by J. S. Morin
“I do not like this one bit,” Kyrus said, folding his arms across his chest, and trying to slip his mind back into Brannis’s to convey the message.
* * * * * * * *
Faolen searched above first, in the aether. Finding nothing immediately threatening, he poked his head up through the open sewer grating that Anzik’s magic held open. It was strange relying on the magic of one so young, but the boy seemed innately talented. His magic was silent and artful; Faolen felt no wasted aether as was common when around Source-strong children first feeling out the process of learning magic. The boy’s magic was as fluid as a Fourth Circle adept.
The three fugitives clambered out of the sewers, dripping fetid water from their ankle-deep trek through the muck. Taking stock of their surroundings, Faolen found that they were in a low-lying portion of the city, in between two of the major hills. The night had grown cloudy, but there were fires aplenty in the city, kept for the nightly activities of the harbor and the military, which kept some amount of activity going throughout all the hours of the day. It was enough to make out the larger towers that dominated the skyline of Zorren.
“Too bad we cannot climb one of those, eh?” Aelon said, noting Faolen’s gaze.
Faolen nodded his assent but did not comment on it. “For now, I will conserve my magic. If we get cornered, I will buy us what time we can. The most important thing is for Anzik to get aboard. If you two can get away, do not risk staying too long waiting for me. I will fend for myself if needs be.”
“Is that the airship?” Anzik asked, pointing up.
A tiny shape glinted in the fires from the city, circling high above Zorren.
* * * * * * * *
“Anyone see them yet?” Captain Juliana shouted out, realizing they were too high for them to be heard. Likely they had already been spotted. The city swarmed with troops carrying torches or magical lights. It seemed that Faolen had kicked a wasps’ nest.
“Nothing yet, Captain,” one of the spotters called out. She had summoned them up on deck when she first spotted the city by its lights on the coastline. It was either Zorren or she had gone well off course.
“All right, I’m bringing us in lower. Shout out if you see them or if you see anyone getting ready to shoot at us, especially sorcerers,” Juliana ordered. She shifted her hold on the wheel, and angled the ship’s nose downward, banking a left turn as she did so. The controls were still awkward to her, but she was growing more familiar with them, at least.
“All rain and cloud cover, Captain. Can’t see a bleeding thing down there,” another of the spotters shouted.
Juliana gritted her teeth in frustration, knowing they were right. Any efforts Faolen and his companions took to conceal themselves from their pursuers would keep them hidden from the Daggerstrike’s crew as well. Any signal they gave would be seen by both as well—if they were lucky enough for her crew to see it at all. The city was large enough for sure, not the size of Kadris, but large enough that it was inconvenient to see all at once. She spared a moment’s concentration yet again to start a chain of messages back and forth between the worlds.
“Watch for a plume of fire,” Juliana called out. “That will be our beacon.”
She kept the ship moving fast in circles above the city, hoping that any ambitious archer or gunner would be hard pressed to lead their target by enough to hit the Daggerstrike. It was only a matter of time now, unless her request proved too much for Faolen, if what Brannis reported of his current condition was understated.
“Captain, arse-left. I saw a plume of fire, just like you said.”
Juliana turned her head quickly to look off the ship’s arse-left side. She had also done away with the nautical terms bow and stern. Her ship had a left, a right, a nose, a belly, and an arse end. The term “deck” had unfortunately stuck when she could think of none better on short notice.
Captain Juliana slowed the ship, twisting it about in air in a manner that neither sea vessel nor the wind-catching airships could manage. The arse of the ship swung about, waggling back and forth a bit as the front darted off in their intended direction: toward the flame.
“Captain, it looks like the Megrenn saw that too,” one of the spotters yelled.
“I see them, “ Juliana replied. “It is going to be a race.” She accelerated the ship, hoping fervently that it could stop just as quickly. They were aimed at a down angle, straight for a crash landing if they did not have that ability.
