The Hand of the Storm

by Iain Lindsay

  Talin, arise. The words of Holder were strong, their pull like a tidal surge in his blood. The youth woke in the pre-dawn grey with Holder’s presence ringing in his mind, remembering swimming or flying through the space that Holder existed. It was a place tinged with loss, but it also felt safe in a way that the Nhkari did not when awake.

  Which is strange, he thought as he lay for a moment in the dark of his bunk. He had no fear that the other pirates wished him ill at all. In fact, every hour that passed that he was on board the boat he felt more of that tight-knit bond of family with them, which at least in part, he knew, was thanks to his awareness of Holder.

  So why don’t I feel safe when awake? He asked of himself, for Holder to answer inside of him.

  Because you know that danger surrounds you. The Mnemoth and its puppet.

  “You know of them?” Talin breathed.

  I know of all that people speak aboard my decks, and a little of what they feel. Holder said. Now, arise and come to me.

  Talin swung his legs over the cot and did as the creature had bid him. He still didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand what Storm-Holder-of-Songs-for-the-Deep-Sisters was, or in what way she was the ship, but he knew that she had been right about his fear, at least. In his dreams with her, he was free in a way that he wasn’t when awake. Free of the memory of his time at the Reach, and free of those chasing him.

  Whereas I, in your mind, am not free. Holder said.

  Yes. Talin thought. They fit together, he and the ship, because they were each other’s opposites. He found himself climbing out of the hidden trapdoor in the powder locker, around the inner skin of the airship as he had done once before, but this time he headed not to the outer hull, but instead down towards the hold. He knew what he was looking for even before he found it, another hidden smuggler’s trapdoor like this one, leading into the hull.

  Thud. The door closed with a gentle thump, and Talin found himself standing on wooden planks beside already-stacked casks and barrels filled with the precious well-water. Coils of rope and old bits of sacking were stacked into the corners, and here and there he was sure that he could hear the chittering of airship rats.

  The ship around him bobbed and swayed in the gentle breeze but of the crew, Talin heard nothing. One of them must be on watch – but which one? Not that it mattered for him. He made his way to the aft of the hull, there to find a solid wall of wood, and a door.

  “It’ll be locked!” He hissed to himself as he put a hand to its surface, only for it to swing open with a dry creak. Did Storm-Holder unlock itself for him?

  He was met on the other side with a short corridor, with a sturdier door with a heavier lock at the end. As Talin neared, he could see he faint blue-green glow emanating from underneath the doorjamb. He put his hand up, only for its internal mechanisms to kerchunk and the door to wobble open as if some invisible hand had unlocked it.

  Beyond lay the Boreal Chamber, and the centrifuge device.

  Talin breathed in the dusty air, bathed in the blue-green glow coming from within the device itself. As before, Talin felt that sense of wonder, awe, and fear as he looked at the spinning metal rings. They moved fast and steadily, not with the slow, grinding whine that the other airship had made. The glow was coming from the space within the device, and occasionally, through the random fractal gaps in its movement, he thought he could once again see the tall, fat tube standing in its center.

  “Holder…?” Talin said, his hands reaching to the Ship’s Medallion in his pocket, which had now started to radiate cold. There was another Medallion just like it on the floor in front of the Boreal Centrifuge, the same swirling patterns, the same sky-metal gold that glittered with the veins of trapped stars.

  Let me see what you are. Come forward. The thoughts in his head rang, and Talin stepped hesitantly towards the device.

  Is this what you are really? A machine? Talin thought. He had heard similar tales of course, old Bdui singing bits of fairy stories stolen from the airshippers and traders who passed by the Reach, in the exhausted evening hours after long work shifts: Swords that could talk, sorcerous hats who could plot and murder.

  You think I am a hat? Holder’s intelligence sparkled with humor. Come closer.

  Talin took another step into the glow, the light strobing off and on as the rings swum and flashed just inches away from his face.

  There. The tube, filled with its blue water or air mixture. He thought he saw something stir inside of it, before the perpetual gears blocked his vision.

