The Forgotten City (37 page)

H
e was buried, crushed beneath a ton of earth, with chains biting into his wrists. He couldn’t turn his head and each gasp only clogged his mouth and nose with more mud. Panic paralyzed him. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. There was no escape.

A hand punched through the dirt and grabbed him by the face, wrenching him up out of his grave. Fingers cleared his mouth and he gasped, blinking up at Christy Shawe.

“Mate, you’re a sorry trutting sight,” Christy laughed.

Copernicus’ eyes snapped open and he gasped in a mouthful of water. It tasted rusty like blood. He spat it back out immediately, his senses telling him he was underwater and enclosed on all sides by a spongy matter. He grabbed a handful of the slimy substance and ripped. It tore easily enough and seemed to shrink around him as he fought his way out into the open water. A massive blur of body-heat rushed in at him and he kicked backward to avoid the impact. The body of a huge reptilian creature brushed past him and, with a moment’s thought, he seized onto it, grabbing the spikes of its back. It sliced through the water, dragging him upward.

As they neared the surface light, Copernicus felt an intense flare of heat. He immediately recognized the vibration patterns,
Shawe, Diega, K-Ruz
, and there were others as well –
Omarians
. Even before he broke the surface, Copernicus was ready for what he would see. As the crocodile lunged out of the water, Copernicus threw himself onto the gigantic reptilian’s back. He ran along the length of its body and onto its head. It snapped up at him, propelling him high into the air. As he fell, he caught fragments of the scene on the bank below – the rainbow flare of Diega’s skin, Shawe’s savage grin, the flash of Caesar’s eyes and the Omarian firebird bloodline mark. While still airborne, Copernicus grabbed for his blade, but his hand came up empty, his belt gone. He landed in the middle of the fight with no weapon, so he sank his fangs into the first Omarian within his grasp. The warrior collapsed and the others attacked, dropping their control over Caesar and Shawe – a fatal error.

Shawe struck first, landing a devastating blow to one Omarian’s head. Caesar’s claws dispatched another two with frightening speed. Copernicus heard the drone of light-form vision trying to lock onto him and he thought
not this time
. He knew their strengths and was ready for them. He murmured an Illusionist enchant and vanished from sight. He moved fast, rolling behind Diega and grabbing the blades from her belt. He threw them, taking out another three. He spoke a second enchant, and changed his and the others’ appearance to Omarian, sending their attackers into deep confusion. They turned on each other, their defenses broken. Caesar and Shawe didn’t need a written invitation, annihilating the fire-wielders until only one remained.

The lone Omarian panicked and snatched a small painting out of his jacket. He cried out the words, “Behind the red star smiles the darkness – Omar Montanya!”

Copernicus smashed him to the ground, seizing the portal as it started to open, light blasting into the darkness around them.

“Grab on!” he shouted, extending his hand to the others. Diega moved first, Caesar moved faster and Shawe lunged last – hitting him like a mass-mover at the last second before they were all dragged through the portal.

C
roy circled over her house, scoping it out for trouble, but the gridway running alongside her neighborhood was all but empty. She gestured to Castor and they both swooped down to park at the side of the house. Croy’s hands were trembling, so much emotion crashing through her that she felt ready to explode. The only thought keeping her from breaking down was finding her partner. The only way she knew, without having to go and steal an I-Sect, was for Shah-Jahan to call him through the
rete
. She didn’t completely understand how it worked, but she understood enough to feel the connection between her, the twins and the Dray, like a web or a net binding them together. If Darius was half-Dray, as the files she’d found indicated, he’d be able to hear it. He wouldn’t understand it, but maybe she could send him a message through the Dray captain. The truth behind Darius’ uncanny ability of knowing exactly where she was at any given time suddenly became clear. She’d always thought it was partner intuition, but it was the Dray connection they shared.

She edged through the front door of her house. Shah-Jahan was still sitting in the same chair. His skin had paled even more, trickles of blood still running down his neck from the puncture wounds of the head cage. He raised his dark eyes to Croy and she froze, seeing herself reflected back and behind her – Darius. She turned to face her partner. He held the aim of his Predator 6 on Shah-Jahan, not dropping it an inch as Kisslefish and Castor, carrying Kellor, barged in on her heels. Castor saw Shah-Jahan and had an immediate reaction. He ran to him and fell down at his feet, cradling his sister and crying. Kisslefish just stared and said, “Whoa.”

Darius never took his eyes off Croy’s and she saw so many emotions running through him, the strongest of them betrayal. It cut deeply inside her. He didn’t understand yet.

“I went to the Tower to look for you,” she said. “I lost my I-Sect.”

“And I came here looking for you,” he replied, his voice burning ice.

“Darry – listen to me – let me tell you —”

“Tell me what?” he shouted. “I was worried about you! I came here and found this – thing!” He stabbed his gun toward Shah-Jahan. “You know what they did to my —” the words choked him “— to my parents.”

