Encante (12 page)

Chapter Sixteen

I
heard the shouting before we caught up with them, Drew’s distinctive drawl cursing and screaming. In hindsight, I realised it could only have been Everett who had caused him to become so angry, but as it was, I was shocked when the three of us stumbled down a ladder to see the captain backing slowly towards us, one arm wrapped around the vaguely struggling form of Drusilla, while the other held what looked to be a six shot revolver, a little pepper pot thing.

Drusilla had rallied herself slightly, evidently frightened into semi-consciousness, but even from that angle I could see she was fading fast. The harder she fought it, the faster she waned. Horatio was advancing even as Everett was backing away, but it wasn’t until my feet hit the deck, and the captain turned, that he realised he was closed off on both sides. He changed tactics and ducked into the nearest room, trying to get the door closed but failing as my boot wedged it firmly open. I levelled my own weapon at him and prayed I could keep my voice steady.

“Let her go, Captain.”

“Just how good a shot are you, lad?” He dragged Drusilla around to shield himself.

“Good enough.”

“Are you certain?” he asked. “She’s just a whore, hardly worth the bother.”

“Call her a whore one more time, Captain Everett,” I warned, “and I’ll blow your head clean from your shoulders.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“It would undoubtedly be the last thing you saw.”

“The last thing she would see too, I’d wager.”

“Simeon.” I felt, more than saw, the worry on Axel’s face. “She’s already weak, if you shot her, even grazed her . . .”

“Listen to the boy, lad,” Cage said. “Lower the gun.”

“I can’t do that, Captain.” I watched as the last of the fight fled Drusilla’s failing limbs and she wilted even more in Everett’s arms.

“No?” He narrowed his eyes, tightening his grip on Drusilla so much he was able to elicit one final cry from her. “What are you going to do then?”

“I would remind you, sir, that bullets bounce.” I aimed far wide of both of them and shot with perfect accuracy one of the rivets on the wall behind him. The bullet ricocheted, startling Everett so much he dropped Drusilla. I lunged forwards and scooped her up, dragging her back out of the room, away from her uncle and the still-flying bullet. As soon as I was clear, Drew slammed the door shut.

We ran.

Chapter Seventeen

W
e met nobody else on our way to the hydroponics bay, but the bodies of dead sailors littered the decks of several corridors. When we finally reached the flickering lights of the jade waters, Drusilla’s condition had grown so desperate I all but dropped her in. Vee dove after her, and I glanced up at Axel as Drusilla’s form sank steadily deeper, the outlines of her body growing hazy and unsure the further away from me she sank.

“She’ll be all right,” he assured me, though I sensed he said it as much for himself as he did for me.

My gaze fell on the broken form of Franklin Garrett, lying on one of the platforms behind Axel. His eyes stared lifelessly at me. His legs twitched and jerked, almost comically, within the fierce confines of a mechanical tail. Neither Dane nor Piccolo so much as glanced at him. Orville, on the other hand, seemed to smile. I did not blame them. I could almost condone it.

“What now?” I asked.

“Now we swim,” Drew replied gruffly.

And we did. One by one, we entered the water, sliding beneath the cool surface and making for the exit. I accepted Vee’s hand as she placed it over my mouth, then started as I realised it was not her hand at all. Tentacles, just like hers, coiled around me, but rather than the amphibious texture I had become accustomed to seeing on the others, they inked the water with a familiar obsidian hue. The face beneath them was not Vee’s, but my own sweet Drusilla’s, grinning at me with renewed vigour. The water had replenished her, but beneath the waves she looked more encante than human, and all the more beautiful for it.

We abandoned the Narwhal in pairs. It gave me some pleasure to know that since their aid was required to escape, not a single human left that ship with whom the encante were unhappy. We surfaced some time later, having passed through the strangely amber sea into the seemingly more familiar blue waters of the surface. Beneath us, the shadow of Everett’s vessel listed at an odd angle, clearly sinking with every passing moment. I felt a sharp pang of remorse as I thought of the dead who lay within her, but it passed perhaps a little more swiftly than it should; the memory of Drusilla’s prone form, sinking similarly beneath the surface as she lingered near death was far too fresh in my mind for me to find much remorse for those who would treat a person so.

