A Conspiracy of Alchemists: Book One in the Chronicles of Light and Shadow (32 page)

CHAPTER 54

“Kill him!” Abercrombie shouted over the din of the machine. Elle turned her head and looked in the direction in which the Alchemist pointed. Through the fractured light she recognized Marsh. He was running down the stairs, towards her. Patrice stormed round the altar and collided with Marsh in a bone- crunching tackle. Both men rolled down the stairs as they fought each other.

Elle tried to move, but the force engulfing her was like fast-flowing water. She was completely pinned down.

I must be dying,
she thought. The guiding voices of the Pythia were silent. There was no one to turn to.

The sound of a thousand worlds ripping apart filled the air. A thick wailing shriek sounded from far away. It was the sound of pure evil. The specs of a thousand malicious creatures hovered above her in the vortex. They shrieked and clawed their way toward her. The rush of energy lifted her off the altar so she was suspended in the air. The black energy spilling out of the vortex rippled through her, down the chains and into the ground, where it shimmered with sinister blackness. Her only anchors to the world were the shackles that held her to the altar. She felt evil clawing and hissing at her. Whatever happened, she had to stop them.

Time and movement slowed down. She felt a violent rush of energy pulse through her. She turned her head in its direction. Abercrombie was standing under her, his arms stretched wide, head thrown back as if in ecstasy. Runes and symbols crawled under his skin like black spindly insects. A giant ball of raw magic was forming in the space above his outstretched hands. She felt another surge rip through her, leaving her insides raw, on fire.

He’s using me to channel this. I am the conduit. I am his source. I am his power.

She focused on the energy around her. It roared in a torrent that ripped through everything. She took a deep breath and poked at it with her will. At her touch, the torrent slowed and cooled. She could control it. It listened to her.

Elle spread her thoughts wide. She wrapped her will around the altar and Abercrombie. She encircled the giant ball of power. Then, with every bit of strength she possessed, she gripped it. The energy contracted. It wound around itself so tightly that it became a black ball. The cloud above Abercrombie’s head disappeared. Elle gritted her teeth as the pressure built up inside her. Her insides stretched and bulged like an overfilled water bag. She glanced over at Abercrombie. He was frowning and looking at his hands as if they were the cause for the sudden loss of magic.

Elle felt something inside her give way. The energy was starting to leak out all over. She had to get rid of it. She aimed all of her anger and frustration at the black ball inside her.
This is for my mother. And my father, and for everything you’ve done to me since Paris!
Then, summoning all her fury, Elle hurled the black ball into the vortex.

The blast of raw energy that issued from her was so intense it turned the air white. The rebound spun out at them and hit Abercrombie square in the chest. Before he could even react, he hurtled straight into the machine. Glass smashed and metal groaned. Spark leaked from the shattered dome and streamed into the vortex. The hum of the machine amplified to a deafening din. Nightwalkers and Alchemists were grabbing their ears, screeching in pain.

Then, quite abruptly, the machine cut out.

The glow of spark vanished from the glass dome. The air went still as if in a vacuum. The vortex started collapsing in on itself.

Chaos broke out. Alchemist and Nightwalker alike ran for the exits. The machine shook violently. The impending implosion turned the vortex to deep pit of blackness from which no light could ever escape. Panicked Alchemists and Nightwalkers trampled one another as they fought to save themselves.

A massive ball of energy ripped through the amphitheater. The vortex started spinning, creating a maelstrom that sucked up everything in its wake. Giant blocks of stone tore out of the walls and disappeared. The machine broke loose from its tethers and flew into the maelstrom. There was a bright flash of light as it exploded.

Marsh dove for the altar. He grabbed hold of Elle. Air rushed by as they looked into one another’s faces. “Hold on to me! The shackles will hold us,” Elle whispered.

Marsh wrapped his arms around her and they held one another close. The whole amphitheater started shaking. One of the chains that held them popped out of the stone. They hung perilously suspended in mid-air between the ground and the vortex.

Elle looked at Marsh. “I won’t let go! I’ll never let you go,” she shouted. Several of the slower members of the hooded audience flew past the altar as they were sucked screaming into the swirling mass.

She had to stop it before it dragged everything into the dark. Elle threw her head back and let out a cry. It was primal sound that rippled through everything.

A terrible crash of thunder tore through everything as the vortex finally imploded. The floor shook and, with a mighty rumble, the amphitheater split in two.

