by D. A. Metrov
Up ahead, Brighton watched a team of guards pull open the massive iron doors that led to an ante-chamber. The gorpes appeared to be holding their breaths, ostensibly from Gretch’s stench. The troll yanked Brighton through. He resisted the urge to cry out in pain.
Brighton saw they were entering what seemed to be some kind of palace. He looked around in wonder and disbelief. Little had he expected to find such grandeur here beneath the earth. The torch-lit walls that soared fifty feet in the air were hewn from marble and granite. They were reminiscent of the palaces of kings he’d seen in etchings in his mother’s library. But despite its elegance, the place was cold and foreboding. Its shadows seemed to house evil eyes that followed his and Gretch’s every move.
Gretch dragged his tree stump feet across the moldy stone floor, through a towering archway that led to an even more grandiose, but darker chamber. Brighton tried to make out all the mysterious shapes carved in the shadows, intermittently lit by flickering torches. And candles. And flames from the fire roaring in a giant hearth. Before he could identify anything for certain, he felt himself flying through the air.
Gretch flung him around as if he were a kitten on leash. Brighton landed on his face, barely able to stop his fall. He raised his head and saw he was lying at the foot of a tall, granite throne standing against a curtain of velvet. He squinted to make out the shape of the thing that sat there, its eyes burning down at him. And the strange, glowing instrument it held in its hand—some kind of twisted device bristling with a bluish, electrostatic field.
The Cobalt Cutlass mesmerized Brighton both with its light and the subtle crackling of its electricity. He became captivated by it, more so than by the figure sitting in the throne. What is that thing? Some fantastic weapon? He strained to better see it. To understand its mysterious undulations. And just when he realized it was a kind of sword, it slashed through the air. It spit out a tongue of blue fire that blew a burning hole in the tapestry on the far wall.
Gretch fell to his knees. He hunched over in fetal position, whimpering beneath his breath. Brighton looked over at him, astounded to see the behemoth in such a state of fear. Another stream of light crackled across the room. This one blew a large marble statue into little bits. Brighton stared at the floor beneath his nose, his eyes wide, his ears listening to the little chunks of broken stone rolling past his head.
“Explain why his head is still attached to his neck,” The figure said in his threatening, yet sing song manner.
Gretch seemed to be gloating. “His head is attached, my Lord Dredgemont, so it might speak.” Before the name, “Lord Dredgemont,” could completely register in Brighton’s brain, the twisted sword spat another blue lightning bolt. It left a smoldering mark across the troll’s spine. “About his mother’s treachery!” Gretch shouted, this time in anger. He snarled and slathered in pain.
BLAM! Another lightning bolt sent Gretch flying across the room. He crashed into the wall beneath the smoking tapestry. Brighton saw him nearly lose consciousness. Dredgemont’s feet moved toward him. Gretch did not wait for them to arrive. Instead, he scurried like a frightened insect into the shadows.
Brighton twisted his head to see where he’d gone. But he could only hear the beast’s repressed moans. He then watched the saggy leather boots turn to him and shuffle his way. He saw the feet stop not far from his face. Brighton dared to look up. Again, he could not see the person holding the cutlass, only the weapon’s blinding glare. The man named Dredgemont grunted. Brighton heard the footsteps pad away again. He struggled to sit upright against the weight of his chains. He saw the shape shuffle to the platform that formed the base of the throne. But Dredgemont did not take the throne. He sat, instead, on one of the steps, and laid the Cobalt Cutlass on his lap.
Brighton was preparing a statement of defiance, rehearsing it in his head. But Dredgemont spoke first: “Imagine how lonely it must be, a man in my position, in command of the greatest force Perpetua has ever seen, yet friendless and isolated. It’s the flip side of power, you see. No way around it.”
Brighton was curious that the small-framed, old man who wielded so much authority, sounded so wanting and bereft.
Dredgemont went on. “I’m surrounded by mutant idiots and mindless machines. The masses who inhabit this land are nothing but large rodents who follow the orders of a big, stupid raven.” Dredgemont cackled, then buried his face in his hands. Brighton could have sworn the cackling turned to sobs.