His eyes went to Shah-Jahan and Croy could see Darius was going to shoot him. He’d lost his control.

“No!” She put herself in between them. “You don’t understand!”

“What’s not to understand?” Darius said. “Everything you say is a lie! Do I know you at all? You’re all I have! I love you!” He pointed the Predator to his own head. “Him or me!”

“Darry,” Croy whispered. She started shaking.

“Him or me? Choose! Now!” His finger tested the trigger.

Croy saw only one way to save both Darius and Shah-Jahan. She grabbed VP’s gun out of her jacket, put it to her head and fired.

E
li ran into the hangar, colliding with Penman. The little 0318 was beside himself, beeping frantically. He grabbed onto Eli with every tentacle he had and dragged him toward Jude and SevenM. Diamond and Flintlock were standing beside the stretcher, trying to help the Ar Antarian, but the lines of poison had crept over his face and he was convulsing with brain trauma. There was no time left. Eli ripped the severed Omarian hand out of his bag and plunged a needle into it to extract some blood.

“Too slow!” Ismail said, limping to them. “Here,” he grabbed the hand off Eli and threw it to Flintlock, saying, “Crush it. Over the wound!”

Flintlock’s eyes went to Eli for confirmation and he nodded, ripping away the bandages over Jude’s injury.

The Corámorán squeezed the severed limb in one huge fist, completely pulverizing it. Gore poured down over the gaping stab wound. Eli was so panicked that he didn’t even register the foulness of the task – he just wanted Jude to stop thrashing, to open his eyes, to be okay …

For a moment nothing changed and Eli couldn’t breathe around the terror that they hadn’t been quick enough, or that it wasn’t enough blood to work – but then Jude slumped down, still.

The wound started fizzing and bubbling and the healing came rapidly, almost instantaneously. The blood dried up and the flesh and skin closed over. The poison lines retreated, fading to nothing. Eli grabbed an oxygen mask off the bench and held it over Jude’s mouth and nose and the Ar Antarian started to blink. SevenM struggled up onto his legs as Jude opened his vivid blue eyes. Eli found himself too numb with shock to cry. He just stood and stared at him, afraid to move in case he was dreaming.

Jude sat up, his eyes going to Eli. He started to say something, but stopped abruptly. Instead he jumped off the stretcher and grabbed Eli into a crushing hug, his metal arms wrapped tightly around Eli’s wings. Penman had swooped SevenM up in the air with joy.

Eli gasped out, not realizing he’d been holding his breath the whole time and then he started laughing and couldn’t stop as tears rolled down his face.

“You’re naked,” he said to Jude. “This would be so awkward if I wasn’t so happy to see you!”

Jude laughed, thumping him on the back. Eli felt someone else hugging him as well and had a strange moment of thinking it was Ismail, but then he felt Diamond’s hands pickpocketing him.

Jude stepped back and wrapped a sheet around himself, while Eli turned to the others. He felt sluggish with fatigue, as though he was emerging from a dream. He spotted Luther and Moses lying on another stretcher in the shadows and ran over to them. Luther’s eyes flickered open weakly as Eli crouched down beside them, patting Moses’ coat and feeling the wolf breathing.

“How do you feel?” Eli asked the Midnight Man.

He gestured
okay
and even attempted a toothy smile. It made Eli remember what he’d seen in Ezra Quartermaine’s laboratory – the spectral-breed experiments, the pain and death. He wasn’t sure Luther had been part of it, but he felt the pieces fitted.

“Luther …” Eli paused, searching for the words he wanted to say to this man who had been willing to throw down his life to save him – on more than one occasion. “You know how I was lecturing you about what to do to seem normal?”

Luther gave a nod.

“Forget everything I said. Just be yourself … You don’t need to change at all. I like you exactly how you are.”

Luther stared at Eli with his unblinking snake eyes, then he opened his mouth and spoke with one of those deep, mellow voices that make women all breathless. “Thank you.”

“You can talk!” Eli said. “I can’t believe you can talk. Why haven’t you been talking?”

Luther gestured,
I prefer not to …

“Okay,” Eli said, smiling at him. “Whatever you prefer …”

Eli felt Jude’s hand on his shoulder and turned to face his friend. He already knew what Jude’s first question would be and was dreading it.

“Silho?” Jude’s blazing blue eyes cut straight to Eli’s heart. “Diega?”

Eli rose slowly, his whole body feeling weak. His eyes lifted to Ismail, standing behind them, and the scullion gave a nod of support. “We tried everything to get a portal –
everything
…” His hand rummaged in his pocket and drew out the fragments of canvas he’d gathered up. “Destroyed,” he whispered and Jude’s eyes clouded with pain.

