Knight Chosen

by Tammy Salyer

  Distraction.

  Overcoming the urge to glance guiltily at the Knight became his sole objective in life as he, as casually as he could, reached for the control spheres that managed the Octopod’s pitch, yaw, and roll.

  “What are you doing?” the Knight asked.

  “Storm’s getting worse,” he responded after what he hoped wasn’t a suspicious pause. “Need to adjust the . . .” Just do it now, idiot! his intuition commanded.

  His left hand flew to his harness, unlocking the buckle as his right abruptly spun one of the control spheres, forcing the Octopod into a jarring half roll. He flew sideways from his seat, fortunately away from Aldinhuus, but unfortunately still caught partway in the over-the-shoulders harness. He now hung from the side of his chair like a fish in a net, struggling to extricate himself.

  The Knight grunted, but Jaemus did himself the favor of not looking at him. His legs flailed as he tried to find footing, busting his shin painfully against the seat mount for his trouble. As tall as he was, his feet found purchase and he locked his legs, stood, and frantically extricated himself from the buckle.

  “Right this ship now, Bardgrim!” the Knight roared.

  For the moment, Aldinhuus struggled to unlock his own harness, now fastened tight because of his weight hanging against it. The Octopod, being the precision machine Jaemus had designed it to be, would hold its course at this angle until either he corrected it or some unfortunate element of the storm made its own “correction,” so he had a bit of time. But only a bit. The Knight had already stopped attacking the seat harness with brute strength and begun a cunning string of contortions that would get him clear in no time. Shambling against the ship’s unnatural cant, Jaemus made for the hold and the shelksies that may now be his only chance at stopping a display of wrath he preferred never to witness.

  He made it clear of the hatch and dogged it shut behind him, wishing he’d thought to build locks on both sides. Too late for wishes and dreams. The weapon locker, now on the ceiling—water and lightning! why didn’t I think of that!?—taunted him. Scrambling to the table that was welded to the floor, he used what little grace nature had given him to climb to its narrow edge and place both feet along it as if standing on a tightrope. The Octopod’s constant speed made holding that position easier, but even a tiny jounce would send him flying. The hold had nothing but hard walls, sharp corners, and metal edges. Ignoring this, he reached over his head, and his fingertips just brushed the locker door handle. Drawing the deepest breath he could manage in an effort to increase his length even a bit, he swiped again, just managing to hook two fingers along the handle’s edge and hold it. With a triumphant yank, he pulled it free and the door swung down. The shelksies remained wedged in their cradles, not locked, merely requiring a yank to come free. If he jumped, he could grab one.

  It occurred to him that the Knight had had plenty of time to free himself from the harness by now. Why hadn’t he come roaring through the hatch like a water spout through a hurricane? Shrugging internally, not one to question luck when it was good, he crouched as much as he could without losing his footing and sprang for the locker.

  His luck turned inside out at that moment, and the ship suddenly leveled, sending Jaemus flying through the hold in an arc that was far from what he’d intended. He managed to make contact with the weapon locker, but with his temple instead of his hands, and seemingly all the lights of the Glister Cloud rushed inside his head, then dimmed rapidly as he lost consciousness.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Himmingazian, but I will not harm you.”

  For the last few moments, Jaemus’s eyelids had been fluttering as his thoughts jumped undecidedly from one side of the veil of consciousness to the other. The voice was the Knight’s, so he must be watching. This thought, which was the awake sort, creeped him out just enough for him to open his eyes completely. The Knight’s blocky, stubbled chin and its odd blue nine-pointed star marking, along with a perfect view of the tangle of wiry hair inside Aldinhuus’s nose, filled his sight as the Knight leaned down to speak closely.

  “I need you to fly this ship.”

  Jaemus started to speak, found his throat uncooperative, cleared it, and croaked, “And I thought I was just good company.” After a pause, he added, “It seems you’re able enough to fly the Octopod on your own, in any case.”

  Now fully lucid, his senses were telling him that the ship was level and flying smoothly. Obviously the Knight had, instead of chasing Jaemus as Jaemus had assumed he would, taken to the ship’s controls and put things to rights. Despite being the oddest human being he had ever met, this man had more tricks up his sleeve than Jaemus was prepared to guess at. Mixing unhinged with genius is never going to turn out well, he mused. At least not for me.

