Sky Song: Overture

by Meg Merriet

  The women guided me into a basin of water and lathered me in soap that smelled of cloves. With a pitcher, they repeatedly doused me in freezing cold water.

  The crone came down. She pulled at my hair, inspecting it as if I were a horse. I had neglected to cut it over the course of the year. It came down past my chin in the front and the back was rather shaggy. “Hmm. It’s a good color. I’d hate to hide it with a wig. Fiona has a similar color, hasn’t she?”

  “She does,” said one of the maids.

  “Call her down here.”

  They wrapped me in porous linen. A girl who was about Molly’s age came down, having thick blonde locks that fell all the way down to her hips. They had us sit down side by side, and combed my tresses dry. With a pair of shears, they cut the girl’s hair and clamped the locks into hot wax. Then they wove them into braided rows against my scalp. When they were done, I felt a heavy mass on the back of my head. I had long yellow hair and the girl called Fiona was in tears.

  “There there,” said one of the maids. “It will grow back.”

  “Why did she have to be blonde?” the girl wept, touching her bare nape.

  Two maids led me upstairs. They took me into the so-called red room with its curtains and bedspread of rose-patterned brocade. An emerald green dress lay spread out on the bed. The maids brought a corset for me. I was used to discomfort, but this was a whole new level of torture. They cinched my waist to an inhuman measurement then fitted me with a hoop skirt. I was already wearing ten pounds of clothing when they added another twenty with the gown. They secured over a hundred buttons in the back and on the cuffs. The off-shoulder mutton-chop sleeves clung tight, securing my prison of stiffened silk.

  They added a choker to cover my scar and showed me my reflection in a gilded mirror. They all smiled, and looked as if they expected me to do the same. I’d never seen my own cleavage before or even known I had any. The sight of myself made me want to retch. It was like seeing my body flayed: exposed, filthy, and yearning for death.

  They did not have any shoes that fit me, but I was permitted to wear my boots as long as I walked slowly so they didn’t peek out from the bottom of my hemline.

  “Where is Molly?” I asked.

  The crone folded her hands at her waist and said, “That whiny brat is still getting ready. The child cries and cries and nothing in the world can console her.”

  “If I could just see her.”

  “You will go up before her to scatter rose petals on deck.”

  “May I have my fiddle? My lady requested I play it.”

  “We have a quartet from Leffen.”

  “Where is my fiddle?”

  The crone’s face grew severe as she lost her patience with me. “The groom will have fun breaking this one in.”

  I coughed on my words when I begged her pardon.

  “What do you think the ehrendame is? You’re to be your mistress’s handmaiden and the prince’s lover,” the crone explained.

  My heart sank like a dagger into a boiling sea. “That swine won’t touch me.”

  The crone shoved a cast-iron cauldron of flower petals into my arms and slapped me across the face. It stung, but not as much as her words, “Do as you’re told, peasant.”

  I had heard that phrase before on that awful day when the Blue Dusk came to Shale.

  “It should be quite an exciting night,” she went on to say. “A wedding feast followed by the execution of a notorious pirate.”

  “The Wastrel will blow the Crescendo out of the sky,” I hissed. I saw my own temper reflected back at me. The crone slapped me again.

  “Quiet, slattern. You may be dressed as a lady, but do not forget that you were born sullied.” This poor woman. She didn’t know any better. She only saw Mona, peasant girl of Shale. She didn’t know Mona died long ago when the Cerulean Knight cut her throat. I was Clikk, a picklock, a thief, a sky pirate. That thought of pity for the old woman fluttered in my mind like a lone feather on the wind, and then Clikk took over.

  I smacked my cauldron over a maid’s head, stole the hair pick right out of her bun and stabbed the crone in the shoulder. She screeched and I slammed her head into the bedpost. The remaining maid tried to flee, but I caught her by the apron sash and pulled her in like a prize of war.

  “Shhhh,” I whispered in her ear, stealing her hairpins one by one and tucking them down the front of my corset. “You have the long white neck of a swan, easy to break. So keep quiet, and help me tie up these ladies.”

  VII. Clikk

  And now I was improvising. The original plan had been sketchy from the start, and I could not in good conscience abandon my captain to the mercy of the Blue Dusk.

