm back, pulling Elle’s face so close to hers that they were almost touching.
“You can bring him back. The power to do so is within you,” the apsara whispered.
Then there was a brief moment of perfect silence. It was as if a sudden and complete vacuum had been left behind where all the questions had been. And then, in a bright flash of light, the apsara exploded into a shower of gravel.
The white light went out and everything was silent.
Elle fell to her knees and slumped forward. The gravel on the floor dug painfully into her knees and the palms of her hands.
“What just happened?” Dashwood said, kicking some of the apsara gravel off his boot.
“The worst thing that could have,” Elle said. “I destroyed her. Just like I destroy everything I touch. I should be taken from this place and locked up in a dark cave, somewhere where I can do no more harm.” She rested her face in her good hand: a gesture of defeat, despair and utter exhaustion.
From the shadows, came the soft echoes of someone laughing.
“Brava!” a man said.
Elle looked up to see none other than Patrice Chevalier.
He stepped into a shaft of moonlight. “Well done, Eleanor. You never cease to amaze me, did you know that?”
“Patrice,” Elle said with a detached coolness. “I see that a life of evil has been good for you.”
He gestured to the fine linen suit he was wearing. “As a matter of fact, it has,” he said.
“Who the hell are you?” Dashwood said, reaching for his pistols.
“Not so fast, Captain,” Patrice said. He pulled a flare out of his pocket and lit it with his flint cigar lighter. The flare lit in a blaze of bright orange before it launched into the sky, where it hovered for a few seconds and went out.
At the sight of the flare, four black dreadnoughts rose up from the jungle and floated forward with a deadly and ominous precision.
“Storm riders,” Dashwood breathed, as they watched black ropes appear beneath the ships and snaking down to the ground. The ropes were soon filled with the ominous shapes of the storm riders as they rappelled to the rooftops of the temple.
“I don’t know what your game is, mister, but I’d turn around and go back to where you came from,” Dashwood said and took aim.
“Elle, please call him off, will you?” Patrice said. “At the moment, I am the only thing between you and these savages.” He gestured to the storm riders. “And they are terribly fond of me. If anything was to happen to me, you would be torn limb from limb in seconds.” Patrice pulled his own pistol from his coat pocket and aimed it at Elle. “Now lower your guns or she dies.”
Slowly Dashwood lowered his pistols, but he did not put them away.
“So it was you that sent the pirates?” Elle said.
Patrice shrugged. “Who else?”
“What are you doing here, Patrice? This is none of your business,” Elle said.
“Oh, I think you will find that it is,” Patrice said.
“What do you want? Speak quickly. I don’t have time for this,” Elle said.
“Ah,” Patrice tutted. “Still looking for your husband, little dove? The one who abandoned you to die while he frolicked in the Shadow realm?”
“You keep quiet!” Elle bellowed.
“Now, now.” Patrice shook his head. “There is no need to go off into a rage like that. I am only speaking the truth, you know.”
“You know nothing!” Elle said. “Nothing at all.”
Patrice laughed. “Oh, Eleanor, I have missed that fire. I really have.”
“I don’t know who you think you are,” Dashwood spoke through gritted teeth, “but I think you should leave us alone. This is none of your business.”
Patrice swiveled round to face him. “Really? I think I know more about this than you do. In fact, it is you who is mistaken. Has she told you all her secrets?” Patrice sneered. “I would wager she did not. That little harlot has used you and now she will cast you aside just like she does with all men.”
“I’ll break your neck with my bare hands!” Dashwood lunged at Patrice, but he ducked out the way, laughing at the captain all the while.
“Logan, don’t!” Elle said. “Please, this is my fight.”
Dashwood stared at her for a long moment and the
n slowly stood back, scowling at Patrice, his eyes filled with a hatred that spoke of the extreme violence that he held in check.
“Good boy,” Patrice said to Dashwood. Then he started laughing. “You know they’re here, don’t you?” he said to Elle. “In fact, they’re watching from the shadows as we speak.”
“You are lying,” Elle said.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Patrice said. “You see, I now control the barrier between the two realms. And I’m the Grand Master of the Council of Warlocks, so it’s all in my hands now.”
