Clockwork Twist : Waking (25 page)

After another lovely meal prepared by Cybele in the pirate ship—though this one consisting largely of grilled fish, fresh albeit alien fruits, and fragrant rices—the crew split up to pursue their own interests.  Twist was left alone to walk the length of an empty arm of the docking pier.  After all the madness that his life had become, it felt unreasonably pleasant to simply sit in silence, his feet hanging over the dark water and his back leaning against the bamboo stilts of the tall, empty airship dock, with nothing but the sound of the gentle waves to catch his weary attention.

He pulled off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, just to feel the warm touch of the heavy night air on his skin.  As he leaned his head against the bamboo and looked up at the silvery moon in the cloudless sky, Twist slowly came to realize that the brilliant, countless stars above him were entirely new to him.  He'd had little chance to see the stars in London.  Here, away from any kind of modern city lights, there were so many lights that he couldn't find anything familiar, at all.

As he searched through the endless foreign stars, he began to feel them move, slipping below the horizon while the Earth turned slowly.  He felt nameless and wayward as the moon, free of solid ground and lost in a sea of stars he didn't know.  To his astonishment, he felt a sharp but tiny clap of excitement burn to life in his heart at the thought.  Somewhere deep within him, he liked the feeling of the wind beneath his feet.

With his head full of strange notions, but his spirit oddly calm, Twist eventually returned to the airship.  On his way, he noticed the clockwork cat which he had left at the shop, earlier in the day.  It bound up to him along the bamboo pier, its metal tail swirling happily behind it.  Once Twist bent down to pet it with a cooing tone, the cat utterly refused to leave his side and ended up still beside him even as he climbed into bed.

“I don't think you’re going to be rid of that thing any time soon,” Jonas remarked, getting into his own bed as well, in the small cabin that they shared.

“I suppose not,” Twist said, smiling and sitting up in bed to dangle the end of his watch chain in front of the cat.  The cat swatted at it playfully with metal paws.

“Well, keep it over there,” Jonas muttered, rolling to look away. “That thing is still highly disturbing,” he added on the end of a yawn.

“Oh don't listen to him,” Twist said to the cat. “He's just a big meany.”

“A what?” Jonas snapped, turning quickly with a dubious expression.

“Go back to sleep,” Twist said, waving a hand at him. “That was private.”

“You're a bloody nutter, you know that?” Jonas asked, looking serious.

“If I'm insane, there’s only your bloody sister to blame,” Twist shot back instantly. “If she'd left me alone, I'd still be quite mentally stable.  I certainly wouldn't be talking to clockwork cats.”

“My dear Mr. Twist,” Jonas said smoothly, with a piteous smile, “you've always been a strange one, and you know it.”

“Leave me to my harmless illusion,” Twist muttered, turning his attention back to the cat.

Jonas shook his head and turned back to his pillow.  After a bit, Twist did the same and curled up under the warm covers.  In the now almost total silence of the dark room, he could only hear the soft sounds of Jonas's breathing, and the tick of the pocket watch that sat on his pillow before his eyes.  The cat, however, began to add a soft, metallic purring sound to the mix as it finally settled down on the covers near Twist's feet; its jewel eyes closed and its tail tucked neatly around its nose.

Eventually, though, it wasn't a sound at all that swallowed up Twist's last conscious thoughts.  It was the simple presence of Myra's crystal still lying against his own heart—silent, still and sleeping peacefully—that filled his tired mind and pulled him down into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It only seemed like moments before Twist felt the weight of cold metal paws pressing down on his side.  He blinked his sleepy eyes open to find two pure red jewels staring down at him from inches away, wrapped in the rather loud sound of metallic purring.  Realization dawned at the exact same moment as fright, leaving him staring back for a moment, frozen between desperate actions.

“Good morning, cat,” he finally mumbled on sleepy lips.

Bright, luscious sunlight spilled over him from the uncovered window above his bed, and Twist snapped his eyes closed against it as he pushed himself up.  The cat slid away, ending up on his leg while it continued to stare at him unblinking.  Twist's hand fell to it, petting absently, as he struggled to make sense of the world outside in all that light.  The sun was definitely off the horizon, and already making its climb into the bright blue sky.

“Jonas, wake up,” he called to the sleeping form in the next bed. “We've got a princess to save today.”

A wordless groan was his only response.

“Come on, cat,” Twist said, picking it up. “Go wake up Jonas, now.  There's a good cat,” he said, slipping out of bed to approach Jonas.

“All right, all right,” Jonas muttered. “I'm up.  Keep the zombie cat away from me.”

Twist laughed lightly to himself as he put the cat back down on the floor and stretched himself before moving to the wardrobe.  It wasn't too much longer before both Twist and Jonas appeared on the open deck, now relatively ready for the day.  The cat, naturally, followed at Twist's heels.  Vane was talking with Quay, while Jiran stood silently with them.

“They are alive, after all!” Vane said upon seeing Twist and Jonas approach. “I was just about to go and wake you two up.”

“Have I told you how much I love that wonderful cat of yours?” Jonas asked Twist quickly. “It's a marvel, a wonder, I tell you.  Much better as an alarm clock than that blasted fox.”

“Vane's not a good alarm clock?” Twist asked back, struggling to make sense of Jonas's statement.  Vane grinned with all the innocence of a fox in an empty chicken coop.

“One of us would have ended up with a bucketful of water in the face, I'm sure of it,” Jonas said seriously.

“I love this cat,” Twist said earnestly.  Jonas nodded quickly.

“Are we all ready to go yet?” Quay asked as Cybele and Idris both appeared from below decks.

