Owl and the Electric Samurai

by Kristi Charish

  I turned to Rynn. “You okay with getting out of here and leaving the armor buried where it is?” I winced as the armor let me know its opinion of that.

  “Absolutely,” he said, not looking up from the stacks of papers.

  As I figured it, if they didn’t have me for the suit to draw in, they might never find it. I was the lynchpin, except now I knew it. “I plan on getting as far away from that thing as humanly possible,” I told Carpe.

  “But what about the dragon? And the Naga?”

  I sorted the books and papers. “They can get used to disappointment.”

  That only agitated Carpe more. “But what about the supernatural war?”

  I spun on him. “Not at the expense of being possessed by a malicious suit of armor.” I let out my breath. “There’s a point, Carpe, where everyone has to decide when the price for something is too high.”

  “And the elves’ help just got way too expensive. We leave the armor where it is and figure a way out. We take our chances that no one else can find it without Alix to lead them.”

  Carpe didn’t offer any more argument as he headed for the servers.

  I felt the armor ping again, nicely this time, apologetically. I blocked it out and hoped I could hold out long enough. The armor didn’t think so.

  16

  ONE HELL OF A PARADISE

  Time? Late afternoon by the sun, though Shangri-La

  doesn’t seem to track time quite the same . . .

  I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my eyes. I’d only gone through half of the pile of journals, but every last one of them had painted the same picture—and eradicated any confidence I’d ever had in my species’ ability to find a nonviolent solution to a problem.

  Or maybe I could chalk that up to some residual effect of the armor. But if that many people could be so easily swayed to kill each other, I wouldn’t hold my breath for our collective common sense.

  I picked up Col. Percy Fawcett’s red journal once more—the accounts of his search for El Dorado, the same one I’d already read three times. The pages were old and yellowed but heavy enough that I could still make out all the entries, including the ones near the very end—­technically and metaphorically speaking.

  Well, Percy had found his lost city . . . not El Dorado but another opening to Shangri-La. He’d then spent the next decade trying to find a way out and convince the rest of his team not to kill each other. The bullet wounds and bashed-in skulls of the corpses dressed in 1925 explorer gear said just about how well that had gone.

  One explorer gone missing wouldn’t have dashed my optimism; it’s sad, but it happens. You go venturing into some unmapped jungle or ancient ruin and there’s always a chance you won’t come back out. I live with that sobering thought every time I venture out. Dev, me, even someone as entrenched in the IAA as Benji. It could happen to any of us.

  No, Percy hadn’t sent me spiraling downward. It was all the others.

  Underneath Percy’s journal was another, older, dating back to 1795. That one was written in French, by a Jean-Francois de Galaup Lapérouse, whose two ships carrying 225 crew went missing shortly after leaving Botany Bay, Australia. Lots of explorers and ships went missing—hazard of the seas, even for an expert explorer and mapmaker. Lapérouse was last seen headed for the Solomon Islands in the Coral Sea just north of Australia. After hearing about a legend of a lost city, he’d decided to change course.

  I wasn’t going to pretend to understand how an underwater gate to Shangri-La was built in the Polynesian Islands, let alone how they activated one underwater; Lapérouse was cagey about that in his journal. What I did know was that the only trace that was ever found was a pair of severed anchors on the bottom of the ocean and I was looking at two dilapidated ships in the harbor with the names Bousole and Astrolabe.

  I imagined the bodies on the boats were just as riddled with sword, knife, and musket wounds as the ones strewn around the city.

  There were dozens of journals, every last one of them outlining the same thing; how explorers had stumbled onto various doorways to ­Shangri-La cast over the world and gotten themselves trapped in the city.

  My confidence in our ability to get ourselves out of this mess, where so many others had failed, was waning. “It’s like a graveyard for famous explorers in here,” I said as Carpe came back into the tent.

  Carpe picked up a nearby journal. “This one looks newer.”

