The Black Rose (19 page)

Ruth was busy with her captain's duties but, even so, was very quiet. Jack guessed why: she was the only one of them to have seen Nexus; though she didn't remember it, he knew the ghost of her time there haunted her. Knowing that every moment was bringing them closer to her forgotten past couldn't have been easy.

Sardâr, for his part, seemed to have done right by Bál in taking to staying in his room for long periods, emerging sporadically for meals. Jack thought he must be diverting all his attentions to planning for when they reached their destination.

In fact, whilst keeping his body as busy as was possible in a submarine, Jack himself had had plenty of time to think about their plans. The more he had thought about it, the more his initial drive had jaded into anxiety. The mission they had committed them selves to now seemed like suicide. How could a small group of Apollonians, some of them barely competent alchemists, hope to penetrate the very heart of the Cult's operations? In previous situations—in Birchford, in Thorin Salr, in Albion, and in Avalon—they had only just survived against one of the Cult's Chapters. Now they would face the entire assembled force of Dark alchemists and probably some demons too—and there would be fewer than ten Apollonians. Were they expecting to just stroll in, free the hostages, and be back on board in time for tea?

He blinked. A glimmer of light had appeared on the edge of his vision. He looked away from the brooding Darkness and again into the room. Inari was planted on the carpet staring at him, tails oscillating symmetrically. Neither of them said anything for several moments.

“I'm sorry I snapped at you the other day,” Jack put forward when it was clear the fox wasn't going to speak first. “Bál had just… and Lucy…”

“That's alright. And if it's any better, I'm just as frustrated as you are about my inability to intervene.”

“I suppose you can't tell me how I can help?”

“Nope.”
The fox stretched and hopped up to the bunk, settling on the sheets.

Jack let his head rest against the wall and ran his hand through the fox's fur, scratching him behind the ears. As before, he felt an almost electric tingle when his nerves came into contact with the glowing strands.

“I take it you know where we're going?”

“Yes. You know I can't come with you, don't you?”

“I thought so. We're on a suicide mission, aren't we?”

The fox turned his head to look at him.
“I wouldn't put it
that
strongly. Let's just say your probable life expectancy just got a hell of a lot shorter.”

“We are doing the right thing, though, aren't we? Going in like this?”

Inari scrambled up to sit before him, his paws on either side of Jack's forearm.
“I don't know. I can't tell you what I'd like to, what I'm thinking. No matter what happens in Nexus, certain patterns will become clearer.”

“Patterns? What do you mean?”

There was a knock on the door. Inari nodded at him. Without even the slightest sound, he was gone, the depression in the mattress the only indication he'd ever been there.

“Come in.”

The door swung open to reveal Sardâr, long since reverted to his true elf form.

“We're almost there.” He paused. “Who were you talking to?”

“No one,” Jack replied a little too quickly.

Sardâr looked at him a moment, then shook his head. “We'll be on the command deck. Five minutes.”

Jack arrived soon after. His first reaction was not to join the Apollonians at the table but to look toward the chamber where the mirror hung. It was exactly as it had been when he had last been there, wreathed in a veil of purple and black. Again, he felt as if it were watching him.

He pulled his gaze away and went to stand by the table.

Of the three already there, Dannie was the only one who looked as she had when they had embarked. She had apparently made no attempt to revert to a human disguise. Instead, with her camouflage abilities activated, she now looked something like a space-age robot, her body the composite of the panelled wood and gold around her.

Sardâr and Ruth, by contrast, both looked haggard, shaded with the same look of insomnia and worry.

“So,” Sardâr began, rubbing his eyes. “We're approaching our destination. We know Nexus is a city, probably the only inhabited part of the entire planet. Other than that, we know next to nothing about where we're going. I think we can reasonably surmise that, as the Cult is the center of life here, the core of the city will be some kind of church or cathedral. This prison tower, the Precinct of Despair, shouldn't be too far from there.”

“What about the others? Gaby and Malik?” Ruth asked.

“They're joining us using a dimension ship,” Sardâr said. “We've pulled a couple more agents out of missions on other worlds to assist us.”

“So eleven of us, then?”

“Well, that's
almost
a single Chapter compared to the Cult,” Jack commented coolly. Having now had his worst suspicions of their operational blindness confirmed, he was significantly less enthusiastic about this mission than previous ones. “So what are we actually going to do once we get there?”

It was Ruth who replied. “Like we said, espionage.” She set a wooden box on the table and lifted the lid.

Jack got a look inside. It appeared to him just like a bundle of dark material, until Ruth lifted one out and held it up against her like a dress. “We're going undercover as
Cultists?”

“It's the safest way,” Sardâr replied, pulling the three remaining cloaks out of the box and handing one each to Jack and Dannie. “We took these off the captured Chapter back in Avalon. Quentin's adjusted them to fit each of us.”

Jack slid a cloak over his tunic. It was surprisingly comfortable and thick and fitted him well enough. He took the boots and gloves Sardâr handed him and put those on as well. He was now sure that if he put the hood over his face, there could be nothing at all to hint at his identity.

“I'm not sure I like this,” he said. “It feels like we're, well, the Cult…”

“Have you got a better idea?” Ruth challenged him, her temper evidently as short as his at the moment.

“We're coming up on our target,” one of the crew members called out.

“Activate stealth mode,” Ruth replied. “And prepare for emergence.”

