Kai sat up from the chair, almost knocking it backward from the floor. The snake on Mistress Varella tensed and readied itself to strike if need be. Sky grabbed Kai’s wrist and squeezed sharply, shooting him a reprimanding glare at the same time.
“Please,” said Mistress Varella. “Relax. I apologize for my tongue, it sometimes leaves the rest of me behind when I get… excited.”
Kai took a slow breath and nodded.
“Look, I came here to find a man that might potentially be a business associate of yours,” said Kai. “A slaver by the name of Terrion.”
Mistress Varella let out a small chuckle.
“You are in luck,” she said. “I do know him, and I do not like him much. Far too cruel for my line of work.”
Kai nodded.
“You can tell me where to look for him?” he asked.
“I can do one better than that,” said Mistress Varella. “He’s right upstairs. For the right price, I’ll allow you to wait for him in my parlor, in a spot where he shan’t notice you as he takes his leave.”
Kai glanced over at Sky, and then nodded.
“Done.” He pulled out his stolen coin purse and began fishing out the coins within.
CHAPTER 17
Mistress Varella led Kai and Sky back into the brothel’s main chamber, seating them at a table in the corner of room where they could see patrons heading up and down the stairs without standing out. One of the girls came over and offered them both a drink, which Kai accepted after a bit of cajoling.
“If Terrion really is upstairs, this might be easier than I thought,” said Kai. “We wait for him to show his face, and then if Selene is with him, all we have to do pick a moment to strike.”
Two men by the bar were take deep inhales from a cannias root water pipe, the smoke hanging heavy on the air and giving the room a sweet smell. Sky had a distant look on her face and Kai frowned, remembering the comparison Mistress Varella had made.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Sky leveled her gaze on him, meeting his eyes.
“What the woman said before is closer to the truth than I think you’d like to admit,” she said.
Kai scowled at her.
“You aren’t my slave,” he said. “You are my equal. You’re a girl, smart, clever, beautiful…”
He trailed off as his thoughts bristled with other, slightly less appropriate adjectives.
“I know that,” said Sky. “And you know that. But we both also know that the bond between a spirit siren and its master is a powerful thing. If you ever wanted to, you could order me to do just about anything, and I wouldn’t have any choice but to obey.”
“Sky,” said Kai, shaking his head. “That’s not… I’m not interested in controlling you. I’m not one of the Chosen, I’m not interested in anything more than rescuing Selene and living a peaceful life.”
“At the moment, you aren’t,” said Sky. “But you would be a fool to ignore the power that you hold.”
She crossed her arms and smiled slightly. He words cut deep at Kai’s emotions, and it almost seemed as though she was enjoying his reaction, pushing and prodding, perhaps even manipulating him into feeling a certain way. Kai took a deep breath that he’d intended to be calming and ended up getting a thick inhalation of cannias root smoke. He coughed and waved a hand through the space over the table.
“Careful,” said Sky. “That stuff is pretty strong, even when you’re breathing it second hand.”
Kai’s head already felt like it was spinning. He looked at Sky, seeing the soft curves of her face, and the alluring curves of her bust. A warm, tickling sensation of lust began to spread through him, and he slid his chair in a little closer to hers.
“I think…” He laughed, suddenly feeling euphoric and a bit stupid. “I think it might be affecting me already.”
Sky sighed and ran a hand through her hair, rolling her eyes.
“You’re like a child,” she said. “All emotion and no sense.”
“And you’re…” He grinned at her and reached a hand up to her cheek. “Beautiful…”
Sky slapped it away, shaking her head and shooting him a severe look.
“Focus,” she said. “Unless you want to end up dead. Breath through your nose and don’t look in the direction the smoke is coming from.”
Kai nodded, having a sudden thought.
“Why isn’t it affecting you?” he asked.
“Because I’ve used a good bit of it before,” said Sky. “I built up a tolerance after a while.”
“You… remember that?”
Sky blinked, realizing the significance of what she’d just said.
“Yes,” she said, looking pensive. “I guess I do. But it’s fuzzy, I don’t remember the details, or the context. Just the singular fact.”
“You were a person before you became a spirit siren,” said Kai. “That must be what it means, right?”
Sky didn’t say anything, and Kai was content to watch her sit there, the room spinning around him, his eyes drinking in the sight of her like fine wine. Coupled with the infectious vertigo was a sense of sickly sweet well-being, as though any time he ran into stress or trouble, he could just come back to the smoke, breathe it in, and take a load off.
Kai almost didn’t notice when Terrion reached the bottom of the stairs and began walking across the brothel’s parlor. His emotions suddenly locked up, the sight of the slave master and what it would mean for Kai to be back under his grip ramming into his smoke induced relaxation. Terrion looked around the room, his eyes scanning directly across Kai and Sky and not stopping.
“He doesn’t recognize you,” whispered Sky, her voice barely audible. Kai didn’t say anything. He almost wanted to laugh, but then his thoughts turned back to Selene, and he became deadly serious.
