Souldrifter

by Garrett Calcaterra

  Makarria forced herself to take a long breath. She had never threatened someone’s life like that before—she was horrified by her own actions, but at the same time, she loved her mother for striking the pompous fool Rubino. Indeed, she ached to turn this petty man into a roach and stomp on him. It would be easy to close her eyes and do so… No, she told herself. I’m not like Guderian. I can never do that. I must apply the laws fairly to everyone.

  “Guards,” Makarria said, summoning the most official tone of voice she could muster, “Take the Princess Prisca away and place her in a holding cell.”

  Prisca said nothing, nor did she look at Makarria as two guards ushered her away. Makarria was thankful for that. Her mother was as unaccustomed to court life as Makarria was, but she knew better than to undermine Makarria’s authority in front of retainers.

  Master Rubino bowed in thanks as Prisca was escorted away. “As I was saying, Your Majesty, if you ask for our trust, you must prove your maidenhood. The Brotherhood has an impartial physician who would be glad to examine you.”

  “No one will examine me, physician or otherwise,” Makarria said, unable to take the man’s insolence any further. There was a fine line between tolerance and weakness. “You have my word: I consorted with no one. This hearing is over. Be gone and be glad I have tolerated your false accusations.”

  The man nodded and turned away with the rest of his ilk from the Brotherhood, but Makarria knew this was not the end of the matter. Far from it. At best, Makarria had bought herself some time. At worst, she had added fuel to the rumors already gone rampant.

  She motioned for the herald to announce the end of the hearing, then stood and quickly exited back into the adjoining sitting room with Lorentz and Fina.

  “Lorentz, please go fetch Captain Haviero and meet us in the holding cells of the dungeon to release my mother,” she said. “Fina, come with me.”

  It was a short walk from the sitting room to the side passage and stairs that led to the subterranean dungeons below. In the last year, Makarria had sentenced more than a few of Don Bricio’s crime lords to make the very same walk to where they wasted away in the deepest, darkest of cells. Prisca was being held in the uppermost level of the dungeon, though, where the spacious cells were dry and well lit by lanterns.

  Makarria rushed to embrace her mother through the bars, when they reached her cell. “I’m so sorry, Mother.”

  Prisca smiled and ran one hand through Makarria’s hair. “Don’t be sorry. You did what was required of you as a queen. I did what was required of me as a mother.”

  Makarria smiled back. She wanted nothing more than to go with her mother and lie down for a nap, to sleep in her arms like she had when she was still just a little girl and they lived on their farm. For a while, at least, she wanted to forget about everything. But Makarria had to figure out what was going on and, more importantly, what she was going to do about it.

  Footsteps approached, and Makarria looked toward the stairs to see Lorentz with Captain Haviero.

  “Please release her, Captain Haviero, and escort her to her quarters.”

  “Of course.”

  The door opened with a squeal and Makarria hugged her mother again. “You best go with Captain Haviero now. I’ll come talk to you once I’ve taken care of some matters.”

  Prisca nodded and kissed her, then followed Captain Haviero back out the way they had come. Makarria lingered behind in the main corridor of the dungeon. Now she just needed to get Lorentz out of the way so she could talk to Fina in private.

  “This is as good a place to talk as any,” Makarria said. “Lorentz, did Caile make any more progress in the investigation of my assassination attempt?”

  “Not that I know of, Your Highness.”

  “I want you to check in the with the commander of the city watch again, then, and see if he’s turned up anything or identified any of the attackers’ bodies. I’m losing the faith of my people fast and need a victory here, even a small one. I need to put a face to our enemy. My guess is it’s the Old World that was behind the assassination, but we need some sort of proof before I can make an accusation publicly.”

  Lorentz nodded. “Distracting your people from one accusation with another is shrewd, Your Highness.”

  That was not something Lorentz would have ever said before, but Makarria kept her expression neutral. “I don’t care so much about being shrewd as getting to the bottom of what happened. Hurry now and see what you can find out. We’ve already wasted too much time today with that pointless hearing. Report back to me in my personal chambers if you find anything.”

