The Black Rose (11 page)

“What a tragedy,” Bál replied darkly.

The Golden Turtle
was exactly where they had left it—or, rather, the rail surrounding the top hatch was still floating unnoticed several feet from the bank. Ruth dived in, followed by Dannie and then Jack and Bál, who dragged Sardâr through the water as if they were towing a kayak.

Ruth scrambled onto the railing and pulled open the hatch. Dannie hopped in after her. Bál lowered Sardâr to them and climbed down. Jack took one last look at the filthy city rising from the riverbank and followed Bál, not at all regretting their departure from Albion.

The first thing they attended to was Sardâr. Dripping river water all the way through the ship, Jack and Bál carried him to the command deck and laid him out on the map table.

Ruth had summoned Quentin, who apparently, in addition to being first mate, was the ship's doctor. He had brought a large leather case, which he set next to the elf's legs and opened to reveal a plethora of implements. Affixing a pair of thick-lensed spectacles to his nose, he made a set of initial observations before speaking.

“The fellow's been hit by some kind of Dark alchemy,” Quentin confirmed in his natural Etonian accent, for once making no attempt to sound pirate-like. “I need to give him a rather strong stimulant to wake him.” He searched his case and retrieved a syringe. Emptying a vial of clear liquid into it, he tested it and raised it over the elf's body.

“He's not going to enjoy this,” Quentin remarked drily and punctured Sardâr's breastbone.

The elf snapped up into a ninety-degree position, inhaling sharply, his eyes open so wide that white could be seen all around his pupils. It took several minutes for his breathing to return to normal, at which point he thanked Quentin with a pat on the shoulder.

“You can't keep on like this, old chap,” Quentin reprimanded him. “All these damn scrapes you get yourself into. First the incident in the volcano, then that nasty business with Zâlem, now this. Your body can only take so much alchemical injury before it snaps for good.”

Satisfied that Sardâr was going to remain conscious, they all took a break to get cleaned up and changed. Jack was given a renewed sense of just how much soot and oil had become encased in his skin. After a long shower and having changed his filthy shirt and trousers for the tunic he'd worn as an elf, he felt a lot more comfortable.

Whilst running a towel through his hair, which had grown much longer in the weeks since he'd left Earth, he took stock of his belongings. The Albion clothes were in a pile ready to be taken to the laundry room and perhaps added to Quentin's theatrical collection from different worlds. His bag still held a selection of toiletries snatched from his room in Thorin Salr, which he had emptied onto his bed. The really important stuff was now on his person. The gauntlet from the goblin Vodnik, awarded to Jack for saving his life, was clasped onto his left forearm. The language ring was on the fourth finger of his left hand. The Seventh Shard, as always, was threaded around his neck under his tunic.

He glanced at the bed absently, half-expecting to see Inari there, but, of course, he had sent the fox to keep an eye on Lucy. The pang of guilt surprised him: she had barely been in his thoughts. It
had
been less than a fortnight since they'd parted ways, and though she'd been away on family holidays longer than this, it seemed like a lifetime since he'd seen her.

He joined the group on the command deck. The water they'd spread into the room had been mopped up, and everything looked just as they'd left it a little over a week ago: banks of high-tech computer monitors, murky water beyond the glass, and the large oak table in the center, where Ruth, Sardâr, Bál, and Dannie stood.

“About time,” Ruth said as he approached. “We were wondering what had happened to you.”

They were all looking down at a piece of paper. “I managed to take this from the desk in Osborne Manor,” Sardâr explained. “We think it shows where they might be going. Can you read this, please?”

Jack leaned to have a look, wondering why it had to be him. The map was very minimalist, with a few lines showing the city and a river running eastwards. A route had been traced westwards from the city to a forest upriver. An
X
was marked in a glade of trees, and a single word had been scrawled in thin handwriting. “It says
commune.”

“What does that mean?” Dannie asked.

“I'm not exactly sure,” Sardâr replied, for some reason still appraising Jack. “Though we know from our look into the black mirror that Nimue was searching for the fairies of this world who supposedly guard the Third Shard. We have yet to discover why she ended up in a human city instead. We know from those plans that they've constructed some kind of machine. I think if we follow them to this commune, we'll find out more.” All of them nodded.

Sardâr handed the map to one of the crew members operating the computer consoles. Moments later, bubbles were rising beyond the glass dome as the ship dived and began its journey upriver.

“Now,” Ruth said, rounding on Dannie,
“you've
got some questions to answer.”

Dannie smiled sheepishly. “Fair enough. I haven't really explained anything.”

“So you work in the Goodwin factory?” Jack prompted, trying to temper Ruth's accusatory tone. “But why did you rescue us? And, for that matter, how did you know where to find us?”

Dannie grinned now, and the phrase
grease monkey
found its way into Jack's head. She was fairly short and very thin, skin still thick with ingrained dirt even after a shower, and her shoulder-length blonde hair fell in oily curls around her tanned face. She had opted to keep her own clothes, and, despite the new revelations about her gender, the boots, trousers, shirt, and flat cap suited her.

