“Good day, your grace,” Elias said over his shoulder.
He left the way he’d come.
Chapter Ten
The Peculiar Madness of Twins
Aimee had spent the first week on Iseult dressed in her professional best. With the exception of the excursion into the lower levels, the rule of thumb had been semi-formalwear, which meant high boots, her apprentice’s badge, a freshly cleaned blouse, and hair put to order. A touch of makeup too, though a far cry from the effort put into high society events back home.
The past two days, by contrast, had been spent in extensive, rigorous study. Arrival back at the flotilla meant an eruption of trade and gossip between behemoths, and a temporary cessation of council meetings so that every officer aristocrat could see to their duties while the bridge crew directed affairs from the wheelhouse. Harkon had presented her the morning after their arrival with a fresh set of complicated form scrolls detailing a number of increasingly complex spells she was to commit to memory. Three combative: one for wind, one for flame, one for frost.
As a result, she’d hardly left her cabin, or the large segment of the cargo hold where she’d practiced the physically demanding forms over and over and over. Her world was unwashed training clothes, sweat, aching muscles, and the precise mental repetition of the proper words until she heard them in her dreams. When she wasn’t doing that, she was drilling in the patterns Bjorn had taught her with a shock-spear, not wanting to be caught unprepared again. She broke for meals, though she took them in her room half the time, and to demonstrate her progress to her teacher.
She lived on coffee and mystic theory.
On the morning of the third day, after falling out of bed and into a set of intensive calisthenics, she threw a robe over her shoulders and shuffled down the hall to get breakfast. The sounds of voices reached her before she got to the common area, and she saw Vlana leaning with her back against the wall, staring patiently at Rachim.
“Yeah, well,” their host said, “all I’m saying is that my chef is heinously pretentious and easily offended. He takes it as a personal slight that you all haven’t come to breakfast yet.”
“What, lunch and dinner aren’t enough?” Vlana asked, more amused than affronted. “Look, Elysium is home, alright? No matter how nice the villa is – and it is very nice – most of us are still more comfortable in our cabins.”
“And Hark’s had me training basically all day for the past two days,” Aimee said sleepily, walking into the room and greeting the two with a wave. “The room I was offered is lovely, but I’m really not comfortable practicing my magic in your very nice house.”
Rachim snorted. “I don’t care about the room, Miss Laurent. But I’m starting to worry that my flustered chef may poison me in a fit of pique.”
Both women laughed, and Aimee was still chuckling as she walked into the galley. Someone had already fired the stove to boil water, and soon a dark aroma was wafting up from her mug as she made up a plate of cured meat, buttered rolls, and cheese.
“Look,” Vlana said as Aimee re-emerged. “I can talk to the others but–” she looked at Aimee and then shrugged, grinning at Rachim “–too late.”
Rachim flashed her a one-eyed glare. Aimee grinned and answered around a mouthful of breakfast roll. “Phorry.”
Rachim’s glower turned to a begrudging smile after a moment. “That phrase, about how you can take the skyfarer out of the ship, but not the ship out of the skyfarer? It’s wrong. You can’t take a skyfarer out of their ship. I’ve tried.”
“But we do appreciate the use of your landing space for our home,” Vlana said sweetly.
“So where is everyone, anyway?” Aimee asked when her throat was clear. “Been cooped up with books for days, haven’t kept pace.”
“Hark is meeting with Viltas in my parlor,” Rachim said. “More background information on the council – they’ve scheduled another vote in two days.”
“Bjorn’s gone for a run,” Vlana said. “Haven’t seen Elias yet–” she said his name with a subtle distaste “–Clutch is taking a nap on the bridge, and,” she paused, “and I don’t know where Vant is.”
There was the tiniest ghost of a smile at the corner of the quartermaster’s mouth that suddenly made Aimee suspicious. “Why don’t I believe you right now?”
On reflection, the young sorceress at once realized, she’d hardly seen the twins at all, the few times she’d left her studies in the past few days. Given her cloistering, that didn’t mean a lot, but it counted for a little, given the two were more closely wed to the ship than anyone else other than Clutch.
