The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  “This how you talk to Mikhail?” At Natasha’s lifted eyebrow, Reuben grinned and nodded. “I got it. Eyes open, and if I see either of those two—” he hooked a thumb over the shoulder “—my mouth stays shut. No matter how tempting it might be to call Glim a prick.”

  4

  The cathedral was even more magnificent than it appeared in the stills Ruby had shown the crew.

  The white marble structure was vast. With its many turrets, all glittering with stained glass in the midday sun, it was more like a storybook castle. The skyward-reaching beams were spindly, but in their centre rose a wide, sloping tower. It peaked higher than the rest, etched with zigzagging crenulations and brilliant violet stained glass. Above was the statue: a woman from the torso up, palms together. Although her shape was not sharply defined, Francis could tell her eyes were closed.

  Around the cathedral’s base were grassy courtyards. Archways led between them. Stepping stone paths lolled in unevenly edged rock. Small buildings outlined the courtyards’ edges.

  “Imagine getting married here,” said Vala.

  “We’ve done it once already.”

  “We could renew our vows. Our ten-year anniversary isn’t far off …”

  “In four years, we’ll talk,” said Stefan. To Francis and Reuben, he said, “Should we go up?”

  Unlike Survoix’s cathedral, there were no doors. The entranceway was open, and instead of leading straight into the building’s interior, they were greeted by a stone staircase.

  Reuben nodded. “Up we go.”

  The steps were deep. Too deep to take in one stride, at least for Francis. He wasn’t even sure Mikhail or Natasha would manage.

  The roof curved above as they entered the cathedral’s confines. At the same time, the low ambient noise of New Calais dropped to almost nothing. By the time they were close to the staircase’s top, the air was practically silent but for their footfalls.

  Francis found himself in a long room. It was decked in the same purple as the stained glass windows. Walls were adorned with idols separating doors hewn from weathered wood and banded with dark steel.

  Pews drew lines like ribs. Unlike Survoix’s, they were small—and unlike New Calais’s exterior, they were simple. No padded cushions, and the wood was worn and without shine.

  Vala and Stefan wandered up the central aisle, Francis behind. Their pace had slowed to a crawl. It felt like they’d stepped into a museum. Francis wasn’t sure the reduced speed came naturally, or if all had employed it so Reuben could scour their surroundings.

  He paused at a pew. On its back, positioned for those behind, was a shelf. Held behind a restrictive beam of wood were leatherbound tomes.

  He slipped one out.

  The cover was worn. The spine was creased.

  Faded gilt letters read: IMPARTATIONS.

  Francis slipped the book open.

  The yellowed pages were packed with minute text. The language was archaic. Francis’s attempt to read it before slotting the book back in its resting place was brief.

  A dais rose at the head of the room. Upon it, a lectern. Beyond were arched doors, and above, an enormous stone carving. Like the idol atop the cathedral, its edges were soft. Not from age, Francis thought as he took it in. No, the soft curves and blurred edges looked stylistic.

  “It’s nice,” said Stefan when Francis met their side.

  “Reckon we can go through these doors?” Reuben said.

  “Doesn’t say otherwise.”

  “Maybe we ought to find someone to ask,” said Vala.

  Reuben strode to the nearest. He knocked three times. “Hello?”

  He had just lifted his fist to knock again when a voice came from the stairs.

  “Ah. I thought we might have guests.”

  An elderly man came up the steps. He was dressed in a long, crimson robe. Wide sleeves encircled his wrists, and its bottom flowed. A gold insignia marked the breast—a tree with hanging boughs, vastly simplified—but otherwise it was plain.

  Accompanying the man was a little girl of perhaps eight or nine. Dark hair drew a straight line above equally dark eyes. Like the man, she wore red: a dress. It hung to her ankles. She wore no shoes.

  “Greetings!” The man smiled brightly. “You have come to see our cathedral!”

