The Machine (An Ethan Stone Thriller)

by Aston, Tom

  “Then pay me four. The lion’s share of it is for Brey’s daughter. I have made a personal pledge to raise her as my own, in accordance with Maria’s wishes.”

  “If Maria Brey wished for you to raise her only child then she must have been mad. I will give you and her daughter three hundred thousand.”

  Barbegris considered the offer and then spat, actually spat a fat glob of phlegm on the floor.

  “You would deprive an old man of financial security in his twilight years. Homph! I will take your three hundred thousand and may Brey’s find be the death of you.”

  The price agreed – for what Celandine still did not know – the four men picked up their coffees and drank.

  Tattoo smacked his lips and set his cup down.

  “Now tell us. Where can we find Gibberdog?”

  The name meant nothing to Celandine.

  “Money first,” said Barbegris.

  “Oh no, not a chance,” said Tattoo. “You tell us, father, and when Gibberdog is ours, we will pay you in full. I may do business with you but don’t expect me to trust you, you old fraud.”

  “What?” blustered Barbegris hoarsely. “You call me a fraud? Me, a father of the Sacred Guild? My word is an unbreakable bond.” He tapped a finger beside his eyepatch. “I didn’t lose my eye to the demon Otokuma so that jumped up militiamen like you could call me a fraud! You will pay me now or you will leave.”

  “Blather all you like,” said Tattoo calmly. “I haven’t got the money with me.”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t got it. Didn’t bring it.”

  Barbegris gagged speechlessly and, before Celandine’s eyes, his face turned a violent shade of red. He got to his feet.

  “Get out, you swine! All of you! How dare you waste my time!”

  “Now, be sensible, father,” said Tattoo also rising. “I can give you maybe a hundred now and when we have Gibberdog the rest will –“

  “A hundred?” Barbegris screamed. “Entropy take you, man!”

  Barbegris took up his coffee cup and flung it inexpertly across the table. Yellow Teeth and Blue Eyes leapt away from the spray of hot drink. Celandine saw Yellow Teeth’s hand go for his pistol and was about to shout out a warning when Blue Eyes grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her against his body. She struggled momentarily but then something hard and cold was pressed against her throat.

  “Be still,” whispered Blue Eyes.

  Celandine swallowed hard and felt the skin of her neck ripple along the edge of Blue Eyes’ sabre.

  Barbegris still stood at his end of the table, silently facing the three soldiers: Yellow Teeth with his pistol trained on Barbegris, Blue Eyes holding Celandine at sabre’s edge and Tattoo stood patiently between them, his weapons undrawn.

  Celandine couldn’t see Tattoo’s face from where she was but she could hear his smile as he talked.

  “Oh my. What a situation we find ourselves in. I feel this calls for fresh negotiations.” He threw a few crumpled notes down on the table. “There’s your hundred, father. You’ve already made it perfectly clear how much this girl means to you. Tell us where Gibberdog can be found and she’ll remain unharmed.”

  Barbegris hesitated long enough for Celandine to realise that, whatever happened next, it wasn’t going to end happily.

  “Quickly, father,” said Tattoo. “His hands shake when he’s had caffeine.”

  Celandine quelled her rising panic and mentally reached out to Ardilla, who was still resting in her pinafore pocket.

  “You wouldn’t kill a child,” said Barbegris. “You’re soldiers.”

  Tattoo remained unmoved.

  “Our master has asked far worse of the faithful.”

  “Far worse,” agreed Yellow Teeth cheerfully.

  To make the point clear, Blue Eyes pressed the sabre blade tighter against Celandine’s throat. She was sure he had already cut her, could swear she felt blood trickling down her neck.

  Celandine called Ardilla to climb swiftly up her dress and then, without thinking beyond the next few moments, directed him onto Blue Eyes’ sabre hand. Feeling the cold claws latch onto him, Blue Eyes gave an involuntary cry of surprise and flung out his arm in an attempt to shake the little creature off.

  Celandine slipped free of his grip and bolted for the nearest hiding place, the rows of dusty pews arranged before the altar. She did not look back and only heard the chaos that unfolded in her wake.

