The Black Rose (18 page)

“Who are these people?” Alex whispered, his voice cracking.

“Criminals,” the Emperor replied coolly. “Some from Nexus, some from other worlds. Be grateful that you ended up above rather than down here.”

The Emperor led him through the main aisle. Alex tried to keep his gaze forward, to make himself deaf to the cries, but he couldn't. In one cell, a man cowered from a huge spiderlike demon that seemed to have already torn off both of his forearms. In another, a woman lay connected to something like a ventilator that seemed to be keeping her alive, but nothing had been done about the blood gushing from her mutilated legs. In a third, a man hammered the glass and howled as a shadowy wormlike thing slithered its way through his empty eye socket and reappeared through his open mouth.

Alex couldn't take it. He fell to his knees and vomited, the shiny bile seeping into the grills of the gangway.

The Emperor doubled back and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him to the end of the block of cells and down a corridor to the right.

He was given a moment to recover and he did so, hauling himself up against the wall. He was struggling to find words.

“How? How can you allow this to happen? How could anyone ever
want
this to happen?”

“I am taking you to the man responsible. You will be able to…
discuss
these matters with him.”

The Emperor yanked him to his feet and continued down the corridor. The blocks of cells were behind them now, and another door was before them. The Emperor pulled it open, ushered Alex inside, and closed it.

The interior was not what Alex had been expecting. With oak-panelled walls, thick carpet, and multicolored jars on shelves, it was more reminiscent of an old apothecary than the office of a prison warden.

A black-cloaked, thick man sat at the large desk, writing, his hood down. His hair was greying, and he had a long, forked beard. Glasses were perched on his crooked nose, and his gaze flicked upwards as they entered. “Ah, so this is the newest recruit,” he remarked, standing and moving around the desk to offer his hand to Alex. “Archbishop Faustus. Pleased to finally meet you.”

Alex didn't take his hand.

Faustus retracted it slowly. “Your Majesty,” he acknowledged, bowing slightly to the figure behind Alex.

“So you're responsible for all this?” Alex said to Faustus, trying to keep his voice as calm and steady as possible.

“Well, yes, I am.” Faustus's reply brimmed with badly concealed pride. “Many of my fellows on the Council of Thirteen keep matters moving abroad, but I prefer my work right at the heart of the empire—”

His words were knocked from him as Alex's alchemy flung Faustus across the room. He collided with the shelves, jars shattering and spraying him with colored liquid.

He spluttered and rose, face shining red. “How dare you! Mephistopheles!” With a flick of his hand, a demon rose from a pool of Darkness in the carpet. The immensely tall and skeletally thin figure was clothed like a monk and clasped a spell book. The monk demon raised a bony finger to draw a symbol in the air, but Alex was too quick. In a heartbeat, his signature shruriken was formed between his fingers—not the silvery one he had used his last night on Earth but one seeping with Dark energy. He hurled it, and it scythed the demon's core straight through, the monk vanishing in a plume of black smoke.

Blood blossomed on Faustus's chest, and his breath caught in his throat. Alex conjured several thin black needles that shot across the room and embedded themselves in the Cultist's wrists and ankles, pinning him to the wall.

“Sire, please,” Faustus implored, appealing to the Emperor over Alex's head. But the figure behind him remained motionless, watching intently from the doorway.

Alex regarded the pathetic figure before him. The rage was back, stronger than ever before, pumping in his arteries like an addictive drug. He was at one with the shadows in the room, which now seemed to kindle and grow. He felt nothing but hatred for the weak executioner panting with high-pitched pleas.

Faustus became aware of something shifting in the darkness. A shape was twisting its way out of the gloom, slithering across the carpet towards him, tongue flicking from a lipless mouth. It rose above him, tautly balanced on its slender form. He was bedazzled by those emerald eyes—eyes that exactly matched those of its human counterpart behind them. It opened its mouth, knifelike fangs spread impossibly wide.

The serpent struck, and Faustus's screams joined those of his inmates.

The Emperor smiled from the darkness as the last vestiges of the archbishop were consumed. Of course, it had been rather disingenuous of him to suggest Faustus was responsible for this level of the prison. All responsibility fell to the Emperor, personally, as the leader of the Cult. But the aim had been for Mister Steele to summon his first demon, and that aim had been achieved with supreme elegance.

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”

“The Second Coming”
W. B. Yeats

The Emperor of Nexus was seated upon his throne. The vaults of the Cathedral ceiling caught and rebounded the rolling notes of the organ. Candles burnt in banks either side of him, reflecting off the dark stone floor. He could hear, beyond the screen, the echoes of the congregation leaving after the service. His section of the building was deserted, apart from him and the figure now striding towards him up the aisle.

