Ambidextrous II/IV: Nightray (Part 3/4)

[nadramon]

Chapter I: Baskerville

Chapter II: Nightray: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4.



Vincent followed close on his heels. The race put out the remaining candle flame. Darkness flecked with gold fell on them. There was a clanging noise when Vincent discarded the useless candlestick. Gilbert made sure he could still hear his little brother’s steps right behind him, and made a V-turn to the right.

They had just reached the foot of Pandora’s West Wing tower, and had run into a winding corridor. Unlike the one they had just left, it was faintly lit. That made it easier for Gilbert to ignore the breaking chains, and focus on the growing light ahead. He had to bite back the urge to call for Oz. The image of the boy’s broken body in the rain was still fresh in his mind. His guilt and apprehension only made him run faster.

Oz was alive. Vincent wouldn’t lie about this. But Gilbert had to see him. Somewhere in Pandora Headquarters, there was a poisoner, whose motives were unknown. Oz was alone and defenceless.

The corridor opened onto a small, square room. Gilbert froze in his tracks.

Oz was here, huddled up on the floor behind iron bars with his hands tied behind his back. His eyes were glazed, and his white undershirt was stained an angry red where Gilbert had shot him. In front of the boy, wan like the deathless man he was channelling, stood the young vessel of Glen Baskerville.

He turned slowly to face Gilbert, showing no sign of surprise or reproach. Yet his ageless stare seemed to pin the servant down.

Gilbert’s eyes darted to Oz. He saw his terror mirrored on the boy’s face; sickly pale, desperate, and so vulnerable Gilbert wanted to scream. He felt his master’s eyes boring into him, the incontrollable pull in his left hand.

The servant heard Glen take a breath. He wanted to cover his ears, but his body wouldn’t move.

When suddenly, Gilbert felt gloveless fingers sink into his hair, and heard the faint swelling sound of a plump Chain materialising above his head. The bowed tip of the Dormouse’s tail hovered close to his ear.

“Lord Glen Baskerville,” Vincent said respectfully. “Give my brother an order of any kind, and I shall put him to sleep.”

Glen furrowed his brow. His wistful gaze seemed to embrace both siblings, heavy with regret and compassion. The ghost’s presence was pouring from Leo’s very being, spreading like wings until it filled the room. The red cloak he was draped in made the vessel look unnervingly imposing. The sight of the small prisoner at his feet made it nigh unbearable.

Gilbert didn’t dare move a muscle. Over Leo’s shoulder, he could see Oz’s eyes moving from one captor to the other, and get brighter as the boy processed the situation.

Glen sighed:

“We don’t have the time for this…”

“Gil!” Oz interrupted. Gilbert flinched when the boy crawled to get closer, regardless of his wound. Vincent held him in place. “Please… Save Alice!”

“Oz, I…!”

“Don’t,” Oz hissed, urgency and pain clouding his gaze. “You don’t owe me anything. Please… This is the last thing I’ll ask of you: save Alice.”

Gilbert wanted to protest, but his master beat him to it. The servant recognized Glen’s resigned tone from the previous evening. The ghost’s stentorian voice made him shiver:

“Alice is dead.”

The words were truthful rather than harsh. There was no resentment in Glen’s eyes when he looked down at Oz. Only patience and pity. The boy looked at him with distress, and screwed his eyes shut.

“I know!” he was doubled-over on the floor, gasping in fast, desperate cries. “She died because of me. To stop Jack. Then, Alice… Her soul came back for me… She....”

Oz had to swallow a shuddering breath before he could continue:

“…She took my powers so I couldn’t destroy anything anymore. She became a Chain… because of me....”

Gilbert stared at Oz’s shaking hunched form, flabbergasted. Break’s words rang in his ears. “One has been dead for a century. The other is a Chain.” Gilbert’s heart was beating erratically, in synch with the mad pulse in his left hand. “Two Blood-Stained Black Rabbits.” If it was true, did it mean that Alice still had the power to…?

Oz raised his head to look at them through the bars. His expression was so heartbroken and determined the servant felt it like a punch to the gut.

“This is why I broke the contract,” Oz said. “So Alice could be herself again, rather than B-Rabbit. She is no longer a threat to you. I’m the only one who can break the chains. I beg of you…” he was talking to the three of them, but his eyes were looking straight at Gilbert: “Save her.”

Gilbert could only stare helplessly. He had no idea what to say, or if there was even a way to bring Alice back.

It struck him how quiet his master was. Gilbert glanced sideways at Glen.

The ghost stared at Oz in silence. He seemed to have forgotten everything, from the two siblings who had burst into the room, to the breaking chains all around him. Leo’s bangs were casting shadows into his eyes. They wavered in front of the dilemma. For a moment, they looked like Oswald’s, on that fateful day in Sablier, when Jack had told him to lower his sword.

