Inquest

by Emily Thompson

  Blinking his eyes open, Twist was startled by the dull color and blurred edges of his own crude vision. Had the world always looked so lifeless to him? Jonas leaned around to peer at his face and reached up to test the temperature of his brow with the backs of his fingers.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Twist said before he realized that his voice was soft and nearly breathless. “Wait,” he toned, frowning as he noticed the fatigue in his limbs and back and the sluggish nature of his own thoughts. “Maybe I’m not…”

  “We should take a break,” Jonas said, giving his shoulder a pat. “Thanks, Myra.”

  “Can I touch him?” she asked, looking concerned.

  “Yeah, go ahead,” Jonas said with a smile.

  Myra moved closer to Twist instantly, draping an arm around him and stroking the edge of his face with her cool fingertips. Twist gave a deep sigh, overwhelmed by the soothing sensation of her gentle, warm emotions on his Sight. He hadn’t noticed that he’d needed soothing at all until she bathed him in subtle comforts. Twist let her wrap him in her arms and rested his head on her shoulder, savoring her simple, easy, and familiar grace, while the images of the planets danced in his mind.

  Twist was vaguely aware that Jonas, Skye, and Samay were talking but paid them no mind. For now, all he needed was Myra’s cool touch. He slowly began to realize that this enterprise was going to become a heavy strain on him. The torrent of raw information that Jonas was so accustomed to was almost too much for him. Perhaps he would adapt, as he had before, but he silently decided to try and take things slowly. As his mind cleared, he eventually pulled away from Myra. When he looked on her gentle smile, glinting in the stark sunlight, his own vision felt natural once again.

  “Thank you, my love,” he said, with all the gratitude he had. “I really do feel as right as rain now.”

  “I didn’t do very much,” Myra said bashfully, toying with a curl just behind his ear. Twist took her hand and placed a kiss on her copper palm.

  “Your touch is all that I need.”

  Myra’s delight at his words filled his Sight with a brilliant warmth that rivaled the golden glow of Venus. “Then it will be yours forever, darling,” she purred, leaning closer to kiss him.

  Jonas cleared his throat nosily, drawing Twist’s eye to him. There were now two men standing with him and the others, both watching Twist and Myra with cold eyes of very inhuman coloring. Twist drew back from her instantly as his propriety erupted into embarrassment.

  “Oh, excuse me,” Twist muttered as he clambered awkwardly to his feet. Myra rose as well, taking his steadying hand when he offered it.

  “Lizard astronomers,” Jonas supplied to Twist, hooking a thumb at the men beside him.

  A pale man in an opalescent white suit shot him an unhappy glance at the title, his fully white eyes surprisingly easy to read. The other, who Twist suddenly recognized as Draig—the Welsh dragon who had appeared at the trial—was still dressed in his smart burgundy suit. Draig offered Myra a smile and a short bow.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Princess. Did you have a pleasant trip?”

  “Very nice, thank you,” Myra responded brightly.

  “What does this little one know of the heavens?” the white dragon scoffed. “It looks no bigger than a child,” he said, looking at Twist with heavy distaste. Twist frowned at the comment.

  “He speaks like an adult,” Samay said with a shrug. “But it’s this one that can see the stars,” he added with a gesture to Jonas.

  “Oh yes?” the white dragon asked, looking Jonas over uncertainly.

  “He says all of our maps are wrong.”

  “Nonsense!” the white dragon exclaimed. “My maps are perfect.”

  Jonas gave a sigh and looked to Twist. “This is going to be a long weekend.”

  Skye struggled to contain her quiet laughter, but her amusement was clear on her face. Draig gave her an unkind look.

  “This little whelp is impudent and a liar!” the white dragon declared with a rough gesture at Jonas, his empty eyes blazing with anger.

  “Everest…” Draig said soothingly, drawing the white dragon’s wrathful gaze. “We must get the device calibrated. Zéphyrin believed in the skills of these two. I’ve seen this one do amazing things,” he added, watching Jonas with a thoughtful eye.

