Or at least, that was what they said.
Privately, both Rémy and Thaddeus had the sense that at least some, if not all, of the people that they had met along the way were hiding something. None of them wanted to talk about Desai or where he might be, as if they were scared of what might happen if they were overheard. As for the Sapphire Cutlass, well — mention those words and people might as well have turned to stone. Which, as far as the crew of the airship went, made the search even more important. It was unfortunate, then, that they had run out of ideas as to where to go next. India was a big, big place to search, even with the help of a device as miraculous as a ruby-powered airship.
Rémy absently opened her bag and took out her puzzle box, turning it around in her hands as she looked at the haphazard route they had followed to date. The last village they had visited, situated right on the edges of the jungle, had been so small that it had been immediately apparent that it wouldn’t take them long to find out what they needed to know. The place had been made up of fewer than twenty small houses, and as far as Rémy could make out, was mostly populated by the very young and the very old. Perhaps anyone who was able to work was out in the fields, although the crops had seemed sparse and unkept as the shadow of the airship had drifted across them.
The people had been terrified of the airship, which wasn’t surprising. J had landed it a little way away and the group had walked in rather than touching down directly beside the houses. Desai was not there, and according to everyone they had shown Thaddeus’s written questions to — the entire village — he never had been. Polite as they all were, it had been very clear that the people had just wanted them to go.
“So, have you had any more luck with that?”
Thaddeus’s question jolted Rémy out of her thoughts and she found him nodding at the puzzle box.
“No,” Rémy sighed, twisting one of its small outer panels so that a hinge folded in on itself. “Every time I think I have made progress, voila! Another hinge appears that I cannot open without undoing what came before.” She made a sound of annoyance in her throat. “Truly, I am beginning to think that the old woman was just playing with me.”
Thaddeus smiled, his fingers brushing hers as he took the puzzle from her and toyed with it. They had been trying to open it ever since they had left France, tantalized by the thought that whatever was inside might help Rémy locate her fabled lost brother.
“Don’t give up,” he told her. “Not that I think you ever would. Rémy Brunel always sees things through to the end, no matter how difficult the journey.”
Rémy looked at him. Somewhere over the course of the past few months, things had changed between them. Perhaps it was just that she no longer had her opal to tell her his every thought, although Rémy somehow felt it was more than that. Things were easier between them. They were closer — they fit together better. They understood each other, and where they didn’t, they at least tried to.
Maybe this is just what it feels like when you really love someone, she thought. Maybe this is what happens when you find the person you should m—
“What?” Thaddeus asked her with a laugh, as she continued to gaze at him, lost in her thoughts.
Rémy shook her head, a little shocked at where her mind had been leading her.
Thaddeus reached out and stroked his fingers along her jaw. “Come here,” he murmured, pulling her gently toward him.
Her lips had almost touched his when there was a loud bang. A fraction of a second later, something thudded into the tree behind them, just inches above Thaddeus’s head, splinters of sharp bark exploding from the impact.
{ Chapter 3}
THE JEWELED MAN
Rémy and Thaddeus were on their feet in a second. Even as the sound of the explosion faded in their ears, another took its place, and this time Thaddeus felt the rush of air as a bullet whistled past his cheek. From somewhere unseen, Dita began to scream. The sound echoed around the clearing, reverberating off the yellow stone walls of the ruined temple. Primed for flight, scanning the edges of the forest, he saw movement and knew that something had found them.
“Soldiers!” Rémy gasped.
Men poured out of the jungle, lithe and quick, moving toward them like shadows — they were halfway across the clearing before Thaddeus and Rémy had even had a chance to react. Thaddeus set off for the airship at a flat run, knowing that Rémy was right beside him.
Thaddeus glanced over his shoulder. The men were still coming, rushing at them like a square-jawed tide. They were all huge: bronze skin, their chins densely bearded, their shoulders broad. They wore blue and white: jewel-bright turquoise for the pagris wrapped around their heads and the loose trousers over their legs, purest white for the shirts that were fastened about their waists with wide gold cummerbunds. They moved in two waves: the first carrying huge, ornately curved swords, the second armed with rifles.
They were like no soldiers Thaddeus had ever seen, but that didn’t make them any less terrifying.
From the corner of his eye, Thaddeus saw Rémy leap up one of the temple’s crushed walls, scattering splinters of stone dust in her wake. Sunlight glinted on silver as a blade slashed after her, missing her by inches. Rémy jumped, twisting in the air as if on an imaginary trapeze, turning a somersault and then lashing out one leg to catch her attacker in the jaw before landing squarely back on two feet. Thaddeus didn’t see what happened to the swordsman — he had his own worries as another of the soldiers lunged toward him, his vicious blade swinging directly for Thaddeus’s head.
The Englishman threw himself forward, dropping to his knees and using the momentum to crash into his attacker’s legs — nowhere near as elegant a move as Rémy’s, but just as effective. Thaddeus was still no prizefighter, but he’d grown fitter during their journey in the airship. The craft was heavy and required muscle to keep her on course, muscle that he put to good use now. Their attackers were bigger than either Rémy or Thaddeus, but Thaddeus wasn’t intending to fight. All they needed to do was get to the airship.