  I took it back. “That’s because it is. Peng Jiamu.” Another famous explorer and archaeologist, this time from China, who disappeared in the desert back in 1980.

  Carpe frowned. “That’s not too long ago. What happened to him?”

  I took the journal back before Carpe could touch the pages. “I thought that was obvious. He found Shangri-La.” Carpe made a face, so I added, “He’d spent a year trying to get the door open before deciding to see just how far Shangri-La stretched. Considering no one ever heard from him again and he never came back to fill in the journal . . .”

  “He might have found something—or left notes,” Carpe tried.

  I gestured to the snowcapped mountains that surrounded the Shangri-­­La valley. “Be my guest to go and find out, Carpe.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a pessimist?”

  “Frequently.” I pocketed Jiamu’s journal. I hoped to bring that one back, since there were likely people alive who still cared—if we ever got out.

  My eyes drifted over to where Texas and Michigan were still propped up under the tent. Carpe saw where my eyes landed and said, “The last thing we want to do is wake them up.”

  “They knew how to get out.” Or at least had been on the right track.

  “Yes! And apparently I need to remind you that they were about to ditch us here with that armor that has its sights set on your questionable morals—”

  “My questionable morals?!” I said, and took a step back. Captain, sensing the change in my mood, began switching his tail around my legs prior to stalking Carpe. Carpe, not being a complete idiot, took a step back and swallowed. I continued. “You were the one all gung ho to ditch them here. What happened to elves preserving life and all that?”

  “I have my weak moments, all right? And as much as I detest the idea of leaving any living thing here, them, I’m finding, I wouldn’t feel so bad about.”

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe the circles Carpe was talking himself into.

  “Look, maybe if we found the armor . . .” he continued. “It wants out; maybe if you get close enough to it—”

  “No,” I said in a firmer voice than even I realized I could muster.

  Carpe winced, taking another step back, and I found myself feeling guilty at the flustered look he gave me.

  “Let’s not get crazy desperate just yet,” I said, and nodded at the World Quest duo. “Waking them in my mind is a better option than giving a sadistic magic suit of armor free reign over my thoughts.”

  He relented and glanced away at the table, where I’d rearranged the books. “Well, maybe if we wake them and you’re really nice, they’ll tell us where they rigged the explosives.”

  It took me a second to see where Carpe’s train of logic had gone. “Okay, there is absolutely no evidence they’ve rigged the place—”

  He turned his furious green eyes back on me. “These are the World Quest designers! Of course they’ve rigged the place with explosives.”

  I held my breath and counted to five. I was not going to win this battle—not now, not ever. “Just . . . look, why don’t you help Rynn. Or better yet, find a way to dampen that suit’s effects on my brain.” As soon as I said it, I winced. At the mention of dampening its power and potential hold over me, the suit stuck its claws in, tugging at my own natural mental barriers. Since arriving in Shangri-La, Rynn had been trying to help me block out the armor with a makeshift mental barrier, but ther
e was only so much he could do with his skill set of manipulating my emotions. Already the armor was making inroads, cracking my resolve and seeping into my thoughts despite the fact that I knew what to look for. Not finding a way back in, it receded, and I opened my eyes back up to Carpe, who was examining my face with a pinched expression. “Preferably before it figures out a way in my head,” I said.

  Carpe opened his mouth to speak, but a bang on the workbench distracted both of us. It was Rynn. He’d snuck up on us and deposited his supply bag on the table. Loudly. “Any more idea how this place works?” Rynn asked.

  Thankful for the change in topic, I jumped in. “Beyond what they said?” I nodded at Texas and Michigan. “They were right about one thing: as far as anyone can tell, we’re trapped.” I filled him in on the gist of my findings from the journals, including how Shangri-La seemed to have a twisted taste for explorers and adventurers.

  “Like a butterfly and moths to a flame,” he said once I’d finished.

  “What about you?” I asked him.

