The Forgotten City (13 page)

Eli found his gaze drawn back to the map. Intoxicatingly musty and ancient, he’d discovered it tucked behind the cover of a book, a personal journal, in Ev’r’s bag. He had no idea who had originally created the map, but whoever it was had swung some serious power. The map was not the one-dimensional, fixed topographical sketch of the Matadori that it had first appeared to be. Once in the proximity of the desert, the inked borderlines and landmark icons had started changing, rearranging themselves to combat the rogue magics of the Matadori that worked to send travelers off-course. And it was highly protected, too, by an enchant so strong that any attempts to duplicate or transformate it were violently denied. When Eli had tried to pass the parchment through his scanner machine to create a holographic copy, the scanner had literally disintegrated before his eyes. The lingering smoke had reeked unmistakably of dark magics.

Silho murmured something to herself. She shifted the transflyer leftways and slowed their speed. Eli glanced down to the desert. A relentless wind rolled its sands into waves of yellow-orange mist, unearthing bleached bones and steely angles of crashed crafts and other great ships forgotten. Moments later they were lost again – that was the perfidiousness of the Matadori, its face a constantly changing mask, each expression more duplicitous, enigmatic, than the one before. This far out from the city, travelers could put no confidence in their tools of navigation or the sighting of landmarks, and especially not in their own senses. Even with Ev’r’s map, Eli knew he would have been most hopelessly lost forever if Silho hadn’t agreed to come along. She could read the sands. She saw the Matadori for what it was, and when it came up against the skill of Silho Brabel, all the desert’s ferocity and bravado seemed quite pathetic, like a night shadow scared away by the sunslight.

Despite all the failed green lights, Silho’s belief in his cause and, surprisingly to Eli, in his ability to find a Ravien cure had remained devout. She was the only one to really realize that this was more to him than an infatuation with an idea. In fact he’d been stalking hope for so long now that he was feeling something he’d never felt before – what it was like to hit a wall. All his life, problems and riddles, however complex and cryptic, had been like friendly faces in a crowd. Whatever it was, given enough time, he’d found a solution – but this … Eli pushed the thought of failure out of his mind. He refused to abandon hope. It was all they had left of Ev’r – the ghost of hope.

Behind Silho, in the cargo hold, hundreds of little dart-vials of antidote jiggled in merry opposition to the actual mood of the journey. These were it – the antidote to finally free Ev’r Keets from her Ravien form. The thought brought Eli solidly back into the reality of their mission and he started to sweat again in earnest, as though his body was trying to drown him before he did anything to further endanger himself. On top of the sweats, he had also recently developed both restless wing syndrome and stress-induced alopecia – body hair only – leaving him a sweaty, shedding, twitchity, repetitious, ulcerated insomniac – as though he needed further turn-offs for the opposite sex. But this was it – this was definitely it … Nelly sat on the front seat, staring at him with an expression that said his stubborn optimism was making them both look ridiculous. She huffed, curled up and went to sleep.

“Eli,” Silho said, her voice startling him out of his thoughts.

“Yes, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” He almost dove into the backseat.

She slid up her glasses and pointed ahead of them.

Eli turned back around to face the front windscreen. Nerves crawled all over his skin. They had arrived. They had finally found it. Golmaria. Fallen city of the Ravien.

The Ravien …

One of the most dangerous monsters in Aquais. One bite and people transformed into one of their attackers. Luckily they weren’t greatly ambitious as far as demon-monsters went. They kept to themselves and the rare accounts of attacks involved people entering Golmaria – for whatever lunatic reason they had – such as searching for a recently turned friend to try out an untested, potentially fatal potion that might or might not restore them to their previous form, with unknown side-effects and consequences. Eli exploded into fits of hysterical laughter.

“I can’t do this. I cannot do this. I feel like I’m going to …” Eli sucked in gasps of air, his chest heaving, “… pass out or implode or ignite or … or … or … or …”

Silho put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Easy. This is just a fly-by and a test – right?”

“But this is it – this is the one. Everything has to be right. I need to check the formula – the darts.” Eli tried to turn around, but Silho held him firm.

“Already checked – seventeen times. They’re loaded.” She paused a moment before continuing. “I know you want this to be the one – but it might not be. We haven’t done a live test.”

