The Quest to the Uncharted Lands

by Jaleigh Johnson

  He was barely conscious but otherwise unhurt.

  At least on the outside.

  Stella laid her head against Cyrus’s chest and listened to his heartbeat. It was sluggish, as if it were taking everything inside him to keep it beating.

  Stella braced her good hand on the wall for a moment to control her trembling, and then she reached for him. “Cyrus, can you hear me?” she asked, gently tipping his chin toward her. “Do you know where you are?”

  His skin was still hot to the touch, but not painfully so. It was impossible to tell if he really was running a fever or if it was just the aftereffects of his power.

  Slowly, Cyrus opened his eyes and focused on her. “Stella,” he croaked. “Are you all right? The catwalk…fell.”

  “Lots of things fell,” she agreed, and made herself smile for him, both so he would know she was all right and so she wouldn’t betray the panic welling up inside her like a scream. She couldn’t wait for Laura to bring back help. She had to get him out of here now, had to find her parents. “Do you think you can stand?” she asked. “We need to get to the medical bay.”

  “Pretty tired,” he said, his eyes fluttering closed. “Maybe I’ll just rest for a minute.”

  “No, you don’t,” Stella said, taking him by the shoulder. She hated to move him without knowing the extent of his injuries, but she felt a terrible certainty that if he fell unconscious now, he wouldn’t wake up again. “On your feet, Cyrus. We can’t stay here.”

  He lifted his head and opened his eyes. “All right…I’ll try,” he said. He took a moment to gather his strength and then pushed himself away from the wall.

  Stella bent forward, letting Cyrus hold on to her shoulders. With only one good hand to brace against the floor, she struggled awkwardly to get them to their feet. Luckily, she’d dragged Cyrus around the cargo bay twice before when he was unconscious, so she knew she could lift his weight. Once they were standing, they leaned on each other for support.

  It was the longest and slowest journey through the ship that Stella had ever taken. Only one of the stairways out of the engine room remained, crooked and covered with debris. They had to crawl up it on all fours to reach the door. Once they’d navigated past that and out into the hall, Stella stopped to get her bearings.

  The whole ship looked different now, changed into a nightmarish mess. Piles of debris had buried the doors to some rooms and blocked certain passages to the upper decks. Stella could hear muffled voices and banging behind these obstructions. She tried to lever aside some of the debris, but most of it was too heavy. Whoever was back there would have to find another way out or wait to be rescued by the crew.

  Most of the gaslights had been taken out by the crash, torn from their moorings and strewn on the floor in piles of glass shards. The only light came from the windows letting in sparse sunlight from outside.

  Worst of all, the Iron Glory had crashed on its side, turning some of the walls into floors and ceilings into walls. The contents of rooms had spilled out into the hallway. A supply closet had emptied buckets, crates, and tools all over the floor. There was even a stray boot lying in one corner, missing its mate. Stella and Cyrus were forced to crawl or climb over the uneven surfaces, and Stella’s wrist screamed in protest every step of the way.

  Finally, just when Stella thought she wasn’t going to be able to hold them upright any longer, they reached the medical bay. Or what was left of it. The examination tables had been overturned, and cabinets dangled from the walls, their contents spilled all over the floor. Broken glass crunched under Stella’s boots as she and Cyrus limped inside.

  Her mother was on her knees at the back of the room, wrapping bandages around a crew member’s head. There was a whole row of patients already laid out on blankets beside him.

  Stella’s father was nowhere in sight.

  “Mom,” Stella said, her voice breaking with a mixture of fear and relief.

  Her mother’s head jerked up, and when she saw Stella, for an instant her face crumpled, eyes shining with tears. Then she took a visible breath and composed herself.

  “Stella,” she said, her voice steady and calm, a healer at work. “Are you two all right? Bring Cyrus over here.” She pointed to a blanket near the wall and finished the wrap on her patient before crossing over to the pair. Cyrus didn’t greet her mother. His eyes were glassy, and he moaned softly, turning his face to the wall once he was on his back.

