by Jason Letts
The unsettling nature of her companions’ work encouraged Tris to keep her distance from them as best she could. She’d heard stories about what went on in the far west but had never imagined it would be like this. They didn’t have an ounce of remorse over what had happened.
Hours of sailing passed, and they returned to their bunks sporadically when they felt like sleeping off the rest of the cycle, Tris finally turning in when the exhaustion overtook her. But she awoke sometime later to the thumping of sex not two feet from her bunk. A man and a woman were fully engaged on the floor, not a speck of clothes on them. Tris rolled over, ruing that she’d looked and wishing she could seal her ears to block the sounds out.
The next cycle began with the sun sinking in the sky ahead. After the next one they’d be in for the long darkness, and Tris felt deep discomfort at the thought of what might go on around there when the sun vanished for a hundred hours.
“We eat,” Lux said, offering her another big green sweet pepper, and the hunger ravaging Tris brought her shunning to an end. She sunk her teeth into it and gave him a wary look, but perhaps she was wrong to hold his way of life against him. Maybe the constant threat of death was closer to how the world really was, and she was the one who had managed to live outside of the norm.
“So what today, more killing?” Tris asked him point-blank, but Lux treated it like she’d asked about the weather.
“No, not today,” he said, though his recent behavior had eroded her trust.
Still in charge of the compass, Tris made sure they were headed in the direction of another cluster of islands that had more smoke and more inhabitants. A few other ships, all of which were much larger than the schooner, patrolled the area, giving Tris reason to wonder if they were approaching a more civilized area.
As they came around the side of an island, large buildings of mortar and uneven brick came into view, some waving the blood red flag of the Copian nation, which bore a squid strangling a whale. But the schooner passed on to an island within shouting distance of the previous one, settling into an alcove near a massive thatched roof providing shade for dozens of people.
A few motorized boats jostled against a dock and a skewered boar turned on a spit above a roaring fire. People, some of them even wearing shirts with buttons, walked around holding colorful drinks. Tris rubbed her eyes in astonishment. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought this was a party.
But the crew members still had all their weapons on them when they prepared to row to shore.
“We go,” Lux said, gesturing to Tris to climb aboard the rowboat. Without much choice, she took a spot near the back and hoped for the best. Grimy and shaken, she couldn’t believe she still worried about what she looked like after all that had happened.
Once they reached the shore and approached the wide roof, the soft grass and the relaxed partygoers made Tris feel like she had stepped into another world. Near one of the thick wooden beams someone strummed a stringed instrument, the sounds mixed with laughter and several different languages. Thick chunks of pineapple sat in hanging baskets waiting to be eaten.
The pillagers immediately fanned out, some of them going for the food and others calling out to friends, while Tris concentrated on priority number one. Sidling up to various conversations, she listened for the familiar sounds of Cumerian in the hopes of finding someone who could help her get home.
She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she recognized five distinct languages, none of which she understood. Most of the time she grinned like an idiot and moved on if someone tried to say something to her. After circling the tented area twice and filling her stomach with pineapple, identifying a single person who could understand Cumerian seemed like a lost cause.
Arms crossed, she sulked back to Lux, who was greedily eyeing the roasting pig.
“I’m never going to get home, am I?” she asked, and Lux gave her a sympathetic shrug. “How did you learn Cumerian, anyway?”
“I did trading in the delta,” he answered. That was down south near Lynxstra, where Taylor would be starting school soon. She hoped her family was doing something to find her, because not being able to see Taylor, Sierra, Randall, and Lowell again would be worse than anything.
“Nobody else here seems to be able to speak it,” she muttered.
“He speaks,” Lux added, pointing to a dark man with glasses who was deep in conversation with another islander. He had on clean cream-colored clothes and sandals, but even from where she stood Tris could tell he wasn’t speaking Cumerian. Having no choice but to try, she approached him right after his partner left.
“Excuse me,” she said, reaching for his arm to get his attention.
“Hmm?”
“Do you speak Cumerian?” she asked, desperate to get through to someone. The man squinted and looked her over.
“Little, little,” he said, which at the moment seemed like an awful lot.
“Can you help me? I need to get to Cumeria…or the airport near the Iron City,” she explained slowly.
The man nodded and looked over Tris’s shoulder. Twisting, she saw Lux walking over to join them, and the two men spoke volumes in just a few moments and concluded their conversation with a handshake.
“I help,” he said to her at last, and the big grin that grew across his face proved infectious. It turned out his name was Zandy, and he had a ship of his own that was leaving in just a few hours to take him back to the mainland.
Tris felt giddy to the point of lightheadedness. After the ship dropped her near the airport, flying home would be a snap and all of this would be over. The remainder of the party proved to be entertaining, as well. Once she’d moved her luggage onto the other ship and rejoined the festivities, a woman carrying a baby taught her a few words of Copian. But soon enough it came time to set sail and say goodbye to Lux.
He did deserve some thanks for all he’d saved her from, even if he was nearly as bad as the hooded man who couldn’t be forgotten.
“I might actually miss you,” Tris admitted to Lux, standing on the end of a long dock next to Zandy’s galleon.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because you’ve done a lot for me and I won’t ever see you again,” she answered, but Lux shook his head and laughed.