  Lorentz bowed and trotted up the stairs and out of the dungeon. Makarria waited for the sound of his footsteps to dissipate before turning to Fina. “Come, let’s make sure all the cells on this level are empty and that we’re alone.”

  Together, they walked to the far end of the corridor to where another stairwell led down to the next level of the dungeon, checking to see that each cell was empty along the way. Satisfied they were alone, Makarria let out a relieved breath.

  “Finally,” she said. “I need you to tell me again every detail of what you saw last night, Fina. There’s something else going on that we’re not seeing, and I’m fairly certain Lorentz is involved. And now that I have a moment to really think about it, perhaps the Old World, too. The timing of Caile’s assault on me—coming right after the attempt on my life, and my refusal of Senator Emil’s offer—all seems a little too convenient. There has to be something more to it than a simple drug in my wine. Caile wouldn’t have done what he did of his own accord, even drugged. And why summon my attendants unless they were there to witness what happened and spread the word?”

  Fina narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you’re right. How did I not see it before? Last night, everything happened so quickly, so precisely, it had to be coordinated. When Prince Caile left your room the first time, he was fine, I’m sure of it. Perhaps tired, but fine. I was thinking to myself how obvious it was he cared for you. Then, maybe an hour later, he returned and his demeanor was different. He did not seem drunk, and he was in your room for no more than a minute or two before the servants arrived. It had to have been carefully timed. But by whom? What did Caile tell you in private? Anything?”

  Makarria shrugged. “He couldn’t remember much, but when I pressed him, he said he remembered lying down on the bed and looking up at himself.”

  Fina’s face blanched.

  “What?” Makarria asked.

  “What did Caile say exactly?”

  Makarria furrowed her brow, trying to recall the exact words of the conversation. “He said he was lying down and saw his body sitting next to him. And then the body stood up and looked at him.”

  Fina closed her eyes and shook her head. “Sweet Vala, I’m such a fool.”

  “What is it, Fina? What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve seen something like what the prince speaks of once,” Fina said, but then went silent. Her eyes became unfocused and she strode to one of the nearby cells and peered inside.

  Makarria’s pulse quickened with apprehension. “You saw what, exactly?”

  Fina turned to Makarria, her eyes wide. She spoke in barely a whisper. “It was in Khal-Aband. One of the guards was in my cell, having his way with me. Thon had tried to chase him off, but the guard beat him senseless and I knew better than to struggle. This guard was on me, saying horrible things, trying to make me angry, but I went to the far away place in my mind… and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t in my mind in anymore. I was on top, looking down on myself, while my hips—my male loins—thrust back and forth into the real me. My own face looked up at me and smiled. I tried to scream, but then I was looking up at the guard again from my own body, and I bit my tongue. I always thought it was madness, my mind struggling to cope…”

  The hair at the nape of Makarria’s neck was standing on end. She grabbed Fina’s arm. “This guard—do you remember what he looked like?”

  Fina shook her
head. “No, it was dark, and I made a point of not taking notice of his face. I only remember the change, when I was looking at my own face.”

  Makarria turned away, the pieces falling into place: the sunken skiff on the western shore of the Spine, the strange incident with Lorentz and the prison guard in Khal-Aband, Lorentz’s subsequent odd behavior, and Taera’s visions of warning that Lorentz had died. Lorentz hadn’t been acting himself, because he wasn’t himself. He was… she didn’t know what, but if anyone did, it would be her tutor Natale.

  “Come, quickly,” Makarria said, grabbing Fina by the arm. “We have to hurry to the library before Lorentz returns.”

  11

  Machines of War

  Natarios Rhodas listened intently while the sorcerer’s guildmaster and steam-engineer’s guildmaster took turns questioning Lord Nagel. In the year past, the two of them had always been at odds, yet now they seemed to be in agreement, almost as if they were working in rehearsed tandem. Rives has both of them in his pocket, Natarios noted. And poor old Nagel is taking a flogging because he’s not part of the plan.

