by A. C. Cobble
“Don’t be so confident, Captain,” argued Oliver. “They’ve already gained five turns of the clock on us while we were conferencing with Brach. I don’t think they’ll be the easy quarry you imagine. Don’t forget they managed to steal an airship manned with a company of royal marines. That wasn’t dumb luck. They know what they’re doing.”
“Fallen women and thieves said the admiral. They can’t out sail me,” assured Ainsley.
“And the captain of Franklin’s Luck?” wondered Oliver. “It’s quite possible they encouraged the man to join them. Offers of riches to come, threats to his life, that sort of thing. We should expect the best crew the royal marines can put on deck and plan for that.”
“Those marines should have died a bloody death before surrendering their airship,” complained Ainsley.
Oliver shrugged. “Maybe they did. Brach and his officers said there’d been a commotion aboard, but their attention had been elsewhere. Perhaps the natives and their captives overcame the crew and immediately learned to sail an airship, or perhaps they have help from the crew? It doesn’t matter for our purposes, as they’re all enemies of the empire now. Whoever it is, someone on that airship is sailing the damned thing.”
Ainsley grunted.
“If it was the regular crew, would we stand a chance of catching them?” questioned Sam. “Which airship is faster?”
“We are,” insisted Ainsley. “We’re designed for quick trips between Enhover and the atoll. They’re designed to stand and fight. They’ve a heavy structure with additional material to absorb cannon shot.” She began marking distances on the map, rubbing her fingers on her lips as she calculated in her head. Finally, she said, “If we pile on every yard of canvass we can, we’ve a chance even if they’re well-sailed. With an empty hold, the wind at our backs will be like a rocket’s ignition. It’s all an estimate, of course. I know their rated speed, but how much will they be able to get out of her? How accurate are these maps, even? I don’t think anyone’s actually sailed this way in the air or on the sea in the last twenty years, have they? To be honest, I’m more concerned with what happens when we do catch them. Franklin’s Luck boasts twice the cannon we’ve got, and they’ve got a few twelve-inchers in that mix. Twelve-inch shot is going to smash through us like a rock through a plate of glass.”
“We’ll worry about that when we catch them,” said Oliver.
“If it’s all the same to you, m’lord, I intend to worry about it until we catch them,” declared Ainsley.
“Fair enough, Captain.” He turned to Sam. “We need to talk.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, we do.”
“Grog’s in the cabinet,” offered Ainsley. “I’ll be on deck doing what we can to gain a little extra speed. It’s been two turns since we last spotted them, and we’ve only got one more before the sun sets. We’re not going to have visual confirmation until morning, m’lord. If we can’t see them when the sun comes up…”
“Keep due south,” instructed Oliver. “They’re headed to the Darklands. I’m sure of it.”
The Priestess VII
“What were those things?” asked Duke.
Sam grimaced, stalking to the cabinet to retrieve Captain Ainsley’s grog. She opened the door and saw dozens of bottles filled with the clear liquor. Frowning at the variety of choices, she took one and turned to Duke. “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t. I have no idea what those were. They weren’t sorcery, I don’t think.”
“Druid magic?” he asked.
She shook her head, unstoppering the bottle of grog with her teeth, spitting the cork into a hand, and taking a swig. The liquor burned harsh, a bit of lime juice and sugar the only ingredients to cut the sturdy punch of the rum. Terrible, unlicensed rum, if Sam guessed correctly.
“You need to pay Ainsley more so she can afford a decent pour,” complained Sam. “This stuff is awful.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” muttered Duke. He held out a hand for the bottle.
“I don’t know if those things were druid magic or natural creatures,” Sam admitted, sitting at the table across from him. “In truth, I don’t know what the difference is. I’ve never met a druid, you know, and the Church’s records of such magic are curiously silent. I asked that priest, Adriance, about druid magic. He acted like it was a myth, like dragons, just stories told to entertain children.”