But Dredgemont stopped and looked up, directly into Brighton’s eyes. Brighton could see them, for the first time, set back in his narrow, wrinkled skull. “You understand, don’t you?” Dredgemont said, sounding strangely vulnerable.
“If you’re in charge here, I’m going to see that you pay for your crimes,” Brighton said in a matter-of-fact manner.
Gretch launched himself from behind the tapestry to smack Brighton on the side of his head. “Quiet!” he roared.
“Out!” Dredgemont roared even louder. BLAM! A tongue of fire stung the troll in his hindquarters, again scorching his thick hide. It caused him to smolder and stink even worse than he already did. This time Gretch scampered out of the room completely, howling as he went.
The old man got up and shuffled back to Brighton. Brighton cowered a bit, not sure what to expect. What happened was most unexpected. Dredgemont dropped to the floor and sat with him as if they were a couple of old, school yard chums.
“You do realize it’s no accident those animals speak and have grown into giant freaks—the birds, the bats. And the furry ones. They were altered. By the alchemists who once practiced their dark arts in the township of Valkyrie. They learned to tamper with the very foundation of nature. To scramble genomes. I know. My father was one of them.”
Brighton felt a fascination well inside him.
“The man created mutants. In a laboratory.” Dredgemont trembled, as if with some inner angst. “He stayed behind after the others had gone. We were the only humans left in Valkyrie. He lived and worked in the building with the sign: ‘Eugenic Sciences.’ Surely you’ve seen it.”
Dredgemont’s eyes drifted off then. “He was obsessed with creating a slave race. Workers that would not require pay. I hated him. He was never available. My poor mother died, and I ran away. As far as I could go. All the way across the island. How ironic I must now destroy what he created.”
Brighton’s mind was spinning. Monkrats. Dwarols. Wark and Sharpeye. Created in a laboratory? Magradores, too! What does this mean? Alchemists? Eugenic Sciences? His fascination transformed into utter confusion.
“Ah, you didn’t know,” Dredgemont said with sincerity in his voice. “Of course not. Those who knew are long gone. I’ll wager you feel as lonely as I do.”
Brighton studied his face. Their proximity revealed a few more details of the old man’s appearance—his thin hair was matted and gray. His eyes were dull blue. He hadn’t shaved for several days. Brighton could smell him now, too. Dredgemont had that odor that old creatures have, caused by poor hygiene and decaying skin.
“Loneliness is for the weak,” Brighton said, his voice searing. “I enjoy my solitude.” It was all he could think of saying. The other business—eugenics—was too much to contemplate.
“I see you possess strength, young man.” Dredgemont looked away and stared into space, a certain melancholy in his voice. “I wasn’t always lonely. There was a time when pilgrims came in droves to seek my counsel. But I came to loathe them. They were selfish, narrow-minded fools, every one of them.”
A question sprung up like a jack-in-the-box in Brighton’s mind: Am I sitting here on the floor with the Seer of Buer himself? Brighton grew so fascinated by this turn of events, he forgot about mutants. Forgot the aching pain in his wrists and ankles.
“By the way, young man—did you come for my counsel?”
The old man cackled, louder and louder, until he began to choke. Brighton thought this old geezer might be insane. Dredgemont finally calmed down and got back to his fe
et.
“I’m beginning to like you. Come.”
He reached out his hand to help Brighton up. Brighton leaned away. He was surprised to discover the chains and shackles had fallen away. They lay on the floor in a pile—magically undone. He got to his feet on his own. Dredgemont put his arm around his shoulder in the manner of a doting grandfather. Brighton recoiled. But Dredgemont gave him a look of sympathy that he was too tired to resist. They walked toward the door together
Neither of them noticed a familiar pair of female eyes watching them from the shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Two
DARK WONDERS
The palace guards looked surprised to see Dredgemont come out with one arm around the prisoner, the other holding the Cobalt Cutlass like a walking cane. The gorpes didn’t ask questions. They merely scuffled about in awkward half-wit bows, and grumbled something Brighton couldn’t understand.
