Skip: An Epic Science Fiction Fantasy Adventure Series (Book 2)

by Perrin Briar

  “There’s just rumours,” Kali said. “They might be wrong.”

  “How?” Jera said, her tone beaten. “How does it happen?”

  “Some say he gets shot by a pistol, others that he gets hung… We don’t really know yet. You can’t avoid it. It is going to happen. But maybe you can help him in some way?”

  “When does this happen?”

  “Yesterday, we think.”

  The blood drained from Jera’s face. She stood up.

  “I have to stop him,” she said.

  “You can’t. Sit down. Now that you’ve skipped back here, there’s no changing it. They said this Stump guy held you hostage.”

  “I wasn’t held hostage. I ran away from home after I overheard Richard and Gregory’s plans.”

  “I did too!” Kali said. “I overheard them in the woods behind our home the night I disappeared.”

  “What? So did I! Where were you?”

  “I went to see Craig to call it off between us. I was worried that during the wedding he might try to do something dramatic-”

  “I knew something was going on between you two!” Jera said. “I could tell by the way we bumped into him in the market square that afternoon.”

  Kali looked over at Craig with great affection. She placed her hand on his arm and smiled.

  “He was a gentleman about it,” she said. “Although he was upset, he insisted on escorting me back home. He took me through the woods. He assured me it was safer, and he was right. No one walks through the woods at night, which was why Gregory and Richard were probably speaking so candidly.”

  Jera saw the way her sister looked at Craig. It was with longing and affection, different to the way she used to look at Gregory. Gregory was handsome and rich and powerful, and it was obvious what she was attracted to, but with Craig that wasn’t the case. He was not particularly attractive, nor was he rich, but she loved him anyway.

  “Why didn’t you hide farther away than just the western woods?” Jera said.

  “Because we had a job to do.”

  “What job?”

  Kali smiled and her eyes shone. A clear sign she’d been up to no good.

  “We’ve been sabotaging Father’s ships,” she said. “Trying to stop the Ascars’ plan to flood the world with Gap.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “They’re the Gap kingpins, didn’t you now?”

  “Are you sure it’s them? But the Ascars are paying for all those campaigns to help get addicts off Gap.”

  “That’s just advertising! And their Gap centres to wean addicts off Gap? They’re just making money off the state who pays for them to be cured, only the Ascars are making sure the patients are addicted again when they come out! It’s all a cover!”

  Jera was shocked. She frowned, piecing it all together.

  “It does make sense,” she said. “But why are you sabotaging Father’s ships?”

  “Because that’s how they’re going to distribute Gap all over the world – using our wedding tribute! No one ever checks the wedding tributes, and when they dock, they’ll spread to all the people in the cities. With all the money they’ll make, they’ll be able to bribe anyone anywhere. Which is why we have to stop them.”

  “But why are you doing this?”

  Kali paused and looked up at Craig, who held her hand.

  “It’s personal. When Craig lost his mother, his father was in a bad way. He turned to Gap. He sold everything the family had – which wasn’t a lot – and then disappeared. Craig never saw him again. And Craig can’t do this alone. And he’s right. Someone has to do something.”

  “But why does it have to be you?”

  “Take a look around, Jera. There is no one else. Everyone else is too afraid of what might happen to them. One minute they’re at home, and then time skips and they’re in a foreign place. They need a crutch to help them through the trauma. They turn to Gap. It’s the perfect storm for Gap to spread to every corner of the kingdom. More and more people are on Gap. They’re everywhere. Violence and crime are way up. There’s nothing we can do about time skipping, but we can do something about Gap.”

  “Why don’t you tell the police?”

  “Please,” Kali said, rolling her eyes. “What are they going to do when their chief commander and deputy commander are in on it? The Ascars planned all this.”

  “Then go to the noble families. Maybe they can do something.”

  “How can we?” Kali said. “We don’t know who we can trust, who is in the Ascar’s pockets, or who would later be bribed by the Ascars if we did confront them. We can’t trust anyone. Not even Mother and Father. We still don’t know how much they really know. They haven’t come out of the house in days.”

  “I confronted Father after I heard what the Ascars were up to something,” Jera said. “He locked me in my room. He knows something, but I can’t believe he knows what he’s ferrying for them. He would sooner die than let Gap pass across his ships.”

  “I used to think that,” Kali said, “but with everything that’s going on…”

  Kali shook her head. She leaned forward and took Jera’s hands in her own.

  “You’re the only person I know I can trust,” she said. “Now you’re here, maybe you can help us.”

  Jera shook her head.

  “I don’t know if I can,” she said. “I imagine I’m already up to something. If I’m not, when I skip back to myself, I can tell you what we can do. In the meantime, you keep doing what you’re doing. Gather information and prove it’s the Ascars who’re behind all this.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Kali said, blowing out air from her mouth. “We’re doing it any way we can – under the cover of darkness, of course. We planned it so the dock master would find the Gap on Father’s ship, but Gregory thought of a way out of that. And then we planted an antatross on the deck of a ship. You know how superstitious sailors are. And then we set fire to a ship. Now we’re thinking of what to do next. We need something big, something to put a nail in the coffin of this Gap venture once and for all.”