  You are small, and young. Holder said, and Talin didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

  An observation, Talin of the Nhkari. I am considered young for my kind, too.

  “Your kind?” Talin echoed, his face rapt in the strobing light.

  Yes. There were once many. Great Mother-pods that stretched far across the blue. We delved, we dove, we soared. We went far.

  “What happened? Where are they now?” He asked.

  I cannot remember. We became separated. Something…difficult. Blackness, shadows in the water. The wheels seemed to cycle faster, creating a draft that thrummed against the youth’s body. And then I was here, and they call me the Storm, not Holder.

  “You will be Holder to me,” Talin felt a sympathetic pull of loss from within his on breast. He had no family now. He was far away from all he had known, too.

  A feeling of gratitude washed over the youth. Tell me, Talin of the Nhkari… Why am I here? Where is Home? The barrage of confusion made Talin gasp, step back.

  “I, I don’t know, Holder, truly I don’t.”

  Silence from within his mind, but the machine buzzed faster, and the room around them – the ship entire – wobbled suddenly.

  I think I am trapped here. Holder’s returning voice was angry. Another angry shake of the Storm. How do I leave this place?

  “I don’t know!” Talin felt the Ship’s Medallion in his hand burn with cold. What had he done? Had he managed to enrage the airship with his ignorance? “Please calm down, Holder. We live on you, in you… Our lives are in your hands.”

  Just as my life is in yours! The voice sounded even angrier. The airship started to shudder, the centrifuge cycling ever faster. I feel every rope, every nail, every chop of axe or bite of arrow. I am at your mercy!

  “I didn’t realize,” Talin said as the airship shook, and he was sure that he could hear shouts from up above. “But that means we need each other; humans and ship – at least until we can figure out how this happened…” he begged.

  Perhaps you are right, the centrifuge slowed, and the shaking started to subside. We fly together as one, Talin of the Nhkari. Until I can be freed, and I can find the route home.

  “Agreed,” Talin was glad that the creature appeared to be content with that compromise. He had no wish to be on board a rebellious ship! But he also felt the injustice of Holder’s situation, somehow, she was tied to the ship, and she was far from home. He remembered what it had felt like to be a slave.

  Thank you, Talin. You should leave now – the Captain is coming. Holder said, and Talin suddenly panicked. Of course, the Captain would be tied into the ship as well, wouldn’t he? The youth turned and ran from the room, back into the hold. The hidden trapdoor thumped shut a moment before Tremaine jumped down from the lower deck above, and ran to the Boreal Chamber himself.

  “Ship? Ship…are you well?” Tremaine paused before the centrifuge as he always did, bending on one knee to set his hand with the Captain’s seal signet ring against the Ship’s Medallion. Was it his imagination, or did he feel the electric tremor pulse through him and the Medallion beneath his hand?

  He had been shaken awake by the Storm’s distress, falling out of his cot bed to find the crew groggily rousing from their slumbers. Sevesti was manning the wheel, which was threatening to shake and throw him, and Lura the sleepless tyl was already racing up the rigging to amend the sails.

  But there had been no sudden winds. No break or tear that cou
ld account for the disturbance. It was the ship herself, the Captain had known in his gut, racing to the Boreal Chamber.

  Other sailors thought him mad – and even a few of the other airship Captains did as well, for having his superstitious beliefs. But Tremaine knew that the ship was a living thing in some sense, at least. He regarded it ill-luck to berate or curse her, or to talk to her with anything but respect.

  “Ship?” Tremaine tried again, and in response he thought he felt something, a shiver pass through the wood.

  “I know I have put you through a lot recently. Losing First Mate Reece, that storm, then the sandstorm… that Protectorate brigantine daring to grapple your magnificent wood!” Tremaine hissed. “And I am afraid that I will be asking you to do more, and to fly faster than I have ever asked you to before if we get this right…”

  The Captain stared into the deeply humming wheels of the centrifuge, his fine-featured face washed in turquoise, his eyes passionate. “But I would ask no other ship to do this. I know you can because you are the best, most beautiful goddam thing in the air!”

  There was another shiver through the timbers and boards, and the ship seemed to steady itself.

