He stared at Ed, and those red eyes probed him, compelling him to agree. He couldn’t think straight when that gaze was upon him, and he felt his heart beating fast.
“Of course not,” Ed said. “You can trust me.”
“Good.” The Guardian smiled.
Ed looked down to his feet and blinked and found that he could think clearly again so long as he wasn’t looking into those red eyes.
Rutting hell, can he mesmerize people?
Ed knew that he would have to be careful. But he could not keep all of this to himself.
He would let Mother Henne know it was all part of some dire conspiracy before he told her the details, that she had to keep it quiet … But he would tell her.
“We will lead you out the way we came in. Best for secrecy, yes? Reverend Mott, come.” The thing called Mott rose from his seat to stand behind Ed.
“Father, shouldn’t he rest here a bit longer?” Julea pleaded. “He’s been hurt.” Her big eyes trembled as she looked at her father. Her hands were fisted in her skirt, kneading the fabric.
She didn’t want him to go. A pretty girl, and she didn’t want him to go! That was something new. Suddenly, despite all the strange goings-on, Ed found himself with conflicting feelings. He half-wished he could stay with her.
You’re a rutting idiot, he told himself, trying to quell such thoughts.
Crandolph paused for a moment, staring into his daughter’s eyes. He bit his lip, thinking, and Ed saw that the Guardian was not entirely immune to the girl’s pleas.
In the end, though, he just shook his head. “No, child. I think the Constable would be more comfortable at home in his own bed, yes? And it is very late for you to be up, young lady. Mrs. Starks, can you please escort Julea to her chambers?”
The old lady came forward and took Julea by the arm. The young girl was watching him intently. Those big eyes of hers were locked on Ed’s face, as if pleading to him not to go—warning him not to?
“Let thine eyessh run with tearsssh night and day,” Mott suddenly rasped, “and let them not ceassse: for thy virgin daughter has s-s-suffered an inshult, and the wrrrath of your God is thus insssigh-ted.”
Ed looked at the hideous Mott-thing, then turned to the Guardian, who smiled apologetically back at him.
“Oh, he’s not speaking to us,” the Guardian said. “His mind often wanders on a different plane.”
“All right,” Ed said, nodding. To him, it sounded like Mott’s mind was simply as decayed as the rest of him, but he didn’t want to offend the Guardian by saying so.
“Let us go,” the Guardian commanded, and then he led them out of the dining room, with Mott bringing up the rear. Ed tried to get one last glimpse of Julea, to wave to her or something, but it appeared that old Mrs. Starks had already pulled her away.
He would probably never see her again … Ah well, she was the Guardian’s daughter, what did he expect?
The Guardian led them down a long hall hung with religious paintings, towards an open door, beyond which were worn wooden steps leading down.
“We can access the cavern through the cellar,” the Guardian explained, heading down into the near darkness. Ed followed, Reverend Mott stomping behind him, walking stiffly yet with enough speed to keep up with them.
The faint lamplight half-revealed many shapes in the long basement room. There were gridded iron racks arranged along the walls, with little glass balls set every few feet into the grid of the ironwork. The glass balls were inlaid with gleaming silver, and some kind of silver-coated ropes or cords were wound throughout the racks.
One device near the stairs was something like a half-scale church organ, with a wooden cabinet and rows of iron pedals and keys. The “pipes” of the organ were iron and topped with two-pronged silver wands that looked like giant roasting forks. The device had silver ropes running out of it which snaked out across the floor and were attached somehow to the iron racks on the walls.
Is that what they made with all of those materials they ordered?, Ed wondered. What the hell is really going on here?
At the bottom of the steps, the Guardian motioned them forward. Ed had gone a dozen paces, walking cautiously along the uneven cellar floor and being mindful of his bad foot, when the Guardian stopped and suddenly waved to someone in the shadows.
A bearded man in servant’s clothes emerged from the dark beyond the lamplight. He held a device in his hand, a strange crystal rod with a two-pronged silvery tip.
