Reavers of the Tempest

by J M D Reid

  Estan could still remember that day, three years gone, when his tutor opened his eyes to the truths the Church tried to hide when they’d declared the fragments of Nzuuth’s poems heretical. In her works, he read cryptic references to the foci.

  His thoughts drifted . . .

  *

  Bwuovoa 18th, 395 VF (1960 SR)

  “I must impress upon you the seriousness of what we’re going to talk about today, my boy,” Master Rlarim said, his age-cragged face peering down at Estan, spectacles resting on the bridge of his wizened nose. Wisps of white hair, coarse like a boar’s bristles, were all that remained of his hair circling about the crown of his balding head.

  “Of course, Master Rlarim,” the youth said. Today celebrated the fourteenth anniversary of his birth; already, he possessed the sober calm of the scholar he yearned to become. He long dreamed of attending the University of Rlarshon or the great University of Qopraa in the capital of the Vaarckthian Empire. For the last four years, he soaked up the knowledge of his tutor, his mind blossoming like a broad sunflower beneath the feathery rays of Riasruo’s light.

  An excited squirm twisted through his guts. The gravity of the situation only fanned the thirst in him to learn something new. The pair sat in the library of his father’s house, the ancestral home of the Bthoovzigks and the current residence of the Lord Mayor of Amion. Shelves made of cherry wood, polished to a dark burnish and oiled by Estan’s own hand every day at the insistence of his tutor, gleamed around them. Books bound in leather and scrolls rolled up in ivory or bone cases covered the shelves. Estan knew them all. He’d read them all, devouring them with an eager thirst. He found even rereading them a thrill, for something new could be found written in black upon parchment or vellum.

  “I am deadly serious, my boy,” Master Rlarim said, his voice a hushed whisper. “Not even your own father can know what we are going to discuss.”

  Estan blinked at that. “Well, it is a good thing I am all but invisible to him. I doubt it should come up in our infrequent conversations.”

  A twinge flicked through the youth’s heart that didn’t show upon his coal-dark features. Only the deeper rise of his chest in his blue doublet, held closed by bright-crimson ceramic buttons, betrayed any reaction.

  Master Rlarim’s face darkened. The Vionese man patted the back of the youth’s hand and then gave it a squeeze. Estan’s eyes focused on the paper-thin skin stretched over his tutor’s bony hand, the spots of dark brown staining the nut-tan flesh. Estan’s back straightened. Master Rlarim trusted him. It drove back that twinge, and his heart beat faster.

  “But . . .” Estan said after the euphoric surge through his veins had passed. “Why would you be afraid to share this with me?”

  “Because knowledge is power, my boy.” Deep-red eyes bored into the youth’s, their dimensions magnified by the curve of Master Rlarim’s spectacles. “Explain why.”

  Estan’s brow furrowed as he considered the maxim. “Well, it can give you the power to change things. It allows you to understand the world, to apply mathematics and the physical philosophies to shape it, to build faster ships, stronger buildings, to discover new engines to channel our Goddess’s Blessings. Is that what you mean?”

  The older man shook his head from side to side. “Knowledge cuts through lies and exposes what sentient creatures try to hide. For those seeking to conceal, revelation is what they fear most. Guilt, so wrote the great philosopher Nzuuvsk sze Vviry, resides not in the guilty nor does it lurk in their victim. No, it resides in the eyes of those who witness. To those who possess knowledge of their crime. To silence that guilt, the powerful can be driven to dark ends.”

  The boy trembled. He swallowed as he felt a cold, winter wind howling out of the Onamen Sky surging through him. “Dark ends . . . Surely you are not saying that there are those who would kill to protect this knowledge?”

  “Not would kill. Have.” The old man arched a white eyebrow. “Do you understand that we walk upon the skyland’s edge now?”