When suddenly, Oz’s upper body hit the floor with a faint thud. Gilbert took a step forward, but the Dormouse was looming overhead. Its stitched eyes stared right at him, like a reminder of the bullet wound that had reduced Oz to this state. Gilbert didn’t dare go further.

Looking back at Oz, for the first time, Gilbert noticed the four sealing stones and pentacle inside the cell. Their sharp edges caged the boy more efficiently than any metal or injury could.

The hard floor scraped Oz’s cheek when the boy turned his head to face them.

“Please… Use the pocket watch,” Oz panted, and tilted his chin towards the thin chain dangling from Leo’s left pocket. “Alice will recognize the melody. She will come to you.”

For a long minute, there was nothing but the clinking of the chains, and Oz’s heavy breathing and occasional pleas to fill the silence. Gilbert wanted nothing more than to reach out, wrap the quavering boy in his coat, and take him away from here. He thought he could smell the blood from where he stood, a tangible reminder of his betrayal. The metallic smell was turning his stomach. Its essence weighed down on Gilbert, and kept him rooted to the spot.

At last Glen spoke in a deep, strained voice:

“I will… consider it.”

“I will!” Gilbert interjected. “I will do it!”

Glen turned to him with a sweeping of his cape. This time, Gilbert held his gaze. The young vessel had a noble bearing, his every movement filled with purpose. Yet his face was full of doubt. It was creased with a hundred years’ worth of mourning.

Gilbert understood. As leader of the Baskervilles, Glen couldn’t choose to spare such a dangerous Chain so easily. Not without any proof that she was no longer a Chain. Regardless, Alice was his treasured niece. Furthermore, she was Oz’s friend. They shouldn’t hesitate.

“I will save Alice,” Gilbert repeated. “So....”

He couldn’t help but look back at Oz. The servant thought he saw a spark on the boy’s eyes. A fragile hope, like a candle in a storm. Oz mouthed “thank you.” The gleam was gone in the blink of an eye.

Gilbert was paralyzed. He was dying to say something, anything to bring some life back into Oz. But no apology could ever convey his regrets, the extent of his shame and self-loathing. No apology would change a thing. Whatever Gilbert did, he would always be a traitor.

In the end, only three words made it out of his lips:

“Wait for me.”

Oz gave no reaction. His head had sled close to one of the sealing stones. He just lay there with his golden hair sprawled around, his eyes taking in Gilbert’s face like he was seeing it for the last time.

“We should go,” Glen said softly.

Gilbert called out Oz’s name. Glen seized his servant’s arm, and pulled him away. Vincent’s fingers dug into his other arm in warning. Gilbert didn’t break eye contact with Oz until they pulled him through the corridor, and the young prisoner disappeared from view.

The Dormouse vanished in the same moment. Vincent let go of his brother’s head.

“Actually, my lord,” he said over Gilbert’s cries. “There was a small matter my brother wished to tell you about.”

The offhand remark made Gilbert gasp. How could he have forgotten…

“The poison!” Gilbert turned terrified eyes towards his master. “We can’t leave Oz like this! Someone poisoned Break, we have to…”

The possessed boy glanced at them without slowing down, his long cape flapping about his back as he ran. Vincent did most of the explanation, as Gilbert was too agitated to be coherent. Besides, his little brother knew more about poisoning and plotting than he did.

Glen’s gaze turned sombre:

“There is no time to investigate.”

They came upon two red-cloaked figures guarding a grand wooden door. As soon as they saw their master approaching, they moved as one to open the door for him. The outside wind filled Glen’s cape like blood red wings, and seemed to amplify his next words:

“We have to put a stop to the breaking of the chains now, or it will be too late.”

“But what if Oz gets poisoned?”

“Are you still fretting over that thing?”

The voice alone was enough to freeze Gilbert’s blood in his veins. Before he knew it, they were back outside, their boots sinking deep into the wet grass, face to face with Zai Vessalius. The Griffon’s contractor sneered at the servant:

“And here I thought you had finally opened your eyes to the truth. You were there both times this little abomination nearly destroyed the world, weren’t you?”

“You…” Gilbert growled. “How dare you…!”

He felt a small hand rest on his forearm. Glen’s deep voice enveloped him from behind like a nocturnal fog. Its overpowering influence was unclenching Gilbert’s fists, leaving him lost and harmless in front of his sworn enemy.

“It is meaningless to blame a Chain for what its contractor orders it to do,” Glen looked at Zai steadily. “And this isn’t about the Black Rabbit. Our priority is to restore the balance of this world.”

Leo’s features softened when Glen glanced up at Gilbert:

“I will send Charlotte to look after Oz.”

