by Rob J. Hayes
“What if you do?”
“I have a knife. Always was better with the shorter blades. I’ll catch you up soon.”
Elaina wandered about the laboratory. She trailed her fingers through the layer of dust upon a table, picked up a small bottle of green liquid and shook it to no effect. Finding herself in front of a bookcase, Elaina began scanning the tomes. They were written in a language she somehow recognised despite never having seen it before, but though the characters were familiar she couldn’t piece together what they said.
Moving on from the bookcase, Elaina examined the cupboard full of glass vials. The liquids they contained ranged from clear in colour to all sorts of greens and reds and yellows. Each vial was clearly labelled, but again Elaina couldn’t quite read the language. She understood letters here and there, but the meanings of the words were lost to her. Elaina picked up a scroll from the nearby shelf and carefully unrolled the parchment. This time, whole words made sense. Elaina read as much as she could, and even as she was reading, more and more of the language became apparent. Before long she was able to decipher the whole scroll, even though the language was still very much alien to her. She went back to the bookshelf. The titles on the books all made sense to her now, where before they’d been undecipherable.
Elaina looked back down at the scroll in her hand and read it again, more closely this time. A grin formed unbidden across her face. She looked about for something to write with and found a lump of charcoal from some long-extinguished fire beneath a glass jar. She rolled the scroll out on a table and read for a third time the formulae it detailed, jotting down in the common tongue the ingredients and how to mix them. When she was done, she shoved the scroll into her little pack and leapt up the stairs after Keelin.
Chapter 42 - The Phoenix
Keelin looked in wonder at the construct in front of him. The room was filled with interconnecting machinery, and it all intersected here. A chair sat upon a large metal circle on the floor. The cogs and gears were silent now, the thin layer of dust a testament to their long slumber. Keelin could imagine that once they started up again, the noise would be deafening.
Looking down at the small scrap of leather in his hand, Keelin located what he hoped was the fourth interweave lower lever and pulled it upwards. A loud clunk sounded, but he couldn’t locate its source.
The creature that had approached Keelin with information about HwoyonDo and the Observatory had been very specific about the city’s location and the design of the Observatory, and with instructions on using the great machine. He’d also been very specific on the consequences should the instructions not be followed. Keelin imagined what his insides would look like cooked, and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Locating the second low-polar lever, Keelin pulled it downwards. A strange humming noise started up, filling the entire room. Keelin felt his stomach turn over, and his hands shook just a little.
“This it?” Elaina said loudly as she leapt up the last two stairs. “What the fuck is that noise?”
“This is it. I think it’s meant to make the noise.”
“You think?”
“Aye. Think and hope. Find anything valuable down there?”
“Not a thing,” Elaina said. “Lots of books and whatnot. Couldn’t understand a damned word though. Bastards could have at least used the common tongue, eh?”
“Mhm,” Keelin agreed, barely listening. He pulled another lever and several machines stirred to life, cogs turning and pistons pumping, and the noise quickly became oppressive. A rapid clicking sounded from somewhere, setting Keelin’s nerves on edge.
“Are you sure about this, Stillwater?” Elaina all but shouted.
Keelin shrugged and moved over to the chair. It was small, metal, with some sort of machinery all around it and not a cushion in sight. Keelin lowered himself onto the uncomfortable seat and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Keelin had been hunting Arbiter Prin for a long time, but all he was really hunting was a name, and he needed more than that. He remembered the Arbiter as hollow-eyed and deep-voiced, but the man’s face eluded him.
He changed tactics and brought back the memory of his sister’s death. There was no way he could forget that; it was etched into his very being.
It was night; the moon was a sliver and the stars were out in force. Derran had gone to bed early, exhausted after his interrogation at the hands of Arbiter Prin. Keelin had been interrogated twice, and each time he’d been left shaken and weary. The pyre had been built up in such a short time. Neither Keelin nor his mother had realised it was happening until Leesa was dragged out of bed by their father.
