Skythane

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  There was nothing to worry about, surely. She was being paranoid, and she should really just go back to sleep.

  She’d be remiss if she didn’t at least go out and check.

  She stepped out onto the terrace and felt something rough underneath her bare feet. She bent down to examine it.

  It was a piece of rope.

  Something closed around her and she was unceremoniously hauled up into the air. She screamed, but then she was being handled by rough hands, and something was slipped over her mouth.

  Everything went dark.

  JAMESON LAY nestled next to Xander in the peaceful quiet of the island, their faces just inches apart. Xander’s eyes were closed. He looked like a perfect angel.

  Not that he’d behaved like an angelic being this last hour together. Far from it. Jameson grinned. He’d waited long enough for this moment.

  Jameson felt a sense of peace and contentment that he’d never experienced before, and he wanted nothing more than to lie there forever with Xander. To hell with the rest of the world. Or worlds, as the case seemed to be.

  He should be analyzing the whole thing. Mortal enemies come together. Literally. The flip side of hate is love. All that psychological claptrap he’d learned during his training. At the moment, he couldn’t have cared less.

  His old life seemed like someone else’s dream, lived in another dimension entirely. He should feel guilty about that. About Jessa. About what he and Xander had just done. But it was just right.

  He looked at Xander’s peaceful face, hungry to try it again.

  They kissed, falling from the sky, arms wrapped around each other as the ground raced up toward them. He didn’t care.

  She was beautiful, fierce, his.

  The wind whistled past them as he savored her kiss.

  “Now!” she shouted, and they split, spreading their wings and soaring back up into the air, just a few feet above the treetops.

  She was reckless, and he loved that about her.

  Another memory, this one decidedly not Lyrin’s. Still, it made him wonder. What would it feel like to make love to him in flight?

  His amorous thoughts were cut short by a shout in the darkness.

  “Quince,” Xander hissed, and they were on their feet, pulling on their clothes as quickly as they could. Xander took off toward the cavern, and Jameson followed, cursing himself for having abandoned his post. He’d neglected his duty, and now Quince might be paying the price.

  Jameson could make out Xander just ahead of him, on the pathway in the moonlight as they ran back toward the way station.

  Then he was gone.

  Jameson stopped and looked around, confused. There was shouting overhead, but he could make no sense of it. He looked up into the darkness, trying to see where Xander had gone.

  Then something dropped over him and closed in around him, and he was trapped and hauled into the air. He struggled, but he was caught in some kind of rope net, just as Xander must have been.

  He was dumped unceremoniously on the rocky top of the island next to Xander and Quince. Quince looked like she had been knocked out, or worse. Xander shot him a worried look through the netting.

  Morgan was nowhere to be seen.

  There were five other skythane standing around them. Every one of them had black wings like Xander. Then someone else stepped into Jameson’s field of vision.

  Jameson looked up to see a woman in a black uniform with short-cropped blonde hair and a sharp, hawkish nose standing over them. She had no wings.

  “It took you long enough,” she said to Xander, who looked up at her and gasped.

  “Dani?”

  The woman laughed. It was an unpleasant sound. “It’s been a long time, Xander. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”

  “Dani, where’s Alix? What happened to Alix?” Xander sounded almost frantic.

  She ignored him. “Get them ready for transport,” she said to one of the skythane. She turned away, and Jameson watched as one of her henchmen placed a cloth over Xander’s face.

  “Where’s Alix?” Xander shouted again, just before he slumped into unconsciousness.

  Jameson had just a second to wonder who Dani and Alix were before he followed Xander down into darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen: Captive

  XANDER’S HEAD was pounding. He lay on something incredibly soft, and a smell like lavender mixed with sandalwood filled the air.

  He opened his eyes. He was in a brightly lit room, on a wide bed covered in hand-woven blankets. Four wooden posters held up a canopy above, covered with a dark blue cloth, stitched with silver designs of stars and the moon.

  The temperature in the room was comfortable. A warm fire burned in the stone hearth in one corner, and it was growing dark outside. He could see the sky through the warped glass of two closed doors that looked out onto a wide balcony.

  Xander tried to move and realized he was bound at his ankles and wrists to the four corners of the bed.

  “I’m sorry about having to tie you up,” a voice said. Dani stepped into view, dressed in full enforcer uniform. “I had to be sure you would listen to what I had to say.”

  So it wasn’t my imagination after all. Xander hadn’t known Danielle all that well. She had been one of Alix’s work friends, and one of the people who had been on Alix’s “camping trip.” Which he was starting to suspect had been nothing of the kind.

  So why was she here? “I don’t see that I have much choice.” He tested his bonds, but they were tight. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  Dani sat on the bed, her hand caressing the edge of Xander’s cheek, nails scratching lightly over his skin. “I’m sorry about all this. Really I am. You’re an important piece of this little puzzle. Alix didn’t understand that.”

  Xander grew alarmed. Since they’d been captured, he’d hoped Alix was still alive, that he was just a pawn in whatever this was. “What plan?”

  Dani smiled, but somehow that smile wasn’t warm at all. Instead, it seemed cold and alien. “I work for OberCorp. Just like Alix.”