“Ah, Mister Starks. Thank you.” The Guardian turned to Ed, smiling—and grabbed his arms. He was impossibly strong. His hands were like iron clamps, and he raised Ed off the floor without so much as a grunt of effort.
“What the—?“ Ed gasped. He tried to think, but the Guardian’s red-eyed glare made his mind sluggish. Somewhere deep down, though, he knew that he was in desperate trouble. “Please, I won’t tell anyone about anything. I told you I wouldn’t … You can let me go home, like you said before.”
The Guardian shook his head, smiling. “A despised cripple with nothing much to lose? I think you would tell. You’d have to let someone know the terrible secrets of the Guardian’s estate. I didn’t want to alarm my dear daughter, but this has to be done. We need another test subject anyways, and it can’t wait.”
The bearded servant-man, Mister Starks, moved forward and touched the cold tips of the two-pronged rod to Ed’s forehead.
Before he could scream out or even squirm, Ed’s mind was swallowed by an abyss of blackness.
-12-
Jack Chestire heard soldiers screaming and the whistling of white fire guns just seconds before two of the claw-shaped enemy craft swooped down low over the fortress’s landing platform.
“Pauon!” the lovely Tesha exclaimed, and Jack was sure the word was a profanity. He watched as she grabbed the hand of the younger woman she’d been working with, and pulled her away. Then the large guard who was Jack’s own escort grabbed his arm, yelling something that could only be an order to run very quickly for cover.
He was about to do so when one of the enemy flyers flitted overhead like a crystalline beetle, and blasted one of the large flyers still parked on the platform. There was an explosion of intense white light accompanied by a shrill screech, and bits of wood and other debris flew everywhere.
When Jack looked back that way, his gaze traveled beyond the edge of the platform to where the stone bridge spanned the two halves of the fortress. It had been blasted in two. From the end of the longer remaining section of the bridge, a fair-skinned man with flame-red hair dangled over the abyss.
Ralley!
As Jack watched, horrified, the length of the bridge which Ralley clutched shifted down with a sudden jerk. The weight of the stone was pulling it down, and it looked as if it would soon fall. With the strength of its supporting arch gone, the bridge was too heavy for itself.
He had to do something. Dare he risk running out onto the bridge and adding his own weight to the mass? Or was there a better way?
Pilots in leather coats were running out now, frantically trying to reach their flyers. Several white-painted craft were already lifting into the air, their masters eager to join the battle.
The big guard was still tugging at Jack, trying to drag him to shelter, gripping the sleeve of his Dragoon’s coat. But the man was looking ahead, not back at Jack. Good.
Jack was able to wriggle his unhampered arm out of the coat. Then, he jumped forward and pulled away, slipping his other arm out of the sleeve which the guard held.
Small sacrifice, Jack thought. I’ll miss those silver buttons and filigreed cuffs—but at least I still have my hat.
He didn’t look back to see the guard’s reaction, but ran forward coatless, one goal looming large in his sight: the little flyer which the lovely Tesha had been tending. Its canopy was already up, so it was only a matter of a few seconds to sprint forward, place his foot on one of the iron rungs on the hull, and throw himself into the front seat behind the controls.
<
br /> They were more complex than the controls he’d seen before. There were eight bronze rods here, linked by a sort of master harness, and nine tiny brass levers. But he had no time to ponder this—only to act.
He heard angry shouting and looked up to see a tall man sprinting forward, dressed in the leather coat and white silk head scarf of a flyer pilot. The man was screaming and pointing at Jack, his face contorted in rage. He looked ready to jump into the flyer and yank Jack out of the pilot’s seat.
Jack reached up and grasped the handle of the glass-paned canopy, tugging it down into place and quickly locking it with the iron latches provided for this purpose. The pilot was just outside, clawing at the glass, trying to lift it.
This must be his personal craft, Jack thought.
