“Yeah, right!” Dashing laughed.
“I said you could trust me.” Miss Stein looked towards Simon, her eyes earnest. Mr. Todd rolled his eyes.
“Mr. Dashing,” Simon gave her a reassuring look before regarding the ornery gunslinger. “Look, I know what Molly did was wrong but…” Sally’s face, her chestnut hair and sparkling eyes swam to the forefront of his mind. “Sally is but a girl caught up in all this. I know her, and well, we could probably use all the help we can get against those rapscallions.” He smiled. “I can hardly account for even one person considering my luck and skill with a pistol.”
Mr. Dashing looked towards him sidelong, blonde hair poking out the bottom of his brimmed hat.
“Not only that, but it doesn’t seem right to just,” Simon scratched at his neck, “do nothing?”
Dashing seemed to consider it a moment. “And if she betrays us again?” he asked.
“Well, then I suppose it’s all a part of the adventure.” Simon looked at his feet, wishing that persuasion was as easy as algebra.
Dick was silent a moment, the tails of his duster waving slightly in the night air. Though the sky was still thick with cloud and smog, occasionally a star or two would glimmer out from beyond the choked skyline and shine down at them. Simon was biting his lip, watching as Mr. Dashing regarded the young lady in his periphery before clapping a hand on Simon’s shoulder.
“Mr. Todd, I think you’re right.” His left hand brushed Simon’s shoulder blade as the moustachioed sharpshooter began to take steps down the road away from Fallfield. “We gotta do what we can for who we can.” Dick smiled. “All part of the lifestyle.”
“Lifestyle?” Simon looked up at Molly, who had her hands balled at her side with her back facing the bog.
“’Sides, she’s right. Every time I had to go into the tower I was escorted. I suppose we’re gonna have to take our chances.” Mr. Dashing looked towards the young girl, and gave her a wink.
“But! It wouldn’t hurt to remind yourself that Mr. Todd’s putting his neck out for you! That, and it’s not just your little Sally we need to get back!” Unhanding Mr. Todd, he stepped forward. “If you care at all for the feelings of our equerry, you’ll remind yourself of how fond he is of Miss Baxter.” Dick turned, thoughtfully rubbing at the bottom of his nose. “And how heartbroken he’d be to lose her.”
It was hard to decide whether Simon was most frustrated by the fact he was still being referred to as the party equerry, or because everyone seemed to know about his feelings for Miss Baxter. In either case, his thoughts were gladly distracted when Molly stepped forward to respond.
“Sally’s my sister. Believe me, I know the stakes, Dashing.”
Simon felt it was his duty to intervene before something rather impolite was said between them. “Well that’s all well and good then.” He clapped his hands together. “No time like the present, right? Shall we be off?”
Dashing curtsied, removing his hat as he stepped off the road for the young woman to take the front. “After you,” he said, smiling as she looked down her nose towards him.
Molly sneered, walking past as Simon followed.
“How long to the University?” Mr. Todd inquired.
“A few hours.”
Great. Simon was already lamenting the loss of his freshly pressed pair of tweed trousers. He wondered if he’d ever have the chance to experience a freshly laundered suit again, or if he was doomed to walk Freland forever in a dirty pair of sticky slacks with spider’s web entangled around the cuff.
The bog air was too pungent. Simon could already feel a sneeze coming on. We’re coming, Miss Baxter. He thought. Allergies or not. Simon didn’t have his handkerchief.
“Blast!” Where had he put it?
Looking to and fro, around at the trees, foliage and spore producing moss decorating the trees, Simon Todd bit his lip. Before sneezing directly onto his sleeve.
Chapter 21
Straining Revelations At Steam Station
Morningwood Bog was a sodden heap of dank detritus collecting on the top of sopping earth and soaking in stale, worm gray water. Black trees, bare of any sort of pleasant looking foliage, stuck out from the ground like charred bones, obscuring one’s vision. Where the ground was actually solid enough not to sink in, roots from the stony-looking trees protruded from the ground, offering hidden hurdles for any wayfaring gentleman happening by.