  “Furthermore,” the sorcerer’s guildmaster was saying, “what assurance can you give us that you are capable of re-integrating sorcerers into a viable arm of the Sargothian workforce? If I’m not mistaken, when you were last in charge of anything of importance, the mighty Trumball and the entirety of the sorcerer’s guild were murdered.”

  The look of utter contempt Lord Nagel gave the man almost made Natarios laugh out loud. The old statesman wasn’t cut out for this modern sort of deceitful politics, and he made no effort at hiding it.

  “Sargoth’s hairy arse,” Nagel growled. “Were you kicked in the head by a mule? That was Emperor Guderian himself who killed Trumball and all the others. It was beyond my control. Beyond anyone’s control. Suggesting I had any responsibility for what happened is moronic.”

  “I must agree with Lord Nagel,” Lady Hildreth said. “What is the point of this constant misdirection in your line of questioning, guildmasters? Lord Nagel is the only candidate here who ever actually served this kingdom before sorcery was outlawed. Re-integrating sorcery into Sargothian life is an unknown for all of us.”

  “And why must you attack every one of our questions directed at the candidates?” Ambassador Rives asked Lady Hildreth. “We simply want to know what Lord Nagel’s plan is.”

  Lady Hildreth put her hands on the table. Natarios could tell she was on the verge of standing up in protest, so he rapped his gavel on the table to put an end to the bickering before it went further. “Enough. Enough. We’re almost out of time for the day as it is. Lord Nagel, if you would, please elaborate on your plan to integrate sorcery into Sargothian commerce.”

  Nagel cleared his throat and began his lengthy answer, which was much the same as what he had said during his initial presentation earlier that day. To be honest, though, Natarios was beyond caring at this point and hardly paid attention. Based on what he’d seen, Nagel had no chance of threatening Lord Kobel’s candidacy for the throne. Ambassador Rives had too many voting members in his pockets and he’d put them into action, largely cutting Natarios out of the loop altogether.

  The conversation he’d had with Rives the day before had begun to worry Natarios, even before the day’s proceedings. If the Old World was the financial force behind this election as Rives had alluded to, why hadn’t Natarios been contacted directly? He was the one in charge of the voting process, not Rives, not King Lorimer of Golier. The answer to that question was obvious enough to Natarios, and that’s why he was worried: if the Old World wasn’t making him part of their plans now, they had no plans for him in the future either. That simply wouldn’t do. It was time for Natarios to ensure the vacant throne would only be won with his assistance, and, more importantly, with his guaranteed position of privilege when the new king was elected.

  His mind made up, Natarios banged his gavel, thanked Lord Nagel for the presentation of his claim to the throne, and adjourned the meeting. As the council members and candidates began filing out, he strode over to the sole female in the room, the one who up to this point had been the biggest thorn in his side since Talitha’s impeachment.

  “Lady Hildreth,” he said with an ingratiating smile, “I was wondering if you would have a word in private with me?”

  She looked up at him in surprise from where she still sat at the table. Even better, Natarios could see out of the corner of his eye that Ambassador Rives was gawking at him. Just as he had hoped.

  “It’s in regard to Guderian’s war machine factories and the continued welfare of the city,” Natarios continued, speaking loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

  “Yes, of course,” Lady Hildreth said, gathering her things. “Just give me a moment.”

  Natarios bowed and stepped aside to give her space to stand, smiling inwardly. Excellent. Let everyone else worry about me now and what I’m up to for a change.

  • • •

  Even having heard the foreman’s bi-daily reports, Taera was surprised by the progress the shipbuilders had made. In only two days’ time they had turned the royal shipbuilding hangar into an airship-building hangar. Already, the rigid framework of one airship was complete—looking more like a giant whale’s ribcage than the frame of a ship—and workers were overlaying the tar-sealed canvas shell that would trap in the buoyant ether being generated in another facility at the opposite end of Kal Pyrthin.

  “It’s amazing,” said Master Elias, the elderly man accompanying Taera who was responsible for the airship design in the first place.

