by R. J. Louis
Everything he has, everything he is, is on this ship, or connected to it. Every other voyager has a story behind them, a history, and a future, The Kingfisher is just one part of their life, but for Rico, it’s his whole life.
In a hundred years, will he still be waking up somewhere in these wooden halls? When Thunder and Mudge, Molly and Jonas, and all the rest have passed on to Tranquillity. Will he still be here, stuck on the ship? Will he still be here, trying to die?
He realises with a start that his fingernails have cut into the palm of his hands. Beads of crimson dot his fingers.
“I can bleed,” he says bitterly. “Why can’t I die?”
“What’s that, Rico?” Molly asks. Rico looks up, surprised to find her there. She splashes water from a canteen on her face. “It’s bloody hot down there,” she says confidingly. “Thought I’d steal a few minutes. Didn’t mean to interrupt you.” Molly wears a simple pair of overalls over a light shirt stained with sweat. For a young woman amongst a crew of mostly older men, she’s not self-conscious.
Rico shakes his head. “You didn’t interrupt me.”
Molly looks at him askance, narrowing his eyes. “You looked pretty deep in thought.” She reaches out and places a hand on his. She’s an enigma to him. He hadn’t found her. Thunder had, carried the young girl unconscious and bleeding out of a chunk of hell on the dark-side of Spark. Her hand is warm though. “You ever need to talk it out, let me know. We’re in this together, right.”
“Right,” Rico says uncomfortably.
“Seriously, I’ll take any excuse I can to get out of the engine room, but at the same time... You’re an important part of the crew, and my friend.” She smiles at him. “So, you grew up here, Cap’ said. How’s it feel coming home?”
“Grew up?” Rico shakes his head. “Not exactly... I don’t really remember it. The Kingfisher is my home.”
She nods. “I know how that feels. Guess we both ended up here a little younger than strictly recommended. Still, makes for one hell of a story to tell the kids some day.”
“I—”
“Not that—I don’t even know if I would want that. I meant... in general. Great story to tell kids... Well, some of the stories. You know... with all the curses censored.” She grins. “I feel like I’m rambling. Guess that means it’s time to get back to work. Keep an eye on those creeps on the dock for me. We don’t want any boarders, though I’m sure if they try, you’ll be quick to give em the old repel.”
41 - Control
We lose control of situations in strange ways. Sometimes it happens all at once, and we are left clutching at the air. Sometimes it happens by small degrees, every little step leading to the next and you don’t realise things have got away from you until it is too late.
It happens on the ship first. The Kingfisher sits at rest in the dock, with the faux-Captain Mudge showing himself occasionally enough to keep whoever is feeding Rishad information the news that Thunder is still around. I think this is the first thing to go wrong, but maybe that’s just me feeling self-important. For all I know, things went bad for Jonas first. But I’m getting ahead or behind myself. Here the story starts to pick up speed, just as I, for lack of a better word, leave it.
Artemis knocks on the little cabin door. I have the space to myself, with Lily and Jonas gone, and Mudge in Thunder’s cabin, the officer’s quarters are much freer than usual. His eyes are hard.
“Mudge wants you on deck, scrutineer.”
“Scrutineer?”
“Isn’t that what you do? See things and write them down.”
“I guess. I didn’t know I got a title for that.”
“People on this ship are mad about titles,” Artemis says, picking lazily at his fingernails. “Come on.”
So I follow him, what else would I do? And when we get out onto the deck, Mudge is nowhere to be seen. The day has passed in an odd tension, moving at times far too fast, and at others far too slow, as we near the moment of truth. Now, as the Dark Star sits low on the horizon, the last warm light filtering across the sand and painting Rezir in a soft pink haze, things are moving.
“Where is he?” I ask.
And then Artemis touches my forehead, and says something, and all I see are black feathers.