  “What does Zéphyrin know? He wants to stay on this crowded little world,” Everest grumbled, crossing his arms. Draig gave him a level look. “Fine, fine!” Everest growled, tossing his hands in the air. “Let’s just get to work, if we’re going to. You,” he said, jabbing a finger toward Jonas. “If you can see so damned well, then tell me why the astrolabe can’t keep good time?”

  “Well,” Jonas began, “I’m not the horroo-whats-it…”

  “Horologist,” Twist supplied, struggling to contain his smirk.

  Jonas paused to reorganize his point. “I’m not your clock man, but I can already guess that the trouble stems from the fact that you omitted most of the solar system from the contraption.”

  “Do you mean the asteroids?” Everest scoffed. “We don’t care about them.”

  “But they’re big and heavy, and there’s loads of them,” Jonas said with forced patience. “They pull on everything they pass by and are affected as well.”

  “But they are only little bits of rock,” Everest retorted. “The effects of gravity aren’t that far reaching.”

  “There are two rivers of them, ringing the whole system and slicing it in half,” Jonas said. “That many little bits of rock can add up to a very large force. Your real problem is with the outer worlds, isn’t it? They are the ones most affected by the two asteroid belts.”

  “What are you on about?” asked Everest. “There’s only one belt of asteroids. The one between Mars and Jupiter.”

  “No, there’re two,” Jonas said, shaking his head. “The second one is just out beyond Uranus. It’s just as dense as the inner ring, but the asteroids are larger and covered in ice. There’re more than a few things out there that are as large as half the size of Earth’s moon.”

  Everest paused, his empty white eyes staring into space as his fingers twitched, as if counting silently to himself. He stopped abruptly and looked at Jonas with new calm. “Bless my scales…the impudent bastard might just have a point. If there really is a second ring, then that would account for the strange drifting we’ve been seeing.”

  “If that truly is the problem,” Draig asked thoughtfully, “then will you be able to calibrate the astrolabe without adding the extra elements?”

  Not answering, Jonas looked to Twist.

  “Oh,” Twist toned, suddenly finding every eye in the room turned toward him. “I have no idea. I mean,” he amended at the sight of Everest’s frown, “I might be able to. If I could adjust the orbits to wobble as they need to, then I’m sure I could get it running.”

  “I can show you how each planet and moon moves,” Jonas said.

  “Yes, and in amazing detail,” Twist said, nodding. For an instant, his mind filled with the memory of the planets Jonas had shown him, and he could hardly believe that it hadn’t been something from a dream. “Well, with enough information, I think I really could do it.”

  “But that will take a long time, won’t it?” Myra asked, suddenly catching the group’s attention. Twist shrugged, still unsure of the size of the task before him. “Well,” Myra went on, wearing a worried expression and petting at his arm, “it isn’t good for you to work too hard. You don’t want to fall into fainting spells again.”

  Twist winced at the word “again,” but he also knew that she had every reason to fear for his health. From the first time she had ever seen him—in her mountaintop palace at the feet of the Himalayas, where he’d repaired her broken clockwork body—to the journey to Australia after Jonas had been kidnapped just last week, Twist had shown a strong tendency to faint when his Sight was overtaxed. He looked to Skye, suddenly understanding her earlier embarrassm
ent at waking up to find that she had fainted.

  “Don’t worry, Myra,” Jonas said with a smile. “If you keep watch over him and tell us when to rest, I’m sure he’ll soldier through.”

  Myra’s emotions brightened with her smile. “Oh yes, I’m sure you’re right.”

  Twist looked at Jonas suspiciously. Just as he’d feared, he caught a glimpse of a taunting gleam hidden in his friend’s smile.

  “Shall we start with Mercury and work our way out?” Jonas asked. “The inner planets should be easier to manage.”

  “Well, I certainly feel rested enough,” Twist said, forcing a strong sense of confidence into his voice. “By all means,” he added with an inviting gesture toward the stairs.

