Dragon Road

by Joseph Brassey

  Viltas rose from his seat, and Aimee heard a relieved smile in his voice, as he stepped up to the window to stare out at the ocean of skyships suspended in the twilight of the deep sky.

  “Home,” he said. “At long last. Welcome, my friends, to Flotilla Visramin.”

  Chapter Nine

  Bitter Dreams and Better Men

  Elias stood outside the training hall and stared across the vast expanse of Flotilla Visramin. In the daylight, it was a vision with no equal: a painting in the style of the early Impargnian masters spread out across a canvas of sky more vast and deep than any he had seen before. He leaned against the ledge outside the training hall, an ache in his shaking limbs. One day had passed since Iseult returned to her brother and sister ships, and a cloud of smaller vessels already fluttered back and forth between the behemoth and its kin in the heavens. In particular, they had flown alongside a second vessel, of the same size and similar appearance to Iseult. Closer than the others, as well. That ship hung suspended slightly lower in the sky, its upper decks in full view from where Elias stood. Peering across the distance, he couldn’t help but notice that the gleaming finery of its top level seemed… shabby. As if it had recently fallen on difficult times.

  “That,” Belit said, stepping up behind him, “is Tristan. Our kin-ship, for as long as the two have been in the heavens, which is longer than the memory of any lineage.”

  Elias frowned, his eyes drawn to the battered spires of the other behemoth, so like Iseult, yet so painfully different. “How far back do those lineages go?” he asked. What must it be like, he wondered, to have such a thing as a heritage? Elias had only the name of a mother, and some painful memories that were more like open wounds than facts.

  Belit folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “Depends on who you ask,” she said. “The oldest lines of the officer aristocracy go back to when the guild supposedly first built these ships and crewed them with people who could stand to spend their entire lives in fiefs in the skies.” She shrugged. “But those are all practically myth, and their descendants dote on them too much to make examining them critically a safe thing to do.”

  Elias’s memory was pricked by the recollection of the days before Azrael had been sent to Port Providence. Of an old book over which Roland obsessed, of whose pages his apprentice had only ever been allowed a glance.

  “People will kill to protect their favorite fables,” Elias said.

  Belit’s eyes were sad for a moment, then she nodded her agreement. They had trained for several hours prior to this, but without touching on any topic other than the technicalities of their shared art. Nevertheless, when she next spoke, the question caught him off guard.

  “What is the essence of our art, junk ritter?” she asked.

  So immediate was it, that Roland’s words came almost seamlessly from his mouth. “Aggression,” he said. “Onslaught. Unrelenting destruction until victory is attained.”

  Immediately, he felt ill, the echo of Azrael’s voice still in his ears.

  Belit watched him quietly, thoughtfully… and with an expression that told him that here and now, she knew. “I thought so,” she said quietly.

  “It is…” Elias stumbled over his words. “I…” he fumbled, found nothing sufficient to defend himself. If the people of Iseult should learn the truth, if they should discover him…

  “–please,” he half whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  He wasn’t sure what he’d expected: judgment, fear, shame. Instead, Belit laid a firm hand on his shoulder. “You are not them,” she said. “That much is self-evident. More so for how ill at ease you are with their words in your mouth.” Her brows drew together over her gold eyes. “Your crew knows?”

  Elias nodded. “They spared me, when my rebellion put my life in their hands. They gave me a home, when I had none.”

  Belit watched him carefully. “Yet still you are alone.”

  Elias looked down. Malfenshir’s condemnations about traitors echoed in his mind, before Elias had killed him. Roland’s ancient book was in his head as well, for half a moment. Pages at which he had only glanced, in the hellish fever-dream that was his former life. “I am,” he said, meeting Belit’s eyes. “Those who break faith do not survive.”

