Now, General Sako’s face was turning a shade of red. “Of course, I wanted him bloody well shot down for wellies sake. If it weren’t for him and his infernal father, Colas, none of this would have happened. King Cini would never have stolen Taka off us, and Sukina would still be alive.”
My own father was loitering in the background against the wall, watching the exchange with interest. Though he and General Sako had bonded quite well in the last several months, he knew to stay back whenever the general’s temper flared up like this.
I walked over to Papo, so he could stop looking meek and become part of the conversation. As soon as I approached, he opened his arms and embraced me in a big hug.
“Pontopa, what Charth said… I thought we’d lost you.”
“You mean he had time to explain himself?” I glared at the general. I was pretty furious with him, to be honest. Yes, I know that Charth and General Sako had their history. But Charth had redeemed himself by helping us escape in the palace two years ago. He was our ally now, even if he had the spirit of Finesia living inside of him.
“He left the prisoner down here,” Papo said. “The good old general got something out of this before Charth flew away.”
General Sako had now walked over to cut into the exchange. He clearly hadn’t liked me blanking him like that, even though he’d deserved it. “One day, I’ll hunt that dragonman and his father down and kill them both. What they did cannot be forgiven.”
“But we have the prisoner,” I said.
“Yes, in the cells. Though my men can’t get a word out of him. We’ll let him rot there without food until he gives us some valuable intel.”
I shook my head. “It might be a long time. He wouldn’t tell me who he worked for either.”
A channel opened in my mind. “Dragonseer Wells, did you learn anything?” Gerhaun Forsi asked me in the collective unconscious.
“Not yet. The pirate captain wouldn’t tell me who he was. Did you have a chance to talk to Charth?”
“I did,” Gerhaun said. “Though, like the general, I’m not entirely sure I trust him. Sukina might have had feelings for Charth once upon a time, but now you can’t know whether his intentions are Finesia’s or his own.” It had taken me quite a while to accept that the mad god Finesia lived within the spirit of secicao. During my childhood, everyone had drunk secicao warmed in cups in a form that wasn’t as strong as oil, but still lifted human ability slightly. But once I’d learned how destructive the stuff was, I’d stopped drinking it.
“Charth seemed to be on our side, this time.” I said back to Gerhaun. Much as he had when he’d helped Sukina, Taka, and I escape from Cini’s palace. Meanwhile, his brother, Francoiso, whom I married, had sacrificed himself to aid our escape. “Anyway, what did you learn?”
“Just as much as you know,” Gerhaun said. “That the captain tried to take you hostage. But the prisoner doesn’t want to reveal anything more.”
“Is Charth nearby?” I asked. Even though Gerhaun had banished him from Fortress Gerhaun, I guessed the situation would cause him to hang around.
“He said he needed to leave. He seemed concerned that there were rumours Alsie was coming to the Southlands to supervise a harvesting operation and he wanted to investigate.”
That didn’t sound good. But if Alsie was here then it would have made sense for her to try to kidnap Taka and return him to the king. If, that was, she knew where to find him.
“We need to interrogate the prisoner.”
“I agree”, Gerhaun said. “Maybe you’ll find a way to get information out of him.”
I smiled. “You know, I think I might have another plan.”
General Sako, my father and Faso were all watching me. They’d learned to wait patiently whenever I zoned out so I could have a conversation in the collective unconscious. I focused on General Sako. “Come on, general, let’s go and talk to the prisoner.”
General Sako snorted. “You really think you’ll make a better interrogator than my best-trained guards.”
“No,” I said. “Not me. Papo, Faso, you stay here.”
Faso nodded, seeming to like that idea. But Papo shifted awkwardly on his feet. “Let me come. I want to have a word with that man myself. No one sends war automatons against my daughter without a good telling off.” He cupped his fist in his hand.
“No, Papo,” I said. “This is work, and as Doctor Forsolano says, you shouldn’t be moving around too much, which includes swinging punches at rogue airship captains.”
“Fine.” Papo crossed his arms. “I’ll just twiddle my thumbs here then.”
And, without him, General Sako accompanied me to the cells.
As far as cells went, Gerhaun’s were a luxury that I didn’t feel this pirate, or whoever he was, deserved. Each had a bathroom en suite with a toilet and sink. The cells were placed underground near the outer castle walls, with windows at the top that brought in a little light. We found the pirate captain down there, lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling, looking as if he’d rather take his own life (if we’d given him the means to do it) than reveal anything to us. Much to my amusement, someone had removed the mattress, and so he lay down on hard planks of wood.
He didn’t even seem to notice we were there until I tapped my foot against the stone. It was loud enough to cause him to jolt upright and then turn towards us with a scornful look on his face.
Before I spoke, I opened a channel in my mind so Gerhaun could hear what I said.
“Well, well,” I said. “It looks like the tables have turned. Who’s the one who needs to follow orders this time?”
The man glared at me but still said nothing. Though it was cold down here, a bead of perspiration trickled down his face. He had a purple welt on one cheek, probably where General Sako had punched him.
“At least tell me your name,” I said. Still not a word.