  Kali’s shoulders slumped and she suddenly looked exhausted.

  “We keep slowing them down, but we can’t stop them,” she said. “They’re still filling the tribute ships, and they’re still preparing for the wedding. They seriously think they’re still going to marry us!”

  “If we’re not there for the wedding, what are they going to do?” Jera said.

  “I don’t know. But in our time the wedding’s tomorrow. They have you now, so they’ll definitely have one wedding, and entitled to half the amount of tribute. But you could stay here with us. That’d put a wrench in their plans.”

  “Maybe,” Jera said. “Or maybe I can do more good on the inside.”

  “We’ll need to talk it over when you skip back,” Kali said. “But hey, what have you been up to? Lying around on the beach somewhere, relaxing?”

  “I wish,” Jera said. “I’ve actually been on a bit of an adventure myself. I just came from three days back.”

  She pulled up her sleeve and read the clock.

  “Or, two days and six hours ago, to be exact.”

  Kali and Craig’s eyes widened at the sight of the watch.

  “What’s that?” Kali said.

  “It’s a clock. It tells me how much time we have before the clocktower breaks and the universe is destroyed.”

  Kali and Craig were dumbstruck.

  “Come again?” Kali said.

  “Well, where do I start? After hearing what Gregory and Richard were up to, I confronted Father. He locked me in my room, and I ran away. I looked for somewhere safe to hide and ended up in the clocktower. We hid inside the clock’s working parts, but Richard found us.”

  “‘We’?”

  “With a guy who worked in the clock shop.”

  “Young guy, good looking?”

  “I wouldn’t say he was that good looking… He’s Stump. Elian Stump. A famous thief, which is another way of saying not a very g
ood one. So anyway, something happened and we jumped forward a month into the future. We still haven’t skipped back to that time yet. We got a letter from a messenger sent by Grandfather Time about travelling the world to find replacement parts for the clocktower. If we can find them all we can fix the clock and we won’t have these time skips anymore. Since then we’ve been to the Rumble Jungle and the Haunted Forest. Now we’re heading for Land’s End, where we’ll find the final piece.”

  Kali and Craig stared in silence.

  “And I thought we had problems,” Kali said. “So, where are you now? I mean, really now.”

  “I’m on the fringes of the Haunted Forest.”

  Kali smiled.

  “So you got to see the world after all,” she said.

  “Yes, but it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.”

  “It would probably be more fun if the world wasn’t dependant on you saving it at the same time.”

  Jera laughed.

  “You’re probably right,” she said.

  Kali frowned.

  “But if you got all the pieces, and the clock is fixed, why are we still getting these skips?”

  Jera frowned.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it takes a while to get back to normal.”

  “Maybe,” Kali said with a distinct lack of confidence.

  “I’d better go back home and find out.”

  “You might not have to,” Kali said. “When you skip back here later, you might know the reason.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Jera said. “This is really getting complicated!”

  Jera smiled.

  “What?” Kali said.

  “Nothing. It’s just I’ve never seen you so passionate about something like this before.”

  “It’s Craig. He’s had a strong influence on me.”

  “You have to be careful,” Jera said. “I’ve seen what the Ascars are capable of. If you get caught…”

  “We’re prepared in case either of us gets caught.”

  Jera heard the sound of waves approaching, a low rush over pebbles.

  “It looks like we won’t have to wait long to find out,” Jera said. “I’m about to skip again.”

  “It was nice seeing you,” Kali said, gripping her sister’s hand. “Be careful out there.”

  “I will. Be careful. Gregory is dangerous.”

  “You be careful,” Kali said. “Richard is dangerous too.”

  The waves crashed against the inside of her skull, and when she blinked, she was on a rocky hillside. She looked left and right, the motion making her dizzy. A hand grasped her waist and rubbed her back soothingly.

  “You’re all right,” Elian said. “You’re okay.”

  “When am I?” Jera said.

  “You’re with me on the edge of the Great Plains. We just got the second replacement piece and we’re about to ride on the river.”

  “Here?” she said. “I’m back here?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I went to see my sister. She’s on the outskirts of Time.”

  “How was she?”

  “Happy,” Jera said. “Which is unusual for her.”

  “I’m glad someone is.”

  “Strange, really,” Jera said. “She could have married one of the richest, most powerful men in the kingdom, and yet she’s happier with a man who lives in a hut in the woods. Just goes to show money isn’t everything.”

  “No,” Elian said, “it’s not everything. But it’s almost everything.”

  “She said Richard will capture us somewhere near the Capital.”

  “Well, we’re heading nowhere near the Capital, so we’ll be fine.”

  “We’d better get going,” Jera said. “I don’t like just standing around like this.”

  “Here,” Elian said, picking up their makeshift raft, “take this.”

  Elian moved to the river’s edge.

  “Are you ready?” he said.

  “Ready for what?”

  “You grab the other side. When we hit the water we’ll want to be balanced. The river will carry us.”

  “Will it float?”