  He reached Reuben, and stuck out a hand. Reuben shook. Francis approached to shake too. He smiled. The old fellow smiled back. Decades had yellowed his eyes, but they sparkled with life.

  “We certainly have,” said Reuben.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Vala.

  “We were just wondering if we might see more of it, actually,” said Reuben, nodding sideways at one of the doors.

  “By all means!” The man crossed to it on spry feet. “Allow me to give you the tour. I can doubtless provide answers to any questions you may have.”

  He pushed open the door. Pivoting on his feet by the threshold, he smiled again. He gestured. “After you.”

  This room was far smaller, but bedecked in a similar fashion, with paintings and tables covered in vibrant bouquets of flowers which Vala’s eyes went to immediately. Wooden strips lined the floor. They were worn with regular depressions: knees.

  “May I ask whose company I find myself in?” the man asked.

  “Reuben Evans.” He stuck out a hand again. “This here is Francis, Vala, and Stefan.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Abraham.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Vala. “And who,” she continued, stooping, “is this?”

  The girl had padded in after Abraham, stuck to his side all this time. She looked blankly at Vala’s smile, then turned eyes up to Abraham.

  “This is Grace,” he said. “She does not speak.”

  Vala extended a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Grace.”

  Grace considered it.

  Abraham placed a hand on her back. “It’s okay, child.”

  Grace obeyed, allowing Vala to fold her hand in her own. After a single soft shake, she let go. Her face did not change. She might not have moved at all.

  “She’s very sweet,” said Vala, standing.

  “Grace is our youngest,” said Abraham.

  “Are you her father?”

  “Alas, I’m far too old to be that, even if I had been married. No, I am no relative to Grace.”

  “Is she someone’s daughter here in the church?”

  “No.” Abraham lifted an inscrutable smile. “Grace was delivered to us by Ife herself.”

  Vala nodded politely, but did not say anything.

  “This is a prayer room,” Abraham went on, “as I’m sure you see by the knee rests. We have several; the adjoining rooms are all the same.”

  “May we look?” said Vala.

  “Of course!”

  Abraham led them through. True to his word, the string of rooms were all identical, even down to the bouquets.

  “These flowers are lovely,” Vala said. “They’re not native, are they?”

  “No, no. They are from the south. One of our disciples journeyed to spread our word some years ago. Now his own disciples send us gifts like these.”

  Vala bowed to sniff. The flowers were as purple as the cathedral’s windows. Their heads looked like a too-large gown of crepe paper sewn around a central bract.

  “You said ‘our disciples’,” said Reuben. “‘Our’ as in the church, or ‘our’ as in you?”

  Abraham looked back politely. “You’re asking if I’m in charge.”

  Reuben gave a carefree shrug. “Someone has to be.”

  “I suppose that’s correct. In that respect, Mr Evans, you could well say I head the church.”

  “Like a pope?” said Stefan.

  “No.” Abraham shook his head. “I am simply a priest. There are several others like me here. We share the same title, and by virtue of it, we are looked up to by the disciples congregated here. So, yes, by that measure I am one of those ‘in charge’. But we are equal here, all of us. I must stress tha
t. I would not like to raise myself above a single one of them.”

  Reuben nodded. “Fair.”

  “Tell me,” said Abraham. “Do you know much of our church?”

  If Francis had been asked, he likely would have hesitated and given the answer away before he could stammer out a half-lie. I know a little …

  Fortunately, Abraham’s question was delivered to all four, and Vala came straight back.

  “I regret we do not.”

  “Aha. Well then, let me tell you! It really is a wondrous story …”

  Abraham guided the crew through to a sweeping hall extending the entire span of the cathedral, and began to lead them slowly up its length. Pedestals stood every five or six feet, carvings of Ife atop. Canvasses were affixed to the walls. Some, Francis recognised from Ruby’s presentation.

  “Ours, unlike many others, is not a creation story,” said Abraham. “I expect you’ve heard a few of those?”

  “Some,” said Vala. “My mother taught me the world was painted.”