  The sumptuous halls were well serviced. The fruit bowls overflowed with bright apricots and berries. Floral arrangements bloomed with radiance. I did not find my fiddle, and accepted it was lost to me. Finding Dirk was my prerogative now. I kept my head held high with an air of belonging, as I had done when I first hit the city streets of Amaranthia in search of work. I smiled courteously to each person I passed, channeling Molly’s innocence and propriety. Nobody bothered me or asked what I was doing. Not a single guard had any suspicion of the yellow-haired noblewoman holding a cauldron full of rose petals.

  The staff was overwhelmed, screaming orders at their inferiors and running about in a craze. The only person who spoke to me was a maid, and it was to apologize for losing her temper at another maid in my presence.

  There was a shift in the Duskmen’s attitudes towards me as I neared a more secure area of the Crescendo. One of them halted me and asked, “Are you lost, Miss?”

  “Yes,” I replied in my best impersonation of a noble. “Forgive me. Where am I?”

  He smirked upon hearing the quality of my voice, but didn’t seem to assume anything other than that I might be ill. “You were about to wander into the prince’s chamber, Miss. You wouldn’t want to go there now, what with that violent criminal being locked up inside.”

  “I am the ehrendame,” I said. “I thought I might prepare the chamber for the wedding night. I have these rose petals.” The sugarplum damsel act was actually quite amusing. I lifted my cauldron for him to see. He peeked inside.

  “The prince has the key, so I couldn’t let you in even if I—” Before this hapless guard could finish his sentence, I swung my cast-iron pot into the side of his head, dropping him to the floor with a spray of petals.

  I wound my bent hairpins into the keyhole, fiddling with the securities. This lock had a number of tricky key pins, and without my tools, it was a decent challenge. I twisted, scraped and timed my picks, and finally the lock gave.

  On the other side of the door, Captain Dirk was chained to a safe. For a second, I thought I had broken into a torture chamber, but then I saw the luxurious bed. Torren’s bedchamber was the stuff of nightmares. Frightening projects covered every surface and shelf, baby dolls with taxidermy bird heads, stitch-work chimeras combining cat tails with rodent bodies and monkey feet, masked with the scratched faces of porcelain dolls. I didn’t let this distract me. My primary task was removing Dirk’s gag, which I regretted upon completion.

  “You look beautiful, Clikk.”

  “Shut up,” I said, concentrating on the padlocks confining him. These were much simpler to pick with hairpins.

  “I am going to kill that imperial snot.”

  “I know you will.” I moved onto the next padlock, stabbing fiendishly as I rushed to get us out of there. If we were discovered, all was lost.

  “He’s a twisted pup,” said Dirk.

  “I saw the dolls.”

  “Ugh.” Dirk shuddered. “I hate to think of him putting his grubby mitts on Molly.”

  “What did you think would happen after the wedding?”

  “The boy looks like an eight-year-old! I only just learned he’s sixteen. And I never imagined he would be so…” His eyes wandered back to the doll creatures and he cringed. “…depraved.”

  “He is Perceval
’s son,” I muttered. “The man allowed his army to outrage the capital’s prettiest whores in the Old Square. Used to death like they were nothing. Of course they were only peasants, and whores no less. Nobody even cared.” I opened the last of the padlocks. Click. Click. Click. As the chains fell away, Dirk took hold of my arm.

  “People cared, Clikk. Nobody deserves such a fate. If ever Molly…” Dirk hid his eyes in the palm of his hand. Silent tears fell down his cheeks. “She’s my little sister. She means everything to me. Oh, gods. How could I do this to her?”

  I unraveled the heavy chains from around him and offered a hand up. “We can make it right, Captain. I have a plan to get her off the Crescendo. I shall accompany Torren and Molly after the ceremony. When he tries the door, you will kill him and we’ll escape. Baker and Fitz are stealing a globe copter and coming for us.”

  “How do Baker and Fitz figure into this?”

  “We planned to save Molly all along, against your orders. I’m sorry, Captain, but I couldn’t let you give her away.”

  Dirk grimaced at first, but his anger allayed and he sighed. “You came back for me when you didn’t have to. Why, Clikk?”

