by K.N. Lee
“Where have you been?”
Faye’s voice startled Millie, and she dropped the candle she was carrying to the floor. She whirled around and got down to her knees. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to drop it.”
“Why are you so jumpy, Millie?”
“I didn’t expect you to come in here.”
“Why not? And I asked where you’ve been.”
“I’ve been to the temple, Faye.”
“Do you think there were so many people there I wouldn’t notice who actually attended?”
“No, Faye. I was there. I don’t know what I can do to make you believe me.”
Faye helped Millie up. “Nobody bows in my house. We’re all equal, remember? We’re sisters.”
“But I’ll always be your humble servant, regardless of how much things have changed.”
Faye nodded. “Yes, things have changed. But the social classes in Nepolymbus are so ingrained in people’s minds. That will never change.” She sighed. “Did you know Lorcan left?”
“Lorcan who? Oh, the human?”
Faye nodded. “Kai hit him quite hard, and I gave him a soothing potion that should have made him sleep for a quite a while. I don’t understand how he not only came to, but also got out of the room. Unless he had help.” She narrowed her eyes at Millie.
“Oh no, Faye, why would I do such thing? And even if I wanted to, I don’t have the knowledge to make it happen.”
Faye smiled. “I don’t suspect you.” She narrowed her eyes again. “Or maybe I should?”
Millie could see Faye’s eyes had turned cold, and her shoulders stiffened for a moment. She went down to her knees again. “Faye, I would never betray you. I didn’t go to the temple today. I’m sorry. I stayed home to see Grant. It’s only once a month that I’m free enough to do so. I’m so sorry, Faye.”
Faye smiled again, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “It feels better telling the truth, doesn’t it? I understand how hard it is to love someone like Grant.”
“Please forgive me, Faye. Grant was born into his social class. It wasn’t his fault.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. Love makes people do stupid things, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, yes, Faye.” Millie was so frightened that tears had streamed down her face. She shrunk down, hoping in her mind to make herself as small as possible so that Faye would pay her no mind and simply walk away. “Love is stupid,” she muttered through her tears.
Faye crouched down. “How stupid?”
Millie blinked. “I don't know what you mean.”
“Do you really love him enough to do something for him?”
“What do you need me to do?”
“It's not for me. It's for your lover. I know there will be an attack at the Heating Ducts. The mercenaries were ordered to leave no living trace behind. You know what will happen to the guards, right?”
“Oh, please help us. I’ll go to the Heating Ducts to tell Grant. Can I leave for a day, Faye?”
“You won’t survive the Heating Ducts, Millie. Dating a guard there doesn’t make you any tougher. But I do have a solution for you. I have someone who can send to message to Grant. This person has access to the internal chamber, and I’m sure reaching Grant won’t be a problem.”
“What do I owe you for that, Faye?”
“Nothing.” Faye smiled then said, “I could make use of the gateway to the surface, though. You know, where the humans live.”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“You don’t have the Pass,” Faye cut in, “but your father does.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“There’s no time to waste. The moment the Pass is in my hand, I’ll send the messenger in for Grant.”
“I’ll leave to talk to Father right now, Faye,” Millie said then bowed and scurried out of the room.
She ran for a distance until her legs threatened to give up on her. She wasn't used to physical labor, but she told herself she had to get used to being a commoner. If Faye could do it, so could she.
That was so close, she thought. For a moment, she had thought Faye was going to kill her. Faye was capable of anything. She was fair, but when it came to the reign she believed in, she would kill without mercy.
Millie looked at the gate of the dome. What had she just promised Faye? The Pass to the surface? Her father was going to kill her just for asking. But she had no choice. Faye would kill her if she returned empty-handed. Millie exited the gate and swam home.
Chapter 14
“No, no, go back down,” Lorcan shouted at the dolphins, but it was too late. The sharks had seen them.
The sharks dove down so fast that Miracle and Flipper couldn’t get away quickly enough. The dolphins swam around and around, dodging the shark attack. Lorcan was thrown up and down and sideways in the carriage. The dolphins let out a whistling noise that Lorcan thought was probably a call for help.
Flipper was bitten first.
Then Miracle.
Lorcan looked at the desperate animals being slaughtered, feeling hopeless because there was nothing he could do. And he would be the next casualty.
As the carriage sank, Lorcan saw the jaws full of sharp teeth moving toward him. He opened the door and dove out just before the monstrous jaws crushed the carriage.
He instantly felt the pressure of the water that his human body couldn’t handle. He was at the bottom of a submarine dimension. He might be wrong—maybe the surface up there wasn’t the way to Earth.
He sank.
From the corner of his eye, he could see the shape of a dome, but it might just be the dome of the hospital where he had killed the doctor. There was no point in him heading toward that dimension. He grabbed at the edge of a strange-looking pear-shaped rock to anchor his body, only to discover it wasn’t just a rock. From his vantage point, he could see a hole in it, like a gate to something.