“Blunders and dragonheats.” General Sako turned to the guard at the cell door. “Give me the key.”
The guard in olive uniform nodded.
“Wait,” I said. “General, this isn’t a time for violence. Let me go in there.”
“But he’s dangerous.”
“He’s handcuffed for wellies sake. Please, my father’s protective enough. I don’t need this from you as well.” I turned to the guard. “You come with me. But, if I can request, general, please stay outside.”
“Fine,” General Sako said and folded his arms.
I nodded and then unlocked the door and went inside the cell. I tapped my foot against the stone and waited for the man to do something. But he didn’t react in any way.
I sneered at him. “Look, you have two options right now. Either you give us the information we need or you get interrogated by a dragon queen. I know which I’d prefer.”
But the pirate completely stonewalled me, his gaze vacant and his eyes focused on a point on the wall behind me.
“At least tell me your first name. That’s not so difficult, is it?”
I waited a moment and let the silence wash over us both. Eventually, the man decided to at least say something. “You can call me Grea.” Unfortunately, that name didn’t identify him by location. It wasn’t a real name, but a diminutive form used in many countries. Though it was still possible that he was Greandio from my homeland in Tow.
“Right, Grea. So, you know what we need. Tell us what happened to Taka Sako and who you work for. After that, we can come to some agreement, I’m sure.”
At that, the man looked at me straight in the eyes. Though his expression remained blank. “If I tell you who I work for, then he’ll do a lot worse to me than you possibly can down here.”
“Ah, so it’s a he.” I smirked. Getting somewhere, at least. That meant the boss wasn’t Alsie. “King Cini, I presume?”
“I’m saying nothing.”
“What if we agree to shelter you here? You’ll be quite safe.”
That caused him to let off a sharp, dry laugh. “In a fortress of over a thous
and troops, you don’t think you have at least one spy? The assassins will come for me soon enough if I’m lucky. More likely, I’ll be given a lifetime of torture. And my family are already dead.”
That caused me to feel for this man a little. “You didn’t choose this life?”
“I’ve already said too much,” he said. And he tightened his lips as if to communicate that he’d let out no more.
I asked more questions but couldn’t get another word out of him. Eventually, I left the room and turned to General Sako.
“My men will continue to work on him,” he said. “We’ll get answers soon enough.”
I sighed, then turned to the guard. “Take him to Gerhaun,” I said.
“Blunders and dragonheats,” General Sako said. “I can handle this myself.”
“Look, you know full well that Gerhaun is the most terrifying creature in this fortress. She has the most chance of getting something of value out of this man.”
“But I hate violence,” Gerhaun said in the collective unconscious. Clearly, she’d been listening in the channel I’d opened to her.
“Gerhaun, with all due respect,” I said.” Each minute we lose here is a minute that anything could be happening to Taka.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “I’ll do what I can.”
And I watched the guard jostle the pirate out of the room. And Grea went without resistance as if resigned to his fate. Then I took one glance at General Sako who stood there staring at the bed in the cell. I had nothing more to say to him, and so I went upstairs to pass some time.
5
I figured that Gerhaun would be a while, so I went to pay my respects to Sukina. There were two places I could have done so. The first, the catacombs where a beautiful blue marble statue perfectly represented Sukina’s chiselled face. But it always felt so cold down there, and the stone lifelessness of the statue creeped me out a little. So instead, I often found myself in the shrine that Faso had created.
After Sukina’s death, Faso had taken hold of Sukina’s bedroom for quite a few months. He’d created painting after painting of her in warm hues that expressed how much he’d cared about her, even though he’d spent most of his life away from her. It turned out that Faso Gordoni was quite a talented artist underneath it all.
The bedroom lay behind a single wooden door, and a cleaner swept three times a day to keep this room free of dust, on Faso’s request, to preserve the life of the paintings. Inside the tiny boxy room, once barebones, images of Sukina gazed out like a saint from wall to wall, some of them also resting on the woollen blanket on Sukina’s single bed, in front of which rested hardback editions of her published novels. Sometimes I imagined I could hear her voice in my head, talking to me like she used to in the collective unconscious. She helped me understand what it was to live in this strange dragonseer world.
I turned to one of the paintings and addressed her in my mind. As I did, a tear ran down my cheek. I let it fall to the floor without wiping it away.
“I’m sorry, Sukina,” I said. I kept this channel closed so even Gerhaun wouldn’t be able to hear. This was the most private of conversations. “I promised you I’d look after Taka, and I failed. I’m a failure…”
I calmed my mind and waited for a response. I never knew when I might hear her voice and it always came like an echo at the back of my mind. The kind of voice you might hear just before dozing off to sleep. But this time, nothing came.
“You have to understand, Sukina. I want to help Taka. I want to see him grow into a strong man. And though he’s male, I do believe he’ll become a fine dragonseer one day.”
Still nothing. I often wondered if this was madness talking to Sukina like this. She existed, Gerhaun had said, in the collective unconscious. But she wouldn’t be able to talk to me anymore. Once she was gone, she was gone.
