The Scrolls of Gideon Read online

  “I did, indeed,” Cromwell said with a wink. “Don’t worry about wasting it. We have an entire case of the stuff in the hold somewhere.”

  Taeral stared at Cromwell with consideration while Junkyard pulled the bottle and a bunch of crystal tumblers from the cabinet, and then started passing drinks around. “The Carpathian Mountain elves are said to be extinct,” he said. “It’s also said that no human had ever interacted with them.”

  Cromwell shrugged one thin shoulder. “Maybe they are now, but they certainly weren’t extinct in 1483,” he said, accepting a half-filled tumbler from Junkyard with a grateful nod. “Of course, that was before my time.”

  “Of course,” Taeral echoed faintly.

  When everyone held a glass, I took a tentative sip of the whiskey and almost choked. Not because it was bad — it was actually so good, I almost didn’t feel worthy to drink it. I didn’t have the language to describe the taste, but ‘the best thing I ever put in my mouth’ came close. “Wow,” I managed to say.

  Cromwell nodded and raised his tumbler. “To your continued survival,” he said.

  Even though none of us believed that would happen, we all drank to that.

  Just then, the door behind me opened and Grygg came back in, carrying a small black box with an arched lid. “Yes, that’s exactly it,” Cromwell said, smiling. “If you would hand that to Gideon? I believe you’ll find something inside that will help you.”

  I set my tumbler on the coffee table, careful not to spill a single drop of the whiskey, and took the box from Grygg. Inside was a small object about the size of a fist, wrapped in black velvet cloth. I removed it, set the box aside on the couch, and unwrapped a milky white, opaque crystal stone with alternating flat planes and rough edges.

  It hadn’t been shaped or polished, but I knew exactly what it was. I could feel the power inside it calling to me.

  “Is that a moonstone?” Taeral gasped.

  “Indeed, it is. And it should be fully charged,” Cromwell said. “I’ve certainly had no use for it.”

  I looked from the stone to the old man. “Does that mean you’re giving it to us?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And if I’m not mistaken, you really should use it now.”

  “Yeah, good idea.” The best way to do this would be to activate the stone, and let Taeral, Sadie, and I use the moonlight it generated to recharge. I placed it on the coffee table, leaned forward and gestured. “De’àrsahd.”

  A burning sensation filled my chest as I used the last dregs of my spark to cast the spell. But the moonstone blazed with a glaring blue-white light that banished every shadow from the room, and I immediately felt the soothing warmth of moonlight ease the pain and restore my spark as the rest of my wounds began to heal.

  The recharge didn’t take long. When both Taeral and I were at full capacity, and Sadie had charged her choker and brought her glamour-generated clothes back, the big moonstone’s glow hadn’t even dimmed a fraction. “Staad,” I said to deactivate the stone, and the light winked out.

  “That is some serious power,” I said as I wrapped the velvet cloth around the moonstone and placed it back in the chest. Then I passed it over to Sadie so Taeral could hang onto it, since I had the pendant. “Thank you, Crom — uh, Sir Livingston.”

  He laughed and folded his hands on his lap. “Cromwell will do just fine,” he said. “And you’re very welcome. I’m glad I could help. Now, would you like to hear about the barrier?”

  I nodded as everyone else murmured agreement.

  “It’s a curious thing, I know,” he said. “If I explained exactly how we accomplished it all those years ago, my brothers and I, we’d be here for weeks. The short version is that my life force comprises the barrier and keeps it intact.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Unfortunately, that force is now weakening. Not even the strongest alchemical spell can sustain a human body forever, and my time is coming to an end.”

  “So that’s why there are so many leaks.” I said. “It must be how the mermaids got through, too.”

  “Yes. The mermaids,” Cromwell said bitterly. “I must say, all of that was a completely unintentional side effect. The barrier keeps living things out, but allows non-living things through. At the simplest level, that meant water couldn’t penetrate the barrier, because water is absolutely teeming with life. But the air would still be able to circulate.” He broke off and shook his head. “However, it turned out the barrier did permit living things to pass, provided they were completely encased in non-living things.”