  “True,” Aldinhuus said, straightening up to provide Jaemus, who still lay on the floor where he must have landed, a better view of the hold. “I’ve learned a bit about this craft and its capabilities while you’ve been out cold. Not terribly different than the Vigilance herself when it comes down to the mechanics of flying. But I’ve yet to understand your navigational optics. So I still need you.”

  These words struck like a frigid wind. Still need you. As in, But I won’t at some point. Gingerly exploring the bump on his temple, tender to the touch, he griped, “You’ve threatened me, my crew, and me again, Aldinhuus. I can see quite clearly you’re not sound-minded. As much as I’d like to help you accomplish this vendetta you’re plainly on, I’m really not seeing a good reason to do so. If you’re going to kill me, or steal my ship, or juggle some fancy space rocks, fine. Get on with it, then. I’m not enjoying being your lackey or your puppet, and, to put it simply, I’m not going to do it anymore.”

  Well done, Jaemus. That’s your death warrant sealed. He sighed audibly, unwilling to look into Aldinhuus’s face and read whatever wrath or revenge was written there. At least you’ve gotten him far away from Cote and the Glisternauts. Hopefully they remember you fondly, or at least, remember the good you’ve done Himmingaze.

  Without warning, Aldinhuus rocketed up from his crouch, hauling Jaemus by the collar with him. Expecting the worst, Jaemus did the last thing he’d ever considered doing to another person: he swung his fist as hard as he could and, amazingly, connected precisely with the star on the Knight’s chin.

  “OUCH!” Jaemus yelled, his fingers screaming as if he’d just slammed them into a rock.

  The Knight, still gripping his shoulders, sagged backward, pulling Jaemus over with him. Flailing his hands to try to maintain his balance, he unintentionally hooked the goggles Aldinhuus still wore and pulled them up to his forehead. They hit the floor together, Aldinhuus soundlessly, Jaemus with a heavy “oof.” His face was merely a nose away from the Knight’s. Aldinhuus’s eyes were half-closed, but slits of his cornea that were visible blazed with liquid color that Jaemus could not look away from. He rose to his knees slowly, as if moving in a dream, but he had no desire to move or turn his eyes aside from that flashing chromaticism.

  “Look. Listen.” The words slid from Aldinhuus’s throat, but Jaemus could have sworn it wasn’t his voice.

  And that’s when things got really interesting.

  Mist-like cerulean tendrils filled the hold, darkening and thickening the air inside, closing in all around him until he was wrapped in a dense cocoon. It grew dim until all he could see were shifting blue streamers all around. The only source of light were the two glowing beacons of Aldinhuus’s weirded eyes. They grew both closer and distant at once, disorienting Jaemus even more than the blanket of mist now filling his ship.

  Still, he had no impulse to panic. For some reason, he felt only a deep curiosity similar to when he became immersed in exploring a new apparatus or machine. He felt, almost, as if he verged on a great discovery that waited on the tip of his brain, beckoning him inexorably until he reached out and grasped it.

  Jaemus, he told himself, you should be worried. Your ship is filling with smoke . . . or something like
it. Maybe you crashed and hit your head harder than you think. You might be sinking to the bottom of the Never Sea right now. Wake up!

  You aren’t dreaming, creature of Lífs.

  The voice was like crystal in his ears, but it wasn’t in his ears. It was in his head. He didn’t have a chance to ponder this before Aldinhuus’s eyes flared like blue fire. Jaemus should have blinked. Instead his own eyes grew wider, wider—or so he assumed. All his physical sensations seemed disembodied and beyond him now—and he was pulled into the blaze, now shining with the luminosity of a thousand stars, shifting, glittering, growing, as if seen through a pool of water—

  —was he drowning?

  At a complete loss, he found himself asking the crystal voice the same question, If I’m not asleep, then am I drowning?

  Look. It repeated itself. Listen.