“I know, but this is the closest we’ve been, and then finding the map in Ev’r’s journal … It just feels like fate, don’t you think?”

Silho’s returned expression was cautious. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, just patting him on the shoulder and sitting back in her seat to unplug the diverter cable, throwing control of the craft back to Eli. He gripped the steering yoke and felt calm descending over him as he glided them over the city, dropping low just above the building peaks.

Golmaria had been built long before Scorpia and had nowhere near its size. It was a traditional design of all one level, with a cathedral in the center and all the streets spreading out from this like spokes of a wheel. And it was without one doubt the most spooky, evil-lurking-in-dark-spaces place Eli had ever seen – and he’d seen some serious spooky in his time. Why exactly the fine hairs on his wings twitched at the sight of this lost city he couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it just seemed that the shadows weren’t falling right. From their bird’s-eye view it seemed to him that life here had just stopped. There were no signs of resistance, of a slowly fought war with ruined buildings, dead bodies and battling survivors. Everything looked perfectly untouched. The only indication that the city had died at all was the plant life that had re-conquered the streets, and the lack of activity on what should have otherwise been a busy day.

Eli spotted a child’s bike lying on its side in the middle of a sidewalk. One wheel rotated slowly without a breeze. The people here had just …
changed
was the only word that fit, knowing what he knew about Golmaria. What was even more disturbing was that it was broad daylight with both the blue suns riding high in the sky. What would this fallen city feel like after darkfall?

Eli shuddered.

“What was she thinking coming here?” Eli spoke of Ev’r.

Silho raised her eyes to meet his in the rear vision mirror. “About treasures and artefacts, I suppose,” she said, but her tone told him there was more.

“What is it?”

“Well, the Lava Diavol Mountains are nearby. That’s where she buried Ismail.”

Eli nodded. Ismail Ohavor – a scullion-gypsy from Ev’r’s family tribe – her dead love. Eli had found sketches of him in Ev’r journal, and sobbed his way through Ev’r’s written account of their story.

“Eli …” Silho’s voice hesitated. “Have you thought that maybe she doesn’t want to come back?”

Something twisted in the pit of his stomach. Ev’r had been through so much, and had been so scarred, that perhaps death had been a relief. He had asked himself on more than one occasion if his mission to save her was more about his obsessions than her actual wants, but every time he’d come back to the memory of her fighting the inevitable transformation to the last breath. She had wanted to survive, to live – despite everything.

“I think she’d want us to try.”

Silho nodded, accepting the idea. She blinked and her eyes darkened as she jumped to light-form vision.

“Anything?” Eli asked.

Silho’s eyebrows flickered and she gave a nod. “They’re everywhere – inside all the buildings.”

Eli’s skin crawled, his wings twitching.

“But they’re stationary.”

“Sleeping?” Eli squeaked hopefully.

Silho shrugged. She didn’t know the ways of the Ravien. No one did. They were entering some seriously untrodden territory here.

“Do they all look the same?” Eli asked, bringing the craft around for another wide circle over the city.

“All the same,” Silho confirmed.

It meant they had no way of knowing which one was Ev’r.

“We’ll just have to run the trial and then figure out a way of doing a mass drop,” Eli said.

“Are you sure this craft is going to hold up against them?” Silho asked.

“I’m sure,” he said, but wasn’t even certain himself if that was the truth or a stress-induced lie. Silho climbed over from the backseat and sat beside him. Nelly had hidden in her cage and Eli could see her accusing eyes shimmering in the shadows.

“Take us down in front of the cathedral,” Silho directed. “The biggest population is in there.”

Eli gripped the steering yoke and took them down to hover in front of the cathedral door, the entryway blackened with ominous forms.

“And the priest wondered why his parishioners weren’t attending church,” Eli joked, but his voice was shaky.

“Hit the lights,” Silho murmured.

Eli’s finger hovered over the switch then flicked it up. He gasped. The cathedral was jam-packed with Ravien – all squashed in and squirming. In a sudden burst, the winged monsters spewed out, battering the craft, throwing Eli and Silho from one side to the other. The monsters’ horrible faces smashed up against the glass. Eli triggered the craft’s guns and opened fire. The dart-vials of antidote pelted out, sinking into the beasts. One Ravien hit the windscreen, turned into a naked person, then straight back into a monster.

