Clockwork Twist : Waking (26 page)

“Are you all right now?” Jonas asked after a silent pause.

“I suppose so,” Twist said softly, suddenly unable to find his own fear as he looked at the precarious edge.  Now that he had seen it clearly, he couldn't get the overriding sense of the other man's emotions out of his mind.

“Good, then let's go,” Jonas said, pulling him back onto the ledge path.

To Twist's total astonishment, his own fear didn't return as he followed after Jonas, stepping lightly over the roots that clung to the rock wall.  They caught up with the others at a quick pace.  Vane looked back as they approached, and his eyes moved to their still tightly clasped hands.

“Is there something you'd like to admit, Jonas?” Vane asked with a wicked light to his grin.  Idris glanced back at well, his white eyebrows climbing slightly up his face.

“He's afraid of heights,” Jonas snapped back at Vane. “I'm just helping him along.”

“What, are you jealous?” Twist added with a sneer.  He paused, wondering why the words felt odd on his tongue, as the rest of the group turned to look at him curiously.

“That was weird,” Jonas said under his breath.

“Yes it was,” Twist agreed, nodding. “Let go of me.  I can't find myself, in all of you.”

“I really don't want to know anymore...” Vane said, moving to hurry onward.

“Come on, let's just get off this ledge,” Jonas said with a sigh, pulling Twist on as well.

The old man led them expertly and quickly to the end of the ledge way, where a tall waterfall crashed into the gorge from higher up the mountain.  There was a small opening under the falls, into a dark, mist-filled cave.  He leaped down easily, followed closely by Quay and Cybele.  Twist and Jonas were the last to make the small jump over a wide, jagged crack in the rock.  Once Twist had made the jump and landed easily on his feet in the dark cave, Jonas finally released his hand.

The roar of the falls behind them thundered against Twist's suddenly clear senses, and the chill of the mist that collected in the mouth of the black cave gave him a shudder.  In a single instant, all of the fear that he hadn't been able to feel as he walked along the ridge, came screaming through his mind like a runaway train, crashing into rage with explosive force.

“What the hell is wrong with you!?” He demanded of Jonas, taking fistfuls of Jonas's collar in his hands to glare directly into his eyes.  Jonas let out a painful gasp, snapping his eyes shut while Twist continued to berate him. “That was completely mad!  We could have been killed and you weren't concerned at all!  Heavens above, you liked it!”

“What's going on?” Quay asked the group that now stood watching this display in silent shock.

“Lover's quarrel,” Vane said softly to him from behind a shielding hand.

“We survived, didn't we?” Jonas spat back. “I had to do something.  You were stuck back there!”

“Don't ever do that again,” Twist hissed.

“Fine, whatever, I surrender,” Jonas said, raising his hands submissively.  Twist released him with a healthy shove and then turned away, his arms crossed and his steel blue eyes blazing.

“Well, now that that's settled,” Quay said, clasping his hands and looking to the old man.  He spoke to him again, but this time the man shook his head sharply.  When Quay spoke on, the man shook his head again and said only one word.  Quay gave a sigh, staring at him with a frown.  Twist looked to Jonas curiously.

“He's not going to take us any farther,” Jonas said.

“Why not?” Twist asked back.

Jonas gave a shrug.

Quay tried once again to talk to the man, only to be cut off with a very determined sounding sentence.  The old man then held out his hand.  Quay shook his head and pulled a small pouch from his pocket, handing it to him.  The man weighed the pouch in his hand and then nodded, turning instantly to walk back out of the cave.

“We're on our own, then,” Quay announced. “The little coward's too scared of these 'bat things' to go on.  Still, we'd best be on guard,” he added, drawing his pistol as he turned to the blackness in the depth of the cave.

Twist wasn't the only one in the cave who had an electrical light.  He turned on the blue ring of light in the hilt of his cane, but left it on his back to shine out over his shoulder, illuminating the glistening moisture on the jagged gray cave walls.  A path led downward, deeper into the mountain.  Quay walked ahead, holding out a small hand-held electric lantern before him.  The others fell into a line that snaked through the random formations inside the cave.  The ceiling sometimes fell low over their heads, and sometimes flew away in the untold shadowy heights, while the walls seemed to do nothing but narrow in around them.  Most of the path was slick from the mist, making the round, shifting stones even more untrustworthy.

After what felt like a very long time to Twist, the walls finally moved away into a sort of small cavern.  As he and the others crowded inside, he saw not just one, but three more exits out into more narrow tunnels.  The smallest of all was so small that Twist wasn't sure he would fit through it, let alone the others.

“He did tell you which path to take, didn't he?” Cybele asked Quay.

“He said that there were crystals all through these caves,” Quay said, looking down each path thoughtfully. “Jonas?” he said suddenly. “Make yourself useful.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jonas asked back.

“Have a look and tell me if you see us walking down any of these,” Quay said, gesturing to the tunnel openings.