Keelin followed after them, begging his father not to let it happen, but he was too small and his voice carried no weight. Leesa was crying. Keelin’s little sister was young, but she was smarter than all of them. She knew what was happening and she didn’t go quietly. She screamed and she struggled, but she was so small and so weak, and their father was tall and strong. He carried her to the pyre and let the Arbiter bind her to the stake. Keelin remembered seeing tears in his father’s steel-grey eyes, the first and only time he’d ever seen the man cry.
Keelin tried to run to his sister, to free her from the stake she was tied to. A big guardsman took hold of him and held him tightly in a bear hug, dragging him away, far enough that he couldn’t interfere. Not so far that he wouldn’t see his little sister burn.
Derran burst out of the manor. Keelin’s older brother was still growing and gangly, but he was powerful nonetheless and had their father’s imposing, cold fury. Keelin remembered Derran and their father arguing while Arbiter Prin lit the pyre.
Keelin screamed for his brother to do something, and Derran grabbed hold of their father’s sword and charged towards the Arbiter. Their father picked up a stone and launched it at Derran; the missile struck hard, hitting him on the back of the head, and the boy went down, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Leesa started to scream as the flames reached her, and Keelin remembered that screaming going on for a long time. His mother collapsed, sobbing and broken. His father tended to the unconscious form of his eldest son. All around Keelin, the guards and house staff moved away, unable to watch as the youngest member of the Fowl family was burned alive. Keelin couldn’t turn away. The guard still held him tight, and all he could do was watch and listen to his little sister’s screams.
When Leesa went quiet, they all knew it was over. Arbiter Prin approached Keelin’s father and they talked for a while. Keelin had never seen his father look so deflated before. He’d brought the Arbiter upon them and he was responsible for the death of his own daughter. Keelin knew his father had never forgiven himself for that, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about the man.
Keelin remembered the Arbiter looking directly at him, and the guard’s grip grew tighter still. Prin walked close. Close enough for Keelin to see every pockmark on the man’s face. Close enough for him to smell the vanilla on his breath…
A machine above Keelin whirred into life. He opened his eyes. Elaina was standing nearby, panic written all over her face.
“What?” Keelin said, afraid to move now that he’d finally got the machine working.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
Keelin ignored her and focused on his memory of Arbiter Prin, fixating on the man’s face, the sound of his voice, the smell of his breath. The noises grew louder and louder, whirring and clunking, clicking and buzzing. The large metal circle on the floor in front of Keelin started to glow a bright gold that grew lighter and lighter until it was white and painful to look at.
Still Keelin kept his mind fixed on Arbiter Prin’s face, voice, and smell.
Elaina opened her mouth and shouted, but he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the machine, and soon the circle of light in front of him became so bright he had to shut his eyes for fear it might blind him.
Keelin focused on his image of Prin, trying desperately to block out everything else. He was shaking. Or perhaps
it was the room shaking – he couldn’t tell, only that something was definitely shaking.
A hand grabbed hold of Keelin’s arm, and his eyes shot open just as Elaina pulled him out of the chair and threw him aside, jumping on top of him at the same time. They rolled together, away from the chair and the circle of light.
The floor shook and the sounds started to slow, fading away. Keelin stared into Elaina’s terrified face, and she stared back. She was sweating, wide-eyed, her breath coming short and fast.
“I don’t think it was meant to do that,” Elaina said after the noise had quietened down enough that she could be heard.
The chair Keelin had been sitting on was gone, buried beneath a pile of cogs and metal shards. He was fairly certain he wouldn’t have survived the burial.
“Thank you,” he said, looking back at Elaina. Her gaze was fixed on something over Keelin’s shoulder.
The light in the circle had faded to nothing, and lying in the centre of that circle was a pile of scorched bones.
“Is that…” Elaina started. “Was that him?”
Keelin rolled onto his feet and approached the bones. He shrugged.
