The Calm Before the Rage
936 7 48
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Chapter XIX: The Calm Before The Rage

 

There was a tension in Lady Halflance’s study that you could feel, the kind of tension that makes it hard to breathe. It had been a few hours since we had returned to the manor, Unity in tow. Almost instantly, Lady Halflance had vanished into the passageways of the manor, saying that she had to show Unity around the place and get her situated. Approximately one eternity later, one of the pages had told me, Charcharias, and Rook to all gather in the study and wait for her to arrive. I’m not sure how long we sat there waiting for her, but it was forever.

Once or twice I tried to get a conversation going, talk about something other than the crisis with Margaret, but it never went long. There was just one thing on everyone’s mind: what next? I considered calling the police, but everything I had heard was that they were somehow worse here than on Earth. If we wanted to get Margaret out of there alive, going to the police wasn’t the right path. And sure, Unity’s new information was helpful, but it wasn’t a marked map to Nemesis’s lair. And even then… who knew what was down there. Nemesis could have guards, machines, all kinds of traps and defenses that we hadn’t even thought of. 

Just as I started considering the exact mechanics of how Nemesis might have constructed some kind of an impaling spike machine trap, Halflance burst in. She was holding a couple of rolled-up sheets under one arm, and looked like she was deep in thought. Without giving any of us a glance she fast-walked over to her desk, swept aside everything on it, and unrolled the papers.

“Come on then, don’t just sit around. We have to figure out the location of Nemesis’s lab. Now,” she said, businesslike.

Rook was the first to stand, instantly following her orders. Charcharias and I took a moment to give one another a mildly concerned look before following her. The papers (I saw now that there were two of them) looked to be printed maps, one of which had a series of large X marks written on in dark blue ink.

“So what are we working with here?” I asked.

Lady Halflance didn’t notice me for several seconds, staring intently at the maps. When it did reach her that I had said something, she looked almost startled. She pointed to one map, then the other. “Map of the city above ground, map of the city below ground.”

The below ground map was the one with the blue Xs. “Let me guess,” said Rook, standing back with her arms crossed. “The X marks are what you learned from Unity? You should really try not to ruin maps like that.”

Halflance chuckled. “I’ll take it into consideration. And yes, these are the locations where members of Unity’s group have gone missing.”

Upon further consideration, it became clear. The marked map was the underground one, a vast labyrinth of narrow passages. Some of them were sewers, others catacombs, one area even being marked as a salt mine. The orderly grid of the more recent portions was marred by regions of ultra-tough rock forcing the tunnels around them, collapsed regions, areas where the construction intersected with something far older. It was a mess, and I began to see how an entire encampment could stay away from prying eyes down there.

“Well the first thing I’m noticing is that the disappearances are… clustered?” said Charcharias. She was right, one half of the map had at least a dozen X marks, while the other half was unmarked. “Where was the actual camp, again?”

“It isn’t marked on the map, obviously.” Halflance reached out towards the center of the map, tapping her finger against a nondescript segment of tunnel. “There was a wall collapse here, revealing an old limestone cavern. They live in there.”

“So you’re saying that everyone who ended up getting kidnapped by Nemesis was last seen heading out… that way?” I vaguely gestured towards the left side of the map.

“That’s the East,” said Rook. “And it seems that would be the case. Trust me, it’s much easier to notice these things marked on a map rather than when you’re underground, watching your friends vanish one after the other.”

I nodded. “But that’s still a pretty big hint, right? If Nemesis only went after the people who were stationed out that way, that implies the location of her lab, doesn’t it?”

There was a long pause. “Congratulations, Emma, you’ve narrowed it down to half of the city.”

I glared at Lady Halflance. She glared back. “That’s still half as much city as you had before. Now shut up and think.”

More silence. I scanned the underground map as much as I could, tracing out the paths, with special focus to the ones around the marks. Perhaps, I thought, there was some pattern to the tunnels, to the locations where people had been taken, that would reveal where the Mechanodrones doing the kidnappings were coming from. If I could just logic it together it would all become obvious. I took the green stone shard out of my pocket and started flipping it over in my hand. Even though I now knew that it had been given to me by a murderous madwoman, it was still convenient as a ye olde fidget spinner.

I didn’t realize that Rook had left the room until she came back. Evidently whatever sort of army/special forces/hardass bodyguard training she had also included a lesson in being Batman. She was carrying with her a small notebook as well as a red fountain pen. I didn’t have much time at all to puzzle out what she was going to do with those before she read my mind, took pity, and decided to demonstrate.