  “But . . .” Estan protested, his body trembling. “Then why risk sharing it? Why would you . . .?” His forehead furrowed. A thought fell amid the fertile soil of the youth’s mind. “Because there is no greater harm to the skies than knowledge concealed. Than the wise refusing to question the world around them through the material or the esoteric philosophies. Reason must be applied against every idea, every belief, every theory. They all must be tested, must be questioned, and must be challenged so that we can winnow the nature of this world Riasruo created for us from the chaff of ignorance. Any who seek to stop that cannot be allowed to succeed. We must face the pursuit of knowledge with unflinching dedication. Even if it means that we have to admit our own mistakes, to recognize that our own beliefs were incorrect. Always must we strive to gain a more exact understanding of natural and moral truths.”

  Master Rlarim nodded his head. “Scholarship is far more important than dogmatic censorship. And this truth . . . This truth is forbidden by the greatest power in the skies.”

  The chill wind howled stronger. Its frigid gusts unleashed shivers throughout Estan’s body. “The Church?”

  “The Church herself. Even the University of Rlarshon has allowed the pursuit of truth to waver in face of the Bishriarch’s power.”

  The Church of Riasruo, through her Theological Treaty with the Vaarckthian Empire, dominated the religion of the skies. Only the Bishriarch, the ultimate head of the church, could speak for the Sun Goddess, imparting pronouncements of the Goddess’s benediction upon the body of the faithful. Estan worshiped every Dawnsday at the temple, throwing his wicker effigies into the flames so Riasruo could cleanse his sins. Still, learning that Her Church would impede knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth. He grimaced, thick, dark lips puckering. Then his eyes widened. “This is why you were dismissed from the university.”

  Master Rlarim leaned back in his seat. “One step ahead of being denounced and cast out in disgrace. A paper I wrote, to test my colleagues’ dedication to pursuing knowledge, proved my good sense not to reveal all I’d learned. I have continued my studies in exile, but it has been difficult and . . .” He swallowed. “Well, what I know shouldn’t be entrusted only to me. I have an obligation to pass it on to at least one person lest infirmity and old age rob the world of what I know. Never hoard your knowledge. A miser may clutch to his porcelain coins, but a scholar who does the same fails to enrich the world, let alone himself.”

  Estan’s heart thundered in his chest. A sweeping, bubbling, buzzing joy swept through his body, driving back the winter winds. He fought to keep his exuberance from bursting out of him, his lips twisting, the corners aching to turn up into a smile. “I am honored by your trust. I will not betray it. I will study with all dedication and absorb all you have to teach. Your research shall continue.”

  A broad smile crossed the old man’s lips, his eyes dazzling. He clapped his hands together. “That we shall, my boy.” He reached into his simpler doublet, a sober gray without the added embroidery and woven from a coarser grade of linen than Estan’s. He produced a slender book from its inner pockets. “This book was declared heretical by the Bishriarch ninety-nine years ago. All copies were ordered to be destroyed. Those found possessing it face excommunication, if not worse.”

  He held it out to the youth.

  Estan grasped it. His fingers ran across the dark-brown cover as he turned it over and stared at the title. Embossed into the cover read: “The Collected Poems of Nzuuth sze Hyesk as translated by Shamil Oatlis.”

  “Ethinski poetry?” Estan said, struggling to keep his words neutral as the buoyant jubilation in him deflated. His shoulders sagged ever so slightly.

  “Yes, Ethinski poetry. And yet the Church of Riasruo declared it heretical. What crime are they hiding by suppressing the knowledge found in this book?”

  Estan opened it up, glancing at the title of the first poem: “Lightning Flashed.”

  “These poems speak of the foci,” Master Rlari
m said.

  “Foci to what?”

  “To that, I am not sure,” the old man conceded. “But my research has convinced me that Nzuuth was Stormtouched.”

  A prickle ran across Estan’s skin, his flesh puckering, every hair on his arms standing up straight. “Theisseg touched her?” He did not hide the disgust in his voice. He stared down at the book in his hands, fearing it would transform into a ravenous shark. “No wonder it was banned.”

  “To be viewed with caution, yes,” Master Rlarim said. “The Church fears the Stormtouched. She encourages all the nations to dispose of any who are touched by lightning during a Cyclone. But some are missed. The poet survived the Cyclone of 276 as a child. Nzuuth soon started writing. She was acclaimed a genius because of her tender age. And then her entire village perished in one of the worst outbreaks of the choking plague in the Ethinski Union’s brief history.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You will, my boy,” Master Rlarim said. “We shall talk about the Skein of Adjudication another time. For now, it is my suspicion that the Church read her poems and it scared them. Their guilt was witnessed. And their crime was so monstrous, they unleashed the worst sickness in the skies to kill a single girl younger than you are now.”

