Chương 57: Vertebus

I stood there looking at them all, my face a mess, Armand's warning sitting at the back of my head where I fully intended to leave it. The vertebus hovered by the far wall, humming quietly, and Augustin and Eulalie waited beside it, patiently, for me to finish my goodbyes. Well. I had finished. I'd hugged every last person in the caves. Oh — except Henriette! Where had that lousy girl got to? I looked around and spotted her with Estelle. They talked for a moment, and then Estelle hugged her tightly.

And — Henriette was holding a large, overstuffed bag. That was... odd. She spotted me, and the two of them came over.

"I'm ready!" she said, beaming at me.

"Ready... for?" I asked, already guessing the answer.

"I'm coming with," she said happily.

"I've no choice, really. You're far too stupid to manage on your own."

"I—hey! You cheeky little brat," I said.

"You..." And I stopped mid-sentence, because the truth was I was so profoundly relieved that Henriette was coming.

"—need to behave properly," is what I blurted. She grinned at me. I smiled back at her, and we stayed like that for a long moment.

"Please take care of her," Estelle said.

"I will," Henriette and I said in unison. Oh, Estelle had obviously been talking to me. I slipped away to my tiny bedroom to gather my belongings. Staring at my meager possessions, I realized I had almost nothing here, and that made me smile — it meant I really hadn't needed anything to be happy anyway. There was only Zsanareth's call doll, my nightgown, and my dirty work clothes from the mushroom farm. Would I even be able to do farm work where I was going? It saddened me to think I might not.

I loved working the farm — it was fun, and calming. I folded my work clothes neatly and tucked them into a small bag. Then I went outside to find Augustin.

"I'm ready," I said. We all walked over to the vertebus. Augustin gestured at one of the platforms — er, vertebrae, with a single lizard already standing on it, and when we reached it he offered a hand to help us up. The thing floated a good two feet off the ground. The platform itself was about six feet across, and up close it really did look like bone: flat and slightly porous, faintly warm underfoot, with small metal handles bolted into the surface.

Once we were all aboard, Henriette and I waved goodbye to our friends, and the strange vehicle began to move. No wheels. No horses. Not even skeleton horses. This was a serious piece of magic. After a few minutes I noticed we were picking up speed, and at some point every passenger sat down and took hold of the handles in the floor. Henriette too.

"Hurry up," she said.

"This thing is mad. You want to hold on tight, unless you'd rather fall off and die." I got the idea. We went faster and faster, and on the turns I felt myself slide, and understood exactly how easily a person could be flung off and broken on the rock. We were already moving faster than the fastest horse I have ever seen. And the thing was, it just kept building speed. This... this was too much! It was an impossible speed! The cave walls rushed past in a smear, and the wind tore at my hair.

If we so much as clipped a rock, a wall, anything, we'd all be turned to paste.

"AAAAAH!" I screamed. Forget the contract! Forget my new old husband! I was going to die today! Henriette looked over at me, grinned enormously, and screamed too.

"AAAAAAH!" There was something very, very wrong with that girl. We rose and dropped and swung, and it was all blur and shrieking wind and my own shrieking, and I decided to shut my eyes. Oh. That was better.

"You have to look!" Henriette shouted.

"This is the best part! Open your eyeeeees!" The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I opened them, and cursed, because I was obviously about to die and why on earth would I want to watch— And then, in one sudden moment, we were out in the open sky. The tunnel spat us into nothing. No ground beneath us, no ceiling above, and for one long breath the vertebus simply hung in the air. It was twilight. And it was hell.

The clouds were deep red — heavy near the horizon, going pink and orange further up — and they went on forever in every direction, impossibly far away. I hadn't been out in the open since my first day in hell. Months of low tunnels and stone ceilings and lamplight, and then this. It was beautiful. Terribly, indescribably beautiful. I forgot to scream. Henriette shook my arm with her free hand.

"See? See how huge and beautiful it is!?"

"Yes," I said, still stunned.

"It is." The vertebus dropped back toward the ground, but it landed soft and kept going, skimming fast over red and yellow desert. We passed mountains, and after them the ground changed — patches of coarse blood-red grass, then small villages scattered here and there. Once I saw a herd of enormous fat lizard-things, low and wide as boulders, being driven along by figures with long poles. Less than an hour of that, and we came over a low ridge, and there it was. A white city.