Buildings whisked by beneath them, growing closer to the belly of the ship as they crossed half of Zorren to reach their target. Juliana and the spotters lost the citywide view of the overall Megrenn search effort as the height of the buildings obscured the far reaches of Zorren from them.
There were glimpses of roving infantry patrols, seen between buildings as they crossed over the streets that were being combed for Faolen. Most disturbing were sightings of stripe-cats among the searchers. Faster and more dangerous than infantry, the huge felines were to be Juliana’s largest worry until she took note of any cannons or sorcerers. Should Jinzan Fehr be in the city, and join the search using the Staff of Gehlen, there was a good chance that they would not escape, airship or no airship.
“Found them, Captain. They are off to the left-nose side; they are waving us down.”
Juliana looked through the viewer, having toyed with it a bit en route until she had gotten the controls figured out. There they were, three of them, looking bedraggled but whole, standing in an emptied market square, two adults and a scrawny child. The two adults were waving their arms overhead, frantically signaling to the Daggerstrike.
Juliana brought the ship low, hitting the rune that dropped the left-nose hatch. The ship lurched as it bumped down against the flagstones of the marketplace. She saw a stripe-cat enter the marketplace, a rider with someone seated behind her. Behind them, trailing a bit, were a number of infantry.
“GET IN, QUICKLY!” Juliana’s voice boomed outside the ship. The time for even the barest pretense of stealth was now passed. Faolen and his two companions rushed for the ship.
“Stop them!” the passenger on the stripe-cat called out in Megrenn as he slipped from the beast’s back, and quickly cast a spell.
“Eket jimagu denpek wanapi,” the Megrenn sorcerer chanted hurriedly. Bolts of flame shot from his outstretched fingers. He had the control to avoid aiming any at Anzik, but the two other fugitives were clearly his targets.
Aelon turned to look over his shoulder as the spell was cast. Hopping to the side, he threw his body between himself and Faolen, taking the sorcerer’s share of the flaming missiles. The searing bolts of fire scorched his clothing, setting him aflame. His dragon-like skin felt none of it, though. He continued onward to the ship.
“Why is Uncle Narsicann shooting flame bolts at us?” Anzik asked, looking over his shoulder while Faolen pulled him by the arm aboard the Daggerstrike. Despite the distraction, Anzik kept his feet moving in the proper direction.
Seeing that her charges had made it aboard before the Megrenn sorcerer could manage another spell, Juliana touched the rune to raise the hatch, and got the Daggerstrike moving upward, hoping to get a bit of air between them and the ground while her new passengers settled themselves in, and found something to hold onto. That reminded her …
“Grab hold of something,” Captain Juliana said, voice projecting down into the ship’s interior. “We are about to—”
“Captain, look out!” one of the spotters cried out, terror in his voice.
They were well up off the ground, the belly of the ship level with the shorter buildings already. Incredibly, though, the stripe-cat had made the leap, claws hooking arrow slits and the ship’s railing. The rider was pressed tight in against the scruff of the beast’s neck as it scrambled onto the deck. It took a swipe at the left-arse spotter, snapping his safety harness, and sending him tumbling overboard, likely dead before the straps broke.
Juliana swore loudly when she realized that the beast was heading stra
ight for her. She fought back her first instinct, which was to draw forth her daggers, and fight the thing off. Instead she looked to the ship’s wheel. The actions were not instinctive yet; she had to search the runes, frantic, as the stripe-cat was a bound away from reaching her.
The beast’s claws slammed into Juliana at the same moment she found the rune to put the ship into a right-over-left roll. The ship lurched as her shielding spell took the impact, forcing her awkwardly against the ship’s wheel. The deck tilted beneath her feet. She felt the strap attached at her right hip pull taut against the support pillar that was there just to keep her in place in such orientations of the ship.
The one thing she had not accounted for was the stripe-cat’s claws. Her shielding spell had kept her skin from being shredded by the stripe-cat’s claws, but the harness was just sturdy leather. As the huge cat panicked and scrambled for purchase on the tilting ship, it caught the straps that tethered Captain Juliana to her ship. Stripe-cat, rider, and ship’s captain all plummeted to the ground.
