Empire of Ruins Read online

  The powder was strong. King had traded a shaman two gold buttons for it. He watched as Livingstone sipped his tea. Livingstone slowly closed his eyes and his head nodded as though he were answering a question. He murmured something that could have been “the waters” or “the vines” or “Queen Victoria”; then he excused himself and retired to his tent.

  By early morning the old explorer was dead, and King was gone, but not before having retrieved the map from Dr. Livingstone’s Bible.

  As King tramped eastward through the steaming jungle he read the map by moonlight. It became tattooed on his thoughts. He pushed his guide and the mule harder every day. He had to be the first to discover the God Face. He’d be on the cover of the Illustrated London News within six months! Every sacrifice would be worth it.

  It took King another week to reach the island of Nosy Boraha, just off the northeast coast of Madagascar. He rented a room at a storm-battered hotel built on stilts. The island had been home to pirates for years, and though their ships had long ago been sent to the bottom of the ocean by French and English warships, their kin and offspring still lived there. These men and women could navigate the waters without a compass; could fight like hardened marines. And they loved to gamble.

  It was this last vice that was most important to King. He’d long ago decided the only people he could trust were those who were untrustworthy. No sense trying to put together an expedition from London, or any other civilized city. He didn’t have the money or prestigious connections for that. But soon he’d win enough to assemble his own team of guides and workers.

  He spent his time at the card and wheel tables, ignoring the beer and whiskey they served. Someone with his mind could easily outsmart these half-breed pirate offspring and castoffs. And he did win, at first. He gathered up fistfuls of cash and howled at the dimwits. But he then began a downward spiral of lost bets. He turned to the whiskey, and what followed slowly became a blur. He might have climbed onto a table and hollered, “I’m Alexander King, the greatest explorer alive!” He might even have shouted out something about the God Face and made the laughing hyenas tremble before him.

  Then one night he awoke to hear a whirring of wings and a scratching at his door. There had been no footsteps, even though he had requested a room with the longest rickety staircase in order to hear anyone approaching. He heard a screeching noise—half animal, half banshee—and he knew Death was on the other side of that door. He drew his revolver and pointed it, hands shaking. He stayed in that position, rarely blinking, until the sun came through his tattered curtains.

  Sober now, he saw the paper that someone had slid under the door. Still holding his revolver, he went and picked it up.

  The letter had no address, only his name. And in the upper left-hand corner was a triangle over a clock. Three neat holes, as though pierced by talons, perforated the corner. He opened the envelope. Inside were eight thousand American dollars and a note that read: For your expedition. We ask only to be kept informed of your findings. We will contact you when you have accomplished your task.

  As he stared at the money he poured himself a whiskey and swigged it. With a smile, he smashed the shot glass on the floor.

  Within a week he was on a steamship to Penang, then New Guinea, and finally to the tiny port of St. James, Australia. It took another week to organize carts and hire a red-eyed guide named Fred Land. As he downed beers, the man swore that he knew the rain forest “like the back of me hand.” That night he disappeared with the map and several hundred dollars.

  It surprised King how little the theft bothered him. The map was burning in his mind, lighting up his thoughts. He would be the first white man to gaze upon the God Face. His photo would be in every newspaper in the world.

  This time he hired only Indian and Chinese porters from the poorest part of the port. They spoke little English; his Hindi and Cantonese would suffice. A guide would no longer be necessary. He was destined to find the temple.

  He led his expedition westward into the rain forest on foot, ponies and a mule carrying their gear. The cart wheels broke after the second day; the ponies grew sick and died on the third. The glowing map led him deeper into the dark rain forest. The sky never stopped crying, the Indians complained. The insects never stopped biting, the Chinese moaned. Soon larger creatures were biting; they crossed a river and he lost a man to a crocodile. Even when a fever overtook him, King drove them on.

  After that they wandered for days, and King began to fear he wouldn’t find the temple. Was he remembering the map accurately? But yes, it shone like a constellation in his mind.

