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

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  The radio came out first. Clothes next … and then he felt the gun.

  Checking again that the curtains were closed all the way, that there were definitely no cracks—there were not, but Francis’s eyes roved repeatedly to be sure—he slipped the handgun out. Stiff, and with his fingers as far from the trigger as he could, he looked it over.

  The safety was still on. That was good. Crossing the island with it buried amongst his clothes had not been enough to jostle the switch off. Now Francis knew that, he could worry less in future.

  The question now was: where to hide the weapon and radio?

  Francis scoured the room for spots. There was the closet. But it was thin. Besides, what would he do? There was a drawer at the bottom for socks and underwear, and a flat shelf beneath the hanging space. And although Francis had packed a healthy amount, he didn’t think his stash of underwear would be able to cover the gun and radio in the drawer. Not in a way that would look natural, at any rate.

  Under the bed?

  He peered. Except for grey carpet, nothing. He could shove them right to the back, perhaps in the corner … but still, one look would be all it took.

  The desk drawer was out too, and likewise anywhere in the kitchen.

  He wouldn’t even entertain the idea of hiding them in his pokey little bathroom.

  Coming back to the rucksack (and checking the curtains again; a crack had not managed to somehow form, as he feared it might), Francis pursed his lips.

  Nowhere would be good enough, he realised. Not when he knew what he was doing here. Not when he held a gun.

  And besides, what was he scared of? That some unsavoury type would let themselves into his room with a spare key and go rooting around? Francis knew he couldn’t base his image of the church on Abraham and Remie alone, nor the values they so strongly exhorted, but he had a good feeling he was the most unsavoury person around here right now.

  Still, he could not entirely rid himself of the worry. Ruby was concerned whoever had stolen the shroud might still be here. And spare keys? The church undoubtedly had them. It would not be hard for someone to let themselves in and hunt through his belongings.

  The best place for the radio and gun, Francis at last decided, was the rucksack itself. He emptied his clothes, toiletries, and writing materials onto the bed. Then the gun and radio went back in. He buckled it all back up, folded the rucksack as small as it would go, and placed it in the cavity at the bottom of the closet. He dearly hoped it would do.

  Remie’s knock at the door came just as Francis finished putting away the last of his things. He let her back in automatically, glad as he did he’d reopened the curtains before hanging his clothes.

  “Hello,” she said brightly. “Got you a little something.”

  She handed Francis a neatly folded bundle of red cloth.

  “Thanks. Um … do I just put them on over the top?”

  “Well, you do unless you want to walk around naked!” Remie snickered.

  Francis returned to his bedroom. Remie half-followed, loitering in the kitchen.

  “Have you settled your things in?”

  Thinking guiltily of the items stashed in his rucksack, Francis nodded. “Yep. All done. Luckily I packed light.”

  He unfolded his robes.

  “Which way is the front?”

  “Either.”

  Francis shrugged into the fabric, slipping arms through the sleeves.

  The material was soft and loose. Thin, too. Francis was glad. He could not imagine how uncomfortable it might have been during the summer. New Calais was closest to the equator he’d ever been.

  He checked himself over. It was strange, wearing the robe. Now it was on, Francis was not sure he’d be able to walk properly. All that material would surely impede the movement of his legs.

  “How is it?” he asked Remie.

  She clapped a hand. “Very becoming.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course!”

  This was shaping up to be a month of new, strange outfits. Little more than a fortnight ago, he’d been buying his first ever suit. Now he donned a flowing crimson robe. What was next?

  “Come, let’s show you around,” said Remie. She made for the front door, then paused. Looking back over her shoulder with a wide smile, she said, “Oh, and Francis? Welcome to the Church of Ife.”

  The Church of Ife

  (Chapter Eight)

  1

  “What was the day-to-day like on the ship you came from?” Remie asked.