“Well, someone built those keeps that dot Enhover’s coast,” said Duke. “Everything in the histories says it was druids, and there is something special about those old fortresses. You felt it, did you not, when we faced Ca-Mi-He? There was a… a warmth, that flowed up from the rock of the place, through me, and into you. Didn’t you feel it?”
She nodded, taking back the grog bottle and gulping another slug. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand and said, “I felt it, but I don’t understand it. If that was druid magic, it wasn’t anything like sorcery. There were no patterns, no bindings, no bridge even. And where did it come from? The keep? From you?”
“Druid magic is different,” he said. “You told me that when we first met. Sorcerers compel, right, and druids, ah, negotiate?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
He collected the grog bottle and drank.
“Duke,” she said, “if what we experienced in that fortress was druid magic…”
“What?”
“Then it was something you did.”
He blinked at her.
She waited.
“I’m not a druid, Sam,” he assured her. “I don’t even know what that means. There’s something… I think there might be a spirit housed within that keep, like in the levitating stones, or the fae. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t even know the first thing about druids.”
“Then how do you know you aren’t one?” she asked quietly.
She had felt the warmth, felt it suffusing her body, filling her veins and her lungs, keeping back the cold of Ca-Mi-He. In the freezing air atop the roof, facing the bitter cold of the great spirit, something supernatural had happened. Somehow, they’d been protected. She told Duke true. She didn’t understand it, but she understood enough to know it was no trick of their imaginations. It could have been some lingering effect of the magic the druids infused into the fortress… or it could have been him.
Duke drank deeply and brooded.
“Before, you said the lizards that attacked Imbon felt warm,” said Sam. “We both felt the warmth atop the fortress. What about this latest battle? Did those things feel the same?”
“They were blowing fire,” he mentioned. “A volcano was erupting behind us. We’re in the tropics. Of course it felt warm!”
Sam laughed. “Fair enough.”
“What kind of lizard belches fire?” wondered Oliver.
“The kind born in the heat of a volcano, I suppose,” she replied. “What kind of people would sacrifice everything for one airship? There couldn’t have been more than a handful of them that made it onboard, hidden amongst the captives or controlling them like puppets.”
“Born in the heat of a volcano,” mused Oliver. “Fire could hurt them, though. Remember what happened when Brach dropped his bombs? Those were natural creatures, I think, even if their origin is supernatural. How are lizards born? From eggs?”
“I’m a priestess, not a naturalist,” replied Sam.
“I think they’re born in eggs,” continued Oliver. “The heat from the volcano could have hatched them. How does that relate to the uvaan found in the tomb, the mechanisms there that were triggered, the uprising, and the natives stealing an airship to fly south?”
“I don’t know the answers, but I know where we’ll find them,” answered Sam.
“The Darklands,” responded Duke.
She nodded.
He took another pull on the bottle of grog and passed it back to her.
She drank, and they sat.
Later, a rap on the door jolted them out of their melancholy.
A
insley ducked her head in. “We’ve got full sail on, heading due south. Night’s fallen, and there’s nothing we can see of Franklin’s Luck. Hopefully at daybreak we’ll get a visual to confirm our heading. Unless you’ve further need tonight, I’ll bed down in the officer’s bunks.”
Without word, Duke waved Ainsley away, and she shut the door.
“We ought to get some rest as well,” remarked Sam.
She stood, looking down at him. He was an attractive man, as much as any of them were. Experienced but self-aware enough that she suspected he would take direction. Knowing him, she guessed he’d enjoy doing so. As good a lover as she could hope to find, when softer fare wasn’t available.
They were sailing to the Darklands, to the root of sorcery. The dark path would not be narrow and hidden there. It would be a part of daily life. Secrets and power would be at her fingertips. The lure would be nearly irresistible. She could walk down the path and gain what she needed. The thirst for more was like the allure of poppy syrup, and it was only her grip on life that would keep her from sliding all the way into the shadowy reaches of the underworld. Swimming the current of life was all that would prevent a final descent into darkness.
