by Nina D'Aleo
He pushed himself to his feet, but before he could move Luther grabbed his hand. His grasp was freezing cold. He traced letters in the air with one clawed finger. Eli watched his finger and said, ‘I-R-E-P-A-Y-U. I repay you. That’s not necessary.’
Luther gestured, ‘I-W-I-L-L,’ then, ‘C-O-P-E-R-N-I-C-U-S?’
‘Trying to stop the Skreaf.’
‘Snack-size,’ Ev’r called him from out on the street.
‘I have to go. We’re trying to stop them too.’
Luther nodded again. The dog nuzzled the Midnight Man’s fearsome face and licked it. Luther made a movement like a shudder and Eli realised it was a silent laugh. He left the man sitting with the animals and walked with Ev’r back towards the transflyer. He glanced over at her. She was staring straight ahead.
‘You weren’t lying about your father killing your cat, were you?’ he said.
‘We have to get to the Galleria and get Kry before the witches use him,’ she said, her eyes fixed forward.
They reached the transflyer and they both went for the pilot’s side.
‘No chance,’ Ev’r said. She pushed Eli aside and climbed in. He snorted and ran around to the passenger side. He jumped up beside her and dragged the door shut. The sound triggered his memory of the news item. ‘Oh no,’ he said.
‘What?’ Ev’r glanced at him and started the engine.
‘I heard in the chemist that at dawn today the king is making an announcement at Elio D’An Square. The place will be crawling with soldiers and palace enforcers and the Galleria will be closed. How are we going to get in?’
‘We’ll think of something,’ Ev’r said. ‘We have to, unless you’ve changed your mind about flying out to the Brine.’
Eli shook his head. ‘No more running.’
‘How did I know you were going to say that?’ Ev’r said. She released the brake and eased the craft up into the greyness of the pre-dawn sky.
39
Silho blinked as the light around them faded. She turned to Copernicus and found herself looking at a young boy with piercing black eyes and a scarred face. Silho stared at her own hands and saw they were tiny. Her body felt strange, so light, almost as though it were floating.
‘What’s happened to us?’ she asked.
‘We’re children again,’ Copernicus said, his voice high and unbroken. ‘This must be part of the tests.’
Silho recalled Eli’s warning about the gateway land of Woulghast, but her memories dissolved as they formed until they were completely forgotten.
‘Look!’ She pointed ahead of them to the lights and rides of a carnival. She ran towards it and Copernicus followed.
Silho stopped in front of a carousel with horses wearing bridles and saddles all colours of the rainbow. They galloped in circles, their manes and tails flying out behind them. Other children were already travelling around and around to the merry music. Silho went forward to pass through the gates and join them, but Copernicus grabbed her hand.
‘Silho, no.’
‘But I want to,’ she said.
She struggled against him and he shouted at her, ‘Silho! Look at them!’
The urgency of his words made her stop fighting and take another look at the carousel. She now saw chains around the children’s legs, fastening them to the horses. They had a vacant inward stare in their eyes and the music scratched along with the distorted, creepy twang of a music box running down.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Copernicus said.
‘I’m scared.’ Silho began to sob.
‘Hold my hand,’ he told her. ‘We’ll stay together. We won’t leave each other ever.’
They grasped hands and held tightly as they walked along the path, past other rides full of children. They seemed to be laughing, but when Silho listened closely their laughter became screams, and their smiles faded to grimaces of terror. She focused on the pathway ahead, trying to ignore the candy shack with a fountain of red syrup that was really blood, the stalls selling toys cheaply for just a simple soul, and clowns whose face paint barely disguised the monsters lurking beneath. A woman materialised in front of them, cloth wrapped around her head, hoop earrings dangling from drooping lobes.
‘Come children, let Madame Douval show you your future.’ She beckoned with one red-nailed finger and smiled benignly. ‘Come.’
Silho’s focus drifted, but Copernicus squeezed her hand and she shook her head at the woman. When they were far enough away, Silho looked back to see the woman’s smile stretch into a rotting snarl and a maggot wriggle out of the wart on her face.
