If they got out of here. Which, as he looked around, Thaddeus realized would be nigh-on impossible.
The cavern was a rough oval shape, so large that even with the torches burning their brightest, there were parts of it that were still in darkness. Into its walls had been hewn huge, curved alcoves — eight in total, Thaddeus counted — and in each alcove stood a massive, intricately carved statue. Each one of the huge stone figures depicted the same woman, her face contorted into a terrifying grimace of abject rage. Her fingers bore talons instead of nails, and around her feet wove stone snakes. The carving was so detailed that despite her inhuman size, Thaddeus could almost believe that at any moment, the carved woman would step out of her resting place.
The cages in which Thaddeus and the others were trapped hung from a large iron hook in the ceiling, giving him a good view of the whole place. Thaddeus looked around carefully, fixing it in his mind as he searched for a way out. The cavern was on four levels. Below them was a pit, its depths hidden from view by shadows. This pit had been carved beside a raised stone stage that formed one end of the cavern. A narrow channel had been sunk into the raised rock, leading from near the front of the stage and disappearing back through an archway in the cavern wall at its rear. Opposite where the prisoners swung, at the far side of the stage, a wide, sloping stone path lead up to another archway that stood between two of the massive statues.
Squinting through the flickering gloom, Thaddeus realized that the chains from which their cages dangled fed through the hoop above them and ran across the cavern’s ceiling to a winch beside this archway. The winch meant that the cages could be raised or lowered, so if they wanted to get down safely, that was what they needed to reach. From the mouth of this smaller arch, a narrow ledge circled the cavern, where the burning torches had been lit to flicker at the feet of the huge statues. Thaddeus turned awkwardly, following where it went, and saw, at the opposite end of the cave, another smaller entrance with a narrower sloping path. This path led down to the cavern’s main level.
Thaddeus finally let his eyes drop to what filled the space between them and any hope of freedom. Arranged in tight rows that edged the pit and stretched from one side of the cavern to the other were hundreds of people. They all stood, chanting, swaying slightly as if in some kind of trance as they stared wild-eyed at Thaddeus, J, Dita, and Desai. Their faces were the fearsome ghosts that had circled them in the mists: black around the sockets of their eyes, white in the hollows of their cheeks. The men were naked to the waist, wearing loose trousers in a pale, shimmering blue. Each wore a belt that seemed as if it were made of metal that encased his hips and stomach like armor, and into each of these was mounted the sheath of a curved, wide-bladed sword. On these men’s chests was a tattoo — a cutlass just like the ones they carried in their belts, crossing over the left nipple where a hard blue stone glittered as it reflected the light of the burning torches. Their arms, all as thick and strong as tree trunks, were clad in impenetrable armor right up to the elbows.
The women — there were as many as there were men — were clad in armored breastplates and wore the same trousers. They too had swords, and each of them bore a tattoo on her left arm, the sapphires glinting and winking, blinding Thaddeus with a thousand pinpricks of starlight until he felt utterly mesmerized by the sight.
The cult of the Sapphire Cutlass.
{Chapter 18}
A JOURNEY BY NIGHT
The airship cut through the night, passing swiftly over the dark landscape like a cloud pushed by the winds of a storm. Rémy was impressed with how easily Kai and Upala had become comfortable with the motion of the craft in the air, but then they spent most of their time bobbing up and down in a ship on the ocean. Perhaps, after all, sailing through the air did not feel so very different.
Upala, apparently too restless to sit down, roamed about the cabin, opening cupboards and sifting through what she found there. Kai sat up front beside Rémy. He seemed to be fascinated with the airship’s controls, watching closely as she made each adjustment. She wondered whether her brother had half a mind to learn its workings on his own so that he could discard her without keeping to their bargain, but she tried to push the thought away. After all, if you couldn’t trust your own kin, who could you trust? And, advisable or not, she couldn’t help but want to trust Kai. There was something about him Rémy had warmed to, despite his splinter-sharp glances and occasionally harsh tones. Here on the airship, for example, he was more of a boy than a bloodthirsty pirate, simply fascinated by everything around him. It made Rémy wish even more than she already did that she’d known him as they had both grown up.