  With his personal space sorted, and a set of robes—they were not so difficult to walk in after all—they had headed back across the courtyard. Francis expected for Remie to guide him back to the cathedral, but instead she took him around what Francis thought of as the rear of the island. They now headed out on one of the enormous spoke-like walkways between central island and one of the eight smaller satellites.

  “Err … in what way?” Francis asked.

  “Did you have a routine?”

  “Kind of. I helped with preparing meals.”

  “You’re a cook?”

  Francis screwed up his face. “I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t really help with the cooking aspect. I just gathered the ingredients our chef needed and brought them back. I prepared vegetables quite a lot … but that’s just chopping. That’s really as far as routine goes.”

  Remie nodded. “Our days here are extremely structured. We get up at five—”

  Francis almost spluttered.

  “—and come to pray for thirty minutes before dawn each day. We don’t eat breakfast, but we do have an early lunch at eleven-thirty. Three o’clock until six o’clock is personal study time.”

  “Personal study time?”

  Remie nodded again. “We return to our dorms for that. It’s for reflecting on Ife’s word, and what it means. Did you find your copy of Impartations? One should have been in your desk drawer.”

  Francis had. Placing his diary and writing implements in the drawer, he’d discovered the book perfectly in the front left corner.

  Unlike yesterday, in the cathedral, he hadn’t bothered slipping it out and attempting to read any. No doubt a stint with Ife’s disciples would involve more than dipping a toe into their hallowed text. He’d hoped to leave it as late as he could.

  Now he realised he could avoid it only until this afternoon.

  After Francis told Remie he had found the book, she continued her breakdown of the daily timetable.

  “At seven o’clock we eat dinner. The rest of the evening after that is our own, to do with as we wish.”

  Francis noted this. Ruby wanting to radio once a day as she did, structure was good. Late evenings would be the opportune time for her call.

  “We have some facilities here, for our personal time. There’s a library on Index, and a listening station on Echo. We get music. It’s kind of fuzzy, but there are booths where you can put on headphones and relax, or reflect.”

  Francis’s brow crinkled. “What are Index and Echo?”

  “They’re the names of the satellite islands. Index is around there—” Remie pointed, and Francis followed. Anti-clockwise around New Calais’s strange ring, she indicated the next island. Squinting, Francis could make out buildings among its foliage. “And Echo is directly opposite where we are now.”

  “Right,” said Francis. “Okay, so that’s the day. Up at five, prayer for thirty minutes before dawn … what comes next? If we don’t eat until eleven-thirty, but free time doesn’t come until the evening, what else do we do?”

  “The best part,” said Remie, grinning. “We work.”

  2

  The satellite island Remie brought Francis to was called Knot.

  “Not? Like N-O-T?”

  “K,” Remie said. “Like in a piece of string.”

  Several facilities crossed Knot’s small surface, but the majority was open green. Trees sprung, bushes rustled in the low breeze, and flowers bloomed in coloured sprigs.

 
Francis was pleasantly surprised to see several young cats scampering after each other.

  “Tamry had kittens,” said Remie. “She must be around here somewhere. Tamry! Here, puss-puss!”

  She clucked her tongue.

  The kittens waddled over, play forgotten. Remie cooed and stooped, lifting two, one per hand. They mewled happily. The third, its coat white with a splodge of ginger across one eye and an ear, brushed around the foot of her robes.

  “You can pick her up if you want.”

  Francis did so. The kitten came happily. After some rearranging of her legs, she splayed across his arm and laid down her head on his palm. A motor-like purr started, and she closed her eyes.

  “Do they have names?” Francis asked.

  “This is Lauda.” Remie lifted a grey tabby with blue eyes, and ears it would need another few weeks to grow into. “This little fellow,” she chuckled—the other kitten, tabby with three white paws, had come free of Remie’s hands and was now climbing across her shoulders and behind her head—“is Monty. And the little lady you’re holding is Cossette.”

  “Hello, Cossette,” Francis said.

  Cossette simply purred.