If he turned around, he would swim into the sharks’ jaws. This hole could be just another sea creature’s jaw. But at least he didn’t see any teeth here. Making a decision, he bore his weight on the rock and pushed himself, floating, into the hole.
The pressure was released instantly.
Is this another dimension? He swam for a couple of meters and then flopped onto sand in a cave. A shark poked its mouth through the hole, but it was too big to follow him into the cave. It withdrew.
Lorcan scrambled up to his feet and rubbed absently at his left side where he still felt a lingering pain. He glanced around. He was in a deep, narrow, and dark cave. No sense of adventure would entice him to go down into the cave, but compared to the prospect of being a shark meal outside or death from starvation for staying right where he was, he thought exploring the cave might result in something a bit more promising.
He followed the cave wall and the coral and went inside. He didn’t travel far before finding remains on the ground. It must have been a human judging by the shape and size of the skeleton and the material that used to be its clothes. He moved in for a closer look, and his stomach did a somersault when he recognized the velvet glove and the ring from the woman on the boat. He studied at the skeleton closely. He didn’t need any special medical knowledge to see that from the condition of the body, the woman had been dead for more than two days. It could take months or years for a body to decay to this degree.
Faye told him he had been in a coma for two days.
What was she hiding?
Before he left the body, something shiny beneath the ruined fabric and in between the rib bones caught his eye. Lorcan crouched down. He slid his fingers in between the bones until he touched the object. It was small and cool—like a stone.
He pulled the object out. The white piece of stone stared up at him from his palm. He recognized it. This was one of the interlocking pieces of the artifact he had been supposed to steal. The other two were light green and blood red. The three of them formed a round piece of stone, like some sort of talisman.
“Where are t
he other two pieces?” he asked himself aloud while examining the stone closer. It was white and shiny like mother-of-pearl.
Then he looked at the dead body again. He remembered the moment before the explosion and the position in which he and the woman were standing. She wouldn’t have had enough time to grab the box before the cabin exploded. So the artifact would have been blown out of the box and shattered…and the white stone had embedded itself in her body.
Or maybe she’d survived the explosion somehow and picked up the piece from the bottom of the ocean. But that wasn’t possible. Lorcan knew for a fact that the human body couldn’t survive direct contact with the environment of this submarine dimension.
He slid the piece of stone into his pocket and continued to walk deeper into the cave. The further he walked, the higher the temperature got. It was as if he was walking into a heated oven.
The cave corridor opened to a large area, hot and reeking of rotten flesh. Lorcan could see rows of small prison cells flanking the corridor.
A couple of prison guards walked past. Lorcan ducked down as far as he could in between two rock columns to hide from the guards. When they turned the corner, he crept out and walked along the hall in the opposite direction. They must have come from the exit, because the direction in which they were going went down, deeper and darker.
“Shhh!”
Lorcan jumped at the noise that blasted at them. He turned and looked. It wasn’t coming from the wall but from a small window in a thick door, locked from the outside.
The pair of eyes in the window stared at him, and there was a torrent of whispering.
“I don’t speak Nepolymbian, and I don’t want anything to do with you,” Lorcan responded in a hushed tone and kept walking.
“Hey!”
He moved on.
“Hey, human!” the person shouted in English, copying Lorcan’s tone exactly.
Lorcan glared at the creature. “Don’t shout!” he said.
“Open the door for us, and then I won’t make a sound.”
Lorcan scurried along the corridor, heading out. The man in the cell yelled, “Guards!” in English, and followed that with a string of Nepolymbian.
Lorcan heard the footsteps of the guards, charging his way from another direction. He turned and ran, but the footsteps were everywhere, echoing down the long and narrow corridor. Soon, guards of all shapes and sizes, armed to the teeth, flanked both ends of the corridor.
Chapter 15
“You’ve just eaten!” the Keymaster exclaimed, looking at the baby angel’s pouting lips. He gazed into those beautiful eyes. They had been the first thing he saw whens he came to after the spider-wolves’ attack.
He didn’t know how long he had lain there in the cold moss at the top of the cliffs. He awoke and saw that the baby had somehow gotten out of the protective stone circle he had put around her, crawled over and curled into his arms.
He didn’t know who had kept whom warm in the midst of the night. The next thing he realized, his wounds had healed. He took the baby back to his home after he buried the parents’ bodies and promised them he’d take the baby to the Daimon Gate.
“All right, I’ll get you more food. But don’t ask for milk. I’m not your mother. I make powerful keys that change worlds. But I don’t make milk.”
He put a bowl of fruit in front of the baby angel. She stared at him.
“All right, I understand. I’m not a vegetarian, either. But it’s all I’ve got.” He crouched next to the bench. “I’m going to take you to the Daimon Gate. People there will take care of you, much better than I do. But for now, I have this task at hand. I need to finish this key. So please bear with me. It won’t take long.”
