by R. J. Louis
“You’re scared of me,” Thunder says. “And you should be. But this doesn’t have to get messy, Rishad. I’m here for information.”
“Scared?” Rishad giggles. “I’m going to watch you die slowly, from a distance. Just like I had to watch Fox die.”
“That’s what this is about, isn’t it,” Thunder says. “Not about me beating you bloody for what you did to Travil. That was just tit for tat. It’s about her.”
“You knew she was in danger. You knew it wasn’t safe for her on that ship, that being out of here was a threat.” He spits. “You didn’t even turn in her killer.”
“What?! I didn’t find her killer.”
“Liar!” The invective is punctuated with a thump as the light-form jumps on Thunder, pinning her to the ground. “Travil told me exactly who you were asking about. One of my serving boys who’d been with her. He was the only one in the room when it happened. I heard it all from between his bloody lips and broken teeth. Why not tell me, Erin? Why force my hand? You certainly could have saved Travil a lot of pain.”
“What are you talking about—I never told him—” Thunder realises what had happened with a shock as she catches the light-forms fist in her two arms. At the same time, Rishad pauses his rant.
“He lied.” They say as one. Thunder twists the light-forms wrists, but it shrinks in her grip. She tightens her hands, servos straining, and bucks the light-form off her.
“What happened to the serving boy?” Thunder asks, already dreading the answer. She pushes herself up onto her hands and knees.
“I killed him,” Rishad says, almost appearing numb. “Straight after Travil told me. I killed him and hid the body, then you came for me. Why would Travil lie...”
“You hid the body on the ship, didn’t you?” Thunder says. She ducks, then side-steps a raging blow from the light-form, which moves erratically now, without Rishad’s full focus.
“How do you... Yes. A smuggler’s cache.” He grins a wicked grin. “Probably still something left.”
“You want to know why Travil lied to you?” Thunder asks. She dodges another charge from the light-form and sends it sprawling with a kick in the back. “It’s because he knew who really killed Fox, and he was protecting them.”
“What?!” Rishad’s eyes are manic now. His breath comes in sharp gasps. “Who?”
“You were right to be paranoid, Rishad,” Thunder says, almost gently. “Someone was after you. They just weren’t after Fox. Because she hired them.”
“I don’t understand...”
“She plotted to kill you, Rishad, and I caught wind of it. I... I killed her. I knew you wouldn’t believe it was her, knew it was the only way to protect you... to bring you back to Travil and I. I thought I was doing the right thing.” Thunder laughs, bitterly. “Ironic, how it has ended.”
“It hasn’t ended yet,” Rishad says viciously. “I’ve got your team. You take one step towards me and Lilian over here snuffs it.” Thunder glances to the side, where Rishad’s light-form has picked itself up, and wraps its golden glowing fingers around Lily’s pale throat.
Thunder holds her hands up. “Not another step,” she says, her voice reassuring. “Just tell me... is Travil still alive?”
Rishad looks blankly at her, then shrugs. “He was alive last time I saw him.” He seems almost surprised at the question.
“He had better be,” Thunder says grimly.
“Or what?” Rishad sneers. “You’ll kill me?”
“Oh no,” Thunder says, her lips curling into a cold smile. “I’m going to kill you either way.”
Rishad cackles, and in the instant his head tips up, Thunder pulls her pistol from her pocket and fires the weapon. A puff of Widowgas blooms around her, and the bullet flies true, smashing into Rishad’s throat.
He falls back, blood pouring down his crisp silk shirt, and the light-form fuzzes away to gas as he bleeds out.
“Mithra’s bloody beard,” Thunder curses, rubbing at her temple. “I fucking hate family reunions.”
48 - Rico Waking
“Molly!” Mudge shouts, frantic now. There’s no answer from the engineer below. He stumbles as The Kingfisher falls, the ship picks up speed, rushing towards the dunes below. Somehow, Mudge thinks, a fall from this height is unlikely to end with them surfing majestically over the waves of sand. Visions of Livewood and voyager bodies scattered across the desert surrounding a messy impact crater flood his mind. “Someone check—”
But there’s no time.
A few voyagers scramble away from the smoking cannons and claw their way down the ladder below decks.