“Not yet,” he added, taking a few steps up the plank toward the ship’s deck. “We go.”
“Oh, you’re coming, too? OK, great!” she said, hiking up the plank and joining him onboard, where she found a room of her own waiting for her below deck and even some cozy linens.
The voyage proved to be comfortable, except for one nagging detail.
“I think the Iron City is farther north than we’re headed,” Tris said to Zandy, showing him the ship’s compass. It showed them tilting only slightly northward from a westward course.
“It’s OK,” the man answered, smiling and pinching his forefinger and thumb together. There was nothing more for Tris to say, and she assumed they’d turn north later.
But just before the darkness took hold, she spotted land on the horizon as well as a massive city that swept up a gradual hillside and seemed to extend for miles. As best she could tell, this wasn’t the Iron City, meaning it had to be one of the poor cities of Horux or Madora. Continuing on course, it became clear this was their destination. Neither of those cities had an airport, and if they did they’d be mobbed with people trying to get away.
“I thought we were going to the Iron City,” Tris growled at Lux, who was using a scope to watch another large galleon sailing toward the docks.
“It’s OK,” Lux said, fueling Tris’s anger. It seemed everyone knew just enough Cumerian to brush her off.
“No, it’s not. I need to get home and Zandy said he could help. But coming here isn’t going to help me!”
The crushing feeling was enough to make her cry, but she knew she would find a way to survive it. With the money she had, she could buy her way north to the Iron City. She’d buy a plane with all the money Lowell
gave her and wouldn’t listen to a word if he gave her any grief over it.
“We help,” he said, patting her on the shoulder, but she brushed him off.
She tried to hold her head high as they docked and the sailors began to unload cargo. This would be one more inconvenience she would have to live through, but at least it would put her one step closer to getting home.
It startled her when Zandy and Lux approached her together. The lanterns and torches added something daunting to their faces, reminding her of how little power she actually had.
“It’s time,” Lux said, nudging her toward the plank that would take her down to the dock.
“Time for what?” she asked, but received no answer. Letting them accompany her, she made it to the bottom and turned right, where there seemed to be a small fish market operating down the dock. But Zandy caught her arm and tugged her left, down a darker vacant stretch.
Tris’s nerves flared. She tried asking again but never got a response from their stony countenances. They turned down a long smelly alley, pushing her more roughly than she would’ve liked. Thoughts of running or crying out came to her, but where would she go? Who would understand her?
The end of the alley opened into a cobblestone courtyard lit only by lantern light filtering through covered windows in the surrounding buildings. Why did all of the people here use sheets to cover the windows from the inside? What didn’t they want to see? Lux and Zandy stopped behind her, leaving her to face what was otherwise a desolate space where not a plant grew.
Opening her mouth to ask for help, Tris quickly held her breath as a figure emerged on the other side of the courtyard. The shape of the billowy clothes gave him away at once: it was the cloaked man from the rowboat, and his hood hung low over his eyes, leaving only prickly stubble around a mouth and nose. It sent a chill down her spine.
Tris turned to run back but collided with Lux’s gun, which he pointed directly at her chest. She backed up a little, beside herself with the position she was in.
“What are you doing?” she gushed, desperate. How had she come so far only to be brought right to the killer who had put her life in jeopardy?
Lux smiled.
“We helped you as best we could. Now we expect payment for it,” he said, speaking in much better Cumerian than he’d ever shown before.
His gun wasn’t pointed at her chest; instead Lux aimed directly at the pouch of money hidden underneath her shirt. Tris puzzled about why he’d waited so long if he only intended to rob her. Did he only just find out about her money, or was he waiting to get Zandy involved? Or did he really expect to be paid for dumping her on shore?
Tris narrowed her eyes as Lux massaged the trigger.
CHAPTER 8
Wandering through the back alleys of Ristle at night carried a twenty-four percent chance of getting attacked. The city magistrates had announced a sweep through the streets to purge undesirables creeping in from the slums, and Sierra had spent more than an hour stalking through the city’s darkest corners after the old foreign woman and her unbelievable winged lizard. After spending the day making fruitless calls to help her father, she needed to succeed in doing something good for someone.
The old woman had a terrible habit of moving around, requiring Sierra to brave the streets to give her a few coins and glimpse the tiny dragon. Every cycle Sierra expected to find her dead somewhere among the other corpses she spotted, but the old woman was either very good at hiding or had some serious protection. Neither would save her from the magistrates’ sweep.
Coughing interrupted the steady rhythm of Sierra’s clacking heels, and she started down another back alley, where she found the old woman huddled against a loading dock behind a store. Neon light from a sign gave her face a macabre red tint. The dragon was nowhere to be seen.
“Come with me.” Sierra forced the frail wretch onto her feet and guided her back to safer streets. Perhaps the woman still didn’t trust Sierra, despite all the money she’d received, but the city sweep left them with no other choice. The sight of an attractive young woman in business attire nearly carrying a smelly beggar woman in the shabbiest of rags stirred some puzzled glances, but together they made it into Sierra’s building and up to her apartment.