“Well, I
am
a factory worker, but I guess I'm a sort of detective as well. It's a long old story, but I'll give you the short version. My dad was a laborer for this small manufacturing firm. It was a pretty good setup, but then Fred Goodwin bought it out and fired the whole workforce. That pretty much did Dad in. So when I was old enough, I decided to get back at Goodwin. I've been investigating his operation for a while now, trying to dig up some of the dirt everyone knows is there but no one can find any hard evidence for. So I was working undercover at the factory.

“Then, just over a week ago now, this Osborne woman shows up and a lot of manufacturing firms' profits practically double overnight, including Goodwin's. Very shady. So I do a bit more digging and find that someone else is asking the same questions as me”—she nodded at Sardâr—”and so I kept an eye on you. I followed you to the Osborne place and saw you jump out of that flaming window. And then the bobbies got you. Of course, I didn't know you were all connected until then!” She pointed between Sardâr, Jack, and Bál.

“But what took you so long to get to the prison? We were there for hours!”

“I lost track of the paddy wagon, so I had to go round all the police stations in the city searching for you. You were in the fourth or fifth one I tried. Nearly got it badly wrong a few times. I'd got the rope down on one before I realized I was busting out a deranged murderer! Now
that
would've been a mistake…”

“And so you're coming with us now?”

“May as well. I'm interested to see what this Osborne woman's up to. If I can catch her, I've got a good chance of pinning something on Goodwin.”

Jack had half-expected this. Dannie was well-intentioned and sharp, but she clearly had no idea who was really behind all this. He nodded his assent to Sardâr, and he saw Ruth and Bál do the same.

The elf smiled exasperatedly. “Well, it would be me doing the explaining, wouldn't it? Very well. Dannie, there are some things you should know before we get to the forest…”

Sardâr told her everything—or at least everything Jack knew: about the different races and worlds; about the Apollonians and the Cult; about the Cult's plan to create a superweapon; about the legends Isaac had come across; about the Shards of the Risa Star and an Übermensch and the race to find them.

For the most part, Dannie took it surprisingly well. Considering that for Jack and Lucy to be convinced, it had taken a Cult attack on their home, being transported to another world, and fighting a demon inside a volcano. Dannie, conversely, was positively nonchalant about the whole thing.

“So,” she said, once Sardâr had finished and she'd computed everything for a few seconds, “you're an elf, you're a dwarf, you're a human—so what are you?” She looked lastly at Ruth, who looked back at her, confused.

It was then that Jack caught sight of a new golden egg set upon one of the maps—a replacement for the one that had shattered outside the manor. It made him remember something. “Dannie, what was it you used to get us out of the cell?”

Dannie grinned again and rolled up her shirt slightly, undoing a thick leather belt from around her waist and laying it out on the table. It held a line of various metal implements, like a mechanic's tool kit. She unclipped what looked like a pair of skipping rope handles.

“Pulse wire,” she explained, pulling the handles apart to reveal a thin line of green energy between them. “Can cut through pretty much anything, including prison bars.”

“What else have you got in there?” Ruth asked, obviously impressed.

Dannie replaced the pulse wire and pulled out something that looked like a cross between a key and a screwdriver. “Thunder key. Sends an electric pulse through a lock to align the tumblers. And my personal favorite.” She swapped the key for a small pistol. “Memory gun. A blast from this and you'll be hazy for about five minutes… until you realize your incriminating documents have been swiped from your safe.”

“And where did you get all this?” Sardâr inquired coolly. It was the same reproachful tone he had adopted toward King Thorin when he'd suspected that explosives had been stolen from another world.

“I made them. Alchemically enhanced technology. Like this whole place, right?” She gestured around at the innards of the ship.

Ruth raised her eyebrows. “I think you're going to fit in around here.”

The journey to the Cave of Lights was the toughest challenge Lucy had ever faced. Leaving the goblin encampment, they had struck out north across the frozen plains, crossing the river via an ancient-looking bridge—provoking a twinge of memory of Thorin Salr—and begun the long ascent.

Snow fell in the foothills and continued once they reached the mountains proper. Each night they went to sleep amidst a scene of silently descending flakes, and in the mornings they awoke to a fresh layer of white all around them. The tribe had lent them a couple of smaller tents, one for Lucy and Adâ and another for Hakim and Vince. These were notoriously difficult to set up and disassemble, so they allowed an additional hour at sunrise and sunset to do so. The days were freezing, and the nights were even colder. They ate what little they had brought—mainly dry food from Maht's store—in two small meals each day around an alchemically conjured fire.

They barely spoke for the entire journey, all of them silently acknowledging that words would waste energy they sorely needed. The air became noticeably thinner the higher they climbed, and it took considerable effort for all of them to continue moving at a steady pace. Their priest guide had said not a single word since leaving the matriarch's tent but shuffled always several feet ahead of them, forging a shallow causeway through the snow.

Lucy, like her three companions, had piled on as many layers as possible before departure. She was aching now from the daylong periods of hiking, and she had almost lost all feeling in her extremities. When she removed her gloves, it was to find her fingertips had turned black. One evening, as they were eating, she had shown Hakim. The elf had grimaced and, placing his fingertips to hers, proceeded to heal her with alchemy. This was fine until she noticed later that, rather than disappearing, the frostbite seemed to have transferred to him. She felt instantly guilty and resolved to keep it to herself in the future.