  “Ah, yes. The world brush. I’m familiar with it. And of course, why not? For who else to create beauty than an expert artist?” Eyes twinkling, Abraham gestured at a painting. Beneath cornucopias of fruit, a naked woman with brown hair held an apple.

  “Further south, they have other stories. The village I mentioned—the people who sent those wonderful flowers—believe our galaxy to be an ember, sparked from a burning log. Isn’t that beautiful?”

  “It’s lovely,” said Vala.

  “Ours,” Abraham repeated, “is not a creation story. Not in the strictest sense. It begins many billions of years after this universe’s birth. It begins long after our world came to be; whether painted, or sputtered from a campfire, or coalesced from gas and rock.

  “It begins,” he said, “with a girl.”

  He had stopped by one of the pedestals. Wrinkled hands lifted the stone carving perched there: a woman, on her knees, hands stretching heavenward. Like all the rest, it was smooth, with soft edges.

  “This girl lived on the surface, and she had a gift. It was a simple gift, but singularly beautiful: song.”

  “Song?” Vala echoed.

  “She could sing. She was but a child, but when she sang, even the birds silenced. The entire world took pause to listen to the stories she wove in angelic melody, and even the stoniest hearts were softened by her harmony.

  “Word of her ability travelled far and wide. And one day, when she was almost a girl no longer but a young woman, a man came from a far-off land.”

  Abraham replaced the statue, and continued to move along the passageway. He pointed a long finger at the next painting. Ife, surrounded by birds. Her mouth was open in song. None of the birds sang with her.

  “The young woman and the man fell deeply in love. They began to travel, first by foot, then cart, then sea. But always, always, the woman looked skyward: for, in spite of all Vomer’s many treasures, it was skyward she wished to go. You see, she had been watching the sky islands pass for her entire life, and it was her deepest desire that she might one day visit. Yet there was no way!”

  Abraham paused again. He’d come to another painting. Ife looked to the sky. Above, size greatly exaggerated—Francis knew this from his own life—was a sky island. Thick vines hung from the rock, and a forest bloomed.

  “No way up. This is what the young woman believed.

  “But—what if she was incorrect? What if there was a way in which she might travel? The young woman’s love asked her this.

  “But how, she questioned? How? There were no paths; no roads. No sea flowed to the heavens. How would they ever go?”

  Abraham paused to let the question sink in. When he had let it sit for a good ten seconds, he began to lead again.

  “It transpired the young woman was not the only person with a gift. The man she had fallen in love with had a gift of his own! Between them, they formed two halves of a whole; and if the young woman sang the right song, they would be able to go. They would be able to travel to the sky islands at her will.

  “So she sang. And … she came! Both of them! His words were true, and at last, the woman was able to visit the lands she had dreamed of for as long as she could recall.”

  They had almost come to the end of the corridor now. Adjacent to another door, stained glass shone. Through it, the sun cast a bar of purple light.

  “Is the woman Ife?” Vala asked. “Is she who the church is named for?”

  “Yes, and yes,” Abraham confirmed. “And it is her from whom the rest of us are descended. She and her love seeded the first sky islands with people. They travelled all of Vomer doing so, with their own children, and people they brought up from the surface with them. Villages first, then as time passed, those villages became towns, and cities. Over the millennia, people came to explore the caves beneath the islands, and discovered the Volum responsible for keeping them aloft. Later still, they learned how to harness their energy. They built rudimentary ships from wood, and travelled even further. They found new islands, new people; their bloodlines merged, and brought new life. Like a spreading net, they crossed the entire globe in a thousand years. They found resource-rich islands and took everything they could, building the world we see around us today. They did all of this … and it was all because of this one woman.”

  “And her husband,” Stefan said.

  Abraham smiled. “And her husband.” He lifted his hands. “And that is what we believe. To give thanks to her for bringing us to this world, we pass on the teachings Ife lived by: to be kind, and loving, and peaceful. It is our life’s goal.”

  “That’s a very noble goal,” said Vala.