Sierra got the door open and set her new ward on the couch, barely turning around before the woman broke into a nasty coughing fit. Cringing, Sierra pondered whether she could be taken to the city’s medical racket, the only sector of the economy that made Ralph Fiori’s ruthless litigation firm look like a little girl’s tea party.
Once the old woman had a blanket on her and some bread to nibble on, she settled down enough that the hazy look in her eyes started to vanish. Time passed, and Sierra succumbed to the desire to ask the question pounding inside her head.
“Where is the dragon?” she asked, the excitement forcing a grin onto her face. She kneeled down beside the woman and fluttered her fingertips to imitate wings. The old woman finally nodded.
“Nemi,” she wheezed, and almost immediately a lump formed underneath the blanket that zigzagged up to her neck. The creature peeked out and crawled onto her shoulder, extending its tiny wings and peering at Sierra. Its thick, bulbous hide recalled that of a horned toad, but the silver color and the tough-looking pads on its feet were unique.
And this thing was living under her roof now.
Unable to restrain herself, Sierra cupped her hand and extended it closer, hoping the dragon would hop right in and make itself at home. The old woman appeared comfortable for the first time Sierra had ever seen and whispered something over her shoulder that caused the dragon to leap into her hand.
The warm sensation was immediate, followed by the scratchy roughness of its padded feet. But what really struck Sierra was the hint of intelligence in the creature’s eyes. When she stared at it, it stared right back. Slowly holding it up to the light, she watched it shake its wings and emit a quick, sharp cry. The wonder and curiosity of it managed to fully force worries of her father’s investigation from her mind.
In an instant, the dragon skittered off the side of her hand, awkwardly beating its wings as it floated toward the door, where some exposed concrete formed an entryway.
“No!” Sierra called, thinking the dragon would slip through the crack underneath the door and escape, but what actually happened was much more alarming. When the dragon hit the floor, an explosion of dust and rock launched it into the air, and the old woman came out of nowhere to catch it. The bang knocked Sierra off her feet, and she spit to get the dust out of her mouth.
“What was that?” Sierra gasped, waiting for the dust to clear. The entire building must’ve heard the noise. Rubbing her eyes, Sierra got up and spotted a crater in the concrete about six inches deep. “My landlord is not going to like that.”
A coating of dust covered everything in the living room, but Sierra turned her attention to the dragon, which had snuggled into the old woman’s hand. She offered a sympathetic look in response to all of Sierra’s confused indignation.
“Nemi modokai volera,” she said, rubbing the sides of her arms and feigning a shiver.
“Cold? You’re saying the dragon did that because it’s cold?” Sierra asked, pointing to the deep divot in the concrete. She remembered how warm it felt when it was in her hand, but was that still cold for him? She twitched her fingers to imitate fire then whispered a few more words, and the dragon launched itself at Sierra’s hand, forcing her to hold it.
“So it needs fire?” The woman offered nothing reassuring in response, and Sierra went to the only place where she could reliably create some fire: the kitchen. Unsure of herself, she set a stainless steel pan on one of the burners of her gas stove and dropped the dragon into it.
“I hope we’re not going to be having you for dinner.”
Igniting the burner, a steady flame licked the bottom of the pan until heat radiated from it. Rather than trying to get away, the dragon padded around displaying a distinct sense of comfort. More astonishing,
the rocky texture of its skin lost all its bumps and horns, becoming perfectly smooth and spotless. Just as this happened, the space on the pan underneath the dragon melted and it fell directly into the flame.
Sierra yelped, shutting off the gas and looking through the gaping hole in the pan at the dragon crawling around the iron plate circling the burner. The empirical evidence of what she saw produced obvious conclusions: when the dragon was cold it made concrete explode, and when it was hot it melted through steel. But this led to countless other questions. Did it react differently with other metals at other temperatures? Did it have any ability to regulate its own temperature?
Deciding not to touch it when its skin was smooth, she let it crawl into a cast iron skillet, which seemed to hold up fine while the creature was hot. Sierra expected him to breath fire or spit embers or something, but even when it opened its mouth to release another shriek there wasn’t the least flicker.
While she waited around, the dragon must’ve cooled off, because spots returned to its skin and the iron pan started to crack.
“I’m going to have to dump my entire next paycheck to replace everything he breaks!” she said, wondering what else the dragon would destroy. The sounds of the cracking iron pan—which now looked extremely brittle—continued until the old woman swept in and scooped the dragon into a ceramic bowl, where it didn’t seem to cause any kind of reaction.
The whole situation struck Sierra as extremely bizarre. Of all the tales she’d heard about dragons, none of them mentioned anything like this. The old woman though was none too fazed, and there was no doubt Sierra would have to accept it and hope her new housemate would take proper care of the creature, because she had too much going on in her life to devote every moment to this strange animal, as much as she wished she could.
The following cycle began with a meeting at the kids’ table, where Sierra and her fellow junior partners waited for the boss to unveil their next assignment. Ralph Fiori stood at the front of the black tiled room looking like he hadn’t slept at all. His disheveled suit was the same one he had worn the day before, he hadn’t shaved, and he hadn’t prepared any sort of a presentation.