  “Thank you, my beauty.” Tremaine sighed, sitting back with his hands on his knees. He didn’t care what his crew or his father might say if they could see him now, talking to a boat! All I know is that I’ve got a whole lot riding on my shoulders, he worried. Get this job wrong and I’ll be up against the Volt. Get it wrong and the Empress’s Armada might just think we’ve got something to do with kidnapping the princess!

  But there was an awful lot of money on the table, and his sister was depending on him. And the crew.

  “Please gods, don’t let me screw this one up.” He muttered as he pushed himself wearily to his feet, knowing that he wouldn’t get any more sleep anyway, so he might as well get to work.

  Behind him, the Boreal centrifuge hummed and whirred just as it always did.

  29. The Princess Eliset

  The Princess Eliset Bathys, daughter of the Empress-Protector and heir-apparent to the throne of the World Islands bit her lip, and tried not to show any fear as the guard watching over her, once again, tapped at the bars of her cage with the metal spoon.

  Ratatatata! The sound clattered, making her flinch.

  “That’s right, princess – feeding time!” The large Moyson, her tormentor said through a mouth of cracked and yellowing teeth. He had all the looks of a man who might once have been considered handsome when younger, had he not spent the next ten years of his life drinking and fighting. His skin was pale and blemished, his beard grown ragged and unkempt, his tied-back brown hair dry and frizzled.

  The Princess Eliset huddled in a cage in the corner of the ship’s forecastle, while Moyson sat on one of the many benches where the crew came to eat their slops. She didn’t get to eat with the crew, but had to watch hungrily as they stuffed bread, meat, cheese and stews into their faces.

  “I’m not hungry.” She said, even though she was.

  Moyson just laughed, tapping the spoon against the bars in harsh, vindictive little taps. “don’t be like that, precious, ‘course you are!” He turned to pick up the bowl of stew that sat behind him, leaning forward to offer it to the bars. “And the boss says I gotta have you fed, so…” He scooped a chunk of some pale vegetable from the broth, and pushed the spoon through the bars. “Eat up, little princess.” He sneered.

  The princess looked at the man, looked at the spoon and scowled. This was a new game for her guard, as the ‘boss’ – one of their captains, the teenager considered – had already reprimanded him for throwing nails at her through the bars. Most of the time he had missed, or the nails had pinged off the metal, but occasionally they had struck, and they had hurt.

  “Where are you taking me?” the girl said through the curtain of her curling golden locks, now matted with sweat and grime and tangled. Her only satisfaction was that the powder-blue puff-dress that she had been wearing aboard the Earl of Summer was thick with many layers of underskirts, allowing her at least a little warmth through the cold nights. Like the rest of her though, it too was starting to fray and look ragged from her week-long incarceration in the animal cage.

  The Earl, she thought longingly, remembering it’s ballroom, it’s dining room, her fine apartments with their comfortable eiderdown bed. The Earl had been small by Protectorate standards; just a Ausbridge cruiser that waddled sedately over the rolling hills. She hadn’t even considered that she wasn’t safe there, that some of the crew might be these low men, biding their time until they could seize the boat, seize her, and off-load her onto one of their fast schooners, heading south.

  But why? What are they planning? The princess’s mind grappled at the impossible situation once more time. Where were her Queen Guard? Why hadn’t they come?

  “Does it matter where you’re going?” Moyson tapped the spoon against the bars, spilling a little of the rich broth. “You’ll live, at least until we hand you over.”

  “Over to whom?” She said, her tones clipped and crystal-sharp.

  “Over to what, more like.” Moyson laughed, tapping the spoon once more. “Look, if you’re not going to play nice, then…” He upturned the spoon and its contents on the floor of her confinement. “The boss said I had to give you food, he didn’t say how.” He scooped up another spoonful of the broth, and proceeded to fling it at the princess.

  “Ach!” The broth was hot as it spattered the girl, and she retreated to the back of the cage. Moyson would tire of his game eventually, she thought – she hoped. Until then, bits of food rained down into her cage, and Eliset prayed that she wouldn’t be so desperate as to scrabble for them in front of this beast.

