Jane Doe and the Key of All Souls

by Jeremy Lachlan

  I head up the stairs, armed with a plank of wood in case someone or something is hiding in the shadows.

  The hatch on the first landing is ajar. I step through it, plank ready to swing, but there’s nobody there.

  ‘Oi,’ I call out. ‘Hellooooo?’

  I find a storeroom down the corridor. There’s a massive hole in the middle of the floor, and a hole in the ceiling above it, too. Scratch that – a dozen holes, floor after floor of them. A shaft soaring all the way up to a patch of sky at the top of the wreck. It’s as if something came crashing through the ship long ago. There are wires, too – taut, like strings on a harp – rising up through the shaft and branching off onto each deck in a vast, metallic web. All of them stem from the room below, which is so dark I can barely see inside it. I flick one, and the web rattles.

  I sink to my knees and peer into the hole. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me …’

  The room’s filled with explosives. Bubbly old sticks of dynamite. Open barrels of gunpowder. All these rusty, mini-pineapple-looking things, which I’m pretty sure are called grenades. The shipwreck’s one big powder keg. I stare up at the web of wires again.

  Trip-wires. The whole place is rigged to blow.

  ‘Bloody hell. Nice and easy, then …’

  I back away slowly and continue up the stairs. The top deck’s just as messed up as the cargo hold. The heat hits me like a wall when I step outside. I’ve climbed a dizzying height. The peak of the dune heaped against the wreck is several storeys below me now. The salt pan stretches out as far as I can see. No camp. No tribe. Far to my right, a ridge on the horizon. A mountain range.

  The canyon city must be in there, somewhere.

  I pick my way towards the front of the ship and find what must’ve been the control room. The place is a dive. A giant ship’s wheel is snapped in half on the floor. The control panels are covered in broken levers and flyaway springs. Far as I know, we’ve never had machines like this on Bluehaven. I’ve only read about them in books. Otherworldly contraptions. Foreign devices. Who were these ancient sailors? What were they? Human, Leatherhead or something else? What was it Dad said about Roth’s people?

  I think his was a fair race. Strong and proud, now all but extinct.

  Could they have built this? Abandoned this? Hell, Roth could’ve stood right here, once upon a time. I shudder at the thought, and scan the salt flats on the other side of the ship. Still nothing.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I tell myself. ‘You’re okay. Think.’

  Kindling. Wood. Signal fire.

  The ship’s wheel could work, though it won’t burn long enough on its own. I look for something else to use, but all I find is the top of the trip-wired shaft in a big, empty room. I’m about to spit down it when I hear something – at least, I think I do – out in the desert.

  Someone calling my name? I spin around, hope flaring in my chest. I’ve been found. Rescued at last.

  But then I stop.

  There are markings all over the wall, scratched into the rusted metal. Tally marks. Wavy lines and circles. Hundreds of nonsensical scribbles. The floor’s littered with broken glass and torn scraps of old, wrinkled parchment inked in symbols I can’t decipher, words I can’t understand. Over in the corner, three dusty bottles of booze, still corked.

  Elsa.

  She told me she wandered the desert for days after she was brought back to Arakaan. Maybe she took shelter here for a while. But what about the paper scraps and booze? No, she’s been here more recently than that.

  I’m so thirsty, I uncork one of the bottles and consider a swig, but the smell alone burns my throat. I’m about to put it back when I notice an image on the wall. A drawing she clearly spent time on, etched with care.

  A baby – her baby – wrapped in a blanket.

  I squat and run my fingers over the boy’s face, and I know. It clicks. This is Elsa’s private place. Her secret hideaway. A spot she visits to remember the boy she lost. The boy Roth took from her. He’s everywhere, I realise. On the other walls, a patch of floor, above the hatch I stepped through moments ago. I suppose the boy would be a man now, if he’d survived and come here, to Arakaan, with Elsa. I guess he’d be fourteen if he came to Bluehaven with Dad and me. I wonder if they gave him a name.

  And then it hits me. This is the nightmare Dad’s Spectre would’ve preyed upon. While I was plodding around the basement, whinging about my life and singing him stupid songs, he would’ve been watching his little boy die, over and over again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, to Dad, to Elsa, to the boy who never even had a chance.

