And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA, I just like to play around in its world and annoy the canon characters for a while. However, I do own all OCs I've created for this story.
Author's note: Edward relates what happened during his and Al's final days in the machine world.
Warning: bad language & violence
Chapter37: In which closure, of a sort, is finally attained.
January, 1926, somewhere between London and Oxford
The brothers made their first break for freedom the day after they woke up. Neither really made out a plan before acting.
"Let's keep it simple, Al. Simple is the best way."
Alphonse nodded, one short vertical jerk of his head. "Yes, brother."
The big metal door, the only way out of their prison rattled back on its overhead tracks, and Tola entered. She stepped nimbly over the threshold; if overly hobbling in her fashionably tight skirt. She carried a dull silver tray bearing two bowls that contained a steaming hot liquid.
Edward made a face at the sight, it was probably some watered down dreck poured from a tin can, just like lunch yesterday. It had tasted putrid, but his stomach rumbled with anticipation anyways, a basso profundo sound that made his cheeks flush. He was hungry, but ignored the pleadings of his stomach for filling, because freedom was what he really wanted.
Ryos hovered malignantly by the door, like an unpleasant condition made flesh. His blue eyes bored into Edward, as if some internal radar warned him that something was going down. Tola had just set the tray down on what passed for a "table" - a square of plywood supported by two wooden packing cases – when the brothers made their move.
Edward shot to his feet and lunged at her. Tola put her hands up and gasped loudly; while Alphonse moved in a circle around her, as if to attack from behind.
"Tola!" Ryos was taken by surprise and he jerked into motion towards Edward before he halted, and made a half-move towards Alphonse, then stopped again, confused.
Edward jinked to his left and moved to engage Ryos and distract him from Alphonse. He raised his left hand, forced it into a fist and cocked his arm back. Ryos promptly turned to parry the attack, he raised his own right hand and clenched the fingers. He grinned at Edward, or maybe he was just grimacing, as if the thought of touching the Amestrian filled him with distaste.
Neither he nor Tola noticed Alphonse dash past her and head straight for the inviting opening in the wall.
"Tola! Get him!" Ryos barked and she hastened to obey, but that skirt really was too snug and she tripped over her own feet, crashing to the floor in a flurry of pinwheeling arms.
Ryos already had a strong grip on Edward's left wrist and he was trying to force it behind his back, but most of his attention was on his sister, who was struggling to get to her feet. Edward took advantage of Ryos's split focus to drive his right fist hard into the other man's midsection.
Ryos doubled over instantly, the breath leaving his body with a started bark. His blue eyes were wide with shock while his lungs struggled to draw in enough air. Tola screamed, and Edward enjoyed every moment of the chaos he was causing.
"Bastard Amestrine!" Tola had finally gotten back on her feet, and she flew at Edward. Her pretty face was red with anger, and her fingers were curved, the nails reaching for his face. She didn't look anything like the silly girl who gushed over her "darling", Ed and Al's older half-brother, but more like one of the mythical harpies of Greek legend, who punished evil doers.
Edward had no desire to hurt her, so he simply grabbed Tola by her shoulders and shoved her into Ryos, who was still bent over and wheezing for breath. Tola cannoned hard into him and sent both cartwheeling off balance. Ryos's knees buckled under her momentum and both hit the floor with a thud that sounded painful.
Edward got moving out the door, but he'd just leapt over the threshold, when something hard that felt like a boulder maybe, smashed into him from the side and practically flattened him against the wall. "Going somewhere, little Amestrine?"
Oh, goddammit. Connor, the Drachman "enforcer." Not quite a boulder, but big enough. Edward struggled wildly, but he couldn't shift Connor's bulk enough to gain him enough room to swing a fist or a foot. He finally did manage a half punch with his left fist at the bigger man's stomach, but Connor didn't so much as grunt at the blow.
Even though Edward had thrown all the strength he could manage into it and felt the shock all the way up the arm to his shoulder, Connor just laughed. It was a horrible, mirthless sound that promised much pain. He spun Edward around and mashed him face-first into the masonry. A sharp edge dug into his forehead, the thin skin tore and Edward felt a warm trickle of blood drip into his left eye.
But that irritation was nothing compared to the sharp pain that a moment later lanced through his left shoulder after Connor bent the arm attached to it behind his back. It felt like the bastard was trying to rip the limb clean off. A guttural cry of pain left from between parted lips, but the the Drachman showed him no mercy, just wrenched his arm up higher.
Edward felt an ominous popping sound come from the abused shoulder, red spots suddenly began appearing before his eyes and he thought he heard a high pitched screaming in the distance.
Edward's automail fingers dug hard into the brick wall, crumbling old mortar down to the scarred wooden floor; maybe he could dig one brick loose and whack Connor with it. The pain had become beyond unbearable and he fancied he could hear it roaring in his ears, it hung like a red curtain through which figures could be seen to move. He supposed he was experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations.
Just as he realized the screaming was coming from his throat, the shoulder gave way with a horrible grinding crack and his vision went black.
/
Edward woke up slowly at first, to a murmur of voices above him in a white haze. Then, a sudden twinge of pain jerked him back to consciousness. Something creaked underneath and he realized he was lying back on his cot. He blinked rapidly, and shook his head to clear black spots from his vision, overbalanced, and nearly rolled off.
The jolt of pain he felt on trying to recover was nearly enough to make him black out again. Details gradually registered. He was lying on his right side and his cheek recognized roughly woven cloth chafing his cheek. Edward's heart sank – he was back in his prison. But if Al had managed to escape, the pain would have been worth it.
But then he heard his little brother's voice and it sounded breathy and tearful. He was protesting something.
"Tut! Tut!" said Mathun. "The bandage must be tight, boy. Your ankle will swell if it's not compressed."
Edward lifted his head – cautiously – to see what was going on. Alphonse lay flat on his cot, his left ankle propped on some folded cloth. Mathun had just wrapped it in a tan bandage, and he fussed over the fastening.
Tola stood behind Mathun, holding what looked like a lumpy water bottle. Mathun turned to take it from her and he placed it over the bandaged ankle.
"Your ankle is badly sprained, and it will need at least a week ice and compression to heal properly. Elevation is also important, and you will need to stay off your feet for as much as possible."
Mathun finished arranging the ice-filled water bottle to his satisfaction. "There now. Rest while we see to your brother. Connor has dislocated his shoulder."
Edward tensed when Mathun's attention turned to him, just the thought of that bastard touching him made his skin crawl. He tried hard not to flinch but he wasn't quite as successful in stopping an indrawn hiss when long, agile fingers reached for his shoulder.
The pain flared anew in thick, hot agony when he tried to pull back, and he clamped his lips together so only a soft whimper escaped from between them.
"Don't do that," Mathun scolded. "You could break your teeth, or bite your tongue in half." Mathun's tone was brisk and businesslike as he thrust a folded square of white cloth at Edward. "Bite this instead".
