Land of Verne

by David H. Burton

  Grim pulled one of the vials from his pocket and handed it to Master Galan. “This will help cure the plague.”

  Rudy looked like she wanted to say something, but then closed her mouth.

  The man took it gently. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  “We think the plague was created with an elixir of Marmorite Blue and the hair of a Changeling. It’s called The Scourge. This will reverse it.”

  Master Galan’s face paled. “Who would do such a thing? And where would anyone find the hair of a Changeling?”

  “Veerasin,” Grim said. “She was always allowing me to leave early from chores when the moon was full. The last time I went to the kitchens and the full moon was up, she wasn’t there.”

  Their Aunt nodded. “Very good. I will leave Master Galan to brew an elixir. I pray that you are right, child. Once we have cured everyone, we must determine who did this. More have become sick since you left, including Madam Phoebe and Finneas Keltin, and three have died. We are doing all we can to stall any more deaths. It is more than good fortune that your siblings have lasted as long as they have. Almost a miracle, really.”

  Master Galan patted Grim on the head. “Thank you, child. You have done us all a great service.” He left them to march back across the grounds to his laboratory.

  Grim escorted Aunt Patrice and Rudy back to the Academy.

  “So you met a Jinn,” Aunt Patrice said.

  Grim nodded. “Two of them,” he said, “one called Sinistral and another called Arabus.” He opened the door. “I summoned Arabus and he saved us.”

  Rudy looked aghast.

  His Aunt put her arm around Grim’s shoulder. “I know.”

  Grim paused. “You know?”

  Aunt Patrice’s face looked withered and sorrowful. “I must apologize for not telling you before. I wanted to reveal to you that you had this ability running in your veins before, and what that little device your Poppa gave you could do. But what would you have done had I told you that you had the ability to summon a Jinn. You would have either accused me of lying to you, thinking it the most ridiculous thing in the world, or you would have run right out of Madam Malkim’s looking for the first Jinn you could find. I suspect the latter,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

  Grim grinned sheepishly back. “My parents must have had the ability to summon.”

  “Dad and Pop can summon?” Rudy asked. She looked like she was about to go find a Jinn herself.

  Grim shook his head. “No, my birth parents. It must be in my blood.”

  “It is,” said Aunt Patrice. “For all six of you.”

  Rudy jumped up and down. Grim rolled his eyes.

  Aw, man.

  “You mean my birth parents could summon too?” she asked.

  Aunt Patrice shook her head. “No, that would indeed be some coincidence.” She looked at Grim. “Don’t assume that all the traits you inherit are from your birth parents. Your Poppa and his younger brother were children of one of the last known Mystics. Their children inherit that ability, whether they come to it by birth or not. The simple act of caring for you as one of his own has given you all that ability. He knew that.”

  “Cool!” Rudy said.

  His Aunt’s hand gripped both of their shoulders. “You must not tell the others about this. Mystics are no longer trusted.”

  “Sinistral said he’s their master.”

  “The Darksworn are the opposite of the Mystics. They serve the dark Jinn and do their bidding. That’s why you must keep this to yourselves. When people refer to Mystics, they now think of the Darksworn.”

  “How will we learn to use it?” Rudy asked.

  “In secret,” she said with a wink. She regarded Grim. “I’m proud of you, child. If your instincts are true, you will have saved many lives.” They paused at the door. “I must leave you here and see to the sick. You’ve done well, dear. You have my deepest gratitude.”

  Their Aunt hobbled back towards the Infirmary and Grim and Rudy entered the Library.

  Madam Tyne stared at him and muttered. “Madam Patrice said she’d summoned you for assistance. I don’t remember seeing you leave.”

  Grim blushed. “You must have been in the crapper.”

  The woman said nothing and watched him through her monocled eye. As he walked past Grim tried to keep the leather-bound book out of sight.

  It wasn’t long before he found Quinn sitting in a remote corner, all by himself. He leapt up at the sight of Grim.