  Estan fought the urge to gulp, his mouth dry, aching for water.

  “She gleaned something from the mind of Theisseg,” Master Rlarim continued. “She understood something about Her plans. And those of Her servants.”

  That puzzled Estan for a few heartbeats. “You mean the Stormriders?”

  “Did you know that Cyclones have been on a sharp rise?”

  “I had not realized that, no,” Estan admitted. “I believe they average one every five years.”

  “And yet there was one hundred and seventy-three years between the Great Cyclone which destroyed the Dawn Empire and the second.”

  Estan’s chest tightened. His heart labored to pump thickened blood through his veins. “That is an increase of a great magnitude of order.”

  “Indeed, my boy. During the Age of Isolation, they averaged two a century. By the time of the Vaarckthian Empire, and better records were kept, they had three in the nation’s first century, seven in its second century, and thirteen in its third. For the last hundred years, Cyclones have begun to average one per five years.

  “But that number is on the rise. They are coming every year now. Yes, once every five years in the Autonomy. But across the skies . . . there is a logarithmic increase. In a few years, by the time you have reached your maturity, they may be coming three times a year. In a decade, they will be every month. And not long after that, every week. In perhaps ten to fifteen years, every nation in the skies might be swept aside, the skylands dragged down into the Storm Below or colonized by the Stormriders.

  “So we must understand what these foci are and why Theisseg needs to break them. We have to understand if the Stormriders seek to replace us or to kill us. The survival of the skies lies before us, and the intellects at the University of Rlarshon are too cowed by theology’s blind tradition to pursue it and save us.”

  Estan’s heavy breathing filled the silence of the next moments. He struggled to process and understand his tutor’s words. Dizzy waves beset him, his thoughts fighting to retain their normal placid order.

  Then he asked the most important question he could think of: “What are the foci?”

  “We know them by a dozen names, my boy, artifacts of the Dawn Empire. There are twelve of them scattered throughout the skies.”

  “The Dawnspires,” Estan gasped.

  “As the Vionese call them.”

  Estan knew them by their most common names: Sky Towers, Dawnspires, Crystal Teeth, Sunrays, and Diamond Hearts. Their true purpose was lost in the chaos of the Age of Isolation. So much fell with Swuopii into the Storm a thousand years ago, so much knowledge lost it almost made Estan weep.

  “I must know everything you do, Master Rlarim,” the youth said. “Only then can a hypothesis be constructed and experiments devised.”

  *

  Isamoa 14th, 399 VF (1960 SR)

  To this day, Estan itched to understand everything fully. A vast carpenter’s puzzle lay before him, the pieces strewn through the texts of history, that he sought to complete. He yearned for nothing more than to pursue his studies with Master Rlarim.

  But the Navy had tied him to the Dauntless.

  Bitterness swelled through the young man. When his father, the Lord Mayor of Amion, caught his son studying one of those forbidden texts, fear had seized the older man. In his terror, he’d dismissed Master Rlarim with no letter of recommendation. Without it, the old scholar could not find work tutoring a new pupil. Estan then found the family’s purse denied him. When the draft happened soon after, his father was more than happy to let the marines induct him without buying his son an officer’s commission.

  Thus ended Estan’s dream of attending the University of Rlarshon, or even traveling to the famed University of Qopraa in the Vaarckthian Empire. His father’s shortsightedness had trampled over his hopes of finding those last pieces to the puzzle.

  And then he’d met Ary.

  Estan sighed, then winced at the ache rippling across his ribs. He stared up at Guts’s bunk above him. The wood creaked as the large marine shifted in his sleep. Sometimes, Estan dreaded the bed’s frame would fail beneath Guts’s impressive bulk, crushing the slender Vaarckthian.

  Estan returned to his current problem. How do I get Ary to open up to me?

