Darren Craske - The Eleventh Plague

'Unique? Madame, if only you knew!' laughed Quaint. 'It was a gift to the Italian astronomer Galileo from the Vatican in 1639 as a sideways apology for his treatment at their hands. You see, Galileo theorised that the Earth was not anchored in the night sky, as most theologians believed at the time – but along with the other planets in the Solar System, it moved upon an axis around the sun. The Catholic Church condemned his findings as heresy. He was ostracised from society even though his studies were based upon scientific fact. The Vatican at the time even locked him up for it!'

'And you mean…this is his watch? Galileo's watch?' asked Destine.

'The very same, Madame,' confirmed Quaint, with a broad smile.

'In that case, my sweet, I stand corrected – I am tremendously impressed. So how did such a prize fall into your hands? Something else that you swindled from unsuspecting Prussians, perhaps?'

Quaint's black eyes glanced away from her, an intense distraction burning within them, and he fought a falter to his voice. 'It was a gift from my father just before he died. Back when I was a young boy.'

'Oh, Cornelius, I am sorry for doubting what I thought was merely a boyish attraction,' said Destine.

'It means a lot to me. That's why I would have given anything to own it once more,' said Quaint. 'Thankfully, Joran was not willing to barter more tenaciously, or it could have slipped through my fingers once again.'

'Oui, on a second look, it does rather look like a gift that your father would give. And what is this inscription, my sweet?' asked Destine, pointing to a row of odd symbols finely engraved into the watch's fascia. 'This language is unknown to me.'

'Yes, to me also. It is supposedly an ancient Chinese dialect, never recorded by any lexicographers, unfortunately. I never got around to having it verified by today's scholars, but supposedly it says "Fortune and Family"…my father's favourite words. He knew that I'd be fascinated with it, and he was not wrong. I always had an interest in astronomy as a boy. Remember, my father erected a telescope on the flat roof at the rear of the manor, and the two of us would sit and watch the stars for hours upon end? I think you even took to bringing my supper up there.'

Madame Destine remembered. And she remembered Cornelius's father too. Augustus Quaint had entrusted her to take care of his greatest possession – the man stood by her side. Cornelius had inherited much of his father's charm, confidence and intelligence – and all of his stubbornness. When the Quaints had been tragically killed, young Cornelius's world had fallen apart. Thankfully, Destine had been there to help him pick up the pieces. She had adopted the role of guardian angel ever since, long into his adulthood, vowing never to leave the conjuror's side until she felt confident he could live without her. It had been almost fifty years, and still that day had yet to dawn. The old watch had stoked the embers of painful memory and the sting in the man's eyes was clear to see.

'Tender memories always linger longest in our thoughts,' she said, softly stroking Quaint's shoulder. 'They are always the hardest to forget.'

'And the easiest to recall,' Quaint said, threading the gold chain through his waistcoat buttonhole. He pushed the timepiece snugly into his pocket, giving it a reassuring pat. 'Now…Joran has strict instructions to escort you directly to Agra Bazaar. Try not to lose him, Madame. He's not worth much, but he's the only hope you have of getting back to the Silver Swan by nightfall.'

'I will not take my eyes off of him for a moment.' Leaning forwards in her seat, Destine kissed Quaint's forehead gently. 'Bonne chance, mon cher.'

'Same to you,' the conjuror replied.

With a 'cluck-cluck' from Joran, and a flick of the reins, the cart trundled off down the main concourse towards Agra Bazaar. As the conjuror disappeared amidst a cloud of dust, for once Madame Destine was grateful for being without her powers of premonition; for she feared they might only confirm the dull ache within her heart – a feeling that this was the last time she would see Cornelius Quaint alive.

The Vulture and the Viper

TO THOSE THAT knew of its existence, the Hades Consortium was a secret cadre of powerful individuals populating all corners of the world. It delighted in causing – and then profiting from – global unrest of its own design. It had influenced practically every landmark conflict in history, rocking the foundations of the globe, shattering alliances and shifting the balance of power in its favour. Its members were positioned throughout all levels of society in offices of power and influence, like chess pieces waiting patiently for the game to begin.

Scattered around the globe were many so-called 'sancta sanctorum' – places where members of the Hades Consortium could scheme away to their dark hearts' content. Beneath the ancient ruins of the city of Fantoma, two senior members had recently taken up residence – a fact that did nothing to placate Godfrey Joyce's distemper. He sat in the rear of a horse-drawn cart with the sack-covered item by his side, cursing every bump in the road. The painful trip was seemingly endless, and his buttocks were as tenderised as a side of beef.

'Have you ever thought of fitting cushions in this damned contraption?' he barked at the driver, ignorant of the fact that the toothless Egyptian had no understanding of the English language.

It was approaching midday. The sun was high in the sky and its relentless heat was already biting the back of Joyce's neck, igniting his irritability even further. But then his driver muttered something incomprehensible, pointing to the horizon. A wondrous sight greeted Joyce's woeful eyes.

The crumbled stone walls of Fantoma rose up from the sand all around him. Towering obelisks, once-great columns, temples and stone monoliths ascended into the sky. Abandoned centuries before, inhabited only by the ghosts of the desert, the city had been left to die, covered in a shroud of sand and dust. This was Godfrey Joyce's destination, and as the cart drew ever closer, the itch that smarted his nerves increased tenfold.

After a claustrophobic trek through chokingly dry tunnels carved from the rock itself, a very sweaty Godfrey Joyce finally arrived at a pair of tarnished stone doors, easily twice his size in both height and width. They were inset with a lavish picture of a pyramid, decorated in its centre by a golden ankh with rays of light emanating outwards. Joyce smiled at their grandeur. How their majesty was wasted on the Hades Consortium. He pushed hard on the doors, their hinges grinding against each other. In a blink, two large-bodied guards carrying spears stepped out from the shadows of the cavern beyond. They wore dark red robes, draping their bodies from their hooded heads to their ankles, with armoured adornments covering their forearms. They lowered their spears to bar Joyce's entry.

'I've got a delivery for Lady Jocasta. She's expecting this!' Joyce said, lifting the sack-covered box. 'So if I were you, I'd best not hold me up.'

The guards parted their spears.

As Joyce moved deeper into the cavern, wall-mounted torches gave him a better view of his surroundings. The underground cavern opened up before him with every step he took. He made his way cautiously up a series of stone steps to an oval-shaped marble table positioned directly underneath a stream of natural sunlight, breaching the darkness from ground level. Pulling a chair to one side, Joyce sat down in silence, placing the sack next to him. His face was pale and sweaty – a symptom not of the listless dry heat in the place, but of the presence of the two occupants seated at the table.

Baron Remus sat in stony silence with his elbows on the table. His grey eyes stared intently at Joyce as if he was attempting to read his mind. Remus's peers respected his tolerance of neither fools nor failure, and his presence in Egypt only heightened Godfrey Joyce's very palpable fear. Remus had been an inhabitant of the Hades Consortium's higher echelons for decades. In that time he had carved some sizeable and not to mention highly successful campaigns across most of Europe, and was regarded highly by the inner stratum.