“I guess you’re right,” she said, but the knowledge didn’t take away any of her sadness. “I still wish we could go back to the way things used to be.”
“I understand. Hey,” Ozben said, nudging her in the ribs with his elbow. “Know what I think?”
“What?” Lina said, raising an eyebrow as that sly grin of his worked its way over his mouth. She realized he was using the grin to try to cheer her up, and it was working.
“I think it’s time we open that ship,” he said, nodding to the Merlin.
Familiar excitement swelled in Lina’s chest, fighting off her sorrow. She grinned back at him. “Past time,” she said.
As they stood before the Merlin, Ozben studied Lina, looking for signs of the deep sadness he’d seen in her eyes earlier when she talked about her parents. When she’d relived those painful memories, he had watched her mouth tighten and her eyes go steely, as if by sheer determination she could overcome every hurt and ache in her heart. She seemed focused on the ship now, which was a relief. He didn’t like to see her sad, and he liked it even less when he was the cause of that sadness.
How strange was it that, when he first came to the stronghold, he’d thought it was going to be the dreariest place in Solace? He’d pictured a bunch of stuffy museum curators walking around telling him to be quiet and Don’t touch anything. The last things he’d expected to find were wonders like Aethon or mysteries like the Merlin. And he’d never thought there would be a person like Lina to show him all those amazing sights. Sharing his secret with her made him feel less alone in the world.
It made him wonder, not for the first time, why no one had ever made a best friend of Lina Winterbock. Maybe it was because she stayed hidden so much in her tunnels and secret caves. Or maybe it was simply that no one had made the effort to see just how special she was. One thing Ozben knew for certain: whomever Lina chose to let into her heart would be a very fortunate person, protected and cherished.
If things were different, he could stay here, be a part of Lina’s world, and get to know the archivists better. Not as Fredrick the refugee but as himself. Maybe his parents would let him study at Ortana for a while once the war was over—as long as the archivists allowed it. He’d never been as good a fighter as his sister, and though he enjoyed his studies well enough, the idea of studying artifacts from other worlds and uncovering their secrets—that excited him in a way he’d never experienced before.
Now they stood on the cusp of another discovery. Ozben had been curious about the Merlin since Lina first showed it to him, because it was a way for him to get home to the Merrow Kingdom. That was still his goal, but right now, standing beside Lina as they prepared to enter the ship, he found his heart pounding with excitement and a hint of uncertainty. What would they find when they went inside? There was only one way to know.
“Well, how do you want to do this?” Ozben asked.
“If I’m right about the design, the top of the door will come down right about here and form the gangplank,” Lina said, pointing to a spot a few feet away on the ground. “You stand on one side of the door, and I’ll get on the other; then, on the count of three, we’ll pull it down.”
“Got it,” Ozben said, moving into position. Standing on tiptoe, he reached up and grasped the protruding edge of the gangplank while Lina did the same on her side. “One,” he said.
Lina adjusted her grip. Her eyes were alight with excitement. “Two.”
Just as they were prepared to shout three, from the depths of the ship came a hollow groaning sound and the ear-splitting creak of a mechanism long disused.
Then the gangplank began to descend.
On its own.
Ozben jumped back, scrambling to get out of the way. “Did you pull on the door first?” he cried.
“I thought you did,” Lina said in a breathless voice. She was staring, transfixed, at the gangplank as it lowered to the cavern floor, revealing a set of metal stairs that ascended into the darkness of the ship. “When I fired up the steam engine a few weeks ago, I activated some sort of power source inside the ship,” she said. “It must have triggered somehow when we touched the door.”
A prickling sensation teased the hairs on Ozben’s arms. He rubbed it away. “I guess so,” he said. He didn’t want to admit that the gangplank lowering by itself had unnerved him, especially when Lina didn’t seem bothered at all. He told himself everything was fine. It wasn’t as if they were going to find ghosts on the ship or anything. At least he hoped not.