The only color that was readily seen, was in fact, the blue bottle flies, the pearlescent purple eyes of the blood sucking bog nits, and the bell shaped hats of the Rain Cap mushrooms. With bulbous heads atop human height stalks, the Rain Caps were at least pretty to look at, if nothing else was worth more than a moments glance.
Simon, now without coat and sporting a slightly soiled collared top beneath suspenders, was grimacing as he pulled his shoes from the mud. The gelatinous squelch each footstep made as the muck reluctantly released his foot, was enough to infuriate him. What was worse was that he had already taken two falls and so his knees, as well as his arms up to the elbow, were completely hardened with dirt.
“The light isn’t enough!” he grumbled, wishing for the long, flat fields of the plains lands. He missed the Bellhat trees, the scent of wheat and barley and the long, grass-filled roads that one could trace to the horizon.
“If you hadn’t of dropped the last lantern, we would have had more.” Molly Stein seemed to know every rock, every sure piece of land and every solid mound of turf. Though dirty to the heel, she didn’t seem to get stuck in the mud as horribly as Mr. Todd, nor as often. Dick, as well, also seemed quite comfortable with Morningwood, and stepped along confidently.
“It’s not like I meant to drop it,” Simon muttered, still feeling ghost spiders crawling on the back of his neck. He had thrown his jacket away when he sneezed, screaming when hundreds of small spiders came pouring out his nose. There had been no avoiding the story afterwards, and so Simon had been forced to tell them about his rather odd curse, and the current disposition of his physical character, turned ghost.
“Do you think a wizard could help me get my body back?” Simon had asked when they were still on the outskirts of Fallfield.
“Probably not. Wizards don’t really cure things,” Molly explained.
“Well maybe not a wizard then.” Simon frowned, thinking of how much he so missed the taste of jasmine tea.
“Sorry,” she had said rather curtly for Simon’s taste. “The magic simply doesn’t exist. At least, not in Freland.”
Mr. Todd had fallen over sometime after that, crushing the paper lantern Dashing had wisely procured from an empty storefront. Now the trio was forced to huddle in the light of one, and Molly didn’t seem all that inclined to wait when someone had the ill luck to fall down.
“Should we be looking for something in particular?” Simon asked, if for nothing else than to keep his mind occupied.
“Yes,” Molly replied, stopping for a moment to peer past the thick, rope-like vines of the forest, hanging like dead snakes from treetops.
“And that is…?”
She sighed, moving forward again and jerking the light away at the exact moment Mr. Todd was attempting to climb over a fallen log. The young man grimaced as something caught at the cloth of his trousers, fretting over the rip that he had heard a moment later after he had hauled himself from the entangling branches.
“A train station.”
“What?” He looked up. A few of the Rain Caps were glowing faintly around them, but only in their periphery. Simon thought it awfully distracting in fact, especially since his eyes were eternally directed towards them.
“Steam Station. I remember now,” Mr. Dashing paused, propping his foot on top of a moldy stone protruding from muck. “It’s somewhere beneath the bog, if I remember correctly.”
Simon was envious of the man’s almost knee high boots. Loafers had obviously been a poor choice to go adventuring in.
“Beneath?” he asked, looking past Dashing to where M
olly was marching ahead.
“Yes. And from there, it’s an old track that takes you to Grimguild University,” Dick confirmed, waiting for Mr. Todd to catch up before moving forward.
“If that’s all there is to it, why does it require a mage?” Simon slapped at his cheek, noticing the purple eyed bog nit before it had a chance to bite him.
“Well,” Dashing continued, pulling at the long hairs of his moustache, “there’s a trick to it. Some kind of hocus pocus you need to cast before the whole thing will work.”
Simon bit down on his lip, furrowing his brow as they continued on. He hadn’t been on a train before. Most of the locomotives were of course closer to Ebonguard. Darlington, he had begun to realize more and more since setting out on their journey, was truly a country-bred out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere community. Still though, he did miss it an awfully lot.