Eli’s heart leaped up and crashed down so rapidly that he didn’t know if he was severely disappointed or actually having a heart attack.

“No good – pull out,” he heard Silho yell, but found he couldn’t move. She lunged over and grabbed the controls, shooting them straight upward at a dizzying speed until they were clear of the Ravien. She leveled them out high in the air and they sat there gasping, watching the Ravien looping up in the air, like the body of a huge snake, before darting back inside the cathedral.

Eli blinked and found himself lying in the back seat of the craft, parked in the desert. Silho was fanning him with the map, concern pinching her features. Eli giggled, then slapped a hand over his mouth to stop it. If there was ever a moment when he felt less like laughing … Silho stopped fanning him and helped him sit up.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Never better,” Eli lied on automatic.

“You need to give yourself a break,” Silho said. “I mean it, Eli. You need rest, food, fresh air – a bath.”

Eli sniffed himself – it was bad.

“The stench of failure,” he said.

“No,” Silho said firmly. “You successfully transformed a Ravien back to its previous form. That’s never been done before. It’s not even been imagined. Everyone says ‘There’s no point, so give up’, but you’ve done it. It’s a major step.”

Eli felt his spirits lifting. “You’re right. As soon as we get back I’m going to re-test the formula and see why the transmute didn’t hold and then —” Silho’s expression stopped him short. “After I sleep, eat, inhale some premium-quality air and wash my armpits …”

Silho smiled and shook her head. A crackling sound drew their attention to the front windscreen. As they looked out, a cave-pocked mountain appeared literally before their eyes and then vanished again.

“The Lava Diavol Mountains,” Silho said.

“Should we …” Eli started to say.

“No,” Silho cut him off. “It’s the golden rule of the desert.”

Eli paused for the answer.

“Don’t go to investigate – ever.”

“Noted,” Eli replied.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Agreed,” he said. He jumped back into the pilot’s seat and started the engines for the flight back to Scorpia.

D
iega moved through the pine forest, tracking the distant sound of a trickling stream. One of the first lessons she’d learned as a soldier was that water is magnetic to most living creatures. There is always someone to be found near water. She stepped with practiced caution, watching her feet for snares and traps, searching for tracks, while some distance behind her Shawe crashed through the trees, more unsubtle than a stampede of elephants. She’d been trying to ignore the sound. She felt so much hatred for him right now that the thought of even having to acknowledge his existence was too much, but at this rate he was either going to scare away anyone who could help them, or get them captured or killed. So she forced herself to stop and wait until he was close enough, then she turned and burned him with a glare.

“What?” he said, his mouth full of Barkers Mints.

The urge to punch him in the face swelled with tidal force inside her, but then she saw blood had seeped through the skin overlay and thick wrap around his wound and was fast saturating his pants. Her anger subsided. He was moving unsteadily because he had an injury that would kill most people instantly.

Her mind went to Copernicus before she could stop it, opening up a yawning void of fear that threatened to drag her down into despair, but she forced it closed. She looked Shawe in the eyes and in truth, though it made her sick to admit it, he didn’t actually look stupid – he looked like he knew exactly what she was thinking. She thought he might try to hit her with some waste-of-air speech about Copernicus being the toughest guy he knew, or a born survivor, or tell her lies about how he would be fine, but instead he said, “You hear that stream, sunshine?”

“Where do you think I’m going?” she replied.

“In the opposite direction.”

She snorted. “Somehow I think I know more than you about tracking …”

“Yeah, maybe – with all your fancy equipment,” he said. “But not without it. Fairy-breeds don’t have trutt-all sense of direction.”

“And you do?” she demanded. “Galleys have poor eyesight, plus you’re too damn arrogant to admit it or get it fixed.”

“My eyesight might be average,” Shawe conceded. “But my hearing is a hundred times better than yours.”

“Please!” Diega spat.

“Care to put a wager on it?” Shawe said.

Diega was sorely tempted – she never said no to a bet – but it wasn’t the time.