“Send me.” The voice is small, but certain. Mudge turns to see Rico staring at him in earnest. “I can do it. I can get there quickest.”
Mudge recoils. “I’m not killing you, kid.” His thoughts move even slower than his voice, whipped by the wind. Kill one, to save the many. It doesn’t even count, he can’t die. Mudge shakes his head, banishing the thoughts.
“Then I’ll do it myself,” Rico mutters under his breath. Then he steps close, and pulls the knife from Mudge’s belt. Before Mudge can stop him, before Rico can stop himself, he pulls the knife towards his chest and slides it between his ribs, wincing.
He disappears, leaving Mudge standing empty-handed as the ship plummets towards the ground.
* * *
Rico awakens in the beating heart of The Kingfisher. The engine room is dark, and hot. The floor slippery beneath his feet, and the world is a startling, unfamiliar place. He knows something is wrong, the engine should be burning with light and life, pulsing with energy.
He stumbles on something in the dark. Something warm and heavy.
“M-m-m-m—” The words can’t come out. He reaches down, shaking the slumped engineer. Her face is sticky with blood, her eyes shut. Breath fills her lungs, but just like her baby, the fire has gone out.
There is a sense of rising panic as Rico looks over the bells and whistles of the engine, levers and directional nozzles. Twisting tubes, laden with cut-off valves and switches which send the burning heat of the Widowgas to where it is needed.
He has no idea how to work this. No idea how to turn it on.
He runs his hands awkwardly over the controls. He’s seen Molly work them, her fingers dancing from place to place, sweat running down her hair. She moves through it with grace and surety. His hands feel too small, the controls unfamiliar.
Meters and gauges spin wildly as The Kingfisher plummets, and Rico does the only thing he can think of. He looks in, and reaches out.
His family are like beacons, each one subtly different, moving, fighting, panicking, he senses bare flashes of intent and emotion.
Molly is closest, her light dim. Working by instinct, Rico brushes her mind, and finds, in her sleeping state, a way in.
A wave of sensation almost knocks him from his focus, but he pushes on. The workings of The Kingfisher’s engines are not buried deep in Molly’s subconscious. They’re the last things to have crossed her mind, and her attention and knowledge of them is absolute.
Rico lets his mind sit in hers, he ignores as much as he can of the wash and whirl of her thoughts and feelings, muted and dulled by unconsciousness. He simply sits, and feels the confusing array of controls grow familiar around him. Molly knows the engine like the back of her hands, and he finds that knowledge, and lets it take control.
Then he acts, and The Kingfisher thrums to life.
* * *
Rishad’s life-blood trickles out, pumping quietly onto the floor as Thunder works to free her companions. Lily and Jonas are tied simply enough, and as soon as they are free, they are moving, Jonas collects his blade, and the room grows cold as he draws it, pacing angrily toward the door.
Wilhelm is another matter entirely, the poor, unconscious old man lies sprawled in a small coffin-sized cage of thin iron rods, bloody and broken. His chest rattles with every shallow breath. Thunder grasps two of the bars of his cage and strains. Her muscles pop, servos whining, and the
metal bars of the cage bend. Then they snap, and Thunder reaches in, pulling Wilhelm from the cage. She moves him almost tenderly, he is limp, but groans under his breath as he is dragged out.
“Where to from here, Captain?” Lily asks.
“I need to find Travil,” Thunder responds, lowering Wilhelm to the ground. “If he’s still alive somewhere, I need to help him. Then out, and away. I think I’ve got all the information I’m likely to get out of Rishad.”
“What about him?” Jonas walks over and kicks Rishad’s body. “Shame Art isn’t here, I’m sure he’d love to gobble up that little spark.”
“Artemis is enough of a pain in my ass without being able to project a second form,” Thunder says wryly. “Jonas, keep an eye on the door. Rishad’s guards don’t know he’s not going to be paying them any more, they might still do something stupid. Lily, see if you can get Wilhelm up, try give him something to drink. I’ll settle for conscious.” Thunder glances down at the stumps where Wilhelm is missing four fingers from one hand. The hand is wrapped in a thin bloody bandage, the wound scabbing. She sighs. “If we’re not careful there’ll be nothing left of you, old friend.”
