The Gang of Legend

by Robert J. Crane

  19

  My first instinct on returning to the Velocity was to go see my brother. I had to know how he was doing.

  But there were other things vying for attention now. With my Manny-worries compartmentalized, I now needed a question answered—what it was Daddy Borrick was trying to achieve.

  “Like I said,” Borrick repeated, once we were all sat in one of Tyran’s many offices, “I don’t know anything concrete. It’s just guesswork.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Tyran. He sat behind a vast oaken desk that most certainly had not come from this surfaceless, storm-torn world. Feet kicked up, he rolled the tennis ball from one hand to the other. A mural was pinned up on the rear wall, Tyran’s cheerily grinning face, a gold-garb-clad arm pointed at a box of what looked like dehydrated squid legs. Foreign characters shouted in deep blue, outlined with the same gold as Tyran’s newest outfit.

  I glanced at this little piece of product placement with thinly veiled distaste. King of the Skies? King of Selling Out, more like it.

  The moment the door clicked shut, the questioning began.

  “Whatever your guesswork is, I’d like to hear it,” said Tyran. “It is of vital importance to know one’s foes—and I do not know this Prescott Boswold character.”

  “Preston Borrick,” I corrected.

  Tyran looked bewildered. “Who?”

  “My father,” said Borrick, “wants to complete the Overson quest.”

  “Obviously,” said Heidi. “So does every Seeker with half a dream.”

  “For fame, right?” said Carson. He shook his head. “It’s always the same.”

  “My father has enough fame by now,” Borrick went on. “So that doesn’t appeal to him. Rather, I think he is interested in …”

  He hesitated.

  “What?” I prompted, when he said no more.

  Borrick screwed his face up. “In … certain circles, there are rumors … that once all the items in the Overson questline are collected … the Cup of Glory, Plate of Immortality, Spoon of Abundance, and so on … well, the rumor is that collecting all of these items permits their wielder power over life and death.”

  Heidi scoffed.

  “What?” said Borrick.

  “Sorry, but—power over life and death? Did you miss the names of the prizes you just rattled off? The Plate of Immortality, if it does what it says on the tin, already grants a person eternal life …”

  Tyran grinned.

  “… and we claimed the Fork of Undying literally a fortnight ago. Seeker tomes say that one staves off illness, disease … you can even sustain life-ending wounds and survive. Of course,” she added, “if you ask me it’s probably just a fork.”

  “It is just a fork,” I said.

  Heidi paused. “Although.” She glanced to me. I could see the cogs turning in her mind: the Tide of Ages had worked. So the other objects might, might, do what they were alleged to.

  “It’s not the same as that,” said Borrick. “Claiming all the items in the Overson questline grants ultimate power. Not just eternal life, or immunity to sickness, but the ability to spread and end life. It gives parity with the Antecessors.”

  I almost tipped my chair over. Spluttering, I sat forward, eyes bugging. “Parity with the Antecessors? As in your dad will possess the same power as those—those gods?”

  Borrick nodded. “If the rumors are true. I mean, no one has ever claimed all the Overson quest rewards before …”

  “Except for Brynn Overson himself,” said Heidi.

  “Not necessarily,” said Carson thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I read in a few Wayfarer accounts that he had never set eyes on the Chalice Gloria, or any of the objects that followed.” He frowned. “But those were dated later, I think, so maybe it was a case of revised history?”

  “Whether Brynn scattered the objects or not before he died,” I said, “and the Antecessors tuned into the quests later when we uncovered them again, it doesn’t really make a difference. What’s important is what’s happening now—and that is Daddy Borrick trying to make himself into a god.”

  “Daddy Borrick, a god,” Heidi mused with faint derision. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  “My dad might need taking down a peg or two, but he’s still my dad,” Borrick huffed. “I don’t believe he’s trying to gain parity with the Antecessors to reshape the world, or anything like that.”

  “So what does he want?” Tyran asked.

  “It’s … it’s my mother,” said Borrick. “She’s … ill,” he said limply.