/
Stripped to his waist, Edward leaned his shoulder against a thick iron girder which held up the ceiling. He was perspiring, a coating of fear sweat on his face. The fingers of his left hand hung limply while the fingers of his automail hand were clenched so tightly, artificial tendons groaned with the strain.
Tiny metallic shrieks signaled the appearance of five small dimples in the girder. Ryos took hold of Edward's left wrist and held it out straight while Mathun probed the dislocation with his sensitive fingers. He addressed Connor over his left shoulder.
"You must push here – feel the joint?. Push with just enough force to pop it back into the socket."
"Stop grumbling, Connor." Edward could hear a low, ominous mumble in the enforcer's native Drachamese. "How you feel about the Amestrine is understandable, the boy is - "
Edward made an angry sound deep in his own throat, but Mathun ignored him. " - a sore trial. However, our contacts desire him alive and unharmed. The deal will be most definitely off if we injure him."
"Who are they?" A cold ball of something had formed in Edward's stomach.
"You will find out soon enough." Mathun was serene, a slight smile curving his thin lips. Edward could guess, but Mathun would still refuse to tell him. Maybe this was one of the many forms of emotional torture he'd invented.
"Let us begin."
Edward blacked out again, but only briefly this time.
/
He was on his knees, trembling and feeling sick to his stomach. His entire left shoulder was a mass of screaming agony, but it was fixed. The square of white cloth was somehow still between his teeth and he bit down on it before he experimentally flexed his fingers.
Red pain flashed warningly behind his eyes.
"Better?" He flicked a heated glance left to behold a still smiling Mathun, who now held a filled needle in his right hand. He was already rolling up Edward's shirt sleeve.
"Morphine."
Edward accepted the injection gratefully, and the pain pulled away into the distance, like a retreating red tide.
Two days later:
Alphone's ankle sprain wasn't as bad as Mathun had feared, and he was able to hobble around the room with his brother's help. But it was bad enough to put the kibosh on any further escape attempts. Edward refused to go without Alphonse; but Alphonse wouldn't even entertain the idea of Edward carrying him on his back.
His brief burst of freedom had shown him a barren industrial area of abandoned factories and warehouses. Mathun had chosen their prison well, it was far away from any city center. He also used their strong sibling bond against them. At mealtimes, now Brown and Connor entered the room first to herd Edward to a far wall before Tola and Ryos brought in the tray and set it down.
Brown would follow them out, and Connor left last, but the burly enforcer would deliberately turn his back and walk slowly away. The frustration would make Edward grind his teeth because he didn't dare take on Connor directly. Not if he wanted to stay relatively undented.
At least Mathun did take steps to alleviate their boredom. After Alphonse had collapsed, panting from the exertion on to his cot, the great overhead door rattled open, and Connor stomped in, his arms hefting a massive wooden crate on his mountainous shoulders.
Mathun strode in close behind him and stopped a few feet away, his shoes scuffing the concrete. "There was a church jumble sale this morning," he said, sounding very pleased with himself. "I took the opportunity to buy this box of books for a few shillings. Maybe they will keep you out of trouble."
Neither Elric replied, nor had they moved until the Drachmans had left the room and the metal door had slammed shut with a thud that made the windows rattle loosely in their frames. Then Edward got up to retrieve the box so Alphonse wouldn't need to put any weight on his injured ankle.
He took hold of one edge and ventured an experimental tug. The box didn't budge, so Edward pulled harder. The box scooted his way about an inch, but Edward nearly threw his back out in the process. He was sweating profusely by the time he'd dragged it close enough for Alphonse to reach.
Alphonse kept begging him to quit, but Edward simply gritted his teeth and refused to give up. When he dared to suggest that Edward wasn't strong enough, the elder Elric re-arranged his face into an expression of such ferocity that Alphonse actually drew back, as if afraid.
Edward skimmed off the top layer of six books, briefly scanned the titles and the fierce look returned to his mug. "These are crap, Al. Look at the titles!"
"A Compendium of the Minutes of Parish Meetings, by the Vicar of St. Bertram's: Islingthwaite-Near-The-Water. By the Right Reverand Zebediah Creech, printed in the Year of Our Lord, 1848."
The book was a slim volume bound in badly faded blue boards. Edward flipped the pages and a perfect storm of dust erupted like an explosion to make him sneeze. The pages also smelled musty, they were discolored with age spots, and several were stuck together by mold.
"Eww!" Edward tossed it aside, his mobile young face screwed up with disgust. He positively glared at the next book as if hoping it would burst into flames. This one was a fat paperbound volume, the front cover and title page were tattered and mouse gnawed.
He was able to decipher enough to to discover its title was "A Treatise On The General Layout of London's Sewerage System, Extant in 1863."
Edward didn't even bother to look at the content and he tossed it in the same general direction that the "Compendium" had been sent flying.
The rest of the box contained more of the same dreary parade of self-published official minutiae no one outside of those directly involved (and now long dead) would ever want to read. These were occasionally enlivened by some fiction, but none by authors Edward had ever heard of. All of them were badly written, full of the sort of revolting religious sentimentality that had made the Victorian age synonymous with "dull as dishwater".
Edward flipped through a few pages. Almost all were self-published, little vanity runs of perhaps two dozen copies. The authors were variously identified as "A Lady", "A Young Maiden From The Country", "Lady S -", "A Girl Recently Emerged From The Schoolroom", "Lady P -", et al. He observed, trenchantly to Alphonse that it was no wonder the authors wished to remain anonymous.
Alphonse, who was gamely plowing through one of them, by "A Lady of Unimpeachable Character Who Desires To Warn The Younger Female Generation of the Dangers Concerning The Agitation of the Votes For Women" (he felt Winry would snort in derision at this person), had no difficulty agreeing.
Edward was by now barely glancing at titles before he tossed them to the left or the right, or sometimes over his left shoulder. He muttered to himself as he worked up a sweat: "crap", "garbage", "more crap", "rubbish", "twaddle", or his new favorite word: "piffle".
He found only two books that were worth keeping. The first, a large folio about the size of a photo album. He glared at the cover of dark brown calfskin that was embossed with gold lettering, the gilt badly worn away. "The Great London Exhibition of 1850: with Photo-graphic Galleries, principally of Buildings and the Wonders therein."
Edward flipped through some of the pages. Reprints of old daguerreotypes; mostly black and white, but a few were hand colored. There were people in almost all of them: women in voluminous dresses and ridiculous bonnets. Men in severely cut frock coats and "stove pipe" hats. Children were also present, looking uncomfortable in their Sunday best clothes.
Anyone who looked at the camera stared seriously into the lens, standing as if frozen. The distinct impression that Edward got was that that the people who were alive in 1850 London had no sense of humor. Any person who dared to move naturally in those photos was just a ghostly blur, leaving only faint impressions of their existence.
He clapped the book shut and considered for a moment before he shuffled over on his knees to hand the book to Al. Who tossed the book against woman's suffrage to one side and accepted the new offering with a faint cry of delight. He riffled through the pages, his eyes bright.
"Look, Brother! It's Queen Victoria and Prince Albert!"
