The Emperor yanked him to his feet and continued down the corridor. The blocks of cells were behind them now, and another door was before them. The Emperor pulled it open, ushered Alex inside, and closed it.

The interior was not what Alex had been expecting. With oak-panelled walls, thick carpet, and multicolored jars on shelves, it was more reminiscent of an old apothecary than the office of a prison warden.

A black-cloaked, thick man sat at the large desk, writing, his hood down. His hair was greying, and he had a long, forked beard. Gla.s.ses were perched on his crooked nose, and his gaze flicked upwards as they entered. "Ah, so this is the newest recruit," he remarked, standing and moving around the desk to offer his hand to Alex. "Archbishop Faustus. Pleased to finally meet you."

Alex didn't take his hand.

Faustus retracted it slowly. "Your Majesty," he acknowledged, bowing slightly to the figure behind Alex.

"So you're responsible for all this?" Alex said to Faustus, trying to keep his voice as calm and steady as possible.

"Well, yes, I am." Faustus's reply brimmed with badly concealed pride. "Many of my fellows on the Council of Thirteen keep matters moving abroad, but I prefer my work right at the heart of the empire-"

His words were knocked from him as Alex's alchemy flung Faustus across the room. He collided with the shelves, jars shattering and spraying him with colored liquid.

He spluttered and rose, face s.h.i.+ning red. "How dare you! Mephistopheles!" With a flick of his hand, a demon rose from a pool of Darkness in the carpet. The immensely tall and skeletally thin figure was clothed like a monk and clasped a spell book. The monk demon raised a bony finger to draw a symbol in the air, but Alex was too quick. In a heartbeat, his signature shruriken was formed between his fingers-not the silvery one he had used his last night on Earth but one seeping with Dark energy. He hurled it, and it scythed the demon's core straight through, the monk vanis.h.i.+ng in a plume of black smoke.

Blood blossomed on Faustus's chest, and his breath caught in his throat. Alex conjured several thin black needles that shot across the room and embedded themselves in the Cultist's wrists and ankles, pinning him to the wall.

"Sire, please," Faustus implored, appealing to the Emperor over Alex's head. But the figure behind him remained motionless, watching intently from the doorway.

Alex regarded the pathetic figure before him. The rage was back, stronger than ever before, pumping in his arteries like an addictive drug. He was at one with the shadows in the room, which now seemed to kindle and grow. He felt nothing but hatred for the weak executioner panting with high-pitched pleas.

Faustus became aware of something s.h.i.+fting in the darkness. A shape was twisting its way out of the gloom, slithering across the carpet towards him, tongue flicking from a lipless mouth. It rose above him, tautly balanced on its slender form. He was bedazzled by those emerald eyes-eyes that exactly matched those of its human counterpart behind them. It opened its mouth, knifelike fangs spread impossibly wide.

The serpent struck, and Faustus's screams joined those of his inmates.

The Emperor smiled from the darkness as the last vestiges of the archbishop were consumed. Of course, it had been rather disingenuous of him to suggest Faustus was responsible for this level of the prison. All responsibility fell to the Emperor, personally, as the leader of the Cult. But the aim had been for Mister Steele to summon his first demon, and that aim had been achieved with supreme elegance.

PART IV.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of pa.s.sionate intensity"

"The Second Coming"

W. B. Yeats.

Chapter I.

the plot.

The Emperor of Nexus was seated upon his throne. The vaults of the Cathedral ceiling caught and rebounded the rolling notes of the organ. Candles burnt in banks either side of him, reflecting off the dark stone floor. He could hear, beyond the screen, the echoes of the congregation leaving after the service. His section of the building was deserted, apart from him and the figure now striding towards him up the aisle.

His visitor was, like the rest of their order, swathed in a black cloak. Hood, boots, and gloves left no trace of flesh exposed. Only the sauntering gave a clue whose face was concealed in the shadows: a lithe swagger that suggested either extreme arrogance or madness.

The figure halted at the bottom of the steps and bowed exaggeratedly low. "Your Majesty."

"Lord Icarus," the Emperor acknowledged, tilting his head slightly. "I trust you are well?"

"Quite well, my liege, thank you." Icarus lowered his hood. His hair was sleek and reached his shoulders, framing an aging but handsome face with an inward-curving jawline. The piercing blue eyes scanned their surroundings. "We are alone, I trust?"

"I have instructed the custodians that we are to be disturbed by no one."

"You may reveal yourself, then."

"Indeed." Slate-colored smoke had trailed from the Emperor's skin. His body slumped in the throne, motionless, the eyes open but dulled. The smoke was projecting from his chest, swirling upwards to form a column in front of the mortal marionette. It resolved into the form of an old man, long haired and bearded, skin and robe entirely grey. The only thing of the Emperor that remained were the eyes-twin globes of gold that burnt like suns in a basalt galaxy.

"This vessel is weakening," the grey figure muttered disdainfully, glancing back at the Emperor's carca.s.s. "These mortal puppets decay so easily."

