The Dead Gentleman (17 page)

“I should have been here,” he said, finally. “I should have been here to fight with them.”

Bernard started to say something, but I waved him quiet. I could see what the Captain was going through, and nothing we could say would help him. We all suspected the same thing—the Academy was lost. As complicated as his relationship with the other Explorers was, they were still his family, and the Academy was his home. Odds were, that was all gone.

For the first time, I understood the Captain perfectly. He was an orphan now, just like me.

“I’m going in to see what I can find out,” he said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. You two keep guard here until then. If there’s more trouble than I can handle, I’ll send Merlin back through, and then you two are to close this gate, take him and the
Nautilus
and get as far away from here as possible.”

He handed me a metal ball the size of my fist. “This is called a mayfly. It’s a bomb that is used to collapse portals. If Merlin comes through without me, you twist here.” He indicated a very subtle hinge along the circumference of the ball. “Then give it a hard shake. That twist wakes the explosive mechanism inside, and the shake makes it mad for extra effect. Toss it inside the portal and run. You’ll have about three minutes of angry buzzing before the thing goes off. It’ll seal this portal up tight.”

Then I did the darnedest thing. I saluted. Surprised myself
and just about gave the Captain a heart attack, judging by the wide-eyed shock on his face. But then, with a pleased grin, he saluted back.

“Good men,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Two hours later and Scott still hadn’t returned. I’d scuffed a very clear set of boot marks along the floor with my endless pacing. For some reason I felt compelled to keep checking the window, even though I knew that if any enemies were coming for us, they wouldn’t come from the street. It was just a place to look
other
than that hideous bear’s mouth—the open portal.

Bernard picked up a book, but I noticed he never turned the pages.

“How long has it been now?” I asked.

“Exactly two minutes later than when you asked last time,” answered Bernard, not even bothering to look at his chronometer.

“He’s in trouble,” I said.

Bernard didn’t say anything.

I grabbed my Tesla Stick and planted myself in front of the Stitch-Golem. The dark tunnel was visible just beyond the Golem’s teeth. And beyond that, I knew, was the Academy.

“If you are thinking of going in after him, just forget it,” Bernard said. “Captain Scott was very clear in his orders.”

Bernard was right, of course. The Captain had been clear. Dead serious, in fact.

“We just need to wait,” Bernard was saying. “If he was in trouble, he’d have sent Merlin.”

No sooner had the words escaped Bernard’s mouth than a flickering, fluttering flash of brass came ricocheting through the darkness of the portal mouth. It was Merlin, and he was alone.

The bird flew in a tight circle around my head, squawking
out a tune of short, troubled whistles that I knew too well. After a few frantic minutes, I managed to calm him down enough that he settled on my shoulder. But his head continued to pivot worriedly, back and forth on tiny hinges.

“The Captain?” I asked.

Merlin gave a swift nod.

“He still alive?”

The bird didn’t nod, but he didn’t shake his head, either. He just blinked at me. Scott was in trouble, but whether he was alive or dead, Merlin didn’t know.

I took the mayfly out of my pocket. It was heavy for its small size. Unusually solid.

“Here,” I said, tossing it to Bernard. He let out a little yelp as he made an awkward catch with both hands.

“Merlin, can you show me where you saw the Captain last?”

The bird nodded back.

“I’m going,” I said. “Same rules apply—if I get in over my head, I’ll send Merlin back and then you use the mayfly to seal up the portal.”

Bernard looked at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “You’re going to leave me behind? What if you need help? This is not the Captain’s plan!” he said. I could tell that Bernard was torn between his concern for the Captain and his fear of what was on the other side of that portal. I made it easy for him.

“I work better alone,” I said. “New plan.”

“What new plan?”

I shrugged as I hefted my Tesla Stick and stepped through the Stitch-Golem’s mouth. “I’ll let you know when I get back. Making this all up as I go!”