“We’ll see about that,” Elle said. She rose to face him.
“Well, yes, I do still need a little Oracle to ensure the whole thing remains stable. Which brings me conveniently to the reason for my visit.” He paused for a moment. “As you so emotively put it a few moments ago, you do belong chained up in a dark cave where you can’t harm anyone, and I have come to make that so.”
Elle felt the air slide out of her lungs as she stared at Patrice.
Patrice narrowed his eyes. “Oh yes. You have been running about causing trouble for far too long what with that stupid husband of yours indulging your every whim. How many more people will have to die before you finally accept your fate, Eleanor?”
Elle looked away. Patrice had hit a nerve—many nerves—and as much as she hated to admit it, his words were starting to ring true.
“See, you agree with me. I can tell. Oh yes, I think, that the time has come for me to collect you, little Oracle, and bring you to the place where you belong.”
The hound lay down in the shadows of the roots of a cassia tree. He hung his heads, still feeling sick and weary from the hunt. In all the thousands of years he had been alive, he had never felt like this before.
The iron blade between his shoulders was wedged in firmly, and no amount of scratching or rubbing could remove it. He had tried, but scraping against the stump of a tree only drove the blade in deeper. And inside him was a bullet of iron. It burned and hissed, dissolving his insides until they were nothing but black slime, but yet he held on.
Heavy drops of dark red blood and pus dripped onto the ground between his paws; his thick black fur was matted with it.
The hound lowered his heads onto his paws to rest a moment. He had followed his prey to the village, but in his weakened state, he could not go after her with so many people about. So instead, he waited in the shadows, growing ever weaker as time wore on.
And here she was, standing in the open, bathed in moonlight. The hound studied the men that surrounded his prey. There were five of them. Two of them were on the other side of the barrier, in the Shadow side, watching on. The other two were just men, although he decided that he would take great pleasure in later killing the one who had driven the blade into him.
But it was the last man that bothered him the most. This was the man who had been there when he had been summoned to go on this hunt. It was the man who smelled of the underworld, the smell of home. No mortal was allowed to carry that scent. And this made the beast very angry. The man was after the hound’s prey and that was unforgiveable.
The hound’s ears pricked up. Something was about to happen. The air was suddenly filled with the scent of aether.
With great effort, the hound pushed himself up onto his feet. He stumbled slightly as he took the first steps toward the source of the light. It was always there, even in this cacophony of smells. Always just on the edge of the divide between the two realms, the scent of freesias and engine oil.
CHAPTER 30
“No,” Elle said the word softly, yet somehow it seemed to fill the entire temple courtyard around them.
Patrice cocked his head to one side. “What was that you said?”
“I said no. I will not do your bidding, Patrice.”
Patrice formed his face in an expression of affected shock. “You dare to defy me, even now?”
Elle felt a bright surge of anger from within. She had always been prone to bursts of anger and her temper had got her into a whole lot of trouble before. She had always ascribed it to the fact that she had inherited the Chance disposition, but now, as she stood there seething at Patrice, it all made sense. This was not your ordinary garden-variety temper lost. No, this was something far more complex. This was something that had a character all of its own. And in that moment she knew what it was: It was the unbridled fury of the Oracle.
She turned to Patrice. “And why should I obey you? You are nothing but a docking clerk in an expensive suit.” As she spoke, her voice grew louder and thicker with a strange ghostlike quality, eventually sounding like many women speaking in unison.
Elle closed her eyes and she felt the power of her mother and grandmothers surge through her. She smiled. She had nothing to be afraid of. The voices were here and they were fighting for her.
Patrice moved his pistol and took aim. “Move or I will kill you here, where you stand. I am sure the next Oracle will be far more obedient than you could ever be.”
“You have ideas above your station, Warlock,” Elle said. “You do not deserve the place you hold.”
Patrice let out a laugh of surprise. “Oh no, my dear. You know the rules when it comes to warlocks. You keep what you vanquish, and I vanquished Grand Master de Montague fair and square. I am the leader of the warlocks now.” He wiggled the gun at her again. “Now start moving.”