  Then, one day as he climbed a rock face, he discovered two falcon-headed statues, their features crumbled with age, marking the entrance to a cave. Hieroglyphs surrounded the open door. He stared at them, stunned. Egyptian hieroglyphics? In Australia? Now, this was a discovery the world would remember! Paperboys across the colonies and America would soon be shouting, “King discovers ancient Egyptian temple!”

  His crew wouldn’t follow him inside, so he wiped sweat from his forehead, loaded his pistol, and entered the cavern alone. There he discovered more Egyptian symbols. How had they come to be in this place? Who had carved this temple out of a mountain?

  After two hours King stumbled out, drool dripping from his lips. He kicked aside the dice his men were playing with and fell to the ground, moaning and jittering.

  The guides looked at him and then at each other. Should they just leave him to die? He’d been a cruel boss, after all.

  “Let’s tell the port people a snake bit him,” an Indian suggested.

  “No,” said a Chinese man, “a spider.”

  Another man said, “Leave him in the river for the crocodiles.”

  But the largest of them looked at King, whose eyes stared directly at the sun as though searching for some secret in that burning orb.

  “There may be reward,” the man grunted. “He easier to travel with now.”

  They couldn’t agree, so they threw their dice—and rolled the number seven. A lucky number.

  They strapped King to the lone mule and began the journey back to the coast.

  The Unexpected Guest

  Modo sat at the window of a mansion in London known as Safe House, a teacup in his right hand. Behind him were his training tools—straw-stuffed dummies, kenjutsu swords, wooden dumbbells. Through the window in front of him he could see Kew Gardens—April showers had turned London’s largest garden a lush green and brought the flowers to life. In the distance they were a blur of color.

  Modo had spent a quiet winter in Safe House. His most recent mission as an agent for the Permanent Association had involved the pursuit of a submarine from New York to Iceland, and he’d returned to England with more bruises than he could count and a chest infection that had taken two months to cure. It was a small price to pay. A great blow had been dealt to the Clockwork Guild when he helped sink their giant warship. Mr. Socrates had said, “I am proud of how well you performed your task.” It was perhaps the most effusive compliment his master had ever given him. Modo still glowed, thinking how he’d helped the Permanent Association, an organization dedicated to defending England’s interests, defeat an enemy. As the days passed he wondered when the Clockwork Guild would surface again. Their goal appeared to be to destroy the Empire itself. At this very moment Miss Hakkandottir, one of their most powerful leaders, was likely tapping her metal fingers somewhere. The image gave him the shivers.

  Over the months his fatigue had ebbed, and now he was training again, honing both his martial arts skills and his “adaptive transformation” ability—the shifting of his shape. But training every day was growing maddeningly boring; he’d been languishing in this mansion for so long that he worried Mr. Socrates had forgotten him. There had been a few brief visits from his master, the last two weeks ago.

  “I will go batty!” he whispered. He set his teacup down and pushed aside the latest edition of the Illustrated London News and his cloth workout mask. He
hadn’t been given permission to leave the mansion, and his confinement was beginning to feel like a jail sentence. No, what was really riling him was that it reminded him of his childhood in Ravenscroft. Thirteen years in a country house without being able to take so much as one step out the door or even look out a window! It had all been part of Mr. Socrates’ plan to raise him as an agent, and it had worked, but Modo couldn’t bear to be trapped like that again. He itched to be climbing and swinging his way across London’s tallest buildings, as he’d been free to do only a few months ago.

  “Enough sitting around!” He marched to the center of the room and began snap-kicking and palm-smashing the stuffed dummy hanging from the ceiling. Each move had been taught to him by Tharpa, his weapons trainer. It was a combination of kalaripayattu, an Indian fighting art, and wushu, a Chinese martial system. When he caught his reflection in the mirrors he grimaced at his flattened nose, his clumps of red hair; his ugliness. He punched and kicked even harder.