“Come on,” Lina said, stepping onto the stairs. “We’ll find out in a minute what’s powering the ship.”
Ozben nodded and followed her onto the gangplank. He marveled at the fact that she didn’t even hesitate as she climbed. She just called on the lumatites for brighter light, as if she wasn’t the least bit afraid.
Ozben was right at Lina’s back when they entered the darkness of the Merlin. They emerged inside a hallway whose walls Ozben could have almost touched if he stretched his arms out. The hallway ran the length of the ship. Along it, Ozben counted four metal doors, two on either side. At the back of the ship was another stairway leading up.
The air in the ship was drier than in the cave, but it smelled…well, like nothing, Ozben thought, surprised. He detected none of the musty smells he’d expected to find in a space that had been closed up for so long.
He was about to ask Lina whether she thought the lack of smells was weird when she pointed the lumatites toward a small cabin in front of them. “There,” she said, and without another word, she headed straight for it.
“Hey, be careful,” Ozben called, hurrying to catch up. By the time he got to her, she was standing in what looked like the ship’s bridge.
But Lina wasn’t listening. “Wow,” she breathed. On the bridge, the lumatites revealed two chairs in front of a control panel with more knobs, switches, levers, and gauges than Ozben had ever seen in his life. He didn’t know what any of the controls were for, but he knew enough to realize that all the systems appeared to be inactive.
Except one.
“Look at this,” Lina said, taking a seat in one of the chairs and gesturing for Ozben to take the other. A faint humming sound issued from a gauge that had numbers on it from one to ten. The needle on the gauge hovered just below the number-two mark. “There’s some power going to the ship, but it looks really weak, and I can’t tell what its source is.”
“How can you tell what any of it is?” Ozben asked.
“This might explain some of the loss in power,” Lina said, pointing to a section of the control panel near the floor. A hole gaped in the console, the bare ends of dozens of tiny wires clinging to its sides. Black streaks stained the panel just above the hole, as if there had been a fire. “Looks like someone ripped a piece of the control panel out right here,” she said. “I wonder why, though. I don’t see any other damage.”
“Maybe there’s more damage somewhere else in the ship,” Ozben suggested. He frowned. “Remember, Lina, we don’t know where this ship came from or what’s happened to it. We need to be careful how we handle it.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Lina said, slowly shining the lumatites over the control panel. “This isn’t a dirigible. Nothing looks like what I studied in my books. And this language—do you recognize it? It matches some markings I found on the outside of the ship.”
Ozben ran his fingers beneath a series of strange symbols on the control panel. It could have been writing, he supposed, but none that he recognized. Again, he felt that prickling sensation along his arms, and it filled him with uneasiness. Everything about this ship was…well, the only word for it was “unnatural.” It was beginning to frighten him. “No,” Ozben said, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Lina looked at him, her face flushed and her eyes bright. “Ozben, this is big,” she said. “This ship is incredible.”
“But what is it?” he asked. He wanted to share Lina’s excitement, but something
didn’t feel right. “How does it fly?”
“I don’t know yet,” Lina said, but she smiled at him, undeterred. “You’re right. We need to search the rest of the ship.” She stood up, though she seemed reluctant to leave the bridge.
“Come on.” Ozben led the way back to the stairs and down the hall in the opposite direction. The sooner they finished exploring, the sooner they could get off the ship. “Wait.” He stopped and looked to Lina. “Should we see what’s behind these doors?” he asked. Ghosts, maybe? Not that he was worried about that. Well, maybe a little.
Lina didn’t hesitate for even a moment. “Let’s do it,” she said, pulling him to the first door. They arranged themselves on either side of it. Ozben tensed as Lina turned the knob, eased it open, and shined the lumatites in, illuminating what looked like a tiny crew cabin. An upper and lower berth stood against the left wall, and a small metal chest of drawers with two shelves above it stood on the right wall. Only there were no mattresses in the berths. That was odd, Ozben thought, but maybe the ship was running on a skeleton crew and not all the rooms were needed.
