by Martin Kee
She held the ring in her hand. The surface along the sides displayed a decorative pattern, which twisted up to the wide plate on top. The centerpiece was of a man’s face, screaming, a fist emerging from deep within his throat. Some of the recesses in the engraving were crusted with what could have been dirt or dried blood.
She looked at Marley and then scrambled back to her rucksack where she pulled out a dusty length of twine. She fashioned a necklace and dropped it over her head. The weight of the ring pressed against her chest.
“Make sure people can see it.” He gave the makeshift necklace an appraising look.
“What’s it from?”
“It’s a fighter’s ring,” he said, no pride in his voice. “Only two ways you’d have that ring—if I gave it to you, or you killed me. Either way, it should keep away trouble… probably keep the vendors honest as well.”
He said the last part with a smile. From this distance, Skyla could see the way his skin wrinkled around the eyes and mouth. She suspected he was older than he looked.
“How long have you lived out here?” she asked.
“I’d say long enough.”
Skyla narrowed her eyes. “How old are you?”
He grinned again, silver canine glinting from beneath the mustache. “I stopped counting.”
Skyla put on her coat and felt the weight of the ancient rusted coin bounce in the pocket. She had all but forgotten about it since it fell out of the goggles days ago. Maybe that’s worth something too, she thought.
Marley’s voice trailed behind her. “Don’t be too late. And be careful who you talk to… and stay away from the docks…”
“Okay, okay,” she said rushing through the room.
“Oh, when you get back, we should teach you how to fight.”
She turned to face him from the door as Orrin landed on her shoulder. He stood behind the counter, searching for something to keep busy with, looking smaller now in the vast, empty tavern. It was the first time Skyla had seen the big man look so lonely. She didn’t have to read his shadow to see that.
*
She smelled Lassimir before she saw it. A heady mixture of scents wafted through the thick trees as Skyla rounded a bend. She stopped, catching her breath. She hadn’t expected something so big.
Below the cliff where she stood, stretched a random, brilliant tapestry. Tents of every shape, size, and color jutted up against one another like patches in an enormous quilt, reaching for miles in every direction. It sprawled along the river in a fluid, wild pattern. Tents several stories high rocked gently in the breeze, streaming flags and patchwork canvas windmills, which powered pumps and belts below. There were a couple of tin-roof shanty houses on the outskirts of the city limits, but the vast majority of structures weren’t buildings at all. In fact, the entire city looked as though it could be packed up and moved into the forest at a moment’s notice.
Far off in the distance was the Lassimir River, stretching on for miles. Dozens of flat, wide ships drifted to the port on the far side of the city, flashing their lanterns as they approached. Defense towers made of steel and concrete rose from the water at regular intervals, stretching across the width of the river, connected by wood and steel bridges. They flared out at the top, providing a platform for guards, which manned the semaphore lanterns. All up and down the length of the towers were scavenged cannons and ballistae, enough to destroy any approaching ship that didn’t respond with the correct code.
She stood above the city for a long time, simply trying to wrap her mind around it, both intimidated and fascinated by its size. Smells of meats and ovens rode along the ubiquitous plumes of smoke, which coursed through the alleys and over the canopies. Shops were so crowded together it was impossible to see any roads, just rivers of people.
“How do they even know where they are?” she asked Orrin.
He chirped a response in her ear.
Bollingbrook ran on a regimented hierarchy; every citizen knew his or her place, what wedge to avoid, and what ring to stay in. The city-state was a neatly divided wheel of ordered social and economic engineering. In Bollingbrook, Skyla knew her place all too well, but here, the ebb and flow of Lassimir was absolute chaos.
She stopped at a checkpoint upon entering the city. A pair of guards asked if she was a citizen, to which she replied she was not. One of the guards had a thick book and took down her name. Their uniforms were a comical mix of wood, metal and leather. They looked like time travelers from different eras that had gone into business as greeters for a carnival.