  “I’ll save my praise until I actually see them flying, but I agree, the first one looks tremendous so far,” Taera said, smiling for him. The truth was, the airships were only one of many concerns she had at the moment, but she needn’t burden Elias with her worries. The man deserved his moment of joy after all he had been through.

  He was a Pyrthinian-born metallurgist, the best Kal Pyrthin had ever seen, but Emperor Guderian had stolen him away three years prior and forced him into servitude to consult on the construction of Guderian’s steam-powered war wagons. Guderian had never trusted him, and eventually—once the war wagon factory and smelters were operational—he was imprisoned. It was Makarria who had freed him, along with dozens of other prisoners Guderian had locked away in Lightbringer’s Keep, including Lorentz. In Elias’s case, Guderian had been right not to trust him. Quite by accident, Elias had discovered a valuable byproduct of the ether used to fuel the streetlamps of Col Sargoth and Guderian’s smelting factories. After the flammable part of the ether was burned away, a portion of the exhaust was lighter than air itself. All one needed to do was filter out the noxious fumes and this alpha-ether, as Master Elias called it, could be used to levitate an airship far better than heated air could—which was how Siegbjorn’s airship floated.

  Elias had kept all this secret from Guderian, but happily divulged the details to Taera after returning to Kal Pyrthin. Taera saw the potential in Elias’s discovery immediately. Unlike Makarria, Taera felt there was no going back to the golden age of the Five Kingdoms, where nature, sorcery, and manual labor worked in balanced harmony. For better or worse, the technology Guderian had brought about was here to stay, and Taera wasn’t about to let Pyrthinia get left behind.

  Nine months before, Master Elias had helped her engineers find pockets of subterranean ether in the southern reaches of the Barrier Mountains. It had taken two months to construct the mining apparatus to extract and transport the ether, and then it was a two-week long voyage for each massive storage cylinder by barge down the Highland River to the River Kylep and then to Kal Pyrthin where Taera’s new smelting factory was being built. Initially, her plan had been to use the ether to power the smelting factory and start producing a new iron alloy Elias had designed. The ether would be far cleaner than the coal and ether mixture Guderian had used in his smelting factories, and the new industry would provide jobs for the struggling working class in Col Sargoth, not to men
tion a whole slew of superior iron products to export. The exhaust byproduct of the process, the alpha-ether, would simply be stored for a year or two until Taera was ready to start building the airships, a new industry in itself, she envisioned—a way to strengthen her navy and transport goods and people across the Five Kingdoms far faster than any mode of transportation the world had ever seen before.

  But her plans had all changed the moment she spoke with Makarria through the scent-hound. The Old World Republic was on the verge of invading, and this time Taera vowed to hold the technological advantage. She had seen firsthand how Guderian’s war wagons devastated her Pyrthinian cavalry and ground troops—she would not allow that to happen again. So she had ordered Elias to finalize his airship design for combat, and the incomplete smelting factory was put into service to burn off ether. It was a horrible waste of the flammable portion, as the factory forges were not yet operational, but Taera needed the alpha-ether for those airships. Her goal was to have seven of them completed within the week to set sail with her naval fleet and create a blockade from Spearpoint Rock out three hundred miles into the Esterian Ocean. Or six of the ships, at least, would head out with the navy. The other ship was designated for another, equally important, task.

  “Is the shell going to give you problems where it’s split around the outriggers?” Elias asked the shipbuilding foreman.

  “Not at all. The shell has been reinforced with multiple layers of canvas, which we’ll tack and seal with tar individually to the framework. It’ll be plenty strong and leak proof, I’m certain.”

  Taera watched silently as the foreman pointed to where outriggers for the horizontally opposed sails protruded in a v-shape from both sides of the airship frame. Unless Elias curbs his curious tongue, this is when I get in trouble, she realized.

  “And what of the ether rotor engines?” Elias asked. “The specs are finalized. You’ll be able fit the apparatus in the aft portions of all the airships?”