His voice still sent Icarus shuddering slightly: it was deep, far deeper than he had thought possible, and carried the weight of millennia. "If all goes to plan, then you shall not have to endure it much longer. I trust that is why you've summoned me? Is everything on schedule?"

"Yes, it is. We hold a Shard in addition to the Darkness pouring into this world from the Cult's many conquests. The Cultists still believe the Emperor intends to create a superweapon as a means towards greater imperial domination. The real purpose of the Aterosa remains concealed from all but us."

Icarus nodded. "And you think it can work?"

"It is flawless. Ndiuno was the very first world to fall to the Darkness, but I knew at that point it would have to be resurrected once the Cult had run the course of its usefulness. The Fourth Shard still exists there: the Risa Star cannot be reunified without it."

"So your instructions for me have not changed?"

"No. You will be the only inhabitant of this world to survive imminent events."

Icarus grinned, insanity flaring in his eyes. "I look forward to it." He peered past the grey man at the Emperor's body.

"You're right. His body is decaying fast. The skin has turned blue. How is your replacement coming along?"

"Very well. The boy has summoned his first demon and is increasingly proficient at Dark alchemy. As things stand now, he will last me until the end."

"Ironic that an Apollonian will deal the final blow to this pitiful state of the universe-though he can't take all the credit. He's not the first of their number to defect!"

The peals of Icarus's manic laughter joined the organ music, rumbling in the distant vaults of the ceiling.

Jack sat on his bed, staring through the porthole into the gloom. They had been aboard The Golden Turtle for at least a week now.

Sardar had handed the black mirror to one of the crew members on the command deck as soon as they had got on, and it had been linked into the s.h.i.+p's navigation system. It now hung in the center of an isolated ovenlike chamber, pulsating with indigo energy. Jack felt uneasy just being in the room with it, as if the intense shadows of the gla.s.sy surface veiled unsleeping eyes. As far as possible, he had tried to keep off the command deck and didn't envy those crew members obliged to work there.

Initially, they had pa.s.sed through murky river water into the vortex of light usually indicating a jump through s.p.a.ce. But gradually as the hours had pa.s.sed, the lights had faded until they were shooting through an apparently endless tunnel. Darkness locked them in on all sides, and if it had not been for the mirror, they would have been utterly lost. It was not a comforting thought that the force guiding them through the shadows was directly linked to the Cult's base of operations.

Jack was restless, more so than he could ever remember. He had tried to recoup some sleep in the first days, but whenever he had closed his eyes, he'd been interrupted by a mental slide show. The last couple of months flicked along the inside of his lids in cinematic fas.h.i.+on: Alex's abduction; Bal disappearing into the abyss; Lucy, wounded and imprisoned, staring hopelessly straight through him...

He couldn't sleep, and when he awoke, he felt angry with himself for not being rested. After that, he had taken on as many jobs as possible in an attempt to tire himself out: scrubbing the deck, helping in the kitchen, was.h.i.+ng clothes, even learning how to monitor the levels of water pressure. He worked hours upon hours, trying to match the exertion of the Albion factory, yet he still couldn't sleep.

He had barely spoken to Ruth, Sardar, Dannie, or any of the crew members in the last few days. He might have felt guilty about shutting himself off if he wasn't suspicious the others were in a similar state.

Dannie was as chirpy as always but seemed to have tactfully recognized that Jack didn't want to talk and so had immersed herself, much to Quentin's annoyance, in disa.s.sembling and rea.s.sembling sections of The Golden Turtle to learn exactly what made it work.

Ruth was busy with her captain's duties but, even so, was very quiet. Jack guessed why: she was the only one of them to have seen Nexus; though she didn't remember it, he knew the ghost of her time there haunted her. Knowing that every moment was bringing them closer to her forgotten past couldn't have been easy.

Sardar, for his part, seemed to have done right by Bal in taking to staying in his room for long periods, emerging sporadically for meals. Jack thought he must be diverting all his attentions to planning for when they reached their destination.

In fact, whilst keeping his body as busy as was possible in a submarine, Jack himself had had plenty of time to think about their plans. The more he had thought about it, the more his initial drive had jaded into anxiety. The mission they had committed them selves to now seemed like suicide. How could a small group of Apollonians, some of them barely competent alchemists, hope to penetrate the very heart of the Cult's operations? In previous situations-in Birchford, in Thorin Salr, in Albion, and in Avalon-they had only just survived against one of the Cult's Chapters. Now they would face the entire a.s.sembled force of Dark alchemists and probably some demons too-and there would be fewer than ten Apollonians. Were they expecting to just stroll in, free the hostages, and be back on board in time for tea?

He blinked. A glimmer of light had appeared on the edge of his vision. He looked away from the brooding Darkness and again into the room. Inari was planted on the carpet staring at him, tails oscillating symmetrically. Neither of them said anything for several moments.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you the other day," Jack put forward when it was clear the fox wasn't going to speak first. "Bal had just... and Lucy..."

"That's alright. And if it's any better, I'm just as frustrated as you are about my inability to intervene."

"I suppose you can't tell me how I can help?"

"Nope." The fox stretched and hopped up to the bunk, settling on the sheets.