  I swear to myself I won’t tell anyone I’ve seen this. Not Violet, not Hickory, certainly not Elsa. This is her secret, and that’s how it’ll remain. Hell, the shipwreck’s so big I could’ve wandered right past this room and never noticed a thing. Nobody’ll know any –

  ‘Ow!’ There’s that voice outside again, louder now. ‘Ow-ooo!’

  Wait a second. Not a voice. Not even human.

  A yelp from some kind of animal.

  And that’s when I hear the other, more terrifying sounds echoing up through the wreck. Howling. Whimpering. Frenzied barking. I’ve been found, all right. But not by the tribe.

  ‘Tin-skins …’

  I dash outside, lean over the railing. Count six of them down there on the salt and sand, barking at the tear in the base of the hull, bolting inside. Wild Tin-skins. Untamed. They look just as big as the ones we encountered in the Manor, but they have eyes and ears. They’re tin-less, covered in fur and bristles, like a pack of wolf-boar hybrids.

  And they’ve definitely caught my scent.

  I swear at the sky and stumble back to the shaft. I can hear the pack raging through the wreck, their claws scraping steel. My head spins. My vision blurs.

  Steady, Jane. Think.

  It won’t take them long to find me. Should I barricade myself in a cabin? Dive over the side and take my chances on the dune? What would Violet do? What about Hickory? I’m too tired. Can’t think. I can see the Tin-skins’ shadows, darting up the shaft through a haze of light. They could trip one of the wires any second now, which would be very, very bad.

  Or very good, I tell myself, and almost laugh. It’d kill the damn things, at least. Make a decent signal fire, too. Like, a really decent signal fire, visible for miles.

  ‘Oh, crap.’

  I have to blow up the ship.

  I ditch my plank of wood, grab one half of the ship’s wheel and lug it down the corridor. The sucker weighs a goddamn tonne. Every muscle in my body screams, but I can’t stop.

  ‘If anyone else is hiding in here,’ I shout, ‘you’d better get out now!’

  I heave the ship’s wheel right up to the shaft, tip it over the edge and sprint for the door.

  But then I freeze, breath held, and wait. There’s no twang of tripped wires. No big bang. All I can hear are the Tin-skins coming to eat me, and the pounding of my heart.

  ‘Seriously?’ I stumble back to the shaft. The half-wheel wasn’t heavy enough. It’s dangling on top of the wires. ‘Oh, come on!’

  More Tin-skin shadows, darting round the shaft.

  Higher now. Way too close.

  Take two, then. I drag the other half of the wheel towards the shaft, huffing and puffing, panic snapping at my heels. It’s bigger than the other one. Heavier, too. I pull it. Push it. Heave the damn thing with white-knuckled hands, then drop to my butt and kick it.

  ‘Come … on … you stupid piece of –’

  A rumble outside tells me the Tin-skins have made it to the upper deck. One of them leaps at a porthole and shoves its big, ugly head into the room, gnashing its teeth.

  I kick the wheel again. It tips over the edge, out of sight. I stagger to my feet and head back to the control room, sprinting, swearing, hoping against all hope it’s done the trick.

  CRASH! TWANG! TWANG! TWANG!

  ‘Yes!’

  Now I’ve just gotta hope the trip-wires actually m
ake the bomb –

  KA-BOOM!

  The explosion’s so loud my ears burst. So powerful I’m launched through a grimy goddamn window. I hit the forward deck in a shower of glass. A Tin-skin snaps its jaws right beside me – too close – but another explosion tears through the wreck just in time. The deck lurches, tilting violently to one side, away from the dune. The Tin-skin scratches for purchase with its claws, slips away. I manage to scramble up the steepening slope and throw myself over the side. I hit the dune two seconds later, roll and tumble, flip and slide, screaming, ‘Ugh – crap – damn it – argh!’

  Debris rains down around me. Clumps of metal. Shattered crates. A flying toilet. I skid to the bottom and keep running, covered in cuts and bruises, coughing up sand. The wreck groans behind me and collapses onto the desert floor. A third and final explosion obliterates what’s left, and a giant fireball soars into the sky. A black mushroom cloud.

  I fall to my knees once I’m a safe distance away, utterly spent. Breathing hard.

