The Black Rose (26 page)

Jack had to blink several times to check that his eyes were still working. What he saw made so little sense in relation to where they had been. They were soaring through the air, sky expanding upwards and beyond them. The earth was not far below. His instant thought was of a documentary he had once seen about the African savannah: grasslands of yellow and green rolled out below them, shrubs and trees scattered around, blue hills rising into the clouds in the distance. Herds of figures were shifting on the ground—they could have been antelope or something similar.

Jack and Vince exchanged looks of incomprehension.

“I suppose you don't have any more idea of what's going on than I do?”

“Not at all.”

The next few minutes were a flurry of activity. As they arrived on deck, each Apollonian's expression changed from identical exhaustion to varied ones of shock. There was no question as to whether or not they would land. All of them were dispatched to spread the word around the ship, whilst Vince piloted
The Golden Turtle
onto the grass. Moments later, they began a mass exodus, the passengers clambering or being hoisted one by one out of the top hatch and to the ground.

Jack's first reaction was that this place and Nexus could not be more different. It was warm—hot, actually—and the air was fresh and unpolluted. From what he could see, the passengers were having a similar reaction. Astounded as they were, he caught his first glimpses of smiles amongst those who had already disembarked. He wondered when any of them had last smiled: something he took for granted almost every day must have been an extreme scarcity in the dark metropolis of Nexus.

It took almost an hour to get everyone off the ship, by which time the sun had risen higher in the sky and the air had become oppressively heavy. As there seemed to be no people or settlements anywhere around them, on Hakim's suggestion they began constructing some shelters.

Even with the aid of alchemy, Jack was still hopeless at this. He had once put up a tent on a camping trip and failed so badly as to not only render his own unusable but also impale someone else's canvas with a metal pole. This wasn't much better.

Adâ located a spot between five trees, and she and Hakim set to work. As gently as possible, they removed the current occupants of the space—what turned out to be several hare-like creatures and something that looked a little too much like an anaconda for Jack's liking. Adâ and Hakim formed a pile of grass between them, arms outstretched, working in tandem. The grass blades rose off the ground in concert. Within minutes, something like a roof had been bound into the top of the trees, rendering an area of precious shade under which everyone took refuge.

Despite their new locale, the rest of the day passed much like the previous one. The medical and food stores on board hadn't been completely exhausted, so the Apollonians, besides Sardâr, continued their work. Jack even chatted with some of the refugees, learning names and lightly speculating about where they might be. Though no one seemed to have the slightest idea what it was or how they'd got there, there was something about this new place that lifted his spirits. For the first time since before they had reached Albion, he was beginning to feel cautiously optimistic about their situation.

It was only when the sun dropped to dye the sky rich ochre and crimson, when the shadows of the trees lengthened and star-scattered blue began to emerge above them, that the Apollonians finished their work for the day and had a chance to talk to each other.

Jack had just collected his allocated meal from
The Golden Turtle
when he heard a cry of happy surprise from the shelter. Craning his neck to see where it had come from, he caught sight of Ruth and an elderly refugee pulling her into an embrace. She appeared as nonplussed as Jack was.

“I thought I knew your face,” the man exclaimed, pulling away but maintaining a grip on her shoulder as if she was likely to run off at any moment. “How many years can it have been?”

“I don't think I know…” Ruth began, but then trailed off as she clapped her hand to her mouth in recognition. “Hang on, I
do
remember. You were at my parents' house, weren't you?”

“Yes,” the man replied, tears seeping into the corners of his wrinkled eyes. “Little Ruth, look how much you've grown!”

Still not having any clue what was going on, Jack lost the thread of the conversation. He had just spotted Lucy, who sat with her back against a tree. Brushing the dirt off his trousers to little effect, he shuffled over. She didn't seem to see him until he was very close, and he even had to greet her to shake her out of her reverie.

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, Jack. I'm, I'm okay…” She scooted over to make room for him.

He slumped onto the grass next to her. He could tell why she'd chosen this spot: the view clear of the silhouetted
Turtle,
the full fabric of the sky opened out before them across the plains.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, just listening to the noises of the evening savannah.

“Where do you think this place is?” Jack ventured.

“I really don't know.”

“Pretty amazing, isn't it?”

“I guess so.” Her voice remained flat, and she didn't look at him.

This was very unlike Lucy, he thought, but then, he had not seen her for what must have been about a month now. She had gone to two other worlds in that time and been captured. Snatching a glance at her now, he realized her injuries were not insignificant: bruises and cuts covered her exposed skin, and blood was dried into the back of her tunic. When he had left her back in Thorin Salr, she had been so confident, just finding her feet in a place so unlike her home. That confidence now seemed to have entirely evaporated.

“Is everything okay? Do you want to talk about anything?”

She took a moment to answer him. “No. Not now. Thanks, though.” After another pause, she hauled herself to her feet. “I think I'll try and get some sleep.”

“Okay, well, good…” She was out of earshot before he could finish his sentence.

He remained under the tree, watching the sunset whilst he ate his dinner alone, and allowed his mind to wander.

The last time he could remember doing this was the day all these events had been set in motion: the day he had first glimpsed Inari on the edge of the orchard. He had gone home and sat in his room to eat burnt baked beans. He'd thought he'd been exhausted
then,
but now he really knew the meaning of the word. And yet, though he was concerned about Lucy and the others injured, and though he knew nothing about the world they were in or how they had got there, he felt strangely peaceful. In this state of mental tiredness, he couldn't even begin to start thinking through the implications of what had happened in the last few days. For now, he was just content to relax and let sleep come to him.