The gloom all around was indeed clearing. Like a black fog, it was furling away from the dome, giving them their first view of the world beyond. Even with the shadows gone, they seemed to have materialized in some sort of alleyway. Dark stone surrounded them on all sides but one, where a side street led elsewhere.

Exhaling slowly, Ruth strode to the glass chamber and keyed something in to a panel. With a hydraulic hiss, the door slid open, and she grabbed the mirror, holding it as far away from herself as possible. “Keep to plan,” she said to the crew members. “We're going to be in and out in as short a time as possible. Keep the ship here in stealth mode until we return, and stay inside. Under no circumstances
whatsoever
should you come into contact with the locals here. Is that understood?”

Everyone in the room nodded, and several saluted. Jack couldn't help admiring the fact that, at a time when her nerves must be shredding even more than his, she was able to command the respect and obedience of her crew.

“The priority is to get to the Precinct and back,” Sardâr explained as they made their way towards the hatch. “We get the prisoners out and then worry about gathering information.”

Dannie climbed the ladder first and hauled open the hatch. As she and Sardâr moved out of the way, Jack got a look at the disc of sky above them. It wasn't promising—obscured by writhing clouds and illuminated by lightning. The churning air was reflected exactly in the mirror in Ruth's hand as droplets of rain began to collect on it. Something from GCSE English came back to him. “Pathetic fallacy.”

“What?”

“When the weather reflects the mood.”

“I don't know what you mean.” Ruth grimaced. “I'm
ecstatic
about being here.”

Jack got a shock while clambering out of the hatch.
The Golden Turtle's
stealth mode was very effective—so effective, in fact, that it appeared he was standing in midair. “Why don't we use this more often?” he asked Ruth once he had tentatively shuffled to actual ground level.

“Good, isn't it? The problem is it doesn't work in water. The ship's invisible, but water's still displaced: people tend to notice a turtle-shaped vacuum. Mind you, in this weather it might not be so good…”

The sky was indeed a matrix of warring clouds, hues of rock clashing high above, sporadically frozen in frames of lightning. Rain extended like a blurred curtain to the ground, droplets forming into miniature tributaries that flowed between the paving beneath their feet.

Stone walls hemmed them in on all sides, with only a single covered alleyway leading to their right. Beyond the walls, towers were alternately silhouetted and illuminated against the sky. It was, Jack thought, exactly the kind of place the Cult would have their headquarters: something like a city-sized concentration camp.

Sardâr raised his hood over his head, and the other three did the same. Nothing now distinguished them from any other members of the Cult. The tallest of the new black cloaks nodded and turned, leading the way down the alley and out onto the main causeway.

They emerged onto a wide avenue. Cubes of clinical neon were suspended from a rail that ran directly above the center of the road, highlighting the panels in harsh blocks of lime. The dark grey buildings rose on either side: their height, thin windows in grids, and extent of erosion identical. Jack saw the towers beyond: dark monoliths at various distances with no pattern of construction discernible. A flash of lightning ripped the sky open, and in that moment he saw the building that dwarfed them all. A gargantuan cathedral, set with stained glass windows and mounted with spires, reached to the heavens. Next to it, connected by a spindly walkway, a single spike plunged upwards into the air.

“I think that's the Precinct of Despair,” he whispered, pointing as the lightning faded.

Sardâr produced the mirror and held it up like a map. The surface danced with indigo light. “I think you may be right. Let's go.”

“Bit of a melodramatic name, isn't it?” Dannie quipped.

She was ignored. No one was in the mood for humor.

The four black cloaks turned left up the avenue and began walking. The road was curved and seemed to proceed in a wide arc around the center of the city, taking them no closer to the cathedral and prison within. Nevertheless, Sardâr followed the mirror, and although the purple lights meant nothing to Jack, he was sure the elf was able to understand them.

It took him several minutes to realize they were not alone. Figures in groups of no more than two or three skulked along the edges of the street in the shadows of the buildings. It was hard to make them out. At first he thought they must have been Cultists, but then Cultists didn't move like that: they strutted as if they owned wherever they walked. He squinted to his left and right, trying to determine what they were. They were definitely humanoid. They might have been demons, except that he wasn't confronted with the instinctive bile-raising sickness which told him he was in the presence of Darkness. In fact, he got the impression that the figures were purposefully avoiding his gaze, moving along a little more quickly if they saw him looking.

“What do you think they are?” he whispered to the black-cloaked shape the rough build of Ruth.

“I'm not sure.” Ruth was looking now too but apparently with similarly little success.

Ahead of them, the line of regular grey blocks was broken by a church, which was about three times as wide as the surrounding buildings and at least twice as tall. It was constructed in the same gothic style as the cathedral, with tall, thin windows and arches and decorated spires set like horns. The cubes of light picked out gargoyles hunched in alcoves, leering with stone malice at the figures trudging inside.

“Look out!” Sardâr hissed.

Jack didn't immediately see what he was referring to, but then his stomach turned at the sight of an
actual
Cultist striding towards them under the alternating light and darkness.

“Brothers! Sisters!” he saluted them, arms spread wide. “You have come to take part in our ceremony?”

None of them seemed to know how to reply, but Jack noticed Sardâr had quickly hidden the mirror in the folds of his cloak. It wouldn't be a good idea, Jack agreed, to look like tourists at this point.

“Actually,” Dannie blurted, “we've got urgent business in the Precinct of—”

“Nonsense, nonsense.” The Cultist chortled, extending thick fingers to steer Dannie by the shoulder towards the church. “If the business was
really
urgent, you would have travelled through Darkness, would you not?”