With what her mentor had taught her, what she’d seen battling Isisandra, Yates, and the others, with what she’d learned from Timothy Adriance, from Kalbeth, the Book of Law, with what King Edward had shared from his wife’s trove of materials, Sam had all that she needed to walk the dark path. It would be open to her, if she wanted to take the steps.
At the table, Duke tipped up the bottle of grog. He made a sour face, unaware she was studying him.
If she was to avoid the temptation to fully immerse herself in darkness, she had to maintain her grip on life. She felt the thirst for more skills, more knowledge and wondered if it was already the path taking hold of her. Should she avoid it? Could she?
Duke stood and stretched then adjusted his trousers, muttering slurred words, “If we don’t have some laundry done, I’ll be out of clean clothes within days.”
“You can change if you’d like,” she said, pointing to a trunk of his garments in the corner of the small cabin. “I can look away.”
“Like you haven’t seen it all before,” he guffawed then began to strip, mumbling to himself as much as to her. “I wonder how often the sailors do their laundry. Do they do their laundry? That man Samuels doesn’t seem the type…” He shook his head then scowled at the nearly empty bottle of grog. “That stuff tastes a bit shit, but it’s gone right to me.”
Sam knew she had to swim the current of life if she was to maintain her grip on it, to prevent the slide into darkness. She knew that. She’d always known that. It was the only way to avoid walking the dark path.
Suddenly, she asked Duke, “You’ll sleep on the couch again?”
Shirtless, he grinned at her. “A gentleman always considers a lady’s comfort, but you know, if we make it back from this voyage, I’m having Ainsley put another bed in here.”
Sam smirked and then crawled into the bed, rolling over and facing away from him. She spoke to the wall. “Darken the lights, will you?”
For days, they sailed south. The wind cracked the sails and whipped by them as they soared five hundred yards above the sea. The sky was bright blue, dotted with puffy white clouds the consistency of cotton hanging far overhead. The water was the rich cobalt of the deep ocean. There were no landmasses and no vessels on the water to break the monotony, just the one far ahead that they were ruthlessly chasing.
“No one’s flown within fifty leagues of the Darklands in twenty years,” remarked Captain Ainsley.
She was standing beside Sam on the forecastle of the Cloud Serpent, one tall leather boot propped on the wooden rail, her fingers restlessly toying with the hilts of her pistols.
“Why is that?” questioned Sam.
“Because the last time someone did, they didn’t come back,” remarked Ainsley. “It was in the early days after the Coldlands War. The empire was looking to expand. Expeditions were heading out in all directions. They quickly found there was softer meat elsewhere.”
Ainsley didn’t turn to Sam when she said it, and Sam didn’t look at her. Instead, both of their gazes were fixed on the vessel ahead of them. Franklin’s Luck hung five hundred paces above the surface of the sea, just like they did, and for two days since they spotted it and fell into its wake, they’d only cut the lead from six leagues to four.
It was just a spec in the distance to the naked eye, but with the spyglass, they could see it clear enough. It had full sail piled on. People scrambled about the deck, and the airship showed no signs of changing course.
“They could lose us at night if they wanted,” remarked Ainsley.
“Why haven’t they, do you think?” wondered Sam.
“We’re gaining one league a day on them at this rate,” mused the captain. “Darklands are what, three days away?”
“They’re not changing course because they know they can beat us to land,” acknowledged Sam. “But what then?”
The captain shrugged. “I told you. The last airship to see that evil shore didn’t make it back.”
Sam grunted.
“We’ve got you now,” said Ainsley with a mad grin. “Whatever spirits they throw at us, you’ll take care of them. I’ve seen enough of your work.”
Sam shifted uncomfortably.
“Any change?” asked First Mate Pettybone, joining them at the rail.