“Follow.” His voice is tinged with command, and my body obeys. And then he takes me from the ship. Watchful eyes track our walk along the deck, and a dim part of me hears Rico calling out, but I cannot speak. Raven wings shutter my mind, and Artemis walks with such purpose that by the time the rest of the crew realise we are not out on some new aspect of our mission in Rezir, it is too late.
* * *
Jonas is on edge. He has been since the night before. He hasn’t seen anyone, or even necessarily heard anything. His hackles stand on end and there is some instinct, deep in his gut, of being watched. He’d ended the conversation with Mudge the night before and investigated every corner of their luxury suite. Lily had laughed at him, though she’d still performed her own slightly more diligent check of all the potential crawl-spaces and hidey-holes in their suite before declaring him a scaredy-cat. He spends the next day stalking the halls of the casino, snapping at anyone who crosses his path, and it doesn’t help one whit.
Something has gone wrong. He just doesn’t know what it is yet, but he can feel it. As the day goes on he returns to his room, glancing about the corners and growling heavily to himself as Lily dresses in more silk than The Kingfisher’s mizzen sail.
She comes out in a shimmering suit of silk cloth. “I usually dress so drab,” she says, picking at the fabric. “But standing out is surprisingly fun.”
“Hmph,” he grumbles.
“Oh don’t worry Hellion. I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”
“Lily—”
“Hush!” She glares at him. “Ears, remember?” She nods to the walls.
“Oh. Fine. Sariel. Something is wrong. They should have reached out to us by now.”
“Maybe the Raven had to use his spell for something else. It’s fine, everything is ready. We’re ready. All they have to do is wait quietly. If something was wrong, they’d definitely call us. It’s just sculpted glass, after all. Don’t worry so much. Maybe your instincts are off. Gods knows this city is a weird place.”
“We were supposed to confirm the pick-up.”
“Welcome to the real world, Hellion. I thought you’d been here before? We make a plan, we set it up, and then we barrel forward into it.” Lily throws her hands up in frustration at the look on his face. “There’s a reason I’m working for Thunder and not—Ah shit.” She glares at him, covering her mouth and glancing at the door. “Don’t say a word,” she hisses. “You’ve thrown me off my game with all your bloody stressing. You wait for the call, I’ve got to go get my pieces moving.”
She slips out, leaving Jonas to his own devices.
And then the heavy lantern hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room flickers. It is a beautiful, ornate thing, needlessly complex, reflective glass mirrors sit in a lattice made of cast iron lace surrounding a slow burning flame. It burns a bright, clean white, suffusing the room with light.
Jonas notices the light shift, and turns to watch it carefully. The burning light drops out of the lamp, a small glowing sphere that slips down onto the floor, all the while elongating, until it forms a long thin beam of light, which then grows and spreads. It’s hard for Jonas to make out any details, but the shape it fills is familiar enough.
They’d wondered if Rishad had any divine spark. As a Solarii, a child of Pandora, he could have been bearish, like Kendra, or suffused with light... or any number in between. And if he’d been particularly blessed, he would have had a power instead.
Thunder hadn’t seen it, could give them no information about it from her time with him.
Well, Jonas is seeing it now.
The light fills out until it matches Rishad’s dimensions perfectly, dimming as it does so, to the point where Jonas can actually see the
cold, brilliant smile on its face.
“Since you knocked out my guard last night, I knew something was amiss,” Rishad says, his voice strange and hollow, as if echoing from far away. “I thought you must have been working for some of my competition, their games are usually less complex than whatever is happening here though, so I needed to be sure. And here it is. The answer to all the questions. Your hers.”
42 - A Game of Eights
Lily traipses her way down the corridor, mentally preparing for her bout with Rishad. After years without a good game of Eights, it’s refreshing to have a partner who isn’t terrible. Now all she has to do is bet, put up a good fight, and lose. Concern darkens her countenance, news out of Dusk could be important. She hasn’t spoken to her family in so long. But at the same time, there is really no guarantee that the information is any good. Hells, it could be that the favourite daughter of the Nox’s chosen went missing years ago and had recently been spotted working on a privateer ship called The Kingfisher.