  Talk about a signal fire. If the tribe doesn’t see this, I’ll –

  A growl to my left.

  Turns out I wasn’t the only one to get out of the wreck. A Tin-skin’s snarling at me, ten metres away, crouching low on the salt, licking its chops.

  I’m too goddamn tired for this.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I say.

  And wouldn’t you know it? The mutt blinks at me. Cocks its furry head to one side. Even sits and stares at the burning wreck for a while before it trots off into the desert. Off to find another pack, I suppose.

  It isn’t long before I hear the thunder of hooves on the salt. The signal fire worked.

  The tribe has found me at last.

  THE WOUND

  Violet keeps staring at me. It’s getting annoying, to be honest. I know she just wants to make sure I’m okay, but so many people have been staring at me since the explosion, I might as well be back on Bluehaven. They’re not unkind stares. Nobody’s shaking their head or muttering prayers of salvation. Hell, I even catch the occasional nervous smile. But it still feels weird, like I’m some sort of rare gem. I shouldn’t be surprised. They’ve been waiting for me out here a long time. Maybe I’m not the hero they were expecting, but I’m still the girl with amber eyes. Jane Doe, formerly Cursed One. Now something altogether different.

  ‘Here.’ Violet hands me her waterskin. I’ve already finished mine. ‘Keep drinking.’

  I take a swig. ‘Thanks.’ Despite the water, my voice is still raspy. I’ve barely spoken since we sat down. Can’t bring myself to look Violet in the eye, let alone tell her what’s on my mind.

  ‘I’d grab you something to eat, but rations are low,’ she says. ‘I think there was a cache of food, water and supplies hidden in the shipwreck they were counting on, but …’

  ‘I blew it up.’

  ‘Yep.’ Violet keeps gaping at the smouldering wreck. We’ve set up camp a short hike away. ‘I can’t believe you blew something up without me.’ She flashes me a smile. ‘But it’s fine. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘Not sure everyone agrees with you,’ I say, nodding across the camp.

  Elsa hasn’t stopped ranting: at the horses for munching too loudly on their hay, at her waterskin for being empty, at the poor chump who spilled a drop of booze when he refilled it, and the suns for taking too long to set. She didn’t say a word when they found me. I stood before the tribe and she just looked me up and down with her watery eyes. Face weathered. Unreadable. Skin like tough, tanned leather, cured by the suns. Then she leapt off her horse and started barking orders. Understandable, really – I’d just blown her secret place to pieces. All those etchings of her baby boy are lost now, buried under a mountain of metal.

  ‘She hates me,’ I say.

  Violet screws up her face. ‘Actually, I think she hates everyone. Except maybe him.’ She nods at Lazy Eye, the guy who grabbed me out by the gateway yesterday. Bald head. Dark skin. Permanent scowl. He’s sitting on a mat near Elsa, staring at us. ‘His name’s Yaku. Elsa’s right-hand man. Doesn’t say much, but he can understand us. I think she’s been teaching him.’

  I nod at the rest of the tribespeople: twenty-odd men, women and children. Some are black-skinned, some are brown-skinned, some have skin almost as white as the salt and wear long, hooded robes to shield themselves from the blazing suns. Some are bald, like Yaku. Some have shags of flyaway hair or fancy braids.

  ‘And them?’

  Violet shrugs. ‘Scavengers. Warriors. Survivors.’

  Similar to the folk of Bluehaven, I guess. People from all corners of a ruined world.

  A few of them are assembling makeshift tents of ragged cloth. Others are lounging back on the salt, using their saddles as pillows, enjoying this sweet spot between day and night, oblivious to Elsa’s ranting. They seem peaceful enough, but can we trust them?

  ‘Reckon they’re telling the truth about Hickory? They didn’t … you know. Kill him?’

  Violet hugs her knees to her chest. Frowns at Yaku. ‘He’s the one who tortured him. Nearly broke both his arms. And Elsa just sat there, asking questions about you and the key. It was terrible, but … well, I guess they couldn’t take any chances.’ She shakes her head. ‘I may not like them, but we’re still on the same side, right? Elsa told me Hickory’s alive. Promised. She said they sent him ahead to some kind of outpost at the edge of the mountains, to get his wounds looked at by some healers. We’re stopping there tomorrow, on our way to the canyon city.’