Terrion didn’t appear to have anyone with him, other slavers, guards, or Selene. He spoke with Mistress Varella for a moment, shifting from foot to foot with unbalanced, drunken fidgets. Mistress Varella smiled at him and did a lot of nodding, and then Terrion was headed for the door.
“We’re going to have to follow him,” whispered Sky. “Are you capable of doing that right now?”
Kai nodded and held back giddy, cannias smoke induced laughter. He stood up from his chair and slowly headed for the door. Sky kept her shoulder pressed against his, and for good reason. It was a little hard for him to keep his footsteps even as he walked forward.
Clouds had slid over the sky in the time they’d been inside the brothel, reducing the night’s visibility to what could be provided by the city’s very occasional lampposts. Sky was able to pick out Terrion from the half dozen people within line of sight of the street once they stepped outside, and Kai walked next to her, trying to act inconspicuous.
The slaver’s gait was slow and uncoordinated, to the point where Kai was tempted to make a move on him early and make him reveal Selene’s location. Ultimately, he knew that it was an empty idea, and that Terrion was the type of man who’d rather spit in their faces then tell them anything, even drunk.
After close to ten minutes of walking, Terrion came to a slow stop in front of a walled compound on the north side of town. Kai scowled and hoped that he was just taking a break from walking. Terrion walked up to the compound’s gate, knocked on it, and after a moment’s back and forth between him and the on duty guard, was allowed inside.
“This doesn’t look good,” whispered Kai. The walls of the compound were easily a dozen feet high. He didn’t see any routes in from around back, from anywhere other than the single gate Terrion had walked through.
“I can get inside,” said Sky. “I’ll travel through the void to get past the gate, get a look around, and come back to let you know what it looks like.”
Kai thought about it for a moment and then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “We both go in together.”
Sky’s back tensed, and she looked at him like he’d just said something completely ridiculous.
“That’s insane,” she said.
“Could you do it?” asked Kai.
She shrugged.
“With you, as my master, maybe. Definitely not with anyone else. The spirit essence I’d use up even just void stepping with you would be substantial.”
“Then we’re doing it,” said Kai. “I can’t let you go in there alone.”
“And how the heavens will we get back out?” asked Sky. “Even if we manage to find your friend without getting spotted, it’s not like we can just ask them to open the gate.”
“We find a way up onto the wall and jump down,” said Kai. “And we fight anyone who gets in our way.”
“You don’t even have a sword!” snapped Sky. She crossed her arms and frowned deeply at him. “I think the cannias root might still be affecting you. Please, stop and think about how much there is wrong with this plan.”
“Sky,” he said. “We’re doing it.”
Sky stood up tall in front of him, her eyes flashing to a deep, defiant blue.
“Are you going to order me, master?” she said, her words coming out spiteful and angry. “Is that what this is going to come down to? It’s just like that brothel woman said, isn’t it?”
Kai felt her words like a slap in the face. He looked away from her and ran his hand through his hair, breathing out slowly.
“No, I won’t order you,” he said. “But it doesn’t change what I’m doing tonight if you won’t help me. Selene is all that I have, Sky.”
Sky’s eyes shifted, losing a bit of their brightness and turning to shade of cool blue. An odd emotion flashed across her face, pain mixed with longing, with a touch of admiration.
“Fine,” she said. “But, I’m warning you. You aren’t going to find this very pleasant.”
“I’ll manage,” said Kai.
“Stay close to me and keep moving,” said Sky. “Distance works differently in the void, but we shouldn’t have to go far to make it inside that wall.”
“Got it,” he said.
Sky frowned and let out a long sigh.
“And please,” she said, shaking her head, “Don’t listen to anything said by the deities, but especially don’t insult them.”
“Uh… what?” Kai started to ask just what she meant by that, but Sky had already taken his hand. He felt a pulse of something surge through him, along with a flash of blindingly white light, and a vague sensation of having his body turned inside out.
CHAPTER 18
The transfer was instantaneous and disorienting in a way that shook Kai to the marrow of his bones. Gone were Last Port’s sandstone streets and the shadowy sprawl of its buildings. In their place was a psychedelic voidscape of pulsating colors, mist, and confusion.
Kai had no sense of direction, no way of telling which way was up or down. He floated freely through the air, staring into the distance at what looked like fireflies the size of marbles, each a different color, slowly wandering through the fog.
There was no horizon, and Kai could see blackness off in the distance, lit in spots by the magical fireflies and luminescent mist. Ghostly apparitions floated by, blinking into existence for a couple of moments and then flicking into nothingness after a couple of feet.
“Kai!” Sky’s voice sounded far off, as though she was shouting out to him from the far end of a tunnel. “Take my hand!”
Kai turned to look and saw Sky, or at least, what he thought was Sky. Her body was veiled in fantastically bright light, shifting from one color to another in much the same way her eyes did in the physical realm. She looked beautiful and pure, as though what he was seeing was what she was on the inside, her soul, her essence.