  Belit nodded, accepting that, then the commander of the Red Guard squeezed his shoulder. “It is not aggression our art teaches. It is assertiveness. It is not hate that we must feel. It is passion. It is not prideful rage that fuels our limbs. It is the cold strength of a decisive mind.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

  “Because you have been broken,” she answered. “When we are broken, we fall back on what we know. For you, that means the lessons of your art.” The expression on her face was protective. Fierce. Leonine. “Make sure they are the right ones.”

  She turned to go. “I have duties to attend to. Rest. Recover. And for the sake of the gods, forgive yourself. When next we speak, I have stories to tell you… and more questions to ask.”

  Elias stood there as she left. “Teacher,” he said after a moment, around a small lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

  She stopped, considering for a moment, then looked over her shoulder at him. “Your skills were given to you by them, but remember, they do not own them. You do. I am no expert historian,” she said, meeting his eyes. “But you should know… I don’t believe you are the first to escape. Have hope. You own what you are. Never forget that.”

  Her footsteps echoed in his mind, long after she had gone.

  Elysium sat at rest in the hangar of Rachim’s villa, and Elias paused to look at her. The silver ship glowed in the sunlight from the open bay doors above. The landing platform was still damp from a flight through a morning cloud-bank, and the black knight’s boots crunched on the rough surface. It was an odd thing to feel – longing for a place that wasn’t quite your home. He had a room there. A place of retreat. Yet only two members of the crew were people with whom he had any sort of rapport.

  He hoped at least one of them was available. The ramp up into the aft hold was dry, and the interior mostly empty. His room was in the belly of the ship, just off the main cargo hold. He considered retreating to that private space for a while, but the thought of staring at his old armor in the corner for an hour or so made him feel ill.

  Instead, he followed the ghostly wisps of conversation up the stairs and down the long hallway to the common area. By the voices he heard, Harkon and Aimee weren’t present, so he waited for a full minute, out of sight, trying to parse how to walk into a room full of people who didn’t particularly like him.

  “So she’s studying now?” Vlana was saying.

  “Aye,” Bjorn answered. Elias heard the thump of a wood slat on the table. They were playing cards, then. “Hark gave her a whopping chunk of text to work through from one of his old books. He’s taking a rest right now. Doesn’t like to show it much, but he’s straight out exhausted. Not exactly young anymore.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Vant quipped. “You were old when we were kids.”

  Elias stepped around the corner in time to see the old warrior cuff the engineer across the back of the head. “Can it, hull rat. I can still hoist both of you like grainsacks down the ramp, can’t I?”

  Vant and Vlana sat across from Bjorn. Childish grins split their faces, so alike and yet so different all at once, and the laugh they shared was more mirthful than any Elias had ever heard from either.

  Then Vlana caught sight of him, and both laugh and smile fizzled and died on her face. She elbowed her brother in the shoulder. Vant coughed and looked at his sister before turning curious eyes to Elias. Whereas the look on Vlana’s face then morphed to unabashed dislike, Vant’s expression got suddenly neutral.

  Bjorn didn’t look up.

  “Can we help you?” Vlana asked. Icy.

  “Just came back from training,” Elias answered. The words were awkward in his mouth, as leftover pride from a former life ran up against the
discordant desire to not cause chaos on the ship.

  “So you thought you’d eavesdrop?” Vlana pounced on his moment of silence. “Hark and Aimee aren’t here, so why don’t you just move along?”

  “Vlana,” Bjorn murmured. “That’s enough.”

  The quartermaster’s dark eyes narrowed, snapping from Elias to the big warrior who still had his back to the black knight. “Oh shush, Bjorn. I’m allowed a private card game with my family without the resident mass murderer feeling like he’s entitled to a seat.”

  The words washed over Elias, a discombobulating wave. First it stunned. Then it unbalanced. Then came the pain and associated memories, since, of course, it was true. Elias took a breath to steady himself. He felt briefly nauseous, a tingling in his hands at the memory of blows meted out in unthinking response to commands, to doctrines he had followed while wearing the facsimile of another personality. His world tunneled, and when it came back into focus, Vant was speaking up. “Sis,” he said. “That’s a bit much.”