  “Did you get it?” he asked.

  Grim nodded. “I gave it to Master Galan.”

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Quinn said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Quinn looked at Rudy and she nodded her head.

  “What?” Grim asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “I know who caused the Scourge.”

  “Festrel?” Grim asked, anxious to know who to blame.

  “No.” Quinn pulled Grim and Rudy back further into the dusty aisle. He checked to make sure no one was around and whispered.

  “It was me.”

  “What?!” Grim exclaimed, stunned at Quinn’s revelation that he was responsible for the Scourge. “How is that possible?”

  The boy grimaced. “There’s something I need to tell you. My grandmother was a Changeling. My mother is a half-breed.”

  “A half-breed?” Grim asked.

  Quinn nodded. “True Changelings can change their form willingly. Half-breeds can’t. My mother suffers hallucinations and minor changes at the full moon. I have dirty blood, but not enough to change me fully. Usually I just get ill and bad coughing spells leading up to the full moon, but there are times when I can get a little long in the tooth and a bit hairy, especially when both moons are full.”

  Grim shuddered at the thought. He’d been sleeping in the same room.

  Did Quinn ever get hungry in the middle of the night?

  “All right,” Grim said, “but I don’t understand how you’re responsible. I thought it was Veerasin.”

  Quinn shook his head. “The last elixir I had was very strong. I think it had Marmorite Blue.”

  “But your cough syrup was green.”

  “Usually my elixir is made from the essence of buttercup. If you add Marmorite Blue what color do you get?”

  Grim didn’t like where this was going. “Green.”

  “And because I have Changeling blood I don’t get infected by the disease, but I’m a carrier just like the book said. Who was the first person to get sick?”

  “Sam.”

  “Exactly, someone I know. And who was the second and third, and who were the first of the students?”

  “Ellen and Treena, and then Halriette and Oslo — all people you’re friends with,” muttered Grim, realizing Quinn could be right. “Then why didn’t Rudy or I get sick?”

  They both rolled up their sleeves. Their skin was bare, not a spot.

  “There’s something different about you two,” Quinn said.

  Rudy looked at him hard. “Have you come into contact with anything of Master Galan’s?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Nothing at all? Even by accident?”

  Grim stopped to think. He rubbed his hand. “Well, Scarlet bit me in his lab.”

  “When?”

  “When the room filled with smoke, just after she’d been tasting the elixirs.”

  Rudy looked pensive. “When I was reaching up for the Marmorite Blue I thought I stabbed myself on something. I’ll bet Scarlet bit me as well.”

  “And it was just after Treena had found the blood,” Grim said. “I’ll bet that was the antidote.”

  If they were right, Grim would have to apologize to Scarlet. The spider creature may have bitten them to save their lives.

  “But your siblings were bitten.”

  Rudy tugged on her pigtails. Finally she spoke. “But they were bitten later than us. Likely the antidote had mostly worn off by then. It was probably only en
ough to hold off death. Aunt Patrice said it was almost a miracle that they’ve lived this long.”

  Grim shook his head. “Something about this still isn’t right. Why wouldn’t Master Galan offer the antidote?”

  “There’s something else,” Quinn said. “Rudy and I worked through this while you were gone. Don’t you find it peculiar that you were chased from your world when the only person who knew you were there was Master Galan? He had the stones to take himself there. And don’t you think it’s strange that he was summoned from my father’s Manor just before you came to this world? My father’s manservant, who was the only witness to my father’s murder, was poisoned to death the night Master Galan departed. And isn’t it funny that Master Galan showed up at Madam Malkim’s with you, and that he is one of the only people that would know how to make an elixir like this? He is one of the very few people that know that I am of bad blood. He knows that I would be the perfect carrier for such a disease.”

  “What can we do?” Grim wondered, leaning against the dusty book shelf. He thought he had his answer, and now the one person he trusted to cure the Scourge might be the one person who started it.