  “Ill how?” asked Heidi.

  “Early onset dementia,” said Borrick. “It’s been eating at her for years, slowly. The past year, though, she has really declined. I’m afraid the end might be near—as is, I suppose, my father.”

  He kept remarkably stoic about it. Little change came to his face. His eyes didn’t suddenly gleam with tears, and his throat did not warble as emotions threatened.

  And then I realized, with a heavy heart: this was not stoic. This was a person who had seen the end coming for a long time, and made peace, as best they could, with it. This was a person still affected by it, still broken apart inside by it … but who had already been through the long process of grieving … and all while his mother remained alive in body, if not mind.

  I gripped his wrist. “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced to me, and nodded.

  “I believe my father has bought into these rumors,” he went on, “and believes that, if he can claim all the Overson quest rewards, he will be able to reverse my mother’s condition and bring her back to us.”

  And suddenly—sympathy. What was it with these Borricks? I yo-yoed between dislike, then hatred, completely justified by their actions … and then the veil was pulled away, and the glimpse of what lay beyond it softened me.

  “Well, that’s … understandable,” I said.

  Uncomfortable silence reigned.

  Tyran glanced down at his bandaged hand. His fingers were red at the bases, where the bandage was tight. Blood had leaked through the gauze pad and onto the bandage itself, streaking it with a thin red line.

  He pursed his lips.

  “Regardless of the nobility of your father’s aims,” he said, “I cannot allow him to attain his goal.”

  “No,” said Borrick, with a sigh, “and you shouldn’t.”

  I balked. “Sorry?”

  “My father has always been like this—cruel, nasty, pushy. He is a Seeker, but he has … rather a dim view of many in our community. Say he were to gain parity with the Antecessors. After he repaired my mother? I don’t trust where he would go next with his new powers.”

  “But what about your mum?” asked Heidi, her expression a picture of purest confusion. “Don’t you want her back?”

  “She was a good mother,” said Borrick carefully. “But she has gone. And if my father brought her back … would it be the same? I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure I’d like to. Maybe once … but I have made my peace with it. We are all mortal, after all. Some of us just reach our time sooner than others.”

  Heidi said nothing to this. She frowned deeply, yes, her forehead a maze of lines—but she had no words.

  “If the rumors of Antecessor parity are true,” said Borrick, “I don’t trust that my father is stable enough to use his newfound powers for anything good—beyond the resurrection of my mother, shall we call it.” Pressing fingers to his forehead, he squeezed the lines his trouble had wrought there.

  A moment of quiet.

  Carson broke it. “We haven’t got a choice.” When eyes turned to him, he clarified, “About stopping him. Have we? If he’s that serious about completing this quest, then he needs all the prizes so far—the Chalice Gloria, your Plate of Immortality.” He nodded at Tyran. “He’ll try to get them.”

  Borrick sighed. “Yes, I fear that’s correct.” With a glance to Tyran’s bandaged palm, he added, “That right there says very clearly that he’s serious about letting nothing st
and in his way.”

  Another silence. This was heavier, more ominous.

  Tyran eyed his bandaged hand with pursed lips. The blood that had leaked through the gauze to the bandage itself was dark—the main flow of it had stopped, although it would likely be oozing on and off for quite some time. His fingers stuck out, dark at the bases and swollen. He wasn’t moving them now.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I'll speak to my crew and see if we can’t hasten our passage.”

  “How long have we got?” I asked. “Until we get to our next cut-through.”

  “Twenty-two hours,” said Tyran. “As of right now.”

  I nodded. It was a long time—but I was much happier that this delay was now, heading into the last leg of the quest, rather than the stage we’d just completed. As Tyran said: whether we arrived there in a day, a week, or a year, Borrick would need to wait for us. It was, I figured now, likely the reason for the two-key approach to so many of these puzzles: Seekers might be forced together for the final challenge. Mucho entertainment for the Antecessors.

  “Tend to your brother,” said Tyran, rising, “and make yourselves at home, hmm? The mess hall is often stocked. And I daresay we can rustle up some beds for you.”