“You dare to order us around?” Elle said.
“Aha! So the sisterhood has finally joined us? Don’t think I don’t know about the existence of their secret little hiding place. Its location is going to be one of the first things I torture out of you when we get home.”
Elle remained where she was. She could not have followed Patrice’s orders even if she wanted to, for she was holding back so much power that it was impossible to move.
Patrice let out an exaggerated sigh. “Very well then, if you don’t value your own life, then perhaps you might value the lives of others.” He gave Dashwood a dismissive look. “Not that one. He’ll be forgotten before long.” He looked around, his eyes narrow. “No, I think I have just the right thing to dampen that little temper of yours. I see you have learned to control it now at least.”
As he spoke he moved toward an invisible spot just off the edge of the corridor they were standing in. He stowed his gun and reached into the air with both hands as if he were separating two curtains. He tore into the barrier and a shimmering purple light appeared around the space he had made.
Patrice reached into the gap with his arms, all the way up to his shoulders. Then, in one fast move, he dragged something out through the hole he had just made.
There was a loud whooshing sound and then, quite abruptly, Old Jack and Hugh Marsh, fell onto the stone floor.
Elle’s fury evaporated the moment she saw him. “Hugh!” She sank on to her knees beside him.
Her husband looked awful. He was as white as bone, and in places the tissue had worn so thin that Elle could see the outline of his skeleton glowing beneath. It was something she had seen in her mother when she had met her in Delphi. It was the mark of those born in the Light who dwell within the Shadow afterlife.
Marsh looked up at her, with his white wraith eyes. “Elle,” he whispered.
Patrice started laughing. “See, I told you they were here. Standing with their little noses pushed up against the barrier like children outside the toy shop. Isn’t that true, Jack?”
Old Jack stood up and dusted himself off. Then he opened his cloak and drew out a lantern. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought we would never get through in time. First, let’s get some light in this place,” he said, ignoring Patrice. He clicked his fingers and the lantern sprang to life, sending long shadows shooting up the walls of the temple around them. “That’s better. Now I can see. What was that you were saying?” He turned his gaze to Patrice, who was staring at him.
“Doesn’t anyone recognize what danger you are all in?” Patrice said, brandishing his pistol. “You must fear my wrath.”
“Yes, yes. You are the great warlock and we should all quiver with fear in your presence. We know. Eleanor dear, please don’t touch him,” Jack said, just as Elle reached out to put her hand on the side of Hugh’s face. “You don’t want to turn to dust on the spot, now do you?”
Hugh flinched and pulled back. “Please. No touch. Touch will kill you,” he wheezed.
Elle pulled her hand back in frustration.
“There is nothing you can do about this, my dear.” Jack shrugged. “Some muddles just can’t be undone. It’s best you take that nice young captain of yours and go and live a life of adventure in the skies. That’s my advice, if anyone is interested in hearing it.”
“She is coming with me. After I put an end to the both of you!” Patrice interrupted.
“I think the lady can decide what she wants to do all by herself, Shadow Master,” Jack said. “And besides, she owes me a favor or three. There’s no way of protecting my investment if you have her, now is there?” Jack said.
Elle closed her eyes in despair. She had come so far and fought so hard for something that was not meant to be. The realization sent a fresh wave of pain through her tattered heart; the sorrow was too much to bear.
The apsara had said that the secret to freedom would lie within her, that she had the power to do this, but that there was a price to pay. She now understood what that meant.
Marsh was still on the floor before her. He was gazing at her with so much sadness that it was almost too much to look at him.
“Well, I think she should be getting back now, old friend,” Jack said to Marsh. “It’s not good for you to be on this side for too long. Come along, say your goodbyes. Let the lady go and live her life in peace.” Jack lifted his lantern and turned toward the rent in the barrier. “I promise I’ll look after him until it is your time to join us,” Jack said to Elle. “It won’t be too long. A human life passes in the blink of an eye, when measured against eternity.”
Elle’s vision had suddenly gone blurry with unshed tears. She blinked them away and looked at Marsh who had made no effort to move.
“I will always love you,” he said. “Now go.”
Sky Pirates Page 30