Mumbling addresses under her breath, she started marking seemingly random intersections on the underground map, leaving a neat red Xs all over the left side of the map.

“What the hell are you doing?” asked Halflance, more confused than angry.

“It’s another one of Margaret’s projects,” said Rook, having reverted to her Creandassic accent. “She and a few of her archaeologist friends had been working on locating the sources of green stone beneath the city. She had it all marked out as well, where the stones were found during their expeditions.”

One by one, as Rook marked out the locations, a pattern started to emerge. Whereas the locations of the missing homeless people was a random cloud, with a few locations with two marks close together and others more spread out, there was a definite… structure? Shape? It became obvious that something was up here. A few of the marks, four or five, were clustered together far off on the right side of the map, near the shoreline but far afield from the missing people. The rest were in roughly the same area as the missing people, except… centered, like taking a handful of sand and dropping it onto a sheet of paper from high up. Some of it scatters, but a lot of it stays at the center. And the center was on the eastern edge of the map.

I had to lean over the table to reach it, but I tapped the center of the big cluster. “So it’s here. Now we can… do something?”

“Emma, I know it looks small on a map,” said Charcharias, “but that area still covers several city blocks. It could take hours to search the whole area, and by the time we were done Margaret would be dead.”

“Oh come on! This is ridiculous, how big is this freaking city? This map needs to have a scale on it, maybe an ‘objects on map are way smaller than they appear’ warning.”

“Cities with two hundred thousand living in them tend to do that,” deadpanned Lady Halflance.

“Oh that’s how many people live here? Dang. I just wish that Charcharias and I had been able to—“

I was about to say “find something when we looked into this.” but two things happened at once. The first was Charcharias pointedly clearing her throat to remind me that we hadn’t told Halflance or Rook about that particular trip and should probably keep it under wraps. The second was that I was hit by inspiration.

“Do you have an illuminated desk, for tracing?” I asked.

Halflance looked at me with about as much confusion as the time I tried explaining what a “man” was. 

“Okay, okay. These maps, are they on the same scale? They look like they have the same dimensions but I’m not sure.”

“They’re on the same scale, erm, what are you doing?” asked Halflance.

I was searching. I was searching for a specific intersection, trying to confirm my hunch. Then I found it, the intersection of Greystoke and Almpasser, in the upper left of the street-level map. 

I took the two maps and dragged them across the table, carefully lining things up so that each edge matched up with all the others. The street map was on top, and the underground map below. 

“May I borrow that pen?” I asked. Rook tossed it to me, wordlessly. Then I turned to Charcharias. “Now hold up the corner of the map…” Charcharias tentatively lifted up the corner near to her. “Yeah, that one.”

I put my finger down on the intersection, and while it took a little bit of finagling, I was able to scratch a few messy pen marks into the back of the underground map. When the maps were separated, there was a red zigzag visible through the paper. More importantly was where.

Dr. Charcharias’s eyes went wide. “Of course! How didn’t I think of this. Emma, you’re a genius.”

“What? What did she do?” I had never seen Halflance looking confused before, and I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Rook took a moment to examine the map once again, tracing out the passageways around the mark I had made. It wasn’t a very accurate mark; for one thing, most of it wasn’t even over a tunnel, instead being out in the blank space that presumably denoted a mass of solid stone. It was also partially overlapping with one of the other red marks that showed a location where the green stones were found. Specifically, one that was pretty much dead center of the major cluster, and right around where one of Unity’s friends had gone missing.

“Well that’s about as good a guess as any,” mused Rook. “I’m going to assume that you have some reason for thinking Nemesis’s base is here?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” said Halflance, gritting her teeth. “One of you explain how this helps me find my wife, or I’m going to cry.”

“Dr. Charcharias and I did a little bit of… independent research.” I pointed at the surface map. “This intersection came up as a place Nemesis had visited. And if you look directly below it, assuming you’re right about the whole scale thing, this is the location you get.”

“So that’s where Nemesis’s laboratory is?” asked Halflance.

I looked over the maps. If it was this, I was out of ideas. “Yeah. I’m pretty damn sure.”

“Very well then.” She furrowed her brow, eyes pointed at the maps but clearly not looking at them. “So we organize a search party, head down there, and deal with Nemesis.”