  Rynn shook his head. “Nothing beyond what you’ve uncovered,” he said. “I’m starting to think Shangri-La doesn’t want us to leave. I’m starting to wonder if it and the armor are in cahoots.”

  Considering they’d been stuck together for more than seven hundred years, it wasn’t all that far-fetched. I winced as another wave hit me. “Well, we need to do something fast. It’s on to us, and it’s doing its damnedest to figure a way back into my head.”

  Rynn shook his head but glanced in the direction of Michigan and Texas. “It’s too adept at evading me.”

  “But?” I asked.

  He inclined his chin at the duo. “But I agree that those two might know more than we do.”

  That settled it. I started for the fountain off to the side of the square, grabbing a metal bucket on my way. I had no illusions that the Zebras were sitting on their haunches. For all I knew they were opening the gate—and that was just one location. For all I knew the IAA had the rest of them and an exponential number of mercenaries on our collective tails.

  I filled the bucket under the fountain and checked the water temp. Despite the warm air, the water was cold. Good.

  Captain howled and jumped out of the way as water splashed out of the bucket and onto him.

  When I reached Texas and Michigan, I pulled my arm back. The bucket was heavier than I’d thought.

  “Try to keep it civil?” Rynn called from the lean-to.

  “Yeah, something like that.” I heaved the bucket over my shoulders and dumped the water over their heads.

  Both of them sputtered awake with gasps from the cold as I stood there with my arms crossed. Texas was the one who made a grab for the bucket—which didn’t work, since his hands and legs were tied. He did fall over though. In my current mood I couldn’t say that it didn’t make me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

  Rynn came up behind me. “I told you to keep it civilized,” he whispered.

  “And considering they were going to ditch us here, that was civil,” I whispered back.

  Texas was still trying to right himself despite the restraints. “Give it a rest, you’re tied up,” I told him.

  Texas took in his predicament—Rynn, Carpe, me. He even gave Captain a measured glare before his eyes fell back on me.

  “Why you—” Texas did his best to throw himself forward again, but it didn’t work well due to the restraints.

  Carpe grabbed him, while Rynn restrained me before the two of us could start a brawl.

  Michigan blinked the cold water out of his face, coming to slower than Texas had. Still, it didn’t take him long to take in his surroundings and situation. “Frank, will you knock it off?” he said.

  “With her? Seriously, you want me to back off with her? Name one time when she hasn’t been the harbinger of disaster?”

  Michigan frowned. “That’s an exaggeration.”

  “You talk to them then. And I’ll be more than happy to say I told you so.”

  “Okay, first—you have serious anger management issues,” I said to Frank. “Second, I don’t want to leave anyone here, but unlike you, I don’t think beating the shit out of each other is the way to handle this. For one, we’ll win.” I pointed to Rynn. “He’s not human and could probably take all of us including the cat, so let’s attempt to talk this through.”

  “Why don’t you untie us so we can find out?” Texas said, baring his teeth at me.

  “Because I’m not an idiot!”

  Texas made a show of looking around the tents and abandoned town of Shangri-La. “From where I’m standing . . .”

  I clenched my fists and ignored the jibe, doing my best to keep my own temper and anger down. “We don’t have time to argue. We need your help.”

  That earned me a snort. “In the famous words of one Byzantine Thief, you can blow—”

  “Look,” Michigan rushed to interrupt Texas. “It’s not that I’m opposed to us working together—” Texas guffawed, and Michigan paused to shoot him a dirty look, silencing him. “But Frank has a point.” He held up his bound wrists. “You haven’t exactly inspired trust here.”

  I closed my eyes and took two deep breaths, considering carefully what to say next. “Considering you were the ones who planned to lure us here then strand us—”

  “What if we told you why we’re here?” Rynn interrupted.

  “So you could finish burying World Quest—oomph?” Michigan silenced Frank with a jab. “I thought you said it was some noble attempt to save us from ourselves?” Frank turned his attention back on me. “Nice job, by the way.”