Neither of them gave Orrin a second glance and Skyla soon realized why; people everywhere had ornamental animals. Some wore snakes around their necks and waists; others had rats or lizards in their pockets. Skyla even saw a man with a squirrel on his shoulder. One man covered in scars stood naked from the waist up, holding a pair of hyenas by a chain. Skyla kept a wary distance as his speck-like eyes followed her. She was glad she didn’t wear the goggles. Several people looked as though they would have little problem lopping off her head to attain them.
The “streets” were as crowded as The Skunk on a busy night, but smelled worse; the alleyways were lined with dark, mud-clogged gutters. Many vendors had no tents at all and simply carried their stores on their backs, mounted on poles and ropes. One vendor passed her smelling of spices and tea which hung in pouches from a leather canopy over his head. If he had not been moving, Skyla would have mistaken him for a part of the scenery.
There were shops for talismans, fabrics, guns, glass vials overflowing with strange potions, bones, skins, relics of strange flaky green boards, a filigree of copper decorating their surface. She passed clock stores selling strange astronomical devices and windup constructs. She passed paddocks of chickens, horses, capybaras, rabbits and goats.
A glass blower winked at her as a glowing bulb of molten glass ballooned out the end of his pipe, spinning in a circle as it grew. A knife vendor yelled at her to come buy a dagger. He impaled a wooden dummy a few times at one wall in an attempt to impress her.
Everyone knew Marley, many of them asking about him, but the ring failed to intimidate all of them. One vendor muttered that Mad Marley would never come down from his tavern in a million years. He laughed when Skyla tried to use the ring as a bargaining tool.
“What’s he going to do? Refuse me a drink because I offered you a fair price?”
Other people regarded the ring with awe. At a hat store, she turned to see a man reaching for her, only to freeze when he caught a glimpse of the ring. He scrambled from the shop, knocking over a fitting dummy as he ran.
She turned from the fleeing man to see, up on a high shelf, a pair of goggles similar to hers, but missing the lenses. They were rusted beyond repair.
“Where did you get those?” she asked the vendor.
“Those old things?” he said, looking up as if he had forgotten all about them. “Salvage from Rhinewall. We get a lot of discarded trinkets from that place. Nobody seems to ever hold onto anything there.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “People just don’t seem to care for stuff. Do I look like I know? Now do you want to buy them or not?”
Her feet ached in her shoes as she considered the purchase, the coin purse feeling heavy in her pocket. She thanked him for his time and left before she could reconsider.
Sensory overload took its toll quickly and Skyla lost track of time, distracted by the sea of shops and merchants. It wasn’t until a small capybara—one of six in a herd—stepped on her foot that she remembered why she had come there in the first place. The sun seemed low and Skyla realized that she had wasted most of her day gawking at the scenery and shops.
Shoe and clothing mongers were not hard to find as cloth signs cluttered the air above her head, competing for real estate. She was dismayed to find the pants she wanted ended up costing her half her coins. A shirt ended up costing half that.
At this rate I won’t have enough to buy shoes.
She foun
d a shoe store at the end of an alleyway behind a pen of noisy peahens. A group of raggedy boys loitered outside, their eyes following her as she entered.
A portly cobbler greeted her and offered her a pair of boots that seemed rugged enough for what she needed, but when she handed him the coins Marley gave her, the merchant said that she was short.
“That should be enough,” she said, pointing at the coins, doing her best to flash the ring to no effect.
“No,” said the man with a thick accent, shaking his head. “Not enough.”
Skyla sighed and felt the heavy weight of the large, ancient coin in her pocket. Well, she thought, I guess now is the time to see how much this thing is worth.
Lassimir seemed to be a barter economy for the most part. Maybe she would end up coming back around to the coin in the near future.
“How much is this worth?” she asked, showing him the thick coin.