  “He used up all his strength,” Stella said as her mother listened to his heartbeat with her scope. “I mean all of it. He’s never done anything like that before, but he was protecting the ship. We would have died if he hadn’t put up a barrier with his power.”

  The words tumbled out of her. Stella cradled her injured wrist against her body. Pushing up her sleeves, she noticed for the first time that the skin of both her arms was unnaturally red and tender where she’d been holding on to Cyrus. His power had been so intense it had left behind light burns on her skin.

  She could only imagine what it must have done to Cyrus inside.

  “His heartbeat,” her mother started before pausing and pulling the scope’s ends out of her ears. “Well, there’s a deep mechanical sound beneath the beat. It would be hidden if you didn’t use an instrument to listen for it. But even taking that into consideration, I don’t think his heart is functioning normally. What I don’t have is knowledge of how his mechanics work in harmony with the organic parts of him.” She smoothed a hand over Cyrus’s forehead, her eyes soft and sorrowful. “I don’t even know his anatomy.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do?” Stella’s throat was raw, and there was a weight pressing down on her chest.

  Her mother slowly shook her head. “He needs one of his own doctors. I can make him comfortable, but if he’s going to recover, he’ll have to do it on his own.” She turned to examine Stella’s wrist. “I’ll need to wrap this,” she said.

  Stella pulled away from her mother’s grasp, wincing. “What does a sprained wrist matter if Cyrus is dying?” Her voice was high and strained. She looked around the medical bay. All of her mother’s patients were hurt worse than she was. They needed her attention more. And her father…he…

  “Where’s Dad?” Stella asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  Her mother’s calm facade cracked, but she recovered. “We found him unconscious in the washroom, just like you’d said, and I revived him with some spirits of hartshorn. But we were separated just before the explosion. The last time I saw him, he was headed to the engine room to check on you. Knowing your father, he’s out caring for other survivors now.”

  She left the rest unsaid, but Stella could fill in the blanks. He was out looking for others, assuming he hadn’t been hurt or trapped somewhere in the ship. And she and Cyrus hadn’t encountered him on their journey from the engine room.

  Overwhelmed, Stella leaned over to take Cyrus’s hand for comfort. His skin wasn’t hot anymore. In fact, it was cold, so cold that she pressed her fingers to his neck to check his pulse. Holding steady, but how much longer would that last? Stella felt herself coming apart, piece by piece, just like the Iron Glory had as it fell out of the sky.

  Stella peeled off the invisibility suit while her mother brought her an ice pack, draping it over her swollen wrist. Then she joined Stella in watching Cyrus’s chest rise and fall. A noise in the hallway alerted them to someone coming, and they both looked up anxiously.

  A moment later, Drea stumbled into the medical bay. She was bleeding from a deep cut to one of her feelers, which Stella’s mother insisted on stitching up. Drea reported that most of the crew, including Stella’s father, were still missing and assumed trapped in various parts of the ship. Captain Keeler was already organizing rescue efforts. As soon as Stella’s mother could get enough of the remaining men and women functional again, they would need to join the search for survivors.

  “I’ve sent two men outside to scout the crash site,” the sarnun woman said, her voice reaching out to
everyone’s minds in the medical bay, including Stella’s. “There are no cities or settlements anywhere in sight. The terrain is rocky, and trees are sparse. There’s a stream nearby that looks clear. Once we test it to confirm, we’ll have a plentiful source of water. There’s also an east-west road a few miles away that’s lightly traveled, but so far we haven’t encountered any locals.”

  “We’re on our own, then,” Stella’s mother said. She’d been in the process of treating a chamelin engineer with a dislocated shoulder.

  The chamelin looked over at Cyrus. “How’s the boy?” he asked, coughing and wincing at the pain the movement caused him. “I heard he put on quite a show in the engine room. Saved all our skins, guiding the ship down the way he did.”

  Drea’s feelers snapped toward him. “Did you see it?”

  The chamelin nodded at Stella. “Not me, but Codi was going on and on about seeing the two of them up on the catwalk in the engine room. She protected him, and he protected the ship. I don’t know how they did it, but Codi said it looked like some kind of magic.”