  “Aye,” Taeral said, his eyes lighting up. “We passed through with the ship, but only because I had enclosed us in metal. And the other ships, those with people below decks…”

  “Yes, precisely. Ships passed through, along with anyone who was inside them. But anyone on the decks or otherwise outside the ships remained outside the barrier.” Cromwell lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “The mermaids discovered this loophole quickly. They would attack the ships, drag them down to the barrier, and then feast on anyone caught on their side.”

  Alex shuddered. “That’s what they were trying to do to us,” she said, and looked at me. “If you hadn’t come up with the idea to bend the ship around us…”

  “Hey, I had no idea that would work. It was sheer, dumb luck,” I said, attempting to smile while I contemplated how close we’d come to being evil fish food. “But I did tell you that crazy ideas work out sometimes, remember?”

  “Yes, you did,” she said faintly, a distant look coming over her face.

  “Anyway.” I looked back at Cromwell. “Did you know about the souls?”

  He gave a slow blink. “What souls?”

  “So that’s a no,” I said, and sighed. “The thing is, all those people the mermaids pulled down here, the ones who were inside the ships? Their souls are trapped under the barrier,” I told him. “In fact, your friend Yancy is the one who showed me how to find your ship.”

  “Yancy Graham?” he blurted as shock infused his features. “How … of course. You’re the DeathSpeaker.” Cromwell sagged in the chair, suddenly managing to look even older than four hundred years. “I had no idea,” he whispered. “And there have been so many…”

  Grygg, who’d took up his previous position standing by the chair, patted the old man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Master,” he said. “What you’ve done here is very important, and I’m sure that Gideon can help the souls.”

  “Yeah, probably. As long as we can get out of here alive,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have any thoughts on that?”

  Cromwell pulled himself together. “I can certainly try to come up with something,” he said, flashing Grygg a grateful look. “In the meantime, there’s a lot we need to discuss. Like Dante, and the Scrolls, and the end of that dark, wretched blight on the planet calling itself Milus Dei.”

  CHAPTER 30

  We’d taken a break, and Alex and Junkyard excused themselves from the conversation to explore the rest of the ship. Alex had muttered something about maybe having one of those crazy ideas, but she wouldn’t explain what it was.

  Cromwell had moved to the couch they’d vacated with Grygg standing behind him, and Taeral, Sadie and I took our original seats back. Even after Cromwell had told us about the barrier, I still had more questions than answers. “So what exactly is the Order of Gideon?” I said.

  Cromwell lifted a crooked smile. “The followers of the great and largely unknown philosopher Gideon Light,” he said, meeting my shocked stare. “You can imagine my surprise when Grygg informed me that his friend the DeathSpeaker, the one he’d chosen, was called Gideon Black.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” I shook my head and tucked that whole bizarre coincidence away for later examination. “You still haven’t told me what I’m chosen for.”

  “Forgive me, but I promise I’ll get to that,” he said. “You must know the foundation of the problem before you can know the solution.”

  “Okay, fine. But you didn’t exactly answer the firs
t question, either.” I took another sip of the amazing whiskey and settled back on the couch. “‘Followers of Gideon Light’ doesn’t tell me anything about your order.”

  Cromwell frowned a little. “We were alchemists, scholars and explorers, dedicated to learning all we could about the world and the people — the beings, all of them, who inhabited it,” he explained carefully. “Looking to save humanity through knowledge, through enlightenment. Of course, part of that enlightenment was knowing that humans aren’t the only citizens of the world. We collected many non-human artifacts, such as the moonstone and the elven whiskey. Most of them are still stored here, on this very ship.”

  “You collected them, did you?” Taeral said, traces of anger dancing on the edges of the words. “And how many of our kind had to die, in order to add to your collection?”

  Cromwell gave him a mournful look. “Not a single one,” he said. “Everything we owned was a gift to the Order. We never wanted to hurt anyone. We sought to understand other races, to promote the knowledge humans needed to overcome their fear of the unknown.” He released a slow breath and closed his eyes. “But our purpose became warped and twisted into something unrecognizable, something horrific, when the Nostradamus went down and Dante assumed command of the Order.”

