“Are we going back to the base camp?” Gerick inquired.
“No!” Mr. Smith interrupted him. “We’ll go directly to the Trunk Bay.”
Surely, they suspected Rustle. Moreover, quite active Rustle, because they didn’t notice the otherworldly on their first trip, but it was present now. Suspicion of possible contact with the creature was enough to hold us in the Trunk Bay for a month—there was a local NZAMIPS’ center and a special hospital for victims of otherworldly creatures. For those victims who were still alive, of course.
“Will the quarantine days be paid for, sir?” Uncle took a businesslike tack. “My nephew and I are surely clean.”
“Are you going to argue with NZAMIPS’ officers, Mr. Ferro?” Mr. Smith narrowed his eyes.
Uncle Gordon shrugged. Shit, that was it for my salary! We will be paid, at best, for one week. Well, at least I had seen the King’s Island; not many could boast that. The ship passed by the prison wharf, hanging its flags and giving a signal, but nobody appeared on the shore. Mr. Smith ordered the ship to slow down and climbed to the signal mast to examine the camp with binoculars.
“It looks like we have to go there, sir!” Uncle approached Mr. Smith while the latter came down. “They should hear us by now.”
Smith stared intently at the pier.
“A couple of hours, that’s all we have, sir,” Uncle nagged.
“I know! You’ll go with me.”
Their eyes met. The issues of hierarchy were left behind, disagreement forgotten—they had a common enemy now, and that reconciled dark magicians better than any preaching.
“Let’s take my nephew—his eyes are better than mine!” Uncle offered generously.
I wasn’t particularly happy about his suggestion, but did not object; they could use an extra pair of hands, and people insensitive to dark magic should not go there. Mr. Smith was giving the final instructions: “Whoever tries to follow us should be tied up and watched after—very likely, he is infected. Do not approach the bank, even if I myself call to you. On our way back to the ship, call us; if we don’t answer, do not let us come close, just go to the open sea. Do not wait till sunset. Go to the Trunk Bay and ask for help.”
The captain nodded hard, while Uncle Gordon filled large flasks with sea water. It is salt, not silver, that is most effective against otherworldly entities of low caliber, while the stronger ones are basically immune to common rituals with salt.
We approached the shore at the slowest speed. Uncle steered and Mr. Smith looked for all sorts of threats on land. As a result, it was me who noticed a strange something at the moorage. Something floundered about in the water. A corpse? Uncle brought the boat almost to the shore, where the surf hissed on the boulders, and a strange white object rolled and pitched in the waves. Mr. Smith sorted it out at once and cursed; it was Alex, alive but nearly frozen to death. We dragged the poor guy into the boat (he could not move) and tried to bring him back to life. One look was enough to realize that he was not just swimming. Alex got into the water fully dressed, even in his shoes, though one sleeve of his shirt was practically absent. He had a long white scratch on his cheek. That couldn’t be from a fight; these weren’t the type of people to brawl. Alex wasn’t in a condition to explain the reasons for his grievous state; he was desperately shaking and had managed to bite his lips until bleeding. He kept pointing in the direction of the prison and moving his hands up and down.
“The tower?” Uncle guessed.
The white mage nodded, though it looked more like a convulsion.
“Follow me!” Mr. Smith jumped onto the dock.
I gave my jacket to Alex, shouting, “Stay here! Do not go ashore; if we show up, call us. If we do not come back until sunset, go to the ship, but first call them, too. They are all on alert now.”
The expedition camp was suspiciously quiet: no one walked, no one talked. The generator stalled again, which implied something serious. Keeping the jars of saltwater ready and trying to stay away from windows and doorways, we advanced into the prison, where sounds of scuffling could be heard distinctly.
The water tower was the only structure that the prison’s architects decided to leave as it was, probably because they were not going to live there. Actually, that thing should have been called “a water tower pond”: the tower wasn’t stuck in the middle of the yard but was adjoined to the rock; above the construction there was a huge reservoir, half of which rested on man-made supports, and another half on the rock. The reservoir was filled with streams flowing down from the mountains after rain—the only source of water on the island. If the developers had limited themselves to a plain dam, their descendants would have had no problems, but the former owners wanted to squeeze in a distribution system with pipes and valves. That was why the ancient foundation was raised and fortified, and the tower itself was tightly packed with stairs and bridging. No space left for windows, and oil lanterns were the only source of light inside. The place turned into a cozy, dark room, as though specifically designed for otherworldly creatures. At the time of the expedition’s arrival, the tower had stayed unlocked for over a hundred years, and any protective or ward-off spells had long worn down.
Near the entrance to the water tower we found a crowd of people: the guard that remained in the camp, the cook, and the student, whose name I could not remember. Mrs. Clements did not let them go inside, clinging to the door with a dead man’s grip. The ensorcelled people were not smart enough to grab her by the arms or to bend down and get past; they stupidly pushed and impeded one another. Still, there were three of them, and she was alone.
“Hold on, Rina,” Mr. Smith gasped.
“It’s Rustle, and it’s everywhere!” she croaked in response.
Uncle popped open a flask and splashed into the darkness. We heard a sound resembling rustle of many dry, falling leaves; a lantern above the door flashed brighter, and the attack of the enchanted people subsided.
“Grab them!” Mr. Smith ordered and jumped first, pulling out from the heap a burly security guard and wringing his hands behind his back. I focused on the cook—he was shorter.
Mrs. Clements, dirty and tired, followed us.
“I thought it was the end,” she groaned. “They were dragging me with them!”
“When had it found time to seize so many?” Uncle puffed (the student he dealt with began to resist). “We’ve been here for only a week.”
“Knuckleheads!” Mr. Smith hissed through his teeth. “I told you, you should have hired only local workers for the expedition, or the dark mages, but not these donkeys!”
Yes, in Krauhard only a small child could fall prey to Rustle’s charm.
“Arguing now is pointless,” Mrs. Clements sighed. “The caretaker disappeared before our arrival. In this place, Rustle’s activity grows stronger than elsewhere; this should have been taken into account.”
“Here is your caretaker!” Uncle announced in a cheerful voice.
On the shore, between us and the dock, stood a man, dead by all indications. The lower half of his face was missing completely; the wound had had time to dry out and turn black, and there was no fresh blood left in him. Softened tissues melted off the bone, kept in place by the skin only. As such, the body could only be preserved on the King’s Island—the place was almost sterile. For some reason, I did not want to know what this corpse was capable of.