Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
How? He hadn't even had the dice at that point, for he'd found them in the Arcane Vault beyond. Why hadn't he burned like Carmen? Like all these people?
Ward had a sudden, vivid memory of Nick pointing a knife at Carmen. Where had that been? The knife had been Nick's. A switchblade. He hadn't been threatening her with it of course, merely pointing at her.
Nick's voice rose in his memory, like a ghost's. Lead the way.
Then he remembered. It had been in Corvus's lounge. But why had he been pointing the knife at her? Well that was obvious: he had been using it for something. To pry up the tangs on the back of a picture frame. The strangely blank picture that had been hanging on the wall. Under which had been a yellowed piece of parchment.
Ward looked suddenly up at the woman.
He began haltingly, reciting from memory, trying to get it right. It helped to visualise the piece of parchment, to see the faded blue handwriting in his mind. He closed his eyes to make it easier. "Dear David, you once told me we were riding on an elevator to heaven."
He opened his eyes.
Leah's hands had tightened around each other, her knuckles were white. A faint sound escaped her lips.
"Well this is the elevator music," Ward finished. He swallowed, then spoke the final words of the letter. "Love Leah."
She shut her eyes. A tear squeezed out of the corner of one, leaving a red track down her cheek.
(Who is David?) said the Corpusant. If it was capable of surprise or confusion it didn't show it. Had it known this memory was hidden away in a niche of her mind?
"I don't know," Ward said.
The woman, Leah, said nothing.
An idea had been gradually taking shape in Ward's mind. It was a crazy idea, a deadly idea, but it had the feeling of rightness about it. And if it worked -
"What if I told you I could send you back?" he said to the Corpusant.
(Why shouldst thou do this thing?)
"To free her. Free you."
The Corpusant might not have wanted anything, but that didn't mean it wasn't compelled. If you threw a cup of water onto a hot frying pan it didn't stay there, but evaporated into the air. Perhaps it wasn't a matter of want. The Corpusant didn't belong here. What if it was compelled to return to where it belonged?
(How wouldst thou achieve this?)
"That's my problem." Fact was, Ward had no idea. He felt he would know once he had the dice back in his hands. The dice would show him how. "If I set you free though, you have to promise not to hurt anyone," he said.
(I cannot promise this)
"You will keep your eyes down. You will not look at anyone." Unless I tell you to, he thought. He hoped it wouldn't come to that.
(That I can do)
"You will stay with me until I tell you that you can go."
(That I can do)
Ward wondered if he could trust this thing. It might have been incapable of human emotion, but did that mean it was incapable of human deceit? Could it lie? Trick him?
He walked around the seated woman. Her eyes didn't follow him.
Just as he had expected, he found a door behind her. It was identical to the one at the other end of the room, except the wheel that opened it was on this side. He looked at the back of the chair. The lead bands that secured her to it were not locked in any way he could see – they merely hooked over each other, but of course, with her hands manacled she would not have been able to reach them. All he would have to do was unhook them. Then she would be free.
It would be free.
He stood between the door and the chair for a long time, vacillating. The door was right there. He could leave and no harm would be done. He was almost to the dice. He could feel them up ahead, through the door. Why risk it?
He wished the woman, Leah, had not spoken to him. If he thought he was only leaving the Corpusant imprisoned here he would not have given it a second thought.
He drew in a deep breath and reached for the lead collar that secured her neck.
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