Edward didn't really care, but he glanced over anyways at an oversized hand tinted photo of two people who looked as if they'd been stuffed and mounted for display at the Exhibition. He said as much to Al who chuckled and rolled his eyes before he returned to poring over every last detail of the photo.
It would keep him busy for awhile, so Edward returned to the task of emptying the box. There were just a few books left, huddled together as if for comfort, sad that no one wanted to read them. It was in this pathetic little pile that Edward discovered what he would describe as a real treasure.
It was a small book, covered in pebbled leather that was dark with age. The pages were brittle and crinkled, with small bits falling off browned corners. Edward squinted at the text, and frowned in concentration. The print was small, and some letters were off kilter, as if the type had been hand set. The phrasing was very old fashioned, with the letter "s" written as "f".
Reading it was hard slogging and he flipped quickly through the pages, becoming impatient with letters that refused to make sense. His heart skipped a beat when a familiar image came into view.
An alchemy array.
A fine sheen of sweat popped out on his forehead and his heart beat faster. He stopped flipping and instead carefully turned each fragile page. An array took up each of the next ten pages, each one different. Some looked delicate, like lace, or stained glass. Others were towering constructs of power, with multiple lines and runes he'd never seen before.
Edward thought he knew every alchemy rune from his reading in the Central military library, but these were completely foreign, so they had to be unique to the machine world. He studied them closely and tried to imagine what they could do, what power they could unleash.
One array was designed expressly for passage "threw the Gate of Truth to the World of Alchemie".
"Brother?"
Alphonse's voice held a touch of concern and it seemed to come from far away to Edward. With the greatest reluctance, he broke his focus and swam back to the real world. Al had pushed himself to a sitting position, his Victorian picture book forgotten. His face looked grave, with a vertical line etched into the skin between brows wrinkled with worry.
"Al", Edward turned a bright, shining face in his direction. "You'll never guess..."
"It must be something interesting. You look like a kid in a candy store." Alphonse's smile had an edge to it, as if he was dubious.
"The best kind of candy, Al." Edward levered himself up off the floor, he winced when stiffened muscles protested sudden movement. "Take a look at this."
Alphonse processed the meaning of the array quickly and his eyes became just as wide and round as his older brother's. "Who wrote this, Brother?"
"I dunno – let's see." Edward carefully went back to the title page and read:
"A Codex Le Flamel
Paris: 1750
Trans. By E. Cobb
London, 1751"
Both stared in disbelief, then at each other before they yelped at the same time. "The Flamel Codex!?"
"But, Brother! How did...?" Alphonse trailed off, thoroughly confused.
"But nothing, Al. There was a Nicholas Flamel in this world too. He was said to have used alchemy to change base metals into gold. But he was more interested in the use of alchemy to prolong human life." Alphonse made a face at this, but he didn't interrupt Edward. "Supposedly, he and his wife faked their deaths and are still alive, due to alchemy."
The younger Elric snorted, as if to say "yeah, right".
"Wha – Al!" Edward shot his gaze from him to the book and back again. "You don't think I believe it, do you?"
Alphonse favored his older brother with a level look, like a sane person humoring a crazy relative.
"I tracked down and read everything Flamel ever wrote while I was stuck here the first time. He studied the ancient Greek and Arabic texts and talked with other people who proclaimed themselves to be alchemists. Flamel had some good ideas about using alchemy to help people, he wasn't in it, or so he claimed, for fame and riches, but," Edward paused to draw a fresh breath of air. "None of it was about the Gate, or how to open a portal."
"This one looks interesting," he flipped the page back and returned to the illustration of the array marked "threw the Gate of Truth to the World of Alchemie". It was a seven pointed array that looked like a twenty car pile-up as viewed from above. The whole page was covered with graceful and sweeping lines, the blank spaces filled in with bold, thrusting runes that contrasted with the brutal forces they represented.
An array of this size would both take in and expel a massive amount of energy, and the alchemist who triggered it would be wiped out for a week. Two alchemist would be better, but they would have to be completely of one mind. Two opposing goals would just confuse the Gate and cause a rebound.
He looked down at the text below the illustration and started to sound out the words aloud, as if to tease out their meaning. But Al was ahead of him, he must have been reading it while Edward was memorizing the array.
"Brother!" Alphonse was already excited and Edward felt his heart rate pick up again, in response. "This array is called a "Destination Circle. It allows the alchemist to choose where the other end of the portal should be, instead of having to settle for where ever the other circle is."
Alphonse paused to take a gulp of air. "Home, Brother! We could go home!"
/
No more was said on the subject that day. Edward concealed the book inside the breast pocket of his coat and he haphazardly piled the other books back into the wooden crate.
Both of them were reading when Tola and Ryos brought their evening meal. Alphonse was still studying the the Great Exhibition book, while Edward appeared to be absorbed in the treatise about the London sewerage system. It both amazed and appalled him that people nearly came to blows over the choice of brick to line the tunnels with.
The chapter about this was actually rather entertaining him with accounts of board room back stabbing and industrial espionage. He flicked only a brief, disinterested glance over at the two Drachmans and stayed in his place by Al's cot, his legs splayed out on the floor.
Connor he gave no notice of whatsoever, although he did look up and smile when the great sliding door slammed to with enough force to make the floor vibrate. He'd pissed them off – good.
/
Alphonse continued to test his ankle, first with a wooden barrel stave as a substitute crutch, and then a smaller one as a sort of cane. Finally, he maneuvered about the room under his own power, only occasionally holding on to boxes and crates, while Edward watched him closely.
He still limped a bit, but he he could walk, although he couldn't yet run. Escape was still uppermost in their minds, so they kept on eating the underwhelming food that was brought to them, and getting plenty of sleep.
Alphonse's limp was almost gone when one morning breakfast came with a side of Mathun. He still had that serene torturer's look on his austere face, one that turned Edward's stomach upside down. He perched on one edge of a crate, managing to look like it was the most comfortable chair, custom made for him. Edward hoped he'd get a big splinter up his ass.
"Three days ago, I made contact with the Thule Society." He paused briefly when Edward's face paled. "Ah, you've heard of them. Good. I won't have to waste a lot of time explaining things to you then. Suffice it to say, they have something we want, and they will happily exchange it for something they want – namely you two."
He pointed at both of them with two long fingers, and Edward not only lost his appetite, he actually felt a tinge of nausea. Mathun pretended not to notice that he'd just dropped a bombshell. "So eat up, and we will set off for the rendezvous in a few hours."
The two rashers of greasy bacon, with burnt toast, two poorly hard boiled eggs, and a small hill of undercooked shredded potatoes tasted like ashes in Edward's mouth. A glance over at Alphonse told him his little brother was feeling the same. But he plowed gamely through breakfast anyways, because it could be hours before he got anything to eat again. He always had trouble concentrating on an empty stomach.
Not that he could think clearly now. A small voice, high-pitched with hysteria niggled at the back of his head and made any meaningful cogitation well nigh impossible. The only positive note about their situation was taking his mind off their awful breakfast. He half suspected that Connor had cooked it.