“Well, no power source here, I guess,” Ozben said, letting out a shaky sigh of relief that they hadn’t encountered any ghosts.
They moved on to the next door and the one after that and found the same setup: a crew cabin with two berths—sparse and clean, no mattresses, and not even a hint of dust. The final cabin was slightly bigger than the others, which Ozben figured meant it was for the captain.
“Let’s move on,” Lina said. She walked to the end of the hallway, where there was a set of stairs leading up to a second level. She paused with her hand on the metal railing and turned back to look at Ozben. “What did you say?” she asked, shining the light in his face.
Ozben squinted and shaded his eyes. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did,” Lina said. “You whispered something.”
Ozben shook his head vigorously. “It wasn’t me.” He looked over his shoulder, back the way they’d come, but there was no one there. He was beginning to think that rushing onto the ship had been a bad idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to suggest to Lina that they leave right now. She would never agree, and worse, she might think he was a coward. His heart squeezed painfully at the thought.
Lina mumbled something, and Ozben turned back to her. “What’d you say?”
She scowled. “I didn’t say anything.” She shook her head impatiently. “Come on. It’s probably just that little bit of power humming through the ship. It’s making us hear things.”
They started up the stairs, but Ozben glanced back over his shoulder every once in a while. A strange feeling coursed through him. It reminded him of when he’d first ventured out into Ortana in disguise. He’d been sure people were watching him and whispering, that they were an instant away from discovering who he really was. Right now he felt the same—as if someone were examining him, peeling back all his layers until they could see right through him. He felt like an intruder inside the Merlin, trespassing where he didn’t belong.
They reached the second level, which was laid out like the first level. The first set of doors on either side of the hall led to what looked like cargo areas, but both rooms were empty. Oppressive silence hung over everything, and Ozben’s uneasiness grew. He started to fidget and hung back near the stairs while Lina shone the light ahead of them.
A few feet away, she paused and turned. “Did you find anything?” she asked. “Why are you lurking back there?”
“I’m not lurking,” Ozben said, more sharply than he’d intended. “I just think something’s wrong.” He tried to put what he was feeling into words, but for some reason, they wouldn’t come. His emotions rose up, scattering his thoughts, and he blurted out, “I feel like we shouldn’t be here.”
“A few minutes ago, you wanted to check out the rest of the ship.” Lina lowered the light and walked back to where he stood. “You can wait outside if you want to. I’m going on.”
“You’re not going alone!” Ozben was about to say that he didn’t need her to tell him to wait outside like a scared kid, but he bit back the words when he noticed Lina’s face. She was pale and sweating. “What is it?” he asked, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing—silly, really,” Lina said. “I must have gotten overexcited. My h-heart…” Her voice trailed off, and she took a deep breath with her eyes closed as if to steady herself. “My heart is beating so fast, and I have this feeling like…like—”
“Like we should get out of here,” Ozben finished for her. Nothing would have pleased him more. “I’m having it too,” he said. “It’s like the walls are pushing in on me, forcing me out.”
“No.” Lina shook her head. “I don’t feel that. I feel…I don’t know…terrified.” But she said it as if she only half believed it. “That doesn’t make any sense! I’ve been in much scarier places than this. This is nothing, yet—” She held up her hand, palm downward to the floor. It was trembling so badly that Ozben reached out and took it between both of his to try to comfort her.
“It’s like we’re both feeling things we shouldn’t be,” he said. “A few minutes ago, I didn’t want to leave the ship, but now I can barely stand still.” He loosed one of his hands and gripped the stair rail as the urge to turn and run threatened to overpower him. “Is it possible—could something on the ship be doing this?”
“I think it could be,” Lina said, pressing a hand against her chest. “Maybe it’s some sort of security system we’ve never seen before, maybe a gas that affects our bodies—something we can’t detect.”