  Blue Eyes was spitting curses, having hurled Ardilla away into some corner and convinced that the oneirium critter had been something genuinely alive and probably venomous.

  “Damned creepy-crawly nearly got its fangs in me!”

  Tattoo was telling him to shut up but then Yellow Teeth gave a shout and shots were fired, huge blasts of thunder that echoed off the stone walls and temporarily blocked out all other sound. Celandine’s shrieks were lost in the succession of booms as she threw herself down between two rows of seats.

  “Stop firing, you idiot!” yelled Tattoo. “He’s no use to us dead. You, get after him. You, holster your weapon and bring me the girl. Alive. If the old fart wasn’t lying, she’s just as important.”

  ‘I’m not important,’ thought Celandine. ‘I know nothing. I don’t know where Gibberdog is. I don’t even know what Gibberdog is’.

  She wanted to shout as much to the soldiers, to explain that whatever business had suddenly soured between them and Barbegris was between them and Barbegris alone. But that was selfish thinking and it probably wouldn’t matter one jot what she told the soldiers.

  “Look at this,” called out Yellow Teeth. “Is this what attacked you? It’s a flaming ornament. A piece of animal pottery. Here.”

  “I don’t care what it was,” replied Blue Eyes loudly from the balcony above. “It went for – Hey! There he is!”

  Thumps, clangs and shouts ensued in the balcony. Tattoo, still down in the chapel, demanded to know where Barbegris was.

  Celandine quickly assessed her position amongst the pews. The problem, she realised, was that it was a temporary hiding place and one she could not leave without being seen by anyone standing in the chapel. Furthermore, the only exit from the church was through the porch and, as long as one of the soldiers stood guard there, neither she nor Barbegris could escape the building. The only other door leading from the chapel was much nearer to her but it led to the crypt and, though the crypt door could be bolted from the inside, she would then be quite securely trapped.

  Still, she decided, better to be trapped than captured. She crawled to the end of the pews and was considering when to make a dash for the crypt when Blue Eyes stepped out in front of her, filling the gap between the benches and barring her way.

  “Found you,” he grinned.

  Celandine saw that he now held Ardilla in his fist and reacted instantly, turning the stone squirrel into a ball of razor-edged spikes. Her skill with the oneirium was faster than his pain reflexes and, before he could drop the thing, the needles had penetrated his flesh, running through him and thrusting out of the back of his hand like a sudden growth of bloody black hair.

  Pain robbed Blue Eyes of his voice. He fell back against the wall, wide-eyed and horrified and silent.

  Celandine leapt forward and over him and sprinted for the crypt door. Tattoo shouted out a warning but there was no one to stop her. Through the door she ran, down the steps and into the unlit spaces of the crypt.

  She lingered there for a few seconds, panting hard and then, with a lurching stomach, remembered the bolts on the inside of the crypt door, the ones she had entirely forgotten to throw across.

  “Numbskull,” she wailed softly and ran back.

  A figure loomed in the doorway as she neared and she stopped dead. The man grabbed at the door and swung it shut, plunging the crypt into total dark. There was the grating sound of one, then two bolts being dragged across, followed by a barraged of thumps on the other side of the door and then silence.

  Celandine stayed as she was, u
nsure as to exactly who was inside the crypt and who was outside it. A hand took hold of her wrist. She tried to pull away.

  “It’s me, stupid girl.”

  Celandine sighed enormously at the sound of that coarse, petulant voice.

  “Father.”

  “Homph. At least you waited for me.”

  The soldiers took up banging at the door again.

  “We’re trapped,” said Celandine.

  “Homph. Would be if I hadn’t picked up your discarded plaything.”

  “Ardilla?”

  Barbegris didn’t reply. He let go of Celandine’s arm so that he could work on the oneirium with both hands free. Celandine knew what he was doing; he was using Ardilla to build a gateway, a skill that she was far from attaining. The gateway would be a temporary one and a small one at that, but permanent and large enough for them to escape through. The only real question was whether he could build it before the crypt door was broken down.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Far away,” said Barbegris and his bitterness was unmistakable.

