With a torch each, it was easier to see the way. The flame-light haloed against the sapphire walls, reflecting back over and over until it seemed as if they were walking through a hall of mirrors. There was no sign of movement, save for them. The stone was as dead as the cult members they came across — or rather, what was left of the cult members, who remained where they had been standing when the transformation overcame them, frozen for all eternity in twisted, ice-cold sapphire versions of themselves.
Rémy tried not to touch anything. The stone seemed to be dead, but after witnessing what had happened to all these people — not to mention to the raja, whose transparent, invaluable carcass they passed — she was in no hurry to test the theory.
At length they passed into the cavern. Their torches were not strong enough to light the entire space and flickered and died beyond a circle around them both. But it was enough to illuminate more bodies of pure jewel, all caught in poses of flight as they had tried to outrun the explosion of power behind them.
“The torches on the walls,” Kai whispered, sending sibilant echoes into the dark void that answered back, over and over again. “We should light them.”
“Will they not have been turned to sapphire too?” Rémy asked, disturbed by the echo of her own voice rolling around them.
Rémy’s supposition was right. Every fixture, from the wooden shaft of each torch to the metal rivets that had held them in place, had been transformed into gemstone. There was nothing for it but for them to feel their way, slowly, with the light they had.
As they walked deeper into the cavern, they came across more and more sapphire corpses. In some places, they were so close together that it was almost impossible to find a way through. Their limbs tangled together like a climbing rose bush, so impenetrable that at last Kai, frustrated, drew his sword and before Rémy could raise her voice to stop him, had smashed it down, cutting through a mess of crystalline arms and legs.
Rémy froze as the gems shattered, listening with a pounding heart as the broken stones tinkled against the sapphire floor. She was convinced that something would come rushing at them from the jagged dark beyond their torchlights — something ravenous with anger. But there was nothing but the echoes of the skittering gems. Kai pushed onward through the path he had made as a new feeling of misgiving flooded through Rémy.
“Kai — wait,” she urged, ignoring the incessant echoes of her own words. “Please. Listen to me, just for a moment.”
Her brother turned to face her, his weather-beaten face taking on the reflections of blue stone and orange flame.
“I just …” Rémy took a breath, wondering how to say what was worrying her. “It’s Upala. Kai, the same thing has happened to everything inside this place. Everything. Upala — she’s going to look just like this now. She is going to be just like this. Do you really need to see that? Don’t you want to … remember her as she was, not as she is now?”
Kai glanced around him at the carcasses of the cult. He took a breath, a look of unutterable sadness fleetingly crossing his features. It was gone in an instant, replaced by a clenched jaw and a familiar look of determination.
“I have to find her,” he said. “I have to.”
Rémy looked at him for another second, and then nodded. They moved on, past the pit of snakes that no longer writhed but instead were frozen in permanent curlicues. They forced their way between more death, and finally up onto the stone stage. Rémy could see the tension radiating from Kai’s shoulders, knowing that Upala must be somewhere close. He stalked forward, his limp almost indistinguishable beneath the forceful movement of his steps.
He stopped.
“Rémy,” he said, his voice thick — and remarkably, there was no echo. “Look.”
She moved to her brother’s side and looked up at what he had found. Rémy drew in a sharp, amazed breath.
In front of them was the throne of the Sapphire Cutlass. In it was seated Aruna, the girl-goddess who had turned against the world itself. She was slumped backward, arms outstretched along her arm rests, eyes closed as if she were merely asleep — and she was flesh and blood.
Gone was the taint of sapphire that had so poisoned her body, gone was the pure blue transparency of her legs and arms. Instead there was only burnished skin, as human and as fallible as that of Rémy’s own.
“I … don’t understand …” Rémy muttered, awestruck.
Then Kai moved his torch, lifting it to his left. Beside the throne was a pillar of pure sapphire — not formed in the shape of anything but itself, a large tablet of glittering jewel. Inside was the perfectly preserved form of Upala. She stood as if on tiptoe, arms by her side, head raised and eyes open. She looked as fierce and beautiful as ever, and so unharmed that at first Rémy thought she was still alive. But there was no rise and fall in her breast and no space for air between the limits of her being and the sapphire that surrounded her. She was dead. Beautiful, eternal — but dead.
Kai stepped up to the pillar, dropped his sword, and slumped to his knees before Upala’s magnificent tomb. Rémy could see tears running down his face, and it was clear that for now, he did not care if she saw them. He stood there, silently looking up at Upala for a long time. Rémy looked away, wanting to give them privacy, somehow. Her eye was caught by something lying on the ground. She stooped to pick it up, recognizing it at once.
“Kai,” she said gently, holding it out to him.
It was a pendant fashioned from opal, hanging on a gold chain. Within the opal’s milky whiteness shone a thick band of iridescent blue. Kai took it from her and coiled the necklace in his palm as a tear fell from his face to glide across the stone’s surface. He passed his thumb across it.