  Remie entertained her handful for a while longer. In spite of her efforts, Monty wished not to be held, and spent his time evading her hand.

  When at last she caught him, he squirmed and meowed.

  “Sorry, Monty, but Reems has work to do.” She kissed his head, then Lauda’s, and placed them down. They immediately scampered off, and Francis bent to put Cossette down too. She blinked awake, mewed in confusion, then saw her brother and sister departing and scurried after them.

  “I used to have a cat,” said Francis. “Back home. He was called Trevor.”

  “I love cats. There are more around here somewhere; Knot is full of them. They venture onto the other islands too, of course, but Knot seems to interest them. I think it’s because the caves are open.”

  “What, accessible from the surface?”

  “That they are.”

  Francis tried to picture it. “I’ve never seen a place like that.”

  “You will shortly,” said Remie. She set off again, and Francis followed. “We need the caverns open to access our equipment. The Volum here are all wild ones, you see.”

  Francis thought back to some fact he’d read, or maybe heard. “Don’t they produce silk?”

  “They do! Have you ever seen a wild Volum?”

  Francis shook his head. “The ship I came from had two on it. I’ve seen those.” He neglected to mention the Pantheon, and the unfortunate Volum he’d seen succumb to infection before burning to a crisp in the wreckage on the SkyPort Cacophonous Harmonics. Doubtful Remie would want to hear about it. The creatures were dumb, but that didn’t make their suffering any less unfortunate. Francis still felt a pang of sadness as he remembered the infected Volum’s downturned, pained face.

  “Wild Volum are different. They’re smaller, for a start. Not hybridised, you know. I’ll take you down soon, so you can have a look. Might even see a dargot or two, but I think that’s unlikely. We have to put the fluorescents on to see, and dargots avoid the light. Don’t ask me why; critters are blind as a bat. But they photosynthesise off the Volum, and their light is kind of dim; fluorescents must hurt them. Poor things.” Then—“Tamry, there you are!”

  Remie stopped. Hands planted firmly on her hips, she looked into the boughs of a nearby tree.

  An adult cat sprawled on a branch. She was tabby, with a speckled nose and one ear ragged. Yellow eyes considered Francis and Remie with a look close to boredom.

  “Old girl is probably taking a break from the tykes,” said Remie. “Handful that they are.”

  “What happened to her ear?”

  “Scrapping, probably. Maybe even a dargot. It’s been that way for a few years now.”

  They walked a little longer. Knot swelled in a slow rise. Foot traffic had flattened out a dirt path. The earth was dry.

  When Knot levelled off, Francis saw the land around the few buildings was cut into fields. Simple fences separated them. Common yellow flowers sprouted at the posts.

  People in flowing crimson robes filled the green. Dozens and dozens, Francis counted; men, women, even a few teenagers thrown into the mix. Looms spun fibre.

  “You process the silk,” said Francis.

  “Among other things. It’s more of a first step. We actually sew clothing.”

  “For yourselves?”

  “Oh, no. Well, some. We make what we need, and always have a few things in reserve. That’s why you’re standing here in a robe today. But no, most of the clothes we produce are not for us. We distribute them to less fortunate settlements.”

  “You do this all by hand?”

  “As much as possible,” said Remie. “See—that’s Jenny Harris over there. She lives next door to me. Her group are sewing children’s shirts. Once this week’s bundle is done, we’ll ship them out to Dorad.”

  “This is impressive.”

  “It is! And you’ll be helping!”

  Francis balked. “I—I’m not sure I’d be any good—”

  Remie laughed. “Everyone says that the first time they see what we do here on Knot. But you’ll get it. We’re all helpful here. Come on, let’s introduce you.”

  Remie led Francis into Jenny Harris’s field. Chattering disciples of the church looked up as they passed, and hooked waves—at Remie, and at Francis. Awkwardly, he lifted a hand and smile of his own in return.