The path finally ended at a tent with a veiled doorway. Copernicus pushed it aside and they entered a gloomy room, choked with wafting clouds of musky incense. To Silho it felt as though they had stepped into someone’s sleeping mind, into a dream – or the beginning of a nightmare. She squinted through the mist and saw they were standing in front of a large mirror, with another mirror behind them reflecting their images into infinity. Something stirred ahead of them and they moved closer to their reflections, and closer still. They leaned forward, staring at the children who stood before them, the children they used to be. Silho heard the sound of someone stepping towards them through the mist, heel-toe, heel-toe, and she felt Copernicus tense beside her. A man appeared in the mirror. He had dark hair and a beard, black eyes that cut like razors. He wore a purple cloak and had the XXX insignia burned into the backs of his hands. She recognised the Illusionist – Doctor Silvan Kane.
‘You,’ he snarled at Copernicus.
Copernicus stared at his father, mute with terror.
‘Get here now!’ the Illusionist yelled.
His hand lashed out of the mirror and latched around Copernicus’ throat, trying to pull him through. Silho grabbed Copernicus by the arm and her shoes dragged in the dirt beneath them.
‘Leave him alone!’ she screamed and her voice swapped halfway through the sentence from a child to an adult sound. ‘Copernicus – fight back!’
The Illusionist made a gesture with his hand and Copernicus’ arm became as slippery as if it were covered in oil. Silho could barely hang on and Copernicus was disappearing further and further inside the mirror. Through the panic, Silho could hear her inner voice repeating the enchant, the Illusionist magics, Claude animus meus, claude animus meus. Close my mind. A silence descended over her. She swapped to light-form vision and saw the body-lights of what was holding Copernicus. It was not a human-breed, not his father, but a shape-shifting demon. She drew strength from the demon’s body-lights into one hand and used the power to wrench Copernicus back out of the mirror, but the creature clung onto his neck, refusing to release him. Silho’s strength was draining quickly. Her arms were trembling, ready to give.
‘Copernicus! It’s not him. He’s dead! Do something!’ Silho screamed.
‘You’ll do what you’re told,’ the Illusionist snarled. ‘Or you know what will happen to you – and the girl.’
Anger sparked in Copernicus’ dark eyes and he pulled back. As he did, his body grew bigger and closer to its adult shape. He struck the mirror with all his force. It shattered, a million pieces of glass exploding out at them, a million reflections of the Illusionist. They fell to the ground and he was gone.
Copernicus doubled over, coughing and holding his throat. Behind the empty frame of the mirror, Silho saw a staircase leading downwards. She heard demon sounds coming from outside the tent door and grabbed Copernicus’ arm. She led him through the open frame of the broken mirror to the top of the staircase. As they went forward onto the first step, the staircase straightened and they slipped down a steep slope. They changed fully back to their adult forms as they crash-landed.
Silho struggled to her hands and knees. Copernicus knelt beside her, staring, disconnected.
‘It wasn’t him,’ Silho said. ‘It was a demon, a shape-shifter.’
Copernicus blinked and swallowed, regaining some of his composure. ‘I know.’
He rubbed a hand ove
r his face and stood. Silho looked towards the stairs where they had fallen. The steps had vanished and they were enclosed in a cave-like chamber. The light was brighter and warmer here than in the land above. It flickered and danced over the walls, carved from intensely coloured rocks of emerald green, violet purple, ocean blue and rose pink. The shine and glitter of the stones calmed Silho’s senses. She took deep breaths of the sweet air and began to drift. A clunking sound roused her mind and she saw Copernicus had fallen back down to one knee.
‘I feel . . . so tired,’ he breathed.
Silho’s eyelids flickered and closed.
‘Brabel!’ The commander’s yell woke her. He stumbled towards her, powerful magics numbing his limbs. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the chamber and into another. As they crossed the threshold, clarity rushed over her like a bucket of freezing water dumped over her head. She sat up and looked behind them. She sucked in a sharp breath. The ground of the shimmery-rock chamber was covered in decomposing corpses they had not seen. Worse than that, the walls themselves were made of bodies, bone and flesh and faces, squirming, writhing, their eyes shut. The chamber of dead dreams. Silho remembered Eli’s warning. A glimmer bounced off the wall and into her eyes and the corpses vanished. She drifted again into dangerous contentment and sank down to the ground to sleep.