Jack let his head rest against the wall and ran his hand through the fox's fur, scratching him behind the ears. As before, he felt an almost electric tingle when his nerves came into contact with the glowing strands.

"I take it you know where we're going?"

"Yes. You know I can't come with you, don't you?"

"I thought so. We're on a suicide mission, aren't we?"

The fox turned his head to look at him. "I wouldn't put it that strongly. Let's just say your probable life expectancy just got a h.e.l.l of a lot shorter."

"We are doing the right thing, though, aren't we? Going in like this?"

Inari scrambled up to sit before him, his paws on either side of Jack's forearm. "I don't know. I can't tell you what I'd like to, what I'm thinking. No matter what happens in Nexus, certain patterns will become clearer."

"Patterns? What do you mean?"

There was a knock on the door. Inari nodded at him. Without even the slightest sound, he was gone, the depression in the mattress the only indication he'd ever been there.

"Come in."

The door swung open to reveal Sardar, long since reverted to his true elf form.

"We're almost there." He paused. "Who were you talking to?"

"No one," Jack replied a little too quickly.

Sardar looked at him a moment, then shook his head. "We'll be on the command deck. Five minutes."

Jack arrived soon after. His first reaction was not to join the Apollonians at the table but to look toward the chamber where the mirror hung. It was exactly as it had been when he had last been there, wreathed in a veil of purple and black. Again, he felt as if it were watching him.

He pulled his gaze away and went to stand by the table.

Of the three already there, Dannie was the only one who looked as she had when they had embarked. She had apparently made no attempt to revert to a human disguise. Instead, with her camouflage abilities activated, she now looked something like a s.p.a.ce-age robot, her body the composite of the panelled wood and gold around her.

Sardar and Ruth, by contrast, both looked haggard, shaded with the same look of insomnia and worry.

"So," Sardar began, rubbing his eyes. "We're approaching our destination. We know Nexus is a city, probably the only inhabited part of the entire planet. Other than that, we know next to nothing about where we're going. I think we can reasonably surmise that, as the Cult is the center of life here, the core of the city will be some kind of church or cathedral. This prison tower, the Precinct of Despair, shouldn't be too far from there."

"What about the others? Gaby and Malik?" Ruth asked.

"They're joining us using a dimension s.h.i.+p," Sardar said. "We've pulled a couple more agents out of missions on other worlds to a.s.sist us."

"So eleven of us, then?"

"Well, that's almost a single Chapter compared to the Cult," Jack commented coolly. Having now had his worst suspicions of their operational blindness confirmed, he was significantly less enthusiastic about this mission than previous ones. "So what are we actually going to do once we get there?"

It was Ruth who replied. "Like we said, espionage." She set a wooden box on the table and lifted the lid.

Jack got a look inside. It appeared to him just like a bundle of dark material, until Ruth lifted one out and held it up against her like a dress. "We're going undercover as Cultists?"

"It's the safest way," Sardar replied, pulling the three remaining cloaks out of the box and handing one each to Jack and Dannie. "We took these off the captured Chapter back in Avalon. Quentin's adjusted them to fit each of us."

Jack slid a cloak over his tunic. It was surprisingly comfortable and thick and fitted him well enough. He took the boots and gloves Sardar handed him and put those on as well. He was now sure that if he put the hood over his face, there could be nothing at all to hint at his ident.i.ty.

"I'm not sure I like this," he said. "It feels like we're, well, the Cult..."

"Have you got a better idea?" Ruth challenged him, her temper evidently as short as his at the moment.

"We're coming up on our target," one of the crew members called out.

"Activate stealth mode," Ruth replied. "And prepare for emergence."

The gloom all around was indeed clearing. Like a black fog, it was furling away from the dome, giving them their first view of the world beyond. Even with the shadows gone, they seemed to have materialized in some sort of alleyway. Dark stone surrounded them on all sides but one, where a side street led elsewhere.

Exhaling slowly, Ruth strode to the gla.s.s chamber and keyed something in to a panel. With a hydraulic hiss, the door slid open, and she grabbed the mirror, holding it as far away from herself as possible. "Keep to plan," she said to the crew members. "We're going to be in and out in as short a time as possible. Keep the s.h.i.+p here in stealth mode until we return, and stay inside. Under no circ.u.mstances whatsoever should you come into contact with the locals here. Is that understood?"

Everyone in the room nodded, and several saluted. Jack couldn't help admiring the fact that, at a time when her nerves must be shredding even more than his, she was able to command the respect and obedience of her crew.

"The priority is to get to the Precinct and back," Sardar explained as they made their way towards the hatch. "We get the prisoners out and then worry about gathering information."

Dannie climbed the ladder first and hauled open the hatch. As she and Sardar moved out of the way, Jack got a look at the disc of sky above them. It wasn't promising-obscured by writhing clouds and illuminated by lightning. The churning air was reflected exactly in the mirror in Ruth's hand as droplets of rain began to collect on it. Something from GCSE English came back to him. "Pathetic fallacy."

"What?"

"When the weather reflects the mood."