A bomb blast trembled the hangar, clanking bottles together and overturning equipment on the benches. Jude took one of the pieces of painting and held it up. “They look like the pictures on Silho’s neck and back.”

The words made something click in Eli’s mind. He had been thinking the same thing when he’d seen the painting in Adliden –
it looks like Silho’s skin
– but at the time he’d been too distracted to focus on what that might mean. He recalled reading that only male Omarians could paint the portals …

“Because females
are
portals,” Eli finished his thoughts aloud, and all the others looked at him.

Another missile struck a nearby building and they heard the roar and felt the quake as it imploded and crashed to the ground.

“Get under cover!” Eli said. He bolted over to Nelly’s enclosure and opened the door. She jumped out at him, terrified and furious and overjoyed to see him. He gave her a quick kiss, and she burrowed into his pocket as he ran to where the others were hiding beneath one of his bolted-down workbenches. He slid under it, the hangar lights flickering and dimming. Flintlock was too big to fit under the bench, so she had to half-sprawl with her legs sticking out. Eli’s mind went into overdrive and he spoke rapidly.

“With the painted portals, you need the picture and you need the access enchant. Maybe it’s the same with Silho, we need to find out the words to access her.”

“How?” Jude demanded.

“I don’t have the faintest, but —”

A piece of paper, with one line of writing, dangled in front of his face and he read the words in his mind –
In my mother’s house are many mansions – Silho Brabel
. It was the paper Silho had found at Englan Chrisholm’s place. Eli remembered the commander had given it to him to run tests before everything fell apart.

“I may have borrowed this from your pocket while we were in the desert,” Diamond said sheepishly. “It’s definitely an enchant.”

“This is it!” Eli said, taking the paper. He couldn’t believe it. They’d gone into every nightmare hole in the entire city searching for a portal, and the answer had been with them all along. He just hoped it wasn’t too late. He looked up at Jude and saw hope in his friend’s face.

A third bomb shook the entire hangar, exploding some of the lights. Diamond gripped Eli’s arm.

“Should I just say the words?” he asked the group and Ismail said, “Do it! Otherwise there won’t be any city left to bring them back to.”

Jude nodded in agreement. “Read it out,” he said.

Eli gulped and held up the paper.

A
tidal wave of brutal heat smashed over them, driving Diega to her knees, her hands shielding her face. Through her fingers she glimpsed an ocean of glowing orange and black molten lava surging all around them. Someone grasped her shoulder and wrenched her backward. Diega sprawled out, putting her hands down, the surface searing her skin. She scrambled up, only then realizing the full horror of their situation. They had landed on a sinking piece of volcanic rock in the middle of a lava river, and she had been crouching precariously close to the edge. The thought sent the blood rushing through her. She coughed, squinting through the sulfur- and ash-choked air. Beside her Copernicus still gripped her arm, his eyes streaming from the intensity of the heat, sweat pouring down his bare chest. A pillar of black steam billowed up suddenly beside their floating rock, followed immediately by a roaring lava geyser. It shot up into the air, raining sparks down on their heads. They got onto Caesar’s skin and he cursed, hitting at them and unbalancing the rock. Shawe, standing at the front, managed to steady them. He was looking around, his face impassive, as though they were in any bar in Greenway and not on a boat ride through hell.

“When you three ladies have finished crying and jigging about,” he said, “we’ll get off this rock.”

His eyes went to Diega. The sparks were burning into her as well, but she refused to show pain in front of him. He just smiled as though he knew it.

They passed under a burned-out husk of a tree and Shawe grabbed for a branch. He cracked it off and shoved it down hard into the lava. It worked as a rudder, propelling them sideways, where they smashed into the side of the river. They all saw the opportunity and made a leap for it, landing the jump, but barely. Once they were off, the rock bobbed away, staying afloat for several seconds before upending and sinking out of sight. Shawe turned to Copernicus with an outstretched hand.

“You riding a trutting crocodile out of that river. Absolutely bloody priceless, mate. Saving your trutting skin was worth it just for that sight.”

Copernicus grasped his hand and Shawe slapped him on the other arm, and that was as emotional as things were going to get between them. Diega, on the other hand, felt like she’d just jumped off a cliff. Copernicus was here. He was alive. She wanted to grab hold of him, but held back. He turned to look at her, and his eyes said everything that he couldn’t.

She held up his weapon belt and he lifted his arms, letting her clip it back in place. With their eyes locked, she felt as though the world had gone back to rights, at least for this one moment in time.

“What happened?” she asked him. “We didn’t think the algae had worked.”

“Wasn’t the algae,” Christy spoke up. “It was the fire-breather’s blood.”

He turned his back and rolled his shoulder to show where he’d been wounded, both now completely healed.

“As soon as the blood hit me, I felt them closing over.”

“I saw it happen,” Caesar confirmed. “And I saw blood splatter the algae.”