“No, these two layabouts haven't eaten a thing,” Cybele said, thrusting a plate of buttered toast at them. “You can't go marching through a rainforest on an empty stomach,” she said sternly.  Not wanting to argue, Twist and Jonas each took a piece of toast.

“Twist, have you got that gift I gave you?” Quay asked him.

“You think I'll need it in a jungle or a cave?” Twist asked with a frown.

“Our guide is worried about some kind of bat creatures,” Quay said flatly. “I'd say we all definitely need our weapons.  Oh, and here, I forgot to give you this part as well,” he said, holding out what looked like a thin, black leather strap to Twist.

“What is it?” Twist asked, taking it.

“Slip it on over each shoulder and you can carry the cane on your back to keep it out of the way,” Quay explained. “That jungle could get pretty dense, and you might need your hands to climb in the cave.”

“Are you sure he should be going with us at all?” Jonas asked Quay. “I mean, he could just wait for us to get the crystal.”

“No, we need him,” Quay said, shaking his head. “He's the only one who can tell us, for certain, whether any particular crystal will work or not.”  Jonas nodded with a sigh.

Twist did as he was told, and went back to his cabin to retrieve the black and silver walking stick.  Sure enough, the leather strap that Quay had given him fit easily over his shoulders, and the walking stick slid smoothly through smaller loops against his spine, the silver hilt of it sitting in easy reach over his right shoulder.  Thinking of the trial ahead, Twist took off his top hat and his long silver scarf, leaving them behind.

Now ready for battle with the unknown, Twist met the others on the pier below the airship, as the old puppet maker walked towards them from the beach.  He spoke to Quay quickly, his face a mask of concern and sharp anxiety.

“What's going on?” Twist asked Jonas.

“He's talking really fast,” Jonas said, shaking his head. “All I'm getting is that he's not happy about leading us to the cave.  He keeps using different words for 'danger'.”

“You know, I'm really not cut out for this sort of thing,” Twist said nervously. “The last two times I was in any real danger I ended up unconscious for a few days.”

A quiet laugh bubbled up in Jonas, but he made an obvious effort to keep it down. “Stay close to me,” he said, forcing his voice calm. “I
am
good at this sort of thing.”

Finally, Quay seemed to convince the old man that they were not going to leave without making an attempt to reach the cave.  They all set out together, walking along the edge of the white sand beach under the outreaching palms.  The clockwork cat still followed Twist, as they came to a narrow path through the dense trees, and stepped into the jungle itself.

The thin, winding trunks of the trees around them had long clawing roots that stood out above the sandy ground, while wide, round leaves and long mossy vines filled the air around them.  The whole jungle was bathed in shadows under the seeming solid canopy high above.  In places, the path was made only of large stones or small patches of sand that sat in what could have been an endless shallow river, that had flooded the whole jungle floor.

Occasionally, solid, albeit moist, ground appeared beneath their feet.  It wasn't long before Twist stopped worrying about stepping over wet patches, and tried instead to just find anywhere solid to put his feet.  The others, however, didn't seem to find this all that difficult.  Out of desperation, Twist eventually followed Jonas's footsteps meticulously rather than trying to find his own path.

The clockwork cat bound easily over dry roots and stones, and sometimes climbing a tree to leap across the branches as it followed along.  Twist couldn't help but feel somewhat jealous of it.  His legs grew tired very quickly, but no one else seemed ready to stop even for a moment.  The air in the dim, endless jungle was thick and heavy in the growing heat of the day, choking him tighter with every breath.  When he thought he might not be able to go on at all, the group finally came to stop.  It was only then that he noticed that the cat had disappeared into the jungle; wandering off to hunt in the damp shadows.

The trees opened up at the edge of a sharp cliff over a narrow, deep gorge.  The jungle continued on the other side, while a small but violent river ran far below, rushing between the rock walls.  The sound of tumbling water echoed down the gorge from farther to the left, around a wide bend.  As the group began to move once again, Twist was horrified to find them walking along the thin, precarious ledge at the very edge of the cliff.

“Can't we go another way?” Twist gasped, reaching out to wrap his hands around the nearest tree.

“Do you want to hold my hand?” Jonas offered.

“No, I want to go home and live the rest of my life on the bloody ground!” Twist snapped back savagely.

“This is the ground,” Jonas pointed out, gesturing to the precipice as the others began to move farther away from them.

“No, this is madness,” Twist retorted. “One slip, and we'll fall to our deaths!  Do I look like a circus performer to you?”

Jonas stared back at him for a moment, his jaw set determinedly.  Then he stepped forward and peeled Twist's hand off the tree to hold it firmly in his own.  He kept his eyes away while Twist's Sight washed over him in numb, warm, white light.  Twist shook his head, clearing the fog to the edges of his mind.  Jonas stood silently, as if waiting for this.

“Now,” he said, still not looking at Twist, “reach out.  What am I feeling right now?”

“I don't want to—“ Twist began.

“Just look, Twist,” Jonas said, cutting his complaints short. “How do I feel right now?”

Twist sighed.  The pulsing, warm, white fog threatened to encroach again and bury him alive in numb, bright, calm.  He focused on Jonas's hand, on the warm, rough skin pressed against his own.  It took very little time at all before Twist began to feel the rhythm of the other man's blood running quickly through his skin, and he followed the flow right into his heart.

He found no fear whatsoever there, but was instead overcome with a light-headed and reckless excitement at the sight of the drop so nearby.  The view was wondrous and the empty air tasted like freedom.  He felt light, careless, curious and free.  Jonas found nothing at all like fear in that drop, only a subtle joy at being alive enough to see it.