“Just follow me,” he told her. “And if I’m wrong, you get to say I told you so. I know that would give you all kinds of thrills.”

“You have no idea,” she muttered.

Shawe turned and headed back in the direction they’d come from. Diega grudgingly followed, on the slight chance that he was right. They couldn’t afford to waste time just because of her ego. At first she thought he was leading them astray, but then she sensed the trickling getting louder and louder, until finally they reached a low row of shrubs that hedged a bank, leading down to a pond.

They crouched behind the blue-leaf plants and Diega took the telescopic sights off her belt. The advanced functions were all blown, but the basic magnifiers were still intact. She looked through it, scanning over and around the pond until the circle of sight found what looked like a wooden bed, with someone lying beneath a grass blanket. Diega registered movement beside the bed and adjusted the sights. Another person came into focus. From the full ballroom gown it was wearing, Diega judge it to be female, but it didn’t look like any race she’d seen before. It had red skin scattered with large black dots and a very insect-looking face, with external mandibles and oversized, shiny black eyes. The stranger definitely wasn’t an insect blood human-breed, and all the full blood insect-breeds had become extinct eras ago – at least, in Aquais they had. There were hooks growing from both the stranger’s palms, and she was using them to weave some kind of basket, while chattering non-stop – presumably to the sleeping figure. Diega began to refocus the lens, trying to see if there were any weapons around the bed, but Shawe snatched the sights out of her grasp and looked through it.

“What is that thing?” he muttered. “Butt-ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.”

Diega’s anger flared. “Really? And what are you? The world’s most beautiful man? Wait, let me grovel at your feet in awe of your radiating beauty.” She snatched back the sights. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

She checked the stranger’s camp for weapons and didn’t see anything obvious.

“I’m going to talk to them,” she told Shawe. “You stay here.”

“Hell no. I’m coming with,” Shawe said.

Diega refused. “One look at you and they’ll run a mile. You know it. Just stay put.”

Shawe set his jaw and stared her down, but didn’t rise to follow as she left the shrubs.

Diega moved down the bank and across a section of spongy moss grass to the edge of the pond, directly opposite the beetle girl. She cleared her throat. The insect-breed looked up sharply, shrieked and darted behind the bedhead.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Diega tried to reassure her.

A few long seconds passed before a very high, proper voice came from behind the bed, speaking Urigin with a heavy clicking insect accent.

“Go away, please.”

Diega felt a surge of relief that she actually understood her. Urigin was supposed to be the universal language, but Diega had wondered. “I will, I promise – I just need to ask some directions and then I’ll go.”

Two huge beetle-black eyes peeked around the bed-leg, followed by a face with red dots on each cheek.

“I’m a traveler,” Diega said, realizing that to let on she was utterly lost and unarmed could be a very bad idea. “I took a wrong turn and lost track of my companion. Have you seen a tall human-breed man, with purple and blue viper bloodlines? He has scars on his face … Have you seen him?”

The beetle girl shook her head then nodded straight after.

“You haven’t?”

The beetle nodded then shook.

“You have?”

The beetle shook then nodded.

“You haven’t?”

She nodded then shook again.

“So have you or haven’t you?” Diega demanded, her frustration rising fast.

The beetle girl shrugged.

“For the love of …” Shawe’s voice bellowed from the shrubs.

“Love?” the beetle squeaked. “Did that tree say
love
?”

Diega paused, then tried, “I think so.”

The insect-breed gave a small smile and lifted a gloved hand to hide it.

“Wait, please,” she said, then seized the lump in the bed and shook it violently, saying, “Wake up, Tickleback. Let Hypnos dance alone,” then in a much less dignified voice, “Wake up, Fool!”

The grass cover on the bed rolled back and a sleep-dazed creature emerged. He sat up and fixed Diega with emerald eyes, even larger than his companion’s. In a sudden flurry of fine, intricately veined wings and long gangly limbs, he sprang up, giving Diega a clear view of heavily muscled shoulders sloping down to a very thin waist and legs. The creature – the dragonfly – made a nervous gulping sound, hurriedly straightening his bow tie with one set of arms while trying to brush the grass off his suit with another. He tried to talk but coughed instead, sending a spray of sparks bursting into the air. He covered his mouth with all four of his hands and the beetle cast him a prudish look of disapproval.