“So, Rémy Brunel,” Kai said, leaning back in his chair and crooking one leg to rest his foot on the edge of the control panel. “How did you end up traveling the world with a policeman instead of a circus?”
Rémy smiled. “Thaddeus isn’t a policeman any more.”
Her brother raised his eyebrows. “Even so. A thief and a man of the law? Seems a union most would think unlikely to succeed.”
She lifted her chin, staring out into the darkness. “I’m not a thief.”
Kai leaned forward to look at her more closely, elbow on his knee. “Perhaps not now,” he said, “but I still remember the stories of the circus our father told me as a child. No one could work under that cur Gustave for so long without being put to work.”
Rémy grimaced. “Well. That was a long time ago.”
Kai leaned back again with a shrug. “Perhaps. So, this Thaddeus Rec. You trust him?”
“With my life.”
“It’s not your life I’m concerned about. It’s your freedom. And mine. I’m a wanted man, little sister. How do I know this isn’t some trap to finally put me into the hands of the British?”
“If you really thought that, you wouldn’t be here,” Rémy retorted.
“Perhaps I like a challenge?”
“Thaddeus is not working for the British.”
“So he’s come all the way here to India to search out an evil that may or may not exist, simply out of the goodness of his heart?”
Rémy leaned forward to make an adjustment to their heading, feeling her brother’s piercing gaze on her back. “He came because he knew it was the right thing to do. And … because I asked him to.”
“Ahh,” Kai said. “Now we reach the crux of it. Did you lure him away from his good principles, little sister?”
“Thaddeus would never abandon his principles,” Rémy retorted. “He is too good a man for that.”
Kai raised an eyebrow. “Is that so. How did you two meet?”
Rémy didn’t say anything for a moment, and then was forced to admit, “He was trying to protect a jewel that I was trying to steal.”
Kai laughed softly. “And yet here you are, little sister. Free as a bird.”
“I helped him return it, in the end, and I haven’t stolen anything since.” Rémy turned and looked at him. “I will never steal anything again, because of him. I will never want to steal anything again, because of him. Which actually makes him a rather good policeman, don’t you think?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Rémy detected something in Kai’s eyes, just for a moment — something like a flash of sadness that was there for no more than a second before melting beneath a wolfish smile.
There was a clatter behind them. Rémy turned to see that Upala had wrenched most of their meager belongings out onto the floor.
“What are you looking for?” she exclaimed. “We don’t have anything worth stealing, you know.”
Upala made a scornful noise in her throat and kicked a pile of clothes out of her way. “I do not want your rags,” she growled. “We need weapons! Where are your weapons?”
“We don’t have any. We can’t afford them.”
“Agh!” Upala threw up her arms in exasperation. “Well, don’t expect me to give you one of
my swords,” she said. “You can use those little hands and feet of yours again, for all I care, anukarana!” With that, Upala threw herself down on one of the small bunks at the back of the cabin, her arms crossed dramatically over her face.
Rémy turned to look at Kai, who was watching Upala with another grin on his face.
“I wish she wouldn’t call me that,” Rémy said quietly.
Kai flicked her a glance, accompanied by a slight shrug. “It is as close to a term of endearment as you can expect from Upala.”
“Oh?” Rémy said. “In that case, what does she call you? ‘The Ugly Real One’?”
Kai threw back his head and laughed. “Perhaps she should, at that.”
Rémy couldn’t help but smile at her brother’s laughing face. “And you two?” she asked, a moment later. “How did you two meet?”