The man looked at it with ravenous curiosity and reached with grimy fingers to touch it. As he did, Skyla felt the same subtle vibration from before, an electrical shock. If the cobbler felt it also, his face didn’t show any sign.
“Dis good,” he said, nodding. “Dis and money.”
He plucked the coin from her hands along with her remaining cash and Skyla’s heart sank. The man pocketed it, separate from the bills and other currency.
It must have been way more valuable than I expected, she chided herself. I am a rube.
However, wearing boots that didn’t feel as though they might fall apart was amazing in its own way, and after a few steps, Skyla felt energized by walking as opposed to feeling discomfort at every step. She left the cobbler’s store, glancing back for only a moment. She sighed, and then felt a clunk in her pocket along with a sudden weight. She dipped a hand into the pouch and pulled out the coin.
She blinked at it stupidly and then looked back into the tent again. The cobbler was at a tiny desk, recording something in a ledger by lamplight. He seemed completely oblivious to what had happened.
I should buy another pair of shoes and see, she mused, but a voice in her mind told she shouldn’t press her luck.
The coin had varied effects on the other merchants, some of them taking it with interest, while others simply said it was worthless. Every time she would spend it, there would be the tiniest shock. The merchant would take the coin, and then as soon as Skyla would step foot out of the store, the coin would go “thunk” right back into her pocket. Every merchant who took the coin looked as though they were getting the bargain of a lifetime. None of them seemed to remember the transaction afterwards.
So this is what it feels like to have money, she thought as she stepped from a tent, wearing new pants and shirt. Both were clad with pockets and straps. The familiar weight in her pocket told her the coin had reappeared.
The wealth felt powerful, even if it was only illusion. Skyla wondered if this is what it was like for Dona and Vicky, whom money was never an issue. They could walk into any store in the world and simply walk out with whatever they wanted.
How do people like that ever value anything, she thought.
Leaving the city for the day, giddy with wealth, Skyla passed a girl pleading with the guards. Her head was covered in a black cloak, the hem of a yellow dress peeking out at the bottom. She stood next to a wicker cage containing half a dozen pigeons.
“Please,” the young woman said. “My pigeons are excellent for pets or meat. Can’t I stay for one night? A voucher perhaps?”
“What do you say, Isef?” one guard joked. “Offer her a voucher for the night.”
“I’ll vouch for her when you can guarantee my wife won’t feed me my own manhood in the morning.”
The men continued to laugh as Skyla hurried by, barely noticing the girl’s high Bollingbrook accent. She was out of earshot before Isef asked the girl her name.
Chapter 11
“What’s the range on this bird?” Lyle asked.
He was seated in the passenger side of the aerolore cockpit behind a bubble of tinted glass. The enormous helium bag behind and above them made occasional hissing sounds as gas was channeled into compartments to balance the floating ship’s attitude. Propellers mounted on all sides of the vehicle whirred in concert with the helium exchange, giving the airship the appearance of an overweight bee.
“The chemical charge lasts about two hours, give or take,” the pilot replied while at once managing a cluster of levers, straps and knobs. “And this is a light load.”
“What’s a heavy load?” he asked. “We’ve only been up for—”
A red light labeled EMERGENCY BATTERY flickered overhead. A small buzzer called out in alarm. The pilot reached up above Lyle’s head and flipped a switch, extinguishing it. “You can see, we’re already into backup power. We’ll have to land soon.”
They were positioned over a manmade waterfall that dumped into a gorge below. A maintenance gate had been opened nearly a week ago, around the same time that Lyle was lecturing to young Charlie Wilcox about the dangers of witches and their pets.
“You can’t just extend the battery storage?” Lyle asked.
The pilot shook his head, enveloped in an elaborate helmet. “No sir. It would add another ton or two. At that point the ship would lose agility and lift.”
“But surely larger airships have been tried,” Lyle said. What is this place living in, the stone ages? “People use zeppelins to cross the oceans.”