  “Because you were in danger, and regardless of whether we agree or disagree on your sister’s best interests, you don’t deserve to be tortured and killed by the Blue Dusk. Now you understand why I hate them. If you’re ready to hate them too, that makes us allies.”

  “Someday you’ll have to learn how to follow orders, Clikk. For now, we need only focus on getting through today. Seeing as how I have no better plan, I shall follow your lead. I would shake on it, but I never shook a woman’s hand before.”

  I gripped his forearm and we sealed our alliance with a might jolt. “I’m proud to be your first.”

  “Said no woman ever,” Dirk quipped.

  I just shook my head at him. “Have you any weapons?”

  “They took everything.”

  I slipped out into the nook where the unconscious guard still lay. We dragged the Duskman in, undressed him, chained him to the safe, secured the locks and gagged him. Dirk slid into the Duskman’s uniform, which was a bit tight in the arms. With pocket automatic in hand and a short sword and dagger on his belt, Dirk resumed the guard of the prince’s chamber. The tuning of stringed instruments sounded above our heads.

  “It’s time,” I said, kneeling to gather my rose petals back into the cauldron. “

  “As you say,” Dirk said.

  I ran to join the wedding party.

  VIII. The Crescendo

  Luring the prince into a trap was our best shot at saving Molly without fighting the entire imperial guard. I scurried up the steps to the deck and prayed none of my carnage had been discovered. There was also Baker to consider. I had no means of telling him the plan had changed and no means of knowing if he and Fitz had been captured.

  “There you are! Where is Clarice?” A petite maid shoved her face in mine as she squeaked at me. “Miss Molly was in the bath until she was as pruned as her! We had to dress her ourselves!”

  “There was an emergency. Clarice said to move forwards without her.”

  “Ugh!” groaned the maid. “Just toss your petals already.”

  I followed the velvet runner to the altar, walking as gracefully as any person could with her heart drumming out of control. It was a short walk, fortunately. The glittering aristocratic guests were few. I recognized the empress from political pamphlets in Locwyn. They had some friends with them, some nobles who had favor or were in their cabinet. Maive was present as well, and none the wiser that her ship might be hijacked at any moment. A string quartet began to play a Leffenese ballad.

  When I reached the altar, the prince spoke to me. “I could tell you were a pretty one. Even under all that crud, I saw it.”

  I deliberately avoided his gaze, and watched for Molly.

  A Duskman jabbed me with his firearm. “Your prince addresses you. Thank him for his generous compliment.”

  I met the gaze of the pudgy youth in his stolen crown and forced myself to smile. “Thank you.” Prince Torren had nothing more to say.

  The band played the bridal march and a trio of maids sang harmony. Molly appeared from below deck. Her thick many-layered veil danced in the wind as she surfaced. I couldn’t see her face, but I saw the V-shaped cuffs of her sleeves where she held a bouquet of white roses. The poor child’s hands were trembling; she still suffered the curse. She walked so stiff and hurried, but was only a few feet away from the altar when a maid came running out behind her.

  “Wait!” the woman screamed. “Stop the ceremony!”

  Gold fire streaked vertically across the sky. It whistled and then with a thundering boom, showered a sparkling spray of willow branch tendrils over the deck. Everyone stared and there was scattered applause amidst the nobility.

  Maive’s avian globe copter wheeled through the sky, moving about like a drunken crow. It tumbled and tripped on the air and I could see Baker fighting the controls.

  Molly swept her veil back over her head and wasn’t Molly at all, but Fitz dressed head to toe in white chiffon. He drew two mechanized pocket automatics from his shoulder holsters, gritted his teeth, and fired. The weapons popped like cans of kernels over a flame, propelling waves of tin debris. I dropped down flat on my face. A cacophony of screams lifted off the wedding party, blood spraying everywhere, soaking the deck.

  When the shrieking of the weapons halted, I peered up through the smoke. Torren’s face was a shell of gore and Fitz’s bridal attire was drenched in usurper blood. Half of the Duskmen lay dead. Emperor Perceval had taken bullets in his arm and shoulder. His guards surrounded him, shouting, “Down, down, down!” Nobles rushed the Duskmen, trying to get them between themselves and the interloper. The Duskmen were unable to open fire until everyone hit the deck. Fitz laughed maniacally and took this chance to flee.