About ten o'clock, the great overhead door rattled back in its track and Ryos entered, wearing an unbuttoned fur-lined leather coat, the bottom flapping against his ankles. He simply jerked his head at Edward: "You're to visit the loo before we set off." The expression on his face said he clearly didn't approve of Edward being comfortable with an empty bladder during a long car ride.
Edward walked, stone-faced, escorted by Cavanaugh and Connor and he got his first view of the warehouse that he'd been brought to while under the influence of a sedating drug.
The space was vast and echoing, floored with flaking concrete. One wall was lined with doors that slid up on tracks, they had to be at least twelve feet high to accommodate lorries that could simply be driven in to be loaded or unloaded.
One of those doors was slid open and a large Ford touring car had backed in, along with flurries of dry snow driven by a bone-chilling wind. No wonder Ryos was wearing that coat. Edward hunched under his own coat of brown cloth and shivered, not just from the cold, but also from the realization that escape was now impossible.
Too cold, too far from help, and Alphonse unable to run. Al would be quick to tell Edward not to be an idiot, to take the chance at freedom, but no way in hell would he leave his little brother behind.
/
They set off a little over an hour later, the car pulling out of the warehouse into a depressing gray and brown landscape of mud, and skins of ice over water that half filled deep pot holes.
Cavanaugh was behind the wheel, and he cranked it back and forth to steer the car fast enough to keep from getting stuck in the mud that sucked at the wheels like abandoned lovers who didn't want to let go. Yet slowly enough not to tip a wheel over the edge of potholoes that yawned like the abyss that Nietzsche said looks into you.
The entire area was lined with the blank faces of warehouses, some of them clearly abandoned for years. Most were built of uniform red brick that was grimy with soot and crumbling with age. As befits utilitarian buildings, they had very few windows, but all were broken in one way or another.
Some had neatish round holes smack in the middle, while other windows consisted of little more than jagged shards, like broken teeth that stuck out from rotting wooden sills.
The massive rolling overhead doors were all closed, although some had fallen down here and there. Together with the broken windows, these gave the effect of startled dowagers with their mouths opened in silent "O's". As the car neared the end of the warehouse district (although the road conditions were little better), Edward saw some wooden structures which were in even worse shape.
All of these were largely tumbled down, with roofs that sagged like swaybacked horses & plasterwork fallen in large chunks, so Edward could see the laths beneath. One warehouse had clearly been burned down and it was just a jumble of blackened beams, now turning white with an accumulation of snow that gave it a decayed sort of dignity.
The road condition once past the warehouses was a clear improvement and Cavanaugh had a heavy foot on the accelerator. The car gathered speed and rushed along a two lane motorway, the city of Oxford slipping past on its left. To its right, out of sight passed the village of Burnlae Halt, and their former refuge, Burnlae House.
The passenger compartment featured two sets of of cloth covered bench seats which faced one another. Edward and Alphonse sat next to each other, facing backwards; Tola was next to Alphonse, her dark head was bent close to his over the book of London Exhibition daguerreotypes.
Opposite them sat Mathun and Ryos; the former crossed his legs at his knees and used this as support for a spiral wire bound notebook that he scribbled copiously in. Next to him, Ryos carefully avoided looked at him, but he shot frequent jealous glances over at Alphonse. Edward shifted restlessly where he was, he both enjoyed Ryos's discomfiture, and he was burning with curiosity to discover what Mathun was writing.
He also fought with his desire to get the Flamel Codex from his inner coat pocket and re-read the chapter about the Destination Circle.
"You may bring out the book," Mathun remarked mildly, his furious scribbling not even slowing.
"Wha- what?!" The damn man could read his mind! "How did you know?"
Matun smiled, the slow, uncovering grin of a predator, like a shark. "Thank you for confirming my suspicions, Edward."
"Huh?!"
"I have made the study of human nature, especially the nonverbal cues of body language my life's work. And I fully believe that this study is what has made me the best at what I do – or did – in Drachma."
Mathun had read him so well, Edward reflected, looking at the man's anticipating expression. He'd known for at least five minutes what Edward couldn't resist asking.
"I was the head state torturer for over twenty years, in faithful service to the Triumvirate."
Edward was intrigued, in spite of the inner revulsion he was feeling. He risked a sideways glance and noticed both Alphonse and Tola were also watching Mathun, although Al was also studying Edward's face. Almost as if he could read his older brother's emotions simply by observing the tilts of eyebrows and lips.
Right now, Alphonse could probably tell Edward was a bit flustered, to judge by the patches of color high on his cheekbones. Another quarter mile of English countryside passed under the car wheels before Edward asked the inevitable question:
"How did you come by this job?"
"Job, Edward?" Mathun finally stopped writing, and he gave Edward his full attention. Even the desultory conversation between Cavanaugh and Connor had stopped, and Edward had the sense that ears were being pricked up.
"It – it being torture of another human being – is a calling, not a job. And a noble one at that, to serve the Triumvirate! My father was the Head State Torturer before me, and his father before him."
Mathun sobered suddenly, his lower lip thrust out, like a petulant child. "But I am the last of my family to hold the position, as I fathered only daughters, much to my sorrow." Even Alphonse's expression sharpened as this opinion was aired.
"Can't one of your daughters take over?" Al's voice was soft, but his chocolate brown eyes were hard as water washed pebbles. Edward know he was thinking of all the very capable women he'd known back in Amestris.
Mathun's reaction surprised everyone – he laughed! He opened his mouth wide to show an extraordinarily large amount of white teeth, and he laughed. "GIRLS? As torturers?!" Mathun practically howled with laughter, as if to say 'Oh, that's rich!'
He even slapped his knee several times, as if he thought that was the best joke he'd ever heard. Edward startled when he heard a deep, rumbling sound, like a malfunctioning engine, erupt with massive suddenness behind him. It took him a moment to realize that Connor was also laughing. It was a scary sound.
But Ryos wasn't joining in the general hilarity. Although the insufferable Drachman was smirking a bit, he wasn't laughing. Instead, Ryos was looking over at his sister. Tola's head hung down and she looked at her hands as if her nails were the most fascinating things she'd ever seen. Edward had the sense of the acute discomfort she was feeling, & she seemed to be on the verge of tears.
He turned his gaze back to Mathun. The wretched man was finally winding up his laughing jag, wiping his streaming eyes with the knuckles of one hand while he drummed the fingers of the other upon his upraised knee.
"Oh, my dear Alphonse. This is why you Amestrines are so weak, and why Drachma will one day take your country over. You give positions of authority to your females and let them believe they are as capable as men!"
Alphonse was openly glaring at Mathun by the end of this little speech, and the older man favored him with a pitying look. It just made Alphonse's glare deepen, & Edward imagined he could hear his little brother's molars grinding.
"Girls in Drachma have only one duty: to produce children, preferably boys. Boys to be soldiers in our mighty army. Which will one day sweep over the Briggs Mountains and put an end to the abomination called Amestris!"