  Barbegris worked as the hammering continued.

  “Nowhere to run,” came Tattoo’s muffled shout. “We’ll get you both in the end.”

  Barbegris chuckled dryly.

  “Homph. We’ll have a month’s head start on them. It’ll take them a week just to get to the seagate at Muchmiel.”

  There were gunshots. The soldiers had changed tactics and were trying to shoot their way through.

  “Father!”

  “Shhh! Almost there.”

  A pinprick of light, so bright in the utter darkness of the crypt, appeared on the nearest wall. By its tiny starshine gleam, Celandine could see Barbegris’ hands enticing the gateway into a larger shape. The pinprick expanded smoothly until the gateway was a rough circle, two feet across. The oneirium was stretched to a wire-thin band around the circle’s edge but it held.

  Through the gateway, Celandine could see tall grass and low cloud. A cool wind blew slowly but steadily in from the new world.

  “Pressure differential,” noted Barbegris. “Never mind.”

  The door to the crypt gave an ominous crack and Barbegris pushed Celandine through the gateway. She tumbled forward and onto soft earth. Tough blades of tall grass crinkled underneath her.

  Barbegris was through too and rapidly closing the gateway, which on this side hung in the air, seemingly unsupported.

  Celandine stood up and regarded the world they had landed in. They were on a slight hillock that, in every direction, overlooked a vast grassy plain which stretched to the unbroken horizon. There were no trees, no buildings. There was nothing but grass, tall, thick and rippling in the breeze.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  Barbegris didn’t reply for some time.

  “I had such plans for that money,” he said softly and there was a quality of regret in his voice that Celandine had never heard before and she turned to look at him.

  Barbegris stood unsteadily at the very summit of the hillock. The gateway was closed. The oneirium was a formless lump in his hand. The front of his robes was soaked from stomach to thigh with blood and it was quite clearly his.

  Barbegris fell down, very slowly. Celandine dashed forward to hold him as he finally collapsed onto a bed of grass. She helped him straighten his bent legs. He clutched his stomach and gazed up at the sky.

  “This is Aphid,” he said faintly. “Mount Tepper. Highest point in the whole world. Not been here since…” He trailed off into silence.

  Celandine tried to lift his hands away from his bloodied robes so that she could perhaps get a look at the wound but the old man resisted.

  “Divinities! He wasn’t even aiming properly. Why does nothing ever go right for me?”

  “I…”

  Celandine could feel panic starting to rise within her. There were things she knew she should be doing. She told herself she needed bandages, a medicine chest but she knew what she really needed was a hospital and someone else to take charge. Panic swiftly soured into frustration and anger.

  “I’m going to kill them.”

  “No. No profit in revenge. You not learnt anything from me?”

  She cast about her again but the landscape hadn’t miraculously changed in the past minute.

  “Why did you bring us here?” she asked desperately.

  “Such plans,” Barbegris groaned. “I didn’t want to die poor. I wanted to make it up to you, to your mother. I let her die. Didn’t tell you that.”

  He had never mentioned Celandine’s mother’s death before. He never spoke of it. She had never asked.

  “I fought against the demon Otokuma in Immonda,” he said. “I drove him away but your mother…” He shook his head and smacked his lips dryly. “You got any drink?”

  Celandine shook her head. Barbegris tutted.

  “Then your father…”

  “You knew my father?”

  “Homph.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes.” He paused for breath. “No. Your father…” He raised one hand and laid it over his eyepatch. “All messed up now. They found Gibberdog together and Maria left a gateway, hidden away.”

  “What is Gibberdog?” asked Celandine. “What was that about me being the key to it?”

  “The last great treasure,” he managed to whisper. “Maria hid the gateway so I … We couldn’t find it.” The effort of speaking was becoming too much for him.

  “Hush, father,” said Celandine gently.

  “Don’t hush me, girl!” he replied firmly, with a smidgeon of his old fire. “Homph. I’ll have an eternity of hush soon enough. You’ve got to go to Library of Souls in Nachista.” He fought for breath and coughed weakly. “Repeat it.”