His visitor was, like the rest of their order, swathed in a black cloak. Hood, boots, and gloves left no trace of flesh exposed. Only the sauntering gave a clue whose face was concealed in the shadows: a lithe swagger that suggested either extreme arrogance or madness.

The figure halted at the bottom of the steps and bowed exaggeratedly low. “Your Majesty.”

“Lord Icarus,” the Emperor acknowledged, tilting his head slightly. “I trust you are well?”

“Quite well, my liege, thank you.” Icarus lowered his hood. His hair was sleek and reached his shoulders, framing an aging but handsome face with an inward-curving jawline. The piercing blue eyes scanned their surroundings. “We are alone, I trust?”

“I have instructed the custodians that we are to be disturbed by no one.”

“You may reveal yourself, then.”

“Indeed.” Slate-colored smoke had trailed from the Emperor's skin. His body slumped in the throne, motionless, the eyes open but dulled. The smoke was projecting from his chest, swirling upwards to form a column in front of the mortal marionette. It resolved into the form of an old man, long haired and bearded, skin and robe entirely grey. The only thing of the Emperor that remained were the eyes—twin globes of gold that burnt like suns in a basalt galaxy.

“This vessel is weakening,”
the grey figure muttered disdainfully, glancing back at the Emperor's carcass.
“These mortal puppets decay so easily.”

His voice still sent Icarus shuddering slightly: it was deep, far deeper than he had thought possible, and carried the weight of millennia. “If all goes to plan, then you shall not have to endure it much longer. I trust that is why you've summoned me? Is everything on schedule?”

“Yes, it is. We hold a Shard in addition to the Darkness pouring into this world from the Cult's many conquests. The Cultists still believe the Emperor intends to create a superweapon as a means towards greater imperial domination. The real purpose of the Aterosa remains concealed from all but us.”

Icarus nodded. “And you think it can work?”

“It is flawless. Ndiuno was the very first world to fall to the Darkness, but I knew at that point it would have to be resurrected once the Cult had run the course of its usefulness. The Fourth Shard still exists there: the Risa Star cannot be reunified without it.”

“So your instructions for me have not changed?”

“No. You will be the only inhabitant of this world to survive imminent events.”

Icarus grinned, insanity flaring in his eyes. “I look forward to it.” He peered past the grey man at the Emperor's body.

“You're right. His body is decaying fast. The skin has turned blue. How is your replacement coming along?”

“Very well. The boy has summoned his first demon and is increasingly proficient at Dark alchemy. As things stand now, he will last me until the end.”

“Ironic that an Apollonian will deal the final blow to this pitiful state of the universe—though he can't take all the credit. He's not the first of their number to defect!”

The peals of Icarus's manic laughter joined the organ music, rumbling in the distant vaults of the ceiling.

Jack sat on his bed, staring through the porthole into the gloom. They had been aboard
The Golden Turtle
for at least a week now.

Sardâr had handed the black mirror to one of the crew members on the command deck as soon as they had got on, and it had been linked into the ship's navigation system. It now hung in the center of an isolated ovenlike chamber, pulsating with indigo energy. Jack felt uneasy just being in the room with it, as if the intense shadows of the glassy surface veiled unsleeping eyes. As far as possible, he had tried to keep off the command deck and didn't envy those crew members obliged to work there.

Initially, they had passed through murky river water into the vortex of light usually indicating a jump through space. But gradually as the hours had passed, the lights had faded until they were shooting through an apparently endless tunnel. Darkness locked them in on all sides, and if it had not been for the mirror, they would have been utterly lost. It was not a comforting thought that the force guiding them through the shadows was directly linked to the Cult's base of operations.

Jack was restless, more so than he could ever remember. He had tried to recoup some sleep in the first days, but whenever he had closed his eyes, he'd been interrupted by a mental slide show. The last couple of months flicked along the inside of his lids in cinematic fashion: Alex's abduction; Bál disappearing into the abyss; Lucy, wounded and imprisoned, staring hopelessly straight through him…

He couldn't sleep, and when he awoke, he felt angry with himself for not being rested. After that, he had taken on as many jobs as possible in an attempt to tire himself out: scrubbing the deck, helping in the kitchen, washing clothes, even learning how to monitor the levels of water pressure. He worked hours upon hours, trying to match the exertion of the Albion factory, yet he still couldn't sleep.

He had barely spoken to Ruth, Sardâr, Dannie, or any of the crew members in the last few days. He might have felt guilty about shutting himself off if he wasn't suspicious the others were in a similar state.

Dannie was as chirpy as always but seemed to have tactfully recognized that Jack didn't want to talk and so had immersed herself, much to Quentin's annoyance, in disassembling and reassembling sections of
The Golden Turtle
to learn exactly what made it work.