Edward considered all the strong women he'd known all his short life: his mother, Teacher, Granny, Winry, and Riza. Even the bookworm Schieska, and Gracia Hughes. Both were strong in their own way. Schieska in her drive to find a job so she could support her sick mother, and Gracia for raising Elysia alone after the murder of her husband. He met Al's eyes and a brief smile flashed like lightning across his face before it resumed its severe expression.
Al was thinking of their alchemy teacher too, as the toughest person they'd ever met. Izumi Curtis was a one woman wrecking crew, and Edward was of the opinion that she could have taken out an entire division of the Drachman army, either with her alchemy, or her fists.
"If girls are so useless for other than reproduction, then how do you explain Drachma's inability to get past the Briggs Fortress? I believe a woman commands there, right?" The atmosphere in the car changed immediately, as the general mood of hilarity vanished. It was replaced by an ominous tension, as if the air itself had suddenly stretched.
Ryos broke the silence, his voice a little like the irritable growling of a disturbed Briggs Mountain grizzly bear. "She is an aberration, not a true woman, like those you'd find in Drachma." He brought his right hand up, palm open. "The men she commands are as whipped puppies who blindly follow because they haven't any will of their own. It's rumored that any man who would serve there is gelded."
He clenched the hand into a fist with such force, his knuckles cracked. "The day Drachma destroys her, the men will crack too, and run like scared rabbits."
Now it was Edward's turn to smile and he turned a large grin in Ryos's general direction. "I've never met her, so I only know Major General Armstrong by reputation. But I was told that she's trained her men so well they will continue to operate as a fighting force even if she is killed."
"Your father was in the military?" Tola's question was shy and soft, as if she was begging pardon for asking it. Ryos shot a sharp look at her, as if in rebuke, and her pale face colored.
"Women should be silent, unless asked a question. Then they should only speak to answer the question, and no more." Ryos almost chanted the words, like passages he had memorized from endless hours of rote learning. Edward didn't doubt it and he felt a brief flash of sympathy for the young man.
But almost as if he'd felt it, Ryos turned a fierce, blue-eyed glare in Edward's direction. "What is this pitying look Amestrine?" he demanded in a tight voice, as if it was a finger he'd pinched in a car door.
"It's your disdain for women, Ryos, it's like -" Edward paused to think of a good analogy. "It's like you're a farmer with one hundred bushels of wheat, and you throw fifty of them away for no logical reason."
Connor snorted so loudly from the front seat that everyone jumped because it sounded like an explosion. "False equivalency, Edward." declared Mathun. "You cannot compare women with bushels of wheat, even Connor, stupid as he is, understands that." He favored both men with a look that he probably fancied was a kindly, avuncular gaze.
"You're right, Mathun. Women are not bushels of wheat, nor any other commodity. On the other hand, women are thinking, feeling, and intelligent people. People who would have had a lot to contribute to Drachma, if you would allow them to."
There was silence from the front seat. Ryos continued to scowl at Edward, Alphonse looked approving and he silently mouthed Well played, Brother. The redness had faded from Tola's cheeks and the corners of Mathun's mouth twitched upward ever so slightly.
"What contributions could women bring to Drachma, besides producing legions of brave soldiers?" Edward considered it a moment before he flashed a wicked grin.
"A new strategy for dealing with Amestris, for one. Throwing battalion after battalion at Briggs certainly isn't working. Maybe it's time to broker a real peace treaty. Women could do that."
Ryos laughed, but it sounded strangely hollow. "Peace!" he snorted. "As if!"
"Women – especially the mothers of soldiers – know the true cost of war better than anyone." Alphonse abruptly piped up, and Edward threw him a warm smile. He'd seen the ruined shells of the men and women who'd come home to Risembool after the Ishbalan rebellion. Many were maimed, physically and mentally, although the really lucky ones came home in pine boxes.
Rhos made a strangled sound in his throat that might have been an expression of disgust, or maybe just a sigh. No one seemed to have an answer to Alphonse's statement, and Tola's question appeared to have been forgotten. A frigid silence fell in the car and Edward felt that it had more to do with the air temperature, than Ryos's displeasure at being bested by a fourteen year old boy. He flexed the fingers of his left hand and realized they had gone numb.
"Ah!" Mathun suddenly said with a note of great satisfaction. "We have arrived."
Alphonse and Tola twisted around to see great honey colored stone walls rising along the right side of the road.
"York. Ancient Roman fortification and the final city of any size before the border with Scotland."
Cavanaugh swung the car smoothly underneath Micklegate Bar and it slid to a stop in front of an ancient looking building of crumbling plaster between age blackened timbers, the upper story leaning precariously over a narrow sidewalk. If buildings had individual consciousnesses, Edward felt that this one was holding itself up by sheer force of will. Any break in concentration would result in the old edifice sliding to the ground in a shower of brick, plaster, and lathe.
Cavanaugh killed the engine and the car settled down on to its tires like an old, exhausted horse. Connor opened his door first and stepped out on to the sidewalk. He stretched once before coming to the back door, and opening it with a flourish. He had to stoop down and bend almost double before he offered a massive paw to Tola.
Ryos's eyes flashed, and she looked at him once with a pert, defiant smile before she took Connor's hand and let herself be helped out. Ryos would probably make her pay for that later. Mathun exited the car next with a savoir faire that suggested he'd practiced. He motioned to Alphonse, who scrambled out clumsily in comparison. Ryos, his face tight with anger, gave a sort of whole hand twitch to Edward. Only when he started to move did Edward realize how stiff with cold he was. It locked his joints into creaking immobility and he crawled like an old man along the bench seat, and out the door.
The open air was bone chilling, and a knife like wind whistled down the narrow street with a force that dropped the air temperature by a good ten degrees. Edward stepped a bit to his left on the pavement, shivered once, and then stretched. He raised his hands over his head, clasped them together, and then raised up on the balls of his feet, reaching hard for the swarthy winter sky. He twisted his torso to each side and back, three times apiece. Lastly, he put his hands on his hips and bent backwards until his spine gave out with an ominous crick!
"Ahh." Edward smiled, as if he was a child who'd tasted chocolate for the first time.
For a moment, the silence was absolute, then distinct sounds filtered in; the hot car engine ticking, the wind meaning in the building eaves, and the squeaking sound made as a wooden sign right above Edward's head swung back and forth. The evening sky had that peculiar light to it, the kind of light seen only at the dividing line between dusk and true night. As if sensing this, the wind gusted, colder and harder, like a physical slap in the face.
Mathun seemed to stand even straighter, as one from the cold, hard land of Drachma, he was in his element. A deep rumbling sound began just then, making Alphonse first jump, and then look around. The sound paused, and then burst forth again. Alphonse looked around and realized it came from Connor. From his midsection, in particular. He wondered crazily what the gigantic Drachman ate.
Connor grinned just then, wolfishly, as if he'd read Alphonse's mind. He seemed to have too many teeth and most of them looked very white and sharp.