He returned to the large piece of stone in the middle of the room. “You see, I need to make this Key of Pisces. It’s important, and it’s supposed to be made of jade. It’s more than a job for a client now—it has your mother’s flesh and blood in it.”
The baby giggled.
“I know!” he sighed. “It’s taken me three times longer than my usual process.” He held up the stone carving knife. “Jade isn’t a hard stone to carve. It represents wisdom, balance, and peace, do you know that?”
The baby made some more giggling noises.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He cut into the light green part of the stone. But the cut resealed as soon as he pulled the knife out.
“What the hell?” This had never happened before. Well, an angel had died, and her flesh and blood had been absorbed into this stone. Her blood had made a part of it red, and her flesh and feathers had made some of the stone a pure shiny white. At least that had been his assumption when he’d seen the three-color stone and the dead body of a female angel lying on top of it.
But he wasn’t sure anymore.
He had needed only the jade. He’d find another stone. It might take him a while, but this stone might have more than just three colors. It might not be worth his trouble.
The baby made a giggling sound again.
“You can laugh at me now. I can’t use this stone. What a waste of time. Why don’t I take you to the Daimon Gate and come back to this key later?”
The baby smiled.
“I knew you’d agree. You can’t wait to get out of here.”
He approached the baby angel. She looked excited, he thought.
Then she raised her hands and clapped.
He covered his ears. It had been fine when she killed the wolves, but now, the clapping sounded like thunder and felt as if it punctured his brain.
“Wait…don’t.”
The baby clapped a few more times and stopped.
He stood still, making sure there wasn’t another round of thunder. Then from the corner of his eye, he could see the stone had broken into three different pieces, each with one of three different colors.
“What have we here?” he muttered. Then he looked at the baby. “Do you want me to make the key with stones of three colors?”
The baby nodded.
“When you respond, it feels rather creepy, you know. Why don’t you just make baby sounds?”
He examined the stone. Each piece was cut precisely where the color stopped. He had never done this before, but he knew now he was meant to make this key with all three colors.
Green. Red. White. What does this all mean? He held up the carving knife and started the work.
Chapter 16
Lorcan opened his eyes and pulled at the steel shackles holding him to the wall. He was in a dark dungeon, surrounded by stone walls. The cell was dimly lit, and he couldn’t see a door anywhere. The heat rising from the floor was unbearable. He was surprised he hadn’t turned into charcoal already. This must be the place they called the Heating Ducts.
“Human, how did you end up here?”
The ancient voice echoed through the room. Lorcan blinked. The voice sounded distant, but it hadn’t come from far away at all. An old man with striking purple eyes was shackled a few feet away.
“Why do you assume English is my human language? What if I spoke Cambodian?”
The man chuckled. “It’s good that you can have a sense of humor under these conditions. It’ll help you retain your sanity.”
Lorcan looked the man up and down. In the glowing light coming from a fire at the far end of the corridor, he could see the man’s formidable shape. He had long dark hair, broad shoulders, and a masculine face. There was something about him that held Lorcan’s attention. Maybe it was his aura and the authority in his voice.
He was sure the man wasn’t human, because a human wouldn’t have addressed him as “human” the way he had. But what exactly the man was, Lorcan couldn’t tell.
“How long have you been here? Where are we? What do they want from us?”
“I've lost track of time. But it hasn’t been long enough for me to forget why I'm here.”
“This is the Heating Ducts, isn't it?”
“You've got the name right, but you I don’t think you
know what it’s really about.”
“Who is that?” said another voice. “Why are you talking to him, Father?”
Lorcan strained his eyes and saw a younger man tied to a wall behind the old man. He looked more frail, though, and didn’t share his father’s formidable features.
“Just rest, son. Save your strength.”
“I don’t think I can handle this, Father. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”
“I only expect you to survive. Can you do that? Or did your mother die in vain?”
The young man started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Alexander, calm down. You’ll be fine.”
“No, Father, I’m weak. I can’t survive any more torture.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No…I can’t. I’m useless…”
“Stop it, Alexander. I order you—”
“No, please let me die.”
Lorcan saw a spark come from the old man’s eyes, and Alexander’s head flipped back then lolled toward the front. His body dangled heavily by the chains attached to the wall.
“You killed your son?” Lorcan exclaimed, but then he saw the pain in the man’s eyes.
“I merely put him to sleep. But whenever I do it, I draw energy out of him. He will be even weaker when he wakes.”
Lorcan jiggled the shackles on his hands, and they began to cut into his flesh. “You must know something very important for them to kill your wife and torture your son. I hope the secret you’re keeping from them is worth it.”
“I’m sure you’ve never had to take care of anything greater than yourself and those directly related to you.”
Lorcan chuckled, thinking about the family he had left a long time ago to pursue his dreams in the city, and his love for Orla, his childhood sweetheart.