Brighton felt uncomfortable, to say the least, having the smelly old man’s arm around him. He couldn’t imagine where they were going, or what the old man had in mind. He wondered if he should try to subdue him, or make a run for it. Too many guards. Let’s just go along with this for now.
They walked down the grand, eerily lit corridor toward an archway that led out onto a terrace. To make things worse, Dredgemont didn’t speak as they walked. He groaned some old ditty, the words of which were off-key and undecipherable.
Walking out onto the terrace, Brighton was amazed to see that it looked out over a vast, vertical chamber. They must be inside a major mountain. He realized it could only be Mount Pegosa—tallest on the isle.
“Heard about your escapade in the airship,” Dredgemont said, followed by a perverse chortle. He then walked Brighton to the edge of the terrace where a lighter-than-air vessel awaited them. “Perhaps you’ll enjoy my flying machine.” Dredgemont gazed at his invention with a look of pride in his wormy eyes. “Designed it myself.”
Brighton studied the craft with interest—a longboat style hull with mechanical wings hanging loose by its sides. A rudder and propeller protruded from the rear. It was suspended by thin cables beneath a large, pontoon-shaped helium-filled shell decorated with mysterious glyphs.
“Step aboard,” Dredgemont said in sing-song manner, as he led Brighton off the loading platform. Brighton felt the hull bob and sway beneath his feet.
“Whoa!” Dredgemont’s crusty voice was mixed with that strange cackling. Before Brighton could sit, Dredgemont untwirled the mooring rope, and brought a small steam engine to life. He hauled back on its throttle. The hull shot forward, throwing Brighton back onto his haunches.
Dredgemont guided the craft out over the great chasm. Its big canvas wings began to twist and flap. Brighton looked down over the side. All he saw was infinite blackness. Or is that a reddish glow way, way down there?
“This shaft goes all the way to the core of the planet,” Dredgemont said. “And upwards to my gazebo on the very top of Mount Pegosa.”
Ah, Brighton thought, I was right. Here we are in the heart of Pegosa. But its interior has been so carved away, what’s holding it up?
Brighton was surprised to see the myriad tributary tunnels that spoked out from the chamber’s spiral roadway. Had he and his monkrat companions passed through here earlier?
Bello and Biffee! What’s become of them?
Before Brighton could wonder any more about the two monkrats, Dredgemont guided the craft into a tunnel that shot off to the west. They soared through the darkness with surprising speed. The old man seemed to be caught up now, navigating his craft through this narrowing channel. It was a feat that required more of his focus and skill.
Brighton felt the cold, dank breeze against his face. He closed his eyes and drank in the wind. He forgot for a moment he was in the company of a psychopath. The crisp air filled his lungs, and began to raise his spirits. But the atmosphere quickly lost its pristine quality and became polluted with toxic fumes from the mines. Brighton opened his eyes again. He realized the nausea was returning to his belly.
The flying machine exploded from the mouth of the tunnel. It flew out over the main mining cavern where smoke and flying robots filled the air. Gorpe dynamite teams blasted away the earth. The system of ore carts, steam shovels, and decapods moved about like some giant, multi-plex machine. A machine that was systematically disemboweling the island’s interior.
The smelting furnaces roared with flames and stench. The great pots of molten wheal spilled their lava into cooling bins. Titan pulverizing devices thundered into dried slabs, crushing them into pebbles, then dust that was scooped into conveyers. The belts carried it to funnels that poured it into sacks. The sacks were loaded onto waiting carts. The ore trains departed in never-ending streams into the tunnels that led up to the shipping ports.
“Behold, lad, my empire!” Dredgemont shouted over the din. He had a grandiosity in his voice and a new sparkle in his eyes. The craft soared around, past the excavation walls. The armies of miners worked so intently most of them never noticed the odd flying machine.
Fires belched up balls of heat and ugly, black smoke. Dynamite sent tremors and black earth flying through the air. Dredgemont took a deep breath and grinned as if he were standing in a sunlit meadow beneath a clear blue sky. Brighton was stunned beyond belief.