"Don't worry, Amestrine, you don't have enough meat to satisfy me." He frowned a bit, a very frightening expression before it brightened back into that dangerous smile. "Although I suppose that I could pick my teeth with your bones."
He looked over at Edward as if including both skinny Amestrines in his assessment. The silence stretched and become uncomfortable again. Everyone jumped when Mathun broke it by clapping his hands, it sounded like a rifle shot in the chilly air.
"The day grows late and even I am hungry enough to eat an Amestrine, bones and all." Mathun's manner was as relaxed as ever, but Edward thought he detected an impatient tone in his voice. The strain must be getting to him.
Mathun had already dropped the bombshell about the Thule Society, but that night, he expanded on the details at a rather cheerless dinner eaten in the inn's rather cheerless dining room. It was poky and dark with stingy windows and a funky smell of dry rot and dust, a problem common in old and poorly aired rooms. The scarred and pitted wooden floor was uneven, and the low beamed ceiling sagged ominously over their table, which was in the middle of the room.
The waiter looked to be about the same vintage as the inn, and his joints creaked as if he truly was that old. His flyaway white hair stood away from his age spot marked scalp as if it was trying to escape from it. The waiter's uniform of black stovepipe trousers and fitter shirt jacket had gone through so many washings that they were no longer a shade that could be called 'black' precisely. Now they were more an intermediate shade of dawn seen just before the sun's aureole snuck a peek over the horizon. The shirt underneath the jacket must have been white at one time, but now it looked a sort of mottled piss yellow, like it afflicted with mange.
The waiter also had a great beak of a nose of terrifying size, like it belonged on some prehistoric meat eating raptor with post nasal drip. The poor man tried to counteract this by sniffing every few words, the sound magnified may times by the cathedral-like space inside that magnificent probiscus. The noise he managed to produce was a staggeringly loud, phlegmy sort of 'gsnort!'; each iteration makes his small round eyes contract even smaller.
He leaned over to Edward, giving him a good view of those rheumy pale blue eyes that were lined with red rims. "May I take your order, sir?" His breath was like a gout of decaying flowers as he looked almost anxiously at Edward. For his part, Ed tried to not to grimace. He quickly scanned the tattered, greasy pasteboard menu in his left hand, & chose the first item.
"Um, steak and kidney pie, please."
"Very good, sir." The waiter made a notation on his order pad with a tiny nub of pencil before moving around to the others at the table. Everyone seemed to breathe a sign of relief after he'd finally disappeared through an archway at the far end of the room.
"Tomorrow, we shall take the train for the remainder of our journey." Mathun announced this without preamble. "We aren't making enough progress by car, plus the heater isn't up to the task. So I am having the car placed into storage. Cavanaugh can retrieve it when he returns to York. Unless he prefers to accompany us to Drachma."
Cavanaugh was sipping from his water glass and he choked a little, sputtering droplets on the table. "What?!"
Mathun gave him a few seconds to get his coughing fit under control before continuing. "I wanted to save the news for later, as a surprise, but now is as good a time as any. The Elric brothers have discovered a way to draw a directional array. In short, they can choose their destination."
"We can go home? I can finally see my darling?" Tola's blue eyes lit up, as if tiny fires were kindled within each one. Her brother didn't speak, but he looked pleased. Edward had the sense that Ryos cared more about his sister's happiness than he was willing to admit. Connor merely crossed his massive arms. His expression never changed, but his eyes glinted with a satisfied light.
"Now, Cavanaugh." Mathun's voice dropped a few degrees in tone. "Should you decide to stay in this world, I've made certain – arrangements for your future."
"Arrangements, Mathun? What do you mean?" Cavanaugh was determined to look this gift horse in the mouth. He was trying to sound casual, but his face had become shiny, as if he'd begun to sweat. Any unusual attention from Mathun other than orders must have made him nervous. Ryos was looking at him sharply, the expression on his handsome face full of mistrust.
Mathun continued as if he hadn't noticed, but Edward knew that Mathun never missed a thing. He had the sense of dark undercurrents in a swiftly flowing river. There was something large moving through the murky water, something just out of sight. Edward couldn't quite grasp what that 'something' was. He knew so little about this gang of Drachmans, and their token machine worlder. After a moment of thought, Edward decided that he didn't want to learn any more. The less he knew, the better, because he had no intentions of opening a portal to Drachma.
When he and Al activated the array and vanished from their lives, he never even wanted to think about them again. He planned to go back to Risembool, marry Winry, and father a large tribe of smirking blond brats. But until that happy day, he had to concentrate on making sure every rune on that array was correct.
"I've placed the title to the car in your name. Plus, I have opened an account at the Bank of England in your name."
Cavanaugh could only gape in wonder at Mathun and how calm he was.
"I've also made some investments for you. Investments wise enough you can live comfortably on the interest. Will 15,000 pounds per annum be sufficient?"
Edward was nonplussed to almost hear the thud of Cavanaugh's jaw hitting the floor. In an England where most workers made a few hundred pounds a year, an income like that was a small fortune.
"You don't have to decide now, Cavanaugh. We still need to make it to the rendezvous with the Germans." Mathun leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. The old wood creaked ominously, but miraculously held together. "The stated purpose is to hand the Amestrines over to them in trade for something we want. But I have no intention of doing that. We will take it all – the alchemists, and that 'something'."
"We will kill them all, Mathun?" Connor looked eager to commit bloody mayhem, his dead eyes sparkling with a strange light, like foxfire. Ryos answered his question. "If they are lucky." Mathun stroked his narrow chin and considered the idea. "Perhaps we will take one or two alive for scientific study in Drachma."
Hours later, Edward couldn't sleep that night. Maybe it was the slowly digesting renmants of that truly awful supper, or the cold drafts that wafted in past the poorly fitting windows. Or perhaps even the lumpy and dampish mattress that smelled of wet, moldy dog. Or even his skittering thoughts which flew around inside his head like a flock of panicked sparrows.
He'd rolled back and forth for a while before settling down; now and then, a soft snore would issue from him before he'd jerk awake abruptly, his heart hammering in his chest. Mathun wasn't an alchemist, and he wouldn't understand the runes of an array. Edward could easily adjust them to open a portal to Amestris, to the middle of Central even. How Ryos would howl to find himself stranded on the parade ground of the Armed Forces of Amestris barracks, and among a sea of blue uniforms?
On the other hand, Mathun would expect Edward to do just that, and he would take steps to keep him in line. Like threatening a dire fate for Alphonse, for example. And yet again, Alphonse would also know what Edward was planning, and he was more than capable of his own "adjustments" to an array. Double teaming the enemy was risky, but it had the best chance of succeeding.
Thoughts like this kept Edward awake in the narrow, creaking single bed while a distant bell chimed ten o'clock, then eleven, twelve, one, and finally two. Edward was drifting off into the border lands between the real world and the land of dreams when something four-legged ran across his face.
He spent the rest of the night seated more or less upright in an old wing chair. One leg was apparently shorter than the others because it leaned sideways almost as if it were drunk, while rogue springs in the seat poked Edward's posterior. Once again wide awake, he stared out a window at the ancient, slumbering city while his little gray cells turned the conundrum of his situation this way and that.
