Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 21

"How provincial of them!" I exclaimed.

"Exactly what I was thinking," Hadrian said, nodding quickly. "Are you an archaeologist as well?"

I smiled, grimly, remembering the caves, tombs, catacombs, zombie infested ruins, and deadly mountain passes I had explored. "After a fashion," I said, dryly.

"Well..." Hadrian paused. "I...so happen to..." He tapped his chin. A clever, conniving light lit behind his eyes and I smiled, waiting to see where he went. Hadrian did not speak to me. Instead, he started to walk off to the bookshelf on the corner of the room. There he tugged down several large, browning rolls of paper, unfurling them and placing them upon a table beside the bookshelf. He sighed. "Ah, yes, the maps of the temple catacombs, with the blueprints of the sewer system, constructed eighty years before." He nodded slowly. "I believe I shall leave these here while I go to break my fast in the refectory. Surely, no one will observe these secret documents whilst I am out of the room." He looked at me.

I smiled. "But of course," I said.

Hadrian hummed cheerfully as he walked out of the room, then closed the door behind me. I assaulted the blueprints, leaning over the table to peer at them. It seemed eighty years before, Caladon had undergone a massive renovation of their sewage systems. There, I could see where I and Virginia had track down the demonic Whytechurch Ripper. But when I laid the old designs of the temple over the blueprint and held both up to the light, I could see the overlap...and I could see that there was a joining between the two. If that joining was as thin as it looked, it would take no time at all for good Miss Mead Mug to break it down with her fist.

I grinned.

"Excellent."

***

The biting sound of the crowbar striking brick filled the air and I stepped back away from the wall, my suit jacket removed and my sleeves rolled up. I and Sally had both worked up a good sheen of sweat -- her working with a hammer, me working with the crowbar. Maggie kept watch. Gillian and Raven were also supposed to keep watch, it seemed, but they were far more interested in me and my labors. We were standing in one of the large junction rooms, which was mercifully dry and clean, with only a few cockroaches, which skittered away from us as we worked.

"Resh, may I ask a question?" Raven asked, her melodious voice ringing out above the sound of our work. "Were..you always quite so...ah...muscular?"

"Yes," Maggie said, glancing back over her shoulder.

I chuckled. "My love is dead, and you are here, flirting with me?"

"You don't exactly seem distraught," Raven said, dryly.

"I'm not," I said, turning back to work my crowbar between some loosened bricks while Maggie stepped away, panting and puffing with a cheery grin on her face. "Virginia will return -- it is merely a matter of time, mgick and technology."

"Ah..." Raven pursed her lips, looking thoughtful.

The next brick I levered out of the wall shattered as it struck the floor and there was not another brick beyond it. Rather, we peered through into dimly lit, torch strewn catacombs. Each one looked to be wreathed in a simple magick cantrip that kept it from going out, and each shone upon a single stone sarcophagi.

"Ah, there it is," I said.

"Do you ever think that our profession is a very unusual one?" Gillian asked.

"No, why?" I looked back to her, stepping aside as Sally brought the mallet smashing down once more. In shockingly short time, we had bundled up the bones of Nasrudin himself -- the sarcophagi was not locked, and the bones were helpfully contained within a burial shroud which kept them all together. Bustling them into the Panarii temple took some quick darting from shadow to shadow and sticking to the less often used corridors. Once we had returned to Hadrian's chambers, we set the burial shroud on the work table and unfurled it, to reveal the long aged skeleton within.

While we waited for Hadrian to return, I began to organize the bones in such a way that we could more easily examine him. I conferred with the anatomical drawings in the technical magazines I had purchased. As I worked, my brow furrowed and I grew more and more puzzled -- until at last, Hadrian returned, closing and locking the door. He bustled forward and cooed quietly. "Ah, yes, yes yes! This is most...exc...exc..." He trailed off, slowly. He was seeing the same oddities I was.

"This is not an elf skeleton, is it?" I asked.

The bones were too thick. The skull lacked that certain angular quality. There were too many ribs. Raven frowned as she leaned over the bones as well, clicking her tongue. "Definitely human," she said, with casual knowledge that chilled me. I looked to Hadrian, who looked nearly panicked.

"This cannot be!" he whispered.

"Where's his finger?" Sally asked, before belching loudly.

