Rob Scott - The Hickory Staff

Contrary to what he had seen through the porthole, Nerak’s cabin was sparsely decorated: no comforts, no bed, no books, no fireplace. There were no clothes in the closet, no tapestries on the walls and no carpets covering the floorboards. The wooden walls, floors and ceilings of the large square room were dark, almost black with age, and dust covered the floor: Steven was leaving boot prints in the grey blanket like tracks in city snow, as he made his way towards the centre of the room. Nerak – and the evil minion that possessed him – did not appear to sleep. He did not eat, read, or entertain guests. It looked like no one had entered this cabin in years, and Steven guessed the dark prince was more a spirit than a man, more the idea of evil than an actual person.

Against the far wall a rectangular wooden table had been pushed back into the shadows. There were two things on it: a leatherbound book and a black metal box with curious raised markings. Nervous that the Larion monster would arrive before he’d found the far portal, Steven moved hastily, kicking up a cloud of dust in the process. He brightened his fireball with a glance and reached out to open the book – then thought better of it.

‘How did he do that?’ he asked aloud, feeling unsuccessfully for any evidence of magic imbued in the table, or within the items upon it. Nothing. He closed his eyes and concentrated, hoping something would happen.

‘Why would I pick them up?’ he asked, his hands stuffed protectively in his jacket. ‘I’ll be eviscerated or some damned thing.’ Too much time had passed: he felt an overwhelming need to hurry. ‘Just do it,’ he told himself, ‘pick them up.’ He reached for the box, then pushed his hands back into his pockets.

‘Right,’ he said forcefully. ‘The room was rigged, so there is no need to rig these two.’ Slowly he took out one hand and reached forward for the book. ‘Right?’ he asked hesitantly of the empty chamber.

As soon as his fingers touched the book he could feel magic surge through him – like the feeling when he and Mark first opened William Higgins’s cylinder back home at 147 Tenth Street. But this time Steven savoured the sensation. He laid his palm against the book’s cover and allowed it to rest there for a few stolen moments, basking in the now-familiar sensation of an untapped, unbridled magical force.

Unfamiliar colours and irregular shapes moved across his field of vision, followed by images and ideas, both evil and benevolent. Some were ancient, others not even imagined: promises of futures filled with growth and with ruin, with pestilence and with prosperity. Steven could feel these possibilities move through his body, slipping through his veins, diffusing through his muscles: a patternless cascade that drowned out his thoughts and filled his mind with the atonal polyphony of imperfection and scattered logic.

Steven lost track of time, revelling in the myriad hues of unknown colours, unfamiliar aromas, untasted flavours and memories both real and imagined. This was a power greater than anything he had ever known and he felt himself draining, spiralling away, losing himself inside the mysterious tome.

He began to sway on his feet until, his hand still resting on the book’s smooth cover, he heard someone calling to him faintly. ‘Hurry, Steven. You must hurry.’ It was his own voice.

He jerked his hand back in a protective reflex and swore vehemently. He shook his head to clear the remnants of the seething thoughts and muttered, ‘Goddamnit. What is that thing?’ He blinked his eyes and leaned forward for a closer look at the book’s spine, frowning when he saw it was blank. ‘Well, what the hell did you expect?’ he asked out loud, ‘an ISBN number?’

He reached for the box, careful not to touch the book again. The box was cold, and he could detect no magic or mysterious energy emanating from within. He ran his hand curiously over the smooth metal container. There did not appear to be a latch and he could find no hinge or crack along which it might open.

The top and sides were adorned with raised silver ornamentations that looked like a child’s drawing of a perfectly formed Christmas tree, smooth on each side and rising to a point in an exact isosceles triangle. On the upper corners of each side were two cones, separated by four more along the centre edge. On the lower corners of each side were single ornaments separated by two more along the centre edge. Steven pushed and pulled against the tiny silver sculptures, trying to find a catch: they could be moved back and forth slightly, or depressed until they flattened flush against the metal. But still the box remained determinedly shut.

He turned it over: the bottom surface was flat and featureless. ‘Okay,’ he said, fingering one of the single cones, ‘so this is the top. Now to open it.’

He considered the box: ‘Two, four, two and one, two, one repeated on five sides… no, four sides and a top.’ He pushed each one, felt them depress until flat, then bounce back against his fingertips. He tried them in combinations: side-to-side and up-and-down, then the single cones, double cones and quadruple cones in order. Nothing happened.

‘Four sides and a top,’ he said, pushing and sliding cones as he spoke. ‘Top first-’ push and slide, ‘-sides first-’ push and slide, ‘-top, sides and top again-’ push and slide, ‘-sides, top and sides again-’ push and slide.

Push-and-slide combinations were followed by slide-and-push, but nothing changed: each time the silver ornaments simply returned to their original positions.

‘Two, four, two and one, two, one… four sides and a top-’ Steven said the numbers slowly again, trying them out in different patterns and arrangements Until a second thunderous rumble roared through the cabin, nearly knocking him off his feet. This one felt much closer.

‘Oh, screw it,’ Steven cried and slammed the staff down on the box, a massive blow that shook the Prince Marek as much as her master’s fury had. Box, book and table were unaffected.

‘Well, shit,’ Steven spat. He’d run out of ideas.

Suddenly the old fisherman was by his side. ‘That was you, was it?’

‘Yep.’

He nodded approvingly. ‘Well, you’ve certainly learned how to produce a fine blast.’ He dragged a boot heel through the dust, drawing an arc. ‘Might I ask why?’

‘This box.’ Steven shook it. ‘I think the far portal may be inside this box, but I can’t get it open.’

‘Did you push these buttons?’ He played with a few of the raised carvings. ‘That’s probably how it works. Maybe one of them opens it.’

‘I tried forty-six different ways, using every combination I can imagine.’ He shook his head dejectedly. ‘There are too many possibilities and I’ve run out of ideas.’

‘Maybe it’s in another cabin – this is a huge ship.’ The old man looked about the sparse chamber. ‘We don’t have much time before Nerak gets here; I want you long gone before that happens.’

‘I know it’s in here: I can feel it.’ He didn’t take his eyes off the curious box. ‘Look: Mark pointed this shape out to me the night we opened the portal in our house. It was there, stitched into the fabric. We thought it looked like a tree.’

Gilmour squinted and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m afraid this fisherman didn’t have very good eyesight; I may have to work on that a bit when we get out of here. But you’re right.’

Steven tried not to think about how little time they had. ‘Maybe we should just take it and run, get back to the boat and try to escape.’

‘No, either we figure it out here, or we use our combined forces to delay Nerak long enough to get it open and then escape. There’s no point running away at this juncture: no matter how quickly we paddle away in that little boat he’ll find us, and we’ll have no chance.’