  Xander nodded. “What the hell are you doing here? Why did you say you’d been expecting me?” And what did you do with Jameson, Quince, and Morgan? He didn’t say the last part aloud. Better if she didn’t know how he felt about Jameson, or the others.

  “The company grew tired of all the black-market sales of pith in the Slander, and decided to take over the action. When I discovered there was a Prince of the Wing Men among us in Oberon City, we saw the perfect opportunity.” She spat out “wing men” like it was a curse word. “Unfortunately, you got away before we had the chance to bring you in. Fortunately, you ran right into us here.”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Simple luck, really. You were spotted on your way to the way station. I’d guessed Quince would try to bring you here, with all the stupid superstitious claptrap these people believe.”

  Xander’s mind raced. He and Alix had been in love once, hadn’t they? Alix had rescued him from the Syndicate, after all, and he had been inordinately grateful. Too grateful, perhaps? Besides, he had Jameson now.

  Had it been love, or something else? “Did Alix dose me? With pith?”

  Dani smiled, and if possible, it was even colder than before. “You always were a little slow on the uptake.” She stood, looking out of the window. “No, he didn’t. We didn’t discover your past until just before you fled Oberon City. You were just his little fling.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Alix is dead.” She didn’t sound sad. “Poor man was killed by one of these savages when we first arrived.”

  A knife-blade of pain pierced Xander’s heart, and his body shook with anger as he strained against his bonds, pulling the bed half a foot away from the wall. If he could have, he would have wiped that sneer off Dani’s face.

  He felt so fucking impotent. Whatever they’d had together, he had loved Alix. And while he lay here, helpless, the end of the world was coming like the relentless, steady
ticking of a bomb.

  “It was easy enough to buy the trust of these simpletons.” Dani turned to face him. “The King—excuse me, your father—passed away without an heir a few weeks ago, ending almost a year of negotiations to convince him to work exclusively with OberCorp on the pith trade. We’ve had this town on lockdown ever since.”

  She looked out the window into the darkness. “We turned to the Queen. Your own mother. She was the one who told us about you, by the way, after much persuasion. Unfortunately, she was unwilling to work with us to calm the Gaelani people. Luckily, I have you now.” She cupped her hand under Xander’s chin. “You’re the Prince of the Gaelani, and you’re going to help me seal the deal.”

  Dani had just all but admitted to killing his mother, and he was helpless to do anything about it. He spit on Dani’s hand.

  The woman pulled her hand away and slapped Xander hard across his cheek. “Your resistance won’t matter one whit once I slip you enough pith. You’ll fall in love with me instead, and you and I will run this little fiefdom. We’ve already seen that your heart is… malleable.”

  Xander’s face burned. “What about the flare?”

  Dani laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is Quince still going on about that? It’s simple wing man superstition. Oberon’s sun has always been temperamental. It’ll settle down in its own good time.”

  Clearly she hadn’t been keeping in touch with what was happening back on Oberon.

  She knelt down and gave Xander a light kiss on the forehead. “Sleep well, my beloved. We’ll get married in two days.” She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I can’t wait to get my hands on your beautiful ass.”

  Then she was gone.

  Xander snarled and tried with all his might to break himself loose from the rope that held him down, succeeding only in moving the furniture another couple inches.

  How had he ever fallen in love with Alix? If he had been part of this woman’s crew, then his soul must have been black as pith.

  Xander lay there for a while, cursing his bad luck and wondering what had become of Quince, Jameson, and Morgan. And just after he and Jameson had finally connected.

  Fate was a bitch, to bring them together at last only to rip them apart.

  At last, he dropped into a fitful slumber.

  Alix laughed, throwing another snowball at him. Xander zigged one way and then zagged the other, and then leapt at Alix, knocking him back into a big drift of snow. They tumbled one over another until they came to a halt against an ice pine, the impact dropping a dusting of snow over the two of them.

  Xander laughed in delight. “I never imagined snow could be so much fun.” As a city boy in the tropical climes, he’d never experienced this frozen water thing before. Alix had dragged him out to the Rim Forest for a couple days away from work. They’d been together for almost two years, but Alix had still been astounded to find out that he was a snow virgin.

  “You like it?” There was a twinkle in Alix’s eye.

  “I love it.” He leaned down to kiss Alix, and licked a snowflake from his lover’s nose. “It is kind of cold, though….”

  “I know a place where it’s warmer.” Alix shot a meaningful glance in the direction of their all-weather tent.

  “Race you there.”

  Time shifted.

  Xander was a little boy, maybe two years old. He stood on a stone terrace, staring out at Gaelan through one of the House of the Moon’s embrasures. The city spread out before him, full of life and light—wing men soaring over the valley and the River Orn far below. He reached out a small hand toward them.

  “Hey, get back from there.” Warm hands scooped him up and turned him around. “You don’t have your wings yet.” His mother nuzzled his nose against hers. She smelled fresh, like roses in the garden. “You’ll fly with them soon enough.”

  She carried him back inside the House of the Moon just in time for lunch, but his outstretched hands still reached over her shoulder toward the city.