Zai snorted. Gilbert threw his master a fleeting grateful glance, and his eyes turned saucer wide. Next to Charlotte Baskerville, whom Glen was now addressing, stood the Duke Barma. The latter was pushing the wheelchair of a very unharmed Sheryl Rainsworth.

“Madam Duchess!” Gilbert exclaimed. “Are you alright? Sharon said you were…”

“It looks like Duke Barma took us for fools, Master Glen,” Charlotte scowled at the aforementioned duke. “His supposed ‘attack’ on the duchess was nothing but an illusion.”

Her remark didn’t seem to faze the duke in the slightest. He was busy studying the golden rain with unsuppressed excitement, and didn’t even spare the young woman a glance when he answered:

“Is this reproach I hear?” He shrugged. “I honoured my commitments. Not only did I give you the Rainsworths’ key as promised, I even went through the trouble of revealing my precious information about my ancestor’s notes and explaining the whole truth about the Tragedy of Sablier to the Pandora staff. Furthermore, I was helpful enough to participate to this most tedious…”

A paper fan slapped him across the face, effectively cutting his ranting short.

“I wanted to uncover the truth as much as you did, Ruf, but you went a little far,” the Duchess gave a tight-lipped smile. “We both own my granddaughter an apology.”

Gilbert looked from one to the other. He tried to read the duchess in particular, but her wrinkled face was ever frozen in her perpetual smile. It was impossible to guess what was on her mind. But she couldn’t ignore the fact that Break had been captured, nor that the Baskervilles and their allied illegal contractors were tracking Sharon.

“I would also like to make one thing perfectly clear, Lord Baskerville,” she turned her pleasant smile towards Glen. “I will be lending you the power of the Owl for this task alone. The fates of my servant, Oz Vessalius, and Lord Nightray here present, are another matter entirely.”

Gilbert’s heart swelled with hope. Since Leo had barely had time to get used to the Jabberwocky’s power, his body wouldn’t be able to handle a contract with the remaining four Black Winged Chains for years to come. With things being as they were, no one could be sent to the deepest level of the Abyss unless the four Great Dukes and Glen Baskerville all agreed on it. And it sounded like the duchess, at least, would be against it.

Charlotte Baskerville glared at the duchess, but Glen simply inclined his head in acknowledgment. The young woman bit back her disapproval, and with a bow to her master, she was gone.

Glen had walked to the centre of their circle. Bathed in golden light in the hour before dawn, the possessed boy looked like he had stepped right out of the Abyss. He glanced up at the sky, and for a second Leo’s eyes looked like twin doors to the universe. Now more than ever, Gilbert felt the overwhelming power that bound him to this being. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

“This situation is different from Sablier,” Glen’s voice seemed to come from all around them rather than Leo’s body, vibrating along the breaking chains. “With one contractor for each Black Winged Chain, it becomes possible to control them all at the same time. We are going to stop the breaking of the chains that hold this world. But after that, I want each of you to guide your Chains as they recreate the chains that the Black Rabbit already destroyed. If we succeed, even the epicentre might be saved.”

Gilbert’s hand flew to his chest, where the blood mirror was heating against his racing heart. They might be able to prevent another Tragedy after all. He hadn’t dared to hope for that much.

But then, if anyone could pull it off, it was his master. All traces of doubt had vanished from Leo’s features, and Glen was entirely taken up by the current crisis. He pulled the watch out of his pocket, and held it out for all to see.

“In order to control them at such a distance, please hold on to your entrusted key. On my signal, open the doors, and summon your Chains.”

Gilbert looked around him. Duke Barma and Duchess Rainsworth were holding matching earrings in their outstretched hands. While Gilbert’s attention was distracted, Zai Vessalius had assembled a square three-footed device.

“That’s Lord Oscar’s camera!” Gilbert exclaimed, outraged.

“This is the Vessalius’ key,” Zai retorted with an indulgent smirk. “In these times of crisis, it belongs to the contractor of the Griffon.”

“You stole it,” Gilbert growled. “Lord Oscar would never have parted with it! What did you do to him?”

“Will you stop this squeamishness, young Nightray?” came Duke Barma’s shrewish voice. “You have duties to fulfil.”

Only then, still half seething from Zai’s impudence, did Gilbert notice Vincent’s presence next to him. His little brother had unwrapped the long bundle he had been carrying all evening. He held it out to Gilbert with both hands, like an offering. Golden drops fell on a long, evening black blade, and the curved shape of its dark hilt.

“This is yours.”

Gilbert’s throat felt constricted. He couldn’t breathe.

“But… this is…!”

“The Nightrays’ key,” Vincent told him with a bitter smile. “One of the many burdens that our dear father let Elliot carry in his stead.”