  If Ary feared telling his wife his secret, how could Estan win his confidence? Ary dreaded being quarantined, forced to live out his days in a cell cut off from his family. Estan should report his suspicions to Captain Dhar, it was his duty, but he could not let any law prevent knowledge’s discovery. Through Ary, Estan could continue his research. Theisseg’s secrets needed to be understood. The Stormriders needed to be stopped.

  How do I convince Ary to share the most dangerous secret in the skies? Do I confront him?

  A fear settled in Estan. Ary was rumored to have a violent temper when provoked. He had personally witnessed Ary attack the Sergeant-Major and heard his friend had almost thrown Grabin, a marine serving on the Dauntless’s sister ship, into the Storm.

  If I confront Ary, would he unleash that rage on me? He has been touched by Theisseg. Is that the source of his anger?

  A Vaarckthian proverb rose in Estan’s mind: “The only beast more dangerous than a hungry shark is a cornered man.”

  He must sail these skies with great care and trepidation.

  Chapter Two

  Vel stumbled away from the village of Shon down the road towards Camp Chubris, the bag of poison clutched in his hand. The turmoil of his emotions kept him from noticing the autumn-ripe fields he passed.

  “Well, he wasn’t afraid.” Chaylene’s voice echoed in his mind. Since her rejection, her words beat at the inside of his skull. “He loved me first. He loved me more than you did. Find another woman to love. You lost me. I’m sorry.”

  The words whipped him to finally put aside his fear. Vel wanted nothing more than to possess Chaylene. He loved her. He burned to hold her ebony body in his arms, to run his brown fingers through her blonde hair, to feel the heat of her flesh beneath him as he took her. No woman had ever refused him. No woman had ever possessed his soul more than her.

  He burned to have her.

  He would have her.

  He loved her.

  And she loved him.

  To get her, he had to murder his former friend. His cowardice had let the brutish boar seize her. She didn’t resist, thinking she possessed only one suitor. She’d made herself love Ary and now it was too late. Understanding shone through Vel’s mind as clear as the first ray of Riasruo’s sun cresting over the skyland’s edge.

  Chaylene would never break her marriage vows.

  She was too good a woman to soil her word. She wanted to. He could feel that fire burning in her, her ardor bleeding out of he
r. Beneath her pain-filled words, he felt her love. She wanted to drive him away to protect him from her husband’s brutal anger. She was trapped. To have her, he must widow her.

  His hand tightened on the poison. I have to kill Ary, he thought for the dozenth time. It daunted him. For most of his life, he’d admired Ary, played with him, took joy in his company. Once, they were friends. It’s the only way. He’s a brute. He hurts her. She’s sad all the time. Wriavia’s right. The only way to have Chaylene is to remove her husband.

  I’m saving her.

  Vel had discovered a new friend in the Luastria merchant these last few months. Wriavia understood the pain gripping Vel’s heart. Like him, Wriavia had fallen in love with a married hen. He’d won her by killing her husband.

  I’ll be doing Chaylene a service. She’ll be free of her vow. Free to love me and be with me.

  I just have to kill Ary.

  Memories of his childhood weakened Vel’s resolve. He, Ary, and Chaylene had been inseparable in their youth. Ary had dragged Vel to play games or skip school while an eager Chaylene followed. The trio ran through fields together, fought with sticks, played tag in the Snakewood, chased ducks up the Bluesnake, and fished by the Watch.

  Then one night, Vel noticed Chaylene had developed into a woman. Painted by moonlight, she’d stolen his heart.

  Ary had also noticed Chaylene’s changes. The bold brute claimed her, staking his plot with threatening looks and meaty fists. Vel tried to find delight in other girls. He seduced more than a few with his handsome smile and beautiful eyes, but never the girl he wanted.

  Fear held him back. He always found reasons not to tell Chaylene how he felt. Ary scared him. Ary wasn’t the tallest youth from the farming village of Isfe, but doing a man’s work had given him shoulders as broad as a bristleback boar with a temper just as vile. Any boy who mocked Ary, repeating the accusations of his ma, would find Ary’s fist smashed into their face. He thrashed them all, even boys older than him. Ary lacked fear, shrugging off blows which should incapacitate him, battering his fists over and over, his face twisted in bestial rage.