Vlana’s smile grew, and the hand she placed over her mouth didn’t quite contain it.
Rachim frowned. “Oh, bugger all,” he muttered. “Hark warned me about you twins.”
“Oh relax,” Vlana said to their host, nudging him in the shoulder with her elbow. “My brother and I are under strict orders to contain our shenanigans solely to the ship.”
Rachim’s expression turned from dubious to abruptly – and deeply – alarmed. “Which doesn’t help if I’m on your ship.”
Vlana’s grin was feline. Any further comment from Aimee was disrupted by a piercing scream, followed by a stream of increasingly colorful curses erupting from the bridge in Clutch’s voice, the well of profanity capped off by, “Vant, I’m going to pour meta-exhaust in your bunk!”
A half second later, a loud, burp-like fart sound ripped through the forward part of the ship, followed by a set of mewling chirps, followed by the pilot’s groan. “Oh, sweet merciful gods.”
Aimee and Rachim both turned to Vlana, who was starting towards the bridge while trying to contain her laughter. “Looks like Clutch found her!”
Realization dawned in Aimee’s head as she followed at a jog, connecting the sounds to her recollections and culminating in a laughing choke. “You didn’t.”
“You’re right,” Vlana declared, “I didn’t! C’mon, Aimee, I said I didn’t know where my brother was, not that I didn’t know what he was doing.”
The bridge was chaos. The first thing Aimee noticed was the smell. A ripe, flatulent stink somewhere between rotten eggs and academy dormitory used gymsocks assaulted her senses, and she grasped the frame of the doorway to keep herself from doubling over.
“YOU!” Clutch screamed at Vlana before launching into a fresh stream of invective while the latter collapsed in a storm of giggles. “You and your godsdamned Kraken-loving cloud-fucking wind-fart hull rat brother did this!”
Something red flashed past Aimee, mewling and whipping through the air, every convulsion of its body leaving a loud fart sound in its wake.
“Did what?” Vlana said.
“That!” Clutch gestured. As Aimee wiped her eyes, she saw now that the pilot was covered from head to toe in a light, blotchy coating of ink. “Don’t get coy with me! There is a fucking squat on my bridge!”
Aimee leaned against the door, furiously fanning at the air in front of her face to rid her sinuses of the stink. High over her head, the creature in question circled, the hair on its feline head and forelegs standing on end while its eight tentacles flexed with every propulsive fart of its air-bladder. It hissed and spit a wad of ink that hit Clutch on her clean shoulder. Aimee fought down a surge of rising laughter.
“Oh gods,” Rachim swore as he caught up with them. “The smell…”
Holding her nose and stifling a smile, Aimee shot Vlana a questioning look. “Where the hell did you find a squat?”
“Technically, my brother found it,” Vlana said through a grin. “And the answer–” this she said sideways at Rachim’s glare “–is around.”
“What’s relevant is not where you found it,” Clutch snarled. “It’s where you put it. Namely on me, while I was sleeping!”
“Look,” said Vant, from the portal platform above the bridge, “you’re the one who startled her by waking up with an ear-piercing shriek. They’re normally very placid creatures, when people aren’t screamin
g or swinging hatchets at them.” The engineer’s grin turned wicked. “Rather like me: I’m really nice until you drop me out of my hammock in the middle of nap time.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Clutch put a hand on her forehead. “That was over a week ago!”
“The last time was over a week ago!” Vant snapped back. “You’ve been doing that for months!”
“How long was that thing on me, hull rat?” Clutch advanced towards the portal platform. “How long!?”
Above them, the squat made another flatulent noise and hissed, spitting a glob of ink towards the group of them. Aimee sidestepped it and freed her hands from her robe. Vant cackled, a mad conductor of a chaos orchestra. “Oh, I don’t know, my chronometer is back in my bunk, and time is such a fluid concept–”
Clutch’s eyes flashed dangerously. “How. Long.”
“I mean it left and came back several times after I put it there,” Vant said with an exasperated sigh. “But cumulatively? I’d say an hour, give or take.”