  Manny—right. I’d done a surprisingly good job of compartmentalizing things. Now, though, we were idle. I could reopen his box—and see just what sort of long-lasting damage might’ve been done by his stint in the broken world.

  20

  The moment I returned to the Velocity’s medical bay, my stomach gave a lurch: Manny was propped up against his pillows, and most definitely awake.

  “Manny,” I said, leaning into a jog that brought me to his bedside, then down upon the bed beside him. “You’re awake.”

  “Am I?” he said. But then he smiled, weakly, pocking one cheek with a dimple, and my heart lightened. “Hi, everyone,” he said, eyes raking over toward my friends following me in … and then his expression soured. “What’s he doing here?”

  Borrick had stilled by the door. I’d been in such a rush to get to Manny after leaving Tyran’s office (or rather, the closest office he had to the top deck) that he hadn’t had much chance to ask the question I now realized he likely would have: if he should steer clear, for the time being—at least until things were explained.

  “Alain is with us now,” I said.

  “With … what?” Manny frowned something furious. “You’re not serious.”

  “I thought the same,” said Carson. “But he hasn’t been too bad. And he’s helping us stop his dad from becoming a god and pulling a Thanos.”

  Manny looked only more bewildered.

  “The Infinity Gauntlet comics,” Carson clarified earnestly. “He makes the Infinity Gauntlet, and then erases half of the living things in the universe.”

  “I’m not awake,” Manny murmured quietly, shaking his head.

  “You poor fool,” said Heidi. “You can tell yourself that as often as you wish. It won’t change the messed-up reality you’ve woken up in. Believe me: I have tried.” Eyeing Borrick, waiting at the entry to the medical bay, she exhaled. “Oh, believe you me, have I tried.”

  “Borrick, come in,” I said.

  He hesitated. “I think I should just …”

  “No, you shouldn’t. Come in here. We’re all on the same team—you aren’t going to sequester yourself away forever.”

  “Well, you could,” said Heidi, as Borrick cautiously inched in, “but it would make things awfully difficult with your future brother-in-law.”

  “Brother-in-law?” Manny croaked.

  “Ignore her,” I said, though I couldn’t deny the flash of heat that rose to my cheeks. “It’s just Heidi snark.” Ignoring the scowl that crossed her face—it was the word ‘snark’ I think, which I’d picked up from Carson and which she hated with a great, fiery passion—something about it being too American—I grasped Manny’s hands and said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Woozy,” he said. “And confused.” His gaze moved again to Borrick, who stood with us but still slightly back, close to Bub. I suspected he was tempted to use the orc’s bulk to obscure himself, though he stood tall, without wilting. “My head is fuzzy,” Manny went on. He added with a frown, “And I’m thirsty.”

  “I’ll get you something to drink,” I said. “Bub? Would you go …?”

  Heidi brayed laughter. “You said you’d get Manny something.”

  Bub said, “Should I go?”

  “Please,” I said.

  “No, it’s okay,” said Manny, lifting a hand to still Bub. “I'm fine. The doc should be back soon.”

  “Bub can check where he is,” I said.

  “No, it’s okay—”

  “I will locate the doctor, Mr. Emmanuel,” said Bub. And he turned and clanked off.

  “Thanks,” called Heidi with a sarcastic singsong—not aimed at him but rather me.

  I ignored her. Bigger and more important things to be focusing on right now than my lapse in propriety.

  “I’ll go too,” said Borrick, and followed. “Give you some alone time.” And with a fleeting look back over his shoulder, directed to me, he turned and left the medical bay too.

  Manny frowned at his disappearing back, in a distant sort of way. “Seriously, why is he …?”

  “You’ve missed a lot,” said Heidi. “Alain is your little sister’s latest crush.”

  “Crush?” Manny echoed. Again, he spoke in a distant, fuzzy sort of way, like a flu had smothered his brain. But he was not so distant as not to look totally aghast—his eyebrows pressed inward.