The last rays descended over the horizon, leaving a faint amber haze along the line of the distant ground. As though the sun had pulled with it a veiling from the sky, stars began to appear in the dome overhead. Jack had heard that, in entirely uninhabited places with no kind of light pollution, the night sky was like this—and he wasn't disappointed. Thousands if not millions of jewels glimmered in the gloom, arranged in wreaths and plumes of constellations, each one a slightly different brightness to all the others. To describe the night as dark or black would have been a huge simplification: it was alight with subtle shades of blue and purple.

“This is the second time I've caught you stargazing.” He didn't have to look up to know it was Ruth. “You're a lot less apologetic this time.”

He laughed a little. “There are loads more of them out tonight. Maybe it's just where we are.” Then, reminded of the conversation he had overheard, he said, “What did that guy mean about recognizing you? And what was that about your parents?”

“Of course, I haven't had a chance to tell you.” She sat beside him in the spot Lucy had been occupying. She explained everything, from leaving the cell where they had all been captured to her sudden remembrance in the Precinct below.

“And that man, Methuselah, knew my parents—knew
me.
He was able to tell me what this means.” She rolled up the sleeve on her right arm to expose the lion tattoo furling out from her bicep. “My parents were part of an underground revolutionary organization. They were trying to overthrow the Cult. This was their symbol so they could know who was and wasn't involved.”

“But the Cult got them?”

She smiled sadly. “Yep. That's what I remember from before. The Cult broke into our house, but I managed to escape. I think I must have fallen through some kind of portal, because I somehow ended up in the ocean where
The Golden Turtle
picked me up, with my memory gone.”

Jack didn't really know what to say. It was a lot to take in for him, let alone for Ruth. “So you're still an orphan, then?”

She broke into a giggle. “Don't worry. I'm not going to desert you on that score. But it
does
mean I can't really think of Ishmael as my dad, now that I remember my real parents.”

Jack pondered this for a moment. “I think you can. I mean, you remember your biological parents now, but that doesn't undo what Ishmael did for you. He's still your dad, really, isn't he?”

“I suppose so.”

“Have we got any idea where we are yet?”

“I don't know exactly, but I've just spoken to Hakim and he says he's got a theory. He's going to get everyone together for a meeting tomorrow to talk about it and what we do now. We've also got in contact with the other Apollonians. They're going to be here tomorrow too.”

“And the Cult?”

“Nothing. No idea what's happened to Nexus, either. Some of the crew have been trying to trace our journey, but we can't make any sense of it. It's literally vanished from all our readings.”

Jack nodded. He felt as though he should be contemplating this conundrum, but he was too tired. The night was far from cold, yet Ruth moved a little closer to him. She leaned her head on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a few minutes, hearing only slight rustlings from the undergrowth and the shelter somewhere behind them.

She shifted, and he glanced at her. She had turned her head to look up at him, and at that angle her eyes captured and twinned the myriad starlight. They held each other's gaze a moment longer. Then her eyes closed as their lips pressed together in a kiss.

It was the following morning, and as far as they knew everyone on the entire planet was clustered in the shelter. Lying, sitting, or standing, depending on each one's injuries, they were arranged in a semicircle around Hakim. The only person not awake and attentive was Sardâr. Amongst all those wounded, only his case had seen no improvement. He was feverish, having lapsed in and out of sleep throughout the previous day and night, and now lay in pale unconsciousness behind Hakim, wrapped in a thin blanket. Standing between Ruth and Adâ near the back of the assembly, Jack couldn't help thinking of a dissection demonstration: Hakim the doctor and Sardâr the unlucky cadaver.

True to Ruth's words, the dimension ships carrying other Apollonians had arrived just as the sun was coming up. Within half an hour, what seemed to be the whole cohort materialized in a series of light-infused sonic booms sending shock waves through the makeshift camp.

Jack recognized a couple of faces but not all of them: Charles, his wheelchair strapped into one of the cargo areas, and the man who had been on the laptop back on Apollo Hill. He realized that, though he had pledged himself to the Apollonians' cause, he had actually met very few of his fellow agents. There were dozens of them, and he was struck by just how diverse they were: a mixture of humans, elves, and dwarves, and now, with Dannie, a token fairy as well. One notable absence was King Thorin. Jack wondered whether he had heard the news of his nephew Bal's fate and whether this lack of attendance was for that reason.

Combining the new Apollonians, the crew of
The Golden Turtle,
and the survivors from Nexus, their group now numbered well over a hundred. As they huddled together with the sun on the ascendance, it was becoming uncomfortably stifling in the shelter. Nevertheless, they waited, and when Hakim in his teacher-like style cleared his throat, they all fell silent.

“Good morning, everyone. I'd normally thank you all for coming, but in this case the majority of you had very little choice. I'm going to try and answer a few questions in this session, and hopefully afterwards we'll be in a better position to discuss what to do.”

Jack caught Ruth's eye, and she smirked. Hakim usually took a backseat whilst Sardâr was the one to give these kinds of explanations. For the first time, Jack could now imagine Hakim in his role as a teacher.

“We're all confused about how we got here—and, for that matter, where
here
actually is. The readings from
The Golden Turtle
have been checked and rechecked, and we made no spatial jump in our last journey. Moreover, those Apollonians who have just arrived had no problem locating us as they would have located any other world. There can be only one solution: this planet
is
Nexus.”