  Twist’s attention floated languidly in the vast emptiness of space, while the pocked and blackened planet whizzed around the sun. Although it orbited far faster than the Earth, clinging close to the motherly warmth of the sun, Mercury hardly rotated at all. Twist idly fancied that, like a moth flitting around a candle, it couldn’t bear to look away from the amazingly brilliant light.

  Twist let the images soak into his mind, watching years pass in moments, while his own Sight helped him to compare what he saw to the workings of the clockwork in his hands. Jonas’s Sight seemed to have no trouble adjusting the temporal nature of what he showed Twist, as if time itself were as easy to control as the winding of a watch spring. Jonas had explained that the farther away he looked, the more control he had of which moments he saw. With such easy access to the information he needed, Twist was able to sense the true nature of the burnt little planet’s motion. He carefully adjusted the movements and speeds of the clockwork until it matched the vision perfectly.

  “All right, let’s try that,” Twist said, pulling away from Jonas’s touch inside his own mind.

  The heavens vanished from his inner vision as Jonas pulled gently away as well. In a few moments, Twist felt that he could open his own eyes once again. Blinking his dull, unspectacular vision clear in the failing light of the now-distant sun, Twist once again felt the strain on his Sight. Jonas took his hands away from Twist slowly, lingering until he felt steady. Crouching on the unmoving platform inside the sphere of stars—to best reach the clockwork that controlled the motion of the gem that represented Mercury—Twist stood back from the machine and put a hand to his throbbing brow.

  “Are you all right, dear?” Myra asked, already at his side with buzzing concern in her touch. “You didn’t look very pale…”

  “No, no, I’m all right,” Twist muttered. “Oh, but I am feeling tired,” he added, finding his breath short and his head heavy.

  “Let’s just see if Mercury is set now, and then you’re going to have a lie-down,” Jonas said.

  “Right,” Twist said, steeling himself against his fatigue.

  He, Jonas, and Myra moved to stand on the central staircase. Now clear of the swinging motion of the spinning clockwork arms, Twist took hold of one of the many small handwheel controls that could advance the astrolabe’s arrangement at will. With a gentle push, the giant clockwork machine swept into motion, sending the gem planets spinning around the golden sun. Twist watched as the little drop of smoky gray diamond made a partial circuit. Jonas watched it as well, his powerful eyes appearing deep purple to Twist.

  “Ah, that’s better,” Jonas said, smiling. “The rotation is finally right, and it looks like the orbit speed is matching the ellipse perfectly now as well. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s sufficient,” Twist said with a sigh. “I tried to get it to slow down a little more at the far end of the orbit, but this machine is just too crude for it.”

  “Crude?” Samay scoffed. He stood on the ground below, near the work table, writing careful notes on all that Jonas and Twist had done to alter the machine. Skye stood nearby, idly juggling a few of the larger spanners with amazing ease. “Did you just call this astrolabe crude?”

  “Compared to reality, it’s quite crude,” Twist answered, hardly able to believe it himself.

  Samay shook his head with disdain and looked back to his notes. Twist and the others climbed down the stairs to the ground. Looking up at the machine again, Twist now instantly saw the drastic inconsistencies in the sizes of most of the planets. Given the size of the machine, every planet looked comically engorged and crowded together. Of course, he could understand why the choice had been made to not use realistic dimensions. With a machine that was small enough to fit inside a building, most of the planets and all of the moons would have to be too small to see clearly if they were made to accurate scale.

  Despite the glaring inaccuracy of size, Twist could imagine that the positions of each planet would remain useful enough for interplanetary navigation. As long as it was maintained and unaltered, this machine would trace the movements of those planets with near-perfect accuracy for hundreds of thousands of years. His mind could scarcely fathom the idea that this vast amount of time was like mere moments to those ancient worlds, and especially to the stars beyond. The duration of his own lifetime would seem like nothing more than a fleeting thought to the burning giants that surrounded the tiny island of his solar system.

  “Oh, you are looking very tired now,” Myra cooed worriedly to Twist. She took his arm and began to lead him away the moment he set foot on the ground again. “Come along. Jonas is right. You need a nice lie-down.”