  “He’s not my crush,” I said, ignoring the heat rising in my cheeks.

  “Right,” Heidi smirked. “No more than our old friend Clay was back in the summer.”

  “He is not—Clay wasn’t—” I blustered.

  Heidi’s Cheshire cat grin only widened at my discomfort.

  “I don’t understand,” said Manny, eyes travelling back and forth between us, at a slow, sedate clip.

  “Alain Borrick is on our side now,” I said. “He’s seen the error of his ways.”

  “The same Alain Borrick who set orcs and marachti after you?”

  I nodded. “I appreciate it’s quite an about-face.”

  “Just a bit,” he said warily. He looked at me very seriously, for a long moment … and then released a shallow breath that was, I supposed, the best version of a sigh he could manage right now. “Well, I guess I’ve been out for … however long … so I’ll just have to trust your judgment.”

  “Thank you. I’ll catch you up on all of it, I promise.”

  He nodded. “Any other surprises, though?” Looking pained, he added, “You haven’t got our estranged grandmother back there, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

  He seemed to sag at that, sinking just a fraction deeper into his pillows. “Well, thank heavens for that.”

  Bub returned with Doctor Fiennes. The doctor led, bustling rather quickly, his footsteps clipped on the medical bay floor, and his doctor’s jacket bouncing. Bub followed, and Borrick brought up the rear. His face was drawn. A wary glance came my way; I smiled faintly, hoping to reassure him.

  “How long has the patient been awake for?” Doctor Fiennes asked, squeezing around us to my brother’s bedside.

  “The patient has a name,” Manny murmured. “I’m Emmanuel. And you are …?”

  “Fiennes,” the doctor said distractedly. He clamped a hand over Manny’s forehead, pushed his head back—Manny spluttered—and then he removed a torch from a pocket, clicked it on, and shone it in his eyes.

  Manny shut his eyes, flinching away. “That’s bright.”

  Fiennes pulled up one eyelid with a thumb. Manny’s brown eye shone with the reflected pinpoint, like a movieset bulb glowing at him. His pupil shrunk—the desired effect, apparently, because Doctor Fiennes released him and placed the torch back into his pocket. Next he pulled out his stethoscope, the spindly little wiry thing that it
was, and pressed the pad to Manny’s chest.

  “Could you please be quiet,” he said to one of us, I don’t know who—none of us were making any noise.

  “Sorry,” Carson muttered guiltily. As though he'd been anything less than dead silent.

  The doctor listened …

  “So?” I prompted, after what felt like an age.

  “Sounds normal,” said the doctor. “Breathing is a little shallow—probably how you’re sitting—but regular. Can you sit up?”

  “I am sitting,” said Manny.

  “Hmm.” Stethoscope aside now, Doctor Fiennes consulted the machine pulsing away steadily alongside Manny. He clicked through the various displays, watching lines move for maybe five seconds apiece and then moved onto the next. When they’d cycled all the way back to his heartrate, pulsing at a steady 58BPM, he adjusted the drip feeding into Manny’s arm.

  That all done, he said: “How are you feeling?”

  “Now he asks,” Heidi murmured.

  “A bit foggy,” said Manny. “My thoughts are kind of slow, I guess.”

  Doctor Fiennes glanced to me. “Has he had a head injury?”

  “I don’t know what happened to him. He disappeared fifty-one days ago.”

  Manny spluttered. Shoving up, for the first time the fuzz about him seemed to have left. His eyes were wild. “Fifty-one days?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. We thought you were dead.” The heat of tears stung the back of my eyes at that. I blinked it back. “You stepped into a void—or at least I thought it was a void. Do you remember?”

  Manny frowned. He was silent, for long, dragging seconds. His gaze, fallen to the hospital bed, shifted back and forth, as if he were considering invisible things.

  At last, he said, “No. The last I can remember is … a crystal room.”

  “Do you remember me disappearing?”

  His frown deepened. He racked his brain again.

  But: “No.”

  Damn. Maybe he had received a head injury—a concussion, or something.