“That's not going to work,” Jonas said back flatly. “My Sight only works on people and things, remember?  A hole in a rock is neither.  Though I've met some people who make me wonder.”

Quay gave him a displeased look. “Idris?” he asked instead.

“This is boring,” Idris said with a sigh, glancing off to the side.

“All right,” Quay said, already taking a seat on a large rock near the side of the cavern, “then we're going to have to send out scouts.  There's no other way.  Jiran, Vane, you're both small and agile.  Take a tunnel each.  Come back when you find something.”

Vane made a show of being highly inconvenienced, while Jiran simply stood with her arms crossed and scowled at Quay.  Twist shook his head, silently chiding himself for expecting anything else from a bunch of disorganized and mostly inhuman pirates.  As he strolled listlessly around the small cavern's edge, he began to wonder again at how he had ever ended up in such a ridiculous situation.  If Arabel were with him now, she would be able to lead him directly to the right crystal, which would perfectly replace the one that now hung around his neck.  But then, of course, every single thing that had happened to him since he'd left London was entirely her fault to begin with.

As he continued to wander, kicking idly at loose stones, Twist watched as the wide, flat, fan of blue light from his walking stick sent flickering shadows playing over the rocks before him.  He didn't notice that the light didn't fall far below his line of sight, and didn't realize that the ground was less flat and level than he believed it to be.

As he took one more step forward, the stone below him suddenly gave way, rolling down a long, previously invisible shaft, as quick as a canon shot.  Twist tried to catch himself on the jagged, slippery rocks around him, but his fingers found no purchase as he tumbled down the shaft with the loose stones.  In his fright and confusion, he couldn't make a sound, but he heard Jonas's frantic call before it died away into the chaos as he fell.

Twist lost all control as he tumbled farther and farther into the black Earth, and the light of his cane went out somewhere along the way.  After what felt like a terrifying long distance, his small frame battered against stones and rock walls all along the way, Twist finally came to a stop, lying in a heap on the cold wet stones, in total darkness.  As his senses returned to him, all he heard was the quick beating of his own heart, and his own shuddering breath in an untold space.

Twist first tried to raise himself up to kneel on the uneven ground, but his battered limbs stung and shook from fatigue and shock.  He caught enough of his breath to call out, but his small, shaking voice returned to him almost instantly, sounding caught and claustrophobic in the tight and total black.  Sheer panic bubbled up his spine.

Something moved in the darkness behind him, and for a glorious instant Twist though that it could have been one of his companions.  The sound, however, changed into a strange, half human and half animal growl.  Frozen in fear, Twist could only listen blindly, desperate to gauge the distance of the sound.  It seemed very close to him now, creeping quickly closer.

In a sudden flash of unseen movement, something launched itself at Twist from behind, forcing him to the ground again.  He had no time to scream before two very sharp points dug deep into the soft skin at his exposed neck, and his thundering heart fell instantly to a painful stillness as he felt his blood run free.  Twist's Sight burned to light, threatening to fill his mind with nothing but brutal killing and horrific death at the half human hands of a monstrous creature he could never describe from inside its terrible mind.

Just as quickly, Twist was once again kneeling alone in the darkness.  He threw his hands to his neck but found no blood or wound; no sign at all of the horrific attack.  As he grappled with total confusion, he heard the same, inhuman growl from the darkness behind him.  Cold fear gripped him so quickly that time seemed to slow down as he reached for the cane on his back.  He drew it out, flipped it in his hand, and swung the solid silver hilt back at the source of the unseen movement behind him.  The blow connected with a crack of bone and a screeching, animal wail.

Twist jumped to his feet and finally remembered that there was a light in his cane.  He flicked it on to find the monstrous creature he'd seen in the vision now lying on the stones at his feet; thin, clawing hands clutched a large, ugly wound in its bulbous gray head.  Its naked, leathery, only slightly human form was curled up on itself, but Twist could still see thin, black, bat-like wings hanging limply from its spindly arms.

The second one didn't make a sound before it jumped at him from the shadows.  Twist looked up too slowly, but the creature froze suddenly in its flight and seemed to hang in space for an instant like a horrific puppet—clawing fingers mere inches from him, and two long, pointed teeth bared and aimed for his throat.  Then, just as quickly, it disappeared entirely, only to jump once again from the shadows, exactly as before.  This time, however, Twist was well warned.  He jabbed the point of his walking stick out and hit the switch, sending a nasty jolt of electricity into the creature when it struck.

The creature screamed, falling away in a shower of bright sparks.  Twist held up the light of his walking stick and saw many glistening black eyes in the shadows around him, all watching with an evil hunger.  The rock around him now hung from the ceiling in long fingers while the ground reached up with its own.  The eyes seemed to watch him from every black crevice.  The shaft he'd come down was far too steep to climb, but Twist could see no other exit from this desolate place.  He could still hear nothing but his own ragged breath as he stared around at all of the black, shining eyes.