Ainsley shook her head.
“We’ll need to pause for resupply, Captain,” warned the first mate. “I just finished an inventory. We’ve got six, maybe seven days of water before we need to dip into the tanks. We’ve food for another two weeks. Enough to finish this chase but not enough to return to Enhover.”
“Aye,” said Ainsley. “The water is the problem. One way or the other, we’re going to have to find shore.”
“What happens if we dip into the tanks?” wondered Sam.
“We need that water to douse the stones,” explained Pettybone. “If we can’t wet the rocks, we can’t lower the airship. No airship I’ve known has taken the risk, but the only way back down to earth would be to rip up the deck, expose the levitating stones, and pray to the spirits it downpours. That, or start freeing the things and letting them float off while we try to manage a soft landing. As you can imagine, neither one is something I want to try.”
Sam swallowed, looking up at the distant, innocuous, puffy white clouds.
“We’re better off not having to dip into the tanks,” stated the captain dryly, dropping her boot to the deck and hitching her pistol belt. “At sea, if we have to, we can take her down and pump the tanks into our drinking water while resupplying those with seawater. It’s not as effective with the salt, but it’s safe enough. The problem is that it’s incredibly difficult not to mix the two. Even a little contamination can ruin our entire store of drinking water, and then we’re really in trouble. Of course, if we don’t find water in the Darklands, there’s no choice.”
Sam grimaced.
“If it comes to that, you talk to the duke, will you?” asked Ainsley. “He trusts you for some reason.”
“Three days until land,” responded Sam, “and you think we can catch them in four days? Unless their destination is on the coast, we might have time. Once we’ve dealt with Franklin’s Luck, we’ll be able to find a safe place to come down, I hope.”
“Frozen hell,” muttered Captain Ainsley.
“That’s not natural, is it?” wondered Duke, staring at the massive wall of boiling cloud mass in front of them.
“No, I’d say not,” replied Ainsley. She glanced at Sam. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Can we fly through that?” asked Ainsley.
“You’re the captain!” replied Sam.
“Aye, and you’re the sorceress,” retorted Ainsley. “I’m not sure it’s my captaining that’s going to get us through that cloud bank. What… what is it?”
&n
bsp; Sam frowned. Spreading across the horizon, as far as they could see, was a roiling wall of steel gray clouds. The formation was shifting constantly, flickers of silver light bursting in erratic webs from within. It was like a bold line scrawled between the dark sky and a darker sea
“Can we fly over it?” wondered Duke. “Looks like it goes, what, a thousand yards into the air? If the stones are dry, can we clear it?”
“I’d guess that’s a bit higher, m’lord. Maybe two thousand yards? That’s about the peak of our range,” muttered Ainsley. “Regulations are to keep to one thousand yards elevation except in case of emergency. Higher up and the air gets thin and tricky.”
She left it unsaid that they weren’t just talking elevation. They were talking that elevation above a sorcerous storm wall. There was nothing Ainsley could do to estimate what kind of ride they would find up there.
“Franklin’s Luck is going straight in, looks like,” remarked Duke. “I don’t suppose we’ll have much of a chance of keeping sight of them in that mess.”
Ainsley shook her head.
The roar of the storm was beginning to reach them, rumbling over the sound of the sails and the blowing wind.
“We can’t go around it,” said Sam. “That means it’s over or straight through.”
“I could jettison the cannon, our water…” murmured Ainsley. “Lighten us up, maybe give us a little extra loft, but I can’t make any promises. Well, I can make one. No matter what we do, if we try to fly over that, we’re in for a wild ride. I pride myself and our crew, but I’ve got to advise against it. There are physical limitations we cannot sail around, and even if we did, what’s the point of catching them if we’ve no cannon.”
“We’ve got four or five leagues until we run smack into the storm front,” said Sam. “It won’t move from that point, I don’t think. Can we catch Franklin’s Luck before that?”