by James Duvall
The gryphon scrambled around to the closer side and seized a handle in his beak. He pulled with all his might, gaining agonizing inches as the entire thing threatened to slide away from him. Books, clothes, the contents of many drawers, and the drawers themselves lay haphazard across the floor, all dislodged by the jarring force of the ship coming down on the mountainside.
Timothy came to his senses. “We have to go, leave it! The ship is on fire. Everyone else is already gone.”
The crashed vessel shifted precariously, sending Timothy grabbing for the door frame again. The gryphon's chest got away from him and slid toward the starboard wall like a battering ram. The creature chased after it, lunging and clawing along the floor. The chest stayed just ahead of him, gaining speed until it crashed against the wall, splintering wood. More smoke poured in through the new hole, seeping in around the chest from the adjoining room.
“The boiler is going to explode! Leave it!”
“I can't!” the gryphon shouted back, his voice desperate. His taloned forelimbs scrambled at the lid, trying to pry the chest away from the wall and get behind it again. “This is my duty. Help me!”
Thickening smoke darkened the room, choking out the light as it found its way up through the floorboards. The gryphon's struggle continued undeterred. By then he had interjected himself between the chest and wall and was heaving with all of his might to overcome the slanted floor and raise the chest back to the level of the door. He was fighting a losing battle, gaining inches as the fire in the ship's belly grew by the yard. Sweat gathered on Timothy's brow. The air grew dry. An inferno raged below, flames roaring as the wind passed through them. The deck would not hold out much longer. Boots echoed through the corridor outside.
“We're in here!” Timothy called.
Timothy's First Mate, Willoughby, barged in with several crewmen in tow.
“What's going on in here?” Willoughby bellowed. “Is that a gryphon? The ship's on fire, what's he-”
“Willoughby!” Timothy cut him off. “You and your men take that chest aboard the Stormbreaker. I want everyone off this ship. Now!”
Willoughby waved his men forward. “You heard him, boys!”
The gryphon hopped out of their way, his worried blue eyes watching the chest as they hoisted it up and bore it toward the door.
Timothy stood aside to let his airmen pass. The gryphon darted through behind them, his wings tucked close against his leonine body. Timothy followed close on their heels with Willoughby huffing along behind him and coughing in the smoke. Daylight pierced through at the end of the corridor, and the rescue team burst out onto the open deck.
Above, the Stormbreaker's glidestone engine whirled. The glowing pink crystals kept the airship at a steady altitude while the skybridge was deployed. Charcoal columns of smoke rose from either side of the crashed, dying husk of the Wild Hawk.
At the foot of the skybridge stood the Wild Hawk's captain, a wide-eyed man in fine clothes. He shouted orders, his voice carrying over the loud clang of the evacuation bell.
“Everyone's clear,” Timothy shouted, urging the captain up the skybridge. The shaken man looked at him with uncertain eyes which eventually fell upon the gryphon.
“He is not coming,” the gryphon reported bitterly. “He has abandoned his post...”
For a moment the Wild Hawk's captain looked out across his ship's sagging frame, anger and relief battling for primacy upon his worried brow and tired eyes.
“There is no one else, come aboard our ship, do not let yourself perish here,” Timothy pleaded.
The beleaguered captain gave a small nod of defeat and followed Willoughby, the chest, and the gryphon up the skybridge.
Once the last soul had come aboard the Stormbreaker, Timothy shouted the order to depart. “Torvald! Distance! Quickly!”
The Stormbreaker pulled away before the crew could hoist up the skybridge. It tumbled into a gorge below, stirring up a thick cloud of dust as it bounced down the craggy slope, breaking into pieces as it went. The Stormbreaker sailed at speed, all hands at stations. Timothy stood with the rescued Wild Hawk crewmen, watching their vessel burn. A few minutes later the boiler erupted. The blast rolled like thunder through the valley. The Wild Hawk disappeared beneath a cloud of splintered wood and burning shards. When the smoke cleared, the remnants of the Wild Hawk were barely recognizable as a ship. The heart of it had disintegrated and the rest broken into three large chunks on the side of the mountain. Her captain removed his hat and held it close to his heart. Her crew did likewise, all standing there together in somber silence.