When Merlin and I emerged into the Academy, it was night.
But I’m used to sneaking around in the dark, and I hadn’t gone two steps before I spotted a patrol of black-robed Grave Walkers armed with some kind of long sickle knives. The Dead Gentleman’s foot soldiers. If there had been any doubt as to who had attacked the Hidden City, it was gone now. Luckily, the cultists seemed to dress for effect and not effectiveness, and the large horse-skull masks they wore looked stupidly hot and cumbersome. I could hear their ragged, gasping breathing long before they marched into view. Merlin was normally an excellent scout and could smell danger the way I could smell an overfull coin purse, but something here had overloaded the little bird’s senses. Whatever evil those Grave Walkers had brought with them, it now permeated every inch of the Hidden City. Merlin couldn’t pinpoint the danger because danger was everywhere.

I didn’t see a single Explorer—not alive, anyway. A few had been piled up against buildings to clear the walkways, but most were just left where they’d fallen. Some still held weapons in their dead hands. The grand marble columns of their ancient Academy were mostly toppled and blackened with scorch marks. Only the rose-stone Tower Library appeared intact, but ominous wet stains fouled the steps leading to its doors.

I swallowed the urge to get sick and hunkered down behind an overturned column while we waited for the patrol of Grave Walkers to pass. Once they were out of sight, I whispered to Merlin. “Okay, which way to the Captain?”

The bird surprised me by pointing his beak away from the Library, to the main promenade that led out from the Academy and into the old part of the Hidden City. The deserted city of the monks.

“What?” I began. “Why would Scott head that way …”

Then it dawned on me. The High Father. The High Father’s Inner Chamber was out there. Upon seeing the masses of Grave Walkers patrolling the Academy grounds, the Captain had decided to check on the High Father, hoping his remote Chamber might have been overlooked.

But he hadn’t made it that far.

With Merlin perched on my shoulder, I made my way out of the Academy and into the winding streets beyond. Unlike the straight lines and tall arches of the Explorers’ classical Earth architecture, the Hidden City was a twisting maze of enormous, inverted ziggurats. It looked like someone had uprooted all the pyramids of Egypt and balanced them, precariously, upside down on their points. As I snuck my way through the shadows of that alien place, I couldn’t help but fear that the whole thing would come toppling down at any second. It just wasn’t … natural. But then, few things were anymore.

Soon I was thoroughly and completely lost, although Merlin insisted that we were headed in the right direction. We rounded a bend and stopped at a gated trapdoor set into the floor of an open square. Empty crates and barrels were stacked nearby, and I wondered if this might have been some kind of grain silo once used by the monks. The cultists, however, had apparently decided that it’d work better as a place to store the leftover bits. In the dim moonlight I could see that it was full of dead Grave Walkers. They must have been using the place as a sort of mass grave for their fallen comrades. I’d just started to back away when Merlin began digging his claws into my shoulder. Someone was coming. I listened closely and heard footsteps. There were two streets out of this square, and cultists were coming down both of them. I was caught, with nowhere to run. Already I could hear the heavy,
tired breathing of their horse-skull masks getting closer. I had only one choice.

I’d barely closed the trapdoor above me when the first Grave Walker appeared. I clung to the underside of the grill, my hands and feet wrapped around the bars like a sloth. Merlin held on next to me, but it was easier for the little bird. Below us was a twenty-foot drop that ended in a pile of bodies. I just prayed that I wouldn’t be adding my corpse to it.

Above us, the first of the Grave Walkers stepped onto the trapdoor. His heavy-booted foot missed my fingers by less than an inch. Already my hands were burning from the strain; after a few minutes my biceps started to tremble. Another joined his companion up top.

As the second cultist joined his friend, I had to unwind a foot from the grill or get stepped on. Now I was dangling by my hands and one foot. My fingers felt like they might snap, but still the Grave Walkers wouldn’t move. I heard their muffled voices hissing to each other from behind those grotesque masks. In a ridiculous, idle thought I wondered what cultists’ small talk consisted of. The cleanest way to cut open a sacrifice? Funereal fashions? At least it was a way to keep my panic at bay.

“Tommmmy …”

Something spoke my name in a low moan, barely audible. At first I thought it came from one of the Grave Walkers, but when it spoke a second time, I realized it was coming from below. From the pile of corpses at the bottom of the pit.