A harsh punch from Copernicus brought her around. She exploded in rage, lashing out and smacking him hard over the mouth, his weakest point. The blow pushed the flesh of his cheek into the fangs behind his teeth. He stumbled back, spitting blood and venom onto the ground. His eyes gleamed red and he rushed at her. The two locked in battle. Rage and hate coursed through their bodies. Copernicus overpowered her and threw her to the ground. He squeezed her neck with both hands. She changed to light-form vision and drew his strength into her, then ripped his hands away and shoved him back. Copernicus recovered fast and lunged again. He smacked her across the face and grabbed her head. He pulled it to one side, trying to snap her neck. Silho drew again from his body-lights and kicked him. She scrambled towards a rock, intending to use it as a weapon, but in crawling for it, she passed out of that chamber and into a third.
The rage dissolved as instantly as it had flared. She slumped facedown on the ground, the pain of her injuries erupting in an agonising surge. Copernicus charged out of the chamber after her. He grabbed her, but his grip softened immediately, his anger dissipating as Silho’s had.
‘We’re in the three chambers,’ he said, breathing heavily, confirming what Silho already suspected. ‘That was hate . . . I hurt you, I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘I’m . . .’ Silho looked up into Copernicus’ dark eyes and her desire for him stole her words. He reached out and stroked her face. She ran a hand up his arm over his viper bloodline marks – over the diamonds of black and purple, over the blue. His skin was cool to her touch, the perfect opposition to her heat. She turned and kissed his hand and Copernicus shivered. He dragged her to him and pressed his lips against hers, kissing her deeply. They held each other as closely as they could and kissed until their lips were numb. Nothing else mattered anymore. Silho’s mind drifted blissfully until she tasted blood and faint memories disturbed her. Who am I? Where are we?
Copernicus caressed her and whispered, ‘I love you.’
The words jolted Silho. The chamber of lust. She scrunched her eyes shut and used all her force to pull back from him. Her arms shook from the pressure pushing them together. Just managing to untangle from his grasp, she rolled onto her stomach, and crawled painfully, slowly, towards the chamber’s threshold. Copernicus tried to hold her back, first talking to her, then holding her arms, then finally pushing her to the ground. He tore at her clothes and she reached up a trembling hand to the threshold line.
Velveteen fingers locked with hers. With a heave, they ripped her out from under Copernicus, dragging her from the chamber and into a dark tunnel. Copernicus followed her, also crossing the threshold of the third chamber. As he crossed over, he blinked, disorientated, then dropped to his knees. Silho sat up and looked back into the chamber. It was littered with bodies and skeletons of people, intertwined, trapped in the spell, loving each other to death. She shuddered and looked up at the person who’d saved them. Raine stared down at her with grey eyes that appeared now, if possible, more haunted than before.
‘I thought you were dead,’ Silho said.
The Wraith crouched down and took the compacted mirror Silho had given her from her moth-wing cloak. Raine held it up in front of her face and Silho saw the spectral had no reflection. Bellum’s death-curse had hit the he-Wraith in Castlereagh and killed him.
‘He’s gone,’ Raine hissed. ‘My love.’ Slow tears trickled down her grey face and Silho felt a terrible pang of grief for her.
‘What is it?’ Copernicus asked.
‘Amateus,’ Silho said. ‘Bellum killed him.’
‘He believed in his cause,’ Copernicus said to Raine.
‘So do I. Do you?’ The Wraith asked.
‘Of course,’ Copernicus said.
‘Follow me then. Let’s kill them all or die trying.’ Raine stood. She pushed the mirror back into her cloak and drifted further along the tunnel, leaving them in the shadows of her disturbing words. Copernicus helped Silho up and they stood close together. He pulled her against him and they held each other for a second longer, then separated and walked together into the darkness.