The pilot cracked a grin, the only part of his face that was visible below the goggles, tubes and knobs. “Well sir, with all due respect, the oceans don’t fight back. We’ve lost fifteen of our fleet in there.”
“Fifteen? What happened to them?”
The pilot shrugged. “They just never return.”
There was an awkward silence, just the humming of engines. The pilot continued. “Aerolores are the best option for local patrols and that’s what we use them for. They’re light, maneuverable, and you can shield them somewhat underneath.”
“What with?”
The pilot pointed a gloved hand out the bulging window. “Down there, those slots are for basic small arms protection. We use a lightweight armor and attach it in slabs underneath. You’ve seen the armor we make?”
“Indeed I have.”
“Same material. It’s lighter than steel, but it reduces the range even further.”
Lyle Summers looked out across the landscape some of the residents called The Wilds and wondered what the hell people were so scared of; it was just forest and fog. A green carpet of trees rolled over hills, gradually breaking up into more jagged mountains just before the river and coast. Somewhere deep within was Lassimir.
“This ship, she was made in Bollingbrook?” he asked the pilot.
“Yes sir,” said the pilot proudly. “We manufactured almost seventy percent of the vehicles used in the last Crusades.”
“I bet the treaty really stung,” Lyle said.
“It did, sir. Put a lot of factory men out of work, but it looks like production is finally picking up,” he added. “I’m not sure what you’ve done exactly, Reverend, but a lot of my friends are glad to have work again.”
“Well, son,” the Reverend Summers said. “I’m just trying to make things right by the Lord. You boys do your job in the field, and I’ll make sure you have plenty of work to come home to.”
The airship rose above the copper wall, just in time to catch the sunset reflecting off the vast city walls, dividing it into neat slices. At the center, taller than any other building, the archdiocese cathedral stabbed defiantly at the sky, its golden crosses ablaze in the dying sunlight.
*
Father John Thomas sat in the waiting room, looking at the rich oak walls of the archbishop’s office. The finely detailed carvings stared down at him in silent judgment, biblical stories carved on their surface.
After a few moments the double doors opened, but not completely. A page slipped out from the crack and strode across the rich red carpet. The
boy wore a red and cream smock and matching skullcap. He approached Father Thomas with his hands together, hidden in the flowing sleeves. His face bore a confused look.
“Father Thomas?” he said. “The archbishop told me to ask you if you ‘came to see the archbishop, or if you came to see Christ?’”
John laughed, only adding to the young man’s befuddlement. “Tell the archbishop that if I were here to see Christ, he wouldn’t be the archbishop,” John said.
The page turned perplexed and ducked back through the door. A moment later, he returned, opened the doors fully and invited John into the chamber, a miniature chapel with its arched ceiling and ornate candelabras. John walked down the aisle toward the balding figure at the desk. The face that looked up was older but still familiar. It cracked into a smile and John noted the laugh lines that had become more defined over the years.
“When he said ‘Father Thomas’ I almost forgot he was talking about you.” The archbishop rose from his chair and greeted John with a warm embrace and a slap on the shoulder. “I somehow thought you’d be laying low, letting Gladwell handle your sermons. Some of the parishioners still aren’t happy about that whole incident.”
“Well, the deacons can scream about it all they want,” said John. “So this Reverend Summers—” He had barely gotten the words out before Christopher raised a hand.
“I already know what you are going to say,” the archbishop said. “And I thought my letter made it clear. You are welcome to complain all you want between friends, but as far as anything else is concerned, it’s very much out of my hands.”
“He’s here on behalf of the Vatican?”
“He practically is the Vatican as far as we are concerned,” Boroughs said. “I’ve been contacted by so many cardinals over this, you’d think I was Pope.”
“He seems to be fairly obsessed with finding the girl,” John said. “I expect any day he’ll start interviewing my deacons… not that they would mind at all. I’m sure they’d be happy to share their side of things, skewed as it is.” John winced at the bitterness in his own voice.