Desperate for some salvation, Twist turned the silver cap on the end of the cane and pulled it off, revealing the bare electric arc inside.  The light of it was impossibly intense, as if the sun itself were bound up in one point.  Twist swung the wide beam of light around him, searching for anything that could lead him back to the surface.  The creatures let out frightened sounding shrieks and pulled back into the shadows when the light fell on them, providing at least some measure of comfort to Twist's terror.

The light suddenly returned to him, shining back brightly.  For a moment, Twist thought that it was another electrical light like his own.  But as he moved his aim, the returning light flashed off and then on again in exact response.  Realizing it was a reflection, Twist moved closer.  The creatures kept well out of the light, though they still watched silently as he crept nearer to a previously invisible opening into a another cavern.

Twist crouched down and pulled himself through to find nothing but pure white crystals all around him; each one was hundreds of feet long and easily many feet wide.  When Twist brought his light up, it bounced around the giant cavern, filling every crystal with light as well.  It was so bright that he had to pull his dark blue goggles on just to see.  Knowing how little the creatures liked the light, he kept it burning at full force to be sure to keep them away.

As he walked slowly along a crystal that stretched out horizontally across the cavern, Twist was astonished by the sheer size of the crystal world he now stood within.  Look as he might, however, he saw nothing but white crystals everywhere.  Myra's had been red in color.  Of course, he considered, the color might have nothing to do with it...

A sudden sound to his right struck Twist's senses like a thunderclap and he moved instantly this time, swinging the shining hilt of his walking stick at the source.  To his surprise, the sound of metal clashing against metal met his ears before he could turn his eyes to see what he had struck.

Pure green jewels stared back at him from a silver, metal face.  Twist stared back, perplexed by the form before him: a mechanical man standing on another crystal near him, his body shining brightly in silver.  Unlike Myra's complex clockwork puppet, this one looked crude in comparison.  Its limbs were simple, straight bars bound by visible gears and cogs like a bare metal skeleton.  Only the face was rounded by movable plates, though even they were not nearly as detailed or intricate as Myra's.

The metal man stared at Twist silently for a moment before glancing down to its own arm.  Twist realized then that the metal man was cradling his arm in the other, and that one of the two bars of his upper arm appeared to be dislodged.  The shoulder twitched suddenly with an ugly sounding whir.

“Did I hurt you?” Twist asked breathlessly.

The metal man looked back up at him quickly, but remained silent.

“I'm sorry,” Twist said, already moving closer. “I thought you were one of those things out there,” he added, glancing at the tiny passage back to the dark cave outside.  The metal man retreated from his advance, backing away a few steps before Twist finally stopped.

“Please, let me fix it,” Twist said earnestly. “I know how.  Just let me see it,” he added, stepping slowly forward again.

This time, the metal man held his ground, watching Twist with intent, jewel eyes.  Twist reached out and gently ran the tip of one finger over the shining silver at the top of the wounded arm.  Instantly, he understood the reality of the mechanical life before him.  It ran on the same exact principle that the cat and Myra's puppets both had, though this one was far simpler.  Just as before, there was a ghostly force controlling it from within; from a central crystal much like Myra's broken heart.

Twist gently took hold of the shoulder in one hand, and expertly fit the support bar back into position before reaching inside the shoulder to fit the tiny, unseated gear back into place.  The moment he was done, the metal man's form seemed to stiffen as if in shock.  Twist backed away instantly, afraid he'd somehow hurt him again.  The metal man looked down at its own limb, bending it slowly to test it, before looking back to him.

“Who are you?” the metal man asked, opening his solid metal lips like a marionette puppet, while fully formed words echoed out of his metal throat.

“Twist,” he offered with a shrug, unsure how else to respond. “I fix clocks for a living, in London,” he added, hoping it might help.  Thin silver plates slid over the green jewels, giving the clear effect of narrowed eyes in the metal face.

“What?” the metal man asked.  Twist took a moment to reconsider his position.

“I need a crystal,” he said. “Like the one that runs your body,” he added, pointing to the metal man's silver covered chest. “I'm trying to repair a...” he paused, unsure how to even refer to Myra in the face of her kinsman, “a puppet, like yours.  The mechanism is complete, but the crystal was broke when I found it.”

“There are none of us outside this cave,” the metal man said.

“There are others?” Twist asked, wholly unable to keep the wonder from his voice.

“No,” the metal man said instantly, straightening itself up slightly.

Twist shook his head, struggling to keep his battered mind on track. “The princess,” he said, imploringly, “the one who lived in the mountains of Nepal.  She was broken ages ago.  I only just found her, and I'm almost finished fixing her.  Please, will you help me?  I've come from the other side of the world just to bring her back to life.  She's been alone for so long.”  As he spoke, something slipped out of his mental grasp and he felt his eyes begin to burn while his voice wavered threateningly.  He took in a deep breath, biting back his weary emotions.