  The hijacked ship hovered at the railing. The glass doors slid open along the sides. In my head, I kept thinking, Please gods, let him make it. He ran hard, chest puffed out, legs pumping like piston rods. The copter’s huge propeller blew everything about and cast Fitz’s veil right off his head.

  Duskmen fired on Fitz with their many pocket automatics. Bullets shredded his leg as he made a jump for the copter. He nearly tripped and went overboard, but Baker leaned out and yanked him up by the arm. I could not follow; the Duskmen were laying down heavy fire. The doors closed and the bullets reflected off the coppery sheen of the sky vessel. I caught a glimpse of Molly in the window as they flew away. Baker had saved her.

  Reinforcements came up from below, bringing Dirk with them. Blood streaked the side of his head, running down from his eyebrow. The Duskmen shoved him down on his knees and held him by the scalp. My keen ability to go unnoticed gave me an advantage. I blended with the other nobles, watching from the outskirts of the crowd.

  Maive knelt beside the emperor, running her hands over his arm and whispering strange words. The blood got thick like honey, and while his sleeve remained torn, his arm materialized as unscathed flesh. Perceval stood as if nothing had happened, but upon seeing his only heir in a pool of blood and brains, was too much in shock to speak.

  “Your Grace,” said a Duskman, holding my captain. “This man escaped and killed three of our own when they tried to apprehend him.”

  Emperor Perceval glared down at Dirk with a hatred I knew all too well. “Shoot his ship out of the sky.”

  “No!” cried Dirk.

  The men lifted a tarp and rolled a ballista towards the side of the ship, aiming it down at the Wastrel’s gasbags. They cranked a lever that pulled back on the slack. I shut my eyes, unable to watch them kill my brothers.

  “Stop this at once!” Dirk yelled in his most commanding voice. “I’ll give you the prince! The prince of Elsace lives! In exchange for my men, he’s yours.”

  “You’re lying,” said Perceval.

  “I’m not! I swear it! The true prince will take back what you stole!” Dirk
shouted. Sweat poured down his neck and his eyes were hollow with a fear that captains hide at all costs. A hush fell. Even Maive’s shell of smug composure was cracking.

  The emperor shook his head. “Lies of a desperate man.”

  My captain lifted his chin high. “Do you not see the truth in my face? My father was Lucius von Luftberg. I am he, Prince Derek Alexander Xavier, the last son of my family’s dynasty!”

  The emperor gazed upon my captain’s face, narrowing his crinkly eyes. “I saw your head come off your shoulders. The princess was never found, but the prince we dragged into the square and executed.”

  “A loyal servant of the crown gave his life in my place. Now here I stand, usurper.” All were in awe of him. “I was nineteen when you took the castle of Locwyn. You have held our nation captive, and I allowed it, too scared to face my responsibilities! I shall no longer hide from my destiny!”

  Perceval waved his hand dismissively and rubbed between his eyes. “Fire the ballista.”

  “No!” Dirk roared.

  The Duskmen were bringing down the hammer on the ballista’s release, when suddenly the entire mechanism went rolling backward. They jumped out of the way as the ship tilted and sent the contraption flying, breaking the railing right off its pegs. The witch Maive held her arm outstretched, all five fingers spiked like a cactus flower.

  “Maive,” said Dirk, grinning with as much joy as a bloodied, beaten man could muster.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Perceval.

  Maive did not answer her emperor, but addressed Dirk instead. “Oh, Lexi.”

  “Will you forgive me?” he asked. “I’ve been so lost since we quarreled.”

  “You’ve proved yourself, and so I’ve lifted Molly’s curse.”

  Perceval’s frown was barely discernible beneath his heavy beard, but his eyes channeled all the hate in the world. “Throw the traitorous witch to the clouds!” he commanded. Two Duskmen grabbed Maive from behind and held her over the railing, gripping her hands so she couldn’t cast. The wind whipped her black hair in front of her face. She shrieked and writhed, kicking her legs.