I looked to the skeleton, then scanned the body. We had been careful to not drop a bone on the way, so...it seemed he was missing...a...I turned and hurried over to the jar containing Saint Mannox's finger. I held the jar beside the hand with the missing finger, then looked at Hadrian. "Good gods, sir!" I said. "This isn't Nasrudin! This is Saint Mannox!"

"T...that..." Hadrian put his hands to his face. "What...how?"

I frowned. "Gillian! Get Wilhelm. Maybe he can shed some light on this."

Soon, both Hadrian and Wilhelm were peering at the skeleton. Wilhelm frowned as he spoke: "The ascension of Saint Mannox is an extremely well documented historical event by the standards of the time..."

"What does that mean?" Maggie asked, her voice sounding as gruff and masculine as she could manage. Her fake beard bristled as well, a remarkable skill at acting our little Maggie.

"Well," Wilhelm said. "Two elves saw it happen: K'an Hua and T'yes Mhaon. They wrote most beautifully about it." He shook his head. "However, there are some unusual discrepancies in the earlier editions of the Archeon that I've been studying."

"Discrepencies?" I asked. "Translation errors?"

"Perhaps," he said. "For instance, the initial texts of the Archeon wrote the name of our faith down as Pan-R'nes. In the ancient tongue, that means the defender of the gate." He pursed his lips. "Panarii, the translation we use now, refers to Servant of the Light. Or Follower of the Light, it can be translated either way." He shook his head. "But most troubling is this change: Canticle 89, after the description of the battle between Arronax and Nasrudin on the fields of Brodgar..." He looked at me. "In the current edition of the Archeon, it says Nasrudin was laid to rest in the southernmost tip of the land."

I nodded. "And what did the original draft say?"

"It said that he crossed the waters and laid himself to rest on the southernmost tip of land," Wilhelm said.

"Thanatos!" Raven exclaimed.

"The Island of Death?" Maggie squeaked, her voice rising out of her false male register.

"It's not tha' -hic- bad," Sally said, nodding.

We all looked at her. She looked back at us. "What?" she snorted. "I'z not tha' bad. I've been."

We all looked back to the two Panarii. They were conferring in hushed tones, and it was clear that whatever discussion they were having was coming to a rapid conclusion. Both turned to face me, and both had grim expressions on their faces.

"It is clear," Hadrian said. "Someone must investigate this...travesty. If Mannox did not ascend, if he was..." He looked at the body. "If he died from some other means and this was concealed from us, we must know why. And we must know where the real remains of Nasrudin are located."

"And why they were taken," Wilhelm said.

I sighed, slowly. "Well. It seems that I have yet another horrible island to visit," I said, then smirked. "Maybe this time, I can avoid being swept overboard." I looked to Gillian. "Gillian, be a dear and send a telegraph to Mr. Bates. Tell him..." I paused. "Tell him we need to know where Captain Edward Teach is."

"Blondbeard?" Maggie laughed. "That bugger 's crazier than you!"

"Who better to take us to the Island of the Dead?" I asked, grinning at her.

As the rest of my companions got to packing and reading themselves for wherever we needed to go next, I came to the small room where Virginia -- Beatrice, truly -- laid in state. I stepped into the room where the machines and the battery hummed, where her chest rose and fell in its facsimile of life. I knelt beside the bed and took the hand of hers that did not have the tubes running into the wrist or the electrical ring pulsing to keep her nerves functioning. I looked into her face. It was, if I had to be honest, not a beautiful face to any but me. But...at that moment, she was more lovely than anything save for a living Virginia.

Quietly, I whispered. "My love, I swear. If it takes me traveling to the depths of Thanatos, if it takes me treckking across every dune of Vendigroth. If I have to burn T'sen-Ang to the ground and salt the earth when I am done...I will have you back." I ducked my head down, pressing my forehead to her knuckles. "And no prophecy, no army, no god will stand between us. I swear." I kissed her knuckles, gently, then stood, looking away, unable to bear the exquisite agony of looking at her. I strode to the doors.

I left her behind.

But not forever.

***

April 6^th, 1886

Our gaggle stepped off the leaky, listing sailing ship we had boarded in Caladon -- and into the salty, wind swept town of Black Root. Situated on the edge of the Hadrian river, right before the bay leading into the strait of Catan, Black Root was a shipping village through and through: A small cluster of homes and a massive port, which clustered with ships. Including, to my delight, the Gypsy Shadow, the ship that carried us to the Isle of Despair. Gillian, seeing it, smiled. "Mr. Bates was right," she said. "His telegraph said Teach would be here."