  Quinn paced with him. “If you gave him the Jinn blood, likely he will not create an elixir to cure anyone. We need to get it back from him.”

  Grim pulled out the two vials of blood he still had in his pouch. “I only gave him one. I have two more.”

  Quinn’s face lit up. “Well, that’s good news. So now what? None of us can brew an elixir.”

  “We need to find Eevenellin. She’s Master Galan’s assistant. She was working with Dorian to figure this out. We have to find her and give her the Jinn blood. She might even still have the Marmorite Blue that she stole from the old storage room.”

  “Can we trust her?” Rudy asked.

  “What choice do we have,” Grim said. “Besides, Dorian trusts her and I trust him.”

  Quinn nodded. “Then we have no time to waste.”

  The three of them scoured the Library, aisle by empty aisle. They finally found Eevenellin reading through some books on diseases.

  “Eevenellin,” said Grim. “We need to talk to you.”

  The Grundel tensed and her ears twitched. “What do you want? I’m getting hungry and you look like a decent meal.”

  Grim faced the girl. “Cut the act. Dorian told me all about you. We need your help.” Eevenellin’s eyes widened in surprise and her ears sagged. “All right,” she said, “what do you want?”

  Grim told her of the book in which they had discovered how to create the Scourge and explained what they had discovered. He pulled out one of the vials of Jinn blood and handed it to her.

  “If you add this to the elixir it should create an antidote to cure the Scourge.”

  Eevenellin grunted. “Valeria had her suspicions about Master Galan. She said she didn’t trust him, but I never believed her. He likely turned her to stone with a similar elixir.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you have another one of these.”

  Grim pulled out the last one.

  Eevenellin nodded. “This is good. We might be able to free Valeria as well, assuming this was the cause, although we’ll have to be careful. She might be half way to Banshee. I’m going to need Gargoyle hair and the hair of a Changeling.”

  “I can give you mine,” Quinn said, tugging at his dark locks.

  Eevenellin shook her head. “No, we’ll need the original. He only used you as a carrier. Your cough was the perfect excuse to feed this to you.”

  Quinn sighed, as if a small weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “But Veerasin hasn’t been seen since the lockdown and the remaining Gargoyles are in the Infirmary.”

  Grim knew where to get both. “I know what to do,” he said. “The catacombs can take me to Veerasin’s lair and to Dorian’s cell. There should be hairs in both. But I’ll need Barny with me. It will be hard to find them without help.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Rudy said.

  Grim nodded.

  “And I need to get back to my room and start the elixir,” Eevenellin said. “I have Marmorite Blue there.”

  “You mean the one you took from the old storage room?”

  Eevenellin’s ears fluttered and she looked at Rudy. “You knew I took it.”

  His sister nodded. “Why?”

  “I looked it up in a book. I prefer to make my own elixirs. I may have sinth parts, but the organic side of me is still Unseen, and human cures don’t work on us.”

  “All right,” Grim said, “but how are we going to get to your room? The orphanage is sealed.”

  She smiled. “Leave that to me. I know a way. We just need to get out of the Library.”

  Grim looked at Quinn. “Then what we need is a diversion.”

  Quinn sighed. “I suppose you need Lord Quinn again,” he muttered.

  Grim gave him a big smile. “Who else?”

  The four of them slipped through the aisles and found Barny sitting amongst a pile of books about a strange creature called Mimick. They left Quinn alone and hid by the entrance, waiting for the signal. Within moments he did as expected and started yelling about his noble rights being violated.

  Madam Tyne rolled her eyes and summoned the constables to accompany her. Immediately the four of them swept out the main door and into the long corridor.

  Eevenellin took them to Madam Malkim’s private quarters. She pulled a lever at the side of the massive desk and it slid back to reveal a staircase. They descended the steps into the darkness until Eevenellin lit up the space with a sinth torch. The tunnel led straight back towards the orphanage. They passed various portals where eyeholes were positioned, and Grim recognized his own hallway in one of them.