“She always wanted to know where it came from,” Kai muttered thickly, staring at the gem in his hand. “The opal, I mean. She knew it wasn’t from anywhere on this continent. I told her, it was from Australasia — so far away and so dangerous a place that it’s where the British send their criminals. She wanted to go, and I told her …” he trailed off, and then started again. “I told her that one day, we’d go. One day, I’d sail her all the way there, just because she wanted to go. I thought that was as good as telling her I loved her. But it wasn’t. I loved her, and I never told her. Why didn’t I tell her?”
Rémy put a hand on his arm. “She knew, Kai. And she loved you, too. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Kai looked up at Upala, suspended forever in her magnificent jewel. “It’s not the same,” he said, his voice cracking. “Life’s too short, little sister. Life’s too short not to say what you mean.”
Rémy wrapped her arms around her brother. After a moment, he held her, too. Two lost twins, finally reunited.
At length Kai gave a big sniff and pulled away. “We should go,” he said. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
Rémy nodded, and then looked at Aruna’s curiously unmarred human corpse. “What should we do with her?” she asked.
Kai gave the body a long look. “Leave her there,” he said. “Her bones belong to the mountain. Let it keep them.”
EPILOGUE
“You know what would be really useful right now?” said J as they made the journey out of the valley. “An airship. Didn’t we have one once? Oh, yeah — we did. And someone crashed it.”
“I did not crash it, J,” Rémy sighed. “We were hit by a flaming arrow.”
“Yeah,” grumbled J, “an’ then you crashed.”
“Hush,” said Dita, who was walking beside him. Desai was a little way ahead of them, leading the way. “The walk will do us good.”
“Hrumph,” J muttered. “What we just went through, we need sleep, not bleedin’ exercise.”
“Oh, yes, I was forgetting,” said Dita, her voice caustic, “what a hard time you had back there, dirty boy. All that running around was terrible, yes? Far worse than getting bitten by a snake and being turn
ed into a monster.”
“I ain’t dirty, an’ that wasn’t what I meant,” J protested. “And you wasn’t a monster! Not even close!”
“What was I then?” Dita asked, slipping her hand into his. “A freak? Like one of those poor beardy women you see in a circus?”
“Bearded women,” J corrected. “And no, you wasn’t a freak, neither.”
They carried on bickering as they walked, their chatter fading into the background with the chirrup of the crickets as Thaddeus tuned them out. They had been walking for a long while already, and it would be longer still before they reached the valley’s edge and moved out of the mountain’s shadow. Thaddeus was tired, but happy — relieved to be leaving this place behind, and also at Rémy’s reports of what had happened inside. That Upala was truly dead was a tragedy, for sure, but knowing that the rest of the cult had been similarly subdued was cause for relief.
Thaddeus became aware that Rémy was no longer at his side. He turned to see that she had dropped back, putting space between herself and the rest of the group. Thaddeus slowed his pace, falling into step with her.
“Everything all right?” he asked, anxious when he saw the thoughtful look on her face. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I’ve just been thinking, that is all.”
“Oh? What about?” Thaddeus glanced up the slight hill they were climbing to where her brother Kai soldiered onward, stoic despite his grief and pain. No doubt Rémy was thinking about him. What must it have been like, to think you were alone in the world and then to come face-to-face with your twin? It must have been —
“Will you marry me?” Rémy asked.
Thaddeus stopped dead in his tracks, looking at her in astonishment. “What?”
Rémy stopped beside him and shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but … something that Kai said, back there, made me realize that I should just go ahead and ask,” she said. “So do you want to? Get married, I mean?”
Something fierce and hot radiated out from Thaddeus’s heart as he caught her arm and pulled her to him. “Do I want to? Rémy — of course I want to! But I thought — I wasn’t sure that you …” He took a breath and willed his heart to calm down as he stepped back and looked at her, smiling widely. “Rémy Brunel. Nothing would make me happier than to be your husband, and to call you my wife. In fact …”
“What is it?” Rémy asked, puzzled as he pulled away and reached for one of the pockets in his trousers.
Thaddeus found what he was looking for. Pulling out a small twist of paper, he unwrapped a small ring. It had been formed of two thin bands of gold, twisted together in a wreath to hold a tiny diamond. He hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to take Rémy’s left hand. He looked at her face and saw the delight spreading across the features that he had come to love so well. Smiling, he slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
“I know it’s only tiny, but I thought,” he said quietly, “that you deserved to have a diamond that you didn’t have to steal.”
Rémy stared at the ring, holding it up so the little stone could catch the light. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Then she cast him a look. “How long have you had this in your pocket?” she demanded. “And where did you get it from?”
“Ahh,” said Thaddeus, holding up both hands. “That would be telling. I’ve got to have some secrets.”
Rémy grabbed his hands, laughing. “What, even as my husband?”
Thaddeus laughed with her, wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her soundly. “Well, perhaps not then …”
“Why did you never ask me?” Rémy said. “If you had the ring …”
Thaddeus shrugged. “I could never work out how.”
Rémy rested her forehead against his. “I find that simply usually works.”