  Jenny Harris was a middle-aged woman with thick ginger hair. Like Remie, hers was splashed with grey, though the transition was not as far gone as Remie’s was.

  She sat cross-legged on the grass. A kitten was sprawled in her lap. Every now and again it would lift a paw and bat at her fabric, but Jenny just had to lift it out of reach and the kitten would cease.

  “Good morning, Jenny,” Remie greeted.

  Jenny looked up. “Good morning, Remie. I wondered where you were.”

  “Abraham got Grace to apprehend me as I was setting out. We have a new recruit!”

  “So I see.” Jenny tucked her needle behind her ear, and stuck out a hand. Francis bent forward to shake. “Good to meet you, friend. I’m Jennifer.”

  “Hi, Jennifer. I’m Francis.”

  “Call her Jenny; everyone else does,” said Remie.

  “Reems showing you the ropes, Francis?”

  “She is.”

  “Doing a good job of it?”

  “Very good, yep.”

  “You oughtn’t to doubt me,” said Remie to Jenny with a grin.

  She introduced Francis to the rest of the group. There were seven in all, and Francis had a strong recollection of the struggle it had been remembering everyone’s name when he had joined Ruby’s crew.

  Jenny was accompanied by a blonde-haired woman named Allison. Francis thought for a moment she had a considerable underbite, then realised it was just the way she arranged her face when she was concentrating.

  Beside Allison was a heavyset man called Davey. Next over was his polar opposite: a dwarfish, spindly man who surely weighed no more than half of Francis. This was Luke, Remie said. His handshake was limp and cursory, and he quickly went back to the sleeve he was working on. His tongue stuck out. It almost touched his nose.

  Maya and Sandy came next. They were sisters, in their early twenties. Their resemblance was more than slight; both had the same round face, and the same sweep of chestnut hair. Identical robes served only to accentuate their alikeness.

  Last was a black man named Stanley. He sat very close to a young woman who Remie introduced as Katja. Katja did not greet Francis.

  “She doesn’t speak the language very well,” Remie said. “Stanley is her buddy. He’s teaching her.”

  Stanley muttered something to Katja. She responded, and Stanley repeated. He nodded sideways to Francis.

  Katja put down her sewing and stuck out a hand. Words slow and heavily accented, she forced, “Is good
to meet.”

  Francis shook. “It’s good to meet you too, Katja.”

  “Are you joining us?” Jenny asked when the introductions were done with.

  “We will be shortly,” said Remie. “I said I’d show Francis the Volum first.”

  She led him away, to a trail cutting through the back of the field and through an open gate.

  The dirt path followed a rise. It grew steadily steeper, to the point Francis was sure he would tread on his robes and plant face to ground. He hiked them up just in case.

  The slope drew to a sharp peak, taller than Francis. It was no longer grassy. The dirt path was now just dirt, and the uneven razor point drawing a jagged line through the sky was solid rock.

  “Round here,” said Remie.

  She headed left. Francis followed, eyes scouring.

  “Are the caves down there?”

  “Yes. Don’t get too close,” she warned with a backward look.

  Francis hadn’t, but he stepped sideways to add another two feet of clearance anyway.

  “Isn’t it stable?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s stable. But it’s best to be safe. There’s quite a drop on the other side.”

  Francis blanched. The two feet of clearance grew to three.

  The rise curved, forming what Francis guessed to be a bowl.

  Partway along its edge the rearing rock descended to ground level. Railings had been erected, plus a helpful sign. BE CAREFUL.

  Don’t worry; I plan on it.

  “The steps are here. Take it slow. The morning sun doesn’t reach all the way in.”

  “I thought there were lights?” Francis said.

  “The switch is halfway down.”

  Great design choice.

  Remie guided Francis through the rails.

  Here, on the brink, he saw the sheer scale of the hole. The wide yawn was almost fifty metres across. His eyes tracked into the depths, following patterns in the rock. Fissure-like cracks split the stone. Plants sprouted from them.