The Black Rose

by James Bartholomeusz

  “I think so,” Charles confirmed, once several people had given their assent. “The zöpüta still have a considerable way to go with their new community, and we can all lend a hand.”

  Hakim smiled faintly. Jack could tell he was glad that he and Adâ wouldn’t be missed too much. “In that case, has anyone got anything more to add?”

  Again no one spoke. Jack’s heart quickened. He was in a moment of indecision. He knew it was right that the others should know what Sardâr had told him, but this didn’t seem like a particularly respectful time. He didn’t want to hijack the situation. And yet, they would be angry later if he hadn’t told them when they were all here…

  “Well, in that case—”

  “I’ve got something to say.” Jack stepped forward slightly. Everyone was now looking at him. He gathered a deep breath, taking in all their waiting expressions, and then took the plunge. “I’m the Übermensch.”

  He had expected something radical to change. It didn’t. Everyone looked at him as if he’d just announced what he’d be having for lunch.

  Conscious that he only had a limited time before his credibility completely deserted him, he pressed on. “I can speak all your languages. Literally all of them. Isaac thought that was meant to be a sign, didn’t he?”

  “Jack,” Hakim began, with the tone of one dealing with a delusional child, “as impressive as that is, I’m not sure—”

  “No, you don’t understand. This is new.” He pulled the defunct language ring out of his pocket and held it up to the light. It reminded him of having to stand up and speak in front of a class at school, and the painful memories of that occasion spurred him on. “When I first met you, when this first started, I couldn’t speak anything other than English. Now, though, the ring doesn’t have any effect.”

  “He’s right.” Adâ’s voice drew everyone’s attention. “He couldn’t speak any other languages when we first picked him up.”

  There was a pause. Jack saw Hakim and Charles exchange skeptical looks. He was losing his audience. Impulsively, he yanked the cord of the Seventh Shard from around his neck and held it at arm’s length. “Look, if you don’t believe me, watch this. Come on out, Inari.”

  There was a flash of incandescent light, and a couple of people cried out. It faded, and on the ground beneath the dangling Shard, the double-tailed white fox sat on his hind legs, regarding the room.

  “Everyone, this is Inari. Say hello, Inari.”

  “Hello, everyone,”the fox drawled.

  Everyone else looked stunned. There was definitely no skepticism now.

  “Inari’s the one who gave me the Seventh Shard, back on Earth. He’s pulled me out of quite a few scrapes so far.”

  “But,” Ruth ventured, “it’s a fox…”

  Inari bristled. “I’d rather you didn’t pander such essentialisms around, my dear. I have two tails, I’m glowing, and I can speak. I am demonstrably not a fox.”

  Ruth didn’t seem too happy with the rebuke.

  “But, more to the point, Jack is the Übermensch, although your terms of reference are hardly fitting. It’s more a state of becoming than a state of being.”

  Dannie seemed to be on a different wavelength. “Does it live in the Shard, then?”

  “In a manner of speaking. There’s no proper mortal equivalent. I suppose I’m tied to the Shard but free to come and go as I please. You’ll find that the other Shards are similarly inhabited, although because of some special conditions you won’t find any of their denizens as vocal as I. And, madam, I’d also rather you addressed me directly, rather than through Jack. Really, you lot call yourselves civilized.”

  Jack thought it was time to intervene. “Okay, Inari, that’s enough.”

  The fox did its equivalent of rolling its eyes, and a moment later it had vanished.

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Sardâr worked it out originally,” Jack said, wanting to acknowledge the real source. “He said he’d had his suspicions for a while, but…”

  “So if he’s the Übermensch,” Dannie began slowly, “then that’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Very much so,” Hakim replied weakly. “All we need to do is find the remaining Shards, and…” He let the remainder of his sentence hang.

  Jack continued. “Well, I was thinking about that. We’re fairly sure there’s a Shard in this world, aren’t we? And now that the Cult’s gone, it’s not going to be at all as risky to find it. There aren’t any people besides us: the worst we’ll come across are a few wild animals. I could take a dimension ship with a few others and bring it back here, whilst Hakim and Adâ are away. Then we can sort out what to do about the others after that.”

  He hoped he sounded sincere. Of course, he was planning to go and get the Shard, but Lucy’s departure had given him a jolting reminder of the real reason he’d become involved with the Apollonians in the first place: to find Alex. And if Alex had been on Nexus, there was a good chance he would have ended up somewhere on this planet—if he’d managed to get out at all.

  “That seems reasonable.” Charles nodded along with several others. “We haven’t thought about the implications of the Cult being gone yet, but it would seem that the pursuit of the Shard will now be considerably easier. Who would you take with you? If it’s to be one of our ordinary dimension ships, then it can’t be a big group.”

  Jack looked around the assembled faces. He knew who he wanted but was tentative about announcing it to the group. He was saved the embarrassment when Ruth stepped forward.

  “I’m in.”

  “Me too,” Dannie added, rolling the Third Shard between finger and thumb. “Sounds like you could use someone with another one of these. Mine’s got a shiny animal as well, then?”