  I look to the west. In the Manor, I told Hickory I’d banish him from the group when we found Elsa, but now that we’re here? Now that we know she isn’t my mum? Now that we’ve seen what she’s become? At this rate, she’s gonna drink herself to death before we make it back to the Manor.

  ‘I don’t think we can win this without him, Violet.’

  ‘I know,’ she says softly. ‘We’ll get him back.’

  The salt pan glows a vibrant pink as the setting suns hover above the horizon, not to the west but to the south. Different world, different rules.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ I say. ‘Last night, I mean. And I’m sorry I ran off.’

  ‘Elsa said the storms can get so bad out here the sand can tear flesh from bone,’ Violet says. ‘I wanted to head out and find you right away, but she wouldn’t let me. Had to tie me up again to make sure I stayed put.’ She looks down at her knees. ‘I thought I’d lost you, Jane.’

  I stare at her, heart hammering away in my chest.

  She stares right back.

  Then she punches me in the shoulder. Hard.

  ‘Ouch! Violet, what the hell?’

  ‘Don’t ever do that again. This is a big, old world, and it’s just as dangerous as the Manor. Who knows what’s out there?’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not good enough.’ She points at me. Pretty much jabs her finger into my nose. ‘No more running. Unless we’re being chased or something. Then you can run. But you have to make sure I’m with you. At all times. Deal?’

  Even though my shoulder’s killing me, I smile. ‘Deal. No more running.’

  ‘You should probably apologise to Elsa, too.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I know.’ On the other side of camp, Elsa shouts a final insult at her horse and passes out. ‘Maybe once she sobers up a bit.’

  I yawn. Desperately need some shut-eye, but my head’s pounding, and the gash in my palm’s packed with grit from my tumble down the dune. I scratch at the skin around it and wince.

  ‘Here,’ Violet says, ‘let me take a look.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  Violet tuts at me, grabs my hand. ‘We should clean it at least.’

  Her grip’s firm but soft. She’s concentrating so hard she chews on her tongue, and for the briefest of moments the desert disappears. We could be anywhere, sitting side by side in a perfect Otherworld of our own. No salt pan, no tribe, no dangerous mission. It’s nice.


  Violet blows gently on my hand and brushes a few specks of sand away. ‘Looks infected. I’m afraid we only have one option.’ She hooks her thumb at the closest tribesman, who’s currently picking gunk from between his pale, sweaty toes. ‘He has to pee on it.’

  I snatch back my hand. ‘What?’

  Violet laughs. ‘I’m kidding, Jane.’ Her smile vanishes. ‘But seriously, it looks terrible and if we don’t disinfect it soon we may have to amputate.’

  I chuckle and wait for her to say Ha! Kidding again! but she doesn’t.

  ‘Oh.’ I clear my throat. ‘Right.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I bet there’s some sort of special cactus out here that can heal wounds. Desert folk are all over that stuff, from what I’ve read. We can ask Hickory’s healers tomorrow.’

  Assuming they really exist.

  Violet grabs her waterskin and douses my hand. When she wipes some of the dirt clear, her skin brushes mine. This time, an electric fuzzy-buzz darts up my arm, across my chest and deep down into my gut. It’s strange and thrilling, and it makes me feel safe – protected – for the first time since I don’t know when. Before I can stop them, the words come spilling out.

  ‘How am I gonna do this, Violet? It’s all so … big.’

  ‘You do it step by step,’ Violet says. ‘Eat your elephant in small pieces.’

  I look around the camp, horrified. ‘Wait, we’re having elephant for dinner? They can’t – I didn’t know there were elephants here. I’ve never even seen –’

  ‘It’s a saying, doofus. Means don’t look at the big picture. Tackle things bit by bit, one problem at a time. First, we get to this outpost and find Hickory.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We head to the secret canyon city – whatever it’s called – and grab the second key.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We cross the dune sea to Roth’s gateway and get back inside the Manor –’

  ‘Somehow bypassing an entire goddamn army standing in our way.’

  ‘– and then,’ Violet pushes on, ‘we find the Cradle, which should be much easier now that we have Elsa. After all, she’s the one who found it before.’