As a faint, pink line began to brighten the eastern sky, Edward admitted to himself that he had no answer. Their only strategy depended almost wholly on surprise, and the speed at which they could execute their move. Edward rubbed his flesh hand across his face and closed his gritty eyes for a moment.
He fell asleep.
Edward was so tired that he could barely keep his eyes open through an unpleasant breakfast in the drafty dining room. The bone chilling morning air revived him a bit after the group had filed out of the inn, but he still felt like he was sleep walking. A large taxi drew up to the curb as the car had been stored in a garage somewhere in York. Ten minutes later, it disgorged them at the train station and all six rushed inside, eager for its warmth.
Mathun gave a sum of money, and instructions to buy return train tickets for Edinburgh to Tola and her heels clicked away over the marble floor. Male passengers stopped their hurry to cast lascivious glances at her pert behind wiggling under a chic navy blue coat. Edward studiously trained his gaze at the pattern on the floor. Every other red blooded male in the station was looking at Tola – except Mathun, and Connor had their heads bent close together and were deep into a private, whispered conversation. Alphonse and Cavanaugh also looked at the floor – Ryos was glaring at anyone who first looked at Tola, and then made the mistake of meeting his gaze.
The faces of those unfortunate souls would first turn beet red, then they would gulp, and then quickly find an excuse to get as far away from his malign presence as possible. At least Tola was efficient, as her high heeled shoes bore her, clicking back across the floor. She handed the tickets, and the change to Mathun.
"Our train leaves from Platform Two at eight twenty-five." Her voice was clipped and precise, quite unlike her usual gentle speaking voice. After five years in England, she could "speak BBC", albeit in a more automatic, rote manner. Edward could easily imagine her in the Drachman uniform, firing a gun and screaming angrily at an enemy.
She's a Drachman, through and through. Brainwashed from the time she could toddle, he thought sourly. For all her devotion to her husband, his half-brother, Tola would do anything the Triumvirate told her to do.
Platform Two was close by, so they made their train in plenty of time. Edward had to admit there were distinct advantages over car travel. The train was distinctly warmer, and the travel smoother, although there was no discernible difference in the winter scenery. The landscape became even more barren, with fewer trees and more rocks, although the vistas were more sweeping the further north the train traveled.
They made Edinburgh well before nightfall. While Tola and Ryos went off to explore the city, the remainder of the party stayed at the inn, this a far pleasanter place with a library the brothers could delve into. Besides, Al's ankle still wasn't completely healed, and he didn't fancy limping up and down the streets while icy winter winds cut through his coat. Dinner was a marked improvement, although it passed in a blur to the tired Edward, and he was relieved to fall into a fairly comfortable bed and wrap himself in the velvet arms of Morpheus.
The next morning, they were back at the station for the next stage of their journey to the rendezvous, & traveled west for the next three days. Edward watched out the train windows as brick houses gave way to wild Scottish countryside. Country that gradually became wilder as hills rose to become towering crags that thrust sharp peaks up to tear at fat gray clouds that were pregnant with moisture.
Sometimes, he could see black sheets of rain falling on a distant summit, and he could imagine a cloud, eviscerated by a jagged tongue of rock giving its all. The landscape outside seemed utterly devoid of human life. Edward caught the the occasional glimpse of a roofless and windowless cottage revealed in the fold of a hill. Some stood forlorn, surrounded by scrubby, gnarled trees bent like old women. Some were located next to leaping brooks of brown water that foamed around boulders as they tumbled downhill to the sea.
Once, the train skirted around a shallow valley, and he saw a loch, a broad sheet of water that reflected the leaden sky. There was a jumbled heap of stones along its eastern shore and it looked so picturesque that he would have considered painting it if he'd had an artistic bone in his body. A true artist would have been inspired by the sight, but it just depressed him. He shivered , sat back against his seat and tried to think of home, or Risembool.
Edward was surprised by a sudden pang of homesickness. He would not etch the runes to direct the circle to Drachma, but those for Amestris, Central in particular. Wouldn't Colonel Bastard be surprised? Edward just hoped he wouldn't be too surprised to click his fingers and turn Connor into a pile of ash before he broke his neck.
The train began to slow and a long, low building of soot darkened limestone filled the window. The brakes ground to a stop like an arthritic old man. Alphonse had fallen asleep next to Edward, his head pillowed on his big brother's lap. A brake applied in clumsy haste caused the car to finally cease all forward movement with a hard jerk. It was a stop so abrupt that Alphonse rolled off the seat and on to the floor, landing with a 'clunk' loud enough to wake him up.
Alphonse sat up, one hand rubbing a sore spot on the back of his head that had connected with the floor. He shot a reproachful look at Edward who had re-assumed his earlier pose of chin in his right hand while he stared moodily out the window.
"Where are we, Brother?"
Edward lifted his chin just high enough to reply. "The end of the line, I think."
A prehistoric looking black touring car that appeared to date from the last century was waiting for them on the other side of the open, wind-swept platform. The air was icy cold, and it smelled of water, & burning peat. Edward tasted the tang of iron on his tongue as he stood on the platform and stretched his arms over his head.
The village was the literal end of the line, although it was barely large enough to justify its na He bent backwards and felt his vertebrae creak in protest. Hamlet? No, still too large a name. He returned to his upright position before twisting to his left. Crossroads? Edward face forwards again, and then twisted to his right. Wide spot in the road? He returned to face front, then bent further forwards to touch his toes. He inhaled deeply, and the tang became stronger, this time touching the back of his throat. Edward let his torso uncurl until he stood straight again.
He exhaled, watching his breath swirl out in a white cloud, like a fog bank in miniature. The tang tasted of despair. Maybe it was his surroundings that made him feel this way. The station, a sad heap of limestone, looked abandoned. Across the muddy – it had rained just before they arrived, and looked to rain again very soon – was a large, dilapidated wooden building which looked like an inn. Behind that was a scattering of cottages, all of the same stone. They had mean little windows like suspicious eyes, and doors like pursed lips.
They huddled together as if for warmth, or protection from the wolfish hills that arose in a ring about the village, maybe a hundred yards distant. The only gap was filled by the single rail line, which curved in a loop perhaps fifty yards past the station so the train could return without backing up.
Half of Edward wanted to be on that train when it returned to Edinburgh, and thence to London. The other half was willing to press on to his destination, one that held out the promise of returning to Amestris. Instead of taking a set of rickety stairs, Edward jumped lightly from the platform to the ground. His boots squished in the mud, the left on slipping slightly in the treacherous, gooey surface. But, he had bent his knees deeply, and he kept his balance.
Edward bent his head and he entered the backseat of the car without a backward glance.
They reached the old castle half an hour later, the hired station car chugging slowly, but steadily through sheets of pouring black rain. Edward sat squished between Alphonse to one side, and Connor to the other. Touching Connor made him want to throw the back door open and sprint off. If he could have moved, that is. The ride was rough and being jostled against the Drachman enforcer felt like he was bouncing off a large boulder.