  “It’s true, then,” I said, remembering the earliest information I’d read about the Scrolls. “Milus Dei used to be the Order of Gideon.”

  “Sadly, yes.” A visible shudder moved through the old man. “Instead of furthering a deeper understanding and an integration of the world population, Dante decided that the best way to save humanity from the struggles of existing with Others was to eliminate the source of the struggle. To exterminate the Others, and … purify the planet.” He spat the last few words through a twisted expression. “That was never our intention.”

  Sadie cleared her throat. “Hold on a minute,” she said. “You knew this Dante guy? I mean, Gideon told us what he found out from that thug, and it sounded like Dante is the current head of Milus Dei. But if you’ve been down here for four centuries…”

  “I did know him.” Cromwell winced slightly. “We all did. In fact, we created him.”

  “Um. What do you mean, created?” I said. “Isn’t he human?”

  “He is, and yet he isn’t.” Cromwell held a hand in the air to stem the inevitable questions. “Dante is a construct, what some call a golem, very similar to Grygg,” he said. “Though he’s human enough proportionately, he’s made of stone and has no need to eat, sleep, or breathe. And also like Grygg, he has a soul.”

  “Grygg has a soul?” I said before I could think about it. “Er, sorry, Grygg. I always figured you had kind of an honorary soul, but not an actual one. No offense.”

  Grygg smiled. “None taken,” he said.

  “While Grygg’s body is stone, he’s infused with the soul of Grigori Laygos, a loyal acolyte of the Order,” Cromwell explained. “The ritual of transference was performed at his request, as he’d agreed to make the journey to the New World with us as our protector. It is no small coincidence that the name Grigori means ‘vigilant’.” He looked back at Grygg with a smile. “But the process we used to create Grygg was a simple one, designed to give him strength and defensive attributes. And though the end result made him quite powerful, he’s but a shadow of Dante.”

  I glanced at Grygg, who didn’t seem insulted that Cromwell had basically just called him inferior. “So what’s different about Dante, then?”

  Cromwell made a vague gesture. “His vessel is the perfect realization of the human form,” he began slowly. “And the creation spells … they weren’t merely a transference. They were a fusion of body and soul, a full transmutation from raw materials to living being.”

  “And, er … whose soul does Dante have?”

  A pained look came over Cromwell’s face. “His own,” he whispered as a shudder moved through him. “We forged it from portions of each of the nine founders’ souls to create something entirely new. Something that contained all of our combined knowledge, wisdom, and strengths, with none of our weaknesses.”

  Taeral looked horrified. “How did you manage to perform such powerful, unnatural magic?” he said hoarsely. “To split the soul, to create a soul … such an act is unheard of. You must have known that it would not end well.”

  “We were fools. Idealistic ones, perhaps, but fools all the same.” Cromwell laced his gnarled hand together. “Dante was supposed to be the perfect man. But he was too perfect, and he lacked any possible weakness. Including empathy, the weakness that gives us our humanity. The longer his soul existed, the greater his power became. He can perform unimaginable feats, simply through the strength of his will.” The corners of his mouth trembled. “Now I fear he may be unstoppable.”

  “The perfect man,” I said, recalling what Mr. Wilt had told me when I interrogated him. “So the formula you used to create Dante is in the Scrolls of Gideon?”

  “Yes. And Dante will do anything to get his hands on the Scrolls.” Cromwell looked hard at me. “That’s why we created the barrier, and why I’ve maintained it all this time, waiting for the one who was worthy to take possession of the Scrolls of Gideon and use them against Dante,” he said. “That’s why Grygg has chosen you, Gideon Black, to take the Scrolls and carry out this mission.”

  Okay, that was a little too much to swallow at once. “You want me to take down a four-hundred-year-old construct who has unimaginable power and runs a huge organization of agents and soldiers, all trained to kill me, with a bunch of alchemical scrolls,” I said. “Just so we’re clear. Uh, you know I’m not an alchemist, right?”