“Yes,” Thaddeus laughed. “Apparently so.”
“The only thing is,” Rémy added, “I am not sure I could ever be ‘Rémy Rec.’ It just doesn’t …” she trailed off with a grimace.
Thaddeus made a face. “Ugh. No, I can see what you mean. I’m not sure you could ever be anything other than Rémy Brunel anyway. Maybe I should take your name instead.”
Rémy looked up at him. “Really?”
Thaddeus shrugged. “Why not? Thaddeus Brunel has a bit of a ring to it, don’t you think?”
Rémy raised her eyebrows. “It’s a very French name. I am not sure you could be sufficiently French to own it. For a start you would have to drink less tea.”
“Oh, god.” Thaddeus stopped, a look of mock horror on his face. “I can’t do it, Rémy. I love you, but I just can’t.”
She punched him lightly in the arm as they both laughed. “Stupid man.”
“What are you two laughing about?” asked a voice.
It was Kai, watching them with a slight, subdued smile. Thaddeus and Rémy parted, still holding hands. Thaddeus saw Kai’s gaze drop to the little ring on Rémy’s finger.
“Ahh,” he said with a smile that managed to be both wider and sadder at the same time. “I see that congratulations are in order.”
“Kai, I am sorry,” Rémy said, faltering over the words. “I know — I know that you … that you …”
Kai stepped forward and grasped his sister’s hand. “There is no need to be sorry for anything, little sister,” he said softly. “I am glad that you have more sense than me — in some things, any way. I am very happy for you both.”
Rémy let go of Thaddeus to hug her brother fiercely. “Thank you, brother. That means much to me.”
When they parted, Rémy took Thaddeus’s hand again and the three of them started to walk, following the others once more.
“So,” Kai asked, “what are you two going to do now? Besides tying the knot, I mean. Will you go back to England?”
Thaddeus glanced at Rémy, who looked back with a shrug. It was a good question, and one that neither of them had considered at all.
“There’s not much for me in England,” Thaddeus admitted. “They’ll never make me a policeman again.”
“Are you sure?” Rémy asked, looking up at him with concern etched on her brow. “You were the best they had, Thaddeus. You might be surprised — I bet they would be glad to have you back.”
“I doubt it,” he sighed. “Besides, after all the things we’ve seen, all the places we’ve been, knowing what else is out there in the world … Well, I’m not sure I want to go back, really. What about you, Rémy? It’s not just about what I want — what do you want to do next?”
Rémy’s gaze drifted toward her brother. “I don’t know,” she said, “although I would like a chance to get to know the only family I have …”
Kai gave her a smile, and then a smirk. “Well,” he said slowly. “You know, I do have need of more good hands aboard my ship. I always told Upala that if she left me, I’d have to find two to replace her. I wasn’t lying.” He shrugged. “You could join my crew. I’d be glad to have you — both of you.”
Thaddeus grimaced in answer to Rémy’s raised eyebrows. “Look … I may not be a policeman anymore … but I don’t think I could be a pirate.”
“Really?” Rémy teased. “And there I was thinking you were looking quite piratical these days, what with your torn shirts and your constant tan.”
Thaddeus laughed, squeezing her hand. “I’m sorry, Rémy, but I couldn’t.”
She smiled at him softly. “I know. You’re just too good a man for thievery and plunder, whatever the cause. I’m sorry, Kai,” she said, addressing her brother, “but I think we have to say no.”
Kai nodded with a grin. “I expected as much. Pity. Although …” He trailed off, looking thoughtful.
“What?” Rémy asked.
Kai shrugged. “I think I might be over the pirate life too, at least for now. I have another ship — smaller than the B
lack Star, but just as sea-worthy. The Silver Cygnet. I could take her and sail anywhere I wanted to — as long as I had a crew to help me, of course.”
“A crew?” Thaddeus asked. “How big of a crew?”
“Not many. Four should do it, with me besides.” Kai’s gaze drifted ahead to where J and Dita were still bickering merrily as they walked along, their feet kicking up trails of dust that flurried in their wake.
Rémy frowned. “And where were you thinking of taking this ship of yours?” she asked.
“I’ve not decided yet,” Kai said quietly. Then he pulled Upala’s opal from his pocket and held it up so that it swung in front of him. “Perhaps I will simply trust the wind to take me wherever it wishes to go.”
Thaddeus looked down at Rémy, who looked back with a question on her face. He felt like laughing, and wondered how it could be that since he’d met her, life didn’t seem to have even taken a breath, let alone stood still.
“What do you think Dita and J want to do next?” she asked him.
Thaddeus raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s ask them and find out.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Gosling always wanted to be a writer. She started as an entertainment journalist, writing about television series such as Stargate and Battlestar Galactica. Her first novel was published under a pen name in 2010. Sharon and her husband live in a very small cottage in a very remote village in the north of England, surrounded by sheep-dotted fells. The village has its own vampire, although Sharon hasn’t met it yet. The cat might have, but he seems to have been sworn to secrecy and won’t say a thing.
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