  “Partly,” Rynn said. “But that was more coincidence. We were after the Electric Samurai—a powerful and dangerous suit of armor that’s been hidden here for centuries.” Rynn nodded at the portal a little ways away, standing inert and harmless looking. “Which if you don’t help us bury will likely fall into the hands of the very mercenaries the IAA hired to hunt you down.”

  Another glare from Texas. “What do we care about a magic suit of armor?”

  “If it gets out of here, it will be an unmitigated disaster,” I said.

  “And if it falls into the wrong supernatural hands, you can kiss good-bye to any hope of returning to the same world you left,” Rynn added.

  I thought Texas was going to deliver yet another spectacular piece of rhetoric, but Michigan beat him to it. “Wait—the armor? That’s what you’re here after? That’s what the IAA is after?”

  I exchanged a glance with Rynn and Carpe. “I think the IAA originally just wanted you two and any and all human magic associated with Shangri-La. The armor got dragged into things afterward by a third party. It’s just really bad luck the two coincided.” Or fantastic planning by the elves and manipulation of the IAA—though I saw no reason to bring that up now. I frowned at Michigan. “And how the hell do you know about the armor?”

  He shook his head in disbelief and turned to Frank. “The Mongolian artifact mentioned by the Guge monk—the one they entombed.” To me he said, “Shit, there’s tons of stuff sitting here from when the silk road was going . . . right cabinet,” he said, and nodded toward one of the desks. “There’s a hidden drawer underneath. Red folder.”

  I examined the desk. Sure enough I found the latches, which sprung open the drawer. The file was tucked inside with a few other colored folders.

  “I found it a year or two back,” Michigan said, “and decided it was best left where it was.”

  Inside was an old parchment, written in the ancient Mongolian text I’d become so familiar with over the last week. I couldn’t read all of it, but enough of the first few lines:

  Here lies the body and dying wishes of Jebe.

  It continued, and what I could piece out were bits of warnings not to disturb his rest and final entombment.

  Anger rushed over me as I read.
Locked up here for centuries, Jebe deserved the tomb he rotted in.

  I shivered and pushed back against the dark thoughts—most definitely not my own. I caught Rynn watching me and gave him a shake of my head.

  “Is it true?” Michigan asked. “What he says about it possessing the wearer?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know if it was designed that way, but it has a mind of its own now.”

  “And it’s just as likely to kill the wearer as try to take them over,” Rynn added, while Carpe kept uncharacteristically quiet.

  I continued to read. Plenty mention of the danger of wearing the armor, but nothing about where it was buried. “It gets worse with each wearer—and it’s sneaky about it. Given enough incentive and runway it can even reach out across the portal to find new candidates, though it’s picky. Jebe didn’t figure it out until it was too late.”

  Son of a bitch.

  The only way to trick the armor, and it needs to be done now, before I can no longer hide my thoughts, is to entomb myself. Otherwise it will drive me to its next victim, of that I am certain. I do not relish my fate, but if it means this evil will cease to walk the earth, my slow death is a small price.

  My mouth dropped. This was the missing piece, how Jebe had managed to imprison the suit. “Shit.” I turned to Rynn and Carpe. “He didn’t defeat the armor, not really—he tricked it. In the end he knew it would find another victim after he died, so he got the Guge to bury him alive.” I glanced up at Michigan and Texas. “Death, destruction, swaths of bloodshed, that’s all the armor lives for.”

  The armor tried to argue with me in the back of my thoughts, but it quickly gave up. Some truths just aren’t worth trying to lie about.

  “So whoever wants it is out of their fucking minds is what you’re saying?” Texas said, then frowned as he caught the look Carpe, Rynn, and I exchanged.

  “Someone’s decided they want to stick Alix in the suit,” Rynn said.

  “And it seems to have warmed up to the idea. You want to know how we got the gate open? That’s how. It practically led us here.”

  Texas snorted. “Wow. Sucks to be you, Hiboux. Good luck with that.”