Chapter 24

  Heidi Sheppard

  ZA: Have you not wondered why we failed to complete our Narrative?

  HS: Not really.

  ZA: We lost our key.

  HS: The dark key?

  ZA: Yes. Abraham Black took it from the Dark Ruler. And then he disappeared.

  HS: How did he disappear?

  ZA: We do not know.

  ZA: Derxis came back from the future to save us. Then we lost our second chance.

  HS: And why are you telling me this?

  ZA: I want you to be careful with Abraham Black.

  HS: He’s dangerous, yes I know, everyone has made sure to tell me.

  HS: But everything here is dangerous.

  HS: He’s not that different from any of my guards.

  HS: He’s not even totally on board with the Dark World.

  ZA: I know.

  ZA: I admit, you do seem more thoughtful than Akkama.

  HS: The burning god?

  ZA: And you are clearly used to dealing with dangerous beings.

  ZA: Even our Narrative did not contain a world of monsters such as Orpheus.

  HS: What exactly are you worried I’m going to do with Abraham?

  ZA: I am worried that you will be tempted to manipulate him.

  HS: Manipulate?

  ZA: He is fond of you.

  HS: What are you talking about? We’ve met only a few times.

  ZA: And you are still alive.

  HS: So?

  ZA: Believe me when I say that that is an extraordinary record.

  HS: Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t understand.

  HS: Abraham isn’t a monster.

  ZA: Perhaps.

  ZA: I have a theory.

  ZA: With a sample size of only two it hardly deserves even that title. ‘Speculation’ would be more suitable.

  ZA: I wonder if that is the meaning of having a black angel.

  ZA: That it signifies a connection to Abraham Black.

  ZA: Or perhaps it merely signifies the most dangerous hero, to whom Black is naturally drawn.

  HS: I think you are reading too much into everything

  ZA: It is possible.

  ZA: Likely, even.

  ZA: I don’t do much these days besides read.

  ZA: They are calling me the Blind Librarian.

  ZA: Carry on, Heidi Sheppard. Your former captive seems to desire a word.

  Heidi cut the connection with a tap on her earpiece and sighed. Abraham this, Black that. She knew he was dangerous, okay? But what in Orpheus wasn’t ? And like her guards, he wasn’t dangerous to her, Heidi. She could tell.

  She stood at the prow of the repurposed Almost Victorious as her guard wrapped up final preparations for launch. They were calling it OPEC 1, the first Orpheus Prison Exploratory Craft. It had been heavily modified for deep diving into the core of the Metal Moon. It was the largest craft ever to be designed for such a journey. Crushing lorn, vicious gravitational tides, and of course innumerable spikes sharp as razors and hard as steel all necessitated a unique design. It had to be strong, very strong, but also flexible, because no amount of structural strength mattered when caught between two colliding lorn the size of New Caledonia. OPEC 1 could break apart into smaller, more agile modules if necessary. It would be crewed by eight guards, with additional room for passengers and cargo. Luki had been elected as captain because of his experience in the depths and his able command during the test run. The Almost Victorious came equipped with weapons, lights, rations, clickers for confusing the rue, an angel, a Hero of Gravity, an eye-thief, and a cursed witch.

  Heidi watched the guards hurry about below. They moved casually over a landing area still scored with the marks of the battle against Lady Chains. Lady Chains had not been seen after that engagement. Had she perished out in the dangerous wilds of the Metal Moon? If not, had she received the memo from her patron god that she wasn’t supposed to kill the heroes anymore?

  A low, throaty chirp sounded behind her. It was Cazzie, and Vyrix was probably with her. Heidi felt a bit uncomfortable having those two around, particularly behind her where she couldn’t see, but surely they wouldn’t try anything on this vessel filled with Heidi’s dangerous allies.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Think I’m thtupid?” said Vyrix. Heidi kept forgetting that Vyrix could read thoughts.

  Heidi turned from the railing, adjusted her helmet under her arm, and locked eyes with Vyrix. Well, eye. Vyrix’s one pink eye glared out from her ruined face. Her other eye was one of several moving in slow orbit around the giant white winged gecko named Cazzie.

  It was always a challenge looking at Vyrix without cringing at the sight, but Heidi was improving. Her physical reaction mattered little with Vryix, who could see her thoughts.

  “Thave your pity,” Vyrix snarled. “For thomeone who needth it.”

  Several of Cazzie’s eyes turned toward Vryix while others continued to watch Heidi and at least one became distracted by the proceedings below. The floating eyes, some of them with unsettling clumpy bits of stringy matter still dangling from their back ends, could show no emotion on their own. Only in combination with the expressive movements of Cazzie’s eyeless head could Heidi guess that she was displeased with Vyrix. Cazzie’s feathery tail gave the disfigured witch a nudge from behind.

  “Thtop that,” Vyrix muttered. Cazzie warbled in response, a sound that seemed to resonate through her entire body. “I’m getting to it.” Vyrix limped painfully another two steps toward Heidi, leaning dangerously on her gnarled black cane. Heidi’s bruise from that cane had faded, but she remembered the pain. Vyrix reached one lumpy black hand into her tattered cloak. Heidi made an effort to be on guard at this action, though it was difficult when Vyrix was so small, so obviously in pain, and so unsteady that she nearly collapsed just from this simple act.

  Vyrix found what she was looking for and thrust it toward Heidi. Bahamut, nearby, perked up. Heidi sensed his tension, his readiness to pounce at an instant’s notice. But the object in Vyrix’s hand hung limp, dangling by a tarnished silver chain. It was a seashell, a spiraling cone small enough to fit in Heidi’s palm, crimson stained with pewter.

  “Take it,” grumbled Vyrix.