We found Teach after a short search in one of the many sea-side taverns of Black Root -- a little place called The Salty Barnacle. Walking through the door, I saw the place was bustling and loud, ringing with boisterous song and laughter. My eyes swept the place and I saw an ugly, scarred looking captain sitting at a table, rolling dice in a cup and laughing as the people he played against groaned and cried out in alarm. But then my eyes settled on Teach.

It took me a few moments to actually recognize him. He was not the jovial, cheerful, slightly insane pirate that I had seen before. Rather, he looked grim and dour and had nearly dipped his beard in the mug of ale he was nursing. I edged through the crowds while Sally made a beeline towards the barkeep. As she restocked her vodka, I sat across from Teach.

"Oh..." Teach rolled his head back, eyeing me biliously. "You."

"Why so short with me, old boy?" I asked. "We got on well when we met last..."

Teach closed his eyes. "Oh, I am being unfair..." He shook his head. "You merely have caught me in a tragedy. My ship...my bloody ship!" He put his palm over his face. "I lost me bloody ship!"

My eyes widened and I reached out, gripping his hand. "Good heavens, Teach! What happened to the Gypsy Shadow? I saw it right out in the harbor!"

"I...I was getting drunk," he said. "And then I began to play dice with Killian Drake."

I frowned. "Killian Drake?"

Teach pointed with one wobbling finger at the scarred bloke who was grinning at the fellow sailor who was stumbling away from his table, leaving behind a shining pile of gold. I saw Drake pick up a single die -- which looked as if it had been carved from solid metal. Iron if I didn't miss my guess. I frowned, slightly, while Teach mumbled. "He beat me and beat me and I was so drunk! I woke up to find I had gambled me ship and he has it now! He owns me ship!"

"What if I get it back?" I asked, frowning as I tugged my electric ring off. I rummaged in my pockets, finding my tools. Opening my electric ring took but a wink. Teach, his eyes closed, shook his head.

"No, no, you can never win," he mumbled. "No one beats Lucky Drake."

I finished adjusting the electromagnetic field on my ring. I angled my hand and saw the cheap ironwrought fork on the table skitter towards my hand. I tugged it away from my ring with a smirk. "Oh, I believe I have a winning strategy."

"Strat-gee?" Teach mumbled. "Is dice, there ain't no strat-gee..."

I stepped to the table, then took a seat without asking Killian Drake the time of day. I looked him square in his eyes as he sneered at me. "Well, well, boy," he said, picking up his dice. They clinked and clattered in his cup. "You here to play dice? Against me? Lucky Drake?" He picked up one of his die, twiddling it between his fingers, letting the metal catch the light. "My dice have never lost me a game, greenskin."

I grinned at him.

The next day, we set sail from Black Root, Teach clinging to the wheel of the Gypsy Shadow as if she was his own wife. I stood at the prow, watching as the waves broke before us, the sails belling as we cut through the waters, rushing towards the distant island of Thanatos. The trip took us twelve days of brutal tacking and struggling against a current that pushed us eternally away from Thanatos and towards Caladon -- the trade routes that had created the city in the first place seeking to have their way with us. We all worked our backs off, with Sally tugging on the rigging and calling out orders to Gillian and Maggie, while Raven used her mastery of the arts of water and air magics to do her best to fight against the winds and the waves alike.

On the 18^th of April, we cast off anchor near the southern coast of Thanatos.

The island itself was closer to being a sub-continent. It was nearly the size of one fifth of Arcanum, and from what we observed via telescopes and our own eyes, the most of it was thick, foreboding jungle. This far south, the weather was brutally hot and only got hotter the further we sailed. We were forced to sleep on the deck and even that was so miserably hot that even Sally could do little more than make a limp pass at me from time to time. We had no thoughts of sex left, not with us sailing the ships by our own selves -- we simply had not taken the time to hire anyone else.

But the beach we had found was broad and white and looked like perfection incarnate. The sand was soft and not even scorchingly hot when I stepped off the bumboat. I shadowed my forehead with my palm, looking at the woods, frowning slightly. "This is the furthest part of the lands..." I said, quietly, my hand going down to my belt. I adjusted it, making sure that my accelerator pistol was within easy grasp. I had also spent some time working on the next logical evolution in grenade technology from stunning grenades to explosive ones.