  Xander awoke. He was all alone in the dark. He looked around and remembered where he was, and that Alix was no longer with him. His mother was gone from his life too.

  Jameson. He still had Jameson. One thing to anchor him, if they could just reach each other once more.

  Xander pulled on his bonds again, but they were expertly tied and the rope was strong. He was well and truly trapped.

  JAMESON STARED despondently at the sunset. He was locked in a metal cage high on a black stone pedestal, some fifty meters above the ground. The bars were made of iron, and wrapped up and over him in a steel dome. They had chained one of his legs to a metal eye set deep into the pedestal. Try as he might, he was unable to move it a millimeter. It was like he’d stepped into a tri-dee show about the middle ages, but the knights had wings instead of shining armor.

  Quince was being held in another cage, some ten meters away.

  They had been deposited here in the afternoon by their captors and left alone. They hadn’t even bothered to leave a guard.

  Xander had been hauled inside what Jameson could only describe as a black castle, perched on the edge of the valley above the city. It was surprisingly compact and squat for a structure built by a race that flew through the air with such grace.

  And what had happened to Morgan? Had the boy escaped notice? If so, he was all alone back at the way station.

  Or was he being held somewhere in this city too?

  Jameson had 360-degree views of the city of Gaelan. It was spread out below him, tall towers built seemingly of the same black stone as the House of the Sky back on Oberon. Unlike those ruins, this city soared above the ground, slender towers connected by arching bridges, with balconies jutting out for what seemed like impossible distances. A river wound through the valley, half encircling a tall hill topped by a single black tower that sat high above everything but the castle.

  A few wing men flew past, though not in such numbers as he would have expected from one of this world’s capital cities. He tried calling out to some of them, but they all shied away from him as though he carried the plague.

  Jameson longed to fly. Instead, he was trapped here like a caged bird.

  Where are you, Xander? What were they doing to his… lover? Partner? Jameson’s face flushed as he remembered that last encounter. Had he somehow brought this upon himself?

  Being with Xander had felt so right, but maybe he’d angered some higher power. Was this God’s punishment?

  Even Quince seemed to feel that gods were real here. Who was he to say she was wrong?

  And who was this Dani, the lander woman that Xander seemed to know? Was she from Oberon? Or was she a fallen skythane? Had she lost her wings?

  Jameson had no answers for any of these questions.

  He longed for his simple life as a psych back on Tander’s World. What had seemed so boring and tedious back then now seemed peaceful, and most of all, safe.

  Xander was a prince in this city. Quince had told them so, and if she was right, he ought to be able to get things sorted out soon.

  He looked over at her. She was staring at the setting sun, her expression unreadable.

  Jameson was thirsty, and he needed to take a piss, but so far he and Quince had been totally ignored.

  He leaned back against the bars and closed his eyes, willing himself to be calm. He was tired again. Whatever Morgan had done to him to restore his energy seemed to have worn off.

  Jameson could just take a short nap. He closed his eyes, certain he’d have a hard time sleeping on the hard rock surface of this cage so high above the ground. He was out in seconds.

  Jameson/Lyrin was flying far above the Riamhwood as the sun set in the distance, the sky pink and clear above him. His left hand touched Elyra’s, a spark passing between them. The wind tousled her raven-black hair, and her wings beat in time with his.

  He pulled her close to kiss her, and their intertwined forms plunged toward the earth far below as he savored the kiss. He opened his eyes, an
d she was looking back at him, merriment in her eyes.

  They let go and swept back up into the air together, spinning round and round each other like two leaves in a windstorm.

  They fell again toward the earth, this time hand in hand, alighting on the banks of the River Orn. Jameson pulled her in again, only to find he was holding Xander in his arms.

  Jameson woke, staring at the bars of his iron cage.

  I’ve got it bad. Somehow Xander had worked his way into Jameson’s head, in more ways than one. Now the skythane man was gone, and Jameson was trapped with only his thoughts and memories for company.

  Many of which weren’t, apparently, even his own.

  QUINCE STARED down at Gaelan, laid out before her in the growing darkness. The Orn flowed down over the rim of the valley behind her in a tumultuous waterfall, kicking up a constant white spray. From there, the river tumbled through the middle of Gaelan, below the black castle—the House of the Moon and the prison cages where she and Jameson were being held.

  There was a particular cruelty in locking up a skythane in the sky while denying them the power of flight.

  The river wound through the city, wrapping around Founder’s Hill and down past the wall that lay at the city’s eastern end, hemming in the aeries that filled in the spaces between the river and the valley’s own natural walls.

  Quince had watched the setting sun go down behind the falls with a growing sense of dread. It was more yellow now than red. She knew the signs. First the storms, then the EMPs, then the change in the color of the sun. Time was getting short, likely a matter of days.

  She’d whispered a prayer to Gael and Erro, the gods of the Moon and the Sun, hoping they would hear her and answer her call. It had been a long time since she had last done so. She was willing to try anything that might help get them out of this predicament.

  Morgan was lost to them, either left behind or locked up somewhere else in Gaelan.