  Exhausted, he bowed to the dummy and sat down to do his breathing exercises, hoping to clear his mind of anger and frustration. Instead, Octavia’s face appeared. He hadn’t seen his friend and fellow agent since their return from Iceland. Nearly four months had passed! Did she know he was here? Did she miss him? He missed her, even the way she raised her eyebrows when she was annoyed. Or toying with him.

  The doorbell rang and a minute later there was a knock at the door to his room. He slipped on his mask. “Enter.”

  A Chinese servant in a silk suit came in. He answered only to the name Footman, and as hard as Modo tried he could never get the man to give his real name or have a conversation with him.

  Footman bowed slightly and said, “A visitor seeks an audience with you.”

  Mr. Socrates and Tharpa always arrived unannounced. It could only be Octavia!

  Modo nodded. “Thank you. Please bring the visitor to the parlor in five minutes.”

  Footman bowed again and walked quietly out of the room. He moved confidently, which suggested that he too had been steeped in the martial arts. This wasn’t a surprise; Mr. Socrates would have only the best-trained servants. Modo dreamed of testing the man’s skills. It would be good training for a change to fight a living, breathing opponent.

  For Octavia he would transform into the Knight. She already knew that character and seemed to like him. So he removed his mask and set about changing his features, wishing that the changes would last forever, not just a few hours. As the pain seared through his bones and flesh, as his nose grew straighter and his cheekbones emerged, he wondered how many times he’d used this ability since his birth. Did chameleons feel pain when they changed their color? The months of rest made it somewhat easier—shifting his shoulders, making the hump squash flat into his back, growing a dark swath of hair. He was wearing his sweaty training clothes, but that wouldn’t be too improper. She’d see that he hadn’t been twiddling his thumbs!

  He went to the parlor and dabbed away his sweat and combed his new hair.

  Footman opened the door to the room. This is it! Modo thought, his heart skipping a beat. He could have slowed it down using his breathing techniques, but his heart should beat faster! It was Octavia, after all.

  A woman in a large, fashionable bonnet, her face hidden by a veil, walked into the room. Footman closed the door behind her. Modo was distracted by the flowers—real flowers—poking out of her hat. She was taller than Octavia. He had been so certain that it would be his friend, had secretly hoped they would greet each other with a hug. Instead, a stranger.

  “Are you the one who is called Modo?” she asked.

  He couldn’t place her accent. German? Scandinavian? He froze. Was it Miss Hakkandottir? Her hands were tucked into a sable muff, so he couldn’t see Hakkandottir’s metal hand. But she looked about the same size as Miss Hakkandottir and carried herself with the same confidence. He froze. Think! How had she found him here?

  There were no weapons in the room, just a butter knife on the tea table. But if he could break the decanter …

  “I am who I am,” he said. A lame reply, but his voice sounded steady.

  “You look taller.”

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  She took a step closer, her hands moving inside the muff. A concealed weapon?

  “I have known you as long as you have known me.”

  His muscles tensed. No, stay loose, he reminded himself. You’ll react faster!

  “Is this a riddle?” he asked her.

  She pulled her hand from the muff—a glint of metal! He jumped to the tea table, grabbed the butter knife in one hand and smashed the decanter with the other, then pointed the jagged end at her.

  The woman let out a shriek and dropped her weapon. It rolled across the hardwood floor between them and came to a stop at his feet.

  Modo stared at the object—not a weapon, but a toy train—and then looked up at the woman. She lifted her veil, and he gasped.

  “Mrs. Finchley!” He hadn’t set eyes on his governess, the woman who had raised him, for nearly a year. He glanced at the smashed decanter and the knife in his hands, then dropped them both on the table, feeling utterly foolish.

  “I hoped to greet you with some drama,” she said, “but my acting was far too convincing. I sometimes forget how good I am.” She laughed.

  It was such a familiar, comforting laugh. Modo had longed to hear it.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry.” He sidestepped the shattered glass and ran to her, stopping a few feet away. How he wanted to embrace her! What was a gentleman to do? But she did not reach out to him.