As if made wholly of marble, catching the last of the light, and at its centre rose a palace like a mountain somebody had carved. It had nothing to do with hell. If anything, it looked like a city out of heaven. The whole of it was ringed by a high white wall, and we stopped before a gate — two great slabs of banded iron and bone, three stories tall, with the three-horned skull cut deep into the stone of the arch above. We all climbed down.

Augustin went to the guards at the gate and exchanged a few words, and then a pair of them came and slowly walked the vertebus away through a side door beside the main arch. As we passed through, the city sprawled out in front of us. It was getting dark, but the streets glowed a faint red, lit by wooden posts topped with glowing red crystals. Up close, not all the buildings were white marble, most were actually timber, but every one of them was in good repair. Vastly better than my town in the living world.

Closer, maybe, to pictures I'd seen of Paris. At that hour there weren't many people out and most of the streets were empty, but I saw an old man sitting on a bench, and a lizard couple walking hand in hand along a narrow canal. They all looked peaceful.

"Amazing!" gaped Henriette.

"I've never seen so many buildings in my life!"

"Towns are like that," I told the little country girl.

"But this — yes. This is special."

"Welcome to Mithatylil," said Augustin with pride.

"One of the most beautiful cities in the country. And your new home." The soldiers scattered then, off in various directions, a few exchanging quick words with Augustin as they went, until only Augustin and Eulalie were left walking with us.

We followed the main street toward the centre, where the great palace stood, and somehow the city only got prettier as we went — bridges over the canals, fountains in the little squares, all of it gleaming faintly in the lamplight — until we reached a large and beautiful mansion, probably twice the size of the Château. Pale stone, tall windows, an iron fence with something overgrown behind it. Was this some sort of headquarters? Was Azearothiel waiting inside?

Augustin opened the big oak door, went in, and we followed. And there in the main hall, a skeleton was sprawled across the floor. I let out a shriek. There was no flesh on him and no smell — the body must have been lying here for years … Wait.

"Alexey. Get up. Now," barked Eulalie. The skeleton stirred at once, stood slowly, and gave us a look of what might have been profound boredom. Then, without a word, it trudged to a nearby couch, lay down, and went apparently back to sleep.

"I apologize for that," Augustin said to me.

"This is your butler. And your cook. Please take no offence — there's a shortage of working hands these days. And despite his manner, he's perfectly capable."

"He should at least put some damn clothes on," said Eulalie angrily.

"It's unseemly for a skeleton." Was it unseemly? Well. Eulalie was also a skeleton, and she clearly took great pains over fashion. Wait!

"Did you say my butler? Is this—""Your house," said Augustin, with a small smile beneath his moustache.

"I imagine after the caves it seems a little excessive. You'll get used to it." I gaped. I looked at Henriette. She was gaping too.

"We'll leave you to it," Augustin said.

"You must be tired, and you should rest tonight. In the morning we'll meet with Azearothiel and explain your new role in detail." And with that, Augustin and Eulalie were gone. And Henriette and I were left alone in a monster of a house, with a deviant skeleton asleep on the couch. Not a moment passed before Henriette lost all control of herself — jumping on cushions, sliding down the banister, flinging open doors and shouting into the empty rooms to hear the echo.

"Weee! This is like a palace!" But I didn't like it. It was big and it was empty, and next to the cozy caves, with all the people and the noise and Estelle's hot, thick helmet soup, the whole thing made me sad all at once. Henriette must have noticed, because she took my hand and pulled me back out the front door.

"Look." She pointed at the dark garden beside the house.

"I'm sure that skeleton Alexey hasn't lifted a finger out here. It's in really bad shape. And I think I saw a tool shed round the back." That put a big smile on my face. I looked at Henriette very fondly.

"Yes. A lot of work. I'll need your help too!"

"Of course." She smiled back. We went in and gave ourselves a small tour, walking through countless rooms that were fully furnished with plush carpets, imported woods, and lavish decorations. Then Henriette yawned. It had been a long day, and I was tired too. I looked into one of the huge, fancy bedrooms — dark wood panelling, and a bed the size of a hay cart, four-postered and canopied and heaped with pillows. And suddenly the size of it overwhelmed me. It was too big. It looked ready to swallow me whole.

"Ahem. Henriette." I cleared my throat, and she looked up at me.

"You know," I said, "it wouldn't be terribly embarrassing for you if — well, I mean, it's not unheard of for a young girl such as yourself to be afraid to sleep alone."

"Sure, I can share with you."

"Well. If you insist," I said, and nodded at her. And when I lay down, I suddenly remembered what it was like to sleep on a mattress that was actually soft. And it wasn't all that terrible.