  He reasoned that if he was being asked to do something that required being not dead—looking and listening—he must not be drowning. Unless this was a moment of lunacy before he died in some other horrible way, but he was certain he’d find out eventually. Hesitantly, he told the voice, I’m all . . . ears?

  I cannot hold him away too long or it will break his mind.

  Him? You mean Aldinhuus? He guessed he knew where this conversation was going. Which was confirmation that he was indeed falling off sanity’s edge, just as his strange new confederate had. Who knew lunacy was contagious?

  Yes. I brought him to this realm to keep him safe, but the Knight Corporealis has wrapped chains around his mind that detain me, and he has barred himself from hearing me. I see through his eyes when they are not veiled. This distracts him, but it’s temporary. You must speak to him for me, creature of my quin Lífs.

  Oh indeed, this was getting good. So, if I’m a creature of Lífs, and Lífs’s your quin, that means you’re a Verity too? Are you the one Aldinhuus calls Vaka Aster?

  Yes. Now heed. You must tell Aldinhuus this: I made him my vessel because he is the strongest of my creations, but he made his mind a cage to hold me. If he dies, Vinnr dies with him.

  But you’re some sort of celestial being. Can’t you just, er, decamp from him, whatever it’s called?

  Only the maker of this cage can unmake it.

  Uh-huh, sure, I understand, but he calls you the maker. If you made him, can’t you . . . ? He stopped himself, realizing the implications of a maker reversing the making. The crystal voice’s next words confirmed this uncomfortable truth.

  Yes, I can unmake him. And then Vinnr, a realm that you do not know, but one with as many creatures and marvels as your own, would be unmade as well.

  If one could squirm in their own thoughts, Jaemus did now. After sitting with this news for a moment, he realized, in the off, off chance that he wasn’t going crazy, this might be his opportunity to achieve what he’d been hoping to all along. Maybe he couldn’t get the Himmingazian people clear of the Glister Cloud, but what if he could clear the Glister Cloud from Himmingaze? If this was a Verity, it might know. So he asked, Aldinhuus told me that’s what’s happening to Himmingaze, that the Creatress is slowly unmaking it. Can you tell me how to save it?

  Ulfric is fighting. I have to release him now. No creature’s mind can withstand a Verity’s control of it for long. Creations must be free to be their own masters. It is one of the rules we five Verities agreed on when we created all. This was our purpose for creation. Tell him of Vinnr: it will be the loss of his world if he dies. Tell him. Make him believe. His duty is to protect my vessel, which is now himself.

  All right, definitely, I’ll tell him. But can’t you at least show me how to find or reach out to the Creatress? he pleaded.

  The five cannot see each other.

  Can’t see . . . ? What kind of tinnyrot—

  Tell him, Himmingazian. Tell him not to destroy his world.

  Chapter 37

  Once the tumult had settled and Commander Nennus was summoned, Mylla unclenched her hand around her klinkí stones, noting sharp twinges in the divots they left in her palm. The squadron coming through the gates looked every bit as serious as she and the Knights felt, and she knew their negotiations would be no less strained than she had expected.

  As their new leader, Roi was the most temperamentally suited for the task of convincing the city and Dragør Marine commander of the Knights’ intentions, and she assured herself she would hold her tongue unless absolutely necessary. She hoped Stave was capable of the same.

  Searching the faces of the soldiers accompanying Nennus, she noted Brun was there, as was the older captain with whom Brun had spoken in the tunnels beneath Ivoryss. She continued scanning the group, hoping to spot Lock among them, but a different face, one almost as familiar as Lock’s but far less expected, arrested her attention instead. Henrick, Lock’s father.

  As Roi and Nennus spoke, Henrick stared back at her with the same green-brown eyes as Lock’s. She could barely focus on the discussion, wanting more than anything she could recall wanting in all her turns to ask Henrick what had happened to the rest of his family—his heart-match, Elinora, his five daughters—and where Lock was. Once a city guard and protector, he now wore the robes of a politician and traveled as one of the Arch Keeper’s advisory council throughout the kingdom. Yet here he stood bedecked in armor, with a sword and bandolier of petards hung on crossed baldrics over his shoulders. In Asteryss’s desperation, it appeared even the noncombatant citizens had been called to take up arms against the usurper’s forces.