  Drea came over and crouched next to Cyrus, her feelers settling around her shoulders like living vines. “Is he going to be all right?” she asked.

  Stella shook her head. She wanted to tell Drea what her mother had said, that maybe Cyrus would recover on his own, but she was too much of a healer herself to ignore the signs. Cyrus was slipping away.

  “I’m sorry,” Drea said with a pang in her voice. “We’ll make him as comfortable as possible.” The sarnun woman laid her hand on Cyrus’s forehead. “If he wakes again, I’d like to know. I want to thank him myself for saving us.”

  Stella nodded. “I will.” She took Drea’s arm when the sarnun started to rise. “What happened to the Faceless man?” she asked. “Did he escape?”

  Drea sighed. “The guards had him in custody right before the explosion, but after that, I don’t know. Wherever he ended up, it’s likely he’s injured or trapped, just like the rest of the crew. I’ll put together a search team as soon as we’ve accounted for everyone else. We’ll find him.”

  Her promise didn’t make Stella feel any better. If he was free, the Faceless man could go back to imitating any of the crew to avoid capture. “Look for bloodshot eyes,” she told the sarnun. “No matter what face he’s wearing, it’s the one detail he can’t change.” If they were lucky, maybe the Faceless man had simply left, now that he’d gotten what he wanted in crashing the ship.

  Drea left the medical bay soon after and another wave of wounded crew members made their way in from other parts of the ship. Stella and her mother flitted about, but Stella kept an eye on Cyrus. An hour later, he finally did open his eyes, and Stella didn’t bother to call Drea back. She had too many things to say to him, questions to ask.

  The moment Drea had mentioned a road near the crash site, Stella had started to make plans.

  If there was a road nearby, that meant the city of Kovall, Cyrus’s home, was close. He’d told her it was just on the other side of the mountains.

  Kovall would have supplies. Kovall would have food.

  And doctors.

  “Hey,” Cyrus said, his voice coming out in a whisper. But his eyes were clearer than they had been in the engine room, as if the short rest had restored a little of his strength. A smile pulled at his lips. “You look terrible.”

  “Well, you can’t expect me to get dressed up to come to your sickbed,” Stella said, grateful for his smile and teasing. It was easier to keep things light. “I only get cleaned up for special occasions.”

  “Too bad,” Cyrus said. “We could have gotten dressed up for Kovall. Would have shown you the city. Taken you to the river and the Baluway Bridge. They light lanterns along the riverfront at night.”

  “Sounds beautiful,” Stella said. Keep him talking, she thought. He needed to stay conscious. “But I don’t speak your language, remember? How would I get by in the city?”

  “I’d…teach you,” Cyrus said. “It’s not so hard.”

  “Really?” Stella asked, keeping her voice neutral. “What are the olaran words for ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’?”

  “ ‘Antya,’ for ‘hello’ or ‘good day,’ ” Cyrus murmured. “ ‘Sinhave,’ for ‘goodbye.’ ”

  Stella repeated the words, testing the clicks of the consonants on her tongue. When his attention drifted, she reached into her pocket where she’d kept the beetle. To her relief, it hadn’t been damaged, despite her fall from the catwalk. She activated its recording device, hoping the words wouldn’t be muffled with the beetle still in her pocket.

  “How would I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in your language?” she asked, drawing his gaze back to her.

  He gave her the words, and she repeated them loudly and clearly. She asked him for more, smiling, making a game of it. He played along. And then, trying her best to sound casual and hoping that his injuries had clouded his thoughts enough that he wouldn’t think too deeply about the question, she asked. “What about ‘doctor’?”

  It didn’t work. His eyes, half closed, flew open and pinned her. A spark of life came back, as if he was calling on all the reserves of strength left in his failing body. “What are you doing, Stella?” he demanded.

  “Learning your language,” she said, pretending to adjust his blanket. “I don’t want to feel like an outsider when I go to Kovall.”

  He took hold of her uninjured wrist, not hard, but enough to drag her gaze to his face. “How soon were you planning on going there?” he asked quietly.