Gilbert could hear Duke Barma clearing his throat behind him. He took the hilt in a shaking hand, and lifted the blade vertically. The black metal reflected the broken chains in a cold glimmer.

Elliot’s sword. It was heavier than he expected, with the ease his adopted brother used to show whenever he drew the weapon. Gilbert could still see the teenager holding it to his chest like a faithful companion.

“This sword has been entrusted to me by my father as a symbol of my place in the Nightray household. That’s why I have to carry it with me all the time.”

Gilbert’s eyes stung. He turned his head away from Vincent, and met Glen’s even stare through the rain of broken chains.

“Are you alright?” the possessed boy asked.

It was hard to answer straight away. Gilbert saw the bottomless compassion in Glen’s haunted eyes, how tightly Leo’s long fingers were clenching the pocket watch. This tiny object was the sole memento Oswald had of his past friendship with Jack, and of his long lost sister. To be sure, the Baskervilles’ key held its fair share of memories, for master and servant alike. Gilbert thought of Oz, and shut his eyes tightly.

This watch had turned Oz’s world upside down. Jack had used this very object to transcend time and get to him, so he could use Oz again to destroy the world. It was up to the Baskervilles to reverse it, using this very watch.

Gilbert took off his left glove, and presented arm:

“Yes, master.”

Glen smiled. With a flick of Leo’s finger, he opened the pocket watch.

The first notes of “Lacie” drifted along with the black feathers. Next came the cries of the giant birds. A pair of wings spread behind each contractor, swallowing the lit night in an ocean of darkness. Gilbert felt the heat of Raven’s blue flames burning at his back, and in his deepest being. He thought he heard the heart of all five birds beat as one, each pulse shaking him to the core. The servant brandished the sword.

With a raise of the contractors’ arms, all five Black Winged Chains took flight.

It felt like a storm had started in the creatures’ wake. The golden flakes went flying in a wild dance all around their contractors. Long after the birds had disappeared in the night sky, and the wind from their take off had been brought down, the lights kept twirling madly. They were clinking together, twinkling and chinking in a chorus of light and sound.

The sword heated in Gilbert’s gloved hand. He felt the drain of his contract with renewed intensity, the blood mirror red hot against his naked skin. The man held on to the sword like an anchor in the storm, and kept it pointed straight at the sky, towards the eye of the cyclone.

He could hear Zai’s deep throaty breathing close by, and gritted his teeth. It made Gilbert sick to feel a connection of any kind with that man. Yet all five contractors were breathing the same stormy air, reaching for the heavens, with the hearts of their Chains beating in synch against their chests.

Far above, the giant birds swooped down on the swirling lights, and disappeared. The sword quaked in Gilbert’s hand, but the contractor held strong. The smell of drenched feathers and fire was everywhere, and fiery dots invaded the man’s vision.

Gilbert felt the pull as the Griffon soared through the sky, dragging a set of golden chains with its talons. He heard a sharp intake from the duchess when the Owl separated the chains with a flap of its wings, and sent them swirling in all directions. Gilbert hunched his shoulders, and the Raven’s flames lit the night sky a bright blue.

The Dodo was flying in circles above the three birds. Its long wings were throwing golden drops into the furnace. With each flapping of its wings, Duke Barma’s fingers tightened around the back of the duchess’ wheelchair, but the man kept his head held high, enraptured by the sight above.

Only Glen appeared unaffected, save for the beads of sweat on Leo’s face, which glinted under the fire. The possessed boy was breathing deeply through his nose, and staring into the blaze. His melancholic eyes had turned bright gold. Gilbert felt a pang at the sight. In spite of the heat, nostalgia chilled him to the bone. Up above, the Jabberwocky was flying from one Chain to the other, guiding their moves, shooting fire at the broken chains that escaped their hold.

Gradually the clinking was changing, culminating into a strangely familiar tune....

Gilbert’s eyes widened when he recognized it. Among the chinking pieces of broken chains, he heard excerpts from the melody ‘Lacie.’ The contractor heard more than he saw the chains coming together. When the Raven seemed about to get out of control, Gilbert redirected the sword, and pointed in the direction where the melody was faintest. Little by little, it filled his ears, in tune with the five birds’ flapping giant wings, and Gilbert felt like he could reach out and touch the chains.

There was a small smile on his master’s face. Gilbert grinned back.

Under the guidance of the Jabberwocky, his Chain was dragging the chains from the Abyss, through the Nightray door, and into their world. The Raven breathed fire on the broken chains, melting them into countless links, connecting them with a clicking of its beak. On the five Chains went, and with every flapping of their wings, Gilbert felt more air leaving his lungs. The feeling was too overwhelming for the man to care.