Later in the evening Christopher Trammel, the Stormbreaker's master and captain, sidled up to Timothy at the aft rail. “What's the count?”
“About two dozen rescued from the Wild Hawk, five injured,” Timothy reported. “We brought the captain and the first mate, but we had to leave one dead behind. Willoughby and a few others found him pinned beneath a cannon below deck. The survivors are feeling pretty badly about it. They poured a drink out for the poor fellow an hour ago. Their captain said some words. I've welcomed them all aboard and promised to deliver them to the skyport in Beronn.”
“Any idea how the fire started?” Christopher asked, never one to linger on the sentimental. He was a man of numbers. Only numbers. It made him a good businessman, but not much as a captain, as Willoughby was fond to mention. Never in front of the men, however; he was better than that. Christopher had not attended the burial at sea for the Wild Hawk's departed airman, and the absence had not gone overlooked by his own crew.
“They were shot down. Pirates, sounds like. They gave 'em the Nightwarden's Fury back. Limped off to the east without coming aboard. Their captain says they got a cannonball into their engine but they were barely able to stay aloft.”
Christopher sighed and leaned against the rail. “That's the problem with these bigger shards. Especially the less important ones. It's three days from gate to gate in Telluria. More than enough space for pirate vessels to operate and not nearly enough military presence to deter them. We're on our own guns out here.”
“You want Fletcher Street on our necks?” Timothy asked, arching a brow at him.
“No,” Christopher said, shaking his head. “But I wouldn't mind seeing the royal navy more often. It's only passing through the gates where we have to worry, and we're good at that.”
Timothy shrugged. Christopher was an old friend, but this was a point they often disagreed on. The gates were the least of Timothy's worries. Gatesmen relied on the harbor masters. It was a rubber stamp operation to them. Sure there was the occasional search, but more often than not this only meant a cursory look into the hold with few of the crates and barrels being opened. No, the Stormbreaker was much more likely to run afoul of trouble in the skyport while the ship was in cradle. Plenty of time for a young constable, eager to make his name, to come through unexpected and catch Willoughby and his boys working in the smuggler's hold.
“Speaking of...” Christopher mumbled, fingertips tapping anxious rhythms on the railing. “Willoughby knows to keep those merchant men away from--”
“Willoughby knows his trade.” Timothy snapped, cutting Christopher off when his own good sense had so clearly failed to do so. “Do you?”
Christopher nodded much too quickly to have offered this genuine thought. His fingertips danced along the railing, distracted eyes broadcasting his thoughts were elsewhere, likely down in the smuggler's covey. Within the hour he would be pacing in the cargo hold near it, exactly where the captain of a merchant vessel ought not be when the ship was underway and he had a thirty man crew to look after the cargo.
“Leave it alone, Chris,” Timothy said, reading the signs,
“What would you have me do?”
“Leave. It. Alone.” Timothy repeated, biting into every word. “It's a good crew, they know their business.”
Christopher grimaced and rolled his eyes. “They're drunk every night and half of them haven't thought to bathe in
a month's time.”
“That's what a good crew looks like! This isn't a ship of the line, Chris. It's a merchantman with crew for hire out of a dozen different ports. What were you expecting? Sons of well-traveled gentlemen striking out for fortunes of their own? With what we pay? These men have no place but here to call home. There's nothing for them to go back to. We are a tenement of glidestone and sails.”
For a moment the two men stared each other down in stony silence, the quiet evening work of the ship carrying on behind them. Bawdy song rose from the galley, a chorus of drunken voices.
There's rum in the captain's favor.
There's rope in the captain's anger.
There's rum fer our good labor,
or the captain he will hang yer.