“Todd? Mr. Dashing? I think I’ve found it!”
Simon perked up when Molly shouted, spotting the sphere of light emanating from the lantern through the long, thin stalks of the bog trees.
“Ah well, a bit of good news!” Dashing called, picking up pace as Simon struggled to follow behind, slipping once again over a carpet of wet moss.
Why anyone would pick a chaotic place like this over neat, flat farmland is beyond me! He grunted inwardly, crawling back up to join the others.
Through the ferns and the scurrying flies and nits, nestled within the trees and long cat tails were two large, still pools. Mist exhaled from the surface in lacy clouds, and the reflection of the Rain Caps and violet bog nits decorated the stagnant surface with an eerie light.
“I don’t…” Simon looked to and fro. “I don’t understand.”
The two bodies of water were just barely separated by a small mound of soggy dirt, barely big enough for one to cross, however, looking quite out of place, a steel bridge was built over the larger of the two pools, welded together in sections with large spikes with a crank at each end.
“Here.” Passing the lantern to Mr. Todd, Molly walked forward, examining one of the cranks before something clicked and sprung out from the side. It looked to be a platform, but as Mr. Todd bent over the side to regard it, the steel began to reconstruct itself. Clouds of vapor and green water shot out from one side, disturbing the calm surface of the bog as the left railing bent downwards into the water, forming a staircase.
Mr. Dashing laughed. “I sure don’t remember this,” he said, prompting Simon to regard him.
“Let’s go.” Molly held out her hand for the lantern as Simon looked at the rippling pool.
“Go where?”
“Down,” she said, taking the light as Mr. Todd gingerly delivered it to her, watching from the relative dryness of the bridge as she walked to the platform and began to descend.
“You’re going into the water?” he asked, watching with wide eyes as the water pulled at her clothes and undulated around her as she went. “Won’t you,” he looked at Mr. Dashing, “won’t we drown?”
Again, the blonde haired man pulled at his moustache. “I hope not,” he said with a laugh. “Good thing we left old Salvador back at the edge of the swamp though, eh? That old donkey’d be more afraid than you, I’d bet.”
Simon stared at him as he took a step down. Was Simon afraid? He supposed if he were, there was no shame in admitting it. But he wanted to be strong. Miss Baxter was counting on them, on him, to help save her.
“Okay, Mr. Todd. Deep breaths,” he said to himself, watching as the brim of Dick’s hat floated to the top of the water for a moment as he disappeared down the steps. “If nothing else, it will wash off a bit of the mud.” He took a step, the first stair just at the surface of the water. The top of Mr. Dashing’s hat was pulled down beneath the surface as Simon took another, inhaling deeply before quickly walking down.
At first the magic felt very much like water, but the further Mr. Todd walked into to bog, the more it seemed like going through a barrier of jelly. Simon brought his head down, and in fact, felt his hair float to the surface, but when the entirety of his body was underneath; he found he was neither wet nor drowning.
“Is it magic?” he asked, his wonderment dwarfing the relief he felt to be in the midst of a solid, stone corridor.
“Steam Station is this way,” Molly called, the lantern intact and still glowing.
“You’re still bewildered?” Dashing clapped him on the shoulder. “After that massive battle in Fallfield?” He chuckled again, moving away to follow the eager Miss Stein down the stony corridor. “You ought to get out of Darlington more often, Mr. Todd.”
For once, Simon thought that perhaps Mr. Dashing might be quite right.
Steam Station wasn’t much farther after that. The lichen-ridden walls of the corridor stretched for about a mile before yawning into a larger, more open space. Though relatively small and more than a bit damp, the station platform was buttressed with strong, brick pillars and steel supports. The rail, though mostly shrouded in darkness, seemed desolate under the glow of a solitary lantern.
“Is the train late?” Simon asked, feeling a bit overwhelmed.
“We have to call it,” Molly replied, lifting the light overhead in order to cast the glow over a larger space.