  She hesitated, but there was no fooling him. He knew her too well. “As soon as possible,” she said. “I’m going to get help.”

  “You are not doing that.”

  She smiled down at him, but she ached inside. “You aren’t even close to being able to argue with me,” she said.

  His eyes filled with sorrow. “Stella, it’s too late,” he said. “I can feel it.” He put his hand against his chest. “I can hold on for now, but I’ll be gone in a day or two.”

  The words were like punches. “Then I’ll have to hurry, won’t I?”

  Now Cyrus was getting angry. He was also the most lucid he’d been since the crash. Spots of color bloomed in his cheeks, and he pushed himself upright, bracing one hand on the wall next to him. If Stella had known that anger was all it took to make him improve, she would have tried to irritate him an hour ago.

  “We’re at least a day out of Kovall, and you want to travel with that injury?” Cyrus said, pointing to her wrist.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Stella lied. “By tomorrow I won’t even feel it.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You don’t know the city and you don’t speak our language.”

  “You gave me the words I need,” Stella said. She pulled the beetle out of her pocket and held it up, its red wings shimmering. She clicked off its recording device. “I’ll send the beetle back to you with updates on my progress toward the city. If I get lost, I’ll just describe where I am, and you’ll get me back on track. Once I get to the city, all I have to do is find a doctor and bring him back here.”

  Cyrus’s eyes lit up when he saw the communication device. “No, you don’t need to go anywhere. Just send the beetle. We’ll record our location and send it to the city for help.”

  Stella waved a hand impatiently. “You said yourself the beetle is best at short range. Have you ever tested it over the kinds of distances we’re talking about?”

  “No,” Cyrus said through clenched teeth. “But it’s a better option than sending you out alone. What about the rest of the crew? Surely someone can go with you. One of the chamelins can probably fly you there in half the time.”

  “The chamelins are either too injured to fly or trapped somewhere in the ship with the rest of the crew,” Stella said. “Anyone else who isn’t too injured to stand is helping with the rescue before it’s too late. None of them can be spared, but I can. I’ve thought this over, Cyrus. The best option is that I go to the c
ity as fast as I can.”

  Cyrus opened his mouth and closed it again without speaking. He was running out of arguments—and his brief spurt of energy was fading. “This is crazy,” he muttered, his head falling back onto his pillow. “We just survived a terrible crash, and now you want to run out into the unknown again. Where is the girl who was so afraid of the olarans? I want her back.”

  That brought a smile to Stella’s face. “Too late,” she said. “That girl’s gone for good. You’re stuck with me now.” It had been a wild, sometimes frightening journey, but somewhere along the way, it had turned Stella into a true explorer.

  Cyrus stared at her, slowly shaking his head. “Will you at least tell your parents what you’re up to?” he begged.

  “I’ll tell my mom,” Stella said. Her gaze went automatically to the door of the medical bay. “Dad is missing somewhere on the ship.”

  Cyrus’s face blanched. “Oh, Stella, I’m sorry.” He reached for her, but his hand trembled with weakness. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.

  “I know,” Stella said, squeezing his hand. “And I don’t want you—or anyone else—to die.”

  Cyrus licked his dry lips and reached for the beetle. “If you’re going to do this, you’ll need directions to get around in the city. I’ll give you a bunch more olaran words to learn, but the most important one is ‘Akeata.’ It means ‘Tinker.’ ”

  He said it again in his language, and Stella repeated it, her brow furrowed. “What’s a Tinker?” she asked.

  “He’s the best doctor in Kovall,” Cyrus explained. “But more than that, he’s…important to the olaran people, especially to the alagant and the royal family. He’s a scientist, like your parents, and an inventor. He was the one who organized our expeditions across the mountains and did the most detailed studies of your people. If you can get to him, convince him what you are, he’ll come running to help.”

  Stella’s heart leaped. “Are you sure?”

  Cyrus nodded. “Oh, yeah. He’s a brilliant man, but he never actually got the chance to go on the expeditions. The alagant thought he was too important to risk, so he stayed behind. If he got the chance to meet a group of human explorers, he’d jump at it.”