  “Three’s fine,” Jack said quickly. He didn’t want the entire group volunteering, or it would turn into something like a school trip.

  Preparations didn’t take long. Their trio was allocated one of the other dimension ships: very like the one Lucy had been taken home in but violet instead of turquoise. Their belongings and some provisions were loaded in the cargo section beneath, including an egg from The Golden Turtle for contact purposes.

  As they were stocking up the ship, Adâ approached. Jack panicked slightly: he had avoided speaking to her since Sardâr’s death, not knowing how to possibly begin consoling her.

  However, she didn’t seem to expect him to say anything. She was holding an object that he initially took to be a slab of stone, but he realized it was the Cultist mirror they’d taken from Thorin Salr. The surface was now dulled completely. It had lost its obsidian quality and now seemed as if it could have slid out of any cliff face.

  She pressed it into the crook of one of his arms. “It might come in useful.”

  He scrabbled for something to say. “I know you’ll make sure he’s sent off properly.” The words sounded painfully blasé.

  Adâ didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she pulled him into a brief hug. “Look after yourselves. He cared about you.”

  The zöpüta brought gifts for them as well. Along with drying foods, they had been experimenting with art. They presented Jack, Ruth, and Dannie wallet-sized woven sculptures in the likeness of lion heads. Jack clipped his onto the thread around his neck to hang with the Seventh Shard, whilst Ruth planted hers in her hair. Dannie, after a failed attempt to eat hers, sheepishly deposited it in one of the pouches on her belt.

  They were ready within half an hour. Ruth was in the pilot’s position, adjusting controls, whilst Dannie looked on with interest. The remaining Apollonians had collected by the side of the ship, along with an assortment of zöpüta.

  Charles wheeled over, and Jack crouched on the edge of the ship to hear him speak. “I know this should be straightforward, but don’t get complacent. We’ve survived the wreckage of Nexus, so others may have too.”

  Jack nodded and was about to stand.

  Charles halted him, speaking more discreetly. “And watch out for that fox.”<
br />
  “Inari’s always been—”

  “I know you trust him,” Charles pressed on, “and perhaps with good reason. But I’m sure you remember as well as I do what Isaac’s last letter said about a white fox.”

  “Okay, we’re ready,” Ruth called.

  Jack backed away and strapped himself in with the odd jellied belts as Charles cleared the vicinity. The vibrations from below and the suddenly blurring air around them told him that the wings had begun to beat. He saw that Dannie hadn’t bothered to put hers on. “Trust me,” he told her. “Use that. You didn’t see what happened to Vince…”

  The two passengers had just begun to wave as Ruth slammed her palm down on the control panel. The ship lurched forwards, and they caught a last glimpse of waving figures, the shelters, and the metallic sheen of The Golden Turtle before they were hurtling across the savannah under the beating sun.

  Chapter XIV

  chthonia

  The first hints of spring brushed the orchard. The bare-branched trees, marked against the pale morning sky like candelabras, glimmered with their first few leaves. The air was cold, colder than in Nduino, though certainly nowhere near that of the Sveta Mountains. A few birds called out—not condors or vultures or any recognizable equivalent, but normal, British birds.

  They were on top of Sirona Beacon. Metal railings, screened off by flapping canvas, had been erected all around the hilltop, blocking the view beyond. The gondola-style dimension ship was tilted slightly, having hewn a line in the ground upon landing. It had come to rest next to a large circle of earth that looked as if it had been newly turned or something had been buried beneath.

  Vince stood aboard, Lucy on the grass. It was, she remembered, almost exactly the same place on the hill she had been held captive by the Cult that night when everything had changed.

  Her appearance was incongruous at best. The Golden Turtle’s stock of clothing had been diminished significantly by the refugees, so the options hadn’t been good. What she had come out with was hardly adequate: a dragon-woven dressing gown that trailed at her feet, pantaloons which swelled her upper thighs to the size of watermelons, a ruffled silk shirt, and a hat that may once have been fashionable but, inexplicably, had a stuffed koala-type creature attached to its brim. On top of that, she was trying to balance a bundle of furs that had come from the goblin camp, making her look like she’d grown a gigantic beard. She hadn’t even begun to think how she was going to explain this.

  “So this is it?” Vince said. He seemed intent on containing his laughter.

  “I guess so.” Lucy’s reply was muffled by the furs. Now here, she was unsure of what to say. Being escorted home on a flying gondola after a trip around the universe didn’t exactly have a precedent.

  “Take care of yourself. And take this.” He tossed her something.

  She caught it, dropping several furs in the process. Turning it over, she saw that it was one of the clasped eggs from The Golden Turtle.

  “This thing can’t change clothes, can it?”

  Vince finally broke into chuckles. “Unfortunately not. Keep it, just in case.”

  She paused, then nodded and tucked it into one of the dressing gown pockets.

  Vince smiled and climbed down into the control position of the ship. He adjusted a few controls, and it flashed into life. “Good luck!”