“I thought you said this thing would find him.”
“Powerful magics mixed with lost technology.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Apparently it was designed to find a person and then bend the world to bring them here.” Elaina hit him hard on the arm, and he hissed in pain.
“You should know better than to play with magic, Stillwater,” she growled. “Was he already like this?”
Keelin nodded. “I think so. Maybe that’s why the machine, um, broke. Prin was already dead.”
“You sure it’s him?”
With a shrug, Keelin sank down onto the floor. He stared at the bones. He’d spent almost half his life searching for Arbiter Prin. He’d dedicated so much of his time and his resources into his vengeance, and now, right at the end, it had been snatched away from him. He felt empty, hollowed out and numb. Emotions warred within him, but they were all muted by the loss he felt so strongly. He’d lost his purpose.
“Been a long time coming.” Elaina sank down beside him. “Hatred of that man has kept you focused for so long. Must be like losing a friend, almost, eh?”
“He was never my friend.”
“Wasn’t talking about the man. I was talking about the hatred.”
“I can still hate him.”
Elaina sighed. “It’ll fade. It’s hard to keep a grudge against the dead. At some point you realise there ain’t nothing left to hate, and then it’s gone.”
She was right. Keelin didn’t want to admit it, but Elaina was right. He wanted to keep hating Prin, but the truth of it was, he couldn’t. The moment he’d realised the Arbiter was dead, that vengeance would never be his, Keelin had nothing left to give the man.
“I’ve spent most of my life chasing this bastard,” he said. “I hid it from everyone, but I was always searching for him. I’ve risked myself, my ship, and my crew, time and time again. I’ve lost good men in chasing down leads and they never even knew why. I’ve lost another two just getting here, and what for? A pile of old bones.”
Keelin felt tears stinging his eyes, and he wiped them away on the sleeve of his jacket.
“I think you mean you risked my ship,” Elaina said with a friendly shove.
Keelin laughed, but the mirth died in his throat.
“Ain’t gonna say you’ve done right,” Elaina said. “Mostly because you ain’t done right. Folk followed you and you led them into danger, got some of them killed even. Well, fuck. You’ve only gone and done what every captain has. The thing is though, are you gonna sit here and whine about it? Maybe get a few others killed because of it? Or are you going to get up off your arse and get your crew out of this haunted fucking city?”
Keelin let out a bark of bitter laughter. “To what end? I’ve lived every day for the past… I don’t know, longer than I can remember. All to the end of hunting down this… this corpse. I don’t…”
“Well that’s a load of shit. If all you wanted was this, you wouldn’t have saved all those people from Sev’relain. You set up a new town with Morrass.”
“All to get his charts.”
“What about my da? You convinced him to side with Morrass. That weren’t for the charts. Probably made getting them harder. What about that stunt ya pulled with the slavers guild? Was that for the charts?”
Keelin shook his head.
“So now you have to make a decision. Sit here and wallow over the not-so-recent death of the man you hated, or pick yaself up and apply the energy ya spent hunting him into something else. It just so happens I reckon we could use that energy in making Morrass’ dream for the isles work.”
Elaina stood and dusted herself off.
“Thing is, Stillwater, I intend to be queen of the isles, and I’d rather have you at my side than that slimy fuck Drake.”
Keelin considered the possibility. Sitting on a throne, in charge of a kingdom. Didn’t sound too appealing. Though sitting next to Elaina did. There was just one problem with the picture – Keelin didn’t want to betray his fellow captain. He actually quite liked Drake, and he believed in what they were trying to accomplish.
One thing was certain though – Elaina was right. Sitting around moping wasn’t about to solve their most immediate problem, and that was getting back to the ship without losing anyone else. His grief could wait.
Keelin stood and picked up a large rock shaken loose by the machine’s death throes. He approached the scorched remains, and for a long time he stood there, staring down at the blackened bones of the man who had been his focus for so long. Then Keelin raised the rock and brought it down on Prin’s skull.