He felt a momentary twinge of guilt. The man was a soldier, after all, and Jack was depriving him of his steed for the battle, as it were. But he forced this out of his mind, grabbed the harness linking the bronze rods, and used it to push them all down at once.
The flyer shot skyward with a force that pinned Jack into his seat. When the ascent reached its peak, the flyer jerked and instantly stopped rising. Jack’s head hit the canopy glass with a burst of pain, only his Dragoon’s hat cushioning the blow.
He had gone too high, farther up than he had intended. Apparently, this was as high as the little flyer could climb.
Looking down, he saw the fortress hundreds of feet below. The white wood-and-iron, gold decorated craft of their allies and the blue-black crystal flyers of the enemy chased each other below him, firing white fire blasts, swerving and swarming chaotically all the while, with no sign of order or formations.
He could also see the broken stone bridge, and the tiny form of Ralley dangling there. He decided to maneuver closer to the damaged arch, and then lower the craft so that he could get close to his friend.
Jack scanned the bronze levers on the control board in front of him, an array of nine which he thought should control the white fire jets to steer the craft, based on his prior observations.
He needed to turn left, so he pulled down the lever that he thought should correspond to the forward right jet. He tugged it too hard, however, and the flyer spun violently while he watched the world whirl below him.
He opened a jet on the opposite side, trying to compensate. The craft slowed its spin, and he sighed in relief. He was getting the feel of the thing, at least. Now to apply some forward thrust …
In a moment, the craft was soaring forward in a gentle curve through the air, gliding over the bulk of the shattered bridge. He used the forward jets to brake, then pulled up on the harnessed bronze rods and dropped down. He did well in estimating the descent, and found himself level with Ralley, hovering in the air just ten paces away from him.
With the tiniest bit of thrust, he nudged the craft closer, six feet away now.
Throwing up the canopy, he shouted: “Ralley!” He hoped he would be heard over the wind and the sounds of the battle. “I’m going to come closer, so you can drop inside! Hang on!”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Ralley, looking towards the flyer, began to swing from side-to-side where he clung, his legs moving like a quick pendulum, building a sudden momentum …
Before Jack could react, he hurled himself through the air towards the flyer! Jack looked on, horrified, as his friend sailed through space. He would surely miss!
But Ralley deftly caught one of the iron rungs on the outside of the flyer; the craft tilted slightly from his weight as he latched on. Jack reached out to help him in, but it was hardly necessary.
When Ralley took Jack’s hand, his grip was almost crushing, and, in a moment, he had pulled himself up. With a soft grunt, he flung himself into the seat behind Jack.
“Thank you, Jack,” he said. “We need to go now. She’s still alive, but I do not know for how much longer.”
“Ralley,” Jack sighed, pulling the canopy down over them, “please, please do not ever take a risk like that again. At least not when I am there to see it, yes?”
Ralley only nodded. “We need to go in that direction.” He pointed at an angle downriver. “Southwest, I think. I’ll guide you.”
There was that strange captivating fire in his eyes again, uncompromising strength in his face. The self-doubt and depression that had been there earlier were gone. Whatever power burned within Ralley, it was once again in full flame.
I just hope it doesn’t get him killed, Jack thought.
He turned the flyer in the direction that Ralley had indicated, and switched on the rear jets. As they accelerated, there was a loud cracking sound from behind them. Jack looked back to see the long span of the broken bridge sliding down to fall into the abyss below.
“Jack,” Ralley said. “We’ve attracted attention.”
Jack turned his head forward to see one of the claw-like enemy craft speeding towards them. Deadly beams of white fire streamed from the tips of the crystal “claw.” Jack jerked the control harness up and they plunged downward, the foe’s energy bolts surging just over their canopy.
But Jack had pulled up too hard on the harness, and they were dropping like a heavy stone. They found themselves lofted out of their seats, the force of the plunge pressing them to the canopy.