“Tommmmmy …” Something was crawling around down there as it called out to me. The dead were moving and they knew my name.

“Tommmmy …” The voice grew louder, more desperate.

I closed my eyes tight, but I could picture it reaching for me, waiting for me to fall.

A Grave Walker took a single step to the side and onto my left hand. My fingers crunched beneath his heel, but to my credit I managed not to cry out. I did not, however, manage to hang on.

I landed on what felt like a pile of wet leaves. But I knew that there were no leaves down here, just bloated, rotten bodies underneath rotten clothes. Hands grabbed me, pulling at me. I couldn’t bear to look, so with my eyes still shut I kicked with all my strength. I wouldn’t go without a fight.

“Tommy—oof!”

I stopped kicking. That “oof” sounded familiar. I’d heard it several times before—often in the moments before having to rescue my mentor from yet another tight spot.

When I opened one eye, my fear was quickly replaced with a mix of joy and sinking guilt. There was Captain Scott, purpled and yellowed with bruises and cuts, but alive. He’d obviously been beaten badly, and he was dabbing at a fresh cut on his lower lip where I had just kicked him.

“Ouch,” the Captain said.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “Thought you were a corpse.”

“Perfectly all right. I probably look the part.”

The Captain’s voice had a wet, wheezing sound to it that I didn’t like, like someone on the edge of a cough. That voice worried me more than all the cuts and bruises. I started to look around.

“Don’t,” Scott cautioned. “Just focus on what’s above you. Try not to think about what’s beneath.”

I nodded, then winced as something gave way under my foot. A pop and a squishing sound.

“How’d you get here?” I asked, trying to keep my mind on other things.

“I should ask the same of you,” he said, eyeing Merlin as he fluttered down from his perch and rested on the Captain’s shoulder. The bird innocently set about cleaning a bit of grime from its shining feathers.

“I should’ve left Bernard in charge,” he said.

“Wouldn’t have stopped me,” I answered, and I was glad when he smiled.

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.”

He shifted his weight and groaned suddenly in pain. He was hurt worse than he looked.

“I found the High Father, but then the Grave Walkers found us both. I fought them off until he’d had a chance to escape. Then they threw me in here. Probably think it’ll soften me up for a bit of interrogation. They’re after Merlin, Tommy. They think we delivered him to the Council, but they’ll soon realize their mistake.”

“So it’s begun?” I asked. “The Dead Gentleman is really coming?”

The Captain nodded. “This was just his first move. The opening skirmish in a much larger war.”

“Then we have to go,” I said. “We have to get out of here, now!”

“Tommy.” The Captain put his hand on my shoulder. “Before we were separated, the High Father said something to me. He told me to ask
you
a question.”

“Me? I don’t even know him!”

“All the same, he mentioned you by name. He said to ask you,
Are you the flea that skitters or the flea that bites?
Do you have any idea what that means?”

“What? No! It’s a bunch of gibberish! A flea, for crying out loud.”

“Tommy, the High Father is the wisest mind in the universe. He knows the past, the present and the future! His words should never be taken lightly.”

Scott looked at me for a long moment, then he took a small folding comb out of his breast pocket and set about smoothing his tangled mustache. He looked absurd sitting there atop a pile of dead bodies, covered in filth, tending to his out-of-place whiskers. But that was the Captain. I figure you don’t get to be his age, and see the things he’s seen, without earning a few eccentricities along the way.

“Well,” he said after a time. “How to get out of here, then? We still need to escape from this hellish place. Any ideas?”

I stood up, careful to keep my balance on the unsteady “ground” beneath my feet. “Do you have any rope?” I asked.

“Always,” Scott answered. “Ah, I get your point—Merlin can fly the cord up to the top. But even if we can climb out, there are those guards up there. They wander off every now and then but they’re never gone for long. How do you propose we deal with them?”

I pulled the Tesla Stick from my belt and gave it a flick of the wrist, extending it to its full length. Cool, crackling electricity shimmered up and down its length. Despite the mess of corpses under us, and the horror all around us, I found myself grinning.

“Let’s answer the High Father’s question,” I said. “I’m the flea that bites!”