Kai spun back to the control panel, looking out into the darkness as his smile faded. “I found her in the wreckage of a village plundered by the raja’s men,” he said quietly. “She’d never held a sword before that day. She picked one up and fought like a tiger, but still she couldn’t save her family, or her friends. She stood in a ring of blood and bodies, some the raja’s men, the rest the people she loved. She thought we were there to take more from her, and she would have killed us too. I asked her to join us instead. That was four years ago. She’s been with us ever since, and that tiger has never left her, not in all that time.” He lifted one hand to his temple, rubbing at an imaginary spot there. “I don’t think it ever will. She is all tiger now. She is all terror.”
“Not all,” Rémy observed quietly. “I have seen the way she looks at you.”
She saw a brief flash of red coloring her brother’s neck as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Don’t let her hear you say that,” he advised. “She’d have your guts for garters. Besides, there is no time in the life of a pirate for that kind of nonsense.”
Rémy was about to point out that you have to make time for such things, when something loomed out of the darkness ahead of them. It was the huge, jutting rock promontory where the airship and her original occupants had stopped for the night.
“We are not far away now,” she said, leaning forward as they flew over the outcrop. “We will reach the valley soon enough.”
Kai leaned forward alongside her, cursing under his breath at the night outside. “When I meet your friend J, I shall ask him why he did not put lights on the outside of this thing.”
Rémy grinned. “Ach,” she said, “where’s your sense of adventure, big brother?”
He glanced at her, amused. “I am saving it for when I need it most.”
Rémy’s smile faded as she banked the airship and headed for the valley, which even in the darkness surrounding them, showed up like a slash of deeper black on their horizon. At its head, the mountain pricked the night sky, its jagged, rocky edges as immortal as the legend that told of its creation.
“When I left the others, I landed outside the valley for fear of alerting its inhabitants,” Rémy told Kai, “but now …”
Kai nodded at her unspoken words. “Now, speed is our best advantage, not secrecy. Perhaps you are right. And perhaps the night will conceal us long enough to land.”
“Assuming,” came Upala’s dry voice, speaking so unexpectedly close to Rémy’s ear that it made her jump, “that we can see well enough to find a spot to land.”
Upala had crossed the cabin floor in complete silence, and Rémy found herself wishing for that kind of stealth. “I will do my best,” she muttered as the valley edge grew ever closer.
The pirate woman dropped something small but heavy into Rémy’s lap. It was the little axe that usually hung beside the ramp to sever the airship’s guide ropes. “It is not a sword,” Upala shrugged. “But it is better than nothing. Stick it into that belt of yours, anukarana.”
Rémy did as she was told, taking her eyes off the controls for a moment as she slipped the axe into her utility belt. When she looked back up at the darkness again, something caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
Through the window, moving from the west, was a line of yellow lights. They were headed for the valley, just as the airship was — a procession of flaming torches, moving as if they were being carried on horseback.
Kai stood and leaned over the controls, peering out to get a better look. “Soldiers, perhaps?” he asked. “The raja’s men?”
Rémy bit her lip. “They did follow us when we fled the palace. He wanted the airship.”
Kai looked at her over his shoulder with a frown. “Well, he’s not getting it. It’s mine.”
“Don’t worry,” Rémy told him. “They can’t reach us up here, and we’ll be far ahead of them by the time we land.”
Kai still seemed troubled, watching the progress of the lights as they wove through the jungle. Rémy stayed on course for the valley, noting that a thick fog seemed to be lying amid the trees enclosed within its walls. Upala leaned close to her.
“You think you will be able to find somewhere to land in all that?” she asked. “You had better be good at this flying thing, eh, anukarana?”
“I will try my best,” said Rémy.
“Your best may not be good enough. Perhaps we should set down outside the valley and walk in. If we don’t, we risk damaging the ship — and ourselves — on the trees as we come down.”
“If we land before we get to the valley, those men down there will find us, or the ship, or both,” Rémy pointed out. “Better that we fly into the valley. The fog is a good thing. It’ll hide us. And that is what we want, yes? To get as close to the mountain as we can without being seen?”
