The Corazon de Castilla made its way back
to San Cristobal, with us on board. Father Cristobal wanted to take
advantage of the capital's libraries to do some research on the medical
nature of Lucas's apparent condition. A few day's investigation yielded
nothing resembling this, even remotely. We wondered if this was the
result of something General Alzais Bisset du Verre might have done while
Lucas was his hostage. My companions and I discussed the matter,
and decided to confront Lucas about it. My cousin seemed completely
oblivious to the strange phenomenon revealed by his wound.
We all trooped into Lucas's room at the inn
where we had settled. Looking at him closely, we explained what was
troubling us. At first, he looked completely perplexed by our words
and denied the story as a utterly unbelievable. When we forced him
to look at his own wound and the strange substance it revealed, however,
a change came over him. Instead of arguing any further, he simply
attacked us. Although we had been suspicious of him, we were taken
aback by the violence of his reaction. He did not hold back at all,
striking to kill; we had no choice but to fight back.
Any wounds we caused him revealed more of
the hard armour under his skin, so that he started looking less and less
human and more like some gigantic insect. We dropped all efforts
to capture rather than hurt him, for he – it – seemed willing and well
able to kill us all. I finally had to pull my pistols and put them
both against the creature's head to destroy it. It made a horrible
sound, then collapsed to the ground. Before Father Cristobal and
I could examine it, the insectile body crumpled to dust before our very
eyes.
We looked at one another, panting and bewildered.
None of us had ever heard of anything like this, although the insect-like
appearance reminded me of what some scholars have described finding at
Thalusai Syrneth sites. At least the creature's disintegration into
dust spared us unpleasant explanations, though the scuffle still attracted
an alarmed innkeeper. When calm was restored, we discussed this strange
happening. We came to the conclusion that this monstrous creature
must have replaced Lucas while he stayed at the General's mansion.
The real Lucas must still be a prisoner in Barcino. The only other
explanation we could think of was that this really had been Lucas and that
something horrible had been done to him, in which case it was now well
beyond repair. Whatever the truth of it, we could only learn it by
returning to Barcino.
But upon arriving in San Cristobal, I had
also received a piece of good news. The lugger which I had commissioned
was ready and waiting for me; I had received word from the shipwright with
his compliments. When I saw my new vessel, I was entirely delighted;
the shipwright's work was everything uncle Enrique had promised.
I had already picked a name for the lugger: she would be the Maris Stella,
the "sea star".
This, at least, solved the question of travel.
Her shakedown cruise would be a trip to Barcino, where she could hopefully
get in port (what was left of the port) unchallenged as a humble little
merchant lugger. Since any vessel's maiden cruise is a crucial step
where all sorts of small problems may crop up, I decided to hire a seasoned
captain for the trip. Upon uncle Enrique's recommendation, I hired
an experienced officer by the name of Eduardo, and relied on his help (and
on the savvy Picante's occasional word of advice) to pick a suitable crew.
The trip back to the northwest coast of Occupied
Castille was interesting for me, since I was learning to know my new vessel,
but otherwise uneventful. Juan and Picante also seemed to enjoy the
chance to sail. The Maris Stella maintained a suitably inoffensive
appearance and had little enough trouble making its way to Barcino.
We were stopped, questioned, and searched by the Montaigne picket but we
had nothing of interest for them. We managed not to look too gleeful
when we saw the state of the port of Barcino, and meekly made our way to
a pier that was remarkable only for the fact it was not too badly damaged.
That night, we mounted an expedition that
was largely a repetition of our previous visit to the General's mansion.
Security had been tightened, but we had one less person to slip through,
and Lucas had not been the most stealthy of us. When we penetrated
the defences and found our way into the mansion, we discovered that the
accumulated bazaar of stolen riches had almost entirely been removed.
We were even more cautious than we had been before, remembering how we
had been surprised by the General. We visited every room on the upper
floor but found no prisoner and no trace of Lucas.
We returned to the General's office and searched
it thoroughly, hoping to find some indication of Lucas's fate. We
had nearly given up when Picante and Father Cristobal located a secret
compartment in the desk. From it, they drew an amazing object: a
piece of amber, roughly spheroid, which contained a tiny human figure,
no larger than the length of a knuckle. Looking at closely, we realized
it was a perfect representation of Lucas! If this was a carving,
the detail on it was most amazing, and we could not guess how it had been
encased in the amber for there were no visible cuts or seams.
But when Picante pulled a second piece of
amber, containing a minuscule representation of the General himself, we
began wondering uncomfortably whether these were in fact carvings or something
more sinister – and less explicable. Whatever the General had done
to Lucas, this must have something to do with it. Something mysterious
had happened and it seemed only the General himself could tell us the truth.
Weapons in hand, we sought him out.
We found him and he found us. He was packing
and seemed to be getting ready to leave town. There was a strange
calculating gleam in his eye when he looked at us; we informed him that
we had discovered the substitution and wanted Lucas back. At first
he derided our story, but then we showed him the two globes of amber we
had found. Like the Lucas lookalike had done earlier, he immediately
attacked us but this time we were ready. We soon discovered, without
great surprise, that he too hid a chitinous structure under his skin.
However, we discovered that he was much tougher than the creature that
had taken Lucas's guise.
The four of us, well armed and well prepared,
could barely hold our own against this creature of Legion. He was
inhumanly tough, quick, and strong, and we can only be thankful that he
had no reinforcements. His troops were apparently not allowed inside.
But we too were beginning to tire him, and the fight was stretching on.
It looked like this battle of attrition could last quite a while, and the
issue was far from certain.
Finally, the creature that we knew as General
Alzais Bisset du Verre called in a strong voice. "A truce!
A truce!" Warily, we stepped back, ready for treachery. He
held out his hands then pointed to the amber ball that contained his likeness.
"Return this object to me," he said, "and
I will return your companion. "Let us let bygones be bygones, each
go our separate ways."
Dubious, we looked at one another. What
treachery was he planning?
"Very well," I said. "Let all of us
go unhampered, with the real Lucas, and you get this bauble back.
Bring us Lucas and we will give this thing back to you."
"You have a deal," said the General.
Later on, we were incapable of piecing together
what happened after that. The next thing any of us remembers is waking
up on the Maris Stella, headed home... And Lucas was with
us. We made every check we could think of but none of us seemed to
have turned into a giant insect in disguise. For my part, I can attest
to the fact that I have been wounded often enough since then. We
do not know how the exchange was completed, but somewhere in Montaigne
there is a giant insectile monster bearing the guise of General Alzais
Bisset du Verre, who knows a lot I would like to learn and probably a lot
more that I would not like to know.