  But, still, where was Lock? Had he found his mum and sisters? If so, surely he’d be here now. Colder inside and out than the crisp northern winds could account for, Mylla glanced again at Henrick. What did that glint in his eyes mean? Excitement? Or sorrow? He stared back at her without reservation. Was there something he wanted her to know?

  “We didn’t expect to find Magdaster still unmolested by the usurper’s forces, and came to offer our assistance while fulfilling our own obligations to Vaka Aster,” Roi was saying. “You’re fortunate too. Magdaster may remain overlooked by Balavad. But our first need is to know if one of our Order has come this way, the Knight called Eisa.”

  Nennus spoke in a voice that sounded like boulders rolling along the bottom of a great river. “Commander Brun tells me the Knights Corporealis are fewer than ten in number. I see but three. And you say one has gone missing. How, then, did you intend to offer assistance in stopping the usurper? What wystic tricks and contrivances are you hiding?” He glanced meaningfully toward the heavens, where the Vigilance remained unseen but the bruhawks lingered in tight circles unlike any bird of prey’s ordinary behavior. “And what, do tell me, Knight of Yor, do you expect in return?”

  A twitch from Stave beside her drew a glance from Mylla. He remained silent, though his bird’s-nest brows drew together in a furious scowl. Where Brun’s gruffness stemmed from her outspoken disbelief in and distrust of Verity lore and the Knights themselves, Nennus’s own harsh demeanor was more an innate product of the lands he and the Magdastervians inhabited. Even inside the heavy walls, the Howling Weald pressed against her mind as strongly as it did the city’s borders, like a leafed and needled shroud of creeping darkness. It was said the trees roared and the forest itself fought back when people tried to thin out the edges. She didn’t believe the silly story—obviously the timbers used to help build Magdaster came from nearby—but the dragørs that remained shrouded by those woods awed and frightened her as much as any living human. With these flying beasts at their gates, it was no wonder Magdastervians treated everything that came from outside their walls with cold suspicion.

  His demeanor unchanged, Roi said, “Our ship can destroy more of the usurper’s forces than any armaments your walls bear, and aye, our Verity tools and contrivances may help us learn what we can do to deflect this threat. You may know as well as we do that no other Verity besides Vaka Aster has ever visited this realm—or at least been known to visit it. We don’t claim to have the power to stop Balavad the Usurper, though Knight Nazaria c
arries artifacts that may protect us. All of us. I ask again, Commander, is she here?”

  Mylla was certain Roi intentionally chose to avoid implying Eisa might be here as a prisoner. Surely Brun had shared all that had occurred between the Knights and the people of Asteryss, including her initial suspicions roused beneath Aster Keep when Ulfric looked to be in league with Balavad, and it would not have escaped Brun’s notice that Mylla had visited Asteryss right before the usurper’s warship arrived for its last cleansing of the city that had forced them to retreat for good. Would these events seem yoked together enough to prompt them to capture Eisa if she’d come this way?

  Staring at Roi like a man judging between two evils, Nennus sucked air between his teeth. “This man’s son,” he said, turning half-aside and waving a hand at Havelock’s father, who obeyed the gesture and stepped forward to stand beside the commander, “says he has seen this ship of yours, been inside and flown in it, and you admit it exists, yet you still feel the need to hide it from those with whom you wish to collaborate. You can understand, Knight, why I retain my doubts.”

  Roi stood silently, weighing his response before saying it aloud, as was his way. Before he could, though, Nennus continued. “Knight Nazaria was never here, unless she, too, came unseen and in secrecy as your ilk seems to prefer. So if she has the tools you claim may aid us . . .” He let the statement hang, the implications too varied to be certain of.

  “I see,” stated Roi. “A moment, then.” He took a step backward and beckoned to draw Mylla and Stave into a huddle.

  She noted as he did the tightening of hands on sword hilts around her and the way the soldiers pressed closer. It was clear; whatever the Knights did, they would not be free to leave. Ignoring the jab to her pride—how wrong she’d been to believe she could understand Eisa’s mind—she channeled to the others, I think it may have been a mistake to come here.