Upala turned to Kai. “Captain? What do you think? Land here, or land there, in the fog?”
Kai turned, a frown on his face. He was about to speak when, behind him, a light arched into the frame of the darkened window behind him. It burst toward them in a shooting star of flickering yellow flame.
“Mon dieu!” Rémy cursed, wrenching the airship’s control around, trying to pull it out of the way. Kai and Upala stumbled against each other as the ship jerked and bucked. “They are shooting at us!”
The men below were firing at them with burning arrows. Another lit the night sky, curving past briefly illuminated trees and hurtling toward the airship like man-made comets.
“I thought you said the raja wanted the airship!” Kai shouted, gripping the back of the chair as Rémy swung them this way and that. “Why would he try to destroy it?”
“Perhaps these are not the raja’s men after all! Or perhaps he has changed his mind. Whoever they are, they want us to burn,” shouted Rémy as the night sky lit up with a myriad of burning arrows. “I cannot dodge them all — there are too many!”
“Bring her down,” Kai ordered, his voice shaking as the airship juddered with the effort of avoiding the flames. “Get us out of the air!”
Rémy gritted her teeth and put the airship into a fast plunge. They were nearing the valley’s edge and she aimed straight at the fog beyond — if they could reach it and land, there was still a hope that the men pursuing them might not be able to find them there.
The ground came up fast, the darkness giving way to a dense floor of treetops, cut asunder by the valley’s sharp edges.
“We’ll make it,” Kai hissed, “Just a little farther …”
Something hit the glass in front of them — a bulge of flame that glanced off the hard surface and spun away, back into the night. For a second Rémy was relieved — that was the closest any of the arrows had come and it wasn’t close enough — but then a light bloomed, bright as day against the hull.
“What is it?” she cried, fighting to hold the airship steady in her swift descent. “Are we burning?”
Kai lunged forward, trying to see out of the window as the glow grew. “It’s th
e ropes holding the balloon,” he told her. “That last arrow must have lit them. They’re going up like fuses!”
There came a vicious jolt that pulled the airship to one side. Rémy felt the control lever under her hand slacken, spinning uselessly against her hand. The ground was coming up, faster and faster, and she could hear the flames now, roaring in their wake as they ate more and more of the hull.
They were a comet, burning across the sky. They were a meteorite, plummeting to earth.
{Chapter 19}
TAKEN BY SPIRITS
The airship caught the top of a tree, branches cracking and crunching as they broke and scraped against the underside of the burning hull. There was a roar, a rushing bellow of movement from above, and Rémy knew the flames had reached the balloon.
“We have to get out!” she screamed to Kai and Upala, even as the ship careened onward, smashing over the top of another tree, the glow from the inferno they carried turning the dense, rising fog they rode into a strange kaleidoscope of refracting colors.
“We’re still too high! If we jump now, we’ll die,” Kai shouted.
“If we don’t jump, we’ll burn!” she shouted back over the noise of the airship tearing itself apart around them. Lurching out of her chair, Rémy wrestled her way across the bucking floor toward the hatch. “Help me!”
Upala was by her side in an instant, wrenching on the wound ropes that held the hatch shut. Kai made his way toward them, stumbling to his knees as another tree slowed their troubled descent by smashing itself against the airship’s nose. The window shattered, shards of glass piercing the air along with a wash of fierce heat.
Rémy pulled at the ropes, ignoring the slicing pain as the glass splinters peppered her back. Upala turned away, hiding her face from the worst of the shards, but Kai caught one full in the cheek, a nasty blow that opened a fresh wound on his scarred face.
The hatch came open, flinging itself away from them as if in a fury all of its own. It tore itself off its hinges, smashing against another treetop, catching against the branches and wrenching itself loose from the hull. The airship followed, twisting around as it lost another part of itself.
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