“But often I feel that I’ll never be good enough. You were the strongest person, the most amazing fighter, an insightful author who inspired thousands… Everything about you was perfect. And now Fortress Gerhaun needs a leader like you and I can’t live up to your name. How can I look after Taka, and get strong enough to fight, and lead, and save the world all at once? I wish you were here, Sukina… I wish you could tell me what to do.”
Another tear emerged at the corner of my eye and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. This wasn’t doing me any good. I had to quell the anxiety. Still my mind as Sukina instructed me. And I remembered her words then. She’d said it to me once, just before I’d gone into that quiet, pitch-black room and sat on the floor while the spider automaton crawled over me. The same spider automaton that Taka had brought to me before he ran away.
“Let your worries drift away,” Sukina had said. “And focus only on what you can control.”
But it was hard when I had so much responsibility and so many things I could control and no time to address them. Not while the world was slowly falling apart. How could I ever know what to do next?
I felt someone trying to contact me in my mind. Not Gerhaun, someone else. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and opened the channel.
“Dragonseer Wells.” It was Charth’s dour voice that came resonating through the collective unconscious. “I tried contacting Gerhaun, but she seemed otherwise engaged. But there’s something you should know.”
“Charth,” I said. “What is it?”
“Alsie Fioreletta, she’s in the area, supervising a harvesting operation. I spotted her thirty miles or so to the northeast.”
“Dragonheats! Mammoths?”
“Five of them and coming close.”
“Does she have Taka?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t get close enough to tell. If I reveal myself to Alsie than she’d kill me, and what use would I be to you then?”
A wave of panic rose up in my chest. I tried opening up a channel to Gerhaun Forsi. “Gerhaun,” I said. “Gerhaun!” But she didn’t respond. You just couldn’t distract her while sleeping or concentrating on something with anything short of banshee’s scream. “I can’t reach her, Charth. What should I do?”
“Assemble a force. I’ll accompany you into battle. But you need to act now.”
He was right. Two years ago, the first time I’d visited Fortress Gerhaun, we’d had to react quickly because one of these ‘Mammoth’ harvester automatons had ventured close to us. If such a machine accidentally stumbled upon Fortress Gerhaun, then word would get back to the king. That would cause Cini to send in more automatons, ultimately resulting in a war. And given how quickly King Cini was advancing his technology, I doubted we’d be able to win.
“I’ll go and find General Sako,” I said.
“Send my regards.”
“I’m not sure he wants them, Charth,” I said. “You’re not exactly in his good books.”
“I wish I could change that…” And given the way Charth said it, I knew he meant those words.
“If only we could change the past,” I said. “Now, keep your distance, and I’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
And I felt Charth break the channel in the collective unconscious.
Then, I stood up, wiped the tears from my eyes and I went off to find General Sako.
6
While I preferred to visit Sukina’s shrine, General Sako would never go anywhere near it when he wanted to pay his respects to Sukina. Faso had created the shrine, who the general didn’t feel knew Sukina particularly well at all, despite the inventor having been in a relationship with her for five years. So instead, I found General Sako in the crypt, gazing up at Sukina’s lifeless marble statue, so tall it towered up to the high ceiling and lit by one hundred torches. She had an urn containing her ashes cupped in her hands.
“General Sako,” I said.
He turned to me and shock registered in his wide eyes. No one expects to be jostled out of mourning their most dear departed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you like this, but this is urgent. Five Mammoth automatons have been spotted near the
fortress. Thirty miles to the northeast. We need to assemble a large team, at once.”
The general shook his head hard. “What? Why didn’t my men report this to me if it was so urgent? How did you find out before me?”
“The automatons weren’t discovered by our troops, and Alsie Fioreletta’s accompanying them. Taka might be somewhere nearby.”
“But if not by our troops, then who did find them? It’s not like the maids go out in The Southlands for afternoon strolls.”
“There’s no time to explain,” I said. If I mentioned Charth then I’d also have to justify that he wasn’t a traitor leading us into a trap. “Time is of the essence.”
General Sako’s moustache twitched. “Right,” he said, and he picked up a talkie from his belt. “Lieutenant Candiorno. Call an emergency briefing. It looks like we’re going out to battle. And we’re going to require a large force.”
“General?” came a tinny voice on the other end, charged with a little static.
“Do as I say, for wellies sake,” General Sako said. “Oh, and send scouts to the northeast to return on the first sign of sighting anything. They’re looking for Mammoth automatons, you hear?”
“Aye aye, general.” And the voice fizzled out.
General Sako turned to me. “Well, well. Two missions in one day. I just hope you find Taka so I can give him his birthday present.”
“I’m glad someone remembered,” I said.
The general’s gaze drifted off into space. “How could I forget?”
The courtyard was already prepared for a briefing. Once General Sako gave orders, his troops would scurry into action, and so the guards were just putting up the last of the foldable seats, most of them already sitting down, facing the large screen at the front. Ratter stood on a table at the back with a projection device in his mouth. This let out a beam of light that displayed a picture of a Mammoth automaton on the screen.
Dragonseers and Airships Page 33