  “A bit much?” Vlana was on her feet now, her eyes wide and furious. “Alright, look, both of you. I love and respect Hark as much as everyone here, so I trust his judgment… But that–” she jerked a violent finger in Elias’s direction “–is still responsible for the murder of countless thousands of people. He tried to kill all of us, wounded Harkon, and nearly succeeded in murdering you.”

  Bjorn’s shoulders tensed at the reminder.

  “Vlana,” the new rebuke came from Clutch, who stood at the far doorway that led to the ship’s bridge. “Let it fucking go. You got the same story as the rest of us: he’s trying to make amends–”

  “No, no no no, no,” Vlana said, snapping. “He’s a refugee hiding from crimes that there’s no making amends for.”

  Clutch tensed. Vant looked away. Bjorn remained still.

  “She’s right,” Elias said. Everyone stared at him now, uncertainty on their faces. “I am a refugee,” he continued. “And there is no amending the things I’ve done. No making it right. I don’t deserve the second chance you gave me.”

  A mixture of expressions stared back at him. Clutch’s face was neutral. Vant looked pained. Vlana’s face caught off guard. An old, dead pride tried to stir within Elias. You can still command the attention of a room, at least. But what was that worth?

  “Which is why I have to try,” he finished. “Or I’m shitting on it.”

  The common area was draped in a suffocating, awkward silence. Then Bjorn cleared his throat, addressing Vlana. “Your move, girl.”

  Elias couldn’t tell if the old warrior was talking about the conversation, or the interrupted card game. He was no longer looking the black knight’s way.

  “Pardon me,” the new voice came from one of Rachim’s household servants, a slight man with simple robes and a nervous lilt in his voice at having interrupted the tense scene. “I… I was just given a message by the door guard. The deliverer said it was urgent.”

  “Give it here,” Bjorn said with a sigh, rising finally from his seat. He held out a large, meaty hand for the thin envelope of parchment in the servant’s hand. “Harkon’s abed right now and his apprentice is hard at work. I’ll hold it for them.”

  But the servant withdrew his missive with a shake of his head. “Forgive me–” he seemed unsure how to address the huge, old warrior “–sir, but it’s not for your master, or his apprentice.” He looked at Elias, offered the folded paper with its wax seal to the black knight, and cleared his throat awkwardly as Elias took it.

  “It’s for him.”

  Twenty minutes later, Elias stood at the doorway to a private garden, the missive in his hand. He was somewhere in the port district of the upper level, and something told him that whomever he was about to meet, this wasn’t their actual home.

  He glanced down a second time at the paper in his hand.

  Swordsman,

  Forgive my imposition, but certain troubling rumors have reached my ear, and I fear for the wellbeing of your crew, your master, and your cause. Word has reached me of your tremendous valor in the struggle against our enemies below. I would speak with you.

  The letter was unsigned, and gave only the meeting place.

  He pressed a gloved hand to the gate. It swung inward, and he sensed the faint ripple of magic. Elias’s footfalls carried him down a tiled walkway over soft, moss-covered ground. It must have cost a fortune to install such land-like luxury here. He wondered at the expenses, the trades, the bartering, the brutal grunt work beneath all the hours and weeks of endless labor to enrich this microcosm in the midst of a forest of pale stone and gilded doorways. Moreover, Elias wondered, who owned it, and who was so well placed as to requisition its use for a clandestine meeting?

  The answer came when he reached the end of the path, finding himself in a small, circular plot of grass, surrounded on all sides by blooming flowers of countless varieties – white roses and black orchids in particular. There waited a man the black knight recognized immediately, understated in a black and silver evening robe, his white hair pulled into an elaborate knot at the back of his head, and rings upon his long, delicate fingers.

  “Welcome, swordsman,” Pentus, duke of the midlevels said, with a white-toothed smile upon his face. “I am so glad you received my message.”