A few more large blocks of stone flew past them into the maelstrom. Air whistled as the vortex sucked itself out of existence, leaving behind nothing but complete and utter silence.

Elle and Marsh fell back down onto the altar. Blood ran from Elle’s face. Her eyes and nose streamed. Marsh felt the hot trickle of blood against his hand as it ran out of her ears. She made a little sighing sound and very gently , her head rolled back against his chest. Marsh held on to her with a growing sense of horror. Elle was pale and deathly still. He laid his head on her chest. “Please, my brave darling. Please don’t be dead,” he whispered as he listened for her heart.

A deep booming sound resonated around them and what remained of the amphitheater shook. More stones fell out of the walls and crashed into the middle of the arena.

“Earthquake! We need to vacate the area. This whole structure is going to collapse,” the professor yelled. He tugged at Marsh.

“I thought I told you to get out!”

Another stone crashed onto the ground next to him. Gently he let Elle’s body slip onto the stone.

“She’s gone.” He was oblivious to the rocks that rained down around him.

“We need to let her go, lad.” The professor spoke softly, as if his heart would break. He wiped his hand across his face, leaving dust-streaked tear marks on his cheeks.

Marsh shook his head. “No. I am not leaving her here.” He grabbed hold of a rock and smashed the chains that held her to the stone. They were brittle from all the energy that had coursed through them and they shattered on impact.

A large standing stone toppled and hit a carved pillar. Rocks rained down around them in earnest. Marsh gathered Elle into his arms and they ran for the passageway.

“Professor, you go first. Blast anyone in our way!” He yelled over the noise of falling rubble.

They ran. They ran until the passage turned into a tunnel. They ran until the tunnel ended in a gateway. And in a choked plume of dust, they ran into the small square with the Judas tree to the side of it. Under the tree they stopped, coughing and gasping the cool night air.

Around them the city was in chaos. The smell of burning buildings and broken earth assailed them as the people of Constantinople sought to deal with the earthquake that shook their city.

As gently as he could, Marsh laid Elle down on the cobbles under the tree. Her skin was like the palest ivory in the dusty moonlight around them. Her hair fanned out in the dried leaves. Gently he stroked her cheek. And then, with the slightest of movement, her eyelids flickered open.

“Professor, she’s alive!”

The professor crouched down and put his hand on the side of her face. “Oh, Ellie. Stay with us. We will get you some help.”

Elle smiled and closed her eyes.

“We need to get off the streets. I know where we can go for the time being,” Marsh said. He summoned all of his strength and lifted Elle up into his arms. Together, they stumbled their way down a rubble-strewn alley. At the end of it, they paused for to catch their breaths.

Marsh looked down at Elle. Her breathing was shallow and fast, but she was still alive.

“Mister. Marsh! Mister. Marsh. This way!” Marsh looked up. Inut was running towards him. “Mister. Marsh,. I got a little wagon for you. Come, bring the lady. Let’s take her to my mother.”

“Inut, what are you doing here?”

The boy grinned. “I knew you would be needing some help later. So I fetched my father’s barrow. Come. It’s this way. Bring the lady. She looks heavy.”

And so they carried the greatest Oracle in living memory back to the guesthouse in a barrow borrowed from Inut’s father.

CHAPTER 55

Elle floated deep in the soft darkness. She wasn’t sure where, but it felt nice. It was a place of perfect silence. In the darkness she was safe. No one could touch her here. She had no name. No body. Nothing mattered. All she needed to do was be. Complete. Weightless. Bliss.

She lay back in the velvety blackness, suddenly aware of a sense of up and down. Something was trying to catch her attention. She did her best to ignore it, but a strange and vague awareness kept tugging at her. She felt her hair floating around her. She became aware of her arms, then her legs. And all the while the something kept tugging at her mind.

Please come back to me.
The words wormed their way into her head. They nagged at her.

I shouldn’t be here,
she thought.
But I like it here. Here I don’t have to worry about anything.
She felt her limbs grow heavy. Lifting them seemed like such an effort. She rebelled.
I want to go back to floating,
she protested.

The time is not right yet. It is too soon for you to join us here.
The voices spoke, jarring images and memories into her consciousness.

One image in particular flickered in her mind. It was very faint. It was a man smiling. They were in a summer garden and the late evening sun touched everything golden. She heard herself laughing as she felt the man’s arms fold around her.