I’ve never been a strong swimmer and, even with Drusilla’s aid, I was exhausted by the time we reached land. Strangers lead the way, larger and stronger than those encante I knew, some draped in coils and strings of shells, others wearing jewellery of such finery I could suddenly understand why Everett thought he would find treasure in this place. Gold was abundant; even the shells they wore appeared to have been dipped in it.

I stumbled from the ocean onto a beach of fine scarlet sand, having lost my boots and, to my shame, my trousers during the swim. I collapsed in a state of exhaustion, soon joined by my fellow humans. For some time I found I could do nothing but lie there, watching in amusement as Drusilla span in circles and danced along the shore, laughing with such wild abandon I was astonished the denizens did not think her mad. It occurred to me they likely shared her gifts, and thus were aware of her reasons for being so delighted to be there. It was not only that she had escaped her uncle’s punishment, not only that she was finally free of a lifetime of derision at the hands of her stepmother; it was that, for the first time in her life, she found herself in a place where she felt truly equal. For the first time in her life, she felt she was free.

The remaining encante who had been aboard the Narwharl slowly emerged from the waters at various points on the shore. I was pleased to see Stella, aided by the twins and two other slave-girls, walking from the waters to join us. A song drifted to me over the waves, luscious and decadent, full-throated and far more deeply felt than I had heard the encante sing aboard the ship.

Propping myself up on my elbows, I turned to gaze out across the water. Light blinded me momentarily, and I squinted against the glare of an unfeasible setting sun. I was musing on how such a thing was possible, in the centre of the earth itself, when I caught sight of a craggy rock formation some way out to sea. Upon it stood a single encante, her flesh of a more pinkish hue than Vee’s and most of the others. At first I mistook her for one of the local encante, born into this strange new world. Then I saw her face, smiling broadly as she bent, reaching a hand out towards a passing fish. Her hair fell in rivulets and was beaded with shells, and she looked remarkably human, until one’s eyes caught on her waist and all that was below. Where human legs would have been, she stood upon a cluster of tentacles, and I finally recognised her: Mae.

“Magnificent, isn’t she?”

I startled, glancing around to see Teddy struggling towards me across the soft, crimson sand. His face was alight at the sight of the girl he had struggled so hard to keep alive. Despite the joy in his expression, I saw the bruises bubbling to the surface of his skin, blue and black and far too telling. With a jolt I recalled Everett saying he knew all that was said in Drusilla’s room, and realised suddenly that we had inadvertently given the old man away. I was about to say something when he spoke, cutting me off.

“Look at her, Escher.” He shook his head. “Just
look at her!”
I could see tears crinkling his eyes and pooling at the edges of his bruises as he watched the girl dive from the rock and disappear from sight. “She swam me to shore, can you believe that? My frail young thing, almost dead not two days ago, can you believe it?”

“I can believe it,” I told him. “I feared Drusilla was not long for this world, for any world, but as soon as she touched this ocean . . .” We both fell silent, dropping back onto the sand. I was utterly exhausted, and could only imagine how Teddy must have felt after such a long swim at his advanced age.

*

I was half asleep, sprawled on the surprisingly warm sand, when a long shadow fell over me. Shielding my eyes yet again from the dimming light of the curious sunset, I bolted half upright as I realised what had so suddenly blocked my light. Over me towered an encante of such alarming size that I struggled to my feet, squinting and babbling an incoherent greeting before giving up entirely.

“Drusilla!” I yelled, but she was already at my side. I had to crane my neck to meet the man’s gaze, for he stood a good four feet taller than myself. And I had thought Lefe to be astonishingly tall.