  But she knew that if she refused food for much longer – she probably might.

  29. Raiding Party

  “Block!” Lura called, and Talin batted his buckler out to catch her heavier scimitar. The thud of metal on wood sent shockwaves through his elbow, but he had no time to think about the pain as the Master Rigger attacked again.

  “Block!” This time lower, dropping the buckler to catch her strike heading for his hip.

  The Storm had left the water tower at Casimar’s Oasis just after first light, and Talin woke up feeling refreshed from his tranquil blue dreams – even though he knew that he must have only had a few hours of sleep. The sands beneath them had lost their deep golden sheen, instead becoming a scrubby brown as they swept towards the outcrop of rocky hills along the eastern horizon.

  “Parry!” Lura swung her scimitar around, and Talin raised his own short sword just in time to hit it out the way.

  “Good.” The Rigger hopped lightly back, giving Tal a moment to breathe. “You’ve got the basic moves, now you need to train.”

  “Basic moves?” A voice called over. It was Odestin, coiling rope. “You don’t learn how to fight from a drill-book, for sacred waters’ sake!” He cracked his neck and walked over, casually picking up one of the boathook poles on his way.

  “Odestin… I haven’t even started him on polearms yet,” Lura frowned.

  “And is he going to get to pick and choose just who he fights?” Odestin pointed the boathook – a long wooden pole with a curve of metal on the end – at him. “Or when,” the human grinned, lunging forward with the hook whirling towards Talin’s head.

  “Hey!” Talin managed to swat it out of the way with the buckler, as Odestin’s grin widened, reversing his grip to bring the other end of the boathook screaming towards his leg. Talin jumped back just in time.

  “Never give ground, Tal,” Odestin jumped forward, spearing low with the metal hook to thump him solidly in the gut.

  “Urk” Talin fell to the floor, winded and gasping as Odestin stood over him, still grinning as he levelled the hook at the Nhkari youth’s face.

  “And never give in, either,” Odestin nudged Talin’s feet with his own. “Lura here is telling you how to play nice, but nice never wins a fight. If you go dow
n on your arse, kick ‘em in the shins, or if they’re a man, in the fork. Bite their ankles if you have to. But never, ever give in – you got that?” Odestin stepped back, holding the boathook up in mock celebration like he was a gladiator in a fight, as Lura helped Talin up.

  “You’re a brute, Odestin,” the Rigger said. “You okay, Tal?”

  “Yeah, I think so…” the youth felt worse from the concern in Lura’s eyes – he looked a fool in front of everyone on deck, and he didn’t need the Master Rigger drawing attention to it.

  “But he has a point,” Lura conceded irritably. “Fighting isn’t about doing what’s expected.”

  “Enough of that!” Talin was grateful for the distraction as Gulbrand shouted from the wheel. “If you’ve got time to roughhouse, you’ve got time to work!”

  The crew of the Storm had plenty of work and more as the winds started to pick up, driving them closer to the hills. Once again, Talin could feel the grittiness to the breeze as sand abraded the hull, and he felt Holder’s irritation like a headache in his mind as he played out lines and tightened others.

  The hills were shattered and cracked by rocky gorges that became canyons, some half-filled with drifts of sand, with hard-living, barely-green bush-type plants clinging to their walls. By the time that the sun had crossed the middenmast, they were close enough for Talin to see inside them to twisting avenues of wind-smoothed rock.

  “Keep on going!” Father Kef was at the front of the boat, up on the sterncastle deck, his black robes fluttering and whipping around him as he peered at the rocky walls. The Captain had replaced Gulbrand at the wheel, and the Storm had sunk below the top of the hill.

  “Tal, ready to loose that topsail,” Lura shouted, and Talin nodded. It was hard work for the Riggers, rocking and waving in the wind as they tried to stop the boat being thrown against the outcrops.

  “There! That’s the one.” Father Kef pointed to what appeared to be just a shadowed crack in the walls, but, as the Storm wobbled and lowered, it revealed itself to be a leaning-out section of the walls hiding a much larger aperture behind.