"See, it's not that bad!" Sally said, then hiccuped. Which was precisely when the javelin flew through the air and nearly impaled her through the throat. By merest chance, the javelin only struck her shoulder and sank in to the bone. Sally made a noise that sounded more mildly irritated than in pain as the first of the massive apes came charging out of the jungles onto the beach, hooting and bellowing. They were huge, red furred, and had a kind of fiendish intelligence. Their gait might have been nearly quadrupedal, but they were still armed -- several had loose vines wrapped around their barrel chests, with quivers full of javelins of the exact same type that had struck sally. Others were shrouded with greenish magick, and I saw that they were summoning yet more natural beasts to charge at us -- shamans.

"We come in peace!" I shouted.

That did nothing to slow the first row. "Bugger bugger bugger!" I hissed, pulling my grenade from my hip. It would have been simple slaughter to chuck it into their mass, to kill a great raft of the savage ape-men. But I had seen too many armies gunning down too many men with spears in murals and on the newspapers. I would not become one of them. So as Sally sank to her knees and Raven's hands glowed with magick and Maggie drew her revolver, I tugged the pin on my grenade and tossed it. The grenade landed between me and the apes -- and I had timed it just so.

The grenade burst with a great whump. Sand flew and shrapnel whined through the air. The charging apes drew backwards, baying and crying in alarm. As the smoke cleared, I saw more than a few had slices across their shoulders, and one had a great chunk in his chest. His thick hide had kept it from penetrating further, but he still bellowed in pain and confusion. I held the second of my grenades up, putting it above my head as I looked at the massed apes. I waved it back and forth and shouted: "Stay back! Stay back!" I drew my accelerator pistol with my other hand, firing three shots into the sands -- sending up large gouts as the rapidly accelerated pistols struck.

The apes drew back, hooting and bellowing and crashing their knuckles against their chests. But they ceased their charges.

I did not know how long the standoff would have lasted. I only knew that before Raven had even finished healing Sally's wound, the apes began to step aside, hooting and cooing softly. From their midst came a robed figure, walking forward with a confident gait across the white beach. He stepped past the crater my grenade had left, then called out in accented, but easily recognizable Common.

"Who lands here? On Thanatos of all places?" he sounded tired and deeply bemused.

I sighed. "My name is Doctor Rayburn Cog. We're not here for...we don't want to hurt anyone or to fight anyone. We're simply here to find the burial site of Nasrudin."

"Nasrudin?" the robed figure asked.

"Yes," I said, sounding tired. "I'm sure you've never heard of him..." After all, if he chose to live among these fellows, on the most inhospitable slice of land short of the Vendigroth Wastes, I was sure that he had never heard of the Panarii. I paused. "Who are you?" I asked. "How long have you lived here?"

The robed figure chuckled. "I?"

He reached back and tossed his hood back over his shoulders, revealing that he was an elf. Square jawed, white haired, and bushy browed. His hair had grown exceedingly long and he had let it go completely wild and unkempt. His eyes were sky gray, like a rainy day, and looked at me with utter and complete contempt. His lip curled and he lifted his chin. "I am Nasrudin," he said, his voice gruff. "And Nasrudin means me. And if you came searching for that damned fool, that ignoramus, that arrogant elf...then you came a long way for no reason at all."

And with that he turned and he stomped back to the jungle. The apes followed, looking uncertain.

I gaped after him. "What the bloody fucking hell?" I whispered.

***

Nasrudin's home was situated in the jungle a good ways, and despite being followed by apes, none crouched around it. It seemed that they had left him alone for now. I stepped up to the front door, glancing back at my companions. All looked as shocked as me -- even Raven. I looked back to the door and rapped several times on the door.

"Go away," Nasrudin shouted through the thick wood. I could hear the faint clink and clatter of pots, pans. From the smell seeping under the door, it seemed he started up a thick vegetable stew. It smelled quite good, especially after a week and change of hardtack and shipboard rations.

I frowned, then looked to Sally.

Sally lifted her fist.

The door exploded inwards.

I stepped into the door frame and Nasrudin pursed his lips as he looked at the splintered door, the at me. "So, you've come to destroy Nasurdin's door as well?" he asked, sounding quite irritated. "That does seem to be what he deserves."