“Lucky for you,” Shawe said to Copernicus.

“There’s no such thing as luck,” Caesar said, regarding Copernicus with his dark-rimmed eyes. “The Great God saw you save my son. It’s said a man who saves a child’s life will come before God’s eyes and be forever in his sight. He repaid you – life for life.”

“What a load of trutt!” Shawe said. “He’d be fertilizing flowers if we hadn’t carried him halfway across the universe – you and me, not God.”

“The Great God worked through us,” Caesar said.

“I worked for myself,” Christy insisted. “Always have, always will.”

“Each time I believe that I cannot possibly think less of you, you open your mouth and it happens again,” the Pride King growled.

“Suck it,” Christy said, grabbing his own crotch.

“Enough,” Copernicus intervened. “We’re on the Omarians’ planet. They have Silho here somewhere.”

Diega cast her eyes across the barren rock plain behind them. It stretched all the way into the distance to the surrounding volcanic mountains, all spewing a constant blazing stream of lava. Everything was black and scorched, even the orange sun. Diega realized, with a jolt, that the darkness was here as well – she could feel it – the Indemeus X, spreading like a heavy sickness creeping over the land. She looked up into the sky and gasped as her Ohini Fen powers rushed back to her. This was a new planet with daylight stars, the source of her Fen skills. Their glowing forms were concealed from her behind thick layers of smog and ash, but they were still there and they filled her with strength. She grabbed her broken blade out of her weapon belt and morphed it back together. The relief was almost overwhelming. She felt as if her hands had been untied.

The three men were surveying their surroundings.

“It’s this way,” Caesar said, tasting the air. “I can hear voices …”

“They must be in your head, then, because my hearing is just as good as yours as I can’t hear anything,” Shawe said.

Caesar looked him up and down. “You’re profoundly deluded if you think your senses are anywhere close to mine.”

“Profoundly – that’s a big word for you, kitty,” Shawe mocked him.

“I usually try and keep things simple for you,” Caesar returned.

“I said
enough
,” Copernicus repeated.

“I’ll say when it’s enough,” Caesar growled.

“No,
I
will say when it’s enough!” Shawe bellowed.

Diega shook her head – men and their trutting egos. She sidestepped them and walked out across to the edge of the black rock plateau ahead of them. In the far distance, the ragged silhouette of a castle loomed high into the burned sky. Lava was bubbling up from the turrets of the castle and pouring down the sides of the monstrous structure. Diega glanced back at the men, still arguing. They could stay here. She’d go and get Silho herself.

She started climbing down a crumbling black rock slope to another open plain below them. Soon the sound of voices was replaced by bootsteps as the men appeared behind her. Caesar and Shawe were pathetic enough to be trying to outwalk each other. Copernicus’ normally smooth stride was still slightly dragging. Though his body had recovered, there was no doubting he’d taken a hit. Diega spotted a skeleton laid out on the rocks not far from where they walked. The dimensions and shape of the bones she’d only ever seen in museums.

“Dragon?” she murmured.

“Diega! Fall left!” Copernicus suddenly shouted. She threw herself sideways and rolled as a blast of volcanic fire burst up from the ground right where she’d been standing. She scrambled back up, then felt the ground tremble, fall still, then tremble again.

“Footsteps,” Copernicus said, reading the vibration. “Something huge, moving fast in our direction.”

“Keep going to the castle,” Caesar said, turning toward the sound. “I’ll hold it back.”

“If kitty’s staying then so am I,” Shawe put in. “I’m not having him making me look gutless.”

They both drew their blades – two enemies, standing side by side – two of the most powerful men of Scorpia, and two complete idiots. There wasn’t time for final words. She and Copernicus just took off.

It was almost impossible to run in such extreme heat, but they attempted it, and as they closed in on the castle, Copernicus said, “Primary plan for entry, I’ll use an enchant to disguise us as Omarian soldiers. Back-up plan – vanishing enchant, you morphing their weapons and then brute force.”

“Understood,” Diega replied, feeling back in her element.

But when they reached the narrow bridge stretching to the castle gates, they found it completely unguarded. They ran the entire way up and into an entrance hall without seeing a single soul. Diega thought either the Omarians never had intruders here, or she and Copernicus were about to get ambushed. She hoped they would find some relief from the crippling heat inside the veils of shadow shrouding the castle, but if anything it was worse, as though they’d stepped inside a giant oven. The walls were too hot even to touch.

A distant bestial scream sent a spike of fear through her. She turned to Copernicus, who had his eyes closed, sending his senses out around him.

“Can you see her?” Diega asked him.

He shook his head and Diega hoped it only meant he was weakened and not the other option.

Their eyes met.

“Split up. If you find her first, take her and get out,” Copernicus ordered.

“Same,” she said.

He didn’t agree – just turned and vanished down one corridor, while Diega took another.