  Elias stood before the candidate for captaincy, at once acutely aware of every political lesson he’d ever had beaten into him, every warning about seeming, of appearance, of reputation and turn of phrase. Harkon Bright’s moderation required the perception of neutrality between the three candidates. If Elias was seen in the private company of one of them–

  “Had I known from whom it came,” Elias said, “I would not have come. But you already knew that.”

  Pentus’s smile turned cat-like. “I knew you were smart. I have known of Harkon Bright for some time, and he does not endure the company of fools or of the irrelevant. Moreover, Yaresh would not hate you as he does if you were no one.”

  “Yaresh hates Belit,” Elias corrected him. “Me only by proxy.”

  “So you confirm your meetings with her, then,” Pentus said. “Thank you. I wondered if that was bluster or not.”

  Stupid mistake. Elias held back from cursing himself. He’d let these skills grow rusty in the past few months as he’d withdrawn from everything about him that had been tangled intimately with Azrael. Off balance and in the presence of a skilled manipulator, he opted to remain silent for the moment.

  Pentus smiled, and he picked up a wine glass in a salute before drinking. “Ah, don’t be like that. I am not your enemy, just a man who knows things, and who acknowledges that no person can be as black or white as their past portrays them.” His eyes twinkled. “And I know there is more to you than what is suggested by your… impressive feats belowdecks.”

  He knew. Elias forced his heartbeat to steady, kept his face carefully neutral. “Did you ask me here to drop irrelevant hints,” he replied at last, “or is this conversation to be of more substance? I have duties to attend to.”

  Pentus sighed, now a cat denied further chance to play a favored game. “Very well, I will get to the point: I am proposing an alliance, swordsman.”

  “Harkon Bright must remain neutral,” Elias repeated.

  “Agreed, and he should,” Pentus said, holding up a hand. “But you are another matter entirely. There are rumors, swordsman, that have reached my ears. You train beside Belit in her archaic sword-style as a near equal. You’re a recent addition to Harkon Bright’s crew, and you’re ever so cagey about your own past.”

  The duke of the midlevels’ expression was knowing. “And I am not entirely ignorant of certain stories of recently fallen kingdoms, and the rumored death of an apprentice to the infamous Lord Roland. A death some believe may be exaggerated.”

  Elias met the probing stare with a practiced blank expression. “You have me at a disadvantage, Duke Pentus,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t keep up on news of every dead warlord.”

  “
Dammit boy,” Pentus said, his veneer cracking. Beneath the calm exterior, Elias glimpsed something else – not ugly, as with Yaresh – but fearful. “How long will it be before the forces tearing this ship apart from within erupt into the open? I can help you.”

  Vlana’s hateful eyes swam in Elias’s vision. Vant’s guilty, neutral expression, Bjorn’s ambivalence. Harkon’s distance. Aimee.

  Aimee’s smile. Without deception or ill-intent. Part of the crew.

  “There is a place for you on this ship, if you want it.”

  His uncertainty dissipated, replaced with the bedrock of understanding. Perhaps the others didn’t trust him, but Aimee did, and her teacher did. The rest, he might never earn… but as he had said less than an hour before…

  I have to try.

  “So long as I do… what?” Elias asked. “Betray my allies? Abandon their trust?” He took a single step forward. “Kill your enemies?”

  The duke’s expression paled. “I did not mean to ask murder of you–”

  Elias felt the derisive snort come unbidden to his face. “Of course not. It’s never murder with men like you. Only justice, until it’s someone else commanding the killers. With respect, your grace, the man you are looking for may be alive or dead, but he isn’t in this room. I will see myself out.”

  “Please,” Pentus said, as Elias turned to go. “Think about what I offer you: a fresh start – truly, away from people who know what you really are!”

  Elias kept walking. He didn’t see the furious, agonized look on Pentus’s face – only discerned it from the anguished tones of the duke’s voice as he screamed. “So long as a single soul knows the truth about who you are, you will never know peace!”

  The black knight paused, the weight of the words settling on his shoulders. He let out a long, difficult breath. Perhaps not, but I must try.