A strange longing filled her.
I want to go back,
she thought.

She started struggling and swimming through the darkness. The darkness fought back, sticking to her and dragging her down like a moth drowning in oil. She struggled and fought and suddenly she felt herself caught up in a strong current. The current dragged and pushed her up, away from the blackness. Everything became bright. Sounds crashed into her consciousness.

She took a big gasp of air and opened her eyes. Above her, the unfamiliar wooden boards of a ceiling came into focus. She stared at the wood grain, confused. Slowly she became aware of the softness of a mattress beneath her. She was covered in sheets and clean-smelling blankets. She tried to move, but there was something heavy on top of her pinning her arms down under the blanket.

Too weak to struggle, she lifted her head. She found herself face-to-face with a shock of dark, wavy hair. It smelled of sandalwood. Marsh lay on the outside of the blankets. The weight of him pinned her down as he held her.

What ridiculously thick hair he had, she thought absently. He made a strange sobbing sound. She felt his breath catch before he wrapped his arms around her more tightly.

“Would you mind letting go of me? I can’t breathe,” she croaked.

His head shot up and he stared at her. He looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes and his eyelashes looked damp.

“You came back for me,” she murmured.

“I never left you.” He smiled at her, but she was too tired to think about it, so she closed her eyes and drifted off. She slept without the blackness.

The next time she woke, the sun was shining through the window to the side of her bed.

She groaned. Her whole body felt like a thousand wooden mallets had pummeled it. Everything ached. She tried to sit up, but it hurt too much.

“Easy now, my darling. You need to do this slowly.” Marsh was in a chair next to the bed.

She lifted her arm out from under the covers to push herself up. She noticed that it was bandaged. She frowned. What was it about her wrist? The image of a shackle and a diamond bracelet popped into her head. Imaged of crashing stones followed. Then everything that had happened flooded back into her mind.

She looked about in a panic. “The Alchemists. Where am I?”

Marsh held her hand. “You are safe now. They were all killed in the earthquake. Sucked into the void. Buried in the rubble. We went back to the site to look for survivors, but there was no way that anyone could have survived the collapse. Except us, that is. You stopped them. You stopped the Alchemists.” There was something strange in the way he said it.

“Hugh, I’m so sorry about what I said. Before.” She looked in his eyes. “I’m so ashamed of what I said, but I didn’t know. And later, on the train, Loisa told me. She told me everything about Rosamund and what happened. I should have listened to you … ”

“Never mind that. I promised myself that I would do this, the moment you opened your eyes.” Then he kissed her with such intensity that it reached right into her soul.

“Ahem.” Someone coughed.

They both looked up. Elle saw her father standing at the door. “My lord, if you wouldn’t mind—a word with my daughter, if you please.”

Gently, Marsh let go of Elle. His eyes held hers as he walked to the door.

Elle smiled at her father. “You are alive.”

The professor nodded. He sat down on the bed next to her and held her hand.

“Ellie, my darling. I am so glad you are better. You gave us such a terrible scare. We’ve been so worried about you.” He placed his hand on the side of her face. He was never a man for great shows of public affection, but his eyes were shiny as he spoke. There was a scratch on the side of her fathers face. Elle kissed his hand. “What happened to you?”

He ran his hand over the healing scar. “Oh, that is nothing. I think it makes me look rather dashing. Do you think Mrs. Hinges would like it?”

“I think she’ll tell you that you look like a pirate.”

Her father laughed. “Well, that will certainly get a rise out of her.”

Elle suddenly remembered something. “Oh, I almost forgot. We did it. We flew the gyrocopter.”

The professor blanched.

“You did what?”

“The gyrocopter. We found it in the workshop. And the key with the message. You know?”

The professor shook his head. “And it flew?”

“Yes. All the way from Oxford to Italy. Until we ran into some sky pirates. We’ll have to make the next model a little more blast- proof though. And we need to work on an on-board communication device. It is ever so windy and noisy in the cockpit.”

The professor rubbed his chin. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you got to the train so quickly. But, my dear, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the flying machine was a failure. I couldn’t get the reactor to work. It was a complete disaster. I left the key to the workshop for you to let the scrap metal collector take what he could salvage.”

“But it flew. We flew,” Elle said.

Marsh smiled as he stood in the doorway. “And your daughter is a spectacular pilot. I have no doubt that if you put a pair of wings on a bucket, she could fly that too.”