  She looks old, he thought. Then she smiled and she was just as he’d remembered her.

  “Is that you, Modo? You look taller.”

  “I am taller,” he said. “At least an inch.” He’d grown in the last year, though height was hard to measure in someone who often changed his shape.

  “I don’t doubt it.” Mrs. Finchley reached out and stroked his face with a gloved hand.

  During the battles of the last year, Modo had often yearned for her healing touch; when he was a child she had tended to all of his scratches and bruises.

  “The Knight face, isn’t it?” she said. “We invented that one, you and I. From a drawing that I made.”

  “Yes, yes, it’s your creation as much as mine.”

  “You are the artist and the canvas,” she said, removing her hand.

  He grabbed the toy train. “I remember this.” It looked tiny in his huge palm.

  “I—I thought you might. I kept it after you were taken—or rather, after you moved to London for further training. I’ve carried it with me ever since. I’m too sentimental for my own good.”

  He rubbed the wheels. He’d nearly worn them to nubs, pushing it around on the hardwood floor of Ravenscroft. It was the only toy he’d had, and was hidden whenever Mr. Socrates visited. His master had wanted only science and history books and weapons for Modo.

  “Yes, I remember ‘Choochy’ well. Our little secret, wasn’t it? Oh, I do really miss those days.”

  “As do I, Modo.” She patted his head.

  To hear her say this warmed his heart.

  “And you are well, my pupil?”

  “I am, Mrs. Finchley. I’ve accomplished several missions since our time together. You’ve been healthy and well employed too, I presume.”

  “Yes,” she said, though a familiar tired sigh accompanied her answer.

  “What are you employed at?” he asked.

  “Oh, this and that. Work for Mr. Socrates. Nothing important, really.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “Housekeeping. And other details.”

  It occurred to Modo that she might be teaching accents and acting to another agent. Maybe even mothering him, as she had Modo. Did that boy have a normal face?

  Modo crossed his arms. “I see.”

  “I must admit you got my heart racing with that display of glass smashing and acrobatics. My fault, though. I should
have remembered that this is not Ravenscroft, and your life is under threat every day.”

  “Well,” he said, waving a hand, “maybe only every other day. Truth is, I have been waiting here for far too long. I’ll soon die of boredom.”

  “Boredom won’t kill you, Modo, but you can always kill boredom with a good book.”

  “I’ve read all the books in this house.”

  “Good. Good. Perhaps I’ve come to alleviate your boredom.”

  “You have? Will we finally be leaving this house?”

  “That’s the thing—I don’t know exactly why I’m here. Mr. Socrates sent this address and a message to arrive at exactly eleven a.m.”

  “So you don’t even know why Mr. Socrates sent you?”

  “As you know, Modo, he has his reasons for everything. All missions are well thought out, but we aren’t privy to his reasoning.”

  Modo didn’t sense any sarcasm or bitterness. She seemed sincere. But, he reminded himself, she was a brilliant actress who had once played on some of London’s great stages.

  “He asked me to give you this.” She handed him an envelope.

  Modo opened it and pulled out a note in Mr. Socrates’ perfect handwriting.

  Please ask Mrs. Finchley to help fit you with the costume of a physician. In the next forty-five minutes the two of you will work on a persona and develop a new physiognomy. At precisely twelve noon a carriage will arrive to take you to Bethlem Hospital. Once there, you will interview Prisoner 376 in the prison section.

  Mr. Socrates

  “He wants me to dress up as a doctor and go to Bethlem Hospital. What fun!”

  “To ‘Bedlam’?” she said. “Why on earth would he send you to an asylum?”

  Modo shrugged. He knew that Bedlam, a word used to describe confusion and uproar, was the nickname of Bethlem Royal Hospital, and that out on the streets of London Town a “Bess o’ Bedlam” was a lunatic female vagrant. He’d seen his share. The ones who were inside Bedlam must be even worse. Well, at least he would be getting out of the house. Getting back to work!