“Wasn’t always this way, you know,” the old man said, looking out over his operation. “We started small. Mining and smelting ore a few buckets at a time. But the demand grew insatiable. I soon had buyers coming from all over the world. They offered me more and more gold for my precious wheal. More and more tycoons heard about our lost isle, though they tried to keep it secret.”
Brighton watched the heavy equipment—digging, chopping, and crushing up the ore. Feeding it into the ovens where it was melted into liquid and poured into cauldrons. When he’d seen a glimpse of all this earlier, he never imagined he’d be back here so soon—let alone under personal escort by the very fiend who’d built it all.
From this vantage point, Brighton acquired a much better understanding of how extensive the operation really was. How many machines and gorpe miners were involved. And how many tons of earth were being stolen by the hour.
“You’re destroying the island,” shouted Brighton.
“I’m providing a service, young man. You’ll understand.”
“I doubt it.”
Dredgemont leered at him, then looked back out over the busy cavern. “I needed more workers to grow the enterprise. Before I organized my gorpes, they’d been afraid to venture out from the underground. It’s where their ancestors had always lived. I studied the robots. They’d been inactive, stored away by mysterious visitors in the distant past. Poor things were going to rust. I dissected them, learned how they operated. I was able to reproduce them. Now look. They work like loyal dogs. They don’t need food and the fumes don’t bother them in the least!” And with that the old man began hacking and coughing. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” He choked and gagged and navigated his flying machine into the next great chamber.
They flew through the smoke. When it cleared, Brighton could see a large congregation of gorpe fighters down below engaged in combat training.
Dredgemont banked the flying device in a wide circle over the soldiers. The old man turned and looked at Brighton. “Keep a secret?” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Brighton only glared at him.
“We’re running out of ore in this part of the island. We need to move farther west where the veins are still thick. But those twits at Valkyrie are uncooperative, eh? And stubborn fighters, too.” Dredgemont’s manner was matter-of-fact. “They left me no choice but to intensify the assault. To increase the size of my military. But they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m planning to wipe them out with a single blow. So overwhelming, they’ll never know what hit them!”
Brighton did his best to hide the apprehension that surged through his being. It paralyzed him to the core.
The old man then lost his
tone of twisted humor. He roared so loudly and with such rage, the men below stopped sparring. They looked up at the flying machine. They roared back in unison to tell him they were not only loyal, but intent on executing his plan with great vigor. Dredgemont ignored them. He seemed to fall into some kind of funk then, as he steered his flying device back out of the cavern.
Dredgemont didn’t speak on the flight back to his palace. Brighton became swept away by a mental squall. The Seer of Buer, a man everyone respects for his vision and his wisdom, has somehow become an unscrupulous merchant. Clearly, his only concern is growing his wealth. What incredible greed. How can a person change this way? How can a man turn to downright evil? Is it fear or strength that inspires a person to build such a destructive empire? Or is it the combination of both that’s so dangerous? Brighton sat in shock, trying to plan his next move. Trying to clarify his options. Only one thing came to mind—confusion.
When they arrived back at the palace terrace, Dredgemont docked the flying machine. He stepped off without so much as a grunt. Brighton watched him hobble away. What does Dredgemont have in store for him? He recalled the gorpes predicting torture. And worse. There was no running. Not right this moment. Guards everywhere. I’m going to have to suck it up and just follow him. Just be ready. Watch for your chance.
They returned to the dark palace where they’d sat on the floor together. Dredgemont returned the Cobalt Cutlass to a tabernacle atop an altar. He stood back, and stared at it. Brighton watched him from behind. After several moments, the old man turned to him.
“Imagine, young man, having your very own palace. Just like this.” He gestured to the room with his arms. “Tell you what. I offer you a partnership, right here and now. You’ll be my successor. I’ll teach you everything. You’ll have wealth and power beyond your wildest dreams. Everything you ever desired and more will be yours with a snap of the fingers!”