The car looked like it was one hundred years old and held together with spit and bailing wire. It drove like it too and kept pulling to the right, like it wanted to roll into a field and lay down to die. The air inside felt heavy and close, like blood, and Edward felt like screaming. The sky seemed very near and rain pounded on the roof, like tiny fists that beat with no discernible rhythm, except to drive the humans inside insane.
Disapproval radiated from Connor's body in waves, along with an older like wilted cabbage and week old sweat. Just when he thought the journey would never end, the sound from the wheels changed as the surface smoothed out beneath them. Edward looked out the windows streaming with rain to see stone bridge balustrades go by. The car pulled under an archway and enter a stone-flagged courtyard where the rain sounded even louder.
It gushed in small waterfalls from the mouth of carved gargoyles into overflowing gutters. They couldn't hold the volume of water and then shimmering sheets spilled over to ring the courtyard.
"Welcome to Castle Drachma!" Mathun intoned in a ponderous, put upon voice, like a hammy stage actor. Cavanaugh pulled the car underneath a porte cochere, engaged the handbrake, and turned off the engine. The car juddered into silence, like a worn out machine. Edward could have sworn that he heard it sigh, as if in relief. Mathun rummaged in an inner coat pocket and two longer fingers emerged holding a massive skeleton key.
He said brightly, "Our entree to the kingdom", and Alphonse made sure that Ryos saw him roll his eyes. When Ryos scowled, Alphonse replied with a sweet, beaming smile that showed lots of straight white teeth. Edward caught Al's eye and raised one golden eyebrow. "Are you looking to get beat up?" he whispered, sotto voce.
"We're the alchemists, Brother. We hold some face cards now. Besides, I'm sick and tired of being a good boy." Alphonse whispered back, preceding Edward from the car.
The air outside was still cold, like an icy knife, if clammier, due to the heavy rain. The porte cochere shielded them from the worst of the weather, but its roof leaked and rain spilled in tatters from clogged gutters on either side. The wind swirled around the courtyard, gusting rain on Amestrian, Drachman, and machine worlder alike in spiteful little hisses of moisture. It whipped Edward's long bangs into his eyes, and Tola squealed when her cloche hat tried to take flight. Alphonse gasped when a cold finger of rain snuck inside the collar of his jacket and ran down the back of his neck.
A rattling sound came from the other side of the front door, and dry hinges creaked like bones breaking as the great slab of wood swung ponderously open. At first there was just a square of dark, and a hush came over the little group as an apparition appeared out of the gloom. A tall, thin man with a face that had the approximate dimension of a section of narrow gauge railway track stood there and regarded them with somber brown eyes.
His appearance reminded Edward of the machine world rhyme about "Jack Sprat who could eat no fat". If so, this was Jack's thinner brother; he looked like a skeleton wearing clothes, namely a shabby black tailcoat, and striped black and white trousers, both smelling strongly of mothballs. The butler's facial skin resembled that of a poorly preserved plum, as it was scored deeply with lines from a large, hooked nose, past a thin, sour mouth, and to a hatchet-shaped chin.
His eyes were sunken deeply into the seamed flesh, like a bloodhound's. They were further obscured by thick black eyebrows that looked like fuzzy caterpillars glued in place. His small scalp was crowned with more of the same sort of wiry hair that grew in tufts, as if cut by a pair of broken, and not too sharp scissors. If this man was a butler, he came direct from the pages of Grimm's Fairy Tales; the sort of story parents never read to their children because it was too scary, even for adults.
This apparition proceeded to reach one massive hand up to tug at one of those hair tufts right over his eyes. "Good evening sorr." His Scottish burr was very faint and he gave Mathun a sly smile. Edward imagined that he heard Tola gasp because the man's incisors were huge, like an anthropomorphic rabbits. "Did you have a pleasant trip?"
"It was exceedingly tedious, cold, and bumpy, Mr – er..."? Mathun frowned slightly, in a manner that would have made most men cower, but maybe the butler's sight was poor. The afternoon was well advanced, and the flight was dimming fast. The lugubrious face seemed to hang in the air, like a jack o'lantern glowing with ignus fautus.
"Throckmorton, sorr. No need for 'mister', I'm just a humble butler, your servant, sorr."
Hmm. Not even Scottish, but maybe northern English. He may have picked up the faint burr simply by living in Scotland. Throckmorton wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer because only now he seemed to realize that his employer and his guests were still standing in the drafty, and leaky porte cochere.
"Please, sorr, come in and get warm." His head bobbed up and down as he spoke and he walked backward with quick, jerky steps. They all filed in a rough line behind Throckmorton, like a child's pull toy on a string. Edward and Alphonse came in the middle of the group, and they wiped their feet on a dubious black coir mat just inside the threshold. Cavanaugh just give a quick swipe of the soles of his shoes, and Connor stumped in without even bothering. Ryos stood on the mat for a moment, and then he took two strides inside before he turned towards Throckmorton and looked down his nose at the butler.
Some hours later...
Before he heard the metallic snick of the door locking, Edward had crossed the stone flagged floor and perched on the deep windowsill to stare emptily out at the highland night. Black clouds full of rain raced across the sky like a herd of demon cattle stampeding. They alternately revealed and obscured a bright full moon, its shining face turning the room window embrasure bright as day. He had a larger view of the loch from four stories up, its turgid waters turned to silver by the lunar light.
The stone was cold underneath him, and the skin of his buttocks and thighs was going numb, but Edward welcomed the discomfort. He reached his right hand into his coat for the book, pulled it out and let it fall open. The pallid moonlight lit up the page of the "destination circle", not bright enough for him to read the text, but Edward had already committed that, and the runes to memory. Alphonse came over about then and he leaned one hip on the window ledge next to his brother, and facing him. The cold seeped through his clothes almost instantly and struck him to the bone. Like Edward, he ignored the discomfort and stared intently at the page that held that fragile hope of finally going home. He shifted restlessly on the stone after an unknown amount of time. The wind moaned around the window, finding cracks to send in cold scouts, and it sobbed down the chimney of the fireplace like frightened children to make the flames flutter like ghosts.
"Brother?" You need to rest. WE need to rest, so we are ready to grab our chance when it comes. Because we will get only one, and if we miss it, we will never see Amestris again."
Alphonse nodded once, and he pushed off. He didn't say anything more, but just walked over to the massive curtained four poster bed along the opposite wall. Alphonse untied and removed his shoes, and crawled up on to the mattress to bury himself underneath a mound of mildew smelling blankets.Edward remained sitting where he was, and staring at the array for a moment longer. His lips parted and one word squirmed out from between his teeth.
"Yep."
The book snapped shut with a loud clap!, and went back to its home snuggled in an inner pocket of Edward's coat, right next to his heart. He hopped off the window ledge and followed Alphonse's path to the bed, also removing his shoes, but keeping his coat on. Once under the covers, he snuggled against Alphonse until their shared body heat warmed them up enough to fall asleep.
Nothing more needed to be said.