I shrug. “Not that much different from usual.”
Another snort. “Feckin’ hark at you. Weren’t you all piss and vinegar earlier putting wee Hannah in her place?”
It’s my turn to be incredulous. “Wee Hannah?” I echo.
Kayla flicks her hair slightly. “She’s a good inch shorter than me. She’s wee.”
I’m honestly not sure that’s true. Still I get a sense I know where this conversation is going to go, so I decide to just cut it short. Kayla probably won’t have to insult me so much that way.
“This is where you tell me I’m being too harsh on Hannah and need to chill out, or some Scottish variant, right?”
Kayla doesn’t even bother looking at me. “I don’t give a flying feck at a rolling feckin’ donut what you think of Hannah. Don’t give much of a shite about what you think about most things, you uppity little feck. And Hannah’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”
“You just said she was wee,” I counter.
“And you’re a pedantic feckin’ arsehole, but I wasn’t going to harp on it,” Kayla says without any apparent rancor. Or at least with no more than her usual amount.
This sort of flat acceptance of my belligerence brings me up a little short. I have no place to put my indignation. We trudge on a few more paces in the torches’ flickering light.
“Why do you like her?” I ask eventually. Kayla has only ever tolerated me. But she likes Hannah, and I can’t bring myself to. But I’m not above considering that issue might be on my end. At least not entirely.
Kayla shrugs. “I don’t know. She makes me laugh. She knows the right moment for a wee bit of the old ultraviolence. She’s another girl on the team who isn’t Tabitha. That lass can be a bit feckin’ abrasive on a Monday, if you catch my drift.”
I do. But, “There’s Felicity,” I say, feeling somewhat honor-bound to defend her in her absence.
“She’s the boss of the team. She’s not on the team.”
“Who’s the pedant now?” I ask.
I earn a genuine grin for that one. As we approach another fork in the path.
“Right,” I say, pointing.
Kayla scores the rock and we move on.
“Look,” she says. “The universe has preordained you for death. Pointed its big old feckin’ finger at you and said, time’s up. That’s some heavy shite. You need to be an arsehole from time to time, be a feckin’ arsehole. Just stop trying to find a way to feckin’ apologize for it all the time.”
As she says it we round a corner and step into an abrupt shaft of light. I blink, the sudden illumination bleaching everything out. As my vision returns, I see the ceiling of the tunnel splits here, a deep fissure in the rock, as if the finger of God slammed into the clay of the world and retreated, leaving this pit of light. The sun must be almost directly overhead. The walls are rough and ragged, yellow stone stained with seams of brown.
Behind us, the tunnel twists back into darkness. Before us—
“What’s behind that, do you think?” I ask, pointing at a large boulder that blocks off the far end of the fissure.
Kayla looks at it, weighing it up. “You asking me to show off, is that it?”
“You mean, demonstrate your inhuman weirdness?”
“I have an alternate feckin’ physiology because I was head-fecked by aliens, you feck. Be a little feckin’ sensitive.”
“You just belittled my imminent death.”
Kayla shrugs. “Past. Future. Totally different. Yours might never happen. Mine definitely did.”
I roll my eyes. “Just move the boulder already.”
And then there’s another roar.
We both pause. It’s louder here. Something unnatural to the timbre.
“It’s coming from above,” I say, not at all sure it is. “It’s a mountain lion or something.” Kayla just stares at me. “Weird echoes,” I finish up. It’s less convincing than it was the first time.
Kayla looks back to the boulder. “I shift that thing and a Minotaur feckin’ guts you, I get to say I told you so.”
I sigh. Knowing my luck it’s half likely to happen. Still, at least the subsequent paradox-ridden death of reality will wipe the smug grin off Kayla’s face. “Deal,” I say.
Kayla puts her shoulder to the massive boulder, heaves. It grinds, moves. Kayla dusts off her hands.
I wave my torch into the revealed depths and fail to illuminate anything much. I stand there, hesitating. On the plus side, I am not gored by a Minotaur.