Aimee fixed her eyes on their circling, gaseous guest, breathed out her laughter, gestured upwards, and cast the binding spell Harkon had taught her back in Port Providence. Strips of light flashed into being, tying up the struggling squidcat, which Aimee then slowly drew towards her with an outstretched hand. It struggled fiercely, its huge eyes yellow and angry. Aimee ran her free hand over the fur on its head, then took note of the yellow streaks down its rubbery flanks, and what they meant.
“Um, Vant?” Aimee asked mildly.
“Wait,” Vlana said. “Why was it leaving?”
“I don’t know,” Vant waved a dismissive hand. “She kept going back into the cargo hold and I kept bringing her back.”
“Vant, what the fuck!” Clutch swore again.
Aimee sighed. “Am I the only one who understands what these yellow stripes on her sides mean?” All eyes at once turned to the sorceress as she gestured to the colored bands on the squidcat’s flanks.
“Yes?” Vant said.
“Oh shit,” Vlana said.
“What did you do?” Clutch demanded of the engineer.
For a second time, further conversation was interrupted by a series of shouts from the cargo bay, and this time it was the voices of Elias and Bjorn.
Aimee sighed, and, still holding the squidcat in its bindings, started towards the hold. “He brought a squat aboard,” she said over her shoulder. “A pregnant squat. Looks like Elias and Bjorn just found the babies.”
Aimee was halfway through the door to the cargo hold when a rubbery, down-furred squitten hit her in the face. It bounced off, squeaked loudly, then farted off into the center of the open space, where another twelve of the creatures were rushing this way and that, a chorus of mewing sounds and flatulent noises filling the air.
In the center of the chaos were Bjorn and Elias. Bjorn was soaked with sweat through his shirt from his long run. Elias… wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. Aimee took a second, realized she was staring, then shook her head. It didn’t matter how distracting the sight was. She had flying squittens to catch. Yes. Focus.
Elias caught sight of her and turned. One of the squittens was sitting on his head. Another had planted itself on his shoulder. The tall, shirtless man fixed her with a resigned, helpless look, before clearing his throat. “I’m assuming there’s some sort of reason for this?”
The squitten on his shoulder squeaked and nipped at his ear. He winced slightly and gave a lopsided, helpless smile. “And, ah, maybe a way these things could be moved?”
A larger squitten was in the process of burrowing into Bjorn’s beard. The big, old warrior was trying to discourage the creature even as he winced painfully at its claws tugging on his facial hair. “No, little bugger. No. Dammit, quit the mewling! There’s no food in there.”
The spell that was on her lips died with Aimee’s composure. The laugh burst out of her, compulsive and helpless, and she sank to her knees just past the doorway to the cargo hold, laughing until tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. The others caught up a half second later to find her curled up on the floor in the gut-clutching throes of laughter, and Bjorn and Elias no less inundated with squeaking, flying squidcats.
“Laugh it up, girl,” she heard Bjorn grumble. “Very helpful.”
“At least they haven’t inked us yet,” Elias deadpanned. “May as well let it burrow. I think it likes you.”
Aimee got to her feet as Clutch caught up with the rest of them. “Naturally,” she growled, “they didn’t ink either of them.”
“You didn’t tell me it was expecting a litter!” Vlana hissed at her brother.
“I didn’t know!” Vant fired back. “I just thought she really liked the cargo hold!”
“Alright,” Aimee said, not quite suppressing her giggles. “Keeping the mother bound is taking up a bit of effort, but if the rest of you can herd them this way, maybe I can expand the binding spell to gather the rest of them together, then we… Gods, I don’t know, what do we do with them?”
“Keep them?” Elias asked.
“Not gonna happen,” Clutch said.
“Yeah, wasn’t exactly my plan…” Vant said.
“Hey,” Elias fired back with surprising passion. “They didn’t choose this. You brought them here. You can’t just get rid of them because you think they’re inconvenient.”
A half-second’s awkward silence hung after that, broken only by the sound of squitten flatulence. Then Bjorn grumbled, “Projecting much?”
“Technically not my choice,” Vlana muttered.
“Gods,” Aimee snapped. “Enough!”