She stands, and begins casting about the suite. The trapdoor from which Wilhelm fell is carefully wrought, but not cunningly hidden, taking advantage of the fact that so few people look up.
Rishad wouldn’t put Travil there. Having him above the game wouldn’t have the same effect as he had had with Wilhelm. Thunder glances toward the back of the room, where doors lead off to Rishad’s sleeping quarters. The idea sickens her, but Rishad was clearly unwell. Maybe he saw it as a kindness, keeping his old friend close.
The room reeks of rot, it is dark, and messy. They seem to reflect Rishad appropriately, pristine on the outside, but a broken mess at the centre. The royal four-poster bed is a mess of twisted sheets and nightmares, a desk littered with pages of chaotic scrawls and scribbles.
“Erin?” The voice is a creature out of whispered horror stories, a scratching at the doors of her mind. Ice trickles down her spine, and Thunder steels herself. But of course, the horrifying thing about this voice, like all monsters, is that it is a perversion of something familiar. Travil is manacled to the wall, slumped. His eyes shine up at her in the darkness through a crusting of grime and blood.
“Travil, Gods...” Erin steps closer, almost gagging at the stench. Her friend is a pale, emaciated shadow of the man she had seen only a few days prior. It is almost impressive, how quickly Rishad has managed to turn Travil into... this. It is as if the life is being drawn out of him. “What did he do to you?!” Travel wears only simple, stained breeches. His chest bare, except for an odd stone necklace which hangs form a simple leather cord.
“The pendant—” Travel gasps, but Thunder has already noticed it.
The stone around Travil’s neck seems to glow with a sickly green light, pulsing like some monstrous heart. Where it sits against Travil’s skin, his chest is burnt, pale scarring in a circle, radiating with lines like capillaries seeping into his upper body. Thunder reaches forward, careful not to touch the strange stone, and rips the cord free with one hand. There is a sound like a scream, echoing from far away, and Travil slumps in his manacles.
49 - Once More Into The Darkness
The Kingfisher’s engines roar, turning the sand beneath them to molten slush as they slow the terrible plummeting ship. Rico, in a daze, pushes more power to the engines, his hands flying over the controls, as Molly’s muscle memory and subconscious experience guide him. The Kingfisher shudders, groaning. There is a harsh grinding sound as the keel skids along the upper crest of a sand dune, sending a wave of sand soaring around them. Behind it, one of the chasing vessels hits the ground without any engine flare, and the Livewood shatters, wooden hull bursting out in a second before a purple fireball erupts from within as the Widowgas ignites. A shock-wave rips through the sky, catching The Kingfisher and flinging it further forward. The engines scream, keeping the ship from flinging ass-over-end.
Voyagers finally make it to the engine room, and find Rico slumped over the controls, unconscious. Molly is awake, but drowsy, with blood warm and sticky on her cheek and a blooming bruise on her temple from where some ricocheting rivet off the struggling engine hit her.
Mudge’s voice echoes down into the engine room. “Molly?! Rico?! Gods damn it somebody answer me!”
Molly crawls slowly to her feet. She wipes at her face, and her hand comes back stained red with blood. Somewhat dazed, she wipes it on her overalls, and pulls Rico off the controls, setting him down on the ground.
“Quit your yammering, Mudge,” Molly says quietly. “I’m up. Rico...” she looks at Rico, who groans as he comes awake. “He did something.”
“Thank the Gods,” Mudge snaps. “Now get us up. We’re sitting ducks this close to the ground, there’s still one more bloody ship after us!”
“One dose of hard burn ascension, coming right up,” Molly says, then takes the controls.
“M-m-m—” Rico’s voice is unsteady, quiet, sitting beneath the hum of the engines. “Molly?”
“Rico,” Molly says, her voice cold as she takes them up. “What did you do to me?”
“I... I don’t r-r-really know.” He crawls to his feet, standing beside her. “I needed to—”
“I understand,” Molly says, almost absent as her hands dance over the machinery. “You did what you had to... but it feels wrong. I feel wrong.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. That’s what is so messed up. I know you’re sorry. I can feel it. Please, just go. Go back on deck. They need you up here. And I need you out of here.”