She hears Jonas shout something indistinct down the hall and stifles a grin. Bloody wolves. He probably tore his tight pants. She considers going back to check on him, but the light out the window is low already, and she’s late for a very important date.
The last time they played, they’d been in the finer tables on the upper levels of The Angel’s Fall. Tonight however, Rishad has invited her to his private suite. The silk folds of her clothing hide two knives strapped to her legs, the only weapons she’ll bring into the belly of the beast.
Rishad waits outside his door, leaning against the wall in a finely pressed linen suit of dark emerald. He looks quite dashing.
“Red is evidently your colour, Lady Sariel,” he says, smiling pointedly. “You’re late.” His voice is slick, oily and officious, yet somehow the effect works for him.
“My apologies, Hellion is in a bad mood today. I told him about our little bet, and he doesn’t want me to risk our time and money so carelessly.”
“Perhaps he can join us later and keep an eye on things,” he says with a sly grin. “Can I offer you something? I have a fine Noxian red I save for special occasions.”
“Is this a special occasion?” She asks, letting him take her hand and lead her into the suite. Wide double doors open out into a spacious room of polished wood, in the centre, a felted table sits, cards laid across the green in an intricate ribbon spread before an Eights board, the seven pieces already arranged.
“Depends how good your hands are,” Rishad says, gesturing to the table.
A tension hangs in the air, prickling the skin on Lily’s neck. Rishad’s smile is glassy and full of teeth, his charismatic warmth feels almost decadent, too rich, as they sit down to play. She swirls the wine on her tongue, tasting it. It is a fine blend, but something feels off.
The cards are dealt, and the game begins. There is a smell in the air that catches in Lily’s throat, something odd and unpleasant that only begins to grow in her awareness as she sits longer in the room.
“So, you enjoy glass sculptures?” Rishad asks, as they begin a slow practice round.
“Of course, the artisans of Rezir are renowned, and we simply must have the best. What about you?”
“I enjoy them to a point. I like the way the glass shatters when stressed,” he muses. “You know, when you find the right place to put pressure on and everything comes crashing apart. There’s a beauty in that moment.”
“Provided you don’t stand too close,” Lily says dryly.
“Why, that’s half the fun.” Rishad says as he places down his cards.
“Well, if you win, you’ll have to invite me to watch this little demolition of yours, after spending so much money on the piece, I would like to get as much as I can out of it.” Lily places her own cards, and both of them calculate the scores quickly.
“Your hand,” Rishad defers, and Lily considers the board. Four of the seven pieces are hers to place now, granting her an advantage that will last until the final move when the eighth piece is placed. It will either go to her, and cement her advantage, or go to Rishad, and even the playing field, and there is no knowing how it will fall until they play their second hand of cards. She presses the advantage while she can, but keeps one piece in reserve, in case the eighth should fall against her, and Rishad place it behind her defences.
The game continues, and their barbed flirtations and idle comments grow silent. Lily descends into the flow state the game requires, predicting move and counter-move, and all the while the strange, semi-sweet scent of what must be Rishad’s cologne, or perhaps some local wildflower, distracts her.
It is a common enough tactic, when you control the battlefield, to do everything you can to distract your opponent. A part of the reason Lily agreed to play in his suite is conceding that advantage, to make her loss more believable. It’s not enough for Rishad in this situation though, and Lily wins their warm-up match handily. She lets out a quiet sigh of relief. The victory will hopefully ease the sting of her later defeat.
“Well done,” Rishad says, smiling deeply at her. “You certainly came here to win.”
“Well I wouldn’t come all this way just to lose,” Lily says with a smirk.
“Oh? Well, I have a little prize, to whet your appetite for our betting.”