The professor shook his head in amazement.

Elle looked around the room. “Where exactly are we?”

“In a small guesthouse in the old quarter in Constantinople.” Marsh stepped away from the door. “We are safe and amongst friends for now, but we will need to start making our way home soon.” He looked pointedly at the professor.

“Ah yes, the matter of the caliph. Inut told me this morning that the Royal Guard is still busy helping with the aftermath of the earthquake. But I suspect that it won’t be long until they discover the reason for the phenomenon,” the professor said.

“I, for one, would be far happier if we put some distance between ourselves and this place before that happens. I was deeply saddened to discover that the caliph had allied himself with the Alchemists. He will probably want someone to blame. And someone will probably have to pay for all the damage caused as soon as the dust settles.” Marsh paused. “I may be many things, but I am definitely not noble enough for that.”

“The Alchemists,” Elle said. “They were on the train and there was this cell. And then there were the voices. They tried to teach me things. I think what they taught me may have helped with stopping the Alchemists.”

Marsh sat down on the bed and hugged her. “Shh, my darling. It’s not important anymore. We can sort through all of that in time. And there will be all the time in the world for that, once you are better.”

She shook her head. “And Patrice! Oh, Marsh, you need to know about him. He cannot be trusted.”

“I know. Patrice is dead, Elle. There is no way anyone could have survived the collapse. I very much doubt anyone got out of there alive after us.”

“No one?”

“Well, half of them got sucked into the vortex they created. A few of them ran away, but that was about it.”

They were all quiet for a moment.

“I think it will be a long time before anyone tinkers with the Shadow realm again. The primal chaos that makes up the universe is not something to be trifled with.”

She looked up at him. “I know how that works! I learnt it in the dungeon. The voices taught me.”

Marsh frowned. “What voices?”

“The Oracles. I know their secrets now.”

The professor cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you for a moment, shall I?”

Elle could have sworn that her father winked at Marsh as he closed the door.

“What was all that about?” she said.

Marsh smiled at her. “Your father and I had quite an adventure before we found you being served up to the powers of darkness. He’s a brave and resourceful man.”

Elle frowned and rubbed her forehead. “Exactly how long have I been unconscious?”

“Almost two days. We thought you were dead, but I couldn’t leave you behind. So, we carried your body out. The falling stone blocks nearly killed us.”

She shook her head. “And the fairy! Oh my goodness, what happened to the fairy? She must be out there in the streets, all by herself. The poor thing. We have to find her.”

Marsh smiled. “It’s a long story, but we crossed paths courtesy of the caliph’s guard.” He pointed at a bottle standing on the shelf. It glowed with a slight green light. “She says the local moonshine is not quite what is in Paris, but it will do. She has requested that we wake her when we were home. Her name is Adele, by the way. You should make a point of asking.” He paused. “But, tell me, if you can remember, what happened after the train?”

“I don’t remember much. They drugged me or did something to my forehead that made me pass out. I remember a dirigible and then I woke up in the dungeon. And there were these voices in the stone … Oh, Marsh, I am the Oracle, aren’t I?”

Mash took her hand and looked into her eyes. “You are. And I am sorry that I ever dragged you into this terrible mess. I know I had no right to and I will always blame myself for what happened. For the way Patrice used us both.” He looked very sad and his gaze was distant for a moment. “When I think about how you almost died …” He shook his head. “And that is why I intend to take you away from all of it. You were right. You were right about all of it. The Council. The Order. Organized occult in general.” His face grew stern. “There is nothing sacred about it anymore.” He slid onto his knee next to the bed and took her hand in his. “My love, as soon as you are better, we are going as far away from all of this madness as possible. This I promise.”

Elle looked at him. “What did you just call me?” she said.

Marsh smiled one of his devilish, lopsided smiles. “Elle, I never thought I would do this, but I’ve had a word with your father and he has given me his blessing.” He cleared his throat. “Eleanor Chance. I love you more than I ever thought any person could love another. I am a complicated man and my life has always been full of twists and turns, but right now, here before you, things cannot be simpler.” His voice wavered slightly. “Will you be my wife? I promise that I will try to be the best husband I can. If you’ll have me. Will you?”

Elle’s heart was so full that all she could do was nod. She reached over and pulled him to her. “Of course I’ll have you.” And then she kissed him.