40
As the suns rose, two lines of new daylight spread across the crowded Elio D’An Square. Ev’r shoved her way through the masses of people. She could feel the air buzzing around her, all the individual thoughts becoming one crowd mind, teetering on the edge of riot. Eli paused in front of her and Ev’r pushed in beside him. His gaze was set on the giant domed Galleria Majora in front of them, completely surrounded by many layers of military defence and palace enforcers. There was no way, as far as Ev’r could see, of getting around them, and they couldn’t risk sinking in through the Murk with the possibility of the Skreaf close by. The witches would sense them in a second.
Eli clenched his jaw so tightly a ridge appeared on his cheek. Ev’r noticed the upward tilt of his eyes made him look determined and wise. As she had suspected, the imp-breed had shown a strength that defied defeat. He was different, unique – as Ismail had been. Eli had done everything in his power to save her, and she had decided not to tell him the truth as she felt it now. She was just going to vanish and let him think she had run away. Then he could blame her, and not himself. The ground shook again under their feet, the contraction stronger this time, drawing murmurs from the crowd. A dog barked in the distance.
Eli glanced behind them towards the sound and his eyes widened.
‘What is it?’ Ev’r asked.
‘I can see Caesar K-Ruz,’ Eli whispered. ‘And some of the other gangster bosses.’
Ev’r didn’t bother to look back. The gangsters were the least of their worries.
A melodic blast of the music announced the king’s arrival, immediately drowned out by the fierce roar of the crowd in a united fury at the royals. The sound only became more intense and ferocious as the grand double doors of the Galleria Majora opened and the heavily shrouded royal family, flanked on all sides by a five-man-thick wall of enforcers, shuffled out from the building and onto a stage set up in front of the museum.
Ev’r felt the earth start trembling again; this time it wasn’t the shiver of a quake but the rhythmic pounding of an army stepping in time. The royal procession paused and the crowd quietened. The people craned their necks, staring in all directions, searching for the source of the marching. The sound grew nearer and more powerful until a vast army of Androts appeared at the main entrance of the square. The crowd fell to utter silence, and from this silence the Androts brought forth such a powerful sound of shouting and stomping that the crowd’s roar now seemed like a whisper. It took Ev’r’s breath away and sent chills shivering across her skin. Without further warning
, the Androts charged the Galleria and the crowd surged to either side to get out of their way. The ground quaked and screams whipped the air.
Ev’r was swept up in the human tide and fought to free herself. Eli grabbed her arm. He buzzed his wings and dragged them above the heads of the other people. He flew them onto the roof of a nearby mansion and they watched as the Androts took the square, toppling the bronze statue of King Miron as they stampeded through. Soldiers and enforcers swarmed around the royal family and dragged them back into the Galleria. The great doors slammed shut and if the guards had any sense in their brains, Ev’r thought, they were now barricading every window and entrance into the museum. Other soldiers stayed on the landing of the Galleria, opening fire on the Androt masses. The screams of people still trying to evacuate rose in a panicked chorus. Ev’r smelt the burnt stench of dark magics in the air and saw people falling randomly in the crowd, as though struck down by an invisible opponent. Ev’r knew it was the Skreaf, hiding in the Murk, picking people off with death-curses. She felt strangely distanced from what was happening, as though she were watching a film on a holo-screen. Eli stood beside her with a grim expression, his eyes roving over the battlefield. Ev’r could almost hear his thoughts – their chances of getting into the Galleria just went from non-existent to minus that, and their time was almost up.
A more severe earthquake rocked the building they stood on. It knocked them both to the flat rooftop and they stayed there hanging onto the ledge. The heaving of the quake eventually subsided and Ev’r stared down at the war continuing below. The Androts had made a shield from the toppled stage and were sheltering behind it, firing on the soldiers still holding the Galleria entrance. She eyed the stained-glass dome on the top of the building.
‘We could smash through the dome,’ she said to Eli. ‘But we’d have to fly there and there’s no cover. We’d most likely get shot out of the sky.’