“Well, if it is a security system, it’s telling me in the strongest possible way that we need to get off the ship right now,” Ozben said. “Maybe we should listen, at least until we know what we’re up against.”
“You’re right,” Lina said. “We should go.” Her entire body was trembling now, making terror creep into Ozben as well.
He kept a tight grip on her hand as he turned to head back down the stairs. But when he tried to lead her, she resisted, tugging on him. “What is it?” he asked impatiently. “We have to go!”
“Ozben, I don’t think I can make it down the stairs,” Lina said in a choked voice. “I’m d-dizzy and I can’t c-catch my breath—”
Her hand went limp in his, and then she dropped to her knees, slumping to the ground. Ozben was over her, shaking her shoulders in an instant. “Lina!’ he shouted. “Lina, get up!” But it was no use. She was unconscious.
Terrified for her, Ozben forced himself to breathe, to push aside the need to run. “It’s going to be all right,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’ve got you. We’re getting out of here.” He steadied himself and lifted Lina gently by the shoulders, leaning over until he could cradle her head against his chest. Then he hooked his other arm beneath her knees and lifted her. She was heavier than he’d expected, but the need to escape pulsed through him, keeping him steady as he maneuvered them down the stairs.
A loud metallic groaning sound filled Ozben’s ears when he reached the main deck. He spun around, searching for a threat from upstairs. But there was nothing, not even a ghost. Then he realized that the sound was coming from the gangplank. It was lifting off the ground and closing, cutting off their escape.
“No!” Desperate, Ozben broke into a run, Lina’s head jostling against his shoulder. It felt as if he were moving through sand. The candlelight from the cavern outside became a dim rectangle that got smaller and smaller. Ozben barreled down the narrow hallway, knocking his shin on the stair rail as he came around and dropped to his knees on top of the gangplank, trying to use his and Lina’s weight to push it back down.
He’d sooner have been able to move one of Lina’s boulders. The gangplank continued to rise under him until, with a screech, it clicked into place, and the small rectangle of light snuffed out.
—
Lina was very cold.
It wasn’t as if this was a new sensation for her. She’d
lived in the mountains all her life, and being underground day after day, she’d gotten used to her toes never being warm and her teeth chattering when she first threw the covers back in the morning.
But this was a different sort of chill, a mind-numbing, seeps-into-the-bones kind of cold. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids were stuck, frozen closed. Panic started in her stomach and worked its way up to her throat, but she couldn’t scream either. Her mouth was so dry—as if she hadn’t tasted a drop of water in days. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening to her, which was enough to terrify her, but it wasn’t the worst of what she felt.
The worst was the loneliness.
A horrible emptiness had taken Lina over, as if every wonderful memory and sensation had been carved out of her, leaving jagged edges. She remembered this hopelessness from the day her parents died. She’d never expected to feel it again, and somehow it was worse now. It was the certainty that nothing would ever get better, no matter how much she hoped for it, the feeling that no one knew or cared what happened to her in the world. As the emotions swamped her, Lina found she didn’t want to open her eyes anymore, she just wanted to curl into a tight ball and try to sleep, to go to a place where she couldn’t feel anything. It was the only way to get rid of the pain.
But Lina couldn’t sleep. Something prodded her, a spark of warmth that jabbed into her ribs. She sucked in a breath. The jab wasn’t painful, but she’d been so cold for so long that the sudden warmth was unfamiliar, intrusive. What was it?
Lina forced her eyelids open and uncurled her stiff limbs.
What she saw didn’t make any sense.
She was standing in the doorway of the bridge, staring at the gangplank as two figures ascended it into the ship.
Then she was staring into her own face.
She was seeing herself and Ozben entering the Merlin.
It had to be a dream. She’d passed out and was reliving the moment when she and Ozben first came aboard the ship.
The Secrets of Solace Page 16