Upon his head sat a crown of golden conches. In the palm of the hand he held hesitantly out toward me, suction cups ran in concentric circles along his burnished skin. I took it without hesitation, shaking it firmly, as my father had always taught me to do.

Chapter Eighteen

I
sat on the beach later that evening contemplating the pseudo-daylight. The ‘sun’ had ceased to set at a certain point, and I had been given to understand it would remain as it was until it rose again in an indeterminate number of hours. A world without night. I was not sure I could endure living in such a place.

I looked up as Drusilla approached, not bothering with a greeting as she already knew I thought she looked beautiful in the attire her cousins had given her. Comprised predominantly of shells, and showing a lot of skin, I found it looked more natural on her than clothing ever had, despite how gracefully she had worn the various garb in which I had seen her. It was taking me some time to adjust to the sight of her skin, however—far more time than it had for me to accept the nakedness of the other encante when we were aboard the ship. They seemed now to be relishing the opportunity to cover themselves or not, depending upon their wish.

“Ready?” she asked. I nodded. I had already said my goodbyes; hers had taken rather longer.

“Your father approves?” I asked.

“He does; he’d have come with us were it not for Axel—he won’t leave his son to try and build a new life here alone.”

“Is he still angry you’re leaving?” I cringed at the memory of Drew’s initial reaction to the news I was taking his daughter away from him. He had calmed down considerably however, once I explained how much I loved her.

“No.” She smiled. “He wants me to be happy. And he likes you far more than you realise.”

“He won’t allow Axel to begin anew alone, yet he’s content for you to do so? You’re certain?” She raised a single eyebrow at me and waited for me to realise the stupidity of my own question. “Oh, of course you are.”

“He trusts you, Simeon. He trusts my welfare to you.”

“I shall not let him down,” I told her.

“I know that, too.”

I took the compass from my pocket and stared at it.

“You’re wondering what we’ll do if it doesn’t work,” she said.

“What will we do?” I asked.

“Remain here, obviously.” She smiled. “There will be little else we can do.”

“It bothers me that the thought of it fills me with dread, and yet here I am expecting you to leave your own world for mine.”

“If it didn’t bother you, I might not be leaving.” I smiled at that. “Besides, we’ll return, I’m sure of it.”

I was so relieved I kissed her. “You’ve seen it?”

“No, but I have . . . a feeling.” I slipped an arm around her almost naked waist and laughed.

“I wish there were a way of ensuring we appeared in the middle of a crowded street in my home town; Hollowvale could use a good scandal.”

“Am I so scandalous?”

“Oh, I do hope so.”

She lifted an arm and waved at the silhouetted forms of her father, brother and Vee, standing on a cove of rocks some distance off down the sand. They were dwarfed by the figure of the King standing beside them. I still found it hard to believe there was a whole world here, and not only that, but a world of such wonder. Alchemy was nothing to these people. It was no wonder Drusilla was so proficient; they had life elixirs that allowed them unparalleled longevity, and more riches than I could count, yet they considered such things to be of no more import than the grains of sand between my bared toes.

“Even by Loth Lörion standards, I think this one might beggar belief,” I said, waving to them myself.

Drusilla clung to me, giggling. “You find this world so strange, Simeon. I find it almost mundane. It is as if I have always been bound here, and know I am still bound here, despite the fact we are leaving. This will not be the last time we stand on these shores, of that I am certain, nor will your hopes of finding allies on Idele prove fruitless.

“I believe you have found the strongest allies your rebellion could hope for, and they are right here; my people are formidable warriors, I know that from my dreams. Dreams I once thought fiction, I now know to be true. There is a whole world here, Simeon, a world untouched by the Kabbalah, a world the Kabbalah does not, in their wildest dreams, imagine exists, let alone imagining it could ever be a threat. They allowed my uncle his explorations because they thought it a nonsensical fairy-tale, a daydream told by slaves to comfort themselves in their agony.”