Juliana knew well enough what to do in a fall. Trusting to her shielding spell, she pushed the stripe-cat away—or rather pushed against it, and thrust herself away, given the size difference. She hit the ground lightly, cushioned by magics she knew well enough to perform while drunk if she needed to. Unlike their domesticated relatives, stripe-cats did not always land on their feet. If not dead, the beast was at least critically injured. The rider did not appear to have survived the fall.
The lack of a stripe-cat to fight was scant comfort. Overhead, the Daggerstrike lay on its side, no longer spinning but continuing to drift upward, well out of reach of any spell she knew. In the marketplace there was a Megrenn sorcerer, a platoon of infantry, and half the city likely heading her way. There was only one thing she could think to do.
* * * * * * * *
A hand reached across the table, and grabbed Brannis by the wrist, shaking him from a daydream. It was a confusing day, and Brannis had been losing track of himself as he shifted his consciousness to Veydrus and back. He snapped to alertness, looking to the owner of the grabbing hand, seeing a desperate look in Soria’s eyes when his gaze met them.
“Send Kyrus. I need help,” Soria said. There was no brooking an argument. “Now.”
Brannis nodded, not even responding verbally before he closed his eyes.
* * * * * * * *
“Get out,” Kyrus said to Varnus. “I have to use a transference spell. You do not want to be nearby.”
“Brannis, are you sure about that. I mean, you said that last—”
“GO!” Kyrus shouted. He broke the wards that sealed his bedchamber, scavenging their wreckage for any salvageable aether, and drawing yet more from whatever was available within the palace.
Varnus realized they were past the point of arguing the matter. He paused only long enough for one final message before rushing off down the hall to find shelter: “Good luck. Bring her back safe.”
“Doxlo intuvae menep gahalixviu junumar tequalix ferendak uzganmanni dekdardon vesvata eho,” Kyrus chanted, still having the spell well committed to memory. He had no time for self-doubt, no time to wonder how he was going to find Juliana, presumably somewhere in Zorren. He had to go, and there was no time to wait.
A sphere of aether obscured Kyrus, and his consciousness was catapulted into the vast nighttime of the deep aether once more.
Chapter 37 - Once More into the Aether
“Well now, look what we have,” the Megrenn sorcerer remarked. “A Kadrin sorceress who has lost her ship. Surrender, and you will be treated well.”
Juliana looked at the man she had heard the Megrenn boy call “Uncle Narsicann,” who had flung bolts of fire aimed not a pace from the boy. There was something about his demeanor, mocking, flippant … cold. She knew that his words were meaningless. Rashan’s Bargain was an ironic tool in the hands of a Megrenn, but that was her guess—easier to take her by guile than by force.
The Megrenn ground forces were beginning to arrive in numbers. Juliana glanced down one street, then another. The marketplace was a crossroads of sorts, but wherever she looked, infantry were either already entering the market square or could be seen approaching. Horns sounded, calling for even more forces to congregate on the area.
“There is nowhere to run. It would be a shame to have to kill you, but that is the alternative you face,” Narsicann called out to her, drawing Juliana’s gaze back to him. She noted that he was making no move to approach her. Cautious. Cowardly? It seemed to matter little, since Juliana was no match for an army, even if she might take her odds against just the sorcerer. She looked up at the Daggerstrike, still continuing a lazy drifting upward, lying on its side like a wounded animal.
A few paces from Juliana, an actual wounded animal whimpered. The huge stripe-cat was trying to pull itself along the ground toward her, dragging both the limp body of its rider as well as its hindquarters. She glanced all around, edging away from the beast as she considered her options.
Her breathing quickened with a rising panic. She was not liking any of them.