  “The last time I took something from you,” Heidi began, but Vyrix cut her off.

  “It’th…from me,” Vyrix muttered. Cazzie warbled at her. “From uth,” the witch corrected. Cazzie shifted her weight and loomed over Vyrix in what was probably disapproval. She leaned down and gently nudged the little witch, almost toppling her to the deck. “Like hellth,” Vyrix spat back at her companion. “I’m not thaying that. Thay it yourthelf.” Vyrix began turning to leave, then stopped as if realizing that Heidi still hadn’t taken the shell. She shook it at Heidi with a trembling, blackened hand. “It will protect you from fire,” she said. “A thoveriegn remedie againtht bitchy godth.”

  Heidi had not told Vyrix about her troubles with the Burning God. She looked at Vyrix, could read nothing but malice in her horribly scarred face, then looked at Cazzie. The eyeless feathered gecko nodded in encouragement and chirped something.

  Heidi took the shell. It was cold to the touch. She would be testing this later. To make sure it actually did what Vyrix said.

  “Thure, thure,” Vyrix waved a hand dismissively. “Tetht it all you want. Jutht don’t tetht it with molten thtone. Or metal. The thpell doethn’t go that far.”

  Cazzie appeared satisfied once Heidi had taken the shell. One of her eyes drifted down to her mouth to get licked clean by her long, blue tongue. Bahamut slithered closer to have a look at this process, although he, too, lacked eyes. In fact, although Cazzie was several times larger, and white, and winged, and feathery, they were otherwise somewhat similar in appearance.

  “So are you ready to talk now?” asked Heidi. That was the deal. She woke them up, they gave her answers. Vyrix had already said a little about a special place deep within the Metal Moon. She had been telling the truth, confirmed by one of Heidi’s guards with a knack for sensing deception. Thus the preparation of this expedition, launching soon.

  Vyrix looked like she wanted to leave, but Cazzie’s tail blocked her path. A couple of her eyes drifted down to look Vyrix directly in the face, including Vyrix’s own former eye. Vyrix sighed. She turned and collapsed onto the metal deck. Sitting and slouched was apparently the least painful position for her. She withdrew her pipe from somewhere in her cloak and lit it with a spark of magic. That same scent as before, like rancid battery acid, trickled through the air.

  Heidi sat facing Vyrix. They had been like this before, under different circumstance.

  “I’m not going to apologithe for that,” Vyrix grumbled. “I’d poithon you again if I thought it would make any differenthe.”

  “Abraham said you were going to trade me for a cure for your curse,” said Heidi.

  She laughed bitterly. “I wath going to try. Worth a thot, yes? Probably wouldn’t have worked.”

  “How did you get cursed?”

  “I pithed off the Dark Ruler. You do that, you die if you’re lucky. He had the Mandragoran throw me into the Bleak Mathine.”

  “How did you piss him off?”

  “Doeth that matter?” Her voice rose in anger for a moment before deflating into a sullen mutter. “It wath an acthident, anyway.”

  Cazzie didn’t like this. She reared up angrily; her tail thrashed back and forth. Vyrix waved her pipe dismissively at Cazzie.

  “So the Bleak Machine did…this?” Heidi gestured vaguely at Vyrix.

  Vyrix chuckled, but there was nothing nice or mirthful in the sound. Bitterness only was there, and hatred. “Oh, yeth. I wath beautiful, wathn’t I, Cathie? Jutht like you, hero. Thmooth thkin, thilken hair. Dewy eyeth. Gratheful body. Muthcular and firm. Voithe like an angel. Pure heart. Et-thetera.”

  Fine, Heidi thought at Vyrix. Don’t answer my question. That question didn’t matter anyway. What do you know about the Bleak Machine?

  “Oh, yeth,” said Vyrix, but the mocking tone had gone from her voice. Now she sounded serious. “I wath flung into the Mathine. I thurvived, ath you can thee, unforthunately. But I thaw thecretth there.”

  Heidi leaned in.

  “The Bleak Mathine,” said Vyrix, “detherveth itth name. It cautheth the rue.”

  “It causes…the rue?”

  “Do you know what they are, Hero? The rue?”

  Heidi shook her head.

  “They are the thoulth of thothe whothe boneth feed the bale thorn.” Vyrix grinned a horrid black-toothed grin as though in pleasure at this thought. Heidi felt only horror as she processed this idea. “Their regretth,” Vyrix continued. “Their lingering painth. The light of the Mathine will not let them go.”

  Heidi knew it was true at once. She only had to remember her experiences touching the bale thorn and compare them to the lonesome crying out of the rue. Tormented souls, trapped in anguish. The light of the Bleak Machine making the bale thorn grow on the bones of the dead. Horrific.

  “Yeth,” said Vyrix, apparently delighted at Heidi’s reaction.

  “What would happen,” said Heidi, speaking the thought as it came to her, “if the Machine was destroyed?”

  Vyrix recoiled in genuine shock. Then she laughed. As always, her laugh had no pleasure in it. Very much the opposite. “Dethtroy the Machine?” She shrugged. “No more Metal Moon, I gueth.” Then she leaned forward conspiratorially. “But I do know, from what I thaw when I wath inthide, that it ith pothible. And I can thay, if I cannot be cured, I would jutht ath thoon murder that whitth curthed me.”

  Murder?

  “It’th thort-of alive. Like a very thick Bright World.”

  The bell sounded as Heidi wondered about this. Everything was ready; the Almost Victorious would soon launch for the Depths on a heading provided by Vyrix. A place connected to both the Bleak Machine and the Queen of the Rue. A floating lake. A place with answers.

  “We’ll talk later,” said Heidi.

  Vyrix grinned; Heidi had to look away. “I’m thure.”