Rico hesitates, as if thinking of something to say, but he too can feel the link there, stronger than before, and knows there are no words he could offer to make things better. He stumbles out of the engine room and back up to the fight with the rest of the voyagers, leaving Molly to recover in her sanctum.
* * *
“Is he still alive?” Lily’s voice is unsteady as she steps into the dark room after Thunder. Behind her, Wilhelm rests his head against the cool marble stone of Rishad’s table, his breath comes in painful gasps, but he is alive, and conscious, as requested. She pokes at the limp form of Travil, who is still pale and drawn, his chest still.
Thunder looks down at the necklace in her hand, the stone seeming to glow with some false life. White stone, almost indistinguishable from a chunk of bleached bone, but for the strange fossil imprint in the centre. A worn, scratched remnant of a beetle of some sort, with strange, blurry appendages. Thunder touches it gingerly, and Travil jerks. Then she drops it, and stamps it beneath her boot. It crunches into dust under her weight.
A shiver runs through Travil, and colour returns to his pallid skin. He draws in a breath, shuddering from the effort, and blinks up at them.
“’Bout damn time you showed up Erin,” Travil says, his voice hoarse.
“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” Erin says, her deep voice soft. “What was that thing?”
“Over there,” Travil nods to the desk, where Lily is already scanning the papers, her normally pale face stark.
“What is it Lily?” Thunder asks.
“It’s...” Lily pauses. “It’s a family matter.” She takes a parchment covered in scribbled writing and tears it to shreds with deft movements. She pulls open a drawer and dumps the shredded page. “Aha, key. And another one of those little rocks.”
“Don’t touch it!”
“I’m not an idiot,” Lily hisses. “Here.” She tosses Thunder the key, then turns back to the desk and gathers up the papers. “Whatever this guy was into, it’s pretty shady.”
“Spoken like a true Shadewalker,” Thunder says, pressing the key into Travil’s manacles and freeing him. He slumps to the ground, still weak. “How are we getting out of here?”
“There’s a smuggler’s tunnel. I saw Rishad use it a few times,” Travil says, his voice fragile. “Guessing it leads out to the city.�
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“Right. Jonas, get Wilhelm up.” Thunder steps over to the desk and looks in the drawer, she notices Lily’s eyes on her, but rather than scan the shredded pages, Thunder reaches in and draws out the small fossilised rock. As she does, she disrupts a scrap of paper, and sees the word ‘Ariana’ scrawled on it.
She narrows her eyes at Lily, and then pockets the stone.
“What about Rishad?” Travil asks.
“We leave him here, shut the door behind us. His staff will find him eventually, and be glad to find him dead. He’ll join another of the dozen-odd mysterious high profile assassinations that happen in Rezir. I don’t think anyone’s going to come chasing after us,” Thunder replies, her voice terse. “I don’t particularly care what happens to his body.”
Travil gives her a pained look, and they share an unspoken argument, before Travil ducks his head. “I—”
“You were always too quick to forgive him, Trav. He was a murdering, psychotic bastard. Not to mention he was sucking your soul out with some weird magic rocks. As far as I’m concerned, he got off easy.”
Travil nods, and walks over to one of the walls, counting wooden panels out loud, he smacks his fist against the sixth one to the right, and a narrow doorway splits open, revealing a dark tunnel.
“Once more into the darkness,” Thunder says, suppressing a shiver. “Can’t believe we spent so much gold on that bloody dragon.” She steps into the narrow corridor, and fumbles on the wall, grabbing a torch from a sconce there. Travil comes after, followed shortly by Jonas with Wilhelm on his shoulder, and Lily last of all, a pale shade in the flickering torchlight.
50 - A New Hope
Mudge curses as a cannonball rips a hole in the sail just a few feet away from him. The great sheet sags, losing wind, but the engine keeps them roaring along. The Kingfisher crashes through the peak of a rising dune, sending a spray of sand flying as it begins a troubled ascent, fleeing from the ship behind and above it. Their fancy manoeuvre has cost them dearly. One enemy down, but the other has them at its mercy, and if there’s one thing Mudge knows about life on the shards, it’s that mercy is in short supply.