  “The Library of Souls,” said Celandine obediently.

  “Where?”

  “Nachista.”

  “Good. Find your book. That’s the key. Gibberdog will be the making of you.” He relaxed visibly, exhaling hard. “Now, pray for me. I’m going to need it.”

  “No, father. You can’t die.”

  Maybe he grinned or maybe it was a grimace of pain.

  “Of course I bloody can.”

  He closed his one eye and almost immediately slipped into sleep. Celandine moved his pale hand aside and inspected his injury but it was just a mass of dark red stickiness across his scrawny torso and she had no idea what she could do for him.

  So she prayed. She took the sealed pot of blue tilak from the pouch at his belt, daubed the powder on his forehead and prayed. As afternoon tumbled into evening, she prayed to Dv Bunuel, the Lady of Thorns, who heals the sick. She prayed to Dv Pantaleon, the patron of doctors, to Dv Cascia who looks after those who are alone and to Dv Liminis the gatemaker, whose course Barbegris had tried and failed to follow.

  The red sky of evening deepened into the purple black of night, the grasses came alive with the rustling sounds of a billion insects and Celandine continued her vigil by dim starlight but now she invoked different divinities. She prayed to Dv Madron who eases pain and to Dv Nicholas of Tolentino who comforts the dying, and when she could no longer see Father Barbegris’ breath misting in the air, she prayed to Dv Kinneal who pleads for the souls of the faithful, to Dv Constant who weighs the hearts of men and to Dv Magortam who holds the keys to the Waters of Heaven.

  The Million Dollar Dress by Heide Goody

  In this modern-day Cinderella story, cutting edge technology gives Justine the body of a supermodel at the flick of a switch. She uses her new-found confidence and sex appeal to snare her ideal man. But hot on her heels are the police and the inventor. Can she avoid jail and humiliation? Can she keep hold of her ideal man once he discovers her secret? Most importantly of all, has she really found what she’s looking for?

  The Million Dollar Dress - Chapter 1

  Justine pushed the vacuum cleaner across the floor, strutting to Slam Dunk’s newest hit. For the evening shift cleaning the studio, she ro
cked and shimmied her way from one task to the next.

  She was usually alone in the evenings, unless Serge stayed late. Their routines could overlap easily, and they worked around each other like a carefully tuned machine.

  The studio was near to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, and Serge had said that he chose it because it used to be a ribbon-maker’s workshop, years ago, which was why it had such huge windows. Justine had tried to picture how you’d weave a ribbon and decided that it didn’t sound like a rewarding job. She reminded herself of the ribbon weavers when she grumbled at cleaning the large windows. There were definitely worse jobs. Occasionally Serge asked her to help him which Justine loved, it made her feel part of something important. Serge was a fashion designer. She didn’t think he was the rich, internationally famous kind, but she was confident that he was up and coming, so being his model was a huge treat. Serge didn’t mind that she was a bit lumpy in places, as most of his clients wore larger sizes.

  “Justine, would you mind slipping the dress on for me?”

  Serge had his head round the door and she smiled at him. He even looked like a fashion designer. Skinnier than most people thought was healthy, punky hair that steered just clear of being a mullet and he always wore stripes. Stripes were Serge’s signature and he combined them in ways that flattered and deceived the eye when designing for his ladies. For himself he used them to more attention-seeking effect and sometimes Justine thought he looked as if he needed tuning in properly.

  Serge put his arm round her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

  “I have a visitor tonight – we must impress him, he’s the money!”

  Justine gave him a look.

  “Money? You’re not hard up, surely? You’ve got loads of clients.”

  “I have big plans, Justine, and he is a potential investor. Smile for the man Sweetie!”

  She rolled her eyes and followed him into the workshop. She looked at The Money, who acknowledged her with a curt flip of his hand. She went to the dress stand with Serge who handed her the dress. She took it behind the screen and put it on.

  This was different to Serge’s usual style of clothing; the dress was almost drab. It was a plain beige dress with a high neckline and a very low hemline. She had asked him on a previous occasion if he was making a sideline for nuns. She stepped out from behind the screen and did a twirl for them.