  “No, of course you’re not. But you are the DeathSpeaker,” Cromwell said. “The solution for stopping Dante is not likely to be found in the Scrolls, though you will need to take them and protect them. They may also help you in your quest.” He glanced back at Grygg, and said, “We don’t know how you’ll do it, but we believe you’re the only one who can end Dante’s reign and restore true understanding to the world.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Great. No pressure,” I said, and looked to Taeral and Sadie. “Well, guys, how about it? On the one hand, there’s probably torture and gruesome death for us … but on the other, there’s a chance to destroy Milus Dei forever. All of it.”

  “What the hell, I owe them a lot of destruction,” Sadie said. “I’m in.”

  Taeral’s eyes flashed. “You know I stand with you, brother,” he said. “Especially when it involves crushing Milus Dei.”

  “I guess it’s unanimous, then.” I turned back to Cromwell. “Your mission is our mission.”

  “Thank you.” Cromwell actually appeared to shrink with relief as he fell back against the couch.

  I thought back to the conversation with Mr. Wilt and realized that we were still missing an important detail, if we were really going to go after this guy. “I don’t suppose you know where we can actually find Dante?” I said. “I mean, Milus Dei is spread out all over the world. This guy could be anywhere.”

  “Unfortunately, I have no idea how to find him. I’m truly sorry about that,” Cromwell said. “But you will need the Scrolls, regardless.” He gripped his cane and started to rise, but changed his mind halfway there and sat back down. “Grygg. Perhaps you would be so kind as to move this table out of the way, and bring that chest over here?”

  Grygg nodded and started moving furniture around with casual ease, like it was made of cardboard. Whatever happened to him, it hadn’t reduced any of his strength.

  “What did you do to him, anyway?” I said as Grygg carried the massive wooden chest that had to weigh three hundred pounds in one hand. “He’s … well, I guess he’s kind of sped up a little.”

  Cromwell smiled. “I fixed some of the seals that had worn away over the years and reduced his body’s functionality. And I restored all of his memories,” he said. “We’d kept several vials of Grigori’s blood after the transference, just for that purpose. But once the Nostradamus went
down, I never expected to see Grygg again. I’m grateful that you brought him back to me.”

  Grygg lowered the chest gently to the floor. “So am I,” he said. “Maybe I should owe you a favor now, Lord Taeral.”

  “Please. I’ve told you, I am no lord,” Taeral said. “And no, thank you. I’ve enough favors, both given and received, for several lifetimes now. I will never make a promise again.”

  I laughed. “Isn’t that what you said the last time?”

  “Aye, but this time I mean it.”

  Cromwell chuckled as he pulled the diamond knob off the end of the cane, revealing a small, thin blade attached to the other side of the knob. He sliced the edge across his palm, wincing a little, and then inserted the bloody blade into the lock on the chest. The latch popped open when he turned the lock.

  “The security measures are a bit extreme,” he said as he lifted the lid, reached in, and extracted a long, thick leather tube with a single strap fastened at either end. He held the tube out, and said, “This contains the Scrolls. At the moment, only I can access them, so I’ll need to transfer ownership to you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “How?”

  “Unfortunately it’s going to require a bit of blood.” He nodded at the hand gripping the tube, which was the one he’d cut. “If you’ll do the same, and then hold the container along with me, the transfer will complete.”

  “Sounds fun,” I said, pulling the switchblade from my pocket. I opened it and cut my own palm, and then wrapped my bleeding hand around the other end of the tube.

  The second I touched it, a shock traveled up my arm and through my body. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it was surprising. “You could’ve warned me,” I said as Cromwell released his end and I pulled the tube over.

  “Believe me, it’s less painful if you don’t know it’s coming,” he said. “And now—”

  The door to the fireplace room opened, interrupting whatever Cromwell was going to say as Alex and Junkyard walked in, their faces hopeful and excited. “I think I figured out a way to get us back to the surface,” Alex said as she moved toward the center of the room. “With a whirlpool.”