Christopher straightened his back, lifting his shoulders as he turned to face Timothy directly, winding up for a fresh tirade.
Timothy waved him off wearily. “No. Not tonight.”
“I am the master of this vessel,” Christopher began, undeterred. “I require a modicum of resp--”
“There's the matter of the gryphon,” Timothy interrupted, reaching for his trump card. “He is a lighthound.”
Color drained from Christopher's face like a man being led to the gallows. His fingertips trembled and his eyes grew wide but saw nothing in front of him but his damnation. “There's a bridger then...”
“No, there's not,” Timothy said, dismantling his business partner's thought process before he could get through it. “ The man deserted when the ship crashed. Abandoned his belongings, his gryphon, everything. Didn't even stick around to help put out the fire. It's a shame too, a bit of a bridger's magic might've saved that ship.”
Christopher nodded slowly, beginning to breathe again with an audible sigh of relief. Timothy looked out over the world below to keep the frustration from showing in his face. While risk management ranked high on Christopher's list of concerns, it never occurred to him that the greatest risk to the ship was Christopher himself. His nervous manner around anyone that had the slightest whiff of authority on them could raise the suspicion of the greenest of constables. Christopher was no smuggler. This was only a temporary necessity to raise capital. According to him, anyway. The crew seemed content to carry on this way for as long as the winds stayed favorable.
“We can drop the bridger's personal effects with the harbor master,” Christopher said, his words carrying that distant tone he used when he was thinking up a plan and simply assumed everyone was paying attention. He was the sort to find comfort in having things planned, even when the plan itself was far from safe. “As for the gryphon... I haven't the slightest idea.”
“I'll talk with him.”
“You? Why you? Have Willoughby do it.”
“Willoughby has his own duties, Christopher. The First Mate looks after the crew. The ship's master or the captain sees to visitors. I am neither, but I am part owner of this company and so its well within my responsibilities.”
This brought a chuckle from Christopher. His eyes lit up in amusement. “Visitors? Captain Gilders might be a visitor, but a gryphon is... Timothy, it's livestock.”
Timothy sighed. “I've never seen livestock refuse to abandon its post under pain of death. What's it matter to you anyway?”
“I suppose it doesn't,” Christopher said and started back toward his quarters, waving a dismissive hand in Timothy's direction. “Waste your time however you see fit, Timothy.”
Timothy found the gryphon in the cargo hold, curled up and sleeping in front of the chest he had risked his life to deliver from the inferno. When Timothy got closer he realized the gryphon was in fact quite awake, only appearing to sleep but his ears pricked forward and stood attentive. The gryphon lifted his head when Timothy approached, his raptor eyes gleaming with startling blue light.
“Easy there,” Timothy said, taking across from him among crates and barrels. “I'm Timothy Binks. I understand your bridger abandoned the Wild Hawk.”
The gryphon snorted in disgust. “He abandoned his duty. He abandoned the Wild Hawk when it needed him most! He is not my bridger,” he said, adding particular emphasis to the 'not' with a sharp snap of his wings.
“Seven take him,” he spat bitterly.
“Of course, my apologies for the presumption,” Timothy said. “What is your name, gryphon?”
For a moment the gryphon did not answer, only glared down at the decking between his taloned forelegs, eyes fixed in hate as though he were replaying the bridger's betrayal over and over again, each time the offense more egregious and unforgivable than the last. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.
“I am Aebyn.”
“Aebyn the... lighthound? Yes?” Timothy asked. At this Aebyn beamed, spreading his wings proudly as though this bore some evidence of his station. If there was, Timothy could not interpret it. Something in the markings...?
“I'm afraid I can scarcely tell the difference between a lighthound and a windhopper,” Timothy confessed.
“A windhopper?” Aebyn's wings drooped. His brow furrowed and his ears tilted back as his gaze fell to the deck between his claws. “I am a lighthound.”