  The paneled wings of the ship began to judder and became blurred, lifting it into the air. The last sight she saw was Vince turning a dial, and then with an echoing sonic boom, the entire structure vanished into thin air.

  She waited for a moment. Everything was still. Then she dropped the furs and began to strip off layers. The pantaloons had to go, and the hat, and the ridiculous high-topped boots she’d forced her legs into. Her bare feet sunk into the dewy grass. It was cold, but it was necessary. She still knew very little about what her parents had been told about her absence, so she had to be prepared for any reaction they might have to her walking semiclothed through the front door as if nothing had happened.

  She had turned down Vince’s offer to come and explain things. Before her disappearance, her dad would probably have called the police if she had come home with a boy. Combine that with her lengthy absence, and he might have had a seizure. There was also the matter of Vince himself. He was several years older and, to put it lightly, not the kind of person her parents would be happy with her being around. It had taken her a long time to convince them that Jack, living in a state-funded orphanage, wasn’t a waste of taxpayer’s money. Amongst the Apollonians Vince was a freedom fighter, but she knew her family would immediately caricature him as a rowdy, drug-addicted benefit scrounger.

  She paused, wondering whether she’d forgotten anything. She felt the egg in her pocket and pulled it out. The burnished metal caught the light, reflecting a distorted version of her face. She considered it, then let it drop onto the pile of disused clothes on the grass.

  Wrapping the dressing gown closer to her, she began trudging down the hill.

  Alex returned to consciousness. The ground beneath him was wet. His body ached all over, and he was sure he was bleeding from somewhere: he still wore his tunic, but it was in tatters and heavy with brine. Mustering his energy, he cracked open his eyelids and pulled himself to his feet.

  He seemed to be on a beach. Behind him, some kind of immense lake or ocean opened out—entirely silent, save for the lapping against his heels. In front, a gorge of pitiless ashen rock led uphill. The sky was like nothing he’d ever seen. It was splintered between light and darkness: behind him, white fog; in front, a bank of obsidian brewing on the horizon.

  He was not alone. A tall, grey figure stood a few feet before him, facing away.

  “Where are we?” Alex spluttered, his lungs ejecting a layer of sour water.

  “At the end of the universe. Chthonia, where the Light meets the Darkness.”

  Alex tried to remember. He had seen the indigo light from his room and done as he was instructed. He had concentrated, and Darkness had bloomed before him, a portal into nothingness. He had stepped inside and felt himself slip away in black smoke. He had hurtled through oblivion, his individuality almost consumed, and lost consciousness. The last thing he could remember was a grey presence speeding alongside, carrying him away from some cataclysm behind.

  “You’re not the Emperor, are you?”

  The grey figure turned. “No. The Emperor was a tool: a mortal vessel, consumed by fanaticism. He is gone, along with Nexus and the Cult of Dionysus.”

  “So what are you?” Alex demanded. Despite his mental and physical exhaustion, he could feel the rage rising up again. He could feel the power he had become so used to surging through him, alighting on every particle of blood in his veins. He was a conduit—something had ripped open inside him, and unfettered energy swooped out. He could feel more than see now. His outstretched arms shook with the force of obsidian fire blasting outwards. He had been imprisoned for months by the grey thing, but no more. No more.

  The grey figure remained motionless, the flames brushing him ineffectually. His expression was unreadable, but those golden orbs burnt through the inferno, brighter and more terrible than the rolling flames.

  Alex’s rage subsided, and the energy ebbed. He was gasping heavily, beads of burning sweat seeping from his scalp.

  The figure appraised him with those twin jewels, set in a statue of wilting rock. “I am not the one you should be venting your anger at. It was your so-called friends who left you for dead. They came to Nexus the night it was destroyed. They liberated others—humans, elves, even the natives—but not you.”

  “Liar,” Alex shouted, flecks of spittle wetting the pebbles. “They weren’t there. They’d never leave me.”

  For the first time, the figure smirked. “Perhaps you value them too highly.”

  And with a deadening thud, the object dropped to the ground before Alex. He felt the heat drain from him entirely. There was no mistaking the object before him: a dull metal egg hel
d in curved clasps, taken from the heart of The Golden Turtle. So the Apollonians had been to Nexus and had not come to find him. There was no question as to whether they’d known he was there. They’d all seen him vanishing into the Darkness with Icarus.

  He dropped to his knees, his eyes searing with tears. The void that had opened within him sparked once more: rage, not at this grey figure or his predicament, but at his friends’ betrayal. He had stayed strong, he had stayed loyal, and it had all been for nothing.

  He screwed up his eyes and roared into the silent day-night, feeling the flames burst anew around him. He was an anti-sun, Dark energy shooting outwards in convulsions of anger and hatred.

  When the flames finally quelled, his chest was heaving again. He opened his eyes. The rocks and cliffs were scorched black, indigo embers kindling in the cracks. The grey figure was gone, leaving the ashen path curling upwards before him.

  And, though he could not see it, his eyes were no longer emerald green but bright, burning gold.