Mr. Todd frowned, walking towards the rail to peer over the side. Condensation dripping from the ceiling was making splashing noises elsewhere, but echoed loudly in the quiet chamber.
“I don’t understand,” he said, turning back to regard Mr. Dashing and Molly Stein. “An entire University of able wizards and they have to trek through the swamp to get home? There must have been another way other than this one.”
A large clock came into view. Large, ebony numbers contained within a brass enclosure twinkled in the glow of Molly’s light. It was hanging from an overarching branch from one of the steel supports. Large and of an aged, gothic architecture, it was designed to look like it was contained within a spider’s web. Dangling from it like a loose thread was a pulley.
“There are a few ways into Grimguild,” Molly admitted, taking the pulley in one hand. “Most people admittedly go via blimp, but since I’ve probably been labelled a vagabond by the University proprietors, this is the safest way inside.” The clock face began to glow as she pulled down, something obviously sliding into place after a moment of silence.
Mr. Todd looked to the empty rail and took a step back just in case, listening carefully for the sound of a train.
“There aren’t as many mages keeping vigil over the lower sectors of Grimguild,” she maintained, walking up to join the two men at the platform. “And the ones that are there will all be new, so they’re less likely to recognize either me, or Mr. Dashing.”
“Speak for yourself,” Dick said, adjusting the strap on his shoulder holster.
Simon felt his stomach began to turn. “Do we have a plan?”
A few lights began to turn on overhead, streaming down into the damp. Simon felt his nose begin to twitch when he saw how many spores were floating around them. He removed his somewhat soiled kerchief, formerly hidden away in his briefcase, in an act of caution.
“I think Sally and your friends will be held in the wizard closets at the Eastern Tower. This is good for us since we’ll be taking the train and it arrives at the bottom.”
“What about Miss Baxter?” Simon clenched his fists, thinking of that large demon that had been chained to her.
“Miss Baxter will most definitely be in the Sealing Chambers,” Dashing said, for once looking unsure. “In order to hold Mortimer at bay.”
“Mortimer? That…demon creature?” There was a burp of exhaust from overhead and a long hiss of steam that caused Mr. Todd to jump. “Why?” he asked, still seeing no sign of a train. “Because it’s so strong?”
Molly pivoted, scowling as she looked between Simon and Mr. Dashing. “Have you not told him anything? About Miss Baxter, or the whole debacle with Rebecca?”
Mr. Dashing frowned. “I’m not…” He cleared his throat. “
It’s not my place to really…say anything on the matter.” He looked away, obviously irritated.
“I don’t understand.” And Simon wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to. Miss Baxter, pure, innocent, strong and beautiful Miss Baxter, was seemingly a lot more complicated a creature than he imagined. What kind of entity had tried to consume her? Was there any hope Simon could perhaps aid her in removing it? He was becoming less and less sure he could really do much of anything.
“You really are daft, Simon Todd.” Molly stepped back, shaking her head as the rail began to illuminate with light. From the distance, it looked like a bright cloud of steam was racing down the track, but as it came closer the shape of the steel cowcatcher, smoke box and chimney was easily distinguishable through the fog of hot vapor.
“Didn’t you ever ask her how her mother died?” Molly turned away.
“I did! She never wanted to talk about it. Her father, Jeremy, said it had been an accident, but…” Simon sighed in the wake of screeching brakes. “I just thought she was so torn up about it and I didn’t want to upset her.”
“Torn up about it’s one way to put it,” Molly muttered as Mr. Dashing offered Simon a sympathetic glance.
“You’re not a bad man, Mr. Todd,” he said.
But Simon wasn’t sure. He had built her up upon a pedestal so high, that Simon couldn’t even see her anymore. The idea of what Miss Baxter was to him and who she was to the world seemed to grow farther apart the closer he got to Grimguild. It was awfully frightening, and not entirely because of his inability to remove her from that position occupying his mind, but because he was afraid of her being so much removed he couldn’t really say he had ever loved her in the first place. After all, how could one really say they loved someone when they had never really endeavored to see them?
The Curious Case of Simon Todd Page 23