  “Or something to eat, maybe,” Skye said leadingly. “Honestly, am I the only one here with an appetite?”

  “Twist never eats unless he’s told to,” Jonas said with a shrug.

  “That’s true,” Skye agreed seriously. “He skipped more than one buffet on that cruise across the Pole.”

  “Oh, it has been a while since you’ve had something to eat!” Myra gasped anxiously. “I didn’t even think of it. I’m sorry, darling…”

  “No, no,” Twist said quickly. “Please don’t feel bad about anything. I’m fine.”

  Myra looked imploringly to Jonas. “He just said he’s ‘fine.’ Is something wrong with him?”

  “Now that’s just not fair!” Twist snapped at them both, as Jonas moved to examine him.

  Skye laughed and turned to Samay. “How about it, Sammy? Any chance of a sandwich?”

  “That’s not how you say my name!” Samay grumbled. “Are you trying to be inconsiderate?”

  Skye smirked but put up her hands in a submissive gesture. “My bad. I forget things when I don’t eat…”

  Jonas smiled in Skye’s direction, clearly pleased with her insolence. Samay shook his head.

  “It’s nearly time for the evening meal,” the dragon muttered, glancing at the setting sun beyond the colored crystal walls. “Follow me. We’ll find something for you to eat.”

  Samay took them all out into the chilly twilight, toward one of the largest central buildings of the golden palace. Twist noticed a number of other dragons heading in the same direction. Some of the huge, colorful, scale-covered beasts chatted together as they prowled along on their massive talons, while others flew by overhead on enormous wings. A handful of the beasts strode toward the building in human form, while smaller dragons scurried quickly by.

  Samay led Twist and his companions under a golden archway and into the huge, wide, domed building. Inside, Twist was reminded instantly of the mushroomlike tower where his trial had taken place. Tier after tier of bench seating rose nearly to the jewel-crusted dome above, in the shape of an amphitheater. The central open space was filled with a huge bonfire nearly twenty feet high. Hundreds of glistening dragons sat in clusters on the tiered seating, each surrounding a small mountain of food, while they spoke loudly together in strange tongues that Twist didn’t know.

  “Hey, look!” one of the nearest dragons exclaimed in perfect English, pointing to Twist and his companions as they entered. “The hors d’oeuvres have arrived.”

  Myra gasped and clung to Twist’s arm in terror, while Twist’s heart shuddered in his chest. Chuckles sounded all around, ec
hoing off the silver and gold. Samay rolled his eyes and calmly led Twist and the others up a silver stairway to an empty space on a middle tier. Twist managed to soothe his own fright as he remembered that he and Jonas were here for their skills and not for their flavor.

  They sat down together on heaped piles of golden coins that ringed an empty patch of silver floor and left a great deal to be desired in the way of comfort. Nevertheless, the surrounding dragons looked perfectly at ease as they lounged about on the gold. Jonas picked up a single coin, as if examining it. Twist eyed him warningly and leaned closer to him, while the gold under him shifted.

  “I seriously doubt it would be a good idea to steal from these creatures,” Twist muttered softly to Jonas as he struggled to get his seat to cooperate. Myra, meanwhile, seemed stable enough, sitting at his left side on her own pile.

  “But…” Jonas whispered back, his voice thick with pitiful distress. “I’m a pirate! I’m just as captivated by gold as they are.”

  “Stop it,” Twist warned him, having finally managed to coerce the pile under him into a relatively flat surface once again. Jonas gave a heavy sigh but let the coin drop from his fingers into the pile.

  “Good choice,” Skye said, having sat down just at Jonas’s right. She patted his knee and gave him a smile, though he didn’t look directly at her face. “There’ll be time for thieving later,” she added mysteriously.

  Twist was about to ask her what she meant when Samay came to join them. A smaller, doglike red dragon he’d been talking to scurried away quickly. Twist noticed then that a great number of the smaller dragons were moving among the others, delivering full platters of food or removing empty ones.

  “You probably wouldn’t enjoy some of the things we like to eat,” Samay explained. “I’ve asked them to bring something you can stomach.”