He skidded under another blade that flew toward him, leaning backward so that it passed over his chin in a curve that, had it been an inch lower, would have cut his throat. Thaddeus sprang back to his feet, glancing sideways to see where Rémy was. She’d vaulted the second wall, having leveled another swordsman. Thaddeus could see the huge man in the act of stumbling back to the ground even as Little Bird flew out of his clutches.
There came another scream from Dita.
“I will go for her,” Rémy shouted as she dodged another soldier.
“No — Rémy — wait!”
Thaddeus’s shout came far too late to stop her — Rémy had already dropped out of sight over the far side of the temple wall. Thaddeus had no time to worry as another two soldiers came at him. Breathing hard, lungs burning with effort, he sidestepped them by feigning a lunge to the right before dodging left. By the time they had corrected their footing he was past them and almost at the airship.
“J,” he bellowed over the strange silence of the attack. “Get the airship up!”
“’Ere,” said the boy, appearing on the ramp, “what’s —”
“Attack,” Thaddeus said through gasping breaths. “Get her up!”
J saw the soldiers, his ruddy face paling. “Where’s Dita?”
“Rémy’s gone to get her. J — quickly!”
J, looking stunned, threw him the small axe they used to sever the airship’s guide ropes. Thaddeus ran to the first one, swinging his arm and bringing the blade down across it, not even attempting to untie the knot. It cut cleanly, flicking into the air like something alive. The airship immediately began to lift. Thaddeus ran for the next tether.
“Wait,” J cried, “we got to wait for the others!”
“We will,” Thaddeus shouted back, already at the second rope, arm swinging back. “We’ll pick them up, but we have to —�
�
Just like that, the soldiers were on them. Thaddeus dodged as one of them sliced at him with his sword, the blade coming so close that he heard the whistle as it only just missed him. He fought back, swinging the axe and cracking it into his attacker’s jaw, but he might as well have been fighting a forest fire with a glass of water. He stumbled backward, crashing into one of the temple’s crumbling walls, the pain of connecting with hard rock jarring him badly. A second soldier came at him as the first regrouped, his face a cold mask of determination. Behind him were more men, surging closer by the second, all with their weapons drawn and ready. Thaddeus ducked another blade, swinging wildly at the airship’s third guide rope. The rope came free as he parried a fresh blow and dived beneath yet another cruel blade.
The airship swung around above his head, nose still tethered to the ground but the rest of her straining toward the sky. Thaddeus had the sudden image of it leaving without them — drifting away into the sky without her crew, to sail the skies of the world alone. But that couldn’t — must not — happen. If it did, it would mean the rest of them would all be captured or, worse, killed. He narrowly avoided another attack and then lunged forward, throwing all his weight at his nearest assailant. Caught off guard for a split second, the soldier stumbled backward, his head connecting with the brightly painted Union Jack emblazoned on the underside of the airship’s hull. The man’s eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
Thaddeus hardly had time to take a breath before he was attacked again. This time he thought he was done for, but something dropped out of the sky, yelling like a banshee. It knocked his assailant to the ground and he scrambled away. Thaddeus’s savior was J, who had jumped from the airship’s wildly tilting ramp onto the brute’s back.
Thaddeus grabbed a handful of J’s collar and dragged him away. “Get back on board!” he shouted. “I’m going to cut the last rope!”
“I ain’t leaving Dita!”
“Neither am I! Rémy will get her!”
J squirmed away from him and then, before Thaddeus had a chance to stop him, started running. Thaddeus, cursing, watched J dodge one of the men and realized he was out of time. They had to keep hold of the airship, or they were done for — it was their only advantage.
He’d left the guide rope closest to the ramp until last, but still — cutting it without anyone on board was risky. With no one to control it, the airship could drift away into the endless blue Indian sky, but Thaddeus had no choice. He severed the final rope and then heaved himself up onto the flapping ramp, kicking out at another soldier on his way.
The airship leapt into the air, free of the ground at last. Thaddeus dragged the ramp up and ran to the controls, bringing the craft around hard a-port to stop her nose from smashing against the temple walls. For just a second, Thaddeus found himself face-to-face with a many-armed diva as she smiled at him from the stone archway into which she’d been carved hundreds of years before. Then the airship turned, tipping away from the temple and toward the jungle.
Below them the men were watching, evidently awed by the sight of such a flying machine. Thaddeus ignored them, searching for signs of Rémy, Dita, and J. With any luck, he could whisk all of them from the ground — the guide ropes were still hanging below the ship, which was as close as he could get to a ladder at this moment.
Then he caught sight of Dita and J, and Thaddeus’s heart sank. The two children had both been caught. They struggled in the clutches of their captors, but it was clear that neither of them would get away that easily. Of Rémy, though, there was no sign.
There was more movement at the edge of the clearing. The foliage moved, rippling as if disturbed by a breeze. Then it parted, and someone new emerged. Another man, who sat astride a grand white horse, which was dressed even more spectacularly than the soldiers. Jewels of every hue glinted in the creature’s braided mane and along the leather of its harness. Its rider, though, outdid them all. He too was in silk of blue and gold, but the very fabric of his garments seemed to be spun through with diamonds so that he shone like a cut gem. His head was wrapped and adorned in a sumptuous array of jewels that glinted in the afternoon sun.