“Of course,” Timothy said, doing his best to sound as though this was simply a matter of record. It seemed to console the little lighthound at least partly, as the creature soon raised its head and studied him with those curiously vibrant eyes of his. He looked Timothy up and down with an appraising eye and then at last spoke again.
“Thank you for what you have done, Timothy Binks,” Aebyn said. His tone turned formal, his words carrying a degree of solemnity. Then the gryphon bowed his head and turned his attention back to the chest he had nearly given his life to preserve.
On the front of the chest, a foreboding dark iron lock stood prominent and bold. Battered but unbroken the lock held fast in spite of Aebyn's efforts. The lid bore a number of deep gouges in the wood, the deepest of which gleamed with a metallic sheen. Metal plating had barred further progress by gryphon's talons.
“I do not know what is inside,” Aebyn admitted sorrowfully. “Master Raimes has disappeared with the key. I only know that the Bridgers Guild charged me with protecting this.”
Timothy ran his fingers along the metal bands until his fingertips found the subtle bump he was looking for. Most would have mistaken it for an imperfection in the banding, but it was a common enough design that Timothy had seen it before. He tugged at the right angle to release the catch and a bit of the banding came free, revealing a second keyhole, the chest's true lock.
“Willoughby!” Timothy called. The first mate appeared shortly thereafter. Willoughby was an older man, perhaps the oldest among the crew, over two decades Timothy's senior. He wore a persistent relaxed smile over a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard.
“What've we got here?” Willoughby asked. He pulled up a stool and plopped down next to the chest.
Timothy showed him the hidden lock. “Think you can crack this?”
The old airman studied it for a moment, stopped to clean his glasses, then finally got a good look at it in the dim light of the hold.
“Any idea what's in it?”
“Salvage, I'd call it,” Timothy mused. “Or it's the gryphon's.”
“Aebyn, is that right?” Willoughby asked.
“It is,” Aebyn chimed in.
Timothy chuckled. “I see you two have met.”
“He's a part of the crew now ain't he?”
This was an outcome Timothy had not anticipated. A gryphon as a member of the crew was not unheard of. Gryphons and luminarians haunted skyports like ghosts, looking for a bit of food for a day's labor. Wings were a valuable asset on any ship, but even moreso on those ships that sailed among the clouds.
“Unless he means to return to the bridgers...” Timothy said, bringing a scowl to Aebyn's face. Of course he couldn't scowl like a human could scowl; his beak was rigid as stone. The expression crept into his eyes, shrouded beneath a furrowed brow.
“I will
not,” Aebyn said, his voice cold and hard as an icy blade. “They would place me in service to another like Raimes. He would do this to me again.”
“Well, that settles that then,” Timothy declared. “Lets have it open, shall we?”
“Aye, captain,” Willoughby answered. He adjusted his stool and set to work on the newly uncovered lock straight away.
“I am not the captain,” Timothy corrected. If any other man of the crew had taken to calling him captain so regularly, Timothy would've begun to suspect it was out of mockery for his lack of real station aboard the ship. He was a part owner of the company with no official role in the crew. That meant taking on duties as he saw fit. Christopher, meanwhile, served as both captain and ship's master. There was some sense in Timothy taking the role of captain. He had served aboard airships many years; Christopher had not. Timothy could name almost every man among the crew; Christopher had recently left port with an authority from the skyport still aboard, having confused him for the ship's second mate.
On a regular merchant run, which the Stormbreaker conducted regularly, Christopher was tolerable. Then there was the other sort of job. Other jobs required other holds, generally the one hidden in the floor of the true hold. Other jobs also brought out the other Christopher, which attempted to manage every member of the crew with his own level of personal, and yet somehow strikingly impersonal, attention. It had the effect of making most men around him feel they were no more than mules in his eyes.
“Yes, I mean no disrespect sir, of course,” Willoughby said, looking up to show an apologetic face just long enough for Timothy to see it before returning to his diligent work.