  “Of course it will. The bark is thick and has special funnels that contain air. It will float.”

  “Okay…” Jera said.

  They moved toward the river and fell forward. The bark hit the surface and bounced. They lay flat on it, like a bed, and the river’s gentle waters pulled them downriver.

  Chapter Thirty

  Lord Wythnos clapped Port Master Matthews on the back.

  “Excellent work, as always,” he said, stepping out through the door.

  “With the wedding taking place in a few days there’s not much trade,” Matthews said, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief, “so it’s easy to keep track of the comings and goings of various traders.”

  “Easy for you, perhaps. Not so easy for your predecessors.”

  A ship was being loaded at the opposite end of the dock. Lord Wythnos squinted at it.

  “That’s Summer Heat, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What are those men loading? I thought it was already meant to be full.”

  “It was, sir. But Lord Ascar decided to add a few more items.”

  “It won’t be overweight, will it?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I haven’t been allowed near them.”

  “You’re the port master! Anything at port is within your domain!”

  “Ordinarily you would be right, sir. But these ships are tributes for the wedding, and so they are exempt.”

  His tone was calm, but beneath the surface Lord Wythnos sensed his anger.

  “Where are the reports for these ships?” Lord Wythnos said.

  “I was informed they were to be kept in your study until the day after the wedding.”

  “And who informed you of this?”

  “Lord Gregory Ascar.”

  Lord Wythnos turned to look in the direction of the ships.

  “Did he, now?” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “No, that will be all.”

  Lord Wythnos walked along the seafront to Summer Heat. The ship’s crew, who Lord Wythnos recognised on sight, stood lined up on the steps leading up to the main street, where two dozen carpenters were busy at work sculpting the stage for the wedding. Half the sailors leaned against the wall with red faces. Two large men carried the last crate on board Summer Heat.

  Lord Wythnos followed them up the gangplank. The two large men passed a man with a clipboard and moved into the loading bay. As Lord Wythnos moved to follow them, the man with the clipboard stood in his way.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the man said. “I can’t let you through.”

  “Can’t let me through? Don’t be ridiculous! This is my boat!”

  He tried to push through, but again was blocked.

  “I can’t let you through,” the man said.

  He was thin with a weasel-like countenance, a nose that jutted like an accusing finger.

  “Remove yourself immediately or I shall go to the authorities,” Lord Wythnos said.

  The weasel man’s eyes flickered down to the Force emblem on his breast pocket. Barely perceptible, but it was there. The muscles at the corner of Lord Wythnos’s jaw became taut.

  “You’d best have a word with your future son-in-law, sir,” the weasel said.

  “No need.”

  Lord Wythnos marched outside and approached a stout man with a patchy beard and a small gold ring in one ear.

  “Captain Fitch,” Lord Wythnos said. “Would you pick your ten best men and come with me, please?”

  The captain nodded at ten men from amongst his crew and followed Lord Wythnos back onto Summer Heat. The weasel constable stood with his arms folded and a superior look on his face, the two large men behind him. But the smile disappeared as Captain Fitch and his men entered the now-cramped room. The constable looked from Lord Wythnos to
the men filing in behind him. His hand moved to the sword at his hip, then released it when he saw the sailors gripping the tools of their trade; a sharpened whittling knife, a hammer, a pair of tongs.

  “I caution you all not to do this,” the constable said in as authoritative a voice as he could muster. “You are all responsible for your own actions. The Force will not be lenient on you.”

  None of the sailors moved a muscle.

  “The lord commander shall hear of this,” the constable said.

  He marched through the sailors, getting rocked back by their unflinching forms. The two large men followed.

  “Wait here, please,” Lord Wythnos said to Captain Fitch.

  He opened the door, which creaked on rusted hinges, and wandered between crates stacked up in neat rows. He slipped the tip of his knife between the top and side panels.

  Voices rose from behind the door. Then there were loud yells and thumps as something struck the floor. The door banged against its frame and drifted open. A man in a cloak, clothed in silhouette by the light behind him, stepped into the doorway. Behind him were the ship’s crew, pressed against the floor by white uniformed knees. The door swung closed.

  “Let them go,” Lord Wythnos said. “Your argument is with me, not them. They had nothing to do with this. They were under my orders.”

  “As my man informed you,” Gregory said with an imperious air, “every man is responsible for his own actions.”

  “What are their crimes?”

  “Dereliction of duties, assaulting a constable. Once the boat is loaded, they will not to set foot again on this vessel until we launch the tribute ships.”

  Lord Wythnos’s eyes met Gregory’s.

  “As they’re going to suffer anyway, we might as well see what it is they’re getting into trouble for,” he said.

  Lord Wythnos jerked his knife up, lifting the lid off the crate. The nails squealed. Inside was corn. He picked up a handful and let it run between his fingers.

  “Disappointed?” Gregory said. “Just what were you hoping to find?”

  He didn’t know, but it certainly wasn’t corn. Then he saw something. A dark discolouration lay in the corner. He picked it up, rubbing it between his fingers. His eyes met Gregory’s. He dug into the corn with both hands, digging deep, shifting it aside.