This man held his chin high, looking straight at Thaddeus through the window of the airship. He rode to meet it, urging his horse forward as if facing off with an enemy in battle, and the animal was so used to his command that he only required one hand on the reigns. With the other, he gestured to the two men holding Dita and J without even turning to look. The children were wrestled forward, still squirming, until they stood beside the horse. Then they were forced to their knees.
Thaddeus’s blood ran cold as he saw the men’s swords leveled at the throats of his two young friends.
“You will listen to me, commander of this ship of the air,” came the man’s faint voice, filtering through to Thaddeus, safe in the airship above. “You will follow me and my men, and you will surrender it to us. If you do not, the lives of your two companions here will be forfeit. Understand that I will cut their throats without hesitation should you fail to comply.”
Without waiting for a reply, the man on horseback waved his arm again. Instantly, the soldiers formed up in a column of three lines. One more signed command from their leader and they all set off, the rider leading them into the jungle, dragging Dita and J along with them.
Thaddeus had no choice.
The airship followed.
{Chapter 4}
A JUNGLE PALACE
The soldiers marched for hours, until the slivered moon was high in the sky and Rémy could barely see through the shadows that surrounded her. She kept her eyes on the airship, flying low above the tree line, blocking out a trail of stars as it went. She was beginning to wonder whether the jeweled man and his troops were planning to march all the way to Pondicherry when a shout echoed through the foliage — a sharp order sent back from the front.
Rémy realized with a start that they had obviously reached their destination. She’d been so focused on keeping track of the airship and not making a sound over the uneven ground that she’d missed what was ahead of them. There, reaching above the dark mass of jungle, she could see walls looming into the sky, a luminous mass of white in the moonlight. They rose high above the forest — higher even, Rémy thought, than where the highest seat in the Cirque de la Lune’s Big Top had been, though not as high as her trapeze had flown on those nights that she had performed in front of the crowds. The wall stretched for a long way in either direction. In the center and on the ends of the wall were built large, square towers with domed roofs that were shining softly in the moonlight as if they were coated with silver. Beneath the domes, standing stiffly alert at their posts as they looked out over the forest, were soldiers armed with rifles.
Another shout, and the column halted so swiftly that Rémy almost walked into the back of the two men making up the rear. She darted behind the nearest tree, peering out as a loud creaking sound echoed into the night. Beneath the sentry post in the center of the wall, illuminated in the yellow glow from two huge torches pinioned either side of them, were two massive doors. Rémy watched as they slowly opened, and even from where she hid, she could see the glint of the metal spikes that studded the carved dark wood. There came another shout and the soldiers, led by the jeweled man on his magnificent horse, marched forward beneath the arch.
The airship lifted over the wall, and then dropped out of sight. The doors creaked again as they closed behind the last of the troops, shutting Rémy out — although not before she caught a glimpse of the airship, touching down amid the torrent of soldiers.
Careful to avoid drawing the gaze of the sentries, Rémy slipped closer. The jungle pressed right up against the walls, which seemed strange to her. Surely the best way of keeping such a place secure was to make sure that no one could approach without being seen, but as it was, Rémy made it all the way to one cold, white wall. When she reached it, however, she re
alized that the walls were not as featureless as she had at first thought. They were peppered with holes and cracks of varying sizes; the fractures pockmarked the surface of the wall with what looked like delicate lace in the moonlight, but that in daylight probably displayed themselves more like a series of ugly scars. They were the signs of fierce battle — each hole had been made by a weapon — by rifles, and in some cases, small canons.
This place was old and crumbling. The troops that had attacked the airship’s crew — whoever they were — were defending a relic that looked as if it should have been abandoned years ago. Still, Rémy thought, standing at the base of the wall and looking up it, good for me … She checked the sentries in their posts. They were still staring out over the forest, and the light cast by the torches at the gate did not reach far enough to touch her shadowed spot. Rémy took a breath and began to climb. Within minutes, the handholds provided by the wall’s battle scars had helped her reach the top. Rémy crouched there, barely even out of breath, her black clothes as dark as the shadows around her, and looked down into a well of golden light.
She’d expected a fort of some kind — an ugly, bare patch of earth crammed with low barrack buildings for the soldiers. But what Rémy saw was anything but ugly, even though it was as crumbling and ancient as the walls on which she now crouched. Within stood a palace of white stone, gleaming in the moonlight like one of the gems on its owner’s hand. Yes, some of the columns were crumbling with age, and there were signs of rifle strikes among the ornate carvings that decked its windows and its many roofs. Its domes — far larger than the ones over the clueless sentries’ heads — were dull gray instead of silver, but its beauty still took Rémy’s breath away. She wondered how many rooms there were within its inner walls. From here she couldn’t even count the windows, and there were at least four floors. It was magnificent, despite or perhaps even because of its age.
The Sapphire Cutlass Page 2