* * * * * * * *
The world of light vanished once more, as it had on Kyrus’s journey from Tellurak. He knew that his perception of time was altered, that he had the ability to consider his course. Nevertheless, he felt a pressing need to make all haste. He drifted up and out of the vicinity of the palace and the Tower of Contemplation. There were too many wards about, too much aether for him to see through. He felt nothing as he passed through barriers that would have stopped most physical and magical assaults.
He remembered his mistakes on Denku Appa. He had relied on the physical placement of stones to mark his course. Whether through his own error or—as he rather suspected—the intervention of Tippu and Kahli, that method had failed him. Kyrus gave brief consideration to the advice he had just given Juliana a short time ago: follow the Cloud Wall to the sea, and turn left along the coast. That was all well and good for the world of light, but mountains were not known for having Sources, nor did they have any noticeable effect on aether. The sea would be rife with aether along the coasts where sea creatures abounded. That made a better landmark—seamark?—but it seemed like there must be a better method, but he had little time for introspection. He needed to go.
Kyrus stretched his vision out, roughly the direction he believed Zorren to be. He tried to quiet his mind, remembering the feeling of being around Juliana. There was a sense of motionless vertigo; the universe shifted around him. There was no physical sensation to accompany the purely mental motion, but his mind insisted on trying to insert one on his behalf.
Trees, grass, birds … Sources in numbers his eyes could not count as they whisked by him. The eddies in the aether seemed like the currents of a river, but the aethership Kyrus plowed through, tacking against the wind, defying the forces of nature that sought to impede him.
Fields of fresh-planted crops, vast grids of nascent Sources as germinating seeds began their lives as vegetables … schools of fish, packed tightly along a narrow ribbon of river … people, pockets here and there: villages … more fish, vastly more as the sea showed itself … people again, a coastal city, far more populous than the villages … one person … one Source … Juliana.
He knew her Source by its look, its feel. With thousands of human Sources all about, hers stood out, unique as her face and easier to pick from among those teeming multitudes of weakling Sources. He felt drawn to it, associated it with her, not just the abstract look of a blue-white humanoid form against the backdrop of the lighter aetherial winds. It evoked feelings of being near her, of her smell and her feel, the warmth of her skin against his own. It dredged up old, shared memories of Brannis’s as well, of her as an adolescent girl, tugging Brannis about like a fish on a hook. Kyrus smiled in his mind, not knowing whether his body mimicked the thought, way back in Kadris. It was time to arrive in Zorren.
Kyrus fought his first instinct, which would have had him protect her against all harm by
exchanging places with her, letting the spell deposit her safely in Kadris. Kyrus tried to shake his head, mentally shaking the universe instead—his view of everything swung wildly, disorienting him. His view of Juliana’s Source gave him something to keep his bearings by. He remembered Varnus’s admonishment; he could keep neither Juliana nor Soria locked away safely somewhere if he ever hoped to understand her … both of her.
The world snapped back into the light. Kyrus found himself a few paces short of a running Juliana. He had seen the Sources all about before ending his spell but, Zorren being a city of tens of thousands, thought little of them. He realized that Juliana’s predicament was every bit as dire as she had let on.
Juliana stumbled, startled by the massive disruption in the aether that marked Kyrus’s arrival. What must have been a hundred or more foot soldiers skidded to a halt, not daring approach the apparition who had just appeared before them.
“Brannis!” Juliana shouted. “Merciful One, thank you!” she called out to the sky.
A hail of arrows sought Kyrus as the Megrenn soldiers gathered wits enough to decide to attack first, and figure out what had befallen later. Juliana had been a target for capture, but the newcomer apparently bore no such restrictive orders. The tiny, fletched insects were nothing to Kyrus. The paranoid shielding spell he had been keeping while going about his daily routine in Kadris turned them aside without any noticeable effort. Dragons do not bother to swat mosquitoes.
“Are you all right?” Kyrus asked, walking over to her, gathering her in his arms. She slumped against him, drawing a shuddering breath.
“Now I am. If you hadn’t come, I don’t know how long I would have lasted against them,” she admitted. “This is why I stay away from all-out wars.” She punched him playfully in the chest in remonstration.