She cleared her throat and introduced them, “I am Trilly Byrd of the cluster Nolly-Nolly and this —”

The dragonfly cut in, speaking in a deep, slow voice, “I am Tickleback Ickabod, Pond Odious, clan of the Devil’s Darning Needles.”

“Great – and I’m Diega Bluejay,” Diega rushed the introduction then said, “I need to know – have either of you seen a human-breed man? Viper marks, scarred-up skin, dark eyes.”

“Please wait,” Trilly said again, then spoke to her companion in wing buzzes. He responded and they seemed to start arguing in clicks and taps that went on for a long time. Diega squeezed her eyelids shut, willing them to hurry up, trying to stay calm while time ticked loud in her mind. She expected Shawe to come bursting out of the bushes and crack their skulls together at any moment.

Finally Tickleback spoke, his small antennae swiveling. “We were told two stranger men like this had passed through Dallybrush some sets ago.”

Diega’s skin prickled. He was here – still alive. “What’s a set?” she asked. “And where’s Dallybrush?”

Trilly spoke fast. “Sun set to moon set – one set, don’t you know?”

“Days?” Diega guessed. It wasn’t possible that days had passed since Copernicus was seen here – they’d only just arrived.

She spoke her thoughts to the insect-breeds and Tickleback said, “Maybe you came through at separate time spaces?”

“Came through?” Diega said. “How do you mean?”

“The portal,” he said. “You are not from here.” His eyes moved over her.

“Where
is
here?” she asked, most of her not wanting to hear the answer.

“Rambeldon Forest,” he said.

“On Aquais?” she ventured.

The insects looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison.

“Praterius,” Tickleback said.

Diega knew it was coming, but still felt a dizzying jolt of shock.
We’re on another planet.

“Do you know which way this man was headed?” she managed to ask.

Tickleback nodded, but Trilly shook her head and said to the dragonfly between gritted teeth, “Don’t say anything!”

Tickleback ignored her and said, “We were told he were taken by …” he lowered his voice to the quietest whisper possible, “… the Neridori.”

“The Neridori?” Diega repeated aloud.

“Oh my!” Trilly squealed and both creatures buzzed their wings in a nervous whir. Their agitation passed quickly to the trees that swayed and rustled without any breeze.

“Please don’t say that too loud,” Tickleback whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Diega said. “Just tell me how to get to these —” she lowered her voice “— Neridori, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“They live in the Blackwater Forest past Wishing-Well Woods. It are very hard to find – a very long way if you don’t know shortcuts,” the dragonfly said.

“Is there anyone around here who could show me the way?” Diega asked them.

Tickleback took her in with deep, solemn eyes. “I know a way through the forest. I —”

Trilly interrupted with an impatient clap of her wings. “But we can’t take you. It’s far too dangerous – far, far too dangerous. We cannot go to Blackwater – no, no, no, no, no!” She stamped one petite foot. “We are not going anywhere.”

Tickleback continued where he’d left off. “— I can take you there.”

Trilly clapped her wings again and the dragonfly turned to her, saying in his slow, calm voice, “This friend needs our help and I will help her. We will do what is right.” He turned back to Diega. “We will take you as far as we can.”

Diega nodded with gratitude, but had no intention of letting her guard down. No one helped anyone without reason.

The dragonfly took a battered top hat from under the grass cover and perched it on his head.

“Follow Tickleback.” He beckoned with all four hands.

Diega said, “Wait. There’s someone else with me.”

She heard Shawe standing up in the shrubs behind her.

Trilly gasped and scuttled backward, but Tickleback just nodded to Shawe and said in his gentle way, “Morning greetings, friend.”

Shawe, ever the skillful diplomat, grunted a surly reply that sounded like “Trutt off”.

“Follow Tickleback,” the insect-breed repeated.

He gestured for Trilly to go first. She clacked angrily, then turned with a rustle of her billowing gown and set off. Tickleback whirred his wings and lifted off the ground, his long, thick tail balancing him like a rudder. He beckoned again and flew after his companion. Diega and Shawe exchanged a look and trudged after them.