“Really?” Lily narrows her eyes at him. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t speak too soon, Lily, you don’t know what the prize is.”
Ice forms in the pit of Lily’s stomach. Her knuckles go white as her fists clench, and she strangles the fear and buries it in the corner of her mind. “Lily? I’m not sure if we’re close enough for pet-names.”
“But that’s your name, isn’t it. Lilian Selana? An old friend of yours told me plenty about you,” Rishad’s eyes are as hard as black diamonds. “So as a way to say thank you to him, and to reward you for a game well played, I invited him to dinner.”
Rishad claps his hands twice in quick succession. Lily is already backing away, her chair falling to the ground behind her as she reaches for a knife. She prepares to throw it, and then the stench that had troubled her all through the game grows heavy in the air. A creak sounds from above, and out of the ceiling, a small trapdoor opens, and a cage falls to the table between her and Rishad with a crash.
43 - Some Fingers, All Hands
Inside the cage, Wilhelm looks different. He still has his one eye, but where his other empty socket would normally be covered by the patch, it is open, a bloody purple scar. His remaining eye is crusted shut, his skin jaundiced. He wears only a simple loin cloth, and his already lightning-scarred body is covered with welts and bruises. He is missing two fingers from each hand, and what looks like a patch of flesh from his shoulder.
The fall startles him awake, and he groans in pain.
“Welcome to dinner Wilhelm,” Rishad says. His voice is still flat. It sickens Lily, she might have expected some sort of manic glee from the man who had so thoroughly played her, but he sounds as if he might be discussing the weather.
Lily pulls a knife from the sheath on her thigh, and brandishes it, glancing around. It’s just the three of them in the room. Thunder wants information from Rishad, but Lily might have to kill him to get out of here alive.
“Move, and he dies,” Rishad says in his same emotionless voice. “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Why should I believe you’ll keep him alive if I listen... Gods, look what you’ve done to him?!”
“Wilhelm brought this treatment upon himself, as did Jonas.”
“Jonas—”
“Yes, you had best be grateful, because as it turns out I have many surprise presents for you.”
The room brightens somewhat, and Lily spins as the door behind her opens. She steps to the side, trying her best to keep Rishad and the opening door in her line of sight, then she sees what is coming through the door, and freezes.
It is Rishad, but a Rishad made of light. A bright, shining beacon of a man, and it is draggin
g the bloody and burnt form of Jonas Blackwater. The light grips him by the collar of his fancy shirt, which is slashed open at the chest, and stained red with blood. His eyelids flutter, and the amber eyes beneath them are dim. His tight pants are torn, but there is no humour to the situation. Lily sees with a shock that his sword, the Windblade, is still sheathed at his hip.
He never even had a chance to draw it.
“Put the knife down, Lilian, and tell me about your Captain’s ridiculous plan, or you can hold onto your knife, and watch these two die slowly.”
* * *
“Something is wrong,” Rico pipes. His voice shaky. In the dim torchlight of Thunder’s, now Mudge’s cabin, he is pale. “Jonas is hurt.”
“Something is always wrong,” Mudge says with a sigh. “Where’s Artemis? It’s time for us to check in anyway.” A chorus of shrugs and askance glances meet his question. “Well, he must be around here somewhere. Who’s seen him?”
“I have,” Rico says quietly. “About an hour ago.”
“Okay, was he below-decks?”
“No. He was on the dock, with Izaak. He told me—”
“He what?”
“He and Izaak hopped off the ship and went into Rezir together, about an hour ago. I thought that was part of the plan. He—”
“Where is he now? Can you do that... that thing you do?”
“I don’t—Maybe.” Rico closes his eyes, and holds out his hand, his finger pointing through the walls of the ship, across the city. “Jonas, Lily, Wilhelm. Something is going wrong there.” He shifts his hand downward. “Captain Thunder, waiting.” He shifts his hand up and to the side, pointing in a different direction. “Artemis. I think outside the city.”