Chapter 43 - The Phoenix
Aimi squinted, holding her torch high. She still couldn’t see all the way to the ceiling, and she couldn’t see the source of the scratching. Smithe had insisted the noise was just rats running about in the walls. Aimi wasn’t so sure. There was still that crawling feeling between her shoulders that said they were being watched.
“Found some steps,” Jotin said. “They lead down.”
The rest of the expedition crowded around the small doorway and peered down into the dark. Aimi kept her torch held high, determined to find the source of her discomfort.
“Go on then,” Smithe said. “Down ya go.”
“Fuck that, Smithe,” Jotin whined.
“You forgetting who’s in charge again?”
“I don’t give a fuck if that bastard soul-sucker Reowyn himself is in charge. There ain’t no fucking way I’m going down there. Place is creepy enough already without adding being trapped underground.”
“If you’re so set on seeing what’s down there, why don’t you go?” Jolan chimed in.
“Fine,” Smithe growled. The surly quartermaster snatched a torch from Jotin and tossed it down the steps. Aimi heard it bounce once, twice, and a third time, followed by oppressive silence.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” Smithe said.
“Reckon you might be right, mate,” Jotin said.
Aimi glanced down the stairway. Just twelve steps down, the torched rested on level ground. At least, it looked level – it was fairly hard to tell with all the movement.
“What is that?” she said, squinting at the shifting floor.
“Bugs,” Alfer said. “Might be best we give this one up. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Beside them, Jotin turned away from the stairwell. “Fuck!” he screamed.
Aimi slapped him on the arm for shrieking in her ear, then froze when she saw what Jotin was looking at. A lone figure stood in one of the praying squares, its features hidden in the darkness. Whoever it was, they were too short to be Kebble.
“Who the fuck are you?” demanded Smithe, taking a single step forward.
The figure tilted its head slightly, and Aimi caught sight of a tail of hair tied behind it. “Feather?” She stepped past Smithe. “Feather,
is that you?”
The figure moved into the torchlight, its feet silent on the stone floor. Feather looked weary, his face smeared with blood and his eyes distant. His clothes were ripped in places and red gashes showed through the holes. Wherever the boy had been, he’d obviously been through a lot.
Aimi started to rush forwards but was yanked back by Smithe just as Feather leapt at her, slashing with claw-like hands. She stumbled, thrown off balance by the quartermaster, who let go of her and stepped in to meet Feather. The two grappled, and Smithe howled in pain as Feather’s fingers dug into his arms.
Feather was hissing and spitting like the evil cat that lived aboard The Phoenix, and Smithe was struggling just to stop the smaller man clawing his eyes out. Alfer and Jolan rushed forwards and each grabbed hold of one of Feather’s arms, pulling him off the quartermaster.
“Fuck!” Smithe yelled, waving his bleeding arms. “Lad, I don’t know what’s in your hold, but you’re gonna wish ya didn’t come back.”
Smithe drew a long knife from his belt and stalked forwards. Before Aimi could stop him, the quartermaster stabbed Feather in the chest six times. Alfer and Jolan danced away as Feather dropped to the floor, moaning and writhing.
“Bit of overkill, don’t you think, mate?” Alfer said sourly.
“Anybody else see his fingers?” Jolan said.
“I felt ’em,” Smithe said, leaning in for a closer look.
Aimi held her torch close, and promptly lost her stomach. Feather’s fingers had been gnawed away to the bone, leaving only sharpened claws behind. She finished throwing up, and Pavel moved to her side, muttering something low and soothing. She shrugged the priest away.
The others were crowded around Feather’s wriggling form, keeping their distance as they watched the boy’s death throes.
“My vote is for getting the fuck out of this place,” Aimi said, spitting out the foul acidic taste in her mouth.
There was a unanimous round of agreement, and the whole expedition was soon making its way to the temple’s exit, leaving the dying boy behind to bleed out his last.