“Jack!” Ralley shouted.
“I know!” Jack replied, pushing the harness in to slow their descent while applying maximum thrust with the rear jets. He didn’t want them to stop too quickly, and hoped to even them out into a glide just above the river.
The impenetrable blue of the wide water loomed up beneath them as they rushed along—and suddenly, they were skidding along the surface of it! The craft bounced and jerked as it plowed through the water, throwing up heavy spray all around. Jack felt wetness on his legs and looked down to see water squirting up between the boards in the craft’s floor.
“Is this safe?” Ralley asked.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to take us boating,” Jack said. “Let me adjust things.”
He pushed the harness in gently, brought them up to about fifty feet above the water. “No worse for wear,” he said. “Damp, but—“
“Coming up behind us,” Ralley warned, and Jack looked back to see the enemy flyer in close pursuit, only a hundred feet or so away. It fired, and beams of whistling white flashed through the air to their left.
“There’s a gun in this thing,” Jack said, talking to himself, scanning the controls to see if he could find the trigger for it.
“Here!” Ralley pointed to a bronze push-button mounted vertically on the panel just under the rim of the canopy. “It says ‘weapon.’”
The writing looked like mere squiggles to Jack, but he trusted his friend and tried the button, pressing it down.
A beam of brilliant white light flashed out from the silver needle at the nose of their craft, piercing the air with a shrill whistle.
“All right,” Jack said. “I have an idea. Hold on!”
With the flyer still speeding forward down the river valley, he switched on the jet on the forward right of the craft. The craft spun so that its facing was reversed, its nose pointing backwards while its momentum kept it traveling in the same direction it had been.
Jack was now looking at the front of the enemy claw flyer, which was still speeding after them while they coasted backwards.
“Have a taste of this,” he hissed under his breath, jamming his thumb down on the weapon’s trigger-button and holding it there.
The white energy erupted and launched out to strike the enemy craft squarely in the apex of the “claw.” It seemed like an eternity as Jack watched the energy flaring out, linking the two ships. Sheets of sizzling white fire crackled over the crystal surface of the enemy flyer.
Then, there was a brilliant flash of light, a shrill keening explosion, and the enemy craft split in two. The shattered halves of his opponent’s craft spun down to splash violently into the water below.
Jack spun their flyer around so that its fa
cing matched its heading. Now that they were facing forward again, he flared the rear jets and they surged ahead.
“That was a bit too desperate,” Jack said. “Sorry for that.”
But Ralley was smiling, that warm, commanding tone once more in his voice. “You did well, Jack. You fly this as if you were born to it. I owe you much.”
You fly this as if you were born to it. Ralley’s compliment nearly made Jack blush. Indeed, he felt a little giddy now that the danger had passed.
He had a new love, one that made him feel like a sixteen year-old lad in his first springtime romance. He was in love with flying, in love with this speedy little craft. And this was an affair that he wished could go on and on …
“That was a bit of luck, really,” he told Ralley, trying not to sound immodest. “It seems to take a sustained beam of that white fire to penetrate the shell of those crystal ships. I think the maneuver took him by surprise. These foes seem too used to playing predator, rather than prey.”
“But you saved us,” Ralley said. “Now it’s time to save her.”
Jack nodded. “We won’t fail your dear lady.”
He brought them up out of the valley, up above the river and the bordering cliffs. Now they headed out into the vast desert, speeding towards the shimmering horizon that stretched between yellow sands and the endless pale blue of the cloudless sky, flying in search of Ralley’s dream.
#
With his arms still tied behind him, Brace Aubren reclined on the bed, studying the veins of the red-brown rock in the chamber’s ceiling.
He was surprised that he was still alive. He had expected that the woman general would kill him, or leave that task to her men. But after she’d left, her men had treated his wound with some strange device of silver and black crystal, then bandaged him. Now, it barely hurt—though there was a stiffness in that shoulder and a distant throbbing.
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