“Get in there, you big jess,” Kayla says.
Fine then. The cavern is cold after the warmth of the fissure’s sunlight. It smells of wet stone.
“You hear that?” Kayla asks.
I freeze, listen intently. And then, yes, I do. A faint whispering sound. A barely audible rustling.
Just in case, I pull my pistol.
“Jumpy feck.”
“You know what,” I say, “of the two of us, I still don’t have superpowers.”
“Whatever.”
I sweep my torch around trying to probe deeper into the darkness. Two tentative steps in and the beam of light catches the edge of a wall. It glitters oddly, almost glistens.
And then it moves.
I jump about six feet back, but it’s already too late. Whatever the hell it is, it’s awake.
There is an explosion of movement, a flurry of shadows. The rustling surrounds us, consumes everything. I try to point my pistol everywhere, fail to do so.
It’s not just one thing. It’s many. They’re everywhere.
“Fuck!” I shout.
And then I realize. They’re butterflies.
“Oh, Jesus.”
My professional pride flutters past, flies out the cavern entrance. I holster my pistol. Kayla smirks.
“Imminent death,” is my excuse.
The butterflies are a cloud around us, filling the space. They land on me, wings whispering against my skin.
The rays from the cavern’s entrance catch their patterns. And there is something entrancing about them after all the darkness and rock. I stare. Then something about the wings catches my attention… Where are the whorls of color? The bright eyes and warning lines? Instead of the expected patterns there is something more intricate, more delicate.
I reach out my hand. A butterfly alights. I pull it close to get a better look.
A forest. No, a jungle. Its wings show a jungle. A tangle of trees and vines. I can see birds flitting between trees, sunlight dappling their bodies.
“The hell?” I pull the butterfly closer. At first I think it must be a painting, but… no. It’s actually the pattern on the butterfly’s wings.
Another one lands. It shows a building. The fort. The one that housed the death cult. The one we were trying to get into. The butterfly takes off. Another lands. This one shows a dark tunnel of rock.
“Are you seeing this?” I ask Kayla.
“Feckin’ weird-arse butterflies.”
I take that as a yes.
I stare at them as they settle on me, take off again. I see rivers and lakes, distant cityscapes. Then, as we stand there, the butterflies begin to get used to us and our light. They settle back on the wall of the cavern.
I approach slowly, peer at them. They have grouped themselves. All the jungle butterflies together. Butterflies with dirty paths painted across their wings strung out in a long winding line. And here, I see a cave entrance. Butterflies with black rock, and narrow twisting passageways, clustered here. I pick out the butterfly showing the fort with a cluster of similarly patterned creatures over to my right.
A thought lands in my mind, spreads its wings. I take a step back, let my light play over the scene.
“Holy shit,” I say.
“What?” Kayla is checking the grip of her sword, oblivious to the wonder before us.
I point at the butterflies. “They’re a map.”
32
HAVING RETRIEVED THE OTHERS
“No blood
y way.”
Hannah stares at the rock face as billowing butterflies settle back to rest. “That’s bloody mental.”
“Papilionis mappa,” Clyde breathes. “I mean I’d read about them, but this technique’s been lost since the early twelfth century. I think it was Aramadeus the third…”
“Shut up.” Apparently Tabitha and Clyde did not exactly bury the hatchet during the time I gave them. Unless it was in Clyde’s crotch.
“Of course, love,” Clyde says immediately.
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Of course, l—” Clyde catches himself. “Tabby,” he finishes.
Tabitha, apparently unwilling to look at Clyde even to scorch him with her ire, instead glares malevolently at the butterflies.
Felicity approaches the wall. The butterflies’ wings flutter at her approach, the map rippling. When they subside she peers closer.
“So where are we?”
I point to a yellow triangle in amongst the dark rock-patterned butterflies. “I’m pretty sure that’s the fissure we just came through to get in here. So we follow this path—” My finger starts to trace a line of paler rock along the backs of the butterflies, “—and we come out here.” Two side-steps and my finger lands on the cluster depicting the fort.