  She pulled a lever along the wall and they walked out from underneath the rickety staircase that led up to their rooms.

  At the painting of Lord Occularis, Eevenellin left them.

  “We’ll meet you shortly in your room,” Grim said.

  Grim waved his green scarf in front of Lord Occularis and the painting slid aside.

  Rudy looked at him with eyebrows raised. “Wow.”

  Then they inhaled before descending the stairs.

  “Take us to Veerasin’s lair,” Grim whispered. Barny nodded his head and walked with stealth through the catacombs. They swept through the tunnels, chill and dark, listening carefully for any sounds of laughter or moaning. Grim remembered some of the route, but he let Barny lead. His little watch lit the way.

  Finally, they reached the lair. It wasn’t empty. And not only was it not empty, Veerasin was not in human form.

  Snarling at them was a massive beast with a long snout and jagged teeth. Matted fur covered its body and it crouched on all fours. Its claws were short and sharp.

  Grim sucked in his breath. The smell of must and wet fur filled his nose. The creature breathed heavily, as if it had been running. It snarled again at the three of them and Barny fluttered his hands in a panic.

  “Grim…,” he whispered.

  The beast inched closer, sniffing the air, and its eyes looked somewhat human, as if Grim could see Veerasin inside. He stepped forward, in front of his little brother, and faced the creature. His insides turned to marmalade with fear, yet he stared into its feral eyes.

  “Veerasin, it’s me, Grim.”

  It sniffed at him and leaned in. Grim reached out to touch it, his hand inching closer. It growled. Then he thought of Veerasin and the long hair that covered half her face. He paused. This one’s face was whole. There was no scarring.

  The beast swiped at him, its claws piercing the skin. Grim cried out, cradling his bleeding hand. It throbbed with pain.

  He stumbled back. “That’s not Veerasin!”

  The beast edged closer and crouched as if to leap at them. Then another creature appeared in the den, half of its face was scarred and ravaged. It growled and its hackles rose.

  The first one turned and the two leapt into the air. Tufts of fur flew and blood splattered as
the two beasts fought, claws and legs locked in battle. Their teeth gnashed and snapped.

  The second one was slight and frail, and struggled to fight against the other more agile one. The first one was much larger and moved swiftly, delivering short stabs and fast bites. Grim stepped back with Barny and Rudy, giving a wide clearance. Then someone appeared on the other side of the lair.

  It was Master Galan, and in his hand he held the vial of blood.

  Grim’s mind raced. He remembered how the original Jinn blood had made its way to Master Galan and who had brought it to his attention. He thought of how poorly Treena had been treated by one of the Tutors, likely because of her father’s renowned reputation as a Trapper. He studied the size and agility of the larger Changeling that now had the smaller one pinned to the floor, and knew exactly who he was dealing with.

  “Madam Adelaide!” Grim called out.

  The larger creature turned its head to look at him, and it was exactly the distraction that was needed. The smaller Changeling bit the other on the neck and the first one howled before bounding out of the cave, tail between its legs. Master Galan said nothing, but his face wrinkled in rage and he gripped the vial in his hands, crushing it before he ran out of the lair.

  Grim breathed a sigh of relief and ran over to the wounded beast. It licked his face and then collapsed. Grim stroked its head.

  “Veerasin,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  The Changeling’s head lowered. Its breathing was labored. Barny laid his hands on its fur, softly stroking it. Its breathing eased a little. He then reached over and removed a tuft of hair that sat in Veerasin’s mouth. He handed it to Grim.

  “Perfect,” Grim said. “He likely used Madam Adelaide’s hair, not Veerasin’s.” He looked at the woman in her Changeling form. “I’m not sure we can leave her here like this, but we have to hurry. Master Galan knows about us.”

  Barny stroked Veerasin’s fur and remained seated. “I’m staying,” he said.

  Grim looked to his sister.

  She nodded. “He’ll be fine. They won’t come back here. And Barny knows how to hide, don’t you Barny?”

  Their little brother nodded.