  Abraham grinned. “We do what we can. Would you like to see the bell tower?”

  “You have a bell tower?”

  “Oh yes. Come; it’s just this way.”

  Abraham opened the door to lead. Vala and Stefan stepped through. Reuben followed.

  Francis came after, but not before taking one last look at a painting of Ife. She was surrounded by smiling children, all of whom had the same brown hair and hazel eyes the artist had imbued his rendering with.

  Her lover was not present. In spite of what Abraham had said, it didn’t seem as though the church gave him much credence.

  Now Francis thought about it, he hadn’t seen a man in even one painting.

  Collating Information

  (Chapter Six)

  1

  Nine people gathered in the Harbinger’s command centre that night. It was almost the same collective as when Ruby had made her presentation: Francis, Mikhail, Reuben, Glim, Herschel, Trove, Natasha, plus Ruby herself. This time, Ruby looked—awful. That was the only way Francis could put it. Dark rings underlined her eyes, and she kept mopping cold sweat from her brow. She’d removed her tricorne, but only once she was safely in the room and the door closed: the hair beneath was a sopping tangle.

  The ninth person was Darrel Stitt. He stood imperiously by the door, arms folded. He hadn’t been remotely impressed at Ruby coming for this meeting.

  “It can wait,” he’d said sternly.

  “For what? You to drug me again?” Ruby had shaken her head. “Get back to your office and fill in some forms or something, Darrel. I don’t want you here.”

  “I’m observing to prevent you from exerting yourself.”

  “Seven other people in this room can do that for you.”

  “With respect, Miss Celeste, but no, they can’t.”

  Ruby looked sour. But whatever rebuttal she had was lost to a sudden coughing fit, and the next minute was spent hacking drily while Darrel tried to escort her back out on one side, and Trove looked unsure of whether to back up Darrel, to call him off, or try to get an instruction out of his captain.

  “Get her some water,” Natasha told him.

  Relieved to have instruction, he hurried to do just that.

  Now, ten minutes later, the meeting had finally started. Ruby’s water had calmed her throat enough to keep the
coughs to a minimum, though it could do nothing for her haggard look.

  “You found no sign of defensive measures at all?” she asked hoarsely.

  “None,” said Mikhail. “We covered the whole island, parts of it numerous times. If they’ve got defenses in place, we didn’t see them. Ditto weapons.”

  “But they still could have them,” said Natasha. “Just out of sight.”

  “We poked around pretty thoroughly,” said Reuben. “The priest took us on a tour of the cathedral. We got a good look at it. It has bells, did you know?”

  “He might have shown you only what he wanted you to see,” Natasha countered.

  “You don’t think too highly of my scouting abilities, do you, Natasha?”

  “I’m just saying, we need to be careful. We have the unfortunate habit of running headlong into danger when we ought not to. If we’re going to go in there and find that shroud, we need to be completely sure we’re not going to get shot or stabbed first.”

  “All right, and what do you propose? We ransack houses to make sure no one’s packing heat? Then delve into the caves with the Volum and dargots and God knows what else, just in case something is hidden down there too?”

  “No,” said Natasha hotly.

  “Then what’s your plan?”

  Reuben waited. But Natasha came up with no answer, and after a few seconds he held up his hands. “There we go. Look, I get wanting to be careful. Unless you’ve forgotten, I took a bullet to the leg earlier this year. But there’s only so much we can do without rousing suspicion.”

  “Forget the defenses for now,” said Ruby. “What about the shroud?”

  “No sign of it,” said Mikhail.

  “None?”

  “Nope.”

  “’Fraid not,” said Reuben.

  “Our group didn’t see it either,” said Glim.

  Ruby cursed.

  She smeared an arm across her forehead again. She rubbed sweat off with a distracted palm, then smeared that against her trousers. Her lips pursed.

  A tickle licked the back of her throat. She coughed.

  “Miss Celeste?” said Trove.

  “I’m thinking.”