“Just right turns?” Hannah sounds incredulous. “You just took right turns and you happened upon this?”
“Is there a problem?” Felicity speaks before I do. I have yet to find out how her chat with Hannah went.
Hannah stares a minute longer. “No.” She shakes her head slowly. “I just. I mean… I don’t know.”
“Good.” Felicity’s smile is tight. “OK, so it looks like—”
She is cut off by another one of the roars Kayla and I heard earlier. It is louder now. Closer perhaps. Booming and rolling around the room, sending the butterflies into a flurrying cloud of motion. They whip and whirl around us.
“What the hell is that?” Felicity looks around.
“Mountain lion,” I say, but with less conviction than before. It didn’t sound like a mountain lion. It didn’t sound organic at all. “Or maybe the rock shifting. Or water.” I shrug. “I think all the rock is distorting the sound.”
“Minotaur,” Kayla says with a simple nod.
Felicity narrows her eyes. I shake my head in warning and she leaves wisely alone.
I turn to scan the cave for the tunnel the butterfly map says leaves this cave. As I do so, something in the way Volk and Hermann are standing catches my eye. Some discrepancy in their mechanical body language.
I try to figure out what it is. “Do you recognize it?” I ask, pointing to the map.
Volk glances at Hermann, then bends his head toward me.
“No,” Hermann says loudly, and Volk comes up short. “It is meaningless to us.” Hermann looks hard at Volk.
I look to Volk. “No secrets,” I say. “Right?”
Volk doesn’t say anything for a moment then straightens. “That is what I was going to say,” he says. “Nothing else. We do not recognize it.”
I stare at them for a moment, but I trust Volk. And maybe I was just misreading the body language thing. They aren’t human after all.
“Always wanted to get in a scrap with a Minotaur,” Kayla tells no one in particular.
“Yes,” Felicity greets the utterance. “Well, if everyone’s had their say then I think we have a path forward. So let’s get ready, march on this fort, and kick the living shit out of everyone inside it.”
33
ONCE OUR ARSE-KICKING BOOTS ARE ON
“Two more lefts and we should be there,” I say, glancing at the directions I’ve scribbled down. I try to inject my voice with confidence. It turns out maps made out of magically evolved butterflies are a bit inconsistent when it comes to scale. Well, either that, or I’m crap at writing down directions. I’m really banking on it being the first of those options.
Another roar echoes around us. They’ve been coming more and more frequently, slowly growing more distinct but still defying identification. It is something like a ripping noise. An almost mechanical tearing. A sound out of place in this world of rock and moss.
“You know,” Hannah says, “at some point that’s going to get pretty bloody disturbing.”
We keep on walking. We make the first left, then the other. A tunnel leads ahead, revealing nothing but shadow and darkness.
Hannah pipes up again. “You sure this is the way?”
“Just following the directions,” I say, and for Felicity’s sake leave my comments at that.
“You fuck up the instructions?” Tabitha asks, taking a slightly more direct route to this conversation’s end point.
“Feel free to go back and double check,” I snap.
“You know, I don’t really think that’s totally appropriate, Arthur,” Clyde says, slightly apologetic. “I mean, considering Tabby’s condition.”
The sound of Tabitha grinding her teeth almost drowns out the next roar.
“Is it me or does it seem like we’re walking toward that noise?” Felicity asks. Potentially attempting to change the subject.
But then abruptly the tunnel widens. The pool of our torches’ light is no longer abutted by walls, but fades off into darkness.
“Maybe,” I say, turning to Hermann, “a little more light.”
He hawks massively, and with a degree of ostentation that probably isn’t necessary. And a thick wad of flaming oil sails across the room to splatter against a far wall.
It is indeed another cavern, smaller than the one where we made camp, but distinctly more endowed in the large bronze door department.