He reached out and took her hand and felt the both of them begin to float in what seemed to Kai to be a totally random direction. He couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering around, noting strange anomalies below them and to the side. Massive spheres of glowing, colorful energy hovered hundreds of feet in the distance. A small group of feminine looking apparitions writhed together, all of them in a single clump, like a ball of mating snakes.
It was too much for him. He shut his eyes and let out a soft sound of discomfort. He felt Sky’s hand squeeze against his, a small measure of calm coming through it.
“We’ll be through soon,” she said. “It’s okay. Just hold onto my hand.”
“What… is this?” Kai felt his heart racing in his chest. The world around him twisted, and he and Sky with it, as though they were tumbling through the air. Several of the colored dots were forming into a shape behind them, or possible being drawn onto one of the apparitions too faint to see, giving it an outline against the fog.
“”Close your eyes if you have to,” said Sky. “Just focus on holding my hand.”
It felt as though they were moving at a cripplingly slow pace. There was no way for Kai to have any sense of scale. The space he was in could have been the size of a city or the size of all of Faldion, for all he knew. It wasn’t linear, and nothing moved through it in a predictable way, all of the lights, colors, and ghostly shapes choosing their own anchor points to orient themselves against.
Something was moving toward them, however. It was a mass of pink and red lights, set into the shape of a curvaceous woman at least ten times the size of Kai and Sky. Kai could sense Sky’s apprehension as it closed in on them.
“Don’t look at it, Kai!” shouted Sky. “Keep your eyes forward!”
Kai felt her hand squeeze even tighter against his, and he squeezed back. The section of the void ahead of them was twisting, spiraling around to the left, and taking them with it. Kai felt a hideous sensation as something close to the core of his body knotted and unknotted, nausea flooding through him. His eyes tried and failed to compensate for the sensation. It made what he’d felt from the cannias root seem like a simple bout of dizziness.
“Almost there!” Sky suddenly lurched forward, dragging Kai with her. The lights and luminescent fog around them began to fade. Kai chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw the massive feminine apparition reaching out for him.
“Ooh…” it whispered. “So young, and so strong.”
“Kai!” screamed Sky. “Lean forward!”
Kai did so, only being able to tell which way she meant from the urging of her hand against his. He felt the reverse of the initial transition that had brought him through into void, as though going from being immaterial to existing in the physical realm, all of the sensations of his body snapping into being at the same time.
They were in the shadows of the slaver’s compound, just inside the wall. The sky was reassuringly normal overhead, cloudy with a few stars poking through in choice locations. Kai spent a few moments breathing deeply and letting his heart relax, still reeling from the experience.
A single large sandstone building stood at the center of the compound. The only guard that Kai could see stood on top of the wall by the gate, facing away from them. Sky still held his hand, and watched him with concerned eyes as he recovered.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Kai forced himself to nod.
“You didn’t tell me that it was going to be that weird,” he said.
“You get used to it after a while,” said Sky. “It’s probably harder for you without any magical aptitude to use to keep your bearings about you.”
“Apparently.” He nodded toward the building. “Let’s see if we can find a discrete way to get inside.”
He and Sky stuck close to the wall, taking advantage of the shadows, as they moved around to the rear of the building. A single wooden door swung open on its hinges, leading to a dark hallway. Kai could hear muffled voices coming from within, punctuated by the occasional burst of group laughter.
“Let’s sneak in quietly,” he said.
“How do you expect to find your friend?” asked Sky. “Are you just going to search every room, one by one?”
Kai frowned. She was right, and he was fully aware of how futile it would be charge into a building full of an unknow
n number of assailants, without even knowing the basic layout.
“I need a distraction,” he said. “Do you think you can arrange something?”
Sky looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded.
“Not a problem,” she said. “But if things go sour, I’m getting you out of there, with or without the girl.”
Kai felt a flash of anger and bit back his first response, knowing that there was zero benefit in arguing with Sky at the moment.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll wait here. Try to pull as many of them out from inside the building as you can.”
Sky nodded and then disappeared in a flash of light. Kai was alone, and felt his anxiety flare on behalf of the wellbeing of both Selene and Sky. Seconds went by, close to a full minute, before the disturbance began.
Sky appeared on top of the wall, directly behind the main gate guard. She pushed him squarely between the shoulder blades and he tumbled forward to the ground below, letting out a panicked cry as he fell.
There was a questioning shout from within the building, and then a couple of men walked out front. Sky teleported again, moving outside of Kai’s view, and he heard the guard that had been watching the gate let out another terrified cry.
“Markus?” shouted one of the men. “What’s wrong?”
More men left the building, all of them opening the gate and flooding out to find their lost compatriot. Kai waited a beat, and then made his way over to the building’s back door, staying in a low crouch as he headed inside.
He stopped for a moment to listen. The building was close to silent, all of the noise having moved outside in pursuit of the distraction. Kai chewed his lip, and then, lacking any better idea, cleared his throat.
“Selene?” he called out, in a voice just loud enough to carry through the building without leaking outside. “Selene!”
Sirens of Faldion: The Final Bond Page 9