“I’ll lead it,” announced Rook. “Sir Margaret’s safety was my responsibility, and if it hadn’t been for my own negligence she wouldn’t be in danger. My guards and I will be more than enough to deal with Nemesis.”

“No, the guards stay here,” said Halflance. “We don’t want my manor going unprotected while the rest of us are tromping around in the sewers. For Norma and Felicia’s sake if nothing else.”

“So it’s just going to be whoever volunteers, wonderful.” Dr. Charcharias’s eyes dropped. “I can’t go. Not as good shape as I used to be.”

I was about to question that, given her performance against the wolf-monster-thing from a couple of nights ago, when Halflance responded. “Of course, I understand,” she said, nodding. “You’ve done more than enough to help us, what with Unity and whatever ‘investigation’ you and Emma did. I’ll be going as well, considering that this is my wife in danger.”

I bit my lower lip, briefly considering the idea of staying with Charcharias. Nobody would blame me, I figured, considering I had barely a month and a half of training behind me. No way. “Me also. I don’t really know Margaret all that well, but… dammit she seems like a good person. I know how to fight and I’m not just going to wait around back here seeing if she makes it or not.”

“Just the three of us then,” said Halflance. “This ought to be interesting.”

“What? We’re not going to anyone else for help? Just the three of us against whatever the hell Nemesis has down there? She might have traps, or guards, or goodness knows what.”

“If that were the case, why hasn’t she attacked us again?” asked Rook. 

“Uh. Maybe… umm.” I’m a top-notch debater, I swear.

“My guess is that it takes her a long time to regain her strength. If we’re quick about it, and stealthy, she might not even realize we’re there until it’s too late.”

“And having more people means she has more time to fight back.”

“Exactly. It’s her home-field advantage against our stealth. Not to mention… I’ve seen Halflance fight, as have you. I’d put money on the three of us over a pack of half-machines any day, trust me.” Rook… smiled? It was more of a subtle smirk, maybe a twitch of her lip, but either way it was unusual.

Halflance grabbed the underground map, carefully folding it up. “Very well then. Grab what you need, meet me in the yard in twenty minutes.”

And with that, I was out. It had felt so… fast. In the course of five minutes I had agreed to throw myself face-first into danger, going underneath the city to rescue someone I only sort of knew from a literal mad scientist. Of course, I had thrown myself into danger before, at least four times since I arrived on Selene. This felt different. Every other time I had been forced into it, or else I had had the danger thrown at me without warning. This was… premeditated. Premeditated, suicidal heroism. Which meant that there was really no other choice to make, was there?

My weapons were kept in my room, just in case. I hadn’t come up with the idea, and the idea of instruments of death being kept in the same place I slept made me mildly uncomfortable, but I had been informed that it was the safest choice. Lady Halflance and I had had a long, grueling argument about the whole thing, but in the end I had relented. 

The revolver and its holster were both hanging from an otherwise-unused  hatrack by the door. I solemnly checked that the cylinder was still working, just the way that Rook had taught me, then clipped it on around my hips. I had some ammunition stored up as well, though it took a minute to remember where I had put it. The bullets went into my pockets, along with a mumbled reminder to not lose them. 

There was one item left to pick up. The belt that I used to carry my revolver had an empty space for another item to be clipped on. After all, what happens if I run out of bullets? My saber, the same one I had used to murder Regan Leyrender, was sitting on a silk cloth in the top drawer. Once I had the drawer open, I had to stop and stare. The memories of her death, of the other deaths that had come before, of Unity lying half-dead on the ground, still encased in her shell, of the smell of antiseptic. I slowly reached out, daring myself to come closer and closer to that sword. I barely noticed when my hand wrapped around the hilt, the memories were so strong. I lifted the sword out of the cabinet and gave it a few test swings. As the memories settled down into a background buzz, I closed my eyes and whispered to myself.

“I can do this.”

I clipped the scabbard onto my belt, on the left side. With a careful motion, I sheathed the saber, a trickle of confidence flowing into me from the weight of it at my hip. Then, with the knowledge that I might very well die and the resolution to do it anyway, I threw open the door and made my way to the front yard.

Announcement
There's two pieces of news to give out this week. First of all, I learned how to use the news function! Second of all, we're nearing the end of this book, unfortunately. Swords of Selene is going to end after Chapter 23, at which point I might so silent for a short while. But fear not dear reader, Emma's story will not end there! I have plenty more ideas, and any subsequent stories will be linked on this page, somehow.

48