The door is a large oval set into one wall, broader on the horizontal than the vertical. Swirling lines cover it, twisting and tangling, as if the metalworker who wrought this great thing had a pretty substantial hard-on for paisley. The world takes all sorts, I suppose.
“Seems a little lacking in handles,” Hannah comments, bringing her usual level of optimism to proceedings.
“Seems like this place is a little feckin’ lacking in Minotaurs to battle,” Kayla comments, bring her usual level of unnecessary violence to proceedings.
As if in response to her call, another roar booms into the cavern. The loudest yet. I swear I feel the air pulse with the noise. Kayla’s head snaps to a shadowed corner of the cavern. She stalks toward it.
At the same time Clyde and Tabitha are moving toward the door. I can’t argue with Kayla’s instincts, but we definitely need someone covering that pair as well. That’s the direction the magic-imbued death cult is in.
“Another tunnel over here,” Kayla calls. She cocks her head. “Think I can hear something.”
“Getting closer or further away?” I ask.
“Which do you feckin’ think?”
Shit and balls. I turn back to Clyde and Tabitha. “What sort of time frame are we looking at with that door?”
“More you talk, slower we go,” Tabitha barks back. Clyde gives me a slightly reproving look. I assume for having bothered Tabby. I need to tell him not to do that. If I’m getting tired of Clyde’s mother-hen act, then Tabby is almost certainly going to throttle him with his own urethra within a week.
On the plus side, there’s a decent chance of the universe ending before then, but still…
“Can you help?” I ask Volk. Just rip the door open or something.
“The cultists would hear,” Volk points out, a degree of apology to his voice. And he’s right: they would, and we are seriously outgunned.
“Just so you know,” Hannah says picking up on the theme, “I have, like, three-quarters of a clip and then I’m bollocksed.”
“Just so you know,” I say, “you have my gun.” I wanted to bring my wooden sword but apparently wood doesn’t hold an edge the same way as steel. And when Kayla tried to trim all the bone bits and hair off the edges a few fairly fundamental cracks reduced the thing to three short sticks of no conceivable use in a fight.
Hannah looks down at the gun, with at least a sliver of panic on her face. I should probably take less satisfaction in it. “But—” she starts.
“Don’t worry,” Felicity cuts in. “You keep the gun.” She tosses hers my way. “I have some hand-to-hand combat training that should help. And Arthur will have six shots at his disposal with which he can secure a new weapon.”
It’s my turn to look slightly panicked. I don’t want to give Hannah a chance to see it, so I try to mask it with officiousness. “Any sense for what’s coming?” I say, approaching Kayla.
“Yeah, a feckin’ carnival with fourteen clowns and a troupe of pygmy jugglers. Who do I look like, feckin’ Tonto?”
I look at the still-closed door and decide it’s probably not worth asking how that’s going.
Felicity sidles up to me, slips an arm around my waist. “Stop worrying,” she whispers, “I once saw you kill a giant mutant dog with a pointy stick.”
It’s true enough. Except, “I don’t have a stick,” I say.
The moment stretches out. Nervous shuffling feet. A growing rumble from the corridor Kayla is watching, one that even I can hear now. Another roar tears through the space. And Hermann and Volk definitely share a look on that.
Just like they did the last time the sound came. Back in the cave with the butterflies. It wasn’t the map that they recognized. It was that noise.
“What?” I ask them. “What is it?”
And then at the same time, Clyde says, quite loudly, “Oh, I see,” and Kayla says, “Incoming!”
Behind me, the door starts to rumble open.
From the shadowy corridor before me, I hear the distinct sound of metal striking rock.
“Oh crap sticks.” Clyde’s voice is leaden behind me.
“Oh feck in a handcart.” Before me, Kayla blurs into motion.
The moment is frozen. A tableau in cold, unmoving marble to illustrate to wayward children the exact meaning of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.”
Behind me: the door is half open, rolling back into rock, blue light shining out of the swirling lines that decorated the bronze surface. Beyond it, a group of thirty or so death cultists look up in our direction.
Broken Hero Page 21