“May I first state–” Rachim used the silence to interject “–that none of those things will be entering my house? Because that’s a definitive.”
“No no no! I am talking now!” Aimee shouted. The room fell silent, and all eyes were on the sorceress, one hand still maintaining her binding spell. “I’ll ungag the mother and use her to get her litter into one of the spare cabins. I’m going to need the rest of you to help corral them so they don’t go flying to gods-know-where, spraying ink all over every little thing. Alright?”
A chorus of nods followed. Then Elias started moving first to heed her. Rachim chuckled just behind her. “Good commanding voice,” he said. “I approve.”
She might have reminded their host that his approval wasn’t something she needed – was tempted, in the mood she found herself in – but that wouldn’t have been productive. Instead, Aimee flashed him a sweet smile and said in her perkiest voice. “Thank you! Learned it from my mum.”
Then she adjusted the spell with a slight twitch of her fingers. The mother let out a loud, chirping mew, and twelve squittens surged towards Aimee. The apprentice portalmage barely had time to gulp, then she broke into a run. It was amazing how long the central corridor of Elysium looked, when she was at a full sprint with a horde of tiny flying feline cephalopods on her heels. She heard noises behind her, shouts and cries of dismay, but at this point she was functionally beyond their help. Her running dash took her full tilt towards one of the unused cabins in the central corridor, and she almost overshot it, skidding to a halt on her bare feet in front of the doorway. Her free hand fumbled with the handle, then whipped it open, flinging the mother through the opening and throwing herself out of the way. “Have fun with your babies!” she said, and barely dodged as the mass of farting squittens shot past her and into the doorway. Then she heaved the door shut, and took a few seconds to breathe before letting out a nervous, relieved laugh.
When she looked up, a single squitten stared her in the face. Brown-furred, red-bladdered, with yellow eyes like its mother, and a mangy bald spot on its forehead. It cocked its head, then started to turn back down the hall. “Oh no,” Aimee said, pushing herself off the door as she caught a glimpse of where the little creature was looking. “No no no no, don’t you dare!”
She didn’t even think to use the binding-spell. Her hand shot out reflexively as it let out a burping sound and shot
back down the hallway towards a cabin.
Her cabin.
She launched herself after it, screaming “Shit!” as she rushed through the doorway, her head filled with images of all her things covered in ink. Instead, she found an unnervingly quiet interior in the same training- and study-induced state of utter disarray she’d left it in. Pausing just inside the doorway, she tightened her robe about her waist and took a few tentative steps, peering around.
“Wonderful,” she muttered. “And the gold-bullion question is: ‘Where in this mess are you hiding?’”
A squeak sounded behind her. She turned. The squitten was perched above her doorframe. Off to the side, on her desk, a familiar ironwood box had been opened, and in its tentacles, the creature clutched the glimmering Axiom Diamond. Aimee froze. Her breathing slowed, and she held up her hands. The last thing – the last thing – she needed was for a renegade squitten to run roughshod all over the ship in a panic, stashing the priceless, dangerous truth-stone in some tiny bolthole, or gods forbid, off the ship. If the little thing decided to take off, she was in for a lot more than a few hours’ frustration.
“Alright, little squitten,” she murmured, flexing her fingers. “A lot of people died, and a lot of horrible things happened before we got our hands on that priceless, truth-telling gem. So how about you let it go?”
As she uttered the last words, the creature turned its head, issued a ripping blast of wind, and shot out through the door. Aimee lunged after it, only to let out a shout of dismay as Elias skidded to a stop in the doorway, right in her path. She let out a squawk, too late to stop her jump. She crashed into him at full leap as the diamond fell between them, and had half a second to realize they were both touching the stone before she felt a familiar wrenching in her gut, and the world turned white.
They stood upon a broad, mirror surface, surrounded by an endless ocean of sunset sky. It took Aimee a few moments to orient herself. The Axiom Diamond had been dormant, unresponsive, since it had stripped the mental control of the Eternal Order from Elias in Port Providence a month and a half ago, and when she had joined her mind to the stone then, it had addressed her directly, suspended above a facsimile of the cavern in which she’d found it.
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